2019-2020 US Election Megathread III: Biden VS Biden

[Kowani]

20 Democrats and four Republicans.

I'll hand this over to Eternal Lotharia upon request from them. Carry on, and please, this is about the primary election candidates and campaigns. It is not about how socialism sucks, how the Democrats supported the Sandinistas, how Trump ... you get the idea. Candidates and campaigns, people, candidates and campaigns.

"Candidate" is a derivative of the Latin "candidus" (shining white). In Ancient Rome, people running for political office would usually wear togas chalked and bleached to be bright white at speeches, debates, conventions, and other public functions. Curiously, campaigning for office in Rome was considered somewhat déclassé, and candidates were described as being ambitious, from the Latin ambitiō (“ambition, a striving for favor, literally 'a going around', especially of candidates for office in Rome soliciting votes”), from ambiō (“I go around, solicit votes”).

The Second Edition

My debate predictions for the november debate:
https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=472190&p=36453503#p36453503

I wonder who the next one to drop out will be.

[Shrillland]

I wonder who the next one to drop out will be.

Difficult to say. De Blasio, perhaps?

[Rojava Free State]

Can we all just stop to think for a minute how weird it is that Joe Biden encouraged black people to play records in their homes?

As someone whose inner circle is mostly black, I can tell the former vice president that most black people don't listen to record players anymore.in fact, most people don't listen to them anymore regardless of race. White people dont. Latinos dont (we like our old 1960s and 1970s music but we got iphones and bluetooth my guy, and if we wanna go old fashion then I'll go get that collection of casette tapes I got that include the romantics, van halen, the four seasons and the velvet underground). Asian people dont. No one does. Even a group of Tuareg nomads would probably tell biden he's behind the times

[Rojava Free State]

I wonder who the next one to drop out will be.

Difficult to say. De Blasio, perhaps?

Let it be julian castro. Dude needs to stick with being the mayor of san antonio

[Rojava Free State]

Now there's a third election thread?

[Cannot think of a name]

Can we all just stop to think for a minute how weird it is that Joe Biden encouraged black people to play records in their homes?

As someone whose inner circle is mostly black, I can tell the former vice president that most black people don't listen to record players anymore.in fact, most people don't listen to them anymore regardless of race. White people dont. Latinos dont (we like our old 1960s and 1970s music but we got iphones and bluetooth my guy, and if we wanna go old fashion then I'll go get that collection of casette tapes I got that include the romantics, van halen, the four seasons and the velvet underground). Asian people dont. No one does. Even a group of Tuareg nomads would probably tell biden he's behind the times

Ah, you don't have any well heeled hipster friends I see.

[Farnhamia]

Difficult to say. De Blasio, perhaps?

I think Harris has the intellect to be the next surprise dropout.



Thread please, Farn.


Still taking break tho.

Done.

And "Beto's Revenge" doesn't thrill me but whatever.

[Dresderstan]

Oh nvm the two threads were just merged.

[Rojava Free State]

Can we all just stop to think for a minute how weird it is that Joe Biden encouraged black people to play records in their homes?

As someone whose inner circle is mostly black, I can tell the former vice president that most black people don't listen to record players anymore.in fact, most people don't listen to them anymore regardless of race. White people dont. Latinos dont (we like our old 1960s and 1970s music but we got iphones and bluetooth my guy, and if we wanna go old fashion then I'll go get that collection of casette tapes I got that include the romantics, van halen, the four seasons and the velvet underground). Asian people dont. No one does. Even a group of Tuareg nomads would probably tell biden he's behind the times

Ah, you don't have any well heeled hipster friends I see.

Thanks, I wasn't planning on sleeping tonight anyways

[Major-Tom]

I wonder who the next one to drop out will be.

Difficult to say. De Blasio, perhaps?

Sestak, Ryan, Bennet, and several others are also likely to drop out before, say, thanksgiving.

[Holy Roman Empires2]

Difficult to say. De Blasio, perhaps?

