Thread: 2020 US Presidential Race

Why to bother with nominations, primaries, electors, billionaires. It's Russia, stoopid...

US election 2020: Sanders 'told of Russian effort to aid his campaign'


Bernie Sanders has warned Russia to "stay out of American elections"

Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders has condemned Russia for its reported attempts to help his campaign, telling it to "stay out of American elections".

Mr Sanders said on Friday that US officials had told him last month about Russian efforts to aid his campaign.

Speaking in Bakersfield, California, Mr Sanders said it was not clear how Russia intended to interfere.

But the Vermont senator, 78, said he strongly opposed any attempts to do so.

He denounced Russian President Vladimir Putin as an "autocratic thug" whose government has "used internet propaganda to sow division in our country".

"Let's be clear, the Russians want to undermine American democracy by dividing us up and, unlike the current president, I stand firmly against their efforts and any other foreign power that wants to interfere in our election," Mr Sanders said.

US election 2020: Sanders 'told of Russian effort to aid his campaign' - BBC News

Originally Posted by Klondyke

Speaking in Bakersfield, California, Mr Sanders said it was not clear how Russia intended to interfere.

Bernie, they are trying to keep the Trumpster in the Whitehouse by backing the likeliest turkey to fail in opposing him.

Must be a tough choice for the Ruskies given the number of eligible turkeys in the Democrat field!

Mr Sanders said it was not clear how Russia intended to interfere.

He is surely not the only one whom it is not so clear...

BTW, I am wondering why the American population is not offended by these frequent insinuations and that nobody has expressed his dismay:

What the politicians, MSM (or whoever disseminates this nonsense) think about the IQ of American people that they will fall in on such an influence of other ("rogue") state - and not follow their own brain?

Beside the fact, how could it be possible in such developed state with the best counterintelligence system ?

Those god damn Russians again choosing the next President of the USA.

Just make a movie.

Originally Posted by Klondyke

Beside the fact, how could it be possible in such developed state with the best counterintelligence system ?

I reckon the best counterintelligence system is being smashed to bits before our eyes.

a WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell is the new acting national intelligence director, but he's expected to be a short-timer overseeing the nation's 17 spy agencies.

President Donald Trump named Grenell the acting director, but says he'll nominate a permanent director soon. The president told reporters on Air Force One Thursday evening that he's considering Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga. But Collins said Friday that he's not interested.


The appointment of Grenell, an outspoken Trump loyalist with little to no intelligence experience, did nothing to heal the president’s fraught relations with an intelligence community he has derided as part of a “deep state” of entrenched bureaucrats seeking to undermine him. His administration has feuded with the intelligence community, most notably over Russian interference in the 2016 election and the events surrounding Trump's impeachment.



But Grenell's selection follows the logic of a Trump White House that prizes loyalty and has a penchant for “acting” Cabinet secretaries who don't require a potentially bruising Senate confirmation.

Trump Looks for Permanent National Intelligence Director | Washington, D.C. News | US News




I fear for my country.

Originally Posted by misskit

Collins said Friday that he's not interested.

.....and extremely unqualified.

But we all know being qualified is not a prerequisite for any position in the Trump administration.
Just kiss the ring, and you’re in! I love hearing the catch phrase, “drain the swamp.” Trump has appointed more lobbyists to his cabinet in three years, than Obama and Bush did in 2 terms, yet his flock keep chanting, “drain the swamp!”

Bernie is going to take Nevada, then Tuesday California. All the middle of the road establishment Dems will be freaking out.

Lots of promises from Saunders, what a joke.
Education....He can barely speak English.

Originally Posted by aging one

All the middle of the road establishment Dems will be freaking out.

They can freak out all they want, just as long as they vote.

Originally Posted by Jack meoff

Lots of promises from Saunders, what a joke.

Such a nonsense as free medicare, free education, no debts for students, you name it, something like some poor countries enjoy.

That's what American people do not want to have...

Originally Posted by Klondyke

Such a nonsense as free medicare, free education, no debts for students, you name it, something like some poor countries enjoy.

That's what American people do not want to have...

Waste of space. They obviously do want a social democracy. If not why vote for him... One more Jethro Tull impersonator on TD..

Originally Posted by aging one

Waste of space. They obviously do want a social democracy. If not why vote for him... One more Jethro Tull impersonator on TD..

Not interested in paying an additional $5K a year in taxes under Bernie’s tax plan. And considering I’m on the back end of paying nearly $100K for a kid to attend a public university I have no interest in “free” college for those who come along behind me. Although I’d be willing to compromise on some level for two years free. Which reminds me ... why no talk from Bernie about making universities reduce their tuition rates?

