Meet The 2020 Democratic Nominee

Will Truman

Will Truman is the Editor-in-Chief of Ordinary Times. He is also on Twitter.

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26 Responses

  1. George Turner says:

    If Biden falters, I agree that Bernie will likely win the nomination, not because he’s a good candidate in the general, but because nobody else is positioned to beat him. Warren has made too many mistakes and Buttigieg certainly isn’t going to pick up the minority vote.

    If Biden loses on Super Tuesday we need to start a pool on whether Hillary will come crawling out of the woodwork because “voters are clamoring for me to put aside my own interests and save the party.” ^_^

    Also — Bloomberg!

    One thing I’d look at is how many Democrats are really convinced that the candidates they don’t support would be a disaster in November. I’m sure many are convinced that Bernie/Warren/Buttigieg would get crushed in November, and if dirt starts to stick to Biden then the “not that one!” feeling might apply to a majority of Democrats. If that happens, the push for a brokered convention is going to be strong, with a potential for some splintering.Report

  2. Chip Daniels says:

    The shade being thrown here at punditry may or may not have been intentional, but it is excellent.Report

  3. Doctor Jay says:

    For what it’s worth, I think Democrats might rally to Biden precisely because of Trump’s efforts to smear him. I have no idea if this is a good idea or not.Report

  4. pillsy says:

    jeb_yellow_map.pngReport

  5. LTL FTC says:

    Anyone willing to make the argument that Biden has some very smart people working for him and might be playing 4D chess? There is a historical precedent for a quasi front porch campaign.

    If you’re a Democrat inside the political-content gyre, America is sick of Trump and wants the opposite: focused on policy on behalf of the masses instead of ham-handedly throwing spoils to his friends. For many, a woman instead of toxic masculinity.

    If you’re a Democrat outside, you agree that America is sick of Trump and wants the opposite: Calm and cool vs. hot-headed. Won’t make me worry about accidental nuclear war vs… not that.

    It’s almost Iowa and Warren’s campaign baited Bernie with the most Twitter-friendly accusation possible. If she could have found a way to tie it all together at the debate, she didn’t. Just like Harris and busing, it lit up the media but fell flat with voters. Now Bernie is the direct beneficiary, drawing fire from all directions. There’s plenty, from Soviet vacations to cherry-picking his supporters’ worst tweets for the millionth time.

    Sanders wins in Iowa, He has a target on his back because if an IA-NH Sanders sweep is bad for Biden, it’s catastrophic for everyone else. NH, he wins, but it’s disappointing.

    Delegates, let’s not forget, are almost all still for the taking. It’s still February.

    Biden hangs on in SC, but the rest of the field is either damaged, out of cash or clearly also-rans by this point. Sanders-Warren eats the left, since 2016 was way more personal than political for a lot of people. The moderates win.

    Bloomberg’s strategy throws a bit of a wrench in this, but it might help to move the Overton Window on ideas without hurting Biden because voting for Mayor Mike is just so viscerally silly to a lot of people.Report

    • JS in reply to LTL FTC says:

      ” might be playing 4D chess”

      It’s never 4D chess. Or 11D chess. There are no Machiavellian super-minds, there are no clever plots-within-plots moves, no Xanatos gambits, nada.

      It not only never works, it’s too complex to ever work. It’s just people, trying to make short and long-term plans, doing whatever seems best at the time. They don’t construct “I know that you know that I know that you know that I know that you know except you don’t know!” gambits.

      They just tell the truth. Or lie. Or whatever seems appropriate at the time. They don’t plot out the future a dozen moves in advance. At the very most they get a devil’s advocate and try to figure out their objections to your objections to their plans before they announce the plan.Report

  6. Jaybird says:

    I could see Biden pulling it off. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. It ain’t about who can make California go 60%+ for them. It’s about who can make Michigan go 50%+1 for them. Warren would make CA and NY have record numbers… but lose The Blue Wall again.

    “BUT LOOK AT THOSE CALIFORNIA NUMBERS!”, we will hear people say. “You can’t blame us! We were sure that 2017, 2018, and 2019 were solid indicators!”

    I didn’t know that about Biden’s donors. That’s troublesome. Maybe they’re waiting for South Carolina before they start shoveling money at him.

    One thing that worries me about Bernie’s potential ascendancy is that I don’t know that he’s ever seen real attacks from the right. Clinton tried to take him on but ham-handedly. She went for the attacks from the left that included “sexism” and “Berniebrodom” and whatnot. They weren’t good and, as we say in the gaming biz, her attacks had area effect. Sure, she’d attack Bernie… but her attacks also hit his supporters. His supporters, mind, that she wanted to vote for her!

