Bloomberg/Warren.
Yes, they are strange bedfellows. Very unlikely partners. But this is, I think, a killer ticket.
Here’s why:
Bloomberg is untouchable. There is absolutely nothing that Trump can throw at him that’s going to stick. Nothing. Bloomberg would just swat him away like an inconsequential fly. I’m reminded of that saying, “The lion does not concern himself with the opinion of the sheep”. That’s Bloomberg. He doesn’t GAF about what Trump thinks. Not only that but Trump is obsessed and perturbed by Bloomberg. Bloomberg is much much richer. He gets under Donald’s thin skin.
Sure he’s an old billionaire with a grudge against soft drinks. No one’s perfect. But think of the entertainment value. Don’t tell me the country wouldn’t be riveted by the spectacle of Mike Bloomberg knocking Donald Trump out every week. It would be fantastic. Even Trump would watch that if he weren’t the designated guy to beaten up all the time.
Imagine the potential dirt Bloomberg could reveal about Trump. He could buy the entire FBI AND CIA. Informants could call the Bloomberg anonymous tip line and never have to worry about retaliation.
I just heard some dude on Deadline say that African American voters are looking to Bloomberg to get rid of Trump because they see the advantage of having a heavyweight take him on. I have to agree.
Is it big structural change? No. Would it be disappointing? Yes. Is he a true Democrat? About as much as Obama was.
That’s why he has to run with Warren. He needs to satisfy the Clinton contingent and also give us something to look forward to. Plus, it would FINALLY get a woman close to the top.
Am I happy with that? No. Would I accept it to make sure we kicked Trump into Sing Sing? Absolutely.
And as rich as Bloomberg is, he’s got to see an advantage of taking on a reformer. Even he knows, perhaps better than most, that the risk takers on Wall Street are going to get us all killed. Plus, Bloomberg is not a political neophyte. He tends to respect governmental norms. The potential for stability and putting the country back together again has upside potential with Bloomberg. He even likes mass transit. So, all in all, this could be a smart move.
Mike Bloomberg has made a lot of money in America. This would be a good time to use a good chunk of it to buy it back for us.
Would Warren take it? Remains to be seen. She definitely deserves the top spot. It pains me greatly to see any woman take the second spot. But would I do it to get rid of that disgusting puddle of excrement in the White House?
In a heartbeat.
Discuss.
Filed under: General |
The Confluence 
Absolutely.
No more excrement in the White House.
Two former Republicans? I’m sure they’d get along great.
Wow, are you deliberately missing the point?
No, the point is that you’re desperately looking to two Republicans, one of them an oligarch, to beat another Republican oligarch, as if no other options exist.
Um, I live with a Republican. I’m a Clintonista and consider myself liberal. And you know what? My Republican is one of the most decent, humane, kind people I have ever met. Yeah, we can’t talk about politics so we don’t. But for him, a lot of the stuff he supports hasn’t touched him personally. I have no doubt that he’s got a good moral center.
As Mitt Romney showed us this week, it doesn’t matter what party you support as long as you love your country and your personal integrity above everything else.
I have problems with supporting a billionaire. Super rich people do think differently about wealth. There wouldn’t be any large shifts under Bloomberg but I feel I can trust him to turn the ship of government around before it hits the iceberg. Warren’s history doesn’t bother me a jot. She studied the dual income problem and it changed her. It’s genuine.
YMMV. You’re entitled to your opinion. But you’re going to have to try harder for me to have a knee jerk reaction to your talking points.
Nice try.
I see the concept of ‘policy’ continues to elude you.
This is the same guy (you KNOW he’s as male and white as I am) who thought I wasn’t respectful enough to white trash (or as we call them here, cr@wd@ds) 😉 on another thread.
First, there’s a difference between politicians and regular people. Regular people do not set policy.
I’m sure that both the Republican you live with, and most Republican politicians, are perfectly nice people on a personal level, in that I’m sure they don’t go around torturing kittens or whatever.
And yet I’m also sure that as a Republican, he consistently votes for people whose political philosophy revolves around objectively terrible policies that make the world a worse place. And the Republicans he votes for are the ones actively pushing terrible policy that, more often than not, personally benefits them and their interests.
Of course, given your love for whatever shiny new object the DNC vomits up to distract you with, and of the Clinton’s in particular, I’m not at all surprised that you would get along well with people who vote for terrible policy.
“Super rich people do think differently about wealth”
Yes. They have it, want to keep it, and want more of it. Is this really as close as you can get to the notion of a class divide? This is a war, and people are dying.
The consistent vacuousness of the political understanding displayed around here, and the utter cluelessness to the realities of power, and to what is at stake, are staggering.
RD, for shame! How can you let your karma run over his dogma like that? 😛
That should be a song. My Karma over your Dogma.