Originally Posted by Storekeeper

Not interested in paying an additional $5K a year in taxes under Bernie’s tax plan. And considering I’m on the back end of paying nearly $100K for a kid to attend a public university I have no interest in “free” college for those who come along behind me. Although I’d be willing to compromise on some level for two years free. Which reminds me ... why no talk from Bernie about making universities reduce their tuition rates?

If someone offered free visits to the local supermarket, what would people do if not take advantage and load right up, even with stuff they will probably never use, knowing that someone else is paying for it? And what would the supermarket do, if not raise their prices as much as possible, also knowing that the customers don't care a toss and they're going to be paid anyway?

If that same fool offers you free tuition, why would students and unis not do much the same?

The complicated truth behind Trump’s ‘American comeback' - BBC News

Banana Republic.

just throwing this out there as food for thought....

in recent US presidential elections, the tenor, ideology and "personality" of an incoming administration has been in stark contrast to the current tenant:

eisenhower => kennedy

kennedy/lbj => nixon

nixon/ford => carter

carter=> reagan/bush

reagan/bush=> clinton

clinton => W

W => obama

obama => trump

IOW, americans haven't recently opted for presidential change in small measures.....the change has been significant.

so....

trump => sanders (or warren) would follow this pattern...albeit to a more striking degree than in previous cycles.

if sanders can somehow get out of the convention with the nomination (and not too much D on D violence on the floor) i believe he can beat trump.

the electoral college unquestionably favors republicans, but bernie's strengths play well against it. perhaps better than any other D running.

Originally Posted by raycarey

the electoral college unquestionably favors republicans, but bernie's strengths play well against it. perhaps better than any other D running.

What I have been saying now for 5+ years. He has the troops on the ground to get out the vote. He had people canvassing rural Nevada on horseback..

this closing line from a politico article succinctly sums up the state of the race...

The race is Sanders’ to lose. He’s the best funded non-billionaire candidate. He has the best organization. He is winning the broadest coalition.

you people forgot one thing, the economy

when the economy is doing great, the POTUS get re-elected

Could Bernie be the first to break that 100 years pattern?

and when the economy is doing badly, wars is the only way for a POTUS to get re-elected

why do you think Obama get those little ME wars going,

Originally Posted by Chico

Those god damn Russians again choosing the next President of the USA.

Just make a movie.

good point Chico

^Why not to make it now a bit different: blame on China or Iran. Or - as Mr. Netanyahu idea - on Belgium...

Originally Posted by Dragonfly

good point Chico

up until this point, said no one ever.

Bernie Sanders has won the Nevada caucuses, and it looks like he’s going to win them by a big, perhaps even landslide margin.

We don’t know exactly how big. As I’m writing this just before 7 p.m. Las Vegas time, only a relatively small percentage of precincts have officially reported results. Nor do we know who’s going to wind up in second place, although it will probably be either Joe Biden or Pete Buttigieg.

Unless the final margin unexpectedly tightens, though, I don’t think the details are going to matter that much. This was a big, impressive win for Sanders, and it should be even clearer now that Sanders is easily the most likely Democrat to win the nomination.

Unlike in Iowa and New Hampshire, there aren’t really any qualifications or caveats about Sanders’s victory here. Nevada is a diverse state, and Sanders did well among a broad array of demographic groups, including winning 53 percent of Hispanics and 27 percent of African Americans, according to the entrance poll. This is a pretty good electorate for Sanders: young, working-class, unionized, heavily Hispanic. But he’s also worked hard to cultivate support from those groups of voters — Hispanic voters weren’t a major strength of his in 2016 for example. Perhaps fortunately for him, there are also plenty of these types of voters in the two biggest delegate prizes on Super Tuesday, California and Texas.

In addition to being the most likely winner overall, Sanders is by far the most likely Democrat to win the nomination with a majority of pledged delegates. Other candidates are mostly hoping for a messy outcome in which they win the nomination by plurality — potentially at a contested convention.

