2020 Presidential Election 2: The Primaries are upon us

[front hugs > duggs]

13 hours ago, anaandrade said:

My ideal ticket would be Buttigieg/Klobuchar. 

This will NEVER happen. The disdain that Klobuchar feels for Pete is so apparent. 

[anaandrade]

33 minutes ago, front hugs > duggs said:

This will NEVER happen. The disdain that Klobuchar feels for Pete is so apparent. 

I know. It's just wishful thinking.

[milkteeth]

52 minutes ago, front hugs > duggs said:

This will NEVER happen. The disdain that Klobuchar feels for Pete is so apparent. 

I'm not a big fan of Klobuchar's politics, but she is 100% right about Pete. If a woman tried to run for president and all the governing experience she had on her resume was being mayor of a town smaller than Billings, Montana she would be laughed out of the room. 

[Stephanie66]

I already early voted for Amy. I do think she can beat Trump. But, instead, we are going to fight amongst ourselves, Bernie supporters won't vote or will vote for Trump if he doesn't win, and Trump will win again. 

[Maggie Mae]

I wish we could talk policy instead of strategy.

[GreyhoundFan]

When you have billions, your team can create some great ads:

I love the end.

[neurogirl]

I am a huge Pete fan. I think he has the right temperament for the job, and what he lacks in experience, he makes up for in thoughtfulness, intelligence and surrounding himself with true experts. I hate how the BernieBros have gone after him in particularly nasty ways. Pete's policies ARE liberal (dismantling the electoral college and reforming the Supreme Court, health care that would still cover everyone, legalizing marijuana and decriminalizing all other drugs, a fast track to citizenship and financial reparations for families separated at the border, free college for families making under $100k and additional help for families making more), he is just more pragmatic and believes his policies could pass as is - not making a bunch of promises that won't get past the Senate.

So, huge bias here, but I do strongly prefer Pete. Also, between himself, Steyer, and Klobuchar, he was the only one who could name Mexico's president in an interview with TELEMUNDO. Like...at least do your homework people. The bar should not be so low.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-02-14/in-interview-klobuchar-steyer-cant-name-mexican-president

"Klobuchar, Steyer and fellow 2020 candidate Pete Buttigieg were asked during one-on-one interviews with the Spanish-language station Telemundo on Thursday night whether they knew the name of the president of Mexico. It is Andrés Manuel López Obrador — known by his initials, AMLO — who took office in December 2018.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador was inaugurated as Mexico’s president in December 2018. 

Klobuchar, a third-term senator from Minnesota, responded, “No.” 

Steyer, a billionaire businessman, replied, “I forgot.” 

Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., was the only one of the three who knew the answer. “López Obrador, I hope,” he said with a smile."

Edited February 15, 2020 by neurogirl

[fraurosena]

Brutal take on Bloomberg's 'apology' for stop and frisk.

It's so impressive (indrukwekkend) even Dutch people are commenting on it.

[Rachel333]

@neurogirl Not only did Amy Klobuchar not know the name of Mexico's president (which looks really bad), she came back later to prove that she did know the name... except that she was told the name in the interview and had plenty of time to look it up again. It's really bizarre.

From this article, translated by someone else,

Quote

Klobuchar, a senator for Minnesota, who came third in New Hampshire, couldn't answer Venegas' question. She decided to finish the interview early, and when Venegas reminded her that there were still questions, she said, "No, no more questions." Klobuchar left so abruptly that she took with her the microphone secured on her body, which she then returned.

She returned an hour later after an interview with the Telemundo affiliate in Las Vegas to say the name of the president of Mexico. Klobuchar came back and approached Venegas and said, "So you can see that I know more than you think."

I'll admit, I like Pete a lot at this point too. I do wish he had more experience, but I think he would do a good job. People have pointed out that Democrats do well with a relatively young, charismatic candidate as opposed to an older, seemingly safer pick. The last four Democrats to win a first term presidential election (phrased that way to exclude LBJ, since circumstances were so different) were Obama, Clinton, Carter, and Kennedy.

