2016 elections - because it's never too early

[Jacob]

What if it happens? What if Trump wins.

We'd have another Presidency that's all style over substance.

I'd expect you'd get a whole lot of substance, since both the Senate and Congress will be Republican in that case as well. The only breaks on what you'd get would be down to internal strife amongst the Republicans, and whatever sort of compromises they'd have to make amongst themselves to reach agreement.

I figure you'd see a lot of real, substantial political and practical consequences in that case.

[jimmy olsen]

What if it happens? What if Trump wins.

We'd have another Presidency that's all style over substance.

I'd expect you'd get a whole lot of substance, since both the Senate and Congress will be Republican in that case as well. The only breaks on what you'd get would be down to internal strife amongst the Republicans, and whatever sort of compromises they'd have to make amongst themselves to reach agreement.

I figure you'd see a lot of real, substantial political and practical consequences in that case.

Trump would probably have the most acrimonious relationship with congress of any President since Andrew Johnson, and considering GOP shenanigans in the last two Democratic presidencies, that's saying something.

[MadImmortalMan]

Well that just means he'd do far less damage.

[DGuller]

What if it happens? What if Trump wins.

We'd have another Presidency that's all style over substance.

Another?

[Valmy]

What if it happens? What if Trump wins.

We'd have another Presidency that's all style over substance.

That would be fine. But I really doubt that he would be content to just be style. He would have to do things. Which would be very bad.

[Valmy]

Trump would probably have the most acrimonious relationship with congress of any President since Andrew Johnson, and considering GOP shenanigans in the last two Democratic presidencies, that's saying something.

You think so? Well a small glimmer of hope then.

But he is not winning the election on my watch and I control 4.82 X 10^-6 Electoral Votes

[dps]

What if it happens? What if Trump wins.

We'd have another Presidency that's all style over substance.

Another?

I wasn't referring to the Obama Administration, which has had some substance (though not a lot, but Obamacare certainly counts as substance, whether you like it or not), but very little style.

[DGuller]

What if it happens? What if Trump wins.

We'd have another Presidency that's all style over substance.

Another?

I wasn't referring to the Obama Administration, which has had some substance (though not a lot, but Obamacare certainly counts as substance, whether you like it or not), but very little style.

Which administration did you refer to?  I can't think of any in recent memory that didn't have substance.  Some may have given us too much of bad substance, but it was still substance.

[dps]

What if it happens? What if Trump wins.

We'd have another Presidency that's all style over substance.

Another?

I wasn't referring to the Obama Administration, which has had some substance (though not a lot, but Obamacare certainly counts as substance, whether you like it or not), but very little style.

Which administration did you refer to?  I can't think of any in recent memory that didn't have substance.  Some may have given us too much of bad substance, but it was still substance.

Carter.

[Savonarola]

Maybe Sanders does have what it takes to be president after all

Sanders campaign says DNC trying to 'undermine' its bid
Nicole Gaudiano, USA TODAY 3:57 p.m. EST December 18, 2015

Bernie Sanders' campaign manager accused the Democratic National Committee of trying to "undermine" the Vermont senator's White House bid, as the party's decision to suspend Sanders' access to a voter database roiled the presidential campaign on the eve of the latest debate.

The DNC suspended Sanders' access to the party's voter database after four of the Vermont senator's staffers accessed data belonging to rival Hillary Clinton's campaign, one of whom, Josh Uretsky, the campaign's national data director, was fired.

Jeff Weaver, Sanders' campaign manager, pledged to to take the DNC to federal court if it doesn't lift the suspension on the campaign from accessing its own voter data.

"The leadership of the Democratic National Committee is now actively attempting to undermine our campaign," he said at a Friday news conference. "It's impossible to mobilize the kind of grass-roots campaign we have without that data. We are, because of the nature of our campaign, peculiarly affected by this type of taking of data hostage by the DNC."

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, DNC chairwoman, said the Sanders campaign "unfortunately doesn't have anything other than bluster at the moment." She said the only way to analyze the breach is to suspend their ability to access the database. The DNC is conducting an audit and has sought information the Sanders campaign has refused to provide, she said. The sooner that happens, she said, "the quicker we'll be able to get them access (to the voter file)," she told CNN.

Brian Fallon, Clinton's national press secretary, said the campaign was informed its proprietary data was breached by Sanders campaign staff in 25 searches by four different accounts. The data, he said, was saved into the Sanders' campaign account.

"We are asking that the Sanders campaign and the DNC work expeditiously to ensure that our data is not in the Sanders campaign's account and that the Sanders campaign only have access to their own data," Fallon said in a statement.

