SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

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Re: SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

Post by Gandalf »

The Romulan Republic wrote: 2020-02-10 08:49pmHe's part of the older, Cold War generation, who grew up in a country where by and large, socialism was equated with communist dictatorship. There's a reason Bernie's leading with under 35s in the primary and has about three percent among seniors IIRC.
Yeah, I get that. I just found it weird that he barely engaged with other panelists when they mentioned that Sanders was looking more to Sweden than the Soviet Union. Matthews just repeated his assertions with more anger.
The Romulan Republic wrote: 2020-02-10 09:54pmFingers crossed. Buttigieg would always have been a vulnerable nominee given his issues with the black vote, but after the Iowa cluster fuck, and the widespread suspicion of fraud involving his campaign (even if false), he'd likely be a catastrophic one. A Democrat who can't turn out progressives or the black vote? And they say Bernie's unelectable.

Of course, the alternative is that a Buttigieg win would not be enough to give him victory in the primary, but would just blunt Bernie's momentum before Buttigieg himself faded, leading to a long, drawn-out primary and likely contested convention. And given how ugly things are getting already, I don't think we can afford that.
They're all gambles in one way or another. Sanders has a strong factional base, but may have trouble turning that into wider support. Warren is probably the safest pick, but still has her own issues. So... who the fuck knows.

At least this might hasten the end of caucuses as a means of doing things. :P
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Re: SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

Post by The Romulan Republic »

There are no safe choices here, no. We've been well into uncharted territory for a while now politically.
JRR Tolkien wrote:We come now to the very brink, where hope and despair are akin.
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Re: SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

Post by The Romulan Republic »

New Hampshire has a tradition of the tiny town of Dixville Notch casting the first votes at midnight. A grand total of five people voted this year, but for some reason, people treat this as predictive of the likely outcome in New Hampshire.

The surprise winner was Michael Bloomberg, with two write-in democratic votes and one write-in for him in the Republican primary. Bernie got one, Buttigieg got one.

Hope that's not predictive of the final result. Bloomberg would be pretty much guaranteeing ten million progressives voting third party, or staying home. Then again, if there's been a theme of the last five years in politics, its that old rules don't apply anymore.

Edit: Another small town just voted- 1 to Bernie, 1 to Biden, 1 to Buttigieg, 2 to Klobuchar.

At present, NH is a four-way tie between Bernie, Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, at 2 votes each. :lol:
"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver

"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan."-General Von Clauswitz, describing my opinion of Bernie or Busters and third partiers in a nutshell.

I SUPPORT A NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE TO REMOVE TRUMP FROM OFFICE.
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Re: SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

Post by The Romulan Republic »

Now at 8 for Klobuchar, with Bernie and Warren tied for second with four.

Personally, I think its pretty offensive that they count a few small towns, and let them announce their results, before the rest of the state. It gives a skewed impression of who has the momentum that might influence how the rest of the state votes.
"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver

"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan."-General Von Clauswitz, describing my opinion of Bernie or Busters and third partiers in a nutshell.

I SUPPORT A NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE TO REMOVE TRUMP FROM OFFICE.
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Re: SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

Post by Tribble »

IMO Bloomberg is the most likely to win as he's the exact kind of establishment figure the DNC wants that isn't as heavily tarnished as Biden. They've already changed the rules to allow the billionaire to enter the debates, and I'm guessing that once he joins in there will be a sudden surge of support and positive news for him.
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Re: SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

Post by Straha »

Tribble wrote: 2020-02-11 12:44am IMO Bloomberg is the most likely to win as he's the exact kind of establishment figure the DNC wants that isn't as heavily tarnished as Biden. They've already changed the rules to allow the billionaire to enter the debates, and I'm guessing that once he joins in there will be a sudden surge of support and positive news for him.
Bloomberg has no staying power or appeal beyond 'I'm rich'. The other candidates clearly hate him, and the DNC only tolerates him because, well, he's rich. He's also a bona fide Republican and the minute that he gets anywhere close to decent polling the bodies he buried in NYC will rise from the dead and consume him like Zombies in a Living Dead movie. The recent reairing of his comments about Trans women being 'men in skirts' and his utter contempt for the mid-west was the softest warning shot. He was a terrible mayor and a worse person.

On Bloomberg though. A thought:

- In 2020 Mike Bloomberg is ignoring the early primaries and betting the house on winning big in later states, particularly in Florida. So far the polling for him isn't bad, but it does significantly hurt his odds in winning the primary and is hurting his media coverage overall.

