This may likely be the most consequential VP selection in recent memory, given Biden's clear deficiencies.

Make the case for who his VP should be.

Poll question: Who will be Biden's VP?

Poll result (55 votes) Kamala Harris (23 votes) Vote Julian Castro (0 votes) Vote Stacey Abrams (10 votes) Vote Elizabeth Warren (11 votes) Vote Amy Klobuchar (7 votes) Vote Other (name) (4 votes) Vote

>This may likely be the most consequential VP selection in
>recent memory, given Biden's clear deficiencies.
>
>Make the case for who his VP should be.

Seriously, it's time to suspend some accounts unless you can ratelimit BULLSHIT.

So would have Sanders

Biden's got black folks sewed up. And I don't think Harris will get more on board.

Klobuchar can attract those midwest suburban white women that he desperately needs. Also it will secure Minnesota which is looking more and more like a state up for grabs

He can get the white women burbs with someone else.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/24/politics/amy-klobuchar-myon-burrell-murder-conviction/index.html

Burrell told ABC News' "Live Prime" in an interview that aired Monday that Klobuchar is the "source of everything that happened."

"That's what the district attorney's job is, is to either charge or not charge. You never took the time to look into this case. You never took the time to go and actually see, is this true or is this false? You know what I mean?" Burrell said of Klobuchar.

"I believe she gave the police free rein and said, 'Just bring me back a conviction.' "

I think Stacy Abrams is more likely, and a lot of people are expecting Kamala Harris.

But if we want to make Trump mad, keeping the impeachment in the news would help.

What did she do besides lose the race for Governor?

Maybe I'm missing something. She doesn't have much name recognition. She doesn't seem like a dynamic speaker to me.
I just don't see why she is even on a long list of potential candidates

Imo

https://fairfight.com/about-stacey-abrams/

Young people fuck with Abrams... and she has proven she can register and actually get new voters out. She is in this in a real way not just for the optics

I also have this weird feeling that white people like her

>Imo
>
>https://fairfight.com/about-stacey-abrams/
>
>Young people fuck with Abrams... and she has proven she can
>register and actually get new voters out. She is in this in a
>real way not just for the optics
>
>I also have this weird feeling that white people like her

All of This^

She mobilized the voters that Bernie talked about being able to mobilize.

>I also have this weird feeling that white people like her

-->

it seems like too specific of a choice for the party that loves taking the high road a little too often

I could back Kamala as VP, not sure about Abrams after her backing of Bloomberg

It was something that people were talking about during the impeachment hearings, and it doesn't seem as natural now as it did then.

But the thinking then was simply "These house managers really know how to prosecute a case!" And Demings was arguably the second-best of them (apart from Adam Schiff, but we don't need a second white guy on the ticket and he'd probably rather keep his chairmanship anyway).

Maybe it comes down to whether impeachment comes back up in the early campaign, or whether they want it to come up in the later campaign.

But also, she's someone that not everybody expects (so the naming would capture a longer news cycle), but whom pretty much every Democrat could very strongly get behind.

Also, she's from Florida. If we can start winning Florida again, oh boy...

(noting that I don't think she'll actually be the choice).

I fear that Biden is tracking like the Democratic Mitt Romney - who was a habitual loser in Presidential races. Biden is tracking on that trajectory - having already lost twice - and now he's going up against an incumbent (just as Romney was versus Obama).

Further - Romney was seen as a "safe" choice against Obama - a moderate who might coax away some swing voters as the most centrist of a candidate. The GOP begrudgingly settled on Romney just as the Dems just did with Biden.

Romney lost in a landslide.

Warren on the ticket would at least give Biden a chance to expand turnout. He's already going to get the moderate/older vote - and will appeal to a fair amount of swing-voters. With Warren on the ticket, at least you get some of the younger voters - and more of the Sanders base than he'd get with a Klobuchar-like VP ticket.
-->

... gives me a lot of confidence that she'll jolt the folks needed to counterbalance all of Biden's endless shortcomings.

I'm not sure who *does* do that.

I agree with your Biden/Romney analogy for sure tho.

...but that move would be masterful

granholm is aight or whatever, but I really don't know who you pair him with

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

Are we waiting for a mutual show of good faith?

I just don't want another Tim Kaine. I assume he is was a decent running mate, but man did he add nothing for me last election.

At least I feel with Warren, it would help Biden with the progressive wing. Plus if he won, I doubt he'd be able to pull a 2nd term, maybe it would lead to the 1st female Prez.

Condi Rice

>Condi Rice

No

IMO

?

....turnout isnt what we wanted, but thats a huge portion of left wing voters ..and that's not even counting the majority of independents

Keep rooting for the villains tho... it's a great look for you

and you read me wrong - im not 'rooting' for anyone (truth is the two remaining guys were actually tied for dead last on my preference list from the initial field of candidates)
i want trump gone - thats it. im agnostic about how we get there.
I have opinions about how i think it may or may not happen, but ultimately i truly dont give a shit.

Biden's running mate should 100% be an actual Republican with the blood of a half million Iraqis on her hands. This is an unequivocally excellent way to reach across the aisle with a running mate whose views adhere closely to Biden's long political history.

But that’s a winning ticket
All I’m saying

If I were joe I’d also call bernz rn and tell him he’s got his pick of cabinet posts if he drops out in a timely manner

It's an incredibly good idea. Biden ropes in 70 year olds and people so terrified of Trump that they'll back anybody. And Rice brings in NeverTrump guys with NYT columns who spent 2006 workshopping euphemisms for torture.

It's not just a winning coalition. It's the only one that can win.

is a Black woman

-->

our mainstream democrats would be the right wing in a lot of other places

we're not going to shift the discussion until there are more people that buy into the left's vision of the country's path forward

honestly I brought up biden-condi because it's the only ticket i can come up with that gets my dad (and a lot of folks like him) to not vote trump again

and im skeptical about the idea of a VP candidate actually engaging youth, given that this position is typically little more than window dressing - but if they can change that paradigm and really give a "biden is the present, fillintheblankVP is the future" type message, then that could be cool I will say.

and racists too!

I be confusing the Russian bot hashtags with Bernie folks hashtags

*shrug*

I can't see making a 70+ year old VP. She should withhold her endorsement until she gets certain progressive promises from Biden and the party, and then return to the Senate to fight the good fight.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

Its time for a woman to get one of the slots.

And Biden owes his whole candidacy to Black People. If he approaches it as he has black people sewed up and can get a drab moderate like Amy K, it would be so disappointing and I believe, suppress black turnout. In other words, I think it should be more Clyburns call than Biden.

Kamala is such the safe choice, maybe too safe. I think it wouldn't be a terrible choice though because I think people want someone who can take over if Biden can't finish his term.

Abrams would be so dope, I think she would get the young people going. She has proven she can turn people out.

Val Demings seems dope. I don't know much about her but I love how she went in on impeachment.




**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

> She has proven she can turn people out.
>

>
>> She has proven she can turn people out.
>>
>

lol yea pretty high praise for a losing gubernatorial candidate. I actually don't think Abrams would be ready at all if she was called on to serve as Prez. Kamala would be far more prepared to step into the job.

But Abrams is an option in this poll because I'm trying to understand the mind of the Biden voter lol - and I knew she'd be a popular choice.


-->

>Its time for a woman to get one of the slots.

But I agree that the VP pick should be a woman, especially because women seem highly motivated to vote when Trump is on the ballot.

I have no idea who would be a good pick.

I sort of think the VP pick should be Latino. I wouldn't complain about Castro, really, but I like Castro when Warren is on the top of the ticket, a lot better. He's also not a woman.

Or...the VP could be, generally, a first or second generation immigrant. One reason Kamala works is that her story touches different aspects of the American experience that Americans can find some connection to.

I love Masie Hirono. Absolutely love. But I think she's most effective where she is. I also like Pramila Jayapal, but I don't think she's ready for prime time yet.

If the VP nominee is a White woman, she should be a so-called "nasty" woman like Warren. Although I think Warren is an excellent candidate and brilliant woman (she was my Presidential preferred candidate!), I doubt she would go over well in the general as VP.

Katie Porter, Warren's former student is a fantastic Representative and would likely be a good VP pick, but maybe like Jayapal...not quite yet for prime time. I hope Porter stays around because I can see myself voting for her for the Democratic nominee for President.

By prime time I mean: seasoned enough to view the party's vying for power through the lens of a multi-faceted strategy to take on Republican and right-wing opposition. Seasoned enough to withstand a united GOP, which has proven, time and again, to be a strategically ruthless and dark opponent with a deep bank account. Seasoned enough to use power to fight and check mate opponents. Seasoned enough to know how to win.

Not just for my own preference, but for the sake of ensuring turnout.

I really don't think Nina Turner would be a bad idea in this context.


No one seems to like my Ayana Pressley idea. She even brings squad energy, but still plays nice with the establishment.

You can have everyone from Warren to AOC out campaigning and it would still seem sincere.


Kamala seems like the logical choice if Biden/the party think theres a shot he can't finish his term. I don't think she brings in new voters to the fold though. If the K hive was as powerful as they think they are, she'd still be here.


Abrams...I get it but I don't get it. I don't think most (including myself) even know where she stands on issues. Maybe she should run the DNC or something. I dunno. I go back and forth. Had it been Bernie, I'd be a lot more down for her.


Playing the state game, Tammy Badlwin would seem to be a legit choice. I think black women deserve the nod here though.

as opposed to activating impassioned voters.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

I'm not sure who Kamala brings on board that isn't already.


There are some great points being made on her voting record regarding her progressive stances, but sometimes perception > reality


I think Ayana could potentially help motivate the youth and progressives more.


I think Baldwin could help lock in WI + progressives.


I know Dems sometimes get caught up in pipe dreams of flipping certain states blue, but if things go the way they are right now maybe Abrams does help flip GA.

Or Demming in FL


Shit, I think I'm more excited/nervous about the VP pick than anything at this point.


I do wonder if Klobuchar made a VP deal though.


Part of me gets the vibe Kamala isn't interested in VP, but I could be way off base on that. I probably am.

if Biden can't finish a term. I don't think she activates voters though. I just didn't see her having an impassioned based.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

-->

Going back to 2008...is not progress

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.axios.com/joe-biden-cabinet-vice-president-picks-b17882ac-3953-450f-8afb-38a3c8dcda57.html

Mike Bloomberg, who swiftly endorsed Biden after the former mayor's campaign collapsed, would be a top possibility to head the World Bank.

Jamie Dimon — chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, and mentioned over the years as a potential presidential candidate — would also be considered for Treasury.

Anne Finucane, vice chairman of Bank of America, is another possibility for Treasury.

^^^this is not how you unify the party.

What concerns me a lot is foreign policy - which again - nobody seems to care much about right now despite the fact that it's one of the few areas where a President can take multilateral, executive action.

Biden's foreign policy has been abysmal throughout his career (on par with Hillary Clinton and in some instances even worse) - and he'll be a blank check for the Pentagon to manipulate as it sees fit.

-->

How do you think we got here?

The current issues are not low bars to clear

It takes bold measures...which you can see being implemented...by an administration that is being forced to do so

Status quo won’t help.

It's an Electoral College thing...

Klobuchar is a proven popular figure in those Midwestern states that Hillary lost to Trump in 2016.

Warren, Abrams, Harris or Booker don't help deliver any states that Joe wouldn't have won anyway.

Joe Biden, man of the times

SMH

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=rBxyB_GXydw

#BoomersWontSaveYou

dude gets into more scuffles than a sophomore football player hopped up on cattle steroids.

-->

on this.

I'm not even gonna vent about names right now, I'm gonna vent about CRITERIA.


Like, first of all, just to remind everybody what Dems are up against:


*Repubs are more unified now than they were in '16

*45 is a stronger opponent now than he was in '16 (i.e. has his party's full backing this time)

*As of 02/20, 45 had raised ~$253M and had ~109M on hand (http://www.opensecrets.org/2020-presidential-race/candidate?id=N00023864); Biden had raised ~$76M and had ~$8M on hand (http://www.opensecrets.org/2020-presidential-race/candidate?id=N00001669). MSM reported Biden got a post-SC + post-ST windfall, but I doubt it's anywhere near $100M

*45 is building out a nationwide network of *2 MILLION* volunteers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PGBPBrFxAo ; https://youtu.be/_fE57e7afHk?t=219); Biden has, to date, had a notoriously weak ground game (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/26/us/politics/joe-biden-california-super-tuesday.html)


Is this really a time for: "oh wouldn't it be delightful if Biden ran with a woman?" "yes darling, a black one would be divine"

..? I mean, come on yall. Condoleeza Rice??? This identity politics stuff is gonna lead everybody off a cliff.


ANYBODY NOT BRINGING ORGANIZED INFRASTRUCTURE - i.e SUPPORTERS. VOLUNTEERS. DONORS - ALONG WITH MAJOR CAMPAIGN MUSCLE AND EXECUTIVE/GOVERNING EXPERIENCE IS WASTING SPACE. PERIOD.



I DONT WANT TO SEE somebody who DIDNT RESONATE OR WIN ANYWHERE running for pres in the current climate (sorry Beto! Castro! Deval! And anyone who polled below them! https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/2020_democratic_presidential_nomination-6730.html) .

I DONT WANT TO SEE somebody whose PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN IMPLODED/DEMONSTRATED WEAK EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP (sorry Kamala! https://www.businessinsider.com/kamala-harriss-campaign-is-facing-an-internal-revolt-2019-11, https://www.politico.com/news/2019/11/15/kamala-harris-campaign-2020-071105, https://nypost.com/2019/11/29/kamala-harris-2020-campaign-is-falling-apart-from-the-inside-report/)

I DONT WANT TO SEE somebody who STRUGGLED TO FUNDRAISE/BEGGED FOR MONEY ON LIVE TV AND STILL FAILED to meet funding/individual donor targets (sorry Booker! https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/lacking-money-votes-cory-booker-fails-break-through-crowded-democratic-n1114826)

I DONT WANT TO SEE somebody who HOLDS A RECENTLY FLIPPED OR OTHERWISE VULNERABLE SEAT in the House or Senate (sorry Delmings! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida%27s_10th_congressional_district)

I DONT WANT TO SEE somebody who HOLDS A RECENTLY FLIPPED OR OTHERWISE VULNERABLE GOVERNORSHIP in a swing or traditionally red state (sorry Gretchen! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_governors_of_Michigan)

I DONT WANT TO SEE some RANDO FROM POLITICS PAST that'll leave half the electorate scratching their heads asking wtf is that (Sorry Condi! Susan!)

I DONT WANT TO SEE some RANDO FROM POLITICS PRESENT that'll have leave the electorate scratching their heads asking wtf is that (Sorry Sherrod!)



Imho Biden needs a fucking *GLADIATOR* vp. He's an aging, fading, general in need of a lieutenant w/ starpower and (happy) troops on the ground. I'm talking somebody with AOC level (or close) exposure, base enthusiasm, and fundraising capacity. Somebody with a STRONG *PROVEN* APPEAL to folks in Obama-Trump areas because these are the constituents Dems recently lost and NEED TO COURT BACK FOR AN ELECTORAL COLLEGE MAJORITY:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidential_election#/media/File:United_States_presidential_election_results_by_county,_2016.svg

Somebody YOUNG enough, HEALTHY enough, ENERGETIC enough, and UNRESTRAINED (eg. by current responsibilities in Congress, as Governor, etc) enough to CAMPAIGN FEROCIOUSLY - like several counties and/or states in a day if need be - bc not only is 45 an exhaustive campaigner and outcampaigned HRC in '16 (https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/hillary-clinton-donald-trumps-campaigns-numbers/story), but Biden's campaigning has slowed considerably due to low funds/poor organization and concerns about covid19 (https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/487115-biden-to-hold-virtual-campaign-events-amid-coronavirus-outbreak)... issues that could persist through the GE. Somebody GOOD AT RETAIL POLITICS to detract from Biden's frequent gaffes on the trail (and perhaps in office). Somebody EXCELLENT AND AT EASE WITH MEDIA whether on-the-spot, long-form, or debate format since this is an area Biden has been weak (https://www.thedailybeast.com/bidens-media-strategy-duck-the-press-unless-youre-under-duress) and will likely weaken further during his administration (I sincerely hope they'd roll with an elder statesman comms strategy too... like we only hear from Biden for major addresses and poignant remarks Queen Elizabeth style, while the media pro VP doubles as a chief surrogate for more regular media availabilities, press conferences, etc).

Additionally, something I didn't even consider until I watched Biden interact recently with a former frontrunner: at his age I believe he needs somebody with very well-developed senses of empathy, duty, and above average EQ. If America's set on electing its most geriatric president in history, then imho it should prepare for some of the less glamorous things that begin to ramp up at that age. Fatigue. Memory and attention lapses. Restrictive joint pains and aches. Mood swings. Loss of balance/increased fall risk. Hearing degradation. Maybe even incontinence. I'm not suggesting a VP is the pres' nurse/doctor by any means, but there may/will be instances where geriatric issues compromise high-level meetings, joint appearances, speaking engagements etc at the last minute. I believe it's critical the VP have the temperament, agility, patience, compassion, and - again - ABOVE AVERAGE EQ to swiftly mitigate embarassments and cover for the pres on a dime, perhaps with little preparation/notice, to project continuity of leadership not just to subordinates but the american people and the world stage. I say all this as someone who's been a caregiver for folks I love in Biden's age range, and having spent more time than I'd like in nursing homes around people that age as well. It's a lot of extra mental, emotional, and sometimes even physical labor just to love/care for somebody in that age corridor talk more of working alongside them in one of the most stressful high-stakes jobs on the planet. I just don't think anybody short-tempered, volatile/easily flustered, or entitled/gloryhound-ish is a good match for a geriatric president and the nuances involved (SORRY AMY! https://www.scribd.com/document/399214761/AFSCME-Letter-on-Amy-Klobuchar-2006, https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/02/senator-klobuchar-temper-rumors).

Bottom line: I think being Biden's VP would be ATYPICAL. More hands-on than usual. More travel than usual. More visibility than usual. And he/she may even have to lead the nation through poignant bereavement if Biden succumbs to old age/poor health during his term(s). I really, really, *really* don't think the appropriate running mate is somebody who just checks a box. Like I said in another post, warm fuzzies might've helped Biden hold black voters in the south... but is representation really enough to deal with all his baggage PLUS make gains in Trump country?? Remember we're talking Middle America. Rust Belt. The bulk of Obama-Trump counties are in states like IA, WI, IN, etc (https://ballotpedia.org/Pivot_Counties_by_state). That's your auto workers. Your rural folks - farmers, teachers, small business owners, housewives. Your VETERANS (making up ~10% of the adult populations in swing states like FL + NC, that Dems won in '08 but have lost since https://www.census.gov/content/census/en/library/visualizations/2018/comm/percentage-veterans/jcr:content/map.detailitem.950.high.jpg/1539725329299.jpg )
Recall that 45 won in '16 with like 2% less of the total vote than HRC but like over 15% more white voters (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidential_election#Voter_demographics), who'll comprise 66% of the 2020 electorate (https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2019/01/PSDT_2020electorate-00.png). Also recall that Biden performed POORLY with this demographic in early states compared to his competitors(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries#Contest_schedule_and_results), even with comparable exposure (https://ballotpedia.org/Presidential_candidate_campaign_travel,_2020). Who performed WELL with this type of voter? Spoke to their issues? Could help Biden win people back to the Dem coalition, I repeat, WHERE ITS ACTUALLY NEEDED (https://www.270towin.com/maps/2016-election-state-winners)? Furthermore, has anyone actually considered the optics of the first ever female/black female VP having to shoulder the inevitable behind-the-scenes labor of supporting a geriatric pres?? Bc I have and I'm so good on that shit. I actually think it's extremely unfair to saddle the first female and/or woman of color VP with a loaded clean-up role like that. It'd basically elevate all the un(der)compensated labor extraction women (and WOC in particular) get burdened with in the workforce already (https://www.fastcompany.com/3058388/why-the-gender-leadership-gap-is-so-much-worse-for-women-of-color). I'd prefer a woman/WOC on the ticket either earn her nomination outright by voter mandate or be selected to serve as vice (for a more normal pres) in the way the role was designed.


Anyway, whatever. I can think of 1 person that meets 100% of what I'm talking about and another who meets maybe 75%; both are to the left of Biden in some areas (eg.Tuition-free public college), and both are white. 1 is a woman. *shrug* Maybe there's others I'd like that could also meet these quotas everyone seems to want to talk about but, tbh, I just feel like if the person who can bring the infrastructure/ support Biden needs* to succeed happens to be white or male so be it. Based on how the Dem primary went, voters don't seem to care. If there was an overwhelming appetite for a woman and/or non-white representation on the Dem 2020 ticket I believe the *unprecedented* selection of women and non-white primary candidates would have recieved a lot more support than they did financially, in the polls, and at the ballot box. Dems ran a mixed-race ticket in '08 and '12 and a mixed-gender ticket in '16; a quota pick would be nice but I don't think it's necessary. Voters seem to be prioritizing results (i.e. Beat 45) over representation.


*and I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to learn the malarkey camp is focusing on typical Dem box-checking instead of actual on-the-ground infrastructure/support to increase competitiveness bc... its the Dems *shrug*

lol

I gotta sit down with this and go through these links when I have time - but this had to break a record for most sourced response of the year lol.

-->

i was seeing urls as I typed

https://youtu.be/0j2k7tDK1gM

Still not seeing any coverage about his brother

Can't say you didn't know...

Joe is bad enough on his own, no need to use Trump tactics.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4728533/user-clip-biden-defends-ruling-classhttps://www.c-span.org/video/?c4728533/user-clip-biden-defends-ruling-class

same exact behavior.

i see why aoc is distancing herself from this clusterfuck.

AOC made the right move.

I'm surprised they didn't add ominous music

LOL, if you think 4 extra minutes of status quo joe is helpful...he says adjustments and fixes...apparently I'm unfamiliar with your definition of chopped...he said it...repeatedly.

https://theintercept.com/2020/01/13/biden-cuts-social-security/


2018, former Vice President Joe Biden called for cuts to Social Security in the name of saving the program and balancing the federal budget. Last week, Sen. Bernie Sanders highlighted Biden’s record on Social Security in prosecuting the case that Biden isn’t the most electable candidate. The issue could be raised again in Tuesday night’s debate.

After a Sanders campaign newsletter continued the attack on Biden’s Social Security record, the Biden campaign complained to fact-checkers at Politifact that his comments were being taken out of context. Placed in context, however, Biden’s record on Social Security is far worse than one offhand remark. Indeed, Biden has been advocating for cuts to Social Security for roughly 40 years.

And after a Republican wave swept Congress in 1994, Biden’s support for cutting Social Security, and his general advocacy for budget austerity, made him a leading combatant in the centrist-wing battle against the party’s retreating liberals in the 1980s and ’90s.

“When I argued that we should freeze federal spending, I meant Social Security as well,” he told the Senate in 1995. “I meant Medicare and Medicaid. I meant veterans’ benefits. I meant every single solitary thing in the government. And I not only tried it once, I tried it twice, I tried it a third time, and I tried it a fourth time.” (A freeze would have reduced the amount that would be paid out, cutting the program’s benefit.)

Join Our NewsletterOriginal reporting. Fearless journalism. Delivered to you.

I’m in

“The truth is the last election did one thing,” Biden continued. “I do not know whether it really made you guys a majority party for long. I do not know. We will find out. I know one thing it did. What it did was it made sure that there was nobody left on the left in my party who, in fact, said we do not care about moving the budget toward balance.”

Walker Bragman

✔@WalkerBragman

 · May 3, 2019

Replying to @WalkerBragman

It's important to point out for people like @NateSilver538, who claim this stuff is too old to be relevant given Biden's 8 years as VP, that the Obama administration offered up Social Security cuts as part of a "grand bargain" with an increasingly radical, right-wing GOP.

Walker Bragman

✔@WalkerBragman

"When I argued that we should freeze federal spending, I meant Social Security as well; I meant Medicare and Medicaid; I meant veterans' benefits; I meant every single, solitary thing in the government." — Joe Biden defending the proposed balanced budget amendment, January 1995

177

6:18 PM - May 3, 2019

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What Biden was expressing was a common sentiment among the centrist faction of the party in the 1980s and ’90s — the belief that old tax-and-spend liberals were out, and that a type of “New Democrat” was needed, one who understood the necessity of fiscal restraint. Cutting spending was the only way, he argued, to salvage what was left of the Great Society and New Deal. The mentality of Biden-style Democrats — that the best the party could do was play defense — was dominant for a generation; it’s now being fundamentally challenged not just in the presidential campaign but in congressional primaries across the country.

The mentality of Biden-style Democrats — that the best the party could do was play defense — was dominant for a generation, but is now being fundamentally challenged.

Biden himself, at least on his campaign website, now supports making Social Security more generous, not less. But that’s at odds with decades of his own advocacy, a record that could become a major political liability among voters concerned Biden will finally get his wish to trim back Social Security checks. Because about half of black seniors on Social Security rely on it as their primary means of support, any trimming of the program hits those beneficiaries particularly hard.

Over the years, Biden, in speeches and interviews, has often taken pains to let listeners know that he’s taking an unpopular stance, being explicit about the risk he knows he’s taking.

“One of the things my political advisers say to me, is, whoa, don’t touch that third rail,” Biden told Tim Russert on “Meet the Press,” while running for president in 2007.

With this year’s presidential contest being fought over the terrain of electability, Biden’s 35-plus-year effort to cut Social Security, arguably the most popular government program in existence, is potentially a major liability among older voters — and hypocrisy has never held Trump back from making an effective political attack. Biden’s historical position also stands in stark contrast to Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, both of whom support increasing benefits and have offered ways to make the program solvent indefinitely.

“As Bernie Sanders himself said in 2015 — after all of these quotes — ‘Joe Biden is a man who has devoted his entire life to public service and to the wellbeing of working families and the middle class,’” said Andrew Bates, a spokesperson for Biden.

BIDEN’S FIXATION on cutting Social Security dates back to the Reagan era. One of Ronald Reagan’s first major moves as president was to implement a mammoth tax cut, tilted toward the wealthy, and to increase defense spending. Biden, a Delaware senator at the time, supported both moves. The heightened spending and reduced revenue focused public attention on the debt and deficit, giving fuel to a push for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.

In the midst of that debate, Biden teamed up with Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley to call for a freeze on federal spending, and insisted on including Social Security in that freeze, even as the Reagan administration fought to protect the program from cuts. It was part of the Democratic approach at the time not just to match Republicans, but to get to their right at times as well, as Biden also did on criminal justice policy.

Biden teamed up with Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley to call for a freeze on federal spending, and insisted on including Social Security in that freeze.

