I'm pleased that the Democratic Party clown car is getting a bit less crowded, and that a manifestly unqualified candidate is dropping out. I'm sure Pete's purposes were served in raising his...
I'm pleased that the Democratic Party clown car is getting a bit less crowded, and that a manifestly unqualified candidate is dropping out. I'm sure Pete's purposes were served in raising his profile for a U.S. Senate run. Nonetheless, I'm somewhat saddened that it's a loss of historic LGBT+ representation in the race.
After spending a lot of money on the african american vote in SC, more than any other candidate, and getting like 2% of it in SC, it's pretty clear that no matter what he does he will never have...
After spending a lot of money on the african american vote in SC, more than any other candidate, and getting like 2% of it in SC, it's pretty clear that no matter what he does he will never have the minority vote, which makes it functionally impossible to be the nominee. It's pretty clear that it'll just be wasted money at this point.
I'm interested to know how much his sexuality played a role in his struggle to gain support from black voters. Obviously, there are issues with the South Bend police force and his administration...
I'm interested to know how much his sexuality played a role in his struggle to gain support from black voters. Obviously, there are issues with the South Bend police force and his administration was criticized for its response, but we aren't far from 2008 when black voters in California played an important role in passing prop 8.
It's clear that he didn't get black support. It's not clear to me yet why and I think we should add that question to the list of stuff to potentially investigate. One possibility is that you just...
It's clear that he didn't get black support. It's not clear to me yet why and I think we should add that question to the list of stuff to potentially investigate.
One possibility is that you just can't win some people's support in one election cycle?
Being as how he had no realistic shot, this was the best possible time for him to get out. Losing campaigns tend to have a sort of stink about them and sticking it out past this point would have...
Being as how he had no realistic shot, this was the best possible time for him to get out. Losing campaigns tend to have a sort of stink about them and sticking it out past this point would have just piled a bunch of baggage onto Buttigieg as the campaign gets increasingly negative and cutthroat after Super Tuesday. He has a promising career ahead of him so there is no reason to go for broke and have all these negative associations hung around his neck now.
By leaving now, he leaves with people having mostly good feelings about him and without having to suffer through the grinding slog that late-stage campaigns on life support end up being. It’s actually good of him. Too many people don’t know when to quit. They think of themselves winning and get stars in their eyes that blind them to the reality of their situation. Sanders 2016 is a perfect example.
Sanders 2016 campaign is a perfect example of why it can be a good idea to go the distance. His current campaign would not be viable without the super delegate and caucus reforms that he...
Sanders 2016 campaign is a perfect example of why it can be a good idea to go the distance.
His current campaign would not be viable without the super delegate and caucus reforms that he negotiated at the 2016 DNC. Without staying in the race to accrue 46% of pledged delegates he would not have had a strong enough hand to accomplish this.
My comment was more about the odor of desperation and general air of negativity his campaign took on as the race wore on. He got to the convention, but by the time he got there he ended up burning...
My comment was more about the odor of desperation and general air of negativity his campaign took on as the race wore on. He got to the convention, but by the time he got there he ended up burning a lot of bridges, creating a lot of "NEVER BERNIE!" and "NEVER HILLARY!" partisans, and engaging in a lot of hypocritical and transparently farcical arguments about the mathematic probabilities of winning and trying to convince superdelegates to flip for him despite being anti-establishment the whole way through.
I was supporting him taking it all the way to the convention specifically because I wanted as many Sanders delegates as possible there to push the platform and reform the primary system. But between all the lame attempts at unskewing polls, the repetition of Trumpy "Lock Her Up!" memes, and the overheated rhetoric about relatively minor inside-baseball dirty tricks the Clinton campaign did being gussied up as some kind of illegitimate rigging that invalidated the whole process, I was often downright embarrassed to be there.
I think there probably is a way to do it where you can stay true to your most important principles and maybe jettison the performative ones but Sanders didn't thread that needle very elegantly. In his defense, it is a very hard needle to thread. Like I said before, it's easy to get stars in your eyes when you have crowds full of people vocally investing all their hopes and dreams onto you. In Pete's case, though, he always seemed more motivated by holding the office than by any particular ideological objective. So it makes sense that he would step aside since it's not clear what he'd be sticking it out to the convention to do. I feel the same about Amy, but I think Warren and Bloomberg have some clear plans about what they want to achieve long term. Yang did too, but since he was unlikely to get even a single delegate at the end of the day I guess it makes sense he would drop.
