2020 Democratic Party primary thread

[SearchingforPeace]

Well, just finished the second round of debates, and there are still too many candidates, but, oh, well. Let's start this.

So, in alphabetical order, of the current candidates that qualified for debates:

Michael Bennet(54), Senator from Colorado
Joe Biden(76), former VP, former Senator from Delaware
Cory Booker(50), Senator from New Jersey
Steve Bullock(53), Governor from Montana
Pete Buttigieg(37), Mayor of South Bend
Julian Castro(44), former mayor of San Antonio
Bill de Blasio (58), Mayor of New York
John Delaney (56), former Congressman from New Jersey
Tulsi Gabbard (38), Congresswomen from Hawaii
Kirsten Gillibrand (52), Senator from New York
Kamala Harris (54), Senator from California
John Hickenlooper (67), Governor of Colorado
Jay Inslee (68), Governor of Washington
Amy Klobuchar (59), Senator from Minnesota
Beto O'Rourke (46), former Congressman from Texas
Tim Ryan (46), Congressman from Ohio
Bernie Sanders (77), Senator from Vermont
Elizabeth Warren (70), Senator ttom Massachusetts
Marianne Williamson (67), new age guru
Andrew Yang (44), entrepreneur

Additionally, Tom Steyer, billionaire activist (67) has declared his candidacy.

Let's try to keep this thread informative and civil. If you like a candidate, try to make a positive case for the candidate,. If you have negative points about the candidate, try not to attack supporters (ex: "How dare you support Julian Castro, he is against using nuclear power") and instead just post "Julian Castro is against nuclear power" or "I like Julian Castro because he is against nuclear power"

That way the subforum and the thread might stay open until someone wraps up the nomination.

 

[Maou]

Amy Klobuchar is looking promising. Unfortunate she is falling behind.

 

[Falcarius]

How does one get `qualified` for the debates, in like who makes decision who can attend and how is decision made?

 

[SearchingforPeace]

How does one get `qualified` for the debates, in like who makes decision who can attend and how is decision made?

The DNC makes tbe rules. Each debate will have increasing difficulty to get qualified. There have been two thresholds they need to meet, number of donors and average on certain polls.

The qualification for the 3rd debate is: 2% in 4 approved polls from June 28 to August 28 and 130k unique donors by August 28, with at least 400 unique donors in at least 20 states.

As of now, Biden, Buttigieg, Booker, Harris, O'Rourke, Sanders, and Warren have qualified. Klobucher, Castro, Yang, and Gabbard are close. I suspect we might have 15 or less at the next debates.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

My main hope is for Biden to lose the damn thing. If he makes it to the general, he'll flame out, I'm sure of it. The "moderataes" or "never trump republicans" won't vote for him anyway, because they think they're getting a lot out of those tax cuts. And turnout in general will be depressed if he's on the ballot.

He's got the same amount of baggage as Hillary. It could even be argued that he has more.

Personally I like Gabbard, and I think that Williamson makes more sense than I would have thought. (And hey, we have a reality TV show president.... why not a new age guru? The floodgates are opened, nobody knows what's "electable.") Bernie's good as usual. Warren's too wonky to be a good candidate, I think. (People are totally misinterpreting Williamson's statements on the matter, which are totally right. People don't actually vote for policy proposals. Did Dubya, Trump, or Obama win because people thought they had awesome policy proposals?)

Everyone else I'm not enthusiastic about, but I think they have a much better shot at winning than Biden, whose been around long enough to pal around Strom Thurmond. Biden is the epitome of the Washington establishment that everyone is sick of. His experience isn't an asset, but a weakness. Consider his bullshit about "renegotiating TPP." Does anyone buy that? I don't remember him saying a thing about TPP when Obama was pushing it. He's trying to run as Obama's third term (exactly like Hillary) and also representing a return to normalcy. (I am so tired of hearing about how we need to get back to normalcy and "the norms".... those "norms" are pretty useless.)

 

[SearchingforPeace]

Kamala and Warren better watch out. Marianne might be the best woman Democratic candidate for the nomination.

 

[Sacrophagus]

Kamala and Warren better watch out. Marianne might be the best woman Democratic candidate for the nomination.

"She has criticized the widespread use of anti-depressants."

Every point she made against the pharmaceutical companies was taboo politicians wouldn't discuss to break the omerta. Her pointing out that America endorses a Sickness Care system is perfectly sane.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

There was some asshole on MSNBC (it wasn't my choice; I can't stand it half the time.... they spent the last three years turning Robert Mueller into some bullshit folk hero, often at the expense of other stories) going after Tulsi Gabbard last night for "poisioning" the discourse with her anti-war stance. I'd be wiling to wager that, unlike her, this dipshit never served overseas in Iraq. He's probably some "intellectual" part of some think tank that has spent the last two decades arguing for "pragmatic" foreign policy positions like using the U.S. military to turn the Middle East into a beacon of democracy.

