Wednesday signaled a transition for the party. Emotion suffused the convention hall: Some delegates, in tears, were not ready to say goodbye to Mr. Obama yet, and others -- particularly some liberals and young Democrats -- were not ready to accept Mrs. Clinton as their new leader. As she prepares to give her nomination acceptance speech on Thursday night, the left wing of the party still remains divided, while many Republicans appear ready to fall in line behind Mr. Trump.Just like that, all the tension in the Republican Party since Donald Trump took the lead in the primaries vanishes in a puff of smoke. Every prominent Democrat is on board with Hillary Clinton, while the GOP's two living ex-presidents and last two presidential nominees all skipped Trump's convention, and he's openly opposed by senators, House members, party officials, and prominent pundits. None of that exists anymore because a few Sanders end-timers who are barely Democrats continue to act out.
(They were recently seen at the convention putting duct tape on their mouths and marched into the press room, claiming to have been "silenced." If you know anything about genuine political repression, you know that if there aren't any jackbooted thugs preventing you from being in a place where journalists can talk to you any photograph you, you're not being silenced.)
I thought last night was a great night at the convention -- it was inspiring and (except for the dead-enders) unifying. But even before last night, the Democratic rank-and-file were on board. According to the latest CNN poll -- the one showing Trump with a 3-point lead after a convention bump -- only 7% of Democrats plan to vote Trump. And that's before the Democratic convention started. It was after the Republican convention, which supposedly got every Republican on board, but Republicans had exactly the same percentage of defectors -- 7% -- as Martin and Healy's Democrats-in-disarray.
And the poll was taken before Donald Trump erased all doubt that he's a useful idiot for Vladimir Putin. It was taken before this Democratic convention hit its stride with a message that might just peel off some disaffected Republicans.
American exceptionalism and greatness, shining city on hill, founding documents, etc--they're trying to take all our stuff
— Rich Lowry (@RichLowry) July 28, 2016
The Bernie-or-Busters get a lot of attention because they're the kinds of people elite reporters went to college with, and maybe were themselves. But they're a tiny sliver of the party. Right now, it looks to me as if the party is unified, even if the Democrats-of-convenience aren't on board. We'll see what happens to the Republicans as Trump becomes more and more unhinged.
****
UPDATE: Well, to give the Times its due, Adam Nagourney, in a sidebar piece, directly contradicts Martin and Healy:
For all the noise, demonstrations, walkouts and silent protests, the divisions on display here as Democrats nominated Hillary Clinton for president do not appear to present a major threat to her candidacy, paling in contrast to intramural battles that have doomed nominees in the past and that threaten Donald J. Trump today.So I guess the Paper of Record is on record as being on both sides of this question.
15 comments:
Hillary needed to orchestrate Bernie getting booed off the stage with his wife feeling so threatened that she needed to be escorted off the floor by security and announce her intention to create a super PAC to ensure that his career is over. That's how a real leader creates party unity. Having your top rival to whole-heartedly make the case for your candidacy and even formally nominate you at your party's convention? Pathetic!
Rich,
You pompous jackass, it's not 'your stuff!'
And the 'founding documents' were written MY LIBERALS.
THE FOUNDING FATHERS WERE LIBERALS!
The Tories were the conservatives.
You mendacious fucktards used OUR STUFF to ram your "conservative" shit down our throats.
See, it's not just you "conservatives" who've had stuff rammed down their throats!
And it was all for political gain.
Now, you folks are no longer "conservative." You are Nihilists and Anarchists. You don't want to conserve anything - you want to blow shit up! And you have for decades.
Social Security.
Welfare.
Medicare.
Medicaid.
S-CHIP.
Roe v. Wade.
Etc...
JAYZOOS, I'm sick to death of these assholes!
3m more eyeballs on DNC Nite 1 than RNC Nite 1 = AP: 'Dems in Disarray!'
5m more eyeballs on DNC Nite 2 than RNC Nite 2 = 'BerniesOrBusters Boo Dems into Irretrievable Disarray!'
Dems have PERFECT DNC Nite 3 with Biden, Kaine & Obama All Brilliant in contrast with nutty Trump crazed rants rvealing Trump Treason and Real GOP Ticket as Trump-Putin = 'Dems in Deeper Disarray as Donkey Party Hopelessly Locked into Good Feelings & Optimism For Nation's Future: Sad!'
Tomorrow's Headlines Today: Dems Oh So Boring & Predictable on DNC Nite 4 in Riding $th Consecutive Boffo Ratings Bonanza over RNC & Picking 'You Guessed It' Hildabeast as Harpy Nom = 'Dems in Disarray Like Always As Smaller Fishbait Ball of RNC Supporters Tightens Core Around Dear Fearless Leader'
Quite right, Steve. The true progressives who will vote Stein or stay home before endorsing the corporatist butcher of Libya are a tiny and insignificant number. Clinton has never cared about them and isn't going to start now.
Which makes it all the more telling that the Democratic blogs continue to obsess about them with hippie-punching sneers about "ponies" and "purism". We couldn't matter less to the outcome of this election and yet you spend as much energy denigrating us as you do the Republicans.
It's as if you find us some kind of reproach or something.
No matter how seriously I may take you on a given day, I could never take you as seriously as you take yourselves.