If they have money and support, why shouldn’t they keep running? What’s a “legitimate” reason to be running, in your eyes? Every day they’re campaigning is a day they’re spreading the word about...
If they have money and support, why shouldn’t they keep running? What’s a “legitimate” reason to be running, in your eyes? Every day they’re campaigning is a day they’re spreading the word about their priorities and keeping their platform as part of the national conversation. If you actually cared about getting the word out about where you think the country should go why wouldn’t you stay in until you can’t?
Because they are the leader of an organization with people they care about? I'm not saying it's time (this is a tough judgement call), but there is a point where encouraging your supporters to go...
Because they are the leader of an organization with people they care about?
I'm not saying it's time (this is a tough judgement call), but there is a point where encouraging your supporters to go out knocking on doors for you and asking them to send you more of their money is no longer supportable. An organization's leaders have to project confidence in their project. There is always an element of "fake it until you make it," but it gets to a point where it's just stringing people along about things you know darned well won't happen.
The party convention does more than just nominate the candidate. The delegates candidates bring get involved in hammering out the party platform and decide the rules by which future nominating...
Because they are the leader of an organization with people they care about?
The party convention does more than just nominate the candidate. The delegates candidates bring get involved in hammering out the party platform and decide the rules by which future nominating contests will play out.
This is true, but when they go to their supporters for more money, they don't say "give me money because if I have more delegates, I will influence the party platform." They say "give me money...
This is true, but when they go to their supporters for more money, they don't say "give me money because if I have more delegates, I will influence the party platform." They say "give me money because it might help me become the next president." Raising money even with long odds is a risky bet but people know that. Raising money without any plan to succeed is basically fraudulent and are you really in favor of that?
(That's a bit over-dramatic since it's a fuzzy distinction. There might still be some tiny chance. But I think it describes the psychology of selling something you no longer believe in, and asking the other people in your organization to lie for you as well.)
The honest way would be to tell the truth about what you are really trying to do. But making that organizational change is a hard sell. They probably won't give you any money just to get some delegates, and the people working for you will look for other things to do, and also voters won't vote for you.
They will probably figure it out on their own even if you don't tell the truth, so the benefits of lying about it aren't that much anyway.
I don't see it as being that much more fraudulent than anything a candidate says while campaigning. The voting public is fairly dumb, but it's not generally that dumb. In 2016 I think most people...
Raising money without any plan to succeed is basically fraudulent and are you really in favor of that?
I don't see it as being that much more fraudulent than anything a candidate says while campaigning. The voting public is fairly dumb, but it's not generally that dumb. In 2016 I think most people voting for Sanders knew when his candidacy was nonviable, they just wanted to lodge a vote in support of him and his agenda.
That's a shame, I really liked Buttigieg. He was an excellent candidate and I think he could do a lot of good as the President. Oh well, guess I'm officially onboard the Sanders train now.
That's a shame, I really liked Buttigieg. He was an excellent candidate and I think he could do a lot of good as the President. Oh well, guess I'm officially onboard the Sanders train now.
Are you aware that Buttigieg is despised by the young and vocal faction of Sanders' base? Further to the point, Buttigieg has made several 'right-wing talking point' attacks on Sanders' policies...
Are you aware that Buttigieg is despised by the young and vocal faction of Sanders' base? Further to the point, Buttigieg has made several 'right-wing talking point' attacks on Sanders' policies and happens to the the most prominently billionaire-funded candidate.
Honestly it's baffling that you'd suggest Buttigieg as a VP to Sanders.
Everyone who isn’t Sanders or hasn’t sworn a blood oath to him is despised by the “young and vocal faction of the Sanders base.” They’re actually kind of a shitty faction that needs to grow up. If...
Everyone who isn’t Sanders or hasn’t sworn a blood oath to him is despised by the “young and vocal faction of the Sanders base.”
They’re actually kind of a shitty faction that needs to grow up. If Sanders wants to actually win he’s going to need a moderate VP that the base is going to hate. Theme the breaks. It won’t be Buttigieg, but not because he’s moderate. More because he’s a naif and is really like someone with more experience in the VP chair if I’m going to have an octogenarian President.
