No offense, but liberal Democrats are masters at not winning elections or having any real understanding of the American electorate. Here you are, talking about election results from 50 years ago when 2016 just happened and changed the entire calculus. Donald Trump was supposed to lose in landslide, too. Democrats tried to help him win the GOP nomination because he looked like the easiest win. Four years later, they've learned nothing from the worst defeat in a long period of futility and defeat stretching back to, well, McGovern honestly.
Young people don't vote because Republicans are evil and Democrats are fake and only pretend to care about what's important to them. You can't make Republicans stop being evil, but you can actually try to make reliable voters out of young people. Bernie Sanders is literally the only candidate who gets that and takes it seriously. A smarter party would be doing everything it can to clear the field for him and shout his messages from the rooftops, the way Republicans do for Trump.
He didn't really have a chance in 2016. A competent competitor would have stomped him way before the Iowa caucuses. He was a nobody going up against the best know and most well connected politician on planet earth. Four years have passed.
If Bernie Sanders can't beat Donald Trump, we may as well not bother having an election, because Biden is Hillary without most of her advantages. I'd rather take the chance on losing a blowout than take a path that is sure to end in a narrow and heartbreaking defeat.
Want to know why Republicans win? It's because they don't waste their time and money trying to appeal to people like you, a committed and regular voter who is never going to change sides. They saw their lame establishment candidates lose to Obama and rightly decided to ditch the lame establishment.
Biden is Hillary, Hillary is John Kerry, John Kerry is Al Gore.
What do they all have in common? They were boring. What do I mean by "boring"? I don't mean they weren't jumping over cliffs in their Harleys. I mean they didn't speak to the average person's needs. The only thing they wanted to do was be a bulwark against the excesses of the republicans. Yes, that's important, but it's not exciting. The "Safe candidate" isn't safe ABF. Never has been. Obama ran as a progressive, that's why he won.
We need a flat out revolution in this country. That's all there is to it. The two parties are both corrupt, and both have convinced themselves their corruption is a necessary evil because "that's how the world works". It's time to change how the world works. It's happened before. It can happen again. No, let me rephrase that. It MUST happen again, or we are doomed.
Biden will NOT stop the coming environmental catastophe. He's not interested in that. He doesn't care. Sanders MIGHT stop it, because he's backed by an excited support network of people who want a revolution.
Take the risk ABF, or you will die. Or we all will.
And now this! The DNC wants to change the rules to allow Bloomberg into the race. That's literally the only reason they could have to put their finger on the scale this late in the race and remove the requirement for a certain number of individual donars. They also want to undo the one positive change they implemented when they had to eat crow back in 2016, they want to give superdelegates MORE power now. They're afraid. Some people speaking on their behalf have flat out said they're terrified of Sanders or Warren winning. Good. They're corrupt. They call our request they not take money from billionaires to fund their campaigns a "purity test", well hear this. Yes, yes it is, and when two candidates PASS that purity test, it proves it's not unreasonable. Frankly, it's embaressing that they are effectively mad at us for wanting our candidates to be good people. That's what they mean when they say "purity test", they can only be mad because they don't pass it.
I'm sick of the whole system myself ABF. This may just be our very last chance to ever have real influence on the election ever again. If they tighten those rules, the establishment dems will have sealed up the democratic party against the public ever having a true representative again. They'll call their requirements "accepting political realities", but in reality they will have promised that the tree of liberty will need to be nurtured with blood. The republicans are already lost, if the democrats go that way, there will be literally no difference between voting democrat or republican, and hey ABF, you've constantly said anyone that votes for a 3rd party is morally in the wrong for doing so because they "have no chance" and spoil elections, so where does that leave us? Revolution.
Vote for Bernie, avoid revolution. It's comical isn't it? I mean seriously, listen to what I'm saying, it's pretty extreme. But- in looking at the rather disturbing results of poll after poll, especially the ones that focus on Generation X who have largely been the most disaffected of citizens, the U.S. is a powder keg right now.
If the democratic party changes the rules to prevent Sanders from winning, that's the match. Not because they worship Sanders but because the notion that our democracy is real will be stripped away. It may not have actually been true for 50 years now anyway, but if you pull back the veil, you're dealing with angry angry people. Just listen to what Trump supporters have threatened to do if Trump is removed from office. Now, don't get me wrong, Trump SHOULD be removed from office, and he lied to all his supporters and broke every one of his promises to help them, but they are coming from the same place as the progressive supporters on the left. The whole country is hurting right now. The election is the one last peaceful place to express that hurt. If people stop believing the election actually reflects them, what do you think they will do?
What do you think is going to happen if Biden gets picked and then he goes on to lose against Trump? We are not so far from France right now.
Numerous early reports seem to indicate that Biden didn't even qualify in a lot of places, but the real takeaway here is that caucuses are STUPID and I hate them.
Why does Biden think he needs to review the caucus results before the DNC can publish them? Why him specifically? Did he forget he's IN the race and that such an act would be a sign of favoritism? I wouldn't be surprised, he seems to have forgotten a lot of things over the years, such as whether or not he supports social security, or whether or not he wrote his own speeches.
Well, in any case Biden may be right that it's worth investigating, but it should certainly not be HIS team doing that. Apparently this dumb cell phone app that never should have been cooked up in the first place was designed by a company called "Shadow", and that company was funded by Pete Buttigieg. That- is a very big conflict of interest.
At least numerous people from various campaigns have been collecting Caucus results across the state independent of this app, so it can be cross checked with those results.
They reported 62% of it, then stopped right where Buttigieg shows a narrow lead. Interesting...
The DNC is personally taking over counting the remaining results rather than leaving it to each district. Yea... I think Biden may have had a pretty good point. He's got every reason to be mad now, the DNC now favors Buttigieg and tossed him under the bus. The whole thing's pretty suspicious.
Biden seems to have learned a lesson from the loss, because now he's criticizing Bernie and Buttigieg in a way he wasn't before. If he wants to win he'll need to actually put some effort into it...
But as for Iowa, it is bizarre that they are having so many problems; it's a really bad look for that state and for the Democrats. That is part of why this is such an awful week for the left -- we have the Iowa debacle, Trump being let off for his crimes by his craven Senate Republicans, and Trump's best approval rating of his Presidency in the latest Gallup poll - 49%! Proving Trump's crimes has galvanized Republicans to... stand in lockstep behind him, because this country is very obviously broken now and democracy sure is in trouble.
(4th February 2020, 5:08 AM)Dark Jaguar Wrote: [ -> ]Numerous early reports seem to indicate that Biden didn't even qualify in a lot of places, but the real takeaway here is that caucuses are STUPID and I hate them.
The irony is, Bernie insisted that Iowa keep its caucuses because in '16 caucuses helped him significantly...
Quote:Biden will NOT stop the coming environmental catastophe. He's not interested in that. He doesn't care. Sanders MIGHT stop it, because he's backed by an excited support network of people who want a revolution.
Take the risk ABF, or you will die. Or we all will.
The awful thing about this is that I don't know of any way to actually get what needs to be done done before REALLY horrible global warming effects hit -- massive environmental collapse, etc. Most people are too short-sighted to think far enough ahead to support the policies that are needed. "It would be bad for me now, so I don't support that" say even many Democrats...