Sestak, Ryan, Bennet, and several others are also likely to drop out before, say, thanksgiving.

Yep, Blasio for resident

[Cannot think of a name]

Difficult to say. De Blasio, perhaps?

Let it be julian castro. Dude needs to stick with being the mayor of san antonio

The news cycle said he had a shit debate (apparently you can't be the third or fourth dude to try and blue shell Biden, it's not as daring anymore...) but he's still as 'in the mix' as the also rans that get to be on the stage. He already qualifies for the next debate, I'm sure he'll try and correct course there.

Bennett, Bullock, de Blasio, Delaney, Ryan, and Sestack haven't qualified in either category for the debates. That's the deadpool for candidacies. Ryan is apparently attacking Biden in headlines that are today current. Sestack has no coverage, even if you hit the news tab. Whatever he's doing, no one cares enough to write it down. John Delaney got a Fox News headline three days ago attacking Trump's trade policy. De Blasio is apparently saying he's still in it and getting into twitter beefs with Giuliani? I'm not clicking the link so maybe it's something else, but he's still active. Bullock is still making his case and of course questioning Biden. Bennet just bought air time for the first time.

So based on my entirely unscientific study of 'googling the people who haven't qualified by either metric and seeing how active they are based on news headlines' which is...unscientific...I'm going to go with Sestack as the next person to drop. Maybe followed by Delaney with an endorsement that will be as influential as he is.

Based on googled headlines...so, you know...

[Zurkerx]

Oi, new thread!

Well, a majority had a good night, except for Harris. Castro did okay but botched his "age attack" on Biden. Biden was the strongest in the beginning but was fading; seems the long debate takes a toll. O'Rourke for once did decent but his "mandatory buyback" is not going to go over well, even among some Democrats.

Eh, I think Warren might have did the best although the big loser is the economy as that wasn't mentioned much at all.

[Galloism]

Regarding this post by Gormood, you may think I’m just out to dunk on you, but there’s actually a point here that’s bigger than you.

All rights cause risk. Some more than others, but speech, due process, and assembly are possibly the most hazardous rights of all. It means we let terrorists go if we can’t prove their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. It means letting Nazis and stalinists speak and try to convince others. It means letting those men and women with the tiki torches march.

Some of us care about all our rights, not just some of them. Even if they’re risky.

[Cannot think of a name]

Oi, new thread!

Well, a majority had a good night, except for Harris. Castro did okay but botched his "age attack" on Biden. Biden was the strongest in the beginning but was fading; seems the long debate takes a toll. O'Rourke for once did decent but his "mandatory buyback" is not going to go over well, even among some Democrats.

Eh, I think Warren might have did the best although the big loser is the economy as that wasn't mentioned much at all.

Despite my prediction based on past performance, the only time I ran across someone saying Trump was the big winner of the debate was a dude who ran a right wing news site who did letters to the editor editorials for the NYTs. So, I was wrong about that.

Most of the post coital debate chatter in articles was how bad Castro face planted and how well O'Rourke did, including some gains in that 538 poll that used the same sample group before and after. But they also have been noticing that the debate surges don't seem to be taking and the race always peels back to roughly where it was after a few weeks.

[Cannot think of a name]

Regarding this post by Gormood, you may think I’m just out to dunk on you, but there’s actually a point here that’s bigger than you.

All rights cause risk. Some more than others, but speech, due process, and assembly are possibly the most hazardous rights of all. It means we let terrorists go if we can’t prove their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. It means letting Nazis and stalinists speak and try to convince others. It means letting those men and women with the tiki torches march.

Some of us care about all our rights, not just some of them. Even if they’re risky.

That's a cool speech and all, but it's not really clear how you get here from there.

[Galloism]

Regarding this post by Gormood, you may think I’m just out to dunk on you, but there’s actually a point here that’s bigger than you.

All rights cause risk. Some more than others, but speech, due process, and assembly are possibly the most hazardous rights of all. It means we let terrorists go if we can’t prove their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. It means letting Nazis and stalinists speak and try to convince others. It means letting those men and women with the tiki torches march.

