2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumAP did not report news, AP chose to make news.
AP decided to hold an anonymous poll of supers. AP decided to count them as if they were equivalent to elected and pledged. They decided to report this as a "clinch" that doesn't exist until the convention.
The timing and results of a poll initiated by a news organization are not the same as a "news story" in the sense of an independent development on which the organization reports. These results are an activity of the organization itself. They would not exist at all without the organization deciding to make them exist.
They timed their poll - which, again, is an anonymous survey of unnamed persons who are not in any sense obligated to live by it - for release on the Monday before the last big round of elections.
Anyone would understand in advance that this fucks over the voters and probably screws around with the results.
AP didn't care, they wanted to steal the attention that belongs to the voters in California and five other states.
I can see from this board that for once there are no clear Clinton vs. Sanders lines on the question. Many are disgusted by unscrupulous and irresponsible behavior that would not be possible without a healthy contempt for democracy.
This is the construction of news, not "reporting." These are the actions of media whores without scruples or decency -- people who would trip their grandma down the stairs if it would get them a career boost. Fuck them.
Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)What's the point of voting when the result is preordained?
I also find it bitterly amusing that the same people who criticize various Republican sub-groups (Log Cabin, Evangelical, women, Latino, etc) for voting for Trump despite his toxic nature just because he is the nominee, expect the exact same mindless loyalty from myself, and people like me, just because HRC has a "D" after her name.
Juicy_Bellows
(2,427 posts)InAbLuEsTaTe
(24,110 posts)eastwestdem
(1,220 posts)Sanders supporting friends here in CA the most. My Hillary supporting friends tend to feel that it isn't as important for them to find time in their day to vote. I just wish we could have known what the results would have been without the AP inserting itself into the news instead of reporting news, as they are supposed to do.
JI7
(89,182 posts)GoneFishin
(5,217 posts)totally wrong posts have we read on DU, that were arrogantly presented as hard truth, stating that
- Bernie won't be able to raise money.
- Hillary was a done deal on day one. (Ironically true, but only due to DNC corruption)
- People won't vote for a Democratic Socialist (as a smear they always left out Democratic)
- Bernie will never be able to attract the broad support he will need for the GE.
- Bernie is racist and sexist.
Notice that none of these much bantered smears is about policy. These are all about fucking with people's heads to make them think supporting Bernie is futile.
They could have stated one point which would have been honest : Bernie won't win because even if he does win the DNC will make sure he does not. After all, it's not who casts the votes, it's who counts the votes.
Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)independents and genuine liberals. But hey, no matter what happens they either win, or blame us when they lose.
GoneFishin
(5,217 posts)is the nominee, when she loses to Trump.
The fact that she has a U-Haul moving van full of baggage, and many people don't trust her, can't be the real reason Trump beats her.
Dem2
(8,166 posts)/argument
onecaliberal
(32,489 posts)There are many Dems who have and are voting against their self-interests in many ways this primary.
.
yuiyoshida
(41,764 posts)merrily
(45,251 posts)Hearst at his worst
myrna minx
(22,772 posts)Response to JackRiddler (Original post)
Post removed
MelissaB
(16,420 posts)JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)It's an animal response - or is it an algorithm? Identify enemy/friend on basis of simplistic surface traits. Shit on enemy, give rec to friend. Reading is a waste of time.
TwilightZone
(25,342 posts)The AP counted to 2383 and announced the results of said count. That's the very definition of reporting.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)You are continuing an argument from another thread. I didn't say superdelegates are anonymous, there or here, and if you possess honor you will correct yourself.
I said the poll is anonymous. Have the names been published of these new supers that AP WORKED to piece together so as to construct their timed release?
Beyond that, what if they are published? Are these politicians now contractually obligated to AP to vote the way they've claimed they will? Is a super exactly the same as an elected pledged?
And beyond that long-running and odious practice of adding the supers to election totals: Why do you think AP is doing this yesterday? Because it's news? Is that why these media whores made the effort to get it in at exactly the time that would allow them to steal the spotlight, and fuck how it will affect the results (which it will, without guessing at how)?
It oozes with contempt for democracy, just as your posts ooze with complacency and falsehood. Now either correct your false representation of my statement or go play in other traffic. Thanks.
cui bono
(19,926 posts)So they are anonymous to us.
.
bvf
(6,604 posts)JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)If this suppresses votes it seems likelier to make the relatively unmotivated Clinton types stay home.
Who benefits? The fucking media whores who can pretend they "reported a story" rather than constructed one, they scored a coup and stole away the attention from the election they wish had been irrelevant all along. Everything is their show and they have no regard whatsoever for any values other than their show. Shameful shitty people. But probably very nice in person, right? In their circumscribed private lives, probably work hard for their families, all that nice bourgeois stuff. Just following the unavoidable laws of capitalism and innovating a bit to stay ahead of the competition. Everyone else is jealous! A line for the CV!
bvf
(6,604 posts)to these assholes.
I'm only adding the point that their actions are just an extention of the Clinton campaign's insistence on "hey, it's over--nothing to see here anymore" that it's been pushing since Sanders first entered the race. (Remember when he was maybe going to win Vermont and then fade away?)
