Just How Smart (or Dumb) are the Democrats?

In a moment, I'm gonna just turn this post over to Ian and Darryl of Free Talk Live, because they cover the matter fairly thoroughly (among other matters, including my own vice-presidential campaign -- it's talk radio, OK?). My two cents:

1)  If most of the "superdelegates" changed their votes, they could in fact nominate Bernie Sanders rather than Hillary Clinton. For that matter, if they just abstained, they could force it to a second ballot, unbinding Clinton's delegates, and then go for an overwhelming Sanders vote.

2)  If the Democrats nominate Sanders, they have a chance of winning this November. A slim chance, but a chance.

3)  If the Democrats nominate Clinton, their chance of winning this November is close to non-existent at the moment and likely to get even worse very quickly -- presumably there are additional Servergate, Clinton Foundation, and DNC email revelations to come, being held by various parties for release right after the convention to destroy any hopes of a Clinton "poll bounce." She's toast, people.

So: Are the Democrats -- especially the "superdelegates" -- smart enough to pour piss out of a boot with instructions written on the heel? I wouldn't count on it, but one just never knows. And now, over to you, Ian and Darryl:

The Democratic National Convention is Going to be More Interesting Than The Republican National Convention

One of the reasons I've given for my prediction that Trump will romp in November is the anecdotal observation that Republicans never, ever, ever refuse in significant numbers to support their party's nominee. A few of them might stay home instead of voting, but they just don't revolt. Which is why the GOP shitshow came off like some kind of robot version of the Nuremberg rally, featuring Stetsons instead of Stahlhelme.

Democrats, on the other hand ...

Debbie Wasserman Schultz was forced to announce she'd be resigning as chair of the Democratic National Committee once the national convention was over. Then she was booed off the stage by her own state's delegates at a breakfast. Then she was forced to move her resignation up and hand over the gavel at the beginning, rather than at the end, of the convention.




Then Bernie Sanders tried to tell his supporting delegates that "we have got to elect Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine."


One of my out on a limb predictions:

Tim Kaine shouldn't clear his calendar after all. He'll be sacrificed and replaced with a "unity" VP candidate before the presidential nomination dog and pony show reaches its supposed high point, to to soothe the savage Democratic rank and file and get Hillary Clinton's sorry ass out of Philadelphia ahead of the tar/feather/rail combo this whole election cycle has been setting her up for. It won't help her in November, but one day at a time, right?

About that "Libertarians for Bernie Sanders" Thing

Bernie Sanders (I-VT) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

At least once or twice a day, my Google alert for appearances of the word "libertarian" on the web notifies me that someone is making -- or at least musing about -- "a libertarian case for supporting Bernie Sanders."

I really just don't see it.

But then again, I've never bought "a libertarian case for supporting [insert Republican candidate of your choosing here]," either.

Are there some issues on which Sanders more closely approximates a libertarian policy line than the mainstream of either Washington, DC or his own party? Sure. The obvious example there is the war on drugs.

Are there some issues on which Sanders's obviously non-libertarian policy proposals are still probably better from any point of view than the existing system? Yes to that too. For example, "Single-payer" is the second dumbest idea in circulation on healthcare -- second behind the existing system, which has been nearly fully socialized for half a century, but in a crazy-quilt fashion (Medicaid for the poor, Medicare for the elderly, TriCare for the retired/disabled military, and the "socialized risk, privatized profit" HMO regime that started under Nixon) that includes all the down sides and more of single-payer without the upside of, at least, simplicity.

But for me, those things don't add up to "libertarians should support Sanders." I think libertarians should support libertarians, and Sanders isn't one.

The Incredible Evitable Hillary

I'm writing this a little after midnight (eastern time). At the moment, with 95% of Iowa caucus precincts reporting, Hillary Clinton leads Bernie Sanders in "delegate equivalents" by 667 to 664. It could go either way, but it isn't going to go either way by much.

Clinton's 2016 campaign, like her 2008 campaign, has so far been largely premised on her perceived "inevitability."

Rhetorical question for Democrats: WTF? Are you people stupid or something?

This is the second presidential nomination campaign in which she's had her ass handed to her in Iowa -- and make no mistake, that's what it amounts to when the "inevitable" former First Lady, former US Senator, former US Secretary of State ends up in a statistical tie with Bernie Frickin' Sanders in for the love of Pete, Iowa.

