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U.S. Democratic Primary


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10 hours ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

Was it this biased last night? The moderators are, very obviously, not very evenhanded.

He got just over 3 minutes. He didn’t insert himself. When he did, he didn’t say much at all. He had a bad night. That’s not the moderators fault. 

Yang won’t go very far now IMO after this performance. Probably time to back a different horse. 

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2 minutes ago, iNow said:

He got just over 3 minutes. He didn’t insert himself. When he did, he didn’t say much at all. He had a bad night. That’s not the moderators fault. 

Yang won’t go very far now IMO after this performance. Probably time to back a different horse. 

Yep,  Biden won with 13+ minutes, and Yang came last with just 3.

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2 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

Yep,  Biden won with 13+ minutes, and Yang came last with just 3.

Biden has the most time, but I think seriously dropped the ball last night. He didn’t look good, responded poorly to the attacks, reminded me of an old man yelling at kids to get off his lawn, and his surrogates in the spin room after the debate had to work overtime to cleanup the bed he’d just shit

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Just now, iNow said:

Biden has the most time, but I think seriously dropped the ball last night. He didn’t look good, responded poorly to the attacks, reminded me of an old man yelling at kids to get off his lawn, and his surrogates in the spin room after the debate had to work overtime to cleanup the bed he’d just shit

Obviously I was kidding about winning with 13+ minutes, but I thought he did better than expected. Obviously Harris made an impression, as did Sanders, though I think Sanders message is so clearly Socialist it will put limits on his upside. Harris also proved she's pretty far left of most Democrats with her stance on medicare for all. (only Sanders agreed with it, where the other 8 declined to support a single system)

Given that, I can't help but think Biden more than held his own.

 

25 minutes ago, iNow said:

Biden has the most time, but I think seriously dropped the ball last night. He didn’t look good, responded poorly to the attacks, reminded me of an old man yelling at kids to get off his lawn, and his surrogates in the spin room after the debate had to work overtime to cleanup the bed he’d just shit

That seemed more like Sanders...an impassioned plea to get off the lawn, put the mower away, and stay in public school til they are 35...

In any case...debate was clearly rigged toward certain candidates...

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41 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

In any case...debate was clearly rigged toward certain candidates...

Bullshit. 

‘These folks are running for the most powerful job on the planet. They need to be able to command the stage. Some did. Some didn’t. 

Rigged, though? Please.

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1 hour ago, iNow said:

Bullshit. 

‘These folks are running for the most powerful job on the planet. They need to be able to command the stage. Some did. Some didn’t. 

Rigged, though? Please.

Seriously? You think there was no agenda whatsoever in favour of the better known candidates? Did you watch it?

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35 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

Seriously? You think there was no agenda whatsoever in favour of the better known candidates? Did you watch it?

Yes, I watched both debates in full. Those who poll higher coming in get more questions. They’re the ones people are actually watching and care about. It’s not the moderators job to hold the hands of the clearly less popular and less known candidates or to guide them across the street, tie their shoes, or cut their meat for them. If they want the job, they have to go take it.  This is how it always works. Have you never watched a presidential primary debate before the two this week?

Edited by iNow
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4 minutes ago, iNow said:

Yes, I watched both debates in full. Those who poll higher coming in get more questions. They’re the ones people are actually watching and care about. This is how it always works. Have you never watched a presidential primary debate before the two this week?

Trying to justify why it was rigged isn't much of an argument toward claiming it wasn't.

It was rigged, quite significantly, in some candidates favour. You called that BS...then you essentially admitted it was rigged... 

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Ok, JCM. Whatever. Your guy did poorly. If blaming the mods makes you feel better about that, then have at it. 

 

14 hours ago, MigL said:

You didn't really think he could resist, did you ?

It was a pretty smart move by his team to put him on a plane to Japan for the G20 at the same time. 

Edited by iNow
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My two cents...

Didn't see much of either debate, just some 'highlights'.
I got the impression J Biden wanted to talk about D Trump, and winning the presidential election.
Some of the others ( K Harris ), by attacking each other,seem to want to make  this is a contest for the runner up to D Trump in the Presidential election.
I'll repeat, what I posted months ago when I saw the number of candidates for the Democratic nomination.
The Dems need to keep their eye on the ball and what is important.

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44 minutes ago, MigL said:

Defeating D Trump.

Sure. How, though? This isn’t exactly some deep brilliant insight that can guide behavior and garner votes.

There are also 24 candidates in the race. 20 in the the debates, so many they had to split it into 10 candidates on 2 nights. 

This isn’t a knitting circle. The front runners get the questions and they are also the ones who get the arrows... they are the targets.

Trump won by being a rude aggressive asshole, but you seem to be arguing that everyone needs to act like a bunch of virgin librarians to steal away his votes. While I understand your point is well-intentioned, I’m quite certain it’s wrong and am not able to get behind you in support of it.

You win by surviving the attacks, not by coddling candidates and preventing others from lobbing them. 

