2020 Democratic Candidates Tracker

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Well.... considering how the whole discourse seems to keep falling back to Biden in every single discussion I enter, I'm gonna say he's most likely to be the Democratic nominee.

The candidates you mention don't get a lot of mainstream media attention. Combine that with the sheer number of people running and most people either don't know they are running or they recognize the name but know nothing about them. I've donated to multiple campaigns and looked at longer form interviews with several candidates including less well known ones such as Yang and Gabbard but there are still many candidates I know next to nothing about.

It is really unfortunate because some of them have some good ideas.
 
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The candidates you mention don't get a lot of mainstream media attention. Combine that with the sheer number of people running and most people either don't know they are running or they recognize the name but know nothing about them. I've donated to multiple campaigns and looked at longer form interviews with several candidates including less well known ones such as Yang and Gabbard but there are still many candidates I know next to nothing about.

It is really unfortunate because some of them have some good ideas.

Kinda need a little more out of a President than "has some good ideas."

They are part of a growing trend that I find irritating, running for President as a pre-interview for an administration position (and/or use their delegate count to leverage their way into said position in the backrooms at the convention).
 
Yawn. Wake me up when it's November or so. Or later. In the meantime, if polled I'll support my governor and former congress-critter, because he's got no chance at all. He did, at least, give me the chance to vote entirely legally in two different congressional districts in the same election.
 
...why Biden is polling so well. It really is quite simple: fear.

Fear that Donald might win again. Remember he was supposed to lose in 2016...

Biden... isn't a woman so dudes with goatees might actually vote Dem again...

So, here we are, with people so scared that we might get four more years of concentration camps, corruption and racism that they flock to the candidate that seems to be most assured of victory.
More commonly ,I suspect, it's the same calculus being applied that is always applied; Candidate X may have greater personal appeal, but has a much slimmer apparent chance of attaining a position to fulfill their promises so getting behind the less desirable candidate that can actually fulfill some of their goals makes the most sense.

Even Democrats with goatees (or VanDykes) can do that math.
This idea of electability is, in addition to being hopelessly circular (he has the support because he's electable because he has the support because he's electable because he has the support), simply can not serve as the explanation for supporting a political clone of the loser who found a way to lose with a winning hand last time. That's precisely the losing path that people who are primarily motivated by fear of losing again would be running away from screaming. Fear of what happened before causes avoidance of the traumatizing circumstances, not duplication. There's definitely something else. The only question is what.

I have my suspicion but no objective way at the moment to determine its accuracy or its odds of being correct compared to some hypothetical alternative. Remember that one of the things about him that make it so peculiar is that he's openly declared his overt contempt for a large chunk of the Democrat voter population (young adults), and his supporters didn't care because they weren't in that group; they're old. Just look at the videos from his public appearances: the audiences seem to consist entirely of great-grandparent-aged people. (His numbers have slid in the last couple of polls, but too late to be a result of this issue.) They were the voters whose votes got the country into its current state, which they see younger people saying isn't good for them and needs to be fixed, sometimes even complete with explicitly putting the blame right on them, the older voters (but it's a simple enough implication to figure out even when it's not made explicit). They see themselves getting attacked in a war of age groups (with other old candidates like Sanders & Warren joining the other side), and one of the classic human defensive reactions is to dig in and insist on sticking to the same old position.

That "digging in" tendency might be even stronger in the case of denial about having done stuff that's detrimental to your own kids & grandkids; notice how rare it is for people who refused to get medical help for their sick kids, but just kept praying while those kids died, to eventually admit "I killed my kid". That's a really long leap for a human brain to make, no matter how loudly the facts scream it in your face.

* * *

What stereotyped group is imagined as having goatees and being misogynist? I thought goatees were supposed to usually be stereotyped as belonging to a certain type of lefty. Is this one type of lefty calling another type of lefty misogynist in a specific left-vs-left thing I haven't encountered before? Or is it meant to describe some imagined goatee-wearing righty stereotype I've never encountered before? And either way, how was anybody outside of the little enclave circulating this new stereotype among themselves ever expected to know about it? Are we supposed to know this group's secret handshake and password, too?

