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

That is a weird take imo.

Someone could have done better (the question is who that might be in future).

The idea that Warren could have done is fanciful

what are we arguing about today

How so? Bernie got his shot, failed. Quite spectacularly so. Are we supposed to say 'then nobody can'? Or are we supposed to work to get another one in position for a shot next time?

And the Warren campaign did second best out of the left campaigns. Yang and Gabbard far behind.

I mean, you can argue it is wrong. It probably is, just because of sexism. But it would be completely normal to say 'okay, Bernie couldn't do it, who's next in line?' and then move towards Warren

Like, there is zero evidence that she had more pull with any of the communities that Sanders struggled with and plenty of evidence that she had substantially less with minority voters. What basis is there for thinking that e.g. Clyburn might have backed her? If we're inventing parallel universes, I'm sure she would have done even better if neither Biden nor Sanders ran.xps

I think she got more endorsements than Bernie, no? So if we're saying an endorsement made the difference, isn't that a very good argument for Warren?

this is a confusing argument

Fred just stop ffs

Yes, 538 gave Warren 103 endorsement points, and Sanders 74. So she is clearly better than him at getting endorsements, if that is important

"endorsement points"

what is the fucking point of this conversation

I think she could have won if the other candidates all pulled out

You can find out what 538 endorsement points are, Hadrian, if you search for it instead of acting offended. It's neither weird nor complicated.

I would rather type this sentence

That sentence just lost the left the primary in 2028. Hope you're happy now!

fred...

I don't think that article is explicitly or implicitly saying anything about Warren's campaign at all, but even if it was IDK why it and people on here are framing the discussion in hypothetical terms like she abstained from running a la 2016. Because she didn't; she ran just the same as Bernie and Biden are now and she got thoroughly and embarrassingly thrashed. If she or her campaign was capable of doing better than Bernie or anyone else against Joe Biden then she wouldn't have come in 3rd place in her home state of all places (a state that Hillary Clinton won back in 2016!) to both of them.

She appealed to and garnered basically no minority support ANYWHERE (for people who nebulously drag Bernie for this while deliberately ignoring the overwhelming share of the Latino vote he won), wasn't more appealing to centrist moderates compared to the depressingly large amount of other milquetoast options available, and undermined her standing with the more progressive wing of the party waffling on things like the popular vote determining the primary winner and most importantly M4A. And as everyone who dogmatically went to bat for her lack of endorsement after she dropped out endlessly pointed out earlier... her supporters 2nd choice options were split between a variety of different candidates, so the insinuation that she would've suddenly eclipsed everyone including Biden if only that blasted Bernie hadn't butted in and taken all her young progressive support is nonsense. If she hadn't devoted all of her air and debate time to attacking her closest, most progressive ideological match among the other candidates (for those who keep insisting Bernie coulda done it if he'd just yelled at Biden more!) and flaking on something as crucial as M4A (which looks REALLY bad now of all times) maybe that wouldn't have been the case...

See, here's the thing: Bernie got his shot. It's really hard to see how conditions could have been better for him, he won 2,5 of the first three contests, he had a divided field, he was being called the frontrunner. And he blew it. None of us saw it coming, but that's not the point. He did it his way, it didn't work.

With Warren, of course there's a whole lot of 'what ifs?' because she clearly didn't get to run the campaign she wanted to. So yeah, it's all a whole bunch of silly speculation about what could have happened, if only... But that seems far more productive to me than just blanket dismissal, to the point of being laughably off-base. Warren spent all her time attacking Bernie? Uh no, she took down Bloomberg, didn't she? She lost Massachusetts, yeah, but at a point where her campaign was fading anyway. And as the NYT article points out, Bernie campaigning there and making a play for the state was a major fuck up, which took time away from South Carolina, alienated an ally, and he didn't even win there anyway.

The work should be about finding ways to do it better next time, no? And so this is where the scorched earth tactics of the Bernie-sphere is really harming, because everything that a rival did just had to be completely awful and irredeemable. What's going to come out of that camp in four years? It didn't work! So let's try finding something promising elsewhere!

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but a public option would be just as good as M4A in this crisis, right?

oh good fred vs trevor

clearly didn’t get to run the campaign she wanted to

happy sunday. pic.twitter.com/6hBhZtGVox

— mike casca (@cascamike) March 22, 2020

That sentence just lost the left the primary in 2028. Hope you're happy now!

― Frederik B, Sunday, 22 March 2020 bookmarkflaglink

What Osita isn't doing: concern trolling, or losing its shit.

I got in my first (and last) political Twitter beefs discussing this, but the support for Sherif Joe was a ratfucking to help kyrsten sinema. There’s no other way that makes any sense. I’m not defending it or saying it’s ok, but That’s likely what it was. Happy to learn otherwise if that’s the case.

bernistic: fred vs trevor

thanks Dan. these things are good to know. And I can see how that would make sense.

even so, I’d still like to see how Reid, Maddow et al would be covering if the script was flipped.

I disapprove of ratfucking elections, but under Citizens United it is a wide open option for the wealthy. And rich people love to throw their weight around. As I recall, Warren is on the record as wanting to overturn Citizens United. Her final mistake wasn't associating her campaign with one particular rich person who tried to ratfuck an AZ election, but her opening the door to any rich people at all.

lol wins

Bernie is out with daily first-rate approaches to the crisis, acting like a leader, and Biden’s staff is trying to develop him as a reality TV character in the mold of Beto. And he’s the “realistic,” “pragmatic” candidate.

— Doug Henwood (@DougHenwood) March 22, 2020

Well, it's true, Sanders remains a nominee in competition.

Bernie Sanders is calling for $2,000/month payments to every person in America and absolutely gutting the flimsy & insufficient means-testing approaches proposed by Republicans. pic.twitter.com/sm7ujfFesB

— jordan (@JordanUhl) March 22, 2020

That's the stuff

Monthly is key. More money will circulate if people have it to spare.

I might use mine to fund friends GoFundMes at this rate

yeah if a check actually comes to me I'm liable to just turn around and donate it somewhere, since I'm fortunate enough to not have my income impacted by this (so far)

good, you should! universal checks is sensible absolutely necessary policy

Majority of people i know will probably be fucked without one

Biden's teleprompter broke pic.twitter.com/kgGqYV6wl2

— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) March 23, 2020

I’m not sure I understand why Bernie dead-ender think arguing that the guy who beat them soundly is literally senile makes the case for their approach to politics look stronger rather than weaker.

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) March 23, 2020

huh?

Sub-tweet-embed

holy shit biden looks terrible

Translation:

"Why do Sanders supporters think that calling Biden senile makes Sanders look a better choice considering how badly Biden beat Sanders at the polls?"

pic.twitter.com/njwOdQacMl

— PBF Comics (@PerryFellow) March 19, 2020

aren't dem primary voters more left-wing in every way than the general electorate or is this the "non-voters will show up when they haven't so far" theory of the case

Senile politicians are Bernies cryptonite. He can beat anything else, but not that.

that's kind of a dumb question given that the majority of voters seem to have no clue what Biden's proposals are and seem to actually like all of Bernie's signature policies

xp why during this global crisis are you obsessing over the primary campaign in another country?

maybe this is a good moment to give it a rest

Biden's not just any senile politician. He's got the Obama Brand of Electability.

Biden’s going to get flayed in November, just absolutely decimated, and y’all are still going to be in here snarking about how Bernie just couldn’t pull it out in... Alabama

you saw the poll results pretty much everyone on ilx wants bernie. we're obv not the ppl who need convincing.