Serious 2020 Democratic Primaries

ALT, IMOHO, Ms. Clinton does not want to run again.

nah, her recent media presence is just to fuck over sanders
that 'he hurt me' interview was beyond asinine

The San Francisco chronicle says there was a massive wipe out of the voter rolls in the system that removed the party preference for tens of thousands of voters in California in the Bay Area.

https://m.sfgate.com/politics/article/california-voter-registration-dmv-automatic-14902100.php

So if you are a California voter and have any inclination to vote in the upcoming democratic primary or even future democratic primaries I would encourage you to double check the status of your registration and make sure your paperwork is in order. If your party affiliation got changed for instance from democrat to republican and this isn't corrected then you can't vote in a democratic primary in this state. If your registration shows you as having no party preference instead of Democrat then there are ways to still potentially vote, but it gets more and more complicated. You'll need to specifically request by mail-in something called a Democratic 'crossover ballot.' if you just show up to vote on election day at the polling station with no party then you might be turned away or given a provisional ballot-- which is sometimes counted and sometimes not.

Something similar to this happened in the New York Primary in 2016, I think the total number of people eligible to vote who complained that their registrations were altered and they weren't able to participate in the voting process was 200,000 people. New York was threatened with legal action, and had to implement some law reforms because of this.

https://www.cityandstateny.com/arti...city-purged-voters-2016-it-wasnt-mistake.html

I think California is going to have a lot of mess in 2020. They are purging millions of voters considered inactive right now. Ideally this would only apply to people who they suspect have moved away or are deceased, but if you haven't voted in a couple of elections it is entirely possible that you could be wrongly stricken from the voter rolls. This was an interesting PEW article I came across called The Messy Politics of Voters Purges.

https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/resear...2019/10/25/the-messy-politics-of-voter-purges

California is an early primary state this with year, a Super Tuesday state in fact, extremely populus with some of the most delegates, and it's a close race right now in this state Biden 21% Sanders 20% and Warren 17% according to this CNN poll. So it's a real nail-biter right for me at least.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/11/politics/cnn-polls-california-texas/index.html

There is a debate tomorrow if anyone is interested in tuning in. I believe it is the last debate before Iowa.

The big story seems to be that Bernie told Warren that a woman could not win the presidency. Bernie denies it, and Warren has put out a statement confirming it. I would think this will be a big issue in the debate tomorrow.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1114706

And Warren's a conniving snake for that one

So Julian Castro and Cory Booker have dropped out of the primary. The plot thickens.

Newer polls have appeared showing Bernie Sanders leading in Iowa and California. The old codger could make it after all in spite of the efforts of the media and political establishment. Help us Obi-wan Kenobi, you're the country's only hope!

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/s...ad-iowa-caucus-president-election/4426492002/

https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article239261123.html

Okay let's try this one again, shall we

NYT endorses Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren.

I don't get it. Two endorsements? They're not even similar, politically speaking, and while the opinion piece argues that it's the point of their endorsement... it defeats the purpose of their endorsement. It took them some-thousand words to point out that "there is more than one pathway forward here", like thanks, we didn't know that already? I don't know why they felt the need to endorse both now, instead of throwing the endorsement behind one candidate later on in the race if they felt the need to do that.

In other news, Iowa primaries are in 2 weeks. The polling indicates a free-for-all, but on the day of there may well be a clear-ish winner that the polls simply can't distinguish right now. Super exciting!

The impeachment trial being this close to the Iowa caucus is not good for the senators in the race, taking away days of vital time they could spend on the campaign trail in an important state. This might be a worthwhile read.
https://www.ksro.com/2020/01/18/tru...icates-2020-democrats-time-on-campaign-trail/

The one I'm concerned about this affecting is Bernie Sanders. I know there are also some Warren fans in this forum too so y'all might also care about this. Who I think capitalizes the most from this is Biden, possibly Buttigieg.

Kanzler said:

NYT endorses Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren.

I don't get it. Two endorsements? They're not even similar, politically speaking, and while the opinion piece argues that it's the point of their endorsement... it defeats the purpose of their endorsement. It took them some-thousand words to point out that "there is more than one pathway forward here", like thanks, we didn't know that already? I don't know why they felt the need to endorse both now, instead of throwing the endorsement behind one candidate later on in the race if they felt the need to do that.

Click to expand...

I don't really get it either. The article read a lot to me like stating the obvious and trying to pretend it's something profound.

How do you guys feel about the results of the Iowa Caucus being recorded with a brand new smart phone app? The developer is not currently known. This does raise some security concerns for me that I personally think would outweigh making counting easier, but I'd like to hear what others think about this. It is new twist on the Iowa Caucus that certainly has my attention. Previously the idea of a virtual caucus was toyed with as well. I'm glad they scrapped that at least.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...1dd656-39b1-11ea-a1ff-c48c1d59a4a1_story.html

VisionofMilotic said:

How do you guys feel about the results of the Iowa Caucus being recorded with a brand new smart phone app? The developer is not currently known. This does raise some security concerns for me that I personally think would outweigh making counting easier, but I'd like to hear what others think about this. It is new twist on the Iowa Caucus that certainly has my attention. Previously the idea of a virtual caucus was toyed with as well. I'm glad they scrapped that at least.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...1dd656-39b1-11ea-a1ff-c48c1d59a4a1_story.html

Click to expand...

