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2020 Democratic Presidential Nominees

Lest we forget we had a few Biden-lite GOP nominees before the Trump wing took over: Kasich probably the closest of the bunch.

Right of center on:

Abortion
Capital Punishment
Drug laws
Homeland security/terror
Banking
Israel

Unclear:
Immigration
Trade
Healthcare (though 100% approval rating from industry is closer to right than left)

Left of center on:
Education policy
Environment
Guns
LGBT

Places he shares a GOP-like history:
Anita Hill
Welfare reform
Housing
Wall
Criminal justice
 
ImTheCaptain said:
anything right of warren/sanders is Killer GOP Candidate? woof
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No, I wouldn't say that. I'd say the mid-90s Dems closely resemble the mid-2000s/pre-Trump GOP. The hard part about characterizing the GOP as a monolith is that they have fractures (like the left does) that still pull them right: Tea Party, Federalist Society, Americans for Tax Reform, etc.

But the mainstream party, apart from special interests like the evangelical right and big corporate money, are ok with abandoning social issues of old in favor of protecting class interests and the military-industrial complex. That's where Biden fits in pretty strongly with the current GOP, and where I think he'd probably govern best no matter the letter next to his name.
 
The plagiarism issue is making news because accusations of plagiarism helped tank Biden's candidacy in 1988. That's why (I assume) RJ is saying that Biden, in particular, should be extra careful. I doubt it will matter much because I don't think voters will care, but if his campaign strategy is to stay mostly quiet and hope to hold onto his front runner status, the few things he releases will be scrutinized.

 
Yeah. Younger voters may not get this but plagiarism is the main thing Biden was known for before he rehabbed his rep enough in 2008 to get the VP nod. It's basically his version of Hillary's emails.
 
birdman said:
I'm not particularly pro-Biden, I just don't care that he lifted his climate change proposals from someone else...in fact I am kinda glad he did because I totally expected his environmental policy to be largely pro-business and not so much pro-environment.

He is not my first choice, but I am holding off on falling in love with any Dem candidate for now because I don't want to end up hating the others when one of them inevitable wins the nomination. (My preferred candidate never wins the nomination.)
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I'm right there with you on Biden, I'll vote for the guy if he's the nominee, but I'm fully in love with Elizabeth Warren and ready to be disappointed by voters.

I'm also fully off the Bernie train. Obviously would vote for him too if he were the nominee, but have stopped actively supporting the guy. Think he gets too much wrong as well. Don't care that he's rich, he should be, he's been pulling in low-mid 6 figures for decades. Just think he's getting some policy shit way wrong. I do respect that he's been right on lots of stuff for a long time though.
 
Which Bernie policy shit is way wrong?
 
PhDeac said:
Which Bernie policy shit is way wrong?
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Guns, trade, to some extent Israel.

On race he's too old to really grasp much nuance, but since he generally gets class stuff right (housing, drug policy, things that disproportionately affect nonwhite people) he skates a little here. He's voted well on race and civil rights legislation, but hasn't translated that to winning nonwhite support because of consistent gaffes and that lack of nuance (and being a septuagenarian white guy).
 
TownieDeac said:
Guns, trade, to some extent Israel.

On race he's too old to really grasp much nuance, but since he generally gets class stuff right (housing, drug policy, things that disproportionately affect nonwhite people) he skates a little here. He's voted well on race and civil rights legislation, but hasn't translated that to winning nonwhite support because of consistent gaffes and that lack of nuance (and being a septuagenarian white guy).
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Easy on the Anti-Semitism, Townie!...just kidding.

I'm off the Bernie train too. I fucking loved the guy in 2016 and I love that he brought progressive-ism back to main stream politics, but I am hoping for someone younger, vibrant and more exciting...basically someone that young liberals will get excited about. The 45 and under population needs to take over this fucking political mess and fix it.
 
TownieDeac said:
Guns, trade, to some extent Israel.

On race he's too old to really grasp much nuance, but since he generally gets class stuff right (housing, drug policy, things that disproportionately affect nonwhite people) he skates a little here. He's voted well on race and civil rights legislation, but hasn't translated that to winning nonwhite support because of consistent gaffes and that lack of nuance (and being a septuagenarian white guy).
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birdman said:
Easy on the Anti-Semitism, Townie!...just kidding.

I'm off the Bernie train too. I fucking loved the guy in 2016 and I love that he brought progressive-ism back to main stream politics, but I am hoping for someone younger, vibrant and more exciting...basically someone that young liberals will get excited about. The 45 and under population needs to take over this fucking political mess and fix it.
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Good posts. Not sure if I've said this here, but I'll say it now. If Bernie had run in 2008, I think he would have helped usher in a more prominent and aggressive progressive movement. He would have pushed the primary to the left and maybe gotten picked for VP over Biden. I also think we would have seen a progressive movement on the left parallel to the tea party and more prominent than Occupy.

But in 2020, we don't need to fight Bernie vs. Hillary again with Bernie and Biden. Shit is bigger than that.
 
birdman said:
Easy on the Anti-Semitism, Townie!...just kidding.

