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

This is exactly the kind of stuff I think about with all these anti-sanders articles. Honestly, I don't think anyone knows who the most electable candidate is, they all have hurdles to overcome.

It’s probably been linked already but Matt Yglesias, who has always struck me as a resolute pragmatist, made a well-reasoned case in Vox a couple of weeks ago that Sanders is arguably the most electable candidate based on evidence of past elections in comparison with the field.

yep, and the M4M "farrago" is received wisdom for pundits

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, January 29, 2020 9:15 AM (thirty-eight minutes ago)

hi point of order

― Swilling Ambergris, Esq. (silby), Wednesday, January 29, 2020 12:54 PM (two hours ago)

Overruled.

Yglesias will always be the "different safety standards are cool!" numbnuts to me

The M4M "Farrago" - A Memoir

Today in "fuck Amy Klobuchar":

Minneapolis NAACP, Black Lives Matter call on Klobuchar to suspend campaign

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) is being called to suspend her presidential campaign after an Associated Press story published Tuesday offered a critical account of her handling of a case while she was Hennepin County's District Attorney.

As the county DA, Klobuchar led the case against Myon Burrell, who was a teenager at the time and was sentenced to life in prison for the 2002 murder of 11-year-old Tyesha Edwards. The AP story revealed that Klobuchar prosecuted Burrell, now 33, despite there being little evidence and even though his co-defendant confessed to the crime and said Burrell wasn’t there.

Though Klobuchar was not the county’s top prosecutor the second time Burrell was convicted after filing an appeal, she reportedly denied his request to attend his mother’s funeral, claiming he was a threat to society.

YIKES

TIL: Andrew Yang’s plan to fix American infrastructure is to establish a “Legion of Builders and Destroyers” 🤟⚡️ pic.twitter.com/05V8Vgj20K

— Amanda Kolson Hurley (@amandakhurley) January 30, 2020

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDtMS6dWllg

i think that's cool

honestly giving a fun name to important federal work/jobs is a harmless way to make those jobs slightly more desirable and prestigious

rename "teachers" to MIND CAPTAINS imho

a politically-isolated infrastructure super-force with restored urban-renewal superpowers might as well come with instructions for how it could be completely dominated by real estate interests, the cars-gas-highway lobby, frackers, etc. etc. also they misspelled "levees."

(but in general, yes i would support a gigantic new public works program, several times the size of the New Deal's even. desperately needed and could do tons of good at all kinds of levels, especially if fused with the GND.)

The Commander of Clear Out Bad Residential Areas subdivision will have so much authority to clean the streets of slums and shit, sounds like a really patriotic idea.

Dept Of Destruction And Creation Are One And the Same If You Really Think About It

hmmmm

Elizabeth Warren proposes criminal penalties for spreading disinformation online https://t.co/7tUD3dvDxq

— CNBC (@CNBC) January 29, 2020

that headline is wildly misleading

Morbs, do you even read stories about people you hate or skim terrible headlines

FWIW if said that if I were king a large portion of the peacetime military budget would be spent on military/civilian infrastructure projects under the banner of the ACOE so this is just a tech bro inventing a bus as far as I’m concerned

the critical issue is the "ability to overrule local ordinances and regulations," which is attractive when one pictures a handful of rich NIMBYs holding up a transit project, but nightmarish when contemplated as a means to wipe the slate clean of all efforts over the past fifty years to limit the state's power of the bulldozer, require citizen involvement, require environmental impact review, etc. yeah some of that stuff is a headache, yeah it makes projects more costly and slows them down and can often halt "good" seeming projects but it's all there for a reason. and the idea that the body deciding things would be somehow objective and apolitical is laughably naïve at best (tho very consistent with contemporary technocracy discourse, the bread and butter of SV types like Yang).

Offering this insignia to the new Legion.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71EYCy8jkOL._AC_SL1010_.jpg

rename "teachers" to MIND CAPTAINS imho

― sean gramophone, Thursday, January 30, 2020 11:56 AM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

approved

I don't hate EW, Alfred, I just know a player when I see one

Forgive me if I’m completely ignorant and this has been discussed a million times, but wth?!

I don't think you've seen ALL of this.

In 1987, when @JoeBiden ran for President, he didn't get caught in 1 lie, he got caught in at least 9 wildly different lies and acts of plagiarism.

