US PoliEra 2020 |OT 3| "I think he's learned his lesson" says The Concerned Immoderate Darling Collins.

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

The probably bigger issue for the general is that Bernie, Warren, Biden, and Pete would probably be the most far left leaders of any country in the last 120 years on immigration.

But these massive tax and spend proposals have a decent bit of electoral downside I think. And the "it's not radical" "savvy" takes from Bernie and some pundits are just weird. They would be very radical...

 

[GoldenEye 007]

Okay well I'm not sure how to peak into the future and assuage your concerns. Everyone knows bernies policies are expensive. And he still leads polls. You can be nervous about it and fair but like....what is there to be done? We had everything "paid" for theoretically in 2016 and we still lost.

Click to shrink...

Not to mention we as a country do crap all the time and spend like hell without worrying about "how are we going to pay for that." I don't think it's going to be as strong of a line of an attack given how much money we blow on bullshit that helps nobody. Which is well documented and easy to push back on.

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

Not to mention we as a country do crap all the time and spend like hell without worrying about "how are we going to pay for that." I don't think it's going to be as strong of a line of an attack given how much money we blow on bullshit that helps nobody. Which is well documented and easy to push back on.

Click to shrink...

Again, Bernie and Warren are proposing things that would double or triple the federal budget and thus couldn't be paid for with deficit spending. It's a lot larger in scope than tax cuts for the rich, IDK.

 

[DinosaurusRex]

Again, the scope of Bernie and Warren's proposals is massively beyond the scope of any Republican spending proposal ever. The Green New Deal would cost around 35x the Trump tax cuts. This would be a truly unprecedented reorganization of the United States tax code, federal government, economy, and society.

Click to shrink...

I don't disagree with any of those things, they are certainly huge in scope. I'm saying we shouldn't get hung up on the tax/spending aspect of these things.

It's okay to call it radical and it's okay to be a little radical.
Right now we have tax cuts for the rich and austerity for the rest of us. If being radical means we actually get to up end that paradigm a bit that's good!

thus couldn't be paid for with deficit spending.

Click to shrink...

do we know this for sure?

 

[Plinko]

No one actually gives a shit about the costs of things, certainly not in a campaign

Voting against someone because they're proposing something "too expensive" is always a secondary reason

Click to shrink...

This is completely false. Any inkling of there being a payroll tax will destroy any chance of a plan being passed. People already feel like too much of their money is being taken away.

If Bernie does a good job messaging how they'll tax the ultra rich and the poor/middle class wont see a tax increase, that could go a long way in helping.

 

[shem]

Again, Bernie and Warren are proposing things that would double or triple the federal budget and thus couldn't be paid for with deficit spending. It's a lot larger in scope than tax cuts for the rich, IDK.

Click to shrink...

I mean the analogy is bad but if you're selling someone a car with a big pricetag do you lead with the pricetag? Or the fact that it's fully electric and has a 300 mile range in sub zero temperatures?

Also expressing confusion about why Bernie would seek to present his policies as if they weren't as radical as they are seems to ignore the behavior of like...all politicians in all elections like...ever. That's extremely common and i'm confused why you're confused about it still.

 

[aspiegamer]

I mean, the only alternative would be to start with something more to the center in the first place if you're concerned with something passing Congress. How else would I take that?

As for addressing your concerns, I'm not sure there is anything to address. It's an impossibility to know. You made a declarative statement of the future that is impossible to address as nobody knows the future.

Click to shrink...

There's a ton of room between "durr, centrist and easily digested" and "would need 70+ D votes in the senate to pass." And you really want to say that stuff like eliminating private insurance won't be held against him in the GE? Even decidedly non-socialist stuff like Obamacare improvements to the industry are called that, and Bernie is proposing a total government takeover.

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

I don't disagree with any of those things, they are certainly huge in scope. I'm saying we shouldn't get hung up on the tax/spending aspect of these things.

It's okay to call it radical and it's okay to be a little radical.
Right now we have tax cuts for the rich and austerity for the rest of us. If being radical means we actually get to up end that paradigm a bit that's good!


do we know this for sure?

Click to shrink...

We would probably hit like a 1000% debt to GDP ratio pretty fast if we just deficit spent these proposals.

And if you want to go "well, MMT has never been tested before but I think it's right."... That's not really an argument for huge deficit spending.

Because then inflation would increase dramatically and then... taxes would still have to be raised a lot.

