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2020 Democratic Candidates Tracker - Part II

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Distracted1 said:
Or Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Steyer.

The right has been calling us Socialists for so long that swayable voters recognize that for what it is and dismiss it.
Unless, of course, we top the ticket with someone for whom that label can stick.
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Biden is handsy, Buttgieg's elitist, Klobuchar is mean to her staff. Those are three things popularly known, true or not, about those characters. Which means they aren't boring enough to pass by unchallenged.

Steyer may be boring enough to be uncomplicated, I'm guessing, since I've never heard anything interesting, good or bad.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Biden is handsy, Buttgieg's elitist, Klobuchar is mean to her staff. Those are three things popularly known, true or not, about those characters. Which means they aren't boring enough to pass by unchallenged.

Steyer may be boring enough to be uncomplicated, I'm guessing, since I've never heard anything interesting, good or bad.
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I think the attempts to make Biden appear inappropriately "handsy" actually work in his favor.
In the minds of some voters (including me, frankly) his behavior is completely normal seeming- and people who make a big deal of it come off as "snowflakes", creating a pushback that makes hime more appealing to the voters in the swing States that we are going after.

I worry more about Buttigiegs' sexuality. It doesn't bother me, but I am very uncertain as to how it would play out with other voters.
 
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Distracted1 said:
I think the attempts to make Biden appear inappropriately "handsy" actually work in his favor.
In the minds of some voters (including me, frankly) his behavior is completely normal seeming- and people who make a big deal of it come off as "snowflakes", creating a pushback that makes hime more appealing to the voters in the swing States that we are going after.

I worry more about Buttigiegs' sexuality. It doesn't bother me, but I am very uncertain as to how it would play out with other voters.
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I'm the opposite on both matters. Biden strikes me as a dirty old man. Not the sort to do anything over the line into criminal, but definitely a nonzero creep factor.

As for Buttgieg, he manages to make gayness boring. Whatever coolness normally gets added for being gay is more than negated by everything else about him. Only the very smallest slice of the population is homophobic enough to object to his khaki pants style of gayness.
 
Belz... said:
Speaking of Hillary, remember how she lost, presumably because she wasn't very exciting to voters? That's what I'm talking about.
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I don't understand the point you are making here.

Hillary lost because she was a weak candidate. Prior to Bernie's rise to popularity, she was largely unopposed by any meaningful candidates in the primary. At least, that was the impression at the time:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/08/why-no-democrat-wants-to-run-against-hillary-fear-of-retaliation/378914/

People like Warren, Biden, Deval, and others sat this one out, for reasons largely unknown, to pretty much give HRC a wide open path to the nomination. Bernie's run was the only thing that prevented the primary from being one giant HRC coronation.

Perhaps a better candidate would have emerged to face Trump had they actually bothered to run. It turns out HRC was a bad choice, and not having viable candidates contesting her in the primary was also a bad choice.

It's probably good that HRC lost to Obama in the 2008 primary, even though she was the establishment "favorite" early on. Turns out the establishment is pretty crappy at reading the will of the people.

I see our current crop of candidates as a good sign. There is diversity of thought covering the wide ideology that is the Democratic party. Hopefully the strongest candidate will rise to the top, as opposed to someone that the establishment hand picks.
 
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SuburbanTurkey said:
I don't understand the point you are making here.

Hillary lost because she was a weak candidate. Prior to Bernie's rise to popularity, she was largely unopposed by any meaningful candidates in the primary. At least, that was the impression at the time:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/08/why-no-democrat-wants-to-run-against-hillary-fear-of-retaliation/378914/

People like Warren, Biden, Deval, and others sat this one out, for reasons largely unknown, to pretty much give HRC a wide open path to the nomination. Bernie's run was the only thing that prevented the primary from being one giant HRC coronation.

Perhaps a better candidate would have emerged to face Trump had they actually bothered to run. It turns out HRC was a bad choice, and not having viable candidates contesting her in the primary was also a bad choice.

It's probably good that HRC lost to Obama in the 2008 primary, even though she was the establishment "favorite" early on. Turns out the establishment is pretty crappy at reading the will of the people.

I see our current crop of candidates as a good sign. There is diversity of thought covering the wide ideology that is the Democratic party. Hopefully the strongest candidate will rise to the top, as opposed to someone that the establishment hand picks.
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Most voters voted for Clinton. It seems hard to label someone a weak candidate when the most people said she was the candidate for them.
 
BobTheCoward said:
Most voters voted for Clinton. It seems hard to label someone a weak candidate when the most people said she was the candidate for them.
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Yes, she would have won a different game with different rules. Great hypothetical. She lost the real race, that makes her a weak candidate.
 
TragicMonkey said:
I'm the opposite on both matters. Biden strikes me as a dirty old man. Not the sort to do anything over the line into criminal, but definitely a nonzero creep factor.

As for Buttgieg, he manages to make gayness boring. Whatever coolness normally gets added for being gay is more than negated by everything else about him. Only the very smallest slice of the population is homophobic enough to object to his khaki pants style of gayness.
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We will see if you still feel that way if he gets the nomination and Chasten has his primetime speech to talk about their relationship.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
Yes, she would have won a different game with different rules. Great hypothetical. She lost the real race, that makes her a weak candidate.
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Then different primary contenders would not have altered that. The primary doesn't mirror the distribution of electoral votes.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
Hillary lost because she was a weak candidate.
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But there's no difference between saying that she's weak, saying that she's unpopular, undesirable, etc. It's all the same thing: people aren't excited by her as a candidate. My point is that if none of the Democratic candidates break that threshold, voters may well stay home, giving us 4 more years of Trump.
 
Belz... said:
But there's no difference between saying that she's weak, saying that she's unpopular, undesirable, etc. It's all the same thing: people aren't excited by her as a candidate. My point is that if none of the Democratic candidates break that threshold, voters may well stay home, giving us 4 more years of Trump.
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They were excited, just not the specific people you want....

You don't need a popular candidate....just a candidate who performs well in a coupl states.....and that is probably a very unlikable candidate for a lot of people.
 
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Belz... said:
But there's no difference between saying that she's weak, saying that she's unpopular, undesirable, etc. It's all the same thing: people aren't excited by her as a candidate. My point is that if none of the Democratic candidates break that threshold, voters may well stay home, giving us 4 more years of Trump.
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The best way to get an exciting candidate is to have a vibrant primary.
 
BobTheCoward said:
Most voters voted for Clinton. It seems hard to label someone a weak candidate when the most people said she was the candidate for them.
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No, actually, it's rather easy to say that, because she was running against a vulnerable candidate, she had huge advantages that had nothing to do with her personally, and she still lost. That's weak.
 
Ziggurat said:
No, actually, it's rather easy to say that, because she was running against a vulnerable candidate, she had huge advantages that had nothing to do with her personally, and she still lost. That's weak.
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"Donald Trump (praised be his name) is a better candidate then Hillary Clinton because Hillary Clinton was such a bad candidate shouldn't couldn't even beat Donald Trump" is certainly an... intellectually flexible way to view reality.
 
Ziggurat said:
No, actually, it's rather easy to say that, because she was running against a vulnerable candidate, she had huge advantages that had nothing to do with her personally, and she still lost. That's weak.
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But the thing you describe, advantages running against a vulnerable candidate, manifests as more votes for you rather than the other person. And that happened.
 
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