- In 2008 Rudy Giuliani ignored the early states and bet the house on winning Florida. Right until the NH primary he held a lead in Florida and Super Tuesday states. After he got trounced in the NH primary his lead collapsed and he was done for as a candidate.

- In the 1972 Democratic Primary John Lindsay underplayed his hand in the early states preferring to engage in a gigantic media blitz in Florida to positive early polling. He got wiped out in New Hampshire and soon after was done.

The common theme: All of them were Mayors of New York City (and elected as Republicans to boot.)

My question: What is with New York mayors and this electoral focus on Florida? Is it just that all New Yorkers are called to their eventual resting place, or is there something deeper about this recurring error?
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Re: SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

Post by The Romulan Republic »

Bloomberg has a resume that seems tailor-made to piss off as many people as possible. Progressives hate him for being a Centrist and a billionaire. Conservatives hate his "nanny state" policies. Black voters are unlikely to look kindly on his tough policing policies as Mayor of New York. His appeal is... he's a rich centrist who's not Biden, and some Dems are still really scared of (or in the case of some Clinton supporters, bitter toward) Bernie.

He's also an utter flip-flopper (he's been a Dem, Republican, and Independent) which pretty much everybody hates.

Some cynical or desperate people seem to think that we can only win by "playing Trump's game" and running a wealthy businessman, and that he can be a "Democratic Trump" (I've seen this sort of comment on occassion online). But the thing is, the Democratic party is not the Republican party, no matter how many times the Greens and the Kremlin bots behind them insist that it is. The obsession with business, and running a businessman, holds far less appeal for the Democratic base, I suspect. And unlike Trump, Bloomberg isn't quite shameless enough to openly flaunt his worst qualities, turning them into a monstrous, perverted form of credibility. He's just a centrist hypocrite.

The problem with "playing Trump's game" is that its Trump's game, and he's better at it than we ever will be.

Could he eke out the nomination? Perhaps, given his wealth and the extremely divided field in this primary. Had he got in earlier, I think he might have stood an excellent chance, at least of winning the nomination if not the general. But now, I think its probably too late- at least I sure as hell hope it is.
"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver

"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan."-General Von Clauswitz, describing my opinion of Bernie or Busters and third partiers in a nutshell.

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Re: SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

Post by The Romulan Republic »

https://axios.com/bernie-sanders-bloomb ... c62e6.html

First post-Iowa national poll has Bernie in a decisive lead at 25%, Biden in second at 17, Bloomberg in a close third at 15, Warren right after him at 14, Buttigieg at 10, Klobuchar at 4, and no one else over 2.

So, first: Holy shit, Bernie Sanders is leading by eight points in a national poll. That's unprecedented, and pretty fan-fucking-tastic news for Bernie supporters, progressives, and democratic socialists. That's not an insurmountable lead, but its not a really small one either, especially not this late in the game, with the momentum mostly going in his direction.

Second, the infighting between the Centrists seems to be keeping the Centrist types from consolidating around one opponent who might be able to stop him. Bernie may be suffering from this a little too, but if you put the major Centrist rivals to Bernie together, they'd be outpolling him almost two-to-one. I'm very leery of Trump/Sanders comparisons or false equivalencies, but we might be seeing something vaguely similar to the Republican primary in 2016, where an outsider won in part because the Never Trumpers were split between several candidates.

Third, yes, Bloomberg has a real chance of becoming the main opponent to Sanders, as Biden likely continues to drop after New Hampshire, and Buttigieg lacks strong national appeal.

Edit: The other big takeaway is that Biden's black support is crumbling, and mostly shifting to Bloomberg. Which makes me think that South Carolina could be a three-way race (Sanders' smaller but loyal base, and centrist black voters splitting between Biden and Bloomberg).
"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver

"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan."-General Von Clauswitz, describing my opinion of Bernie or Busters and third partiers in a nutshell.

I SUPPORT A NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE TO REMOVE TRUMP FROM OFFICE.
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Re: SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

Post by The Romulan Republic »

Some more beautiful news after the rotten week we've had- new polling has top six Democratic candidates all beating Trump in the general election, most by fairly wide margins.

https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-de ... aseID=3655
THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

Among all registered voters, Democratic candidates lead President Trump in general election matchups by between 4 and 9 percentage points, with Bloomberg claiming the biggest numerical lead against Trump:
Bloomberg tops Trump 51 - 42 percent;
Sanders defeats Trump 51 - 43 percent;
Biden beats Trump 50 - 43 percent;
Klobuchar defeats Trump 49 - 43 percent;
Warren wins narrowly over Trump 48 - 44 percent;
Buttigieg is also slightly ahead of Trump 47 - 43 percent.
President Trump's favorability rating is underwater, as 42 percent of registered voters have a favorable opinion of him, while 55 percent have an unfavorable view of him. However, it is his best favorability rating since a March 7th, 2017 poll, when his favorability rating was a negative 43 - 53 percent.
Notably, Buttigieg polls one of the weakest against him (along with Warren), besting Trump by only four points. Bernie and Bloomberg both trounce him.

