2020 Democratic Candidates Tracker

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TragicMonkey said:
I think for the long term good of their party they would have been wiser to have not had Trump be their candidate.
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That was never up to the Republican leadership, assuming they obeyed the law. And you didn't answer my question, you answered a different question.

Yes. As a result of letting Trump happen I view the Republican Party as more foolish and less competent than I had previously thought. More pennywise poundfoolish. And that the old guard of quietly ruthless gentleman bastards there has truly died out, leaving the grubby arrivistes in charge. In my view there are now no redeeming qualities left in the Republicans. They can't even be counted on in matters of defense now that they let Russia do as it pleases.
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Your complaint rings hollow. You won't come out and say it, but the only alternative to "letting" Trump be the nominee would have been to break the law and act in deeply undemocratic ways. Evidently that would be a "redeeming" quality.

And as for Russia, Trump's actual actions don't bear out your claims.
 
TragicMonkey said:
And you wonder why people don't want to talk to you?
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No actually, it's not something I've contemplated. But if what you insinuate is true, I consider it a weakness on the part of the other party, for being hung up on form.

When one offers criticism, I think it's important to make it known who the criticism is directed at. The "offenders" (for lack of a better word) may not realize the criticism is directed at them, and they miss the opportunity to reflect/learn. And non-offenders might mistakenly think the criticism is directed at them.

I don't like vagueness. I think it's rude to leave others wondering. Much ruder even than using those mean asterisks.

That said, I realize that this perspective isn't shared by all. And I also realize that the printed word can seem harsher than intended. I apologize and I'll tone it down.
 
varwoche said:
Because Pelosi, who is grounded in reality and is a cunning strategist, knows that the path to victory in 2020 lies in large part with with malleable, white working class voters in PA, MI and WI.



I'm way not a fan of posts addressed to dead air. It's a lousy way to communicate.



I assume this is in reference to my post above. If so, what an asinine characterization. That was a gentle "demand" indeed.



Ditto re dead air.



Just in case this was meant for me... enjoy.
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The statements weren't targeted at anyone.

Find pretext for feeling victimized elsewhere.
 
Ziggurat said:
Your complaint rings hollow. You won't come out and say it, but the only alternative to "letting" Trump be the nominee would have been to break the law and act in deeply undemocratic ways. Evidently that would be a "redeeming" quality.
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Rubbish.
The RNC is a private organization can pick whoever it wants according to any criteria.
No laws would have been broken, just like there was nothing illegal in members of the DNC favoring HRC.
 
A party system that ties the hands of the party when an unfavorable candidate gets the nomination strikes me as something that is creating far more problems then it is solving.

But I do wonder if some version of "Oh we didn't support Trump but... well he got the nom and our hands were tied" is going to be how they start trying to save face.
 
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The Great Zaganza said:
Rubbish.
The RNC is a private organization can pick whoever it wants according to any criteria.
No laws would have been broken, just like there was nothing illegal in members of the DNC favoring HRC.
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Yes, they can choose whatever criteria they want, but those criteria were already chosen. They did not have the option to change them after the fact.
 
JoeMorgue said:
A party system that ties the hands of the party when an unfavorable candidate gets the nominate strikes me as something that is creating far more problems then it is solving.
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A party that discards democratic processes to favor insiders with undemocratic power is creating far more problems than it is solving.

But sure, let's open up the Bernie v. Hillary wounds by advocating in favor of her dirty tricks. :thumbsup:
 
Ziggurat said:
A party that discards democratic processes to favor insiders with undemocratic power is creating far more problems than it is solving.

But sure, let's open up the Bernie v. Hillary wounds by advocating in favor of her dirty tricks. :thumbsup:
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I'm... not sure why we need two levels of democracy in this way.

Why have the two parties vote on who to nominate and then vote for the President? I've never fully grasped what the first stage of that process is supposed to accomplish.

The voters being told who to vote for by their party is the only way a primary works as a concept. Otherwise it's the voters telling the parties who to tell them to vote for which they already know because they voted for them in the primaries which doesn't make any kind of sense.

The Dems are gonna spend the next year eating their young regardless of what you or I say about it. We're gonna have people butthurt that their chosen one doesn't get the nod if Jesus returns on stage at the DNC Convention and anoints them.
 
acbytesla said:
Which leads me to wonder when some of the candidates start dropping out of the race. There just isn't enough money, volunteers, press, etc to cover this many candidates.

Some of these candidates must know they don't have a shot and are running for other reasons.
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The bigger the field, the smaller the number of committed voters that you need to win. I read about a Sanders advisor that noted in 2016 Bernie needed to get 51% because he was (virtually) the only other candidate than Hillary, but in 2020 he could easily win with 33%. That's a little exaggerated; he would clearly need to pick up a share of the voters for candidates who drop out, but certainly in the early states, if he can get 33% he should be winning. Granted, because the Democrats don't do winner-take-all anymore, it won't be worth as much in terms of delegates, but that will be more than made up for by the media attention that goes with being a winner.

On the GOP side, I could understand the idea of running one time to get the voters acquainted with you, and the second time to get the nomination. If you look at the history of the GOP nominees who were not sitting presidents, they tend to be second-timers for the last 50 years:

1968: Nixon (previously ran in 1960)
1980: Reagan (1976)
1988: Bush (1980)
1996: Dole (1980 and 1988)
2008: McCain (2000)
2012: Romney (2008)

Obviously GW Bush and Trump are exceptions.

The Democrats tend not to go that way, and when they do they lose. The Democrats who have won the presidency in my lifetime (who were not sitting presidents) were all first-time candidates: JFK, Carter, Bill Clinton, and Obama. The retreads are Humphrey, McGovern (he sort of ran in 1968), Gore and Hillary.
 
Mumbles said:
And yeah, considering this, and seeing the lavish praise given to empty suits like Mayor Pete or Beto O'Rourke, over vastly superior candidates like Elizabeth Warren or Kamalah Harris, I have to admit I'm unconvinced that "white voters"TM won't flock right back to Dolt 45 over the latter two. And I do expect Biden to push for policies in the next few weeks that are good enough. I'll likely prefer his health care plan over the GOP's current "let them die and their corpses rot in the street" plan, his tax plan over their "new money bins for Scrooge McDuck" tax policy, and his racial views over their "darkies deserve to be killed for being uppity" racial politics.

And I'm going to guess, based on various conversations I've had, that much of the Dem base agrees with me on this. Would I *prefer* Warren? Yes. Is Biden more likely to get good press coverage, and less likely to freak out "white voters"TM? Also yes. And before anyone whines about "lesser of two evils", I'm actually saying that Biden is "less good than Warren, but vastly preferable to the pure unmitigated evil that Cheeto Benito is".
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I view things similarly as well.:thumbsup:
 
Ziggurat said:
A party that discards democratic processes to favor insiders with undemocratic power is creating far more problems than it is solving.
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Why? Not everything is democratic, nor does it need to be. Plenty of things are decided by elected officials without a plebiscite, for instance. Science is not put to a vote, for another. Etc. I'm not bothered by a party just choosing their own candidates. In fact, the USA seems to be in the minority on this issue.
 
Dr. Keith said:
Didn't Trump's run in 2000 achieve the same thing, even though he didn't run for the GOP spot?
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You could argue that I suppose (I had forgotten about the Reform Party run), but it doesn't fit what I'm arguing, that the first run is a get-acquainted run. OTOH, you could also argue that Republican voters were more familiar with him from his reality show.
 
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