“So, when those of my friends in the Democratic and Republican Party say to me, ‘How do you expect me to vote for your proposal? Does it not freeze Social Security COLAs for one year? Are we not saying there will be no cost-of-living increases for one year?’ The answer to that is ‘Yes, that is what I am saying,’” Biden said in a Senate floor speech in April 1984, referring to the adjustment that millions of seniors look for every year.

Biden was facing reelection to the Senate in 1984, which was shaping up to be a heavily Republican cycle, and continued returning to the issue of Social Security.

His plan with Grassley was backed, the New York Times reported in May 1984, by a bevy of business trade groups, “including the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, the National Federation of Independent Businesses, Business Executives for National Security and the National Association of Manufacturers.”

The Biden-Grassley plan was ultimately rejected, but Biden never wavered on it, arguing in 1988 that had he been able to cut Social Security, he’d have been able to save other social programs and force Republicans to cut defense spending.

“I introduced an amendment, notwithstanding my quote liberal credentials, of freezing the federal budget, absolute freeze,” Biden boasted. “I did it for a simple reason: I sat on the Budget Committee for 11 years. And I’d find the same thing occur every time. We’d start off with grandiose ideas of how we’re going to cut the budget. We would never touch entitlements, we would never touch the defense budget, and we couldn’t touch the interest on the debt. Which meant that out of a trillion-dollar budget, that left us only $156 billion And what we would do each year is we would go out and cut out education, food stamps, Head Start, payments, on down the line, everything that I cared about got cut, because at the very end, we’d say, ‘Well, we’ve gotta make some cuts.’ And that would be the path of least resistance.”

That political approach — that by ceding to Republicans, they will respond by compromising in return — has been thoroughly discredited by the last 40 years of events, though it remains the animating argument of Biden’s campaign.

In November 1995, he again reminded the public of his deficit hawkery. “I am a Democrat that voted for the constitutional amendment to balance the budget. I have introduced on four occasions — four occasions — entire plans to balance a budget,” he said on the Senate floor. “I tried with Senator Grassley back in the 1980s to freeze all government spending, including Social Security, including everything.”

“When I introduced my budget freeze proposal years ago, the liberals of my party said, ‘It’s an awful thing you are doing, Joe. All the programs we care about, you are freezing them — money for the blind, the disabled, education and so on,’” Biden continued. “My argument then is one I make now, which is the strongest, most compelling reason to be for this amendment — or an amendment — that if we do not do that, all the things I care most about are going to be gone — gone.”

THE FIRST FEW months of 1995 were taken up with debate over another GOP-led balanced budget amendment, with Biden arguing forcefully to exclude Social Security from it.

“After the year 2014, we will be in deficit in the Social Security system,” he warned. “It seems pretty clear to me this is about two things: One, they need the Social Security dollars to make the deficit look like it is less than it is, and then the next step is they are going to need to try to deal with changing it to increase the amount of money they get in the trust funds to make the deficit look even less, which means that Social Security is going to get hit.”

Biden pushed for an amendment to carve Social Security out of the balanced budget amendment. Clear as it may have been, the amendment to protect Social Security failed. Biden voted for the balanced budget amendment anyway, even after his multiple warnings that it would undercut Social Security.

It was, in fact, the argument over Social Security that torpedoed the balanced budget amendment by a single vote on the Senate floor, after it had already passed the House. “After days of persuasion, the Republicans supporting the amendment were unable to attract the one last vote they needed for a two-thirds majority, resulting in a victory for Democrats, who raised doubts in the final hours about whether the Social Security trust fund would be safe if the measure became law,” the New York Times reported in March 1995. Biden’s inability to bring along one additional Democratic colleague had saved the program, and saved the Constitution from being amended with a draconian fiscal constraint mechanism.

Ironically, the budget would reach balance anyway by the end of the decade, as federal revenue climbed — the result of an economy in hyperdrive thanks to a tech bubble. President George W. Bush turned that surplus into a mammoth tax cut for the wealthy, and within just a few years, Biden was again calling for cuts to Social Security to deal with the deficit.

“The American people know we have to fix Social Security,” Biden said in 2007. “They know we’re going to have to make some tough decisions.”

In his 2007 interview with Russert as a presidential candidate, the “Meet the Press” host asked, “Senator, we have a deficit. We have Social Security and Medicare looming. The number of people on Social Security and Medicare is now 40 million people. It’s going to be 80 million in 15 years. Would you consider looking at those programs, age of eligibility…”

“Absolutely,” Biden said.

“ … cost of living, put it all on the table.”

“The answer is absolutely,” Biden said, reminding Russert that earlier in his career, he had been part of the small number of senators who had come up with the deal that raised the retirement age, and promised to protect each other from voters outraged at the cuts:

I was one of five people — I was the junior guy in the meeting with Bob Dole and George Mitchell when we put Social Security on the right path for 60 years. I’ll never forget what Bob Dole said. After we reached an agreement about gradually raising the retirement age, etc., he said, ‘Look, here’s the deal, we all put our foot in the boat one at a time.’ And he kicked — he stepped like he was stepping into a boat. ‘And we all make the following deal. If any one of the challengers running against the incumbent Democrat or Republicans attack us on this point, we’ll all stay together.’ That’s the kind of leadership that is needed. Social Security’s not the hard one to solve. Medicare, that is the gorilla in the room, and you’ve got to put all of it on the table.

At Iowa’s Jefferson-Jackson dinner in November 2007, weeks from the Iowa caucus, Biden again returned to Social Security. “The American people know we have to fix Social Security,” he said. “They know we can’t grow our way to a solution. They know we’re going to have to make some tough decisions. They’re ready to make those decisions. They’re ready to step up. We have to be ready to straightforwardly tell them what we’re about to do.”

As vice president, Biden was involved in multiple administration attempts to cut Social Security as part of a “grand bargain” with Republicans, all of them blocked by tea party Republicans, who couldn’t agree to any tax increases. In 2014, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said at a conservative event that Biden had privately told him he was supporting of raising the retirement age and means-testing Social Security benefits. “I asked the vice president, don’t we have to raise the age? Wouldn’t means-testing and raising the age solve the problem?” Paul recounted, with Sens. Ted Cruz and Mike Lee on stage, adding that Biden said, “Yes in private, but will not say it in public.” Paul hadn’t been paying close enough attention.

A few years later, at a Brookings Institution event in April 2018, Biden addressed Social Security again. “Paul Ryan was correct when he did the tax code. What’s the first thing he decided we had to go after? Social Security and Medicare. Now, we need to do something about Social Security and Medicare,” Biden said, then added in a whisper: “That’s the only way you can find room to pay for it.”

Last week, the Biden campaign told Politifact that Biden was mocking Ryan and being sarcastic. Immediately after his whisper, he went into the kinds of adjustments to Social Security he thought should be made, the same type that Paul said he told him supported privately.

“Now, I don’t know a whole lot of people in the top one-tenth of 1 percent or the top 1 percent who are relying on Social Security when they retire. I don’t know a lot of them,” Biden said, alluding to the need to means-test Social Security. “So we need a pro-growth, progressive tax code that treats workers as job creators, as well, not just investors; that gets rid of unproductive loopholes like stepped-up basis; and it raises enough revenue to make sure that the Social Security and Medicare can stay, it still needs adjustments, but can stay; and pay for the things we all acknowledge will grow the country.”

When the program is popular, “adjustment” is a Washington euphemism for cuts. But you can count on Trump to use the more common term.

LOL, I ain’t retyping alladat in lower case

FOH

...and status quo joe repeatedly lied about it last night...

Care to discuss...?

Nobody’s touching the fbi raid on brother Biden...?

https://twitter.com/QueenInYeIIow/status/1238634256882073600?s=20

https://twitter.com/meaganmday/status/1238626816450912256?s=20


-->

give it up fam.

its over.

finito.

maybe yall shoulda spent the last few years working on expanding the 'movement' outside of twitter.

and this race been called for Biden (or at least not for Sanders) - so this ain't about that.

This is about those who worked overtime to trash Sanders - month after month - while failing to spend a single minute vetting Biden being responsible for giving us a nominee who simply isn't fit for the job.

Great work.


-->

got his entire hopes destroyed on only the 2nd multi-state primary day barely into march.

maybe 3rd times the charm? (hey it worked for biden lol).

yall should spend some time figuring out why yall are so out of touch with the majority of the electorate so you can expand the base past 30-something percent of the party.

time to venture outside of your bubble.

cuz apparently online trolling isnt an effective coalition builder lol. yet yall still persist.

yall even got aoc disgusted with you. maybe take the hint?

im sincerely trying to help yall cuz this implosion is painful to watch.

And even though he wasn't my top choice - he's far superior to Biden - who you've been giving an inexplicable pass to because of your tireless caping for the party orthodoxy.

It's real rich to hear you speak of "Republican talking points" when you've been documented all over the boards smearing Sanders with Breitbart talking points.

The whole lazy "y'all Bernie bros" mythology you've been pumping lacks actual merit:

https://www.salon.com/2020/03/09/there-is-hard-data-that-shows-bernie-bros-are-a-myth/

But this isn't the first time you've latched onto something that you bought wholesale from the CNN spin-room.

And it's hilarious that you think AOC is somehow going to fall in line with your status-quo way of thinking - when she literally came out yesterday talking about voter suppression in the Michigan primary and calling into question the egregious lack of fairness in this primary - which again - you ignore because of your wild contentment with a Biden nomination.

Let's revisit this in November fam. I feel sorry for you partying once again over a weak Dem nominee who is going to get bodied in the General.

I'm here for you though. We're family.


-->

you didn't read past the headline you dumb motherfucker

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

“The evidence that Sanders supporters are uniquely cruel online, compared to any other candidates' supporters, is scant; much of the discourse around Bernie Bros seems to rely on skewed anecdotes that don't stand up to scrutiny.”

Please do keep hurling insults like the sad child you are though.


-->

congratulations on being a loser

(note: according to the methods used in that study, that's a positive statement by a bernie sanders supporter.)

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

https://i.redd.it/16dv6sm70lm41.jpg

https://twitter.com/MollyNagle3/status/1238881953534918662
-----
NEW: @JoeBiden's campaign confirms that he has reviewed @ewarren’s bankruptcy plan closely, and is endorsing her proposal, as he said in his IL town hall.

That's a significant shift, as the proposal would largely undo the 2005 bankruptcy bill the two clashed over in Congress.
-----

progressive proposals that realistically work.

warren will go down as one of the most influential policy generators of this generation.

this is also how you form alliances among former adversaries. compromise/consensus. aka good politics and party building.

tuition-free for students with families making less than $125k a year

https://twitter.com/MollyNagle3/status/1239278667282382853
-----
NEW: @JoeBiden's campaign announces that in addition to endorsing Warren's bankruptcy plan, he is also adopting a plan that will make public colleges and universities tuition-free for students with families making less than $125k a year
-----

he credited bernie for the plan. its technically closer to p bootys plan who had a $100k income cap (as opposed to bidens $125k). but bernies plan was obviously the root of both.

the income cap takes away the talking point about rich peoples kids going to college for free.


biden thread about using liz and bernards plans:
https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1239280175826731010

when his plan was basically a tweaked version of a Bernie bill from 2017:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/806/text


That's when I knew there was like zero critical-thinking underpinning the hatred of everyone non-Bernie. Like, first of all, somebody can run on Bernie's actual proposals and that's still not acceptable. And second-of-all, how are you riding so hard for this man and you don't even recognize one of his old proposals when you see it??


This contradiction applies to the single-payer vs public option debate too. A lot of people don't realize that the subsidy structure in a few of the public option proposals (eg. maxed to cover up to 8.5% of income) borrows from the CHIPA bill ("Consumer Health Insurance Protection Act of 2018") Warren introduced last Congress:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/2582/text

which Bernie was a co-sponsor of. Only a couple of years ago.

Bernie and Liz's fingerprints were all over the broader Dem platform even before Biden started making these concessions. I really hate how much of the incivility was due to policy differences that Bernie and Warren were championing like literally a hearbeat ago. Just blind hateful frothing at the mouth for no reason

edit: this is why I have very little sympathy for left complaints about Biden emerging as the likely nominee. Declaring war on the center-left made little political sense if one cared about the issues. I mean it's great Biden's conceding to the left in some areas, but that wasn't guaranteed.


>
>he credited bernie for the plan. its technically closer to p
>bootys plan who had a $100k income cap (as opposed to bidens
>$125k). but bernies plan was obviously the root of both.
>

and fighting too safe - yet again. For all the talk about the fictional bernie bro meanies -- Sanders has been nothing but cordial to his opponents - probably too cordial.

-->

>For all the talk about the fictional bernie bro meanies

Biden is being walked down on the fact that he's been wrong on a lot of the major issues being discussed (DOMA, War, Social Security, Health Care as a Human Right, Immigration, Education, Trade policy etc..) - and has only just recently come around to correct (some) of his positions - adopting Sanders/Warren policies.

There are two people on that stage: one has been a leader his whole life and has consistently displayed political courage; the other is a follower and a political opportunist.
-->

did we change the criteria?

-->

its no coincidence he did the same with warren.

you do know how this works right?

That's exactly how this works.


-->

I thought politicians were *supposed* to adjust their positions based on the will of the voters ?

make concessions to the bernie wing to bring them in the fold for the general.

its the same thing hillary had to do.

its the same thing barack had to do.

but vex switches stances and acts brand new depending on what argument he is trying to win.

He's been shouting that Biden needs to get Bernie voters on board.

Biden proceeds to adopt two very progressive plans (probably more to come I would guess/hope)

and he STILL complains.


No joke Reeq, I think Vex and some other bros would prefer Trump to beat Biden so they can say "told you so"

He keeps moving the goalposts in order to shit on Biden no matter what. Not only is this a bad look that is hurting his already damaged credibility, its getting to the point where I think they would aim to damage him in the general.

I'm a card carrying Joe Biden hater and doubter. But if he is going to be the nominee, AND he is going to adopt progressive policies, commit to court picks, etc?


It really is about Bernie to these people- maybe even more than Bernie himself.

I mean, Vex can't even fix his fingers to type an honest critique of dude other than "he's flawed" and "not aggressive enough"

Shit is weird, man.


They are so caught up in winning an argument they've forgotten the goals.

The voters?

>I thought politicians were *supposed* to adjust their
>positions based on the will of the voters ?

Gosh that's cute.


-->

thats what is generating the most headlines.

it looked especially strong when contrasted with bernie hedging.

-->

-->

you did see me mention ‘headlines’ right?

-->

It's been a gravy-train money-grab for decades. Ain't no way I'd be caught out here caping for Biden/Clinton without some incentive.
-->

he’s clearly out of gas.

hes attacking biden for shit he did years ago. shit the average voter doesnt even care about.

and bernie is stumbling on shit relating to his recent developments. bernie is also clearly unprepared to address some of those things even though theyve been major topics for a while now.

“We shouldn’t be behind anybody in providing for our citizens, especially dictatorships”

All this hemming and hawing

in the general?

has he been watching his election?

i mean...he just admitted that the two groups he does best with usually have the lowest turnout.

Biden looked in control. Bernie looked like Bernie

Please lord let these be signs it'll be Warren.


Hard pass on Amy and Kamala.


Maybe Kamala is this black female Supreme Court nominee he keeps alluding too tho. That would actually make a ton of sense. Would get some HBCU representation up in there with the Ivy League backgrounds too.

Though Amy or Liz puts those Senate seats at risk. Kamala not so much

then Georgia actually is somewhat in play too and she wouldn't jeopardize a seat in Congress. Plus she's a competent executive, given her work with Fair Fight action etc. There's enough substance there that I like her as a choice even if folks are only bringing her up because she's a black woman.


I don't know if I'll ever come around on Amy as a good match for him tho.

and Dems could see how bad they fucked up? Biden's senile, creepy, out of touch, has a trash voting record, can't remember what he just said, or tell the difference between his wife and his sister.

was all supposed to come to light now that he had more time to talk. Couple people here were pretty much saying he didn't want it with Bernie in a one on one.

Bern might as well drop out now. I think he probably will. At very least he seems to like Joe more than he liked Hillary.

No major gaffes and he seemed sharp enough. Blatantly lying about his history of flip flopping but that doesn't seem to matter to people anymore. The average voter doesn't seem to care about Bernie's principles and how he's consistently defended them throughout his career. Meanwhile, Biden's voting record is built on going against progressive issues (desegregation, abortion, gay marriage) until the tide changes and it's accepted by the mainstream and convenient for him to take a stand. A true politician's politician, similar to the democrat who lost in 2016.

As for the creepiness, well that will probably only come to light in the general election. The video's been mostly scrubbed from the internet and anyone who raises it will be painted a MAGA stan. Apparently it's okay to rub children's chests as long as the people who accuse you of it are Trump or Bernie fans.

Biden gave me some hope last night though. If he can stay this sharp and Trump continues to fuck up the Coronavirus crisis then hopefully he'll win the general election and implement some progressive policies. If not, we can all blame the Bernie Bros for wanting a candidate who fought for the disenfranchised his whole life. Sadly, this country simply isn't ready for a progressive candidate but hopefully Bernie motivated the younger generation enough that they'll one day elect one.

and by fine I mean he didn’t shit his pants or forget where he was.. lol.

But it’s not like he defended his record well.

This exchange was hilarious.

Bernie: you have a SuperPAC when you said wouldn’t Jo
Joe: you have 9 SuperPAC’s Bernie
Bernie: no I don’t.. name them
Joe: I’ll name them.. you don’t want me to name them
Bernie: name them.. go ahead
Joe: bahhh

>and by fine I mean he didn’t shit his pants or forget where
>he was.. lol.
>
>But it’s not like he defended his record well.
>
>This exchange was hilarious.
>
>Bernie: you have a SuperPAC when you said wouldn’t Jo
>Joe: you have 9 SuperPAC’s Bernie
>Bernie: no I don’t.. name them
>Joe: I’ll name them.. you don’t want me to name them
>Bernie: name them.. go ahead
>Joe: bahhh
>
>

didn't see this part

>This exchange was hilarious.
>
>Bernie: you have a SuperPAC when you said wouldn’t Jo
>Joe: you have 9 SuperPAC’s Bernie
>Bernie: no I don’t.. name them
>Joe: I’ll name them.. you don’t want me to name them
>Bernie: name them.. go ahead
>Joe: bahhh
>
>

or goal for continuing to stay in the race. so there was nothing to specifically gameplan and execute this debate. so he basically just resorted to tearing down biden (which has basically become the 'progressive' political mantra at this point...see vex complaining that bernie should be less cordial).

hes pretty much given up winning because hes down big and his prospects are getting worse each poll.

and hes an old dog with only a few old tricks. he cant really adapt to new stimuli and hasnt really broadened his knowledge/pitch much outside of his rigid ideological agenda.

this was highlighted in the coronavirus discussion. bernies answer to the crisis was basically medicare for all medicare for all medicare for all. bidens answer was more encompassing and indicative of someone who has actually served at the highest tier of an administration and knows how the levers of government actually work.

I said he should be more aggressive - and he was a bit more aggressive last night. But the point remains: for all the crying about how "mean" Bernie and his supporters are - he's been nothing but respectful to his opponents - but that doesn't mean he shouldn't go on the offensive more. He should.


-->

>this was highlighted in the coronavirus discussion. bernies
>answer to the crisis was basically medicare for all medicare
>for all medicare for all. bidens answer was more encompassing
>and indicative of someone who has actually served at the
>highest tier of an administration and knows how the levers of
>government actually work.

>

They don’t, that’s the point...pretty much of his entire campaign

If that’s not readily apparent to all amid this pandemic..,IDK what to tell you

Do you think there’s a 2 month delay in response...if everyone had healthcare?

Testing
Response
Resources

I would assume...we would be better prepared if everyone was provided with healthcare

40 repugs voted against the house bill for Coronavirus relief

We wouldn’t even have to go through the political charade

But that’s not even the right question

Where’s the money coming from?
$8B
$50B
+$1T

We went from...can’t afford it...to...we should cut checks like W.

Public Health Experts: Single-Payer Systems Coping With Coronavirus More Effectively Than For-Profit Model

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/16/public-health-experts-single-payer-systems-coping-coronavirus-more-effectively

"Having a healthcare system that's a public strategic asset rather than a business run for profit allows for a degree of coordination and optimal use of resources."
byJake Johnson, staff writer
24 Comments

A medical staff member talks with a man with suspected symptoms of the COVID-19 coronavirus, at a testing facility in Seoul on March 4, 2020. (Photo: Jung Yeon-Je/AFP via Getty Images)
As the coronavirus pandemic places extraordinary strain on national healthcare systems around the world, public health experts are making the case that countries with universal single-payer systems have thus far responded more efficiently and effectively to the outbreak than nations like the United States, whose fragmented for-profit apparatus has struggled to cope with the growing crisis.

"There is no need for people to worry about the tests or vaccine or cost of care if people become ill."
—Helen Buckingham, Nuffield Trust
"It is too soon to see definite outcomes among competing healthcare systems. But even in this early phase, public health experts say the single-payer, state-run systems are proving themselves relatively robust," the Washington Post reported Sunday. "Unlike the United States, where a top health official told Congress the rollout of testing was 'failing' and where Congress is only now moving through a bill that includes free testing, the single-payer countries have been especially nimble at making free, or low-cost, virus screening widely available for patients with coughs and fevers."

While the Trump administration only recently took steps to massively expand COVID-19 testing—sparking concerns that the outbreak in the U.S. is far more severe than official numbers suggest—countries with forms of single-payer healthcare like South Korea and Denmark have for weeks been offering "drive-through" testing and other innovative mechanisms, allowing them to quickly test hundreds of thousands of their citizens and respond accordingly.

"Unhampered government intervention into the healthcare sector is an advantage when the virus is spreading fast across the country," said Choi Jae-wook, a professor of preventive medicine at Korea University in Seoul.


Jorgen Kurtzhals, the head of the University of Copenhagen medical school, told the Post that the strength of Denmark's single-payer system is that it has "a lot of really highly educated and well-trained staff, and given some quite un-detailed instructions, they can actually develop plans for an extremely rapid response."

"We don't have to worry too much about whether this response or that response demands specific payments here and there," said Kurtzhals said. "We are aware that there will be huge expenditure within the system. But we're not too concerned about it because we have a direct line of communication from the national government to the regional government to the hospital directors."

None of which is to say that countries with forms of single-payer healthcare or nationalized systems are flawlessly handling the COVID-19 pandemic, which has infected at least 173,000 people and killed more than 6,000 worldwide.

"We don't have to worry too much about whether this response or that response demands specific payments here and there."
—Jorgen Kurtzhals, University of Copenhagen
Britain's National Health Service (NHS), following years of austerity imposed by Conservative governments, is facing staff and supply shortages as hospitals are being overwhelmed with patients. Canada, like the U.K., is struggling with a shortage of ventilators.

But Helen Buckingham, director of strategy and operations at the London-based Nuffield Trust think tank, told the Post that the NHS is in a relatively good position to cope with COVID-19 because it has "a very clear emergency planning structure."

Additionally, Buckingham noted, "there is no need for people to worry about the tests or vaccine or cost of care if people become ill."

David Fisman, an epidemiologist at the University of Toronto, said that in a "time of crisis" like the coronavirus pandemic, "having a healthcare system that's a public strategic asset rather than a business run for profit allows for a degree of coordination and optimal use of resources."

During the Democratic presidential primary debate Sunday night in Washington, D.C., former Vice President Joe Biden cited Italy's struggles to contain COVID-19 as evidence that the Medicare for All system advocated by rival candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) would not be effective in a pandemic. Italy has been the hardest-hit country outside China with nearly 25,000 cases of the novel coronavirus.

"With all due respect for Medicare for All, you have a single-payer system in Italy," said Biden. "It doesn't work there."

Critics were quick to take issue with Biden's talking point. " isn't the reason Italy is having problems," tweeted HuffPost healthcare reporter Jonathan Cohn. "Italy's problem is health system capacity. Independent of health system design."


Dr. David Himmelstein, co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program and distinguished professor of public health at the City University of New York at Hunter College, said in a statement Sunday night that the "fragmented system" in the United States "leaves public health separate and disconnected from medical care, and provides no mechanism to appropriately balance funding priorities."

"As a result, public health accounts for less than 3 percent of overall health expenditures, a percentage that has been falling for decades, and is about half the proportion in Canada or the U.K.," said Himmselstein. "One result is that state and local health departments that are the front lines in dealing with epidemics have lost 50,000 position since 2008 due to budget cuts."

On the debate stage Sunday evening, Sanders made the case for transitioning the U.S. to a single-payer program, arguing that the coronavirus "exposes the incredible weakness and dysfunctionality of our current healthcare system."

"How in God's name does it happen," said Sanders, "that we end up with 87 million people who are uninsured or underinsured and there are people who are watching this program tonight who are saying, 'I'm not feeling well. Should I go to the doctor? But I can't afford to go to the doctor. What happens if I am sick?'"

"So the word has got to go out, and I certainly would do this as president: You don't worry," Sanders added. "People of America, do not worry about the cost of prescription drugs. Do not worry about the cost of the healthcare that you're going to get, because we are a nation—a civilized democratic society. Everybody, rich and poor, middle class, will get the care they need. The drug companies will not rip us off."

cnn was saying that he was giving biden a chance to appeal to his voters and that biden didnt take it. didnt really seem like thats what happened.

i definitely bernie was overplaying his hand on medicare for all. if he was better at this the argument would make itself. no doubt if we had a system where people didnt need to worry about the costs more people would have been tested and the curve would have been flattened. now were waiting on mitch to pass the house bill that will allow this for the coronavirus.

italy shows that both systems can suck at some aspects so focusing on that wasnt the best move.

i dont know if this is a recent turn for you but i dont remember you being like this in the past.

Like I said before.. I predicted early on Joe would be the nominee and the best chance to beat Trump.

But that doesn’t mean I like him or will cheer for him in the primary.

He still ain’t shit.

Dude has taken credit for ERRYTHING

He’s fixed every problem...yet, those problems persist

and now he’s adopting progressive policies that we were told couldn’t be done and/or paid for

Nah man, I ain’t buying it (c)

1. I agree KH is the best choice. If she doesn't take it, make her AG. That said

2. How do you think they overcome their beef over the bussing bomb she dropped in the debates? You know #notmypresident will go after

Candidates who were once bitter rivals during the primary season come together for the common good of defeating Trump? It will play very well.



**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

It’s just the primary.

It’s like players in the NBA fighting. They still gonna team up and play in the Olympics.

an organization this cycle, presidential campaign or otherwise, that didn't implode spectacularly.


lol.


