There was a post the other day with this recommendation from HRC:
Try to vote for the person you think is most likely to win because at the end of the day that is what will matter. And not just the popular vote, but the electoral college too.
Well, OK, how do I do that? Do I become a mini-pundit and have an imaginary Cletus safari to some diner in Ohio or Wisconsin where I imagine which candidate will appeal to the Obama/Trump voters there? Or should I instead take a stroll down 12th Ave in Tucson, stopping in a few restaurants on the way (yum) and interviewing some non-voting latinos to see which candidate would motivate them to go the polls? And even if my little made-up thief sample of voters yielded a clear answer about which candidate is most likely to win, can I trust it?
Every person reading this blog is in many ways unable to determine who will win because we aren’t the kinds of voters who need to be persuaded to turn out, or to change their vote. Most of us will crawl over broken glass to vote for whomever the Democrats nominate. We are not the voters who need to be convinced to vote for a Democrat, or even to vote. So, for many primary voters like us, this exercise of imagining who can win is pointless – we just lack the imagination to do it. Our brains don’t work the way theirs do. We’re not better or worse, just different.
Instead of trying to pick a winner, my suggestion is to choose a candidate that speaks to you, but try not to get too hung up on your chosen candidate. Pretty much anyone who didn’t buy their way on the debate stage the other night could beat Trump under the right circumstances. Hell, Corey Booker and Kamala Harris could have beaten him. With the right six sigma strategy and a good SWOT analysis, even Pete might get it done. So, if your candidate isn’t the final winner, don’t look for a fucking conspiracy, and don’t listen to the conspiracy mongers. They’re the ones that will cause real damage to the party, not Democrats who pick a candidate because they like their message without worrying about whether they can win.
Baud
I’ll just leave this here.
ETA: Not meant to criticize this post, which is largely correct.
MoCA Ace
Speak for yourself :)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
um… yeah. Some of us, I’d say most people here, figured this out a couple of years ago…
ETA: catching up on the Joy Reid program, she says Hugh Hewitt said on MTP that he’s going to vote for Bernie Sanders in the VA primary– “operation chaos” is back. Is this post some kind of preemptive strike against people pointing out that trumpkins want Bernie as the nominee?
hells littlest angel
It was not well stated, but I think her point was, don’t waste your vote on a purity or vanity candidate. This election is crucial, and winning is important. You can consider electability without becoming a ridiculous horse-race pundit.
Mnemosyne
I sure hope you’re planning to take your own advice so we don’t have another fucking repeat of 2016 when Biden gets the nomination.
cleek
It’s a Biden endorsement.
Baud
@hells littlest angel: I think that’s right. Every candidate talks about their electability, and people here debate electability, so it’s always a factor in people’s thinking. I think she’s just saying it’s more important this year than ever.
Zzyzx
The way I see this is that this primary is largely a debate about that. Do you think that there are enough untapped voters who would come out for a more progressive candidate to make up for more of the Never Trumps deciding that Warren/Sanders would be worse, or do you think the best approach is to try to flip enough suburban voters to get the margins in PA/WI/MI to flip back? I lean towards the latter but get the former.
HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes
@hells littlest angel:
Do you think she meant it in the primary or the general? I agree that you shouldn’t waste your vote on a third party purity candidate in the general, but saying that it’s a waste of a vote to express your preference for a candidate you like but others might consider a purity candidate (or even a vanity candidate, maybe) in the primary makes no sense to me. The primary is where party members express a preference for the type of person and type of policies they want to represent the party. So why is that a waste of a vote? I don’t get it.
Baud
For a while (and maybe still), Bernie’s slogan was “Bernie Beats Trump.” That’s pretty solid evidence that everyone recognizes that the electability consideration weighs more heavily this year.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: (edited) reasonably so, given the stakes, and without dredging up the Big Fight, that’s why I have no fucking patience with Yang, and Steyer, and… Michael Bennet: you seem like a perfectly acceptable moderate, work-horse Senator. You’re not going to be the nominee. Go home.
hells littlest angel
@HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes: I see your point.
JMG
Since political science isn’t even sure “electability” is a thing, I never think about it. Whoever wins the nomination, even Bernie, hell even Bloomberg, will campaign as a mainstream Democrat in terms of policy but their main issue will be “aren’t you tired of being governed by a total asshole?”
oldgold
@cleek: It’s a Biden endorsement.
I see it as more of a Sanders warning.
Starfish
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I am here to stan for John Delaney, but I am not really sure why.
Baud
@oldgold: Regardless of how I feel about Sanders, and how I’d like to imagine Hillary feels about Sanders, I don’t think that statement was directed at Sanders specifically.
Mnemosyne
@Zzyzx:
I think we need to talk about how Black voters were massively suppressed in 2016 and how to prevent that from happening again. Seeking out new white voters who aren’t being targeted by their state governments doesn’t help in the long run.
Omnes Omnibus
@HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes: There is a person out there with the exact set of policy goals and priorities that I have. Of course that person is me. And I can’t even convince myself to vote for me because I am unelectable. Everyone makes electability calls at every point in the process.
Amir Khalid
It’s kickoff at Anfield Stadium as Liverpool host Manchester United, the only team to have taken points against them this Premier League season. Liverpool can extend their lead to 16 points, with a match in hand, if they win today. United will remain fifth even if they win.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus: I’ll take you off my Veep shortlist.
MattF
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Hewitt is a Trump camp follower, and yes, I mean he’s a whore. With all due apologies to whores.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
VA has an open primary?
ETA: I haven’t yet read my copy of Nixonland, but didn’t Nixon do some nasty things to steer the 72 Dem primary to McGovern? Maybe they think they can repeat that playbook.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: My being on your shortlist raises an alarming number of questions about your judgment.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: so it seems, or he has time to register as a Dem
ETA: Google says open primary
Jinchi
If this were a single offhand comment from Clinton, that would be one thing. But the point isn’t even whether HRC said it. It’s that we keep getting told this, repeatedly, by the press, by pundits and by many of the candidates.
Joe Biden and Mike Bloomberg literally justified their candidacies asserting that ‘only they’ can defeat Donald Trump.
And there’s a pretty strong unspoken assumption whenever a pollster asks “Would you rather vote for someone who can beat Trump or someone who agrees with you ideologically?”
Simple answer, we all plan on voting for a candidate we believe will defeat Trump. We just have different views who fits that description.
Citizen_X
I agree with this take. The thing about politics is it’s like the old comment about Hollywood and what makes hits or flops: nobody knows anything. People are always trying to fight the last election, and this one may be completely different. Maybe the more progressive candidate will draw in more voters this year, maybe voters want somebody safe. *shrug* Nobody knows until it happens, no matter how loudly they might yell about it.
So vote for whoever you like. Just be sure to vote Dem in November.
Zzyzx
@Mnemosyne: which is also a fair approach, but which candidate would be most focused on fixing that?
It also depends on if – like me – you suspect that their domestic agendas will be largely self similar regardless of who wins due to the Senate. Yes Warren has talked about suspending student loans and that is a differentiating point but outside of that…
schrodingers_cat
I will vote for a Democrat in the the Democratic primary.
Hungry Joe
No one knows which candidate would most likely defeat Trump because, simply, such a thing is unknowable. I have my opinion — Warren — but it’s just an opinion, and I’m aware that it’s based on gut feelings (pretty much worthless), wishful thinking (likewise), and anecdata surely cherrypicked by confirmation bias.
A family member recently informed me that by supporting Warren I’m actually supporting Trump, because “Bernie is the only one who can beat him.” I said, “How can you know that?” He said, “It’s obvious.” Okay …
Dorothy A. Winsor
Republicans don’t want voters to see how bad the evidence is and how cravenly they’re responding.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jinchi:
I’d be very surprised if you couldn’t find a similar statement from every candidate who entered the primary, including Yang, Williamson and Tm Ryan
Baud
Then why is her one line being discussed in two posts now?
Nothing HRC said is inconsistent with that position.
The Dangerman
First cup of coffee into the day, but, if I have enough caffeine in me to count, 288 days until Trump has to announce to the World he’s a loser, baby, and 366 until we can start fumigating the White House (367 until Melania files the divorce papers; I wonder how much she cost Trump, in the revised prenup, to play First Lady).
Gonna be a long fucking year.
HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I saw that and my response was that’s it’s pretty difficult to between the average US Senator and a microphone. This rule was written for the McSally types who want to run away from the press. Unfortunately for her and other vulnerables, that’s not going to work in the long run.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus: Wisconsin is a swing state. You are a favorite son.
It’s not about sound judgment. It’s about electability.
mad citizen
A non-rotted turnip should be able to defeat trump, and a rotting one would have a good shot as well.
From a few threads ago, seeing the Firing Line snapshot with moore and the host, Martha Hoover. Great granddaughter of Herbert Hoover. Nepotism works in america, even generations down the line. Her wiki says she attended a couple years of college, no degree. Would any non-legacy person be able to parlay a famous (infamous) political name into a pundit career like this?
Amir Khalid
Of the remaining Democratic candidates, I like Warren best; I think she would make the best public-sector CEO of the bunch. I would accept Biden, but I worry about his age. I see Klobuchar as a tier below them, and Buttigieg as a tier below Klobuchar. I cannot take Gabbard seriously. Wilmer proved his inadequacy for the job four years ago, and has not even tried to improve since.
Cheryl Rofer
LOL.
Mistermix offers up the very good advice to vote for the candidate you think would make the best president, don’t punditize your mind into madness, and most of this thread is punditizing.
I’ll second Mistermix on this. We are making ourselves crazy thinking about who can win.
Let’s argue out, via the primaries, who can best represent us, and then use those arguments in the general election.
My own theory is that the electorate is desperate for someone who can be a real president and not a crime boss, not someone to whose agitations for war we have to wake up every morning. That’s pretty much the whole Democratic field. Yes, even Bernie.
Jinchi
There’s a big difference between arguing “I am the best candidate to defeat Trump” and “None of these other candidates can pull it off.”
The only people I’ve seen make that argument the basis of their campaign are the three billionaires (Bloomberg, Steyer and Schultz) and Biden.
