Bernie v Joe, Who do you like?

[Valmy]

Don't be silly,  g. Being a woman had no bearing on her candidacy.

It certainly didn't help her win the woman vote

Fuck that election.

[Sheilbh]

Sleepy Joe is clearly somewhat senile, but Trump is clearly massively senile.  Those who, like Legbiter, are hoping their hero can repeat 2016 haven't been paying attention to his clear mental decline.  While he was a doddering fool in 2016, he looks more like a drooling doddering fool now.  Joe is still just doddering.

Plus, of course, Biden's campaign will have a full three+ years or Trump corruption to play with.  The fact that he's just the leader of a family of grifters feeding from the public trough won't go down well.  Add to that the chance that Trump doesn't get his wish and all of his shit economic decisions come crashing down on him before the election, and I'd not put a lot of money on Trump.

The Democrats should by rights be assured of winning in 2020, because the 55% of the population who disapproves of his job performance includes a fair number of Republicans.  But, no, they have to choose the two candidates with the least amount of charisma as their standard bearers.  That probably drops their chances of winning the presidency from 95% to about 80%.

I think this could be how it plays out. I also think we underestimate Biden - he was very effective against Palin and Ryan who were very different candidates. He's been occasionally effective in the primaries too and that's more difficult when you're the front-runner. The NYT long interview is really interesting in that it shows Biden at all of his best and all of his worse. Additionally he doesn't have sexism going against him which was a factor with Clinton and he also doesn't have Clinton's history going against him. He's a known quantity, but doesn't have that decades of loathing that's existed in part of American poltiics for the Clintons.

But, to put the case against. The fundamentals are with Trump. This should be a Reagan style landslide for the Republicans. The economy is doing well, unemployment's falling and there's no ongoing war. Coronavirus could really hurt Trump if his incompetence starts getting people killed (same goes for the BJP actually). Yes Trump is personally unpopular, but with coronavirus as a potential big risk, the fundamentals are still on his side. At the last election it looks like there was at least regional recession going on in 2016 which hurt Clinton. If there continues to be peace and the economy keeps growing I wouldn't bet against enough people basically putting aside their disapproval of him as a man and voting for "more of the same".

On the corruption point - I think Oex is right. It's like that scene in the Simpsons when the doctor explains Mr Burns' immune system and that he's got three stooges syndrome. There are so many scandals and so much naked corruption around this adminsitration and the Trump family particularly, that I don't think it cuts through. If the scandals haven't already convinced by this stage to go against Trump, I'm not sure they will have by November. By contrast - and I think it's bogus - Trump has one scandal that he can keep hammering Biden with: Ukraine, Burisma, Hunter. That's a single line of attack and I think it's got a better chance of cutting through.

Similarly on health - I agree Trump appears to be in clear decline. But again, I feel that's priced in and I feel like Democrats won't attack Trump for his health - I think there's probably still a bit too much of a queasiness about it. As with Clinton, Trump will attack Biden (or Sanders) for his. He will imply that he's got a degenerative condition, or that he's senile, or that he's covering up his health problems. And there's a "pig-fucker" element to this. It's something the media will report, even if it has no basis in fact, because the President baselessly accusing his opponent of health issues is news.

Last time round a lot of voters disliked and disapproved of both candidates, but two-to-one voted for Trump in the end. And I think there's something similar. What might matter more than anything in this election is how high the candidate's floors are because Trump is unpopular but he has quite a high floor. There seems to be a solid 40-45% who are not going to budge. If they're in the right states, he doesn't need many more to win. I don't think it's clear how high or low Biden's floor is yet.

I don't think it's clear either way. I'd like to think that people will turn out to reject Trump and all he stands for.  But I think he's skilled at politics, he's an excellent counter-puncher and the fundamentals are on his side. So I feel like it's 50-50 and I'd be inclined to say it's Trump's to lose. I also think the Democrats need more of a message than a return to "normalcy" and outrage at Trump's character and conduct. It wasn't enough in 2016, we've not seen it make much of a dent in Trump's numbers for the last four years, so I see no reason to think it's enough for the next 8 months.

I could be totally wrong and I could have been burned too badly in 2016 when I was utterly convinced that America was too decent to elect Trump. It could be a landslide against him. But that doesn't feel likely to me.

The Senate races will be interesting.  I have to wonder how the whole republican "let's vote to avoid finding out the truth because we'd have to do the right thing if we allow ourselves to see the facts" vote will go over when people go to the ballot boxes.

Agree - I also think this is the area where a Biden v a Sanders nomination could be quite significant. I think Biden is far more likely to appeal to suburban Republicans as in 2018 and would have bigger coat-tails than Sanders, especially in the Senate races.

Part of me wouldn't be too surprised if what people want/vote for is actually a Democratic Congress and Trump again because of the weird American fetish of split government.

[grumbler]

Don't be silly,  g. Being a woman had no bearing on her candidacy.

It certainly didn't help her win the woman vote

Fuck that election.

It's not so much "fuck that election" because women didn't vote for the woman despite the fact that she's a woman, it is  "fuck that election" because women did vote for the Trump despite the fact that he's a Trump.  I can account for men voting for Trump by invoking stupidity; the only way to account for the women's vote is by invoking insanity.

[Valmy]

Yeah I just meant fuck that election in general. So much fuckness going on.

[Maximus]

Yeah I just meant fuck that election in general. So much fuckness going on.

Yea, so we're going to do the exact same thing this time, but with less appeal for women to vote blue.