 

[Baron Eyepatch]

I support single payer because I think health insurers, doctors, drug companies, engineers, and hospital admins should be paid less and far fewer should be employed, but people who present that idea as non-radical are just very strange to me.

Click to shrink...

Er... America has too many doctors and engineers? That's... a take.

 

[Linkura]

Lmao there's a fucking shortage of doctors.

 

[Arm Van Dam]

Lmao there's a fucking shortage of doctors.

Click to shrink...

Shortage of nurses too, right?

 

[TheAbsolution]

Shortage of nurses too, right?

Click to shrink...

I believe that is the case, yes.

 

[Linkura]

Shortage of nurses too, right?

Click to shrink...

Yes the nurse shortage is even worse.

 

[RastaMentality]

If Steyer underperforms his polling, Biden could probably easily take SC.

The probably bigger issue for the general is that Bernie, Warren, Biden, and Pete would probably be the most far left leaders of any country in the last 120 years on immigration.

Click to shrink...

This is true but it's also very exciting. It's time for the "greatest country" to start treating people with humanity.

 

[Y2Kev]

I think "35x the cost of Y" where Y is a big number is still kinda sticker shock.

 

[bluexy]

Not sure if anyone cares about 538's forecast as much as I do, but they've turned it back on with Nevada's results. Here are the odds for both majorty and plurality.

Who Will Win The 2020 Democratic Primary?

FiveThirtyEight's polls and forecast for the 2020 Democratic presidential primary election.

projects.fivethirtyeight.com

 

[theprodigy]

Not sure if anyone cares about 538's forecast as much as I do, but they've turned it back on with Nevada's results. Here are the odds for both majorty and plurality.

Who Will Win The 2020 Democratic Primary?

FiveThirtyEight's polls and forecast for the 2020 Democratic presidential primary election.

projects.fivethirtyeight.com

Click to shrink...

Sanders with a 69% chance of a plurality

nice

 

[aspiegamer]

There's already an overall shortage of doctors, nurses, specialists, inpatient hospital beds, outpatient surgery slots, urgent care capacity, everything. The entire health care industry has been optimized for higher profits for some time and things are all run on the absolute razor's edge of capacity vs services billed, same as, say, retail. The farther you are from a major population center the more screwed you are. The one thing we have more than enough of is pills, basically, which is why so many people get so many shoved at them in many cases.

 

[Slader166]

Buttigieg 1 in 100 😭

It was mentioned earlier, but Biden's best shot at this point is to get Pete to drop out for a VP position. I'd imagine that it'd have to happen before ST, but it might even be better if it happened before SC so that Biden could win that state.

 

[Tfritz]

how is buttigieg lower than liz

 

[RDreamer]

how is buttigieg lower than liz

Click to shrink...

Like zero support from PoC and after this point Warren is polling much better.

 

[Y2Kev]

I would like to see Bberg in another debate.

 

[Madison]

how is buttigieg lower than liz

Click to shrink...

He has achieved something that no one ever thought possible: get -0 support from PoC

 

[RDreamer]

Bloomberg's chances are still far too high for comfort.

 

[XenodudeX]

Shortage of nurses too, right?

Click to shrink...

Any.source for that? That's honestly surprising to me. You'd think there would be a lot of nurses given how easy it is to get your foot in the door.

 

[less]

Steyer be Bloomberg will be a fun debate.

 

[bluexy]

Any.source for that? That's honestly surprising to me. You'd think there would be a lot of nurses given how easy it is to get your foot in the door.

Click to shrink...

the large majority (like 70%) of nurses make less than $15 an hour. it's a job with huge turnover, both due to the low pay, exhausting schedules, and thankless efforts. not to mention how genuinely shitty and difficult those low-paying jobs can be. caretaking, cooking, and so on.

note, not RNs but members of the nursing union.

 

[Linkura]

Any.source for that? That's honestly surprising to me. You'd think there would be a lot of nurses given how easy it is to get your foot in the door.

Click to shrink...

Um

Nursing Shortage Fact Sheet

www.aacnnursing.org

 

[Mcfrank]

This is pretty good.

Click to shrink...

This is exactly right and I am glad to see that it is getting shared and some traction.

 

[Aaron]

To be fair, a lot of the "Bernie isn't that radical" talking points are more like "Bernie will not be that radical" because Congress will likely compromise his policies. It's the same rationalization dumbass Republicans and independents used to vote for Trump when they had reservations about him, as if 95% of his policy preference didn't line up with what the rest of the party wanted anyway.

