Mega-Thread: Democratic 2020 Primaries

[JohnBrown1917]

"Improving society" starts with defeating Trump.

Good thing Bernie can beat him then.

[Fugus]

Good thing Bernie can beat him then.

From the data we have, he could have beat him in 2016 as well and it took the DNC and the media working to screw him that kept Clinton from getting ahead then.|

Added bonus, the actions to get past him in that primary also directly lead to running off a portion of her base which was one of many gaffs they made that allowed Trump to "Win" while still losing by will of the people.

[Levelfive]

From the data we have, he could have beat him in 2016 as well and it took the DNC and the media working to screw him that kept Clinton from getting ahead then.|

Added bonus, the actions to get past him in that primary also directly lead to running off a portion of her base which was one of many gaffs they made that allowed Trump to "Win" while still losing by will of the people.

I voted for Bernie in the primary last time and believe he could have beaten Trump. Can he beat Trump this time? Probably not. And that heart attack didn't help.

[cubby]

I voted for Bernie in the primary last time and believe he could have beaten Trump. Can he beat Trump this time? Probably not. And that heart attack didn't help.

That heart attack ended his campaign, if not literally, then effectively. He has no moral right to continue with that under his belt. And he'd be more effective and stronger if he threw his support behind someone else.

[Fugus]

I voted for Bernie in the primary last time and believe he could have beaten Trump. Can he beat Trump this time? Probably not. And that heart attack didn't help.

Yeah, the heart attack I think kills it greatly. If it came to him versus Trump in the general, I think he could kill Trump still as he actually has a record of practicing what he preaches and stuff.

But overall, that right there I think is nail in his coffin in the primary. I think his best bet is to bow out and endorse Warren. Would propel her to the top spot.

Just make sure he actually ties M4A as a condition of him bowing and endorsing her. Would unify their bases which largely overlap removing all those poached votes and allows for greater support all around.

Would put Bloomberg into overtime trying to fight them off. But seems like they would rather lose with a Biden type than actually win with someone who might actually try and fix stuff.

Just let them go to the debates and make sure they are numerous and have them debating policies and they know not to take the bait when Trump tries talking crap and to actually call him out for lies.

[JohnBrown1917]

That heart attack ended his campaign, if not literally, then effectively. He has no moral right to continue with that under his belt. And he'd be more effective and stronger if he threw his support behind someone else.

Nobody else is even close to his sort of politics in the primaries, and he is still a strong frontrunner.


So tough shit, liberals are going to have to suck it up and accept the possibility of somebody who is actually slighly left-of-center winning.

[cubby]

Nobody else is even close to his sort of politics in the primaries, and he is still a strong frontrunner.

Which is why he's sucking ass in the polls and isn't really a contender.

So tough shit, liberals are going to have to suck it up and accept the possibility of somebody who is actually slighly left-of-center winning.

Exactly - tough shit to the Bernie supporters. Did your candidate have a heart attack during the beginning of the primaries? Tough shit - they're out. If you're leaning left of center for the Democrats, Warren is your choice. Bernie is done.

[Fugus]

@CommunismWillWin

While I am a Bernie supporter, I have to agree with @cubby on this one. While I think that Sanders could defeat Trump in an election if it came down to it. His health scare will be a giant weight around his neck which makes it harder.

And with the primaries, it makes it a much bigger issue during that, especially since we don't have ranked choice voting and we have Sanders and Warren effectively poaching huge sections of the base where Bernie is Warren voters #2 and Warren is Bernie voters #2 but since we have what we have, that allows for a Biden type to come in the middle with the poached votes.

I have said repeatedly that one needs to back out and endorse the other and the heart issues basically clinched that deal on who it should be.

Bernie Sanders SHOULD bow out and endorse Elizabeth Warren under the condition that she actually push for Medicare for All. And Sanders should stump for her and make it clear that she WILL be pushing for that goal as well. That unifies that base for a pretty strong primary win and also puts that issue on the table which WILL be getting coverage during the general.