Edited by iNow
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1 hour ago, iNow said:

Trump won by being a rude aggressive asshole, but you seem to be arguing that everyone needs to act like a bunch of virgin librarians to steal away his votes. While I understand your point is well-intentioned, I’m quite certain it’s wrong and am not able to get behind you in support of it.

Reminds me of how well Jeb performed against Trump. Or the narrative that Clinton was not charismatic enough.

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6 minutes ago, iNow said:

She did technically beat him by ~3,000,000 votes, but who’s counting?

Oh sure, but as you know in the silly electoral system the distribution counts. I.e. Democrat candidates have to shore up a higher turnout than their Rep counterparts. 

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39 minutes ago, CharonY said:

Oh sure, but as you know in the silly electoral system the distribution counts. I.e. Democrat candidates have to shore up a higher turnout than their Rep counterparts. 

Right. So assuming that being true...what makes them think they should run on a platform so far to the left? Why rely on Trump being so unpopular that they can do that successfully?

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1 hour ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

Right. So assuming that being true...what makes them think they should run on a platform so far to the left? Why rely on Trump being so unpopular that they can do that successfully?

I cannot say what specifically their strategy is, of course. However, there is some speculation that against a populist such as Trump, a moderate candidate (such as Clinton was) could backfire. Now obviously Clinton got more votes, but was due to the electoral system that just was not enough. In swing states they need to either mobilize non-voters or grab the swing voters. And in that regard, certain left wing propositions (such as access to health care, taxing rich, UBI, climate change) are things that can sway the undecided voters (rather typically, Reps are going to vote for their candidate and Dems for theirs). 

I think what you believe is that the majority of undecided voters neatly line up in the middle of the positions of the respective party. I believe we discussed this earlier, but the position of the independent voters is actually quite different. In many questions they line up far to the left of the public positions of the party. For example, universal health care in one form or another is actually supported by up to 70% of the population, for example. 

When asked more carefully and specifically invoking federal involvement there still a solid 60% in favour. I.e. it is only far left from the view of the political party. But from the population view point it is solid majority.Likewise higher taxes on the rich, are (predictably) quite favoured by the population (again, with support of 60% or higher of the population).  In other words, you should not confuse moderate political propositions (that may find support among the politicians) with the view the population holds on certain questions.

Thus, adding these elements to their platform is a good way to increase their voter base, whereas when aiming straight at moderate propositions, basically misses them entirely and risk losing out. Note that even the Reps campaigned on these left agendas (ensuring everyone gets health care; get money out of politics) but their actual proposition of course have the opposite effects (such as actually reducing access to health care). It is up to the voters to decide whether they believe the simple "everybody will be take care of" promise while health care access is actually been slashed (potentially one of the reasons why Reps lost the House) or whether they buy into a "left" platform that actually tries to deliver it.

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Also, the positions being supported by Dems right now poll extremely high across the country.

Also, there are still 24 candidates in the primary. We don’t yet know which platform will go against the incumbent POTUS. 

Also, as someone who thinks Biden did well last night, I’m unsure why we’re supposed to bow to your political opinions. 

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5 minutes ago, iNow said:

Also, the positions being supported by Dems right now poll extremely high across the country.

Also, there are still 24 candidates in the primary. We don’t yet know which platform will go against the incumbent POTUS. 

Also, as someone who thinks Biden did well last night, I’m unsure why we’re supposed to bow to your political opinions. 

True. To be fair though, the US primary system is ... weird. That being said, I think the in the first debate there was an overall more solid performance from all involved. There are not many polls out yet but generally speaking Harris, Castro, Booker and especially Warren performed well.  

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https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/poll-more-americans-see-democratic-positions-climate-health-care-abortion-n978401

Quote

More Americans see the Democratic Party’s positions on climate change, health care, abortion and immigration as being “in the mainstream” than the Republican Party’s positions on those issues, a new poll from NBC News and the Wall Street Journal finds.

 

democratic_positions_on_are_in_out_of_th

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/07/politics/democratic-positions-majority/index.html

Quote

When it comes to considering the top political issues facing the country -- immigration, health care and gun control among them -- politicians in Congress can give the impression that the public is hopelessly divided on policy solutions.

In reality, the polling shows the majority of the public usually backs policy positions preferred by the Democratic Party

 

That second link is worth reading in its entirety. 

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21 minutes ago, iNow said:

Ultimately the split is (with a number of exceptions) less about the policy goals but more along party affiliation and rhetoric. It should also be noted that as a whole, the Democratic positions are less, well disingenuous. I mean, single-payer or medicare for all, are indeed mechanisms that would lead to universal coverage. Challenges may be cost though in the long run may be cheaper. The other position is basically dismantling ACA and ...magic? Suddenly everyone is covered? 

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You could have probably pulled up a very similar graphic from 2015, INow.
How did that election turn out ? 

Enough people who were pissed off about things turned out to vote for D Trump, as opposed to not enough people who cared about the top political issues.

Let's not repeat, please.

Edited by MigL
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