tags: Hillary Clinton

Chasing "undecided" voters is a lot like chasing unicorns. But even if they do truly exist, they are such a statiscally vanishingly tiny percentage of the electorate that it's berserk to pursue them.

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October

2015 Oct 23

The Benghazi Committee is a Fucking Joke

Things might have turned out differently if Fox News hadn't spent the last three years screaming "Benghazi" at the top of their lungs and turning it into a punchline, but this ridiculous committee hearing is just the sad, pathetic denouement that I expected.

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2016

January

2016 Jan 28

Clinton and the Dunning School

There's really no point in pandering to white supremacist neo-Confederates in the 21st century because there's no chance they'll vote for a Democrat anyway

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February

2016 Feb 25

The Problem with Classical Liberalism and Classical Marxism

I already know Sanderistas will argue about whether or not Clinton is sincere about talking about white privilege and institutionalized racism, but I am certain that Sanders trying to fix the problems caused by racism indirectly by only trying to fix the problems caused by income inequality is going to fail hard and may even backfire horribly.¹

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2016 Feb 26

Neoliberalism FTW

AFAICT, people on the radical left of U.S. politics (which is not that far left as far as international politics in industrialized countries is concerned) probably don't feel either candidate is very leftist. Essentially, the choice is still between two neoliberals so the main determiner is going to be name brand recognition and the resignation to the fact that a neoliberal is still better than a fascist or a theocrat.

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2016 Feb 26

Hillary Clinton has no chance among young PoC

Clinton reacted badly to being interrupted by #BlackLivesMatter protester Ashley Williams. I think this is going to cost her among young PoCs. But she's not doing great in this demographic anyway.

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March

2016 Mar 1

Campaigning in Massachusetts

In the event of a Clinton vs. Trump general election, there are probably going to be two large groups of voters who will be inclined to stay home: Sanders voters who think Clinton is too much like a Republican and Republicans who think Trump is too much of a fascist. Clinton has the capacity to get those groups to vote for her, but she's not going to do it by feeding the "I'm above the law" narrative.

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2016 Mar 2

In Case of Recession, Break Glass

Maybe I'm being totally paranoid, but I'm worried about an October surprise, specifically, the stock market crashing and the economy collapsing again.

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2016 Mar 2

Blaming the Victims

It's kind of victim-blaming bullshit that people are more angry with people who want to vote their conscience and choose the most progressive candidate than with the assholes who are hell-bent on installing a fascist dictator in the White House.

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2016 Mar 9

Superdelegates

It is heartening that The New York Times has decided to separate pledged delegate counts from superdelegate counts.

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2016 Mar 19

Why Bernie Sanders Has a Right to Stay in the Race

Down by more than 300 pledged delegates, the calls to unite around Hillary Clinton and for Bernie Sanders to drop out have been growing louder.

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2016 Mar 21

Democrats Abroad

Sanders gets 9 delegates while Clinton gets 4 delegates in the Democrats Abroad primary.

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2016 Mar 29

Tone Policing at its Most Pathetic

We really have short memories. The idea that somehow the tone and vitriol in the arguments between Clinton and and their respective supporters is horrifically divisive and likely to cost the Democrats defeat in the general election requires totally forgetting the very-thinly-veiled racism of the 2008 Democratic primaries where leading Democratic establishment figures were blowing barely-concealed dog-whistles about Obama.¹

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2016 Mar 29

Bringing Balance to the Force

On one hand, yeah, privileged people with lots of resources can probably survive a Trump presidency (assuming he doesn't declare martial law and line up all his critics against walls, constitutional or not.) It's not going to hurt them as much if Trump and collaborators in Congress and the SCOTUS start dismantling the social welfare safety net, continue weakening civil rights, send soldiers off on futile wars, start destroying the environment at an even faster rate, etc., etc.

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April

2016 Apr 5

Berniebots

I thought "Berniebot" was just a pejorative term for Sanders supporters (akin to "Obamabot" in the 2008 election without the definite racial component.)

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2016 Apr 13

Restoring the New Deal

While I totally agree that Clinton is closer to the center than Sanders is, they're still both far to the left of guys like Kasich, Rubio, or Jeb!

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2016 Apr 20

Legitimacy

Assuming that existing polls hold (there is a paucity of polls in the remaining primaries—there's only really data for CT, MD, PA, CA, and NJ, and absolutely nothing from all of May) and using the national polling data as a guide for how the states without data will go (538 has Clinton at 49.4% and Sanders at 41.7% nationally which will be wildly inaccurate in a lot of states—a lot of those smaller states will probably go heavily towards Sanders—but it's all we've got) there's no realistic way for Clinton to get 2,383 pledged delegates before the convention (she'll probably have just under 2,000 pledged delegates by the end of the DC primary.)

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May

2016 May 10

Economic Injustice and Systemic Racism

I can't help but feel that reducing every problem to the problem of income inequality is one of the major reasons why Sanders really never made significant in-roads with older PoCs.

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2016 May 18

Schisms

The caveat is, even if Sanders drops out and dedicates his fundraising efforts to Clinton's campaign, that's probably not enough to placate his most ardent supporters.

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2016 May 25

Hate Voting

Historically, has there ever been a general election in the U.S. like this where both (presumptive) nominees were so intensely disliked by significant percentages of their own parties?

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June

2016 Jun 1

Political Reality

Unless something catastrophic happens between now and June 7th (like a stock market crash or a banking scandal or a federal indictment or whatever), this is probably how it's going to play out. The more moderate Sanders supporters will resign themselves to voting for Clinton in November and the more radical Sanders supporters will stay home or vote for Jill Stein or Trump or do something else that's totally crazy and counterproductive, and Sanders' personal political future will depend entirely on whether or not he reconciles with the Democratic establishment.

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2016 Jun 3

Unfavorability Ratings and Mob Rule

It does seem like one of the major reason why people don't like Clinton is simply because of the media perception of her character and personality and hardly anything to do at all with policy. Hopefully Trump will remain far more despised than Clinton until November. Democracy and mob rule FTW!

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2016 Jun 10

Vitriol in 2008

While it's probably only a matter of time until the Democratic party manages to unite at least a majority of itself into a force dedicated to ensuring Trump doesn't get elected, Obama's endorsement of Clinton reminds me once again of how much more rancorous the 2008 Democratic primaries were.

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July

2016 Jul 23

Put Out the Fires First

It troubles met that on the same day that Hillary Clinton picked a centrist Democrat as her running mate, Wikileaks released documentation of the DNC actively trying to suppress Bernie Sanders' campaign.

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2016 Jul 26

First Woman Presidential Candidate

Hooray, we're finally catching up with the rest of the Western world as well as a lot of developing countries!

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2016 Jul 28

America First vs. Russia and N. Korea First

Now that Donald Trump is officially the Republican nominee, the Democratic Party is the only major political party in this country that actually puts America first.

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2016 Jul 29

Bernie or Busters and Moderate Republicans

It is interesting that there seems to be more venom reserved for Bernie-or-busters compared to moderate Republicans who think Trump is a disaster but can't stand the idea of voting for Clinton. Both these demographics' interests can at least be partially served by voting for Clinton, but for some reason, holding out because you're a Republican is more virtuous than holding out because you're a progressive.

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