2020 Democratic Candidates Tracker

[acbytesla]

Who else do you know that is touchy-feely as an expression of human warmth? Maybe to one's cousins at the picnic, but at political events? With some women and girls who are not your close friends?

If this is just human warmth, where are the images of Biden rubbing male shoulders? Why is this OK male to female and not male to male?

Side hugs, brief, hand shakes, sure, but the shoulder rubbing and hair kissing, ear whispering, eeewwww!.

Sorry.

You don't have to be sorry. Everyone has their own point of view. But I still think the whole damn world has gone insane. We're choosing a president not a baby sitter or a tutor.

My aunt was that touchy feely. I could never get her to stop. I think Biden is from another era of politics. Kissing babies, hugging and yes, how you treated women was different then men. Certainly, the sexual roles were very different and what was expected was different.

It's one think to say, "Joe, don't do that any more." and another to say "You're not fit to hold office, you creepy old man".

 

[Brainster]

Mayor Pete's list of ten desert island books. He leads with the very predictable Ulysses:

The greatest work of modern English literature. It’s known for being complex and difficult, but in a way it’s very democratic: a story about what it is to be human as one middle-class guy goes about one day of his life in Dublin.

Definite thumbs down from me; I don't trust anybody that says they liked Ulysses; I always assume they are trying to convince people that they understood it. And to say that it's about one day in an Irishman's life is wow, absolutely what I got out of it too.

I was somewhat surprised how many of the other books Pete mentioned that I had read; The Little Prince, Wolf Hall, and the Quiet American. And all of them were teeth-pulling exercises. Wolf Hall is one of those dreadful novels written in "historical present" tense that is insanely confusing.

No genre novels unless the Istanbul murder mystery is really a mystery. Surprisingly no non-fiction, and I think that Ulysses is the oldest book on the list.

 

[SezMe]

If Warren has all these great policies, why isn't she submitting them to committees in Congress?

Yeah, I'm sure Yerkle the Turtle wants nothing more than to push for passage of bills that would constrain the deep pockets of the GOP and make the Dems look good in the eyes of the general public.

Jesus, Bob, maybe give it some thought?

 

[SezMe]

Very much so.

And it not just a question of mere electability. It's a question of missing the national mood that made "not Trump" a disadvantage for her campaign, in ways that mattered, in states that mattered.

To this day, progressives are happy to talk about Trump's base, but Trump's base was never the issue. Just like the Democrats piling on millions of redundant votes in places like New York and California was never the issue. What they're not talking about is a relatively small number of swing voters in a few key states, and why they didn't choose Hillary in 2016.

Your second paragraph suggests that the problem was a Democratic election strategy that took some critical states for granted. You're right - BIG mistake.

But let me ask about "not Trump" being a disadvantage. Take a time-travel trip with me to September-October, 2016. From that perspective, why is "not Trump" a disadvantage.

I'm asking to see if you're just taking advantage of 20/20 hindsight or whether you have something that is of value for 2020.

 

[SezMe]

No, I don't think we can take that lesson at all.

Agreed. Theprestige was trash talking with his nonsense assertion

I still say she would've been a solid commander-in-chief, if not perfect. In fact, she might have gotten quite a bit more done than Obama. The problem with Clinton was perception, not competence, and the reason why she lost was a combination of that, and poor campaigning.

Here I have to disagree. The GOP had spent 30 years denigrating the Clintons in general and HRC in particular ever since she assumed political power on her own. They flogged Benghazi, the email server, her security lapses, Uranium One, the Clinton foundation, and on and on and on and on..... Her time as president would have been one impeachment hearing after another.

Remember McConnell say his highest priority was making Obama a one-term president? It would have been a repeat of that with Clinton with the result that nothing, I mean NOTHING, would have been done on any Clinton agenda.

 

[SezMe]

<snip>No! When was his touchy-feely behavior OK? When was it at least a little bit common? Never!

BZZZZT! Wrong. It was NOT an issue when he ran as Obama's Veep. Nary a word was heard of his "creepy' behavior. For example, can you cite any protests you made in 2008 at his choice as Obama's running mate?

I hope he decides not to waste our time running.

All that said, on this we are in complete agreement. But I am not motivated by some horse poop nonsense that he's "creepy".

 

[SezMe]

As the Midterms demonstrated, there is no point in trying to find candidates a former Trump supporter could get behind.
The road to victory is to mobilize the young, minorities and those Trump has left behind (see healthcare).

Whadya doin'? Trying to bring good sense into this discussion? Get outta here wid dat bull pockey.

