Your 2020 Presidential Candidate Speculation Thread

Well, since Gabbneb still isn't here to kick around anymore I guess I'll take the reins again.

Danny gets the honors:

I think it would be reasonable for any of the following Democrats to run for President:

Cory Booker
Kamala Harris
Tim Kaine
Julian Castro
Amy Klobuchar
Deval Patrick
Tammy Duckworth
Tom Perez
Keith Ellison
Donna Brazile oops, sorry
Kirsten Gillibrand

This is by no means an exhaustive list.

― the Hannah Montana of the Korean War (DJP), Friday, November 10, 2017 3:31 PM (thirty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

medicare and social security for all. free college tuition. tax the rich to pay for it

And I guess for Republicans we have:

Trump
Cruz
Sasse
Kasich?

Moore

I assume Sanders will run again until/unless he explicitly rules it out

Kasich is almost a certainty.

the four women on that list are more impressive than any of the men imo

Dolores is missing from this list

and for all you degenerate gamblers amongst us, a handy guide

http://www.paddypower.com/bet?action=go_search&sClass=-1&sCriteria=trump
https://www.predictit.org/Contract/5140/Will-Donald-Trump-be-president-at-year-end-2017#data
https://sports.bovada.lv/politics

https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/dwaynejohnson_20110503205405.jpg

Is that Sarah Sanders?

https://uproxx.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/gettyimages-683953058.jpg?quality=100&w=650

here we go

eff gabbneb and this thread

aka "This is the thread where we make premature ejaculations"

the rock
tim tebow

I don't think there's any chance whatsoever that Pop would run, but I wouldn't not vote for him.

lol morbs. How long ago was gabbneb banished? Seems like about ten years ago now.

his crackpot insights into the political affiliations of the critical ozark mountain czech-american bloc were a thorn in the side of the 2016 threads iirc

How long ago was gabbneb banished? Seems like about ten years ago now.

gabbneb was banned about four or five years** back, then he returned for at least a year as benbbag (or some such moniker). that gabbneb had come back was not a secret. he behaved for a time, then was banned again maybe a year** back.

**chronology subject to a weak memory for such trivia

I feel like the Democrats have a ton of great VP candidates, but no Presidential candidates yet.

Julian Castro would have been a great VP pick this time IMO (and probably in 2020) but he doesn't have Obama's charisma to leap from minor political office to President so quickly.

He's kind of screwed in that regard, though, Texas won't be electing a Democrat to a statewide office just yet.

The Inevitability of Kamala Harris

Kamala Harris would make for a very interesting race, assuming Trump survives to run again as incumbent. Her presence on the ballot would ensure Trump would retain all the social conservatives whose hatred of Hillary was deeply entwined with her being a woman and perceived as a liberal and feminist. On the flip side of that, Harris would easily grab HRC's core constituencies for herself.

The main interest for me would be in what issues she chose to highlight as the definition of her politics and how she'd react to the inevitable attacks about being 'soft' (iow, being a woman). Would she hit hard on profressive issues, or soft peddle herself as a centrist, or 'triangulate' in a Clintonian way?

Any way, a national campaign is a brutal trial by fire. I wish her well, if she decides to run.

I still see the Dem nomination coming down to Harris vs. Gillibrand, and I'd be ok with voting for either.

i really dig gillibrand.

For this outsider, after the last month or so, I really don't see how the nomination goes to anyone but a woman. The anger and the energy is there, and I would assume anyone trying to portray it as 'tokenistic' or only about identity would be shouted down pretty fast.

"Inevitable" is an albatross as a political tag

The one that seems to be getting dragged down by the 'inevitable' tag is Bernie, or is it just me? That that profile of Harris includes so many snide remarks about his voters illustrate that quite well, imo.

i really dig gillibrand.

I can't remember if it was Pod Save America or Axelrod's podcast where she did it, but Gillibrand openly and convincingly apologized for a vote she once cast and that she now has a full understanding of why it was the wrong side to take on an issue (gun related legislation, iirc) and I've never heard a politician on any level in either party be so contrite and willingly admit to being wrong. That won me over on her for sure (and voting no on all of Trump's cabinet appointments for as long she did helped).

At the Women's March almost a year ago, Harris was a shockingly flat public speaker. I wonder if she has improved since then? Compared to the fired up Duckworth and Gillibrand, she just wasn't that compelling.

Gillibrand wanted to run in 2016 but that was not going to happen with Hillary around. But she is well connected in NY and is very good at raising money.

Not really sure what the core source of love for Harris is.

Also, the Kamala article mentionsJason Kander as a possible candidate.

re Johnny Fever

I think I heard the same (Axelrod) interview, and it's largely responsible for my pro-Gillibrand feelings. Contrast the way she talks about this stuff - or, say, Bill Clinton on The Daily - with Kamala Harris's bland calculations and I know where I fall. Even pre-election, she was loudly advocating Sanders and Warren.

I would really prefer not to have a prosecutor as president tbh

(re: KH)

I’d take Harris over Booker every time, at least

My guess would be that criminal justice reform is going to be a bigger issue than it was in 2016, and whether or not that hurts or helps KH I don't know. According to that article she could run on that issue if she wanted to, and I'd guess she'd win if she managed to do so.

former prosecutor is not a career path that leads one to restrict fellow prosecutors' discretion, which is what is necessary to accomplish criminal justice reform.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/are-prosecutors-the-key-to-justice-reform/483252/

agreed

my current faves: Gillibrand, Duckworth, and Oregon's Junior Senator Jeff Merkley.

"Inevitable" is an albatross as a political tag

especially 3 years out from an election

i really dig gillibrand.

I can't remember if it was Pod Save America or Axelrod's podcast where she did it, but Gillibrand openly and convincingly apologized for a vote she once cast and that she now has a full understanding of why it was the wrong side to take on an issue (gun related legislation, iirc) and I've never heard a politician on any level in either party be so contrite and willingly admit to being wrong. That won me over on her for sure (and voting no on all of Trump's cabinet appointments for as long she did helped).

― Ⓓⓡ. (Johnny Fever), Sunday, December 3, 2017 4:19 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think it was immigration actually, unless she's done it twice, in which case all the better.

The Secret to Understanding Kamala Harris

nothing to add here pic.twitter.com/ARYNwCaqA3

— Shuja Haider (@shujaxhaider) January 12, 2018

Warren says she's not running.

http://www.newser.com/story/256430/warren-not-running-for-president-but-hedges-on-one-thing.html

Warren is pretty clear about it every time she gets asked. I don't know why it makes news sometimes and doesn't at others.

I have no idea whether she will in fact run, but anytime anyone says "I'm not running" without further specification, they should be understood to be referring only to the present moment and not any future moment.

Warren will not run.

but who will unite the dems, whoooooooo

if Gillibrand sticks to eschewing corporate PAC donations and will unambiguously argue for single payer i think she'd probably do ok at bridging the Bernie wing and the With Her Still wing

Yeah, Gillibrand is carefully constructing her 2020 candidacy while everyone else is just looking at their month-at-a-glance calendars.

Not if you’re watching Senate hearings but OK

TOMBOT WHO WILL UNITE THE DEMZ

When was the last time anybody scored a soundbyte in a senate hearing that paid off big dividends in a presidential campaign?

subquestion: does it matter whether or not a presidential candidate knows anything about policy

which is more important: how much a candidate knows about, i don't know, anything at all, or how much time they've spent on tv

i actually think that overall, even in the post-trump era, knowing anything about anything is more important, but it's not a slam dunk case

boy, all those undecided voters who are paying close attention to what potential candidates are doing 24 months before the primaries are going to flock to gillibrand, i tell you! flock!

This far out, the most a candidate can do is talk to insiders, by which I mean elected politicians, county-level party chairs, donors, and known activists (paid or unpaid), and try to drum up early support, whether it is a wholehearted commitment or a cautiously provisional one. The voters have no one on their radars, yet.

Nobody is going to unite the demz

Whichever poor bastard has to pretend to be the DSA “leader” endorsing the 2020 candidate at the convention, well, they will have taken the job, such as it will be.

The verb phrasing will be easier at that point though

The Democrats looked kind of disunited in 2006, too. Right up until they didn't.

so youre saying obama should run again

danny de vito is going to unite the demz

demz what?

demz nutz

ty

they seem to be doing good with Generic Democrat vs. Trump in all those polls. they just need someone with no personal opinions, no past history, no way to speak to the public, no physical body, etc.

an...al gore rhythm...if you will

well done

haha

holy shit

"if Gillibrand sticks to eschewing corporate PAC donations and will unambiguously argue for single payer i think she'd probably do ok at bridging the Bernie wing and the With Her Still wing"

there's already a contingent that hates her for going after Franken (a contingent that has chalked the entire franken thing up to russian interference) and a good portion of those people seem to be bernie people, so I don't know.

really? i thought they were mostly hillary ppl --- most of the bernie-lovin lefties i follow on twitter seem pretty nonplussed by anything to do with "russian interference"

the narrative that russia did everything bad seems to have been most enthusiastically embraced by centrists unwilling to confront the fact that the dems made some pretty dumb decisions in the election, but maybe i'm off base here idk

if you mean they're perplexed why anyone would go that off the deep end into russian interference, yeah

sorry i shouldn't be snotty about the actual meaning of 'nonplussed.' your post is otm, not off base at all

Ordinarily the specter of Russian interference, apart from actual manipulation of the vote totals, would seem like a fairly small splash in a very big pond, but there are plenty of reasons why this does not apply to 2016, an election where the distortions created by the electoral college allowed a minority of voters (~3 million fewer votes) to elect the president, and the three most decisive states were decided by extremely thin margins. Not to mention that the candidate who benefitted from these anomalous events to become POTUS is a racist, semi-literate narcissist with proto-fascist leanings.

Under the circumstances, if Russia intervened sufficiently to help create this result, the majority, who voted against it, should be furious.