They could avoid the issue you raise altogether if he does that.

It's the Dems tho.

Trump shat on Cruz's wife and said his dad killed JFK

The Clintons were terrible towards Obama, because he cut the line.

A viral moment over bussing seems pretty mild compared to other primary spats we've seen.

just pointing out we've seen much worse then a brief spat over bussing of all things.

Cruz is bitch as are many republicans but they're also practical, in that they know this clown would push their agenda through

That's what happens when you're cool with just swaying in the winds of political expediency.

Kamala would best be served as AG imo.

If Biden wants to win - he needs to go bold and run with Warren.

-->

How could them working together be political expediency?!?

**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

what are some things youre sure he would get done/passed and some that you think he would try to but might not get past republicans?

https://i.redd.it/41qufjeik1n41.jpg

Yeah, he’s still lying...constantly

They’re internet posts and podcast anecdotes...that he’s inserting himself into

Why’s he lie so much?

When he said it...I was like...why wouldn’t they use the phone?

SMH, his lies don’t even make sense.

"I was in X and met a person there who is *insert terrible hardship here*"

Like they want credit for observing something. Shut up.

He lied...pretty much about everything last night.

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/03/factchecking-the-march-democratic-debate/

MFers in here partying on Bern's L

Gonna be really surprised by the commercials of Biden calling for social security cuts...not 1...not 2...not 3...but 4Xs (c) Status Quo Joe...running next to videos of him pinching 9Y.O. girls' nipples

SMH, this is the best we can do?

Our politics isn't about addressing people's material needs. It's about which team you're on. If Biden's on the good team, it doesn't matter that he's distorting his long record.

We're just going to have to keep narrowing and narrowing and narrowing our politics until we're sufficiently alienated from the idea that politics is a way to improve our lives. Because as long as we think that politics can help us, we may want hold people who were in positions of power during our nation's previous crushing decisions accountable.

Can't have that. There are consultants whose jobs are on the line here.

So...in order to defeat Trumpster...we have to become Trumpster

The strategy for winning the general is nominating a compulsive lying misogynist racist that boomers will vote for

That sound like a W to you?

so idc who it is. if folks think biden is the guy then we ride w/ biden

https://youtu.be/S9OqUWMQfRo

signed joaquin

dont be racist








jokes

or riffs

He was most passionate about immigration issues during the debates, plus he has a legal background and I think latin american representation would be particularly meaningful in that role post-45.

We'll see tho.


Edit: I actually didn't mind him as a candidate, and I hope he runs again in the future. He just didn't resonate with folks at this moment, like at all *shrug*

obviously biden isnt considering him as VP (at least no anymore) but he needs a high profile position where he would be in the public eye if hes hoping to run again.

hes someone i didnt really spend much time looking into to be honest. what i had seen seemed good.

https://heavy.com/news/2020/03/biden-bernie-primary-results-aired-early-video/

AOC was right to call into question the fairness of these primaries. Add Illinois onto the long-growing list of states featuring questionable election integrity.

-->

Or.....it was just a test with fake numbers.

...sway a number of Trump voters to the Democratic side.

according to the comment sections on YouTube, lol. probably some polls too if i'm not mistaken.

-----------------------------

my music: www.soundcloud.com/jessewarren
my mixes: www.mixcloud.com/jessewarren
my label: www.fb.com/mettamuzik

literally, dont

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/488091-poll-sanders-cuts-biden-lead-to-single-digits-among-democratic-voters

i do wonder how much chaos covid-19 will have on the primaries. i would expect turn out will be lower. states that have good mail-in voting policies should be in good shape.

Biden should absolutely NOT pick Klobuchar just to have "AN Woman" as his running mate. that would add nothing to a candidate that I believe is already very vulnerable going up against Trump.

there is Warren but "Pocahontas". I suspect she will slither away for 2024 in case the Biden Experiment fails


Harris, maybe. get as many neolibs and "fake libs" out to vote and hope the Republican vote is decimated (figuratively) by the combo of health/economic disaster

that the state party and/or state government control.

you figure these folks would go learn how this shit works by now but they never let the facts get in the way of a good conspiracy theory.

i say that as someone who wanted warren to win.

she does well with college educated (mostly suburban) folks who self identify as very liberal. those people are already voting dem and are already fired up for nov.

and thats pretty much the extent of her narrow support base. she came in 3rd in her home state...which says a lot.

>
>she does well with college educated (mostly suburban) folks
>who self identify as very liberal. those people are already
>voting dem and are already fired up for nov.
>

And? Who is Kamala firing up that isn't already voting dem? Some evangelical AKAs? lol. Her black support wasn't even stronger than Biden's and she's BLACK.

Other thing is, Warren is pretty much Biden's only play if he's interested in forging a unity ticket to bridge the moderate and left/"very liberal" wings of the party. Who knows whether Dems care about this or not, either. But if they do that's the play.


>and thats pretty much the extent of her narrow support base.
>she came in 3rd in her home state...which says a lot.
>

Yall already decided box-checking outweighs performance tho, by boosting Kamala who ran a shit campaign and flip-flopped harder on policy than almost anybody else in the field. Don't hold Warren to a different standard when Kamala couldn't even get that far. Kamala wasnt even poised to do well in CA.

And I say this while acknowledging that Warren didn't do particularly well in this primary. But if Biden wants a woman VP? Fine: Warren is by far the most competent executive out of the women that ran this cycle and brings solid volunteer and (small-donor) fundraising infrastructure ready to stand up against 45-Pence. A fluffy vanity pick like Kamala literally addresses none of Biden's weaknesses other than age. I mean damn, if he *must* run with a black woman at least Abrams can run an organization and might put Georgia in play.

At least Abrams gives GA a chance of turning blue.

what made you whatabout kamala because i brought up warren? lol.

i have my doubts about kamala now after seeing her campaign and how she was perceived by black voters (i made that biden/harris post 2 years ago). i do think abrams is the better strategic play (i said it recently in that same post).

but to be fair to kamala...

aside from being the 1st black da of san fran, the 1st woman da of san fran, the 1st black attorney general of ca, the 1st woman attorney general of ca, the 1st black woman senator from ca, the 2nd black woman senator period, with the 2nd most progressive voting record in the senate...

she ran the largest litigant/justice administration in the country (2nd only to the federal doj) in a state of 40 million people. overseeing a sprawling bureaucracy with a workforce managing large complex investigations, prosecutions, civil litigations, public advisories, assistance to other state/local/federal agencies, corporate oversight, etc.

so if you wanna go that route instead of 'box-checking'...the most competent executive of the women in the race was the actual competent executive. she is far more qualified in that regard compared to warren and abrams.

performance this primary. Bc, as you rightfully mention, she has a lot of strengths.

>what made you whatabout kamala because i brought up warren?
>lol.

Lol! She's leading in this post's poll and on twitter, and I like her personality but just don't think it's warranted given how poorly she did this cycle.


>to be fair to kamala...
>
>aside from being the 1st black da of san fran, the 1st woman
>da of san fran, the 1st black attorney general of ca, the 1st
>woman attorney general of ca, the 1st black woman senator from
>ca, the 2nd black woman senator period, with the 2nd most
>progressive voting record in the senate...
>
>she ran the largest litigant/justice administration in the
>country (2nd only to the federal doj) in a state of 40 million
>people. overseeing a sprawling bureaucracy with a workforce
>managing large complex investigations, prosecutions, civil
>litigations, public advisories, assistance to other
>state/local/federal agencies, corporate oversight, etc.
>
>so if you wanna go that route instead of 'box-checking'...the
>most competent executive of the women in the race was the
>actual competent executive. she is far more qualified in that
>regard compared to warren and abrams.

Oh no doubt Kamala is super *accomplished*...but so, too, would somebody like John Kerry or Robert Mueller. Does that automatically translate to votes and infrastructure tho. I think I even said up top, if Kamala's short-listed for Biden's black female SC justice pick that actually strikes me as a better fit bc maybe national electoral politics is not her strength, given how spectacularly her presidential campaign imploded.

Other thing I should note is I have a very strong personal bias: I judge presidential candidates *super* hard on the campaign organization they're able to build. I basically see it as a metric for readiness, and a bare minimum. Like, if you can't even competently build an organization to get you elected, why should you be elected? Lol.

For example, people often mention how Obama was this once-in-a-lifetime candidate in terms of how he resonated and the historic precedent. But it's also important to note that he simply built out a fucking incredible campaign, and that he probably would have been competitive even if he was more of a dud candidate. The messaging, the fundraising, the digitial, the volunteer base, the BRANDING (eg. that sheppard fairey Obama portrait is like Warhol level iconic now, right?) I mean people may talk about experience and how at least he was in Congress before running blazay blah but imho it was his background as an organizer that lent a special vision to how his campaign sought to connect to people, which he then backed up with superior executive skills by lining up the right people, functions, and resources to execute his vision. Superior executive skills which then scaled well to governing.

I think one could even argue that 45 ran a similarly strong campaign, despite how many people feel about his victory. But Kamala's campaign was amateur hour, comparatively (and I'd argue Biden's is barely better lol), and if we were to compare her and Warren on this metric, Warren hits far closer to the necessary performace level imho.

If anything, strong primary performance is usually treated as a negative, because a runningmate with a big national following would distract from the top of the ticket and line up some ugly news cycles about "second thoughts" among voters about the ordering of the ticket.

There's a reason that Barack Obama chose Joe Biden, who'd had a disastrous run in the '08 primary, and set up Hillary Clinton for an off-ticket position in the administration (and as a bonus, it was a position where her skills would be put to better use -- another relevant parallel to Warren). Biden wasn't gonna be a distraction from the Obama phenomenon (apart from the gaffes that everyone was already factoring in); he would be a team player; he shored up a few of Obama's perceived weaknesses (inexperience, skepticism from "white working class" voters); and helped solidify an important state (PA).

Sometimes primary runs go poorly because voters might respect a candidate generally speaking, but think there are better 'headline' choices for the top of the ticket. This was why I was I was thinking of Castro as an eventual runningmate for either Harris or Warren, back when their campaigns were looking strong (there was about a week like that for Harris, LOL), even though Castro's campaign never looked promising. He just seemed like a natural runningmate. I wasn't the only one saying he was actually running for Vice President. He complemented a lot of different possible candidates, brought a sense of continuity with the Obama years, and was the right age to be a very strong standard-bearer in 2028.


I actually think the argument for Warren on the ticket HAS gotten stronger lately, as the pandemic seems to have pushed a lot of people (even Trump voters) to want a technocrat with a plan for everything. If we could start the primary race over from scratch, I think Warren would do a lot better in these circumstances. And I think it could really help to have her on the ticket. At the same time, if people finally fell in love with Professor Warren, then again we'd get the problem of the ticket seeming 'upside-down' and depressing enthusiasm for Biden. I imagine Warren has the most value as a vocal surrogate on the campaign trail, with the natural implication that she might run Treasury, Labor, CFPB, Education, even HHS. Biden's argument needs to be "I'll be a manager, looking for input from non-sycophants who really know what the fuck they're doing." Barack Obama showed how much better that model is than Trump's 'first, everyone in this meeting will say I'm doing a great job' approach.

The biggest weakness of Harris as a runningmate, I think, is that she doesn't help with any important states (though the same can be said of Warren). If not for Joe's age, I'd say he needs to pick a complete newcomer from an important state. That seems to be the argument for Stacey Abrams. It's part of why I've been thinking about Val Demings. On the other hand, in this cycle where people are worried about Joe's age and there's an implicit agreement that he might retire and hand over the ticket in 2024, I think there's more impetus for an "already presidential" choice. This helps Kamala and probably Klobuchar, who I think everyone has always agreed would be a fine president if only they hadn't had to campaign for the position. It helps Warren too, but again she's a riskier bet and would probably help more elsewhere.

I'm all over the place on this, LOL.

in my reply to Reeq lol. *I personally* look hard at campaign organization/executive leadership when judging a candidate, but realize that may not be a popular way to look at things lol.


>If anything, strong primary performance is usually treated as
>a negative, because a runningmate with a big national
>following would distract from the top of the ticket and line
>up some ugly news cycles about "second thoughts" among voters
>about the ordering of the ticket.
>

This is a good point, but I also think Biden is a special nominee. Like I mention in #75 (https://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=4&topic_id=13372455&mesg_id=13372455&page=#13373252), I think being VP to Biden would be atypical. If he was a stronger nominee resonating at Obama levels, who has their own large following and infrastructure going for him/her, I think a less rock star VP is fine.

But Biden did poorly in early states against his competitors, is literally coasting on name ID, and is weakly organized... and would be competing against 45 who is very strong in those areas. He needs a VP with some juice imho. Like, people are overwhelmingly voting for him fully aware that he might not even finish a term, is a gaffe machine, and doesn't have the most spotless record. I actually think there *wouldn't* be any second-guessing for that reason; voters this cycle seem to be placing highest priority on trust/known-entity leading the ticket (i.e. that last 2 primary candidates being Biden and Bernie).


>There's a reason that Barack Obama chose Joe Biden, who'd had
>a disastrous run in the '08 primary, and set up Hillary
>Clinton for an off-ticket position in the administration (and
>as a bonus, it was a position where her skills would be put to
>better use -- another relevant parallel to Warren). Biden
>wasn't gonna be a distraction from the Obama phenomenon (apart
>from the gaffes that everyone was already factoring in); he
>would be a team player; he shored up a few of Obama's
>perceived weaknesses (inexperience, skepticism from "white
>working class" voters); and helped solidify an important state
>(PA).
>

Right. But that was Obama tho. lol. An incredible political talent with a historic campaign infrastructure powering him. He needed a different type of support from Biden, than what I believe Biden needs from his VP. (Tbh, at Biden's age, I don't even think Obama could compete against his '08 self lol)

>Sometimes primary runs go poorly because voters might respect
>a candidate generally speaking, but think there are better
>'headline' choices for the top of the ticket. This was why I
>was I was thinking of Castro as an eventual runningmate for
>either Harris or Warren, back when their campaigns were
>looking strong (there was about a week like that for Harris,
>LOL), even though Castro's campaign never looked promising. He
>just seemed like a natural runningmate. I wasn't the only one
>saying he was actually running for Vice President. He
>complemented a lot of different possible candidates, brought a
>sense of continuity with the Obama years, and was the right
>age to be a very strong standard-bearer in 2028.
>

I hear ya. I'm sure Castro did actually hope he would resonate better tho, lol.

>
>I actually think the argument for Warren on the ticket HAS
>gotten stronger lately, as the pandemic seems to have pushed a
>lot of people (even Trump voters) to want a technocrat with a
>plan for everything. If we could start the primary race over
>from scratch, I think Warren would do a lot better in these
>circumstances. And I think it could really help to have her on
>the ticket.

I think I agree. My main thing with Warren has always been I believe she was the most "competent" person running, even though I disagreed with some of her policy prescriptions, and she would be a huge asset either leading the ticket or as vice. So I guess that leads my defenses of her now, mostly. But she also built a competent campaign organization which only solidified her readiness to me, since I personally look quite closely at that.

>
>The biggest weakness of Harris as a runningmate, I think, is
>that she doesn't help with any important states (though the
>same can be said of Warren). If not for Joe's age, I'd say he
>needs to pick a complete newcomer from an important state.
>That seems to be the argument for Stacey Abrams. It's part of
>why I've been thinking about Val Demings. On the other hand,
>in this cycle where people are worried about Joe's age and
>there's an implicit agreement that he might retire and hand
>over the ticket in 2024, I think there's more impetus for an
>"already presidential" choice. This helps Kamala and probably
>Klobuchar, who I think everyone has always agreed would be a
>fine president if only they hadn't had to campaign for the
>position. It helps Warren too, but again she's a riskier bet
>and would probably help more elsewhere.
>
>I'm all over the place on this, LOL.
>

LOL, it's all good. I understand your reasoning. Agreed, that Kamala doesn't really help anything electoral college wise. And agreed on Abrams, which is why I'm coming around on her (plus she's said in a recent interview she planned to run for pres within the decade, so she's committed/serious about the path). She also wouldn't be pulling from Congress, which is good for Dems efforts to hold the house and gain a majority in the senate, and I also like the organizing work she's doing with orgs like Fair Fight Action, Fair Count, etc. Val Demings, I'm not crazy about because she *just* flipped her seat in Congress. And Klobuchar's temperament and abusive history is disqualifying imho, certainly as a match to the most geriatric nominee/pres in history. Volatile, abusive, angry, impatient are like the worst possible personality traits to match with really elderly people.

by weird match I mean mismatch

of every 9ne commonly mentioned, it's the one I can't picture

That's a silver lining for Bernie he's not doing that bad.

https://twitter.com/SteveKornacki/status/1240059450007977987
-----
Our decision desk expects turnout for the Florida Dem primary will end up around 2.25 million. In 2016, it was 1.7 million.
-----

imagine what it would have been without the coronavirus scare.

https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/1240070236801507328
-----
According to CBS News primary polls, 59% of Florida likely voters said they trusted Biden over Sanders -37%- to handle Social Security.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ETWdTrPXYAEPPB8?format=jpg&name=large

https://t.co/E3KhCZjESV
-----

damn the sanders team pretty much focused their entire late stage campaign strategy on attacking biden over social security.

>https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/1240070236801507328
>-----
>According to CBS News primary polls, 59% of Florida likely
>voters said they trusted Biden over Sanders -37%- to handle
>Social Security.
>
>https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ETWdTrPXYAEPPB8?format=jpg&name=large
>
>https://t.co/E3KhCZjESV
>-----
>
>damn the sanders team pretty much focused their entire late
>stage campaign strategy on attacking biden over social
>security.

That went nowhere. It's just like that last debate Bernie was suppose to expose Biden, nothing happen.

thats really obvious now.

he had some old ass white political vets that actually knew politics last election.

now he went out and got a diverse ass team of younger people who would rather sit on twitter and troll people and spread disinformation all day.

they ran a campaign for the young turks youtube comment section and forgot what the actual party looked like.

that a lot of Biden's core support skewed older and were likely already aware of/present for Biden's evolution on various issues and don't care. lol

I mean, the left-wing was never "informing" these people of anything, nor do Biden supporters come across as the type that would completely freak out and change their vote because of decades old comments/gaffes *shrug*



>he had some old ass white political vets that actually knew
>politics last election.
>
>now he went out and got a diverse ass team of younger people
>who would rather sit on twitter and troll people and spread
>disinformation all day.
>
>they ran a campaign for the young turks youtube comment
>section and forgot what the actual party looked like.

when have you ever heard of someones vote years ago losing them an election?

if it aint fresh in their minds and relevant to some impactful recent event...voters arent really driven by it.

as soon as a candidate says that they changed/evolved...and have evidence of that...most voters tend to believe them.

are you really gonna harp on biden being anti-gay marriage a decade ago after all of the gay pride parade appearances, support for pro-gay legislation and policies under the obama administration, etc?

like theyre even attacking biden for his support of 'dont ask dont tell' when that was the progressive position in the 1990s.

bernie tried the same approach with hillary and her various votes. didnt work then either. he should have learned his lesson then.

for Biden in the general.

The neocons need to work that "Never Trump" magic to the thimble full of anti-Trump conservatives to bolster Biden to the White House.

Clyburn, and all of the Bloomberg bots need to work overtime too. Get in them cul de sacs and get those professional managerial types voting early.

biden is also winning women, black people, and working class whites. you gonna shit on them too?

They are sick and tired of Trump hedging on invading Syria - and the Bolton Boys still salty that they didn't see all-out war with Iran.

But with Biden, they might just get their chance.


-->

He's not even getting a lot of Democrats, let alone swing voters/neocons/disaffecteds/whatever.

Sanders does not have widespread popularity. About a month ago, I thought he did. I thought he could pull in a broad coalition. The results showed that he can not.

>He's not even getting a lot of Democrats, let alone swing
>voters/neocons/disaffecteds/whatever.
>
>Sanders does not have widespread popularity. About a month
>ago, I thought he did. I thought he could pull in a broad
>coalition. The results showed that he can not.
>
>

Yeah can't argue with that, it's not up for debate. Time for Bernie supports to admit it.

following.

It's self serving to say but Warren supporters are a bit too rationale and when they saw she had no path to victory they were like, oh well, let's move on. I wonder how well you can do without a rabid all or nothing base in politics.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

hopefully the progressive movement in general internalizes this and answers the call to improve/expand instead of resorting/clinging to excuses and conspiracy theories.

that 1 county is the one that u of illinois is in.

bernie isnt winning urban, suburban or rural voters.

his lead with hispanic voters has all but evaporated too. lost em in fl and really close in il.

biden is winning some counties by like 30 points that bernie won in 2016.

its clear bernies base is smaller than a lot of people thought. a lot of it was just anti-clinton. hes lost a shit load of support this go round.

Bernie is going backwards.

She wouldn't do it but I dig picturing it

The feasibility of M.O. making this decision is suddenly seeming more and more realistic.

.

turnout up in az and fl despite all of the challenges with the coronavirus, closing/moving polling places, etc.

even the general. its over for bernie but for the down-ballot races the primary should be finished via mail-in ballots.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/18/politics/bernie-sanders-assess-2020-campaign/index.html

theres an important state supreme court race there and a live primary would drive turnout on the (D)emocratic side.

at this point, you can't even use that term to describe Bernie's base

https://twitter.com/AliVelshi/status/1240654325778694144
-----
Tulsi Gabbard ends presidential run, endorses Biden

https://t.co/52EVC7KPAx
-----

n/m

https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1240650484546859008

they'll be turning on Bernie soon too

despite the cries about RUSSIA and her plotting a 3rd party run - so this wasn't a surprise.

I did get into with some hardcore bernie supporters who were trying to drag her for this. Hope they keep that same energy when Bernie endorses Biden in coming weeks.

i seriously wanna know what the ultimate aim/objective is for these folks who are against tulsi/bernie unifying the party to defeat trump.

>despite the cries about RUSSIA and her plotting a 3rd party
>run - so this wasn't a surprise.

but I did get a LOL at those corkblowers turning on their heels when Tulsi said this. All of a sudden, all that "Russia" shit vanished into thin air.

Bunch of fatuous tools, the lot of them

is the gift that keeps on giving.

They were just so certain that Tulsi was plotting with Putin.

How quickly she became respectable in their eyes and *not* a Russian asset lol.

>but I did get a LOL at those corkblowers turning on their
>heels when Tulsi said this. All of a sudden, all that "Russia"
>shit vanished into thin air.
>
>Bunch of fatuous tools, the lot of them


-->

funny how prominent she was when she was gearing up to run for president.

then once it ended...*poof*.

>funny how prominent she was when she was gearing up to run
>for president.
>
>then once it ended...*poof*.

Endorsing Biden

lol she was MIA for a min

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sen-kirsten-gillibrand-a-former-2020-foe-backs-joe-biden-for-president/2020/03/19/b84a1d1a-6a10-11ea-9923-57073adce27c_story.html?utm_campaign=wp_politics&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter


Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) threw her support behind former vice president Joe Biden on Thursday, joining a dozen other former competitors to back his bid to become the Democratic nominee for president.

“He’s the absolute best candidate to defeat President Trump, and I think he is the person who has gained the trust and the respect of the American people in a way that no one else has,” Gillibrand said in an interview with The Washington Post. “The truth is he’s run the strongest campaign.”

Gillibrand’s nod comes as much of the party is coalescing behind Biden, who has racked up a more than 200 delegate lead over Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). The third well-known competitor in the race, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), ended her campaign Thursday and endorsed Biden.

The health and financial crises caused by the coronavirus pandemic contributed to her view that Biden is the right candidate, Gillibrand said.

“The truth is he’s run the strongest
>campaign.”

LOL

>“The truth is he’s run the strongest
>>campaign.”
>
>LOL


Yeah that's too much.

https://plusthree.com/news/updates/african_americans_invest_in_2019_campaigns/


A minority-owned (yay!) firm analyzed data (up to Dec 31 2019) from the ActBlue platform that (most?) Dem candidates were using. Kind of an interesting sampling approach, basically inferring race based on surname (which the census bureau does provide propensity estimates for) and geography (i.e. majority-black zipcodes) and constructing a black donor sample from that. I'm a little skeptical about how representative their sample could be (I'm think their propensity model may have biased results to Black/ADOS donors in the south or with southern ties, at the expense of black donors in regions like the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic etc or with heritage other than ADOS), but gotta start somewhere I guess. Interesting findings either way:


Estimated Total Dollars Donated by Black Donors: $40,848,906

Estimated Total of Contributions: 1,941,271

Estimated Average Donation Amount: $21.03



Estimated Black Donation Totals Per Primary Candidate:
======================================================
$10,588,778 - Bernie Sanders
$6,853,765 - Elizabeth Warren
$6,075,504 - Pete Buttigieg
$3,651,449 - Joe Biden
$2,999,488 - Kamala Harris *suspended Dec 3, 2019
$2,438,540 - Andrew Yang
$1,449,537 - Amy Klobuchar
$1,426,265 - Beto O'Rourke *suspended Nov 1, 2019
$1,248,673 - Cory Booker
$1,018,672 - Julian Castro
<$1,000,000 - Tulsi Gabbard, Wayne Messam, and all remaining candidates except Deval Patrick and Michael Bloomberg

Figure: https://plusthree.com/images/aa_donors_0320_1.png



Estimated Proportion of Black Donors Per Primary Candidate:
===========================================================
14.77% - Elizabeth Warren
14.70% - Bernie Sanders
14.37% - Julian Castro
14.20% - Kamala Harris *suspended Dec 3, 2019
14.06% - Cory Booker
13.29% - Joe Biden
12.47% - Pete Buttigieg
11.87% - Andrew Yang
11.71% - Tim Ryan
11.28% - Marianne Williamson
10.87% - Tulsi Gabbard
10.32% - Beto O'Rourke *suspended Nov 1, 2019
<10.0% - Amy Klobuchar and all remaining candidates except Deval Patrick and Michael Bloomberg

Figure: https://plusthree.com/images/aa_donors_0320_2.png



Estimated Monthly Black Support Per Primary Candidate:
=====================================================
https://plusthree.com/images/aa_donors_0320_3.png

^looks like they only covered the folks that were still competing and received votes in the early states i.e. Biden, Buttigieg, Gabbard, Klobuchar, Sanders


Estimated Monthly Black Support For Kamala Harris and Cory Booker Only:
=======================================================================
https://plusthree.com/images/aa_donors_0320_4.png


Estimated Black Donor Distribution by Zipcode:
==============================================
https://plusthree.com/images/aa_donors_0320_9.png

^Note: you can start to see here what I meant about their propensity model biasing their sample towards Black/ADOS from the south/with southern ties. I find it very hard to believe there was a (relative) dearth of black donors in the northeast, mid-atlantic, etc as their mapping suggests.



