The 2024 Presidential Primary Election thread

But then, he wouldn't get to wave his dick in people's faces or have folks fawn all over him. As many women can testify (or, at least they would if they hadn't been forced to sign an NDA), he likes waving his dick in people's faces. And Bloomberg is very arrogant and egotistical.

Oh, no. Warren and Sanders went after Bloomberg for more than him just being rich. And Biden was already being hammered at pretty hard for who some of his donors were. Bloomberg handing money over to Biden while there still were other viable candidates in the field would have caused him real problems. You might remember that Obama caught a lot of flack when he reversed his position and started taking money from PACs. I'm not saying that it would have torpedoed Joe's chances, but it would have made the primary race far more rough and tumble than it was.

Here’s the problem. The US has gone so far to the right that Republicans think they can say who should and shouldn’t be the democratic candidate. You and Warren can go back to the Republican Party and bring that party back to the center. But don’t tell me AOC is not the correct candidate for the Democratic Party.

If Biden wins, Harris will be the Democratic nominee in 2024. AOC can run, but she will get her clock cleaned.

I doubt it. That’s just wishful thinking by those the Republican Party left behind. You’ll either have to save your own party or start your own. But AOC is the future of the Democratic Party.

And many people thought that Trump's chances were over when the Access Hollywood tape came out, or he slammed McCain. We all know how wrong that turned out to be.

AOC makes for very good TV. Donald Trump made for very good TV. Remember what Les Moonves said about Trump? "I think he's bad for the country but very good for our ratings!" In 2016, the election went to the candidate who got the most media coverage, Trump. And Trump didn't just get more than Hillary, he got more than Hillary and most of the other Democratic candidates combined. Why? Ratings.

Back in '16, I re-read Eric Hoffer's The True Believer which is on the nature of mass-movements. How they rise and fall, why people join them, and why some of them fail to take off. I might as well have been reading a newspaper about the 2016 campaign. At one point, when he's describing a leader very much like Trump, he described the only kind of person who would be successfully able to challenge that leader. AOC pretty much matches that description perfectly. (The way she fails is likely due to the fact that the book was written in '52, and the idea of a woman being in a leadership position was an alien one.)

Another factor to consider is that she's the first of the Millennials to gain national prominence in American politics. Millennials now (or very shortly will) out-number the Boomers by a wide margin. Things like global warming and a collapsing economic system are pretty goddamned important to them. She speaks their language, and the language of a lot of others as well. Additionally, like Bernie, even people who disagree with her policies believe that she's sincere in what she says she's going to do. Unlike other politicians who seem to say only what they think the public wants to hear, and then proceed to do the exact opposite of what they said. Put her up against some kind of stiff-necked candidate like Tom Cotton, and she'll mop the floor with him.

Hold the phone, AOC appears to be a Voyager fan, this might change things.

(bolding mine)

I wouldn't mind cleaning her clock. Respectfully, of course, and I'd buy her dinner first. Or go dutch, whatever she wants.

Nooooooo....................
Almost 70 million of these bozos voted for Trumpism, we'll be dealing with this shit for at least one more cycle if not more. Likely more.

For some reason I feel this evening needs a little musical accompaniment...

To be honest, that's probably what she is apart from claiming the socialist label - but my guess is that she aspires to be Speaker someday rather than President.

You want a young Warren though?
Katie Porter.

Until and unless Dems challenge them and force them to prove they can't even define the word, it will work. The socialist label is so effective because Dems are so terrified of it instead of neutralizing the term. Which to me is an argument against left wing progressives NOT leaning in and claiming the label but rather, do the work of rendering it ineffective in campaigns (then govern like one if you want to)

Parallel to my previous comment, there's another word that must be confronted.
Radical.
Dems have allowed the GOP to frame even stuff they like and want as "radical" ideas, there needs to be a sustained campaign to label all these free-roaming Republican clowns as Radicals and make it stick.

And Latinos don’t use it. And it’s unpronounceable in the Spanish language and violates Spanish linguistics. Which makes it Spanglish. It’s what crunchy pinko white people have named Latinos to be sensitive and inclusive.

you didn't end up disagreeing with her dramatically but on one point so let me say a thing about that - this is mostly derived from Warren's position but with some extrapolation:

what would work best is a thing the right would CALL open borders but isn't really - Regulated Access Borders.

