Just fucking drop out already
For the DNC’s third party-sanctioned debate in September a candidate must clear both of these hurdles:
1) 2% support in four national or early voting state polls
2) 130,000 unique donors to their campaign, including 400 unique donors from at least 20 states
Some campaigns don’t like it, to them I say “lump it.” If you can’t get to 2% and some basic support in 20 states please feel free to fuck the fuck off.
Most declined to discuss their frustration with the D.N.C.’s rules on the record or to indicate how exactly they would shift tactics, saying their campaign plans were confidential. But campaign after campaign said the party’s donor requirements are skewing the way they allocate resources, forcing them to choose between investing in staff or pouring more money into ads on sites like Facebook, where prices are soaring to dizzying new heights. Two campaigns said digital vendors are currently quoting them prices of $40 and up to acquire a new $1 donor.
…and if your best idea for building support is placing $40.00 FB adds, please quit AND go into hiding.
This is at most a 10 person race. If your name is not Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Beto O’Rourke, Cory Booker, Jay Inslee, Amy Klobuchar, and Julian Castro, go home.
In reality, it is a five person race: Biden, Sanders, Warren, Harris and Buttigieg. Your nominee will be one of these five. Most likely Democratic tickets: Biden-Harris, Harris-Buttigieg, Warren-Buttigieg
Someone currently unkown will rise and someone currently known will fall.
Mayor Pete is actually the problem here. All of the people below the line (and I would argue that your line gives Castro too much credit) think that they are one breakout debate line away from being Mayor Pete.
It’s not true, but that isn’t the point. This isn’t to take away from the mayor. The rest of them think “if this guy can make the cut, then by God, the mayor of New York has a shot!”
“400 unique donors from at least 20 states.”
Delaware might actually become relevant in the selection process with that provision.
Rufus –
I thought the same thing.
“Do we have any donors from Delaware?”
“Yes, Debra Johnson.”
“Get Debra on the phone, we need to chat.”
That’s what they should be doing. Not running $40.00 FB ads aimed at getting a $1.00 contributor.
Here’s a lesson from the GOP in 2016: When there are too many candidates, the contest will go to the one whose supporters won’t switch their loyalties, even though he was the last choice of the party regulars.
Who does that sound like for the Democrats in 2020?
Let me think a minute ..
Or is the lesson: In a crowded field, universal name ID is paramount to securing the nomination.
Not likely. Are you arguing that Bush did not have universal name ID among GOP primary voters?
What happened was that the oversupply of candidates made it impossible for Trump foes, and that was most of the GOP establishment, to unite behind any single alternative.
I’m arguing that there were many factors other than pure loyalty to a loathsome individual.
But, yes, Trump also had better name ID than “Jeb!”.
https://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/poll-gop-2016-name-recognition-donald-trump-jeb-bush-120573
Please clap.
Those aren’t primary voters but Republicans and Republican-leaners. And those who didn’t know Jeb knew the name Bush. At 92-84, I’d say they were both close to universally known.
The same article notes that Trump’s favorability rating was well below most other GOP hopefuls. So they knew him and didn’t like him, but he won anyway.
Yes, there are always multiple factors, which allows for plenty of mistaken conclusions. Clapback.
Also, if name recognition were everything, we never would have had a President Obama. So your thesis doesn’t hold.
2008 had about 40% of the candidates that we have today. It was also really a 2 or 3 person race with Hillary being the presumed nominee and only Edwards and later Obama with any opportunity. There is no presumed nominee (although Biden probably comes closest to the designation). And that is EXACTLY how Obama was able to leverage his lack of name ID against someone that everyone had preconceived notions about.
If the Republican nomination had been Jeb v. Cruz v. Trump, would Trump have been the nominee? I doubt it.
I’m going to skip to a new box.
Fair point. The problem here is that there’s little precedent for such a crowded field — and no matter how unlikely that one of the 1-percenters moves up, there will still be 14 (and counting) on the early debate stages.
My point is that Jason is right — the people who won’t drop out are a problem, and it’s the same circumstance that plagued the GOP in 2016.
Does that mean I think Bernie will win? No, because the Democrats are much better at gatekeeping than the Republicans are. Republicans have done almost nothing to dissuade primaries against office-holders; the Democrats are actively working against populists.