And you have to remember, a good portion of the reason for the media blackout on Sanders was they figured out his message and the facts are pretty popular and in his favor any time he was allowed to get his voice out.

Warren with Sanders endorsement could basically do it. Especially since she is a policy wonk while Trump is just a bullshit artist.

Her biggest flaws right now is her attempts to "Fit In" just make her look awkward and she should just be herself and stand by her positions and stop trying to politics when her views are already popular. Looking wish/washie works against her and makes her look dishonest.

[JohnBrown1917]

Which is why he's sucking ass in the polls and isn't really a contender.

Pulling shit out of your ass now?

Exactly - tough shit to the Bernie supporters. Did your candidate have a heart attack during the beginning of the primaries? Tough shit - they're out. If you're leaning left of center for the Democrats, Warren is your choice. Bernie is done.

lol Warren is as centrist as they come, even slowly backing out of M4A. She is just another Obama, anybody buying it is too naive.


And who are you to decide if they are out? Talking about arrogance. You really think most people give a shit? In a country where a fat slob who does not even exercise gets a ton of votes? Liberals always seem to treat politics like some kind of game. "Oh he had a health problem, minus 100 points!!!".


Its disgusting, shows how privileged you need to be to become a liberal.

@Fugus
His health won't be a problem against Trump of all people.

[Fugus]

Pulling shit out of your ass now?




lol Warren is as centrist as they come, even slowly backing out of M4A. She is just another Obama, anybody buying it is too naive.


And who are you to decide if they are out? Talking about arrogance. You really think most people give a shit? In a country where a fat slob who does not even exercise gets a ton of votes? Liberals always seem to treat politics like some kind of game. "Oh he had a health problem, minus 100 points!!!".


Its disgusting, shows how privileged you need to be to become a liberal.

@Fugus
His health won't be a problem against Trump of all people.

I know his health isn't a problem against Trump directly, the man is a friggin sloth that thinks exercise depletes you and McDonalds is a good thing.

I am saying that his health will have an impact on the voters who will come out to an extent and depress them and that when it comes to the primaries, it will depress them and also that his and Warren poach votes greatly among each other.

Look at how many have Sanders but would go with Warren as their #2 and vise versa, then compare them to the ones that would prefer Biden or have him as their #2. They greatly poach votes.

I hate to say it, you can ask Cubby, Skroe and the rest, I am a major Sanders supporter and was during his last election and I feel that if he made it to the general against Trump, he has a great chance of winning but that doesn't change the fact that we don't have ranked choice and that he still has to make it through those primaries to get to the general.

But we don't have ranked choice, either Sanders or Warren NEEDS to back out to solidify a contender and that health issue clinched it, especially as it will be harped on the entire time.

But I would vote for Plank from Ed, Edd, and Eddy before I voted for Trump, that still doesn't change the fact that if Plank starts to develop a split that it won't cost him voters or that Plank would still have to make it through the primaries to get to it.

Either way we cut it, Sanders poaches from Warren, Warren poaches from Sanders and Sanders health scare WILL cost him votes whether we like it or not.

Edit:

And I am not saying for Sanders to just leave. I am saying that he bows out and endorses Warren under the conditions that she pushes for ACTUAL Medicare For All as part of her plan, no compromises and actually sticks to it.


Hopefully Warren has learned that trying to act like everyone else makes her look awkward and he waffling and backing out of what the people actually want makes her look dishonest. Stop trying to play politics and just go on the policies.

[cubby]

lol Warren is as centrist as they come, even slowly backing out of M4A. She is just another Obama, anybody buying it is too naive.

Another Obama is exactly what we need right now. Too far left and we lose key EC states.

And who are you to decide if they are out? Talking about arrogance. You really think most people give a shit? In a country where a fat slob who does not even exercise gets a ton of votes? Liberals always seem to treat politics like some kind of game. "Oh he had a health problem, minus 100 points!!!".

