I mean don’t do more of that, describe the policies of Biden that you like.
Yes, Biden should discuss his policies. Thanks for the awesome game plan.
Originally Posted by Wesley Clark View Post
I’m surprised NC is leaning more to the left than PA. In 2012 Obama won PA by 5.4% and lost NC by 2%.
This 7.4% differential had shrunk to just 3.0%() in 2016. Rust-belters are increasingly bitter, while the Mid-Atlantic attracts successful younger people?
( - That 3.0% differential increases to 3.8% if Johnson’s votes are allotted to R and Stein’s to D.)
I’m not a sophisticated student of US politics, but there’s something I don’t understand.
If Sanders is conceding to Biden, and Biden is now the presumptive Democratic nominee, what is the benefit to the Democratic party by Sanders remaining on the primary ballot and seeking delegates going forward? Would it not substantially strengthen the party’s position for Sanders to back out of the process now and endorse Biden so that the party has a unified appearance both within and outside the party?
[ul]
[li]Because Biden is able to get from one end of a sentence to the other without digressing into a 40,000 word screed about how great he is.[/li][li]Because Biden has experience with international relationships and will be able to start the critical rebuild of those relationships that Trump has destroyed.[/li][li]Because Biden knows to let the experts lead the way on things like public health.[/li][li]Because Biden is not a self-centered egomaniac more concerned with his ratings and how he is perceived than he is with getting the job done.[/li][li]Because Biden will obey the law and the Constitution when it comes to naming department secretaries and won’t fill a cabinet with “acting” secretaries who either don’t know anything about the department and its responsibilities or are actively trying to destroy the department.[/li][li]Because Biden will not object to nor block Congress performing its Constitutional oversight function.[/li][li]Because Biden is willing to work with people of the opposite party and has worked with them while in Congress and as Vice President and will not engage in schoolyard bullying and name calling.[/li][li]Because Biden is at least willing to admit when he makes a mistake.[/li][li]Because Biden allows reality to direct his decision making rather than his misinformed gut and wishful thinking.[/li][li]Because Biden will not use the power of the office to bully people inside or outside the country nor will he use it to enrich himself and his family by appointing them to positions they are totally unqualified for.[/li][/ul]
I could think of more, but seriously, at this point the choices are Trump or Biden and no one in this country except for the cult followers of Trump should need convincing. Why do you?
Because he won’t appoint Supreme Court justices who support pro-life, anti-immigrant, voter suppression/gerrymandering and corporate personhood stances.
And that should be more than enough for anyone who claims to be liberal or progressive.
There are a few more things going on at the convention besides nominating the candidate. The platform is hammered out and Sanders believes that he can have more influence in shaping the platform if he carries more delegates. The party can’t kick him off the ballot (at least not without awful optics) and by now he’d probably have to stay on anyways due to the deadlines having passed already. It’s not ideal for the Democrats but it’s not really hurting them either.
That is what’s happening, Sanders isn’t going to seek delegates/votes anymore. However, he’ll still be technically on the ballot in the remaining contests, just too much trouble to change them.
You might be confused because they call it “suspending” a campaign rather than outright call it quits? They always do that for legal/financial reasons but it’s effectively quitting.
Thanks Morgyn. I disagree with some of your points but even if I didn’t, I don’t think a list of why Biden is more reasonable and obeys norms better than Trump is going to help him win. It just seems like 2016 a over again.
We need to talk about vulnerable people’s life threatening concerns right now.
re: Biden policies. If you look at his platform, you’ll note it’s a more progressive platform than Obama ran on in 2008 or 2012. He would, when he got into office, rebuild the federal government. The EPA would likely benefit the most (State Dept second most). You would have a resurrection of Obama era environmental executive orders. Biden would push for Obama second term goals - such as immigration reform (and he’d end anti-immigration Trump executive orders) and free community college at the least. He would push for a public option to the ACA while re-strengthening it.
Sure, that’s not a revolution, but it’s going to take one Hell of an effort to get us back to the end of Obama’s administration. The foundation needs to be rebuilt.
Lol, “we”? Two weeks ago you were talking about how Bernie had it all sewn up because Biden was missing in action and wondering if Bernie should pivot to confronting Hillary. Maybe you don’t take the lead on campaign strategy.
Okay. I can visit Biden’s website and cut and paste long sections of his plans, but that seems counterproductive. There’s 29 different pages linked from there, with plans for everything from climate change to K12 education to Latin America to infrastructure development. Which area are you interested in?
This is interesting: Biden’s Agenda for the Catholic Community. I clicked on this, cringing, expecting to see some sop thrown to pro-lifers or anti-SSMarriagers.
Nope. It starts off by describing his own Catholic faith and then frames Catholic concerns with these headers:
I gotta say, I like that.
Yes but how many of those principles will Biden happily abandon because he values ‘bipartisanship’ more than getting things done?
I’m afraid the GOP will keep pressuring him to move further and further rightward in the name of ‘bipartisanship’ and Biden will happily abandon his voters and abandon democrats in congress to make McConnell happy. He has done it before, as the articles I posted showed.
I didn’t post that link to show that he’s a bedrock of principle. I posted it because Manwich wrote, “describe the policies of Biden that you like.”
Yeah, Biden’s gonna go veering into territory I dislike, just like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama did. I have no illusions on the matter (I think). My vote is a very small, but crucial, part of how I engage with politics. We also need to be engaging in movement-building and activism that keeps the pressure on him to enact the progressive policies he’s espousing now.
Yes! Like stuff from your first post.
No, bad, not like second post.
" affordable, quality health care is a right for all Americans"
It’s such a weak waffley statement. Why can’t USA do healthcare? Trump will destroy that shit.
No, just stop it. It makes no sense at all. Hillary shouldn’t be allowed within a time zone of the convention and should be exiled to an island with no internet for the rest of the campaign. Nothing against her personally, but she’s absolute election poison. (And yes, I know she won the popular vote in 2016. But she lost the election to the least qualified person ever to run.)
Manwich, you gotta do more work. That was a header from a paragraph on a page that wasn’t primarily about health care. I gave you the direct link to his master page of position statements. Did you navigate to the page that’s specifically about health care and read it? Taking a header for a paragraph on his page about issues important to Catholics and calling it “waffley” and “weak” is ridiculous.
Edit: Here, I’ll even lead you straight to it. Read his position statement on healthcare, in full. You might disagree with it, but it looks neither weak nor waffley to me. I disagree with it, but it’s a fully-fleshed-out position that would be a significant improvement over either what we currently have, or over what we’d have under another four years of McConnell/Trump.
Talking about tax credits for health care is bad strategy.
Even if true, so what? Lots of people use bad strategy. How is that relevant to anything?
This election will not turn on nuances of policy (like the primaries didn’t) It will turn on the questions competence, decency, and normality. Biden got the nomination because more people thought he could sell that message.
He was practically no one’s first choice. But we’re not talking Biden v. Romney here, it’s Biden v. Trump.