Someone said something about an exhaustive list? I won't go that far, but I'll list about two dozen of the likeliest Democratic candidates (at least 1/3 of whom likely won't end up running), and some of the likelier also-runs:

Joe Biden
Cory Booker
Sherrod Brown
Steve Bullock
Andrew Cuomo
John Delaney
Eric Garcetti
Kirsten Gillibrand
Luis Gutierrez
Kamala Harris
John Hickenlooper
Eric Holder (or Sally Yates?)
Jay Inslee
Van Jones (as Oprah's campaign manager?)
Amy Klobuchar
Mitch Landrieu
Terry McAuliffe
Jeff Merkley
Martin O'Malley
Deval Patrick
Tim Ryan
Bernie Sanders
Tom Steyer
Elizabeth Warren

Might run to make Joe Biden look youthful?: Jerry Brown
Might run to constantly poke Andrew Cuomo?: Bill de Blasio
Might run to No Elizabeth Warren?: Gina Raimondo
Might run for Vice President/as surrogate?: Cheri Bustos, Julian Castro, Jason Kander, Patrick Kennedy, Seth Moulton, Chris Murphy, Eric Swalwell
Might run to support Putin/Trump?: Tulsi Gabbard, Dennis Kucinich

Possible Republican challengers if Trump remains in office: Mark Cuban, Jeff Flake, John Kasich, Mitt Romney

Possible Republican candidates if Trump is removed from office: Steve Bannon, Marsha Blackburn, Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, John Kasich, Nikki Haley, Mark Meadows, Mike Pence, Marco Rubio, Ben Sasse, Rick Scott, Scott Walker

Possible Independent tickets if Trump is the nominee and Dems nominate a Sanders-type figure: Michael Bloomberg/Mike Mullen, John Kasich/John Hickenlooper, Howard Schultz/Mark Cuban or vice versa

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1SdjRSqqHE

I think Biden wants to run and today is more likely than not to do so, but not sure he'll be better than 50-50 next year. I think a handful of Senators may run, but that Klobuchar won't, that probably only one (at best) of Brown/Merkley(/Ryan) will, and have my doubts about both Booker and Harris, though at this point I expect both Sanders and Warren, even if less sure as to the latter. The Governors are harder to read at this stage, by design, but I expect at least one each from East and West, and maybe two. Garcetti appears to be running, and not sure he'll be the only big- (or smaller-)city mayor, but he's the only one I'd put above 50%. The out-of-offices I'm pretty skeptical of, though Patrick, e.g., may be likelier if Biden begs off. What Steyer's up to, I have no idea. I'll guess maybe 12-15 contenders.

i assume de blasio will be running. he has enough national recognition and is very tall, so he would seem likely to attract enough support to be considered a Serious Candidate, at least at the beginning.

knew it was gabb before i finished scrolling down

btw your list is insanely long

I like Merkely. He has a strong set of progressive positions he can push. But he'd really have to catch fire to have any chance. He's a little-known name, from a small state, and not very charismatic, although the same could be said of Bernie.

otoh, Bernie lost the nomination in what was essentially a two-person field by Super Tuesday. I don't think Merkely can stand out in the crowd that will be running this time.

btw your list is insanely long

― NBA YoungBoy named Rocky Raccoon (m bison), Tuesday, March 13, 2018 7:40 PM (forty-one seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Also distinguished. But not exhaustive.

I endeavored to list those likeliest to run, not those likeliest to succeed. I think there's a serious prospect of Merkley running, though he may well be among the drop-out-before-or-right-after-Iowa cohort.

Everybody I know in Oregon loves Merkley. I'm on the same page with a lot of his positions, but what a drip. He's the Tim Pawlenty of righty politics.

(I still lol when I remember Lawrence O'Donnell 100% GUARANTEED that Tim Pawlenty would be the GOP nominee shortly before he dropped out of the race.)

*lefty

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/286/197/c6c.jpg

What matters most...no the only thing that matters to me is what their position was on TPP

"if Gillibrand sticks to eschewing corporate PAC donations and will unambiguously argue for single payer i think she'd probably do ok at bridging the Bernie wing and the With Her Still wing"

there's already a contingent that hates her for going after Franken (a contingent that has chalked the entire franken thing up to russian interference) and a good portion of those people seem to be bernie people, so I don't know.

― akm, Monday, March 12, 2018 9:20 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

really? i thought they were mostly hillary ppl --- most of the bernie-lovin lefties i follow on twitter seem pretty nonplussed by anything to do with "russian interference"

the narrative that russia did everything bad seems to have been most enthusiastically embraced by centrists unwilling to confront the fact that the dems made some pretty dumb decisions in the election, but maybe i'm off base here idk

― gbx, Monday, March 12, 2018 10:15 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

like legit people with any visibility or just the trolls that go on her facebook page and vomit rage every time she has a sponsored post? like i'm genuinely asking.

bc i've seen a whole lot of the latter and i don't want to be 'that guy' but if i were working for the GOP i'd figure we might as well start sowing discord/ kneecapping potentially strong Dem contenders ASAP.

the people who claim everything is related to russia and every person on twitter is a russian bot are a cancer

although I did enjoy the acrobatics when it was revealed Shareblue has been paying for a bunch of questionable twitter retweets

obviously it's a russian double-blind to entrap them

Interesting question is to what degree Biden's entry clears the 'establishment' field, with sub-query regarding his reported consideration of a ticket candidacy, the likelihood of which seems highly questionable.

expanded medicare/healthcare for all or im not voting. Dems been hyping health reform since the 90s. its a dealbreaker.

https://apnews.com/df86b8eace314fa6ab384dae96780fd2/Flake-eyes-2020-primary-challenge-to-stop-Trump

My distinguished record of challenging trump involves some strongly worded speeches and voting for every fucking thing he supports

romney is the one i'm concerned about.

concern about what? he's just about got Orin's Utah senate seat in the bag. if he runs against Trump, it will be an echo of Teddy vs. Jimmy in 1980.

i'm not saying this is the most likely scenario, but it is possible that trump won't be run in 2020, for any variety of reasons (impeachment, economic crash leading to him deciding not to run again, maybe he'll just die, etc). in that scenario, i think romney would be one of the frontrunners for the GOP.

kasich is definitely running in 2020

I’ll let you know who starts hanging out in Iowa for some reason or another. It’s a decent barometer

Kasich supposedly is more wont to run as independent than to primary Trump. Supposedly, but that's probably reflective of an accurate estimation that he wouldn't get far in a primary.

i think it's really hard to guess at what the situation will be like in spring 2020, even more than it usually is 2 away from a primary. the Trump situation is chaotic in so many ways right now - you could be looking at a fractured GOP with an embattled Trump lashing out, a united GOP behind President Pence, we could be in the middle of some new war created by Bolton, Trump, and Pompeo, the economy could crash...who knows. The only thing I know is that I don't trust anyone who claims to know what's going to happen.

not be ageist but romney is deceptively old - currently 71

romney is the one i'm concerned about.

― Karl Malone, Friday, March 16, 2018 6:59 PM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQaZKquLa5M

he is old, but every election the age thing comes up in a lot of elections but

2016: Trump (70), Clinton (69), Sanders (75)
2012: Romney (65)
2008: McCain (72)

and of course reagan.

The same band of white people who voted against Romney voted against Hillary. It's not like the nation is soul-searching for a sane billionaire to run things.

http://media.breitbart.com/media/2018/03/Michael-Avenatti-37-Thumbnail.jpg

this guy drives race cars and looks ready to murder somebody, I'm in

he looks like one of those facial recognition software research paper "average face" images

lmao like matt lauer, vlad putin, and john travolta mixed into one face

there's at least 10% christian slater in there as well

wait a goddamn minute

indeed there's something a little automatonic there, that's just gravy

https://i.imgur.com/5XGvVmJ.jpg

eh, not so much i guess

He looks a lot like someone I've worked with.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/21/mitch-landrieu-2020-democrats-473648
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/379660-los-angeles-mayor-headed-to-iowa

Re: Landrieu...

"[Obama’s Iowa field director in 2008 and battleground states director in 2012] added, 'He would be one of the few candidates who I think could appeal to the African-American community and the white working class.'”

I think that's right. I also think the others who fall into that category include:

Joe Biden (Af-Am community mostly by proxy, but could be made up by strength of WWC appeal)
Mark Cuban (not a Democrat)
Van Jones (running?)
Dwayne the whatever Johnson (who I try not to think about)

But I'm not sure who else. Patrick, maybe, and I don't rule out the possibility of Garcetti or some of the other younger people, but they'll have a hill to climb.

unrelated, but: gillibrand endorsing cuomo has prob tarnished her uh brand with a lot of lefties

gillibrand endorsing cuomo

oh damn i missed that. fucking boo

He seems like an overwhelming favorite in the race, so staying on the good side of the governor of the state you represent in the senate is just good business imo.

lol wait, Van Jones?

I wasn't aware Gillibrand had a "brand with a lot of lefties" who would care that she inevitably endorsed Cuomo.

Didn't Van Jones get harangued out of the Obama admin early on for some reason right wing media drummed up? I'm sure they'd love to use it again, whatever it was.

I'll be curious to see if any major dems endorse Nixon xp

Yes. He's also been on an 18-month Trumplandia listening tour that's won him a bit of an audience there.

re Van - i think he flirted with 9/11 trutherism or something?

well i mean he had that great moment on the night of the election when he was arguing with lewandoski. but then there's this

When I say #NeverTrump, I don't mean THIS Trump. #NerdProm #WHCD #cnn @cnn @EricTrump pic.twitter.com/k7eZyteJUQ

— Van Jones (@VanJones68) May 1, 2016

oof

I wasn't aware Gillibrand had a "brand with a lot of lefties" who would care that she inevitably endorsed Cuomo.

