Trump, Clinton Look Well-Positioned For Big New York Wins

As the Empire State votes, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton look well positioned to have a very good night.

Trump Clinton 2

New Yorkers head to the polls in a primary that could go a long way toward cementing the front runner status of both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in their quests for their respective party’s nomination:

Voting has begun in the most raucous nominating contest of an already acrimonious season, which closed the day before with a flurry of retail politicking in New York that appeared likely to strengthen the trajectory of the two front-runners.

Democrat Hillary Clinton spent Monday reaching out to New Yorkers one handshake and one neighborhood at a time. She stopped by a hospital cafeteria in Yonkers, met with workers at a unionized carwash in Queens and sipped “bubble tea” at Kung Fu Tea counter in Flushing.

Republican Donald Trump, meanwhile, appeared for a photo op at his own Trump Tower in Manhattan with a new “diversity coalition.” The group, representing many ethnic groups, is trying to fight accusations that Trump has stoked racial and ethnic tensions with his anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric.

Polls have shown both front-runners ahead by double-digit margins in Tuesday’s New York primary. A big win for Trump would bring him closer to securing an outright majority of Republican delegates — an outcome that remains in jeopardy and has prompted rival Ted Cruz to mount a spirited campaign to force a contested convention.

For Clinton, a victory would give her a boost of momentum and perhaps a new mandate to more openly pivot her campaign to prepare for the general election. Unlike Trump, Clinton is so far ahead in the delegate count against Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) that it has become close to impossible for him to catch up.

“I am hoping to do really well tomorrow,” Clinton said at Mikey Likes It Ice Cream in Manhattan’s East Village. “I am hoping to wrap up the Democratic nomination.”

The Sanders campaign has played down his prospects in New York, citing the state’s closed primary, which doesn’t allow the participation of independents. But Sanders has drawn tens of thousands of supporters at rallies in recent days, and he spent much of Monday shaking hands during a series of unannounced appearances around New York City. He was scheduled to appear at a large rally in Queens in the evening.

Sanders strolled down the Avenue of the Americas on Monday morning, greeting surprised Manhattanites over the course of 15 city blocks. The scene repeated itself in the mid-afternoon in the Bronx, where the senator posed for dozens of selfies with bystanders during a walk with his entourage in a busy retail district. He also visited a public housing project in the Bronx, where he said a shuttered playground and community center were unacceptable “in the wealthiest nation in the history of the world.”

Sanders said what he saw was an example of the nation’s misplaced priorities.

“Want to talk about crazy, crazy is that we have more people in jail in the United States of America than any other country on Earth,” he said. “It seems to me a lot more sensible, a lot more humane, a lot more cost-effective to invest in our children, to invest in recreation, to invest in community centers, to make sure that kids have the education they need.”

Clinton has tailored her message in New York to her tenure as the state’s senator for eight years, calling upon voters to remember the work that she did on her behalf. But she has also sought to use Trump and New York’s diversity to make a sweeping case that the primary — and the election on a whole — is about a choice between her vision for the future and Trump’s divisive rhetoric.

(…)

Trump has crisscrossed the state in recent days. Over the weekend, he held campaign events in Staten Island and in Poughkeepsie, where he accused Cruz of being dishonest and too close to special interests. He also highlighted his message of economic populism. He was scheduled to hold a rally in Buffalo later Monday.

Like Sanders, Cruz is bracing for a loss in New York, polling behind not only Trump in recent surveys but also Ohio Gov. John Kasich, whose only primary victory so far came in his home state.

On Monday, Cruz was already looking ahead to a string of upcoming contests in Eastern states, including Maryland, which will vote next week. The senator from Texas spent Monday bouncing between New York and Maryland, where he held a rally at an American Legion hall in the Baltimore suburb of Towson. Cruz held a private meeting with GOP leaders in New York on Monday ahead of an evening fundraiser at the Harvard Club.

In Maryland, he told supporters that he expects the state to have an “outsized voice” as “the nation is looking to Maryland to decide: Do we nominate Donald Trump and hand the election to Hillary Clinton, or do we unite behind the Cruz campaign and beat Hillary Clinton?”

For Trump, a strong victory in New York could help him recover from several recent setbacks. Earlier this month, he lost the Wisconsin primary to Cruz amid a series of controversies over women’s issues that many critics hoped represented a break in the wave of populist momentum buoying his candidacy.

The campaign also struggled to secure delegates in states, including Wyoming and Colorado, that require deep organization on the ground to secure favorable delegate slates. Cruz, meanwhile, has built up such organizations across the country, resulting in the selection of delegates who favor him. Many of these delegates will be bound to vote for Trump on a first ballot. But if Trump fails to secure an outright majority at the national convention, these delegates would be free to vote for Cruz on a second ballot.

Looking at the polls, the outcome in both contests seems to make the outcome tonight rather apparent, with the only question being just how far ahead in their respective delegate counts Trump and Clinton will be when it’s all said and done.

On the Republican side, Donald Trump has been running away with this race for the past two weeks or more, which perhaps isn’t a surprise given the fact that this is Trump’s home state. With all the final polls taken into account, RealClearPolitics gives Trump (53.1%) a 30.3 point lead over Ohio Governor John Kaisch (22.8 %), with Ted Cruz bringing up the rear in third place at 18.1 %, a number that has shrunk since the focus of the race shifted from Wisconsin to New York and is likely the reason that Cruz has been limiting his time in the Empire State over the past several days. The Pollster numbers are largely the same. The most significant numbers here are both the fact that Trump is polling above 50% and the fact that Cruz is running in third place, because both could have a significant impact on the race for delegates. Under the New York GOP’s delegate allocation rules, Trump would receive all of the 14 at-large delegates if he finishes with more than  50%  of the statewide vote, which seems likely at this point given the polls. In addition to these at-large delegates, there are three delegates at stake in each of the Empire State’s 27 Congressional Districts. If a candidate gets above  50% of the vote in a District, he gets all three of those delegates. If nobody gets above 50% of the vote in a particular District, then the winner gets two delegates and the runner-up gets one delegate as long as they end up with 20% or more of the vote in that district, if not then all three delegates go to the plurality winner. A candidate who comes in third place in a particular District gets no delegates. If no candidate gets the majority of the vote statewide then the 14 at-large delegates are awarded proportionally based on each candidates percentage of the vote. (Source). If Trump’s 50% number holds up statewide and in most Congressional District then he stands likely to walk away with as many as 85 of the 95 delegates at stake today while Ted Cruz and John Kasich will end up dividing up the remaining 15-20 Congressional District delegates. More importantly, to the extent Cruz’s third place standing in the polls is replicated at the District level he is likely to lose significant ground to Trump in the Republican Delegate Count by the time the night is over.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton has maintained a similarly strong lead over Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders notwithstanding the fact that Sanders has held a number of very well attended and enthusiastic rallies across the state over the past two weeks. According to RealClearPolitics, Clinton (53.1%) has an 11.7 point lead over Sanders (41.4%), a gap that has more or less stayed the same since the contest in the Empire State shifted into high gear after Wisconsin. The Pollster numbers are, again, largely the same as those from RCP. As with the Republican race, the fact that Clinton is polling above 50% is potentially significant when it comes to the race for delegates. For Democrats, there are 247 delegates up for grabs today not including the elected officials that make up the unpledged New York Superdelegates. Of that 247, a total of 84  are awarded on a proportional basis based on each candidates statewide vote total. The remaining 163 delegates are divided among the states 27 Congressional Districts, where they are awarded on a proportional basis based on the candidate’s performance in that District. The main difference between how the Democrats do this is that the number of delegates varies from District to District with some Districts having five delegates available and others having as many as seven delegates at stake. (Source) Based on  the polling Clinton stands to win as many as 160 delegates tonight, with Sanders picking up the remainder. This would put Clinton one step closer to the majority she needs to win the nomination and, more importantly, put Sanders into territory where he would need to win an essentially impossible to achieve percentage of the remaining delegates in order to win the nomination.