For me, I am. For the country, IMO, I am as well. Bernie had a heart attack. HEART ATTACK. If this was Biden or Warren I'd be saying the exact same thing. He is out. And should have bowed out the moment he recovered enough to put two coherent words together. Everyone who is undecided (and those are all that matter right now) will be looking at his running mate and asking if they should be president right now.

Plus, god forbid, he fucking keels over during the general election stumping period. We'd be fucked. And yes, any of the top contenders are old enough to stroke out, but Bernie has already had one.

It's his duty to resign and support another.

Its disgusting, shows how privileged you need to be to become a liberal.

It's disgusting, shows how unobjective you need to be to become a liberal (am I doing that right? )

I love that you think practical, objective decisions are "arrogant" - you probably ought to look that word up - ignorance should not be embraced. Anyhoo, the people looking out for what's best for the country - i.e. getting Trump out of office - agree, Bernie is done. He might be polling well, but that's just because his ego is writing checks his body cannot cash.

[kaelleria]

Does it seem like disengenous attacks are up this cycle... it certainly seems like literally everyone is gunning for Buttigieg.

AOC blasted an new ad of his because it doesn't blanket make college free for all. It has a cutoff at 150k with some extra things to drive down costs.

Keep in mind this is a similar plan that Bernie himself endorsed for NYC.

Basically the ad was at 40k views before the attack... now its sitting at 2.4m views. This seems like a major backfire.

Don't get me wrong, I respect the heck out of AOC for who she is and what she's accomplished so far, but her ideas and methods are not remotely as popular as Twitter believes them to be.

My way or the highway only works if you safely control the Senate with like 70 votes. It's also raised the divisiveness between the right and the left portions of our country.

[nonameelf]

While beating Trump is certainly important, it can't be the only thing people vote on. Republicans are going to be there for the foreseeable future and they're going to continue to be evil fucks like Bush and Trump.

This "You have to vote for the right wing Democrats or the Republicans win!" thing is just the right wing democrats not wanting to lose power. It's made even more stupid by their chosen right wing candidate losing to Trump in the last election.

We need more than just right wing vs. extreme insane right wing as options in this country.

Hell, right wing Democrat establishment lost to Bush twice too, one of those AFTER Bush started stupid wars for no good reason. Obama managed to win because he promised changed, not status quo.

[Blur4stuff]

I think we can do better than Pete's Plan, but I'd still support it because it's a decent enough starting point. Once everyone sees how successful it can be the range can be expanded in his second term (supposing he wins twice).

As for voting for a conservative dem, I'm perfectly happy to do so if it's them vs Trump. I don't think someone like Biden is the best person for the job, but him or Buttigieg/Harris/Whatever would still be significantly better for the country and world than Trump.

This is the primary, though. We should be allowed to criticize or question the positions candidates have. Having someone like AOC call out Pete isn't the end of the world or some massive war. It's perfectly fine. Neither far left dems or Buttigieg's supporters should be pissy about it.

[Fugus]

While beating Trump is certainly important, it can't be the only thing people vote on. Republicans are going to be there for the foreseeable future and they're going to continue to be evil fucks like Bush and Trump.

This "You have to vote for the right wing Democrats or the Republicans win!" thing is just the right wing democrats not wanting to lose power. It's made even more stupid by their chosen right wing candidate losing to Trump in the last election.

We need more than just right wing vs. extreme insane right wing as options in this country.

Hell, right wing Democrat establishment lost to Bush twice too, one of those AFTER Bush started stupid wars for no good reason. Obama managed to win because he promised changed, not status quo.

This is another point I have brought up as well, they can't run on "Not Trump" otherwise they send voters home as well, they need to give voters something to actually vote FOR and not just a big bad to vote against. Also why I keep going back to Sanders and Warren, they are the main ones who actually are giving people a reason to vote.

