Why are you still on about this? I've told you my voting intention, you're not going to change it with this sanctimonious crap, and you've decided that not voting for your candidate = "crying" for some reason. If you want me (and many, many others) to vote for a Democrat, don't nominate Biden. This isn't hard. Just don't.
And as for this "you're actually a Trump supporter" bullshit, I don't feel the need to lend any support to attempts to go back to how we got here so we can do it again. That's not my interest. Pick a new direction.
Because this is a shit enough situation that you probably won't just not vote, you would start yelling about not wanting biden no matter what so you might influence other people with your rhetoric and thus help trump.
Why are you still on about this? I've told you my voting intention, you're not going to change it with this sanctimonious crap, and you've decided that not voting for your candidate = "crying" for some reason. If you want me (and many, many others) to vote for a Democrat, don't nominate Biden. This isn't hard. Just don't.
And as for this "you're actually a Trump supporter" bullshit, I don't feel the need to lend any support to attempts to go back to how we got here so we can do it again. That's not my interest. Pick a new direction.
Because this is a shit enough situation that you probably won't just not vote, you would start yelling about not wanting biden no matter what so you might influence other people with your rhetoric and thus help trump.
Sounds like an excellent reason not to nominate Biden. Yes, fear my great power to influence the election against shitty centrist candidates. Fear it so much that you don't nominate them. I don't feel the need to lend any support to attempts to go back to how we got here so we can do it again. I'd rather leave this at once.
We don't know if he would have fared better, we can speculate but we have no idea if he would have won. Because your dealing with a moderate populous who is scared of change and it sounds like his health care system would make private insurance illegal which most american's aren't ok with.
Sounds like an excellent reason not to nominate Biden. Yes, fear my great power to influence the election against shitty centrist candidates. Fear it so much that you don't nominate them. I don't feel the need to lend any support to attempts to go back to how we got here so we can do it again. I'd rather leave this at once.
Not directed to you, but this exemplifies the issues I have with this nation: It's always democrats' fault.
It's like having a twin that is a complete pain in the ass, but you're the one responsible for all she does. "Why did you let her get into the kitchen, you know she would throw the flour around", "She didn't walk the dog? And you didn't tell her to? The mess in the hallway if your fault", "She got straight F's on her Report Card... why didn't you tutor her?!"
Can anything be on the Republicans? Can the Republicans find a better Republican nominee that doesn't bring shame to the entire country? Did they have to select Agent Orange in the first place? For the party of personal responsibility, when anything is wrong the first and last and middle and fourth and twelfth thing out of their mouth is always 'democrats'. When minorities or women talk about how there are mechanisms holding them back, we hear about boot straps. But when the blame can solely rest on Republican shoulders, they pull out Matrix moves and somehow deflect it back to Democrats, Minorities, and/or women.
To directly what you are saying, Seanchaidh, I also think there are stronger candidates than Biden. As much as I personally like Sanders, I am being convinced more and more about Warren. But the truth is that there are no weaker candidates than Trump. And it astounds me that Republicans can continue to make poorer and poorer choices that are literally on course to destroying this earth, but they look like winners for it.
Silvanus said:
Worgen said:
We don't know if he would have fared better, we can speculate but we have no idea if he would have won. Because your dealing with a moderate populous who is scared of change and it sounds like his health care system would make private insurance illegal which most american's aren't ok with.
Here's the thing... does that even matter any more?
Yeah, Hillary lost. But the issue of it is that the polls were right. The polls had more people voting for Hillary. And More people DID vote for Hillary. Millions more.
We can have all the accurate polling for individuals saying they will vote for who ever. But if those millions more people happen to live in a 3 states, and a few hundred thousand in 5 states can counteract that... who cares?
That's why the Electoral College has to go. The Overwhelming American Citizens' choice doesn't matter as much as a few dozen insulated communities who couldn't give a Good God Damn about the larger nation as a whole.
