Democrats 2020

[Derec]

They have much the same problems with voting as others do that get much more recognition in the media: lack of transportation, unstable addresses, possibly issues with id requirements, registration intentionally made difficult and whatever else a state may throw at them.

I call BS on that. How many people 18-30 do you know who do not have id? Transportation? Voting locations are within walking distance if you are young and able-bodied. Registering to vote is trivially easy.

But they have the added burden of turning into adults. Of learning how to navigate the adult world. They need to start to solve adult problems on their own that we've all been dealing with for years: dealing with issues with various companies and government agencies. They are going into all this blind. Most won't ask mom or dad for help. After all, this adult thing is what they have been waiting for their entire lives. But with no experience, they haven't the clues we have, what possible documentation and information they may need going in to solve these problems. Hell, many of them do not even have their Social Security number memorized yet. Imagine needing your SSN and having to call your mom because they're asking about some card and does she have it. Everything takes twice as long and is twice as frustrating.
And now, here is voting. Dealing with more government stuff but this is not required of them. It's easy to see why they might just skip it. They'll vote next time.

Are we doing all we can to get them to the polls the first time they are eligible?

Well, we can't memorize their social security numbers for them.

 

[Derec]

Oh, I'm keen on math and science. I was balls-to-the-walls grade A number one in my mechanical drawing classes. Won several awards for my work. I would have loved to have been an architect or an engineer. But I couldn't even handle algebra, let alone the higher maths.

 

[Derec]

They, of course, have done no such thing. That's social conservatives you're thinking of, who routinely who insist that every word in a book must be taken as literal, uncontested truths.

They have done such a thing, and pretending that so-called "progressives" can't be as doctrinaire about their beliefs as social conservatives is very naive.

That's obviously not the goal of a few learning outcomes in an optional addendum, unless some teacher were to make it so.

The curriculum itself says otherwise. Political opinions about what is "oppressive" are included in it as if they were facts.

That sort of blinkered, unquestioning thinking is par for the course in the Trump camp,

I am not in the Trump camp, but it is ridiculous to posit that "blinkered, unquestioning thinking" is exclusive to the Trump camp is ridiculous.

Frankly, aside from angry conservatives on the internet, I doubt anyone is even going to read this document.

That's probably what the faux-progressives who authored it were probably counting on.

Public teachers do not in fact have time to explore "sample curricula" that won't be on the standardized test. Again thanks to the decade and a half long Republican agenda of tests and memorization over teachers and dialogue. How's that working out for our students?

Probably half as bad as wasting time talking about how math is oppressive and used for such evil ends as resource extraction.

Nor is it likely that encountering or not encountering a critical theory of math education would have any bearing whatsoever on whether some news commentator happens to remember to carry a zero or not. I would bet you a strong sum of money that none of the people involved have ever so much as heard of critical pedagogical theory.

I am not familiar with "critical pedagogical theory" but if it's even half as stupid as "critical race theory", it's very stupid indeed.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Bloomberg spent $500 million and really only won the American Samoas.

He should have spent $100,000 on poorly worded posts from a Russian troll farm. We learned in 2016 that is all it takes.

Yeah, the Wikileak stuff was nothing and only appeared to be timed specifically to defend Trump.

 

[Rhea]

I call BS on that. How many people 18-30 do you know who do not have id? Transportation? Voting locations are within walking distance if you are young and able-bodied. Registering to vote is trivially easy.

Hang on, while youth may be more likely to have ann easily obtainable birth certificate, the voting booths are NOT within walking distance. Ours is 6 miles away with a 600-foot elevation gain each way (up a hill, then down a hill both ways - we live in a hollow, we vote in a different hollow, and there’s a big hill in between). So that’s a big no. Registering is 25 miles away, unless you can do it when you get your license (which is 5 miles away.) None of those distances are in the same direction, either, and there is no public transportation.

So I don’t know what world you live in, but it’s not the same world as all the voters.

 

[Derec]

Hang on, while youth may be more likely to have ann easily obtainable birth certificate, the voting booths are NOT within walking distance. Ours is 6 miles away with a 600-foot elevation gain each way (up a hill, then down a hill both ways - we live in a hollow, we vote in a different hollow, and there’s a big hill in between).

