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American Election 2020: Definitely a Thing That is Happening
enlightenedbum
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hey guys, we have a Jeffe blessed election thread finally.
FORBIDDEN TOPICS VIA JEFFE:
Bernie Sanders
2016
The 2020 primary
Kanye fucking West's record promotion
Generally speaking, this is not yet another thread to discuss how the Democrats are evil and must be destroyed.
So hey, on November 3 there's a presidential election, lots of Senate elections, and an election for the entire House. Also featured, state legislatures, governors, mayors, district attorneys, ballot measures, etc. For now, we're going with the fuck it megathread until a mod says otherwise
The Presidency.
It's Joe Biden vs. Donald Trump. Obviously there's lots to discuss here because we keep discussing it in other threads. Lets try to keep all the electoral implications of stuff talk in here. Also running: some Libertarian and Green Party candidates whose names I can never remember. Not running: that asshole who's promoting his album, don't fall for it.
The Veepstakes!
Biden has said all along his VP nominee will be a woman. In the wake of the George Floyd protests, conventional wisdom says he has to pick a black woman. Let's run down the contenders real fast:
DC insiders basically agree that the frontrunner is Kamala Harris, the Senator from California. She ran for president, didn't raise enough money and didn't make it Iowa. Pretty liberal record in the Senate, very strong in confirmation hearings, pretty good on the attack in debates in the way that the media likes. Would probably smack Pence around in amusing ways. Critics on the left would say her record on criminal justice as a prosecutor and California's AG are not correct for the moment. Which makes it funnier that...
The dark horse is Rep. Val Demings from Florida. She represents Orlando and the surrounding area in Congress. Before that she was the Orlando police chief, with all the ways that naturally compromises you on police issues. She was one of the impeachment managers and generally has done well in that type of setting. Her voting record puts her almost exactly in the center of the Democratic caucus, which makes her a natural fit for Biden.
Stacey Abrams had the Governor's mansion in Georgia stolen from her by Brian Kemp's election fraud. She's a former minority leader in the Georgia state Senate and a voting rights activist. She probably wants the job the most out of the contenders. Her politics are about what you'd expect from a black woman who was elected governor of Georgia. Not a firebrand (except on voting rights), she promotes her practicality (because...she was the minority leader in Georgia).
People mention Susan Rice, President Obama's National Security Advisor sometimes. It's a weird option that's never made sense to me, given who Joe Biden is and his reputation is that he's strong on foreign affairs already.
The only white woman who seems to be mentioned anymore is Elizabeth Warren, the Senator from Massachusetts. She's the most popular choice every time the question is asked, especially among young people where Biden needs an enthusiasm boost. But she also has the highest name recognition. She's all about calling for "big structural change" and her advocates would say that she is the most likely candidate to push Biden to seek structural solutions rather than putting band-aids on things. This is backed up by how much more Biden sounds like Warren than he did four months ago. She also is the only candidate who has experience building an executive branch institution from scratch, would is a pretty important skill for the next president. Full disclosure: I am a massive Warren fan and pretty obviously think she should be the candidate...for president. I'll take VP though.
The Senate
The Senate map this year. Dark colors indicate retiring incumbents, light colors indicate Senators running for re-election. Georgia has both their regular election and a special election.
Notable races:
Alabama
Doug Jones (D, inc) vs. Tommy Tuberville (R). Jones is a civil rights hero and incumbent Senator who got elected in a special election when Roy Moore turned out to be prey on teenage girls. Tuberville is the former head football coach at Auburn, who is running on being even Trumpier than Jeff Sessions, who he beat in the primary. He's also a notoriously mercenary asshole who bailed on his teams all the time for different jobs. And once gave a player a one game suspension for raping a 15 year old.
Polls: Lean Tuberville
Colorado
John Hickenlooper (D) vs. Cory Gardner (R, inc). Hickenlooper is a boring former governor of Colorado who ran for president and did not connect because he's boring. But Coloradans love him and he cruised to victory in the primary. He's up against Cory Gardner, who is a boring Trump sycophant. Colorado is racing left over the last decade, which has made Gardner the most likely Democratic pickup in this cycle for like six years.
Polls: Likely Hickenlooper
Arizona
Mark Kelly (D) vs. Martha McSally (R, inc). Kelly is a former astronaut and the husband of former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. He's running on an anti-gun platform, among other things. McSally is an appointed Senator who has John McCain's former seat. She lost to Kyrsten Sinema last time around but the GOP has brought her back in a move that feels very DNC to me. She is...not favored to win.
