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

Instead of a point system, I apply a merits & demerits system. Draw five demerits and you get detention.

you mess with the bull, you get the horns

do you think operating less than a third of the usual number of polling places is going to a) increase or b) decrease the number of voters at each Wisconsin location, Shakey?

Are we supposed to have “points”

Why are you posting if you aren’t attempting to express a point of view?

I'll never know why I'm posting honestly

but surely a "point of view" is different than a "point [of argument]"?

I'll never know why I'm posting honestly

New board description.

All the more reason not to take many of you seriously.

Georgia has expanded absentee voting to cover all registered voters, postponed their primary from march 24th to May 19th, and mailed out ballot forms so people don't have to go into public and interact with other humans.

Except that the return envelopes do not have postage included.

Oregon runs elections exclusively as vote-by-mail and the legislature is cheap enough it doesn't provide return postage. It does designate secure drop-off sites at places like public libraries and city halls, where ballots are collected without voters posting them.

Oregon went to free postage in 2019 (Washington did in 2018, and also has public ballot drop-boxes, which are fun).

California also has free postage

When I moved back to Michigan after voting by mail in Washington for 11 years I was all indignant at how primitive it felt to have to go out and vote and was smugly certain that the voter turnout rate in WA had to be much higher - but they’re basically the same, usually within a single percentage point.

I don’t know if this means MI residents make more effort to turn out in spite of the hassles and WA residents are comparatively lazier, how much this has to do with MI being much more of a swing state while WA statewide races were basically a foregone conclusion, etc. In 2018 MI voted for a bunch of measures increase ballot access like same day registration and no questions asked absentee ballots so I’m curious if this will change the numbers.

trying to resist being fatalistic and also well aware of how utterly uncertain everything is right now, but still I'm really having to force myself not to obsess over the likelihood that November elections are going to be thoroughly fucked due to the virus. the right-wing machine has been plenty emboldened to try and discourage/scare certain communities away from the polls even when they had to manufacture reasons for fear, now that there is a genuine one I can't even start to wrap my head around where things may go.

Not emboldened enough to scare non-white voters this primary cycle, though.

I'm not worried about their "scaring" anyone way so much as leveraging the crisis to ram poll closures and other voter suppression moves through the courts

^^ that's better

yep, going to be wild as hell watching Fox et al concern troll over safe social distancing in uh certain very specific states/ cities right around the time of the election

and they know there's no "taking to the streets"

"go ahead, comment away!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rxWPEdYCnI

in lieu of actual protest, 8pm open-window Doobies sing-along

"What a Fool Believes"

A decent post-mortem thread:

1: Bernie Sanders would’ve been a better nominee than Joe Biden.

2: Bernie Sanders is not going to be the nominee.

3: Given (2) people who believe (1) should try to understand what went wrong.

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) April 5, 2020

Who you think most likely for Biden's running mate?

Someone not male and not white.

Klob, Kamala, some Governor nobody’s thinking about in that order

In normal times I still don't think Harris would want the job but it's hard to imagine a VP ever being more likely to get the promotion.

Klobuchar would try to infect herself and cough on Biden probably

No one who purposely reads Matty gets to make fun of Morbs/Perrin.

Someone not male and not white.

you may be onto something!

Harris (of realistic choices) could be ok. Abrams if she wants it.

Warren does more good staying where she is. Klobuchar, meh; Gillibrand?

#DoneWithWhiteDudes

the hill had an article about the possibility of Gretchen Whitmer

Klob, Kamala, some Governor nobody’s thinking about in that order

I got the first two covered, its that third one thats bugging me! This Whitmer suddenly seems to have popped up

Warren has no chance surely?

Yeah both because "more powerful staying in the Senate" and "can we plz not have two ancient white Northeasterners?"

I don't think either of those things have a bearing on probability?!

warren's replacement would be named by the republican governor of MA so there's no way it's ever gonna be her

All signs point to Whitmer

seems like a smart choice - helps in a critical swing state.

lol @ the folks losing their shit over Matt's #1

sorry but ppl who have some weird allegiance to the democratic party in 2020 like it's a hometown sports team are either just the biggest bunch of rubes alive, or their fortunes are tied directly to Business As Usual.

dont think that’s true at all

oooh maybe we'll make some progress this time

sorry but ppl who have some weird allegiance to the democratic party in 2020 like it's a hometown sports team are either just the biggest bunch of rubes alive, or their fortunes are tied directly to Business As Usual.

― A-B-C. A-Always, B-Be, C-Chooglin (will)

Cool! Tell it to the minorities who overwhelmingly rejected Sanders.

sorry but ppl who have some weird allegiance to the democratic party in 2020 like it's a hometown sports team are either just the biggest bunch of rubes alive, or their fortunes are tied directly to Business As Usual.

― A-B-C. A-Always, B-Be, C-Chooglin (will),

Are you black? A woman? Gay? The awful Democratic Party -- a coalition of grumbling, inchoate forces -- is the only thing mitigating Republican damage.

I keep waiting for someone on this thread to yield to a Trump-in-2016 moment and write, in so many words, "I don't give a shit about stupid minorities; they didn't validate the candidate whose campaign strategies failed to inspire them."

not really convinced the "campaign strategies" were the problem tbh

I am. I see no evidence that the campaign made a dent in the voters who delivered the states to Biden.

what was the problem?

in retrospect I just don't see a winning strategy for Sanders that doesn't involve being a different person

Ah! That's closer.

i'm not saying they shouldn't vote, or that the GOP isn't miles worse. but a party that slavers over Bloomberg money (and thus input)'s idea of "mitigation" for a single mother working full time at wal mart in 2020 is fucking abysmal. and i'm sorry, but just saying 'well the GOP's worse so quit whining' is fucking gross.

in so many respects his campaign was so much better than his last one and it just didn't matter