Lived with it all my life. It was my destiny to always live with people who were utterly not like me in any way. Sometimes they were malicious, sometimes they are beneficent.
And sometimes, the people who claim to be a purer extraction of the things you believe in are as fucking nutz as your crazy neighborhood church lady.
Let’s let him hang around for awhile. He (and it’s almost ALWAYS a he) can’t hurt us. And after the year I just went through, I guarantee that the Republican mafiosi can’t scare me away from standing my ground when it comes to my country.
“And sometimes, the people who claim to be a purer extraction of the things you believe in are as fucking nutz as your crazy neighborhood church lady.”
PINKIE PIE INFINITE UPVOTE!
And the professional consultants at the DNC don’t actually care at all about winning. In fact, as a fundraising tool, nothing works as well as a stunning defeat by a loathsome opponent. The important thing is to keep the checks coming in from the base.
I don’t see why we should exclude former Republicans who wised up.
Especially since the left-wing ideologues, unlike right-wing ideologues, can’t be relied upon to turn out and actually vote for imperfect candidates who will at least give them some of what they want.
Yes, Benedict Donald is exactly what the Mean Stupid White Folks–er, right-wing ideologues–want, but for years and years and years the wingnuts held their noses and voted for Republican candidates who were not exactly what they wanted.
Meanwhile, many left-wing ideologues voted for third-party candidates, or stayed home and pouted, rather than vote for “sold-out corporate” Democratic candidates–which is how both Bushes won the White House (thanks, Ralph, especially for the Baby Bush judges).
Even if there are more Hard Leftists than Hard Rightists in this country–which I doubt–the Hard Right votes, while the Hard Left tends not to vote.
Very well put! the Right wants to win at all costs, the Left wants some kind of ideological purity, or maybe it is just that they like to be anti-everything, to validate their own invented sense of intellectual and moral superiority.
Except none of that is true.
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/01/23/end-blame-game-sanders-and-his-supporters-helped-hillary-win-popular-vote-2016
Trump lost more votes to Garry Johnson than Clinton lost to Stein (or anyone else). What actually lost Clinton the election was the nearly four and a half million 2012 voters who couldn’t be bothered to show up to vote for anyone.
As for 2000, again, how about you stop running garbage candidates. Gore couldn’t even carry his home state. Regardless, the reality is that he DID win Florida. The Democrats just decided to let the Supreme Court disallow a recount and effectively appoint a President. And they just let them do it. Instead of starting a freaking revolution in the streets, they just let it happen, and instead to this day blame Nader.
Magically it’s always someone else’s fault. Funny, that.
Oh, I’ll also add that some 300,000 registered Democrats in Florida voted for Bush. Nader walked away with 97,000 votes, 24,000 of them from Democrats.
Even if every single one of those 97,000 votes had gone to Gore, and there is absolutely no reason to assume that would have happened if Nader hadn’t been there (but you guys consistently act like the Democrat is just the default and that you’re entitled to votes unless some ne’er-do-well comes along with a siren song), Gore still would have lost by over 200,000 votes, from members of his own party deciding he was too crap to vote for.
Maybe stop running garbage candidates?
“…And they just let them do it. Instead of starting a freaking revolution in the streets, they just let it happen…”
Uh-huh. And how many people would have gotten killed in that “freaking revolution” you apparently wanted (and still want?)?
Also, never mind that any candidate Plenue would not consider “garbage” would suffer a defeat of McGovern proportions, or at least Dukakis proportions. 🙄
Like many (all?) other Purity Leftists, our new “friend” over-estimates the number of people who agree with him, probably based on some cherry-picked polls.
Oh well, he’ll eventually grow tired of beating his head against a brick wall and move on.
Once again, I notice a distinct lack of response to any of my points.
And, who knows, maybe people would have died in street protests. That’s a risk any time large numbers of people mobilize for something. It would still have been the right thing to do.
So your response would be to just do nothing? The judicial branch overrides democracy and you’re okay with that? Once again, you’re demonstrating how liberals literally believe in nothing. You have no principles. When push comes to shove the ideals and the institutions of the republic literally don’t matter to you. There’s nothing worth risking injury or death for in your mind.
In exchange for potential deaths among protestors demanding their votes be counted, we might (*might*) have gotten a leader who could have prevented 9/11, or at least wouldn’t have invaded Iraq based on lies. But hey, what’s a million or so fewer corpses worth, really? They’re just dirty foreigners, after all.
“Especially since the left-wing ideologues, unlike right-wing ideologues, can’t be relied upon to turn out and actually vote for imperfect candidates who will at least give them some of what they want.”
I’m going to remind you of that observation if Bernie gets the nomination. I look forward to your enthusiastic supportnin the General.
@Prop:
Will I vote for your false messiah in the general election if he “wins” the nomination? Yes, but only because he’s a lesser evil than Benedict Donald.
