Cont: 2020 Democratic Candidates Tracker Part IV

Segnosaur said:
So, health care becomes the purity test... because to the hardcore BernieBro (i.e. the ones who will not support Biden), it has to be "medicare for all" or its crap, rather than saying "I'd prefer medicare for all, but I'll be happy enough with expanded care if it covers people currently ignored".
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But it won't cover all the people currently ignored. We know it won't. Biden's campaign knows it won't.

The text of Biden's plan admits that about 3% of the population will remain uninsured. That's 10 million people. That's if everything goes according to plan, which it almost certainly won't.

Is it a purity test to say that 3% of Americans should not be excluded from receiving health care?

All this in the name of propping up the increasingly sagging and unstable private health insurance industry.
 
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SuburbanTurkey said:
But it won't cover all the people currently ignored. We know it won't. Biden's campaign knows it won't.

The text of Biden's plan admits that about 3% of the population will remain uninsured. That's 10 million people. That's if everything goes according to plan, which it almost certainly won't.

Is it a purity test to say that 3% of Americans should not be excluded from receiving health care?

All this in the name of propping up the increasingly sagging and unstable private health insurance industry.
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Let's pretend that Sanders actually wins the nomination, and then the general election. When he becomes President, how many people will be uninsured? Will he wave a magic wand, bypass Congress completely, and totally upend our current system? Even assuming there were some way to get his "plan" passed, how long would it take to go into effect?

While all of us would love there to be 0 people uninsured in America, if Sanders has a snowballs chance in hell of passing Medicare For All, then he doesn't have a better plan. That's been his problem all along, the guy has spent decades in politics but still doesn't understand how to build a coalition to get things done.
 
wareyin said:
Let's pretend that Sanders actually wins the nomination, and then the general election. When he becomes President, how many people will be uninsured? Will he wave a magic wand, bypass Congress completely, and totally upend our current system? Even assuming there were some way to get his "plan" passed, how long would it take to go into effect?

While all of us would love there to be 0 people uninsured in America, if Sanders has a snowballs chance in hell of passing Medicare For All, then he doesn't have a better plan. That's been his problem all along, the guy has spent decades in politics but still doesn't understand how to build a coalition to get things done.
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The same could be said of Joe.

What fantasy world do we live in that McConnell is going to hand Biden a legislative win in 2020? His ACA reform goes nowhere.

McConnell is going to go back to the same obstruction tactics that worked so well in the late Obama years. Meanwhile Joe is going to whinge on and on about "bipartisanship" and "compromise". Once the Democrats get back into power, government dysfunction and budget deficit doom-saying becomes the key focus of the Republican legislators.

The Republicans, vile as they are, understand politics and the fight for power much more clearly than the Democrats, and they have the results to show it.
 
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Aridas said:
Just to poke at this a little, I think that it's well worth also pointing at how certain people have been doing their best to remove that vote from persons who aren't so likely to vote for their preferred candidate.
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This is very true in the general election, but this thread is about the Democratic Candidates. The Republican gerrymandering, voter purges, and the like don't really come into play here.

Aridas said:
I think it might be of more note to poke at the decades of domestic smear jobs done on Hillary, honestly, when it comes to things outside her control. The Russian efforts likely shifted just enough to get Trump to win, but the effect there is more like the tip of an iceberg, with the GOP efforts being the not so visible main part of the iceberg.
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Yes, there were certainly a lot of things that shifted 2016 just enough for Trump to win. Nothing by itself was enough, but the decades of smear tactics, Comey's October Surprise, and Clinton herself not campaigning in states she thought were locked up all played a part. The attacks from the far left/bitter Bernie Bros also played a part. Similar to what they're trying to do for Biden now, these people were telling us that Clinton was on death's door, an alcoholic, a warmongerer, etc. I've seen how railing against the best candidate you have can help the worst candidate win. I'm not eager for that to happen again.
 
Garrison said:
Yes it absolutely is when you are using it to pretend there's no difference between Trump and Biden on healthcare.
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Good thing I never said that, how embarrassing that would be for me.

The lesser of two evils is still less evil. Obviously.

Biden and the Democratic party seems determined to really put that argument to the test by putting up such a weak candidate that promises nothing.

People have been speculating that a dead dog could beat Trump in 2020. Democrats seem to have accepted this as a challenge.
 
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wareyin said:
This is very true in the general election, but this thread is about the Democratic Candidates. The Republican gerrymandering, voter purges, and the like don't really come into play here.