With all of that in mind, here are my predictions:

Republicans

  • Donald Trump will garner over 50% of the vote statewide, giving him all 14 of the state’s at-large delegates;
  • Trump will also do well enough at the Congressional District level to win at least 70 of the remaining 81 delegates;
  • Ted Cruz will win somewhere between 0 and 5 delegates in total tonight

Democrats

  • Hillary Clinton will win well over 50% of the vote statewide, giving her the majority of 84 at-large delegates;
  • At the District level, Clinton will win the majority of delegates as well, garnering between 105-115 of these delegates;

In other words, by the time the night is over both Trump and Clinton will be in good position in their respective delegate counts to the point where it will become that much more difficult for their opponents to deny them the nomination of their respective parties.

FILED UNDER: 2016 Election, US Politics, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. edmondo says:

    Question: Donald and Hillary are in a rowboat in the middle of the ocean surrounded by sharks. The rowboat begins to sink. Who survives?

    Answer: America

  2. PJ says:

    @edmondo:
    Humor me. Which candidate has your support?

  3. Pch101 says:

    One thing that I know for sure: There is no victory that will mean anything to some of these diehard Sanders supporters. They won’t acknowledge the legitimacy of a Clinton win unless she receives 439% of the vote and leads Sanders by a 743% margin (and even those may not be enough.)

  4. Gustopher says:

    @edmondo: Hillary Clinton is uninspiring, but she’s not dangerous.

    And it really is pretty nice that we could get a slightly left-of-center, historic first female president, and still find her uninspiring. America has changed, at a pretty fundamental level, to find her thoroughly meh, and I think that’s a good change (except the reactionary knuckle draggers that are dominating the Republican Party right now)

  5. C. Clavin says:

    @PJ:
    Well look…Obama managed to get major social reform passed which has slashed the rate of the uninsured in half, reduced health care inflation to the lowest it has EVER been, all while coming in below projected costs. So Republicans like Edmondo have been left no alternative but to nominate an ignorant, bigoted clown.
    Does it really matter which one?

  6. An Interested Party says:

    There is no victory that will mean anything to some of these diehard Sanders supporters. They won’t acknowledge the legitimacy of a Clinton win…

    This, of course, will also apply to many Republicans and conservatives in the fall when she wins the presidency, just as it did with her husband and just as it did/does with our current president…

  7. Joe Gage says:

    The Statute of Liberty shed a tear today.

  8. An Interested Party says:

    A nice big bucket of cold water/reality for all of those people who actually believe that Sanders could win in the fall…

  9. C. Clavin says:

    @An Interested Party:
    This is what I’ve been saying all along.
    Remember what the Republicans did to John Kerry, a friggin’ war hero.
    Now just imagine what they will do to Sanders.

  10. Neil Hudelson says:

    @C. Clavin:

    To be fair to endomondo, I believe his position as of late (it really depends on the day) is that Obama is a DINO and a REAL liberal would’ve accomplished much more. I dunno. Maybe 0% uninsured, and a negative growth in health care costs.

  11. edmondo says:

    @Gustopher:

    Hillary Clinton is uninspiring, but she’s not dangerous.

    The people of Libya, Afghanistan and Syria (and soon America) would beg to differ with you. She’s a warmonger. They are dangerous by definition and inclination.

  12. Tony W says:

    I hear that Trump is planning to celebrate his victory with a hot dog and a 64-ounce Slurpee

  13. gVOR08 says:

    @An Interested Party: They did it to Bill. They do it to Carter retroactively. They’ll do it to Hillary. They can’t run on policy, so they rely on character assassination. They have a well honed machine for it. They’d do it to Gandhi if he ran as a Dem. Heck, they’d do it to Jesus Christ. What Hillary has going for her is that they’ve been doing it for so long it’s just background noise.

  14. al-Ameda says:

    @An Interested Party: They did it to Bill. They do it to Carter retroactively. They’ll do it to Hillary. They can’t run on policy, so they rely on character assassination. They have a well honed machine for it. They’d do it to Gandhi if he ran as a Dem. Heck, they’d do it to Jesus Christ. What Hillary has going for her is that they’ve been doing it for so long it’s just background noise.

    It (25 years of a permanent investigation of all things Clinton) will never end. How many: 8? 9? investigations of Benghazi and Republicans are still trying to fix the result? And Trey Gowdy is prepping to release his Committee Report following the Democratic Conventions and in time for the summer campaign season. Their current fever-dream is that the Committee Report destroys Hillary’s campaign and Donald & Ted’s excellent campaign adventures see the GOP coasting to victory in November.

    Except for the fact that everyone has staked out their opinion on this stuff and there are zero converts to be had – the GOP acid flash might be true.

    Honestly, I’m 50% invested in Dry Cleaning Futures. When Gowdy releases his (Benghazi Email) Committee Report thousands of Republican guys will be creaming in their pants – dry cleaning businesses across the Sunbelt, in the Rocky Mountain states, and in the Plains states, will have more business than they can handle.

  15. Just 'nutha ig'rant cracker says:

    @edmondo: And the three dwarfs on the GOP side are preferable because… ? (I know–because their names don’t start in c-l-I-n and they don’t have a “D” next to their names on the ballot, but please…)

  16. Joe Gage says:

    @Pch101:

    These Sanders folks are very bitter and are the definition of sore losers. I look at posts on the web and Facebook and its unbelievable how they are acting using words like voter fraud and racism to denounce an unfair primary season. I see only intolerance and hate from these people which makes me cringe.

    They don’t want to compromise with anyone and in their feeble attempt to rewrite history, Bill Clinton is now a racist an was an awful president. I’m an Independent my self, a former RINO who is voting for Hillary because she is the only sensible candidate left. I don’t love her, but every single other candidate pretty much frightens me.

  17. Gustopher says:

    @edmondo: We had the exact opposite policies in Libya and Syria, and have basically the same result. Seems like nothing we did was going to work

    What do you blame her for in Afghanistan?

  18. HarvardLaw92 says:

    @Joe Gage:

    I don’t love her, but every single other candidate pretty much frightens me.

    Ditto. I voted for her today here in NY.

    She’s essentially an uber serious policy wonk and she doesn’t thrill me, but the other choices are so resoundingly bad that voting for her was more or less automatic.

  19. Tyrell says:

    An exit poll of Democratic voters showed 60% said that Hillary is “honest and trustworthy”. The used car dealers in New York must have a field day !

  20. Pch101 says:

    @Joe Gage:

    Populist extremists on both sides of the fence are impractical and unwilling to compromise, holding unrealistic expectations of what government is obliged to do in order to accommodate their demands. More of a personality trait gone awry than a coherent political philosophy.