The bit on impeachment is quite interesting too- the voters are split dead-even on the acquittal, 49/49, but worryingly, Independents seem to have shifted pretty strongly in favor of acquittal. But that's the Mindless Middle for you- they'll simply back whoever appears to be winning at the moment.
POST-IMPEACHMENT TRIAL

American voters are evenly split, 49 - 49 percent, on the Senate's decision to acquit President Trump of both articles of impeachment. Republicans approve 95 - 4 percent, independents approve 53 - 45 percent, and Democrats disapprove 90 - 8 percent.

Despite the acquittal, voters say 55 - 40 percent that the Senate voting to acquit President Trump does not clear him of any wrongdoing in the Ukraine matter. Republicans say 81 - 12 percent that the acquittal clears the president of wrongdoing, while Democrats 91 - 6 percent and independents 54 - 40 percent say it does not. By 51 - 46 percent, voters say the charges against President Trump were serious enough for him to be impeached and put on trial.

Voters say 59 - 35 percent that the Senate impeachment trial was conducted unfairly.
Interestingly, despite the split on acquittal, a very strong majority feels that the trial was conducted unfairly. I suppose some of that is probably Trumpers who are angry that it wasn't rigged even more strongly in Trump's favor, or that a trial was allowed to happen at all, but I can't imagine Mitch McConnell is looking at those numbers and feeling happy, going into the Senate race.
"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver

"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan."-General Von Clauswitz, describing my opinion of Bernie or Busters and third partiers in a nutshell.

I SUPPORT A NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE TO REMOVE TRUMP FROM OFFICE.
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Re: SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

Post by aerius »

https://twitter.com/Morning_Joe/status/ ... 6970380288

"I think we could run Mickey Mouse against this president and have a shot." - Joe Biden

Yes, he actually said that in the video clip. I can't say he's wrong, Mickey Mouse is probably a better candidate than everyone on the Democrat side.
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Re: SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

Post by The Romulan Republic »

aerius, seriously, Putin should be paying you for everything you post.
"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver

"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan."-General Von Clauswitz, describing my opinion of Bernie or Busters and third partiers in a nutshell.

I SUPPORT A NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE TO REMOVE TRUMP FROM OFFICE.
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Re: SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

Post by Gandalf »

The Romulan Republic wrote: 2020-02-11 01:33pm aerius, seriously, Putin should be paying you for everything you post.
Why, for pointing out that this isn't the best field of candidates?
"Oh no, oh yeah, tell me how can it be so fair
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Re: SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

Post by The Romulan Republic »

Gandalf wrote: 2020-02-11 03:25pm
The Romulan Republic wrote: 2020-02-11 01:33pm aerius, seriously, Putin should be paying you for everything you post.
Why, for pointing out that this isn't the best field of candidates?
What exactly constitutes a good candidate? There are a half-dozen candidates running with strong resumes, and Bernie at least has a highly enthusiastic base as well. Posting "they all suck" without more reasons or contexts is hard to read as anything other than an attempt to bash the entire party, regardless of who the nominee is.

People say the field is weak because they're scared, and they're hoping for a single magical perfect candidate that will have the support of everyone and zero baggage. No such candidate actually exists, especially not with the country as divided as it is. If you ask me, the candidates are as strong as we could ever hope for, and we have a bounty of choices compared to most primaries- its just the country that's polarized.

Anyhoo, NH results are in. Bernie won, by around 26 points. Buttigieg in a close second, around 24-25. Klobuchar third, at around 20. Nobody else met the 15% threshold for delegates. Bernie and Buttigieg will tie in delegates.

News is calling it an Iowa tie and NH win for Bernie. Of course certain people are also rushing to make hay out of his historically narrow win in NH, even though this is likely more a reflection of how many people are running (and possibly the mess in Iowa turning a clean Bernie win into a tie, though that remains to be seen), rather than the weakness of his campaign. But with a tie and a win in the first two contests (since Sanders won the popular vote in both, while delegates look to be tied, that's being generous to Buttigieg), and with Buttigieg much weaker nation-wide, Sanders is still the clear frontrunner.

