[Discussion] Election 2020

Seems like the board is set. Let’s see how this goes.

They were told there would be no math!

A bit of light in Pennsylvania...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme...

Three ballots submitted at city hall for the JLS household today. My oldest got to vote for the first time.

Trump stopped buying ads in MN and nobody is saying we're in play anymore at the top of the ticket.

But I worry at the state level. My local rep race is close, and the GOP candidate is a brain dead libertarian who lost in 2018 but seems to have a lot of support.

Finally, I'm running for school board the same year an operating levy is on the ballot. If I'm elected but the levy fails to pass my first job will be to choose 50 teachers to fire. The myopic naysayers on my community's FB page are disheartening, but I'm hopeful voters will do the right thing.

Using advanced machine learning and sophisticated linguistic modeling algorithms, top political analysts have constructed this simulation of what a second Biden vs. Trump debate might have looked like:

I VOTED, I VOTED, I VOTED, I VOTED, I VOTED

I didn't vote for Konye.
I didn't vote for orange people because I'm racist.
I didn't vote myself because I hate that guy.

I voted for none of your business.

Joe Biden considering ex-Ohio Gov. John Kasich for Cabinet spot, report says

Of course he's considering the guy who wants to take away reproductive rights, hates and tries to destroy unions, decimated education funding, loves reducing taxes on the rich, and gets hard thinking about fracking.

Thankfully it sounds like he's "Not interested."

additional source

And sure, why not. Uncle Joe also isn't opposed to Amy Coney Barrett and hell, thinks she seems like a very fine person.

There is a big difference between "considering" and "selecting."

If you're expecting Biden to go full blast on things like this with less than 2 weeks before the election which he is leading in, you're wasting your time and energy.

It will take some time and some protests but I do think we can get Biden moving in the right direction. There is no hope for Trump to make any good choices.

JC wrote:

There is a big difference between "considering" and "selecting."

If you're expecting Biden to go full blast on things like this with less than 2 weeks before the election which he is leading in, you're wasting your time and energy.

Is there? Does it matter?
Why would a Democratic Presidential candidate even "consider" somebody like Kasich for a cabinet position?
Why would any Democratic voter even consider defending that "consideration?"

If I wanted Republicans to have positions of import and power, I'd vote Republican.

r013nt0 wrote:
JC wrote:

There is a big difference between "considering" and "selecting."

If you're expecting Biden to go full blast on things like this with less than 2 weeks before the election which he is leading in, you're wasting your time and energy.

Is there? Does it matter?
Why would a Democratic Presidential candidate even "consider" somebody like Kasich for a cabinet position?
Why would any Democratic voter even consider defending that "consideration?"

If I wanted Republicans to have positions of import and power, I'd vote Republican.

Would you though?

Biden is clearly not a left leaning candidate. This is also on purpose.

I think you might live in a country where things have trended so right that Biden is the option that the Democrats thought was most viable.

r013nt0 wrote:
JC wrote:

There is a big difference between "considering" and "selecting."

If you're expecting Biden to go full blast on things like this with less than 2 weeks before the election which he is leading in, you're wasting your time and energy.

Is there? Does it matter?
Why would a Democratic Presidential candidate even "consider" somebody like Kasich for a cabinet position?
Why would any Democratic voter even consider defending that "consideration?"

If I wanted Republicans to have positions of import and power, I'd vote Republican.

And this is one reason why Biden was nearly dead last on my list of candidates I supported in the Democratic primary, only perhaps surpassed by Bloomberg as the worst choice.

Can we at least SOMEDAY have a Democratic candidate that has a backbone? Please? Just one?

But as things go, the other alternative is Trump, so here we are.

jowner wrote:

Would you though?

Biden is clearly not a left leaning candidate. This is also on purpose.

I think you might live in a country where things have trended so right that Biden is the option that the Democrats thought was most viable.

I mean, yes. Yes I would. If I wanted Republicans to hold White House positions, I'd vote for them. But I definitely do not, and so I definitely do not.

