2020 US Election (Part One)

[Commodore]

Whereas Republicans are really onto something with all that complaining about illegal votes and voter fraud...

No, they aren't. Pretty much anyone who thinks election fraud is a problem in the US is a moron, regardless of their political affiliation.

 

[Berzerker]

The DNC got caught cheating Bernie Sanders out of the nomination, then Hillary complained that exposing the cheating cheated her out of the White House

and the Democrats wonder why Trump got elected, such a mystery...

 

[bernie14]

Looks like the special election in North Carolina is more competitive than it should be.

Go Trump, best asset ever for Dems.

And it's over still a 12 point lead in a red state down to 2%.

Mccready lost in 2018 by less than 1k votes. He has been running for more than 2 years as a "country before party" bipartsan, anti pelosi, anti omar, pro tax cuts, pro wall, no medicare for all, essentially far right to any of the current democratic presidential candidates, moderate war hero....and had 3x the $. He lost by 4k votes this time around

 

[Zardnaar]

Mccready lost in 2018 by less than 1k votes. He has been running for more than 2 years as a "country before party" bipartsan, anti pelosi, anti omar, pro tax cuts, pro wall, no medicare for all, essentially far right to any of the current democratic presidential candidates, moderate war hero....and had 3x the $. He lost by 4k votes this time around

Democrat in red state. I looked at the % as GoP numbers seem down across the board.

 

[Takhisis]

no, more like they don't impact the election so why should they impact the primary? less overton, at least consciously speaking it was not something I took into serious account.

Oh, well…

The simple answer is that

pragmatically speaking

you can't actually do anything about it, the simplest reason being that you can't predict which states will be red in the actual election.

Yes, and by not campaigning in them you make sure the turnout there is lower on your side, whoever you are.

 

[Zkribbler]

The DNC got caught cheating Bernie Sanders out of the nomination...

Oh goodie! I get to once again ask the question that no one's ever been able to answer. What did the DNC DO to cheat Bernie Sanders out of the nomination?
Yes, yes, I know: Several in leadership positions preferred Hillary to Bernie--but what did they do?

 

[Berzerker]

https://www.thewrap.com/donna-brazi...inton-against-bernie-and-twitterverse-erupts/

Donna Brazile Says DNC ‘Rigged’ Primary for Hillary Clinton

The nominee got to run the party, Hillary was doing it long before she became the nominee. And that came from someone who gave the Clinton campaign debate questions.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/11/democrat-primary-elections-need-reform

On Thursday, Brazile released a excerpt from her new book on Politico’s website. The excerpt explained how the Hillary Victory Fund, Hillary for America, and the Democratic National Committee signed a Joint Fund-Raising Agreement, which gave a significant advantage to Clinton’s campaign.

“Hillary would control the party’s finances, strategy, and all the money raised,” Brazile wrote. “Her campaign had the right of refusal of who would be the party communications director, and it would make final decisions on all the other staff. The DNC also was required to consult with the campaign about all other staffing, budgeting, data, analytics, and mailings.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...ly-steal-the-2016-primary-from-bernie-sanders

Politico’s Edward-Isaac Dovere published a lengthy piece on Wednesday titled, “How Clinton lost Michigan – and blew the election,” that details how the Clinton campaign ignored the crucial battleground state of Michigan and focused on states that didn’t have a chance of impacting the Electoral College over fears that Trump would win the popular vote while losing the electoral vote — the very opposite of the scenario that played out in November.

https://www.thewrap.com/hillary-clinton-spent-on-states-trump-popular-vote/

how ironic, she poured money into states she was gonna win anyway and ignored swing states just to maximize her vote total. Dum-de-dum-dum-dum... Oh that darn electoral college.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41850798

hell, even Hillary supporter Elizabeth Warren said the election was rigged

https://www.investors.com/politics/...mocratic-primary-and-may-have-broken-the-law/

How did Clinton rig an election? It wasn't hard, according to Brazile, the former interim DNC chair, in her new book, "Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns that Put Donald Trump in the White House."

The Democrats were broke and in debt after bankrolling President Obama's second-term campaign, and he did little to help them raise the money they needed. Desperate, the Democratic National Committee made a deal with Clinton early in her campaign to jointly raise money together. Using Clinton's fundraising clout, the DNC was soon out of debt. In exchange, Clinton took control of the DNC, including hiring and firing, and used it as a political weapon against her foes.

The deal let Clinton raise money outside the limits of the campaign finance law, by in effect laundering campaign donations through the DNC. It may have been illegal.

