2020 Democratic Candidates Tracker Part III

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Delphic Oracle said:
No, there's a clear difference between the "power" a warchest signifies when it can rise or fall on the political fortunes of the candidate versus when that candidate has several billion more where that came from.
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And if a political candidate has billions more where that came from, but no one cares to vote for him/her, all (s)he is doing is throwing money away. You seem to be of the belief that everyone else is so stupid that all a candidate has to do is spend a heap of money and people will just go and vote for them. If people don't like the candidate or the message they are giving, no amount of money will convince them otherwise. Consider this. How much money would Trump have to spend on advertising to change your mind about him and get you to vote for him?

Also, if we're going to go the "this is poor people's money!" in some paean to the emotions, then realize that most of Bloomberg's money also, ultimately came from a bunch of poor people (or other rich people who got that money from the poor people they were allowed to rip off by making the right contributions). Only they didn't realize they were engaging in political speech, they thought they were buying products and services. Everyone who donates to a campaign knows they are doing so to support something they believe in.
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To point put the silliness of this argument, does your boss realise that (s)he is engaging in political speech when you spend your pay on political donations?

The rules that everyone who is running had to play by are unfair to Mike Bloomberg.
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Actually they were unfair to anyone that does not want to accept donations.

Also, I checked a few times around when this decision was made and it seemed to me he wasn't yet meeting the polling thresholds either!
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He was increasing in the polls, and if he doesn't meet those thresholds he still doesn't get in. One could point out that he clearly isn't buying the election very well when he's struggling to get the polling needed to get in the debates.

Seems he's concluded that spending on advertising by the campaigns doesn't correlate to outcomes. Well, first I don't have the time to delve into how he accounts for neigh-incalculable social variables from race to race, but I don't even need to dig that far. Even if this figure includes party and "connected committees" and other FEC-tracked stuff, that pales into insignificance to what SuperPACs pour in with "issue advocacy" that clearly pushes a candidate while dancing around all the magic word rules, so I'm rather unconvinced that money=influence has been ruled out to the degree that seems to indicate.
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How much would a SuperPAC have to spend to get you to vote for Trump?

I'll only go as far as saying I don't think a single ad provides anyone with a conscious "Eureka!" moment. But the totality of it absolutely can push the needle one way or the other.
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How many people have you voted for because you liked their ads?

I was kinda hoping you'd loop around to boxing yourself in.

So what can we say about Bloomberg's support given he's got...uh, let me see here...oh, zero donors?

Also, care to revise your thoughts on how "unfair" it is that Bloomberg can't qualify for a debate with zero donors? Seems like a totally fair thing to use as a qualifying metric. I hear it's a major indicator of actual support.
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I would have thought that a better indicator of support is polling data. How do you determine the support for a Candidate whose supporters can't give money to support the campaign? And he actually had 1 donor to be correct.

How about you're not talking to "Bernie and his Bernie Bros." It's just me you're talking to. I have my own opinions and everything.
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Actually I believe that my post was addressing three people, however I was pointing out that Bernie and the Bernie Bros are the ones pushing the whole "Bloomberg is buying the election" thing. I wasn't calling you a Bernie Bro.

Right, again, people who knowingly gave contributions of their own free will are "suckers" which suggests those accepting the contributions are duping and deceiving (even though the FEC literally makes you put statements all over the place spelling out they receive nothing for their contribution).
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As I have pointed out previously, here political donations are not allowed to be used for Advertising, just for the expenses in running the day to day stuff of the campaign and party. Anything that advertises the election in any way has to come out of the advertising budget allotted to the party, and it must be accounted for. Overspending can actually result in legal issues for the party. So yeah, I do feel that giving millions of dollars to people that are already millionaires (or more) so that they don't have to spend any of their own money on their campaigns... It is pretty much a scam by the rich to make themselves richer and take money off the poor all while convincing them that doing so is having a political say. I have my political say at the Ballot box and it costs me nothing.

Better suggestion: work on not having "Bloomberg is right" as the predetermined outcome of your reasoning.
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I don't actually have any predetermined outcome. I have no cares about who the final candidate standing is be it Bernie, Bloomberg, Biden, Warren or Kermit the Frog, as long as Democrats of all walks of life support them over Trump regardless. What I do think is that the US system of having the poor (and by that I mean people who aren't making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year) shell out their hard earned money (or borrowed in the case of a lot of students) to pay for the rich (how many presidential candidates have you seen lately that weren't at least millionaires?) is totally dumb. I also think that it is totally dumb to go spending huge amounts of that money on advertising that studies say doesn't work beyond a boost for name recognition, and most of which is being spent on candidates who are mostly likely going to win even if the money wasn't being spent. And to me that makes it even dumber to try and stop those that are highly wealthy from wasting their own money instead of having them have to take other people's and waste that instead.
 