Biden has always been a conservative Democrat. Always. He has been labeled thus since the very start of his career. Unfortunately we just have a very large Boomer population to whom he appeals, ludicrously short memories -nobody remembers anything about the 70s and 80s, it has become abundantly clear- and a system which will do anything and everything to maintain the status quo.

You are right about the sad rightward trend of the country, though.

bekkilyn wrote:

And this is one reason why Biden was nearly dead last on my list of candidates I supported in the Democratic primary, only perhaps surpassed by Bloomberg as the worst choice.

Can we at least SOMEDAY have a Democratic candidate that has a backbone? Please? Just one?

But as things go, the other alternative is Trump, so here we are.

I am often frustrated too but I think the truth is we have had Democratic candidates with backbones but they lose in primaries. and that is how it is supposed to work really. Democrats get together look over candidates - some of them with backbones, some very conservative, some very liberal, etc. and pick the candidate they wish to run in the general election.

We call that ratf*cking.

And yes, they excel at it.

r013nt0 wrote:

We call that ratf*cking.

And yes, they excel at it.

Not trying to be dense - are you saying primaries are ratf*cking? If so how should parties pick which candidate they wish to run?

jowner wrote:
r013nt0 wrote:
JC wrote:

There is a big difference between "considering" and "selecting."

If you're expecting Biden to go full blast on things like this with less than 2 weeks before the election which he is leading in, you're wasting your time and energy.

Is there? Does it matter?
Why would a Democratic Presidential candidate even "consider" somebody like Kasich for a cabinet position?
Why would any Democratic voter even consider defending that "consideration?"

If I wanted Republicans to have positions of import and power, I'd vote Republican.

Would you though?

Biden is clearly not a left leaning candidate. This is also on purpose.

I think you might live in a country where things have trended so billions of dollars in billionaire propaganda, lobbying and vote rigging have dragged the country far enough right that Biden is the option that the Democrats thought was most viable.

Trump tells me Biden and Harris are more radical left than Sanders. Yet Sanders people tell me Biden and Harris are super sekret Republicans. I’m confused enough that I’m going to vote for Kanye.

r013nt0 wrote:

additional source

That's not an additional source. It's the "report" the Cincinnati Enquirer article is based on.

The guts of the POLITICO article itself are two unnamed sources that are "close to the Biden transition [team]" and "familiar with the transition deliberations" who say that Biden's transition team is vetting "a handful of Republicans" as potential options for Cabinet positions. The rest of the article are reactions--mostly negative--from various liberal and conservative groups.

To be absolutely clear, I'm not saying that POLITICO made up those unnamed sources. I am, however, wondering why this particular bit of information came out 14 days before the election.

One option is that the Biden campaign is trial ballooning the idea of having a Republican Cabinet member. But it seems a bit odd to do that when the exceptionally important first step--win the election--hasn't happened yet and, as the article makes absolutely clear, progressive groups seem to be vehemently against the idea.

Another option is that this information was specifically leaked to piss off the lefties who are still upset that Biden is the Democratic candidate and give them an excuse to not vote or throw their vote away on a 3rd-party candidate.

I'm not an inside baseballer when it comes to politics, but I have to imagine that two weeks out from an election campaigns have very little cycles to spend on anything that other than things that will help win said election. I can also imagine that somewhere in the Biden campaign there's a list of potential Cabinet candidates that someone threw together and maybe some very low-level staffers have begun assembling background materials on them. But I can't imagine that anyone who actually matters in the campaign is even thinking about Cabinet positions right now.

r013nt0 wrote:

And sure, why not. Uncle Joe also isn't opposed to Amy Coney Barrett and hell, thinks she seems like a very fine person.

Some context for the folks who don't think Biden should have come out of the gate personally slagging a judge who was just nominated for the Supreme Court three days before.

