2020 Democratic Candidates

We kept telling people Bernie was the compromise. The DNC was warned.

Big money donors are pressuring Joe Biden against picking Elizabeth Warren for VP

Quote :

“I think a lot of the donor base, on board and coming, would prefer almost anyone but Elizabeth. I don’t see him choosing her for veep” said a longtime fundraiser for Biden who is regularly in touch with him. 
“She would be horrible. He would lose the election,” said a Wall Street executive who was once backing others running in the Democratic primary and later joined Biden’s donor ranks.

I agree with this.

There’s one front-runner for Biden’s VP — regardless of what Jim Clyburn thinks

Paywall, cannot read

Harris would be a good choice.

There's a small percentage of voters who'd automatically pick a person of color, there's a small percentage who'd pick a woman. There's a rather large percentage who want centrists, not radicals. Harris ticks all the boxes.

Assuming -- which I think/hope we can -- that the Senate swings broadly Democratic as well, then we can pull Sanders and/or Warren out for cabinet positions.

Joe still has an electability problem. He's going to need to step up his game and take on Trump on his own turf. Steal Tom Steyer's lines about his business failures. Steal Warren's lines about his misogyny. Steal Bloomberg's lines about his mismanagement. He needs to attack attack attack this year, and not try to portray himself as Obama II. Nobody cares about agendas anymore. Those days are over.

It's all about getting the Idiot-in-Chief in jail where he belongs, and getting the economic recovery started.

The VP really won't matter much.

Although a woman would help blunt the sexual assault allegations against him. And it would give him parity with Trump if Trump dumps Pence as is widely expected and goes with Nikki Haley instead.

Andrew Yang's Universal Basic Income (UBI) idea is coming around again, thanks to the coronavirus.

I don't know, though, it's definitely a big socialist step.  It's like the safe injection site proposals: I understand the idea it's supposed to address, but the solution is almost worst than the problem because it institutionalizes the problem, by addressing the symptoms only, instead of addressing the problem itself.  Are we so powerless to fix things that we're going to normalize the results of things we should be fixing?  That'll remove ALL incentive to improve the future.

NoCoPilot wrote:

I don't know, though, it's definitely a big socialist step. 

How else does anyone expect the majority of the population to survive this? I mean, please, someone explain to me how you can both expect people to stay home and out of work AND continue to have food and shelter if we aren't gonna do UBI?

https://kutv.com/news/nation-world/video-alex-jones-in-detail-describes-killing-neighbors-to-feed-to-his-kids

That's one option.  Not the one I'm recommending though.

AJ is such a trip, man. He has a son, I notice he only mentioned his daughters so I guess the son is gonna starve? lol Bless his pea pickin lil heart.

I think we just got a look at 2020's candidate that can beat Trump.

Either that, or his new running mate.

Either way, his grasp of reality is perfect for this time & place.

NoCoPilot wrote:

Joe still has an electability problem.  He's going to need to step up his game and take on Trump on his own turf. 

Biden is still THE WEAKEST CANDIDATE put forward by a major party since George McGovern, but I'm coming around to a different viewpoint, one I would've considered unimaginable only a couple weeks ago.

I'm starting to think the 2020 election doesn't matter.

By November the economy will be long dead and stone cold.  There is no candidate that could revive it, Democrat or Republican.  The Republican Senate blew the last chance we had of righting the ship of state -- now it has hit the reef and is taking on water.  It's too late for a new captain.

I think/fear/suspect the USA will simply have to endure the Trump Depression for the next generation (at least) and there's no way around that.

Trump could still (and probably will) eliminate American democracy (by declaring martial law, to deal with looters and vigilantes) and eliminate any possibility of an economic recovery (by allowing the USD to collapse and T-bills to become worthless), but even these -- remarkably -- pale compared to what everyone is going to have to endure for the next 30, 40 years.

Jesus Fucking Christ.  Can somebody please pull Joe off the national stage?  It's embarrassing.

NoCoPilot wrote:

NoCoPilot wrote:

Joe still has an electability problem.  He's going to need to step up his game and take on Trump on his own turf. 

Biden is still THE WEAKEST CANDIDATE put forward by a major party since George McGovern, but I'm coming around to a different viewpoint, one I would've considered unimaginable only a couple weeks ago.

I'm starting to think the 2020 election doesn't matter.

By November the economy will be long dead and stone cold.  There is no candidate that could revive it, Democrat or Republican.  The Republican Senate blew the last chance we had of righting the ship of state -- now it has hit the reef and is taking on water.  It's too late for a new captain.

I think/fear/suspect the USA will simply have to endure the Trump Depression for the next generation (at least) and there's no way around that.

