2020 Democratic presidential primary thread, pt 3: life is very long

Trump on the hand is pure discursion, which will make him look positively nimble by contrast

No idea what you're talking about, the most electable candidate came out on top as per the people's wishes.

oh right I forgot

I mean the problem is that the guy didn't really campaign and not having seen him most people voted for Joe BIden c. 2008

Which will make the next seven months extra fun!!

look I know Biden is full of brain worms but idk about the whole "Trump will destroy him" narrative, idk if you've seen the president lately but he's as incoherent and idiotic as ever

He does not seem capable of returning from a tangent or drafting in any nuance.

I don’t want to continue to shit on the guy I’ll eventually vote for but isn’t this “classic Joe Biden?” 😆

Yeah.

Yang has endorsed Biden, in case anyone was holding their breath on that one.

look I know Biden is full of brain worms but idk about the whole "Trump will destroy him" narrative, idk if you've seen the president lately but he's as incoherent and idiotic as ever

Bill Maher (I know) had Rachel Bitecofer on his show on Friday night and according to her models, this election really is all about Trump hate, as I've been expecting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqvM8-z7THs

xps the bummer is that Trump's idiocy doesn't really cost him anything because he's not expected to "govern" per se, whereas Biden as an institutionalist/lawmaker has a higher bar because he's supposed to "know stuff"

not fair but that was how the 2016 debates went

The turnout numbers have been a comfort.

Are these former candidates all eyeing up the VP nomination then?

agreed re turnout.

Are these former candidates all eyeing up the VP nomination then?

at least a few ye'd have to reckon. Harris ended up being a lot more canny than Warren imo in terms of bailing out well before she had a chance to lose her home state and I would be v unsurprised to see her get it

truly this was a banner night and is going to be a banner day as well as a banner week and a banner month and very likely a banner year, for "stop whining, you're HURTING THE CAUSE!" as if a) oh, you say have legitimate reasons to be worried about your future as well as the future of humanity (which thanks to climate change timeline is not hyperbole? oh, you say that you have depression? just stop being sad, it isn't hard!!"

Biden/ Yang 2020. Because Hey, Fuck It

xpost You can still be worried, and you can keep fighting and campaigning for what you want. The varied responses to the covid outbreak show the importance and impact of local government.

We've been pretty consistent on ILX in documenting (and expressing) hatred and contempt for Trump. I think it should not be surprising that hatred and contempt for Trump should be driving votes and turnout. Fingers crossed it's enough.

yeah Biden's VP pick is going to be very important, I mean I can barely see him making it to November much less a second term

the bummer is that Trump's idiocy doesn't really cost him anything because he's not expected to "govern" per se

This is true but i think there's a distinction to be made between mental sharpness as proof of ability to govern and mental sharpness as a weapon to be used against opponents. Trump has never had the former but he was at least fairly effective with the latter a while back. He seems much less coherent now.

a minor celebrity I previously liked is backing Biden now on the basis that he'll have Harris as VP, also he thinks Sanders can't beat Trump, it's a bit depressing to read his feed and he has joined the massive list of the unfollowed, not that anyone cares I suppose

Is it Michael Ian Black

nope

As long as we are wildly speculating, I would lol if Biden picked Harris as VP, won the election, and then immediately resigned.

I would love to see that if only for the GOP reaction.

"Biden! Burisma! 25th Amendment! We have to ..."

"OK, I resign. Here's your new president."

"Well, we need to ... oh."

is there solid polling backing the "Bernie would beat Trump and Biden wouldn't" theory

idk the thing that worries me is that there's a lot of centrist types who dislike Donald Trump (even though they may have voted for him in 2016) who don't really like either Dem candidate but still say "well I'm not going to vote for ~~*sOcIaLiSm*~~ so if it's Bernie I'll be forced to vote Trump", which is why certain H2H polls might look better for Biden, when in reality they're all gonna pull the level for Trump anyway because "well the economy was good"

I'm going to assume anyone that voted for Trump before is going to vote for him again.