She's not inevitable for the nomination, and even if she ekes that out I can't think of a weaker Democratic nominee for the general election who isn't currently constrained to campaigning from a prison cell or hospice bed.

You people have really got your ass in a crack here, and I'm not really seeing a way out of it for you. Nor do I sympathize, except to the extent that I strongly prefer gridlock -- one party controlling the White House and the other controlling at least one house of Congress. You knotheads seem intent on handing the whole circus over to the GOP when this presidential election should have been a Democratic walk in the park.

Election 2016: Prediction Market Musings

As I mentioned awhile back (not worth looking up to link), I've invested a whopping $10 in the PredictIt "prediction market" on two sets of shares. I bought:

• 100 shares of "Joe Biden wins the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination" at five cents per share; and
• 250 shares of "Joe Biden wins the 2016 US presidential election" at two cents per share.

The price of those shares as reflected in trading at PredictIt has been swinging back and forth -- their prospective total sale value has been up or down by as much as $5 since buying them. As I write this, the most recent trade of Biden for the nomination was at eight cents per share, Biden for president at two cents.

For obvious reasons, I'll be watching those shares on Monday night.

Shares of "Hillary Clinton wins the Iowa caucus" are currently trading at 66 cents, "Bernie Sanders to win the Iowa caucus" at 40 cents. Biden's at one cent per share there and I wouldn't buy at that price.

If Clinton loses, or even just barely edges Sanders out, I expect a big boom on "Biden for  the nomination" shares and a smaller one on Biden in the general election. Especially so if "uncommitted" (which is not listed as a share option on PredictIt) does well.

I'm liking my chances pretty well on that proposition.  And at that point, it would be gut check time. I would have to decide whether to sell out or to hold on. If I keep those shares and Biden wins the nomination and the election, my $10 investment will have become $350. If I keep them and he wins neither, I lost ten bucks.

Of course, I could see both shares dip to effectively zero very early. For example, if Clinton unexpectedly routs Sanders really badly in Iowa, and manages to parlay that win into a New Hampshire comeback/upset. But I'm not expecting either of those things.

Election 2016: Is Biden (Not) in it ... to Win it?

Vice president Joe Biden declined to enter the race for his party's 2016 presidential nomination. But, as WaPo's James Hohmann points out, he remains a "factor" in that race. He's subtly supporting Bernie Sanders and not-so-subtly slamming Hillary Clinton.

Could he be the 2016 Democratic nominee after all? I think he could. His path is narrow, but it's not non-existent.

My understanding is that he doesn't have to declare his candidacy in order to receive support in the Iowa caucus. And even if he did have to, there's also the "uncommitted" option for caucus participants.

Now suppose that Biden -- or "uncommitted" -- performs competitively in the caucus.

And suppose that, while Biden is too late to get on most (maybe even all) primary ballots, he consents, "under pressure" from a Draft Biden campaign, to be a write-in option.

The Democrats use a proportional delegate allocation system. Biden wouldn't have to WIN any states to rack up delegates.

Furthermore, at present, 371 of the Democratic Party's 713 "super-delegates" remain uncommitted, and the rest are free to change their minds any time.  If my math is right, and I think it is, the "super-delegates" constitute about 16% of the total delegate count. And my guess is that Biden says "OK, OK, Hillary is a train wreck and Bernie can't win the general election, quit twisting my arm, I'll do it," he'll have most of THOSE delegates in his pocket.

Which means there's every chance that Biden could come to the 2016 Democratic national convention "undeclared," but with delegates, and that that convention could in fact have no candidate with a first-ballot majority in her or his grasp.

If the party establishment has to do the brokered convention thing, Biden's the odds-on favorite to come out of that convention as the Democratic nominee.

You may not have read that here first, but you did read it here.

Random Election 2016 Thoughts (Clinton and Bush)

Hillary's done for all intents and purposes. Once Biden jumps in, she will slide to a distant third place behind him and Sanders, and maybe even down into O'Malley/Webb/Chafee 1% territory.

But she's never gone gracefully, and never has Bill. Every scandal, they start by denying it, then grudgingly admit it but say there was nothing wrong with it, then say they "take responsibility" but still pretend they didn't really do anything wrong, then pout when there are consequences. Obama beat her in 11 straight primaries in 2008 and she still waited to concede while her gang talked up the possibility of breaking the Democratic national convention and pulling out a win. She'll drag it out, at the expense of her party's chances of holding the White House, taking back a Senate majority, and gaining seats in the House.

