I assume it would be “salaried or hourly employees,” in that context.
Such a big declaration before a plan has been formulated :smack:
Nate Silver says that electability polling, including general election polls early in the primary, have pretty much zero correlation with actual general election results.
So it’s a guess. This early, a wild guess. If you still think you (the general you, not you in particular) can “trust” your own judgement about something like electability after 2016, then you’re out to lunch.
Once again, until Nate Silver has a model making predictions based on polling data, it’s all a guess. This early, a wild guess.
National head to head polls are worthless at this point. And there are many streams of evidence that are far from worthless. Not about any specific candidate as that depends on specific campaigns that have yet to occur, but as to what sort of candidate specific key demographics in specific key states are likely to or not to vote for.
It is of course still speculation but discussion based on that data is not the same as wild guesses.
Asking who can best beat Trump as the key question is very sensible advice. Deciding who that person is can be informed by evidence even if no one knows for sure and there is room to come to different conclusions about it.
So if I say Amy Klobuchar is more electable than her fellow DFLer Ilhan Omar, that’s just a “wild guess”? :dubious:
If the election were held today, Biden might be the most electable of the Democrats.
But the election won’t be held today. Between now and election day there is much danger that Biden will show signs of unacceptable aging: illness, injury, decreased mental acuity — actuarial tables even show that an average man of his age has more than 5% chance of death between now and election day. Even if Biden retains his health and mental acuity, the Lie Machine will seize on any stumble or gaffe as proof of unacceptable aging.
But we shouldn’t wait until excessive aging is apparent and then change horses mid-stream. The Democratic organization isn’t competent to pull off such a late switch. I’m not speaking with an anti-Biden bias, BTW. In 2016, when Biden was a much() younger man (and as you can verify by searching my old SDMB posts), I was begging the DNC to seize control and replace Hillary with Joe. ( - For you young’uns, 70 years old, 75, 80 years old may all seem about the same. I doubt you’ll feel quite that way when you’re in your 70’s.)
Elizabeth Warren is more than a decade younger (gender-adjusted) than Biden. Elizabeth Warren for President!
As Omar fails to meet the NBC requirement and therefore simply cannot be president, your example is invalid.
The point being made is very clear.
Look one can argue over which is more important to general election electability, exciting the young progressive portion of the base, or appealing to those with views more towards the middle (inclusive of many Black, Hispanic, suburban, and winnable non-college educated white voters), or something else, and each side can find evidence to support their positions. But neither is just a wild guess.
Oh wait, you keep saying all sorts of leading Dem candidates aren’t electable. Now I guess you’re saying they are? Or only if the candidate is on your preferred list?
Yes, of course Joe Biden’s wife is saying that he’s the most electable. She would say that even if she didn’t actually believe it. She’s his wife.
And the point that we need to consider electability is of course reasonable.
A potted turnip can beat Trump. The question isn’t who can; it’s who has the best chance.
Nice cite. worth reading.
And how many other Candidates would say the same? Joe isnt even saying he has the best chance, but he hints at it.
How many other candidate could resit the chance to attack some other dem? But not Joe. He attacks trump- quite savagely. And quite rightly.
Well, this is
*CAPEHART: I’ve said on television several times that President Trump is a racist with a white supremacist policy agenda. Am I wrong?
BIDEN: No.
Now, I’m, you know, there’s two things. One, are you a racist because you really believe it and you hate African Americans, etc., and others? Or you are a charlatan and you don’t care much about it, but you know you can appeal to people. So I’m not gonna make the judgment whether his policies are racist. And so that’s why I’ve refused to get into the issue of whether or not he personally is a racist. He is promoting policies that are racist policies, he is in fact …*
So, he says he is not going to say, and then he says it. Others put their feet in their mouths, he trips over his tongue.
And this is the most electable candidate.
No, he* didnt *say it. You quoted out of context.
And he’s likely right. trunp personally might not be a racist, but he is certainly pandering to the racist vote.
