I don’t think Buttigieg’s sexual orientation is his biggest handicap. He simply doesn’t appeal much outside of a highly educated white cohort. That’s not enough to win the nomination let alone the general. Dopers and media pundits perhaps have a selection bias to being more highly educated and white and may over-estimate his strength.
Meanwhile the latest B rated Public Policy Polling results are interesting, not so much for their 538 reported horse race line (Biden at 36, up 23 over a tightly clustered pack of Warren, Sanders, and Harris), but for their dig into the issue positions of the 54% who self-describe as “moderate” and the 46% who self-describe as “progressive”. Short version:
Critical eye is that the policy questions they asked did not get too specific. The devil’s in the details on these things. Still … for all the sturm and drang most Ds are somewhere on the same page, even if not the same exact paragraph.
Yes, this is a problem with the way people evaluate Elizabeth Warren also. At least with Pete, he is a better speaker (although it’s tough to have broad Rust Belt appeal when you are name-dropping philosophers and talking about learning Norwegian to read obscure, untranslated authors). But she has a much better political resume. Mayor of a city that’s not even one of the top 250 in the country is just not good enough.
Much as I respect Ed Kilgore, I think he overstates the case for Warren, suggesting that all she needs to do in Iowa and NH is finish second to Biden, ahead of Bernie, and that once she establishes herself as the only viable alternative to Biden, she’ll unify the non-Biden vote and start winning from there.
Even if I didn’t know the history of IA/NH winnowing the field to their winners alone, it would still seem to me that once Biden won both Iowa and NH, his momentum would be extremely hard to stop. Warren really has to win one of them.
In fairness he did meet those kids at Capitol Hill. That claim is correct. The mistake was of course that he wasn’t Vice President — although he showed more interest than the current Vice President.
I understand many democrats don’t want a candidate who lets a guy who states things publicly like “I just met with the President of the Virgin Islands” to get away with his verbal errors. But to equate the two is wrong. Both men gaffe but I haven’t heard Biden incite hate crimes through extremist rhetoric. There’s a difference.
That doesn’t mean Biden ought to be president. He’d probably be a democratic version of Gerald Ford (elected, of course). A placeholder who makes people feel the polarisation is healing since he’s a middle of the road type of guy who has empathy and talks a lot of unity and bipartisanship, but who won’t get serious legislation passed because both major parties in Washington have been moving away from the middle.
I would love to see Beto rise in the polls because for me he has the pro’s of Biden but without the con’s. This guy talks to the people, has empathy and works hard but he doesn’t have a long record to forensically examine and he is young and dynamic. He’s also realistic about policy which is clever. Being a little left of Biden is OK. It’s once you hit Bernie’s lane that I have a problem with. You can’t promise things that without a democratic senate have no chance of passing, and even with a democratic senate you can’t promise things that are a lot more complicated than you let on.
No offense to septogenarians, but being president is probably better left to someone a little younger. It’s undoubtedly a job that requires a tremendous amount of vigor and vitality, and I suspect that Americans are subconsciously looking for subtle signs of strength and weakness that underlie a candidate’s thoughts and words. Right now, Biden is communicating in very subtle ways that he’s not what he used to be, that he’s lost a step. This is not the position Democrats want to be in. Right now he’s getting away with it because it’s a crowded field, attention is diffused, and I don’t think people are really paying as much attention to the race as the wonks and pundits are just yet. But that will change as summer turns to fall and fall turns to winter.
The core of his support is neither paying attention to them, nor giving a shit about them. I suspect many roll their eyes at those who care about the slips of the tongue more than things of more substance. His support is not strongest with those who, like posters here, do obsess over this sort of stuff, some of whom thought that his campaign was done before it started.
We have covered this. No. Historically at least, if there is going to be significant movement at the top of the leaderboard it won’t be until Iowa is right up on top of us. It usually stays about the same summer to fall and fall to winter. Get into January and shit gets real.
Biden consistently has the highest chance to beat Chump according to the polls, and by all accounts he WILL beat Chump in a match-up. I’m voting Biden, and without holding my nose.
I agree that not too many people are paying close attention to the race now, nor will they for a good while.
So not many of us are paying attention to his gaffes now. The question is, how’s he going to do a year from now, when he will have to be on the campaign trail full time, and how will that affect his chances of winning? Will his gaffes and possible lack of stamina be a nothingburger or a disaster, or something in between?
The hell if I know. It feels like trying to determine whether a patient has a cold or cancer based on a handful of reported symptoms, when you have no medical training. But that’s the position we’re in, and it’s kinda nervous-making.
I don’t disagree that the biggest movement in the polls will probably take place right around primary season. My point is, people will begin to notice Joe Biden more than they do now. They will notice his gaffes more and people aren’t going to just roll their eyes; they’ll picture him on a debate stage with Donald Trump.
I’m not sure how much of a negative Pete’s sexual orientation will be in the grand scheme of things. My impression is that society has change CONSIDERABLY more in acceptance of gay rights, than it had regarding racism when Obama was elected. And my personal preference (as an old white guy) is that we nominate someone considerably younger than Warren/Sanders/Biden.
Biden is likely inoffensive. Sure thing, he will be incredibly better than Trump. And his personal shortcomings will likely be tempered if he surrounds himself with capable, diverse, younger folk. Id think his lengthy career and relative inoffensiveness might create opportunities for coalition-building on various liberal-ish issues.
I also would, all things being equal, prefer someone younger. All things aren’t equal. Electability is a very high priority for me, and the data (not instincts, not gut reactions, data) consistently say that Biden is the most electable.