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2020 Democratic Candidates Tracker - Part II

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Mayor Pete had to give money back from lawyers that represented Kavanaugh.

I feel like I recall democrats being the party saying that who you represent as a lawyer doesn't reflect on you. This came up in 2016 and I seem to recall other times.

The pressure on Mayor Pete demonstrates that it may have just been BS and depended on who the client was.
 
Bloomberg: Were he to run as an Independent or even as a Republican... would *that* help unseat the Criminal-in-Chief? In other words, might he be able to provide Republican voters horrified by Trumpism with a palatable option that would not skim votes away from the Democratic nominee?
 
Althouse has an interesting take on Mayor Pete, based on recent polling:

https://althouse.blogspot.com/2019/11/what-happened-to-warren-look-at-this.html

In a nutshell: Biden's numbers are consistently the best, but Biden probably shouldn't be the nominee. Who should replace him? People were considering Warren, and her numbers went up. Then people decided it wasn't her, and her numbers went down again. Now Buttigieg's numbers are going up, which means it's probably his turn to get considered as the counter-Biden. Althouse predicts that he'll have the same rise and fall as Warren. People are gonna consider him, and then set him aside, and consider one of the other Biden alternatives. In the end, it will probably be Biden.
 
theprestige said:
Althouse has an interesting take on Mayor Pete, based on recent polling:

https://althouse.blogspot.com/2019/11/what-happened-to-warren-look-at-this.html

In a nutshell: Biden's numbers are consistently the best, but Biden probably shouldn't be the nominee. Who should replace him? People were considering Warren, and her numbers went up. Then people decided it wasn't her, and her numbers went down again. Now Buttigieg's numbers are going up, which means it's probably his turn to get considered as the counter-Biden. Althouse predicts that he'll have the same rise and fall as Warren. People are gonna consider him, and then set him aside, and consider one of the other Biden alternatives. In the end, it will probably be Biden.
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Not an exciting outcome, to be sure.
 
Belz... said:
No, I'm not. I'm saying that your characterisation of my argument is inaccurate.



My comment was simple: Democratic candidates are held to an absurdly high standard while Republican ones are held to an absurdly low one. This does not mean that every criticism of a democrat is absurd, as I'm sure you realise, hence why your response to my post was met with this reaction:
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You quoted Aridas to make that statement, so perhaps there was an (unintended) implication you found one of their criticisms to be exceptional.
 
Delphic Oracle said:
You quoted Aridas to make that statement, so perhaps there was an (unintended) implication you found one of their criticisms to be exceptional.
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Aridas quoted someone else, though. It's the criticism of Warren's plan that triggered my response. I'm just noting the extreme contrast between the two parties and how they respond to their candidates' flaws or errors.
 
I'm surprized there is not a strong Democratic governor running. They don't have any baggage in national issues. Do they think Trump is too strong, so try next time?
 
theprestige said:
Althouse has an interesting take on Mayor Pete, based on recent polling:

https://althouse.blogspot.com/2019/11/what-happened-to-warren-look-at-this.html

In a nutshell: Biden's numbers are consistently the best, but Biden probably shouldn't be the nominee. Who should replace him? People were considering Warren, and her numbers went up. Then people decided it wasn't her, and her numbers went down again. Now Buttigieg's numbers are going up, which means it's probably his turn to get considered as the counter-Biden. Althouse predicts that he'll have the same rise and fall as Warren. People are gonna consider him, and then set him aside, and consider one of the other Biden alternatives. In the end, it will probably be Biden.
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Ugh. Sounds like people studying a menu and considering the exciting and novel options available, then settling on a plain old club sandwich.
 
Belz... said:
Not an exciting outcome, to be sure.
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What's interesting to me about it is that it's a measurable prediction. We can watch Buttigieg's trend, and see how closely it matches the prediction.

We can also consider her hypothesis more generally - whether the Democratic primary is a process of considering each of the alternatives to Biden in turn - and what other evidence for and against we might look for.
 
