Democratic caucuses and primaries

Distracted1 said:
How can we realistically call a candidate "Non-viable" when %95 of the Party members are yet to be heard from? It is a phenomena similar to the "famous for being famous" one.

Why is candidate "X" campaign dead? Because he/she is unelectable.
How do we know? Because he/she didn't lead in the first %6 of the voting.

Unless the primaries are to be held simultaneously, "viability" is an iffy concept.

As a Pennsylvania Democrat,I am not satisfied being left to choose from among the two candidates decided two months ago in Iowa.

The way the primaries are held, Every convention should be a brokered one in the interest of simple fairness.
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It allows lesser-known candidates to start small with "retail politics" at a scale manageable without huge sums of cash.

If they can "break out" and get more contributions and support going, good for them.

Starting in larger states or compressing the calendar means only those who already have national profile and a $100m+ warchest need apply.
 
d4m10n said:
I have evidence of structural weaknesses which have yet to be tested, a few of which I mentioned in passing above. None of the other Democratic candidates have a history of cozying up to Soviets and Soviet-backed regimes, and thus none of them would be subject to this particular line of attack.



It's not just the label, it is how the label is used and whether it will stick.

We all know that "Socialist" means something very different in the phrase "Democratic Socialists of America" than it does in "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics," and we can all reasonably suppose that Sanders is more interested in the programs proposed by the former (which have been shown to work well in practice) than the latter (which have failed abysmally whenever and wherever attempted).

We have yet to see a concerted effort to reframe Sanders' adherence to socialism from the Scandinavian model to the Muscovite model, but we have good reason to believe these ads are going to be cut eventually. Perhaps they will find film of Mayor Sanders at the inauguration of the Marxist-Leninist leader of Nicaragua in 1985. Who knows? My point is that you cannot pull this sort of thing with any other American politician, since none of the rest of them were palling about with Marxists during the Cold War.
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And other candidates have their own issues. Biden looks like he's showing signs of dementia. Warren is similarly subjectable to attacks based on socialism.

What is the point of these arguments where it's seemingly demanded I pay attention to Sanders' potential electability issues?

Are you trying to get me to stop supporting him? Not gonna happen.

Are you trying to prevent him from winning the nomination? That's not within my power.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Sanders didn't concede to Clinton until mid-July in 2016 and we didn't have a brokered convention in that case so I don't think one is likely here.
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Have you seen 538's primary forecast model?

As of now, they are predicting a strong possibility (~⅔) that no one will have an outright majority of pledged delegates going in. This is the first step down the path to backroom horsetrading, assuming the superdelegates aren't enough to push someone over the top.
 
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Cabbage said:
Warren is similarly subjectable to attacks based on socialism.
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Wait, what?

Did Warren praise Castro's reforms?

Did Warren attend a Marxist's inauguration in South America?

Is Warren on video praising the Soviet Union's youth programs?

Did Warren ever say "Democracy means public ownership of the major means of production..."?
 
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Distracted1 said:
How can we realistically call a candidate "Non-viable" when %95 of the Party members are yet to be heard from? It is a phenomena similar to the "famous for being famous" one.

Why is candidate "X" campaign dead? Because he/she is unelectable.
How do we know? Because he/she didn't lead in the first %6 of the voting.

Unless the primaries are to be held simultaneously, "viability" is an iffy concept.

As a Pennsylvania Democrat,I am not satisfied being left to choose from among the two candidates decided two months ago in Iowa.

The way the primaries are held, Every convention should be a brokered one in the interest of simple fairness.
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The timing of these drop outs is interesting. I had expected the whole crew to at least stay through Super Tuesday. I mean, they've already made the effort to get there. I'm not sure why Klob and Pete decided to rally around Biden without waiting to see the returns Tuesday. Especially Pete, who was in a respectable 3rd.

It is probably a bit too soon to call Warren a spoiler. I am assuming she will have a poor showing Tuesday, in which case it makes more sense to call for her to drop out. With the field narrowing, she really needs a miracle Tuesday.
 
