2020 US Election (Part One)

[Samson]

I wonder how they do their modeling and simulations to come up with those guesses. It'll be interesting to look at how they fared after the results are in from some of the states. Hopefully they don't bungle it like Iowa--I want to see the results the day of too!

They give quite a lot of detail.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

That's the buzz of the day. MSNBC was discussing this morning how with the remaining absentee/"satellite" vote that is still yet to be counted, Bernie still has a decent chance to overtake Bootyjudge, not just in the popular vote, but in the actual delegate count as well, making him the official winner in Iowa. Some of the commentators seemed to be actively rooting for Bernie to overtake him, which bolsters my feeling that if and when Bernie becomes the clear frontrunner, the news media is going to rally behind him.

Dude it is going to be nuts if he gets the nomination. The media will fully bifurcate between the parties and I think there will be a lot less back-biting and playing into the GOP narrative if Bernie is the opposition.

 

[rah]

Don't know if this is reliable but found it entertaining

Trump fans flooded Iowa Democratic Party’s caucus reporting phone line with prank calls
We are learning more about why the Iowa Democratic Party had such a rough time on Monday trying to collect reports from its precinct caucus leaders. It turns out there was an attempt by Trump’s followers to sabotage the telephonic backup reporting mechanism that the party had planned on using in case of problems with its mobile app — problems which have already been widely reported.

Via Bloomberg:

Supporters of President Donald Trump flooded a hotline used by Iowa precinct chairs to report Democratic caucus results after the telephone number was posted online, worsening delays in the statewide tally, a top state Democrat told party leaders on a conference call Wednesday night.

According to two participants on the call, Ken Sagar, a state Democratic central committee member, was among those answering the hotline on caucus night and said people called in and expressed support for Trump. The phone number became public after people posted photos of caucus paperwork that included the hotline number, one of the people on the call said.

The phone call Wednesday night between the Iowa Democratic Party staff and state central committee, the party’s elected governing body, came as the party was still counting results.

State party staff confirmed Sagar’s account:

“On Caucus Day, the Iowa Democratic Party experienced an unusually high volume of inbound phone calls to its caucus hotline, including supporters of President Trump,” Mandy McClure, communications director for the party, said in a statement to the Des Moines Register. “The unexplained, and at times hostile, calls contributed to the delay in the Iowa Democratic Party’s collection of results, but in no way affected the integrity of information gathered or the accuracy of data sets reported.”

This reminds me of the New Hampshire phone jamming scandal, which took place a little more than seventeen years ago. If you’re not familiar with that infamous Republican dirty trick, here’s the lowdown from Wikipedia:

The 2002 New Hampshire Senate election phone jamming scandal involved the use of a telemarketing firm hired by that state’s Republican Party (NHGOP) for election tampering. The tampering involved using a call center to jam the phone lines of a get out the vote (GOTV) operation. In the end, 900 calls were made for 45 minutes of disruption to the Democratic-leaning call centers.

During that state’s 2002 election for the United States Senate seat being vacated by Republican Bob Smith, the NHGOP hired GOP Marketplace, based in northern Virginia, to jam another phone bank being used by the state Democratic Party and the firefighters’ union for efforts to turn out voters on behalf of then-Governor of New Hampshire Jeanne Shaheen on Election Day.

John E. Sununu, the Republican nominee, won a narrow victory. In addition to criminal prosecutions, disclosures in the case have come from a civil suit filed by the state’s Democratic Party against the state’s Republican Party (now settled).

Four men were convicted of, or pleaded guilty to, federal crimes and sentenced to prison for their involvement.

One conviction was reversed by an appeals court, a decision prosecutors are appealing. James Tobin, freed on appeal, was later indicted on charges of lying to the FBI during the original investigation.

Shaheen later became one of New Hampshire’s two United States Senators. The New Hampshire Democratic Party sued the New Hampshire Republican Party for damages. In December of 2006, the New Hampshire Republicans agreed to pay $125,000 in five annual installments to the New Hampshire Democratic Party… one of the few cases I know of one major political party transferring funds to the other.

It is disturbing but not surprising that Trump’s rabid followers actively sought to interfere in the Iowa Democratic caucuses and prevent the party from being able to receive timely results from its precinct leaders.

Anyone who encouraged this behavior in online forums ought to be investigated and prosecuted if any laws were determined to have been broken.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Don't know if this is reliable but found it entertaining

It's almost like outright vote manipulation and interference is baked in with the GOP.