Enthusiasm?
You do not dream small dreams.
Old exchange from popular culture:
“What do you do–carry justice on your tongues? Or will you fight and die for it?”
“After so many years of leading the fight, you seem very much alive.”
“I doubt the same can be said for many of his followers.”
Kind of like all those jihadi leaders recruiting testosterone-crazed nitwits to die for their ludicrous cause with the promise of 72 virgins or whatever. Why don’t the leaders ever go on missions? Don’t they want their 72 virgins? 😈
What you don’t get is that this isn’t about ‘messiahs’, or ‘purity’. We aren’t making the perfect the enemy of the good. Sanders isn’t perfect. What he is is the only candidate the Democrats have who is remotely decent (aside from Gabbard, who is partially decent on foreign policy).
Fifty years ago Sanders would have a bog standard member of either the moderate to progressive wing of the party. It’s a sign of how far the Democrats have fallen that this throwback guy is now a ‘radical’. He’s not a radical; he’s an FDR New Dealer.
I have a policy of not voting for Republicans, because their conservative ideology (you know, principles. Those things you don’t have, don’t understand, and don’t see the need for) is inherently antithetical to a just society. and that includes ‘reformed’ Goldwater Girls and Reaganites.
As for the rest, neoliberal empty suits, one and all. And yes, I know you think ‘neoliberal’ is an empty slur. It isn’t. Your own personal political and economic illiteracy won’t change that reality. We on the actual left have been studying and warning about it for decades.
You can post your meme now, and show just how utterly vacuous you really are.
Far be it from me not to oblige you.
Now get up out of the chair in your parents’ basement and do your little Superior Dance.
And then your folks would appreciate it if you took out your garbage. The neighbors are starting to complain about the smell. 😆
Nonsense. Warren created the CFPB… her being a former Republican has no bearing on her policies and to suggest so is disingenuous
Must watch…
If he can beat Trump, I’m all in with him. I am not troubled by his money – he actually made it and didn’t inherit a nest egg from daddy. I know he’s not perfect, but if he can win – that’s perfect…IMHO Gloves off!!!!!
Yeah, I came around to this reluctantly. But I kind of see it as we’ve got to rescue our country first.
And women, through systemic job discrimination first and foremost (our existing laws guarantee this – we are the only demographic with a legal double standard, successfully cut off from all males in the 1991 “restoration” act) really have no dog in the Sanders/Nader fight.
Far left men will NEVER fight for women. We’re all “borgoise feminists”, expected to sit down, shut up and settle for trickle down rights.
Someone who will take out the supreme law breaker now occupying the white house, thanks in large part to Sanders/Nader types, is worth it.
Especially if paired with a take-no-prisoners woman, whom Warren is evolving to be.
I wanted an actual cop, Kamala Harris, a charimatic effective experienced woman (who incidentally checked that not a white woman box for all the Sanders/Naderites), but where was the anti-Hillary “just not -this- woman” support for her?
I think he’s too personally unpopular in large sections of the country to pull this off. I think his record on stop-and-frisk (especially his frank admission that of course it was racially targeted) will depress African-American and Latino turnout, which will absolutely doom him in a number of swing states. It’ll be 2016 all over again, except he might not carry Colorado. Maybe he could overcome that with the right VP choice, but maybe not. Will I vote for him if he’s the nominee? Absolutely. I won’t be real happy about it but at least he’s not a petulant 5 year-old.
I like the idea, RD! I must admit that I am a little uncertain about the “marriage” of the two. It would be difficult for them to both be on the same page, as a ticket is supposed to be. Of course, there was FDR-Garner and Stevenson-Sparkman and Stevenson-Kefauver and Dukakis-Bentsen. In earlier days, there was always this wish to geographically balance the ticket, not so much now. So while NY and Massachusetts are close geographically, and both very blue states, the “balancing” would be ideological. Because of TV and cable news, there is much more visibility of the VPs, and of course the debate they have.
I would prefer Bloomberg-Klobuchar, because I think they fit better, and Klobuchar helps with the key Midwest states. But I appreciate your point about the need to excite people about the ticket. Warren is probably more able to adapt than one might imagine. I don’t know what voters she would bring to the ticket. Would the disgruntled Sanders supporters be assuaged? I tend to doubt it, they don’t like Warren now, they don’t like anybody. I know that it would upset many Democrats if Bloomberg picked a moderate, someone like the new governor of Tennessee. And it probably wouldn’t help in the red states, either. Florida is a state which Bloomberg could win, so I wonder if he wants to pick someone from there.
