Democratic Primary 2020

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Re: Democratic Primary 2020

Postby gisambards » Sun Feb 10, 2019 11:32 pm

I don't think I agree with the bed of nails thing, for the most part. But I think it does make sense (and I think this is certainly the case with Trump) that someone who is more scandal-prone thus has much more experience talking their way out of them, and thus a scandal that could bring them down would have to be bigger than it otherwise might be, and also leading on from that, someone who is not that scandal-prone will be less likely to know what to do when one comes up.

But I also think a key part of that would be that it's not just being accused of things, it's actually having to deal with them. And I think that might be something that could hurt Sanders - he's never really been called out on a lot of these potential scandals, so I think actually all of that stuff coming out at once would probably hurt him at once.

There's also the question of how prepared someone is to deal with scandal. I think in 2016 something that hurt Clinton was less the scandals inherently and more that she wasn't prepared for them (partly because a lot of them were bullshit), whereas Trump knew the things he'd done and thus what he'd be accused of and thus how to talk his way out of it. As an example in the upcoming election, I think the Harris nepotism sex story has been floating around long enough that she will have prepared a response for if and when it comes up (and if she actually hasn't, that lack of aforethought would be more of a deal-breaker for me than the scandal itself). Lastly, some people might just be really piss-poor at dealing with scandals and elongate their time in the public sphere and somehow make them even more embarrassing entirely on their own (I'm referring, of course, to Elizabeth Warren, who seems absolutely determined to remind everyone as much as possible about that time she pretended to be Native American).
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Re: Democratic Primary 2020

Postby iMURDAu » Mon Feb 11, 2019 12:54 pm

cmsellers wrote:There's two major components to the Kamala Harris thing: nepotism and sex. The sex bit has two components: she used her body to get ahead, which is anti-feminist, and she committed adultery. I think that in the #metoo era, she's more likely to be seen as a victim in this regard than a perpetrator, and people care a lot less about adultery than they did, so I don't think the sex aspect will harm her much but am not certain. The nepotism is more problematic, because her first two jobs launched her career. It's entirely possible she wouldn't be where she is without that boost, which makes it still potentially relevant. But again, I think that will ultimately matter here is how she handles it when it comes up.


Adultery and nepotism? Does she grab them by the dick and are her children going to have top security clearance in her administration? I don't believe those should be issues considering who the Republican candidate is.

Key words: I don't believe.
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Re: Democratic Primary 2020

Postby Crimson847 » Wed Feb 13, 2019 1:18 am

Some worrying details are starting to dribble out about Klobuchar.

https://news.yahoo.com/amy-klobuchar-ne ... 13668.html

She has been known to grow irate at staffers who find work elsewhere, calling their new employers to have the offers rescinded. The practice, which three former staffers for Klobuchar described and one other Capitol Hill veteran confirmed, was seen as vindictive, mystifying and counterproductive. It was also a sign of how far Klobuchar would go to punish those who she thought betrayed her.


Still nobody willing to go on the record, but the stories are getting worse.
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Re: Democratic Primary 2020

Postby Windy » Sat Feb 16, 2019 2:30 am

What's the point everyone knows the president only alternates every 8 years not 4
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Re: Democratic Primary 2020

Postby RatElemental » Sun Feb 17, 2019 12:56 pm

Windy wrote:What's the point everyone knows the president only alternates every 8 years not 4


12 Presidents have only served one term, George H W Bush being the most recent one to. There was also Grover Cleveland who served his terms nonconsecutively.

If anyone can pull off not getting reelected, Trump probably can.
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Re: Democratic Primary 2020

Postby Windy » Sun Feb 17, 2019 2:01 pm

RatElemental wrote:
Windy wrote:What's the point everyone knows the president only alternates every 8 years not 4


12 Presidents have only served one term, George H W Bush being the most recent one to. There was also Grover Cleveland who served his terms nonconsecutively.

If anyone can pull off not getting reelected, Trump probably can.


That was a different era. Back when George H W Bush was president we were all living in mud huts. Now we drive to work in our flying cars. Get with the times grandpa.
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Re: Democratic Primary 2020

Postby gisambards » Tue Feb 19, 2019 11:58 pm

Sanders has announced, which was expected but does also shake things up. I expect it's all doom and gloom at the Warren camp right now. It does also make the likelihood of Biden running greater, which would only shake things up further.
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Re: Democratic Primary 2020

Postby Crimson847 » Thu Mar 07, 2019 7:46 pm

Sherrod Brown is out, surprisingly. He announced today that he's not going to run. I didn't have any firm opinion on him either way, but sellers should be pleased with this.
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Re: Democratic Primary 2020

Postby JamishT » Thu Mar 07, 2019 11:24 pm

I was looking forward to hearing his weird voice a lot more over the next year, but oh well.
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Re: Democratic Primary 2020

Postby gisambards » Fri Mar 08, 2019 8:08 pm

It wouldn't be at all surprising to see Brown as the Democratic VP pick (depending on the main candidate - Bernie doesn't forgive or forget) so we might be getting a lot of that weird voice yet.
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Re: Democratic Primary 2020

Postby Absentia » Fri Mar 08, 2019 8:36 pm

gisambards wrote:It wouldn't be at all surprising to see Brown as the Democratic VP pick (depending on the main candidate - Bernie doesn't forgive or forget) so we might be getting a lot of that weird voice yet.


