I think a Bernie-Abrams ticket could get a lot of turnout throughout the country. And if it ends up being Bloomberg, he better damn well have Abrams as his running mate if he’s going to have any hope of getting the turnout needed.
Bloomberg is a fiscal conservative with some social liberal views. However - as adequately demonstrated last night - he’s also a train wreck when it comes to women and minorities, which is about 90% of the Democratic base.
If Bloomberg is the nominee, I don’t think it will matter who his running mate is. He’ll depress the turnout and that’s all Trump needs.
I’m not convinced of this; I’m still of the belief that he is more electable than Bernie. Until the “revolution” happens, especially a revolution led by Bernie, I’m of the belief that it is just fantasy.
In other words, it’s a lot easier for me to imagine a bloc that will hold their nose and vote for Bloomberg, a scoundrel with real accomplishments, than a bloc that emerges from the sideline to elect Bernie.
Biden/Kamala Harris is my guess at the ticket that emerges when the dust settles.
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I think Amy ends up on a ticket.
Stone gets 40 months of prison. Judge said she would have ruled that regardless of all the shenanigans last week, but maybe she’s just providing cover for the DOJ.
How many minutes will he be incarcerated before he’s pardoned?
Zero.
This entire recommendation-swapping gambit has been in an effort to keep Stone out of jail without Trump having to do his own dirty work. Stone knows where the bodies are buried (he will dig them up from time to time and do things to them), and I’m sure had promised to sing like a canary if sent up the river.
Trump has already been asking around about pardoning Stone. Meanwhile, the question of a new trial will keep Stone out of jail for a while - maybe past the election which I’m sure is the plan.
However, it still means that Stone is now added to the ever-growing list of convicted felons from Trump’s inner circle:
- Manafort
- Gates
- Flynn
- Cohen
- Stone
I am terrified than none are the correct candidate. My preferences were (in order) Warren, Harris, Booker, Klobuchar. Warren reinforced my choice last night when she ripped off Bloomberg’s arms and beat him to death with them. That was a perfect dress rehearsal for her using those same arguments against Trump.
If it’s Sanders, then it’s Sanders. But a lot of the division right now is driven by the fear of losing to Trump again. We know we have one shot and we want to take the right one. The Bernie Bros are a huge wildcard.
One last pitch for Warren: she’s the only one on the stage I see that can pull together the various factions. Yeah, so Trump will calm her “Pocahontas”, but that will be only for his base, it will turn off many and Warren will take the insult and smash in his veneered teeth with it.
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My list was similar to yours, swapping Klobuchar for Castro. Warren has many other attributes, but I think I can distill my support into the simple conviction that she would make the best president. Pardon me for being so quaint.
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Loads of great VP choices, including Klobuchar, but also Abrams, Castro, Harris and Booker.
Even Warren if she’s not the nominee, although Senate math will come into play if picking one of the sitting senators. The governor of that senator’s state will get to pick the replacement. CA, MN and NJ have Democratic governors but MA has a Republican.
Meanwhile, TX is polling at Trump +1 right now. Does Castro (or O’Rourke) win you TX? Does Andrew Gillum - and $1 trillion in cuts to Medicare and SS - win you FL?
O’rourke puts Trump at +10 with his stance on guns.
She was my first choice, and still would be if I thought she has a real chance, but rather than be impressed by her fighting spirit last night, I just thought she looked small. Good news for her is that my takes are usually outliers from the general populace, so here’s to hoping her performance fires enough people up to bring her back into real contention. For me, she’s going to need to appear realistically viable before I go into that booth in early March. I’m not wasting a vote.
I don’t agree with you much, but I do here. I don’t think Beto helps any nominee as a VP.
Well we can agree on being fans of the Astros.
Interesting. This is pretty much exactly how I broke down my preferences and why.
I’m not surprised but slightly chagrined at how many people are basing their primary preferences on who they deem to be “electable.” If there’s any lesson from 2016, it’s that electability is in the eye of the beholder and nothing else. People should just vote for whoever they think would do the best job.
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You’ve said yourself multiple times that the 2016 election hinged on a total of ~78k votes in three states that Clinton “should have” won. Why should any Democrat ticket strategy give two shits about Texas when rebuilding the Blue Wall should be the top priority?
States like Florida - and especially Texas - are the icing, not the cake. They are states that the Dems win to dunk on the GOP, not usually linchpin states just to get to 270. Clinton won without both in '92, and he didn’t need them in '96; neither did Obama in either of his elections. And if you’re going to make a veep pick with those states in mind, at least pick someone who didn’t lose recent statewide elections in those states (Beto, Gillum) and who will be at least as popular in the states you really need.
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The democrats certainly need to focus on the midwestern states that flipped, but they’re going to need a Florida/Arizona/North Carolina/Georgia as insurance in case Wisconsin or one of the others doesn’t flip.
I agree with you on that Beto wouldn’t be very useful as a running mate. Gillum might broaden the appeal of the ticket. As I’ve said before I think Abrams is the obvious best pick.
I bought into your logic, prior to Iowa, when it was all in the abstract. Then, you get feedback on who others will support from the first two (soon to be four) primaries, I don’t see the logic in not thinking about electability. If I can’t get who I want, the next best course of action is to pursue a secondary goal of preventing a second Trump term.
We’re in this mess because Clinton took MI, PA and especially WI for granted. Flipping them all back should leave Trump no path to 270, but that’s still an “if”.
Meanwhile, putting up a fight in AZ, TX, FL and elsewhere gives Trump something more to think about than pounding the rust belt for votes. And, picking one up would be a beautiful thing