2020 Democratic Nominee

[bad_teammate 13226]

1 hour ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

So you agree with trumps decision to pull out of Syria ?

Absolutely.

We need to extricate ourselves from the forever-war, not only for our own good but for general peace in the region. In many ways it is a 21st century's White Man's Burden attitude that has driven centrists and libs into the arms of the neo-cons in favor of the forever-war (the same who now hold up generals and feds as heroes).

He's a rash, venal, dishonest, pathetic piece of human shit, but even those are right 1 out of 100 times.

There's a way to do it with more ~*~ decorum ~*~ but he's the head of the military and he doesn't owe his underling generals much more than an order and expectation that they'll follow it.

[Ghost of LL 15563]

22 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

There's a way to do it with more ~*~ decorum ~*~ but he's the head of the military and he doesn't owe his underling generals much more than an order and expectation that they'll follow it.

What an absolutely abysmal leadership model.

[Pancho 45182]

 

[Js1 85651]

Dozens of people will be upset by that decision.

DOZENS!

[Guest Lobo]

16 minutes ago, Pancho Negro said:

 

Great, no "The Wire" reboot based on the Mayor's ascension to the Governor's Mansion and then the White House.  Thanks a lot, asshole!  

[elfenix 34364]

3 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

That’s nonsense. Running a balanced budget or a modest surplus during protracted periods of expansion to allow the debt/GDP ratio to resettle and store dry power for the next recession does not cause recession, that’s crackpot nonsense. That entire argument is based on the self-evident observation that recession follows boom.

No shit- it’s called the business cycle.

business cycles aren't determined exogenously.  the government is a huge component of it, and you're advocating vast recessionary pressures be applied intentionally. and then claiming it doesn't have anything to do with the outcome.  now that's nonsense.

[ADHD 28]

Bernie Sanders is over. 

[Brisketexan 105479]

2 hours ago, ADHD said:

Bernie Sanders is over. 

I'm starting to think that he is.

Hypothesis: Bernie's popularity wasn't so much his super-progressive ideas.  Yes, those gave him a core, unique base on which to build.  But what gave him the real numbers was the same charming attribute that Trump had -- he wasn't Hillary.

This time around, there's no need for a "not Hillary."  Take that element away, and Bernie falls back into the pack.

Again, just my off-the-cuff hypothesis. 

[Js1 85651]

1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

I'm starting to think that he is.

Hypothesis: Bernie's popularity wasn't so much his super-progressive ideas.  Yes, those gave him a core, unique base on which to build.  But what gave him the real numbers was the same charming attribute that Trump had -- he wasn't Hillary. 

This time around, there's no need for a "not Hillary."  Take that element away, and Bernie falls back into the pack.

Again, just my off-the-cuff hypothesis. 

Make it a combo of "not Hillary" + further left than Hillary.

In walks a cadre of Democrats who want to run and are to the left of Hillary.  Now all the air has been sucked out the room.

And Warren snatched up Bernie's Iowa caucus director from 2016.  No mention that she also snatched his wig and he won't run now. 

[Bozo_Casanova 26614]

business cycles aren't determined exogenously.  the government is a huge component of it, and you're advocating vast recessionary pressures be applied intentionally. and then claiming it doesn't have anything to do with the outcome.  now that's nonsense.

No, I’m not. You’re begging the question by asserting that balance or any level of surplus is “vastly recessionary”. Of course the government is a huge component of the business cycle and of course, less spending is by definition less aggregate demand than more. But so what? You could just as easily turn that around and assert that deficit guarantees against recession, which is obviously also bullshit.

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

14 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

I'm starting to think that he is.

Hypothesis: Bernie's popularity wasn't so much his super-progressive ideas.  Yes, those gave him a core, unique base on which to build.  But what gave him the real numbers was the same charming attribute that Trump had -- he wasn't Hillary.

This time around, there's no need for a "not Hillary."  Take that element away, and Bernie falls back into the pack.

Again, just my off-the-cuff hypothesis. 

Yeah, but he's also not seen as a guy who used his gov't employment to get rich, so that also makes him very popular.  He's the kind of person  I'd love to see more of in office. I think his ideas of too much frees stuff is wrong, but he isn't talking out of both sides of his face.

He's mostly gone now because he's just too old, and he'd never get support from the democrats.  He nor any other candidate is winning as an independent yet.

[Brisketexan 105479]

4 minutes ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Yeah, but he's also not seen as a guy who used his gov't employment to get rich, so that also makes him very popular.  He's the kind of person  I'd love to see more of in office. I think his ideas of too much frees stuff is wrong, but he isn't talking out of both sides of his face.

He's mostly gone now because he's just too old, and he'd never get support from the democrats.  He nor any other candidate is winning as an independent yet.

Well, your first sentence also translates into "no, seriously, DEFINITELY not Hillary."  How the Venn diagram overlap on those concepts looks, I'm not sure, but I think there's a fair amount of overlap.  Otherwise, I generally share your take.

[Ghost of LL 15563]

26 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

I'm starting to think that he is.

Hypothesis: Bernie's popularity wasn't so much his super-progressive ideas.  Yes, those gave him a core, unique base on which to build.  But what gave him the real numbers was the same charming attribute that Trump had -- he wasn't Hillary.

This time around, there's no need for a "not Hillary."  Take that element away, and Bernie falls back into the pack.

Again, just my off-the-cuff hypothesis. 

I think that's a very sound hypothesis.  

This is a guy who ran four years ago in Iowa and damned near won.  Now, he's running a distant second (with the guy who's in third place nipping at his heels).  The loss of that much support tells you that a lot of it wasn't about the candidate himself.

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Well, your first sentence also translates into "no, seriously, DEFINITELY not Hillary."  How the Venn diagram overlap on those concepts looks, I'm not sure, but I think there's a fair amount of overlap.  Otherwise, I generally share your take.

Oh yeah there's an anyone but Hillary vibe, but the "Bernie" kind of candidate is definitely not done. People are really friggin' tired of the inside the beltway crowd (Hillary was their poster child). That's really my point. Inside the beltway solutions and gridlock aren't working.

