2020 Democratic Candidates Tracker Part III

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dudalb has been repeating that talking point for probably a year or two now after it has been addressed numerous times.

It's a straw man he keeps replacing after we burn it to ashes over and over again.. I am honest about how many actual leftists there are in this country, probably not as many as we like to think. But I'm not exactly banking on a bunch of hidden leftists coming out in droves to vote for Sanders.

Hell Sanders won the popular vote comfortably in Iowa, and Iowa is not exactly a progressive haven.
 
Tsukasa Buddha said:
538 prediction model changes after Iowa for overall majority of pledged delegates:

Sanders 37% (+6%)
No One 27% (+10%)
Biden 21% (-22%)
Warren 10% (+5%)
Buttigieg 6% (+2%)
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Interesting. They show Biden's chances halved in the last few days, just as the betting markets in London have it. Oddly, the bookies have Buttigieg ahead of Warren, unlike 538. And the touts are much more impressed with Bloomberg; he's currently nipping at Joe Biden's heels among the oddsmakers. Of course one difference is that the gamblers are interested in who wins the nomination, rather than who gets the majority of pledged delegates. Thus if there is no candidate with 50%+1 going into the convention (a possibility although I think 27% is probably high), the gamblers will take whoever wins it on a later round of voting.
 
Intellectual rigor from Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin:

May 2019: Why Iowa is so important this time. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/05/13/why-iowa-is-so-important-this-time/

Feb 3 2020: What good are the Iowa caucuses anyway? https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/03/what-good-are-iowa-caucuses-anyway/

Note that Sanders is not even mentioned in the later article. Rubin will twist arguments into pretzels to avoid admitting that Sanders win in Iowa was good for him.

Political pundits have always been crowing about the importance of Iowa and NH wins for building momentum and narrowing the field. Now that it appears that Bernie is going to perform well in both, suddenly Iowa doesn't matter. Curious.
 
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dudalb said:
Yeah, like a website that takes pride in naming itself after the Jabobins who gave us the Reign Of Terror are a group you should name yourself after.

Sorry, but every argument for Bernie winning in November I have heard is based on the idea that there is a vast pool of hidden left wing voters out there who will come out for the right candidate.
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Why spend time trying to bring people over to your ideology when you can pretend that a hidden tribe of voters will magically match that ideology and get you elected?
 
Belz... said:
Why spend time trying to bring people over to your ideology when you can pretend that a hidden tribe of voters will magically match that ideology and get you elected?
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You don't have to join the communist party to support sanders.

Sanders is leaning hard into his message of wealth inequality, stagnating wages, the failure of the ruling class, and all the rest. These are winning issues. He isn't handing out pamphlets about Marx or explaining the Nordic model of democratic socialism. He is talking about real life issues that are directly impacting the lives of voters, and that will always have traction.

I'm just so exhausted with centrists treating their intuition as some divine truth.

Bernie performs well in vs Trump polling. He performs well in vs Trump polling in the swing states. In fact, in most cases, the only other candidate that performs as well in these polls is Biden, who may not be a viable candidate in the primary.

If electability vs Trump matters, the only two candidates in the primary worth considering are Bernie and Biden.
 
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Belz... said:
Why are you telling me this? I didn't post anything about communism.
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Because the Bernie Bros think any criticism of Sanders can only come from someone who doesn't know the difference communism and socialism so any criticism of Bernie can be dismissed as the "Oh so you're just one of those on the Right who's been brainwashed into thinking communism or socialism is the same thing."

There's nothing worse then someone who thinks there's only one, single, one-note complaint about something they support.

"Ohhhhhh scaaaawwwwy socialism!" is, yes, the main thing the pushed by the Right on Sanders. But it doesn't make it the only possible criticism, legit or otherwise, that can be brought against Sanders in any context from any sphere of the political spectrum, but try telling that to the Bernie Bros.

This is the same cult of personality Trump has. It's about what he symbolic represents, nothing else. So if you disagree with them you are like... attacking their soul or something.
 
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Belz... said:
Why spend time trying to bring people over to your ideology when you can pretend that a hidden tribe of voters will magically match that ideology and get you elected?
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In fairness, 40% of eligible voters don't bother to vote at all.

Motivating a substantive portion of them to turn out at the polls by promising things no-one has been audacious enough to claim are possible to do in one fell swoop in the past (free healthcare, UBI, free college, etc..), could be seen as motivating a "lost tribe".
 
Belz... said:
Why are you telling me this? I didn't post anything about communism.
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No one thinks that a hidden swarm of leftists is going to rise up and win Bernie the nomination or the general. Your comment about "the lost tribe" of left identifying voters is a strawman. That's the point.

Bernie's message also appeals to normal voters. Voters who don't self-identify as socialists or leftists.
 
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JoeMorgue said:
Because the Bernie Bros think any criticism of Sanders can only come from someone who doesn't know the difference communism and socialism so any criticism of Bernie can be dismissed as the "Oh so you're just one of those on the Right who's been brainwashed into thinking communism or socialism is the same thing."

There's nothing worse then someone who thinks there's only one, single, one-note complaint about something they support.

"Ohhhhhh scaaaawwwwy socialism!" is, yes, the main thing the pushed by the Right on Sanders. But it doesn't make it the only possible criticism, legit or otherwise, that can be brought against Sanders in any context from any sphere of the political spectrum, but try telling that to the Bernie Bros.

This is the same cult of personality Trump has. It's about what he symbolic represents, nothing else. So if you disagree with them you are like... attacking their soul or something.
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So much posturing and name calling. Zero policy discussion.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
No one thinks that a hidden swarm of leftists is going to rise up and win Bernie the nomination or the general. Your comment about "the lost tribe" of left identifying voters is a strawman.
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It's not a strawman. It's my own point! I can't strawman myself. There ARE people who think that the people who don't vote overwhelmingly agree with them, and that by finding the right candidate they will magically turn out.

That has NOTHING to do with communism.
 
Belz... said:
It's not a strawman. It's my own point! I can't strawman myself. There ARE people who think that the people who don't vote overwhelmingly agree with them, and that by finding the right candidate they will magically turn out.

That has NOTHING to do with communism.
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You are strawmanning the Sanders election strategy. The strategy isn't to mobilize some hidden leftist populace. Bernie's policies are appealing to non-left identifying voters.
 
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Venom said:
dudalb has been repeating that talking point for probably a year or two now after it has been addressed numerous times.

It's a straw man he keeps replacing after we burn it to ashes over and over again.. I am honest about how many actual leftists there are in this country, probably not as many as we like to think. But I'm not exactly banking on a bunch of hidden leftists coming out in droves to vote for Sanders.

Hell Sanders won the popular vote comfortably in Iowa, and Iowa is not exactly a progressive haven.
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I assume you mean the caucus, which a micro fraction of voters participate in. Iowa caucus participants are more liberal than maybe you think. Further, caucuses are favorable to candidates with zealous supporters. Bernie has that going for sure. So did Pat Robertson, Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, and Jesse Jackson.
 
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