SIO228: Iowa, The Debate, and New Hampshire

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:29 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only, this is episode 228, I'm Thomas, that's Jamie, how you doing, Jamie? Good, yeah, you gotta consult the voices that are not in your head, um, we had so much, so much response from that last episode about internal monologue, and, uh, we want, we definitely want to get to some Q&A on that, because, again, there's just, like, just a deluge of comments on that. It was super fascinating, uh really happy we did that episode. Episode, um, but not today, we'll get to that, we'll get tothat follow-up soon, but in the meantime, we put off politics for a bit, but now that we've had an Iowa disaster, we've had a another debate, and I think this, we, you know, we've done a freaking episode on every debate thus far, so I kind of want to keep the streak alive, and we just had, of course, the New Hampshire primary, so

0:00:36 Jamie: Alright, Thomas, how are you? Um,

0:01:23 Thomas: Lots to talk about, so I think we were doing a doing a politics, politics update. How do you feel about that, Jamie?

0:01:30 Jamie: I've got my Bernie Bro hat on, I'm ready.

0:01:33 Thomas: Well, I practically do too, because it's just not looking good for my, my fave Elizabeth Warren. Um, so man, maybe we try to go in, in chronological order here. I mean, we didn't, we never got to comment on Iowa on this show. Um, why don't you, why Don't you start, give us, give your thoughts on what happened there.

0:01:54 Jamie: Um, can we curse on this episode?

0:01:58 Thomas: I mean you, you end up always doing so anyway, so I'm just going to say yes. Yeah, like, usually it'll be somewhere in the middle.

0:02:01 Jamie: Do I? Okay, alright, so, alright well, my apologies, so spoilers, cover the kids' ears. Iowa was a clusterfuck. And the good news, though, is I just saw, I mean, nothing is actually good coming out of Iowa. I should be careful. But I did see that the Democratic Party chairman for Iowa is resigning. And I think that's a really good start. And the next official in the Democratic party of Iowa who should resign is all of them. Because while we're still not entirely clear who won Iowa, it seems obvious that the Democratic Party lost.

0:02:42 Thomas: Yeah, certainly anyone involved in the planning should be, uh, demoted at the very least. Start, start doing some, they can, I mean, they can bring coffee to people and stuff, they can do That's the thing, I'm, and I think that that brings us to like what happened in general, you know, as much as they obviously blew it, and I, not for a second am I saying anything other than these, these people blew it. You know, who's in charge of all that?

Like, I can't tell you who's doing that. Even, even my giant state of California, like it, part of me does feel for the fact that there's this group of people who are, I don't know how many of them are just volunteers, how many or whatever, who have to put on this big thing. That's like, by the way, inappropriately is the whole focus of the nation for like, because of the first primary. So, Well, it's not, it's the first caucus of the primary process, I guess would be the better way to say it, um, so they shouldn't be going first like that, can we all agree on that? Like, that should be over now. Are we, here, here, anybody?

0:03:40 Thomas: Gonna yeah second

0:03:39 Jamie: Yeah, seconded, I think we can at least agree on two things here. Iowa should absolutely not be going first. It's not representative of the country. It doesn't give us a good indication of how the rest of the county is going to vote. I think the big open question now is what happens in South Carolina? And guess what? Iowa and New Hampshire tell us about what we can predict there? Literally nothing. And I think the second thing is that we should just do away with caucuses. These are undemocratic, they're unruly, and I'm a reasonably intelligent person and I still haven't figured out exactly how they go about calculating state delegate equivalents and how different

0:03:42 Thomas: It okay Yeah,

0:04:22 Jamie: Turnouts in different areas can change the percentage of the delegate equivalence, which aren't actually for the nominating convention but have to do with the reorganization of the Iowa State Democratic Party, but yet if it's helpful, they're used to frame who won the election. It's a disaster and it should be done away with immediately. Yeah.

0:04:41 Thomas: I'm So glad you said that, because you know, honestly, caucuses do have tended to favor Bernie, and so as such, sometimes Bernie's supporters have been in support of them. And, uh, I'm glad to hear you say that, because I couldn't agree more, they, they just are undemocratic, they're, it's about finding people, people with enough privilege to be able to caucus all night. And, you know, it's cool for people to do it. And, you know, I know a lot of people like it, and it's a, it's a fun LARP, but it's, it's just not the best. It's not democracy, like, it's, it's also, I also worry, Jamie, do you worry about like, I don't know, instances like that? Now I've never gotten to do a caucus, and you know, I've read and seen a lot about it, of course, in the, in the past few weeks especially, but I worry about like how biases play into that process.

0:05:29 Thomas: You know, people are going to be convincing other people, like which type of people are gonna be listened to, which type of people gonna, you know, talk more than others, and all those kinds of things. I kind of worry about being reinforced when really what we may need is just a private ballot where people can cast their vote and not have to worry about who's watching, uh, and who might be criticizing. Well,

0:05:52 Jamie: I think that's absolutely right, and obviously in a place like Iowa, where biases are certainly going to play a part because that's just part of human nature, there's less of a worry about, I think, social, social shaming and who's watching, but not in a good way, and only because Iowa's like 96% white. And there isn't just a whole lot of diversity there for the mechanisms of exploitation and oppression to manifest in the same way as you would have in a more diverse environment, at least is my suspicion. But there are other things at play. If you are not easily, easily, if you're not able-bodied, let's say, a caucus is going to be impossible for you.

