Previously 'The big ol' 2020 debate', turned Baruch's personal waste bin.

[trdsf]

Still up in the air about who I'm voting for in two weeks when the primary season comes here.  I know who it won't be, but I haven't decided yet who it will be.

[GSOgymrat]

Her campaign claims that she isn't going to drop out because she still has a path to victory under the logic that the supporters of people dropping out are going to switch to Warren.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/01/warren-hail-mary-strategy-nomination-118319

A theory is being floated that Buttigieg agreed to drop out to be Warren's VP.

She has been publicly distancing herself from Sanders in the past few weeks, while at the same time quietly winding back a lot of her most left-leaning proposals, including Medicare for All. Warren has been struggling in caucuses and primaries, but has promised to stay in until the Democratic convention in July; so she’s either bluffing or she’s been concocting a strategy to inject new energy into her campaign with someone else behind the scenes. If it’s not a case of a VP deal, however, it could be a much more straightforward and less risky case of Buttigieg throwing his weight behind Biden and guaranteeing himself a prestigious cabinet position in the event of a future Biden administration. ...

In a moving speech in Indiana tonight opened by his husband Chasten, Buttigieg declared that he felt he had a political "responsibility" to step away, and spoke of supporting a candidate with a "broad base" (so, not Sanders) who offered a "new kind of politics" (which didn't exactly sound like Biden either.) ...


https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/mayor-pete-buttigieg-drop-out-reason-speech-bernie-sanders-biden-warren-back-room-deal-a9367721.html

[Hydra009]

That's certainly possible, though it seems bizarre for a candidate with 26 delegates to throw in the towel in favor of a candidate with 8 delegates.  That math doesn't seem to add up.

I read on 538 that Buttigeg's campaign was running out of funds and unlikely to have a good showing on Super Tuesday, so leaving now allowed him to finish on a high note, which makes sense.

That said, I also have a sneaking suspicion that there's a level of coordination between seemingly combative campaigns to ensure an end result that the party leadership is happy with, regardless of whether that end result accurately reflects voters' wishes.  *cough cough*  We'll see.

[Unbeliever]

A Guardian USA investigation reveals that Bernie Sanders could be cheated out of 553,000 votes in California.  The twisted primary voting system created by the DNC and enforced by the Secretary of State (a Biden supporter) is certain to cost Sanders hundreds of thousands of young and LatinX votes.

Greg Palast:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-26NiTLxu_Y

[SGOS]

The inner circle has their own vision of the future.

[Unbeliever]

Yeah, human extinction is their vision.

[GSOgymrat]

Greg Palast:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-26NiTLxu_Y

People who register Independent rather than Democrat or Republican need to specify when the go to the polls they want to vote in the Democrat or Republican primary. An information card is mailed to registered Independents reminding them of this process. People working the polls are not allowed to asked Independents if they would like to vote in the Democrat or Republican primaries so as not to influence voters. Young and LatinX voters are assumed to be too ignorant to understand this process, which hurts Bernie and Bloomberg because they poll higher in these demographics. Am I missing something?


Klobuchar is now out.

... and then there were four.

[Unbeliever]

It's like the Highlander - there can be only ONE!

[Baruch]

That's certainly possible, though it seems bizarre for a candidate with 26 delegates to throw in the towel in favor of a candidate with 8 delegates.  That math doesn't seem to add up.

I read on 538 that Buttigeg's campaign was running out of funds and unlikely to have a good showing on Super Tuesday, so leaving now allowed him to finish on a high note, which makes sense.

That said, I also have a sneaking suspicion that there's a level of coordination between seemingly combative campaigns to ensure an end result that the party leadership is happy with, regardless of whether that end result accurately reflects voters' wishes.  *cough cough*  We'll see.

When Bloomberg first said he was getting in the race, pundits said he was there to prevent Buttigieg from getting traction, not to block Sanders.  But yes, Buttigieg was my #2 after Tulsi Gabbard.  Still hoping a bus will hit the other candidates so she is the last one standing … and she won't step aside for Hillary!

[Baruch]

Last polls before Super-Duper-Tuesday … for the 4 most important primaries …

California - Sanders wins
Texas - Sanders wins
North Carolina - toss between Sanders and Biden
Massachusetts - toss between Sanders and Warren

If Warren isn't #1 in Massachusetts, she will be out.

All those 4 polls put Bloomberg at 15% of the vote.  Short man, short delegate count!

[Jason Harvestdancer]

So it is coming down to either Bernie wins before the convention or he is the lead but not victor going into a brokered convention.

[Hydra009]

So it is coming down to either Bernie wins before the convention or he is the lead but not victor going into a brokered convention.

Yep, and considering he was the only one who unequivocally agreed that the election should be decided by votes, that latter outcome is a very dangerous possibility for the Democratic Party.

People tend to not want to vote in the general if they were screwed out of their vote in the primary.

And unless everyone here is a-okay with Pence's brand of religious "freedom" for 4 more years, that's an outcome best avoided.

[trdsf]

I'm just satisfied that the preliminary results show that Bloomberg got kicked in the balls tonight.  I hope it's not down to just Biden v Bernie when it gets here in two weeks.  I like them both, but FFS at 76 and 78 they're too damn old for what has to be considered one of the hardest jobs on the planet.

[SGOS]

Well, I guess Democratic voters are not as progressive as I thought.  I never saw that Biden surge coming, although early on I was of the opinion that Biden's name recognition would make him a shoe in.  One thing I found interesting during my very limited watch of the coverage last night was that exit polls said Biden, but also showed rather overwhelming support for socialism, much higher than I would have thought, being as most people think socialism is Communism, which the talking heads said that was very good for Sanders, but turned out to be wrong.  The race just became a little less interesting to me, but I never felt fired up over any of it before.  I liked Sanders' vision, but I found no candidates stimulating, and most downright boring.

In the past, Biden didn't even bother running against a lackluster Clinton, who always lost to someone else, and now we're going to run him against Trump. Trump wasn't actually as bad as I thought he would be.  Don't get me wrong, I thought he was really bad, but here we are still alive and well, and I can't wait for the next episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

[SGOS]

I just heard this morning that 50% of undecided voters decided to vote for Joe Biden at the last minute.  This is not the kind of interest the Democratic party needs.  That was followed by one talking head saying what Biden has to do next is tell voters what he can do for them, not just how much he was part of the Obama administration.  I was thinking the same thing during the debates.  I couldn't connect to him as a person.