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Democratic Presidential Campaigns for 2020


Ms. Spam
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I've seen arguments recently that the number of representatives in the House of Representatives should be increased to make the chamber more, uhh... representative. It's been capped at 435 since 1911, but our population has grown a good bit since then. The bonus effect (on top of better representation) would be that the Electoral College would much more likely track the popular vote.

Upping the number of representatives has been something that's been talked about for quite awhile. It would really only make a difference in the Electoral College in the case of really close totals though.

 

As it is, the House is big enough that I don't think it really is all that representative of anything. There are so many of them that power is concentrated onto only a few of them with the rest following suit. Increasing the numbers would only exasperate that problem. As it it, arguably the Senate is more representative of the nation, even though it's smaller and literally wasn't even meant to be.

 

Funny side story. A law professor published an article to say that the Senate could become proportional by passing a simple law. He is still teaching law students and has yet to be fired for gross incompetence, so that tells you something.

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Upping the number of representatives has been something that's been talked about for quite awhile. It would really only make a difference in the Electoral College in the case of really close totals though.

The proposals Ive seen would have made a difference in 2016 and thats all anybody who is taking about it cares about right now.
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The proposals Ive seen would have made a difference in 2016 and thats all anybody who is taking about it cares about right now.

 

I'm afraid you're incorrect. Just did some quick math and only about 141.6 million people currently live in states won by Clinton. There are about 325 million in the country. You could expand the size of the House to include every citizen in the United States and Trump would have still won comfortably.

 

 

 

I disagree. Adding more representatives and, therefore, decreasing the size of each district, would by definition make the chamber more representative. My opinion is that party leadership would find it harder to whip members into whatever line they want if there were more representatives, because it would become less risky for members to diverge from leadership, and more voting blocs would emerge around particular issues.

 

I'm only pointing out the reality that we've seen. House leaders have rarely had difficulty making their larger caucuses vote in lock step, whereas keeping Senators in line has traditionally been referred to as "herding cats".

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I'll agree that they didn't have a moment to become president, but the career choices also impacted that. We heard a lot about his potential, but he never really worked on his resume. Mayor of San Antonio and HUD Secretary doesn't do much to show you're ready for the big leagues.

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There were options other than being just a mayor and head of a mostly ignored Department. Not saying there were great options, but staying in Texas probably wasn’t the best thing. His brother has a better resume, being active at the state and federal level as an elected official.

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I put a premium on executive experience myself, so running a fairly large city and a federal department rank higher in my book than being a minority party legislator outside of leadership throughout his career.

 

Anyway, in fairness, Castro's plan was to be a current resident of the U.S. Naval Observatory. It's why Obama gave him the HUD job. Barring that, Clinton still wins and puts him somewhere else in the cabinet.

 

Obviously, the plan simply didn't work, which is why he's in political limbo at the moment. He wouldn't gain anything from running a losing race in Texas. There isn't a Democrat president to appoint him to anything. Going back to San Antonio would be a step backwards. He's just stuck. Running for president might simply be the only thing he can do to keep his political career relevant.

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Yeah, her and I think a Congress woman from NY declared. The field is getting wider for Democrats and it's like we're eating our young in the Democratic party already knocking them down. We still have primaries and they're just getting some feelers and starting to drum up funds. I'm waiting for Beto to throw in.

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Yeah, as someone who legitimately does have a great-great-great grandmother clearly listed on the Dawes Rolls, but as only 1/32 Native and not tribally affiliated but with personal social ties to the local Native communities... high profile people like Elizabeth Warren claiming a story like mine for personal gain with no proof makes it harder for me to navigate certain things in life, but is that really enough to not vote for her if her policies are good, and especially if she's up against Trump?

 

At least I can loudly decry Rachael Dolezal for making herself look the way I naturally look and making "ambiguously ethnic" white people look terrible without seeming to support a political party I don't.

 

Ain't identity politics grand?

