2020 Democratic Candidates Tracker - Part II

[Distracted1]

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.

She was only more "electable" against Trump (although, she lost even to him).

The lesson is that she was selected before Trump became the nominee, and the seeming inevitability of her nomination allowed the Republicans to get away with selecting someone who would have otherwise been relegated to the fringes. With HRC as the expected opponent, they did not have to play to the center. And it almost cost them an election that was theirs to lose.

The Democrats are in a similar situation this time around. The opponent has very high unfavorables, and the election should be ours to lose. Because of this, there is less of a perceived need to moderate the message to appeal beyond our base (and to avoid motivating the right-leaning potential voters to vote against us), so we put issues like those pointed out in the Maher segment which started this derail closer to the front and center because we feel like we have enough cushion to do this.
I think this is a mistake, as evidenced by how close Trump came to losing the 2016 race.

 

[Distracted1]

No.



And that claim can only be tested in the context of the election she was running for.

How might one test that claim?
Would you put "not getting elected" in the "evidence for not being electable" column?

 

[varwoche]

How might one test that claim?
Would you put "not getting elected" in the "evidence for not being electable" column?

Yes!

Even though you're using your own private dictionary that defines "unelectable" in a quirky way, I heartily approve of this argument!

I suspect that most of us, on both sides of the "electable" argument, agree that Hillary was an awful choice. Way too much baggage. Biden also has baggage (and that concerns me a lot!) but nothing like Hillary.

 

[JoeMorgue]

At this point we've elevated "electibility" to some inherent transitive property.

It's not a thing. It's a constantly in flux collection of a thousand different gut feelings from voters.

 

[Dr. Keith]

At this point we've elevated "electibility" to some inherent transitive property.

It's not a thing. It's a constantly in flux collection of a thousand different gut feelings from voters.

Can we have an ignore function for a single word?

Like I would want to be able to ignore every post with the following words: electable, electability, unelectable, unelectabilty, goats, and Knox.

 

[Belz...]

How might one test that claim?

I think we have a pretty good test already.

Would you put "not getting elected" in the "evidence for not being electable" column?

No.

 

[angrysoba]

Can we have an ignore function for a single word?

Like I would want to be able to ignore every post with the following words: electable, electability, unelectable, unelectabilty, goats, and Knox.

If Amanda Knox was in the Democratic primary, I wonder whether she would be above, say, Kamala Harris or Andrew Yang.

 

[Distracted1]

I think we have a pretty good test already.



No.

I see.
You dispute my claim to the unelectability of HRC, and refuse to accept actually not getting elected as evidence.
Got it.
let's move on, shall we?

 

[Dr. Keith]

If Amanda Knox was in the Democratic primary, I wonder whether she would be above, say, Kamala Harris or Andrew Yang.

I'm voting for Shemp's goat. No, not that one, the old one.

 

[Belz...]

I see.
You dispute my claim to the unelectability of HRC, and refuse to accept actually not getting elected as evidence.
Got it.

It's almost puzzling why you keep ignoring the fact that the election was close i.e. that she almost got elected i.e. that she is electable.

But I guess this is just an extreme example of sunk cost.

 

[varwoche]

I'm voting for Shemp's goat. No, not that one, the old one.

His what? I have a word filter in place.

 

[angrysoba]

By the way, as most of us will have already been aware, Tim Ryan dropped out, and he had an interview with Fivethirtyeight explaining why he thought he was the best man to beat Donald Trump... stop giggling at the back!

Anyway, he argues his position was trying to win the areas Clinton narrowly lost because those blue-collar workers were "his people". He seemed to be saying that in 2016 as the VP candidate he went to a lot of those states to connect to the people who ended up voting against Clinton which suggests to me he wasn't very persuasive and/or no one cares who the VP is going to be.

That said, he did say a couple of things that were interesting. In particular, he says he represents a state that is heavily invested in fracking and talked about a lot of lucrative working class jobs that will be lost if there is a ban on fracking - which some candidates (notably Warren and Sanders) have been advocating.

It seems to me that as much of a stopped clock as Ryan might be, he could be right about that, and claims that a lot of unions and workers are on his side about maintaining fracking. Or, he could just be the candidate actually represented the fracking companies.

(For me, the red flag is he says the same about people who like "their insurance" packages, and won't want Medicare.)

Can I ask who here finds the idea of Medicare for all to be a turn-off to you personally and something you consider to be worse than getting private insurance?

 

[Dr. Keith]

His what? I have a word filter in place.

Share, you goddamn wizard, share!!

 

[Distracted1]

Yes!

Even though you're using your own private dictionary that defines "unelectable" in a quirky way, I heartily approve of this argument!

I suspect that most of us, on both sides of the "electable" argument, agree that Hillary was an awful choice. Way too much baggage. Biden also has baggage (and that concerns me a lot!) but nothing like Hillary.

I don't see it as all that "quirky".

If I said " The Patriots seem unbeatable this year " would you think I was claiming that they are literally incapable of being beaten?

Or if I claimed, "the Dolphins can't win" , am I claiming that as a metaphysical certainty?

 

[Belz...]

I don't see it as all that "quirky".

If I said " The Patriots seem unbeatable this year " would you think I was claiming that they are literally incapable of being beaten?

You seem to be using words in ways that defy those words' definitions.

Yes, if you said they were unbeatable then you expect them to win early every game. If they won 51% of their games people would justifiably call you on that.

 

[Aridas]

She only got that close to the prize because of the unprecedented repugnance of her opponent.

I don't describe that as being "electable", however, I concede that definitions can vary.

With all this talk of electability, I think that a just cited fact is likely of underestimated importance.

In 2016, 61.4 percent of the citizen voting-age population reported voting, a number not statistically different from the 61.8 percent who reported voting in 2012.

Where's the depressed turnout?

 

[Belz...]

Where's the depressed turnout?

And also: where's the angry people who flocked to Trump, according to his supporters?

 

[Distracted1]

You seem to be using words in ways that defy those words' definitions.

Yes, if you said they were unbeatable then you expect them to win early every game. If they won 51% of their games people would justifiably call you on that.

Sure.
Had HRC defeated Trump, that would be pretty good evidence that she was not "unelectable".
Fact is, she lost to him- how does that undermine the same claim?

 

[Belz...]

Sure.
Had HRC defeated Trump, that would be pretty good evidence that she was not "unelectable".
Fact is, she lost to him- how does that undermine the same claim?

GOTO 2110.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Very well, let's agree that the word "unelectable" means "didn't win an election". Which means a) it can only be applied in hindsight and b) an unelectable person can go on to win a later election. Like Nixon who was unelectable after he lost in 1960 but he became electable after he won in 1968.