I'm just sitting here waiting for the security to fail.

Okay, I have been aware since the controversial election of Tom Perez as chair of the DNC that he was no friend of the left or reform. He overturned the ban on the party taking donations from the coal, oil and gas industry. When he ascended the throne he purged every progressive voice he could find from the ranks of the delegates and party leadership positions, ousting anyone who had supported the actual leftie Keith Ellison over him in the chair race, replacing them with lobbyists.

https://theweek.com/articles/790183/treachery-tom-perez

He has meddled in local primary races that he technically shouldn't take sides to undermine grassroots efforts like Cynthia Nixon by endorsing and stumping for corporate candidates like Andrew Cuomo who give tax breaks to the rich at the expense of our schools.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/24/tom-perez-andrew-cuomo-primary-endorsements-607799

For the presidential debates his DNC has used arbitrary polling thresholds, and cherry picked which polls qualify and which don't, usually to the detriment of an outsider trying to get in like Tulsi Gabbard or Andrew Yang, just before changing the rules all over again so that a billionaire who will continue to enable the status quo like Mike Bloomberg can buy their way onto the stage, when others have fallen away, or never even got a chance like Wayne Messam or Mike Gravel.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/...equirements-opening-door-for-bloomberg-110017

We've seen nothing yet though...

The committee that Perez appointed to 2020 National Convention is an illustration of how many donors still control the party. I had heard some rumblings about this from The Hill earlier this week, and knew the comittee wasn't going to be good. For starters John Podesta was on the rules committee-- the incompetent Hillary 2016 campaign manager whose leaked correspondences embarrassed them with dirty laundry like the campaign getting debate questions in advance, the Goldman Sachs conferences, covert ops in Syria, the Clinton foundation taking money from Keystone XL pipeline backers. Well he's the one involved.

What I didn't realize though was how deep the cronyism went. Almost everyone Perez named to the policy and rules committee has ties to the military industrial complex, healthcare insurance companies, banks lobbying groups, hedge funds, the fossil fuel industry, the list goes on and on from Goldman Sachs to Duke Energy to AIPAC to Boeing to Blue Cross Blue Shield to Wal-Mart.

https://www.rootsaction.org/news-a-...on-committees-with-from-the-swamp-nominations

I have tried to be optimistic and work within the Democratic party when possible, but this sure is depressing going forward. These insiders are going to obstruct progressive candidates and policies at every opportunity, and that's why they were chosen by Perez. Several appointees like CNN's Maria Cardona have written columns attacking the economic policies of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders with all the alarmist Venezuela rhetoric you would expect of a Republican, or Barney Frank from the board of directors on New York Signature Bank who have spent years fighting the progressive wing like Alessandria Ocasio Cortez and Sanders over policies like environmental protections and expanding healthcare to everyone.

These are individuals with a history of selling regime change war, pushing for trade policies to ship jobs overseas, arguing against raising the minimum wage, blocking medicare for all, supporting fracking and protecting banks. They have been given power to determine what the domestic and foreign policy for the party will be going forward, and interpret the rules of this primary, and it is not going to be in a way that will favor regular people I can garuntee.

Many of them literally worked for Kamala Harris, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Madeline Albright, Joe Biden, John Kerry, John McCain, Ronald Reagan, Joe Libermann, Barack Obama and Mike Bloomberg, as advisers, bundlers in their super pacs, running their campaigns and more.

This is not what we need. We will lose to Trump again if we take this step backward in 2020.

This has long been the problem with the Democratic party, let's be honest. They market themselves as the progressive option, because the Republicans are extremely conservative, but anybody with even a little political knowledge knows that isn't true. The Democratic party is largely comprised of centrists who are either just left of centre, or on occasion, a little right of centre. Which leads to infighting when actual progressives run as a Democratic candidate because there's no real alternative if they want to actually have a shot.

This means that the Republicans, who tend to put up a more united front, automatically have a head start in any election even before you add in the ridiculousness of the electoral college into the process. This is partly because the US' political system is terrible to begin with, but a lot of the blame rests on the heads of the Democrats who are more preoccupied with in-fighting than putting their best foot forward.

That's what cost the Democrats the election in 2016 and it's part of why what should be an easy win against an incompetent incumbent is a coin toss. If the Democrats want to have a strong chance of victory they really need to get over their identity crisis.

Unfortunately I don't think that this "identity crisis" is going to end anytime soon. The split between the progressives and the moderates in our political left isn't limited to just the DNC or the elected politicians, but extends to the entire nation.

