US Presidential Election 2020

Water John · 12-02-2020 2:39pm

Dems candidates down to 8 already. Would expect 2 more to drop out soon.
Left with Sanders, Buttigeig, Bloomberg, Klobuchar, Warren, Biden,

Of those Warren would need to turn it around quick. Biden needs to score big in Nevada, and South Carolina. If the coloured vote starts leaving him, he's gone.
Dems are looking firstly, for a winner. Possibly down to four by the middle of March.

Red for Danger · 12-02-2020 3:24pm

In general I've never known Americans left or right to have any less common sense than that of those from other countries.
Health care is taken more serious than any of this, Sanders message on health care will be believed, and on that he'll beat trump.

AbusesToilets · 12-02-2020 3:57pm

I'm disappointed in how Warren has been going about business the last month or so. She's letting the campaign slip away from her. She needs to attack Pete, call out his corporate emptiness.

FreeThePants · 12-02-2020 3:59pm

Red for Danger wrote: »

In general I've never known Americans left or right to have any less common sense than that of those from other countries.
Health care is taken more serious than any of this, Sanders message on health care will be believed, and on that he'll beat trump.

Depends on which Americans you know, your situation sounds similar to someone visiting 1980s Northern Ireland meeting a bunch of Catholics and being convinced that the country would want unity with the Republic as a result.

I on the other hand, spent the other night laughing while my other half was trying to convince her aunt in Louisiana that .gov official government sites are not "fake news liberal media propaganda". She also hates Obamacare but loves the a a which she insists Trump brought in ('Obamacare' is a nickname for the ACA). These people are real, and they're every bit as lacking in sense as made out. She also likes to rant and rave about immigrants destroying 'her country' despite being animmigrant herself, go figure.

FreeThePants · 12-02-2020 4:08pm

Water John wrote: »

. If the coloured vote starts leaving him (Biden), he's gone.

That's also proven to be another myth propagated by media. First, I don't recall minorities ever having issue with Sanders and with them typically being on the lower end of the economic scale, they are some of the biggest beneficiaries of his policies and proposals.

Second, Biden is not as popular with minority voters as we had pushed on us. In fact, Sanders is even polling above Biden among black voters and is considerably ahead among Hispanic voters - https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/z3bnvw/exclusive-poll-just-as-many-african-americans-say-theyd-consider-voting-for-bernie-sanders-as-joe-biden

The "electable" dog whistle campaign becomes more and more comical by the day to be honest.

FreeThePants · 12-02-2020 4:53pm

And one other strange one is that CNN continuously pointed out the worryingly low turnout in NH yesterday. I wasn't following too closely but still heard it repeatedly, whenever I checked for an update.

It turns out the 'low turnout' was the highest in any NH primary there has ever been, currently over 293,000 and with 2 or 3% still to be counted.

The exact same was said of Iowa, even though it had higher turnout than 2016 (though less than 2008).

The subtlety of the anti sanders crowd is dying fast with Bidens collapse it seems. They're just scrambling to make stuff up at this point.

Tchaikovsky · 12-02-2020 5:04pm

The media's bias against Bernie is quite something. No doubt they have an arsenal that they can pull out the further he goes.

pixelburp · 12-02-2020 5:08pm

70 years of cultural and societal bias against Socialism isn't going to go away overnight though; I'd be more surprised if mainstream media wasn't angling to skew against Sanders TBH. It'll all come down to how mobilised that younger vote is, those demographics for whom "Socialism" isn't a by-word for commies & authoritarian regimes. Without looking for actual stats, I'm going to go ahead and presume that support for Sanders collapses around the 45+ age bracket, right? That those who grew up around or after the fall of the Berlin Wall simply don't have the same hang ups.

rossie1977 · 12-02-2020 5:18pm

Media will always pick on someone. Last election it was Hillary Clinton who overwhelmingly got negative press from the media while Sanders was mostly positive.

Fr Tod Umptious · 12-02-2020 6:30pm

Deval Patrick has pulled out of the race.

That didn't last long.

StringerBell · 12-02-2020 7:42pm

Forgot he was in the race, was he ever really?

The voter turnout thing is that it was not the same level as he mid terms I think and the worry that as usual the Democrats will leave it on the field by not getting enough votes to the polls.

If you believe the media is biased toward the left you can say that they are possibly pushing the low turnout angle to scare the voters into getting out to vote, worried that not enough people are turning out. Giving them that extra push.

If you believe the media is biased toward its bottom line then you can say that they will push a narrative of whatever is going to generate the most interest and a fear or worrying narrative is better for that then a everything in the garden is rosy narrative.

