Democrats 2020

[southernhybrid]

Again, there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about a label. Let's take a look at the word progressive as it's normally defined


"favoring or advocating progress, change, improvement, or reform, as opposed to wishing to maintain things as they are, especially in political matters" I used dictionary.com for that one, but you can get a similar definition almost any place that defines words.

I strongly believe that liberals started referring to themselves as "progressives" because the term liberal was extremely demonized by those on the right. But, being a progressive doesn't mean one insists on radical change or change that comes over night. All it means is the desire to make progress. I think all Democrats are progressives, some are just more patient, dare I say more realistic, than others. Some want extreme changes, while others simply want more fairness. Most support a higher minimum wage, more affordable health care for all, a decent safety net for the poor, the disabled, and older adults who no longer have reliable sources of income etc. So, just like any other label, there will be disagreements and confusion regarding exactly what those who describe themselves with that label want, or expect.

So, if you're a progressive who wants things that seem unrealistic to me, that doesn't mean that I'm not a progressive, or that I'm not open minded. I just want you to show me exactly how these rapid changes can be accomplished before I support your cause. So far, no politician has come up with a plan that is full of details explaining how the latest slogans will be accomplished.

If one of them has laid out a carefully detailed, realistic plan regarding something like, for example, Medicare for all, I stand corrected. Please share that plan with us.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Wha?! Free college and health care?! You mean, "No out of pocket" college and health care. It isn't free!

It's free like checking out a book from the library is free and cold tap water is free and calling the police is free. We don't mince words in those cases, this should be no different.

I've never called the library free. I pay property taxes for it.

Nobody talks about "affordable" public schools or "access" to postal services. Those things are considered free...

I've been using the wrong postal service if we have a free one. Public schools, that's more property and city income tax from me.

...and a system that provides them is very different from one that lets private entities profit from our need for them, even if it includes a discount.

Yeah, except you tell people it is free health care, they are going to flip when they see the tax increases.

 

[Elixir]

I've never called the library free. I pay property taxes for it.

Nobody talks about "affordable" public schools or "access" to postal services. Those things are considered free...

I've been using the wrong postal service if we have a free one. Public schools, that's more property and city income tax from me.

...and a system that provides them is very different from one that lets private entities profit from our need for them, even if it includes a discount.

Yeah, except you tell people it is free health care, they are going to flip when they see the tax increases.

The tax increase won't matter to people if their premiums already exceed it, never mind their deductible. I've paid through the nose - a shameful amount for myself and Mrs. Elixir - catastrophic insurance only, with a 10k deductible. I've been a goldmine for the insurance system, using virtually none of the policies' so-called benefits. If someone had come along at the point (years ago) when we were both "covered" that shabby way for 1k/mo, and offered us a 10k/yr tax increase in exchange for full coverage with no deductible or limits, I'd have jumped at it. I am on Medicare now, and Mrs E will be also this summer. Now that I am retired and not collecting salary (just a retainer) Medicare is the difference for us, between being broke and getting by for the near future.

The government is going to have to bankroll UHC from the start, if they want to sell it. Once people are actually ON the system, they will gladly pay the single payer, rather than give up what will really be great coverage and shop the sharks of the market... that might mean having an opt-out, at least for a while.

 

[Treedbear]

Again, there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about a label. Let's take a look at the word progressive as it's normally defined


"favoring or advocating progress, change, improvement, or reform, as opposed to wishing to maintain things as they are, especially in political matters" I used dictionary.com for that one, but you can get a similar definition almost any place that defines words.
...

I consider myself a progressive with regard to the need to give the less privileged a break. Like the fact that we have a progressive tax code. Progressively more is expected from those who are progressively more advantaged within a capitalistic system. Liberalism has to do with social values.

 

[southernhybrid]

Again, there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about a label. Let's take a look at the word progressive as it's normally defined


"favoring or advocating progress, change, improvement, or reform, as opposed to wishing to maintain things as they are, especially in political matters" I used dictionary.com for that one, but you can get a similar definition almost any place that defines words.
...

