According to a new Morning Consult poll. It's Biden 35, Sanders 27, O'Rourke 8. Biden, the one who's not yet declared, is up 4 points since last week. Beto is up 1. Kamala Harris is down 2, to 8%.
Why is the triad doing so well? Why hasn't Harris gotten traction?
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>Why hasn't Harris gotten traction?
Because she's nasty and she can't help showing it.
Harris blew it when the compared ICE - Immigrations and Customs Agents - to the KKK.
She also promised to abolish all private health care.
How do you recover from that? The left want these things- but they should follow Obama's lead and lie about it.
Trump will mop the floor with Biden and Beto.
The one with the charisma - and who would likely do better than either in debates - is Bernie. But he's tainted...both from 16' and from a long voting track record as well as 40+ years of socio-communist gaffes (and probably some legitimate ideological similarities).
2020 is going to be an absolute cluster, far far worse than anything in 16'.
Sanders because he did so well last time and the left is 1/3 socialist.
Biden because many on the left want that “experience” like they saw with HRC. Not that he or she “did” anything, but that they held lots of positions.
Beta because the rest of the left is just nutz.
And obviously the left is racist. All those POCs in the field and the three front runners are white men. Forshame!
I am very interested in the tension between random polls of Democrats versus what the party faithful will vote for in a primary. There seems to be a vast gulf between what highly active DNC partisans say (Twitter, CNN, MSNBC, NYT) and what the polling keeps saying. The daily news cycle kind of glides by the Biden and Bernie news (while noting the former veep playing footsie with the idea) and goes gaga over Beta Male. But the polls show the White Men on top by a huge margin. And don't forget we have the Super-Delegates 2019 Version waiting in the wings to swing into action should no one get the ring on the first pass.
Yes, this tension makes for a pleasing pre-season.
Name recognition. Period. The Progressives will NEVER vote for an old white man, or a "Privileged white guy". Period.
At this point isn’t it all about name recognition?
Take any liberal pose — on race, gender, sexual preferences, whatever — and under the mask is a traditional value. Men are better leaders. That’s the traditional value peeking out from under the liberal intersectionality mask.
If I had to guess, I'd guess she's rude to reporters. Reporters like having their egos stroked, and could care less about reporting facts.
Why hasn't Harris gotten traction?
Because there's a difference between foisted and hoisted.
It's all name recognition. Even the detail of the 3B's shows this:
Biden, former VP = 35%
Sanders, last cycle's primary opposition to nominee = 27%
Beto, who? = 8%
Why hasn't Harris gotten traction
We're not close enough to the primary for people to care. Rational ignorance is the most common political framework for American voters.
"Why is the triad doing so well? Why hasn't Harris gotten traction?"
I'm guessing, at this stage, its mostly name recognition.
Maybe Harris just isn't a good retail politician?
Everybody in New Hampshire cannot get The Full Willie Brown Experience.
And then there is Iowa.
Huh. For all the "wokeness" going through the media coverage, most of the vote is currently going to the white guys.
Name recognition. Biden and Bernie have already had the equivalent of hundreds of millions (if not more) of media buys applied to them through the news during their protracted careers. Beto has gotten a lot recently, and frankly it's thanks to the fandom of female journalists.
Harris will inevitably catch up in name recognition, as the media shifts into the "let's ponder the historical significance of a black (sort of), female, child of immigrants candidate" mode of reporting.
There are just too many candidates at this point, but it's going to at least be somewhat entertaining for awhile. This could end up like the 2016 GOP nomination cycle in which there are three candidates polling fairly closely until pretty late in the race. That said, I think the pressure on the Democrats to nominate Harris is going to be overwhelming. The activists really don't want a white male as the nominee and I am guessing there are some pretty bitter feelings towards Bernie from the establishment Dems who believe he cost Hilary the general election.
"Why hasn't Harris gotten traction?"
Why am I not leading by 20 points?
Racism. Sexism.
The future is female, they keep telling us.
I’m voting for the white guy, they keep telling us.
"Why is the triad doing so well?"
White Male Privilege for the win!!!
Wow I thought that "old white males" were not allowed in the Democratic presidential primaries this year. Funny that they are doing so well. I am not a huge Trump supporter and if the Democrats actually ran someone with common sense I might vote for them. No "green new deal", no reparations for slavery, no socialism.