Polls: Likely Kelly
Maine
Sara Gideon (D) vs. Susan Collins (R, inc). Gideon is the former Speaker of the House in Maine. Susan Collins is very concerned. She blew up her moderate reputation in the last four years, and particularly enraged people when she voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh. Recently, she's been demanding weekly debates with Gideon. Losing candidates want more debates, and polls say that she is the second least popular Senator in the country. Still, never sleep on long time incumbents.
Polls: Lean Gideon
North Carolina
Cal Cunningham (D) vs. Thom Tillis (R, inc). They haaaaaaaate Tillis. Cunningham is like, boring white southern Democrat incarnate, but Tillis' favorability ratings suck. Not as much as Collins or the guy we'll get to in a minute, but they suuuuuuck.
Polls: (slight) lean Cunningham
Montana
Steve Bullock (D) vs. Steve Daines (R, inc). Montana's a weird state. They keep electing Democratic governors and Jon Tester, even though you'd think they're solidly R based on presidential results. Bullock is the current Democratic governor and quite popular there. Daines feels like a non-entity, just a standard mountain west Republican who votes like you'd expect. Race is close.
Polls: toss up, maybe slight (like 2 point) advantage to Bullock
Iowa
Theresa Greenfield (D) vs. Joni Ernst (R, inc). Iowa's toying with returning from its adventures in crazy town. Ernst is not popular (note a running theme here). I would guess it has a lot to do with Trump's agricultural tariffs, but not sure. Greenfield is a businesswoman. The only poll that matters in Iowa (DMR/Selzer) had Greenfield leading the last time it was in the field and Ernst is another incumbent demanding more debates.
Polls: Average says toss up, Selzer says lean Greenfield
Kansas
Primary on August 4. Likely winners are Barbara Bollier (D) vs. Kris Kobach (R). Bollier's been a member of the state senate for a while, previously a doctor. She was a Republican until two years ago (Kansas!). Kobach, of course, is the American Heydrich and is an absolute fucking monster who must be stopped. Fortunately, he's lost a statewide race in Kansas recently (Governor 2018) and it's entirely possible he could do so again.
Polls: toss up if it's Kobach. If not, likely R.
South Carolina
Jaime Harrison (D) vs. Lindsay Graham (R, inc). Trump's caddy is also pretty unpopular and Harrison is running a hell of a campaign. He's still a Democrat, and a black Democrat at that, in South Carolina so he's got an uphill battle. Not a ton of polls, but the last one had the race tied (!). This is a wave watch race. Possible to pickup but the state's innate South Carolinaness probably holds it for Graham
Polls: (slight) lean Graham
Texas
MJ Hegar (D) vs. Jon Cornyn (R, inc). Hegar is a veteran who fended off a challenge from Royce West in the primary. Texas is slooooowly approaching purple and maybe this race is a thing. But Hegar has not caught on nationally like a lot of these candidates have, fundraising wise (only 1.7 million in Q2). Wish Beto O'Rourke was running again, he'd have a shot. Cornyn is again...not popular.
Polls: likely Cornyn
Kentucky
Amy McGrath (D) vs. Mitch McConnell (R, inc). McGrath is a veteran who fended off a strong challenge from Charles Booker in the primary. Was a very close, very closely watched race. She emerges with just an absolutely ridiculous amount of money because national Democrats want Mitch McConnell gone desperately. Can she win? It's Kentucky so probably not. They released an internal recently showing it close, but she only had 41%.
Polls: Lean/likely McConnell (I mean, it's Kentucky)
Georgia
Jon Ossoff (D) vs. David Perdue (R, inc). Ossoff lost the most expensive House race in history early in Trump's term. In a pretty red district. He's back and running statewide. Georgia is a competitive state and if we trusted the electoral apparatus (see VP discussion above) it might be a state that Dems are slight favorites in. As if, with disenfranchisement accounted for, we have to say Perdue is a small favorite I think.
