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Serious 2020 Democratic Primary Thread
- Thread starter MikeDawg
- Start date
Actually the 2016 primary was not close. Hillary won by 12% in the popular vote and 34/57 states and territories. That’s not a close result by any metric.
If it becomes a two candidate race, Sanders will lose. Card carrying Democrats will stick with the party.
you base this expectation on what again?
Logic. You think Democratic primary voters will choose an Independent “democratic socialist” over a “mainstream” Democrat?
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Good luck with that.
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Sanders is totally unviable. Just stack 3 center-right dems in a trenchcoat, and he has no chance! Because that's totally how this works!
Really astute analysis there: "x will happen because I say so." Shit like that doesn't even fly in a middle school classroom lmao I dunno where you get off making baseless assertions purely off of feeling
Uh, excuse you? Where is the supposed logic you speak of? Sanders evidently beats everyone in a head to head match up. Stop spreading misinformation.
I'd argue that it's much closer than what you claim, and yes Sanders has a clear advantage, but it isn't exactly obvious or evident. Warren and Biden, for instance, are quite close. Also consider error margins. It's too early to say anything definitely yet.
[insert candidate] is gonna win cuz I said so. They're actually gonna look thru the smogon forums and try to find my exact post because it will dictate the result of the election. Elections don't use facts, they use what I (Machoke on smogon dot com) say and so yeah. Everyone else is wrong, sorry!
I could frankly believe that Biden WOULD have beaten Bernie heads up, had it always been a 2 candidate race, but in the run up to the primaries and in the first two primaries themselves, other candidates have weakened Biden much more than they’ve weakened Bernie. It seems pretty unlikely to me that even after the field narrows at this point that Biden would win it 1 on 1
u lack a theoretical explanation as to why these "left wing losses" happened, as long as your argument says "the past statistics say this and that" there is no reason to assume the left should continue to lose. the current polls show sanders has a good chance to win the primaries and a good chance to win the presidential race, i am far from the most optimistic person around so im not gonna say any of these things are remotely for certain rn but denying that the possibility is there without having any sort of argument beyond some vague "common sense" thinking is frankly just extremely stupid. i think you should stop posting until you do your homework
Polls in isolation are meaningless. Let’s see what happens when the votes are counted.
This is all speculation. The basis for my hypothesis was simple tribalism. Politics don’t adhere to logic. Biden is a Democrat. Sanders is not. Until proven otherwise I seriously doubt Democratic voters will nominate him over the party “choice.” My hypothesis is speculation also, but we saw how the primary played out in 2016 as a two person race. It wasn’t close.
Left wing politicians lose because they continue to believe facts and policies are persuasive enough to dictate voter behavior. Judging this arrogant response, it’s clear why history keeps repeating itself.
I'm super surprised that Buttigieg and Steyer dropped out before Super Tuesday. I think both Biden and Warren were polling just barely under the 15% threshold in California, so now all of a sudden both of them have a chance of getting delegates in a state that Bernie was looking to score a massive prize in.
I am personally very glad to see Buttigieg gone, I'm just worried that all his fundraising goes directly to Biden. I don't think all of his voters will follow as direct of a path though and I'd guess a minor splitting with Biden getting much but not all of his voter support. There's already statements acknowledging recent phonecalls between Buttigieg and Biden, and this does seem like an attempt to make Biden get over voting percent thresholds on Super Tuesday. Personally I would HATE it for Biden and Buttigieg to be making some sort of running mate deal.
I'm hoping the progressives still come out on top and I imagine it's hard for Sanders to actually lose his delegate lead by the time Super Tuesday is over.
I am personally very glad to see Buttigieg gone, I'm just worried that all his fundraising goes directly to Biden. I don't think all of his voters will follow as direct of a path though and I'd guess a minor splitting with Biden getting much but not all of his voter support. There's already statements acknowledging recent phonecalls between Buttigieg and Biden, and this does seem like an attempt to make Biden get over voting percent thresholds on Super Tuesday. Personally I would HATE it for Biden and Buttigieg to be making some sort of running mate deal.
I'm hoping the progressives still come out on top and I imagine it's hard for Sanders to actually lose his delegate lead by the time Super Tuesday is over.