Suzanne
Regardless of how or if one interviews anyone about their voting intentions, I wholeheartedly endorse eating Mexican food while in Tucson.
I mostly agree with this post. Most people have a really hard time climbing into the minds of other people. However, while I do think that the Dems are currently psyching themselves out a bit with this cycle of trying to figure out who is “electable” and then deciding to support that person, rather than the other way around…. I do think it serves us well in the long run to spend time listening to one another.
Like, I am not really excited about Joe Biden 3.0. But other people are, and those people are good Democrats, and hearing that they are makes me feel more okay about it. Ultimately, this is a team sport.
Amir Khalid
14th minute: Liverpool lead United 1-0 with a simple, straightforward Virgil van Dijk header off a Trent Alexander-Arnold corner.
Baud
@Jinchi: That assertion requires a citation.
Jinchi
This is why I’ll be very happy on November 4th no matter which Democrat wins the election.
schrodingers_cat
Here in deep blue western MA when I talk to other Ds, even women, they seem to favor Joe Biden over the other contenders. There is a tiny vocal BS contingent but EW has little support. Just my anecdata.
Jinchi
@Baud:
“If Joe Biden wins the primary, he can beat Trump in a general election. Other candidates can’t.”
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/469118-biden-uses-nyt-poll-to-argue-only-he-can-beat-trump
Baud
@mad citizen:
While I have a lot of confidence, I don’t think this is true, and I think it’ll be a fight all the way.
WaterGirl
What Baud said:
debbie
@oldgold:
Agreed.
different-church-lady
@Cheryl Rofer:
Not quite: we’re making ourselves crazy thinking about who might lose. There’s a difference.
Brachiator
There really ain’t no such thing as “who is most likely to win.” This is bullcrap made up by pundits that stirs up empty speculation. “Electability” is only determined by windbag “analysis” after the election is over.
My preferred candidate was Harris, who is no longer in the race. I am now leaning toward Warren. I would never vote for Biden in the upcoming California primary just because he might be leading in the polls. I would never vote for Sanders in the primary, or rate him as acceptable if I were polled on the matter.
But I will vote for whoever the eventual nominee turns out to be.
Baud
@Jinchi: Thanks for backing up your statement, although I don’t think the basis of Biden’s campaign is that he is the only electable one.
Freemark
I think all of these candidates can potentially beat Trump. I will be voting and campaigning for whomever wins the primary. Period. No matter how my preferred primary choice fairs or is perceived to be treated by other candidates and/or their supporters.
sab
I am off to canvas for Warren. It’s 16 degrees out and windy. Urk. Primary in 7 weeks here.
cleek
@Omnes Omnibus:
130M x this
schrodingers_cat
I don’t want my candidate to lie to me and use R framing to attack Ds.
Jinchi
This isn’t the first time we’ve had an “electability” debate on this site. We’re talking about it because it’s been coming up in Democratic elections going back as long as I can remember. It’s the whole “vote to win or vote your heart” framing I object to.
I have no opinions on what HRC’s intentions were, if she was the only one who ever said it, it wouldn’t matter.
Amir Khalid
@mad citizen:
Trump was the rotting turnip candidate of 2016, and yet he is now the incumbent because the Republican base wanted a fellow rotting turnip.
Mnemosyne
@mad citizen:
Slept through most of 2016, did ya? ?
Sure, in a free and fair election that would be true, but we already know that Republicans have been working for the past four years to try and make sure it will NOT be a free and fair election. Trump can still win if he massively cheats like he did in 2016, and no amount of awesome campaigning can overcome that on its own.
eclare
As I have said previously, I am voting for whoever wins SC. And in November Team Broken Glass.
schrodingers_cat
BS has been a consistently anti-immigrant vote in the Senate. As a naturalized citizen I haven’t forgotten this . He has moderated his stance somewhat since he started to run for President but that doesn’t fool me. Hard pass
HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes
@Jinchi: Citation provided!
Also, another citation for people talking electability to think about. Here’s the latest Marquette poll in WI. They’re supposedly the best pollster in the state. Biden (+4) and Sanders (+1). beat Trump. Warren (-3) and Pete (-2) do not. But the margin of error of the poll is 4.1% So it’s not really evidence of anything solid, other than it’s going to be a close race.
Finally, if there were something like “electability” that could be measured, which it can’t, we can’t tell in January who will be the “most electable” in November, because a lot is going to happen between now and then.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I keep coming back to this line. Where on the broad left does Mix see conspiracy mongers and people prone to listen to them?
Brachiator
@Suzanne:
This is a great point. Well said.
debbie
Such purity in the youngs. This is what cost us the election in 2016.
It’s always easier to vote against someone than to vote for someone. I spent most of the 1980s doing that. Pull up your big girl or big boy pants and vote for the better of the two choices.
Baud
@Jinchi:
I would never vote for a candidate in the primary that I thought was not electable. Of course, my judgment on that may be different from others
Mnemosyne
@different-church-lady:
Yes, good point. I think that any of our candidates could lose if the Republicans cheat massively enough. I would rather not have another civil war over that extremely obvious fact, but I’m still dealing with idiots who think Hillary lost because she was a bad candidate while they ignore all of the massive cheating that pulled Trump over the line despite losing the popular vote by a wide margin.
schrodingers_cat
@debbie: The two BS or bust women I knew were in their laten 60s in 2016.
zhena gogolia
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Who’s doing the “Star Chamber Kangaroo Court Secret Proceedings” now?
Immanentize
@Baud: Especially the omission of that other B. Bernie. His whole campaign is only I can beat Trump by bringing along Trump voters and (_____ ) can’t do it.
Madlib (name or plural noun)
debbie
@schrodingers_cat:
Okay, I amend my statement to “the youngs and PUMAs.”
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat:
I agree. And I want the Democratic candidate to be a member of the Democratic Party. Seems like a minimum requirement to me.
Amir Khalid
Since they scored, Liverpool have had two goals disallowed — the first by Bobby Firmino for a foul by van Dijk, the second by Gini Wijnaldum for offside. United had a decent start, but now they don’t look like getting into the game.
The Dangerman
@Suzanne:
I happened to spend a few minutes in Lost Hills, CA, recently, which has, shall we say, a bit of a food crisis going on (Lost Hills is basically a Truck Stop on I5, almost exclusively Fast Food). Multiple taco trucks but I didn’t have the nerve even though I was told they were good …
…but I did try a place called Gabby’s (also on a recommendation), a couple miles off the freeway and about the size of a large broom closet (sorry Gabby) that had GREAT food. I go through Lost Hills a fair amount (easiest way for me to get to I5) and may have to time it for a Gabby’s run for lunch when I’m here.
Real Mexican food is awesome. Taco truck on every corner works for me.
MisterForkbeard
All this advice boils down to is ” Don’t make protest votes for people that you KNOW can’t win”.
That’s it. It sounds reasonable because it is. And Mistermix’s take on it is also reasonable
Immanentize
@Mnemosyne: This
Jinchi
I think we agree on that. I’ve never voted for someone I didn’t think could win either. But “electability” is a slippery term and it usually means not “Who would you vote for?” but rather, “Who do you think most other people will vote for?” and people’s judgement on that is notoriously bad.
Historically, “electability” has been used by the media as a way of saying “Don’t vote for the liberal. Don’t vote for the woman. Don’t vote for the Black guy.”
Immanentize
@MisterForkbeard: That is a much much better framing. I am gonna use it. But then some people will tell me that _________ (name or plural gender noun) just can’t possibly win and we are right back to where we start. But I’m going to try your reframing because, at the very least, it will reveal people.
Kirk Spencer
At this point I consider this a three way race with a couple of possible spoilers. Biden leads the three-way but does not have it locked in.
I’ve noticed that on average all of these five lead Trump, though only Biden has been ahead in every two-way comparison poll.
I’m confident that any of the five can defeat Trump, though not complacent enough to assume it’ll be a given for any of them. Therefore I will vote in the primary for the one I prefer, and during the general I will do the work and send the money to support the Democratic nominee.
Baud
@Jinchi:
It goes both ways. People like Michael Moore are always on the TV saying only a progressive candidate can win.
Chyron HR
@Baud:
Well, it’s certainly pithier than “I’m the starman waiting in the sky, if I don’t get the nomination America must die.”
Amir Khalid
@Baud:
Michael Moore is really saying that only a candidate he considers progressive enough will have his support, which is not quite the same thing.
Suzanne
@The Dangerman:
Oh Lord, me too.
The paucity of corner taco trucks is not the number one reason I am still heartbroken about HRC’s defeat. But it is definitely up there on a very long list.
There used to be a taco shop in Tucson called Nico’s that was absolutely next level.
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
Immanentize
I know that Wisconsin is important, but Trump would have only had 268 EVs if he had lost PA and MI. So, not enough to win outright, even with WI. But then Hillary would only have had 263….
And the Supreme Court might well uphold faithless electors.
Who can bribe, extort or threaten the most?
O. Felix Culpa
@debbie:
If you’re talking about Bernie supporters, they’re not youngs where I live. They’re economically comfortable gray-hairs.
ETA: And all of the Caucasian persuasion, if that wasn’t already obvious.
Amir Khalid
@Baud:
Moore seems to think all Democratic voters are as progressive as he.
MattF
OT. This really belongs in the previous thread on the ‘Trump Effect’, but the NYT Magazine has a major article on Giuliani. The main themes of the article are that, no, Giuliani has not changed, and that his fundamental personal characteristic is shamelessness. Worth reading.
germy
I want Annette Bening to play Elizabeth Warren in the movie.
Amir Khalid
@germy:
A excellent casting choice.
Jinchi
Yeah. He’s wrong too.
Immanentize
@Amir Khalid:
FTFY
germy
@Amir Khalid: A movie where she wins the nomination and then beats #45.
I’m not sure who would play #45.
Debates would be interesting. Warren vs. Trump, Castro vs. Pence.
Ella in New Mexico
Maybe all Hillary meant is don’t be this dumbshit voter
Suzanne
@Baud: Michael Moore is a perfect example of someone who needs to do a better job of listening to other people. To be fair, he’s committing a very common intellectual sin, which is assuming that most people think the same way that you and your friends do.