Flatly not true. Plenty of Sanders young supporters do not despise Warren at all. I, in this group, do not despise Warren at all. If you were to measure the antipathy I have towards Warren,...
Exemplary
Everyone who isn’t Sanders or hasn’t sworn a blood oath to him is despised by the “young and vocal faction of the Sanders base.”
Flatly not true. Plenty of Sanders young supporters do not despise Warren at all. I, in this group, do not despise Warren at all. If you were to measure the antipathy I have towards Warren, Buttigieg, and Bloomberg on a 1-10 scale it'd be 2, 5, 7. The Koch brothers would get a 9 or 10.
Chapo Trap House hosts, who definitely sit in this faction are actually quite pleasant about Yang. Not just not despising him, but actually liking him a bit.
So there's some clear counter examples. You shouldn't pretend the young and vocal faction operates on a Bernie or bust binary.
They’re actually kind of a shitty faction that needs to grow up. If Sanders wants to actually win he’s going to need a moderate VP that the base is going to hate.
Your first sentence seems thick with Boomer condescension. I need to grow up because I'm 27 and vocally advocate for Democratic Socialist politics? As to your second sentence, it is quite possibly not true and is talking generically of a "moderate". There's other moderates that fit much better into a Sanders campaign than Buttigieg.
To be fair it's specifically the Chapo Trap House crowd and the Sanders-adjacent grifters, like Shaun King. Collectively they get called the "DirtBag Left." They're a pretty discrete and easily...
Yes the Sander's internet contingent
To be fair it's specifically the Chapo Trap House crowd and the Sanders-adjacent grifters, like Shaun King. Collectively they get called the "DirtBag Left." They're a pretty discrete and easily identifiable component of the group if you travel in those circles, but it is hard to talk about them because any time you try to point out when they're being hypocrites or bullies, they will wrap themselves up in "Left solidarity" the way the way Right Wingers wrap themselves in the flag and talk about how you must not want people to have healthcare.
It's a clever motte-and-bailey style defense mechanism they've come up with. Very similar to the GamerGate strategy of letting the shitheads be shitheads while accusing you of being for graft and microtransactions any time you call out their bad behavior. It doesn't help that most people don't travel in those circles and can't tell the difference between them and regular people who just support the same candidate.
I don't think it's about being moderate, it's about taking donor money while saying you're grassroots (at least optimistically). The revolution has no room from money that comes from rich...
Buttigieg is the part of the Democratic Party Sanders wants to destroy, there's no room in the revolution for moderate politicians.
I don't think it's about being moderate, it's about taking donor money while saying you're grassroots (at least optimistically). The revolution has no room from money that comes from rich corporations, although it definitely presumes moderate candidates only exist because of big money and doesn't really care about stuff like race or religion since it sees it as just inequality with a tint applied. And since a large share of the 2 core minorities in the US are actually pretty culturally conservative, just economically liberal from economic hardship and not exclusionary of themselves, they will vote for people who don't believe in revolution because well, they don't want revolution to begin with.
I wasn't necessarily calling her out for taking the money. I'm just pointing out that she's probably supporting Bloomberg instead of Sanders in this race if she took that much money from him.
I wasn't necessarily calling her out for taking the money. I'm just pointing out that she's probably supporting Bloomberg instead of Sanders in this race if she took that much money from him.
What if Sanders or Biden wins and then gets a second term? They'll be 87 and 86 respectively at the end of that hypothetical second term. Even Warren would be 79. I was considering this very point...
I would be lying if I said that the idea of having an eighty-year-old president did not make me a little anxious.
What if Sanders or Biden wins and then gets a second term? They'll be 87 and 86 respectively at the end of that hypothetical second term. Even Warren would be 79.
I was considering this very point recently. If you look around the world, most democratic government leaders are in their 50s & 60s. The USA seems to be unusual in having a much older leader of its government. While the rest of the world is run by Gen X folks, the USA is still run by Baby Boomers.
Then again, if the Queen can do it...
The Queen of Great Britain (and Canada, and Australia, and New Zealand, and lots of other countries) is only the head of state, and is not the head of government. Her role is almost entirely ceremonial. She doesn't actually run her countries. She has Prime Ministers for that. All she does officially is give her royal assent to laws passed by Parliament, and open Parliament occasionally. Outside of Britain, she doesn't even do that: her Governors-General do it on her behalf.