Overall pretty interesting. Other than my concern about how representative their sample is, I'm not too surprised by anything EXCEPT Pete Buttigieg nearly *tying* Warren for 2nd place (?!) in estimated total dollars of black donor support. Considering she lead the field in estimated 'proportion' of black donors, and candidates only differed in estimated proportion of black donors by a few percentage points... and also the fact that he was second only to Bernie in minority support in the early contests where he won/tied/did well eg. IA, NH... I don't see how it is possible he had "zero black support" and I'm not sure I'll ever forgive the media for incessantly hanging that narrative around his neck all cycle with their bunk ass polls. Like he raised almost DOUBLE the amount of money from black donors that Biden & Kamala did, in total AND monthly, with a FRACTION of their name ID and nascent ties to the community. He was doing fine, and folks like Klobuchar or Beto - who the media was always trying to interchange him with - were not even close. He only did poorly with minority voters in the states where literally everyone else who was not Bernie (NV) & not Biden(SC) did. And considering he was one of the top fundraisers throughout the primary, his ~12% proportion of black donor probably translated to more dollars and donors than the ~13%-14% Biden, Kamala, Booker, and Castro were at. Ugh. lol

Anyway. Warren's fundraising strength with black voters is impressive. I wish this study could have looked at the gender breakdowns too. I'd be interested to see who, between Warren and Kamala, has stronger support from black women.

of the total contributions all candidates received throughout the primary. That's pretty good since black people are just under 13% of the electorate (https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2019/01/PSDT_2020electorate-00.png). Folks are engaged.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/black-donors-gave-41m-2020-democrats-last-year-sanders-topping-n1162336

they got a full behind the scenes look at the implosion of the sanders campaign.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/21/us/politics/bernie-sanders-democrats-2020.html

some quick snippets:

https://twitter.com/mj_lee/status/1241382396706148353
-----
Some interesting Warren nuggets in this fantastic Sanders deep-dive from @alexburnsNYT @jmartNYT.

“As Ms. Warren relentlessly courted Ms. Ocasio-Cortez last fall, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s advisers had to prod Mr. Sanders’s aides into having him call her...”
-----

https://twitter.com/merici/status/1241350380904157191
-----
“So confident was Mr. Sanders that he would vanquish Mr. Biden that he spent valuable days trying to force two other candidates out of the race by campaigning in Minnesota and Massachusetts, the home states of Ms. Klobuchar and Ms. Warren. He won neither.”
-----

shit reads like the sanders campaign was run by the exact type of college progressive club types that his supporters have become more and more stereotyped as.

its pretty clear now that a lot of the behavior the 'bros' get criticized for isnt just emblematic of supporters. its built into the candidate too.

aoc was basically only as good as her usefulness. and bernie got so cocky after 3 early states (2 of them caucuses) and resulting positive news coverage and opinion polls (leading biden in black voters is still a classic lol)...that he really thought he could go put away 2 opponents in their home states instead of shoring up support among key constituencies (which apparently he didnt really have the support of lol).

I'm sure you're better than that.

But the irony couldn't be richer as he's peddling division at the exact same time that AOC & Bernie were engaged in a virtual town-hall together.

Guess he's really ensuring that the big-tent will be assembled come November?

-->

That doesn't count as "peddling division."

Okay.

The most important thing is for us all to be united in our admiration for Bernie Sanders.

But beyond that - it's going to require immense reconciliation from the party and the Bernie wing if they want to soundly defeat Trumpism. One of the main reasons why Obama was so successful in uniting the party is because of the meticulous care and effort it took from his team to extend the olive branch to the Hillary wing. Despite the immense efforts, more Hillary voters voted for McCain than did Bernie voters who voted for Trump, but if those efforts hadn't been made - and Obama and his team were obsessed with trashing Hillary (like you & Reeq continue to be with Bernie) - then the party may not have coalesced as it needed to.

But sure - keep acting like you're the aggrieved party here whereby you consider the Bernie base expendable and not needed to win in November. Hope that works out for you.

-->

>but if those efforts hadn't been
>made - and Obama and his team were obsessed with trashing
>Hillary (like you & Reeq continue to be with Bernie) - then
>the party may not have coalesced as it needed to.

-->

.

I'm sure they were very troubled by the anti-intellectualism and cult of personality in Bernie's movement. Breitbart doesn't go for that kind of thing at all.

I mean, I'll be honest, I've never visited Breitbart. But my understanding from media analysis types is that Breitbart, like Trump, have become defenders of Senator Sanders against the way the "establishment" and the DNC are supposedly trying to stop him at all costs.

...anyway...

So your argument is that we all need to unify as Democrats and turn our aim against Trump. Thank you for that. I couldn't agree more. That's part of why (as far as I remember) I haven't made a post about Bernie Sanders since the day he became irrelevant in this race. Reeq can speak for himself, but it seems to me like he's giving a useful post-mortem to help the Sanders wing to understand how it all went wrong and how they can be more politically effective in the future. You keep forgetting this, but Reeq has generally been a Sanders supporter and a forceful Biden skeptic.

It is a little interesting that your plea for unity applies to keeping up the spirits of the minority of the Democratic party who supported Bernie Sanders, but not to the majority of the party who supported Joe Biden. If you really wanted unity and reconciliation you wouldn't still be running your personal campaign against the actual nominee.

And it's interesting that you accuse me of playing 'the aggrieved party' (I didn't think I was; I was just mocking your logical inconsistency) when you came into this to complain about your candidate not getting enough credit for holding a virtual town hall.

>
>I'm sure they were very troubled by the anti-intellectualism
>and cult of personality in Bernie's movement.

We can't all be as sophisticated and cerebral as Damita Joe.

>So your argument is that we all need to unify as Democrats and
>turn our aim against Trump. Thank you for that. I couldn't
>agree more. That's part of why (as far as I remember) I
>haven't made a post about Bernie Sanders since the day he
>became irrelevant in this race. Reeq can speak for himself,
>but it seems to me like he's giving a useful post-mortem to
>help the Sanders wing to understand how it all went wrong and
>how they can be more politically effective in the future. You
>keep forgetting this, but Reeq has generally been a Sanders
>supporter and a forceful Biden skeptic.

Reeq hasn't been a Sanders supporters since 2016 - but this isn't about who has been a supporter or who hasn't - it's about pivoting to the general and understanding that we need a united front to peel off an incumbent. If you think that stoking some faux rivalry between AOC and Sanders is a "useful post-mortem" and/or is going to help us unify for November - then that's a peculiar strategy.

>It is a little interesting that your plea for unity applies to
>keeping up the spirits of the minority of the Democratic party
>who supported Bernie Sanders, but not to the majority of the
>party who supported Joe Biden. If you really wanted unity and
>reconciliation you wouldn't still be running your personal
>campaign against the actual nominee.

There it goes again: trivializing the significant and sizable Sanders wing of the party. People act like Sanders did Klobuchar numbers or something - when he's amassed nearly 900 delegates thus far. This isn't some fringe Jill Stein base of support.

The reason to focus on the Sanders base right now (as even Biden has spent time doing) is because of the need to bring them into the fold to topple Trump. The reason why the focus isn't on the "majority of the party who supported Biden" is because they got what they wanted - and are already on board. They are going to VBNMW - so it would make sense to build bridges to Sanders wing instead of trying to kick dirt on their faces. That is, if you want to win instead of just firing off sophomoric shots at Sanders.



-->

there can be no one else

That the guy who is suppose to build this national non-partisan coalition against Trump not only can't build a coalition within the democractic party, looks like dude can't build a coalition in the progressive wing of the democratic party?




**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

for those who swore Bernie was building this broad coalition



Reeq and a few of us tried to tell yall

twitter without looking like a complete loser

Yall know I've been harping a lot about his infrastructure deficits lol. Saw this and thought I'd share:

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/22/joe-biden-fec-fundraising-140262

'He just needs more of everything': Biden campaign faces retool after primary surge

Newly filed campaign finance reports show how Biden's campaign lagged behind rivals until he caught fire after the South Carolina primary.

By SCOTT BLAND and ELENA SCHNEIDER

03/22/2020 07:00 AM EDT

Before the three weeks that miraculously brought Joe Biden to the cusp of the Democratic presidential nomination, his campaign was limping along — and Biden knows it.

“The press kept saying Biden has no money, and they were right,” the former vice president said during Sunday’s Democratic debate with Bernie Sanders. “Biden had no money.”

And campaign finance disclosures filed late Friday highlight how Biden has nearly captured the Democratic nomination on momentum and message instead of organizational prowess — and the work his operation has to do to build up for a grueling general election campaign against President Donald Trump.

Biden, who brought in $18.1 million in February, was outraised by four other Democratic presidential contenders that month: Bernie Sanders ($47.7 million), Elizabeth Warren ($29.5 million), Amy Klobuchar ($18.7 million) and Pete Buttigieg ($18.6 million).

While Biden’s fundraising took off in March as he started stacking up primary wins, his campaign operation lagged well behind others’. Sanders had 1,215 people on the payroll in February, according to his campaign finance report, while Warren paid salaries to 1,203 staffers. Buttigieg had more than 550 people on his campaign at that point.

Meanwhile, Biden’s payroll stood at 477, as his lower fundraising totals throughout 2019 and early 2020 meant his campaign had to keep costs low. Sanders outspent Biden $46 million to $13 million in February — and still finished the month with more cash in the bank, $18.7 million to $12.1 million.

“As is typical, got to pull in talent from other campaigns and across the party to run a general election, and he’s got to move quickly,” said Stephanie Cutter, a Democratic strategist who served as deputy campaign manager for Barack Obama in 2012. “He just needs more of everything.”

Lying in wait is Trump’s reelection campaign, which has been preparing for the general election for years and already has more than $94 million socked away in its bank account. The Republican National Committee has also built a big financial advantage over the Democratic National Committee that even a big windfall from billionaire Mike Bloomberg can’t erase.

The DNC ended February with $14.1 million on hand, compared to $76.8 million for the RNC.

Biden’s retooling process is already underway, with another former Obama hand, Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, taking over as Biden’s campaign manager last week. But the coronavirus pandemic and the sudden onset of social distancing and work from home may impair the Biden campaign’s buildup.

“The lack of infrastructure in the states was a reflection of the limited resources available at that time, and now, that will all change,” said Tom McMahon, a former DNC executive director.

“They may be playing catch up, but in light of how campaigning will take place going forward, they aren’t necessarily at a disadvantage,” McMahon continued. “The real challenge they’re going to have to face going forward is putting together a comprehensive campaign remotely.”

Biden will have the cash to try: He revealed during last Sunday’s debate that he had raised $33 million in the first half of March, and that was before he swept the primaries on March 17 and padded his delegate lead over Sanders.

Even before the former vice president started raising such large amounts of money, Biden’s other strengths were more important than the power of an organization during the primary, said Matt Paul, a former aide both to Hillary Clinton and to Tom Vilsack, former Agriculture secretary and onetime governor of Iowa.

“But it’s a different game now,” Paul continued, “and they know that. This break in the campaign is bizarre, but it’s an opportunity to think very carefully and plan very carefully about how to marshal their resources.”

February fundraising is attributable to one very enthusiastic wealthy donor, who contributed ~15M to her Persist PAC:

https://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/forms/C00739110/1391696/sa/ALL

That's interesting, given her rhetoric during the cycle particularly with respect to wealthy donors. But what I find more intriguing is without that donor, who basically bankrolled her PAC... she would have actually raised a few million less than the moderates i.e. Biden/Pete/Klob.

Following the money always tells a better story lol. I'm not necessarily mad at her tho.


>
>Biden, who brought in $18.1 million in February, was outraised
>by four other Democratic presidential contenders that month:
>Bernie Sanders ($47.7 million), Elizabeth Warren ($29.5
>million), Amy Klobuchar ($18.7 million) and Pete Buttigieg
>($18.6 million).
>

according to wiki (i know) its $5000 per campaign. wouldnt this persons $14m be separate from the $29m that warren raised? the $14m was used in advertising by the persist pac without coordination with warrens campaign and not given to the campaign?

if you include the persist pac as part of the fundraising then her total was actually $43m for february not $29m?

the PAC situation works. I just kind of randomly subtracted it in my head without thinking of the restrictions you're correct to mention.


I do still think it's interesting that that lady donated the vast majority of funds to it tho.

Which I'm not necessarily mad at lol

it would be good to know if the $14m counted towards the $29m in february or if it is separate. definitely changes how that $29m looks.

i was never a fan of her embracing the pac, i guess its not as bad as it was being portrayed but it was still a move that was hard to defend.

overall i think its clear that donations/donor counts is not a great indicator of actual potential votes. at least not scalable or proportional to the votes you will get.

https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/individual-contributions/?committee_id=C00666206&contributor_name=karla+jurvetson

and hosted Obama and Tom Perez at her house in November https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Obama-fundraiser-Unity-Fund-DNC-Karla-Jurvetson-14831742.php

It was Obama behind the centrist coup the days before Super Tuesday and Warren was just a "player in the game" The Super PAC propped her up so she could siphon more votes from Bernie. Warren was always a central player in the stop Bernie movement. https://www.nytimes.com./2019/04/16/us/politics/bernie-sanders-democratic-party.html

Thanks Citizen United.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_money


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

a fuckin single "girlboss" billionaire funded her campaign, LMMFAO

>a fuckin single "girlboss" billionaire funded her campaign,
>LMMFAO

Really one of the most ironic and hilarisad aspects of the primary.


-->

...what a piece of shit she turned out to be ...the writing was on the wall with all her past shady shit, and we were dumb enough (some of us) to give her the benefit of the doubt ..fucking snake

stemmed from the fact that she didn't endorse Bernie


or was it yall wanted her to drop out sooner?



either way its so misdirected

https://twitter.com/nypost/status/1242494331681980418
-----
Bernie Sanders will stay in 2020 race until New York primary

https://t.co/vdj1hjeWfd
-----

i wanted him to at least stay in til wisconsin. theres an important downballot state supreme court race there. the turnout from a dem primary will all but assure dems take that seat too. i hope the candidates are telling voters about that race too.

but this isnt about any of that. bernie actually thinks new york will be some kind of hail mary.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/opinion/sanders-primary-new-york.html

bernie outspent biden by more than 3x in feb alone and still got spanked. theres nothing that could fundamentally change that going forward.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/21/politics/february-fec-filings-2020-presidential-campaign/index.html

who knows anything can ahppen

https://m.soundcloud.com/katie-halper/joe-bidens-accuser-finally-tells-her-full-story

some background https://theintercept.com/2020/03/24/joe-biden-metoo-times-up/

this is after 8 women accused him of inappropriate behaviour last spring

she recently went to tell her story and "The public relations firm that works on behalf of the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund is SKDKnickerbocker, whose managing director, Anita Dunn, is the top adviser to Biden’s presidential campaign."

this is on top of the groping of young children that has been out there for years and everyone seems happy to ignore

Not that I trust polls all that much these days lol, but these are the first I've seen:


=================================
Economist/YouGov Poll (Mar 22-24)
=================================

https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2020/03/25/biden-running-mate-poll

Can't seem to grab a url for the figure, but this is the breakdown from the "Democratic VP" figure in the widget at the bottom:

"Of the choices listed below, who do you think should be selected as the Democratic Party nominee for Vice-President if Joe Biden wins the nomination for President? "

DEMOCRATS
=========
31% - Elizabeth Warren
20% - Kamala Harris
13% - Bernie Sanders
11% - Not Sure
10% - Stacy Abrams
9% - Amy Klobuchar
5% - Someone Else


INDEPENDENTS
============
20% - Elizabeth Warren
19% - Not Sure
17% - Someone Else
13% - Kamala Harris
12% - *Tie* Bernie Sanders, Amy Klobuchar
7% - Stacy Abrams


REPUBLICANS
===========
25% - Bernie Sanders
23% - Not Sure
19% - Kamala Harris
14% - Someone Else
12% - Amy Klobuchar
7% - Elizabeth Warren

Also:

"Warren draws the most spontaneous mentions when Democratic voters are asked to volunteer a choice for vice president, and she is also at the top of the list when Democratic voters are asked to choose among the four women most frequently mentioned as vice-presidential candidates and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.

Warren leads in every age group, and with both men and women. She is well ahead with liberals, while moderate and conservative Democratic voters have no clear favorite. Warren had been the most popular of the Democratic candidates when Democratic voters were asked their overall opinion of the candidates in Economist/YouGov Polls."



=========================
Fox News Poll (Mar 21-24)
=========================

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fox-news-poll-biden-leads-trump-wins-high-marks-for-female-vp-pledge

https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2020/03/1862/1048/ae97d125-5.png

^Warren does well in the Fox poll as well, though she leads Harris and Klobuchar by only 2% which may not even be meaningful statistically.


Overall, I think this is good news and I hope the polling is somewhat accurate on this. The more I think about Warren's strengths (i.e. competence, organized support, small donor fundraising, black donor fundraising) and the circumstances the next pres will inherit, I think Warren's specific expertise in bankruptcy, banking, economics etc plus the role she played during the last financial crisis would be especially useful. That, in addition to her high favorability (at least among Dems and Independents) and her persistent popularity as a second-choice throughout the primary cycle and even now as a preferred vp, has me thinking she would be the strongest possible choice if Biden must be the nom and have a female running mate. Edit: Oh and I forgot the "unity ticket" aspect, given she's so far left of Biden. That is also good, I think. I feel like ideology and gender were important touchstones this cycle.

Will be interesting to see what the Malarkey camp ends up doing.

...we all Lost...

>...we all Lost...

This fucking *reaks* of the DNC's election forecasting/calculations outdueling their common sense. Again. But maybe I'm overreacting.

he just said shes on the list for consideration.

personally i cant see dems pulling a popular dem swing state gov and risking another gop state trifecta before redistricting.

This would be a deflating pick, absent of aspiration while doing nothing to excite the base. As such, it makes perfect sense lol.


-->

**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

-->

I’m not really feeling a female VP from a state that is going Dem already. That’s hustling backwards.

>I’m not really feeling a female VP from a state that is
>going Dem already. That’s hustling backwards.

have us out here with a Biden/Klobuchar ticket lol


-->

*hella meaning a bunch of people in the comments to an NYT article saying Abrams should be his VP pick

prolly not surprising since shes winning this poll here too.

but i am kinda surprised that a lot of educated/informed black/political twitter types are saying she would help shore up the black vote.

before the primary...i thought so too. but seeing how a lot of black people reacted to her candidacy...i dont know how anyone can say that anymore.

maybe just the symbolism of a black woman in the vp spot would galvanize a lot of black voters (rightfully imo). but kamala as an individual comes with her own set of risks/vulnerabilities with black voters.

believe Biden's VP needs to be non-white. It's apparently even less important to voters across the board at 7%:

https://morningconsult.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/200414_VP-Traits3_fullwidth-2-scaled.png

The consensus between younger voters and everyone else seems to be a desire for an experienced progressive (full report):

https://morningconsult.com/2020/04/15/biden-vp-pick-young-democrats/

But I guess we'll see. If we're being real tho, Warren was the strongest polling and strongest fundraising female candidate among black people during the primary. So if appealing to the community is an aim, she does actually have the strongest case out of all the women getting buzz so far. And that's *in addition* to leading by double digits in multiple VP polls.

black people saved bidens ass.

the vp spot shouldnt be a carrot for them. it should be the reward.

Kamala is iffy man. On paper she should have done a lot better. Her debating Pence would be fun though. But...I don't see it. I don't think she locks in anyone Biden won't already have.

If the "k-hive" were that powerful she wouldn't have bricked.


Abrams? I mean, if Biden was younger I guess. But is she ready to step up if something happens? More importantly, how much of an issue will that be in the general?


Plus, she's out here giving props to Ayn Rand? I dunno fam.


Who else is on the list? I've seen the Mayor of Atanta come up...but I know nothing about her.

No one likes my Pressley idea.


Demmings? Is Florida in play at all?

Trump's numbers with senior citizens are tanking, for some reason...

I've been listing Val Demings as a possibility, but I currently think Kamala makes the most sense. She tanked in the primary because apparently she's boring, but that's exactly what you want in a runningmate.

and polls are showing folks want a VP with experience. She's only been in politics since 2017.

I was at one time coming around on Abrams, but the pandemic and resulting chaos has changed my mind on that (especially up against a more experienced legislator with deep expertise in bankruptcy/banking/economics etc). She's said she'll be running for pres in the not-too-distant future tho so I'm content to wait until she jumps in the ring.



that's exactly
>what you want in a runningmate.
>

ya the boring running mate play worked wonders in '16 lol

To be serious tho, I just think it's hard to go wrong listening to who it is most people seem to want *shrug*

Plus there's a yin and yang element to it all too, right? Like if the candidate leading the ticket has more energy/star power, more subdued running mates seem to work eg. Clinton-Gore, Obama-Biden, 45-Pence, etc.

But if the candidate leading the ticket is more subdued - whether a result of age, personality, health, etc - I think a more rock star vp is ok. Biden, in this case, is an aged, subdued, lead. A VP bringing energy and organized support would help the Dems a lot imho.

I agree that there isn't a good case for Demings right now. The main argument for her was that we might want to run on impeachment, but that seems like decades ago.

I agree that Abrams seems like a nonstarter this year, though my only real concern is her "able to step in on day 1" problem.

>that's exactly
>>what you want in a runningmate.
>>
>
>ya the boring running mate play worked wonders in '16 lol

Maybe it did. It wasn't a controlled experiment. At any rate, there are reasons that runningmates are always boring.


>To be serious tho, I just think it's hard to go wrong
>listening to who it is most people seem to want *shrug*
>
>Plus there's a yin and yang element to it all too, right? Like
>if the candidate leading the ticket has more energy/star
>power, more subdued running mates seem to work eg.
>Clinton-Gore, Obama-Biden, 45-Pence, etc.
>
>But if the candidate leading the ticket is more subdued -
>whether a result of age, personality, health, etc - I think a
>more rock star vp is ok. Biden, in this case, is an aged,
>subdued, lead. A VP bringing energy and organized support
>would help the Dems a lot imho.

I disagree. If boring is the brand, boring has to be the brand. If Democrats can't stop talking about how disappointing the candidate is compared to the runningmate; and Republicans won't stop talking about how the scary lefty runningmate will actually be in charge, then we lose on both sides. And in the modern climate, both sides of the argument reinforce the other.

Trump provides plenty of ammunition. We could run a ham sandwich. And we could be pretty sure the ham sandwich wouldn't find a way to fuck it all up.

Liz Warren should be the nominee, as far as I'm concerned. And I'm not particularly opposed to her as the runningmate (she can be boring if she tries; she's an academic, she trained for it). My main issues with Liz are (a) we need her in a role of immediate influence, and the vice presidency (usually) isn't that; and (b) it's getting plausible that we could win back the senate, but it'll be close. Maybe I'm taking Ted Kennedy/Scott Brown flashbacks too seriously but I don't want to leave a Massachusetts senate seat in the hands of a Republican governor.

I don't want
>to leave a Massachusetts senate seat in the hands of a
>Republican governor.
>


I know what you mean. The senate vacancy issue seems to have been a recurring one too, from what I've read (eg. https://www.wwlp.com/news/state-politics/if-senator-warren-becomes-president-what-happens-to-her-senate-seat/)

But at least MA is one of 14 states where the law mandates that a special election to permanently fill senate seat vacancies is held within a few months:

https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/vacancies-in-the-united-states-senate.aspx

"145-160 days after vacancy occurs. If a vacancy occurs after April 10 but on or before the 70th day before the regular state primary, the office shall appear on the regular state primary ballot. If a vacancy occurs after that time, the office shall appear on the state election ballot that November."

i.e. there's significant limits to the Governor's selection. And on top of that, the filing deadline for the MA senate primaries already passed. They're taking place Sept 1 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_Senate_election_in_Massachusetts).
So if Warren is selected/announced as Biden's running mate, the timing of her resignation would limit the interim senator's time in office even more (which I'm sure she's already gamed out).

For example, the law states a preliminary deadline of 70 days before Sept 1, which works out to ~end of June right? That means if the VP selection/announcement happens by then and its Warren, the special election to fill her seat MUST occur Sept 1. The Governor's interim replacement would then be in office for a matter of weeks, many of which the Senate won't even be in session lol (https://www.senate.gov/legislative/2020_schedule.htm).


Tbh tho... at this point, I almost feel like even if MA was straight up gubernatorial appointment the gamble might be worth it for the Dems. If Warren is the running mate, worst case scenario (i.e. Dems lose) she'd keep her seat until the end of 45s admin anyway. And in the best case scenario (i.e. she and Biden win), the Dems at least take back the exec and a Repub in her seat is less dangerous than if 45 was still in charge. So if she really has the broad support VP polls are suggesting PLUS the economy is still in ruins in 2021 (likely), then she's honestly uniquely qualified for the role in this exact moment and the Dems would be smart to pull their MVP off the bench. These aren't ordinary times, unfortunately.

this whole shit is already tiring to me.

i just know im voting for the dem ticket no matter what.

...oh wait, that was a different candidates likely VP

When asked would he have a female VP

that he has with biden. he damn sure wasnt considering her for vp.

i love nina turner as a person. but bernie supporters put her on a pedestal where she doesnt even sit.

Just a lower-rung position though, right?

Your obsession with trying to create fake rifts is comical.

-->

see where you/yall fucked up at?

when has a candidate ever ran on a ticket with someone from their damn campaign staff? lol.

yall are literally the only supporters in politics who that shit makes sense to lol.

imagine obama supporters seriously discussing david axelrod as vp lol.

shit like this is why yall lost lmaoooo.

thx for that laugh fam. i needed it.

>see where you/yall fucked up at?

"y'all did this; y'all said that; y'all didn't even want this" ad nauseum.

Not sure who you're referring to - but I never even made a comment about Nina being Bernie's VP (though I think she'd be a great selection). What I'm referring to is your absurd implication that Bernie doesn't value Nina because "he wouldn't even put her on a task-force" -- as if that's indicative of anything. A task-force? We talking about a damn symbolic task-force? Bernie appointed her as National Co-Chair of his campaign and you're crying about a task-force. lmao.

First it was AOC and Bernie w/ the drama - then Briahna - now it's Nina. I look forward to your next "Bernie beefing with xxxx!" target for your tabloid-news ranting.

-->

and im not sure why you would #wellactually yourself into a conversation about nina as bernies vp in a post about vp candidates if you were gonna throw a hissy fit irrelevant to the vp conversation you responded to.

this is why yall lost lmao.

-->

voters supported most strongly?

