As many know far too well by now, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in the 2016 presidential election by around 2.87 million votes, a margin of victory over Donald Trump of 2.1%. And yet, our archaic and anti-democratic system of the Electoral College handed the White House to this loser (of the popular vote and in so many other ways too).
The number of votes that swung three swing states into Trump’s column, to give him the electoral win, was less than 80,000 votes combined. So, putting aside the polling that categorically shows Trump has lost a great deal of support and is underwater in all of those states right now, the challenge for the eventual 2020 Democratic nominee is to perform similarly to how Hillary Clinton did in 2016 but winning at least 80,000 more votes combined in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Hillary Clinton lost in Michigan by 10,704 votes out of a total of 4,824,260 votes cast. In Wisconsin, she lost by 22,748 votes out of a total of 2,976,150 votes. In Pennsylvania, Hillary Clinton lost by 44,292 votes out of 6,166,708.
That means that adding a minuscule gain of .03% of total voters in Michigan and .08% in both Wisconsin and Pennsylvania to Hillary’s 2016 totals would lead a Democratic candidate to beat Trump in the Electoral College and take the presidency. Less than 1% in each state…a fraction of how much more President Obama won in these states.
This is not a big hill to climb. Also, the voter suppression unleashed against Democratic voters in these swing states that the Republicans alongside The Russians employed in 2016 should be tempered by Democratic takeovers of the governorships in Michigan and Wisconsin (and a Dem governor who was already in PA), getting that fraction of votes should be more viable.
Yet…the Moderates in Democratic leadership, in the media punditry (along with the Never Trump Republicans who are quite generous with their advice about how the Democrats should adhere closer to more conservative positions) and those Moderates running for president insist that the only way to win against Trump is to go after the white, racist, wholly committed Trump voters.
Despite the easily obtainable data that shows that merely getting out a little more of the available Democratic vote from those who didn’t vote in 2016 would win them the presidency, these (mostly older and white) conservative/moderate Democrats, espouse that struggling to pry the white Trump cultists away from him is the only path to victory. “Appealing to
What does this say about these Moderates? On one hand, there are voters who are Democrats, many of whom are younger or African American, who would absolutely vote Democrat if they came out to vote. On the other hand, there are white, rural men who are committed to Trump and unlikely to abandon him to vote for a Democrat for president. Which group represents the easiest and most likely path to Democrats winning?
There’s no question that Moderate Dems want the Dems to win back the presidency. So faced with these options, why are they insisting that the worst option is the only path?
It’s hard to avoid the issue of race in this. What may be perceived by inference is that the valuable voters are white, even when they are diametrically opposed to what Democrats stand for and highly unlikely to vote for them. The message being sent is that chasing the votes of these adversarial white men is more worthwhile than reaching out to younger and African American voters who are already prepared to vote Democrat.
What may also be a factor is the leverage they may think it represents for Moderates, spreading their false meme as an absolute truth, enforcing the belief that only Moderates should be entitled to the nomination because they are the only ones who can appeal to white rural men whose votes are the ones that must be won to beat
Consider this observation from The Capital Times in Wisconsin after Trump won the state in the 2016 election:
Republican Donald Trump received about 27,000 more votes than Democrat Hillary Clinton. While his
performance didn’t stray far from Mitt Romney’s in 2012, Clinton’sfell significantly short of President Barack Obama’s.Milwaukee County is an area that tends to see vacillation in turnout from
midterm to general elections, Burden said, but this year broke the mold.
Preliminary exit polls show that turnout dropped in particular among young voters and African-Americans, Burden said.
This was echoed in Michigan and Pennsylvania as well. It’s not that Trump won because he gained many more voters in 2016 than Romney did in 2012…it’s that the younger voters and African American voters didn’t turn out in the numbers they had in the previous presidential election. Yes, voter suppression contributed to this but so did voter discouragement. Hillary Clinton’s high negatives and lack of campaigning in these states, not generating voter enthusiasm, contributed substantially too. So why isn’t appealing to these Democrats the priority for Moderate Dems?
And are the Moderate Dems unaware that by being focused on praising and pandering to the “white working class”/”good people on both sides” crowd, they are insulting, taking for granted and alienating the very Democratic voters who are younger and African American that they need to actually win?
It does seem that there is an element of race in their chosen view that the path to the White House for the Democrat only goes through white rural neighborhoods.
In the debates and the campaign speeches of moderate Democrats including Joe Biden, John Delaney, Tim Ryan, etc., there are constant criticisms and dismissals of Progressive Democrats as being “coastal elites”, “leftist extremists” and “not reflective of the party”.
Democrats should be celebrating and energizing the youth vote, the African American vote and the Progressive vote. With these segments of Democrats joining moderates and all other Dems at the polling booth, Democrats will win as they did in 2018 and have done so in the past. However, taking these voters for granted in 2016 didn’t work out so well (Senator forced to turn pundit, Claire McCaskill of Missouri spends her time now on MSNBC dismissing Progressives and insisting that only a moderate who appeals to Trump voters can win…despite her attempting that very same strategy in her 2018 re-election and in a year when Democrats all over the country had record wins…she lost by a big margin…having neglected African American and youth voters in her state so she could chase after Trump voters…who ended up voting against her in the end.).
Do these Establishment/Moderate Democrats really believe in what they’re saying and doing? That these enraptured Trump cultists are somehow going to start making cakes for gay weddings and celebrate Black History Month? That the most pragmatic path for Democrats to win in 2020 is to convince zombies to give up eating brains for kale?
Meanwhile, are there other voters than Trump cultists, in addition to Democrats who didn’t vote in 2016, who the Democratic candidate in 2020 could pursue to help push her/him over the top and into the White House?
Using a three lettered affirmative word that was also the name of a Progressive Rock band in the 1970s…”Yes”.
3rd Party voters in 2016.
Those who didn’t like Trump back then and didn’t vote for him. Yes, they didn’t vote for Hillary either but Hillary isn’t going to be the candidate in 2020 so some of those 3rd party voters who won’t vote for Trump are in play. Some will be just as upset about Trump’s horribleness that he’s displayed over the past two and a half years and want to vote for the Democrat in 2020 to get rid of him.
Remember, 2020 will not be the perfectly awful storm of 2016 that made 3rd party voting more viable. Both candidates will not start out with high negatives (just Trump will). There will not be a campaign-long email scandal (unjustified as it was) that the FBI cooperates in and reopens against the Democratic candidate just days before the election (after Trump’s and his cronies’ own ongoing violations of leaking
3rd party voting flourishes in elections when there is no incumbent and when it’s possible for voters to look at both candidates as a choice of “the better of two evils”. When an incumbent president is running on being the worst of all evils, that kind of diffuses the 3rd party argument. Instead, voting to get rid of the Resident Evil is more convincing.
So are there many 3rd party voters that Democrats could draw on, who could be low hanging fruit because they clearly expressed they didn’t want to vote for Trump in 2016? Are there enough to make a difference?
Look below at the comparison in those three pivotal states between the margin of loss for Hillary, that a Democrat would need to cover in 2020, and the number of 3rd party voters that could be pursued.
As is apparent, the Democratic candidate in 2020, apart from winning by just improving a tiny bit on the black and youth Democratic turnout, could also win each state merely by winning a fraction of the anti-Trump 3rd party vote.
The trick here is that those who voted 3rd party did not want to vote for the moderate, establishment Democrat in 2016. They wanted an outsider with a big vision who wasn’t beholden to the establishment and generated enthusiasm. While the argument could be made that they made a very poor choice that year to vote for candidates who never had a chance and opened up the path for Trump to win, a segment of those voters who now recognize what’s at stake in 2020 could easily find a level of comfort with the Democratic candidate…especially if they represented change and not a return to the establishment/status quo that they voted against in 2016.
The more a candidate can excite voters with their vision and is not an icon of the political establishment, the more likely they are to attract the 3rd party voters and Democratic base voters who didn’t turn out in 2016.
So the truth is, a Progressive Democrat with a real vision for improving the country has a bigger base of potential voters to draw on than a Moderate
Democrats could be best positioned to win the presidency in 2020 by nominating and supporting a presidential candidate who doesn’t just want to make things marginally better, offers only incremental change and represents the establishment that many Americans see as having failed the people repeatedly and put them last after the interests of corporations and the wealthy.
A fresh candidate that inspires (even strong supporters of Joe Biden don’t represent that he will excite voters) will energize voter turnout in a way that no Moderate Democrat could. The Democrats have an unfortunately long history of nominating establishment moderates who have lost big elections (i.e. Humphrey, Gore, Mondale, Dukakis, Kerry, Hillary Clinton). But it was the “surprise” Democratic candidates that have won, including Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton (Clinton was a moderate but a brand new face) and of course Barack Obama.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result. A better definition of insanity is going down any path that makes the re-election of Trump more likely.
Instead, it would seem more advantageous to choose a quality Democratic candidate who can generate the needed enthusiasm within the biggest potential voting base to defeat Trump in the swing states and in the process, make clear to Democrats of color and younger voters that they are valued as Democrats and relied upon to make the difference in winning the White House (and Congress!) in 2020.
Whoa – moderate Dems aren’t the demographic that will secure who our nominee is – to begin with. Our party is 51 percent liberal – and that number is growing. So it’s liberal Democrats who will VOTE WITH INTENT as to “choice” – not with ulterior motive. Straight on vote based on our list of priorities- because all things in D.C. have to change – not just dumping Trump out. Democrats heading to caucuses across the nation – know all of that. I know we do. Let’s get REAL ABOUT IT. Main stream news and political anaylsts paid by corporate entities to opine – need to sit back and observe the process. The people’s process. It’s not tied to the status quo’s playbook – anymore.
Here’s a 538 article that might help in terms of our recent discussion:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/we-analyzed-40-years-of-primary-polls-even-early-on-theyre-fairly-predictive/amp/#referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&_tf=From%20%251%24s
Nate Silver predicted a Hillary victory in 2016.
And so did you, I bet. If you missed it, this study is not a prediction but a statistical analysis of past primary campaigns. Oh, you can check with Murph, last time out I said my numbers indicated Trump had a good chance of winning. But I didn’t believe them and like you and Nate Silver, was sure Hillary would win. Unfortunately, my numbers say a similar thing this time based on who gets the greatest increase in turnout especially in the swing Rust Belt States. We need a candidate who can do well there. And like it or not, Biden does by far best there against Trump. But it is still early…
Here’s an article that touches on both our positions.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/588613/
The comparison of the 2016 Democratic campaigns to the current political arena does not provide justice to the realities encountered by every citizen right now. And after two and a half years of enduring the almost daily denigration of American values and the blatant abuse of power within the so-called federal government by Trump and the GOP, there is a far greater unity for all Democrats than from any one sector.
