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US PoliERA 2019 |OT5| She's got a plan for that, now sashay away
- Thread starter Aaron
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Harris should be in a Cabinet position where she can prosecute people, preferably Republicans, not in the VP spot. The VP spot should go to someone who is an empty suit lame-ass who looks the part. So like Joe Biden!
Mostly his plans involve Hillary Clinton if I heard correctly.
Biden is a caricature stand-in for Clinton-Era Democrats. He's the embodiment of racist winks and the embarrassing pleadings for moneyed donors.
Biden's going to put you at ease while the scary socialists spout their Marxist ideals of worker rights and poor people getting annual medical exams.
Biden's going to put you at ease while the scary socialists spout their Marxist ideals of worker rights and poor people getting annual medical exams.
A position of substance would be great for her, but VP is a strictly political appointment that will help raise her national profile so that she can run again (and win) in 2024/2028.
I don't think AG would be as beneficial for her future in politics, though she'd do a fantastic job with it.
Again, people are operating on their internal image of Biden as Obama's avuncular VP. Forgetting that he got creamed in every primary for good reason. He may very well win, but for those saying Biden just needs to sit back and cruise (which seems to include Joe Biden), you may be surprised where complacency gets you.
I don't want to eat the rich.
I wouldn't be opposed to snacking on them every once in awhile though.
Y'all are getting there.
From a personal standpoint, I have no interest in her as POTUS, but I do have a solid interest in her as AG or running the DoJ, so I'd be more interested in putting her into one of those positions.
It's not his first one though. He has been officially campaigning since days after his inauguration.
Can someone help me out here?
Who was the last Democrat to win the presidency without capturing the excitement of the base?
Because Democrats seem to lose when we ignore that. Young people, vocal people online, might not vote in huge numbers. But they create the steady beat that influences other people to vote. And that's my biggest fear right now. Should Biden win the nomination, we're once again thrust into the position where we're hoping people go out of their way to vote because they hate Trump enough. Not because they're exactly passionate about the person they're voting for. And Biden's campaign seems to think nothing of shitting on the enthusiast portion of our base at any. given. opportunity. Biden's campaign has honestly surpassed my most cynical thoughts here. Here's a man running for the Democratic nomination...who seems to hate Democrats.
Favorability polling aside...I'm just not hearing any excitement about Biden in anybody I talk to. And that's worrying. I didn't start getting this vibe with Clinton until about two months before the election. Here we are over a year away from the election, and the general vibe I hear is, "...eh. It's Biden. He'll beat Trump."
And that's...well, worrying.
Who was the last Democrat to win the presidency without capturing the excitement of the base?
Because Democrats seem to lose when we ignore that. Young people, vocal people online, might not vote in huge numbers. But they create the steady beat that influences other people to vote. And that's my biggest fear right now. Should Biden win the nomination, we're once again thrust into the position where we're hoping people go out of their way to vote because they hate Trump enough. Not because they're exactly passionate about the person they're voting for. And Biden's campaign seems to think nothing of shitting on the enthusiast portion of our base at any. given. opportunity. Biden's campaign has honestly surpassed my most cynical thoughts here. Here's a man running for the Democratic nomination...who seems to hate Democrats.
Favorability polling aside...I'm just not hearing any excitement about Biden in anybody I talk to. And that's worrying. I didn't start getting this vibe with Clinton until about two months before the election. Here we are over a year away from the election, and the general vibe I hear is, "...eh. It's Biden. He'll beat Trump."
And that's...well, worrying.
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It's amazing how polarizing she was, because that's how half of Democratic voters felt about her from day 1.
This is true. But she even writes in her book...at some point her campaign expected the base to rally around her, and that just never happened.
The more Biden digs in on this strategy of pissing off the millennial/progressive portion of the base to flirt with Republicans, the harder I think he's making it for those groups to rally around him. And I'm seeing this a lot earlier than I saw it with Hillary.
Just imagine what happens when Biden actually wins a fairly muted election with tepid overall excitement for his presidency and a bunch of white Midwestern and black nationwide votes from Baby Boomers!
It'll be proof that you win by turning out Democratic-leaning Boomers and not Millennials, and the Democratic Party (which is already inclined to not rock the boat because let's face it, a lot of the membership is white and older and comfortable) will race headlong toward the politics of people who don't give a shit what happens to this place after they die.
