Your next 2020 Democratic presidential primary thread: Now we're serious

The original thread started Feb. 1, 2017, about a week after Trump's inauguration. It has about 15,000 posts. Given the stakes we're likely to rack up another 15,000 before the convention. It's time for a new beginning.

No poll for this one.

Since there's no poll, here's what we're dealing with:

Bennet
Biden
Bloomberg
Booker
Buttigieg
Delaney
Gabbard
Klobuchar
Patrick
Sanders
Steyer
Warren
Williamson
Yang

According to fivethirtyeight.com, the latest national polls show:

Biden27.8%
Sanders17.8%
Warren14.9%
Buttigieg7.5%
Bloomberg4.8%
Yang3.5%
Klobuchar3.4%
Booker2.3%
Steyer1.8%
Gabbard 1.7%

didn't know he'd hopped into the race but I'm rooting for Rob Delaney

biden is going to walk this.

the trump-biden debates will happen: the banter-heuristic has crossed the atlantic

Polling Iowa according to fivethirtyeight.com:

Biden 19.6%
Buttigieg 19.1%
Sanders 18.3%
Warren 13.9%
Klobuchar 6.6%
Steyer 3.6%
Yang 3.0%
Booker 2.9%
Gabbard 2.1%
Bloomberg 1.9%

New Hampshire:

Sanders 18.3%
Biden 18.2%
Buttigieg 14.8%
Warren 14.4%
Gabbard 4.8%
Klobuchar 4.2%
Yang 4.1%
Steyer 3.5%
Bloomberg 3.2%
Booker 2.3%

The thing that makes me concerned about Sanders' chances is that Biden probably gets most of the Buttigieg, Bloomberg, Klobuchar, Booker, and Steyer support once they drop out, whereas I think there's a significant % of Warren's support that won't go to Sanders.

I'd have to say from right now it looks like Biden will get the nom. Some early Sanders primary victories could shift things a little, and the polling in the early states is close enough that that could happen.

dude, we were like fifteen minutes away from 15k, how could u lock?

South Carolina:

Biden 38.3%
Sanders 13.9%
Warren 10.0%
Steyer 5.9%
Buttigieg 5.2%
Bloomberg 3.8%
Booker 3.4%
Klobuchar 2.7%
Yang 2.7%
Gabbard 1.9%

gotta say I really thought Biden's numbers would have tailed off a lot more by now

lots can still happen folks, a lot of people (the sane ones) aren't even paying any attention till there's like two weeks to go

yeah I mean

Biden will not be nominated, bcz i would start smoking crack

Bernie raises $35m, $10m more than ex-Mayor Pete without a wine cave https://t.co/4c7VQCJLSH via @WSJ

— Doug Henwood (@DougHenwood) January 2, 2020

fifteen minutes away from 15k

round numbers are strangely seductive, but seldom meaningful. btw, I didn't lock the old one, but it's always good to have a link to the previous thread, somewhere near the top of the new one.

whereas I think there's a significant % of Warren's support that won't go to Sanders

imo nah

Where's the new voter registration forms?

i think most of the non-progressive warren voters have already left for buttigieg tbh

even if he gets 100% of Warren's votes (or vice versa) that gives you about 32% of the democratic vote. Biden needs to slip for either of them to have a chance. I find it odd that he hasn't already, but the fact is, he hasn't.

If Warren drops out before the primary hits my state, it'll be Bernie.

at some point I became a Sanders voter, because, I figured, why fuck around?

basically

even if he gets 100% of Warren's votes (or vice versa) that gives you about 32% of the democratic vote. Biden needs to slip for either of them to have a chance. I find it odd that he hasn't already, but the fact is, he hasn't.

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Thursday, January 2, 2020 2:21 PM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

whats important is who wins delegates and by how much. iirc (and plz correct me if im wrong bc i cant remember where i saw this) you need to win at least 15% of a state's votes to be awarded a portion of the state delegation. i assume buttigieg can clear that in IA and NH, but after that?

so its (probably) a three-way race between biden, sanders, and warren. of the candidates who are likely to actually win delegates, the sanders+warren contingent could be larger than the biden delegation.

the thing that gives me hope is that A) Sanders is raising a ton of cash and B) he's way more persuasive and less error-prone than Biden so yeah once people actually do start paying attention I can see Bernie gaining more ground

on the occasions I have talked to ppl who are less psychotically aware of The Discourse, when I bring up Sanders, ppl tend to assume he's way behind in polling. I'll be curious to see whether the increasing acknowledgements in the press that this is not the case, nothing his donation figures etc will have an effect.

February 3, 2020: Iowa caucuses
February 11, 2020: New Hampshire primary
February 22, 2020: Nevada Democratic caucuses
February 29, 2020: South Carolina Democratic primary

biden is going to walk this

If so, and he does look more likely than anyone else atm, then we must be prepared for a hard-fought election pitting Donald Trump against Hunter Biden, HRC, Obama, and Pelosi, which will resolve nothing, even if Joe Biden wins it. The Republicans in Congress would breathe a short sigh of relief, then go back to full obstruction mode.

https://ballotpedia.org/Democratic_presidential_nomination,_2020

there's finances from last quarter below. jesus, buttigieg has raised a lot of money. biden is 5th in cash on hand and individual contributions.

buttigieg has raised a lot of money, but he still has serious black voter credibility problems and Super Tuesday distributes a lot of delegates from the south.

February will definitely reset the table.

I still hate that a state that has fewer people living in it than my county, and is 94% white, gets such a disproportionate say in this process. Fuck a New Hampshire.

can we shut this thread until February?

new poll out:

sanders: 28%
warren: 25%
pete: 14%
biden: 12%

not really, but what if that happened in january? we sure would be glad to have this thread then!!

this all is finally, actually happening huh

Iowa yard sign report: I've yet to see ANY Biden signage in my county, a Clinton/Obama labor stronghold with substantial minority populations. Lots of Pete and Bernie, at least some for all the rest. There's a giant "TULSI" display in the neighborhood, one house with Cory Booker in several windows, and a yard divided between "LIZ" and "AMY." It's a quirky electorate.

new poll out:

sanders: 28%
warren: 25%
pete: 14%
biden: 12%

which? And of what state?

Karl was "joking"

it was one of those learning jokes that makes you appreciate the existence of the thread you're in. ...right?

*ducks*

Iowa yard sign report: I've yet to see ANY Biden signage in my county, a Clinton/Obama labor stronghold with substantial minority populations. Lots of Pete and Bernie, at least some for all the rest. There's a giant "TULSI" display in the neighborhood, one house with Cory Booker in several windows, and a yard divided between "LIZ" and "AMY." It's a quirky electorate.

― Briania, Thursday, January 2, 2020 2:55 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i live in south tx, i have seen maybe two biden stickers. lots of bernie, couple pete, lots of beto, few warren, couple yang

where beto voters break in tx is gonna be interesting/determining. only one post-beto poll in tx and it broke heavily for biden. i assume tx castro voters are going warren or sanders, but thats still a small number

is there any study saying "signage = traction" or is it just something we do

house with Cory Booker in several windows

^^Underrated Giallo.

its a thing we do

xp

Why because it's intersting. All it means on a local level is that Biden's people haven't got their signs out yet. The Abby Finkenauer endorsement is more significant.

Marianne Williamson, who has been campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination on a message of love and has been urging voters to “join the evolution,” has laid off her entire staff in New Hampshire and nationally, sources close to the campaign confirmed to WMUR on Thursday.

i thought she dropped out weeks ago

just proves that love is worthless

Williamson raised her national profile for her business, which is basically herself talking or writing books, so she has already met her most basic objective in running.

new poll out:

sanders: 28%
warren: 25%
pete: 14%
biden: 12%

which? And of what state?

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, January 2, 2020 3:55 PM (forty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Chapo Policy Insitute, Left Dakota

lol C Grisso

Marianne Williamson, who has been campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination on a message of love and has been urging voters to “join the evolution,” has laid off her entire staff in New Hampshire and nationally, sources close to the campaign confirmed to WMUR on Thursday.

― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Thursday, January 2, 2020 2:19 PM (twenty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

fucking AT LAST

surprised that MW had a staff

After Gillibrexit and Go'Rourke, the best I could do was CastrAu revoir.

"So Long, Marianne" is trending.

Then it's a waiting game to see whether we can make Klobucharrividerci happen.

surprised that MW had a staff

― Muswell Hillbilly Elegy (President Keyes), Thursday, January 2, 2020 3:50 PM (twenty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

one good grift deserves another

as con artists go, she almost outlasted Booker

Underrated Giallo

arf

from the other thread:

i was very bummed to learn that my otherwise super-cool east coast in-law family is also rooting for biden, pete, and bloomberg (they used to work for bloomberg when he was mayor, so at least i can sort of understand that one i guess). what's esp frustrating about their stance is that they say they really want medicare for all, student loan forgiveness, etc etc, but think the most important thing is electability and making sure democrats nominate someone who can beat trump
SIGH
― But guess what? Nobody gives a toot!😂 (Karl Malone), Thursday, January 2, 2020

I think this is where I find myself tbh. I am so angry right now. I just really want the democratic nominee, whoever it is, to WIN.

yang first in with the hot take

War with Iran is the last thing we need and is not the will of the American people. We should be acting to deescalate tensions and protect our people in the region.

— Andrew Yang🧢 (@AndrewYang) January 3, 2020

as hot takes go, that seems completely sound

yeah, i regretted "hot take" as soon as i posted. i just meant take, regardless of temp

well, i think this is all we needed to know: the race for democratic candidate is finally over.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/kevin-costner-endorses-pete-buttigieg-at-iowa-rally-1264728

Dances With Petes

Peterworld

The Buttiguard

Bull McKinsey

Butt, And To The Gieg

Jesus guys
Butt Durham
Carry on

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMjAwMTQyNzkwNV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNTgyMzE3MQ@@._V1_.jpg

A friend of mine, who calls himself a progressive, and who ran for local office last year (city council) on a progressive platform, has really been trying to find a full- or part-time job in politics to get a career going. Yesterday, he announced he finally found one, as a Field Organizer with . . . the Bloomberg campaign. And he's somehow flabbergasted that a lot of his friends are like "WTF dude?" And he's responding to any criticism of Bloomberg as a candidate with "thank you for your congratulations and well wishes."

Politics really makes some people stupid.

Politics Careerism really makes some people stupid.

I have an in-law who used to work for Bloomberg
said he once rode in an elevator with B and a female exec
exec told B that she was pregnant
he said she should "kill it" if she wanted to keep her job

so Yay! pro-choice!

lord of the rings, but ppl fall under the spell of the ring just by hearing that someone they support might hold it one day

xxp

xp i don't believe this story ever happened

well the guy who told it to me is supporting Bloomberg for Prez so bashing him isn't his thing

I've heard that Bloomberg story, or a very similar one, elsewhere.

it's from a sexual harassment lawsuit: https://gawker.com/5979679/id-do-her-a-brief-history-of-michael-bloombergs-public-sexism

"In a deposition, Bloomberg is reported to have conceded saying "I'd do her" in relation to Garrison, but he insisted that he thought "do" meant to have a personal relationship with someone. Other reports from the deposition say Bloomberg almost stormed out of the proceedings when the opposing attorney asked him if he thought the porn film Debbie Does Dallas meant Debbie has a personal relationship with everyone from Dallas."