Polls: lean Perdue
Georgia special
Jungle nonsense on election day. Runoff is inevitable. Your candidates: incumbent appointed Senator Kelly Loeffler (R). She's super rich, super racist, and super corrupt. She is not favored to win. Likely to be leading after the first ballot is Doug Collins, who is even more racist than she is. He's currently in Congress and an absolute nutcase. Three Democrats are running. Joe Lieberman's kid Matt, is the first. Gross. Ed Tarver was the US Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia. Raphael Warnock is a civil rights leader and the pastor at Ebeneezer Baptist Church (MLK's church).
Polls: ???????? Collins leads most of them with about 30% (the Trumpiest base). Loeffler, Lieberman, and Warnock are all somewhere in the teens and Tarver is in single digits. Abrams endorsed Warnock, FWIW.
Michigan
Gary Peters (D, inc) vs. John James. Peters is almost stunningly boring. Except he does have weird dad charisma which he used successfully to win the state in a GOP wave year in 2014. James is a thing that the GOP wants to make happen, much like Gretchen wants to make "fetch" happen. It did not in 2018. It doesn't appear likely to this year. But whatever. He's a Trump businessman and former helicopter pilot. But he's black! This is basically the only Democratic incumbent other than Jones that the GOP is even making a token effort to defeat
Polls: likely Peters
If things go absolutely pear shaped for the GOP, there's some chance that Dan Sullivan loses in Alaska. But Alaska politics is weird and I'm not even going to attempt to understand it.
Senate TL;DR
Current margin is 53-47 for the Republicans. Democrats need a net gain of three seats and the presidency to take control of the chamber. The most likely path at the moment is:
Likely pickups: CO, AZ
Lean pickups: ME, NC
Likely loss: AL
The road to 60... in approximate order of likelihood:
CO, AZ, ME, NC, MT, IA, KS, GA, GA special, hold AL, KS, SC, TX, KY, AK (all of them would get 61 and that's the best possible in even ridiculous pipe dream scenarios, I think)
Somewhere in the low 50s is the most likely outcome right now because...
The state of presidential polling
Biden is ahead. By a lot. Average is somewhere in the 9-10 point range nationally. State polls basically reflect that. Though Biden is unusually strong for a Democrat in Florida (+6) because old white people like him more than the average Democrat. Using 538's averages, Biden has at least 5 point leads in states with 307 electoral votes. He further leads NC (3.2 points), AZ (3.1), OH (2.6), GA (1.7), and I think both of the swing districts (NE-2 and ME-2) that award their EV separately. which gets him to 369. Iowa (6) is tied. Biden is 1.3 points behind in Texas (38). Which would be 413 and hilarious.
Now, obviously it's just July and there's a long way to go. It's likely the race will tighten and we are once again focusing on just PA, MI, WI, AZ, and FL. Complicating everything is the pandemic and the expected resulting massive early vote, which is likely to delay results. And given the way those things are trending partisan, the same day vote might favor Trump with Biden coming back with the absentee voting so we're going to need the media to be responsible on election night. Which is a dubious proposition.
The House
Not a ton of polling for individual House races, but the generic ballot is pretty much in line with Biden/Trump. Slightly more favorable to the GOP but not much. Safe assumption at the moment is that the House next year looks a lot like the House this year.
Statewides
Look up your state legislature race! I'm sure there are important governors races but I've been paying less attention to that since Michigan does ours in off years. Same deal with ballot initiatives.
Be nice to the mods, they're having a rough go of it.
Again: NO BERNIE. NO REHASH OF 2016. NO REHASH OF THE PRIMARY. NO KANYE.
FORBIDDEN TOPICS VIA JEFFE:
Bernie Sanders
2016
The 2020 primary
Kanye fucking West's record promotion
Generally speaking, this is not yet another thread to discuss how the Democrats are evil and must be destroyed.
So hey, on November 3 there's a presidential election, lots of Senate elections, and an election for the entire House. Also featured, state legislatures, governors, mayors, district attorneys, ballot measures, etc. For now, we're going with the fuck it megathread until a mod says otherwise
The Presidency.
It's Joe Biden vs. Donald Trump. Obviously there's lots to discuss here because we keep discussing it in other threads. Lets try to keep all the electoral implications of stuff talk in here. Also running: some Libertarian and Green Party candidates whose names I can never remember. Not running: that asshole who's promoting his album, don't fall for it.
Jo Jorgenson is the Libertarian
Howie Hawkins is the Green
Howie Hawkins is the Green
The Veepstakes!