Betty Cracker
@Jinchi: Agreed. We know there’s a subset of Sanders supporters who won’t support the Dem nominee in the general unless it’s Sanders. There is also a subset of Dems who will sit out the election or take a similarly dumb and performative action that helps Trump if Sanders is the nominee. Which group is larger? I think it’s probably a wash.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: some truth to that, if only people like Moore who sorta kinda have the ear of what he considers “the base” would point out to them that winning the Senate and expanding health coverage, even if it’s not the Holy Grail of Single Payer, is a big fucking deal and a big fucking lift, and that they should really get excited about RBG’s seat, and all the other seats in the judiciary, and (again) that requires winning the Senate, and Iowa and Kansas and Arizona are different places than Brooklyn and Vermont, and and and and….
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: also, Mike, remind them their twitter feed has no vote in the electrical college
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker: That is a really good question, sadly unanswerable. But the polls certainly suggest there are currently more “no one but Bernie” voters than there are for any/all other candidates. I just don’t know how many “never Berners” there are.
Yesterday while driving, I heard on NPR a fellow stating as fact that the number of Bernie voters who just stayed home in 2016 was the reason Trump won. I don’t think there are any statistics on that and I looked a little. But what I was thinking was, what an indictment of Bernie.
JPL
@Betty Cracker: This is your ideal candidate
JPL
@MattF: That was an excellent article, and very thorough. Since I am a long time NYTimes reader, I remembered several things but not all.
MattF
@Immanentize: The statistic I’ve seen is that Trump’s winning margin in several critical states was significantly less than the number of Sanders voters who went for Trump. The problem with this argument is that it ignores the Clinton Derangement Syndrome. Trump got a lot of votes from people who would never have voted for Hillary under any circumstances.
James E Powell
@Baud:
Michael Moore is wrong about everything as often as Bill Kristol. Still, the cable shows from bring them on the TV to tell us all how things will be.
Mo MacArbie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That’s the heaviest lift, getting the “Transform the nation with this one weird candidate…” voter excited about the state assembly.
WaterGirl
@JPL: I laughed out loud.
I like Bennet just fine, though not as a presidential candidate. So my laughing wasn’t malicious or personally directed toward him.
Too funny!
Ruckus
@HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes:
In normal times you’d be absolutely correct.
These are not normal times, not in any fucking concept. This year will be my 5th decade of voting for president. I’ve seen some shitty presidents. Not one of them holds a candle to trump when it comes to shitty. And he has the backing of most of the republican party, another issue that is different. (speaks to the actuality of the republican party…) This is the pivot point of our country. Will we stand for an actual government the answers to and leads for the majority, while not decapitating the opposition? We have seen what happens when the people do not actually get to elect their leader, we get Bush the lessor, we get trump, we get racism, we get guns, we get open corruption, we get the dissolution of our entire concept of governing in favor of outright grift and theft. We get the worst of the worst, for everyone but the thieves.
We have to ask ourselves, which of the candidates would be no better than what we have and eliminate them. Then we have to vote for whichever candidate that appeals to the most people so that we can, if not stop this head first fall into the abyss of lawlessness and open theft of, well everything of any value, at least slow it down and regain some sanity in government.
So no, we shouldn’t waste our primary vote nor can we afford to waste our time and effort on he said, she said, 5th grade class president bullshit. We have to elect someone who can lead and at least start fixing the bullshit of the republican party and at least a third of the population. We will never win all of them over but we have to at least fucking try.
Kent
According to “conventional wisdom the following candidates were most “electable”
Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, John Kerry, John Edwards, Mitt Romney, Dick Gephart, John McCain, Bob Dole, Mario Cuomo, John Glenn, and so on. What do they all have in common? They are all essentially from the same mold that make’s David Brook’s leg twitch. A little centrist economically. A little “sophisticated” socially.
According to conventional wisdom the following candidates were NOT electable at this point in the process before Iowa:
Bill Clinton (hick from Arkansas with all the bimbo eruptions??? He was polling at under 10% at this point in 1992 and Mario Cuomo was leading the early polls in 1991)
Barak Obama. He was at 17% at this point in 2008 and Clinton was in the high 30s.
Donald Trump: He jumped into the lead in the summer of 2015 but hovered in the 20s and 30s in the polls until after Super Tuesday when he finally broke 40. Conventional wisdom was that all the other candidates were splitting the anti-Trump vote. And even when he won the nomination he wasn’t thought “electable” in the general.
What does that mean? I have really no idea except that raw political talent seems to beat everything else. Clinton and Obama had it in spades. And, perversely so does Trump. He bitch-slapped his way through the primary lineup like butter.
Looking at 2020 I try to discern who has that kind of political talent. I *thought* it was going to be Harris which shows what I know I guess. Of the remaining candidates I think Warren and Buttigieg have the raw most political talent. Bernie is a caricature. Biden is the “safe” candidate. And Klobuchar is the workhorse.
I guess all I can hope for is that talent wins out and we end up with the candidate with the energy and chops to take on Trump. I still don’t know who I’m going to vote for if I still have a meaningful choice when this race gets to Washington State. At this point probably Warren or Klobuchar.
Betty Cracker
@Immanentize: Like everyone else, I’m in a self-created media bubble to some extent, so I don’t know either. I wish some outfit would poll it. It sure would take the wind out of the Bernie or America Gets It crew’s sails if the number of Never Berners is roughly equal. Lord knows his trollish campaign hires act as if outreach to the majority of the party who didn’t vote for Sanders last time is beneath them…
@JPL: Hahaha! Might have to give Mr. Bennet a second look. Klutzes unite! Coalition of the clumsy!
CaseyL
@JPL:
“Bennet! Bennet!
He’s a klutz –
Just like us!”
Speaking as someone who can successfully navigate a floor littered with cats, cat toys, and other impedimenta, then trip over thin air, this speaks to me.
fancycwabs
Why is Hillary Clinton telling me to vote for Donald Trump? I mean, between widespread unchecked voter suppression, outright electoral fraud, and a contingent of Democrats willing to take their ball and go home if their candidate isn’t the nominee, he’s got a depressingly high chance of being “the person most likely to win.”
Ruckus
@germy:
No one can play #45. It would have to be #45, hopefully filmed at a Supermax prison.
trollhattan
@Kent:
Your summary seems apt, I’d probably shift Biden from safe to candidate with the most traditional political chops. There’s still a well of support for old school campaigning, which is what he brings. Probably because it pairs well with his high level of familiarity.
He also has plenty of time to crash and burn, supporting your overarching point that it’s too damn early to presume anything. I’ve been burned out by the campaign for half a year now. [grumble]
PsiFighter37
@Kent: Mayor Pete is a collection of resume line items running for president who can speak the words that makes the rich white-collar folks hand over their money. That dude is going to flame out hard after New Hampshire.
Renie
Sounds like a Baud endorsement to me.
trollhattan
@Ruckus:
I’m thinking RuPaul.
Immanentize
@MattF: I’ve seen that stat, and like you I feel it’s unconvincing re Sanders voters tipping the race. This was a NEW argument — that it was Sanders voters who stayed home that tipped the race.
As Madam Cracker suggests, that is making so many ass – u – mes; that Bernie supporters who stayed home actually vote, that there is no pool of “NeverBerners”, and that the ones who stayed home will actually support Bernie over Trump in a general if they do vote.
Mo MacArbie
Of course, another factor in primary voting is that it isn’t (always? generally?) winner-take-all. 2-4 candidates will probably take delegates from each one. Voting closer to one’s heart may muddy the convention picture a bit if you prefer #3, but it won’t hurt #1 all that much.
Kent
@trollhattan: Yeah. I still haven’t decided if Biden is the next LBJ deal-maker or the next Bob Dole who was another “safe” candidate with the war hero, football hero, “salt of the earth” small town Kansas resume.
Ruckus
@CaseyL:
See, there’s your first mistake. Yes air is thin, in some concept of thin. But it is also everywhere and in a normal world, invisible. So it’s difficult to see and not trip over an invisible object, especially one that doesn’t stand out at all. It doesn’t give you depth perception, it doesn’t always move out of the way because it’s always there, where ever your foot is going. Not trip over it? It’s amazing that we don’t all trip over it every step.
OK that or some of us are just clumsy oafs.
Immanentize
@Ruckus: How about late in life Jerry Lewis morphed with late in life Orson Wells? With a wig of course.
O. Felix Culpa
I’m not sure why we’re expending time on a rare poorly worded comment or misstatement by HRC, unless it’s to say, “Ooh, HRC said a stupid thing!” The *electability* argument has been raised by pundits ad nauseum and we have agreed many times over that no one has any idea what that means — until after the votes are counted, as many here have pointed out many times over.
WaterGirl
Regardless of what Hillary said or what Hillary meant, we have just one job:
Let’s not fuck it up.
Kent
@PsiFighter37: Hey, I’m not a Buttigieg fan either. But he has gone a lot further than I ever would have guessed. And he does have a certain shtick that seems to go over well with a certain slice of the Dem electorate. Honestly I think he is very much of a warmed-over Bill Clinton/Al Gore style 1990s Democrat. Very triangulating and technocratic and just waiting for his “Sister Souljah moment”
Immanentize
@Kent: Agreed, I am certainly more latter than former. But I am pretty certain that Biden has a far better chance — meaning, a non-zero chance — of cutting deals with a very narrowly divided Senate than most other candidates.
Immanentize
@WaterGirl:
We will try to do just that, but I am feeling fairly optimistic that we will not succeed in that endeavor.
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
Possible, but still, can an even close to human being play that distorted of a character? Without bursting out laughing? Or wanting to kill themselves?
Coming even close would have to earn you a gold statue, appropriate no? But I’d bet it would also earn you a stay in one of those padded rooms wearing a jacket with wraparound arms……
debbie
@O. Felix Culpa:
Not so around here, either age-wise or race-wise.
