Political Roundtable Part XXVII

[dckingsfan]

lol @ Bernie being extreme...

First, Bernie's policies in this country are very extreme (this one isn't debatable). And certainly the most extreme of this set of candidates.

Second, even in most OECD countries many of his policies are extreme. Just one example would be the wealth taxes that have been rolled back in those countries.

Anecdotal but... when I talk to my colleagues in Brussels, Denmark and the Netherlands, they say that Bernie would be on the left there. And my guess is he would go to the left of any of them - Bernie being Bernie. Just like what Bernie has done is go to the left of Warren on every one of her policies.

And now we are talking about a Bernie ~24% payroll tax... you should be able to understand "why" some of his proposals are considered extreme.

Yes, bolded is the important qualifier. He's extreme in this country because this country is incredibly conservative.

And you're going to have to show your work with "many" of his policies being "extreme" in "most" OECD countries. That simply isn't true. I'm sure you can cherry pick a policy that is more left than average - that does not render him an extremist.

yeah, I will throw it back to you - go through all of Bernie's proposals, go through all of the OCED countries and create a matrix... guess neither of us cares to do the work.

But I wasn't the one that said that Bernie isn't extreme compared to other countries... so there is that

[FAH1223]

I think if Bernie is the candidate - we aren't taking the senate, right?

I think if Bernie were the President, it's because of a wave similar to the one that washed out the House and put AOC in front of cameras.

Reasonable opinion - but I think that was mostly moderates doing the heavy lifting... so, I would respectfully disagree that 2018 would be reflected with a Bernie POTUS run.

I think it would need to be a Obama like run where folks that didn't vote before came out.

Dems are losing Doug Jones.

But are likely to win in Colorado and Maine. Arizona is also looking likely. And then they'd have to flip one more seat (NC? One of the GA seats? IA? )

I mean, Hillary didn't have coattails in 2016. Dems only picked up like 6-7 seats in the House or something like that but still short of the majority.

I think despite the bytching you're seeing with some House Dems, I don't think Bernie is going to be so toxic down ballot as they're screaming about. GOP has recruited a lot of mediocre candidates and their House fundraising has been lagging behind big time.

The Senate is going to be very interesting.

And the Dems only picked up a net of 2 seats in the Senate when polling showed they'd get a slim majority (the WI and PA polls were wrong in the end... McGinty and Feingold lost when they were showed to be flipping those seats).

Its going to be close no matter what IMO.

[I_Like_Dirt]

Bernie may tap her as a running mate. Though I bet Bernie being Bernie he will pick someone who surprises and even pisses some people off

Frankly if Warren were not our chief Executive I think she would be far more effective as Senate Majority leader under a Bernie administration. She would put smart bills in front of him that will serve as foundational building blocks to accomplish his aims, and she'd carry the moral leverage to get him to budge when he was feeling most stubborn..

Yeah, I think Warren has way more value being something other than a running mate. Policy wise she's too close to Bernie and simply being a better Bernie without the cult of personality doesn't necessarily bring anything to his campaign. I think Bernie would and should look elsewhere and even if he was going for a like-minded partner, going with someone like AOC or Tlaib or someone younger like that would be worlds smarter. Not saying I would or wouldn't be happy with either of those two or anyone else, just assessing the strategy. If Warren isn't the nominee, she needs to be in a spot to really get things done because she's good at it, regardless of intended consequences or otherwise.

[pancakes3]

VP Pete

[dckingsfan]

Bernie may tap her as a running mate. Though I bet Bernie being Bernie he will pick someone who surprises and even pisses some people off

Frankly if Warren were not our chief Executive I think she would be far more effective as Senate Majority leader under a Bernie administration. She would put smart bills in front of him that will serve as foundational building blocks to accomplish his aims, and she'd carry the moral leverage to get him to budge when he was feeling most stubborn..

Yeah, I think Warren has way more value being something other than a running mate. Policy wise she's too close to Bernie and simply being a better Bernie without the cult of personality doesn't necessarily bring anything to his campaign. I think Bernie would and should look elsewhere and even if he was going for a like-minded partner, going with someone like AOC or Tlaib or someone younger like that would be worlds smarter. Not saying I would or wouldn't be happy with either of those two or anyone else, just assessing the strategy. If Warren isn't the nominee, she needs to be in a spot to really get things done because she's good at it, regardless of intended consequences or otherwise.