  21. Tyrell says:

    @edmondo: “warmonger” ? And how is that ? It seems like she needs to do some more of this “warmongering” – against ISIS, Benghazi, and North Korea.

  22. ltmcdies says:

    @An Interested Party:

    It’s the “I didn’t personally vote for X so X doesn’t count” theory of politics

  23. Todd says:

    @Pch101:

    One thing that I know for sure: There is no victory that will mean anything to some of these diehard Sanders supporters. They won’t acknowledge the legitimacy of a Clinton

    I acknowledge her win. But I also recognize that the Democratic party has spoken loud and clear that they don’t really care about the concerns of Independent or Millennial voters. You guys got your candidate, now you better hope and pray that the Republicans find some way to take the nomination away from Trump. I think she can probably beat him … but it will be nowhere near as easy as many complacent Democrats seem to believe.

  24. Todd says:

    @Joe Gage:

    I’m an Independent my self, a former RINO who is voting for Hillary

    This makes total sense. Hillary Clinton is basically a moderate Republican on most non-social issues.

  25. Pch101 says:

    @Todd:

    You guys got your candidate

    1. I’m not a Democrat, so “you guys” is an inappropriate label to describe my position.

    2. I am an anti-Republican, so I will vote for whoever has the best chance of beating the Republican. If Sanders was the nominee, then I would vote for him, but I would also expect that the odds that he would lose are greater than they are for Clinton

    3. Clinton has more support than Sanders. So essentially what you are saying is that you really don’t care about what Democrats want, you only insist on getting your way. And that sort of dogmatism is simply going to reduce the odds that you get anything that you want.

    A practical and smart move would be for progressives to lobby for some sort of influence in the administration, such as a VP slot for Sanders and a progressive or two in cabinet positions.

    But hey, if you just want to pout and indulge in self-pity instead of accepting that politics require coalition building with others who don’t share every view that you hold, then you will get nothing and deserve it. Which leaves us with Tea Party, Left Wing Edition.

  26. Todd says:

    @Joe Gage:

    These Sanders folks are very bitter and are the definition of sore losers. I look at posts on the web and Facebook and its unbelievable how they are acting …

    This is the kind of rhetoric that is all too common from Clinton supporters. And you guys are going to actually wonder all fall why the “rift” among Democratic voters won’t be easily healed … and amazingly you’ll continue to blame Sanders supporters for it. The arrogance and condescension by mainstream Democrats is what will continue to turn off non-Clinton primary voters … possibly all the way through the fall.

    For the first time in my life, I kind of “get” the disdain that many of my conservative friends have for Democrats. You treat anybody who doesn’t agree with you as somehow “lesser” … but then you expect these “lesser” citizens who happen to be left of center to vote for your corrupt candidate anyway … because she’s not as bad as the Republicans.

    Good luck with that.

  27. Todd says:

    @Pch101:

    Which leaves us with Tea Party, Left Wing Edition.

    I’m not a left-winger at all. I’m a middle of the road Independent. I think Hillary Clinton will be a competent manager, but a horrible leader. I don’t trust her judgement … across a variety of issues. I was disappointed that Joe Biden chose not to get in the race last fall.

    I also think that this primary campaign has served to highlight how weak Secretary Clinton is as a candidate. I absolutely agree that “on paper”, an 74 year old self described democratic socialist should not have been a serious threat to the Clinton machine. The fact that he was should give Democrats pause in their confidence about an “easy” victory in the fall.

  28. An Interested Party says:

    For the first time in my life, I kind of “get” the disdain that many of my conservative friends have for Democrats. You treat anybody who doesn’t agree with you as somehow “lesser” … but then you expect these “lesser” citizens who happen to be left of center to vote for your corrupt candidate anyway … because she’s not as bad as the Republicans.

    You write that as if the behavior is somehow unique to the people your criticizing…as if Republicans or Sanders supporters treat their political opponents so much better…oh please…

    I absolutely agree that “on paper”, an 74 year old self described democratic socialist should not have been a serious threat to the Clinton machine. The fact that he was should give Democrats pause in their confidence about an “easy” victory in the fall.

    This doesn’t seem quite right…of course Sanders did better than expected in the Democratic primaries because there is a real hunger for liberalism in the party…but to equate his success as a sign of success for the Republican in the fall doesn’t seem accurate, particularly if the Republican is Trump…certainly not an “easy” victory…but his negatives eclipse hers…is there any group left that he hasn’t offended…

  29. Todd says:

    @An Interested Party:

    particularly if the Republican is Trump…certainly not an “easy” victory…but his negatives eclipse hers…

    He is the only candidate in either party who has higher negatives than Clinton. But Clinton is nowhere near her negative ceiling. Her unfavorables will increase as the fall campaign progresses. And really, it’s not at all an unrealistic scenario to imagine that by November she could be more unpopular than Trump. The American electorate has a VERY short memory. His message in the fall is likely to be dramatically different than what we’ve seen during the primary. And since he has much greater skills as a marketer/campaigner, it’s almost inevitable that Hillary Clinton will spend virtually the entire late summer and fall trying to defend daily “unfair” attacks on her character … which a great majority of Americans are predisposed to believe.

    The cake is baked. She’s going to be the only hope of keeping a Republican out of the White House. But I don’t think it’s going to be pretty.

  30. Pch101 says:

    @Todd:

    I absolutely agree that “on paper”, an 74 year old self described democratic socialist should not have been a serious threat to the Clinton machine.

    Except he isn’t a serious threat. He’s in a distant second place.

  31. HarvardLaw92 says:

    The sweet taste of victory … 🙂

    Now on to PA, MD, CT, DE and RI.

  32. HarvardLaw92 says:

    Predictably, the BernieBots are losing their collective minds – asserting that purging of electoral rolls helped Clinton win.

    They must have missed that almost all of it occurred in Brooklyn, and Sanders mostly won Brooklyn. If anything, the irregularities helped him, not Clinton.

    This ends next Tuesday.

  33. KM says:

    @Todd:

    But I also recognize that the Democratic party has spoken loud and clear that they don’t really care about the concerns of Independent or Millennial voters.

    Oh, bull. This Millennial and her friends felt heard just fine when we voted Hillary (well, I didn’t as I’m a registered Independent, I was the driver. (I)s couldn’t vote in either primary today). It’s very presumptuous in claiming both groups just because of the vocal minority screaming out “Can you Feel the Berne” like groupies at a Bieber concert. Clearly enough of us decided to pick her to win so maybe, just maybe Millennials are not the mindless homogeneous group our elders treat us as. Bernie makes lovely promises but promises from politicians aren’t worth the air they’re breathed on.

    A ton of BernieBros on my Facebook feed are livid but will admit to not bothering to go vote (“FoodTruck Tuesday!!!! Was busy and it’s nice out!”). The (I) ones that didn’t bother to switch their registration in time or didn’t even know they had to are blowing up the AG hotlines screaming about voter fraud, when it’s their own damn fault for not learning the rules. What exactly are the Dems supposed to be listening to here?

