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Speaking up and pushing back when Dem prez candidates do bad stuff isn't just about getting the best candidate for 2020. It's also about making WHOEVER gets the nomination a better candidate.
If a candidate leaves Ilhan Omar hanging out to dry in April 2019 and takes a hit for it, they'll be less likely to leave someone similar hanging out to dry in September 2019, in September 2020, and (if they win the election) in April 2022.
I'm not a Beto fan. But his approach to the Omar thing was, IMO, very very good. If he sticks with it, he'll be a better, stronger candidate. If others copy him, they will too. So yay Beto—today.
I know who I'd vote for if the primary was today. But I don't know if that candidate is going to be on the ballot when I get to vote, or how any of the candidates are going to surprise me between now and then. So in all honesty, I don't know who I'm going to wind up voting for.
So when candidates do good stuff, I'll say so. When they do stuff that sucks, I'll say that. That strikes me as the obviously appropriate, obviously healthy, obviously useful (to the very limited extent that any of this blather is useful) thing to do.
(Just saying all this here in one place so I have a thread to thrust at people the next time someone accuses me of being a puppet or a hater of whichever candidate I happen to say something about that day.)
All this is a reason, by the way, that criticizing candidates over specifics is a lot more productive than snarking about how much they suck in general.
If I say Beto handled the Omar thing really well, and you come into my mentions to tell me he's an empty suit, what are you even doing? It's not responsive to what I said, it's not relevant to what I think, and it's not going to change my mind about anything.
All the Dem candidates suck in one way or another. Hell, they all suck period, if we're calibrating based on my own political views and preferences. So if you tell me someone sucks, you're not telling me anything about them that I don't know. You're giving me info about you, tho.
