2020 Democratic presidential primary

Breaking: Billionaire Michael Bloomberg said on Tuesday that he will not run for president in 2020, saying he will instead focus on his clean energy and gun safety efforts https://t.co/pNUo2nkgzJ

— POLITICO (@politico) March 5, 2019

cool. sooner the field thins out the better, just to spare us tedious articles abt the overstuffed crowd etc etc. gabbard next please, and i guess there's some guy named john delaney who's still technically running. at this point i will vote for anyone who promises to bring an end to 538's terrible series of mistitled "how so-and-so could win the democratic nomination" articles.

If Gabbard is still in a month from now I'll be surprised, her polling is almost sad

I don't think getting actual votes is part of her plan

Yeah the last one is clearly why he's not running. He's actually smart about these things, annoyingly.

— 'Weird Alex' Pareene (@pareene) March 5, 2019

otm

whoops wrong tweet

Bloomberg not running is bad for progressives & the left, imo. It would've gone nowhere, damaged him reputationally, amplified discourse about the influence of billionaires even further, and drawn votes away from Biden.

— Osita Nwanevu (@OsitaNwanevu) March 5, 2019

Merkley would have been a nice Bernie surrogate, if there weren't already half a dozen contenders looking to ride Bernie's wave, including Bernie himself. No one needed another choice in that crowd.

xpost don't really buy that. how many votes would it really draw from biden? like... 12? 200? and so long as the president is donald trump it's not hard to have a conversation about the pernicious influence of money in politics. perhaps those critiques will even be focused on....... joe biden

yeah the last point on that list is the least interesting one

The Washington Post reports:

Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), a longtime independent, signed a pledge Tuesday saying he would seek the presidency as a Democrat and govern as a Democrat if elected.

The move comes in response to a new rule from the Democratic National Committee that requires all candidates for the party’s 2020 presidential nomination to sign such a pledge — a change that some Sanders allies considered a swipe at the senator.

That New Yorker article on Fox News is having repercussions...

NEW: DNC Chair Tom Perez: "Fox News will not serve as a media partner for the 2020 Democratic primary debates." pic.twitter.com/f6oSgL6y9p

— NBC Politics (@NBCPolitics) March 6, 2019

good. no reason democrats should partner with a media organization that actively seeks to undermine them

Seriously. Why does any democrat go on there? It’s beyond partisan lean, it’s like walking into the war room of the GOP

I have seen some Left guests go on there and do pretty well! If you understand how the mechanics work and stick to your points its a free platform, I think its good the ones that do it and manage it well

Its why i was conflicted about the Dutch economist/journalist that went on and had that fight with Tucker Carlson. On the face of it it was good yes, but also he ensured it wouldn't be seen by Fox viewers so I don't know how good that is really

yes, non-rightwingers go on there and "do pretty well", but that just means they do well in the eyes of the 400 people or so who are hatewatching fox news and are still able to recognize non-bullshit when they see it. to all the other viewers of fox news, all they do is reinforce the idea that fox is fair and balanced and that they regularly promote views that aren't complete rightwing dogshit. no one believes that they're watching propaganda, no one wants to believe that. so it's good business sense to occasionally throw a scrap of a left-leaning view into the middle of what is otherwise state tv

Appearing as a 'left-leaning' spokesperson on FOX and 'doing pretty well' merely gives FOX a patina of legitimacy it does not deserve. Even if you hammer away at a set of well-known facts, make an airtight case for your position, and do all the recommended 'framing', the fact that you have been labeled as representing a liberal or left-leaning pov automatically delegitimizes everything you say in the eyes of the FOX audience and lends instant credibility to whoever is there to contradict you, no matter how incoherent or fact-free their arguments are, because they are bringers of truth and you are the messenger of lies and confusion.