It is a very interesting dilemma. Bloomberg cannot run too much like a Republican, but I don’t know that taking someone from the Left like Warren would look right, either. I’ll tell you what: I am so gratified that you are open to a Bloomberg candidacy, that I will certainly accept him putting Warren on the ticket, though it would be one of the more unusual ideological matches I have seen for quite a while. McKinley put Theodore Roosevelt on the ticket to assuage some people, and because he was young and appealing. Most of the Republicans had no use for him, made him VP, thought they could sort of stow him there. Of course McKinley was killed, and TR became a rather progressive president, at least for the time. I do note that on important issues like climate and guns, Bloomberg and Warren are very close together. It is just when it comes to issues like M4A and the wealth tax where it would be somewhat of a more difficult fit. But it would be exciting, as long as we win!
Bloomberg – Klobuchar is waaaaay too conservative for me. I don’t want Amy telling me No all the time. If you’re going to be a Democrat, move the country forward. I think Warren would work better tho I get why you’d want to include the Midwest. There is always the possibility that Warren would feel too constrained but there’s also the possibility that they can find some common anti-corruption ground to work on together.
But more important than any of this is that Bloomberg might be the candidate who can pull in enough voters to banish Trump and his mafia state. That right there might be worth it. Might.
Oh, it has to be worth it. We are already seeing Trump violate every rule and precedent, and he will never stop, I am really concerned that our democracy could not survive a second term. One thinks, how could one two-term president destroy all this, and it is not because he is this brilliant tactician, he just a mafia bully who has no compunction. No Democrat would ever have done something like this. No one has ever tested the norms like this, and we see that when there are a much larger number of enablers and authoritarians out there than one might have thought. So we must get rid of him, and Bloomberg has the best chance, though it is no sure thing. But at least we would not have to worry about Republican and Russian money pouring in to overwhelm us. For me, who has watched election after election where Republican money, now dark money, floods in at the end, just like they used to keep the Senate in 2016, it would be so refreshing to know that Bloomberg could and would answer all of it. And he would use the social media if the Republicans are going to, as they are. He is a media person, he runs a media empire, so he knows how to use it.
And actually, a billionaire who has good social impulses might be just what we need right now to move things in the right direction. And then maybe we can elect a liberal. I am also a liberal, though probably not as much as you are. But if we could get Schiff elected, I would be thrilled. I wish we could elect Nancy Pelosi, and she is quite liberal. I like liberal programs, but they have to be “sold” like Bill Clinton did, although admittedly he finally gave up on stimulus after Dole kept filibustering it ,and reluctantly went with the deficit reduction. We need social programs, but we have to keep the ones we have, and we will not under the Republicans, and we will with Bloomberg, and hopefully have some new ones, too. And we cannot forget that the VP really doesn’t make much policy, although Clinton gave Gore a large role, and Cheney was probably running the country.
To be honest, my fear with a Bloomberg-Warren ticket would be that it might look that both of them are selling out. But if it didn’t, I’m fine with it, if Warren helps us win. She is likable, she cares. They would just have to find common ground together, so it doesn’t look like this is some kind of variety ticket. And more that, we need Democrats to be open about this , and not reflexively say things like, “We don’t need another billionaire,” or, “Get money out of politics.” You can’t now, you had better have a lot of it. And Bloomberg would actually do things toward limiting its influence. I just hope that people will see that before it is too late, and we nominate someone who will not win. What do they call that in the sciences, a paradigm shift? I actually read Kuhn’s book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”in graduate school! Those were happier days of intellectual theorizing, before we had to fact this current monstrosity.
Okay, here’s my ticket: Bernie/Klobuchar – mainly because it has broader regional and ideological appeal and, from a policy standpoint, the head of the ticket pretty firmly drags the party back to the Left (where it belongs). Bloomberg/Warren is too Northeast-heavy to appeal in the Midwest. I think Bloomberg/Klobuchar would work better, much as I prefer Warren from a policy standpoint, but Bloomberg is personally quite unpopular in large areas of the country (I think he’d have trouble turning the upper Midwest blue again or regaining West Virginia). We might, in fact, lose Colorado with him. Klobuchar would mitigate some of that (especially in the industrial Midwest). She’s also 59, which means that she’s young enough to head the ticket in 2024 or 2028.
I’d give Warren Treasury (as Obama should have done) or Fed Chairperson (when that becomes open).
Ahhh, I think you’re missing the entertainment value. You’re not seeing the two guys in the ring. Nobody actually likes Trump. He’s a disgusting, ugly, mean man. They just like that he gets away with pushing people around. It makes them feel strong. Bloomberg gets this. It’s going to be Mano a Mano, in the ring. There’s the current world champ. And there’s the challenger. We already know who’s stronger. Putin must be perturbed as well. Because there would be little Mikey Bloomberg, taller and beefier that Trump will ever be, whacking the big orange over and over again, week after week, making him reel and stagger. Trump will be so obsessed with trying to slug mike Bloomberg and missing time after time that people will tune in for it like it’s ratings gold. Whatever Trump can do, Mike can counter it. He’s willing to put his money where his mouth is. It will be like Rocky vs Apollo Creed except this Rocky is an elegant, cunning, and strategic fighter and Apollo Creed is a bloated, obscene, slow moving tough guy wannabe.