I know we got Yang too, but I don't see his UBI as an idea who's time has come yet. While I see that as a very possible thing in our future, it will be decades away at this point. We can just mandate lower hours required to count as "Full Time" and raise the wages and force the worst to be spread around but the UBI won't be a thing till we reach a point were that isn't even a viable option anymore. And if they wait till things are so bad we just skip straight to the UBI, I expect things to get pretty bloody in the process but if we go too soon (As I feel we are now) it will greatly backfire.

[kaelleria]

While beating Trump is certainly important, it can't be the only thing people vote on. Republicans are going to be there for the foreseeable future and they're going to continue to be evil fucks like Bush and Trump.

This "You have to vote for the right wing Democrats or the Republicans win!" thing is just the right wing democrats not wanting to lose power. It's made even more stupid by their chosen right wing candidate losing to Trump in the last election.

We need more than just right wing vs. extreme insane right wing as options in this country.

Hell, right wing Democrat establishment lost to Bush twice too, one of those AFTER Bush started stupid wars for no good reason. Obama managed to win because he promised changed, not status quo.

Are you insinuating that a plan that makes college free for 80% of all families in the country is right wing? That seems a bit fucking ridiculous.

[Skroe]

From the data we have, he could have beat him in 2016 as well and it took the DNC and the media working to screw him that kept Clinton from getting ahead then.|

Added bonus, the actions to get past him in that primary also directly lead to running off a portion of her base which was one of many gaffs they made that allowed Trump to "Win" while still losing by will of the people.

It’s a bit insane I still have to say this but Bernie lost in 2016 because his hype-centric campaign couldn’t turn big crowds of young people in Brooklyn into big voter turnout on Super Tuesday. Bernie could win caucuses. He struggled with primaries. His campaign staff were never up to the task and his supporters outright refused to even address the problem as it was happening. The people he trusted to actually run Bernie 2016 took a lot of those $27 donations and gave it to the same old Democratic also-ran consultancies that has been failing their way to profitability since the early 1990s. What those $27 consultancies didn’t do was turn out victories in Super Tuesday states by. Holding infrastructure. Some must win states of his has a handful of paid staffers and that was it. It was a miracle he got any votes.

I brought this up constantly in the 2016 democratic primary thread and BernieBros would go berserk at someone dare questioning if the Chosen One has a first rate political op (he didn’t, it was third rate). Passion and ideas are no substitute for organization. Every candidate thinks their ideas are the best. It’s the campaigns ability to get out voters that matters most and Bernie 2016 sucked at that. It was essentially mathematically over after that day except in an unlikely scenario where Bernie won Nearly every big state remaining. But his supporters refused to embrace reality.

Want to know when my moment of schenfraude came? It was when after the primary election,
In August 2016, Bernie stood up his PAC and named former campaign manager Jeff Weaver to head it. And within two weeks almost the entirety of the executive committee resigned in protest, for exactly the reasons I described above. Weaver was a grifter who has failed in his job. And here they were, getting ready for a sequel.

So no. HRC didn’t screw Bernie. The DNC didn’t screw Bernie. The media didn’t screw Bernie. Only Bernie screwed Bernie, and the Bernie Bro’s, who refused to demand that the Chosen one run a top tier campaign helped him do it.

Bernie’s 2020 campaign is more of the same. All that enthusiasm and Elizabeth Warren has shunted the would be nominee-presumptive into third or forth place. That’s Bernie’s terrible campaign staff at work yet again. But really, it would get fixed. The cult on the right won’t demand quality control from their Dear Leader President. And the cult on the left won’t demand quality control from the prophet of Burlington either. They’ll laughably call themselves “democratic socialists” in their Facebook posts, but they won’t ask the campaign to do their job right.

[Skroe]

You can rest assured of one thing, if the Democrats are going to choose a moderate as their presidential nominee and they lose, everyone will remember for a long time not to vote moderate Democrat anymore.

