Bullish on Bernie: The Bernie Sanders 2016 Thread II

[Skeptic Ginger]

Based on phone banking. I used to encounter many more Hillary supporters than I did in Wisconsin or that I am with New York. The tide has turned.

You do know those numbers they give you to call come from phone lists of people likely to support Sanders, right?

 

[Maya22]

You do know those numbers they give you to call come from phone lists of people likely to support Sanders, right?

How do the people who make the phone lists know this?

 

[BenBurch]

The list is from the DNC and is registered Dems

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

How do the people who make the phone lists know this?

Welcome to the world of data collecting and mining.

Remember the brouhaha over Sanders being cut off from his data base provided by and held by the DNC? That's not a simple list of registered voters or registered Democrats. It includes all sorts of data about those voters, who they have contributed to before, causes they click on in emails, petitions they sign online, other groups they belong to or interact with and of course all the demographic data.

I get a half dozen emails a day from Clinton supporters, probably because I am an active participant in Planned Parenthood politics. Given my age and gender, no doubt I'm pegged correctly as a Clinton supporter or a potential Clinton supporter. I never get any emails from the Sanders camp.

I'm not in Sander's data base but I'm clearly in Clinton's.

So Ben isn't using a calling list of registered Democrats at large. He's calling from a specifically targeted demographic or from a list of identified Sanders' supporters.

 

[The Big Dog]

I get a half dozen emails a day from Clinton supporters, probably because I am an active participant in Planned Parenthood politics. Given my age and gender, no doubt I'm pegged correctly as a Clinton supporter or a potential Clinton supporter. I never get any emails from the Sanders camp.

I'm not in Sander's data base but I'm clearly in Clinton's.

So Ben isn't using a calling list of registered Democrats at large. He's calling from a specifically targeted demographic or from a list of identified Sanders' supporters.

Or maybe it was because you were a Clinton Precinct Captain for the caucus?

 

[Maya22]

Interesting. As I mentioned in a different thread, I started out as a Democrat, then I was a Green for many years, then I recently registered as a Democrat again. I received a postcard in the mail from the County Refistrar of Voters to confirm my change of party. So far, no robocalls, regular calls, paper junk mail, etc. I do get plenty of sponsored content advertisements in my Facebook feed, from Democratic, Green and Republican candidates. I think that the sponsored content is based on my searches.

 

[Maya22]

So Ben isn't using a calling list of registered Democrats at large. He's calling from a specifically targeted demographic or from a list of identified Sanders' supporters.

I'm a bit baffled by all this data-mining business. If I were Republican, would I be target as a potential Cruz supporter or potential Rubio supporter because I am slightly older than them and I speak Spanish?

 

[BenBurch]

I know this database. And I know what it contains. It's called Votebuilder. And I worked with it a lot when I was working on a congressional campaign.

 

[Trakar]

How deep does this conspiracy go?!?!? ��

At least to the DNC chair Ms. Wasserman Shultz. A conspiracy implies that there is something sneaky and hidden about the process, much of this (including Bill's campaigning in polling places without incarceration) has been pretty open regarding the DNC leadership and who they prefer as well as how they are tilting the field to insure that their candidate has as easy a time as they can make it taking the nomination, even if they have to bend a rule or break a law.

A few examples over the last year.

Is the Democratic Party Rigging the Election for Hillary Clinton?
http://www.vice.com/read/the-democratic-party-hillary-clinton-bias-goes-way-beyond-data

Sign Robert Reich's petition: Tell the DNC to stop blocking Bernie's voter file access NOW - http://act.democracyforamerica.com/sign/dnc_sanders_van?akid=s111591..I3lm1f

Ex-Obama adviser: DNC appears to be 'putting finger on scale' for Clinton
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box...iser-on-sanders-scandal-dnc-putting-finger-on

'Impartial' DNC finance chief helps Hillary
Fundraising assistance in Texas flouts presidential primary neutrality rules
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/impartial-dnc-finance-chief-helps-hillary-clinton-118558

Debbie Does Damage: ‘The Sanders Campaign Doesn’t Have Anything Other Than Bluster’ To Stand On [VIDEO]
http://dailycaller.com/2015/12/18/d...than-bluster-to-stand-on-video/#ixzz45HL060ls

D.N.C. Officer Says She Was Disinvited From Debate After Calling for More of Them - http://www.nytimes.com/politics/fir...d-from-debate-after-calling-for-more-of-them/

Senior state Democratic official compares DNC to ‘dictatorship’
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/po...ictatorship/fbfonfjnDLQzhh3G2TdJvJ/story.html

many more, but I'm sure you were already aware of all this.