Yes, there were certainly a lot of things that shifted 2016 just enough for Trump to win. Nothing by itself was enough, but the decades of smear tactics, Comey's October Surprise, and Clinton herself not campaigning in states she thought were locked up all played a part. The attacks from the far left/bitter Bernie Bros also played a part. Similar to what they're trying to do for Biden now, these people were telling us that Clinton was on death's door, an alcoholic, a warmongerer, etc. I've seen how railing against the best candidate you have can help the worst candidate win. I'm not eager for that to happen again.
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I noticed you didn't mention the DNC paving the way for the "electable" candidate as one of significant factors in the 2016 loss. Curious.

If Bernie hadn't run, HRC would not have had any serious primary contenders. That doesn't strike anyone as odd or a sign of an unhealthy political party?
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
The same could be said of Joe.

What fantasy world do we live in that McConnell is going to hand Biden a legislative win in 2020? His ACA reform goes nowhere.

McConnell is going to go back to the same obstruction tactics that worked so well in the late Obama years. Meanwhile Joe is going to whinge on and on about "bipartisanship" and "compromise". Once the Democrats get back into power, government dysfunction and budget deficit doom-saying becomes the key focus of the Republican legislators.

The Republicans, vile as they are, understand politics and the fight for power much more clearly than the Democrats, and they have the results to show it.
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Biden actually has experience building coalitions, negotiating, and convincing a wide group of people to work together. McConnell certainly won't "hand" him a win, but Biden seems to know how to wrangle enough people together to win anyway. Sanders? He has no people or leadership skills. He'd do his ultra-pure, my way or the highway dance, and be left wondering why even the Democrats in Congress don't work with him.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
I noticed you didn't mention the DNC paving the way for the "electable" candidate as one of significant factors in the 2016 loss. Curious.
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Why would it be curious that I didn't mention your false talking point? Every single election, both parties try to promote the candidate that they think will win who also fits well with the party. That you think it was somehow nefarious that it happened for the bazillionth time in a row speaks more of political naivete than anything else.

SuburbanTurkey said:
If Bernie hadn't run, HRC would not have had any serious primary contenders. That doesn't strike anyone as odd or a sign of an unhealthy political party?
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Given his abysmal showing with the vote counts, I'd say Sanders wasn't a serious primary contender either. In fact, I'd say that had the Democratic Party gone all in on a bombastic outsider who demands fealty to his visions alone rather than the parties goals, that would be a sign of an unhealthy party. Like the Republican Party, actually.
 
wareyin said:
Why would it be curious that I didn't mention your false talking point? Every single election, both parties try to promote the candidate that they think will win who also fits well with the party. That you think it was somehow nefarious that it happened for the bazillionth time in a row speaks more of political naivete than anything else.



Given his abysmal showing with the vote counts, I'd say Sanders wasn't a serious primary contender either. In fact, I'd say that had the Democratic Party gone all in on a bombastic outsider who demands fealty to his visions alone rather than the parties goals, that would be a sign of an unhealthy party. Like the Republican Party, actually.
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The Republicans won that election, remember? It was kind of a big deal at the time. What mental jiu-jitsu leads to interpret that as an undesirable outcome for their party?
 
I would like to apologize for suggesting that there may be something wrong with Joe Biden's mind, as seen in the interview below, he is quite well.

https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1247333355416219649

JOE BIDEN: “We cannot let this, we’ve never allowed any crisis from the Civil War straight through to the pandemic of 17, all the way around, 16, we have never, never let our democracy sakes second fiddle, way they, we can both have a democracy and ... correct the public health.”
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One thing I know for sure, that Trump, being a perfect gentleman, will not be taking advantage of these kinds of meandering, nonsense statements.
 
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SuburbanTurkey said:
The Republicans won that election, remember? It was kind of a big deal at the time. What mental jiu-jitsu leads to interpret that as an undesirable outcome for their party?
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Wait, you seriously don't think Trump winning the nomination was a sign of an unhealthy Republican Party? Yes, he won the election, and all of the outspoken people in the Republican Party who had opposed him were either kicked out of the party, or did an immediate 180 and planted their lips firmly on his ass (Lindsay Graham for instance). None of that is a sign of a healthy party. Nothing like that has happened in my lifetime to either party.
 
Too much utter nonsense & drivel in the last several posts to waste time responding to when I know the authors are too far gone down their DNC/media propaganda hole to listen anyway, but... Trump lacks the ability to identify when Biden is doing that kind of thing. But Trump also isn't who Biden needs to be concerned about.
 
wareyin said:
Yes, yes, you would prefer Trump. You have made that clear, thanks.
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So is that where the line is drawn now?

