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Democratic 2020 Presidential Primary Thread

snafu

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ComradeKayAdams RFA

ComradeKayAdams

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My post-mortem analysis of the Bernie campaign:

 

1. The entire campaign strategy was too heavily dependent on other major candidates not dropping out before Super Tuesday. You can’t coast on 30-35% pluralities in a largely one-on-one race; you also need a coherent plan to break into 50%+ majorities.

2. At a certain point, it became obvious that the primary was about beating Trump and not about public policy. Bernie didn’t adapt quick enough to this emerging truth. He doubled down by repeatedly calling Joe Biden a nice, likeable, uncorrupt guy who could beat Trump. Great strategy, Bernie…

3. Too many Democrat establishment hires in Bernie’s campaign from prior Obama and Clinton campaign teams. Some would call them incompetent and out of touch. I call them campaign saboteurs.

4. He never properly defined socialism and where he stands in relation to that term and to capitalism.

5. Didn’t support what should have been obvious political allies and completely failed to build a single unified progressive left coalition. The first warning sign for me was the Zephyr Teachout incident. I ignored it at the time, but what an omen! Bernie also didn’t aggressively mend relations with Warren before Super Tuesday. Oops. Tulsi Gabbard would have been an amazing attack dog for VP on a very competitive Dem ticket, but she was more or less spurned.

6. Didn’t try hard enough to extend base of support with Boomers, African Americans, and suburban moms.

7. Didn’t help enough college students and working-class Americans navigate voting hurdles during the primary. Sending Liz Warren a few mean snake emojis online is neat, but you know what’s better? Actually going out into the real world and voting!

8. PC nonsense and ideological purity tests. The death knell of the progressive left. The rest of the country won’t ever begin to take us seriously as a political force until this stops.

 

In retrospect, Bernie Sanders was never that committed to winning. Too much political theater and not nearly enough political results. Too bad the Bernie Bro cult is largely incapable of questioning their dear leader. As a Sanders Sis, it hurts me to see most of them continue to believe that Biden can be pushed left and that the Democrats are a viable home for progressives. Kamala Harris for VP is my prediction, which says it all: 4 more years of neoliberalism. Gross.

 

R.I.P. Bernie 2020.

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Nanker Hall of Famer

Nanker

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Bernie is an attention w ***** e. 
He ran to enrich himself with campaign contributions from weak minded  naive joiners. His media buys were controlled by the company his wife started and they get at least 10% on the top of every media buy they placed for him. His campaign made him more millions than his book deals did. He’s a phony. 

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LeviF Hall of Famer

LeviF

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32 minutes ago, RealKayAdams said:

 

3. Too many Democrat establishment hires in Bernie’s campaign from prior Obama and Clinton campaign teams. Some would call them incompetent and out of touch.

 

 

This pretty well encapsulates the issue with Dems right now: poor campaigning.  These people didn't tank Bernie's campaign out of spite, they tanked it because they're entirely out of touch, fake, and gay.

 

Here's a decent example: McDonald's.  Trump unironically eats and enjoys McDonald's and other foods associated with poors and working class schmoes.  Naturally, his trips to and orders from McDonald's were lampooned by the media because "haha stupid orange man."

 

Now, on advice of his campaign team, Biden is pretending to like foods associated with poors and working class schmoes.

 

Everything Democrats do is reactive and inorganic: fake like the women and gay men that run their campaigns.  

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Koko78 All Pro

Koko78

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, RealKayAdams said:

My post-mortem analysis of the Bernie campaign:

 

1. The entire campaign strategy was too heavily dependent on other major candidates not dropping out before Super Tuesday. You can’t coast on 30-35% pluralities in a largely one-on-one race; you also need a coherent plan to break into 50%+ majorities.

2. At a certain point, it became obvious that the primary was about beating Trump and not about public policy. Bernie didn’t adapt quick enough to this emerging truth. He doubled down by repeatedly calling Joe Biden a nice, likeable, uncorrupt guy who could beat Trump. Great strategy, Bernie…

3. Too many Democrat establishment hires in Bernie’s campaign from prior Obama and Clinton campaign teams. Some would call them incompetent and out of touch. I call them campaign saboteurs.

4. He never properly defined socialism and where he stands in relation to that term and to capitalism.

5. Didn’t support what should have been obvious political allies and completely failed to build a single unified progressive left coalition. The first warning sign for me was the Zephyr Teachout incident. I ignored it at the time, but what an omen! Bernie also didn’t aggressively mend relations with Warren before Super Tuesday. Oops. Tulsi Gabbard would have been an amazing attack dog for VP on a very competitive Dem ticket, but she was more or less spurned.

6. Didn’t try hard enough to extend base of support with Boomers, African Americans, and suburban moms.

7. Didn’t help enough college students and working-class Americans navigate voting hurdles during the primary. Sending Liz Warren a few mean snake emojis online is neat, but you know what’s better? Actually going out into the real world and voting!

8. PC nonsense and ideological purity tests. The death knell of the progressive left. The rest of the country won’t ever begin to take us seriously as a political force until this stops.

