Nate Silver's "favorite part of Sanders’s underwear-gnomes strategy to flip superdelegates"

[bigtree]

Nate Silver ?@NateSilver538 14h14 hours ago
My favorite part of Sanders’s underwear-gnomes strategy to flip superdelegates is how Clinton's voters are magically totally chill with it.

Nate Silver ?@NateSilver538 14h14 hours ago
"Welp, she got 55% of the vote and the clear majority of elected delegates, but let's give it to the 74-year-old white guy!"

[Surya Gayatri]

1. Thanks for the chuckle. Welcome moment of levity. LOL!

[firebrand80]

2. More crap from inaccurate Nate

It's underpants gnomes. Everyone knows that. No wonder you missed Michigan.

[BootinUp]

3. LOL nt

[beachbum bob]

4. lol....

[sufrommich]

5. It doesn't have to make sense,it's a fairy tale.

It's fiction being promoted by a campaign that knows it's fiction.

[qdouble]

6. It just shows a complete lack of reality-based thinking from BS supporters.

There's no way in hell Bernie would flip the super delegates after losing the popular vote and pledged delagates without massive blowback. In most GE polling, Bernie performs better than Hillary simply because Hillary supporters know she's winning and are not bitter and will say that they would vote for Bernie vs Trump, while bitter BS'ers will say they won't vote for Hillary. However, if Bernie did manage to steal the nomination undemocratically through supers, a huge chunk of Hillary supporters would refuse to vote for Bernie and he'd tank against Trump.

[Orsino]

7. Every candidate wants to flip superdelegates while the primary's still on.

Perhaps Silver is too young to recall 2008?

[seabeyond]

8. Wasn't it 8 or 6, after Clinton thru in the towel? Maybe one flipped prior to the race being over?

[Orsino]

9. I certainly wouldn't expect many to flip...

...but this year is weirder.

[seabeyond]

10. Ya, weirder in that Sanders has dissed Democrats (which they are) and super delegates as he is hopin

in mass, they flip. Like way fuckin' weird. The non Democrat who hasn't contributed to the Democratic party, and dissed everyone in the Democratic party, is looking for support.

How, in any reasonable mind, would that work.

(and you brought up '08. One really flipped. The rest shifted because the race was over).

[Orsino]

11. Weirder in many ways.

But candidates still in the race will try to flip superdelegates.

It just won't make the news when Clinton does it.

[seabeyond]

12. I think the issue is his continued attacks with the excuse that he is still viable using this as an

excuse.

[Orsino]

13. Yes, I am certain many will call that an issue.

I don't care, as I neither consider it unethical nor expect it to change much.

[seabeyond]

23. I think it certainly lacks integrity and seeing how he runs on a campaign of integrity, I feel it is

a fail.

[mythology]

14. Or perhaps he remembers how well it worked in 2008

It won't work any better this time.

[Nonhlanhla]

15. Silver made his name in the 2008 election. nt.

[Orsino]

16. And yet demonstrates ignorance of what a primary is for. n/t

[Nonhlanhla]

17. Really? How? nt

[Orsino]

18. Primaries are for winning delegates, first and foremost.

Silver is, or was, a great numbers guy. Seeing him feign ignorance of both candidates' desires to flip and retain delegates is embarrassing.

[Nonhlanhla]

20. Not thinking Bernie's strategy will work

or disagreeing with Bernie is not the same as ignorance.

[Orsino]

26. If it just brings the most delegates he can muster...

...or minimizes loss of delegates, it will have worked. In other words, we're unlikely ever to know for sure.

[Nonhlanhla]

27. I don't understand what you're saying.

But then again, I don't really understand how anyone can think that Bernie's idea of trying to persuade the SD's to go for him instead of Hillary, if she's won the majority of pledged delegates, will work.

[Orsino]

29. It's called campaigning.

I think we'll never know how well it "worked." Sanders has big support, and wants to hold onto it until the convention. He has to talk up his campaign as viable, because officially, it still is.

Every candidate wants to come to the convention with the most delegates possible, because the winning number is not the only concern.

[Nonhlanhla]

31. You call it campaigning; I call it delusion.

The superdelegates have never given the nomination to the runner up in the pledged delegate race. They sure as hell are not going to betray the most stalwarth Democratic voting blocks (women and People of Color) by nullifying Hillary's historical win and giving the nomination to a white guy.

[Orsino]

37. If one is hung up on a winning number, perhaps.

But with more at stake at the convention than declaring a nominee, arriving with the greatest possible number of delegates is important.

[Eric J in MN]

30. Maybe it went to his head and he became a creep. Definitely a creep now. NT

NT

[Nonhlanhla]

32. What makes him creepy? nt

[Eric J in MN]

35. Nate Silver's use of race and age to ridicule a person. NT

NT

[Nonhlanhla]

36. He's not doing that.

He's referencing the fact that nearly all US presidents have been old white men. The idea that the Democratic superdelegates are going to ignore the historical reality that for the first time a woman has won the primaries (and that she did so moreover with the overwhelming support of women and People of Color), in order to hand the nomination to yet another old white guy, is ridiculous.

His reference has an obvious historical reference. He is not ridiculing Bernie for being old or for being white. He is ridiculing the idea that the nomination should be handed to yet another old white guy, despite the fact that a woman won.

[Eric J in MN]

38. Plenty of presidents have been middle-aged.

Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, JFK, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush.

If Nate Silver had left age out of it, maybe I'd give him the benefit of the doubt about whether he's making a historical point or being a creep.

[Nonhlanhla]

39. None were super young, though, and most were on the older side.

This is not sufficient reason to call a respected guy like Silver a "creep."

[geek tragedy]

19. the fear is that Sanders, for any number of reasons, has a different incentive and motivational

structure than Clinton did in 2008. She had a lot to lose by going rogue after Obama clinched the nomination.

Sanders does not strike many of us as a man with a lot to lose.

[MohRokTah]

21. K&R eom

[Joe the Revelator]

22. Nate 'Race Baiting' Silver

I've lost a ton of respect for this kid lately.

[frylock]

25. No shit.

Why no mention of the 69 year old white woman? Fuck this guy.

[frylock]

24. 74-year-old white guy?

Why bring race into it, Nate? There's a 92% chance this guy is a self-centered asshole.

[Eric J in MN]

28. Nate Silver is a creep.

I hope that when he's 74, people ridicule him for being a "74-year-old white guy."

[seabeyond]

33. Calling someone who is 74, white and a man, a 74 yr old white man is NOT... an insult. Fuckin' funny

[BobbyDrake]

34. "In 2008, less than three dozen Democratic superdelegates ultimately switched sides."

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/bernie-sanders-superdelegates-223746

So Bernie just needs to be 5x better than Obama at flipping super-delegates, but without any of Obama's intelligence, charisma, and integrity to help him do it.

"Good luck," Bernie.