Let's put the Warren as VP off the table. It would give the Rs another senate seat. Just never going to happen.

AOC is off the table as well (age). Of course, if AOC is the VP, we don't have to consider Bernie as POTUS.

[Pointgod]

Elizabeth Warren has been killing the debates. She’s put out substantial policies and has put out plans to get things done. However her biggest problem is two fold, one there’s a cult of personality around Bernie Sanders which Warren will never crack. And give all the credit to Bernie’s campaign they’ve l built a ground game and have a ton of work to reach voters and turn them out. Bernie’s supporters don’t care what he said about Cuba 50 years ago they want a revolution and most will admit that he won’t get a lot of his plans passed.

On the other hand of the spectrum Warren has managed to spook away the moderate candidates by tying herself so closely to Bernie. In reality Warren is incredibly smart, capable and pragmatic. Biden, Mayo Pete and Klobachar supporters would align to Warren because she’s not trying to blow up the system or fight against her own party. She’d implement her plans in a thoughtful and pragmatic manner without blowing up the economy. But that’s her own fault for not differentiating herself from the beginning of the campaign.

I don't think it's Warren's fault. This race, like all politics lately, has become a race of extremes. People who fall anywhere in the middle ground get squeezed out. Warren is politically way out there from people like Booker and Harris but she's being squeezed out because she's still in the absolutely massive canyon that is the political middle right now. She's close to Bernie but she's not quite Bernie in terms of being extreme because, like you point out, she's pragmatic and explains how she's going to attempt to do things rather than just yelling out a list of things that are she wants to have. And while supporters of those more moderate candidates might support her, they won't do it until basically all of them drop out of the race, which isn't going to happen. I'd even suggest Andrew Yang was squeezed out for similar reasons, just different lines. He represented rather dramatic change but he wasn't revolutionary enough as a personality to really drive things home and was too revolutionary for people who wanted to think things through a bit.

That's the drawback for Warren is that it meant that she was sort of caught in the middle trying to figure out where to go next. She's been murdering the debates from the outset but as soon as the cameras go off, people find excuses to go right back to their pre-established positions. She's not going to move far enough politically to draw support from Pete, Biden, etc. and she's not going to crack Bernie's personality cult even though she stands a better chance of actually achieving some of their mutual goals.

And that's where I have an issue with a fair few Bernie supporters and even Bernie himself. This fallback into the idea that he's essentially going to be able to dictator his way into achieving some of these goals, or admitting that he won't achieve his goals but wanting him elected anyway. I don't actually think Warren would come close to achieving everything she's suggesting she will, either, but she'll get significantly more of it accomplished and that's not nothing because change is coming ever faster whether we want it to or not and the ability to at least try to functionally tackle it as it comes is going to matter. Expecting the economy to be proactive is basically begging for failure; it's already proven that it isn't proactive several times over and has actively pushed against it unless they could tilt the balance of power even more into the favor of the wealthy.

As it stands, I think Warren's best path is to hold out and get as many delegates as she can until it becomes clear that a lot of moderate candidates that simply can't win and they start deciding that Warren looks way better than Bernie for all the reasons you just described, which have been patently obvious from the start. I doubt it gets to that point as it seems like the race is dividing even more with people moving even further from whatever qualifies as a center.

Obviously everything I say is in hindsight and Elizabeth Warren’s team is 1000 times smarter and more politically savvy than I am. I think early on in the campaign she rushed too quickly as the Progressive candidate instead of the unity message that she’s pushing now. You can say that her move in the Progressive lane worked because she had an early lead in the polls, but that was before the youth movement that Sanders is populating came into full effect. I think she scared off too my moderates by being lumped with Sanders as Socialist but if you look at her policies she has Progressive bonifides by proposing big changes without radical or revolutionary. The other thing she should have done was align herself with Obama a lot earlier on. He’s the most popular member of the Democratic Party and still the most popular politician worldwide. Praise his leadership over the years but recognize that just returning to the Obama years isn’t enough, you need to continue even more prosperity. I’m frankly shocked more of the candidates other than Joe Biden haven’t more closely to Obama.

