VP Biden announces he is running for President in 2020

He just announced in a casual one-on-one with Kelly O'Donnell of The Washington Post. in a back room of the Senate.  Story follows...hasn't hit print yet.

I hope so Biden is awesome.

Color me unenthused. We have a lot of rising younger talent in the Demoncrap Party, why run another candidate the public already thinks it knows everything about, like Hillary Clinton?

Give me a ticket of Kamala Harris and Kirsten Gillibrand. We'd win in a landslide and piss off the Nazis

That old guy? Isn't he Vice President?
I'm with Ben, for what it's worth. I think get some young, fresh, and vibrant new young blood...why do the US like people old and worn?

I have less issue with age, Sanders would have been awesome. But I agree you need someone totally different, not another same-old establishment candidate. The publc rejected the Dem establishment in favour of a gob shite who 'says it like it is'. They are done with the same.

I'M old and worn, but there's still a little fire flickering in the Fireplace.

Bae the Cray wrote:Color me unenthused. We have a lot of rising younger talent in the Demoncrap Party, why run another candidate the public already thinks it knows everything about, like Hillary Clinton?

Give me a ticket of Kamala Harris and Kirsten Gillibrand. We'd win in a landslide and piss off the Nazis

Americans will never elect a woman for president. Remember, it's not Prime Minister, where the election is by MPs.

Pay attention to what the voters want. What the voters voted for was as much a rampant sexist as a rampant racist and white-supremacist. You have to include sexism in the profile.

Eilzel wrote:I have less issue with age, Sanders would have been awesome. But I agree you need someone totally different, not another same-old establishment candidate. The publc rejected the Dem establishment in favour of a gob shite who 'says it like it is'. They are done with the same.

Good point, Les.  Underneath all the speculation and imagination is the reality of what the voters went for: male, anti-woman, aged, white, anti-foreign and anti-Washington.

The only other one that fits the mark (outside of ideology) was Sanders, AND he got traction, didn't he?  Sanders wasn't sexists or particularly anti-foreign, but those are the ideological issues.  And he was a socialist, which in this country marks you as an outsider.  If you pay attention to the voter and his tastes, you come up with a distinct profile.

Quill, come on. If voters were stuck in that mode, Obama never would have been elected. And another thing:

In the race to win the electoral college, Trump bested Clinton by a razor thin margin of about 100,000 votes.

In the popular vote, the latest figure I've seen puts Clinton up by 2.65 million.

Don't tell me you really think it's impossible to win a situation like that with a good ticket, good proposals, fresh faces, fresh ideas, all that jazz. This Trump victory was a fluke, not a statement.

Ben Reilly wrote:Quill, come on. If voters were stuck in that mode, Obama never would have been elected. And another thing:

In the race to win the electoral college, Trump bested Clinton by a razor thin margin of about 100,000 votes.

In the popular vote, the latest figure I've seen puts Clinton up by 2.65 million.

Don't tell me you really think it's impossible to win a situation like that with a good ticket, good proposals, fresh faces, fresh ideas, all that jazz. This Trump victory was a fluke, not a statement.

Obama is in the past.  This is a new era.  We've already discussed, on another thread, that a new wave of populism is sweeping the world.  It's time that we recognized and branded the idea because it's here to stay.

The election is what it is.  Let's not quibble about margins.  If Clinton had the dominate ideas, she would have won the election.  She didn't.  You do have to take into consideration the outcome, and the profile of the voter who determined that outcome.  He is at least someone that counts, if he was not the clear majority winner.

Good ticket, good proposals, faces and ideas didn't win this election.  This is true of the many legislative races, as well as the race for the presidency.  We had faces.  We had ideas.  We had proposals.  When it all comes down to the dust settling, it is what it is.  And what it is, is that Trump is president, and the Republicans are in command of both the House and the Senate.  How did that happen, if not for the voter and what he wants?

Reality may well suck...but reality counts.

Original Quill wrote:

Ben Reilly wrote:Quill, come on. If voters were stuck in that mode, Obama never would have been elected. And another thing:

In the race to win the electoral college, Trump bested Clinton by a razor thin margin of about 100,000 votes.

In the popular vote, the latest figure I've seen puts Clinton up by 2.65 million.

Don't tell me you really think it's impossible to win a situation like that with a good ticket, good proposals, fresh faces, fresh ideas, all that jazz. This Trump victory was a fluke, not a statement.

Obama is in the past.  This is a new era.  We've already discussed, on another thread, that a new wave of populism is sweeping the world.  It's time that we recognized and branded the idea because it's here to stay.

