2020 Democratic Candidates Tracker

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We have yet to see that he's not shooting blanks at his feet. His poll numbers would never have been so high in the first place if his supporters were paying any attention, so we have no reason to think they've started now.
 
The sine-wave nature of political coverage:

Kamala faces backlash over attack on Biden.

Most of the people quoted in that piece as lashing back have already endorsed Joe Biden. One of them even suggests that Harris has blown her chance to be the bottom half of the ticket with him.

That said, apparently Biden did better with the voters than with Twitter:

Democracy Corps did a post-debate survey of Democratic voters and found that Biden’s net favorability with African-Americans went up by 18 points.

Read that again: Post-debate, Biden’s net favorability with African-Americans went up by 18 points.

This wasn’t just one poll: A Morning-Consult/538 poll showed that Biden’s total favorability changed barely at all from pre- to post-debate—going from 76.5 percent to 75.6 percent, a drop that’s essentially meaningless. And when voters in that survey were asked what they thought of the candidates’ debate performance, Biden was one of the four candidates in the second debate who got a thumbs up.
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Listen as long as whoever the eventual candidate is goes into the general election looking as bad and unlikable as possible, that is what is important.

I swear if you put 10 Democrats in the room and told them in 1 hour a someone was going to come into the room and fight one of them to death in hand to hand combat they would spend the next 59 minutes beating the crap out of each to ensure that who ever faced the guy would be as tired and worn out and broken as possible.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Listen as long as whoever the eventual candidate is goes into the general election looking as bad and unlikable as possible, that is what is important.

I swear if you put 10 Democrats in the room and told them in 1 hour a someone was going to come into the room and fight one of them to death in hand to hand combat they would spend the next 59 minutes beating the crap out of each to ensure that who ever faced the guy would be as tired and worn out and broken as possible.
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I think this is pretty much the exact mistake that the GOP candidates made in the 2016 primaries. They were so busy kneecapping each other ahead of the main contest against Hillary Clinton, that they failed to realize that Trump was keeping fresh. Fresh enough to beat them, and fresh enough to beat Hillary in the general. Hillary herself should have been fresh enough to defeat Trump, but I guess Sanders figured she needed some kneecapping of her own.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Listen as long as whoever the eventual candidate is goes into the general election looking as bad and unlikable as possible, that is what is important.

I swear if you put 10 Democrats in the room and told them in 1 hour a someone was going to come into the room and fight one of them to death in hand to hand combat they would spend the next 59 minutes beating the crap out of each to ensure that who ever faced the guy would be as tired and worn out and broken as possible.
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What's the alternative? Grandpa Joe announces it's his turn to be president because he's been in government for ninety years, and everyone else kisses his ring in obedient silence? Screw that. It's time for the old bastard to be put out to grass, and if he won't leave quietly with dignity then let him be dragged out kicking feebly and complaining about disrespectful young'uns. The time to tolerate blathering ineffectuality is over.
 
TragicMonkey said:
What's the alternative?
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This isn't going to be the most popular answer, but my most honest one is the "Primaries" should just happen behind closed doors and shouldn't be public. This is all insider politics of the Democratic Party being put on display in public and we should stop pretending it is anything else. It serves no purpose. The ~200 members of the DNC should just tell us who the candidate is when they decide so every possible candidate doesn't go into the general election with every possible spec of dirt already on display.

You think the Republicans aren't taking notes right now and that who ever loses the primary hasn't already done most of the work for them on what the eventual candidate is weak on?

It's like a football team broadcasting their Spring Training Camp on national TV and acting shocked, shocked I say, when all the other teams know how to beat their flea flicker play when the season starts.
 
JoeMorgue said:
This isn't going to be the most popular answer, but my most honest one is the "Primaries" should just happen behind closed doors and shouldn't be public. This is all insider politics of the Democratic Party being put on display in public and we should stop pretending it is anything else. It serves no purpose. The ~200 members of the DNC should just tell us who the candidate is when they decide so every possible candidate doesn't go into the general election with every possible spec of dirt already on display.

You think the Republicans aren't taking notes right now and that who ever loses the primary hasn't already done most of the work for them on what the eventual candidate is weak on?

It's like a football team broadcasting their Spring Training Camp on national TV and acting shocked, shocked I say, when all the other teams know how to beat their flea flicker play when the season starts.
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Thereby abandoning even the pretense that we're a representative democracy rather than an oligarchy.
 
JoeMorgue said:
You think the Republicans aren't taking notes right now and that who ever loses the primary hasn't already done most of the work for them on what the eventual candidate is weak on?
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This goes both ways. The Fusion GPS work came from a Republican to the Democrats after the primaries. The Dems had most of their opposition work done for them, and still managed to lose the election.

