2020 U.S. Presidential Race

[Skycaptain]

It looks like Sanders has taken a good step forward 

[LeChat]

1 hour ago, Skycaptain said:

It looks like Sanders has taken a good step forward 

Yes. Although, I've heard that, in the end, superdelegates could decide to ignore the popular vote--if chosen by the people--and choose a different candidate.

 

I'm not understanding why the media seems to keep saying that Sanders would be a bad candidate/President, even trying to push some narrative that he'd be similar to Trump.

[Zagadka]

The media hates Sanders. Always have, and he's always hated them. The best thing, aside form all of the policy wins, of Sanders winning would be/will be watching the media and Democrat party melt down. MSNBC yesterday was hilarious.

 

The "he's like Trump", while stupid, has a little bit of truth. Both run as populists, marshaling a movement directly, outside of the party norms. In reality, that is the only way they are similar, so saying they are the same is painful.

 

But the sad fact is that the DNC isn't answerable to anyone, and they aren't democratic. I fully expect some superdelegate fuckery. The latest thing I've seen is Bloomberg demanding everyone else drop out so he can take a brokered convention, which is ridiculous. He's easily the worst candidate. But either way, the superdelegates aren't going to go with Bernie Sanders, so he needs every delegate he can get.

 

The way I see it, the party is currently divided between Sanders and Everyone Else, and in order to beat Trump, whichever side wins the nomination is going to need the other side. The centrists can't win without Bernie's movement, and Bernie can't win without the rest of the party. It isn't looking good.

[Tyger Songbird]

3 hours ago, Zagadka said:

The media hates Sanders. Always have, and he's always hated them. The best thing, aside form all of the policy wins, of Sanders winning would be/will be watching the media and Democrat party melt down. MSNBC yesterday was hilarious.

 

The "he's like Trump", while stupid, has a little bit of truth. Both run as populists, marshaling a movement directly, outside of the party norms. In reality, that is the only way they are similar, so saying they are the same is painful.

 

But the sad fact is that the DNC isn't answerable to anyone, and they aren't democratic. I fully expect some superdelegate fuckery. The latest thing I've seen is Bloomberg demanding everyone else drop out so he can take a brokered convention, which is ridiculous. He's easily the worst candidate. But either way, the superdelegates aren't going to go with Bernie Sanders, so he needs every delegate he can get.

 

The way I see it, the party is currently divided between Sanders and Everyone Else, and in order to beat Trump, whichever side wins the nomination is going to need the other side. The centrists can't win without Bernie's movement, and Bernie can't win without the rest of the party. It isn't looking good.

Did you see Chris Matthews from MSNBC give a take on what happened? His head blew a gasket last night.

[Scott1989]

3 hours ago, LeChat said:

I'm not understanding why the media seems to keep saying that Sanders would be a bad candidate/President, even trying to push some narrative that he'd be similar to Trump.

UK so I maybe missing something, and this is all based on what I'm seeing and the opinions I've formed based on that.

 

I think Sanders would be a bad candidate from what I see though he would be the one I'd most likely vote if I could (I can't). The main reason I'd say that is Bernie's policies\platform is too radical for the US (despite it maybe being the better ones if implemented). Trump was mostly about immigration and working on the economy. He made it much more exciting with the wall and stuff like that but I don't think what he ran on was very radical. What he also did was talk about America it being for America (unlike Hilary who was sounding like she was doing it for all the minorities even if it all accumulated to America as a whole). Bernie is talking about in many ways radical changes that divide the country greatly, like student loan cancellations and making higher education cheaper, making medical treatments more affordable, etc etc. While these are good policies, as the saying goes, money talks, and those impacted badly by those policies have the money to try and push their narrative to prevent it.  I mean if you sold Insulin for $500 per shot but it only costs you $5 per shot to make and your guaranteed a lot of that money yearly, wouldn't you want to ensure that keeps on rolling in? Wouldn't you try to say it'll make them defective if they cost only $50 a shot instead of $500, even if it's not true?

