How different do you think the narrative would be if SC were the first primary, and not IA / NH?...

[SidDithers]

It's crazy that two such small, demographically homogeneous states have such huge influence on the primary narrative.

Sid

[FailureToCommunicate]

1. Yup. Fewer than a dozen white people (Dixon Notch) set the talking points for

the early part of the primaries.

Things gotta change.

[beachbumbob]

2. this is a very good question to be asking, the narrative would be completely changed

for sure. Thats why I never place any value on small states AND caucuses as they do not represent the crossection of Americans who vote.

[JustAnotherGen]

3. Approximately 515 thousand votes cast

https://apps.npr.org/liveblogs/20200229-south-carolina/

We get a much larger sample of voters from South Carolina.


I get we are a big tent - but the core base that is reliable just spoke with a resounding thud.

[bucolic_frolic]

4. Again

the process was always a slow roll across the country, over several months, for a national dialogue. You don't want to start off with a wholesale lot of delegates that makes late primaries irrelevant.

Money in politics had different ideas. Now we're front-end loaded in March.

I think it would help if the few states that go early would vote instead of caucus, and make it 3 or 4 of them instead of 2.

[weissmam]

5. and once the primamry voting gets to larger states

it will become evident that Joe is the nominee

[Blue_true]

11. I am in Florida on March 17. Bernie is not going to do well here at all.

Georgia comes the next week. Florida and Georgia will send something like 340 pledged delegates to the convention, and another 50 or so unpledged. Basically, in two weeks, everything voted so far will be undone and some of the smaller Super Tuesday votes undone.

[treestar]

6. very different

pundits gotta punditize. They have nothing else to talk about after the first primaries.

[C_U_L8R]

7. It looked almost like classic Ali strategy.

The rope a dope. Take incoming fire until everyone thinks your done. Then come back with tremendous new energy to win over your exhausted opponents when it matters most. Yes, the big state elections will tell a lot.

[Mike 03]

8. The big issue is money.

I don't think Biden's financial support would have dried up. That's such a perilous situation for a candidate headed into Super Tuesday. With little money it's hard to mount a ground game or really any kind of game.

[dem4decades]

9. I think Iowa and New Hampshire's time has come, to go.

[KPN]

10. The narrative would be what it was before

Biden’s lead in the polls began to fade a few months before Iowa. Last night would have put him securely in the front-runner, person to beat category again. Whether that would change the outcome of the overall primary, we will never know. Personally, I think the challenge Biden is getting from the left would have happened regardless. I feel like a bigger problem for him has been the candidacy’s of Buttigieg, Klobuchar and now Bloomberg. Fewer moderates would no doubt have enhanced Biden’s position and given him more armor in withstanding the challenge from Sanders/Warren. Overall, I feel like the sequence of States’ primaries has less to do with things than the size of the moderate field. Too many Democrstic and Democratic leaning voters are dissatisfied with the past 40 years, and Biden sort of represents that past in those voters’ eyes. They want real change.

[Blue_true]

13. Bernie Sanders has been in Washington for over 30 years.

Why do you lay things squarely on Biden and not Bernie? At least Biden has been involved with significant societal change. Bernie has mostly alienated people that he needed to work with.

The only difference is that Bernie is making fairy-dust promises to a lot of gullible people and some people that should know better.

[KPN]

18. You have what I believe is a jaded view of what Sanders has accomplished. But, that

is beside the point. What I said is about my sense of the electorate, not what I think. You’ll need to question all of them about laying things squarely on Biden, not me. Calling his supporters gullible people falling for fairy dust promises is also not objective. Nor is it going persuade or influence anyone in a positive way.

[Blue_true]

27. A large portion of his supporters are gullible people, simple as that.

The others are people who have seen enough to know better , but somehow are getting sucked in.

Fortunately for the country, the Bernie supporters that can't see clearly in the General won't be needed. African Americans underperformed in key states in 2016, recent elections say they won't do that in 2020. Once AA voters pull us through to victory, the issues that affects AS and many Americans need to be dealt with first, the Bernie supporters that voted third party or stayed home can wait, the fact is we would solve the problems they claim they see in a more sensible, more sustainable fashion anyway, so there will be no need to give a shit about what they want.