* * *

Hillary wasn't "supposed to win" according to anybody who was paying attention to the facts instead of just substituting their own wishes in the place of the facts. The polls were right all along. She never showed any particular sign of having much electability at any time.
 
Kinda need a little more out of a President than "has some good ideas."

They are part of a growing trend that I find irritating, running for President as a pre-interview for an administration position (and/or use their delegate count to leverage their way into said position in the backrooms at the convention).

Every candidate has strengths and weaknesses, areas where they are more or less knowledgeable. I'll take candidates with some good ideas over candidates with some bad ideas or no ideas at all who just promote the status quo. The latter are the ones who shouldn't have entered in the first place.

Even if they don't win the presidency. If they bring those good ideas to the public consciousness or get in the administration and work to implement them from there that's still progress.
 
This idea of electability is, in addition to being hopelessly circular (he has the support because he's electable because he has the support because he's electable because he has the support), simply can not serve as the explanation for supporting a political clone of the loser who found a way to lose with a winning hand last time. That's precisely the losing path that people who are primarily motivated by fear of losing again would be running away from screaming. Fear of what happened before causes avoidance of the traumatizing circumstances, not duplication. There's definitely something else. The only question is what.

I have my suspicion but no objective way at the moment to determine its accuracy or its odds of being correct compared to some hypothetical alternative. Remember that one of the things about him that make it so peculiar is that he's openly declared his overt contempt for a large chunk of the Democrat voter population (young adults), and his supporters didn't care because they weren't in that group; they're old. Just look at the videos from his public appearances: the audiences seem to consist entirely of great-grandparent-aged people. (His numbers have slid in the last couple of polls, but too late to be a result of this issue.) They were the voters whose votes got the country into its current state, which they see younger people saying isn't good for them and needs to be fixed, sometimes even complete with explicitly putting the blame right on them, the older voters (but it's a simple enough implication to figure out even when it's not made explicit). They see themselves getting attacked in a war of age groups (with other old candidates like Sanders & Warren joining the other side), and one of the classic human defensive reactions is to dig in and insist on sticking to the same old position.

That "digging in" tendency might be even stronger in the case of denial about having done stuff that's detrimental to your own kids & grandkids; notice how rare it is for people who refused to get medical help for their sick kids, but just kept praying while those kids died, to eventually admit "I killed my kid". That's a really long leap for a human brain to make, no matter how loudly the facts scream it in your face.

* * *

What stereotyped group is imagined as having goatees and being misogynist? I thought goatees were supposed to usually be stereotyped as belonging to a certain type of lefty. Is this one type of lefty calling another type of lefty misogynist in a specific left-vs-left thing I haven't encountered before? Or is it meant to describe some imagined goatee-wearing righty stereotype I've never encountered before? And either way, how was anybody outside of the little enclave circulating this new stereotype among themselves ever expected to know about it? Are we supposed to know this group's secret handshake and password, too?

* * *

Hillary wasn't "supposed to win" according to anybody who was paying attention to the facts instead of just substituting their own wishes in the place of the facts. The polls were right all along. She never showed any particular sign of having much electability at any time.
I think you are mistaken in one sense when tagging Biden as a "Hillary clone", while simultaneously being correct in another.
Hillary Clinton was a very popular target of the right for decades. The Rush Limbaughs of the media had been making her a target of their "two minutes of hate" since she was a potential FLOTUS. By the time she became a presidential candidate the tactic (and her inability to overcome the tactic-due primarily to a generally unappealing personality) had made her a seriously distasteful choice to many voters who would have found Trump completely unacceptable if they didn't find HRC even more distasteful. There were some "never Trump" abstainers, but there were also a great many "never Hillary" people throughout the Midwest and rust belt who would have brought themselves to vote against Trump had anyone but she been the Democratic nominee.

