US Politics: Money, Money, Money Makes the World Go Round

[A Horse Named Stranger]

5 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

Valentines day is a great lie invented by the Germans to excuse their involvement in the 1443 War of The American Lovers. 

Wake up!

Is that the premise of your 50 shades rip off?

The German invasion of American Beds? Your love for black leather is legendary, but I don't think it'll sell, but then again, I also didn't get the point of 50 shades.

 

[Gorn]

30 minutes ago, Lord of Rhinos said:

So how do you see this happening?  Doug Jones is almost certainly going to be losing his seat in Alabama, so Democrats will need to win four seats to get the senate to 50-50.  The three senators that Democrats have a fair chance of knocking out are Susan Collins, Martha McSally, and Cory Gardner, but Dems are going to need one more to reach 50 and like I mentioned earlier if Bernie becomes president they are likely to lose his seat temporarily as well.

First of all, I'm not confident of Sanders beating Trump. Right now, I'd give him 40% chance, which are still much better chances than I would give the other Democratic candidates. One thing I am confident about is that 2020 map will have very little resemblance to the 2016 map.

With that said, if that 40% probability comes to pass, this is my estimate about the Senate.

Probable pickups: Colorado, Maine.

Possible pickups, in order of probability: Arizona, North Carolina, Alaska, Montana, Kansas, Tennessee, Georgia (x2), Texas, West Virginia, Iowa, Oklahoma.

[Rippounet]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

https://katz.substack.com/p/bernie-the-sandinistas-and-americas

To do a Music Man swap out, the howlers about Bernie, Cuba, etc. don't know the territory, they do not know the history. 

I was very tempted to point that out.

It's easy to condemn any form of support for the Soviet Union today with the benefit of hindsight, as well as preach sanctimoniously about the tens of millions of deaths, the totalitarian oppression, or authoritarianism generally speaking.
But that's still only part of the story. The part that people remember today, because it's what's convenient for the powers that be.

In actuality the Cold War was incredibly complex, and it wasn't easy for radical leftists to reject everything the Soviets were saying. Like it or not, the Soviets were still correct about quite a few things. They were correct about colonialism, imperialism, racism, or feminism. They were correct about capitalism and class struggles. They were correct about US interventionism in the third world, especially in the Americas, as well as about the CIA.
It's easy to think only about the Soviet Union as a Stalinist backwater, and forget that the regime and the ideology could be very distinct, with the latter having solid links to what most people are defending in these threads today. The Soviets knew how to seduce Western leftists throughout the Cold War... That was, well... the plan...

As to having a Soviet flag in an office... Ha! European leftists often did ten times worse. I can't help but smile at how "idiotic" that's supposed to be.

[Lord of Rhinos]

25 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

You realize this literally holds true for any of the numerous Senate candidates who ran initially, so it isn't any sort of argument against Sanders, right?

It does not.  Vermont has a Republican Governor.  He's up for election this year but in the last two gubernatorial elections he curbed stomped his Democrat opponents. In general, Governors get to appoint replacement senators until a special election can be held, so Sanders moving to the presidency could be giving his seat up to the Republicans for a year. Massachusetts also has a Republican governor so Warren does have this problem (also a good reason not to  pick her as VP) whereas most of the other senators in the race were from states that had Democratic Governors.

25 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

No idea, but I think Graham might be a target. The move from his early never Trumper rhethoric, to his pet lap dog, who sit idly by while his master took crap on his best mate John McCain's grave. That and changing demographics in SC might just be enough to unseat him.

I'd say the most likely targets are: Thom Tillis in North Carolina barely won his election  in 2014, Georgia has been a battleground state lately and Kelly Loeffler is a gubernatorial appointee that has never won an election, and if Kris Kobach wins the Republican Primary the rest of Kansas doesn't like him.

14 minutes ago, OnionAhaiReborn said:

I read somewhere that if Sanders resigns his seat before August there will be a special election held on election day to replace him, so his seat would almost certainly be held by a Democrat by the time his term began. Don't know what the case would have been for various other Senators since state laws differ so much. 

That is a very interesting strategy.  Could be a good way to go.

[DMC]

This "who will replace Sanders in the Senate if he's elected POTUS" question is very silly.  First of all, if he wins, then great!  I don't really give two shits about one Senate seat.  Second, no, he's not going to resign his seat before the election.  He's still got 4 years left on his term, that's not going to happen.  Third, the actual answer to this question is very easy to look up if you're familiar with the (always incredibly helpful) NCSL site - see here.

