Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Come on, man.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Everybody saw this coming.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

White supremacy is terrorism.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

I was promised a recession.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / The Only Way Out is Through: Moving Towards a New Normal and the 2020 Democratic Primary Candidates

The Only Way Out is Through: Moving Towards a New Normal and the 2020 Democratic Primary Candidates

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There are several new polls out showing where the Democratic candidates stand a little over nine months before the first Democratic primary or caucus and eighteen months ahead of the general election in 2020. All of them are showing Vice President Biden with a strong plurality of support, followed by Senator Sanders, whose numbers are flat to sinking in the mid teens to low twenties, and then Senators Warren and Harris and Mayor Buttigieg all either closely clumped together or fighting for third position at this time in the high single/low double digits depending on the poll. In general they look something like this:

While I have my personal preferences at this point, who those candidates are are largely immaterial at this point as I expect that numbers will change as debates start, candidates fade, others move up, etc. That said, I think what we’re seeing with these polling results is a combination of name recognition combined with a strong desire by Democrats and Democratic leaning independents for a return to normalcy. And by normalcy I mean how things were before the President was elected and then sworn in. Specifically, for a return to where we all don’t have to watch what the President is doing and saying every day because none of us can be sure whether something dangerous is being done or announced via twitter or one of his minions is doing something behind the scenes that is abhorrent and dangerous. For a return to where the Senate actually functions within its intended design, instead of how it is functioning. Where the parties and those within them hadn’t sorted themselves so that there is really no ideological overlap at all between them because one party is a broad coalition spanning center to left, the other is a hard right party, and therefore there are no grounds for compromise and horse trading among members of the House and Senate from each party.

The problem with this politics of nostalgia, of course, is that you cannot return to past normalcy. I’ve often raised an important point in my work for the Army and DOD, in briefings, operational planning teams, working groups, etc, which is that once you break a state, a society, and an economy you cannot go back to how things were right before they were broken. You can only go forward. Things can be repaired, but there will always be scar tissue. And, as a result, a new equilibrium has to be established, which leads to a new normal. This may include some of the old normal, but it will also include other things that weren’t as part of the new normal. We saw this post WW II in our work rebuilding the countries of Europe and Asia. We saw this, and did our best to forget the whole thing, in regard to the Korean War. We saw this with Vietnam and quickly tried to ignore it. And we’ve seen this in what we’ve been doing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And we’re going to see this dynamic play out here in the US. If the President gets reelected, eight years of this insanity will solidify the currently nebulous and tenuous possibility of the new normal being kleptocratic white Christian herrenvolkism. If he loses, then there will be a move to a different new normal depending on who actually wins and whether the Democrats maintain their House majority and are able to flip four or five seats and retake the Senate. Regardless, there is no going back. But most people don’t understand this because they don’t think about it. And because it is painful to recognize, let alone admit and accept. Vice President Biden is a decent person, he’d be, like almost everyone running for the Democratic nomination and like Governor Weld who has announced that he will primary the President, a significant improvement over what we currently have. His hitting the President on his racism and bigotry and anti-Semitism and xenophobia right out of the gate is important, but the US he’s describing in the early days of his campaign no longer exists and it hasn’t existed for quite some time. Democrats are supporting him, though, because what he’s describing and what he’s selling is comforting. It is the false hope that the clock can be reset and we can go back to what we all thought was normal prior to about 10:30 PM EST on election day 2016. I do not know whether what Vice President Biden is selling is sustainable between now and the primaries, between the primaries and the general election. Whether Senator Sanders’ or Senator Harris’s or Senator Warren’s or Mayor Buttigieg’s or any of the other candidates’ alternative visions – of both a new normal and how to get there – will gain traction and become viable and sustainable between now and the primaries, is a question I can’t answer.

The only way out is through.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

113Comments

  1. 1.

    NotMax

    a little over seven months

    Nine – count ’em, NINE – months. Iowa caucuses on Feb 3rd.

  3. 3.

    Ruckus

    Looking back, desiring something that never really was has always been a human failing. And probably always will be. But we have an opportunity here to not to this. We have a number of good candidates running, so I ask, why would one want to go backwards to something that was arguably broken, would that actually be any better than going ahead with a better vision or would it actually be worse. I see that going backwards is worse because not only are we going through a major dysfunctional situation now, if we go backwards we wouldn’t be fixing that as much as regressing and having to do the same thing in 4 more years. What is the point? It’s broken now, let’s actually fix the damn thing.