Despite what he says, Biden is probably the least progressive of the candidates. And most Democrats are not far left.
The top six all have 73%+ name recognition, according to this poll. That suggests the top six will start attacking each other, particularly the leader, in order to move up.
"Why hasn't Harris gotten traction?"
3 Million people read the NY Times, and 300 million people don't.
Honestly, I agree that at this point it’s name recognition. But a little devil on my left shoulder keeps telling me it’s because Hillary Clinton so thoroughly poisoned the nomination process that the likelihood of any woman getting nominated by the Democrats anytime before 2024 is very, very low.
"Name recognition. Period. The Progressives will NEVER vote for an old white man, or a "Privileged white guy". Period."
For the low-information voters in the poll... why wouldn't they reflexively say Harris, because they might know 2 things about here -- she's female and she's a person of color?
This is a little surprising to me. I guess I've been listening to the MSM and social media's opinions too much. As recently as a month ago I thought Kamala was a shoe in for the Dem nomination. I should have known by now that the loudest opinions aren't always reflective of the true majorities opinions.
It was pretty clear that several of the big media outlets were pushing hard for Kamala. Does this indicate a sea change? Is main stream media's influence on the regular Dem voter waning? I certainly hope so. If there's only one thing that the Dem voter learns from the Trump era I hope that it's too be much more skeptical of the media. Don't just uncrtitically believe everything they're telling you.
"Why is the triad doing so well? Why hasn't Harris gotten traction?"
Why? (1) Because twitter and the NYT have zero delegates to designate to the primary contest. (2) Name recognition (3) Biden, Beto and Bernie appeal more to regular, repeat D primary voters. (4) Bernie draws the young vote, Biden draws a large group of regular D voters, Beto draws from both groups.
I told you about Harris. She is still an empty suit. And she has no accomplishments other than negative ones (for D voters) from her days as a prosecutor.
She couldn't articulate anything vs. Kavanaugh. She hasn't done anything.
I have a general question about polling, for Trump’s supporters and indeed Trump himself; which polls matter?
It’s a completely serious question. Whenever there is a poll that shows bad numbers for Trump, the narrative is that polling is no longer accurate because Trump supporters don’t feel comfortable saying so. Or that polling relies too much on landline phone technology, and misses way too many people. Or that the 2016 presidential election proved all the polling wrong (which is an untruth; the national polling in 2016 was quite good.
We are heading into a period where first, the polling for the Democratic primaries is going to be critical. Then, if Trump is still a viable candidate a year from now, there will be even more critical polling. And so I am wondering which polling is valid and which polling is invalid in TrumpWorld? Is there a rule to apply?
My working assumption is that all polling about Democrats is good for Trump, because he will beat all of them. And all polling about Trump that is good for Trump is valid polling. And all polling that reflects badly on Trump is defective and invalid polling.
The name recognition recognizes the females as female, is why.
Harris comes off as Hillary 2.0
The 3 B's presumably at this point represent 70% of the Democrat base vote which in turn represent what percent of the actual Electoral College vote? 20%? Interestingly enough you have three white guys of the Left who happen to be millionaires, two of them acquiring wealth while in government service and one of them marrying money. Ann since under this new format the presumption is that I am addressing you directly, would you care to offer your views on the constitutional validity of the National Popular Vote compact that has been enacted by several states and Washington State's pending legislation to keep Trump off the ballot if he refuses to disclose his tax returns. I ask in part since it appears to me that the Democrats have come to the tacit conclusion they can't win the electoral college vote with the positions and candidates they currently have and that these measures are end runs to win what they can't win legitimately.
Turn it around. Why WOULD Harris be popular? She has the NYT and some other media pushing her, so she is at 8%. Without that boosting, where would she be? What is Buttigieg at? What is Gabara at? That is where someone no media booster is at, and this early should be at.
Biden at least has a relevant qualification. Bernie is a semi known commodity, with left over support from last time.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/03/kamala-harris-refused-to-investigate-donor.php
....In 2015, prosecutors in the San Diego office of the California attorney general sent Harris a lengthy, detailed memorandum urging such an investigation. However, Harris did not initiate one.
Other states did. So did the Federal Trade Commission. It obtained a $200 million settlement from Herbalife. Illinois obtained a settlement too. But California remained on the sidelines, notwithstanding the recommendation of the San Diego prosecutors in a memo described as “meticulous.”