So for Vermont, the governor sets an election within 3 months of the vacancy.  And you can bet whoever replaces Bernie will at least caucus with the Democrats - this is fucking Vermont we're talking about.  Even if Phil Scott did just have the gubernatorial appointment powers of most states, he likely would appoint someone that would caucus with the Dems.  He may be a "Republican" in Vermont, but appointing someone that would caucus with the US Senate GOP would hurt his own reelection chances (probably very much so) - and he has to run every two years.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

On 2/21/2020 at 6:09 PM, Tywin et al. said:

I actually considered floating the possibility of this earlier. If Russia is also helping Sanders, Trump can dismiss every accusation against him on the subject.

Furthermore, I thought it was obvious this could happen. Only Russia wins when they prop up two bad candidates, one that is destroying the republic and the other could wreck the economy. Either way, Putin can win.

Yup.  *Sigh*.  

[Lord of Rhinos]

22 minutes ago, Gorn said:

First of all, I'm not confident of Sanders beating Trump. Right now, I'd give him 40% chance, which are still much better chances than I would give the other Democratic candidates. One thing I am confident about is that 2020 map will have very little resemblance to the 2016 map.

With that said, if that 40% probability comes to pass, this is my estimate about the Senate.

Probable pickups: Colorado, Maine.

Possible pickups, in order of probability: Arizona, North Carolina, Alaska, Montana, Kansas, Tennessee, Georgia (x2), Texas, West Virginia, Iowa, Oklahoma.

Well, we're in agreement about the first couple seats.  Some of the other seats aren't going to be clear until we know for sure who is running.

When it comes to the presidential election,  I lean the other direction.  I think Trump winning was largely a fluke and odds favor the Democratic nominee (regardless of who that nominee is).

[Kalbear]

3 hours ago, Zorral said:

You are missing so very much.  What happened after the 2016 HRC catastrophe?  It galvanized women of every sort across the entire nation.  The infestation win energized the left and brought to the left and progressives a whole lot of voters who stayed home back in November 2015. 

Both things are wrong here. One is that it did not emphatically help women in the 2020 election - women getting elected in legislatures isn't a problem, it's executives that are an issue - and the other is that progressives fared worse across the board in general. Who ended up winning were largely moderate democrats running on healthcare rights, gun laws and anti-corruption. 

Every single progressive candidate running in a district that Trump won which was backed by Sanders' group lost. Every single one.

3 hours ago, Zorral said:

What happens if due to voter repression, supression, crazy-ass suffocating and strangling out all other ads and outreach another billionaire determined to buy  what he can't get legitimately in competition with others?  What happens when the crazy ass government money stimulous that bedbug is allowed to pour out into the economy to keep bailing out big agriculture, etc., and the (frozen, factory grown) chicken and pork comes home to roost and contaminate the water table -- and big crash comes down?  What happens? Do you think intelligent people of all walks of life are not thinking of such things? 

I'm far less concerned about what intelligent people are thinking and more concerned about what the general electorate thinks.

3 hours ago, Zorral said:

In the meantime, the so-called 'centerist base' of the Dem party is NOT THE BASE and it sure as hell ain't energized. They're clutching pearls, wringing hands and BEING MIGHTY SCARED and, per usual, doing nothing but whine.

Maybe. In my case, what I'm concerned about with Sanders has nothing to do with his policy goals (which I'm largely in alignment with) and more to do with Sanders personally. Because so much of this movement is not based on ideals but is based on Sanders, a lot of it is tied intrinsically to him - and he, the candidate, has a lot of flaws. 

But as I've said several times before, the real problem is that I remained entirely pessimistic about anyone's chances to beat Trump this cycle. And of the ones who could lose, Sanders losing is the one that will likely cause the most down-ballot damage and the one who will set a lot of policy goals I have back.

[Kalbear]

51 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

In actuality the Cold War was incredibly complex, and it wasn't easy for radical leftists to reject everything the Soviets were saying. Like it or not, the Soviets were still correct about quite a few things.

That all can be true, and yet it remains incredibly fucking stupid for a US politician in the 60s and 70s and 80s to support the Soviet Union in any single way. This is much like a US politician advocating support of the Nazis in the 30s and 40s. It would be absurdly self-defeating. 

