Mega-Thread: Democratic 2020 Primaries

[Somewhatconcerned]

Biden's done IMO. He's making so many unforced errors it's almost criminal.

Buttigieg is going to pick up Biden's steady bleed of support early on. Buttigieg will then crash due to his cross-demographic support issues and Klobachar will become the Great Establishment Hope.

By that time I think it'll be too late for her to have a chance of winning outright; it'll be either a Sanders win or no winner. In the latter scenario I think Bloomberg runs in and steals it at the convention, and the internet explodes with anger (US progressives), laughter (Trump supporters) or bemusement (rest of the world).

What a cluster. 3+ years to prepare.

[Drutt]

Because the other candidate's campaigns don't spend money?

I'd say there's a huge difference between spending money you've received from a metric boatload of individual donations and spending money you've put up yourself because you're a billionaire.

For me how you get the money you're spending matters, if you aspire to democracy.

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What a cluster. 3+ years to prepare.

It's more a function of too-many candidates running, I think. The field was too crowded for too long and the vote was splintered. Many (most?) people are stubborn and refuse to shift support to another candidate until the bitter end.

With a smaller number of candidates running the picture would likely be very different, but the establishment candidates have done a great job sabotaging each other's hopes of winning simply by refusing to drop out.

[Shadowferal]

Too soon to count Biden out.
Bloomberg can be ignored. He'll get a trickle of votes and that's probably it for him.
Warren's still a name. While Klobacher kinda isn't.
Pete better embrace what he gets now, because there probably won't be much to add to his tally later.

[Stormspellz]

Biden's done IMO. He's making so many unforced errors it's almost criminal.

Buttigieg is going to pick up Biden's steady bleed of support early on. Buttigieg will then crash due to his cross-demographic support issues and Klobachar will become the Great Establishment Hope.

By that time I think it'll be too late for her to have a chance of winning outright; it'll be either a Sanders win or no winner. In the latter scenario I think Bloomberg runs in and steals it at the convention, and the internet explodes with anger (US progressives), laughter (Trump supporters) or bemusement (rest of the world).

wouldn't count out Warren, but like Biden she made a few unenforced errors and worse of all she spent so much time pandering to niche "woke" demographics. which only reinforced Trumps rhetoric against her for independents

[omerome]

wouldn't count out Warren, but like Biden she made a few unenforced errors and worse of all she spent so much time pandering to niche "woke" demographics. which only reinforced Trumps rhetoric against her for independents

The annoying thing is, the "how are you going to pay for it" argument comes from the same people who are probably Trump supporters and he doesn't have detailed plans for anything. That guy still couldn't get Mexico to pay for that stupid wall he wants. And we are still waiting for this "bestest healthcare ever" that doesn't involve gutting Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security; which by the way, he promised he wouldn't touch. Also, when is infrastructure week coming?

[cubby]

I'd say there's a huge difference between spending money you've received from a metric boatload of individual donations and spending money you've put up yourself because you're a billionaire.

For me how you get the money you're spending matters, if you aspire to democracy.

Is Bloomberg not getting donations? I definitely see what you mean about the difference between complete self funding and getting donations from others, though. I think playing catch up might be ok.

At this point, as long as Trump is defeated, and there are no laws broken on the DNC side, I'm up for just about anything.

[Stormspellz]

The annoying thing is, the "how are you going to pay for it" argument comes from the same people who are probably Trump supporters and he doesn't have detailed plans for anything. That guy still couldn't get Mexico to pay for that stupid wall he wants. And we are still waiting for this "bestest healthcare ever" that doesn't involve gutting Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security; which by the way, he promised he wouldn't touch. Also, when is infrastructure week coming?

we all know that republican and democrats play be different rules, republicans can say the most outrageous thing in primaries and its disappears from the collective public memory, but a democrat - stumbles are remembered for eternity.

a great example of this is a Trump interview when said to "you have to seize the guns and figure it out afterwords" if a dem said that they would be literally assassinated

[Drutt]

Is Bloomberg not getting donations? I definitely see what you mean about the difference between complete self funding and getting donations from others.

