2020 Democratic Candidates Tracker Part III

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Brainster said:
Here are FiveThirtyEight's projections for Nevada. It will be interesting to see who over-performs and who falls short:

Sanders: 39%
Buttigieg: 17%
Biden: 16%
Warren: 12%
Klobuchar: 7%

They don't show a specific predicition for Steyer, but their average of polls has him about 10%.
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Biden wins the under-performance race by five lengths. :) Expect him to be sold to the glue factory very soon.

ETA: Wow. I based this post on the results on WaPo where Biden didn't finish higher than fifth. That was roughly an hour ago; now he's in second place. I'm gonna have to slow down my keyboard.
 
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Skeptic Ginger said:
I'm sorry Cabbage that you don't get something right in front of your face. Nothing more I can do.
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And I will admit that I have expressed the opinion that the GOP smear campaign won't ruin Sanders candidacy. What I am calling you out on is this: Nowhere have I been nearly as adamant as you have been on the other side--Saying that if I do not believe as you do then I must have my head in the sand.

I'd like to see you provide a quote of me being as dismissive as you have been.

Thanks!
 
Cabbage said:
dudalb has been particularly vocal about it. If he is one of only two that you can think of, fair enough; just don't pretend it doesn't exist, nor expect me to pretend it doesn't exist.
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dudalb has been particularly vocal that he thinks Bernie will lose because moderates won't vote for him. Not because of smear campaign stuff, though, no doubt, there's that concern too. It's just not be what HE's been vocal about. The other poster that I could think of was saying much the same as dudalb - the moderates won't vote for Bernie and the Republicans will be more likely to vote against Bernie argument, not the smear campaign argument.

Cabbage said:
I, too, find it annoying to be accused of a straw man when I post a response to an argument that is actually being made--If not by many, then by some. That does not imply that I think everyone in the anti-Sanders camp makes the same argument. You challenge me to quote people making the same comments dudalb makes. In turn, I challenge you to quote me simply dismissing other people's concerns about Sanders (and disagreement does not indicate dismissal, you know).
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I'm going to be lazy here and not dig back through the thread and quote such. Rather, I'll just note that, in response to me stating/agreeing with... it was probably acbytesla, that one of my largest concerns about Bernie was in regards to the potential effectiveness of a smear campaign on him, I was attacked by you for saying that it was one of my largest concerns under the premise that I was arguing that Bernie supporters specifically shouldn't vote for their candidate of choice in the primary, which I wasn't even remotely, and that I wasn't the only one that you attacked under that premise. In that entire discussion, you were pointedly hostile and dismissive to the presentations of why it was a concern to the posters putting forward why it was a very real concern for them, as I recall, until you had something that you could turn as a false equivalence, like, say, all the contenders having serious concerns that can be forwarded about them. While they do, not all serious concerns are equal. Similarly, that we don't know in advance exactly how effective, say, Death to America rally attacks would be is not really grounds for flippantly dismissing concerns about the effect of such and various stuff like that on the grounds that we don't know exactly how effective they will be in advance. Like you did.

To be further clear about my position regarding Bernie, incidentally, I wouldn't mind him being President, even if I think that he would do a much worse job than Warren. When it comes to getting elected, though, he has some uniquely problematic issues, albeit not ones that will necessarily cause him to lose, given the various unique positives that he also has and that are similarly difficult to properly quantify. I suppose that I tentatively have him at second place among my preferred candidates, well above Bloomberg and Biden, like about 40% of Warren's supporters. Like virtually all Warren supporters, of course, I'll fairly certainly voting blue no matter who, though, so it's not like there's much good reason for hostility from the Bernie side there in general.
 
Aridas said:
dudalb has been particularly vocal that he thinks Bernie will lose because moderates won't vote for him. Not because of smear campaign stuff, though, no doubt, there's that concern too. It's just not be what HE's been vocal about. The other poster that I could think of was saying much the same as dudalb - the moderates won't vote for Bernie and the Republicans will be more likely to vote against Bernie argument, not the smear campaign argument.