Belz... said:
For a moment there I was considering eating a club sandwich soon. Thanks for putting that out of my mind.
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Good club sandwiches do exist; the problem is that anywhere capable of making a good club sandwich can also make much better things you should have instead. Club sandwiches are for when everything else on the menu contains cilantro, or for when you're taking Grandma to lunch and she needs something easy to go with her medications.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Good club sandwiches do exist; the problem is that anywhere capable of making a good club sandwich can also make much better things you should have instead. Club sandwiches are for when everything else on the menu contains cilantro, or for when you're taking Grandma to lunch and she needs something easy to go with her medications.
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Given that you're probably depending on their support and turnout to defeat Trump, you may want to consider a campaign strategy that doesn't involve insulting and dismissing people who are considering a Biden vote.
 
theprestige said:
Given that you're probably depending on their support and turnout to defeat Trump, you may want to consider a campaign strategy that doesn't involve insulting and dismissing people who are considering a Biden vote.
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I'm not depending on anybody's support for anything. I'm not a candidate running for the presidency, for either party. Therefore I'm perfectly free to call a doddering old jerk a doddering old jerk.
 
theprestige said:
Althouse has an interesting take on Mayor Pete, based on recent polling:

https://althouse.blogspot.com/2019/11/what-happened-to-warren-look-at-this.html

In a nutshell: Biden's numbers are consistently the best, but Biden probably shouldn't be the nominee. Who should replace him? People were considering Warren, and her numbers went up. Then people decided it wasn't her, and her numbers went down again. Now Buttigieg's numbers are going up, which means it's probably his turn to get considered as the counter-Biden. Althouse predicts that he'll have the same rise and fall as Warren. People are gonna consider him, and then set him aside, and consider one of the other Biden alternatives. In the end, it will probably be Biden.
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Am I missing something, or is this "interesting take" just a paragraph of speculation based on a single graph? I can't see any reason to take her explanation of the trends seriously, especially considering how simplistic and inane it is. Granted, I tend to be skeptical of speculation like that anyway, but this especially seems like something a random person pulled out of their ass.

If anything, I'd say Warren's recent decline is the result of the increased scrutiny that came with a more prominent public image. You know, the kind of thing that happens to most public figures when they become a real target and people start trying to take them down. What's especially bad for Warren is that she also has a number of proposals that scare the rich. At this stage, Pete is still relatively unknown and hasn't had to face a lot of intense public scrutiny. Granted, he's a lot more amenable to the ultra-rich and corporations, so I doubt there'll be as much of an overt attempt to take him down. But Warren's ability to maintain a high level of support in spite of a lot of serious attempts to malign her leaves me hopeful about her prospects for now. I mean, she' still polling higher than Pete, in spite of the likes of Mark Zuckerberg saying she'll destroy the country. Trying to pin it down to people "trying out" candidates doesn't seem like a useful way to talk about this IMO. Again, I tend to not respect speculation like this at all, but that framing just ignores the media climate around the race.

But, hey, I don't know what I'm talking about. As far I'm concerned, no one does, and political speculation is all guesswork based on whatever narrative someone wants to project onto a poll.
 
Belz... said:
For a moment there I was considering eating a club sandwich soon. Thanks for putting that out of my mind.
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It's not a good metaphor if you have to keep multiplying entities to make it work.

It's also not a good metaphor because it obfuscates how voters actually relate to candidate options, which is different from how they relate to food options. At some point, to understand the thing, you'll have to discuss the thing in its own terms.
 
Belz... said:
Hear that, TM? Jokes are disallowed. Evil, maybe, even.
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Perhaps he thinks I'm actually Elizabeth Warren? Some people identify closely with their preferred candidates, but I don't. Not to the extent I imagine I'm her, or running her campaign.
 
theprestige said:
It's not a good metaphor if you have to keep multiplying entities to make it work.

It's also not a good metaphor because it obfuscates how voters actually relate to candidate options, which is different from how they relate to food options. At some point, to understand the thing, you'll have to discuss the thing in its own terms.
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Dude, lighten up. It was just an illustration.
 
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