Your guess 4 who will be on the 2020 Dem Ticket (Not.. who do you want it to be)

[Mr. Morden]

Many folks seem to be picking Brown for VP.  But as in 2016, aren't the odds of this happening rather low if the governor of Ohio (who appoint his replacement) is still a Republican at that time?

[Mr. Morden]

Booker will be on da ticket for sure like Vosem said.  Identity politics trumps all in the Democratic party. 

Not so sure after the 2016 loss.  Their response as a party seems to be going in the other direction.

The response of the party leadership or the response of ordinary Democratic voters?  It's not clear to me that regular voters think strategically like that, as opposed to just voting to nominate whoever they like best.  Of course, the VP pick isn't made by the voters, so....

[Mr. Morden]

Booker will be on da ticket for sure like Vosem said.  Identity politics trumps all in the Democratic party. 

Not so sure after the 2016 loss.  Their response as a party seems to be going in the other direction.

The response of the party leadership or the response of ordinary Democratic voters?  It's not clear to me that regular voters think strategically like that, as opposed to just voting to nominate whoever they like best.  Of course, the VP pick isn't made by the voters, so....

Maybe not ALL voters, but I think the most rabid Democratic voters - and therefore the most likely to vote in the primaries, the most likely to organize, the most likely to be passionate about one candidate, etc. - are absolutely intent on making the next nominee very progressive on class issues and will be less concerned with how they answer questions like, "BLM or ALM?"  I'm thinking of the people who were practically drowning out the speakers at the DNC because they were chanting against the TPP so loudly.

OK, but weren't those largely Sanders voters (who aren't a majority of the party, as seen by the fact that he got 43% of the vote nationally, as opposed to 55% for Clinton)?  They were always prioritizing class issues over identity politics.  Are the people who were previously voting on the basis of "identity politics" actually going to change their priorities?  I'm skeptical.

[Mr. Morden]

Booker will be on da ticket for sure like Vosem said.  Identity politics trumps all in the Democratic party. 

Not so sure after the 2016 loss.  Their response as a party seems to be going in the other direction.

The response of the party leadership or the response of ordinary Democratic voters?  It's not clear to me that regular voters think strategically like that, as opposed to just voting to nominate whoever they like best.  Of course, the VP pick isn't made by the voters, so....

Maybe not ALL voters, but I think the most rabid Democratic voters - and therefore the most likely to vote in the primaries, the most likely to organize, the most likely to be passionate about one candidate, etc. - are absolutely intent on making the next nominee very progressive on class issues and will be less concerned with how they answer questions like, "BLM or ALM?"  I'm thinking of the people who were practically drowning out the speakers at the DNC because they were chanting against the TPP so loudly.

OK, but weren't those largely Sanders voters (who aren't a majority of the party, as seen by the fact that he got 43% of the vote nationally, as opposed to 55% for Clinton)?  They were always prioritizing class issues over identity politics.  Are the people who were previously voting on the basis of "identity politics" actually going to change their priorities?  I'm skeptical.

Maybe not, but I'm doubly skeptical that they will find someone so appealing and uniquely attractive (to them, of course) to organize around as Hillary.  She was joked about as being the "anointed one" for a reason.  People like Hagrid and Ice Speer are testaments to some of the loyalty she enjoyed.  And, at least IMO, while Bernie enjoyed similar loyalty, that seemed to be more about his "movement" and less about him.  In other words, I think more progressive Democratic voters will be just as rabid (and with more of a chip on their shoulders) as they were in 2016, but other Democrats won't be so nicely sorted into an opposing camp.

Well, my default assumption is that the 2020 Dem. primaries won't just be a 2-person race, a la 2016.  So no, there won't be any one big faction that block votes for one candidate who they find "uniquely attractive", because there'll be a number of different choices to pick from.

So, as usually happens, the early primary winners will only be plurality victories, but then the field starts to winnow, and whoever got the most plurality victories early on will likely end up the winner.

But I actually agree with you that the "Sanders" faction is more likely to come out on top of this than the "Clinton" faction, simply because my hunch is that the latter will have more candidates splitting the vote.  E.g., maybe Booker will dominate among black voters, while someone else does well among Hispanics, and someone else gets more of the white Clinton '16 voters.

So yeah, in that sense, perhaps the Sanders crowd is ascendant.  But it wouldn't actually be because they converted people into choosing their candidate on the basis of class issues rather than "identity politics".  It would just be because they got lucky that their opponents ran too many candidates who split the vote.

[Mr. Morden]

Booker will be on da ticket for sure like Vosem said.  Identity politics trumps all in the Democratic party. 

Not so sure after the 2016 loss.  Their response as a party seems to be going in the other direction.

