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The 2020 Presidential Election - Convention & General Election


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13 hours ago, Danny Bateman said:

 

I respect your different opinions as well, but for me the reality of the situation is that a Biden administration with a bluer Congress is far, far more progressive than another four years of Trump. I know that may seem like moderates giving progressives an ultimatum (vote for Biden or get Trump!) but it's just an objective, factual statement as far as I am concerned. 

 

When I said I don't think it's about policy, I meant it. Biden adopting Warren's bankruptcy plan and tuition-free college as a nod to Bernie were met with derision. Biden could adopt Bernie's platform wholesale and these folks would not be on board. For this small subset of progressives (i.e., the Bros), it's not about policies or plans. It's that they morally reject BIden or moderate liberalism themselves. 

 

But I don't think that group is very large, so I think the advice to just ignore them is probably a good idea.

Agreed.  Political wars are lost because of moral purity standards.  If Biden beats Trump and beats him soundly, it will set back the type of 'conservatism' that trump holds.  Sometimes we have to put the finger in the dike for a while.  I expect the more progressive wing will have their say not only in a Biden admin but more likely in the years to come. Movements take time. This is the time to stop a movement in its tracks by defeating trump.  Pause, stabilize politically - then let the progressive wing present their case under new leadership.  If the ideas are valid, it doesn't matter the spokesperson.  The ideas should be bigger than Bernie. 

 

If Trump wins, progressives will have no say in the next admin.  I think Biden has a better chance of winning than Bernie - thus giving progressives a voice at the table.

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17 minutes ago, BlitzFirst said:

 

 

I expect Biden to clamp down on that faster than a bear snatching a salmon swimming upstream.  I don't think he'll allow any true progressive issues that the people actually want (medicare for all, student debt cancellation, free college, unionization of workforce, immigration reform).   Just like Bernie has many, many years of documented support FOR these progressive items...Biden has many, many years of documented support AGAINST them.  I have no faith he'll suddenly change.

 

I would guess you're right, but hope that "President" Biden sees that all the decisions Senator Biden made were in a different political landscape. When Biden was voting against progressive measures back in the day, how many people self-identified as progressive? How many progressive members of Congress were there? 

 

I think there are way, WAY more people who espouse progressive ideals today than ever before. Biden, being a great fence-straddler, is smart enough to see that these voices aren't going to remain unheard.  I think that's why we see the lip-service to concessions for Bernie & Warren's ideas.

 

Let's just hope that if he gets into office, that lip-service becomes action.

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27 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

I would guess you're right, but hope that "President" Biden sees that all the decisions Senator Biden made were in a different political landscape. When Biden was voting against progressive measures back in the day, how many people self-identified as progressive? How many progressive members of Congress were there? 

 

I think there are way, WAY more people who espouse progressive ideals today than ever before. Biden, being a great fence-straddler, is smart enough to see that these voices aren't going to remain unheard.  I think that's why we see the lip-service to concessions for Bernie & Warren's ideas.

 

Let's just hope that if he gets into office, that lip-service becomes action.

I think knap is right. Biden is going to give lip service to pander to the progressives, but I doubt he'll come through in any meaningful way. But it'a still a better chance than Trump would give progressives.

 

Unfortunately I still think Biden will lose to Trump. (Edit: fixed my copy paste error)

 

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1 hour ago, RedDenver said:

 

I think knap is right. Biden is going to give lip service to pander to the progressives, but I doubt he'll come through in any meaningful way. But it'a still a better chance than Trump would give progressives.

 

Unfortunately I still think Biden will lose to Trump. (Edit: fixed my copy paste error)

 

This I think is something upon which we can all agree.  It's not as if upon a Biden win the grassroots infrastructure powering the progressive wing of the party simply goes away. I think they continue to do their job getting more progressives elected and pushing Biden to the left.

 

This election is extremely consequential and if we lose it's going to make any form of liberalism much harder. I really hope we can get Biden elected and return to our differences in earnest later.

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2 hours ago, BlitzFirst said:

 

 

I expect Biden to clamp down on that faster than a bear snatching a salmon swimming upstream.  I don't think he'll allow any true progressive issues that the people actually want (medicare for all, student debt cancellation, free college, unionization of workforce, immigration reform).   Just like Bernie has many, many years of documented support FOR these progressive items...Biden has many, many years of documented support AGAINST them.  I have no faith he'll suddenly change.

I don't think Biden will have a choice- the party is moving that direction and he'll need their support as well.

Even with the Dems taking control of both houses I don't think it will be by the #s in which he can ignore the votes of the more progressive side of the party.  It has been a long time since Biden was a senator.  Obama was more progressive then he was and I think his perspective as president will be different than as senator.