It engulfed his campaign and he resigned in disgrace.

FULL STORY: https://t.co/vm18cq7OAa pic.twitter.com/FUjALdqA3C

— Shaun King (@shaunking) January 29, 2020

those of us old enough remember

Barack sure could pick em eh

ah shaun king, the integrity and honesty expert has logged on.

Time to drag out 87-year-old Mark Russell to reprise his "Is it Joe Biden, or is it Memorex?" zing

lol, cold-blooded

I asked Biden what he sees as his biggest contrast with Buttigieg. He replied: “You guys have seen pete, he’s a good guy, you’ve seen bernie, you’ve seen me. Some things are just a self-evident contrast. I’ve gotten more than 8,600 votes in my life.”

— Alexandra Jaffe (@ajjaffe) January 30, 2020

Delaware is the South Bend of states tho

rip big man, heaven needed a steroidal bill dauterive

John Delaney says he’s dropping out of presidential race https://t.co/BAbRmwoXq8

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) January 31, 2020

he met the chapos and realized he'd hit bottom

ah yes, the 'chapo crap out' manouevre

bad day for us Delaniacs

too bad I liked Dhalgren

who?

So who else will be out of the race two week from now?

Bennett and Patrick surely, but maybe Klobo?

When Klobuchar drops out, Chuck Todd's gonna look the way Walter Cronkite looked announcing JFK's death.

too bad I liked Dhalgren

― Muswell Hillbilly Elegy (President Keyes), Friday, January 31, 2020 8:39 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

who?

― Swilling Ambergris, Esq. (silby),

you know Dhalgren, the one with the really long arms

my wife asked me who I was excited about/who I would vote for in the CA primary and my answer to the first was "nobody" and to the second "probably Bernie, if he's ahead of Warren in the polls". We lamented the old-white-man triumvirate likely to dominate the primaries from here on out. We'll both vote for whoever the Democratic nominee is, of course, but for her part my wife is pretty resentful of the Berniebro army (perfectly understandable imo) and Biden is obviously a doddering bozo, but Warren's support seems to be cratering. I don't think any of them are ideal candidates - I think possibly Warren is the one who would actually make the best/most effective President but this country apparently hates women too much. If Bernie manages to pull it off I think we'll be looking at a Carter-type scenario and possibly a major schism in the party that cripples any major legislation; Biden will probably get us into a stupid war and won't pass anything remotely as dramatic as current crises require. Warren could possibly thread the needle, but if she doesn't take any of the first three primaries she's done. The Dems are going to really have to hope that anti-Trump animus is enough to drive turnout and overcome any factional distastes for various candidates, and I dunno maybe that will be enough - the prospect does not fill me with hope though. The fact is none of the field is capable of motivating a majority of the party/its voting coalition, and that's bad.

increasingly I wonder if we are likely to see a scenario where the nominee is decided by multiple rounds of balloting at the convention - if no one comes in with a majority it seems at least possible. Back-room power-brokering/delegate-trading would essentially decide the nomination.

that sounds like my take at this point. illinois primary isn't until march 17 so things should be clearer by then. bleh.

I won't comment until after lunch.

I feel bad about this but I'm sort of glad my primary is late and a lot will be decided by then; it feels like a lot of responsibility! (And it's a responsibility that the same few people shouldn't have to shoulder every time.)

none of the field is capable of motivating a majority of the party/its voting coalition

seems premature to assume so; what about the polls that show popular support for the policies of the 'progressive wing'? just stay on message.

Biden or Bootyjudge can't of course

what about the polls that show popular support for the policies of the 'progressive wing'?

people don't vote based on policies, is the problem

which is part of Bernie's problem - he has policies that a significant chunk of the party thinks are legit scary, and as a messenger he can be (how to put this diplomatically) less than appealing. Not everybody loves an angry Jewish grandpa.

this year I'm voting on policy (and I actually get to vote this time, because WA Dems switched away from caucuses, thank god) and that policy is Medicare For All, Motherfuckers

okay maybe I should've said "most people"

Sanders will have wingppl (AOC) who i'm convinced can turn out the under-35s

Isn't his weak spot more with older and centrist voters?

well, we'll drive them to the wrong polling places

Not everybody loves an angry Jewish grandpa.

Who loves Biden?

This is playing motherfucking Family Feud again. Stop trying to predict what other ppl will like and work yr asses off.