Democrat 2020

[Montmorency]

I definitely agree, its way too early to tell but according to a very recent RCP average, Biden wipes the floor with everyone else. But thats because name recognition is king at this stage.

Amusing poll reflecting the information level of voters:

I recall an article saying that had minority turnout in 2016 been nearly equal to 2012, Clinton would have won.

lol that was in my first post. The major caveat is that Obama drew record turnout among black voters; a tall order for anyone to replicate.

Right now my biggest worry is that Sanders is going to cause as much hurt as he did in 2016. At precisely the time when the opposition to Trump and the GOP needs to unite, Sanders is out there right now saying stronger words against the Democrats than the GOP.

What in your opinion are Sanders' recent egregious transgressions? When I see his statements they're attacking Republicans and corporations.

Don't get bothered over "unity", it's healthy competition. Animosity is understandable when organizational power is at stake, but that doesn't mean we should take it seriously in those terms.

Our process is exceedingly simple:
0. Don't hold grudges.
1. Vote your best candidate (whatever that means) in the primaries.
2. Vote Democratic in the general election. Anyone who refuses to vote Biden/Sanders/whomstever in the general because they're "not a real Democrat[/leftist/whatever]" needs to stop being such a purity pony. Unless you hate Trump but want to see him re-elected as part of an overarching process to "accelerate" civilizational collapse or "heighten the contradictions" - in which case, you do you I guess.


I agree to an extent with someone like Sean McElwee on the importance of lobbying plus grassroots compared to the Great Man/Woman:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Abraham Lincoln had the abolitionists at his throat, Franklin Roosevelt had labor unions pushing for the New Deal, and Lyndon Johnson had civil rights leaders prodding him toward reforms of racist laws.

“Maybe we can make Joe Biden into a Lincoln,” he said.

So whom do young leftists want as their 2020 candidate? And what role will their movement have throughout the campaign?

“I want the left to really think seriously about the fact that the core of our strategy right now is if we endorse the right person, they will owe us,” McElwee told me. The left, he said, should take a page out of big businesses’ book and not care what candidate is ultimately chosen. “Knowing what the fuck you’re talking about, having the right contacts with the right staffers who you need to call to make sure the right amendment is passed at the right time — we’re much worse at that. We don’t actually have that capacity built up.” For an idealist, McElwee has a tendency toward Machiavellian realism.

[...]

“I’ll clearly support whoever the nominee is,” McElwee told me. “I think all of these people can be moved. They’re pieces on a chess board that’s so much larger than them. And I want to be helping move those chess pieces.”

Then again, Lincoln, FDR and Johnson were all... those people. Biden is not. Sanders' advantage is his openness to a variety of fundamental societal reforms, which is ultimately why I see him as the best option.

Why? The only ones I could really get behind are Sanders and Warren.

Don't know Gillibrand and Harris very well. Pelosi always appears somehow "fake" to me. Also married to an investment banker.

Warren-Harris-Gillibrand are ~ as candidates. It's a matter of competing niches.

Warren: Taxation and finance reform with an aperitif of class warfare
Harris: Criminal justice reform
Gillibrand: Gender issues (family leave, workplace equality, sex crime)

By "niche" I mean marginal emphasis. Of course all of them are offering something on each issue. Gillibrand appears to support slightly stronger bail reform than Harris, Harris proposes large money transfers through tax credits in a way Warren hasn't, etc. They all support Medicare for All at least. Otherwise Warren is pretty center-left on issues like the others are. After all, she does admire capitalism and exited the Republican Party in the '90s because they weren't correctly supporting the market.

The whole field can be expected to move left as the season advances. So, wait and see.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...cop-prosecutor

It's almost as if Democrats were aiming for the compromise from the start again, didn't Monty make a thread about why that is a terrible idea?

I think they just like Harris.




Re: Pelosi, she may not be the hard-left demagogue some of us desire, but she is left of the average House Democrat, and there is no denying her relative skill and competence since the Bush Era.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The vindication of Nancy Pelosi
How Pelosi delivered Trump the most humiliating loss of his presidency.

Second, Pelosi correctly read Trump’s personality and had the steel to act on that read. For years now, members of Congress have divided on whether Trump is strong or weak, whether his political success shows an intuitive tactical genius that needs to be respected or a hollow showman who connects to conservatives but is easily flummoxed.

Only centrist milksops still think Trump knows what he's doing. Thankfully, the leadership knows better.

She's not an engaging small-s speaker, but she's a good rhetorician.



I especially liked:

She was asked whether there’s any scenario under which Democrats would accept “even a dollar” for new construction of Trump’s border wall.

“A dollar? A dollar? Yeah, one dollar,” Pelosi told a group of reporters just off of the House floor.

Such a parent joke.

Random: It's scary how similar to each other Fragony and Tucker Carlson are in thought process.