2020 Democratic Party primary thread

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

The Democrats are denying a voice to their strongest candidate, Tulsi Gabbard | Mulshine - nj.com

In short term, however, the Democratic base is being denied the chance to hear from Gabbard in the debates. Even though she’s been polling in the same range as rich-guy candidates Tom Steyer and Andrew Yang, they made the cut for the final New Hampshire debate Friday. But she didn’t.
It’s your loss, Democrats.

Tulsi Gabbard in New Hampshire | The Nation

Gabbard also invokes the need to cultivate trans-partisan cooperation, but hers is a different paradigm—centered on her belief that upending the current foreign policy consensus must be any president’s first priority. And indeed, skepticism of US foreign policy is a cross-cutting ideological phenomenon, which explains why Gabbard’s events across the state draw such an idiosyncratic coterie of supporters: everyone from antiwar peaceniks who idolize Noam Chomsky, to erstwhile Trump supporters who say she is the only Democrat they’d ever consider voting for, to lifelong standard-fare liberals who simply believe she has the right personal characteristics to defeat Trump.

It’s certainly an unusual confluence. But it shows how making foreign policy her foremost, animating theme—an anomaly in the recent history of US presidential campaigns—can change the axis around which politics is normally framed. When politicians are able to make arguments that have resonance across the partisan spectrum, that ability is usually lauded as a valuable political asset. But with Gabbard, the prevailing media depiction is highly scornful; her motives are often depicted as sinister or mysterious. Of course, there are any number of legitimate criticisms one might make of Gabbard. With their condescending derision, though, “corporate media” merely reveals that it lacks the vocabulary to characterize a candidate whose message transcends ordinary political boundaries.

Gabbard’s most committed supporters tend to be heterodox left-leaning voters, but part of the reason she has drawn support from a notable constituency of libertarians and conservatives is her distinctive personality, shaped by her immersion in the culture of the US military—in many ways a fundamentally conservative (and male-dominated) institution. She does not traffic in cheap anti-Trump insults, nor does she have much patience for the culture-war theatrics favored by many of Trump’s more excitable opponents.
New Hampshire state Representative Werner Horn, a staunch Trump backer who attended one of Gabbard’s recent town hall events, told me he thinks she would be the “most dangerous” candidate against Trump because she “doesn’t buy into his toxic roadshow.”

For instance, it is true that Gabbard, the first Hindu ever elected to Congress, has taken a conciliatory posture toward a number of ignominious foreign leaders—namely Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as well as Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. But often ignored is that Gabbard has also made a point to meet with opposition figures in both India and Syria, born of her conviction that diplomatic engagement requires meeting everyone, without preconditions, as a necessary prerequisite to shifting US foreign policy away from fruitless interventionism. (Hence, she was the first candidate to denounce the Trump administration’s regime change gambit in Venezuela, and is the only candidate besides Sanders to label the ousting of Evo Morales in Bolivia a “coup.”)

Critics often complain about her frequent appearances on Fox News, but overlook that she says much the same thing in that venue as she does on left-wing independent media. (And she attracted the ire of the Republican National Committee for condemning Trump’s assassination of Qassim Suleimani on Fox News last month). Her logic of broad-based engagement even resulted in Gabbard’s meeting with Trump himself, shortly after the 2016 election, to discuss foreign policy. She said at the time that the purpose of the meeting was to dissuade him from filling his cabinet with neoconservative warmongers. Now that Trump has done just that, she again has unique standing to call him to account.

She may still not be “electable” in the way pundits usually understand the term. But we have already seen the definition change to accommodate a black president, female candidates—and now even a socialist. Perhaps the pundits will be proven wrong again.

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

My own observations and discussions with Trump voters has revealed a lot of them, despite their distaste for democrats, really hate Trump's bullying, brash style and constant twitter feuds. They cringe over this shit. When I bring up the topic of Gabbard, those familiar with her usually say she's the only sane democrat running, the only one they'd consider voting for. This is coming from self-professed trump voters, not undecideds. You really want to talk about electability, then she's your best chance in 2020. Hopefully the handful of dems who won't be able to stomach voting for her would be outweighted by the boost she'd get from both independent voters and defectors from the republican and libertarian voting blocs.