Biden has said all along his VP nominee will be a woman. In the wake of the George Floyd protests, conventional wisdom says he has to pick a black woman. Let's run down the contenders real fast:
DC insiders basically agree that the frontrunner is Kamala Harris, the Senator from California. She ran for president, didn't raise enough money and didn't make it Iowa. Pretty liberal record in the Senate, very strong in confirmation hearings, pretty good on the attack in debates in the way that the media likes. Would probably smack Pence around in amusing ways. Critics on the left would say her record on criminal justice as a prosecutor and California's AG are not correct for the moment. Which makes it funnier that...
The dark horse is Rep. Val Demings from Florida. She represents Orlando and the surrounding area in Congress. Before that she was the Orlando police chief, with all the ways that naturally compromises you on police issues. She was one of the impeachment managers and generally has done well in that type of setting. Her voting record puts her almost exactly in the center of the Democratic caucus, which makes her a natural fit for Biden.
Stacey Abrams had the Governor's mansion in Georgia stolen from her by Brian Kemp's election fraud. She's a former minority leader in the Georgia state Senate and a voting rights activist. She probably wants the job the most out of the contenders. Her politics are about what you'd expect from a black woman who was elected governor of Georgia. Not a firebrand (except on voting rights), she promotes her practicality (because...she was the minority leader in Georgia).
People mention Susan Rice, President Obama's National Security Advisor sometimes. It's a weird option that's never made sense to me, given who Joe Biden is and his reputation is that he's strong on foreign affairs already.
The only white woman who seems to be mentioned anymore is Elizabeth Warren, the Senator from Massachusetts. She's the most popular choice every time the question is asked, especially among young people where Biden needs an enthusiasm boost. But she also has the highest name recognition. She's all about calling for "big structural change" and her advocates would say that she is the most likely candidate to push Biden to seek structural solutions rather than putting band-aids on things. This is backed up by how much more Biden sounds like Warren than he did four months ago. She also is the only candidate who has experience building an executive branch institution from scratch, would is a pretty important skill for the next president. Full disclosure: I am a massive Warren fan and pretty obviously think she should be the candidate...for president. I'll take VP though.
The Senate
The Senate map this year. Dark colors indicate retiring incumbents, light colors indicate Senators running for re-election. Georgia has both their regular election and a special election.
Notable races:
Alabama
Doug Jones (D, inc) vs. Tommy Tuberville (R). Jones is a civil rights hero and incumbent Senator who got elected in a special election when Roy Moore turned out to be prey on teenage girls. Tuberville is the former head football coach at Auburn, who is running on being even Trumpier than Jeff Sessions, who he beat in the primary. He's also a notoriously mercenary asshole who bailed on his teams all the time for different jobs. And once gave a player a one game suspension for raping a 15 year old.
Polls: Lean Tuberville
Colorado
John Hickenlooper (D) vs. Cory Gardner (R, inc). Hickenlooper is a boring former governor of Colorado who ran for president and did not connect because he's boring. But Coloradans love him and he cruised to victory in the primary. He's up against Cory Gardner, who is a boring Trump sycophant. Colorado is racing left over the last decade, which has made Gardner the most likely Democratic pickup in this cycle for like six years.
Polls: Likely Hickenlooper
Arizona
Mark Kelly (D) vs. Martha McSally (R, inc). Kelly is a former astronaut and the husband of former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. He's running on an anti-gun platform, among other things. McSally is an appointed Senator who has John McCain's former seat. She lost to Kyrsten Sinema last time around but the GOP has brought her back in a move that feels very DNC to me. She is...not favored to win.
Polls: Likely Kelly
Maine
Sara Gideon (D) vs. Susan Collins (R, inc). Gideon is the former Speaker of the House in Maine. Susan Collins is very concerned. She blew up her moderate reputation in the last four years, and particularly enraged people when she voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh. Recently, she's been demanding weekly debates with Gideon. Losing candidates want more debates, and polls say that she is the second least popular Senator in the country. Still, never sleep on long time incumbents.
Polls: Lean Gideon
North Carolina
Cal Cunningham (D) vs. Thom Tillis (R, inc). They haaaaaaaate Tillis. Cunningham is like, boring white southern Democrat incarnate, but Tillis' favorability ratings suck. Not as much as Collins or the guy we'll get to in a minute, but they suuuuuuck.