[Pointgod]

So here’s a very interesting article based on data instead of opinions and feelings. The article corroborates what I’ve been saying that there’s a trade off with Bernie as the nominee where you lost some of the moderate Democrats, Republicans and Independents that helped the Dems in the midterms but you turnout the youth vote with a huge wave. But you also get the reverse effect with the moderate candidate.

The article goes into deeper implications about, but I found it pretty fascinating.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/2/25/21152538/bernie-sanders-electability-president-moderates-data

But early polling testing how Democratic nominees would fare against Trump suggests a different conclusion: Bernie Sanders, the most left-wing candidate in the Democratic primary, polls as well against Trump as his more moderate competitors in surveys. Democratic voters have appeared to take these polls to heart, as a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll finds that Democrats believe Sanders has the best chance of beating Trump.

We found that nominating Sanders would drive many Americans who would otherwise vote for a moderate Democrat to vote for Trump, especially otherwise Trump-skeptical Republicans.

Democrats and independents are also slightly more likely to say they would vote for Trump if Sanders is nominated. Swing voters may be rare — but their choices between candidates often determine elections, and many appear to favor Trump over Sanders but not over other Democrats.

The case that Bernie Sanders is just as electable as the more moderate candidates thus appears to rest on a leap of faith: that youth voter turnout would surge in the general election by double digits if and only if Bernie Sanders is nominated, compensating for the voters his nomination pushes to Trump among the rest of the electorate.

[dckingsfan]

I have been holding my breath on the youth turnout since the Carter campaign.

[I_Like_Dirt]

Let's put the Warren as VP off the table. It would give the Rs another senate seat. Just never going to happen.

AOC is off the table as well (age). Of course, if AOC is the VP, we don't have to consider Bernie as POTUS.

Agreed. No sense in dumping any senate seats, to be honest.

It doesn't have to be AOC - the whole 35 year old thing - but my point was more that he could easily grab someone younger. He may not actually balance the ticket politically. Nothing says he has to and he's been pretty resistant to such overtures in general as a part of what he's trying to do. He'd honestly make an excellent VP candidate himself, but I can't see him ever agreeing to such a thing unless it was someone like Warren who shared many of his values and Warren is far to politically savvy to try it, were she in that position.

At this point, the running mate, irrespective of the candidate, really should come from outside of the remaining group. Yang could work but so too could any number of people out there, like Stacy Abrams, or other less well known people who would hit the spotlight and thrive (or not, depending on the choice).

[I_Like_Dirt]

I have been holding my breath on the youth turnout since the Carter campaign.

Banking on youth turnout is like waiting for Godot. On average, people seem more inclined to vote when they actually have something to lose, and when they have something to lose, they're more likely to worry about how they might lose it rather than how they might improve things. It's been causing ripples in democracy for millennia.

[dckingsfan]

I have been holding my breath on the youth turnout since the Carter campaign.

Banking on youth turnout is like waiting for Godot. On average, people seem more inclined to vote when they actually have something to lose, and when they have something to lose, they're more likely to worry about how they might lose it rather than how they might improve things. It's been causing ripples in democracy for millennia.

Add to that as a young person, you are still in college, working your first job, moving from rental to rental. It isn't easy to vote.

[Pointgod]

I have been holding my breath on the youth turnout since the Carter campaign.

Bernie has actually been turning out youth to vote for him in the primaries, key word here is to vote for him. Even based on this one study it seems like a tall task to translate that to the general but you have to give him and his campaign credit.

[Pointgod]

Let's put the Warren as VP off the table. It would give the Rs another senate seat. Just never going to happen.

AOC is off the table as well (age). Of course, if AOC is the VP, we don't have to consider Bernie as POTUS.

Agreed. No sense in dumping any senate seats, to be honest.

It doesn't have to be AOC - the whole 35 year old thing - but my point was more that he could easily grab someone younger. He may not actually balance the ticket politically. Nothing says he has to and he's been pretty resistant to such overtures in general as a part of what he's trying to do. He'd honestly make an excellent VP candidate himself, but I can't see him ever agreeing to such a thing unless it was someone like Warren who shared many of his values and Warren is far to politically savvy to try it, were she in that position.