Progressive, Moderate, Centrist, Far Left, Liberal – whatever nomenclature is put upon different sectors within the Democratic party, one truth remains above all else. It is a Democrat who needs to end the malicious mayhem of this atrocious administration. From travel bans to children dying in cages, Democrats are far more united against the inhumane cruelty caused by Trump and his continuous disregard for our Constitution than as portrayed by the hyperbolic create-a-conflict punditry and media platforms.
This nation is not the nation it was in 2016. Besides the absurd actions by Trump, the GOP have been cohorts in legislative and judicial manipulations that put their party first before our country. – Over the next fifteen months, much may change even further in that political arena with consequences which cannot be predicted by numbers alone.
Although who-best-can-defeat-Trump is obviously a factor, there is still this significant consideration with all Democratic candidates…..who actually has the qualifications to best fulfill the duties of the office of the President of the United States of America.
Aquarius 1027, I like your perspective on this and I would hope that no matter who the Dem candidate is, she/he will benefit from the kind of party unity you describe.
I’m approaching this though without factoring that part in, as a purely strategic exercise. I do think that turnout for Dems will be big as it was in 2018 and that should be enough to push any Dem candidate over the top.
But we have to subtract from that, the Russia meddling, Trump meddling and Repub voter suppression and dirty tricks that will undermine the natural Dem advantage in 2020.
So putting all of that aside as all of it balancing out each other, the question I’m trying to answer is, what type of Dem candidate would be the most likely to pile up the most possible votes?
By analyzing the Dem candidates who have succeeded and failed in recent times, over the past 35 years, there does seem to be a profile for which type loses and which type wins. My concern is that Biden’s type of candidate has lost every time in that entire time frame.
So playing it safer, I would like to see Dems pick an “outsider”, that is, not an establishment Dem moderate. If they are a moderate but still a fresh face that can excite voters, I would be okay with that too.
As for who can do the job as President, I think President Obama proved that a smart, principled and organized person can be very successful in the office even without executive experience.
And Trump has proven that even a moron who’s a criminal and a racist can figure out how to use the power of the office. Which is why we have to throw him out in 2020.
Very well said, Aquarius!
Good to see you again, AdLib! And it’s great to see after the time I’ve
been AWOL from Planet POV, you’ve lost none of your fire and verve! In
this very well thought out and documented article you make it plain to see
why a better definition of insanity than that attributed (although with no
verifiable evidence he actually said it) to Albert Einstein is “going down any
path that makes the re-election of Trump more likely.”
Barry Goldwater said in 1964 “Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice;
moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Depending on one’s
political orientation, it’s a very famous — or infamous — quotation.
As a guiding principle of life next only to “Discretion is the better part of
velour,” I firmly follow “Moderation in all things — including moderation.”
Therefore I find the word “Extremism” in “Extremism in defense of liberty
is no vice” a tad, well, extreme. But “moderation in the pursuit of justice
is no virtue” rings far truer to me.
I can, and will if asked, give examples of how moderate approaches did
pass Congress while more progressive ones would likely have failed. But
since moderate measures can only yield moderate results, blowback from
the failure to make crucial big changes can, and often is, very damaging
to the effort of implementing significant strides toward a better America.
So nice to see you too, NoManIsAnIsland! Hope all has been well with you!
The Goldwater quote really is a dichotomy. The first part of the quote is off the rails but the last part of it is pretty insightful. Extremism is indeed a vice because it can always be justified by the extremist as noble…as the mass killers this weekend no doubt did. However, as Pelosi has been sitting on her hands when it comes to impeachment and emboldening Trump’s destruction of our society and institutions, it proves that moderation is also no virtue when it comes to justice.
I agree with you, moderate proposals are always the easiest to pass in Congress because you often need the lowest common denominator to get a bill passed.
Elections are different though, especially for Democrats. Voters want and expect the party out of power to be offering something strong, even brash, to accomplish what the current administration has failed to do. They want to be inspired, they want change (in every election or incumbents would be always-reigning kings) and they want vision. They want compassion too, a candidate they respect and can look up to for their principles.
Inspiration gets apathetic Dem voters into the voting booths. A candidate who runs on returning the country to where it was with the president before, incremental changes to existing policies, who is another in a long string of establishment, moderate, older white males who have done the same dance time and time again, is not going to provide that kind of inspiration.
What I think is important is understanding that what Dem voters want in a candidate and what policies can actually be passed are two different things. We should be focused on the candidate with the best potential to both win and once they have, fight to pull bills over as much as possible to helping Americans.
What will be a sure one-termer Dem is someone who comes in as a moderate and negotiates and agrees to compromise greatly with Republicans (to stay moderate) on bills addressing urgent issues Americans face. Such a Dem President would fail and discourage Dem voters and their loss the following election will be inevitable.
The more passionately Progressive a candidate is, the more chance I think they have to beat Trump and the farther away from the right and right center they’ll pull policy.
Thank you, AdLib! I’m fine and hope all has been well with you, too!
In my post above, I concentrated on what I think is the folly of thinking a moderate Democratic presidential nominee would have the best chance of defeating trump next November — despite the indisputable evidence of history which tells us, as you pointed out above, no moderate Democratic nominee has been elected president in the U.S. in the last 35 years.
If that 100% failure rate doesn’t teach us “Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue,” what in the world could convince us? Nothing, I say.
Of course those who disagree with this view have as much right to their opinions as we do to ours. They can and do offer statistics to back up their claims that only a moderate Democrat can defeat trump next November.
They make the same arguements that backers of all the failed moderate Democratic presidential nominees over the last 35 years have made to no avail nor any success. Their statistics are valid; but the assumptions which were based on the statistics proved to be invalid — just as similar statistics being used to bolster like assumptions to further Joe Biden’s and other moderates’ candidacies are equally invalid.
No one who believes in learning the lessons of history should place any credence in these questionable propaganda points nor support a moderate candidate who uses them to paint him or herself as the most electable person running.
I wish everyone who still thinks a moderate is the best person to defeat a literally raving maniac like trump ( and in this case, it is trump). could read your article and your posts concerening it. Even if it would change relatively few voters’ minds, that would be still be very worthwhile. And it could also encourage the politically dispirited to support the most progressive candidates in the primaries and could lead to the selection of a progressive nominee.
Hey NoManIsAnIsland!
The irony is that I think many of the Dem voters who are pressing for a moderate to be the Dem nom are doing so because they think it’s the safest choice when historically, it has been a path to defeat.
It might seem intuitive that by running the least controversial Dem, there would be less for Trump and the Repubs to attack but they will attack anyway and accuse even the most conservative Dem of being a socialist who wants open borders and Latinos stealing the jobs of white men and ending capitalism.
So at least, if the Dem candidate is going to be lied about by Repubs, at least let it be a Progressive who can inspire a greater turnout from voters already predisposed to ignore the Repub lies and vote Dem.
Also, there are moderate Dem voters who just want a moderate candidate who only offers incremental changes and will keep the status quo. Change is scary for some, it takes a leap of faith.
I hope the Progressives like Warren can address those concerns in the primary and win over enough moderate Dems to give us the best shot at winning in 2020 and bringing about the big change we really need.
Hey, AdLib!
It really is ironic that enough Democratic voters delude
themselves this way that, combined with even more of
the Democratic electorate who are afraid of change, they present a huge obstacle to the nomination of a progressive candidate.
And I doubt any of either group, who would never voluntarily submit to being strangled by an attacker, realize they’re in effect strangling their own economic freedom by deciding to play it safe by backing a
lackluster moderate nominee who is probably a Democrat in name only and will only offer them
bread crumbs when they deserve a whole loaf!
I’m certain Elizabeth Warren, who grew up on the edge of poverty and has street smarts as well as very high intelligence, is aware of this critical problem in the Democratic base. I’d be very disappointed in her if she doesn’t address it when the primaries begin; and if she doesn’t, there must be a way we can get this message to her!
Hey NoManIsAnIsland! Really glad you’re back!
I think that one big issue is that most people aren’t taught critical thinking in school. So the decision making process for some is based on impulses, ungrounded assumptions, conformity and of course, fear.
Knowing how to make thoughtful decisions is so important in politics and in life as a whole.
Some Dems look at the Repubs who vote against their own interests and shake their heads…then turn around and unknowingly vote against their own interests.
I understand why many support Biden, some Dems are very skilled at critical thinking and this is the candidate that they think would be best. Fair enough.
But I have seen others who have not really thought this through and have simply accepted the meme pushed out by the establishment that the establishment’s candidate is the most viable. Of course they’d promote that proposition, no surprise.
But it isn’t based on truth, it’s based on their self interest. They could gain power and career opportunities if their candidate is in the WH and able to hand out cabinet positions and such.
But is it best for the average American to have a candidate mired in the establishment in power? History proves that it’s not even a good idea to have them as a nominee!
Some Dems insist they want change but they choose to vote for someone beholden to the same big money, corporate interests and political establishments.
The only way real and profound change can reshape this entire, corrupted system of ours, is to run an exciting candidate that gets more voters out so they can win and who has a real, non-establishment vision for how America can be fixed.
The establishment candidates have gotten us to where we are and the alleged anti-establishment Trump is in truth more establishment and more corrupt than any before him.
He has put the lobbyists and execs from corporations in control of all the domestic agencies that are supposed to protect Americans from them. Trump is the embodiment of the corruption that has overtaken our establishment.
We badly need change and a moderate offering small, incremental change isn’t going to deliver that…and may end up being a one-termer disaster that puts a Repub back in power in 2024.
We need a real change agent and my pick for that is Warren but I will remain open to others if they step up.
Hey, AdLib! I’m really glad to be back, and I’m very
touched by the rousing welcome you and Kalima have
given me!
You’re onto something very important here. If critical thinking were widely taught in school here, it
could have a positive effect on a number of aspects of many students’ lives. And one very significant
result could be future voters would be less easily conned and misled by morally bankrupt and opportunistic politicians.
To make matters worse, the dumbing down of U.S. education over many years has also contributed to
the electorate’s disturbing tendency to be drawn to right-wing reactionary Republican demagogues.
On this point, three nights ago, MurphTheSurf posted to me a comment so germane to our conversation I quote it in its entirety:
“By and large most people re. ALL of government as
corrupt and both parties as dirty as sin. Mention corrupt Trump and they counter with a diatribe re. Hillary and Barack. As to checks and balances there is
hardly a person these days who has the foggiest idea as to how government is structured….40 years of
tearing away at an educational system that used to
teach civics and history as core curriculum to maintain responsible citizenry has wrecked havoc……which is why the actual fake news flourishes.”
Even in ordinary times, it pays to have an exciting candidate. But when the country is being torn apart
by ruthless Republican kleptocrats and their puppets
in Congress who back a Hitler wannabe like trump
who mesmerizes very low information, racist, and fearful people, only an exciting and charismatic candidate has any chance of being elected.