I'm sorry but I just disagree completely that melanin is the only way to achieve representation. For whatever reason, black voters liked Warren *way* more than Kamala, Klobuchar, and every other woman that ran for pres, and backed it up with CASH:

https://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=4&topic_id=13372455&mesg_id=13372455&page=#13374376

I think ignoring *THAT* would constitute political malpractice.

And then to top it off, aside from having been the strongest performing female candidate with the black electorate, poll after poll suggests Warren's the preferred choice of the general electorate, the progressive electorate, etc... even Biden himself was rumored to have wanted her as a running mate had he ran in '16:

https://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/joe-biden-elizabeth-warren-223104

It's like every sign points toward Warren satisfying more constituencies, including and most notably black voters.

a primary candidate who dropped out immediately after getting less than 1% of the votes in iowa.

obamas ge weakness was whites with no college degree. when it came time to pick a vp...he didnt go with clinton (who dominated him by 30pts with that group). he went with the weak primary candidate biden to appeal to that demo. and we know how things turned out.

its a lot more complicated than just picking the primary candidate who did the next best (or even better) in a key demo.

bidens biggest *enthusiasm* lags are among young and black voters. he can make up a lot of the drop off with young voters by picking up steam with older voters (which he is doing). consolidation/campaigning by bernie is helping with this too.

but if black voter enthusiasm/turnout is low then he is dead in the water. point blank.

the safest bet to *any* dem win is increased black turnout. even a low single digit turnout increase from 2016 would drastically alter the electoral college map.

i dont care what national polls say. this election comes down to a handful of states. and blackpac...who specifically polls black people only in battleground states...found that 55% of black voters in those states would be more enthusiastic if he picked a black woman vp.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/14/poll-biden-black-vp-185043

liz warren isnt gonna drum up extra black turnout in those urban centers in mi, pa, oh, fl, etc. you know this. liz would just bring in support from college educated very liberal voters (who are already gonna vote firmly dem) in places that already vote heavily dem (basically the same way her campaign performed).

you dont have to buy into the notion that black vp representation matters to black voters. they(we) clearly do. its why biden allies like john lewis and james clyburn are urging him to pick a black woman.

black voters (particularly black women) are the backbone of the (D)emocratic party. they fueled his primary win. if he/dems want to take them for granted for a *2nd* presidential campaign in a row...they do so at their own peril.

energy and organized support behind him. Here's a question: do you think Obama could have won had he picked a diff vp? I do; he had *that* much juice. But Biden in '20 is a whole different situation, and he's geriatric. People seem to want more from Biden's VP, imho.

So that means its even more important to address his deficits, right? And like you said, he needs the most help with young voters. So of the possible female VPs being mentioned, Warren OVERWHELMINGLY had the strongest organization, fundraising, black support, and YOUTH support. Like, literally all his major weaknesses lol. And she's way left of Biden, which polled young voters have expressed they'd prefer to see.

I won't dig into the Warren campaign v. Kamala campaign debate again bc we've gone back and forth on it elsewhere, lol. I still think it's bizarre to penalize Warren on her performance when she did so much better than Kamala tho. Biden performed better than Kamala in the demos she's supposed to help with, and Warren performed better than BOTH of them with young voters and progressives which Biden *does* need help with. I don't really get the Kamala Turnout hypothesis.

But I will say the ship already seems to have sailed on hoping for a VP that appeals to the midwest. Biden did fine against Bernie there tho, so *shrug*. The veepstakes would be between Pete and Amy if that was the priority (I'm not saying it shouldn't be), and Pete had more black support, black fundraising, favorability, and delegates than her from the region anyway. I actually think Biden would be stronger than any possible VP pick (except Bernie) when it comes to Midwest, working class, etc regardless. So maybe that's why they don't seem to be prioritizing it.

Anyway, even tho we're on opposite sides of this debate (lol), I do get it. People want that Obama magic back. It was such a good win for the Dems. But I just think '08 was a different time, and that post-Obama a lot of people grew disillusioned with the (assumed) melanin = policy connection... black progressives, especially. I myself am a black woman and as I follow these veepstakes all tf I care about is who makes the most competitive ticket and who could do the best job if they make it to office. Period. The primary results and polls indicate that a lot of folks feel similarly. I think Dems ignore all this to their peril.

And just to be clear again lol: I honestly don't hate Kamala. She's super accomplished, righteous, and very likable. But to be real I'm actually way more excited about her possibly being this black female Supreme Court Justice Biden talked about (if Dems win). I think she would be more powerful, historic, and impactful in that role and would maintain relevance/visibility for a longer period of time. And that's before taking into account how excited AKAs would be to claim the first black female SCJ in US history (you know how much they love to be firsts lol) and the HBCU representation she would add to the bench. That could help Howard's marketing for decades.

I mean look at this children's book about her coming out this year:

https://www.amazon.com/Kamala-Harris-Justice-Nikki-Grimes/dp/1534462678

"Rooted in Justice"? Imagine all the little black girls that could read this book and see her sitting on the SC over the course of their generation? "I wanna go to Howard and then law school and become a lawyer and senator and judge one day like Kamala." That'd be so much bigger for black women than helping Biden clean up post-45 America imho (and it's not a knock on Kamala to acknowledge that Warren's expertise is better suited for post-45 cleanup and Kamala's expertise is better suited for judiciary leadership).

Obama had to pick someone like Joe. It was a calculated move.

That's all I'm trying to say there.

Definitely was a calculated move, as VP selection should be.

But ya, I think he could have still won. It may have been a different vibe/rapport with the running mate, but luckily for Obama it's not like there was (or is, lol) a shortage of white male centrist politicians with strong bipartisan connects in Congress. He just needed to find somebody he could work with lol


>Obama had to pick someone like Joe. It was a calculated move.
>

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EWOSqMtXgAAbm0w?format=jpg&name=large

Such a classic DNCNN move.

-->

Dude better pick Warren tho.. lol

Ionno. Politically Stacy Abrams makes the most sense because GA could really be in play.

It’s America tho. I could also see Whitmer since he needs Michigan but I don’t know much about her besides the shutdown news on her.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/22/stacey-abrams-i-would-be-concerned-if-biden-didnt-pick-a-woman-of-color-for-vp-201209

-->

Must have a link to this story from Fox News or Drudge.

Not one positive comment on first glance.

Her claim to fame is that she *almost* won a race for governor. She has no clout.

If you want a black woman, cool auntie Kamala is the way.

I still think a midwestern female politician is the best pick if maximizing the chances of winning the election is the objective

Baldwin could help sew up Wisconsin.


I'd personally prefer a black woman, and I think Reeq is making a lot of sense.


But if they go midwest, I think I'd prefer Baldwin to Whitmer. I think progressives would be more excited for Baldwin.


But then I think its an election to replace her which is risky.

Give me Kamal dammit

But as others have said she doesn’t really bring much to the ticket other than being a smart accomplished woman and I know that IS an accomplishment but we need to get votes it can’t just be about being smart.

A Midwest pick would help lock up votes.

I think the powers that be sadly already think the Black vote is locked up even without Kamala so that’s not enough to guarantee her the spot.

I agree about what some have said about Stacy sadly, I love her she’s really smart but doesn’t “get” us much as a pick.

https://twitter.com/justinamash/status/1255291408732360712

jesse the body ventura is possibly seeking the green party nomination (or another ticket if that doesnt work)
https://twitter.com/GovJVentura/status/1254783039642595330

a recent usatoday poll shows that a 10 point biden lead over trump gets knocked down to 6 (-4 pts) with the presence of a generic 3rd party candidate
https://twitter.com/billscher/status/1254857626816524288

this election is gonna be a clusterfuck.

This shouldn't be surprising to anyone. The VBNW crowd was going to vote Democrat no matter who the nominee was -- but the downside of a Biden nomination is illustrated in those numbers. Will he and his team be capable of expanding the tent to appeal to those disaffected voters? Or is the mentality: "fuck them, we don't need them anyway?"

That Clinton/Biden livestream endorsement was so poorly received - and that should be concerning to Democrats.

Biden's VP selection is going to be the most consequential VP choice in decades. They better get it right. There's no margin for a Tim Kaine error here.


-->

>This shouldn't be surprising to anyone. The VBNW crowd was
>going to vote Democrat no matter who the nominee was -- but
>the downside of a Biden nomination is illustrated in those
>numbers.

Or...maybe...just maybe...it isn't "disaffected voters" who view this clown as a viable option...but the few Republicans or right leaning Is who really don't want to vote for Trump OR Biden.

In other words, stop looking at data/situations and forcing it to fit your narrative.


Will he and his team be capable of expanding the
>tent to appeal to those disaffected voters?

LOL what?

So if Biden's team doesn't reach out to disaffected liberals...they are going to vote for...wait for it...Justin Amash.

Oh wait...I forgot...the SOCIALIST who got his ass kicked in the Democratic primary was going to appeal to the sad "disaffected voters" who would also consider voting for Justin Amash.

The mental gymnastics you have to perform at this point is breath taking.

Or is the
>mentality: "fuck them, we don't need them anyway?"


You really want Biden to chase Amash voters, dog? Is that the play? So he should move...to the right? You need a few months off.

If you really believe Amash is going to take voters who Bernie would have held on to, then I legit don't know what to tell you.


>
>That Clinton/Biden livestream endorsement was so poorly
>received - and that should be concerning to Democrats.

It was poorly received by you, your twitter feed, and me. Is that all that counts?

Or, do you think that maybe, just maybe, there are other people out there?


>
>Biden's VP selection is going to be the most consequential VP
>choice in decades. They better get it right. There's no
>margin for a Tim Kaine error here.

>-->

I agree with you here, but I think even here you are living out a twitter fantasy where he picks Nina Turner or some shit.


Oh, even better, probably hoping for Tulsi.


How have you not learned that your twitter feed is not representative? The giant Ls you've taken...how have you not learned this lesson?


PS the VBNMW crowd would still exist if Bernie had won. You get that right? Like...in an alternate reality where Sanders ran a competent campaign and managed a W...it would be Bernie supporters telling bummed out moderates to remember how bad Trump is and to VBNMW.

You get that right? You yourself would be doing the exact same shit had your guy won.

Can you please at least try not to be such a fucking hypocrite?

And please, please get out more. Talk to people who disagree with you. Listen to them. Follow some other people on Twitter. Look around. And remember actual votes have been cast at this point...your arguments can be disproven with actual votes, man. Sheesh.

-->

Because his prior actions make it seem like he views Trump as fundamentally dangerous and should be out of office. So there's no way this is some 48D chess to help get Trump reelected.

He doesn't seem like a flat out dummy, so I'm going to rule out that he thinks he can actually win.

So I think it's either (1) promotion/ego, or (2) he know not what he do.

(1) He could be trying to build his brand. Get his name out there as the anti-Trump crusader who stuck his neck out. This could set him up in pole position if the Trump house of cards comes crashing down.

(2) Or it could be that he thinks he can pull the would be ashamed Trump voter away from Trump and lower his numbers. But I'm sure people have informed him that that won't be the case.

So I don't know what is on this dude's mind

https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2020/04/28/polls-show-democratic-voters-favor-warren-for-vice-president/#5dd3f9792d41

This is perhaps the most efficient way to unify the base at this juncture.

-->

You really think you can endorse Bloomberg and the VP spot sis?

You're essentially picking a President in the batter's box with this VP selection - and I don't see how Abrams is prepared to step into that role right today. I know she spent 10 years in the Georgia House and hails from the Old Yale Law Guard - but losing a gubernatorial race doesn't seem like a catalyst to the Presidency.

>You really think you can endorse Bloomberg and the VP spot
>sis?

lol. I mean, she's a typical politician and obviously is ambitious as they come, but I am surprised that she hasn't picked her battles a bit more strategically. She seems to down for whatever/whoever as long as it helps her emerge into prominence.




-->

especially after black voters saved bidens ass.

we already did this in 2016.

i dont care about any national polls based heavily in already blue states that are voting dem regardless. there are only a handful of battleground states that will decide this election and these polls dont account for that geographic distribution.

right now the least enthusiastic groups for biden are black voters and young voters. if dems dont get high black turnout then they lose. period. end of story.

only 1 pollster (blackpac) polled strictly black voters in the battleground states dems need for a path to 270. the majority of black voters said they would be more enthusiastic about voting for biden if a black candidate was on the ticket.

i dont see how anyone in their right mind can look at the fall off in black turnout in 2016 and suggest running an older whiter ticket.

Not sure why you would think a Biden-Kamala ticket automatically guarantees high black voter turnout.


-->

because she couldnt compete financially in the 2 lily white first states that have proven to be unrepresentative of the dem electorate.

not sure why you would say black voters didnt come out for her when she wasnt even on the ballot lol.

but putting that aside...

working class white voters didnt come out for biden in the 2008 primary. he completely flamed out in iowa.

yet they put him on the ticket as vp to appeal to that demo and ended up winning the entire rust belt, iowa, indiana, and virtually tying in missouri.

We had an entire year of voter interface with these primary challengers - and Kamala consistently polled underwhelmingly with voters across the board.

And despite your claim - Kamala was actually still on the ballot in primary contests even after she suspended her campaign - so your claim that she “wasn’t on the ballot” is incorrect.

Incidentally - Booker didn’t poll well with black voters either - so the idea that you automatically boost black voter turnout simply by putting one of the aforementioned on the ticket is presumptuous at best.

The truth is: Biden was the choice for the vast majority of black voters (both in pre-Primary polls and in contested primaries) - whether Kamala/Booker were on the ballot or not.


-->

Why would anyone base their whole campaign on Iowa results?

and many other races/ethnicities haven't even had the opportunity to see themselves represented yet (eg. native american, latin-american, asian-american, etc). Presidential elections are a recurring event. Did the election of Obama mean every Democratic ticket henceforth *must* include a black person?? I'm not even being sarcastic, it's an important question. Is it that you want black representation on the ticket even if it's less competitive against 45?? Or you're against an all-white ticket even if it woulld be the most competitive against 45? Like, would you be as adamant about this if instead of Warren, people seemed to favor say... Tammy Duckworth?

And tbh it is starting to read like you're contradicting yourself a bit here too (which, as a reeq fan, I'm honestly not used to seeing lol). First it's black voters saved Biden's ass/are carrying Biden, then it's black voters aren't enthusiastic for Biden. Does he need help with black voters or not?? I thought the argument for a mixed race ticket was representation i.e. not a carrot but a reward.

And re: your concern about black voters in swing states, recent polling suggests Warren STILL outperforms the rest of the names floated so far, second only to Stacy Abrams in MI and WI... who polled much worse than Warren with the non-black voters in those states:

https://www.axios.com/vice-president-women-color-warren-poll-biden-c75d2901-aead-424c-a5b1-a987ab312c6c.html

I'm honestly starting to think it's more racist to ignore all the indicators pointing towards who would obviously satisfy the most constituencies just because she happens to be white. Even Clyburn has come around on this issue:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/black-woman-not-must-biden-s-running-mate-clyburn-says-n1194926

and he was a crucial player in Biden's resurgence in SC. If even *he* can see the sense in looking past race to select the strongest running mate if that's what it comes down to...

And let's not forget it's quite possible all this was said and done a while ago and this whole veepstakes thing is just a formality. Again, Biden had allegedly already talked to Warren about being VP in '16 *before deciding not to run*:

https://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/joe-biden-elizabeth-warren-223104

So how realistic is it that he hadn't already started looking into this before he announced for '20? And remember we heard as much, when it was rumored he and Abrams had some conversations early on.

-Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.)
-Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.)
-Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti (D)
-former White House and Senate counsel Cynthia Hogan

Naming Dodd to this panel is about as Joe Biden as one could get.

-->

Merrill Lynch
Citigroup
Lehman Brothers
The Blackstone Group
Barclays Capital

my original prediction from 2017 and the choice of the majority of people here.

people are being swayed by national/general polling but the areas/demos the party needs to target are pretty specific.

her or warren
whatever the case, we voting, lol

potentially losing her Senate seat will be tough.

I feel like Warren would be more appealing to “swing” voters over other candidates.

Hint of things to come??? Interesting to see what their joint messaging is/might be like. I wonder if he'll write with any of the other potential picks.

Also - according to Wikipedia, McClatchy operates 29 daily newspapers in 14 states across the US. Not sure if this piece ran in all 29 tho:


https://www.miamiherald.com/article242350451.html


Biden, Warren: There’s No Oversight of Coronavirus Relief — Because That’s What Trump Wants


BY JOE BIDEN AND ELIZABETH WARREN SPECIAL TO MCCLATCHY
MAY 03, 2020 06:00 AM, UPDATED MAY 03, 2020 12:41 AM


Sixty-four thousand dead. Thirty million people out of work. Small businesses collapsing. Communities of color hit exceptionally hard.

Even the most ideological conservatives have been forced to acknowledge that government is an essential part of the COVID-19 solution. Government delivers best when its actions are fair, transparent and accountable. But President Donald Trump’s approach to this crisis doesn’t reflect these values. Without change, more lives will be lost and more families will go broke.

Relief legislation passed by Congress provides critical support for hospitals, families, small businesses and local governments — efforts that will save lives and help cushion the economic blows of this pandemic.

As the price of their support for these measures, Trump and the Republicans insisted on a $500 billion slush fund for big businesses with minimal conditions — a fund Trump could use to reward his political friends and punish his political enemies. They also jammed in a tax cut that overwhelmingly benefits millionaires. This tax break will be particularly helpful to hedge funds and real estate investors like the president’s friends and family — on top of the $1 trillion in giveaways to the wealthy and big corporations Trump previously pushed through Congress. The administration has even allowed a fund meant for America’s small businesses to be used by wealthy, well-connected investors. The cost is more than simply tax dollars — Americans’ faith in government is undermined when the price of helping everyone else is more giveaways for those at the top.

The coronavirus rescue package imposed some oversight of these programs, but when he signed it, Trump said he’d ignore the law and prevent a new inspector general from communicating with Congress. He then appointed a White House loyalist to serve in that role. And just to be sure there was no real accountability, he fired another inspector general independently designated to oversee the bailout.

Both of us have served in Congress overseeing the executive branch. We have also both served in the executive branch and answered to independent oversight. Take it from us: Oversight is vital to an effective democracy and a fair economy, and it’s a threat only if you have something to hide.

When Vice President Joe Biden ran implementation of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in 2009, he invited relevant inspectors general to scrutinize his work. In 2010, they concluded that a remarkable 99.8% of awards were free of any hint of fraud, waste or abuse. And Sen. Elizabeth Warren not only led the oversight panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, but she also set up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2010, where she maintained a strong working relationship with multiple inspectors general, who gave her high marks for her work.

By contrast, Trump seems to think he can direct funding for the response to this crisis based on which politicians are nice to him, which states he’s trying to win in November and which businesses he wants to enrich — all without any accountability. We have a different view.

Taxpayer relief should go to those most in need. Hospitals, essential workers, small businesses, and state and local governments should get the help they need immediately. If large corporations want help, they should agree not to turn around and fire all their workers. The relief bill’s unconscionable tax giveaway that overwhelmingly benefits millionaires should be repealed. But that is not enough.

During the recent presidential primary, both of us called for significant reforms to end Washington corruption and guarantee a government that works for the people. We urgently need those broader reforms now.

We highlight three areas:

▪ Conflicts of interest

We need strong, vigorously enforced protections against conflicts of interest, including transparency of personal finances. We need to close loopholes and strengthen the rules on the books — which in emergencies such as this are especially critical in maintaining public confidence. Both of us have long refused to own or trade in individual stocks while in office, and this should be a requirement, not a choice, for members of Congress and other government officials responsible for the recovery programs.

▪ Lobbying

It is time to close loopholes and require more extensive public reporting of all lobbying activity, such as disclosure of the materials that lobbyists now provide behind closed doors to public officials. Big corporations that will apply for or accept bailout funds should not be able to engage in political spending or to use their resources and political clout to lobby for bailout legislation that helps them, not the Americans and small businesses in need. A president who holds up relief for millions of people just so he can put his name on the checks cannot be permitted to auction off federal help in exchange for electoral favors.

▪ Oversight

Inspectors general should be shielded from removal except for what’s codified as “good cause.” Whistleblowers must be protected. While the Federal Reserve recently agreed to disclose certain key information, the full details of every bailout deal the Treasury Department or the Fed strikes with a company must be made public. And the Congressional Oversight Commission, which sits beyond Trump’s reach, needs subpoena power and the authority to oversee all aspects of the recovery, including a Paycheck Protection Program riddled with problems in its implementation.

If Congress and the Trump administration are unwilling to act now, then we will ensure that these changes are made in January 2021, both through new legislation and immediate executive commitments made by the Biden administration.

The Biden administration will appoint an inspector general to review every coronavirus relief transaction currently evading serious scrutiny. Wasteful, corrupt deals and giveaways will be rooted out and undone. Suspicious transactions will be referred to the Justice Department for investigation and prosecution. Every Trump administration official and business executive contemplating such deals should hear us loud and clear. Trump may wink and nod at this corruption. We will not.

Real unemployment in America is soaring. But for many Americans, our economy wasn’t working even before the devastation of the COVID-19 crisis. As we recover, we have the opportunity to create an economy that truly works for everyone. That begins with a government that is accountable to the people — and that is what we will deliver.



Former Vice President Joe Biden is a candidate for president. Elizabeth Warren represents Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate.

Klobuchar is formerly asked to go through vetting process.
Val Demings says she's on the short list
Wonder who else is on it?


I'm flip flopping. Two months ago, I was team Klobuchar. Mainly because who she is (plain Jane, inoffensive) and where she's from (Midwest). Now I'm thinking she might not have the personality needed for this moment.

Biden's gonna be hidin from now until November. At least he needs to be. I think the more out of sight he is, the better lol.
So he's going to need a forceful VP to get out there and fight. And Klobuchar is too "aww shucks" for that.

So I'm team Kamala for now. It seems like she can go toe to toe with Trump if need be.

it's always someone whose name wasn't on the list, maybe it will be different this time but...

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

>I'm flip flopping. Two months ago, I was team Klobuchar.
>Mainly because who she is (plain Jane, inoffensive) and where
>she's from (Midwest). Now I'm thinking she might not have the
>personality needed for this moment.

We already have the Washington-lifer angle covered w/Biden, mirroring HRC. Last thing we need is another boring, safe, aw shucks gee willickers VP pick to round out the 2016 repeat.

But of course that's probably what they'll go with.

https://twitter.com/whatapityonyou/status/1263580536804487171?s=21

Isn't a big part of the reason that he's the candidate is that he can do well in the midwest? If that's true, what does bringing her on add to anything?

VP pick really needs to be a Black Woman.

because Biden is Obama’s guy.

I think WHITE WOMENZ are the real key to victory. Hilldawh lost the white women vote last time.

and didn't bring white women votes...

It was reported today that Klobuchar has been told she's on that list - as is Val Demings, Gretchen Whitmer, Kamala, Warren, Cortez Masto and a few others.

The Abrams talk seems to have died down after Biden all but balked at the idea of her as VP in a recent livestream.

Shaheen (NH) allegedly "turned down" an offer to be vetted for Biden as VP - which is a good thing. She'd be a horrible pick.
-->

Wish I could see that's an exaggerated quote - but it ain't lol

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/22/joe-biden-breakfast-club-interview-274490

Uncle Joey out here syced off the primary - and is now the arbiter of blackness.

-->

These dude is wildin’ out!

I was like "the one good thing about that dumbass comment is he for sure if gonna have a Black woman VP now" lmao

i was reading a few weeks back that the announcement is always within a month of the convention.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOIFs_SryHI


(Yeah I'm still voting for him because Trump, but Good LORD)

for him.

I called them out but gotdamn man.. the fuck was he thinking?

This was the gaffe shit I was scared of. He says some seriously dumb shit.

Still voting for him tho.

He's already got the black vote locked up. Pretty much has all the votes he's gonna get locked up at this point.

Biden needs to just stay in his basement and do some softball Good Morning America interviews every couple of months until November. The only thing that can hurt him now is himself. Let Trump continue to implode and lay in the cut.

biden gaining momentum in polls...trump sliding based on his coronavirus response...even among key demos like voters over 65+ and white evangelicals...

burisma...tara reade...obamagate...nothing sticking to biden and actually may be having a small rallying effect among dem voters in his favor...

...and all of this is happening with biden stuck in his basement doing minimal press and campaigning...

team trump in mild panic mode along...bringing back people like karl rove...playing the blame game with swing state senators on who is dragging who down in their state polls...

everything looking gravy for uncle joe with virtually no risk or effort....

so...

team biden: lets send biden out for a random friday morning interview with a black radio host known for being provocative/antagonistic on a show thats been known for recently creating negative viral moments for guests/artists/politicians (kamala, warren, etc)!

Only time people pay attention is when something goes viral. And it's always negative viral.

If he didn't say that dumb stuff at the end, then his appearance on the Breakfast Club would have almost no audience. 100k YouTube views max. So there's literally no benefit in showing up.

Up like that. Like someone on his team should have cursed him clean out after this like do you want to be president or not. Tighten the fuck up. If charlemagne can get him riled up like that I can only imagine the different ways one on ones with trump
Will go.

When you been in politics for half a century and been running for president since 1988 how hard is it to be air tite

Hilary woulda never said no dumb shit like that

>Hilary woulda never said no dumb shit like that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-AKUNpcLRg

-->

Symone even attempting to defend this is insane.

Yes she's paid to defend and make excuses for him but this is too much even for her:

https://twitter.com/SymoneDSanders/status/1263849040325816320?s=20

I really think "jest" or not it was completely inappropriate for any white person, let alone the presumptive Democratic nominee for President, to act as the arbiter of Blackness.

that Biden chooses a Black woman as VP? Thus far, it seems like Whitmer, Warren and even Klobuchar have gotten more buzz than Kamala or Abrams on the ticket. Though there has also been buzz of Susan Rice (incidentally with nearly an identical foreign policy of Condi Rice).

There is a discussion to be had here and The Guardian ran an interesting article on this:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/22/black-americans-joe-biden-democratic-party-relationship

The "abusive relationship" analogy is apt in the sense that there's seemingly no where else for voters to go in this political climate. There's no viable third or fourth party where the vote can be expressed. So of course Biden will get the vote - and that's exactly what Dem operatives think: they can go with a Tim Kaine, or an Amy Klobuchar - because they take the vote for granted. Is that a healthy relationship?

-->

Yes I know he got on a call to the U.S. Black Chamber of Commerce to begin his apology tour and maybe he thinks it is gonna die down because of that but I don't think so.

And even if it does die down because ya know worldwide pandemic and all the second he picks a non-Black woman as VP this would immediately come roaring back and I think his advisers know this even if he doesn't want to fully admit it and that will be the deciding factor to make a Black woman VP.