Plus, Creed was black, while Benedict Donald is orange. 😛
This is going to sound really stupid, but Bloomberg is going to be at a significant disadvantage in a head-to-head debate because of his height. There are a lot of people who instinctively defer to a larger male.
That doesn’t make you sound stupid, Prop. It makes them sound stupid.
Klobuchar won the debate, hands down.
Glad to hear that, lililam. Upps, said Amy gave a “wow,” speech in Iowa but i didn’t hear it. Someone (Jason johnson?) said today that Amy is polling at 0% with blacks and that won’t get her the nomination. I found that worrying. The “rev” also said that had Hillary gone to three black churches in MI she would have had the 13000 votes she needed to win the state. Really? I thought that odd since Zerlina Maxwell a day or so ago said that Hillary had more black women on her campaign than any other candidate in history, even Obama. With such a strong contingent of women of color on her campaign I am puzzled that POC felt neglected by her. Did these staffers not know of this weakness? Did they know and Hillary did not listen? Johnson had previously said that a lot of young black men stayed home in 2016 because of her “superpredator” comment back when she was first lady. I owe that one to social media disinformation aka voter suppression. Honestly, how can the average voter sift through all this disparate input? I know my head is spinning just reading the comments here about the various candidates!
Really frightened and saddened by the Vindman brothers’ firings today and their humiliating frog marches out of the WH. Yeah, this is nothing like Russia, we are better than that. Nope, nope, nope. I hope they and their families are kept safe and that all who get fired or resign find better employment elsewhere. The Repubs have really sold their souls to the devil. That never ends well.
Rachel mentioned more trump crime inc self enrichment and potential emoluments violations, with the complicity of the Secret Service and the GSA. Also sounds like the NSA may be goose stepping for der trumpenfuhrer as well but i missed the issue.
Jason Johnson has been criticizing Hillary forever. He didn’t like a comment she made in 1994? The reason Hillary lost Michigan (she really didn’t, the recount was finding more votes for her until the governor and their AG shut it down), was because a whole bunch of Bernie people and then some others who were mnutely targeted by facebook lies, didn’t vote. Hillary certainly did not run a perfect campaign, but I find it infuriating that people like Jonnson and various others who pontificate on TV, keep trying to say that if she had only done this or that, when she had to face Russia, Comey, Facebook, CNN and Fox, Sanders people, and she still got 66 million votes Johnson has taken pains to tell us on more than one occasion, that “Hillary was the most loathed candidate in political history.” You know why her favorables are always low now? The Republicans despise her, and the Far Left despises her, so they always give her an “unfavorable” rating. If the Democrats lose again, Johnson will be right on there to tell us it was because the Democrats did not support Booker and Patrick enough, or that Hillary ruined it all last time.
Couldn’t agree more, William. I put Paul Butler in the same category.
I live in a diverse suburb. The volunteers at my polling station were diverse as well. Clinton had a lot of African American support here. And as far as I can remember, she didn’t have to kiss anyone’s asses.
She came to Pittsburgh right after the convention and was officially blessed by Jon Fetterman, a former Bernie supporter who became one of her biggest fans here. He’s now our lieutenant governor.
All I can say is I really wish this Michigan Wisconsin thing would die. I’m sure she never went to NJ either. But it’s probably a compliment because she never thought NJ, WI or MI had a critical mass of stupid people to vote for Trump. Unfortunately for us in PA with a higher number of electoral college votes than MI and WI, we DID have a significant number of gullible people. Actually, I’m not totally convinced she lost PA.
Thanks, RD. That makes more sense to me. I have seen events at black churches, Elijah’s funeral most recently, where she always seemed warmly received, I assumed at least for her religious beliefs if not her political ones. I heard this AM that only Warren, Biden and Sanders have garnered the support of black voters and they never mention Amy, my preferred candidate. Black voters, esp the women are so important to Dem success in Nov. I also never understood why rallies were so important in the campaign process, town halls and listening tours, yes. Yelling and screaming and long speeches were never my thing. Re MI, WI and PA they will always be brought up along with emails and “bad candidate” whenever those afflicted with CDS are in the room!
“I’m sure she never went to NJ either. ”
Yeah, but she didn’t have both people on the ground in that state and her freaking husband (probably the most skilled politician the Democratic Party has produced in several decades) telling her she was in trouble and needed to shore up support there. It was a mistake. People make mistakes. Let’s stop beating one another up over that. And let’s not place too much faith in computer models of voter behavior without knowing what assumptions went into those models. 2016 isn’t the issue. 2020 is.