Delphic Oracle said:
I think its the giving money to the right organizations in this case. African-American democratic groups are, given their reliance on the party as a whole to keep them from all but being put back in chains, still very much in a patronage-driven "machine politics" frame of operation.

But what good does a mention from a prominent black leader do if you nobody heard about it?

This is where "ads didn't sway me" self-reporting doesn't convince me. They'll say "it was his support of this or that bill" or "I like his position on this one issue." They don't report it as "I was watching the game the other night and this ad came on where he laid out his position on that issue I care about." There's a gap between "what about them convinced you" and "how did you find out about the thing that convinced you?"
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I kinda of think that you are being rather condescending here if you truly believe that Black people vote a certain way just because their leaders tell them to.
 
SezMe said:
No, the post you're responding to contained implied that cancer was the causal factor to the unemployment. Thus, theprestige's question are quite relevant.
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No, my point is that employer provided health care plans are inherently flawed. There's no good reason to tie the ability to receive health care with the ability to remain employable.

A sufficiently severe and long lasting medical problem can easily make someone unable to work, which could result them losing their health care at the exact time they need it most.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
No, my point is that employer provided health care plans are inherently flawed. There's no good reason to tie the ability to receive health care with the ability to remain employable.
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If there were candidates who promised to end the connection between employment and health care, that would be a major incentive for me to vote for that candidate.

Does "medicare for all" do that? I assume it does, but I haven't looked closely at the details. I thought Obamacare was going to weaken those ties when it was first proposed, but exactly the opposite happened, and I believe that was the great flaw in the plan. By strengthening the tie between employment and health care, it created a system where insurance was available to everyone, but if you were unemployed it would be terribly expensive.

As someone who was out of work for a while recently, I can say that I'm glad health insurance was available via the Obamacare plans, but the cost of those plans really felt like being kicked while I was down.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
Another fun stat from Yale



Perfect timing to both lose your income and start having to pay 100% of your health insurance premiums!

That sense of dread you feel, that's pure American choice!
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- Oh, god. I was laid off today!
- Oh, my... You think it had anything to do with your operation?
- (sniff) I... I don't know, sis.
- Well, look on the bright side. Now you can taste freedom, the way the Founding Fathers intended!
 
Meadmaker said:
If there were candidates who promised to end the connection between employment and health care, that would be a major incentive for me to vote for that candidate.

Does "medicare for all" do that? I assume it does, but I haven't looked closely at the details. I thought Obamacare was going to weaken those ties when it was first proposed, but exactly the opposite happened, and I believe that was the great flaw in the plan. By strengthening the tie between employment and health care, it created a system where insurance was available to everyone, but if you were unemployed it would be terribly expensive.

As someone who was out of work for a while recently, I can say that I'm glad health insurance was available via the Obamacare plans, but the cost of those plans really felt like being kicked while I was down.
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Had you ever shopped for an individual plan for yourself before, or outside of , the "healthcare.gov" marketplaces?

As someone who has never had an employer paid for plan, I can tell you that the individual healthcare market has always sucked.
 
Distracted1 said:
Had you ever shopped for an individual plan for yourself before, or outside of , the "healthcare.gov" marketplaces?

As someone who has never had a

n employer paid for plan, I can tell you that the individual healthcare market has always sucked.
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Two words. "Pre-existing conditions. "

As a result, the options were Cobra, or Obamacare.

Both of which were introduced by Democrats. If those hadn't existed, the options would have been hope for the best or bankruptcy.

My beef is that my (former) employer could have such a big impact on my life.

The last time I had any experience with health insurance pre-obamacare it was much, much, cheaper,. And I was a healthy 30 year old.
 
Re Bloomberg.

All that money didn't help JEB!

You still have to be a candidate people want.

And sadly, there are probably some really good candidates we never have a chance to consider because they don't have billions.

The point is, people should judge Bloomberg for who he is as a candidate. Sanders whining about Bloomberg buying the election is bull ****. Buying the election to me would be bribing people.

Now, with all that said, I'm not supporting Bloomberg because he's essentially a Republican in blue clothes. But if it comes down to it, I am sure he could beat Trump and I'm still nervous that Sanders is vulnerable to the scary socialist campaign.

