Hee-haw, y'all. The 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary

Politics & Elections
2761

Oh, so you’ve told me a billion times you agree with me that the filibuster needs to go, only you don’t agree.

Anyway, I’ll answer this one, before I disappear you from my sight:

Short version: with the filibuster, we’ve got no chance to make any of the positive changes this country needs. If we get rid of it, we’ve got a chance. I’d rather have a chance than no chance.

Long version:

Assuming the Dems win the White House and the Senate, what happens if the Dems keep the filibuster? They accomplish nothing in 2021-22, then get demolished at the polls in November 2022 because things still suck and they haven’t done anything to change that. They also haven’t done anything about climate change, so we’re screwed in the long run too.

Eventually the GOP wins back the White House, either in 2024 or 2028. They have been willing to demolish any norm that’s in their way, so if they need to kill the filibuster, they will. More likely, they’ll just use reconciliation to pass more tax cuts, continue confirming GOP judges, etc., and keep the filibuster in place in order to keep the Dems from being able to pass stuff with a simple majority when they’re next in supposed control.

And if they get rid of it? Then at least they’ve got a chance to accomplish good stuff: to pass laws ensuring that everyone can vote in Congressional elections, and that House districts aren’t gerrymandered. To address climate change. To increase the minimum wage and empower unions. To make college affordable, and make getting health care more affordable and less complicated.

Sure, the GOP might repeal that stuff someday, if and when they get control of both houses of Congress and the White House. But the Dems’ best bet is to pass laws that really help people in their daily lives - both to minimize the inevitable midterm losses, and to give people a reason to lean on their Congresspersons and Senators when the GOP has full control and tries to repeal all the good things the Dems passed, just the way it happened with the ACA in 2017.
If the Dems continue to play defense even when they have the ball - which is the only play they leave themselves if the filibuster is in place - then they never get anywhere, never accomplish anything for anybody, and never constitute more than a brake on the organized evil that is the GOP.

At some point, they’ve got to go on offense - kill the filibuster and try to actually accomplish something positive - or they, and the country, are screwed. Yeah, there are risks. But that beats hell out of the certain slow self-defeat of the other approach.

A chance, versus no chance. Seems like a no-brainer to me.

2762

You need to chill. I agreed that the filibuster may need to be removed for progress on certain issues, I never said it would solve everything forever.

For some things, like entitlements, a short term advantage can almost be permanent as they are much harder to roll back, politically. So removing the filibuster to get a good healthcare plan through would certainly be worth it. However, other things can be rolled back much easier once the filibuster is gone and the Dems are out of power.

2763

Well we agree here that the idea is one with no brain … :slight_smile:

2764

And I should point out, once again you are triggered by a pet topic being mentioned and ignored the context of the conversation you jumped into. pjacks complained about nominees talking about legislation with no plan for how they are getting passed. All his proposals were also things that couldn’t be directly accomplished by the President, which is what I pointed out. Then you barge in to tell me “argo blargo, filibuster bad. Wut your plan?!?”.

2765

So, pjacks, you think it’s unrealistic for the President to promise anything that needs to get through the senators of 25 states, and your proposed solution is something that, in order to pass, would need to get through the senators of all 50 states? Because that is literally what you’d need to tie Senate representation to state population: Unanimous agreement of all 50 states.

2766

New Selzer poll of Iowa. Buttigieg now leads. By a wide margin.

Buttigieg 25
Warren 16
Biden 15
Sanders 15

If this is how Iowa shakes out, are fears of Buttigieg’s poor electability (and what that sort of performance would say about Biden) groundless or not?

2767

Klobuchar next btw with 6.

As to my question, Iowa caucus goers seem to care most about that, even as they choose him.

And Warren likely course corrected because her own polling told her this:

This is going to get even more interesting. Patrick may have a chance to jump up as the less risky (from the electability POV) option.

2768

Sorry, as long as the candidates are discussing fantasy healthcare plans that will never exist, I thought I’d try my own hand at fiction writing.

2769

This certainly would be great for him if the Iowa caucus was next week. The problem is now he has the bullseye on him, and during the next debate he will be relentlessly attacked by everyone else, as is tradition in these endless dozen-person “debates” that we all are doomed to watch for what feels like eternity. So get ready for the attacks and the plummeting polls after all his warts are exposed, as we’ve already seen happen with Harris & Warren.

2770

His weaknesses, and they most definitely exist, are not debate attackable ones. He will do better with the debate target on his back than others have I think.

2771

Winning Iowa ain’t shit; the Iowa democrats tend to be left of left.

Let’s see if Buttigieg can win Iowa and NH.

