Your next 2020 Democratic presidential primary thread: Now we're serious

anyway, super weird if Bernie shat all over the notion of a female candidate against Trump and Warren only came out with it now hmm

― A-B-C. A-Always, B-Be, C-Chooglin (will), Wednesday, January 15, 2020 5:42 AM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

They agreed to not attack each other at the meeting, so it makes perfect sense that any attack only comes after the truce has been broken. By Bernie btw.

It really was incredibly stupid for the Sanders campaign to go after Warren right now, and, no matter how high up it happened, to then act so defensively about it. Major breach of trust, and only Biden benefits.

lol at Tom Steyer in that Sanders-Warren exchagne

It really was incredibly stupid for the Sanders campaign to go after Warren right now

Ah yes, the time-honored tactic of never saying anything even politely critical about the candidate whose voters are by far the most likely to be persuadable to vote for your candidate. If only they'd listened to Fred!

Or honored the agreement they made.

Look at what the consequences has been. You seriously think this was worth getting some volunteers to say that Warren's base is quite wealthy?

cory booker’s campaign just released a statement alleging that during a private meeting between booker & bernie sanders in 2019, sanders indicated that he was going to “take booker’s girl” [rosario dawson] because booker “wasn’t hittin it right”

— 💰TRILLIONAIRE💰 (@maltyhops) January 14, 2020

stfu Fred

fred i honestly don't know what you're talking about

this Sanders/Warren beef is gonna be well forgotten by the time we get to the actual caucus

http://i.imgur.com/kj65ZRD.jpg

By playing the Sanders good/staffers suck Fred gets to tell you that it's great if Sanders wins but also to also say why he lost if it goes the other way.

Pretty neat huh?

He should pitch this to some publication, reckon there's good money to be made from this grift.

that... is some top quality pure uncut fred right there

tmi

Ah yes, the time-honored tactic of never saying anything even politely critical about the candidate whose voters are by far the most likely to be persuadable to vote for your candidate. If only they'd listened to Fred!

― bold caucasian eroticism (Simon H.), Wednesday, January 15, 2020 6:15 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I see it's time for the the daily "something is bad because the guy we don't like said it" session but it seems, based on data, that one candidate slowly gaining ground in battleground-state polls and another candidate backtracking somewhat on a popular policy idea have already been quite effective at persuading supporters, in a way that a very dumb beef that causes persuadable voters to instead hate one another more probably wouldn't

this bernie/warren conflict has been one of the most inconsequential much-ado-about-nothing non-stories i've ever seen so predictably it has brought out the best from the idiot machine at ilx including our top 2 US posters xyzzz and fred, the latter of whom keeps peddling nonsense about why this meaningless nothing is actually bernie's surrogate's fault and the former who has now posted his 30th tweet making the same joke about 'things bernie told people in confidence' and now the confetti at the supermarket is raining down and he has won a free turkey. hopefully this celebration will suffice and he will not longer feel compelled to dennis perrin up the site.

Let's hope it stays inconsequential. It's really really close in Iowa, and it won't take much to tip it from Sanders to Biden.

And yeah, as katherine points out, it's just so unnecessary.

like, how exactly are people supposed to be persuaded by this? sanders supporters dislodged by their candidate maybe having said something in a private one-on-one meeting years ago that might have had sexist undertones? warren supporters dislodged by a bunch of people tweeting them snake emojis and donald trump's old pocahontas jokes? supporters of either becoming convinced that the person they might otherwise have been persuaded to switch to is a liar?

at any rate, donald trump has already jumped on it, with characteristic muddle of "obviously nothing sexist has ever happened, but shit, gotta also make sure to call bernie a 'nasty person,' despite his having one of the higher popularity ratings among politicians and maybe even a sliver of my base, and despite my swearing immediately afterward that he'd never say the nasty thing, hey, maybe she'll win!" so the inconsequential ship has probably sailed

I didn't speak to the effectiveness of tactics, I only know that a permanent hands-off policy when it comes to criticizing your political opponents isn't really tenable

yeah but it sometimes just means that Christie torpedoes Rubio or Gephart cuts Dean down

My basic stance on alll this is that I like Bernie Sanders and dislike Nathan J Robinson and fortunately Nathan J Robinson isn't running for president

