🇺🇸 Discussion: The DEMOCRATIC P - Part 3

[C Prometheus]

Has anyone here been talking about Mayor Pete Buttigieg yet? He's easily my favorite candidate running in the primary thus far and while he has a long way to go still, he's started to surge up the ranks a bit over the past month.

 

[OB12]

I've been impressed. I am intrigued by a Harris/Buttigieg ticket, the juxtaposition of Buttigieg and Pence on a debate stage would be interesting to say the least.

 

[Schlosser85]

Buttigieg seems smart, well-spoken, and with sensible ideas, and he gives a good defense of his own lack of higher office experience by saying a mayor has to deal with more issues on a daily basis than some Senators who've never managed more than a hundred people in their career.

But I don't know if this country is ready for an openly gay President. Frankly I kind of cringe at the thought of how much vitriol he'd receive. Because a serial adulterer who bangs porn stars while his wife is pregnant is an evangelical hero, but a married gay man who served his country (unlike Trump) would be America gong to hell in a handbasket.

Although it is something in and of itself that an openly gay man is a serious enough presidential candidate to even be in the conversation and have a place at the table.

I doubt he ends up one of the front runners though.

 

[CaptainWagner]

Has anyone here been talking about Mayor Pete Buttigieg yet? He's easily my favorite candidate running in the primary thus far and while he has a long way to go still, he's started to surge up the ranks a bit over the past month.

I've been so happy to see him rising in the polls. As of now, he's for sure my favorite. I anticipate seeing him on the debate stage, more than anyone else in this race, he is the anti-Trump. It's so great to have a politician from Indiana I can be proud of.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

And it starts...

Nevada woman alleges Joe Biden kissed and touched her without her consent - CNNPolitics

 

[Aximili86]

Has anyone here been talking about Mayor Pete Buttigieg yet? He's easily my favorite candidate running in the primary thus far and while he has a long way to go still, he's started to surge up the ranks a bit over the past month.

President Buttigieg?

Never. Going. To. Happen.

 

[Hobgoblin]

And it starts...
Nevada woman alleges Joe Biden kissed and touched her without her consent - CNNPolitics

I can actually see Biden doing that kind of thing. He seems like the kind of person that doesn't know when to stop, or invades other people's personal space. There is another photo that came out showing him standing behind the former Defense Secretary`s wife, with his hands on her shoulders and his nose in her hair. That doesn't prove anything and she claims it was just a gesture between friends. Still, I think my female friends would kill me if I did that.

As a side note, it reminds me of Bush trying to massage Andrea Merkel during a G8 meeting in 2006.

 

[Aximili86]

Yeah. I don't think it's like genuinely knowingly malicious with Biden, more just sort of unintentionally-creepy overly-familiar grampa stuff. But he should absolutely know better.

 

[Donner]

Kids, guys. Biden smells the hair and kisses young girls on the cheek. There is absolutely nothing okay with that.

 

[Donner]

And it's not a creepy but endearing grandpa excuse either. You really think he just started doing this **** when he became a senior citizen? Like he woke up one day, checked the calendar, realized he's "grandpa age" and then fist pumped because he could now smell the hair of pre teen girls without getting into trouble? Please.

 

[Schlosser85]

Yeah. I don't think it's like genuinely knowingly malicious with Biden, more just sort of unintentionally-creepy overly-familiar grampa stuff. But he should absolutely know better.

It’s just one of the various ways in which he’s too “out of touch old grandpa who says and does awkward things”.

I kinda feel like Bernie is too old too, but at least Bernie is hip with the youths. Diamond Joe, not so much.

 

[Frodo]

President Buttigieg?

Never. Going. To. Happen.

Yeah, Pretty Much.

He's well spoken on the stump, but I just don't think this country is ready or willing to elect a married Gay man regardless of his merits and quality as a candidate.

And that's not even factoring in Pete running against someone as ruthless and relentless as Trump. He's not gonna hold back .

 

[Schlosser85]

Yeah, Pretty Much.

He's well spoken on the stump, but I just don't think this country is ready or willing to elect a married Gay man regardless of his merits and quality as a candidate.

And that's not even factoring in Pete running against someone as ruthless and relentless as Trump. He's not gonna hold back .

I cringe at imagining the insults and insinuations Trump would make about Buttigieg, and his base would be ten times more ugly. You’d have the same people who wholeheartedly support Trump saying a married Afghanistan veteran isn’t morally qualified to be President because he’s gay.

 

[DeadPresident]

I have to wonder if this is what Biden does on camera, what kind of skeletons are in his closet...?

I know it’s a slippery slope fallacy to a degree, but that’s seriously disturbing behavior.

 

[OB12]

I cringe at imagining the insults and insinuations Trump would make about Buttigieg, and his base would be ten times more ugly. You’d have the same people who wholeheartedly support Trump saying a married Afghanistan veteran isn’t morally qualified to be President because he’s gay.

Am I being too optimistic that that type of blatant homophobia could be an inflection point? I would hope that it would drive rational people away from Trump, but maybe I shouldn't have that much faith in people.

 

[Frodo]

Am I being too optimistic that that type of blatant homophobia could be an inflection point? I would hope that it would drive rational people away from Trump, but maybe I shouldn't have that much faith in people.

Well , I would have thought the dog whistle and sometimes out and out bigotry and misogyn of the Trump Campaign in 2016 would have alienated voters, but we saw what happened.

