You voted for someone who is campaigning on enacting Medicare For All and the Green New Deal, but say you are against “Math Dunce” candidates?

To the people who populate the mass media these days, the Democratic field was a diversity of ideologies: you had every political philosophy from left-wing semi-moderates to left-wing fanatics, outright communists. Diversity. Right? The fact that many of them were encased in intersectional wrapping was icing on the cake.

Truth is, this is the first time in more than a decade that I've seen the Democratic Party offer a diverse (left-wingers all, but of differing political stripes) field for the primaries. The super delegates will, of course, bring the party back to what the DNC wants it to be, but at least people had the illusion of choice for a moment or two.

True left-wing moderates like Moynihan, Nunn, Miller, et al, have, of course, been purged from the party and the paltry few that remain hold little sway. Joe Biden is what passes for a moderate in the Democratic party these days.

Now, if the Bernie Bros don't resort to the convention violence they promised if Bernie is not nominated, this should be an interesting election. Neither man, Trump nor Biden, is beholden to any recognizable political philosophy (no, Trump is not a conservative, neither social nor fiscal). Both, like moths to a flame, lean to wherever it is politically expedient. Both are gaffe-prone debate wild cards with unpredictable extemporaneous speaking styles. Both represent parties in the throes of being taken over by extremists - so both must energize a base that does not represent mainstream America, though each base insists it does. The election of either will leave a large portion of the electorate angry and disillusioned with the political process. This may get ugly.

May you live in interesting times. - a blessing and a curse. We live in interesting times.

Biden is sure to win! He's a safe choice... just like Kerry and Gore!

...who is campaigning on enacting Medicare For All and the Green New Deal.... ~ Wfjag at March 4, 2020 4:10 AM

Democrats lean hard left in the primaries. Biden will probably temper some of that in the general election. He has admitted he'll work with Republicans to enact his agenda - meaning compromise.

And his experience in Washington is from when it was possible to govern with two parties, meaning Biden understands what it is to compromise, even if he was fairly averse to it in his Senate career.

Bernie is a fanatic. Like most fanatics, he won't compromise. He's already showing signs he'd govern by executive order, bypassing Congress. Bernie has a distorted view of the power of the presidency - promising to issue diktats on Day One.

In his Congressional career, most of the bills passed with Bernie as a sponsor were nothing bills (e.g., naming a post office) and did not face any opposition or require a compromise. So, he's never learned the art of the compromise. He doesn't think he should have to.

My main worry is the party baggage any Democrat will bring to the office: intersectionality, BLM, Antifa, Green New Deal fanaticism, anti-carbon activists, SJWs, the TQI part of the LBGTQI crowd, etc. These are not advocates, but fanatics. Nancy Pelosi lost control of them,. Joe Biden will try to accommodate them, but he does not stand a chance of corralling them; he's street pizza on their road to authoritarianism.

"Biden will probably temper some of that in the general election."

Yes, but remember the unofficial Democratic Party motto: "Run to the center, govern to the left". The last important Democrat candidate who could reasonably be described as moderate was Bill Clinton. Don't forget that Biden is hard left on feminism, to name one issue; he's the person responsible for VAWA, and he will bring back the Obama Title IX guidance to colleges in spades.

Let's be honest about what happened yesterday: Biden has been selected. Does anyone think that Buttegieg, Kloubuchar and Steyer all dropping out just before Super Tuesday was a coincidence? I wonder what positions they've been promised in a Biden Administration. The party leadership and the super-delegates (but I repeat myself) have decided that Biden will be the winner. Sanders' supporters will once again (and not unreasonably) go away believing that their guy got shafted. Biden will probably be an awful candidate; he'll get his dander up in debates with Trump and say a bunch of stupid stuff. Meanwhile, the spectre of a possible Sanders third-party run will be hovering over Biden's candidacy. (Now that I think about it, that might preclude Biden pivoting to the center after the convention...)

Biden is the right candidate to defeat Mr. Reagan.

Bernie is the right candidate to defeat the economy.