Queen Elizabeth is not doing anything like what the President of the United States of America is required to do.
Out of all the major candidates which have a chance of winning the nomination, of which I believe four are left. Sanders is the candidate I want to win, but he recently recovered from a bout of...
Out of all the major candidates which have a chance of winning the nomination, of which I believe four are left.
Sanders is the candidate I want to win, but he recently recovered from a bout of poor health and is ancient compared to Trump's already old age. That being said, Bloomberg and Biden are similarly old.
Bloomberg would be my second choice out of all the democratic candidates. He's the most qualified in terms of business smarts, but I think he entered the race far too late, and I don't like the shady online astroturfing tactics he's pulled to give the impression that he has a following.
Biden is seemingly crooked, has a lot of dirt that Trump can dig up against him and will likely face an even bigger obstacle than Clinton did four years ago. He is also promising a return to the status quo under Obama, which isn't necessarily a bad thing but is not the change America needs.
Warren is a Sanders-lite who has similarly progressive policies, but isn't gaining as much momentum as Sanders. If the Simpsons prophecy that a female president will follow Donald Trump is to occur this year, it will definitely be her.
If you ask me, Buttigieg withdrew too soon and could have certainly clinched the nomination. He should've waited until at least Super Tuesday.
We shouldn’t over-analyze this. One thing we know about the “Black vote” in the South is that they vote as a block. There is some kind of consensus process where they get word on who their guy is...
Buttigieg had zero support amongst people of colour. I am one of the biggest Mayor Pete fans on tildes and even I can look at it realistically and say, at this juncture, he wasn't getting the nomination.
We shouldn’t over-analyze this. One thing we know about the “Black vote” in the South is that they vote as a block. There is some kind of consensus process where they get word on who their guy is gonna be and they all show up for them. It happened in 2016, 2008, and again now.
This doesn’t really mean African American voters don’t like a person for any specific reason. It just means you don’t get to be the lucky winner of their block vote. I think younger Black voters are much more ideological and less lock-step voting than their older compatriots, but they’re still a very small set of the vote overall.
It’s a strategy that goes back to the civil rights struggle. They had endorsement networks and voted as solid blocks to boot the Dixiecrats out of the party. But this vestigial habit is probably serving them poorly in terms of representing their real interests or in expanding the vote-share of the Democratic Party as a whole.
He was never my first choice, but I applaud his involvement. Not the least of which was to give every uncertain gay kid at home a role model -- you can see someone "like you" on a national stage....
He was never my first choice, but I applaud his involvement. Not the least of which was to give every uncertain gay kid at home a role model -- you can see someone "like you" on a national stage.
Mostly I think he needs more experience. As a friend put it, it's time for him to go back to the minor leagues, but I think he has a good shot of making it to The Show in the future. (Obviously all my friends wisely speak in baseball terms.)
So, what does this mean for the map? I'm assuming that Biden is on the rise since the moderate lane is clear and Bloomberg is not really looking like much of a competition.
So, what does this mean for the map? I'm assuming that Biden is on the rise since the moderate lane is clear and Bloomberg is not really looking like much of a competition.
It's not so clear cut. In a lot of polls, the second choice candidate for most Buttigieg (and even Klobuchar) voters is actually Sanders. I expect we'll see all the remaining candidates get a...
It's not so clear cut. In a lot of polls, the second choice candidate for most Buttigieg (and even Klobuchar) voters is actually Sanders. I expect we'll see all the remaining candidates get a small bump, with Biden and Sanders taking the lions share. Buttigieg was framed as a moderate, but his platform was still pretty progressive compared to Biden (though not nearly as much as Sanders or Warren).
Its definitely good for Biden, and I'll be surprised if Klobachar stays in after Tuesday (I assume shes going to have comperable numbers to previous states). I think its really down to Sanders and...
Its definitely good for Biden, and I'll be surprised if Klobachar stays in after Tuesday (I assume shes going to have comperable numbers to previous states). I think its really down to Sanders and Biden at this point. I think Warren would be a great president, but it doesnt look like shes got the votes.