 

For the rest, Biden has a bit of an image problem, though Trump had this too, not sure if Biden can overcome it to win undecided or progressive republicans who don't really like Trump, without some huge sounding policy thing, even if it isn't really that interesting (lkike Trump did, so far I don't see anything). Warren has similar issues to Sanders though gets less mentions so think it'll always be an uphill battle for her. I think a Buttigieg nomination would be the Democrats best chance as he can probably win over the undecided better. He's the dark horse in the race which is getting him more publicity than most in his position would get. His only real drawback is that he's gay, but that would only put off the die hard trump supporting republicans, I think. It would be similar to Obama being elected despite him being black. Buttigieg seems to have a less drastic platform so it wouldn't scare off the undecided. I don't think he is doing anything that would drive off the non hardcore democrats while possibly might be central (for American standards) enough to attract the progressive republican votes who may see him as the lesser of 2 evils.

[daveb]

Personally I think it's a mistake to try to pick a candidate based on who people think is electable. For one, I don't think playing it "safe" is a good tactic these days in politics - I think the Dems tried to do that to some extent with Hilary last time around. For another, I don't think anyone can really say who is electable or not. To me it seems like it's basing an uncertain strategy on an uncertain guess. And could be risking alienating or disenchanting some voters in an attempt to attract others, with maybe the net result being lower voter turnout, which historically does not favor Dems. We can't forget there are other offices up for election, too, such as some Senate seats. Those are going to be important if we don't want McConnell to just keep blocking stuff.

[Zagadka]

Trying to guess who is "electable" is dumb, especially when the prevailing media opinion of "electable" is a centrist moderate who isn't going to change much. People are pissed, that is how Trump won. The constant professional opinion was that Trump could never win the primary, then could never defeat Hillary. Hillary's campaign was piss that didn't even try to cater to a lot of people, and that is exactly who Sanders is tlaking to. The media keeps talking about courting independents, but they miss that independents aren't the same thing as centrists. When Sanders got Joe Rogan's endorsement, people lost their shit, but that is exactly the type of apolitical independent that they always talk about appealing to. T hey ignore the big story of voters wanting change. They ignore that that was Obama's entire platform (not that he delivered much on it) and keep pivoting back to center. I don't expect them to be like Fox News and just kneel down to anyone, but they could at least pay attention. The Nevada polling showed that Medicare For All had like 65% support (I forget the exact number), especially from workers and unions, while they spent all week trying to convince everyone that unions didn't want it because they have no idea what they are talking about. Workers and minorities just aren't responding to most of the candidates, because the candidates aren't even trying to speak to them. So they waste 20 minutes at a national debate tlaking about people being mean on Twitter instead of healthcare or the environment, issues that continually poll as being important. No one cares if people are being mean online. People want their grievances to be addressed.

[Gloomy]

I may be a Kokesh supporter but I definitely wouldn't mind voting for this guy if he got the nomination. xD

 

 

[AspieAlly613]

4 hours ago, tygersongbird said:

Did you see Chris Matthews from MSNBC give a take on what happened? His head blew a gasket last night.

For the past year and a half, he hasn't been shy about not liking the new version of the Democrats.

[the great acescape]

13 hours ago, Zagadka said:

Trying to guess who is "electable" is dumb, especially when the prevailing media opinion of "electable" is a centrist moderate who isn't going to change much. People are pissed, that is how Trump won. The constant professional opinion was that Trump could never win the primary, then could never defeat Hillary. Hillary's campaign was piss that didn't even try to cater to a lot of people, and that is exactly who Sanders is tlaking to. The media keeps talking about courting independents, but they miss that independents aren't the same thing as centrists. When Sanders got Joe Rogan's endorsement, people lost their shit, but that is exactly the type of apolitical independent that they always talk about appealing to. T hey ignore the big story of voters wanting change. They ignore that that was Obama's entire platform (not that he delivered much on it) and keep pivoting back to center. I don't expect them to be like Fox News and just kneel down to anyone, but they could at least pay attention. The Nevada polling showed that Medicare For All had like 65% support (I forget the exact number), especially from workers and unions, while they spent all week trying to convince everyone that unions didn't want it because they have no idea what they are talking about. Workers and minorities just aren't responding to most of the candidates, because the candidates aren't even trying to speak to them. So they waste 20 minutes at a national debate tlaking about people being mean on Twitter instead of healthcare or the environment, issues that continually poll as being important. No one cares if people are being mean online. People want their grievances to be addressed.