Biden doesn't provoke that kind of vitriol from the voters who will vote for a Democrat in order to get rid of Trump. In that way he is not a "Hillary clone" even though his policies and ties to the establishment are analogous.

As to the facial hair reference. I had no idea what the poster I was replying to had against those who wear a goatee. Like you, I was perplexed by the slight- wearing a VanDyke myself.
 
As to the facial hair reference. I had no idea what the poster I was replying to had against those who wear a goatee. Like you, I was perplexed by the slight- wearing a VanDyke myself.
I could be wrong, but I think the whole 'goatee' thing was a reference to an episode of Star Trek.... (Captain kirk goes to an alternate universe where everyone good is bad, and Spock is sporting a goatee. So people sometimes jokingly suggest anyone with a goatee is evil.)
 
Hillary Clinton was a very popular target of the right for decades. The Rush Limbaughs of the media had been making her a target of their "two minutes of hate" since she was a potential FLOTUS.

I've heard that the GOP mudslinging was going strong long, long before then. Back when Bill was the governor of Arkansas, for example.
 
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The history of criticism against HRC compared to that against Trump is very instructive:

Basically, anyone who bothered to get familiar with Trump knows that he is exactly the same scumbag that he has always been: he is not getting worse (except maybe mentally), his words (and few actions) just have so much more impact.

Compare that to HRC, who went from cold-hearted spouse to 'uppity First Wife playing politics' to political mastermind to criminal, sex-trafficker, satanist and baby ****** and eater.

In the interest of restoring balance, the Lamestream Media must finally tell us about Trump's daily puppy-burnings and him getting pegged by Melania whilst wearing a diaper!
 
Quinnipiac Poll: Trump Loses to All Democrats he's matched up against

Today’s Quinnipiac poll finds all the better known Democratic candidates would defeat Donald Trump if the election were held today.

Joe Biden leads by 53% to 40%

Bernie Sanders 51%, Trump 42%
Kamala Harris 49%, Trump 41%
Elizabeth Warren 49%, Trump 42%
Pete Buttigieg 47%, Trump 42%
Cory Booker 47%, Trump 42%

Buttigieg Delivers Key Foreign Policy Speech

Vox describes the speech as follows:

Pete Buttigieg is the first Democratic presidential candidate to actually articulate foreign policy proposals beyond general themes and ideas.

His speech went much farther than any other 2020 Democratic candidate has so far in terms of policy specifics.

In content, it seems pretty solid, too.
 
Biden is not a shoe-in. Some people sound like they are fine with the media picking the candidate.

Biden vs the current three tied for second place, he loses by a wide margin.
 
As long as I have Vox's opinion, I don't need to know the actual content.

The only lingering question I have is why you felt it necessary to add your superfluous endorsement to Vox's more than sufficient nod.

Hmm? What I quoted of Vox's opinion is that it's the most detailed so far, in short. My opinion was that the content itself seems solid. The two are not the same thing.

Biden is not a shoe-in. Some people sound like they are fine with the media picking the candidate.

Biden vs the current three tied for second place, he loses by a wide margin.

Minor addition to make that a non-trivial assertion. The "current three tied for second place" are largely pulling from the same group.
 
I could be wrong, but I think the whole 'goatee' thing was a reference to an episode of Star Trek.... (Captain kirk goes to an alternate universe where everyone good is bad, and Spock is sporting a goatee. So people sometimes jokingly suggest anyone with a goatee is evil.)


Partially right. I often do mention goatees with that episode in mind.



It also stems from my experience in real life when a friend and I noticed in 2016 that every guy we knew with a goatee said he hated Trump but just could not vote for a woman because he felt it was too emasculating. We ended up calling this the "Goatee Liberal" faction that don't really like conservatives but also are too insecure to ever vote for a woman.
 
Biden is not a shoe-in. Some people sound like they are fine with the media picking the candidate.

Biden vs the current three tied for second place, he loses by a wide margin.
My personal prediction is that Kamala picks up momentum after the debates at the expense of Biden. I also think Mayor Pete will pick up support after the debates.
 