Some of us care about all our rights, not just some of them. Even if they’re risky.

That's a cool speech and all, but it's not really clear how you get here from there.

You can follow the quote chain - Gauth was mocking people for being upset over the government disregarding a civil right he doesn’t like. I pointed out Hong Kong. He argued due process isn’t hazardous to the public. Except it is.

And we still care about it. Just like the right to bear arms.

[Cannot think of a name]

Before you laugh off Yang’s $12,000 giveaway as a gimmick or bribe, consider the following:

- It’s not a bribe. People don’t have to contribute to the campaign to be eligible, and they are not required to vote for any candidate in return.
- $120,000 will buy you just 1 minute of ad time on CNN and ABC prime time, and around 4-5 minutes of ad time on Fox.
- While other candidates pour millions into ad campaigns, Yang is literally using his cash to help everyday Americans.
- The announcement has made Yang the second most Tweeted and Google searched candidate during the debate.
- Yang’s campaign has announced that it has already raised MORE than $120,000 in the hour following the announcement.
- Yang is the candidate with the smallest campaign budget (because he runs a grassroots campaign).
- The giveaway will be a trial run of his flagship proposal. No other policy proposal of any other candidate will have the benefit of a “proof of concept”.

In summary? Probably the best use of $120,000 in a presidential campaign ever.

Well, the problem with the 'proof of concept' idea is that no one is arguing that an extra $1000 wouldn't be helpful, but rather paying for it would outweigh the benefits, which his stunt doesn't do.

And yeah, a sweepstakes give away is going to drive traffic, it's why companies do it all the time. Hell, I signed up for his lottery. Why wouldn't you? $1000 a month would be great. But that doesn't really make him a top tier candidate even if I don't (and I don't) have a major problem with the idea of UBI.

And I'll go with the relative silence by anyone who actually regulates or monitors these kinds of things to mean that it isn't a bribe but comparing literally giving voters a check to the cost of air time misses the point.

That's a cool speech and all, but it's not really clear how you get here from there.

You can follow the quote chain - Gauth was mocking people for being upset over the government disregarding a civil right he doesn’t like. I pointed out Hong Kong. He argued due process isn’t hazardous to the public. Except it is.

And we still care about it. Just like the right to bear arms.

I followed the quote chain as it happened and your comparison was spurious at best. Which was why it was ignored. Which for some reason caused you to take a victory lap with it. There are several flaws with your rhetoric here and god help me pointing them out is going to send this thread down the shithole before we reached the second page but since you're a dog with a bone:

The connection to due process being hazardous because it failed to convict Capone earlier is a loose connection at best. Further, one could weigh it against the comparative hazards that involve wrongful convictions which makes the idea that 'due process is dangerous' hold even less water as it's merely a thing that functions in a sea of hazard that neither causes or reduces a very nebulous definition of harm by not completely preventing one specific person from operating. It was a stretch and an enigmatic one at that. Thus it was ignored until you dusted it off.

And while the rhetorical 'fight for your rights' speech does sound great, it's being misapplied. First of all, it implies that any right granted is equal to all others by nature of it being a right. We are one of the only countries that has granted a constitutional right to have guns and the merits of that decision can and should be up for discussion. Especially as it does not have the rigor of its companion rights like speech, assembly, press, and religion that have in fact proved to be cornerstones of a free and engaged electorate. Places without one of those four have a much more established track record with abuses than ones without a guarantee towards firearms. In fact, our access to firearms has come at a cost of lives that can be directly related to the presence of guns in a way your 'well, they couldn't convict Capone right away, so like if you think about it the judicial system killed the people Capone killed (with guns) while still free' does not.

