EVERYONE ELSE IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT, WHY CAN’T I?

[defrog]

Or, "I wasn’t going to post anything about the election until I saw a Marianne Williamson debate clip set to the Twin Peaks soundtrack”.

I know nobody wants political content on this account but it's 2:30am and I am awake and putting Marianne Williamson's speech to Twin Peaks music pic.twitter.com/fSjP5wzrnR

— I will meet you on that field. (@BoxrecGrey) June 28, 2019

And so here we are.

I haven’t posted anything about Election 2020 for three reasons: (1) the life of a freelancer is a lot busier than I thought, (2) it’s only July and there’s like 30 candidates running, so I don’t have much to say until the field thins out a bit, and (3) honestly I already know who I’m voting for in the general election, and it ain’t Trump or anything even remotely Republican.

As I’ve noted elsewhere, I’m not especially enamored with Democrats, but since the GOP has absolutely nothing to offer me right now except light fascism, white identity shenanigans, guns for everyone, BFF dictators and concentration camps for brown kids, the Demos pretty much get my vote by default right now. Frankly, I’m prepared to vote for Williamson at this point. Or even Joe Biden.

But now that we’ve survived the first round of Demo debates, I figure I might as well get this out of the way.

Who do I want to win the Demo nomination?

It’s still too early for me to settle on just one, but right now I’m most impressed with (in no particular order):

Elizabeth Warren: she’s whip-smart and has a plan for everything. Her only weaknesses for me are (1) I’m not convinced that her plan to break up Big Tech is the right solution for that particular problem, and (2) her age, which I only object to in that her political views have been shaped by the Vietnam era, which I’d just as soon we move on from.

Kamala Harris: also whip-smart, doesn’t have a plan for everything, but seems like she would be good at finding people who do.

Pete Buttigieg: Calm and rational never looked more appealing. Also, there’s a lot of novelty value (not being gay so much as being gay and a Christian who for once seems more interested in what Jesus actually taught rather than wrapping the Bible in an American flag – he’s also a war vet, which used to be a minimum requirement for a POTUS candidate, though of course it’s not today).

That’s kind of it. Regarding the only other “serious” candidates:

Cory Booker: I don’t really have enough of a handle on him to make an informed decision yet.

Beto O’Rourke: His best qualification is frightening Ted Cruz. Which is braggable. Still, he’s just not making much of an impression on me right now.

Bernie Sanders: Nope. Too old, politically speaking. Okay, so is Warren, but she talks a better game and her plans (mostly) seem a lot more convincing.

Handsome Joe Biden: Also too old, and he seems to be banking on two key points: (1) he’s not Trump, and (2) see Point 1. Which wouldn’t be a problem except that he seems jolly convinced that once you remove Trump from the picture, everything will be back to normal in terms of bipartisan relations where Congress could roll up its sleeves and get things done and have a cordial beer at the end of the day despite political differences.

Which I don’t think has been true since 1994, or at least since 2001. Put simply, Trump isn’t the cause of the GOP swinging far-right, he’s the consequence, albeit perhaps an unintended one. In any case, how Biden could blather on about bipartisanship and civility after serving with Obama for two terms – and with Mitch McConnell still running the Senate – is beyond me. It strongly suggests he wasn't paying attention. If I wanted that qualification in a POTUS … well, I’d have it right now, wouldn’t I?

“My time is up,” indeed.

As for the rest of the field, I’m pretty sure they’re all in it for a Veep slot, a cabinet post or a book deal, so unless one of them breaks out (and right now, Julian Castro seems the most likely candidate to do so), I’m going to consider them also-rans for the time being.

Although again, I would vote for any of them over Trump. It will be the fastest vote ever – I’ll just take enough time to make sure I know where the Demo boxes are and tick them all. Boom, done.

Who do I think will win the Demo nomination?

Man, who knows? It’s freaking June. Ask bedsitter23 , he has a far better handle on this than I do.

I will say that I don’t see Biden hanging onto his lead. He’s getting by mainly on name recognition, statesmanship, having Obama on his resumé and appealing to the Establishment, but with the Demo base pulling more to the left, he’ll need to do more than that. I expect his campaign will eventually do a Jeb! and he’ll fade into the background. I also think that Harris and/or Warren are more likely to capitalize on that than Sanders. As for Buttigieg, I like calm and rational, but it seems most Demos aren't really in the mood for calm these days. And who could blame them?

Whoever wins the Demo nomination, will they beat Trump?

They might, but I would not count on it. Electoral college and Russia jokes aside, Trump was never supposed to win in 2016. We all know how that went, which means we also know that the usual things that would sink any traditional candidacy do not apply to Trump. The GOP is in full lockstep behind him, as is Fox News, and Trump has had 2.5 years to insulate himself with his “Fake News/Enemy of the People” schtick. Also, the economy is technically doing well. Whoever goes up against him either has to break enough people out of that alt-reality echo chamber or hope that Trump’s poll numbers are as factual as the average Trump rally speech.

Again, it’s way too early to tell. But at this stage a resounding Trump defeat only looks obvious to liberals who already hate him and people like me who know demagoguery and a gibbering idiot when we see it. He did it once. He could do it again.

Register to vote,

This is dF

Comments

[franklanguage]

Do you at least see voters coming out in larger numbers than they did in the last election, or will the combination of apathy and voter nullification succeed in giving realdonaldtrump a second term?

[defrog]

Do you at least see voters coming out in larger numbers than they did in the last election, or will the combination of apathy and voter nullification succeed in giving realdonaldtrump a second term?

I don't see voter turnout being that much larger, probably no bigger than 2008, which was only 1.5 percentage points larger than 2016. People always talk about how voter turnout will be huge because the current POTUS is so awful, but even in 2008 after eight years of Bush II, turnout was 61.6%, which was only 0.5% higher than 2004.

Remember too that turnout varies by state, so the battleground states are where turnout will make a greater difference (as well as whether Republicans have already passed laws in those states in the hopes of keeping turnout low).

Whether that gives Trump an edge depends on other things, from the extent of interference by Russia to the state of the economy this time next year and who his opponent ends up being, among other things (many people stay out of it because they don't like either choice).

Anyway, there are enough variables there that I think Trump could pull it off. It's too early to say, obviously, I'm just saying that fact that he's as bad as he is and still has an approval rating above 40% (it's around 43% on average this week) should tell us his defeat isn't guaranteed.