2020 Democratic Primary Thread: Focus on House & Senate races
- Thread starter mc_brew
- Start date
storyteller
Superstar
They keep playing this ridiculous game where Bernie has to answer for comedians, actresses and podcasters that like him. Good on him to hit them with that same energy.
He still saying “people of color” when it’s specifically related to only a black woman.
dora_da_destroyer
Master Baker
the crime bill and NAFTA didn't hurt clinton, low voter turnout did (either because people didn't really care for her, underestimated the idea of trump winning, or because she didnt campaign in the midwest)
1. yes, there is the incumbent advantage. but plenty of people are mad he got into office, including republicans. the money/media advantage might be neutralized due to bloomberg's commitment to spending $1B (almost more than both campaigns spent combined in 2016) against him. not sure if you were in a state targted by his ads, but he was relentless, that plus having a media op & data team that knows wtf it's doing, that's a big advantage.
2. the never trumper thing was blown out of proportion, republicans vote R, even if they despised him. secondly, clinton was just as disliked, so that never trump vote had no reason to protest vote. with voter turnout up in the suburbs, breaking for biden, we might actually see the protest vote surface in this election given they have someone they might be able to stomach.
3. that's a partisan point IMO, you'll accept it if you're R/lean R, you'll question and/or reject it if you're D/lean D. biden also presents a choice that won't shock the system if things are good and can lean on "i steered the economy with obama out of the worst recession" if things look shaky heading into the election
4. this underestimates the buyer's remorse of 2016. voter turnout was at a 20-yr low, a lot of people realize they can't afford to not go vote, we also realize there's no obama unicorn coming to charm us every election.
he's a flawed candidate, but it's literally a 3 state game in 2020 - turnout in MI and PA, win either NC or WI. obama stumping for biden does a lot more than it did for hillary. obama trusted this man to be second in charge, that's already buying biden credibility in the primaries and will do so in the general, especially in the 3-5 states they need to focus on
Has Biden rejected his endorsement from this white supremacist?
Is Mike Bloomberg any less of a white supremacist than Joe Rogan?
How you gonna fake outrage about a podcaster's endorsement, but have no problems with a far more powerful white supremacist billionaire politician's endorsement?
Poor Hillary.Obama was a populist, Unlike Bernie he was part of the party and still had a HUGE uphill battle to get the nomination...it was not his turn. I don’t know if anyone remember but his rallies had cities shutdown...so the Democratic Party calculated correctly when they nominated...if they didn’t I think it would have caused a civil war.
After the Monica scandal she should have divorced Bill.
But nooooo
Then Bill dropped " Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in '84 and '88." after Obama's South Carolina win, and torpedoed all her black support.
She probably should have divorced him THEN.
But nooooo.....
Uno Venova
Your honor, I was merely capping.
For someone who walked with Martin he’s scared shytless of referring to black people specifically
Part of the reason she had low turnout was because of the Crime Bill and NAFTA. The super predator comment is a reason a lot of Black people didn’t show up and vote for her.
Also NATA and her support of TPP is a major reason why she lost PA, MI, WI, and Ohio. NAFTA specifically hurt those states.
I don’t live in any of those states but I do live in a rust belt city. People where I live still talk about fukked up trade deals. Obama won the county I live in by about 20 points in both 2008 and in 2012. But HRC only won my county by two points in 2016. I can tell you first hand that both Trade and HRC support of the Crime Bill played a factor in this.
usatoday.com
Dear Bernie, black voters propelled Biden comeback, and they're not elite or establishment
5-6 minutes
In his Super Tuesday night speech, Sen. Bernie Sanders characterized his campaign as “an unprecedented grassroots, multigenerational, multiracial movement” that is determined to bring in "working-class people" and take down the “political establishment" and the "corporate establishment" coalescing behind former Vice President Joe Biden. This kind of rhetoric has become a staple of Sanders’ stump speech. The problem is it completely ignores the substantial impact that black voters are having on this presidential primary process.
In America, African Americans have never been a part of the “elite” or “establishment.” If anything, as we were reminded a few days ago in Selma, Alabama, they have played the largest role in our history of upending the establishment in their pursuit of civil rights and equality. Sanders’ rhetorical efforts to cast the Biden coalition as a vehicle for the establishment are racially clumsy at best and outright ignorant at worst.
