2020 Democratic presidential primary

am I wrong? he seems incapable of broadening his appeal/his numbers aren't moving much

lol no that was Hillary

let's wait for the voting

nah let's vote now

seriously this whole election can't be over soon enough for me

idk you and morbs are both likely to keep posting afterwards so I don't know what's gonna change

no Shakey has to stop if Bernie wins!

lol

These people seem sane and convertable:

Warren is not in the race to win the presidency. She's in the race to make sure Bernie doesn't. If you believe otherwise you are a mark.

— Leslie Lee III (@leslieleeiii) September 18, 2019

i see we are cherrypicking nuts from Twitter well i am sold

honestly surprised + heartened that you don't agree with him

how many "people" is Leslie Lee III? I guess three.

well everyone knows Biden is in the race to stop Bernie

as for "cults of personality," they can often be useful in becoming president and staying there, given some of my liberal acquaintances' ongoing deranged worship of the last Democratic First Couple.

These people seem sane and convertable:

The world is full of people who make poor use of whatever brains God gave them. I daresay that quite a few of them are enthusiastic about whatever candidate you most prefer and you'd purely hate to be associated with them in any more intimate manner. Bernie has his share of cult-followers. So did Obama. So did HRC. It comes with the territory.

you're right there're all totally crazy, cult of personality followers and not convertible and to any other candidate who are all totally just as good totally. thats why its imperative that Bernie gets the nomination because otherwise...

We must bring back Bob Dole, the one presidential candidate who never inspired a single crazy cult loyalist.

you'd hate to see purity politics get in the way of nominating the candidate whose voters can sway the election.

Yes! I'm all for having Dem "centrists" consider lefties a bloc they must win over with their nominee or their party loses elections. Only problem is their sense of entitlement to our votes overrides any pragmatism (their favorite word!) about actually wooing us. https://t.co/6cmelZIYb4

— vastleft (@vastleft) September 18, 2019

DJP otm III

I think the *perception* of Warren's momentum is surging -- the Chait piece, the Jim Cramer freakout, the attention from the Washington Square rally -- but recent polls haven't necessarily borne this out.

She got 15k in Seattle three weeks ago (and had to relocate 3 miles to outdoors from the 7,000 cap theatre she'd booked), 20k in NYC this week. That's real people showing up. If these IRL events were getting the same amount of airtime and discussion airtime as Trump's incoherent rallies, the perception would be bigger still.

how much does America love grandmas?

one lost an election fairly recently

― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius),

one won an election fairly recently

Yes, at this point she's pulling wavering Harris, Buttigieg, and maybe Sanders voters (I doubt the last).

There's no need for prospective Sanders voters to switch at this point. It's also very possible for voters to like both of them and not be 100% decided on how they're going to maybe bother to vote IN NINE MONTHS TIME when we don't even know who the candidates will be.

? no grandma has won the presidency

Iowa caucus is in January/February

no grandma has won the presidency, but sic only said that one 'won an election'. or sic may have been making the point that HRC won millions more votes than Trump in 2016 - but ofc the 'real' election is held by the college of electors.

Of all three big candidates, at this point, I believe it is Warren who seems the most likely to build a big tent coalition representing the ideological diversity of the democratic party. Biden is too centrist, Sanders is too populist. This might be or not be a good thing I don't know. But I think this is why the perception of her success might not be totally represented in polls.

Biden may or may not be centrist, because the center has diminished to the point where it is increasingly difficult to identify. Biden's perceived strength is also his big weakness: he has no program, no agenda, no ideas, no vision, only a vaguely warm and fuzzy feeling that he is a nice man who won't upset things. His current appeal is all about what he isn't and what he won't do and the hope that this tepid quality will allow 'all the people who aren't like me' to vote for him and get rid of Trump.