Depending on how you split up the Census Bureau's "white Hispanic" category, the population of the US is around 70% white. Sheer coincidence, I'm sure.
Polls, schmolls.
I'm in Boston, so voting is, well, unproductive. A candidate must be likeable at some level; Camala isn't. If I were to vote Democrat, creepy Biden doesn't seem too bad. Btw, are any libertarians running?
If we ever need a President that fantasizes about mowing down children with a car, Beto will be there to step up to the plate.
Triad? Beto is down there with Harris and all the other non-contenders. why is he listed here - because he's white? Because his name also starts with a B?
"The Bernie-Biden duo has 62% of the Democratic primary vote."
"The Bernie-Beto-Biden-Harris-Warren quintet has 85% of the Democratic primary vote."
For the low-information voters in the poll... why wouldn't they reflexively say Harris, because they might know 2 things about here -- she's female and she's a person of color?
@Althouse, you overestimate the low information voter. What makes you think they even know that she’s female, much less that she identifies as black?
I initially bought into the hype around Kamala Harris as a strong contender to be Dem nominee because of all the boxes she checked, and the fact that she's (relatively speaking) attractive.
But then I heard her speak. She might be the most underwhelming candidate in the race. Whether reading a stump speech or responding to media questions, she's just terrible.
I think people like the idea of Kamala Harris more than the actual Kamala Harris. The same was true of Hillary.
She hasn't done anything.
That didn't hurt Obama any.
I believe that many of those who might otherwise be attracted to Kamala, due to her "intersectionality points", are suspicious of her record as a prosecutor. She aggressively prosecuted defendants "of color" just as she did white defendants, and even suggested incarcerating parents whose children were truant from school. This is not appealing to the far left/POC/intersectional contingent of the Democratic party.
All I know is that the Democrats have not yet destroyed each other, yet.
And that keeps Hillary on the sidelines.
Of course, Hillary was up double digits only ten days before the 2016 election.
And I am quite sure Trump could never win Michigan against her.
> Why is the triad doing so well?
Biden - last hope for sanity. an actual politician... our lonely eyes turn to you
Bernie - anti-establishment credentials, F-U to system
Beto - "almost" won TX... reminds middle aged of themselves, who they like a lot
Rest look like the cast of "Cats"
Harris - no star power - signalled reparations to keep the black on the plantation
Spartacus - need we say more?
Warren - doesn't know when to quit
Knoblock - clean my comb
Gilligan - where is my Skipper?
Gabbard - buried alive
Yang - beware the meme
A Democrat Trump hater friend admitted
"there is nobody who can stand on the stage with Trump - maybe Biden"
For the low-information voters in the poll... why wouldn't they reflexively say Harris, because they might know 2 things about here -- she's female and she's a person of color?
(1) Only activists link those facts to their votes.
(2) Rationally ignorant people would only be guessing by the name she's female and/or black (could be Indian, or male). They don't know her position or qualifications.
(3) People in 2 will eventually make their decision based on curating by (1) but this won't even start until about a month before the primary. So right now that curation is largely irrelevant and (2) chooses only among the names they recognize.
For the low-information voters in the poll... why wouldn't they reflexively say Harris, because they might know 2 things about here -- she's female and she's a person of color?
The low information voter needs more of a positive vibe from a candidate because they have only a cursory idea of their qualities. Harris gives off a negative vibe from my perspective.
I also wonder if low information voters are "woke" enough to have a strong desire for a female POC.
Why are the top men where they are in the Democratic Primary? To me, it's simple. Joe Biden is at the top as the most recent Democrat VP. His backing from the Obama machine is at least tacit: if no better contenders emerge, such as Michelle, he will probably inherit a good bit of OFA. Bernie Sanders is backed by the socialist movement. While they would ordinarily never have the ability to sway elections by themselves, their leaders clearly feel this is a moment in history for them to strike. After a narrow, cheating-induced loss to Hillary, Bernie can count on the support of many progressive activists. Beto has a father-in-law worth more than $20 billion, which leads to him being able to buy some media coverage in the metrosexual press- example, Vanity Fair. Assuming they have the ambition and cash, they can run the Kennedy playbook, despite Beto having two criminal issues in his past that would once have been sufficient to sink any other candidate.
