2020 Democratic Primaries/General Election Thread

[JPhillips]

The GOP in a short video.

"You are incredibly safe to go out" Republican @SpeakerVos tells his constituents, in full gown, gloves and mask. pic.twitter.com/c3wNVhWxew

— Justin (@JustinAHorwitz) April 7, 2020

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

But who is going to make it illegitimate?

This. Dems keep waiting for the refs to step in, but the only way this ends is by destroying the advantage of behaving this way. Dems need to use every procedural tool to fight back, gerrymander, pack the courts, bring in new states, etc.

The GOP wants to create an apartheid state, Dems can't be primarily worried about fairness.

[Fidatelo]

I'm becoming concerned that you guys are basically past the point of no return with respect to democracy. I will actually be shocked if Trump isn't President a year from now, and so long as he manages to somehow stay healthy it won't surprise me if he's still your President 5 years from now either

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

This. Dems keep waiting for the refs to step in, but the only way this ends is by destroying the advantage of behaving this way. Dems need to use every procedural tool to fight back, gerrymander, pack the courts, bring in new states, etc.

The GOP wants to create an apartheid state, Dems can't be primarily worried about fairness.

Agreed, but tough to win when it is set up for you not to. If Milwaukee has 5 polling places in a city that large, how exactly do you win in November? Other states can follow suit and just close polling stations in areas that are not beneficial.

Stop looking at America as a democracy of any sort. We're not much better than Venezuela or other banana republics when it comes to holding free elections.

[lungs]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

It's not a legitimate election. 180 polling centers in Milwaukee down to 5.

Strangely enough, Madison managed to have 66.

And Waukesha only had one.

Also, Robin Vos is the most punchable face in Wisconsin politics.

[Edward64]

Bernie drops out.

[ISiddiqui]

About time. I'm sure the Wisconsin shit show convinced everyone that trying to fight an unwinnable primary wasn't smart.

[Thomkal]

I was fine with Bernie staying in for as long as he needed to. Not thrilled really with Biden as the nominee over a host of younger Democrats, but I think in his own way Sanders would have been a leftist Trump. I just hope he calls on his supporters to not stay home on Election Day and to vote for Biden not Trump.

[Thomkal]

<--waiting for the mocking Trump tweet on Sanders in 3,2,1..

[thesloppy]

Man I can barely wait for Joe Biden telling me about how he can't wait to cross the aisle and work with his lifelong friends in both parties to find moderate promise for the American people while the GOP publicly obstruct anything he touches and grind his entire family into dust.

[Vegas Vic]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Bernie drops out.

The subsequent actions by his supporters will determine the outcome of the 2020 election. If enough of them don't show up to vote, it could get interesting.

[CrimsonFox]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[JPhillips]

Bernie demanding something, either additions to the Dem platform or some say in the VP pick is the right thing to do. He's done a lot to promote progressive ideas, but his refusal to do the retail politics work made him unable to push past @1/3 of the party. The next generation, whether it is AOC or someone else, will be better able to expand that support.

[bronconick]

Originally Posted by thesloppy

Man I can barely wait for Joe Biden telling me about how he can't wait to cross the aisle and work with his lifelong friends in both parties to find moderate promise for the American people while the GOP publicly obstruct anything he touches and grind his entire family into dust.

If he says it in the fall, it gets a shrug from me. It's talking for votes. If he does it in spring 2021 when he knows Mitch McConnell exists, he's a moron.

[tarcone]

Im curious how these Trump/Biden debates will go. Seems to me Biden will get flustered by Trumps antics, esp. if Trump can get him off topic.

[albionmoonlight]

Originally Posted by tarcone

Im curious how these Trump/Biden debates will go. Seems to me Biden will get flustered by Trumps antics, esp. if Trump can get him off topic.

I don't think debates will happen. Trump does not want them, and Trump does not need them to run the kind of campaign he's going to run.

It will be portrayed as the candidates not "agreeing on the format" or something like that. But the end result will be no debates.

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by tarcone

Im curious how these Trump/Biden debates will go. Seems to me Biden will get flustered by Trumps antics, esp. if Trump can get him off topic.

Biden isn't the debater he was when he was younger, but Trump isn't very good himself. It's not like Trump is able to stay on topic either.

