Dam8610

Because everyone was supposed to come up and immediately play like an all-star, obviously. That's what player development is, getting to the MLB level and immediately getting great results. I mean, if Mike Trout and Bryce Harper can do it, we shouldn't expect any less from our guys.

Or Javier Vazquez?

So you agree that it was his platform that enabled him to have the success he was able to have fundraising, but call it celebrity. Got it. What's the relevance of me not being a political consultant? Most people aren't. That doesn't make their opinions irrelevant. Why disparage the source? If it's a fact based article, then there will be citations in it that will make the website it came from irrelevant (or it won't, in which case call out the author for that). If it's an op-ed, then disregard it as such, but an op-ed from truthout.org is no more or less fact based than an op-ed from newyorktimes.com. Either way, there's no reason to disparage the source and doing so contributes to that condescending look you have that another poster talked about recently.

Bernie's celebrity? Lol, the biggest reason he lost was that he didn't have the national name recognition of Hillary Clinton. It was Bernie's platform, not his "celebrity" (which, again, is hilarious considering his campaign announcement came in a rather nondescript press conference outside the Senate chamber and no one knew who he was at the time), that garnered all of that money. And yes, I do believe working harder and getting out more would lead to more progressive victories. In my district, for example, I didn't even know of the existence of Larry Chubb until the night before the primary, and that was only because I actively went in search of a candidate that actually shared my views on the issues. Of course I voted for him, but with Visclosky being a 33 year incumbent, having all the money and support of the local party, and lazy party line voters who don't do that kind of research, there's no way he was going to lose without an extreme ground game from the other candidate. Chubb would've had to knock tens of thousands of doors like Ocasio-Cortez did to overcome all those disadvantages he started out working against. This is an example of how stances on issues have nothing to do with these candidates winning or losing elections. It wasn't Visclosky's superior platform that allowed him to win, it was Democrat cronyism, money, and the incumbency advantage.

There was never no money in politics, and Bernie Sanders was raising as much money without PAC money as Hillary Clinton was with PAC money. When I say "money in politics is bad", I mean the money that came about as a result of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. People should be allowed to contribute to campaigns within the limits of the law (without the legal loopholes that allow people to make hundreds of thousands of dollars of campaign contributions, no one person should be allowed to donate more than $2,700 to a campaign), but this is one of the many cases where Corporations should not be given personhood.

All that proves is that money in politics is bad.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/06/23/public-support-for-single-payer-health-coverage-grows-driven-by-democrats/ https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/college-game-plan/two-thirds-americans-support-free-college-tuition-n620856 http://thehill.com/homenews/335837-poll-bipartisan-majority-supports-raising-minimum-wage https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-tax/three-quarters-of-americans-favor-higher-taxes-for-wealthy-reuters-ipsos-poll-idUSL2N1MM024 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climatechange-poll/most-americans-want-aggressive-action-on-climate-change-reuters-ipsos-poll-idUSKBN18X198 http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/01/23/two-thirds-of-americans-give-priority-to-developing-alternative-energy-over-fossil-fuels/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/05/americans-support-marijuana-legalization/ https://www.aclu.org/news/91-percent-americans-support-criminal-justice-reform-aclu-polling-finds That's why I think these policies would win anywhere. Because the polls say they will.

The Astros were built practically from farm alone. So were the Dodgers. It can be done. That said, adding top tier free agents does accelerate the competitive window. Signing a Machado or Arenado and a Sale would really help, but the core of the next competitive team will come from the farm system.

"Flippable assets" are typically guys that you're taking a chance on them succeeding. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. Those "garbage reclamation projects" were the Sox attempt at acquiring "flippable assets", it just didn't work out for them.

Donn Roach is almost 29 years old and has a career MLB ERA of nearly 6 in about 40 IP. You would've hated and complained about him as well.

You might get one of those other high schoolers with a $405K offer. That's the max the Sox can offer at the moment.

A caricature through which many alt-right conspiracy theories flow.

But several people have proven that theory wrong, now, in both positive and negative ways. Bernie Sanders ran an extremely competitive presidential campaign with no PAC money and Clinton's corporate money didn't help her beat Trump. More recently, the two biggest surprise winners on the Democratic side, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Conor Lamb, both refused corporate money, and made it a campaign point. It can be done and done effectively, and I don't think we'll see campaign finance reform until there's a large group of Congresspeople who haven't taken that money, allowing them to actually represent the interests of their constituents rather than the corporate donors.

So then you're against taking corporate money?

I advocated for spending a boatload of the owners' money on veteran players to help the team compete, and still you're unhappy it. Why? Isn't that what you want?

Wait until 2020, sign Arenado and Sale.

Yes, but they have billionaires with terrible agendas bankrolling them. That leaves you with the options of sell out your ability to implement policy you want to mega corporations who will demand things like caulfield posted or to actually and legitimately appeal to the people and do things they approve of, which will mean perception of your party will matter. You seem to be okay with the former choice, but I don't think the American people can continue to afford having their quality of life sold away to the highest bidder.

Not caring about the perception of your party as long as you're winning is a great way to start losing.

Where did the command go?

All the work I've heard being done regarding eliminating closed primaries has involved going through the DNC. Plus the DNC argued in court that they have total control of the nominating process. I would assume that includes whether a primary is open or closed. I don't personally know where to even begin checking the laws and regulations that govern that, but I would think the people fighting for the change would know where and whom they need to be fighting.

If Democrats are so concerned about voting rights, why do they have closed primaries? Same day registration should be a thing, both for general elections and primaries.

It's not about importance. Those issues are just as important. It's about winning some positive policy change that will help. You're the one making it about importance, I'm talking about enacting positive change instead of spitting platitudes their way for votes only to never do a damn thing to actually help them.

Yes, you ALSO fight those fights AFTER you've won the others.

You'll have a harder time changing the minds of the old (literally and figuratively) voters than you will finding new ones to outvote them if you have the right platform.

That's why you also abolish private prisons (Sanders platform point), make college and healthcare free for all (Sanders platform point), and actually listen to the victims to try to implement solutions to the other problems (as Sanders did when he yielded his rally to BLM). Most of the problems you listed can be solved through economic policy. It's so much more difficult to remove racial biases from an individual or a group than it is to enact fiscal policy. Why fight (and typically lose) the harder fight first?