The 2020 Presidential Election Primary Thread

[Uncle Ted]

Not sure what Cruz has to do with it. Cornyn would be Beto's opponent.

LOL. Running against Cornyn? Beto has a much better chance of being President.

[creekster]

The pervasive media spin that Warren won is ridiculous.

I tend to like centrists who can work with the other side, who are realistic about our debt, who don't go over the edge on identity politics, and who have experience governing. A few folks showed running mate potential on that front.

Here's one of my big picture concerns, though:

The media behave so as to minimize the importance of people's votes.

The whole "election cycle" has become about conservative and liberal media trying to keep their respective cultists hypnotized. There's so much damn framing that they might as well bust out the pocket watch and go Frank Mesmer.

Well said.

[creekster]

Believe it or not, Frank (and I can't speak for SU, so I don't know if this is representative of him) it's very possible to dislike Trump while also being disappointed, frustrated with and even very angry towards the "nebulous left". Disliking some of the dumb ideas coming from the left does not automatically mean someone likes Trump. Just like disliking Trump does not mean that someone loves what's coming from the left.

Hopefully more people figure that out before the next election cycle or Trump is a shoo-in.

Exactly. I can't stand Trump. I did not vote for Trump. But the range of idiocy on display last night makes me feel trapped without an option. I agree with SU that Warren has no principles. Just look at how she has meandered in her view of national health insurance. It isn't based on her core beliefs about the role of government or her view of society or even on her analysis of what the nation can afford and the tradeoff between innovation and care. Instead, it is based on her assessment of where she needs to position herself in the dialog in order to maximize her chance at winning. I suppose SU is right that this will mean she is less likely to actually do something ridiculous once in office, but there remains the risk that electing someone who espouses this stuff will actually create demand for that stuff.

On balance, the whole event last night was depressing.

[frank ryan]

LOL. Running against Cornyn? Beto has a much better chance of being President.

By that logic Libertarians should never run for anything

[BlueK]

LOL. Running against Cornyn? Beto has a much better chance of being President.

Neither is a great chance, but he has close to zero chance of becoming president this cycle because he won't get the nomination. Cornyn is the one who is up for election this time for Texas senate. He'd have to wait until 2024 to challenge Cruz again but could very well lose all momentum by then. He helps the dems most by running for senate now even if he loses. I think he could at least make it close given the changing demographics of Texas these days. But he's probably gotten a little too caught up in himself to consider doing anything other than sticking it out in the presidential race.

[Uncle Ted]

Exactly. I can't stand Trump. I did not vote for Trump. But the range of idiocy on display last night makes me feel trapped without an option. I agree with SU that Warren has no principles. Just look at how she has meandered in her view of national health insurance. It isn't based on her core beliefs about the role of government or her view of society or even on her analysis of what the nation can afford and the tradeoff between innovation and care. Instead, it is based on her assessment of where she needs to position herself in the dialog in order to maximize her chance at winning. I suppose SU is right that this will mean she is less likely to actually do something ridiculous once in office, but there remains the risk that electing someone who espouses this stuff will actually create demand for that stuff.

On balance, the whole event last night was depressing.

Without an option?

If I had to pick a winner from last night's debate I guess it would be Drumpf...

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[SeattleUte]

Of all the dem candidates Warren is the one who has been the most specific about what she wants to do. The rest are all being a lot more general. She has principles, just not ones that will work very well in most cases.

On the other side, Trump essentially has only two principles: anti-free trade and anti-immigrant/white supremacist (ie. the NY 5). The rest he has flipped flopped on his whole life. Those two principles are the only ones that have been consistent for him over the last 40 years.

Her shtick is to sound wonky and substantial. But it’s not feasible and she is very nimble with her “principles”.

[Uncle Ted]

Quartz: Tulsi Gabbard was a surprise breakout in first Democratic debate.
https://qz.com/1653913/tulsi-gabbard-was-a-surprise-breakout-in-first-democratic-debate/

Aloha!

Best comment all night...

Biden is not only a racist but a warmonger. Wrong vote, Joe. Don't be like Joe.

[Moliere]

What’s up with Deblasios sideburns? They go down the length of his ear but are not thick. I couldn’t figure out if he just forgot to shave them for the past couple days or if he wants sideburns but can’t grow them thick enough.

[BlueK]

Best comment all night...

Biden is not only a racist but a warmonger. Wrong vote, Joe. Don't be like Joe.

someone should have asked her about supporting warmonger Assad in Syria after he gassed innocent children. If she brought up the war issue it would have been a fair question.

[Green Monstah]

I was curious how much of an outlier Sen. Warren would be as a Harvard faculty member if she were hired today, given that she has degrees from Univ. of Houston and Rutgers (J.D.), neither of which are considered academic powerhouses.

Of 131 current Harvard Law School Faculty (academic, emerita, and clinical), here's the breakdown based on where the faculty received their law degrees:

Professors with Degrees from Top-10 Law Schools: 86.25% of HLS Faculty

Harvard: 72 have JDs, LLM, or SJD (academic law degree); 54.96%
Yale: 26; 19.84%
Chicago: 7; 5.34%
NYU: 3; 2.29%
Columbia, Stanford, Penn, Virginia, Michigan, 1 each; .76% each (3.81% combined)

Professors from non-Top Ten Law Schools (1 each); 5.34%

Richmond (clinical prof)
Northeastern (clinical prof)
Minnesota (librarian)
Texas
George Washington (clinical)
Rutgers

Unknown Law School: 5; 3.81%

Faculty without Law Degrees: 6; 4.58% (These faculty had Ph.Ds from Harvard (2), Yale (2), and MIT (2))

Of the non-clinical/librarian faculty, only 2 professors had degrees from non-top-10/Ivy League+MIT Degrees: Elizabeth Warren (Rutgers) and Kristen Stilt (JD from Texas typically ranked in the mid-teens), but she has a Ph.D. from...you guessed it...Harvard).

