2020 Democratic Candidates Tracker - Part II

[kellyb]

Speaking of healthcare, democratic candidates, and Biden:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/eliz...7TS3j2BmKSPZuBHi6zLTCH_1ZFPK4ITwtRhqsl6KF6nws

Elizabeth Warren Doubles Down On ‘Medicare For All’ In Interview With Dying Activist
“Medicare for All is about a relationship that all of us have to each other,” Warren told Ady Barkan.

Democratic presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren delivered an impassioned explanation of her support for a “Medicare for All,” single-payer health care system in an interview with terminally ill progressive activist Ady Barkan.

The nine-minute video capturing Barkan’s discussion with Warren at his home in Santa Barbara, California, released on Tuesday, represents the Massachusetts senator’s frankest discussion to date of a subject matter that she has been more reticent about than other elements of her platform.

Warren invoked Barkan’s predicament during her discussion of Medicare for All in the second Democratic presidential debate on July 30. She noted that though Barkan has excellent private insurance, he and his wife Rachael spend $9,000 a month out of their own pocket for services not covered by their insurance. (Barkan even had to fight his insurer to get it to pay for a breathing assistance machine.)

The video with Warren is part of a series of interviews about health care with Democratic presidential candidates that Barkan is conducting in conjunction with NowThis News and Crooked Media. Barkan, an ardent proponent of single-payer health care, earlier released footage of his conversations with Sens. Sanders, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and technology entrepreneur Andrew Yang are all in the process of scheduling interviews with Barkan. Former Vice President Joe Biden has not yet responded to an invitation to sit down with Barkan.

 

[Brainster]

Here's a pretty long article on the disconnect between the geriatric Biden campaign, and the younger reporters covering it.

The first thing you notice at a Joe Biden event is the age: Many of the reporters covering him are really young. Biden is not. The press corps, or so the Biden campaign sees it, is culturally liberal and highly attuned to modern issues around race and gender and social justice. Biden is not. The reporters are Extremely Online. Biden couldn’t tell you what TikTok is.

Gulp! What's TikTok?

“I don't know of anybody who has taken as sustained and vitriolic a negative pounding as Biden and who has come through it with the strength he has,” said a top Biden adviser. “So why isn’t the argument not that he's a ‘fragile front runner,’ but instead why is this guy so strong? How is he able to withstand this? Because it is unrelenting. Every story that has been written about Biden for a month has been negative! I would ask Warren and Sanders and these folks: He’s been pummeled for months. For months! So why is he going to fall apart now?”

I do think it's quite likely that the reporters covering Biden right now are younger and more likely to be Warren or Sanders supporters. But they're also like sports reporters; they want a good race because it will draw attention to them. If Biden wins easily, they lose.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

Here's a pretty long article on the disconnect between the geriatric Biden campaign, and the younger reporters covering it.







Gulp! What's TikTok?







I do think it's quite likely that the reporters covering Biden right now are younger and more likely to be Warren or Sanders supporters. But they're also like sports reporters; they want a good race because it will draw attention to them. If Biden wins easily, they lose.

Also the use of victim mode is so overused. They see he's gotten nothing but bad press. Let me wander over to the Our Revolution and Justice Democrats posts where they claim victim status and point out all the stories gushing with praise for Biden, but dismissive references to anyone else.

 

[Dr. Keith]

So... if we can't talk about who's gonna vote for which candidate and which candidate is going to appeal to the most voters do we just... like list them off? Talk about their haircuts and shoes?

Talk about whatever you want. I'm not in charge, I'm just expressing an opinion.

 

[kellyb]

I would ask Warren and Sanders and these folks: He’s been pummeled for months. For months! So why is he going to fall apart now?”

Nobody thinks he's going to "fall apart".

Everyone thinks he's been on an overall downwards trajectory for months and has almost no chance of getting the 50%+ needed to outright win the nomination, which means we're probably going to be looking at a contested convention, where between Warren and Sanders, one will withdraw sometime after the first round at the latest, and their delegates go to...someone else/other people.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Nobody thinks he's going to "fall apart".

I do. I think he's literally falling apart. The eye thing was just the tip of the eyesberg. He'll continue to deteriorate physically and mentally, Skeksis-like, on television.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

I do. I think he's literally falling apart. The eye thing was just the tip of the eyesberg. He'll continue to deteriorate physically and mentally, Skeksis-like, on television.

Well that's just great. Now I'm not going to be able to not see the debate stage as a Skeksis dinner party.

 

[theprestige]

Well that's just great. Now I'm not going to be able to not see the debate stage as a Skeksis dinner party.

It's probably not a bad metaphor for political wrangling in general.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Well that's just great. Now I'm not going to be able to not see the debate stage as a Skeksis dinner party.

Biden saw the Peeper Beetle!

 

[JoeMorgue]

This is not a zero sum game. If we have 10 Democrats running for the office and one of them starts losing credibility, it doesn't always transfer to another Democrat, sometimes it's just gets lost.

I'd enjoying watching the Dems eat their own young.. errr old under different circumstances, but not now.

 

[kellyb]

This is not a zero sum game. If we have 10 Democrats running for the office and one of them starts losing credibility, it doesn't always transfer to another Democrat

When it comes to the primary contest for the nomination, it is a zero sum game.

 

[JoeMorgue]

When it comes to the primary contest for the nomination, it is a zero sum game.

Only if you pretend the primary happens in a vacuum and what happens in it has zero effect on the main election.

 

[kellyb]

Only if you pretend the primary happens in a vacuum and what happens in it has zero effect on the main election.