Cabbage said:
And other candidates have their own issues.
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Yes, all candidates are prone to having problems. Every candidate will make mistakes or run into potential snafus, sometimes due to honest mistakes, other times due to circumstances out of their control. (Remember during the 2016 election when Clinton stumbled once getting onto a plane, and the right-wing make all these claims suggesting she was at death's door.)

I think the risk with sanders is that you have 2 possible sets of problems:
- Those standard ones that will pop up with any candidate (for example, Sanders' age/health, post-heart attack)
- Those associated with his particular spot in the political spectrum.

Biden looks like he's showing signs of dementia. Warren is similarly subjectable to attacks based on socialism.
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Warren does share many policy points with Sanders. I think the difference between her and Sanders is in the way they are portrayed and they present themselves. Sanders self-describes as a socialist, AND he comes across as an aging hippy who doesn't realize the 60s are over. Even if Sanders and Warren both want Medicare for All and free university, with Warren it comes across as some sort of academic "Here's the reasoning/plan..." and with Sanders its "Join the revolution comrades..."
Are you trying to prevent him from winning the nomination? That's not within my power.
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Nobody here has any real power. And it will probably be very rare that anyone ever changes their minds after a discussion here.

People post because they want the intellectual challenge.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
The timing of these drop outs is interesting. I had expected the whole crew to at least stay through Super Tuesday.
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As I suggested in another thread... Maybe the ones who dropped out (Buttigieg/Klobuchar) are dedicated democrats with integrity, and they recognize that they have little chance of victory. So dropping out now instead of waiting until after Super Tuesday means that the party can coalesce around a front-runner early and prevent any deep divisions later on.

Compare that to Bernie Sanders in 2016, when he stuck in the race pretty much until the bitter end. (Even if he wasn't mathematically eliminated, there was a point where it would take an intervention by the flying spaghetti monster for him to win... he should have dropped out before that point.) Sticking around longer causes rifts to occur.
 
d4m10n said:
Wait, what?

Did Warren praise Castro's reforms?

Did Warren attend a Marxist's inauguration in South America?

Is Warren on video praising the Soviet Union's youth programs?

Did Warren ever say "Democracy means public ownership of the major means of production..."?
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Do you not know what "similarly" means? Specifically, I refer to the fact that, for example, some Wall Street Democratic donors threatened to vote for Trump if Warren gets the nomination. Specifically, I recall getting into a debate with Skeptic Ginger some months ago because she claimed that both Warren and Sanders were particularly susceptible to attacks of socialism and are both therefore unelectable.

Yes, she has similar issues. Not identical. Similar. So why are you now demanding I back my statement up with identical issues???
 
Segnosaur said:
Yes, all candidates are prone to having problems. Every candidate will make mistakes or run into potential snafus, sometimes due to honest mistakes, other times due to circumstances out of their control. (Remember during the 2016 election when Clinton stumbled once getting onto a plane, and the right-wing make all these claims suggesting she was at death's door.)

I think the risk with sanders is that you have 2 possible sets of problems:
- Those standard ones that will pop up with any candidate (for example, Sanders' age/health, post-heart attack)
- Those associated with his particular spot in the political spectrum.


Warren does share many policy points with Sanders. I think the difference between her and Sanders is in the way they are portrayed and they present themselves. Sanders self-describes as a socialist, AND he comes across as an aging hippy who doesn't realize the 60s are over. Even if Sanders and Warren both want Medicare for All and free university, with Warren it comes across as some sort of academic "Here's the reasoning/plan..." and with Sanders its "Join the revolution comrades..."

Nobody here has any real power. And it will probably be very rare that anyone ever changes their minds after a discussion here.

People post because they want the intellectual challenge.
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I can certainly respect that, I simply asked because it seemed the debate was starting to get personal. Yes, I know I'm certainly partly to blame for that, but I also know I am not alone in the blame.
 
JoeMorgue said:
That's why I like my idea of every running the primaries in order of which states had the slimmest margin of error last time.

Nobody cares who's going to win California because newflash the Dems have those votes already.
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The only thing that could change that is if the Gubernator ran for president. At this point the Supreme Court might rule that “sure, he is a natural born American! Who could be more American?”
 