  4. 4.

    zhena gogolia

    @Raven:

    Beautiful!

    Adam, I don’t want to summon the Anti-Pete hordes, but his announcement video was very eloquent about the fact that we can’t go back.

    I’m still for Harris right now. I was at a dinner the other night where the faves among the guests were Bennet and Hickenlooper. But there are some reasons for that, it’s not typical. I had some hopes for Bennet but I don’t think he has the energy, to be honest.

  7. 7.

    Duane

    I’d feel better with Biden as the candidate if Obama would be VP. I know, I’m dreaming, it’s too much to ask, but we need to win!

  8. 8.

    Ruckus

    @Raven:
    Whoa!
    That is a great picture.
    I took almost 300 shots at an airshow on Sat and most of them came out great. After I get done cropping, because I forgot to set the resolution down, I’ll send some to Alan or post them at least.

  9. 9.

    plato

    People keep asking what we can do to stop this Authoritarian. Go back to early 2017 when we effectively stopped numerous Trump disasters by having spontaneous protests, daily phone calls, voicing outrage at town halls, organizing mass responses to save ACA, etc. Back to basics— Olga Lautman (@olgaNYC1211) May 5, 2019

    People keep asking what we can do to stop this Authoritarian. Go back to early 2017 when we effectively stopped numerous Trump disasters by having spontaneous protests, daily phone calls, voicing outrage at town halls, organizing mass responses to save ACA, etc. Back to basics— Olga Lautman (@olgaNYC1211) May 5, 2019

    We need to get back to that w our demands of removing Barr, having hearings, making sure all evidence is made public, and demanding our leaders hold everyone breaking the law accountable.— Olga Lautman (@olgaNYC1211) May 5, 2019

  10. 10.

    Adam L Silverman

    @zhena gogolia: I’m aware. And that’s why I think the fight is going to be between the pull of nostalgia to go back to what was normal that is VP Biden’s campaign, the alternative versions of what a new normal could be and how to get there of Senators Warren and Harris and Mayor Buttigieg, and Senator Sander’s revolution.

    I also think what the polling is telling us, at this stage, is that even with name recognition, Senator Sanders’ floor isn’t around 20%, rather his ceiling is around 20%.

  12. 12.

    Jeffro

    Both things can be true.

    Dems overall might be looking for someone with the capacity to unite the party quickly, the better to plow straight into the trumpov machine for what will surely be (cliche alert) the most important election of our lifetimes. I mean, they/we are looking for other things too, but most of us are in ‘crawl over broken glass’ mode, let’s be honest.

    At the same time, yes, we will have to get across to our fellow Americans that there is no going back, that it is up to us to create a new normal. Codify the things that used to be norms. Fight hard to take power out of the hands of big money and dark money and entrenched white supremacist minority power in all its forms. So we’ll find ways to require the tax return disclosure, true blind trusts of assets, etc – and make it a condition that these are followed or the office is automatically forfeited. Same thing with voter suppression – no more gerrymandering, inequal distribution of voting machines, making Election Day a holiday, etc. Push on all fronts.

    I’m not really sure these are connected, though. Biden has some ‘Obama nostalgia/glow’, sure. The guy was also the VP of the last Dem administration for eight years, one that won the popular vote AND electoral vote twice. Dems just want to get this done and remove the cancer in the WH. Removing cancer changes the body, sure – and I think most of us are up for dealing with that work and adjustments to the ‘new normal’ – but to me these seem to be separate issues.

    I’ll stop there. Go Dems!

  13. 13.

    Mike in NC

    Any D who can take out the Fat Bastard (AKA the King of the Night) gets my vote.

  16. 16.

    Jeffro

    @plato: And you know, this part is relatively new – Dems and independents getting engaged and ACTIVE on this scale. This is relatively new for us, and it’s working.

    We’re Democrats. I think we can roll with whomever is eventually selected and keep it up with the activism on so many fronts. I think we’re going to have to…

  17. 17.

    Suzanne

    @Ruckus:

    It’s broken now, let’s actually fix the damn thing.

    Not to be a downer, but I’m gonna be a downer…..is it possible to fix it? I am unsure. The fact that half of this country is happy to burn it all down in order to spite the other half doesn’t fill me with confidence.