That said Biden's platform on the environment is not awful, as he wants to build on the insufficient-but-at-least-it's-something Paris accords Obama passed and sounds like he'll take climate a lot more seriously than Obama did, but yes like a lot of issues he's not the best on climate... but on the other hand, if he wins us the largest victory in November and could help us pull off a miracle and win the Senate back, then how much does that matter? He believes in taking action on climate, and would certainly pass anything passed by the House and Senate. Trying to pull off that win-the-Senate thing is perhaps the most important thing on the ballot this year; it'll be incredibly difficult to pull off because of how badly the Senate is rigged in small right-wing states' favor, but it IS possible this year if things go really well.
On that note, Nancy Pelosi is pretty awesome; tearing up her copy of Trump's speech, on camera, was a great move. :)
A nationwide primary, open to independants in every state with a transparent process for counting it all, that's the system we need.
It's bizarre that people are trying to somehow blame Sanders for this. I'm pretty sure using an unreliable cell phone application made by a company literally called "Shadow" that's funded by Pete isn't what he had in mind.
Nancy Pelosi ripping up the speech just looked to me like a neoliberal fossil's impotent frustration as her efforts result in Donald Trump riding high and triumphant, as everyone outside of the bubble knew he would from the moment this all started. It was just a YASS QUEEN gesture which might make some good memes but nothing else.
My biggest issue with the Democratic establishment is not on ideology or policy, it's that they are terrible at politics and never achieve meaningful or lasting victories. It's a culture of defeat and surrender and nothing will get better while these people are still in charge.
There were many mistakes made over this whole process. If a mistake favors a candidate, that's an anomaly. If two favor a single candidate, okay, that's a coincidence. 5 different mistakes specifically favored the man who funded the programming group literally named "Shadow". This whole thing stinks like yesterday's diapers.
Apparently Yang supporters have reason to be mad too. His staff were repeatedly denied entry to various caucus sites.
EVERYONE is mad about this. Well, except Pete. Also, it does seem Sanders won this thing in reality. The chair of the DNC has called for a recanvasing though, so you know what? Forget it. I don't care about this state any more. Let's just hope this isn't the start of a trend. If this keeps happening, the DNC may use it as an excuse to "forgo the primary and have a closed door session to pick Biden, I mean pick the candidate we want to compete against Trump". That would be the end of the party.
That reminds me. It's a shame we lost the original Perfect Dark thread. That thing was a legend. I'm pretty sure it had just shy of 100 pages by the end.
Electability! The circular reasoning that says you shouldn't vote for someone because they aren't electable. You know, a self fulfilling prophecy. Or self defeating in this case, like Y2K and (hopefully) global warming.
Now, there are a few ways to know if someone has a shot at being elected in advance (presumably what electability is). One of those ways is to run a primary. Sanders is off to a good start there, so hey, he seems more electable on that metric compared to Biden. However, is that fair? Doesn't that only tell us how the left will vote? Two things. First, the POINT of a primary is to pick someone that is electable, isn't it? If you're going to say that the person that does best in the primary has no shot in the general, why exactly are we doing primaries? Secondly, if you allow more independants, you get a wider view beyond JUST the democratic party, better feeding that primary purpose of the um- primary. It is wrong, I think, to say that independants necessarily reflect the vanishing "centrist wing" of the American public though. More and more, the independants represent idealogical extremes that aren't being met by either party. Right now, the republican party is meeting the far right, but the progressives feel the democratic party has betrayed them (evidence, this very thread you're reading, ABF), so THOSE are the influencers needed. Thirdly, kill the caucus. I mean, that's more of an objective than a point, but objective sustained! Forthly, don't suggest, as certain Goldbergs have, that the progressive wing needs to form their own party. They did that, multiple times, dating back to the 90's. Every single time the democrats yelled at the 3rd parties for "election spoiling", as though they have no right to exist and "meddle" with the two party system. So, fine, progressives accept that it's a two party system and they have to target a party to change it from within. Yes, we are trying to completely overthrow the party establishment and utterly redefine what a democrat is. That's the goal, that's the POINT of all this. If that upsets you, sorry but we're not sorry. We would have done it to the republicans but frankly there's a better chance of success in the democratic wing. Hey, maybe if we get that election reform thing going with an amendment to shift the entire electoral process to something like either ranked voting or scored voting (I prefer the latter) we can BREAK the two party system forever, but you know who isn't EVER going to let that happen right now? BOTH parties in the two party system.
So what about the OTHER way to determine who's electable? Well, there's always polls. Sanders tops the polls now. Well, that could change, we're only two states in. But- how do you look at poll after poll saying not just that Sanders leads nationally, not just that Sanders leads in a majority of state primaries, but also that he's stronger on the issues AND that he has the best matchup against Trump and THEN say that Sanders isn't electable? What then is it? I submit that at that point it's either denial or a transparent attempt to sway voters into not voting thus "proving" the initial thesis.
I guess what I'm saying is that right now, as the polls stand, Sanders is the most electable.
But hey, there's always the "we'll lose the senate!" argument. This is why I don't subscribe to cults of personality. There are numerous house and senate races going on right now where progressives are jumping into the fray to shift the party in both wings of congress. They are VERY important, and while I saw a lot of focus on those smaller races even up through the start of the new year, I'm seeing distressing silence on them for the past few weeks. That can't happen. We need to get out word on those progressive state level candidates too, and even the governer races across the nation. Kansas, KANSAS has a democrat for governer, this is doable.
Oh and I've been meaning to say this. Sanders DID support Hillary. He ran more rallies boosting her than ANYONE else save Hillary's own family. As for fighting dirty, Sanders did no such thing. He famously runs purely on policy. Hillary was the one that fought dirty, against Obama, and her own supporters didn't support Obama in that election. I mean, neither did Sanders in Hillary's election run, but number by number it would appear that Hillary's supporters supported Obama LESS than Sander's supporters supported Hillary.
That should diffuse any lingering resentment towards the man after 2016, I hope.
Okay fine, to be fair (and balanced) I should add things I disagree with Sanders on, since it's pretty clear after this I'm leaning heavily towards him. I'd have swung for Warren if she didn't seem to be tanking as of late (plus her odd choice to turn a single health care battle into TWO health care battles), but here we are. I prefer scored voting to ranked voting. Mathematically, it manages to avoid the problems any voting system that forces individuals to pick a winner does, and I think overall it's better to shoot for the superior option than have to revise it again later on. That's a more nuanced one. Here's a clearer one. Recently Sanders was asked if he still believes, as he wrote about 50 years ago, that billionaires should be "outlawed". He went into his policy hard, which is fine, but he dodged the question. I think he should have been direct and said a straight "banning" law isn't his policy now, and that rather he is focusing on taxing those making more than enough to live out every fantasy they've ever had. In other words, an answer more like "no not in that form" would have been the right one. Dodgy answers never sit well. Okay, minor as well.
"Have you seen Joe Rogan's podcast?"
Too many people ask me this. He's crazy popular. I don't like him, I don't like his views. No, I don't watch it. But, he recently promoted Sanders. Their positions on trans people are opposite, so what does that mean? Will Sanders compromise his views? Well, so far, that hasn't happened. He hasn't changed any of his policies, and frankly Rogan seems to be the one changing his views to be more alligned with progressive values. That's a win, also if ALL the people watching his podcast are hearing him promote Sanders, FOR his views, then they're going to have eye opening moments reviewing it. Rogan promoted Sanders to a massive field of people that honestly need their views changed, and Sanders didn't need to compromise one bit.
