US Presidential Election 2020

Brian?

Kimsang wrote: »

What about this, is not going to work here I'm afraid. Try to deal with a topic I've mentioned already and I'll happily and kindly reply.

That was a direct reply to your post.

Manic Moran

Dog Man Star wrote: »

Biden hasn't a chance.

Elizabeth Warren will be the candidate, no question. And she will beat Trump easily.

Something I don't think the polls are addressing is the possibility of crossover votes from Republicans in the Democratic primary. Even if there were a primary on the Republican side, I'll wager that a number would see the writing on the wall and believe that a Democrat is likely to win, and will want an influence in that democrat's selection.
But in this case, there doesn't seem to be a Republican primary for Republicans to vote in. In states with open primaries, those Republicans can vote in the Democrat primary, and, after all, they don't have anything better to do when they go to the polls. That means that there are 21 States where Republicans can swing the vote between Biden and Warren or whoever else. Biden is one of the most moderate of the Democrat candidates, and he is making no bones about the fact that it's the moderates who are winning elections.

This makes a bit of a change from the traditional primary season of last year, where Republicans and Democrats generally kept themselves to themselves.

AOC will be 45 years old in 2035. She will easily see out 8 years as President then.

Either she's going to have to moderate her position, or there will have to be some pretty significant politico-demographic changes in the US by then for her to make President. As one Democrat put it, she lives in a different electoral reality to most of the US.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/08/politics/joe-biden-aoc-2020/index.html
Former Vice President Joe Biden wanted to make a simple point in his interview with CNN's Chris Cuomo: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez -- and others like her -- don't win competitive general elections.
[...]
Which is, generally speaking, true! The Democrats who led the charge back to the House majority were, by and large, people running as moderates -- willing to take good ideas from any side of the political aisle to get stuff done for the public. Those, like New York's AOC, who represent overwhelmingly Democratic districts were free to advocate for large liberal projects (like the "Green New Deal") because they had no danger of any sort of Republican challenge in a general election.

BluePlanet

BTW, AOC is currently working on legislation with Ted Cruz on prohibiting former lawmakers from becoming lobbyists.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/06/politics/aoc-ted-cruz-working-together/index.html
This is something Dems and Reps could have undertaken at any time during the last half century.

pixelburp

Rumour is that Eric Swalwell is dropping out of the race this afternoon, which would make him the first of that batch of 20+ to bow out. O'Rourke is supposedly rebooting his campaign for a second time.

Danzy

BluePlanet wrote: »

BTW, AOC is currently working on legislation with Ted Cruz on prohibiting former lawmakers from becoming lobbyists.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/06/politics/aoc-ted-cruz-working-together/index.html
This is something Dems and Reps could have undertaken at any time during the last half century.

Aoc and Cruz are as crazy as each other but we'll done to both on this.

Rjd2

pixelburp wrote: »

Rumour is that Eric Swalwell is dropping out of the race this afternoon, which would make him the first of that batch of 20+ to bow out. O'Rourke is supposedly rebooting his campaign for a second time.

Huh maybe screaming pass the torch at older popular Dems was not the master plan he initially thought?

His worst moment however in the debate when he told Mayor Pete he should have fired the chief over a really complicated shooting,,,such a simplistic Trump esque answer. The glare from Pete afterwards is :eek:

Rjd2

Danzy wrote: »

Aoc and Cruz are as crazy as each other but we'll done to both on this.

Cruz has always had an issue with term limits,that something AOC should work with to sort, no matter left or right, its crazy how long some of those people are in the house and senate.

Rjd2

Tom Steyer the billionaire who is obsessed with impeaching Trump is entering the race. It won't matter in the grand scheme of things, but does come across as a vanity project which is not the dems need when there is so many people on stage.

Professor Moriarty

Rjd2 wrote: »

Tom Steyer the billionaire who is obsessed with impeaching Trump is entering the race. It won't matter in the grand scheme of things, but does come across as a vanity project which is not the dems need when there is so many people on stage.

If he spends millions attacking Trump before exiting then it won't be all bad.

Danzy

Rjd2 wrote: »

Tom Steyer the billionaire who is obsessed with impeaching Trump is entering the race. It won't matter in the grand scheme of things, but does come across as a vanity project which is not the dems need when there is so many people on stage.

There has been so much frothing at the mouth about Trump for the last three years that a little more will not matter to him, it just wears people out.

The same hectoring and preaching did for the Catholic Church, it may well do for Trump's opponents once more.

pixelburp

Rjd2 wrote: »

Tom Steyer the billionaire who is obsessed with impeaching Trump is entering the race. It won't matter in the grand scheme of things, but does come across as a vanity project which is not the dems need when there is so many people on stage.

It's gotta be a tax thing, right? Nobody could look at a 20+ field made up of folks on 1% and think, I can do well here. Biden, Warren, Sanders and Harris, the rest are wasting time and money.

Danzy

Probably ego, a chance to bash Trump, massive self belief etc.

Itssoeasy

hopefully Corey Booker is next out of the race after Swalwell. He's a terrible candidate.

pixelburp

Danzy wrote: »

Probably ego, a chance to bash Trump, massive self belief etc.

Yeah, but doesn't Trump claim back travel and fuel expenses for his "campaign" stops since Jan 17? 3 million from the coffers on a trip to an Irish golf course too don't forget. Seems like if you know what you're doing, running a presidential campaign could be a nice little tax fiddle.

Agree about Booker, he's in a tie with O'Rourke for the highest profile, early dropout.

Rjd2

Future CNN debate rules,,,this sticks out.