It also ignores that rights were never meant to be absolutes and that the three branches of government powers were expressly designed to define how those rights were implemented. While we have a right to free speech we do not have a protected right to incite violence and a limited ability to libel one another. The press, while free, still operates under a number of rules ranging from the nature of content to the things they can say about people or things they are allowed to reveal. While protest religions have pointed out areas where freedom of religion has been used as a get out of consequences free card or end runs around separations of church and state, there are still limits to religious freedoms in so much as they infringe on others. Even the right to assembly is subject to regulation if for no other reason that the tragedy of the commons.

To suggest that we regulate and define those rights which we share with most developed modern democracies across the globe as basic cornerstones of a free society but consider the one right that we have as an exception as above reproach or consideration, especially when that right has the demonstrable ability to infringe on the most basic of rights of other citizens, that of life, is ridiculous. And trying to make a connection between the one to one relationship of a gun shooting a bystander, suicidal person, family member, black kid trying to buy Skittles, attendees at a garlic festival etc, with a criminal continuing to operate because a justice department wasn't able to get a conviction so due process kills people is desperate and silly and was better off being ignored. But here we are. In the fucking election thread. Having the same stupid argument that exists in just about every other thread.

[Galloism]

The connection to due process being hazardous because it failed to convict Capone earlier is a loose connection at best. Further, one could weigh it against the comparative hazards that involve wrongful convictions which makes the idea that 'due process is dangerous' hold even less water as it's merely a thing that functions in a sea of hazard that neither causes or reduces a very nebulous definition of harm by not completely preventing one specific person from operating. It was a stretch and an enigmatic one at that.

Snipping a bit because limited regulation of rights is not in contest, while banning them is considered beyond pale, so just focusing here.

This is why it actually fits so very well. The law abiding citizen that passes a background check owning a gun being hazardous because it could be misused is a loose connection at best. Further, one could weigh it against the comparative hazards of disarming the law abiding, which makes it hold even less water. There are hundreds of millions of guns here - exceptionally few are used in crime.

There are numerous examples, beyond counting, of a criminal we failed to convict that went on to commit further crimes. Capone is a great example, but there are millions more such examples.

And yet, this is not universally applied. China has a very low (non-state) crime rate, probably largely due to its extreme lack of due process in the justice system. They apparently don’t find due process important, and have reduced their crime rate as a result. Japan has a very suspect justice system as well with an uncomfortably high conviction rate, but very low crime.

This is not a good trade. It’s better to have you rights, even with their risks, rather than give them up for safety.

[San Lumen]

Before you laugh off Yang’s $12,000 giveaway as a gimmick or bribe, consider the following:

- It’s not a bribe. People don’t have to contribute to the campaign to be eligible, and they are not required to vote for any candidate in return.
- $120,000 will buy you just 1 minute of ad time on CNN and ABC prime time, and around 4-5 minutes of ad time on Fox.
- While other candidates pour millions into ad campaigns, Yang is literally using his cash to help everyday Americans.
- The announcement has made Yang the second most Tweeted and Google searched candidate during the debate.
- Yang’s campaign has announced that it has already raised MORE than $120,000 in the hour following the announcement.
- Yang is the candidate with the smallest campaign budget (because he runs a grassroots campaign).
- The giveaway will be a trial run of his flagship proposal. No other policy proposal of any other candidate will have the benefit of a “proof of concept”.

In summary? Probably the best use of $120,000 in a presidential campaign ever.

It was certainly the most interesting proposal I've ever heard

[Cannot think of a name]

The connection to due process being hazardous because it failed to convict Capone earlier is a loose connection at best. Further, one could weigh it against the comparative hazards that involve wrongful convictions which makes the idea that 'due process is dangerous' hold even less water as it's merely a thing that functions in a sea of hazard that neither causes or reduces a very nebulous definition of harm by not completely preventing one specific person from operating. It was a stretch and an enigmatic one at that.

Snipping a bit because limited regulation of rights is not in contest, while banning them is considered beyond pale, so just focusing here.

Also snipping because your spurious conclusion flows from here.