FreeThePants · 12-02-2020 7:51pm

Thstndoesnt add up either though - the democratic primaries in 2018 drew only 72,500 voters. Over four times as many voted in yesterday's democratic primary.

Red for Danger · 12-02-2020 8:03pm

rossie1977 wrote: »

Media will always pick on someone. Last election it was Hillary Clinton who overwhelmingly got negative press from the media while Sanders was mostly positive.

There was a media blackout of sanders in 2016 he had massive rallies all over the country far bigger than trumps, close to 30000 and not a word from msm.
Seeing their obvious biased reporting is what has given Sanders so many troupes on the ground.
On march 15th 3rd super tuesday, all the main networks covered all the main candidates speechs both dems and reps, Bernie Sanders had the biggest rally of all them in Phoenix Arizona, but it was if it never happened to the major networks.
Most networks had their cameras fixed on trumps empty podiums 30 mins before he came out.
Trump got 5 billions in free media in 2016, the heads of all the major networks say same thing when challenged about this " he's good for ratings"

StringerBell · 12-02-2020 8:06pm

FreeThePants wrote: »

Thstndoesnt add up either though - the democratic primaries in 2018 drew only 72,500 voters. Over four times as many voted in yesterday's democratic primary.

I didn't look into it tbh so I've no idea, wouldn't change my point either way really.

FreeThePants · 12-02-2020 8:54pm

StringerBell wrote: »

I didn't look into it tbh so I've no idea, wouldn't change my point either way really.

Frankly I think your last paragraph was quite accurate, but misses a wider point - they are interested in ratings, clicks and revenue streams, but the heads of these companies are considerably more interested in not seeing their taxes go up. That's beyond 'sell papers' capitalist democracy cynicism, it's oligarchical.

When they've sunk to the point of calling a guy who if he won would be the first Jewish president of the US, who lost many family members in the Holocaust, and his followers which have many Jewish people among them, nazis... there's a problem.

Manic Moran · 12-02-2020 10:49pm

FreeThePants wrote: »

Thstndoesnt add up either though - the democratic primaries in 2018 drew only 72,500 voters. Over four times as many voted in yesterday's democratic primary.

Overall, the numbers are down. The Democratic Primary NH total in 2016 was some 253,000. 2020 is looking at some 293,000. It may look like an increase, but bear with me.

New Hampshire has a semi-open primary. Independents, who make up almost half the state (The highest proportion of any State, I believe), may vote in the primary of any party. If you are registered to a party, you must vote for your own party.

Total registered figures are here: https://sos.nh.gov/NamesHistory.aspx
286,735 Democrats, 288,464 Republicans, 415,871 Independents.

Given that Trump is the de-facto Republican nominee, that means that a very large proportion of the 285,000 who voted in the Republican primary in 2016 when there was an actual race would have seen no point in voting in it again this year. As a result, Republican primary numbers have dropped this year, it's looking like under 150,000 voted in it. The overwhelming majority are probably registered Republicans, as they have no choice but to vote in their own party's primary.

That means that, in theory, there were some 130,000 'available' voters who voted Republican in 2016 who could now vote in the Democratic primary without affecting the overall state voter turnout numbers at all. But with no other show in town, the Democrats only attracted 40,000 of that 130,000. The rest stayed home.

Or, if you wish to look at it another way, out of a possible 684,606 strong voter pool eligible to vote in it. the Democrat primary attracted less than half.

sid waddell · 13-02-2020 11:23am

Manic Moran wrote: »

Overall, the numbers are down. The Democratic Primary NH total in 2016 was some 253,000. 2020 is looking at some 293,000. It may look like an increase, but bear with me.

It may look like Liverpool are leading the Premier League, but I'm going to explain to you now why that's not so, and why Manchester United are actually leading it.

Nah, I won't.

It looks like an increase because it is an increase.

Water John · 13-02-2020 11:37am

The 3rd March is coming around soon, things will be a lot clearer then. Who has survived, even Nevada and South Carolina, before then. Where will Bloomberg be?
The New Hampshire primary was excellently run and watching the results come in was fascinating.

LuckyLloyd · 13-02-2020 11:44am

Super Tuesday will clarify what role Bloomberg has to play. His whole strategy is centred on a good outing there. If he doesn’t make a breakthrough, then it’s a question of whether Biden or Warren can make any hay.

My guess is it will be Sanders vs Bloomberg as we approach the convention.