 

The main criticism I've heard about Harris is that she's very law enforcement oriented, and as such she's pro-ICE and pro-gun, although she's championing for reasonable reform for both. As someone who lives in a red area, I can see these as positives when it comes to winning swing voters, especially for the people who voted Trump but have since fallen off the bandwagon. 2nd Amendment voters are definitely a thing here. As much as I would love to see a true progressive in office, at this point I think a dose of centrism is needed to get the country back together.

 

Tulsi Gabbard... man, did we have similar childhoods, and we're even the same age. So, I can understand her past history with LGBTQ+ rights, and how someone can do a complete 180° on their views between young adulthood and adulthood. And I have a hard time believing an Iraq War veteran would cozy up to Assad... and is that really a concern anymore, considering Trump has cozied up to Putin and Kim?

 

But that's all I know about them. I haven't dug into their policy stances yet.

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Warren claiming Native American ancestry in the past doesn't bother me. A lot of people grew up hearing about their ancestry, and a lot of people were surprised to find out it wasn't the case. She's 70 years old, and I'm pretty sure they didn't even have written histories back then, so you couldn't really verify anything. Seriously, though, I believe that she believed it, the same way we believe a lot of what we're ttold when we're young.

 

Choosing to double down as an adult, when confronted with the truth, would be disqualifying in any other time. Now, truth and fact are both completely meaningless when it comes to politics. You have a president who lies and an opposition party that starts chanting impeachment when an unconfirmed, and quickly discredited, story comes out.

 

If Warren wants to claim that she's 1/3 Martian, that's just the new normal.

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She's 70 years old, and I'm pretty sure they didn't even have written histories back then

 

Naw, they definitely did. The Dawes Rolls, and a few other Native census rolls from the time have existed since the Trail of Tears. And growing up in Oklahoma, with the Cherokee Nation (and their library and genealogy department) headquartered right there, she should have known better. Especially being 70 and from Oklahoma - the Cherokee Nation only settled there at the end of the Trail of Tears around 1839. My grandma, 86, definitely knew she was 1/8 Cherokee as a child and could point to visibly Native immediate relatives and family traditions that definitely came north from Georgia even though she was raised as generally white and self-identifies as such.

 

That being said, didn't they dig up Warren's old demographics reporting records and she's never marked anything but "white", and this all became a thing when Harvard asked if anyone had any minority heritage so they'd make themselves seem less white as an organization, and Warren came out with her family story? I want to say that's how I heard it.

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She's 70 years old, and I'm pretty sure they didn't even have written histories back then

Naw, they definitely did. The Dawes Rolls, and a few other Native census rolls from the time have existed since the Trail of Tears

My joke was that she's older than recorded history. She's actually a couple years younger than my mom, though.

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You bring up an interesting point, though. Trump was the oldest to take first term office at 70yo. Warren would surpass that at 71 1/2 if she ends up being elected in 2020. Seriously, shouldn't all these people want to retire to a condo in Florida or Arizona yet? Good grief, let's at least let another GenX-er be president, these Boomers just keep hanging on and not letting go.

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Problem is, I think it won't matter, and Trump will be re-elected, unfortunately.

 

 

I'm less certain about that than I was a month-ish ago. Yeah, his base blames the shutdown on Pelosi... but multiple polls show that his base is a small minority at this point, and the longer the shutdown goes on, the more his base starts drifting away. 800,000 people and their family and friends will hopefully be remembering this shutdown the next time they fill out a ballot.

 

As long as the Democrats don't fuck this up and put out a truly viable candidate, I think there's a chance Trump won't get that second term.

 

Right now. With two years to go. Anything can happen.

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If you put Warren against Trump, he definitely wins. You either need someone like Biden, who can take Trump’s nonsense with a smile and move on, or someone young and exciting. Warren would do more to attract Bernie supporters, but I think her negatives outweigh the positives. Fair or not, she’s already in Trump’s orbit and she has already shown that she can’t fight it. The whole DNA thing was a win for Trump, even if she had come back as 75% Native American, because she’s dancing to his tune.

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