So far it appears that at least one of them can. I don't think we have a candidate problem at all.

tHaT iS sO cOol ... nArLy EvEn

But all things being equal, I see no reason why 2020 can't be like 2018.

That is, a Democratic victory by 8.5% points at least.

Even if there is no consolidation around the personality of the Democratic candidate, a vote of rejection against the opponent is just as valuable in the tallies.

And just wait until it really sinks in among voters that the fat bastard almost took us to war just to save his re-election chances.

I don’t think that will work unless he runs against a candidate who appears to many to be more open to taking military action abroad in general. I don’t see that scenario happening!

Bernie has 1 million volunteers , 1.4 million individual donors , and raised 34.5 million dollars from small donors in Q4 ….This has never been done before in the history of American politics …..He has drawn the largest crowd amongst all the Dem candidates this cycle ….Hundreds of thousands of people , particularly the young ones , are going to work their tails off if Bernie is the nominee …. This enthusiasm will translate into hard work from volunteers, which will put Bernard over the top...…...

This will be the end of the Democratic Party as it existed for more than 70 years

We have a large, strong field this time. We only had two real choices from start to finish in 2016. Biden polls a lot lower as the front runner this year than Clinton did at this stage in 2016 also, for the same reason. Support is divided among more candidates, but this is a temporary stage. The field will continue to narrow and two or three candidates will build on their current levels of support, at least until after NH. There could be as few as two viable candidates after that, with Bloomberg of course a wild card.

And forget that their primary foe will always be better than Trump...

L-

Sanders has, more than any of the other candidates, given the 'meh' crowd a sense of belonging to a movement that has real potential!!!

enough of them to defeat Trump...they will in the end go third party when Sanders does something they don't like in the general.

Sanders has zero chance in these parts.

some 'excitement.' But this is about running the country, the highest and most serious office in the US, so people need to get real, use their brain and vote.

It's the Democrats job to inform voters about the high stakes, the issues and the candidates.

And the chances of that are better than in the past - thanks to the world being literally on fire and shit - but still not sure what % are really all that concerned even.

Sadly, there are a lot of Americans who are convinced that nothing much will change no matter who gets in office.

I certainly know how I'm going to vote. But, yes, we need to get out the vote. We do.

Problem is, there is huge inertia against anyone more than a couple degrees left of center. Not from the people - the American people are FAR more progressive than we are depicted. If we actually had the truth instead of a bunch of corporate 'preserve the primacy of the shareholder at all costs' propaganda foisted off on us by the corporate-owned media, we would HAVE a Medicare for all, expanded Social Security, debt-free state college, really strong K-12, subsidized childcare and early childhood education and so on. Stuff that actually materially benefits us.

But we don't. Anyone who has been in politics a while, anyone, faces immense pressure to do 'business as usual.'

Takes a lot of courage to buck that kind of pressure, that kind of money.

that kind of power to influence voters is hard to change. Publicly funded elections and instant runoff voting would be a good place to try and make a change.

or what you consider a 'moderate'( he is actually progressive) and like many you assume everyone thinks as you do...they don't and polling proves this. As for business as usual...if you mean like when Obama was president...bring back business as usual because the alternative is Trump...and the left/greens stopped Obama in 10 and 14 from any sort of radical changes when they turned against him in the midterms...so now we start to the right...what a pity. I often think about how much further along we would be if Gore had won, Kerry had won...Obama had been supported in 10 and 14 and of course the mother of all games changers...if Hillary had been elected in 16...heartbreaking to see how many times our supposed allies have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory

When our party is not built up we lose. It was built up in 2008

Republicans built in 1994 and 2010. Especially in 2010 because it was reapportionment year.

paid the price but so did the American people...The House members knew that they would lose their seats most likely if the voted for the ACA...and let me tell you...I am so proud that they put the lives of American's ahead of their own careers as did Obama...Nancy essentially gave up the house majority...If that is not a reason to vote, I don't what is...I say it was not and never is a reapportionment year...if you vote faithfully in the midterms, you win. Look at Bush in his his first and second mid term. Those who claim to be on our side and attacked Obama helped the GOP and hurt Democrats...the ACA was and is the only health care we ever passed and is still a big fucking deal.

right wing noise machine ginned up the racists. And, yeah, if we committed ourselves to reversing the GOP sabotage of the ACA over the last decade, it would be great. Because with Medicare expanded in states, the individual mandate and the rest, the ACA could and did work better than what we had.

But, bottom line, the ACA was originally thought of and fleshed out by the Heritage Foundation, a right wing think tank. Why? To preserve profits. Recall that back in '92 Hillary Clinton was trying to reform healthcare in this country. Think about what actually happened as fallout: there really WAS a 'vast right-wing conspiracy' to gin up hatred for her. You don't try to reform healthcare in this country while at the same time being a woman without generating absolute hatred from the money machine. That is truth.

That's why we had Whitewater. That's why we had Benghazi. That's why we had Hillary's emails. If you read Malcolm Nance on Russian hacking and national security, you will begin to share his frustration that when our ENTIRE intelligence community found out about the Russian hacking, the corporate-owned media chose to report on the CONTENT of Clinton's emails rather than the fact they were compromised by hackers. The story was thus deflected from a national security breach, which is what it SHOULD have been, and instead we had people poring over emails that had recipes in them.

