US Presidential Election 2020

everlast75 wrote: »

I agree.

I also thought that if Biden says that he is running with Harris for A.G., Mayor Pete for Minister for the Interior, Warren for Sec of State etc etc and name the all star team in advance of the election, with Obama on the trail too, I think it will be a stronger chance of beating Trump.

Absolutely.

sid waddell wrote: »

There was really no hint though during the election campaign in 2008 that Obama was going to give Clinton a cabinet position. My recollection is that the announcement when it came in, I guess December or January after he won, was widely perceived as a big surprise.

You get one shot at an olive branch to other wings of a party during your campaign and that's the VP nomination.

Obama used that very effectively. Al Gore used it terribly.

It's funny you say that. After I posted this earlier, I was thinking to myself as to when it actually happened. I genuinely don't remember it happening any earlier than you suggest. But there is a lingering (maybe false?) memory of the concession of some sort of cabinet position being mentioned for HRC during the late stages of the campaign. Forgive my momentary lapse either way.

I've no idea why Elizabeth warren is still in the race. I mean it was a tough ask for her to get the nomination anyway but she came third in Massachusetts where she is the senior senator for that state. I mean Bernie sanders won his home state and Biden will likely win his home state of Delaware but even given the way she couldn't even get second in her own state.

It's really a weird thing with the USA in that they go on about equality and all that yet for the so called greatest democracy in the world it's never had a female president or Vice President whereas many counties have had female prime ministers and presidents for years.

The next debate is on March 15th. If Warren drops out before that, it'll be Sanders vs Biden one on one.

sid waddell wrote: »

It's difficult, pretty much impossible, to eviscerate a troll leading a cult because a troll leading a cult has no shame and can't be shamed. The troll exists in a different world, a reality-free world. They glory in their scumminess.

Bloomberg may be worth a hell of a lot more money than Trump, but he isn't a troll, he exists in a reality-based world, which is why he decided to apologise for stop and frisk. When Warren eviscerated Bloomberg, you could sense Bloomberg's embarrassment inside. It was Bloomberg's clear embarrassment that made the moment and made the attack work. If an audience cheers on such an evisceration, the effect is magnified.

The reason Bloomberg so clearly paid a load of the audience at the second debate he was in was because he knew Warren would go after him again. She did, and said pretty much the same things. But the difference this time is that when she went after him, Bloomberg's paid audience members all booed. When Bloomberg responded, they cheered. And that makes a huge difference to the casual viewer - if you were following Twitter during both times Warren attacked Bloomberg, the reaction to her attack in the first debate was pretty much univerally positive, whereas the reaction in the second was quite negative. The problem for Bloomberg was that he was already fecked after the first attack, which killed his campaign stone dead there and then.

But Trump cannot be shamed in such an environment. He won't do the debates because he relies on adoring, cheering crowds, like all demagogues. In the unlikely event he did do the debates, he'd make sure the crowd is packed to the rafters with his supporters.

Can't see him dodging the debates. He would at the least use it as an opportunity to get a few soundbites that sympathetic media would run with.
Also it could potentially be against Joe Biden, hardly a Titan of debating.

The Trump and Biden debates are going to be something else.

Water John wrote: »

I think the decision Warren is making, is not will she leave but who might she endorse, if she comes out for anyone.

She's in a tricky spot alright. Endorsing Bernie makes sense and would be on brand with fighting the good fight etc but given that Bernie looks done, it runs the risk of needlessly prolonging the process and giving Bernie supporters reason to feel aggrieved when he falls short. It's a tough call.

sid waddell wrote: »

It's difficult, pretty much impossible, to eviscerate a troll leading a cult because a troll leading a cult has no shame and can't be shamed. The troll exists in a different world, a reality-free world. They glory in their scumminess.

Bloomberg may be worth a hell of a lot more money than Trump, but he isn't a troll, he exists in a reality-based world, which is why he decided to apologise for stop and frisk. When Warren eviscerated Bloomberg, you could sense Bloomberg's embarrassment inside. It was Bloomberg's clear embarrassment that made the moment and made the attack work. If an audience cheers on such an evisceration, the effect is magnified.

It takes two to tango - the candidate and the voters.

Democratic voters and liberals more generally are less religious, less tribal, more likely to vote based on policies and change their minds about facts.

Elections are a self-selective process. Trump won the Republican nomination because truth and facts aren't relevant to it, but they are far more so in a Democratic nomination.

Bloomberg did not, I think, apologise or take a backwards step because he felt actual remorse. He did it because he had to. There's also far less tendency for candidates to totally flip 180 degrees on a position and just pretend like you never had your original position for a liberal. In both cases, if you tried that you wouldn't get very far. But it's not even remotely an issue for conservatism. It has absolutely no bearing on their position.

Just think about how people in Britain still moan about the Lib Dems breaking promises under the coalition with the Tories and compare that to how the Tories can apparently do whatever the **** they want.

The only effect I can see of Trump doing debates is that he'll humiliate himself and drive away low information floating voters who don't really know much about politics and weren't really aware of what he's like. There's no possible benefit in terms of his base. They're already as whipped up as they're likely to get.

And I don't think it'll be a Trump decision. I'm sure he thinks he'll do great. I'd imagine that whoever is in charge of his campaign will be the one pushing him to avoid them.

vetinari wrote: »

My worry is that it will turn off a lot of Bernie's core vote and that they don't turn up in November.

The issue is that they're already not turning up. They never do.

I had heard a few people, I think maybe on the 538 podcast, talking about how when they dug into the numbers for Sanders, there were assumptions being made about turnout in his key demographics that were a bit fanciful. There's always going to be a difference between you going out and polling people vs them going out and voting.

Obviously it's not as simple as Sanders being all young voters, and Biden being everyone else - they're still pretty close, but the edge that Sanders seemed to have is now looking like it was made of, errr, britle stuff, all along.