2772

I remember when that twerp Swallwell went after him during one of the 1st debates, and he seemed to wilt under pressure and then faded away for the rest of the debate.

I will predict that Castro has his guns ready to point at Pete, as he did against Beto. He seems to be angling to be Biden’s or Warren’s VP lately. Gabbard will probably say some bizarre things about Pete supporting colonizing the Middle East or some shit, and a certain segment of voters will eat it up. Klobachur will go after him hard, as she knows she could steal some of his voters and then suddenly find herself in the Iowa top 3.

It won’t be pretty. If he can weather the attacks (and to be fair, Mean Pete in the last debate was a winner for sure), then that will prove he is electable more than anything else possibly could.

2773

Has there been an analysis of recent Facebook propaganda? We already know that lies on social media are likely to decide the election, and that Kremlin and GOP operatives are smart enough to promote the candidates they fear the least. If Buttigieg is doing well in polls it may be, in part, because the Kremlin and the GOP want him to do well.

Pollsters sometimes ask “If the election were held today, for whom would you vote between Trump and Buttigieg?” Many voters in the “Middle” probably know little about Buttigieg. How much would the poll results change, if pollster appended “Before you answer, note that Buttigieg is a homosexual who wants schools to teach your children to be homosexual.”

(Never mind whether that last clause is a true fact. Just like ‘literally’, the phrase ‘true fact’ literally no longer has its traditional meaning.)

2774

Some fun reading. Medicare for all act of 2006 bill by then Senator Ted Kennedy.

Castro didn’t qualify for the 5th debate to be held on Nov. 20, 2019. His qualifying for the 6th debate looks unlikely since he didn’t make the donor threshold or any of the poll qualifiers yet.

2775

This sort of absurd statement is Putin achieving his goal, to create a distrust of the democratic process as a whole.

There is no question that the Russian interference machine is operational, and its actual ability to significantly move polls is small. Non-zero but small. In an national election that is decided by a few tens of thousand votes in a few states that tiny ability can be of import. In a primary in which making the stage depends on hitting or not hitting 3% in a few polls, it may be enough to get someone you consider an asset to getting your preferred views out over the threshold.

But it is not what moves polls this degree, as much as Putin LOVES that you’d think it could and question that voters are so easily swayed in big numbers by misinformation manipulations.
In case I have not been clear - I share the fear that Buttigieg is a huge electability risk, and for good reasons. He has no proven executive experience (his mayoral track record fails in that regard), no other national level experience, and no demonstrated ability to win significant support outside of the college educated white demographic. The easily anticipated attacks based on homophobia are possibly the least of it.

But Sanders is, I think, even less electable, and while I had managed to convince myself that Warren was electable I am now convinced otherwise. Biden has been meh. Still the placeholder but meh. Klobuchar has rarely shown anything that could be called charismatic or inspiring. Harris was a surprisingly awful candidate.

I’m again seeing Patrick’s path as a realistic, or at least not completely unrealistic, one. If Biden does not place within the top three in Iowa while Buttigieg wins then less revolutionary progressive and center Left voters who care most about electability may be spooked about nominating someone who they think of as having such general election vulnerabilities, and a Patrick win in N.H. would set him up to do well on Super Tuesday.

I think we’ve seen peak Warren.

2776

Sorry to doublepost but researching out on Black voters’ takes on Buttigieg by way of a recent YouGov national poll. Clearly he is not the group’s current number one choice but, it seems, he is not actively disliked either.

He is viewed unfavorably by 22% of Black voters in that poll. Not much differently than the 19% for Biden, the 19% for Sanders, or the 17% for Warren. The biggest group just doesn’t have ANY opinion about him favorable or un: 44% say “don’t know.” The others have lots more decided they like them than he does, but he has opportunity yet to connect.

2777

My liken Buttigieg’s sudden burst in the polls to the striking of a match: A big flare-up followed by a quick burning out. My prediction remains a Biden/Warren ticket next November.

2778

Sounds great. Grandpa/Grandma 2020: “Don’t worry, she’s still sharp as a tack!”

2779

I won’t say that the age of any of the candidates is disqualifying, but I will say that if any of the oldsters is the nominee, they absolutely need a young VP. Biden/Warren would be a terrible idea.

2780

Could be, I wouldn’t bet against it, but do you have any particular reason you believe so? Is it your gut, or the tea leaves, or what?

And what specifically do you think struck the match?

This is not a response to a good zinger in a debate, like Harris’s flare was. This is voters in Iowa (and to some degree New Hampshire, where he is not leading but in the most recent poll was in the pretty much tied for second behind Biden with Warren and Sanders … and they are each playing in their backyards there) just now deciding that he and his approach are more what they are looking for.