{"id":139084,"date":"2019-06-06T19:48:01","date_gmt":"2019-06-07T01:48:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=139084"},"modified":"2019-06-06T19:48:01","modified_gmt":"2019-06-07T01:48:01","slug":"democratic-race-2020-potpourri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2019\/06\/06\/democratic-race-2020-potpourri.html","title":{"rendered":"Democratic Race 2020 Potpourri"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

These were a few interesting articles I’ve run across the past few days (followed by my early candidate preferences):<\/p>\n

The first post-9\/11 vets are running for president. Do voters care? – POLITICO<\/a> — Apparently Dems are a lot less impressed by military credentials than they used to be when sizing up presidential candidates. I know for myself I find it an interesting datum, but more for how they relate it to their life’s experience, service, concern over putting contemporary troops in harm’s way, etc.<\/p>\n

Which 2020 Candidates Are More (Or Less) Popular Than They \u2018Should\u2019 Be? | FiveThirtyEight<\/a> — Polling right now is … of dubious value for identifying the winners, but it is kind of interesting in looking at trends — whose numbers are moving, whose aren’t, and whose are moving in the wrong direction.<\/p>\n

I expect things to shake out a lot more after the debates rumble through and people actually start paying attention, at least at the sound bite level.<\/p>\n

Presidential historian: Democrats’ ‘conventional wisdom’ on picking nominee is ‘all wrong’ | TheHill<\/a>\u00a0— The DNC (and a sizeable array of media punditry) seem convinced that the only way to win is to nominate a comfortable centrist. While Biden’s initial surge in the polls seems to support that, this historian notes that the Dems have won in the last half-century with outsiders and non-centrists, and when they’ve gone for moderate candidates (who are lambasted as radicals by the GOP anyway), they haven’t fared so well.<\/p>\n

2020 Democratic Debates Guide – POLITICO<\/a>\u00a0— Given the gobsmacking number of candidates, it’s little wonder that, even with pre-planning, the selection criteria for the debates is resulting in a lot of shouting and stomping of feet.<\/p>\n

Oh, and since the question has come up elsewhere, here are the only candidates I have much interest (one way or the other in) at the moment:<\/p>\n

Biden<\/strong> — He’s an entire political generation (or two) behind. I don’t think he’s the awful person some folk are trying to paint him as, but I don’t think he’s the Great Moderate Hope who can beat Trump. I want someone a bit –fresher.<\/p>\n

Sanders<\/strong> — Frankly, I find the guy irritating, perpetually angry and scolding and shouting and scowling. He’s done a tremendous service in raising a lot of ideas that have gone from zany-and-way-out-there in 2016 to what most of the Democratic candidates are standing behind this election. All credit to him for that. Now I wish he’d go away and throw his weight behind the nominee.<\/p>\n

Warren<\/strong> — Wonky and feisty and, from what I can see, earnest. I like her. She’s older than I’d prefer (as are the other two mentioned above, and their presumed opponent this election), but she has a heck of a spring in her step, and I can see her going toe-to-toe with Trump.<\/p>\n

Buttigieg<\/strong> — I’ve yet to hear him say anything I didn’t like. I’m a scosh hesitant about promoting someone from mayor to president, but on the other hand he’s got actual executive<\/em> experience (if on a far smaller scale). I want to see more of him.<\/p>\n

O’Rourke<\/strong> — I’d have love to have seen him boot Ted Cruz out of the Senate, and mad props to him for getting so close, but that’s about the best I can say for Beto. I don’t have a sense of much substance on issues here, just a lot of charisma. I’m still willing to listen.<\/p>\n

Booker<\/strong> — My sense from having seen him interviewed a lot over the past several years is that he’s a political hack. I might be wrong, but he’s just seemed to be light on policy, heavy on partisanship.<\/p>\n

Harris, Gillibrand, Castro, Klobuchar<\/strong> — I haven’t heard enough of to really get excited or outraged, just enough to recognize their names.<\/p>\n

Hickenlooper, Bennet<\/strong> — Yeah, they’re from my home state. Um, yay, team?<\/p>\n

And All the Rest<\/strong> — Enjoy your 5 minutes in the spotlight (if you are lucky). I don’t see anyone from that far down in the pack getting anywhere except to use this run as a publicity springboard for further office-seeking.<\/p>\n

And with that said, here’s the biggest caveat:<\/strong><\/em> Short of learning about something profoundly horrible in their past (or present) — I mean of the “eats live puppies with guacamole” level of horrible — there’s not a single one of the people on this list I would not vote for to get Trump out of office<\/strong><\/em>. There are some I’d\u00a0prefer<\/em> to vote for to that end, but when it comes to November 2020, I’m there for whomever is on the Democratic ballot. And that’s not just about partisanship — it’s about literally saving this country (and possibly human civilization).<\/p>\n

That’s hyperbole of the sort I have usually rolled my eyes at in the past. I fully believe it when it comes to the 2020 election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some interesting articles, and my current candidate thoughts (for what they’re worth)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":139085,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1142],"tags":[1741],"class_list":["post-139084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-elections-2020","tag-election2020"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/democrats-2020.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":138296,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2019\/03\/14\/and-yet-another-democratic-candidate-heard-from.html","url_meta":{"origin":139084,"position":0},"title":"And yet another Democratic candidate heard from","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 14-Mar-19 9:43am","format":false,"excerpt":"Hopefully a crowded field won't divide the effort to defeat Trump in 2020","rel":"","context":"In "Elections 2016"","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2016","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2016"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/beto-orourke.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/beto-orourke.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/beto-orourke.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/beto-orourke.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":10738,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/07\/08\/open_source_presidency.html","url_meta":{"origin":139084,"position":1},"title":"Open Source presidency","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 8-Jul-07 9:37am","format":false,"excerpt":"Interesting analysis of the operating systems used by official candidate web sites.\u00a0 The Dems tend toward open source, the GOP toward Windows. 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