But if that candidate turns out to be Sen. Elizabeth
Warren, a real change agent such as one sees
rarely — if ever — in a lifetime, I think her chances
of being elected are quite good.
There’s a reason Trump went out of his way to boast during the campaign that he was favored by a majority of “poorly educated voters”. He said, “I love poorly educated voters!”
Of course he does. Of course the GOP does. Of course their campaign to defund education and discourage college educations is a big deal to them.
The more uneducated the voter, the more easily manipulated. It’s not like these mass killers or white supremacist groups are chocked full of scientists and brain surgeons.
I think that whoever the Dem nom is, will win. To beat out the candidates in the top tier, that person will have to be legit. But to give us the best shot at not only winning but winning big, as is important to crush Trump and the GOP for their racism and anti-Americanism, a Progressive like Elizabeth Warren would be ideal IMO.
We’re in complete agreement, and even Bernie Sanders
can’t match Elizabeth Warren in captivating and energizing Democratic voters.
And I don’t think any of the other candidates have the
charisma and power to motivate as many people to
vote to “crush Trump and the GOP for their racism and
anti-Americanism” as Senator Warren does.
Maybe. But there is no significant evidence of that in the polls yet. Both Biden and Sanders beat her in her home state of Massachusetts. Biden beats her in the swing states and Biden does better than her against Trump in all the polls, National and state.
I take and understand your point. I don’t know how
old you are and how long you’ve been following
politics and political polls; but the first presidential
election I was old enough to take an active interest
in was that of 1948.
And I’ll never forget the famous image of Harry S.
Truman grinning as, standing on the platform of the
observation car of his campaign train in St. Louis’
Union Station on Nov. 3, 1948, the day after his
upset victory over Thomas E. Dewey, he held up for
all to see the front page of that day’s Chicago Daily
Tribune — which, in the Tribune’s understandable
overconfidence had been printed ahead of time with
the banner headline reading “Dewey Defeats Truman.”
That said, If the results of the coming primaries do
reinforce Joe Biden’s standings in the current polls and
he becomes the Democratic nominee for president
(which I doubt will happen), then your reliance on the
significance of the polls — and you readily acknowledge
these are early days — will have been borne out.
We shall see what we shall see….
I’ve been around the block a few times. Well, way more than a few times. The first political events I recall were my mother having a break down when FDR died and my parents talking about packing up and leaving the US if MacArther came back and ran for Prez and won. Left Liberal politics was part of the family atmosphere. Polls back then I don’t remember. But as a numbers guy, I follow them nowadays and think they are generally a good sample reflective of the the sampled population at the time but of value only well beyond the error factor. And that it takes 6 to 10 of them averaged together to eliminate most of the errors. I used to also follow the bookies thinking the “market” would also be a good indicator. But no more since Brexit and 2016.
As of now, the polls significantly beyond the error factor show the nomination and Prez election are Biden’s to loose. And I think I know why. The Great Middle and then some just want some peace and quite. They are tired of the Drama Queen, Infant Terrible in the White House. Biden is kind of the Ford after Nixon. I would feel way more comfortable if he was 20 years younger. If he was, he’d be the next Prez with a very high likelihood. But he is what he is and far from a sure thing. Our problem is that he is the only one of our candidates significantly outside the error factor zone at present. But it is still early.
From what you say about recalling your mother having a breakdown when FDR died, it seems you may be fairly close to me in age, as I remember my own reaction to the sad news, as well as that of my parents — neither of whom ever voted for a Republican for state or national office, including the presidency — in their lives.
In fact, in more than 100 years I know of only one close
family member who did vote Republican, and it’s not
because we’re ardent Democrats. We’ve registered and
voted as Democrats only because since Teddy Roosevelt
was president, the Democratic candidates — though not
often enough the best choices — were always the
better ones.
I was born before Hitler’s blitzkrieg invasion and conquest
of Poland ignited World War II; and as four cousins of mine
fought in the European and Pacific theaters, I was more
aware of the war and its progress than most kids my age
who didn’t have relatives in the war.
I have vivid memories of the ritual of closing our Venetian
blinds every night to help keep our city hidden from the
view of periscopes of lurking Japanese and German subs
and overflights of Axis bombers.
It was something of a case of over-caution, if not overkill,
for we lived not far from the then geographic center of
the continental United States. As the crow flies, we were
almost exactly 600 miles from the closest part of the Gulf
of Mexico, almost exactly 700 miles from the Atlantic Ocean, and roughly 1,535 miles from the Pacific.
No enemy sub ever got as close to us as these distances,
and no enemy aircraft did either. And I still remember the exact spots I was standing when V-E and V-J Day were announced.
I hope I haven’t put you to sleep with these reminiscenses.
And while I’m not nostalgic for those perilous times when
the fate of Western civilization itself hung in the balance,
in retrospect we were in less danger then fighting external
enemies than we are now trying to vanquish the worst
internal enemies we’ve ever faced.
And who would ever have thought that these native born
American traitors and their supporters would be the
“spiritual” descendants of two of the architects of World
War II — Hitler and Mussolini?
But getting back to our current crisis. It’s clear why Biden
is the front runner now and may be for some time. And
I’d guess many of his supporters would still back him
even if they knew of his very checkered and spotty record
throughout the years — which I imagine you probably
know as well as I do.
You have a little bit but not much on me in terms of years. We also had the evening blackout but wonderful glow in the dark cut outs all over the walls and ceiling in our bedroom. But we were not far from the ocean were ships were sunk. I remember V-E Day and V-J Day very clearly. Not long after we found out all our relatives in Eastern Europe were dead at the hands of the N@zis in Poland and their Nationalist allies in Lithuania. Not one survived. From the time I learned of this, even while facing overt and blatant anti-Semitism here for many years including violence, I always took comfort from the idea that this was the US and nothing like that could ever happen here. Until Trump proved me wrong. So the only goal I have is to see Trump ousted before it is too late. Everything else is a dangerous distraction. So whomever the numbers show has the best chance of beating Trump has my support. Everything else can wait to be dealt with if we get him out. If we don’t, all the rest is meaningless.
If you didn’t live in one of the boroughs of NYC, I take it
you weren’t far from the city. If it hadn’t been for the
deplorable obstinacy and stupidity of CIC and CNO Adm.
Ernest King in refusing to order immediate blackouts
along the Atlantic coast, many oil tankers and other
vessels would not have been sunk and many innocent
lives would not have been lost.
My father’s mother was born in Lithuania, but I haven’t
yet been able to establish where his father came from.
It may have been Latvia, Lithuania, or even Belarus.
But his parents emigrated to the U.S. around 1895, and
my father was the first of their ten children to be born
here.
My mother’s father was probably born in Warsaw — as
he died when I was a little over a year old, I never got
to know him. My mother and her four siblings could
never explain to me why they didn’t know for sure their
father’s birthplace. While my mother’s mother had a
Norwegian surname, she was born in Lithuania, as was
my mother in 1902. The family and many of their
relatives came here in l904.
As far as I know, even years before Hitler came to
power, our only relatives who remained in Europe lived
in Warsaw. Even before Hitler declared his dictatorship,
my mother’s mother sent them letter after letter begging
them to leave Poland while they still could. They wrote
back claiming conditions weren’t as bad as reported here
and that they were in no danger. Finally about 1942,
several of my grandmother’s letters were returned to
her with the grim stamp on the envelope “Adressee no
longer at this address.” They were never heard from
again.
A good friend of mine, one of the youngest children to
survive not one, but two Nazi concentration camps, lost
about 100 relatives — starting with her mother, who
was taken at Lodz, Poland, and murdered at Treblinka.
With full knowledge that nothing I or anyone else can
say can convey in any adequate way what we feel, I
still must say how sorry I am for the murder of all your relatives in Lithuania and Poland!
And I have no words to say at learning of your horrific
experiences with “blatant anti-Semitism”! It was only
in my freshman year of college in Ohio when I had my
first — and only — exposure to it at all when a small
group of us in our dorm were in a lounge casually talking
and getting to know each other.
Sixty-three years after the fact, I have no memory of
why I happened to mention I was Jewish. But instantly
a very mild mannered guy named “Richard” — with an incredulous look on his face but without a trace of anger
or malice in his voice — said this: You don’t look Jewish,
and I don’t believe you’re Jewish. If you really are Jewish, then show me your horns!”
Shocked though I was that even a virulent anti-Semite —
which he didn’t seem to be — could be be so ignorant to
believe and confidently spout such ancient and malicious
nonsense in 1956, as soon as I found my voice I lowered my head so he could seen I was hornless and then even parted my hair in several places with my fingers so he could see my scalp — which of course, hadn’t even a trace of budding horns.
I explained to him that this was only one of many false
beliefs about Jews, but nothing I said could make him
come to reality and realize he had been deliberately
mistaught and misled. The discussion ended very
soon when I realized he’d been completely brainwashed
and was a lost cause. I told him I was sorry he couldn’t
face the truth, and he said he didn’t believe anything
I told him — including that I’m Jewish — and concluded
with “You don’t have horns, so you can’t be Jewish!”
I didn’t need to have had this rather bizarre encounter to
know of the historical evil of anti-Semitism and the discrimination and persecutions it brought to American
Jews from their arrival on these shores until today.
And by the time I was four years old, before some
American adults were aware of the Holocaust and its
dimensions, I knew that the Nazis and their minions
were trying to exterminate the Jews of Europe. Of
course as I got older, I learned more and more of the
full scope and details of their attempted genocide.
And because of my interest in and knowledge of how
demagogues gain and use dictatorial power through
scapegoating of minorities of every description, since
my early teens there hasn’t been a single second that
I’ve taken any “comfort from the idea that this was the
US and nothing like that could ever happen here.”
Thanks so much for sharing the experiences of both your family and yourself, NoManIsAnIsland. There’s nothing quite like first person narratives when it comes to understanding history. Your family endured through some truly horrifying parts of 20th century events. We’re grateful to have you here.
Thank you for your very kind thoughts, Kesmarn. All but
a very few of my family left Europe for the U.S. before
World War I; and as I posted above, several maternal
cousins of mine perished in the Holocaust in Poland.
The person I mentioned above who lost about 100 family
members, starting with her mother, is a good friend of
mine but isn’t related to me.
Jake321, also posting above, didn’t give the total number
of his relatives killed but said every single one of them in Eastern Europe was executed in the Holocaust.
And while I was directly exposed to anti-Semitism only
once in my life, Jake endured years of blatant forms of
it — including violence.
Of course I’m grateful for your compassionate words.
But as Jake and his family suffered proportionally far
more from anti-Semitism and Hitler’s Final Solution
than my family and I did, I’m compelled to say he
deserves the greatest share of your eloquent remarks!