  26. 26.

    jk

    I’m for any Democrat other than clueless Uncle Joe who supported big banks over consumers, supported the crime bill, supported the Iraq war, and treated Anita Hill like garbage. He’s also too damn old for this job.

  28. 28.

    eemom

    @NotMax:

    Nine – count ’em, NINE – months. Iowa caucuses on Feb 3rd.

    Um, yeah.

    Look y’all, I luvz ya like brothers and sisters, but every time a true progressive gives a shit about a 19 months out poll, a whole fuckton of angels lose their wings.

  29. 29.

    caphilldcne

    The only way is through is pretty much true and basically a problem created by the arrow of time. I’d give a lot to reverse the damage done by Reagan who paved the way for our numbskull politics. There’s a reason so many people are into fantasy and sci fi.

  30. 30.

    Adam L Silverman

    @jk: How about the one year older Senator Sanders who has voted in support of the NRA’s priorities and against comprehensive immigration reform?

  31. 31.

    plato

    Watching Cohen go off to prison for crimes that Individual #1 directed him to commit so that Individual #1 could become POTUS — while Individual #1 lounges in the White House disobeying his oath and corrupting everything — just feels so wrong. So not what America is all about.— Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) May 7, 2019

    Exactly. The minion is punished while the corrupt culprit is still free.

  37. 37.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Karen: Weld has announced he’s running as a Republican in the primary against the President.

    As for Weld’s politics – he’s sort of an old style New England Rockefeller Republican.

  38. 38.

    jk

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I dislike Biden and Sanders, but I’m more concerned that Biden has a real shot at winning the nomination than Bernie.

    Sanders is my 21st choice and Biden is my 22nd choice among the declared candidates. Once they’ve both been mathematically eliminated, I’ll be cranking up Beethoven’s Ode to Joy to celebrate.

    I like Warren and Inslee the most, but I’m also impressed with Gillibrand, Klobuchar, Booker, Harris, Bennet and several others.

  39. 39.

    caphilldcne

    BTW I dislike Joe because he was always doing the business of the DEA. Example – he’s responsible for passage of the RAVE Act a law that applies crackhouse laws to dance clubs and similar public spaces. It was an effort by the DEA to basically shut down Limelight (and prosecute the owner), a club in NY notorious for drugs but a space for gays. He got it passed after it had been stopped cold by the electronic dance community (they hung together). How? A “virgin birth.” He added it to the Amber alert bill in conference even tho neither the senate nor the house had ever approved and it had even been defeated in committees. For those of you who don’t recall the bill that did pass was to allow alerts on highways named after a young girl, Amber, who had been kidnapped and killed. No one was gonna vote against that. Of course they got the Limelight dude on other issues and deported him to Canada. The first prosecutorial use of the RAVE Act was against a legionaires club in SD where some people were dealing pot. Basically the problem is he adjusted to Reagan era politics by shifting right on things like drugs and learned a lot of the wrong lessons. He’s basically a good guy but he’s out of time (like Dianne Feinstein). I actually suspect he’d be better than his past as president but not nearly as good as the people who are reacting to the things like the mass incarceration he helped make possible. Maybe I’m wrong. I just worry he would put the DEA back on strong footing when it really should be completely revised.

  40. 40.

    Gvg

    @plato: early on in our torture scandal, I thought it unfair to punish all the lower ranking soldiers for what was clearly encouraged by Bush, Cheney and others like Gonzalez. Now years later with NO ONE really punished and newer problems having crowded that outrage out of our scope….I think we should always punish the minions. That way future minions will start saving evidence and saying give me direct orders in writing…..and we will start getting the medium minion managers. Then they will start saving evidence or refusing illegal orders…and sometimes we can then get the real bosses. Then we will be safer and more just. You have to enforce. Even if the first caught seem like easily manipulated morons, not villains.
    Trump is really serious, but I haven’t forgotten that Bush authorized torture in my name. My lesson is get who you can and work upward, just like AG’s do.

  41. 41.

    caphilldcne

    Sorry for the wall of text. I don’t comment that much and apparently I’m in a mood.

  42. 42.

    Ohio Mom

    This country more or less repaired itself after the Civil War and after the Great Depression. I hope we can do it again without having to reach those levels of turmoil.

  43. 43.

    Jay

    Thanks for this post Adam,

    With Global Warming and the Extinction coming at us like a freight train, ( yes, we are on the list of species that will go extinct),

    There is no “going back”.

