Election 2020

[bart]

Well at least now the OAS can stand down!

[Mickey]

Cool man, have fun!

[Biff Pocoroba]

Bernie had no chance in a general election.
That said Biden is a mess too. And he's going to be 78 on election day.
Ugh, the Dems going to blow this.

[Mickey]

[Rob]

Bernie had no chance in a general election.
That said Biden is a mess too. And he's going to be 78 on election day.
Ugh, the Dems going to blow this.

The incumbent in this election is someone who "had no chance" according to basically every smart person out there. That makes two presidents in a row that weren't considered electable (in a national election) a couple years prior to their victory. To me the biggest lesson of 2016 is that no one knows ahead of time who is or isn't electable, and each candidate's chances are dependent on the greater context, which changes. There were plenty of candidates this year who were electable on paper but had little support.

[Mickey]

Bernie had no chance in a general election.
That said Biden is a mess too. And he's going to be 78 on election day.
Ugh, the Dems going to blow this.

The incumbent in this election is someone who "had no chance" according to basically every smart person out there. That makes two presidents in a row that weren't considered electable (in a national election) a couple years prior to their victory. To me the biggest lesson of 2016 is that no one knows ahead of time who is or isn't electable, and each candidate's chances are dependent on the greater context, which changes. There were plenty of candidates this year who were electable on paper but had little support.

In general I agree that most conventional political wisdom has been revealed as bogus, but I don't think this is the wild west. Trump embodied a shift away from the kind of Obama-era ideal of a sober, technocratic leader and towards a politics marked by, in varying combinations, anger and nostalgia (he didn't create this shift, but he's the best example). So some of the Dem nominees failing to gain support this year were surprising (Kamala especially, who I thought would do a better job of navigating left-wing anger), but others (Castro, Booker) fall squarely in the model of a Jeb Bush figure ("I have the best tax plan!" and will more or less not be seen again absent a shift in the reigning political affects or their personal political styles. Which is to say that I'm surprised that Biden was able to hold on as the centrist-nostalgia candidate but I'm not surprised that he and Bernie were the final two.

In any case, there's polling data to suggest that Bernie would have beat Trump, so. There's also some polling data to suggest Biden will beat Trump. My hunch, however, is that this affective dimension is going to swing heavily to Trump against Biden, whereas Bernie wouldn't be as succeptible. Say what you will about Trump, his nicknames are intuitively good, and "Sleepy Joe" gets it exactly right.

[BurtReynolds]

I wonder how many votes these people think they win when they say dumb shit like this:

[Hatfield]

Who should Biden pick as VP?

[verb_to_trust]

Who should Biden pick as VP?

Fauci

[tragabigzanda]

FUCK ICE

[Mickey]

Honestly don't think it matters. Will probably be Harris.

[Bi_3]

Who should Biden pick as VP?

Harris

[Rob]

I think he should pick a Hispanic woman. He’s already clearly popular among black voters. The governor of Michigan also makes sense on paper.

[doug rr]

yeah, i always thought it would be harris or whitmer but now i think trey anastatio

[wease]

Who should Biden pick as VP?

Stacey Abrams

[BurtReynolds]

Nikki haley

[96583UP]

definitely Mickey

[verb_to_trust]

Nikki haley

Nimrata*

[96583UP]

Nikki haley

Nimrata*

how do you feel about her ass?

[verb_to_trust]

Nikki haley

Nimrata*

how do you feel about her ass?

I'm not the least bit attracted to her