Quite the opposite. His numbers are up, base is energized. Biden is damaged goods, now the Dems have to go all in on Pete or Bernie and Bernie is too extreme for the mainstream.
Perhaps not, but the damage done was to the dems for this sham impeachment. Also, the frontrunner from the start (Biden) has taken heavy hits and is likely toast. So you're left with a billionaire ex-mayor of NY, inexperienced mayor or old man Sanders. Bloomberg has the best chance to beat Trump.
Many people don't care or even know how "extreme" Bernie is. This is just anecdotal of course, but I know a lot of people my age who don't really pay attention to politics, but will almost certainly vote for whoever is running against Trump. They won't care that Bernie is a "socialist".
Your political predictions, to be fair, have been pretty poor--which is hardly unexpected, because your predictions are always that Democrats are doomed. You foresaw doom for Obama (both times), you certainly never saw supermajorities for the Democrats in both Houses in 2008, etc. When your predictions are really just attempts to aggravate "the libs" on this forum, you wouldn't expect a great hit rate, right? I don't think this impeachment had much effect either way--the nation is pretty entrenched in their views, one way or the other. There are barely any "true independents" that are swayable--most independents are just people who like the sound of the label but always vote either Republican or Democrat. How you see the impeachment pretty much boils down to your priors going into it. The Presidential election will mostly revolve around which party energizes their base the most. Democrats were clearly the more energized party in 2018, and they once again lead the generic ballot by a significant margin (6-7 points) but there's a long way to the election and a lot of Trump voters won't be all that "energized" until Trump himself is on the ballot.
None of us knows what will transpire between now and November...but Trump is also "damaged goods"...and I'm sure the other shoe/s have yet to drop on more "evidence" of Trump's wrongdoings. I'm sure there's still more to come. But I will agree that Bloomberg has probably got the best shot at defeating Trump. Hate to use the term "electability" but that's exactly what it will come down to no matter gets the Dem nomination.
I never saw "doom" for Obama. Never thought he would lose in the general. The "doom" I saw was his socialist tendencies, you know, things like penalizing you with a fine if you don't get health insurance, letting illegals run rampant, etc. I said we were "on a Road to Serfdom", and had Clinton won in 2016, I think he would still be on a path to my interpretation of this. Economically, I said he had little to do with the economy once QE and low rates were started and once these were normalized, there would be a lot of pain. This still hasn't been corrected, Trump's FED is keeping rates low, and the economy is certainly still in a bubble. Never really cared about the House, etc. Don't know where that came from. I'm not posting my views to "aggravate the libs" on here. They are my views, and I'm pretty transparent about my thoughts and beliefs. You just have confirmation bias.
I'm a fake independent cause I won't vote for anyone from the DNC or the GOP unless a whole heck of a lot changes. How come "true independents" in your mind are only the ones swayable?
Not trying to answer for @Minstrel but I'm guessing it's because the "independents" likely won't have viable candidate of their own. So they'll have to go one way or the other unless they go the "write in" route.
Agree about the Independents comment. Tried saying the same thing a few weeks ago. Evvvvvvveryone is an independent until it comes time to find a candidate or run or vote. I don’t get it.
All one needs to do is highlight that Bernie wants to pay off everyone's student loans, then post a video of some unemployable millennial trying us to pay off his $200k school loan for an art history degree. Would turn off most of the moderate voters right there. Its a cheap hit, but that's all you'd really need to do.
I loathe the two parties and how theyve sold us out. I consider myself an independent that does kind of lean conservative at least in the sense of small government, but so much would have to change I really cant fathom voting for either of these groups. If no viable third party candidate comes out there then I’ll be writing in for someone. Just find it odd that to be a true independent I need to be swayable.
Trump's always been damaged goods. This impeachment did nothing to him other than convince his supporters that the dems have always been trying to get him out, no matter what.
I'm pretty sure you're incredibly worse off than you were 4 years ago and that Trump's policies are killing you slowly.....or not so much Sorry for your loss.
We'll have to agree to disagree that every "Joe the Plumber" incident led you to write numerous posts about how Obama was done.
I'm not saying that's true of literally every voter in the US--I'm saying that as general thing, this country is hyper-polarized, where the vast majority of likely voters (as opposed to all adults) are extremely entrenched on one side or the other. I'm not calling any specific person a "fake independent" but most studies have found that the vast majority of "independents" actually have very firm habits about which ideology they belong to and which party they tend to vote for. There are obviously some people who are true free agents and persuadable, but not very many as a percentage of the "likely voter" population. Because those are the people who aren't already committed to voting for a party. That's specifically the definition I'm using: if you're "swayable" then you're a true independent, you're not already locked to a party. If you're already pretty committed to voting for a party, you're not really independent. That seems reasonable to me.