 

[senza tema]

Biden is a mess. He literally ends his answers with "and anyway" instead of actually addressing the question and blames anything negative on Obama saying he was president and took the decision. Trump is going to make mincemeat out of him so of course the DNC and the likes of CNN will keep pushing him to the fore. Lord help us all.

 

[SearchingforPeace]

There was some asshole on MSNBC (it wasn't my choice; I can't stand it half the time.... they spent the last three years turning Robert Mueller into some bullshit folk hero, often at the expense of other stories) going after Tulsi Gabbard last night for "poisioning" the discourse with her anti-war stance. I'd be wiling to wager that, unlike her, this dipshit never served overseas in Iraq. He's probably some "intellectual" part of some think tank that has spent the last two decades arguing for "pragmatic" foreign policy positions like using the U.S. military to turn the Middle East into a beacon of democracy.

It is easily to see which candidates the oligarchy wants. And they hate when anyone disrupts their carefully constructed narrative.

Sure, there are competing factions of the oligarchy, but there are definite approved candidates and definite unapproved candidates. The most unapproved candidates for the Democrats are Bernie, Yang, Tulsi, and Marianne.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

It is easily to see which candidates the oligarchy wants. And they hate when anyone disrupts their carefully constructed narrative.

Sure, there are competing factions of the oligarchy, but there are definite approved candidates and definite unapproved candidates. The most unapproved candidates for the Democrats are Bernie, Yang, Tulsi, and Marianne.

Oh, definitely, although I'm not sure if I'd include Yang or not. I think Yang is a little less threatening than the others, because he mostly has one issue. They were very harsh towards Dean and Dean wasn't even an especially radical Democrat apart from believing that the Iraq war was a stupid mistake (which he ended up being vindicated on). He certainly wasn't like Bernie.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Gabbard reaches donor threshold

She still needs to poll above 2%, though.

 

[Norrsken]

Can we promise each other that no matter how heated the 2020 elections will be next year, that we all won't throttle each other like in 2016?
Still not over being called every name under the sun just because Trump won, especially since I didn't vote for him.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Can we promise each other that no matter how heated the 2020 elections will be next year, that we all won't throttle each other like in 2016?
Still not over being called every name under the sun just because Trump won, especially since I didn't vote for him.

Not sure if this is what you're getting at, but I feel like people who voted for Bernie don't really have anything to apologize for.

 

[Norrsken]

Not sure if this is what you're getting at, but I feel like people who voted for Bernie don't really have anything to apologize for.

Can this be said the same for anyone running, though?

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Can this be said the same for anyone running, though?

I voted for Hillary in the general. I do think, regardless of things like Comey or Russia, she had some serious weaknesses in her messaging and the way she ran her campaign. It's worth pointing out still because I'm afraid people are going to repeat it a second time.

 

[tinker683]

Can we promise each other that no matter how heated the 2020 elections will be next year, that we all won't throttle each other like in 2016?
Still not over being called every name under the sun just because Trump won, especially since I didn't vote for him.

If the mods are serious about their new rules, that shouldn't happen, not on this forum anyway. But I can bet dollars to donuts that the 2020 election is going to be every bit as acrimonious as the 2016 election.

Regarding the primary:

I suspect Biden will fall. Right now I see him running entirely on name recognition and wistful memories of having a President that can actually speak above a 5th grade level.

If the vote was tomorrow I would vote on Warren, but the reality is that there is a lot of good candidates running so I've got plenty of choices at this point.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

If the mods are serious about their new rules, that shouldn't happen, not on this forum anyway. But I can bet dollars to donuts that the 2020 election is going to be every bit as acrimonious as the 2016 election.

I think there was some ridiculous stuff on both sides of the Democratic field in 2016. Some guy here chewed into me because I said during a primary debate that Hillary looked presidential. This was before any primaries were held, when Bernie surpassed my expectations. I didn't expect him to win as many states as he did. It caused me to revise my understanding of what exactly is going on, and actually made me optimistic.

And then on the other side.... there are the folks of accusing anyone who doesn't love Hillary of being a Russian bot. Like supporting the war in Iraq is so defensible. Did you know there was another senator or congressman who had this report that said all the evidence regarding WMDs in Iraq was bogus before that vote took place? He begged Hillary to read it, and it seems like she refused (although the details are murky). So the idea that everyone had good reason to believe there were WMDs at the time was bullshit (which makes sense, because I remember reading that somewhere, and I wasn't entirely convinced by photos of pipes and sheds, either). We talk about how poor Trump's judgement is, but that wasn't very good judgement, either. She was in a position to make a huge difference, too, because of her name recognition. Perhaps if she had, she'd have been president already.