Oh joy!
I can't disagree.
A problem that Hillary had - and Biden will have if he wins the nom - is not just that the base wants to be excited, but that that there is an expectation that ordinary (non-wonky) people are pragmatic enough to see Trump and vote for the Not-Trump candidate. But "ordinary people" don't vote pragmatically - they vote on feelings and hopefulness, adjusted by bias. And you combine that with an unexcited base, you have Biden maybe losing the election because depressed turn-out and a bunch of people swayed at the last moment by his gropiness.
I think that headlong race is unlikely - the party as a whole knows that climate change is severe, LGBTQ rights are important and women's rights should be sacrosanct. And something like healthcare can majorly affect older white and comfortable people, so even that won't be "wished away".
If Trump wasn't first term Trump, Biden would definitely have lower turnout. Fortunately for him though Trump is bad enough that people will hold their nose even harder for Biden.
I'd be lying if I said I never worried, but I'm also a big believer in the "negative enthusiasm drives all" theory, meaning that Trump's very presence and unpopularity will drive people to the polls in droves. We already have a good example in 2018, a midterm with near-presidential turnout in both parties. I have a difficult time believing that Democratic turnout will abate with Trump on the ballot, even if we nominate Biden. Will a lot of those people be voting for Joe Biden as opposed to voting against Trump? Maybe not, but all that matters is the vote count.
Also, now that Trump actually has a bad record and is a deeply unpopular incumbent, I don't think that expectation about people voting for not-Trump is entirely misplaced this time.
Beat me to it and said it more concisely.
Yeah, if this were Rubio or Kasich, we'd be pretty certain of losing barring a recession. The fact that we have better-than-even odds of knocking off an incumbent as things currently stand shows how reviled he is... and who knows what economic conditions will look like on election day?
I don't think that your overarching point necessarily stands in opposition with my point. For example, I think that your typical white woman Baby Boomer who is a part of the Democratic base absolutely will continue to push the importance of women's rights, and so even if Baby Boomers are the focal voter for the party, that won't change. There are a few things - women's rights, health care access - that Millennial and Boomer voters align on within the party.
I just have less faith that the party is as strong in their attempts to, say, reverse climate change or attack college debt issues with Baby Boomers as their focal voters.
I also think that it's easier for Democratic pols to stick their necks out for marriage equality or abortion rights because the country generally agrees that those things should exist, but I have zero confidence that the party will do the same for more controversial issues, particularly if the younger parts of the base are the ones most affected by them.
Says increasingly nervous man.
My motto is to hope for Warren or Harris, expect Biden.
I'm hoping against all hope here that your scenario pans out. I cannot stand Biden. (I'd still vote for him in the general obviously)
I'm pretty sure no one was excited for Truman but he won off FDR's popularity. I also think LBJ also might have had trouble from losing the anti-war part of his base if Goldwater wasn't so terrible. Carter was kinda somehow both unexciting and divisive, but Ford pardoning Nixon made it easy for any democrat to win.
I'd put Stevenson(x2), Humphrey, Gore, Kerry, and Hillary all as definitely unexciting, which makes it silly that McGovern, Mondale, and Dukakis losing are still the only ones all of Democratic party strategy is based on avoiding.
Eh, there was no real anti-war movement in 1964 and as far as 1976 goes, Carter did excite the base - just a different part of the base (ie. white moderates, which included white Southerners, black Southerners, and northern and midwestern ethnics). I note you also don't mention '92 Bill Clinton who attacked the progressive base, and won two terms off that.
As far as why McGovern, Mondale, and Dukakis get pointed at, well, because HHH, Gore, Kerry, and Hillary all lost by narrow margins, while the other three got blown out. If you play lose 7 football games, and you lose 4 of them thanks to some missed field goals and/or questionable referring calls, and in the other 3 you get blown out by multiple touchdowns, you're going to focus on the issues in the latter three and try to avoid that as much as possible. I'm not even counting Stevenson as good or bad, because Jesus Christ would've lost to Ike in '52 and '56.
Obviously, yes, you need excitement from the base, but the base isn't just young online progressives. The base is also middle aged African American women at churches in Georgia, suburban Mom's in Michigan, and unionized Hispanic service workers in Nevada. Can Biden excite them? Who knows, but like people upthread said, plenty of people were excited by voting against Trump in '18, and didn't need much more.