Look at AOC, She wouldn't have stood a chance before 2016 (and Trump) of un seating an incumbent.  She's a Bernie type candidate, and while Bernies done, that type of candidate isn't.

 

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

5 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

I think that's a very sound hypothesis.  

This is a guy who ran four years ago in Iowa and damned near won.  Now, he's running a distant second (with the guy who's in third place nipping at his heels).  The loss of that much support tells you that a lot of it wasn't about the candidate himself.

The candidate himself no (now), but the type of candidate yes (now).

[Brisketexan 105479]

2 minutes ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Oh yeah there's an anyone but Hillary vibe, but the "Bernie" kind of candidate is definitely not done. People are really friggin' tired of the inside the beltway crowd (Hillary was their poster child). That's really my point. Inside the beltway solutions and gridlock aren't working.

Look at AOC, She wouldn't have stood a chance before 2016 (and Trump) of un seating an incumbent.  She's a Bernie type candidate, and while Bernies done, that type of candidate isn't.

 

I definitely agree that the most attractive thing about AOC (okay, okay, aside from how she looks in a dress) is her vibe: she's got good energy, she gives off a "not gonna take shit from you" vibe, she's quick on her feet on social media (we have seen how important that is), that she's questioning stale and stodgy ways of doing things, etc.

I may not agree with a good chunk of her policy positions (impractical as they may be), but I'm glad that voices like hers are speaking up and being heard.  Give her several years of learning by experience, and she might be an attractive candidate for something more.  Or, she may find herself way out of her league, and floundering.  But if she fares well, she is the type of candidate who may garner significant Bernie-like support.  Time will tell.

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

I definitely agree that the most attractive thing about AOC (okay, okay, aside from how she looks in a dress) is her vibe: she's got good energy, she gives off a "not gonna take shit from you" vibe, she's quick on her feet on social media (we have seen how important that is), that she's questioning stale and stodgy ways of doing things, etc.

I may not agree with a good chunk of her policy positions (impractical as they may be), but I'm glad that voices like hers are speaking up and being heard.  Give her several years of learning by experience, and she might be an attractive candidate for something more.  Or, she may find herself way out of her league, and floundering.  But if she fares well, she is the type of candidate who may garner significant Bernie-like support.  Time will tell.

Yeah, we need that kind of candidates on both sides the voting booth (yeah, I said it  #bothsides) Give and take compromise is going to be crucial to take us back from this stupid ass brink of blood letting partisanship. 

[bad_teammate 13226]

Literally the only thing attractive about Bernie is his leftish agenda. He's a disheveled, rumpled, hectoring, monotone grandpa.

There is nothing to Bernie Sanders EXCEPT substance. That is what makes him attractive.

And no one in the current crop is going to steal that from him, because the only person in the current crop who has 1/10th of his authenticity is Warren.

But the Dems are going to spend the primary fighting Bernie because that's what the centrists and center-right never-Trumpers will demand. As we have seen on this board for years now.

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

10 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

Literally the only thing attractive about Bernie is his leftish agenda. He's a disheveled, rumpled, hectoring, monotone grandpa.

There is nothing to Bernie Sanders EXCEPT substance. That is what makes him attractive.

And no one in the current crop is going to steal that from him, because the only person in the current crop who has 1/10th of his authenticity is Warren.

But the Dems are going to spend the primary fighting Bernie because that's what the centrists and center-right never-Trumpers will demand. As we have seen on this board for years now.

So which is it, his leftist agenda or his substance ?  You contradict yourself.  His leftist agenda was a hollow wish list of un fulfillable promises. His substance is he seems to be a man of honor like Mr. Carter.  A man who will always try to do the right thing.

 

Top of the page bitches....

Edited January 3, 2019 by Onboard 2.0

[Hank Kingsley 21062]

I like Bernie. I think he’s more useful helping other candidates than running himself. Plus I think people have PTSD with anyone involved in the 2016 election.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

4 minutes ago, Hank Kingsley said:

Plus I think people have PTSD with anyone involved in the 2016 election.

As they should.  We were attacked.

[Bama Chick 28596]

I wonder if Kyrsten Sinema has any aspirations to higher office.

She looked fabulous today.



[getthefemalevote]bephysicallyattractive[/getthefemalevote]

[G650 14288]

1 hour ago, bad_teammate said:

Literally the only thing attractive about Bernie is his leftish agenda. He's a disheveled, rumpled, hectoring, monotone grandpa.

There is nothing to Bernie Sanders EXCEPT substance. That is what makes him attractive.

And no one in the current crop is going to steal that from him, because the only person in the current crop who has 1/10th of his authenticity is Warren.

But the Dems are going to spend the primary fighting Bernie because that's what the centrists and center-right never-Trumpers will demand. As we have seen on this board for years now.

You, along with many others, don't seem to grasp that style is substance 

[Patrick Bateman 3933]

1 hour ago, Hank Kingsley said:

I like Bernie. I think he’s more useful helping other candidates than running himself. Plus I think people have PTSD with anyone involved in the 2016 election.

Definitely agree here.  He's much more of shark then he gets credit for, but his best place is right where he is, pushing ideas, maybe even some ahead of their time and being a watchdog against some corruption.

 

[Celery Man 21022]

 

[BLKNSTY 289]

Beto/Yates 2020


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Brandywine 1317]

On 1/3/2019 at 6:48 PM, Bama Chick said:

I wonder if Kyrsten Sinema has any aspirations to higher office.

She looked fabulous today.



[getthefemalevote]bephysicallyattractive[/getthefemalevote]

She’s hot! I like her. 😊 I could say she’s someone I could drink a beer with. Now I know I’m not giving her the respect she deserves. But I could watch her giving the State of the Union. 

Edited January 6, 2019 by Brandywine

[bolverk 29773]

It looks more and more like Uncle Joe is probably going make a run for it.