We don’t have enough results as of this writing to officially update our forecast model, but the first two of these prebaked scenarios we built should give you a rough idea of what it will say:


How Nevada could affect the nomination odds

Chances of winning a majority of all pledged delegates based on winner, margin of victory and second-place finisher in Nevada, according to FiveThirtyEight’s forecast

			CHANCE OF WINNING MAJORITY OF DELEGATES
Winner	NV margin	2nd	Sanders	Biden	Bloom.	Buttig.	Warren	None
Sanders	large	Biden	45%	9%	8%	<1%	<1%	37%
Sanders	large	Buttigieg	47	6	8	1	<1	38

We’re defining a “narrow” win as anything less than 4 percentage points over the second-place candidate, a “medium” win as 4 to 12 percentage points, and a “large” win as more than 12 percentage points. Scenarios are only listed if they had at least a 1 percent chance of occurring.


That is, Sanders will probably be somewhere in the vicinity of an even-money bet to win the nomination with a delegate majority. He will presumably also be the nominee by plurality at least some of the time that nobody wins a majority. (The model will likely show around a 35 or 40 percent chance of there being no majority.) That means Sanders is probably more likely than not to be the nominee, whether by majority or plurality, although note that our model doesn’t try to forecast what would happen in the event of a contested convention.

After Sanders, the candidate with the next-best puncher’s chance at winning via the majority route is probably Biden. Nevada is his best result so far which — yes — is extremely damning Biden with faint praise after a 4th place finish in Iowa and a 5th place finish in New Hampshire. But it looks like Biden at least found a bottom and will match or slightly exceed his polls in Nevada, unlike in the first two states. He also did win some key groups in the entrance poll, such as African-Americans and seniors.

Obviously, Biden would need to win South Carolina for a comeback to be a real possibility. (With a South Carolina win, his majority chances would likely improve to somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 percent in the model.) Biden does still lead in the polls in South Carolina, but it’s a narrow lead, and the question is whether any further bounce that Sanders gets from winning Nevada will be enough to propel him into first place. There are a lot of other contingencies in South Carolina, also, including a debate next week, and what Tom Steyer will do after a poor finish in Nevada. It’s still possible that we wind up with a Sanders-Biden faceoff for the nomination, though — albeit one where Sanders probably has the advantage.

So what about everyone else?

Buttigieg has been the second-best performer in the first three states, after Sanders. But neither his (disputed) win in Iowa nor his strong second-place finish in New Hampshire produced much of a polling bounce, so there’s no particular reason to expect a distant second or third place finish in Nevada to do so either. And Buttigeg needs a bounce, because he’s at best flirting with the 15 percent viability threshold in South Carolina and in Super Tuesday states, and often polling below it. That’s not to say Buttigieg is out of the running, but his wins largely involve the long, protracted plurality and/or contested convention route, and not winning by majority.

Meanwhile, Michael Bloomberg still looms over Super Tuesday, although maybe he doesn’t loom so large after this week’s debate. The model still gives him an outside chance at a majority and decent chances of a plurality. But there’s been little post debate polling and his position may decline as more of it comes in; initial results should be a bit concerning for Bloomberg.

Elizabeth Warren’s finish was disappointing tonight — but her campaign will undoubtedly claim they were done in by early voting, which took place before last week’s debate. As of this writing, we don’t really have enough data in to comprehensively evaluate that claim, although she did win 17 percent of late-deciding voters in the entrance poll, somewhat stronger than her overall finish.

Finally, there’s no particular reason to think that Amy Klobuchar or Steyer have a way forward. And Steyer’s poor finish, likely to be in the single digits after investing millions of dollars in advertising and other resources in Nevada, is an inauspicious omen for Bloomberg.

We’ll let you know once we have enough data to turn the model back on. In the meantime, though, the headline is pretty simple: This was a great day for Sanders.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...he-nomination/

Originally Posted by bsnub

Sanders is by far the most likely Democrat to win the nomination with a majority of pledged delegates. Other candidates are mostly hoping for a messy outcome in which they win the nomination by plurality — potentially at a contested convention.

if bernie releases his full medical records ASAP and still ends up with a plurality of the pledged delegates, then the DNC should STFU and get out of his way.

any chicanery with superdelegates a the convention is a guarantee for a 2nd trump term, because the bernie people are either going to stay home or vote for trump to spite the DNC.

Originally Posted by raycarey

then the DNC should STFU and get out of his way.

That's exactly what they had better do. If you look Bernie is at the top of most primary polls at this point and Sanders is even closing on Biden in SC. As I have said all along Bernie has a lot of support in the swing states that Trump won in 2016 and I think he can win in most of those states. The fear mongering by the DNC and the Democratic party establishment is based on dated modeling. We are seeing people coming out to vote for Sanders that previously never may have voted before especially in the Latino communities. At this point I think Bernie could have a real shot of defeating Trump even in Texas.