Wow, Biden was the definition of meh tonight. Is the DNC really going to try to thrust him into the candidacy?
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Oh, wow. Thanks for that link to Slate. Those questions really are a charade, clearly scripted by someone with a political agenda. I don’t think it’s Republicans though, I’d go for centrists who are terrified of the Democratic Party taking on more progressive positions than the status quo embodied by Good Old Joe Biden.
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Yes. As a few of our commenters are always quick to urge us, trust the DNC establishment. They’re political geniuses who know that young voters facing the effects of global warming are eager for a candidate who mumbles that he’ll “work something out on coal” someday real soon now.
[if anyone was wondering why the DNC wouldn’t hold a dedicated debate on the existential issue of our times, their push for Biden is part of the answer]
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I’d love to see that too, but unfortunately she reserves that treatment for black kids who smoke pot
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They’re clearly scripted by some one with a financial interest in the “Democrats are tearing themselves apart Lisa!” storyline.
A certain subset of journalists and news venues have been thumping the idea of a DNC in fight since Obama got elected. Actual figths within the GOP (tea party, freedom caucus) and their ideological purity purge were great for ratings. And a similar explosion on the left fits the horse race style of coverage they’re lock in on. Which party will explode first! Which faction will control the party! Can heroic Joe Biden defeat young people!?
Its just that now they have a convenient policy proposal to hang it on, a couple of prominent personalities to peg it to. And a handful of influential donors and seemingly not all that important politicians willing to titter in their ear and provide whatever talking points are appropriate to the night’s shouting match.
Actual centrists and moderates don’t seem all that bent out of shape. Though many of the ones I know are fearful and still stuck on the idea that playing to independents and trying to peel off the other parties voters is how elections are won. Its more that “Centrist” is being used as a sobriquet for white, upper middle class people on the center right, and the pro-business block or investor class. Like “working class voters” is being used as a sobriquet for white voters in rural states.
Conveniently these older, whiter, typically wealthier Americans are the biggest portion of CNN’s audience. Its just CNN throwing candy to the crowd. And that is exactly the sort of “journalism” that makes our news manipulable, and has let Trump skate on everything. No issue is important except in who will win, or in its value for calculation. No action is good or bad except in so far as it can qualify as a scandal or momentarily sell papers.
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You have a choice on November 8. If you want to see how the sausage is made then volunteer for your party, start a fund raiser on your block, etc.
Right now we’ve turned the primaries into a spectator sport. It’s very profitable for broadcasters, political spectacles costs a fraction of producing a TV series or licensing sports broadcasting rights. Does it provide voters with real choice, better information, and a more transparent government? debatable.
That is indeed who I was referring to
… and customers, I’d think
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pardon my cynicism, but experience has shown me that the DNC favors one candidate and does everything in their power, and at times against their own rules, to see that candidate win. The delegate structure is a joke - Biden may already have the nomination sewn up if all the party faithful delegates are going to support him.
If the DNC pulls this shit again Biden will lose and we’ll certainly be facing 4 more years of trump.
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I’m pretty sure Biden is the only candidate in the top six who can lose to Trump
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I don’t think we should. Labeling a group of Blue Dogs and Never Trump conservatives “moderate” and “Centrist” is intended to portray them as a majority, and increase their importance to the exclusion of other groups. And so is “working class”, working class curiously seems to include some pretty god damn wealthy whites so long as they’re outside of cities. But it never seems to include blacks, Union members or anyone on a coast.
And we’re regularly told about the primacy of a few thousand white miners. But did you know that the majority of college educated whites, including women, have traditionally been Republican voters? And that though Trump did worse there than Romney, he still took a majority? That there were much bigger shifts to Trump among Suburban Whites than among actual working class people in those key states? That Trump’s voters had a mean income much higher than the national mean income? And nearly double the mean income of Hillary’s voters?
This isn’t a situation of the common man pushing back at elites. This is about elites violently reasserting themselves.
And I don’t think it pays to foster the pat narrative.
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“Moderate” is not a term I would not have used in this context, and I agree with you on that conservatives have at least in part hijacked the term “working class”, but what better definition for “centrist” than someone who could feel at home in either party, as long as they don’t get radical?
The problem is that the political center is nowhere near the median point between the Democratic and Republican parties, so referring to those people as “centrists” is nonsensical. Democrats have been pretty center-right for decades, and Republicans are so cartoonishly right-wing that they hold stances poo-pooed by pretty much every other right-wing party in the developed world (ex: climate change is a hoax). There’s a massive expanse of political space to the left of both parties that’s only just now starting to regain its voice in the past few years. You could make the argument that the moderate Democratic establishment is the political center, but certainly not some space between the two parties.
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Cynic? Opportunist? Andrew Quomo?
Fundementally most of these people are on the conservative end, rather than sitting in the center of the political spectrum (particularly as that spectrum shifts). On the GOP end they’re more than comfortable with extremity, cause the GOP is pretty fucking extreme. Those that aren’t, mostly aren’t comfortable in the DNC. They’re retiring, or dropping thier party affiliation. On the DNC side they’re only comfortable so long as the party doesn’t move decidedly left enough to diminish their own influence. Even if that’s just a shift towards center left and a voice for a varied progressive wing. And both are generally fine so long as neither party threatens the status quo on ecconomic policy. I tend to think the big reason we’re getting so much noise out of them is that they’re currently not very comfortable in general.
I’m not even particularly on board with that. Because the DNC has remained a coalition party even as the GOP has become much more ideologically consistent. So even in regards to whatever you might consider the “establishment,” the core body of politicians or party leadership, you aren’t talking about a group of people who mostly sit in the middle ideologically.
Since the 80’s that core has been two separate wings, center right and center left. With a small, not very influential progressive wing, and a handful of true conservatives floating around it. So party leadership has always, and currently, contained a mix of the left. Moderate liberals and some practical progressives, and the center right.
Its more that taken collectively the group, and their voters as a group. Have straddled the middle.
Further back control tilted right. That center right wing was bigger, more influential and was driving wins in elections. But that started going the other way as the electorate and the country’s demographics started to shift. Not only is that reflected in a rising progressive caucus, but in also in that pre-existing center left taking control and growing in size. And in the center right losing influence. With the most conservative members being pretty regionally locked, and a lot of their influence coming from the necessity of keeping them happy to hold seats in those places.
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The rules this time are that superdelegates don’t get to vote in the first round.
The Democratic nominee will be the one who does best in the primaries and caucuses, and the DNC leadership has no power over that.
Do the “DNC will shove Biden down our throats” crowd really think Perez et al are so wily and powerful?
Depends on how far ahead of the debate he’s giving the questions to Joe.
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When Biden’s debate performance start giving the appearance that he had an unfair advantage, then it will be time to wonder if there has been a leak.
That seems generally true in 2016 and earlier. Theoretically there were changes made for how 2020 will go.
Probably as it should be. Even if that’s not to the liking of people who registered as Democrat but contribute nothing else.
Bernie would probably lose too. Too many swing voters have an irrational fear of socialism, even if they enjoy aspects of socialism in their everyday lives today. For my district I’m pretty sure Bernie will get way more votes in the primaries than any other candidate, Biden will be third or fourth after Warren or Harris.
The right-wing talkshows have succeeded over the decades convincing everyone that center-right Democrats are “far left radicals”. If the corporate friendly third-way Clintons are somehow far left, then Bernie must seem like the reincarnation of Lenin to them.
you are giving Joe a lot of credit
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so if you are going to be called a socialist anyway, you might as well be social
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