 

[SezMe]

Again, creepy is not inconsequential.

With that you made acbytesla's point. You keep ragging on "creepy" but that's not a well defined behavior and others - maybe many others - don't find that his behavior falls into that category. But you reject him on that basis which is what acbytesla was warning against.

Again, I would remind you that I am not a Biden fan either but I do not want him on a substantive basis, not because he's "creepy".

 

[The Great Zaganza]

nvm

 

[TragicMonkey]

Remember McConnell say his highest priority was making Obama a one-term president? It would have been a repeat of that with Clinton with the result that nothing, I mean NOTHING, would have been done on any Clinton agenda.

But that is how the Republicans will act with every Democratic president, so it doesn't matter who it actually is or what their agenda attempts.

 

[Delvo]

She's become the single biggest source of remaining Democrat resistance to universal health care.

Hmm? What's the source of your claim here?

Her own words whenever she's asked about it. If you ask someone who's actually going to fight for universal health care whether they plan to fight for universal health care, the answer is simply "yes", or maybe that with a small bit of embellishment like "yes; it's the only sane thing to do; it's the only sensible thing to do" or "yes, and the perfect program with which to do it is already running, so all it would take is taking away the restrictions on who can use it". But she never says anything like that.

Instead she keeps starting off with one of her lame "reframings" ("first of all, let's be clear about what the issue here is, and it's not really what you just asked about...") about how all Democrats really want the same thing and those whose actual answer to the question is "no" are really just the same as the ones whose answer is "yes", then wandering off into a ramble through a list of "ways to do it" (where "it" has been "reframed" as not actually universal health care anymore) in which every item on the list is nothing but a way to avoid universal health care and stick as close as possible to preserving the current travesty for as long as possible. It ends up so full of weasel-words that she's clearly just setting up her defense for later; a few years from now, when she's President and still hasn't actually done a thing on this issue, she'll be able to point back to these verbal meanderings and remind people that she never really even said she would do anything in particular.

 

[Aridas]

Remember McConnell say his highest priority was making Obama a one-term president? It would have been a repeat of that with Clinton with the result that nothing, I mean NOTHING, would have been done on any Clinton agenda.

Mmm. As I was saying back then, the biggest problem with Hillary was... the Republicans.

 

[Belz...]

Here I have to disagree. The GOP had spent 30 years denigrating the Clintons in general and HRC in particular ever since she assumed political power on her own. They flogged Benghazi, the email server, her security lapses, Uranium One, the Clinton foundation, and on and on and on and on..... Her time as president would have been one impeachment hearing after another.

Remember McConnell say his highest priority was making Obama a one-term president? It would have been a repeat of that with Clinton with the result that nothing, I mean NOTHING, would have been done on any Clinton agenda.

Yeah, well, I was talking about her competence. Of course the GOP has become a moral morass that can no longer be trusted to operate a government, sadly.

 

[BobTheCoward]

Yeah, I'm sure Yerkle the Turtle wants nothing more than to push for passage of bills that would constrain the deep pockets of the GOP and make the Dems look good in the eyes of the general public.

Jesus, Bob, maybe give it some thought?

You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

What's the point of taking a shot when someone hides the target?

 

[TragicMonkey]

I don't like being told I must excuse this or that action of a Democrat for the greater good. Maybe the burden is on the politicians to not be such evil, greedy, shifty creeps rather than on the voters to let things go by? That more vitriol is flung at people who object to bad behavior than the people doing bad behavior is a symptom of corrupt values. I don't feel a moral necessity to excuse the objectionable for the purpose of giving them even more power than they already have.

If the Democrats want my vote they'll have to produce a candidate who would stand an even chance of not causing an incident where I would be compelled to slap their wrinkled old faces.

 

[BobTheCoward]

What's the point of taking a shot when someone hides the target?

Because you believe in what you have to make a convincing argument.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Perhaps one day we'll have an election where we're not presented with the cleanest turds from each party's toilet.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Perhaps one day we'll have an election where we're not presented with the cleanest turds from each party's toilet.

Careful people don't take too well to that sort of talk 'round these parts.

Either the Democrats are perfectly flawless and must never be criticized or you're one of those wishy-washy "Both sides are the same" types that wants the BAD ORANGE MAN to win. Those are the only two options.

"One side is demonstrably significantly better but still has issues it needs to work on" is a complete logical impossibility. I think Kirk used it to make a computer self destruct on an episode of Star Trek.

 

[Ziggurat]

If this is just human warmth, where are the images of Biden rubbing male shoulders?

I found one: