2020 Democratic Candidates Tracker - Part II

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Brainster said:
It is simultaneously the single greatest strength and the single greatest weakness of the Left that they refuse to learn the lessons of the past.
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Refuse? Seriously? :eye-poppi This just gets worse when compared to reality. For example, "the Left" that's in question is largely pushing overall positions that have shown great success in the past and really, really aren't breaking new ground. They HAVE learned from the past and are trying to make things better by employing tactics that are known to work far better than what's currently being employed here. It gets even worse when the anti-science, anti-knowledge agenda that's being pushed by "the Right" RIGHT NOW (and has been pushed by them for far too many years now) is taken into account. Seriously, stop buying so easily into the brazen lies and misleading half-truths employed by right-wing propagandists.

Brainster said:
Part of it is that learning is essentially a conservative undertaking. It is accepting that the people of the past (who originally did the hard work of figuring stuff out) actually have some information that may be useful.
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Isn't it wonderful when you can retreat to a version of "conservative" that has effectively nothing at all to do with what the "conservatives" in politics push to back up your views about what "conservatives" actually are? Isn't it wonderful when you can then use your backed up views to fight against caricatures, further confirming how wonderfully right you are and how wrong those other people are?

Moving on, though.

First, something related -

The centrist case for today's radically progressive candidates

I’m a centrist. My policy preferences are much closer to those of Barrack Obama and Bill Clinton than Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. But as everyone agrees, the most important thing in this next Presidential election is who can beat Trump and to my eyes, the progressive candidates look better.

The progressive campaigns appear to be based on hope, conviction, authenticity, a forward-looking vision and faith in the American people. The centrist campaigns seem poll-driven and cynical, evasive, a bit elitist, backward looking, and fearful of taking any stance that is remotely unconventional.

Against an unscrupulous candidate that will pitch a dramatically grand, if fake, vision of the future, I don’t think the backward-looking vision of a return to normalcy is enough. Against a candidate who will lie about everything and paint any opponent as an extremist no matter his positions, we need a candidate who isn’t afraid to argue and fight back. The Democratic presidential candidates that have won in the past — from Truman to Kennedy to Clinton and Obama — have been inspiring, bold in their vision, smart, articulate and often controversial. Truman and Kennedy were New Deal type progressives while Clinton and Obama were left of center moderates. But each of their campaigns at least seemed in its own way revolutionary. Each also was, in its own way, innovative in its approach to politics. I don’t see any of that in the centrist candidates this cycle, but I do see it in progressives.
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There's a bunch more, but that's the beginning... and I would dare to say fair criticism overall.

Anyways, on to the debate!

Sounds like Booker and Castro did best... but the winners were likely Warren and Bernie. Biden took a beating from quite a few (including himself?) and apparently directed people to a previously nonexistent website that Buttigieg's team promptly snapped up and redirected to his website. I liked Babylon 5 and Inslee's "last best hope for humanity" struck a chord, I think. Yang's "We need to do the opposite of much of what we're doing right now. And the opposite of Donald Trump is an Asian man who likes math." got me to laugh.
 
Everybody who pays attention knows how bad Biden is, but there are still enough people not paying attention yet to keep him at the top of most polls. He could win the nomination if this goes on long enough with enough people still not paying attention yet for his biggest competitors with more popular policy ideas to start dropping out (and then it won't matter when or if the low-attention people realize their mistake).

One way to head that off, other than somehow getting more people to pay attention soon enough, would be for the top two non-Bidens, whose policies are pretty similar to each other's, one of whom even only ran last time because he couldn't talk the other into running, to unite. Unfortunately, now looks like a premature time to quit from both of their POVs, so they might both delay until it's too late. The best thing to hope for is that they're already thinking this way themselves and it's mainly a matter of timing and which one takes which role.