That is, there's no a limit for limits sake on border crossing, just a highly efficient way to document and regulate free movement crossing.

For example, some people come here (either old school border hopping or overstayed visas) in order to work and send money home, we need and want these workers for a variety of reasons. So integrate them into the above-board work force, document them and why they are here, and let them move back and forth freely as seasonal work demands - without the need to be underground here for fear of what happens if they get caught illegally crossing.

There's no reason at all that we should limit movement in and out of the country (apart from known criminals and smuggling) - the need is for everyone to be documented and kept up with so we know what's going on.

Rep. Gallego said something similar, most Latin folks don't want it. I appreciate the impulse behind it, a minority of folks in the Latin community are not comfortable with the strictly gendered terms (Latino/a) but this attempted solution didn't go over. I often wonder why they don't just say "the Latin voters" if they wanted a gender-neutral term)

Yeah there are ways to write more neutrally without making up new words.

I know some Hispanic people who are actually offended by the term. Not because they're homophobes, but because it's some made-up label being applied to them by outsiders. As one of them tweeted yesterday, "You can't put all of us in one box!"

I don't think Biden will run again but I'm not sure the rest of the party will just accept that they should yield the nomination to her like they did for Hillary in '16. And I'm still not convinced she's an impressive campaigner.

Personally I still want President Warren of course but I fear that she's too much of a fan of Harris to run against her in that situation. But I'd bet that one or two of the centerist types like Steve Bullock will run. a couple of others with more ambition than good sense, and likely one or two who don't trust Harris to be a true blue progressive rather than an opportunist (and toeing Biden's line might reinforce that idea)

Some thoughts on that and an alternative that makes more sense linguistically.

they are exactly as craven and transactional as he is, each gives the other the power that they seek. If they day ever comes when one or both fail to be so valuable to the other they will try to memory hole the whole arrangement.

this is going to be over tonight, y'all - the only question is whether Ga or PA gets over the line first.

For sure. It's unlikely for various internal political reasons, but I hope Newsom appoints her to replace Harris.

I think Georgia is calling it quits for the night. Nevada called it quits at like 4pm.

You can't neutralize it when the people you're trying to reach includes Cubans and Venezuelans. Dems should give up on it completely. "You're saying the socialism I grew up with and had to escape isn't real socialism? "

really, it's not, it's communism and more to the point totalitarianism. But the sort of socialism people like AOC are professing (and, IMO, would market better if they didn't use the word, is the Scandinavian sort that looks nothing like Venezuela.

It's possible to say "No one here wants to ever do anything like Castro's Cuba but let's talk about what's going on in Denmark. Just conceding that because a Republican says "Castro = the one and only thing that has ever been socialism" doesn't make it so.

Biden was wise in trying to stay as far away from that bull as possible. But when you have loud voices in the party pushing for those same ideas, it's hard not to be painted with that brush

Maduro and Chavez are real too.

It's not Biden's problem that the media and people are too stupid to understand the difference between an economic system - socialism and a government system - authoritarianism.

And it isn't helpful when people like you continue with that nonsense. I know the difference has been stated here on this board. So, when you go out into the world and speak with people you know, what do you say? Do you continue the nonsense? or do you try to educate? - Even if you don't agree with the economic system

Nevada called it quits in October. I’m about to drive over there and offer to help.

If AOC were to be the actual nominee, I think that it's hard to imagine that many people who voted for Biden would not vote her. And there are plenty of people who didn't vote for Biden, or at all, who would vote for her. Biden lost some ground with POC voters that she would likely more than make up. I think she could actually make good on the notion that Bernie fans have of electrifying disengaged voters and non-voters.And in four or eight years, demographics will likely shift in her favor further.

The main obstacle is whether her presence on the ballot would drive up Republican voting because of a combination of fear of socialism, racism and sexism to more than compensate for the advantages she might bring to the table.

Assuming the Electoral College is still a thing, I would imagine that AOC would probably be able to get all the Clinton 2016 states, plus at least some of the ones that Biden has gotten this time (in particular, Michigan and Arizona). And she might also win some states that neither of them won (Texas and Florida).