Apt question!

he insisted that he thought "do" meant to have a personal relationship with someone

extremely normal

is anyone looking inside their heart this morning, feeling weighed down by sin? do you feel the weight of shame on your shoulders, holding you down? i want you to put your faith in the lord and throw satan's hands off of your body. i want you to stand up and make your way to the altar, and i want you to do jesus, right here, today, i want all of us to do jesus today, because the lord is coming and we cannot know the day

The lord is edging

Buttigieg will end reduced, except among people who think they and their friends—young, good schools, management job—would make a good President. That is not a good place to end up. Maybe if he lived in New Jersey. https://t.co/omz7Y7ByI8

— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) January 2, 2020

When asked if he would call Suleimani's death an assassination (by @alexrego_tweets) @MikeBloomberg said "that's an outrageous thing to say." On the proper way to speak about his death, MB "I don't know, get a dictionary and take your pick." https://t.co/JMOgO4zqVd pic.twitter.com/38IfwjTELP

— Tim Perry (@tperry518) January 3, 2020

Lol reduced from being a college town mayor?

South Bend is not a college town, it sucks more than that

I definitely think the reputation of South Bend has been reduced

POLITICS CAN HAVE A LITTLE MALARKEY

People made fun of the "No Malarkey" slogan so much, they even repainted the bus and replaced it with "Battle for the Soul of the Nation". pic.twitter.com/ssjVdUne4l

— Florian 🥁 (@BetaODork) January 4, 2020

what's the point of "our best days still lie ahead," just sitting down there, almost literally thrown under the bus

forgot some punctuation there, should say

our best days, still. lie ahead.

Our best days still lie. Ahead!

I’m a no on Joe but I’m pro-“No Malarkey”

I live in a college town four times the size of South Bend and it's hilarious to think of anyone more than a half mile outside the city limits knowing our dipshit mayor's name.

Lol at the Washington Post - which has been running negative pieces about this politician for years - worrying that Bernie Sanders hasn't gotten enough "scrutiny." https://t.co/VfRSdg1ZTu

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 4, 2020

I guess we can rule out Sanders/Castro

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/476880-julian-castro-endorses-warren-in-2020-race

https://www.cnn.com/2016/04/29/politics/mike-pence-to-endorse-ted-cruz-friday/index.html

OK, we can call it somewhat less likely than we did yesterday.

Castro would be a great VP pick imo

I'm staying out of veepstakes from here on after I tossed out Sanders/Abrams as a good ticket and someone here immmediately branded her a neolib. which, fuck it, maybe she is, idk. I do know she's a smart, personally engaging black woman, which seems more important to a veep's actual role of helping you win an election.

oh dear god

When I ask top Democrats which candidate they think is most likely to beat Trump if nominated, the most common answer is Amy Klobuchar. https://t.co/JKU0OD3St3

— David Leonhardt (@DLeonhardt) January 6, 2020

perfect

i spent a minute trying to pick out a paragraph or two to paste here but honestly it's all gold, every last word of it

xps I don't think Abrams is a "neolib" but as a person from Georgia who voted for Stacey Abrams in the primary (and would have voted for her in the general if I hadn't moved out of state) I don't understand why people think she's suddenly a strong candidate for the national stage. The simplest explanation is tokenism but I hope there is a better reason.

Sanders now in the lead in RCP's polling for both New Hampshire and Iowa (the latter by a hair, admittedly)

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/

👍

tied with mayo pete in iowa ffs

good luck usa

It's an improvement!

I still can't believe he got away with that "endorsement" scam.

I don't understand why people think she's suddenly a strong candidate for the national stage. The simplest explanation is tokenism but I hope there is a better reason.

I have generally been impressed with Stacey Abrams when I've heard her speak, but there is an element of her fame among liberal white folks that feels kind of fetishistic, like the whole "black women will save us!" trope. I'm thinking of Pod Save America's asking for donations to Fair Fight (Abrams's voting-rights/election-security organization) by saying "don't disappoint Stacey Abrams!"

Biden has maintained a large lead in primary polling on the best candidate to handle foreign policy (48% to 14% Bernie):https://t.co/o9lGd8jiGe
It has not been the most important issue for many Dem voters thus far, but foreign policy crisis could increase its salience pic.twitter.com/ez90wUwil8

— Matt Grossmann (@MattGrossmann) January 3, 2020

biden's record on foreign policy is unimpeachable, it's true

How many foreign policy voters are there in real life, and how many of them live outside northern Virginia

Miami-Dade County, and most of those vote for the GOP.

all the candidates are short of my ideal: 100% isolationism

Choosing a veep is by definition tokenism though isn’t it? I say that while totally acknowledging that kind of calculus is far more fraught for a POC or a woman than for a middle aged white dude who happens to live in Virginia

all the candidates are short of my ideal: 100% isolationism

BUILD THE WALL

How many foreign policy voters are there in real life, and how many of them live outside northern Virginia

Isn't this the area in which the President has the most direct control?

Choosing a veep is by definition tokenism though isn’t it?

― Evans on Hammond (evol j), Monday, January 6, 2020 11:56 AM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

2 veep candidates in the history of the usa were not white men

hell, Vice President Charles Curtis had a native mom!

Hahaha. pic.twitter.com/DaBUR7asQ9

— Doug Henwood (@DougHenwood) January 6, 2020

BUILD THE WALL

― 'Sly Cooper' Movie Breaking Into Theaters In 2016 (bizarro gazzara), Monday, January 6, 2020

...to keep our genocidal military machine behind it

our "foreign policy" is fuckin' bombs p much

Choosing a veep is by definition tokenism though isn’t it?

― Evans on Hammond (evol j), Monday, January 6, 2020 11:56 AM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

2 veep candidates in the history of the usa were not white men

― 525,600 gecs (voodoo chili), Monday, January 6, 2020 12:07 PM (five minutes ago)

I think evol meant that the calculus for choosing a running mate is often based on what/where they represent not their qualifications, etc.

and by that calculus I think she's a good choice, even if the air of inevitability about it from some pundits is def kind of odd. But Abrams as VP with a mandate to focus on voting rights makes way more sense than imagining Warren wasting her final years in public life as Sanders' VP

Someone please tell the Democrats to stop preaching "learn to code" https://t.co/dDx9XUma4H

— Chafee 2020 (@lib_crusher) December 30, 2019

Former 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Lincoln Chafee is taking another shot at the White House, this time as a member of the Libertarian Party.

Chafee, who switched party affiliation in June 2019, submitted his campaign paperwork to the FEC on Sunday. His website is stamped with the logo “Lincoln Chafee, Libertarian For President.”

The metric system won't sell itself.

every time I think of the Libertarian Party I can only see this amazing clip

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZITP93pqtdQ

YOUR OWN DAMN TOASTER

lmao i've never seen that before

I always think of G. Johnson gushing over mounting Everest

BUILD THE WALL

btw i never get tired of being accused of being a Trumpist here even if it's not by the intel guy

Ocasio-Cortez isn't wrong about Biden. In Britain he'd be "One Nation" Tory, she'd be old Labour. People here think the Democrats are fundamentally a labor movement, but they're not. They're Jeffersonian.

— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) January 6, 2020

btw i never get tired of being accused of being a Trumpist here even if it's not by the intel guy

for the record, i wasn't accusing you of being a trumpist, i just a) saw an opportunity for a quick zing and b) think that isolationism isn't supportable when human civilisation as we know it is literally gonna end, and soon, unless superhuman levels of international collaboration start happening

human civilisation as we know it is literally gonna end, and soon, unless superhuman levels of international collaboration start happening

You knew, even as you typed all that, that he's inevitably gonna pretend to think that's a good thing for nihilist cool points, right?

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fmedia.giphy.com%2Fmedia%2FH0DTKkqw8WvCw%2Fgiphy.gif&f=1&nofb=1

i'm no nihilist and fuck you

i'm talking isolationism as in NO MILITARY INTERVENTION EVER

i even voted for that war criminal in the gif in a primary once

you know what feels like nihilism tho? Late capitalism, esp as perpetrated on the poor and sick.

I hope Abrams concentrates on voting rights work until she can run for governor again in 2022. Pundits have been talking about Georgia turning purple for a long time, but the only way I see that happening in the next few years is if she's at the top of the state ticket again.

Abrams' experience in state politics is deep but doesn't give her much of a story to tell about VP qualifications -- especially important for someone backing up an elderly presidential nominee.

otm

After firing all her staff last week @marwilliamson has begun writing her own fundraising emails...🔮😂 pic.twitter.com/9FoEkwDWVK

— Kyle Tharp (@kylewilsontharp) January 6, 2020

I don't think there are any actual intelligence analysts who believe this "culture of martyrdom" stuff. This is message-board level analysis from former Mayor Buttigieg... https://t.co/h5RUvDMoha pic.twitter.com/7Vyolqppaw

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) January 6, 2020

Damn, Ryan didn't have to slam us that hard

he's just mad because he got suggest banned

If Buttigieg posted an Osama thumbsup id vote for him

read it as "culture of mayordom"

other than his usual ability to say precisely nothing in so many words, what’s objectionable about that?

Lol "strong words"

xp, there is a recurring cliche about Iranians that they prioritise the opportunity to be martyred over all else - which at a low level leads to lousy analysis of strategic motivations and, at worst, feeds into the fantasy that the Iranian government is looking to build nuclear weapons to bring about the apocalypse.

should be noted that shia islamists use "martyrdom operations" less often than many other groups (secular leftist and arab nationalist parties in the lebanese civil war were more likely to employ the tactic than islamic jihad/hezbollah)

feeds into the fantasy that the Iranian government is looking to build nuclear weapons to bring about the apocalypse.

― ShariVari, Tuesday, January 7, 2020 2:27 PM (nine minutes ago)

presumably they are looking to build nuclear weapons so the US will think twice before droning them

fyi, there are quite a few americans - many millions - who interpret politics through the lens of "how will this bring about the apocalypse?"

oh ffs

For the love of godpic.twitter.com/47dhlK6hLj

— Samuel D. Finkelstein II (@CANCEL_SAM) January 8, 2020

meanwhile, amy klobuchar is looking more and more presidential

Democratic candidate Amy Klobuchar falsely claimed last night that Iran is now, because of Trump, "announcing that they're going to start developing a nuclear weapon." Iran has made no such announcement, continues to say it isn't pursuing a nuclear weapon: https://t.co/BOAm2ogC1c

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) January 7, 2020

not sure i understand what’s laughable about the double selfies thing

cool clip tho

someone posted the howard dean clip in the replies which is almost close to self-aware

Do people actually think she’s being serious when she says “never before seen in history”?

the phrase "folds like a cheap umbrella" comes to mind

Under questioning from @MeghanMcCain, @ewarren — who called Soleimani's killing "an assassination” — now says “of course” he’s a terrorist pic.twitter.com/nS4OCRFdv8

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) January 7, 2020

does it? She withstood those idiotic questions rather well.