  34. Pharaoh Narim says:

    @Todd: Interesting take because I find myself actually despising Democrats and Republicans this election season….especially the Democratic Party. They’ve had 8 years to identify, groom, and expose a young energetic/charismatic successor to BO yo the electorate. Instead they’ve been stuck on making Hillary Clinton president….to the point of continually putting her up against candidates they think she should easily beat. After BO beat the brakes off the Clinton campaign bus… the DNC doubled down and put her next to Sanders–a 74 year old white socialist. How convenient.

    At any rate, the rekoning that is happening in the Republican party will soon visit the Democratic party. Too much smugness by the factions that control the Party moves toward the outer factors they need for support. The initial salvos in that conflict are even now being fired.

    Hillary fan will soon learn that there is a sizable portion of the electorate whose top 2 candidates are Sanders, Trump. She should still win behind overwhelming African-American support. But what happens in 2020 When African-Americans have supported the DNC its most loyal demographic and essentially gotten nothing? And don’t give me the White-liberal laundry list starting with ObamaCare. Nobody African-American in a rural or urban ghetto had any of those things on their list as policy changes they needed to change their living conditions. If you think it is you’re probably a white liberal with ” lots of black friends. ”

    This used to be a blog with a formidable comments section…..now it’s mostly DNC water carriers too gutless to highlight the weaknesses in their own policy position. HuffPo Ice would be a good branding analogy. Too bad. Reynolds said this would happen….he was right.

  35. Todd says:

    @KM: All I’m saying is that the Democratic party is likely to have a turnout issue come November, and it will be largely precipitated by the perception that the Democratic establishment has done everything they can to “tilt the scales” in Clinton’s favor since the primary season began. The continued use of pejorative terms such as BernieBros to describe voters who Clinton will want to court in the fall only exasperates the issue.

  36. Pch101 says:

    Clinton won New York with a 15 point spread. Apparently, that isn’t good enough for some people.

    I’m curious to know what percentage of the popular vote that she is supposed to win before it becomes clear to some folks that she is the preferred choice of Democratic voters. Judging from some of the comments, something in the 200% range must be the bare minimum.

  37. Monala says:

    @Pharaoh Narim: I’m African American and so is my husband, and ObamaCare was a huge thing for us. My husband is a diabetic who was uninsured before the ACA. ObamaCare saved his eyesight (laser surgery to correct the damage) and his kidneys, which were down to 30% by the time his ACA insurance kicked in.

  38. Monala says:

    @Monala: my husband’s not alone. The NYT reported on Sunday that immigrants, minorities and low wage workers have had the biggest gains in New coverage under the ACA.

  39. Monala says:

    @Pch101: I agree. It’s like some are ignoring the fact that Clinton is winning because more voters have voted for her. So the Democratic party is supposed to not care about what the majority of their voters want?

  40. Pch101 says:

    @Monala:

    It’s essentially the abusive boyfriend syndrome brought to the political arena.

    She’s never good enough and she always deserves criticism, yet there are no consistent criteria that are used to evaluate her performance.

    It’s worse than just moving the goalposts. No one even knows where the goalposts are, we just know that she never scores a goal.

    Meanwhile, someone else whose inferior performance can be easily quantified is supposedly doing better.

    Yes, this is about as illogical as it gets.

  41. Todd says:

    @An Interested Party:

    A nice big bucket of cold water/reality for all of those people who actually believe that Sanders could win in the fall…

    So for a lot of Democrats, the fear was that Republican attacks could be effective in lowering Bernie Sanders favorability with the general electorate during a fall campaign. What’s mind boggling, is that the “solution” to this “problem” is to nominate a candidate who is already viewed as unfavorably as you fear Sanders might have been? Makes perfect sense.

  42. An Interested Party says:

    What’s mind boggling, is that the “solution” to this “problem” is to nominate a candidate who is already viewed as unfavorably as you fear Sanders might have been?

    But that is the whole point. Hillary is almost universally known, so how much more negatively could she be painted? Meanwhile, Sanders is unknown to a lot of people until only recently…his ceiling for being painted negatively is very high…

  43. Grumpy Realist says:

    I voted for Sanders mainly as a protest vote and because I like a lot of his positions, but will be just as happy to vote for Hillary in the general.

    There’s no difference between the “feel the BEEERN!” Screamers and the Ron Paul fanbois. Loud, prevalent on the Internet, but not bothering to figure out the rules to get registered to vote/not bothering to show up. Typical college kids, in other words.

  44. Todd says:

    @An Interested Party:

    But that is the whole point. Hillary is almost universally known, so how much more negatively could she be painted?

    Are you serious?

    This my biggest fear about complacent Democrats. The extremely mild “attacks” (if you can even call them that) by the Sanders campaign did have a negative effect on Clinton’s already upside down favorability numbers. To imagine that Donald Trump is somehow going to be less effective than a guy who didn’t even want to talk about “her damn emails” is the epitome of naivety.

    If Trump and Clinton are the nominees, she may be slightly less unpopular than he is to start, but she will still have higher unfavorable ratings than any other major party nominee since polling began. And as I said above, while it’s no sure thing, it’s not at all inconceivable that she could end up more upside down in the favorable/unfavorables than Trump by the time we go to the polls in November.

    Democrats who wanted Clinton for her experience, or even because they want to see the first woman President, I get. But Democrats who have convinced themselves that she is not a huge risk when it comes to “electability” are misguided … to put it politely.

  45. KM says:

    @Todd :

    With all due respect, BernieBros is apt to describe the people you are referring to as they are not truly independent-but-likely-leftleaning, undecided voters to swing but committed enthusiasts who really really REALLY want Bernie. Not all are like that, mind you, but a significant amount are not interested in anything other then being appeased because their guy didn’t win by demanding Hillary be Bernie 2.0. There are plenty of Independents and Millennials who favored/ voted for him that are not BernieBros. You can tell the difference in the vitriol being spewed at Hillary for daring to win and ruin his winning streak.

    She represents a different iteration of liberal values then he does; while she can adopt some, she cannot and will not adopt all. This is not abandoning or ignoring a segment of the population but giving the majority what they asked for. BernieBros is becoming a pejorative because they are taking it very personally when the politicians is not giving them what they want and paying special attention to them. It’s rapidly becoming a cult of personality vs support for a politician; its hard to reach out and win someone over when they think you are that evil corporate whore and toss dollar bills at you.

    Think of this like sports teams: BernieBros are those nasty die-hard fans that when they move to another town and still vehemently support their team and start picking fights when the hometown teams celebrates a win. You’re not going to get them to switch sides and frankly nobody wants them at the tailgate if they can’t play nice with others.

  46. Tony W says:

    @KM: I see the disconnect here – you are operating from a perspective that believes people will be elected on the merits of their stated policy positions.

    Name a Trump policy position and I’ll show you documentation (often from the same day) of Trump taking the opposite position.

    This election will be about emotion, probably more than any election in my lifetime.

  47. Moosebreath says:

    @Todd:

    “The arrogance and condescension by mainstream Democrats is what will continue to turn off non-Clinton primary voters ”

    If you look in a mirror, you will see words like “I also recognize that the Democratic party has spoken loud and clear that they don’t really care about the concerns of Independent or Millennial voters.”

    These are words which come across as saying that Bernie is the only candidate who “gets” your concerns, and your concerns are more important than anyone else’s. Older voters, with different perspectives than you, take this as highly arrogant and condescending.