We don't know if he would have fared better, we can speculate but we have no idea if he would have won. Because your dealing with a moderate populous who is scared of change and it sounds like his health care system would make private insurance illegal which most american's aren't ok with.
Maybe they are right, maybe they aren't. The problem with them is that they are outdated, we can't really know how Sanders would have run his general election campaign and how trump would have tried to attack him.
Honestly...not as much as it appears. "Supporting the UAW" is, as far as I'm concerned, the "thoughts and prayers" of unionization and labor rights. The only move more perfunctory, is "support the SEIU". Wake me up when the candidates start pushing hard for service industry and tech sector unionization, or at the very least universal automotive industry unionization.
It matters in that it shows the error in trusting polls from this stage of the race; it proves they can be turned on their head later in the process.
Worgen said:
Maybe they are right, maybe they aren't. The problem with them is that they are outdated, we can't really know how Sanders would have run his general election campaign and how trump would have tried to attack him.
Ok, but then all these criticisms apply equally to the polls showing Biden winning.
They'll be outdated by the time Americans go to the polls. And we don't know how Biden will run his campaign, either... though we do know Sanders is a very effective campaigner.
To be clear, though, obviously refusing to vote for the Democratic candidate in the Presidential would be self-defeating nonsense, and would help to shift the political climate ever further to the right.
But the polls were correct. Most people voted for Hillary. People answered truthfully. It just didn't matter because of the Electoral College.
The Electoral College need to be polled, not the individual. Which is semi impossible, semi obvious if you just look at the average tone of communities. A person can lose by millions, but still get the right districts.
It matters in that it shows the error in trusting polls from this stage of the race; it proves they can be turned on their head later in the process.
Worgen said:
Maybe they are right, maybe they aren't. The problem with them is that they are outdated, we can't really know how Sanders would have run his general election campaign and how trump would have tried to attack him.
Ok, but then all these criticisms apply equally to the polls showing Biden winning.
They'll be outdated by the time Americans go to the polls. And we don't know how Biden will run his campaign, either... though we do know Sanders is a very effective campaigner.
To be clear, though, obviously refusing to vote for the Democratic candidate in the Presidential would be self-defeating nonsense, and would help to shift the political climate ever further to the right.
The difference is that the polls we have now are current. Its still totally possible Sanders would have gotten more votes, but its also totally possible he would have not got those in the right places and still would have lost the electorate.
I'm not a US citizen, and I'm far from a hard core Sanders supporter, but can the Democrats not do better than Biden? Yeah, he'd be much better than Trump, because a chimpanzee would be, and Trump is a real possibility, but, c'mon.
Yeah, see your a trump supporter. Maybe not directly but when Biden ends up winning you will ***** and moan and do everything you can to stop other people from voting for him to "teach the democrats a lesson" and we will end up with more trump, like we did in 2016 and the Bernie bros bitching and moaning and protest voting. Because people are too dumb to realize this shit matters and like it or not, you have to make due with a lesser of two evils.
Sanctimonious crap about the virtue of accepting the lesser of two evils aside, getting rid of losing campaigns like Biden's are exactly what primaries are for. He. Does. Not. Have. To. Be. Nominated.
Gergar12 said:
The problem with upstart progressives is that they don't know how to play politics. While Biden flutters and falls on his stupid potentially election damaging gaffes, his more pragmatic, and more intelligent advisors are going to every union, and left-leaning group, and saying if you don't support us, you will not get government contracts, our support for your issues, etc.
You want to know how I know this it's because the same thing happened with the recent New York Governor race.
Whereas with Warren, and Sanders it takes for granted that unions will be supported no matter whose side they support, which is crazy.
Warren and Sanders are not going to win on flowers, and kittens at this rate.