I'm really disturbed by Bloomberg, the fact that he seems to be succeeding at buying the nomination, and all the disgustingly sexist and racist comments he's made. There's a twitter thread going around with some of them.

Quote

What 2020 Presidential contender said the following?

- "I'd fuck that in a second,"

- "I’d do that piece of meat…”

- “If women wanted to be appreciated for their brains they’d go to the library instead of to Bloomingdale’s”

- Called women: “fat broads” & “horse-faced lesbian.”

She has a bunch more similar quotes too.

I really don't know if I can morally bring myself to vote for him if he's the nominee, which is disturbing me because I've strongly believed it's important to vote for the Democratic nominee no matter who it is. After all, I criticized the Republicans who voted for Trump even though they didn't like him just because they knew he would do some things they wanted, like appoint conservative judges, and I admired the Republicans who refused to vote for someone as disgusting as Trump even if it meant the other party would win. I do think Trump is worse, but still how can I justify voting for someone as disgusting as Bloomberg?

This has really been bothering me and I hope it remains just a hypothetical question.

[fraurosena]

20 minutes ago, Rachel333 said:

I really don't know if I can morally bring myself to vote for him if he's the nominee, which is disturbing me because I've strongly believed it's important to vote for the Democratic nominee no matter who it is. After all, I criticized the Republicans who voted for Trump even though they didn't like him just because they knew he would do some things they wanted, like appoint conservative judges, and I admired the Republicans who refused to vote for someone as disgusting as Trump even if it meant the other party would win. I do think Trump is worse, but still how can I justify voting for someone as disgusting as Bloomberg?

This has really been bothering me and I hope it remains just a hypothetical question.

This is a moral dilemma that must be so disheartening to have to face. The only thing I can say about an eventual Bloomberg candidacy, (which I really do not want -- it will be a perpetuation of all that is wrong with American politics), is that although he has some really bad (disgusting even) things on his ledger, he will nevertheless be better than Trump.  Although Bloomberg is just as much an ego-maniac as Trump, he is not mentally unfit, and not a danger to the country and the world at large. I would also hope that he isn't bought and paid for by foreign entities, nor that he is beholden to any other traitorous influences. To vote for him won't be a good choice, nor by any means an easy one. But still, he is better than Trump, by far. If push comes to shove, chose the lesser of the two evils.

So yeah, even if you have to hold your nose doing it, please vote for the Democratic candidate, no matter who it is.

 

[Maggie Mae]

If Bloomberg buys the nom, it'll give Trump 4+ more years. Most Sanders supporters will vote for Warren or even Pete, but they aren't going to go out for the exact opposite of their core beliefs. And there are more Sanders supporters every day. 

Young Voters need to vote for something, which, imo, is part of what went wrong in 2016. Telling people to vote against Trump is fine - we need to - but it's not going to bring people to the polls. He's so blatently bad that it will be easy for people to assume there's no way he can lose and not make it a priority to vote (and/or fight with poll workers, make sure that your registration wasn't purged, wait in line when they run out of ballots, etc). 

I hope that Bloomberg's bizarre strategy of weird memes and ads just wastes his money tbh. 

 

[nausicaa]

1 hour ago, Maggie Mae said:

Young Voters need to vote for something, which, imo, is part of what went wrong in 2016.

Young people don't vote, no matter the candidate. That's part of the problem for Dems.

And we can talk all day about unfair voting laws and the electoral college, but those aren't going to be dismantled before election day, so let's work within the reality that exists. 

You need a candidate that appeals to older voters who actually vote, POC, moderate Dems, independents, and can allow a decent number of anti-Trump Republicans to hold their noses and vote for them. And you need to appeal to those people in swing states.

It's like when people made fun of Biden's "No Malarkey" bus. Yeah, it's boring, older, Middle American. Exactly who votes. 

I remain completely bewildered at how Democrats are so fucking bad at strategy and don't understand they need to actually win elections. 

2 hours ago, fraurosena said:

I would also hope that he isn't bought and paid for by foreign entities, nor that he is beholden to any other traitorous influences. To vote for him won't be a good choice, nor by any means an easy one. But still, he is better than Trump, by far. If push comes to shove, chose the lesser of the two evils.