Why is Buttigieg evil? Not even trolling or baiting, I just don't know enough about him to judge his character. He seemed like one of the more palatable candidates in this cycle.
I'm wondering what we'll see after Tuesday, particularly with VP combos. I assume Bernie and Biden will be the strongest of the group, but who would they go for? Maybe Bernie + Warren, or Biden + Buttigieg? Harris' name has floated around in other site's discussion.
As for the rest of the cabinet positions:
"the Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, State, Transportation, Treasury, and Veterans Affairs, and the Attorney General. Additionally, the Cabinet includes the White House Chief of Staff and heads of the Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Management and Budget, United States Trade Representative, Central Intelligence Agency, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and Small Business Administration" (https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-trump-administration/the-cabinet/)
Those are all the spots. Prominent Dems I can think of off the top of my head include Biden, Sanders, Warren, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Booker, Castro, Harris, O'Rourke, Schiff, Pelosi, Schumer, Clinton, Waters, Gabbard, Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, Tlaib, etc. Wonder if any of them will end up filling those positions.
Buttigieg was the 2nd best candidate. He was among the poorest out of the candidates and the most middle class. He would have been most representative of the people of the United States.
Because in the eyes of the internet democrats, a corporatist Democrat is worse than Trump getting re-elected.
On a different note, the Bernie rally in Boston was electric the other day. I’m buying more and more in on Bernie, and see his appeal to the youth vote as a very big plus. The long prophesied “demographic wave,” you know, the thing that would turn Texas purple and all that jazz, is here - and they’re overwhelmingly voting for Bernie.
Props to Mayor Pete for making the smart play and dropping out. It was clear he had no way forward and his campaign was only benefiting Sanders going forward.
I wonder if we'll see him endorse anyone anytime soon.
Without Buttigieg, Bernie's expected lead after Tuesday goes down a lot. He's going to need to outperform a ton to avoid a contested convention.
It'll be interesting to see if Warren or Klobuchar will get the biggest bump from Buttigieg. I think there's still time for one candidate to emerge as more central option than Biden/Bernie.
I wonder if we'll see him endorse anyone anytime soon.
Without Buttigieg, Bernie's expected lead after Tuesday goes down a lot. He's going to need to outperform a ton to avoid a contested convention.
It'll be interesting to see if Warren or Klobuchar will get the biggest bump from Buttigieg. I think there's still time for one candidate to emerge as more central option than Biden/Bernie.
Buttigieg was regularly disingenuous when discussing medicare, getting money out of politics, and funding college. He regularly misrepresented other candidates platform planks. His platform was pretty solid, but the way he went about promoting it often felt insincere. If only I had one word to describe him, palatable fits pretty well.
I don't think Warren would want to be VP with Bernie (though I think it's by far Bernie's best option, Bernie has so few good options).
I predicted Biden/Buttigieg a week or so ago, and I still think it's likely. It's a 'solid' ticket, in that it targets the swing states fairly directly, but I doubt a white guy / white guy ticket would fly in this day and age. I think it's more likely Buttigieg got offered a cabinet level position (Urban development? Veteran Affairs?), which I think any 38 year old would be foolish not to take.
Klobuchar is still the wild card. She makes any ticket better, and with Buttigieg out she has room to stay in.
For Bernie, the sooner Warren drops out, the better. It’s pretty clear that Elizabeth Warren has no path to the nomination and is only splitting the progressive vote. Wins in California and Massachusetts are critical going forward for Bernie; California because they have the most delegates, Massachusetts to put the final nail in the coffin for Warren’s campaign. California looks like a lock for Bernie at this point, but there’s still a real possibility Warren could pick up Massachusetts.
In any case, this race needs to get narrowed down to the inevitable two-man race between Bernie and Biden as soon as possible. Whoever gets the nomination between the two needs to get it without it going to a brokered convention, otherwise it will weaken the Democrats’ standing going into the general.
In any case, this race needs to get narrowed down to the inevitable two-man race between Bernie and Biden as soon as possible. Whoever gets the nomination between the two needs to get it without it going to a brokered convention, otherwise it will weaken the Democrats’ standing going into the general.