As far as I'm aware he's refusing all donations and entirely self funding. That's why he didn't qualify for the debates - he didn't fulfill the criteria for X number of individual donors because he wasn't accepting donations.

[cubby]

Too soon to count Biden out.
Bloomberg can be ignored. He'll get a trickle of votes and that's probably it for him.
Warren's still a name. While Klobacher kinda isn't.
Pete better embrace what he gets now, because there probably won't be much to add to his tally later.

Biden wouldn't even be ready for "out" consideration until after Super Tuesday.
Not sure I agree - he could surge, he's got good "feels" from both sides of the DNC. He's got to capture Primary delegates quickly though.
Agreed. VP candidate?
More than agreed. We already have people wanting to rescind their vote because they didn't know he was gay. It shouldn't matter, but it does, and right now beating Trump is all that matters.

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As far as I'm aware he's refusing all donations and entirely self funding. That's why he didn't qualify for the debates - he didn't fulfill the criteria for X number of individual donors because he wasn't accepting donations.

Interesting. Hmmmm, and he has the money to self fund through the general election.... Very interesting.

[Drutt]

wouldn't count out Warren, but like Biden she made a few unenforced errors and worse of all she spent so much time pandering to niche "woke" demographics. which only reinforced Trumps rhetoric against her for independents

I feel Sanders would have to implode spectacularly for her to get anywhere now.

He has what looks to be real momentum and is increasingly pulling away in polls. I've felt for a long time that once one of them pulled significantly ahead, the other would be done for. Their policy positions are fairly well aligned, so people who are gravitating to that kind of message will plump whichever one of them looks more likely to go the distance.

I think Warren lost it when she fumbled MFA and saw Sexistgate backfire. She might have beaten one, but the combination is too much.

[Edge-]

Is Bloomberg not getting donations?

My understanding is he's not even trying to raise money. The whole point is that he's throwing his own money behind his race, and entered in part to allow for himself to legally dump tens of millions on anti-Trump ads that he would otherwise not be able to do.

[mvaliz]

Yeah, my bad - I could have sworn the story I was linking was from Fox News.

Isn't it? It was an MSN link to something from FOX News. You read that correctly because of the FOX News title above the headline.

[Drutt]

Interesting. Hmmmm, and he has the money to self fund through the general election.... Very interesting.

The Guardian had an article two days ago that talks over some of his campaign strategy (including commentary from rivals who dislike his attempts to buy his way in).

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-tuesday-focus

[mvaliz]

More than agreed. We already have people wanting to rescind their vote because they didn't know he was gay. It shouldn't matter, but it does, and right now beating Trump is all that matters.

We have A single person who wanted to do that. We haven't heard of a large swath of multiple people wanting to do that post-learning about it. Despite it being easy to imagine there may be, there is no definitive fact that there is any significant size like that. In fact, the people in that interview with her kinda mocked her saying "it's common knowledge" when she complained nobody mentioned that.

There were a few things that happened that opened my eyes to the idea that his Homosexuality isn't as big a deal, especially in rural states. Lil Nas is not only Black, but an openly gay country singer - and his country songs have actually hit #1 on the charts several times in addition to the few hip-hop ones he did.

And while I'm not a fan of her comedy work, Sarah Silverman's show "I still love you America!" did a great job in talking with Trump-country voters in family settings, and almost all of them had no problem with Homosexuality.