That's good, BUT! Then Sanders promoted the promotion, he boosted Rogan. He didn't need to do that, REALLY didn't need to because Joe Rogan ALREADY has a major platform, and it turned off a number of trans supporters in the process. That was a bad move. The better move would have been simply to ignore it and continue, let the benefits swarm in and compromise nothing. So yes, that one still stings. In the context of the rest of the platform though, it's no deal breaker any more than Warren's previous positions are for her, and the progressive side of the candidates as a whole have FAR fewer nasty surprises than say, Bloomberg.
Oh yes, Bloomberg's coming. Just you wait, he's been swarming the airwaves here in Oklahoma, HERE! And he's got billions, you know, THOUSANDS OF MILLIONS, so he's never going to exhaust himself. He's in this until the very end, you know, as a hobby. He BOUGHT a change in the rules just to get himself on the debate stage. So, the rest of the party especially the progressives now have to deal with the last hurrah- massive outspending the likes of which no one has ever seen before. From the man who instituted Stop & Frisk. That program that systemically if not explicitly targeted people of color, and got Bloomberg the Ice Key in his old save file. He is currently claiming that he "realized it didn't work and ended it". Yes, he ended it, because of a court order, which he fought against hard. He didn't Swap out Stop & Frisk because of a change of heart or because of the sheer weight of statistical evidence, no, he argued instead that it was fine that people of color were targeted because for "some reason" (racism) they're just the ones "doing all the crimes". So yeah, don't trust Bloomberg! He's awful, he just hides it better than Trump. In some ways, that's scarier.
I wasn't taking Bloomberg seriously, but with the way the Democratic Party is failing to actually pick a leader, he might have a real shot... though the disaster option of a contested convention is maybe even more likely, due to the Democrats' choice to distribute delegates to the top several finishers in each state and that so far nobody has won any kind of victory -- it's looking like in New Hampshire Bernie will win a very narrow popular-vote victory that will translate to the same number of delegates as Buttigieg. Winning NH by under 2% is pretty uninspiriting for the guy who got over 50% of the vote there in '16, but there are many more options beyond just Bernie (and Hillary) this time so that makes sense. Last time Bernie was the default "not Hillary" option, but he's far from the only "not Biden" option this time. His devoted core base votes for Bernie and Bernie only of course, but he's not making inroads beyond that.
So with Iowa and New Hampshire failing to to do much more beyond boost Klobuchar (20% in NH is impressive!) and Buttigiet and damage Warren and Biden, the threat of a contested convention is definitely rising. And again, party rules are part of why -- as I just said, where Trump won in '16 in part because of the Republicans' "the leader gets all the delegates" rules, the Dems' "top 3+ get delegates" rules make it hard for someone to win in a race like this, you need to really pile up the delegates to get over half for the first ballot at the convention. It could happen that someone breaks out at some point in the next month and starts getting those kinds of victories, and at this point I don't know if I can speculate on who that'd be -- maybe Sanders though I doubt it, maybe Buttigieg but his numbers with minorities are terrible, maybe Klobuchar despite her reputation for being abusive to her staff, maybe Bloomberg... and on that note, and liberal celebrating Biden's collapse shouldn't if the end result ins a Bloomberg candidacy, because where Biden is a moderate to liberal Democrat Bloomberg is well to his right! Because of his money Bloomberg might be able to win, but ugh, I'd much rather have a better candidate than that on the issues...
But anyway, if that first ballot doesn't have one person with a majority then we have that contested convention, and that will beat BAD mess -- look up '68 if you don't know about it, for example. The damaging '80 primary fight between Teddy Kennedy and Pres. Carter is also instructive. It'd lead to hard feelings and whichever side loses having a hard time turning right around to win in November behind a candidate they've been fighting against, and if Bernie, for example, has the most delegates but doesn't get picked as nominee because nobody who isn't a Bernie diehard wants to support him (as is often true) Bernie's cult-like following would be SO mad... that would go terribly. But what would be the alternative, running a candidate who'd probably lose in a blowout, and anyway picking Bernie there would lead to lots of hard feelings on the more centrist side. There is no real winner for a contested convention besides Donald Trump, but with us having no leader it could well happen.
And yes, I do think Bernie would lose badly. Yes, right now he polls decently against Trump, but a lot of that is because the Republicans have spent four years now 1) saying nothing negative about Bernie and 2) bashing any other leading Democrat. There's a reason for their behavior, they want to face Bernie because they know that as soon as he becomes the nominee they can open the floodgates on him and destroy him with a massive negative ad campaign hitting him for his socialism, etc, etc. Messing with the other party's primaries in order to try to get a preferred candidate is a common political practice both sides have dabbled in here and there, and that is absolutely what the Republicans are doing with Bernie once again, just like they and the Russians both did in '16. Sure, you could say that Bernie would win anyway, but seriously, socialism still polls pretty badly in this country. I am highly skeptical. Look up, for example, how in '12 Claire McCaskill ran ads saying how Todd Akin was "too conservative for Missouri", hoping that the Republicans would pick him. They did, then he said that "legitimate rape" line, and presto, she managed to extend her political career for six years longer than it otherwise would have gone.
(5th February 2020, 6:01 PM)Weltall Wrote: [ -> ]Nancy Pelosi ripping up the speech just looked to me like a neoliberal fossil's impotent frustration as her efforts result in Donald Trump riding high and triumphant, as everyone outside of the bubble knew he would from the moment this all started. It was just a YASS QUEEN gesture which might make some good memes but nothing else.
No, it was a power move showing that she knows how to use the media to her advantage, like how Trump does but for our side. It was a great move. She is very good at getting under Trump's skin and that's awesome.
Quote:My biggest issue with the Democratic establishment is not on ideology or policy, it's that they are terrible at politics and never achieve meaningful or lasting victories. It's a culture of defeat and surrender and nothing will get better while these people are still in charge.
Heh... well, you know the old joke, right? One person says to another, 'what political party do you belong to?' And the other one says 'I don't belong to a party, I'm a Democrat.' Or something like that. Republicans are much better at falling in line than Democrats, that has always been true. The idea that Democrats never make major lasting victories is not in any way true however, don't exaggerate to that extent! From the New Deal to the ACA (Obamacare) Dems do succeed sometimes.
(11th February 2020, 9:23 AM)etoven Wrote: [ -> ]At anyrate. If any more shit, hits any more fans this threads going to need it's own harddrive to store the SQL database on.
Heh,.. I tried to make a new thread at some point but got pushback against it. I'd be happy to have a new thread though...
Quote:And yes, I do think Bernie would lose badly. Yes, right now he polls decently against Trump, but a lot of that is because the Republicans have spent four years now 1) saying nothing negative about Bernie and 2) bashing any other leading Democrat. There's a reason for their behavior, they want to face Bernie because they know that as soon as he becomes the nominee they can open the floodgates on him and destroy him with a massive negative ad campaign hitting him for his socialism, etc, etc. Messing with the other party's primaries in order to try to get a preferred candidate is a common political practice both sides have dabbled in here and there, and that is absolutely what the Republicans are doing with Bernie once again, just like they and the Russians both did in '16. Sure, you could say that Bernie would win anyway, but seriously, socialism still polls pretty badly in this country. I am highly skeptical. Look up, for example, how in '12 Claire McCaskill ran ads saying how Todd Akin was "too conservative for Missouri", hoping that the Republicans would pick him. They did, then he said that "legitimate rape" line, and presto, she managed to extend her political career for six years longer than it otherwise would have gone.
