Quote (Black XistenZ @ Feb 6 2020 04:12pm)

I do think that the policy platforms played a huge role in the 2016 election. Trump had a clear policy message: build the wall and bring back the jobs. Hillary, by contrast, didnt put any substantial policies at the forefront of her campaign. No bold, sweeping reform, no clever, incremental reform, her entire campaign messaging focused on two things: pandering to leftists on cultural issues ("It's her time" "shatter the class ceiling") and stressing how unfit for office Trump is. Hillary ran the most negative and least policy-focused campaign in recent memory:

https://i.imgur.com/Fycs0GS.jpg


I think that a successful campaign needs to offer voters at least something, anything substantial, it needs to have good answers for at least some issues. I'm not in agreement with fender or the Bernie/Warren crowd that those policies necessarily have to be bold, sweeping change, but you still need something.


Some pundit put it best in the aftermath of the 2016 election: "The Clinton campaign and the media tried to make this election a referendum on Trump's character - but in the end, it turned out to be a referendum on Hillary". This hits the nail on the head: had Hillary been able to match Trump's policy proposals with an attractive vision of her own, she'd have crushed him despite all the flaws and weaknesses that were plaguing her campaign. But on the issues, her campaign was a black hole, totally devoid of any substance.

Quote (thesnipa @ 6 Feb 2020 23:21)

Trump had ideas of a direction, but no concrete policy to back it. Hillary had the status quo as her direction which means she endorses existing policy that's already cleared the legislature. I knew 100% what to expect from an HRC presidency, whereas Trump was a wild card and likely to move legislation through EOs. I have over a 60 iq so I don't consider platitudes to be policy.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Feb 6 2020 04:25pm)

For the purpose of a campaign, "policy" is better understood as "goal/mission statement" than "concrete, fleshed out legislation".

But yeah, in the end, Clinton was the candidate promising a continuation of the status quo, while Trump promised disruptive change. What Clinton crucially didnt offer was an idea on how to improve the status quo.

Quote (thesnipa @ 6 Feb 2020 23:07)

You're strawmanning me. I neither thought nor meant to imply that policy wasn't important. I just wasn't at the top of the list of a bunch of important mistakes she made.

An example of a minor mistake would be the deplorables incident. While it gave a rallying cry to trump voters I don't think it moved the needle much.

Quote (thesnipa @ 6 Feb 2020 23:21)

Trump had ideas of a direction, but no concrete policy to back it. Hillary had the status quo as her direction which means she endorses existing policy that's already cleared the legislature. I knew 100% what to expect from an HRC presidency, whereas Trump was a wild card and likely to move legislation through EOs. I have over a 60 iq so I don't consider platitudes to be policy.

Quote (thesnipa @ 6 Feb 2020 23:28)

that's because her service in the senate has taught her its just a place where bills either die entirely or are shredded and rewritten into nothing like her campaign promises.

but whether primary or general she provided a much clearer picture of what her regime's policy would look like, a bland continuation of the Obama administration. she wouldn't even commit to scraping Obamacare, signaling she preferred incremental and minor changes to improve the existing system. the most platitudinal issue she had was probably paid family leave for pregnancies, which she didn't outline a clear plan to get through the legislature or even a forecast of what an EO would look like.

Quote

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The Associated Press said Thursday that it is unable to declare a winner of Iowa’s Democratic caucuses.

With 97% of precincts reporting from Monday’s caucuses, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg leads Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders by three state delegate equivalents out of 2,098 counted. That is a margin of 0.14 percentage points.

However, even as the Iowa Democratic Party’s effort to complete its tabulation of the caucus results continues, Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez on Thursday asked the Iowa Democratic Party to conduct a recanvass. That is not a recount, but rather a check of the vote count to ensure the results were added correctly.

Perez sought the recanvass following days of uncertainty about the results reported by the Iowa Democratic Party, which includes technology problems with the mobile phone app used by the party to collect results from caucus sites, an overwhelming number of calls to the party’s backup phone system and a subsequent delay of several days of reporting the results.

The Iowa Democratic Party suggested it may not comply with Perez’s request, issuing a statement that said it would conduct a recanvass if one was requested by one of the candidates.

Further, the party has yet to report results from some satellite caucus sites, from which there are still an unknown number of state delegate equivalents to be won.

“The Associated Press calls a race when there is a clear indication of a winner. Because of a tight margin between former Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Bernie Sanders and the irregularities in this year’s caucus process, it is not possible to determine a winner at this point,” said Sally Buzbee, AP’s senior vice president and executive editor.

The AP will continue to report and review the results from the Iowa Democratic Party as it completes its tabulation, as well as the results of any potential recanvass or recount.

Quote (Goomshill @ 7 Feb 2020 02:17)

https://apnews.com/4f9044fe46f551d397d48dd8ca3d58db

AP News has officially declared the winner: Nobody

Quote (Goomshill @ 6 Feb 2020 20:17)

https://apnews.com/4f9044fe46f551d397d48dd8ca3d58db

AP News has officially declared the winner: Nobody

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Feb 6 2020 08:36pm)

official winner: Trump

he's really the one who benefits the most from this shitshow.