The Sam Spade Memorial Good Post Gallery

[Beet]

I) Fundraising

Myth #1: Hillary was a financial juggernaut in 2007-2008, with Obama running on a shoestring budget.

Fact: Obama outraised her multiple times, occasionally by blowout margins. And this wasn't only towards the end of the primary, he was outraising her as early as Q2 of 2007. There's simply no evidence that Obama had any trouble whatsoever keeping competitive with fundraising, which is a hallmark of a serious candidate.

Now, does anyone seriously believe any of the D-list candidates currently running against her are capable of being competitive with Hillary in fundraising? As I type this, Hillary is raising ungodly amounts of money from the Democratic donor class, which this time is nearly unanimously behind her (more on this point later.) Meanwhile, O'Malley, Chafee, and the rest are all dithering in their exploratory committees. That's just making their already inescapable hole even deeper.

Myth #2: Money doesn't mean everything! <insert example here>.

Fact: Yes, there are examples of candidates who got drastically outspent winning. But those are the exceptions that prove the rule. Most of the time, the better funded candidate wins. And even in cases where the candidate with less money won, they still usually had enough to at least stay competitive. That will not be so this time. Hillary is going to completely demolish the competition in terms of fundraising. It will not be remotely close.

II) Establishment Support

Myth #3: The Democratic establishment overwhelmingly backed Hillary in 2007, just like they're doing now.

Fact: The Democratic establishment was in no way united behind Hillary. Not only is this clear from the fundraising figures above, it is also clear from endorsements. In case you guys forgot, Ted Kennedy was a huge backer of Obama. Many other Democratic politicians backed him as well. Hillary had more endorsements overall, but it was not anything close to unanimous. As for Hillary, at this point in 2007 she had the support of a single Senator. This time she has the support of 27 Senators before she even declared her campaign, more than a majority of the Democratic caucus. Yeah, #Hillaryover50. As for her "competition", they have nothing. In Maryland, both Senators have endorsed Hillary. Same for the Senators and Governors in Virginia and Rhode Island. Sanders' Senate colleague has endorsed Hillary. If none of these people can win endorsements from high ranking politicians in their home states, where exactly are they going to do so?

III) Polling

Myth #4: Hillary was polling just as strong/almost as strong in 2007/2008 as she was now.

Fact: Hillary's poll numbers aren't even in the same universe now as they were in 2007/2008. I will illustrate using the RCP averages.

(For the purposes of this thread, I will be ignoring Elizabeth Warren's support since she is clearly not running. Some might scoff at this, but if anything it's TOO generous to the non Hillary candidates, since three separate pollsters (Marist, CNN, and YouGov) have all confirmed that Hillary actually gains the most when Warren is excluded. Not surprising when you consider the gender factor. However, since I have no way of knowing what the actual breakdown is, I will simply ignore it entirely.)

National, April 16th 2007: Clinton +9
National, April 16th 2015: Clinton +48
Swing: Clinton +39

Iowa, April 16th 2007: Edwards +3 (!)
Iowa, April 16th 2015: Clinton +48
Swing: Clinton +51

New Hampshire, April 16th 2007: Clinton +8
New Hampshire, April 16th, 2015: Clinton +44
Swing: Clinton +36

South Carolina, April 16th 2007: Clinton +7
South Carolina, April 16th 2015: Clinton +43
Swing: Clinton +36

The numbers speak for themselves. You're either insane or willfully ignorant if you think Hillary's numbers in the 2008 cycle are anywhere near what they are now.

Myth #5: Okay, Hillary leads by a huge margin, but it's only because of name recognition.

Fact: Name recognition is a part of her leads, but it can't explain them away, or even greatly reduce them for that matter. If it's only because of name recognition, why is she crushing Biden everywhere who has name recognition just as high? If it's only because of name recognition, why is she demolishing Martin O'Malley, Jim Webb, Andrew Cuomo, Mark Warner, Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker, Russ Feingold, etc. in their home states when most Democrats in those states know who they are and like them? Hell, she even stomps Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts, and I would consider her a viable opponent against Hillary.