He can be many things, including a terrorist. I mean, you like Spielberg and the Smiths.

did you watch the clip or just read the tweet from the guy who thinks Soleimani wasn't a terrorist

(double) selfies is very dumb and frivolous but people queue for zillions of hours to take them with her after she spends an hour or two explaining policies and funding to them, so if it makes those people feel better engaged with a candidate, or talk to fellow voters about the country & the election, or gives the campaign a chance to sign folks up to mailing lists or whatnot, good for everyone

c'mon, man, this is Morbs, for whom any candidate not Sanders is a Target umbrella.

cheap and expensive umbrellas seem to fold the same way afaict

if anything the pricier ones should fold a little more smoothly

speaking of Target umbrellas, I got this reversible one last year real cheap:

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1494/8004/products/Double-Layer-Reverse-Umbrella-Big-Double-Layer-Inside-Inverted-Upside-Down-Windproof-Umbrella-Self-Standing_2000x.jpg?v=1537298287

this whole q is he or is he not a terrororist is so stupid, yes he's a terrorist in the same regard that Donald Trump is a terrorist, no he's not a terrorist in that he hed up the army of a nation of 80 million people. There's no reason to capitulate on such a dumb argument from meghan mccain of all people

I love EW but she has to get better at holding her ground on some of these these things. Call it what it was, like your opponent did: an assassination

she did

c'mon, man, this is Morbs, for whom any candidate not Sanders is a Target umbrella.

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, January 8, 2020 7:43 AM (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

if Warren had called Obama a terrorist she'd be his new #1

xp I mean be consistent about it, say that in response to this question

(plz never change morbs <3)

i get it xp

like i understand the disappointment and yet i'm still just sorta like... whatever

Hadrian otm

yes Alfred, Sanders is the only non-coward still standing.

The measured, intelligent response in that situation is "Your dad was a terrorist, you load."

You must feel a lot of relief that no one is going to force you to vote for Warren in the primary.

I think the dnc will have neutralized Bernie by then

It's possible, but I think it's just as likely that Bernie will win this thing.

neutralize him with millions of votes for other candidates.

The DNC has been a lot more succesful neutralizing Warren. If I was in Iowa, I would vote for Bernie.

OUR PRIMARY MODEL IS LIVE! https://t.co/JDz2dZ8bqR

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) January 9, 2020

science has determined the winner, all speculation is over

The DNC has been a lot more succesful neutralizing Warren

pretty sure Warren self-neutralized

looks like a brokered convention, cool

what could possibly go wrong

an outcome that all will enjoy

The DNC has been a lot more succesful neutralizing Warren.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say her break-up-big-tech plank is what put her in the crosshairs more than any of the stuff she overlaps with Bernie on

I think the wealth tax was a deal breaker? That seemed to be what a lot of donors focused on.

science has determined the winner, all speculation is over

it specifically doesn’t declare a winner....

:D i was trying to be funny

i'm in that "post-funny" stage of my career where i'm just making the jokes for myself

the whole "If we ran this model 100 times, X would win 70 times and lose 30 times" thing makes sense if you're talking about a football game, but sounds kind of nonsensical if you're talking about an election.

What kinds of things does the DNC do to neutralize candidates?

x-post: Eh, no it does not, not in any way. There's no difference?

he's talking about american football, fred

Oh, okay. Sorry.

the whole "If we ran this model 100 times, X would win 70 times and lose 30 times" thing makes sense if you're talking about a football game, but sounds kind of nonsensical if you're talking about an election.

― Muswell Hillbilly Elegy (President Keyes), Thursday, January 9, 2020 11:49 AM (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

hm, not sure I follow. prediction of any future event is by nature probabilistic. what’s the alternative?

Hm, is it that sports teams play against each other multiple times during a season so it seems both easier and more useful to calculate a probability score vs an election where these people only compete against each other once? (The structure of primaries does turn it into 50 contests, though.)

If you had two teams play a game in 100 alternate universes there would be different outcomes based on decisions made during the game/luck etc., whereas if you ran the 2016 election in 100 universes I really don't see it coming out with a Hillary victory 30 times out of 70--you have the same set of voters.

also the outcome of a sports game does not matter

like if Trump sprained an ankle on election day it wouldn't change anything

I don't feel like Warren running behind requires any hypothesis of DNC intervention. Warren is the one my gut most responds to, and I don't feel like I'm a particularly representative Democratic voter, quite the opposite in fact, so why would the person I like best be winning?

I'm referring to how Nate Silver talks about his model--he has said that if we ran the 2016 election 100 times Hillary would have won 70% of the time

That is a bit weird, since Nate Silver is prominently a Bayesian probabilist, where it has more to do with certainty and knowledge than it has to do with frequency.

If you had two teams play a game in 100 alternate universes there would be different outcomes based on decisions made during the game/luck etc., whereas if you ran the 2016 election in 100 universes I really don't see it coming out with a Hillary victory 30 times out of 70--you have the same set of voters.

― Muswell Hillbilly Elegy (President Keyes), Thursday, January 9, 2020 12:10 PM (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think the point you’re trying to make is that predicting elections, particularly this far in advance, is more difficult that predicting a game, but the same principles of probability apply. there are lots of unknowns — it can’t be said that the same result will occur if the election were held today vs november

I can really recommend his book, The Signal and the Noise. He writes a lot about exactly this question.

seems like primary predictions are inherently more volatile than GE predictions because of a) the relative scarcity and volatility of primary polls, and b) lower turnout for primaries

she only lost her three closest states in 2016 by a combined 85,00 votes. If 85,000 hillary voters sprained their ankles that morning (or decided not to vote due to another chance event) that would have determined the result of the election.

*boots up time machine*

so she would have 85,000 fewer votes?

the makeup of an electorate on any given day is affected by many random factors

then why even make predictions?
maybe a bunch of Biden voters will eat bad fish

why even make predictions?

new "i hate politics" board description

has anyone checked to see if there are any NCIS marathons running on key primary/caucus dates

inshallah

why even make predictions?

new "i hate politics" board description

Contrary to vast amounts of observable banter in most political discussions, politics is not about predicting election results, but about governance, especially how tax revenues are generated and distributed. But governance, especially how tax revenues are generated and distributed, is an opaque topic, subjected to the influence of thousands of highly varied interests and opinions, making it extremely messy and uncertain to discuss or predict. Election horse-race banter is more direct and emotionally satisfying.

so its less like predicting sports and more like predicting the weather

Hey they said it would rain this afternoon and it didn't weather forecasters are clueless amirite

when my elbow hurts I know there a Biden vote squall coming

"solidarity with the hotties for bernie movement" tweets just floated into my timeline and 1) why, and 2) where are the hotties, all I've seen so far is a parade of dudes solidly in the 4 - 6 range

Worst parade ever.

Sounds more like a pub crawl?

sounds like my Saturday night

I'd rather that we didn't memory-hole the fact that Nate Silver's "30% chance for Trump to win" was significantly higher than every other estimate (that I know of, and I was paying a lot of attention). And some of it was because he was factoring in the unprecedentedly large number of people who were still answering "Don't know" up to the last minute.

I mean, I suspect they were largely "Do know, don't like the answer", but if you assumed that they'd actually toss a coin or whatever on the day, that's a reasonable basis for Nate Silver's statement.

marianne out

her campaign is suspended, but her energy will live on in us all

I do think she meant well, which I'm not sure is something I can say of a couple candidates

it's always so heartwarming when a candidate means well

pretty tired of ppl being all 'bloomberg is spending $10m on a super bowl ad! imagine if he used that money to support state/local candidates instead!'

bloomberg very obviously doesn't give a shit about the democratic party or its candidates, he just wants to be president (and/or ensure the next president keeps taxes low); stop with the naivete

plus, if he really wants to support state/local candidates, he probably could dig up another $10M from the couch cushions

hey the list of current candidates (13) is shorter than the list of withdrawn candidates now (16)

btw considering that like half the remaining democrats would turn 80 in office, it would be nice to know their vp picks *before* the primaries/caucuses

oh well

via DJP:

https://www.theroot.com/mayor-pete-s-invisible-black-police-1840727624

Over the course of the last month, The Root and The Young Turks have received internal documents, examined formal complaints, and interviewed former officers who outlined a pattern of racial discrimination against black police officers in South Bend. The alleged discrimination spanned the course of multiple police chiefs, captains, and supervisors. The only common denominator is that every black complainant mentions one name: Pete Buttigieg.

mookieproof, I am very disappointed in you for not phrasing that as "So Long, Marianne."

"So Long, Marianne" is trending.

Then it's a waiting game to see whether we can make Klobucharrividerci happen.

― Yeets don't fail me now (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, January 2, 2020 4:50 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

bloomberg very obviously doesn't give a shit about the democratic party or its candidates

plus, if he really wants to support state/local candidates, he probably could dig up another $10M from the couch cushions

I am not supporting Bloomberg for the nomination, but come on, dude literally did exactly that less than a year ago in Virginia. OK he only spent $2.5m but that was all it took to flip the statehouse, spelling a likely end to gerrymandering there, expanded voting rights, etc.

I don't like predicting but hell here's a prediction. Suppose it's Elizabeth Warren against Trump. A lot of people here seem to think Bloomberg would be indifferent in such a contest. I think Bloomberg would spend a buttload of money to help Warren win.

if what he really in his heart of hearts wants to do is support another, actually viable candidate I can think of some more useful things to be doing than running for president

xp i was just pointing out that paying for his super bowl ad and supporting other candidates isn't mutually exclusive

And I'm just pointing out that good evidence they're not mutually exclusive is that Bloomberg is already doing it! I feel like I keep seeing this "WHY ISN'T BLOOMBERG PUTTING HIS MONEY INTO DOWNBALLOT RACES THAT ARE CRITICAL FOR DEMS" and... he is! And I would be shocked if he doesn't continue to do so in 2020!

PS I absolutely did not know this but apparently Tom Steyer has given more money to liberal candidates than anybody. 50% more than Bloomberg, 3x as much as Soros.

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/07/tom-steyer-enters-2020presidential-field/

This stuff is important! It doesn't mean either of these guys should be President, it just means it's not right to say they're egomaniacs who don't care about liberal causes, only themselves.

well they're still probably egomaniacs but so am I

NEW #IOWA POLL 🚨🚨🚨

Sanders: 20% (+5)
Warren: 17% (+1)
Buttigieg: 16% (-9)
Biden: 15% (-)
Klobuchar: 6% (-)
Yang: 5% (+2)
Booker: 3% (-)
Steyer: 2% (-1)
Gabbard: 2% (-1)
Bloomberg: 1% (-1)
Not sure: 11% (+6)

wait til they see that Bloomberg Super Bowl ad

Man if Warren or Bernie would just drop and and endorse the other one, they'd win in a landslide. Of course Warren is "Warpig Warren" according to my lefty friends *eyeroll*

that seems like a fallacy to me; it's not just simple addition

yes

not -trying - to be a narc but may i suggest attributing where the poll comes from when you post one?

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/iowa-poll/caucus/2020/01/10/iowa-poll-2020-bernie-sanders-lead-iowa-caucus-president-election/4426492002/

I'm sure it wouldn't be only simple addition, but I'm guessing it would still be pretty significant.

Des Moines Register is widely seen as the most accurate poll of Iowa. I was skeptic, because while I can see Sanders winning, I can't see Warren doing that well there anymore, but could be true!

