Election 2020

[onejayhawk]

I think if Hillary voted no in '03 she would have withstood Obama's challenge. With the divisions in the Republican party in 2008, she wins easily. It would have made the race in 2012 very different. We also would likely not have ACA or anything close.

So much for alternate history. In the current reality, the Democrats are much like the Republicans in 2008. Without a bad economy, they will not beat Trump.

J

[Judge Jude]

Bernie had a retort to that all of his rivals will emulate:
- Most of the drop in unemployment rate came under Obama.
- Most of the first world has seen unemployment rates fall.
- Trump is the one who is letting the annual debt soar.

now, each of these points can be dissected, for sure (independent of Obama, starting the unemployment drop time clock at 2009 is one helluva a convenient endpoint, for instance).

but Bill the Butcher who gets home after a long day and sees that retort in a general election debate is going just say, "yeah, good points."

a Trump stand-in could parry effectively - but Trump will just say "The Mexicans will pay for the wall" or "Lock her up" or something.

[revo]

Bill Weld officially enters the GOP primaries as a direct challenger to the incumbent. How many more will take on the challenge now that the seal is broken?

[Kevin Seitzer]

Bill Weld officially enters the GOP primaries as a direct challenger to the incumbent. How many more will take on the challenge now that the seal is broken?

There may be others but none of them stand a snowball's chance in hell of winning or shifting the discussion in any meaningful way.

[revo]

There may be others but none of them stand a snowball's chance in hell of winning or shifting the discussion in any meaningful way.

That may be 100% true, but it forces the incumbent to campaign against them, to have some candidates expose weaknesses that will force some GOPers to turn away, and every incumbent since 1976 who's faced a significant primary challenge has lost in the general election.

So if a couple more join the fray, it will show GOPers that Trump isn't as popular as he believes.

[onejayhawk]

That may be 100% true, but it forces the incumbent to campaign against them, to have some candidates expose weaknesses that will force some GOPers to turn away, and every incumbent since 1976 who's faced a significant primary challenge has lost in the general election.

So if a couple more join the fray, it will show GOPers that Trump isn't as popular as he believes.

No one is that popular.

Trump does poll better among Republicans than Bill Clinton or Obama did among Democrats. He has also been extraordinarily consistent, almost table flat, about 15% between extremes.

J

[Judge Jude]

yeah, I can't believe it, but his ratings among Republicans are astronomical.

"significant primary challenge?" by Weld?

[nots]

yeah, I can't believe it, but his ratings among Republicans are astronomical.

"significant primary challenge?" by Weld?

I love Bill Weld. I will vote for Bill Weld*. Bill Weld is not a ‘significant primary challenge’.

*- might not actually be true. May vote in the Democratic Primary. Not sure how primaries work here in Florida.

[revo]

yeah, I can't believe it, but his ratings among Republicans are astronomical.

"significant primary challenge?" by Weld?

I didn’t say Weld would be a significant challenge. But if he opens the doors for Kasich and/or Flake, wouldn’t you say that’s a significant challenge?

[Judge Jude]

Weld doesn't open any doors. heck, his very name shuts them.


Kasich would be interesting, but Weld has nothing at all to do with what he ever decides.

meanwhile, this piece is a doozy by an anti-Trumpite who also thinks late-night comedy sucks now - well worth the read:

https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/...y-sinkhole/amp

"Jay Leno remained safely noncommittal and recently complained that today’s hosts are one-sided, begging for a return to every centrist’s favorite value: “civility.” But while it’s easy as ever to hit Leno as the epitome of uncool and brush off his asinine prescription (rudeness is hardly a hindrance to good comedy), the diagnosis from which he proceeds is inescapably true:

These shows are fucking unwatchable."

.................

"It’s painful to watch someone like Colbert, who makes me double up in laughter with his performance in the oddball ’90s sitcom Strangers With Candy, go through the paces of yet another weeknight monologue on the president’s bald hypocrisies."

...............

"With rare exceptions, Kimmel, Corden, Colbert, Conan, Fallon and Meyers aren’t trying to push us anywhere uncomfortable; they’re who you watch to unwind at bedtime. This means papering over much of the true horror of being alive in this country right now — migrant family separation, emboldened Nazis, environmental and kleptocratic plunder — to feast on low-hanging fruit."

................

"the awful talk shows are complicit in this barbaric regime by diminishing any rebuke of it to the scope of a half-assed Alec Baldwin impression. In truth, it would be better if they didn’t mention Trump at all; that would possibly sting his ego. "

[revo]

He has also been extraordinarily consistent, almost table flat, about 15% between extremes.

J

I agree. Which is why his re-electability is a big question. He does have the advantage of being an incumbent, but he's also not gaining any new fans. His popularity among Independents is very low, hovering between 33% and 39%. Nothing he does will move the needle. Therefore, unlike last time, the Dems know exactly where the battlegrounds are. They know who they can recruit to add voting blocs (i.e. adding a female and/or minority to the ticket). The GOP will just have their guy, liked among the party but hated elsewhere, and this is a party who has routinely lost the popular vote. Where are they recruiting new voting blocs?

