2020 Democratic Candidates Tracker Part III

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One of the reasons I pick Sanders over Warren is because Sanders simply had far more support to begin with. His campaign has far more energy. With the primary system in place as it is, I'm going with Sanders.

He was among the most admired politicians in the country during the "off season" after 2016.
 
Is that why you support Bernie over Liz?


No. Actually, for about a year now, I've planned on giving my primary vote to either Bernie or Liz, whoever happens to be surging at the time my state has their primary. It certainly looks like that will be Bernie, but beyond that, I'd be happy with either and I'm happy with leaving it to the coin toss of whoever's surging.

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.


Well, to put it simply, I think the anti-establishment zeitgeist is due to both corruption and perceived corruption in Washington, along with certain media agencies (not limited to but especially social media) fomenting anger at the establishment.
 
I ignore the evidence of how the public disdains socialism because it is currently trumped by the fact that Sanders leads Trump in the polls--Why put your faith in polls of a side issue (socialism) and simply ignore polls of the primary issue (Trump vs Sanders)?
This reminds me of my experience as a female manager in a male dominated industry back in the 80s. One guy who came to work for me told me frankly that he'd never thought he would be willing to work for a woman, but the choice when it finally came was not "would you rather work for a man than a woman?" but "would you rather work for Barbara or John?". "And that was a no brainer", he told me cheerfully.
 
Apology accepted.



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.



And again, apology accepted.



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.



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.



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



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.



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).



And might be more disliked among Democrats than Gabbard, if I recall correctly. That's a big disadvantage.



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.


Thanks for your response. Regarding Warren--Like I said, I support her, too, and it's close enough for me between her and Bernie to let my support simply go with the flow.

Regarding concerns about the socialism label being Bernie's undoing--Sure, I can't ignore that, but I think it's overplayed as well. To support that position I will merely note the discrepancy between "Trump vs Sanders" polls on one hand vs "Would you ever vote for a Socialist candidate" polls on the other hand. I see polls that say 76% would never vote for a socialist ( https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-ame...ity-of-americans-say-the-would-not-vote-for-a ) while at the same time Sanders leads Trump in polls around 50% to 46% ( https://www.realclearpolitics.com/e...s/general_election_trump_vs_sanders-6250.html ). So either a significant portion of the population correctly believe that Sanders is not a true socialist, or for a significant portion the socialist label is trumped by getting Trump out of office, or, for whatever reason, there's some inconsistency that prohibits the socialism label from being a deciding factor at this point. Yes, I acknowledge this could change, but none of us have omnipotent control nor omniscient knowledge; we just work with what we've got, which is all I'm trying to do with supporting Sanders.
 
This reminds me of my experience as a female manager in a male dominated industry back in the 80s. One guy who came to work for me told me frankly that he'd never thought he would be willing to work for a woman, but the choice when it finally came was not "would you rather work for a man than a woman?" but "would you rather work for Barbara or John?". "And that was a no brainer", he told me cheerfully.


Thanks, that's a good analogy! I don't think 2020 can simply be reduced to a pro/con socialism angle. For so many people, there's much more involved than that. There's a lot of people who, when asked, "Who will you vote for, A) Donald Trump, or....." will immediately interrupt "B!"

No, of course that doesn't guarantee Trump loses. It also doesn't mean we shouldn't give serious consideration to who wins the Democratic nomination. I think it does mean, however, that an attempt to pin it all down to pro/con "Socialism!" is grossly oversimplifying it.
 
Thanks, that's a good analogy! I don't think 2020 can simply be reduced to a pro/con socialism angle. For so many people, there's much more involved than that. There's a lot of people who, when asked, "Who will you vote for, A) Donald Trump, or....." will immediately interrupt "B!"

No, of course that doesn't guarantee Trump loses. It also doesn't mean we shouldn't give serious consideration to who wins the Democratic nomination. I think it does mean, however, that an attempt to pin it all down to pro/con "Socialism!" is grossly oversimplifying it.