Bloomberg succeeded in accomplishing what only five people have done this week: Be in the top five candidates who haven't quit seeking the 2020 Democrat nomination.

WaPo's 20 questions of Democrat positions ended with 13 of my positions having no representation. I guess it's like Ilhan Omar said to Fauxcahontas: it's not your party anymore; get out the way!

Still not clear who can get down and lick boot for the Soviet Superman!

Elizabeth Warren is policy wise little difference than Bernie Sanders. The main difference is she is a woman and more dishonest. If you were going to vote for Warren then Sanders is what you were actually looking for.

Biden's resurgence is one that confuses me. I agree with Cousin Dave that he appears to have been selected by the DNC. The problem is Biden is showing real signs of dementia. The man has always been a bit odd and gaffe prone. Getting confused on which city he is in or which office he is running for can be explained by a busy campaign trail and poor sleep. But the 'dog-face pony soldier' and similar comments really look like dementia.

On the other side, no Conan extremists have not taken over the Republican party. In fact it is the extremist never Trumpers who are being pushed out. There is a time and a place to debate who will be the best candidate. That place is in the primaries. Once the primaries are over people need to get over their egos and accept where they won and where they lost. The never Trumpers weren't able to accept that they lost. They are still fighting the primary from 2015, long past time to let it go. Just like the moral majority that was neither so too when the never Trumpers tried to flex their muscle and take over the entire party they found to their sorrow they just don't have the votes.

"... just like Kerry and Gore!"

And McCain and Romney! Somehow those 'electable' candidates never seem to get elected.

Quid Pro Joe isn't sure what day it is, what state he's in, or what office he is running for. But sure, vote for the doddering old fool. He must be less bad than the other bad choices.

The oppo advertising writes itself WRT Biden. If you don't like me, vote for the other Biden.

Your son, the coked-up whoremonger? or your brother, who like his sister-in-law and nephew has made a nice living being able to cash in on the Biden brand? Quid Pro Joe has been looking out for his family for a while.

Just heard Bloomsburg is out and supporting Biden.
I watched my Mother slip into dementia and I agree seeing many similarities. The stress of campaigning will probably accelerate it. So who is his VP becomes a major question.

Elizabeth Warren is policy wise little difference than Bernie Sanders. The main difference is she is a woman and more dishonest. ~ Ben at March 4, 2020 7:36 AM

Policy-wise, they're two peas in a pod. Application-wise, they're night and day.

Almost all the bills Bernie has shepherded through Congress have been minor - naming a post office, for example.

Lizzie, on the other hand, is almost solely responsible for the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, a regulatory agency with no oversight and unaccountable to any government branch.

Lizzie knows how to get things done.

Bernie is a preacher, an academic theoretician. His last experience getting something done was as mayor of Burlington, Vermont decades ago.

In a way, she's scarier than he is. He has the movement and the followers, but she's already shown a propensity for creating government agencies with no limits to their power. The good news is, her lack of charisma means she won't win the nomination - she couldn't even win her own state in a Democratic primary.

a regulatory agency with no oversight and unaccountable to any government branch.

That's "and not accountable to any government branch."

Just heard Bloomsburg is out and supporting Biden.
I watched my Mother slip into dementia and I agree seeing many similarities. The stress of campaigning will probably accelerate it. So who is his VP becomes a major question.

Joe j at March 4, 2020 9:08 AM

Hah. Vice President isn’t worth a bucket of warm spit. The deep state is ready and able to go back to running things like the little Stasi they are and were before Trump upset their apple cart. (Temporarily they are very much hoping) A drooling Biden is their dream President. Even better than a feckless witless crooked community organizer.

Agreed on why Warren is scarier than Sanders, Conan. But from what I can tell the people voting for Sanders don't care about actually getting things done. It goes with the whole communism thing. All about slogans and advertising rather than all that dirty annoying stuff like having food to eat or a house to live in.

Lucky break in a way.

"The good news is, her lack of charisma means she won't win the nomination - she couldn't even win her own state in a Democratic primary."