― Moo Vaughn, Thursday, March 22, 2018 12:28 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

idk i thought i'd seen her touted (along with harris) as a possible candidate to appeal to both the sanders and clinton contingents?

unrelated, but: gillibrand endorsing cuomo has prob tarnished her uh brand with a lot of lefties

― gbx, Thursday, March 22, 2018 1:21 PM (ten minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I found this disappointing but it doesn't significantly change how I feel about her as a potential candidate. if a lot of people view something this small-potatoes as a dealbreaker then I'm going to go ahead and wager on four more years of Trump.

fwiw I haven't actually *seen* anyone dismiss her offhand over the Cuomo thing

and yes esp since Warren has said repeatedly she's not running a lot of people seem to have their hopes pinned to her

The timing of Gillibrand’s endorsement coming so close after Nixon’s announcement lends credence to Johnny Fever’s point, imo. Like “let’s get this over with ASAP and that way at least his office won’t be bothering us five times a day about it”

anyone who's followed Gillibrand closely since she ascended to the Senate knows that her moves "left" were just, um, reGillibranding

candidates who can opportunistically pivot left >>> inflexible centrists

Yes, he's weirdly, maybe even suspiciously Trumpy. A potentially rose-colored take is that he's just seeking to understand/empathize with the other side in the service of understanding how to win them over/back, on his or someone else's behalf.

My attitude has basically always been fuck 'em, the reachable ones, many of whom are low-info voters inchoately voting for whatever's different, have four years to and will figure this out on their own in numbers sufficient to reverse the marginal deficits, something there's pretty good evidence they're doing - http://americancommunities.org/2018/03/for-trump-and-the-gop-warning-signs-in-the-middle-suburbs/.

fwiw I haven't actually *seen* anyone dismiss her offhand over the Cuomo thing

― Simon H., Thursday, March 22, 2018 12:37 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i saw some tweets about it but, you know, tweets

idk i thought i'd seen her touted (along with harris) as a possible candidate to appeal to both the sanders and clinton contingents?

― gbx, Thursday, March 22, 2018 5:35 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm sure there's a small cohort of mostly young people who preferred Sanders to Clinton and might find Gillibrand or Harris an attractive compromise, but whoever's touting that likely has a pretty different notion of what their respective 'contingents' are than I do, and the person they're looking for, if they exist, is Warren.

For the fantasists - http://observer.com/2017/02/kirsten-gillibrand-andrew-cuomo-president-2020/

People will get over it probably.

Garcetti is probably just trying to raise his profile.. lefties in LA hate his damn guts because of the olympics and the festering sore that is our homeless problem. A problem that apparently doesn't need the mayor to be in town to deal with, since he's never here anymore.

Garcetti is very likely running for President.

A lot of those 'middle counties' incidentally are 'worst shithole of a (not-quite-)major American city' or at least biggest-city-population-loss counties of the mostly-rust belt: Indy, Cincy, Cleveland, Detroit, and Pittsburgh burbs, Youngstown, Flint, Saginaw, Gary, Hammond, Akron, Canton, Dayton, Lima, Peoria, Rockford, St. Joseph, Quad cities, Green Bay, Oshkosh, South Bend, Evansville, Terre Haute, Jackson MI, Wheeling, Scranton-Wilkes Barre, Atlantic City, Reading, Hagerstown, York PA, Huntington and Parkersburg WV, Edwardsville IL, etc.

could have put the etc a lot earlier tbh

or added "I've been everywhere, man!"

^^^ irl lol, kudos

They say the heart of rock and roll is still beatin, in Cleveland, Detroit, Hagerstown, Pakersburg, Edwardsville....

could have put the etc a lot earlier tbh

― mh, Thursday, March 22, 2018 6:29 PM (twenty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

They all look the same to you, huh.

if they're all unique and notable for different reasons, please continue the list

I stopped roughly where they stopped being at least personally interesting

Garcetti is very likely running for President.

can't think of this guy without thinking of this guy:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/94/The_Wire_Carcetti.jpg/220px-The_Wire_Carcetti.jpg

Though I also omitted Gretna as a non-regional outlier

i know he was based on O'Malley, but Eric seems to fit that profile even more

Y'all generally have to explain your television references to me, though the O'Malley cite did the trick.

I knew Garcetti was going to be a much bigger name down the road when I almost literally ran into him six years ago, but thought it would probably take a bit longer for him to run for Prez. I'm not sure to what degree he's more scintillating than O'Malley, but he's definitely less of a weirdo.

oh, to literally run into you

Ok, Joe Biden.

I'll make sure to say hello next time.

xp but do you really think anyone who does not live in new york city is going to give a statistically measurable shit about gillibrand endorsing cuomo

everyone's just writing in "bernie" this time anyway, right?

a senator endorsing a 2-time guv from her own party = predictable as sunrise

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/22/trump-vs-biden-who-would-win-217698

hopefully neither lives that long

Real commitment to the collective there.

The article fails to note the female cheers that greeted the line.

Were these cheering females of german ancestry by any chance? Then we'd have something to sink our teeth into.

No Mr. Bus Driver, are you?

dunno what you mean by that but Aimless actually was a bus driver for a time iirc

No

Are you absolutely sure of that? Because the exact demographics these female cheers represent are potentially revelatory. Sure, we've established they are female, but there are approximately 170,000,000 females in the USA and they don't vote as a monolithic bloc, so we'll have to dig deeper than that to get to their true significance.

are you?

According to legend, yes. It's partly german, partly irish, plus some northern European odds and ends. Why is that important?

dunno what you mean by that

― valorous wokelord (silby), Friday, March 23, 2018 4:00 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I hoped someone was old enough to get the reference

Aimless actually was a bus driver for a time

Correct. I spent five years transporting our nation's most precious resource (to coin a phrase) to and from school. It was a job.

dunno what you mean by that

You could probably make a guess and land within a few feet of what he meant.

our nation's most precious resource

dank memes?

guns?

Our precious bodily fluids.

candidates who can opportunistically pivot left >>> inflexible centrists

― Simon H., Thursday, March 22, 2018 5:40 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

truly, lets go

I'll make sure to say hello next time.

Don't, you creepy fucking turd.

drop it or sell tickets, dudes

taking this long to ban him again = the lowest moment of the board

Maybe you guys think he's too young or too low-profile or I dunno what, but I sure do like Pete Buttigieg.

I heard people talking about him (sporadically) after Hillary lost in 2016. Followed up at the time, but have already forgotten everything I learned about him.

I thought he was really sharp when he ran for DNC chair--had i not been behind Ellison I woulda supported him.

my wife went today
we were all gonna go but my daughter got scared that someone would shoot the protest and got pretty freaked out so we stayed home :(

my daughter got scared that someone would shoot the protest

that right there, that's what has happened to us

I thought the same. immiserating to know that and empathize with it.

i worried all day we'd hear news of that

And with shit like this that was not an unfounded worry. (Not my personal photo, internet.)

http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh310/yodelagogo/NRA.jpg

The guy with the gun is the most afraid person in that photo.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/25/books/mitch-landrieu-mayor-new-orleans-in-shadow-of-statues-interview.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/23/opinion/mitch-landrieu-new-orleans-trump.html

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/27/buttigieg-2020-president-off-message-217712

IDK, Veepstakes/Cabinet maybe. He's a Rhodes scholar, ok, but I don't really buy a 36 year old mayor of a 100K city. That's seven years younger than Julian Castro and 1/15th the size of San Antonio (which tbf has a weak mayor system iirc) without previous Cabinet experience. At least Seth Moulton, who's 39, has been in Congress three years. Did Buttigieg think he'd lose to Jackie Walorski or did he think that was beneath him?

I guess maybe someone thinks he and the 36 year old ex-MO SOS will draw the attention of millennials to the process. Maybe they're right.

I’m watching Hickenlooper speak at a conf RN and ehhhhh

Experience doesn't matter anymore, buddy

At least in terms of electability

I’m watching Hickenlooper speak at a conf RN and ehhhhh

― alomar lines, Tuesday, March 27, 2018 2:03 PM (nineteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yup

Experience doesn't matter anymore, buddy

― MooVaughn.org (voodoo chili), Tuesday, March 27, 2018 2:04 PM (eighteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

At least in terms of electability

― MooVaughn.org (voodoo chili), Tuesday, March 27, 2018 2:05 PM (eighteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I wasn't necessarily referring to the latter, but I assure you that there are tens of millions of Americans who a) would regard a septuagenarian as automatically more qualified than a thirtysomething, and b) regarded Donald Trump in particular as having experience highly relevant to or desirable in the job.

this is why the US continued a long and proud tradition of electing 70-year-olds to the presidency. Or maybe Trump was the first one.

Trump was the very first one

it's possible that my DN is confusing when I'm arguing with the real deal

i thought Moo Vaughn was a reference to moveon.org in the first place

i thought it was a cow-based pun on the former mets first baseman

wow i totally forgot Vaughn played for the Mets

"played"

this is why the US continued a long and proud tradition of electing 70-year-olds to the presidency. Or maybe Trump was the first one.

― MooVaughn.org (voodoo chili), Tuesday, March 27, 2018 2:48 PM (nineteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I guess Ronald Reagan wasn't 73 when he won reelection by the fifth largest normalized electoral margin in American history (or 17 days from 70 when he took office the first time, which was closer than Trump)?

Name a 30 year old elected to the Presidency. No one under 35 is even eligible. There is no upper age limit other than the natural one, which only hit 70 on average for men in the late '70s.

Ike also served just into his '70s, William Henry Harrison would have served well into them had he not died 30 days into his term, as likely would have Andrew Jackson, who missed them by 11 days, had he chosen to run for a third term.

this is a very very dumb argument, so im going to shut it down after this.

there is absolutely no correlation between age and winning presidential elections. obama beat mccain, clinton beat bush, kennedy beat nixon. then again, reagan beat mondale, eisenhower beat stephenson, etc. age is simply not an aspect that a lot of voters care about when they go to the polls (and if they do, they're probably old!)

Via Public Policy Polling:

In hypothetical match ups for reelection Trump trails Joe Biden 56-39, Bernie Sanders 55-39, Elizabeth Warren 51-40, Cory Booker 49-39, Kamala Harris 43-39, and Kirsten Gillibrand 42-40. Trump is consistently at 39% or 40% no matter who you poll him against.

