# Nevada Democratic Debate February 2020 **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [February 20, 2020, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nevada-democratic-debate-february-2020/848209 "2020-02-20T01:28:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Socsback](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@Socsback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Socsback)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2020, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nevada-democratic-debate-february-2020/848209/181 "2020-02-20T20:56:17Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > So Pete showed his stuff by going after the most long-shot candidate, the one with the least support? Cool! > > “A hundred forty-one could draw faster than he, > but Irving was looking for one-forty-three.” > > -“The Ballad of Irving” (“the 142nd fastest gun in the West”) False. He went directly after Bernie and Bloomberg for not really being Democrats. He also went after Bernie for not calling out the Bernie trolls, and questioning why he attracts those people in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Socsback](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@Socsback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Socsback)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2020, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nevada-democratic-debate-february-2020/848209/182 "2020-02-20T20:58:28Z")
> [@snowthx](#): > > If you think Sanders can win on voter turnout alone, that may be a close call. I am not sure I would take that bet. Yeah, voter turnout hasn’t really helped him in the first two primaries. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2020, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nevada-democratic-debate-february-2020/848209/183 "2020-02-20T21:00:28Z")
> [@Socsback](#): > > …LBJ didn’t detail his New Deal proposal until after he was elected, and it worked amazingly well. If only that damn FDR hadn’t beaten him to the punch thirty years earlier. ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2020, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nevada-democratic-debate-february-2020/848209/184 "2020-02-20T21:05:51Z")
I have a bot the pulls the last traded price from “[Who will win the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination?](https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/3633/Who-will-win-the-2020-Democratic-presidential-nomination)” on PredictIt for each of Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren once per hour on the half hour. Here they are ranked by percent change in rolling average from 12:30 PM 2/19 to 11:30 AM 2/20: ```auto Candidate % Change Elizabeth Warren +63.8% Pete Buttigieg +17.0% Joe Biden +10.3% Bernie Sanders +7.1% Amy Klobuchar -22.3% Michael Bloomberg -24.8% ``` That seems to roughly match how posters in this thread ranked performances. ---
**Author:** ![Socsback](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@Socsback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Socsback)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2020, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nevada-democratic-debate-february-2020/848209/185 "2020-02-20T21:18:35Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > If only that damn FDR hadn’t beaten him to the punch thirty years earlier. Sorry… threw the wrong acronym in there. Stupid on my part. ---
**Author:** ![Unreconstructed\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/76d3ee/32.png) [@Unreconstructed\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unreconstructed_Man)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2020, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nevada-democratic-debate-february-2020/848209/186 "2020-02-20T21:27:12Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > A millionaire can hire 1,000 people to work him for $1,000. > > A billionaire can hire ONE MILLION people to work for him for $1,000. > > I’ve had quite a few people stop in their tracks when I present it to them like that. The way I like to explain it is this: If you earned a dollar every single second of every single day, you’d be a millionaire in about eleven days. But it’d take you 32 _years_ to become a billionaire. To be as rich as Jeff Bezos is today, you would’ve needed to have started this process four thousand, two hundred and eleven years ago, back in 2191 BC; 2,000 years _before_ the birth of Jesus, and only a little while after our species first learnt how to write things down. And in the 30 seconds or so it’s taken me to tell you all this, he’s earned about another hundred grand. We can tax those motherfuckers. They won’t even notice. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2020, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nevada-democratic-debate-february-2020/848209/187 "2020-02-20T21:47:38Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > If only that damn FDR hadn’t beaten him to the punch thirty years earlier. Curse that FDR! ---
**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:** [February 20, 2020, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nevada-democratic-debate-february-2020/848209/188 "2020-02-20T21:50:35Z")
^ The fact that so few people understand this financial divide, is actually a key failure of Sanders’ messaging, as far as I’m concerned. Americans hear him talking about billionaires all the time but I think most of them don’t _really_ grasp what it means. And so it just becomes another abstraction way over their head that they kind of push to the back of their mind, and this outrageous situation with the power of the billionaires simply loses its emotional impact. When you put it in terms like you just did, it’s truly astounding. But most people will never see it put in those terms. They hear billionaire and literally they just think “like a millionaire, but more so.” ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2020, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nevada-democratic-debate-february-2020/848209/189 "2020-02-20T21:55:44Z")
> [@Socsback](#): > > Campaign with poetry and govern with prose. It’s a good strategy. Going into policy detail at this state is a mistake. To this day, people are calling out Obama for saying that you could keep your doctor, and ridiculing Trump for saying that Mexico would pay for the wall. > > LBJ didn’t detail his New Deal proposal until after he was elected, and it worked amazingly well. Because what we really need right at this critical moment in history is government by “Old Saw” ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2020, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nevada-democratic-debate-february-2020/848209/190 "2020-02-20T21:58:46Z")
20 million people watched the thing, according to CNN. ---