Transcript of the 1st Presidential Debate wrote:

Chris Wallace: (03:11)
Gentlemen, a lot of people been waiting for this night, so let’s get going. Our first subject is the Supreme Court. President Trump, you nominated Amy Coney Barrett over the weekend to succeed the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Court. You say the Constitution is clear about your obligation and the Senate’s to consider a nominee to the Court. Vice President Biden, you say that this is an effort by the President and Republicans to jam through on an appointment in what you call an abuse of power. My first question to both of you tonight, why are you right in the argument you make and your opponent wrong? And where do you think a Justice Barrett would take the court? President Trump, in this first segment, you go first. Two minutes.

...

Vice President Joe Biden: (05:36)
The American people have a right to have a say in who the Supreme Court nominee is and that say occurs when they vote for United States Senators and when they vote for the President of United States. They’re not going to get that chance now because we’re in the middle of an election already. The election has already started. Tens of thousands of people already voted and so the thing that should happen is we should wait. We should wait and see what the outcome of this election is because that’s the only way the American people get to express their view is by who they elect as President and who they elect as Vice President.

Vice President Joe Biden: (06:12)
Now, what’s at stake here is the President’s made it clear, he wants to get rid of the Affordable Care Act. He’s been running on that, he ran on that and he’s been governing on that. He’s in the Supreme Court right now trying to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, which will strip 20 million people from having health insurance now, if it goes into court. And the justice, I’m not opposed to the justice, she seems like a very fine person. But she’s written, before she went in the bench, which is her right, that she thinks that the Affordable Care Act is not Constitutional. The other thing that’s on the court, and if it’s struck down, what happens? Women’s rights are fundamentally changed. Once again, a woman could pay more money because she has a pre-existing condition of pregnancy. They’re able to charge women more for the same exact procedure a man gets.

Vice President Joe Biden: (07:08)
And that ended when we, in fact, passed the Affordable Care Act, and there’s a hundred million people who have pre-existing conditions and they’ll be taken away as well. Those pre-existing conditions, insurance companies are going to love this. And so it’s just not appropriate to do this before this election. If he wins the election and the Senate is Republican, then he goes forward. If not, we should wait until February.

President Donald J. Trump: (07:34)
There aren’t a hundred million people with pre-existing conditions. As far as a say is concerned, the people already had their say. Okay, Justice Ginsburg said very powerfully, very strongly, at some point 10 years ago or so, she said a President and the Senate is elected for a period of time, but a President is elected for four years. We’re not elected for three years. I’m not elected for three years. So we have the Senate, we have a President-

Vice President Joe Biden: (08:01)
He’s elected to the next election.

President Donald J. Trump: (08:02)
During that period of time, during that period of time, we have an opening. I’m not elected for three years. I’m elected for four years. Joe, the hundred million people is totally wrong. I don’t know where you got that number. The bigger problem that you have is that you’re going to extinguish 180 million people with their private health care, that they’re very happy this.

Vice President Joe Biden: (08:24)
That’s simply not true.

President Donald J. Trump: (08:25)
Well, you’re certainly going to socialist. You’re going to socialist medicine-

Chris Wallace: (08:29)
Gentlemen, we’re now into open discussion.

Vice President Joe Biden: (08:31)
Open discussion.

Chris Wallace: (08:32)
Open discussion, yes, I agree. Go ahead, Vice President.

Vice President Joe Biden: (08:33)
Number one, he knows what I proposed. What I proposed is that we expand Obamacare and we increase it. We do not wipe any. And one of the big debates we had with 23 of my colleagues trying to win the nomination that I won, were saying that Biden wanted to allow people to have private insurance still. They can. They do. They will under my proposal.

President Donald J. Trump: (08:58)
That’s not what you’ve said and it’s not what your party is saying.

Vice President Joe Biden: (09:00)
That is simply a lie.

President Donald J. Trump: (09:02)
Your party doesn’t say it. Your party wants to go socialist medicine and socialist healthcare.

Vice President Joe Biden: (09:05)
The party is me. Right now, I am the Democratic Party.