I consider myself a progressive with regard to the need to give the less privileged a break. Like the fact that we have a progressive tax code. Progressively more is expected from those who are progressively more advantaged within a capitalistic system. Liberalism has to do with social values.

There is such a thing as fiscal conservatives and fiscal liberals so social values aren't the only way to describe a liberal. The same goes for those who prefer the word progressive. In the not too distant past, the word progressive was rarely used. That changed after conservatives did a great job of demonizing the word liberal. I think this started in the late 70s. There was even a satirical skit on SNL in the late 70s, that was about liberals. I don't remember the entire thing, but I do remember that "run liberal run" was a part of it. The piece was satirizing the way that conservatives were demonizing liberals at the time. This shit has been going on for many decades, and it got worse once Reagan got elected.

There are people who are fiscally conservative but socially liberal, and there are people who are socially conservative but fiscally liberal. So many labels, so little time to argue about them.

Do you ever read any of Paul Krugman's columns? He identifies as a liberal economist, and most of his commentary is about being liberal fiscally. He supports things like higher taxes on the wealthy, more spending on social programs etc.

 

[Treedbear]

Cory Booker jumped into the race this morning. I like him, but I don't think very many people do. I doubt he will get the nomination. He supports many of the Democratic Socialist positions, but he also supports business. That makes sense to me, but...... Anyway, one more person to consider. How many others will jump into the race, is anybody's guess.

Hopefully, money isn't going to have much to do with the race, because I read that Trump has already built up over 129 million dollars. Surprisingly, 75% was from small donors, so there's still a lot of suckers out there who believe in him.

Who doesn't like him and why?

I'm sure many Trump supporters don't like him. Some only because his color is a nicer shade than orange.

A lot of people who I've spoken to about him. I'm not sure why. They come in all shades of skin so it has nothing to do with his skin color, and they are all Democrats. Of course, my sample is small, so I could be wrong about his lack of appeal to others. It might just be that the people I know, simply don't know much about Booker.

Regardless of others, I still like him, but it could be because I'm from a town that borders on Newark, NJ, where he was mayor. He did a lot of good things when he was mayor, although he's also been imo, unfairly criticized. I read an article this morning about how he was criticized for supporting charter schools in Newark, but the fact is that in Newark, the students who attended charter schools did much better than the students who attended traditional public schools. My own granddaughter attends a charter school in Indianapolis. It's a secular based school and from what I've read about it, it's an excellent school. Not all charter schools are the same.

While it's true that Cory Booker once voted in favor of a law that protected the large drug companies, he's changed his position on that issue. He supports the same things that other progressive candidates do. I don't find him boring. In fact, I think he's anything but boring. I might vote for him during the primaries, but it's far too early to make that decision. I need to learn a lot more about all of these candidates. All candidates have flaws, just like the rest of us.

I've followed his career for many years. Maybe that's why I find him more attractive than the other candidates at this point. I will vote for whoever becomes the Democratic nominee. Of that, I am positive.

Cory Booker was interviewed by Rachel Maddow last night. First I've seen anything about him and I was more impressed than with Harris, Klobuchar, Gabbard (by far), and Warren. Going mainly on temperament so far. Also, when discussing the field of Dem's who are running he mentioned how he was impressed with Sherrod Brown, who I also admire, and who hasn't even declared as of yet.

 

[lpetrich]

Everyone’s Running — And That Could Be Dangerous For The Democrats | FiveThirtyEight Nate Silver estimates that some 17 to 24 Democrats are likely to be in the race for next year's Presidential election. That is more than the number of Republicans back in 2016, and it was Donald Trump who won that year.

The problem is that the more candidates, the smaller the popular-vote fractions that the winner wins in the primaries. Al Gore had only one competitor, and he got 75% of the vote. Donald Trump, with 16 competitors, got only 45% of the vote.