But I could see Warren being chosen for the ticket. For the party leadership, she scores diversity points. For the party leftists, she's the fox in the henhouse. If they win, look for "25th Amendment: The Sequel" coming to a theater near you.

...from what I can tell the people voting for Sanders don't care about actually getting things done. ~ Ben at March 4, 2020 12:34 PM

Once you've nationalized the factory, to what standards will production be held. Once you've put the factory in the charge of a revolutionary and he's summarily executed or imprisoned the old capitalist management, what next?

The East Germans government team running the Trabant car company limited output so the production managers could report that they regularly sold every car made - i.e., no waste.

That consumers had to wait 15 years to take delivery of a car they paid for didn't matter. The government managers got bonuses for their efficiency. Trabant had no competition, so no incentive to meet market demand for products and innovations; it only had to meet government demands for efficiency and cost control.

Is this childish view of economics really what we want to put in charge of our society?

Here's an excerpt from an Auto Trader article on the Trabbie.

"I recently had the opportunity to drive a Trabant, which was an automobile manufactured by Communists in East Germany. And as I sat there in the driver's seat, with smoke billowing out the tailpipe, staring at the gauge cluster -- which contains no tachometer, no indication that you've turned on your headlights or turn signals, and no fuel gauge -- I started to think that maybe, possibly, on some level, this is why Communism failed."

It is why communism failed.

Why put in innovations the government didn't tell you you had to put in? The only incentive to change production is the command of a government bureaucrat more concerned with cost control than consumer preference.

"Biden is sure to win! He's a safe choice... just like Kerry and Gore!"

and just like McCain and Romney!

Hey. at least the Democrats got one thing they wanted today - they got the money out of politic.
Bloomberg spent more before Super Tuesday than the entire Democrat Presidential field spent in all of 2008.
His failure/withdrawal simultaneously removes most of the money from this year's contest AND proves that the money never really mattered.

> why communism failed.

Nearly thirty years ago, when I started saving novel and sentimental pictures from the internet, the first was of the World Trade Center. The second pic was the Golden Gate Bridge.

This was the third.

You don't really believe that do you, Bw1?

Hillary spent almost twice what Trump spent (and way more than any Russians).

Obama spent a bit more than Romeny, but almost 3x what McCain spent.

Before that both candidates spent around the same amount until you get to Nixon. Nixon spent roughly twice what his opponents spent. Goldwater too.

The claim that you can buy an election has been proven false over and over and over again in the US. You do need to spend enough so that voters know your name. Too much more than that and it doesn't really matter. The Democrats like to complain about money in politics. Doesn't mean they actually want to get any of it out of politics. As for Bloomberg, he is in the fun position where he can either spend it on something fun now (like a long shot presidential campaign) or hand it over in taxes when he dies.

This was the third. ~ Crid at March 4, 2020 7:10 PM

I was more into American metal then, but that sums it up nicely.

Crid, that is awesome. The 917 is a legend all its own. It would make a good follow-up movie to Ford vs. Ferrari. ouiyy

> The 917 is a legend

Factoid: The wipers are from the Boeing 707.

"You don't really believe that do you, Bw1?"

Believe what, since your comment pretty much echoed mine. Was it that the Democrats actually want the money out of politics? Sorry for the lack of proofreading - that should have read "Democrats got one thing they KEEP SAYING they wanted today."

The 917 had many variants. No need for a redoux, just watch the film that broke Steve McQueen's bank, the finest racing film of all time, Le Mans, from 1971.

But, Porsche failed at Formula 1 trying to beat the ultimate racing legend's toys . . .

http://www.jaypix.com/bss.jpg

(note the photo credit)

(note the photo credit) ~ Jay J. Hector at March 5, 2020 11:13 PM

Nice. As an amateur photographer, I have taken a few auto-racing photos. None that made the cover of Sporting News, but a few of which I'm proud.

Thanks for clearing that up for me Bw1. It is hard to believe anyone actually believes that line from the DNC given the historical evidence to the contrary, but miraculously a lot of people still do. And they refuse to look at the evidence.

But with a second look at what you wrote you weren't the problem. I misread things for some reason.