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2020 Democratic Candidates Tracker - Part II

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shemp said:
Of course, the problem is that the liberals vote in the primaries more than the moderates do. Mrs. Shemp was involved in a couple of Democratic presidential campaigns and never fails to remind me of this. So the primary campaign tends to be liberal, then swing back toward the center after the nomination is secured.
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This go-round, I think the reverse is a better strategy.

Everyone already expects the candidates to campaign more to the extremes of their bases- then swing back to what can actually be sold to the general electorate for the election.

I think this time, making oneself appear the least extreme (and therefore, the most electable) is the key to winning the primaries. The base might be ready to understand that a push to the left is best left for after the election has been won.
 
Venom said:
Echoes what Bill Maher said last night. Did you get this from him?

I think they should withhold some of their side proposals, though I won't lose sleep over inmates gaining rights.
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I have been espousing that position since discussion of who should be the Democratic candidate began, as has JoeMorgue, and a number of other regulars in this forum.
 
varwoche said:
And I hate to break it to you, but that's Joe's point.

When they stake out goofy positions that might appeal to a demographic that's already in the Dem pocket, they increase the chance of defeat in the general. We can't afford that -- at least not those of us who think that defeating Trump is priority #1.
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Not many people are going to make their general election choice to vote Trump based on what was said by democrats in the primary, and when it comes to "would you be in favor of ___?" questions, they're easy to accurately walk back as mere hypotheticals, since it's congress that writes and mostly passes the laws, and congress is not on the cusp of doing those things right now or even in the foreseeable future.

You can't seriously expect people running in the primary to be less competitive against each other in the primary (and thus choose to lose) because of some theoretical negative effect over a year from now in the general.
 
kellyb said:
Not many people are going to make their general election choice to vote Trump based on what was said by democrats in the primary, and when it comes to "would you be in favor of ___?" questions, they're easy to accurately walk back as mere hypotheticals, since it's congress that writes and mostly passes the laws, and congress is not on the cusp of doing those things right now or even in the foreseeable future.

You can't seriously expect people running in the primary to be less competitive against each other in the primary (and thus choose to lose) because of some theoretical negative effect over a year from now in the general.
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That makes the assumption that the key to winning the primary is to check as many of the boxes as possible to appeal most broadly to the Democratic base.

The Democratic base already knows that many of the boxes (if checked) make it less possible for the candidate that secures the nomination to actually win the general election.

This time around the most important box to have checked ,for an increasing percentage of the Democratic electorate, is the one that says "is able to defeat Trump in the general election".

With this understanding, I think playing it "moderate" is the key to being competitive in the primary.
 
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Venom said:
Echoes what Bill Maher said last night. Did you get this from him?

I think they should withhold some of their side proposals, though I won't lose sleep over inmates gaining rights.
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There are people who believe that inmates shouldn't have any rights. A number of years ago a major tabletop RPG magazine talked about the issue of prisons banning RPGs because they were "gambling" (used die/chits) or not allowing the magazine to be delivered because it contained maps (of fictional locations). Some readers responded with outrage that prisoners were allowed any entertainment at all. In their opinion, in order to be properly punished, they were supposed to sit in their cells staring at blank walls all day, every day, for their entire sentence.
 
Venom said:
Echoes what Bill Maher said last night. Did you get this from him?

I think they should withhold some of their side proposals, though I won't lose sleep over inmates gaining rights.
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Distracted1 said:
I have been espousing that position since discussion of who should be the Democratic candidate began, as has JoeMorgue, and a number of other regulars in this forum.
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Yeah, but they are exactly the same examples, in exactly the same order....

JoeMorgue said:
"Okay Democrats all you literally have to do to win this election is be less crazy to the average voter (key word here) then Donald Trump."

Elizabeth Warren: "I think taxpayers should pay for gender reassignment surgery for felons in prison!"

Bernie Sanders: "I think the Boston Marathon Bomber should be able to vote from Prison!"

Beto: "Take the guns and tax the churches!"