Exactly. This is how my libertarian ass is justifying potentially having to vote for Bernie Sanders. If I can do this, y'all can do this. 

Edited February 16, 2020 by nausicaa

[ShesCrafty]

43 minutes ago, nausicaa said:

You need a candidate that appeals to older voters who actually vote, POC, moderate Dems, independents, and can allow a decent number of anti-Trump Republicans to hold their noses and vote for them. And you need to appeal to those people in swing states.

It baffles me that more people don’t get this. The general election is basically over in 35-40 states. It’s not fair or right, but it’s how the game is currently played and if you want to win, you play by those rules. 

[milkteeth]

2 hours ago, fraurosena said:

This is a moral dilemma that must be so disheartening to have to face. The only thing I can say about an eventual Bloomberg candidacy, (which I really do not want -- it will be a perpetuation of all that is wrong with American politics), is that although he has some really bad (disgusting even) things on his ledger, he will nevertheless be better than Trump.  Although Bloomberg is just as much an ego-maniac as Trump, he is not mentally unfit, and not a danger to the country and the world at large. I would also hope that he isn't bought and paid for by foreign entities, nor that he is beholden to any other traitorous influences. To vote for him won't be a good choice, nor by any means an easy one. But still, he is better than Trump, by far. If push comes to shove, chose the lesser of the two evils.

So yeah, even if you have to hold your nose doing it, please vote for the Democratic candidate, no matter who it is.

 

 

This is exactly what terrifies me about a Bloomberg presidency. Bloomberg is a right wing, authoritarian billionaire who is racist and sexist, but he will be more competent and better able to execute his agenda. The idea that the man who turned NYC into a police state for people of color being in charge of ICE makes me feel sick to my stomach as someone who's family immigrated to the US from Mexico. Mayor Bloomberg created a system of surveillance against Muslim, Arab and Southeast Asians living in NYC that sounds like something created by of the Stasi in East Germany, and we want to give him control of the NSA, CIA and FBI? Bloomberg has the wealth to manipulate our democracy to the point where he can purchase the loyalty of our elected officials. He is literally buying his way into a primary right now. We are all angry and disgusted by Russia's meddling in our election, but the solution can't be that we become like Russia and let an oligarch like Bloomberg control our democracy. I really hope I won't be put in the position of having to support him against Trump.

Personally, I think Trump will absolutely win reelection if he is up against Bloomberg, unless Bloomberg can figure out a way to pay people $150 to vote for him like he is paying people to post for him. Who is Bloomberg's constituency besides fellow billionaires and elected officials who have received generous donations to support him? Republicans who support gun control and nanny-state liberalism like soda bans? Democrats who support wall street and the Iraq war? People of color who support racial profiling? Women who support sexual harassment and gender discrimination (this group is firmly in Trump's camp I'm afraid to say)? I know that "Well at least this person isn't Trump" should be enough to motivate people to vote, but if that were the case Hillary would be president. Democrats lose when voter enthusiasm is low and the only reason people are coming out to the polls is to vote against someone. 

 

[AmericanRose]

2 hours ago, nausicaa said:

Young people don't vote, no matter the candidate. That's part of the problem for Dems.

[snip]

You need a candidate that appeals to older voters who actually vote, POC, moderate Dems, independents, and can allow a decent number of anti-Trump Republicans to hold their noses and vote for them. And you need to appeal to those people in swing states.

It's way easier, in my opinion, for Republicans to pull off the appeal to their voters - they band together on being pro-2A and anti-choice. Democrats have a very large umbrella.

I will also admit that I didn't vote until 2016, and I probably wouldn't even have known about Trump being the nominee if not for FJ. But even though the idea of President Trump was (and still is) ridiculous, I felt it important to vote, even in my reliably blue state.

[formergothardite]

5 hours ago, nausicaa said:

I remain completely bewildered at how Democrats are so fucking bad at strategy and don't understand they need to actually win elections. 