Was going to post something that is pretty much to this effect. A lot of concerns about electability have struck me as baffling, since you can only really measure someone's electability by um, whether or not they're elected, which is only something that can be done after the fact

[AspieAlly613]

Here's my interpretation of the "electability paradox", that the Democrats polling the highest are a mix of the most recognizably moderate (Vice President Biden and Mayor Bloomberg) and the most recognizably radical (Senator Sanders).

 

All the Democrats have the support of voters who would generally support Democrats.

 

Vice President Biden and Mayor Bloomberg gather the support of voters who think that, to an extent, both the Democrats and Republicans are right.

 

Senator Sanders gathers the support of a lot of people who think that, for the most part, both the Democrats and the Republicans are wrong.

 

It's just a hypothesis, though, and given my lousy track record of political analysis, I should emphasize that I'm just guessing.

[Knight of Cydonia]

On 2/23/2020 at 5:20 PM, Scott1989 said:

UK so I maybe missing something, and this is all based on what I'm seeing and the opinions I've formed based on that.

 

I think Sanders would be a bad candidate from what I see though he would be the one I'd most likely vote if I could (I can't). The main reason I'd say that is Bernie's policies\platform is too radical for the US (despite it maybe being the better ones if implemented). Trump was mostly about immigration and working on the economy. He made it much more exciting with the wall and stuff like that but I don't think what he ran on was very radical. What he also did was talk about America it being for America (unlike Hilary who was sounding like she was doing it for all the minorities even if it all accumulated to America as a whole). Bernie is talking about in many ways radical changes that divide the country greatly, like student loan cancellations and making higher education cheaper, making medical treatments more affordable, etc etc. While these are good policies, as the saying goes, money talks, and those impacted badly by those policies have the money to try and push their narrative to prevent it.  I mean if you sold Insulin for $500 per shot but it only costs you $5 per shot to make and your guaranteed a lot of that money yearly, wouldn't you want to ensure that keeps on rolling in? Wouldn't you try to say it'll make them defective if they cost only $50 a shot instead of $500, even if it's not true?

Yes, much of this argument is why some people believe a moderate candidate has the best chance to defeat Trump. The general argument is that someone seen as more "reasonable" and "practical" would be more appealing to Democrats and Republicans toeing the line between the two parties, and anti-Trump Republicans searching for a return to order and civility. Meanwhile, progressive candidates are too far left to appeal to those swing voters.

 

Though there is also an argument to be made that a progressive candidate is the way forward. People forget about the other kind of swing voters: those that are so far left that they wouldn't come out to vote for a moderate, but would for a progressive, and those that would vote for someone radical precisely because they're not moderate and representiative of the status quo. Not to mention we already saw a moderate (Clinton) lose to Trump.

 

For me personally, I actually think what's more important than moderate vs. progressive (at least, for defeating Trump and the Repubicans) is ensuring that the candidate has both broad and enthusiastic appeal: a candidate that can invigorate people from diverse backgrounds to come out to vote for them, not because they are moderate or progressive, but because they speak to voters. That's what we saw with Obama in 2008, whose diverse "Obama coalition" was made up of African-Americans, Hispanics, women, independents, and millenials. And that's what we didn't see with Clinton. She didn't bring out an enthusiastic voter base like Trump did. Much of the Obama coalition that was key to the 2008 election simply stayed home and didn't support her - in fact, voter turnout for the 2016 presidential election was the lowest since 2000. People didn't like having to choose between the lesser of two evils, and simply voting for not-Trump was not a good enough reason for a lot of people to vote for her.