Unfortunately, its probably not a strong enough win to give Bernie the momentum to wrap this up quickly. Contested convention looking more and more likely.

Biden is fucked. Warren is fucked. Both should drop out, though Biden will likely stick it out until Nevada or SC, at least.

Yang announced earlier today that he's out, so hopefully most of his vote will go to Sanders. Warren too whenever she accepts the reality of the situation. That could put Bernie over the top, with the more Centrist voters divided between the Biden remnants, the rising Bloomberg, Buttigieg, and a surprisingly strong Klobuchar.
"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver

"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan."-General Von Clauswitz, describing my opinion of Bernie or Busters and third partiers in a nutshell.

I SUPPORT A NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE TO REMOVE TRUMP FROM OFFICE.
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Re: SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

Post by The Romulan Republic »

Its pretty fucking hilarious, by the way, to see the Centrist crowd that spent four years lambasting Bernie for not being a real Democrat now flocking to Bloomberg, a man who has bounced from Republican to Independent to Democrat over his career. No, on the contrary, that's not a liability, its proof of how Centrist he is and how he can win over Trump voters! Trump locking up children in cages couldn't sway them. Trump overturning the rule of law couldn't sway them. But sure, Mike Bloomberg will! :lol:

Or to hear the dead silence on stop and frisk from people who spent four years raging about "racist Bernie Bros".

Here's a fun quote from a speech Michael Bloomberg gave to the Aspen Institute in 2015 (posted by Robert Reich today):
Mike Bloomberg wrote:95% of your murders and murderers and murder victims fit one M.O. You can just take the description and xerox it and pass it out to all the cops. They are male minorities 15 to 25...Because we put all the cops in the minority neighborhoods. Yes, that's true. Why'd we do it? Because that's where all the crime is. And the way you should get the guns out of the kids' hands is throw them against the wall and frisk them."
That's some... wow. Some seriously overt racism. Can you fucking imagine if Bernie Sanders was recorded saying something like that? More to the point, can even his most relentless detractors honestly imagine Bernie Sanders saying something like that? But what's that we hear from the Centrists about Mike Bloomberg and stop-and-frisk?

Dead. Fucking. Silence. :evil:

Heh, maybe I'm wrong. Play that quote on a loop and he just might win over some Trumper votes.
"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver

"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan."-General Von Clauswitz, describing my opinion of Bernie or Busters and third partiers in a nutshell.

I SUPPORT A NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE TO REMOVE TRUMP FROM OFFICE.
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Re: SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

Post by His Divine Shadow »

Gandalf wrote: 2020-02-11 03:25pm
The Romulan Republic wrote: 2020-02-11 01:33pm aerius, seriously, Putin should be paying you for everything you post.
Why, for pointing out that this isn't the best field of candidates?
Can't think of a better candidate than Bernie since ever.
Those who beat their swords into plowshares will plow for those who did not.
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Re: SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

Post by The Romulan Republic »

His Divine Shadow wrote: 2020-02-12 01:51am
Gandalf wrote: 2020-02-11 03:25pm
The Romulan Republic wrote: 2020-02-11 01:33pm aerius, seriously, Putin should be paying you for everything you post.
Why, for pointing out that this isn't the best field of candidates?
Can't think of a better candidate than Bernie since ever.
But he's a SOCIALIST! :shock: :shock: :shock:

Edit: Bernie does have one problem, though- He's too fucking nice. Yeah, he's kind of been forced into that position by the constant accusations of "Bernie Bros" and so on, but it just seems to be his style. He didn't hammer Clinton on her emails- he gave her a pass. He's out telling his supporters to avoid personal attacks and focus on policy. That's admirable, but in Bloomberg's case he should make an exception. The man's a fucking racist who flip-flopped between parties throughout his career, and Sanders should be hammering him on those points every day (as well as hammering the fact that he won both the first two contests) relentlessly through Super Tuesday.
Last edited by The Romulan Republic on 2020-02-12 01:56am, edited 1 time in total.
"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver

"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan."-General Von Clauswitz, describing my opinion of Bernie or Busters and third partiers in a nutshell.

I SUPPORT A NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE TO REMOVE TRUMP FROM OFFICE.
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Re: SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

Post by His Divine Shadow »

My point exactly.
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Re: SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

Post by The Romulan Republic »

MSNBC has gotten absolutely hysterical over Sanders, with some of their hosts suggesting he will execute dissidents or equating his supporters with the Nazi brownshirts (I doubt they'd dare make such radical predictions about Trump, despite having much greater reason to do so). However, it just seems to make Bernie stronger:

https://commondreams.org/news/2020/02/1 ... te-for-him
MSNBC's Ari Melber got pushback Tuesday afternoon when he asked a New Hampshire voter why she decided to support Sen. Bernie Sanders in the 2020 Democratic presidential election primary.