    (gif of Randy Orton yelling “STUPID!”)

    Anyway, I don’t know that he’s seen a *REAL* barrage from the right. Maybe he has. I dunno. “Three houses! Millionaire! He donated $100 last year to charity while demanding taxes be raised!” Maybe the attacks will suck.

    But Big Bizniz will see Trump as the “Business as Usual” candidate and Bernie as Horp And Chang and they will fight against him like we ain’t never seen.

    Of course, Bernie is a Populist and I imagine that the Big Bizniz attacks on Bernie could easily be read as ads *FOR* him among his target audience. “Bernie says that he will, personally, will tax Jeff Bezos until he is walking down the Boardwalk on the Jersey Shore wearing nothing but a barrel!!!” “Huh. I keep waiting for the ‘I’m Bernie Sanders and I approve this message’ spot to show up but it’s some Republican SuperPAC instead.”

    So Bernie is scarier to The Established Order than Trump but has armor that The Established Order hasn’t demonstrated that it knows how to defeat (see, for example, Trump).

    But Biden wins Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

    If he stays solvent.Report

    • Kazzy in reply to Jaybird says:

      To Jaybird’s point, I think it is more likely that Biden picks up Bernie/Warren supporters than the inverse. Not that I think Biden supporters will vote Trump… they may just stay home. I like Warren on many fronts and dislike Bernie on many fronts, but they (or, more accurately, their supporters) have a way of turning people off… Bernie’s in particular, I think.

      I also wonder if Bernie pulling ahead early might in a way be good for Biden if he ultimately does get the nomination. I reckon that Trump will immediately attack whomever wins a primary. And he’ll probably do so crudely and crassly and possibly in a way that crosses (supposed) lines (e.g., vague anti-Semitism, not-so-vague anti-Semitism). This may galvanize Bernie supporters against Trump in a way that makes them open to supporting Biden in the general if that is how things shake out.

      I’m not guaranteeing this nor taking a “No, you see it is GOOD that he’s losing!” tack… just noting the potential for a benefit to emerge from a particular arrangement of primary outcomes.

      I hope Biden gets the nod. I think he has the best chance of beating Trump and to me that is the most important thing about this election. Call me what you will, that is where I stand.

      I also hope Warren somehow stays relevant. I think she’s smart as a whip, even if I don’t necessarily agree with her. I think she has a unique way of making complex ideas accessible (compared to many pols who seem to make simple ideas complex and inaccessible). And, fair or not, I think many of the attacks on her are indeed rooted in sexism and that’s bullshit.Report

      • Jaybird in reply to Kazzy says:

        I think Biden knows how to run against Bernie without insulting Bernie’s supporters.
        I think Biden’s supporters know how to run against Bernie without insulting Bernie’s supporters (“I just wanna grill, for God’s sake!”).
        I think that Bernie knows how to run against Biden without insulting Biden’s supporters.
        I don’t know that Bernie’s most online supporters know how to run against Biden without making appeals to morality and, by extension, arguing that people who do not agree are immoral.

        This is not intended to be an argument to say that Biden will pick up Bernie voters or that Bernie will pick up Biden voters (or that either one won’t).

        I think that Biden voters are not particularly “Online”, as we use the term these days, and so the most vocal of the most vocal explaining that anyone who is okay with how Obama/Biden ran the Executive branch between 2009-2016 is a racist imperialist with blood on his hands will be making a very bold argument that approximately *ZERO* Biden voters will see.

        But the question is what percentage of people excited to vote for Bernie will sigh and go on to vote for Biden versus what percentage of people can be counted on to show up and vote Not Trump No Matter Who It Is versus what percentage of GOTV that Biden adds that Bernie doesn’t. I’ve seen people excited (or exercised, anyway) to vote against Trump. I’ve seen people excited to vote for Bernie. I don’t know that I’ve seen anyone excited to vote for Biden.

        Which is why the lady in the elevator at the NYT is so dissonant. Her view is representative of millions of people. And it’s a view that hasn’t really leaked into Online, really.

        But I’m rambling.Report

        • Biden’s advantage in this race, and I suspect what keeps him afloat and steady throughout this process so far, is he is the candidate that isn’t needing to convince any particular constituency within the party. He’s winning by inertia and just being Joe Biden.Report

          • That’s one heck of an advantage!

            But it reminds me of McCain. Which reminds me of what McCain pulled in order to get attention come time to pick a running mate.

