The Democratic Presidential Nomination 2020

[ResAlien]

Originally Posted by New Era

Sure, fill your boots. I would happily take a young Biden right now. When the alternative is Donald Trump and him destroying the very institutions that make up this country, I'll take "an establishment dem" in a heartbeat.

Ah then you miss the point because you’re not energizing the voting base with him, you’re not getting out any minority vote, you’re losing moderate and most christians because he’s gay, so what’s the big love affair with a small town mayor?

Look at the polls. Young voters know who he is and they don’t like him because he sucks. I get that he’s a wine and cheese liberal’s wet dream for a candidate but he’s a losing horse in this race.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by New Era

Sure, fill your boots. I would happily take a young Biden right now. When the alternative is Donald Trump and him destroying the very institutions that make up this country, I'll take "an establishment dem" in a heartbeat.

This must have been what it was like when the Pilgrims rocked up in N America for the first time 'yes sure we need to get rid of those thieving settler whites but I aint going to stop fighting and start to get along with the Micmacs, are you mad?'

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by ResAlien

Ah then you miss the point because you’re not energizing the voting base with him, you’re not getting out any minority vote, you’re losing moderate and most christians because he’s gay, so what’s the big love affair with a small town mayor?

Look at the polls. Young voters know who he is and they don’t like him because he sucks. I get that he’s a wine and cheese liberal’s wet dream for a candidate but he’s a losing horse in this race.

Yeah if the point is to nominate the person who has the best chance of beating Trump, Pete is behind Bernie with almost every group except white, suburban centrists.

[Fighting Banana Slug]

I get that Pete may not be the right guy, but how is it that "establishment Dem" is such a disqualifier? As an outsider (sorry New Era), I would think a mainstream, mostly down the middle (sorry New Ear), dem candidate is exactly what they need to win (again, New Era, my apologies).

[peter12]

Originally Posted by Fighting Banana Slug

I get that Pete may not be the right guy, but how is it that "establishment Dem" is such a disqualifier? As an outsider (sorry New Era), I would think a mainstream, mostly down the middle (sorry New Ear), dem candidate is exactly what they need to win (again, New Era, my apologies).

It was my understanding that Pete had no hope of becoming the nominee based on what New Era had posted earlier and that I was a moron for suggesting otherwise.

People change, times change, I guess.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by Fighting Banana Slug

I get that Pete may not be the right guy, but how is it that "establishment Dem" is such a disqualifier? As an outsider (sorry New Era), I would think a mainstream, mostly down the middle (sorry New Ear), dem candidate is exactly what they need to win (again, New Era, my apologies).

Because many people recognize that Trump is the symptom and not the disease. The idea of returning America to the "normalcy" of the Obama years is unpalatable for those whose lives continue to suck due to the rot at the core of establishment neoliberalism.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by ResAlien

Ah then you miss the point because you’re not energizing the voting base with him, you’re not getting out any minority vote, you’re losing moderate and most christians because he’s gay, so what’s the big love affair with a small town mayor?

Look at the polls. Young voters know who he is and they don’t like him because he sucks. I get that he’s a wine and cheese liberal’s wet dream for a candidate but he’s a losing horse in this race.

Real America.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Yeah if the point is to nominate the person who has the best chance of beating Trump, Pete is behind Bernie with almost every group except white, suburban centrists.

Suburban areas, and especially women in those areas were the main demo that flipped against Trump and led to the blue wave in the mid terms. I don't think Sanders plays well in those areas and would likely erase a lot of those gains. Sanders isn't really energizing the minorities either.

[burn_this_city]

Why wouldn't suburbans whites just fall in line behind the nominee like the progressives are supposed to?

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

Why wouldn't suburbans whites just fall in line behind the nominee like the progressives are supposed to?

Yeah, I'm having a hard time seeing those women who voted blue in the mid-terms turning around and going "Well they nominated Bernie, better vote for the rapist instead."

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Because many people recognize that Trump is the symptom and not the disease. The idea of returning America to the "normalcy" of the Obama years is unpalatable for those whose lives continue to suck due to the rot at the core of establishment neoliberalism.

And yet in reality this is the pinicle of wealth and privilege for mankind, especially in the west, we literally have never had it so good, our Grandparents would smack us upside the head for being spoiled little ####s complaining about the utter luxury even the poorest of us live in compared to their lives.

Other than climate change there is no argument against neo liberal capitalism, is has provided us with so much that we live in a land where the poor are overweight, do you realise how absurd that is?

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

Why wouldn't suburbans whites just fall in line behind the nominee like the progressives are supposed to?

because they have a massive financial stake in what happens, Trump has left their money alone, they may even be richer under him, Bernie is going to take some of their wealth, maybe a huge amount of it.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

Why wouldn't suburbans whites just fall in line behind the nominee like the progressives are supposed to?

I imagine because they view it as: Tax cuts + not anti-business > Single payer and free college.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

And yet in reality this is the pinicle of wealth and privilege for mankind, especially in the west, we literally have never had it so good, our Grandparents would smack us upside the head for being spoiled little ####s complaining about the utter luxury even the poorest of us live in compared to their lives.

Other than climate change there is no argument against neo liberal capitalism, is has provided us with so much that we live in a land where the poor are overweight, do you realise how absurd that is?