 

That's why I think Sanders is the best nominee. He has the immense grassroots support that Obama and Trump had, and he speaks to an incredibly diverse set of people. He's the first and only candidate (Democrat or Republican) in history to win the popular vote in the first three states of a competitive primary. In Nevada, he won as much as 70% of the Latino vote - which is the nation's largest minority group. Nationally, he's been polled as the leader among black, Hispanic, Asian, and white voters. And as for the argument that his ideas are too radical... according to entrance polls for all three of Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada, a majority of Democratic voters support his signature policy, Medicare-for-all. In Nevada, he was the most popular candidate even among Democratic voters who considered themselves moderate or conservative. This poll shows he has the highest favourability rating among Democratic voters (71%) of all the candidates, and is only second lowest in unfavourability (19%). All this goes to show that he and his ideas are certainly not finding support among only radical progressives.

 

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For the rest, Biden has a bit of an image problem, though Trump had this too, not sure if Biden can overcome it to win undecided or progressive republicans who don't really like Trump, without some huge sounding policy thing, even if it isn't really that interesting (lkike Trump did, so far I don't see anything). 

Biden does have an image problem, but he's also bad at actually getting people to vote for him. He's previously campaigned to be the Democratic nominee three times (1984, 1988, 2008) and has never won a single primary, and never placed above 1.42% of the national vote (before this election cycle). Even this time around, when he was clearly dominating national and state-wide polls for months before the primaries, after a series of gaffes and unimpressive debate performances and being contrasted to the other candidates, he has yet to win a single primary, nor has he come close (even in Nevada, where he placed 2nd for the first time, he drew less than half of Sanders' votes). I'd argue his appeal is largely because he was Obama's vice president, which is also why African-Americans are among his strongest blocs - and that is that simply not enough to get people out to vote.

 

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Warren has similar issues to Sanders though gets less mentions so think it'll always be an uphill battle for her.

If by similar issues you mean the fact that she's a progressive candidate too, sure. It'll be an uphill battle because it's clear that progressive have chosen Sanders over her.

 

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I think a Buttigieg nomination would be the Democrats best chance as he can probably win over the undecided better. He's the dark horse in the race which is getting him more publicity than most in his position would get. His only real drawback is that he's gay, but that would only put off the die hard trump supporting republicans, I think. It would be similar to Obama being elected despite him being black. Buttigieg seems to have a less drastic platform so it wouldn't scare off the undecided. I don't think he is doing anything that would drive off the non hardcore democrats while possibly might be central (for American standards) enough to attract the progressive republican votes who may see him as the lesser of 2 evils.

I don't think a guy whose only government experience was as a mayor of a small town in Indiana, is ready to be President. Personal opinions aside, one of the big problems about Buttigieg is that he has little support outside of white people. He did surprisingly well in Iowa and New Hampshire, but sure enough, he placed a distant third in Nevada and wasn't even viable for any state delegates - and Nevada was the first of the three states that have voted so far that isn't predominantly white. Entrance polls showed him at a miserable 2% among black voters in Nevada. This recent poll of South Carolina, the next state to go, puts him at just 1% among black voters (which make up 60% of Democratic voters in that state). I believe any candidate that has a hope of beating Trump is going to need a big, diverse voter turnout to do it, and as it stands, that simply isn't there for him.

[Scott1989]

@Knight of Cydonia, thanks for a (probably 100x) more educated opinion on this.

 

And as for Warren, to clarify, yeah I meant that she is progressive (and based on my post maybe too progressive for the US) like Sanders, but the added issue that she's lesser known and Sanders does over shadows her so she would lose out probably on a progressive v progressive competition with him.

 

By the looks of it, I think Sanders will end up with the nomination and hopefully if he does, he kicks Trump out.

[uhtred]

Sanders scares me. Not his goals, which I generally agree with, but the unprecedented scale of his plans. He wants to rearrange around 20 trillion dollars of the economy over then next ~10 years,   roughly doubling the federal budget, (tippling the discretionary budget), and needing to double taxes (or be willing to double the US national debt - putting is #1 or 2 in debt to GDP ratio). 