At this point, the running mate, irrespective of the candidate, really should come from outside of the remaining group. Yang could work but so too could any number of people out there, like Stacy Abrams, or other less well known people who would hit the spotlight and thrive (or not, depending on the choice).

Look at the data about voters and voting patterns and it seems the most important thing is having a unified ticket. Hillary should have picked Bernie as VP in 2016. If Bernie wins he should look to do the same, pick from one of the moderate candidates who ran (except Biden). There’s a already base there. I’m sure it will piss off some of his base but at the end of the day the Democrats need to unify. My worst fear is that he’ll pick someone like Nina Turner or already on his side of the political spectrum.

[dckingsfan]

Let's put the Warren as VP off the table. It would give the Rs another senate seat. Just never going to happen.

AOC is off the table as well (age). Of course, if AOC is the VP, we don't have to consider Bernie as POTUS.

Agreed. No sense in dumping any senate seats, to be honest.

It doesn't have to be AOC - the whole 35 year old thing - but my point was more that he could easily grab someone younger. He may not actually balance the ticket politically. Nothing says he has to and he's been pretty resistant to such overtures in general as a part of what he's trying to do. He'd honestly make an excellent VP candidate himself, but I can't see him ever agreeing to such a thing unless it was someone like Warren who shared many of his values and Warren is far to politically savvy to try it, were she in that position.

At this point, the running mate, irrespective of the candidate, really should come from outside of the remaining group. Yang could work but so too could any number of people out there, like Stacy Abrams, or other less well known people who would hit the spotlight and thrive (or not, depending on the choice).

Look at the data about voters and voting patterns and it seems the most important thing is having a unified ticket. Hillary should have picked Bernie as VP in 2016. If Bernie wins he should look to do the same, pick from one of the moderate candidates who ran (except Biden). There’s a already base there. I’m sure it will piss off some of his base but at the end of the day the Democrats need to unify. My worst fear is that he’ll pick someone like Nina Turner or already on his side of the political spectrum.

This...

And yes, Bernie is going to pick a progressive unless it is a brokered convention that forces him to compromise.

[Ruzious]

So sad for Trump that something he has absolutely no control over might tank the economy right before the election.

Bah, it won't, unless the last few years have in fact just been a huge bubble and is waiting for something to make it pop. And then it is Trump's fault.

Gotta give Trump credit where credit is due. My microbiologist friend (who's not a Trump fan) agrees with how Trump's handled the situation for the most part. He consulted with NIH scientist Tony Faucci - who's very highly regarded in the field - for his speech. He didn't just make stuff up that fit his agenda. Also, I think the criticisms he's got on this from Pelosi and AOC have been far too over-the-top. They're over-doing the panic instead of letting Trump lead in a tough situation. Hey, when he's right and we're wrong, we gotta own it - just like we do in the other 95% of the time.

[pancakes3]

and also give credit to Rush Limbaugh saying that the coronovirus is no worse than the common cold, and the hysteria is another lib hoax to discredit the president.

trump did also place massive cuts to the CDC, is not transparent about what steps he's taking to keep the country safe, and tasking Pence to oversee the preparation is a joke.

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

not to mention that his interests in preventing coronovirus is entirely politically motivated, specifically stock market motivated bc we've known about the virus for months now, and the action taken now follows the dip in the dow.

basically, all that talk in 2016 about not normalizing trump is futile bc the bar is so low that the basic step of "consulting science" is sufficient to allow for statements like "well, give credit where it's due"

[pancakes3]

like, what is this noise about Pelosi and AOC not letting Trump lead? Far as I can tell, the criticism is that he's not doing enough. Has Trump made proposals that the House has struck down or delayed? The only news that I know of is Schumer blasting Trump for making budget cuts in the first place, not requesting enough emergency funds, and not having a plan for the funds.

Read on Twitter

[pancakes3]

*not directed at Ruz specifically. just ranting.

[Zonkerbl]

So it's true we just wait until spring and it'll just die out?

[Ruzious]

*not directed at Ruz specifically. just ranting.

Hey free masks for everyone... who has a Republican voter ID card.