Old Freak Nasty

It's probably not likely AZ is going to look good for Biden based on the non-white enthusiasm so it's going to come down to the blue wall.

If Trump pulls this out, it's going to be fucking idiot MEN (educated or not, colored or not) that are going to deliver it to him. It's a fucking gender thing. Women leaders (both parties) are really the only hope this country will have to regain its footing.

Yup. Usually the axiom is follow the money. With trump it’s follow the media.

If things are looking dicey, we’ll know early with NC, GA, and FL first results. At that point I doubt I will have bought enough beer to calm the nerves the rest of the night.

Any chance of a Doug Jones miracle?

Early voting and the unknown Election Day turnout made it more difficult to assess the strength of the Clark firewall. This will at least be interesting. Still confident in NV.

She's done a quality job. I thought Emmett was an unfortunate casualty of straight ticket voting but Hidalgo has been at a minimum competent and more accurately very good.

I'm surprised it's not higher. Early and mail vote totals means exit polls are going to be Trumpistan skewed crap.

I know, stupid anecdotal evidence, but I grew up in suburban Philly and have a number of good friends in the area still and they all are expressing mild surprise to shock at the depth of in person ED vote. Mostly everyone they know mailed in.

Why is India blue? Figured Modi would deliver it to Trump.

Any reports of Proud Boys gridlocking parades or fake tough guy pollwatcher acts today? I haven't seen.

Like a Trump loss today means anything in regards to the Trump political future. The 2024 GOP candidate will be Trump Jr. 4 years of Trump news network is going to be shouting it to base. A polished turd like Tom Cotton has no fucking shot at it even though he thinks he's in prime position once Cheeto endorses his son (if he's still around, that is).

So if by dumb luck someone wants to hire Shaka from us because of this late run, would the hiring school be on the hook for any buyout? I assume we would graciously waive such buyout, if it exists? Alternative, could we pay a bonus (some number less than the remaining guarantee) to a school willing to take him?

I think it's hard to see at the time that there was really no Warren/Sanders fight over voters. Now that we see that Sanders has a cap to the percentage of support he has it's easy to say in hindsight. The Bernie bloc is more a personality cult rather than voters who would deliberate over subtle policy nuances between the two of them. Warren obviously thought there was a significant section of those voters she could woo with her strategy since the campaign started. And since she had a formidable organization I'm sure a lot of other intelligent people within thought it was the right plan. It turned out to be wrong. I hope she's not too old to run in 2024 if disaster strikes and Trump is re-elected and makes to full term (death, impeachment, 25th amendment section 4).

My theory is pretty simple and sad. I think Donald Trump and the Pocahontas moniker was a factor to a lot of voters when looked at in terms of elect-ability (the whole concept of which is actually total bullshit, but whatever) . Her Medicare for All messaging was a fumble too but in post-mortem I think the orange shithead's branding of her had an affect. I think she would have annihilated Trump in the election but Democrats are scared of Trump and it impacted our voting in the primaries. It's resulted in Biden.

I could not agree more. We had two women with great resumes with bulldog mentalities, each filling a different ideological lane. One of them absolutely should have been the nominee. It sure feels like a setback. Harris will learn from this campaign. She tried too hard to be everything to everyone and I think the electorate noticed. If she doesn't make clear what she stands for, she's toast nationally. But maybe she'll learn. I also liked Gillibrand and not sure why she didn't take off.

I went from Klobuchar from her entry to voting for Warren on Super Tuesday. Now I don't give a shit about the election until I dutifully go to the polls November 3rd like a robot to vote for the one of these two unimpressive old white men left standing in the primary. Wife follows all this stuff much less than I and just wants meaningful gun control and sensible long term climate plan. Not so interested about the economy, foreign policy, immigration, or healthcare. She was with the Mayor but was trending to Warren for the last couple months and ultimately voted for Warren too. She's more crestfallen than I that these are the two left standing and feels much the same about the general as I do. We will do our duty to vote the buffoon out, but that's about it. We both are minorities with degrees.

Ultimately that will probably prove her unraveling. I think she's too pragmatic and smart to know that implementing it wasn't smart but at the time the moderate lane still had people like Harris and Booker and she triangulated that that was the right position to take. Not recognizing that she was never going to get votes from Bernie's base was her failure. Her platform is actually more "centrist" in this new era Democratic party and she waited too long to change course to presenting herself that way. It sucks.

I think Warren's current vote share is more likely to align to the Biden coalition now. Most of those voters second choice in polling were the set of Joe, Amy, and Pete and I think they'll stay there. Warren dragging this out helps Bernie, IMO. Now that this thing is mostly settled, the VEEP pick is intriguing. I think it's got to be Pete if he's willing. Biden will need a swing state turnout machine as VEEP and someone to wipe the floor with Pence (if Trump doesn't scapegoat him for something). Pete's ability to deliver post Iowa types speeches on the campaign would be very critical. I'd be partial to Klobuchar but she's just not a dynamic enough turnout machine despite her Midwestern credibility. I think Abrams would be a mistake. That vote bloc (Southern state minorities) is already going to come out for Biden in massive numbers if today is any indication and although she may be able to help in Georgia and Florida I don't think that's the part of the electorial map they should focus on. Biden will need a strong team and infrastructure in every facet (Obama, Bloomberg's money, strong VEEP, etc) to face the assault coming in the general. He's wholly incapable of doing it on his own merit. This is scary. I wish this was Liz heading up this fight.

Warren is the most competent Dem candidate standing by far and it's not even close and she's getting my vote in the Texas primary tomorrow but I applaud the moderates for picking a horse and going with Biden. I think a theoretical Biden administration is going to be strong with all these flurry of endorsers finding their way into it (mostly because I view Biden as a figurehead president if he were elected). Pete, Amy, and Beto can get a lot done and I'm sure Warren will have a seat at the table if she wants it to continue the evolution of her regulatory work she began with the CFPB.

Pete dropped out because he has a lot of political life left in him, including the presidency, but getting drubbed on Super Tuesday would be a bad look to take on in 4, 8, 12, 16 years from now. People today still talk about how Biden has never won a state primary until South Carolina so that stink stays with you forever. Now he'll get a chance to play chess behind the scenes to dump Trump and parlay that into a nice Biden admin post. Well played future president Pete.

They'll look at his track record of developing under-recruited kids into guys that end up making money playing ball put more weight into that. It won't affect his recruiting at all.

Looking at clusters of support, I think there's a decent case to be made that Bernie is the Dem's best shot at beating Trump. He's killing it with the non-college whites and has the two fork road to victory: Turnout AND winning Obama-Trump votes in the swing states. All the other Dems probably are reliant on turnout in the general election, which hopefully is enough.

I think you are probably right. I'm a college educated male who's in the "woman" lane. I'm team Klobuchar or Warren, and there seems to be more press advancing this theory. As to the second point, Trump is a talented divider. I think his unique abilities to divide helped him ensure no one could consolidate the non-Trump vote in the 2016 primary. That, and the fact that Republican's weren't more than lukewarm about any of their options in 2016. I'd say at this point that all/any of Amy, Pete, and Joe could and will consolidate the center-left when attrition calls for the other 2. I don't think the 3 of them have a continued source of money in middling performance to drag this fight out far enough to allow Bernie to hoover up delegates and the nomination. I could be wrong, though. Nonetheless, I'm not for Bernie, but I'll support him in November if it's him.

Where's Pete's first row blacks from Iowa?