In other words, they'll say the same things about Sanders that they do about literally every Democrat ever.
We had Matt Bevin running ads in Kentucky last year accusing Andy Beshear of being a socialist who wants to take away everyone's health care and that goober is as close to a Republican as you can be without actually being one.
This is why Democrats don't win elections, they run scared from attacks instead of punching back. The strategy is always to maximize gains from the existing base instead of ever making a meaningful attempt to grow their voter base by trying to reach out to the roughly half of all Americans who don't see any good reason to vote and give them one. You pretty much need to be a registered and engaged voter to care about anything establishment Democrats sell, but absolutely anyone understands the nightmare of living paycheck to paycheck and facing the reality of financial doom from even a minor hospital visit.
The New Deal was a different Democratic Party, which did what it wanted to do and didn't care if the Republicans didn't like it. That was a Democratic Party which was not afraid to attempt "socialist" policies. That was such a miserable failure in this deeply conservative country that they literally had to amend the Constitution because FDR couldn't stop winning elections. And that was 80-90 years ago!
ABF, nothing at all will stop the republicans from making the most outrageous possible accusations against ANY candidate we run. Observe the past! They called Obama a socialist and a tyrant, and they said the same thing about Hillary, and they flat out lied about Biden and his son. I think they had a whole impeachment trial over it recently I dunno it's not like it was a major news story or anything. It doesn't matter how far you try to reach across the aisle, they're going to chop off your hand. Every time.
The biggest lesson we're trying to get across here is "reaching across the aisle" is a failed strategy, and it will fail again if we try it again. The ONLY method that will work is simply EMBRACING progressive policies, honestly and openly saying that IS what we intend to do, and trying to convince as many voters as possible that this is the right course of action. That's it. Not compromising- which doesn't inspire people. Not pretending we're something we're not, which modern voters, even the Trump cult, see RIGHT through now. No, this is now a battle of extreme ideologies. Pick a side.
Of course the Republicans will say insane stuff about any Democrat, and will call them all socialists, but it's different when the candidate themself self-identifies as such!
Quote: The biggest lesson we're trying to get across here is "reaching across the aisle" is a failed strategy, and it will fail again if we try it again. The ONLY method that will work is simply EMBRACING progressive policies, honestly and openly saying that IS what we intend to do, and trying to convince as many voters as possible that this is the right course of action. That's it. Not compromising- which doesn't inspire people. Not pretending we're something we're not, which modern voters, even the Trump cult, see RIGHT through now. No, this is now a battle of extreme ideologies. Pick a side.
Going too far left in response will lead to a result like Corbyn 2019 in the UK.
No it won't. Corbyn didn't turn off voters because he was "too far left". That election was ENTIRELY about Brexit, and Corbyn was anti-brexit. That's what happened there, according to exit polls.
Our political climate doesn't match their's.
Also, why is it the democrats that always have to go to the middle? The republicans didn't do that at ALL last time and they won. It's WORKING for them. We TRIED going to the middle, and we lost, and every single time we run a centrist compromise, we lose! Figure it out man!
If what we're wanting happens and Sanders actually becomes the nominee, I think we're going to see a dragon wake up in ABF. A blocky lego dragon but still it's going to be interesting to see him start to get excited for all those policies we both know he really wants. I'm looking forward to us all being on the same side.
Bernie Sanders is now in the lead among non-white voters. Individually, as smaller groups.
There is zero chance that ANY democratic candidate is going to lose such voters to Trump, they're a lock. However, what Sanders can do that a moderate candidate can't is inspire those who are sick of both parties to take a chance. That's what swinging hard for progessive policies does. That's the new political reality. The old paradigms are dead. Trump killed them.
Klobuchar is not an acceptable candidate either...
However, I'm glad so many centrists are running. Having all of them in the race at once is essentially handing this race over to Sanders. They're even bouncing all over the place between candidates on the news, promising that not a one of them will be able to push the others out of the race. The centrists are amazing. They're proving their inability to win inside their own party.
Ah there he is, Bill Clinton (rapist) and Donald Trump (also a rapist).
Remember when I said the one time I'll bother abstaining from voting is if I can't tell the difference between candidates?
I can't tell the difference between Bloomberg and Trump.
And to add to the Bloomberg Hatemobile:
Just look at this. Here's what shoud be most worrying about his record. He told a staffer to "kill it" referring to her fetus. He was essentially acting like a stereotypical evil abortion doctor from a straight to DVD "Glory Films" presentation on abortion.
Just so you know, abortion is THE issue for republicans. All of them. ALL of them ABF. If they hate every other aspect of a candidate, they will STILL vote republican "because the democrats are baby killers". This is DEFINITELY going the rounds now, and it's going to poison so very VERY many against Bloomberg who may have been more open to other progressive policies. Heck there's probably going to be splash damage affecting every other democratic candidate because of this. It's THAT bad. I only point this out to ABF in particular because he doesn't really know what it's like to speak to right wingers. Let me put it this way. A republican candidate can promise to turn us into a socialist state that requires every church to marry illegal immigrant gay dudes together every single week while hugging trees and killing local businesses but they will STILL get the vote if they also promise to overturn Roe V Wade. That is how important that specific issue is.
And, if nothing else, you should still be disgusted that Bloomberg essentially took control of a woman's right to choose. He managed to violate the tennets of BOTH prochoicers AND prolifers in two words. That's almost impressive, if it wasn't evil.
(On a minor note, of COURSE Bernie won a lower percentage than he did in 2016. It's a 9 person race compared to a 2 person race! Buttigieg also poored ALL of his spending into these first two states. He's going to fizzle out in the rest of the race. But as you say, Bloomberg's the Loomberg threat. Oh, and what the hell was MSNBC doing posting the madness that if you fused Buttigieg, Klobuchar, and Biden together they overtook Bernie's percentage? That's not how ANY electoral process works. Yes, if they did the fusion dance I'm sure Klobidegieg would win handily. Fortunately such a transporter accident doesn't appear to actually be running for president, so he still beat each of them.)
Bloomberg is awful (just look at all of the terrible quotes of his that keep coming out!), barely a Democrat, and I definitely hope that he is not our nominee (I will certainly not be voting for Bernie or Bloomberg in the primary), but saying he's the same as Trump is not true; at a minimum, that he is in our party and not theirs is a huge difference -- he'd be working with our Senate and House members, would have to push Democratic policies forward to at least some extent like Trump does for Republican policy issues like judges, etc. Those are real things he would do which would be a very dramatic improvement over Trump. I hope things don't get to the point of having to think about a President Bloomberg, but "he's the same as Trump" is exaggerating.
(12th February 2020, 8:32 PM)Dark Jaguar Wrote: [ -> ]If what we're wanting happens and Sanders actually becomes the nominee, I think we're going to see a dragon wake up in ABF. A blocky lego dragon but still it's going to be interesting to see him start to get excited for all those policies we both know he really wants. I'm looking forward to us all being on the same side.
