# Hee-haw, y'all. The 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 12, 2018, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415 "2018-11-12T17:52:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 114
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2019, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/2261 "2019-08-08T16:48:21Z")
> [@jaycat](#): > > The Dems need to abolish the primaries and return to the Smoke-Filled Rooms model. The Smoke-Filled Rooms got them FDR, Truman, and Kennedy. The primaries got them Dukakis, Mondale and Hillary. Just sayin’… Kennedy won the primary. Truman was a shoe-in. Bill Clinton Won the primary. Obama won the primary. ---
**Author:** ![Emily\_Litella](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/emily_litella/32/3370_2.png) [@Emily\_Litella](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Emily_Litella)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2019, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/2262 "2019-08-08T18:08:09Z")
Bernie Sanders was on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast on Tuesday, there are 4.5 millions views today, with 99K comments so far. [Here is the link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O-iLk1G_ng) if you want to listen. It’s only a little over an hour long, shorter than Joe’s usual podcasts, but they pack a lot into it. Bernie gets to say a hell of a lot more that the 45 seconds they get for answering in the debates. I enjoyed this, he doesn’t yell and he doesn’t seem to feel pressured to get the talking points out there. It shows off his sense of humor too. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2019, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/2263 "2019-08-08T18:09:13Z")
> [@jaycat](#): > > The Dems need to abolish the primaries and return to the Smoke-Filled Rooms model. The Smoke-Filled Rooms got them FDR, Truman, and Kennedy. The primaries got them Dukakis, Mondale and Hillary. Just sayin’… Would be an interesting comparison between primary winners and our best guesses at smoke-filled room nominees. In 1984, IMHO, the SFR would have given us Mondale, so that wouldn’t have been any different. In 1988, probably Gephardt, maybe Gore. In 1992, they’d have bailed on Clinton after Gennifer Flowers; who knows who they’d have picked. Gore in 2000. In 2004, probably Kerry, possibly Wesley Clark. Hillary in 2008 for sure, ditto 2016. IOW, I’m not sure they’d have done much better, and in a couple of places (1992, 2008), almost surely worse. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2019, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/2264 "2019-08-08T19:04:13Z")
Hillary would have beat McCain easily in 2008. > [@Emily\_Litella](#): > > Bernie Sanders was on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast on Tuesday, there are 4.5 millions views today, with 99K comments so far. [Here is the link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O-iLk1G_ng) if you want to listen. It’s only a little over an hour long, shorter than Joe’s usual podcasts, but they pack a lot into it. Bernie gets to say a hell of a lot more that the 45 seconds they get for answering in the debates. I enjoyed this, he doesn’t yell and he doesn’t seem to feel pressured to get the talking points out there. It shows off his sense of humor too. My Bernhead friend showed this to me as evidence that he doesn’t always shout. I said we should weld those headphones on his head! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2019, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/2265 "2019-08-08T19:20:45Z")
[New Change Research poll](https://www.changeresearch.com/post-debate-poll-august-2-4-2019)shows Warren leading race at 26%, Biden and Sanders tied at 23%. It’s just one poll from a not especially well-regarded pollster, so let’s not get carried away. Still, it’s the first poll Warren has topped, so kind of noteworthy. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2019, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/2266 "2019-08-08T19:23:13Z")
Toldya. Warren’s going to _destroy_ Trump. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2019, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/2267 "2019-08-08T22:26:07Z")
After 2016 I believe that the polls cannot be trusted. I will never take them at face value again. I know a lot of people have posted poll results here and put a lot of stock in them, and I know the organizations that take the polls put a lot of time and effort into them, and I realize what I’ve said could be construed as shitting all over that. The bottom line is that I no longer have any faith in the polls reflecting reality. I think they’re an attempt to quantify something that resists analysis by logic and math. I can’t speak for anyone else but I am judging all of the proceedings of the ongoing campaign by my intuition alone, which has rarely failed me. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2019, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/2268 "2019-08-08T23:03:53Z")
The polls were not dramatically wrong in 2016. And they were quite accurate in 2018. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2019, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/2269 "2019-08-08T23:41:13Z")
Rahmbo is kicking ass and taking names: [https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/08/08/emanuel-obama-2020-democrats-227511](https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/08/08/emanuel-obama-2020-democrats-227511) > [@](#): > > Here’s what everyone needs to understand: For Democrats, progress happens brick-by-brick, with one success built on the next. We’re not going to win the White House by proposing ideas that will never pass through Congress. We’re going to win by meeting voters where they live, explaining how we’re going to strengthen protections that already tangibly make their lives better. At a moment when Washington is spinning its wheels, we need to focus on specific and tangible plans to expand access to college, control health care costs, welcome new immigrants who believe in the American Dream and rebuild America’s transportation systems. > > That’s how progress has always worked. Social Security initially passed with the support of 141 Southern Democrats—most of whom were eager to prevent African Americans from receiving benefits. To that end, the bill FDR signed into law in 1935 boxed out farmworkers and maids—a vestige of racism that wasn’t corrected until the 1950s. It then took us three more decades to create Medicare and Medicaid. Then it took another three decades for Democrats to pass President Bill Clinton’s Children’s Health Insurance Program, which covers 9 million children today. From there it took nearly 13 more years for Obama to pass the Affordable Care Act. To strike the next blow, we shouldn’t scare voters by offering a proposal that takes their health care plans away, which Medicare for All does. When it comes to scaring voters, leave that to Trump because he seems to have that market cornered. As Democrats, our best strategy, both in terms of policy and politics, is to explain how we’re going to build on progressive achievements that voters already know, understand and have come to appreciate. > > But it’s not just that repudiating the most important parts of the progressive legacy is a fool’s errand—it’s a lousy electoral strategy as well. After 1968, progressives didn’t just lose an election—they lost a generation. With the exception of Jimmy Carter’s fluke win in the wake of Watergate, Republicans held the White House for the next quarter century. Clinton and Obama were the first Democrats to win reelection since FDR. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2019, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/2270 "2019-08-08T23:41:58Z")
