Serious 2020 Democratic Primary Thread

Who are your favorite candidates?

  • Kamala Harris

    Votes: 43 8.0%
  • Elizabeth Warren

    Votes: 99 18.4%
  • Julián Castro

    Votes: 16 3.0%
  • Pete Buttigieg

    Votes: 51 9.5%
  • Kirsten Gillibrand

    Votes: 7 1.3%
  • John Delaney

    Votes: 9 1.7%
  • Tulsi Gabbard

    Votes: 63 11.7%
  • Bernie Sanders

    Votes: 338 62.9%
  • Amy Klobuchar

    Votes: 12 2.2%
  • Joe Biden

    Votes: 45 8.4%
  • Andrew Yang

    Votes: 112 20.9%
  • Cory Booker

    Votes: 7 1.3%
  • Marianne Williamson

    Votes: 19 3.5%
  • Mike Bloomberg

    Votes: 12 2.2%

  • Total voters
    537

MikeDawg

Banned deucer.
The rush of candidate announcements signals that this is a good time to start talking about 2020. Considering Donald is almost certainly a lock for the republican nomination, the obvious variable is who will win the Democratic nom. There are a whole bunch of notable candidates this time around, not even counting future announcements. At the moment, these are the contenders who have held public offices before or are otherwise well-known:


How do you feel about the upcoming primaries? Who is your favorite/least favorite candidate? Can anyone dethrone Donald Trump?
 

MikeDawg

Banned deucer.
Personally, I'm all-in for Kamala (though I wouldn't mind a Warren ticket). She's mostly progressive, she's relatively young, she's an incredibly potent speaker and debater, she has a fantastic history, most of the common attacks on her (especially by bernie supporters) are easily debunked, and she is a great choice for "first black, female president".

I voted for Bernie in the 2016 primaries, but I preferred Hillary by the end of the primaries once I finally stopped blindly believing the memes and other pro-bernie, anti-hillary propaganda. imo, he has little significant experience and few accomplishments, is unable to articulate any actual plans to accompany his great ideas, and doesn't have the temperament and mindset for the job. From an electability standpoint, he's too old and far too easy to attack (he has never faced intense scrutiny, including from the hillary campaign). I truly hope he doesn't announce a run and instead throws his support behind another candidate who shares his values, especially because his particularly rabid supporters (ugh don't get me started on the absurdly ignorant, delusional, and toxic portion of his fanbase) will turn this into another 2016. I think he mirrors Sarah Palin in that he is a great state-level representative, doesn't know how to handle large-scale issues, and is more of a celebrity to his fans than a serious political force (if you haven't seen it, "Game Change" is a super interesting movie about the mccain/palin campaign!)

tulsi gabbard is garbage, and i think it's fucking hilarious that her rise in popularity was almost exclusively a product of publicly supporting bernie.


my one (unobtainable) wish for this election is that we stop focusing on "vibes" over political qualifications, but oh well
 

tcr

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I don' particularly have any singular favorites but I think that by and far Kamala Harris is the absolute worst choice for candidacy. Harris has gone on record for being very much pro law enforcement, which is puzzling coming from a black representative of California. In videos like this she has expressed her desire for punitive measures for trivial crimes such as school truancy (threatening to lock up parents of children who frequently skip school). This measure, while already egregiously overstepping the bounds of her DA position at the time, shows her tendency to outlaw specific behavior rather than actually attempting to radically address why the behavior abounds in the first place. I'm no expert on why kids tend to skip school, but I think measures of increasing funding for education and addressing wealth inequality would be decent starters to addressing the "crisis" of skipping school. Harris has gone on record saying she opposes the death penalty in California, for example, and yet during her tenure as state attorney general she argued in front of the Circuit Court for the death penalty. She has openly opposed bills that require investigations into any police shooting, and has staunchly been silent on any form of comments about marijuana legalization, despite oftentimes making jokes about lighting up. To me this signals that she is just a firm believer in the status quo wrt criminal justice reform, unwilling to go against the grain and use her status and position to support these reform tactics and bills to protect the communities she represents, but is also incredibly eager to use her personal characteristics to boost her into the candidacy. Well played politics I guess but if you're actively looking for a progressive candidate rather than a status quo politician then I'd look elsewhere in the pool, rather than setting your sights on a pro-justice system candidate that spouts their hypocritical stances.
 