I don't have every syllable of this controversy committed to memory but my recollection is that Bernie initially said his "a woman can't win" statement was more along the lines of observing that it'd be something Trump would weaponize and be particularly awful about. which certainly isn't a particularly profound or brave thing to say but seemed like a decent enough explanation for a potential misunderstanding that would allow everyone to move on. I don't really understand why he didn't reiterate that position last night but instead decided to double down on essentially treating the whole thing like a lie. It's either that he doesn't possess the mental acuity to make that pivot when it's necessary, or that he's just the kind of person who gets so incredibly annoyed when the conversation is on something he (rightly) deems to be trivial that he can't be bothered to finesse the situation appropriately. and the people who love him indeed love him for exactly that kind of "no BS" mindset but it ignores the unfortunate realities of 21st century political media.

like, it's not going to cause me to change my own vote, but it seems to me pretty undeniable that when he decided to pick nits with the whole "I HAVE beaten a Republican incumbent" exchange, he came off like a huge asshole.

It's either that he doesn't possess the mental acuity to make that pivot when it's necessary, or that he's just the kind of person who gets so incredibly annoyed when the conversation is on something he (rightly) deems to be trivial that he can't be bothered to finesse the situation appropriately.

seems a third possibilty is missing here

That he is lying?

xxxp There's a difference between the two parts of that first sentence though - no-one, I'm sure, is under any illusions that Trump and surrogates will be amazingly horrific if Sanders gets the nomination, but if Warren had phrased this as "a jew can't win", it'd deservedly be a pretty big story.

like, it's not going to cause me to change my own vote, but it seems to me pretty undeniable that when he decided to pick nits with the whole "I HAVE beaten a Republican incumbent" exchange, he came off like a huge asshole.

Well, he has.

Whatever point Warren was making there in the first place seemed pretty dumb to me - women by virtue of their gender are more able to win elections and defeat Republican incumbents? And Bernie's doesn't count because it happened 30 years ago (and he won every VT election since)?

you're not supposed to fact check girl power

fact or not, if you don't think that didn't come off petty af i don't know what to tell you.

yeah it felt like a huge mistake

a huge mistake no one will remember in 48 hours

feel like no one has learned anything from either participating in or watching the debate

I honestly don't think it was pettier than counting the total number of elections that have been lost by three opponents, two of whom have been in electoral politics since the early 70s (vs Warren's two electoral wins), or establishing a 30-year cutoff for beating a Republican incumbent in order to exclude your opponent's win, but OK.

The rigorous accuracy of Warren's numbers makes it pettier imo. That's a weird talking point to prepare.

she should have said "in this century"

Politifact:

The two candidates sparred over the meaning of "at any time in the past 30 years."

As the list above shows, Sanders defeated an incumbent Republican in 1990. That’s right on Warren’s cutoff of 30 years.

don't elections usually happen in November? It was 29 years and 3 months ago then.

Yang mentioned that on Twitter, lol

a little chagrined i am no longer in Mordy's Top 2

our top 2 US posters xyzzz and fred

thanks for the early morning lol mordy

Now that we're all friends again, what's next?

On my part, a determination to raise my profile.

yang pulling a neil tyson there xxp

tmi

still pretty sure some of this Sanders/Warren dumped material is coming from the DNC

i am really sorry to keep this going in any way, but is there some sort of authoritative account of what actually happened re: sanders/warren, that meeting, etc?

a debate moderator last night posed a question to warren that was like "how do you react to sanders saying that a woman can't win the presidency?", as if it were a fact that he said it.

fwiw both warren and sanders seem eager to move on and not make this a big issue

oh great, i know i'm ilx's resident copy/paster of talking points memo links, and now i just saw they discussed this 20 minutes ago.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/does-cnn-have-it-in-for-bernie-sanders

What struck me at last night’s debate was the blatant hostility of CNN to Senator Bernie Sanders. Here’s how their reporter framed the question to Sanders about Warren’s claim (which she alone is in a position to make since they were the only two people in the room):

PHILLIP: Let’s now turn to — let’s now turn to an issue that’s come up in the last 48 hours. Sen. Sanders, CNN reported yesterday that — and Sen. Sanders, Sen. Warren confirmed in a statement, that in 2018 you told her that you did not believe that a woman could win the election. Why did you say that?

Now what’s odd about that? Warren couldn’t “confirm” CNN’s reporting. She could only confirm that she had told people who had told CNN that Sanders had told her a woman candidate couldn’t win. It’s strictly a he said/she said situation. And the CNN “reporter” knew that Sanders had denied making the statement. CNN repeated this canard when they asked Warren to respond.

"Why did you say that?"

wtf?