It's really only sheltered Baby Boomers (like the one person they interviewed) and Evangelicals who have a problem with it. While they're still a lot of them, there's not much we can do to appeal to Evangelicals at all (especially if they have no problem with Dump's ethics)

[TexasRules]

I know you guys really really really really really really hate Trump and would vote for anyone to beat him....but do you want to give your nomination to someone who doesn't want to be in your party? I don't even understand how you let an independent pretend to be in your party and let him hijack the nomination over the most fake senator running, the senator nobody knows, the gay mayor who black people hate, a bad version of Mr Howell, and the zombie who keeps saying the wrong thing every chance he gets. Your media overlords said this group is b level this weekend, I think that is too high of a grade. You can keep trying to run on Trump hatred, but the group you have running has nothing worth voting for otherwise. So are you okay having the independent who has a giant closet full of socialist videos against him as your best shot at the presidency?

[Shadowferal]

If Sanders wins NH, he'll have momentum that he'll need to capitalize on for Nev (Feb 22) and SC (Feb 29).

[beanman12345]

I know you guys really really really really really really hate Trump and would vote for anyone to beat him....but do you want to give your nomination to someone who doesn't want to be in your party? I don't even understand how you let an independent pretend to be in your party and let him hijack the nomination over the most fake senator running, the senator nobody knows, the gay mayor who black people hate, a bad version of Mr Howell, and the zombie who keeps saying the wrong thing every chance he gets. Your media overlords said this group is b level this weekend, I think that is too high of a grade. You can keep trying to run on Trump hatred, but the group you have running has nothing worth voting for otherwise. So are you okay having the independent who has a giant closet full of socialist videos against him as your best shot at the presidency?

Trump isn't a republican, fuck off with your nonsense.

[cubby]

We have A single person who wanted to do that. We haven't heard of a large swath of multiple people wanting to do that post-learning about it. Despite it being easy to imagine there may be, there is no definitive fact that there is any significant size like that. In fact, the people in that interview with her kinda mocked her saying "it's common knowledge" when she complained nobody mentioned that.

There were a few things that happened that opened my eyes to the idea that his Homosexuality isn't as big a deal, especially in rural states. Lil Nas is not only Black, but an openly gay country singer - and his country songs have actually hit #1 on the charts several times in addition to the few hip-hop ones he did.

And while I'm not a fan of her comedy work, Sarah Silverman's show "I still love you America!" did a great job in talking with Trump-country voters in family settings, and almost all of them had no problem with Homosexuality.

It's really only sheltered Baby Boomers (like the one person they interviewed) and Evangelicals who have a problem with it. While they're still a lot of them, there's not much we can do to appeal to Evangelicals at all (especially if they have no problem with Dump's ethics)

I don't care why it turns off potential fence sitting boomers and others, I just care that it does. Period. Pete was out in my book because he is gay. I hate - HATE - saying that, but we are not ready for a gay president in this country. Period.

I want to see some updated polls, but I'm really leaning towards Bloomberg, if the rumors about Biden are trending true.

[Sorshen]

I know you guys really really really really really really hate Trump and would vote for anyone to beat him....but do you want to give your nomination to someone who doesn't want to be in your party? I don't even understand how you let an independent pretend to be in your party and let him hijack the nomination over the most fake senator running, the senator nobody knows, the gay mayor who black people hate, a bad version of Mr Howell, and the zombie who keeps saying the wrong thing every chance he gets. Your media overlords said this group is b level this weekend, I think that is too high of a grade. You can keep trying to run on Trump hatred, but the group you have running has nothing worth voting for otherwise. So are you okay having the independent who has a giant closet full of socialist videos against him as your best shot at the presidency?

Good rant, but Trump fears him and to be honest... even dogshit on the side of the road is more attractive than grifter Trump.

[Somewhatconcerned]

Good rant, but Trump fears him and to be honest... even dogshit on the side of the road is more attractive than grifter Trump.

Why would he fear him? He just has to use the "S" word and it will work wonders. Look at the Trump rally in NH....52000 tickets sold and 25% were registered Democrats! WTF are the Dems doing? Even the new Quinnipiac poll showing Bernie ahead of Trump with independents is likely flawed for the same reason as polls from 2016 - when the media drives the narrative that one option is totally bad (true or otherwise), people do not report their true intentions to pollsters.