Kamala Harris... has none of that. The main thrust supporting her is that she is a Black Woman, but it's good enough to gain a great deal of support in the NYT. And she has enough contacts in California to make winning there relatively easy. I say relatively because I'm not sure if she has the backing of the Willie Brown machine, or if Brown is ready to humiliate her if he's given enough incentive from another candidate. Watching her speak is basically torture, so I'd be open to the idea that 8% nationally is her ceiling. And none of the other candidates should even be running. From Senators Gillibrand to Warren, any of them would be a gift to the President. But it doesn't matter: none have machine backing, or any compensatory personal charms, so none will win the primary.
White voters want an "experienced" candidate who they think can beat Trump. No Obama lite.
Plus the Q factor. No one is paying much attention to 2020.
Harris is an empty suit.
Question: as empty as O'Rourke?
Biden: old, white, male.
Sanders: angry, old, white, male
O'Rourke: white, male
Democratic primary 2020 will be the revenge of the white male.
Democratic Party is racist, and sexist.
Remember this: the demographics of the country are still predominated by Whites over 30, and we are also a little racist, just like all the people of color.
For the low-information voters in the poll... why wouldn't they reflexively say Harris, because they might know 2 things about here -- she's female and she's a person of color?
I think most really haven't been exposed to her. With all the women, they might not know who the POC is, yet. I suspect it's just way to early for the polls to be anything but name recognition.
These polls will quickly make an issue out of the Three White Guys problem, which should raise the profile of the others. I think Sanders will be near the top throughout, as will Biden until he starts talking. He could drop. It's really a matter of whether the others can catch O'Rourke, who is benefiting from having recently run a high-profile Senate race against every liberal's villain, Ted Cruz, and almost won.
Are you telling me that straight white males get 70% of the Dem primary vote?
Why are the Dems so racist, heterosexist and sexist?
"Why hasn't Harris gotten traction?"
No clue. I'm still baffled as to why people want to be ruled by socialists, given it's wretched track record of destroying wealth and harming the working class.
I rather like your comment, Althouse. The racial imperative cannot be underestimated in Democratic turnout effects.
But I suspect that there a lot of low-information Dem primary voters who never read the Kamala-favoring New York Times and so do not know her name.
I find myself agreeing with the “This is name recognition polling” theory.
For the low-information voters in the poll... why wouldn't they reflexively say Harris, because they might know 2 things about here -- she's female and she's a person of color?
She slept her way up to the top. She is what the progressives WANT, but not everyone on the left is awake enough to know that.
I wrote this yesterday- Biden has the name recognition- that advantage will erode as we near the Iowa Caucuses. Sanders also has the name recognition, but he also has a dedicated core of voters who actually voted for him in the actual Democratic primaries in 2016, and a great percentage of them will do so again. I think Sanders has a solid core of 20% of the primary voters/caucusers and will surely finish 2nd in Iowa and might finish first in New Hampshire again. Sanders other advantage is that he only depends on small donors for his campaign funds.
The voters are not focused on actual elections yet- the first caucus is still 10 months in the future. The first polls I will pay actual attention to will be those conducted after the first round of debates. What I pay attention to right now is who gets press coverage and what is the tenor of that coverage. Harris still has the edge here- her coverage is more favorable than that of any candidate- and you don't have to pay for that.
And better yet. THIS is why Democrats will lose. Period. Democrat platform proposals:
-Abolish the Electoral College
-Expand SCOTUS
-Make the Senate representative of population
-Let 16 year olds vote
-Have a policy suggestion box
-Massive wealth redistribution through tax and envt'l policy
-Reparations
-Permit killing viable babies
Kamala Harris said that some communities perceive that ICE is like the KKK. In her future debates, she will be given opportunities to specify which communities perceive so and whether she herself agrees with that perception.
Also, she will be explain what she will do to rid ICE of its KKK elements if she becomes the President.
Politically fascinating and it suggests some small degree of self-awareness among the Donks. Like they know they're acting batshit and feel the need to front it with some veneer of normalcy. And what could be more normal than an elderly or middle-aged white guy?
Because no one reads the NYtimes and no one wants to visit California decrepitude on the nation. Chicago was bad enough with Obama but in Chicago at least bribes get something. In California you pay and pay and still get garbage.
In the Democrat debates, all the candidates will support sanctuary cities but will hope that nobody brings up that topic. However, a debate moderator might bring up the subject, asking each candidate to state his position on sanctuary cities.
