no matter how many threads suggest it

Let's not make stuff up about sources.

....only 20% of those teens can vote.

I'll be sure to keep my eye out for the next insightful, pithy interview in this magazine:

Because you are conflating the political awareness and savvy of the magazine's readers for that of its writers.

In 2008, it was Secretary Clinton's turn.
But it was President Obama's time.

I even remember accepting that begrudgingly at the time, as I supported Secretary Clinton in the primaries.
But lo and behold, Barack Obama turned out to be far and away the best president under whom I have lived.

We went (once again) with the candidate whose time it was (once again) in 2016, and there is no denying that losing the support of the wing of the party that had the most enthusiasm for the vision of the candidate rather than the most universally perceived electability cost us dearly.

So dearly, in fact, that it will continue to cost our children and our grandchildren, no matter whom we elect in 2020.

I still love Secretary Clinton and Vice President Biden, and would happily support either in 2020. But the boomer-sized demographic in this election are the younger generations, and we ignore that at our profound peril. At the end of the day, it comes down to this:

A centrist course may be what's easy and feels safe.
But a HARD turn to the left is what's right, because the times in which we live demand it.

So maybe there's something to be said for a candidate whose time it is.

It was dreck. All opinion with no facts or real analysis. The article was aimed at an audience who does not follow politics and was sobad that it was funny.

I have met Biden at a small fundraiser and Warren (she sat three rows in front of me at the national convention). I saw far too much of sanders at the national convention. I have also attended a state party fundraiser where we made Booker an honirary Texan

I am active in Texas politics. I am working on two state house races and three congressional races. I am on a dialing for dollars lists and have spoke to one sitting congressman and one candidate who is on the DCCC list. Candidates in Texas want Joe to be the nominee. If sanders or Warren is the nominee, we will lose these races.

Thee article was so bad that it actually made me laugh

First of all, take note that my longtime stated candidate preference is for VP Biden.
I've great respect for him, and have not changed my mind.
But I am keeping it open, and being mindful that nominating a more progressive candidate might have advantages.

Also note that I supported then Secretary Clinton in the 2008 primaries.
I am not hostile toward centrist candidates.
I just acknowledge that the times call for a sharper leftward shift than they tend to support in the interest of electability.

Now, let's dissect the article a bit.

The first paragraph conveys two main points: that nominating on the basis of electability gave us John Kerry while ignoring it gave us Barack Obama, and that long divisive primaries are a threat to the electability of any nominee.

The article then goes on to provide 15 paragraphs of analysis, with many links to relevant facts.

What you appear to actually mean is that the article conveys an opinion with which you disagree, presumably on account of which you seem to have actually denied the existence of 15 paragraphs of analysis supported by cited facts, because they do not support your opinion.

Set aside your ego for a moment, and ask yourself why you feel the need to insult the author and tout your political bona fides.

You're active in Texas politics? Cool.
You've met VP Biden and Senator Warren? Cool.
You've attended a party fundraiser? Cool.

The author was Deputy Chief of Staff to Harry Reid.

It's at least plausible that he knows of what he speaks.

And it's fine, and I would even argue healthy, for you to disagree with his assessment of the current political climate. But it would seem wise to not outright deny the presence of analysis and facts because you disagree with the conclusions drawn from them.

There's enough of that on the right.

And one last point, you know what an opinion with no facts or analysis looks like?
It looks like this:

If sanders or Warren is the nominee, we will lose these races.

I live in the real world and have worked with local and state Democratic party on voter protection and other efforts. If you ever wants to have fun, go onto the rules committee of the state party and spend 8+ hours with a bunch of lawyers arguing about party rules at a state convention. It takes years of hard work to earn a slot to the National Convention.

Right now, I and a good number of real democrats are working in the real world to turn Texas blue. After the 2010 election, the GOP had 101 seats in the Texas house and the Democrats had only 49. In 2018, we flipped 12 seats and now only need 9 more seats to take control of the Texas house. I am working on the campaign to flip two state house seats. In 2018, we flipped two congressional districts (Lizzie Fletcher and Colin Allred). The DCCC is targeting 6 congressional districts and I just donated to Colin and two of the targeted seats. It is a long shot, but the DSCC thinks that MJ Hegar can beat Cornyn and I just donated to MJ.

I can assure you that if Warren or sanders is the nominee, Texas will not be a battleground state and we will not flip the seats that I am working on. Neither sanders nor Warren are competitive in Texas and these candidates would kill down ballot races. Taking away insurance from 160 million voters will be an issue that trump can use.

trump is scared of Biden for good reason. The fact that trump would risk being impeached to get dirt on Biden is very telling.

