Election 2020

[Teenwolf]

But do you and FS agree that he draws or gives to Warren as he ebbs and flows? I thought the conclusion of the article was interesting--that young progressives that seem particularly annoyed with him may be better served letting off the attacks, as his success comes at the expense of Warren, who is a bigger threat to Bernie.

I also thought it was interesting, because it helped me understand the level of anger young progressives have for him when his policies, by and large, are to the left of centrists like Biden and Klobaucher. I get the phony, I care about winning not issues, criticism both you and FS bring up. I can't argue against that. But I do assume he'd probably follow through on the platform he is running to get elected, which is not as progressive as Sanders or Warren, but is more so than Biden and others. That is why I didn't fully get the level of vitriol, but the article helped me see some of its roots.

I disagree with the conclusion of the article.

Here's the relevant section near the end:

And while bagging on Mayor Pete for those impulses might feel good to the left, it ultimately could be self-defeating. To the dismay of non-ideological wonks and activists alike, most voters are firmly non-ideological. For this reason, despite his skepticism toward programs like “Medicare for All” and universal free college, Buttigieg is not in direct competition with Sanders. He’s competing for voters with Warren, whose wine-track liberal supporters are more vulnerable to his technocratic affect.

If influencers on the left successfully discredit and weaken Buttigieg, the most likely outcome is then to bolster Warren, Sanders’ nearest competitor. Biden, meanwhile, continues to sit comfortably atop the polls, even as most of his voters say their second choice would be ... Bernie Sanders.

The implications from the article don't make any sense. Mayo Pete is around 8% nationally. So even if his largest 2nd choice voters are by far going to Warren, she's still trailing Bernie's 19% of the national vote with 15% herself, and Bernie has a much bigger slice of potential voters to take from Biden than Warren does from Pete, about 3 times as many, in fact. Plus Bernie has huge advantages over Warren in fundraising, diversity of support, early state polling, etc. Also, with the delegate threshold being 15%, Warren is at a higher risk of collecting some zeroes wherever she falls below 15%. It's slightly less of a risk for Bernie, especially after his expected early momentum. All that is to say, I have almost zero fear of Warren overtaking Sanders. That's pure concern-trolling from Politico.

I've come around in the last month or so to believing that Warren needs to be relatively strong early on, stay in through Super Tuesday, and collect at least 10-15% of the total delegates for Bernie to win. That's because he needs to either collect 50%=1 delegate to win, or find a runner-up candidate with enough delegates to form a unity ticket that accomplishes the same. So I believe with so many candidates splitting the vote, nobody is likely to get more than 35-40% of the delegates on the first ballot. So a strong Warren showing may be the only way Sanders gets into the White House.

Does that seem like a narrow view of the race? Perhaps. But I heard this thought backed up by Ryan Grim recently, and he's a super smart guy, so it seems like a sensible bet.

[Sour Masher]

And who would that runner up candidate be? Warren? I don't see it happening. She would be better off staying in the Senate than serving as VP. If she did sacrifice her Senate seat to be a VP, I think it would be to the detriment to the Senate, but if that is the only way Sanders gets elected, maybe she does do it. I wonder if she did that, would Sanders supporters who have been attacking her still think ill of her?

[Teenwolf]

Bernie fighting against MLB eliminating 42 minor league teams in a recent re-structuring announcement. Man, he can really pull at the American past-time heart strings. The full press conference was quite interesting, hearing from the small town representatives losing their teams.

[Sour Masher]

Bernie fighting against MLB eliminating 42 minor league teams in a recent re-structuring announcement. Man, he can really pull at the American past-time heart strings. The full press conference was quite interesting, hearing from the small town representatives losing their teams.

I'm not surprised, but I am very glad he is taking up this fight. I haven't looked at the math, but I bet all those teams could be saved for less than the Gerrit Cole contract.

You don't win more fans by cutting teams in communities that love them. I'm with Bernie on this 100%.

[Teenwolf]

And who would that runner up candidate be? Warren? I don't see it happening. She would be better off staying in the Senate than serving as VP. If she did sacrifice her Senate seat to be a VP, I think it would be to the detriment to the Senate, but if that is the only way Sanders gets elected, maybe she does do it. I wonder if she did that, would Sanders supporters who have been attacking her still think ill of her?