Polls: (slight) lean Cunningham
Montana
Steve Bullock (D) vs. Steve Daines (R, inc). Montana's a weird state. They keep electing Democratic governors and Jon Tester, even though you'd think they're solidly R based on presidential results. Bullock is the current Democratic governor and quite popular there. Daines feels like a non-entity, just a standard mountain west Republican who votes like you'd expect. Race is close.
Polls: toss up, maybe slight (like 2 point) advantage to Bullock
Iowa
Theresa Greenfield (D) vs. Joni Ernst (R, inc). Iowa's toying with returning from its adventures in crazy town. Ernst is not popular (note a running theme here). I would guess it has a lot to do with Trump's agricultural tariffs, but not sure. Greenfield is a businesswoman. The only poll that matters in Iowa (DMR/Selzer) had Greenfield leading the last time it was in the field and Ernst is another incumbent demanding more debates.
Polls: Average says toss up, Selzer says lean Greenfield
Kansas
Primary on August 4. Likely winners are Barbara Bollier (D) vs. Kris Kobach (R). Bollier's been a member of the state senate for a while, previously a doctor. She was a Republican until two years ago (Kansas!). Kobach, of course, is the American Heydrich and is an absolute fucking monster who must be stopped. Fortunately, he's lost a statewide race in Kansas recently (Governor 2018) and it's entirely possible he could do so again.
Polls: toss up if it's Kobach. If not, likely R.
South Carolina
Jaime Harrison (D) vs. Lindsay Graham (R, inc). Trump's caddy is also pretty unpopular and Harrison is running a hell of a campaign. He's still a Democrat, and a black Democrat at that, in South Carolina so he's got an uphill battle. Not a ton of polls, but the last one had the race tied (!). This is a wave watch race. Possible to pickup but the state's innate South Carolinaness probably holds it for Graham
Polls: (slight) lean Graham
Texas
MJ Hegar (D) vs. Jon Cornyn (R, inc). Hegar is a veteran who fended off a challenge from Royce West in the primary. Texas is slooooowly approaching purple and maybe this race is a thing. But Hegar has not caught on nationally like a lot of these candidates have, fundraising wise (only 1.7 million in Q2). Wish Beto O'Rourke was running again, he'd have a shot. Cornyn is again...not popular.
Polls: likely Cornyn
Kentucky
Amy McGrath (D) vs. Mitch McConnell (R, inc). McGrath is a veteran who fended off a strong challenge from Charles Booker in the primary. Was a very close, very closely watched race. She emerges with just an absolutely ridiculous amount of money because national Democrats want Mitch McConnell gone desperately. Can she win? It's Kentucky so probably not. They released an internal recently showing it close, but she only had 41%.
Polls: Lean/likely McConnell (I mean, it's Kentucky)
Georgia
Jon Ossoff (D) vs. David Perdue (R, inc). Ossoff lost the most expensive House race in history early in Trump's term. In a pretty red district. He's back and running statewide. Georgia is a competitive state and if we trusted the electoral apparatus (see VP discussion above) it might be a state that Dems are slight favorites in. As if, with disenfranchisement accounted for, we have to say Perdue is a small favorite I think.
Polls: lean Perdue
Georgia special
Jungle nonsense on election day. Runoff is inevitable. Your candidates: incumbent appointed Senator Kelly Loeffler (R). She's super rich, super racist, and super corrupt. She is not favored to win. Likely to be leading after the first ballot is Doug Collins, who is even more racist than she is. He's currently in Congress and an absolute nutcase. Three Democrats are running. Joe Lieberman's kid Matt, is the first. Gross. Ed Tarver was the US Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia. Raphael Warnock is a civil rights leader and the pastor at Ebeneezer Baptist Church (MLK's church).
Polls: ???????? Collins leads most of them with about 30% (the Trumpiest base). Loeffler, Lieberman, and Warnock are all somewhere in the teens and Tarver is in single digits. Abrams endorsed Warnock, FWIW.
Michigan
Gary Peters (D, inc) vs. John James. Peters is almost stunningly boring. Except he does have weird dad charisma which he used successfully to win the state in a GOP wave year in 2014. James is a thing that the GOP wants to make happen, much like Gretchen wants to make "fetch" happen. It did not in 2018. It doesn't appear likely to this year. But whatever. He's a Trump businessman and former helicopter pilot. But he's black! This is basically the only Democratic incumbent other than Jones that the GOP is even making a token effort to defeat
Polls: likely Peters
If things go absolutely pear shaped for the GOP, there's some chance that Dan Sullivan loses in Alaska. But Alaska politics is weird and I'm not even going to attempt to understand it.