Bernie didn't stand a chance.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Donna Brazile Says DNC ‘Rigged’ Primary for Hillary Clinton

The nominee got to run the party, Hillary was doing it long before she became the nominee. And that came from someone who gave the Clinton campaign debate questions.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Donna Brazile is a hack and a fraud who will say anything to cling to relevance. Now some of the things you are posting may have some truth to them, I don't dismiss that possibility... but if Donna Brazile is the only source, then I'd disregard, because she has no credibility.

 

[Ironsided]

Nice try Sommer. If it was only about Donna Brazile. Wikileaks released 20 000 emails from top DNC officials backing the claims. After that steady stream of leaks. We know the Clinton team had say over in the DNC official communication like press releases. The DNC was in all but name part of the Hillary campaign. It does not get more rigged than that. That’s a hurdle further than the damn GOP would go.

 

[Estebonrober]

Did someone mention the illegitimate government of Georgia?

https://www.motherjones.com/politic...vernor-is-blocking-53000-voter-registrations/

Tens of thousands of would-be voters in Georgia have had their voter registrations put on hold, threatening their ability to cast a ballot in November, due to a policy implemented by Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who is also the Republican candidate in next month’s election for governor. Of the 53,000 applications in limbo, 70 percent are from African Americans, according to an investigation by the Associated Press, even though Georgia is approximately 32 percent black.

I mean the UN would have said something if this happened in almost any other country its such an obvious manipulation and voter suppression. Or at least we would have complained about it at the UN. Since we are the banana republic now I guess I shouldn't expect any better. Just waiting for the right wing junta to take over with their military coup after we vote for a "socialist".

 

[Kyriakos]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Donna Brazile is a hack and a fraud who will say anything to cling to relevance. Now some of the things you are posting may have some truth to them, I don't dismiss that possibility... but if Donna Brazile is the only source, then I'd disregard, because she has no credibility.

Didn't you support her back in the infamous day? (2016)
Not that I disagree that she seems dodgy, but remember that she was part of team Hillary all the way in 2016. Your team ^_^
Iirc she was also accused of giving Hillary interview questions in advance (for some formal settings -?)

 

[Estebonrober]

https://civilrights.org/democracy-diverted/

In Georgia, where nearly a third of the population is African American, seven counties were left with a single polling place. Voters in Warren County, which is 61 percent black, saw 83 percent of their polling locations shut down while Lumpkin County closed 89 percent of its polling places.

One suburban white man, one vote. GOP2020

 

[Sommerswerd]

Didn't you support her back in the infamous day? (2016)

This is a pretty disingenuous question Kyr. Putting aside the fact that I have always been consistent on this including in numerous coversations with you specifically. A simple forum search of "brazile" and "Sommerswerd" would have educated you. In 2016 I posted:

This, this, this, and this and especially the bolded. Gore sucked. He lost because he sucked, and because Donna Brazile is a hack and a fraud. Blaming Nader and Nader supporters for the dumpster fire that was the Al Gore campaign/candidacy is scapegoating of the highest order.

And in 2017 I posted this and you gave it a "like":

My previously posted thoughts on Donna Brazile (and Hillary's corruption) for reference:

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It is very unusual for anyone to more accessible than the candidate.
Yep, and if Donna Brazile had just done the same, Gore would have won... It's good to have a candidate who actually learns from past mistakes.

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The complaint seems to be these people who blame Nader for Bush are mad because the people they took for granted didn't do everything they wanted. They are overlooking the responsibility their own candidate and campaign had in that loss. Gore picked a strategy to appeal to a particular coalition of voters, executed that strategy, and ultimately lost. Arguably, he lost more from executing that strategy poorly (i.e. not campaigning with Bill Clinton, perhaps he could have done better with his VP pick, etc.) or in the post-election (i.e. conceding too early in the evening, initially requesting a limited recount instead of a full statewide recount, which lead to bad optics during the recount process).
In short, sounds like scapegoating to me.
This, this, this, and this and especially the bolded. Gore sucked. He lost because he sucked, and because Donna Brazile is a hack and a fraud. Blaming Nader and Nader supporters for the dumpster fire that was the Al Gore campaign/candidacy is scapegoating of the highest order.
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Likewise, the 2016 Clinton campaign has picked their strategy, issue set, etc. Bernie was already an uncomfortable compromise with the Democratic Party for me, and the Clinton campaign (and her supporters) have taken that compromise and trashed it with gleeful insult. I wish them the best, but I'm not voting for them. And if this strategy ultimately results in another 2000-esque loss for the Democrats, uh, the strategy might be at fault.
Now this I don't completely agree with, particularly the "trashed it with gleeful insult" part. Clinton and to a lesser extent, her supporters, have treated the Sanders campaign and to a lesser extent Sanders supporters with kid gloves, occasional smug condescension, and a steady theme of accurate but again mildly condescending insults/derision.

