I think it’s too early to draw the conclusions that J. T. Young is reaching at The Hill:
Effectively, there is no establishment candidate but Biden, and his support is not growing. Were there a viable Democrat establishment, it would be logical any supporters he lost would go to another candidate: They are not. Biden’s loss is also the establishment’s loss.
Nor are other Democrats seeking to compete in this space — despite this side of the field being uncrowded. Instead of candidates on the left looking to come here and pick up Biden’s supporters, they are staying on the left — and the establishment’s supporters are coming to them. The undecideds are too.
If two debates have not changed the leftward dynamic of the Democrat contest — but instead, reinforced it — it begs the question: What will?
Despite saying that beating Trump was the top priority, and that Biden was best positioned to capture the moderates needed to do so, Democrats clearly want a nominee from their left.
As candidates on the left drop out, as they surely will, there is no reason to believe that their supporters will go to Biden — much less any of the other establishment nonentities. Biden is the only establishment alternative and he is weakening, not gaining.
Nor are undecideds likely to look in Biden’s direction, because they have not thus far. Their early ennui makes perfect sense. Biden is entirely “known;†he is the most known candidate in the field. Yet, even with a confusing crowd on the left and no other competition in the establishment, Biden is not gaining them. There is a stronger argument that the left’s crowd is the reason for undecideds’ indecision than for a lack of information on Biden.
Democrats may need an establishment candidate to maximize their chances of beating Trump, but they clearly do not want one. One look at 2016 shows how hard they are making things for themselves.
Other than among political junkies and the most committed the 2020 election is drawing relatively little attention and by the time it is the die will already have been cast.
As I have said before I think that black voter turnout will be dispositive for Democrats and, at this point at least, Biden is the only candidate that can produce that for them. Will black turnout alone be enough to secure victory for the Democratic candidate? Stay tuned.
The communist/socialist left is now the Democrat base. The real question is whether they would support Biden in an election.
This is a continuation of the realignment begun in the 1970’s with McGovern, who now seems right wing compared to the Squad. The shift leftwards has been so large that the current Democrat leadership, Pelosi, Schumer, et al., is actually illegitimate. They will be replaced by POC, and soon.
Schumer, Nadler, Schiff, and other Jews have a real problem. No only is their leadership illegitimate, their presence in the Democrat Party is an offense to POC, many of whom are openly anti-Semitic. Black anti-Semitism was always a problem for Democrat Jews, Jess Jackson and other black civil rights leaders being the example. But Muslim and Hispanic Democrats are equally anti-Semitic.
If the Democrats gain control of Congress and the Presidency in 2020, they will radically change this country into one that no white Democrat or any Republican will want.
Well, there’s still a chance that Trump will push the wrong button and nuke Boise.
Warren is the one I am watching.
Gaining significant support over 6 months makes it very interesting. Being the only candidate to do so is even more interesting.
If Warren is the Democratic candidate, Trump will be re-elected. I don’t believe she can get the black voter turnout that will be required.
It’s far too early to predict the general election.
If there is a recession; any of the Democratic candidates would win against Trump.
It is shaping up to be a repeat of 1972, but the scandal was a little early and a hoax. 48 years later, the Democrats have learned nothing, and the Democratic Convention is shaping up to be a repeat of 1968.
These are the Good Times. Leave your cares behind.
I’m not sure they have learned nothing. I think it is more that the media have taken the wrong lesson from the experience. The lesson they took was “taking a president down can make a journalist’s career” and they’ve been hoping for a repeat ever since. I’m worried it will be more a case of “sloppy journalism can bring the whole industry down (and maybe the country with it)”.
As far as 1968 goes it’s interesting that no one has pointed out the parallels between Hubert Humphrey, “the Happy Warrior”, and Joe Biden. I certainly hope the Democratic Convention in 2020 is no replay of 1968. That will depend on the left wing of the party.
I have no idea, and it appears that Democrats don’t either. Maybe we will learn more once the candidate pool is smaller and more people start paying attention.
IMO the Democrats are expecting to lose a significant chunk of the black vote, either to Trump or sitting out. That’s why they’re pushing so hard for the illegal vote whilst screaming that the second coming of the NSDAP is upon us or the End of Days.