I actually answered a phone call from DC,and it was a political poll. It had me rate how much I liked all the candidates. I gave Biden a 4, Bernie a -5, Bloomberg and Klobacher 2’s and the rest 1’s.
I am not sure if I gave Bloomberg the 2 because of all the advertisements he has run in WA state or because I actually like him.
The interesting part was that the poll was sponsored by Bloomberg.
My prefence is Warren/Castro. She was marvelous on a CNN town hall the other night. Brilliant and genuinely empathetic.
I agree. I LOVE that ticket. It is my preferred one. In any other election year.
This election year, there’s an existential question on the ballot. The candidate who can communicate that best and has the guts to tackle it head on has the best chance of winning.
That’s not Bernie.
Warren could and would do that. I’m not opposed to Bloomberg, but Warren is my preferred candidate.
Ditto.
Looks like spammy got my precious comment
I don’t think there’s going to be one candidate that just pushes it over the top and wins big in every state. It’s going to be a razor thin margin for whoever the nominee is… I think focusing on getting people registered, checking to see if people are purged from the rolls & making sure people have valid ID’s in those voter ID states is going to be key here.
Previous*
Plus I think Warren has the best shot at the top of the ticket. I think the nominee tends to be people who are uniquely democratic and of the moment. I think Biden’s time has passed, Bernie is too divisive, Klobuchar maybe too conservative at the moment. Someone who is forward thinking yet stable and unifying – that’s Warren to me.
Amy Klobuchar is again my candidate, I’m just so over the guy’s in the race, Bloomberg I don’t know enough about. Ranking Klobuchar, Warren or Bloomberg maybe, Biden the other three are just not candidates I want as a nominee.
“The lion does not concern himself with the opinion of the sheep”. I love this quote and I believe it as well. And in relationship to Bloomberg I also agree it is correct. Also I’m thinking he probably has the goods on the fake tan, hair guy. It also captures our the problem with today’s media when it comes to politics, ex. who gives a xxxk what Don Jr said it is not a news event it’s a sheep opinion and the media reports it as a fake news event.
Ok I’m good with Klobuchar-Bloomberg ha.
I am a moderate with the liberal social beliefs, and for me I view Warren and Sanders as the politicians who are past their time and also representative of the Sin Democrats committed that drove folks to tRump. Someone else has to pay for those ponies, Warren and Sanders may say I get you those Free ponies, but we all know Mexico nor the rich will be the ones picking up the tab.
At the end of the day, Benedict Donald isn’t our country’s biggest problem.
The Treason Party (fka GOP) isn’t our country’s biggest problem.
Even Mommie Dearest Russia, and her interference in our elections, isn’t our country’s biggest problem.
All three of the above menaces would be helpless without the actual biggest problem of our country:
Our newly-arrived Purity Left troll seems to think these people can be salvaged. Maybe some can be–nothing is impossible for the Almighty–but not enough.
Too many of them love their hate too much, and, more specifically, too many of the ones who claim to be Christian love their hate more than they love Christ.
Half the country doesn’t even bother to vote at all. Even if your vilification of ‘white trash’ were valid (it isn’t. But I don’t expect you to Thomas Frank or Chris Arnade, or make any serious attempt to learn about these people you hate so much), when you throw them under the bus, you’re also throwing all the people with them who in fact didn’t vote for Trump.
Whether these people can be ‘salvaged’ or not is irrelevant. The Sanders approach is to mobilize all those people who aren’t politically engaged at all. The approach of the rest of the Democratic Party is to try and woo suburban moderate Republicans. In fact its the establishment you’re so devoted to that is attempting a salvage job.
“But I don’t expect you to…make any serious attempt to learn about these people you hate so much”
First, you confuse hatred with contempt. They are different emotions.
Second, how could I not know them? I live in the Arkanshire, with no realistic means of escape.
“I live in the Arkanshire, with no realistic means of escape.”
A state that enthusiastically supported the New Deal, put Bill Clinton in the Governor’s mansion, and had a Democratic senator right up until 2016. Politics is the art of persuasion, so *persuade*. It’s about concrete benefits (as Lambert would say), like being able to retire someday and not being driven into bankruptcy by a medical issue.
It’s the state that produced J. William Fulbright, one of the Democratic leading lights of the Senate for nearly three decades. Yeah, it produced Orval Faubus, too (but nobody’s perfect).
The areas of the country that you demean are salvageable, but only if you don’t spend all your time insulting them.
That task, Propertius, must be undertaken by people with more patience and love in their souls than I possess.
I forget where Hunter S. Thompson got this quote, but I remember the quote (perhaps imperfectly): “Just how weird can you stand it, brother–before your love will crack?”
I read that when I was an adolescent (IIRC). In my adult life, things have gotten weirder than I ever imagined they could, and I think my love has cracked into a million pieces, and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can never put it together again.
