Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll: Biden Holds Double-digit Lead

[Cow Poke]

Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll: Biden Holds Double-digit Lead Over Field of 2020 Dem Presidential Contenders

Wouldn't it be a HOOT if the 2020 race came down to TWO OLD WHITE GUYS battling it out?

Former Vice President Joe Biden has a double-digit lead over the next closest contender in a new poll of potential 2020 Democratic presidential candidates.

According to the latest data from Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll, provided exclusively to The Hill, Biden has 27 percent among Democrats.

The next closest candidate is Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), at 16 percent, followed by 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and media mogul Oprah Winfrey, each at 13 percent.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is the only other candidate to pull double-digit support, at 10 percent. Rounding out the field are Sens. Cory Booker(D-N.J.) and Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), with 4 percent support each. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) gets 2 percent support and New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D) is at 1 percent.

“Biden is now emerging as a very early front-runner — he beats handily even the celebrity candidates that have been floated,” said Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll co-director Mark Penn.

[Starlight]

Wouldn't it be a HOOT if the 2020 race came down to TWO OLD WHITE GUYS battling it out?

Some of us don't care about identity politics the way you seem to, so no, not particularly.

[Cow Poke]

Some of us don't care about identity politics the way you seem to, so no, not particularly.

You're not the US Democratic Party - they are ALL ABOUT Identity Politics. To quote one of my favorite TWeb villains --- "Don't be a moron".

[One Bad Pig]

Polls this far out don't mean a whole lot.

[Starlight]

You're not the US Democratic Party - they are ALL ABOUT Identity Politics.

Of the two US political parties, the one that caters to a single identity is the Republican party:
-The vast majority of Republican voters are white.
-The vast majority of Republican elected officials are white men.

By contrast the Democratic party has a hugely diverse voter base and a similarly diverse group of elected officials.

I've shared before here these photos of the newly-elected House members in 2018:





One of those parties clearly has a well-defined singular identity (i.e Republican: White, male), and one of them is a hugely diverse collection of people that includes the specific identity the other party caters almost solely to but also includes everyone else as well (i.e. Democratic: Quite a reasonable snapshot of the US population in general).

So clearly there is a party of identity politics in the US, and it is clearly the Republican party.

[Cow Poke]

Of the two US political parties...

This really has nothing to do with Identity Politics, Star. And aren't you the dude who, in the very first post, pretended not to care about race?

[Starlight]

This really has nothing to do with Identity Politics, Star. And aren't you the dude who, in the very first post, pretended not to care about race?

I have no particular issue with it which is why I don't mind the Dems being a racially diverse party that represents all kinds of people, and in fact I like that they are diverse because I think its important for all citizens to be represented well in a democracy. But there are certainly race-obsessed people in the US who elect solely white people and obsess over whether an election will or won't be "TWO OLD WHITE GUYS" and start threads on the topic.

[Cow Poke]

I have no particular issue with it which is why I don't mind the Dems being a racially diverse party that represents all kinds of people, and in fact I like that they are diverse because I think its important for all citizens to be represented well in a democracy. But there are certainly race-obsessed people in the US who elect solely white people and obsess over whether an election will or won't be "TWO OLD WHITE GUYS" and start threads on the topic.

I was mocking the fact that the liberals are consumed with Identity Politics, and noting the irony if THEIR own person just happened to be an OLD WHITE GUY, you know --- with white privilege being such a hot issue for liberals?

And her's a "two-fer" --- your hero and Identity Politics in one article!!!

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is all-in on gender, identity politics

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has fully embraced identity politics, claiming in an interview this week that poor, white people will eventually have to recognize that they benefit from the color of their skin.

Though this sort of language isn’t a first for her, as both gender and identity issues have been baked into her congressional career from the beginning, her appearance last week on the Intercept’s “Deconstructed” saw her going further into the weeds on both topics than she has in the past.

“It’s a really big step from where we were, but you’re right, it’s nowhere near enough," Ocasio-Cortez said. "And the solutions are so painful, frankly. I find it — I find the solutions for white communities to be very painful, because it’s very painful for a community to understand and have, go through this, like you can be, the idea that you can be poor and benefit from the color of your skin does not compute for a lot of people.”

