2020 Democratic Candidates Tracker - Part II

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theprestige said:
Weird flex, but okay.

Now how about addressing the substance of my argument.
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Already covered. As I said above, I'm glad I'm not a politician. Because I couldn't do that, "that" being watering down principle to make myself more appealing to those who favor the opposite. And luckily for me, I'm not a politician, so my remarks here cause no problems for those who are carefully polishing the Biden turd to a mirror sheen that will entice the deplorable. I may even bring myself to vote for him, as I did for Clinton, because I felt I had to despite how utterly dreadful they both are.
 
Belz... said:
What's a "flex", in this context?
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I can't not brag: yesterday I decline bench pressed 135, a new record for me! For 8 reps in 5 sets! (No spotter so I never try maximum, I lift at a weight until I can do 12 reps then move up.)
 
TragicMonkey said:
Already covered. As I said above, I'm glad I'm not a politician. Because I couldn't do that, "that" being watering down principle to make myself more appealing to those who favor the opposite.
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Again, your problem isn't appealing to those who favor the opposite. Your problem is appealing to those who favor neither very strongly, but could be persuaded to favor you.

And I think your concern for not watering down your principles has blinded you to the other important tool in your arsenal: Finding principles you share in common, and building them up.
 
theprestige said:
Again, your problem isn't appealing to those who favor the opposite. Your problem is appealing to those who favor neither very strongly, but could be persuaded to favor you.

And I think your concern for not watering down your principles has blinded you to the other important tool in your arsenal: Finding principles you share in common, and building them up.
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This is me you're talking about. My principles are highly eccentric and have no hope of appealing to a broad segment of the society in which I live. It's not even a consideration. Luckily for their careers politicians don't have that problem. Even my preferred candidate is lightyears away from what I'd like to have done. So let them try to appeal, it's part of the job.
 
TragicMonkey said:
I wish Warren would just go ahead and assimilate Sanders with her Borg nanoprobes. She's the practical, less crazy version of him. If he were gone I think most of his supporters would back her.
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I have a sinking gut feeling that Sanders has started to buy into his own mythology as the "darkhorse non-mainstream candidate" a little too much.
 
TragicMonkey said:
This is me you're talking about. My principles are highly eccentric and have no hope of appealing to a broad segment of the society in which I live. It's not even a consideration. Luckily for their careers politicians don't have that problem. Even my preferred candidate is lightyears away from what I'd like to have done. So let them try to appeal, it's part of the job.
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I'm actually talking about a hypothetical you who's a serious political candidate with strong principles, who's considering a campaign strategy of writing off swing voters as deplorables who are committed to the GOP hard line.
 
JoeMorgue said:
I have a sinking gut feeling that Sanders has started to buy into his own mythology as the "darkhorse non-mainstream candidate" a little too much.
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I don't. I'm pretty sure that Sanders has given this whole thing a lot more thought than you or I, and probably has a much better grasp of what is and isn't than you are.
 
theprestige said:
I'm actually talking about a hypothetical you who's a serious political candidate with strong principles, who's considering a campaign strategy of writing off swing voters as deplorables who are committed to the GOP hard line.
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Then yes, even if I were a political candidate I'd abandon the middle of the field and swing for the fences. I'd choose that gamble over the possibility of winning back the opposition. I'd speak a lot more nicely about it than I have here, of course, but the direction would be the same: leftward and to hell ("heck") with the status quo.

I've been reading about the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Douglas tried to appeal to the center, and he did win the Senate seat. Lincoln was the idealist who didn't concede as much to the opposition (although he did concede some things) and he lost the Senate seat...but won the presidency on the strength of those debates. From his perspective it was worth it. Douglas ran for the presidency himself and got one state and part of New Jersey. And historians pretty much agree that a Douglas presidency still would have resulted in the Civil War anyway. The middle ground was inherently untenable, occupying it was no key to success.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Then yes, even if I were a political candidate I'd abandon the middle of the field and swing for the fences. I'd choose that gamble over the possibility of winning back the opposition. I'd speak a lot more nicely about it than I have here, of course, but the direction would be the same: leftward and to hell ("heck") with the status quo.

