Ready The Clown Car: The First Batch of Democrats Are Ready To Announce Their 2020 Bids

This is truly rich coming from a trump supporter...

 

For one, I don't think you understand at all how Obama was so successful. But, I'm not sure Beto has 'it' the way Obama did so I'm pretty wary of people hoping that Beto will be like Obama. The ingredient they're looking at is Beto's charisma and his ability to stay positive and on his own message and work hard on communicating his vision. This is something Hillary wasn't too great at and being seen to have a vision for the country is something the Democrats need. So maybe he's a good candidate in that regard. I'm not sure Beto has the ambition that Obama had, or the willingness to get dirty and fight. Which is where I fear he doesn't have 'it.' Maybe it's only because his Texas campaign -- where he could play loose with no expectations -- stayed positive that I think he can't go negative. But the campaign against Trump is going to involve a ton of negative campaigning.

As for who he is and what he stands for, you should probably look here instead of trying to guess based on Hillary's platform. In his Senate race, Beto had lots to say on many issues of national import. He's not going to double-back on all the things he's already publicly said.

Not everyone is running to win. They have concerns they want to publicize. I think both UBI and climate change are probably worth the air time. Maybe we can get some traction with a more viable candidate.

 

I think attacking Trump, a president who has a very high disaproval rating nationally, is a smart move.

But then again, a single DNC chair making a claim doesn't ignore the fact that Warren's number one shtick, what she advocates the most overwhelmingly, benefits blue collar white voters.

She speaks more often about corporate lobbying and banks rigging the system against working class Americans than attacking Trump.

Working class voters finding any trivial excuse to not support a politician like Warren is nothing short of shooting themselves in the foot.

I wouldn't be surprised if that DNC Iowa chair is an establisment corporate Democrat who isn't fond of Warren's relentless attack on the status quo corporate influence over DC .

 

took me a minute to figure out what the hell E-War is referring to

apparently not

 

Do you know how ironic your post is?
I hope you can easily detect what irony I'm reffering to.

Actually, go around America and you will find the one thing EVERY middle class American can agree on, left, right or center, is corrupt politicians not legislating for the benefit of the common individual but rather personal gain. How can you say it isn't a major issue? It literally is the biggest issue. It's the issue that is the root cause of all other issues.

The corporate media finding any trivial excuse to put down candidates like Warren should be a sign for you that corporate media loves the status quo.

Anyways, if there is anything that Trump's successful campaign proves is that Americans eat up vitriolic poo flinging.

 

Warren is the hybrid combination of populist, nuance and pragmatism.

Unlike Bernie she has actually been a part of significant legislative policy as a Senator. She gets **** done for the populist movement while Bernie is just platitudic rhetoric. Bernie is pretty ineffective as a legislator.

It's absurd that someone understanding nuanced policy at the benefit of the middle class is a negative for you. If your premise is correct and citizens don't appareciate actually getting **** done for middle class Americans and being a "policy wonk", no wonder why we got is a moronic caricature of a president.

 

[QUOTE="JuanValdez, post: 12145582, member: 35"l]I just like to hear myself talk. [/QUOTE]
So do I!

Having said that, I'm attempting to figure out why I should invest my time in responding to a thread that's clearly an attempt to troll Democrats here, not that very many in D&D will admit to being one, me being an exception. Mojoman is busy dropping every Far-Right trump supporting meme he can slip in while making a lousy effort at tossing bones to progressives. Some of it's amusing and I truly appreciate the posts by those, including you (of course!), who are giving honest replies to dishonest posts. I guess that's why I'm still reading it.

Interesting to me how an overwhelming number of "liberal/progressive/whatever" folks are here. Very few will admit to being Democrats. Must be a meme I missed at some point.

Can't wait for the game. Go Rockets!

 

The Progressive Case for Centrism:

https://arcdigital.media/the-progressive-case-for-centrism-57df182ba40c

The Progressive Case for Centrism
The exhilarating drive for purity must give way to the exigencies of political and electoral success

Roger Sollenberger
Jan 5

The nightmare hath commenced. Prospective 2020 presidential candidates have begun assembling campaign machines, and as they’ve risen so has concomitant voter fervor regarding purity tests.

On the left we see this in what I’ll call the Bernie-Biden debate, for short. The debate — now in roll-over minutes from 2016 — pits the progressive left (“Bernies”) against centrist Democrats (“Bidens”), with a third group (the “Betos”) representing — accurately or not — a younger, more idealistic crowd with amorphous policy goals and hazy progressive credentials. In general terms, the progressive doubts the centrist’s commitment to truly liberal ideals, and the centrist in turn perceives the progressive as too idealistic or dogmatic to achieve their goals.