I don't think the debates will really matter though. The vast majority of people already know who they're voting for. Any presidential debate is just going to be confirmation bias for both sides. If dems get high turnout Biden will probably win. If we see more Wisconsin shenanigans in November Trump will win.

[ISiddiqui]

I will point out that Biden's best debate was his one-on-one with Sanders. It seems he's better in those sort of debates as opposed to the 5,000,000 candidate ones. 4 years ago, Trump got his clock cleaned in every Presidential debate and it didn't matter. I don't think debates will matter much this go around either.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

4 years ago, Trump got his clock cleaned in every Presidential debate and it didn't matter.

This.

It's mind-boggling how quickly many Dems seemed to have forgotten that. So much talk throughout the primaries about how this candidate or that one (often Warren or Harris) would OMG OBLITERATE TRUMP AND SEND HIM HOME WITH HIS TAIL BETWEEN HIS LEGS AND PRACTICALLY BE DECLARED PRESIDENT IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE FIRST DEBATE, when it was made crystal clear in 2016 that articulating one's positions logically and rebutting the opponent's ideas are meaningless skills in a Presidential election against Donald Trump.

[JPhillips]

Even outside of Trump I recall reading that debates provide a short bounce for the winner, but it's gone before election day.

[Vegas Vic]

Presidential debates are overrated insofar as having a significant impact on the election, at least for the past few cycles. The only election in this century where the clear winner of the debates also won the election was Obama against McCain in 2008.

[thesloppy]

Man, I thought I had accepted the reality of Biden as the candidate months ago, and it was obviously just a matter of time, but I am still struggling to accept it today.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

Bernie demanding something, either additions to the Dem platform or some say in the VP pick is the right thing to do. He's done a lot to promote progressive ideas, but his refusal to do the retail politics work made him unable to push past @1/3 of the party. The next generation, whether it is AOC or someone else, will be better able to expand that support.

Yeah, progressives need a better politician. The issue was that they had one: Warren, but Sanders supporters basically considered her a traitor to the cause because she tried to do the exact retail politics that could garner moderate support. AOC may be tarred though with the same too-left brush that would take moderate independents out of it (as so many people who were centrists I heard were unwilling to vote for Bernie, but are good with Biden - heck, Edward64 I believe is one of them).

[NobodyHere]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Yeah, progressives need a better politician. The issue was that they had one: Warren, but Sanders supporters basically considered her a traitor to the cause because she tried to do the exact retail politics that could garner moderate support. AOC may be tarred though with the same too-left brush that would take moderate independents out of it (as so many people who were centrists I heard were unwilling to vote for Bernie, but are good with Biden - heck, Edward64 I believe is one of them).

How is Warren a better politician? What was she doing to garner moderate support?

She spent the primary trying to prove that she was just as capable as Bernie in finding ways to spend a lot of government money.

The only retail politics she did was to actually call herself a Democrat.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by NobodyHere

How is Warren a better politician? What was she doing to garner moderate support?

She spent the primary trying to prove that she was just as capable as Bernie in finding ways to spend a lot of government money.

The only retail politics she did was to actually call herself a Democrat.

Her explanation of the strategy to get Medicare for All (which kind of similarly echoed AOC when she admitted they would have to initially compromise on M4A while moving forward on it) was what led the Bernie bots to turn on her, but showed exactly a sort of gradualism that a progressive politician needs to do.

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Yeah, progressives need a better politician. The issue was that they had one: Warren, but Sanders supporters basically considered her a traitor to the cause because she tried to do the exact retail politics that could garner moderate support. AOC may be tarred though with the same too-left brush that would take moderate independents out of it (as so many people who were centrists I heard were unwilling to vote for Bernie, but are good with Biden - heck, Edward64 I believe is one of them).

I expect AOC will campaign hard for Biden. That's the pathway for her to be more powerful in the House and position herself for a bigger job as NY governor or Senator when Schumer retires. If she doesn't she'll be throwing away an easy opportunity to expand her role.

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

I expect AOC will campaign hard for Biden. That's the pathway for her to be more powerful in the House and position herself for a bigger job as NY governor or Senator when Schumer retires. If she doesn't she'll be throwing away an easy opportunity to expand her role.

Something a significant portion of Bernie supporters don't get. They don't understand how to take small victories and build off of them. If they don't win they don't want to play.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by Atocep

Something a significant portion of Bernie supporters don't get. They don't understand how to take small victories and build off of them. If they don't win they don't want to play.