"I want to say, the reason I went for Bernie is MSNBC," the woman told Melber, who was interviewing voters live in Manchester.

"Go on," said Melber.

"I think it is completely cynical to say that he has lost 50% of his vote from the last time when there were two candidates," the voter replied. "This time there are multiple, wonderful candidates that would be great candidates and people that we could unify behind."

"The kind of 'Stop Bernie' cynicism that I heard from a number of people... It made me angry, so I said, Bernie's got my vote," she added.

Watch:

Complex #Bernie voter tells @AriMelber that she decided to vote for #BernieSanders because of #msnbc bias#NotMeUs #Bernie2020 #Elections2020 #politics #HELLOSomebody

Thanks @ErikSperling! pic.twitter.com/NsuvbuDMvA

— CaseStudyQB (@CaseStudyQB) February 11, 2020
"Absolutely love to see it," District Sentinel Radio co-host Sam Sacks tweeted of the exchange.

"It truly was a jackhammering for the ages," added co-host Sam Knight.

Despite a reputation as the "liberal" news network, MSNBC and NBC News have been harshly critical of Sanders, with hosts and contributors alike launching attacks on the senator.

On Monday, "Meet the Press" host Chuck Todd referred to supporters of Sanders—who lost family in the Holocaust—as a "brownshirt brigade," a reference to the Nazis. "Hardball" host Chris Matthews was slammed Friday for a fantastical rant about a potential Sanders presidency that ended with Matthews being executed in Central Park.

Contributor Jason Johnson claimed Sanders and billionaire Mike Bloomberg were both oligarchs trying to purchase political power, analogizing the small dollar fundraising of the Sanders run with Bloomberg's self-finded campaign. For reference, Sanders' reported roughly $2 million in wealth is about .03% of Bloomberg's $61.8 billion personal fortune.
Meanwhile, Bernie is leading Trump by eighteen points among independents in a new national poll:

https://commondreams.org/news/2020/02/1 ... al-general
A national Reuters/Ipsos poll released Monday found Sen. Bernie Sanders leading President Donald Trump by 18 percentage points among independent voters in a hypothetical general election match-up, a result Sanders supporters viewed as evidence that the Vermont senator has the best chance of defeating the president in November.

According to the new survey (pdf), Sanders has the support of 46% of registered independent voters while Trump polled at 28% support. The poll also showed former Vice President Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Michael Bloomberg, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) ahead of Trump among independents, but Sanders' lead was the largest.

"Bernie Sanders is undeniably the strongest candidate against Donald Trump," tweeted journalist Walker Bragman in response to the new survey.

National GE, @Reuters/@Ipsos Among Independents:

Warren 34% (+5)
Trump 29%

Buttigieg 35% (+8)
Trump 27%

Bloomberg 39% (+14)
Trump 25%

Biden 43% (+14)
Trump 29%

Sanders 46% (+18)
Trump 28% https://t.co/b6rOPL0lBI

— Political Polls (@PpollingNumbers) February 11, 2020

The poll also found Sanders leading Trump nationally among all registered voters:

National @Reuters/@Ipsos GE Poll:

Buttigieg 41%
Trump 41%

Warren 42%
Trump 42%

Biden 44% (+2)
Trump 42%

Bloomberg 45% (+4)
Trump 41%

Sanders 45% (+4)
Trump 41%

— Political Polls (@PpollingNumbers) February 11, 2020

The national survey came just hours before New Hampshire voters headed to the polls Tuesday for the first-in-the-nation primary.

As Russell Berman wrote for The Atlantic Monday, independent voters could prove to be Sanders' "secret weapon" in New Hampshire and other states that allow independents to participate in the primary process.

"The Vermont senator's lead in several public polls is bolstered by his strong support among independent, or undeclared, voters, who are welcome to participate in New Hampshire's primary and could make up as much as 40% of the electorate," Berman wrote. "Beyond New Hampshire, Sanders' advantage among independent voters could be his secret weapon in the many large, delegate-rich states that allow them to cast ballots in the Democratic primary."

"Sanders has already demonstrated his strength with voters who have snubbed both parties," Berman added, "and that may prove decisive not only in New Hampshire on Tuesday, but in many states to come."
Victor Hugo wrote:No force on Earth can stop an idea whose time has come.
"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver

"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan."-General Von Clauswitz, describing my opinion of Bernie or Busters and third partiers in a nutshell.