She's not wrong when she says the experiences of poor, white people in the United States differ from the experiences of poor minorities. But the congresswoman’s solution to combating racism seems not just toothless, but also weirdly scolding and useless.

Unless I’m misunderstanding Ocasio-Cortez, she suggests that racial reconciliation in this country can’t really move forward until white people — even the poor, broken down people dying at high rates from overdoes — start to recognize that they are privileged.

That brings us to the “weirdly scolding” part. Her comments seem to demand that even the most beaten down white people admit that, by comparison, they have it pretty good. I’m not sure the key to racial harmony involves demanding that the destitute, white opioid addict or white person laid off from his job because of federal clean energy policies concede that he is privileged by the color of his skin.

“And going through that realization is very painful or even just economically for people that are that were born with silver spoons, it’s very painful to admit that you had advantages and it’s just — ” the congresswoman started to say.

She spelled it out further:

Yeah, and like that is the majority of a lot of communities, how a lot of communities feel and it’s because if you haven’t had a transition in your life where, you know, you were maybe born poor or born without, you know, certain privileges and then especially as you transition into having certain privileges in your life, you actually see and feel and sense and taste and smell all of the differences. If you’ve never experienced different treatment in your life, you wouldn’t know what different treatment feels like or looks like.

And we can all — almost every single person this country can acknowledge some privilege of some type, you know? I’m a cisgender woman. You know, I will never know the trauma of feeling like I’m not born in the right body, and that that is a privilege that I have no matter how poor my family was when I was born. But it’s really hard for some people to admit. It’s part of this weird American dream mythology that we have, that for a lot of, in a lot of circumstances isn’t as true or isn’t as clearly communicated as we’d like for it to be, or we wish it were.

She's a "cisgendered woman" — I'm sure the people of Appalachia feel her pain.

Her host, Ryan Grim, interjected at one point: “Look what happened to [Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh] when he was confronted. He melted down!”

Grim’s remarks are in reference to the angry, tear-filled statement Kavanaugh gave when he went before the Senate Judiciary Committee to defend himself from uncorroborated allegations of sexual misconduct.

“It literally,” Ocasio-Cortez said, “it literally is an identity meltdown.”

Of course, it couldn't have been the fact that Kavanaugh had been accused, out of the blue and without any credible evidence, of being a sexual predator. Neither she nor Grim can admit to that possibility, and so therefore it must have been about having his white identity challenged. Naturally!

The child just can't help herself! "Theyself?"

[Sparko]

Biden is creepy as hell. Remember all those pedophile and sexually inappropriate incidents and photos? I don't think he could survive a complete media attack that a Presidential candidate undergoes.

[Mountain Man]

Of the two US political parties, the one that caters to a single identity is the Republican party:
-The vast majority of Republican voters are white.
-The vast majority of Republican elected officials are white men.

By contrast the Democratic party has a hugely diverse voter base and a similarly diverse group of elected officials.

The hidden assumption is that all those elected by Democrats are equally qualified and weren't elected based on qualities that have nothing to do with their ability to do the job.

On an historical note, it was, of course, a Republican who said that people should be judged by the content of their character, and not their outward appearance.

[One Bad Pig]

Biden is creepy as hell. Remember all those pedophile and sexually inappropriate incidents and photos? I don't think he could survive a complete media attack that a Presidential candidate undergoes.

I dunno - if the media decides you're the darling, you're pretty much exempt from all that.

[Bill the Cat]

The hidden assumption is that all those elected by Democrats are equally qualified and weren't elected based on qualities that have nothing to do with their ability to do the job.

Or nothing to do with at least 2 of them being raging anti-Semites.

[Sparko]

I dunno - if the media decides you're the darling, you're pretty much exempt from all that.

But as Northam has shown, once you chum the waters with "sexual harassment" or "racism" the feeding frenzy begins and they will eat their own. #metoo.