Man if Warren or Bernie would just drop and and endorse the other one, they'd win in a landslide. Of course Warren is "Warpig Warren" according to my lefty friends *eyeroll*

no reason to harp on "one of them should drop out!" before a single vote is cast

If Bernie and Warren finish as the top two in Iowa, you know the media will play it as "the party has moved too far left for the rest of the nation". Yeah, those crazy far lefties of Iowa.

wait til they see that Bloomberg Super Bowl ad

― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Friday, January 10, 2020 5:18 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

this made me lol

Weird how this is framed as "Bernie or Warren" - he's clearly running ahead of her, why wouldn't you just say "if Warren would drop out and endorse..."
― Greta Van Show Feets BB (milo z), Friday, January 10, 2020 6:48 PM (fifty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I could see this if he'd consistently been doing much better than her, but she had a higher national polling average for much of the fall, and she's not behind him by much these days. They've been trading places behind Biden.

Citation needed

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/2020_democratic_presidential_nomination-6730.html

Bret Stephens: To say Sanders is unelectable is indefensible

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/436/943/93f.jpg

never get tired of hearing white guys point out that women should just endorse bernie

lol at the idea that Sanders being the nominee would make the Dems a "socialist party". how much fuckin money does this guy get paid again

in other news, Yang apparently did not make the cut for the next debate (though - sigh - Steyer did)

As NPR just pointed out, the timing of the impeachment trial is "a gift" to the non-senators in the race.

Seeing how the leading candidates have been campaigning in Iowa and NH for, oh, ten months or more, you'd think the voters there would have some clues about them already. That is, if they cared to clue themselves in at all.

This is a big story.

Former vice president Joe Biden is far and away the favored candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination among black Americans, boosted by his personal popularity, his service in the Obama administration and perceptions that he is best equipped to defeat President Trump, according to a national Washington Post-Ipsos poll.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) occupies second place in the Democratic field among African American voters, easily outdistancing the remaining candidates in the race. Sanders is leading among black voters under age 35, replicating his success with younger white voters in other national polls. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) runs third.

The survey finds meager support for former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg, who is among the leaders in polls in the predominantly white states of Iowa and New Hampshire but stands at 2 percent among Democratic black voters nationally. A lack of familiarity with him and concerns about his experience and sexual orientation appear to be contributing to his current standing. Buttigieg has said that as African Americans get to know him, he will gain more support, but the poll undercuts that assertion. He receives only 3 percent support among black voters who are familiar with him.

Worth stressing:

Many younger African Americans, however, are drawn to Sanders rather than to Biden. Terrell Askew, 33, a community organizer in Baltimore, said that in 2016, he believed Sanders was the candidate with the best policies but felt then that the Democratic Party wasn’t ready for someone like Sanders. Today, Sanders is his preferred choice.

“I prefer his track record, particularly around housing, which is a major issue,” Askew said. “And the conversations that he’s had around debt, student debt and things like that. And addressing the economic disparities between the poor and wealthy individuals in our country.”

He sees problems that weren’t addressed aggressively enough by Obama and wonders whether Biden would be more of a status quo candidate, rather than someone who would take on conditions in the country that he thinks contributed to Trump’s victory four years ago.

hasn't most of this been known for months?

Bernie campaign is going after Warren: https://www.politico.com/amp/news/2020/01/11/bernie-quietly-goes-negative-on-warren-097594?__twitter_impression=true

Bernie Sanders volunteer hits back:

Here’s what actually happened. A random user who’s only ever posted once before posted that document in the Sanders volunteer Slack group. A moderator promptly removed it and stated that it was NOT a campaign source. https://t.co/gt2xSvQNX5

— eric isaac (@ericisaac) January 12, 2020

From Politico:

Fwiw, this popular thread is not true. Attacking reporting and pushing misinformation is not just a right-wing phenomenon. I provided all the info to Bernie's camp before publishing & they didn't deny its authenticity. The doc had "Paid for by Bernie 2020"https://t.co/IAL9UXlJ8j

— Alex Thompson (@AlxThomp) January 12, 2020

"The doc had "Paid for by Bernie 2020""

Cool cool must be true.

The document also instructs to tell voters who are favorable toward Pete Buttigieg that he lacks support among African Americans and young people and to tell voters sympathetic to former Vice President Joe Biden that “he doesn’t really have any volunteers” and that “no one is really excited about him.” All of the attacks relate to the electability of Sanders' top rivals.

Sounds like this vicious piece of propaganda was, uh, just telling the truth?

Yes, this thing that absolutely didn't exist, and if it existed it was definitely just a volunteer and not anyone from the campaign, is actually very good and accurate.

Your posts are definitely not paid for by Bernie 2020.

Unlike mine.

A Bernie volunteer just called me and asked if I was voting for warren and when I said yes they asked me if my refrigerator was running and I told them it was and they said “better go catch it!” and hung up on me. I’m shaking and crying rn.

— pokey pup (@Whatapityonyou) January 13, 2020

seems like Sanders' Green New Deal doesn't have much for moving usa away from cars, which is a drag. but none of the competitors have any better plan. ugh. ban cars.

I for one am shocked that the Bernie campaign would stoop to criticizing his political rivals. What do they think this is, some kind of contest where only one campaign wins?!

ugh. ban cars.

Bernie would almost certainly want every American to be able to travel locally on trams or intercity on a big choo-choo while wearing a conductor's hat and smiling out the window, but given the current state of American infrastructure this is absolutely not a votewinner, and major steps toward it could not be achieved* in a four-year term

* without cancelling the Pentagon's entire budget and committing it towards loads of new jobs for rail construction and operation, which the fantasy Bernie in my head would do by executive order on his second day in office, u love to see it

the not a votewinner thing is real though.

I don't think this would put off the voters if it's sold properly as a structured plan.

Simon H otfm

I don't think this would put off the voters if it's sold properly as a structured plan.

I don't think it would put off a constituency if it's sold etc etc. And winning votes is more urgent than not putting off votes. Energy spent on explaining policies to voters who don't understand how the policies benefit them is energy wasted, given the attention span assigned to voters by the US media. "LOCK HER UP" and "BUILD THE WALL" connected, and "MEDICARE 4 ALL" gets its point across in nearly as compact a delivery.

Even "the top 1% of the top 1%" sounds like homework to the lumpenvoter: Warren is folksying it pretty well with "the first $50 million is yours to keep, then we take 2c out of every dollar on top of that, and we turn it into education and housing and etc etc" but it still gets turned into a "YOU'RE RAISING TAXES" cudgel.

Explaining how America's insane dependence on cars & guzzoline & construction of freeways & devaluing of trains is the result of deliberate anti-worker conspiracies by oligarchs a century ago, and that commuting & downtowns & neighbourhoods & parks are all improved by public transport, is more effectively done when you have a few years to message, rather than three seconds.

Booker's out. Formal announcement coming later today. The only remaining question is how long he continues "dating" Rosario Dawson.

Eric Andre has been canvassing for Bernie, so this is bound to put an extra spring in his step.

nyt is announcing their endorsement on 1/19, and they've started publishing the transcripts of long interviews between the candidates and the editorial board, something they've never published before (to my knowledge). those interviews are being published this week, starting with sanders and steyer today.

for those with a subscription: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/13/opinion/election-nytimes-the-choice.html

I'd expect them to go w/ Warren

I would love to see their reasoning if they pick Biden.

Eric Andre has been canvassing for Bernie, so this is bound to put an extra spring in his step.

― bold caucasian eroticism (Simon H.), Monday, January 13, 2020 11:10 AM (twenty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

happy to see the endorsement, sad to see eric andre split with his good friend vulture capitalist hannibal buress

xp simon

that was my first thought as well. warren or biden. i wrote in a long comment about warren and sanders. hopefully they will publish my comment and it will singlehandedly swing the primary toward them

if anyone can do it Karl, it's you!

“I like Elizabeth Warren. [optional]” the script begins. “In fact, she’s my second choice. But here’s my concern about her.”

This is brutal, don't see how she could recover from such nasty personal attacks

thanks calzino! see, what the NYT and the WORLD doesn't understand is that of the candidates left, only sanders and warren really GET climate change. you can't incrementally tackle climate change now. maybe back in the 1990s and 80s when tons of people were already sounding the alarms about it, but not now. and they GET it, see???

that was the gist of my comment. get ready for the new age of taurus everyone, the zeitgeist is coming

This is brutal, don't see how she could recover from such nasty personal attacks

It's hilarious what ppl interpret as "toxic" now. Apparently no one remembers....every previous, far worse Dem primary cycle

warren should hit back twice as hard by instructing her outreach team to let everyone know that sanders is her second pick and that she also doesn't completely agree with him on everything

then, just to freak the hell out of everyone, they should give a joint press conference where they both reaffirm that they are their own top choices for president, and that they don't agree on everything. maybe they could even talk a little about what they disagree about, and why, so voters could make an informed choice between them. they could call this night a Democratic Debate and do on tv, it would be incredible

https://youtu.be/kddX7LqgCvc

that's a good idea too - instead of scheduling the debate, structure it takes place as a series of unexpected phone calls at 3:00am. candidates won't know when they'll get the call or what the topic will be. they have to pick up the phone and give the best answer they can, to whatever it is. these calls take place over a month or two, on an unpredictable schedule.

if that freaks people out, there's an incremental version: candidates must answer questions and debate while preparing a 4-course meal for a panel of culinary experts. at the end of thing, they are rated 50% on their political acumen, 50% on cooking skills

because that's pretty much what being president is like, along with occasionally thinking and praying about people who die in mass shootings

I like Warren better than Sanders but come on, that call script is extremely milquetoast "Look we both like them both but here's my argument for why my candidate is incrementally better and you should vote for him," it's not exactly scorched-earth shit.

I think people are marinating themselves in Twitter accounts by a small number of very loud "Warren is a WAR PIG" people, somehow convincing themselves that is the Official View of The Left, and then seeing that subtext everywhere

because that's pretty much what being president is like, along with occasionally thinking and praying about people who die in mass shootings

― But guess what? Nobody gives a toot!😂 (Karl Malone)

and offering Happy Meals to fire fighters.

the idea that Sanders will bring in people that Warren wouldn't is pretty compelling though

I like them both but Sanders' hardline stance on war makes me favor him

I'm sad about Booker being out. I was sad about Harris being out too. Even though I probably wouldn't have ended up voting for either of them. There are just a lot of people who would make fine Presidents who won't get to be.

Erik Loomis: "When the left supports white candidates and liberals support white candidates and centrists support white candidates and whites support white candidates and blacks support white candidates and Latinos support white candidates, a white candidate field is what you get!"

I mean, he's not wrong but

I think people are marinating themselves in Twitter accounts by a small number of very loud "Warren is a WAR PIG" people, somehow convincing themselves that is the Official View of The Left, and then seeing that subtext everywhere

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Monday, January 13, 2020 12:22 PM (eleven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

at this point I am substantially-to-heavily leaning Bernie, but given that some of those people have harassed my friends who support Warren (including comments on their physical appearance, weight, and other things of that nature) I'm not sure "marinating" is the correct word

OK fair point. I don't do intra-Dem politics on Twitter and I am not a member of the gender whose physical appearance tends to get derided on Twitter so I was not really thinking about this.