I just can't wrap my mind about how they always fucked this up. Defeating a guy who is handing them stuff to campaign against and who can't put together a sentence should be doable. but they can't do it. Is there literally no one who can give good advice in the DNC? 

[nausicaa]

5 hours ago, milkteeth said:

Who is Bloomberg's constituency besides fellow billionaires and elected officials who have received generous donations to support him?

In the latest Quinnipiac poll, he is doing really well with black voters-- better than Sanders. (https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=3655) If Biden drops out, Bloomberg is projected to get most of his older black supporters as well. 

He also is doing really well in most polls of Florida, which is obviously key. 

You make good points though. I'm certainly not a fan of the guy, and the quotes that Rachel333 posted are really eye opening. I would argue though, that he's still not 1. mentally unstable (I am not saying this in a flippant way, I genuinely don't believe that Trump is mentally well enough to be the Commander in Chief) and 2. in the service of a foreign power. 

[fraurosena]

2 hours ago, formergothardite said:

I just can't wrap my mind about how they always fucked this up. Defeating a guy who is handing them stuff to campaign against and who can't put together a sentence should be doable. but they can't do it. Is there literally no one who can give good advice in the DNC? 

This is just conjecture from my part, but I think it’s not a lack of strategy so much as that they want to play by the rules and be perceived as being the ‘good guys’ who ‘go high when they go low’. They are taking the moral high ground. In a sense, they are much like Quakers, refusing to use violence and getting beat up without lifting a finger to defend themselves against their opponents.

I am certainly not promoting violence, but I do believe that when you are under attack, you should defend yourself. Vigorously, if needed. 

The biggest mistake the Dems made in 2016 is failing to understand that not defending yourself is perceived as weakness by many. A lot of people gravitate to strong men, tough guys who talk tough. Tough guys appeal to them because standing with the strong man makes them look tough by association. Most of them probably voted for Trump last time. 

I do think the Dems have learned their lesson —at least partially— and they are showing their tough side. (Hello, impeachment!) But, much more grit and determination and strength is needed. No more ‘nice guy’ attitudes. You can’t win by being nice, or likable alone.

After all, you can smile and still show your sharp, pointy fangs at the same time.

[formergothardite]

13 hours ago, nausicaa said:

n the latest Quinnipiac poll, he is doing really well with black voters-- better than Sanders. (https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=3655) If Biden drops out, Bloomberg is projected to get most of his older black supporters as well. 

He also is doing really well in most polls of Florida, which is obviously key. 

NC is a swing state and Bloomberg so far is the only democratic candidate I've seen sending people to canvas and talk to local in my area. I think he is polling third in my state. 

I haven't decided who I will vote for. 

12 hours ago, fraurosena said:

(Hello, impeachment!)

 I feel like the impeachment was a terrible, terrible move. It will pretty much be forgotten by November except for Trump crowing about how the dems tried to prove he committed crimes but lost and he is innocent. While I doubt it will help democrats in the next election, it will help republicans. They should have held off on the impeachment till summer so it would be fresh in people's minds and the republicans would actually have to deal with it during big campaign times. 

 

12 hours ago, fraurosena said:

This is just conjecture from my part, but I think it’s not a lack of strategy so much as that they want to play by the rules and be perceived as being the ‘good guys’ who ‘go high when they go low’.

I agree on this. I also think they are stuck in their ways and don't want to change. Plus the DNC is also corrupt, which IMO helped Trump win in the last election too. 

 

[fraurosena]

7 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

I feel like the impeachment was a terrible, terrible move. It will pretty much be forgotten by November except for Trump crowing about how the dems tried to prove he committed crimes but lost and he is innocent. While I doubt it will help democrats in the next election, it will help republicans. They should have held off on the impeachment till summer so it would be fresh in people's minds and the republicans would actually have to deal with it during big campaign times. 