I'm pleased that the Democratic Party clown car is getting a bit less crowded, and that a manifestly unqualified candidate is dropping out. I'm sure Pete's purposes were served in raising his profile for a U.S. Senate run. Nonetheless, I'm somewhat saddened that it's a loss of historic LGBT+ representation in the race.
After spending a lot of money on the african american vote in SC, more than any other candidate, and getting like 2% of it in SC, it's pretty clear that no matter what he does he will never have the minority vote, which makes it functionally impossible to be the nominee. It's pretty clear that it'll just be wasted money at this point.
I'm interested to know how much his sexuality played a role in his struggle to gain support from black voters. Obviously, there are issues with the South Bend police force and his administration was criticized for its response, but we aren't far from 2008 when black voters in California played an important role in passing prop 8.
It's clear that he didn't get black support. It's not clear to me yet why and I think we should add that question to the list of stuff to potentially investigate.
One possibility is that you just can't win some people's support in one election cycle?
Being as how he had no realistic shot, this was the best possible time for him to get out. Losing campaigns tend to have a sort of stink about them and sticking it out past this point would have just piled a bunch of baggage onto Buttigieg as the campaign gets increasingly negative and cutthroat after Super Tuesday. He has a promising career ahead of him so there is no reason to go for broke and have all these negative associations hung around his neck now.
By leaving now, he leaves with people having mostly good feelings about him and without having to suffer through the grinding slog that late-stage campaigns on life support end up being. It’s actually good of him. Too many people don’t know when to quit. They think of themselves winning and get stars in their eyes that blind them to the reality of their situation. Sanders 2016 is a perfect example.
Sanders 2016 campaign is a perfect example of why it can be a good idea to go the distance.
His current campaign would not be viable without the super delegate and caucus reforms that he negotiated at the 2016 DNC. Without staying in the race to accrue 46% of pledged delegates he would not have had a strong enough hand to accomplish this.
My comment was more about the odor of desperation and general air of negativity his campaign took on as the race wore on. He got to the convention, but by the time he got there he ended up burning a lot of bridges, creating a lot of "NEVER BERNIE!" and "NEVER HILLARY!" partisans, and engaging in a lot of hypocritical and transparently farcical arguments about the mathematic probabilities of winning and trying to convince superdelegates to flip for him despite being anti-establishment the whole way through.
I was supporting him taking it all the way to the convention specifically because I wanted as many Sanders delegates as possible there to push the platform and reform the primary system. But between all the lame attempts at unskewing polls, the repetition of Trumpy "Lock Her Up!" memes, and the overheated rhetoric about relatively minor inside-baseball dirty tricks the Clinton campaign did being gussied up as some kind of illegitimate rigging that invalidated the whole process, I was often downright embarrassed to be there.
I think there probably is a way to do it where you can stay true to your most important principles and maybe jettison the performative ones but Sanders didn't thread that needle very elegantly. In his defense, it is a very hard needle to thread. Like I said before, it's easy to get stars in your eyes when you have crowds full of people vocally investing all their hopes and dreams onto you. In Pete's case, though, he always seemed more motivated by holding the office than by any particular ideological objective. So it makes sense that he would step aside since it's not clear what he'd be sticking it out to the convention to do. I feel the same about Amy, but I think Warren and Bloomberg have some clear plans about what they want to achieve long term. Yang did too, but since he was unlikely to get even a single delegate at the end of the day I guess it makes sense he would drop.
If they have money and support, why shouldn’t they keep running? What’s a “legitimate” reason to be running, in your eyes? Every day they’re campaigning is a day they’re spreading the word about their priorities and keeping their platform as part of the national conversation. If you actually cared about getting the word out about where you think the country should go why wouldn’t you stay in until you can’t?
Because they are the leader of an organization with people they care about?
I'm not saying it's time (this is a tough judgement call), but there is a point where encouraging your supporters to go out knocking on doors for you and asking them to send you more of their money is no longer supportable. An organization's leaders have to project confidence in their project. There is always an element of "fake it until you make it," but it gets to a point where it's just stringing people along about things you know darned well won't happen.
The party convention does more than just nominate the candidate. The delegates candidates bring get involved in hammering out the party platform and decide the rules by which future nominating contests will play out.