  48. MarkedMan says:

    @Pharaoh Narim:

    They’ve had 8 years to identify, groom, and expose a young energetic/charismatic successor to BO yo the electorate

    I’m curious as to who you think the “they” are here. Running for president is, and always has been, a lonely business. Successful candidates spend years building up alliances and creating shared interests in 50 states (plus 7 territories). You know, like Hillary Clinton has done. They and their staff spend months understanding the arcane voting rules in the 57 elections/caucuses and identifying the ones that they need to put the majority of their resources behind. Like Hillary Clinton has done. And when they start proving themselves by picking up more votes than the competition, only then do the party leaders start to move behind them. In this day and age I don’t see an “establishment” on either the Dem or Repub side that can pick and groom a candidate from red-faced babe to mature front-runner.

    I love Bernie’s message on the issues (on the other hand the accusations that Clinton is constantly sucking up bribes turns me off to no end). But Bernie has a lot of negatives in this process. He did not spend years building relationships with local party officials. He hasn’t campaigned for them, donated funds or even advised them or help them make connections, as Hillary has. In fact, it is pretty obvious he holds the Dems in only slightly less contempt then the Repubs. He’s running as a Democrat and is, at best, indifferent to the prospects of the other members seeking election. He’s running as a Democrat and asking these people for help but it doesn’t even seem to register in his consciousness that they are running their own campaigns and might expect something more than vague waves of his hands if they are going out on a limb to back him.

    Has Bernie ever gone into someone’s territory and took them aside and said “We are in this together and we want the same things and we should support each other”? Has he stood on stage with them and said “I know state representative X and you are lucky to have her as a candidate”? Bernie thinks about Bernie’s issues and about Bernie. He’s a loner who gives off a vibe that everyone else is vaguely (or not so vaguely) dirty, except for him.

    And now that it’s obvious he’s going to lose the popular vote his campaign manager is going to all those local party leaders Bernie has never had the time of day for in the past, aka “the superdelegates”, and asking them to take a huge political risk and dump Hillary for him.

    I’m curious. Why would they?

  49. Todd says:

    @KM:

    Think of this like sports teams … You’re not going to get them to switch sides and frankly nobody wants them at the tailgate if they can’t play nice with others.

    That’s a good analogy, and does sum up the attitude of a lot of Clinton supporters … they don’t even want the hard core Sanders supporters on their side, they really seem to wish they’d just shut up and go away. I suppose this can be viewed as reasonable. Unless and until we get to November and Clinton really really needs their votes in some close races, then mainstream Democrats collectively lose their minds because these voters who they’ve spent months dismissing and denigrating don’t bother to show up at the polls, or horror of horrors vote for a 3rd party candidate instead of Hillary Clinton.

    This is another reason I think the general election is going to be much tighter than many of you are predicting. I don’t really believe Republicans who say they won’t vote for Trump if he’s the nominee. I think there’s almost a reverse Bradley effect. They won’t admit to supporting Trump publicly, but in the privacy of the voting booth, given a choice between him and Clinton, there’s no way they’ll vote for her. On the other hand, based on history, when young voters say they might stay home, or hard-core liberals say someone like Jill Stein will now get their vote, there’s little reason not to believe them.

  50. Pch101 says:

    @Moosebreath:

    In addition, many committed Democrats would prefer to have a candidate who is, er, a Democrat.

    I am not and probably never will be a member of the Democratic party, but even I can respect the fact that they would want one of their own to lead their party, instead of some other guy who is using them for his convenience. If he was serious about this, then he should have joined the party years ago and built some relationships that could have helped him now.

  51. Todd says:

    @Moosebreath: You’re missing the whole point. If (as looks almost certain) Hillary Clinton is going to be the nominee, it’s up to her and her supporters to try to unite the party by winning back those who did not vote for her in the primary. The more name calling and “well they’re doing it too” BS that continues to go on, the harder that’s going to be.

    For some of the “Bernie Bros/Bots” it may be an impossible task.

    But for those (and I’ll include myself I suppose) who may be a little more soft with their “never” pronouncements, the longer the smug “we won, you lost, now shut up” attitude continues, the more set in stone that “never” is likely to become.

  52. Moosebreath says:

    @Todd:

    “The more name calling and “well they’re doing it too” BS that continues to go on, the harder that’s going to be.”

    Fascinating. So you want a candidate who strongly implies that his opponent is corrupt, and when the opponent fights back, that’s what you find offensive. And if she had just taken his criticism and never responded in kind, you would have a better opinion of her.

    You are entitled to your opinion, of course, but I would think less of Hillary if she did so. Or as Josh Marshall put it years ago:

    “One way — perhaps the best way — to demonstrate someone’s lack of toughness or strength is to attack them and show they are either unwilling or unable to defend themselves — thus the rough slang I used above. And that I think is a big part of what is happening here. Someone who can’t or won’t defend themselves certainly isn’t someone you can depend upon to defend you.”

  53. Monala says:

    @Todd: I asked this on another thread: what in your mind should Clinton do? What would unifying the party and successfully reaching out to Sander’s voters look like to you?

  54. gVOR08 says:

    @Tony W:

    Name a Trump policy position and I’ll show you documentation (often from the same day) of Trump taking the opposite position.

    Kind of like Romney and McCain that way. I think I see a pattern.

  55. Pch101 says:

    @Todd:

    it’s up to her and her supporters to try to unite the party by winning back those who did not vote for her in the primary.

    Except people like you don’t want anything to do with unity or the compromises that would entail, you just want to get your way.

    This is exactly like the Tea Party. They sulk when they don’t win, yet they also don’t want to work with anyone else even though they’ve lost. They want all of the benefits of winning without the win.

  56. Just 'nutha ig'rant cracker says:

    @An Interested Party: Todd doesn’t like Hillary. He’s already admitted that in previous posts, so there are no limit to the degree to which Hillary disapproval should go. If her approval rating was zero, he’d be calling for a way to establish negative numbers for the system (“yes, but how much below zero do you disapprove of her?”).

  57. Just 'nutha ig'rant cracker says:

    @Todd: And Todd, himself, establishes my point in almost the very next post. I should have read further before posting.

  58. Todd says:

    @Monala:

    what in your mind should Clinton do? What would unifying the party and successfully reaching out to Sander’s voters look like to you?

    For one thing, if the Clinton campaign is truly confident that they have the nomination all but wrapped up, then the attacks on Sanders should stop immediately … they are counterproductive to the goal of uniting the party.

    @Moosebreath:

    … when the opponent fights back, that’s what you find offensive.

    It’s disingenuous to pretend that Clinton has merely been “fighting back”. The difference between the Clintons and Sanders is that when Sanders has something to say it comes out of his own mouth. The Clintons, having had much more practice in the “artful smear” rely on their surrogates. There has been a negative campaign against Bernie Sanders from the moment he started drawing large crowds and began to look like he might be a threat in Iowa.

    @Pch101:

    Except people like you … This is exactly like the Tea Party.

    People like me? You don’t even know me. lol, and to call me “like the Tea Party” simply because I think nominating someone like Hillary Clinton is a really big mistake is certainly not going to do anything to get me to change my mind on the subject.

  59. Todd says:

    @Just ‘nutha ig’rant cracker:

    If her approval rating was zero, he’d be calling for a way to establish negative numbers for the system

    LOL, how quickly the commentariat here can turn on a person. You guys are treating me like I’m JKB or something. I don’t personally wish to see Clinton’s numbers go down. I have said that I don’t want a Republican in the White House. Objectively though, there’s no good reason to expect that they won’t decline further during a knock down drag out general election campaign with Donald Trump.

