A Brokered Democratic Convention?

[_EAllusion]

Man, it wasn’t that long ago people had their “Republican civil war!” pre-writes ready to go after a Trump loss. The pundit class was chattering about the party dissolving. Those takes didn’t work out.

Point being that I think the distinction you are making is overblown canpakes. I think it is mostly hype. Democratic voters are slightly less reliable Democratic voters. The difference is a few %. Meaningful for really close elections, but not meaningful to distinguish party cultures.

[_EAllusion]

If there is another Great Recession in the eve of an election like Obama lucked into, there is not a single candidate the Democrats can run that won’t win.

[_Kevin Graham]

If there is another Great Recession in the eve of an election like Obama lucked into, there is not a single candidate the Democrats can run that won’t win.

That should be the case already. What's worse than a recession? How about the orange clown in office.

[_EAllusion]

Heh. The WI GOP has responded to the 2020 convention news by issuing a blistering attack on the city of Milwaukee. Pretty wild for a major political party to write off the largest population center in the state. If you haven’t paid attention to WI politics lately, the Republican Party has been arguing since last November that Madison and Milwaukee voters shouldn’t count because they represent small land area. I am not making that up.

[_canpakes]

Literally Obama. Do you ever think about what you post?

- Doc

Me? Goodness, no. I’m converting to the Republican Party, and have to give up thinking.

[_canpakes]

Point being that I think the distinction you are making is overblown canpakes. I think it is mostly hype. Democratic voters are slightly less reliable Democratic voters. The difference is a few %. Meaningful for really close elections, but not meaningful to distinguish party cultures.

I certainly hope so. Democratic factions seem to occasionally enjoy deploying more friendly fire on their own allied ranks than might be warranted. Purity tests are probably less helpful here in the long view than some folks might believe.

[_Kevin Graham]

It blows my mind that this is even the world we live in.

So in 2016 Trump squeezes by barely with a Electoral college win that was decided by fewer than 100,000 votes out of 130+ million. To swing this, he needed a black swan event (Comey letter) as well as an Army of Russian trolls working on his behalf. He also needed the Liberal media to treat "Hillary's emails" as if it were equal to or worse than his Access Hollywood tape just weeks leading up to the election.

This was two years ago.

Despite a "booming" economy he has the worst approval rating of any President in history. He has since proven himself to be more of the liar and con man than any of us ever imagined. He has alienated Republican intellectuals like George Will and even Ann Coulter. Policy wise he's ripped children from their parents, left Puerto Rico for dead, he's reneged on major campaign promises (Build the Wall, Repeal Obamacare, reducing debt, the trade deficit is going up and the stock market has flatlined).

So basically everything has gone wrong for Trump in terms of what he said he'd do and what Democrats, especially HC, warned us about him. His administration has collapsed in on itself with dozens of cabinet members quitting because of his incompetence, numerous key officials being arrested and/or going to jail, etc. He's gone on the world stage to support ruthless dictators in the same breath as denouncing US intelligence. He's been described as an unindicted co-conspirator in multiple felonies by even FOX News.

But even after all this we're supposed to take it for granted that he is guaranteed to win reelection simply because .... What?? Because Democrats aren't united? Because the Green Deal has no chance of passing? Because Bernie is too Socialist? I don't get it. So what about all of that.

Does it really matter who the “F” they nominate so long as it isn't a member of the Trump family? It doesn't surprise me that his blind followers think this way, but people on this forum who are his biggest critics?

Does anyone really believe Trump is going to get 63 million people to vote for him in 2020 like he nearly did in 2016? Probably 2 million of his 2016 voters are going to be dead from old age and another million teenagers will be eligible to vote and the younger generation tend to vote Liberal. Why is everyone assuming 2020 is a slam dunk for this horrible excuse for a human being, unless the Democrats miraculously come up with a flawless candidate?

Hell, I think Hillary would beat Trump if she ran. Why wouldn't the same 66 million people vote for her again? Virtually everything they were bashing her for turned out to be either false or small potatoes compared to the crap we're seeing in this administration. I think a lot of people who gave Trump the benefit of the doubt in 2016 are feeling pretty dumb and want to make restitution by voting against him in 2020. The number of people who blindly hated the crap out of Hillary is about the same or less now.

[_honorentheos]

I personally doubt that Trump would win an election if every person in America showed up to the polls to vote at the general election in 2020 and was handed a $20 for their troubles. Trump is a terrible candidate, and a better candidate than President.