  45. 45.

    plato

    bbc – Jailed Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo are freed in Myanmar after amnesty. They were convicted of breaking the Official Secrets Act and were sentenced last September to seven years in jail.

    Guess international pressure worked.

  49. 49.

    Dan B

    @eemom: Fuckton of Angels! Isn’t that Adam’s new Hip Punk band? Or it could be Fuckton of Mensches….

  50. 50.

    Duane

    Here’s a new normal from Republican World. Back to work scams for people on SSDI. After work requirements for Medicaid are in place disabled people are next if we don’t stop these idiots.

  52. 52.

    Another Scott

    looses loses

    What a horrible graph. Tufte is crying. (The balloon text is obscuring the data, the “Biden +22.3” especially.)

    I’m surprised that Biden is doing so well, and it actually concerns me a little, but I need to remember all the caveats – including that Biden tops (or is near the top) the list of candidates that Democrats don’t want to be the nominee (can’t find the linky now).

    Agreed that we have to find a new normal. And this is yet another example of “you can’t go home again…”

    Forward! Eyes on the prize!

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  53. 53.

    Dan B

    @jk: I keep thinking of Biden’s sorry record and how it has adversely impacted poor people and POC. And Beto’s support of his GOP “friend” and vote for offshore drilling. And Pete gets the boot for being the privileged white traitor. Although I do believe that was due to an extremely lucky social media campaign.

    I’m hoping there isn’t any genuine dirt on Kamala, but the rumblings are she slept her way to the top and is a cruel cop. It’s a topsy turvey world.

    The next few months may determine if we have an election or if there are enough judges left to save democracy, or keep us secure.

  54. 54.

    Ruckus

    @Suzanne:
    I don’t know if it’s fixable. It is pretty damn broken.
    But going backwards won’t fix it. Effectively that’s what the last election was about, going backwards 140 yrs or going forward at a reasonable or maybe just a bit faster pace. But what we ended up with going backwards 140 yrs and erasing the end of the civil war is far, far more broken. Politics is normally a two steps forward, two steps back, two steps forward, one step back, rinse repeat. But we just went back about a thousand steps and going one step forward won’t cut it. Politics in this country has been effectively broken and doing the above back and forth dance for most of it’s existence and it’s not working at all any longer. Biden can’t fix it, at best he’s a one step forward guy. That’s at best. We need to change the dynamic, to get back to the basics and fix the broken issues far better than we have been, racism, economic theft by the wealthy, removal of protections for those than don’t have the power to help themselves, healthcare, military budgets that are so much larger than the rest of the world…… Hell if we could just come up to the 21st century countries that are trying to do it better we’d make progress.

  55. 55.

    Dan B

    @caphilldcne: You did fine. The list of things Biden has done to either placate the GOP or to show he is “moderate” is long. He’s ridden on Obama’s coattails and remember that Obama’s cabinet did some terrible things along with the good. It’s no fun being stuck between purity and a ride back to the bad old days.

  57. 57.

    khead

    Just gonna say I am skeptical that Biden can keep and solidify the support of POC just because he was Obama’s towel boy.

  58. 58.

    jk

    @Dan B:

    I keep thinking of Biden’s sorry record and how it has adversely impacted poor people and POC

    I’m fed up by the fact that so many voters have been afflicted with amnesia and have forgotten all about Biden’s record. His statements during the debates over the crime bill and his comments about busing disgust me. I don’t believe 8 years serving as Obama’s veep should give him a pass for his lousy Senate record.

  59. 59.

    Ruckus

    @caphilldcne:
    Good one.
    If I apologized for all my long comments, my comment count would double. Sometimes one has a lot to say. And that’s OK
    In my case I often just don’t know when to shut the hell up.

  62. 62.

    Raoul

    @plato: Eh. In a shitshow like Trump’s, we have to keep putting the minions in the stockade, whenever possible. Eventually, Trump may screw up so badly that he’ll pay a price. But the incentives to join his outfit have to become really negative.
    It’s why the Everything Trump Touches Dies meme is vital — that has to remain true so that we don’t end up with more functional evil (like Barr, maybe) joining the kleptocratic beast.

  64. 64.

    tobie

    @Dan B: I’m not asking for a candidate who is above all reproach when it comes to past statements, past association, or past positions. That is an impossible standard that no candidate can meet. If they’re clear-eyed about what they want to achieve, that’s enough for me. I would like someone capable of swift, effective action and inspiring rhetoric since that’s the only way I can see us getting beyond this present moment.Social media has made that hard. We’re all alienated from ourselves, which makes it that much harder to feel like we’re part of any collective.