I guess I'll just put my initial thoughts here for each
Kamala Harris: Fuck No with an extra side of gtfo
Elizabeth Warren: Out of your current List, by far the best pick for progressives by a landslide
Julian Castro: As a a fellow Hispanic it pains me to say but, yeah a cardboard cut out of him might do better
Pete Buttigieg: WHO?
John Delaney : LOL
Tulsi Gabbard: Meh, if it comes downs to it, I would feel ok voting for her, could be worse ig

But with those out of the way, the 2 Heavy weights by far are the 2 wildcards.
Bernie Sanders: The best pick of any democratic candidate by far. When he announces he'll be favorite of the real left. Basically guaranteed to dethrone Trump.
Hillary Clinton: GOD PLEASE NO! LITERALLY ANYBODY BUT THIS! The establishment Dem's will shower her with glory and praise and will probably be named the favorite again, if she decides to run. Basically guaranteed to let Trump win again.
 

AB2

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Does there happen to be a republican candidate discussion thread?
Uh, because Trump is going to be the nominee so there's not really a point in discussing any other potential candidate?

Anyways, as a Native American, there's simply no way that I can in good conscience vote for Elizabeth Warren. She tried to leverage her "Native American heritage" to impress fellow white progressives/feminists. She's the embodiment of white feminism/white privilege and that's not something the Democrats need if they plan on continuing to form a progressive and diverse coalition.

Also, Kamala is a fascist tbh.

The only one (so far) who has any semblance of a moral compass is Sanders. That's a pretty sad state of affairs for the Democrats, but that seems to be the case.
 

Surgo

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Kamala Harris was a prosecutor so that's gonna be a no from me. Don't really have an informed opinion about the others, which is a little sad because Gillibrand is my senator so I should probably do some research.

Senators have garbage stats at getting elected president so could we please get someone who isn't a senator that would be great.
 

Bass

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Ok, OP's post is full of so much hyperbole and lack of understanding of progressive politics that I just had to bite.

Personally, I'm all-in for Kamala (though I wouldn't mind a Warren ticket). She's mostly progressive, she's relatively young, she's an incredibly potent speaker and debater, she has a fantastic history, most of the common attacks on her (especially by bernie supporters) are easily debunked, and she is a great choice for "first black, female president".
Kamala Harris's record is anything but "progressive". It is evident that you don't really understand the term.

I am sure Harris suffers plenty of attacks that are not fair as Clinton did, but there are many fair criticisms to be made too. In particular, how could we trust her to stand up to the little guy when she deliberately chose not to prosecute Steve Mnuchin (who is now Trump's secretary of treasury)? She has failed to explain why. Or how about the fact that she is courting wealthy donors in the hamptons, just as Clinton has? Please go ahead and "easily debunk" those for me.

I voted for Bernie in the 2016 primaries, but I preferred Hillary by the end of the primaries once I finally stopped blindly believing the memes and other pro-bernie, anti-hillary propaganda.
So is the fact that Bernie Sanders rejected large donations from corporations while Hillary Clinton didn’t "propaganda"? What about the fact that Sanders supports implementing a single payer health care system just as the rest of the industrialized world does, while Clinton gleefully insists that it will "never, ever come to pass"? It’s a fact that Clinton has consistently supported wasting huge chunks of our tax payer money for wars which have killed and displaced millions of innocent people around the world, and Sanders has not. I could keep going on and on, but it’s as clear as day which candidate was with the 99%, and which one was with the 1%. Those among the 99% who understand in what ways the 1% has and continues to screw them over are the ones who gave the most support to Sanders. This point alone really makes me question if you are being truthful about voting for him in the first place, and if so, why?

imo, he has little significant experience and few accomplishments, is unable to articulate any actual plans to accompany his great ideas, and doesn't have the temperament and mindset for the job.
First of all, your point is not even true at face value. And in fact even a fact checker with a notoriously pro-Clinton bias has at least acknowledged his accomplishments as a legislator. But more importantly, it’s relevant because “experience” is highly correlated with how good of a job the president does in office, right? And let’s not forget the Clinton campaign constantly praised Barack Obama’s presidency, even though they also smeared his inexperience in extremely cringey ways in the 2008. On a personal note, I don’t believe any of Obama’s failings as president are due to his lack of experience. In my opinion, Clinton’s only major distinction from Sanders in terms of experience is her tenure as secretary of state, which I would not rate very highly due to promoting military interventionism in Libya. It’s like Clinton supporters view the position of presidency the same way a corporate HR department views job positions when they shouldn’t be since only one person at any time can ever be the POTUS, and therefore can never truly be "qualified" in resume terms...