If I have any concern regarding the potential for Trump to get reelected, it would be due to low voter turnout. 2018 showed that Trump had an energizing effect on voters when they were choosing someone who ran a tailored campaign for their state or district. And on the surface it seems that one should expect the same in 2020. The problem is that he wasn't on the ballot in 2018 and the campaign warfare was limited at the primary level due as much to voter apathy regarding mid-term primaries as much as anything else so people really didn't pay much attention until the fighting was between the Republican/Trump surrogate and the Democrat/Opposition Candidate. So voter turnout was mostly informed by the big brush strokes of the election and communicating Pro-Trump/Anti-Trump views through a Senate or House candidate. On top of which, it didn't take much beyond the Kavanaugh hearings to give the mid-terms the flavor of a Presidential election with just a hint of the forces working to turn people off due to disgust. Presidential campaigns seem almost entirely to be about demotivating people these days, and they really do a great job at doing it.

Do I think that the Democrats will implode if - and I think it's likely this will happen - their convention has to go to a 2nd ballot before they are able to confirm a nominee? Hmmm. I want to say they wouldn't. But there are glimpses of behaviors and views coming out today that, if they become much more significant, could easily derail the party from being able to put up a nominee that a) doesn't leave half of America already sick of the election to the point they tune out and don't care who wins so they don't show up, or b) get so caught up in the righteousness of whatever cause they represent that they abandon the Presidency to pursue having a coalition of obstruction and change in the House and possibly Senate. It was only an election cycle ago that the conventional wisdom said Republicans had no shot at the Presidency so they were focused on controlling the Legislature. And Tea Party/Freedom Caucus factions were largely motivated by that dynamic.

Anyway, I would put money on the Democrat convention going to a 2nd ballot. After that, it's speculation.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Well, the Democrats better hope that Overton Window shifts hard in the next two years, and Gen Z feels like voting. Otherwise, Trump stumping on abortion, Conservative judges, the border, and taking shots at the hysterical Left and their retarded Green Deal is going to be, well, not fun for us center-lefts. The Right is going to come out to vote. Hard.

I don't know why anyone on this board that spent any time bitching about election rigging, gerrymandering, and 'merica showing up to vote think anything different will happen this time around. I mean, we were all inaugurating a landslide victory for Hillary. What makes you think the Repubs are going to change their tactics, especially given Pelosi doesn't want to move on impeachment?

- Doc

[_Kevin Graham]

I don't know why anyone on this board that spent any time bitching about election rigging, gerrymandering, and 'merica showing up to vote think anything different will happen this time around. I mean, we were all inaugurating a landslide victory for Hillary. What makes you think the Repubs are going to change their tactics, especially given Pelosi doesn't want to move on impeachment?
- Doc

The previous two posts explained it already and you're going to sit there and act like you have no idea why anyone would think 2020 would be different? Virtually every election cycle is different. You've done nothing to address the points made in those posts. All you're doing is repeating the same boring crap about how it doesn't matter what Trump does or says because he's the default guy to win in 2020 simply because you think the Green Deal is retarded. Why do the Democrats need to produce the next Abraham Lincoln in order to beat the worst President in history? That's the real mystery you haven't even begun to explain.

Here are the facts.

Trump barely won by the skin of his teeth with the benefit of numerous factors that aren't likely to exist in 2020. Even after two years with a good economy, his approval ratings move from 5-10 points worse than it was when he got elected. His base is getting smaller, not bigger.

Only 39% of the female voters voted Trump. That is likely to get even worse after the Kavanaugh debacle. Trump only got 28% of the Hispanic vote. That's likely to get worse after his mistreatment of Puerto Rico, the Mexican families on the border and the Right Wing's hysterical obsession with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Trump's largest pool of voters by age demographic was voters over the age of 65. More than 53% of his voting base is in this group. Many of them won't be voting in 2020 because they'll be dead.

Trump's worse age demographic was Hillary's best, young adults ages 18-29. Trump only got 28% and Hillary got 58% of that group. And that group is likely to get bigger in 2020.

Yes, Trump still has a loyal following. The white, uneducated people who know he lies every day but don't care because they think he's going to abolish abortion and believe God uses him even though he's a con artist and adulterer because God works in mysterious ways. I think you give way too much credit to this group of religious crackpots. I don't think you give enough credit to the number of Trump voters who have since disavowed him. The people who actually do care about family values, and the people who got screwed over after they were promised their factories and coal mines weren't going to close. Oh yeah, and the quarter million Trump voters who went without a paycheck because of the shutdown.

Is it important that the Democrats produce a competent candidate? Of course. But I don't think the Green Deal is going to make most people vote Trump when there is a fair amount of support for those things already. I mean this has more support from the general population than Obamacare.

More than 80% of Americans support almost all of the key ideas in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal

Personally I think the Democrats best chance to win is with Stacey Abrams. She'd all but guarantee the vote among blacks, women and she'd probably win the state of Georgia. She is well spoken and highly intelligent. And the Right needs someone they can start mocking again for her physical appearance.