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The Democrat's roster for a Trump - beater in 2020


swordfish

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Buttigieg abruptly ends presidential bid: https://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2020/03/01/democratic-primary-pete-buttigieg-suspend-campaign/4925359002/

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Pete Buttigieg abruptly flew home from campaigning in Selma, Alabama, for a hastily called gathering in South Bend late Sunday to end his presidential campaign.

"Today is a moment of truth," he said. "After a year of going everywhere, meeting everyone, defying every expectation, seeking every vote, the truth is that the path has narrowed to a close for our candidacy if not for our cause."

The lively crowd chanted "Mayor Pete" and "2024," though it's unclear what his future holds. He notably did not endorse any of the remaining candidates.

He gave some clues to his thoughts. In saying Democrats must unite to defeat President Donald Trump, Buttigieg used much of the same language he's used on the campaign trail to argue he's the better choice than Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Buttigieg spoke about the broad and inclusive coalition Democrats will need to win the November election and said he would do everything in his power to ensure Democrats win.

...

Trump tweeted about Buttigieg's withdrawal late Sunday. 

"Pete Buttigieg is OUT. All of his SuperTuesday votes will go to Sleepy Joe Biden. Great timing. This is the REAL beginning of the Dems taking Bernie out of play - NO NOMINATION, AGAIN!"

The news comes as something of a surprise.

Buttigieg delivered a rousing speech Saturday evening in North Carolina, where he indicated he would fight on through Super Tuesday this week. He also was about 70% of the way toward raising $13 million he said he needed to compete that day, when 14 states hold nominating contests. He was raising money up through Sunday evening. 

Buttigieg had been publicly telling supporters he knew Sanders was poised to win the most delegates on Super Tuesday but had hoped to make a comeback over the next two weeks when Midwestern states, such as Michigan, Ohio and Illinois, vote. In the week after Super Tuesday, Buttigieg had planned to visit Idaho, Washington and Mississippi. 

It's clear money was becoming an issue.

Actors Michael J. Fox and Kevin Costner began lending their voices in emails to supporters late last week to help. Former Vice President Joe Biden's big win in South Carolina, fueled by his popularity among African Americans, also re-emphasized Buttigieg's own struggle to reach minority voters. 

Buttigieg thought he had to stay within 350 delegates of Sanders after Super Tuesday for the best chance to compete, according to a letter sent to donors and supporters. 

"Our biggest challenge for Super Tuesday is raising Pete’s profile among voters just tuning into the race," the letter states. "Unlike other candidates, Pete does not have years of national media exposure."

Yep, when I first say the headline money was what came to mind.    Now he start schmoozing for possibly a VP bid?

 

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Almost certain there was some backroom dealing going on........As I said early on in PB's campaign, his main goal is to get a seat at the adults table in the Democrat Party.  Pretty sure he is done with Indiana now.....

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19 minutes ago, swordfish said:

Almost certain there was some backroom dealing going on........As I said early on in PB's campaign, his main goal is to get a seat at the adults table in the Democrat Party.  Pretty sure he is done with Indiana now.....

Todd Young's senate seat is up for grabs in 2022. According to Klobuchar that's where he needs to be if he's going to play with the big kids. 

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35 minutes ago, Impartial_Observer said:

Todd Young's senate seat is up for grabs in 2022. According to Klobuchar that's where he needs to be if he's going to play with the big kids. 

Was thinking this as well.  Imagine a leap to governor from that.  Would mirror Pence ... in a stroke of irony.

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2 minutes ago, TrojanDad said:

Totally agree with IO and Fox....could easily see Pete put his sights on US Senator or Governor.

Ehhh, governor is four years down the road, he needs to strike while the iron's hot. 

I don't see him getting a cabinet position with Bernie, I think he has to hitch his wagon to Biden. 

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6 minutes ago, Impartial_Observer said:

Ehhh, governor is four years down the road, he needs to strike while the iron's hot. 

I don't see him getting a cabinet position with Bernie, I think he has to hitch his wagon to Biden. 