Sanders is aggressively courting union support. He not only shows up at strikes, but frequently puts out notices of strike actions on his campaign app so that people can show up and support them. He's also been promoting the unionization of people who aren't unionized as well as working to better their conditions (Amazon, Wal-Mart). Unions would either be foolish or sold out by their leaders to choose Biden (which can certainly happen, and indicates a problem with the structure of the organization and its process of coming to decisions). Why should unions want the VP of the guy who promised but then did nothing to try to deliver card check? It makes no sense.
Exactly, you're proving my point, Sanders, and Warren uses a carrot approach to do this because we are friends, while centrists like Cuomo and Biden use a stick and carrot approach. If you don't support me you will lose access to me. Whereas that's that's not the case with Sanders and Warren.
Now rank and file union members may support the more progressive candidates, and I have met some that do this despite their union leadership, but the leaders are the ones that make the endorsements that are needed to accrue more name recognition.
I don't know why Progressives shouldn't play hardball or at least bluff. Centrists like Biden already have the mainstream media support, and they play hardball while progressives are mainly supported by a few media organizations like TYT, Jacobin, and the Intercept along with online outlets who cater to young people who don't vote like Baby Boomers do who mostly use... mainstream outlets like MSNBC, and CNN, and NYT, and even Wapo.
On the topic thread, I think Yang is a so-so bottom tier candidate who falls into the idealist trap of "this one thing could solve everything" approach to UBI. I've listened to multiple interviews with him, the most recent being the NYTime's semi-critical and editorialized one from last week's Daily [https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5wb2R0cmFjLmNvbS96S3E2V1paTFRsYk0%3D&episode=Z2lkOi8vYXJ0MTktZXBpc29kZS1sb2NhdG9yL1YwL1pHYU85VFdfcXBYV1IyTkpjMjVMUGsxZzBJeVBLWjByblI0Z3F2N0FLUzg%3D&hl=en] (link is to the Google Podcast version and not paywalled, ~30 minutes) and I get the sense that he truly believes in what he is trying to do.
And I definitely think he falls into the "right diagnosis, wrong prescription" category that a lot of people (regardless of education or ideology) fall into when they think they have a novel idea. In his case, it's that the US should base policy on improving overall happiness rather than aiming for particular economic indicators such as employment or GDP and that there's a short-to-medium term risk of a larger employment crisis due to automation. I am personally sympathetic to this argument, but I don't think UBI is the panacea he makes it out to be, particularly if paid for via a VAT rather than through a more progressive taxation system.
Worgen said:
The difference is that the polls we have now are current. Its still totally possible Sanders would have gotten more votes, but its also totally possible he would have not got those in the right places and still would have lost the electorate.
The Sanders 2016 polling narrative also came with some pretty big caveats [https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/may/29/bernie-sanders/bernie-sanders-says-he-polls-better-against-donald/] when you asked the pollsters who actually reviewed those polls nubmers.
Politifact: Bernie Sanders says he polls better against Donald Trump than Hillary Clinton does
[...]
So Sanders is correct that he fares better against Trump than Clinton does in every poll over the past six weeks -- more than 6 points better than Clinton, on average.
And Sanders is beating Trump by an average of 12 points in these eight polls, so "big numbers" seems like a reasonable description for Sanders to use.
Case closed? Not quite, say polling experts.
Clinton has been scrutinized and attacked as a public figure for a quarter century, but Sanders -- even after running for president for a year -- is a relatively new figure to voters nationally. So while a lot of voters? minds are already made up about Clinton based on her long history in the public eye, it remains to be seen how open potential voters will be to supporting Sanders once Republicans start airing negative attacks, especially ones that note his identification as a democratic socialist. (We have previously reported that, according to polls, being a socialist is a less attractive quality for voters than being an atheist.)
Kerwin Swint, a political scientist at Kennesaw State University, told PolitiFact Georgia that Sanders shows up so strongly in head-to-head polls because Trump and Clinton have such high negatives.
"General election polls don?t mean much until the conventions are over and you get to late summer or early fall," Swint said. "A lot of voters don?t look at Sanders as a legitimate threat. It?s almost like he?s an imaginary candidate."