We also tested Trump against 2 other hypothetical opponents- although they are one and the same. In groundbreaking research PPP determined that someone’s porn star name costs them 10 points as a candidate for President. Stephanie Clifford leads Trump 42-41 in a hypothetical match up for reelection.

But tested under her stage name of Stormy Daniels, she trails Trump 41-32. Trump’s 41% is consistent across the two match ups, but when Clifford shifts to Daniels she loses 10 points of her support.

damn, harris & gillibrand

But Warren. It's just a matter of recognition right now. Serious campaigning is more than a year off.

name recognition guys!

early numbers like these are essentially irrelevant.

poll from 7/2015:
Clinton: 59
Trump: 34

there's some joke in there with the punchline "-10 and still beating you off!"

Also, isn't PPP one of the left-leaning pollsters?

xxp is it a little different now that we know for sure that Trump will be the party nominee?

lots of things are going to come into play in 2020 that will be different, i think most obvious being that I can't imagine many Dem candidates if any having the same baggage via reputation and years of whispers about fake crimes that Hillary did (it was pretty clear that #nevertrump didn't make as large an impact as #neverhillary), and Trump won't have the same novelty he did in 2016. and the enthusiasm factor on the right will be lower this time around, obviously (as statistically noted.)

but then again the poll numbers before Nov 2016 and other factors being noted were trending left too so who the hell knows.

any signs that polling tactics are going to change by 2020? i.e. doing it any other way than fucking landlines?

decent chance the economy will take a serious hit before the election, also.

significant chance Republicans will lose Congress and have Dems pushing impeachment, also.

My sense is that the Dems in power in Congress would be very much go-slow on the question of impeachment. They'll want Mueller to set the table for them and then take of a nibble of every dish to see if it tastes ok before they 'push impeachment'. The Dem base would need to kick up a huge stink to change that go-slow attitude to something more urgent.

Dems very unlikely to impeach under any circumstance imo

that fake "high road" shit

surprised the "high road" crew hasn't volunteered to pay for Trump's attorney as a token gesture to ensure all legal avenues are robustly addressed

There will be Dems filing articles of impeachment if (when) they take Congress. It's already happened. That's why I said "pushing".

Senate requires 2/3 majority to impeach iirc. even if the Dems take control it won't be by that margin.

there is absolutely no correlation between age and winning presidential elections. obama beat mccain, clinton beat bush, kennedy beat nixon. then again, reagan beat mondale, eisenhower beat stephenson, etc. age is simply not an aspect that a lot of voters care about when they go to the polls (and if they do, they're probably old!)

― MooVaughn.org (voodoo chili), Tuesday, March 27, 2018 3:28 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This response isn't directly responsive to my actual argument - which is that a thirtysomething is an improbable major party Presidential nominee. There have been just two in American history, both in the 19th century (when lifespan was substantially shorter), and while my argument did not necessarily extend to the prospect of such a nominee winning a two-way contest, both of them did in fact lose. While a seventysomething is also arguably an improbable major party Presidential nominee, there have been at least four, three of them in the past four decades and two of them in the past three elections, one of whom of course is the incumbent and for-now-presumptive re-nominee.

Also, to follow up the earlier comment, James Buchanan too would have continued to serve into his 70s had he not been dropped in a compromise after leading several electoral college votes at reelection.

"There is absolutely no correlation between age and winning presidential elections" is also a fairly grand statement unsupported by the evidence you cite. That sometimes a younger candidate beats an older one and vice versa does not establish that age in one direction or another was not a factor in their particular races, let alone that age does not correlate in general with win probability. Those results might be explicable, for instance, by the proposition that the closer a candidate is to a particular target age (somewhere in the middle, presumptively), the better his or her chances of winning.

While the lifespan factor makes comparison across centuries a bit meaningless, the median and mean ages of elected Presidents are both about 55, and all but four American Presidents have been within a ten-year standard deviation from that age at first election, all but one of them deviating on the older rather than younger side. The only US President elected (maybe) below age 45 (46 even) was 43 year old JFK, and he did it running against a fellow forty something just 4 years older who some believe actually won what was the second closest election in American history. In 2008, Barack Obama at 47 was more than 50% closer to the median/mean than John McCain at 72, and in 1992, Bill Clinton at 46 was more than 30% closer to than Poppy Bush at 68. In 2020, anyone over 36 would be closer to the median than Trump, but Buttigieg at 38 would be closer by a mere and probably meaningless 10%.

I'm not asserting anything like a strict rule, of course, as there are clear exceptions including those you note - besides Kennedy-Nixon (maybe, and both were below the mean rather than distributed on either side of it), Mondale was much closer to the median than Reagan (Carter too), and Stevenson than Eisenhower. But Eisenhower was a "war hero" running against an "intellectual" who literally inspired the coinage "egghead," and Reagan a guy who played a football star in the movies running against a peanut farmer/nuclear engineer who seemed lost in office and his lawyer understudy, whose "youth and inexperience" Reagan deftly used to neutralize the age issue.

Which goes to the bilateral proxy for which I believe the median age stands - a combination of seasoning/experience on the one hand with what Trump termed energy or stamina and I would term vigor (pronounced with a Boston accent) on the other. Reagan '80 appeared more vigorous than the avowed malaise of his ineffectual incumbent opponent, and remained sufficiently so in combination with experience in '84 to destroy his feckless Veep. More youthful Dukakis substantially led his older rival in '88 until the perception of his vigor was sapped first by the silly tank helmet photo-op then more seriously by his failure to respond to the Bernard King bullshit in the debate. Clinton didn't make those mistakes four years later, when a third-party didn't give him the race but smoothed his pace by more vociferously tearing down the incumbent, and it was even easier as more seasoned incumbent four years later to dispatch (albeit again with less than 50% of the vote) even older Bob Dole and his war wound, a fate similar to that which befell similarly-old John McCain against the most jocular Dem since JFK, though Mitt, younger than any of these guys and still pretty vigorous half a decade later, made it more of a race, leading many polls in the final month of the contest until the final debate (the Russia one) helped Obama close the deal.

In three recent elections, age was mostly eliminated as a factor - W was closely matched in age with both Gore (54-52) and Kerry (58-60), though closer to the median than either, and Trump was effectively even with Hillary (70-69) - and that may be one factor to help explain why all three races were among the ten closest Presidential elections in American history. The absence of a stark age difference, however, arguably made vigor an even more explicit element of these races, with a mountain biking/brush clearing vs. road biking/windsurfing contest (plus a lot of debate about who did what in the war) bookended by two contests of personal-space debate theatrics (plus complaints about the "boring" Democrat the first time replaced more recently by an almost-literal dick-measuring contest on the other side, something obviated by sex in the general election, though vigor likely remains a fairly gendered concept, and a lot of hay was made about a certain fainting episode). The same thing is already happening in the get-in-the-ring debate between Trump and Biden, however it may play in the age of "toxic masculinity."

The paper-age-sweet-spot candidates for '20 are, to name the most prominent potential contenders, Kamala Harris and Kirsten Gillibrand, followed by Cory Booker and Martin O'Malley, though Steve Bullock is right in the middle too and John Delaney among the runners-up, with Bill de Blasio and at a slightly greater reach Mitch Landrieu and Amy Klobuchar just a bit older. Also in the right range would be less probable candidates like Michael Bennet, Tammy Duckworth, Keith Ellison, Gavin Newsom, Van Jones, John Bel Edwards, Cheri Bustos (among other House members I could name), and Tom Perez. Another non-candidate who would be right in the sweet spot? Michelle Obama. So would be another highly unlikely but not completely impossible fantasy candidate I won't name and you won't guess.

Others outside the sweet spot but still within the standard deviation include, on the high side from which successful Dems typically aren't drawn, Roy Cooper, Andrew Cuomo, Tim Kaine, Terry McAuliffe, Jeff Merkley, Deval Patrick, and Tom Steyer (Steve Case too; also George Clooney), most of whom I think would qualify as a bit too 'boring' for younger voters, and on the lower side, closer to the upstart Bill/Barack mold, Julian Castro, Eric Garcetti, Patrick Murphy, Gina Raimondo, and Tim Ryan (plus that "rock" guy), most of whom I think would qualify as a little green for older voters, though that may matter less in the Democratic Party, especially to the degree that the candidate shares Bill/Barack's particular combination of intellectual and rhetorical gifts with cross-cultural facility. If anyone in that group qualifies, it's Garcetti imo, but as I've said before, he'd have a tough hill to climb. Buttigieg might be able to stake a claim to those qualities too - in addition to being an accomplished and impressive guy, I think he's right to warn against "underestimat(ing) the role of surprise in politics" - but his hill would be several times higher than Garcetti's.

Of course the leading candidates today and maybe two years from now too are way the hell outside/above the range, similar in age to Trump. In addition to name recognition, a very important factor that declines in salience as the contest approaches, there are many possible explanations including the choice of the most recent President to position two experienced old hands (both of whom he toppled when they were still within the traditional range, Biden albeit just barely) as his successors, and the fact that those aging out of contention might be the most willing to challenge orthodoxy or forego waiting their turn. But it may also say something about the desire for experience in an uncertain age and against an inexperienced President who despite his age is probably the most adolescent ever elected. That said, this President was elected based in part upon a performance of vigor that dispatched many candidates of widely varying younger ages, and so any older rival is going to be faced particularly with a claim that they are insufficiently vigorous by comparison, the age similarity aside. That's something that Sanders and Warren (who I regard as potentially more vigorous in comportment, for better or worse, than some younger female contenders like Gillibrand) will be able to respond to mostly rhetorically, while the more jocular Biden can go an extra measure away from the podium.