  65. 65.

    Raoul

    @Jay: This is the part that freaks me out the most. Not that we can’t re-make our country — in other times I think we could. And, of course, maybe we can no matter what. Heck, maybe a global ecological crisis could be the catalyst for positive change.

    But I sort of think Thunderdome is the more likely outcome.

  66. 66.

    Juice Box

    @Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: I like Sen. Harris, but she did have a relationship with Willie Brown several decades ago. They both acknowledge it. It would be one of the many smears, both real and fake, that will be tried.

  67. 67.

    Dan B

    @Jay: Yes. Reconstruction’s destruction cured the Civil War, I mean “the lost cause”. And then WWII… We forget our histories and then we’re dancing with them again much to our surprise.

    I’m not sure any of the candidates can rescue us because it would require rallying a majority of the country and neutering the massive private propaganda machine. We may endure the destruction of protections for minorities and the vulnerable at a minimum.

    So a thought: Biden/Harris. Biden does two years of placating the right and Harris joins Obama and Holder in pushing Biden 9n course and convincing him that a cool calm and determined prosecutor is the right candidate to take over in 2025?

  68. 68.

    opiejeanne

    @Adam L Silverman: O.T. but relevant to the conversation about the painting of the Kearsarge last night, I got my youngest to send me photos of two paintings in a children’s book I own. The one with the “dance steps is a series of four paintings of the USS Constitution and HMS Java, with a diagram of the movements. https://flic.kr/p/25cL3iv

    The other painting is the Constitution destroying the Java off the coast of Brazil, and it seems to have been the subject of many paintings. It took me a while to find the right version so I could know the artist’s name. It’s here: https://flic.kr/p/25cL3yR

  69. 69.

    janesays

    @zhena gogolia: Reasons being the dinner was with lifelong [email protected]Adam L Silverman:

    February 3, 2020: Iowa caucus
    February 11, 2020: New Hampshire primary
    February 22, 2020: Nevada caucus
    February 29, 2020: South Carolina primary
    March 3, 2020: Super Tuesday (Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Virginia primaries).

    I’m guessing by the end of the first week of March, we’ll be down to five or fewer serious candidates still in the race (not including the odd gadflies like Mike Gravel).

  72. 72.

    Dan B

    @Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: Don’t get me wrong. There seems to be this awful rimor out there about Kamala. It appears to have some toehold among black women through social media. It horrifies me that people would fall for it. What white man with obvious brilliance would be accused of this with a fill on whisper campaign? It’s a horrible smear of her and I’m at a loss for how to stop it.

    Everyone will be tarred with a broad brush and it will be tough to beat it back.
    Where is my magic wand? Sigh.

    BTW you do remember Kamala is my first choice. Warren close behind. There are a few others but we’ll see what happens in the debates.

  73. 73.

    Cacti

    After Bernie’s inability to answer whether he’d choose a person of color to be his VP nominee, expect his numbers to keep on dropping.

    :-)

  74. 74.

    Ruckus

    @zhena gogolia:
    This.
    Yes there are a lot of racists in this country. Some of them are nothing but racists. But not everyone is a racist. I went to the Chino Air Show on Sat and as a white guy I certainly was not in the vast majority. Latino, Black, Asian were everywhere. Now this is southern CA but it’s far east of LA and the last time I went to the same show the crowd was far more white. Two old white mega choads had the only political hats – tee shirts that I saw. Both wore mega hats. They looked as out of place as it sounds.
    Trump is his own worst enemy, for a variety of reasons, ignorance, incompetence, possible dementia, racism, narcissism being up there. There are more of us, we have to use that, do our best to get people out to vote, the motivation is there, we all see it every day, we just have to insure that we do this within reason.

  75. 75.

    Dan B

    @Juice Box: Exactly. And what did her relationship do to advance her? From what I’ve seen of Harris it elevates my opinion of Willie Brown. Why does he deserve time with Kamala? But there is that trope of the “woman” sleeping her way up. How do we counter that? By persistence.

  76. 76.

    plato

    I fully expect the totus thug to pull this ratfuckery in 2020 and the corrupt gop will go along.

    Turkey’s electoral body has been condemned for ordering Istanbul’s local elections to be re-held after an opposition victory in March.

