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2020 Democratic Candidates Tracker Part III

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Belz... said:
And yet you said this:



Sounded like you agreed that Buttigieg as a VP pick could hurt Biden.

After I posted my question I thought it was redundant, but now you seem to be saying two contradictory things. Could you clarify?
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Meh, ... it's not a big deal, but...

I'll flag this up in advance as purely my opinion. I don't have any polling data on this etc.. etc...

I don't think it's going to hurt Biden to have Buttigieg. By that, I mean I don't think someone was going to vote Biden and then decided not to vote for him because of Trump.

But when it was pointed out that Biden might want to balance the ticket, I thought it might be slightly more advantageous to try to gain progressive votes who may not otherwise vote for him.
 
theprestige said:
Nobody's holding up Saudi Arabia as a model of social policy.
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To clarify, I haven't listened to what Bernie said directly. With that said, I've heard that, in short, he condemned the overall state of things in Cuba, but treated the literacy bit as a silver lining, and this after being specifically asked about Cuba. If that actually is correct, and please, feel free to provide evidence that it's not as a potential answer, in what way would your comments be on target?
 
Aridas said:
To clarify, I haven't listened to what Bernie said directly. With that said, I've heard that, in short, he condemned the overall state of things in Cuba, but treated the literacy bit as a silver lining, and this after being specifically asked about Cuba. If that actually is correct, and please, feel free to provide evidence that it's not as a potential answer, in what way would your comments be on target?
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Nobody is arguing that what Sanders said isn't "technically true" just that it was politically stupid way to make a point.

Arguing for anti-smoking policies is one thing, pointing out out of nowhere without being prompted that the Nazis "did some bad things but they did stop smoking in public" is another.
 
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JoeMorgue said:
Nobody is arguing that what Sanders said isn't "technically true" just that it was politically stupid way to make a point.

Arguing for anti-smoking policies is one thing, pointing out out of nowhere without being promoted that the Nazis "did some bad things but they did stop smoking in public" is another.
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It would be. Let's be clear here, though. It wasn't out of nowhere. He was very directly asked about Castro's regime and the first thing he did was to condemn it.

Pushing claims like "model for social policy" and "out of nowhere without being promoted" is dishonest, by the look of it. Feel free to keep poking at the politically stupid angle of it, but please, stop completely misrepresenting what actually happened.
 
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Aridas said:
It would be. Let's be clear here, though. It wasn't out of nowhere. He was very directly asked about Castro's regime and the first thing he did was to condemn it.
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And then he should have just stopped talking and made the "But socialized healthcare works in other countries" point another time.
 
JoeMorgue said:
And then he should have just stopped talking and made the "But socialized healthcare works in other countries" point another time.
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As noted, feel free to poke at the politically stupid angle. Just don't keep spreading lies about what was actually said.
 
Aridas said:
It would be. Let's be clear here, though. It wasn't out of nowhere. He was very directly asked about Castro's regime and the first thing he did was to condemn it.

Pushing claims like "model for social policy" and "out of nowhere without being promoted" is dishonest, by the look of it. Feel free to keep poking at the politically stupid angle of it, but please, stop completely misrepresenting what actually happened.
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I think it also speaks to his credibility on foreign policy. So many of our policies just seem to be on autopilot and Bernie is right to question it.

Why is there still an embargo on Cuba? The cold war ended decades ago. There are no Soviets wanting to move nukes onto the island. There's no reason to continue this silly policy.

Flooding the island with US cultural products would probably do more to liberalize the island in 5 years than decades of embargo ever did.
 
Aridas said:
To clarify, I haven't listened to what Bernie said directly. With that said, I've heard that, in short, he condemned the overall state of things in Cuba, but treated the literacy bit as a silver lining, and this after being specifically asked about Cuba. If that actually is correct, and please, feel free to provide evidence that it's not as a potential answer, in what way would your comments be on target?
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Sanders gets asked about Cuba because he likes to talk about Cuba.

And for thirty-five years, he's been singing the same refrain: Castro was a dictator, but he did good stuff for his people. That's why he gets asked about Cuba.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
Why is there still an embargo on Cuba? The cold war ended decades ago.
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Because a lot of Cuban refugees in the vital swing state of Florida say so.

Cry about it being unfair, but that's politics.

That's why you gotta learn to read the room and not say everything that's "technically correct" every chance you get.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Because a lot of Cuban refugees in the vital swing state of Florida say so.



Cry about it being unfair, but that's politics.



That's why you gotta learn to read the room and not say everything that's "technically correct" every chance you get.
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How do I differentiate that from "not rocking the boat" and "just telling people what they want to hear?