Here are the number of people who voted for the following prospective Presidential candidates in their most recent contested (and for house races on-year) general election for highest office sought (and, for scale, percentage of potential electorate which that vote represented, using voting-eligible population for races for the Presidency and Senate, voting-age population for House races, and registered-voter population for state and local races):

Joe Biden - 65,915,795 (30%) [as Senate candidate, 257,484 (41%)]
Tim Kaine - 65,853,516 (29%) [as Senate candidate, 2,010,067 (34%)]
John Kerry - 59,028,444 (29%) [as Senate candidate, 1,959,843 (42%)]
Kamala Harris - 7,542,753 (30%)
Kirsten Gillibrand - 4,822,330 (36%)
Jerry Brown - 4,388,368 (24%)
Tammy Duckworth - 3,012,940 (34%)
Sherrod Brown - 2,762,757 (32%)
Roy Cooper - 2,309,157 (34%)
Andrew Cuomo - 2,069,480 (18%)
Amy Klobuchar - 1,854,595 (48%)
Jay Inslee - 1,760,520 (41%)
Elizabeth Warren - 1,696,346 (35%)
Michael Bennet - 1,370,710 (35%)
Jason Kander - 1,300,200 (~30%)
Deval Patrick - 1,112,283 (27%)
Terry McAuliffe - 1,069,789 (20%)
Martin O'Malley - 1,044,961 (30%)
Cory Booker - 1,043,866 (17%)
Richard Blumenthal - 1,008,714 (39%)
John Hickenlooper - 1,006,433 (35%)
Chris Murphy - 815,077 (32%)
Jeff Merkley - 814,537 (28%)
Bill de Blasio - 726,361 (14%)
John Bel Edwards - 444,517 (23%)
Eric Garcetti - 331,310 (16%)
Joe Kennedy - 265,823 (46%)
Steve Bullock - 255,933 (39%)
Keith Ellison - 249,597 (44%)
Tim Ryan - 208,610 (37%)
Bernie Sanders - 207,848 (42%)
Eric Swalwell - 198,578 (34%)
John Delaney - 185,770 (32%)
Cheri Bustos - 153,519 (29%)
Seth Moulton - 149,638 (25%)
Luis Gutierrez - 133,226 (26%)
Gina Raimondo - 131,899 (17%)
Mitch Landrieu - 53,441 (23%)
Julian Castro - 29,454 (5%)
Pete Buttigieg - 8,369 (16%)

Here, also for reference, is the student population of the University of Notre Dame - 12,292

Senate requires 2/3 majority to impeach iirc. even if the Dems take control it won't be by that margin.

― evol j, Tuesday, March 27, 2018 9:05 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The House impeaches, the Senate tries and potentially convicts.

http://www.newsweek.com/trump-just-six-senate-votes-away-impeachment-651857

trade for larry appleton

lots of things are going to come into play in 2020 that will be different, i think most obvious being that I can't imagine many Dem candidates if any having the same baggage via reputation and years of whispers about fake crimes that Hillary did

― omar little, Tuesday, March 27, 2018 6:45 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"years of whispers" (i.e. bullshit), ok, but otherwise this is potentially naive - some anticipate that something will be trumped up against any prospective nominee, quite possibly with falsified evidence.

with no evidence whatsoever I'm gonna say that the funnier candidate always wins

Trump's personality is repellant but at least he occasionally said funny things. Obama was clearly more personable and funnier than both McCain and Romney. Ditto for GWB and those stiffs, Al Gore and John Kerry. And come on, Bob Dole? Give me a freakin' break. At least Reagan was good for a zinger or two. Anyway, its too bad Al Franken turned out to be such a creep.

You might have something there. sorry but Trump ethering the entire GOP field was frequently very funny

(but I guess really this is just another variant on the "which candidate would you rather have a beer with" concept and tbh I don't think there was much of a winner on either side there)

I always thought Bob Dole was kinda funny on his talk show appearances..

Trump may have been funny in the republican primary debates, but no one's laughing now, including him

I remember when the '04 dem candidates tried to do "funny" / "relatable" ads and the best one was by....Gen. Wes Clark

trump is still funny but not as often as during the campaign. i buy the funniest candidate hypothesis

with no evidence whatsoever I'm gonna say that the funnier candidate always wins

Trump's personality is repellant but at least he occasionally said funny things. Obama was clearly more personable and funnier than both McCain and Romney. Ditto for GWB and those stiffs, Al Gore and John Kerry. And come on, Bob Dole? Give me a freakin' break. At least Reagan was good for a zinger or two. Anyway, its too bad Al Franken turned out to be such a creep.

― frogbs, Wednesday, March 28, 2018 5:53 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Gore beat Bush FYI (and Dole would probably be widely regarded as funnier than Clinton by most people who know both well). As you said, "funny" and "personable" and the beer test are all the same thing, standing in for ease (which Dole and McCain will never entirely possess, nor will most outsiders of various kinds), which in turn stands in for a combination of cultural orientation and high school popularity standings.

Why are you still here

He is right in this instance, though. How does the funny candidate hypothesis explain Clinton and Gore winning the popular vote?

the electoral lollege

I think the candidate who has the best vision for America always wins

fire and fury brother

Bob Dole's peak vision was the time he called Carter, Reagan and Nixon "See No Evil, Hear No Evil, and Evil"

my memory is that bob dole did seem kinda funny sometimes but i think i might be subconsciously confusing him w/ norm macdonald.

maybe this is an unpopular opinion but idk trump isn't funny

i'm having bad flashbacks to a terrible sarah vowell column from the early 00s where she argued that gore should have tried to present himself as a lovable, self-deprecating nerd instead of an uptight, pedantic nerd.

I think the candidate who has the best vision for America always wins

― had (crüt), Wednesday, March 28, 2018 6:19 PM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Got it, you think Trump had the best vision for America

maybe this is an unpopular opinion but idk trump isn't funny

other than some of his old, exceptionally petty tweets, this is correct, he as a person is not funny (and is of course a loathsome creep and all the rest). watching chuds like Cruz and the like helplessly flail around unsure of what to do or how to get a foothold was absolutely funny, though

Garcetti's got at least one "hang out with a politician who definitely doesn't have larger aspirations -- at a bar!" appointment in Iowa coming up following a speaking gig, seems suspicious

He is right in this instance, though. How does the funny candidate hypothesis explain Clinton and Gore winning the popular vote?

― Frederik B, Wednesday, March 28, 2018 1:14 PM (sixteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the electoral lollege

― Simon H., Wednesday, March 28, 2018 1:18 PM (twelve minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

thank you, Simon

Yeah, that was pretty good.

Trump's "humor" is the kind of thing that gets that cruel, grunting laugh people do when they're expressing disdain or mocking someone. There's no catharsis in it, just a really insecure sense of superiority

Dole was good for an acerbic putdown or two, so he was sometimes funny, but never was Dole "personable."

At the annual Gridiron Club dinner, an event in Washington, DC largely devoted to political humor, Senate Republican leader Bob Dole told a story about a recent event when he saw former presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Richard Nixon standing together on the podium. Dole claimed that he told people to “Look! Hear no evil, see no evil, and evil (Nixon).”

maybe this is an unpopular opinion but idk trump isn't funny

he's not but he was at least funnier than Hillary "Pokemon Go to the polls" Clinton. the way he destroyed and humiliated Jeb is still hilarious. and in retrospect clearly the peak of his political career.

when you realizing his dissing of anyone and everyone isn't outright hostility but his incredibly poor attempt at banter, it makes more sense

he's not but he was at least funnier than Hillary "Pokemon Go to the polls" Clinton

ok why are you doing this

howard stern lives in his brain iirc

Explains the rest of his post

ok iirc howard stern lives inside of flappy bird's brain let's not get it twisted

Trump not funny ever. Hillary so cringey and awkward, no wit. Biden funny like my pervy uncle. I would imagine WJ Clinton to be pretty funny--I'm sure someone can weigh in on that.

Reagan had pretty good wit, if you're into that sort of thing. Gore's always seemed forced in public.

Al Gore never quite 'belonged' as a seminary student, but he came mighty close.

I think the candidate who has the best vision for America always wins

― had (crüt), Wednesday, March 28, 2018 6:19 PM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Got it, you think Trump had the best vision for America

― Moo Vaughn, Wednesday, March 28, 2018 6:29 PM (one hour ago)

did you seriously just post this right after saying "Gore beat Bush FYI"

Yes. Had the vote been properly counted, Gore would have "won the electoral college" as well as the popular vote.

Moo, I flagged your posts for blabbing incessantly about an argument we all established was "incredibly dumb"

But if you want to hang the response on those ties, crut can feel free to defend Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon.

"we all" - sorry, you don't get to decide that, but I can flag you in kind if you'd like

i thought Moo Vaughn was a reference to moveon.org in the first place

― had (crüt), Tuesday, March 27, 2018 3:54 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i thought it was a cow-based pun on the former mets first baseman

― MooVaughn.org (voodoo chili), Tuesday, March 27, 2018 3:56 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It definitely can't be both

And speaking of dumb arguments - Clinton can be funny, but I don't understand the notion that funny is one of his generally recognized characteristics. Hillary reportedly can be quite funny and almost scarily broadly-informed behind the scenes.

speaking of unfunny pedantic nerds

Maybe instead of writing nine long-winded paragraph, you could've just written an Animaniacs-style song about how old each president was.

Yes. Had the vote been properly counted, Gore would have "won the electoral college" as well as the popular vote.

I will never ever tire of seeing this.

ok iirc howard stern lives inside of flappy bird's brain let's not get it twisted

― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Wednesday, March 28, 2018 4:20 PM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i keep him on the porch now

lots of things are going to come into play in 2020 that will be different, i think most obvious being that I can't imagine many Dem candidates if any having the same baggage via reputation and years of whispers about fake crimes that Hillary did

― omar little, Tuesday, March 27, 2018 6:45 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"years of whispers" (i.e. bullshit), ok, but otherwise this is potentially naive - some anticipate that something will be trumped up against any prospective nominee, quite possibly with falsified evidence.