            (Maybe I’m borrowing trouble.)Report

            • McCain was going to lose regardless so the Hail Mary of going with Palin wasn’t the craziest idea. Biden has to pick a woman or walk back dozens of comments that he would pick a woman, so this might be baked in either way. Klobuchar, Harris is going to endorse and go full surrogate any minute now as a lot of her staff is migrating to Team Biden including her SC folks and will be angling for it, dark horse Val Demings.Report

              • The whiteboard in the lab at work has a corner with “Jaybird – Biden/Harris” on it.

                But I see Bernie and I see Bernie’s war chest…Report

              • Marchmaine in reply to Jaybird says:

                On the one hand I understand how the Imperialist with Blood on their hands speaks to Imperialist with blood on their hands dynamic of Biden/Harris… but wouldn’t that make the Left asplode?

                Who will be the Jill Stein for 2020?

                I don’t know the democratic bench at all, but isn’t there some sort of Liberal “Economic Common Good” (non-SJW) woman to both assuage the Left *and* keep PA, WI, MI etc. on board with the hope of economic reforms? Heh… is Elizabeth Bruenig available?Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Marchmaine says:

                There’s a subset of “the left” that does not know how to discuss a topic without making it a moral discussion.

                Unfortunately, every single one of the members of this particular subset is online.Report

        • Kazzy in reply to Jaybird says:

          Bernie supporters are like soccer fans: if you have to ask for an explanation of the offsides rule, they chase you away from the game, then bemoan REAL football not being more popular.

          I’d vote for Bernie in the general over Trump. But I probably couldn’t help Bernie’s cause because his supporters would consider me a poser.Report

          • Jaybird in reply to Kazzy says:

            “How dare you have differently ordered priorities than I have!” is a tedious speech to listen to.

            Especially when you are listening to it from someone younger.

            Especially when you remember giving a different variant in 1994.

            (Which, interestingly enough, is the same year that Biden helped write the controversial crime bill!)Report

  7. Kolohe says:

    “They had us in the first half, I’m not going to lie”

    The Pete section is cute, but I really think you could also write one of these up for Bloomberg

    Sanders does well in Iowa and New Hampshire, Biden underperforms in South Carolina, the Nevada result is muddled – and then in the super Tuesday free for all, Bloomberg’s incessant ad blitz since Christmas with a clear message and high name recognition pays off.Report

  8. Jaybird says:

    As for Elizabeth Warren…

    Well, she tweeted this out:

    Now I will ask you, as someone who kinda likes Elizabeth Warren, to read this and then imagine what the responses to the tweet are likely to look like.

    Okay? You got it?

    Now I’ll ask you whether the majority of the people you know will have similar first thoughts to this sort of thing from Warren.

    And if you think they won’t, I’d like to know why.Report

    • Marchmaine in reply to Jaybird says:

      My equal parts boring, galaxy brain, and mouth breathingly wrong hot take:

      “Two Income Trap Warren” is running away with the Nomination.

      “Twitter Bubble Warren” is desperately seeking a constituency with votes.

      She’s one yellow state meme away from becoming JEB!Report

    • Kazzy in reply to Jaybird says:

      Humor me because I’m dumb and not good at predicting how others will react: What are the likely responses to this tweet?Report

      • Jaybird in reply to Kazzy says:

        Modelling others, my thoughts were that there were two responses on the part of the people on the board here:

        A) Good for her! I knew I liked her! I hope that other Democrats join her in her pledge to not knowingly use or spread disinformation!
        B) JESUS CHRIST! WHAT ABOUT YOUR LIES ABOUT BERNIE! WHAT ABOUT YOUR LIES ABOUT THE NATIVE AMERICAN THING! WHAT ABOUT YOUR LIES ABOUT SENDING YOUR KIDS TO PRIVATE SCHOOL! WHAT ABOUT YOUR LIES ABOUT

        My question was then “whether the majority of the people you know will have similar first thoughts”.

        And my assumption there was that most people would admit to themselves “okay, maybe *I* have the good answer, A… but I suspect that other people had the answer of B. And I say that more in sadness than in anger. Because it’s not fair that people are still holding the Indian thing against her! She apologized for that! It’s old news! And the Bernie thing was overblown. And she *DID* send her kids to public school, it was only one of her kids that got sent to private school. And…”

        Now if you want to see what the *ACTUAL* responses were to the tweet, the ones that actually happened in real life, you can click on the tweet and see what the actual responses were for yourself. (This way, I can avoid feeling like you might feel like I’m cherry-picking.)Report

  9. Jaybird says:

    Here’s one that went out on the twitters. Andrew Yang does quite well.

    Report