This suggests that one ought to use some multicandidate-friendly system like instant-runoff voting or proportional representation. Here is a poll of Republican voters in 2016 that used IRV: Ranked Choice Poll of GOP Voters Yields Insights - FairVote. Donald Trump initially had the most votes, but not enough to win. Most of those who voted for others also preferred other candidates other than Trump, and the non-Trump candidates slowly gained as low-vote candidates dropped out in rounds of counting, until Ted Cruz barely won.

 

[Harry Bosch]

A lot of people who I've spoken to about him. I'm not sure why. They come in all shades of skin so it has nothing to do with his skin color, and they are all Democrats. Of course, my sample is small, so I could be wrong about his lack of appeal to others. It might just be that the people I know, simply don't know much about Booker.

Regardless of others, I still like him, but it could be because I'm from a town that borders on Newark, NJ, where he was mayor. He did a lot of good things when he was mayor, although he's also been imo, unfairly criticized. I read an article this morning about how he was criticized for supporting charter schools in Newark, but the fact is that in Newark, the students who attended charter schools did much better than the students who attended traditional public schools. My own granddaughter attends a charter school in Indianapolis. It's a secular based school and from what I've read about it, it's an excellent school. Not all charter schools are the same.

While it's true that Cory Booker once voted in favor of a law that protected the large drug companies, he's changed his position on that issue. He supports the same things that other progressive candidates do. I don't find him boring. In fact, I think he's anything but boring. I might vote for him during the primaries, but it's far too early to make that decision. I need to learn a lot more about all of these candidates. All candidates have flaws, just like the rest of us.

I've followed his career for many years. Maybe that's why I find him more attractive than the other candidates at this point. I will vote for whoever becomes the Democratic nominee. Of that, I am positive.

Cory Booker was interviewed by Rachel Maddow last night. First I've seen anything about him and I was more impressed than with Harris, Klobuchar, Gabbard (by far), and Warren. Going mainly on temperament so far. Also, when discussing the field of Dem's who are running he mentioned how he was impressed with Sherrod Brown, who I also admire, and who hasn't even declared as of yet.

I googled the interview. Agreed. I think that he's growing into the role as a better speaker. I'm liking him more. But I still lean to Harris, Klobuchar and Beto.

 

[barbos]

I am going to vote for Buttigieg, just need to learn pronunciation.

 

[Politesse]

Anyone who wants the job is probably not morally qualified for it.

 

[Terrell]

Everyone’s Running — And That Could Be Dangerous For The Democrats | FiveThirtyEight Nate Silver estimates that some 17 to 24 Democrats are likely to be in the race for next year's Presidential election. That is more than the number of Republicans back in 2016, and it was Donald Trump who won that year.

The problem is that the more candidates, the smaller the popular-vote fractions that the winner wins in the primaries. Al Gore had only one competitor, and he got 75% of the vote. Donald Trump, with 16 competitors, got only 45% of the vote.

This suggests that one ought to use some multicandidate-friendly system like instant-runoff voting or proportional representation. Here is a poll of Republican voters in 2016 that used IRV: Ranked Choice Poll of GOP Voters Yields Insights - FairVote. Donald Trump initially had the most votes, but not enough to win. Most of those who voted for others also preferred other candidates other than Trump, and the non-Trump candidates slowly gained as low-vote candidates dropped out in rounds of counting, until Ted Cruz barely won.

If they haven't changed the rules since last primary insofar as how the pledged delegates are allocated, then the vote in the Dem primary allocates said delegates in a proportional manner. I'm not sure what the minimum threshold is. It's the general election where it's winner take all for all the states except ME and NE, who give 2 for the state and 1 for each district.