In addition, early polls do not weed out "likely voters," as polls later in the campaign do, Steven S. Smith, a Washington University political scientist and a specialist in public opinion, told PolitiFact when we previously checked a similar statement by Sanders. This could matter, given Sanders? high rates of support among college students and younger voters, who have not yet demonstrated a long track record of voting.
"If Sanders draws disproportionately from people who are not likely to vote, which is a reasonable speculation at this point, then his support may be somewhat overstated in some comparisons," Smith said.
It should be noted that Clinton's numbers did improve once the nomination was settled [https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton-5491.html] as described. In fact, most of the national polling was fairly accurate in 2016 [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/12/05/which-was-the-most-accurate-national-poll-in-the-2016-presidential-election/].
And my personal caveat: I will forever hold Sanders in contempt for 2016 for peddling narratives that said he could have won the nomination contest when he had no serious path for doing so and feeding into a narrative that was predictably taken up by Trump into the general election without any real attempt to counter that narrative.
On 2020, I think there's a good chance Biden could lose the nomination to Warren by underpreforming in Iowa or New Hampshire and giving her campaign just enough more steam to take the lead in the major nominating contests that followed afterwords. This is particularly possible if trends continue into the late fall and winter where Biden remains stable, Warren continues to slowly gain, and Sanders continues to very slowly decline [https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/2020_democratic_presidential_nomination-6730.html] (today's NBC/WSJ poll [https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/17/biden-warren-lead-in-latest-nbcwsj-2020-democratic-poll.html] should be particularly worrying to them if it doesn't become an outlier). If Sanders doesn't make the top three out of Iowa or New Hampshire or is farther behind Warren by mid February than Warren is Biden, his campaign will effectively be over. After that, he'll need to make a decision as to whether he wants to not endorse Warren to give her a fighting chance, whom he is more ideologically aligned, or sit on his hands and pretty much hand the primary to Biden [https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/08/12/not_enough_room_in_2020_primary_for_sanders_and_warren_140987.html].
RCP: Not Enough Room in 2020 Primary for Sanders and Warren said:
Moreover, neither Sanders nor Warren could immediately claim the entirety of the other?s support if one did drop out. According to the Morning Consult poll, the second-choice of most Sanders supporters is not Warren, but Biden. About a quarter of Sanders supporters would shift to Warren, presumably because of their ideological proximity. But almost one-third would go to Biden, evidence that ideology is not the only factor driving voter decisions. (For Warren supporters, Sanders is the top second choice, with 25%. But 22% would go to Harris and another 17% would go to Biden.) Demographic appeal and electability concerns are also likely factors.
So, while I agree the safe money is on Biden, I think that Warren is a much realer possibility than any other the other non-Biden candidates.
EDIT: I debated adding this to my argument, largely because it is inconsistent with US voting procedures and a good chunk of other polling (and it doesn't add much), but a recent ranked choice poll found Warren to be the overall winner of the Democratic pack [https://www.vox.com/2019/9/12/20860985/poll-democratic-primary-ranked-choice-warren-biden]. BUT that was only in the last round when Sanders was eliminated and his votes were distributed. So, yeah, it's very likely Sanders could turn the tide in the final choice between Warren and Biden.
We'll ignore the hand wringing about how far out polls are (that gets ignored to tell people to support the most right wing Democrat candidate "because they're going to win anyway") and instead focus on how they not at all subtly try to imply Sanders is as dislikable as Clinton, as if they were somehow equal in that regard.
Maybe because they actually support unions rather than merely use them as a tool for their own career advancement. "Playing hardball" in such a way with one's allies can easily backfire hard.