To be honest, there is no hope for the United States. Even if we go with the best case scenario for this election, that a progressive candidate (say Sanders) both gets the Democratic nomination and defeats Trump, the presidency is just one piece of the puzzle. There's then still the issue of the composition of Congress and the Supreme Court. And that's just at the federal level. The problems repeats itself at the state and local levels, although not completely uniformly, as some places are more liberal or conservative than others. Then on top of that, there's the everyday people who support and elect all the people at various levels who make things worse or not get better, as well as the various (powerful) entities that have a vested interest in making sure that that this country does not progress. The US has long been tricked into thinking that anything more than slightly left of center is evil, that you're supposed to like this plutocracy masquerading as a democratic republic.

It's all too big a behemoth to topple really

Nah said:

Unfortunately I don't think that this "identity crisis" is going to end anytime soon. The split between the progressives and the moderates in our political left isn't limited to just the DNC or the elected politicians, but extends to the entire nation.

To be honest, there is no hope for the United States. Even if we go with the best case scenario for this election, that a progressive candidate (say Sanders) both gets the Democratic nomination and defeats Trump, the presidency is just one piece of the puzzle. There's then still the issue of the composition of Congress and the Supreme Court. And that's just at the federal level. The problems repeats itself at the state and local levels, although not completely uniformly, as some places are more liberal or conservative than others. Then on top of that, there's the everyday people who support and elect all the people at various levels who make things worse or not get better, as well as the various (powerful) entities that have a vested interest in making sure that that this country does not progress. The US has long been tricked into thinking that anything more than slightly left of center is evil, that you're supposed to like this plutocracy masquerading as a democratic republic.

It's all too big a behemoth to topple really

Click to expand...

I really wish I could disagree with you, but it's pretty damn hard to at this point.

I'm going to be honest, the 2016 democrat presidential nomination was pretty much rigged in Hillary's favor. So I am not to confident that this democratic nomination round is going to run smoothly. Though I stay clear of presidential primaries as an independent, but I don't like rigged primaries regardless of party.

I think some good points are being made all around, and I share in the feelings of being overwhelmed and cynical at times. Since voting in the primary is about to start I think it's quite timely that Nah should remind us that the presidential election is just one piece of the puzzle. We need good judges, chairpersons, representatives. Though we can't change everything this cycle, this primary does present an opportunity to possibly still make some changes even on a local level.

On Super Tuesday I am voting in the democratic presidential primary and will vote down ticket in the local primaries at that time. I am indifferent to which Democrat wins the primary for the governor of my state of North Carolina--none of the three are of any great praise, so I will wait until the general to vote on that one. There are a few democrats running for lieutenant governor though that look worth voting for in a primary-- one had a pretty good platform with universal healthcare in it, ending the use of fossil fuels and abolishing the privatization of prisons.

Folks, are there any good democrats running on a local level right now that you would or will vote for?

I have watched races outside of my state before, and have even donated to their campaigns if they seemed exceptional, people that we could use out there fighting the good fight. Now I happen to have recently heard through the grapevine about several different congressional races upcoming in New York, California, Texas, Georgia, Illinois and other places that have some candidates who are generally young, bold and taking no corporate pac money. If you live in any of the following areas you might want to take a look at the websites of these induviduals, and find out if any of them are democrats you'd like to vote for this season. I was especially impressed with Eva Putzova. I have been hearing about her around the internet for awhile, and am glad I finally started reading up about her. I wish I could vote for her, Jill Carter and Betsy Sweet the most.

Alrightie folks, I advise you to sit down.

The Iowa caucus was held yesterday. I knew this new app used to record the results was going to be a nightmare somehow. We still don't have the full results of the first caucus we are told because there was a crash. The spokesperson for the Iowa Democratic party says they found multiple sets of inconsistencies. Everybody is scrambling to review this, looking at what's left of the paper trail. Joe Biden doesn't want the results released yet until there's been thorough analysis for quality control--which I can't blame him for. At the time of writing this what I have read is that less than half of the results came in, and none of it's been verified. The democratic party chair is acknowledging that different precincts have said that they can't get into their apps, and that teams of troubleshooters are coming to help.
https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/03/iowa-caucus-app-failed/

Biden's senior advisor is saying that the alignment numbers are not matching up. The Bernie Sanders campaign released internal caucus numbers for 40% of the precincts that showed Bernie in the lead with Pete Buttigieg in second place, then Warren third and Biden 4th. Meanwhile Elizabeth Warren's campaign is saying it's still too close to call. Mayor Pete earlier last night said he was the victor. This whole thing is a quagmire.

https://theintercept.com/2020/02/04/sanders-campaign-release-caucus-numbers-iowa-buttigieg/

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/03/klobuchar-iowa-new-hampshire-caucus-110639

I want to scream right now. I want to scream.

So it begins. This isn't quite the way I imagined the disaster to take shape, but the anticipated issues are here.