In the case of Kamala Harris, she should be asked whether she supports also sanctuary states.
SGT Ted said...
I'm still baffled as to why people want to be ruled by socialists, given it's wretched track record of destroying wealth and harming the working class.
To them "socialism" means:
"Someone else pays my college loans and guarantees me a job. Effort required by me = 0".
Blogger The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...
. . . And what could be more normal than an elderly or middle-aged white guy?
Like Trump?
Althouse: Why is the triad doing so well? Why hasn't Harris gotten traction?
O'Rourke, at 8%, is included among those who are "doing so well."
Harris, at 8%, "hasn't gotten traction".
Color me bemused.
At the present time, I could care less about the Dems polling. What I'm waiting for is April 11th in New York to get here so the BJ and Crooked Hillary Show will start up again. I want to see how many people show up to see them. Also, what on earth would they talk about?
"Why hasn't Harris gotten traction?"
Actual thinking on it. Harris is a product of CA Dem machine politics in a one party hard left state and is not a charismatic politician at all. She has all the charm of Hillary Clinton with none of the 20 years of national press myth making behind her.
“Why is the triad doing so well? Why hasn't Harris gotten traction?“
Because she is mean, vindictive, thoroughly hypocritical and racist and really not very smart. People sense this.
Mostly though past the age where her primary political talent is useful.
She is only a thing because Willie Brown made her a thing.
She could not have made it to where she is on her talent alone. Obama was able to look good reading a TelePrompTer and made soap opera women swoon.
She doesn’t have a core constituency.
The biggest thing that killed her open was bragging about smoking pot and making obviously racist statements about Jamaicans.
Everyone knows her career was throwing black people in jail for smoking pot.
This killed her chances with her natural constituency. Now she has to rely on white males. The only white males in the Democrat Party support Bernie
I want to emphasize Kamala bragged about doing something she threw people in jail for.
I will be in open rebellion if she is our president.
Whenever there is a poll that shows bad numbers for Trump, the narrative is that polling is no longer accurate because Trump supporters don’t feel comfortable saying so. Or that polling relies too much on landline phone technology, and misses way too many people. Or that the 2016 presidential election proved all the polling wrong (which is an untruth; the national polling in 2016 was quite good.
But was it actually true that the 2016 polling was “quite good”? Much of the polling in 2016 was misguided. If one ignored the nationwide polling and looked at state by state polling, and further focused on polls that measured likely voters versus registered voters, then the movement of undecided voters towards Trump in the last few days of the campaign in more than enough states to give him 270 electoral votes was unmistakable. But nationwide polls of registered (versus likely) voters showing Hillary in a landslide were beside the point.
I don’t know to what extent the current national polling on Trump captures what the Electoral College is all about, but I am dubious. To take an extreme example if everyone in New York, California, and the District of Columbia hate Trump but 51% of the voters in every remaining state favor Trump, then the polling would show him with an approval rating in the low forties, but in 2020 he wins by an much wider margin than in 2016. The polling I have seen gives Ohio, Iowa, and Florida to Trump right now, along with enough states that normally vote Republican (e. g., North Carolina but not Virginia — alas) to give him 260 votes in the Electoral College. A Democrat challenger has to win every remaining state except New Hampshire and Maine to win next year. Not impossible by any means. But Trump only has to win Pennsylvania or Michigan or Wisconsin or Minnesota or the combination of New Mexico plus New Hampshire and a Congressional District in Maine. Which seems easier?
At any rate there will be a poll taken on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November of next year. We will see what we will see.
Then, if Trump is still a viable candidate a year from now, there will be even more critical polling.
There are some comments I read because they start off so sensibly but ultimately can't help where they're bound to end up.
This killed her chances with her natural constituency.
They'll be back around - the only other threat is Booker. I still remember black activists saying Obama wasn't black enough and wasn't enough like other blacks. Then he won 80+% of the black vote in the Dem primary.
Blacks vote on race more than any other group in America.
Its been fascinating to watch the desperation of the open lefties and faux-conservative lefty-funded and lefty aligned LLR's spinning furiously to try and reestablish some undeserved credibility for their clearly manipulated lefty polls.
Dont underestimate the importance to the left/LLR's of this endeavor.
