[Discussion] The (likely) Depressing Road to the 2020 Election Thread

It's going to be a circus.

Will 45 get impeached or step down or challenged? All 3? MAYBE.

Will the democrats eat themselves alive and hobble literally every potential candidate before the primaries are done? PROBABLY.

Talk about that junk here.

bekkilyn wrote:
DSGamer wrote:
fangblackbone wrote:

Well thank god we have sacrosanct Sanders to simultaneously save and destroy the DNC!

What did Sanders have to do with the mayor Pete discussion? I’m so confused.

LOL when I read the post about "Mayor Pete" (because I can't ever seem to remember how to spell his last name), I thought to myself that it was only a matter of time until someone just took the opportunity to add an unrelated Bernie comment, and then when I looked down, THERE IT WAS!

So since yet again Bernie was peppered into a series of posts that had nothing to do with him, I am reminded I wanted to post.

Why Bernie Is the True Feminist Choice

There are a lot of straight white males who can't wait to tell you how wrong you are.

SallyNasty wrote:

There are a lot of straight white males who can't wait to tell you how wrong you are.

Ayup!

Edit: On second thought, I don't want to get into this.

I kind of wish we had a GWJ poll tool. I'd love to know data from this thread about if a Goodger lived in a safe blue or red state, versus a purple state, for instance. I think a lot of the angst amongst us on the left might just boil down to our locations.

If you are in a blue or red state, I imagine that it is much easier to set aside the (likely unknowable) idea of electability and just vote for the candidate that you like the best. I follow the historian and great twitter poster, Kevin Kruse, and he advises just that, to vote for who you like best.

And a big part of me wants to...

But I live in deeply purple North Carolina. So purple that we voted for Trump four years ago, while also voting out the incumbent republican governor. Which means there are some strange mutated unicorns in this state that voted for Trump and our Democratic governor. We also voted for Obama in 08 but not 12.

So, with early voting starting this week I find myself in a bit of paralysis. My favorite candidate, at this moment is Warren. But, while I do think she could beat Trump, I've lost confidence that she can win the nomination. I question Bernie's ability to govern if he wins and of the moderates, I'm now probably leaning towards Klobuchar. Yes, her treatment of staff is a negative, but as someone else mentioned up thread, it's also the kind of story that just doesn't come out against male candidates, even if the same charges would fit.

I also don't know if Klobuchar or Warren will pick Stacy Abrams as their running mate, while I think she is the likely pick if a man wins the nomination (outside of a contested convention) and I'd love to see Abrams tear Pence a new one in a debate.

I'm probably going to vote this Saturday and right now, I have no idea if it's going to be for Warren, Sanders or Klobuchar.

Come the fall, I vote for whomever has a D next to their name, Pete, Bloomberg, somebody that's not even running but gets spit out of a contested convention, so that will be easy. But this primary is going to be my hardest vote in my life and I've been voting since Clinton/Bush.

Hey fellow NC-er.

I too love Warren.

Yes this state is messed up. I think Cooper won because of HB2 backlash and ACC basketball in the state being something both sides can agree on.

I'm still not sure if more people voted for Trump + Cooper last time or if some just left president blank or went 3rd party. I'm sure there was a lot of anti Hillary sentiment. Never did look close enough at the totals or exits to figure out what was what.

SallyNasty wrote:
bekkilyn wrote:
DSGamer wrote:
fangblackbone wrote:

Well thank god we have sacrosanct Sanders to simultaneously save and destroy the DNC!

What did Sanders have to do with the mayor Pete discussion? I’m so confused.

LOL when I read the post about "Mayor Pete" (because I can't ever seem to remember how to spell his last name), I thought to myself that it was only a matter of time until someone just took the opportunity to add an unrelated Bernie comment, and then when I looked down, THERE IT WAS!

So since yet again Bernie was peppered into a series of posts that had nothing to do with him, I am reminded I wanted to post.

Why Bernie Is the True Feminist Choice

There are a lot of straight white males who can't wait to tell you how wrong you are.

To be fair, there are a lot of straight and not so straight white females who can't wait either.

Fair enough. My comment was unnecessarily inflammatory and I apologize.