 

He also wants to do this on a very fast timescale.   I have some experience with the management of billion dollar class projects (mostly bad) and even at that scale, things happen extremely slowly. It takes time to hire people who will hire people. You need buildings, purchasing systems etc - then you start to build up production capability -building new factories - then you get to finally start making things faster than  you are making them now. 

 

If you try to go quickly, you will find that there are endless "leaches" trying to get their hands on a "small" part of the money - and together they drain you dry.  Want to build a $10B  solar farm - I can guarantee someone will sue you to stop, so that you have to pay them off.   

 

In WW2 things went quickly because a lot of rules could  just be thrown out the window, but more importantly *women* entered the workforce. There was a huge resource of bright, capable workers, just waiting to help.  We don't have that now. Unemployment is quite low - there isn't the same sort of pool of workers out there.

 

I think congress won't let Sanders do anything crazy, but I thought the same about Trump, but the republicans have just rolled over and done everything he wanted. 

 

 

[AspieAlly613]

If Senator Sanders wins the nomination, depending on whom he picks as a running mate, I just might write in "Kyrsten Sinema for President, Jon Tester for VP".

 

Considering Senator Sanders' current rhetoric insinuating that not only are billionaires the enemy, but if a billionaire donates to a candidate, that candidate must be in the wrong, I cannot in good conscience vote for him.  I also cannot in good conscience vote for President Trump, due to his circumventing the court orders to stop the family separation policy.  I would want to vote for the aforementioned Democratic senators so that, when the votes are tallied, it is clear that a Democrat decided not to vote for the Democratic candidate this time, not that there was one more Republican in Hartford than the initial estimate suggested.

[uhtred]

Trump vs Sanders will be an extremely difficult question for me.  I think Trump is a deeply evil man, who has done substantial harm to the country and to the world in general. But there is such a terrible risk with Sanders.  If he gets a cooperative congress he could do irreversible damage. 

 

I say that as someone who wants to greatly reduce CO2,  provide free medical care for everyone etc.  I just want a plan that is realistic. 

 

Also, the wealth tax scares me.  After the election, but before he takes office, the wealthy will have a huge incentive to buy citizenship somewhere else (Monaco for example), pay the present exit tax on their wealth.  That will force Sanders to lower the bar on how much wealth is taxed if he wants the same revenue. So the less wealthy need to think about leaving as well.  And it snowballs. Pulling money out will cause stocks to drop - further lowering the bar. 

 

I"m betting the truly wealthy will find ways to get out. The will have the most lawyers, and will be able to act the fastest.

[Zagadka]

14 minutes ago, uhtred said:

Sanders scares me. Not his goals, which I generally agree with, but the unprecedented scale of his plans.

It is intimidating. He is proposing things that are foundationally changing, in the spirit of FDR, but we aren't at a point of crisis, so I don't know how it will work out. I think he won't have support from the Senate for most of his plans, but I still feel like he could implement a lot of great reforms in government bodies (ignoring the point that I think the president has too much power in those unilateral decisions).

 

As far as a running mate goes, I have no idea who Sanders would select, and that is an important for a lot of voters, considering his age.

 

I think I would vote for any other candidate but Bloomberg, in which case at the moment I wouldn't vote. I wouldn't be happy with any of those outcomes, but Trump is really bad and I don't want to imagine what he would do with facing another election.

[AspieAlly613]

Senator Sanders himself doesn't scare me.

 

What scares me is that Democrats seem hesitant to say "We can't demonize those who are financially successful."  

[SithLord]

Just had a convo with my coworker about who would win in the election, but I legit don't know. I like Sanders and support quite a bit of his policies, but I'm not sure the country is ready for such a progressive candidate. I don't want them to swing right to elect Trump again just because they're afraid of him. 

 

But I will vote for whoever the candidate is running against Trump. I don't often say that I would vote for anyone just to vote against Trump, but I hate him that much. 

