Presidential Election Aftermath: What Now / What Next?

As much as I doubt it, I can't say it would be past the DNC's ethics

 

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Clinton Benefits From US Media’s Misleading Reporting Of Delegate Counts
by
Kevin Gosztola

• 

(Photo: Barbara Kinney/Hillary for America)

The vast majority of U.S. establishment media organizations report Democratic Party “super delegates,” as if they are part of the delegate totals presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are winning in primaries. However, this is incredibly misleading, and whether intended or not, it essentially serves to strengthen Clinton’s campaign against Sanders.

The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Associated Press report Clinton has 1,121 delegates after primaries and caucuses in Kansas, Nebraska, and Louisiana. The outlets report Sanders has 481 delegates. These numbers are untruthful.

True and accurate numbers are the following: after “Super Saturday,” Clinton has 663 pledged delegates. Sanders has 459 pledged delegates. Clinton needs 1,720 delegates to win. Sanders needs 1,924 delegates to win.

"And any media outlet, which reports 'super delegates' as part of one lump sum, is doing the Clinton campaign a huge favor, whether that outlet intends to do so or not."

Sanders is a few hundred delegates behind Clinton, and Clinton has over a thousand delegates to go before she clinches the nomination. Put like that, one’s view of the race is probably dramatically different than the views being pushed by establishment media outlets.

The above numbers are accurate because “super delegates,” or party leaders, can shift their support at any time. If Sanders wins more primaries than Clinton, there is no reason to think the vast majority of “super delegates” would defy voters and go with Clinton over Sanders. Doing so would be devastating for the party, especially going into an election against a populist Republican candidate like Donald Trump.

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting’s Jim Naureckas has called attention to the fact that the Times used to report delegate counts as if they were only a result of “voters who mattered.” Naureckas wrote, “The unpledged superdelegates can only indicate who they intend to vote for, which is not necessarily who they will actually vote for; they can and in the past havechanged their minds. Counting them the same as pledged delegates is a bit like counting delegates from states that haven’t voted yet because voters in those states tell pollsters they intend to vote for one candidate or the other. They may or may not feel differently when the time comes.”

In 2008, when Clinton ran against then-Senator Barack Obama, the Times treated the number of pledged delegates as the accurate and current delegate count in the race. The Times counted “only delegates that have been officially selected and are bound by their preferences.”

“The way the media has been reporting this is incorrect,” DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said on MSNBC on February 27. “There aren’t pledged delegates, i.e. super delegates, earned at any of these primary or caucus contests. Those unpledged delegates are elected officials, party leaders, people who have spent years and years in the Democratic Party. Members of Congress, our DNC members are super delegates. And they have the ability to decide who they choose to support at the convention at any point.”

“They’re really free to decide all the way up until July,” Wasserman Schultz added. She later added that combining “super delegates” with “pledged delegates” from primaries or caucuses at each phase of the contest does not provide an “accurate picture” of how this works.

In other words, when MSNBC puts up graphics like this, it is not reporting the truth of what is unfolding in the primary race:


It also is important to acknowledge Google has a data visualization for each primary result that appears when people are searching for news related to primaries or caucuses in the election. Google includes “super delegates” in their delegate totals, and this has the effect of deceiving millions into believing Sanders has no chance at all because Clinton’s lead is too vast to overcome.

Tad Devine, who is now a senior adviser for the Sanders campaign, wrote in a column for the Times in 2008, “If the superdelegates determine the party’s nominee before primary and caucus voters have rendered a clear verdict, Democrats risk losing the trust that we are building with voters today. The perception that the votes of ordinary people don’t count as much as those of the political insiders, who get to pick the nominee in some mythical back room, could hurt our party for decades to come.”

He recounted an experience he had working for Walter Mondale’s presidential campaign, which is exceptionally relevant to what is currently unfolding:

On the first Wednesday in June, the morning after the last day of voting in the 1984 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, the long, drawn-out battle that began with Gary Hart’s stunning victory in New Hampshire ended — but only after one last plot twist. I was Walter Mondale’s delegate counter, and I had stayed up all night to estimate the delegates won and lost in the five states, including California and New Jersey, that had voted the day before. I realized we were in big trouble. Mr. Mondale was not going to deliver on his pledge to be over the top in the delegate count by noon on the day after the last primary. He fell 40 delegates short of a majority.

We began a frantic morning of telephone calls to superdelegates, the party leaders and elected officials who only two years earlier had been given 15 percent of the vote in the Democratic nominating process. By noon, the former vice president had persuaded enough delegates to ensure himself the nomination. The superdelegates did the work they were created to do: they provided the margin of victory to the candidate who had won the most support from primary and caucus voters.

Given this history, a similar shift could easily happen again. Sanders could win a majority of primaries and caucuses, and “super delegates” could follow the will of citizens and provide the margin of victory necessary for his campaign to win the nomination.