0:06:37 Jamie: If you don't have a driver's license, if you can't get yourself there, it's going to be more difficult. If you can stand for long periods of time, you're not going to be able to do that. And it's just, it doesn't work. And if the only way the candidate that I want to win can win an election is if by having these undemocratic processes, and that's an indication that I need to rethink who I'm supporting as my candidate and not an argument that we should keep this, this ridiculous system of caucuses. So

0:07:03 Thomas: Yeah, I also was, was kind of more alluding to the gender dynamics at play as well, not just race. There's some, there's some interesting stuff that I've seen people post about, about how that might be influenced. But I think we've, we've made the point. And I just really, really, really dislike that this was the first contest we, we got to have. Now, that said, you know, Bernie did quite well. I thought that, you know, people are really mad at how Buttigieg kind of declared victory. And I get, I get why, you Now, I agree. Like, I think that was a little bit, you know, I, I think you should have used different language, to be sure. Sure. I also see strategically what he's doing. I mean, Buttigieg has put all his eggs in these first two baskets here because he was a nobody a minute ago, and he doesn't have the qualifications and he didn't have the name as of yet.

0:07:58 Thomas: And so that's kind of what you have to do in this weird process, is put as much money as you possibly can to these first couple contests and hope that by winning or doing well in these states that should not be going first and should not have this amount of influence on us, that you make a splash. And I think part of that is he probably figured, like, risk versus return, I'm gonna just declare, declare victory, because to, I mean, it, I he needs to do everything he can to get a national bump, which honestly he kind of has. Um, so I, I see why he's doing it. He still shouldn't use the, the link, he should, he should have softened the language a little bit, looks like we're gonna, you know, instead of saying victorious, you know, know, maybe, uh, you know, exceeded expectations, done really well, you know, we'll see, but it looks like maybe we could, you know, something. But, uh, how did you feel about that, that whole thing?

0:08:44 Jamie: This is another example of every time Pete Buttigieg opens his mouth, I managed to dislike him more, which is continually surprising to me because I had already thought I hit rock bottom. I understand the political savvy of what you just laid out. It is absolutely the case, at least in terms of that we're able to test these sorts of things empirically, right? This was probably advantageous for him.

If only it was advantageous for him in the way that it sort of stalled Bernie's post-Iowa surge, or hypothetical Iowa surge, if had he been declared the winner as he had sort of hoped that he was.

But it strikes me as really hollow, and it gets to the heart of why I dislike Buttigieg so much, is that to make this sort of craven political calculus at the same time you are insisting on how important it is to come together and coalesce around the strongest candidate to beat Donald Trump, it's just a level of hypocrisy that shouldn't be able to be maintained.

If the goal really is to figure out who the strongest candidates is to get people to coalesced around them, to go on to run against Donald Trump in the general election, then you shouldn't be doing these sort of craven political maneuverings to manipulate that, because you are in effect creating a very real moral hazard that may result in a less strong candidate, in this case I think Pete Buttigieg is the less strong candidates, to go up against Donald Trump in a general election.

And I don't think you can at the same time insist on how important it is to beat Donald Trump and then make these kind of moves that may end up leaving us worse

0:10:27 Jamie: Off to do so and be taken, taken seriously. So I just don't like them. I

0:10:34 Thomas: I mean, I guess I'd push back a little bit because in the end, now we can complain about the results, in the end he did win according to the official results. Now it seems like there could still be some mistakes in that, like, I cannot fathom why that's allowed, like, what, how, how do we just go to print with these results when, when there's still mistakes? It's, it's pretty mind-blowing, but I mean, I guess in the end, you know, I was mad at him for a while because it seemed like Bernie was going to win, but now I'm looking at, you know, I guess the official results are that he won, so maybe, maybe it's not a valid attack, I don't know

0:11:11 Jamie: Don't know. So the last I saw, the AP still won't call the race because it's still so confusing. They're still going to re-canvass a number of the precincts. And again, it just seems really weird for a guy who had a sound clip go viral about how he believes the person who gets the most votes should win the election coming out and saying, well, you know, because of the weird way that they apportion state-deliquent equivalents that don't actually matter in the nominating convention, I won, despite getting 6,000 fewer votes on the first alignment. It just is the sort of craven political speak that I think, like, is it true enough that, like, there's plausible deniability?

Sure. But I think that's why a lot of people turn politics out and turn politicians out. Because if you chop things up enough way and you know, angle the camera just right, like, sure, you can get it to sort of look like what you want, but is it a victory in, like, the meaningful sense? Did he, did he get more people to vote for him and, when at the end, and I understand the way that the Electoral College functions and we don't actually elect presidents by popular vote, I get that, but it just seems to me sort of hollow and insincere to make that kind of claim. I don't know, that

0:11:11 Thomas: Yeah yeah Yeah, well, I mean it's with it it's Yeah, I don't know. Now, now that I think more about it, I guess it's hard to be that hard on him when, and in the end, when you look at the results from the official, you, Democratic Party is going with right now, I don't know if they're going to re-canvas, it looks like he won. So it's hard for me to go that hard on him. But we should, I agree in not liking Pete. And I'm also, I'm so confused about, nothing confuses me more than the Pete support, I got to say. I know we've covered it, but I think Amy Klobuchar is somebody we should talk about because if we kind of switch to debate mode, she is somebody who seems to be surging a bit. I think my theory on that is that Biden is looking so weak because of these first few contests that the moderate voter is switching to Amy Klovuchar to a certain extent. Is that kind of what you see happening as well?

0:13:22 Jamie: Would be my read as well. I I definitely see Klobuchar's surge as evidence of Biden cratering, which I think is what makes South Carolina really so interesting. Because I think so much of Biden's support has been based on this assumption that he was the electable candidate, right? And that he had this sort of inevitability to him. Having been Obama's VP, he was this return to normalcy. And I think it's going to be really interesting to see what happens to these supports courts in the South where he thought he had a firewall, now that they've seen him get trounced in these previous elections, at a time when they're going to also be talking about the sort of racist history of policies that these other candidates, like Mike Bloomberg, for example, have. So it'll be interesting to see how this shakes out.

0:14:10 Thomas: Yeah. And I, for one, if I were going to pick a moderate, I would pick Amy Klobuchar over the other options, over Biden, over Buttigieg, over Bloomberg. If you can even is he moderate or is he the Republican? I don't know. We'll see.