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/09/politics/cnn-debate-rules/index.html

There will be no show of hands or one-word, down-the-line questions.

Just odd this. Never heard anyone complain about this and on a crowded stage its a very good idea.

Kimsang

Was just listening to Sam Harris' "Making sense" Podcast from June 18th.

Sam argued that:
"If you are going to stand on the left and equate any concern about immigration or any concern about having defensible border with racism, everytime, there are enough people in this country who are sick of being called racist, when they're not actually racist, who will vote for Trump over your woke candidate, who is framing everything in terms of racism and white supremacy"- Harris

"No candidate is running on this absolute Utopian concern that the US should let everyone in, no background checks, no nothing"-Yascha Mounk(Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies)

Yascha got that one hilariously wrong, eh?

https://samharris.org/podcasts/the-revenge-of-history/

Loafing Oaf

I just stuck a few quid on Biden to be the next POTUS at 10/1. I reckon it's between himself and Harris for the nomination and I think either beats Trump.

pixelburp

Were I a betting man I'd stick some on Warren. Biden and Harris are early bolters but as the campaign matures, drama will turn to policy and this is arguably where Warren trumps the above. She had already shown some momentum in polling, and as Biden drops it's between Warren and Sanders to benefit the most - though I suspect Sanders might flstline this time around.

eagle eye

None of those mentioned in the two posts above will beat Trump.
It's a sad state of affairs when the party can't see wood from the trees.
They need to find a centre candidate, a decent, smart man, and all get behind him.

Loafing Oaf

pixelburp wrote: »

Were I a betting man I'd stick some on Warren. Biden and Harris are early bolters but as the campaign matures, drama will turn to policy and this is arguably where Warren trumps the above. She had already shown some momentum in polling, and as Biden drops it's between Warren and Sanders to benefit the most - though I suspect Sanders might flstline this time around.

It seems unlikely to me that they would nominate someone as far to the left (in American terms) as Warren or Sanders. And I think either, particularly Sanders, would struggle to beat Trump. But that's just 'conventional wisdom'...

MadYaker

What do people think trumps talking points will be this time around? No wall or even funding for it, Obamacare still up and running, What’s he got to shout about?

Wanderer78

MadYaker wrote:

What do people think trumps talking points will be this time around? No wall or even funding for it, Obamacare still up and running, What’s he got to shout about?

Lock her up, lock her up! Should work no problem

The last few posts imply that Trump is an anomaly that got elected because of his shouting.

Like Brexit, the reasons are far deeper and harder to fix.

Loafing Oaf

eagle eye wrote: »

They need to find a centre candidate, a decent, smart man, and all get behind him.

No such thing as a decent, smart woman in your eyes?

Phoebas

MadYaker wrote: »

What do people think trumps talking points will be this time around? No wall or even funding for it, Obamacare still up and running, What’s he got to shout about?

An incumbent president needs to run on their record in Government. For his base, Trump will point to successes on getting Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court and wins on immigration (e.g. the travel ban).
For the wider American public, you can expect him to focus on the economy - which is doing really well right now.

hill16bhoy

Deleted User wrote: »

The last few posts imply that Trump is an anomaly that got elected because of his shouting.

Like Brexit, the reasons are far deeper and harder to fix.

And they sure aren't going to be fixed by electing a "centrist".

pixelburp

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

It seems unlikely to me that they would nominate someone as far to the left (in American terms) as Warren or Sanders. And I think either, particularly Sanders, would struggle to beat Trump. But that's just 'conventional wisdom'...

The irony of Trump and the Republicans trying to nuke Medicare and the ACA is that it has shown just how popular they both truly are (notwithstanding those who supported repealing Obamacare but wanted to keep the ACA :rolleyes:). At one point the Reps replacement bill polled at 19% support IIRC. The ACA gave people a taste of more affordable healthcare, and who doesn't want more of that?

Warren and Sanders are running on two deceptively popular platforms, deceptive mostly because the hitherto standard narrative has been loathed to emphasise government run schemes that skirt too close to "socialism" - given the Soviet connotations to the baby boomer demographic, it's no wonder.

I suspect with those Boomers fading away you have newer demographics hitting adulthood in the era of the ACA, politicians realising that Medicare for All aren't getting the rebuttal that might have once come their way. Maybe this cycle is one too soon but honestly with the right person behind it, further left of centre policies are possible.

Sanders is bullish, maybe too much so but Warren strikes the kind of folksy stature that could push formally taboo policies.

MadYaker

Last time around he was an unknown quantity and I can see how undecided voters may have been convinced considering how awful Hillary was. But that’s not case anymore, his base won’t be enough to get him across the line he needs to pull some votes from the middle ground as well and I don’t see how he’s going to do that.

Danzy

He'll campaign on the red hot U.S. economy and jobs market.

He'll show how his crackdown on illegal migration has massively benfitted working class America, whether they are white, black or hispanic.

He talk foreign policy, mostly he'll appeal to America as a non interventionist President abroad, which they yearn for.

He can appeal to his base on getting 2 more supreme court justices, probably, in next term.

He hasn't got the wall but illegal migration is falling, as a % population is now at the lowest in 15 years, see this for fast rising wages for American Working Class.

That is just a few.

He is not certain to win but he'll be difficult to beat and the Democrat nominees are weak by any standard.

hill16bhoy

MadYaker wrote: »

Last time around he was an unknown quantity and I can see how undecided voters may have been convinced considering how awful Hillary was. But that’s not case anymore, his base won’t be enough to get him across the line he needs to pull some votes from the middle ground as well and I don’t see how he’s going to do that.

Voter suppression and vote rigging