 

[lpetrich]

Which 2020 Democrats Already Have A Fan Base — And Which Don’t | FiveThirtyEight

Finding a strong correlation between having an opinion of some candidate and for that opinion to be favorable. Joe Biden has a much higher rating that what one predicts from the other candidates, and Michael Bloomberg a much lower rating. Joe Biden has an excess of 12, and the next ones, Kamala Harris and Beto O'Rourke, 5. Michael Bloomberg has a deficiency of 24, and Tulsi Gabbard, the next one, 8.

That article has a cute graph, showing the candidates as disembodied heads.

I used Mathematica on it, and I verified 538.com's numbers, to within roundoff errors. I also did a least-absolute-value fit in addition to the least-squares fit, and I found similar numbers. Joe Biden's excess: 11, Kamala Harris's and Beto O'Rourke's: 4, Michael Bloomberg's deficiency: 26, Tulsi Gabbard's: 6.

 

[lpetrich]

If they haven't changed the rules since last primary insofar as how the pledged delegates are allocated, then the vote in the Dem primary allocates said delegates in a proportional manner.

You are correct about that. I found Presidential Primaries, Caucuses, and Conventions - Democratic Delegate Allocation Math

1. Find each candidate's fraction of the vote
2. Calculate the threshold to use:
   If (highest fraction) > 15%
   - Use 15%
   Else
   - Use (highest fraction) - 10%
3. Drop every candidate below threshold. The remaining candidates are the "qualified" ones
4. Find each qualified candidates' fraction of the vote
5. Multiply by the total number of delegates
6. Round down and assign each candidate that number of delegates
7. Any remaining delegates one assigns to the candidates with the highest fractional number of delegates

If a candidate drops out later, then that candidate's delegates are then awarded proportionally to the remaining ones.

The only problem is the threshold -- if the highest vote fraction drops to 15%, then the threshold only allows one candidate, but below that, it reverts to allowing several candidates. Why not a fraction of the highest?

 

[lpetrich]

Doing preference voting has a problem. If one does not want to make all the ballots available, even if anonymized.

A simple version is the Borda count: For n candidates, one's top candidate gets n votes, the next one n - 1 votes, the next one n - 2 votes, and so forth. A modification is to make n the number of candidates that one voted for. This is a special case of range voting or rated voting, where one gives each candidate a rating in some range. Range voting has some other special cases:

• Cumulative voting: one has some number of votes, which one may distribute however one likes.
• Approval voting: one can vote for as many candidates as one wants.
• First-past-the-post or plurality voting: one can vote for only one of the candidates.

Aggregation is O, each candidate's number of votes.

Condorcet methods usually involve calculating a "Condorcet matrix", a table of outcomes when the preferences are turned into a virtual round-robin contest. Meaning that whichever candidate outranks which other candidate get a vote for that pairing. A Condorcet winner is a winner in every one of these virtual contests. If there is no Condorcet winner, then one must use some rather complicated algorithm to find the winner, some algorithm like the Schulze method.

Aggregation is O(n^2), the number of virtual contests between candidates.

Instant runoff voting requires full ballot contents, so to aggregate for IRV requires every permutation of the candidates: O(n!).

For voting for only m out of the n candidates, one only needs O(n!/(n-m)!) ~ O(n^m).

 

[southernhybrid]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/15/us/politics/bill-weld-trump-2020.html

William F. Weld, the maverick former governor of Massachusetts, announced on Friday that he would form an exploratory committee to challenge President Trump for the Republican Party’s 2020 nomination, presenting himself as a dissident voice in a political party that has abandoned its mainstream roots.


Mr. Weld, 73, is the first Republican to announce he will run against the president. But Mr. Weld is unlikely to pose a major threat to Mr. Trump and he is in some ways an incongruous figure to leap into the Republican presidential fray. A moderate who ran for vice president in 2016 on the Libertarian ticket, Mr. Weld’s candidacy might be more of an act of protest than a conventional national campaign.

But appearing in New Hampshire, Mr. Weld called it a moral duty to stand against “the hard heart, closed mind and clenched fist of nativism and nationalism.”