No, credibility during the primary is a zero sum game for the purposes of securing the nomination.

There's also a strong argument to be made that to whatever extent a candidate can be "discredited" during the primary, the Republicans will do the same thing times 10 during the general, so it's better that any and all weaknesses are exposed during the primary process and become "yesterday's news" by the time the general comes around.

 

[Brainster]

Also the use of victim mode is so overused. They see he's gotten nothing but bad press. Let me wander over to the Our Revolution and Justice Democrats posts where they claim victim status and point out all the stories gushing with praise for Biden, but dismissive references to anyone else.

I don't think there's a politician alive who thinks they get the adoration from the media that they so richly deserve.

 

[The Atheist]

...which means we're probably going to be looking at a contested convention, where between Warren and Sanders, one will withdraw sometime after the first round at the latest, and their delegates go to...someone else/other people.

Logic and the similarity of their positions should mean the withdrawing party's votes go to the other.

Not that logic & politics sit together nicely.

It'd be great to see Bernie calling it quits and saying "Vote Liz!"

 

[kellyb]

Logic and the similarity of their positions should mean the withdrawing party's votes go to the other.

Not that logic & politics sit together nicely.

It'd be great to see Bernie calling it quits and saying "Vote Liz!"

It's really going to boil down to how the delegates are vetted by the state campaigns for Warren and Sanders, I think. Fingers crossed Bernie and Liz both have hyper-competent, legit progressive folks in charge of their state campaigns.

I'd love to hear Bernie calling it quits to endorse Liz, too.

It's worth remember that in 2015, Bernie:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/07/whats-wrong-with-the-democrats/528696/

A year before the first primary, he told Elizabeth Warren that he would cease his campaign preparations if she wanted to run. “He would have given her a clear lane,” one former Sanders adviser told me. But Warren demurred. She had only recently arrived in the Senate, and it wasn’t hard to imagine a fusillade of Clinton-campaign attacks, an opposition-research file disgorged, leaving her too damaged for future fights.

And more recently:

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/20/bernie-sanders-elizabeth-warren-2020-919825

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Bernie Sanders says he speaks with Elizabeth Warren nearly every day — just not about 2020.

...with some progressive activists alarmed that they might split the vote, allowing a more moderate Democrat to win the nomination — Sanders suggested Friday that a pre-2020 discussion among like-minded potential candidates could be forthcoming.

Asked whether he and other progressive contenders should hold talks in an effort to ensure one of them prevails, Sanders told POLITICO, “I suspect that in the coming weeks and months, there will be discussions.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

It's really going to boil down to how the delegates are vetted by the state campaigns for Warren and Sanders, I think. Fingers crossed Bernie and Liz both have hyper-competent, legit progressive folks in charge of their state campaigns.

The first vote will not include superdelegates. If there's no majority on the first vote, then they get to weigh in.

If there's even 4 or 5 candidates with a handful of wins (or a strong 2nd place in caucuses), that means the only way a majority happens is by backroom deal (I'll give you my delegates for one of these 3 cabinet seats).

Given that the superdelegates will telegraph their preference, the likely outcome is people trading in to support that candidate before their leverage evaporates in the 2nd vote.

 

[kellyb]

The first vote will not include superdelegates. If there's no majority on the first vote, then they get to weigh in.

If there's even 4 or 5 candidates with a handful of wins (or a strong 2nd place in caucuses), that means the only way a majority happens is by backroom deal (I'll give you my delegates for one of these 3 cabinet seats).

Given that the superdelegates will telegraph their preference, the likely outcome is people trading in to support that candidate before their leverage evaporates in the 2nd vote.

I wasn't even factoring in the superdelegates. I don't think they're all that likely to make a huge difference this time.

It's the "I'll give you my delegates" aspect where there's most room for chaos, as far as I can see. The delegates can't be given away like slaves. lol After the first round of voting, they can vote for whoever they want to. Candidate X could withdraw and tell their delegates to vote for candidate A, but the delegates could, in theory, decide to disregard that and vote for candidate B.

Unless I'm misunderstanding something.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

I wasn't even factoring in the superdelegates. I don't think they're all that likely to make a huge difference this time.



It's the "I'll give you my delegates" aspect where there's most room for chaos, as far as I can see. The delegates can't be given away like slaves. lol After the first round of voting, they can vote for whoever they want to. Candidate X could withdraw and tell their delegates to vote for candidate A, but the delegates could, in theory, decide to disregard that and vote for candidate B.



Unless I'm misunderstanding something.

Correct. The total result of the rules seems to be designed do get a conclusion before the first vote, which can then be spun as a "spontaneous concensus" of pragmatism and unity.

I don't think the superdelegates will ever vote, they are there to ensure they won't have to. Basically "get on board or get left behind."

 

[angrysoba]

This is not a zero sum game. If we have 10 Democrats running for the office and one of them starts losing credibility, it doesn't always transfer to another Democrat, sometimes it's just gets lost.

I'd enjoying watching the Dems eat their own young.. errr old under different circumstances, but not now.

This is a good point and one raised in the 538 podcast recently about what will go down at the debates. It is speculated that ultimately Harris may have paid a price for going against Biden too strongly as it ultimately looks bad for the party to have some fratricidal war.

That said, it may be in the interests of *some* of their candidates to take votes off Biden (in other words, maybe Harris might need to continue going after Biden and similarly Booker given that Biden seems to be the choice of black voters). And the podcast crew think that Biden is going to come under a lot of fire from those who want to be share out any vote that Biden loses.