I now look upon my peers (for I do belong to their tribe) much as a Marvel Comics mutant looks upon normals, once he has decided that Professor Xavier (btw, did you not say you were a professor, or does memory serve me poorly?) is a well-meaning naif, and Magneto is right about the normals, after all. A dark and angry portion of my soul looks forward to Evolution’s showing them her mailed fist. May the Almighty forgive me–or us; I can’t be the only one–and them, and all of humanity.
I have to say, Bloomberg’s ads are quite good, except for the dancing gingerbread men, lost me on that one.
This is for Plenue, Bannon on Maher’s show. Bannon “loves Bernie” because he gave us trump in 2016 and will do so again in 2020. Why does Bannon keep mentioning Bernie, Warren and AOC like they are one? Only one slam on Hillary (WI is mentioned, no surprise there). His focus seems to be trump the magnificent and Bernie the catalyst. Be prepared for major agita unless you are Niles.
Cats, I wanted to read something about the unraveling of the Dodgers trade, so I went to CBS Sports site . hate to go to news sites, because all I get are ads,, but I saw a great Bloomberg ad on climate change. I would love to see this ad run on TV, too. So far, he and his team are doing some of the best political ads I have ever seen from a Democratic candidate.
As I’ve said before, if the Democratic electorate nominates Sanders, I will vote for Sanders in the general election.
Then, I will go home and steel myself for four more years of Benedict Donald and/or (Ass)Holy Mike Pence.
I added “and/or etc.” because I’m not sure the Waddling Orange Cardiovascular Catastrophe Waiting To Happen can make it to January 2025. I am similarly unsure that Sanders could survive until 1/25.
Brutal
But hysterical, peep. Thanks!
Hi! Amazing article. I discovered this blog by chance and I am loving it! Thanks!
😈
Klancome Shmancome. This is what happened. 😆
In betting lines, Sanders is now almost even money to get the Democratic nomination. Odds are not dispositive, but they are significant. Bloomberg is second at about 7-2. Pete third at about 6-1m the rest are pretty long odds.
This does not mean that someone should go with the candidates who are favored, or not support the person they like the best. But on the other hand, it is getting very tense. Super Tuesday, a month away, will likely decide the nomination. If Sanders dominates there, he will be very hard to stop. A Sanders nomination will destroy the Democratic Party for decades. Cook Report states that the Democrats are no sure thing to keep the House. Someone who was a manager in McGovern’s ’72 campaign says that Sanders would lose in a landslide, and he is right. It will be absolutely awful.
My opinion is that Bloomberg is the only candidate who can beat Trump. He is also the only candidate who can stop Sanders. Biden is collapsing, and I feel bad for him, because the media is vastly overreacing to the early primaries, but he is not running a good campaign, and going after Buttigiieg instead of Sanders is a very bad move. Warren is going to have to drop out very soon, she is almost out of money. Klobuchar is getting great reviews for her debate, and she is very capable, but it is unlikely that she could garner enough delegates to stop Sanders, unless Biden and Buttigieg dropped out. And when Warren drops out, most of her supporters will go to Sanders, unfortunately.
I write a lot about this because I see it as dire. Republicans are massing to change registrations just to get Sanders the nomination. Does anyone doubt that they are doing this? This is Putin’s and the Republicans’ play, after what they did in 2016. In a month, we may be looking at an inevitable Sanders nomination and a sure landslide loss for our party, and for America. It’s not the same thing, but Trump had his cult, there were too many other Republican candidates, and he would get 35-40% of the vote, and then the rest had to drop out, except Cruz, who could never catch him.
Never forget that this is not like a horse race, where a gallant steed can close near the end and get a nose in front at the finish line. It is a counting game of delegates. If Sanders piles up anywhere near what he needs he will bludgeon and threaten his way to the nomination, no matter that he is only getting 30% of the vote in primaries. Hillary beat Obama in primaries in NY, CA, OH, PA, TX, plus the ridiculously gamed by Brazile primaries in FL and MI. All the big states except for his home in IL. And it did her no good, because Obama piled up enough delegates in caucuses and in the South that all the Hillary wins did not get her enough delegates. Sanders is not strong in the South, except that some young Black people and all the Republican are going to vote for him. I will say this: if for whatever reasons, Bloomberg does not win several Super Tuesday states, Sanders is very likely to be the nominee, and we are lost. So people should think of how all this will play out when they cast their votes. Obviously, they can vote for whomever they like, but i hope they try to figure out how to stop Sanders in the delegate count, because otherwise he will accomplish his goal of destroying the Democratic Party.
I have forgotten; why in the name of the Ascended Madoka did the Democratic Party ever decide to allow a non-Democrat to run for the Democratic nomination, either this year or back in 2016?