**Author:** ![Mike\_Mabes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mike_mabes/32/1782_2.png) [@Mike\_Mabes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mike_Mabes)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2020, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nevada-democratic-debate-february-2020/848209/191 "2020-02-20T21:59:20Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > A millionaire can hire 1,000 people to work him for $1,000. > > A billionaire can hire ONE MILLION people to work for him for $1,000. > > I’ve had quite a few people stop in their tracks when I present it to them like that. I sometimes ask people that if someone spent $1000 a day, how long would it take them to spend a billion dollars. When I tell them it is over 2700 years they usually don’t believe me until I show them on a calculator. The Democrats really need to do a better job of explaining how much a billion dollars is. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2020, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nevada-democratic-debate-february-2020/848209/192 "2020-02-20T22:01:44Z")
If sanders gets voters then he is not being unclear about billionairres and his message got out. If he doesn’t then he was as good as unclear. That’s kind of the state of the art on punditry until the vote. It doesn’t appear on the surface that he is speaking over anyones head though. ---
**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:** [February 20, 2020, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nevada-democratic-debate-february-2020/848209/193 "2020-02-20T22:01:48Z")
> [@Mike\_Mabes](#): > > I sometimes ask people that if someone spent $1000 a day, how long would it take them to spend a billion dollars. When I tell them it is over 2700 years they usually don’t believe me until I show them on a calculator. > > The Democrats really need to do a better job of explaining how much a billion dollars is. Yeah, it’s an interesting revelation. It’s odd that even Andrew Yang, the most numbers-oriented of all the candidates, never really made an attempt to get this across. ---
**Author:** ![Socsback](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@Socsback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Socsback)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2020, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nevada-democratic-debate-february-2020/848209/194 "2020-02-20T22:04:41Z")
> [@drad\_dog](#): > > Because what we really need right at this critical moment in history is government by “Old Saw” To some degree, yeah. We need some credibility. If you’re making promises that you can’t keep, you’ll never get there. Other countries, in general, look for leaders rather than policy. Promising policies that you know you can’t deliver is the LAST thing that we need. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2020, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nevada-democratic-debate-february-2020/848209/195 "2020-02-20T22:07:57Z")
You people have some wild ways to explain a billion dollars to americans. But it must be the trumpers who actually don’t understand the concept though, so what’s the point? ---
**Author:** ![Socsback](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@Socsback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Socsback)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2020, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nevada-democratic-debate-february-2020/848209/196 "2020-02-20T22:12:25Z")
> [@drad\_dog](#): > > Because what we really need right at this critical moment in history is government by “Old Saw” To some degree, yeah. We need some credibility. If you’re making promises that you can’t keep, you’ll never get there. Other countries, in general, look for leaders rather than policy. Promising policies that you know you can’t deliver is the LAST thing that we need. ---
**Author:** ![Mike\_Mabes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mike_mabes/32/1782_2.png) [@Mike\_Mabes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mike_Mabes)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2020, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nevada-democratic-debate-february-2020/848209/197 "2020-02-20T22:12:38Z")
Another way to put it - Someone gets rich and they buy a $20 milllion dollar house. But since they go to LA several times a year they get a $5 millon house there. And $1 million dollar apartments in London, Paris and Rome. And they hire a private 5-star chef and spend a thousand dollars a day, every day, on that (unless they are in a restaurant and spend it there). They own 10 $200,000 sports cars. They own a Lear Jet. And a yacht. They have season tickets, front row, for their favorite sports team. Still haven’t spent even $100 million. And then they can spend $10,000 a day for 270 years. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2020, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nevada-democratic-debate-february-2020/848209/198 "2020-02-20T23:10:11Z")
I can’t help but think that the habit of explaining large amounts of money by using ever more elaborate examples from some hypothetical everymans life, will result in 4 more years of toirnp. Certainly it is part of the vast dream combine of Putin to make things more confusing, or to just say it is and watch people work. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2020, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nevada-democratic-debate-february-2020/848209/199 "2020-02-20T23:23:33Z")
What if a right wing populist spoke up about billionaires, in front of his audience. Soros, and other shadowy figures. They don’t know what you mean? They know it in the back of their lizard brains. They will probably break out in a chant. But the dem electorate can’t count to 1000? Because democracy is over? ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2020, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nevada-democratic-debate-february-2020/848209/200 "2020-02-20T23:40:16Z")
My [Super Tuesday Tracker](https://twitter.com/Very_Stable_G/status/1230628208413827073) shows that this debate was absolutely brutal for Bloomy. In many, but not all, states Biden benefited (AL, AR, NC, TN, TX). These are mostly southern states I guess. Sanders and Biden seem to have split the gains in VA. Warren was the beneficiary in MA and Sanders in OK. In the other Super Tuesday states Bloomberg didn’t have much chance to begin with. I do not collect data on Amy Klobuchar, but she seems to have gained a ton in Minnesota when I look at that market. No much action for her in other markets at glance. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nevada-democratic-debate-february-2020/848209.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nevada-democratic-debate-february-2020/848209.md?page=11)