I'm off the Bernie train too. I fucking loved the guy in 2016 and I love that he brought progressive-ism back to main stream politics, but I am hoping for someone younger, vibrant and more exciting...basically someone that young liberals will get excited about. The 45 and under population needs to take over this fucking political mess and fix it.
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Not necessarily disagreeing with you, but good luck with that. Even if you picked up the senate (an unlikely event), you'd still have the filibuster on bills where the Pubs would go to the mats. And I have little hope of having an immigration or health care resolution anytime in the next decade. The 1 area where I do have hope we could get a bill (post Trump of course) is criminal justice reform because enough Pubs are showing signs of movement on that issue. But getting the White House back in 2020 is critical for the federal courts. And a president without congress can do a lot on trade, climate change, immigration and homeland security.
 
It would be hilarious if a 2020 Biden presidency set in motion progressive criminal justice reform.
 
Biden polling ahead of Trump in Texas, other Dems close.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/05/biden-beating-trump-texas-poll-1355285

Interesting note about Beto.
O’Rourke has previously caught flack for his insistence than Texas and its 38 electoral college votes could be in play in next year’s election, but Biden’s strong performance in the GOP stronghold will bolster his argument that he is the most electable 2020 Democrat.


Though O’Rourke, who has faltered in more recent national and early state polling, jumps up to second place in the Texas poll, Democratic voters there would much rather see him ditch his White House bid to challenge GOP Sen. John Cornyn, by a nearly 2-1 margin.
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PhDeac said:
Good posts. Not sure if I've said this here, but I'll say it now. If Bernie had run in 2008, I think he would have helped usher in a more prominent and aggressive progressive movement. He would have pushed the primary to the left and maybe gotten picked for VP over Biden. I also think we would have seen a progressive movement on the left parallel to the tea party and more prominent than Occupy.

But in 2020, we don't need to fight Bernie vs. Hillary again with Bernie and Biden. Shit is bigger than that.
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You did have Bernie in 2008, and his name was John Edwards. And his candidacy went nowhere. I'd posit that the Bernie movement was a result of 2 things. The party has moved further left than where it was in 2008, and there were many in the party who were looking for a Hillary alternative - and he effectively was the only Hillary alternative. Had Bernie run in 2008, he would have gotten no further than Edwards.
 
cville deac said:
You did have Bernie in 2008, and his name was John Edwards. And his candidacy went nowhere. I'd posit that the Bernie movement was a result of 2 things. The party has moved further left than where it was in 2008, and there were many in the party who were looking for a Hillary alternative - and he effectively was the only Hillary alternative. Had Bernie run in 2008, he would have gotten no further than Edwards.
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That you, Ball State?

You're right on the Hillary alternative front, but Edwards was in no way like Bernie. He wasn't an insurgent candidate from the left. He was the 2004 VP nominee. He did talk about "two Americans" but showed little policy chops to address it. Most importantly, he was a smarmy piece of shit and I'm ashamed he represented my home state. He and Bev ushered in this period of Republican regressive politics in NC that destroyed Jim Hunt and a lot of good men and women built.
 
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TownieDeac said:
It would be hilarious if a 2020 Biden presidency set in motion progressive criminal justice reform.
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Not hilarious, but maybe a little ironic. But you need to take into consideration that times change and people change over time. Biden has been in public life forever, and some of his views now could be 180 degrees different than how he felt in the 1980s. Hell, Obama wasn't great on LGBT issues when he 1st entered national politics but came around when he was president. I think it's safe to say that as a society we collectively feel a whole lot differently about nonviolent drug crimes now compared to how we felt in the 80s and 90s. And while you consider Biden behind the times on that back then, please also remember that he was a bit ahead of the times back then when he authored the Violence against Woman Act.
 
PhDeac said:
That you, Ball State?

You're right on the Hillary alternative front, but Edwards was in no way like Bernie. He wasn't an insurgent candidate from the left. He was the 2004 VP nominee. He did talk about "two Americans" but showed little policy chops to address it. Most importantly, he was a smarmy piece of shit and I'm ashamed he represented my home state. He and Bev ushered in this period of Republican regressive politics in NC that destroyed Jim Hunt and a lot of good men and women built.
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I agree that Edwards was a smarmy POS with expensive haircuts. He was an opportunist who saw that there was not another candidate running on the left and seized that opportunity. Nonetheless, he did run as a left insurgent candidate. Now I understand that how he ran was a bit opposite of how he voted when he was a senator from NC, but that's how he ran in 2008. Let's say similar to another political makeover candidate in 2012 who also had expensive haircuts.

BTW, I don't get the Ball State reference. Was he a Edwards guy? I have a bad longterm memory about posters.
 
cville deac said:
You did have Bernie in 2008, and his name was John Edwards. And his candidacy went nowhere. I'd posit that the Bernie movement was a result of 2 things. The party has moved further left than where it was in 2008, and there were many in the party who were looking for a Hillary alternative - and he effectively was the only Hillary alternative. Had Bernie run in 2008, he would have gotten no further than Edwards.
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Dennis Kucinich was the Bernie of 2004 and 2008, Nader was the Bernie of 2000. John Edwards was a pro-business, pro-war progressive in name only candidate.
 
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