  60. Just 'nutha ig'rant cracker says:

    @Monala: Todd has no “what should Hillary do,” he just hates her with “the hatred of a thousand blazing suns” as the phrase goes. And even if he did and Hillary did all of the things he asked, he’d still say “nope, not enough.”

  61. An Interested Party says:

    Are you serious?

    Quite…you act as if she hasn’t already had to face serious attacks, which is ridiculous considering all the attacks on her by Republicans for the past 20+ years…and the latest, that she will be indicted for Benghazi? Please…

    Meanwhile, Republicans have held their fire, for the most part, with Sanders…they’re probably salivating for him to be the Democratic nominee in the fall…the hammer and sickle commercials will write themselves…

    If (as looks almost certain) Hillary Clinton is going to be the nominee, it’s up to her and her supporters to try to unite the party by winning back those who did not vote for her in the primary.

    As I mentioned on another thread, the people who are saying this about her now didn’t seem to hold the same standard for Obama in 2008…in the end, all the people who are voting for either candidate need to come together in the fall, unless they hold the delusional fantasy like Susan Sarandon that Trump wouldn’t be that bad as president…

  62. Moosebreath says:

    @Todd:

    “It’s disingenuous to pretend that Clinton has merely been “fighting back”. The difference between the Clintons and Sanders is that when Sanders has something to say it comes out of his own mouth.”

    No, that’s called fighting back. It’s not Hillary’s fault that Bernie does not have surrogates of similar stature.

    “There has been a negative campaign against Bernie Sanders from the moment he started drawing large crowds and began to look like he might be a threat in Iowa.”

    No, it really hasn’t been going on since Bernie started drawing large crowds (which would have been last summer). It’s been going on for the past few weeks, and has been largely a response to Bernie changing tactics from attacking Hillary’s policies on substantive grounds to attacking her ethics personally (and thus giving free ammunition to the eventual Republican nominee.

    Although this was not directed at me, I will respond: “For one thing, if the Clinton campaign is truly confident that they have the nomination all but wrapped up, then the attacks on Sanders should stop immediately … they are counterproductive to the goal of uniting the party.”

    A truce like that needs to work both ways. I strongly suspect that if Bernie stopped staying Hillary is personally corrupt, Hillary would also stop the attacks on Bernie.

  63. Just 'nutha ig'rant cracker says:

    @Todd: On this issue, you are JKB, dude.

  64. Pch101 says:

    @Todd:

    Perhaps you ought to accept the fact that you represent perhaps 10% of the electorate. Which is to say, not that many people.

    There are a few implications to this:

    -You don’t have a majority, so unless you’re planning to have some sort of violent coup, you can’t possibly expect to get that much of what you want

    -If you want to get anything out of the system, then you will need to form alliances with people with whom you disagree in many areas.

    -Since those allies with whom you disagree outnumber you, you have to expect that they will probably get more out of the subsequent horse trading than you will, since they have more leverage. But if you play it right, then you will get some of what you want.

    That’s how politics work. If you don’t have enough votes on your own, then you need to trade some things in order to get them, which will inevitably require a lot of compromise.

    Being that we don’t have a multiparty proportional representation form of government here, you need to join one of the major parties if you wish to have a place at this table. Manage your expectations accordingly.

  65. KM says:

    @Todd:

    This is another reason I think the general election is going to be much tighter than many of you are predicting. I don’t really believe Republicans who say they won’t vote for Trump if he’s the nominee.

    So you can understand why Democrats don’t really believe Left-leaning Independents who say they won’t vote for Hillary if she’s the nominee. It’s literally the same logic coming from the emotional place and expressed in the same fashion. It sounds remarkable like someone saying another’s faith isn’t true but theirs is because they know it in their heart.

    Serious question for you: why don’t you believe they are sincere? Why do you think Bernie supporters are? How do you expect outsiders to determine this? Not trying to hassle you but I’m honestly curious how you are not connecting the “condescending” behavior towards BernieBros you keep referring to with this concept. Can you elaborate?

  66. KM says:

    @Tony W:

    I see the disconnect here – you are operating from a perspective that believes people will be elected on the merits of their stated policy positions.

    Guilty as charged 🙂

    The standard convention seems to be voters are wild and passionate and thus will vote their hearts. That they will vote for who they like best. The things is this election will be about who you hate least between two incredibly well-known quantities. In the end, it will like be a margin of error for favorabilities with a person: you like/dislike Trump within a +/- 20 pt range for the entire duration of this election. Everyone is already set on whether they are hating on Hillary or Trump – it’s just a matter of how much. The driver on that is policy.

    Take Trump’s wall. If you thought he was an a-hole before that (-25) and then think he’s really an a-hole afterwards (-35), you still within the range. To paraphrase, not falling so much as vaguely sauntering downwards. Even in this emotionally charged election, its policy or whatever passes for it that’s pushing extremity of belief.

  67. KM says:

    @Todd:

    the longer the smug “we won, you lost, now shut up” attitude continues, the more set in stone that “never” is likely to become.

    Gonna go back to my sports analogy here. If your team lost the conference and thus don’t qualify for the SuperBowl, you lost. It’s over, finito, see you next year. The guy in the bar/office/circle of friends that vociferously complains about it for the next few months is going to quickly lose listeners while everyone else is going to pick a SuperBowl side (even if only to root for injuries). While they will sympathize with the team that lost, they will have moved on to the Big Game.

    Dwelling on the loss does nothing positive. Angrily holding out and complaining the winning team doesn’t use your tactics, have your favorite players and are just nasty dirty cheats will get you an STFU. Expecting people to continually listen to how your team should have won is wearying for them and entitled behavior for you. Get pissy when told to “knock it off already, we’re watching the game” is how you don’t get invited to the SuperBowl party in the first place.

  68. gVOR08 says:

    @KM: My personal opinion FWIW is that like the PUMAs in ’08, most of the Bernie supporters will vote for Hillary. Trump will look pretty scary. The exception is the younger supporters. They won’t vote. Youth turnout’s always been bad. I expect there are some ‘burn the place down’ Bernie supporters who will switch to a different flavor of ‘burn the place down’, but I would think very small numbers.

    Republicans will all line up behind Trump. The supposed elite will realize he has an R after his name. The base will recognize him as one of their tribe. Conservatives are protofasch display a lot of in-group and hierarchical loyalty. There’s a reason people say Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line. CRepublicans are kiss up, kick down kind of people.

  69. MarkedMan says:

    Hillary’s negatives are a concern. If Kasich is the eventual nominee, or Ryan, they will be pretty worrisome. Against Trump or Cruz significantly less so.

    But there is also something else in Clinton’s history that is extremely relevant – her 2000 and 2006 campaigns for Senator in NY. The Repubs relied on her negatives and the fact that “everybody” hates Hillary. But Hillary is actually pretty innocuous. The majority of voters, the ones who don’t really form opinions until the general, were somewhat surprised by the real Hillary as opposed to the monster they had been told about. She won both elections.