    President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party had claimed there were “irregularities and corruption” behind the opposition CHP’s slim win.

    But CHP’s Ekrem Imamoglu, who was confirmed as Istanbul’s mayor in April, called the decision “treacherous”.

    The vote, which will be held on 23 June, has sparked protests in the city.

    Hundreds of residents have gathered in several districts of Istanbul, banging pots and pans and shouting anti-government slogans.

    The European Parliament has also said the decision to re-run the election would end the credibility of democratic elections in Turkey.

  77. 77.

    Dan B

    @Steve in the ATL: You’re right of course. My point is Kamala is being called a bad cop and it’s gaining traction for the truancy law.(program, not sure of CA details?) The majority of the public makes little distinction and the rule of “shortest words” wins the communication race. It’s probably not too far fetched to say that most POC have a bad feeling about cops. That is what worries me. Once the “feeling” is in place logic has an uphill or hopeless battle.

  78. 78.

    Ruckus

    @Raoul:
    Also you keep putting the minions in jail it does two things. First, it puts them in jail, where they no longer can do what they were doing. Second, you keep doing this he runs out of minions and new minions are reluctant to come on board. And then you run out the clock, all the while reminding people that more people have been jailed working for shit for brains than in the last 200 yrs for every other politician. Which I haven’t checked may already be true.

  79. 79.

    Jay

    @Dan B:

    https://www.nationalobserver.com/2017/12/28/opinion/who-hell-rvawonk-and-how-she-cracking-kremlins-code

    https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/05/02/news/caroline-orr-lead-coverage-disinformation-and-rise-hate-national-observer?

    Turn more people on to origional sources and good Independent Media.

    Conversation

    Brian Stelter
    @brianstelter
    From CNN’s recent poll: How much of the Mueller report have you read?

    All of it: 3%
    Some of it: 10%
    Just a little: 8%
    Mainly news reports: 3%
    Have not read report: 75%

  80. 80.

    Cacti

    There seems to be an elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about with respect to early support for Biden.

    A lot of women voters, that any Dem candidate will need to win the White House, are gun shy about getting behind another woman candidate after seeing what happened to Hillary. Per the latest Morning Consult poll, 47% of black women and 36% of white women say Biden is their first choice. Nobody else is within 16 points with either group.

    Among all women voters, Biden has more support (38%) than Warren and Harris combined (17%).

  81. 81.

    Another Scott

    Chelsea C Parsons:

    Chelsea Parsons @ChelseaCParsons

    Chelsea Parsons Retweeted Cory Booker

    Overlooked in the coverage so far is @CoryBooker’s focus on increasing funding for community-based violence reduction programs & trauma services for impacted communities. Hugely important.Chelsea Parsons added,

    Cory Booker Verified account @CoryBooker

    Starting on Day One in office, I’ll take executive action to crack down on gun manufacturers & dealers, close dangerous loopholes, & invest in communities impacted by the epidemic of gun violence. We need to take real measures to protect our…
    7:10 PM – 6 May 2019

    Good, good.

    More, please.

    (via LOLGOP)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  82. 82.

    Cacti

    @plato:

    I fully expect the totus thug to pull this ratfuckery in 2020 and the corrupt gop will go along.

    The immediate remedy for that would be, once the new POTUS is sworn in, because there is only one sitting POTUS at any time, he orders the Secret Service to eject the Dotard from the Executive residence.

  83. 83.

    Jay

    @Dan B:

    First, you point out the lie,

    Ask them how they feel about lies being fed to them to sabotage an accomplished woman of colour,

    Then engange with them on what the Truancy Law actually did, which was provide families with State information, support and programs to help them get their kids to be sucessful in school.

    Wouldn’t they want that support?

  84. 84.

    Gretchen

    @Dan B: @Dan B: Harris’s explanation of the truancy law is that they tried it and realized it was an approach that didn’t work. I like politicians who can absorb data and change course.
    Harris broke up with Willie Brown, and, when asked, when running for DA, said she wouldn’t hesitate to prosecute him (there were some corruption scandals in his administration). His “help” consisted of contributing $500 to her campaign and appointing her to a couple of commissions. Are we going to dismiss someone because the much-older boyfriend she dumped, now in his 80’s, still has hard feelings and said he was a huge help to her?

  85. 85.

    Gretchen

    Another thing about “Kamala slept her way to the top”. She won election to DA, and she won a Senate election in California. How does sleeping with an elderly mayor help you win millions of votes to win a Senate seat in California?