Will you acknowledge that Warren has no path to the nomination and that she is only still the race at this point to prevent Sanders from getting a majority of the pledged delegates? If she is lucky she'll win Massachusetts and come in a very distant 2nd in California, she has no chance of winning in any single state afterwards. I asked you to explain earlier what rationale she has for staying in the race at this point, but you never answered. Do you think she will use her delegates to help Bernie out later in the convention? If not, do you seriously think the super delegates would pick her to be the nominee over Biden or Bloomberg? Have you stopped and asked yourself why she now has the largest corporate SuperPAC out of any candidate after pledging not to take money from one,?
I had a conversation with my Warren supporting relative about this topic last night and managed to convince him that continuing to support her is a dead end and only helps the establishment... and Trump. It's nothing personal, and I have realized in retrospect that calling her a snake (even though I think it's understandable to be upset with her actions) isn't productive. But the facts speak for themselves. I really want to do everything I can to prevent this scenario from playing out, and the fact that the party establishment is trying to steal the nomination away from Sanders using superdelegates in a contested convention is something that is now being widely reported in multiple media outlets. Their strategy is now fully out in the open, and Buttigieg dropping out while Warren and Klobuchar are still staying in the race in spite of having worse performances so far should be enough evidence of that.
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I don't care about identity I care about policy so
Internet democrat? Speak for yourself!
-Equivocating on M4A when it was politically convenient/amassing health industry donors, promoting anti-M4A discourse and shifting the overton window (slightly, but still) to the right on healthcare in this critical period. This was just after a year of saying he "irrevocably" supported M4A.
-Undermining the importance of rejecting big money donors and superpac money and using sleazy tricks to make him seem less connected to special interests via big money (contest to see who could donate the lowest amount to lower his donation averages... so blatant lmao).
-Running to the right of Trump on foreign policy. I can't stress enough how terrible he was on foreign policy between his criticism of Trump for trying to meet with Kim (what's the alternative Pete? War?), Increased military action on Mexico, spars with Tulsi criticizing diplomacy over military action, calls to stay "engaged" in places we shouldn't be, worrying language about how "everyone should be involved in military service" or whatever just like Israel, and speaking of Israel he has relationships with AIPAC.
-His troublesome background in which race relations were worsened under his tenure such as black men being locked up for weed violations increased or his firing of the first black police chief which may have been under pressure from white cops caught on tape saying they wanted it to be "white" again and that they were going to pressure his donors to get him to fire the police chief (still under investigation iirc but the whole thing is very fishy to me)
-The way he handled race in his campaign which included faking support from black supporters by 1- claiming a group of supporters were black when like half of them were white, 2- touting black endorsements from officials who did not endorse him including some black members of Bernie's organization on the ground in their states, 3 - using tricks like reaching out to the owner of a black-owned restaurant and asking if he could eat there and then touting that as an endorsement
-His past work at Mckinsey, which he said he would recommend to others.
-Troubling donor list with many big donors and big fundraisers which is fundamentally anti-progressive.
etc
also "the evil has been defeated" was supposed to be a reference to this but I always get the wording wrong lol
Warren's path to the nomination is a contested convention and being the compromise candidate between the Bernie camp and the Establishment camp. Whether or not this path is even possible is debatable, but I believe this is what she is playing for.
I think she has shot herself in the foot with recent moves (painting Sanders as sexist, using a superPAC). Her campaign seems full of unforced errors, which I find really disappointing. That said, I'm not sure how Warren staying in hurts Sanders. Warren was a huge asset at the debate stage, supporting Sanders' policies and taking down Bloomberg as much as possible. From my look at the math, I think Warren staying in would only have a minor affect on the number of delegates Sanders walks away with (and Sanders + Warren delegates would be much more than Sanders alone, if she drops out).
Since so many delegates are up for grabs this month, debates will play a negligible role from here on out, so I think she's pretty much played her role, but I don't know how Tuesday will play out.
Buttigieg simply did not have a path forward. He had no minority support. He had no chance of appealing to progressive voters. He was flanked on all sides by Bloomberg, Biden, and Klobuchar. He was by far the most likely to drop out. (Though I expect to Klobuchar to drop out soon unless she massively overperforms Tuesday. She may be the Biden backup.)