You make a good argument, but I'm not sure I completely agree. Yes, a summer impeachment would have been better timing when it keeps things fresh in the public's mind. Then again, all the egregious acts committed in August/September would have taken place almost a year before the actual impeachment, and that would certainly have complicated things. Also, strategically, I do think it was smart to act swiftly, because otherwise the Dems would look like weaklings and push-overs. Plus, a summer impeachment could be spun by the trumplicans as interfering in the elections. But, most importantly.. who's to say there won't be a summer impeachment anyway? The Dems are still investigating after all, and who knows what they will dig up?

 

15 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

Plus the DNC is also corrupt, which IMO helped Trump win in the last election too. 

I wholeheartedly agree. American politics as a whole are corrupt. As long as money exchanging hands for policies is legal, it will remain corrupt, no matter which political party is running things. 

 

[HerNameIsBuffy]

2 hours ago, formergothardite said:

NC is a swing state and Bloomberg so far is the only democratic candidate I've seen sending people to canvas and talk to local in my area. I think he is polling third in my state. 

I got a "Hi, this is Mike Bloomberg" text this morning asking me to support him.  

I felt like texting back, "Hi Mike, this is Buffy.  Don't text me before coffee."

 

[GreyhoundFan]

The author of this op-ed makes some good points: "Dems Beware: Don’t Be Like Mitt in 2012"

Spoiler

Democratic political operatives have been banging their heads against the wall trying to figure out what went wrong in 2016. How did the party lose one of the most winnable elections in recent history? What can they do differently in 2020 to right that electoral wrong?

But what if Democrats are looking at the wrong election for lessons about how to win 2020?

When all is said and done, the 2016 election might end up being a black-swan event. The combination of Russian interference, Comey intervention and multiple third-party candidates make that election a hard one to extract guidance from. Besides, running for an open seat is a fundamentally different political task than defeating an incumbent.

Rather than obsess over 2016, Democrats should focus on 2012—the last year a challenger took on an incumbent. There are more parallels than you’d think: Barack Obama was a president hugely unpopular with the opposing party, but the economy on the upswing; the Republicans had a big field and took a while to coalesce around a consensus choice. In the end, that choice was Mitt Romney—and his campaign misread and misplayed the election in ways that the Democrats desperately need to pay attention to now.

Long before he became a hero to Never Trumpers and the #Resistance for having the courage to fulfill his constitutional oath, Mitt Romney was the last politician to take on an incumbent president. A year before the election, Nate Silver famously asked on the cover of the New York Times Magazine “Is Obama Toast?” I was working for the Obama re-election campaign at the time, and in our internal polling, Obama was losing to a generic Republican in most of the battleground states. We hoped the Republican voters would nominate anyone other than Romney, because Romney might be unbeatable. We were wrong, because while Obama benefited from an economy that strengthened over the course of the campaign season and a messy, overly long primary, Romney also made a series of strategic miscalculations. And the Democratic nominee cannot afford to repeat those mistakes in 2020. So, some words of advice to Democrats from the 2012 election:

First, do not make this election solely about Donald Trump. The idea that the challenger wants a campaign to be a referendum on the incumbent rather than a choice between two candidates is a staple of political conventional wisdom. It is also a mistake. From the very beginning, Romney’s primary goal was to make the race all about Obama. His campaign ran virtually no ads that introduced Romney to voters. He rolled out very few policies. All of his messaging firepower was focused on Obama. This was a fundamental misunderstanding of the contours of a modern presidential campaign and a fatal strategic error. Romney left a vacuum of information that the Obama campaign, and other Democratic groups, were more than happy to fill with information about Romney’s far-right positions, his pro-corporate policies and his long career of carrion capitalism. Remember the Obama campaign ad with Mitt Romney singing “America the Beautiful” that featured his record of shipping jobs overseas and using off-shore tax havens?

By the time the Romney campaign got around to telling the story of Romney’s life, how he saved the Olympic committee and other good works, it was far too late. The damage was done. Romney famously made a number of historic gaffes, but Obama’s campaign-trail performance was far from gaffe-free. The reason Romney suffered more from saying “Corporations are people” and “I like firing people” than Obama did for saying “You didn’t build that” is because voters knew Obama. They didn’t know Romney, and Obama’s campaign was happy to tell people who he was.