  88. 88.

    janesays

    @jk:

    I’m for literally any Democrat other than clueless Uncle Joe who supported big banks over consumers, supported the crime bill, supported the Iraq war, and treated Anita Hill like garbage. He’s also too damn old for this job. because literally any Democrat is an improvement over the status quo.

    Fixed that for ya. You know what would be indisputably worse than having a horrible Democratic presidential nominee? Having four more years of Donald Trump as president.

  89. 89.

    wasabi gasp

    No twinkle would escape the shrinking black holes of Joe Biden’s tired old eyes but for his winning vision of America’s future.

  90. 90.

    jk

    @Cacti:

    A lot of women voters, that any Dem candidate will need to win the White House, are gun shy about getting behind another woman candidate after seeing what happened to Hillary.

    Among all women voters, Biden has more support (38%) than Warren and Harris combined (17%).

    That’s very fucked up. Warren, Harris, Klobuchar, and Gillibrand are not getting the respect they deserve. They’re all just as qualified as Biden and they’re all significantly better public speakers than him.. I’d trust the judgement of any of these women in a national or international crisis over Biden.

  91. 91.

    Dan B

    @Steve in the ATL: You’re right of course. My point is Kamala is being called a bad cop and it’s gaining traction for the truancy law.(program, not sure of CA details?) The majority of the public makes little distinction and the rule of “shortest words” wins the communication race. It’s probably not too far fetched to say that most POC have a bad feeling about cops. That is what worries me. Once the “feeling” is in place logic has an uphill or hopeless [email protected]Gretchen: I heard that the truancy law worked and reduced truancy levels. So it shows how someone who tries to pay attention to the details and context can miss the full story.

    Glad she wanted to prosecute Willie. And experimenting and adjusting is wonderful. Takes courage.

  92. 92.

    jk

    @janesays:

    We now have over a dozen very impressive, talented Democrats running for President and it would be a travesty if they’re all passed over in favor of this gaffe gushering moron Joe Biden.

  94. 94.

    karen marie

    In re Biden – I am thinking Americans are just plain stupid and they’re looking for daddy. I will vote for Biden in the general but with only marginally more enthusiasm than Sanders. I’d rather eat glass than vote for Sanders.

  96. 96.

    Aleta

    Imani Gandy @AngryBlackLady

    You know who was a front runner at one point this early in the race? John Edwards. Fred Thompson. Rudy Giuliani.

    Relax.

    I’m not sure about Thompson leading (whenever, it was not for long iirc), but I looked up Giuliani and Lieberman.

    (Wiki) At the onset of the campaign [for the 2008 election], Giuliani had held a significant lead in the nationwide polls by January 2007. … Throughout 2007, Giuliani maintained his lead in both national polls and fundraising. … After finishing third in the Florida primary [January 29, 2008], … Giuliani exited the race.

    (Apr 29 2003, Gallup.) A new CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll on the 2004 presidential election finds Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman holding a slight edge over the field of nine Democratic candidates that will meet in South Carolina this weekend in the season’s first nationally televised debate. Massachusetts Senator John Kerry and Missouri Congressman Dick Gephardt follow close behind. In March, Lieberman had tied Kerry for second place, with Gephardt in the lead. (Gallup)

    strappyboi @strappyboi

    Why are we polling now again?

    Imani Gandy @AngryBlackLady

    because we live in a hell from which there is no escape—a hell in which meaningless polls are conducted and circulated, making us question our existence and the very fabric of our reality

    Imani Gandy @AngryBlackLady

    It’s up to us to make sure the media doesn’t:

    A) screw up the way they did in 2016
    B) try to keep the country in a panic for the next 552 days for ratings

    That’s why I’m going to keep pointing out the literal ass clowns who were frontrunners at this point in other elections.

  101. 101.

    Chaoticgnome

    Warren and Harris are currently my top two choices. In many ways I see Biden as part of the past, but honestly seeing how apoplectic the purity-left has been over him, it’s increased my liking of his candidacy a bit :-P

  102. 102.

    Brachiator

    @Dan B:

    It’s probably not too far fetched to say that most POC have a bad feeling about cops.

    Of course, Harris was not a cop. And most of the people who talk this shit don’t vote.

    @karen marie:

    In re Biden – I am thinking Americans are just plain stupid and they’re looking for daddy

    Biden is a known national figure and may be benefitting from his association with Obama.

