2020 Democratic presidential primary

If it's true that no Texas politician can run without oil money, then no Texas politician should run for president as a Democrat.

All true or relevant or whatever. But so far there is not a single candidate that's been floated that has any clear slam-dunk advantage over Trump (in a world where Trump was elected) other than not being Trump. Which may be enough! People don't like Trump. But ... may not be enough.

I'm not sure what that advantage would look like

(and nobody else does either, which is why the field is going to be so crowded)

Beto is total token white guy who doesn't pronounce hard H sounds in spanish VP material.

inspiring turnout among black and Latinx voters would be #1 to me

I'm not sure what that advantage would look like

Name recognition, charisma/likability? Something that offers an advantage beyond Not Trump, which is an advantage every Dem candidate will begin with. And yeah, inspiring turnout among etc., but I'm not sure who does that, either. Numbers were way up for Dems this past midterm, which took a lot of work and money. But a lot of those races were still relatively close.

iirc

I kinda hate to be this blunt but the key to beating Trump will obviously be turnout of several key constituencies: college educated white women, african americans, and latinx. that's it.

Beto's not gonna deliver any of those.

fwiw, Sanders has the highest favorability with non-whites in this recent CNN poll (see pg 15)

http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2018/images/12/14/rel12e.-.2020.and.economy.pdf

though obviously that could fluctuate a lot if he says anything else dumb

Every person I've met in real life who wants Biden to run is a white male, the people we don't need in 2020.

Harry Potter World is totally saving Florida right now.

If he doesn't run, maybe those doofuses can draft Jim Webb for another go

people who want Biden are the ones who don't think anyone who doesn't look like them can't beat someone else who looks like them. I don't necessarily think he wouldn't have the best shot but it seems like it'd be one step forward vs the GOP, two steps back within the Dem party from the recent midterms.

The woman on my fb feed who is pushing Biden is buying the whole "we-have-to-get-working-class-whites" line.

I think turnout, period, is key, across the board, and that takes time and money, both of which were spent in impressive amounts this past midterm. I'm not sure the race, gender, etc of the candidate matters that much, at least not enough to convey a significant advantage. It's a matter of boots on the ground.

It wasn't white male candidates who carried the democratic party during the midterms.

yeah this is obviously gonna be an all-hands-on-deck scenario

xp

Who cares honestly if they can beat trump. I don’t think I can live through six more years of this.

My heart is with the economic progressives but I’m fine with president whatever who cares

I think that is a v common sentiment

and one that just might, hopefully, deliver us a genuine progressive president

Who cares honestly if they can beat trump. I don’t think I can live through six more years of this.

My heart is with the economic progressives but I’m fine with president whatever who cares

We're talking about the primary, where we decide who has the best chance to beat Trump.

The "ugh, why all the negativity" sentiments going around are counterproductive to doing that.

also you presumably want to avoid a repeat of the circumstances that helped to set the groundwork for Trump to get elected, incl electing mealy-mouthed centrists. believe it or not there can always be someone worse

Harris has alway been personally opposed to the death penalty I think

― Dan S, Monday, December 17, 2018 6:59 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol

I don't even know what standards you folks are even using for "centrist." Is anyone to the right of AOC a centrist? Is she a centrist? What are the centrist tenets?

imo, centrist ideas tend to congregate around kowtowing to "small business", limiting "entitlements", using "market-driven incentives" and "measurable returns on government investment". A centrist expresses concern about "reliance on government" by "growing the pie".

Pretty much all of the above nostrums and clichés are found in the mouths of "moderate conservatives", but a "centrist Democrat" will express their support for Social Security and "working families" with slightly stronger rhetoric and will vote with their caucus in the 70% range, while "moderate Republicans" (rare as they are) vote with their caucus in roughly the same proportion - maybe 80% or 85% because Republicans assert party discipline more vigorously than Democrats do.

What about cultural/social stuff, where does that fit in, equal/civil rights, abortion, et al? Are you differentiating progressives and centrists mostly on the basis of economic policy?

for me that's the dividing line. i would like someone who believes we can have a fundamentally different kind of society--one where the prerogatives of corporations to make profits are not automatically given priority over the needs of the demos. however as i said who cares

tbh it kind of amazes me that ppl are so eager to run a guy that was beaten by ted cruz against a guy who beat ted cruz by, like, half-remembering a headline from a supermarket tabloid

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Tuesday, December 18, 2018 5:00 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I mean, this is complete apples to oranges. one guy almost beat cruz in a general election in texas. the other guy beat him in a primary among batshit republican primary voters

fine, i'll vote for senator beto gillibrand harris

a centrist is someone who does what Booker does

Abortion is not a social issue.

Gay marriage is not a social issue.

Right, these are civil rights issues in my mind. I’d never vote for a candidate that was against those things.

What about cultural/social stuff, where does that fit in, equal/civil rights, abortion, et al? Are you differentiating progressives and centrists mostly on the basis of economic policy?

I think the argument would be, those questions are more or less "settled" as far as liberals/Dems go and any attempt to move backwards on them would be unpalatable, whereas the economic questions are more contentious and at odds with what needs to be done. Certainly some will be more aggressive about the support of repro rights etc. than others but it's hard to imagine a Dem candidate in 2020 deciding to throw gay marriage under the bus without rightly getting crucified.

yeah what would a "centrist" position on these things even be, given that the "right of center" position is "strip away rights and roll back the clock"? in practice it ends up meaning bland acquiescence to said rollback.

I doubt questions of civil rights are settled, that seems completely nonsensical even from a Danish distance. Voting rights, immigration, criminal justice reform. Pretty central to what needs to be done, no?

Yeah and none of those are social issues either, realt. They’re civil rights and human rights issues.

also you presumably want to avoid a repeat of the circumstances that helped to set the groundwork for Trump to get elected, incl electing mealy-mouthed centrists. believe it or not there can always be someone worse

not to get all Nate Silver on this but the groundwork that led to Trump's election is something that I don't think you can replicate easily. you had 1) the most unpopular Dem candidate ever, 2) an "October surprise" that did markedly influence the election, 3) active interference by foreign entities, and 4) a bad campaigning strategy leading the Dems to narrowly lose Midwestern states and therefore the EC despite winning the popular vote by 3 million. it's true the Dems did a lot of things wrong in 2016 but they also got pretty unlucky

active interference by foreign entities

fwiw Nate Silver himself just said he wouldn't have put Russian meme warfare in the top 100 causes for Trump winning

Right, but they did more than meme warfare.

when did Silver say that because that news gets worse every day

anyway voted Harris from the list above. I'd be into a Harris/O'Rourke ticket or vice versa, ditto either of them with Gillebrand.

Yesterday. Also from that round, his one-tweet summation of 2016 is fine by me.

2016 in one tweet: Hard for a party to win 3 in a row; Clinton unpopular for many reasons, including MSM fixation on email; Trump also unpopular, but GOP voters were loyal and racially-tinged populism worked among non-college whites, who are overrepresented in Electoral College.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) December 18, 2018

That's such a dumb statement from Silver, he knows better. Even discounting his hyperbole, I bet he couldn't get close to naming 100 other factors first before getting to Russian interference. When we're talking about a shift of less than 100,000 votes in a nation of 300 million, every little bit counted.

I'm also curious how the media is gonna cover it this time, if they're really gonna fall headfirst into weeks of "did Hillary and Obama REALLY form ISIS??" coverage or if they're gonna stop giving Trump the exact headline he wants time after time. they do seem to be learning.....slowly....

i like nate silver but lol "racially-tinged"

i think the proper way to not say racist is "racially-charged"