But that didn't stop him from declaring Wednesday night, during a sit-down with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, that “our campaign is the campaign that speaks to working class people who have long been ignored, where the establishment has turned their backs on them.”
Rich white people did not fuel Joe Biden
Biden’s return to front-runner status wasn’t propelled by rich, white people, it was driven by the black vote. Biden campaign spokesperson Symone Sanders put it best when she tweeted that “people who keep referring to Black voters as ‘the establishment’ are tone deaf and have obviously learned nothing.”
Prior to the South Carolina primary, the Biden campaign appeared to be on life support, due in a part to the absence of black voters in the earliest states. Entrance and exit polls showed white voters made up 91% of the vote in Iowa and 89% in New Hampshire. In Nevada, black voters represented just 11% of the caucus participants. If anything, Sanders’ early strength was driven by a primary calendar that favors the “elites” and “establishment” more than diversity.
South Carolina offered the first truly diverse primary of the year and saw Biden earn a dominant victory propelled by black voters. Exit polls revealed that the former vice president won 61% of black votes in the South Carolina primary while Sanders received just 17%. That trend continued through Super Tuesday. Biden won 72% of black voters in Alabama, 69% in Virginia and 58% in Texas.
In spite of the math, efforts to downplay the impact of black voters on these primaries are already taking shape. Seizing on the Sanders rhetoric, President Donald Trump is transparently trying to fan the flames of dissension. “The Democrat establishment came together and crushed Bernie Sanders, AGAIN!...” he tweeted Wednesday morning.
The Nation’s Elie Mystal offered a more accurate context: “It. Was. NOT. Rigged. Black people VOTING…despite the herculean obstacles placed in their ways by Republican state governments, are not ‘the establishment.”
Arming Trump with racial ammunition
By casting Biden’s supporters as members of the same elite political ruling class, Sanders is marginalizing the voices of black voters while arming Trump and his MAGA-army with ammunition to exacerbate the racial divides in this country. Meanwhile, Sanders has gone up with a new ad that makes it seem like former President Barack Obama is endorsing him.
The new spot is clearly an effort by the Sanders campaign to try to and make some headway with African American voters, but it runs the risk of alienating them even further given Sanders’ complicated record when it comes to Obama. As The Root’s Jason Johnson noted, “Obama cosplay doesn’t work, especially if you tried to primary him in 2012 and portray him as part of the anti-poor political establishment for the last year.”
To this point, Sanders’ entire electability rationale has been based on the false premise that he can attract new, younger voters to the polls and expand the base of the Democratic Party. In Virginia, almost half-a-million more votes were cast in this year’s primary than in 2016, but exit polls revealed that the share of young voters that Sanders is so reliant on actually went down. In fact, the share of young voter participation went down in Alabama, Massachusetts, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and even in the Senator’s home state of Vermont.
The bottom line is that Biden’s surge and Sanders’ stagnation have nothing to do with the elite or the establishment or billionaires, and everything to do with actual voters and specifically with people of color finally having the chance to be heard in this process of choosing a Democratic presidential nominee.
Kurt Bardella is a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors and a "Morning Joe" contributor. Follow him on Twitter: @kurtbardella
Althalucian
All Star
They talk about who they're gonna vote for?
dora_da_destroyer
Master Baker
i'll need to see articles on that, with turnout down across the board, i don't believe those were the nails in the coffin. she didn't campaign in those states and left them unengaged on a candidate they were already unexcited about, while anecdotal, a good 3-4 documentaries i've seen about the post 2016 election, residents, in MI in particular, all seemed to echo lack of engagement, especially black voters/residents
Actually not mad at this. Biden needs to keep his people in check.
If he fires her though, and says that stuff has no place in his campaign, then it puts Bernie on the back foot.
The is actually becoming an interesting matchup.
Not yet. I live in Buffalo NY. NYS primary is not until the end of April, so a lot of people are not even paying attention right now. But what I have heard is that people don’t really seem to be happy with any of the candidates. Among the young Black men I talk to a lot of them are telling me that they plan not to vote, or they will just vote for whoever is the Democratic candidate in November. It is really hard to get people to engage in politics. It doesn’t help that Buffalo have had a Black mayor for over 15 years and the city is still terrible. Most of the Black people that are not planning on moving out of the area are more focused on talking over local politics than they are on the presidential election.