From the NYTimes:

Biden Sees Himself as Democrats’ Best Hope in 2020, Allies Say

WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. is in the final stages of deciding whether to run for president and has told allies he is skeptical the other Democrats eyeing the White House can defeat President Trump, an assessment that foreshadows a clash between the veteran Washington insider and the more liberal and fresh-faced contenders for the party’s 2020 nomination.

Many Democratic voters, and nearly all major Democratic donors, are keenly interested in Mr. Biden’s plans because of their consuming focus on finding a candidate who can beat a president they believe represents a threat to American democracy. But there is also a rising demand in the party for a more progressive standard-bearer who reflects the increasingly diverse Democratic coalition.

Mr. Biden would instantly be the early front-runner if he ran, but he would have to bridge divides in a primary that would test whether Democrats are willing to embrace a moderate white man in his 70s if they view him as the best bet to oust Mr. Trump.

“He has the best chance of beating Trump, hands down,” said Senator Tom Carper of Delaware, Mr. Biden’s longtime friend and former colleague. “On a scale of one to 10, that’s probably about a 12 for us.”

Spoiler

 

Yet Mr. Biden’s skepticism about the field could alienate female and minority voters who are excited that several women and African-Americans are expected to run. Nominating a white man may also roil some Democrats who are already torn about whether a woman could win in 2020 after Hillary Clinton’s loss. And Mr. Biden’s preoccupation with winning back blue-collar Midwestern whites could place him at odds with Democrats who see greater potential for growth in the highly educated suburbs and across the booming Sun Belt and upper South.

More broadly, debate around Mr. Biden’s possible candidacy illustrates the dueling visions in the party and particularly the divisions between its pragmatic and liberal wing. Some Democrats are skeptical that a relatively moderate candidate like Mr. Biden, who has baggage like supporting the 1990s crime bill that is loathed on the left, would prevail in the primary with a message of unity and national healing rather than the fiery and uncompromising brand of populism that Democratic primary voters elevated in the midterm elections.

“In 2020, Biden-style centrism will become a toxic and losing brand of politics in Democratic primaries,” said Waleed Shahid, a left-wing activist.

The 76-year-old former vice president, who leads the field in initial national and Iowa polls, has not yet told his allies that he has decided to run. And they emphasize that Mr. Biden’s decision will not be final until he says it for himself, noting that family considerations are central. Mr. Biden sought the presidency twice before but he has also considered it at least as many times before bowing out.

But Mr. Biden has indicated that he is leaning toward running and will most likely make a decision within the next two weeks, according to Democrats within and beyond his inner circle who have spoken to him recently.

The former vice president told a senior Democratic official last week that he is both likely to run and that his aides have told him he must move quickly in this primary, according to two Democrats briefed on the conversation.

Mr. Biden is under significant pressure from his party’s major donors to make up his mind — no later than the end of January — or risk watching them migrate to other candidates. Mr. Biden and his advisers are highly sensitive to the criticism that in 2015, he dragged out his decision before ultimately opting out of the Democratic primary, exasperating his supporters and undermining the Democratic front-runner, Mrs. Clinton, in the process.

He spent some of his Christmas vacation in the Virgin Islands calling and texting his would-be supporters and is using this week to hold private meetings in Washington with Democratic officials.

In one of his calls over the holidays, Mr. Biden repeated a variation of a line he has used publicly: “If you can persuade me there is somebody better who can win, I’m happy not to do it,” he said, according to the Democrat he spoke to, who shared the conversation on condition of anonymity to discuss a private talk.

But then Mr. Biden said something he has not stated so bluntly in public: “But I don’t see the candidate who can clearly do what has to be done to win.”

In another possible sign that he is preparing to ramp up, an emissary from Mr. Biden recently reached out to James Smith, the Democratic Party nominee for governor in South Carolina last year, about scheduling a call with the former vice president. Mr. Smith, a state legislator and friend of Mr. Biden, said the former vice president could count on an enthusiastic reception in South Carolina if he were to run.

“In the circles that I move, I think there’s almost unanimity of support for him,” Mr. Smith said.

But Mr. Smith acknowledged that in Mr. Biden’s absence, others were making moves in South Carolina. Mr. Smith said that after his defeat in November, he had heard from several contenders, including Senators Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kamala Harris of California and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts — none of whom, he said, could count on scooping up Mr. Biden’s network.

The entry of Mr. Biden would immediately upend the still-nascent primary: Ms. Warren joined the race last week and three dozen other Democrats are considering it. Mr. Biden could crowd out other establishment-aligned contenders like former Mayor Mitch Landrieu of New Orleans and former Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia, given that Mr. Biden’s donor base and supporters may overlap with some of their own. And Mr. Biden’s allies are themselves mindful of another Democrat whose blue-collar credentials could pose a challenge to their own coalition: Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio.

Most of all, a Biden candidacy would also frame the primary around the question of whether Democrats prefer a familiar face and steady continuum of former President Barack Obama’s center-left politics, or a generational change and turn to a more liberal, confrontational approach to Mr. Trump and the right.

Mr. Biden’s supporters argue that Mr. Trump’s incendiary conduct and norm-breaking presidency have so imperiled the country that only somebody with the stature and experience of a two-term vice president can bring back stability. And, they contend, Mr. Trump has diminished the importance of ideological differences within the Democratic Party.

“Variations in policy positions don’t really matter because, to paraphrase the president, we are in a national emergency — but the national emergency is him,” said Lou Frillman, who was a major fund-raising bundler for Mr. Obama’s campaigns and is close to Mr. Biden. “The vice president has all the qualities necessary to win, and I think he has all the qualities the country is going to so desperately need to bring us back from the edge.”

Most of all, Mr. Biden’s allies contend, he would be the Democrat most likely to reclaim the battleground state voters who abandoned the party in 2016.

“If you look at Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, the labor folks who voted for Trump, they love him,” former Gov. Jack Markell of Delaware said of Mr. Biden. “He has a connection with these people.”

Mr. Biden’s enthusiasts are also quick to note that he is not just popular with white working-class voters, but is also well-liked among African-Americans and millennials.