[B-Fly]

The GOP will just have their guy, liked among the party but hated elsewhere, and this is a party who has routinely lost the popular vote. Where are they recruiting new voting blocs?

I see many of his fans thinking they can materially increase his African American support from the 8% he got in 2016 - maybe as high as the upper teens, based on some opinion polls that has seen his approval among African Americans as high as 20% (and Rasmussen [cough] once even pegged it at 36 percent). Some of that would depend on the Democratic ticket, but I'd have to see it to believe it.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/10/18/could_trump_win_20_percent_of_the_african-american_vote_in_2020_138385.html

[revo]

I see many of his fans thinking they can materially increase his African American support from the 8% he got in 2016 - maybe as high as the upper teens, based on some opinion polls that has seen his approval among African Americans as high as 20% (and Rasmussen [cough] once even pegged it at 36 percent). Some of that would depend on the Democratic ticket, but I'd have to see it to believe it.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/ar...20_138385.html

Not that I believe that line of reasoning for a second, but that's why the Dems need a female and/or minority on the ticket -- to ensure the GOP doesn't gain among African-Americans and female voters. If Harris doesn't win the nomination outright, she or Abrams would be great additions as a Veep candidate, with Abrams probably better because she could help in the South.

Also, whoever gets the Dem nod should start to float out candidates for cabinet positions that would get the minorities who usually sit out elections out to vote. If you know going in that if Biden, for example, wins, he will name Beto, Booker, Castro, Mayor Pete, Harris, etc. to cabinet positions, you might get more excited.

A major failing of Hillary, among other failings, was naming Kaine as Veep. It was met with a shrug and didn't help one iota.

[Teenwolf]

New York Times published an article "'Stop Sanders' Democrats Are Agonizing Over His Momentum"

“There’s a growing realization that Sanders could end up winning this thing, or certainly that he stays in so long that he damages the actual winner,” said David Brock, the liberal organizer, who said he has had discussions with other operatives about an anti-Sanders campaign and believes it should commence “sooner rather than later.”

But to some veterans of the still-raw 2016 primary, a heavy-handed intervention may only embolden him and his fervent supporters.

R. T. Rybak, the former Minneapolis mayor who was vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee in 2016, complained bitterly about the party’s tilt toward Mrs. Clinton back then, and warned that it would backfire if his fellow mainstream Democrats “start with the idea that you’re trying to stop somebody.”

If the party fractures again, “or if we even have anybody raising an eyebrow of ‘I’m not happy about this,’ we’re going to lose and they’ll have this loss on their hands,” Mr. Rybak said of the anti-Sanders forces, pleading with them to not make him “a martyr.”

[...]

The discussion about Mr. Sanders has to date been largely confined to private settings because — like establishment Republicans in 2016 — Democrats are uneasy about elevating him or alienating his supporters.

The matter of What To Do About Bernie and the larger imperative of party unity has, for example, hovered over a series of previously undisclosed Democratic dinners in New York and Washington organized by the longtime party financier Bernard Schwartz. The gatherings have included scores from the moderate or center-left wing of the party, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California; Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader; former Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia; Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., himself a presidential candidate; and the president of the Center for American Progress, Neera Tanden.

“He did us a disservice in the last election,” said Mr. Schwartz, a longtime Clinton supporter who said he would support former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in this primary.

So... they put a brick on the scales in 2016 to ensure Bernie would lose, now they're trying to do it all over again. Since it all worked so well the last time, right?

I find the growing frustration and futility of these losers extremely enjoyable.

[Teenwolf]

Another article I found interesting, Kamala Harris finally apologizes for the results of her truancy laws.

Sen. Kamala Harris said Wednesday that she regrets that some California prosecutors “criminalized the parents” of truant children using a controversial 2011 law she helped pass when she was the district attorney of San Francisco.

“My regret is that I have now heard stories where in some jurisdictions, DAs have now criminalized the parents,” Harris said in an interview with “Pod Save America.”

“And I regret that that has happened and the thought that anything that I did could have led to that,” she added.

This is the latest instance of Harris grappling with critiques of her prosecutorial record since launching her 2020 bid for the presidency.

Truancy — which refers to unexcused school absences — was one of Harris’ signature issues while she was the San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general.

The law in question imposes fines and jail time on parents of children in kindergarten through eighth grade who have missed 10 percent of school days or more without a valid excuse.

Harris championed the law in the state legislature after she successfully reduced truancy in San Francisco by threatening to prosecute parents under a more dated law.

Harris’ remarks also come after HuffPost profiled an Orange County mother who was arrested and vigorously prosecuted under the 2011 law. Orange County’s district attorney touted the woman’s arrest as part of a gang prevention effort; in reality, her 11-year-old daughter was missing school because of chronic illness.

https://m.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/ka...w_entry_recirc