As for as domestic policy goes it's Warren I agree with, not Bernie. He's too extreme and absolutist, that is not the way things work in the real world. And as I've said be fore, it's not like he'd get most of his agenda done anyway, not with this Congress and with the way politics actually work in this country. It'd go like any of his other policy proposals over the years have, nowhere; there's a reason why Bernie doesn't get much legislation passed.
For foreign policy I don't know, that's harder... Warren and Bernie are both pretty weak on domestic policy, but someone like Biden who voted for the Iraq War (yes, like Kerry and Hillary as well) was quite wrong on a really important vote so... I don't know.
(14th February 2020, 1:03 PM)Dark Jaguar Wrote: [ -> ]However, I'm glad so many centrists are running. Having all of them in the race at once is essentially handing this race over to Sanders. They're even bouncing all over the place between candidates on the news, promising that not a one of them will be able to push the others out of the race. The centrists are amazing. They're proving their inability to win inside their own party.
If there was one center-lane candidate now instead of three or four, yes, Bernie would be losing 60-40 of 70-30 or such, so yes, you should be glad for that...
Quote:(On a minor note, of COURSE Bernie won a lower percentage than he did in 2016. It's a 9 person race compared to a 2 person race! Buttigieg also poored ALL of his spending into these first two states. He's going to fizzle out in the rest of the race. But as you say, Bloomberg's the Loomberg threat. Oh, and what the hell was MSNBC doing posting the madness that if you fused Buttigieg, Klobuchar, and Biden together they overtook Bernie's percentage? That's not how ANY electoral process works. Yes, if they did the fusion dance I'm sure Klobidegieg would win handily. Fortunately such a transporter accident doesn't appear to actually be running for president, so he still beat each of them.)
That's not how it works now, but if nobody gets a majority of the delegates, that's exactly the kind of negotiations that go on for the later ballots. Again, a contested convention would be a near-certain disaster which would leave the losing faction quite angry just before a must-win election, but that IS pretty much how it works... and because of our field's failure to find a great candidate, right now a contested convention is apparently the most likely result. Fantastic.
The democrats have never been "my party" ABF. They're not really your's either, but you havent' realized it yet. They're as intrenched and oligarcian as the Republicans, they just sell a different brand. That's why I want the whole party overhauled to better reflect what they claim to be. Bloomberg will turn the democrats into republicans, mark my words. He IS Trump, just smarter.
And what about his foreign policy is "absolutist"? He's pushing for real peace between Israel and Palastine, for example, rather than this ridiculous notion that we can't even acknowledge that Palastinians have a right to exist and shouldn't be genocided without being labelled antisemitic.
I can say this. I'll drag myself to the polls for Biden just to counter Trump. However, I could NEVER vote for Bloomberg. If the democrats nominate Bloomberg, they will suppress their base harder than they ever have before. It'll be a sweep for Trump, and even if it wasn't, I wouldn't feel like we "won" anything if Bloomberg won. He's potentially more dangerous than Trump is. He'd do all the same horrible things to minorities, he'd excise the progressive wing from the democrats, and well, there goes democracy.
I said Bernie's domestic policy is absolutist. That's why he gets nothing done, it's all my way or the highway with Bernie. As for foreign policy, it's clearly never been his focus, as is also true with Warren. "We should have less foreign wars" is all well and good, I certainly agree with things like opposing the Iraq War as I have done from day one, but having the most powerful nation in the world just ignore everyone else and their problems, some of which we could help with, ... just because ... isn't a very goo argument, I don't think.
As for Israel, I of course support Israel. I very much wish they'd stop electing Netanyahu, but they're certainly better than the other side... Bernie can get away with being a bit more equivocal than many because he's Jewish, but there is definitely a significant amount of antisemitism in the anti-Israel left. Of course, again the government of Israel doesn't help this one bit since Netanyahu is a horrible far-right extremist and their government has certainly committed some abuses, but anyone who thinks that the Palestinians are any better is fooling themselves; they aren't, they're almost certainly worse. They just have less power so they have no ability to follow through on their "right of return" nonsense, which in reality is code for "we want to ethnically cleanse all Jews out of this region and take our land back". Of course Netanyahu is encouraging the Israeli right who want to slowly take over the whole West Bank, pretty much, through settlement building, but even that's not quite as horrible as what the other side would do if they had Israel's power... but either way, it's an awful situation and both sides are pretty awful. Israel has a right to exist, however, and has a right to defend itself against attack. The Jews have a right to having a country -- I think it is very telling that the one and only Jewish country in the world gets so much hate; yeah, they do bad things, but not as bad as many other countries that get like a hundredth the amount of hate and negative attention! The explanation for that is, of course, antisemitism.
... I don't know what the solution in Israel/Palestine is, neither side wants peace currently. The only way to have peace is for both sides to actually be satisfied with the situation at least enough to stop fighting over it, but how could we get there? Neither side has much interest in that currently, Israel wants to keep slowly pushing forward with settlements, while the Palestinians want to keep fanning the flames of Western antisemitinism enough (by pointing out Israeli abuses, real or imagined) in their hopes of getting the world to forget that that they want to do to the Jews is a hundred times worse than what the Jews are doing to them. The only genocide there is the one that would be done to the Jews if the power situation is reversed; what Netanyahu and co. are doing (slow expansion of settlements, etc.) is quite possibly ethnic cleansing and is wrong, but it's not on THAT level.
I really, really hope that Netanyahu gets convicted (on the charges he is currently facing and sure looks guilty of) and finally loses an election again to somebody more moderate -- he has NO interest in peace, and the only way to get the peace process moving again at all is for him to finally leave office. It's no coincidence that the current lack-of-any-progress situation on peace in the Middle East started the moment he got back into office.
Gets nothing done? You really need to look into Bernie's record. He's gotten plenty done over his history, including numerous shadow bills he alllowed others to put in their name.
Did you just label ALL of Palestine as "Worse than Israel", including the kids? That's.... not good ABF. Rethink your position.
In any case, your judgment that if only one centrist candidate ran they'd get 60% of the vote is... not how that works. The number one second choice among Biden supporters? Sanders. Second? Warren. Why is that? A large number of people support Biden purely because he is "electable". That's what poll after poll shows. Strip that away, as he's managed to do recently, and they end up going with the one that fits their goals better.
Stop voting based on who can "get things done" and vote based on what you WANT done. We can do whatever the hell we want, we just have to chose to! I mean that, in a very literal sense. If the vast majority of the electorate WANTS an issue to happen, but it doesn't, then the flaw is with our democracy. It means it's more fragile than we thought, and needs cleansing.
Quote:It'd go like any of his other policy proposals over the years have, nowhere; there's a reason why Bernie doesn't get much legislation passed.
There are so many Democratic legislators who boast about all the bills they've written and sponsored, and nobody's asking them 'so why does everything suck and everything is getting worse anyway?'
This is not an era of political compromise and it will not be until we depolarize. And since one side is apocalyptic and absolutely unyielding, depolarization will not happen until that side is politically neutralized. 50 years of bending over backwards to accommodate Republicans while putting on a public show of opposition is obviously not getting us any closer to that goal.