Myth #6: Okay, people are polling horribly now, but they can come out of nowhere just like Obama did.

Fact: Obama did not "come out of nowhere." He was widely talked up as a potential candidate after his 2004 DNC speech. And the fundraising figures and polling numbers show he did not begin as a nonentity once he entered the race either. He immediately gathered a solid base of support (both among the electorate and donor base), unlike the clique of literal 1%ers currently running against Hillary. Just see for yourself how high he was polling even in the early stages of the race through those links from earlier.

IV) Miscellaneous

Myth #7: Well, Hillary got destroyed in 2008, so she's clearly vulnerable anyway

Fact: No, it was actually the closest presidential primary campaign in history, and she arguably won the popular vote. And this was against a stellar candidate like Obama. Considering that, what exactly can Lincoln Chafee do against a FAR stronger Hillary?

Myth #8: She was inevitable in 2008 too!

Fact: This was a retrospective media narrative based off no evidence at the time, simply because "David beats Goliath" sounds a lot more interesting than "strong 2nd place defeats frontrunner", and to simultaneously lionize Obama and bask in the defeat of their hated nemesis Hillary. If you need evidence, read this. The author went back and delved into news stories from 2007-2008, and references to Hillary's "inevitability" were very thin, particularly after Obama entered the race. It's simply not based in reality.

However, even if they did describe her that way, that would simply reflect the idiocy of the media rather than showing anything about Hillary, because of the polling numbers above. How exactly would someone leading by mere single digits nationally and in NH/SC, but TRAILING in Iowa be "inevitable"? The answer is that they wouldn't be, and anyone who described them that way is literally retarded. But again, very few people did.

Myth #9: But Democrats/liberals/progressives/the left/the base/minorities hate Hillary!

Fact: No, they actually all love her. Read the crosstabs of any Hillary favorability poll for proof. I'm sorry, but your personal hatred of Hillary Clinton does not speak for the entire Democratic Party, as much as you wish it to be so. As for minorities, a little noticed fact is that African Americans are one of her strongest core groups of support now, and she cleaned Obama's clock amongs Hispanics in the 2008 primary, another inconvenient fact that went down the memory hole.

Myth #10: I'm an annoying Hillary hack because I consistently point out stubborn facts

Fact: No, actually most of my detractors are the hacks. All of the empirical evidence is on my side, while all the anti-Hillary hacks have is their own wishful thinking.

V) Conclusion

Hillary is inevitable. Get over it.

[Beet]

A solid majority of working class whites (outside of the South) are loyal Democrats, and most have more liberal views in general (but particularly on economic issues) than middle and upper class whites (which are the bulk of this forum's posters, so...).

This might be true if you set the income level low enough - it really depends on what constitutes "working class" - but even among the $50k and less crowd, whites are quite surprising in some states.

And holy crap: look at those "white working class" states that are supposedly voting said way because of racism. Look at West Virginia. Of course Atlas doesn't get it:

Romney was a terrible candidate for the white working class, whereas Trump may be a good one.

[Beet]

The catch is that a respectable, richer, less vulgarly attention-seeking Trump would have probably been too little known to run for president. Imagine if Steve Bren, Bill Ross, or Bob Toll were to run for President. Do you know who those are?

Real estate is too unglamourous to make you Bezos, Musk, or Jobs-level famous. It does not produce fortunes large enough to make one as a famous as, say, Warren Buffett either. Maybe he could tone down the vulgarity and tastelessness while remaining well known, and our cameras would today be trained not on Trump Tower but 740 Park or one of the larger townhouses on the UES. But it'd be hard.