xp Yes, it makes sense to me that voters currently supporting Harris, Buttigieg, and O'Rourke are more likely to eventually move in Warren's direction than to Biden or Sanders. Among the top 5 (Biden, Warren, Sanders, Harris, Buttigieg), she's the #2 choice for those who rank Harris and Buttigieg #1: https://www.vox.com/2019/9/12/20860985/poll-democratic-primary-ranked-choice-warren-biden

i have no idea what "too populist" means

xp Aimless

I disagree he has no vision, he has nothing original or fresh to offer but I think he has a very clear vision of his policies goals. One can argue that his vision is stuck in time or plain terrible, which is my position really but it is there. The sharp contrast between his ideas and Warren/Sanders on health access is crucial, the way it plays in polls is crucial. Dismissing those differences and claiming his popularity is nothing other 'than name recognition' or 'blandness' is not listening to tons of democrats voters who have a say, and that's never good in an electoral situation. In any case, I doubt any serious campaign strategist would be as naive as to dismiss Biden policy proposals as 'non-existent'.

no idea what "too populist" means

people in the usa are ceaselessly taught to fear any government programs that might seek to redistribute wealth and equalize the resources available to all citizens. consequently, most usa citizens do fear them, at least in the abstract. but especially when they imagine such programs are benefitting someone other than themselves. and even more if those people are brown-skinned.

which is why Bernie seems to always go out of his way to talk about poor white people but ... yeah what he said

Biden's policy positions are little more than "let's not rock the boat". The ACA already exists, so the ACA has his approval, but if it did not exist you can be sure he would never suggest creating it.

yeah Biden's policy positions are "let's return to the status quo of 4 years ago" which, frankly, is not good enough for anybody (I would hope)

I don't believe in preempting candidates based on what The Voters will allegedly find enticing (ie Family Feud)

john kerry's sort of infamous "We believe we have compromised significantly, and we're prepared to compromise further" line just popped into my head for some reason

i enjoy handing veto power over my political aspirations to the bigots i imagine surround me.

Kerry's candidacy might be the most embarrassing and inept Dem presidential candidacy I've ever witnessed

Really? Dukakis was far worse in my lifetime. At least Kerry almost won. And he ran a solid campaign as an unspectacular candidate but exemplary senator who thought he had bigger war-sized balls than Bush.

but his swift boat

Embarrassing in the sense that the Dems were still committed to the war at that point. it was fucking disgusting. Dukakis was a clumsy candidate, but I don't think he debased himself or the party as thoroughly as Kerry did.

Dukakis had a double digit lead heading out of the convention; for a while Poppy looked like he was gonna lose. Then of course Lee Atwater got dirty. But Dukakis started gaining ground again -- too late -- when he finally admitted he was a liberal. That election was repulsive.

and in addition to the moral bankruptcy of implicitly accepting the war as valid/worth winning, there was the idiotic and doomed-to-failure strategy of "I can fight it better cuz I am a Vietnam War hero! That was against the Vietnam War" which was an incomprehensibly garbled and weak message. The Dems whole argument was "well sure this war is bad but we can win it because we're smarter and tougher and know it's bad"! The rah-rah militarism of the convention made me want to vomit.

xp

sounds like a poll!

as Gore Vidal once said, an awful lot of nadir to go around.

A lot of Nader too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0BtqtTVNHg

Gillebrand?

― voodoo chili, Wednesday, February 1, 2017 2:10 PM (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink

ah fuck oh well

― slathered in cream and covered with stickers (silby), Wednesday, February 1, 2017 2:11 PM (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Indeed.

Biden's perceived strength is also his big weakness: he has no program, no agenda, no ideas, no vision

I think Biden's perceived strength is that he's the most popular Democrat among black voters and that that popularity will translate into general elections strength. Maybe that perception, especially the second part, is wrong -- HRC was the most popular Democrat among black voters, too. But that's what makes people think he's a strong candidate, not that he has no agenda.

lol xp

A new poll shows Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden leading after the last debate.

And Warren has more support from other candidates’ voters.https://t.co/R2xXcfOcVW

— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) September 18, 2019

the primary should be a single nationwide ranked-choice election.

I mean so should the presidency but I'm trying to think realistically

xps - So you think all the nattering on about Biden's "electability" by white pundits galore is based on their thinking "Gee, this guy can bring the black vote along" and not "this white bread guy can bring back some of the midwest's old white male Reagan democrats"?

the funny thing is it's both at the same time! That's what makes him the "center" dontcha see