Knowing that their combined lefty/establishment/LLR East-German-Stasi-like weaponization of the govt against domestic conservative political opponents is being exposed more and more each day and that their Putin-colluding hoax dossier ploy has completely collapsed, it becomes more critical than ever to manipulate the polls in a way to give the fully-democrat aligned LLR's posing as conservatives on the republican side the cover they need to vote for impeachment with their dem/left allies.
In clear frustration that their efforts to date to drive down Trumps poll numbers to accelerate impeachment to keep dem/LLR crimes hidden have failed, we see the lefty billionaires throwing caution to the wind in openly funding their pet fake conservatives at The Weekly Standard/Tje Bulwark & 1/3rd of the The National Review, big tech openly de-platforming actual conservatives (ith full LLR support), and the lefty/dem/LLR media (NPR/CNN/MSNBC, etc) tripling down on their fake polling, etc.
We also see an acceleration of lefty billionaire funded efforts on specific blogsites, like this one.
The biggest media story of the last 30 years is how the electorate by and large is no longer fooled by these coordinated lefty/LLR efforts.
While the consensus opinion here is name recognition, and I'm not wholly disapproving of that theory, recall most of the party insiders are still Hillary supporters. I find it hard to fathom they quickly fall in line for another woman over the most qualified candidate ever to run for President. Hillary! is the chosen one. I also believe the masses, regardless of party, have learned to recognize and reject forced media narratives. No Kamala just because CNN says so...
Sanders has a hard base. Every one of that 27% are pissed off Hillary stole it from him. Biden because he's in Hillary!'s camp and next in line...
But was it actually true that the 2016 polling was “quite good”?
Can we begin with the idea that national polls for President are not indicative of who will win? Or do we need to explain how the Electoral College works -- yet again?
As long as it's close, the "I really hate Trump vote" is strong, and utterly wasted, in the blue states.
The whole of California, New York, and Massachusetts could register and come out to vote against Trump and it wouldn't change a damn thing.
Biden and Bernie are polling well because they have strong name recognition.
Beto is not polling well, but he's raising huge amounts of cash.
1) Maybe Beto's not polling well because he's still unknown to large numbers of voters. But the people who know him like him, a lot.
2) Beto is a white guy version of Obama. Not an angry leftist. Not angry at all.
3) Maybe Beto/Bernie/Biden remind the voters of Obama in various ways. Beto has Obama's personality. Biden served in Obama's administration. And Bernie is the socialist that Obama always wanted to be. Obama voters are crowding around these three because they represent Obama's personality (Beto), Obama's accomplishments (Biden) and Obama's vision (Bernie).
4) Cory Booker and Kamala Harris have Obama's race, but people aren't inspired by that. It's like the two players who followed Jackie Robinson. Who?
5) Democrat voters are still fond of Obama and want someone like Obama. And maybe those same voters are leery of uptight women who remind them of Hillary.
The most important stat floating around is the 70%+ voter approval of our economic performance under Trump and this is a nightmare scenario for the left, the LLR's and the lefty funded LLR posters on blogsites.
The democrats/LLR's hope lies with Powell and the Fed cranking up Interest Rates up to Volcker levels to drive growth to a halt and harming the American people horribly.
A price the left/LLR's will be happy to pay if it results in a far left dem winning office.
We know how desperate the lefty-funded fake conservatives at The Bulwark are for that result.
As a Democrat i can rely on Althouse commenters to explain my thoughts to me.
Beto is the Dem's fantasy in the belief he can flip Texas, denying Trump a second term. No other candidate is running from a red state, yet they all need to flip something from red to blue to win.
Harris: California
Booker: New Jersey
Bernie: Vermont
Hickenlooper: Colorado
Klobuchar: Minnesota
Gillibrand: New York
Biden: Delaware
Warren: Massachusetts
Add Texas' 38 electoral votes to Clinton's total and the Dems win the White House.
Why hasn't Harris gotten traction?
Satin sheets?
Name a recent Democratic candidate of the last decade or a Democrat President who was actually someone who accomplished anything other than going to school, getting elected, or sleeping with the right person at some point. Some of the them don't even have any significant experience even in politics. Then look at their Republican opponents - usually accomplished businessmen, as well as accomplished politicians. I prefer doers, makers, builders, etc, who have experience with what the rest of us do, becuase what we do is what this country is about. What politician do for a living is not only not what we are about, it is often the opposite, and usually in a corrupt, or at the least inefficient direction that is too wasteful for the real world.