[Sally]

On 2/19/2020 at 9:14 PM, Zagadka said:

Every candidate except Sanders is apparently fine with ignoring the popular and delegate votes and letting superdelegates decide the nominee. Gee, wonder why.

 

The entire system is crap, and the primaries are somehow even worse than the electoral college.

I don't know where you got all that.   Votes in the primaries lead up to the nomination, and the electoral college has nothing to do with the primaries.  Other candidates besides sanders like the popular votes.  Delegates are chosen at several different levels:  county, state, and then national delegates.  Superdelegates don't decide the nominee; they will only vote if the first vote at the national convention is not dispositive.  If the first vote means a nominee is chosen, the superdelegates don't vote at all.

 

Get better informed before you complain.  

[Sally]

4 hours ago, AspieAlly613 said:

I would want to vote for the aforementioned Democratic senators so that, when the votes are tallied, it is clear that a Democrat decided not to vote for the Democratic candidate this time,

Sorry, if you write in someone who isn't on the ballot, your vote won't be counted unless your write-in candidate has registered to be counted.     

[daveb]

Fear and scare-mongering won't help. I think people are hyping some things too much, like people are wont to do. A big part of the reason Trump won last time is all the people who shied away from Hilary, whether they voted for Trump or just didn't vote for Hilary, the end result was a terrible 4 years. If people do that again because of fear about Sanders (which seems to be fanned by some media sites) then what do you think the result will be? Do you really think 4 more years of Trump would be better than taking a chance on Sanders (or some of the other potential nominees, depending on which way you lean)? Do you think anyone will care if you write in a candidate that isn't on the ballot, regardless of their affiliation?

 

Personally, I have had more than enough of Trump (well, to be honest any amount of Trump is too much, in my opinion), and I'm more than ready for a change. But for me it's not just a matter of voting for Not Trump (or throwing my vote away for a futile gesture). I also think ANY Democrat running for the office now is better qualified to be president and I want my vote to count for them.

[Skycaptain]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-us-canada-51648166

 

I don't think this will help Joe Biden's cause 

 

 

(nor will the fact that my phone tries to spell his surname "Bidet") 😋 😋 

[LeChat]

On 2/20/2020 at 12:14 AM, Zagadka said:

Every candidate except Sanders is apparently fine with ignoring the popular and delegate votes and letting superdelegates decide the nominee. Gee, wonder why.

 

The entire system is crap, and the primaries are somehow even worse than the electoral college.

7 hours ago, Sally said:

I don't know where you got all that.   Votes in the primaries lead up to the nomination, and the electoral college has nothing to do with the primaries.  Other candidates besides sanders like the popular votes.  Delegates are chosen at several different levels:  county, state, and then national delegates.  Superdelegates don't decide the nominee; they will only vote if the first vote at the national convention is not dispositive.  If the first vote means a nominee is chosen, the superdelegates don't vote at all.

 

Get better informed before you complain.

 

I think @Zagadka got it from the last question candidates were asked in the Vegas debate; afterward, candidates' responses to that question were being talked about everywhere, online (MSM and by voters on social media platforms) at the time. Many were bothered because, as you said, candidates like Buttigieg and Warren, apparently, had previously said one/two years ago, in interviews and/or on their Twitter accounts that they were for allowing the popular vote (I saw the old screenshots of their tweets), yet, now, they'd just said that they'd changed their minds about that.

 

Here's the clip of the question:

https://youtu.be/TZkV0ISxcQY?t=5934

 

From https://jacobinmag.com/2020/02/democratic-debate-bernie-sanders-bloomberg-buttigieg-warren-superdelegates

 

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...The most revealing moment in the debate therefore came when every candidate was asked whether unelected superdelegates should be allowed to decide the nominee if no candidate wins a majority of delegates on the first ballot — effectively ignoring the candidate who received the most votes and overruling the expressed will of the Democratic primary electorate. Everyone except Sanders replied with some version of “we should let the process play out,” a clear indication that the Democratic establishment is still keeping one last Hail Mary in its pocket as a final check on the electorate if enough voters dare to vote the wrong way...