I never knew the exact number but given the size of families there back then it must have been dozens since when some relative of mine went back to locate family they found no one but maybe a possible fourth or fifth cousin. Not all we knew of were executed. For example, a young cousin who was forced into a German Officers’ brothel jumped to her death or another cousin who was killed in the last resistance fighting the Germans in the Warsaw Ghetto. But most died one way or another in the Camps. NEVER AGAIN includes beating Trump…
We honor the lives and the memory of your relatives and all other innocent victims who perished in the Holocaust.
That Trump, another sociopathic malignant narcissist in the mold of Hitler and Mussolini, has taken evil root in the U.S. is a gross insult and mockery to all of those enslaved and murdered then and to everyone in and out of military service who fought against and finally defeated the Axis powers.
Trump’s election in 2016 was a catastrophe not only for
America but also for the rest of the free world. We
cannot and must not let him win again.
For sure…
A very gracious reply, NoManIsAnIsland. Thank you.
….And a very gracious thank you in return, kesmarn.
You’re welcome.
Lithuania/Poland…we’re Landsleit…don’t recall anything about the Holocaust until I found out about my relatives. All gone. From that point on just thought about flipping a coin as to whether I would be or not be. Became worse when I went to Scout Camp with some kids who had survived the Concentration camps. They looked like the living dead to me since they still were in a kind of shock. Anyway, I thought the US was different until Trump came along. Even McCarthy didn’t seem near as bad as Trump. Yep, NYC near the ocean. And nothing is more important than getting Trump out to save our country and democracy.
Yes, we are Landsleit. Though unlikely, it’s possible
some of our ancestors were Landsleit in the literal
sense of coming from the same town or district in
Lithuania and Poland.
Discovering what happened to all your relatives
in Eastern Europe during the Holocaust had to be
extremely traumatic, and your reaction to finding
it out was all but inevitable. I hope with time —
and at least until trump’s rise — you felt more
secure of your survival again.
I can empathize with your dismay at in meeting the
kids who survived the concentration camps in Scout
Camp. I attended away summer camp for the first
time in 1946. And although I was very healthy, I
was also very underweight. I was so underweight
that everyone who saw a photograph of me shirtless
in shorts said I looked just like a concentration camp
survivor, and I did — my arms and legs were very thin
and one could count every single rib in my thorax.
I agree with you that evil as Joe McCarthy was, trump
is worse. And the longer trump remains in office, the
greater the threat to our country and democracy.
Actually not very unlikely since a lot of the Jews who came from Lithuania were from Vilnius where my grandfather came from. And my other grandfather came from around Warsaw again where a lot of Polish Jews came from. The 50-50 was not a reminder of my insecurity but more a thankfulness that I came from the half of the family that made the move to the US and how easy it would have not to be around to think of flipping the coin. As I indicated, my comfort came from feeling it couldn’t happen in the US. That comfort is gone with the arrival of Trump.
It wasn’t a skin and bones look the kids had that was so disturbing and frightening but the vacant look in their eyes and their appearance of numbness and lack of animation.
We must get Trump out of the White House. All other issues are meaningless until that is done unless those issues increase our chance of winning or decrease his chance of winning and don’t increase his turnout in reaction to our issue or candidate…
My late mother was born 81 air miles northwest
of Vilnius in Ponevezh (in Yiddish). In Lithuanian
it’s Panevėžys and in Polish it’s Poniewież.
Thanks for explaining the significance of the coin flip.
I should have gotten it instantly as I can’t count the
number of times I’ve been told that or have read it in
the past. But I haven’t heard it in a very long time!
When I mentioned the photo of me at summer camp
that reminded everyone of a child in a concentration
camp, I was thinking of saying the happy expression
on my face made it obvious I could be nothing of the
kind; and I regret not having added that.
I’ll never forget your very chilling and poignant
description of your impression of the kids you met at
Scout camp:
“It wasn’t a skin and bones look the kids had that was
so disturbing and frightening but the vacant look in
their eyes and their appearance of numbness and lack
of animation.”
Over the last 70 years I’ve seen very many images —
still and in films — of kids in concentration camps and
after their liberations, including when they’ve come
and been settled in the U.S.
But upsetting and unforgetable as that is, having seen
that look in person and having been with those still
dazed and broken kids as you were, I’d think, had to
be as fresh and unsettling to you as you wrote this as
it was at the time you actually experienced it.
Yep, and I don’t see Trump rallies as much different from the Fascist rallies in Italy and Germany. Trump even puts on Mussolini mannerisms and facial expressions. They are studied and intentional. If he wins again, I’m afraid it is all over for our democracy and history will repeat itself. NEVER AGAIN will be again…
I don’t see any meaningful difference between
Trump rallies and the Fascist rallies in Italy
and Germany.
No one who’s even seen a single photograph
of Mussolini puffing out his chest and jutting his
jaw out can fail to notice how often Trump
strikes the same vainglorious pose!
We all have very good reason to fear the death
of American democracy if Trump wins again.
If whoever wins the Democratic nomination for
president can’t alert a majority of the electorate
to the existential threat Trump and his enablers
are to our liberty and freedom, “NEVER AGAIN
will be again…” and ultimately even many of
his followers will live to regret having voted for
him.
YEP…
Here’s a poll just released today that shows that Biden is losing his lead and not gaining voters:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/poll-warren-gains-on-biden-in-iowa/ar-AAFwO9s
Numbers don’t lie. As for “numbers guys”…
Five months left, Warren has momentum and Biden doesn’t and she’s only 9% away from him now. Warren is the second choice among more non-Biden voters than Biden (which makes sense when he started as the favorite) so as candidates drop and their voters move, she will benefit more. Her room to grow is big, Biden isn’t showing any right now.
If I was one to bet on a race, I know who I’d put my money on.
I hadn’t seen this yet, and thank you very much for
for posting it!
It’s certainly encouraging to hear, and assuming
Warrren’s momentum increases its velocity, she’s
more than likely to pass Biden even before the Iowa
Caucuses and the first primaries.
Once she becomes the front runner, it shouldn’t take
take much longer for her to leave the disappointing
Joe Biden in her dust.
If I were a betting man — and I’m not — Elizabeth
Warren is the only candidate I’d put even a penny on.
I don’t bet anymore since losing in 2016. I only report what the numbers show and as of now Warren has a long ways to go to beat Biden and quite a ways to go to solidly beat Trump as Biden beats him in the swing states that will determine the election. But it is early.
Got it.
Good that you aren’t a betting man especially in terms of her electability in the General. At least according to this survey.
How’d you do last time? Anyway, one poll is meaningless. Among the Iowa polls at RCP, Biden is holding about a 9 point lead over Warren. And in places like S.C. which are important indicators of critical non-White support, Biden leads Warren in the RCP’s average by 3 to 1. In the average of the recent national polls, Biden still leads both Sanders and Warren by more than 2 to 1. And in the RCP polls of Biden and Warren against Trump, he beats her by almost 4 to 1 against Trump. Biden is the only candidate that leads Trump by more than we beat the Republicans in the House races in 2018. All the others are either beaten by Trump or do not beat him by near as much as we beat the Republicans in 2018. Oh, and Biden does way better than Warren in the swing Rust Belt States and beats her in her own home state of Massachusetts by about 10 points, almost 2 to 1. It is early but Warren has a very long ways to go to beat Biden for the nomination and further to go to indicate she can beat Trump where it counts most in the swing states. Anyway, that’s what the numbers show…for now…
The first national primary poll came out today showing Warren to be into a statistical tie for 1st place with Biden.
https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/mujbtdyiti/econTabReport.pdf
If we continue to see this or a lead over Biden reflected in subsequent polls, the whole argument for Biden crumbles. If he can’t maintain the facade of having an advantage of electability, he has no raison d’etre.
Interesting. Now when you have at least a half dozen actual scientific polls which show similar, that would be significant. If you missed it, this is NOT a poll but a survey. It is done totally on-line from folk who are self-selected and have nothing better to do than spend their lives answering some 150 questions. That might explain a bit about why Warren got that support. Another indication might be seen in the fact that the survey summary shows that among Blacks, Biden gets 38 and Warren gets 7. And Hispanics favor Biden by way over two to one compared to Warren. This gigantic discrepancy between Whites and non-Whites indicates yet another problem with this survey in claiming to be reflective of the Dem Party vote on average in the real world. But I have no doubt that Warren has some strong support among young White nerds. What else is new?
When the RCP average shows this, then you can crow. Oh, a bad sign even from this survey is that if Biden is the nominee, he is expected to lose to Trump but at least within the error margin. However, if it is Warren, she is expected to be trounced by
Trump. So restrain your euphoria for the time being…
When you’re right you’re right Jake. Currently my little vw golf and I are on a boat, destination Zeebrugge, 🇧🇪 Belgium. I know that you know that Zeebrugge is in Belgium. Have been fed and watered so now am at a loose end, reading emails and posting whilst the WiFi, my mobile allowance, is available. Looked at the weather forecast for the next five days and it seems that precipitation is likely-damn! Anyway, if it’s too wet to cycle we can take the old diesel burner and slip over to Brugge or other nearby delights.
Thanks…and I hope your Vodka allowance is also available…to help keep you warm in the chill… };o)
Reality, from YouGov’s website:
So, your claim is (once again) absolutely false.
I don’t understand your compulsion to make up “alternative facts” to dismiss information you simply don’t like. It only makes the info more legit and your protest against it less credible.
With that in mind, I guess I should say, “Thanks!”
Uh-oh, looks like the news media isn’t buying your “alternate facts” about YouGov polls:
So what? It’s not like MSNBC and CNN as well as FOX don’t cherry pick from surveys and polls to meet their narrative of the moment. The RCP average is Biden 30.3 and Warren 18.5. There is not one other poll or survey that has it so close. Generally, in stats when one sample is way different from the others it is considered an outlier and rejected. If you recall MSNBC and CNN went through the same cherry picking after the debates to show that Harris was about to overtake Biden. They failed to note the polls that didn’t show this and now the RCP average has Harris at
8.3 to Biden’s 30.3.
They did the same with the Impeachment polls. They kept headlining Impeachment support in polls in the 40% range. But they never noted that the question generally wasn’t just about Impeachment. It wa explicitly or sometimes implicitly about support for Impeachment AND removal. When one poll also asked explicitly about support for Impeachment that did NOT remove Trump, it got all of 5% support. As I recall this FOX poll was cited on MSNBC because it showed Biden leading Trump by 10 points. And it drove Trump nuts. Well, they also noted that the poll showed 37% for Impeachment without noting the removal part. And ignited the negligible support for Impeachment without removal.
You do need some help on these things and also on how to behavior yourself better and not falsely accuse someone of alternative facts and lying.
Maybe that in the future. But as of now only Biden beats Trump decisively in the National and most state polls as shown on RCP. Warren and Sanders have kind of leveled off at about half the Dem voter support Biden has with Harris’s support falling off a cliff. And Biden seems to have more non-White support than all three of them combined. It’s early but as that study I posted for you found, Biden is just about enough ahead this early in the campaign that he statistically has way more chance of getting the nomination than not getting it.