From an electability standpoint, he's too old and far too easy to attack
You say this even though Clinton is also old and even easier to attack…

(he has never faced intense scrutiny, including from the hillary campaign.
On what planet are you living on? The Clinton campaign attacked him relentlessly in 2016, which included some incredible falsehoods such as Chelsea Clinton telling people that Sanders was going to take away their healthcare. The mainstream media outlets were also overwhelmingly ant-Sanders. I particularly remembered when a video of him praising Fidel Castro for implementing universal healthcare in Cuba was played during a debate in an attempt to alienate him with Cuban American voters in Florida.

So what, are you one of those people that thinks a progressive candidate like Sanders would fall apart in the general election because they’d constantly be called a socialist? That happened to Barack Obama and he won decisively in both 2008 and 2012. And his opponents were not evil scary crazies like Donald Trump, but “moderates” very much like Clinton.

I truly hope he doesn't announce a run and instead throws his support behind another candidate who shares his values, especially because his particularly rabid supporters (ugh don't get me started on the absurdly ignorant, delusional, and toxic portion of his fanbase) will turn this into another 2016.
And this my friends was perhaps the biggest anti-Sanders smear of all. You can’t argue that he is further to the left of Clinton even on social issues, so instead attack his supporters. I’ve got news for you: every single candidate has “ignorant, delusional, and toxic” supporters. They are easy enough to find on any mainstream political subreddit and other major social media platforms. This is a perfect example of guilt by association, which is a known logical fallacy. And like many of the other points I have mentioned so far, this is yet another strategy that the Clinton campaign employed in 2008 to label Obama and his supporters as sexist. As someone who voted for a female candidate in the last two presidential elections, it comes off as extremely disingenuous.

I think he mirrors Sarah Palin in that he is a great state-level representative, doesn't know how to handle large-scale issues,
I debunked these two points a few paragraphs earlier.

and is more of a celebrity to his fans than a serious political force (if you haven't seen it, "Game Change" is a super interesting movie about the mccain/palin campaign!)
Once again, I’d argue that applies more to Clinton than Sanders. In most discussions I have seen about Clinton, most of her supporters emphasize padded attributes that look strong on resumes (eg, experience, intelligence, debating skills, perceived electability) and identity (a powerful female politician) rather than her policy positions. In contrast, Sanders supporters are mainly excited by his policy positions, and genuinely believe he supports them because of his authenticity. And this in turn means many have perceived Sanders as caring more about the every day problems being faced by voters. Exit polling from several primaries has confirmed this distinction. See this example from the Michigan primary, which was a close one:



tulsi gabbard is garbage, and i think it's fucking hilarious that her rise in popularity was almost exclusively a product of publicly supporting bernie.
Her rise in popularity is due to her anti-war foreign policy positions which are in stark contrast with virtually all of the other candidates in the running so far. She actually exceeds Bernie Sanders in this respect, and Warren doesn't even come close (she supported Trump's bloated military budget). She also doesn't take corporate PAC money, which is a huge plus, and partially explains her positions since military contractors have a massive influence on congress. I think her stance on LGBT issues in the past might hurt her in a primary election, but then again plenty of gays supported Clinton in the 2016 primary election despite being against gay marriage until as late as 2013. Meanwhile, Sanders has been a staunch supporter of gay rights for decades, even when it wasn't mainstream to do so. But that's not a surprise though since he wasn't a democrat!

I also find it ironic that you emphasize how great it is that Harris could be the first president to be a woman of color, even though that would also be true for Gabbard. Not to say I don't think there would be even better choices like Nina Turner who also possesses many of the same qualities you like about Harris, but sadly she probably won't run.
my one (unobtainable) wish for this election is that we stop focusing on "vibes" over political qualifications, but oh well
My one (unobtainable) wish for this election is that we stop focusing on "political qualifications" over policy positions and voting records, but oh well.

I pick which candidates I support based primarily on their policy positions, and analyze their record to determine how trustworthy they are. This is probably the greatest strength of Sanders since he has been extraordinarily consistent on the issues, even though the political landscape has greatly changed throughout his tenure. While I supported him in 2016 and most likely will continue to in 2020, I will probably do so with a bit less enthusiasm than before as I feel his foreign policy positions aren't as strong as they should be. I still consider him to be better than the other candidates though I'd probably be alright with Gabbard and Warren too despite some reservations I have with them.
 

