2020 Democratic Candidates Tracker Part III

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Brainster said:
Of course referring to workers as "wage slaves" has long been part of the rhetoric of the far Left, but try explaining that to the woke folk.
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How do you distinguish the merely left from the "far left"? Where do the leading candidates fall on your spectrum?

Where does Trump fall on the right side of your spectrum? Jim Jordan(OH)? Devin Nunes?

I'm trying to get a calibration on your posts.
 
theprestige said:
How much of her plan depends on Congress to pass bills for her to sign?
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We know the answer to this question as stated by McConnell just after the 2008 election: "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president. " Yes, that's a direct quote. So it doesn't matter who the Dems elect, the Senate (if it stays in Republican hands) will take the same approach again.
 
A repeated record of selective and manipulative presentation by a source is absolutely relevant to considering the veracity of new claims they are making.

Ad hom is only a fallacy if the attribute the arguer possesses which is made note of is unrelated to the matter being discussed. In this case, it is that once we see or hear raw, unedited media, the apparent outrageous behavior purportedly shown in the edited version is revealed for the clear misrepresentation that it is.

It's low hanging fruit, anyways. Auspicious titles are handed out like candy for campaign workers. It helps morale. A volunteer with a clipboard on the sidewalk is a "community outreach specialist - tier 2" for crying out loud. Wow, you can catch 20-something campaign workers on tape spewing their crazy rhetoric. Congrats. That's like 11 degrees of separation from the actual candidate or anyone in the campaign that actually matters.

Meanwhile I can turn on C-SPAN and wait for someone with an R after their name to start talking and hear a person who can actually influence my life in meaningful ways talk about some ******* crazy stuff.
 
SezMe said:
We know the answer to this question as stated by McConnell just after the 2008 election: "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president. " Yes, that's a direct quote. So it doesn't matter who the Dems elect, the Senate (if it stays in Republican hands) will take the same approach again.
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I guess it probably does matter who the Dems elect. If they elect someone whose policies depend on Senate cooperation, then they might be disappointed and frustrated for a few more years.
 
They can make use of the bully pulpit like how Sanders pressured Amazon to raise worker wages.

Sanders explicitly has said that if Republicans obstruct he will raise hell in their state, he'll expose them unlike anyone has done before to their constituents.
 
Venom said:
They can make use of the bully pulpit like how Sanders pressured Amazon to raise worker wages.

Sanders explicitly has said that if Republicans obstruct he will raise hell in their state, he'll expose them unlike anyone has done before to their constituents.
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"Enact my agenda or I'll become the John Wick of character assassination."
 
theprestige said:
"Enact my agenda or I'll become the John Wick of character assassination."
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LOL

Hey, it worked against the world's most powerful CEO. How much more arm-twisting would it take to break these career politicians, really? If you're playing games he's gonna fly to your city, expose your otherwise opaque agenda to the electorate, plaster your name on every wall and call you out on national television, just make your life a living hell.

Bernie calls himself the Organizer in Chief. He'll make it happen.
 
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SezMe said:
How do you distinguish the merely left from the "far left"? Where do the leading candidates fall on your spectrum?

Where does Trump fall on the right side of your spectrum? Jim Jordan(OH)? Devin Nunes?

I'm trying to get a calibration on your posts.
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Biden & Bloomberg: Moderate Liberal
Buttigieg: Liberal
Warren: Left
Sanders: Far Left

Trump has governed as Right (about as far away from the center but on the opposite side as Warren), and his rhetoric has been more Far Right--not quite in the Pat Buchanan class, but not too far off. I'm not sure how much of that is political calculation (tamping down his right flank) and how much of it is deeply held beliefs. He was certainly a liberal back around 2000.
 
Brainster said:
Biden & Bloomberg: Moderate Liberal
Buttigieg: Liberal
Warren: Left
Sanders: Far Left

Trump has governed as Right (about as far away from the center but on the opposite side as Warren), and his rhetoric has been more Far Right--not quite in the Pat Buchanan class, but not too far off. I'm not sure how much of that is political calculation (tamping down his right flank) and how much of it is deeply held beliefs. He was certainly a liberal back around 2000.
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How about

Attila the Hun
Ghengis Kan
Francisco Franco
or
Benito Mussolini?

Are they liberals too or do they qualify as moderates?
 
Bernie's getting some good news out of Iowa:

A new New York Times/Siena College poll of likely Iowa caucusgoers finds Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders with a clear lead at 25%, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg at 18%, former Vice President Joe Biden at 17%, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren at 15% and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar at 8%.
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Joe Rogan semi-endorsed Bernie, which Vice feels is very important:

Joe Rogan is one of the most influential people in media. That doesn't mean he's a good interviewer or a responsible communicator when speaking to a large and devoted audience, but it is a fact. It's hard to pinpoint the exact size of his podcast's audience, but Rogan’s official YouTube channel has 7.3 million subscribers and he recently claimed his podcast gets 190 million downloads a month.
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Sanders took a little flak for highlighting the semi-endorsement; inevitably some of Rogan's past comments are getting the twitterstorm treatment. He's transphobic (he opposed letting a trans woman fight women in MMA), he's racist, which refers to a pretty racist comment about going to see Planet of the Apes among the apes (he saw the movie in a theater that was nearly all black).
 
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Rogan's a good guy. He's a no-nonsense sorta rough around the edges but not too much. I'm glad he endorsed Bernie but I don't know what to feel about Bernie playing it up.

Much of his audience still dwells on the few states who allow transsexual MMA fighters to compete with females. As if that's so much more important than anything else, right? As if compulsive xenophobia and AGW denial and a broken foreign policy are side issues.
 
SezMe said:
Another difference is Steyer doesn't identify as a *.Socialist. The label is a enormous risk in the general.
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IMO.
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I think there is evidence to support that the 'socialist' label might be damaging:

From: https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-ame...ity-of-americans-say-the-would-not-vote-for-a
In a new Hill.TV/HarrisX American Barometer poll released Tuesday, an overwhelming majority of respondents, 76 percent, said they would not vote for a “socialist” political candidate...

Now, keep in mind that doesn't necessarily mean that people will be opposed to individual government policies (like expanded medicare, etc.) Its just the "label" socialist that seems to be the issue.

And yes, I recognize that the GOP will probably try to tarnish any Democratic candidate with the 'socialist' label (even if they get the re-animated corpse of Reagan to run as a Democrat). I do think it will make a little bit of a difference if that label is applied externally (for example by the GOP) or whether it is a self-description (like Sanders' past statements.)
 
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