― Moo Vaughn, Wednesday, March 28, 2018 5:52 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2018/03/what-we-can-learn-about-the-ludicrous-kirsten-gill.html

See what I mean?

ah yes, paste magazine, beloved political commentary journal

I didn't realize paste was doing non music until earlier this week when I read them getting slammed for not paying writers. fuck a paste.

paste has been a lesser jacobin for a few years now

That’s the joint where Imani Gandy took a huge personal beefshit on Walker Bragman for writing for and I couldn’t figure out which one of them was punching down

I see. No right-wingers have started a whisper campaign about Kirsten Gillibrand (as was obviously inevitable), because one of the many responses pointing out that it was bullshit (and one of the two or three most prominent among google-pushed news search results for Gillibrand today, which also include beloved political commentary journal WaPo - https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/03/29/fake-kirsten-gillibrand-flap-reveals-double-standard-in-our-politics/) was published by a source I've previously called out, got it.

stfu

stfu

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Friday, March 30, 2018 7:18 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

thanks for the update, Brad. I had no idea, I still think of it as a paper magazine that seemed to sell middling rock/indie/folk acts to white dudes in their 30s

I still think of it as a paper magazine that seemed to sell middling rock/indie/folk acts to white dudes in their 30s

Get u a mag who can do both

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/30/politics/eric-holder-2020-decision-next-year/index.html?sr=twCNN033018eric-holder-2020-decision-next-year0823PMStory

when was the last competitive mustachioed candidate

Thomas E. Dewey, GOP presidential nominee, 1944 and 1948.

As for elected national politicians, Charles Curtis, VP from 1929-1933 and Thomas R. Marshall, VP from 1913-1921

The last fully bearded presidential nominee was Charles E. Hughes, GOP nominee in 1916.

http://img.timeinc.net/time/magazine/archive/covers/1988/1101880411_400.jpg

Jesse!

https://i.imgur.com/rKyfpla.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbdXSrM0m9w

2012 was such a good GOP primary. Everybody had the lead for two weeks.

i remember newt being like "oh i'm going to be the no-minee" and he kept repeating that and emphasizing the first syllable of "nominee" for some reason

I was pumping gas last night and a guy at an adjacent pump asked me "so who ya voting for? newt?" I was kind of dumbstruck as to why anyone would ask a complete stranger who they're voting for in the GOP primaries.

― Big Mr. Guess U.S.A. Champion (crüt), Friday, March 2, 2012 10:11 AM (six years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this guy might have been Newt in a wig fwiw

― Big Mr. Guess U.S.A. Champion (crüt), Friday, March 2, 2012 10:12 AM (six years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lmao

lol

Is this supposed to be reassuring? She loves wealth derived from uncompensated labor? https://t.co/WdJ93Gklmk

— Doug Henwood (@DougHenwood) July 17, 2018

she is the most left-wing senator in the country, apparently (ignore the tweeter, the data is neutral)

DW-NOMINATE scores say Elizabeth Warren is the most left-wing senator. pic.twitter.com/kZf3FoUxDp

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) July 17, 2018

i'll investigate their methodology and get back to you

(j/k)

yeah the cory booker thing made me look twice

Cory Booker can eat a hill of butts. But Warren’s capitalism is hardly a surprise — she’s written three books about it.

why do we insist on feeding the troll every time Morbius posts a dumb Henwood tweet

why is it our fault

well at least I got to encounter the phrase "eat a hill of butts" today

I am way more interested in the Warren quote than who provided it, honeybunch

and i'd like to kick "markets" and all their supporters all the way up the ass

how bout flea markets? farmers' markets?

he put scare quotes around it so I assume he means, like, Publix and Giant and Albertsons and Gristedes.

i like that Terminal market in Philly w/ the roast pork sandwiches

Politcally, there's really no incentive for Elizabeth Warren to not say she's a capitalists when socialists have already turned on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

— Lazarus Online (@tilyouregone) July 17, 2018

oh, have they?

Yeah, some socialists like myself were critical of her from the beginning.

But it's a reference to something something Palestine, no?

People got mad when she came out in support of the two state solution.

warren or cortez?

some socialists like myself were critical of her from the beginning day she sat down with The Intercept.

fixed

she put out two dumb statements in quick succession (one on israel/palestine, another on the military being "socialist" or some shit)

as I see NP covered the former

xpost Ocasio. Although that reminds that there were some big twitter leftist accounts who got mad at Warren some months back because she was stressing the need to save the Iran Deal.

Man at the beginning of AOC mania i chickened/boringed out of posting that she was merely someone who hadnt voted to crush yr feels yet, but its amazing how quick she was revealed impure, i guess.

a two-state solution is "dumb" now?

on the military being "socialist" or some shit

the military is the most socialist thing in the US

no that's the major league drafts

honestly i don't care about these stupid purity tests and would have no issue voting Warren or any of these people. none of them have the baggage of Clinton, her Iraq War/Patriot Act voting record, etc. that we were told to ignore & the recent memories of which makes it extra hilarious when non-US ILXors bang on about how horrible these people are because they wrote a bad tweet or something.

a two-state solution is "dumb" now?

― devops mom (silby), Tuesday, July 17, 2018 5:06 PM (thirteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's been a process of discovery for me that the current position we're apparently all supposed to have is for a single democratic secular state; a two state solution, which "recognizing israel's right to exist" is apparently understood as a euphemism for, is seen as more of a catchphrase than a feasible reality by now given the incursion of settlements into what would otherwise be a notional palestinian state.

xps to tombot-- if you wanna put your galaxy brain hat on, the military is a jobs guarantee for fit americans between the ages of 18-35

the military is the most socialist thing in the US

citation needed there

a two-state solution is "dumb" now?

the (relatively) popular consensus among most left-wing folks with an interest in the topic is that a single secular state is a preferable solution, the case for which is laid out in a ton of places, here's an example

http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/why-two-state-solution-refuses-die-natural-death-1257096527

(xp!)

"recognizing israel's right to exist" is more traditionally a euphemism for "and they can do whatever the fuck they want"? I share the bemusement.

For clarification I also recognise Israel's right to exist! - I mean in the context when the phrase is used as a total answer to "What are your views on this fucked-up thing that Israel has done"

this election is going to be a blast

I'm sure all the candidates will have the correct left position on Israel!

Re: Israel/Palestine, here's a colleague of mine on the subject:

But the reality is, what Israel is posing as a, quote, two-state solution is a Swiss cheese, in which Israeli-controlled territory is the cheese, meaning it’s contiguous, and the Palestinian towns and villages in that small, shrunken part are the holes, not contiguous. So that’s what we’re dealing with.

What we have today is one state. If we define a state as a territory in which one government controls, that’s what we have in historic Palestine. Israel, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, West Jerusalem, and Gaza, all together are controlled by one government. That’s the Israeli government. The Palestinian Authority has municipal authority–garbage collection, teachers, etc. It doesn’t control land, people, courts. It has courts, but they’re not the dominant courts. The Israeli military courts are still dominant in the West Bank. We hear that Gaza is no longer occupied because in 2005 Israel made the decision to withdraw the 7,000 settlers and take the soldiers and redeploy them out of Gazan territory onto the border of Gaza, which is also completely enclosed in a wall. We don’t hear as much about the Gaza wall as we do about the West Bank wall, but both are completely enclosed.

What we have in that situation is the exact definition of the international covenant against the crime of apartheid, which defines the situation in which two different populations live in the same territory with two different legal systems designed to privilege one group over another group.

JAY: Yeah. One group can’t vote.

BENNIS: One group not only can’t vote, but one group–for example, if you look at the West Bank today, if you look at the question of children, if children throw stones, if a settler child throws a stone, in fact, nothing happens. In fact, they are never really held accountable. But in theory that child is appropriately brought to a juvenile court, where the goal of the court is rehabilitation of children and where the dignity of the child is to be paramount.

If a 12-year-old Palestinian child–or in one case a three-year-old child was pulled out of her bed in the middle of the night and told if she didn’t say where her brother was, who was charged with throwing stones, that–the soldiers said they would destroy her home. A three-year-old. I mean, it’s impossible to imagine. But a 12-year-old child, Palestinian child, charged with the same thing, of throwing rocks, is held accountable in a military court.

And now they have a special military court for children, which is–you know, this is the definition of apartheid in one state. So that’s, I think, important to recognize what exists today, because if we’re looking at what there needs to be, we have to start with what exists.

JAY: Right. And I would even say that even if you got rid of the Swiss cheese and then had two-state, you’re going to have one country with this practically modern European economy–

BENNIS: Right. Twenty-third wealthiest country in the world,–

JAY: –next to–.

BENNIS: –and another country of enormous impoverishment.

JAY: I don’t understand how two-states could ever be equal.

I mean maybe complete Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and devolution of settlements to a notional second state with normalized relations is a pipe dream but at least one can articulate it as a goal, and I know ethnic nationalism is illegal now or whatever but I don’t think it’s any less of a pipe dream to suggest that Israel will reconstitute itself to not be a Jewish State. But I’m willfully dumb about all this stuff.

Wrong thread tho at this point

ya heard that

Yup. Substantially changing Israel's policies toward the Palestinians is not likely to occur in the foreseeable future through near term changes in the direction of the Democratic Party.

nor, uh, 2020 presidential candidate speculation

Kamala Harris to publish memoir in early 2019. https://t.co/xrS2TXvZkQ pic.twitter.com/djPx13O1yQ

— San Francisco Chronicle (@sfchronicle) July 17, 2018

Later than Obama published his iirc

It’ll barely be out before she announces!

the chapters about getting the bankster's wrists slapped with hefty fines will be riveting

She will get to tell the moving tale of her difficult struggle to prevent imprisoned trans people from accessing HRT

Is Adam Schiff ever mentioned? I like him whenever's he on CNN. He's quite boring and would make a good president, I think.

to be honest we could really use a boring president again

if it comes down to sanders v harris it's gonna be 2016 all over again but worse

If sanders runs I will personally push him into a crevasse

I mean like also he wouldn’t make it far in a bigger field where all the candidates including Cory fucking Booker have moved in on his territory

ehhh not that i think he'll run but a bigger field would help him this time around because he has the largest ride-or-die fanbase built in. plurality wins, like trump in 2016. obviously that year, the small field was a tremendous benefit to sanders tho obviously by itself not explanatory (see: martin o'mentum)

I like what Schiff is doing wrt to the investigation and calling out GOP obstruction but he’s only a congressman and not that progressive on the whole.