President Donald J. Trump: (09:08)
And they’re going to dominate you, Joe. You know that.

Vice President Joe Biden: (09:09)
I am the Democratic Party right now.

President Donald J. Trump: (09:11)
Not according to Harris.

Vice President Joe Biden: (09:12)
The platform of the Democratic Party is what I, in fact, approved of, what I approved of. Now, here’s the deal. The deal is that it’s going to wipe out pre-existing conditions. And, by the way, the 20, the 200 mil- the 200,000 people that have died on his watch, how many of those have survived? Well, there’s seven million people that contracted COVID. What does it mean for them going forward if you strike down the Affordable Care Act?

President Donald J. Trump: (09:39)
Joe, you’ve had 308,000 military people dying because you couldn’t provide them proper healthcare in the military. So don’t tell me about this.

Vice President Joe Biden: (09:47)
I’m happy to talk about this.

President Donald J. Trump: (09:48)
And if you were here, it wouldn’t be 200, it would be two million people because you were very late on the draw. You didn’t want me to ban China, which was heavily infected. You didn’t want me to ban Europe.

Chris Wallace: (09:58)
All right, gentlemen, Mr. President.

President Donald J. Trump: (10:00)
You would have been much later, Joe, much later.

Chris Wallace: (10:04)
Mr. President.

President Donald J. Trump: (10:04)
We’re talking about two million people.

Vice President Joe Biden: (10:05)
You’re not going to be able to shut him up.

Chris Wallace: (10:06)
Mr. President, as the moderator, we are going to talk about COVID in the next segment. But go ahead.

Vice President Joe Biden: (10:11)
Let me finish. The point is that the President also is opposed to Roe V. Wade. That’s on the ballot as well and the court, in the court, and so that’s also at stake right now. And so the election is all-

President Donald J. Trump: (10:25)
You don’t know what’s on the ballot. Why is it on the ballot? Why is it on the ballot? It’s not on the ballot.

Vice President Joe Biden: (10:31)
It’s on the ballot in the court.

President Donald J. Trump: (10:32)
I don’t think so.

Vice President Joe Biden: (10:33)
In the court.

President Donald J. Trump: (10:34)
There’s nothing happening there.

Vice President Joe Biden: (10:35)
Donald would you just be quiet for a minute.

President Donald J. Trump: (10:36)
You don’t know her view on Roe V. Wade? You don’t know here view.

Chris Wallace: (10:40)
Well, all right. All right. Let’s talk. We’ve got a lot to unpack here, gentlemen. We’ve got a lot of time. On healthcare, and then we’ll come back to Roe V. Wade.

Vice President Joe Biden: (10:51)
All right.

farley3k wrote:

Not trying to be dense - are you saying primaries are ratf*cking? If so how should parties pick which candidate they wish to run?

Yes, I'm saying that in our flawed system of primaries, the interests of the powers that be in maintaining the status quo not only encourage but in fact require ratf*cking on the part of the DNC/RNC, the media, and corporate-approved candidates. It happens to both Republican and Democratic party candidates.

I like that idea. Kasich would be a good pick for a Biden administration. I know Twitter wants Biden to wage an all-out war against Republicans, but that sh*t doesn't fly in the real world.

r013nt0 wrote:
jowner wrote:

Would you though?

Biden is clearly not a left leaning candidate. This is also on purpose.

I think you might live in a country where things have trended so right that Biden is the option that the Democrats thought was most viable.

I mean, yes. Yes I would. If I wanted Republicans to hold White House positions, I'd vote for them. But I definitely do not, and so I definitely do not.

Biden has always been a conservative Democrat. Always. He has been labeled thus since the very start of his career. Unfortunately we just have a very large Boomer population to whom he appeals, ludicrously short memories -nobody remembers anything about the 70s and 80s, it has become abundantly clear- and a system which will do anything and everything to maintain the status quo.

You are right about the sad rightward trend of the country, though.

You have made this assertion repeatedly, but other than just belief, where are you getting the data that Biden has been a conservative Democrat?