One can make a case that the “super delegate” system was instituted to guard against insurgent campaigns, like the one mounted by Sanders. He promotes a vision that runs counter to the corporate and special interests, which the Democratic Party leadership is perfectly willing to serve. And, in fact, Wasserman Schultz has been frank, saying, “Unpledged delegates exist really to make sure that party leaders and elected officials don’t have to be in a position where they are running against grassroots activists.”

But, regardless of how one views the “super delegate” system, “super delegates” are not part of the pledged delegate count. They should not be part of delegate counts reported after the results of each primary or caucus is tallied.

Sanders has an exceptionally difficult route ahead of him if his campaign and supporters expect to win. However, it is not wholly unreasonable to suggest there is still a “path to victory” for Sanders. And any media outlet, which reports “super delegates” as part of one lump sum, is doing the Clinton campaign a huge favor, whether that outlet intends to do so or not.
"

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2...s-medias-misleading-reporting-delegate-counts

 

HAHAHAA!!!!! Hillary being Hillary (ie... two faced and slime)

 

I looked up "honest politician" in the dictionary and found it under the term "oxymoron".

ZING.

I'll go to bed now.

 

And she spoke at his funeral. So did President Obama.

It's interesting how the media ignores certain things and screams racism at the GOP every election season.

 

Rubio being more real than I've ever seen him, going off on Trump:



i'm just disappointed that he wouldn't go so far as to commit not to vote for Trump.

Come on Marco, stand with your convictions.

 

^^ I like Rubio a lot. Easily the most of the remaining candidates.

He's right. He talks real issues and the media ignores him. He attacks Trump and starts getting attention. I wish he hadn't got in the mud with Trump, but he was probably frustrated with being ignored and taking abuse from The Donald. A man can only take so much.

 

He most certainly is GOP establishment, but he was genuinely upset in that video.

 

Which group do you side with in the Trump Chicago rally?

Right to free speech

Or

Right to gather and protest ??

Ignoring the candidate. Imagine It was your candidate and group of opposition was protesting.

I believe both sides have rights, but I personally wouldn't go to a Hillary or Trump rally. Unless people are part of the rally, I don't see what good can come of disrupting a rally... especially when you're outnumbered. Protest outside.

 

HAHA!!!

 

Agreed 100%.

Why are these people at these events? What good are you doing there? You're going there to cause trouble and they know it. I don't know if they're set up there or not by the DNC, I wouldn't doubt it, but even if they're not those people are going to cause problems. There's a right to freedom of speech sure, but that doesn't mean you can say whatever you want without consequences. The same should be true for freedom of assembly and protest.

If you want to protest, I fully support that. HOWEVER, if you go to that event to protest, you absolutely know what kind of response you're going to get. You absolutely know you're going to piss people off and get a response. Whether or not you agree with someone's views, they should be able to express them. Is it much different from a sporting event? It happens constantly in every stadium around the world. If a Laker fan goes to Boston wearing Laker gear, they should expect some abuse. The difference is that is just a game, a hobby. This is people's livelihoods and the future of our country so emotion is going to be that much stronger.

I'm not condoning the actions of the people who lash out at the protesters, but I also don't condone the actions of people going to rallies to cause a ruckus. I wouldn't support either side at a Hillary rally, a Bernie rally, a Cruz or Rubio or Casich rally. It's all hateful. It's hate matched with more hate and that's the worst we could be.

 

That could be true, but I have to admit I agree with much of what he said in that video.

 

I feel like this is different though.

If I go to a rally to protest, I should rightly expect to be booed yelled at and depending on my own actions, escorted out, but I shouldn't expect to be punched, spit on, shoved or have any supporter of a candidate put their hands on me, and other than Trump events, that would be the case.

Protesters come to every candidates events right now while it's so public, but you don't see crowds react like Trump supporters.

 

I don't think you see protesters at Hillary or Bernie's events quite like the ones at Trump's rallies either. Trump evokes the kind of hate you don't see from those candidates (confusing given Hillary's past). I don't think the people who go to Trump's rallies to cause problems are a whole lot better than the people who are at a Trump rally. Both people are being stupid for different reasons, but they're still being stupid.

You're right that doesn't excuse hitting and spitting and what have you, but it does explain it. If you go to a rally where people feel strongly about the subject and start loudly mouthing off about it being stupid, you should expect people to react accordingly, right? Well you already KNOW the people at a Trump rally are probably not all there mentally or at the very least are very angry people... So you poke them with a stick and laugh at them? That's pretty dumb. You shouldn't get punched for it. People doing the punching should be charged with assault. But you should KNOW you're going to get punched and you should also be escorted out and depending on your actions could be charged with inciting riot.

Just protest outside across the street! Why is that so difficult? It's not, it just doesn't produce such flashy videos that you can put online and get attention with. I have a bunch of friends who held a BLM rally a while ago. It was peaceful, there was no fighting, there was no drama, just people saying what they believe in and then they went home. It wasn't on the news, it wasn't covered by any media outlets. The only ones that get attention are the ones that end in some sort of drama or violence.

What a horrid society.