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What do you think.  Draft Cuomo??    I mentioned to my wife the other day that Cuomo has acted and sounded much more presidential in all of this than Cheeto ( I like Knapp's new name for Trump). 

 

 

 

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/03/could-a-draft-cuomo-movement-be-in-the-democrats-future/

 

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It’s not out of the question if Biden keeps looking out of touch and irrelevant.

Democrats are publicly talking about “contingency options” for their July convention in Milwaukee in case the coronavirus persists in being a public-health threat. But privately, some are also talking about needing a Plan B if Joe Biden, their nominee apparent, continues to flounder.

Some Democrats are openly talking up New York governor Andrew Cuomo, whose profile has soared during the crisis, as a Biden stand-in. Yesterday, a Draft Cuomo 2020 account on Twitter announced that “Times have changed & we need Gov. Cuomo to be the nominee. Our next POTUS must be one w/an ability to lead thru this crisis.”

Charles Pierce, the politics blogger for Esquire magazine, wrote a piece headlined “With Two Words, Andrew Cuomo Established Himself as the Leader This Country Needs Now.” He enthused that Cuomo’s news conference last Friday “essentially (shutting) down the economy of his state . . . was a master class in leveling with the public.”

Fueled by favorable national publicity that governors rarely get, Cuomo has quickly become the standard-bearer for liberals who don’t want to quickly open up parts the economy at the same time we combat the coronavirus. This Tuesday, the governor tweeted: “We are not willing to sacrifice 1-2% of New Yorkers. That’s not who we are. We will fight to save every life we can. I am not giving up.” Last weekend, Cuomo told reporters he might go into Manhattan himself to yell “You are wrong” at people defying his lockdown.

Democrats are increasingly worried that Joe Biden will have trouble being relevant and compelling in the long four months between now and when he is nominated in July. Lloyd Constantine, who was a senior policy adviser to New York governor Eliot Spitzer from 2007 to 2008, puts it bluntly: “Biden is a melting ice cube. Those of us who have closely watched as time ravaged the once sharp or even brilliant minds of loved ones and colleagues, recognize what is happening to the good soldier Joe.”

Indeed, Biden seemed to disappear when the virus began dominating the news cycle early in March. Biden’s media presence “abruptly shriveled,” writes Kalev Leetaru, a senior fellow at the George Washington University Center for Cyber & Homeland Security. In contrast, daily mentions of Cuomo as of last Sunday “accounted for 1.4 percent of online news coverage compared with 2.9 percent for Trump.”

In an attempt to remain relevant, Biden’s campaign team hastily built a TV studio in the basement of his Wilmington, Del., home and began streaming daily appearances by him from it this week. They have not gone well. 

In his first outing on Monday, Biden looked as he were lost somewhere on the set of Wayne’s World, the 1990s comedy movie that pretended it was a public-access cable show broadcast from a basement.

Biden stumbled, slurred his words, misnamed one of the nation’s governors, lost his train of thought, and had to desperately signal to staff for help while he was on camera.

A Tuesday appearance went no better, even though it was with a friendly liberal group of interviewers from ABC’s The View. “We have to take care of the cure. That will make the problem worse no matter what — no matter what,” Biden asserted to universal head scratching. He attempted to pick up on Cuomo’s assertion that lives must be the absolute priority in the crisis — but with limited success: “I dont agree with the notion that somehow it’s okay to let the — let people die and I’m not sure that would happen.”

 

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Of course, the mathematics of how Governor Cuomo could be drafted to become the Democratic nominee are daunting. He has zero delegates and no campaign and can’t be seen as being distracted by politics during a crisis. But Emily Zanotti of The Daily Wire says that if states continue to postpone or cancel upcoming primaries, a window of opportunity could be there: “Cuomo may be able to fill a hole for needy Democrats who are concerned that neither of the two frontrunners, [Bernie] Sanders and Biden, are within striking distance of winning a majority of delegates and the Democratic nomination outright.”

And strange things happen in politics. In 1940, businessman Wendell Willkie didn’t enter a single primary, his supporters pinning their hopes on a receptive audience of delegates at the Republican convention. Skeptic Alice Roosevelt Longworth sneered that his support came “from the grass roots of 10,000 country clubs.”

Then the Nazi blitzkrieg struck. Adolf Hitler overran the Low Countries and France in May and June of 1940. The French signed an armistice on June 22, the day Willkie arrived in Philadelphia for the Republican convention. The international crisis and how the party should respond to it dominated delegate deliberations. After a series of carefully orchestrated “spontaneous” demonstrations of delegate support, Willkie was nominated on the sixth ballot. His campaign stumbled in the fall and he lost 55 percent to 45 percent to incumbent Franklin Roosevelt. But he achieved something no one had thought possible by even getting nominated.