I SUPPORT A NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE TO REMOVE TRUMP FROM OFFICE.
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Re: SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

Post by His Divine Shadow »

MSNBC delenda est
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Re: SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

Post by The Romulan Republic »

THE NIGHT SOCIALISM WENT MAINSTREAM

https://theatlantic.com/politics/archiv ... re/606022/
It has taken a single week for Senator Bernie Sanders to achieve a distinction that eluded him for the entirety of his underdog campaign four years ago: The 78-year-old democratic socialist from Vermont is now, at least for the moment, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination for president.

Sanders’s victory tonight in the New Hampshire primary, combined with his strong finish last week in Iowa and a bounce in national polling, places him firmly at the top of the Democratic field as the nomination race heads to Nevada and South Carolina. He has benefitted from a split in the moderate vote, as a late surge from Senator Amy Klobuchar slowed the momentum of Sanders’s closest New Hampshire rival, former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana. Former Vice President Joe Biden’s second consecutive lackluster result could threaten his firewall in South Carolina, where Sanders was on the rise and cutting into Biden’s lead among its crucial constituency of African American voters.

But the significance of Sanders’s standing in the race goes far beyond the next round of primaries. In the modern history of American politics, no candidate so firmly planted on the left has been so well positioned to capture the nomination of the Democratic Party. Sanders has won election after election in Vermont as an independent, regularly declining the label of the party he now seeks to lead. His rise to the top of a field filled with more mainstream candidates could point to an important shift in the electorate. In Iowa and New Hampshire, Sanders’s talk of revolution overtook Biden’s pleas for a return to normalcy in the age of Donald Trump, and with his platform representing a kind of untainted progressive purity, the oldest white candidate on the ballot prevailed—albeit narrowly—over a plethora of younger, more diverse options.

Yet none of the transformative policies Sanders has proposed—a Green New Deal, Medicare for All, and debt-free college the most notable among them—embody the change he represents as much as the label he proudly carries: democratic socialist. It’s a term Republicans have weaponized against liberals so frequently that most Democratic politicians simply reject the tag out of hand. Sanders does not, and his success frightens establishment Democrats who worry that the socialism label remains a potent pejorative among the swing voters they’ll need to defeat President Trump in key battlegrounds this fall. On the day after Iowa’s caucuses, Trump devoted an entire section of his State of the Union address to a warning against the advance of socialism, while Biden spent his final days in New Hampshire cautioning that Sanders’s “democratic socialist” label would bring down Democrats running alongside him on November’s ballot.

Neither attack worked, and to Sanders’s supporters, his surge to the top is evidence that socialism as an epithet has lost its sting. “If you look at the history of this country and the left, there have been times when our ideas have been popular and millions of working people have stood up for them,” Maria Svart, the national director of the Sanders-backing Democratic Socialists of America, told me. “And I think the time is coming again for us to do that.

“The socialist bogeyman idea,” she continued, “has been used for decades to prevent people from bringing up alternative ideas, and Bernie winning validates our ideas and demonstrates that people, especially young people, are willing to confront capitalism.”

Read: Bernie Sanders’s secret weapon

The recent evidence for whether Sanders’s identity as a democratic socialist would hurt him in a general-election matchup with Trump is mixed. He fared no worse against the president when pollsters identified him as a socialist in a survey conducted by the progressive group Data for Progress. But socialism remained broadly unpopular in a poll released last month by NBC News and The Wall Street Journal: Just 19 percent of respondents said they had a positive view of socialism, compared with 52 percent who held a negative view. That was roughly the inverse of how people in the poll felt about capitalism.

Rather than renounce the term, he has sought in both of his presidential campaigns to define it as part of a “quintessentially American” tradition, a descendant of mainstream liberals such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Martin Luther King Jr. (who were also demonized by their opponents as socialists while they were alive). “We must recognize that in the 21st century, in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, economic rights are human rights,” Sanders said in a speech in June. “That is what I mean by democratic socialism.”

More recently, Sanders has argued that the U.S. is already “a socialist society” that redistributes national wealth to corporations through tax breaks and subsidies. “The difference between my socialism and Trump’s socialism is, I believe the government should help working families, not billionaires,” he said on Fox News Sunday.

