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Its a coming to Jesus moment for party centrists about being so historically wrong they've been about everything, this entire time. And this is them trying to make up for it in rapid time. This is them realizing they don't and didn't know what the fuck they were doing, ever.
Real answer: We should nominate whoever is most likely to win. The most important and only point is that we need to beat Trump, and we need to stop project 2025. Keeping Biden as the nominee has continuously fucked over our ability to fix this idiotic and stupid unforced error, but here we are. We can fix this.
I think the most electable combination is Kamala + 1. I think that + 1 should be either farther to the left or farther to the right, but regardless you need to get a demographic. The two best options are AOC and Andy Beshear. If you go Andy Beshear, you are trying to pull off NC and GA, and PA. If you go AOC, you are doing so to recover the upper midwest. Andy Beshear is the harder path in an extremely polarized environment; Democrats have been notoriously bad at clawing back votes in southern states. If you go the AOC route, you let her take an oppositional stance on Israel/ Gaza and claw back MI/ MN/ WI.
AOC is a lightning rod for conservatives, moreso due to sexism imho than her politics because she gets way more hate than Bernie even though they're politically very similar. She's not a good choice just because of that. I don't think the general population of the US is ready for two women on a ticket, esp two women of color. Could make an exciting ticket in the way Obama was, but only if Kamala proves to be as engaging of a speaker. Which, honestly I think she's a good orator but a lot of people will have trouble seeing past the fact she is a woman, and Kamala will unconsciously or consciously have all the usual biases against women in power (bossy, crazy, etc).
I honestly had no idea who Beshear is but just looking him up, I think he'd be an okay pick. Looks like a boring white guy, has solid liberal track record. I feel like a white guy who supports Palestine would be better, Kamala has a lot of pushback from leftists from her time as DA in CA. Idk who that would be.
This hand wringing around what "conservatives" want is not a way to decide who the Democratic nominee should be.
She’s not a good choice just because of that.'
If anything, having them as a lightening rod to be able to put the racism & sexism of the republican party on full display; there is narrative power in that.
You put AOC on the ticket and you let her step left on Gaza/ Israel.
You make the ENTIRE campaign about abortion rights and a woman's right to choose. Get back to the progressive roots that underpinned the platform that got Harris/ Biden elected in the first place. Activate a base around specifically abortion rights and I think you get this thing in the bag. Women right now are incredibly disenfranchised by the shockingly weak way in-which Biden has responded to the overturning of Roe V Wade. This is a chance to activate the singularly largest voting block there is in the US: Women. And they overwhelmingly support a womans right to choose.
VP's are notoriously bad at "getting" their states. Beshear is the soft answer and MSNBC is test-ballooning this right now.
If Andy Beshear "gets you" KY, he's worth it. If he can't get KY (and really also GA, and NC), he's a waste of space. But maybe he can do it. I just don't see any other conservative Democrat who can fit that bill right now.
I think the double woman ticket leaning into the only thing thats worked for Democrats in 20 years, progressive idealism, is how you lock things up.
I'm not talking about catering to Conservatives, I'm talking about the cultural campaign of meme-ification of AOC that conservatives have been waging for years, that could be convincing to moderates and moderate Democrats.
The only successful Democratic presidential candidates in the last twenty years have been Obama and Biden. Obama won because he has a lot of natural charisma, and came along with a story of having our first black president. Biden won as a reaction to the first Trump presidency. Neither were really particularly idealistic Democrats... Obama did not even express public support gay marriage when he came into office, he had pretty centrist positions overall and gave off an idealistic message with campaign art, speeches and slogans, but his actual policy was not especially progressive.
So Obama won as a biracial black man with the conservative stance against gay marriage, and overall very center-liberal politics, but flashy idealistic messaging.
If progressive idealism had been working, we would have had Bernie presidency by now tbh
I just to be clear, you are arguing that Obama didn't campaign as an idealist?
Not how he governed, but his 2008 campaign. You know, the one where he delivered the famous acceptance speak "The audacity of Hope". You know, the campaign with these posters:
Your saying this wasn't a campaign based on idealism?
Not how he governed to be clear, where I agree on your evaluation of Obama's alignment; but his 2008 campaign.
Obama didn't win 2008 on centrism or being against gay marriage. He won 2008 in spite of those things.
I think I was pretty clear saying his campaign was based on the idea and image of idealism, but his politics did not reflect that, not his actual politics or his promised politics in 2008. You're showing me this poster as if I didn't directly mention the art and sloganing as a major reason for his win.
AOC may have idealistic policy positions, but her public image is so meme-ified I don't think she could successfully do the Hope thing that Obama did. Obama was much less well known of a politician when he ran.
I think you are muddying the water between campaign/ candidate Obama that misrepresents the fact that he campaigned as a progressive idealist, and it worked to get him into office. His platform was a very progressive platform that he did not govern to; this has been brought up repeatedly as an issue with Obama and was brought up when he was campaigning for a second term.
I think it's utterly disingenuous to present the Obama 2008 campaign as anything but a campaign focused on progressive idealism even if it was more of a show than how Obama ultimately governed.
Correspondingly, Bidens 2020 platform was maybe the most progressive platform any president has run on since Jimmy Carter, and it was a horse trade that got him Sanders voters and effectively the election.
Feel like I mentioned again and again that I'm talking about his campaign politics. I took a look at his 2008 campaign policies to see if I was misremembering anything and it's pretty centrist to me, even his health care plan. And like I mentioned, he explicitly did not support gay marriage which at the time would have been an easy progressive signalling, but he either truly opposed gay marriage or he was trying to cater to a broader audience.
Like I said, he had a convincing image of idealism but not the politics to back it up, and you are saying AOC could win because she has progressive politics. She would need the flashy campaign to back it up, and so many people just hate her I don't think it would work.
Anyway I'm just saying the same things over and over again in different wording and it's getting tired, respond if you want, idc, but I'm going to stop here.
I’m just saying the same things over and over again
Yeah. You keep just repeating the same patently wrong, historically inaccurate characterization of Obama's campaign. The discussion was about idealism and how it sells in-terms of getting elected. My central point, is that it absolutely does sell, even its just the trappings. You run as a progressive idealist, like Obama did or like Sanders did, or based on just lift and shift the progressive platform like Biden did, and you catch W's.
You want to win an election as a Democrat? Either run on a progressive platform, or at least paint yourself that way in your campaign.
The idea that you can win as a Democrat running towards the center isn't supported (at least since Clinton).
MN hasn't voted republican in a presidential election since tricky dick in 1972. There have been a few close calls.
MN Polling: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/minnesota/ MN polling at a toss up (keep in mind Trump almost always outperforms his polling).
Another fun one, Jersey is now a swing state: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/new-jersey/
Your comment about "claw back" implies that the dems lost MN. You can't claw back that which hasn't happened yet.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2020/minnesota/
Minnesota 2020.
Dems up by 10, and polling 15 pts ahead of where they are polling today.
Dems only won MN by five points on election day. Anything close to a tie in polling for Dems is an L.
Yes. It's a correct statement to say that Dems have to have to claw things back to win MN.