The 2020 Presidential Election - Convention & General Election

[RedDenver]

24 minutes ago, Danny Bateman said:

This discussion has gotten a bit too in the weeds for me, but I will say this:

 

It's fine for voters, including progressives, who are on the fence to wait and see how things shake out before making up their mind. But at a certain point it will come off as almost insulting to the rest of us if they continue to say they won't vote for Biden unless he does X or Y or Z. Like Biden's good enough for the rest of us but not them unless they get certain conditions met. Voting is largely done of of self-interest anyway but if after the past four years you won't do what you can to dump Trump without having demands met it comes across a bit selfish and callous towards those suffering under Trump.

Voters are all different so it's expected that not all voters will find a candidate acceptable. Biden supporters literally just did the same thing to Bernie Sanders and we heard about voters who would vote for Biden but not for Bernie. And the idea that people who don't vote for Biden are a bit selfish and callous is just as apt as saying the people who didn't vote for Bernie in the primary are a bit selfish and callous towards those suffering under the system that won't change under Biden.

 

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Some, I assume like Kulinski, are in effect saying that they're comfortable enough with another four years of Trump that they're willing to sit on their hands if their conditions are not met. That certainly doesn't demonstrate empathy or a desire to help those hurt by this administration to me. They can take their principled stands but that does not render them immune from value judgments from the rest of us.

So does this mean that in the same way, those who vote for Biden are not immune from value judgments about suffering under Biden?

 

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But this is just my perspective. I'm not voting for Biden because he gives me everything I want. I disagree with him on a lot of stuff. I'm voting for him because he's the alternative to Trump our system gave us and I care about the people Trump is hurting.

And that's fine. I find myself in the same boat. But I also recognize that in order to give the best chance of Trump being defeated, we're going to want to get as many people as possible to vote for Biden and as few people as possible to vote for Trump.

[knapplc]

21 minutes ago, Danny Bateman said:

This discussion has gotten a bit too in the weeds for me, but I will say this:

 

It's fine for voters, including progressives, who are on the fence to wait and see how things shake out before making up their mind. But at a certain point it will come off as almost insulting to the rest of us if they continue to say they won't vote for Biden unless he does X or Y or Z. Like Biden's good enough for the rest of us but not them unless they get certain conditions met. Voting is largely done of of self-interest anyway but if after the past four years you won't do what you can to dump Trump without having demands met it comes across a bit selfish and callous towards those suffering under Trump.

 

Some, I assume like Kulinski, are in effect saying that they're comfortable enough with another four years of Trump that they're willing to sit on their hands if their conditions are not met. That certainly doesn't demonstrate empathy or a desire to help those hurt by this administration to me. They can take their principled stands but that does not render them immune from value judgments from the rest of us.

 

But this is just my perspective. I'm not voting for Biden because he gives me everything I want. I disagree with him on a lot of stuff. I'm voting for him because he's the alternative to Trump our system gave us and I care about the people Trump is hurting.

 

 

 

[Danny Bateman]

20 minutes ago, RedDenver said:

Voters are all different so it's expected that not all voters will find a candidate acceptable. Biden supporters literally just did the same thing to Bernie Sanders and we heard about voters who would vote for Biden but not for Bernie. And they idea that people who don't vote for Biden are a bit selfish and callous is just as apt as saying the people who didn't vote for Bernie in the primary are a bit selfish and callous towards those suffering under the system that won't change under Biden.

 

Lots of parts of the system will change under Biden, though. Of course not as much as you want. But I'd be out here saying the same stuff to people if they were out here saying Bernie wasn't worth their vote if he didn't sufficiently moderate his platform for them. Because the alternative is unacceptable.

 

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So does this mean that in the same way, those who vote for Biden are not immune from value judgments about suffering under Biden?

 

Absolutely not. I welcome the day we can all sit around and excoriate Biden for the stuff he does wrong. But every fiber of my being tells me it won't be as egregious as the criticism rightly levied at Trump. And we can't very well criticize Biden right now because he's not pulling the strings at the moment.

 

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And that's fine. I find myself in the same boat. But I also recognize that in order to give the best chance of Trump being defeated, we're going to want to get as many people as possible to vote for Biden and as few people as possible to vote for Trump.

 

I agree with all of this. I also think we should be take personal responsibility for our own votes. And that can include being criticized by others.

[knapplc]

6 minutes ago, RedDenver said:

But I also recognize that in order to give the best chance of Trump being defeated, we're going to want to get as many people as possible to vote for Biden and as few people as possible to vote for Trump.

 

Do you? Because you're not going to do this by pushing leftist policies onto Biden's centrist platform. For every progressive you add by making Biden more Bernie-like, you're losing some centrists and some Trump-fatigued Republicans. How many of those people in the middle do you push away from Biden before it's too late?