Mr. Biden has led in national and early-state polling, drawing about a third of the vote, enough to make him a solid but not overwhelming front-runner at a moment when such surveys are heavily dependent on name identification. He is viewed favorably by the vast majority of Democrats, but some surveys indicate Democrats want fresh faces and new leadership.

Mr. Biden would portray himself as a progressive, embracing priorities like free public college tuition and expanding health care, advisers say. But he would also make the case that his 36 years in the Senate and eight years as vice president make him the best qualified to repair the damage they believe Mr. Trump has done at home and abroad.

“This is a guy who actually gets along with Mitch McConnell and a number of other Republicans,” said Mr. Carper, invoking the Senate majority leader with whom Mr. Biden worked closely to negotiate a handful of agreements in the Obama years.

Yet the preferences of the party’s donor class and an ability to work in a bipartisan fashion are hardly alluring to the party’s increasingly liberal grass-roots activists and voters. And the candidacy of a Washington Democrat who fondly recalls his relationships with conservatives, and even used his speech bowing out of the 2016 race to make the case that Republicans are the opposition but not the enemy, may be ill-suited for the Trump era.

“We are at a time when we have a combative racist and often unhinged person in the White House, and that’s not going to be answered with somebody who says: Let’s come together and let’s heal and let’s all be gentle souls,” said Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington, who supported Senator Bernie Sanders for president in 2016.

Part of Mr. Biden’s challenge would be what he represents as a septuagenarian who came of age in a consensus-oriented Senate dominated by white men, some of them segregationists, a political milieu as distant to millennial Democrats as the Civil War.

Should he run, Mr. Biden would quite likely face multiple major black candidates and no fewer than three prominent women. After the Democratic base elevated diversity to a first priority in the midterm elections, Mr. Biden would have little to offer voters determined to change the face of the presidency.

He would be counting, instead, on Democrats embracing a candidate from an ideologically and culturally traditional caste as an expedient for defeating Mr. Trump.

Perhaps just as daunting, Mr. Biden would have to answer for a political record stretching back nearly half a century. He has never faced the level of criticism from his fellow Democrats that he would earn as a leading candidate for president.

Mr. Biden has steadfastly supported important liberal priorities over the years, including gun control and labor rights, but he was also a loyal ally of the credit card industry as a senator from Delaware and backed a crime bill in the 1990s that is now seen by liberals as having forged a generation of mass incarceration.

In 1991, as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Biden presided over the confirmation hearings of Justice Clarence Thomas, including the interrogation of Anita Hill by a panel of all-white and all-male senators. And in 2002, he voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq.

But he has said before that he is not alarmed about the indignity of ending his storied career by losing a primary.

Invoking the 2015 death of his eldest son, Beau, Mr. Biden wrote in his book “Promise Me, Dad” that he understood “the difference between an electoral loss and real loss.”

 

 

[Guest Lobo]

Matt Dowd had an interesting take on this field this morning on ABC Sunday talk show.  Because I didn't turn it off and suck off the DNC though, it means I'm a trumper and can't post on most threads on here.  

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

Just now, bolverk said:

It looks more and more like Uncle Joe is probably going make a run for it.

From the NYTimes:

Biden Sees Himself as Democrats’ Best Hope in 2020, Allies Say

WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. is in the final stages of deciding whether to run for president and has told allies he is skeptical the other Democrats eyeing the White House can defeat President Trump, an assessment that foreshadows a clash between the veteran Washington insider and the more liberal and fresh-faced contenders for the party’s 2020 nomination.

Many Democratic voters, and nearly all major Democratic donors, are keenly interested in Mr. Biden’s plans because of their consuming focus on finding a candidate who can beat a president they believe represents a threat to American democracy. But there is also a rising demand in the party for a more progressive standard-bearer who reflects the increasingly diverse Democratic coalition.

Mr. Biden would instantly be the early front-runner if he ran, but he would have to bridge divides in a primary that would test whether Democrats are willing to embrace a moderate white man in his 70s if they view him as the best bet to oust Mr. Trump.

“He has the best chance of beating Trump, hands down,” said Senator Tom Carper of Delaware, Mr. Biden’s longtime friend and former colleague. “On a scale of one to 10, that’s probably about a 12 for us.”

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Yet Mr. Biden’s skepticism about the field could alienate female and minority voters who are excited that several women and African-Americans are expected to run. Nominating a white man may also roil some Democrats who are already torn about whether a woman could win in 2020 after Hillary Clinton’s loss. And Mr. Biden’s preoccupation with winning back blue-collar Midwestern whites could place him at odds with Democrats who see greater potential for growth in the highly educated suburbs and across the booming Sun Belt and upper South.

More broadly, debate around Mr. Biden’s possible candidacy illustrates the dueling visions in the party and particularly the divisions between its pragmatic and liberal wing. Some Democrats are skeptical that a relatively moderate candidate like Mr. Biden, who has baggage like supporting the 1990s crime bill that is loathed on the left, would prevail in the primary with a message of unity and national healing rather than the fiery and uncompromising brand of populism that Democratic primary voters elevated in the midterm elections.

“In 2020, Biden-style centrism will become a toxic and losing brand of politics in Democratic primaries,” said Waleed Shahid, a left-wing activist.

The 76-year-old former vice president, who leads the field in initial national and Iowa polls, has not yet told his allies that he has decided to run. And they emphasize that Mr. Biden’s decision will not be final until he says it for himself, noting that family considerations are central. Mr. Biden sought the presidency twice before but he has also considered it at least as many times before bowing out.

But Mr. Biden has indicated that he is leaning toward running and will most likely make a decision within the next two weeks, according to Democrats within and beyond his inner circle who have spoken to him recently.

The former vice president told a senior Democratic official last week that he is both likely to run and that his aides have told him he must move quickly in this primary, according to two Democrats briefed on the conversation.