I'm not sure if the unity ticket requires that she run as the VP. Could he take her delegates on the promise of making her head of the treasury, or whatever role she desires? Bernie is the only head of ticket to beat Trump, VP's usually have almost zero impact. How many votes did Tim Kaine add for Hillary? I think if Warren is the centrist-right balancing of the ticket to hang on to whatever moderates are afraid of Sanders blowing everything up, that's a huge shift of the overton window to the left, and Sanders supporters would loudly cheer it. The media might freak out, but they would also likely enjoy the money to be made from the endless storylines about the "Democrats Leftward Shift", and whatnot.

If Warren were to drastically underperform in the first 4 states and drop out and endorse Sanders early, maybe that would push him ahead of Biden for the most delegates, but I still find the math to get to 50% difficult. If the leader is held under 50%, and the vote is allowed to go to the 2nd round at the convention, I fear the superdelegates would shift it to Biden if it was even close. For those reasons, I prefer Warren sticking around to collect some delegates for bargaining power if Sanders needs the topper.

[Sour Masher]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Rove get Trump winning the nomination wrong? In any event, for all those who believe Rove knows elections, he believes ONLY Joe Biden can beat Trump. I don't put any stoock in his opinion, but he does say one thing that is likely right--whoever the nominee is needs to be able to win two of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/elect...n62?li=BBnb7Kz

[Teenwolf]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Rove get Trump winning the nomination wrong? In any event, for all those who believe Rove knows elections, he believes ONLY Joe Biden can beat Trump. I don't put any stoock in his opinion, but he does say one thing that is likely right--whoever the nominee is needs to be able to win two of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/elect...n62?li=BBnb7Kz

Recently, Joe Biden spoke in Iowa about coal miners learning to code. Watch this right winger take him apart. Watch him asked if he would be willing to sacrafice growth in service of a greener economy, and with zero nuance, Biden responds "the answer is yes". It resembles Clinton's 2016 midwest rhetoric about putting coal miners out of business.

Sanders' populism, and rhetoric about trade deals hurting the industrial midwest, green economy leading to economic boom, that's the rhetoric that resonates with the midwest, which Sanders is pushing. Also, Sanders beat Hillary throughout the midwest in 2016, showing that he would have likely beaten Trump there, given the tiny margins in multiple swing states.

As I've said, and the media is starting to figure out, Biden's electability argument is hanging by a thread, and if the early states see Bernie collect multiple wins, California early voting starts the day New Hampshire votes, so the momentum factor could be huge. Also, with the Sanders grass roots, unlikely voter focus, I think his base is being underpolled. Young voters just aren't being properly accounted for, with expected young voter turnout based on 2016 voting models (where Hillary was the cadidate). If Bernie can turn out more young people than Biden can turn out old people (and the enthusiasm gap suggests he can, especially in caucus states, where older voters wont have the energy to caucus for hours), then Sanders can overcome all of the obstacles. But I'm not going into it thinking it will be easy by any means, just staying optimistic.

[Teenwolf]

There's been chatter about Q4 fundraising for a few days now. Warren announced a disappointing $17 Mil total as a push to get over $20 Mil in the final few days. Bernie was pushing to collect over 5 million individual contributions, which he did. Nobody else has even 3 million individual contributions. Rumors were that Bernie should come in around $27-$28 Mil, but he far surpassed that with a $34.5 Mil total. He raised $18 Mil in December alone, which is kind of crazy. I wonder if Bernie's huge fundraising surge and Warren's fundraising decline are related, as Warren's polling has receded. Buttigieg raised $24.7 Mil, Yang raised $16.5 Mil, Warren and Biden aren't in yet.

Articles have been fun to read. Most pieces on Sanders are now hinting or outright stating that he'll win Iowa and New Hampshire. I love it.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaig...fourth-quarter

The news comes after former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s (D) campaign announced on Wednesday that he brought in over $24.7 million in the fourth quarter, exceeding his third-quarter haul of $19.2 million.

Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) have yet to release their fourth-quarter numbers. However, Warren released a statement in late December urging supporters to give to her campaign. The Massachusetts senator noted that she had raised $17 million, a "good chunk" behind what her campaign had raised in the previous quarter.

Businessman Andrew Yang's campaign announced on New Year's Eve that it has raked in $4 million during the last week of December.

[Sour Masher]

Castro has dropped out.

[Gregg]

Castro has dropped out.

So much for the Cuban vote.

[revo]

Marianne Williamson, who is somehow still in the race, has laid off all 45 of her staffers.

[The Feral Slasher]

Why can't Biden just be honest about this ?

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/06/politics/fact-check-biden-iraq-war-repeat-iowa/index.html

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden dishonestly suggested on Saturday that he had opposed the war in Iraq "from the very moment" it began in 2003 -- even though Biden's campaign said in September that he "misspoke" when he made a similar claim.
Biden was responding Saturday to a voter in Des Moines, Iowa, who told him, "I'm with you 90% of the way" but questioned his judgment in part because "you were for the second Gulf War, which was a mess."
Biden said that "from the very moment" President George W. Bush launched his "shock and awe" military campaign, and "right after" that occurred, "I opposed what he was doing, and spoke to him."
It's false that Biden opposed the war from the moment Bush started it in March 2003. Biden repeatedly spoke in favor of the war both before and after it began.

[GwynnInTheHall]

Why can't Biden just be honest about this ?

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/06/politics/fact-check-biden-iraq-war-repeat-iowa/index.html

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden dishonestly suggested on Saturday that he had opposed the war in Iraq "from the very moment" it began in 2003 -- even though Biden's campaign said in September that he "misspoke" when he made a similar claim.
Biden was responding Saturday to a voter in Des Moines, Iowa, who told him, "I'm with you 90% of the way" but questioned his judgment in part because "you were for the second Gulf War, which was a mess."
Biden said that "from the very moment" President George W. Bush launched his "shock and awe" military campaign, and "right after" that occurred, "I opposed what he was doing, and spoke to him."
It's false that Biden opposed the war from the moment Bush started it in March 2003. Biden repeatedly spoke in favor of the war both before and after it began.

Biden's not getting the Nomination. He's treading water just praying for no waves to come along and sink him. But they're coming.

[Teenwolf]

Biden's not getting the Nomination. He's treading water just praying for no waves to come along and sink him. But they're coming.

Polling for Sanders looks better all of the time.

Yesterday, Sanders hit 23% in the weekly morning consult poll for the first time this campaign (trailing Biden's 31%, 8 pt gap is also the smallest of the cycle). Early state voting looks very likely that Sanders wins Iowa and NH, which would influence Nevada and SC. The last SC poll from a respected SC newspaper showed Biden's lead in SC at 27% to Sanders' 19%, so given that Biden's strategy is to count on a blowout win in SC to propel his run, he looks vulnerable. He's set the bar so high, anything less than a 15 pt win in SC will be viewed as a loss. I'm quite curious if that one SC poll is an outlier or not.

My optimism comes from Sanders' strategy of targeting unlikely voters to expand the electorate, as well as the 2018 midterms, where nearly every progressive candidate outperformed polling. A lot will depend on Warren. If she drops out to endorse Sanders before super Tuesday, (I can't see her finishing higher than 3rd in any of the first 4 states), that would be huge for him. I go back and forth on whether I want Warren carrying delegates to form a unity ticket with Sanders, or I want her to fall off completely and support Sanders. I wonder if B-Fly will get to vote for Warren after all.

Oh, I also forget the Bloomberg factor. His entire strategy is to wait out the first 4 primary states, watch Biden collapse, then spend his way to victory. If Biden is vulnerable at all after SC, Bloomberg's collection of Buttigieg and Klobuchar and Biden deserters could get Bloomberg to 10%. Either way, it seems more likely that Bloomberg entering can only hurt Biden.

[B-Fly]

I honestly don't see Warren dropping out before Super Tuesday, but she may well be out before I vote in New Jersey. I do think things look very positive for Sanders right now, and I think he's also helped by the Iran crisis as the clearest break from an aggressive military posture that threatens to require escalating troop call ups.