I'm going to be lazy here and not dig back through the thread and quote such. Rather, I'll just note that, in response to me stating/agreeing with... it was probably acbytesla, that one of my largest concerns about Bernie was in regards to the potential effectiveness of a smear campaign on him, I was attacked by you for saying that it was one of my largest concerns under the premise that I was arguing that Bernie supporters specifically shouldn't vote for their candidate of choice in the primary, which I wasn't even remotely, and that I wasn't the only one that you attacked under that premise. In that entire discussion, you were pointedly hostile and dismissive to the presentations of why it was a concern to the posters putting forward why it was a very real concern for them, as I recall, until you had something that you could turn as a false equivalence, like, say, all the contenders having serious concerns that can be forwarded about them. While they do, not all serious concerns are equal. Similarly, that we don't know in advance exactly how effective, say, Death to America rally attacks would be is not really grounds for flippantly dismissing concerns about the effect of such and various stuff like that on the grounds that we don't know exactly how effective they will be in advance. Like you did.

To be further clear about my position regarding Bernie, incidentally, I wouldn't mind him being President, even if I think that he would do a much worse job than Warren. When it comes to getting elected, though, he has some uniquely problematic issues, albeit not ones that will necessarily cause him to lose, given the various unique positives that he also has and that are similarly difficult to properly quantify. I suppose that I tentatively have him at second place among my preferred candidates, well above Bloomberg and Biden, like about 40% of Warren's supporters. Like virtually all Warren supporters, of course, I'll fairly certainly voting blue no matter who, though, so it's not like there's much good reason for hostility from the Bernie side there in general.
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I do recall accusing some Sanders attackers of trying to choose who they (Sanders supporters) should vote for; I honestly don't recall it being you that I was responding to, but I'll take your word for it. My apologies. I do honestly get the impression that some of the anti-Sanders crowd would like to manipulate Sanders supporters out of their support; at least a couple on here, maybe not many, but absolutely many more in the wider world. And regardless of my memory (or its failure), I can freely acknowledge that that impression of mine may have rubbed off onto others (such as you) that weren't really guilty of that anti-Sanders manipulation. My apologies again.

On the other hand, I don't think saying that the candidates other than Sanders all have serious concerns is a false equivalence. I truly do believe that Sanders is our best shot out of all the primary contenders. Biden is collapsing. Pete is gay (not a problem for me, but much potential as a problem for many). Warren is also susceptible to accusations of socialism. Bloomberg is just another billionaire trying to buy his way in. I think it's important for Democrats to recognize how strong the anti-establishment sentiment is; I still think Sanders would've beat Trump in 2016. No, of course I can't prove it. But ignoring that sentiment is the biggest peril for Democrats in 2020, in my opinion.
 
Cabbage said:
I don't know if she is the "one other" poster you are referring to,
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No. She isn't. And what she's said isn't what you've been trying to characterize it as.

Cabbage said:
but there you go--I have my head in the sand simply because I do not agree with her :rolleyes:. I'm not imagining this attitude against Sanders; I'm not presenting a straw man--It really does exist.
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I'm much in agreement with her, honestly, given your responses. You've effectively been trying to completely deny all reasonable and obvious predictions that, when the GOP actually truly wants to go after Bernie, Bernie will probably suffer for it - and that they have a much more substantial basis to work with than they do for... well, Bloomberg might have more now, for that concern.

Cabbage said:
And regarding moderates not voting for Sanders, I did see this:
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Which is not actually an argument that moderates sided with Bernie in appreciable numbers, in and of itself.

With that said, I've repeatedly disagreed with dudalb's argument for a number of notably more solid reasons, myself.
 
Cabbage said:
And let me be clear: I respect that some are concerned with running a socialist. What many struggle to understand is that many of us are concerned with running a moderate. The establishment candidate lost in 2016. Don't dismiss our support for Sanders as being too risky in the era of Trump: I consider running another establishment, lukewarm, moderate candidate to be the true risk. I want to get rid of Trump every bit as much as you do. I simply think, considering the anti-establishment zeitgeist, that Sanders is the safest bet we got.
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Is that why you support Bernie over Liz?