Surgo

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Dems will lose because they refuse to believe biden is an option

Quote me on this in 2020
Fair enough imo. Personally I like Joe. I'd vote for him in the primary if Sanders wasn't in it.

Bass said:
In particular, how could we trust her to stand up to the little guy when she deliberately chose not to prosecute Steve Mnuchin (who is now Trump's secretary of treasury)
This is pretty much exactly the problem that senators have with getting elected, only Harris has it about 10x harder because you can also critique her prosecutorial record. And personally I'll never vote for a prosecutor except in super special cases (like they're a black lawyer who ran for DA because police shooting innocent people kept not getting prosecuted, or something like that).
 

Da Letter El

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Biden's the only particularly moderate option that has any shot of getting out of the primaries if he runs. Then you'll have a slugfest for the frontrunner on the progressive side that's too open to predict at the moment (although people still love Bernie), and then dems will have to sort out whether they think a progressive can win against trump. A progressive probably can, but that's probably going to be the debate (again) and would need to be the right progressive (or perhaps should be rephrased as "just not the wrong progressive" if people truly dislike Trump as much as approval ratings seem to show).
 

UncleSam

Leading this village
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Harris is going to be tough to beat in the primaries. California votes early in the process now (on Super Tuesday I believe) which means that she will have a huge base of delegates in her back yard during the portion of the primary that actually matters.

Warren is damaged goods after the whole Pochahontas thing and Gillebrand pissed a lot of Dems off with the Al Franken incident. Bernie and Biden are both super old white guys and Bernie is no longer the main progressive alternative. Frankly I think Bernie won’t even run and Biden may well not either.

I could see Beto winning in all honesty, he’s a tremendous public speaker and inspires people. His primary political experience being a loss to Ted Cruz during a Dem wave year will probably hold him back, however.

Smart money is on Harris for now imo.
 

GatoDelFuego

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I didn't get the sense that people didn't view him as viable? People have been clamoring for Biden to declare for ages.
People say he's too boring, too white, not progressive enough. Like, boring? Biden? Doesn't matter, he'll actually draw votes because unlike other establishment dems he has charisma like a wild stallion

Lol literally as I'm typing
Bernie and Biden are both super old white guys
 
Bernie Sanders is not "white" -- whatever this term stands for--, he has Jewish parents.
do black jews not exist, then, existing in some sort of liminal racial category? did george zimmerman freeze time, take trayvon martins blood sample and head over to ancestry dot com to peep his genetic biography before killing him extrajudicially?

using colonial logics to absolve jewish folks from the phenotypical application of race is white supremacy
 
do black jews not exist, then, existing in some sort of liminal racial category? did george zimmerman freeze time, take trayvon martins blood sample and head over to ancestry dot com to peep his genetic biography before killing him extrajudicially?

using colonial logics to absolve jewish folks from the phenotypical application of race is white supremacy
Then he is a white jew I guess? Even if he looks like a white person, his Jewish background should make him a fine choice as a progressive candidate so I don't think it's fair to exclude him just because he looks like "a super old white guy".

To below (this has already gone too far so I don't want to clog the thread up)
Yeah but his parents didn't intermarry (as opposite to your case). He was born from two Jewish parents, who in turn had Jewish parents themselves (Sanders was raised, both religiously and culturally, the old jewish way). We're definitely going off topic (well it's not my fault since I was just presenting a fact), but where does the white part come from?
 
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MikeDawg

Banned deucer.
Then he is a white jew I guess? Even if he looks like a white person, his Jewish background should make him a fine choice as a progressive candidate so I don't think it's fair to exclude him just because he looks like "a super old white guy".
He is white in every sense of the word. I'm half jewish, and I am absolutely, 100% white. Plus, I don't see how being jewish qualifies him as a "minority". In fact, Jews are overrepresented in Congress. 1.4% of Americans are Jewish, but jews make up 9% of the senate and over 5% of the house.

That's not to dismiss the very real oppression that jews have historically faced, but your comparison is super off-base in this particular context.
 
It is disappointing how this discussion about the choice of the candidate is mostly reduced to the racial identity of the candidates by some posters.

