2020: The Democratic Presidential Nomination Thread

[Joe K]

If karma exists, the death knell for his candidacy will be Warren endorsing Sanders.

[Steve of phpBB]

Yeah, if Pete's a 0 there and Bernie is a 10, Warren seems a solid 7, higher before the recent blips.

The funny thing is, I knocked on 97 doors this weekend for Warren. Talked to a bunch of people, at least 5 said they were nervous that she'd be too liberal to win in November.

I'm curious where she is really all that much less liberal than Sanders in substance. She's still supporting M4All, she's just acknowledged that it won't be enacted in 2021 or 2022. And Sanders had been a co-sponsor of Warren's ACA 2.0 bill until he withdrew his sponsorship.

[Johnnie]

[Steve of phpBB]

Someone else tweeted this with a side-by-side of Pete's statements about Bernie and Cuba 20 years ago. Not surprisingly, Pete was singing a different tune then. (Though of course Pete was a teenager 20 years ago.)

I admire Buttigieg's cold-hearted dishonest cutthroatery. The Dems will need that in November. But damn, he needs to be less stupid about it.

[Johnnie]

Scroll down in the menchies and you'll see an Obama clip of him echoing what Bernie's effectively saying.

If only Pete could've viewed this footage when working on his Profile in Courage paper about Bernie! He might've chosen someone else.

[mister d]

I admire Buttigieg's cold-hearted dishonest cutthroatery.

Hard disagree.

[Joe K]

Scroll down in the menchies and you'll see an Obama clip of him echoing what Bernie's effectively saying.

If only Pete could've viewed this footage when working on his Profile in Courage paper about Bernie! He might've chosen someone else.

Biden’s campaign is saying the same shit, which is exceptionally dishonest considering that he was Obama’s VP when Obama made the same points as Bernie to justify normalizing relations with Cuba.

[brian]

Frankly, I'm starting to wear tear of all of them. I hope whomever wins the nomination elects to take a one month vacation somewhere far away between the end of the primaries and convention. Build up some mystique about what they're doing wherever they're doing it but not show their face in public for weeks.

[brian]

Normal stuff here. (The firing by the campaign was warranted. But how do these people not get this is not acceptable behavior towards a journalist for what appeared to be a legit story?)

[Jerloma]

[degenerasian]

Scroll down in the menchies and you'll see an Obama clip of him echoing what Bernie's effectively saying.

If only Pete could've viewed this footage when working on his Profile in Courage paper about Bernie! He might've chosen someone else.

Biden’s campaign is saying the same shit, which is exceptionally dishonest considering that he was Obama’s VP when Obama made the same points as Bernie to justify normalizing relations with Cuba.

Jill Biden even went to Cuba to highlight their education system.

[Joe K]

Scroll down in the menchies and you'll see an Obama clip of him echoing what Bernie's effectively saying.

If only Pete could've viewed this footage when working on his Profile in Courage paper about Bernie! He might've chosen someone else.

Biden’s campaign is saying the same shit, which is exceptionally dishonest considering that he was Obama’s VP when Obama made the same points as Bernie to justify normalizing relations with Cuba.

Jill Biden even went to Cuba to highlight their education system.

One reason I like Sanders a lot, and also admired Obama, is that they’re actually willing to say what they think is right with respect to foreign policy. I studied US foreign policy a lot while an undergrad history major and it should not be remotely controversial to say that we made plenty of mistakes during the Cold War. And yet nearly all Democratic politicians are so afraid of appearing “weak” on foreign policy that they just default to hawkish GOP talking points. As if doing so isn’t itself a form of obvious weakness.

[Johnnie]

Text "Joe" to 3033003330003. If you want Bernie Sanders to drop out.

[Giff]

Bruh!

[Joe K]

Based on the full video it sure looks like Johnnie was right:



ETA:

Here’s a cleaner link to the full video:

[Johnnie]

Bruh!

[Joe K]

Not good either:

[Giff]

Sorry grown men saying bruh way worse than whatever old man Biden said today.

[Jerloma]

Top headline on Politico...

A Bernie slayer fails to emerge at Tuesday's debate
None of his rivals had the time or the skill to convince voters that the democratic socialist is a radical who would ensure Trump's reelection.

[Joe K]

I didn’t watch the debate but I read some recaps and it looks like Warren was the only one attempting to draw reasonable, good faith contrasts with Sanders. Everyone else was just parroting GOP talking points: deficits bad! (but only when Dems are in charge); Castro evil! (but it’s cool that Bloomberg is cozy with MbS and Xi).

Warren at least made reasonable arguments that she’d be a more effective executive. She also seems to be the only one besides Sanders that’s aware of the acute danger of Bloomberg‘s oligarchy to our political order.

[mister d]

Eh, I think Buttigieg did a nice job contrasting Bernie's past civil rights activism with "maybe the 60s were a net bad".