The pain on the Sanders side comes more from the results of the contest, ie Sanders losing, than from any of the lily-livered prodding that has come out of the Democratic party or the Clinton Supporters. But again, Hillary's task has always been to duplicate the turnout Pres Obama produced, not to woo Sanders die-hards cause there was never any hope for that. In short, I agree that blaming Sanders supporters for a Hillary loss would be scapegoating.

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Gore did his campaign a disservice by trying to distance himself from a popular sitting president.
This is the main reason Gore lost... (You can thank Donna Brazile for that ) Hillary will hopefully not make the same mistake (letting the Republicans scare her away from the popular sitting President).

https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...esidential-race.564754/page-395#post-14546455

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Yes, the bolded is necessary. What projects are you going to support if the Republicans win a majority? What projects are you going to support if they win the Presidency? Right now, the entire country is locked in partisanship. But you will need to have spliced clips available, where each candidate is basically promising the same thing. So, then, Nov 9, post those clips and get them widely distributed. The country will need some type of bipartisan momentum before it grinds to a halt again. If you can literally think of *nothing* that should be possible to push through, even if the 'other side' wins a majority, then you're barely living in any reasonable equivalent of a democracy any longer.
But again...as I've touched on previously... you're approaching this from a premise that I tend to reject, specifically, that both parties' platforms have merit. They don't. The Republican policies, platforms etc are mostly garbage, worthy of nothing but opposition. And if the response is "Well that's how they view Democrats!", that's fine, they're wrong... and that's what elections are for. What if the Republicans win? To quote Robin Williams' Popeye..."They're not gonna win... cause they're bad... and the good always triumphs over the bad."

The Republican Party panders to the Klan. I'm not supporting that. Their "projects" are mega-bank deregulation, corporate deregulation, trickle down economics, dissolving the EPA and DofEd, The Wall, mass deportation of illegals, racial profiling/"Law and Order" (ie stop and frisk), support the police no matter what they do cause derp they're heroes derp, ending affirmative action, Christian religious theocracy, increased fossil fuel use/production... yeah... to quote my Illini friend above... "Nope, nope, nope and nope"

See, the reason the country has become partisan is because the Republicans policies are so toxic, that there is nothing to do but oppose them. And their toxin is so incompatible with anything beneficial, that they are completely unable to compromise... their garbage is diametrically opposite of anything that is worth doing. You can't support stirring feces into the cake batter. You can only oppose it. And the guy committed to putting poop in the cake isn't going to be persuaded to use eggs instead. If he was reasonable, he wouldn't have proposed that crap in the first place.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...esidential-race.564754/page-395#post-14546455

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What projects are you going to support if they win the Presidency?
Just curious... What Republican project do you imagine I would support? Ending Hillary's "corruption"?... sure... we just need to take one thing at a time... priorities, first things first. First, Democratic supermajority. Then we can spank Hillary's bottom for being a nasty dirty little cheater and all her corruption and whatever else.

The immediate priority is defeating Trump and the Republicans running for Congress. We can't walk (defeat Republicans) and chew gum (Hillary corruptioncheatingliesOMGarrghh!!) at the same time... everytime we try... Trump starts creeping up in the polls.

I agree with you about the vote trading thing BTW... seems scummy to me...
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That it was caused by incompetence and negligence, that it persists through lack of empathy, unfortunately, does not mean that it shouldn't be used for what knowledge we can pull from it, compassionately. It, or it's like, is unlikely to never again been seen upon our shores. Good does not always triumph over evil.
What "was caused by incompetence and negligence" and "persists through lack of empathy"??

And you are right Good does not always win, but it eventually wins... if we force it to (paraphrasing Batman).

https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...esidential-race.564754/page-395#post-14546484

TL;DR - Donna Brazile sucks... she's a hack and always has been... I put her in the same bracket as Joe Lieberman in terms of hacks that I despise. Also... Hillary being corrupt is *yawn* not news... sorry. It's ...to borrow a phrase... a big nothingburger... but hey, I'd love to see Hillary share a jail cell with the whole Trump administration...whateves, why not? Who's with me?