0:14:27 Thomas: So I, I'm a fan of that. But anyway, if we transfer over to the to the debate coverage a little bit, you know, it's, it's kind of more the same. It's more of the, I just cannot believe that Tom Steyer gets to talk as much as he does. It really drives me insane. I mean, he's, he had almost, if you, sorry, if you look at the numbers, he had almost as much time to talk, as Elizabeth Warren. Warren had 1554. He had 1353 and Warren was fifth. He was sixth. Yang, as usual, got none. Um, Steyr is just nowhere on the national polls, polls he just I think

0:15:03 Jamie: A second. Hold on. Hold on. I need to push back here. I looked at the state polls in South Carolina. Steyer, the last time they polled South Carolina, was coming in second place in South Carolina behind Biden. He had something like 18.7% of the vote in South Carolina to Biden's 21%. And I was legitimately shocked by that, that he had garnered that much support. So

0:15:27 Thomas: Right but if we pick a state that's the best state for each candidate, each of them is going to be in for, I mean, Klobuchar, we can pick Minnesota or whatever, she should get the most time to talk. That's why I said national. I mean, if you go with the national polling, which would you think would be probably the best way to to target, like, okay, who should get to to talk the most? Should you know, it would be pretty crazy to have a one percent national, national candidate talk more than the 25 national candidate, right, just because they might lead in one state, don't you think or

0:15:56 Jamie: I agree with you. I just think it's interesting given the order that the states vote in and the way that the delegates are assigned and the likelihood that this is all going to end up leading to a contested convention. Because if Tom Steyer is winning delegates in And it may be the difference between whether it's Bernie Sanders or Pete Buttigieg crossing the threshold for a majority majority of delegates that they need and a contested convention. And I find that kind of terrifying.

0:15:58 Thomas: Okay yeah yeah yeah all

0:16:24 Jamie: I

0:16:24 Thomas: Yeah That's a good point. I mean, he is pouring a ton of money into specifically South Carolina. Um, and yeah, could influence it. Uh, it still, still bugged me because of just the national polling. Um, and poor Yang. I mean, he's now dropped out. Uh, which again, good on him for having that sense. I instantly, every time someone drops out I, I like them more because they had the good sense to drop out.

Uh, and you know, what, what should we give a, maybe we give a, uh, our eulogy of the Yang campaign, the Yang Gang. Um, I, I respect a lot about Yang, I'll be honest, he really, he really made me laugh a lot in how he talked, and I, I don't really agree with his policies exactly.

I think, you know, I think he had, he had a ton, if you know, we went on his website at one point, we're talking about different ones, there's a ton there, like, so obviously a lot of it's going to be stuff that a lot the candidates agree with and that I would agree with and all that, but I didn't really agree with his flagship policy.

0:17:24 Thomas: Um, but you know, I liked Yang and now that he had the good set, I also, by the way, I really liked, uh, what his wife did, what he and his wife kind of used the spotlight to highlight. You know, she told her story about, shoot, do we even get to talk about on this show? I can't remember. She told her story about being, uh sexually assaulted by, I believe it was her gynecologist. Right. And then it, it, It turned out that like, because she did that, a bunch of other women came out And we're like, oh, my God, I was abused, too, by this guy. And, yeah, I just that was an awesome use of the platform, I think, to try to, you know, put put an abuser away. And, you Know, so all in all, you're good on Yang. You know, I wouldn't have voted for him, but I have positive feelings toward him. And I'm glad he said, I don't want to be accepting donations when I'm not going to win, you know, so he dropped out. So good on him.

0:17:40 Jamie: Think we did. Yeah, I respect that. I agree with him in spirit, as he would say on many things. I don't we're going to have to deal with automation in the future. I just don't think we need to have humans working the way that they have been for the rest of our history. And think he's on to something, but I agree. I think it was the right time for him to step down. I appreciate what he did. He got people engaged and involved in the political process that aren't always engaged and informed, and I hope they continue to stay involved and find another candidate that they can support.

0:18:52 Thomas: Was going to be my Next question, because I don't know that this is going to really affect anything because like some, you know, we've been kind of wanting people to drop out so that maybe the vote can consolidate a little bit and avoid the brokered convention that you're talking about. Um, because according to the 538 model, which you know people can can trust that to different extents, they they see the contested convention as slightly more likely after these first two contests. And I think that's because nobody's dropping out, like in times past. From my understanding, usually the first two, you know, Iowa being a disaster, part of that disaster is that there wasn't a firm loser, really. Like, I mean, to the extent, at least in the news coverage, you know, in the news cycle, usually there's somebody who's like, "Ah, well, I blew it."

0:18:53 Jamie: Yeah,

0:19:45 Thomas: I'm dropping out. And then that consolidates votes a little bit more. And same for New Hampshire, although at least New Hampshire had results that came out that we can look at. So it wasn't exactly the same. But people aren't really dropping out. Of Klobuchar is getting a weird surge. I don't think Warren, as much as I now don't really see how she has any chance, I don't think she's close to dropping out either because, you know, she still has some states to at least till Super Tuesday, you would think. And so now it's with Buttigieg kind of getting a bump in the national polls, I guess it's just looking more and more like things are kind of going to stay how they are and we're not going to know the answer for a very long time, maybe longer than ever, about who's going to be the nominee, perhaps.

0:20:28 Jamie: Yeah, I think we need to be prepared for the possibility that we don't find out who the nominee is until July. I think that's possible, hope

0:20:37 Thomas: Yeah, which which could be a disaster. But, you know, I think that I I feel like Democratic voters are going to unite. Do you feel like that? Because, you know, Sanders is already out there and I really appreciated how much he's been harping on that lately. And I think part of that is is maybe a little bit of an attack on Hillary for what the things that she said recently. And whatever the reason, I'm glad he's saying it. It really makes me feel positive about him that he's saying we're going to unite no matter what. And I think I'm getting that feeling, you know, I don't really it's going to be bitter, obviously. And and especially if it comes down to like a fun, you know, the last two or something and we have all have our picks. And then obviously some number of people are going to be really disappointed, of course.