The problem is that the field for "Generic White Male Democrat VP" is pretty crowded. Beto and Hickenlooper are both strong contenders, plus like half a dozen other guys who could have an outside shot, and all of them are going to be doing debates and ads and getting their faces out there while Brown sits on the sideline.
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Re: Democratic Primary 2020

Postby cmsellers » Fri Mar 08, 2019 9:14 pm

Brown would be a terrible VP pick, because if he wins, his Senate seat is filled by Mike De Wine until 2022, and then Democrats need to pick up a Senate seat in Ohio in a midterm with a Democratic president. And I haven't seen much, if any evidence, that a VP pick can help a presidential candidate in recent elections, so the potential upside is ... what, exactly?
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Re: Democratic Primary 2020

Postby gisambards » Sat Mar 09, 2019 1:43 pm

Absentia wrote:
gisambards wrote:It wouldn't be at all surprising to see Brown as the Democratic VP pick (depending on the main candidate - Bernie doesn't forgive or forget) so we might be getting a lot of that weird voice yet.


The problem is that the field for "Generic White Male Democrat VP" is pretty crowded. Beto and Hickenlooper are both strong contenders, plus like half a dozen other guys who could have an outside shot, and all of them are going to be doing debates and ads and getting their faces out there while Brown sits on the sideline.


Sure, but I think Brown is still one of the most likely picks. He's been around a while, has a lot of name recognition, and has been openly interested in the position before (and can make a debatable but not entirely unconvincing case that he'd have been a better pick than Tim Kaine). I agree that Hickenlooper is another likely one (certainly if the candidate is someone who has reason to dislike Brown), but I'd be very surprised if it was Beto. He has a lot of name recognition but is only really known on the national stage for losing an election (even though he did inspire a lot of people in the process), and he really seems much more like someone who'd want to be on the top of the ticket or not on it at all. I do actually also think a possible candidate, depending on how much notice his campaign gets, given the renewed attention on the climate, is Jay Inslee, who's been very vocal about environmental issues.

cmsellers wrote:And I haven't seen much, if any evidence, that a VP pick can help a presidential candidate in recent elections, so the potential upside is ... what, exactly?

Surely if there's little evidence that a VP pick can help, there's no upside to any possible choice?
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Re: Democratic Primary 2020

Postby cmsellers » Sat Mar 09, 2019 5:57 pm

I think a VP can have a downside, because I know I was leaning towards John McCain from the Russian invasion of Georgia until he picked Sarah Palin as his running mate. However John McCain was also old and in questionable health. I'm not sure I'd have cared much if there wasn't a real possibility his VP pick could end up president. When 538 has looked at it, they've noticed little-to-no effect of VP picks. IIRC, it seems to help by a few points in the VP's home state, but not outside it. Since Ohio is so red at this point that it's very unlikely to be the tipping point state, the upside of picking Sherrod Brown as VP is almost nil.

OTOH, only two presidential nominees have picked female running mates, one of whom was the aforementioned Palin, and none have picked an openly gay, Hispanic, or Asian-American running mate (Charles Curtis, VP under Hoover, was Kaw, but Indians are a small part of the electorate and that was a very different time), so I'm not sure what the chance to elect a "first" VP would do, so it's possible that such a pick could have the effect of increasing turnout among both members of the group and young, socially liberal people who are not members of the group. (I will freely admit that while I liked Obama for other reasons, electing the first black president was exciting.) OTOH, such a pick could also have the effect of turning off potential voters too, because one of the main grievances of Obama-Trump voters seems to be how much identity politics has captured the Democratic Party.

Interestingly, as I'm writing this, I realized that I think Gabbard would make an acceptable presidential nominee but a bad VP nominee, while Warren would make a terrible presidential nominee but an acceptable VP nominee. I think that as a presidential nominee, Gabbard's military service record is an advantage against Trump, but it's a lot less compelling if she's the VP nominee, and especially if someone old picks her, she has the potential to be this year's Palin. (It's not likely Sanders or Biden will die in office, so if you like her better, that's not an upside, but people are sufficiently loss-averse that if you worry about her as president, it's a significant downside.) Warren, meanwhile, has strong credentials and has one major issue with her that Trump focuses on. That issue is a problem if she's the presidential nominee, because Trump will hammer at it repeatedly, but as VP nominee, she will be in the shadow of the actual nominee and such attacks would likely be less effective.

In short, I think Clinton made the right call by picking Tim Kaine, or someone like him, one of the only things her campaign did well. You want 1. a fairly boring candidate, 2. from a state which has a decent chance of being a tipping-point state, who 3. won't cost you a Senate seat. I think Brown qualifies as "boring" in most people's perception, but picking him would have failed on the last two points last election, and they're even more of a concern this election. Also, if the candidate would be a "first," that has the potential to be a benefit, but it's unproven, and given my concerns about how swing voters in the Midwest react to identity politics, I think that only fairly boring "first" candidates like Castro or Buttigieg or Klobuchar would make good VP selections.
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Re: Democratic Primary 2020

Postby gisambards » Sun Mar 10, 2019 10:33 am

cmsellers wrote:In short, I think Clinton made the right call by picking Tim Kaine, or someone like him, one of the only things her campaign did well. You want 1. a fairly boring candidate, 2. from a state which has a decent chance of being a tipping-point state, who 3. won't cost you a Senate seat.

I'm not sure I can agree. By this logic Kaine was a better pick than Biden was for Obama, which doesn't hold up. I understand why freeing up a Senate seat might be a concern, but in general I don't think there are clear enough rules for what works for a running mate. I'm not at all invested in Sherrod Brown being on the Democratic ticket, but I don't think it needs to be this controversial to suggest that a guy who definitely seemed to be high on Clinton's list will also be high on a lot of candidates' this time around.
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