Of course, much has changed since 1940, and conventions are no longer such free-wheeling affairs as they were then. But Democrats know that politics has again become fluid and surprising in recent years — witness the strength of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump in their respective parties.

Joe Biden began his presidential campaign as the front-runner last year. Then he was almost eclipsed by crushing losses in Iowa and New Hampshire, only to be rescued by a landslide victory in South Carolina. He of all people knows that if we look at how the nomination battle has gone so far, nothing is really over until it’s over.

 

 

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16 minutes ago, Danny Bateman said:

 

This I think is something upon which we can all agree.  It's not as if upon a Biden win the grassroots infrastructure powering the progressive wing of the party simply goes away. I think they continue to do their job getting more progressives elected and pushing Biden to the left.

 

This election is extremely consequential and if we lose it's going to make any form of liberalism much harder. I really hope we can get Biden elected and return to our differences in earnest later.

another 4 years of court packing if trump wins.   

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More on Cuomo.  Maybe it is becoming apparent to some that - Trump, Biden, Bernie aren't the answer for the crisis we are in for all of their various reasons. 

 

Progressive Bernie supporters - could you support Cuomo?

 

https://dailycaller.com/2020/03/24/andrew-cuomo-coronavirus-brokered-convention-democratic-nominee/


 

Quote

 

An unexpected global pandemic could give New York Governor Andrew Cuomo what he wants most: a Democratic presidential nomination.

Cuomo, who just last year was on everyone’s short list of potential challengers to President Donald Trump, is handling coronavirus with such poise that political analysts from both sides of the aisle tell Daily Caller that it’s improbable but not impossible Cuomo leaves a brokered Democratic National Convention with the party’s 2020 nomination.

Apart from Trump and members of his administration, Cuomo has been without question the unofficial face of the effort to curb the pandemic. His state comprises roughly 60% of the nation’s total coronavirus cases, and he’s taken clear action, ranging from granting mortgage relief and implementing new public health rules to leveraging the Army Corps of Engineers to construct makeshift hospitals to supplement New York’s existing medical centers.

His delivery throughout the pandemic has toed the line between rational and authoritarian, but he’s still earned rave reviews for his demeanor, even as New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has been ridiculed by press and public alike.

And throughout it all, he’s holding daily press conferences, many of which set the tone and topics for the media’s coronavirus coverage and the White House’s own task force press briefings.

He’s even successfully gone toe to toe with Trump, something most of the president’s allies haven’t figured out how to do. After criticizing the president’s “initial response” to the pandemic, Cuomo held a series of one-on-one conversations with POTUS in addition to the group teleconferences with the nation’s other governors. The result? Nothing short of presidential praise in front of a primetime national audience. He demanded additional ventilators on Tuesday, and FEMA shipped an additional 4,000. 

Perhaps most importantly, Cuomo just flat out seems presidential.

Watch any of his coronavirus public statements and then compare them to those offered by the presumptive Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden.

 

Biden delivered a roughly 15 minute national address on Monday, during which he forgot the governor of Massachusetts’ name and nearly imploded when his teleprompter committed suicide.

Prior to Monday’s livestreamed disaster, the 77-year-old had seemingly disappeared from the public eye. Truthfully, it’s not his fault. Both Trump and the Centers for Disease Control have issued guidance urging elderly Americans to take extra precautions and social distance themselves from the rest of the populace, but that’s kind of the whole point. Cuomo is 15 years younger.

Remember, Biden didn’t reclaim the 2020 primary pole from Vermont Independent Bernie Sanders by touting his progressive record. He did it by spending an entire year reminding the nation he used to work for Barack Obama, trotting out a drip-drip-drip of endorsements from damn near the entire Democratic field, and capitalizing on Sanders’ refusal to denounce communist dictators.

On the other hand, Cuomo’s resume checks most of the boxes on the liberal wish list.

 

 

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5 hours ago, TGHusker said:

Movements take time. This is the time to stop a movement in its tracks by defeating trump.  Pause, stabilize politically - then let the progressive wing present their case under new leadership.  If the ideas are valid, it doesn't matter the spokesperson.  The ideas should be bigger than Bernie. 

 

 

 

Unless something is done in the 4 to (unlikely imo) 8 years about:

 

• gerrymandering

• voter suppression

• stacking conservative judges

• the poison of fox news

• the ease of social media spread in a post-truth era

 

Then we won't be stopping a movement by defeating Trump and electing Biden, we'll just be pausing it. If the ideas are valid but none of the above get solved, it also doesn't matter if the ideas are valid, they will never materialize.

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