I like living and working on political issues in the real world which is why I found the article cited in the OP to be so funny. I will continue to work to turn Texas blue and I strongly believe that nominating Warren or sanders would ensure a trump victory and will cost Lizzie and Colin their seats.

I applaud and thank you for your dedication to turning Texas blue, and I can concede that nominating Warren or Sanders might not be good for the electoral prospects of down-ballot Democrats in Texas. But then again, selecting a nominee who's advocating a harder shift leftward could conceivably energize a large enough body of eligible voters who don't reliably participate in the electoral process to render conventional wisdom moot. We saw that in 2008 with President Obama.

That said, however, we are also still perhaps not affording adequate consideration to the reasonable assumption that there will be significant smear campaigns run against whomever we nominate, and that a staggering percentage of Republican voters will buy into them no matter how patently absurd they are. Furthermore, I don't think any among us here believe that Trump would be any more hesitant to risk impeachment to get dirt on any of the other candidates. He is not a man of deep thought. He didn't focus in on Biden because nobody else poses a risk. He focused in on him because Putin and RW media told him to, and he has the analytical prowess of a carrot, to match his complexion.

And that being the case, how prudent is it, really, to discount the value of the enthusiasm and energy a Warren or a Sanders raises among the younger generations who don't reliably vote in large enough numbers, and disregard the risk of not merely not putting the policy goals of the younger generations at the top of our consideration, but actually disparaging them?

It may well be that neither Warren nor Sanders is the best choice as our standard-bearer, but at the same time, I do think it is in our collective best interest to give long and serious thought to why the more hard-left courses advocated by Warren and Sanders elicit such enthusiasm and energy among the younger generations, and harness what they bring to the table, rather than dismiss them reflexively. Do our perceptions about the positions they advocate remain valid in the current times?

It's worthwhile to consider, for example, that in order to reach and maintain the "center" so many support, we may well need to plot a course much harder left than our perception of ourselves as "centrist" makes come naturally, because the scale has been dragged so far to the right, and an entire generation has been left feeling unrepresented because we've spent the last three decades being so cautiously centrist, and the net result has been a dramatic rightward swing.

I am sorry but the article is pure dreck. I was an early supporter of President Obama in 2008 as was my older two children and a couple of good friends. Electability has always been a key issue to me and even before Iowa it was clear to me that Obama was electable. I had already volunteered to work on the Obama team prior to Iowa and was pleased to see Obama win. I was active in the Obama voter protection team and ran my precinct caucus (Texas had the Texas two step for that cycle) and was the parliamentarian for my county party convention. The Texas Two Step was a system where 2/3rds of the delegates where allocated based on the primary and one-third of the delegates were allocated based on caucuses that took place the night of the primary. It was clear to me early on that electability was not issue with respect to President Obama. Hillary Clinton was also very electable and I was a delegate for her at the 2016 national convention.

In 2008, Hillary won the primary portion of the Texas two step but President Obama won the caucus portion of the race and ended up with more delegates. It was going to be a fight at the Texas state party convention but Clinton concede two days before the Texas state convention and actually helped a great deal to make that a pleasant convention (especially compared to the 2016 Texas state convention which took place long before sanders sort of endorsed Clinton) Caucuses are not fair and if you understand game theory and basic math, there are games that the Obama team used to win the caucuses (I was very impressed with the Obama team who trained us for the caucus portion of the race).

I am glad that Texas was forced to eliminate the Texas two step

As for sanders and Warren, I disagree with the article cited as to their electability or viability. I saw how sanders operates at the National Convention and he is not electable. sanders and his supporters horrible conduct at the national convention would prevent sanders from getting a significant portion of the African American base that a Democratic candidate needs to be elected. I have seen a great deal of the oppo research on sanders and trump would win 45+ states easily if sanders is the nominee. My kids like Warren (several of my middle child's classmates have maxed out for Warren) and I even donated to Warren early on to make my middle child happy (his was before Biden entered the race). I really doubt that Warren will appeal to the moderate base of the party.

I simply reject the premise of the article cited in the OP and thought that it was poorly written. I actually worked in the 2008 campaign and found the analysis in that article to be bad. BTW, I was in Florida as part of the Kerry Edwards voter protection team (11,000 attorneys were part of this team nationwide and we had 3000+ attorneys just in Florida). Bush won in 2004 due to some serious voter suppression in Ohio (I know an attorney who was in Ohio and she has some stories). Kerry was the best candidate that year to go against Bush. I am part of the Lawyers for Biden team (I had been part of the Kerry/Edwards voter protection team, the Obama/Biden team and the Clinton Victory Counsel team).