Trump could still (and probably will) eliminate American democracy (by declaring martial law, to deal with looters and vigilantes) and eliminate any possibility of an economic recovery (by allowing the USD to collapse and T-bills to become worthless), but even these -- remarkably -- pale compared to what everyone is going to have to endure for the next 30, 40 years.

I think it could be saved but there's no political will for what it would take. It would be relatively easy too. Tax rates we used to have, jobs programs we used to have, the sort of concerted national effort we put in to fight WW2. The economy is not some mysterious thing, it's people. And it's people on the bottom because we spend most of what we earn. But to save ourselves we'd have to take the best of the programs other first world countries use and nobody's gonna do that because whether Dem or Rep they all take money from the same pack of rich people. There's a reason why huge companies donate to both parties. And there's a reason why both parties are dragging on the things we need to do to save ourselves. I'm not willing to let them off the hook. It's not too late, they are choosing to sink us every day with every vote.

I wish I could agree with you, Jenni...  but I cannot.

World War II pulled the US out of the Great Depression through two avenues:

• 16 million soldiers were called up to active duty, 11% of the population.  This was not unpopular because unemployment was high, and most of these guys weren't doing anything anyway
  
  
• In order to supply all these new soldiers -- with uniforms and guns and Jeeps and airplanes and MREs and everything in between -- there was a massive mobilization of the rest of the population, including many wives and girlfriends who had not previously worked manufacturing.  Rosie The Riveter!  Then, after the war, when all these servicemen returned from active duty, there was the GI Bill which helped the servicemen buy houses and cars and washing machines and start families.  There was a massive move of millions of Americans into Middle Class who had never been there before, or at least not for a generation (since 1929)
  

The Trump Depression will be fundamentally different.

First, there is no more manufacturing in the US.  Almost all of it was shipped overseas in the Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush globalization years (1980-2006), where lower wages in China and Brazil and Indonesia took away all of our textile industry, all of our heavy machinery industry, and most of our automobile industry.  There is literally no manufacturing infrastructure left anymore, no factories or factory workers to "build our way" out of this Depression.

Second, even *IF* Trump was to start a war to reduce unemployment, wars today do not rely on millions of infantrymen anymore.  Wars are fought by drones and robots and cyberwarfare -- all of which is manufactured overseas.  There will be no soldiers shipped out, and no soldiers returning from overseas to boost the economy after the war.

The American economy is now 85% a service economy -- cleaning, cooking, fixing stuff, running hotels/motels.  Things that can't be outsourced overseas (although foreign workers are frequently shipped in). These industries are dependent on a humming economy, which is dependent on international trade.  If the manager can't afford a washing machine or a car because his restaurant has gone tits-up, there's no amount of government stimulus that can fix that.  Our economy, for better or worse, is now dependent -- totally, 100% -- on the economic health of the rest of the world.  The industrialized countries (like China, India, Indonesia, Brazil) will recover slowly as demand builds, while the non-industrialized US economy will languish in the doldrums until the recovery is well underway everywhere else.

I used to think a decade.  I'm now projecting a generation or more.

Chris Hayes had a writer from The Atlantic on, who wrote an interesting article. He said that at Trump’s Tulsa rally, there was ZERO anti-Biden merchandise. There was anti-Hillary and anti-Obama merch still available, left over from 2016. But Trump is having a hard time figuring out how to run against a moderate old white man.

Trump would prefer to run against a scary Black man, or a scary woman. Those he can demonize to his KKK supporters. But “Sleepy Joe”? He’s just not scary.

Interesting turnabout in the narrative I’ve been accepting.

Biden needs a simple, effective, concise campaign slogan for 2020.  I nominate:

CANCEL THE TRUMP SHOW, BRING BACK REALITY

NoCoPilot wrote:

Biden is still THE WEAKEST CANDIDATE put forward by a major party since George McGovern, but I'm coming around to a different viewpoint

I still believe Biden is a weak candidate: too old, too white, too male, too clueless, too off-putting in public events.

But, as the Harris pick demonstrates, Joe listens. He surrounds himself with good advisors, not people who agree with him but people who can give him good advice. He reads a good speech off the TelePrompTer.

If he allows himself to be “managed” — which it looks like he will — he could turn from a weak candidate to a strong president.

And if he doesn’t last his full first term, a couple of glass ceilings will be broken forever through no fault of The South.

NoCoPilot wrote:

He's going to need to step up his game and take on Trump on his own turf.  Steal Tom Steyer's lines about his business failures.  Steal Warren's lines about his misogyny.  Steal Bloomberg's lines about his mismanagement.  He needs to attack attack attack this year, and not try to portray himself as Obama II.  Nobody cares about agendas anymore.  Those days are over.

Biden's and Harris's speeches today pulled no punches.  The gloves are off.

Look for a BRUISING campaign season.