The response of the party leadership or the response of ordinary Democratic voters?  It's not clear to me that regular voters think strategically like that, as opposed to just voting to nominate whoever they like best.  Of course, the VP pick isn't made by the voters, so....

Maybe not ALL voters, but I think the most rabid Democratic voters - and therefore the most likely to vote in the primaries, the most likely to organize, the most likely to be passionate about one candidate, etc. - are absolutely intent on making the next nominee very progressive on class issues and will be less concerned with how they answer questions like, "BLM or ALM?"  I'm thinking of the people who were practically drowning out the speakers at the DNC because they were chanting against the TPP so loudly.

OK, but weren't those largely Sanders voters (who aren't a majority of the party, as seen by the fact that he got 43% of the vote nationally, as opposed to 55% for Clinton)?  They were always prioritizing class issues over identity politics.  Are the people who were previously voting on the basis of "identity politics" actually going to change their priorities?  I'm skeptical.

Maybe not, but I'm doubly skeptical that they will find someone so appealing and uniquely attractive (to them, of course) to organize around as Hillary.  She was joked about as being the "anointed one" for a reason.  People like Hagrid and Ice Speer are testaments to some of the loyalty she enjoyed.  And, at least IMO, while Bernie enjoyed similar loyalty, that seemed to be more about his "movement" and less about him.  In other words, I think more progressive Democratic voters will be just as rabid (and with more of a chip on their shoulders) as they were in 2016, but other Democrats won't be so nicely sorted into an opposing camp.

Well, my default assumption is that the 2020 Dem. primaries won't just be a 2-person race, a la 2016.  So no, there won't be any one big faction that block votes for one candidate who they find "uniquely attractive", because there'll be a number of different choices to pick from.

So, as usually happens, the early primary winners will only be plurality victories, but then the field starts to winnow, and whoever got the most plurality victories early on will likely end up the winner.

But I actually agree with you that the "Sanders" faction is more likely to come out on top of this than the "Clinton" faction, simply because my hunch is that the latter will have more candidates splitting the vote.  E.g., maybe Booker will dominate among black voters, while someone else does well among Hispanics, and someone else gets more of the white Clinton '16 voters.

So yeah, in that sense, perhaps the Sanders crowd is ascendant.  But it wouldn't actually be because they converted people into choosing their candidate on the basis of class issues rather than "identity politics".  It would just be because they got lucky that their opponents ran too many candidates who split the vote.

The invisible primary is largely held by pundits to have been debunked by the events of 2016, but if it is real, then perhaps money will coalesce early around someone (like Booker) and make them a juggernaut a la Jeb who crowds out some amount of challengers, sucks up cash and media oxygen, and largely faces off 1 vs 1 against another progressive small-$ challenger.

This will probably be somewhat difficult for Dem donors if Warren is active, given how ridiculously popular/high name ID she is among the Democratic base - institutional forces may capitulate ahead of time and float to her (like they are to Sanders and his allies like Ellison right now).

Honestly, much of the invisible primary consists of party elites trying to figure out who they think is going to win anyway, and then getting onboard the campaign of who they think is going to win, so that they can share credit for their victory, and suck up to the eventual winner.  That’s pretty much what happened with Clinton ’16, IMHO.  It’s not that they all necessarily thought she was that much better than every other option.  Rather, each individual big donor and party leader figured that her nomination was inevitable no matter they did, so it was better to be on the winning team.

So there’s a huge amount of groupthink, IMHO.  Someone is seen as the frontrunner, and once that solidifies as the CW, that person becomes more of a frontrunner, as everyone gets onboard.  But then it’s very possible for that to collapse quickly if people change their minds.  I mean, look at McCain 2008.  Even though he had been “anti-establishment”, he became the early establishment frontrunner, and many elites backed him because they thought he was going to win.  But then in the Summer of 2007, the thinking changed and his campaign collapsed.  But then it was reborn again when the primaries were starting as the CW changed again, and a bunch of party elites got onboard, because again he was seen as the favorite.

So maybe Booker can convince people that he’s the likeliest nominee, and that’ll cement his status as the likeliest nominee.

But maybe not.  Maybe, like McCain ’08, “anti-establishment” Elizabeth Warren will be seen as the frontrunner, and so party elites will make their peace with her because they want to be on the right side.  No idea if that will happen, but it seems very plausible to me.  I don’t think Dem. party elites will consider Warren to be as threatening to them as many GOP party elites found Trump, so if she leads the early polls (and she probably will if Biden and Sanders don’t run) and has a lot of grassroots support, then plenty of the same people who flocked to Clinton last time will flock to Warren just because they want to be on the team of the person who’s going to win the nomination.