In claiming his victory on Tuesday night, Sanders made no mention of democratic socialism. Still, it’s clear that Sanders is more comfortable with the term than even some of his top backers, who wonder whether its time as a political liability has actually passed. “He can call himself whatever he wants. For most of his supporters, we are not democratic socialists,” Larry Cohen, the chairman of Our Revolution, the progressive organization that spun out of Sanders’s 2016 campaign, told me. “We don’t use the term, and we don’t use the term because it doesn’t do any good. Again, my friends in DSA would disagree with that. I don’t think the term is helpful.”

When I asked Cohen whether Sanders should disavow the phrase, he replied: “I think that would come off as disingenuous.”

Read: The Sanders doctrine

Republicans have indicated that they plan to target Sanders’s socialist label aggressively if he’s the nominee. They’ve already begun attacking Democratic congressional candidates whom they lump together with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, another progressive who has identified as a democratic socialist. Trump, however, has already gone a step further in trying to tar Sanders’s ideology as fundamentally un-American. “I think he’s a communist,” the president told Fox News’s Sean Hannity in a pre–Super Bowl interview. “I think of communism when I think of Bernie. You could say socialist, but didn’t he get married in Moscow?” (Sanders did not get married in Moscow, but he and Jane Sanders did take their honeymoon in the Soviet Union in 1988.)

While some Republicans, including the president, may salivate at the prospect of facing Sanders in November, his rise within the Democratic Party is alarming to conservatives who fear that the concept they have spent their entire professional life trying to discredit is suddenly catching hold again. “I view it as really dangerous,” David McIntosh, the president of the conservative Club for Growth, told me about the prospect of Sanders winning the nomination. “Don’t assume that if Bernie gets the nomination, it’s a layup and you’re going to beat him. All of us have to redouble our efforts.”

In 2016, many Democrats were rooting for Trump to win the GOP nomination on the grounds that he would be an easy opponent in the fall. Conservatives should not make the same mistake with Sanders, McIntosh told me. As for socialism, he acknowledged that the term was not as resonant with voters as it was during the height of the Cold War. “Is it enough to just say socialism is bad?” he asked. “We do have to explain to the American people why it’s bad, why we think freedom is a better alternative. We need to do a better job of that. Bernie hopefully will be a wake-up call to all of us on the conservative side as well.”

Sanders and his supporters point out that conservatives will try to affix the socialism label to any Democratic nominee, no matter how centrist they are. But to people like Cohen, the battle to reclaim socialism isn’t worth the fight in 2020. “We can’t afford to lose voters based on labels,” he told me.

He likes to instead call the Sanders campaign “a democratic popular movement” with a new New Deal for the economy at its core. Sanders, Cohen noted, isn’t calling for the nationalization of banks, the railroads, or other major industries—the kinds of proposals that many people might associate with socialism.

Sanders’s early victories, Cohen suggested, aren’t a verdict on democratic socialism—however you define it—or whether its time has come in America. It’s a far simpler message, he said, aimed at “the Democratic naysayers” who say that the senator from Vermont’s ideas are impractical. “You’re not standing for what people want to see,” Cohen said. “People actually are hurting. They’re not at death’s door. But they can imagine a better America, and that’s what’s winning tonight—that vision of a better America.”
"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver

"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan."-General Von Clauswitz, describing my opinion of Bernie or Busters and third partiers in a nutshell.

I SUPPORT A NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE TO REMOVE TRUMP FROM OFFICE.
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Re: SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

Post by The Romulan Republic »

His Divine Shadow wrote: 2020-02-12 03:44am MSNBC delenda est
Careful. A translation of that phrase reveals it could easily be taken as an incitement to violence.
"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver

"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan."-General Von Clauswitz, describing my opinion of Bernie or Busters and third partiers in a nutshell.

I SUPPORT A NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE TO REMOVE TRUMP FROM OFFICE.
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Re: SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

Post by loomer »

The Romulan Republic wrote: 2020-02-12 03:47am
His Divine Shadow wrote: 2020-02-12 03:44am MSNBC delenda est
Careful. A translation of that phrase reveals it could easily be taken as an incitement to violence.
Jesus christ, dude, it's a reference to the classics.
"Doctors keep their scalpels and other instruments handy, for emergencies. Keep your philosophy ready too—ready to understand heaven and earth. In everything you do, even the smallest thing, remember the chain that links them. Nothing earthly succeeds by ignoring heaven, nothing heavenly by ignoring the earth." M.A.A.A
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Re: SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

Post by The Romulan Republic »

Current delegate count (with 1,991 needed to win) stands at:

Buttigieg: 23.

Sanders: 21.

Warren: 8.

Klobuchar: 7.

Biden: 6.

