Let's face it -- the Dems chose the wrong candidate.

I wonder if Joe Biden is kicking himself right now?

(November 11, 2016 at 1:29 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: Let's face it -- the Dems chose the wrong candidate.

I wonder if Joe Biden is kicking himself right now?

Absolutely everyone who had a hand in this fuck up must be kicking themselves.

I wondered if Obama cried himself to sleep the night after he had to graciously welcome into his home and job, and shake the hand of the man who spent years publicly questioning the legitimacy of his presidency. 



I'm not making fun of the man.  I will miss double Obama a lot.  But look at him....if looks could kill.  What thought is in his head right there?  Nothing good, I would bet everything I own.

The butterfly effect from the death of Biden's son could well have ripples lapping across the world ... and through history.

I don't know if Biden would have beaten Trump - frankly I don't know much about the guy relatively speaking, but we just saw how a platform of "basically 8 more years of Obama, also I'm not the other guy" performed and it got its arse handed to it.
What's the success rate of VP's running immediately after their President's term ends anyway?

(November 11, 2016 at 12:18 pm)Minimalist Wrote: You know, Tibs...you make them sound like children who need their teacher to entertain them.

No, but they need a leader who they think will run their country, look out for their interests and those of the country at large, and be a person they can look up to. When you have a choice between "shit", "slightly more shit", and "you don't have to vote for either" there are bound to be people who will choose the latter.

(November 11, 2016 at 12:24 pm)Minimalist Wrote: One can only hope they learn the error of their ways..... and they deserve to get it good and hard.

That's the thing, I know you think that there was this clear good/evil divide between the candidates, and of course you would being an ardent supporter of Clinton, but for a lot of people, maybe even most of the non-voters, the divide was fuzzy. Not everyone is a liberal or a conservative; there are plenty of people in between who had reason to hate both candidates, to the point where it didn't really matter which won for them, because both outcomes would have been shitty.

(November 11, 2016 at 12:52 pm)Chad32 Wrote: It isn't the people's fault for being unmotivated. It's the DNC's fault for pushing out a horrible candidate. We know for a fact that the DNC tried their hardest to beat down Bernie, and they still couldn't get him mathematically eliminated. If Bernie had the nomination, people would have gone out to vote. It's not the voter's fault Trump won.

Idealism versus pragmatism. What they need to ask themselves today is: would it have been better to show up and vote Hillary into office knowing that it validated a structure that they feel needs to go? Do they feel that President Trump is an acceptable wake-up call for the DNC and that this will force them to change or remove the super-delegate structure? Or do they feel that President Trump is the worst possible option and that they should have held their noses and voted for Clinton?

2018 and 2020 could hinge on how those options are distributed among those who did not vote for Hillary or who simply stayed home.

Nor can the DNC simply assume that this is a lesson learned and that their task is to find another Obama who can galvanize young and minority voters. Because those voters are growing up, and many of them will be of working age in two or four years. And that experience could lead to changes in how they view their voting options.

As an aside, I wonder if the GOP is considering the concept of super-delegates for future elections.

(November 11, 2016 at 2:02 pm)Iroscato Wrote: I don't know if Biden would have beaten Trump - frankly I don't know much about the guy relatively speaking, but we just saw how a platform of "basically 8 more years of Obama, also I'm not the other guy" performed and it got its arse handed to it.
What's the success rate of VP's running immediately after their President's term ends anyway?

Biden is much more facile with words -- not as eloquent as Obama (and who is?) but certainly better able to convey message than Hillary. He also didn't have the baggage she had, which was a big reason Democrat turnout was low.

Just a thought. It might be worth noting that Democrats have fewer viable candidates from which to choose because they are losing at the state and local levels. Presidential candidates generally come from governors and senators that in turn rise up out of local and state offices. If you have 1/3 as many governors then just as a numbers game you'll have fewer people ready and willing to hold high office. The Republican primary had 16 contestants. The Democrats had 2. And Bernie was actually a socialist not even a Democrat! You guys didn't have a primary. It was a coronation.

(November 11, 2016 at 3:03 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: Just a thought. It might be worth noting that Democrats have fewer viable candidates from which to choose because they are losing at the state and local levels. Presidential candidates generally come from governors and senators that in turn rise up out of local and state offices. If you have 1/3 as many governors then just as a numbers game you'll have fewer people ready and willing to hold high office. The Republican primary had 16 contestants. The Democrats had 2. And Bernie was actually a socialist not even a Democrat! You guys didn't have a primary. It was a coronation.

Not sure how you are counting but there were far more than 2 Democratic candidates. At the first debate there were 5, but before that there were others who dropped out early.

(November 11, 2016 at 3:03 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: Just a thought. It might be worth noting that Democrats have fewer viable candidates from which to choose because they are losing at the state and local levels. Presidential candidates generally come from governors and senators that in turn rise up out of local and state offices. If you have 1/3 as many governors then just as a numbers game you'll have fewer people ready and willing to hold high office. The Republican primary had 16 contestants. The Democrats had 2. And Bernie was actually a socialist not even a Democrat! You guys didn't have a primary. It was a coronation.

That's the problem that arises when the democrats let the republicans run the show, and pull them to the right. Hillary is basically a moderate republican. She's certainly not liberal. About the most liberal politician in the country is Bernie, and he gets tarred with the "socialist" label.