Oh, I believe Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were moderate, White male Southerners who also got strong support from Black voters. As did LBJ who also seemed to be a moderate White male Southerner. Oh, all three were kind of rural guys. Maybe I’m missing something but your narrative has a hole or two in it.
Jimmy Carter was not a moderate, he was liberal. Bill Clinton was conservative. But as I’ve mentioned, like Obama, they were “surprise candidates”, none of them were establishment candidates, they were new to most Americans when they ran and represented change, even if in Clinton’s case it was change to a more conservative direction. Also, all had a charisma that enthused voters.
There’s no way to put Biden or any of the other moderates into that category of winners.
Jimmy Carter had charisma? And then there was LBJ. And given how much charisma Trump has and his viscousness, our candidate won’t need much counter charisma. Now things can change. But until any of the other candidates gets strong non-White support, Biden has this in the bag. And Trump will be our best turn out the vote organizer for increasing our non-White vote. Would then be nice to get some of the Obama White Working Class support back as well and not have a candidate who kicks the rotten woodwork to get the Trumpites to swarm. But we still have plenty of time.
Yes, Jimmy Carter had charisma and engendered a great deal of affection from the American people when he ran for president. How else would an unknown peanut farming Governor from Georgia win the presidency?
As I mentioned below, Hillary had a bigger and more stable lead over Obama at this point in the 2008 primary so if we were back then, you would be claiming Hillary has it in the bag against Obama and your claim would have been proven to be as incorrect as I think this claim will prove to be in 2020 as well.
BTW, Hillary’s lead at this point in 2016 against Bernie Sanders was as high as 35%. By primary time, she had lost much of that, in a virtual tie with him at some points.
Knowing history helps, maybe graphics will help illustrate the truth about early leads evaporating as the primary goes on. Here are graphs of polling from 2012 and 2016, see if you notice a pattern for the front runner as time goes by:
Yep, what I notice is it’s 50-50. And that it appears Obama got his two big boosts in the first debates and didn’t fade. Warren got no boost in the first debate and then leveled off. Harris got an Obama type boost in the first debate and has been fading ever since. Biden totally recovered his commanding lead and then some. Bernie last time appears to have gotten his boost as the Russians went into full gear and the gullible Bernie Babies became their echo chamber. But he is still in second place this time with about half the support that Biden has. I think Bernie has seen his day and the old Trot won’t get to make his Revolution after all. I just hope he loses by so much that he won’t be tempted to make an independent run. And as I will always say at the end of these threads until the first primaries through California, it’s still quite early.
You don’t know how to read graphs.
Speak for yourself. What did I say that is not either in the graphs or implied by them? One shows the early front runner winning and one doesn’t. That is usually referred to as 50-50, not proof that in most all cases the front runner loses as you implied. Obama took two big jumps at what look like the early debates and then didn’t fade. You see something different there? Harris took a jump with the first debate and after a couple of weeks faded significantly. You see something different there? Biden has made up for all the lose from the first debate. You see something different there? Warren got no big jump from the first debate and had a steady increase until recently when she leveled off. Biden is still about twice any of the other candidates. You see something different? If you say yes to any of these, you need new glasses. Oh, you don’t like my Russian dig at Bernie and his Babies? Well, the Intel reports said the Russians targeted the Bernie folk and the swing states. And guess what? There were more than enough Bernie voters who voted in each of those states for Trump to make him Prez. Again, what did I state wrong about those graphs? You made a claim. Back it.
Remember the list I posted of how journalists determine if someone is being forthright or not?
One item is when a person changes the context of an argument to a different subject to be able to claim that they are proven right.
My assertion and the data in the graphs clearly illustrated that candidates leading by big margins in the polls in the early stages of the primary drastically lose their big leads as the campaign goes on.
To win your own argument with yourself, you constructed a completely different topic that it was “50/50” on who ended up winning.
Even Einstein admitted mistakes, it’s not a sign of anything other than one’s very human nature.
You should definitely take that last statement to heart. Hey, the point was not the obvious one that front runners lose their big lead but the clear implication that they lose it and don’t win. Who the hell cares if they lose some or most of their big lead and still win? And you damn well made your claim in the context of Biden losing not only his big lead but the nomination based on your view of the graphs and how much better others will do especially Warren.
Again, you said I didn’t know how to read graphs. And how is that? What do your press criteria say about you making claims and not backing them up? Oh, when have you ever admitted being wrong? If you recall I did admit being wrong about for-profit vs. nonprofit private health insurance companies. And that was so novel to you it seems that you continued to respond to me as if I never made the correction. I’m sorry you seem to have some problem about someone new on your site that doesn’t always agree with you. But I’m a follower of Murph and here I am.
We have a number of new members here who all get along with everyone else just fine. To be frank, you are the only one I’ve seen who has been in conflict with multiple members and has received responses from multiple members questioning the credibility of his comments.
To get to the heart of this and maybe even resolve this back and forth between us, please understand that even if our exchanges don’t make you feel that way, you are welcome here.
I don’t hold back in disputes but I also believe in everyone’s right to free expression…especially when it comes to people with whom I disagree.
Different sites have different sensibilities and at PlanetPOV, there is a bit of a reverence for facts and the truth. It’s a place where folks are accustomed to seeing opinions presented as such and facts presented as such and qualified. Where issues and debates are genuine and dancing around the truth isn’t engaged in.
In this Trump Era of “alternative facts”, folks here typically provide links to legit sources to back up asserted facts in their comments and their posts as a reflection of their respect for truth and out of respect for the reader, to give them confidence that what they read is indeed true.
FWIW, as long as opinions are represented as such and assertions presented as facts are earnest and backed up, such conflicts shouldn’t arise again.
At the risk of providing “supply” to someone who — if he’s not actively trolling — is apparently attention-seeking, I just have to say that in the ten years I’ve been a member of the Planet, I have yet to see AdLib make a point of going after a commenter because he/she is new to the site. In fact I’ve never seen him “go after” anyone personally for any reason. Will he address issues in a candid way? Of course. But get personal? I’ve never seen it. And he most definitely has the ego strength to be able to handle someone’s dissenting opinion without becoming snarky or sarcastic. In some circles, it may be considered a winning tactic to indulge in name calling (“you’re arrogant”) or insults (“can’t you read?”) or baiting tactics (“when have you ever admitted being wrong?”), but for most of the rest of us, the ninth grade ended a long time ago. So those tactics just get a very large yawn from the majority of readers who were wise to those tricks back when Arianna Huffington was only on her second face lift.
I’m sorry to disturb your little comfy group and for your cultural insensitivity to New Yorkers. But I was invited here by Murph along with other survivors of Yabberz. I said I was Bah Humbug Jake there and would not change my ways here or on other sites. And as I mentioned to AdLib if I’m attacked, I will generally respond in kind and then some. If I’m misquoted, I will point that out with gusto. And as a numbers guys, I will especially deal harshly with numerical misstatements and misunderstandings but will always apologize and make a correction if shown to be wrong with my numbers. But I’m not often wrong with the numbers or I wouldn’t have made a nice living as the numbers guy for a few decades. But thanks for your observations.
Enough of the snark about our members. Our “little comfy group” as you condescendingly call us, are members who have grown to respect each over time even if we have differing opinions. We don’t have to quote our accomplishment to try to win a debate either. It makes no difference why you came here, it’s how you react to other members and their opinion that is important.
Great. My response to the other “K” is good enough for you as well. See you later…
You are rude. This is not a site for competition or someone winning points if they aggressively push their pov thinking they are superior and know more about issues than anyone else. If you think we are an echo chamber when all you do is spend days on the same post arguing with other members who more than likely know more than you do, that is not the definition of an echo chamber. How would you know when you have engaged with so few members here anyway?
Everyone is welcome, but they should leave their arrogance, aggression and ego at the front door.
I lived in New England for a long time, and a “New Yorker” you ain’t. (But then Trump thinks he’s a real New Yorker too — not that anyone said anything about New Yorkers in the first place. Imaginary “enemies.” They make it so much fun to play the martyr, don’t they? And they’re a great way to distract from the fact that the conversation is going in a direction that might remove the troll from center stage. Can’t have that now, can we?)
Yep, I always found that New Englanders were the very best judges of who is and who is not a New Yorker. And they for sure don’t have a New York sense of humor. Anyway, the only one I’ve noticed dominating center stage here is AdLib. That sure is not an interest I have. Enemy? Martyr? Troll? That’s funny. Oh well, time to do something a wee bit more useful for a while and actually troll some Alt Right and Russian sites and dig up some more dirt that can be used against Trump and his Trumpites. Enjoy your little echo chamber…
Jake, by training, experience and vocation I was an accountant for over forty years. I am a numbers guy by training. Anyone who is familiar with numbers knows that numbers is data, and one can manipulate data (any kind of data) to say almost anything they want the data to say. An inside accounting joke is when someone ask an accountant what does the numbers say, the response is, what do you WANT the numbers to say.
You and I, both numbers guys, can look at the same numbers (data) and glean polar opposite interpretations. It happens everyday at the highest levels of business and government.
I think you revealed that you were once a republican, and it shows in the sense that you are very reluctant to change your position when evidence and data no longer support your position. I am VERY opinionated, and I THINK my opinion is correct. If I did not think it was correct, obviously I would not hold that opinion. However, every once in awhile I discover that my opinion is NOT correct. I remember that time in 1967, when I had to accept that my opinion was wrong. (I kid you).
From my perspective (and we are allowed to have different perspectives) forums like this are to share opinions rather than to attempt to persuade others to adopt our opinions. If we disagree about something it doesn’t mean that either of us is right or wrong. We just have different opinions, and you are MORE THAN WELCOME to keep your OPINION.
There are numbers and there are numbers. And I have repeatedly said I was never a Republican, never voted for a Republican and would never vote for one. As I recall, you said you were not so pure in these terms. };o)
You admit being a troll at websites. And you seem to spend a lot more time at pro-Putin Russian Nationalist sites than any legit Dem I have known.
In my experience, I’ve only seen trolls respond to an olive branch by trying to grab it and break it into pieces.
If it walks like a duck and constantly claims victimhood like a duck…
To this point, the only statement of opinion I’ve been able to distill from thousands of words written by the duck-walking gentleman is: “I support Biden until I don’t.” I don’t think Winston Churchill would have wept bitter tears of envy over the wit, courage and eloquence of that declaration. On the other hand, the Russians are probably getting a few giggles. So there’s that.