 

[Landlord]

6 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

Do you? Because you're not going to do this by pushing leftist policies onto Biden's centrist platform. For every progressive you add by making Biden more Bernie-like, you're losing some centrists and some Trump-fatigued Republicans. How many of those people in the middle do you push away from Biden before it's too late?

 

 

 

Over 60% of America supports medicare for all and right around 60% (72% of democrats) support making public higher education free and eliminating student loan debt. 

[knapplc]

Just now, Landlord said:

 

 

Over 60% of America supports medicare for all and right around 60% (72% of democrats) support making public higher education free and eliminating student loan debt. 

 

So those are the only two things Biden needs to adopt, and all the Bernie supporters are good?

[Landlord]

5 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

So those are the only two things Biden needs to adopt, and all the Bernie supporters are good?

 

 

I'm not sure and I'm not trying to make a point of what he should do, but those and climate change are the three biggest policy anchors of Bernie's campaign, I think. 

 

If Biden adopted two of them that are proven to be popular with Americans, and also talked an aggressive game when it came to a concerted effort of reforming campaign finance laws (lol yea right) i don't see how that would hurt him.

[knapplc]

24 minutes ago, Landlord said:

I'm not sure and I'm not trying to make a point of what he should do, but those and climate change are the three biggest policy anchors of Bernie's campaign, I think. 

 

[RedDenver]

1 hour ago, knapplc said:

 

Do you? Because you're not going to do this by pushing leftist policies onto Biden's centrist platform. For every progressive you add by making Biden more Bernie-like, you're losing some centrists and some Trump-fatigued Republicans. How many of those people in the middle do you push away from Biden before it's too late?

 

It's an interesting discussion to have as I think that's a reasonable position. But the best evidence I've found was from the 2016 election where the Dems went after the centrists and Trump-fatigued Republicans, remember the now infamous Schumer quote: "For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin."

 

54 minutes ago, knapplc said:

So those are the only two things Biden needs to adopt, and all the Bernie supporters are good?

No group is ever going to be "all" good. But Bernie and other progressives would then have ammo to say that the movement continues and even Biden can be moved. And it draws an even sharper separation between Biden and Trump on policies that progressives care about changing the system. (And adopting one or two of Bernie's major policies is also what Kulinski said would get him to vote for Biden, for whatever that's worth.)

[knapplc]

5 minutes ago, RedDenver said:

It's an interesting discussion to have as I think that's a reasonable position. But the best evidence I've found was from the 2016 election where the Dems went after the centrists and Trump-fatigued Republicans, remember the now infamous Schumer quote: "For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin."

 

If Biden runs that same failed 2016 Clinton campaign no amount of Bernie voters are going to save him, so the takeaway there is to not run that campaign, it isn't to veer left into Bernie's policies. So if Biden says, "For every centrist Independent we lose we'll pick up two progressives," is that not the same mistake in the end?

 

5 minutes ago, RedDenver said:

No group is ever going to be "all" good. But Bernie and other progressives would then have ammo to say that the movement continues and even Biden can be moved. And it draws an even sharper separation between Biden and Trump on policies that progressives care about changing the system. (And adopting one or two of Bernie's major policies is also what Kulinski said would get him to vote for Biden, for whatever that's worth.)

 

Biden's campaign isn't about giving Bernie ammo, or about furthering Bernie's ideals.  Why would he do that? If Bernie won, he wouldn't become Joe Biden, he'd remain who/what he was that got him the victory.

 

 

I get that Bernie's supporters here are still all in on the movement, and I think that's great, but at some point all these conversations become the proverbial hammer looking for a nail.  Bernie supporters support Bernie and his policies, so every conversation about how Biden can win veers to "appeal to progressives," but, while important, progressives aren't the largest voting bloc and aren't the only bloc Biden needs to appeal to. 

 

@Landlord is right in that a large majority favors policies like M4A and fixing higher education/student loan debt, but those are not the only things Americans care about, nor is Biden adopting Bernie's policies on those issues going to come without cost.

 

That said, Biden is reaching out, has shown some lean toward Bernie in his policies, and is currently leading not only the Dem polls but the general election.

[Danny Bateman]

A lot of things can be true at once.

 

Schumer's quote about independents wound up being woefully incorrect, but Clinton was also a terrible candidate so it may have been more about her than ideology.

 

In 2018 a lot of old school blue dog and moderate Democrats cleaned up in swing districts and flipped the House. Relatively few progressives like the Squad flipped seats and if they did, they largely won in safely deep-blue districts. One can legitimately say based on recent results Dems should be wary of tacking too far left too quickly as that's clearly not what a lot of crucial voters are looking for or at least they are not electing those type of pols.