  70. Grewgills says:

    @Todd:
    Here’s why I think you are wrong about her numbers going down in the general (assuming the likely Sanders support at that time), anyone he can convince of her negatives was long ago convinced. The right wing and strong R leaners already hate her and wouldn’t vote for anyone with a D after her name regardless. The danger in Sanders and some of his supporters is they attack her where she is strongest. Their attacks can find fertile ground with some of her base, where Trump’s cannot.
    In the end I’m confident that Sanders will come around and endorse Clinton and probably campaign for her. All but his most ardent and disillusioned supporters will as well. There will be some bitter clingers who won’t. Those bitter clingers are on FB today ranting about how Clinton stole New York, because election results are never different than the exit poll they saw or heard about online. In the end, after the primary campaign and its attendant vitriol has passed I think you will come around too.

  71. Todd says:

    @Grewgills:

    Here’s why I think you are wrong about her numbers going down in the general

    Fair enough. Unless something very dramatically bad takes place with the Clinton campaign in the next couple of months, we’ll never really know what would have happened to Sanders popularity in a general election. It’s all conjecture, and at the moment he has a net positive favorability, so there is literally no evidence to support the theory. But it’s pretty much academic, so not worth debating any further.

    As for Clinton, I honestly hope I turn out to be wrong. But again, there is no evidence to suggest that she’s suddenly going to become more popular in a general election campaign where many of the same “character” and “judgement” issues will continue to be highlighted daily, in a much more forceful manner.

    Time will tell.

  72. Todd says:

    @Just ‘nutha ig’rant cracker:

    Todd has no “what should Hillary do,” he just hates her with “the hatred of a thousand blazing suns” as the phrase goes. And even if he did and Hillary did all of the things he asked, he’d still say “nope, not enough.”

    lol, I really hope I’m reading this correctly as you being intentionally overly dramatic. I seriously think some of you are projecting things you’ve heard from other Sanders’ supporters onto me. I really don’t have any personal animosity towards Hillary Clinton. I’ve said from the beginning that my main beef with Democrats is that she is a flawed candidate who is self-admittedly not a very good campaigner. That makes her a big risk in such an important election.

    I also don’t view questions about her judgement, and to a lesser extent her character to be just “right wing talking points”. Without even having to believe that anything nefarious was involved with the private email server or the paid Wall Street speeches, it’s virtually undeniable that both showed remarkably bad political judgement.

    Issue wise, I probably agree with Clinton a great majority of the time. Where I have the greatest concern is her views on Israel, where I think she will have a much closer relationship with Bibi Netanyahu that President Obama did; and that’s not a good thing. I’m also not at all confident in her likely choices for Treasury and Justice Dept positions. Much like has happened during the past 7 years of the Obama administration, blatant fraud in the financial sector will likely continue to not be punished.

    But to say that I “hate” her is just not accurate.

    lol, if you knew me at all you’d realize just how wrong that statement is. I don’t hate anybody in this world, including my ex wife. 🙂

  73. Pharaoh Narim says:

    @Monala: That’s very awesome and I’m glad you fall into the win category of this policy. However, personal anecdotes do not impeach my statement. People in many African-American communities, particularly impoverished ones ( for that matter ANY impoverished community) thinking “God if we only had health care” You get to that level after you’re sure you can reliably pay the rent, gas up the tank, keep the lights on, etc. If you’re poor and get sick…you can always get emergency care. Preventive care is a luxury that takes a back seat to other concerns.

  74. Pharaoh Narim says:

    @MarkedMan: They…would be the DNC. You know….the organization who’s in charge of getting Democrats elected.

  75. MarkedMan says:

    @Pharaoh Narim:

    They…would be the DNC

    I’m not a party insider so I could well be wrong, but I think we are at least several decades past where the DNC or it’s predecessors had much influence in picking a candidate. They support the nominees, and pick which ones they will put the most resources behind, but I don’t think they are doing all that much grooming.

  76. An Interested Party says:

    But what happens in 2020 When African-Americans have supported the DNC its most loyal demographic and essentially gotten nothing? And don’t give me the White-liberal laundry list starting with ObamaCare. Nobody African-American in a rural or urban ghetto had any of those things on their list as policy changes they needed to change their living conditions.

    Really? So no black people wanted access to decent healthcare? And such access wouldn’t do anything to change their living conditions for the better?

    If you’re poor and get sick…you can always get emergency care. Preventive care is a luxury that takes a back seat to other concerns.

    Are you saying that poor and sick people aren’t able to realize that preventative care can help them and just want to always run to the emergency room?

  77. Matt says:

    @Pharaoh Narim: No you can’t actually. ERs are only required to stabilize you. That means if you have a broken leg all they have to do is make sure you’re not going to die from it and they can then kick you out. They aren’t even legally required to put you in a cast.

    People die in this country because of ERs kicking them out after supposedly stabilizing them.

    If you don’t qualify for a local indigent program you will be hounded for the rest of your life by bill collectors for that ER visit. They will garnish your wages and make it impossible for you to get anything done that requires a credit score check. When you’re poor such a thing is basically a death sentence.

  78. Pharoah Narim says:

    @An Interested Party:

    Do you have a reading comprehension problem? Did I say no black people benefited from or wanted better access to health care? Of course I didn’t. I said it wasn’t highly prioritized–and it wasn’t/isn’t. Its a white-working class and middle class high priority because they don’t have to worry about most of the other problems minorities have to deal with. Will people take it because it available? Hell yeah. That doesn’t mean it addresses issues most important to them.

    @Matt:

    That’s not how people think when they are barely living paycheck to paycheck. Once again, concerns about credit scores are a middle class and up concern. What’s important when you’re struggling is to get what you need NOW and worry about the rest letter. Credit Score??? Please……..

    I find it hilarious that many of the commenters here are cognizant of the Republican expressions of white privilege but blind to their own–reflected by an obvious lack of ability to identify with people who effectively lead sustenance lifestyles.

  79. Matt says:

    @Pharoah Narim: What the fuck do you think I’m doing? Your condescending bullshit isn’t helpful. Try actually reading what I type and not what your assumptions say.

    When you’re paycheck to paycheck you’re damned well going to be worried about every little cough or mild fever. You’re going to be worried day to day that you might get injured and lose out on work. The worst fear being an illness or injury requiring a hospital visit. Because not only are you losing out on pay but you’re also inevitably going to deal with what I stated earlier. A shit credit score means you cannot get a car when your current one dies. A shit credit score means people are even less likely to rent a home/apartment to you. A shit credit score limits your ability to try to recover from a financially devastating problem. A shit credit score will even limit your job options. A shit credit score is a milestone around your neck dragging you under the financially as you’re trying to keep your head above water.

    It’s clear you’re living in a completely different world from those of us who are REALLY living paycheck to paycheck.

  80. Matt says:

    @Pharoah Narim: What the hell do you think I’m doing? Your condescending bullshit isn’t helpful. Try actually reading what I type and not what your assumptions say.

    When you’re paycheck to paycheck you’re damned well going to be worried about every little cough or mild fever. You’re going to be worried day to day that you might get injured and lose out on work. The worst fear being an illness or injury requiring a hospital visit. Because not only are you losing out on pay but you’re also inevitably going to deal with what I stated earlier (also potentially losing your job). A crap credit score means you cannot get a car when your current one dies. A crap credit score means people are even less likely to rent a home/apartment to you. A crap credit score limits your ability to try to recover from a financially devastating problem. A crap credit score will even limit your job options. A crap credit score is a milestone around your neck dragging you under the financially as you’re trying to keep your head above water.