Of course the primary process is ridiculous and is sort of rigged (and it kind of always has been; it's actually better than it used to be), but I already knew that before 2016. They should hold all the primaries on the same day, and get rid of superdelegatess, of course.

My general thoughts about the idea of people blaming Bernie for Hillary losing are horseshit. If anything, Bernie injected new energy and enthusiasm into Democratic party politics (certainly did in my case), which is kind of what you need. Otherwise candidates act as a soporific by trying to appeal to magical "true conservatives" who apparently dislike the current administration, but whose concerns about taxes and maybe abortion will always end up trumping (ha!) everything else. People pulled that shit in 2004, and it failed spectacularly. Bush actually won the popular vote that time.

Regarding the primary:

I suspect Biden will fall. Right now I see him running entirely on name recognition and wistful memories of having a President that can actually speak above a 5th grade level.

I really hope so, but I think Democratic primary voters are an overly fearful lot who worry too much about 1972 and McGovern, and not enough about 2004 or 2016. Electability is a bullshit argument, but people keep falling for it. Chances are that if nobody you know is enthusiastic about the candidate you want to nominate, that translates this to the general election in a way you don't want.

If the vote was tomorrow I would vote on Warren, but the reality is that there is a lot of good candidates running so I've got plenty of choices at this point.

I like Warren on paper, but experience has taught me that nobody cares about policies and proposals when up against memes and soundbites.

 

[tinker683]

I think there was some ridiculous stuff on both sides of the Democratic field in 2016. Some guy here chewed into me because I said during a primary debate that Hillary looked presidential. This was before any primaries were held, when Bernie surpassed my expectations. I didn't expect him to win as many states as he did. It caused me to revise my understanding of what exactly is going on, and actually made me optimistic.

And then on the other side.... there are the folks of accusing anyone who doesn't love Hillary of being a Russian bot. Like supporting the war in Iraq is so defensible. Did you know there was another senator or congressman who had this report that said all the evidence regarding WMDs in Iraq was bogus before that vote took place? He begged Hillary to read it, and it seems like she refused (although the details are murky). So the idea that everyone had good reason to believe there were WMDs at the time was bullshit (which makes sense, because I remember reading that somewhere, and I wasn't entirely convinced by photos of pipes and sheds, either). We talk about how poor Trump's judgement is, but that wasn't very good judgement, either. She was in a position to make a huge difference, too, because of her name recognition. Perhaps if she had, she'd have been president already.

Of course the primary process is ridiculous and is sort of rigged (and it kind of always has been; it's actually better than it used to be), but I already knew that before 2016. They should hold all the primaries on the same day, and get rid of superdelegatess, of course.

My general thoughts about the idea of people blaming Bernie for Hillary losing are horseshit. If anything, Bernie injected new energy and enthusiasm into Democratic party politics (certainly did in my case), which is kind of what you need. Otherwise candidates act as a soporific by trying to appeal to magical "true conservatives" who apparently dislike the current administration, but whose concerns about taxes and maybe abortion will always end up trumping (ha!) everything else. People pulled that shit in 2004, and it failed spectacularly. Bush actually won the popular vote that time.

I say this with all due respect, I realize you have some grievances with how you were treated by other forum members back then but I need you to know right now, I am not the guy to go to with all of this, mostly because I have *zero* interest in re-ligating the 2016 election with the individuals on this forum. I have enough venom and bile from that time and since to last me a lifetime. To be as polite as I can, I'm not interested in participating in any such discussion.

I really hope so, but I think Democratic primary voters are an overly fearful lot who worry too much about 1972 and McGovern, and not enough about 2004 or 2016. Electability is a bullshit argument, but people keep falling for it. Chances are that if nobody you know is enthusiastic about the candidate you want to nominate, that translates this to the general election in a way you don't want.

I like Warren on paper, but experience has taught me that nobody cares about policies and proposals when up against memes and soundbites.

I would agree with both of these sentiments, and I feel the American people are worse off because of it. I should think after the past two and half years, the American public would be ready for something who actually has an inkling of what they're actually doing.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I say this with all due respect, I realize you have some grievances with how you were treated by other forum members back then but I need you to know right now, I am not the guy to go to with all of this, mostly because I have *zero* interest in re-ligating the 2016 election with the individuals on this forum. I have enough venom and bile from that time and since to last me a lifetime. To be as polite as I can, I'm not interested in participating in any such discussion.

Hmm, grievances is a bit strong. I would say that if I have grievances (which is possible; I nurse grudges) against people, they would predate 2016.