"O'Rourke, at 8%, is included among those who are "doing so well."
Harris, at 8%, "hasn't gotten traction".
Color me bemused."
O'Rourke is up a point compared to a week ago; Harris is the only candidate to have dropped two points. That doesn't feel like traction, at least not the good kind.
Well you can go to Greenspan levels when it comes to our level of debt, o Rourke is wendy Davis with a skateboard and slacks hes going nowhere.
Again, for maybe the 100th time- if the national polls were so good in 2016, the pollsters themselves would have detected Clinton's risk of losing the electoral college vote. They didn't detect that, so the polls were complete crap, just like the state level polls in most of the states.
"Blogger The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...
. . . And what could be more normal than an elderly or middle-aged white guy?
Like Trump?"
Just so. How much like Trump does the Anti-Trump have to be to beat Trump? Sounds silly but I'm sure there's a heap of Democrat politicians who took note of Trump's...exuberance in 2016 and subsequent victory. Beating someone at their own game requires playing their game.
"As a Democrat i can rely on Althouse commenters to explain my thoughts to me."
Your thoughts, along with your words, are irrelevant.
Your policy preferences (infanticidr, open borders, full blown socialism, weaponization of law enforcement and intelligence agencies, silencing speech, etc) are all anyone needs to evaluate where you and your LLR allies would take us.
Democrats love dumb white males.
"O'Rourke is up a point compared to a week ago; Harris is the only candidate to have dropped two points. That doesn't feel like traction, at least not the good kind."
That feels like margin of error in the polls to me.
Fair point, Rick Turley.
Serious (or at least sincere) question: Among the population who voted for Hillary in the general, who were never too crazy about Bernie, and who really despise Trump -- which I'm assuming describes a fair chunk of the potential Democratic electorate -- is there much antipathy toward Bernie for having taken the wind out of Hillary's sails? If so, I wonder how it might impact the primary process.
The Bernie-Beto-Biden triad has 70% of the Democratic primary vote.
Perhaps they can run as a triumvirate? Biden could be first among equals.
Blogger Birkel said...
Maybe Harris just isn't a good retail politician?
Everybody in New Hampshire cannot get The Full Willie Brown Experience.
Great. Now I have to wipe off my computer monitor!
Gretchen: "Democrats love dumb white males."
Hence the inevitable and open dem/left & LLR/NeverTrump alliance.
‘Journalist’ David Sirota was outed by The Atlantic for secretly working for the Sanders campaign while ‘savaging’ the other candidates on twitter. Lefties are outraged natch but for what offense. Masquerading as a journalist or just getting paid for what they all do for free?
I think Biden is doing well because he’s not running yet. People can project their fantasies into him. This includes backward-looking wishcastong in which Biden enters the 2016 race and beats Trump. He’s Magic Joe! (not watch-me-swim-naked-Joe)
Just a bit of reading material for the "Bulwark" readers here. You know who you are.
Is Socialism Really That Big of a Threat?
Then, For one, there is a reason why the largest protests against Trump were organized under the umbrella of women’s rights and not, say, around questions of trade or regulatory policy. Anyone who has followed the events at CPAC, particularly on the issue of abortion, would be hard pressed to say that cultural issues are losing their importance among Republicans. Quite the contrary, as Sohrab Ahmari, observed on Twitter, “now that they’re dealing directly with Trump, as it were, social conservatives wield a great deal more power than they ever did as second-class members of the fusionist coalition.”
Yup.
But upon closer inspection the right’s bashing of socialism rings a little hollow—and not just because of Gorka’s bombast. Yes, AOC’s proposals are misguided but they are unlikely steps toward a planned economy, show trials, or the gulag system. More importantly, the GOP itself is hardly organized behind a clear-cut Reaganite agenda. President Trump, for instance, has embraced economic protectionism and managed to pull both the rest of the Republican Party and its base in the same direction. Remember Tucker Carlson’s manifesto, which accused previous generations of Republicans of seeking “to make the world safe for banking,” while noting that “market capitalism is not a religion” but rather “a tool, like a staple gun or a toaster?”
See how easy that was ? Protectionism = Socialism.
The MSM blame themselves for giving Trump so much airtime. I predict they will ignore most of his rallies and speeches.