Senate TL;DR
Current margin is 53-47 for the Republicans. Democrats need a net gain of three seats and the presidency to take control of the chamber. The most likely path at the moment is:
Likely pickups: CO, AZ
Lean pickups: ME, NC
Likely loss: AL
The road to 60... in approximate order of likelihood:
CO, AZ, ME, NC, MT, IA, KS, GA, GA special, hold AL, KS, SC, TX, KY, AK (all of them would get 61 and that's the best possible in even ridiculous pipe dream scenarios, I think)
Somewhere in the low 50s is the most likely outcome right now because...
The state of presidential polling
Biden is ahead. By a lot. Average is somewhere in the 9-10 point range nationally. State polls basically reflect that. Though Biden is unusually strong for a Democrat in Florida (+6) because old white people like him more than the average Democrat. Using 538's averages, Biden has at least 5 point leads in states with 307 electoral votes. He further leads NC (3.2 points), AZ (3.1), OH (2.6), GA (1.7), and I think both of the swing districts (NE-2 and ME-2) that award their EV separately. which gets him to 369. Iowa (6) is tied. Biden is 1.3 points behind in Texas (38). Which would be 413 and hilarious.
Now, obviously it's just July and there's a long way to go. It's likely the race will tighten and we are once again focusing on just PA, MI, WI, AZ, and FL. Complicating everything is the pandemic and the expected resulting massive early vote, which is likely to delay results. And given the way those things are trending partisan, the same day vote might favor Trump with Biden coming back with the absentee voting so we're going to need the media to be responsible on election night. Which is a dubious proposition.
The House
Not a ton of polling for individual House races, but the generic ballot is pretty much in line with Biden/Trump. Slightly more favorable to the GOP but not much. Safe assumption at the moment is that the House next year looks a lot like the House this year.
Statewides
Look up your state legislature race! I'm sure there are important governors races but I've been paying less attention to that since Michigan does ours in off years. Same deal with ballot initiatives.
Sure, what the fuck, we're all gonna die anyway. Let's YOLO this motherfucker.
Be nice to the mods, they're having a rough go of it.
Again: NO BERNIE. NO REHASH OF 2016. NO REHASH OF THE PRIMARY. NO KANYE.
The idea that your vote is a moral statement about you or who you vote for is some backwards ass libertarian nonsense. Your vote is about society. Vote to protect the vulnerable.
enlightenedbum on
+65
This discussion has been closed.
Posts
CNN reporter:
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/07/republican-senator-says-gop-will-win-because-voters-remember-how-good-their-lives-were-back-in-february/ Remember the good times we had that we were claiming were going to last forever? Vote for us because of that and not everything in the last few months
pleasepaypreacher.net
I don't think this is a failure. Wallace, fucking Fox News, fact checked the president to his face. About Biden!
Like, I would have thought this is unheard of.
The News part of Fox News is apparently becoming restless.
1) Focusing on nonsense is a luxury good for when there isn't a crisis. At the moment we have at least three concurrent crises so it's harder to focus on bullshit. They might try, but it's harder.
2) Joe Biden is a white man.
Mostly I'm hoping he picks Abrams, though. She has a bright future, but no pathway towards it. Plus picking her doesn't open up anything contestable to potentially lose for no reason, like all those Senators. Also, while Durbin has always been my favourite Senator, he's getting up there in the years and we need someone to gain seniority for when he retires. Everyone else in that seat only ever seems to serve a single term.
Well yes, but the fact that Wallace actually corrected him seems significant to me. I would have figured they would just let that kind of thing go conpletely.
I'm not so much worried about how the media covers Biden which so far has been to ignore just about everything he does. My issue is when they report on Trump's latest whatever like its not the national embarassment its been this entire pandemic.
130k+ are dead, the president has actively made the situation worse the entire time, and now we'll turn to our experts Chris Christie and Van Jones to discus why the media is being too mean to Trump when he blames Obama.
pleasepaypreacher.net
I was under the impression Abrams took herself out of the running by being too eager to self promote back in May.
pleasepaypreacher.net
How I would rule:
Basically, the resulting changes in the platforms are ideal things to talk about. Using those changes to rehash the primary is expressly forbidden.