Harris: "Okay before we get started I want to tell everybody what my preferred pronouns are..."
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Yes but I didn't want to quote Bill Maher directly since it would (and now is) just going to turn into a discussion about him.
 
kellyb said:
It actually is something like a popularity contest among democrats right now.

I hate to break it to ya', but this is the primary, and the general election against Trump is whole different election.
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And everything they say now will make GOP campaign commercial material later.
 
JoeMorgue said:
It's an insane thing to say if you're running for President in the United States and don't want to be treated like a joke.
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This from a man who just had a mass shooting in the district he represented.

If you polled Americans on the stand he just took, you would see there is overwhelming support for that stand. The people that want to protect the right to own military assault rifles are not going to vote for a Democrat any way.
 
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angrysoba said:
Yeah, but they are exactly the same examples, in exactly the same order....



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Ugh, thanks for reminding me of why I hate Bill Mahar. I get what point he's (and I guess JoeMorue and others that have agreed with him) trying to make, but that's ultimately nothing more than leaning hard into gross respectability politics by using conservative talking points to throw progressives under the bus and silence discussion about progressive talking points. Again, he shows me that he's not a person worth taking seriously. Fundamentally, he's just another enlightened centrist "liberal" that cares more about upholding the status quo and appealing to some mythical nothing of the center than anything else (I mean, seriously, he thinks Klobuchar is the smart choice? how out of touch is that?).

Do some of the current candidates say dumb things? Absolutely. Beto is a great example. I think he has a chance of actually harming the democratic party as a whole by reinforcing fear-mongering about taking guns away, and sounding incredibly ignorant while doing it; politicians that don't understand guns really should just shut up about them. But Beto also already isn't taken seriously by almost anyone and it's easy for others to distance themselves from him. Would using some of the other examples Mahar brought up alienate some people? Maybe; then again, this is primary season - people say all kinds of out-there things, and most people that aren't democrats wouldn't hear about it. But, there are ways to talk about that productively without reverting to demonizing candidates by framing everything with conservative talking points. Giving Sean Hannity ammunition (or supporting the arguments of people like him) is probably just as harmful to Warren and Sanders, if not more, than whatever they said might be. Using respectability politics is generally not worth it, as far as I'm concerned.
 
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shemp said:
It's insane to think that gun owners will comply.
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I don't know about that. The point is you make it illegal to possess such weapons, and you buy back the weapons. At least some of these individuals I'm guessing are law abiding. Do they really want to hold on to weapons that won't be able to see the light of day? Or put some money in their pocket? I've seen lots of gun owners use their guns as piggy banks. The law would make that much tougher.
 
acbytesla said:
I don't know about that. The point is you make it illegal to possess such weapons, and you buy back the weapons. At least some of these individuals I'm guessing are law abiding. Do they really want to hold on to weapons that won't be able to see the light of day? Or put some money in their pocket? I've seen lots of gun owners use their guns as piggy banks. The law would make that much tougher.
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No, what will likely happen is that, perhaps spurred first by a few deadly confrontations between gun owners and SWAT teams, large numbers of gun owners will organize into militias and terrorist groups, and create large scale violence. Think of Ruby Ridge/Oklahoma City Bombing multiplied by hundreds or thousands.

Enforcement is another good question. I'm sure lots of police will refuse to comply with orders to go after gun owners who don't comply. Even many state governments would refuse to comply.

This is a complete campaign non-starter. Beto is just desperate for attention.
 
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shemp said:
No, what will likely happen is that, perhaps spurred first by a few deadly confrontations between gun owners and SWAT teams, large numbers of gun owners will organize into militias and terrorist groups, and create large scale violence. Think of Ruby Ridge/Oklahoma City Bombing multiplied by hundreds or thousands.

Enforcement is another good question. I'm sure lots of police will refuse to comply with orders to go after gun owners who don't comply. Even many state governments would refuse to comply.

This is a complete campaign non-starter. Beto is just desperate for attention.
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I don't buy your analysis.