Well, you live in the middle of nowhere. I just looked mine up. 1.7 miles or 35 min walk according to google maps. Wouldn't want to walk that distance today, but when I was a youngster, that kind of distance was a piece of cake. And with a bicycle it takes less than 15 min. My old location was even closer though.
Ok, so people in Bumfuck, Egypt don't have a nearby voting location. But surely you have access to some kind of farm vehicle.

So that’s a big no. Registering is 25 miles away, unless you can do it when you get your license (which is 5 miles away.)

Yeah, I registered at this address when I changed the address on my licence. It was literally as simple as checking a box. And even if you have to bum a ride to a registration place, that's a one time thing, unless you move, and as I said, then you can re-register when you do address change on the license.

So I don’t know what world you live in

I live in Georgia. You know, the place some people (like sore loser Stacey Abrams) claim is so onerous to register and to vote in.

 

[TV and credit cards]

Well, you live in the middle of nowhere. I just looked mine up. 1.7 miles or 35 min walk according to google maps. Wouldn't want to walk that distance today, but when I was a youngster, that kind of distance was a piece of cake. And with a bicycle it takes less than 15 min. My old location was even closer though.
Ok, so people in Bumfuck, Egypt don't have a nearby voting location. But surely you have access to some kind of farm vehicle.


Yeah, I registered at this address when I changed the address on my licence. It was literally as simple as checking a box. And even if you have to bum a ride to a registration place, that's a one time thing, unless you move, and as I said, then you can re-register when you do address change on the license.

So I don’t know what world you live in

I live in Georgia. You know, the place some people (like sore loser Stacey Abrams) claim is so onerous to register and to vote in.

Why don't young people vote?
...
Are we doing all we can to get them to the polls the first time they are eligible?

Or just google my first question. Read. And ask yourself my final question. Regardless whether you agree with the reasons why or not, it is what it is. I’m sure the reasons are as varied as there are young people not voting and states trying to inhibit them from doing so. “Suck it up” is always the easy answer for problems others have. Parents and grandparents should be forcing help on them whether they want it or not.

 

[lpetrich]

Presidential Primaries 2020 - FairVote - four states will use a novel twist on their voting. Preference voting or ranked-choice voting. The count will use a variation of instant runoff.

The four states that will be using this new system are AK (Apr 4, 5 choices, 15%), HI (Apr 4, 3 choices, 15%), KS (May 2, 5 choices, 15%), WY (Apr 4, 5 choices, 15%)

As an introduction, I give the usual method of instant runoff.

It starts with counting the top preferences and if any candidate gets a majority, then that candidate wins. If no candidate wins, then the candidate with the fewest top preferences is removed from the race and the ballots recounted as if that candidate was never in the race. One then checks for a majority again, and repeats the process until some candidate gets a majority.

But in these primary elections, the count stops if all the candidates are above threshold, 15% for all four states here. If any candidates are below threshold, then the one with the fewest votes gets dropped. This process is repeated until all the remaining candidates are above threshold.

With what the race has become, the main interest may be in who is the second choice of the Tulsi Gabbard voters.


What primary and caucus dates: 2020 Presidential Election Calendar

 

[southernhybrid]

Has anyone mentioned that Kamala Harris just endorsed Joe Biden? She's been hinting that she was going to do that for weeks, but I guess she didn't want to endorse him until he was the front runner. She's a bit late with her endorsement, now.

 

[lpetrich]

I tracked it down. Kamala Harris endorses Biden's presidential bid | TheHill saying about him that he would “speak to the best of who we are and challenges us to live up to our ideals”.

Kamala Harris on Twitter: " [MENTION=2]Jo[/MENTION]eBiden has served our country with dignity and we need him now more than ever. I will do everything in my power to help elect him the next President of the United States. https://t.co/DbB2fGWpaa" / Twitter

On a more fun note, on Saturday Night Live:
Yashar Ali on Twitter: "The real Elizabeth Warren on SNL with Kate McKinnon who plays her on the show playing Laura Ingraham and then doing a quick costume change into her Elizabeth Warren clothes and hair.
I can't keep up. https://t.co/lkJ9qEsrTZ" / Twitter

 

[ZiprHead]

 

[Trausti]

Feel the burn.

 

[repoman]

This is me being conspiratorial, but with proposed change of 3/15 debate to make it more casual it does seem like there is a very small, tight and brilliant group in charge of the DNC. They have probably game planned this in ways that most people think only happens in movies. Partly because they ARE the pieces on the board.

Now what if Biden gets the nom and a month later they go whoops he has had a stroke etc...
Then they will make it so that Sanders will not be the nominee, but say Buttigieg or Klobuchar.