This is true, but when they go to their supporters for more money, they don't say "give me money because if I have more delegates, I will influence the party platform." They say "give me money because it might help me become the next president." Raising money even with long odds is a risky bet but people know that. Raising money without any plan to succeed is basically fraudulent and are you really in favor of that?
(That's a bit over-dramatic since it's a fuzzy distinction. There might still be some tiny chance. But I think it describes the psychology of selling something you no longer believe in, and asking the other people in your organization to lie for you as well.)
The honest way would be to tell the truth about what you are really trying to do. But making that organizational change is a hard sell. They probably won't give you any money just to get some delegates, and the people working for you will look for other things to do, and also voters won't vote for you.
They will probably figure it out on their own even if you don't tell the truth, so the benefits of lying about it aren't that much anyway.
I don't see it as being that much more fraudulent than anything a candidate says while campaigning. The voting public is fairly dumb, but it's not generally that dumb. In 2016 I think most people voting for Sanders knew when his candidacy was nonviable, they just wanted to lodge a vote in support of him and his agenda.
Perhaps they're hoping to negotiate an additional nod towards their priorities in exchange for an endorsement.
That's a shame, I really liked Buttigieg. He was an excellent candidate and I think he could do a lot of good as the President. Oh well, guess I'm officially onboard the Sanders train now.
He's got plenty of time to run in the future, if that's any consolation.
He will, no doubt.
I think he would make an excellent VP under Sanders. Just a thought.
Are you aware that Buttigieg is despised by the young and vocal faction of Sanders' base? Further to the point, Buttigieg has made several 'right-wing talking point' attacks on Sanders' policies and happens to the the most prominently billionaire-funded candidate.
Honestly it's baffling that you'd suggest Buttigieg as a VP to Sanders.
Everyone who isn’t Sanders or hasn’t sworn a blood oath to him is despised by the “young and vocal faction of the Sanders base.”
They’re actually kind of a shitty faction that needs to grow up. If Sanders wants to actually win he’s going to need a moderate VP that the base is going to hate. Theme the breaks. It won’t be Buttigieg, but not because he’s moderate. More because he’s a naif and is really like someone with more experience in the VP chair if I’m going to have an octogenarian President.
Flatly not true. Plenty of Sanders young supporters do not despise Warren at all. I, in this group, do not despise Warren at all. If you were to measure the antipathy I have towards Warren, Buttigieg, and Bloomberg on a 1-10 scale it'd be 2, 5, 7. The Koch brothers would get a 9 or 10.
Chapo Trap House hosts, who definitely sit in this faction are actually quite pleasant about Yang. Not just not despising him, but actually liking him a bit.
So there's some clear counter examples. You shouldn't pretend the young and vocal faction operates on a Bernie or bust binary.
Your first sentence seems thick with Boomer condescension. I need to grow up because I'm 27 and vocally advocate for Democratic Socialist politics? As to your second sentence, it is quite possibly not true and is talking generically of a "moderate". There's other moderates that fit much better into a Sanders campaign than Buttigieg.
To be fair it's specifically the Chapo Trap House crowd and the Sanders-adjacent grifters, like Shaun King. Collectively they get called the "DirtBag Left." They're a pretty discrete and easily identifiable component of the group if you travel in those circles, but it is hard to talk about them because any time you try to point out when they're being hypocrites or bullies, they will wrap themselves up in "Left solidarity" the way the way Right Wingers wrap themselves in the flag and talk about how you must not want people to have healthcare.
It's a clever motte-and-bailey style defense mechanism they've come up with. Very similar to the GamerGate strategy of letting the shitheads be shitheads while accusing you of being for graft and microtransactions any time you call out their bad behavior. It doesn't help that most people don't travel in those circles and can't tell the difference between them and regular people who just support the same candidate.
Signal boosting on reddit doesn't take much. The algorithm privileges fast rising posts, so the groupthink can get locked in pretty fast.
While taking big donor money? Never, that's one of the core enemies of the Sanders campaign.
I don't think it's about being moderate, it's about taking donor money while saying you're grassroots (at least optimistically). The revolution has no room from money that comes from rich corporations, although it definitely presumes moderate candidates only exist because of big money and doesn't really care about stuff like race or religion since it sees it as just inequality with a tint applied. And since a large share of the 2 core minorities in the US are actually pretty culturally conservative, just economically liberal from economic hardship and not exclusionary of themselves, they will vote for people who don't believe in revolution because well, they don't want revolution to begin with.
