Ready The Clown Car: The First Batch of Democrats Are Ready To Announce Their 2020 Bids

everything I'm seeing suggests Biden will do well in SC and FL

 

no idea, unless folks are finally realizing Bernie may not be the savior he's been made out to be

 

I don't believe any poll that has Biden leading anything anywhere .... unless its a poll asking who's gonna gaff the most.

 

Yep, Florida would be a huge boost for Biden. The question is, 4 states in, will Biden's base come out? Will they switch to Pete or Bloomy last minute?

If Biden can clear SC, if he can clear FL, if he can split NC/TX close to Bernie, he will become the clear #2 option, it will make for a closer race then (for this last month) expected with Bernie.

Are all of the other candidates willing to back out and endorse uncle Joe?

 

It is what it is. It’s gonna be either Biden or Bloomberg, both are incredibly risky, I just think Biden is the better choice between the two personally.... but there isn’t a choice to be had here

If Biden clears SC, out performs Bloomy in Super Tuesday, then it’s over; every single moderate (Bloomy, Pete, Amy) will need to drop out and endorse Biden immediately. Anything else would be sabotage to the establishment/moderates chance at competing with Bernie.

I understand they can all stay in and force a contested convention, but there will be people in the streets if Bernie wins the plurality of delegates and doesn’t get the nomination. They would be guaranteeing a loss to Trump and loosing at least a 3rd of the party, with who knows what consequences for future elections.

 

While I don't really disagree with the rest of your post .... I have to wonder if the bold is true.

And I'm not so sure people wouldn't unite behind the nominee if its not Bernie. For 4 years all we've heard is anyone but Trump from the supporters of every one of these candidates.

Bernie's going to need more than ~35% to earn that nomination and his sidekick Warren needs to have a 10% chunk too or we're talking about a philosophy that's rejected by well north of a clear majority but split among multiple candidates.

Sanders himself was against that plurality earning the nomination last time around .... now that it would benefit him , it's different.


Now if he's north of 40% .... I don't think they have a choice but to nominate him.

 

I think this would be 100% true if Bernie lost fair and square. Maybe 10-15% wouldn't support Joe regardless, but if Bernie goes into the convention with a lead, (even a small one of like 50 delegates IMO) and doesn't come out the nominee, I think you are looking at a large number of Bernie supporters abandoning the DNC this year, and perhaps for a while.

I think this guy summed out my thoughts on this in a similar fashion.

 

"The Democratic field needs to whittle away Sanders, Bloomberg and Buttigieg":

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...35fd96-59a9-11ea-ab68-101ecfec2532_story.html

The Democratic field needs to whittle away Sanders, Bloomberg and Buttigieg
By
Colbert I. King
Columnist
Feb. 28, 2020 at 2:56 p.m. EST

Watching Tuesday night’s Democratic presidential debate in Charleston, S.C., was tantamount to undergoing a root canal without anesthesia. That excruciatingly painful experience revealed how inflamed the Democratic field has become.

The bedlam onstage — the hand-flapping, ankle-biting, shouting and cross talk — epitomized the wear and decay of a Democratic National Committee-concocted process that was crowded with ill-suited, out-of-place candidates from its inception. How on earth did New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, long since out of the race, come to see a president when he looked in his mirror? Why is billionaire Tom Steyer still around? What are the chances of former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg taking the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2021? True, Buttigieg knows his lines, has a cool delivery, is quick on his feet, shows well on stage and, to his credit, is in a loving and stable marriage. But President Pete? C’mon now.

Just as root canals are necessary to treat and save a natural tooth, Democratic voters, starting with the South Carolina primary and Super Tuesday contests, must perform the necessary procedure of selecting a candidate who can get Democrats back to smiling and chewing with ease — and with enough ballot-box strength to extract President Trump, the truly diseased tooth in America’s body politic, from the White House.

Which gets us to the question: Who, among the remaining candidates, can eliminate the bacteria (and prevent its reinfection) from a political system that, for all its fits and starts, has served the country pretty well?

Who’s on call?

The campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is the deep cavity that is setting fire to party unity. Sanders views the United States as caught up in class warfare that pits billionaires against the proletariat. To hear him tell it, getting rid of the former will enrich the latter, and end the reign of Trump.

Caution: The 63 million who voted for Trump weren’t some mass of millionaires, billionaires and Wall Street scions. Among them were legions of self-styled guardians of America who fear being replaced at the gates by a new shift that is racially and multiculturally diverse. Those Trump voters are still around, and they are dead set against showing him the door.

The Election Day battle is joined with them, not with capitalism. Left untreated, the Sanders quest will move ideology to a place where the Democratic Party’s big-tent home for liberals, moderates and anti-Trump conservatives may not survive.

Former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg, conversely, is in a world unto himself. A gazillionaire and lifelong Democrat who turned Republican in 2001, switched to independent in 2007, only to again register as a Democrat in 2018, Bloomberg has spent millions supporting Democratic congressional candidates, and Republicans, too, including $250,000 for Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) in 2014. He seems to think money can buy anything, including the Democratic Party’s nomination for president. He has already spent more than $500 million in campaign ads — an average of $5.5 million a day since entering the race.

Bloomberg has also rounded up a slew of surrogates (ka-ching), including black mayors who are traveling the country singing his praises and doing their best to defend him from political dangers brought on by his incursions into racial and sexual minefields. Chief among them is the District’s own mayor, Muriel E. Bowser (D), who has frequently left her violence-plagued city to stand at Bloomberg’s side in venues where folks of color are among the crowd.

Critics have said Bloomberg has been buying up support from mayors with donations to their cities, and it’s true his charity did give $4 million to the D.C. schools five years ago. Bowser says she backs him because he’s a proven problem-solver who can defeat Trump. Regardless, Bowser is following in the footsteps of her mentor and former D.C. mayor Adrian Fenty, to whom, as I wrote in a Nov. 7, 2009, column, Bloomberg was a political godfather. Bowser is trying to get people to the polls for Bloomberg because she says so. But that won’t be enough.

Who among the handful of Democratic finalists can carry the party’s standard and handle the White House?

Former vice president Joe Biden, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) are certainly within the zone of acceptability.

Without doubt, any secretary of state or defense, attorney general, director of national intelligence, or secretary of education, homeland security or health and human services in a Biden, Warren or Klobuchar administration would be far superior to the haphazard assortment of suck-ups assembled by Trump.

Biden, Warren and Klobuchar know the way. May the best contender win.

Democrats need a standard-bearer who can lead, not harangue; who can unite, not divide; who is seasoned, not green; and who can restore us to health by administering the root canal treatment that will allow the country to thrive.

That’s not Bernie, Bloomberg or Mayor Pete.
​

 

Biden was always a sleeping giant, of sorts, and underachieved up until this point. SC was always his firewall and it looks like he’s finally going to collect a state-wide win after decades of running.

It’s funny, I remember after NH some posters on here were calling for him to drop out. Some of us were voices of reason and pointed out the obvious: he can survive two weeks. Well, it looks like he more than survived those two weeks. He’s going to win today and has momentum going into Super Tuesday.

Clyburn’s endorsement was likely a huge boost. Tim Kaine also just endorsed him. Not a bad place to be going into ST.