For the record, it should have always been a Black woman VP as the only choice, it shouldn't have taken yet ANOTHER Biden gaffe to secure this bag but I am happy at least that this will be a guaranteed outcome.

I think they're much more interested in the conventional wisdom of trying to pick a VP to win in a battleground state - and trying to appease moderates (which is why Klobuchar is getting so much buzz).

They likely think that the Black vote is in the bag - and that they've secured it regardless of who Biden picks for VP (and they may actually be right about that) - which is another reason why there likely needs to a renewed discussion about the need for serious reform within the Dem party. The answer can't always just be: "well where else you gonna go? The GOP?"


-->

That really has that umph, to rile our side up.

A Black woman, a Latina, and even the east coast feminist intellectual-ness of Warren will really contrast with pence, especially in a one on one

Pence is that type of White man who has probably legit had 5 or less interactions with a woman of color is his entire life. Being challenged on equal voting by one will really show old vs new.

Amy and Gretchen, who I both like a lot, have that Midwest White hokey feel like pence so you lose that contrast with them

And if Rahm is associated with being picked for a cabinet position if Biden were to get elected, stick a fork in him.

Rahm being close to the seat of the presidency? hell and no
The man is worse than trump, and is a republican in disguise.

From being Clinton’s and Obama ‘s chief advisor, to being all about getting money , high on deportation, and was the true creator of the three strike crime bill, this man is the devil himself.

I didn’t even go in about his tenure as mayor of Chicago.

Democratic and Republican Party are shit. Seriously. This is what we have to deal with as citizens.

I believe it when I see it. Rahm is in the background with this dude, and Biden already sucks.


don't say you weren't warned.

If so i'm confused why you'd think biden wants him around the WH again

SMH. People need to read. did you not read what I posted? ...about him being their through Clinton
and obama. That's the whole point. He was a huge vehicle behind Clinton and Obama, doing major dirty work.

And obviously, you haven't been keeping up with regular news, because guess what? Biden meets with him regularly to get advice. So it appears Joe wants him around a lot. He just recently met with Biden, and there are rumors being reported regarding the meeting. They have been having regular conversations. That is a problem. That means he is getting advice and direction. You better believe Rahm is going to have his hand in this one way or another. It appears he has been in the background advising Biden...

https://www.chicagotribune.com/election-2020/ct-rahm-emanuel-joe-biden-campaign-economic-policy-20200522-ujxsorrlona7zittfbylv5cyhe-story.html


DNC used Rahm to get Clinton elected and Obama....and it smells like he may be a go to piece to help Biden. Shit stinks.

Rahm is very good at raising and getting money ( got his start as fundraiser manager for clinton), and connecting wealthy business owners to make money, and using that as a took for political support. Everything else, he does not give a fuck about. But the dude is smart as hell, just does not really care about the people



Article is behind a pay wall, so I'll paste:




--- Rahm Emanuel is having regular conversations with presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his top advisers about economic policy, the selection of a running mate and the political machinations of taking on President Donald Trump.

While Chicago’s former mayor is keeping the specifics to himself, he offered some hints about his counsel while mic’d up during a round of recent TV and podcast appearances.

Among Emanuel’s ideas: Democrats should stop looking timid on reopening the country amid the coronavirus pandemic and offer a bold plan to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure. While millions of Americans are stuck on unemployment, the government should pay for them to be trained for future jobs in coding and cybersecurity. And it’s time Democrats push for a New Deal 2.0 with guarantees on retirement security, health care and college education.

As for the selection of a running mate, Emanuel said the decision is more important than usual — Biden is 77 and would take office amid health and economic crises — but that policy direction is at least as important for the former vice president.

Revealing his standing in Biden’s orbit helps Emanuel, now a year removed from public office, keep himself relevant in the national political discourse — a knack he’s managed over several decades of building beltway relationships and holding key political posts. He has a weekly paid Sunday morning gig on ABC’s “This Week,” hosted by George Stephanopoulos, his longtime friend and fellow aide in the Clinton White House.
Joe Biden, wearing mask, appears in-person for 1st time in 2 months »

Emanuel’s policy suggestions and informal advising of Biden come as the former 36-year U.S. senator is working behind the scenes to meld the interests of the party’s more moderate establishment with its progressive left. The latter is a place where the former Chicago mayor isn’t exactly popular given his strong ties to Wall Street and a City Hall record that included the Laquan McDonald police shooting scandal.

A Biden spokesman declined to comment on Emanuel’s interaction with the campaign.

In recent days, when Emanuel hasn’t been offering his worldview of the current political moment, he’s found himself defending Biden’s capacity to meet it.

During a recent appearance on CNN, host Fareed Zakaria pressed Emanuel on the Trump campaign’s portrayal of Biden’s stumbles in various interviews and video appearances as evidence that he’s not up for the job. Asked what Biden’s campaign should do to “allay any fears people have that the candidate may be slipping in some way,” Emanuel didn’t offer a strategy. Instead, he simply vouched for Biden.

“I’ve seen him energetic. I’ve seen him working. My phone calls are late into the night with him, so if anything, he’s got too much energy. I’m the one that’s saying, ‘Joe, I gotta go, time up,’” Emanuel said. “So I’m very confident in the capacity of the vice president. I knew him when he was a senator, when I worked for President (Bill) Clinton. I knew him as a colleague when I was in Congress, chief of staff, mayor, and I know him now. And he’s the same person I’ve seen before.”
Trump threatens to move Republican National Convention out of North Carolina if arena can’t be full »

For the second time in two months, Emanuel this week was a guest on the “Hacks on Tap” podcast, co-hosted by longtime friend and fellow Obama administration alum and Chicagoan David Axelrod and veteran GOP political strategist Mike Murphy.

At one point Axelrod notes, “Rahm, you’ve been involved with the Biden campaign in talking through their economic plans." He then asked Emanuel whether the coronavirus pandemic makes it more likely Biden will offer a bolder progressive agenda, noting the vice president’s recent remark that he wants to “transform the economy.”

“The moment may call for it, and I’m a big believer in never allowing a crisis to go to waste, but the whole primary was a couple people in our party talking about a revolution and a couple people in our party talking more reform than revolution,” Emanuel said. “And what Biden is now saying is, ‘Well, the post-COVID world requires a revolution,' and I’m surprised, because he did not win on the revolution model. He won on the reform model.”

Emanuel said Trump already is offering a revolution and questioned if pitting one revolution against another is the “right contrast” before offering this warning about swing voters: “I’m not sure revolution is going to be reassuring to Southfield, Michigan; Bloomfield, Michigan; the suburbs out of Milwaukee; the suburbs in Phoenix.”

Axelrod replied by noting “that’s the danger” and said the key will be whether Biden’s proposals are “packaged as pragmatic answers to the crisis.”
Trump sows doubt on voting. It keeps some people up at night. »

“But if you say, ‘I’m going to restructure the economy ...’” Emanuel interjected. “I think people want to be reassured not threatened.”

Emanuel’s caution not to lose more moderate suburban swing voters won’t play well with the progressive base that backed Bernie Sanders, who has pushed for major transformative programs such as “Medicare For All” and the “Green New Deal.” The Vermont senator and his supporters argue the pandemic has laid bare a health care system and economy unfair to working families that must be overhauled as they seek to push Biden’s policies further to the left.

To build unity within the campaign, Biden last month created policy task forces with members appointed by him and Sanders to tackle climate change, criminal justice reform, the economy, education, health care and immigration.

Emanuel is not on any of the panels, but he told the Tribune he “talks regularly” with members of Biden’s campaign team. He declined to discuss those conversations, but during the podcast interview he offered a platform he said Democrats should be pursuing amid the coronavirus crisis.

The GI Bill and Social Security offered as part of former President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1940s should be the “North Star,” Emanuel said.
Joe Biden says he was too 'cavalier’ about comment that black voters considering Trump over him 'ain’t black’ »

“My view is go back, and let’s basically raise the floor on the New Deal, which is guarantee in and around retirement security, guarantee in and around health care security and guarantee in and around the education of your children all the way through post-high school,” Emanuel said. “That would be the most important thing we could do that is both fundamental and structural so those elements that come to a middle-class life have more foundational support than they did pre-the-crisis.”

After Murphy and Emanuel bantered back and forth about economic policy and whether Democrats would actually pay for such large programs, the former mayor suggested the federal government should take responsibility for all administration of health care and unemployment benefits, and require the states to spend that freed-up money on either infrastructure or education.

After the economic policy discussion had dragged on for several minutes, Axelrod had heard enough and reminded Emanuel the show’s premise is hackery.

“We gotta stop, man. There are politics to talk about here,” he said. “Rahm wants to exercise those policy muscles that have been atrophied in his one year out of office here. Do it on your own time, man.”

In a more political vein, Emanuel criticized Democrats for being too reticent on reopening the economy and placing too much emphasis on Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert. Emanuel suggested Trump was having success with that argument, even though polling shows more Americans are concerned with reopening too early than not soon enough.
Joe Biden says he was too 'cavalier’ about comment that black voters considering Trump over him 'ain’t black’ »

Democrats, Emanuel said, need to change the conversation in a way that puts the president and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on the defensive.

“He’s for reopening the economy, and we’re sitting there being reluctant and hesitant and hiding behind Dr. Fauci. I think we should be for rebuilding America, and then have McConnell say, ‘Not so fast. Let’s slow down, etc.,'” Emanuel said, suggesting a major infrastructure program.

“As I’ve always believed, you want to beat something? You gotta have something, and I don’t like our party in this kind of culture,” Emanuel continued. “Right now, we’re coming off way too culturally tone deaf to how people have to pay their bills.”

“Yes, it’s your nanny state thing, which we Rs have been able to play to the hilt forever,” Murphy, the GOP consultant, said in agreeing with Emanuel. “The know-it-alls in Washington don’t trust you to stay 6 feet apart and know what the hell you’re doing. They’d rather have you lose your house in a bankruptcy in 100 days.”

Emanuel said Democrats should be pursuing major construction projects while everything is shut down and people are largely stuck at home. He said the federal government should offer added unemployment benefits to train laid-off workers for computer coding and cybersecurity jobs that are in high demand.
Trump deletes incorrect tweet on Michigan absentee ballots, doubles down on threat to withhold funds »

Axelrod responded by observing that “Rahm comes out of a very definite place in the Democratic Party."

“What, like investing in people’s education is a bad thing?” Emanuel asked.

“Shut up a second,” Axelrod replied. "I’m not saying this pejoratively, but that is a New Democrat type of approach to that issue."

As Axelrod painted Emanuel with the centrist Clinton Democrat label, he noted that people feel there is a real “porousness” about the nation’s social safety net, health care and child care that need to be fixed beyond training for a new job.

Progressive critics of Emanuel will be less subtle about making that point within the Biden campaign. They come from a place that doesn’t forget Emanuel’s perceived political sins, including cautioning against immigration reform in the White House, helping push the passage of NAFTA and his deep ties with the nation’s wealthy elite that included his own multimillion-dollar stint as an investment banker and helped get him tagged with the moniker “Mayor 1 percent.”
Fact check: Can Michigan mail absentee ballot applications? Yes. Is mail voter fraud a problem? Not really, evidence suggests. »

On the podcast, a debate unfolded on whether Biden should pick a more progressive running mate such as Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren or California Sen. Kamala Harris, or go with a more moderate selection such as Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar or Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

“If Joe Biden does the right thing on VP, but the wrong policies, there’s going to be a lot more discussion at the kitchen table about what the household’s going to do this election," Emanuel said of suburban swing-state voters.

That comment could be interpreted this way: Satisfying the progressive masses on his running mate offers less risk than going too far to the left with policy proposals.

But in an interview with the Tribune, Emanuel said he was not placing more importance on one area over the other. He said Biden can overcome bad news cycles and botched virtual events, but there are four areas he must get right: his running mate, policies, campaign advertising and debate performances.

He said the conventional wisdom always has been the VP pick is a “do no harm” decision, but that no longer holds given Biden’s age and the fact the country is facing a pandemic and major recession that offer “no time for a learning curve.”
Michigan to mail absentee ballot applications to all voters for November election »

“It is going to come down to who is he comfortable with as a co-pilot and a partner? And that is only something he can vet," Emanuel said, noting that none of the options will offer the “total package” in the end. “The real question is what is Biden, in his gut, personally comfortable with in the way Obama was comfortable with Biden as his partner? And to me, voters will sense if he does that.”

During his appearance with Zakaria on CNN, Emanuel noted he’s discussed the vice presidential selection process with Biden, as he pushed back against suggestions that the former vice president isn’t as sharp as he once was.

“I’ve talked to Joe Biden multiple times over the last two months, I’ve had the same conversation with Joe Biden today as I did when I was chief of staff, and he’d come in and tell me what I needed to do up in Congress to get something done and seek his advice on things,” Emanuel said. “He’s fully conscious. We talked about a whole host of subjects on the economy and the politics of this moment, and the vice presidential selection.”

The Trump campaign’s focus on Biden’s gaffes and portraying him in attack ads as addled are just a distraction from the president’s wide range of political liabilities, Emanuel contended, while referencing the president’s widely ridiculed suggestion that people could be injected with disinfectant to ward off the coronavirus.

“Every attack on Joe Biden is a mirror held up to what Donald Trump has done, and he projects that failure onto somebody else to try to neutralize it,” Emanuel said. “The attack on Joe Biden about China is really about the fact that President Trump was on bended knee to China. The attack on Joe Biden’s skill set is about the fact that we have a president who’s President Clorox and Vice President Lysol. Give me a break. I’ll take Joe Biden.” ---

Disgraceful

https://news.yahoo.com/amy-klobuchar-declined-prosecute-officer-183728902.html?

https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1271531489377677312

kamala harris
susan rice
elizabeth warren
val demings
keisha lance bottoms
michelle lujan grisham

clear emphasis on woc (5/6) especiall bw (4/6).

smart money on harris imo.

Forget she was a day 1 for this cycle. Back when everyone was counting Biden out. I’d be fine with any of the BW in that list, altho I think Susan Rice is a bit too subdued for this moment. I love Liz 4 ever but she’s not the pick for this moment either. Neither is lujan grishom, glad they are in the convo tho

Why does he need to make the decision and announce it NOW??

The less time between the announcement and the election the better for him, no matter who the VP ends up being, but especially if it will be an "unpopular" choice.

>The less time between the announcement and the election the
>better for him, no matter who the VP ends up being, but
>especially if it will be an "unpopular" choice.


You're right, I didn't think of it that way.

Says he should pick a woman of color.


https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/06/18/politics/biden-vice-president-amy-klobuchar/index.html?__twitter_impression=true

Warren next

Absurd.

If I had to bet on it - I'd say it'll come down to Kamala, Whitmer and Susan Rice - with Lujam Grisham & Tammy Duckworth as dark horses.

I've met with other candidates when I know who I am going to hire just to say that I interviewed other people and ran a fair process.

Vetting means nothing.

**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

let alone vetted. It's a peculiar move to formally vet Maggie Hassan - who is a horrible pick - while not even vetting Abrams as a formality.

-->

It’s big decision, why are we shocked about them looking at various candidates

plus it serves as a pre-vet for other possible high level positions in the administration.

**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

fundraising Warren did for Biden this week either:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/15/politics/joe-biden-may-fundraising/index.html

For comparison's sake: AK brought in 1.5M with her event, KH brought in over 3M, but EW brought in 6M PLUS an additional 2M raised seperately from small-donors who couldn't attend (https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/18/warren-would-be-key-progressive-voice-for-biden-if-he-chooses-her-as-vp.html); Biden's single biggest fundraising event so far.

Wagons are obviously circling. Was Klob even on that shortlist of 6 put forward to advance further tho?? She's so petty.

Anyway... the synergy between Klob's pettiness, the Khive, and the donor class is bizarre to watch. But if the Malarkey camp is willing to say fuck it to all the polling, fundraising, Biden's weakest demos, etc then whatever... I hope they go with Susan Rice then (which I can't believe I just typed). Her polling is shit and she's not very progressive, but imho she's the only Black woman under consideration who indisputably meets the readiness/Could-Be-Pres-On-Day-1 and "sympatico" criteria he's emphasized, in addition to the level of experience voters expressed preference for in polls. I caught the recent in-depth interview she did on Firing Line (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/firing-line/video/susan-rice-oauzrb/) and she's the first contender I've felt comes across as a/the future vice president tbh *shrug*

But KH's standing reminds me *a lot* of Tim Kaine (including her promotion as the optical "safe" choice despite clear repulsion among voters under 40 and progressives), thus, I won't be surprised if she's selected. Starting not to care anymore tho.

among democratic voters now.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2020/06/18/democrats-favor-kamala-harris-for-vp-by-wide-margin-poll-finds/#72d1b4d16da9

even a week ago when warren was leading harris in another poll...harris was still leading by a significant margin among black voters...which is the most critical bloc to bidens success but one of his softest in terms of enthusiasm.
https://www.mediaite.com/news/new-poll-kamala-harris-now-top-choice-for-biden-vp-among-black-voters-as-her-approval-soars/

i know you got it in for kamala. but comparing her to tim kaine is a reach. clearly voters are trending in her direction and its more than just safe choice optics or whatever.

voters in this civiqs/data for progress poll (conducted 1st week June during the height of Black Lives Matter protesting no less):

http://filesforprogress.org/datasets/2020/6/democratic_vice_presidential_survey/Civiqs_DataforProgress_VP_banner_book_2020_06-v2.pdf

leading Kamala by over 20 percentage points (!!) in that demographic, which is arguably one of Biden's weakest (https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/6/17/1953855/-Joe-Biden-is-weak-with-young-Democrats-and-Elizabeth-Warren-would-best-win-them-over).

So we can both make compelling arguments based on recent polls, but the overwhelming trend throughout the primary and in their performances since is Warren's support has been more durable, actually delivers when it comes to money and votes (compared to Kamala anyway), and is strong across literally all demos but *especially* where Biden's weakest (eg. capturing ~20% more of voters under 40, ~20% more of those who voted for Bernie in the primaries, and over 40% more of those who voted for her). These are extremely relevant strengths to somebody hoping Dems produce the most *competitive* ticket possible to beat 45, not just the most optically pleasing.

That doesn't guarantee Warren will be picked tho. And Kamala as the black female Tim Kaine is not a reach at all lol, he was selected/promoted using the exact same optical, safe, identity-driven reasoning. But maybe it helped?? It's possible Biden could do worse against 45 than Hilary did.

Anyway, I honestly don't have it in for Kamala; I'm just a black woman willing to be honest about (and even dislike) her deficits. Even below, in another reply, you claim she's the only contender with executive experience which literally isn't true lol (at least not with a Mayor, Governor, and former Asst Secretary/Ambassador still being considered). But I didn't reply bc you'd probably start with the "damn you hatin on a sista!" when I'm just pointing out facts lol.


edit: Actually, I do have one grudge with Kamala. As the first black woman to seek the Democratic nomination? Her campaign implosion:

https://www.businessinsider.com/kamala-harriss-campaign-is-facing-an-internal-revolt-2019-11

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/11/15/kamala-harris-campaign-2020-071105

https://nypost.com/2019/11/29/kamala-harris-2020-campaign-is-falling-apart-from-the-inside-report/

might still be what I find most offensive (i.e. I still can't believe she would put together such a rag tag operation for such a historic run. Like, really sis?). But all that translates to in this context is I simply don't think she's demonstrated strong executive leadership of her most recent organization or is ready for presidential politics. I'd rather see her transition all those progressive stances she takes in the Senate to the Supreme Court *shrug*

U have a distinctly anti KH bent. Which is fine. But why not just fully lean in to it? She’s not universally liked

I'm still mad at KH for that wack ass campaign tho. I was more excited for Kamala's announcement than Warren's in the beginning, actually.

She let me down man lol

that uses online polling with a liberal slant (younger, more educated, more urban, etc). its run the by dailykos folks (notoriously pro-warren progressive site).

and dems shouldnt over-target young black voters at the expense of black voters overall (which harris wins even in the poll you posted).

would you put all of your effort into squeezing out as many voters from a group that only votes about half as much on a good year than you would motivating voters from a potential pool twice the size?

plus what matters most is turning out black voters in like 6 battleground states (blkprince alluded to this). if you think warren gets the job done there better than kamala...iono fam lol.

btw i said kamala has the most executive experience among the *frontrunners* (harris, warren, demings). but susan rice doesnt have executive experience, whitmer isnt really in the running, and any mayor like lance bottoms for vp is a longshot at best (i assume these are the people you were referring to).

those young progressive voters that dislike Kamala and Biden so much :)


>
>and dems shouldnt over-target young black voters at the
>expense of black voters overall (which harris wins even in the
>poll you posted).

>would you put all of your effort into squeezing out as many
>voters from a group that only votes about half as much on a
>good year than you would motivating voters from a potential
>pool twice the size?


It wouldn't be targeting "at the expense" of black voters overall if Biden already has strong support from older black voters. It would be *complementing* his support by listening to a constituency where he has the weakest support.


>
>plus what matters most is turning out black voters in like 6
>battleground states (blkprince alluded to this). if you think
>warren gets the job done there better than kamala...iono fam
>lol.

There's already been polling of black voters in swing states like MI and WI, and Warren's support among those voters exceeded Kamala's by like 10% : https://www.axios.com/vice-president-women-color-warren-poll-biden-c75d2901-aead-424c-a5b1-a987ab312c6c.html

>
>btw i said kamala has the most executive experience among the
>*frontrunners* (harris, warren, demings). but susan rice
>doesnt have executive experience, whitmer isnt really in the
>running, and any mayor like lance bottoms for vp is a longshot
>at best (i assume these are the people you were referring
>to).

Susan Rice *absolutely* has executive experience, what are you even talking about right now man lol?? And yes, mayors are executives as well. I interpreted frontrunners to be the shortlist of 6 contenders that you yourself informed us of lol:

https://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=4&topic_id=13372455&mesg_id=13372455&page=#13388689


Like, for all the executive experience you attribute to Kamala for running Cali's DOJ, I bet you didn't know its typical annual budget (~1B in 2019 according to wiki) is barely as large as the one Rice oversaw as an Assistant Secretary at Department of State (~1.5B, according to last numbers on the BAAs wiki from 2016). Both the Cali DOJ and the Bureau of African Affairs have thousands of staff. The 2020 budget KLB got approved for the City of Atlanta was 2.2B (https://www.atlantaga.gov/Home/Components/News/News/13055/672), and is also a large bureaucracy with thousands of staff. So the argument that Kamala is the only one with relevant exec experience just doesn't hold (it's at best comparable), and this is before comparing her productivity in the Senate to Warren's (she's less competitive), or their respective presidential campaign organizations (only one of which imploded spectacularly with staff complaining about weak strategy, weak, leadership, infighting, Kamala's indecisiveness, etc).

So like... no. Kamala has executive experience, 100%. But leave the words "most" or "strongest" out of it.

She also would go further in bridging divisions within the party than the other top prospects - but I don't see Biden picking Warren at this juncture. If EW is keen to move on to a new challenge, she'd be a phenomenal Sec. of Treasury.

-->

Is not recognizing that everything has shifted post George Floyd they are delusional.

I think warren is the perfect person to step into the vp slot and again I still want her to be president but with all due respect to u this choice is not gonna be about fundraising totals or how Kamala is a establishment dem like Tim kaine (and yeah that’s a huge reach to compare them too, again simply boiling it down to a White man vs a Black woman)

This pick has to be about an emotional boost to the most reliable portion fo the democratic base. Black people are hurting right now, and the last thing we need is another signal that we are less than or not included in what America is.

I’d be fine with any of the BW in the running. I think Susan rice is the most ready albeit she’s a bit boring otherwise. Kamala has that excitement factor and I think her Howard, AKA, Blackity Black pedigree will tamp down any distaste about her being a prosecutor. Val, KLB, Muriel will all be fine too, there is an element of learning on the job but as long as U come to the role with a serious mindset u will get it.

But yes a White woman is not gonna be the right choice right now, can you imagine all the negative press “in moment of extreme racial unrest, Democratic presidential candidate declines to pick Black woman as vp”

Picking someone besides a BW is the tim Kaine choice here, not Kamala

even the bernard brethren dont go that far.

like i dont even know how that train of thought leaves the tracks lol.

"This is why Kamala's reminding me of Tim Kaine... lol. Like, it's literally the same scenario... disillusioned by the candidate, hoping for a better VP pick, Tim Kaine being pushed by the media despite what actual voters seemed to be feeling and in the end being selected in part bc they wanted a white man to help Hilary appeal to white men. Oh, and he was fluent in spanish! For the latino vote of course"


>like i dont even know how that train of thought leaves the
>tracks lol.

unrest. Kamala's black support has improved among older black voters, for sure. But she's simply catching up to where Biden already has strong support. Young people, especially young *black* people, i.e. the people who were literally out in the streets driving this movement, still don't really fuck with EITHER of them. I don't see how that's not relevant and downright worrisome.

I mean yall are right in that I did favor Warren and grew lukewarm on Kamala during the primary. I actually don't even know people that like Kamala... it's a phenomenon I only see on twitter, okp, and polls lol. Most of my friends who are into politics (black progressives even further left than my center-left ass) are like hell tf no. But that's not what drives my arguments.

Put it this way: if you switched Kamala's numbers with Warren's?? I'd be arguing just as strongly for Kamala. IN SPITE of my grudge, lol. So it's not personal. I'm just placing the strongest premium on who "the people" seem to want. Who can help a Biden ticket appeal to the broadest swath of people. And who can structurally help him win i.e. fundraising, volunteers, etc. If Kamala was appealling to the range of consituencies Warren does, or could raise money like her, I'd root for a Biden Harris ticket without question.

This is why Kamala's reminding me of Tim Kaine... lol. Like, it's literally the same scenario... disillusioned by the candidate, hoping for a better VP pick, Tim Kaine being pushed by the media despite what actual voters seemed to be feeling and in the end being selected in part bc they wanted a white man to help Hilary appeal to white men. Oh, and he was fluent in spanish! For the latino vote of course ;)




>Picking someone besides a BW is the tim Kaine choice here, not
>Kamala

Young Black folks are gonna get 100 percent behind KH either. But they aren’t 100 percent behind Biden either. So if not KH, where do you stand on rice or Val demmings?

I just don’t think this Warren’s moment. Post George Floyd

Hmm... between Rice and Demings? Honestly, Rice is growing on me the more I think about things.

Not a place I would have predicted being lol, but 2020's weird af.