0:21:23 Thomas: But I don'T know. I first for whatever reason,I do feel like we're going to get together around the candidate. What do you feel about that?

0:21:32 Jamie: So. I feel like everybody, I'm less optimistic than you are. I don't Know, this may be a place where my own biases are coming into play, I feel the people who say, "You're going to be united no matter what to defeat Donald Trump," a lot of times that's done because they believe they're going to be the candidate that everybody else has to rally around, or the candidate they support is going to be the candidates that everybody has To rally around, and these sort of unity pledges are usually employed in a way to suggest that the person you're asking to pledge unity is ultimately going to lose and will ultimately get in line. And I hope everybody does that, because the stakes really are too high. But I'm, I'm worried about, less worried about whether Bernie people will fall in line and practice unity if the nominee is Klobuchar or Buttigieg or Biden or Warren, although there will certainly be people who won't.

But I do get the sense, especially in the aftermath of how, like, the New Hampshire primary has been covered, that if it becomes increasingly likely that Bernie is headed toward the nomination, that there is going to be a faction that's going to try to stop him, that's going to try to stall him and angle for a brokered convention, support Bloomberg, or do something that may have real damaging effects.

0:21:36 Thomas: Unless it was Bloomberg. Yeah.

0:21:59 Thomas: Right.

0:22:54 Jamie: And I don't think that's been given enough attention because the focus has been disproportionately placed on the Bernie bros. So

0:23:03 Thomas: Yeah, that's fair. You know, I've, I, as much as I, you know, it's hard. I it's just with, with, it has been four years of a particular kind of Bernie person saying really annoying things that are wrong to me. So I do tend to tweet about them and I'm trying to, I think I'm, I'm just to put that to rest. I think I'm to the point now where it's probably going to be Bernie anyway, or if it's not Bernie, at the very least, Bernie is going to be the one I'm supporting in any second when it's clear that Warren can't do it. So it's probably time for me to move on. It's more about his supporters who annoy me than it is about him. So I'm going to do my best and feel free to hold me to that, everybody. So, I'm trying to close that chapter here. But I will say that I've come to be a little little more convinced that, um, I don't believe everything is a conspiracy to stop Bernie.

0:23:55 Thomas: I don't believe Iowa was anything to do with a conspiracy, to stop burning at all. Um, and I think that all in all, it does actually bother me. If I were to say there, there is one thing that bothers me about Bernie a little bit and not just his followers. It's that I constantly see these ads through Facebook, you know, that get promoted to me. And it's usually we're under attack where and it's it's so much of it is framed as that. And I do think that feeds down a little bit. And I think that that creates a certain atmosphere among your followers of constantly thinking they're under attack, constantly thinking everything's a conspiracy against them. And I but I will say as much as that has bothered me, you know, I think you're right that there are there is a faction of Democrats who are going to try to stop Bernie. I mean, that's clear with Bloomberg and what he's trying to do.

0:24:41 Thomas: Although, again, can you even call Bloomberg a Democrat, though? Like, how much is he a Democrat? It's not clear to me how much support he's going to have. Go ahead.

0:24:50 Jamie: The one thing I really appreciate about Bloomberg running for president is that it just lays bare how hollow the criticism against Bernie Sanders was for not being a real Democrat. There's a congresswoman here in CD 11, when the 2018 cycle ousted a long-term Republican congressman by the name of Rodney Frelinghuysen. His family has been a political dynasty in American politics. At Rutgers, there is a building named after his family. And it used to be thought the conventional wisdom in New Jersey was that we could not run Jesus Christ himself and unseat Rodney Frelinghuysen. In the aftermath of Trump there was this swell of grassroots support and we got Mikie Sherrill elected in CD11 in New Jersey who just came out and endorsed Michael Bloomberg for Congress and it is just absolutely maddening to me but I also appreciate that it just it just like I said it lays bare that the average Democrat's objection to Bernie not being a real Democrat was not their real issue because as soon as somebody's going to come in with billions of of dollars and not be a real Democrat, then they're okay with that.

0:26:02 Thomas: Well, isn't there a question of who these people are? Like, there may be 0% overlap in the people you're talking about, you know? I mean, the people who, there maybe, I'm not saying either way, but all I know is it that, I don't have any evidence that those are the 12.6% of our party that's now supporting Bloomberg. Um, I could be, but like, I, I DON'T know that that's the overlap. They, I think strike me more as Biden people.

0:26:25 Jamie: Well, there certainly doesn't seem to be the same chorus of he's not a Democrat in response to Bloomberg.

0:26:31 Thomas: I mean, I'm seeing it, but I,

0:26:33 Jamie: Okay, so I'm not, and my Facebook feed is largely like professional political operatives, and I'm not seeing that. So again, this may just be my slice.

0:26:37 Thomas: Yeah, Yeah, I'm seeing it. But as we've we've established. Sure. Yeah. As we've established, my slice is a bunch of, you know, Bernie supporters. And so maybe that's that's who I'm saying where it's like, yeah, this guy is not it's not a Democrat. So it is it is tough. I think going both ways, it is hard to know what we're seeing on social media. It's very clearly not real life. And, you know, I think I definitely should acknowledge that. Like when I'm, you know, that's part of the reason I'm going to do my best to stop complaining about the Bernie supporters I see is because they are overrepresented, overrepresented in my feed. So, but yeah, I was going to bring in the national numbers. The latest poll that, that just came out, I'm, YouGuv one. Okay, so the YouGov one that just came out. Actually, this one's rated better. It came out yesterday. Let's take a look at that one. Monmouth University. Sanders. Wow, Sanders is 26, Biden at 16, 16.