Besides that analogy, it appears that way more Democratic (or at least non-Trump) voters are worried that other people won't vote for Bernie than those who say they themselves won't vote for Bernie.

Which is a common state of affairs when it comes to social change...
 
Anyone else thinks Bernie damages his support by shouting too much and sounding angry in his speeches? It scares me when he launches a fiery attack on pharmaceutical and insurance corporations that are extorting working Americans, or spits, “No teacher should earn less than $60,000 a year.”

Why so angry, Bernie?
 
Anyone else thinks Bernie damages his support by shouting too much and sounding angry in his speeches? It scares me when he launches a fiery attack on pharmaceutical and insurance corporations that are extorting working Americans, or spits, “No teacher should earn less than $60,000 a year.”

Why so angry, Bernie?

Why are you not?
 
To be clear, it's entirely fine to think that the concerns are wrong or overemphasized. It's how you (and some of the other Bernie supporters) handled that disagreement, far more than the disagreement itself, that gets quite irksome and, at times, sure looks like unfounded and fallacious dismissal.

I'm about in your camp (Warren would make the best president, but anyone but Biden or Bloomberg would be at least okay), so I think I'm fairly impartial on Bernie. From my perspective, the antiBerners palpable, seething hatred of the man and everything he stands for is way more off-putting than anything I've seen from the Bern crowd. I get it, they're still bitter over Clinton's loss and blame Bernie for getting in the way of her ascendancy, but damn if the guy just cain't do nothin' right by them without getting spat in the face for it.

Anyone else thinks Bernie damages his support by shouting too much and sounding angry in his speeches? It scares me when he launches a fiery attack on pharmaceutical and insurance corporations that are extorting working Americans, or spits, “No teacher should earn less than $60,000 a year.”

Why so angry, Bernie?
Because they are extorting working Americans, and teachers should earn living wages. I don't know if that's what he really railed against or just an approximation, but those seem like pretty reasonable bugbears to me. What's so bad about being angry over it? Wouldn't you want someone whose passions are inflamed by injustice? Must it always boil down to mumbled, feckless centrism about reaching across the aisle and accomplishing jack-all except keeping the seat warm until the next fascist takes power?
 
I love sarcasm smileys like I do canned laughter tracks.

I even thought framings like extortion were too obvious,
 
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I hate to post negative things against these candidates because the GOP can use them later. But the stuff will come out regardless.

I posted up thread about a report of Biden lying about a So African arrest in the 70s. Then I had second thoughts and decided I should verify it. Sure enough:

 
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Supposing Sanders wins, he is going to have a hard time with Medicare for all. It's a massive budget undertaking, and there may be some issues the supreme court would block.

One way to do this would be to put everyone on regular Medicare Part A plus all routine care. This would put the bulk of healthcare under the insurance and everyone would be in network. There is a dollar amount maximum now, for us seniors, for hospital stays and such, and surgery. This is where you would leave the "fancy" and newer treatments, with no guaranteed outcome, under the Medicare supplements, which you could buy, or not buy for a while if you cannot afford it. Emergency room care and the surgeries associated would be free. You would put some cap dollar amount for the doctor visits and medicien part(10 000?, 20 000?) over which you would need the supplemental plan. For employees, the supplemental plan would come from your employer, with disability payments and such.

Part A now
Hospital services: $1,316 for up to 60 days, $329 per day for 61-90 days, and $658 per day for stays beyond 91 days
Skilled nursing facilities: No charge for the first 20 days, $164.50 per day for 21-100 days, and all costs after 101 days
Hospice care: No charge for hospice care, $5 copayment for medication, and 5 percent for inpatient respite care (periodic care so your caretaker can rest)
 
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He's pandering to minorities.

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Yeah, but building a compassionate America with dignity for all, including the poorest needs to underpin all policy choices.
 
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