I like living in the real world and actually like devoting time on political campaigns. It is my view that the article cited in the OP is so far off that I was amused by it. I have met Joe Biden and the Biden we saw last night at the debate was the Biden that I met. I really believe that we need to nominate the most electable candidate and I reject the analysis in the article cited as to sanders and Warren being electable.

I am glad that you admit that sanders and Warren would not be competitive in Texas and would kill down ballot candidates. Texas is on the verge of being a battleground state and I will be supporting the only candidate who could help down ballot candidates in Texas win

A new poll examining people's beliefs about electability itself, btw, has Biden at 44% and everyone else half that or less. Poor Sanders, bless his heart. Badmouth electability all you want, he'd kill for that and his zealous followers would be trumpeting it.

And that's just a little cherry on top of the reality that one candidate has been far ahead of all the others every day since weeks before he announced.

So, major insight into reality: There is NO way "quickly" nominating someone who was always far behind could be legitimate, elbowing aside all other candidates and especially the electorate to somehow achieve it.

Electorate? Who, what..., oh, yes! The People, who are supposed to choose and from whom a majority's wishes must prevail for government of, by and for the people to be that.

So steady ahead. Only 45 days now until we all start the process of honest, principled, democratic voting to find out who the people who choose to be counted want for our nominee. We're America's democracy people. Right now, we're the only ones.

Unfortunately, the Democratic voters don't.....

The majority of the electorate is in the middle, contrary to what some claim. Even half of Democrats identify as moderate or conservative.

Polarizing candidates are, by definition, not "unity" candidates. Sanders, in particular, has been a polarizing figure about as long as he's been in politics. Framing him as some kind of master unifier is pretty amusing.

"turn their attention to beating Donald Trump"

Some of the candidates have had their attention on Trump the entire campaign. Others have spent a lot of time taking shots at the Democratic Party and others running in the primary. If the author is concerned about focusing on Donald Trump, perhaps he should be supporting the former.

Other than perhaps Tulsi Gabbard, whose campaign appears to be a publicity stunt, no one attacks the party and other Democrats more than he does.

By the way, CNS News is an extreme right-wing nutjob website. If you think it's a valid source, you need to do some research.

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/cns-news/

your point wrong and you have no rebuttal to that, it wasn't just CNS, you ignored the other links, and as I stated there are countless other examples as well, you can google your own comfort zone if you wish for the history of Bernie's relentless attacks Trump.

Bernie has never personally attacked any Democratic opponent in any way, shape or form remotely close to how he has continuously trashed Trump's character, he criticizes our cruel and dysfunctional systems or policies, that's what he is about.

"never personally attacked any Democratic opponent... remotely close to how he has continuously trashed Trump's character."




You certainly leave yourself enough wiggle room to drive a truck through.



We call that 'a rationalization.'

Democratic candidate?

I could post a whole bunch of links as well...

To name a couple...Hillary Clinton and President Obama

Voter are fairly clear about what they would like from a Democrat. They prefer, by 82% to 11%, one who promises to find common ground over one who promises to fight for a progressive agenda; and they prefer a moderate over a liberal, 75% to 19%.


They support Biden over the president, 38% to 27%, but prefer the president to Warren, 37% to 20%. Sanders is in between, with the president leading him, 34% to 32%. This group voted for Trump by a smaller margin in 2016, 37% to 30%, with the rest casting ballots for minor candidates.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287336368#post2
The link within the DU does not work, but it is searchable

Polls taken around this time have been shown to have little relevance to the eventual outcome. Hello President Gary Hart. Hello President Howard dean.

In favor of their biases. Impressive.

The swing voters deciding elections narrative is mostly a myth perpetrated by the media to get us to vote for candidates who won't change the status quo ….. If our base doesn't overwhelm their base , we will lose …...Remember 2000, 2004 and 2016 ? …..

I guess so if you ignore facts and data. Maybe climate change is a myth too?

He even undermines his own argument in the same paragraph where he makes the silly assertion that long primaries are always bad.

"Even in 2008, John McCain had a months-long head start, winning the nomination in March and taking the lead over Obama in polls, while it took Obama until June to beat Hillary Clinton."

The winner of the longer, more difficult, more contentious primary won the election.

