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

It will be interesting again when it is just 4 candidates, and not 35

 

Pelosi should enter the race: "If she were in the market for the job, it is now clear which Democrat would have the best chance of beating Donald Trump in 2020: Nancy Pelosi."

https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/11/opinions/nancy-pelosi-banner-year-gergen-piltch/index.html

 

At least with seven it’ll feel a little less crowded for next week’s debate.

Six would be better, of course, but Tom Steyer is apparently still a thing.

Serious question: Does anybody know any Steyer supporters?

I have a lot of political friends. I don’t think a single one of them is backing this guy yet he’s still technically in it. I don’t get it.

 

Lol. The only reason she isn't crucified daily in the conservative press is the confidence that she won't be running. Right now, she's used as a club to hit other Democrats with, but she'll get clubbed herself if she ever hinted at running. Given all the groundwork they've done on her already to cast her as a crazy radical and her role in the impeachment, it wouldn't take long to gin up a fervent opposition. I like Pelosi, but no way does she make a good candidate for 2020.

 

@AOC

 

Name 3.

 

sounds like maybe no debate next week

https://theweek.com/speedreads/8842...g-boycott-democratic-debate-over-union-strike

 

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/elections/democratic-polls.html

Two small but important shifts have taken place in our polling average over the last week: Bernie Sanders has overtaken Elizabeth Warren to claim second place. And Michael R. Bloomberg has begun to register in the national polls.

When we say the shifts are small, it is because they truly are. Mr. Sanders has gained very incrementally, while Mr. Bloomberg has jumped from nowhere to a 4 percent average in national polls. The other leading candidates — Ms. Warren, Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Pete Buttigieg — have held more or less steady.

Still, these developments look like more than random wobbling in national polls. By overtaking Ms. Warren by even the slightest margin, Mr. Sanders appears to have solidified his political recovery, dispatching the speculation from early in the fall, after his heart attack, that his candidacy might disintegrate altogether. And he appears to be stronger in the early states, vying for first place in Iowa and New Hampshire and seemingly competitive in Nevada, where polling has been sparser.

By amassing some meaningful support in the national polls so quickly, Mr. Bloomberg has shown the power of his wealth and large-scale advertising. The message he is delivering on television and online has plainly found an audience, even if it is a modest one so far. It may not be a coincidence that Mr. Buttigieg’s rise in national polls leveled off just as Mr. Bloomberg — a mayor with appeal to political moderates — began bombarding the airwaves.

The overall picture of the race, however, is defined more by continuity than disruption. Mr. Biden remains the leading candidate, still holding about a quarter of the primary vote, neither losing support nor gaining any for months now. But his ability to defend that position during the December and January debates, and then withstand tough challenges in the early primary and caucus states, is a huge question mark.

It may not be too late for one of the underdog candidates to catch up, but it would likely take a standout finish in Iowa or New Hampshire. There is a lot of buzz about Amy Klobuchar in Iowa at the moment, though she is behind even Mr. Bloomberg in the national polls. She has delivered a series of strong debate performances and could have something to gain if she does so again in Los Angeles next week.

— Alexander Burns

 

"Democrats are sleepwalking into a Biden disaster":

https://theweek.com/articles/884677/democrats-are-sleepwalking-into-biden-disaster

excerpt:

If Biden is nominated in 2020, Trump is going to repeat the formula that made Hillary Clinton's emails the dominant story of 2016. He'll say "BIDEN UKRAINE CORRUPT" 90 billion times, and the New York Times political reporters with Both Sides brain poisoning will helplessly validate the narrative. The rest of the press will follow their lead. Biden will take on the vague appearance of being The Corrupt One despite Trump being monumentally worse in every possible respect. Even observers who share Biden's basic political outlook are extremely worried about this possibility.

Some of Biden's support seems to come from the perception that, like Trump, he is somehow immune from the normal laws of politics. Several scandals and gaffes that would have ended a typical campaign dented his support not at all — which is to say his backers are creating a self-fulfilling prophesy that if they support him no matter what he does then he will continue to be supported.

In reality, nominating Trump in 2016 was a terrific gamble by the Republican Party. His base of riled-up kooks sticks with him through thick and thin, but his constant scandals and unhinged tweeting really did sap his support among the broader population — making him the most unpopular nominee in the history of polling. Even today, presiding over the strongest economy in two decades, he remains markedly unpopular. Trump just had the extraordinary good luck to draw a hapless, incompetent opponent who was nearly as unpopular as he was. Any other serious candidate, from Bernie Sanders to Barack Obama, almost certainly would have bested Trump handily.

So far Biden has not drawn many attacks from the other candidates. They seem to accept the widely-held belief that his campaign will surely collapse from the inside at some point. But if that were true then it surely would have happened by now. If any Democrats want to halt the potential disaster of a Biden nomination, they're going to have to do something about it.​

 

but hey! no worries, because I am reliably informed elsewhere that Sanders/Yang will rock the vote like it's never been rocked

 

Warren needs to go ahead and sign on as Bernie's VP, that should push him ahead of Biden.

 

I think Sanders/Warren might actually have a chance, whereas Sanders/Yang is hopeless.

 

Two white people in their 70’s from the same political lane aren’t going to unite the party.

 

that's kind of where the Dems find themselves though