[Kalbear]

3 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

So clearly the smart strategy for any leftist would have been, advocate for John Delaney or Biden or Bloomberg and let moderates fail, in the meantime secretly plot in some basement until the shortest path dictates we actually support someone advocating leftist causes. 

That's probably the right thing to do in an incumbency election, yes. Especially one with a solid economy. There are a lot of natural negatives against you in an incumbency, and it's very risky to be the person proposing massive change when things are largely going well for most people. 

3 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

I get everyone is trying to set themselves up to not be disappointed.  What I'll ask now, that I've asked a couple other times, is who's the alternative at this point?  What better course of action is there, at this moment, to beat Trump?  Sanders, Bloomberg,and Biden, all die onstage during the next debate?  

There's very little alternative at this point. That isn't really the issue. It isn't about pointing out that someone better should have come along, because I agree - there's really no one better this time. Biden sucks, Buttigieg is gay, Warren is a woman, Harris was also a woman, Klobuchar is a woman, Bloomberg is a whole pile of suck. Sanders can both simultaneously be the best possible candidate (though I think Warren would have been better overall) AND be a net liability. This isn't a zero-sum game. 

My suspicion is that if Warren had stuck to her strong anti-corruption game, rallied against plutocrats and oligarchs and all of that, ran on her record of that, she'd have the best chance to defeat a historically corrupt POTUS. But she didn't because she was also running against Sanders and Biden, and she's out of luck. 

3 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

A Sanders loss isn't anymore indicative of an m4a loss than Clinton losing meant that people didn't want better healthcare.  Because no matter what people say about what it meant, the healthcare in this country is still fucked and all of us with shitty care, expensive care, or no insurance know it.

A Clinton loss was indicative that the US is not ready for women to win,. especially when paired with the misogynistic asshole that was Trump. More than anything else, 2016 was a clear indication that the US is simply not ready for that. Clinton wasn't running on better healthcare nearly as much as she was running to be the first woman POTUS. And that was soundly rejected.

Sanders is running heavily on M4A. Really, he's running on doing a lot of socialist practices, and that's likely going to set all of those back. 

3 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

And unless I'm missing something the m4a candidate is the most popular person on either side currently running for president.

Depends heavily on who you ask and how. Among who? Black voters? Suburban white women? Men without a college degree? Again, generically popular does not mean shit if you're not taking into account who is voting and where. It does not do anyone any good if he wins California 80% to 20% but loses Michigan. 

[Jace, Extat]

29 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

 

Depends heavily on who you ask and how. Among who? Black voters? Suburban white women? Men without a college degree? Again, generically popular does not mean shit if you're not taking into account who is voting and where. It does not do anyone any good if he wins California 80% to 20% but loses Michigan. 

You just need to stop asking questions and BELIEVE HARDER.

[lancerman]

4 hours ago, DMC said:

@lancerman

1.  The point is he was "willing" to back her when she was almost certainly going to lose the nomination, and unwilling to back her when he was getting very old for the office and backing her would have given her a very good chance of gaining the nomination.  Sounds like a bunch of political bullshit to me, but ymmv.

2.  Again, my point is if Bernie stepped aside months earlier than now.  And, yes, considering she had the "surge" you yourself acknowledged, that suggests she could have been quite valuable if Bernie did what he could to put his supporters behind her - as opposed to his supporters and surrogates knee-capping her candidacy.  It's also certainly not "stupid" to pass on your political legacy to a well-qualified "good friend" with aligned preferences when you're 78 and running for president.  One could argue that's the most rational thing to do - unless you're just in it for the attention and ambition.

3.  LOL at age not factoring in this cycle.  And yes, she would be a substantially fresher face than Sanders.  Denying that is denying reality.

4.  If you don't understand the fundamental difference of identifying yourself as a democratic-socialist over a 40 year political career and simply being attacked as a socialist by the GOP machine, you're either lying to yourself or do not understand the basics of political campaigns.

1. Bernie was more fringe fringe than her and he made a good show of it. So this idea she was certain to lose. 
 

2. This is your key point and it is based on an assumption that rarely holds true in politics. You know Bernie supporters second choice tends not to be Warren statistically, right? And likely Warren voters tend to say their next choice is Biden. So when she got attacked by moderates, it hurt her because she was vulnerable there. Also most polls indicate that Pete Buttigieg benefitted most from her collapse. 

So no, there’s no guarantee Sanders sitting out positively effects her. And there is no reason to do it unless you think you are less viable for whatever reason. 
 