Ok, I'll put my skeptic hat on. There's no way for me to know the state of Biden's brain. But anyone can notice that he has been given several rambling, incoherent statements in the last few months. The cause of these repeated lapses of coherence is not known. For someone in a career where public speaking is an important element of the job, this seems significant.

Am I a Trump supporter for noticing this? Should we all be burying our heads in the sand? The emperor has no clothes, but only MAGA people are allowed to notice.

All these things that Biden critics have been pointing out - the rambling statements, the creepy videos of him pawing and kneading women and girls, the sexual assault accusation, the fail-son corruption claims - are all going to come raging back in the general. Whatever thin veneer of decency that the primary has had is going to fall away and Trump is going to pick these embarrassing issues up, blow them out of proportion, and run with them.

We're going to find out pretty soon whether these are fatal flaws, and the people getting pilloried for pointing them out when it wasn't too late may very well be vindicated.
 
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SuburbanTurkey said:
So is that where the line is drawn now?
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The line? There are 2 people we get to pick from: Trump and Biden. Nobody else has a shot. You are attacking Biden. You are not attacking Trump. In fact, you are attacking Biden over things that Trump is demonstrably worse about, yet you give Trump a free pass. How do you see this playing out?

SuburbanTurkey said:
, I'll put my skeptic hat on. There's no way for me to know the state of Biden's brain. But anyone can notice that he has been given several rambling, incoherent statements in the last few months. The cause of these repeated lapses of coherence is not known. For someone in a career where public speaking is an important element of the job, this seems significant.
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When do you plan on putting that skeptic hat on? Clearly you haven't yet, as you are ignoring all previously provided evidence against your pet theory, and repeating several debunked talking points yet again.

SuburbanTurkey said:
Am I a Trump supporter for noticing this? Should we all be burying our heads in the sand? The emperor has no clothes, but only MAGA people are allowed to notice.
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No, it's not that only Trump supporters are allowed to work to support Trump, it's more like people who work so hard to promote Trump are Trump supporters. MAGA people, if that's your preferred term.

SuburbanTurkey said:
All these things that Biden critics have been pointing out - the rambling statements, the creepy videos of him pawing and kneading women and girls, the sexual assault accusation, the fail-son corruption claims - are all going to come raging back in the general. Whatever thin veneer of decency that the primary has had is going to fall away and Trump is going to pick these embarrassing issues up, blow them out of proportion, and run with them.

We're going to find out pretty soon whether these are fatal flaws, and the people getting pilloried for pointing them out when it wasn't too late may very well be vindicated.
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When it wasn't too late? Do you still think Sanders can win somehow? Not even he can spell out a path to victory, he's just staying in for the glory now. And his supporters are doing their best to kill any chance of any progressive or left win at all.
 
Segnosaur said:
Which "border" are you referring to? The Democrats close to the political center? Those on the far right?

The fact is, no candidate will get universal appeal from each and every Democrat (or democratic-leaning) voter.
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During the early part of the primary season, there seemed to be a widespread belief that this time around, any candidate would get universal appeal from each and every Democrat and democratic-leaning voter. Sure, no nominee would be everyone's first pick, but even a ham sandwich could win the popular vote against OMB. So if a ham sandwich gets nominated, that's who everyone will vote for.

Now it seems that many Democrat and democratic-leaning voters were really hoping for a New York bagel with cream cheese and lox. If that's not on the menu, they'd rather have a **** sandwich instead.

Why are voters so weird?
 
wareyin said:
When do you plan on putting that skeptic hat on? Clearly you haven't yet, as you are ignoring all previously provided evidence against your pet theory, and repeating several debunked talking points yet again.
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Are you arguing that these statements from Biden aren't rambling, incoherent messes? Or just that it doesn't matter that this keeps happening?
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
Are you arguing that these statements from Biden aren't rambling, incoherent messes? Or just that it doesn't matter that this keeps happening?
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No. Have you found that skeptic hat yet? Maybe look under the bed?

When you do find it, maybe go back and look at the explanations you were given last time you tried this.


edited to add: I repeat my earlier question. How do you think attacking Trump's only opponent will play out for you? Will the masses write in Sanders? Or will Trump name Sanders as his VP and give you an excuse to fully back him? Or...what?
 
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Legitimate criticism of Biden now constitutes supporting Trump, even when you've repeatedly clarified that Trump is worse than Biden.

And even though this forum is largely liberal and we (the liberals here) all agree how horrible Trump is but disagree on how bad Biden is, thou shalt not debate why Biden is a terrible candidate and instead must only speak our daily (legitimate) Trump hate.

So sayeth the critical thinkers!
 
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