2020 Democratic presidential primary

Man, I'm very far from a Harris fan but I'd back her in a heartbeat over Beto or Biden. An opportunist willing to pivot left >>>> this substance-free muck

otm

Opportunist? I thought people were using that for Gillibrand or Warren or <insert any other woman>.

i almost posted Booker w/out thinking how that would read

heh

Booker is the sort of person who at a campaign rally would sincerely say, "I'm every woman."

Opportunist? I thought people were using that for Gillibrand or Warren or <insert any other woman>.

Personally I apply that term to anyone whose convictions seem to evolve conveniently according to prevailing political trends. I think that applies to Harris, but not Warren.

fwiw Warren is doing one of those CNN "town halls" tonight (at Jackson State in MS)

To get so close to beating Cruz -- and genuinely frightening him until the end -- is nothing to sneeze at. He should run for the other seat in 2020.

― recriminations from the nitpicking woke (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, March 18, 2019 1:53 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no question. What he should not do is run for president

― pippin drives a lambo through the gates of isengard (Sparkle Motion), Monday, March 18, 2019 2:06 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yep. Yep.

is there a reason why we're ok with buttigieg running but not beto, other than beto's centrism? i see/share the view that it's a selfish decision by beto. but i'm guessing buttigieg would also be credible senate candidate in his state. is it just that buttigieg doesn't have a chance for president, and beto does?

one of the reasons buttigieg is running is that he has no chance at statewide office, except maybe if the Presidential race raises his profile

Indiana doesn’t have a Senate election in 2020?

Also he’s much less of a serious candidate than even Beto so the idea of him running is harmless.

anyway I thought we were mad at Beto for running because he's a centrist using a progressive instagram filter

yeah i don't know much about indiana but i don't see why he's any more of a long shot for senate than beto. if beto is selfish for not taking his chance to run for senate then i guess i don't understand why buttigieg isn't too.

note: i think should run for tx senate and i'm fine with buttigieg running for president, but that's based on their politics and good tactics for the democrats. i don't care about "selfishness" or whatever, which seems to be a thing in the way we talk about beto.

maybe i'm imagining the selfishness criticism ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Indiana elected Pence, Buttigieg is gay

I hope Beto runs forever.

xp he's also a veteran and he won a mayoral race in a congressional district that went for trump by 20 points ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

i'm not saying he wouldn't get his hair mussed if he ran for senate

Indiana doesn't have a Senate election until 2022 and Buttigieg is certainly improving his chances in that race (should he want to run) by getting the national name recognition of a presidential candidate now. I guess he could run for Gov against Holcomb next year.

ah, fair enough. no senate race in 2020 is a pretty good argument

Beto feels like a dress rehearsal for the next generation of politicians raised in the internet years

Opportunist? I thought people were using that for Gillibrand or Warren or <insert any other woman>.

― Yerac, Monday, March 18, 2019 3:16 PM (forty-nine minutes ago)

right, warren...

xpost ugh yes

beto will need more favourable material conditions for (what I presume are) his politics to come back into play

Worth reading.

Of the 45 U.S presidents to date, only three were older than 65 when taking office. These three instances aren’t exactly an advertisement for the advisability of electing someone in his late 70s. (Sanders would be 79 when inaugurated, and Biden would be 78).

William Henry Harrison was 68, and famously dropped dead within a month. Admittedly that was a long time ago, but...

Ronald Reagan was 69 (a full decade younger than Sanders/Biden would be on taking office). Reagan was clearly suffering some serious mental decline during his second term: so much so that there was talk among his aides about potentially invoking the 25th amendment.

Donald Trump was 70. Trump has always been an utterly loathsome grifter without a single redeeming characteristic, but if you watch interview with him from 20 or even 10 years ago, his present mental decline is striking.

...

A word about ageism. To be a coherent concept, ageism means taking someone’s age into account in an inappropriate way, not merely taking it into account at all. There are all sorts of reasons to be highly skeptical of electing very old people to the presidency.

First, the risk for dementia doubles every five years from age 65 on. It is very low at first, but by 80 it’s getting quite significant, and by 85 it’s a big risk.

Second, electing an 80ish president means electing someone whose initial and therefore in many ways most important formative political experiences were literally two generations ago, i.e., in the 1950s, aka a radically different world.

Third, leaving aside more drastic forms of cognitive decline, really old people are generally not as good at learning things/changing their minds when doing so is warranted than they were when they were younger.

some of the stuff in there is ageist, especially the last sentence \_(ツ)_/¯

If you say so, grandpa.

That last sentence, as the key adverb stresses, is "generally" true.

This is why I support a Sanders/young Trotsky ticket.

Bernie / HOOS (with fake ID)

i think hoos should run for tx senate

sorted yet lads

everybody seems to love Beto, lock thread

judge him by the strength of his haterz

not great

We need a Mad Men "Not Great, Beto" gif ASAP.

this thread is really something

we should vet every presidential candidate but digging up their tweets from 2009 is a low blow. every tweet from 2009 is bad.

— Anna Fitzpatrick (@bananafitz) March 18, 2019

Idk, Trump is a brainless lump of human(-like) flesh. Booker may seem like a human, too, but his compulsive tweeting about "breaking up with coffee" seems perfectly in sync with the sheer deadness of USA 2019.

this thread is really something

i take it back, twitter is good

really old people are generally not as good at learning things/changing their minds when doing so is warranted than they were when they were younger.

some of the stuff in there is ageist, especially the last sentence

It is a generalization and, if taken simply as such, not as being applied to any individual, it is almost certainly true. There are noteworthy exceptions, as there are with any generalizations. Old people who are demonstrating a continuing ability to learn things and adapt their thinking accordingly are obviously not to be judged by those who are not demonstrating those abilities. Sanders seems still quite adaptable and engaged.

As for presidents Harrison, Reagan and Trump, they are too limited of a data set to draw strong conclusions from. And while the 'doubling of dementia risk for every five years above 65' is a demonstrable fact, it is another general statement about statistical patterns in large groups, not a reliable predictor about individuals.

It is fine to take those observations into account when evaluating one's choice for president and I don't think it is certifiably ageist to do so. The difficulty is assigning a correct weight to them. That weight is very easy to misjudge, except in comparison to all the other factors that must be weighed, like the possible effect of his policies on yourself and the nation.

let's wait and see if any of the candidates under 70 don't suck

ftr, I've come to think that, all else being roughly equal, the ideal age for a first term president is probably in the range of 49-57. iow, definitely younger than me. In reality, there are a lot of more important qualifications than age. It's just that it's such a killer job in terms of hours and stress.

I know myself and I won’t be ready till im at least 80

Morbs otm

Cory Booker is a nice guy who should leave politics and become like the headmaster of my prep school or something. He’d be beloved in that position.

I am more and more impressed by Buttigieg the more I find out about him. I doubt he has a chance but I think his presence and platform in the race would be a good thing.

XP If Booker likes coffee so much, he should marry her/him...

Mayor of South Bend to the White House does seem a jump but not as much as infamous reality tv scumbag to president so who knows

He just seems too smart and talented to appeal to most americans.

Chris Hayes at town hall with Gillibrand.

I would like for more mayors of smallish cities to run for President.