3. A 78 and 77 year old are leading the a Democratic pack. It’s not mattering you voters and will be a non factor vs Trump. Being a fresh face isn’t meaning much. 
 

4. Funnily enough I just left a Warren rally a few minutes ago. One her own supporters asked her how she was going to educate voters on the benefits of socialism. She had to push back. This is her own supporters. Yeah she’s going to have that label whether she likes it or not

[Kalbear]

Just now, Muaddibs_Tapeworm said:

I love the idea that there is any black voter in this country who would be on the fence about Trump vs Bernie but would be galvanized come out for Joe Biden 

Why is this so funny? There are a whole lot of black voters who are not remotely about things like m4a, or socialism, or hell, a Jewish president. Or, really, who do not trust Sanders one bit and will simply choose not to vote if it's Sanders. 

I know of a lot of these voters, including a friend of mine. It's really not hard to find, honestly.

An issue is that as bad as Trump has been overall, most AA voters have a deep distrust of the government making things better for them in any realistic way, so for them Trump and Sanders isn't that big a deal. Will Trump be racist and promote shitty policies? Yep! Is that the status quo for, like, the last 50 years? Also yep! 

[ThinkerX]

2 hours ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

I actually considered floating the possibility of this earlier. If Russia is also helping Sanders, Trump can dismiss every accusation against him on the subject.

Furthermore, I thought it was obvious this could happen. Only Russia wins when they prop up two bad candidates, one that is destroying the republic and the other could wreck the economy. Either way, Putin can win.

not quite.  as evidenced by his recent actions (forcing out the intelligence chief) Trump detests Russia being brought up in any context that links back to him.  Sanders can, and has issued absolute rebukes of Russian involvement in US elections, but all Trump has ever done is denounce those pointing out such involvement.

[Zorral]

2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Who ended up winning were largely moderate democrats running on healthcare rights, gun laws and anti-corruption. 

Every single progressive candidate running in a district that Trump won which was backed by Sanders' group lost. Every single one.

If that is is so, how in hell did those young people of color get elected to the House?  How is it that Sanders is still winning? Why did so many 'conservatives' rethugs just retire?

You believe what you want, but that doesn't make pigs fly and horses shyte honey.

[IheartIheartTesla]

Boy this thread moves too fast for me to respond. A couple of points though; Sanders will not lose Michigan in the general because I will help him win here....I hope (in all seriousness, I want to see how my colleagues feel about him, they tend to fit the profile of suburban voters who wouldnt go for Trump).

I also wanted to bring up something weird I've noted on Our Revolution (yeah yeah, I know, dark money PAC etc., but it keeps showing up on my Facebook feed). There have been some posts there that keep dropping nuggets about Sanders. I learned there first about his son Levi, and the poster was adamant that he abandoned his son and the mother. The second post was about how he was a Russian stooge because he didnt vote for the first Magnitsky act and some other Russian sanctions.

This isnt normal for regular Facebook posts (I am suspicious of most posts on Facebook not my own), so I wonder who is behind this. They seem to be coming from other Democrats, but I think it is some GoP dirty tactics from their oppo file on Sanders.

[DMC]

24 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Sanders will not lose Michigan in the general because I will help him win here

 

[Zorral]

33 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

 

This isnt normal for regular Facebook posts (I am suspicious of most posts on Facebook not my own), so I wonder who is behind this. They seem to be coming from other Democrats, but I think it is some GoP dirty tactics from their oppo file on Sanders.

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/02/some-democratic-allies-are-weaponizing-disinformation-tactics-favored-by-the-right-that-can-only-backfire/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/21/nevada-ndas/

 

[Larry of the Lawn]

4 minutes ago, Triskele said:

Are we now in the absurd situation where establishment Dems are now, by sewing chaos about Sanders, themselves the Russian assets however unintentionally?  

I mean according to establishment Dems anything that happens is the express will of Putin, so probably?

I wonder what's having more of an effect on US politics, actual Russian gov't sponsored Facebook ads or the media constantly speculating on anonymous intel leaks right before primaries and caucuses?  

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

If that is is so, how in hell did those young people of color get elected to the House?  How is it that Sanders is still winning? Why did so many 'conservatives' rethugs just retire?

You believe what you want, but that doesn't make pigs fly and horses shyte honey.

Because those progressives won in districts Clinton won. Read what I wrote.