I think they also don't know how hard people had to work and fight for small victories. ACA was a street fight. The original plan had a robust public option and mandatory Medicaid expansion. The later was struck down by the Supreme Court (and the rest barely got through SCOTUS scrutiny thanks to Justice Roberts). The former had to be scrapped because even though there were 60 Democratic Senators more than a few of them were categorically opposed to a public option. And then Massachusetts elected Scott Brown. Just to get the ACA, which is flawed, took a TON of political capital and effort.

I mean if the Bernie supporters who are going #NeverBiden (not all of them, mind) say they think 4 years of Trump won't be much worse than 4 years of Biden, lets see how many SCOTUS justices Trump nominates. Then that same SCOTUS strikes down a Medicare For All plan whenever it actually passes.

[JPhillips]

Biden needs Bernie to say the right things, but I think AOC is actually a more valuable surrogate. If she can motivate young and minority voters Biden would be in debt to her.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

I mean if the Bernie supporters who are going #NeverBiden (not all of them, mind) say they think 4 years of Trump won't be much worse than 4 years of Biden, lets see how many SCOTUS justices Trump nominates. Then that same SCOTUS strikes down a Medicare For All plan whenever it actually passes.

Why do people assume Biden will get a Supreme Court Justice through? Republicans will likely still control the Senate and can just block it like they did with Obama.

[cthomer5000]

Originally Posted by thesloppy

Man, I thought I had accepted the reality of Biden as the candidate months ago, and it was obviously just a matter of time, but I am still struggling to accept it today.

+1

[Brian Swartz]

If the GOP holds onto the Senate, it's a moot point anyway as far as M4A is concerned, because that won't happen.

[JPhillips]

For better or worse, there aren't 60 Dem senators that would pass M4A.

[bronconick]

There were 60 for about 11 minutes to pass Obamacare. Absolute best case is you manage to add on a public option. FDR got the New Deal because the Republicans got murdered from 1930-36 to a degree that would never happen in the 2020's

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

I think they also don't know how hard people had to work and fight for small victories. ACA was a street fight. The original plan had a robust public option and mandatory Medicaid expansion. The later was struck down by the Supreme Court (and the rest barely got through SCOTUS scrutiny thanks to Justice Roberts). The former had to be scrapped because even though there were 60 Democratic Senators more than a few of them were categorically opposed to a public option. And then Massachusetts elected Scott Brown. Just to get the ACA, which is flawed, took a TON of political capital and effort.

I mean if the Bernie supporters who are going #NeverBiden (not all of them, mind) say they think 4 years of Trump won't be much worse than 4 years of Biden, lets see how many SCOTUS justices Trump nominates. Then that same SCOTUS strikes down a Medicare For All plan whenever it actually passes.

The #NeverBiden "people" are mostly a) kids that have no appreciation at all for the work needed. They just want it now or they will hold their breath till it happens. Or b) Russian bots. A good percentage of them probably have never voted (or couldn't, because they are bots), including for Bernie in this primary.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

If the GOP holds onto the Senate, it's a moot point anyway as far as M4A is concerned, because that won't happen.

Republican administration just made it M4A for anything related to coronavirus.

[RainMaker]

Latest PreditIt shows Harris as the clear favorite. Surprised how far Abrams is down on the list. She made it clear the other day she'd like to be VP.

[Thomkal]

Abrams has been far away from Washington DC-Harris has been right there on the front lines, making her more visible and viable should something happen to Biden when/if she was VP

[Atocep]

A Biden/Harris ticket would be great to see. I'd be willing to pay to see a Pence-Harris debate.

[Edward64]

Not sure I like the student debt forgiveness but the lowering of buying into Medicare certainly will benefit me.

No problem in forgiving the actual debt (all for the greater good) but ask those that benefit pay back society with some sort of volunteerism (e.g. habitat for humanity, foodbank work, work in a rural hospital etc.).

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/09/bide...sses-soar.html

Joe Biden rolled out two new plans on Thursday to provide economic relief to struggling Americans as he kicks off his general election campaign against President Donald Trump amid soaring job losses caused by efforts to contain COVID-19.
:
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Almost 9 in 10 Democrats and 69% of Republicans favor allowing those as young as 50 to buy into Medicare, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll from January 2019.
:
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The second plan calls for the forgiveness of federal undergraduate student debt for those making under $125,000. The forgiveness would apply to tuition-related expenses for public colleges and universities as well as private institutions primarily serving minority populations.

