2020 Democratic Candidates Tracker

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Segnosaur said:
I really don't understand what your argument here is.

Early on I pointed out that there were reasons to include candidate's plans to address global warming in a debate.
You said "That's not what the proposed debate was about".
I pointed out that the article specifically mentioned plans.
And now you're discussing how every candidate is discussing their plans to address global warming.

What did you think the debate (the one that won't go ahead) was actually supposed to be about?
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I expect that a major component of the debates that will be held for the Democrats running for president will be the best way to deal with climate change issues. However, they will not have the debate in the way that this fellow Inslee outlined.

His debate plan was rather large in scope, and if it was implemented, then it would not leave much too time for the numerous other issues (health care, wages, taxes, education, civil rights, and so on) that the Democrat candidates would like to discuss.

After all, considering the large number of Democrats running for president and the numerous Trump issues, then there are lots of ideas kicking around as to how to handle the Democrat debates. Accordingly, owing to tight time constraints, the fact is that only a very few of these ideas will actually make it to the debate.

I hope this clarifies things.
 
RecoveringYuppy said:
You've been replying as if there were going to be deniers at the debate rejected by the DNC. There weren't.
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There is one that I can think of.

'Brainster' was trying to make it appear as if the Democrats running for president are climate change deniers. And, of course, none of the Democrats running for president are climate change deniers.
 
Segnosaur said:
- The list is far from comprehensive. There are a lot of issues where Americans do skew further to the political right than other countries... for example, abortion (while most Americans think the Alabama law goes to far, more people are still anti-choice than in other countries),
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The link covered that, too:
Abortion and Women’s Health

58 percent of Americans believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
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...

or gun control (only 28% of Americans support a handgun ban... in Canada the number is closer to 48%)
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Since no one is proposing a total handgun ban, that's pretty irrelevant.

- Looking at polls on individual issues can be misleading... for example, people may say they want "free college/free health care" in theory, but may not continue to support it if they are faced with an increase in their personal taxes to pay for it.
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What we pay per capita for medicare, medicaid, and military health care alone covers 100% of the population in the single payer countries.

We could have an NHS, Canadian-style-Medicare, or Australian-style-Medicare system without even raising taxes.
 
Eliminating the role of Private insurance companies is important because as long as they still exist they'll keep trying to bribe politicians to give their gravy train back.
 
It's a bit of a scam between healthcare and insurance. They need each other. Not to mention an army of people filing forms and denying claims. Without the "insurance industry", medical costs wages etc will be more in line with the rest of us.

Drugs are not controlled in this manner. Other than allowing Medicare to negotiate prices, nothing much else will change. If you are the only maker of a drug, you can charge whatever you feel like.
 
Segnosaur said:
Are you really sure progressives will "get out the vote"?

Usually the stats I see are that older people (those more likely to be centrist) are more likely to vote than younger people (more likely to be progressive.)

That has improved slightly over the past few elections, but there is still a gap.
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That's at least a two pronged issue. As a general rule, yes, as people get older, they are more likely to become more reliably politically active. On the other side of that, though, more progressive candidates are more likely to make younger people actually want to vote in the first place.

Segnosaur said:
There may not be a question about whether global warming is happening (at least from the science perspective). But, there are different ways that the issue can be addressed... cap&trade vs. carbon tax vs. hard emission limits, investments in renewables vs. nuclear, government subsidies vs. free market approaches.

Some voters may be interested to hear about how global warming may be dealt with. (Even if they don't spend a whole debate on it, addressing it as a topic in one of the general debates seems like a good idea.)
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Mmm. I've seen a few polls that put Climate change at the very top of Democrat concerns, edging out health care. I wouldn't mind a whole debate on handling it, but I'm not going to push for one. If it gets ignored, either way, I will be quite surprised and rather annoyed.