[degenerasian]

I didn’t watch the debate but I read some recaps and it looks like Warren was the only one attempting to draw reasonable, good faith contrasts with Sanders. Everyone else was just parroting GOP talking points: deficits bad! (but only when Dems are in charge); Castro evil! (but it’s cool that Bloomberg is cozy with MbS and Xi).

Warren at least made reasonable arguments that she’d be a more effective executive. She also seems to be the only one besides Sanders that’s aware of the acute danger of Bloomberg‘s oligarchy to our political order.

Warren needs to change fronts and attack Bernie more and forget about Bloomberg for now. Shes made her point and now it's just overkill.

[duff]

I didn’t watch the debate but I read some recaps and it looks like Warren was the only one attempting to draw reasonable, good faith contrasts with Sanders. Everyone else was just parroting GOP talking points: deficits bad! (but only when Dems are in charge); Castro evil! (but it’s cool that Bloomberg is cozy with MbS and Xi).

Warren at least made reasonable arguments that she’d be a more effective executive. She also seems to be the only one besides Sanders that’s aware of the acute danger of Bloomberg‘s oligarchy to our political order.

Warren needs to change fronts and attack Bernie more and forget about Bloomberg for now. Shes made her point and now it's just overkill.

You are wrong on this. She needs to keep doing what she is doing, so the voters hear more about how bad Bloomberg is. Ride on Bernie's coattails until the need arises where she has to take him on 1-on-1 (although that is never going to happen).

[mister d]

I think you should look at Warren's trendline and realize her low point was when she was attacking her closest ideological ally.

[Joe K]

Gonna throw it out there that Bernie is very old (but has a massive base of activists and small donors) and Warren’s best path to the presidency may be serving as his VP for 4 years and taking over in 2025.

[degenerasian]

I didn’t watch the debate but I read some recaps and it looks like Warren was the only one attempting to draw reasonable, good faith contrasts with Sanders. Everyone else was just parroting GOP talking points: deficits bad! (but only when Dems are in charge); Castro evil! (but it’s cool that Bloomberg is cozy with MbS and Xi).

Warren at least made reasonable arguments that she’d be a more effective executive. She also seems to be the only one besides Sanders that’s aware of the acute danger of Bloomberg‘s oligarchy to our political order.

Warren needs to change fronts and attack Bernie more and forget about Bloomberg for now. Shes made her point and now it's just overkill.

You are wrong on this. She needs to keep doing what she is doing, so the voters hear more about how bad Bloomberg is. Ride on Bernie's coattails until the need arises where she has to take him on 1-on-1 (although that is never going to happen).

That is the reality that is never going to happen.

Voters already know how bad Bloomberg is, so bad that Biden is rising.

What is Warren's ultimate goal? To be president or to make sure Bernie is? She cant fight a multi-fronted war.

And if Warren is pining for a VP spot that's a dead end. Sanders will never choose someone from Mass or someone with such a high profile.

I think it could Nina Turner, former Ohio senator and current co-chair if his campaign. Or Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin, one of the leading progressive voices in the Senate and she's gay.

And if a woman isn't a must, then Ro Khanna.

[Joe K]

Baldwin would be a good choice, particularly if there’s any chance she puts Wisconsin in play. The biggest downside to Warren as VP is that Massachusetts has a GOP Governor and the Dems would thus lose a Senate seat (at least for 2 years). Otherwise she’d be a fine choice IMO.

[Giff]

Baldwin would be a good choice, particularly if there’s any chance she puts Wisconsin in play. The biggest downside to Warren as VP is that Massachusetts has a GOP Governor and the Dems would thus lose a Senate seat (at least for 2 years). Otherwise she’d be a fine choice IMO.

I think if Sanders is the nominee, his VP pick needs to be more moderate unfortunately.

[degenerasian]

Baldwin would be a good choice, particularly if there’s any chance she puts Wisconsin in play. The biggest downside to Warren as VP is that Massachusetts has a GOP Governor and the Dems would thus lose a Senate seat (at least for 2 years). Otherwise she’d be a fine choice IMO.

I think if Sanders is the nominee, his VP pick needs to be more moderate unfortunately.

This one is tricky, getting a more moderate running mate might be seen as a compromise and tarnish his brand.

[mister d]

What is Warren's ultimate goal? To be president or to make sure Bernie is?

She'd be a lot closer to accomplishing the former if she'd ran straight forward on her own stances this entire time.

[Nonlinear FC]

I don't really understand why you are so focused on Warren. She's not the issue for the Dems right now. The issue is the glut of moderates/centrists who are all in circular firing squad, which is allowing Bernie to walk away with this thing.

Everyone complains about Bernie (media/pundits), but no one is putting forward a viable alternative.