Biden is not a shoe-in. Some people sound like they are fine with the media picking the candidate.

Biden vs the current three tied for second place, he loses by a wide margin.

Unless they've changed the rules without me knowing it, the amount of votes of "the field" doesn't really matter. We have no numerical values on who'd be the second, third or fourth choice of those supporters. As the Republican Rodeo showed in 2016, a broader field means that no one's going to have a majority, but if they conveniently drop out one-by-one, the big loser becomes the big winner. Indeed, rather than the votes all going to a Trump opponent, some did but others went to Trump. He didn't have a majority in any state prior to April, I believe.

We haven't seen this crowded a field on the Dem side in more than 25 years, and that one featured homer-ism in the early bellwether states, so it's hard to compare, Bill Clinton had only one clear majority outside of the Old South before mid-March. That sounds early but there were 21 contests before then. Clinton got big majorities in the south but in the other fifteen primaries didn't fare nearly as well.

In short, counting everyone who doesn't currently support Biden or any candidate as being "against" them is a mistake. The second tier might group their strength if two were to pull out after Iowa, but they'd have to make it clear that they were standing for the progressive left and wanted to all gang up on the center. Since each of those three is planning on becoming the clear leader of that segment, it ain't gonna happen.

ETA: It's "shoo in".
 
The second tier might group their strength if two were to pull out after Iowa, but they'd have to make it clear that they were standing for the progressive left and wanted to all gang up on the center. Since each of those three is planning on becoming the clear leader of that segment, it ain't gonna happen.

ETA: It's "shoo in".

Sanders and Warren will probably team up, I think:

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/20/bernie-sanders-elizabeth-warren-2020-919825

"BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Bernie Sanders says he speaks with Elizabeth Warren nearly every day — just not about 2020."

"...with some progressive activists alarmed that they might split the vote, allowing a more moderate Democrat to win the nomination — Sanders suggested Friday that a pre-2020 discussion among like-minded potential candidates could be forthcoming.

Asked whether he and other progressive contenders should hold talks in an effort to ensure one of them prevails, Sanders told POLITICO, “I suspect that in the coming weeks and months, there will be discussions.”

They go way back, too:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2...rals-senate/vjyyHGz38b5ct4w1FIFp4N/story.html

“They were kindred spirits, that’s for darn sure,” recalled the station’s longtime owner, Ken Squier, of those radio shows back in 2003 and 2004. Said Warren: “We sometimes could finish each other’s sentences.”

"The two first met nearly two decades ago when Warren was invited to speak at a dinner party for liberal lawmakers at the Washington home of Representative Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat."

"Over the years, Warren returned several times to DeLauro’s dinner salons, offering her views on the economic forces chipping away at the middle class. Sanders was there every time, she said. Then they talked in his office and by phone. “It was organic,” Warren said of the relationship. “It kind of grew up.”

Also, about 2015:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...WHFBHWbBiwYHOGIdixj5iq2ElwAbI0hura68TWO7ZHW0Y
"Press said that Sanders felt passionately that progressive issues such as stemming income inequality should be front and center in the Democratic primary.
“Somebody had to do it, and if somebody else did it, fine,” Press said. “If Elizabeth Warren had run, I’m pretty confident in saying Bernie Sanders never would have run.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...pMdOQpQ6aWHPG_Gf0MkL9_V1HaEW_peIcsz4G6y0mlwPc
"Sugarman suggested his friend would not have entered the race, saying that had Warren run, she would have saved the Vermont senator “a lot of anguish
 

I'd take a lot of those statements with a grain of salt. If Warren does really well in Iowa, do you think Bernie drops out with NH coming up? NH will be the real Bernie v. Elizabeth test - they're both from neighboring states, but Bernie's got a solid base their historically.

I can see one or the other supporting the remaining one when whittling down time comes but what I was suggesting was like the move in Alaska last GE when one of the candidates dropped out so the Dem vote wasn't split.
 
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