Democrats are still running for president in 2020, not 2016. Don't talk about 2016!
What's Changed Since the Last OP?
Basically nothing! We had a second debate and no one really changed their minds. Harris' first debate bounce has faded. The only real movement is Warren's tortoise campaign slowly grinding on and gaining on people.
The Frontrunner
Is still
Joe Biden. We don't like him very much, but that's what's going on. Joe is strong with moderates, old people, and black people. He's weak with liberals and the youth vote. He keeps saying stuff that's wrong. Today's edition: misidentifying the decade that King and RFK were assassinated in, saying Warren's criminal justice plan sounds like his 1994 crime bill when Warren explicitly wants to repeal the 1994 crime bill.
Campaign's reason Joe Biden should be president: Because he was Barack Obama's Vice President and y'all love Obama right?
Second Place FIGHT
Are the two candidates with significant backing in D&D: Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.
Elizabeth Warren is narrowly ahead of Sanders in the average right now so we'll talk about her first. Warren has a whole bunch of plans. Like, lots of them. They're very detailed and all interlocking. Warren is strongest with white educated voters. Especially non-religious ones. It should not be a surprise that she is popular with D&D. Her support is fairly uniform across age groups, but she is not getting much black support at all yet. She also struggles with moderates.
Campaign's reason Elizabeth Warren should be president: Because Washington has been bought off to work for the rich and powerful, and she'll fight to make it work for everybody. Fight being the key word, in their formulation.
Bernie Sanders is running a similar, but somewhat more intersectional campaign to the one he ran in the year that must not be named. After a first debate the campaign wasn't happy with, they have re-centered the campaign on his signature proposal: Medicare For All. Bernie dominates with young voters, only Warren is even vaguely close. Older voters are not fans of his.
Campaign's reason Bernie Sanders should be president: Because he is the leader of a movement that will force Washington to change its ways.
Third tier: They've Got a Chance, but Weak Poll Numbers at the Moment
This is now a group of I'm going to say four.
Kamala Harris has faded back into this group after a brief foray into the top tier after the first debate. She's usually pretty high on the "second choice" metric, but isn't a lot of people's first choice. Also, personally, I feel like she's not running a very good campaign. It's cautious and feels poll/consultant tested more than anything genuine about the candidate.
Campaign's reason Kamala Harris should be president: Because she'd do well on a debate stage opposite Donald Trump? That's the best I can do. It's her core struggle right now,
as a number of us have said before.Pete Buttigieg has a strong fundraising base of millionaires, so he's got that going for him. It hasn't translated into much success in polls, though he does do a little better in the early states, especially Iowa (midwesterners like midwesterners, a time honored truth). He has almost literally no support from people of color. Any color. But especially black voters. And you cannot win a Democratic primary without black voters.
Campaign's reason Pete Buttigieg should be president: Because old people have fucked everything up so we should try a new generation.
Cory Booker feels like he should be a good candidate on paper. Young, charismatic, liberal on most issues. But he's struggled to make headway, possibly because of his previous statements frustrated with Obama 2012 attacking private equity? It hasn't come across, but he's a lower tier candidate who it seems like could catch fire.
Campaigns reason Cory Booker should be president: Because he was supposed to be Obama before Obama, dammit!
Beto O'Rourke took a lengthy break from the campaign trail following the El Paso shooting. During that break, he re-discovered what made him a Democratic darling in 2018. He's really, really good at speaking off the cuff with moral clarity. "Members of the press: what the fuck?" to quote one example. His campaign has struggled to build on early strong fundraising and is just kind of sitting there, but another candidate you could see catch fire.
Fourth tier: I guess they've qualified for the next debate too
These candidates aren't winning the nomination, but they have 130k donors and 2% in four qualifying polls, so they get to be on stage for the next debate (9/12 and maybe 9/13 on ABC).
Amy Klobuchar could be VP on the right ticket, I guess. Minnesotans really like her and she'd probably be an asset in the upper Midwest.
Andrew Yang is a single issue candidate (UBI) with a ton of fans on 4Chan and that creeps me the fuck out. Go away.
Julian Castro just qualified for the debate today. I like him a lot, but not enough other Democrats do. He's another person who might be an attractive VP option, and is in fact my preferred VP.
Fifth tier: Not qualified for the debate, but might get thereTom Steyer is a billionaire trying to buy his way in instead of using that money on useful things like funding state legislative candidates.
Has donors, has 3 qualifying polls
Tulsi Gabbard is a fraud but talks a lot about being anti-war so has some support.
Has donors, has 1 qualifying poll
Sixth tier: Other people
Exist.
Jay Inslee is running a climate campaign and trying to force that issue to the forefront everywhere possible.Steve Bullock should be running for Senate in Montana instead of this nonsense.