IMO this will have the effect of pissing off progressives more than they already are, and a large number of them will stay home rather than vote for Biden.
Knowing the outcome in advance is the worst part of paying attention.
I don’t pretend to know the outcome. But I can figure out the probabilities, which is why they call this “horse race” stuff. Give me the racing form and I can tell you who the favorite will be, but the favorite doesn’t always win.
I think we both agree with Jason on the detrimental effect of such a large field.
If by gatekeeping, you mean that Democratic voters don’t vote for populists, well, then that is a feature. If you mean that the party elders or elite or deal-makers or funders, then that’s a bug, I think.
But at this point, Sanders hasn’t shored up NH, let alone SC. He may do well in IA, but that’s a caucus. And the allocation of delegates for Dems is different that for R’s, so it gets even hairier.
I just think that if Biden does OK in IA, and ties or beats Bernie in NH then wins an impressive victory in SC, it would be hard to make the case that the party infrastructure is in the bag for Biden. Sometimes voters confound expectations.
But if Biden (or someone else) wins fair and square and a block takes their ball and goes home to vote for Jill Stein, then I fear liberal politics in America will be dead.
By gatekeeping I meant the latter. Seeing a lot of disgruntlement over the DCCC blackball rule.
I won’t vote for Jill Stein, but I won’t vote for Biden under any circumstances. If Democrats think centrists are so great, let them look for votes there.
If someone tries to cut off my leg at the hip, letting them cut it off at the knee is not an acceptable compromise.
I have never in my life cast a vote for Joe Biden, and I’m not about to start now.
DCCC isn’t for presidential campaigns. It has also been a dinosaur for at least the past 4 cycles.
But I’ve got you down as a Trump voter if Biden is the candidate. Perfect. Also, please don’t move to Pennsylvania.
No, not a Trump voter, but not a Biden one, either. Nor Jill Stein; I used to vote Green, but she ruined that.
That kind of Manichaean thinking is why Democrats suck. Why you neoliberals think you’re liberal is beyond me.
The reasoning you just displayed is why I don’t vote Democratic. You take for granted that I’ll vote for the lesser of two evils — and make no mistake, most Democrats are just as self-serving as Republicans are.
I used to, but no more. There’s no more time for that.
So it’s easy for people in a blue state to turn their nose up at a less than perfect Democratic Nominee and vote third party. I do that myself. I know I’m not going to single-handedly lose the election for Democrats in Delaware.
But I wonder, would you indulge me in a hypothetical? If the race were dead even, every vote counted and re-counted and Biden and Trump were even and you were THE deciding vote. What’s your move?
I’m genuinely curious. I’m not trying to score points or win an argument, just trying to understand where everyone is coming from.
I’d do just what I did in 2016 and hold my nose for the centrist (back then, I thought repudiating Trump was important enough to vote D). But it would speed up my move to France.
I have said this before, and I’ll probably have to repeat it umpteen times before Nov. 2020: There is no more time for pragmatic Democratic cowards to take half-steps. A Trump victory, we lose. A progressive victory, we win. A centrist Democratic victory, we tie. And only a win will get us into the future. And I mean that literally. No curb on greenhouse gases, no future.
So your hypothetical boils down to, “Would you rather die by fire or by drowning?”
For the record, I don’t disagree with how you boiled that down.
Also, Joe Biden isn’t “less than perfect.” He’s a fucking disaster — a wind sock, a weather vane, a phony. And I know what he is deep down, which is the same bully he was in high school.
Why you think that I’m a neoliberal is beyond me. But if Biden (or Mayor Pete or whoever) wins the nomination, you are displaying an amazing amount of privilege by saying that no-way, no-how will you vote for them. The future of the republic literally hangs in the balance and you are making analogies to cutting off body parts.
The analogy should be “your leg has gangrene up to the ankle and maybe beyond that. The doctor wants to cut off the whole leg and you don’t want to cut off any of the leg.” Because the outcomes are a bit more similar.
That assumes you think Trump can do more damage than he already has, and that that damage will make it impossible to undo the climate disaster.
If Biden gets elected and doesn’t crack down on Big Oil, we’re fucked anyway. Do you really think he’d crack down on Big Oil? If you do, you don’t know him.
I think you’re a neoliberal because you’re willing to vote for them over and over again. Am I wrong?