Harris is out. Klobuchar looked like a lightweight in the Telemundo interview. Booker was all complaints and no solutions.

I have a Steyer sign in my front yard.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Now, with all that said, I'm not supporting Bloomberg because he's essentially a Republican in blue clothes. But if it comes down to it, I am sure he could beat Trump and I'm still nervous that Sanders is vulnerable to the scary socialist campaign.
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What would you rather have? An incompetent buffoon, with his amateur-hour corruption, here and then gone again?

Or a legit stealth Republican with the brains and the money to actually get something done?
 
theprestige said:
What would you rather have? An incompetent buffoon, with his amateur-hour corruption, here and then gone again?

Or a legit stealth Republican with the brains and the money to actually get something done?
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Depends on what exactly they are attempting to get done.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Re Bloomberg.



The point is, people should judge Bloomberg for who he is as a candidate. Sanders whining about Bloomberg buying the election is bull ****. Buying the election to me would be bribing people.
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The Center for American Progress, a prominent liberal think tank, removed negative references to Bloomberg in its report on Anti-Muslim bias because Bloomberg was a major donor. There were over 4000 words on the NYPD, mentioning Bloomberg by name 8 times. The entire section was removed before publication.

Money doesn't buy votes, but it does buy influence.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
Nevada polling is notoriously bad.

I expect a Sanders win, but I am not optimistic about such a wide lead.
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I am. But that's just the impression I got from my 3 hours waiting in line during early voting talking to people, and from conversations I've had with people around the valley. Yes, I know Las Vegas isn't Nevada, but Clark County is 75% of the population
 
PhantomWolf said:
And if a political candidate has billions more where that came from, but no one cares to vote for him/her, all (s)he is doing is throwing money away. You seem to be of the belief that everyone else is so stupid that all a candidate has to do is spend a heap of money and people will just go and vote for them. If people don't like the candidate or the message they are giving, no amount of money will convince them otherwise. Consider this. How much money would Trump have to spend on advertising to change your mind about him and get you to vote for him?
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My position does not require me to accuse everyone else of being stupid. Shove words in someone else's mouth, I'm not having it.

Ineffectiveness of Trump ads on me specifically does not prove they have no effect on electoral outcome.

To point put the silliness of this argument, does your boss realise that (s)he is engaging in political speech when you spend your pay on political donations?
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You're the one who seems to be attributing the former possessors of some money still have some kind of claim or influence upon it. You tell me.

In other words, you just demanded I prove your premise that I was expressing disagreement with.

Actually they were unfair to anyone that does not want to accept donations.
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The rules say you need x donations. You don't want donations and refuse to take them. Therefore the rules are unfair?

No, there's other possibilities. Like "that's just really stupid and you knew those were the rules when you jumped in with a strategy that could not possibly ever reach that requirement."

He was increasing in the polls, and if he doesn't meet those thresholds he still doesn't get in. One could point out that he clearly isn't buying the election very well when he's struggling to get the polling needed to get in the debates.
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I really enjoy how easily you embrace having it both ways.

How much would a SuperPAC have to spend to get you to vote for Trump?
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Same flawed "just asking questions" as previously. A single data point of a person with already highly partisan views and unhealthy levels of informedness doesn't extrapolate well.

How many people have you voted for because you liked their ads?
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And same thing yet again...

I would have thought that a better indicator of support is polling data. How do you determine the support for a Candidate whose supporters can't give money to support the campaign? And he actually had 1 donor to be correct.
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You're the one who brought up contributions as a form of gauging interest.

I really need you to work on your internal consistency, I implore you.

Actually he had 1 contributor. You don't donate to a campaign. I'm just demonstrating I can be pedantic, too.

Actually I believe that my post was addressing three people, however I was pointing out that Bernie and the Bernie Bros are the ones pushing the whole "Bloomberg is buying the election" thing. I wasn't calling you a Bernie Bro.
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What does what "Bernie Bros" have to say about something mean about the validity of that thing?

This is just poisoning the well "your argument is the same as this group that is viewed with derision!"

As I have pointed out previously, here political donations are not allowed to be used for Advertising, just for the expenses in running the day to day stuff of the campaign and party. Anything that advertises the election in any way has to come out of the advertising budget allotted to the party, and it must be accounted for. Overspending can actually result in legal issues for the party. So yeah, I do feel that giving millions of dollars to people that are already millionaires (or more) so that they don't have to spend any of their own money on their campaigns... It is pretty much a scam by the rich to make themselves richer and take money off the poor all while convincing them that doing so is having a political say. I have my political say at the Ballot box and it costs me nothing.
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It's not a scam. There's no deception whatsoever. Nobody is being denied anything they thought they were going to receive.