From this 538 piece, the data would indicate that Biden has always positioned himself in the dead center of the party.

Serving in the Senate from 1973-2009, Biden was always more liberal than at least 44 percent of his Democratic colleagues but always less liberal than at least 43 percent of his colleagues, according to DW-Nominate scores of his Senate votes. Put another way, he ranged between the 44th and 57th percentile in terms of liberalism among Democratic senators in his Senate years — smack dab in the middle of the party.
OG_slinger wrote:

One option is that the Biden campaign is trial ballooning the idea of having a Republican Cabinet member. But it seems a bit odd to do that when the exceptionally important first step--win the election--hasn't happened yet and, as the article makes absolutely clear, progressive groups seem to be vehemently against the idea.

Another option is that this information was specifically leaked to piss off the lefties who are still upset that Biden is the Democratic candidate and give them an excuse to not vote or throw their vote away on a 3rd-party candidate.

Yeah I mean it's a super far stretch to think that the guy who spent the 70s and early to mid 80s well to the right of a significant number of Republican members of Congress, who consistently talks about how he loves to work across the aisle with his pals like Strom, and who said he would consider a Republican running mate -though he couldn't think of a suitable one at the time- would consider appointing a Republican to his cabinet. Really reaching, there.

There's no such thing as "Lefties" who don't already know or assume this about him who haven't already decided one way or another how they will be voting. This would sway absolutely nobody.

OG_slinger wrote:

Another option is that this information was specifically leaked to piss off the lefties who are still upset that Biden is the Democratic candidate and give them an excuse to not vote or throw their vote away on a 3rd-party candidate.

Now who could possibly do such a thing?

Badferret wrote:

You have made this assertion repeatedly, but other than just belief, where are you getting the data that Biden has been a conservative democrat?

His voting record vs that of even progressive Republicans throughout the 70s, notably during the Carter administration. From reading his positions vs other Senate Democrats. And from history books. Here's an excerpt from Reaganland, for example:

IMAGE(https://i.ibb.co/7GFvjPm/image.png)

The "Dead Center" of the Democratic party throughout the 70s and 80s would still make him a Conservative. There was, at that time believe it or not, some variance within parties. There were Liberal and Conservative Republicans. There were Liberal, Conservative, and Progressive Democrats. The baseball guy's numbers don't actually tell the story.

Jesus f*cking Christmas. This again?

SallyNasty wrote:

Jesus f*cking Christmas. This again?

Yup. This again.

Those with a predilection to dislike someone will find reasons to do so, no matter how thinly sourced they might be. That's the entire point of the Hunter Biden "leak". It doesn't have to hold up, it just had to fit certain people's preferred reality. I'll file this Kasich "leak" in the same round file.

Badferret wrote:

From this 538 piece, the data would indicate that Biden has always positioned himself in the dead center of the party.

Yeah, exactly. The big appeal of Biden is that he's not ideological. He's not interested in moving America to the left or the right. He simply wants to get to work and, well, build back better. He wants to fight covid, improve healthcare accessibility, fight climate change, etc. And he's just as happy to work alongside Bernie Sanders as Mitch McConnell to get it done.

Also, Biden has first-hand experience of Republicans deliberately stonewalling Obama and crippling his presidency. The idea that he's going to walk into the same mistake that Obama did is more than a little silly. Hell, Biden has even said that he's open to court packing. Does that really sound like a hidden conservative willing to cower before the Republicans?

Djinn wrote:
Badferret wrote:

From this 538 piece, the data would indicate that Biden has always positioned himself in the dead center of the party.

Yeah, exactly. The big appeal of Biden is that he's not ideological. He's not interested in moving America to the left or the right. He simply wants to get to work and, well, build back better. He wants to fight covid, improve healthcare accessibility, fight climate change, etc. And he's just as happy to work alongside Bernie Sanders as Mitch McConnell to get it done.

I think the reason this debate keeps coming up is because there's a disagreement on what's "better".