She's their darling, and they know which candidate will give them a pass starting next year, and which one won't.
Was this a clumsy move on their part? Probably, because corporate inertia hasn't allowed them to anticipate--and more importantly, react to--shifting attitudes. They might have shot themselves in the foot with this. As the father of a millennial with a wide and very diverse social circle, I know kids know bullshit when they see it, much better than I did when I was their age.
I remember long ago thinking that the term "social responsibility" actually meant something, but then again I'm old enough to remember Cronkite, which might explain the above.
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)AzDar
(14,023 posts)Cheese Sandwich
(9,086 posts)The news agencies have been polling the SD's for the past year.
It was the coordinated timing of more that 20 superdelegate endorsements that made the news.
This was clearly coordinated with the Clinton campaign.
And the motive has already been established. Hillary wanted low voter turnout on election day in California.
Blaming the AP lets the Clinton campaign off the hook.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)when it's untrue, and on the day before the elections!
But you seem to be making a case there. Who are these 20? Disgusting all around.
I posted a thread in April or even further back wherein I predicted that the media would pull this stunt on the basis of SD+PD="magic number" prior to California.
Fucking sports-bar culture.
Lord Magus
(1,999 posts)Contacting sources, asking them questions & reporting what you find out.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)The lie being equating superdelegates with PDs, as they have falsely done from the beginning and at every turn, so that Clinton was marked up as "480" ahead prior to the first caucus?
That's the job of "journalism"?
There are countries where this would have been literally illegal, because the elementary point is well understood that polls are not simple measurements but can affect results.
But this isn't even a poll. AP went and dug up 20 supposed endorsements among career politicians, and call it a clinch. The day before the election. And you with the "journalistic business as usual" ideology to justify the self-evident contempt for democracy.
Lord Magus
(1,999 posts)Superdelegates are still delegates. They count.
And you're right that this isn't "even" a poll. It was a survey of specific individual people. There's no margin of error in an interview.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)They don't count until they vote. They don't count like PDs count, not until July 25th.
Greenwald is right:
Hillary Clinton's nomination was declared by a media organization, on a day when nobody voted, based on secret discussions with anonymous establishment insiders.
Lord Magus
(1,999 posts)Should we pretend that it's all 0-0 until then?
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)Thanks for kicking this important thread!
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)how did AP manage to get the news out without reporting the news. Quite a trick.
Fwiw, a lot of people think hiding the news would have been a breach of ethics.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)When was AP my friend again?
The news didn't happen on its own. It a) required AP to conduct its survey with the intent of springing the "results" on the day when they would get max attention, although they were fucking with an election and b) is predicated on the lie, which even the DNC has eschewed, that the supposed endorsements of unspecified supers who don't vote before July 25 are equivalent to the obligations of elected pledged delegates.
Rex
(65,616 posts)However this was pre-planned from the beginning. HRC obviously thinks she is going to be the next POTUS and has prepared for such, including pre-written speeches.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)Here's a favorite object of hate among nomenklatura-line neoliberal Democrats putting it far more tersely than I have:
Hillary Clinton's nomination was declared by a media organization, on a day when nobody voted, based on secret discussions with anonymous establishment insiders.
randome
(34,845 posts)Sanders' supporters were always his worst enemy.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)The tag line is especially hilarious. Clinton's campaign is predicated on the false and entirely underserved image of one person, who was lucky and competent/corrupt enough to be part of the right political machine the last 30 years.
Sanders' campaign wouldn't exist without a popular movement. This is understood on some level by Clinton "supporters" (who are far too busy and important to actually do very much besides watch on the TV, unlike those weirdos who are out on the street and at the rallies).
That's why fabricating attacks on Sanders' supporters, rather than the basically harmless feisty old man himself, has been at the center of the anti-Sanders infamies. Because the only way he's where he is is because of a movement.
By the way, did you know I've been watching you do your schtick for years? I'm sure you don't care what people who actually see through you think, so why do you bother with bothering me? Do you think I'm every going to find you clever, you irresistible wag, you? Thanks!
randome
(34,845 posts)Listen to yourself. Most of the Sanders supporters that I've read talk more about Clinton than Sanders.
Sanders may be a 'harmless and feisty old man' but he wasn't able to flip a single superdelegate. He didn't prepare for this campaign by forging alliances and partnerships and getting endorsements. Outside the podium, he doesn't seem to have any social skills.
Decent man, great ideas, but if you can't talk to people like they're equals, then you aren't going to be their leader.
Sorry but that's my opinion.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]
GoneFishin
(5,217 posts)hours to see Bernie by the tens of thousands per venue are disinterested and unengaged, and can't be bothered to vote.
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)But so do a few media ethicists.
I am going to make sure to ask Michael Vu if turnout from projected was affected I think I know the answer.
onecaliberal
(32,489 posts)Does to the country.
Hiraeth
(4,805 posts)felix_numinous
(5,198 posts)in the primaries indicates the same in the general election, obviously public trust or mutual respect is not needed for this.