Biden will be crushed by Trump, which probably long term is better for DNC cronies and their paymasters than a Sanders victory.

Anyway if a nominee has a crippling stroke on July 15 what is the protocol?

 

[Ford]

This is me being conspiratorial, but with proposed change of 3/15 debate to make it more casual it does seem like there is a very small, tight and brilliant group in charge of the DNC.

Yeah, that's conspiratorial.

I find it endlessly fascinating that there's seemingly two schools of thought about the Democratic National Committee (and this also applies to 2016 Hillary Clinton to a degree):

They're criminal masterminds who will stop at nothing in their relentless pursuit of power.

They're incompetent idiots who wouldn't know a winning strategy if it punched them in the face.

I think it's neither. I just gave up on a long, frustrating back and forth with an ardent Sanders supporter who continued to insist that if Bernie was the nominee, he would not only trounce Trump in the general, but once in the Oval Office would get his agenda enacted due to the "will of the voters" and the entrenched powers in DC would tremble at the power of the mighty Bern.

Seriously.

Truth is, politics is not an exact science. Hell, it might not even be a science - sorry Political Science majors. If I can use an analogy, the DNC or the Democratic Party at large seems a bit like a Hollywood movie studio. They spent a metric shit-ton of money trying to figure out how to sell their product to the public. Market research. Focus groups. Test screenings of potential blockbuster movies. Carefully crafted PR campaigns. And sometimes despite all that, the movies don't perform as expected. Maybe the idea wasn't as appealing as they thought, or the rewrites or that last edit wasn't enough to save it, or the star had some scandal that broke before the film was released. Or maybe there was a surprise hit from another studio on opening weekend. Or maybe the public is just fickle (hint...this is it).

To carry the analogy further, Sanders is like a beloved indie film property that's been acquired by a major studio and they're trying to figure out what to do with it while at the same time they're working on a big budget franchise film (Biden) that's cost them a lot of money to develop. Oh, and they're going to release one of the two on the same weekend as the latest Disney/Marvel franchise movie.

It's not a sinister conspiracy. It's not incompetence. It's a big organization with a lot at stake that has a lot of intelligent and dedicated people working to put out the product that will catch that magic that the public is so maddeningly inconsistent with granting.

Maybe Sanders is The Dark Knight. Maybe he's Joker. Maybe Biden is Batman v Superman or Suicide Squad. Which one is it? That's literally a billion dollar question, and if I had the answer I'd be making a helluva lot more money than I am now.

 

[Politesse]

This is me being conspiratorial, but with proposed change of 3/15 debate to make it more casual it does seem like there is a very small, tight and brilliant group in charge of the DNC.

Yeah, that's conspiratorial.

I find it endlessly fascinating that there's seemingly two schools of thought about the Democratic National Committee (and this also applies to 2016 Hillary Clinton to a degree):

They're criminal masterminds who will stop at nothing in their relentless pursuit of power.

They're incompetent idiots who wouldn't know a winning strategy if it punched them in the face.

I think it's neither. I just gave up on a long, frustrating back and forth with an ardent Sanders supporter who continued to insist that if Bernie was the nominee, he would not only trounce Trump in the general, but once in the Oval Office would get his agenda enacted due to the "will of the voters" and the entrenched powers in DC would tremble at the power of the mighty Bern.

Seriously.

Truth is, politics is not an exact science. Hell, it might not even be a science - sorry Political Science majors. If I can use an analogy, the DNC or the Democratic Party at large seems a bit like a Hollywood movie studio. They spent a metric shit-ton of money trying to figure out how to sell their product to the public. Market research. Focus groups. Test screenings of potential blockbuster movies. Carefully crafted PR campaigns. And sometimes despite all that, the movies don't perform as expected. Maybe the idea wasn't as appealing as they thought, or the rewrites or that last edit wasn't enough to save it, or the star had some scandal that broke before the film was released. Or maybe there was a surprise hit from another studio on opening weekend. Or maybe the public is just fickle (hint...this is it).

To carry the analogy further, Sanders is like a beloved indie film property that's been acquired by a major studio and they're trying to figure out what to do with it while at the same time they're working on a big budget franchise film (Biden) that's cost them a lot of money to develop. Oh, and they're going to release one of the two on the same weekend as the latest Disney/Marvel franchise movie.

