On Cutting Democratic Primary Candidates Some Slack

[MineralMan]

Sorry. No. They're asking us to vote for them in the primary elections in order to choose an official Democratic nominee for the office of President. We need to see it all. We need to know whether something might appear after the nomination that ruins our chances.

So, every candidate should be prepared to provide all relevant information before the primary elections. All of it. Primary candidates don't get to decide for themselves what to make public or what to keep secret. If they do, then they don't get my vote, nor the votes of many others.

When we cast our votes in our state's primary elections or caucuses, we don't get to go back and vote again. Once the convention names the nominee, that's it. So, no holding back information, please, candidates. Just don't do that. We expect open and honest presentation of the information we need to make our primary choices.

Thanks.

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. Tax returns from all, is the very first absolute requirement.

Then we look at track record.

Have they been in government for decades yet accomplished very little or the opposite?

I want to know about what they think now, what they want to do now.

but

For instance, as badly as I want universal healthcare or Medicare for all, if a candidate does not go for that but they are the best chance to beat the ENEMY NAZI FASCISTS, then guess what, I do the COMMON SENSE THING.

[Politicub]

2. Bernie needs to release his taxes. Period.

In the spirit of slack-cutting, we need to be honest and not write obscure posts.

Unless I'm mistaken, your post is about Bernie. He hasn't released his taxes. Our party's expectation is that all of our candidates release their taxes. We want to know that nothing is hidden. We want to know all we can.

Anything less is unacceptable and makes us no different from the opposition party. We are better than this, and our candidates better be better, too.

[Eliot Rosewater]

3. Oh yes, of course it is but you see when I use certain words, I get certain types of attention that

is very bad. And even dangerous sometimes so I try and avoid such words, that is one and there is one that starts with the letter "W" that also gets me instant, bad, dangerous attention.

AND I want ALL candidates to release them, for instance I support Kamala but if she refuses, then I switch to someone else immediately.


BTW, I predict whatever is being hidden, when exposed, wont change his numbers just like someone else we know.

[peggysue2]

4. "I do the common sense thing"

Yes, because winning and repudiating the Trumpster at the ballot box is everything when we're facing an existential threat from within.

The individual who has the best chance to take down this Administration is/will be my candidate in the primary. Right now it's Joe Biden. But that could change depending on performance. It's one of the reasons I think we're all are looking forward to the debates. The herd will no doubt thin dramatically.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. I couldn't agree more.

The purpose of primary elections is to choose the candidate who best represents the party and has the best chance of winning the general election. If a candidate withholds potentially damaging information about him/herself in order to win the nomination and that information comes out later, he/she has effectively screwed him/herself, the party and (where Trump is the opposing candidate), the whole country.

Remember John Edwards? He had achieved some popularity in the early stages of the 2008 primaries because he had a pretty good pitch relating to economic inequality, but he dropped out in January or February because not enough money was coming in, and although he'd done fairly well in the first primaries he hadn't won any of them. At that time there were rumors he was having an affair but they were not widely publicized and mostly ignored. It wasn't until the summer of 2008 that he finally had to admit to the affair and the resulting baby. What if Edwards had managed to get the nomination, and the fact that he was porking and impregnating some weirdo amateur filmmaker while his wife was suffering from terminal cancer didn't come out until just before the election? We'd have been looking at at least four years of McCain and Sarah Fucking Palin, that's what. It's an extreme example, maybe, but let's get all the dirt out now so we know exactly what we're dealing with.

[MineralMan]

6. That's a good example.

I can imagine any number of things that could come out about a candidate that might cause that candidate to lose in a General Election. Not anything about a specific candidate - just negative things in general.

A source of income that leads to something damning, for example. That's why we need tax forms. Some scandal at college? That will come out after opposition research. Some defamatory piece of writing or a speech somewhere. It will emerge.

We need to know about that stuff before we cast our primary votes, because it's too late afterward.