Amir Khalid
After a nervy second half, Liverpool win it in injury time! With United stranded at the wrong end of the pitch, Alisson’s long clearance from a corner finds Mo Salah in the United penalty area, and Mo puts it past United keeper David de Gea. 2-0. Liverpool extend their lead over second-place Manchester City to 16 points with a match in hand.
Kent
@Immanentize: I think he has ZERO chances of cutting deals with a McConnell-led Senate on any issues that have any ideological tilt. Consensus stuff like infrastructure and military spending, maybe. If Schumer is majority leader then the chances of peeling off a minority Senator here and there are greater for all the candidates. Especially if the Dems threaten to toss out the legislative filibuster as they should. But I don’t see Biden getting to 60 on any existential issue like M4A or climate change. Not Biden or anyone else. I honestly don’t think Biden has any magic fairy dust that the other’s don’t. Politics just doesn’t work that way. Especially today where there are no longer any smoke filled back rooms free from the media spotlight.
O. Felix Culpa
@debbie: I actually have a little more tolerance for youngs who are Bernie-or-Busters. They’re young, after all, with all that entails. I have ZERO tolerance for the olds who are in that camp. They should know better.
Immanentize
@O. Felix Culpa: I agree, but some of my wondering about her statement is not out of that motive, but rather because I really listen hard to everything she says. Her views are still very important to me.
There was a group of three women on the radio yesterday discussing the Bernie (non?)comment. One was Connie Schulz, wife of Sherrod Brown, who I really admire. They all had very interesting insights (Connie’s was how women’s success sticks to them and is used against them in a way that no man ever experiences). Anyhoo — it was like the whole group had made some agreement to not mention Hillary Clinton by name. It was weird.
Amir Khalid
@CaseyL:
We only think air is thin. It is not too thin to carry an Airbus A380 aloft.
WaterGirl
@Immanentize: Too many negatives for me to parse with any certainty. And I started it!
We could try to not fuck it up, or try to fuck it up. Since you are feeling optimistic that we will not succeed, maybe you are optimistic that we will not fuck it up?
debbie
@O. Felix Culpa:
No argument there.
Immanentize
@Kent: well our disagreement is zero versus non-zero. Not a big gap there. I think the other candidates, for different reasons (Klobuchar the possible exception) have the zero line.
Immanentize
@WaterGirl: I am actually very optimistic that we will NOT fuck it up this time. I am.
Ruckus
@Kent:
From a sit and have a cup of coffee with point of view, Biden would be the safe bet. Warren would have you drinking 6 cups and a case of the jitters, BS would have me at least throwing the cup at the wall, Amy would maybe put one to sleep, but it would be a great nap, Bloomberg would get you to pay $12 for a $4 cup of coffee, Yang would probably be wearing the coffee, Gabbard would be deaf from me yelling “FUCK YOU” at the top of my lungs and Pete. Pete would be looking at me asking him “What the ever loving fuck?” before the coffee was served. That other billionaire guy would be sitting by himself, I wouldn’t bother.
debbie
@Immanentize:
I heard that too (yay, Connie!). Why mention Hillary? The discussion was about Bernie and his patriarchy crap. She doesn’t need to be in every conversation in 2019 and 2020.
germy
@Immanentize: The 2018 midterms gave me hope.
Immanentize
@germy: Me too. As a group, we showed up as needed and did the right things.
O. Felix Culpa
I like Connie Schultz too. It saddens me that HRC has become “she who must not be named” in the Democratic Party. It’s like we’re hostages to everything false said about her. Stockholm Syndrome? It’s particularly heinous given all we know now about how the election was effectively stolen. She should be our President and we should be fighting for her good name
ETA: We should mostly be fighting to WIN in 2020 up and down the ticket, but Hillary should not be pariah in her own party. She warned us and she was right.
Immanentize
@debbie: Well, there were a couple of times when they referred to 2016 and women candidates, etc. It actually felt not natural for her name to not be mentioned. To me, at least.
(There I go with those negatives again)
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t know. I think much depends on how Sanders actually does in the primaries. if he is close, or thinks he’s close, he might try to play on resentments again. Otherwise, he may become more of a team player.
Not too sure about this either. People know who Trump is. They know what he has done. I think that the subset of those who might sit out the election is much smaller than potential stubborn Sanders supporters.
But this is something to watch for, without a doubt.
Kent
@Ruckus: Yeah. Maybe so. It’s all about winning our confederate-tilted rural-tilted GOP-tilted electoral college. I really don’t know the answer. I do know that in 2016, Clinton’s entire popular vote margin came from California and then some. She won California with a 4.3 million vote margin meaning that Trump won the remaining 49 states with about a 1.4 million vote margin.
I could get behind a Biden – Klobuchar ticket if it meant winning back the upper midwest and maybe Florida/Arizona and the White House. We aren’t going to get any new existential legislation out of the next congress anyway. The next presidency is mostly going to be about repairing our tattered international standing and de-Trumpifying the Federal government.
Ruckus
@debbie:
She is and should be a political leader. HRC will not be a candidate for anything ever again. But she is an important person in our political landscape. She’s smart. She ran what I thought was at least not a very good run in 08. But her opponent chose her to be SS, because she had and has the chops. She ran a great campaign in 16, and won the popular vote. She’s not chopped liver. She is the real deal. And she could be somewhere flipping off the world but she’s better than that. Ignore her? At our own peril.
WaterGirl
@O. Felix Culpa: I don’t know whether I voted for Ross Perot or not, but when I was a pup I at least strongly considered voting for him.
In the late nineties, I watched all the Sunday shows and thought I was well informed. I read the NYT because I believed they laid out the facts, instead of drawing conclusions and sharing those as if they were fact.
I was probably better informed than 90% of the electorate.
I believed in “both sides” and thought Harry Reid was awful and I didn’t know whether Hillary Clinton actually killed anyone but I couldn’t completely rule it out.
So I know it’s possible to be smart, and well-intentioned, and to be doing your homework, and still be ignorant, or at least gullible, all at the same.
I was smart enough, at least enough by 2001, to oppose the war and to know that we were being lied to about everything, so there’s that.
And by 2007 I was smart enough to be working my ass off for Obama when most people were still saying “that guy? I love him, but he can’t win”.
So no one is all good or all bad (except the current Republicans and my family members who voted for Trump or stayed home).
But we should be not completely discarding the soon-to-be WaterGirls who are engaged and serious, even if they are still not seeing things as clearly as we are.
O. Felix Culpa
@Immanentize: Me three. There’s a high level of commitment to getting out the vote for Democratic candidates this year. I’m also grateful for Stacey Abrams’ Fair Fight 2020 and other organizations that are dedicated to fighting voter suppression. That effort will be critical to a Democratic win.
Kent
Honest question: How many of these Bernie or Bust freaks actually live in swing states like PA, MI, and WI? OK, maybe some of them around Madison. But seriously. I know there a ton out here in OR and WA and I imagine so in CA, NY, MA, VT. And places like Austin and Boulder. But really. If we are going to win Wisconsin, what matters more, some disgruntled Bernie or Busters in Madison or the black vote in Milwaukee? Same thing in say Florida where I expect our chances have to do with mobilizing the black and Hispanic vote. And same thing in Arizona.
James E Powell
When Hillary Rodham Clinton finally shuffles off this mortal coil, thousands of people will argue that she died the wrong way.
O. Felix Culpa
@WaterGirl:
Agreed. I might have had some ill-considered opinions in my youth too. :)
debbie
@Ruckus:
I’m not talking about ignoring her. I’m not talking about her not being a leader. I’m talking about not always bringing the conversation back to 2016. That will not be the way to win in 2020. I don’t think she would disagree with me.
Immanentize
Gotta go to Costco while the games are on TV. See y’all in the funny papers
Ruckus
@Kent:
If we win the senate and the presidency there is a lot we could do. Is that a reach? Sure, but is it less of a reach than giving up?
The only way to win is to fight. The republicans will be throwing everything at this election with likely the inclusion of the Russians. And we can still take it. The haters and thieves will win if we don’t at least try. Those are our choices – reasonable or haters and thieves.
We were spoiled by President Obama. He has his faults but his good side is much bigger and better. trump is all faults on every side. All of our candidates have faults, some worse than others. Some of them could turn out to be pretty decent presidents, some would make me pull my hair out, if I had any. And that’s before they took office.
MattF
@Kent: This raises the eternal question— who determines the outcome of a close election? The problem is, at the margin, close elections are decided by people who can’t make up their minds. Which is to say, by no one who is commenting here.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@James E Powell:
She did it wrong, she should have died in Wisconsin.
Kent
@Ruckus: Who said anything about giving up? Broken glass and all that, although I don’t live in a swing state and if WA is in play then we are all completely doomed. My 2020 efforts will mostly be geared towards defeating my Congresswoman Jaime Hererra Beutler who is the last GOP Congress critter left on the Pacific Coast outside Alaska (with a district that touches the ocean). And also for local state legislative races. Because that is was will make the most difference in my corner of the world.
I do think we can look at any one of the candidate’s platforms and throw out every single legislative proposal if we don’t take back the Senate, and throw out all but one or maybe two if we do take back the Senate. The job of the next president is going to mainly be international affairs and wielding executive power. It ain’t going to be arm-twisting GOP Senators to push forward some sort of progressive legislative agenda.
trollhattan
@Immanentize:
With SF playing this afternoon it’s perhaps the best time ever to go rollerskate the interstate. I need to figure out how to leverage this.
Tsquared2001
Normally, I am a lurker and I am not going to read the whole thread but Mistermix is full of shit. My pretend pundit ass is going to assure you that if Sanders is the nominee, Team Patriot will lose 35 states, despite all the glass and all the crawling. The Electoral College will be beside the point.
Now, I will go back to my lunch.
Kent
Agreed. That’s where I think political talent comes into play. It is a pernicious myth that undecided voters are centrist and that by splitting the difference between the GOP and Dem extremes they will get all warm and fuzzy. That has never been the case. There are a lot of profoundly stupid and disengaged undecided voters who, when they do vote, do so for the most fickle and ridiculous reasons. And a lot of that has to do with who captures their feeble attention spans and inspires them. Obama did this. And fuckit if Trump didn’t do it too in large swaths of the country.