Trump will mop the floor with Biden and Beto.
I'm not so sure. When Biden was running with Obama, he mopped the floor with Paul Ryan.
Harris is not going to do as well as people expect, particularly among black voters. I can't think of any successful black politician who was thought to have slept his or her way to top.
The Big Money on the Left comes from Tech now, and they're all Social Justice Warriors (at least in theory; in personal practice not so much.) The small fry have to court the Big Money because they just can't make the numbers they need from small contributions; that's being sent to Bernie and now to Beto (who, for all his faults, appeals to the middle because he is so squishy; whether the Woke crowd likes it or not Socialism doesn't appeal to the Middle Class.) That puts candidates who might otherwise be appealing to moderate voters in a bind; to get backing from Big Money they have to poison their credibility with the voters who will decide the General Election.
Was that the Jack the ripper successor from the trek episode n that byline Rojack kabarabas
That's because Ryan dropped the ball, of course many of bidens category errors were rarely brought up, he has a steamer trunk full.
Don't forget that with 3 decades of nonstop experience Biden barely drew a tie debating Sarah Palin with just a few weeks to prepare, and I thought she won. Biden is a lifelong lightweight and past his prime.
I'm curious to see if the msm will continue trying to portray President Trump and his supporters as a bunch of white rascists. Especially when the dems reject all their POCs and offer up a whitey as his opponent.
Harris may want to stop referring to herself as black, since the previous president may have ruined their reputations.
The jokes write themselves.
My guess is that we've not yet seen the dark horse, the "real" candidate, who is hoovering up dark money while the current candidates veer between clown cars trying to gain traction.
I'd listen to a Warren speech. I don't share Ann's belief that she's a great speaker, but she clearly has a positive vision, and so do Biden and Robert O'Rourke. Bernie's numbers are based on his hard work seeking dem votes in 2016. If he were republican, he'd be the heir apparent, having come in second last time.
Kamala Harris is just a hate-filled Debbie Downer.
Paul: "I'm not so sure. When Biden was running with Obama, he mopped the floor with Paul Ryan."
Thats hardly surprising now that we know conclusively that both Romney and Ryan are simply Democrat-Lite.
Biden told Ryan to his face that republicans always bet against America.
Ryan sat mute...and thus moot.
Romney surrendered on live TV to lefty CNN hack Candy Crowley.
The faux-"conservative" LLR's were never so proud of faking the republican label then at those moments.
Their only real regret is that John Kasich wasnt there to publicly renounce his own candidacy, endorse obama and obamas policies and withdraw from the race on the spot.
Thats how you "conserve conservatism" in LLR land.
To top it off we could have had Deadbeat Dad Charlie Sykes cheering Kasich on!
"For the low-information voters in the poll... why wouldn't they reflexively say Harris, because they might know 2 things about here -- she's female and she's a person of color?"
There are many flavors of low-information voters. Harris just isn't the Flavor of the Month. For now.
After 2016 in particular, I'm not that impressed with public polling. I think the Dem establishment decided it was Hillary's "turn" in 2016. So, were I into prognostication, I would try to divine for whom the Dem establishment leans.
Wouldn't surprise me if they would be just as happy with any candidate, regardless of age, gender, and complexion, who can beat Trump. Kevin's theory at 12:33 PM might well apply.
" . . . she [Warren] clearly has a positive vision . . . ." If you consider a forced march down the Road to Serfdom "positive."
Sophisticated Democrats know (or think they know) that it's full of racists out there, so they have to put on a front, for the sake of winning the election.
They aren't in the mood for a bold statement right now. They just want to regain power and get rid of Trump. Harris is still young, she can try again next time.
It's the same spirit that made them choose Bill Clinton a while ago. Midwestern voters want someone like Trump, so they'll swallow their pride and pick the candidate that looks most like Trump.
What voters appreciated about Trump, Democrats think, was his being white and male, so they'll have their own white male candidate this time. If it makes the medicine go down, so be it. Too much is at stake.
Such need to compromise their ideals to win elections is (for Democrats) further evidence that white Americans are racist. As if further proof were needed!
But Harris or someone like her will have to be included. Biden or whoever will be just a figurehead. Harris will be the power behind the throne, getting those racist Americans used to women of color in leadership positions, and will be guaranteed, by hook or by crook, the next presidential spot.
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