Do you all think there will be many more who consider a primary challenge for the Republican nomination in 2020?

I read or heard on MSNBC, that at least a third of Republicans want someone to challenge Trump. Would swing voters and moderate Democrats vote for a moderate Republican if the Democratic party appears to be moving too far to the left? These are all concerns of mine.

 

[Treedbear]

Doing preference voting has a problem. If one does not want to make all the ballots available, even if anonymized. ...

They are anonymous when cast. I see no reason not to make them generally available. Ranked choice voting is the only way to make sure the voters' true preference determines the winner.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/15/us/politics/bill-weld-trump-2020.html

William F. Weld, the maverick former governor of Massachusetts, announced on Friday that he would form an exploratory committee to challenge President Trump for the Republican Party’s 2020 nomination, presenting himself as a dissident voice in a political party that has abandoned its mainstream roots.


Mr. Weld, 73, is the first Republican to announce he will run against the president. But Mr. Weld is unlikely to pose a major threat to Mr. Trump and he is in some ways an incongruous figure to leap into the Republican presidential fray. A moderate who ran for vice president in 2016 on the Libertarian ticket, Mr. Weld’s candidacy might be more of an act of protest than a conventional national campaign.

But appearing in New Hampshire, Mr. Weld called it a moral duty to stand against “the hard heart, closed mind and clenched fist of nativism and nationalism.”

Do you all think there will be many more who consider a primary challenge for the Republican nomination in 2020?

I read or heard on MSNBC, that at least a third of Republicans want someone to challenge Trump. Would swing voters and moderate Democrats vote for a moderate Republican if the Democratic party appears to be moving too far to the left? These are all concerns of mine.

Doing a primary challenge to an incumbent is a very difficult thing. This will go nowhere, like Buchanan in 1992. If this actually has an impact, it will be similar to fatally weakening the opponent, like Reagan in 1976 (arguable, Ford was already very weak) or Kennedy in 1980 (arguably Carter also very weak).

 

[Elixir]

Doing a primary challenge to an incumbent is a very difficult thing. This will go nowhere, like Buchanan in 1992. If this actually has an impact, it will be similar to fatally weakening the opponent, like Reagan in 1976 (arguable, Ford was already very weak) or Kennedy in 1980 (arguably Carter also very weak).

I'm quite sure that's the only intent. If there is a seed of doubt about the holiness of the shitgibbon in the minds of any of Trump's sycophants, cultivation of that seed by "real" Republicans could cause them to stay home or vote independent.

 

[ZiprHead]

I thought the Reps had decided not to do primaries this election cycle. It was discussed here.

 

[Copernicus]

With so many candidates competing for the nomination, the most likely Democratic candidates will be those who stand out at the beginning of the primary season. Traditionally, Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina have been the first states to hold primaries, so hopeful candidates tend to compete fiercely for wins in those primaries. However,  Super Tuesday primaries are increasingly more important in recent times, because they are seen as an indicator of appeal in a nationwide election, not just a small state where local issues (like corn in Iowa) get most of the attention.

The viability of Kamala Harris has been rising steadily, so she will now become the focus of Republican attacks and Russian troll farms. But she gets a much bigger boost from the fact that California (with 55 electoral votes) will now be in Super Tuesday. Since California is on the West Coast, it seldom makes a difference in presidential elections. Those are usually over by the time California's votes get counted. However, the early primary voting (ballots mailed in February & voting on March 3) seems likely to give Harris a huge boost in public perception of her viability.

See California’s move to Super Tuesday hands Harris a big edge in 2020. Hence, anti-Harris activity in social media and on news networks is likely to ramp up significantly from now on. Expect lots of fake news stories and other sensationalist stories about her in the coming months. However, bad publicity isn't necessarily a curse, since it tends to draw attention away from other candidates. Being the focus of attacks will also increase her visibility. More people will begin to take her seriously. If it works for Donald Trump, it can work for other candidates, too.