SaysWho?

His Rust Belt appeal, superior polling, and actual clear platform.

That was also a very close race where she once again won the popular vote. The assumption here is Trump was a better election candidate because he won the primary. Yet everyone else was pummeling Hillary in the polls and getting more of the national vote than she was, and he won in an election not even in the top half of closest elections in the US. Who wins the primary =/= who's the best in the general. Many people vote for who they think can win, not who is definitely going to win. Hillary won the primary, partly because of me, and I look back and think Bernie would have been a better general election candidate. I also don't believe Kerry was the best general election candidate in 2004. It has a lot to do with now because many of your arguments applied to who she was winning and where she was winning. "He's one of us" is a movie we've seen before. Past is prologue.

Believe it or not, much of this is exactly what Hillary supporters told me in 2008 when I said Obama was a better candidate (and boy, did we get proven right on that one ). Middle America viewed Hillary as one of them, his pastor Jeremiah Wright would scare white people to death, she was doing better with the backbone working class and all the huge swing states (Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, and I'll include Florida even though there was a lot of weirdness around that one and nobody campaigned there), she's got this. But Obama won all of them in the general election and handily won the Rust belt. Bidens doing better with many demographics, but so did Hillary (especially her margins with black voters), and that didn't translate to the general election. I read a lot of these Twitter threads and FB posts (God help me), and many people are saying, "Oh, Bernie makes it so hard to wanna vote for him. But you know, as Bernie supporters said, maybe it wouldn't be so bad," or, "#NeverBernie," or, "If Democrats select a populist, I'm not voting for them." There was one that went viral in 2018 or 2019 of a guy with a decent amount of followers who scolded some of Bernie's supporters for not voting for Hillary, a vote not for Hillary is a vote for Trump, and then said he wouldn't vote Bernie! And it's not even for issues; it's just sour bloody grapes on the candidate. In my view, it's even worse, even if they both lead to the same result. A platform is going to consist of issues, sure. But look at the difference: Bernie says the system is rigged for ordinary Americans and has benefited the top 1% for ages. And because of this, they've toppled the system, gotten bailed out by poor and middle-class Americans, and now the banks continue to grow. We need to break up the banks and have real universal health insurance so the working class isn't bankrupted by things out of their control. The laws rigged to put poor people in jail and give rich people a slap on the wrist needs an overhaul. Biden's is that he will beat Trump like a drum. He has positions -- don't legalize marijuana but expunge records, public option -- but what's his actual platform? Beating Trump can't be a platform, but he's going all-in on this. I guess restoring decency? Hillary's campaign staff disagrees with you.

A platform is more than individual issues. Hillary had many ideas and no platform. She was constantly perplexed why her team couldn't come up with something better than Breaking Barriers and Stronger Together to sum up her vision of the future. After all those years, she really didn't have a coherent vision except a bunch of things, many of which were adopted from the "far left" who had them first.

You never have to bow out; you're a valuable member of the message board. I'm not getting personal, but progressives continue to be the easiest target despite an overwhelming amount of reasons why Democrats have a hard time retaining power and many times going along with Republican demands/ideas. It does annoy me, and it's going to bleed into the posts. So I ain't going for a gotcha, but if you're not blaming progressives, then what did you mean by this: This sounds like progressives are a key reason to the right regaining power when they've been shunned from the party for decades now and many non-progressives sit out elections, and the structure of the Democratic Party turns off a heck of a lot of people who don't show up to the polls. As far as the coalition, people have many different reasons for voting. Many people have 0 issues with his positions but don't think he can win, so their vote goes elsewhere. His outreach has improved with minority voters (big part of why nobody came close to him in Nevada), but with Trump in power, I know some people just want to get somebody quickly and start the fight against Trump. Some people I know were Bernie voters in 2016 but want somebody younger. And many people who like him are independent and don't want to register for a party in principle, so they don't vote in closed primaries. I know from some really fantastic reporting and my friends that while many young black voters like Bernie and Warren, many older ones have a slew of reasons for voting Biden and preferring him in the general, most of the time pretty well-reasoned (don't hold his votes in the 70s against him now, Obama trusted him so who am I to question it, we're used to incremental change and that's what's actually worked so far, Bernie may have supported Jesse Jackson and protested in the 60s but Biden's been our fighter with Obama the past 12 years). I don't agree, but it makes a lot of sense to me. tbh, I don't really gauge it via primary because Hillary did far better with black Democrats than Bernie yet was mediocre in the general. I don't know if I'm right, but I know the Democrats have a long history of supporting someone like Biden, with no real platform besides beating the Republican, and being wrong.

