Democratic (Party) Direction

sleeve im no civility cop but cmon try to be nice man we all like to hang out here

OK

can we talk about the whole "Clinton's gonna run again" blip in the media cycle, which seems to have already been discredited as nonsense from a former staffer? like, was the point of that just to rile people up and push those good old 2016 buttons? who pushes these stories? it it just the media's compulsive need for drama?

yes

the media's, and social media's

there were people in media obsessed with whether John Kerry was going to run again in 2008

The veteran Democrats named as wary about a Green New Deal in this article have accepted nearly https://twitter.com/KateAronoff/status/1063507622823890945 million in campaign contributions from fossil fuel interests https://t.co/BBlMdFgpUd

— Kate Aronoff (@KateAronoff) November 16, 2018

dollar signs really fuck up tweet posts, apparently.

it's weird that these shitty centrist dems are making their power play at a moment when they could not be less relevant to the future of the party.

tbf shitty centrist dems are literally in a permanent power play

really ready for someone to primary Defazio at this point

i still want to find someone to take a run at schrader in OR-5, dude is the bluest of blue dogs

On Nov. 18, Bill and Hillary Clinton will launch a nationwide tour of 13 cities, kicking off in Las Vegas.

The show, dubbed “An Evening with President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton,” has been organized by Live Nation.

“From the American presidency to the halls of the Senate and State Department to one of the United States’ most controversial and unpredictable presidential elections, they provide a unique perspective on the past, and remarkable insight into where we go from here,” the show’s web site declares.

Bring some long green. Ticket prices will range from $750 to $72 per person, reports Fortune magazine.

If the Clintons pack them in, consider that a valuable gauge of Hillary’s viability.

Does Hillary still sell?

https://chicago.suntimes.com/?post_type=cst_article&p=1467238

Whoa, awesome!! Hope it’s not sold out already!

I really should have linked to the title of the article, which is:

Hillary Clinton remains the Democrats best chance to defeat Trump in 2020

in the spring, Laurie Metcalf and John Lithgow are opening in a Broadway play entitled Hillary and Clinton

i sincerely hope they are the only Clintons visible then

"my first question is for bill, how much 'baitin do you get in now that you don't have any government work to do? and when you're done, same question for hillary."

I hope they've got the requisite world class security planned. Maybe my barometer of the preponderance of racist yahoos has been skewed by the last few weeks but the two of them together on a scheduled public adulation tour feels like a MAGA madman magnet.

Maybe that's the idea. Lure the maniacs in and round 'em up (and give 'em all jobs with their local sheriff's department and send 'em on their way).

Ojeda standing for 2020.

Its probably too early for him but I think its good he's having a run. The main problem is surely coal/environment though. His pro-coal stance is a big disadvantage in getting the nomination. He'd surely smash the general though

I've seen references to Ojeda being #problematic but I can't seem to find any more concrete info. His hardman act makes me kinda uncomfortable tbh

i still want to find someone to take a run at schrader in OR-5, dude is the bluest of blue dogs

― Clay

reddest surely

i would love them to find someone to run against schrader in clackamas and i would love them to do a better job than the colossal fuck-up they went through trying to get knute's old seat

I've seen references to Ojeda being #problematic but I can't seem to find any more concrete info. His hardman act makes me kinda uncomfortable tbh

― wayne trotsky (Simon H.), Thursday, November 22, 2018 2:37 PM (nine minutes ago)

yeahhhhh I'm a little nervous about white miliary dudes, sorry not sorry. he seems ok tho otherwise

here's an article on him from yesterday: http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/11/richard-ojeda-isnt-like-other-democrats-is-that-good.html

oh also that whole "voted for Trump" thing is going to haunt him forever not unlike Kerry's Iraq vote

oh jesus christ I didn't get to that part yet. fuck this guy then

what in tarnation

And with an eye toward the swamp, he proposed Monday to make the work of lobbyists more transparent by forcing them to wear body cameras.

A stupid line that makes me think he might be stupid.

Ojeda says he quickly turned on Trump. But choosing a Republican sex pest over the first woman with a real shot at the White House is unlikely to play well with Democratic primary voters.

"sex pest"? You're in America, fucker; write like it.

tbf I've seen "sex pest" used more commonly lately

I have to admit the lobbyist body camera line is funny

death to prescriptivism, "sex pest" has crossed the atlantic by now

it is a great coinage and deserves adoption

praising with faint damns

It was weird that Ojeda threw in Maxine Waters along with Pelosi and Schumer among those who he said the party need to get away from. The “pro-Coal” and “voted for Trump” things mean it’s actively bad to take him seriously.

i am all in favor in the rise of the use of "sex pest" over here, especially because half the time it's about Trump

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/paloma/the-trailer/2018/11/13/the-trailer-how-protesters-will-shape-the-democrats-next-election/5be997741b326b3929054744/?utm_term=.bc2e202c5f87

WP: What do you say to people who make up the majority of the party now, who say: Look, coal is killing us, and we need to stop taking carbon out of the ground?

