2020 Democratic Candidates Tracker - Part II

[Skeptic Ginger]

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.

And you think bad moderators trying to get the candidates to snip at each other wasn't a crappy show?

Jon Stewart would make an excellent debate moderator.

 

[Tero]

Where is this headed? Last time by caucus time in my state we knly had to vote on Hillary and Sanders. Can 3 survive?

 

[Delphic Oracle]

Where is this headed? Last time by caucus time in my state we knly had to vote on Hillary and Sanders. Can 3 survive?

There's still 186 days before the first thing with any serious statutory significance happens.

ETA: 214 until Super Tuesday when we see who can really operate a broad geographic ground game.

 

[Venom]

Let Jon Stewart moderate the next democratic debate. Too many candidates get to hide in the crowd!

 

[Aridas]

And you think bad moderators trying to get the candidates to snip at each other wasn't a crappy show?

Jon Stewart would make an excellent debate moderator.

It's sad, but... a debate with those Comedy Central hosts doing their thing would likely end up being both more fun to watch and more enlightening to the public overall.

 

[WilliamSeger]

Lawrence O'Donnell made the point tonight that debating is not really a skill that a president needs, except to win the election. After that, their job is to deliberate with policy experts and make decisions, so he proposed that candidates should have a team of advisers at the debate.

I think they should do an online debate using some decent forum software instead of that severely limited and disorganized piece of **** Twitter. Post some topics, and let them go at it like we do here.

 

[Tero]

I caught the second debate. It was sad to see CNN and moderates embrace Republican framing on health care. Harris under-performed for me. Biden fought back enough to stay on top. It seemed everyone was trying to replicate Harris's slam from last debate.

The reason for not supporting a full Medicare plan has to do with
1 lobbyists
2 polling voters. The voters have been persuaded since Reagan to believe that the government is bad at doing things
3 the government seemingly being bad at it, such as the VA. The real reason is that Republicans cut funding to the agencies. "It doesn't work!" Of course it does not. You made sure of it.

 

[Venom]

How the **** is Biden still leading in support among Democrats?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

How the **** is Biden still leading in support among Democrats?

The next tier has a split vote.


Having read Cyber Wars by Kathleen Hall Jamieson, I totally agree with Brooks tonight (Brooks and Shields) on PBS. The Democrats are going to lose again, big time, because they are trying to campaign on issues and Trump is steamrolling through again based on knee-jerk emotionalism.

In excruciating detail the book explains how the Russian bots, trolls and the Trump campaign completely snookered the public demonizing Clinton and making Trump out to be the savior.

I've posted about this book before and probably will repeat myself a dozen more times before the 2020 election. If you read it you'll understand why it's such an important examination of the 2016 election.

 

[kellyb]

The Democrats are going to lose again, big time, because they are trying to campaign on issues and Trump is steamrolling through again based on knee-jerk emotionalism.

See, I think pure turnout is key for a democratic win. Trying to beat Trump at the knee-jerk emotionalism game would be a losing strategy. His base cannot be won over by anyone who's not a xenophobic madman. They want a mini-Hitler.

 

[kellyb]

How the **** is Biden still leading in support among Democrats?

Name recognition, Obama nostalgia, and many people not even really paying attention yet.
The Biden campaign strategy so far seem to primarily be keeping him away from voters and the press (for obvious reasons), and it's working for now.
That will probably only work for so long, though.

 

[Aridas]

The next tier has a split vote.


Having read Cyber Wars by Kathleen Hall Jamieson, I totally agree with Brooks tonight (Brooks and Shields) on PBS. The Democrats are going to lose again, big time, because they are trying to campaign on issues and Trump is steamrolling through again based on knee-jerk emotionalism.

In excruciating detail the book explains how the Russian bots, trolls and the Trump campaign completely snookered the public demonizing Clinton and making Trump out to be the savior.

I've posted about this book before and probably will repeat myself a dozen more times before the 2020 election. If you read it you'll understand why it's such an important examination of the 2016 election.

If you're going to push Cyber Wars, I may as well recommend Democracy in Chains by Nancy McLean. That one goes into quite a lot of historical detail about one of the major aspects of what's going on in the background on the right-wing, how such has developed, their actual goals, and a bit on their strategies - frequently invoking the words of the people themselves. Understanding the underlying issues is likely just as important, if not moreso, than understanding any particular one of the tools that are being employed to get to it.

 

[Solitaire]

Who cares? It's 88,000 people in three states he has to worry about.
Well, actually, those 88,000 skewed older; so thankfully some of them
have died in the interim.

I constantly worry that this election will turn polar, like it did in 2004.