You not liking it doesn't mean it's a "scam."

I don't actually have any predetermined outcome. I have no cares about who the final candidate standing is be it Bernie, Bloomberg, Biden, Warren or Kermit the Frog, as long as Democrats of all walks of life support them over Trump regardless. What I do think is that the US system of having the poor (and by that I mean people who aren't making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year) shell out their hard earned money (or borrowed in the case of a lot of students) to pay for the rich (how many presidential candidates have you seen lately that weren't at least millionaires?) is totally dumb. I also think that it is totally dumb to go spending huge amounts of that money on advertising that studies say doesn't work beyond a boost for name recognition, and most of which is being spent on candidates who are mostly likely going to win even if the money wasn't being spent. And to me that makes it even dumber to try and stop those that are highly wealthy from wasting their own money instead of having them have to take other people's and waste that instead.
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The money is "wasted?"

I think the money is spent on goods and services and so eventually ends up in the hands of local tv station employees, A/V and event companies, etc.

Just shoving pejorative words into your screed isn't reasoning the matter through.

You're running about 97% pathos on this right now.
 
Meadmaker said:
If there were candidates who promised to end the connection between employment and health care, that would be a major incentive for me to vote for that candidate.

Does "medicare for all" do that? I assume it does, but I haven't looked closely at the details. I thought Obamacare was going to weaken those ties when it was first proposed, but exactly the opposite happened, and I believe that was the great flaw in the plan. By strengthening the tie between employment and health care, it created a system where insurance was available to everyone, but if you were unemployed it would be terribly expensive.

As someone who was out of work for a while recently, I can say that I'm glad health insurance was available via the Obamacare plans, but the cost of those plans really felt like being kicked while I was down.
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Just about any single payer healthcare does, including M4A. And... yeah, the ACA wasn't even remotely universal or single payer healthcare. It was a huge compromise improvement that was heavily based on what the Republicans had been pushing. As the Democrats acknowledged at the time, there were serious flaws in the ACA, but that it was an improvement on the current situation and they hope they could fix those flaws as time went on.
 
theprestige said:
What would you rather have? An incompetent buffoon, with his amateur-hour corruption, here and then gone again?

Or a legit stealth Republican with the brains and the money to actually get something done?
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If you are talking about Steyer vs Bloomberg, your post is ignorant.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
The Center for American Progress, a prominent liberal think tank, removed negative references to Bloomberg in its report on Anti-Muslim bias because Bloomberg was a major donor. There were over 4000 words on the NYPD, mentioning Bloomberg by name 8 times. The entire section was removed before publication.

Money doesn't buy votes, but it does buy influence.
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Yeah, I suppose. :(
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
The Center for American Progress, a prominent liberal think tank, removed negative references to Bloomberg in its report on Anti-Muslim bias because Bloomberg was a major donor. There were over 4000 words on the NYPD, mentioning Bloomberg by name 8 times. The entire section was removed before publication.

Money doesn't buy votes, but it does buy influence.
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First of all, according to Wikipedia:
CAP officials disputed (the) account, characterizing the changes as editorial decisions: detailed discussion of NYC policing was off-topic because the report had been "commissioned to examine right-wing groups targeting Muslims with explicit bigotry and conspiracy theories."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_American_Progress#Michael_Bloomberg

So maybe it was done to protect Bloomberg, or maybe it was decided that it was out of focus.

Secondly, there is no evidence that Bloomberg actually knew was was going to be in the report ahead of time.

Lastly... Bloomberg was donating to a liberal think tank. And he did so years ago. Yes, Bloomberg may be "buying" his way into the Democratic primaries, but it does seem that his commitment to the political "left" is more than just a recent thing.
 
Distracted1 said:
Had you ever shopped for an individual plan for yourself before, or outside of , the "healthcare.gov" marketplaces?

As someone who has never had an employer paid for plan, I can tell you that the individual healthcare market has always sucked.
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As someone who has always been self employed (41 years) and with a pre-existing condition (diabetes) I never had health insurance until Obama care came along. I feel fortunate that Trump has been unable to take away my healthcare, at least until next year when I will turn 65 and medicare will take over.
 
Segnosaur said:
Lastly... Bloomberg was donating to a liberal think tank. And he did so years ago. Yes, Bloomberg may be "buying" his way into the Democratic primaries, but it does seem that his commitment to the political "left" is more than just a recent thing.
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I think when you reach Oligarch Tier, distinctions like "left" and "right" mean a lot less than "what do I want, who do I know, and what can they do for me?"
 
