Campaign 2020

Big Magilla
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Re: Campaign 2020

Post by Big Magilla »

Here we are just a few days away from the first primary.

The good news:

The screwball Republicans continue to shoot themselves in the foot with their continued crass allegiance to Orange Hitler no matter what which should help turn out more Democrats, Independents and the few Republicans left with minds of their own to vote against every incumbent Republican running for re-election.

The bad news:

Trump's dirty tricks campaigners are working overtime to run ads against Biden while running support ads for Sanders because they think he will be easier to win against.

The ugly news:

It's being under-reported with everything else that is going on, but the Republicans in Northern Pennsylvania have been getting the hillbillies in that area who have never voted in an election to register so they can vote for Trump who will protect the only things they have, their bibles and their guns, from the Democrats who want to take them away, and promising to pick them up and drive them to their voting places on Election Day. This campaign is likely to spread to other battleground states before the election.
Sabin
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Re: Campaign 2020

Post by Sabin »

I still care about this.
There were three options: 1) Warren herself, 2) an unauthorized member of the Warren staff (least likely), or 3) a third party. I guess it might be third party.

https://www.mediaite.com/election-2020/ ... rs-to-cnn/
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Sabin
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Re: Campaign 2020

Post by Sabin »

Okri wrote
a) I don't think he excites enough people.

b) I think voter turnout needs to be huge and I'm also not convinced of that (due to a healthy dose of voter suppression).

c) I think once he's against Trump, as opposed to the primary, he will be eaten alive.

But I'm also not seeing everything, nor am I American, so frankly, what do I know.
These are good points. And I want to say on record: I think Joe Biden is a boring choice, I think voter suppression is a real thing, voter turnout needs to be high, and Trump will be running the same playbook against him that he did against Hillary Clinton...

... the difference is fewer people hate Joe Biden. There isn't any charges of sexism. He's literally a different, less evil old white guy to turn the controls over to. He will get destroyed in every single debate he is in because I'm not sure he is mentally equipped to be President but on the other hand Hillary Clinton probably didn't win because she was too mentally equipped to be President so I don't know.
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Okri
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Re: Campaign 2020

Post by Okri »

a) I don't think he excites enough people.

b) I think voter turnout needs to be huge and I'm also not convinced of that (due to a healthy dose of voter suppression).

c) I think once he's against Trump, as opposed to the primary, he will be eaten alive.

But I'm also not seeing everything, nor am I American, so frankly, what do I know.
Sabin
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Re: Campaign 2020

Post by Sabin »

Okri wrote
Sabin, thank-you for your comments. All I'll say is that if Biden is the Democratic nominee, I don't believe that the Democrats will win.
I say this as someone who isn't a big fan of Joe Biden: how can anyone look at Hillary Clinton's 3 million+ popular vote victory, subtract sexism, replace her historic unfavorables with Joe Biden's weird teflon favorability, and think he could lose? Democrats are going to have historic turnout almost regardless of who is on the ticket to drive Trump out and Joe Biden's only problem is he doesn't inspire youth vote.

My only concern is what happens when he's in office.
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Re: Campaign 2020

Post by Okri »

Sabin, thank-you for your comments. All I'll say is that if Biden is the Democratic nominee, I don't believe that the Democrats will win.
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Re: Campaign 2020

Post by Sabin »

criddic3 wrote
This is my first election as a newly minted Democrat (following 23 years as a Republican), so I'm very aware that Donald Trump can win this election if we choose the wrong candidate here. We have to keep that in mind.
Never thought I'd see the day. Welcome, sir! Glad to have you.
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Big Magilla
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Re: Campaign 2020

Post by Big Magilla »

criddic3 wrote:This is my first election as a newly minted Democrat (following 23 years as a Republican), so I'm very aware that Donald Trump can win this election if we choose the wrong candidate here. We have to keep that in mind.
Congratulations, Bryan. May this be your first of many!
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Re: Campaign 2020

Post by Big Magilla »

Sabin wrote: Joe Biden.
At the end of the debate, I was like "Give me Biden, I can't deal with this." I can't be the only one. During a debate where we should have been talking about Biden's differences of opinion with the rest of the stage on Iran, his Iraq vote, trade, impeachment, and (I don't know) when he publicly said "Hillary faced sexism but that won't be a problem with me!"... he just sort of cruised through, didn't he? That's very convenient for him. So, let's prepare for the Presidency of Joe Biden, which will be marked by a reversal of Donald Trump's policies, a public option, some maternity leave and immigration reform, lousy trade deals, a mix of foreign unity and military blunders, hopefully some climate change regulation, a Republican Vice President, and of course reaching across the aisle which proved so popular we lost 1000 seats.
No Republican Vice President. I know he said he was open to the idea but someone needs to disabuse him of that and fast. At his age, his health could deteriorate overnight forcing him to resign. We need another Democrat to take over, not another fucking Republican. He can reach across the aisle all he wants - if we maintain the majority in the House and recapture it in the Senate it won't matter. Also, if the Dems do control Congress they likely will be a more Progressive group that will get Biden to entertain more Progressive ideas as he goes along.
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Re: Campaign 2020

Post by criddic3 »

Sabin wrote:
3. CNN.
That debate was fucking ridiculous. There's right-wing framing and then there's whatever that was. "How are you going to keep your policies from bankrupting the country?"
On the other hand, these are the exact kinds of questions a Bernie Sanders, or for that matter Elizabeth Warren, would encounter on the general election campaign trail. We have to remember that this all leads to an actual confrontation with incumbent President Trump. So just asking questions that are comfortable for the Democratic base is not enough at this point. The first votes will be cast in just a few weeks, so this is now a real question of who actually becomes the nominee. This is my first election as a newly minted Democrat (following 23 years as a Republican), so I'm very aware that Donald Trump can win this election if we choose the wrong candidate here. We have to keep that in mind.
"Because here’s the thing about life: There’s no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days when you need a hand. There are other days when we’re called to lend a hand." -- President Joe Biden, 01/20/2021
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Re: Campaign 2020

Post by Sabin »

The National Review shared a tweet from a Senate aide who said: "this s*** is hilarious because it sounds like both something Bernie would say and Elizabeth Warren would make up."