 

In retrospect, Bernie Sanders was never that committed to winning. Too much political theater and not nearly enough political results. Too bad the Bernie Bro cult is largely incapable of questioning their dear leader. As a Sanders Sis, it hurts me to see most of them continue to believe that Biden can be pushed left and that the Democrats are a viable home for progressives. Kamala Harris for VP is my prediction, which says it all: 4 more years of neoliberalism. Gross.

 

R.I.P. Bernie 2020.

 

As you touched upon in #7, he seemed to overly-rely on motivating a youth base that did not (and never was going to) turn out to vote. Makes me wonder if that flawed strategy was related to #3.

Bill from NYC Hall of Famer

Bill from NYC

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, RealKayAdams said:

My post-mortem analysis of the Bernie campaign:

 

1. The entire campaign strategy was too heavily dependent on other major candidates not dropping out before Super Tuesday. You can’t coast on 30-35% pluralities in a largely one-on-one race; you also need a coherent plan to break into 50%+ majorities.

2. At a certain point, it became obvious that the primary was about beating Trump and not about public policy. Bernie didn’t adapt quick enough to this emerging truth. He doubled down by repeatedly calling Joe Biden a nice, likeable, uncorrupt guy who could beat Trump. Great strategy, Bernie…

3. Too many Democrat establishment hires in Bernie’s campaign from prior Obama and Clinton campaign teams. Some would call them incompetent and out of touch. I call them campaign saboteurs.

4. He never properly defined socialism and where he stands in relation to that term and to capitalism.

5. Didn’t support what should have been obvious political allies and completely failed to build a single unified progressive left coalition. The first warning sign for me was the Zephyr Teachout incident. I ignored it at the time, but what an omen! Bernie also didn’t aggressively mend relations with Warren before Super Tuesday. Oops. Tulsi Gabbard would have been an amazing attack dog for VP on a very competitive Dem ticket, but she was more or less spurned.

6. Didn’t try hard enough to extend base of support with Boomers, African Americans, and suburban moms.

7. Didn’t help enough college students and working-class Americans navigate voting hurdles during the primary. Sending Liz Warren a few mean snake emojis online is neat, but you know what’s better? Actually going out into the real world and voting!

8. PC nonsense and ideological purity tests. The death knell of the progressive left. The rest of the country won’t ever begin to take us seriously as a political force until this stops.

 

In retrospect, Bernie Sanders was never that committed to winning. Too much political theater and not nearly enough political results. Too bad the Bernie Bro cult is largely incapable of questioning their dear leader. As a Sanders Sis, it hurts me to see most of them continue to believe that Biden can be pushed left and that the Democrats are a viable home for progressives. Kamala Harris for VP is my prediction, which says it all: 4 more years of neoliberalism. Gross.

 

R.I.P. Bernie 2020.

Do you think that pandering to the anti-semites in congress hurt him to any extent. I suspect that this turned off a sizeable amount of Jewish voters.

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IDBillzFan Hall of Famer

IDBillzFan

Posted
Posted
15 hours ago, Deranged Rhino said:

This was already posted in the Trump re-election thread, but belongs here to. 

 

No Chance Joe

 

 

It's going to be brutal.

 

Biden 2020: "I'm not going nuts."

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ComradeKayAdams RFA

ComradeKayAdams

Posted
Posted
On 4/9/2020 at 11:38 AM, Bill from NYC said:

Do you think that pandering to the anti-semites in congress hurt him to any extent. I suspect that this turned off a sizeable amount of Jewish voters.

 

Hi Bill,

 

I’m sure it did to some extent. But I don’t think the correct solution would have been to outright reject Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib and continue to divide the progressive wing into smaller pieces.

 

As the de facto leader of the nation’s progressive left, Bernie should have stepped up to address the situation immediately when it came up, denounce as necessary, reframe the Israel/BDS debate, and clarify an “official” progressive stance on this issue.

 

Bernie didn’t do this because he tends to be way too conflict averse with people he sees as allies. He let the issue linger in the minds of many moderate voters to the point that they came to associate the centrist wing as the pro-Israel group and the progressive wing as the anti-semitic Palestinian apologists group, with little room for nuance.

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SoCal Deek Hall of Famer

SoCal Deek

Posted
Posted
3 minutes ago, RealKayAdams said:

Bernie didn’t do this because he tends to be way too conflict averse with people he sees as allies. He let the issue linger in the minds of many moderate voters to the point that they came to associate the centrist wing as the pro-Israel group and the progressive wing as the anti-semitic Palestinian apologists group, with little room for nuance.

We were discussing this the other night. I have a slightly different take on Bernie. I think he’s in his lane when he’s railing against those who are not in the room, such as the dastardly ‘billionaires’! But put them at the podium next to him, and he shrinks from direct confrontation with Warren, and others. In short....he’s a blow hard coward. The Senate is the perfect spot for Bernie. He can bloviate about his principles for decades on end but never really has to enact any change, compromise with anyone, or getting much of anything done. It doesn’t make him a bad person. It just makes him more of philosopher priest than a legislator or leader. 

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