I don't know if it's just homerism or what, but most of my Oregon friends seem to be under the impression Merkley's going to give it a go.

and here in WA I'm not the only one thinking Inslee will give it a shot

merk def appears to be keeping his options open, but i doubt he makes a dent in a big field

Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti hasn't said he won't run yet. I suspect he'll do about as well as Jeb! did if he tries.

Inslee isn't term limited and he would probably coast to reelection in 2020 so I don't know why he would run for president. I'd bet on Bob Ferguson over him, if I were picking Washington state people to run for president.

Merkley's started his own PAC for electing Democrats in 2018 and my wife and I decided to feed his kitty for a hundred bucks. We figure it couldn't hurt him to have chits to call in later on, whether or not he shoots the moon on a presidential run in 2020.

Is Adam Schiff ever mentioned? I like him whenever's he on CNN. He's quite boring and would make a good president, I think.

this is a wonderfully Canadian sentiment and I applaud it. Alas, no, he wouldn't stand a chance.

Can't help but read "we could use a boring president again" as "can't wait till I can safely not give a shit about politics while the world burns down in a quieter fashion"

Yeah you shouldn’t actually

But it's a reference to something something Palestine, no?

― Frederik B

it's "begin reagan palestine"

inslee pres bid gets talked abt for “attack dog” vp, ferguson vs constantine for wa gov. all imo acourse

it's "begin reagan palestine"

Birthday party cheesecake jelly bean boom

Biden is good in a room and he does the hardhat thing well. But do you really think re-litigating '08-'16 is the way to win?

— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) July 25, 2018

Can't help but read "we could use a boring president again" as "can't wait till I can safely not give a shit about politics while the world burns down in a quieter fashion"

― Simon H., Wednesday, July 18, 2018 2:19 AM (one week ago)

go to hell, btw

i only take political advice from twitter parody accounts impersonating dead traitors

Most of the presidents considered 'boring' by Americans have dropped bombs on or invaded other countries. Or instigated coups de etat. Even hapless Gerald Ford presided over the last gasps of the US Vietnam debacle. Whichever country Jimmy Carter bombed escapes me at the moment, but I am certain one exists.

Well there was the failed Iran hostage rescue

When Carter sent arms to the Afghan mujahedeen against the USSR invasion, he undoubtedly sent military personnel, too. But on the whole, history's greatest monster probably was the least bellicose President since Hoover. No wonder he left office reviled and mocked by the conservatives.

yeah if Biden won next time liberals could go back to sleep for 4 years, as Dennis Perrin says

lookit rushomancy pullin' out "traitor" retrospectively! damn, libs be on the firing range now.

(spare me the Vietnam lesson, chump, i was alive)

What, does Perrin slip you a ten spot every time you invoke his name or something? Maybe he'll do you a solid and say something worth repeating one day.

(luv u, boo)

“Carter was the least violent of American presidents but he did things which I think would certainly fall under Nuremberg provisions,” said Noam Chomsky.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/08/18/jimmy-carters-blood-drenched-legacy/

you can measure every true leftist by how fast they rush to point out that jimmy carter was Just As Bad As Every Other President (see, they've got this noam chomsky interview where he says so!)

and you can measure stooges by their handwaving of imperial support for slaughter

(I know you didn't read the article, J.D., as it's not a Chomsky interview and because you're you, but it also lists a Bunch of Good Things That Jimmy Carter Did)

dude could totally rock a cardigan I hear

lookit rushomancy pullin' out "traitor" retrospectively! damn, libs be on the firing range now.

(spare me the Vietnam lesson, chump, i was alive)

― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius)

it wasn't known at the time, but his backchannel machinations aimed at sabotaging lbj's peace talks with north vietnam in '68 qualify as that in my book.

i've read the article before, i'm pointing out that citing chomsky as if he's some grand old historian of american history (instead of an important linguist whose offhand cranky opinions about politics invariably inform his historical pronouncements, such as the idea that the cuban missile crisis was all our fault, the cold war was all our fault, the war in the pacific was all our fault -- gee, notice a pattern here?) is a bad idea.

funny to see online leftists get so upset about the word "traitor." are we still allowed to call robert e lee a traitor? maybe not on counterpunch, where half the articles seem to come from right-wing libertarians.

previous articles by matt peppe, expert on the carter administration:

Media Promote Baseless Assertions By Government Officials Of Russian Interference As Facts

The New York Times’s Biased Obituary of Fidel Castro

Media More Outraged by Possible Murder by Putin Than Definite Murder by Obama

what are his errors about Carter's presidency? don't answer.

Carter's not running in 2020, is he?

He could! His politics are better now than when he was president.

how bout we try just not having a president? that could be cool.

we're fairly close right now

is Rosalynn too old to run

nice "if" there

Every American deserves to have a roof over their head and keep the lights on if they work a full-time job. pic.twitter.com/GHhD7PsXqh

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) July 29, 2018

really keepin yr eyes on the prize eh

I mean, Morbs is right here, in that that precondition is bullshit. But in the meantime, there's plenty of ppl inveighing against even that milquetoast proposition all over the country, i.e. business interests pushing against $15 minimum wages. (Which, in Seattle, still qualifies you for income-restricted housing, if you can find a unit.)

this kind of bullshit is totally counterproductive and we all know it

the opposition is absolutely gleeful at our predilection for making the perfect the enemy of the good - let's indulge them one more time, maybe it'll work out at last!

I'm not saying don't vote for Kamala Harris, I'm saying still also promote the idea that maybe everyone deserves a safe, autonomous, healthy life no matter how much they care to work.

watching the video I don't feel like the point was "if they work a full time job" so much as "every american deserves a roof over their head and to keep the lights on"

last two posts otm

LGM has a response: http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2018/07/tone-deaf-potential-democratic-presidential-candidates

Yeah, I don't think there's any disputing that Gillibrand is the least horrible candidate with any likelihood of getting the nomination (right now, anyway)

I'd be happy to vote for her

dunno if she'd drive african american turnout like Kamala would but that's electoral politics for ya

I like them both, would vote for either of them

I'm totally on board with people voting for Harris, but that's a horrible message, and does the GOPs job for them of moving the goalposts ever rightward.

A rare morbs otm

Whether it's Harris or Gillibrand or someone else, it's always better to have a sympathetic ear in the Oval Office than a punitive, vindictive manifestation of right wing radio. Any realistic Dem contender in 2020 is pushable to the left, and some are already demonstrating that two years out.

It’s the sort of thing that only someone who is triangulating would say.

this kind of bullshit is totally counterproductive and we all know it

― Οὖτις, Monday, July 30, 2018 5:28 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the opposition is absolutely gleeful at our predilection for making the perfect the enemy of the good - let's indulge them one more time, maybe it'll work out at last!

― Οὖτις, Monday, July 30, 2018 5:29 PM (two hours ago)

come on man, it was a bad tweet and pushback is healthy. this is how these people learn

the video overall was solid, though a politician of harris's stature should understand the importance of slogans and messaging. agree with most of that loomis post

our predilection for making the perfect the enemy of the good

congrats, never heard that assphrase before

not voting for Kamala Harris

You live in NY so wgaf

I would really love to see a two-woman ticket, almost just for the dickhead meltdowns. Gillibrand has to be one of the two and I’d rather have Warren over Harris.

absolutely true JF, but i could always move to Philly

What can Kamala Harris do to secure your vote? I can try and relay the message to her office tomorrow.

A good start would be dropping ideas like unemployed people don't deserve a roof over their head.

as for me:

* stop acting like such a former attorney general

* medicare for all

* explicitly state that the only person trump should nominate to the SCOTUS is Merrick Garland

* rephrase that tweet and make it about a living wage

i keep stumbling across retweets from this person whose twitter handle is "kamala harris is a cop" and it is so fucking annoying

tbf I think the best thing about Kamala Harris trying to make a run for the nomination is going to be all the things she learns along the way. I think she has potential.

(as in, no chance in 2020, but maybe after, with some adjustments)

(also, all the white dudes should be asking these women how they can be of assistance)

(and Booker should be taking notes in case he passes muster to be veep)

the real 2020 presidential candidate was the friends we made along the way

Cory Booker was on On Being this week positioning himself as "the Love candidate" which is right out of the old 1930s musical Of Thee I Sing.

(what he really loves is hedge funds)

I’m pretty sure I’ve seen that lady unironically retweet Devin Nunes.

“i keep stumbling across retweets from this person whose twitter handle is "kamala harris is a cop" and it is so fucking annoying”
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Monday, July 30, 2018 11:21 PM

tbf I think the best thing about Kamala Harris trying to make a run for the nomination is going to be all the things she learns along the way. I think she has potential.

― El Tomboto, Tuesday, July 31, 2018 2:25 AM (yesterday

barf

I've seen a lot of people, including james surowiecki, make the point that the rent relief act will in effect encourage rents to keep rising and end up putting more money in the pockets of landlords/developers. many of them have been conservatives and libertarians so I'd like to see a good analysis of it before I reflexively agree, though it does seem to make sense

sorry for making you barf

you're a smart enough guy to understand that that's a completely useless statement you could pretty much make about any politician. I am trying to keep an open mind about all of our candidates too, but my response to missteps by these people, particularly when they're in line with what already worries us about them, generally isn't "man, I'm sure excited about all the learning she potentially can do!"

it's really not too much to ask for a united states senator, particularly a democratic one with an eye on winning the democratic nomination, to have done her research or have a basic understanding of messaging

fair point I guess I was trying to be nice to California

i wonder if Dem senators ever look across the aisle, sigh longingly, and wonder what it must be like to be able to be a smarmy dogshit-for-brains asshole and still easily win elections.

lol @ ilx being concerned that if we normalize people having jobs the overton window will be pulled too far to the right

You realize that work requirements for Medicaid & food stamps is a big goal for the GOP, right?

yes, that is bullshit and also 100% clearly not what kamala harris is talking about

I'm trying to think of what the right-wing equivalent of lefty-purist-handwringing is and am coming up short

(granted this is because they've abandoned any and all pretense of adhering to anything resembling a principle)

https://huffingtonpost.ca/entry/kirsten-gillibrand-al-franken-2020_us_5b58994ae4b0b15aba945e79#click=https://t.co/cGOJvdXyDK

link not working for me, care to summarize?