Forbidding Inslee from taking part in a less officially-sanctioned debate, of course, is utter BS.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
It's ignorant. And it was poorly handled amplifying how bad it looked.
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It goes beyond bad optics. What's their motivation? Another hold-onto-power move. They've completed the self-bloating process and it's time to purge the DNC. The Incumbents At Any Cost decision to blackball pollsters and hacks was simply what called everyone's attention to it. This sort of heavy-handed interference is more typical in my host country than in the shining city on a hill.

Like the blackballing it's another power play. The in-power group trying to hold onto their power.

AOC should create a forum to discuss the Green New Deal and invite all the hopefuls. There's no "Climate Change" debate. If the Democratic Party wants to carve out the high ground, then start debating what needs to be done, how to do it and how to finance it.
 
Crossbow said:
There is one that I can think of.

'Brainster' was trying to make it appear as if the Democrats running for president are climate change deniers. And, of course, none of the Democrats running for president are climate change deniers.
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Um, no, that was not what I was trying to do. Rather I was pointing out that the DNC apparently does not feel that the issue every Democratic candidate seems to agree is the existential crisis of our time is important enough for its own debate.

And there is plenty to debate without denying climate change. This actually is an area where we might see some separation betweem the candidates. Who's pro-nukes and who's anti? Who thinks we should get rid of air and auto travel in the next ten years? Who signs on to AOC's Green New Deal?
 
Some new poll numbers in Iowa:

The Iowa Poll, conducted by veteran pollster Ann Selzer for The Des Moines Register and CNN, found former Vice President Joe Biden leading the Democratic field with 24 percent of the vote.

The race for second place is a statistical tie between Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) at 16 percent, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) at 15 percent and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg at 14 percent.
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The article focuses on trends in polling, so Mayor Pete is soaring, Warren is showing solid growth, and Biden and Sanders are actually slipping a bit. Getting crushed is pretty much the rest of the field, with only Harris (7%) having significant support. Remember, one of the oddities of the Iowa caucuses is that if your candidate doesn't have at least 15% at any particular caucus place, you have to either switch to another candidate or leave.

The article notes a new wrinkle:

The Iowa Democratic Party for the first time plans to hold what it is calling virtual caucuses — events in which voters who can't attend their polling places in person on February 3 can still make their preferences known.

Party rules say those who participate in virtual caucuses will be given the power to decide 10 percent of the delegates allocated during the caucuses, regardless of how many people show up in person or by phone. About 28 percent of likely Democratic caucusgoers said they would participate in the virtual caucus, making their votes worth about a third of those who actually show up in person.
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I'm guessing that quite a few of the people who won't go to a regular caucus won't show up at a virtual caucus, either.
 
The 15% caucus threshold for sending a delegate to the next level isn’t unique to Iowa. It has been part of the Colorado caucus rules for years. In most cases a candidate with less than 15% support at a precinct caucus wouldn’t get a delegate simply due to how the math works.
 
So far Tulsi Gabbard seems to me like the most competent candidate... unfortunately, one gets that classic feeling that she's just "Too good for politics".

Then there's comedian Ben Gleib, standing as the opposite-Trump alternative of the "comedian running for president". His stance seems to be too focused on ridiculing and getting rid of Trump. As much as I like him as a comedian, I don't think that he's a serious candidate. One's campaign should be more than "getting rid of Trump"

Andrew Yang is pretty good too, but I get the feeling he's too nice and "good" for politics. Maybe it's just me, but I see politics as this very dirty game filled with hounds and wolves, and if your teeth aren't sharp enough and you're not even a bit dirty and have some malice, they'll eat you alive.
 
Yang sounds like he's giving a pep talk, trying to get the crowd going but they aren't.

Booker gave the best presentation so far.

Williamson wants to "win with love". :rolleyes:

I haven't heard all of them yet.

Warren's trying to look all young and fit, running up on the stage and bouncing.
 
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I'm a bit astonished at people invoking conspiracy theories about why Biden is polling so well. It really is quite simple: fear.