Despite the wisdom of concern-trolls like David Brooks, the candidate capturing undecideds isn’t going to be the most centrist. It is going to be whoever is the most “popular” new thing.
trollhattan
@Kent:
As a Californian I got so sick of people telling me our vote needed subtracting in order to prove the country loves them some Trump. I made a spreadsheet of the Confederate state votes to show that if you remove those, Hillary basically wins the solar system. (She only carried Virginia.)
WaterGirl
@Immanentize: I am mostly with you on that; I am not quite at the “very” stage yet.
PsiFighter37
@Ruckus: She did not run a great campaign in 2016. Being right about everything doesn’t take away from the fact that a) she lost the Electoral College, and b) there were very identifiable things her campaign did wrong (first and foremost, basically ignoring MI, WI and PA and doing almost no campaign stops in any of these states). Her 2016 campaign was unquestionably run better than her 2008 run, but at the same time, it basically was run by a bunch of data geeks in Brooklyn.
Baud
@O. Felix Culpa: That’s how I feel but I can’t whether say that approach is politically smart. I wish people were more decent than they are.
PsiFighter37
@Kent: That would be nice to turn the West Coast completely blue. IIRC, Herrera only won by something like 5% last time around as well – so eminently beatable, especially with the broken-glass contingent around who are more likely to vote against anyone sharing the ballot line with Trump.
mrmoshpotato
@JMG:
Thank you! Shit, if someone got enough signatures to put a literally burning dumpster on the ballot, then Dumpster Fire would be electable because you would be able to vote for it!
Hell, come to think of it, if you can write in a candidate, then Mr. Nibbles, your long-dead childhood hamster is electable.
It’s a stupid, senseless, meanless term that should have a house dropped on it, be burned with fire then thrown in the Marianas Trench.
wjs
Nancy Pelosi is the smartest politician in America. She’s better than every pundit and every wannabe leader of the party. She has won every major battle with Trump and made him look worse and worse in front of moderates and independents. About 42% of the country has lost its mind and won’t abandon Trump (in 20 years, maybe a handful who are still alive will cling to their support, the rest will develop convenient amnesia). The only constant right now is that Nancy is kick everyone’s ass.
If she were to tell Democrats who can win and who to vote for, that would go a long way with me.
YMMV
LongHairedWeirdo
Don’t ever, ever, ever vote for someone who can win. That’s what brought John Kerry, a good man, and a would-have-been great President, who was so electable but so unexciting that the Republican smears weren’t answered.
Vote for the person who excites you to the point that the Republican trolls can make you *furious* at their lame-ass lying switfboating, so you do *something*.
Marcopolo
Late to the thread but here is my 2 cents:
Vote for your most preferred candidate in the primary. Cast this vote with joy. Feel good about it. Fuck being strategic. At this time anyone can beat Trump or lose to him depending on events.
Vote for whomever the D nominee is in the general.
Worrying about anything else is wasting your energy.
All of us should be committed to working our asses off to get as many like minded folks as possible to the polls in November.
If you find you aren’t particularly inspired to do that for whomever the eventual D presidential nominee is, then find another candidate in your area or nearby (US House, US Senate, state house or senate, local councilman, mayor, etc..) who you do like and work your tail off for them–you will still be contributing to getting folks to the polls. Extra points if a win flips the seat from R to D.
That’s all.
Kent
@Tsquared2001: Honestly I tend to agree with you. The “anyone can beat Trump” train of thought is pernicious. 2020 is going to be an absolute fucking barnburner of Russian and FOX inspired fake news, voter suppression, character attacks, and filth. It is going to make 2016 look like a suburban PTA election. I think all bets are off and we need to put our best political talent of this generation forward to drive an oak stake through the heart of Trump and Trumpism. It is going to take 24/7 effort by the candidate, the candidate’s team, and the rest of us.
I don’t think Bernie remotely has what it takes. And nor does his twitterati following with all the stupid snakes and shit. I still haven’t decided who does. Although I do despair that the geriatric candidates have all risen to the top and the younger but experienced candidates all can’t get any traction.
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud: To your point #1, I don’t know either. Point #2 – seconded.
Ruckus
@debbie:
And she isn’t taking it there. She is looking forward. It’s the MSM that keeps her stuck there.
There are people that couldn’t get elected for dog catcher who would make incredible presidents. There are people who could and have gotten elected who should never, ever be dog catcher. Because most people follow without thinking. We are not electing a HS class president because they have great hair, we are electing a person to run the government, our country.
Let’s review the candidates that are with us now (just for the record, Harris was my by far fave and I’ve spent some of my future on her campaign.)
Warren – probably the best overall idea person and best to bring fresh ideas into DC.
Biden – Not a bad human, has some baggage, has some close at hand experience about the job. On the old side would need a stellar VP
BS – His initials say it all.
Klobuchar – Decent policies – maybe a bit too middle of the road, doesn’t excite which may be a good thing, seems like a real person.
……. That’s really it for candidates that anyone might vote for.
So I see this as a Warren/Biden game.
Warren loses us a senator, Biden doesn’t.
Biden has 7 yrs on Warren and at senior age, that’s a minus. Warren doesn’t have the baggage of Biden, also doesn’t have the experience, but how much is that experience actually worth?
Warren has great experience at the financial end, Biden is still remembered as the MBNA senator.
From a long term answer position, I’d say Warren.
From an electability position, Biden is winning now.
Starfish
@Kent: In response to the snakes stupidity, someone created the Snakes for Warren Twitter account.
mrmoshpotato
@Hungry Joe:
Sounds like the primaries of which none have happened yet are already rigged against Wilmer. Fuck, I just detached my retinas.
Kent
@trollhattan: That wasn’t my point and you know it. I’m simply arguing against the trope that since Hillary won the popular vote then Trump is unpopular and should easily be beaten. Pointing to the 2016 popular vote tells us nothing about who is going to win in 2020.
trollhattan
@Ruckus:
Recalling the Scotty Brown dumpster fire, what’s the current Mass process for replacing a seated senator who moves on mid-term?
If Harris were somehow to become VP, California will have zero problems replacing her with a Dem.
mrmoshpotato
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Can reporters then just yell questions at Russthuglican senators? May I suggest starting each yelled question with, “Hey! Fascist fucknuts!”
Jerzy Russian
@PsiFighter37:
If you need Hillary Clinton to stop by your state in order to see that Donald Trump is a disgusting human being who is totally unfit for office, then I don’t know what to tell you. Do these states not have televisions? Was the GOP convention not broadcast there?
trollhattan
@Kent:
Not aimed at you, but rather documentation that the meme has been out there since the day after Trump was elected and is still put forward as somehow proving…something. I’m certain he takes comfort knowing that it proves California is not part of the US.
zhena gogolia
American democracy hangs in the balance and people are worrying about being “excited.” I’m excited about averting the prospect of living under Dumb Putin for the rest of my natural life.
zhena gogolia
@James E Powell:
Absolutely.
Kent
And I wish we had a better candidate. We shall see who pops up in 2020. Carolyn Long was OK last time around but something of a carpetbagger from Oregon. A middle-aged white political science professor at our local branch college (WSU-Vancouver) who lived in Portland her whole adult life until moving up to Vancouver to run for Congress. I think some inspiring local person with roots, like say a charismatic Asian-American businesswoman with progressive ideas who actually has roots in the district would be a better candidate. Long mostly scooped up the Anti-Trump vote and all the loyal Dems in this redish-purple district. But she didn’t really expand beyond that.
Jerzy Russian
@zhena gogolia: Can we get an Amen Chorus over here?
Ruckus
@PsiFighter37:
Is anyone perfect? Yeah I didn’t think so. She still won the popular vote. With all her “baggage.”
If you ran who would you pick to run your campaign? I couldn’t tell you one person I’d have working for me. I’d have to hire everyone off of resumes and interviews. Oh wait that’s how I’ve hired people that worked for me for the 20+ yrs I had employees. From the people that applied. Sometimes they were perfect, most often not, sometimes the world lined up for them and not me or the business. Two people that I hired that were horrible, one that lasted less than 2 hrs and one whose resume and endorsements were pure well done BS. Hiring someone for any job is a crap shoot, with the odds in the house’s favor. The only people you can hire are applicants.
Kent
OK, whatever. If you really want to visit 2016 then Clinton was still campaigning in California where she won by 4.3 million votes, 2-weeks out from the 2016 election instead of MI, WI, and PA. She was holding $100,000 a seat dinners with Elton John in Los Angeles 2-weeks out when Trump was campaigning in Wisconsin. Just saying. https://www.cnn.com/2016/10/13/politics/hillary-clinton-california-fundraising/index.html
James E Powell
@Kent:
The 2016 popular vote tells us that Trump has never been the popular choice, despite what the white-people-in-diners obsessed press/media would have us believe. We need to remember that but for the NYT-led anti-Hillary campaign, she wins in a landslide. We need to remember that but for Comey’s letter, she wins comfortably. We need to remember that Trump’s win came as a result of a very peculiar, very hard to repeat set of circumstances.
Why? Because we know that if we all just pull together and push as hard as we can, that we will win in 2020.
mrmoshpotato
@Chyron HR: LOL
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: I’ve had enough political “excitement” to still have enough of a reserve when the Sun burns out.
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
This. The reason I made it a separate point.
I think that Warren has some great ideas but how do those ideas get make into law? In congress. They need someone in the WH to push and corral and sign but they start in congress.
Ruckus
@Jerzy Russian:
I’ll join in.
CaseyL
@Starfish: Sssssweet!
(I loves me some critter Twitter)
WaterGirl
I thought someone here said that Maddow would be replaying the big Lev Parnas interview tonight, I thought at 10pm, but I don’t see it on the TV schedule. Does anyone know?
Kent
@James E Powell: I don’t disagree about Comey and the NYT and Russian interference and all that. We won’t see the same unique set of circumstances in 2020. We’ll see a new set of unique circumstances that will once again tilt the playing field against whomever is the Dem candidate. That is the reality of our political system and political map. They are already gearing up in plain sight to steal 2020 and it is going to take every single bit of effort from everyone who wants their country back.
