2020 Democratic Candidates Tracker - Part II

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JoeMorgue said:
Because the idea that moderates are less important then extreme Democrats is frankly absurd and I don't why that's the narrative the Democrats keep trying to sell that as the narrative.
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Objection - even Bernie Sanders is nowhere remotely close to the extreme left. Don't fall for that hostile framing. Don't indulge it, either. There's lots of actually extreme right-wingers in the GOP and the GOP is pandering to them. There's no (or practically no) extreme left-wingers in the Democratic Party and the Democratic Party isn't pandering to the actual far left. Don't allow the false equivalence to twist your perception.

I'm going to insert another post, though, because it's close enough to this to address them both with one thing.

Distracted1 said:
The calculus is thus:

The Left is already highly motivated to turn out this election, our disdain for the current occupant of the White House demands it.

In and of itself, our motivation to vote may not be enough to overcome institutional roadblocks and secure the office of POTUS.

There are many on The Right who are un-enthusiastic about Trump, and may be inclined to vote against him (or not vote for the POTUS at all) if the candidate we run does not trigger the knee-jerk "OMG SOCIALISTS!!!!" as readily as some of our more left leaning options.

In order to win, it is likely that we will need a candidate who will do well amongst the (small) number of Independents- while not stirring the lukewarm to cold Right leaning voters into action.

At this time, Biden seems to be the best prospect for that. I don't think many of us actually expect him to govern (or even survive his first term), but he may be the one most able to give us a "rubber stamp" presidency.
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This seems relevant.


As a corollary to that, would you say concerns that "We shouldn’t do X because Trump will exploit it to rile up his supporters" are off-base, because that's going to happen anyway?

Absolutely. In fact, in the district-level analysis of the voter file in California and Virginia that I'll be releasing after Labor Day, I have competitive districts in those states. The data shows the turnout surge and how much different the composition of the electorate was between 2014 and 2018. I'm also able to show that even in these districts where Democrats ran Blue Dog candidates who were as unobtrusive as possible — with, exactly as you stated, the goal of not riling up Trump voters — the turnout for Republican voters in those districts was huge.

In fact, not only did Democrats not get the benefit of not stirring up the Trump base — the Trump base was stirred up and showed up in huge numbers — but by not tapping into anti-Trump sentiment in their own campaign strategy, by not intentionally activating that Trump angst, they paid a price in terms of their own base turnout. It was depressed, compared to other districts.
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Expect very high turnout from the Republicans and Republican-leaning folk, no matter who the Democratic candidate is, in short, just like in 2018. Going out of the way to try to avoid riling up those who are already riled up or will be riled up at the drop of a hat is not optimal strategy.


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.

I want Trump stopped more then I care about the Democrat Party's ego. Crucify me.
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Most Democrats do want Trump stopped as a very high priority. Not all Democrats are sold on arguments that seem to pretty clearly be based on demonstrably faulty claims.


Also, separately, looks like Inslee's dropping out.
 
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Aridas said:
Objection - even Bernie Sanders is nowhere remotely close to the extreme left. Don't fall for that hostile framing.
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His healthcare policy is to the left of every Western country with universal healthcare. He is the extreme left on that issue.
 
FenerFan said:
There are wild macaques living in Florida, too. They have been there for decades. And since it's Florida, many of them carry a strain of herpes that is very dangerous for humans.
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Heh. The South Carolina monkeys may attack you if they feel threatened. The Florida monkeys will give you a disease if you have sex with them. I never realized wild monkeys reflect the character of their state!

Missouri has no wild monkeys, monkeys are too delicate to survive meth.
 
Belz... said:
Yes. And?

If not civil war, and not compromise, what?
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We were talking about how a candidate should run their campaign, not about how they could seize power in a coup if they lose. If someone loses they lose, and either they try again next time or someone else does. Hopefully having learned from the mistakes of the previous losers but that's apparently an unreasonable request, seeing how many versions of Dukakis have run forever.
 