> [@Lamoral](#): > > After 2016 I believe that the polls cannot be trusted. I will never take them at face value again. I know a lot of people have posted poll results here and put a lot of stock in them, and I know the organizations that take the polls put a lot of time and effort into them, and I realize what I’ve said could be construed as shitting all over that. The bottom line is that I no longer have any faith in the polls reflecting reality. I think they’re an attempt to quantify something that resists analysis by logic and math. I can’t speak for anyone else but I am judging all of the proceedings of the ongoing campaign by my intuition alone, which has rarely failed me. It’s failing you right now. ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2019, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/2271 "2019-08-08T23:45:15Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Rahmbo is kicking ass and taking names: > > [https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/08/08/emanuel-obama-2020-democrats-227511](https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/08/08/emanuel-obama-2020-democrats-227511) Who? Oh, yeah, the guy who failed miserably as mayor of Chicago and was hounded out of office. Why in the world would anyone take anything he has to say seriously? ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2019, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/2272 "2019-08-08T23:50:38Z")
He was also a very successful part of the Obama administration. Do you have any rebuttal for the actual content of what he said? ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2019, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/2273 "2019-08-09T00:24:44Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > He was also a very successful part of the Obama administration. Do you have any rebuttal for the actual content of what he said? Yeah, he opposed the ACA and tried to kill it after Scott Brown got elected. Good thing he **wasn’t** more successful; think of what Obama’s record would look like, absent the ACA. ---
**Author:** ![Personal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Personal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Personal)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2019, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/2274 "2019-08-09T00:34:32Z")
> [@Thing\_Fish](#): > > Who? Oh, yeah, the guy who failed miserably as mayor of Chicago and was hounded out of office. Why in the world would anyone take anything he has to say seriously? He may or may not have failed policy wise, but that’s not the point. He got elected, and that’s what he’s driving at (at least from that blurb). He knows politics. You can’t effect change if you’re sitting on the sidelines or turning your supporters and potential supporters off. ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2019, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/2275 "2019-08-09T00:39:40Z")
I’m not really seeing much content there, to be honest. I agree with him that progressives had to fight long and hard against useless wankers like him in order to pass programs that would help people, and we will continue to do so. Other than that, it’s just scaremongering. ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2019, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/2276 "2019-08-09T00:47:18Z")
> [@Personal](#): > > He may or may not have failed policy wise, but that’s not the point. He got elected, and that’s what he’s driving at (at least from that blurb). He knows politics. You can’t effect change if you’re sitting on the sidelines or turning your supporters and potential supporters off. He got elected, barely re-elected, and then retired from politics after he got caught suppressing evidence in order to cover for a racist, murdering cop. Awesome legacy. Other than the coverup, he is mainly remembered for selling off public assets in sweetheart deals to his corporate cronies. Oh yeah, and shutting down schools and mental health clinics in black neighborhoods. I guess if that’s the sort of “change” you want to effect, he’s your guy. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2019, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/2277 "2019-08-09T00:52:23Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Do you have any rebuttal for the actual content of what he said? Yes - he’s lying. You notice that nowhere - not once - does he quote any of the Democratic candidates who were supposedly “throw[ing] Obama under the bus” and “attack[ing] the first African-American president.” He says that “Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time progressives have chosen to eat their own.” Who, Rahm? What progressive candidates have said things at the debates (or elsewhere, for that matter) that could reasonably be interpreted that way? Quotes, please! I’ve been asking for substantiation since the day after for this bullshit accusation that candidates attacked Obama at the debates. Nobody’s come up with anything, have they? It’s hard to prove a negative, but given that nobody - _including that worthless scum Rahm Emanuel_ - has come up with the least evidence of the positive, I’m satisfied that nothing of the sort happened, that some centrist Dems took reasonable criticism of Obama and blew it up out of proportion so they could pretend to turn themselves into the Defenders of All That Is Right and Good. Fuck that worthless, lying rat bastard scum Rahm Emanuel with rusty farm implements. He deserves it. . ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2019, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/2278 "2019-08-09T00:54:11Z")
And I don’t know what point he’s trying to make about 1968. Is it that the Democrats could have won more elections if they hadn’t alienated George Wallace? ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2019, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/2279 "2019-08-09T00:59:18Z")
Yeah, it sounds like he’s just backing up Biden’s bullshit attempts to frame any criticism of him as an attack on Obama. ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2019, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/2280 "2019-08-09T01:04:49Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Yes - he’s > > Fuck that worthless, lying rat bastard scum Rahm Emanuel with rusty farm implements. He deserves it. > . You’ll have a hard time finding anyone in Chicago who disagrees. The field of candidates to succeed him was about as large as the current Dem Presidential field, and every one of them distanced themselves from him as far as possible. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415.md?page=113) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415.md?page=115)