I think where I'm at is... out of the short list, Warren would probably be the strongest overall *asset* as a running mate... in terms of the constituencies she does better with and the structural support she brings to the ticket. But of the Black women under consideration, I do feel that Susan Rice best meets Biden's own crtieria, and seems like she would be the strongest governing partner. Especially given her NSA derived crisis management expertise, considering the conditions they would inherit if elected. She also wouldn't leave a Governor's or Congressional seat open which I suppose is an advantage as well (even tho I think such a move would be worth it to beat 45, depending on the strength of the VP pick and the jurisdiction's laws surrounding how said seat gets filled). And, perhaps most critically, she's not only worked successfully with Biden before (i.e. that sympatico criterion he always mentions) but worked in the WH, on transition to a new admin, etc... like she just knows how shit's supposed to work in there and could probably set up a new admin from scratch on Day 1.

I have zero problem with Demings so far, I haven't read enough about her. But my guess is her late entry into politics (2017) doesn't meet Biden's Could-Be-President-on-Day-1 criterion, and that's fair. I think I saw a lil something about her former police force being reknowned for use of excessive force, even during her tenure as Chief, but I didn't look further into it.

But ya. Warren and Rice have way different strengths, but its their more unique qualifications that push them over the top for me I guess. Warren in terms of her deep expertise in banking/economics/finance and Rice in terms of her crisis management expertise, executive branch experience, and foreign policy chops. In fact, watching Rice in recent interviews I would say her crisis management expertise is a better fit for current times bc out of all the contenders so far I've not yet seen someone so good at weaving together not just the economic but social and political dimensions of an issue and you can also see her history and IR training at work too the way she puts things in historical and international context. She's smart as hell. And a great-granddaughter ADOS too, which might hopefully protect her from getting dragged for her black identity the way Kamala (and to some extent, Obama) did/does.


>Young Black folks are gonna get 100 percent behind KH either.
>But they aren’t 100 percent behind Biden either. So if not
>KH, where do you stand on rice or Val demmings?

>Starting not to care
>anymore tho.

i really dont have the energy to care too much about who he picks as VP
i dont know enough to feel strongly about who would be the best choice
in a month i might revisit it and have an opinion based on how things are at that time

im thinking the pick comes in the first week of august at the earliest

Val: Chief of police that’s just not a good look given the current climate.

Stacey: Yes smart but it won’t happen.

Susan Rice: Best option in terms of being prepared to lead on day one but I don’t think she would be a strong candidate for Biden as she would get a lot of flack from folks, might be hard to overcome that, plus she’s never run for or won office so that’s a hard sell for me.

Shouldn’t be DC or ATL as they both lack national experience.

Gotta be Harris!

Benghazi baggage.

Has to be Kamala.

>Val: Chief of police that’s just not a good look given the
>current climate.
>
>Stacey: Yes smart but it won’t happen.
>
>Susan Rice: Best option in terms of being prepared to lead on
>day one but I don’t think she would be a strong candidate
>for Biden as she would get a lot of flack from folks, might be
>hard to overcome that, plus she’s never run for or won
>office so that’s a hard sell for me.
>
>Shouldn’t be DC or ATL as they both lack national
>experience.
>
>Gotta be Harris!

susan rice has the most national security and foreign policy experience. but the overwhelming majority of presidents largely outsource that part of their presidency anyway. and most americans are concerned with domestic policy (how many voters do you even hear mention nato/alliances and the decline of americas soft power around the world when they talk about trump?)

i cant think of a president who won with that type of portfolio in recent history outside of george hw bush.

kamala is the only one of the frontrunners with *executive* experience running a sprawling bureaucracy (the california doj). vast experience with law/policy related to surveillance, civil rights, environment, corporate operation, labor, finance, healthcare, criminal justice, etc. and general issues of constitutionality. plus she has about as much experience in the senate as barack obama.

so overall she presumably knows her way around the administration of law, legislative realities, and the deployment/application of policy in a broad range of areas more than anyone else. plus she has already shown the ability to manage a vast organization (on a smaller scale) where all of these things come into play.

going to vote regardless of the VP pick.

If you're still "undecided" at this point there's a good chance you're bi-polar.

They might hate Trump (or like Biden). But are they going to be motivated enough to get out and cast a ballot?

I think the VP nominee needs to add to this motivation factor. Because Biden isn't doing it himself.

Too many operatives and party voices within the insular Dem bubble fail to grasp this, to this day. The obedient partisan class of the party might be fine with technocrats and vanilla policy-makers, but presidential elections are often fought on the margins - and if you don't excite the base that Biden doesn't do as well with (younger voters, progressive, latino/a/s etc.) - then you're squandering away too many voters who otherwise would turn up if they were more inspired (like we saw in '08 and '12 with Obama's landslide wins).

Biden/Whitmer ain't bringing them out. I'm not even sure that Kamala does that enough for Biden - she already commands the base that Biden does well with (AA voters, older voters, educated white liberals, suburban moms etc...).

Either way you slice - it's the most consequential VP selection in 20 years.

-->

Do ppl still not realize that suppressed Black turn out in Milwaukee and Detroit and philly and Pittsburgh in 2016 were an important part of why those states went the other way that year....

It’s not about who “commands” what vase. It’s about turning them out. It’s motivation enough to come out

>and if you don't excite the base that Biden
>doesn't do as well with (younger voters, progressive,
>latino/a/s etc.) - then you're squandering away too many
>voters who otherwise would turn up if they were more inspired
>(like we saw in '08 and '12 with Obama's landslide wins).

the primary was virtually over as soon as we started to have real elections that werent 90% white or suppressed by caucus systems. it was completely non-competitive because those groups that bernie was winning (that you listed) just werent inspired to vote at a level that made much of a difference.

if bernie cant inspire them then who can? liz the snake? bernie voters hate her more than establishment/mainstream folks (and erroneously blame her for bernie losing in a blowout).

and outperformed the field (demonstrably) with the young Black vote, the Latino/a vote & the Progressive vote. Only somebody doing everything possible to lose (see: Clinton/Kaine) would act like this base of the electorate is negligible in a general election.

>the primary was virtually over as soon as we started to have
>real elections that werent 90% white or suppressed by caucus
>systems.

lol @ all the qualifiers. Sanders won the Latino/e vote, the Native American vote, the Arab-American vote and the Asian-American vote. Or as Reeq likes to say: "the white vote"



-->

thats a good thing to you?

imagine pulling in half the delegates from your previous run while your competitor wins 85% of the counties you won in your previous run...and someone on a message board is bragging about that lol.

bernie might not even clear the 25% threshold to get representation on the rules and platform committees at the convention.

utter failure.

like i said. bernie himself didnt even inspire his voters to show up.

he won the people who voted the least. congrats i guess?

but back to the original question that you evaded...why would you expect some mythical vp to turn out bernie voters when bernie couldnt turn out bernie voters?

but if you think the Bernie base is negligible in November, god bless.

>but back to the original question that you evaded...why would
>you expect some mythical vp to turn out bernie voters when
>bernie couldnt turn out bernie voters?

It's true that the turnout for Bernie wasn't what it needed to be - but to act like significant voting bloc that did turn out is just something to shrug at is reckless political malpractice - and an egregious unforced error. Thankfully, Biden has already done more to try and create an inclusive tent for that segment of the electorate than Clinton did - but much more has to be done.


-->

Come close to matching what he did in 16 even after it became a two person race. U still ain’t get the help u needed?

Damn...You can not be a Kamala fan and still not go full on bro.

Any of these candidates meet your approval? You just happen to not like Kamala or Val or Susan or Keisha or Ayana or Stacey or...damn.

If Liz took herself out, who would you be for?


>and outperformed the field (demonstrably) with the young
>Black vote, the Latino/a vote & the Progressive vote. Only
>somebody doing everything possible to lose (see:
>Clinton/Kaine) would act like this base of the electorate is
>negligible in a general election.
>

Not bending to your bro demands isn't "doing everything possible to lose"


The point is if the base- as you wrongly define it still- was as powerful as you like to pretend, Bernie wouldn't have gotten his ass handed to him by a guy who didn't even try.

Only someone trapped in his Twitter echo chamber, and who also needs some serious self-reflection on race and gender issues, would think that picking one of these candidates would be "doing everything possible to lose"

What happened to you dog?


>>the primary was virtually over as soon as we started to have
>>real elections that werent 90% white or suppressed by caucus
>>systems.
>
>lol @ all the qualifiers.
>
>-->


LOL you literally just made a qualifier post. How are you so bad at self awareness? Its weird.


Sanders won the Latino/e vote, the
>Native American vote, the Arab-American vote and the
>Asian-American vote. Or as Reeq likes to say: "the white
>vote"

Oh, this where you start playing dumb.


Bottom line, is as soon as the shit moved into more diverse areas and actual primary elections St Bernard got his ass kicked- all of your qualifiers aside. And thats even with the money, name recognition, and network.


The movement just wasn't that strong. Not strong enough to even last in the Dem primary, how is it going to be strong enough to swing a general?


Now, I'm not saying to go Tim Kaine by any means. I think Biden should reach out to the left- and he already has in a few ways.


But none of these women are even close to Tim Kaine. None.


At the very least, read the room man. Check your privilege- even just a little.

Or is this just what you do on OKP?

-->

that it looks likely it will be a black woman. Hmmmm...whats the pattern? I just can't put my finger on it...

>>and if you don't excite the base that Biden
>>doesn't do as well with (younger voters, progressive,
>>latino/a/s etc.) - then you're squandering away too many
>>voters who otherwise would turn up if they were more
>inspired
>>(like we saw in '08 and '12 with Obama's landslide wins).
>
>the primary was virtually over as soon as we started to have
>real elections that werent 90% white or suppressed by caucus
>systems.

the constant shitting on the black vote is getting older and older by the day.

Now the argument is "pick the white woman (who we hated in comparison to the old white dude) to appease us bros or we might not vote"...its borderline parody at this point.

If nothing else, bro's inability to read the motherfucking room is unreal.


it was completely non-competitive because those
>groups that bernie was winning (that you listed) just werent
>inspired to vote at a level that made much of a difference.

Right. Where we all these powerful, consequential voters when their savior needed them? Shit doesn't add up.

The "youth vote" lol lol. There have been actual elections this year to disprove this shit. The movement is not nearly as powerful as the twitter feed.

He got squashed.

>
>if bernie cant inspire them then who can? liz the snake?
>bernie voters hate her more than establishment/mainstream
>folks (and erroneously blame her for bernie losing in a
>blowout).

They're just flailing at this point.


I like Liz a lot. I wish she would have won. And I really wish her surrogate Ayana was getting more play.

But how anyone looks at this situation and says "old white lady please" isn't just really, really, really awful at politics...but probably has some innate issues they need to address.

Especially when it comes from someone who consistently condescends to black voters and shit on their obvious choice for Pres. And downplays their political power by just labeling it "establishment"


Remember when Bernie was putting together the most diverse movement in the history of the world and shit? lol

some folks still in primary mode with the self delusion.

>But how anyone looks at this situation and says "old white
>lady please"

And to be clear, I'm black, and I'm not a "bro" (and was probably one of the most consistent Bernie critics throughout the primary).

But Warren has had the numbers you would expect the black female contenders to have - AMONG BLACK VOTERS. Lol. As in, not only the broadest support out of the field (among which she'd been leading for months, even during the protests) but also strong(est) support in the constituencies where Biden's weak (eg. under 40, progressives, *black* progressives under 40: filesforprogress.org/datasets/2020/6/democratic_vice_presidential_survey/Civiqs_DataforProgress_VP_banner_book_2020_06-v2.pdf#page=5).
Even in the midwest, Warren's appeal to black voters in states like MI and WI exceeded Kamala's by like 10 percentage points (https://www.axios.com/vice-president-women-color-warren-poll-biden-c75d2901-aead-424c-a5b1-a987ab312c6c.html) (though they both trailed Stacey Abrams, but since she's out of the running not incl. her for now).

Could the recent civil unrest change the dynamic?? 100%. But, regardless, there's definitely a non-racist case for Warren and it was made by black voters. Now what *I* don't get is how yall can advocate so confidently for a ticket where *both* politicians are conjointly despised by the same segment of the electorate, and along the most contentious divide this cycle (eg. moderates v. young progressives). I mean if Biden doesn't select Warren then so be it, obv. But let's not act like even a 10%-20% boost in support from Biden's *weakest* consituencies couldn't make Dems the most competitive in November. Warren's case is substantive.

(well-said though)

-->

...Warren could be Biden's pick, but she sure wouldn't be Bernies

So pressed.

-->

...but they still try and shit on you ...i guess we just need to go into pretend mode like everyone else. ..This is fine, Biden will win and everything will be OK. ..DO NOT QUESTION ANYTHING!

When reality is WE ARE FUCKED..

black Activists from oakland have been vocal about how terrible kamala harris's politics are

Yet we're supposed to root for her because of optics? Because of the george floyd protests? If george floyd lived in Oakland she wouldve had him locked up in his 20's for a bullshit drug offense like many other black people. She wouldve locked him up because one of his kids missed school too many times.

the prison industrial complex is a byproduct of anti blackness and if the politician you're going up for isn't for abolishing it, they only see black people as poll numbers or potential inmates and dont give a fuck about your life.

This bigger than bullshit political identities ("bernie bros?" grow up. aint nobody thinking about him)

which I think is the only thing that matters.

My DC people consistently say she is shallow and not a substantive person which I think is probably overrated for the Presidency.

I support Kamala Harris as Veep mainly because it tells a good story.

**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

complained about her after the organization imploded, and also tracks with the general vibe I personally was left with after the primary.

Yall wanna keep ignoring that it turns some people off tho lol *shrug*





>
>My DC people consistently say she is shallow and not a
>substantive person

But Harris would be good too.

I just want to see a Warren/Pence debate - Warren would DESTROY Pence. Like you'd feel kinda bad for him because he lost so bad.

is the only one that has a black husband. I feel like a black family out there with the Bidens would look at lot better

https://apnews.com/cfb9f51767aeee83f1f426fb42070a9e?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_medium=AP_Politics&utm_source=Twitter

-->

for VP. I'm not keen on Rice at all given her abysmal foreign policy record (which is supposed to be her strength). Also not high on Harris - though I think she'll ultimately be the pick.
-->

but she's prepared and she and Biden already have a good working relationship *shrug* Meaning, I wouldn't be surprised if he picked her just off that.


Warren is the only #2 that would actually help me sleep better at night tho. Plus she's just been killing it lately.

I know Biden's been adopting a lot of her ideas/input into his platform, but that's not enough... lol. I need her actually there by his side to check shit. Her anti-interventionist leanings are a better balance for the times too.

warren and rice criticisms are mostly from the far right, harris criticisms are mostly from the far left?

The best thing she got going for is that (a) word is she is Obama's pick and (b) right wing people hate her.

People tell me she is substantive AF, definitely compared to KH, but I just don't know much about her or have seen her ability to rev up a crowd.

Her unknown factor could be a positive if she nails her roll out but seems risky as compared to KH who has been publically vetted.

Perfect on paper some times end up being the biggest duds (I am thinking Wesley Clark, John Kerry, Jeb Bush (perfect for GOPers anyway).




**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

as far as a VP pick.

I prefer KH or Warren.

KH is a better shit talker but Warren is better at explaining our fucked up rigged ass system.

**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

than Warren’s age?

... w/ Obama Family Portraits in their living room) want to see a black woman.

Young white progressives want to see Warren but I don't think they get you much else.

**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

moderate wing of the Democratic party. S. Carolina Dems have historically been the most moderate and center-leaning (even center-right on many social issues like LGBQT equality) electorate of the Democratic party.


-->

drive the decision lol:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/black-woman-not-must-biden-s-running-mate-clyburn-says-n1194926

In fact, he specifically said:

"I’m among those who feel that it would be great for him to select a woman of color. But that is not a must.I think that he should be informed in this decision by the vetting and the polling. And I think he should be guided by his head and his heart,” Clyburn added.

Now, does Clyburn speak for all older black voters?? Of course not. And he came out with that statement before all the protests. But I think it's telling that even he could come around on the identity politics issue.

I mean if people want to cling to melanin so badly, there's always Kanye...


>
>Young white progressives want to see Warren but I don't think
>they get you much else.
>

Again, it's clear you haven't been following Warren's polling. Aside from leading the field overall, she absolutely demolished Harris and Rice (by like 20 percentage points) among young black, hispanic, and other non-white voters in this poll conducted during the height of the protests:

https://filesforprogress.org/datasets/2020/6/democratic_vice_presidential_survey/Civiqs_DataforProgress_VP_banner_book_2020_06-v2.pdf#page=5

and led by a similarly large margin among black voters in this axios-college reaction poll conducted some weeks later (pdf with race breakdown available in article):

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/504037-college-students-backing-warren-as-biden-running-mate-poll

It's not at all just young white progressives that like Warren (although they do as well). The more accurate way to look at it is she appeals to voters under 40 (of all races) AND progressives (of all races) in a way that Biden and other VP contenders do not. IN ADDITION to having strong/decent support across demos where Biden's already in good shape. And that's without getting into how much better she appeals to independents.

her voters are mostly well educated white liberals who are very informed about news/politics.

in polls theyre always like 90-something percent willing to vote for biden regardless of his vp.

i dont think adding her to the ticket brings that many into the fold because they are already well aware of the stakes and committed to voting accordingly.

the other 'white progressives' being alluded to are really white anti-establishment. and they arent really gonna follow behind warren because of progressive policy (because it wasnt really about that). biden is running on the most progressive platform in party history (just like hillary before him) and a lot of them dont really give a fuck about any of the policy papers hes released recently (like 100% green energy by 2035). they would rather talk about dementia and him using 'woked' wrong.

I think Warren is the best pick, would not be mad with KH either.

He could pick Romney and I'm still voting for him.

are we really down to those 3? warren/harris/rice

biden originally said he wanted to make the pick around aug 1 so it would make sense that the pick will drop anytime now.

i worry warren and rice will face a lot of backlash. could be an overblown fear.

harris might be the "safe and boring" pick?

if he picks harris they could play up the fact that they came together after having some conflicts during the primaries. more so than warren i think.

i can just see GOP ads right now if he picks warren.

mike pence: biden doesnt support black women, that is why he chose warren.

im going to go read a book now.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/28/politics/joe-biden-running-mate/index.html

(CNN)Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden said Tuesday he will choose his vice presidential running mate next week.

The former vice president's comment came during a news conference after a speech in Wilmington, Delaware. Asked by CNN whether he will meet in person with finalists for the role, Biden said, "We'll see."
Biden has said he will choose a female running mate, and has faced pressure within the party to choose a woman of color.
His campaign's vetting process has played out amid the coronavirus pandemic, making meetings that could allow Biden to better get to know those being considered more difficult.

Noting that news crews were stationed outside his home in Delaware, Biden joked that he is "going to try to figure out how to trick you all so I can meet with them in person."
"I don't think it matters, actually," he said.
Shortly after clinching the Democratic nomination, Biden had targeted the beginning of August to select a running mate. On Tuesday, he said the selection will come in the first week of August.
His comments on Tuesday did not indicate when Biden will publicly announce his selection. But it is all but certain he will do so before the Democratic National Convention kicks off August 17 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Two of Biden's former primary rivals, California Sen. Kamala Harris and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, are said to be under consideration for the Democratic ticket.
Others who have been considered include former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice, Florida Rep. Val Demings, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, California Rep. Karen Bass, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth and Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin.

and whoever is the VP will really be president.

Which lets me know they are scared af.

I keep hearing Rice is creeping up but that seems like a bad idea.

I really don’t think it matters tho. We ready to vote Trump out regardless of who it is.

https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress.com/2020/07/renaissance_bts_final.jpg?w=681&h=383&crop=1

forgive me, I needed a way to make a punchline. respect the queen.

I'm loving how black twitter came to her defense against the white progressive "she's a cop" folks too



Always loved her and what she stands for

So there's that.

I still don't quite get the Harris pick though. Seems like she is not *viewed* as progressive enough to excite the left, yet she is just progressive enough to scare off the middle.

I don't see her as the safe choice. Seems like she is a risky choice relative to her upside.

Everyone keeps saying she has already been vetted. Right. Vetted as a terrible campaigner with poor instincts.

She going to claim she smoked with Pac by October?


There is literally no reason she should have flamed out like she did, other than her as a politician. This idea that she is the slam dunk is head fucking scratcher.

Several of us like to dunk on the bros that the movement couldn't even win in the Dem party...

well, we gotta be consistent...the k-hive couldn't even carry Harris to a single state.

But she is the lock/slam dunk VP that will get folks hyped? Nah.


I wish Bass, Pressley, and Bottoms were getting more love.

Abrams is tempting electorally, too bad she doesn't have even a little more experience.

Same with Demmings I suppose, though I don't think Florida is in play. Never trust Florida.


Honestly the best *map* choice might be Duckworth.


Warren is probably too risky when you factor in the attack ads AND the potential of losing a seat. Then again, if she and Biden could put together a winning Economic message the attacks might not metter.


I would honestly have Harris and Rice at the bottom of the list. If Democrats were competent, it would be cool to pump fake the GOP into Bengazi attacks in the middle of a pandemic that is killing 100k +....but they wouldn't be able to finesse a W there.

why do a lot of people dislike harris? "she was a cop!" theres more nuance but basically.

how can trump attack biden on being soft on crime when harris is the vp pick?

thats the upside and im not sure what downsides there are to harris with people that will actually vote in november.

she basically neutralizes an attack and then is forgotten about. job done.



i think, i havent finished green eggs and ham yet.

>why do a lot of people dislike harris? "she was a cop!"
>theres more nuance but basically.
>
>how can trump attack biden on being soft on crime when harris
>is the vp pick?

Sure but couldn't Demings accomplish the same thing? And *maybe* put Florida in play?


>
>thats the upside and im not sure what downsides there are to
>harris with people that will actually vote in november.

I have no doubt that I am overthinking it. My biggest downside is that she has proven to be a poor campaigner. As is Biden.

Joe is going to go on a rant and say some questionable shit. Harris is going to pretend to be the cool aunt one day and a hard ass the next- and not be believable at either.

Doesn't seem like the best combo to me.

>
>she basically neutralizes an attack and then is forgotten
>about. job done.

I don't think so. Again, Biden is bad on the trail. The VP needs to pick up some slack. I just don't think that is Harris.

Or, I don't think she is a slam dunk.
>
>
>
>i think, i havent finished green eggs and ham yet.

Like I said, I'm probably overthinking it.

But when she tries to photoshop herself into a photo with Pac and Snoop remember this post.

you make perfect sense.

this world does not. i think the goal right now is coast until november. anything that can interfere with that is a no-go.

im assuming that it was actually narrowed down to harris/warren/rice. if thats not true and others have remained in play then i would give more thought to them.

what i know about demings is good and i would prefer her to harris. i do think rice and warren will not get it. if it somehow isnt harris it will be someone that hasnt been getting a lot of attention. maybe demings qualifies for that.

i honestly still dont understand how biden survived the primary and then instantly dominated. the way he was campaigning seemed to be really bad but the poll numbers stayed up and well yeah he won. im gonna give his team the benefit of the doubt with their choice.

>i can just see GOP ads right now if he picks warren.
>
>mike pence: biden doesnt support black women, that is why he
>chose warren.
>

i read that trump put out an ad aimed at latinx voters about biden committing to pick a black woman as VP instead of a latina.

i didnt bother watching it. how is reality more bizarre than satire?

If he was in California I would just say he was playing into VP pick speculation by playing to the local crowd but nah he was in Delaware so yeah to me it is a done deal:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/28/politics/biden-kamala-harris-notes/index.html

they were crib notes in case he was asked to respond to Monday's piece in Politico that's referenced in the CNN story

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/27/kamala-harris-biden-vp-381829

far to defend her against that Politico story, which helps prove my point haha.

which would help turn it blue

-->

this was probably a way to test the waters

if it somehow isnt harris i expect it to be someone that hasnt been on the list publicly.

**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

Granted 2020 has lasted 10 fucking years, but how have so many forgotten how horrible Harris did in the primaries?


She was a mess. She didn't even make it to Iowa did she?


In addition to her poor instincts, she isn't going to excite the left, may well scare off the middle, and provides zero advantage from a map perspective.


Seems like there are much better options.


Maybe Bottoms, Duckworth, Demmings, Ayana, etc all have skeletons? I can't call it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/10/15/susan-rices-son-is-a-trump-loving-republican-he-says-a-stanford-classmate-assaulted-him-at-pro-kavanaugh-event/

Then I was like, nah.



**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

agreed. I was never for her anyways, but not that it would matter, I'd still vote for Biden.

But yeah, his face and his trumpism. ew.

I still think it should be Warren.

Harris has more of a dynamic personality which I think is needed to balance out Biden

to be.

**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

That part is the great divide.

and people who smile with their mouth open bother me for some reason.

leaking out from inside bidens camp or people around it. particularly from the guy heading up the search.

at the same time theres been a surge of pro karen bass stuff coming out of the same circle.

iono what any of this indicates but the 11th hour mudslinging doesnt leave a good taste in my mouth.

https://twitter.com/FoxNewsSunday/status/1288576737803108357

Politico "accidentally" posted a news brief saying that Kamala was the pick:

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/509525-politico-accidentally-reports-biden-chose-harris-as-running-mate-we-regret-the

And Biden's hand-written notes talking about Kamala have some thinking it's a precursor to an announcement of her pick:

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/28/biden-notes-kamala-harris-grudges-385665

Others say this could be evidence that Biden is going with another VP selection and this is what he'll be saying about Kamala when he announces that.

Many seem to be revolting against a prospective Kamala VP - but I'm curious as to who they want in her place. If it's Warren, I completely agree w/ that sentiment. But replacing Kamala with Susan Rice? I don't see how that's a better pick.

I still think Warren is a live dark-horse.

-->

Harris has that lawyer/prosecutor background that too many politicians have. Something about being in a profession that has the possibility of imprisoning someone incorrectly or up holding bad laws bother me.

Harris will get bashed but I think being Black will help shield her from the “that’s racist” accusation.

But I feel you. I would prefer Warren for progressive reasons.

good lord there was some freezing cold "takes" during the primary season LOL

meanwhile she has ties to...or has well documented public support for...scientology, nation of islam, castro, etc.

and all of that was from *one* week of research by the press.

did these niggas not do any vetting within the campaign committee? why did they throw this woman out there just to get immediately shot down by basic scrutiny?

seems liked by progressives and moderates alike...has good experience and an activist resume...

seems like a good big tent option

Assuming...and its a big assumption...this is all the dirt they have.

>meanwhile she has ties to...or has well documented public
>support for...scientology, nation of islam, castro, etc.

meh...the Scientology thing is being way overblown by the k-hive. Wasn't it one speech? If one speech killed a candidate, Joe wouldn't be here.

The Castro thing is more concerning...but dems are going to get painted as Castro loving socialists no matter what.