As for biases, the article is completely loaded with them to the point of ridiculousness. Arguing that Bernie Sanders is the ultimate unity candidate is laughable.

Warren are losing the primary...we don't need a consensus candidate and neither would suffice if we did.

Sanders is a guarantee to lose, though.

He will be slaughtered in the general. Only the terminally naive don't understand why.

including Warren.

I can't recall any poll that supports your assertion.

realclearpolitics.com is a site that links to all the polls, check them out. Sanders is very consistently in the top two in the head-to-head polls against Trump. e.g.

Nationally:

Biden and Sanders beat Trump 52-48, Warren beats Trump 51-49, Buttigieg ties Trump 50-50
https://emersonpolling.reportablenews.com/pr/december-national-poll-biden-and-sanders-pull-away-from-the-pack-as-warren-falls

Sanders beats Trump 49-43, Biden beats Trump 48-41, Warren beats Trump 46-45, Bloomberg beats Trump 45-40, Buttigieg beats Trump 43-42
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fox-news-poll-results-december-8-11-2019

Biden beats Trump 52-42, Sanders beats Trump 51-43, Warren beats Trump 50-43, Bloomberg beats Trump 48-42, Buttigieg beats Trump 48-43, Klobuchar beats Trump 47-43
https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=3651

Biden beats Trump 52% to 39%, Sanders beats Trump 52% to 40%, Warren beats Trump 49% to 42%, Buttigieg beats Trump 48% to 41%, Bloomberg beats Trump 46% to 40%.
http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=5128ee79-1b59-4146-bf80-54906bb24d4b

Biden beats Trump 53-43, Sanders beats Trump 52-43, Warren beats Trump 52-44, Buttigieg beats Trump 50-44
https://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2019/images/10/22/rel12b.-.2020.pdf

Key states...

Michigan:
Sanders beats Trump 45-43, Trump beats Biden 45-44, Trump beats Warren 46-39
https://github.com/ndcohn/battleground-poll-2019/blob/master/MI110419%20Crosstabs.pdf

Sanders beats Trump 57-44, Biden beats Trump 56-44, Warren beats Trump 54-46
https://emersonpolling.reportablenews.com/pr/michigan-2020-democrats-aim-to-take-back-the-state

Wisconsin:
Biden beats Trump 47-43, Sanders beats Trump 47-45, Trump and Warren tie at 46
https://github.com/ndcohn/battleground-poll-2019/blob/master/WI110419%20Crosstabs.pdf

Pennsylvania:
Biden beats Trump 52-43, Sanders and Warren both beat Trump 50-45
https://www.muhlenberg.edu/media/contentassets/pdf/academics/polisci/PA_Pres_Nov_2019__Report_%20(1).pdf
Biden beats Trump 47-44, Sanders beats Trump 45-44, Trump beats Warren 45-44
https://github.com/ndcohn/battleground-poll-2019/blob/master/PA110419%20Crosstabs.pdf

However, after examining the margin of victory in each poll it's apparent that Biden is the stronger of the two candidates.

Emerson: Biden +4, Sanders +4
Fox: Biden +7, Sanders +6
Quinnipiac: Biden +10, Sanders +8
SurveyUSA: Biden +13, Sanders +12
CDN: Biden +10, Sanders +9

So Biden has a larger margin of victory in four of the five national polls and tied in the fifth.

Michigan: Sanders +2, Biden -1 Who the hell is github anyways?
Sanders +13, Biden +12 by Emerson

Wisconsin: Biden +4, Sanders +2

Pennsylvania: Biden +9 Sanders +5
Biden +3 Sanders +1

You also failed to mention how Biden and Sanders do in Texas which is a likely battleground state. These are the CNN poll results from earlier this month:

Trump over Biden by +1 (near tie)
Trump over Sanders by +7 (humiliating defeat)

albeit except for Texas where he's third in that poll, at a point behind Warren. I never said Sanders was strongest, I said he was second to Biden. If you think Sanders is a guaranteed loss, then based on polls, EVERYONE is a guaranteed loss (except Biden), because all the others do worse than Sanders!

Github is (among other things) a file distribution depository. They have nothing to do with any of the poll data, but they provide a host service for those companies to post their files for public access.

In my humble opinion.

The professor who correctly predicted the magnitude of the Blue Wave, to the exact seats, Rachel Bitcofer, has said the key to winning in 2020 is to maximize the turnout through anti-Trump sentiment, not trying to flip Trump voters.