I'm trying to think of what the right-wing equivalent of lefty-purist-handwringing is and am coming up short

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, August 1, 2018 4:19 PM (eleven minutes ago)

just be honest and say you don't care. these are actual policy issues and tailoring messaging by playing into the hands of GOP legislative priorities, as moodles pointed out, is bad politics!

I really try to remind myself that Twitter is not an accurate microcosm of America, but jesus there sure are a lot of motherfuckers on there who DESPISE Gillibrand solely for the Franken fallout. It's deeply deeply depressing.

cleaned up link https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/kirsten-gillibrand-al-franken-2020_us_5b58994ae4b0b15aba945e79 xxp

Thx Brad, posting on mobile is hell for links

yes, that is bullshit and also 100% clearly not what kamala harris is talking about

She's not talking specifically about that, but her message helps legitimize the notion that only a subset of people deserve basic things like shelter. It's not exactly leaps and bounds away.

like Chris Hayes just tweeted about, and so you're already talking about a group of people who have self-selected as being interested in following Chris Hayes, so you'd think their misogyny wouldn't be QUITE so near-universal.

I understand that any democrat will always be preferable to any republican, which is why I will vote for democrats until I die or until the parties change again. but pooh-poohing good-faith criticism of democratic leaders seems to be not the best play, to me

sorry xpost, i'm talking about the Gillibrand stuff still

I would think by this point, after years of rehashing the same shit, it's p obvious I don't care about Morbz's troll-bait nonsense

xp

thx Simon

good-faith criticism of democratic leaders

this is not what Morbz does and you know it

I understand that any democrat will always be preferable to any republican

in fact, can we start a countdown clock for Morbz to come in and give you shit for this

well, unlike some of you apparently, my opinions and meta-opinions about democratic politics are not filtered through my opinion of morbs. it's honestly sad how none of you can just ignore him or keep his name out of your mouth when commenting on other shit. but this is the same shit we went through in the 2016 primary, so whatever

it's honestly sad how none of you can just ignore him or keep his name out of your mouth when commenting on other shit.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

here's how I feel about Harris' tweet (which Morbz posted, for the record): 1) in general, a program addressing renter's financial burdens strike me as a good thing, 2) a jobs requirement for such a hypothetical program seems unnecessary, but whatever, baby steps, 3) the details of any such program would inevitably change during the legislative process so best not to get hung up on it anyway, BUT 4) the whole reason for posting things like this isn't to actually get bills passed but to stake out ideological territory, in which case the jobs thing seems like an unnecessary self-inflicted wound (the right's not gonna be on board for anything like this, nor give her credit for a jobs requirement, so why bother) BUT 5) this is one tweet that will be forgotten within a week, I'm not gonna lend it too much time or thought, it isn't worth it.

the end

addendum: using such a minor thing as a weapon to (further) tar one of the only women of color in a significant position of power in this country as being insufficiently leftist *really* irritates me, she'll never be good enough for some people (mysogynists, racists, idiots like Morbz etc.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cNsmt2YZXA

for u, Shakes

ok lol

what does this even have to do with morbs? the issue at hand is whether dems should run on the WJC-esque cooptation of right-wing "deservingness" of social services. there's a real, serious, substantive difference between a paradigm that says everyone should have access to these things, and one that says only some people deserve access to them. harris's statement was years past its sell-by date and it is not unreasonable to expect a dem to at least remember that huge swaths of the population have no chance of getting a "full-time job." if you're running for office in 2018, an awareness of that reality should be informing your platform and your public statements. it reads like a freudian slip.

a Freudian slip seems accurate to me

thinking of it as "whatever, baby steps" and being okay with proposals that only benefit people who are comparatively well off already, is how we end up with clintonian "middle class" obsession and never actually doing anything about structural poverty.

anyway it's bad politics in 2018. "medicare for all" fires people up because of the "all." if it was "medicare for people with full time jobs who meet the qualifications listed on form D-6..." nobody would give a shit.

otm

haha yeah I don't disagree

Yup. And Gillibrand seems to be the one who gets this the most.

I didn't have a full time job for 6 of the last 17 weeks; i should be grateful i had shelter (and cancer medicine)

"The Love Candidate" just voted in favor of the $717bn military spending budget

Isnt that the movie that stopped mike myers?

the Strangelove candidate

I thought Louis Abolafia was dead

"The Love Candidate" just voted in favor of the $717bn military spending budget

― wayne trotsky (Simon H.), Wednesday, August 1, 2018 8:35 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

in his defense, he never specified what he loved

charter schools

Responses to the HuffPo piece about Soros et al. being butthurt with Gillibrand over how she handled the Franken thing have been awesome.

https://splinternews.com/liberal-donors-are-snubbing-kristen-gillibrand-1828041390

http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2018/08/assassination-al-franken-coward-kirsten-gillibrand-absolutely-nobody-else-contd

I'm seeing people with "Al Franken 2020 Anyway" bumper stickers

I’m so glad we don’t drive

Gillibrand's endorsements are the one thing holding her lefty cred back

Sen. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND endorses GRETCHEN WHITMER for governor. pic.twitter.com/dApnVpbirr

— Daniel Strauss (@DanielStrauss4) August 2, 2018

(The lefty favorite is Abdul El-Sayed.)

that sucks even worse than her endorsing Cuomo over Nixon, at least in that case you could make the argument Nixon isn't "qualified" (whatever the fuck that means/is worth) but El-Sayed certainly seems to be the real deal.

at least she didn't endorse the guy who murdered all those puppies!

What is El-Sayed's appeal? What makes him better than Whitmer? A cursory search turns up no evidence of evil on her part. They both seem fine, and I can understand Gillibrand endorsing another woman.

god I just looked at a recent poll and El-Sayed isn't even beating the puppy-murderer. blue, red, doesn't matter, there are a lot of dumb motherfuckers in this country.

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/02/could-abdul-el-sayed-be-the-real-deal

Chucklebee's son is running for gov of Michigan?

xp

From that Current Affairs link:

I am limitlessly suspicious of Shiny Young Political Wunderkind types. Frankly, I don’t really trust anyone who runs for political office, and think that the desire to be elected should itself disqualify a person from holding public office. (I prefer the idea of randomly selecting our representatives, so that we’d end up with fewer people who harbor the mad delusion that they are competent to hold power over others.)

Now I want the author to have the job, because this is literally my core position w/r/t electoral politics, and has been since high school.

so that we’d end up with fewer people who harbor the mad delusion that they are competent to hold power over others

this seems like a foolish assumption at best

cuz I'd say the vast majority of ppl harbor that delusion

tbh i distrust ppl who want to run businesses way way more than i distrust ppl who want to hold public office

I like NJR generally but since he's (I assume) his own editor he lets a dopey line or two slip through on occasion

lol J.D. otm

it's like, yeah we should be skeptical and critical of politicians, but the "i don't trust anyone who wants to have power" line strikes me as kinda libertarian-y

Power’s great, who wouldn’t want it

The next president should be a tree

Frankly, I don’t really trust anyone who runs for political office, and think that the desire to be elected should itself disqualify a person from holding public office.

this is literally Douglas Adams, who people on the internet seem to frequently forget was a satirist

this is literally Douglas Adams, who people on the internet seem to frequently forget was a satirist

And satire is always flippant, empty jokes with no real truth or meaning behind it.

I see what you did there

my distrust of Gillibrand comes from the gun-lovin' centrist she was when appointed to the Senate. what year does she change back?

Her views on revolvers were evolving.

And satire is always flippant, empty jokes with no real truth or meaning behind it.

― grawlix (unperson), Thursday, August 2, 2018 4:27 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

satire is always meant to convey meaning, but is not to be taken literally. unless of course you ate irish babies for breakfast this morning under the orders of jonathan swift.

they were delicious

The next president should be a tree

― President Keyes

if you were the president what kind of tree would you be?

Pretty sure Americans would vote for the tallest money tree without thinking much about it

my distrust of Gillibrand comes from the gun-lovin' centrist she was when appointed to the Senate.

jfc, that was almost 10 years ago. Her voting record since entering the senate has been very anti-NRA and Sandy Hook was a pretty hard/permanent reset for her on the issue.

Gillibrand's endorsements don't seem to be strategic outside of the Cuomo one. She endorsed Kelda Roys in WI, who's polling at less than 5% in the dem primary poll for gov.

God forbid a novice politician should appropriately represent the wishes of her constituents

Xp

my distrust of Gillibrand comes from the gun-lovin' centrist she was when appointed to the Senate.

This identifies her as a pol who knows which side her bread is buttered on. So, the best approach is to keep buttering her bread on the side you agree with.

The next president should be a tree

― President Keyes, Thursday, August 2, 2018 4:48 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

how about a skeleton

They have more life experience

I fucking hate all you idiots

I come to this thread to learn about what Jeff Flake and Rudy Giuliani are up to, not to read about how some goddamn internet randos feel about BIG IDEAS that were covered to death by my fellow wind instrument players in our AD&D group in 10th fucking grade

Oh wait this is the 2020 Speculation thread not the main US politics thread. I’m still mad at everyone though. Except Morbius, he’s just doing his usual Method bullshit.

Can we vote for you?

I look forward to Morbius explaining why this is evil, and just another example of Booker serving his true corporate masters like the might-as-well-be-a-Republican he is.

i don't answer cherrypicking strawmen

scuse me i have a Method class

now i have "method man" stuck in my head, only it's "m-e-t, h-o-d, MORBS"

Or you could o the Hall & Oates route. m-e-t-h-o-d-o-f modern morbs

lol Doc

Cory Booker would rather be seen as unbelievably dumb than as sympathetic to Palestinians https://t.co/dUTeFJNMbR

— Rob (@robbryan86) August 3, 2018