Sorry, I didn’t realize this little echo chamber was populated with some Winston Churchill class intellects. I better try harder. I have no idea how the Russians are reacting other than they have this habit of banning me or trying to ban me. But as usual you miss the point. I am there to learn what they are about, what they are doing, what they plan to do. They are at war with our democracy and are our enemy, one that would like to be our existential enemy. Good to know lots about them and what they might plan to do next. Oh, and I do like to give them a needle or two to trigger them…just in my nature, I guess…
And I toll other neo-Nazi sites. My point if you conveniently missed it was that a likely Kremlin associated site was making itself neo-Nazi. If you don’t understand the importance of that you are beyond hope. And I troll those other Alt Right sites to know our enemy. I find that at least as useful as a comfy echo chamber. What victimhood? Maybe you should consider what you post a wee bit more before that quacking…
And your sorry attempt to knock down your own straw men only damages your credibility.
Hey, how about if I try it?
Oh, you don’t like that I oppose Russia interfering in our elections? And you don’t like that I oppose Trump’s racist attacks on Congresspeople of color? Well too bad for you, you’re not going to change my mind!
Nah, I’ll stay with debating actual issues and statements people actually make, it’s what honest people do.
You would do better to trade a bit of your arrogance for some humor. If you missed it as you often do, I was pulling your leg with that question about Bernie and Russia. Now you try this. You accused me of not being able to read graphs and I answered that I sure do know how and repeated what they show. But instead of saying how I was wrong and didn’t read the graphs right, you divert. You often do this. Try to actually deal with the response. Again, what did I get wrong about the graphs? You said I didn’t know how to read graphs. That means everything I said about them was wrong. Please tell me how each of my readings of the graphs was wrong. Damn, start with just one!
Jake, I’m not sure if you want to earnestly discuss or stay on topic with my actual assertions. But because I am an eternal optimist, I will ignore your insults and try once more to directly address your comment.
Your statement that began this thread:
My response and the graphs documented that the establishment candidate with the highest name recognition usually starts off with a strong majority of white and non-white support but naturally loses that big advantage as the primary progresses. So it is not an “if” or “until”, it will happen as history demonstrates.
No Dem candidate in recent history has ever “had it in the bag” just because they were leading in the non-white vote at the beginning stages of the primary. It just isn’t a thing.
No mention was ever made of whether a candidate leading early wins or loses, just that their initial lead is temporary and isn’t a legit basis for predicting the eventual winner.
I am not saying that anyone is “wrong” for wishing and hoping that Joe Biden or another candidate wins the nomination, I’m wishing and hoping that a Progressive wins instead. Everyone should be entitled to their opinion on which candidate they favor. FWIW, I would vote for Biden without hesitation if he won the nom.
You seem to be supporting and promoting Biden which is absolutely fine and if you present aspirations or assumptions about him as such, no issue. However, if an absolutist statement of fact is made to support him that history proves is unfounded, it is likely to be identified as such.
You do like to read things that are not there. I never said that it would be Biden regardless. I said the obvious. Unless at some point one of the other candidates can get the support that Biden now has of non-White voters, he has it in the bag. Maybe you know something no one else seems to know, that a Dem candidate can get the nomination without the full support of non-White voters. Again, please read what I’ve said more carefully. I always say I support Biden NOW because the numbers are in his favor, especially in terms of beating Trump. And it is still very early. If that changes, I’ll then support whomever else looks to be able to get broad support especially from non-White voters and can decisively beat Trump. I don’t care if they are Progressive or not. I want Trump out. Damn, if an offer was made today to have Trump resign so Pence would become Prez, I’d say grab it.
Anyway, my task right now is doing what I can to dump on Trump. Sometimes it seems one of yours is to dump on me. But I’m glad you seem to be backing off a wee bit. Oh, I’m not here for your or anyone’s approval. I will be Bah Humbug Jake as always, as well as the numbers guy.
Not a single vote has been cast for a single candidate in a single primary for 2020. Who will win or lose at this point is pure speculation.
If Democrats choose as our standard bearer in 2020, an old white man when we have tremendous and diverse alternatives, we are no better than republicans, who have ONE African American and ONE biracial member in their entire caucus.
Well, I’d even feel OK if it took an old White guy to beat Trump. Definitely better than if it took a woman of color to lose to Trump. I would be so upset about it I would never support the Dems again since that women of color who lost should have been a Trans Muslim to prove our purity of principle.
Wow, you don’t sound like a Democrat.
It’s Bah Humbug Jake to you! Oh, who’s never voted for a Republican and never would. And often vote for the Socialist candidate when I know they won’t win. And is so full of Lefty credentials they are shooting out my ears. I’d give you more but that would give away my identity. Having had a serious attempt made on my life for my political organizing, I’d just as well not want to go through that again.
Actually Jake, some of your positions seem to be more aligned with republicans than Democrats. Nothing wrong with that. It is what it is.
And sometimes they are more aligned with Socialists and Libertarians. So what? I would never support a Socialist, Libertarian OR Republican to be Prez of the US (I would make an exception for Bernie if he is our nominee and if he won, oppose him vigorously). My numbers mostly deal with economic projections, cost-benefit, statistics, finance, etc. They are more important to me than any ideology but I will use them to help support and implement more egalitarian and Progressive policies and programs as long as they are practical. And I’ve been asked to do just this and hired to do just this professionally my entire career by Lefty politicians, domestic and foreign. I know folk here don’t like this credentials thing but this is just the reality. (As an aside, I am now mostly retired from the paying part of that profession that lasted several decades and now work mostly in another fun field.)
We can only select one candidate to oppose trump. The question is WILL we have to foresight to select the right candidate. I think a white male keeps us stuck on stupid. That is not to say white males are stupid. It is simply saying that we have an opportunity to do something differently than what we have done that has resulted in the place we now find ourselves.
What I say is we must pick a candidate who can most decisively beat Trump or we will not have the chance to try any candidate again. Yes, I think it is that bad. I don’t give a damn about their gender or Melanin level. If Booker or Harris goes through the roof in terms of support among our candidates AND ALSO show they can do the same in the swing Rust Belt States, I’d support either above Biden. For some reason you and others here seem to think this is a racial thing with me. It isn’t. But I find what you and they say to be a racial thing. Sorry, I never gave up my Internationalist economic determinist self back in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s when my Lefty friends were puffing themselves into identity
politics.
As the list of losing Dem nominees for the last 35 years illustrates, establishment Dems don’t learn, don’t want to learn from the past. They solely want to keep the status quo and feather their own beds by trying to get one of their own in the WH.
There is no question that the future of the Dem Party isn’t in elderly white men who have been long time members of the party establishment. The very reason AZ and TX may be in play in 2020 is because of the growth of minority voters, they are the future.
Repubs own the old white men constituency…that is dying out. Dems need a candidate that reflects the diversity in the country and brings hope for a new and better way than going back to the past.
I have been a Democrat all of my life, even when they were as racist as republicans were in the south where I live. I think over the years we have had some very good Democratic presidents and congress members. Establishment and experience used to be an asset, and I suppose it will be again when this new crop of young people get older and more experienced. All they have to do is keep living.
I agree though that it is time for new and fresh and bold ideas. Not that older experienced people can’t have new and fresh and bold ideas, but we are fortunate to have some exceptional talent and character traits in our contenders for president. I am also in the camp that supports a female president. Again, it is time and we have the people. LET’S DO THIS!
Well, I find it a bit hard to call those who voted for Obama twice and Bernie in the Primaries as Trump cultists. But who knows, your straw man might have some reality to it. And I don’t know about you but generally I don’t think writing off an entire demographic that has been an important part of our coalition in the past makes much sense. And I don’t know about you but it seems those moderates you like to dump on have the greatest support from just those non-White folk you incorrectly claim they are writing off. Well, that’s what all the national and state polls that I’ve seen at RCP show. Maybe you know better. Maybe you know better than these folk who they should support.
Anyway, we need all the votes we can get from wherever we can get them because if we don’t beat Trump in a landslide there is a good chance he’ll deem the election fraudulent and try to invalidate or ignore it so he doesn’t have to leave office. In that unprecedented case, the only Constitutional way to get him out may ultimately be a two-thirds vote in the Senate to oust him. I would prefer not take that risk. But maybe you like to live dangerously…
You say you like numbers Jake so look at the numbers I provided in my post proving that it is not moderate white voters who win presidential elections for Dem presidents and Murph’s numbers below which clearly demonstrate that the majority of white voters do not vote Democratic.
Again, this is not to say that votes from moderates, socialists, or any political demographic should not be invited and welcomed by the Dem nominee. It is only a simple mathematic fact that it was not moderate white voters who helped Obama get elected and they certainly didn’t get Hillary elected despite her focus on them instead of minority and youth voters in the swing states.
One can present an affirmative without the opposite being inferred. It will be the youth, women and POC voters who will win this election for the Dem if they are enthused to turn out. That doesn’t mean that moderate voters aren’t valuable to the Dem’s election.
A game plan for the Dem for winning the 2020 election can’t run through trying to gratify white voters, Trump owns that lane. Numerically, Dems can’t win without high turnout by younger voters and people of color. It’s that simple.
There is no proof that a moderate candidate can generate the necessary enthusiasm a Dem will need to get those demographics out and win. However, there is proof that moderate candidates lose because they can’t energize those voters.
So do we just want moderate voters to feel good as Trump gets 4 more years to destroy the country or should we look to moderates to be team players and support the strategy that will defeat Trump and put a Dem in the WH?
You love to counter arguments that have not been made. We not only need to increase our base vote but pull back voters who supported Obama and those other moderate winers whom you would like to ignore. If we want to get rid of Trump we need all. And again, just those non-White voters you would like to get to vote, overwhelmingly support Biden over any of the others.
And it is just those candidates who don’t have much non-White support who decided it was smart to attack Obama to try to get at Biden, speaking of a losing tactic. Like it or not this made Biden the winner in the last debate and it is already showing up in the polls. Damn, great idea to dump on Obama who has 97% support among Dem voters. Damn, great idea to dump on ObamaCare that has 85% support among Dem voters and solid majority support among voters in general. Damn, let’s have Articles of Impeachment right now even though it will not remove Trump and there is no guarantee it would even pass in the House. Oh, and a recent poll that finally asked the correct question of do you support Impeachment without removing Trump and got all of 5% support. And Damn, lets just give a trillion or more to pay off all student higher education debt out of the pockets of folk who never went to college or worked their way through college or broke their a$$ to pay off their debt themselves. And damn, while we’re at it let’s go for trillions in Reparations and and and…and give Trump an easy win. I don’t like that very much…
Bill Clinton won 49 percent of the white two-party vote in 1996. Al Gore won 43 percent in 2000. John F. Kerry won 41 percent in 2004. Barack Obama won a slightly larger share in 2008, but then dropped to only 39 percent in his 2012 reelection bid. Hillary Clinton got the same percentage as Obama.