Like I've said before, I think the actual scariest thing for some quarters of the Left, what they truly fair, in some ways more than Trump winning, or even Trump beating Sanders, is Biden beating Trump definitely, perhaps by even margin than Obama in '08. Because even if Trump beats Bernie, they can always make the "the neoliberal sellout Democrats stabbed him in the back" or whatever. If Biden wins by nine points with nearly 400 EV's and the election is basically over by 10 PM EST, the Left will except America didn't want a revolution - it wanted a Return to Normalcy.
A return to normalcy is terrifying.
How would you not be extremely afraid of biden winning by a huge margin and a return to normalcy at this moment. You know how Global warming is already at critical mass with it just getting worse for our future by the day. You know that income inequality has gotten extremely out of control and is getting worse by the minute. You know how Republicans are looking more and more at undemocratic methods to gain permanent power in the face of demographic change.
How is a return to normalcy for at least the next decade if not more anything but absolutely terrifying given all that?
Edit: Also when looking through history I wouldn't map progressive and excitement as a one to one relationship. Bill Clinton and JFK were exciting because of how they looked on TV at the time they were running, not because of their progressive bonafides. The question should be if you walked down to your local democratic party offices, would you find people excited for your candidate, or just loyal to the party and against the other candidate? For someone like Bill Clinton, that's a very different answer in 1992 verses 2020
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The only cool and exciting thing Bill Clinton ever did was go on Arsenio Hall. Everything else was aw-shucks appeal to rural voters/Perot supporters and general charisma.
Sure, but you were talking specifically about the 'excitement of the base', which is I refereed to the different type of bases that may exist this time around. Also, I'll make the simple point is that if you don't appeal and excite some part of the base, you don't win the primary in the first place, because the people who vote in the primary are already all part of the base for the most part, even if they disagree on policy.
I'm not making the argument that Biden will excite the party. But, I'm also not going to extrapolate my limited pool of politically active folks out to the whole Democratic base either.
Also, again, I'll point out for what seems like the 19th time, for all the talk about John Kerry 'not being exciting', he actually over-preformed the fundamentals of the 2004 election. In 2004, the economy was solid, the war hadn't gone to shit, and nothing too terrible had happened if you weren't a political junkie, and still, Bush only won by 2 points and change.
I don't really think winning a primary on perceived electability or being the appointed next in line counts as proof of exciting any portion of your base, and I think the politically active set the tone of the conversation and are the main drivers of turnout through their hard work. That excitement doesn't have to come from the progressive wing in general, but I don't think there's any other way in 2020. The environment is too partisan and the politically active are too knowledgeable for anyone right of Obama to spark that excitement.
I'd also say Carter's primary win isn't great proof of his base excitement because that primary was an absolute clusterfuck in many ways. I know theoretically who is base would be, but I never felt there was good evidence that he did well among that base.
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Bush was seen as very vulnerable, between him acting like an idiot, the economy being weak after being used to a big long boom thanks to rising unemployment and oil prices, and the bubbling of anti-war sentament beneath the surface. It's rewriting history to say Bush was expected to win a blowout.
...That's not what he said. The economy wouldn't nosedive for a few more years, that "anti-war sentiment" hadn't fully breached the surface, the GOP ran on cultural issues like gay marriage, and Bush had incumbency and net positive approval ratings. How were those fundamentals not solidly in his favor? So yes, Kerry overperformed by getting within a handful of votes in OH of unseating a wartime incumbent.
Sure, but the politically active can just as easily be the #Resistance suburban Mom's who sent dozens of Obama-style Democrats to the House this past year or African American voters who are going to turn out to get Trump out, no matter what. Also, regardless of the dumb things Biden says that weirdos like us care about, his actual campaign will be still to the left of Obama 2012, if he isn't to the left of Hillary 2016 on cultural issues.
Bush's approval ratings was basically 50-50 throughout the entirety of 2004 (https://news.gallup.com/poll/116500/presidential-approval-ratings-george-bush.aspx) and the War in Iraq still had a +8 for the War not being a mistake (https://news.gallup.com/poll/1633/iraq.aspx). Believe me, I was posting on a whole other forum, arguing with Republican's about how Kerry was going to win.
I'm not saying Bush was headed for a blowout. But, the fundamentals of the race were Bush winning by basically how Obama did in 2012 - 4-6 points. A modest win, but not a blowout. Instead, it was a very close thing.
