On some level luck is a factor, but usually a candidate’s rise and fall tells a pretty clear story based on choices they made along the way. Hyped candidates with lots of advantages often flame out, underdogs sometimes make their own luck, and both happened this cycle already.https://twitter.com/databyler/status/1201534965999001601 …
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Replying to @BenjySarlin
Sure -- I totally buy that. Beto is a great example of a post-hype faceplant and Buttigieg obvs did a lot of things right to get where he is. More thinking of a Bullock here -- a maybe not-fatally-flawed idea that just sort of stalled?
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Replying to @databyler
Maybe wrong man for moment, but that's not luck. But he's also little known nationally and made a catastrophic decision, influenced understandably by governors duties, to enter the race late and not lay more groundwork to correct for that issue.
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Replying to @BenjySarlin @databyler
Some is choices, some is being the right person for the moment, some is the competition. Bullock got in too late, & Biden occupies the "safe, electable to white Midwesterners" lane.
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Replying to @baseballcrank @databyler
To extent "bad luck" was a factor in Bullock's failure to launch, it was indeed having a bunch of higher profile people competing overlapping space. Not only Biden, but Klobuchar, Buttigieg, as well as fellow longshots like Bennet, Ryan, Moulton.
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Not only that, Bullock's top issue is stopping money in politics, an area where Sanders and Warren absolutely dominate even as they occupy a different ideological and biographic space.
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Replying to @BenjySarlin @databyler
And that's an issue nobody ever actually votes on.
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Replying to @baseballcrank @databyler
Being seen as the outsider who's against special interests or entrenched institutions can be a huge benefit, it certainly was for Trump in 2016 and gave Sanders momentum versus Clinton. But if that's what you're looking for, Bullock was likely not your first choice.
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If you mean they don't vote on policy specifics around reform, that's another story, seeing as Trump paid zero price for completely abandoning this angle in office and some of those left-wing populist voters went third party, ensuring Citizens United would stay for decades.
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You can definitely run with that as part of your narrative (see also McCain), but I'm a firm believer that voters do not actually pull levers on the basis of campaign finance reform. At best, it's a means to ends they want. You run on the ends.
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