Establishment Democrats are not, and have never been, effective and inspiring leaders, so it is in everyone's best interest that they transition to effective and inspiring followers. You can abhor everything Republicans stand for, but you can't deny that they are better at the game of politics. They control most of government from a minority position, and while some of that has been the result of underhanded and unethical means, a lot of it is also because they place the highest value on turning out the vote and they know how to effectively get that done. Democratic voters blame other Democratic voters for not buying the shit the party keeps selling. Republican voters rightly blamed their politicians for the shit they kept being sold, looked for an alternative, and control almost everything today as a result.
Looking back at how our dynamic used to be in discussions of politics, one of life's tiny and hilarious ironies is that ABF turned out to be the most staunchly conservative of us all.
"It will never pass" is a self fulfilling prophecy. The ONLY thing we need to get these things to pass is for all of us to finally just stand up and demand it. WE control the government ABF. US. If we don't have health care, it's because we've been lazy citizens. That is, we haven't actually done more than the bare minimum of voting. We need to get candidates out there that matter. Right now, there is a progressive coalition that intends to pass the progressive agenda and they are pooling their funding together. It's what has the DNC so upset at AOC right now. I've been donating to it.
If you want health care for all, all you need to do is stand up and demand it. Saying "it can't pass" is something for politicians to worry about, NOT CITIZENS! Want it? TAKE IT!
Two big attack ads against Sanders lately. Warren's been disappeared by the media the way they tried to do to Sanders earlier in the campaign.
The first is a tired old argument. "He's taking away your CHOICE of insurer!" Well, so what? Under universal health care, you don't NEED insurance! You just walk into a clinic and get treatment! That's how it works in England, and Norway, and Canada. No one cares about being able to pick their insurer, they care about being able to pick their doctor and treatment, and you get MORE choice with universal health care by that metric.
But Jon Oliver covers this far better than I could.
Another ad just goes after Sanders supporters. It's a rather confused ad. The most abusive actors are a minority that are actively discouraged by Bernie himself, as opposed to Trump who actively encourages that behavior, and frankly according to in depth analysis the progressive side are the LEAST likely to "DOX" or threaten physical violence against others. I know I haven't done that. The ad also equates posting a bunch of "rat" emoticons under Pete Buttigieg's posts online is somehow equivilent to death threats and doxxing. No, it isn't. Also, Pete's a rat, so it's justified.
The last one is a genuine criticism of Sander's policy, something that really matters and which made me disappointed when I read about it then verified that it was true. Well, it's about time they found SOMETHING real to go after him for.
He voted yes on a bill to relocate nuclear waste into land where the closest community was latino. That's not good. Frankly, there are better places to put such waste, such as underneath mountains. That's geologically the most stable location for stuff like this. Here's Sander's reasoning. The waste was in a place with too high an amount of rainflow originally, a location that was never meant to store the material and was likely to eventually lead to a leak that polluted the water supply. The new location in Texas was far dryer and more stable a location, and thus far less likely of leaks. The ads give the impression he was actively targetting latino communities, and that certainly doesn't appear to be the case and doesn't match his long term records regarding those communities, but it was still a bad vote. I really don't know what I would have done. I could also point out that unlike votes on "political feasibility" and "fiscal responsibility", this was a matter of physics instead of purely human constructs we merely defined into existance like money and politics. Choices really are limited in this case. Still, I would have proposed something like Yucca Mountain.
Oh, and while this vote does disappoint me, as you might imagine it doesn't change my mind when the entire centrist wing has far more abusive policies they've voted for that were active attempts to screw people over, such as ending social security or firing black police officers or arresting black teens without evidence or just plain treating black people like second class citizens for YEARS.
Apparently now Sanders is winning over the moderates better than Biden.
And- okay I can't wrap my mind around this one- but somehow more voters rank Sanders as "too conservative" than those who rank him "too liberal".
Sanders and Warren, mostly Warren actually, utterly demolished Bloomberg last night. Bloomberg is smart Trump, can you imagine Warren debating Trump on stage? It'd be glorious.
There is one thing I have to ask. WHY did every candidate except Sanders (Warren surprised me on this one) say it would be okay for delegates to steal the election away from whoever has the most votes?
Apparently, only one candidate actually supports democracy. Say what you will about the democratic party being a private institution that can run itself however it pleases, it's immoral to screw over all the people who voted in the primary like that, and any honest person knows this. This is not up for debate. If the party does this, they will never win another election until every single millenial and zoomer that was screwed over by such a choice is dead. That's reality.
I watched the most recent debate, and it was pretty good! Warren won easily, which makes her bad polling numbers all the more frustrating -- she SHOULD be in the lead easily in this thing, with policies and plans for everything in a way no other candidate is even attempting, but mostly due to sexism I am quite sure, she's not. It's really sad stuff.
Still, seeing her take down Bloomberg was satisfying. I'd like to hope that this will hurt his polling, but with his kinds of money he can just ignore it and keep flooding the market with ads, so we'll see... but seriously, it SHOULD hurt his polling because every issue she hit him on is substantive and is a very good reason he should never be our nominee! Biden? I disagree with Biden on plenty of things, but he'd be a fine nominee and is an actual Democrat, unlike Bloomberg. Warren would be a lot better, but she polls worse probably mostly because of her gender. And Klobuchar and Buttigieg are probably out; they did well in the first two states, but should struggle in the next few due to there being more minorities in Nevada and South Carolina.. Plus, the two of them spent the whole time in the debate attacking eachother, which didn't make either of them look great... so yeah, I still have no idea who I'm going to be voting for, except that it definitely will not be Bernie or Bloomberg.
Quote:There is one thing I have to ask. WHY did every candidate except Sanders (Warren surprised me on this one) say it would be okay for delegates to steal the election away from whoever has the most votes?
Because every candidate, Sanders included, answered with the most politically expedient answer. In 2016, Sanders gave the answer those other candidates all did a few days ago, because then he was the underdog. Now he seems to be in the lead so suddenly his position on the issue has flipped out of self interest. That's all it is. The correct answer is the one everyone else gave, that the rules are the rules and should be followed.
As for the convention, if Bernie is at like 45% or more of delegates, he will probably end up as the nominee, sadly (for our chances in November, for President, House, and Senate alike). But if he has like 35%? That's a completely different story. If Bernie has 35% and number two is like 25% or 30%, if things tighten? Why in the world should someone only slightly ahead be annoited winner just because they have a small lead? That's not how the rules work! If you don't have a majority, you need to convince others to support you until you hav a majority. That is how presidential party nominations have always worked. It is a good and quite democratic system.
Quote:This is not up for debate
Oh, the invented slights the Sanders cult likes to make up most certainly are up for debate.
Except that insiders from Bloomberg's campaign are saying that he in particular IS planning on buying a contested convention. That appears to be his strategy.
Now then, there is one thing. Don't be so quick to scream "sexism" when a candidate isn't doing so well. There may be substantial real reasons why progressives are leaning away from Warren and towards others, namely Sanders in this case. The general consensus is that she had stepped away from the progressive policies that got her that initial rush of popularity and had made me lean towards her, and towards trying to artificially group the other progressives together in favor of allying herself with a frankly terrible candidate like Klobuchar. I would STILL be excited to vote for her if in some twist she became the nominee, but there's this fear in the back of my mind that she isn't as progressive as she led on at first when she does things like this.