The database contains nationwide information about voters, and the breach took place after NGP VAN, the technology company that runs the database that helps set campaign strategies, experienced a technical glitch on Wednesday, The Washington Post first reported.

"This was an isolated incident, and we're conducting a full audit to ensure the integrity of the system and reporting the findings to the DNC," Stu Trevelyan, NGP VAN's chief executive, told The New York Times.

A staffer who viewed the data was fired and Weaver said more disciplinary action may follow.  NGP VAN corrected the breach after the Sanders campaign alerted the company to it, according to the DNC.

Michael Briggs, Sanders' communications director, blamed NGP VAN for repeatedly dropping the firewall between the data of different Democratic campaigns even after the Sanders campaign informed the DNC months ago that the campaign data was being compromised.  "At that time our campaign did not run to the media, relying instead on assurances from the vendor," he said in a statement.

Briggs said the vendor once again dropped the firewall on Wednesday, and after discussion with the DNC, it became clear that a Sanders staffer accessed modeling data from another campaign. Briggs called the behavior "unacceptable."

"We are as interested as anyone in making sure that the software flaws are corrected since mistakes by the DNC's vendor also have made our records vulnerable," Briggs said. "We are working with the DNC and the vendor and hope that this kind of lapse will not occur again."

Josh Uretsky, the Sanders staffer who was fired, told CNN Friday morning that he was trying to "understand how badly the Sanders campaign's data was exposed" and he was not trying to access Clinton voter data.

"We knew there was a security breach in the data, and we were just trying to understand it and what was happening," Uretsky said.

Sanders is due to face Clinton in a Democratic primary debate on Saturday.

The DNC shares its voter database with candidates but the candidates must agree to not inappropriately access other campaigns' data. Suspension from the database hurts a campaign's field operations because it helps canvassers determine which streets to target for voters.

Charles Chamberlain, executive director of Democracy for America, a progressive political action committee, said the DNC's decision should be reversed. The group endorsed Sanders on Thursday.

"The Democratic National Committee's decision to attack the campaign that figured out the problem, rather than go after the vendor that made the mistake, is profoundly damaging to the party's Democratic process," Chamberlain said. "DNC leaders should immediately reverse this disturbing decision before the committee does even more to bring its neutrality in the race for President into question."

Luis Miranda, the DNC's communications director, said NGP VAN notified the party on Wednesday that, as a result of a software patch, all users on the system across Democratic campaigns were inadvertently able to access some data belonging to other campaigns for a brief window.

The patch exposed data the Clinton campaign had been collecting about supporters and voters they were targeting, according to the DNC.

"The DNC places a high priority on maintaining the security of our system and protecting the data on it," Miranda said in a statement. "We are working with our campaigns and the vendor to have full clarity on the extent of the breach, ensure that this isolated incident does not happen again, and to enable our campaigns to continue engaging voters on the issues that matter most to them and their families."

The DNC says it instructed NGP VAN to immediately suspend the credentials of the campaign that inappropriately accessed data until a full explanation is received and proof is provided to the affected campaign that information and data inappropriately gathered has been disposed of. The DNC is also looking at the option of an independent audit by a data security firm in addition to the full audit of the system the committee has instructed NGP VAN to conduct.

Weaver said an earlier incident in October, in which the Sanders campaign believed its data may have been breached, should be investigated as well.

The Sanders campaign does not possess data from another campaign and doesn't want it, he said.

"We don't need dirty tricks," he said.

[Savonarola]

I heard a pundit on NPR who gave a little more context on the article above.  One thing he noted is that the data the Bern is locked out of is needed for day to day operation of his campaign; effectively his campaign has been shut down now.  The second key is that the Sanders campaign has long accused the DNC of favoritism for Hil.  The example the pundit gave is that the debates are few, far between and the last two have been scheduled on Saturday night; usually television's dead night.

If that is the case, though, what the staffer did was incredibly reckless; even if it is as innocent as the Sanders campaign makes it out to be.

[Admiral Yi]

Komrade Sander's campaign manager was on the Wolfman Show.  One thing that did not help his case is he started out talking about the "youthful indiscretion" of the one guy who looked at Hillary's data and got fired, then ended up talking about four staffers who had taken a look.

[Razgovory]

Carter.

Carter had substance, people just didn't want to hear it.  He also had the misfortune of having an incompetent military.

[Savonarola]

Komrade Sander's campaign manager was on the Wolfman Show.  One thing that did not help his case is he started out talking about the "youthful indiscretion" of the one guy who looked at Hillary's data and got fired, then ended up talking about four staffers who had taken a look.