ETA - Eliminating the open Democratic primaries would disenfranchise Democratic primary voters in Southern states, the majority of whom are black. Their votes already don't count in the general election, so they might be miffed at this.
 
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TragicMonkey said:
Thereby abandoning even the pretense that we're a representative democracy rather than an oligarchy.
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No. Abandoning the pretense (that was never even a pretense) that the political parties themselves are internal democracies.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Thereby abandoning even the pretense that we're a representative democracy rather than an oligarchy.
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No.

The general election is the democracy. How the parties choose their candidates for the general is not part of the democratic process. I could start a party with my brother in law in his garage this afternoon, and tell nobody how we decided he should be the candidate, and it would still be democracy for him to go to the general election on that basis.

The only reason the parties put their aspiring nominees to a vote is because the other party members - who pay their donations and volunteer their time and would like to see their agendas enacted - really want to have a say in who gets chosen to represent them in the general election.

This practice has become so ingrained that the state doesn't just underwrite the general election itself, which is the actual engine of democracy in our system. It also underwrites the party primaries. This practice has become so ingrained that everyone takes it for granted that the primaries are an integral part of the democratic process, instead of just preliminary events. The primaries can be run however the parties wish to run them, without having anything to say about the democratic system of government.

I guarantee you, if the DNC party elite started choosing their nominee behind closed doors, half the party would switch to the GOP, just so they could keep having a voice in the process.
 
Brainster said:
The sine-wave nature of political coverage:

Kamala faces backlash over attack on Biden.
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Of course she faces a backlash, that's standard fare. I did think it was hilarious Trump claimed Harris was being too mean to Biden. :sdl:

As for Biden's poll numbers going up among blacks, that reeks of bull. Or, more likely, before the results have had time for the debate results to sink in.

And if Harris really did become less favorable after the debate, look closely for the fake social media attack targeted to blacks.
 
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Skeptic Ginger said:
Of course she faces a backlash, that's standard fare. I did think it was hilarious Trump claimed Harris was being too mean to Biden. :sdl:

As for Biden's poll numbers going up among black, that reeks of bull.
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Perhaps Biden had supporters bused in for the poll.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Of course she faces a backlash, that's standard fare. I did think it was hilarious Trump claimed Harris was being too mean to Biden. :sdl:

As for Biden's poll numbers going up among blacks, that reeks of bull. Or, more likely, before the results have had time for the debate results to sink in.

And if Harris really did become less favorable after the debate, look closely for the fake social media attack targeted to blacks.
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Harris may think she has improved her chances of being President, what she has really done is decrease her chances of becoming VP, while handing Trump more ammunition.
 
theprestige said:
I think this is pretty much the exact mistake that the GOP candidates made in the 2016 primaries. They were so busy kneecapping each other ahead of the main contest against Hillary Clinton, that they failed to realize that Trump was keeping fresh. Fresh enough to beat them, and fresh enough to beat Hillary in the general. Hillary herself should have been fresh enough to defeat Trump, but I guess Sanders figured she needed some kneecapping of her own.
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That outcome led me to re-consider disdain for the "two party" system. It was a good illustration of the potential outcome of too much hair-splitting. While eight candidates with 9% support fight to deride each other even though they are in essential lockstep with each other, the truly loony %28 walk away with the nomination.
 
Marcus said:
Harris may think she has improved her chances of being President, what she has really done is decrease her chances of becoming VP, while handing Trump more ammunition.
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You're contradicting yourself. If Trump is reelected why would this nonsense that Harris should run for VP mean anything?


BTW, the idea Harris doesn't have a viable chance to be POTUS is laughable.
 
Marcus said:
Harris may think she has improved her chances of being President, what she has really done is decrease her chances of becoming VP, while handing Trump more ammunition.
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If Biden gets the nomination and thinks that Harris will help him win the election, he will choose her. There have been some shotgun wedding tickets in the past--JFK and LBJ, Reagan and Bush, Dole and Kemp.
 
The old geezer's gotta go. Actually make that the old geezers. Bernie and Biden... they're both past their best by dates.

The CNN poll seems to have what one would expect. Biden's lead is no longer unassailable. It's probably best that his race dies with a whimper rather than a bang. The discussions are good to have.

There's still hope for those who believe that Biden's the guy who can beat Trump. Over 60% of those polled believe it's more important to have a nominee who can beat Trump rather than one who you see eye-to-eye with on more positions. Of that demographic, Biden's got the most support.
 
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