Democratic Nominee in 2020

Quote: Wizard

Wish I hadn't been betting Trump before Super Tuesday, you can get a better price now.

Interesting as not much changed when you get down to it.

One thing I am wondering about is the structure of Little Mikey's campaign. Lots of what I read said he hired people on guaranteed contracts up until election day. Are these people still being paid and a sort of hidden ground game for the eventual nominee? All those offices, all those iPhones, all those people.

Quote: AZDuffman

Interesting as not much changed when you get down to it.

I think the market believed that Trump's chances were better against Bernie than Joe. Before Super Tuesday, Bernie was the favorite to be the Dem nominee.

I just saw a few Bloomberg ads while watching YouTube - guess they were prepaid

A lot of people do not understand Bloomberg.

He was not trying to win. He wanted to legally influx the DNC with hundreds of millions of campaign dollars, the only way to legally do this is if it is for yourself.
Why do you think he kept his staff on guaranteed contracts until after the general?

He is trying to defeat Trump, not win the nomination, he just legally had to be a candidate to do what he did. He did not even bother to register in some states, he had no intention of winning. Of course he can never admit this.

His goal was to get his money into the DNC, and he succeeded.

Quote: Wizard

I think the market believed that Trump's chances were better against Bernie than Joe. Before Super Tuesday, Bernie was the favorite to be the Dem nominee.

I think Bernie would be in the lead if Pete and Amy had not dropped out. Bernie would have taken TX and probably Maine, Massachussets, and Amy might have taken MN.

While the choice of running mate is important in every campaign, Joe's low energy, advanced age, and the fact that he has openly talked about being a one term POTUS makes the VP choice a make or break event.

Pete and Amy are obvious candidates. Stacy Abrams, who narrowly lost the election to be governor of Georgia in 2018, is seen as a rising star in the Democratic Party. Earlier this year, Abrams, 46, told the website FiveThirtyEight that she plans to become president of the United States by 2040. Kamala Harris, senator for California, dropped out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination in December.

I don't think Bernie or Elizabeth Warren are top contenders. Their ideas are too divergent, and Biden probably doesn't want a VP candidate who is older than himself.

This is a quote from a relative of mine that they just posted on Facebook:

"why i like Bernie Sanders: becuz he has no-one but myself, & a handful of young black/latino boys to REPAY for the spikes that he's most-WISELY stabbed in America's back for HER being a corporate whore all these unconstitutional years... "

Sadly this is the trend with many Sanders voters, they see themselves as revolutionaries and America as illegitimate. They want to fundamentally change America, and view it as a negative force in the world (when the reality is, it is the greatest force for good in world history).
Too much national masochism from that segment of the left.

I think (and hope) the DNC has got its candidates in line to ensure that Sanders will not win the nomination.

Biden is far from perfect on healthcare and economics, but he will keep the military strong, and he will be a pretty predictable figure and keep things mostly stable for a few years.
I am sure that his VP will be some predictable pick (somebody to show diversity, possibly Mayor Pete, but I have a feeling he will go for an ethnic minority for visual appeal).
It would be great if he could persuade Obama to be appointed to the Supreme Court (I think that would be an excellent role for him).

Quote: Gandler

It would be great if he could persuade Obama to be appointed to the Supreme Court (I think that would be an excellent role for him).

The most likely candidates to retire by 2024, are President Clinton's nominees (Ginsburg and Breyer) who are now Associate Justices. I think that Obama would only consider the role of Chief Justice.

John Roberts, Chief Justice since September 29, 2005 (Age 65)
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice since August 10, 1993 (Age 86)
Stephen Breyer, Associate Justice since August 3, 1994 (Age 81)

Barack Hussein Obama II August 4, 1961 (age 58)

Quote: Gandler

This is a quote from a relative of mine that they just posted on Facebook:

"why i like Bernie Sanders: becuz he has no-one but myself, & a handful of young black/latino boys to REPAY for the spikes that he's most-WISELY stabbed in America's back for HER being a corporate whore all these unconstitutional years... "

Sadly this is the trend with many Sanders voters, they see themselves as revolutionaries and America as illegitimate. They want to fundamentally change America, and view it as a negative force in the world (when the reality is, it is the greatest force for good in world history).
Too much national masochism from that segment of the left.

This is true of much of the left even if most liberals are not as open or radical about it. The right gets tagged as hating America for being against government, but the average person on the right more loves their country but hates/does not trust their government.

The lefty OTOH is more likely to hate the USA because we had slavery. Hate the USA because we pushed the Indians aside. Hate the USA for "destroying the environment." Up and down the line, just find a reason to hate the USA. They look at Cuba or the USSR and ignore the evil those places did. Stalin killed more people than Hitler dreamed of killing, as did the Chinese and other SE Asian communist leaders. That get ignored because they have a great public train system or appear to offer health care to all.

It's warped, but so are these people. Bernie supporters remind me of the kind of radicals who would in a revolution kill all the people who worked at the power plant for "forcing them to pay for electricity because electricity should be a 'right'" then would wonder why the lights were out.

Quote: terapined

“Voter suppression, plain and simple”: Texas closed hundreds of polling sites in black, Latino areas
Counties with largest minority population growth saw 2.5M new residents and 542 closures. Whiter areas had just 34

https://www.salon.com/2020/03/03/voter-suppression-plain-and-simple-texas-closed-hundreds-of-polling-sites-in-black-latino-areas/


Young black and Latino voters spent hours waiting to vote in Texas and the state can't even say how it will fix the problem before November
https://www.businessinsider.com/texas-voting-lines-super-tuesday-worse-in-november-2020-3

Why not take a deeper look at the possible causes of the problem:

"Some critics complained on Twitter and elsewhere that the delays amounted to voter suppression in a state where Republicans have been frequently sued, sometimes successfully, for trying to minimize Democratic power. But Texas elections are tightly controlled by local officials, not state ones. And in big cities like Houston and Austin which had the biggest problems on Tuesday, those officials are Democrats with scant reason to depress turnout in Democratic urban strongholds."

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/us/california-texas-voting-lines.html

Texas went to county-wide voting in many counties recently. Instead of having to find your precinct polling location, you can vote anywhere in the county. This is great--now you can vote nearer to work or closer to home! Were there mistakes? I am sure there were, but those mistakes fall on the local governments as noted above. They can fix them. The voting machines look the same as the last election, so the same basic number should be available in each county.

There are usually less polling places open in less attended elections. That is a decision by the folks in charge.

Democrats made major gains with straight ballot voting in the last couple of elections. If the guy on top is popular, push the straight button without any further thought and you get wholesale changes to the elected officials. Along with that, the new folks are now responsible. In our county, it was a clean sweep for every election where a Democrat was on the ballot. A lot of good people got tossed out with the bad. Fair and square.

The Democrats need to own up to their part of the responsibility for this problem.

No straight ballot voting...you actually have to pick a person in each contest.

This is the info for one county mentioned in the articles quoted....

El Paso County, Texas:

County Election Commission (Election Code Section 31.032)
County Judge (Chair) is a Democrat
County Clerk (Vice-Chair) is a Democrat
Tax Assessor-Collector (Secretary) is a Democrat
Democratic Party County Chair is a....
Republican Party County Chair is the only Republican member of the Board

County Election Board (Texas Election Code, Section 51.002)
Elections Administrator (Chair) ????
County Judge is a Democrat
Sheriff is a Democrat
Democratic Party County Chair is a Democrat
Republican Party County Chair is the only Republican

The Democrats control the process. They own it.