Trump has dominated the national conversation for 5 years. His flaws are known by all. The Democrats should want this to be a choice between competing, starkly different visions for the country. If it’s all about Trump, Democrats will lose.

Second, find ways to frame this economy on your own terms. As Obama showed in 2012, the candidate who succeeds in defining the terms of the economic debate will win the election. In October of 2012, the unemployment rate was nearly 8 percent and American families were still feeling the effects of the Great Recession. These economic conditions could have spelled doom for Obama. According to exit polls, 59 percent of voters in that election believed that the economy was the most important issue and only 21 percent of voters rated the economy as good.

Romney’s entire strategy was to lay the blame for the sluggish economy at Obama’s feet, while claiming that his business experience made him better suited to jumpstart the recovery. But Obama won handily because he reframed the economic question before voters. Instead of an up-or-down vote based on the unemployment rate or weak growth, the Obama campaign turned a question of economic performance into one of economic fairness by focusing on how Romney’s policies favored the wealthy over the middle and working class.

Because Trump has managed to not screw up the strong economy Obama handed him, the 2020 Democratic nominee must replicate Obama’s feat and reframe what a strong economy means. Yes, the unemployment rate is low, and the stock market is soaring, but Trump is vulnerable because of who benefits from his policies. Trump’s only major legislative accomplishment is a massive tax break for big corporations and Wall Street, which might be the most obvious and exploitable political vulnerability this century. During Trump’s presidency, corporations have rarely made more money or paid less in taxes, yet middle- and working-class Americans are paying more for health care, food, college and retirement while wages have barely budged. Like Romney, Trump wants to make the race about macro-economic indicators, and so Democrats need to make it about people’s personal interaction with the economy. If they do that, they have shot.

Third, get out of the liberal Twitter bubble. Finally, one of Romney’s biggest errors was being stuck in the conservative news bubble. The only people truly shocked by Obama’s victory, which was predicted by the polls and the various data models, was the Romney campaign. They had been mainlining the anti-Obama propaganda from Fox News and others for years and therefore had lost touch with how voters saw Obama. Romney was running against the proto-socialist, madrassa-educated, wholly un-American caricature of Obama that Fox News pumped out into the world. That may be how Sean Hannity saw Obama, but it’s not how voters in Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin saw Obama.

The Democratic nominee needs to recognize that a lot of the voters we need see Trump very differently than most of us that populate liberal Twitter, watch MSNBC and listen to Pod Save America. According to polling and focus groups, despite a Cheesecake Factory menu’s worth of scandal, they still see Trump as someone who represents change. Despite multiple bankruptcies and investigations into his finances, they believe that Trump’s business experience makes him qualified to deal with the economy. And despite a plethora of plutocratic policies, they see Trump as a populist. Voters are not naïve. Outside of the MAGA base, most have a pretty nuanced view of Trump. These impressions can and must be changed—in some cases with only a modicum of new information. But only if Democrats run against the person these voters see, not the person they know Trump to be.

Donald Trump has a lot of advantages heading into the 2020 election. Defeating an incumbent is hard, and it’s especially hard in a strong economy. But Trump absolutely can be defeated by any of the Democrats running for president, if—and only if—the party learns the lessons from where Mitt Romney came up short.

 

[Maggie Mae]

5 hours ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

I got a "Hi, this is Mike Bloomberg" text this morning asking me to support him.  

I felt like texting back, "Hi Mike, this is Buffy.  Don't text me before coffee."

We/He got some mailers too, and decided to just go with "meh, let him waste his money."

[Destiny]

We/He got some mailers too, and decided to just go with "meh, let him waste his money."

He’s far from my first choice too. His mailer will go in the firestarters pile if i get one.

 

I hate the damn mailers in general. I got one from a trump approved republican the other day and I’m just sitting here going, friend, I’m a registered Democrat, and I dropped off my ballot last week. What are you doing with your money?

[AmericanRose]

If Twitter is liberal, we're in trouble.

Personally, I think Dems lost 2016 because they took it for granted.