Agree that Sanders would not likely pick or likely even consider Buttigieg.  When Buttigieg finished second in New Hampshire, his top five categories of voters were, in order or strength:

  • Higher income folks ... over $100,000 income
  • Those that opposed Medicare For All
  • Voters whose top-identified issue was climate change
  • Late deciders
  • Trump haters

With the income item and the Medicare for All juxtapositions, it would seem unlikely that Buttigieg  would even get a passing glance from Sanders.  By contrast, here were the categorizations for Biden voters in New Hampshire:

  • Voters whose top-identified issue was foreign policy
  • Religious voters
  • Those that opposed Medicare For All
  • Somewhat religious voters
  • Seniors

The religious/somewhat religious voters question might be the bigger sticking point, but it depends on the granularity of that component.  If you are talking fire-and-brimstone type religious voters, then Buttigieg could be more of a potential liability despite the other items.  On the other hand, if you are talking more along the lines of Beatitudes religious voters, then the opposing Medicare For All, the mix of foreign policy and climate change, some Trump haters and late deciders, mixed in with Biden's "common man" appeal could prove an interesting combination ... especially given Buttigieg's age.  Buttigieg would fit with the Democratic Party's idea of inclusion, but given how close Clinton was to breaking the glass ceiling last time around, a female candidate like Klobuchar or even a bigger stretch/gamble/reward of Harris or Abrams may still be lingering it the Party's minds.  Of interest, this is what Klobuchar's top voter categorizations were in Iowa:\

  • Seniors
  • Religious voters
  • Those that opposed Medicare For All
  • Republicans
  • Moderates

She's about two decades older than Buttigeig, but she'll look young standing next to Biden on a stage.  Add in a pair of Midwesterners on that ticket, along with the other category items and the question comes in, do you gain back a chunk of the Blue Wall?  If so, what paths does that leave for Trump to 270.  Michigan was won by Trump by .23% with Pennsylvania won by .72%.  Wisconsin comes in 3rd at .77%.  Florida was 4th at 1.2%.  Wisconsin has taken strides in the past 3 years or so to purge rolls and make it harder to dislodge, so it may well stay red this time around, but Pennsylvania and Michigan may well be impacted by a dual Midwesterner ticket.  By contrast, Clinton won New Hampshire by .37% and the next closest was Minnesota by 1.52%.  Klobuchar and Biden finished 3rd/5th respectively in New Hampshire, so you could make an argument that with a Republican governor and a pair of Democratic Senators and Democratic representatives, that it's definitely on the cusp of being in play.  The net would be 32 votes if NH flipped red and PA and MI flipped back blue.  That gives Trump 272 and puts Florida as the end-all-be-all decider ... with Arizona hanging back on the rail.  If New Hampshire doesn't flip, then Florida doesn't matter.  An argument could be made that Buttigieg is a Midwesterner too, coming from Indiana, but given that a year ago, no one outside of Indiana really knew who he was, I doubt he would get a Midwesterner moniker if picked as a VP candidate.

Given Buttigieg's age, I think the more secure path for him is to go after Young's seat in 2022, possibly a governorship in 2024.  He'd be around 44 when he got done with a term of each ... right about where Kennedy was when he was elected.  He could also parlay it into a Senator slot, which holds much better options while seeking the presidency ... especially if you don't win.

 

 

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27 minutes ago, foxbat said:

....

Given Buttigieg's age, I think the more secure path for him is to go after Young's seat in 2022, possibly a governorship in 2024.  He'd be around 44 when he got done with a term of each ... right about where Kennedy was when he was elected.  He could also parlay it into a Senator slot, which holds much better options while seeking the presidency ... especially if you don't win.

 

 

Actually I meant a representative slot, not young's slot for the six year piece ... rep then gov.  Or he could go rep then Senator.  Senator would be a nicer gig if he could get it ... especially stepping toward the presidency and also providing a safety net if he didn't get the presidency.

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26 minutes ago, Impartial_Observer said:

Klobuchar is now out. Given the mass exodus of the last 48 hours, I suspect the DNC is at play. While Pete and Klobuchar may have run out of money, Steyer didn't. 

I wonder if Steyer's possibly eyeing a California position.  If he is, seeing what he saw in South Carolina, he would avoid results on paper with a California twinge by dropping out now ... even though he may still be on the ballot.

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Remember the topic of Trump's age versus Hillary last election?

Do you realize that DJT is the youngest male candidate running in the Presidential race this election?  Warren is 70, but Democrats managed to have not one, but three male presidential candidates older than Trump: Michael Bloomberg (78), Joe Biden (77), and Bernie Sanders (78).

Buttigieg was the youngest candidate in the running so his drop from the race then made Trump the youngest male candidate at 73. 

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4 minutes ago, Impartial_Observer said:

So Bloomberg is out, AND endorsing Biden, hmmmmm

 

Hoping for a VP bid, you think?   And was that just about the quickest waste of $500,000,000 in human history?

 

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Joe Biden Is No Moderate: https://reason.com/2020/03/04/joe-biden-is-no-moderate/

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Super Tuesday, which vaulted former Vice President Joe Biden ahead of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.), looks like a victory for the Democratic Party's moderate forces. 