Segnosaur said:
First of all, according to Wikipedia:
CAP officials disputed (the) account, characterizing the changes as editorial decisions: detailed discussion of NYC policing was off-topic because the report had been "commissioned to examine right-wing groups targeting Muslims with explicit bigotry and conspiracy theories."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_American_Progress#Michael_Bloomberg

So maybe it was done to protect Bloomberg, or maybe it was decided that it was out of focus.
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You think maybe there's some right-wing groups operating within the police maybe?

How about the effect of powerful institutions perpetuating Islamaphobia and how that reinforces right-wing groups doing so more brazenly?

Yeah, probably not relevant.

ETA: Oh, and Bloomberg was ruling as center-right at the time. So "we didn't include stuff about him because it was about right-wing types" has a sly embedded premise.

Secondly, there is no evidence that Bloomberg actually knew was was going to be in the report ahead of time.
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Seems like if I'm putting out a big report, I'd want to gather the thoughts of those I name in the report, ask for their responses, if corrections are needed, etc. Mostly its to hedge against defamation.

Lastly... Bloomberg was donating to a liberal think tank. And he did so years ago. Yes, Bloomberg may be "buying" his way into the Democratic primaries, but it does seem that his commitment to the political "left" is more than just a recent thing.
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Neoliberal think tank.

Don't let the word "progress" in the title fool you. Its by and for the "New Democrat" types to tell us that we can have a kinder, fuzzier, more feel-good imperialism and that bad policies and ideas all come from the bad people on the other side.
 
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There's also the strategy of hiring people who are smart enough to figure out what should and shouldn't be in a report commissioned by their boss, so that their boss doesn't have to know every time.
 
:eye-poppi

I've seen a number of complaints about how Warren's coverage has effectively vanished lately... and I've been trying to be understanding about it - there's plenty going on, after all.

Now, though... we've got an NBC/WSJ poll that matches up all the notable Democratic contenders against Trump... except Warren. WTF?
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
Elizabeth Warren addresses the Culinary Workers Union in LV and says: The White House is a mess and “when you’ve got a mess and you really need it cleaned up, you call a woman and get the job done.”
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A fine example of trying to say something inspiring or witty and ending up with a stupid or insulting statement. And in this case, sexist.
 
Belz... said:
A fine example of trying to say something inspiring or witty and ending up with a stupid or insulting statement. And in this case, sexist.
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The really hackey campaign material really is the best part of the election cycle. These people try to be funny and charming for months on end, so the flubs are guaranteed to happen.

Not really sure they mean much, but you have to take your joy when you can.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
The really hackey campaign material really is the best part of the election cycle. These people try to be funny and charming for months on end, so the flubs are guaranteed to happen.

Not really sure they mean much, but you have to take your joy when you can.
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If saying stupid things occasionally were a bar to holding office we'd all be living in anarchy. It's the frequency and context that matters. I'll take Warren's failed joke over absolutely everything Trump has ever said about the economy.

Eta: flubbing remarks can even be a positive, if done right. Both Bushes had a penchant for folksy misspeaking. I think that enhanced their approachable "real guy" images. They were wealthy elite plutocrats, after all, but managed to seem like regular people to many. That's an accomplishment. Although it's entirely possible Bush the Younger did it be accident.
 
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Interesting data point against the "moderate lane" theory.

Biden loses 17 pts in recent poll. Bernie picks up 8, Bloomberg 6. Small increases for Klob and Pete.

Combining the totals of the all the "moderate" voters and stacking that against Bernie makes an assumption that none of these voters see him as their preferred #2 candidate. This polling change would suggest otherwise.

As non-viable candidates exit the race, where their supporters end up is very much an open question.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/sanders-bloomberg-rise-biden-falls-sharp-shifts-views/story?id=69049533&cid=social_twitter_abcn
 
Goodness sakes boys, as a woman I did not find Warren's cleaning house comment to be a gaffe. You're trying too hard.
 
Distracted1 said:
Why would a woman necessarily be the best person to call to fix any problem?
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Calling something a "mess" is privileging a preconceived patriarchal notion of order and imposing that notion upon the audience, disempowering them from their own individual truths of what constitutes order on a fundamentally random universe. By making this hurtful remark Warren has not only betrayed all women everywhere but also displayed appalling contempt for any religious who maintain belief in Gnostic mysticism. She must be burned as a witch before she commits further outrages.
 
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