I've been waging my own mini campaign whenever politics comes up with Trumpies. I tell them "you know, you should really at least look into Gabbard, look at her foreign policy stance." I tell them that her stance is not unlike what promises Trump made on foreign policy in 2016 but has since broken to take an increasingly pro-war, pro-interventionist stance. Anyway, some of them have seemed very open-minded to her.

She'd the dems' best possible weapon against Trump and Trumpism, and they've actively tried to limit her exposure and appeal. Unless Bernie (or possibly Warren) are nominated, I might "waste" my vote as a Tulsi Gabbard write-in.

Your loss when you end up nominating Biden, Pete, or Warren.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Regarding Gabbard, I supported her until she abstained from voting in the vote for impeachment. That didn't sit right with me. At this point, I'm a fully committe Bernie Bro and I plan to do quite a bit for him in the coming month until the primary. I don't want Illinois to go to Buttigieg or, god forbid, Biden.

The path to victory in 2020 involves Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. I think winning those states (and I used to live in one of them) is much easier with a candidate who focuses on working class issues. I don't think centrist neoliberalism that only places a strong emphasis on social issues and disregards everything else is the best vehicle to travel that road.

That's just how people not from Texas understand it. You leave me alone now. I'm going to go cry or cut things with scissors.

Meh, I hate it when the President trashes my city (which he does regularly, calling it "worse than Afghanistan"), which I love. Perhaps I should have known better than to engage in the same kind of behavior as him.

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

Read up on why she voted as she did. It wasn't a vote for his innocence.

She did introduce a censure resolution, BTW. So she wasn't defending trump or claiming him innocence. Dems kneejerking and saying "any dem but Tulsi" based on their understandings of the lead-up to the impeachment need to do a better job of understanding.

Out of all the candidates, she's actually been one of the most viciously critical of Trump's policies. Also, appearing on Fox frequently isn't the same as her endorsing him. She doesn't change her stances or views when she appears on Fox. She's just broadening her reach, trying to go outside of an ideological echo chamber to sway people her way from the republican camp. Obama got some votes from the most unlikely Republcans. I had senior citizen relatives who'd been staunch republicans their whole life vote for Obama enthusiastically in 2008. I believe Tulsi is the only one who can replicate this in 2020.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Read up on why she voted as she did. It wasn't a vote for his innocence.

Out of all the candidates, she's actually been one of the most viciously critical of Trump's policies. Also, appearing on Fox frequently isn't the same as her endorsing him. She doesn't change her stances or views when she appears on Fox. She's just broadening her reach, trying to go outside of an ideological echo chamber to sway people her way from the republican camp.

Regardless, that killed any chance she had with democratic primary voters, who are united by one thing only, and that's a strong dislike of Donald Trump.

I actually think Bernie has a shot to win the nomination this time (last time I expected him to fizzle out like Dean, and he did way better than that). And given that the path to victory in 2020 involves Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, he has a strong chance to win the general as well. As someone who used to live in one of those states, I think an authentic candidate (and nobody thinks Bernie isn't authentic) with a strong working class focus has the best chance to carry those states. Currently, he's polling pretty well in those states in the few general election polls that exist at the moment.

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

Regardless, that killed any chance she had with democratic primary voters, who are united by one thing only, and that's a strong dislike of Donald Trump.

I actually think Bernie has a shot to win the nomination this time (last time I expected him to fizzle out like Dean, and he did way better than that). And given that the path to victory in 2020 involves Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, he has a strong chance to win the general as well. As someone who used to live in one of those states, I think an authentic candidate (and nobody thinks Bernie isn't authentic) with a strong working class focus has the best chance to carry those states. Currently, he's polling pretty well in those states in the few general election polls that exist at the moment.

Then those primary voters are uninformed idiots who need to read more. Their loss. Her portrayal as a Russian asset or secret Trump supporter has been shameful and misleading. I think the DNC powers-that-be and their backers in the military-industrial complex genuinely fear her the way they feared Bernie in 2016. They'll say anything to paint her as something sinister. People who eat it up and believe it deserve for their eventual nominee to lose in 2016.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Then those primary voters are uninformed idiots who need to read more. Their loss. Her portrayal as a Russian asset or secret Trump supporter has been shameful and misleading.