It’s endlessly irritating, not least because these splits among nominally like-minded people seem increasingly irreconcilable, and, as 2016 showed, the fractures can be quite serious. This problem could prove more corrosive in 2020, considering the potential consequences of the electoral success progressive candidates have had over the last two years. To be clear: I place noblame on progressives for winning. I’m a progressive myself. It’s one of the few great signs of a healthy country that our elected officials reflect an increasingly liberal America ready to embrace politics and policies of equality, empowerment, and peace.

After all, progressives don’t have a mandate. (Yet.) We’re still a faction, and in 2020 we simply don’t have the right to put purity over party. (To state the obvious, centrists owe the same courtesy to progressives, but, regrettably, this essay isn’t “The Centrist Case for Progressivism.”) That doesn’t mean we should use our momentum to achieve escape velocity from centrists. In fact, the smart move, if progressives want more influence than ever, is the opposite: To listen to and bond with centrists and adopt not their policies but their tactics.

Well, good news, folks. The most salient disagreements between the two liberal camps hinge on a single fallacy: Mistaking pace for policy.

That is, we pretty much all want the same things — with exceptions we’ll get to in a bit — but we disagree about how, and how quickly, we plan to get those things. This is our counterintuitive problem — we’re essentially the same — and luckily it’s an easy solve. Also luckily, we just got a perfect, headline-making demonstration of how to make the party work in 2020.

There’s no better road map for progressive-centrist reconciliation than this week’s election of Nancy Pelosi to her second tenure as speaker of the House. In fact, Pelosi herself embodies this unification: A progressive California Democrat — from San Francisco — her liberal cred is unimpeachable, despite the slams from the left for her accessions to centrist and counter-progressive policy. Sometimes Pelosi merits that criticism from progressives, most recently for re-upping the “PayGo” spending rule (which slows progressive policies by hamstringing spending) instead of making the more daring move of backing new legislation to supplant it. But she often doesn’t deserve it. Indeed, Pelosi is basically a blank canvas for people to smear with whatever they want to. Republicans paint her as a socialist demon, and progressive Democrats sometimes cast her as a stodgy centrist sell-out.

Pelosi, obviously, is smarter than all of them, and instead of sloughing it all off, she adopts the criticism like a chameleon. This is how she was able to destroy a wrong-headed insurrection in her own party—from progressives and centrists alike—to win the speakership with overwhelming support, and it’s why she’s the best person for the job. She can build coalitions, and is strong enough to take—and hold—principled stands for necessary compromise.

Progressives in Congress realized her value, and the progressive electorate ought to see the same. In spite of the fact the progressive caucus now seats 40 percent of House Democrats, good enough to register as the largest caucus in that body, they understand they don’t constitute a majority of Democrats. In order to wield that power, they need support and concurrence from the center, which means they need someone they can trust to carry their banner, but who can also deliver centrists when necessary.

Take it from progressive activist group MoveOn, which told Vox:

Even more specifically we have the example of outspoken progressive Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who during her freshman orientation on Capitol Hill joined a massive sit-in for radical climate change legislation at Nancy Pelosi’s office. A few days later, Ocasio-Cortez coincidentally got an office two doors down from Pelosi and tweeted a video of her excitement. This week, with a few numbskull exceptions, progressives overwhelmingly backed Pelosi — including, of course, Ocasio-Cortez, socialist firebrand.

In other words, folks: compromise. The voters should pay attention to what their representatives do and why they do it. It doesn’t necessarily involve selling out. Rather, it involves making this ancient, creaky system work for us the best we can. We don’t boast a majority of Democrats, and we’re nowhere near a majority in Congress. Even if a progressive takes the presidency in 2020, we almost assuredly won’t take the Senate, and if we split ourselves in the process we’ll face the same problem the GOP did during Trump’s first two years.

We just finished seeing how obstinate purity failed the right. The ridiculous Freedom Caucus ideologues tanked some of Trump’s most important legislative efforts — most specifically on immigration and health care — because they failed to compromise with their own party. This, combined with Trump’s own weird and senseless brand of anti-GOP demagoguery, was in part why Speaker Paul Ryan — congenitally incapable, anyway — couldn’t yoke together a coalition that could function at even the most basic partisan level.

The result? After two years, the government shut down, and — most relevant to my point here — Trump now faces the possibility of revolt within his own party. The thing about purity tests is they don’t actually reveal partisan purity; they actually reveal partisan toxicity.
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more at the link

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conclusion to that essay:

What’s a progressive, anyway? What’s a centrist? Moreover, how can you be sure a candidate’s congressional or other policy-related record reflects what they want to fight for moving forward? Two examples.