So, while I wish I could trust this, it's hard to see how checking the "Native American" box wasn't a factor in hiring her. Consider the following:
When she was hired by HLS, she had zero publications (her first publication was in 1997).

She was a visiting professor at Harvard two years before she was hired, so it may very well be they were blown away by her teaching ability, but my impression of HLS is that they're not simply hiring faculty for their charisma. They want proven academics from prestigious universities. If race wasn't a factor, then Warren is quite the outlier.

[Moliere]

I was curious how much of an outlier Sen. Warren would be as a Harvard faculty member if she were hired today, given that she has degrees from Univ. of Houston and Rutgers (J.D.), neither of which are considered academic powerhouses.

Of 131 current Harvard Law School Faculty (academic, emerita, and clinical), here's the breakdown based on where the faculty received their law degrees:

Professors with Degrees from Top-10 Law Schools: 86.25% of HLS Faculty

Harvard: 72 have JDs, LLM, or SJD (academic law degree); 54.96%
Yale: 26; 19.84%
Chicago: 7; 5.34%
NYU: 3; 2.29%
Columbia, Stanford, Penn, Virginia, Michigan, 1 each; .76% each (3.81% combined)

Professors from non-Top Ten Law Schools (1 each); 5.34%

Richmond (clinical prof)
Northeastern (clinical prof)
Minnesota (librarian)
Texas
George Washington (clinical)
Rutgers

Unknown Law School: 5; 3.81%

Faculty without Law Degrees: 6; 4.58% (These faculty had Ph.Ds from Harvard (2), Yale (2), and MIT (2))

Of the non-clinical/librarian faculty, only 2 professors had degrees from non-top-10/Ivy League+MIT Degrees: Elizabeth Warren (Rutgers) and Kristen Stilt (JD from Texas typically ranked in the mid-teens), but she has a Ph.D. from...you guessed it...Harvard).

So, while I wish I could trust this, it's hard to see how checking the "Native American" box wasn't a factor in hiring her. Consider the following:
When she was hired by HLS, she had zero publications (her first publication was in 1997).

She was a visiting professor at Harvard two years before she was hired, so it may very well be they were blown away by her teaching ability, but my impression of HLS is that they're not simply hiring faculty for their charisma. They want proven academics from prestigious universities. If race wasn't a factor, then Warren is quite the outlier.

No one can objectively say that her checking the Native American box didn’t influence their decision to hire her. They could only say that if they did not know that she checked the box. Otherwise, it played a factor either consciously or subconsciously.

[Eddie]

By the way, on the citizenship case, I'm not sure what is "conservative" about taking the position that it's ok for the commerce department to suddenly break its own rules about how to add questions to the census to sneak through a citizenship question in at the last minute, then get caught publicly lying to the court about the reasons why they wanted the question added.

I'll be honest - I'm curious about the citizenship question. Mostly because both sides are spouting data about the number of documented versus undocumented immigrants as well as all the demographic data surrounding those groups. So I'm curious as to who is most accurate.

That said - I understand why it's a completely ineffective question. Who's going to answer it honestly to a US official if they have any concerns at all regarding deportation?

[Uncle Ted]

Dumb NBC... next time they need a Spanish moderator so they can ask the question in Beto's native tongue:

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En el partido demócrata no faltan los pendejos

[Uncle Ted]

The Socialist's and Pocahontas' "medicare for all" plan would force hospitals to close in the poor, rural areas...

Under Warren's Medicare for All Plan, Many Hospitals Would Be Forced to Close—Especially in Poor, Rural Areas

By paying dramatically lower rates, the single-payer plan would lead to a contraction in health care services.
[...]
Like, for example, how hospitals will be paid in a one-size-fits-all system that pays Medicare rates for every service.

As former Maryland Rep. John Delaney pointed out just a few moments later, Warren's plan—which is to say Bernie Sanders' plan—would probably result in a sharp contraction in the number of hospitals.

"If you go to every hospital in this country and you ask them one question," Delaney said, "which is how would it have been for you last year if every one of your bills were paid at the Medicare rate? Every single hospital administrator said they would close. And the Medicare for All bill requires payments to stay at current Medicare rates. So to some extent, we're supporting a bill that will have every hospital closing."Like, for example, how hospitals will be paid in a one-size-fits-all system that pays Medicare rates for every service.

It's probably an overstatement to say that every single hospital would close. But Delaney is right that under a single-payer plan paying current Medicare rates, some, and perhaps lots, almost certainly would. And many of the hospitals that stayed open would likely shed staff and services.

Medicare pays far, far less than private rates, and the higher rates from private payers is part of what keeps hospitals afloat financially. One estimate found that providers would take something like a 40 percent pay cut under the Sanders plan. And that cut would take place very quickly, as the Sanders plan calls for the elimination of most private insurance in just four years
[...]
Cuts to hospital payments, meanwhile, would be hardest to bear for rural hospitals that serve poorer populations. Many of these hospitals are, for obvious reasons, already struggling financially, and under a system of all Medicare rates, they would likely be first to close, leaving local residents with fewer health care options. Warren styles herself a populist champion of the working class, but it is not much of a stretch to say she supports a plan that would make health care worse and less accessible for the nation's rural poor.
[...]

https://reason.com/2019/06/27/under-...r-rural-areas/

But who cares about the people in the poor, rural areas? They are just a bunch of hill billies that don't even believe in science anyway