It's not a huge deal for me. There's an awesome candidate right now who is much more popular and has a good chance to win this thing, especially given that he won the most votes in Iowa.

Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania contain a lot of places that haven't fared well under the neoliberal cult of free trade, epitomized by Bill Clinton's passage of NAFTA. I don't expect there's a lot of support for things like TPP in those areas. Hillary and Obama's support of that probably played a very strong factor in why those states went to Trump.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

538: You'll never know which candidate is electable

I love 538. They actually did a rather good job at predicting 2016, much better than sources like MSNBC which said that a Clinton victory was inevitable (which I expect they did by cherry-picking polls). They showed weaknesses in Wisconsin and Michigan (don't remember what they said about Pennsylvania) and gave Trump in 1 in 3 chance of winning on the eve of the election. The thing is that you have to know how to interpret their findings, and that it's like a weather forecast in that it's based on probabilities.

I can't believe that people forgot that Trump was not considered to be electable.

 

[Jaguar]

If we don't try to elect Sanders who else is going to pay for your favorite generation's college, debt, medical bills, housing, onesees, pacifiers, etc?

The people who ran up the fucking tab. Although, someone needs to do something about all the fraud in the so-called health care system - cleaning that up could save a ton of cash. Furthermore, I'd like start seeing doctors in prison. That would wake up their medical upcoding asses.

 

[Maou]

Will the Democratic party even survive till November? So many factions and fractures. Bloomberg is paying the DNC to get his way. DNC hates Sanders. Polls are all over the place. Iowa caucus is a disaster.

Its going in three directions at once. They will not come together to defeat Trump. They will sabotage themselves. Calling it now.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Will the Democratic party even survive till November? So many factions and fractures. Bloomberg is paying the DNC to get his way. DNC hates Sanders. Polls are all over the place. Iowa caucus is a disaster.

Its going in three directions at once. They will not come together to defeat Trump. They will sabotage themselves. Calling it now.

I think the deciding factor is how successful the DNC is in getting its way. If they create lots of shenanigans to get their way and are successful, Donald Trump will get re-elected. In an attempt to "save" 2020, they may very well be their own worst enemy. I think if Bernie gets the nomination, everyone else will rally behind them because they don't like Trump, while boosting turnout and bringing new people into the fold. The unknown case in my mind is where Buttigieg or somebody else gets the nomination, but not due to interference from the DNC.

I think Republicans underestimate Bernie at their peril, which is ironic, because that's exactly the same mistake Democrats made in 2016. People were jumping for joy when Trump won the nomination (and I recally the RNC wasn't a huge fan of him, either) because they thought it assured victory for Hillary.

I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but all the states Bernie needs to gain from 2016 are states I think he could do really well in, and the early polls, though few in number, certainly look favorable.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

More 538 goodness.

Who Will Win The 2020 Democratic Primary? | FiveThirtyEight

Sanders has the best odds to win the nomination at 2-in-5.

 

[Merced]

Friendly reminder that Bernie or Bust is a win-win statement. A good ol classical revolution is not off the table.

 

[SearchingforPeace]

James Carville is “scared to death” about whether Sanders and others can beat Trump - Vox

Carville is one smart bastard and knows how to win. Maybe some candidate should listen to him.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

James Carville is “scared to death” about whether Sanders and others can beat Trump - Vox

Carville is one smart bastard and knows how to win. Maybe some candidate should listen to him.

Uh, I found this gem from 2016:

James Carville: The Republican Party is Committing Suicide

The Hive: So, who is going to win the election?

James Carville: It’s hard to look at it right now and come to any other conclusion than it is going to be a pretty sizable win for the Democrats. It’s pretty hard to see anything else.

LOL.

And this is particularly damning:

Let’s say you were running Hillary’s campaign now. What would you do differently?

Carville: I would probably do pretty close to what the campaign is doing now. I mean, since the Democratic convention, Trump has pretty much dominated the coverage with things that he has said and done. I certainly wouldn’t get in his way right now. This is not the most strategically challenging campaign, as long as he is behaving as he is.