And as for Clinton, it's insulting to ignore every criticism we had against her back in 2016 (and oh yes, we have far more now that she's still grinding that ax on numerous interviews further tanking her reputation) and just say "sexism!". If you think we're being sexist, prove it.
Warren did amazing in that debate. Even Biden got in a few shots, but it was rather painful to see him criticize Bloomberg's sexist behavior considering his own track record. No, he's not nearly as bad as Bloomberg in that regard, but there's a reason I always thought Biden was a creep. These are facts.
As for what's "up for debate", yes, when the convention comes around either you are FOR democracy, or you aren't. No other consideration matters.
Fivethirtyeight.com now places Sanders at a 1 in 2 chance. There may not be a contested convention after all.
And after Nevada, can there be any doubt that Sanders far and away is the most supported candidate among minority groups? The polls already showed that more women support him than men. Rethink your "sexism" stance. The evidence doesn't bear it out.
Oh, and isn't it very interesting that while the Cullinary Worker's Union leadership spoke against medicare for all, the vast majority of union members voted for Bernie over any other candidate? I wonder why that is... The answer is that the union's leadership no longer represents the union members like they should. That union needs reformation. I know of this sort of thing. There is a similar problem with Oklahoma's teacher's union making unilateral decisions that don't reflect the majority of teachers here.
This is why we are so "extreme" ABF. Debtor's prisons are back through a legal looophole, over medical costs people can't pay.
The progressives are not extreme leftists, they're literally just trying to get us on track with every OTHER developed country out there. There is no room for compromise, not any more. We're taking the kid's gloves off.
The truth is that while people like Bloomberg absolutely refuse to even consider having a representative of his own employees on his board, that's what compromise looks like! A soviet socialist would have required a government appointed commissar on his board to approve all decisions. Putting an employee representative, duly elected BY those employees, is the fair middle ground option.
Bernie Sanders thoroughly dominated the Nevada caucus, winning a majority of Hispanic voters and delegates. Now that he has plummeted into first place, how can he ever recover from this debacle?
Biden took a commanding second- while Sanders has to settle for a distant first place... What's that, only a 30% lead?
I kid I kid, but let's be honest here SC is likely to see a reversal of those roles. I don't think that's going to save Biden in the long run, but there it is, he's likely going to send Sanders into second. One out of four ain't bad I suppose. Then Super Tuesday. Biden and the other centrists will sweep up the southeast block (including Florida) while Sanders cleans house with the rest of the nation, including Oklahoma where I might remind you that Sanders won back in 2016. We independents are to thank for that one, and I must say I am oh so very grateful that the dems here plum forgot to ask that this year's primary be democrat only. Our state happens to be a "party picks" state, in that each party gets to decide if independents get to vote in their primary or not. Republicans picked "not", but Democrats didn't. I wonder what this says if such a deeply red state seems to sway towards the progressive side rather than the center lane when it comes to that primary...
Meanwhile, well of course Bloomberg was a liar, we knew that. However, it looks like Biden wasn't entirely honest either.
Of all the centrists, it's a shame Steyer isn't doing better. Yes, he's a billionaire too, but of all the centrists he seems like the most decent and honest of the bunch.
Oh and here's a list of things Sanders has gotten done, on the record at least. Numerous reports from Washington insiders suggest he's "ghost written" a lot of legislation but intentionally didn't put his name on it to make sure it actually passed. https://pplswar.files.wordpress.com/2015...bleleg.pdf
Aaaand today they're claiming Sanders is praising Castro. That's rather dishonestly representing what the interviewer was talking about. The interviewer wasn't asking "Do you think Castro had some good points?", he was comparing a democratic socialist revolution (though social democracy is a more accurate term for what the progressives want, but whatever) to Cuba of all things and saying "Do you want us like CUBA?!" and of course, in THAT context Sanders is going to point out that Cuba has some good social welfare programs.
Quote:Yep, the MSNBC bias against him is clear. Comparing a Jewish man to the nazis that killed his family members was in bad taste, to put it mildly.
True. However, if you look at the analogy as "Underrated, upstart juggernaut thoroughly obliterates allegedly superior opponent without breaking a sweat"...
That last debate was a mess wasn't it? All the candidates that were behind got the memo that they need to start interjecting more, but the problem is they ALL did that, and the moderators didn't know what they were doing or they would have kept the responses going in an orderly fasion.
Sanders got called out for a bad vote on gun control. He admitted he was wrong and pointed out the numerous times since then he's voted for tighter gun regulation. Beyond that, what was going on with the audience? I guess when NBC charges that crazy price you get a certain kind of audience. Any criticism at Bloomberg whatsoever, whether it was Biden or Warren or Sanders, was met with boos, and the weird claim by Bloomberg he "won" the last debate was met with cheers. Yeah, it's suspicious because those people didn't act like you would expect people to act.
Oh well, somehow Sanders got through that looking more favorable than any other candidate, so now all that remains is for Biden to win SC. No funny business there, it's just his firewall. I doubt it'll swing the election his way, and I still expect Sanders to come in a strong second, but yes, it was a forgone conclusion that SC was going to go to Biden. Older and more conservative black people dominate there.
Now the New York Times is reporting that the party seems to intend to swing the election some other way if Sanders wins but doesn't get the majority, and Warren well... I have NO idea what she's thinking lately. Frankly I was favoring her for years, but in the past couple of months I've had to swing to Sanders over a number of things, and these dishonest claims like that Sanders loved Superdelegates back in 2016... well there's direct video showing the opposite. What's she thinking? I'm starting to not even want her as Sander's VP pick the way she's going. That's what she gets for hiring Obama staffers. She's getting some very bad advice, for a progressive candidate that is.
Warren was my favorite for a long time, but I can't deal with this kind of dishonesty. At a time when we're reaching an epistemological crisis in this country's politics, where both sides are engaged with an enitrely different reality, we need leaders that are champions of truth and honesty. Ugh.
I disagree with the notion that the DNC rigged the 2016 primaries, though. Certainly Hillary had the advantage with DNC backing. But like it or not, she won by 3.7 million more votes, and no DNC advantage could have given her that kind of sway. Even without superdelegates involved, Hillary won more pledged delegates by a comfortable margin (447, if I'm reading the results correctly). I know there was debate chicanery going on, like the DNC setting primary debates on days that would get less viewers, and Hillary being given some questions in advance. But still... 3.7 million? Pretty sure only political nerds watch primary debates, anyway.
I for one don't bother watching the debates, I get the "highlights" after. They're not really offering anything in the debates I ddn't already know going into it.
I had already predicted Biden was going to walk off with an easy SC win, but I hadn't predicted it would be essentially a reversal of Nevada for him. He did it, he won his first state primary and he did it decisively. I also predict he's going to claim Florida for himself.
Meanwhile, the nicest of the centrists, Steyer, is stepping down. His support is likely going to end up with Biden. The most weasely of the centrists, Buttigieg, is also stepping down. I expect his support will end up going most towards Sanders if "second choice" polling data is anything to go by. It's strange, but that's how a lot of voters not paying too much attention seem to work, some other quality we can't quite pick up on seems to grab them.
