Quote:
Originally Posted by parttimepro
Agreed.
With two months before Iowa, how do you see this playing out now?
I've given this some thought and will start with the caveat that I believe myself to have no real predictive powers. IE, the honest answer is that I have no clue.
With that being said I think that Buttigieg will take Iowa and become the frontrunner out of the gate. Warren and Biden will both have mediocre results and the national media will laud him as in the driver seat. Though, as it has been pointed out by Swoop among others, he might not have enough support in the Southern states to see the entire campaign out. He has also handled his interactions with minorities poorly in my opinion. Because he tries to be the guy who "gets it" but he will never be accepted for that. That's probably a fair assessment by the voters quite frankly. He'll perform well early, particularly with white elites, but I don't know if he has the boots on the ground to get it done. Probably will be a good short after Iowa, I don’t know that I see him going all the way.
Biden is an interesting case study. I don’t know if it’s because I am in the conservative Twitter bubble or something, but it seems like every day he is doing something new and more stupid. This is not to mention the times where he looks just plain out of it. I am not even that much of a Biden hater, but it doesn’t seem like he has the mental stamina to make it through an entire presidential campaign. I think he will probably underperform in the early states with Buttigieg, Warren, and Sanders performing reasonably. He will have to take a stand in South Carolina. I have been bearish on Biden for a while and I don’t really think he’s going to be the nominee.
The most viable option left is Warren. She has been inexplicably tanking in the markets recently to the point where she now seems undervalued. She hasn’t done anything outlandishly stupid but perhaps this is in part due to initiative to abolish the electoral college and other such focuses that are kind of taking the eye off the ball. This seems like the same thing Harris did. Has a lane that seems pretty wide open and then proceeds to go completely off the map. I am not sure why she has dropped to 18c, but I would probably buy at this point. She’s going to be around for a while, and I don’t really feel like the markets are reflecting a fundamental shift. She just has just not grabbed the bull by the horns like she should have.
There is also the possibility of the dark-horse in this race, given the serious flaws with the favorites. I feel like I am more bullish on Bloomberg than Swoop is. I think he could turn out to have some viability. It will be interesting to see how he performs on the debate stage and what kind of treatment the media gives him. Yang is also interesting and fun to watch. I like what he has to say on a bunch of topics, seems smart and articulate. I hope he continues to stay around but is obviously a huge dog. I guess I have to put Sanders in the dark-horse category as well. Health problems really hurt him, and Yang is splitting much of his base.
At this point I guess still have to go Warren to win the nom.