[Sheilbh]

Why wouldn't they?  No one has bothered to rebut it.

Also it's complicated and boring. If you're explaining, you're losing. The longer Biden spends trying to explain why him and his son aren't corrupt the better it is for the Trump campaign.

I mean we are all fairly well-read on the news - who among us has the patience to actually read the details of Biden's involvement in Ukrainian politics? Outlets I trust and people I trust here as well have done short summaries of why it's nonsense and that's good enough for me. So I think factually there's nothing there.

And one of the particular problems is the key vector for these lies getting repeated is social media, especially Facebook, and that means the fact-check style of responding to dishonest allegations doesn't work. It's like treating a virus with surgery. The way misinformation spreads with its audience is very different from the audiences and the way traditional fact-checks spread - and this isn't just a right-wing thing, we've seen the same here with left-wing alternative media like the Canary and Skwawkbox. I don't know what the solution to that is.

[Valmy]

Yeah I just meant fuck that election in general. So much fuckness going on.

Yea, so we're going to do the exact same thing this time, but with less appeal for women to vote blue.

Possibly. It is what I am worried about.

At least Clinton was coherent.

[Sheilbh]

Possibly. It is what I am worried about.

At least Clinton was coherent.

Also, I like Biden, but he is a little creepy with woomen - I don't think it's malicious - but it is a little weird, no?

[Valmy]

Possibly. It is what I am worried about.

At least Clinton was coherent.

Also, I like Biden, but he is a little creepy with woomen - I don't think it's malicious - but it is a little weird, no?

Yes. I mean he is Gloria Steinem compared to Donald but it is not a good look. I suspect that is more about his age maybe? I just cannot imagine anybody in my generation being so touchy-feely, but that might just be Joe as my dad is close to his age and certainly not like that.

[grumbler]

Trump really doesn't have Burisma, though.  If Trump brings it up, Biden can just say "let's see some evidence."  Trump will have nothing.  OTOH, Biden has the millions of dollars Trump has paid himself to spend the thousands of hours Trump has spent on golfing.  The fact that Trump has gone bankrupt and dragged others into bankruptcy with him. The fact that Trump's own foundation was shut down for criminal malfeasance and his children forced by the courts to go to anti-grifter school.  The fact that Trump was impeached and only found not guilty because the Republican-led Senate refused to try the case.

I think when it comes to the smear, Biden has nukes and Trump has squibs.  That won't matter to the Trumpeters, but it will to the rest. 

[alfred russel]

Trump really doesn't have Burisma, though.  If Trump brings it up, Biden can just say "let's see some evidence."  Trump will have nothing.  OTOH, Biden has the millions of dollars Trump has paid himself to spend the thousands of hours Trump has spent on golfing.  The fact that Trump has gone bankrupt and dragged others into bankruptcy with him. The fact that Trump's own foundation was shut down for criminal malfeasance and his children forced by the courts to go to anti-grifter school.  The fact that Trump was impeached and only found not guilty because the Republican-led Senate refused to try the case.

I think when it comes to the smear, Biden has nukes and Trump has squibs.  That won't matter to the Trumpeters, but it will to the rest.

The nukes have been deployed against Trump already and he is still standing. He was blatantly dishonest and corrupt in 2016, but the scandals that got traction were emails and Benghazi (which I don't really see as even approaching a scandal, but here we are). Burisma has at least as much "scandal" value as the emails and Benghazi.

[The Minsky Moment]

The Burisma scandal is pretty bad.  For the President and leading party members to be willfully promoting Russian intelligence propaganda is extremely scandalous.  Treasonable, even.

[Barrister]

The Burisma scandal is pretty bad.  For the President and leading party members to be willfully promoting Russian intelligence propaganda is extremely scandalous.  Treasonable, even.

Are you confusing your fake scandals?

Burisma was HUnter Biden being on a Ukrainian gas company's board.  Not a good look, but probably not a crime, and not linked to Joe Biden - but it was a thing that actually happened.

Russian intelligence spread the idea that the Ukrainians were actually behind the 2016 election hacking / Clinton emails - which is complete nonsense.  But has nothing to do with Burisma.

[The Minsky Moment]

Part of the Russia intel op is to pass off Shokin as a legit prosecutor.  Parnas and Fruman set up the call between Rudy and Shokin.

[The Minsky Moment]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/who-dmytro-firtash-man-linked-1-million-loan-giuliani-ally-n1121561

In September, one month before Lev Parnas was indicted on campaign finance charges, his wife received wire transfers from a bank account in Russia.

The sum was $1 million, and the source was a lawyer for Dmytro Firtash, according to a court filing by U.S. prosecutors. . .

A billionaire with alleged ties to the Russian mob, Firtash is facing bribery-related charges in the U.S. and fighting extradition from Vienna. He once attempted to buy and redevelop the famous Drake Hotel in New York with the now-incarcerated Paul Manafort, Donald Trump's former campaign chairman. And he's seen by Ukrainian anti-corruption activists and Western governments as a corrupt instrument of Russia.

. . .Parnas said the oligarch's involvement stemmed from an explicit quid pro quo. In exchange for Firtash's help in their effort to damage Biden, Parnas told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, he assured the oligarch they would make his U.S. legal troubles disappear. . . .

Firtash lived up to his end of the alleged bargain: His lawyers provided a now-discredited affidavit from a Ukrainian prosecutor accusing Biden of wrongdoing.

The affidavit was from Shokin.