On the topic thread, I think Yang is a so-so bottom tier candidate who falls into the idealist trap of "this one thing could solve everything" approach to UBI. I've listened to multiple interviews with him, the most recent being the NYTime's semi-critical and editorialized one from last week's Daily [https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5wb2R0cmFjLmNvbS96S3E2V1paTFRsYk0%3D&episode=Z2lkOi8vYXJ0MTktZXBpc29kZS1sb2NhdG9yL1YwL1pHYU85VFdfcXBYV1IyTkpjMjVMUGsxZzBJeVBLWjByblI0Z3F2N0FLUzg%3D&hl=en] (link is to the Google Podcast version and not paywalled, ~30 minutes) and I get the sense that he truly believes in what he is trying to do.
And I definitely think he falls into the "right diagnosis, wrong prescription" category that a lot of people (regardless of education or ideology) fall into when they think they have a novel idea. In his case, it's that the US should base policy on improving overall happiness rather than aiming for particular economic indicators such as employment or GDP and that there's a short-to-medium term risk of a larger employment crisis due to automation. I am personally sympathetic to this argument, but I don't think UBI is the panacea he makes it out to be, particularly if paid for via a VAT rather than through a more progressive taxation system.
Worgen said:
The difference is that the polls we have now are current. Its still totally possible Sanders would have gotten more votes, but its also totally possible he would have not got those in the right places and still would have lost the electorate.
The Sanders 2016 polling narrative also came with some pretty big caveats [https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/may/29/bernie-sanders/bernie-sanders-says-he-polls-better-against-donald/] when you asked the pollsters who actually reviewed those polls nubmers.
Politifact: Bernie Sanders says he polls better against Donald Trump than Hillary Clinton does
[...]
So Sanders is correct that he fares better against Trump than Clinton does in every poll over the past six weeks -- more than 6 points better than Clinton, on average.
And Sanders is beating Trump by an average of 12 points in these eight polls, so "big numbers" seems like a reasonable description for Sanders to use.
Case closed? Not quite, say polling experts.
Clinton has been scrutinized and attacked as a public figure for a quarter century, but Sanders -- even after running for president for a year -- is a relatively new figure to voters nationally. So while a lot of voters? minds are already made up about Clinton based on her long history in the public eye, it remains to be seen how open potential voters will be to supporting Sanders once Republicans start airing negative attacks, especially ones that note his identification as a democratic socialist. (We have previously reported that, according to polls, being a socialist is a less attractive quality for voters than being an atheist.)
Kerwin Swint, a political scientist at Kennesaw State University, told PolitiFact Georgia that Sanders shows up so strongly in head-to-head polls because Trump and Clinton have such high negatives.
"General election polls don?t mean much until the conventions are over and you get to late summer or early fall," Swint said. "A lot of voters don?t look at Sanders as a legitimate threat. It?s almost like he?s an imaginary candidate."
In addition, early polls do not weed out "likely voters," as polls later in the campaign do, Steven S. Smith, a Washington University political scientist and a specialist in public opinion, told PolitiFact when we previously checked a similar statement by Sanders. This could matter, given Sanders? high rates of support among college students and younger voters, who have not yet demonstrated a long track record of voting.
"If Sanders draws disproportionately from people who are not likely to vote, which is a reasonable speculation at this point, then his support may be somewhat overstated in some comparisons," Smith said.
It should be noted that Clinton's numbers did improve once the nomination was settled [https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton-5491.html] as described. In fact, most of the national polling was fairly accurate in 2016 [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/12/05/which-was-the-most-accurate-national-poll-in-the-2016-presidential-election/].
And my personal caveat: I will forever hold Sanders in contempt for 2016 for peddling narratives that said he could have won the nomination contest when he had no serious path for doing so and feeding into a narrative that was predictably taken up by Trump into the general election without any real attempt to counter that narrative.