 

But at the same time, Dems can still learn a good deal from the progressive movement's ability to tap into the grassroots and generate small-dollar donations and enthusiasm for a candidate. Biden is going to need all the help he can get to engage younger voters and progressives and I hope he brings on a lot of Bernie's people and other progressive folks to help figure out to run the type of campaign that will reach those voters as well.

 

Personally I feel like for the amount of flak he's caught he's actually running a pretty damn formidable campaign. It's about finding a way to blend together a bunch of competing ideas without alienating anyone group too much and so far he's doing pretty well.

 

 

 

[RedDenver]

22 minutes ago, knapplc said:

If Biden runs that same failed 2016 Clinton campaign no amount of Bernie voters are going to save him, so the takeaway there is to not run that campaign, it isn't to veer left into Bernie's policies. So if Biden says, "For every centrist Independent we lose we'll pick up two progressives," is that not the same mistake in the end?

Depends on the results. If he indeed got 2 for 1, then it'd be a really good plan. However, I agree that Biden shouldn't veer completely left into Bernie's policies since that's not who voted for him in the primaries.

 

22 minutes ago, knapplc said:

Biden's campaign isn't about giving Bernie ammo, or about furthering Bernie's ideals.  Why would he do that? If Bernie won, he wouldn't become Joe Biden, he'd remain who/what he was that got him the victory.

Of course it isn't, but getting Bernie's supporters to vote for him is hopefully part of his campaign.

 

22 minutes ago, knapplc said:

I get that Bernie's supporters here are still all in on the movement, and I think that's great, but at some point all these conversations become the proverbial hammer looking for a nail.  Bernie supporters support Bernie and his policies, so every conversation about how Biden can win veers to "appeal to progressives," but, while important, progressives aren't the largest voting bloc and aren't the only bloc Biden needs to appeal to. 

Sure, if there's a better chance for Biden to win by getting other voters and abandoning progressives, then I'd be less likely to vote for him, but at least it'd make strategic sense politically.

 

22 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

@Landlord is right in that a large majority favors policies like M4A and fixing higher education/student loan debt, but those are not the only things Americans care about, nor is Biden adopting Bernie's policies on those issues going to come without cost.

Sure, but Biden's supporters have been going around saying anyone but Trump and that they'd vote for a ham sandwich if it was the Dem nominee. Those voters aren't going anywhere if Biden adopts a few progressive policies.

 

22 minutes ago, knapplc said:

That said, Biden is reaching out, has shown some lean toward Bernie in his policies, and is currently leading not only the Dem polls but the general election.

Yes, I'm hopeful Biden will reach out to progressives and make this an easier choice for them. My worry is that Biden's campaign is all about not being Trump, it reminds me of the Kerry campaign in 2004 when Dems thought for sure the voters would turn out just to vote against W, but that didn't happen. It's been a long time since 2004 though and there was a lot of anti-Trump momentum in 2018, so maybe I'm wrong. The other thing that makes me worry is that Hillary was leading Trump by more at this point (10 points) than Biden is (6 points).

[Danny Bateman]

1 minute ago, BlitzFirst said:

 

 

He's shown no lean.  He's not even leaning as far as Hillary was for Medicare age.  His student loan thing isn't a great lean either.

 

The problem with Biden currently is he's not exciting anyone with his same ol same ol policies.  He isn't exciting his base.  He's not exciting new potential voters to come out and vote.  He's not exciting independents.

 

Reason?  His policies are the same old policies every center lane Democrat runs on.

 

If he want's to really excite and unite progressives with Centrists...he can start framing his conversation around climate/environment and what he'll do to help.  He'll start actually addressing the top concern of all voters in the primary with healthcare.

 

He won't just do lip service (I see you...and I hear you) and he'll actually start engaging those bases. 

 

Or he can just sit on the "I'm not Donald Trump" stage like Hillary did and see how that works out for him.

 

Are you sure he's not exciting anyone... or is he just not exciting YOU?

[RedDenver]

3 minutes ago, Danny Bateman said:

Are you sure he's not exciting anyone... or is he just not exciting YOU?

The polling shows Biden having the least excited voters since they've been polling for it (I'm not sure how far back that goes though). Anecdotally, there's a lot of people excited to vote against Trump, but no one I know that's excited for Biden.

[Danny Bateman]

15 minutes ago, RedDenver said:

The polling shows Biden having the least excited voters since they've been polling for it (I'm not sure how far back that goes though). Anecdotally, there's a lot of people excited to vote against Trump, but no one I know that's excited for Biden.

 

He's making gains in that regard. Slowly but surely.

 

I made a lengthy post here showing Dem enthusiasm has increased significantly since 2016. I'm not too worried about whether that's pro-Biden or anti-Trump because both groups' votes count the same.