Mr. Biden is under significant pressure from his party’s major donors to make up his mind — no later than the end of January — or risk watching them migrate to other candidates. Mr. Biden and his advisers are highly sensitive to the criticism that in 2015, he dragged out his decision before ultimately opting out of the Democratic primary, exasperating his supporters and undermining the Democratic front-runner, Mrs. Clinton, in the process.

He spent some of his Christmas vacation in the Virgin Islands calling and texting his would-be supporters and is using this week to hold private meetings in Washington with Democratic officials.

In one of his calls over the holidays, Mr. Biden repeated a variation of a line he has used publicly: “If you can persuade me there is somebody better who can win, I’m happy not to do it,” he said, according to the Democrat he spoke to, who shared the conversation on condition of anonymity to discuss a private talk.

But then Mr. Biden said something he has not stated so bluntly in public: “But I don’t see the candidate who can clearly do what has to be done to win.”

In another possible sign that he is preparing to ramp up, an emissary from Mr. Biden recently reached out to James Smith, the Democratic Party nominee for governor in South Carolina last year, about scheduling a call with the former vice president. Mr. Smith, a state legislator and friend of Mr. Biden, said the former vice president could count on an enthusiastic reception in South Carolina if he were to run.

“In the circles that I move, I think there’s almost unanimity of support for him,” Mr. Smith said.

But Mr. Smith acknowledged that in Mr. Biden’s absence, others were making moves in South Carolina. Mr. Smith said that after his defeat in November, he had heard from several contenders, including Senators Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kamala Harris of California and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts — none of whom, he said, could count on scooping up Mr. Biden’s network.

The entry of Mr. Biden would immediately upend the still-nascent primary: Ms. Warren joined the race last week and three dozen other Democrats are considering it. Mr. Biden could crowd out other establishment-aligned contenders like former Mayor Mitch Landrieu of New Orleans and former Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia, given that Mr. Biden’s donor base and supporters may overlap with some of their own. And Mr. Biden’s allies are themselves mindful of another Democrat whose blue-collar credentials could pose a challenge to their own coalition: Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio.

Most of all, a Biden candidacy would also frame the primary around the question of whether Democrats prefer a familiar face and steady continuum of former President Barack Obama’s center-left politics, or a generational change and turn to a more liberal, confrontational approach to Mr. Trump and the right.

Mr. Biden’s supporters argue that Mr. Trump’s incendiary conduct and norm-breaking presidency have so imperiled the country that only somebody with the stature and experience of a two-term vice president can bring back stability. And, they contend, Mr. Trump has diminished the importance of ideological differences within the Democratic Party.

“Variations in policy positions don’t really matter because, to paraphrase the president, we are in a national emergency — but the national emergency is him,” said Lou Frillman, who was a major fund-raising bundler for Mr. Obama’s campaigns and is close to Mr. Biden. “The vice president has all the qualities necessary to win, and I think he has all the qualities the country is going to so desperately need to bring us back from the edge.”

Most of all, Mr. Biden’s allies contend, he would be the Democrat most likely to reclaim the battleground state voters who abandoned the party in 2016.

“If you look at Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, the labor folks who voted for Trump, they love him,” former Gov. Jack Markell of Delaware said of Mr. Biden. “He has a connection with these people.”

Mr. Biden’s enthusiasts are also quick to note that he is not just popular with white working-class voters, but is also well-liked among African-Americans and millennials.

Mr. Biden has led in national and early-state polling, drawing about a third of the vote, enough to make him a solid but not overwhelming front-runner at a moment when such surveys are heavily dependent on name identification. He is viewed favorably by the vast majority of Democrats, but some surveys indicate Democrats want fresh faces and new leadership.

Mr. Biden would portray himself as a progressive, embracing priorities like free public college tuition and expanding health care, advisers say. But he would also make the case that his 36 years in the Senate and eight years as vice president make him the best qualified to repair the damage they believe Mr. Trump has done at home and abroad.

“This is a guy who actually gets along with Mitch McConnell and a number of other Republicans,” said Mr. Carper, invoking the Senate majority leader with whom Mr. Biden worked closely to negotiate a handful of agreements in the Obama years.

Yet the preferences of the party’s donor class and an ability to work in a bipartisan fashion are hardly alluring to the party’s increasingly liberal grass-roots activists and voters. And the candidacy of a Washington Democrat who fondly recalls his relationships with conservatives, and even used his speech bowing out of the 2016 race to make the case that Republicans are the opposition but not the enemy, may be ill-suited for the Trump era.

“We are at a time when we have a combative racist and often unhinged person in the White House, and that’s not going to be answered with somebody who says: Let’s come together and let’s heal and let’s all be gentle souls,” said Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington, who supported Senator Bernie Sanders for president in 2016.

Part of Mr. Biden’s challenge would be what he represents as a septuagenarian who came of age in a consensus-oriented Senate dominated by white men, some of them segregationists, a political milieu as distant to millennial Democrats as the Civil War.

Should he run, Mr. Biden would quite likely face multiple major black candidates and no fewer than three prominent women. After the Democratic base elevated diversity to a first priority in the midterm elections, Mr. Biden would have little to offer voters determined to change the face of the presidency.

He would be counting, instead, on Democrats embracing a candidate from an ideologically and culturally traditional caste as an expedient for defeating Mr. Trump.

Perhaps just as daunting, Mr. Biden would have to answer for a political record stretching back nearly half a century. He has never faced the level of criticism from his fellow Democrats that he would earn as a leading candidate for president.

Mr. Biden has steadfastly supported important liberal priorities over the years, including gun control and labor rights, but he was also a loyal ally of the credit card industry as a senator from Delaware and backed a crime bill in the 1990s that is now seen by liberals as having forged a generation of mass incarceration.

In 1991, as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Biden presided over the confirmation hearings of Justice Clarence Thomas, including the interrogation of Anita Hill by a panel of all-white and all-male senators. And in 2002, he voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq.

But he has said before that he is not alarmed about the indignity of ending his storied career by losing a primary.

Invoking the 2015 death of his eldest son, Beau, Mr. Biden wrote in his book “Promise Me, Dad” that he understood “the difference between an electoral loss and real loss.”

