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2020 Democratic Presidential Nominees

Strickland33 said:
So, I'm not really sure you could convince folks who are likely independent on the basis of their fiscal conservativism that "fiscally irresponsible" plans like M4A are viable...
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There you go again. You're not going to convince anybody if you just write them off because of your preconceived notions. Plenty of people are conservative because that's all they've been taught and it's never been challenged. You're assuming everybody has these strongly held beliefs. I just don't think that's true for a lot of people.
 
PhDeac said:
There you go again. You're not going to convince anybody if you just write them off because of your preconceived notions. Plenty of people are conservative because that's all they've been taught and it's never been challenged. You're assuming everybody has these strongly held beliefs. I just don't think that's true for a lot of people.
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I think that a lot of fiscally conservative folks will disagree with you. I do admire your faith in people and process, though.

Speaking from experience organizing alongside of conservative folks for about a decade on issues such as domestic worker rights, housing justice, and wage theft, I just don't have that same level of faith. I think you can bring people from different political ideological orientations to the table around certain issues, but I don't think that people can be converted from one ideological orientation to another (ala bkf). It certainly happens, but - since a lot isn't a number - I disagree that it happens on broader scale than a handful of cases. And, I think the best chance of it happening is in a college or community college environment.

But I'll readily admit to being a cynic. I stand by the work that I do and my methods, though. I'm far from a keyboard warrior when it comes to political organizing.
 
Strickland, I’m not talking about people with strong conservative beliefs. I’m not even talking about people with a real orientation, just people who don’t like either side that they see when they bother to follow politics.
 
PhDeac said:
Strickland, I’m not talking about people with strong conservative beliefs. I’m not even talking about people with a real orientation, just people who don’t like either side that they see when they bother to follow politics.
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Again, who are these people? How many of them are there? Where do you find them? How do you reach them?
 
You can look it up. They are a significantly proportion of people who don’t vote and don’t identify as liberal or conservative or don’t identify as Republican or Democrat. They’re the shift from one election to another. Swing voters. It’s not a mysterious group. You just consider them conservative because they’re not part of your group.
 
So do they vote or not ? Tough to be a swing voter if you don't vote.
 
Some do. Some don’t. You’ve got to get them to vote.
 
PhDeac said:
You can look it up. They are a significantly proportion of people who don’t vote and don’t identify as liberal or conservative or don’t identify as Republican or Democrat. They’re the shift from one election to another. Swing voters. It’s not a mysterious group. You just consider them conservative because they’re not part of your group.
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You’re being patronizing and a bit hypocritical. Look at how you, in particular, treat M&Ms claims that are equally unsubstantiated and amorphous.

I don’t consider them Democrats because you’re telling me that they’re not. You’re also telling me that they’re not Republicans. If they’re independent, then there aren’t that many of them and according to you on multiple occasions, they swing elections by voting third party.

I know you know that voter turnout actually explains election results. High turnout elections go Blue and low turnout elections go Red. That’s the data. The data also shows that, despite internal differentiation, most “unaffiliated” voters usually vote one way or the other and increasingly, vote according to partisan party lines.

I’m holding you to a standard that you hold others to and, unsurprisingly, you’re responding like they do, which is to say - screw you, I’m right and you’re wrong. It’s a bad look, man.
 
PhDeac said:
Some do. Some don’t. You’ve got to get them to vote.
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Goalposts, man. Goalposts.

The so-called center votes. Independents, less so, but I have no idea what population you’re actually referring to. Seems like you were talking about Blue Dogs, but have now moved on to Independents who are themselves as centrists, which isn’t a group we have any data on outside of self-reports. We know these are unreliable because social desirability bias, aka somebody had to vote trump in, but nobody will admit it.

Hell, Angus won’t even admit he voted for trump. Is he your holy center?
 
You’re the one trying to set goalposts when I’m telling you we don’t know and we need to find out.
 
PhDeac said:
You can look it up. They are a significantly proportion of people who don’t vote and don’t identify as liberal or conservative or don’t identify as Republican or Democrat. They’re the shift from one election to another. Swing voters. It’s not a mysterious group. You just consider them conservative because they’re not part of your group.
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I don't agree with this, based on all the data i've seen. Something like 95% of Independent voters actually have party preference, and vote in a partisan way. In this political era, Independent affiliation is based on rejecting the political establishment more than rejecting ideology.
https://www-tampabay-com.cdn.amppro...ependent-voters-dont-decide-elections/2261506

"This idea does not hold up to scrutiny. The data show that these independent voters are not much different from their nominally partisan counterparts — and are not swing voters.



"The 2012 American National Elections Study, an ongoing effort by Stanford University and the University of Michigan that measures the attitudes of the American voter across elections, found that self-identified independent voters who "leaned" toward the Democratic Party gave Barack Obama 87 percent of their vote. Republican-leaning independents gave Romney an identical 87 percent share. Even though these voters self-identified as independent or registered without party affiliation, they voted like loyal partisans.
These leaners make up an overwhelming majority of independent voters. Only 5 percent of the electorate in 2012 was truly "independent.""
 
I agree that there are many uneducated voters, but the point remains that those uneducated voters are still partisan. The type of voter that swings from party to party is exceedingly rare in this hyper-partisan era, and investing in that voter is a fools errand.
 
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Ugh. We've strayed so far from the original statement. I'll make three quick points.

1. 35% of voters are moderates. https://news.gallup.com/poll/225074/conservative-lead-ideology-down-single-digits.aspx
2. If Republicans can come up with messaging to make Progressive ideas seem evil to people who could benefit from them, why shouldn't Progressives come up with messaging to make Progressive ideas seem appealing to people who could benefit from them?
3. Kamala Harris' background as a prosecutor seems to have performed pretty well in Progressive circles despite fears that she's too conservative on crime. A "smart on crime" message and her confidence as a messenger could resonate in the suburbs (MDMH trigger) as well as with blue areas.
 
What exactly is "smart on crime" an alternative to? It sounds like bullshit. Is someone campaigning as "Dumb on crime"?

It's just as important, if not more important, to engage younger progressive voters than to politically tiptoe around "moderates". Moderates arent staying home and they arent voting for Jill Stein. We need radical politics, full stop. I say all this not to disagree that moderates need to be "sold" progressive policy, but to say that moderates should not be steering policy. They need to fall in line.
 
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Sigh. Don't be better than catchy slogans that could actually work. "Smart on Crime," "Green New Deal," and "Medicare For All" could bring substantive change to this country.
 
Only one of those 3 is an empty slogan. Im still waiting on someone to explain what it means, you know, in relation to every other Dem candidate. Just how and why is Kamala Harris "smart" on crime?
 
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