Pew’s projected percentage of eligible 2020 voters by racial and ethnic group
The study projects that whites will comprise 66.7 percent of eligible voters; Hispanics, 13.3 percent; blacks, 12.5 percent; and Asians, 4.7 percent. Likely voters is far more difficult to project as it is so much a function of variant forces in the election season.
These are very enlightening numbers, thanks for them. It illustrates where we are today, the diminishing majority white vote has been swinging more and more conservative (and racist).
There remains a minority of white voters nationally who vote Democrat but the truth and good news is that non-white voters are gaining in share and are strongly Democratic voters.
We may be in the last throes of the fearful white majority trying to legislate their continued dominance of non-whites but it is slipping out of their reach.
Who knows, if Dems can pull of a big victory in 2020, if the institutional racism and voter suppression can be addressed by a unified Dem government and if the Census redistricting in 2020 can fix some of the inequity in gerrymandering, Repubs could be down for the count until they mend their ways.
I agree with most of this. But do note that the total of our demographics that you want to emphasize given by Murph is just about 30%. And even adding in White Millennials it is still under 40%. The rest of White voters who you seem to want to write off is at least 50% higher at about 60%. Now I don’t know about you but to me those numbers don’t sound like a winning tactic. Anyway, I’m just an old Lefty Internationalist who never bought into the New Left’s politics based on Melanin level, etc.
I agree with the thrust of your post, but I question the likelihood
of Republicans ever mending their ways.
But I wait in eager anticipation of the remaining leopards of the
world to get together and vote unanimously to change their spots.
While it would be very cool to see this, it would have no effect on
my feelings about Republicans seeing the light and reforming.
Sidebar: This article is the result of extensive research resulting in a well crafted presentation which I generally agree with……
Thanks pal!
I am absolutely in favor of pushing the black, hispanic and young vote….all three of which underperformed in 2016 and did marginally better in 2018. Although I need to point out that any person who is black or hispanic and says that they did not vote because they were not sufficiently wooed by the Democrat is foolish beyond belief. Young people? I say again, we have spent 40 years destroying the backbone of American Democratic Practice….knowledge of how it works and why it is important in the denigration of civics and history.
Here are other insights that impact my position.
Here is a U.S. Census Bureau Chart comparing 2014 and 2018.
The key Dem leaning populations showed significant increases between the two.
Now consider 2016 to 2018. Surprisingly…..https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/11/12/18083014/2018-election-results-turnout
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Note a key conclusion: Exit polls found that voters were younger and less white than the 2014 electorate, but older and whiter than the group that turned out in 2016. WHAT! It seems that the 50ish crowd, and a significantly enlarge white 50ish crowd were not happy with GOP leadership and moved away from GOP candidates in swing districts.
Exit polling was also revealing. Some 41 percent of voters picked health care as the top issue facing the country, compared with 23 percent for immigration, 22 percent for the economy and 10 percent for gun policy.
38 percent said that how Trumping was handling the presidency influenced their vote in favor of Democrats. 44 percent said it had no influence with 18 percent saying they were influenced to vote GOP.
Dig deeper into those issues and what emerges is that the satisfaction level with health care on the eve of the 2016 election was much higher and that fixes to ACA were what voters wanted. Make it better was a dominant theme. Part of that was the Public Option that did not get into the ACA. Kaiser has found that while support for Medicare for All hovers at about 51 percent (https://www.kff.org/slideshow/public-opinion-on-single-payer-national-health-plans-and-expanding-access-to-medicare-coverage/) that number decreases significantly when the nuts and bolts are discussed.
What does the exit polling show….what drove a lot of this was the perception that Trump and his Congress were undoing the progress made in a number of areas
If the Democrats are perceived as pushing too far too fast on health care (end private insurance and cover undocumented residents), immigration (abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement and decriminalize illegal entry), education (pay off student loans and make public college tuition-free), race relations (study reparations for slavery and relitigate court-ordered busing) and the environment (remake the whole economy) they will place themselves in position to repel moderates and anti-Trump conservatives.
No wonder that Trump is trying to make four left-wing congresswomen of color, who call themselves “the Squad,” the face of the Democratic Party.
Last year, according to Gallup, 35% of voters identified themselves as conservative, 35% as moderate and just 26% as liberal. So even in these highly polarized times, it’s political malpractice to ignore or alienate the middle.
It’s too bad those numbers don’t include 2012 because that would illustrate even more than these numbers reflect, when it comes to how youth and black turnout made the difference in re-electing Pres. Obama.
To be clear, I am not saying that Dems should ignore the moderates, it is important for the sake of state government control and control of Congress that Dems are active in all 50 states and that candidates in those states reflect the sensibilities of a majority of voters.
What I am pointing out in I think a very simple and intuitive way, is that when it comes to winning the presidency, the path of failure for Democrats has been to go with the “safe” or moderate candidate. History is clear that only the “surprise” candidates, the out of the ordinary Dem candidates for the presidency, win.
The math in my post is pretty straightforward. All a Dem has to do is get Hillary’s numbers in MI, WI and PA plus 1% more and the Democrat wins the presidency. Obama got that and more by energizing the youth and African American vote, the 2020 nominee could too.
If we know what worked the last time and the time before that, with Pres. Obama, doesn’t it make the most sense to use the same formula that has worked as opposed to a formula that has repeatedly failed for Dems?
I know it’s not desirable for voters to feel less politically important. Californians have had to feel that way for the majority of presidential elections yet we carry on. California represents over 10% of the entire US population, nearly 40 million people and yet we have had to be on the sidelines as 4 states with populations as low as 1.3 million get the most candidate attention and pandering and decide who stays in the primary before we even vote.
Is it frustrating that the voters and their political preferences in the biggest state in the nation have been virtually ignored in presidential elections? Of course but it is a matter of practicality that the states and voters that will make a difference in electing a Dem president get greater attention because that’s the end result most Californians want (finally we have moved our primary elections up so that our primaries aren’t as irrelevant to the selection of the presidential nominees).
Presidential candidates still won’t be spending a lot of time in CA in the General Election to stump for votes (for contributions, yes) because CA is a safe Dem voting state. So should Californians demand that candidates spend more time here and pitching to our positions on issues than in the swing states that will decide the presidency? Absolutely not.
I think Americans of conscience should be willing to be team players and if the most pragmatic path for Dems winning and Trump losing is having a Progressive candidate, which I think past history and current numbers support, we should all support that. Progressives can share how they have had to take one for the team in most presidential elections including the most recent and important one in our lifetimes in 2016. They’ve supported and voted for moderate candidates that may have stood against some things they believe in strongly but most accepted that because they support the Democratic Party and saw the Republican alternative as unacceptable.
Consider how negatively we look at those Progressives or Indies who voted 3rd Party or stayed home out of purity, because the Dem candidate wasn’t their pick and didn’t speak fully to their political views. They helped elect Trump. Why would it be any different for moderates? If moderates chose not to vote for whoever the Dem nom is because they felt their moderate views weren’t represented enough, wouldn’t they be and be seen just the same as the purists who sacrificed the welfare of the country for their own selfish reasons?
Because we have this terrible Electoral College system, most of the country really doesn’t matter in electing a president because their state is already in the blue or red column.
CA is not going to be a win for Trump. MO is not going to be a win for the Dem Nominee. Should the Dem nominee be a moderate who can appeal to the minority of Dem voters in states that will go to Trump anyway? I think that would be a serious mistake.
I think the best decisions are made by accepting the reality of a situation and focusing best efforts on the most advantageous use of resources.
There are only a handful of states that decide presidential elections. So for the presidential campaign only, not state and local elections which should all be engaged by Dems, the nominee and campaign should be focused on what will win in those swing states…and what has been proven to win.
The priority for me is ending Trump and putting a Dem in the WH. And I made the case in my post why a Progressive stands the best chance of making that happen by winning those 3 swing states. It doesn’t mean they don’t spend some time courting moderates in states that they won’t win but that, as folks in many other states that are solidly in one camp or another accept, that the good of the many should come first before the gratification of the one.
As I described in my post, there is no evidence in recent history that a Democratic establishment moderate can win the presidency. Why would we want to go down that path again that’s littered with failure at such an existential moment for our democracy?
There is evidence though that a candidate who is a fresh face and represents change, as ALL of the winning Democratic Presidents in the last 40 years have, is the most likely path for success.
Many voters have had to live with voting for a Dem presidential nominee who didn’t reach out to them as they would have liked. Hillary Clinton was not my choice of candidate, she started her campaign attacking Progressivism…and even Obama!
Hillary ran the kind of campaign you’re describing, she was more focused on winning over moderates than energizing Progressives, the youth and voters of color. She lost for many reasons but despite everything, had she campaigned to drive youth and minority turnout in those three swing states (she didn’t campaign at all in these states) to squeeze out just .03% more voters for her in MI and .08% more in WI and PA, she would be president today.
When we also consider the prospects of the Dem investing resources in potential purple states, including Arizona and mind-bogglingly, Texas, instead of wasting resources in CA, MO, and other states not in play, Trump could be knocked back on his heels having to defend Repub states while turnout by Progressives, youth and minorities could be whipped up in the swing states by a Progressive Dem, a win of epic proportion could be realized.
Again, this isn’t a diss of moderates, it is a mercenary and pragmatic strategy to do what needs to be done to win those three swing states that will assure a Dem victory in 2020. And isn’t that what Progressive, moderate and even conservative Dems and Indies want?
Given that more Whites who voted for Obama and Bernie then voted for Trump in each of those three Rust Belt States I can make the exact opposite of your narrative. Note again that Clinton won by 3 million in the popular vote and it was just a small fraction of the White vote that cost her the election. Also note that those three states are overwhelmingly White and mostly rural. Working Class and rural Whites dominate those states. Their populations are in about the 80% to 90% White range while those who actually vote are significantly more White. So actually, since we know who gave the election to Trump there and we know how White those swing states are, if you want to focus, by the numbers, it should be on the White population in those states. More bang for the buck at the least. I’m not recommending this, just indicating how the numbers actually spell out a different narrative from the one you would like.
Show your numbers from objective, established sources then they can be validated.
https://www.npr.org/2017/08/24/545812242/1-in-10-sanders-primary-voters-ended-up-supporting-trump-survey-finds
The rest is rudimentary Census and Google stuff and simple arithmetic, not worth my time spoon feeding you with.
I accept most of your arguments…that you for the full response.
As you say…”The math in my post is pretty straightforward. All a Dem has to do is get Hillary’s numbers in MI, WI and PA plus 1% more and the Democrat wins the presidency.” but this presumes that this candidate holds onto the rest of the Hillary Vote. Hillary, like Obama, was not a “Squad or Bernie Progressive” and many of the proposals that are getting the most attention are not moderately progressive…they are left leaning progressive and the right has proven very capable in its propaganda efforts such that their message is that electing a Dem this time will be electing a socialist….Oh, the horrors…Those same people have no difficult, however, with the kissy-kissy relationship that Trump has with Putin.
