Someone Has To Do It: US Elections 2020

[Incandenza]

On 2024:

Depends maybe on if the GOP go for a more centrist candidate?

"Centrist GOP candidate" only seems to be a possibility in the sense that the Overton window gets pushed even further to the right, and the center is what would have been right wing just a short while ago.

[ursus arctos]

Nikki Haley being an excellent example of just that phenomenon

[San Bernardhinault]

Strategy 5 is "Wait for the demographic tidal wave to overwhelm the red states, and Texas in particular". This isn't theoretically a bad strategy, but it is like nuclear fusion. It feels like it has been 2 to 3 elections away for my entire life, and it still is.

Strategy 5.1 might be the one that's currently working best. The alternative demographic strategy of having the nice parts of California get so expensive and crowded that Californians move to all the other western states and overwhelm their good ol' boys. We've taken Oregon and Washington and New Mexico, we're most of the way in Colorado and Nevada, Arizona is getting to the edge. I know many Californians (and ex-Californians now-Coloradans) piling into Boise and Missoula, so perhaps Montana and Idaho aren't far away. And Wyoming's population is so small that we only need a handful of families to move to Jackson Hole or Cheyenne...

[anton pulisov]

We don't need single payer, we need the federal government stepping up.

Or something.

[S. aureus]

I was going to comment on that, but it's just too effing depressing.

[Nefertiti2]

[URL]https://twitter.com/zackfinknews/status/1245091831848853506?s=21[/URL]

[ursus arctos]

Grifters gonna grift

https://twitter.com/briantylercohen/status/1245197512002043905

[San Bernardhinault]

The really sad thing about Loeffler is that there are too many Democrats competing in the Georgia jungle primary on general election day, and that means that there's a good chance that the race will go to a run off between Loeffler and the other Republican, throwing away a potentially glorious Senate pick-up opportunity.

[Flynnie]

Strategy 5 is "Wait for the demographic tidal wave to overwhelm the red states, and Texas in particular". This isn't theoretically a bad strategy, but it is like nuclear fusion. It feels like it has been 2 to 3 elections away for my entire life, and it still is.

Strategy 5.1 might be the one that's currently working best. The alternative demographic strategy of having the nice parts of California get so expensive and crowded that Californians move to all the other western states and overwhelm their good ol' boys. We've taken Oregon and Washington and New Mexico, we're most of the way in Colorado and Nevada, Arizona is getting to the edge. I know many Californians (and ex-Californians now-Coloradans) piling into Boise and Missoula, so perhaps Montana and Idaho aren't far away. And Wyoming's population is so small that we only need a handful of families to move to Jackson Hole or Cheyenne...

The flip side of this is the Rust Belt becoming increasingly shaky for the Ds, as anybody with a future moves out of those states or congregates in the big cities, leaving lots of mid-sized cities and towns (your Akrons, Grand Rapids*, etc.) to turn red. Probably goes a long way to explain why this strategy hasn't meant results yet.

*I think this actually was a GOP stronghold, but you get the idea

[ursus arctos]

Grand Rapids is Amway and another MLM company and the home of the Prince and De Vos families.

Hometown hero Gerry Ford now looks like a raging leftist.

The massive public universities and the economies they foster and support are a counterpoint to that broader trend that you rightly highlight.

[Flynnie]

6.7 million unemployment claims this week, almost 10 million in the last fortnight.

Gonna be a lot of problems resulting from this, both for POTUS and the rest of the country.

[ursus arctos]

Democrats expected to delay their convention until mid-August

[Sporting]

I wonder if that will benefit anyone (or either main party) in particular.

[ursus arctos]

Hard to tell.

It will shorten the "official" campaign, which is probably a good thing overall, though traditionally really active in person campaigning has only started in early September (after the Labor Day weekend).

[San Bernardhinault]

I'm beginning to come to the conclusion that the whole campaign is redundant. If we come out of Covid19 with fewer than 100k deaths and the economy recovers relatively well, Trump gets re-elected regardless of what happens in the campaign. If the economy only rebounds slowly out of the hole, and if there are more deaths attributable to Trump's incompetence, then the Democrats can do no campaigning at all and still win.

[ursus arctos]

There may be some truth in that, but it doesn't apply in the same way to House and Senate races, which are important

[San Bernardhinault]

That's true. But they're not really going to be impacted by when the convention is held.

[Cesar Rodriguez]

We don't need single payer, we need the federal government stepping up.

Or something.

What a load of rambling, incoherent bollocks.

Hillary tweeted today about how the enrollment period needs to be opened up for people who have lost their employment based health insurance. How exactly are people who have just been laid off supposed to afford the premiums and co-pays?

[Bruno]

I'm beginning to come to the conclusion that the whole campaign is redundant. If we come out of Covid19 with fewer than 100k deaths and the economy recovers relatively well, Trump gets re-elected regardless of what happens in the campaign. If the economy only rebounds slowly out of the hole, and if there are more deaths attributable to Trump's incompetence, then the Democrats can do no campaigning at all and still win.

Unless Trump steals the election, which he will be pulling every lever to do in either scenario. I assume he'll have a better chance if it's the gloomier of those two.

[Satchmo Distel]

'Trump, GOP challenge efforts to make voting easier amid coronavirus pandemic'

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...a6d_story.html

[ursus arctos]

An understatement

https://twitter.com/rickhasen/status/1247308088488542208

[San Bernardhinault]

That is fucked up.

[San Bernardhinault]

So is the entire Wisconsin election, to be fair.

[Bruno]

Like I was saying. I was only going on pessimism about human nature, but that seems like it could be enough to straight up steal some states.

[ursus arctos]

Absolutely

I wish I could tell you that you were over-reacting, but you are not.