...except they don't have a patina of legitimacy beyond their core audience?

idk man I saw a clip of an m4a/single-payer advocate going on and killing it recently; not many can pull that off but I find it tough to see a downside

was it my boy tim faust

I don't know that the viewers are a monolith, and people are complicated and unexpected. Its a huge free platform and just good in general to be able to have people able to play well in such a hostile environment. Keeping to the points and message you want to say without succumbing to the derailing, but equally importantly the way that message is delivered, body language, delivery, this stuff scores a lot of subconscious psychological points. Its a big audience, a huge platform, and free - some of those people are reachable

was it my boy tim faust

lol I wish. this was the clip I was thinking of

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/a-doctor-explains-why-medicare-for-all-is-a-no-brainer-video/

adam gaffney rules

there are a lot of policies here: https://www.yang2020.com/policies/

Imagine an AI life coach with the voice of Oprah or Tom Hanks trying to help parents stay together or raise kids.

also, still deeply suspicious of UBI

I would hope the 2020 Democratic nominee wouldn't need an AI life coach.

it *is* annoying that the Bernie site has no policies up, presumably he's banking on ppl knowing his principles and maybe on future announcements of stuff added there to create future publicity, but it's still not a great look

Sherrod Brown is officially not running.

I'd be pretty surprised if Beto and Biden wind up announcing that they'll run at this point.

Really? I think Bloomberg and Brown opting out is evidence a path for Biden is being cleared.

I would interpret it that way too.

I'm delighted Brown saw the light.

let's hope Biden's light is an oncoming train

Didn’t you already wish him death by train in this thread?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bidens-tough-talk-on-1970s-school-desegregation-plan-could-get-new-scrutiny-in-todays-democratic-party/2019/03/07/9115583e-3eb2-11e9-a0d3-1210e58a94cf_story.html?utm_term=.4cb353c4a51e

didn’t know the absolute boy was running

Meet the face of the future for House Democrats. Pathetic. pic.twitter.com/pbxwfOfFLz

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) March 7, 2019

metaphors, silby

i have no idea who that is

first name Jeremy last name Corbyn

Corbyn, to whom "Morning" Joe compared to Rep. Omar in his use of "anti-Semitic tropes."

love when these dumb ass WASPs tell us what anti-semitism is.

i should hire myself out as a professional jew to people who want to verify if something is anti-semitic. seems like a decent racket. askajew.com

ugh another ugly piece of these conversations are all the ppl on the right marshaling their jews and the ppl on the left theirs to demonstrate that their opinion is kosher

saw a picture of a bunch of netueri karta taking a photo op in tlaib's office urgh

So, I’m working with a client today to conduct a focus group of black women who are likely to vote in the South Carolina Democratic Presidential primary. I have the client’s permission to tweet out anecdotes and observations, but they’d prefer not to be named.

— Danny Barefoot (@dannybarefoot) March 5, 2019

worth a glance

nothing terribly surprising there to me

nothing too surprising in there I don't think. I was wondering what their take on Bernie would be, but

I would rather starve than work for him :)

— Danny Barefoot (@dannybarefoot) March 5, 2019

I actually think Kamala’s best path to shoring up support among black women in SC (and beyond) may be for white liberals to keep attacking her for stuff they assume black people find salient.

— Danny Barefoot (@dannybarefoot) March 5, 2019

there were at least two things on Biden in the news today (that desgregation talk from the 70's, and another where he talked about superpredators being 'beyond the pale'...ok yeah maybe that's stretching it and I doubt he was really trying to speak in coded messages there) and I really think he's done. People are not that forgiving now. I seriously doubt he's a racist and if he had attitudes about bussing back then that were maybe fairly prevalent.... people aren't willing, now, to extend a lot of forgiveness over that shit. But who knows. In some cases it seems like white liberals who are more angry about it than the Af Am community.

I don't think anyone ITT has argued that arguments about her prosecutorial record would ever resonate with Dem voters. (I think once or twice I've even argued the opposite.) xp

it resonates with fringe super far-left people I know who are antifa and think everyone who isn't with them is a cop