On 2020, I think there's a good chance Biden could lose the nomination to Warren by underpreforming in Iowa or New Hampshire and giving her campaign just enough more steam to take the lead in the major nominating contests that followed afterwords. This is particularly possible if trends continue into the late fall and winter where Biden remains stable, Warren continues to slowly gain, and Sanders continues to very slowly decline [https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/2020_democratic_presidential_nomination-6730.html] (today's NBC/WSJ poll [https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/17/biden-warren-lead-in-latest-nbcwsj-2020-democratic-poll.html] should be particularly worrying to them if it doesn't become an outlier). If Sanders doesn't make the top three out of Iowa or New Hampshire or is farther behind Warren by mid February than Warren is Biden, his campaign will effectively be over. After that, he'll need to make a decision as to whether he wants to not endorse Warren to give her a fighting chance, whom he is more ideologically aligned, or sit on his hands and pretty much hand the primary to Biden [https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/08/12/not_enough_room_in_2020_primary_for_sanders_and_warren_140987.html].
RCP: Not Enough Room in 2020 Primary for Sanders and Warren said:
Moreover, neither Sanders nor Warren could immediately claim the entirety of the other?s support if one did drop out. According to the Morning Consult poll, the second-choice of most Sanders supporters is not Warren, but Biden. About a quarter of Sanders supporters would shift to Warren, presumably because of their ideological proximity. But almost one-third would go to Biden, evidence that ideology is not the only factor driving voter decisions. (For Warren supporters, Sanders is the top second choice, with 25%. But 22% would go to Harris and another 17% would go to Biden.) Demographic appeal and electability concerns are also likely factors.
So, while I agree the safe money is on Biden, I think that Warren is a much realer possibility than any other the other non-Biden candidates.
EDIT: I debated adding this to my argument, largely because it is inconsistent with US voting procedures and a good chunk of other polling (and it doesn't add much), but a recent ranked choice poll found Warren to be the overall winner of the Democratic pack [https://www.vox.com/2019/9/12/20860985/poll-democratic-primary-ranked-choice-warren-biden]. BUT that was only in the last round when Sanders was eliminated and his votes were distributed. So, yeah, it's very likely Sanders could turn the tide in the final choice between Warren and Biden.
I do hope that things turn out how you have speculated here. It does sound likely and I think you are right that it all comes down to what happens with Sanders since the two big ones seem to be Biden and Warren and I much much prefer Warren.
Polls are already weighted to account for the Electoral College and demography. Polling is rarely as simple as just asking X people and reporting that directly.
Worgen said:
The difference is that the polls we have now are current. Its still totally possible Sanders would have gotten more votes, but its also totally possible he would have not got those in the right places and still would have lost the electorate.
Of course they're current. That's the point. They will not be current when Americans go to the polls.
It's all possible, yes-- including Biden performing terribly. My entire point is that you cannot trust polls from this stage of the process, especially when we have compelling evidence pointing in the other direction, such as Clinton's experience.
Polls are already weighted to account for the Electoral College and demography. Polling is rarely as simple as just asking X people and reporting that directly.
Worgen said:
The difference is that the polls we have now are current. Its still totally possible Sanders would have gotten more votes, but its also totally possible he would have not got those in the right places and still would have lost the electorate.
Of course they're current. That's the point. They will not be current when Americans go to the polls.
It's all possible, yes-- including Biden performing terribly. My entire point is that you cannot trust polls from this stage of the process, especially when we have compelling evidence pointing in the other direction, such as Clinton's experience.
No, they weren't, its impossible for them to have been current since the moment he lost the nomination all the attention was on Clinton so all the polls during the general were based on old data without him having been attacked by republicans and the general populous not examining his positions more carefully. It just comes down to a rose colored picture of how he might have done, can you prove that the republicans wouldnt have been really successful on hitting him for socialist shit?
Considering how trump is, you can bet he would have gotten on the evils of socialism train and kept that going as long as he could have. And considering that americans are pretty dumb when it comes to the socialist boogyman I can see it working, or maybe Sanders would get lucky and the population would suddenly smarten up and realized what socialism actually means, the point is, we can't know since it didn't happen.
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