In that case, the question then is: would I rather have Bernie as the candidate and Betty/Betsy campaigning with/for him, or the other way around? (I know she isn't normally called that, but it makes a better team name.) I prefer Bernie by a bit, but I think going the other way around might work better, for three reasons:
  1. Whatever their actual ages are, Bernie gets more age discrimination against him, even from old voters who generally agree with his policies.
  2. Bernie's more riled-up personality & style seem to fit the rile-them-up advocate/cheerleader role better.
  3. I found a survey I think about a week ago, asking Democrats who their second choices would be, that said Bernie's current supporters were more likely to go to Betty than the other way around. Her supporters were more split between Bernie and Kamala, which looks like some of them are with her for the policies and some are with her for her gender. I think they'd just about all unite behind either Bernie or Betsy in the general election, but in the primaries, while people are still split up, it's best to collect as many as you can so the number against Biden is as overwhelming as it can get, and if that means using a female candidate's gender and some feminists' simple-mindedness as an unfair advantage against Bernie as well as Biden, fine, let's use her gender and some feminists' simple-mindedness as an unfair advantage; anything to get the Republicans' mole out of the way as fast & hard as possible to eliminate the chance of another Republican-versus-Republican-mole general election.
 
I think a Bernie VP to Warren's Pres would work better than the other way around. VP's lesser importance would mitigate some of Bernie's wackiness and greater age. There's more wiggle room for a VP to be eccentric.
 
The healthcare issue: Biden is the one people will support. Independents, for the most part just working Americans not really interested in politics, will not vote forMedicare for all that separates the employer from health issues. Many see it as a benefit. On top of that many employers are self insured. The insurance company just does paperwork. I think in the short run the cost will be less for those employed.

BUT: nobody dared mention a mandate. In fact that is the one point in favor of a true Medicare for all. It will just become a mandate. A deduction in the paycheck, possibly a few hundred each month. Since you can't discriminate, the childless people will support the families.
 
Biden is on top because the vote below him is divided, not because Biden has a majority. It's foolish to predict he's actually ahead until the field shrinks.

Separate note, I'm disgusted, both CNN and the local news only care to egg on fights between the candidates. That's not reporting.
 
Propagandists Are Freaking Out Over Gabbard’s Destruction Of Harris

They yanked out their old moronic smear and managed to make #Assad trend on twitter, but not #Tulsi, further exposing themselves and the mechanisms of the propaganda system.

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Skeptic Ginger said:
Biden is on top because the vote below him is divided, not because Biden has a majority. It's foolish to predict he's actually ahead until the field shrinks.

Separate note, I'm disgusted, both CNN and the local news only care to egg on fights between the candidates. That's not reporting.
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I don't think we will get Biden. I just meant the healthcare will end up the Biden plan. Any of the leftists could get that explained and approved better than Biden.
 
TragicMonkey said:
I think a Bernie VP to Warren's Pres would work better than the other way around. VP's lesser importance would mitigate some of Bernie's wackiness and greater age. There's more wiggle room for a VP to be eccentric.
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I'd add to that:

A whole lot of Democrats really don't see Sanders as "a real Democrat" and won't vote for him for that reason alone.
Additionally, many are still re-living 2016, and still think of Sanders as "the enemy" from when he was running against Hillary.

Furthermore, I think as POTUS, Warren will be able to do a much better job of getting congressional votes to maybe actually pass some of the plans. She's in a better position to make her agenda the democratic party's agenda. A lot of people in congress will dismiss Sanders as "The Trump of the left" and oppose most of the things he tries to do.
 
So Don jr., apparently attempting to be snarky, suggested in a tweet that the Democrats do their next debate on Comedy Central. The Daily Show replied that they'd be up for it.

Personally, I think that would be awesome. I just bet they could do a debate that would be both entertaining and informative.
 
rdaneel said:
So Don jr., apparently attempting to be snarky, suggested in a tweet that the Democrats do their next debate on Comedy Central. The Daily Show replied that they'd be up for it.

Personally, I think that would be awesome. I just bet they could do a debate that would be both entertaining and informative.
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Jesus Christ, no.

Can you imagine? These people trying to do a serious policy debate and crack jokes at the same time. What a crapshow that would be.

... So actually, yeah. I hope they *do* go to Comedy Central for the next one. Let Jon Stewart mod it and everything.
 
kellyb said:
I think a Bernie VP to Warren's Pres would work better than the other way around. VP's lesser importance would mitigate some of Bernie's wackiness and greater age. There's more wiggle room for a VP to be eccentric.
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I'd add to that:

A whole lot of Democrats really don't see Sanders as "a real Democrat" and won't vote for him for that reason alone.
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Gee, I wonder why that would be the case. I mean, its not like he has been running and sitting as an independent in the senate now, has he?
 
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