Not qualities I want in a leader.
 
Delphic Oracle said:
How do I differentiate that from "not rocking the boat" and "just telling people what they want to hear?
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The same way you differentiate between having standards and "It's not good enough until it functionally doesn't work" idealism.

If you can't, you can't.

Not qualities I want in a leader.
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If "electability" isn't a quality you look for in a leader you aren't looking for a leader, you're looking for a symbolic "Well at least I didn't compromise my ideals" out when you lose.

Again I got over all this meaningless, defeatist, counter-productive handwringing over "OMG I can't decide to I vote my morals or vote for an actual chance at winning" but just making "effectiveness" one of my morals.
 
Venom said:
If the slimeballs in the mainstream media did a little bit of critical thinking they wouldn't have a story.
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"Sanders would be the perfect candidate in a better society" is... both the point and missing the point by a huge margin.

That's the problem with candidates like Sanders, they are only electable in a situations where they would no longer be needed.
 
JoeMorgue said:
"Sanders would be the perfect candidate in a better society" is... both the point and missing the point by a huge margin.

That's the problem with candidates like Sanders, they are only electable in a situations where they would no longer be needed.
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It's a bit worrying when Democrats or Democrat sympathizers pour fuel on a leading candidate for Republicans to drop a match on.
 
Venom said:
It's a bit worrying when Democrats or Democrat sympathizers pour fuel on a leading candidate for Republicans to drop a match on.
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I assure you one random yahoo on an internet message board is not going to give the Republican Hype & Spin machine ammo against Sanders that they don't already have.

Trump is not reading this thread right now going "Holy Crap I never would have thought to attack Sanders over that if Joe Morgue hadn't brought it up!" Calm down.

But I will commend you for slicing the pie up so no matter what happens, you win.

- Sanders gets the nomination, beats Trump in the general. You, and the rest of us, win.
- Sanders doesn't get the nomination, the eventual candidate loses to Trump in the general. We hear "You would have run if you had run Sanders" until the end of goddamn time, which since Trump is still President might not be that long so there's that at least.
- Sanders gets the nomination, loses to Trump in the general. We hear "Sanders would have won if he had more support from the mainstream Dems" until the end of time.
- Sanders doesn't get the nomination, the eventual candidate beats Trump in the general. Somehow Sanders would still have beaten him "more" I'm sure.
 
Buttigieg did Biden a pretty good solid by dropping out of the race. He realized that he and Joe were splitting votes, allowing Bernie to show better. Bloomberg should realize pretty soon that he's running the risk of doing the same thing.

Despite that, I don't think Buttigieg makes a good VP choice. He's still green and considering that Biden is already well into the geezer stage of life the VP has to be ready to step into the top spot. In addition, he comes from a state where the Democrats have virtually no chance of winning. VPs have to be chosen with at least an eye towards pulling another state into the win column, or at least shoring up a purplish state.

Klobuchar qualifies on that score (Minnesota barely stayed blue in 2016) and she's a woman. She's youngish, but not too young. Abrams is another that might make sense; Georgia went for Trump, but only by 5 percentage points. She's black and female, which makes her a two-fer, and which might help boost African-American turnout which the Democrats absolutely need.

Bernie has already said that he will only take a VP who supports his Medicare for All plan, which obviously lets out Buttigieg. The key here is that if Bernie gets the nomination, he's going to know that whomever he picks is going to be the standard bearer for the Democrats going forward. So he's never going to pick a centrist (even though that might be what he needs). Warren? Ayanna Pressley? Maybe Sherrod Brown?
 
JoeMorgue said:
But I will commend you for slicing the pie up so no matter what happens, you win.

- Sanders gets the nomination, beats Trump in the general. You, and the rest of us, win.
- Sanders doesn't get the nomination, the eventual candidate loses to Trump in the general. We hear "You would have run if you had run Sanders" until the end of goddamn time, which since Trump is still President might not be that long so there's that at least.
- Sanders gets the nomination, loses to Trump in the general. We hear "Sanders would have won if he had more support from the mainstream Dems" until the end of time.
- Sanders doesn't get the nomination, the eventual candidate beats Trump in the general. Somehow Sanders would still have beaten him "more" I'm sure.
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You think the same attitude isn't taken by supporters of other candidates? It's not unique to Sanders.
 
TragicMonkey said:
You think the same attitude isn't taken by supporters of other candidates? It's not unique to Sanders.
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I find people of all stripes have been holding Dems to a different standard than anyone on the right. Bernie made some comments about Cuba and you'd think the world was going to end. Trump dry humps Putin and KJU and we barely flinch anymore.
 
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