 

 

[sarcasm] Exceptional journalism from the New York Times giving a fair and objective analysis of Joe Biden THINKING about running for President. Very newsworthy and very cool. [/sarcasm]

[Biff Tannen 45753]

29 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

[sarcasm] Exceptional journalism from the New York Times giving a fair and objective analysis of Joe Biden THINKING about running for President. Very newsworthy and very cool. [/sarcasm]

You forgot very legal.

[ChiTownDoc 21183]

1 hour ago, bolverk said:

It looks more and more like Uncle Joe is probably going make a run for it.

From the NYTimes:

Biden Sees Himself as Democrats’ Best Hope in 2020, Allies Say

WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. is in the final stages of deciding whether to run for president and has told allies he is skeptical the other Democrats eyeing the White House can defeat President Trump, an assessment that foreshadows a clash between the veteran Washington insider and the more liberal and fresh-faced contenders for the party’s 2020 nomination.

Many Democratic voters, and nearly all major Democratic donors, are keenly interested in Mr. Biden’s plans because of their consuming focus on finding a candidate who can beat a president they believe represents a threat to American democracy. But there is also a rising demand in the party for a more progressive standard-bearer who reflects the increasingly diverse Democratic coalition.

Mr. Biden would instantly be the early front-runner if he ran, but he would have to bridge divides in a primary that would test whether Democrats are willing to embrace a moderate white man in his 70s if they view him as the best bet to oust Mr. Trump.

“He has the best chance of beating Trump, hands down,” said Senator Tom Carper of Delaware, Mr. Biden’s longtime friend and former colleague. “On a scale of one to 10, that’s probably about a 12 for us.”

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Yet Mr. Biden’s skepticism about the field could alienate female and minority voters who are excited that several women and African-Americans are expected to run. Nominating a white man may also roil some Democrats who are already torn about whether a woman could win in 2020 after Hillary Clinton’s loss. And Mr. Biden’s preoccupation with winning back blue-collar Midwestern whites could place him at odds with Democrats who see greater potential for growth in the highly educated suburbs and across the booming Sun Belt and upper South.

More broadly, debate around Mr. Biden’s possible candidacy illustrates the dueling visions in the party and particularly the divisions between its pragmatic and liberal wing. Some Democrats are skeptical that a relatively moderate candidate like Mr. Biden, who has baggage like supporting the 1990s crime bill that is loathed on the left, would prevail in the primary with a message of unity and national healing rather than the fiery and uncompromising brand of populism that Democratic primary voters elevated in the midterm elections.

“In 2020, Biden-style centrism will become a toxic and losing brand of politics in Democratic primaries,” said Waleed Shahid, a left-wing activist.

The 76-year-old former vice president, who leads the field in initial national and Iowa polls, has not yet told his allies that he has decided to run. And they emphasize that Mr. Biden’s decision will not be final until he says it for himself, noting that family considerations are central. Mr. Biden sought the presidency twice before but he has also considered it at least as many times before bowing out.

But Mr. Biden has indicated that he is leaning toward running and will most likely make a decision within the next two weeks, according to Democrats within and beyond his inner circle who have spoken to him recently.

The former vice president told a senior Democratic official last week that he is both likely to run and that his aides have told him he must move quickly in this primary, according to two Democrats briefed on the conversation.

Mr. Biden is under significant pressure from his party’s major donors to make up his mind — no later than the end of January — or risk watching them migrate to other candidates. Mr. Biden and his advisers are highly sensitive to the criticism that in 2015, he dragged out his decision before ultimately opting out of the Democratic primary, exasperating his supporters and undermining the Democratic front-runner, Mrs. Clinton, in the process.

He spent some of his Christmas vacation in the Virgin Islands calling and texting his would-be supporters and is using this week to hold private meetings in Washington with Democratic officials.

In one of his calls over the holidays, Mr. Biden repeated a variation of a line he has used publicly: “If you can persuade me there is somebody better who can win, I’m happy not to do it,” he said, according to the Democrat he spoke to, who shared the conversation on condition of anonymity to discuss a private talk.

But then Mr. Biden said something he has not stated so bluntly in public: “But I don’t see the candidate who can clearly do what has to be done to win.”

In another possible sign that he is preparing to ramp up, an emissary from Mr. Biden recently reached out to James Smith, the Democratic Party nominee for governor in South Carolina last year, about scheduling a call with the former vice president. Mr. Smith, a state legislator and friend of Mr. Biden, said the former vice president could count on an enthusiastic reception in South Carolina if he were to run.

“In the circles that I move, I think there’s almost unanimity of support for him,” Mr. Smith said.

But Mr. Smith acknowledged that in Mr. Biden’s absence, others were making moves in South Carolina. Mr. Smith said that after his defeat in November, he had heard from several contenders, including Senators Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kamala Harris of California and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts — none of whom, he said, could count on scooping up Mr. Biden’s network.

The entry of Mr. Biden would immediately upend the still-nascent primary: Ms. Warren joined the race last week and three dozen other Democrats are considering it. Mr. Biden could crowd out other establishment-aligned contenders like former Mayor Mitch Landrieu of New Orleans and former Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia, given that Mr. Biden’s donor base and supporters may overlap with some of their own. And Mr. Biden’s allies are themselves mindful of another Democrat whose blue-collar credentials could pose a challenge to their own coalition: Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio.

Most of all, a Biden candidacy would also frame the primary around the question of whether Democrats prefer a familiar face and steady continuum of former President Barack Obama’s center-left politics, or a generational change and turn to a more liberal, confrontational approach to Mr. Trump and the right.

Mr. Biden’s supporters argue that Mr. Trump’s incendiary conduct and norm-breaking presidency have so imperiled the country that only somebody with the stature and experience of a two-term vice president can bring back stability. And, they contend, Mr. Trump has diminished the importance of ideological differences within the Democratic Party.