Unlike in Iowa, turnout in NH was high, higher than 2016 and nearly 2008 levels: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/hampshi ... d=68930015
"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver

"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan."-General Von Clauswitz, describing my opinion of Bernie or Busters and third partiers in a nutshell.

I SUPPORT A NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE TO REMOVE TRUMP FROM OFFICE.
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Re: SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

Post by Ralin »

loomer wrote: 2020-02-12 03:51am
The Romulan Republic wrote: 2020-02-12 03:47am
His Divine Shadow wrote: 2020-02-12 03:44am MSNBC delenda est
Careful. A translation of that phrase reveals it could easily be taken as an incitement to violence.
Jesus christ, dude, it's a reference to the classics.
One of the mods for this forum has it in their signature aimed at the Republican Party
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Re: SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

Post by GrandMasterTerwynn »

So I think the takeaway from NH and IA is that ... the Democratic electorate is suffering from a profound case of FOBO (fear of a better option.) Except for Andrew Yang, everyone who participated in the most recent debate (as well as some who did not) has found some justification to continue to exist until Super Tuesday comes to bury their moribund campaigns under Bloomberg's Infinite Cash Machine; except for Tulsi Gabbard, who will simply become the future Libertarian candidate for President (seriously, Gary Johnson has been reaching out to her lately) and continue to be the darling of Russian trolls and secret Trumpers; whose only interest in the world of Democratic politics is seeing it burn.

Joe Biden looked and sounded very much like a man who just got beat up for his lunch money, fleeing for supposed the safety of South Carolina and the warm embrace of its African American-heavy electorate (who are actually starting to take a shining to Tom Steyer, according to the latest polling.) Although it seems pretty clear that if you like your Biden medium-well done, you could probably get away with sticking your fork in him now.

Elizabeth Warren didn't sound like a candidate who just got solidly shellacked in the second most friendly state in the nation to her. She has the organization to keep going, and the promise of a better showing the more liberal Super Tuesday states, but her rhetoric of being a unity candidate rings about as hollow as a champagne glass during the proverbial fat lady's signature high-note. She keeps giving shout-outs to Amy Klobuchar, though; so maybe she's auditioning for a post in Klobuchar's cabinet.

Amy Klobuchar surprised, well, everyone. She's found her stride as a debater, and she's found a way to go negative against her fellow contenders without falling into the "any attention for my opponent is good attention" trap. Voters who made up their mind in the week leading up to the NH primary broke heavily for her (and Buttigieg.) However, I can't yet visualize a future where her candidacy survives beyond Super Tuesday, but I also can't really think of anything snarky to say about her.

Pete Buttigieg, on the other hand ... his three qualifications for being President are being 1) a white person in possession of 2) a penis, who is 3) not Donald Trump. Some would say that being in possession of two penises will ultimately hurt his chances with more conservative Democrats; but in a world where the alternative for moderate and conservative Democrats is Bernie Sanders, it may just mean his nine qualifications for being President are being 1) a white person, who is 2) not Donald Trump, and who has the power of 3) penis2. Yes, in the wholly-unrepresentative microcosm that is IA and NH, he's succeeded in beating up Joe Biden for his lunch money; and yes, he has the attention of big donors. But, will he survive once he leaves the kiddie pool?

So, this leaves Bernie Sanders; who seems to be less the candidate of revolution and more the candidate by default. Nationally, he's been at roughly 25% forever. But that works to his advantage; since it's a solid 25%, he's been able to get his solid quarter of the vote share and his Bernie Bros can spin it as a glorious victory when they're not busy mainlining Kool-Aid ... it's just that the "anyone but Sanders" lane is so overstuffed that its members are practically in quantum superposition. Fortunately for Sanders, the laws of physics at the macro-level prohibit the fusion of his opponents into the Lovecraftian horror known as Joetethmy Klowaridigeig; whose campaign slogan is "Donald Trump will be eaten first!"

Mind you, I recognize that the candidate by default can easily become the candidate by snowball effect, but that depends on the "anyone but Sanders" lane continuing to not converge on a candidate (those of you among the Sandernistas ought to be worried about his sphincter-clenching, razor-thin, margins of victory here,) while continuing to decline going hardcore attack mode on Sanders; and ignores the big unknown that is the effect of Mike Bloomberg and his Infinite Cash Machine will have, when people will actually get the chance to vote for him ... so contested convention (1 in 3 odds, according to FiveThirtyEight,) here we come?

And I say all this as a guy who ended up voting for Sanders yesterday; so I'm, at least, complicit in the chaos to follow ...
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