Because again, you assign a value to this thing that basically only us consider a right and compare any discussion of its value as 'beyond the pale' and then make a spurious connection to a non-one to one relationship as if they are related. They are not, and a discussion of the efficacy of the right is valid and not beyond the pale. And you conflate restrictions based on it as a dissolution of the right which isn't what O'Rourke suggested unless you view any restriction as an outright ban, which is hyperbolic and belongs in the gun thread with the rest of the masturbatory arguments. O'Rourke proposed an extension of restrictions that are already in place and had in fact been in place before but expired. This hyperbole about rights is just that. And a distortion of the candidate's proposal which is at least related to what this thread is supposed to be about.

[Galloism]

Snipping a bit because limited regulation of rights is not in contest, while banning them is considered beyond pale, so just focusing here.

Also snipping because your spurious conclusion flows from here.

Because again, you assign a value to this thing that basically only us consider a right and compare any discussion of its value as 'beyond the pale' and then make a spurious connection to a non-one to one relationship as if they are related. They are not, and a discussion of the efficacy of the right is valid and not beyond the pale. And you conflate restrictions based on it as a dissolution of the right which isn't what O'Rourke suggested unless you view any restriction as an outright ban, which is hyperbolic and belongs in the gun thread with the rest of the masturbatory arguments. O'Rourke proposed an extension of restrictions that are already in place and had in fact been in place before but expired. This hyperbole about rights is just that. And a distortion of the candidate's proposal which is at least related to what this thread is supposed to be about.

Banning cross examination of prosecution witnesses doesn’t completely eliminate due process, but it wounds it really badly.

In any case, we were talking about DC, as the reference to the 5-4 decision implies, which banned all handguns, and required all long guns stay disassembled.

O’Rourke’s plan is akin to banning free speech on the internet because there are extremists there. That’s excessive, and stupid to boot (better get rid of that bayonet lug).

But in broader terms, bans are on the table. Just because not all countries in the world recognize the right to a fair trial as a right doesn’t mean it’s not important, and the same is true of right to bear arms.

[Greater Miami Shores and La Habana Cuba]

As I said in the previous thread, I checked Andrew Yang's campaign site, he sounds like a Conservative Republican Economic Libertarian, not a Democrat Leftist. He could be in the US House or Senate as a Republican on the economy not a Democrat. But I did not check his foreign policy views.

So I posted I like him and I could vote for him as President if he were a Republican, and his foreign policy views were generally ok with me, as long as he was anti my pet issue on NS which I wont mention but we all know what it is. So a fellow nation posted back to me I would not like his foreign policy views, but he does sound like a Conservative Republican Economic Libertarian on the economy, not a leftist Democrat.

[San Lumen]

As I said in the previous thread, I checked Andrew Yang's campaign site, he sounds like a Conservative Republican Economic Libertarian, not a Democrat Leftist. He could be in the US House or Senate as a Republican on the economy not a Democrat. But I did not check his foreign policy views.

So I posted I like him and I could vote for him as President if he were a Republican, and his foreign policy views were generally ok with me, as long as he was anti my pet issue on NS which I wont mention but we all know what it is. So a fellow nation posted back to me I would not like his foreign policy views, but he does sound like a Conservative Republican Economic Libertarian on the economy, not a leftist Democrat.

He wont be the nominee.

[Galloism]

As I said in the previous thread, I checked Andrew Yang's campaign site, he sounds like a Conservative Republican Economic Libertarian, not a Democrat Leftist. He could be in the US House or Senate as a Republican on the economy not a Democrat. But I did not check his foreign policy views.

So I posted I like him and I could vote for him as President if he were a Republican, and his foreign policy views were generally ok with me, as long as he was anti my pet issue on NS which I wont mention but we all know what it is. So a fellow nation posted back to me I would not like his foreign policy views, but he does sound like a Conservative Republican Economic Libertarian on the economy, not a leftist Democrat.

He wont be the nominee.

That’s actually unfortunate in a way.

I know he walked it back, but he’s the first presidential candidate ever to address in public our widespread practice of male genital mutilation.