I would like to see discussions about improving our infrastructure and accessibility through innovations in technology and general r&d. I would be interested in more discussions about economy from democrats. I believe that accessibility to the markets is an emerging issue that progressives should embrace.
 

MikeDawg

Banned deucer.
Yeah but his parents didn't intermarry (as opposite to your case). He was born from two Jewish parents, who in turn had Jewish parents themselves (Sanders was raised, both religiously and culturally, the old jewish way). We're definitely going off topic (well it's not my fault since I was just presenting a fact), but where does the white part come from?
You're correct that there is a non-negligible social distinction between white jews and "aryan whites" (et. al.); the existence of anti-semitism makes that undeniable. However, that distinction isn't racially motivated, particularly in contemporary discussion. There's absolutely no comparison between American anti-semitic discourse and the systemic oppression that minorities of color face. The fact that jews are so disproportionately successful in areas where POC are historically underrepresented is a major testament to this. Plus, not only do (white) jews look white, but they also have the highest rate among all religions of self-identifying as white.

Bernie is the most progressive candidate we've ever had, and his inauguration would be a major landmark in that sense, but his white, male, jewish identity isn't a contributing factor.
 
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AB2

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You're correct that there is a non-negligible social distinction between white jews and "aryan whites" (et. al.); the existence of anti-semitism makes that undeniable. However, that distinction isn't racially motivated, particularly in contemporary discussion. There's absolutely no comparison between American anti-semitic discourse and the systemic oppression that minorities of color face. The fact that jews are so disproportionately successful in areas where POC are historically underrepresented is a major testament to this. Plus, not only do (white) jews look white, but they also have the highest rate among all religions of self-identifying as white.

Bernie is the most progressive candidate we've ever had, and his inauguration would be a major landmark in that sense, but his white, male, jewish identity isn't a contributing factor.
I think it would be a mistake to say that anti-semitism is not "racially motivated" considering that the existence of Ashkenazi Jewish "whiteness" is a main sticking point for anti-semites (see far right canards regarding Jews using white identity and their relative political power as subtrefuge to disenfranchise non-Jewish white folks).

However, the fact remains that Ashkenazi Jews certainly do benefit from white privilege. This is especially true when you consider their relationship to Zionism. This issue is more complex because Jews have historically existed in a gray area of whiteness in times of prosperity while dealing with systemic discrimination and violence being perceived as non-white interlopers in times of economic despair. That still exists to this day if hate crime statistics are any indication. The Ashkenazi Jewish relationship to whiteness is conditional and has far more to do with current material conditions than it has to do with any over representation in positions of power. Thus, I think it's a bit irresponsible to dismiss and decouple anti-semitism from racial bias.

The fact of the matter is while racial identity is a contributing factor to being elected president, it's clearly not the only thing to be considered as Kamala Harris exemplifies.
 
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Myzozoa

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Does there happen to be a republican candidate discussion thread?
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/general-news-discussion-thread.3622536/

also, wrt Sanders, he isnt too old to get elected at all, this is America, the habit is to elect hella old ppl. One of the things that recommends Sanders for the nomination, imo, is precisely that he seems unlikely to fall to the sorts of unforced errors that lost Clinton the 2016 general election and the 2008 democratic primary, and that same tendency to err seems likely to be the undoing of Warren (years out from a general election and shes already blown it, a t0 loss to cheeto stall) even though she talks about progressive policies in a more practical way than Sanders does.

As always, it's worrying how eager ppl itt are to think of america as this post-sex/gender place where you can just be a moderate (white) woman
and actually get elected to the presidency against a less competent white man, but im not so sure 2016 didnt teach us something else about the extent of patriarchy in America.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019...ria-ocasio-cortez-fiscal-policies-unworkable/

this is an interesting article, ignoring the headline, the analyst explains in a somewhat impartial way why he thinks it will be difficult for 'socialist' policy to advance in the legislatures. I think this is the biggest question for progressives: will they even, and how will they propose to fund their policies? Will they take a long path, with many turnings, to a likely eventual legislative defeat (i.e proposing to fund the programs through debt) or will they have the courage to propose cutting military and military-industrial complex spending?

Sanders although much older than AOC, imo has a similar ability to communicate messages in ways that reach people that would normally just be alienated from mainstream politics.
 
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I am very excited about the possibility of Howard Schultz running, and look forward to hearing about what more he has to say through out this political process.
 

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