Fear that Donald might win again. Remember he was supposed to lose in 2016 what with his record unpopularity numbers and all. And yet just enough things broke right for him to pull it off. More than anything else Democrats fear another 4 years of Donald destroying our democracy from within. Would he even step down after that? Would there be elections in 2024? I know I see lots of support in right wing forums for suspending elections in order to preserve their current power.


So then you have Biden, who seems to tick a lot of the right boxes: association with Obama, talks in simple tough guy slogans, isn't a woman so dudes with goatees might actually vote Dem again, seems to appeal to rust belt white people that voted for Trump for some reason. And, as a result of all that, seems to have a solid chance of beating Trump. Early, early polling seemed to bear all that out with Biden easily out polling Trump nationally and in key states that Hillary lost.


So, here we are, with people so scared that we might get four more years of concentration camps, corruption and racism that they flock to the candidate that seems to be most assured of victory.
 
Travis said:
I'm a bit astonished at people invoking conspiracy theories about why Biden is polling so well. It really is quite simple: fear.


Fear that Donald might win again. Remember he was supposed to lose in 2016 what with his record unpopularity numbers and all. And yet just enough things broke right for him to pull it off. More than anything else Democrats fear another 4 years of Donald destroying our democracy from within. Would he even step down after that? Would there be elections in 2024? I know I see lots of support in right wing forums for suspending elections in order to preserve their current power.


So then you have Biden, who seems to tick a lot of the right boxes: association with Obama, talks in simple tough guy slogans, isn't a woman so dudes with goatees might actually vote Dem again, seems to appeal to rust belt white people that voted for Trump for some reason. And, as a result of all that, seems to have a solid chance of beating Trump. Early, early polling seemed to bear all that out with Biden easily out polling Trump nationally and in key states that Hillary lost.


So, here we are, with people so scared that we might get four more years of concentration camps, corruption and racism that they flock to the candidate that seems to be most assured of victory.
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If you will pardon me, that seems like a bit of projection (taken from reading some of your previous postings)

Sure, many Dems are thinking Biden right now because they are afraid another candidate may result in four more years with the Trumpster. However, I doubt most of them are overly concerned about the suspension of future elections or "concentration camps".

More commonly ,I suspect, it's the same calculus being applied that is always applied; Candidate X may have greater personal appeal, but has a much slimmer apparent chance of attaining a position to fulfill their promises so getting behind the less desirable candidate that can actually fulfill some of their goals makes the most sense.

Even Democrats with goatees (or VanDykes) can do that math.
 
Okay someone has to explain to me why "I factor their actual level of electibility into my preferred candidate" is being spoken of in such hushed tones.

Has the Millennial and further generations just forgotten what politics is?
 
JoeMorgue said:
Okay someone has to explain to me why "I factor their actual level of electibility into my preferred candidate" is being spoken of in such hushed tones.
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Because it's a crap excuse and people know it. Biden has electability problems: he's too touchy, and faced with an unscrupulous and openly hostile media conglomerate who will amplify anything they find to his detriment. Hell, the President has already started tweeting videos.

At any rate, I ended up answering my own question. Biden's popularity is in line with his name recognition. The only opinion people have of him that matters is "do I know this guy."

Has the Millennial and further generations just forgotten what politics is?
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No, the Democratic party has forgotten what politics is, and Hillary apparently wasn't enough of a reminder. This is McGovern all over again.
 
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Beelzebuddy said:
Because it's a crap excuse and people know it. Biden has electability problems: he's too touchy, and faced with an unscrupulous and openly hostile media conglomerate who will amplify anything they find to his detriment. Hell, the President has already started tweeting videos.

At any rate, I ended up answering my own question. Biden's popularity is in line with his name recognition. The only opinion people have of him that matters is "do I know this guy."


No, the Democratic party has forgotten what politics is, and Hillary apparently wasn't enough of a reminder. This is McGovern all over again.
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Politics? Hillary Clinton received 2% more votes than Trump. McGovern got 38% of the vote. It isn't comparable.
 
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