In this polarized market is seems counter-intuitive to me to try and push "moderates" forward anyway. Most people will just think: 'another corrupt average asshole' when they see a 'moderate' politician. You are underestimating their hatred for average / moderate elites.

Oh for pity’s sake. You people....

My post is about a “moderate Democrat”. It’s about two things:

-Bernie fucking Sanders and his bad 2016 campaign that squandered enthusiasm, and the fanboys who let it happen.

-the importance of campaign infrastructure and how turning Donation money into machinery is more important than raw enthusiasm.

You can apply those lessons to ANY Democrat, or Republican. Because the ideas are nonpartisan. To win, it can’t be a complete shit show. Sanders 2016 was. The end. The media and DNC didn’t fuck Bernie. Bernie fucked Bernie. And when his PAC was going to be more of the same, its leaders mass quit.

Warren has taken his advice. By all accounts she’s running an excellent campaign. Joe Bidens is a mess apparently, but positive name recognition has carried him far. But it’s probably reaching its limits.

Bernie 2016 was a story of enthusiasm devouring any concept of standards. And his Super Tuesday disaster was inevitable because of it.

Here too, we are walking into a sequel. The situation has not changed that much. Biden is still in course to win many Super Tuesday states, albeit less than a few months ago. Buttigieg will work. A few. Warren and Sanders split the progressive vote allowing Biden to divide and conquer them in winner take all states.

So progressives have a problem.. a problem that hasn’t changed in months. To best Biden, Warren or Sanders have to quit and one has to eat the others supporters. The new twist is if Mayor Buttigieg can split the centrist vote for sure but that’s TBD.

[Muzjhath]

You can rest assured of one thing, if the Democrats are going to choose a moderate as their presidential nominee and they lose, everyone will remember for a long time not to vote moderate Democrat anymore.

In this polarized market is seems counter-intuitive to me to try and push "moderates" forward anyway. Most people will just think: 'another corrupt average asshole' when they see a 'moderate' politician. You are underestimating their hatred for average / moderate elites.

Except that this is a gross misscharectary sation of Skroe tbh.
He doesn't say "vore for a moderate". He says "Learn to play politics".

FDR ran in the 1940ies election on a promise not to have US troops in a foreign war. Knowing that said war would happen and the US would get included in it with soldiers.

Democrats should run on policies like electoral reform and sensible economics. While planning on doing far larger things like M4A that can be swung easily by other shit.

FDR got the New Deal through congress through shrewed as fuck politics. Not through having either party behind him.

[Skroe]

Except that this is a gross misscharectary sation of Skroe tbh.
He doesn't say "vore for a moderate". He says "Learn to play politics".

FDR ran in the 1940ies election on a promise not to have US troops in a foreign war. Knowing that said war would happen and the US would get included in it with soldiers.

Democrats should run on policies like electoral reform and sensible economics. While planning on doing far larger things like M4A that can be swung easily by other shit.

FDR got the New Deal through congress through shrewed as fuck politics. Not through having either party behind him.

Democrats are terrible at politics because they need to wave the flag of the almighty cause at every chance they get. Their ability to act and think strategically is laughable. It would be quaint if it didn’t play into Republicans hands every time.

Take M4A. By all means, President Democrat could advance the fight for M4A. As President, go nuts. They have 4 years to make the case and lay the foundation In a picemeil fashion in spending bills. But to get elected President? The verdict of M4A is clear. It is not a vote getter in state’s, districts and demographics Democrats must carry I order to win. Trying to change people’s mind in an election in this political climate is a waste of time and resources. Calibrate the message for them, tell them what they want to hear. Then get elected and do what they want.

This is not hard. They make it hard. And that’s why Trump has a 60% chance of a second term in my view when he should have a 10% chance. Not because the Democrats aren’t “moderate”. But because they arent running the strat to win over essential voters.

Once elected though, if they want to live the social democratic life... go nuts. But you don’t win that way.