If Florida is in play at all, he should go Val either way.

Not familiar with the Islam thing.


>
>and all of that was from *one* week of research by the press.

That is a fair point either way...but was it the press or Kamala's folks doing an oppo dump?

>
>
>did these niggas not do any vetting within the campaign
>committee? why did they throw this woman out there just to
>get immediately shot down by basic scrutiny?
>
>

True but...Kamala has already been vetted in real time as bad at this. Bad campaigner. Poor instints. Unprepared for obvious questions (plastic straws lol).

Real talk? She should have gone the distance. She didn't make it to Iowa. That is concerning.

I get that you want to be right on the Biden/Harris prediction...but if one bad week sinks bass then a bad year should sink Harris.

and I really know nothing about her

The dem party at large don’t even know who certain progressive reps are....I always get a sense that a lot of the ppl that trash and attack the Democratic Party and the “establishment” just discovered representative government and its basic workings within the last 5 years...often much less

He isn’t a good example for your point being made.

n/m

https://twitter.com/voxdotcom/status/1290684256742768640

karen bass is in 7th place.

i wonder why people like dodd and rendell chose *her* to be the late alternative to 'unseat' harris. especially considering she leans markedly more left than them (and candidates of their liking).

Let's not forget that her campaigned fizzled out not necessarily because of money but because of in-fighting and poor management.

KH looks good on paper but people have long talked about her being shallow, insular and a bridge burner.


I think at the end of the day Biden needs to sit down with her and decides whether he can manage her which it sounds like he has done and is fine with her but I can see why, if they stuff you hear is true, why his people have reservations.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

seems to be Susan Rice, so hopefully he doesn't pick her. The Rs are salivating to attack with clinton/obama baggage on her

I'm using the gentrified and co-opted definition of Progressive btw

https://apnews.com/65025dc16aa18353cf868658d9b2314a

Let's hope it was for a polite conversation telling her she's not the VP pick.

If it is, this will be two presidential cycles in a row where Dems do their very best to lose.

-->

.

-->

https://twitter.com/kat__stafford/status/1292851233875800064

this follows black women who demanded the same months ago.
https://twitter.com/CNNPolitics/status/1253794120671408131

black activists who are responsible for much of the dem gotv operation and canvassing ground game pretty much said they wouldnt suit up for battle if he doesnt pick one.

representation matters. especially when black people saved your campaign...have to stomach some of your past history on race (crime bill, etc)...and have to force themselves to overlook your 'gaffes' that deride the black community.

if biden doesnt pick a black running mate...you can pretty much call the election. a lot of black people aint braving a pandemic for that nigga alone.

Timberland. Omar Epps. Freddy Jackson. Al B. Sure. lol

especially when these niggas dont show up for any part of the political process until they make demands of the nominee. where were you in the primary raising money for black candidates? where are you when its time to gather signatures for things like felon re-enfranchisement on ballot initiatives/referendums and then get people out to vote for them?

but all that aside...theyre voicing what a lot of other black people are indicating.

theyre actually giving biden a pretty easy out here imo. some of these folks were demanding more of biden and dems in general not too long ago and threatening to push black people to sit out.

i think a lot of black people realize whats at stake and they wanna vote biden but they need *something* from him in terms of a good faith gesture.

It isn’t until Super Tuesday where we get to flex a little bit and that’s when you usually see someone move to the front of the pack.

But we are still only 13% of the pop and it’s going to come down to the burbs.

They get to keep more of their money with a republican in office so it’s not really hitting them hard if Trump is re-elected.

I’m not sure how I feel about the “he must pick a Black woman” as VP.

We’re voting Dem regardless and if Biden loses it won’t be because of us. It’s will be because white people love some Trump even tho they won’t all admit it.

out of Bernie's support/infrastructure (even holding a convention at the end of this month):

https://peoplesparty.org


plus the criminal justice folks demanding no former law enforcement as a running mate, etc etc. There's just a lot of competing interests. Which is normal in politics (especially American politics). But I do think the different echo chambers are emboldening various constituencies to go harder with the threats than we're used to seeing. And it will probably only intensify as years go on, unfortunately.

I still think the play is a running mate that can appeal to as many constituencies as possible, for this reason. But who knows what'll happen *shrug*

and policy hostage-taking after a loss has become their rapidly accepted means of exercising any political power (even when the majority specifically voted *against* a policy theyre pushing).

the other constituency drove the nominee to a win and is rightfully drawing concessions for their continued support. not only a demand but a justifiable reward.

and Independents are the 2nd largest political bloc in the US, accounting for a larger proportion of the electorate than registered Republicans:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/28/first-time-ever-there-are-fewer-registered-republicans-than-independents/

So the math definitely changes, and it would be malpractice for the Dems not to take the broader electorate into account.

Besides, a lot of these demands for representation are really just demands for Kamala lol, bc yall complain at the mention of any other Black woman too :)

I personally think the threats/hostage mentality is lame regardless what group's doing it tho.

theres a reason candidates tack to the center in general elections to appeal to the broadest electorate. because the center is where the lion share of the votes are...especially in a demographically/geographically diverse contest carried out over multiple states.

the left of the left demanding a nominee go even further left (when that didnt even win the primary) is just plain bad politics (and a good reason why they have such a hard time gaining political power).

It just doesn't. Its a common misconception.


Setting aside this fantasy that the Bernie movement was large enough to win the whitehouse, but couldn't make a dent in SC for a second...


I get your point, though. And your point is made even stronger when you consider the down-ticket impact, which I admit I haven't always been good at remembering.


If Biden manages to lose this year, that should effectively kill the argument to run to the center. For good.


And I'm down to entertain the argument this time out. I'm nervous as shit that Trump will pull it out.

So if running to the middle is the safe bet, so be it.


But if he loses?!? I'm out.

just as most of the electorate does.

its why when you see polling on an issue...the independent split is somewhere between the 2 parties and most closely aligned to the overall split.

lol

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/warren-harris-top-poll-of-battleground-independents-for-biden-vp-301095937.html

and other types in there, based on recent polling.

I always, always, always suspected Bernie's support had a ceiling of ~30% or so, based on the demographics with whom he enjoyed (almost fully saturated) support. But even tho I figured ~30% may not carry him to the nomination (and it didn't), it's still a pretty sizeable constituency and if this People's Party thing takes off for real, they would essentially dominate the center-left and lock Dems into being the corporate-friendly centrists they obviously want to be.

So I think the Dems' last play for long-term relevance (and short-term victory) is if Biden runs (and, if successful, governs) with a progressive and they at least try to stop the bleeding *shrug* Hold onto SOME of the younger generations. Because his generation and their politics are literally dying out. I have no idea what all these older Dems (Biden, Feinstein, Pelosi, Schumer, etc.. even the Clintons given their influence) that cling to power are thinking is going to happen to the party within a decade, it's like they're in denial or something. If a more progressive party materializes, do they think all these progressives getting elected down-ballot will stick with the Dems?? I'd be shocked if they didn't migrate after building up their names in 1 or 2 terms.

A unity (moderate-progressive) ticket seems necessary for many, many, reasons.


>
>It just doesn't. Its a common misconception.
>

because if I'm him, I need answers on how my name ended up so far down the list.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

Female (progressive) Activist/Organizer made in the Nation a a few days ago (https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/biden-vp-police-prosecutor/). She also points to Biden's record as a weakness, but arrives at a different place (and list of preferred running mates). A quote:

"This is not an attack on individuals; it is about where the country is. We cannot satisfy the demand for justice by millions of protesters with a Democratic ticket that carries both the principal author of the 1994 crime bill and a prosecutor who helped uphold those discriminatory laws."

So obviously representation/race matters, but the divide seems to be about whether representation/race should be the *only and primary* consideration. Given the unprecedented and overlapping crises happening in the US right now, how is it unreasonable to consider or even prioritize multiple relevant factors??

Other thing is, other contenders have supporters who have publicized petitions like this too, so I wouldn't position what Diddy et al have written as all that decisive tbh. Plus, wasn't there a rumor that Biden's already made his choice?? Seems a little late...

Full op-ed:

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/biden-vp-police-prosecutor/

Why We’re Demanding No Cops for Veep

If Joe Biden wants to signal his commitment to the message of the Black Lives Matter movement, he shouldn’t pick a former police officer or prosecutor.

By Jennifer Epps-Addison
August 6, 2020

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is getting a lot of advice right now on his vice presidential selection, and he’s considering a lot of factors: geography, chemistry, and preparedness. But there’s another factor that—as a codirector of an organization representing Black and brown communities in 35 states, Puerto Rico, and Washington, D.C.—I’m calling on him to carefully consider.

After months of protests, with millions of people in the streets demanding a real transformation in our criminal justice system, it’s become clearer to me that this moment in history demands that Biden not pick a former cop or prosecutor to be his running mate.

Since its inception, our policing system has been used to terrorize, subjugate, and, when necessary, kill Black people. The recent murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Rayshard Brooks at the hands of the police have forced the rest of the country to face this uncomfortable truth. Finally, space is opening up for real, substantive change to systemic racism and policing in America.

Over the past few months, people across the country, including our members at the Center for Popular Democracy, have taken to the streets demanding radical transformation of our policing and criminal justice system, making Black Lives Matter not only the biggest movement in our nation’s history but also a defining issue in the upcoming presidential election. Former vice president Biden must stand with this movement, including the Black women who propelled him to the Democratic nomination, and make clear through policy and his VP choice that he is on the right side of justice and will put in place policies that protect Black people. This means he cannot have someone who has been a top cop or in the pocket of the police on the ticket, because doing so would not only signal that he is not committed to protecting Black lives but also might discourage the voters he needs to defeat Donald Trump.

It is heartening and inspiring that Biden has committed to selecting a woman as his running mate—and it’s long overdue—but it’s not sufficient. He must consider the dangers of choosing a candidate who has a history of perpetuating a violent criminal justice system that targets and destroys Black lives. Consider Senator Amy Klobuchar, once a top choice until her disastrous prosecutorial history rightly took her out of contention. Picking Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a former prosecutor, could be another unforced error.

Each of the former DAs and police chiefs in the running have question marks on their record that make them a risk to real change. In her time as a prosecutor in California, Senator Kamala Harris fought to uphold wrongful convictions that were secured through official misconduct, including evidence tampering, false testimony, and the suppression of crucial information by prosecutors. She also backed policies that disproportionately harmed Black families, such as truancy laws and marijuana criminalization. In her career as police chief in Orlando, Fla., Representative Val Demings consistently sided with and defended police in police misconduct and abuse-of-power cases. This is not to say that either cannot make amends for their pasts, but this repentance must happen not only through words but also through actions, and that will take time, more time than Biden has before naming a running mate.

This is not an attack on individuals; it is about where the country is. We cannot satisfy the demand for justice by millions of protesters with a Democratic ticket that carries both the principal author of the 1994 crime bill and a prosecutor who helped uphold those discriminatory laws.

Biden has leaned on Black voters to power through the primary season, and now he needs to take their demands seriously. Data for Progress polled voters about their beliefs on police, police violence, the recent protests, and proposed reforms and found high levels of support, especially among Black voters, for an overhaul of the existing system of policing in the United States. Further analysis shows that the top issue for Black women, a key demographic, is criminal justice and police reform, followed by affordable health care. A poll from BlackPAC showed that Black women insist that candidates run on addressing systemic racism, including criminal justice and policing reform (48 percent).

Addressing systemic racism, mass incarceration, and police violence is possible, and there are candidates on the VP short list who are committed to doing that. Senator Elizabeth Warren, Representative Barbara Lee, Representative Karen Bass, and Stacey Abrams have recognized the urgency of the moment. Warren topped the list of veep prospects Democratic voters want Biden to consider, according to a recent CBS News poll. Lee and Bass are top choices of progressive voters in recent polls, and in her race for governor of Georgia in 2018, Abrams broke Democratic turnout records in nearly every demographic, from Latinx voters to young voters. Black women have indicated that vice presidential candidates’ policy positions matter most, and all of these women work to further the policies supported by the most loyal constituency the Democratic Party has.

Additionally, through his VP choice, Biden can address some of his shortcomings on criminal justice.

Over his political career, he has designed and endorsed policies that have significantly exacerbated the problems progressive voters oppose. As a senator, he not only supported but also in many cases authored and championed laws that expanded mass incarceration, increased police powers, and exacerbated racial disparities in surveillance and sentencing. These laws broke apart Black communities and robbed many young Black people of a future. They are a part of the history that has led us to this moment, and their ongoing fallout has contributed to the outpourings of grief and anger we are seeing today.

Biden recently addressed cries to defund the police by calling for additional police reform (and more money for the troubling Community Oriented Policing Services grant program) rather than reallocation of police funding. This is in stark contrast to what activists are demanding around the country. New data from the Center for Popular Democracy shows why activists are right: The police continue to receive an astronomical percentage of discretionary funds compared with resources that actually keep communities safe. For Biden to make amends for the harm he helped cause would an important first step, but it would no longer be enough. In order to rise to this occasion, he must make a credible commitment to addressing systemic racism by choosing a VP who embodies that commitment and by putting forward a transformative and comprehensive policing and criminal justice platform that would shift how we approach public safety and allow Black communities in particular to thrive.

Yes, we need Biden to get Trump out of office and defeat Trumpism. But that’s not enough. The demands of the criminal justice movement have finally moved past reform to true transformation. We have a new vision of public safety that shifted from one of policing, incarceration, and surveillance to one of care, restoration, and community investment. We want leaders we believe share this vision and truly stand beside us in this fight. That means no prosecutors or police as America’s No. 2.

Jennifer Epps-Addison is the president and co–executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy and CPD Action’s network of 53 partner organizations in 35 states, Puerto Rico, and Washington, D.C.




>
>black activists who are responsible for much of the dem gotv
>operation and canvassing ground game pretty much said they
>wouldnt suit up for battle if he doesnt pick one.
>
>representation matters. especially when black people saved
>your campaign...have to stomach some of your past history on
>race (crime bill, etc)...and have to force themselves to
>overlook your 'gaffes' that deride the black community.
>
>if biden doesnt pick a black running mate...you can pretty
>much call the election. a lot of black people aint braving a
>pandemic for that nigga alone.

i know you posted all that to say warren without saying warren lol.

time to ride with the khive fam.

What ship? Sailed where? Literally nobody knows anything. Vex just posted about Whitmer even, lol; and 3:

>
>time to ride with the khive fam.

No thanks, they've become the new cesspool of twitter toxicity... I think a lot of them need to like, not look at a screen for a while

time for a change lol

You're more pleasant to debate politics with when there isn't vehement disagreement haha

has come from these intra party squabbles.

it seems like 2016 is just never gonna end.

https://mobile.twitter.com/esglaude/status/1292900122284699651

what if this shit is a hoax? lol.

that collection of names is kinda random lol.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

apparently because he flt like it was becoming a distraction, but did not change his stance on whether he'd agreed to sign or not

https://www.twitter.com/esglaude/status/1292929062046965770


www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

like was there a group chat?

I'm getting nervous and I'd rather just go with the safest bet I think.

Warren violates the "do no harm"

I kinda think Kamala does too.


Susan Rice certainly does, and I have a feeling its going to be her cuz...well I'm sorry, but Dems gotta Dem.


Rice as VP...we get Bengazi all day.

Harris...Biden is an out of touch racist, even his own VP thinks so!

Warren is too liberal.

I liked the idea of Bass, but the Castro stuff is probably just too much.

Duckworth seems like a safe bet but I agree with you- it should be a black woman.


Seems like Demmings does no harm, plus if she even moves the needle in FL just a little it seems like it would be worth it.

How you going to accuse Biden of wanting to get rid of police if he's running with an actual fucking cop?


But I haven't heard about her or Bottoms lately.

?

but i think kamala is the safest bet. mostly because politically engaged black people are calling for her specifically, a lot of people who were against her have warmed up to her, she isnt gonna alienate suburban moderates and comes off as a centrist, while she also has one of the most progressive voting records in the senate (is progressives really cared about policy and checked under the hood).

don't like her record Reeq, lol:

"'Top Cop' Kamala Harris's Record of Policing The Police":

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/09/us/politics/kamala-harris-policing.html


"Harassment and retaliation claims during Kamala Harris’ time as California’s top cop led to $1.1 million in settlements" :

https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-kamala-harris-attorney-general-settlements-20190301-story.html



"Victims question Kamala Harris' record on clergy abuse":

https://apnews.com/ecc0da5f6ac94b13be11e2a388967a85



"Kamala Harris Has To Answer For Not Prosecuting Steve Mnuchin":

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kamala-harris-has-to-answer-for-not-prosecuting-steve_b_5980d18ee4b09d231a518205



"EXCLUSIVE: A decade-old settlement shows a top aide to Kamala Harris mysteriously left her California AG's office with a $35,000 taxpayer-funded settlement check":

https://www.businessinsider.com/kamala-harris-terri-carbaugh-settlement-nda-raises-questions-2020-7



I mean come on... just because somebody's black doesn't mean they can't be problematic.


>really cared about policy and checked under the hood).
>
>

but we know the deal.

I also have a feeling it will be her. She is the last thing we need on a Dem ticket right now. I guess this is the embrace Obama ticket if it’s her.

>I also have a feeling it will be her. She is the last thing we
>need on a Dem ticket right now. I guess this is the embrace
>Obama ticket if it’s her.

If Rice is the pick I would anticipate a considerably hawkish administration - likely escalating tensions with Russia and continuing the bi-partisan tradition of interventionism and human/economic waste.


-->

That would be a horrible pick

But a Biden/Rice hawkish foreign policy is the last thing we need after Trump's trashing of our global standing.

-->

would be excited about a watered down version of the Obama years with Biden at the helm. But of course it's on-brand AF for Democrats to look backwards and play it too safe and conservative lol.

-->

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/10/biden-veep-selection-black-woman-393147

He didn't lose it during the primary when was a gaffe machine, lying about his experiences in SA with Mandela, fumbling on explaining his segregationist history etc...

Him picking Whitmer is somehow going to be the nail in the coffin for Black voters?

I think it may be the case w/ a lot of younger Black progressives who supported Warren & Sanders - but I still don't most of those voters sitting out if it's a Biden/Whitmer ticket.

I think the far bigger risk is not bridging the moderate/progressive gap that kfine outlined above.

Biden's strength with Black voters has been very strong from the jump - and I don't think that will change all that much based on his VP decision.

-->

IMO the suburban vote is still the key to winning this race.

It’s was stupid to say Biden had to pick a Black woman. For why?

>IMO the suburban vote is still the key to winning this race.

Whitmer?

>It’s was stupid to say Biden had to pick a Black woman. For
>why?

It's almost guaranteed that people will be upset regardless of who his pick is - it's that kind of climate. I think that's why we're seeing a lot of surprising names in the mix - namely those who don't have a high profile or any contentious primary residue.

But I think strategically - there has to be a firm open hand extended to the demographic Biden didn't do well with: all voters under 35. Obama did exceptionally well w/ that demo and wiped the floor with McCain & Romney. Clinton had a suppressed turnout both in the youth vote and in the Black vote - so I do understand some of the concern with wanting a Black woman - especially considering the fact that Biden wouldn't even be here without the Black vote.

But it still begs the question: which demo needs the most outreach/convincing within the big-tent? To your point, I don't think the answer to that is Black voters.


-->

it puts GA into play.

I had to edit my post.. lol.

I don’t know enough about Bass to have an opinion on here but some of here earlier comments on Castro prolly mean Florida is no longer in play.

Whitmer would’ve made sense for the rust belt Michigan play but she fucked up Flint and doesn’t have a good track record with Black voters. Biden should be able to carry rust belt voters on his own.

but I have a feeling it’s going to be Susan Rice just because the fools can’t help themselves.

Georgia is already in play *supposedly* in that they're polling at 46% to 46%.

With that kind of dead heat (which I suspect means Trump is up by 2-3 percentage points in real life), a measurable uptick of voters in the metro ATL area could truly put us over the top. That uptick has to come from black men. Black women will vote and will vote blue regardless.

They are all slated to speak at the convention (the schedule was just released) - but it notes that the "VP nominee" will speak on Wednesday.

Looking a lot like Susan Rice.

-->

Dems gotta Dem.

The attack ads literally write themselves.


Like Legs said, dems gotta dem.


If it really is her, talk about snatching an L out of the clutches of victory.


And if Dems can't win this year, burn the party down.

As ridiculous of an issue as that is, especially in the face of Trump knowingly allowing American soldiers to be targeted, we all know they don't care.

>They are all slated to speak at the convention (the schedule
>was just released) - but it notes that the "VP nominee" will
>speak on Wednesday.
>
>Looking a lot like Susan Rice.

I read somewhere that if any of the potential VP candidates are selected, then their speaking slot will be filled with somebody else.

It very well could be Susan Rice but I don't think the convention schedule is giving anything away.

And Kamala currently is scheduled to speak right before Biden on the final day of the convention - so she's obviously still in play and has been the favorite for a long stretch.

However, with Rice selling her Netflix shares and reports of how comfortable Biden is with Rice (versus the contentious primary he had with Kamala) - I think Rice would be a more natural fit for Biden (neoconservative foreign policy, Obama admin. alumni, more centrist etc..). Also - the VP nominee is slated to speak right before Obama on that Wednesday. Rice and Obama are obviously very close - and it would be a strategic pitch to voters to signal a return to the Obama years.

I don't think it's the best pick by any stretch of the imagination - but I think it's the most likely pick at this point.
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for one...susan rice isnt a politician and has never held office. campaigning, fundraising, etc is a lot of shit to learn on the fly.

for two...karine jean pierre got moved over from the biden campaign to the chief of staff for the vp. that pick most likely wouldnt happen without consultation with the vp. karine is a super kamala stan.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/08/11/us/biden-vs-trump


WILMINGTON, Del. — Joseph R. Biden Jr. has selected his running mate and has informed top advisers about the choice, according to a person familiar with the campaign’s discussions. In recent days he had also begun to tell close allies that he had reached a decision, according to people with knowledge of those conversations.

There will be no in-person announcement event on Tuesday, a Biden campaign official told The Times.

Mr. Biden is expected to reveal his vice-presidential nominee soon; senior Democrats believe the announcement is likely to be on Wednesday or Thursday. His selection will kick off a newly intense phase of the presidential race, giving a jolt of energy to the Democrat’s candidacy as he and his party prepare for their convention next week.

A Biden campaign spokesman declined to comment. CNN first reported that Mr. Biden had selected a running mate.

Need some energy on the ticket. Get the cool aunt out there.

Maybe something leaked?

https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/5883/Who-will-win-the-2020-Democratic-vice-presidential-nomination

And the more I think about it - the fact that she's slated to speak right before Biden could very well mean she's the pick. Otherwise, why would they schedule her there? But of course we're all guessing at this point.

But Kamala is presumably a better pick than Rice - but hope it does enough to bring in voters not already on board.
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He picked KH

From Joe Biden's Twitter

I have the great honor to announce that I’ve picked
@KamalaHarris — a fearless fighter for the little guy, and one of the country’s finest public servants — as my running mate.

https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1293280411150217219?s=20

Kamala Harris Will Be Dems’ Vice Presidential Pick, Biden Announces

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/kamala-harris-will-be-dems-vice-presidential-pick-biden-announces

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She ran a terrible campaign so maybe she'll benefit from having Biden's experienced team behind her.

was still secretly hoping for a michelle obama miracle

not a fan of either her or Biden at all but hopefully they don't fuck this up

Lets remove that orange stain from the white house!

I don't love all of her policies, but I can easily get behind her.

but word.

https://youtu.be/Bgjm6xPJeaA

mods please don't ban me for critiquing the Democratic party

Progressives coming for KH

I tried pointing out how horrible Biden was in the primary but fell back once he got the nom. I'm not gonna critique Kamala anymore but did want to share that video. Democrats made their choice and I hope they chose wisely.

2020 Election: White Supremacy vs. White Mediocrity

and too late

so they can say a candidate who only got 25% of the primary vote would have had a better chance of winning the general.

Yeah that's what it seems like.

Yes, it was prosecutors from her office who went forward with the faulty case. And yes, she certainly tried to get her shine from the case, showing up for the verdict and the sentencing. But she wasn't involved in the actual prosecution.

Does she deserve some serious scrutiny for running an office the prioritized convictions at any cost? Sure. But that's different than saying she helped SFPD frame Jamal Trulove.

In the debates.

Kamala is the queen of the clap-back.

Trump has no where else to go with the attacks, except down and dirty

and Pence bodied Kaine in '16, somewhat surprisingly.

Kamala gotta carry a heavy load for Biden.

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he blatantly lied through an entire debate about shit that trump said *on video* and the press fawned over his calm regal demeanor while lying.

Even well-known right-wing outlets like the Los Angeles Times & Vox had to admit it:

https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-na-pol-vice-presidential-debate-scorecard/

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/10/4/13170206/pence-kaine-vice-presidential-debate-summary

We may not have liked it - but Kaine objectively lost the debate. He was an abysmal VP pick on all accounts.

>he blatantly lied through an entire debate about shit that
>trump said *on video* and the press fawned over his calm regal
>demeanor while lying.

And Kaine did nothing to exploit that. Nothing.


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I’m still skeptical we get debates. What do pence/trump have to gain?

which is what people do when they are down.

Don’t know who debates are really for. Who’s mind isn’t made up at this point?

Debates gonna remind me of this:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NeJPsmmX2jQ

basically fox news word salad.

https://twitter.com/KatzOnEarth/status/1293286343985049606

Now they have another problem to deal with....its obvious they have no idea how to reduce this lead...

Polls don't equal votes, but damn....

https://twitter.com/mschlapp/status/1293290002701484040

biden and harris.

the two socialists.

yeah these niggas got nothing lol.

of the Benghazi shit which was non of her fault she was just Hillary’s scapegoat pending her 2016 run

these white clubhouse gatekeepers are gonna be so annoying with the standard they hold kamala too. cant wait til they reshuffle that nigga to lunch break duty in a week.

not sure i understand why lol maybe the scare of it possibly being rice has me feeling relieved now.

i have been pretty bleh about the election since biden locked up the nomination but im actually excited right now.

https://twitter.com/mmfa/status/1293550603499638784

yeah these people are strugguhling.

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to be *that* delusional.

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https://twitter.com/DrJohnEastman/status/1293541246489649154

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https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1293684953100820482

not too long ago the trump campaign was bragging about their record $14 mil online haul.

https://twitter.com/GOP/status/1272514112501710848
https://twitter.com/GOPChairwoman/status/1272645221118074885

i like how mitts niece was also bragging about the 1 million rally signups that was mostly kids on tiktok fucking around (and she did that interview after all of this was already known).