“Variations in policy positions don’t really matter because, to paraphrase the president, we are in a national emergency — but the national emergency is him,” said Lou Frillman, who was a major fund-raising bundler for Mr. Obama’s campaigns and is close to Mr. Biden. “The vice president has all the qualities necessary to win, and I think he has all the qualities the country is going to so desperately need to bring us back from the edge.”

Most of all, Mr. Biden’s allies contend, he would be the Democrat most likely to reclaim the battleground state voters who abandoned the party in 2016.

“If you look at Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, the labor folks who voted for Trump, they love him,” former Gov. Jack Markell of Delaware said of Mr. Biden. “He has a connection with these people.”

Mr. Biden’s enthusiasts are also quick to note that he is not just popular with white working-class voters, but is also well-liked among African-Americans and millennials.

Mr. Biden has led in national and early-state polling, drawing about a third of the vote, enough to make him a solid but not overwhelming front-runner at a moment when such surveys are heavily dependent on name identification. He is viewed favorably by the vast majority of Democrats, but some surveys indicate Democrats want fresh faces and new leadership.

Mr. Biden would portray himself as a progressive, embracing priorities like free public college tuition and expanding health care, advisers say. But he would also make the case that his 36 years in the Senate and eight years as vice president make him the best qualified to repair the damage they believe Mr. Trump has done at home and abroad.

“This is a guy who actually gets along with Mitch McConnell and a number of other Republicans,” said Mr. Carper, invoking the Senate majority leader with whom Mr. Biden worked closely to negotiate a handful of agreements in the Obama years.

Yet the preferences of the party’s donor class and an ability to work in a bipartisan fashion are hardly alluring to the party’s increasingly liberal grass-roots activists and voters. And the candidacy of a Washington Democrat who fondly recalls his relationships with conservatives, and even used his speech bowing out of the 2016 race to make the case that Republicans are the opposition but not the enemy, may be ill-suited for the Trump era.

“We are at a time when we have a combative racist and often unhinged person in the White House, and that’s not going to be answered with somebody who says: Let’s come together and let’s heal and let’s all be gentle souls,” said Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington, who supported Senator Bernie Sanders for president in 2016.

Part of Mr. Biden’s challenge would be what he represents as a septuagenarian who came of age in a consensus-oriented Senate dominated by white men, some of them segregationists, a political milieu as distant to millennial Democrats as the Civil War.

Should he run, Mr. Biden would quite likely face multiple major black candidates and no fewer than three prominent women. After the Democratic base elevated diversity to a first priority in the midterm elections, Mr. Biden would have little to offer voters determined to change the face of the presidency.

He would be counting, instead, on Democrats embracing a candidate from an ideologically and culturally traditional caste as an expedient for defeating Mr. Trump.

Perhaps just as daunting, Mr. Biden would have to answer for a political record stretching back nearly half a century. He has never faced the level of criticism from his fellow Democrats that he would earn as a leading candidate for president.

Mr. Biden has steadfastly supported important liberal priorities over the years, including gun control and labor rights, but he was also a loyal ally of the credit card industry as a senator from Delaware and backed a crime bill in the 1990s that is now seen by liberals as having forged a generation of mass incarceration.

In 1991, as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Biden presided over the confirmation hearings of Justice Clarence Thomas, including the interrogation of Anita Hill by a panel of all-white and all-male senators. And in 2002, he voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq.

But he has said before that he is not alarmed about the indignity of ending his storied career by losing a primary.

Invoking the 2015 death of his eldest son, Beau, Mr. Biden wrote in his book “Promise Me, Dad” that he understood “the difference between an electoral loss and real loss.”

 

 

Fuck yes.  I can get behind  Uncle Joe.  He will absolutely destroy Fucktard in any and all debates.  

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

2 minutes ago, ChiTownDoc said:

Fuck yes.  I can get behind  Uncle Joe.  He will absolutely destroy Fucktard in any and all debates.  

I would be perfectly fine with Biden but honestly, he’s boring AF.  He’s already run for President twice and never won a state in the primaries.   

Yeah, he’d crush Trump in the debates but who wouldn’t?  Biden has a slight weakness there too as he carries the perceived Obama baggage.

I kinda hold Biden/Obama responsible for the conditions that gave us Trump.

Again, I’d vote for him in a heartbeat against any Republican but I think the democrats can do better.

[F250 28883]

On 1/2/2019 at 10:26 PM, Bama Chick said:

Julian Castro is in.
 

 

[Biff Tannen 45753]

I feel like in this day and age, where people are able to keep up with politics in real time and in the palm of their hands, you can't just spout off the same old bullshit talking points, which is what I get from Castro.  Especially in the age of the dotard.  You have to have real ideas, or at least ideas that aren't rehashing the same talking points from the past 20 years.

[ChiTownDoc 21183]

1 hour ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

I would be perfectly fine with Biden but honestly, he’s boring AF.  He’s already run for President twice and never won a state in the primaries.   

Yeah, he’d crush Trump in the debates but who wouldn’t?  Biden has a slight weakness there too as he carries the perceived Obama baggage.

I kinda hold Biden/Obama responsible for the conditions that gave us Trump.

Again, I’d vote for him in a heartbeat against any Republican but I think the democrats can do better.

Im ok with all that.  I wanna see some good candidates then will get behind whoever.  

Can we just put Bernie on the sidelines?  

[atomheartbevo 89879]

Castro should win a state race first.  Nobody outside of 2 miles around his childhood home will vote for him. 

[Celery Man 21022]

and the thing among others that is different between him and Beto is that he isn't personable or charismatic

not that that's what we necessarily need or should need in a president, but why I don't think he'll succeed in a race where the vast majority of people have no idea who he is

Edited January 7, 2019 by Celery Man

[bolverk 29773]

The thing about Biden jumping in is that it immediately makes him the frontrunner and the likely winner in the primaries (it's too early to make such predictions - I know). But I think that's bad news for our boy, Beto, who's already getting criticized for being too moderate by the left wing of the party.

To keep them in line, Biden will probably have to choose a younger, more lefty (maybe browner; maybe female) candidate as his Veep. Further, because of is age, I could even see him say he's only going to serve one term just to stabilize the country and focus on repairing the damage of the Trump administration, which would be an implicit promise made to the more progressive caucus that whoever he chooses as his Veep would be the heir apparent.

