I’m going to make this simple. The primary season has not started yet. It starts in a few weeks. Everything we are doing now is pre-Primary. Not one person has put pen to checkmark in a voting booth.
Once that process starts, everything changes. Suddenly there is more polling in downstream states. Starting before the first primaries, but then ramping up as we head towards states that matter (and no, Iowa and New Hampshire don’t matter despite what you may have been told). Same with campaigning. We’ve seen a few debates, there’s been a lot of speeches, but you ain’t seen nothing yet. And other things (fund raising, more endorsements, etc.)
I thought I’d start out a discussion on the historic context by producing the simple graphic above. This is the course of polling (from Real Clear Politics) for the Clinton-Obama race in 2008 up to about now in the process, along side the Clinton-Sanders race this year. The graphic is rough, I just threw it together, but it kind of speaks for itself.
But in case the meaning is not clear, it means this: The primary season has not started yet. It starts in a few weeks.
I made a new graphic to underscore the meaning of the graphic above. Here, I took the 2008 primary season and the 2016 primary season RCP polling data for the two main candidates and ROUGHLY scaled them together. That moment when everything changes for 2008 is about now, or about the beginning of the actual primaries. Will that be what happens this year?
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The predictions market still has Senator Sanders “closing the gap” on Ms. Clinton, but they still show Ms. Clinton receiving the Democrat nomination as well as her being voted president.
PredictIt, for example, shows Ms. Clinton at 66% for the Democrat Party’s nomination, and 43% of being president. It shows Sanders at 30% for president, followed by Donald “Put Muslims In Concentration Camps” Trump at 24%
For USA president itself, Democrat is at 65% and Republican is at 37%
Iowa: Clinton 51%, Sanders 50% (rounding errors)
Oddly enough, “Will the next elected president be a woman” is 47% for “yes,” 53% for “no.” For a large crowd making the predictions, it should be closer to 43%
If my predictions are correct, I will receive $100 for every $14 that I have wagered. I bought long-shots, all of them on Senator Sanders. If Sanders is the next president, the whole world wins and I also win more than $1,200. 🙂
https://www.predictit.org/Browse/Category/6/US-Elections
Start of another Little Ice Age?
Wrap up warm! Snow set to fall in London and temperatures could plunge to -12C as freezing blast of winter weather continues to grip the country
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3400737/Wrap-warm-Snow-set-fall-London-temperatures-plunge-12C-freezing-blast-winter-weather-continues-grip-country.html#ixzz3xKpWgXO3
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3400737/Wrap-warm-Snow-set-fall-London-temperatures-plunge-12C-freezing-blast-winter-weather-continues-grip-country.html?ito=social-facebook
@TruthHurts: You aren’t even worth it, but I’ll say it anyway. London is in for a few days of slightly colder than average weather, dropping slightly below freezing at night, following weeks of unusually warm winter weather. http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/EGLL/2016/1/16/MonthlyCalendar.html?req_city=London&req_statename=United%20Kingdom&reqdb.zip=00000&reqdb.magic=1&reqdb.wmo=03772#calendar
I sure hope and expect that this years presidential election will result in either Hillarty Clinton or Bernie Sanders or another Democratic Party leader becoming President of the United States.
The consequences of any alternatives on the other side are just too horrid to contemplate given their policies and records and personalities..
I actually like both Democratic leaders here and would be happy to see either win. (Aussie here so can’t vote and speaking from afar but as someone who has watched US politics fairly closely~ish for a few decades now. Remember this choice doesn’t just affect the USA’s future but that of all its allies and the rest of the planet. Which is me on both counts and everyone alive on the second one.
@2. Truth Hurts : Dude, you’re being a pathetic fool. Go learn some real climate science from people who are rocket scientists i.e. at the opposite end of the intellectual spectrum from those who spew stuff like you’ve just done :
http://www.nasa.gov/subject/3127/climate/
SteveoR: I sure hope and expect that this years presidential election will result in either Hillarty Clinton or Bernie Sanders or another Democratic Party leader becoming President of the United States.
There is a wide-spread effort in the USA by one political party to make voting by A Certain Voting Block (you know: Democrats) as difficult as possible. If it wasn’t evil, it would be hilarious. In the past two presidential elections we saw black people getting telephone calls telling them they would be arrested if they voted; black people were also called on the phone and told to report to the wrong balloting locations. This only works in areas where Gerrymandering has nullified the majority vote.
The governor of New Mexico tried to prevent Towa, Tewa, Navajos, and Apaches from voting; it was… Kafkaesque, in an amusing way. Tens of thousands of American Indians live where there are no streets, no house numbers, no recorded “physical address:” they get mail at Chapter Houses, when they get mail at all (which ain’t often, apparently). They don’t have electricity bills, nor gas bills, nor water bills, nor trash collection bills, nor telephone bills to show the Registrar of Voters they live in the state, because they don’t have those services. The governor called these people “foreigners” and “illegal immigrants,” though their ancestors have lived here for over 1,200 years. HILARIOUS!