You are right though. TOO many people don't vote in the midterms. In fact, we've done a really crummy job at making informed citizenship an expectation throughout our K-12 and postsecondary education systems. Now we are paying with a populace that can render a deep analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of a given sports team, or an American Idol or Survivor contestant, but doesn't know how many justices are on the supreme court, who are their senators and representative, and even who is the vice president.

The culprit behind this deterioration is and has always been money. The lust for power and for wealth. Check out George Carlin's 'big club and you ain't in it' video. That is truth.

for the inevitable backlash in 2010 That means fundraising and support for Democratic state and national seats and candidates.

We not do enough of that after victory.

I think a major problem is focusing on the top office every four years and not doing the party building.

I don't support Biden or Sanders this time around. Not that I won't support them if they win. But no, my point stands. Most polls are disingenuous in some way, whether it is the sample chosen, the method of contact or how the questions are structured.

I support a single payer system like Britain or Canada and there is nothing you can say or do to convince me otherwise. As an economist, I can tell you that a) the tax increase could be structured so that most of us actually came out ahead (because of not paying premiums, copays or coinsurance, b) we could structure it so that everyone gets 'x' but if you want 'x + y or z' then you could buy private supplemental insurance.

Problem is, and THIS is and has ALWAYS BEEN my point: millions of dollars in lobby money is lined up against us ever having even a public option. Why? Profits. Most insurance companies are for-profit, and publicly held. Which means the executives running those companies have more economic incentive to deny care for their patients than to give their patients the treatment they need. Why? Profits. The more the insurance company denies coverage or procedures, the more money they have for shareholders and high CEO salaries.

That, Demsrule, is my point. My whole point. I'm fully aware that we aren't ever going to be able to get away from the dark money, the lobbies and the corporate corruption with our current system, and equally aware that very few politicians have anything near the courage to make the changes that should be made.

So yeah, we're gonna get biz as usual. You say bring it on, and that's fine. But there are a whole bunch of us out there who will actually expect some serious and rapid progress on things like healthcare and climate change. Trump's trying to start a war because the POB don't want to pay for stuff that helps us. They would much rather earn profits for shareholders and CEOs.

Those are the facts of life in this capitalist utopia.

It is also a fact that a large number of Democrats in this big tent are more like Warren, Sanders, AOC, Tlaib, and Katie Porter than Biden or Klobuchar. Problem is the GOP has gone full-on far-right crazy fascist.

So the sane party has to accommodate everyone within that middle two thirds on the Bell curve. I'm to the left. Some in this party are to the right, but still in that two thirds.

When the bottom finally falls out and this unsustainable house of cards falls, the GOP is sucked into the dustbin of history, and sanity once again rules - we can take our republic back and have the debates you want to have now.

But I'm not in primary 'snipe at all other opponents mode.' We had that in '16, and outside interests quite effectively divided us so that we ended up with a bitter and split electorate. So I'm going to support whomever emerges as the candidate, and I'm sure because big money is moving, that it will be a centrist that Wall Street can live with. I mean, that IS the reality. Look what's happened to Warren. See, the media is all corporate owned so they report news a certain way. And in the system we have, they always will.

So I'm not poking at you. I just look at the world as it is and see what could be. And I get tired of people with lots of money behind them telling me why I can't have things like healthcare or expanded Social Security or debt-free college. And I don't think I'm the only one.

There is a total passion to beat drumpf and it doesn't include just activists. Some otherwise sane people who were somewhat ignorant & lazy & voted for him last time have seen his lies, his hate and his greed and totally want him gone. It's not just us.

Clinton and Obama had more charisma in their tiny fingers than most people have in their whole body. They are not the usual candidates. But - it's also how the media portrays them. The media is pushing the white guy meme, they aren't heralding the charisma and the wonderful plans to fix so much from Elizabeth Warren - they are pushing Mayor Pete because he's the new face. I like Mayor Pete, I like Liz, but Biden has the heart and the caring and the experience to be a great president. If those factors don't make him Joe our general candidate, I will work for whoever the party has chosen. That is my main concern, that some dems won't support the general candidate because they aren't "pure" enough and will help Russia & the fascists steal the election.

same media market?

and the incumbent president is an old white dude, that it probably isn't a real factor.

oldest candidate so I don't understand why...if Biden is too old that Bernie is not.

If this was Clinton’s second term, she’d be old too.

Age is not a disqualifying item. Otherwise it would say 35 to ??? 65? 70? years old.

Bloomberg and Steyer are gaining. The fascination and reverence for rich people is a power.

Most of the polling data shows that the anti-trump sentiment is running upwards of 57-59%. Head to head, most polls put the top three Democrats in the 53-55% category against Trump. I would agree that what we need is a candidate who will excite the Democrats, motivate a higher turnout and make this election a landslide beating that will get the Republicans back in line with the rule of law and constitutional republican government instead of this lunacy dictatorship. We need to give a Democratic president a house and senate with the numbers to get everything done in the first hundred days. Who does that for us?
https://nuntiatum.home.blog/2020/01/06/an-open-letter-to-the-democratic-presidential-candidates/

by the Orange Anus between now and the election that will offer tremendous opportunities to put on display for the electorate, we just have to hope enough Independents pay attention.

excitement candidate and that is Trump. You either vote for him or against.

They have their worst candidate in this countries history. They have an impeached candidate.

The voters will see that. Literally any candidate is automatically better than Trump.

Link to tweet