The problem with Bernie by comparison is much of the right-wing agenda consists of negative change - revoking laws, busting unions, reducing regulations and protections - and a lot of this can happen at the judicial level, where legislators don't need to get their hands dirty beyond simply rubber stamping Trump's picks. Most Democrats on the other hand seek positive change which happens almost entirely legislatively. So negotiating and ultimately compromising on bills will be essential to his presidency being a success. Like it or not, Joe Manchin, Krysten Sinema, Jon Tester etc. aren't going away anytime soon and if we even have a Senate majority at all, the margin will likely not be enough to dismiss anyone's vote out of hand.

I also think Bernie is more flexible in what he'd consider acceptable policy gains than both some of his supporters and opponents assume. He wouldn't veto a public option, he wouldn't veto Joe Biden's Green New Deal-lite, and those are probably the best that could come out of Congress in the next few years.

 

[Arm Van Dam]

Candidate travel today

Biden: SC
Buttigieg: SC
Klobuchar: ND, AR, OK
Sanders: TX
Warren: CO

Click to shrink...

 

[Chaos Legion]

Click to shrink...

Just give us Bernie and Biden and let the best man win.

This is completely false. Any inkling of there being a payroll tax will destroy any chance of a plan being passed. People already feel like too much of their money is being taken away.

If Bernie does a good job messaging how they'll tax the ultra rich and the poor/middle class wont see a tax increase, that could go a long way in helping.

Click to shrink...

One of the few things that I don't passionately dislike about Bernie is that he vaguely referenced taxes going up.

There needs to be an honest debate about our tax system that encompasses more than "tax the rich!" In order to actually fund these social benefits, we need a complete overhaul that requires everybody paying more in taxes. That's going to be difficult.

 

[Dahbomb]

This is pretty good.

Click to shrink...

Lol @ the shot against Chris Mathews.

I mean yeah.. people need to wake up and smell the roses that America is not sunshine and rainbows for A LOT of people.

 

[pirata]

Hey, I haven't been checking in on the thread a lot because I've been suffering from really bad anxiety problems, but I just want to say that the OP is great.

 

[GoldenEye 007]

There's a ton of room between "durr, centrist and easily digested" and "would need 70+ D votes in the senate to pass." And you really want to say that stuff like eliminating private insurance won't be held against him in the GE? Even decidedly non-socialist stuff like Obamacare improvements to the industry are called that, and Bernie is proposing a total government takeover.

Click to shrink...

I'm sure it will be. That's the nature of a campaign. But his larger tent message is that the system currently is trash tier. I have decent insurance and even I agree with that. Ironically, my insurance is government subsidized.

And you said it, they will call anything socialist - even non-socialist stuff. It's a tired attack. It'll be interesting to see how he navigates it should he make it to the general.

 

[shem]

Hey, I haven't been checking in on the thread a lot because I've been suffering from really bad anxiety problems, but I just want to say that the OP is great.

Click to shrink...

Hey hope you're feeling better now.

 

[Vector]

Bernie focusing on TX means he's not that crazy about SC and would rather 1-2 punch with CA and TX on Super Tuesday with big margins.

 

[Dahbomb]

Bernie focusing on TX means he's not that crazy about SC and would rather 1-2 punch with CA and TX on Super Tuesday with big margins.

Click to shrink...

Probably playest the longest con of trying to actually win TX in GE.

Also he will probably go to SC sooner rather than later and should have people on the ground as well.


RE Pete asking to recanvass/recount: He a absolutely should do that considering he is on the verge of viability there and there is around a 100% chance that there are errors there that could favor him. So don't hate on the player, hate the game (ie. Caucused).

 

[Vector]

Probably playest the longest con of trying to actually win TX in GE.

Also he will probably go to SC sooner rather than later and should have people on the ground as well.

Click to shrink...

He does have ground operations underway in SC, but what's really cool is that his volunteers were already door knocking in places like NC and other Super Tuesday states. He's really swamping the other candidates with his volunteer network and it'll pay huge dividends in the GE imo.