Kirsten GillibrandMIchael BennetMarianne WilliamsonBill deBlasioTim RyanSeth MoultonWayne MessamJohn DelaneyJoe Sestak
I think I'm missing one or two, but honestly who cares.
We also have a climate change town hall on CNN on September 4th that is NOT a debate but rather consecutive appearances by the candidates. Everybody through Castro I think will get invited to that. I'm not entirely sure about Castro, but the other nine for sure.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Posts
No, only HIckenlooper's gone. But I'm choosing to ignore basically everyone who has no chance of qualifying for the next debate.
OVERALL YOU GUYS ARE DOING A REASONABLY GOOD JOB AT NOT BEING GARBAGE MONSTERS AND MAKING THIS THREAD INTO SOMETHING THE MODS WANT TO GRIND INTO MULCH AND SET ON FIRE, YAY YOU
THE LAST BIT OF THE PREVIOUS THREAD KIND OF MEANDERED A BIT, SO LET'S TRY TO FOCUS A BIT AND KEEP THIS THING AROUND
ALSO I JUST REALIZED I WROTE THIS WHOLE THING IN ALL-CAPS, BUT I'M TOO LAZY TO REWRITE IT, SORRY FOR SCREAM-POSTING AT YOU
IT'S NO PROBLEM AT ALL I APPRECIATE THE ENTHUSIASM! GO TEAM PENNY ARCADE!
Because if I'm going to make a pun like that I'm going to nail myself to it and make sure all the world beholds it.
I was proud of myself for not responding to that suggestion by banning Raiden from the discord.
"Ah, Seriously..."
I DON'T KNOW WHAT WE'RE YELLING ABOUT!
(ALTERNATE THREAS TITLE)
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
IDK about Warren but Sanders has weaseled on it with the idea that he's "open to it". Not good enough.
Harris and Booker publicly support decriminalizing sex work
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/dominicholden/sex-work-legalize-2020-presidential-candidates
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
Odds are Warren and Sanders would more easily come around on this than Booker and Harris coming around on the myriad of problems I have with them.
I would like to point out that my suggestion was "Dem Primary: I'm Barbara Walters"
Everybody ignored me.
Democrats Abroad! || Vote From Abroad
https://youtu.be/PE8jj2t23yI
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
Yea that's clever.
Have any candidates actually said what they'd do about decriminalizing sex work? As far as I can tell, the federal laws pertaining to sex work don't explicitly ban sex work, but focus on: stuff close to military bases, crossing state lines, anything with minors, and sex trafficking. Of those, the first and second might be worth reconsidering (probably to minimal effect), and the third and fourth seem pretty important to keep in effect. Short of passing a constitutional amendment barring states from criminalizing sex work (good fucking luck), what can actually be done here?
To be fair, that's true of a lot of policy that presidential candidates talk about and that people ask presidential candidates about. It's a part of the problem with over-focusing on the Presidential race and ignoring how much of this shit is a state-level (and occasionally local-level) issue.
That said, the presidency is a powerful rhetorical tool so people like to see where their potential nominee stands on these issues regardless of what level of government they are actually in the hands of.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
Can someone explain to me why decriminalizing sex work should be a priority?
Is there abuse to those laws?
Like I’m not against it in theory. But I would absolutely hate any of my preferred candidates to talk that up at all because it sounds like something that would make most voters bolt
Honestly the argument is more or less the same as the argument for all kinds of decriminalization efforts. "There's nothing actually wrong with this activity and forcing it into the black market is having serious adverse effects".
This outlines the way that sex laws hurt people. I think you're right that it probably makes most people uncomfortable, but I think people want it as part of a criminal justice reform program, not a candidate's number one issue they talk about all the time.
Edit - This is just to provide an example of the issue at hand.
It's also not something that the left has traditionally been unified on. It's an issue with a lot of downsides for a candidate and not much of an upside.
If you expect a candidate for the President of the United States of America to endorse fucking for money you will be forever disappointed
I expect it will be talked about more going forward as the religious folk die off and the patriarchy wanes. Decriminalization is a good start but I think the previous trap for decriminalization was that selling would not be criminalized but buying would be.
I guess forever ended three times this year since three of the current Dem candidates, two of which are in the top 7 in the current polls, have said they'd decriminalize sex work.
Still in I believe, she actually has campaign ads running pretty frequently now in Iowa.
Anyways, I wouldn't fault a democratic candidate for not touching issues concerning sex work because there is very little to gain by going there. The asshole right would probably love to go there because then they can do bullshit outrage politics and weasel their way out of having to defend all their shitty policies that actively make everything worse (readily available good jobs with good income, affordable healthcare & affordable childcare strikes me as a fantastic to reduce both abortions & people going into the prostitution business, while every modern GOP policy seems to be designed to ensure those things don't happen). The other thing, is there are several policies the democrats can push for that would indirectly help to improve things in that area.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.