Heh, "Komrade Sanders", that's pretty good.  In any event they reached a deal:

Sanders, DNC reach deal on voter file access after breach of Clinton data

Washington (CNN)The Democratic National Committee has agreed to allow the Bernie Sanders campaign to regain access to voter files, Sanders' spokesman Michael Briggs told CNN. The DNC has confirmed the decision.

The DNC had cut off Sanders from a crucial voter database, saying the campaign wrongly accessed data gathered by Hillary Clinton's team. Sanders filed suit in federal court Friday evening seeking to regain access to its own voter data.

The campaign also activated its email list to launch a petition against the DNC and went on a media blitz.

The breach occurred when the vendor, NGP VAN, which supplies access to the database of voter information for both campaigns dropped the firewall, and at least one Sanders campaign staffer accessed Clinton campaign voter data. The accused staffer, Josh Uretsky, Sanders' national data director, was fired from the campaign.

Uretsky said he and his team downloaded only phone numbers but did so to alert the DNC and NGP VAN that the Sanders campaign was aware that voter info in the DNC database wasn't being properly protected.

"We knew that what we were doing was being recorded," he told CNN. "We didn't try to be sneaky at all."

The Sanders campaign said that the breach was not the first one, and that the campaign had reported them in the past.

But the DNC charged that "multiple staffers" from the Sanders campaign downloaded information that they did not have the right to collect over an extended period.

Differing explanations
The Party had made demands regarding the breach and the data to the Sanders campaign. Early Saturday, the DNC said the campaign was meeting them.

"The Sanders campaign has now complied with the DNC's request to provide the information that we have requested of them. Based on this information, we are restoring the Sanders campaign's access to the voter file, but will continue to investigate to ensure that the data that was inappropriately accessed has been deleted and is no longer in possession of the Sanders campaign," the DNC said in a statement early Saturday.

The Sanders campaign had a different interpretation of the decision to restore its access.

"The Democratic National Committee on Friday capitulated and agreed to reinstate Sen. Bernie Sanders' campaign's access to a critically-important voter database," the campaign said.

"The about face came late on Friday night as a deadline neared for a hearing on a motion for an emergency injunction which the Sanders campaign sought after he sued the party in U.S. District Court in Washington."

The Clinton campaign said that the Sanders campaign would be submitting to an independent audit. "We believe this audit should proceed immediately, and, pending its findings, we expect further disciplinary action to be taken as appropriate," her campaign said in a statement.

Tensions burst
The incident set off a powder keg of resentment from Bernie Sanders and liberal Democrats toward the party's establishment with a barrage of accusations and insults.

For months, the Sanders camp has seethed that the Democratic National Committee was already in the bag for Hillary Clinton, purposefully scheduling debates on nights when fewer people are likely to watch -- like the one slated for Saturday night in New Hampshire.

The breach was revealed at a time when Sanders' candidacy is fading from its summer highs and Clinton is dominating the Democratic race, leading 59%-26% nationally, according to a Monmouth University poll Wednesday.

A "democratic socialist," Sanders has effectively become the vehicle for liberals unhappy with their options -- and to some extent, President Barack Obama -- building momentum this summer with huge rallies in liberal enclaves on the coasts and college towns like Madison, Wisconsin.

Clinton's connections to Wall Street and hawkish foreign policy, as well as her struggles this year, exemplified by the drip-drip-drip news about her private email server while secretary of state, have created an opening for liberals to "Feel the Bern."

Saturday night debate

Ironically, the data dustup and resulting lawsuit and anger may fuel more interest in Saturday night's debate, scheduled on the last weekend before Christmas and airing opposite a Dallas Cowboys-New York Jets football game.

Until now, the debates have been the most visible flashpoint between the DNC and candidates competing against Clinton.

"Think about it. The Republicans stand before the nation, they malign our President's record of achievements, they denigrate women and immigrant families, they double down on trickle-down, and tell their false story," Democratic candidate Martin O'Malley said in August. "And we respond with crickets, tumbleweeds and a cynical move to delay and limit our own party debates."

A pair of Democratic Party vice chairs -- Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak -- broke rank with other DNC leaders and called for more debates. And in September, protesters supporting O'Malley and Sanders, including a top O'Malley aide, protested outside the Democratic Party headquarters, demanding more debates.

Oh, Martin, it's really time to go back to the Celtic rock band.

[Zanza]

Suspension from the database hurts a campaign's field operations because it helps canvassers determine which streets to target for voters.

Do they really go from house to house pretending to speak on behalf of a presidential candidate? Or am I misunderstanding this?