 

[Trakar]

And now Bill seriously puts his foot in it while campaigning for Hillary. Heard about this on NPR yesterday.

Bill Clinton: ‘Black Lives Matter’ Protesters Are Defending Murderers and Drug Dealers (VIDEO)

Needless to say, the reaction from the black community and activists was less than positive; while the reaction from Republicans were highly favourable.

Twitter Just Unleashed on Bill Clinton

Excerpt:



When the far-right nutjobs agree with you and support your policies, you're definitely doing something wrong.

This may have cost Hillary a big chunk of her lead, and is likely to damage her going into the PA and NY primaries unless she can do some serious damage control. Unfortunately, she's not shown much sympathy to the BLM or other activist movements, and has been putting her foot in it repeatedly herself.

LOL, I caught his interview today where Bill said he regretted saying the things he did and he almost felt like apologizing!

The way the Republicans treated him made me change my political designation to Independent for the latter half of the '90s, now, he is a pitiful shadow of his former statesmanship and personality. Then again I forgive McCain for a lot of his lapses due to his five and a half years as a POW, so 40+ years with Hillary deserves a lot of understanding,...poor guy

 

[Trakar]

In more bad news for Sanders, FiveThirtyEight has a new article out which shows that even if by some miracle Sanders were able to turn things around and get more pledged delegates than Clinton, he would not have more of the popular vote. This is bad news for the idea of super delegates switching to reflect the will of the people.

"Bernie Sanders’s supporters are fond of the hypothesis that Democratic superdelegates, the elected leaders and party officials who currently support Hillary Clinton by a lopsided-doesn’t-even-begin-to-describe-it 469 to 31, are going to bow to the “will of the people” if Sanders ends up winning more pledged delegates than Clinton by June.

There’s just one hiccup in this logic: Sanders fans seem to be conflating the pledged delegate count and the “will of the voters,” when in fact the two are far from interchangeable."

"Even if he were to turn around his 212-delegate deficit and claim a 2,026-to-2,025 lead, he’d only close the popular vote gap by about 1.7 million votes, leaving Clinton with a 670,000-vote advantage."

If he wins with pledged delegates nothing else matters, the super delegates don't count until the convention if he wins the 2,383 pledged delegates he is the nominee even if Hillary's total delegate count is higher. There are several potential floor challenges, but there will be enough sanders supporters to win any floor challenges.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I'm a bit baffled by all this data-mining business. If I were Republican, would I be target as a potential Cruz supporter or potential Rubio supporter because I am slightly older than them and I speak Spanish?

You need to consider all the ways the campaigns collect data on people.

Thanks to big data, US parties know all about voters

If you're an American voter and have provided personal information to a company, chances are data groups have shared it with political parties to help them target potential supporters.
One of the main players is NGP VAN, which manages the Democratic National Committee's database.
Its name recently surfaced in connection with a data breach blamed on a technical glitch that enabled the campaign of presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders to access voter data belonging to rival Hillary Clinton....

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I know this database. And I know what it contains. It's called Votebuilder. And I worked with it a lot when I was working on a congressional campaign.

Yes, and as such it is tailored to meet Sanders' needs.

Currently, "the Democrats use Votebuilder from the Voter Activation Network (VAN)".

What good would it be if you just had every registered Democratic voter's number on the list?

 

[wareyin]

If he wins with pledged delegates nothing else matters, the super delegates don't count until the convention if he wins the 2,383 pledged delegates he is the nominee even if Hillary's total delegate count is higher. There are several potential floor challenges, but there will be enough sanders supporters to win any floor challenges.