Example:
Talking about the resulting climate plan that Biden rolled out this week: great.
Using it as an excuse to talk about how you think that Biden's original plan sucked and Bernie (or Warren or Inslee or whoever) should be the candidate instead: not great.
@ElJeffe
Project Lincoln stuff/discussion (Never Trump Republican group dedicated to dismantling him and his allies who have been putting out a series of scathing ads expressly targeting him) I assume is on the table.
The Biden sexual assault allegations are verboten as per that other thread.
Mary Trump's book and interviews where she says "Uh, yeah. Donald was explicitly and unapologetically racist as absolute shit," maybe?
Various primary results/laughing at Sessions for getting obliterated at home because of his betrayal of Trump, also maybe? Or is this specifically presidential stuff?
Warren is borderline the most visible Democrat in the country right now and she's not currently on any Presidential ticket.
I suspect that she's either close to Bidens inner circle and has a hand in policy or is the VP in all but name and is already acting as a surrogate.
Come Overwatch with meeeee
pleasepaypreacher.net
Non-presidential primary results definitely on topic. Ads directly related to the presidential election, sure. Mary Trump's book is...pointless? We know all those things, we don't have to pretend we don't like the political press does.
That really only leaves Warren and Harris. I'm an unabashed Warren fan, and considering how much Joe has been cribbing off of her, I wouldn't be surprised if she is essentially the power behind the throne from day one.
I understand the draw of having a black VP, but I would rather Joe promise to put one (or several!) black women on SCOTUS.
Cabinet- Harris would likely serve better as an AG anyway, and we will absolutely need someone not afraid to get her hands dirty fumigating the GOP's corruption. Katie Porter for Treasury. Julian Castro in charge of DHS so he can dismantle it and ICE and replace it with non-Brownshirts.
They're total assholes, but they're allies for the next 14 weeks. Then they can go fuck themselves.
I did gain a miniscule amount of respect for them when they started targeting the enablers in the Senate.
In that regard I hope its not Abrams, who lacks campaign experience, or Harris, who is really bad at campaigning.
In addition to those points, Biden, being a former employee of a Credit Card Company, is platable to the majority of the Corporate Class.
Biden has said his first SCOTUS nominee will be a black woman. Activists want Sherrilyn Ifill (well, other activists want her as AG, but... regardless)
pleasepaypreacher.net
The VP essentially has as much influence as the President lets them - their daily duties may not be much ado but if they have a seat at the table they could be as influential as anyone. It's the same paradigm as First Lady.
Come Overwatch with meeeee
Warren also doesn't really give Biden anything he doesn't already have. I mean shit she came in 3rd in her own state in the primary.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Why, though? 2020 isn't 2008, times change and so do people. She's kicked absolute ass in hearings, and I want more of that fire. With that said, she'd make a fine president, and I would be fine either way.
Who would you want as AG?
I mean are we just throwing out names or talking among people who Biden would actually consider? Naming someone from the other side of the court room would kick ass, instead of another prosecutor turned politician.
Same for his inevitable SC pick. Name a civil rights defense lawyer.
Warren is infinitely more popular with young voters and people leaning further left which are demographics we need.
We dont want a win, we need a complete and utter repudiation of Trumpism and his enablers.
Off the top of my head? Letitia James.
pleasepaypreacher.net
A public defender would be a plus, too.
They're very good at ratfucking, and I'd rather have them pissing on Trump's tent than Biden's.
The actual argument for Warren is a governing argument. If you pay attention to her she's consistently identifying levers the federal government can use to make things better. Putting that in the #2 spot seems valuable. Additionally, if Biden wins he has to rebuild basically the entire executive branch. She's built an agency from scratch before so has extremely relevant experience.
Duckworth is the dark horse candidate imo. There were some reports her and Biden got along well and also everything I've read about her says she's pretty awesome.
For some reason they are the only people to apply the very obvious insights one can gain into what drives Trump and then use those in ads. Although I guess that may be because it's unlikely to drive any votes. The main purpose of the Lincoln Project seems to be to personally directly troll Trump and drive him insane.
Warren's building of the CFPB also is a valuable resource because the entire fucking government needs to be rebuilt and finding enough qualified people to build one better then the one we had prior to 2017 is going to be hard.
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