One way to maximize turnout is to nominate a candidate who inspires young voters. Because young voters typically vote in numbers well below their share of the electorate, but dependably vote for Democratic/progressive candidates, they hold the most untapped power of any group. Anyone who can inspire a significant turnout of young voters (Sanders and Warren, maybe Pete), especially in the Rust Belt, will win.

I'm sorry but I just think that Trump would eat him alive in the general election campaign. But either Bernie or Elizabeth would dish it out in equal quantities and stand up to that little Hitler. That's what we need.

Link to tweet

true...Biden is well known and has been vetted many times...Sanders has not and doesn't handle criticism particularly well...Biden will be the nominee and go after Trump and win.

Why would you think it would work in the general election?

There's proof of the assertion that Biden can stand up to Trump: he's been doing so for months already as Trump's primary target. There's no proof of your assertion that Sanders or Warren would fare better.

There is no real reason not to let the process unwind. There can be a nominee for a month or a year and it's all the same to most people, IMHO. Remember 538 and their hourly percentages of how Hillary was going to do? Every time Comey interfered, everyone would forget everything else about her and fixate on emails again, then it would wear off, then Comey would be back, and so on and so on.

For those who post stats saying most identify as moderate or conservative, I say, where are the polls on policies- when you ask folks about what policies they prefer, most choose the progressive policies over the mushy middle (with the centrists' scaremongering and obfuscation on healthcare the possible exception).

Just because people don't want to be labeled "progressive" doesn't mean they don't hold progressive values. That's even true of many Republicans, who support marriage equality, legalizing marijuana, etc.

The options are liberal, moderate, conservative.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/26/facts-about-democrats/

The point is that more than half of Democrats identify as moderates or conservatives. They're not doing so to avoid being labeled progressives. They're doing so because they consider themselves moderates or conservatives.

The assertion that they just don't know what they're talking about and that they're all really progressives in the real world - a common refrain around here - is silly and misguided.

progressive policies as described by Warren and Sanders... and if the policies are so damned popular, why are they not winning? Nope Biden is going to be the nominee and posts like this seem a bit desperate to me.

until they find out how much they cost. After that information is provided, then the approval ratings drop dramatically.

The only ones who change their minds are those who believe corporatist fear mongering propaganda about the costs (which conveniently omit the benefits, both economically and personally)

People who live in societies with progressive policies, even most conservatives, wouldn’t give them up for US style policies if given the choice.

That would explain the article.

on Comedy Central.

stay in the primary until the end...what would be the purpose? No one is going to give him the nomination...he has to win it like everyone else and I don't think he will...hope not as I want to win a general. He has my vote of course in a general...but why would he stay in a primary he is clearly losing hypothetically speaking?

Sanders thought he could win over superdelegates and Ted Kennedy thought he could persuade delegates to ditch Carter, change the rules, and vote for him. So they stayed in, even when it was clear they had little chance of prevailing.

we are making the electibilty argument up. The polls show it. Warren would lose badly.

chance of winning the GE is with Biden.

...quickly!

...I think we've got our nominee

Link to tweet

Yep, that's sad.

if not sooner. The only questions are whether Sanders and Warren can do the math and realize the inevitable. Mr. Jentelson made a fool of himself in print. Chris Rock did the same, except it was by speech.

It doesn't mean that his opinion is correct. Just another guy writing a column. Is he paid by the word?

in any in-depth analysis.

It's kind of sad that the only job he could find was at GQ. However, I'll give him credit for slanting his prose to the demographic:

RICHER AND WHITER: HOW PUBLISHERS OF POPULAR MAGAZINES CONSTRUCT THEIR READERSHIPS FOR ADVERTISERS
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20832228?seq=1

==========

Also possibly Hillary Clinton, despite polls that showed Sanders as stronger against Trump. I think a lot of people just "felt" HRC was more electable, polls be damned.

Voting is technically irrational. No one vote really matters. It takes time out of your day, is often an inconvenience or worse. there's a reason Republicans find it so easy to discourage voting.

Yet people do still vote. (which is the paradox of course. One vote doesn't' matter but if people in large numbers vote, it most certainly does matter)

A lot of it has to do with enthusiasm. Whos really fired up about their guy? Who can get people to them beyond just voting? In short, who do more people put an emotional investment into?

I am sure you can already guess who I think that candidate is.

But in any case, the key to winning this election is getting as many people ALL Over the country to vote.

in regards to the G.E. I believe election day should be a national holiday, elections are what democracy is all about and what we're supposed to be about.