Do you have any idea what the total number of delegates is? 4,765. If either candidate gets 2,383, the other cannot get more. The pledged delegate count is 4,051, so the futile hope of Sanders supporters was that he somehow turns things massively around, gets 2,026 pledged delegates, and the super delegates jump ship en masse to give Sanders the 2,383. None of that will happen, however, because he will not get to 2,026 pledged delegates, he will not have the majority of the popular votes, and so there will be no reason for the super delegates to defect.

 

[BenBurch]

Yes, and as such it is tailored to meet Sanders' needs.

Currently, "the Democrats use Votebuilder from the Voter Activation Network (VAN)".

What good would it be if you just had every registered Democratic voter's number on the list?

OK, discount what I actually have experience with. Enjoy. Such perspicacity helped your side win Wisconsin and Michigan, I expect.

 

[Fudbucker]

Do you have any idea what the total number of delegates is? 4,765. If either candidate gets 2,383, the other cannot get more. The pledged delegate count is 4,051, so the futile hope of Sanders supporters was that he somehow turns things massively around, gets 2,026 pledged delegates, and the super delegates jump ship en masse to give Sanders the 2,383. None of that will happen, however, because he will not get to 2,026 pledged delegates, he will not have the majority of the popular votes, and so there will be no reason for the super delegates to defect.

Betting odds on Bernie are 12.5% now. That's approaching the odds of hoping a particular number will come up on a six-sided die. As any gamer will tell, pinning hopes on the outcome of a D6 (or, in Bernie's case, a D8) roll might not be ideal, but it is hardly futile.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

OK, discount what I actually have experience with. Enjoy. Such perspicacity helped your side win Wisconsin and Michigan, I expect.

OK. discount what I know about data bases and the DNC's use of them.

Seriously Ben, are you claiming you are calling Democratic voters off a list of all NY Democratic voters and they are just all peachy keen for Sanders?

 

[Trakar]

Do you have any idea what the total number of delegates is? 4,765. If either candidate gets 2,383, the other cannot get more. The pledged delegate count is 4,051, so the futile hope of Sanders supporters was that he somehow turns things massively around, gets 2,026 pledged delegates, and the super delegates jump ship en masse to give Sanders the 2,383. None of that will happen, however, because he will not get to 2,026 pledged delegates, he will not have the majority of the popular votes, and so there will be no reason for the super delegates to defect.

This disagrees with what I said, how?

The only issue is that I typed "delegate" instead of "super delegate."
For pointing that out, I appreciate your semantic assist.

 

[BenBurch]

OK. discount what I know about data bases and the DNC's use of them.

Seriously Ben, are you claiming you are calling Democratic voters off a list of all NY Democratic voters and they are just all peachy keen for Sanders?

Not all. About 6 in ten.

 

[Trakar]

Is the Democratic party headed toward a contested convention?

Seth Abrahamson seems to think it is a distinct possibility:

The Democrats Are Headed for a Contested Convention Too
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-...for-a-contested-convention-too_b_9620362.html

...And the same data that gave a more accurate prediction of the Wisconsin results than the mainstream media — and, indeed, a spot-on prediction of the caucus results in Alaska, Hawaii, and Washington, even as the media was between 20 and 30 points off in predicting Sanders’ margins of victory in those states — is the data that says Bernie Sanders and the Democrats are headed to a contested convention in Philadelphia this summer.


The first reason is hard data — specifically, contrasts between early voting and Election Day voting in individual states, nonwhite voting patterns over time, and large-scale, macroanalytical data about how Senator Sanders performed in each primary and caucus over the course of March.


The second reason it’s being predicted here, and not elsewhere, that the Sanders campaign is correct in stating that we’re headed to a contested Democratic convention is that the 2016 Democratic primary race is absolutely nothing like the 2008 race, no matter what anyone in the mainstream media has been saying.


The hard data simply doesn’t support that analogy — and neither will the results...

Being the optimist that I am (always hoping for the best result for this nation and humanity in general), I still believe that the American people will give Bernie Sanders the win outright in the primary, and via near unanimity in the general in November.