 

[Zagadka]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/us/politics/democratic-superdelegates.html

 

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Dozens of interviews with Democratic establishment leaders this week show that they are not just worried about Mr. Sanders’s candidacy, but are also willing to risk intraparty damage to stop his nomination at the national convention in July if they get the chance. Since Mr. Sanders’s victory in Nevada’s caucuses on Saturday, The Times has interviewed 93 party officials — all of them superdelegates, who could have a say on the nominee at the convention — and found overwhelming opposition to handing the Vermont senator the nomination if he arrived with the most delegates but fell short of a majority.

The DNC is clearly in a panic about Sanders, and they are going to do everything in their power to override the popular vote, which draws sharp contrast with statements previously made about elections and the electoral college. If Sanders does win the primaries but they nominate someone else via superdelegate votes, they are going to really hurt themselves with young voters and minorities (Bernie won over 70% of the Hispanic vote in Nevada and is polling about that in California, largely from people who don't usually turn out to vote) in the future.

 

There isn't much that can be done about it, unfortunately. The DNC can do whatever it wants. I'm afraid it will all end in a mess and Trump winning against a split opposition. It is going to get messy.

 

Voting already seems futile to a lot of people. Taking the nomination away from the popular vote will make it a lot worse.

[Knight of Cydonia]

7 hours ago, Skycaptain said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-us-canada-51648166

 

I don't think this will help Joe Biden's cause 

 

 

(nor will the fact that my phone tries to spell his surname "Bidet") 😋 😋 

Biden has been plagued by memory problems and made so many gaffes throughout this primary cycle. Just within the last week, he claimed to have worked on the 2016 Climate Accord with a guy who died in 1997, claimed that 150 million Americans have been killed by guns since 2007 (you know, half the population), and stated he was a Democratic candidate for the US Senate. 

 

I'll never forget his bizarre story from a few years ago about kids rubbing his wet leg hairs, followed up by him rambling about "roaches" and saying "I love kids jumping on my lap". 

 

Somehow people feel he's the best Dem candidate for President. I don't get it.

[Zagadka]

18 minutes ago, Knight of Cydonia said:

Somehow people feel he's the best Dem candidate for President. I don't get it.

His entire campaign is based around the perception that he is electable and that he is Obama's BFF. People like him because thye know his name from the Obama administration and associate him positively. No one actually knows anything about him.

 

I'm getting down on how successfully people can campaign on name recognition. Bloomberg flooding everything with his name has gained him a surprising amount of support for how his performance and policies have been... but it isn't surprising that most people are apolitical and just check the box they are told. This is why, despite everything, the candidates poll similarly against Trump (the most recent Pennsylvania poll had Sanders up 3 points and everyone else tied or losing by 2 points).

[gisiebob]

lol I got nothing against folk who won't vote for mr Sanders just hope they didn't have complaints about the purported Sanders supporters who didn't vote for Clinton!

[Knight of Cydonia]

51 minutes ago, Zagadka said:

His entire campaign is based around the perception that he is electable and that he is Obama's BFF. People like him because thye know his name from the Obama administration and associate him positively. No one actually knows anything about him.

 

I'm getting down on how successfully people can campaign on name recognition. Bloomberg flooding everything with his name has gained him a surprising amount of support for how his performance and policies have been... but it isn't surprising that most people are apolitical and just check the box they are told. This is why, despite everything, the candidates poll similarly against Trump (the most recent Pennsylvania poll had Sanders up 3 points and everyone else tied or losing by 2 points).

Oh absolutely. I understand why Biden is still so popular - as I mentioned in an earlier post, a lot of his support is just because people know him as Obama's VP, like you said. What I don't "get" is how so many people seem content to be uninformed and just vote on name recognition. With Biden dominating in earlier national and state-wide polls, and Bloomberg having a ton of success thanks to bombarding people with ads, it's kind of opened my eyes to how widespread voter ignorance is. I do think it's a legitimate argument against democracy, unfortunately.

[Gatto]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden_(The_Onion)