Belz... said:
Yeah, I know that. But if you're not willing to compromise, what then?
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Again, I don't think you're talking about the same thing. If a candidate doesn't compromise on their positions they either win or lose, just like every other candidate. If they win and don't compromise on their principles they either get things done or they don't, just like every other elected official.

I don't believe it's an automatic given that compromise is always required in all things in order to win an election or get things done if in office. I realize that's controversial to the unprincipled surrender monkeys who lost the last election and hope to succeed this time by repeating their mistakes.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Again, I don't think you're talking about the same thing.
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Ok then let's start over.

Hello, my name's Belz..., oh, I see from your avatar that you may need some skin care products...

I don't believe it's an automatic given that compromise is always required in all things in order to win an election or get things done if in office.
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It's not a given, but it makes sense that more moderate positions will appeal to more people.
 
Belz... said:
It's not a given, but it makes sense that more moderate positions will appeal to more people.
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I find that many things people declare "make sense" are actually completely wrong. So I attach very little value to that particular assertion without evidence.
 
Belz... said:
Fair enough.

Do you think more far-left views are therefore more popular than moderate ones?
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I don't know. I have observed that candidates popularly perceived as moderate haven't been performing as well in elections, and less moderate political figures appear to have more fans than moderates do.
 
Okay screw politics, screw the future of the country in 2020 I'm voting for which ever candidate's bumper stickers I see the least on cars cutting me off as if that merge just jumped out at you and hadn't been happening for the last mile and had signs telling you it was going to happen for miles before that.

//Obviously joking rant, but people in traffic were being really stupid today for some reason//
 
TragicMonkey said:
I don't know. I have observed that candidates popularly perceived as moderate haven't been performing as well in elections, and less moderate political figures appear to have more fans than moderates do.
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You're forgetting how Trump swamped Killary by compromising on things like his unreasonable demand that Mexico build a wall and that his opponent be thrown in jail without due process. Once he told conceded on those outrageous issues he finally pulled ahead and won, but before that no one gave him a chance in hell.
 
Belz... said:
Fair enough.

Do you think more far-left views are therefore more popular than moderate ones?
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I do. I've seen plenty of polls showing a majority of Americans support the kinds of things Bernie Sanders talks about. Here are two sources I found within five seconds of searching:

https://verdict.justia.com/2019/04/04/if-these-ideas-are-too-far-left-why-are-they-so-popular
https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-ame...mericans-support-medicare-for-all-health-care

When it comes to things like universal healthcare, fighting climate change, increased gun regulation, higher minimum wages, etc., most Americans are in favor of policies that are usually considered "far-left." For the most part, appeals to the middle are misguided, IMO, and based on the fallacious ideas that compromise of the solution to everything and that most people must be centrist because reasons. Even during a town hall on Fox news, Bernie Sanders' ideas were greeted with cheers from the crowd, and you could argue that many of Trump's favorite campaign promises were somewhat in line with ideals of the left (cleaning up corruption, providing better healthcare, cutting military spending, enacting polices to increase employment, etc.) As far as I can tell, despite the GOP trying hard to move the Overton windows of politics to the right (and mostly succeeding), the wider public generally embraces left-leaning ideas more.
 
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Aridas said:
.... Expect very high turnout from the Republicans and Republican-leaning folk, no matter who the Democratic candidate is, in short, just like in 2018. Going out of the way to try to avoid riling up those who are already riled up or will be riled up at the drop of a hat is not optimal strategy. ....
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Don't forget the Russians had an army of bots and trolls making an explicit effort to rile up GOP voters to turn out to fight Satan and the demon Hillary.
 
Belz... said:
Most Americans, but if we account for the way elections actually work? With districts and the EC and all?
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If you want to make the claim that gerrymandering, voter suppression, fake news, and the EC have made the American election process messy and somewhat undemocratic, I'm not going to disagree with that. The GOP does all they can to rig the system in their favor, and a lot of the time, it works (sometimes with outside help).

But that's not what you originally asked. You asked if "far-left" views were more popular than moderate ones, and that's what I was replying to. Evidence shows they actually are. Whether or not that's reflected in elections is a different matter, sadly.
 
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