I've been told often I'm not lefty enough by many long-haired white Bernie supporters to know it's a thing.

Booker is a hilariously transparent con man and machine-friendly NJ pol

raise thy standards

I mean, basic focus grouping would tell you that the only people who thought black people were going to automatically line up to vote for Booker were white people

Machine politics is probably more noxious to me than DLC third wayism in terms of the prior century’s legacies to the Democratic Party. In no small part because locally they helped elect the handpicked successor of our child-raping mayor.

sure ok cnn

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/13/politics/bernie-sanders-elizabeth-warren-meeting/index.html

The description of that meeting is based on the accounts of four people: two people Warren spoke with directly soon after the encounter, and two people familiar with the meeting.

are they sure that's four different people

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/13/politics/bernie-sanders-elizabeth-warren-meeting/index.html

sure ok cnn

prez my man

Sanders' response is pretty good:

"It is ludicrous to believe that at the same meeting where Elizabeth Warren told me she was going to run for president, I would tell her that a woman couldn't win," Sanders said. "It's sad that, three weeks before the Iowa caucus and a year after that private conversation, staff who weren't in the room are lying about what happened. What I did say that night was that Donald Trump is a sexist, a racist and a liar who would weaponize whatever he could. Do I believe a woman can win in 2020? Of course! After all, Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump by 3 million votes in 2016."

won't be enough for the Bernie Didn't Campaign for Clinton fantasists

the idea that Sanders will bring in people that Warren wouldn't is pretty compelling though

Warren has been my top choice since the campaign began, but this is what's making me reconsider. Of course, by the time I vote in mid-March, who knows what the field will look like.

i for one am dropping out of the presidential race

Brad won't settle for being my VIP

I kind of relate to this (I haven't spent any time around active Warren campaigners, but the realization that the Warren base is demographically narrow was disheartening):

“I had always liked Warren and I liked the idea of having another candidate with progressive stances, who was a woman and a little younger than Bernie, that I could potentially support,” said Lauren Rinaldi, a Philadelphia-based artist who was an early organizer of the "Philly for Warren" Facebook group and first spoke with POLITICO at a Warren campaign event in July. “I was also thinking that maybe she could be the candidate to sort of bridge the Hillary people and the Bernie people.

She described the experience as "fun and a bit exhilarating at the beginning, but then I started to feel a little turned off by the whole thing; I found that I was in a bubble of mostly white, college-educated supporters with, what felt like to me, almost an artificial 'wokeness.'" Rinaldi is now supporting Sanders, as she did in 2016.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/09/elizabeth-warren-2020-closing-argument-097023

artificial wokeness
sets the body free
artificial wokeness
baby you & me

Not that true real authentic American wokeness we all crave

BREAKING:

2 ex-warren staffers told me that in a confidential meeting between Bernie and Warren, Bernie kept insisting that "boys go to college to get more knowledge" and that "girls are from jupiter, because they are stupider"

he would sing the song and clap until we cried

— mister angry at oscar (golden man bad) (@mistermoviespod) January 13, 2020

"and that commuting & downtowns & neighbourhoods & parks are all improved by public transport, is more effectively done when you have a few years to message, rather than three seconds."

A campaign won't be three seconds and actually a lot can be done over a couple of months. Job if the campaign to put into place a set of messages that can resonate. There has been quite a lot of messaging over the Green New Deal so it would be an extension of that.

"two people Warren spoke with directly soon after the encounter, and two people familiar with the meeting"

is this just a fancy way of saying "four people who were not present at the meeting"?

Bernie campaign has instructed volunteers to say that Kid A is “overrated.”

— noah kulwin (@nkulw) January 13, 2020

I finally wised up and muted the word "Bernie" on Twitter. It was that or unfollow some IRL friends.

uh so Marianne has endorsed Sanders?

sorry, someone posted a 2015 link

can y'all keep the bernie lol tweets in his devoted lol thread

This is why the Politico story is a thing, btw:

A fraying non-aggression pact
The New York Times first reported over a year ago that Warren and Sanders met in Washington in December 2018. That initial report said that neither senator sought each other's support, and that they did not try to dissuade one another from running in the 2020 election.
If Warren and Sanders agreed on a non-aggression pact of sorts that night, that agreement has become increasingly frayed.
Over the last year, Sanders aides and advisers have taken to social media to criticize Warren on numerous issues, including "Medicare for All," student loan debt cancelation and the "wealth tax." Some of his allies have also implicitly and explicitly gone after Warren on the broader question of who has the rightful claim to the progressive mantle in 2020.
"People have to decide do they want originals or do they want copies," Nina Turner, Sanders' campaign co-chair, told CNN over the summer. "He's the original."
Politico reported over the weekend on the Sanders campaign's talking points instructing volunteers to say that Warren's supporters are "highly-educated, more affluent people who are going to show up and vote Democratic no matter what" and that "she's bringing no new bases into the Democratic Party."
Campaigning in Marshalltown, Iowa, Warren told reporters that she was "disappointed to hear that Bernie is sending his volunteers out to trash me."
"Bernie knows me, and has known me for a long time," Warren said. "He knows who I am, where I come from, what I have worked on and fought for, and the coalition and grassroots movement we're trying to build."
Sanders himself appeared to distance himself from the memo, saying on Sunday that his campaign has "hundreds of employees" and that "people sometimes say things that they shouldn't."
"I have never said a negative word about Elizabeth Warren, who is a friend of mine," Sanders said.

Politico, true to its roots, back to sowing discord.

Not a big, thing, I'd still vote Sanders if I was in Iowa, anyone who changes their mind based on those talking points is insane. But I have to say I find the sanctimonious bullshit also displayed in this thread so offputting. What's wrong with just saying 'yeah, guess that's new, but now is probably the time to do so.' But instead it's both 'probably the lying media, don't ever trust them' and ALSO 'of course he does, this is completely the right thing to do' at the same time. The inability to discuss anything on any parameter other than whether or not it's good for Sanders.

what

let's all adopt Fred's parameters whatever they be arrrrrr

this is where Fred mistakes a bunch of posters saying different things for one poster saying a bunch of contradictory things

so... it's a thread on ILX

lolz

Lol, come on. Every Berner on here would have followed Calzino's twitter-lead here if it hadn't been shot down immediately.

Not a big, thing

I'd estimate that about 95% of the campaign details we discuss in this thread are so abstruse or unimportant that they will have zero impact on the outcome of the nomination. That politico article falls somewhere in the bottom 5%, even by this thread's eager-to-dissect-every-nuance standards.

the most important thing that we don't really talk about is that if Bernie really does manage to identify, turn out, and win the votes of people who polling, modeling, and conventional wisdom don't think will vote, things are gonna get wild

he better, because that's his plan to deal with mcconnell and the gop

though tbf, it's not like any other democrat has a plan either. either a democratic candidate wins with enough of a landslide to overpower mcconnell and get legislation signed, or they win and wait another two to thirty-six years to get a veto-proof majority. i guess there's the possibility that the GOP will realize the foolishness of their postures and change thei.....haaa...ahahah.aa.ahahahaahahahahahahahahaahahahaha

I think if that plan worked, the midway primaries would have looked a lot different. I don't think it's needed though, I could see him win Iowa and New Hampshire, and it just rolls from there. He is well positioned in the Midwest, so a good candidate against Trump. It doesn't really need new voters.

to balance that with a little optimism - i actually DO think there's a good chance that sanders could win in a landslide

But yeah, I don't get how he thinks he will do anything with the filibuster still in place, even with the best election night possible this november.

So do I! I just doubt how much that would impact the Senate.

Every presidential election cycle I contemplate the possibility that some portion of the roughly third of eligible voters who don't vote will finally decide to cast a vote. Last election seems to have been decided by a few thousand disgruntled white male non-voters in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan who finally decided to stick their finger into the eye of The Establishment.

Maybe Sanders can motivate a few hundred thousand 18-25 year olds who've never voted before to find out if they really can get their student debt cancelled if they take the time to register and vote. Stranger things have happened. Trump winning, for example.

With every new executive act of deregulation and inflammatory foreign policy (not to mention RGB health) I'n getting tired fast of "but what about McConnell"

The president as we have seen has changed dramatically in just the past twenty years, there's a shit ton to be undone irrespective of legislation

"Presidency"^

that's true, but i don't know, legislation seems prettttty important too

especially since things that aren't legislation can be reversed under a new administration (executive orders esp, but also rules and regulations, albeit at a slower pace)

yeah I think we just just let Trump have a second term tbh, let him deal with McConnell - who needs the headache!

xp no doubt, but in the meantime there's nothing much to be done about it and all this hand wringing over whether Candidate A's relatively more progressive policies are less likley to make senate passage than Candidate B's more moderate polcies is a joke, nothing *any* Dem prez proposes is going to make it out of this senate

this being the case it seems obviously preferable to have a president who will message hard on ideals

Legislation won't matter if the courts are just going to overturn it. And, I mean, Trump hasn't really passed that much legislation, and he still has managed to destroy so much. Even without the landslide, Sanders is going to be so good for the US.

i am not "counting chickens"

It's certain Clinton & Obama vets will pool their firepower on Sanders if they see him headed for the nomination. Like, worse than thus far.

pic.twitter.com/VIsBr9qlVn

— emotionally distant dad drinking seagram’s escapes (@ambienvalent) January 11, 2020

Steyer with the subliminal bid for the stoner vote

https://i.imgur.com/6rRpTzu.png

lol

vote for tom steyer, he will legalize weed in illinois

I tuned out for a couple weeks and just realized tomorrow’s debate is in my neighborhood. There was no chance I’d get a ticket, so maybe I could watch it nearby and gawk at the candidates arriving?

What is the purpose of the president making fun of each candidate when they drop out? I have a suspicion that he believes everyone that remains in the race is running against him simultaneously, so if someone drops out, it's one less opponent to beat.

You’re once again making the truly day one mistake of trying to explain Donald Trump’s actions based on beliefs about the world he may hold.

Yes but WHY did the child throw the bowl of guacamole into a ceiling fan

to get to the other side

you all are right about the general principle, but trump's kneejerk crowing over the failure of literally anyone* not himself isn't that mystifying--he's an asshole.

*and in this case we're talking about a good-looking, generally likeable black man. It would be much more shocking if he said nothing. If there was a pic of Obama with mustard on his shirt, he'd tweet about it for a week.

How about that time Obama got mustard all over his entire suit?

https://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/intelligencer/2017/01/19/19-barack-obama-tan-suit.w710.h473.2x.jpg

^ the most shocking display of tan cloth ever perpetrated in the history of the world!

Opinion
Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
How Does President Sanders Sound to You?
Bernie is surging and may have found his moment.

4h ago1221 comments

lol insert Biden or Buttigieg or even EW here and imagine this same construction

like, yeah, that hypthetical scenario is exactly what people have been doing this whole time but interesting question

Better headline: Hey Can We Get a Hand Here?

Those Collins/Stephens conversations are some of the worst recurring op-eds out there. Are they even op-eds? Not sure what to call them. They’re like conversations that were too lazy to even put into podcast form

lol insert Biden or Buttigieg or even EW here and imagine this same construction

― Suggest Banshee (Hadrian VIII), Tuesday, January 14, 2020 1:44 PM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

not gonna lie, president buttigieg sounds weird cause buttigieg is a silly name.