I know very well the great recession happened in 2008.
I don't know why everyone forgets that the dot com bust which got extended by the iraq war wasn't seen as a good economy. I know the great recession makes it look pitiful in comparison, but that doesn't make it a good economy.
I find it extremely hard to believe Biden will get through to November 2020 without saying dumb shit that gets through to everyone. What scares me is democratic primary voters thinking that it doesn't matter because electability trumps all and their view of the republican and swing voter is extremely warped and too far outside their bubble.
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This:
I really think most people are going to be jarred in the debate when they see the current Biden versus the Biden in their head, which isn't the real Biden anyway.
I think this will be a base election and independents are more or less predispositioned to vote DEM or GOP already and just don't want to be labeled, the mythical independent, so we have to have more than just 'not trump'.
I really think most people are going to be jarred in the debate when they see the current Biden versus the Biden in their head, which isn't the real Biden anyway.
I think this will be a base election and independents are more or less predispositioned to vote DEM or GOP already and just don't want to be labeled, the mythical independent, so we have to have more than just 'not trump'.
And there it is.
It's more a perception of electability issue than an actual electability issue. Just look at the Warren V Trump trends on RCP.
Not a surprise with Warren and her policies appealing to democratic voters. This is just the reality of the United States electorate at this point in history. Many, many people are sadly uncomfortable with the idea of a female president. It was a huge reason Hillary lost. People came out of the woodwork to vote against her.
I'd like to see this poll with independent voters.
Truman absolutely won on the strength of his own campaign. He ran the prototypical progressive populist campaign and brilliantly used the Republican Congress as a whipping boy.
I'll be interested to see just how many of the supposed criticisms of Clinton never mattered a lick to any of her Dem detractors when Biden displays them openly in full and they say nothing. We've already certainly seen next to none of them were really a concern of Trump voters (like national security or corruption or whatever), but then they don't have any actual concerns.
The two main criticisms I saw most about Clinton were her (and Mook's) horrid campaign strategy (or lack thereof) in the rust belt and her insistence on telling people to research her policies on her website instead of stating them herself. Those don't currently seem to be issues with Biden, but that could change.
Hillary Clinton was slimed for 40 years and had all that history, plus the things Bill did that were clearly wrong plus the questionable things all to deal with. She/Her campaign also had a bad habit of not being fully transparent about things which just compounded her issues.
Biden's seen as a decent dude who fucks up and makes gaffes occasionally. The story about his wife/daughter dying in the car accident and him commuting home every day from DC to be with his sons (who survived the wreck) is a pretty powerful one.
I don't think the rank and file voters are troubled by him (or Hillary) not being as progressive as Bernie/Warren. Some of them are moderate Dems.
2004 was more of a Kerry loss than a Bush win. The political attacks against Kerry were disgusting. He was painted as a rich, out of touch, windsurfing, aloof elitist who is wishy washy about everything. He was for the war before he was against it. Whereas Bush was seen as a straight shooting stable hand and you need to stay the course. Then there was the whole Swiftboat Veterans episode and a complete non response to it by Kerry. I think Kerry blew it more than Bush won it.
Republicans always take their gloves off in elections but we try to be decent and not go full attack mode.
It's been obvious for a while that a common view of Warren is "she's good and I'd vote for her, but I think others won't like her", said by a chorus of people who all like her. The electable thing is only in people's heads, but then it becomes real when they don't vote for her in a primary because they think others won't like her. It's dumb really.
I'm late on this, but has it been getting any attention?
theintercept.com
This is insane. She's a real piece of garbage.
As San Francisco District Attorney, Kamala Harris's Office Stopped Cooperating With Victims of Catholic Church Child Abuse
When Kamala Harris took over as San Francisco district attorney in 2004, her office ended cooperation with Catholic Church sex abuse victims.
theintercept.com
This is insane. She's a real piece of garbage.
I'm late on this, but has it been getting any attention?
As San Francisco District Attorney, Kamala Harris's Office Stopped Cooperating With Victims of Catholic Church Child Abuse
When Kamala Harris took over as San Francisco district attorney in 2004, her office ended cooperation with Catholic Church sex abuse victims.
This is insane. She's a real piece of garbage.
I can't take anything written by Lee Fang seriously.
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