Yep, there's just binders full of women all over GWJ D&D...lots and lots upon lots of us and ALL determined to crush me underfoot for being both a feminist and a Bernie supporter.

I’m just going to quote this periodically

Vector wrote:

What the hell is up with the way you folks treat each other in this thread?

DSGamer wrote:

I’m just going to quote this periodically

Vector wrote:

What the hell is up with the way you folks treat each other in this thread?

Go back and read the very first post of this topic.

Can we just all get behind and be happy about how crushed Biden is? I'm loving how the BS centrist chaos is playing out.

lunchbox12682 wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

I’m just going to quote this periodically

Vector wrote:

What the hell is up with the way you folks treat each other in this thread?

Go back and read the very first post of this topic.

For me at least, because this is the thread where the rubber meets the road in seeing how poorly the Democratic party has dealt with putting together a new coalition after the New Deal coalition--a political paradox no longer sustainable--fell apart. It's the thread where a bunch of candidates tell us how they're going to fix 40 years of political failures in the next 4. How they're going to solve four centuries of American colonialism and two centuries of global imperialism in time for the mid-term elections.

It's the thread that reminds us how much more distance there is between us than we thought. How on Election Night 2008, that was maybe the last night of political joy we'd ever have. We weren't witnessing the culmination of something great, we were about to face the horrible truths about how much farther we have to go, and how miserable and alienating that road will be for a long, long time.

This election isn't the road--it's just a rise in the road where we can see the full scope of the journey. There's still something good at the end of that road, but it's a long one not all of us will see.

This is good news!

Virginia House passes bill to award electoral votes to whoever wins the popular vote

The fine print...

So far, only 15 states and Washington, D.C., have entered the compact, according to National Popular Vote, a nonprofit group tracking the status of states on the issue. A group of states possessing 74 electoral votes would need to join the agreement in order for the compact to take effect.
JC wrote:

This is good news!

Virginia House passes bill to award electoral votes to whoever wins the popular vote

The fine print...

So far, only 15 states and Washington, D.C., have entered the compact, according to National Popular Vote, a nonprofit group tracking the status of states on the issue. A group of states possessing 74 electoral votes would need to join the agreement in order for the compact to take effect.

I think that language is standard for all of those bills that have passed

thrawn82 wrote:

I think that language is standard for all of those bills that have passed

It is. Also, the 74 additional electoral votes that still need to join the agreement don't include the 13 from Virginia itself (since it still needs to pass the Senate and get signed into law), so only 61 more would be needed. That's still a long way away, though, considering that no Republican governor has ever signed the legislation into law and considering that New York, Illinois, and California are all already part of the compact.

I was actually surprised and amused to see a recent poll that shows Jeff Sessions is slightly leading the other Republican candidates for Senate in this god-forsaken state. I figured everyone here would despise him for the role he played in the "Russia hoax" by recusing himself.

Besides the usual strategy of going as far right as humanly possible, the whole pack of them, except maybe Roy Moore (ugh), seem to be competing to prove they'll be the biggest Trump sycophant ever. Admittedly, it's probably a good strategy for winning here. I don't think there's a snowball's chance in hell of Doug Jones being reelected. At least this way we get to see Trump's seething annoyance at Sessions' continued existence in politics, and the painful awkwardness of Sessions having to kiss up to someone who despises and repeatedly humiliates him.

IMAGE(https://i.postimg.cc/FFGTnDvv/Screenshot-20200214-151846-NYTimes.jpg)

Happy weekend y'all

We don't need any more f*cking debates. Let them go do their town halls and such. The debates only provide opportunities to over analyze and nitpick what was a gaffe or not a gaffe. Lets get a nominee and get moving...

fangblackbone wrote:

We don't need any more f*cking debates. Let them go do their town halls and such. The debates only provide opportunities to over analyze and nitpick what was a gaffe or not a gaffe. Lets get a nominee and get moving...

I’d agree except maybe a debate when it’s down to a reasonable field of, say, 2 candidates. These debates have been terribly underwhelming anyway. I guess I got used to watching the field of idiot Republicans for the last 8 years.