President Booty Judge, otoh

Those Collins/Stephens conversations are some of the worst recurring op-eds out there.

Wasn't it Collins/Brooks for a while? I guess Times management wanted to see if they could make it even stupider and more worthless.

has E Bruenig published anything for them yet? she joined up a bit ago iirc

strong shared energy in the last few DNs, also

And here it is... Pete Buttigieg's antitrust policy advisor is a staff attorney at Wells Fargo. And that's not all! https://t.co/gQpesuQ62Q

— David Dayen (@ddayen) January 14, 2020

Headline: "Why voters are nervous about Amy Klobuchar"

They're not nervous about her. They think she sucks.

Had legit no idea she was still in til this post

she'll probably talk more than anyone else tonight

Didn’t want to sully the Mulholland Drive thread but a while ago I realized who Biden reminds me of - Chad Everett in the audition scene.

same tan and large veined hands

I can't even imagine those two having sex, even with themselves.

Didn’t want to sully the Mulholland Drive thread but a while ago I realized who Biden reminds me of - Chad Everett in the audition scene.

― JoeStork, Tuesday, January 14, 2020 9:09 PM (fifty-one seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

OMG YES!

“Infighting between Sanders and Warren only benefits big oil, fossil fuel billionaires, the GOP, and the moderate wing of the Democratic Party,” said Zina Precht-Rodriguez, political communications manager at Sunrise Movement, a youth climate justice organization that endorsed Sanders last week. “In our shared commitment to a Green New Deal, Medicare for All, and a government and society that works for the many, not the few, supporters of Sanders and Warren have much more in common than we have apart. Going into tonight, we hope that Senator Sanders and Warren and their campaigns are smart and strategic enough to focus on the issues that matter to Americans.”

...And the Warren campaign today told BuzzFeed it wants to “de-escalate.”

https://theintercept.com/2020/01/14/sanders-warren-feud/

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/aeevxJaJl1U/maxresdefault.jpg

Left to right: Joe Biden, Jill Biden

...And the Warren campaign today told BuzzFeed it wants to “de-escalate.”

maybe Sanders can fire a few rockets at empty Warren headquarters

lol

I predict that tonight will be a great demonstration of what I've been saying for months: Sanders is unique among the Dem field at being able to communicate effectively while facing hostile moderators and questions. https://t.co/THsz6qIjJ2

— Michael Tae Sweeney (@mtsw) January 14, 2020

feels true, reminded me of this magical moment

"He was just doing a limited strike" says the 'Face the nation' host

“Oh…just a limited strike!" @BernieSanders quipped, "Oh, I’m sorry, I just didn't know that it's okay to simply attack another country with bombs. That’s a limited strike? That’s an act of warfare,” pic.twitter.com/JgbLkkakX7

— Currie Dobson (@Ventuckyspaz) June 23, 2019

I thought Biden was emerging as the Democratic front runner -- did I miss the front runner memo

The difference in who's running up front is between national polling and polling that's specifically in the early primary/caucus states. Biden is slipping where the most campaigning has taken place, voting is most imminent, and the likely voters are most engaged.

Nate Silver's comprehensive model, which includes the effect of bounces from early primaries, candidates potentially dropping out, Trump tweets, rain patterns over the Sahara, etc. etc. still has Biden the favorite with 40% odds, vs. 20% for Bernie.

Nate's numbers are like those "win probability" figures you see constantly changing as a football game progresses. Leading in the score always puts a team's win probability above 50%, but leading in the first quarter results in a much lower probability than leading in the final minute.

Since Biden leads most polls rn, he correctly has the highest win probability. But it's the equivalent of the first couple minutes of the game and those numbers are still very tentative and fluid.

I think the operative word is "emerging." Biden has been the actual front runner for months while Warren, Buttigieg, and Sanders have had surges that have led pundits to cast them as potential new front runners. But none of them have yet managed to actually get there.

Biden is slipping where the voters are white, tbh. Still hope Bernie can take it.

Good grief this CNN preamble is drivel

Klobuchar jfc

i had to check my tv's aspect ratio settings when they first showed buttigieg. he looks like 4:3 stretched out to 16:9

Test your political knowledge:
SPOT THE MEATBALL THAT LOOKS LIKE MIKE. pic.twitter.com/CkzdgwpzdI

— Team Bloomberg (@Mike2020) January 15, 2020

Gentle reminder to all my friends in this thread that it’s unwise to ever permit yourself to hear the voice of a politician.

^^^

Campari + gin = effective antidote

Straight whiskey for me, wolf blitzer is unbearable

Gawd CNN debates are the worst

Klobachar: and the blue collar worker rolled out a rack and on the rack were wire coat hangers and on the wire hangers were the skins of the blue color worker’s realistically named coworkers Derek Mark and Salvatore and yes this is a lesson about the economy

it's pretty amazing how Nate Silver totally fucked up the last election and didn't seem to take any lasting hit to his credibility

steyer thinking about maybe attacking buttigieg and then backing down was p funny

Mayor Pete : the ventriloquist’s dummy for whom every issue is personal to him

okay solid zing

What is this shit?

it's pretty amazing how Nate Silver totally fucked up the last election and didn't seem to take any lasting hit to his credibility

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, January 14, 2020 8:42 PM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Silver kind of sucks now, but 538 did give Trump better odds to win than pretty much any other forecaster.

yeah, was gonna say

"Don't put a chip on the wheel on a number that isn't even on the wheel"

Can't believe Bernie hasn't defeated an incumbent Republican since 1990.

the elephant that isn't really in this room

^another klobuchar thing, in the same run-in sentence that also mentioned her third marriage

I think this debate is turning me into a Bernie bro

Amy: “you should have a plan not a pipe dream”

Lol, another casino metaphor

you know what i love talking about? the deficit.

oh! I am in the US and have a tv to watch this.

I am drinking unfiltered sake.

oh my god just let me vote and die already

— Harron Walker (@HarronWawker) January 14, 2020

The mamas and the papas

“mommas” must be testing a lot better than I’d imagine

I’m not sure Biden has the energy for a two hour debate, or maybe he’s coming down with a cold or something but his answers seem to be getting progressively incoherent. Seems like Sanders is the winner here. Steyer and Klobuchar have also been fine but as always it seems they lack a certain quality that would make them seem viable. Maybe because they’re too normal? America likes their presidents to have some razzle dazzle maybe.

who was Reaganesque

Steyer and Klobuchar... lack a certain quality

Steyer and Klochubar do not inspire the necessary trust that they know how to do what they say must be done. Being the head of state is not like being a US senator or a CEO.

imo, Buttigeig only inspires trust among voters who think they are nearly the same as he is and that they would be a good president, too. That's a dismaying number of deluded middle class white people, but not enough to elect him.

it's pretty amazing how Nate Silver totally fucked up the last election and didn't seem to take any lasting hit to his credibility

Silver did just fine in the last election, estimating a Dem seat gain in the house in the high 30s when many were doubtful the Dems would take the majority, and getting most of the individual calls right too, even in the competitive races.

damn

What did they say!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/4hBhUJNB3r

— Karol Markowicz (@karol) January 15, 2020

godddam so this is going to be the next week of dem primary coverage huh

anyway, super weird if Bernie shat all over the notion of a female candidate against Trump and Warren only came out with it now hmm

I still wonder if the phrase “he said _a woman_ couldn’t win” actually means he named a specific woman

maybe anticipating Hillary would try again in 2020 lol

$4000/mo for anyone willing has its drawbacks.

Mike can telepathically communicate with dolphins. #BloombergFacts #DemDebate

— Team Bloomberg (@Mike2020) January 15, 2020

anyway, super weird if Bernie shat all over the notion of a female candidate against Trump and Warren only came out with it now hmm

― A-B-C. A-Always, B-Be, C-Chooglin (will), Wednesday, January 15, 2020 5:42 AM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

They agreed to not attack each other at the meeting, so it makes perfect sense that any attack only comes after the truce has been broken. By Bernie btw.

It really was incredibly stupid for the Sanders campaign to go after Warren right now, and, no matter how high up it happened, to then act so defensively about it. Major breach of trust, and only Biden benefits.

lol at Tom Steyer in that Sanders-Warren exchagne

It really was incredibly stupid for the Sanders campaign to go after Warren right now

Ah yes, the time-honored tactic of never saying anything even politely critical about the candidate whose voters are by far the most likely to be persuadable to vote for your candidate. If only they'd listened to Fred!

Or honored the agreement they made.

Look at what the consequences has been. You seriously think this was worth getting some volunteers to say that Warren's base is quite wealthy?

cory booker’s campaign just released a statement alleging that during a private meeting between booker & bernie sanders in 2019, sanders indicated that he was going to “take booker’s girl” [rosario dawson] because booker “wasn’t hittin it right”

— 💰TRILLIONAIRE💰 (@maltyhops) January 14, 2020

stfu Fred

fred i honestly don't know what you're talking about

this Sanders/Warren beef is gonna be well forgotten by the time we get to the actual caucus

http://i.imgur.com/kj65ZRD.jpg

By playing the Sanders good/staffers suck Fred gets to tell you that it's great if Sanders wins but also to also say why he lost if it goes the other way.

Pretty neat huh?

He should pitch this to some publication, reckon there's good money to be made from this grift.

that... is some top quality pure uncut fred right there

tmi

Ah yes, the time-honored tactic of never saying anything even politely critical about the candidate whose voters are by far the most likely to be persuadable to vote for your candidate. If only they'd listened to Fred!

― bold caucasian eroticism (Simon H.), Wednesday, January 15, 2020 6:15 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I see it's time for the the daily "something is bad because the guy we don't like said it" session but it seems, based on data, that one candidate slowly gaining ground in battleground-state polls and another candidate backtracking somewhat on a popular policy idea have already been quite effective at persuading supporters, in a way that a very dumb beef that causes persuadable voters to instead hate one another more probably wouldn't

this bernie/warren conflict has been one of the most inconsequential much-ado-about-nothing non-stories i've ever seen so predictably it has brought out the best from the idiot machine at ilx including our top 2 US posters xyzzz and fred, the latter of whom keeps peddling nonsense about why this meaningless nothing is actually bernie's surrogate's fault and the former who has now posted his 30th tweet making the same joke about 'things bernie told people in confidence' and now the confetti at the supermarket is raining down and he has won a free turkey. hopefully this celebration will suffice and he will not longer feel compelled to dennis perrin up the site.

Let's hope it stays inconsequential. It's really really close in Iowa, and it won't take much to tip it from Sanders to Biden.