0:26:49 Jamie: Yeah,

0:27:36 Thomas: Buttigieg has gone up to 13. That's quite a surge from him. Warren's down to 13, Bloomberg's at 11, Klobuchar at six. Wow, Yang at four. And who knows, the problem with this, though, is that you don't know, that might have been timed. They might have Been gathering data like before, you know, for all we know, the Iowa primary. I'll just also quote the 538 average that that they try to do that, that weights these things. Sanders at 22, Biden at 20, Bloomberg at 13.1, Warren at 12.9. Bloomberg is higher than Warren. What is happening? What is happening?

0:28:12 Jamie: If you look at the 538 projection for delegates, Bloomberg is currently projected to win more delegates than Buttigieg or Warren. And this is just really offensive. And this Is what I think Sanders supporters are sort of getting at. And I want to push back against what you said. I don't think there's necessarily a conspiracy, I think I tweeted this, you know, you don't need to posit malice when incompetence is sufficient to explain what happened here. I think, though, a couple of things. One, I think it's sort of stretching the principle of charity into a sort of Gumby creation to say the people working in professional politics don't have a vested interest in what the outcome them is, and that they're somehow uniquely impervious to their own biases, right, when they make these sort of mistakes.

0:28:40 Thomas: Right.

0:29:05 Jamie: I think just

0:29:04 Thomas: Sorry. Which people would you be talking about? Like Iowa workers or something? Like the people who, who are you talking about specifically?

0:29:09 Jamie: Professional Democrats, just generally, I think it just By virtue of being a human being, you are subject to biases. And we all of us are subject to thinking that our knowledge and our sense of understanding the world is on average better than than most people. And I think that this is likely to be the case for people who are working in politics. And I don't think necessarily these mistakes are the sort of like sitting down going, "I'm going to throw the election for the candidate I want." But I do think these biases sort of slip in and have an impact and influence. To what extent, to what percentage, I don't know. I think that's less important than the fact that the way that the media frames these things definitely is deserving of criticism. Steve Kornacki, there's a screenshot of him after the New Hampshire primary, is broadcasting the election results in New Hampshire.

0:29:13 Thomas: Okay.

0:30:06 Jamie: And on the top of the infographic, he's got Pete Buttigieg in second place, and he's got Amy Klobuchar in third place. There is no mention whatsoever of who actually won the primary. Similarly, Reuters put out a headline. And they said, Pete Buttigieg comes in second place in New Hampshire. Amy Klobuchar takes third. Again, there's no mention of Sanders. And I think may not be malice in any one particular instance. And it may not be a conspiracy that the sum total of these effects are on purpose intentionally designed to thwart Sanders. But it does become suspicious when when you have a comedy of errors like this and they seem to disproportionately affect the one candidate that party insiders are on the record having wondered about whether or not they should form a coalition to stop.

0:30:57 Jamie: And so I think the sort of derision thrown towards like these generic Bernie bro Sanders supporters is a bit too heavy handed. So

0:31:07 Thomas: Oh, it's not generic. It's specifically at people who chirp at me, but that's also a bad way to do it because, like you say, I mean it's it's not representative. I also have to say that I've, you know, when I see those screenshots shared in the past, I've looked at some of those and they they weren't accurate, like it's a, sometimes they're either faked or they're a moment in time that wasn't the whole broadcast, and so I like, I worry about some of that so I would want to vet those. Now, maybe, I also think there have been real examples, so I'm not saying it's zero, but uh, I also, I don't know, I worry bout trusting some of the screenshots of broadcasts where it's like, maybe maybe they just spent the two seconds before that saying Bernie won. And then after that, they said, "Here's came inside." You know, it's I don't know. I OK,

0:31:47 Jamie: I don't watch MSNBC. I can't speak to how that one was edited, the Reuters headline, I can vouch for that one myself. I have the screenshot that I took of their report that I can send you, That they literally, they led with the second and the third place. And it sort of stretches credulity to think that they're doing, this is just a good faith mistake and that people who have been covering elections as part of their business for decades just forgot that you're supposed to cover the person who Won the election, that seems suspect to me.

0:31:55 Thomas: Sure, sure.

0:32:16 Thomas: Well, well, but Reuters is an international organization. Do you think they would have some like, well? I guess I don'T understand what the what the motivation would be. It's kind of weird.

0:32:27 Jamie: No, I mean, I guess the opposite,

0:32:28 Thomas: They're not even a U.S.

0:32:29 Jamie: Right, but then the alternative is that they just forgot to, that people care who won the election. And that just doesn't seem plausible to me. That like, I just, it just doesn't make any sense to me to suggest that they thought not covering the winner of the election was the way to go. And maybe I'm mistaken. Maybe if we did a a history search, there would be countless other reports on elections where second and third were reported, but not who won. I find that extremely unlikely to be the case, though admittedly possible.

0:32:40 Thomas: Yeah, fair. Yeah. So, yeah, it's just so weird because it's like Reuters of all things. Things. We wouldn't think it was like NBC or, you know, something like that, but it's like, what, what would their motive be? But I, you Know, and again, I could be wrong. Maybe, maybe there is some motive I don't know about, but yeah, but long story short.

So some other things I wanted to bring in I do want to say this and I, I tweeted about this or no, maybe I Facebook one way or the other. I do Want to stand by this because this is one of those things where like, you No, I, like you said a minute ago, we all have our biases and, and we, I try to be upfront with mine. You try to be upfront with yours who are supporting.

But this is something I believe in spite of my own bias. And so I want to emphasize it. And I just have to firmly say that if anybody should feel like the first two contests are unfair, I think it should be Biden because he has the numbers and his coalition coalition is mostly people of color.

0:34:04 Thomas: Like he has that support. And then these first two tiny white states get to have this undue influence on our process. And I think you've you've already pretty much agreed to most of this, that they shouldn't go first. We really got to find if we want to have a party that represents our diverse demographics of our actual electorate, we got to change states that go first because, you know, and a lot of people are saying because in my despair about Warren having no chance, people are saying, oh, look, these are two tiny states. You know, you need 1,991 delegates and these have been like 40, you know, it's like none. Yes and no. Like, I agree in principle, but also these two states do have produced a pretty big jump in the numbers nationally for like a cratering of Biden, for one, that's probably the biggest movement out of all this, and a pretty decent surge for Buttigieg, a dip for Warren.