BlackSheep wrote:

maybe a debate when it’s down to a reasonable field of, say, 2 candidates.

So at the convention, then?

fangblackbone wrote:

We don't need any more f*cking debates. Let them go do their town halls and such. The debates only provide opportunities to over analyze and nitpick what was a gaffe or not a gaffe. Lets get a nominee and get moving...

There's three scheduled debates left. One will happen right before Nevada and one will happen right before South Carolina. About 10% of those voters still haven't made up their mind about which candidate to pick. I'm entirely OK with having the debates to help them make that decision (along with the voters in 20+ states and territories that will have their primaries after the debate on the 25th and before the final debate in mid-March).

And those primaries are even more important because they'll be the first time we'll hear from substantial numbers of the non-white, non-rural people who make up a considerable chunk of Democratic voters.

I completely understand the desire to pick a nominee and focus on the general election, but this is the process by which we pick that nominee.

We'll have a much better sense of who that candidate might be by this time next month, but the delegate math could mean we still end up in a brokered convention.

Medicare for All: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
*seems related to the election

OG_slinger wrote:
fangblackbone wrote:

We don't need any more f*cking debates. Let them go do their town halls and such. The debates only provide opportunities to over analyze and nitpick what was a gaffe or not a gaffe. Lets get a nominee and get moving...

There's three scheduled debates left. One will happen right before Nevada and one will happen right before South Carolina. About 10% of those voters still haven't made up their mind about which candidate to pick. I'm entirely OK with having the debates to help them make that decision (along with the voters in 20+ states and territories that will have their primaries after the debate on the 25th and before the final debate in mid-March).

And those primaries are even more important because they'll be the first time we'll hear from substantial numbers of the non-white, non-rural people who make up a considerable chunk of Democratic voters.

I completely understand the desire to pick a nominee and focus on the general election, but this is the process by which we pick that nominee.

We'll have a much better sense of who that candidate might be by this time next month, but the delegate math could mean we still end up in a brokered convention.

I think this is Bloomberg's fondest wish and desire. A place where he han put his thumb on the scales.

At this point, I kinda lean Bernie or Bloomberg. Either let's have the real deal, or cut out the middlemen and just have the rich guy in charge, the one with the money to spend to beat Trump.

cheeze_pavilion wrote:

At this point, I kinda lean Bernie or Bloomberg. Either let's have the real deal, or cut out the middlemen and just have the rich guy in charge, the one with the money to spend to beat Trump.

Yikes.

"Oligarchy for all who want it"?

It feels like the party apparatus here in NC is preparing to go for Bloomberg. I've had three different people that I know forward me that pro-Bloomberg op-ed from the Thomas Friedman. These are lifetime Democrats that hate Trump but are not overly progressive. The mayor of Charlotte just endorsed him and every other add in the state is his. He's one notch above Joe at the bottom for me but I'm very curious to see how he does here.

DSGamer wrote:
cheeze_pavilion wrote:

At this point, I kinda lean Bernie or Bloomberg. Either let's have the real deal, or cut out the middlemen and just have the rich guy in charge, the one with the money to spend to beat Trump.

Yikes.

"Oligarchy for all who want it"?

I think we already reached explicit oligarchy status when Trump took over.

garion333 wrote:
DSGamer wrote:
cheeze_pavilion wrote:

At this point, I kinda lean Bernie or Bloomberg. Either let's have the real deal, or cut out the middlemen and just have the rich guy in charge, the one with the money to spend to beat Trump.

Yikes.

"Oligarchy for all who want it"?

I think we already reached explicit oligarchy status when Trump took over.

Right. Just in the scenario Cheeze is proposing both sides just lean in to their oligarch of choice.

I think that we have had an oligarchy for years, at least my lifetime (reaching 50 years)

Heck a quick look at net worth of presidents (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...) shows that send Johnson they have all been not only millionaires but over 100 million dollars in net worth.

DSGamer wrote:

Right. Just in the scenario Cheeze is proposing both sides just lean in to their oligarch of choice.

I'll vote for Bloomberg in the general. If you're offering me a sh*t sandwich or a sh*t sandwich with concentration camps, I know which one gets my vote.