And yeah, as katherine points out, it's just so unnecessary.

like, how exactly are people supposed to be persuaded by this? sanders supporters dislodged by their candidate maybe having said something in a private one-on-one meeting years ago that might have had sexist undertones? warren supporters dislodged by a bunch of people tweeting them snake emojis and donald trump's old pocahontas jokes? supporters of either becoming convinced that the person they might otherwise have been persuaded to switch to is a liar?

at any rate, donald trump has already jumped on it, with characteristic muddle of "obviously nothing sexist has ever happened, but shit, gotta also make sure to call bernie a 'nasty person,' despite his having one of the higher popularity ratings among politicians and maybe even a sliver of my base, and despite my swearing immediately afterward that he'd never say the nasty thing, hey, maybe she'll win!" so the inconsequential ship has probably sailed

I didn't speak to the effectiveness of tactics, I only know that a permanent hands-off policy when it comes to criticizing your political opponents isn't really tenable

yeah but it sometimes just means that Christie torpedoes Rubio or Gephart cuts Dean down

My basic stance on alll this is that I like Bernie Sanders and dislike Nathan J Robinson and fortunately Nathan J Robinson isn't running for president

I don't have every syllable of this controversy committed to memory but my recollection is that Bernie initially said his "a woman can't win" statement was more along the lines of observing that it'd be something Trump would weaponize and be particularly awful about. which certainly isn't a particularly profound or brave thing to say but seemed like a decent enough explanation for a potential misunderstanding that would allow everyone to move on. I don't really understand why he didn't reiterate that position last night but instead decided to double down on essentially treating the whole thing like a lie. It's either that he doesn't possess the mental acuity to make that pivot when it's necessary, or that he's just the kind of person who gets so incredibly annoyed when the conversation is on something he (rightly) deems to be trivial that he can't be bothered to finesse the situation appropriately. and the people who love him indeed love him for exactly that kind of "no BS" mindset but it ignores the unfortunate realities of 21st century political media.

like, it's not going to cause me to change my own vote, but it seems to me pretty undeniable that when he decided to pick nits with the whole "I HAVE beaten a Republican incumbent" exchange, he came off like a huge asshole.

It's either that he doesn't possess the mental acuity to make that pivot when it's necessary, or that he's just the kind of person who gets so incredibly annoyed when the conversation is on something he (rightly) deems to be trivial that he can't be bothered to finesse the situation appropriately.

seems a third possibilty is missing here

That he is lying?

xxxp There's a difference between the two parts of that first sentence though - no-one, I'm sure, is under any illusions that Trump and surrogates will be amazingly horrific if Sanders gets the nomination, but if Warren had phrased this as "a jew can't win", it'd deservedly be a pretty big story.

like, it's not going to cause me to change my own vote, but it seems to me pretty undeniable that when he decided to pick nits with the whole "I HAVE beaten a Republican incumbent" exchange, he came off like a huge asshole.

Well, he has.

Whatever point Warren was making there in the first place seemed pretty dumb to me - women by virtue of their gender are more able to win elections and defeat Republican incumbents? And Bernie's doesn't count because it happened 30 years ago (and he won every VT election since)?

you're not supposed to fact check girl power

fact or not, if you don't think that didn't come off petty af i don't know what to tell you.

yeah it felt like a huge mistake

a huge mistake no one will remember in 48 hours

feel like no one has learned anything from either participating in or watching the debate

I honestly don't think it was pettier than counting the total number of elections that have been lost by three opponents, two of whom have been in electoral politics since the early 70s (vs Warren's two electoral wins), or establishing a 30-year cutoff for beating a Republican incumbent in order to exclude your opponent's win, but OK.

The rigorous accuracy of Warren's numbers makes it pettier imo. That's a weird talking point to prepare.

she should have said "in this century"

Politifact:

The two candidates sparred over the meaning of "at any time in the past 30 years."

As the list above shows, Sanders defeated an incumbent Republican in 1990. That’s right on Warren’s cutoff of 30 years.

don't elections usually happen in November? It was 29 years and 3 months ago then.

Yang mentioned that on Twitter, lol

a little chagrined i am no longer in Mordy's Top 2

our top 2 US posters xyzzz and fred

thanks for the early morning lol mordy

Now that we're all friends again, what's next?

On my part, a determination to raise my profile.

yang pulling a neil tyson there xxp

tmi

still pretty sure some of this Sanders/Warren dumped material is coming from the DNC

i am really sorry to keep this going in any way, but is there some sort of authoritative account of what actually happened re: sanders/warren, that meeting, etc?

a debate moderator last night posed a question to warren that was like "how do you react to sanders saying that a woman can't win the presidency?", as if it were a fact that he said it.

fwiw both warren and sanders seem eager to move on and not make this a big issue

oh great, i know i'm ilx's resident copy/paster of talking points memo links, and now i just saw they discussed this 20 minutes ago.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/does-cnn-have-it-in-for-bernie-sanders

What struck me at last night’s debate was the blatant hostility of CNN to Senator Bernie Sanders. Here’s how their reporter framed the question to Sanders about Warren’s claim (which she alone is in a position to make since they were the only two people in the room):

PHILLIP: Let’s now turn to — let’s now turn to an issue that’s come up in the last 48 hours. Sen. Sanders, CNN reported yesterday that — and Sen. Sanders, Sen. Warren confirmed in a statement, that in 2018 you told her that you did not believe that a woman could win the election. Why did you say that?

Now what’s odd about that? Warren couldn’t “confirm” CNN’s reporting. She could only confirm that she had told people who had told CNN that Sanders had told her a woman candidate couldn’t win. It’s strictly a he said/she said situation. And the CNN “reporter” knew that Sanders had denied making the statement. CNN repeated this canard when they asked Warren to respond.

"Why did you say that?"

wtf?

Definitely seemed like moderators hated Sanders. Not just on the Warren exchange. Other typical questions would be something like (not an actual quote): Senator Sanders, your plans would bankrupt the nation and put us on the road to serfdom. Why won’t you level with the American people about that?

This Matt Yglesias piece on Warren (part of a Vox series; the first installment was about Sanders) is pretty good.

The next Democratic president will also be dealing with an executive branch gutted by the Trump presidency. Civil servants have been leaving at an accelerated pace, and crucial agencies, like the State Department and the Environmental Protection Agency, have hemorrhaged talent.

That’s why something else that Date told me is of particular importance: “I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone who’s a better recruiter.” You hear that a lot from people who’ve been recruited by Warren, or watched her recruit others. One former CFPB official described the agency’s hiring process this way: “They used the meeting with Elizabeth Warren to basically make it so you couldn’t say no.”

When I asked Warren what people didn’t understand about the powers federal agencies wielded, that was her answer. “Personnel is policy here,” she replied. “The tools are already embedded in the agencies. It’s just going to take somebody to pick them up and use them.”

The tricky thing about this part of Warren’s worldview is that no candidate would really argue with it. They all agree that personnel matters, that choosing good people and managing them well is important. But there’s a difference between knowing it and prioritizing it, between saying it and doing it. For Warren, putting the right people in the right jobs — and, just as importantly, keeping the wrong people out of those jobs — is an obsession, and she spends her political capital accordingly.

Ezra Klein piece

xp as a staunch bernie supporter I do think this is one particular area of strength for EW, that she's detail oriented on a comprehensive scale which has no doubt served her in litigation and forming consumer protection bureau, etc

this is not a quality generally associated w/ a good executive much less POTUS but then again these are unusual times

“Personnel is policy here,” she replied.

Goddamn, right into my veins.

that's a really good piece

agreed

The counterargument (which I'll hear from Sanders people): understanding – mastering – the system as Warren does is exactly what we don't need when we could be destroying the system.

Warren's the wonk candidate, for sure.

It's a rough take, but yesterday I broke it down as Yang fashioning himself as a silicon valley-style pseudo-libertarian technocrat and Buttigieg is the corporate management consultancy technocrat

A strange facet of the 2020 primary is that it has inverted Bernie Sanders’s and Elizabeth Warren’s reputations. Today, Sanders is seen as the revolutionary willing to challenge the Democratic establishment, whereas Warren is attacked by the left as a technocrat of suspect progressive credentials. But during the Obama years, it was Warren who had a reputation for being willing to challenge, and even foil, a Democratic administration, while Sanders was known as an ideological gadfly but fundamentally a team player.

She never gets enough credit for this imo

"and the former who has now posted his 30th tweet making the same joke about 'things bernie told people in confidence' and now the confetti at the supermarket is raining down and he has won a free turkey. hopefully this celebration will suffice and he will not longer feel compelled to dennis perrin up the site."

Looking for 31st rn, just love confetti and 🦃

The counterargument (which I'll hear from Sanders people): understanding – mastering – the system as Warren does is exactly what we don't need when we could be destroying the system.

who in the Bernie camp is adocating that gov needs shrinking or that ignorance is an asset? For all the revolutionary rhetoric Bernie is an institutionalist, he's not out there railing against the rules per se

I should've said "Sanders fans." The previous Yglesias essay reminded us how canny an institutionalist Sanders has been.

xxp - it isn’t that candidates aren’t allowed to criticize one another, it’s that this is simultaneously a relatively banal accusation, and yet one that has very probably resulted in at least one person flat-out lying, given how much their accounts diverge. meaning supporters of either are more likely to dig in their positions, and non-supporters of either now have both candidates in this state of quantum maybe-lying, i.e. looking worse.

I was objecting to fred's characterization that Sanders erred by "breaking the truce" (was there paperwork?) by drawing distinctions btwn them in volunteer material

also xp - I think the inversion in reputation is pretty obviously due to sanders in the 2016 primary

I was objecting to fred's characterization that Sanders erred by "breaking the truce" (was there paperwork?) by drawing distinctions btwn them in volunteer material

― bold caucasian eroticism (Simon H.), Wednesday, January 15, 2020 11:52 AM (twenty-one seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

the timing on this may not work out (really depends on whether cnn was reporting the story before the volunteer slack thing) but if this all was an overreaction to that then that makes that random bernie volunteer the gavrilo princip of extremely pointless beef

it's so petty it's hard to see how fixating on it (like on berner on my fb timeline has w/ like a dozen posts on the topic) makes anyone look good - impossible to understand why either candidate or their supporters would want to spend a second discussing or thinking about it.

pettiness seems to be some kind of defining sin of our era maybe it's social media's fault

free faaaaaalin'

people forget that a notable segment of the people locked into the primaries treat it like college football and post about it in the same way

there are also game day chants, monday morning quarterbacks, and the entire gamut of cliches

nah just human nature, one of the more alienating and depressing parts thereof

Here's a reminder that Bernie Sanders has proposed putting 20% of every publicly traded company under worker control and that it's never come up in a debate.

— Osita Nwanevu (@OsitaNwanevu) January 15, 2020

i assume that just means everybody's cool with it

A strange facet of the 2020 primary is that it has inverted Bernie Sanders’s and Elizabeth Warren’s reputations. Today, Sanders is seen as the revolutionary willing to challenge the Democratic establishment, whereas Warren is attacked by the left as a technocrat of suspect progressive credentials. But during the Obama years, it was Warren who had a reputation for being willing to challenge, and even foil, a Democratic administration, while Sanders was known as an ideological gadfly but fundamentally a team player.