It's not a sinister conspiracy. It's not incompetence. It's a big organization with a lot at stake that has a lot of intelligent and dedicated people working to put out the product that will catch that magic that the public is so maddeningly inconsistent with granting.

Maybe Sanders is The Dark Knight. Maybe he's Joker. Maybe Biden is Batman v Superman or Suicide Squad. Which one is it? That's literally a billion dollar question, and if I had the answer I'd be making a helluva lot more money than I am now.

Er, sinister conspiracies and gross incompetence characterize Hollywood also.

 

[southernhybrid]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/09/us/politics/cory-booker-endorses-joe-biden.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage


Getting back on track....Corey Booker endorsed Biden earlier today. He and Harris plan on being with Biden in Detroit tonight. The most recent poll has Biden 20 points ahead of Sanders in Michigan.

Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey endorsed former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. for president on Monday, adding to what has become a nearly complete consolidation of support from Mr. Biden’s former top rivals to push him to the Democratic nomination.

Mr. Booker’s endorsement comes one day after Senator Kamala Harris of California endorsed Mr. Biden, and the two senators will appear with him at a rally in Detroit on Monday night. Mr. Booker will also campaign alongside Mr. Biden in Flint, Mich., earlier in the day and attend a fund-raiser with him.

“It a time for us to beat Donald Trump and it became very clear to me that Joe Biden is the right person to do that,” Mr. Booker said in an interview on “CBS This Morning,” after announcing his endorsement in a tweet.

“We have to unify and show our strength and I think this Tuesday could be a pivotal day in our primary progress, but it’s about time that we start unifying as a party and begin the work to beat Donald Trump, and frankly save our nation.”

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Wow. Biden has all the support. He will get Michigan even if he says something stupid about minorities again.

 

[Copernicus]

Wow. Biden has all the support. He will get Michigan even if he says something stupid about minorities again.

That's true, and it remains a fact that African American voters, who make up a large number of Democratic voters in Michigan, will still prefer him over Sanders. The minority that Biden seems to have difficulties with is Latino voters, who are not as large a minority population there. What is driving the Biden bandwagon now is the perception that he stands the best chance of beating Trump in the general election, keeping Democrats in power in the House, and possibly regaining control of the Senate. Sanders' odds of winning have plummeted, because he was unable to bring out his base of voters, particularly young voters, in the numbers that he wanted and expected. He has not really expanded his base of support to attract the majority of Democratic voters, whose popularity in past polls was bled off by quite a few other candidates before they dropped out. What we are seeing now is the rise of the majority of Democrats who make up the voting core of the party. To win the general election, the Democratic candidate will have to attract independent and erstwhile Republican votes. Biden has a better chance of doing that than Sanders, according to polling figures that we see, now that Biden no longer faces other moderate Democratic challengers.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Wow. Biden has all the support. He will get Michigan even if he says something stupid about minorities again.

That's true, and it remains a fact that African American voters, who make up a large number of Democratic voters in Michigan, will still prefer him over Sanders. The minority that Biden seems to have difficulties with is Latino voters, who are not as large a minority population there. What is driving the Biden bandwagon now is the perception that he stands the best chance of beating Trump in the general election, keeping Democrats in power in the House, and possibly regaining control of the Senate. Sanders' odds of winning have plummeted, because he was unable to bring out his base of voters, particularly young voters, in the numbers that he wanted and expected. He has not really expanded his base of support to attract the majority of Democratic voters, whose popularity in past polls was bled off by quite a few other candidates before they dropped out. What we are seeing now is the rise of the majority of Democrats who make up the voting core of the party. To win the general election, the Democratic candidate will have to attract independent and erstwhile Republican votes. Biden has a better chance of doing that than Sanders, according to polling figures that we see, now that Biden no longer faces other moderate Democratic challengers.

Good analysis. Yea, there just was not a significant bump in younger voters or voters who stayed home in 2016. Dems are trending to safer Biden to beat Trump.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Wow. Biden has all the support. He will get Michigan even if he says something stupid about minorities again.

Michigan is incredibly important to Sanders. If he doesn't win there, that'll be the show. Even if he wins, the curtain seems to be closing. Sanders hasn't been able to get the key demographic, despite supporting the Civil Rights movement in person in the 60s. It seems a bit unfair, really, but politics is rarely about fairness. Biden has incredible name recognition and while he is a gaffe'r, he apparently projects enough of the charisma that people want in a candidate.