Being in online pro-Bernie spaces, this is often acknowledged, explicitly and implicitly.
Stacey took $5 million from Bloomberg, so probably not her, but your point still stands.
I wasn't necessarily calling her out for taking the money. I'm just pointing out that she's probably supporting Bloomberg instead of Sanders in this race if she took that much money from him.
Crazy to think Biden is now the youngest male candidate for the Democrats.
What if Sanders or Biden wins and then gets a second term? They'll be 87 and 86 respectively at the end of that hypothetical second term. Even Warren would be 79.
I was considering this very point recently. If you look around the world, most democratic government leaders are in their 50s & 60s. The USA seems to be unusual in having a much older leader of its government. While the rest of the world is run by Gen X folks, the USA is still run by Baby Boomers.
The Queen of Great Britain (and Canada, and Australia, and New Zealand, and lots of other countries) is only the head of state, and is not the head of government. Her role is almost entirely ceremonial. She doesn't actually run her countries. She has Prime Ministers for that. All she does officially is give her royal assent to laws passed by Parliament, and open Parliament occasionally. Outside of Britain, she doesn't even do that: her Governors-General do it on her behalf.
Queen Elizabeth is not doing anything like what the President of the United States of America is required to do.
Out of all the major candidates which have a chance of winning the nomination, of which I believe four are left.
Sanders is the candidate I want to win, but he recently recovered from a bout of poor health and is ancient compared to Trump's already old age. That being said, Bloomberg and Biden are similarly old.
Bloomberg would be my second choice out of all the democratic candidates. He's the most qualified in terms of business smarts, but I think he entered the race far too late, and I don't like the shady online astroturfing tactics he's pulled to give the impression that he has a following.
Biden is seemingly crooked, has a lot of dirt that Trump can dig up against him and will likely face an even bigger obstacle than Clinton did four years ago. He is also promising a return to the status quo under Obama, which isn't necessarily a bad thing but is not the change America needs.
Warren is a Sanders-lite who has similarly progressive policies, but isn't gaining as much momentum as Sanders. If the Simpsons prophecy that a female president will follow Donald Trump is to occur this year, it will definitely be her.
If you ask me, Buttigieg withdrew too soon and could have certainly clinched the nomination. He should've waited until at least Super Tuesday.
We shouldn’t over-analyze this. One thing we know about the “Black vote” in the South is that they vote as a block. There is some kind of consensus process where they get word on who their guy is gonna be and they all show up for them. It happened in 2016, 2008, and again now.
This doesn’t really mean African American voters don’t like a person for any specific reason. It just means you don’t get to be the lucky winner of their block vote. I think younger Black voters are much more ideological and less lock-step voting than their older compatriots, but they’re still a very small set of the vote overall.
It’s a strategy that goes back to the civil rights struggle. They had endorsement networks and voted as solid blocks to boot the Dixiecrats out of the party. But this vestigial habit is probably serving them poorly in terms of representing their real interests or in expanding the vote-share of the Democratic Party as a whole.
He was never my first choice, but I applaud his involvement. Not the least of which was to give every uncertain gay kid at home a role model -- you can see someone "like you" on a national stage.
Mostly I think he needs more experience. As a friend put it, it's time for him to go back to the minor leagues, but I think he has a good shot of making it to The Show in the future. (Obviously all my friends wisely speak in baseball terms.)
So, what does this mean for the map? I'm assuming that Biden is on the rise since the moderate lane is clear and Bloomberg is not really looking like much of a competition.
It's not so clear cut. In a lot of polls, the second choice candidate for most Buttigieg (and even Klobuchar) voters is actually Sanders. I expect we'll see all the remaining candidates get a small bump, with Biden and Sanders taking the lions share. Buttigieg was framed as a moderate, but his platform was still pretty progressive compared to Biden (though not nearly as much as Sanders or Warren).
Its definitely good for Biden, and I'll be surprised if Klobachar stays in after Tuesday (I assume shes going to have comperable numbers to previous states). I think its really down to Sanders and Biden at this point. I think Warren would be a great president, but it doesnt look like shes got the votes.
I agree. Done.