[KPN]

29. I think you are wrong in saying they are gullible.

So we’re in disagreement on that. Most of the Sanders supporters I know are intelligent, rational people who view our current political dynamic as one that does not work for the benefit of all and also understand the reality that change won’t happen easily.

[Blue_true]

31. Many of them have a myopic, uninformed view of how historical progress has worked.

Massive change doesn't happen in times of mild growth, and thanks to President Obama, we have had that for over 11 years now. The issue is what policies take us to the next level, those policies are not the ones Bernie is calling out, IMO.

[sheshe2]

33. What has he accomplished?

Please don't list the amendments.

He talks and does not do.

[Renew Deal]

12. Why is the vote of one red state more important than three blue ones?

[Blue_true]

14. Because the whole concept of a primary is that DEMOCRATS across America

get to help pick the Democratic Party's nominee, REGARDLESS OF WHERE THEY LIVE.

Why are the votes of White people in Iowa and New Hampshire, or Hispanic people in Nevada worth more than the votes of Black people in South Carolina? You seem ok with the imbalance, as long as it favors what you want, IMO.

[Renew Deal]

15. I don't want Sanders

His nomination is political self-immolation. But I do want people to think. Someone will always have to go first. So why should we count on a red states like SC or Utah ahead of any blue ones?

[Blue_true]

16. Why? Because a lot of democrats live there.

Unfortunately, most key purple states are too big to go first. I really wish that California or Texas would push one of their primaries back to the first or middle of April (go with Lousiana). They would still get money spent there - but I am afraid with all the money and attention they got this cycle, they won't push things back.

I think two good choices to start things off would be Michigan or North Carolina, both have some size but are not too big like Florida or Pennsylvania.

[Drunken Irishman]

24. Is Iowa blue, though?

Certainly a more swing state at the presidential level but it went solidly Trump in 2016 and Trump leads Biden and Bernie by an average of 3 and 6 there respectively. But Iowa's governor is a Republican. Their two senators are Republican.

I'd say it's only marginally more Democratic than South Carolina.

[Moderateguy]

28. Also Red States show us if the nominee has wide appeal..

There aren’t just enough blue states to win in the electoral college. So we need candidates to show cross-over appeal in red and purple states

[mcar]

17. We'd be looking at a completely different race, IMO

Harris and Booker might still be in it.

[NYMinute]

19. Yes. Iowa and NH should stand down.

If they refuse, the Democratic party should make their delegates non-voting delegates to reduce those stupid exercises as "beauty contests."

[McCamy Taylor]

20. I think we should rotate the first primary state every election.

[Spider Jerusalem]

21. How different do you think the narrative would be if SC voted on Super Tuesday? (n/t)

[DanTex]

22. Better for Bernie.

If Biden won the first state, followed it up with three poor performances, it would have played worse for him.

Of course, the media would try to spin it against Bernie in either case.

[SidDithers]

23. You assume SC would have been followed by 3 poor performances...

I believe that the overwhelming victory in SC would have impacted how the other 3 contests played out

Sid

[ehrnst]

25. I guess the "Only 3 winners of SC went on to become Presiden, so Saturday is irrelevant"

talking point has run it's course?

[True Blue American]

26. Terry McAuliffe

Said,” They would not be first next time.” The Caucus is going the way of the Dodo bird.

[loyalsister]

30. I would rather see a state like Nev. or Michigan first

A truly diverse state. SC may not be majority white, but it is a part of the very conservative south where hierarchy rules. I don't see it as representative of a wide range of experiences. Michigan and Nevada both have good rural and urban representation, as well as demographic variation for a balance.

[Scurrilous]

32. Especially when you see insanity like this at 538

'The answer in the case of Iowa is that it matters a lot. Despite its demographic non-representativeness, and the quirks of the caucuses process, the amount of media coverage the state gets makes it far more valuable a prize than you’d assume from the fact that it only accounts for 41 of the Democrats’ 3,979 pledged delegates'

'...that Iowa was the second most-important date on the calendar this year, trailing only Super Tuesday. It was worth the equivalent of almost 800 delegates, about 20 times its actual number.'

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/iowa-might-have-screwed-up-the-whole-nomination-process/



He based his models on this nonsense. At one point his projections had Bernie winning SC and all of Super Tuesday. Combine this with media narrative of Iowa/NH win makes inevitable and things get seriously fucked up.