This is the first election that the GOP will not be under a consent decree that stopped them from intimidating voters in the South since like the 60's. I wonder what's going to happen?

 

[Lexicus]

Don't know if this is reliable but found it entertaining

What about it was entertaining?

 

[rah]

Whenever anything ever goes wrong with the Democrats, Republicans take the blame. (justifiably most of the time)
But this is just plain silly. The author wants you to believe that some prank calls were the problem and not the system itself.
I give you a clue. If all it takes are some phone calls to mess you up, it's a bad stinking system.

If they had exchanged the party labels here, I still would have found it entertaining, so don't read this as me supporting Republicans please.

 

[Lexicus]

But this is just plain silly. The author wants you to believe that some prank calls were the problem and not the system itself.

That doesn't appear to be the case from my reading of the article. Indeed, the article quotes a Democratic Party person saying the opposite:
“On Caucus Day, the Iowa Democratic Party experienced an unusually high volume of inbound phone calls to its caucus hotline, including supporters of President Trump,” Mandy McClure, communications director for the party, said in a statement to the Des Moines Register. “The unexplained, and at times hostile, calls contributed to the delay in the Iowa Democratic Party’s collection of results, but in no way affected the integrity of information gathered or the accuracy of data sets reported.”

The point of this article appears to be to link this little stunt by Republicans to other Republican dirty tricks in the past, to demonstrate how little respect the Republicans actually have for democratic process.

If they had exchanged the party labels here, I still would have found it entertaining, so don't read this as me supporting Republicans please.

I am nearly 100% certain that if the party labels were reversed here you would be chiding the Democrats for being "childish" and forfeiting the moral high ground against Trump.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Whenever anything ever goes wrong with the Democrats, Republicans take the blame. (justifiably most of the time)
But this is just plain silly. The author wants you to believe that some prank calls were the problem and not the system itself.
I give you a clue. If all it takes are some phone calls to mess you up, it's a bad stinking system.

If they had exchanged the party labels here, I still would have found it entertaining, so don't read this as me supporting Republicans please.

Testing the waters is a thing.

 

[rah]

I don't believe I was chiding Dems at all. I said I found it entertaining.
But you can read it anyway you want. And please find one post where I claim Trump had the moral high ground.
Good luck, I'll be waiting.

 

[Kyriakos]

I think at some point Bernie will win unless he gets shot.

 

[rah]

I'm more worried about health concerns. Trump has no reason to have him shot, since he probably figures he'd crush him. But I guess Trump thinks he'll crush anybody at this point.

 

[Kyriakos]

I think Trump is low in the list of interests who would want Bernie dead, tbh; he isn't even a real billionaire
I wonder how the DNC will react to its own media not being quite able to act like Fox, and thus inevitably will start talking half-positively about Bern (hopefully).

 

[Birdjaguar]

To not vote for the Democratic nominee in 2020 is to be a Republican.

 

[Kyriakos]

To not vote for the Democratic nominee in 2020 is to be a Republican.

It is true that if Bernie gets the nomination, the 1% of dem voters won't back him

 

[Fippy]

Well some are def. afraid of Bernie shaking things up.
Personal interests allowed unqualified, non-politician Trump to win after all.

 

[Commodore]

To not vote for the Democratic nominee in 2020 is to be a Republican.

This is the kind of "us vs. them" thinking that is part of the problem, not the solution. You are essentially declaring anyone who doesn't vote Democrat to be your sworn enemy. That's not a healthy attitude for public discourse.

 

[rah]

I don't think many really fear him. Anyone with half a brain realizes how little of his agenda he'll be able to accomplish, unless they hand him an over whelming majority in both chambers.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I think at some point Bernie will win unless

Dude stop saying stuff like this... even as a joke... just stop.

Don't know if this is reliable but found it entertaining

And as if on queue... I was just talking about this phenomenon in the other thread... whatever it takes to win.

The point of this article appears to be to link this little stunt by Republicans to other Republican dirty tricks in the past, to demonstrate how little respect the Republicans actually have for democratic process.

That was my take as well.

forfeiting the moral high ground

I don't know how much objective value "the moral high ground" even still has at this point.

 

[Commodore]

The point of this article appears to be to link this little stunt by Republicans to other Republican dirty tricks in the past, to demonstrate how little respect the Republicans actually have for democratic process.

Lighten up Francis. It was just some prank calls. That's hardly qualifies as some nefarious plot to undermine the election.

 

[ThERat]

He just knows how not to appear like a small schoolkid (look here Pete)