No mention of focusing on states like Michigan and Wisconsin, and plenty of underestimating of Trump because it's not "a strategically challenging campaign."

Since the convention, Hillary has been reaching across the aisle to Republicans, a version of the “triangulation” strategy that Bill Clinton employed in his 1996 re-election campaign. Do you think it will work for her now the same way it did for him?

Carville: People are reaching out to her. Republicans are refusing to endorse Trump. And what politician doesn’t say, “good, that’s great”? But I don’t know that her programs have changed very much from where they were at the end of the convention.

Yes, that worked splendidly.

 

[SearchingforPeace]

Uh, I found this gem from 2016:

James Carville: The Republican Party is Committing Suicide



LOL.

Well, to most "experienced" political pundits, that was right. Who knew that Hillary would just not campaign much at all and not in the Midwest and run the most inept campaign since Dole 96? I sure expected Hillary to win in 16 ...

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Well, to most "experienced" political pundits, that was right. Who knew that Hillary who just not campaign much as at all not in the Midwest and run the most inept campaign since Dole 96? I sure expected Hillary to win in 16 ...

This was in September. He accurately reflects the same overconfidence that characterized her campaign. "Experienced" pundits are worthless if they get stuff wrong as badly as they did in 2016. He may have understood the situation well in 92, but it's not 92 anymore. Trump is not the elder Bush.

We did it Carville's way in 2016. Let's try something else this time, rather than expecting that it will magically work this time around.

The good news is that I can see the Republicans underestimating Bernie in much the same way.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

On ABC after the debate, they were extolling the praises of how Joe Biden "went down swinging", even though he was conceding defeat in New Hampshire. Because that's what we want, a guy good at conceding defeat. I guess they gotta prop him up a bit after Monday.

 

[SearchingforPeace]

This was in September. He accurately reflects the same overconfidence that characterized her campaign. "Experienced" pundits are worthless if they get stuff wrong as badly as they did in 2016. He may have understood the situation well in 92, but it's not 92 anymore. Trump is not the elder Bush.

We did it Carville's way in 2016. Let's try something else this time, rather than expecting that it will magically work this time around.

The good news is that I can see the Republicans underestimating Bernie in much the same way.

The DNC will never let him become president. They will run Bloomberg as a 3rd party candidate first. As much as they hate Trump, Trump doesn't threaten them as much as Bernie.

The DNC establishment hate leftists. They are neoliberals, being pro Big Business and Oligarchs, wanting "market based" solutions and using economics against labor. They only use the veneer of Wokeism to divide and rule.

Trump threatens this a little, but only in one aspect (national versus international), but Trump isn't going to ever break the banks and is unlikely go hit hard on antitrust.

So the DNC will rig things again like 2016 and Iowa, and make sure the convention goes to a second ballot, which will free all pledged delegates and bring the Superdelegates back into play.

It is going to get ugly, like Chicago 68 ugly.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

The DNC will never let him become president. They will run Bloomberg as a 3rd party candidate first. As much as they hate Trump, Trump doesn't threaten them as much as Bernie.

The DNC establishment hate leftists. They are neoliberals, being pro Big Business and Oligarchs, wanting "market based" solutions and using economics against labor. They only use the veneer of Wokeism to divide and rule.

Trump threatens this a little, but only in one aspect (national versus international), but Trump isn't going to ever break the banks and is unlikely go hit hard on antitrust.

So the DNC will rig things again like 2016 and Iowa, and make sure the convention goes to a second ballot, which will free all pledged delegates and bring the Superdelegates back into play.

It is going to get ugly, like Chicago 68 ugly.

If they do, they lose the election. Who can take seriously their claim that Trump has no respect for democratic values if they themselves prove to have no respect for democratic values? I guarantee you people would not turn out for their anointed candidate and they'd see another "shocking" unanticipated defeat. The only smart course of action they have is to play along if Bernie wins a majority of delegates. That said, because they're the DNC, there is no guarantee that they will do the smart thing.

I wonder how somebody can say that, though, and then support James Carville's "wisdom", who is pretty much part of the Democratic establishment. You must like his accent, I guess.