I've been reading about the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Douglas tried to appeal to the center, and he did win the Senate seat. Lincoln was the idealist who didn't concede as much to the opposition (although he did concede some things) and he lost the Senate seat...but won the presidency on the strength of those debates. From his perspective it was worth it. Douglas ran for the presidency himself and got one state and part of New Jersey. And historians pretty much agree that a Douglas presidency still would have resulted in the Civil War anyway. The middle ground was inherently untenable, occupying it was no key to success.
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That's just going to have the end result of codifying "Cause Purity" and "You've only got two choices" into a hybrid monster of "Everyone who's not 100% in agreement with me about everything is the enemy."
 
JoeMorgue said:
That's just going to have the end result of codifying "Cause Purity" and "You've only got two choices" into a hybrid monster of "Everyone who's not 100% in agreement with me about everything is the enemy."
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Dude, I'm familiar with your posts. You always argue for concessions, mitigation, watering-down, surrender. If you'd been a Founding Father the US would be a special tax district of Britain today. Just take it as read that I am the implacable opposite of all your own instincts and move on.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Dude, I'm familiar with your posts. You always argue for concessions, mitigation, watering-down, surrender. If you'd been a Founding Father the US would be a special tax district of Britain today. Just take it as read that I am the implacable opposite of all your own instincts and move on.
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Yep. You're either 100% completely "Causiest of the cause" on your side or your some wishy-washy both sides are equal middle of the roader. Yep.

I want Trump stopped more then I care about the Democrat Party's ego. Crucify me.
 
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JoeMorgue said:
Yep. You're either 100% completely "Causiest of the cause" on your side or your some wishy-washy both sides are equal middle of the roader. Yep.
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"You say you say tomato, I say tomahto, I say you say tomato, I say tomato." --Mr Peanutbutter
 
Don't read rust belt voting based on how they feel about red vs. blue. They have a completely different orientation to their thinking.

They want someone who will chuck a metaphorical grenade into the halls of power. That's why they voted for Trump. That's why they will not vote for a candidate who can be described as "safe", "stable", "reliable", "familiar", or "acceptable."

Trump did not start out in the lead and march to an expected convention nod. The GOP convention saw not just the usual whisperings of backroom jockeying to have the voting sewn up by the time the big moment comes, but a verbal brawl over rules changes from the "Never Trump" holdouts.

So the angry people see their own plight through Trump. He may not be one of "them" but he earned it by playing by their stupid rules and then they tried to steal it from him anyways. The old guard, the hacks, the people who keep selling us out tried to stop him, "so he must be on my side, or at least he'll give the ones who engineered my deprivation some what-for!"

For the life of me I can't find what program I heard it on recently, but someone was explaining that a lot of how we grapple with voting is in the part of the brain that is associated with social reasoning and much more "simple mammalian" than "advanced primate" kind of thinking.
 
Delphic Oracle said:
Don't read rust belt voting based on how they feel about red vs. blue. They have a completely different orientation to their thinking.

They want someone who will chuck a metaphorical grenade into the halls of power. That's why they voted for Trump. That's why they will not vote for a candidate who can be described as "safe", "stable", "reliable", "familiar", or "acceptable."

Trump did not start out in the lead and march to an expected convention nod. The GOP convention saw not just the usual whisperings of backroom jockeying to have the voting sewn up by the time the big moment comes, but a verbal brawl over rules changes from the "Never Trump" holdouts.

So the angry people see their own plight through Trump. He may not be one of "them" but he earned it by playing by their stupid rules and then they tried to steal it from him anyways. The old guard, the hacks, the people who keep selling us out tried to stop him, "so he must be on my side, or at least he'll give the ones who engineered my deprivation some what-for!"

For the life of me I can't find what program I heard it on recently, but someone was explaining that a lot of how we grapple with voting is in the part of the brain that is associated with social reasoning and much more "simple mammalian" than "advanced primate" kind of thinking.
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I disagree.
People in the rust belt want stability and predictability for the most part. 2016 happened to be a year in which both the presented candidates were so repellant, and the outcome so (wrongly) seemingly forgone, that the loony-tune vote actually resulted in something.
They will "flock" to an establishment candidate in 2020.
 
Distracted1 said:
You do not consider the results of scientifically conducted polling to be evidence?
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Polling is a critical component in assessing how well candidates do in getting elected and their performance relative to polling....including the biggest poll of them all, the actual vote.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Dude, I'm familiar with your posts. You always argue for concessions, mitigation, watering-down, surrender. If you'd been a Founding Father the US would be a special tax district of Britain today. Just take it as read that I am the implacable opposite of all your own instincts and move on.
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Ok, civil war then. Go.
 
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