    It’s clear you’re living in a completely different world from those of us who are REALLY living paycheck to paycheck.

  81. Matt says:

    @Pharoah Narim: You’re describing short sighted poor people who have given up all hope of ever getting ahead in life (or are too lazy to care/etc). To group all poor people into that same mindset is highly insulting to those of us who ARE TRYING to get ahead in life and station.

  82. An Interested Party says:

    Do you have a reading comprehension problem? Did I say no black people benefited from or wanted better access to health care? Of course I didn’t. I said it wasn’t highly prioritized–and it wasn’t/isn’t. Its a white-working class and middle class high priority because they don’t have to worry about most of the other problems minorities have to deal with. Will people take it because it available? Hell yeah. That doesn’t mean it addresses issues most important to them.

    How insulting to black people to write that they can’t properly prioritize their needs…my reading comprehension is just fine, the real problem is your pathetic stereotypical thinking about how other people live…

  83. Monala says:

    @Pharoah Narim:

    Once again, concerns about credit scores are a middle class and up concern.

    Nope, you’re absolutely wrong. Friends of mine who work in public housing and community agencies serving low-income communities (mostly people of color) say that one of the biggest financial questions people ask about is credit scores. Credit scores affect whether or not you can rent an apartment, whether or not you can get a cell phone, sometimes whether or not you can get a job.

  84. Matt says:

    @Monala: Yeah he actually made me mad with his condescending post. Here I am living paycheck to paycheck and this schmuck has the nerve to call me middle class. I don’t even own a TV and despite last year being the best year ever for me I’m still well below the federal poverty line…

    That’s why I had to go back and make a censored version of my post.

  85. Pharoah Narim says:

    @Monala: “Friends of mines that live in public housing….blah blah blah….” Have you lived in public housing? I have! So don’t lecture me about 2nd hand knowledge you got from someone else. Once again….we have a reading comprehension problem. Did I ever say credit scores don’t affect people’s lives? They do. Is a credit score going to affect decisions people need for necessities they have to have TODAY….ABSOLUTELY NOT! If it did Title Loan companies wouldn’t be so profitable.

    Have you ever had to ruin your credit score to get medical care……probably not. So don’t lecture me about what some friends told you. I’ve walked in those shoes.

    @An Interested Party: No its insulting that you don’t have the life context to understand that people have to make hard decisions….and because its not the decision you’d make given your income level…..its must be a bad decision. Insurance is a luxury when you have a family that has basic needs that will go unmet if you pay the insurance. The fact that you think its irrational to forgo basic need because of concerns like insurance and credit score is good proof that you have no empathy for people in those situations. To accuse me of condescending to people in that situation is the real insult because you don’t know what you’re talking bout. To be accurate…I was condescending to people that think like you.

    @Matt: Dude, you think you’re the only God Damn person struggling in the US? You must…because apparently, they all have to make the same decisions Matt makes or they aren’t poor like him– give me a break and stop being a jerk. Who they hell wouldn’t he worried they will get really sick and lose income….I have–many do. Everybody stuggling has to roll the dice somewhere and Im sorry, if people in your demographic think their credit score is important enough to be the primary influence on decisions made….well good on them. Many don’t….they buy cash cars with income tax return money or work out an under the table deal for financing. There is always low quality housing landlords who are more concerned about background checks for tenants than credit scores–because most of the people looking to rent their place have screwed up credit anyway. So you can save your lectures for me as well….I don’t know what the hell income bracket you are…and you sure as hell don’t know what mines is or has been. One only had to look at the number of people across the US with bad credit–really across the income spectrum–to see that, like business and taxes, these factors are not PRIMARY influences on financial decisions. When you’re poor you just happen to be forced into more bad decisions and to make some gambles that end up on your credit. Oh well…that what they make Call Block for.

    At the end of the day….your experience is yours and mines is mines but don’t come at me like Im speaking from some ivory tower dude. You have no more credibility on this than I do.

  86. Matt says:

    Title loan companies are so prevalent BECAUSE POOR PEOPLE HAVE SHIT CREDIT. Like I said earlier crap credit limits your ability to recover from a financially devastating situation. Thanks for furthering my point about why having bad credit is a problem as a poor person.

    No I don’t think I’m the only one with problems. I was just correcting you’re incredibly inaccurate assumptions about me. If you hadn’t been such an arrogant little condescending dick you wouldn’t even heard of the fraction of my life story that I gave. It’s really sad that you cannot even see that you’re the one being an asshole. All I did was provide facts proving you wrong and you can’t handle being wrong it seems. Since arguing the facts is failing for you’ve moved on to trying to tear me down as a person. How republican of you.

    Everybody stuggling has to roll the dice somewhere and Im sorry, if people in your demographic think their credit score is important enough to be the primary influence on decisions made

    This purely a fantasy of your own creation. You’re just making up stuff and claiming I said it. If you want to go beat up a strawman do it on your own website and stop wasting Jame’s bandwidth and my time with your made up crap.

    Many don’t….they buy cash cars with income tax return money or work out an under the table deal for financing.

    Financing WHICH IS BASED ON YOUR CREDIT SCORE.. HELLO MCFLY ARE YOU IN THERE? Thanks for once again proving my point that poor people can and do worry about their credit score.

    There is always low quality housing landlords who are more concerned about background checks for tenants than credit score

    Probably and in my case they were located in the full on ghetto. You know the area where people like you go “well why don’t you move to a better place”. The ones that weren’t in the ghetto were either in incredibly inconvenient locations (yes I’d like to drive an hour + just to get to my minimum wage job) or wanted rent payments and security deposits that were well above the normal rates. I looked for months for a new place and only found one just a week before I had to leave my current place. So yeah the probably exist depending on where you live but good luck finding a decent one.

    and you sure as hell don’t know what mines is or has been.

    I don’t care. You’re the one that tried to imply that I was middle class and that I have no real clue about what it means to be poor.

    One only had to look at the number of people across the US with bad credit–really across the income spectrum–to see that, like business and taxes, these factors are not PRIMARY influences on financial decisions.

    You could also look at that and say boy it’s hard to get good credit and life is hard. You could also say that’s proof that even rich people make bad decisions and are only rich because mommy and daddy started them off that way (Trump for example). You’re trying to make a connection that no serious researcher would ever try to do. It’s laughable what you’re trying to say.

    .your experience is yours and mines is mines but don’t come at me like Im speaking from some ivory tower dude. You have no more credibility on this than I do

    .
    You’re the one that started this crap with your assumption that I and others commenting here live in an Ivory tower. Now like Trump you’re calling foul claiming we’re actually the ones making the assumptions.

    You’re a chump that can’t handle being wrong and thinks so highly of themselves that they cannot even be bothered to properly read the opinions or experiences of others. Why bother when you already have a strawman in your head ready to be beat up.

  87. Matt says:

    @Matt: Also having a shit credit score ensures that even “under table” deals will have a ton of interest…Once again it’s expensive being poor.

    I bought my current car in late 07 with cash. Cash that didn’t include my income tax refund as my refunds are barely there. Unless you have kids you really don’t get much in the way of a refund when you are making well under the poverty level.

    Which you not being aware of that isn’t terribly surprising.