If the answer is yes, why do you think there is an "anti-establishment zeitgeist" in the USA?

BTW, these are not loaded questions. As a Warren supporter, it's starting to look like I might have to look elsewhere. I am, tbh, quite leery of Bernie but not beyond convincing.
 
SezMe said:
For gawd's sake why? He's going nowhere. He'll get no delegates out of the primary process and he has no built-up support among the super delegates. What's his path to victory?
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It's somewhere in there. You just gotta ignore all of the Bernie noise.
 
Cabbage said:
I do recall accusing some Sanders attackers of trying to choose who they (Sanders supporters) should vote for; I honestly don't recall it being you that I was responding to, but I'll take your word for it. My apologies.
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Apology accepted.

Cabbage said:
I do honestly get the impression that some of the anti-Sanders crowd would like to manipulate Sanders supporters out of their support;
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To be fair, I would certainly prefer for Bernie supporters (and everyone else) to support Warren - but I have no intention of trying to win support for Warren by tearing down other candidates. That would have to happen by poking at reasons why she's the best. That doesn't mean that I have reason to hold back my concerns about candidates, though, of course. Or much with praise/defense for where I see it. On cyber matters, for example, I think that Buttigieg has shown the most savvy and preparedness to handle those matters of the candidates. Bernie's done a remarkable job in a whole bunch of ways, too, much as it feels like a number of the things that have been said as praise for him uniquely by his supporters also apply as much or almost as much to Warren.

Cabbage said:
at least a couple on here, maybe not many, but absolutely many more in the wider world. And regardless of my memory (or its failure), I can freely acknowledge that that impression of mine may have rubbed off onto others (such as you) that weren't really guilty of that anti-Sanders manipulation. My apologies again.
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And again, apology accepted.

Cabbage said:
On the other hand, I don't think saying that the candidates other than Sanders all have serious concerns is a false equivalence.
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That quite depends on how, exactly, it's being used. There are indeed serious issues with all, but again, not all issues are of the same severity.

Cabbage said:
I truly do believe that Sanders is our best shot out of all the primary contenders.
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Maybe. He has some of the most valuable positives, but also has a number of serious negatives that counterbalance those. That makes it much harder to to properly rate him and pushes notably more people in to the love him or hate him divisiveness. The enthusiasm that he generates is a great plus, though, and that's important. I'll certainly give him that.

Cabbage said:
Biden is collapsing.
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Biden never really had actual enthusiasm for him in the first place, which was his biggest flaw all along.

Cabbage said:
Pete is gay (not a problem for me, but much potential as a problem for many).
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That's probably the biggest problem there, but it's hardly the only one. Still, he's probably managed to do the second or third best when it comes to the candidates' ground games. He's generated a fair bit of enthusiasm, with that said.

Cabbage said:
Warren is also susceptible to accusations of socialism.
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Overwhelmingly less than Bernie. More than the others, of course, but there's a large difference on that front. Warren's generating enthusiasm, too, for that matter, but she's got a number of things working against her - not least being a number of rather rich and powerful folks and corporations who are worried that she could actually get her anti-corruption and corporate power limiting plans to actually happen. Even the little things like, say, banning forced arbitration clauses, that are included in her plans are pretty scary for companies that have been misbehaving a lot (and unfortunately, that's way too many of the really big companies).

ETA: To go a bit further... One of Warren's greatest strengths is her plans. As a matter of course, though, the MSM almost never actually delves into the actual plans and policy of any of the candidates in any notable depth.

Cabbage said:
Bloomberg is just another billionaire trying to buy his way in.
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And might be more disliked among Democrats than Gabbard, if I recall correctly. That's a big disadvantage.

Cabbage said:
I think it's important for Democrats to recognize how strong the anti-establishment sentiment is; I still think Sanders would've beat Trump in 2016. No, of course I can't prove it. But ignoring that sentiment is the biggest peril for Democrats in 2020, in my opinion.
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I'm much less certain that Sanders would beat Trump in 2015, but... that has a lot to do with how he actually handled things then. He has certainly built off the gains he made then, though, to get where he is today.
 
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