Listen, Max, if you have an idea beyond "Lose with honour and dignity" feel free to chime the **** in, but ****ting on "doing something different because it hasn't won" is a tough line to take when what we've done before just ****ing lost.

If we're saying the DemE is incompetent, you can't answer that charge by saying we're incompetent for failing to persuade them, because again, THEY'RE INCOMPETENT. 'Not listening to good advice' is the very life-essence of incompetence, the only soil in which it can truly flourish.

And what's the SMOLDIC game-plan, anyway? Try again and hope for the best?

I'm not the one claiming we would have won if me and my moron friends were in charge. Other people are.

Grade A morons, would you say?

I guess the Cavs should just trade Lebron and start tanking, lest they be accused of trying again and hoping for the best.

SMOLDIC ain't no Lebron. But if you don't have an answer, you don't have an answer.

But this evasion and question-ducking is beneath you. Come left, Max.

They couldn't get into Bovine University for sure.

The sports analogy is horrible.

You can't expect me to swallow this tripe.

According to wikipedia, this was the third-highest turnout since 1968, behind 2004 (55.7%) and the historic 2008 (58.2%). In other words: (1) there's no reason to believe that presidential voter turnout can be moved much higher absent exceptional circumstances, and (2) the GOP won two of the three elections with the highest turnouts anyways.

Basing your strategy around trying to convince people who are too ****ing useless to show up to vote against Trump is just foolish. Even if you find the candidate who perfectly represents the values of the ****ing useless, they're not going to do anything for you, because they're ****ing useless.

What does me not being left enough for your taste have to do with anything? Do i have to take the red pill (a concept/meme we all rightfully mocked conservatives/libertarians to justify why their ideas don't make sense to so many) to get why DemE is incompetent but ya'll arent

I mean look around you, man. Be reasonable, demand the impossible.

Read post #600.

a) Bunch of unpopular people with unpopular policies who lost because they're unpopular and bad at campaigning

b) Bunch of less unpopular people with less unpopular policies who ran it close in the primaries despite entrenched party opposition

Even if it's a push, which lolno, I don't see why you wouldn't take a punt.

Inspired by earlier Dvaut1 posts, a proposal:

Democrats arrange their primary schedule as:

1. Mississippi
2. Louisiana
3. Georgia
4. Maryland

When Iowa & NH try to jump the gun, count it as 0 and hold a real event there later. The democratic party get to decide how and when to pick its leaders, not Iowa or NH.

What do people think the effects would be? Is it obvious why I picked that order?

A study was just published comparing turnout effects from more or less moderate candidates in 2006-12 House races, showing that their party's share of the vote in the general election decreased for more extremist candidates.

I've only read the abstract so far, but:

This was why we all thought Trump would lose, isn't it? Or it was certainly a dominant flavour in the Sandwich of Wrong we're still eating.

Also, it's likely just a question of terminology, but I'm not sure 'extremist candidates' would typically be expected to 'fire up the base'.

And i'm saying "entrenched party opposition" is your "collusion with the Russians." Progressives are eager to point out that Hillary's loss requires soul searching...blaming others for pseudo-legal electioneering is just a cop out for her, and by extension my, terribleness. But Bernie's loss requires no soul searching from progressives......he lost cuz of psuedo-legal electioneering and not his or your terribleness. Consistent? Sure. Convincing? Hardly.

Just to point out, I've never made any claims that any of it was unfair or underhand. It's just that primary voters are not general voters. We know Bernie would have lost the primary, because Bernie did lose the primary. But, equally, we know Clinton would have lost the general, because she did lose the general. And on aggregate, that's not some outlier - see again, state legislatures, governorships, Congress, the Senate. At every ****ing hand's turn, the Democrats have been losing, losing, losing.

So: everything you've been trying has failed miserably. What have you got?

Ok....but I'v.e also never made any claims that Hillary's loss was unfair or underhanded. Some Hillary supporters and some Bernie supporters are making that exact claim about why their candidate lost. I don't get why soul searching is required for me but somehow not you.

If you don't like the label, the claim is that party vote share decreases as a function of the ideological distance of the candidate from the district.

As for Trump, I don't think he ran as ideologically more extreme than a standard Republican candidate, so that isn't really relevant to this thesis.

In general, it looks to me like you are reading too much into a single election. After all, Hillary ran a relatively similar campaign ideologically to Obama, who won both of his elections. In general we shouldn't derive conclusions on the basis of a single data point. For instance, it is faulty logic (and on 2p2 you should know this) to claim that because Hillary lost that we know that Hillary would have lost. Supposing there is a significant amount of randomness in elections, then in an election with a result as close as this we can't even derive that Trump was favored against Hillary based on his victory.

Indeed, you seem damn near allergic to making actual claims.

What do you think the Democrats should do, going forward?

Yes, but they make this claim by way of asserting that extremist candidates fire up the opponent's base. More on which below.

This may be fair enough. Why, then, have the Democrats continued to lose while moving to the centre, while the Republicans have continued to win while doing just the opposite? In particular, how can this be squared with the relative polling performances of their respective policy items?

All the way ITT, I've been talking about the creeping Republican hegemony since ~08. You happened to pop in at the one point I was specifically discussing the primary and general in isolation.

What makes you think Democrats have been moving to the center? Hillary, to my eye, ran further to the left than Obama (no doubt in part because of pressure from Bernie voters). As for how it is consistent with polling performance of survey questions - I don't know? People vote differently than how they answer poll questions? Intensity is more important than top-line numbers? This study doesn't apply more generally?

Fair enough.

I think what the Donkeys are missing, is that we live in a republic. So I propose the following...

1. Every congresscritter represents 134557.45 people. That means every congresscritter that misses a vote is the same as 134557.45 people missing a vote. So the Donkeys should shift their get-out-the-vote effort from the people to the congresscritters.

2. They should take a page from the Elephants, and start suppressing votes. Note however, every Elephant congresscritter's vote they can suppress is the same as 134557.45 Elephant people's votes suppressed. So, they should focus on suppressing the Elephant congresscritter's votes.

I hope this helps. Go team Donkey !!!1!

I think it was all because of that. I think Clinton represents a class of Democrat fatally compromised by a combination of reliance on utterly cynical yet entirely outmoded theories of politicking and top-heavy campaign donations.

I think the Democrats have been moving to the centre because they have been. Welfare 'reforms', endless means-testing, concessions on gun control in the teeth of widespread support for modest increases in same, folding on the public option, etc. All driven by the essence of those outmoded Clintonist theories: triangulation. Triangulation, fundamentally, is moving to the centre.