All I am saying is that the “anyone can beat Trump because he is so unpopular” is a complacent and pernicious meme that will lead to defeat again in 2020 if we let it.
janesays
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: He will be going home, soon enough. Michael Bennet, John Delaney, and Deval Patrick are the three biggest non-factors left in the race. I don’t think their continued presence in the race has any meaningful impact on anything, because I’m guessing that somewhere around 99% of the country has no idea who any of these guys are, or that any of them are even running for president. None of them has been on the debate stage in months (Patrick has never been on it and never will be on it), and they’re all polling right around 0%.
I’m more concerned about the slightly better known candidates who also have no chance of being the nominee but nevertheless have garnered at least some attention: Bloomberg, Gabbard, Steyer, and Yang.
Marcopolo
@Ruckus: Fine. I’ll take the bait. I think if R’s control the Senate after the election there will be shit-all any D prez can do legislatively. However, among the four leading candidates, I am pretty sure that Warren has by far the best understanding of how the federal bureaucracy works, has by far the best understanding of the tools & levers that are available to the President & the Executive branch, and has told us she will use whatever means are at her disposal as prez to make our lives better. She certainly pays the most attention to the fine granular details of that governing thing.
To whit, see her comments about reducing drug costs by having the federal gov’t contract out the production of generic drugs. Also see her comments regarding the vital importance of the individuals who are appointed as regulators all across gov’t.
That being said, please vote for whomever most rocks your boat in the primary.
MisterForkbeard
@Kent:
I’m seeing this a lot already. My newest problem are the BernieBro fanatics (and I know a few) who are circulating a bunch of anti-Warren propaganda. They’re also yelling about how they’re not allowed to criticize her because “Establishment”.
I pointed out that this was all skewed slanted information designed to make her look the worst she possibly could – where it wasn’t outright wrong. There are much better explanations for every problem they had with her, and you can write similar hit jobs on literally every candidate. Even Bernie, if you want to take his votes and words about women, immigrants, and guns out of context.
They told me I was listening to the MSM and needed to listen to Gabbard, Sanders, Chapo, and a few others.
I related that we actually KNOW the attacks they’re using are being amplified (and in some cases started) by russians and republican ratfuckers. Pointed out that even Trump is pushing the same line they are.
I was yelled at for compromising my ideals, because even TRUMP could see that Warren was shiftless and that the Establishment was robbing Bernie.
These are otherwise somewhat intelligent people. They’re real – I knew them from High School. And they’re absolutely fucking insane.
Ohio Mom
There is no question I would vote for Bernie if he is the nominee. I would be crying as I marked my ballot though.
He would be a simply awful president. Our country is in a fragile state and he could be the final unraveling.
In a way, I suppose am the mirror image of the Bernie supporters who ended up voting for Trump.
PsiFighter37
@Jerzy Russian: Unfortunately, there is a good chunk of the country where showing up counts, even amongst those who have deplorable views. It was clear that Hillary’s campaign was run purely by data junkies in NYC and not by political operatives who would have known better. TBH, I also think it was abundantly clear that Hillary had zero interest in spending time outside of major cities or their close-in suburbs. Obama ventured out to places that would have never bothered to give him votes, save for the fact that he showed up, listened, and asked for support.
MisterForkbeard
@Kent: Yeah. Though it’s not like this wasn’t without reason, and many people thought it a good idea at the time.
Comey’s letter had yet to drop. Wisconsin/PA/others weren’t seriously thought to threatened, given the polling and that we didn’t know how bad the voter suppression was.
The idea that Hillary could win the electoral college and lose the popular vote was a real threat, so she was running up numbers in California.
Kent
I’m not worried about any of them. I’m worried that we wind up with one of the geriatric candidates like Biden or Sanders and then they wind up having a major “senior moment” in the last stages of the 2020 campaign. Another heart attack. Or just dumbass senile shit like President Ford’s famous remarks about no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe: http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1844704_1844706_1844449,00.html that will turn into a massive NYT-led shitstorm whether our candidate is senile and up to the job at age 78.
I like me some Biden too, but he scares the living shit out of me because I think he is an incredible risk to blow it all in the fall of 2020 with typical Biden dumbassery that will get blown all out of proportion but will be just enough to tilt things against him. Sanders is just as bad, if not worse.
I just want me a good solid healthy smart energetic and talented candidate in the prime of their life who is ready to roll up their sleeves and go take back the country. Is that too much to ask?
WaterGirl
@Ohio Mom: That will be a very sad day, if it comes to that. It would be a ghastly vote to take, but I would do it if Trump was the alternative.
Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.
PsiFighter37
@James E Powell: It was not only because of the disinformation campaign. People treated Scott Walker as an aberration who won in off-year elections – yet it was indicative of a Wisconsin that was clearly trending more right than anyone thought. Ergo, you have a Democratic nominee who doesn’t set foot in the state at all during the general election. Even without Russian disinformation and Comey bungling, the state would still have been razor-thin, and the Clinton campaign outright failed to see that.
James E Powell
@Kent:
I don’t think that this is necessarily true. I do think that the press/media will start to shred the Democratic nominee as soon as the Republicans ask them to do it.
But part of our new set of unique circumstances is that just as we cannot get the votes of the Trumpistas, he cannot get the votes of those of us who despise Trump. I think there are more of us.
It is also likely that Trump will cost Republicans votes in other races. People like Collins can no longer separate themselves. Same with McSally who may live to regret her latest performance.
I agree completely. I would never say anyone can beat Trump, but our nominee will beat Trump if we all work together to make sure that happens.
janesays
In all of the interminably insufferable debates about “electability”, it bears repeating that Donald Trump is, in fact, electable, which we know to be true because the orange shitstain has been polluting the Oval Office with his presence for three years now (that he lost the popular vote is totally irrelevant until the Electoral College stops choosing our presidents, which isn’t changing anytime soon).
If that assclown is electable, then literally anybody (who is at least 35 years old and a natural born citizen) is electable. Because “electability” isn’t a thing.
mrmoshpotato
@James E Powell:
And others will argue that her dead body should be impeached because her husband lied about a blowjob decades ago.
PsiFighter37
@MisterForkbeard: If that was the actual logic, that was incredibly stupid. FWIW, I do recall some concern about losing the popular vote, but not to the point of “Let’s send Hillary to California to run up the score in a state she has no shot of losing.” I do remember stupid choices, like sending Tim Kaine to campaign in Texas. Picking Kaine was also not an inspired VP choice, IMO.
James E Powell
@PsiFighter37:
I suppose “trending more right” is a euphemism for “experiencing a resurgence of white supremacism.”
Brachiator
@Kent:
In this election cycle? The answer is probably, yes.
janesays
@The Dangerman:
Your numbers are all off by a day (specifically, February 29, 2020). It’s 289 days until the election and 367 days until inauguration.
mrmoshpotato
@Kent:
Caution – floor slippery with sarcasm!
Kent
@Brachiator: I think Warren and Klobuchar are the best two choices, honestly. If we can’t have Harris.
I truly think that Trump is uniquely vulnerable and terrified of smart capable women. He has far fewer women around him than any other president going back to Nixon or Eisenhower. Now that Nikki Haley is long gone he is down to just DeVoss and Chao and those are both nepotism hires are are WAY outside of Trump’s circle of power.
Clinton beat his ass in 2016 except for the Russians and Comey and the inside straight flush he managed to draw. Nancy Pelosi owns his ass and terrifies him into incoherence. I honestly think either of our top two female candidates can beat him in 2020. The macho bitch-slap thing he did all through the 2016 primary just doesn’t work against strong women. And he doesn’t know any other way of campaigning.
janesays
@Amir Khalid: Michael Moore told an MSNBC post-debate panel that he would absolutely vote for Tom Steyer if he wound up being the nominee. Moore is insufferable, but there’s no question that he’s going to vote for whoever the Democrats nominate, even if it isn’t St. Bernie. Until a clear nominee emerges, he’s going to carry on annoyingly claiming that BS is the only truly electable candidate, but in the end, Moore is going to be on team broken glass.
debbie
@Ruckus:
I agree with you, Warren over Biden. She has more relevant experience and a reputation for being more knowledgeable in the areas that matter. So much in this country connected to financials needs to be fixed or recreated. I think Warren will be willing to talk and talk to the antis, but won’t compromise her way to a loss the way Biden would.
She’s a great speaker, but Klobuchar puts me in mind of Dukakis, so I’m with you on the lack of excitement. I’m not as dismissive as you about Buttigieg, but I think we need to stop this no-experience-being-a-good-thing.
mrmoshpotato
@MisterForkbeard:
Gag me with a spoon.
Ohio Mom
@watergirl: I voted for Ed FitzGerald, the Democratic candidate for Ohio Governor running against Kasich.
He was the worst candidate possible — during the campaign, reporters found him in a parked car with someone who wasn’t his wife, which led to the police discovering he hadn’t renewed his driver’s license in something like six years. He was a bumbling, disorganized, incompetent joke, and he lost in a landslide that everyone could see coming.
I didn’t need to vote for him, there was no way he was going to win. But I did, anyhow, just to prove that I am a solid Democrat. So I know I am capable of voting for Bernie, even as I am sure that as President, he will leave chaos in his wake.
mrmoshpotato
@Kent: Even worse that Dump could be flinging his own poo at the Rethuglican cult from Super Tuesday to election day, and they’d like him even more for that.
Ding dong!
Shit pie to the face.
Oh thank you Mr. god emperor!
joel hanes
@Jinchi:
we all plan on voting for a candidate we believe will defeat Trump
No one who voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 or for Jill Stein in 2016 thought they would win. No one.
We need those votes.
Ben in RVA
Sanders campaign surrogates and supporters are now communicating in nothing but emojis–snakes for Warren, scissors for Biden. Juvenile, amateurish, and Trumpian. Yeah, I went there. I don’t care that he’s not doing it directly, he still needs to tell his supporters to knock the fuck off.
mrmoshpotato
@janesays: Fucking leap years…
joel hanes
Boosted from the dead thread below
@Another Scott:
Republicans may be on the verge of losing the Texas House for the first time in decades.