Unknown: I don't find you people a reproach. I despise you as I would someone who, when the house is on fire, steps out of the bucket brigade because we're using that nasty chlorinated, fluoridated municipal water to fight the blaze and not the artisanal ten thousand year-old electrolyte-enhanced pure glacier stuff that you favor. You win no points for your discerning palate in these matters if we lose the house.
"Which makes it all the more telling that the Democratic blogs continue to obsess about them with hippie-punching sneers..."
That should tell you something. There's an old saying, you go out one day and you run into an asshole, well, you ran into an asshole. You run into assholes all day, well, you're the asshole.
@Rand Careaga: quite so.
My reaction to Rich Lowry's childish tweet is to repay it in kind: "well you weren't using it, so nyah-nyah."
@Unknown: Since noted corporatists Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have both fully endorsed HRC, I'm not sure your "insult" carries much weight.
What you should consider is that, while they are terrible, things like drone strikes and bombing Libya are quite comfortably within the mainstream of the American public. Voting for Stein doesn't do jack to move the needle on this or any other progressive issue; what it does is help elect people who *are far worse on these issues*.
What moves the needle in the right direction is getting engaged and talking to people.You shouldn't doubt that if Hillary Clinton saw that public opinion turned strongly against these things, she would too.
Steve you should know by now Healy is just Maureen Dowd with a penis. O wonder how they all feel now that what I been saying for over a year is true...Bernie Sanders is a lying scumbag. He could not say Socialist so Progressive. Now that he has revealed he is going back to being an IND will he return all those $27 contributions?
Rand Careaga, spot on. Thank you.
Probably just airing my naivete in public on this, but ...
TV ratings news keeps putting each nite of the DNC, N1 at 20%, N2 at 25%, N3 at 30%, higher than RNC counterparts.
Yet: old-timey Nielson-type measures, which Rs began dominating in the 1980s - yet now DRAMATICALLY to the Ds?
Why this seems not revolutionary but telling is that the revolution part of video eyeball numbers has been affected by the fact that younger ones have grown up with them focused online. There are actually youngsters who've never watched TV per se, just on online, & 'kids' of 30 +/- 5 for whom neither network nor cable TV has played a part in their lives in a decade at least.
That strongly suggests is BOTH older & younger eyeballs are off Trump, cuz as an easy obvious read, he's now seem as tedious in the role of Hunger Games America's Demagogue.
Fine; but why isn't this showing in polls?
It sort of already has been. First, Base Hillary has been dormant - but never has eroded. Second, Base Dissatifaction has FLIRTED with Trump. Sure, Trump's got his Trumpists, and we know their dimensions from the GOP primary: 1 in 8 Ams +/- a bit depending. But ultimately, Base Dissatisfaction is not the same as Trumpist, any more than Con R reliable Trumpism. Beyond Trump's Trumpistas - which fluctuate around one third of the trad GOTV GOP - mod Rs and even trad con Rs are vulnerable to not voting, voting protest, or even voting D.
Been a lot of talk by Ds of 2016 = 1964 (they WISH!), and by Rs of 2016 = 1968 (THEY wish!). Few if any mention 1972 or its cousin 1988. IMO 2016 is more like either one of those than any other. The question remains, is it more the former than the latter or vice versa.
It wasn't like there was this groundswell of affection for either Nixon or Poppy. GHWB was no Biden, he was maybe more HRC. But 1972 was as much a product of the dual effects of Nixon as president pivoting left, real and pretend, & the DNC widely perceived, accurate or not, as taking a wrong toke towards embracing puncheable smelly hippies.
To the numbers:
1972 - 60.7 Nixon R, 37.5 McGovern D
1988 - 53.4 GHWB R, 45.6 Dukakis D
IMO 1988 is more predictive. Sure, neither Nixon nor GHWB was beloved, indeed Nixon hated by Ds (offset by natonal conviction of McGovern as out of his depth, Donnie), and Dukakis was a doofus wonk (in fairness, not only accurate then but only recently has that morphed into an asset - see The Big Bang Theory), but Dukakis was more a Dem Caricature, as Trump is now more an R Caricature.
Prediction: 2016 - 48 HRC D, 42 Trump R
The remaining 10% will be split among Green, Indy, etc., but McConnell et al are going to hang that less than 50% around the neck of Hillary's like she's in a pillory.
After the years of hateful crap he has taken, that O could give that speech was just amazing.
Last night, the Dems invited everybody in America who isn't batshit crazy to vote for them.
Everybody who isn't a fascist, a communist, a Jihadist, or a homegrown demagogue.
I'm curious about how Lowry figures John Winthrop was a Republican, 220 years before the party was founded.
The Bernie-or-Busters get a lot of attention because they're the kinds of people elite reporters went to college with, and maybe were themselves.
They also get a lot of attention right now because they're holding their sit-in in the middle of the media tent.
The Bernie-or-Busters get a lot of attention because they're the kinds of people elite reporters went to college with, and maybe were themselves.
Oh, the elite liberal media, huh? And the disaffected Trump supporters got a lot of attention because they were interviewed by the racist, bigoted, and ignorant reporters like themselves?
Maybe, just maybe, both groups of people got attention because their controversial stances are (i) natural media draws and (ii) provide the seeming excitement of a horse-race in the election run-up.
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