The election is what it is.  Let's not quibble about margins.  If Clinton had the dominate ideas, she would have won the election.  She didn't.  You do have to take into consideration the outcome, and the profile of the voter who determined that outcome.  He is at least someone that counts, if he was not the clear majority winner.

Good ticket, good proposals, faces and ideas didn't win this election.  This is true of the many legislative races, as well as the race for the presidency.  We had faces.  We had ideas.  We had proposals.  When it all comes down to the dust settling, it is what it is.  And what it is, is that Trump is president, and the Republicans are in command of both the House and the Senate.  How did that happen, if not for the voter and what he wants?

Reality may well suck...but reality counts.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/06/27/ratfcked-the-influence-of-redistricting

I don't see your argument, and I don't have the time to read a whole article right now. Maybe I'll come back to it this evening.

As far as Obama is concerned, he is a male and I've just said males trump females when it comes to electing a president. Indeed, didn't he beat Hillary head-to-head in 2008?

All I'm saying about new faces, new ideas, new proposals, is that we've got something right now, on our doorstep, we've got to get over before we wash the windows and vacuum the carpet.

Something's going on, and the RW has beat us to the new makeover. It's more than just Wendy Davis for Hillary Clinton.

MAYBE the time is coming when the combination of civil unrest and environmental degradation becomes so bad,  that the good ol' US of A finally self-destructs, and gives birth to 3 or 4 new countries in its place  ?!?

The liberal lefties and greens could have the West Coast and Texas;  the Trumpettes could have the Mid-West and deep South;  the more 'moderate' centre-right Repub's could take those little NE states; and the moderate Dem's take the SE corner  ?
With Quill and Ben ruling over the new West Coast economic powerhouse.        

Ben Reilly wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

Obama is in the past.  This is a new era.  We've already discussed, on another thread, that a new wave of populism is sweeping the world.  It's time that we recognized and branded the idea because it's here to stay.

The election is what it is.  Let's not quibble about margins.  If Clinton had the dominate ideas, she would have won the election.  She didn't.  You do have to take into consideration the outcome, and the profile of the voter who determined that outcome.  He is at least someone that counts, if he was not the clear majority winner.

Good ticket, good proposals, faces and ideas didn't win this election.  This is true of the many legislative races, as well as the race for the presidency.  We had faces.  We had ideas.  We had proposals.  When it all comes down to the dust settling, it is what it is.  And what it is, is that Trump is president, and the Republicans are in command of both the House and the Senate.  How did that happen, if not for the voter and what he wants?

Reality may well suck...but reality counts.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/06/27/ratfcked-the-influence-of-redistricting

OK, read the New Yorker article.  

I am familiar with the REDMAP program, and have been since it's inception.  In fact, the fact that gerrymandering "increases polarization" in a race is the basis of my theory that the Republican Party is dying, if not dead.  

REDMAP gerrymandering is a poison pill for the party that engages in it.  The kind of extreme gerrymandering that you see in REDMAP intensifies the RW, and fans the flames for "the lunatic fringe."  This leads candidates to try to 'out-lunatic' each other, eventually normalizing the otherwise psychotic behavior.  The result promotes bulges in the party toward the lunacy, and the party perpetually moves right.

Eventually, one of two things will happen: the lunatic element will become increasingly normalized or the extreme right will split off and start a new party.  Picture a water balloon on which you create a bulge in the right: increasingly as you push, the balloon demands all the water and becomes the bulk, falling to the right, or it breaks and takes some of the water with it.  In either case, the balloon is doomed.

Right now, Donald Trump has taken advantage of the increased polarization predicted by REDMAP, and the result has been to normalize lunatic behavior.  With it, he has won the election.  Right now he seems to be entering the betrayal stage, in which even he takes the position that his own policies are "too lunatic" and he must abandon them.  (By contrast, at this point Hitler took a different path and accepted the normalization of the lunacy.)  In response, people are either calling foul, or making excuses for the reversal ("See, he's alright..."; "He must be taken figuratively, not literally..."; "The people around him will settle him down...")  Those calling foul will demand a new party and alternatively, if they remain the party will be so weakened it cannot survive.

So, you see how the REDMAP strategy is central to my theory of the demise of the Republican Party.  Right now, we are at the point of decision.  Will Trump reign in the lunacy, or will he go with it?  More importantly, how will the core react?  Will Republicans change their legacy and thereby minimize their role, or will they split and become a non-entity?