She never gets enough credit for this imo

― symsymsym, Wednesday, January 15, 2020 11:32 AM (fourteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

The other day Bernie supporters were sharing a Ryan Grimm interview where he talks about how Warren used her relationships with reporters to prevent Obama/Congress from neutering the CFPB as evidence that she was "nasty."

my local peers are annoyed that women's healthcare and specifically abortion wasn't the topic of a question, especially in a state where the legislature and governor seem hell-bent on perpetually introducing legislation that seems like Roe v. Wade overturn-bait

fwiw the candidates on stage who have held national office have a solid 100 on the NARAL scorecard with the exception of Biden (75) and there's was an extremely managerially-worded statement from Buttigieg about pharmaceutical abortion

"extremely managerial" is on Pete's business cards.

in a hip new font

my comment on the statement was that you could remove 2/3rds of the words and have a coherent statement

coherent sentence, that is

Mayor Pete Buttigieg said this week that while he supports the “spirit” of expansion of medication abortion, there needs to be “more research into the pros and cons and unintended consequences of its use in the context of the United States.” https://t.co/OgUlEBvRiP

— BoldProgressives.org (@BoldProgressive) December 22, 2019

those well known pros and secret, pesky cons of medication abortion in the context of the United States! why did no one else think of those

But as Buttigieg told the New York Times in November, making such federal policy a reality “could have the unintended consequence of setting people up for a criminal investigation or even jail” since self-administered abortion care is illegal in some states.

"What is an American vagina? We simply do not know."

If the Democratic debates were just moderators goading candidates into screaming “abortion on demand without apology” directly into the camera I would watch.

abortion the health insurance company employees

jesus my brain is a mess today

ABORTING the employees

that's taken out of context twice

the first instance is that, in the nyt article, pete's "unintended consequences" quote is immediately followed by "We must first work on decriminalization efforts."

but then the second instance is that the "context of the united states" part comes after that, and it isn't really clear what it refers to

“Abortion on demand without apology” is so much easier to say

he supports the “spirit” of expansion of medication abortion

This is also my favorite Rush song

it means "i <3 the hyde amendment" imo

(if anyone has any better idea what he means by that it's taken from here: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/politics/democratic-candidates-abortion-survey.html#link-1df6121c)

thanks, katherine!

I've moved the friend who sent me the link (when he should know better) to the questionable link provider list and am retracting my most recent Buttigieg skepticism on this issue for the moment

This (from katherine) is high-quality content

the gavrilo princip of extremely pointless beef

and my favorite phrase that I have read about the entire thing, thanks, carry on

he supports the “spirit” of expansion of medication abortion

This is also my favorite Rush song

― totally unnecessary bewbz of exploitation (DJP), Wednesday, January 15, 2020 1:08 PM (thirty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

irl lol

Pete should look into bundling over the counter abortion meds with one free month of a streaming service. That is where his talents should be directed.

and maybe get Jasmine Masters to do an "...and I OOP" promo spot.

people forget that a notable segment of the people locked into the primaries treat it like college football and post about it in the same way

I find that when out of morbid curiosity I click through to the twitter feed of a particularly annoying reply in a political thread, it is USUALLY 90% football material (or, strangely often, hockey) and 10% annoying political replies

and a lot of the football stuff is annoying replies in the same vein as the annoying political reply, like a reply to some sportscaster with 100K followers saying "lol [player under discussion] is a TOTAL PUSSY"

well he is

A good read.

heh, was about to link to that (via LGM)

wish all the sanders/warren people who think they're helping by yelling at each other on twitter would read it

I just assume the Bernie folks are furious that the field is so split vs 2016 when he had like 40% of the primary electorate. They probably see Warren's 15% as something they could just add to their totals if she wasn't in the race and its driving them fucking insane.

I just want Iowa to happen so we can see if the Bernie theory of the case (turning out people who don't usually vote) is in any way true. If he comes in third he's kinda fucked, imo.

after discussions with a handful of friends and family members, I've found out they're probably not likely to make their final pick before caucus night

it's a real thing! it blows my mind

Paying as much attention as we all do is much weirder, really.

it makes much more sense to me than waiting for the last minute during the general election.

A friend who follows politics fairly closely, or did, never heard of McKinsey when we discussed Bootyjudge a month ago.

never heard of McKinsey and that's just how McKinsey like it

I feel like the only reason most people would know McKinsey is if they were in an industry where they worked with former McKinsey people.

who

it's called 'denali' now

?

of the Big 4 and the Big 3 consulting firms i think most people would only name recognize PricewaterhouseCoopers because of award shows and maybe Ernst and Young for being involved in big audit scandals.

guess how many of these firms are currently working with my employer! it's more than one!

*groan*

people would definitely recognize bain because romney

bain is a different sort of creature in that private investment takes fiduciary control and then tells management how to pull blood from stones

mckinsey and their peers get paid by existing management to come in and do the same

big 3 consulting firms usually refers to mckinsey, boston, and bain

people would definitely recognize bain because romney

Only the same people who'd recognize McKinsey by name - most people couldn't tell you the name of the 2012 GOP nominee much less how he made his money.

yeah, if you asked me how romney made his money I would've said he married up. Or some corrupt church thing.

Real heads know McKinsey from the Enron trial since Skilling came from there and imported its culture. Bang up job.

i just realized i somewhat got Romney and Kerry confused.

yeah, if you asked me how romney made his money I would've said he married up.

That's not the American way (i.e. being born into it)!

yeah, I got him confused with Kerry. See also my Roger Sterling and Duck problem.

It’s called denasi now, not denali! xxx...xxxps

the american way is being born into enough of it to start your own gruel mill

xp glad someone got it lol

I rue the day we decided to stan presidential candidates.

All of them are imperfect. Not being honest about their growth areas hurts us all. They’re never pushed to be better for *all* of us when we treat them like gods.

(Thread).

— brittany packnett cunningham (@MsPackyetti) January 14, 2020

I enjoyed this

otm

thanks, gonna share

I disagree. They are gods.

they're gods but the greek kinds that are supposed to illuminate our weaknesses with their own flaws

they're gods but the greek kinds that are sexually incontinent idiots who meddle in human affairs to disastrous ends

yeah, they go around fucking goats and turning people into trees and shit

Green New Deal

call it pedantry, but I wish that thread also allowed for the possibility that he said something along the lines of "Trump will make this especially ugly if he's running against a woman" or something along those lines and she inferred an unintended meaning. Since candidates are imperfect and all

I call it pedantry.

But even that is part of the problem don't u see.

xp

lots of fans of both candidates are guilty of assuming their candidate couldn't have misspoken / misinterpreted / acted in error. Bernie's ppl are just more obnoxious about it on the internet.

they sure are

an old friend of mine who lives in w mass & recently got on twitter just posted snake emojis with awful hashtags, I will vote for whoever will ban twitter

otm

but will happen to Richard Nixon

I was a lot more willing to believe that Warren didn’t intend it to be a story before the debate, but my assumption at this point is that they saw polling that showed electability concerns as a drag on her numbers and needed a way to force that issue to center stage so that she could counter it at the debate. As political maneuvering goes it’s a long way from “my opponent’s dad killed JFK and his wife is busted” but I can’t say it makes me like her campaign more. My guess is they wanted the issue to be “can women beat Trump” rather than “is Bernie a sexist,” hence the vagueness about what he actually said, but they must have known how it would be reported. I wish she had just used Biden’s remarks as a springboard, though that probably wouldn’t have gotten as much attention.

DJP tweeter otm. This is what I was thinking during the sports team thing mentioned before. I don't understand being that fanatical about anyone and I had thought maybe I just was not predisposed to that mindset because I am not into sports or religion or haven't loved a band obsessively since I was in high school.

in unrelated news, I had to watch a ton of fox news again for work last night, and I realize I am about to sound like a bernie bro, but it is bizarre how much they are castigating warren (in general, for being a socialist/"socialist") and almost completely ignoring sanders, despite his polling substantially better. you'll have varney or whoever going on tirades about how "if warren gets elected she will destroy the economy and the stock market and your jobs and your children's jobs and you children's children's jobs and it will be a complete disaster! beware! oh right and probably sanders would do that too" and obviously biden is the subject of ongoing hand-waving freakoutery because of the ukraine thing, so the result is you have two out of three front-runners being made out to be satan on a regular basis and one... not.

I can think of a few reasons for this -- the trump/maga have the pocahontas thing to hammer on as well as the standard-issue misogyny; for the business/finance wing warren has explicitly, prominently, loudly worked to establish herself this year as targeting big business/big wealth, and while sanders doesn't need to establish himself in that way (being bernie sanders) it perhaps means he's not first in mind? I do also wonder if part of it is bernie being better liked among that crowd, both working-class and even some suburban wasp types for a number of reasons: economic populism, being seen as an outsider, being seen as someone who doesn't "flip-flop" (god I hate that this is a pejorative but it is) or take stances for political reasons, being the guy in 2016 who wasn't hillary clinton, being the guy who isn't the woman, one or more or all. not sure how reliable this poll is, but the numbers for sanders vs. warren among fox viewers, versus their numbers everywhere else, are striking: https://morningconsult.com/form/media-use-and-2020/

anyway, where I'm going with this is that imo sanders has a huge advantage over basically any of the other front-runners, in that the right-wing hate machine has either struggled or declined to make him into satan

imo they either still don't take him seriously or they genuinely believe ignoring him is the best way to fight him (which I think the UK proved is not the correct media villainy strategy)

(other note on the poll: it was conducted in spring 2019, before the ukraine scandal, so I suspect the biden support among fox viewers is probably lower now)

strange, since the Fox audience would probably be the most receptive to a "Bernie is a commie!" attack

Being in their 80s and all

Hey, MSNBC also spent the fall terrified of Warren too

they may have cried wolf a bit too often on that one

They might also be purposely hands-off on him cause they think, as liberals did about Trump, that he'd be easy to beat.

hmm.

actually, another huge caveat on that poll, it's among people who indicated they may vote in a democratic primary. (although that, too, suggests that insofar as potential democratic voters who watch fox qualify as "more centrist," it doesn't mean they recoil at The Party Moving Too Far Left)

It might be partially due to Fox’s love of culture war shit, and they see Warren as much more of an avatar of the dread wokeness.

Well, she's a woman.

I agree that Bernie is less of a convenient foil for Fox News and their ilk. Though if he does get the nomination they’ll go all out in demonizing him. It’s kind of ironic now that admiration for Putin is acceptable now on the right but I guess Russia is no longer socialist. Now I guess the bugbears are countries like Sweden and Denmark, which is ironic given they are our allies.

Man, dems are just horny as hell to fall for this 'divide & conquer', narcissism of small differences bullshit. The GOP has gotta be loving this.

It won't take him winning the nomination. The minute he actually wins a primary/caucus Bernie will become a Communist Jooooo, don't you worry.

The GOP has torn itself to shreds for decades over purity and yet they still win everything

Yes, true, many of them claim that they all march in LOCK-step while apostates among them insist that it's lock-STEP. It has atomized their movement to an extent that is tragic.

love the analogy tbqh

People are piling on Warren and deservedly so. I never thought she was a serious option, and her pathetic attempt at ratfucking proved clumsy and inept. Hopefully, she'll drop out soon, playing an earnest Renfield to Biden's dizzy Dracula.

— Dennis Perrin (@DennisThePerrin) January 16, 2020

the wit it sparkles, it burns my contacts

he even made a Hilary joke a week ago! Truly a remarkable wit.

Is it possible to killfile Perrin posts without killfiling Morbs in general?

take some opioids and suck it up like a real American

suck it up like a dizzy Dracula!

least favorite gimmicky early 90s board game