0:34:58 Thomas: It's just, we can't help it. But I guess humans can't help but be but feel like when you see these contests, you know, short of Iowa totally blowing it again. But New Hampshire, they can't helped but think, oh, these are the this is the candidate that really looks good and is going to win and is electable and all that stuff. They have an undue influence. I'm not saying it means 100 percent. I'm Not saying it Means like whoever wins those is definitely the nominee. I think if you look back in history, there's a strong correlation with who wins either of those two contests. Um, you know, and, and I think to some extent this election is going to be an anomaly because of how many viable candidates we have. Like it's feels like a lot more than at least the guaranteed than 2016 and, and perhaps, uh, past elections too. But the point is it's a lot of influence.

0:35:44 Thomas: It's way more than they should have. And we got to find a more representative state to start with. And Biden, honestly, I could see things having gone so much differently. If imagine if South Carolina were the first state to go, how electable he would look. Now, I'm glad that he's not going to look more electable because I don't want Biden to be the candidate. But it it does feel pretty unfair to me. What do you think?

0:36:06 Jamie: Yeah, so I agree with almost all of that. If anybody has grounds for complaint, I can see Biden's being the most plausible case. I will push back just a little bit, though. Biden's campaign schedule was very light. He really phoned in New Hampshire and Iowa, counting on the fact that he Would have his firewall in South Carolina. And I think that reflects poorly on his campaign that he just wrote those voters off, irrespective of whether or not they ought to be the first in the nation primary in caucuses. Secondly, Biden in part went down on flames because he's a terrible retail campaigner, you know, the reason he's on such a light campaign schedule is because he does really outrageous things like call a woman a dog-faced pony whatever it was, and he's just not good on the stump, he's not good connecting with voters, you give him enough opportunities and eventually he flames out. And so yeah, does Biden have the most plausible case for complaint, given that this doesn't represent the coalition of voters he has?

0:36:24 Thomas: Yeah, sure.

0:37:16 Jamie: Yes. Would Biden not have flamed out somewhere else if he had to actually do the hard work of campaigning? I don't know.

0:37:25 Thomas: Yeah, I think I I think mostly agree with that. Yeah, I think you're right that he it's a combination. I think if it were 20 years ago, I do not believe Biden would have done the same thing. Like even if all the numbers were the same, I think he would have been able to campaign and at least put, put in some effort in these states. But I think they're already, his campaign is already so guarded with him anyway, because he's just falling apart. Uh, he just seems like not up to it to me. Um, that I think being conservative with his time, they're just like, we're not going to waste the time in, in burning land over here in these two states. So they just called it quits.

0:38:00 Jamie: Yeah, I think that makes sense. But I think you're right. Like even watching him in this last debate, I was struck by how much he reminded me of my grandpa. And to be fair, I loved my grandpa. But towards the end there, Parkinson's had really done a number on him and he was just not making a lot of sense.

0:38:01 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:38:21 Jamie: And that was the part of my grandpa that Joe Biden reminded me of in this last debate. Like he just didn't seem all there. His answers were just sort of vague and and politician-y adjacent, but they didn't even have the strength that he had in the beginning of the debate. He just seemed to be sort of getting tired, for lack of a better description. A

0:38:50 Thomas: Yeah, and it really does strike me that that's kind of happening because it comes in waves. Like you'll see a few, you know, a few minutes here and there where you're like, oh, that's that's the old Joe Biden, looks okay, and then, like, you know, especially at the beginning of the debate he seemed really bad. And then there's like a part in the middle where it's like, oh, okay, he's putting some sentences together. And And then I think toward the end, he just kind of lost it. Yeah, it just really makes me nervous. Oh, one quick thought. I keep seeing people say that they, you know, want a candidate, especially we've, I don't know how much media you consume. I know you don't listen to podcasts, but for me, every podcast has been, let's interview some Iowa voters, some New Hampshire voters, that kind of thing. And a lot of people are talking about, like, I want somebody who can, you go toe to toe with Trump and the debates.

0:39:35 Thomas: I don't think Trump is going to do the debates, like. I genuinely am not sure I'm not making 100% claim, but like, why would he, you know, like he got trounced by Hillary and it didn't even matter. So like, why would he care? What do you think about that?

0:39:55 Jamie: Really interesting question. I don't know. I haven't really thought about it.

0:40:02 Thomas: Yeah. I look at it like the Correspondence dinner, you know? He went to that for a while. People made fun of him. And then he's like, I'm never doing this. I'm not even as president, I am not going. I wonder, you know, no one had not gone to that correspondence dinner since it was started, or whatever, no president, and except for Reagan, who was shot in the hospital or whatever. Uh, and so I, you know, I, he doesn't care about these kind of stupid precedents. He finds it easy to just say, that's right, no, it's right, it'll be, it's fake, unfair, and so he'll just not go. I, I genuinely wonder, I, I'm like 60%, thinking he's not gonna go. I'm not 100% sure, like 60%. Yeah.

0:40:04 Jamie: Would, yeah, So that's really interesting. I'm sort of inclined to disagree, just because because unlike the correspondence dinner, the debate stage allows him the opportunity to strike back. And one of the things that I think actually helped his campaign, which is really a depressing state of affairs, or really represents a not-so-pleasant picture of America, is people seem to really respond to his bullying. He was able to cut down the Republican field by just being a schoolyard bully on the debate stage and calling people lying Ted and little Marco, and I don't even remember the nicknames for everybody else, and so he seems to really thrive in those kinds of scenarios. It seems to rally his supporters, and so I would be sort of surprised if he passed up the debate, but then I guess that's going to be a matter of who he has to debate against if he perceives the person who's the nominee as someone who's weaker, that he can make fun of, or who he can cut down with a nickname, I imagine he's going to very eagerly want to be on the debate stage. But if it's somebody he, thank you.