Arrgh! I really cannot type for crap, sorry – that’s Hillary natch and sh’es my fave contender here :
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2015/12/saying_nice_things_about_hillary_clinton_has_become_a_subversive_act.html
PS. Off topic sorry but thinking of NASA & climate and happening in about an hour from now all going to plan y’all might want to check out :
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/jason-3-ocean-monitoring-satellite-launch-timeline
Expect and hope the launch will be on NASA TV (online) to watch live soon~ish?
Yup. We have a couple new laws in Michigan: one bans straight ticket voting – passed so that people will be required to spend more time “educating” themselves before voting.
The other prohibits local officials (school administrators, libraries, even) from publicly discussing ballot proposals or millage issues in the 60 days leading up to an election.
So voters who want to know the details about a new school millage, or local tax, can no longer get information from school or city officials. It’s all in the vein of “having people study the issues in advance rather than at the last minute, and avoid having officials give false information.”
Our governor Snyder has proven himself to as unwilling to say no to the tea-baggers who control the state houses as any other Republican governor in any other state.
dean: The other prohibits local officials (school administrators, libraries, even) from publicly discussing ballot proposals or millage issues in the 60 days leading up to an election.
So voters who want to know the details about a new school millage, or local tax, can no longer get information from school or city officials. It’s all in the vein of “having people study the issues in advance rather than at the last minute, and avoid having officials give false information.”
Okay: you win! Good bloody gods! Not even Governor Martinez in New Mexico would think of doing all that. Oy vey.
There is a Chapter House near Cuba (north of the town), New Mexico, on the Apache reservation where people (er…. Apache people) have as their “home address” because they have no other. The New Mexico governor has insisted they are not allowed to vote because the federal government “will not recognize” their official IDs (driver’s licenses): the federal government said it DOES recognize those IDs— yet the governor still insists it doesn’t. You might be able to guess which political party she belongs to…..
Brainstorms has it right: “Democracy? What democracy?
To her credit, Governor Martinez ended the insane and criminal “property forfeiture” laws in New Mexico a year before the federal government did. But then, she also shut down the public-assisted mental health care services system in the state.
Looks like “the great experiment” isn’t working.
Democracy? What democracy?
/sarc
Governor Martinez … also shut down the public-assisted mental health care services system in the state.
As has been done in many states. Next time you see a mentally ill person wandering the public streets, thank a conservative voter.
Their elected winged monkeys turned them out on the streets and closed the mental health service centers and hospitals in order to avoid having to pay taxes to support them.
Oh it gets “better”. There is a provision in our state Constitution that says any law passed with an apportionment of money attached cannot be changed by voter referendum.
The emergency manager law (designed to let the state impose a manager on a city the administration decides can’t be trusted to govern itself) Snyder has passed was, in its original form, voted out by the public in a referendum. It was passed again, with a small apportionment included. Can’t be touched. It was the Flint city emergency manager that was in charge of the change to the water supply, against advice from experts. The two laws I mentioned earlier also have apportionments attached to them. Several others have been passed this same way: the right to work law (which Snyder originally said he would not sign but then did), a law that protects adoption agencies run by religious organizations so they can continue to get state money while refusing to serve people who don’t meet their religious requirements, and more.
Of course, none of the monies specified in these apportionments has ever been used, due to “fiscal responsibility.”
So, what you’re telling us is that in Michigan, there is a provision in its state Constitution that says that the state is not a democracy, that the will of the people is henceforth nullified, that its legislative representatives no longer have the power to represent an electorate who no longer have the power to vote for anything meaningful.
I.e., the Winged Monkeys have achieved their nirvana: Complete takeover and irreversible control of the government to now do as they please, the public be damned.
Interesting question: If somehow a law got passed to burn Snyder at the stake, and it had a small apportionment attached to it (to buy the rope, stake, and faggots, I suppose), would Snyder’s goose indeed be cooked?
I can understand why the choice between Republican and a Democrat is extraordinarily important, but it seems to me that the choice between Clinton and Sanders is essentially meaningless. The winner would be faced with an intractable, destructive Congress that would stand in the way of any change for the better. A Democratic victory would be limited to defending past accomplishments, no matter who wins. A Republican victory would decimate more than 80 years of progress.
And with or without gerrymandering, a winner take all system is undemocratic and does not reflect the will of the electorate.
…between a Republican and a Democrat…
Not to mention your electoral college, which in three cases has elected the candidate with the fewest votes. Your electoral system was designed for conditions in the 1790s, not conditions today.
Cosmi, while you’re at it, we really need to change our voting scheme. It, too, is archaic.
I wonder about those predictions though. According to Bayes theorem, new information changes the next decision. Therefore if Sanders wins Iowa won’t that change Sanders chances in his favor?
Phil: I wonder about those predictions though. According to Bayes theorem, new information changes the next decision. Therefore if Sanders wins Iowa won’t that change Sanders chances in his favor?
Yes, very much so, unfortunately. Humans change their opinions based on what other peoples’ public opinions are. Scary, eh?