There's no need to rush it. You enforce it over time. Gun Stores will have to stop selling them. The law would make it difficult to advertise that you had ond for sale.
 
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acbytesla said:
I don't know about that. The point is you make it illegal to possess such weapons, and you buy back the weapons. At least some of these individuals I'm guessing are law abiding. Do they really want to hold on to weapons that won't be able to see the light of day? Or put some money in their pocket? I've seen lots of gun owners use their guns as piggy banks. The law would make that much tougher.
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*Head desk*

Seriously do you not get it?

Not only has "The Democrats are gonna take our guns" been the Republican scare tactic for as long as I've been alive the Democrats have been in defense "Oh noes we'd totally never does that" mode for just as long.

I don't want another paragraph long detailed explain of why you think it's a good idea. The point is in another star system from that.

The Democrats aren't campaigning to (g)you or me. We're already going to vote for them. We don't get double votes because we like Warren or Biden or Sanders or Betto twice as much. Once our needle is at 51% then, the moral thing to do is to ignore us and stop catering to our wants and needs.

We have a populist demagogue in office right now largely because a section of the population has variously decided/been tricked into thinking that the "Evil Liberal Takeover of Real Heartland America" was actually starting to happen and your big plan is to put someone up against him who's main talking point is "Step 1" on their paranoid delusion checklist? Are you insane?

5 years ago, hell 2 or 3 years ago let's be honest "The Dems are gonna come take our guns so they can shut down our churches to use the money to pay for prisoners to get sexual reassignment surgery" would have been such an over the top parody of Democratic Policy "strawman" would have stopped being screamed at it. Maybe, radical notion, when the deck is already stacked against us this much let's not put it on the banners in this one.

That Bill Maher video I tried to just allude to (and completely failed to stop the discussion from becoming about) had one fact that I wish every person currently running for President had carved into their forehead backwards so they had to read it every time they look in the mirror; that only 46% of Democrats identify as liberal.

I'm not sure of how that concept gets across the Democrat's Twitterverse and rabid fanbase. It means there are more people out there who want to vote for a Democrat because they support their political and social/political policies (as every goddamn piece of data suggests most Americans do) but aren't part of this "culture war" that the Democrats are thinking this election is what they are fighting.

You could pick any vaguely presentable looking person off the street, give him/her a suit with an American flag lapel pin on and teach them to read a few notebook card long soundbites about the big dozen issues from the Democratic Party's point of view; Sane gun laws, gay rights, access to abortion, paths to citizenship, and that person would beat Donald Trump in a landslide.

Why I am still afraid the Democrats who are actually running won't do that? Because of this. They can't just go "Oh yes I support Democratic Party Position A" they have to go "I yes I support Democratic Party Position A MORE THEN ANY OTHER DEMOCRATIC WHO'S EVER DEMOCRATICED BEFORE!"

Basic, broad political and societal level Democratic policies are, almost across the board, more popular then their Republican counterparts. Outside of, I think, the Death Penalty (which was last time I checked support for had been falling steadily but was still polling at around 50/50) the American public wants what they Democratic Party's position on the issues are almost completely. By the numbers the Democrats literally shouldn't be able to lose an election.

So what happens? This. This always happens. The Democrats can't get any amount of power or any whiff of potential power without jerking off their fringe pet projects.

Maher is right, Beto would be crushed in a general election because "Tax the churches" isn't going to go over too well with Black Evangelicals who are a huge part of the Democratic Base and I will sit hear and argue against tax exemption for churches longer then anyone on this board and I still understand that's a politically suicidal-y stupid issue to try and raise now.

Nobody cares about whether the "safe space" you set up in inner cities for heroin users is vape free or not. Nobody cares if Billy Bob Joe Frank can buy a soda over 20 ounces. And even if they do care it's not biggest issue for them.

People want to vote for the Democrats on a level I don't think we truly appreciate. They just don't want to do it when it feels like voting for a new Mommy that's gonna decide they know how to run your life better then you do the moment they move into the house.
 
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