2020 Democratic Candidates Tracker - Part II

[Brainster]

It gets better.
https://boston.cbslocal.com/2019/06/25/bernard-sigh-sentencing-deval-patrick-massachusetts/
"The ex-brother-in-law of former Democratic Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick has been sentenced to up to eight years in prison for raping his estranged wife.
...
In 2014, Patrick fired the head of the state’s Sex Offender Registry Board in part because she questioned why Sigh wasn’t required to register for a 1993 spousal rape conviction."

Up to eight years in prison for a second rape conviction? Only in Massachusetts.

 

[acbytesla]

Up to eight years in prison for a second rape conviction? Only in Massachusetts.

You haven't been around then. I assure you that sentence is not as unusual as you think it is.

 

[The Shrike]

It's not the moderate liberals that you have to worry about. It's the legitimate swing voters that matter; the folks who voted for Obama and for Trump.

I guess I use those labels, i.e. (moderates, centrists, and swings) interchangeably.

If you lose them you don't lose them to some mythical centrist 3rd party, you lose them to the GOP.

Agreed.

. . . how far left do you have to go to get all the Jill Stein voters? And can you say honestly that you don't think going that far left will alienate 0.5% of the voters in the middle?

In the context of our candidates for the nomination, I think you have to go as far left as Warren/Sanders. That's exactly the question, though. Would Warren or Sanders be too far left for the swing voters? If so, that argues for running a Biden and dope-slapping enough progressives to make sure they come out in support of him.

If the Democrats run a progressive that'll alienate some (all?) swing voters, but would that be compensated by progressive turnout? Think not just about the 1% Stein voters but the n% non-voters.

 

[theprestige]

I guess I use those labels, i.e. (moderates, centrists, and swings) interchangeably.

Agreed.


In the context of our candidates for the nomination, I think you have to go as far left as Warren/Sanders. That's exactly the question, though. Would Warren or Sanders be too far left for the swing voters? If so, that argues for running a Biden and dope-slapping enough progressives to make sure they come out in support of him.

If the Democrats run a progressive that'll alienate some (all?) swing voters, but would that be compensated by progressive turnout? Think not just about the 1% Stein voters but the n% non-voters.

A more progressive candidate also risks higher conservative turnout.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

Warren is now fleshing out a transition to get M4A, but some are accusing her of backtracking.

Health care has been a difficult topic for Elizabeth Warren. After some wishy-washy answers about it early in her presidential campaign, she committed herself hard to the cause of “Medicare for All,” going so far as to produce a detailed plan answering the nagging question of how she would pay for it without increasing taxes on the middle class. But the effort to simultaneously win over single-payer diehards who’d otherwise support Bernie Sanders while quieting criticism from Democratic moderates worried about cost has not paid off particularly well. Center-left types (myself included) have criticized her budget math for being unrealistic. Some on the left, who’ve long doubted her commitment to the cause, suggested her financing plan was both insufficiently progressive and politically poisonous. And as her campaign was consumed by these conversations, her poll numbers leveled off.

Now, Warren is trying a different tack: admitting that she isn’t really going to pass single payer after all. Not any time early in her presidency, at least. And maybe not ever.

That isn’t quite how Warren is framing things, of course. But I think it’s the fairest reading of the first-term plan for “transitioning” to Medicare for All that her campaign released on Friday. The candidate promises that within her first 100 days as president, she’ll use the executive branch’s regulatory powers to start bringing down health costs, push for fast-track legislation to build on the Affordable Care Act, make traditional Medicare available to everyone over the age of 50, and create a very generous public insurance option with modest premiums that Americans will be able to purchase on Obamacare’s exchanges, which she is branding as the “Medicare for All option.”

Warren argues that these reforms will eventually pave the way to pass a second bill that fully moves the United States to a single-payer system like Sanders has envisioned, by putting all Americans on a single government plan and banning private insurers from selling competing coverage. “No later than my third year in office, I will fight to pass legislation that would complete the transition to full Medicare for All,” her plan states. “By this point, the American people will have experienced the full benefits of a true Medicare for All option, and they can see for themselves how that experience stacks up against high-priced care that requires them to fight tooth-and-nail against their insurance company.”

Linky.

Of course, if this is really meant to be a backtrack, it might be too late. Buttigieg is still campaigning completely against it (in Republican framing):

“Senator Warren's new health care ‘plan’ is a transparently political attempt to paper over a very serious policy problem, which is that she wants to force 150 million people off their private insurance — whether they like it or not," Lis Smith, the Buttigieg campaign’s communications director, said in a statement.

"Despite adopting Pete's language of 'choice,' her plan is still a 'my way or the highway' approach that would eradicate choice for millions of Americans,” she added.

“No amount of Washington political games can save her plan from that fatal flaw: she still doesn’t trust the America people to make the right health care decisions for themselves,” the statement also said.

Linky.

 

[acbytesla]

A more progressive candidate also risks higher conservative turnout.

That doesn't mean the conservatives will vote for Trump.

 

[Trebuchet]

That doesn't mean the conservatives will vote for Trump.