This has been a very sad day for me as a Democrat. This "battle of the sexes nonsense" proves that something I think it's kind of a stupid distraction can also be incredibly nuanced and worthwhile. And a giant mess.

FIVE POINTS:
1. Bernie Sanders.
I have no difficulty imagining that he said something like that. I don't think he said "I don't think a woman can defeat Trump" but considering the stupid "30 years" remark he made, the guy puts his foot in his mouth a lot, so maybe he did. I think he could have added more empathy to what he said overall. Two weeks into the near year and "Front-Runner Sanders" survived a landmine by absorbing most of the blast. Considering he doesn't have the support of a political machine (besides his own) to help him on the road to November 9th, that doesn't bode well.

2. Sanders' supporters.
Sanders needs to tell them to refrain from sexist/misogynistic berating of Warren supporters on social media NOW. If he doesn't, it is inconceivable that he could unify the party if he becomes the nominee (which likely will not happen). They are being awful, awful, awful.

3. CNN.
That debate was fucking ridiculous. There's right-wing framing and then there's whatever that was. "How are you going to keep your policies from bankrupting the country?" I believe that one of the reason Sanders' supporters were so furious at Warren was because they were so amped by that awful debate -- WHICH IS NO EXCUSE.

4. Elizabeth Warren.
I've expended a great deal of time and energy thinking about her this week. I just hate that she did this. Because it's not helping her and it's not helping "her friend" (the person whose policies she aligns the most with). This week, she pushed the limits of allyship more than I thought possible. This was a political move and it's backfiring against her spectacularly. This is not the case of a woman only summoning the strength to come forward now to speak truth. We're not talking about sexual assault or harassment. If she can only summon the strength to talk about this now, then she can't be President. This is a knife, pure and simple. The only conceivable out I can give her is that she didn't know about the leak, which CNN has all-but confirmed that she leaked it. If it comes out that she didn't know, then I will donate to her already-failed campaign out of fealty. After all, I am her demographic: college educated, white, not-affluent but of means, and certainly there to vote for whoever the Democrats nominate in the general. How offensive.

5. Joe Biden.
At the end of the debate, I was like "Give me Biden, I can't deal with this." I can't be the only one. During a debate where we should have been talking about Biden's differences of opinion with the rest of the stage on Iran, his Iraq vote, trade, impeachment, and (I don't know) when he publicly said "Hillary faced sexism but that won't be a problem with me!"... he just sort of cruised through, didn't he? That's very convenient for him. So, let's prepare for the Presidency of Joe Biden, which will be marked by a reversal of Donald Trump's policies, a public option, some maternity leave and immigration reform, lousy trade deals, a mix of foreign unity and military blunders, hopefully some climate change regulation, a Republican Vice President, and of course reaching across the aisle which proved so popular we lost 1000 seats. If there is a silver lining, it's that having such a gaffe-prone, self-evolution resistant narcissist in office will make The Left chill on social justice crusading juuuust a little bit if it means political survival. As it is, I fear for the deep schisms in The Democratic Party as half embraces corporate-friendly virtue signaling while the other swears by identity-blind economic progressivism as we await whatever Post-Trump Republican Party sweeps the 2022 midterms.
"How's the despair?"
Big Magilla
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Re: Campaign 2020

Post by Big Magilla »

I don't like CNN's talking heads. I prefer MSNBC's for analysis and turned to them immediately following the debate.

I never heard of this Abby Phillip before. Clearly she was someone with an agenda as were Wolf Blitzer and the Des Moines Register reporter who I never heard of before either. All their questions were designed to start a fight between the candidates. When they didn't take the bait, they were called dull in their responses by the media and not just on CNN.

The battle of the sexes nonsense between Sanders and Warren was not handled by anyone very well. Sanders should have said "if I said anything of the sort it must have been in a context I don't remember. That's not something I've ever believed and wouldn't have said in such an emphatic manner" or something like that rather than "I never said it." Warren should have dropped it instead of going on about it. She did have a moment, though, when she said she and Klobuchar were the only ones to have won an election against an incumbent Republican in thirty years. Technically, however, she was wrong. Sanders, as he pointed out did it 1990 which she claimed was outside the 30-year margin. It would have been had the 1990 election been held prior to January 14th, but it wasn't, it was held in November which was within 30 years.

Personally I prefer Warren to Sanders but her gaffes are worse than Biden's.
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Re: Campaign 2020

Post by Greg »

CNN’s Debate Performance Was Villainous and Shameful:

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/p ... en-938365/
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Re: Campaign 2020

Post by OscarGuy »

Warren 14
Buttigieg/Yang/Steyer 11
Klobuchar/Sanders 10
Bloomberg 8
Biden 7
Gabbard 6
Wesley Lovell
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Re: Campaign 2020

Post by danfrank »

Warren clobbered everybody else in this test for me. I’ve never been undecided in a presidential race so close to an election (California’s is on Super Tuesday this year). Typically in the primary I vote for the person who most closely matches me ideologically, but never has the electability factor been so crucial. The polls right now seem to indicate that Warren is slightly less electable than some of the other candidates. So I’m torn. What would be ideal is a charismatic candidate who’s is a little on the progressive side of moderate, with tough skin and some fighting chops. I’m having trouble finding that candidate.
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