 

[RastaMentality]

Jasper Scherer on Twitter

“Turnout thru 5 days of early voting in Harris County: 47,775 in the Dem primary & 46,740 in the GOP primary for a total of 94,515 ballots. Rs outnumbered Ds before today. At this point in ‘16, turnout was 70,928 — 41,457 R + 29,471 D. Dems had 58,644 ballots thru 5 days in ‘08.”

twitter.com

 

[Arm Van Dam]

Jasper Scherer on Twitter

“Turnout thru 5 days of early voting in Harris County: 47,775 in the Dem primary & 46,740 in the GOP primary for a total of 94,515 ballots. Rs outnumbered Ds before today. At this point in ‘16, turnout was 70,928 — 41,457 R + 29,471 D. Dems had 58,644 ballots thru 5 days in ‘08.”

twitter.com

Click to shrink...

Texas Tribune has an early voting tracker for anyone interested

 

[Plinko]

Just give us Bernie and Biden and let the best man win.


One of the few things that I don't passionately dislike about Bernie is that he vaguely referenced taxes going up.

There needs to be an honest debate about our tax system that encompasses more than "tax the rich!" In order to actually fund these social benefits, we need a complete overhaul that requires everybody paying more in taxes. That's going to be difficult.

Click to shrink...

That's great and all, but the reality is nobody can win a national election by talking about everyone paying increased taxes. Most people don't have extra money to pay. It's a non-starter for any serious national candidate.

 

[Slader166]

 

[bluexy]

Bernie focusing on TX means he's not that crazy about SC and would rather 1-2 punch with CA and TX on Super Tuesday with big margins.

Click to shrink...

definitely a lot of factors. in 538's forecast, it already assumes Sanders is losing the state. while winning it would be great for him, losing it ain't going to harm his chances meaningfully. not to mention it's a 3-way race for first -- the difference in delegates between first and third is going to be minimal. Sanders could waste days there and see absolutely no movement. Biden, however, needs to win that state.

Sanders is instead focusing on Super Tuesday, which starts just 3 days after South Carolina. Texas alone has 228 pledged delegates to SC's 54. Depending on how much he wins Super Tuesday by, he could end the race overnight.

Also important is, as we know, Biden has spend $0 in Super Tuesday states yet. He's also pretty much broke. Every day Sanders spends there now is a step up on his biggest competition. It also gives Sanders as much time as possible to counter Bloomberg's long-running ad campaigns in those states.

Yeah, Sanders going to Super Tuesday states is definitely the right call.

 

[Arm Van Dam]

I see he's raging again

Somebody please tell incompetent (thanks for my high poll numbers) & corrupt politician Adam "Shifty" Schiff to stop leaking Classified information or, even worse, made up information, to the Fake News Media. Someday he will be caught, & that will be a very unpleasant experience!

Click to shrink...

 

[bluexy]

Click to shrink...

ehhh, surprised to see this from these two, especially cohn. all info we have shows Sanders wayyy up in California. regardless of the final count, he's still certain to get the race called surprisingly quickly in California. he'll still get that bump.

 

[GoldenEye 007]

Jasper Scherer on Twitter

“Turnout thru 5 days of early voting in Harris County: 47,775 in the Dem primary & 46,740 in the GOP primary for a total of 94,515 ballots. Rs outnumbered Ds before today. At this point in ‘16, turnout was 70,928 — 41,457 R + 29,471 D. Dems had 58,644 ballots thru 5 days in ‘08.”

twitter.com

Click to shrink...

Yeah nice to see. Seems like the big counties are all seeing increases in turnout versus 2016.

 

[RastaMentality]

ehhh, surprised to see this from these two, especially cohn. all info we have shows Sanders wayyy up in California. regardless of the final count, he's still certain to get the race called surprisingly quickly in California. he'll still get that bump.

Click to shrink...

The delegate lead is how we know how insurmountable this race is for everyone. After the first 4 states, media narratives matter less than the actual hard delegate math.

 

[bluexy]

The delegate lead is how we know how insurmountable this race is for everyone. After the first 4 states, media narratives matter less than the actual hard delegate math.

Click to shrink...

true, and also true that california plays a big role in that, but the bigger delegate math as to whether sanders will be insurmountable won't be coming from the western states where he's already certain to win big. it'll come from the other states where if sanders does especially well or badly will show his true full-primary strength. sanders could lose 50 delegates over what's expected in California, but still be called the race-winner if he's pulling in nevada-like numbers in states he was supposed to tie or barely lead.

 

[Aaron]

The delegate lead is how we know how insurmountable this race is for everyone. After the first 4 states, media narratives matter less than the actual hard delegate math.

Click to shrink...

Super Tuesday will probably be the force behind many hard decisions. South Carolina is only three days before Super Tuesday. Even if Biden totally biffs it there or something there's no reason to drop out.