And so it doesn't get missed by you (yet again apparently ) I conclude that long list of me railing against Donna Brazile by stating:

TL;DR - Donna Brazile sucks... she's a hack and always has been... I put her in the same bracket as Joe Lieberman in terms of hacks that I despise.

So I just can't see how in gods holy name that you can fix your mouth to ask me if a was a supporter of Brazile "back in the infamous day", as if I've somehow reversed my position on her. You know damn well how dishonest you're being. I like you Kyr, but you're lying and you know it. Now if you somehow just forgot all that past discussion then fine, I forgive you, but otherwise... stop it.

Iirc she was also accused of giving Hillary interview questions in advance (for some formal settings -?)

Again, I've addressed this as well... years ago.

Yes, that's exactly what she did, in true Joe Lieberman fashion, never missing a trick whereby he can throw his allies under the bus in order to garner the spotlight (or in this case to gin up controversy to sell her book). Let's not forget that Donna Brazile was fired from her job as a CNN contributor for that fiasco where she was tipping Hillary off with debate questions... She's desperate to cash a check and stay relevant... so this is just such obvious opportunism that nothing she says has a shred of credibility. Again, I actually can't say that she's actually wrong... what she is alleging to me seems par-for-the course for Hillary (or any political-royalty) and we were all commenting the whole cycle how it was obvious that Hillary was far and away the chosen one, but Brazile is an obvious hack grasping at straws as she swirls the drain into obscurity and irrelevance. She has no credibility whatsoever.

So my position on Brazile should be clear and it should also be clear why I'm not inclined to listen to anything she says.

 

[Kyriakos]

This is a pretty disingenuous question Kyr. Putting aside the fact that I have always been consistent on this including in numerous coversations with you specifically. A simple forum search of "brazile" and "Sommerswerd" would have educated you. In 2016 I posted:
And in 2017 I posted this and you gave it a "like":
And so it doesn't get missed by you (yet again apparently ) I conclude that long list of me railing against Donna Brazile by stating:
So I just can't see how in gods holy name that you can fix your mouth to ask me if a was a supporter of Brazile "back in the infamous day", as if I've somehow reversed my position on her. You know damn well how dishonest you're being. I like you Kyr, but you're lying and you know it. Now if you somehow just forgot all that past discussion then fine, I forgive you, but otherwise... stop it. Again, I've addressed this as well... years ago. So my position on Brazile should be clear and it should also be clear why I'm not inclined to listen to anything she says.

I stand corrected, and very happily as well
Never attribute to malice what can more easily be explained by laziness - I just wouldn't go searching for old posts

 

[Sommerswerd]

I stand corrected, and very happily as well
Never attribute to malice what can more easily be explained by laziness - I just wouldn't go searching for old posts

OK I love you too. Forgiven, forgotten

 

[Lexicus]

This is where we allow "not all Republicans". Trump's claims of "millions of illegal voters" might be what ruins the United States in 2020

Nah, at this point, it's all Republicans. If they weren't part of the problem in a major and acute way they would have defected to the Democrats 2 or 3 years ago.

 

[Gorbles]

Nice try Sommer. If it was only about Donna Brazile. Wikileaks released 20 000 emails from top DNC officials backing the claims. After that steady stream of leaks. We know the Clinton team had say over in the DNC official communication like press releases. The DNC was in all but name part of the Hillary campaign. It does not get more rigged than that. That’s a hurdle further than the damn GOP would go.

Ah we're citing WikiLeaks as some kind of non-partisan source of truth that definitely had no angle in releasing specific DNC email trails.

Is it 2016 again?

 

[Socrates99]

Ah we're citing WikiLeaks as some kind of non-partisan source of truth that definitely had no angle in releasing specific DNC email trails.

Is it 2016 again?

I like how people simultaneously pretend there was nothing to see in the emails and that the dump was harmful.

 

[Ironsided]

Ah we're citing WikiLeaks as some kind of non-partisan source of truth that definitely had no angle in releasing specific DNC email trails.

Is it 2016 again?

Are you saying wikileaks have it in for the DNC in particular?

 

[Lexicus]

I like how people simultaneously pretend there was nothing to see in the emails and that the dump was harmful.

Yes it is rather funny? That said claims that the election was "rigged" are simply false. Sanders mostly lost the primary because he couldn't get any traction with black voters in the South. Let's focus on the future now, which means accusing the DNC of rigging the election to help Biden