And you can help
Sugarland TX Democratic organizer Susan Bankston, who blogs at Juanita Jean’s, will be doing a grassroots GOTV effort in January, and will be wanting contributions.
juanitajean.com/ballot-by-mail-program/
juanitajean.com/tex…
mrmoshpotato
@Ben in RVA: Pouty the Shouty won’t tell them to fuck off with it. We’re talking about someone who stuck in the race through the convention when he’d mathematically lost it in May, and pouted like a child at the convention.
Ben in RVA
@mrmoshpotato:
It’s kind of like this:
Jordan Peterson never explicitly says it’s OK to hit women in any of his videos. But boy oh boy, his fans in the comments sections of then sure think he’s saying it’s a good idea! If I had hundreds and hundreds of comments from self-professed fans of mine gleefully endorsing domestic violence below a video I posted, I think I’d say something. Something along the lines of: cut it the fuck out, and if you think that way, I don’t want you to be my fan.
But he doesn’t. Probably because he really does believe that, too.
It’s either like this with Sanders, or he’s a poor manager of his surrogates and supporters. That speaks to being a piss-poor executive.
Neither is a good look
ETA: This is by no means all his supporters. There are a great many good, passionate Sanders supporters out there who really do care about progressive priorities and even the Democratic Party. But there’s a big toxic element among them, and it’s not just online.
trollhattan
@mrmoshpotato:
The Sanders convention shenanigans should be shoved in his face during these primaries. I want him to address them directly and not wave it off as somebody’s imagination. (As if, but still)
mrmoshpotato
@trollhattan: “I was pouting like a child about INCOME INEQUALITY!”
Fuck Bernie. I’ll vote for him in the general if it comes to that, and then go puke in the nearest toilet.
WaterGirl
@Ohio Mom: Yep. Earlier I wrote that we have to hope it doesn’t come to that. I should have said we need to fight to make sure it doesn’t come to that.
And if it does, at least we’ll know we left it all on the field. That’s what I think the Democratic slogan should be: 2020. No regrets.
WaterGirl
@joel hanes: I just sent that to DougJ as as suggestion for one of his fundraising posts.
zhena gogolia
@Ohio Mom:
The good news is he will never be president.
The bad news is, if BS is nominated, Trump will be president.
Ben in RVA
@zhena gogolia: I will work my ass off like crazy to elect Sanders president if he’s the nominee. It’s very, very sad (really, I’m more sad than angry about this) that I can’t say the same about a lot of folks on his side should somebody else get it, many of whom are his campaign officials.
zhena gogolia
@Ben in RVA:
Narrator’s voice: He won’t.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@janesays:
The Baud!2020! campaign thanks you for your vote of confidence.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@janesays:
Moore is insufferable, but there’s no question that he’s going to vote for whoever the Democrats nominate, even if it isn’t St. Bernie.
I don’t pay much attention to Moore these days, turn him off when appears on my TV screen. But he spent most of the Obama years bleating loudly about how Obama was letting THE PEOPLE down. Another one who thinks presidents are dictators and communicates that message to enough people to do damage. As with Bernie, he’s already shit in our pool, and even if he went away, I fear the infection remains.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@PsiFighter37: She didn’t go to California to “run up the score”, she came here to raise funds. It takes money to run a national campaign.
Ruckus
@Marcopolo:
Not actually disagreeing with you here.
I was just doing the “ridiculous electoral maths” here.
No one running really floats my boat but to me right now many are looking at this as a normal presidential race, and it isn’t. We have to win and we have to have a candidate who is on the better side of reasonable. Warren and Biden and possibly Klobuchar are reasonable candidates. None of the current others are.
Warren and Klobuchar are senators, of whom we also need as many democrats as we can get.
The math is rather simple.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@PsiFighter37:
Sad, but true. In a perfect world, Kaine would have excited people with his quest to rein in the executive’s war powers, but nobody really cares about that until it’s too damn late. I don’t think Kaine brought any votes at all.
Brachiator
@MisterForkbeard:
Citing Trump to judge any Democrat? I’m sorry, but NO.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Ruckus: I’ve always voted D for president but Obama was the first candidate I was excited about. I think he raised our expectations for inspiration to unrealistic levels.
Kent
Is this thread still active? This is an example of why I fucking HATE the Ivy League Consultant class represented by Buttigieg and Chelsea Clinton and the Billionare Davos crowd:
How US Consulting Firms Helped Africa’s Richest Woman Exploit Her Country’s Wealth
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/19/world/africa/isabel-dos-santos.html
From the article:
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Dorothy A. Winsor: and the people who know most loudly demand “inspiration” think Obama sold out progressivism.
Ruckus
@debbie:
I like Warren best of the 3.
I’d like to see a good woman win, just for the balance of 44 white men. Castro isn’t/wasn’t bad and a Warren/Castro ballet would be great.
But. And it is one of those big, firm, round buts…..
It’s like I said we need democratic senators. Can we afford to lose one? Who would be her replacement? And she could make a huge difference in the senate.
Kent
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Kaine maybe helped win Virginia. Maybe. Clinton won by 5 pts. Kaine probably added to that margin but she probably would have still carried the state.
But I don’t think that sort of electoral analysis works anymore in this day of national elections. I agree, he wasn’t a very inspired choice. Probably picked more for his future governing style as VP than for his political chops.
TS (the original)
@Dorothy A. Winsor: There are no press briefings at the WH and now the GOP senators refuse to talk with the media. You would think this would have bad consequences for trump & co – but it appears not. Hardly gets a mention in the media and they still treat this as normal.
Kent
@Ruckus: I don’t really get the love for Castro. He was a lightweight in Texas with really no following outside the rather unique political environment of San Antonio. He comes across to me as sort of whiny and HS debater-ish. Yes, he “says” a lot of the right stuff. But pretty much all of them do. I just don’t see him as anywhere close to the political force of a young Obama.
Ruckus
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Exactly. We expect more, we demand more from our candidates, we understand that they work for us and we want to hire the best employee we can.
I’ve been doing this voting thing for a while now and Barrack Obama was the best democratic president of my life. Which means he was the greatest president of my life. He has the charm and charisma of JFK, with different baggage. And I think he was a better president, although of course he had far more time to prove it.
Emma from FL
@schrodingers_cat: Late to the lunch, but may I sit at your table?
Brachiator
@Kent:
I absolutely agree with you. But I also think that Trump is afraid of many things. I think he fears Biden’s integrity, which is why it is so important to him to smear Biden’s son and to try to taint Joe.
I have big problems with Sanders, but I like how he punches back against Trump more sharply than the other candidates.
Oh, I think that our female candidates can handle Trump. But then the issue is appealing to voters. And I think the Democrats will need more prior Trump voters. I think, based in part on 2018, they have some.
But so far, the Democrats don’t seem to have much that appeals to an important segment of Trump’s base. For example, white people without college degrees, and particularly white women without college degrees.
Ruckus
@Kent:
Look at my comment #241.
Look at comment @234
You only get to hire the employees who apply. You choose the best of those.
At this point in time I think we have to take all the available information into account. What the possibilities are, what the ramifications might be of our choices.
mrmoshpotato
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Do we know for sure Baud is at least 35 and was born in the US?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kent:
Me neither. Joy Reid introduced him on her show a couple weeks ago as one of the “leading voices in the Democratic Party”, and I snorted aloud. Strikes me as a rather conventional, middle-of-the-road Dem who flirted with the left in order to revive a flagging campaign. And we heard for years how he and/or his brother were going to galvanize the Hispanic vote in TX, and they never went for it. Beto O’Rourke is someone else whose most fervent supporters see something I don’t, but he got into the arena, and I think it’s generally acknowledged that even when he lost, he had some coattails in local races. He got in the arena, the Castros never did. Then Julian decided he was (vice?) presidential material.
Chris Johnson
@MisterForkbeard:
I DID listen to Chapo, quite a bit, after the 2016 election.
I quit when I noticed how much the Chapo subreddit was being brigaded by presumably Russian bots, so that any sort of comment that would detract from the ‘Bernie or Die’ narrative, or in any way support working Dems, would be immediately and instantly downvoted by ten or more votes, and stuff pushing the desired narrative would be pumped up.
This is possible to do on Reddit. You sit there with your bot network and watch the ‘New’ tab: anyone can do this. Chapo started pushing ‘Russiagate’ mockery really hard, and I checked the f out, never to return, having figured out who they were (or who they were made to be: Chapo themselves are fairly good internet comedians, very bitter and cynical, easily stage-managed into the right narrative. The only one that I wonder about being an actual Russian agent is Amber, but I think it’s very unlikely)
The MSM (notably NYT) is also just as compromised, but doesn’t work the same narrative. It’s dueling narratives serving to divide. Obvious when you know what you’re looking at. Whether it’s Chapo being managed into voting for Trump ‘ironically?’ or the NYT headline pushing narratives that editorial eventually, embarrassedly retract, institutions are the front on the information war and sometimes it’s obvious.
Emma from FL
@PsiFighter37: I am sick and tired of this. She lost the electoral college because the Russian ratfucking operations and the voter suppression scams turned just a few states just enough. The facts will never change.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@mrmoshpotato: I’m sure we can get Trump’s investigators to come back from Hawaii to check on that.
mrmoshpotato
@Chris Johnson: Are you guys talking about Chapo Craphouse?
Kent
We were talking about VP choices. I was responding to the notion of a Warren-Castro ticket. Presumably the entire slate of political talent is out there and available for the VP slot. Especially the ones under 60. I’m not sure who I would pick to pair with Warren but I don’t think Castro would be in the top 10. Probably someone more like Sherrod Brown if he wasn’t from Ohio in a Senate seat that would be really tough to hold in his absence. Who can help win back the upper midwest. Or maybe someone to make a play for Florida and Georgia, although I’m not sure who that would be. But definitely someone with the gravitas and chops to take on Trump. I’m not sure Castro is that person.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
I’m voting for Mahomes.
Kent
@mrmoshpotato: Yes, who the hell is Chapo? The only Chapo I know of is Joaquín Guzmán.