“I would finance this new student debt proposal by repealing the high-income ‘excess business losses’ tax cut in the CARES Act,” Biden wrote. “That tax cut overwhelmingly benefits the richest Americans and is unnecessary for addressing the current COVID-19 economic relief efforts.”

[Ryche]

Surprised Tammy Duckworth isn't on that list, pretty sure she is higher on the list than some of them.

Abrams just doesn't have the experience needed at this point.

[panerd]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Latest PreditIt shows Harris as the clear favorite. Surprised how far Abrams is down on the list. She made it clear the other day she'd like to be VP.

So how does this work? I really felt like Biden was a great pick when somebody posted something like this a few months ago. I buy Harris at 38 cents and as she gets better I sell at a higher price? If she gets the nomination is it $1? Is it legal in all 50 states?

I think Obama might be a good 3 cent long shot and wouldn't be a terrible VP pick in real life either.

[Galaril]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Not sure I like the student debt forgiveness but the lowering of buying into Medicare certainly will benefit me.

No problem in forgiving the actual debt (all for the greater good) but ask those that benefit pay back society with some sort of volunteerism (e.g. habitat for humanity, foodbank work, work in a rural hospital etc.).

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/09/bide...sses-soar.html

First it is smart for Biden to throw the Sanders camp any kind of bone and that debt forgiveness is pretty mild considering the alternatives. In the end, we have a guy who may not be one but is a 4th Reich wet dream in the White House right now.

[NobodyHere]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

The #NeverBiden "people" are mostly a) kids that have no appreciation at all for the work needed. They just want it now or they will hold their breath till it happens. Or b) Russian bots. A good percentage of them probably have never voted (or couldn't, because they are bots), including for Bernie in this primary.

I'm not a neverBiden but I am pretty close. I do have reservations about voting for someone who voted for the Iraq War, which was the biggest clusterfuck of my generation.

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by panerd

So how does this work? I really felt like Biden was a great pick when somebody posted something like this a few months ago. I buy Harris at 38 cents and as she gets better I sell at a higher price? If she gets the nomination is it $1? Is it legal in all 50 states?

I think Obama might be a good 3 cent long shot and wouldn't be a terrible VP pick in real life either.

I believe you have it right. Buy and sell like stocks. You pay then 5% commission on what you cash out from the site. I cannot vouch that it's 100% legal in every state, but I believe they claim that to be true.

[RainMaker]

I read something about it awhile back. It's legal by some weird loophole. I think because you can't spend much and it's run as a non-profit.

[RainMaker]

The student loan thing makes sense. Remember he wrote the bill that made it so student loan debt could not be discharged in bankruptcy. Something I'm sure Trump people will hammer him on to try to keep youth turnout low.

You can argue that the government shouldn't do it. But they're currently buying up corporate junk bonds to prop up the markets right now. Feel like student loan debt would be a bigger priority than that with our taxpayer money.

[Galaril]

Originally Posted by NobodyHere

I'm not a neverBiden but I am pretty close. I do have reservations about voting for someone who voted for the Iraq War, which was the biggest clusterfuck of my generation.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by NobodyHere

I'm not a neverBiden but I am pretty close. I do have reservations about voting for someone who voted for the Iraq War, which was the biggest clusterfuck of my generation.

I agree completely on the Iraq War. Heck, I was a Republican (a waning one, but still in the party) until the Iraq War. That was the final straw for me. I still have no problem voting for Biden over Trump. He is the only way to get rid of Trump, who has moved the Iraq War to the second biggest clusterfuck of our generation.

[RainMaker]

Like I mentioned earlier, Trump's campaign is going to go hard after younger people. He's not going to win that demographic, but if he cuts into it like he did with Clinton, he can win.

Biden is vulnerable on the student loan stuff which is why he's trying to reverse course. This is what Trump is doing which will be popular. I would not at all be surprised if Trump made a push to allow student loans to be discharged during bankruptcies. There are going to be A LOT of bankruptcies after this.

President Trump: "Student loan payments have been waived for 6 months, and we'll discuss it after that. May go further." pic.twitter.com/kYUNmwMYNY

— The Hill (@thehill) April 9, 2020