Her stubbornness in the face of defeat (not the possibility of defeat, actual defeat) is one of her problems. The other two are related:

• Nobody likes her; and
• Nobody trusts her.

At least nobody who hasn't been on her payroll forever. The left Democrats don't like her because she's a centrist. The conservative Democrats don't like her because she's a centrist. The centrist Democrats don't like her because she makes centrists look bad.

Nobody trusts her because she lies like a rug, thinks she's above the law, acts surprised when she's told that's not the case, and is sort of like Mitt Romney when it comes to actually taking a position on anything -- she is always saying whatever she thinks people want to hear, except when it means saying she was wrong or she's sorry.

Yes, she raised big money at the beginning of her campaign, but that was because the big money Democratic donors bought the trademark Clinton "inevitability" hype. Now they're noticing it was BS and looking for another horse to back; that's a fourth problem.

Which brings us to Jeb Bush, who has two of the same four problems.

Bush isn't really unlikable. Watch him some time. He's sort of modest, self-effacing, wonkish. Those qualities may not make for a great candidate when you've got a self-promoter like Donald Trump blocking your path to the White House, but he doesn't personally make my gorge rise like Clinton does.

Nor is he likely to prove as stubborn, to the detriment of his party, as Clinton. When and if he reaches a point where it's clear he isn't going to get the GOP's nomination, he'll pack it in, endorse another candidate, and soldier on for the party. I do predict that he won't do so until after the New Hampshire primary at the soonest, though, and then only if Kasich or Christie is the one pulling ahead, or likely to do so on the strength of his endorsement. If one of the "not a chance in hell of winning the general election" candidates (Trump, Carson, Fiorina, Huckabee, et. al) is still surging, he may stay in on the reasonable supposition that that is what's best for his party.

He does have a similar trust problem -- because of his last name, his brother's disastrous presidency and his father's tendency to go weak-kneed as president when pushed by Democrats in Congress.

And he does have the problem that the big money he raised as "inevitable" has probably dried up (3rd quarter FEC reports aren't due for nearly a month) based on him being back in the pack so far.

But his prospects are far better than Clinton's, because he at least has prospects. Hillary Clinton will never be president.

Election 2016 Prediction: Biden Throws In

Three predictions, actually:

• US Vice President Joe Biden will formally announce his intention to seek the Democratic Party's 2016 presidential nomination no later than September 15, 2015.
• In terms of campaign strategy, his overt game plan will be to concentrate on the third contest, South Carolina. He's had a personal presence and cultivated many friendships there for a long time. At the moment, Hillary Clinton seems to have Iowa fairly well locked down, but Bernie Sanders will do fairly well there and may well pull a Eugene McCarthy type near-win versus, or even beat, Clinton in New Hampshire. Sanders won't play that well in the south. Biden will be a sitting vice president, up against a wild card (Sanders) and a wounded opponent (Clinton). He'll come out of South Carolina as the one to beat.
• BUT: All bets will be off well before the Iowa caucus. More, and more damaging, information will come out about Clinton's secret email server, mishandling of classified information, etc. before then. She's probably too stubborn to drop out (see the 2008 primaries for confirmation of that), but her campaign will effectively be over by some time in November at the latest. If Biden has the money and the organization, he'll have to decide whether to let Sanders gain momentum from whipping Clinton in Iowa and New Hampshire or contest those races himself. Whatever else he may be, Biden is a smart politician, and he's already thinking this angle through.

In What Alternate Universe ...

... are Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders "outsider candidates?"

Trump, by his own public admission, has built his entire career on buying politicians to subsidize and bestow special privileges upon his business enterprises. The surprise isn't that he's racked up billions doing that (after having inherited $250 million "earned" from government contracts), but that he's been so bad at doing it that he's gone through no fewer than four business bankruptcies even with the amount of bribery and influence-buying he's engaged in. And now he's running for president as a political outsider? He seems to just be trying to one-up Michael Bloomberg, the "outsider" who bought himself the New York City mayor's office. Well, no one's ever accused Trump of lacking for chutzpah.

And Sanders is the consummate political careerist: Eight years as a mayor, 16 years as a US Representative, 8.5 years in the US Senate. He's spent more time in political office than Hillary Clinton. Hell, he's spent more time in political office than Bill Clinton.

Whatever else they may be, Trump and Sanders are hardly political "outsiders."