Based upon that scenario the Democratic Party gets 11 million to 13 million
new voters, the Republican Party gets 17 million to 19 million new voters,
and the third party votes vanishes.

Of course it's early, things can change.


P. S. Nicely my prediction of Biden in the lead came true. He reminds me
of Phil Bredesen in the 2018 election. This year I'm predicting a Biden and
Warren 2020 ticket.

 

[Delvo]

How the **** is Biden still leading in support among Democrats?

The myth that has driven Democrat election losses for over a decade, that a mislabeled Republican is the only "Democrat" who can win a general election, is unexplainably powerful. We have a few people still touting it even here, after having repeatedly ignored not only all presentations of the facts/logic that counter it but also all requests for some facts/logic to support it.

The Democrats are going to lose again, big time, because they are trying to campaign on issues and Trump is steamrolling through again based on knee-jerk emotionalism.

That could hardly miss any wider. The last Presidential loss was with somebody who persistently avoided ever mentioning issues and tried an entirely emotion-based campaign. The fact that that failed is one of the reasons why the ones who are focusing on issues are doing so. (That, and because the issues are what they actually believe in and are motivated by in the first place.)

I think a Bernie VP to Warren's Pres would work better than the other way around.

Others may look at the idea of a potential team-up between those two as having one of them run as the other's VP, but what I had in mind was actually one of them dropping out entirely and then just strictly campaigning for the other, while someone less age-discrimination-prone takes the VP spot.

If one of them hasn't quit by the time the real caucuses roll around (and Biden hasn't bidenized yet by then), I'll get pretty angry at both.

 

[Tero]

SG: somewhat agree. The Dems need to put in a full time person to tweet for them if they do not have the time.

Meanwhile: Maher has gone all Biden
https://twitter.com/johndelanyy/status/1157564201159680001
https://twitter.com/billmaher/status/1157523945546846208

 

[Tero]

There's still 186 days before the first thing with any serious statutory significance happens.

ETA: 214 until Super Tuesday when we see who can really operate a broad geographic ground game.

So the Iowa caucus does not count?


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Iowa_Democratic_caucuses
They could have up to four with over 15%, but likely 3.

Precinct caucuses will be held on the evening of Monday, February 3, 2020, in order to allocate delegates for county conventions. In the closed caucuses, candidates must meet a viability threshold of 15 percent within an individual precinct in order to be considered viable, with supporters of non-viable candidates then allowed to support one of the remaining viable candidates.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

That could hardly miss any wider. The last Presidential loss was with somebody who persistently avoided ever mentioning issues and tried an entirely emotion-based campaign. The fact that that failed is one of the reasons why the ones who are focusing on issues are doing so. (That, and because the issues are what they actually believe in and are motivated by in the first place.)

I agree with you, but to be fair, she DID have actual policies. She just never talked about them. All you'd get from her is that carefully-worded brand of political doublespeak that runs on yet says nothing, and you'd have to go to her website to see what the plan actually was.

 

[angrysoba]

 

[ArchSas]

Meanwhile: Maher has gone all Biden
https://twitter.com/johndelanyy/status/1157564201159680001
https://twitter.com/billmaher/status/1157523945546846208

Is that surprising to anyone? Bill Maher is out of touch, pretends to be a progressive but has always been very conservative-minded (he loves upholding the status quo and acting like it's the "sane" choice) and is prone to saying dumb things. Joe Biden is exactly the kind of person he would support, because they're almost the same person (although I guess Maher is more of a troll). Since when has Maher been relevant anyway? I didn't think anyone still took him seriously, especially after that Milo Yianopolous fiasco.

As far as why he's in the lead, other people have already given the reasons as I understand them (split votes, name recognition, people not paying attention, etc.). It's really not good that his team's strategy is keeping him out of the public eye; I thought he was embarrassingly bad in the debates, and his donors seem to agree. The more public appearances he makes, I'm guessing the worse he'll do. And I agree that increasing voter turnout is the key. The major reason democrats lost the last presidency was because of incredibly low turnout, votes being split by third party candidates, and how those factors influenced the electoral college. Biden, with his establishment leanings, bad history, and lack of focus beyond "I'm not Trump" is an even worse candidate than Hilary and won't be able to mobilized voters. If the nominee is a candidate that people actually like and can get excited about (unlike Biden, who polls keep showing that no one is actually enthusiastic about), they'll win. My money is still on Warren or Sanders.

 

[Childlike Empress]

Tulsi has just passed the 130K single donations she needs to continue to annoy the establishment clowns with her presence in the third round of debates. Aloha!