0:41:10 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:41:54 Thomas: That's a good point. Sorry. I thought you were done. I did. I, there was a silence on Skype. I thought that was the end of it. Apologies. Did you have more to say?

0:42:00 Jamie: No, I was just sort of collecting my thoughts. I just to say, like, I think if there's, and I don't know who it would be, like, obviously, I mean, I'm inclined to who I think would be the best. But if Donald Trump sized up the nominee is someone who might might give him back what he dishes out, then maybe you're right and he would abstain from it. But again, the optics of that would be sort of demoralizing for his base. They really like the red meat that he throws out.

0:42:06 Thomas: Sure.

0:42:31 Thomas: Perhaps. Okay. Thinking through this, what you've said, I think you've got, I think you've moved me to 40%. So you made a good case. I would say I, I, I think that I would draw a distinction between Republican primary debates versus general debates, um, because it's different audience. I mean, I think you're right, you're absolutely right that Republicans gobbled up the bullying in the primary debates. Even when Fox News tried to fight against Trump, they tried to, you know, lest we all forget, Fox News tried to stop Trump in the primarily, they sent everything they had at him and they lost. And then they said, well, you win, we are now your slaves. It's seriously, they're like, we'll just say whatever you want, you know. Uh, what's his name, himself, uh, just said like, yep, all right, we're, we're your, your network now 'cause you won. Um, and, uh, in the general, I, I don't know that it came across the same way. Uh, people were pretty upset about, you know, the looming over Hillary and all that stuff.

0:42:36 Jamie: Okay. I wonder

0:43:24 Thomas: But then again, that's 'cause I have my news bubble. Like maybe you're right that on Fox News, it was all great, everything he did was brilliant, and it was fine in the general debates. And so I guess it would come down to how he feels about it. I certainly am 100% sure that if he didn't want to do the debates, he wouldn't, he would just, he wouldn't care that it's norm, he wouldn't carry it, you would just not do it. But I think you may totally be right that he might just feel like, ah, I could just go say whatever, you know, I, I'm Trump, I'm the greatest, everything I say is per his gospel. So I'll just go call Bernie a socialist a bunch of times and that'll be fine, that's a, we'll call it a debate, you know? And, and you're, so you're right, maybe, uh, maybe we'll be, maybe it will be at those debates, but maybe if one goes poorly, he'll like not do the rest or something. I don't know, yeah.

0:44:07 Jamie: How that'll be determined by what the national polling looks like at that point. What will his calculation be if he's down by five or up by five? I have no no idea. This is really a nightmare timeline, and I can't make sense of

0:44:21 Thomas: It Really is. So I guess we, in terms of our order here, we've talked a little bit about the debate, not a ton, you know. I, I think that, um, you know, it was more, again, it was kind of more the same. That's, that's been the weird thing about this contest, everyone keeps thinking there's going to be some moment that like changes everything. And, um, Klobuchar, I just, she goes after buddha judge so much and I live for it, I can't help it, I love it, every time, that's my, my favorite. I'll never get over when she called him, I'm not gonna, she said, I'm not going to denigrate a local official or whatever, it was the best, that was like two or three debates ago, I love it. But yeah, I mean, what else can we say? I mean, there was, there was that question that they, they really set up, they, they asked Buttigieg a race question about his, his, I think it was marijuana arrests, I believe.

0:45:07 Thomas: And he had a bad answer. And then they're like, they teed Warren up. They're No, like, and it kind of, and, and you know, she had a great answer. And in my opinion, she had lot of good answers and it just doesn't seem to matter. Nothing really changes. I guess the only thing that I think has mattered has been the optics of Biden doing terribly in Iowa, then leading to Klobuchar doing way better in New Hampshire. Like, honestly, it feels to me, it could be wrong. It feels to be like, that's the only things in this, in this race that has is very little movement. I mean, Warren had a surge, then she came back down. Other than that, like, it's so steady. I don't see what's going to change anything other than, you know, like I said, the optics of Biden in these last few contests does seem to be feeding directly into Klobuchar. And I say all that because, drawing to a close here, because we're running out of time, I'm despairing about Warren.

0:45:07 Jamie: This. Yeah. I

0:46:01 Thomas: I know we have a lot of listeners who are like me, are Warren supporters, and some of them have pushed back against my despair. And I would love for you to be right, listeners. You know, somebody said, like, "Oh, again, you know, 1991." I just do not, I don't see the path. Like, I don't, somebody tell me, tell me how it happens that Warren wins. Like, I just, I literally, I can't see it. Like, nothing makes a difference. She's just steady decline, internal numbers for a while now. She's down to, you know, it could be in the under 10 on a couple polls. You know, some polls have her 13 or whatever. But what's it going to to be? Is there even a state? I can't even think of a sequence of states where it would really matter. I mean, there's got to be one state that's going to be good. Is Massachusetts going to be good for her?

0:46:48 Thomas: What's going to do it? I mean we're going to get to Super Tuesday and she's going to get some delegates, but where's the part where she turns that into winning? Am I missing something, Jamie? Am I being too negative?

0:46:59 Jamie: Really like Elizabeth Warren. I've also donated to Elizabeth Warren's campaign. I just don't see a path for her at this point. I feel like if, I think that's what it is, I feel if you're looking for a progressive Democrat as your nominee, given the last two contests. That seems to be solidifying around Bernie Sanders. And then there's your sort of centrist, center-left, moderate, whatever candidates battling it out for second place. And I just don't see where Elizabeth Warren is going to break in in that. I think she would have been the natural second choice had Bernie Sanders not done well. And I think she would have been able to pull a lot of support from Bernie's contingent. But given his strength right now, I don't see that happening. And it

0:47:08 Thomas: Yeah. Bernie's too strong, I think.

0:47:25 Thomas: Yep. Yeah.

