2020 Democratic Candidates Tracker - Part II

[acbytesla]

And look how that worked out. It took Obama a while to get his feet under him even with some Congressional experience.

Here's the thing Ginger. I don't really believe you can make a conclusion based on the results of one President and apply it to another.

I like Mayor Pete. I like Elizabeth Warren. I like Cory Booker. The rest of the candidates not as much. I like Elizabeth Warren's policy stances the most. But I keep watching her make political mistake after political mistake. Kind of like Uncle Joe although the mistakes are different. I haven't seen Mayor Pete make the same kinds of mistakes. In fact, politically, I think he has done damn well. Yes, he's young which makes his experience a bit suspect, but the youth is also an advantage over the septuagenarians.

Booker hardly seems in the race so I'm pretty sure he's not a viable candidate.

IMV, the most important attribute to me in the upcoming election is their electability which concerns me about them all. I stand by my earlier statement that if Mayor Pete was not an openly gay man, he would be running away with the race. Experience be damned.

 

[acbytesla]

And what role they're going in to fill. You can enter the role to persuade your peers to help you help the American people, as their legitimate party leader, or you can be a wonderful puppet for god knows what economic interests. Or you can...hope people protesting (???) will convince congress to do what you want.

My apologies Kelly. I don't follow your thinking on this post.

 

[The Shrike]

Agree re: makes no sense to criticize Pete for being both inexperienced and creepily well-prepared.

If we have a candidate who is intelligent, articulate, and respects the rule of law that could go quite far in pulling us back from the brink of societal collapse. If that president is also interested in the same flavor of politics that I am, then even better but that's in no way a requirement for me.

 

[Brainster]

How do we know Pete knows how to build coalitions?


He's kind of just some rando, really. What's his relevant experience and track record?

Or is the idea that he'll just do everything the republicans ask, so that's a form of effective leadership getting things done?

His parents were Marxists and started a society dedicated to Antonio Gramsci, the founder of the communist party in Italy.

 

[acbytesla]

His parents were Marxists and started a society dedicated to Antonio Gramsci, the founder of the communist party in Italy.

Wow! Is there a limit to everything made up in the right wing biosphere? Apparently not.

 

[JoeMorgue]

So now we're demonizing Mr. "Hope and Change" Obama for dropping some his idealism when faced with the actual realities of how both politics and the real world function?

Is there anyone the Democrats aren't going to turn on and eat alive when they get in power and don't magically change the world into the Rainbow Coalition of No guns, Free Health Care, and Transgender Burka Dispensaries on every corner because I got news for ya'll none of your current crop are going to do it either.

 

[acbytesla]

So now we're demonizing Mr. "Hope and Change" Obama for dropping some his idealism when faced with the actual realities of how both politics and the real world function?

Is there anyone the Democrats aren't going to turn on and eat alive when they get in power and don't magically change the world into the Rainbow Coalition of No guns, Free Health Care, and Transgender Burka Dispensaries on every corner because I got news for ya'll none of your current crop are going to do it either.

They're not going to turn on the nominee. But this is the time to push agendas so all this is to be expected.

 

[Venom]

So now we're demonizing....

criticizing.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I think you're going to find every President faces those challenges. How well they do in that department has far more to do with how friendly Congress is than anything else.

Yeah right, that's all it is.

The dude was a Mayor, it's not even a state office.

Like it or not, he doesn't have the experience a POTUS needs.

I won't have any trouble voting for him if he wins the Primary. But he's not my first choice.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Here's the thing Ginger. I don't really believe you can make a conclusion based on the results of one President and apply it to another.

I like Mayor Pete. I like Elizabeth Warren. I like Cory Booker. The rest of the candidates not as much. I like Elizabeth Warren's policy stances the most. But I keep watching her make political mistake after political mistake. Kind of like Uncle Joe although the mistakes are different. I haven't seen Mayor Pete make the same kinds of mistakes. In fact, politically, I think he has done damn well. Yes, he's young which makes his experience a bit suspect, but the youth is also an advantage over the septuagenarians.

Booker hardly seems in the race so I'm pretty sure he's not a viable candidate.

IMV, the most important attribute to me in the upcoming election is their electability which concerns me about them all. I stand by my earlier statement that if Mayor Pete was not an openly gay man, he would be running away with the race. Experience be damned.

Well here's the thing, acbytesla, I'm giving an example. I wasn't born the year Obama was elected.

Booker has started to sputter, no policies only a great orator describing the problems. He's very likeable though. I agree Warren is bouncing around, sounding good, making mistakes.

I do wish there'd be another option. I'll probably vote for Steyer at this point though I keep fluctuating about Warren.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Agree re: makes no sense to criticize Pete for being both inexperienced and creepily well-prepared.
If we have a candidate who is intelligent, articulate, and respects the rule of law that could go quite far in pulling us back from the brink of societal collapse. If that president is also interested in the same flavor of politics that I am, then even better but that's in no way a requirement for me.

Who said the highlighted?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

So now we're demonizing Mr. "Hope and Change" Obama for dropping some his idealism when faced with the actual realities of how both politics and the real world function?