RO: I'll say this, and I've said this to people in Silicon Valley, too. There's no reason we don't have IT jobs in West Virginia. We've got people graduating from college with IT degrees and they leave the state. You've got to build these relationships. I understand global warming exists. When I was a kid, the best thing you could get was a sled, because when it snowed in November, you wouldn't see the ground again until April showers. Now we get one snowfall in December for three inches and one in January for six inches and that's it. We need to turn that around.

...

WP: Let's imagine you're talking to a black voter in South Carolina or a Latino voter in Nevada, and they ask: How could you have voted for Trump, given what he was saying about my community? How would you answer that?

RO: It was about the community in which I live, which is full of miners and people who work in the coal industry. That was the only vote I could make that would allow the people in my area continue to feed their families. My state's the only one that's lost population for 10 years in a row. He was saying some things that I found to be disgusting.

WP: Would you run as a third-party candidate if this doesn't pan out?

RO: No. I'm a Democrat. I'm going to remain a Democrat until the day I die. The party has gotten away from true-blue Democratic values, but I believe we can get it back.

WP: Is there any circumstance, any way the Democratic nomination could wind up, where you'd vote for Trump again?

RO: No way. There's no way I'd ever make that mistake again. Mistake. You can capitalize that.

he’s a human being who I believe is capable of listening to people and learning from his mistakes, and those are pretty good answers all things considered. I’m sure the party will find much better candidates though

right

Those are good answers. He should run for governor of West Virginia instead. Their governor is a real piece of shit and is up for reelection in 2021.

The Trump thing: I think he's answered this well, and if you want a candidate that can reach people who voted or Trump in 2016, then someone who voted Trump in 2016 themselves isn't a bad bet! In 'normal' times this would be a stand-for-nothing pivoting centrist but these aren't normal times, and he's running on a good platform

The hardman act: idk, not sure i'd go as far as calling it that exactly, but he is a good speaker and that counts for a lot, he's strong in his answers.

The coal thing: Much more of a problem. he did answer well, but theres a contradiction there that can hurt him for sure

I don't know we're at a point where we can be anywhere near complacent that Trump loses in 2020, but Ojeda wins against Trump all day long surely. The problem is winning the democrat nomination in the first place, that looks a much bigger ask. Glad he's running though, regardless of whether he wins, his platform is good and the more candidates like this the better

You don’t need people who voted for Trump to win. In fact, you run the risk of alienating people who know how objectionable that was. 2016 wasn’t long enough ago. You can pretend his answers to that concern are good if it were like 20 years ago.

There’s also the fact that he lost the race he just ran in by a lot. Anyone who likes this guy should start a “Draft Manchin for 2020” petition.

Is good to have a candidate that ran on a more leftist platform do (comparatively) well in a very difficult state. Not all states are as tough as this one

Manchin is the polar opposite of a good candidate, and is in fact, a scumbag

We’re treating the line about how voting for Trunp was the only thing that would allow his community to feed their families too credulously. If he legiitimately believed that it’s insanely disqualifying as far as being informed on a fundamental level.

One thing I had been wondering is if someone like Warren would choose him as a running mate. I'm not exactly keen on Warren, but if she were to get the nom I could see her picking someone like Ojeda as he can do well precisely in the regions she will find tough

Not a Manchin fan at all but he won his race by a lot. The electability standards we’re using to justify our rose-covered glasses view of this guy (perhaps because we bought to the self-mythologized NYT profiles of Trump voters) means you gotta compartmentalize away the bad stuff about Manchin too.

I do think its an election too early in general, but its good to have non-corporate democrats and the window of opportunity is definitely there for candidates that not only run to the left, but run to the left in difficult states

Ojeda's platorm can work better outside of WV than in. Manchins cannot and is also bad

To clarify, I dont think Ojeda is good BECAUSE he voted trump and can reach those people. It is more that i dont think its a disqualifyer

I can’t fathom the level of compartmentalization involved for the same people who criticize “centrist dems” as “republican-lite” or whatever and bring up impure voting records from years ago then look at a guy who literally voted for the fascist two years ago and it’s like “Oh I hope it doesn’t hurt his chances”.

Its not "“Oh I hope it doesn’t hurt his chances”

Its "I dont think it hurts his chances”.

What i do think is far more likely to hurt his chancesis his pro-coal stance.

I dont mind centrist dems at all! I just prefer a non-centrist dem candidate

honestly I wouldnt trust this guy for shit. getting ed schulz vibes from him

and i dont bring up impure voting records from years ago, no interest in that either. my only interest is today

military bro from west virginia not exactly the most progressive on guns either, I'm shocked

https://wvah.com/news/local/miller-and-ojeda-where-they-stand-on-gun-control