Kent
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: I guess KC decided not to go down 24-0 in the first quarter this time around in order to “get them right where they want them”
Emma from FL
@Kent: And Chelsea Clinton helped this woman how?
MisterForkbeard
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Agree. Kaine was there to try and tempt ‘moderate’ republicans who were horrified by Trump into voting for a religious moderate Democrat. It was a really bad plan – no one really wanted Tim Kaine. Not moderate dems, not progressive dems, and republicans were never going to vote for Hillary for anything.
I think she would have done much better to choose someone to shore up her left flank. Republicans already thought she was the liberal anti-christ, so she might as well bring in some waverers. Not Bernie, but possibly Warren or some other notable progressive who is actually a team player.
MisterForkbeard
@Brachiator: Yeah. That struck me as particularly crazy. I basically stopped talking at that point.
Chris Johnson
@mrmoshpotato: Absolutely. Chapo had Adam Curtis on, early on, and it was a hell of an inspiring episode. Far from automatically rejecting the Chapo Trap House message, I went along with it… to a point.
That point was seeing that they were fucking being used as a catspaw by Russia and seemed either oblivious or fine with it, and that helped make it more obvious in retrospect that Bernie Sanders had been doing the same thing, and THAT turned me off ‘dirtbag left’ very emphatically.
As far as the whole ‘Clinton didn’t want to look for deplorable support’, I can confirm that sort of anecdotally: working NH for Sanders and then coming around after the primaries to see how the Clinton people were doing things, I helped out MoveOn and heard from some canvassers. In NH, a battleground, Clinton had people covering Keene like a wet blanket and bugging people multiple times with canvassing (possible dirty tricks, chicanery with lists, perhaps from people embedded in the Sanders campaign?) but MoveOn was covering outlying towns and I heard reports from people coming back saying that some of those places had never seen a Dem canvasser. MoveOn was the first they saw.
This sends a message. It’s like ‘deplorable’: it’s basically saying, if you’re not in a city working a good job, fuck you. If you cling to your home town, your God and guns and backwardness, you’re at best a fool and at worst the Dems are going to actively try to ruin you and consider you the enemy… and it makes you easy prey for the Trumps of the world (who don’t have your best interests at heart either, but are prepared to lie about it) and nobody’s ever going to just go do the right thing because they know that NEITHER side wants them to live.
Harsh words, but people took Clinton’s campaign strategy very poorly. That’s one thing about Biden, I can’t see him pulling that crap. Buttigieg, more likely to be running the numbers and gaming out which Americans to totally ignore. Obama didn’t do it that way, but he had largely his own organization.
Kent
Chelsea Clinton and Pete Buttigieg and a whole bunch of other Ivy League “best and brightest” took their Ivy League degrees and went to work for McKinsey as their first jobs out of college. McKinsey was one of the US consulting firms that goes around the world to help prop up these sorts of oligarchs. It seems like a rite of passage for this set to go work for McKinsey fresh out of college. Or else for hedge funds or private capital, which Chelsea Clinton also did.
I didn’t say Chelsea Clinton worked directly for this woman. Maybe she did, they tend to keep that stuff very secret. She was with McKinsey in the early 2000s before most of this happened. But she is representative of the consulting class that I was criticizing. Chelsea Clinton isn’t running for anything so I don’t really care about her. This is more of a criticism of Buttigieg. She is just an example of the class.
MomSense
@PsiFighter37:
Feingold was there every fucking day and he lost worse than Clinton. We lost Wisconsin because 200,000 reliable Democrats could not vote thanks to Republican voter disenfranchisement.
Bruuuuce
I’ve been advocating for Senator Duckworth for many of those reasons, plus that she’s a veteran, a recent mother, and tough as nails.
sab
@MomSense: Clinton was in Ohio a lot and she lost by 10+ points.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Chris Johnson: a former poster here, a pretty robust Clinton supporter, said their Florida ground game was horrible. So was, per I believe Adam and Betty, Bill Nelson’s, specifically with Hispanics, while moneybags Scott went to Puerto Rico seven (I think?) times and talked a good game. I’ve seen reports FL dems are still not stepping up, in spite of Andrew Gillum’s efforts.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@sab: as I recall, she seemed to be shuttling between PA and FL in the last couple of weeks of the campaign. Big rally with Springsteen in Philadelphia was a night or two before the election.
Kent
Which happened because hundreds of thousands of Democrats sat on their fucking hands in previous governor and state-house races, especially in 2010. Which gave the GOP the power to do all of that. If Tom Barrett beats Scott Walker in 2010 and the Dem’s keep control of the state legislature then Clinton wins in 2016
Likewise, what happens in the 2020 state house and governor’s campaigns across the country is going to affect who wins the president in 2028. This stuff is all connected. The GOP seems to know that a whole lot better than we do.
Kent
@Bruuuuce: That’s an interesting choice. Has Duckworth been in any kind of national conversation? Is she a good campaigner? I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen her in action.
Brachiator
Wow. Supposed a Meet the Press segment has a reporter interviewing black voters in WI. Must have got lost searching for the elusive and anxious white working class voter.
Bruuuuce
@Kent: I don’t know if she’s been in any conversations, per se. But whenever I’ve seen her, she’s destroyed whomever she was opposing, or advocated effectively for what she was favoring. Illinois isn’t totally reliable for replacing a Senator with a Democrat, but is a better bet than Ohio, and I think she could help with both WI and MI, as well.
TS (the original)
@Kent:
They why even mention her in your original post. It seems a Clinton has to get blamed for everything that happens on the planet.
George
@Kent: People need to stop the stupid “California accounted for Clinton’s popular vote victory” argument.
Just because Clinton won California overwhelmingly does not mean that Trump won the other 49 states by 1.4 million. All it does is ignore that Trump had his own strongholds. And that Clinton had other strongholds as well.
For example, add up the margins of victory for Trump over Clinton in confederate states, then compare it to the total Clinton over Trump total from the rest of America. I think my back of the envelope calculations showed that Clinton’s total margin of victory outside the confederacy was over five million.
I have heard the California argument as a talking point by the rightwing and by trolls. I’m not accusing you of being either, but I am saying it is a destructive and big-picture-inaccurate argument to make.
sab
I think the idea of a VP as a source of additional votes is pretty outdated. The VP pick should be someone who can be counted on to work well with the President and be up to replacing the President if something awful happens. Kaine was a good choice for that. So was Biden. So was Gore. Cheney wasn’t. Lieberman wasn’t.
Kent
@TS (the original): This is what I am saying is one of the problems in this country. Both Buttigieg and Chelsea Clinton just symptoms or examples of the trend:
https://medium.com/s/story/a-culture-of-prestige-98c8671ceade
Bruuuuce
@sab: In which case, I still stand by my suggestion. Duckworth would be an able second to Warren’s lead
J R in WV
@Jinchi:
Actually, I’ve voted for lots of candidates I knew were not going to win. Dukakis, McGovern,
Humphrey[was actually too young to vote for the Happy Warrior], Ms Clinton ( was pretty sure she was not going to win by election day, did phone banking into Ohio, went downhill fast the week before the election…thanks Mr Comey!!!) war hero John Kerry, former Navy officer Jimmy Carter his second run.But I’m a Democrat, and I voted for the Democratic candidate every election since I got home from Mississippi and the US Navy.
sab
@Bruuuuce: I agree with you.
Another Scott
@joel hanes: Thanks for the reminder of The World’s Most Dangerous Beauty Salon, Inc.
Donated.
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I can’t find it in the videos I’ve seen, but I have a distinct, visceral memory of attending the first Women’s March in DC and Moore trying to make some sort of remark about how horrible Hillary was before he started his main comments there. He quickly changed the subject on hearing the boos.
Purity kills.
Moore should have learned that before he climbed up on the stage in January 2017, but it seems he still hasn’t.
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@TS (the original):
We learned that in On-Line Politics and Punditry 101. It’s just Science.
I guess you cut class that day. You shouldn’t have done that.
Cheers,
Scott.
J R in WV
@sab:
Yeah, I did phone banking for Hillary, calling into Ohio for several weeks before election day. By the end of the election, I was one of two people in state HQ working for Clinton. The last week or 10 days was really depressing, as even people coming up on the DNC database weren’t that into Ms Clinton.
By the weekend before the election, I couldn’t do it any more… I just had to quit, tho I went to the polls on election day. That was kinda depressing too.
I was not surprised when Trump took a lead Tuesday night. I drank some brown whiskey about 10 and went to bed early knowing we were screwed. Been hungover ever since!
Omnes Omnibus
@MomSense: Yep, anyone who analyzes the result in Wisconsin in 2016 and doesn’t mention voter ID ban safely be dismissed.
Mnemosyne
@PsiFighter37:
Wisconsin was not “trending more right.” Republicans were massively suppressing the Black vote with the most restrictive ID laws in the country and stealing victories that way.
There is NO honest discussion to be had about 2016 without mentioning the massive suppression of Black voters. They didn’t mysteriously “stay home” as some pundits tried to claim. They were ACTIVELY prevented from voting.
No One You Know
I’ve just filled my fifth poll in five days asking me to pick the 3 best ways to win, not the three people most likely to.
This seems smart.
For the record, we need to register voters, protect them from GOP suppression, and GOTV.
I don’t trust swing voters. They’ll tell you what you want to hear with no consequences for changing their minds… and huge consequences for everyone else. It was a big shock to lily- white me to learn how many people are committed to the entitled white male hegemony, its attendant misogyny and racism, even if it does nothing meaningful for them except encourage their worst selves.
janesays
@Ruckus: We would temporarily lose Warren’s seat if she were to win the presidency, because MA allows the governor to fill the seat with whomever he wants, and Massachusetts’ current governor is a Republican. MA law does require a special election to be held relatively quickly – I believe within 120 days of the vacancy. Still – the seat would be in GOP hands for roughly the first 100 days of a Warren presidency, and that might be enough to keep McConnell as Majority Leader, at least for the first few months of Warren’s presidency. Which would mean absolutely nothing gets accomplished legislatively in that time, nor do any Warren judicial nominees get hearings.
Sondra Fabe
Sondra Fabe
You just described me. Thank you.