In the days leading up to the vote, the party's less progressive voters and candidates consolidated around Biden. Both Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D–Minn.) and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who had cast themselves as moderate alternatives to Sanders, ended their campaigns and endorsed Biden. Biden surged in national polling, and Democratic voters largely ignored former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who spent hundreds of millions of his personal dollars attempting to portray himself as the candidate of moderate consensus. (So much for buying the presidency.)  

In the end, however, Biden claimed that mantle. With Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) flailing and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D–Hawaii) barely registering, the Democratic primary is now a de facto two-man race, with Sanders the favorite of the socialist-friendly left and Biden representing the party's moderate, centrist voters. Even President Donald Trump, who has loudly criticized Democrats for appearing to embrace Sanders-style socialism, seems to essentially accept this frame. 

But there is a problem with this view: Biden is a moderate compared to Sanders, but he is notably to the left of previous Democratic standard-bearers. To describe Biden as a moderate without this context is to ignore the specifics of his agenda and the leftward shift in Democratic Party politics it represents. 

Consider Biden's health care plan. Although he has criticized Medicare for All, the fully government-run system favored by Sanders, Biden has proposed a significant expansion of the Affordable Care Act that his campaign estimates would cost $750 billion over a decade, nearly as much as the original bill signed by President Barack Obama. Although it would not nationalize the financing of health insurance, as the Sanders plan would, Biden's proposal would nevertheless set up a new, government-run insurance plan, expand eligibility for insurance subsidies well into the middle class, and make benefits available to people who can access coverage through their employer. If enacted, it would represent a major increase in government spending on health care and a substantial increase in the government's involvement in the health care system. 

Beyond health care, Biden has proposed a $1.7 trillion climate plan that is similar in scope to many candidates on his left and a $750 billion education plan that would be used, among other things, to increase teacher salaries and provide expanded access to pre-kindergarten. He favors an assault weapons ban and other gun control measures, a national $15 minimum wage, and a raft of subsidies, loans, and other government-granted nudges designed to promote rural economies. Has proposed $3.4 trillion worth of tax hikes—more than double what former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proposed when she ran in 2016. 

To some extent, this just makes Joe Biden a Democrat in 2020, a successor to President Obama whose approach to policy could be summed up as, "Obama, but more." 

That alone puts him to the left of previous presidential nominees. As a recent article in Vox put it, over the course of his campaign, Biden has "outlined a suite of policies that, taken on their own terms, would be the most ambitious governing agenda of any modern Democrat." If he won, he would "be the most progressive Democratic nominee in history."

Biden, in other words, would be the leftmost presidential nominee in memory even while representing the party's center. And that tells us something important—not just about Biden, but about the Democratic party. 

Biden, arguably more than any other contemporary American politician, has long embodied the Democratic establishment consensus, from its tough-on-crime days in the 1990s to its wrong-about-Iraq days in the early 2000s to its technocratic economic policy gambles under Obama, when Biden played pivotal roles in the stimulus, the auto bailout, and high-stakes congressional budget deals. Biden is an avatar of the party's self-conception, the closest thing capitol-D Democrats have to a mascot. 

Biden's leftward drift is thus the party's leftward shift. He isn't a Sanders-style socialist, but he is, as I wrote last year, a big-government liberal, a candidate whose current incarnation was shaped and informed by progressive politics, if not wholly captured by them. That he looks moderate relative to Sanders is just another sign of how the party center has moved. If, as now seems plausible, he bests Sanders in the primary, the party's current moderates will have won—but true moderation will have lost.  

 

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Warren ends 2020 presidential bid, not endorsing anyone yet: https://apnews.com/7b475643fb3faf2ab543b68da8743308

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Elizabeth Warren, who electrified progressives with her “plan for everything” and strong message of economic populism, dropped out of the Democratic presidential race on Thursday, days after the onetime front-runner failed to win a single Super Tuesday state, not even her own.

For much of the past year, her campaign had all the markers of success, robust poll numbers, impressive fundraising and a sprawling political infrastructure that featured staffers on the ground across the country. But once voting began in February, she never found a reliable base of supporters as Democrats coalesced around Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, her progressive rival, and former Vice President Joe Biden, who established himself as the leading centrist in the race.

“I refuse to let disappointment blind me — or you — to what we’ve accomplished,” Warren told her campaign staff on a call Thursday. “We didn’t reach our goal, but what we have done together — what you have done — has made a lasting difference. It’s not the scale of the difference we wanted to make, but it matters.”

Outside her Cambridge, Massachusetts, home Thursday, Warren said she wasn’t going to endorse anyone right away.

“I need some space and I need a little time right now,” she said, standing next to her husband, Bruce Mann, and golden retriever, Bailey.

....

And then there were two.

 

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