2020: The Democratic Presidential Nomination Thread

[mister d]

Like how Dick Cheney didn't hold the 2nd in command role for a decade because of his looooooong history of heart troubles.

[brian]

I was in a hipster coffee shop and everyone was saying Bernie should withdraw.

Nah, I'm obviously kidding. It really doesn't bother me a whole lot because Bernie seems to have his full mental faculties, but also think it's fair to use that as a data point when trying to decide between candidates. If I recall, Bernie would be 78 when he assumes the presidency(?), which is insanely old.

[degenerasian]

Is it old in 2020 terms? Heck Pelosi is 79 and she could be president.

[brian]

The presidency wore Obama and Bush 43 down and they were in their 50s.

If Bernie is gonna be like Trump and just hang out in the White House 99 percent of the time, then I'm sure he can handle the physical rigors, but I think we need to demand a little bit more out of the president. (I'm concerned one of the things that led to Bernie's heart attack was the rigors of criss-crossing the country during a campaign, but even when that is done, the physical and mental rigors of the presidency are not terribly different).

[Rush2112]

I think it's more the pork chops and bacon (my brother was his butcher, he's not that observant of a Jew.)

[brian]

If you think about it's pretty amazing how quickly this has essentially turned into a three-horse race. If that's how it stays until the actual primaries start, the tired view would be that Sanders (or Warren) should drop out after South Carolina and endorse the other progressive to ensure their nomination, but the wired view would be that staying in until the end could produce a brokered convention where the nomination of one of the two of them could be ensured. (This would require a lot of public horse trading to placate the hardcore supporters and would work a lot better if one of the two is really close to the required number of delegates on their own already -- i.e. clearly ahead of the other on delegates won).

[Joe K]

I subscribe to a variant of that wired view that having them both in the race is good because it keeps one of them from bearing the full brunt of pushback from less progressive forces. It’s pretty clear that the DNC is warming to Warren because it views her as more palatable than Sanders. However, if he were to drop out soon due to health reasons or otherwise, I suspect she’d quickly become the brunt of much more intra-Party criticism.

[brian]

Yeah, I see that too. I was critical of Bernie not dropping out in 2016 when it was clear he had no path to victory (there are a lot of reasons even above and beyond the obvious ones, including that it continued the media to press the idiotic e-mail server narrative as if there was ever really a chance of her being indicted before the convention), but in this case even as a putative Warren supporter I think him staying in for awhile has some definite benefits even if it looks like it's coming down to Biden and Warren and he has no path to victory.

I think/assume his supporters will be more apt to accept a Warren nomination than they were in 2016 considering if the DNC has its fingers on the scales for anyone this time around it's Biden and it will be hard to argue her progressive bonafides for the most part, but that's putting the cart way before the horse.

[mister d]

Ideally Biden would fuck off and it would be Sanders vs Warren and we'd be guaranteed a legit progressive nominee. The longer Bernie stays in, the wider the policy margin to the left gets.

[Nonlinear FC]

I'm with you guys, kind of like the inverse of "never fight a land battle on two opposing fronts" or whatever.

Not sure if you guys watched SNL this weekend... Wife and I caught up yesterday. Kate McKinnon rolling with her EW character, while statistically insignificant at the polls, could be the kind of pop culture move that helps push EW over the edge.. Kind of like she did for RBG...

[Giff]

That feels like a worse take that my Jon Stewart one (which I still don't feel like it was a bad take).

[wlu_lax6]

From the very local news blog

Conservative provocateurs Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl held yet another press conference outside Burkman’s Rosslyn area townhouse to accuse another Democratic presidential candidate of sexual impropriety. The press conference was disrupted by a bagpiper, a process server and a man in a corn suit.

second sentence makes this great.

[brian]

Rough week for Bernie -- his daughter-in-law died yesterday.

[Rush2112]

Notice the tweet at the bottom uses the CNN feed that has the color manually adjusted to make Bernie look like a hothead.

[mister d]

Rough week for Bernie -- his daughter-in-law died yesterday.

Her last words were to tell her children how much she loved them and she was so sorry that she got sick.

Going to go sit in a closet for an hour.

[rass]

POLL: Which was the more dated Uncle Joe reference?

(A) Record players
(B) Gay bathhouses

[mister d]

A is hipster. B might be hipster.

[Brontoburglar]

Notice the tweet at the bottom uses the CNN feed that has the color manually adjusted to make Bernie look like a hothead.

what if the iris on the camera was adjusted for other reasons than to make bernie look like a hothead?

[mister d]

What if the usual camera person wasn't available so they asked a high school kid to take the video and they weren't really familiar with the equipment sometimes those things just happen and a massive corporation like CNN is unable to do much about it.

[Brontoburglar]

still more plausible than "let's make bernie look like a beet because we don't like him"

[mister d]

Its true there's no history to go on here.

[Brontoburglar]

deep state media confirmed

[mister d]

Nothing is ever nefarious because you can always claim its a conspiracy.

[Joe K]

Nothing is ever nefarious because you can always claim its a conspiracy.

[mister d]

[brian]

Jesus, Rush is one thing but I didn't think JoeK was dopey enough to be a CNN/Bernie Truther. Maybe the issue is that Bernie is just a really old guy who isn't terribly photogenic. That's not a pre-requisite to serving in office though. You could probably find hundreds of screenshots of Jeff Sessions looking like a goober on CNN as well.