If anything, I think you'd have a bit of a Bradley effect in which people polled would claim to be more tolerant of the idea of a gay president ,but would vote the other way in the safety of a voting booth.

Not only would it mobilize the religious right and perhaps bring some wavering Republicans home, but you may have some of the more centrist to conservative democratic voters who may not be wild about the idea of voting for mayor Pete.

I have no doubt he could excite the progressive and left leaning side of the Democratic party, and perhaps younger voters, but I'm skeptical he would have a good shot at winning the election.

 

[Sithborg]

Am I being too optimistic that that type of blatant homophobia could be an inflection point? I would hope that it would drive rational people away from Trump, but maybe I shouldn't have that much faith in people.

Pence is the Vice President.

 

[CaptainWagner]

Am I being too optimistic that that type of blatant homophobia could be an inflection point? I would hope that it would drive rational people away from Trump, but maybe I shouldn't have that much faith in people.

I would like to think so. If Trump and his base start openly throwing out homophobic attacks, they could lose the last few centrists backing him. I'd like to think that we've come that far. He's directly targeting the working class voters that swung the election to Trump. Personally, I think that a connection there can overpower the bigotry that is, unfortuantely, still pretty prevalent.

 

[Aximili86]

Yeah, Pretty Much.

He's well spoken on the stump, but I just don't think this country is ready or willing to elect a married Gay man regardless of his merits and quality as a candidate.

And that's not even factoring in Pete running against someone as ruthless and relentless as Trump. He's not gonna hold back .

Dude, the gay thing doesn't even come into it. A gay president's going to happen someday.

A president with the last name "Buttigieg" isn't. It's just not, right or wrong, shallow or not, the public isn't going to have a President Buttigieg, qualifications don't even come into it even if he had the experience. He's also on like 1% polling among registered Democrats too, way under even the middling candidates who won't get the nomination either.

 

[jolldan]

And it starts...

Nevada woman alleges Joe Biden kissed and touched her without her consent - CNNPolitics

I forget who but someone asked me if it came down to Bernie & Joe who do you think would pull out as the front runner this is why I said Bernie all day.

Also a second woman has now came out

Second woman accuses Biden of misconduct

 

[moviedoors]

Kids, guys. Biden smells the hair and kisses young girls on the cheek. There is absolutely nothing okay with that.

The way he caresses their hair and always seems to do it from behind... it's not okay, not on any level. The story has floated around for awhile, but actually seeing it on video, and seeing it happen again and again and again, and to see him do it to young girls? I already am not a fan of his record and then you throw this **** in there and I flat-out don't think I can vote for this man.

 

[Aximili86]

The video element isn't exactly new though, there were pictures and video of all this stuff going around in the 2012 cycle.

Not to say it's okay, it's clearly not, but this all flaring up now when it has is pretty clearly a "curbstomp Biden early to stop him entering the race in the first place" thing simultaneously. He's leading all the polls as of now, and by quite a lot, and he's not even in the race yet - tracking a crapload better than those who are. The other candidates and more hardcore progressive wing of the party in general are going to latch onto this bigtime, whereas 6 months ago they didn't really give a ****.

That's fine though, that's politics at the end of the day. He's a threat now, dig up the dirt and make sure we can nominate someone else instead who we don't really care can't actually win, 'cause ideology yay.

 

[samsnee]

Biden is too old to run anyways. So whatever keeps him out is fine by me.

 

[jolldan]

Don't think this will likely help either

Joe Biden's 2020 Ukrainian nightmare: A closed probe is revived

Two years after leaving office, Joe Biden couldn’t resist the temptation last year to brag to an audience of foreign policy specialists about the time as vice president that he strong-armed Ukraine into firing its top prosecutor.

In his own words, with video cameras rolling, Biden described how he threatened Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in March 2016 that the Obama administration would pull $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees, sending the former Soviet republic toward insolvency, if it didn’t immediately fire Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.

“I said, ‘You’re not getting the billion.’ I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,’” Biden recalled telling Poroshenko.

“Well, son of a *****, he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time,” Biden told the Council on Foreign Relations event, insisting that President Obama was in on the threat.

Interviews with a half-dozen senior Ukrainian officials confirm Biden’s account, though they claim the pressure was applied over several months in late 2015 and early 2016, not just six hours of one dramatic day. Whatever the case, Poroshenko and Ukraine’s parliament obliged by ending Shokin’s tenure as prosecutor. Shokin was facing steep criticism in Ukraine, and among some U.S. officials, for not bringing enough corruption prosecutions when he was fired.

But Ukrainian officials tell me there was one crucial piece of information that Biden must have known but didn’t mention to his audience: The prosecutor he got fired was leading a wide-ranging corruption probe into the natural gas firm Burisma Holdings that employed Biden’s younger son, Hunter, as a board member.

 

[moviedoors]

That's fine though, that's politics at the end of the day. He's a threat now, dig up the dirt and make sure we can nominate someone else instead who we don't really care can't actually win, 'cause ideology yay.

If the only way to win is electing old dudes with troubling records that act completely inappropriately towards women and even young children, then what is the point? Pyrrhic victories are a bad thing.

I don't put much stock in his front runner status anyway. At this point in the 2016 primary season, Jeb Bush was the Republican front runner.