0:47:54 Jamie: Doesn't seem plausible to me that she's got a path given the other dynamics in the race.

0:47:59 Thomas: That's how I'm feeling too. I wish it were otherwise, personally, but I don't, I just don't see it, but oh, well, who knows? I mean, I could be wrong. I'm not saying I know who's going to win or anything. There's still plenty of time. I don't know who's going to win. I just, I don't think it's going be, I know, who's going to not win. I know Yang's not going to win. I know, you know, I'm pretty sure Steyer's not going to win and I'm pretty sure, uh, you know, I'm pretty sure Warren's not gonna win! Um, how do you feel about, I guess, the last few questions here, um, how do you feel about the fact that, you know, people have been making this this observation in light of the last few contests, you know, the sum total moderate vote being higher than the sum totally progressive vote, um, how do you feel about that? Are you worried for the general or for, you know, for going forward because of that, right?

0:48:45 Jamie: So I'm not, for a couple of reasons, but mostly that voters for the most part, aren't necessarily rational actors. And so just take Biden supporters, for example. The biggest and most popular second choice for Biden supporters is Bernie Sanders. And then Warren gets 19% of Biden's supporters.

0:49:13 Jamie: So 45% of Biden supporters have as their second choice one of the two progressive left-leaning Democratic candidates. People aren't going from Biden to Bernie or Biden to Warren because of any consistency on policy or committed philosophical view. They're going from Biden to Bernie or Biden to Warren because of much more like nebulous things, like I like their personality or I could have a beer with them. And I think that's a lot of what's at play in the Buttigieg-Klobuchar-Biden three-way split for a second place or for their three-way anti-Bernie place in the race. I just don't think that there can be these

0:49:13 Thomas: That's

0:49:58 Jamie: Clearly defined lanes in the way that the media wants to spin it. A

0:50:04 Thomas: Definitely true, good point. Um, I, I, does that contradict kind of our theory about Biden's dip going directly to Klobuchar pretty much lately or not? Yeah.

0:50:16 Jamie: Little bit, but then the math is the math. Amy Klobuchar was down and Biden was up and now Biden is down and it went somewhere and it seems to have disproportionately gone to Amy Klobuchar. Buttigieg got a little bit. Maybe Bernie got some of it. I don't know. It's hard to say. Almost

0:50:19 Thomas: Yeah.

0:50:33 Thomas: Yeah, interesting. I'm not sure either way. I mean, I, I don't think I have the answer either. I'm just curious, just getting your thoughts on it. Yeah, I, I agree it does, it does seem like a little unfair to just count, like, well, these, you know, add up these candidates and they're definitely all moderate votes and, you know, the other ones are, I think you're right, a lot of people have weird, what I would consider weird, preferences where, where their first choice was Biden and then their second choice is, you know, like Trotsky somehow. It's very weird. I don't get it. But yeah, it does seem to be what the data suggests. So who knows? Maybe the ones who jumped over to Klobuchar were, you know, maybe for some reason, the people who had the second preference of Warren or Bernie, maybe nothing new changed their mind.

0:51:20 Thomas: But then Klobuchar performing well changed, you know, the Biden supporters who had her as a second choice, maybe that could be it. Like they were just more apt to moving than the other people. I don't know. It could be something like that. I guess we'll, we'll see. Looking forward, the next thing is a stupid caucus. It's the Nevada caucus, February 22nd. So we got, you know we got 10 days until that. And then they're February 29th. That's a fake date. Got to be a typo there. There's a South Carolina primary February 29. 29th. And that will be interesting. I mean, I will be very interested to see how Biden is coming into that. And then, gosh, this thing you're telling me about Steyer. I don't know. I don't even know what to make of that. It's going to make the process so weird.

0:52:06 Jamie: 19% in South Carolina. But I think we'll have a much better shape of the race after South Carolina, because then we're Going to finally get people voting who are more representative of just the general American population. And we'll get a better sense of where people are and who they're lining up behind. I think at this stage, it's really hard to tell because voters are trying to be practical. You talk to most voters, and they're going to tell you their number one issue is defeating Donald Trump. And no matter which campaign you talk to, that campaign is going to tell you we're best suited to defeat Donald Trump. And so there's lot of just up in the air variables right now and nobody's really clear about what they're doing. I

0:52:13 Thomas: Yeah.

0:52:47 Thomas: Yeah, and then a three, a scant three days later, we get Super Tuesday and that's 1344 delegates out of the 1991 that you need. I guess the total, I can't remember what the total is. Is it, I guess it would be roughly double that or because you only need a majority. Anyway, that's a lot of states, including mine, California. So that's when I'll be voting or I think we all do vote by mail these days. California has that. So, is nice. So yeah, that will be very interesting. Maybe we can find another way to try to avoid politics for a little while until then, Jamie, because it was a lot of fun last week to take a break. What do you think?

0:53:25 Jamie: Think that's a great plan, let's do that.

0:53:28 Thomas: So we'll reconvene our caucus at a later date after some more political, I'm sure there's another debate any minute, you know, happening. They're pretty rapid fire these days, but we'll see how that goes. Okay. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. We really appreciate you. And thanks for, again, all the response on that last episode. So much to talk about. I promise we're going to get to your questions and responses. There's a lot. I mean, we could do a number of episodes on those. We'll see what we want to do, but we will see you next time. Thanks for listening.

0:54:06 Clip: Thank you so much for listening to Serious Inquiries Only. If you like the show, the absolute best thing you can do is support us at patreon.com slash SeriousPod. The second best thing you can do is please share it on social media or by word of mouth. Speaking of social media, if you'd like to follow Jamie on Twitter, she's at Euthyphro. And follow me at SeriousPod. If you'd like to be Facebook friends, send me a request at facebook.com slash ThomasPodcast. If you're not up for that level of intimacy, that's fine. Maybe you want to join the discussion at facebook.com/groups/SIO members. Thank you again for listening. We'll see you next time.