Bernie meanwhile is taking a commanding lead in Texas polling data and already has that lead in California. Bloomberg is- going the distance. He's "smart trump", but that's a low bar. He also lacks the- ahem- charisma of Trump. He doesn't actually care about the results so far, he's going to spoil things for Biden since well, Bloomberg and Biden are "second choices" for each other.
Warren's the spoiler for Sanders. I don't get why she's still in the race. I feel so disappointed in her. In the summer, she was my favorite, but bit by bit she's eroded confidence, eroded her platform, and eroded her honesty.
So, Biden won by a LOT in South Carolina, and has resurrected his candidacy and pushed two moderates out of the race. (Yes, watch out, the moderates are combining!). That is probably good, because nobody else has managed to take off and we need somebody who has a chance in November, which I maintain Bernie most certainly is not. Once again, there are a lot of very, VERY good reasons why the Republicans so badly want to face Bernie in November and not someone like Biden! On a somewhat related note, it's pretty sad that 78 year old Joe Biden is now the youngest Democratic man running for president -- seriously, what has happened to this party? -- but it's true...
I mean, on policy I'm very much in Warren's camp as I have said before but electability and who has more support matters, and I'm still not sure who I will vote for Tuesday because I don't have any idea what the situation here is now -- like, between the two of them, Biden or Warren, who's stronger in Maine? There is so little polling and the race is so fluid right at the end here, with Buttigieg and Steyer withdrawing, that I have no idea. I expect Bernie to win this state by a good margin but don't know beyond that.
I can say that Bloomberg, of course, has by far the most campaign ads here -- I've gotten multiple mailers and such from him, versus nothing from any other candidate other than a few phone calls. That won't get my support for him though, that's for sure, not with his track record.
(27th February 2020, 4:03 PM)Sacred Jellybean Wrote: [ -> ]Warren was my favorite for a long time, but I can't deal with this kind of dishonesty. At a time when we're reaching an epistemological crisis in this country's politics, where both sides are engaged with an enitrely different reality, we need leaders that are champions of truth and honesty. Ugh.
She's not being dishonest about why she's still in the race at least, at this point her only route to victory is a contested convention and then being picked because nobody else can agree. It's a pretty unlikely case but there has to be some tiny chance of it happening.
Well, unless you believe that it's all a conspiracy and she's only staying in to hurt Bernie, but while not totally impossible I doubt it. She still has the money to stay in and wants to stay in.
Buttigieg quit the race because he had no path to victory in any states and decided that leaving was the right thing to do in order to make it a little harder for Bernie to win, since he doesn't want that. Klobuchar is staying in in order to take votes away from Bernie in Minnesota, pretty much, probably; she's probably out after Tuesday. I mean, she'd say she's staying in because she has a chance at winning her home state and that is true, but she won't be doing very well anywhere else. It's a bit like Kasich in the Republican primary in 2016, staying in just to win in Ohio... but if she's also staying in to hurt Bernie that would make sense, like Biden and Buttigieg she surely does not want him as our nominee.
As for Bloomberg, though, at this point all he does by staying in is make it much easier for Bernie to win. If he actually wanted to stop Bernie he'd withdraw tomorrow and endorse Biden, but he won't, so... as I said, that will help Bernie. Oh well, at least there is some consolidation.
Due to his age and centricism I am far from enthused by Biden, but he's a nice guy who means well and probably will be a totally alright President, and if he can win and stop Trump that's enough... I mean, if Bernie actually could win, hadn't been in control of a campaign so awful to Hillary in 2016, wasn't connected to so many problematic people, and had better plans for actually accomplishing his goals instead of just stating them, etc, etc, Bernie would be a great President with obviously much better policies in a lot of ways that Biden, but he has none of those things. And he has the Republican attack machine weight hanging over his head the moment he potentially gets nominated, which will rapidly decrease his approval ratings once they start it up. The anti-Biden attack machine is already in full operation, that's why Trump was impeached after all, because he's much more scared of losing to Biden in November.
Seriously though, both of them are in their late 70s and it sure would have been nice if we had come up with some younger top candidates, but as has been clear all along this year we have a somewhat weak field. I just hope it's enough...
Quote:I disagree with the notion that the DNC rigged the 2016 primaries, though. Certainly Hillary had the advantage with DNC backing. But like it or not, she won by 3.7 million more votes, and no DNC advantage could have given her that kind of sway. Even without superdelegates involved, Hillary won more pledged delegates by a comfortable margin (447, if I'm reading the results correctly). I know there was debate chicanery going on, like the DNC setting primary debates on days that would get less viewers, and Hillary being given some questions in advance. But still... 3.7 million? Pretty sure only political nerds watch primary debates, anyway.
Nothing in the 2016 primaries was rigged, Bernie just had a pretty much whites-only coalition and lost because he had minimal minority support. And then after it was obvious he could not win, Bernie stayed in the race for no reason anyway, all the way to the convention, pretty much only to create hard feelings among his faithful and make it harder for Hillary to win in the end... or something, but that was the effect! And yea, superdelegates had nothing to do with who won beyond the usual edge that getting endorsements brings, which is often not much in most cases.
In 2020 Bernie has improved on that with latinos, but his numbers with black people are still very low, as we saw in South Carolina.
(I am still not convinced that there was not any vote rigging in the 2016 general election, but that's a different story... that was a tiny, tiny margin in the three key states that won it for Trump, quite unlike what won Hillary the primary nomination.)
Dark Jaguar Wrote:and these dishonest claims like that Sanders loved Superdelegates back in 2016... well there's direct video showing the opposite
Sanders, like everyone else running for President, has a position on superdelegates and the convention rules that are entirely based on what their current status is in the race. So, in 2016 he stayed in the race after his victory was impossible with a goal (which he failed to achieve) of forcing a contested convention or winning with the superdelegates at the convention, regardless of who had more votes, which was Clinton by a lot. Now, he's saying that no the convention should nominate the person with the most votes regardless of what the rules say. Everybody just says the thing that helps them make their case for victory, Bernie included.
Quote: Aaaand today they're claiming Sanders is praising Castro. That's rather dishonestly representing what the interviewer was talking about. The interviewer wasn't asking "Do you think Castro had some good points?", he was comparing a democratic socialist revolution (though social democracy is a more accurate term for what the progressives want, but whatever) to Cuba of all things and saying "Do you want us like CUBA?!" and of course, in THAT context Sanders is going to point out that Cuba has some good social welfare programs.
Any other Democrat would have couched that praise in much, MUCH more criticism than Bernie did, that is the problem. Well, that and that you can't say good things about Castro if you want to have any chance of winning in Florida. Are Bernie's points right? On those specific issues, sure. But did he really need to praise awful dictators?
Bernie has a lot of good policy ideas, but saying "I hate you, Democratic Party! You are the enemy! Now vote for me!" is a really, really bad message, and we saw that once again on Tuesday. In the future, if a more liberal candidate wants to win they need a more inclusive message, that kind of us-versus-them mentality, which treats the Democrats as maybe worse than the Republicans, will never get majority support.
I am kind of sad that it is now final that Warren will definitely not be president, but that had been obvious for quite some time so... oh well. At least our nominee is someone who can win in November!
Bernie doomed his own campaign by labeling himself a “socialist”, It didn’t fly in the UK with Corbyn, it most definently won’t sell in America with older voters.
@ABF
i think your being overly optimistic about Joe Alzheimer’s chances