  103. 103.

    Chris Johnson

    This, or we can not take it at face value and instead go: which Dem would Putin want Trump to run against most?

    Answer: definitely Biden, because he’s peculiarly horrible for the Left, is already making ‘oh shut up, I have no sympathy’ noises towards millenials and the poor, and has a #MeToo problem in excess of anybody else in the race. In 2019, we are supposed to treat POLLING data like it is honorable and trustworthy? I call bullshit.

    Biden is the Sanders of 2020. Whatever he might be as a Joe Biden, he is also being ‘helped’ behind the scenes, knowingly or unknowingly. With that guy, I’m doubly sure it’s unknowingly. He’ll be even LESS willing to believe it, even more predisposed to think it is about his own wonderfulness and charisma, and even more vulnerable to getting the rug yanked from under him once it’s Trump he’s up against.

    A narrative is being set up, but you can’t govern the country by a narrative, much less one set up by Russia to illustrate how bad we suck. Biden is a zombie candidate. Everything about him doesn’t work for 2020. That’s why he is ‘winning’ while being set up to fall.

  105. 105.

    jk

    @Chris Johnson:

    Which Dem would Putin want Trump to run against most?

    I haven’t given that matter any thought, but the more I’ve seen of Biden the more unlikable I find him. I really don’t give a damn that he was Obama’s VP. In my view, he’s an inarticulate horse’s ass.

    If Biden truly believes that someone with as a horrible a track record as Dick Cheney can be a decent guy, then old Uncle Joe can go fuck himself.

  106. 106.

    low-tech cyclist

    @Jay:

    With Global Warming and the Extinction coming at us like a freight train, ( yes, we are on the list of species that will go extinct),

    There is no “going back”.

    This. The ‘new normal’ will either be a world where we rapidly mobilize to deal with climate change, or a world where global warming accelerates, causes many species to go extinct, and reduces the number of humans that the planet can support.

  107. 107.

    low-tech cyclist

    @jk:

    If Biden truly believes that someone with as a horrible a track record as Dick Cheney can be a decent guy, then old Uncle Joe can go fuck himself.

    Seconded.

    And any Dem who thinks he can govern by working across party lines not only shouldn’t be President, but should have their head examined to boot. Anybody who’s been paying attention to Mitch McConnell over the past dozen years should know better.

  108. 108.

    Another Scott

    @low-tech cyclist: I don’t have much objection to running as a “I can work with the other team” candidate to get elected. Or do similar distasteful things (e.g. Jimmy Carter had to out-racist his opponent when running for Governor in Georgia, but was a much better non-racist governor than the other guy would have been.) I think Nancy Smash has made similar statements as well. But, I want someone who recognizes that once their in office their job is to get things done and not waste time working on “bipartisan compromises” that never come.

    Obama had to make nice noises, and wait for the process to play out, remember. And there are times that I wish he hadn’t done that (like repeating the trope that people have to balance their family budget so the federal government should too), but on the whole it worked. He recognized that the bigger picture means that politics is ugly at times.

    The question is, how much of Biden shtick is tactics and how much of it is his belief that politics now works the way it did in the Senate 40 years ago? And how many groups is he willing to throw under the bus to be “bipartisan”? Dunno.

    I hope we’ll move on and pick someone with a much broader view of contemporary America. We’ll have to wait and see.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  110. 110.

    spud

    @Aleta: “You know who was a front runner at one point this early in the race? John Edwards. Fred Thompson. Rudy Giuliani.”
    Giuliani made the stupid decision to skip the early, small states and focus on Florida. Edwards had was involved in a sex scandal, back when those things were still scandalous, and Thompson was never really taken seriously, his lead was both small and short lived. I’m not comforted by the fact that none of them held their early leads.

  111. 111.

    J R in WV

    @Adam L Silverman:

    How about the one year older Senator Sanders who has voted in support of the NRA’s priorities and against comprehensive immigration reform?

    Also, the OTHER Russian stooge?

  112. 112.

    jk

    @Another Scott:

    The question is, how much of Biden shtick is tactics and how much of it is his belief that politics now works the way it did in the Senate 40 years ago?

    Biden got to serve as VP for 8 years after running 2 pathetic presidential campaigns. We now have 4 female candidates any one of which could be a good or great president, so I’m eager to see Joe leave the stage along with Bernie.

    # Neither Biden Nor Bernie

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