• megopie@beehaw.org
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    5 months ago

    I think they wanted to, but the young alternatives that the party leaders and donors liked have almost 0 popular support. Buttigieg, Harris, Yang, Gabbard, and Klobuchar were all relatively “young”, the party insiders liked them, the donors/media owners don’t hate them, but the average democratic voter ether dislikes them or is apathetic.

    The people who do have popular support say things that scare donors and media owners. So they have spent years trying to convince the party and moderate voters that they’re not viable candidates.

    So Biden it is because incumbent advantage.

    • t3rmit3@beehaw.org
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      5 months ago

      You’re still living in 2016 based on the names you put out there. Newsom is the obvious answer, who actually has been extensively discussed for this or next election. He has popular support among voters and the establishment Dems.

      Others like Whitmer have plenty of name recognition nationally, and in her case especially a great story to run on (Republicans wanted me dead to shut down my political views, now I’m gonna take that perspective to the office of the president).

      There are others, too, but if you’re still listing Tulsi Gabbard as a Democrat I am not surprised you’re not up to date on candidates; she not only left the Democratic Party (and wrote a book about it), she has shifted to the Right on abortion and LGBT+ right, even publicly supporting Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

      • megopie@beehaw.org
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        5 months ago

        Those were literally all candidates in the 2020 primary? How am I in 2016, the primary candidates of note in 2016 were Clinton and Sanders.

        Newsome is hardly new to the talk about potential candidates and is far from exciting. Whitmer is maybe a bit more appealing but we’ll see how much that holds when she starts talking to donors about funding her campaign.

        Tulsi is exemplary of the issue with “moderate” democratic candidates, they’re all two bad days from starting to post about the “woke mind virus”.