[Joe K]

Nice use of the word “Truther.” Because believing that corporate media would oppose an avowedly socialist candidate is comparable to thinking that Bush did 9/11.

Just putting this video here for reference:

[brian]

At this point, I honestly can't tell if you're being sarcastic. Corporate media is likely to oppose in some ways any seriously progressive candidate that represents a change to their status quo, but adjusting the magenta filter specifically to make Bernie look like a beet is a not a serious opinion.

I guess the lesson here is America needs to replace one president with a fanbase of loons who see a conspiracy around every corner with another president with a fanbase of loons who see a conspiracy around every corner. I'm almost starting to understand the Bernie appeal. It's enticing to believe that everyone is out to get you I suppose.

[mister d]

I trust we agree that right media selects unflattering images of the left and vice versa, right? So are you really just arguing that CNN is above doing that?

[brian]

I trust we agree that right media selects unflattering images of the left and vice versa, right? So are you really just arguing that CNN is above doing that?

I am and I'm not.

First of all, I reject the hypothesis that all these networks, all of whom including Fox News are perpetually understaffed in the technology/editing departments in the quest to wring maximum profits, are carefully sifting through every single clip or image in their libraries in an effort to make Candidate X look bad. I'm not saying it's never happened, I'm saying I'm familiar enough with the industry to know the idea that anyone has that kind of time is laughable, much less that it would be some kind of overriding network objective.

[Brontoburglar]

I trust we agree that right media selects unflattering images of the left and vice versa, right? So are you really just arguing that CNN is above doing that?

I am and I'm not.

First of all, I reject the hypothesis that all these networks, all of whom including Fox News are perpetually understaffed in the technology/editing departments in the quest to wring maximum profits, are carefully sifting through every single clip or image in their libraries in an effort to make Candidate X look bad. I'm not saying it's never happened, I'm saying I'm familiar enough with the industry to know the idea that anyone has that kind of time is laughable, much less that it would be some kind of overriding network objective.

bingo. and if it was the bolded part, the receipts would be long public by now

[Rush2112]

still more plausible than "let's make bernie look like a beet because we don't like him"

There have been numerous twitter threads discussing it. (including the tweet that I cited) Two cameras filming the same interview. CNN feed had the color way over adjusted, other feed natural color. There was a TV producer that confirmed that the tone used on the CNN feed would only be seen if manually adjusted that way. Including under the tweet that I originally cited.

I know it's me so you have to be an argumentive asshole, but CNN isn't exactly the moral standard of journalism.



With his DiL's death and heart problems I wonder when he had time to find two shirts that are so similar.

[Brontoburglar]

"there is no conspiracy to make bernie look like a hothead" =/= "the camera colors were perfect"

[mister d]

I don't really see the point of the word conspiracy here. Lets just ask this: Do you think CNN, as a whole, is pro, con or neutral on Sanders?

[Johnnie]

Jesus Christ. It's not out of the realm of possibility. What the fuck are we even arguing? The extent? The intent? How often it occurs for one over the other?

It's blatantly obvious that in this shot in this specific time it DID happen. And that a creepy photo actuating grotesque-ness during Halloween IS done and is assholish.

And if it happens over and over, it's disgusting and lacks integrity fit for a journalistic institution. But to posit "well it happens to everyone" as justification is ridiculous. It *shouldn't* happen no matter who it is is the point.

[Brontoburglar]

I don't really see the point of the word conspiracy here. Lets just ask this: Do you think CNN, as a whole, is pro, con or neutral on Sanders?

they're very con on sanders. look at how red they made him look

[Brontoburglar]

Jesus Christ. It's not out of the realm of possibility. What the fuck are we even arguing? The extent? The intent? How often it occurs for one over the other?

what is "it" in this case? I think it's pretty clear that everyone acknowledges the iris on the camera was adjusted weirdly on that specific shot of Sanders. not everyone thinks it was done nefariously.

It's blatantly obvious that in this shot in this specific time it DID happen. And that a creepy photo actuating grotesque-ness during Halloween IS done and is assholish.

what creepy photo? the graphic where he's making a weird face, or something not posted in the thread?

And if it happens over and over, it's disgusting and lacks integrity fit for a journalistic institution. But to posit "well it happens to everyone" as justification is ridiculous. It *shouldn't* happen no matter who it is is the point.

I don't think anyone posited "well it happens to everyone" in this thread, other than Brian noting that it's implausible that this would be done on a mass scale at an organization the size of CNN to make a candidate who is, at best right now, third in the primary polls look bad

because if it was being done on a mass scale at an organization the size of CNN, don't you think the right-wing media ecosystem would have uncovered that dirt on its favorite media target?

[mister d]

CNN is a platonic neutral on all democrats and anything that appears to be implicitly rather than explicitly pro or con one of them is a clearly and obviously false conspiracy theory.

[Johnnie]

"It" - Intentionally making Bernie look bad.

The creepy photo is the one with the Gorbachev-esque discolorations on his head.

Answer to your last question - no, they wouldn't.

[mister d]

Yeah, that last part seems to ignore that the single most lock-step demographic in this country is rich people.