I wasn't being subtle: I'm being direct that your line of thinking of blaming progressives is not borne out by the facts. Maybe blame the moderates who didn't vote, or the ineffectual Democratic leadership which has a bad track record of maintaining power in recent decades. They thought Kerry was electable, and now you have Roberts and Alito for a while. You punch down at a group that's constantly ostracized by the brilliant Democratic leadership.

Kind of where I am. I'm still making my voice heard, but unless polls inexplicably have the same unique problems the 2016 Michigan polls did, I expect Biden to do very well tonight and next week. And really... it just is what it is. I have one vote in one state and can't dramatically change an entire country's view.

Let's go further. Your premise is straight-up not supported by any overwhelming evidence. We know a quarter of Hillary voters went to McCain. We know #NeverBernie people exist in high numbers, as I've been on both ends of the attack. How many black Americans sat out in 2016 who weren't progressive at all? Nobody blames them. They literally tell reporters that they haven't seen any improvements, Hillary sucked, I didn't vote, I might have even voted for Trump, but you blame progressives? Woosh. It's so easy to blame progressives and punch down, and blame them when the Democratic Party consistently shuns and ostracizes them, picks people who are "electable" like Kerry which leads to Alito and Roberts on the Supreme Court, and loses nearly all their power nationwide into 2016. Progressives aren't the ones stifling progress; they're pretty much the ones always ahead of the Democrats on issues as the apparently centrist Democrats eventually adopt the position that was apparently "far-left" at one point when they randomly decided it was far-left just because. If you want to know who's giving you Alito, Gorsuch, Roberts and Kavanaugh, maybe blame the moderates who sat out. Maybe blame the ineffectual un-progressive Democratic leadership. It'd be a lot easier for them to have a positive view of the Democratic Party as a whole if they felt welcomed, like their votes weren't taken for granted, and that while someone may not agree 100% with them, their views are made to help people and compromise would be best served between moderate and progressive Democrats.

I do love it when people talk to me like I don't vote straight Democratic every election after the primaries are over.

Yes, really. Progressives are interested in issues. Issues need to be debated. How many Never Bernie voters are there who are the angels you're describing? Tons, but if you're only focused on the "Bernie Bros," you'll miss what's right in front of you. Let's not pretend that the right regaining power happened under progressives' watch. It happened under Obama/Biden. Elections have consequences, and we've seen them play out horribly for Democrats who follow your line of thinking.

With that critique out of the way, I'm not actually expecting Bernie to do that well in Michigan. What I'm reading from pollsters makes a lot of sense: Michigan's 2016 primary polling was way off for Democrats, but there hadn't been a competitive primary to poll in many years. Michigan had caucuses in 2000 and 2004. Obama and Edwards weren't on the ballot in 2008. Obama was an incumbent in 2012. So who you poll, who likely voters are, that stuff is murkier and less certain. Now that they gauged the primary electorate in 2016, they have a much better idea who will vote in 2020 when they poll people. My expectation is Sanders isn't getting another 20+ point polling error. And while I'll put my ballot in for Sanders anyway later this week, I expect the race to just about be over (maybe he'll stay for the debate/next Tuesday) if Biden routs him in Michigan. We'll see tonight.

I feel like many Democrats think politics is just a game in regards to getting a bunch of D's into office and not really concerned about actually helping people. That's why Republican talking points filter into their lexicon and they don't seem to have any vision of what they want in the US.

If this ends up being Biden, he should pick Kaine again for the lulz

My g/f and I have a cruise planned in early June due to the drop in prices. We have it insured in case we have to cancel, but I honestly am not expecting all cruises to cease in the summer. If so, whatevah. EDIT: Actually, looks like Norwegian is offering free cancellations up to two days before one. Cool.

It is true. Unless Bernie gets another Michigan polling error the size of the 20 point one from the 2016 primaries, Biden is cruising in Michigan.

Yup.

New standards eliminate Tulsi Gabbard from next Democratic debate

Which upsets me every time I think about it. It'd have been nice if Gillum and Abrams won their governors' races. They're not Sanders or Warren levels of progressive, imo, but they are more progressive and exciting than most Democrats. At least they showed that, even through a loss, they could do better than every regular boring centrist Democrats have thrown at those races for years.

Warren's got the energy of someone in her 40s so it's all good

That would get me very excited even if she endorses Biden over Bernie.

I think what's scary is after the boring Tim Kaine pick, I could see this boring-ass pick being a reality, especially since Hillary picked Kaine over Booker. But I don't see, if you REALLY want to go the route of a diverse ticket, you'd choose him over so many superior and more exciting options. I'd have to think Patrick's just on a list, but not the one jumping out.

Eh, while Patrick is one of the possibilities (and a terrible one), there are more:

Deval Patrick, seriously? Gonna read the article to see who else he's thinking about.