[snipped the straw]

No. He took some disappointing actions on his own, no bargaining was involved.

 

[Brainster]

Wow! Is there a limit to everything made up in the right wing biosphere? Apparently not.

Ah, you think this is something made up? Here's the Nation, hardly a part of the right-wing biosphere:

Joseph Buttigieg spent nearly four decades as a professor at the University of Notre Dame (disclosure: I teach there as well) and produced the definitive English edition of Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks, which Columbia University Press published in three volumes in the 1990s and 2000s. This bit of Buttigieg trivia led some people on the left to wonder what it might say about the seemingly square, relatively centrist Mayor Pete. It’s tempting to seek out a simple (albeit counterintuitive) red thread connecting father and son. Yet the truth about Joe Buttigieg, and about Mayor Pete, is more complex, and more illuminating, than first meets the eye.

I do love the "simple, albeit counterintuitive" bit.

 

[acbytesla]

Well here's the thing, acbytesla, I'm giving an example. I wasn't born the year Obama was elected.

Booker has started to sputter, no policies only a great orator describing the problems. He's very likeable though. I agree Warren is bouncing around, sounding good, making mistakes.

I do wish there'd be another option. I'll probably vote for Steyer at this point though I keep fluctuating about Warren.

I know how you feel.

But everyone I like policy wisel I'm not that crazy about their political abilities.

Warren needs to slow down talking about a thousand different issues. IMV, she isn't necessarily helping herself going wide left on every issue. Sure, it might make her appealing to Bernies bros after he starts to fade. But by then, this thing might be over. Also, it might make it too hard to win in the General.

 

[acbytesla]

Ah, you think this is something made up? Here's the Nation, hardly a part of the right-wing biosphere:

I do love the "simple, albeit counterintuitive" bit.

How does that make him a Marxist? I have political views from one end to the other. I've also studied books that cover the political spectrum. An intellectual doesn't limit his influences. And Pete's father was that.

 

[Venom]

How does that make him a Marxist? I have political views from one end to the other. I've also studied books that cover the political spectrum. An intellectual doesn't limit his influences. And Pete's father was that.

I don't think that's what Brainster meant.

The question was does Pete Buttigieg have the skill set to rally the electorate?

 

[Brainster]

How does that make him a Marxist? I have political views from one end to the other. I've also studied books that cover the political spectrum. An intellectual doesn't limit his influences. And Pete's father was that.

Just a suggestion--whether or not Pete's dad was a Marxist is definitely not a hill you want to defend. His dad spent decades of his life translating the prison notebooks of an Italian communist who died in 1937. Start convincing yourself it doesn't matter.

 

[acbytesla]

Just a suggestion--whether or not Pete's dad was a Marxist is definitely not a hill you want to defend. His dad spent decades of his life translating the prison notebooks of an Italian communist who died in 1937.

I don't really care. I'm saying making the assumption that because someone has spent part of his life translating the books of someone you say is a Marxist doesn't make that translator a Marxist. Or can't you see that is possible? Have you read the books? If you haven't what makes you think you know their content?

Whether you like it or not Karl Marx is an important figure in Economics.

I would also note that Mayor Pete has certainly not lit the left ablaze with Marxist ideas. In fact, if anything, he is being attacked for being too conservative.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Ah, you think this is something made up? Here's the Nation, hardly a part of the right-wing biosphere:

I do love the "simple, albeit counterintuitive" bit.

Figures, you've falsely accused an incredible intellectual as a Marxist.

“He was progressive,” Fox allowed, but “he’s not a communist.” Steve Fredman, another colleague, spoke of Joe’s “genuine, powerful strain of social justice,” adding that “he was about as far from an ideologue as I can imagine.”

The dude sounds incredible. That you boiled that down to Marxist because he translated Italian works of Gramsci? (I admit this is the first I've heard of Gramsci. This makes me want to read the translation.)

Gramsci did most of his work during a time of brutal defeat for the left; writing from a prison cell in Fascist Italy, he was trying to figure out how the left had lost so much ground, and what it could do while out of power to prepare for a comeback. The answer, he concluded, had a lot to do with culture—religion, civil society, literature, and intellectual work.

Just a suggestion--whether or not Pete's dad was a Marxist is definitely not a hill you want to defend. His dad spent decades of his life translating the prison notebooks of an Italian communist who died in 1937. Start convincing yourself it doesn't matter.

From your link to The Nation:

By all accounts, the elder Buttigieg’s devotion to ideas was both wide-ranging and meticulous. “Joe always told all of us that what you wanted to know, you’d better delve really deep into it.… You have your point of entry and you go deep down that rabbit hole, you know everything about that thing,” Huk said. “He always taught me to read the whole thing.”

That's quite ironic. It's pretty clear you didn't read the whole thing, Brainster.

 

[Venom]

It doesn't matter what Pete's parents did.

He could have been home schooled in a Marxist themed curriculum and learned how to assemble and left wing economics. But look how he is now. Not a hint of trying to one-up Bernie Sanders, which he easily could if he was a Marxist.