Despite not being a lock to even run in 2020, Beto O’Rourke has already been signaled by the far left as a mysterious entity progressives shouldn’t trust. But Beto’s been pretty clear about his policies, and despite skepticism from progressive groups, he’s pretty damn progressive. Universal healthcare? Check. Abolish ICE? Check. Serious firearm law reforms, including a semi-automatic weapon ban? Check.

Where does Beto fall short? Well, on war, for one. He’s also been taken to the cleaners for his energy policy and perceived support of big oil. But, and this is important, Beto was representing — then running to represent — Texas, the state that has almost single-handedly turned the U.S. into the world’s leading oil exporter in a matter of years. That’s not a good thing, from a progressive standpoint, but if you want to represent your state you’re going to have to reckon with that. More importantly, Beto declined all corporate PAC money and still raised a record $69.2 million. True, he accepted individual donations from oil executives, but that totaled a little over $400,000 of those dozens of millions of donations, and this on a platform of a slow pivot away from oil. In Texas.

Now let’s look at Bernie Sanders. He doesn’t advocate for free childcare — but affordable childcare for all Americans. He believes college should be tuition-free, yes, but not early-childhood education. He also doesn’t advocate for wiping college debt, but reducing it by about half. So observe: He wants to eliminate college tuition, but he’s not fighting that fight right now. Even the famously contumacious Sanders sees the value of realism and incremental change, and knows why to compromise.

And there’s a parallel to Beto’s record on energy: Bernie has an abysmal record on guns. Why? He personally probably doesn’t give a **** about gun rights, but, like Beto, he represents a state, Vermont, that’s committed to certain values that presumably run counter to his own. (Moreover, socialists have traditionally looked more favorably upon gun rights in contrast to their liberal counterparts.) In idealistic terms, he owes it to his constituents to represent their interests best he can — in cynical terms, he wants to get re-elected.

Should both these candidates run in 2020, expect Beto and Bernie to shift left in these respective categories. This doesn’t mean they’re sell-outs. It means government is a lot more complicated than some of us think it is, or think it should be.

Barack Obama all too often invoked the tired metaphor of the U.S. as cargo ship as opposed to a speedboat. It’s apt: We progress, but that progress is slow and, as the last few years have shown, staggered. To beat the **** out of that metaphor, many outside forces push against the leftward cycle of the captain’s wheel. We can’t be so senseless and selfish as to add to them. The truth is, whether you like it or not, progressives need to learn to embrace centrists, if for no other reason than to maximize their own influence on policy. Centrists in turn need to yield over time to an increasingly progressive agenda, and if American history is a guide, this is inevitable.

Political tactics aren’t political platforms. It’s critical that liberals, whether we identify as Democrats or not, recognize what we have in common. That’s far more important for 2020 than jamming crowbars into the cracks between us. If the liberal electorate does indeed turn internecine, and if progressive candidates choose to exploit it — especially if Bernie Sanders, no longer a registered Democrat, avoids the Democratic primary and runs without any check as an independent — we might not be able to mend by election day.

But considering how venomous things got in 2020, and considering we’re still a full 22 months from the presidential election, the ideological rift driven by the momentum of (again: earned and exciting) progressive congressional victories, could push progressive activists and “purist” voters to break the party apart, a metaphorical West Coast quake splitting those most liberal American redoubts off the mainland. If this suggests real trouble ahead, as I feel it might, and if we can’t bring the party together, we risk losing the republic. Let’s not burn the field to spite the game.​

 

I agree with the overwhelming majority of that column, Os. I think the catastrophic result of the 2016 election had a sobering impact on the different wings of the Democratic Party and the independent voters that support much of the Democratic agenda. We saw that impact last November, when Democrats outvoted Republicans by nine million votes.

Where I disagree with the author, and it's trivial, since it's just differing opinions, is that Democrats won't take the Senate. I think they will, handily. Perhaps he meant that progressives won't be the majority of the Democrats that will make up the Senate majority, which is possible.

Really enjoyed the read! I think people tend to forget that Democrats aren't some monolithic group who all think the same things, believe all the same things. They don't and never have. That's a political fiction pumped out by the GOP machine and their partners, Fox News. It's never jived with my personal experience.

Time for the game!

 

Bernie is a feeble old man. For the Democrats, I think it's Beto or Bust.

 

Perhaps a separate thread for each possible candidate is warranted... here's Amy Klobuchar's response to trump...