[Beet]

An WV will still vote republican. I'm sorry to be bitter but f**k em

And if Democrats keep talking about West Virginians the way you do, I can't say that I blame them for voting Republican  It drives me up the wall when I hear fellow Democrats go into these arrogant, condescending "what's the matter with Kansas" rants about how WWC voters and rural whites are stupid for not voting for people from a party that looks at them as though they were rats that just crawled out of the sewer.  I've heard folks (not politicians, people I interact with on a regular basis) whom I consider smart, generally decent people say absolutely repulsive things about low-income, working-class whites.  

Examples (they all come from folks who spent a significant amount of their lives in NYC, are either highly affluent or from wealthy families, graduated college and in some cases even went to grad school, don't talk like this about any other group AFAIK, and are extremely liberal):
 
- "Hey [name redacted], you know how so many of them [rural whites in red states] are dying of drug overdoses, especially in the South?  Wouldn't it be funny if that was kind of like natural selection in action.  I know it's horrible, but it's also kind of cool how you can still see that sort of thing occurring even today."  Fun fact: I was so shocked to hear this from the person who said it and so disgusted by the comment that I almost choked on the water I was drinking at the time (to the point that I literally fell out of my chair because I couldn't breath).

- "I want to hear one of these guys [white voters in Appalachia who supported Trump] admit that they were wrong and that if they tried reading a book or something, they'd know better than to vote for someone who will screw them over whenever he gets half a chance."

- In response to me arguing that Hillary had no message for WWC voters and that the Democratic Party can't treat them with such contempt if it wants them to be a major part of their coalition, the person who made the preceding comment replied: "How stupid are these people?  We shouldn't have to spell it out for them like that when it was obvious that only the Democrats actually cared about them!  Hillary could've just kept making money as a corporate lawyer or something, but instead she decided to spend her whole life helping those people [rural, low-income whites] and they repaid her by voting for Donald Trump.  Everything that has happened under Trump is their fault and it's about time they started admitting it and apologized to the rest of the country."  

- "The country will be so much better once all the old white people finally die off.  I know that's a terrible thing to say, but it's really true."  

- "It's really too bad that there's not a way to let West Virginia and the Confederate states secede, we'd be better off without them."  To be fair, this one was probably a joke, but you get the point.  

This is how a number of liberals in affluent, educated liberals talk about WWC voters (especially WV, I'm not quite sure what they did to be singled-out as the definitive Evil Red State by so many liberals, tbh), especially those from West Virginia.  We hear all kinds of condescending and patronizing comments about rural whites and WWC voters from national Democrats.  

Many of these folks feel the Democrats betrayed them with NAFTA and Cap-and-Trade (I have no problem with cap-and-trade and think Obama was right to push for it, just so there's no confusion) and the Democrats have no message for these voters nor is there any serious attempt to address the fact that they are getting left behind in the new economy.  For example, you never hear national Democrats calling for (much less actually fighting for) tax increases to fund programs to re-train coal miners so that they can support their families once the coal industry's slow death spiral reaches its inevitable conclusion.  

Is it any wonder that so many of these folks decide that if both parties are going to screw them over on economic issues, they might as well vote for the party whose positions on social issues are closer to their own?  I really can't say I blame them for voting that way and I think there is a real lack of empathy and an elitist, class-based sense of entitlement among many liberals regarding WWC votes.  "How dare some lower-income voters support Republicans! " 

P.S: West Virginia has a Democratic Governor and it also has a Democratic Senator who lead the fight for universal background checks (and has refused to run away from that position even in the face of Trump's landslide in WV last November, incredible political pressure from the NRA, and despite being up for re-election in 2018).  Furthermore, WV-3 could be pretty competitive with a decent candidate if Jenkins retires and WV-2 would also likely be competitive with a strong Democratic candidate (it certainly was in 2014), especially with Alex Mooney as the incumbent (a man who is exactly the type of weak incumbent in a district that leans toward his party who can get unexpectedly swept out in a wave election and will never be completely safe).