Hande hoche! · 13-02-2020 1:46pm

With the closeness of South Carolina to Super Tuesday, imagine anyone that's made it to the former will hang on till the third of March.
Will be very curious as to how Bloomberg performs in debates.

pixelburp · 13-02-2020 2:09pm

Honestly, were it not for this thread, I'd have forgotten Bloomberg was even in the race. Perhaps it's just the skew of the media I'm watching but I'm struggling to think of what exact impact Bloomberg has had on this race? Nor was he polling well beforehand iirc. The talk has been Sanders v Buttigieg, with Klobaucher surprising in third place. No narrative has mentioned Bloomberg, so why do people reckon he'll persist? Just cos he's rich with money to burn or is he reckoned to be a actual late Stormer?

Hande hoche! · 13-02-2020 2:18pm

pixelburp wrote: »

Honestly, were it not for this thread, I'd have forgotten Bloomberg was even in the race. Perhaps it's just the skew of the media I'm watching but I'm struggling to think of what exact impact Bloomberg has had on this race? Nor was he polling well beforehand iirc. The talk has been Sanders v Buttigieg, with Klobaucher surprising in third place. No narrative has mentioned Bloomberg, so why do people reckon he'll persist? Just cos he's rich with money to burn or is he reckoned to be a actual late Stormer?

I had to check there what his strategy was again, sit out the first four and then launch a heavy go on Super Tuesday.

Part of it is if there is no "main stream" alternative to Bernie emerging, there might be a panic towards him. The sheer abundance of funds may boost his appeal.

Fair point as regards the polling. Looking at some of the the later voting states the likes of Steyer is still getting some support. Usual caveats apply to that, looking back to polls less than a month ago had Biden leading in New Hampshire.

Water John · 13-02-2020 2:22pm

There is an opening for Bloomberg because the most important point for most Dems is electability. Who can beat Trump.
He has to take the ground presently occupied by, Buttigeig, Klobuchar and Biden.

Red for Danger · 13-02-2020 2:34pm

The Bloomberg thing is just the establishment and centrist needing a little time to accept that it's, Bernie's ,Ro kanna AOC's etc party now, soon enough they'll begin to accept it. Then we'll see how truthful all this "unity to beat trump" stuff is.
The msm are also going to have to accept that the power they once had has been greatly reduced. All their biased pro Washington reporting and spin gets called out day in day out by online and independent media.

Joe_ Public · 13-02-2020 2:34pm

Bloomberg is a former republican mayor, trump was a democrat who stole republican cloak to launch a bid for the WH. Beneath the surface they're not very different people and bloomberg, with help from powerful media allies, will play on that narrative that he will surely know best how to appeal to putative trump supporters. Its horrible to think there might be some logic in that, but plenty will fall for it i'm sure.

Red for Danger · 13-02-2020 2:42pm

Water John wrote: »

There is an opening for Bloomberg because the most important point for most Dems is electability. Who can beat Trump.
He has to take the ground presently occupied by, Buttigeig, Klobuchar and Biden.

Bloomberg hasnt a hope, he's currently day and night eating ice cream and petting dogs, wait till the bad starts to come out. This is mike Bloomberg so there is a **** tonne of bad. He's done some terrible interviews, recent ones that he has tried to bury , that would even sink trump

Water John · 13-02-2020 2:53pm

His, stop and frisk policy in black areas of NY is coming under the spotlight too.

eagle eye · 13-02-2020 3:10pm

Water John wrote:

His, stop and frisk policy in black areas of NY is coming under the spotlight too.

It is because like most you have it wrong.
It was disadvantaged areas and there are white neighbourhoods like that. Most of those neighbourhoods are Black and Hispanic though so he got loads of heat over it.
And there's two ways of looking at it. The idea was to get guns off the street and lower the murder rate. He successfully lowered the murder rate right through his 12 years in office.
I'm not saying that it was a very well worked out policy but the idea behind it was a good one.
Of course you can also look at it as not caring about Blacks and Hispanics. It was a big mistake on his part to not look at the potential consequences of putting this into action.

sid waddell · 13-02-2020 3:14pm

Would anything signify the descent of American democracy into a Russian style fake "democracy" more than a presidential "election" between two oligarchs?

Hande hoche! · 13-02-2020 3:24pm

eagle eye wrote: »

It is because like most you have it wrong.
It was disadvantaged areas and there are white neighbourhoods like that. Most of those neighbourhoods are Black and Hispanic though so he got loads of heat over it.
And there's two ways of looking at it. The idea was to get guns off the street and lower the murder rate. He successfully lowered the murder rate right through his 12 years in office.
I'm not saying that it was a very well worked out policy but the idea behind it was a good one.
Of course you can also look at it as not caring about Blacks and Hispanics. It was a big mistake on his part to not look at the potential consequences of putting this into action.

Part of it was he didn't defend himself particularly on those points. He just went for the apology to help move things along.

US Presidential Election 2020

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