Hubert Humphrey was an Einstein compared to Biden. He was also personally and politically honest, almost to a fault. Had he turned on Johnson earlier about the war he probably would been elected (Wallace running third party certainly didn’t help). Today he might have trouble getting on the Libertarian ballot.
For the record I voted for Humphrey.
I personally believe that Trump will get a bigger percentage of both the black and Hispanic vote than is expected by the dems.
Blacks are discouraged about the dems inability to address unemployment issues, illegals taking their jobs, and generally the glaring squalor, deterioration, and crime seen in many of their neighborhoods. Baltimore was only one example, amplified by the rhetoric between Trump and Cummings, and brought out into the light by neighborhood interviews, graphic photos and negative polling indicating an overall dissatisfaction with government.
Hispanics, who became legal citizens, show surprising support for managing the border better and endorsing policies that the current president is trying to put into place — either legislatively or by EO.
As for moderates – even those disgusted by Trump’s comments and twitter rants — his policies seem to make more sense than those being splattered across two debates by gesticulating, wild-eyed dems.
Also, Biden might be viewed as the least radical candidate of the bunch. However, he waffles on his policies, has a lot of corruption in past dealings, especially those involving his son Hunter, and is unimpressive on the stump. IMO, John Delaney is the only dem candidate who demonstrates some reasonableness to his thinking, and he may not even qualify for the next round of debates!
“the illegal vote”
When you believe in stuff that doesn’t exist is that called a delusion or a fantasy? Cant remember.
Steve
Al Franken was elected by 215 votes statewide. That’s .0075% of votes cast. Even a very small number of fraudulent votes can be significant in close elections. I’m on record as supporting a Constitutional amendment requiring a new election when the margin of victory is smaller than the margin of error.
I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if .1% of the vote is fraudulent. Being fraudulent comes in multiple forms, e.g. voting when you’re ineligible to vote and being registered in multiple jurisdictions and voting in more than one of them. I suspect that the amount of vote fraud in that form in south Florida is probably pretty high.
In Illinois in 2012, for example, there were three cases of ineligible voting prosecuted. I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to believe that if three cases were prosecuted, there were a lot more that went undetected.
Steve, you always throw a sideways comment challenging any assertions, studies etc. that voter fraud does exist. While voter fraud is difficult to prove, there have been investigations into state elections that, at the very least, have questioned the veracity of the true numerical count of votes delivered.
Judicial Watch, for example, has done extensive digging into voter registration records where, in around 38 states, there have been multiple counties showing more votes than those registered to vote. In CA there were, I believe, 11 such counties (including Los Angeles) in 2016 having discrepancies between their voter rolls and the numbers actually voting. Recently the possibility of voting errors has expanded even more in CA due to the motor voter registration duplicating 83,000 registrations, in a 3 million sample. That total is probably low as 2 million more votes have yet to be checked. Also, in 2016, ballot harvesting was legalized in CA, which was utilized to move R congressional districts into the hands of Ds when last minute ballots suddenly flowed in, changing the outcome of at least 4 races.
Other voter watchdog organizations, such as True The Vote, have been very skeptical about the accuracy of votes, especially given the places having no formal identification of people casting a vote – voter ID. Then you have the meddling effects of search engine and social media sources, most who self identify as democrat, who a prominent social media expert recently gave congressional testimony saying his studies revealed over 2 million votes were delivered to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, and a greater number – 15 million – could be influenced and directed over to the democrat column in 2020.
IMO, these are big numbers to be shrugging off as sheer nonsense.
Dave- The quote was “illegal vote”. That usually means illegals voting. We know that the GOP has been looking for the for years, and not finding it. The as*hat from Kansas spent his time as AG, ands couldn’t find any. Next, it sometimes means, when used by a conservative, voting that an ID would stop. (Since Dems often oppose voter ID that means they want people to vote illegally in conservative world.) That is almost non-existent. In PA when they tried to pass voter ID laws they didnt even cite it as an issue, since they couldn’t find any to report.
Now, if we are talking about the kind of fraud that actually exists, the kind ignored baby conservatives, sure, that exists. That is absentee ballot fraud or fraud with the machines. You know, grandpa dies but grandma gets the ballot in the mail. She votes the way she knows he would have wanted to vote, after all, they sent the ballot. I am all for addressing that kind of fraud. You dont se anyone proposing any legislation for it.
Voter registration is another issue. Not much worth discussing if you arent read up on it.
Steve