Sorry, but I’m going to include downstream outcomes in the equation. Say Biden has a 75% chance of beating Trump, and Zaphod* has a 70% chance of beating Trump. They both have plans to address global warming that are arguably serious enough, but they obviously have to pass Congress. But Biden will keep the filibuster, and Zaphod is already urging the Senate to get rid of it if he wins.
Let’s say there’s a 20% chance** of averting global hellscape if Zaphod’s elected, and about 0% chance if Biden’s elected. I’m gonna give up 5% chance of beating Trump for a 14% chance that we don’t fry the planet - I owe that much to my son who could quite possibly be around to ring in the 22nd century.
- I’m tossing Zaphod in here to keep it hypothetical. We can argue about just what the likelihood is that a given candidate will beat Trump, but that’s not the point. My point is that at least for some of us, it isn’t 100% about beating Trump. There are good reasons to include the differential aftermaths of winning in the equation.
** Pick your number. I figure it’s fairly low - even 20% is optimistic, I figure - because it’s dependent on winning the Senate AND getting rid of the filibuster AND passing legislation that’s big enough to do the job AND successfully implementing it AND its producing technologies that the developing world can adopt with costs in the same ballpark as conventional power.
Yes it does also matter whether or not one thinks that candidate A or B is more likely to actually result in accomplishing anything, no matter what they actually say they have a plan for.
For many that is a point in Biden’s favor over Warren.
I’ll decline debating whether eliminating the filibuster is a good idea but I will note that a president’s urging is not of very much much impact … hell Trump’s urged it multiple times and had zero impact even with his toady Moscow Mitch. Obama also encouraged changes and did not get it. A Senate rule change is not something that a president delivers, even with partisan Senate majority to work with.
As to base mobilization. Let’s grant for the argument the mobilizing the base above and beyond how the removal of Trump and his fascist authoritarian hateful administration mobilizes the base in and off itself is more important to do than winning over any potentially swingable voters (both Obama -Trump and Romney-Clinton voters, who clearly are not just 10,000 Blue collar dudes in Wisconsin, more like north of 9 million or so vote-switchers, disproportionately concentrated in must-win states and districts). “The base” is a varied crowd, not just a handful of young mostly white progressives scatter across the country. They are not in fact the majority of the base of the party. The base is also Black women and men. The base is also center Left Boomers and center Left highly educated whites in suburbs. “The Base” is not all of one mind and while all of “the base” agree that Trump must go, they disagree on much else, and certainly do not all sign on to the same progressive agenda that excites you and that excites a scattered number of voters not especially concentrated in the must-win states.
I’d point out that every vote flipped is worth twice every vote that does not stay home but I would nevertheless agree with obvious that getting Democratic voters out on Election Day is critical.
What is not clear is that pandering to the self-declared “base” that are loud in your social media bubble is an effective way to deliver that, it is not clear whether that sort of candidate is someone who delivers more unity or instead more divisiveness, more enthused or more turned off, within the actual varied elements of the Democratic base.
Sure, beating Trump isn’t the only issue. You want someone who will do good things with that victory. But it’s still a pretty important issue, so it makes sense for the candidate who’s the most electable (or at least, perceived as such) to emphasize that as a selling point.
More on that dismissal of those “10,000 blue collar dudes in Wisconsin” …
Wisconsin was lost by a 24,000 vote margin (12,000 voting the other way would have done it). Pennsylvania by 45,000; Michigan by 11,000.
A few tens of thousands of votes going the other way in those states is of much more potential impact than another million young progressives coming out in California and New York.
Yes, I want as little chance of Trump winning again as possible. But I also want to have the win be an overwhelmingly large one. I want a national repudiation of him, a rejection of his politics of othering and hate. He’ll get that floor of thirtysomething percent no matter what. I want that to be all he gets. I want everyone other than that to vote against him. I want a Democratic candidate all of the middle can vote for. Warren might end up being that candidate. It is too early for me to decide for sure she is not. But a candidate who panders to the young progressive base by dismissing any need to appeal to the middle, including those tens of thousands in Wisconsin, would increase the gamble of losing it all and virtually eliminate any chance of achieving that national repudiation.