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2020 Democratic Candidates Tracker - Part II

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SezMe said:
In what way? Say more, especially in light of the thread topic, namely, the 2020 election.
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I'm saying that when we look to past elections for lessons that teach us about future elections, that 2016 is an outlier that won't inform us the type of candidate that Dems should nominate.

This is because the outcome* of the election was almost certainly determined by freakish factors: (1) drip drip drip of hacked emails down the stretch and (2) Comey's weird, public vacillations concerning Hillary and (3) Hillary had more baggage than any candidate will ever have, fair and/or not.

I would remiss not to mention (4) all enabled by a candidate who had the audacity and/or ignorance to flat out ignore the security protocols for the Sec of State and (5) Trump is a one-off(?) freak show which I pronounce as I whistle past the graveyard.

Add: To be clear, I have a high degree of confidence that #1 and #2 flipped the results. (Cue Peter Griffin)
 
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Belz... said:
Which was the context we were discussing. You're just unwilling to admit to being wrong on this.
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By your definition of "unelectable" perhaps.

I will stick with my own take (which I think is not an uncommon one) that almost getting elected (otherwise described as "losing") over the weakest candidate your opponents have ever run is more evidence of un-electability than electability. Especially in the context of this discussion.
 
The notion that someone is "unelectable" because they lost an election strikes me as like saying a runner is unwinnable because they came in second. Runner A wins the race with a 3 minute mile, Runner B came in second at 3 minutes 2 seconds. Does anyone think Runner B is a bad runner and cannot win another race? Against anybody at all? Even Runner A is not going to phone it in expecting an easy victory in a second race against Runner B!
 
TragicMonkey said:
The notion that someone is "unelectable" because they lost an election strikes me as like saying a runner is unwinnable because they came in second. Runner A wins the race with a 3 minute mile, Runner B came in second at 3 minutes 2 seconds. Does anyone think Runner B is a bad runner and cannot win another race? Against anybody at all? Even Runner A is not going to phone it in expecting an easy victory in a second race against Runner B!
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That's pretty much the exact analogy I had in mind but forgot to make earlier. :p
 
TragicMonkey said:
The notion that someone is "unelectable" because they lost an election strikes me as like saying a runner is unwinnable because they came in second. Runner A wins the race with a 3 minute mile, Runner B came in second at 3 minutes 2 seconds. Does anyone think Runner B is a bad runner and cannot win another race? Against anybody at all? Even Runner A is not going to phone it in expecting an easy victory in a second race against Runner B!
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I already acknowledged that I am not referring to a definition of "unelectable" that means -"unable to get elected to any office at any time". Using that understanding of the term makes just about anyone "electable".
 
TragicMonkey said:
The notion that someone is "unelectable" because they lost an election strikes me as like saying a runner is unwinnable because they came in second. Runner A wins the race with a 3 minute mile, Runner B came in second at 3 minutes 2 seconds. Does anyone think Runner B is a bad runner and cannot win another race? Against anybody at all? Even Runner A is not going to phone it in expecting an easy victory in a second race against Runner B!
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How about when runner "a" runs a 42 minute mile? Does that not make runner "b" a bad runner for not beating runner "a"?
Even if they only lost by a fraction of a second.
 
Distracted1 said:
How about when runner "a" runs a 42 minute mile? Does that not make runner "b" a bad runner for not beating runner "a"?
Even if they only lost by a fraction of a second.
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It makes them both bad runners compared to all the people capable of running faster, but if none of those people entered the race their superiority is irrelevant. Runner B is only slightly worse than Runner A.
 
TragicMonkey said:
It makes them both bad runners compared to all the people capable of running faster, but if none of those people entered the race their superiority is irrelevant. Runner B is only slightly worse than Runner A.
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Yes. Clinton was only a slightly worse candidate than Trump. And Trump was about as bad of an offering that had ever been presented.

But, technically, she was not "unelectable" :rolleyes:
 
Distracted1 said:
Yes. Clinton was only a slightly worse candidate than Trump. And Trump was about as bad of an offering that had ever been presented.

But, technically, she was not "unelectable" :rolleyes:
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I think use of the term "unelectable" is meaningless if it can be used to describe someone who could win an election.
 
Belz... said:
How about someone who came within a few thousand votes of winnin an US presidential election? :rolleyes:
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Geez guys, Charlie Manson isn't "Unelectable". In fact, if the other side runs that doctor who molested those olympic gymnasts he might almost win!


*yes, I now know he is dead. please forgive the obvious hyperbole
 
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Belz... said:
If he can win, he's not unelectable. Stop playing with words and return to the thread topic.
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Word games!?!? are you kidding?

My Claim: " I believed HRC to be unelectable in 2016 (before Trump became the nominee)"

Your Claim: " the fact that she didn't get elected proves you were clearly wrong"

My Response: WTF!?!?

Anyway, I agree that this digression has gone on too long already.
 
The way our system is set up, you could run the two least-electable people in the world (e.g., Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump), and one of them would get elected.

"Electability" isn't about technical correctness. It's about relative likelihood of the candidate attracting enough votes to come out ahead of their opponent. Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was a lot more electable, relative to Donald Trump, than was actually the case.

Now, looking at 2020, a lot of Democrats are reasonably concerned about the relative electability of whoever they nominate. It's not a question of not being electable, but of not being electable enough.

This is an important consideration, and one that should be discussed. Derailing that discussion in favor of being trivially correct is counter-productive and antagonistic.
 
For crying out loud, at least represent this inane semantic quibbling accurately, especially if you're calling out "word games". Here, I fixed it for you...
Distracted1 said:
Word games!?!? are you kidding?

My Claim: " I believed HRC to be unelectable in 2016 (before Trump became the nominee)"

Your Claim: " the fact that she didn't get elected the election was close proves you were clearly wrong"

My Response: WTF!?!?

Anyway, I agree that this digression has gone on too long already.
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