Why not campaign on a restored and improved ACA that the GOP has been gutting? That ACA would include a public option. It took 6 years for people to get ok with ACA/Obamacare and now, for many, it is part of the landscape and they are aware that it is being eroded. Use that as a cudgel to both get the GOP and promote the Dems.
“There is evidence though that a candidate who is a fresh face and represents change, as ALL of the winning Democratic Presidents in the last 40 years have, is the most likely path for success.”
Who have the Democratic Winners been….Carter, Clinton, Obama. Does your description fit them…yes, rather well…..but their politics were very middle of the road and their rhetoric (often in response to GOP attacks on their “radicalness”) was left of center but still center.
You’re setting out a big condition though that I don’t think is probable. It’s buying into the pessimistic/Republican talking points to say that Democrats/anti-Trump voters would vote for Trump if the Dem candidate is “too liberal”. Really? Would Dems vote against a candidate who shares probably 80% – 90% of their opinions in order to vote for a candidate they despise and who they see as destroying America? I just don’t buy it.
What is most likely is that the Dem candidate will be one of the top 4 candidates right now, Biden, Warren, Harris or Bernie…but Bernie is declining and has a proven ceiling of support, I don’t believe he will be able to beat any of the other 3.
Then will moderate Dem voters flock to Trump if Warren is the nom? If Harris is the nom? Don’t see it happening. But I can see Biden running into the same discouraged, unmotivated youth and black voters who see another middle of the road establishment Dem who doesn’t excite them enough to go out and vote…and turnout going down again, setting up another popular win nationally but an electoral loss.
And as we always see, after the primaries, the Dem nom will likely tack more to the middle to reassure moderates and independents. So if for example, Warren wins, don’t be surprised to see her compromise with moderate voter’s views on allowing the option to keep private insurance (though she knows that for-profit insurance won’t be able to compete with non-profit that doesn’t have to siphon out healthcare money for profits and stockholders).
Hillary did not inspire, I wish she had. Her vote totals were below Obama’s. So using her underperforming numbers, especially in this time of strong anti-Trump motivated voters, I think it is being very conservative to say that whoever the 2020 Dem nom is will likely achieve a minimum of Hillary numbers.
Look at the 2018 numbers when we had no presidential election, the Dem base is far more motivated today than in 2016. A motivating “outsider” candidate could increase that motivation, another uninspiring, establishment, moderate candidate could smother some of that energy.
Remember, we are in the Dem primary, most candidates are vying to excite the base and display their vision to win the primary. We’ve been through this many times, once the game changes to the General Election, whoever wins will doubtlessly soften the most ambitious plans including on health care, to appeal to the most voters (without abandoning their visions). That said, a majority of Americans (including moderates) support Medicare for All:
If the nom was to be Warren for example, I don’t think she’d abandon her vision for Medicare For All but I could imagine her adding a transition period that accommodated those wanting to keep their insurance company and being able to grandfather that in if they really wanted. It’s an easy pivot without compromising her ultimate goal.
While I’d agree Clinton was conservative (Welfare to Work, NAFTA, repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, etc…Mr. Triangulation), I don’t agree that Carter and Obama are accurately classified as moderates. Moderates believe in incremental change but the ACA, while based on a Repub plan, was expanding a very liberal agenda of universal healthcare. Supporting Gay Marriage, equal pay for women, etc. In fact, a number of polls show that most Americans even saw Obama as “too liberal”:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2012/02/24/poll-obama-too-liberal
Jimmy Carter championed human rights around the world, took the Middle East peace process into his hands and hosted and worked to cement the Camp David accords, promoted alternative energy and even had solar panels installed on the roof of the White House. He had more moderate/conservative positions on other things but he can’t be fairly squeezed into the mold of being a moderate.
Bottom line, my proposition stands that only “outsiders” win presidential elections for the Dems, not Dem establishment moderates like Hillary, Kerry, Dukakis, Mondale, Humphrey, etc..
And I do think Hillary’s numbers are a legit base to look at for the 2020 Dem nominee to expect and build on because they represent a down year for a Dem candidate. A Dem shouldn’t start out expecting Obama numbers but seeing numbers from a campaign that we’re below previous years and barely lost does not seem unrealistic to me.
Start with a lower estimate as 2016’s number turned out to be, build on that and victory may not be so far away.
Do not that Trump’s core of Whites without a college degree make up almost 50% of the vote. Please let that sink in since Pew found that the total of our three top groups, Hispanics, Blacks and White Millennials together were only about 30% of the vote.
Just plain wrong. If you were correct, Trump would have had over 50% of the popular vote but he lost the popular vote to Hillary by almost 3%. Trump ended up with 46.09% of the vote and not all of that was white without college degree vote. But let’s say what you said wasn’t incorrect…
46.09% < 50% Simple math.
You just misunderstand. In the context of this, core demographic does NOT mean they all vote for him or us. The core demographic for Trump is Whites without a college degree and they sure as hell are by far the largest demographic making up almost half the voters. That does not mean lots don’t vote for us just that a supermajority vote for him. The same with our core demographics of Blacks, Hispanics and White Millennials who represent about 30% of the voters. They also don’t all vote for us but a supermajority do vote for us in total. If you would have spent a bit more time looking at the posted material instead of wanting to go on some numbers pissing on posts attack, you would have realized this.
So to reiterate, the demographic Trump gets his greatest support from is about 50% larger than our top three demographics. And they are way more represented in the swing states where it counts most.
As an aside, folk who work with numbers and stats for a living generally don’t cite numbers in cases like these to the second place. It is meaningless and only obscures the point. Also, this simple stuff is usually thought of as arithmetic not really math.
When you have a problem with numbers that I cite, maybe better to ask about them instead of making an attack. But if you would like to have a flaming war about numbers,
bring it on.
Frightening!
And here’s the latest on 8Chan but still without a mention of the direct Trump connection:
https://new.blog.cloudflare.com/terminating-service-for-8chan/
Speaking of frightening!
I find this at the link esp. scary.
To ruin your day even more, I Troll a Russian Nationalist site, very pro-Putin, that appears to have Kremlin ties or at least is tolerated by the Kremlin which has openly said it is modeling itself on the Daily Stormer and they are doing a great job of that. They even feature OP’s from the Daily Stormer and Stormfront. If you have a strong stomach try Russia Insider. One of the first things on the Dem’s agenda if we win is to take Putin down before it’s too late.
Your analysis makes far more sense to me than trying to get racist white people to vote for Democrats. How do Democrats appeal to these people? Economics? Jobs? The Democratic Party has fought for an economy that would uplift the working class for decades, while the republican party has promoted trickle down economics. Their mantra since Reagan has been that if we give special privileges to the wealthy and well connected, they would take care of everyone else. People who have voted for republicans from Reagan forward supported this. And now both Democratic voters and republican voters blame Democrats for what they have supported republicans in doing.
Republicans have controlled the federal government for the vast majority of the last 45 years. So why is it the Democratic Party’s fault that voters have rejected the party that has performed better related to the economy and civil liberties for the last 45 years, in favor of a racist and economically corrupt party? Americans should be running over each other to get to the polls to vote for Democrats. Democrats should not even have to court them. The fact that a politician is not a republican should be a good enough reason to vote for them.
AND republicans, not only trump but republicans, are racists and bigots. There is not question about that. WHY SHOULD ANYONE BUT A RACIST VOTE FOR A RACIST???
I do think that the Dem Nominee needs to have a clear vision and specific policies to address the many problems facing Americans and the country. So yes, an economic plan that will work to even the scales on economic injustice, fixing and improving healthcare, repairing infrastructure, stopping the wealthy and corporations from stealing more money and power, improving education, stabilizing South America and fixing immigration…
It’s a long list but I think someone who has specific initiatives to address what most Americans are struggling with will do well.
But charisma matters too, we need a candidate who will excite voters with the possibility of change.
This is part of the reason why I’m concerned if Biden becomes the nominee. Another old, white, establishment moderate like all the ones who have come before and disappointed the public is not going to generate the needed enthusiasm.
At this point, of all the candidates, I think Elizabeth Warren comes closest to touching all those bases. Other candidates may rise to the occasion too but so far, she seems to be doing it best.
That might be but it sure isn’t showing up in the National or state polls yet. Biden tops her in all of them both Dem Party and General. He tops her even in her home state of Massachusetts (RCP Ave) by almost two to one for God sake! But it is still early and those are dated polls.
Elections aren’t held by national votes and the first caucus isn’t until February 2020.
At this point in the 2008 race, Hillary had a national lead of 21% in a Gallup poll over Barack Obama and we all know how that turned out.
Biden like Hillary in 2008, began with the highest name recognition in the primaries and both of their early leads reflected that. Biden however has a smaller lead than Hillary had over Obama and after the first debates and Biden’s sudden drop in the polls, it shows just how fragile that lead actually is.
Biden is a weak front runner and there will be many months and opportunities for other candidates to become more well known and attract more voters to their campaigns. Biden does not have a majority in polls and Warren is popular with supporters of other candidates so once the primary thins out, where will the other candidates’ voters go?
If it comes down to Warren and Biden, where do Kamala’s voters go? Buttigieg’s? Bernie’s? If these voters wanted the older white male moderate establishment candidate, why are they not supporting him now? Whereas, many voters supporting the other candidates who are newer faces like Warren, have Warren as a second choice.
Warren has momentum and is as close as 6% away from Biden right now in recent polling, much closer than Obama was to Hillary at this point.
Putting all eggs in the Biden basket now because he leads in this less reflective period, early in the primary and not already holding a majority of Dem voters, would be quite a gamble.
No reason to put all our eggs in one basket yet. But by the numbers, the average of the recent national polls by RCP has Biden ahead of Warren by 18. If you want to cherry pick a poll, Harris has Biden ahead of Warren by 26 points. And if you missed it, Biden is now leading on average at RCP by a bit more than BEFORE the first debate. And I bet he increases that lead after this latest debate because your friends decided to gang up on Biden and attack him by attacking Obama and his record.
Now how about those swing state polls? Well, RCP has Biden ahead of Warren by 29 points but it is an old poll. And in Wisconsin he’s ahead by 25 points but also an older poll. And in Pennsylvania he’s ahead by 26 points but again with older polls. He’s ahead of her in more recent polls in Iowa by 9 points. By 6 in New Hampshire. By 17 in Nevada. By 26 in South Carolina. By 5 in California. By 13 in Texas. By 11 even in her home state of Massachusetts. Biden also does way better than her in all the polls in terms of Trump.
Do note that Biden is the only candidate in the RCP average that has a greater lead over Trump than our lead over the Republicans in terms of the total vote for House seats in 2018. All the others don’t even get close to matching how well we did in 2018. But it is still early.