Of course, I'm talking out of my ass here, but it would strategically make a lot of sense. In light of this reasoning, I could see Biden's announcement potentially being good news for any of the younger, non-Anglo, female, and/or more liberal Dem candidates. Again, I don't think that probably bodes too well for Beto, even though I'd prefer him to be selected. I'm not sure if he'll be able to relight the fire of Betomania nearly two years after losing in the Senate race, thereby forcing Biden's hand to pick him as Veep. 

[Celery Man 21022]

Fuck the one term thing.  Lame duck from day 1.

[bolverk 29773]

10 minutes ago, Celery Man said:

Fuck the one term thing.  Lame duck from day 1.

Good point.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

But well before the 2008 race began, Warren had harsh words for Biden, one of its eventual contenders who has said he is still deciding whether to run in 2020. In March of 2006, Warren wrote that Biden's 2005 vote in favor of the bankruptcy bill that spurred her foray into blogging made him part of "a bi-partisan coalition to prefer powerful corporation [sic] over hard-working families."

"For years, Senator Joe Biden vied with Republican Senators Charles Grassley and Oren [sic] Hatch for head cheerleader for this bill," Warren wrote. “Even as he tried to position his national image as a strong supporter of women, Senator Biden was twisting arms to get the bankruptcy bill through Congress.”

The blog posts also contain glimpses of Democrats who would rise under Warren’s mentorship. In 2007, Warren highlighted work on a blog called CreditSlips, written by Katie Porter, who was then a University of Iowa law professor, and is now a member of Congress after flipping a Republican-held seat. Negron went on to work in the Obama administration and is now a candidate for alderman in Chicago. A frequent contributor to the blog, Dan Geldon, is expected to serve as Warren’s 2020 campaign manager, and another, Ganesh Sitaraman, is involved, too.

During Warren’s three years as a regular blog contributor, the subjects she wrote about gained wider interest, as the Great Recession threw the country into turmoil. It was out of these years that Warren gained a political leadership role — and continued to develop her online presence.

[DigglerontheHoof 21263]

I'll vote for whomever the Dems roll out there in 20 because they aren't Trump.  But, holy hell, they need to get their shit together.

So far it appears either Warren or Bidden have the inside track.  Joe's fine and, I think, basically honest but he's far from impressive or inspiring.  Warren just seems....meh, to me.  No presence that I can really feel and pretty lacking in charisma.  

It would be nice to find a rock star but just don't see it, yet. 

 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

It’s so early.  If we’re going back to this time before the 2016 election, Trump shows up five months from now.

[G650 14288]

16 minutes ago, DigglerontheHoof said:

I'll vote for whomever the Dems roll out there in 20 because they aren't Trump.  But, holy hell, they need to get their shit together.

So far it appears either Warren or Bidden have the inside track.  Joe's fine and, I think, basically honest but he's far from impressive or inspiring.  Warren just seems....meh, to me.  No presence that I can really feel and pretty lacking in charisma.  

It would be nice to find a rock star but just don't see it, yet. 

 

Yeah, I agree on Biden. I like the guy, but I think people are putting on rose colored glasses when remembering how he is as a campaigner.

[Js1 85651]

35 minutes ago, DigglerontheHoof said:

I'll vote for whomever the Dems roll out there in 20 because they aren't Trump.  But, holy hell, they need to get their shit together.

So far it appears either Warren or Bidden have the inside track.  Joe's fine and, I think, basically honest but he's far from impressive or inspiring.  Warren just seems....meh, to me.  No presence that I can really feel and pretty lacking in charisma.  

It would be nice to find a rock star but just don't see it, yet. 

 

It's January 2019, please calm your fucking tits.

[NBMisha 224]

Biden has real legislative baggage that will eventually sink him with the current issue trends.  Bernie's staff issues, and his inattentiveness to them, also betray a talk but don't walk personal attitude which will nip his heel.  

Warren has some mo.  Warrant/Beto?

[Bama Chick 28596]

Dems need to get what exactly together?

 

The election is in 23 months and primaries start about 13 months from now.

 

Multiple candidate are in the process of deciding whether or not to run or forming exploratory committees.

 

Is the party to be expected to already have an anointed candidate?

 

Isn’t that what fucked them the last time with Hillary?

 

I want a good selection of diverse candidates and a primary process that enables the selection of the best candidate to beat Trump.

 

The only fly in the ointment is Bernie and his bros and outside interference aimed at fracturing the voters; resulting in a damaged candidate before they general election even begins.

 

The unrealistic expectation of the Democrats having some mythical perfect savior rise from nowhere and ride to our rescue on a unicorn is driving the narrative as Democrats are the gang who can’t shoot straight.

 

Take a breath and let more than one candidate declare and get to the primaries before everyone defaults to catastrophe syndrome.

 

[NBMisha 224]

All good points. 

What many are worried about is that there is no reason to believe that the good selection of candidates and a primary process will enable the selection of the best candidate to beat Trump.  In fact the track record of such is piss poor, in general.  So the shit that is hoped to be gathered together involves some magic in overcoming this dismal reality.

[Chuckie Finster 22759]

12 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

I would be perfectly fine with Biden but honestly, he’s boring AF.  He’s already run for President twice and never won a state in the primaries.   

Yeah, he’d crush Trump in the debates but who wouldn’t?  Biden has a slight weakness there too as he carries the perceived Obama baggage.

I kinda hold Biden/Obama responsible for the conditions that gave us Trump.

Again, I’d vote for him in a heartbeat against any Republican but I think the democrats can do better.

You're not nearly the first person to bring this up, but I think "Obama baggage" is a weird conservative/far left narrative that really doesn't exist.

Obama left office with a 60% approval rating, nearly 90% with Democrats.  The dude had his faults, and a number of people REALLY hated him, but the idea that a candidate needs to distance themselves from him to win a general election isn't really supported by any data.