is there solid polling backing the "Bernie would beat Trump and Biden wouldn't" theory

idk the thing that worries me is that there's a lot of centrist types who dislike Donald Trump (even though they may have voted for him in 2016) who don't really like either Dem candidate but still say "well I'm not going to vote for ~~*sOcIaLiSm*~~ so if it's Bernie I'll be forced to vote Trump", which is why certain H2H polls might look better for Biden, when in reality they're all gonna pull the level for Trump anyway because "well the economy was good"

― frogbs, Wednesday, March 11, 2020 8:45 AM (fifty seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

there is head-to-head polling of them against trump showing them roughly equal (usually sanders has a slight lead, though that's since flipped toward biden, equally slightly)

was good

a lot of centrist types who dislike Donald Trump (even though they may have voted for him in 2016) who don't really like either Dem candidate but still say "well I'm not going to vote for ~~*sOcIaLiSm*~~ so if it's Bernie I'll be forced to vote Trump"

I think the danger is less that centrists would vote for Trump instead but that they won't vote, period.

both biden and trump are going to live to be a hundred years old

I think the danger is less that centrists would vote for Trump instead but that they won't vote, period.

This is correct, I think. If Biden turns out to be doddering and shaky, it's not hard to imagine it depressing turnout.

i feel like "Biden is the best candidate to beat Trump" has quietly melted away to "Americans just really hate Trump so Biden will win"

melted, yes

we ain't fakin'
whole lotta meltin' going on

I do think Biden is the candidate most likely to beat Trump, or to at least take a swing at him if he's still wily enough to dodge his way through secret service.

"a minor celebrity i previously liked" is quite the display name candidate, kudos

i feel like "Biden is the best candidate to beat Trump" has quietly melted away to "Americans just really hate Trump so Biden will win"

If you follow the Bitecofer analysis -- which I'm going with for now because it makes as much sense as anything, and it will make me feel better for the next long 8 months -- then that has always been the right way to look at it.

Not being super enthusiastic about either Bernie or Biden (tho much more personally inclined to Bernie fwiw), I've never thought it mattered much which one of them got nominated because they both have pretty serious flaws and also some evident electoral strengths. But by definition the most electable person is the one who gets the nomination (i.e. at this point Biden), because to be electable you have to actually be on the ballot. If Bernie was the "most electable," he needed to start by actually winning the nomination.

I think the election is statistically and probability-wise winnable by pretty much any breathing candidate on the Democratic line. That doesn't mean they will win it, but there's nothing right now that says they can't.

nothing against Bitecofer or her thesis but I wonder if it would be so popularly cited if it didn't line up with ppl's hopes and (understandable) desire to mentally check out from this whole thing

Does anyone seriously floating the bait-switch "Biden wins, then immediately resigns" fantasy actually think that's anything other than a disaster for Dem long-range prospects?

nothing against Bitecofer or her thesis but I wonder if it would be so popularly cited if it didn't line up with ppl's hopes and (understandable) desire to mentally check out from this whole thing

It also makes Chuck Todd look like a gaping asshole, which everyone likes.

true, the great unifier

Does anyone seriously floating the bait-switch "Biden wins, then immediately resigns" fantasy actually think that's anything other than a disaster for Dem long-range prospects?

I would argue that anyone seriously floating that theory isn’t thinking at all

Yeah, who in the word is seriously floating that idea?

World

i believe that biden could absolutely win the election, even if trump wasn't currently badly bungling an epidemic response and there wasn't a recession on the way, but i also believe he's absolutely capable of throwing victory away in a worse manner than clinton did.

xps that one minor celebrity you used to like is.

Biden polling just slightly higher than Bernie against Trump nationally except in Wisconsin, where he's losing to Trump and Bernie's up

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_sanders-6250.html#polls

Checked in on MCIUTL, they have not said they think Biden will quit and hand over the presidency, however they have shared this, ugh

Oh shit. Bernie got checked. pic.twitter.com/Ke3gtBuIeV

— ⚖️ Bianca DeLaRosa⚖️ (@KHiveQueenB) March 9, 2020