If they vote, they will. You think they're going to vote for a woman, or a Jew, or a gay guy, or, perish the thought, crooked Joe Biden?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

....
Yeah... that was my big red flag with Buttigieg (and yes Biden, too and so much worse), regardless. Buttigieg sounds like an even less experienced Obama on that front, and the Republicans took advantage of Obama's naivety to act very badly.

This was my concern with Obama, I voted for Clinton in whatever year that was.

Buttigieg sounds great. I wish he would have gone to the Senate for a while.


Booker was unimpressive today. He was asked what he would do about the leaded water all over the country. He mentioned briefly one piece of legislation he worked on without saying if it was or wasn't successful then went on for five minutes telling us what we already know, how bad things are. That was the first time I wasn't impressed by his talking.

 

[acbytesla]

If they vote, they will. You think they're going to vote for a woman, or a Jew, or a gay guy, or, perish the thought, crooked Joe Biden?

Ever hear of the Libertarian party?

 

[Aridas]

If true,

It's grossly misleading about why the swing voters were swing voters in the first place and the target audiences in question, so I would suggest not taking it as anything close to a definitive assessment.

I guess I use those labels, i.e. (moderates, centrists, and swings) interchangeably.

Which is problematic, especially when the swings are very frequently not swings because of the overall right-left positioning of a candidate. There is, what, 1.5% of the voting population that actually would meet all those labels, per 538?

That doesn't mean the conservatives will vote for Trump.

I think that you may, in fact, overestimate the number of actual principled conservatives, though, in thinking that the number is much greater than negligible.

 

[acbytesla]

I think that you may, in fact, overestimate the number of actual principled conservatives, though, in thinking that the number is much greater than negligible.

No I don't think I have.

Trump is not really a conservative.
A conservative cares about deficits.
A conservative cares about foreign relations and American influence abroad and don't support dictators.
A conservative cares about free trade.

Trump is as far away from the New American Century as Jill Stein.

 

[SezMe]

Here's a short 5 minute clip of Buttigieg talking about Trump. I absolutely love how clear and articulate he is.

Actually, at 5:04 it's a long 5 minute clip.

As an aside, think of the precedent Pete sets that a small town Mayor can get traction in a presidential primary nationwide. Will we have ~50 mayors announcing their candidacy for president in 2028? <-- mostly tongue-in-cheek

 

[kellyb]

Warren is now fleshing out a transition to get M4A, but some are accusing her of backtracking.

It's not actually a backtrack. I'm a RADICAL UHC proponent paranoid about basically "fake" UHC plans and bandaid solutions passed off as "UHC".

It's...not problematic for Liz's base if people want to call it a backtrack, tho. IYKWIM. Our target voter demographic and even us ("the base", the single payer proponents with liz) are not crazy ideological purists.

Buttigieg can take all the Biden votes he wants, tho, if that's working for him.

 

[kellyb]

A more progressive candidate also risks higher conservative turnout.

...of the 1% class. They're not that numerous. Trump's BASE is on fire for him 24/7. Nothing can hurt him, but nothing can milk that too much more, either.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

If you assume that Joe Biden won't do enough on that score, but that Stein, Warren or Bernie will, then yes, you are probably right.

I'm saying in the sense of being unable to go further left than Clinton/Biden type candidates (and similar implications in terms of Congressional balance, etc).

 

[JoeMorgue]

The ultra-conservative, Democratic hating, not woke enough, Barack Obama is again warning the Democratic Candidates that a rousing game of "Lookit me being more woke then you" is a bad strategy, reminded them in so many words they are running for President of the United States not the President of their Twitter Feeds, and stating that most of the country wants to improve the system, not tear it down and rebuild it.

NYTimes: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/15/us/politics/barack-obama-2020-dems.html

FoxNews: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/obama-warns-2020-democrats-warren-sanders

 

[kellyb]

The ultra-conservative, Democratic hating, not woke enough, Barack Obama is again warning the Democratic Candidates that a rousing game of "Lookit me being more woke then you" is a bad strategy, reminded them in so many words they are running for President of the United States not the President of their Twitter Feeds, and stating that most of the country wants to improve the system, not tear it down and rebuild it.

NYTimes: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/15/us/politics/barack-obama-2020-dems.html

FoxNews: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/obama-warns-2020-democrats-warren-sanders

It says:

The two-term Democratic president made the remarks at a gathering of the Democracy Alliance, a group of wealthy Democratic donors.

He was talking to them, not Liz and Sanders.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

It says:







He was talking to them, not Liz and Sanders.

His comments referenced those running for President. Was the room full of wealthy donors running for President?

 

[JoeMorgue]

He was talking to them, not Liz and Sanders.

Suuuuuuure he was.

 

[acbytesla]

The attack of the billionaires

I think the recent attacks of the billionaires and the super wealthy against Elizabeth Warren plays right in to her hands. I bet she loves every attack. The billionaires come off as snowflakes whining about being picked on. That it is "unfair" to single them out. Also, it's extra amusing watching them point to another billionaire as their savior.

Did you hear the one about the billionaire telling another billionaire that they shouldn't be taxed?