Cabbage said:
Do you not know what "similarly" means? Specifically, I refer to the fact that, for example, some Wall Street Democratic donors threatened to vote for Trump if Warren gets the nomination.
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I'm clearly not being clear, here.

Wall St. donors (to take your example) have at least as much to fear from a Sanders administration as they do from a Warren administration. This is true whenever they both advocate for similar policies, since Sanders tends to be more maximalist in both rhetoric and policy. So, yes, on some policies they are similarly vulnerable. Fair enough.

Where Sanders stands out, though, is the conflation of socialism in the DSA sense with socialism in the USSR sense in the popular imagination. He's managed to tiptoe over that line enough times to make even independent centrists (like myself) wonder whether he sees it.

tl;dr - Warren could face similar attacks, but they wouldn't be nearly as credible given her political history. She's a technocrat, not a revolutionary.
 
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d4m10n said:
I'm clearly not being clear, here.

Wall St. donors (to take your example) have at least as much to fear from a Sanders administration as they do from a Warren administration. This is true whenever they both advocate for similar policies, since Sanders tends to be more maximalist in both rhetoric and policy. So, yes, on some policies they are similarly vulnerable. Fair enough.

Where Sanders stands out, though, is the conflation of socialism in the DSA sense with socialism in the USSR sense in the popular imagination. He's managed to tiptoe over that line enough times to make even independent centrists (like myself) wonder whether he sees it.
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I don't disagree with any of that, and I highlighted the portion that says pretty much the same thing I intended. As I explained previously, "similar" =/= "identical". I wasn't even trying to draw a comparison so much as simply point out there are issues with each:

My only point is that I'm not aware of any candidate that is a guaranteed winner over Trump. And therefore I'm voting for who I want to in the primary.
 
Cabbage said:
My only point is that I'm not aware of any candidate that is a guaranteed winner over Trump. And therefore I'm voting for who I want to in the primary.
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You're right... nobody is a guaranteed winner. And I don't think anyone is a guaranteed loser. (I think Sanders would be a poor choice for many reasons, but I still think he stands a chance at beating Trump.)

But for some, the question is "Who has the best chance at beating Trump" (even if a win is not guaranteed), and they see a politician like Sanders (with potentially unpopular policies and an image of an aging 60s hippy radical) as someone with more problems than other candidates. Again, doesn't necessarily mean he will lose, it just gives him a bit more of a disadvantage than others.
 
Cabbage said:
My only point is that I'm not aware of any candidate that is a guaranteed winner over Trump. And therefore I'm voting for who I want to in the primary.
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Fair enough, and I'm not about to fault anyone for that.

(Aside from cryptotrumpers come to spoil the process. **** those clowns.)
 
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d4m10n said:
Wait, what?

Did Warren praise Castro's reforms?

Did Warren attend a Marxist's inauguration in South America?

Is Warren on video praising the Soviet Union's youth programs?

Did Warren ever say "Democracy means public ownership of the major means of production..."?
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As far as I can tell, Nicaragua is part of North America.
 
Hercules56 said:
Huh, it appears Bernie was at one point a REAL Socialist:

"Democracy means public ownership of the major means of production, it means decentralization, it means involving people in their work. Rather than having bosses and workers it means having democratic control over the factories and shops to as great a degree as you can."

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/20...ic-ownership-of-the-major-means-of-production
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Yikes.

Still, he doesn't believe in public ownership of the means anymore. He said it explicitly.
 
Segnosaur said:
You're right... nobody is a guaranteed winner. And I don't think anyone is a guaranteed loser. (I think Sanders would be a poor choice for many reasons, but I still think he stands a chance at beating Trump.)

But for some, the question is "Who has the best chance at beating Trump" (even if a win is not guaranteed), and they see a politician like Sanders (with potentially unpopular policies and an image of an aging 60s hippy radical) as someone with more problems than other candidates. Again, doesn't necessarily mean he will lose, it just gives him a bit more of a disadvantage than others.
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I can respect that. It's not how I would choose who to vote for, but I wouldn't fault someone else for it. On the other hand, in all honesty my opinion is that Sanders has the greatest chance against Trump; that's not why I'm voting for him, though.
 
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