This is a terrible argument. "It was worse before, so you shouldn't ask for better now." Not to mention you've completely missed the point on the poor being overweight.

[FlameOn]

Obama's campaign manager says of all the current candidates, Sanders has the most 'viable' candidate come Super Tuesday.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is shaping up to be the most "viable" Democratic presidential candidate for Super Tuesday, David Plouffe, the political strategist who led former President Barack Obama's 2008 campaign, has said.

Speaking with MSNBC on Tuesday, Plouffe said out of all the candidates in the 2020 Democratic race, "you'd still rather be Bernie Sanders than anybody else."

His comments came as Sanders rose to victory in the New Hampshire primary contest, beating former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg by just over 1.6 percent, with 95 percent of the votes counted.

While Plouffe acknowledged that other candidates, Buttigieg and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who appeared to win nearly 20 percent of the vote, had performed well, he said Sanders was still the candidate best-positioned to do well on Super Tuesday.

"Even Amy Klobuchar had a great night," Plouffe said. But, he added: "It's quite possible that this is the best night of the entire campaign for her, because she's now got to put together a national campaign overnight."

https://www.newsweek.com/bernie-sand...ection-1486900

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

Why wouldn't suburbans whites just fall in line behind the nominee like the progressives are supposed to?

If the centrists are between the Right (Trump) and Left (Sanders) in terms of where they stand in policies, then it make sense that some will break one way and some will break the other if those are the only two choices.

If the choices are Centrist and Right, it seems self defeating and spiteful for the far left voters to go with the Right guy.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by rubecube

This is a terrible argument. "It was worse before, so you shouldn't ask for better now." Not to mention you've completely missed the point on the poor being overweight.

What is the point about the poor being overweight?

[nik-]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

If the centrists are between the Right (Trump) and Left (Sanders) in terms of where they stand in policies, then it make sense that some will break one way and some will break the other if those are the only two choices.

If the choices are Centrist and Right, it seems self defeating and spiteful for the far left voters to go with the Right guy.

Yeah, it's more likely that people break to the status quo when for most people their lives aren't appreciably different and the other candidate is looking for significant structural change.

[FlameOn]

It's becoming more and more apparent that Bloomberg's campaign is more about tax avoidance than actually trying to run the country. Under his own proposed tax plan vs. Sanders and Warren's, Bloomberg would save roughly $3.5Billion. So we know now about how much money Bloomberg is willing to spend to prevent either of those two from becoming the nominee.

Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg says he would pay more to Uncle Sam under his plan to raise taxes on wealthy Americans. What the former New York City mayor hasn't said: He'd pay as much as $3.5 billion less under his wealth tax than he would under similar proposals from Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, two of his rivals for the party's nomination. Bloomberg's plan would also generate far less government revenue.

Bloomberg, who released his tax plan last week, said the proposal targets the "very rich." That includes him: Bloomberg is worth an estimated $61 billion, according to Forbes.

Much of that fortune is tied to Bloomberg LLC, the global financial data and media empire he founded four decades ago. The candidate owns 88% of the company, which generated an estimated $3.8 billion in income last year alone, according to industry consultant Douglas Taylor. And his nearly 90% ownership stake in the media enterprise entitled him to about $3.3 billion of that income stream.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bloombe...-warren-biden/

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Because many people recognize that Trump is the symptom and not the disease. The idea of returning America to the "normalcy" of the Obama years is unpalatable for those whose lives continue to suck due to the rot at the core of establishment neoliberalism.

So it's leftist revolution or bust. And the people who want revolution are concentrated in like-minded social circles, so they dramatically over-estimate how widespread their outlook is.

Again, anyone who doesn't see the parallel with Corbynism and the UK election is being wilfully blind.

For the last four years, Labour has been in thrall to the notion that it’s better to have a manifesto you can feel proud of, a programme that calls itself radical, than to devise one that might have a chance of winning. Some even argued that, “win or lose”, Corbyn achieved much simply by offering a genuinely socialist plan – in contrast with Labour’s 1997 offer, which was so boringly modest and incremental.

Well, guess what. Labour’s “radical” manifesto of 2019 achieved precisely nothing. Not one proposal in it will be implemented, not one pound in it will be spent. It is worthless. And if judged not by the academic standard of “expanding the discourse”, but by the hard, practical measure of improving actual people’s actual lives, those hate figures of Corbynism – Tony Blair and Gordon Brown – achieved more in four hours than Corbyn achieved in four years. Why? Because they did what it took to win power.

That’s what a political party is for. It’s not a hobby; it’s not a pressure group that exists to open the Overton window a little wider; it’s not an association for making friends or hosting stimulating conversations and seminars; it’s not “a 30-year project”. Its purpose is to win and exercise power in the here and now. It is either a plausible vehicle for government or it is nothing.

That was beyond the reach of the faction ruling Labour. Not for them the electoral basics of reassurance and credibility. They came up with a manifesto more stuffed with giveaways than Santa’s grotto, and about as believable...

To warn of this danger and sound the alarm was to be instantly howled down as a Blairite, a centrist, a red Tory. On social media, a group of outriders policed the conversation, unleashing a pile-on of mockery and denunciation on anyone guilty of pointing out that the emperor seemed to be unnervingly lacking in clothes. (Then they affected surprise when those they’d told to “#### off and join the Tories” didn’t come running to help.)...

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...our-left-party