(And without getting combative, the fact that the somewhat mythical "establishment" hasn't dipped into their bag of Dark Arts and Magic to force everyone not Bernie and Warren to coalesce around one moderate candidate sure seems strange. You'd figure after going to such great lengths to rig Iowa to a win for Pete (even though the clusterfuck CLEARLY cost him huge momentum going into NH, but nevermind that..) They would've figured out how to force everyone to get out of the way in favor of their "secret but obvious candidate of choice."

IOW, while the media sucks, all this pearl clutching about "the establishment" is utter and complete bullshit.)

[Steve of phpBB]

Everyone complains about Bernie (media/pundits), but no one is putting forward a viable alternative.

I think it's more that several people are putting forward viable alternatives, but no individual alternative is viable because there's several of them.

[Joe K]

(And without getting combative, the fact that the somewhat mythical "establishment" hasn't dipped into their bag of Dark Arts and Magic to force everyone not Bernie and Warren to coalesce around one moderate candidate sure seems strange. You'd figure after going to such great lengths to rig Iowa to a win for Pete (even though the clusterfuck CLEARLY cost him huge momentum going into NH, but nevermind that..) They would've figured out how to force everyone to get out of the way in favor of their "secret but obvious candidate of choice."

IOW, while the media sucks, all this pearl clutching about "the establishment" is utter and complete bullshit.)

I think the reason this hasn’t happened is because all of the moderates have major flaws. The elephant in the room in this race is Biden’s clear signs of cognitive decline. The clip Johnnie posted yesterday is just the latest example of that. There are reports that the whole reason Bloomberg entered the race is because Biden did a fundraiser for a bunch of Wall Street donors in Connecticut and was so incoherent that it spooked them all. If he were still the Biden of 2008 or 2012, I think we’d have already seen that coalescing. Pete and Klobuchar have shown no ability whatsoever to win over minority voters and Bloomberg is an authoritarian Republican. So it’s created a paralysis where there is no clear candidate to back.

[mister d]

Lets be honest here, who is a viable alternative to Sanders or Warren, and I don't mean this ideologically. Bloomberg is a rich republican, Buttigieg is a hollow but ambitious medium city mayor, Biden's mental state is worrying at best, Steyer is pointless at this stage. Its really just Klobuchar, right? And she has a world of known baggage that a proper vetting committee should be terrified of. More and more, the center is going to regret not finding a way to keep Harris afloat.

[mister d]

Joe got in first, I see.

[Ryan]

Yep. My next 3 or 4 choices after Warren are long gone already.

[degenerasian]

It should have been Warren!!!!! (yes, I'm fixated).

[Steve of phpBB]

Lets be honest here, who is a viable alternative to Sanders or Warren, and I don't mean this ideologically. Bloomberg is a rich republican, Buttigieg is a hollow but ambitious medium city mayor, Biden's mental state is worrying at best, Steyer is pointless at this stage. Its really just Klobuchar, right? And she has a world of known baggage that a proper vetting committee should be terrified of. More and more, the center is going to regret not finding a way to keep Harris afloat.

Buttigieg, Biden, Klobuchar, and Bloomberg are all viable alternatives. The thing about rich moderate Republicans is that they are pretty popular among the national electorate.

But it depends on Sanders. If he persists in attacking the "Democratic establishment" - i.e., a huge chunk of the Democratic party, and persists in claiming that he'd be entitled to the nomination even without a majority of delegates, then probably the only viable alterative is Bloomberg.

[Steve of phpBB]

I think the reason this hasn’t happened is because all of the moderates have major flaws.

Dude, I think you need to take a step back to try to get some perspective. Yes of course the moderates have flaws. But you're supporting an 80-year-old heart attack victim with a history of praising Communist dictators who is running on an ideology that the American electorate solidly rejects, pushing an agenda that is going to require massive tax increases.

Sure, that doesn't mean that Sanders will lose. But I don't know if even Biden or Bloomberg's flaws are as serious as those.

[Joe K]

I think the reason this hasn’t happened is because all of the moderates have major flaws.

Dude, I think you need to take a step back to try to get some perspective. Yes of course the moderates have flaws. But you're supporting an 80-year-old heart attack victim with a history of praising Communist dictators who is running on an ideology that the American electorate solidly rejects, pushing an agenda that is going to require massive tax increases.

Sure, that doesn't mean that Sanders will lose. But I don't know if even Biden or Bloomberg's flaws are as serious as those.

Why don’t you re-read NLFC’s post and then mine. I was addressing a very specific question as to why the field hasn’t narrowed to a single moderate alternative. I also identified Sanders’ age as an issue earlier this morning in a different post.

And you keep repeating over and over again that Sanders is wildly unpopular despite mounting polling and election results to the contrary. I know this might be crazy but I tend to think that the candidate with the most delegates should get the nomination. Even if, god forbid, he made accurate statements about Cuba’s literacy efforts.