The “Who is running in 2020?” tea leaves thread, Part 2

[Pyro]

The Hill: McAuliffe serious about 2020 run

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Will the McAuliffe Campaign consider eighth place in Iowa a victory?

[Pyro]

For the second year in a row, Bernie Sanders will give his own response to the State of the Union, separate from the official Democratic response:

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/371237-sanders-to-deliver-his-own-state-of-the-union-response

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Yes, this is good news. There is nothing wrong with different perspectives.
Kennedy will deliver the standardized Democratic response. Sanders will speak to the progressives.

[Pyro]

Sen. Warren addresses 'Pocahontas' - Speech Linked in this Boston Globe Article

[Pyro]

Elizabeth Warren will join Bernie Sanders for an online town hall on income inequality on March 19th:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-economic-inequality-town-hall_us_5aa0cb2fe4b0d4f5b66d608e

Also participating in the event: filmmaker Michael Moore and Prof. Darrick Hamilton of The New School in NYC.

Why.

[Pyro]

The definitive ranking of 2020 Democrats

https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/19/politics/2020-democrats-rankings/index.html

This is based entirely off of those two (?) recent trash polls and is therefore also trash.

[Pyro]

https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/20/politics/2020-democrats-chat/index.html “Part 2” of their definitive ranking. They go over what they missed, and Chris makes a good case that Bullock is a hidden liberal. He was the first governor to order net neutrality be protected, banned “dark money” in MT elections post-Citizens United, passed an equal pay bill, refused to send the MT National Guard to the border, and fought as a private citizen for a minimum wage ballot measure.

They compared Bernie Sanders to Rick Santorum.
These people have absolutely no clue about politics.

[Pyro]

https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/20/politics/2020-democrats-chat/index.html “Part 2” of their definitive ranking. They go over what they missed, and Chris makes a good case that Bullock is a hidden liberal. He was the first governor to order net neutrality be protected, banned “dark money” in MT elections post-Citizens United, passed an equal pay bill, refused to send the MT National Guard to the border, and fought as a private citizen for a minimum wage ballot measure.

They compared Bernie Sanders to Rick Santorum.
These people have absolutely no clue about politics.

... I mean, you're forgetting to include the actual content of the comparison. Let's walk through it, yeah?

Harry says that, from reviewing the feedback of the article, he "thinks people think, 'Oh, Bernie was No. 2 last time and he's very popular,' so therefore he should be high up." Given that he's probably read more feedback than you, I'd wager that he probably has a better grasp on the gist of it too. In short, he thinks that people are reverting to previous results and popularity as a mental heuristic.

Then he says that performing well in the past is no indicator of the future. THIS is where he uses the example of Santorum. He performed well in 2012. He didn't perform well in 2016. These are also facts.

You're right in that there's more to the story than just finishing second. But that's literally his point. He thinks things are different than they were in 2016, so that heuristic people reverted to is useless. He then tells us what specifically is different this time around for Bernie. If you want to say that THAT is bunk, than go ahead. But don't discredit yourself by throwing out a strawman like "he used a comparison so this is wrong".

The comparison is disingenuous and these analysts are a joke. Bringing up Rick Santorum whatsoever is nonsensical and only serves to demonstrate how little these talking heads understand about the present state of affairs within the Democratic Party and in what direction the tides are shifting. Santorum did indeed arrive in second-place in his primary run and therefore certainly shares that lone fact with Bernie Sanders - however this is the end of their shared likeness.

Santorum was no leader. He ended up in second only after every other possible conservative alternative to the uninspiring, milquetoast Mitt Romney had been discredited or otherwise worn out. He garnered no significant base in 2016 precisely because he never possessed a serious base of his own to begin with, aside from wealthy conservative doners. On the other hand, Sanders performed extraordinarily well not due to his status as the Clinton alternative, but rather because he lent his voice to a young, progressive generation. Rather than depending on massive sums of donations to push the campaign forward, he allowed a movement to propel his candidacy forward. This is how a political base functions, and this is the type of base that does not disappear after four years.