Oh, and I’m not one of your no-balls white guys who go around apologizing for my privilege. If you think laws are going to wipe out privilege and prejudice, you’re neither a liberal nor a neoliberal, you’re a sap. That’s the flip side of abortion — they can’t win by convincing people, so they turn to the law. Same here.
I see nothing worth saving in the American republic. It’s an oligarchy with the most carnivorous capitalistic attitude in the world.
America is the problem, not the solution.
If this were true, I doubt that you would give 2 shits about US politics, yet here you are.
You seem to have made the leap in logic that I am pulling for Biden or some other centrist. If I have given you that impression, I’m sorry.
But I personally am in favor of making sure that we a) get rid of Trump and b) have a fair process to pick the person that beats him.
And by privilege, I mean that you can move to France. Hell, I can move to France. because you and I have a good bit of money, and the wherewithal to make decisions like that. It’s like saying “I don’t give a shit about whether a hurricane hit on New Orleans busts the levees, I’m insured. And if you are still here when the levees break, then you were too dumb to leave”.
You seem quite willing to go to bat for the little guy when it comes to YOUR issue (climate change), but who cares if gays can’t adopt or poor kids can’t get an education.
And if the African-American church ladies in South Carolina end up pushing the nomination to Joe Biden because Bernie Sanders couldn’t make his case to them, I’m going to vote for Joe Biden. And the reverse is true as well.
I have to say that labeling Climate Change as “YOUR issue” is unfair and inaccurate. I doubt you meant to come off as a Climate Change denier. But if you believe it’s real, and man-made, then you have to at least acknowledge that it’s everyone’s issue. No?
Do you think letting gays adopt is a better campaign issue than a $15 minimum wage? If so, I disagree. You cannot have multiple priorities — if you do, then you don’t have a priority, and while I understand why gays put their issues at the top of the list, and minorities theirs, I don’t get why you think that’s a winning issue in a national election.
Do you really think Joe Biden, staunch opponent of busing, is going to get poor kids a better education?
Do you really think well-educated poor kids are going to affect the trend line on global warming? Nobody’s education level matters if the planet dies.
I support all sorts of liberal issues, but when they come into conflict, I go with my priorities and, yes, anthropogenic changes to the biosphere are at the top for me.
You can vote for whomever you like. I suggest you grow some gills, though.
My point was that those are groups will really suffer under Trump II. And for all of the issues, there are people that are better about them than others. I certainly think climate change is important. And even if a given candidate isn’t quite where we want them on an issue, they are all a sight better than Trump.
I’m not going to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Be sure to let me know what city in France you move to, I’ll come visit when I’m in town. We can talk about the old days before the fall of the republic.
Yes, they will suffer under Trump. But people don’t vote to help minorities. If they did, minorities wouldn’t be in the situation they’re in. As awful as imprisoning children is, relatively few people will make that the deciding factor in their choice.
Paris. Though my wife is starting to lean to the south. I’m already there almost 3 months a year; my wife lives there most of the year. I’ll be there at some point in the fall, though I’m not sure of the dates yet.
You know what the best part is? I never have to worry if somebody has a handgun. Nobody does. A conservative friend who visited me there in April expressed shock that the police carry military-style rifles rather than handguns. I had to explain to him that it was safer that way, as it’s easier to hit a target with a long gun than a handgun.
Also, construing this as “perfect is the enemy of the good” casts Joe Biden as good, which is not something I agree with. All he will do is end the worst of Trump’s efforts. That’s not good, that’s a bare minimum, as anybody who defeats Trump will do that.
An enormous amount of the problem is that Americans, Democrats included, don’t understand the job of president.
Kirsten Gillibrand, for example, is running on a women’s rights platform. That’s nice, but it has jack shit to do with presidenting. A president has no more power than a senator to do something about those issues. She can’t get traction with them as a senator, and look at her polling numbers to see how much this stance resonates with the electorate.
This misunderstanding of the job — thinking that symbols are more important than an ability to manage the government and pass legislation — is what made people mistakenly think that electing Obama would fix America’s racial divide, when it actually made it worse because of the dumbfuck-white backlash. And if Hillary had been elected, the anti-woman backlash would have ensued. If you think it couldn’t get worse than it is now, just look at the racial situation.