I don’t know if Sanders’s honeymooning in the USSR way back when is relevant, but is it possible that Putin is trying to set up a U. S. Prez race where he wins either way, because he’s got his hooks into both major candidates?
IBW, I’ve tried twice to respond, but the posts did not print. So I will just say, that yes, Russia has viewed Sanders as the protection against Trump losing. I don’t think it is because they have anything on him (though he probably gets money from them, that is why he does not release his taxes), but that he simply is pretty much a Marxist who has always liked those systems, including Russia in the ’50’s, and Castro’s Cuba. And Russia would love to see the Democratic Party be relegated to the status of a permanent minority party, which Sanders is on the way to doing, if he gets nominated.
“IBW, I’ve tried twice to respond, but the posts did not print.”
Now you know why I call it TurdPress. 😉
I still fear Marxism to a small degree, too. I doubt the hard Left has all that much more respect for our civil liberties than the hard Right.
Note our new troll’s overweening arrogance, which resembles that of a religious fanatic (whatever his actual beliefs, or lack of them, may be). Also remember St. Ralph, slayer of the dragon Corvairius, and his sneering dismissal of LGBTQ concerns (IIRC) as “gonadal politics”.
Re the comments about right wing evangelicals who support Trump. Someone calls them CHINOS, Christians in Name Only. Pass it on.
My view the reason for the wishy-washy polls to date are that the males have been sampled and they come away lacking support of major groups in the Party, women primarily.
My view a male candidate is not electable during these times.
I live in what is now a red state, yuck but it is what it is, and I can assure you Sanders is not a viable candidate for many voters here other than the very loyal Democrat which we obviously do not have enough of. 2 folks (a 70-year-old female and a 40-year-old male) this week have shared they will not support Sanders, never considered Buttigieg and both were going to vote D before these changes. Sanders is viewed as extreme as tRump with no upside for their communities. And he is not viewed as female friendly, sited is his treatment of Hillary and the lack of support from women in general.
So repubs are jamming phone lines, party raiding and scheduling trump rallies to coincide with Dem primaries. All of it perfectly legal of course. How can we ever say are elections are free and fair? It’s like living next to a frat house where “boys will be boys” or gambling at a casino when you know the house always wins or believing gossip or lies about your neighbors instead of getting to know them yourself. Our democratic republic is an unfunny joke.
Disclaimer: The author of this piece is a newly-minted Democrat, and served as an adviser to Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign.
None of that necessarily means he’s mistaken.
Sanders has a bizarre radical past that Trump and Republicans would use to destroy him
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/02/10/bernie-sanders-radical-past-donald-trump-attack-fodder-column/4706779002/
I agree with you peep9 and your assessment of the male candidates. In fact, I do not believe the polls nor the media, when it comes to a fair assessment of the candidates and who supports them. The media always pushes candidates like buttigieg and sanders and has notalgia for Joe, since they’ve talked about him constantly and totally ignored Warren, who came in third place to joe’s fourth place finish in Iowa. Hard to miss that sexism.
I, like you, cannot believe that sanders or buttigieg are serious contenders beloved by the masses as the media would have us believe and I question why the media is so in love with the both of them. Ratings? It’s totally inexplicable why the media has totally ignored the 2 more qualified females in the race, but I think it has something to do with their being women. We are witnessing just another replay of 2016 IMO, in their coverage of the women, which I refuse to be sucked into.
Warren has consistently tried to warn the people that voting out of fear is a trap which would ensure the nomination of one of the top male contenders who would be destroyed by trump in the general election because the media has, again, not vetted the men properly, but you can bet the trump team has. As for bloomberg, I have no doubt one of the primary reasons he is running is to stop warren whose policies clearly threaten his BIGLY fortune, so I don’t believe he would choose her as his running mate. His bias in being in the top 1% will hinder his ability to do for middle America what Warren or Klobuchar would be willing and able to do.
I believe we will see a totally different race take shape after New Hampshire in those states which have more diversity in their population and no caucuses, but a real election with one person one vote, i.e., a primary. I predict that Joe will not last and Pete and bernie will be having a much more difficult time “winning” in a primary vs. a caucus.
I typed this in response to an issue on Wonkette. While it goes off on a tangent from the topic here, I thought it was worth mentioning:
American conservatism, once dominated by staid Northeasterners and Midwesterners, has become more open and comfortable with political violence as it has become more Southern, more a phenomenon of the Cavalier and Borderer cultures in the USA (I am mostly a Borderer; I am simply not typical of my culture). These two cultures come from the regions of the British Isles that were never quite effectively civilized until the 19th Century or so–and the Cavaliers and Borderers who made it over to America before that found they were freer to hang on to their traditional ways here.
For RD: Basically, we’re Dunlendings. 😉
I think that the term “Conservative” is immensely more flattering to those people than they deserve. At one point, Conservatives here were basically rich people wanting to conserve their own money, but they did have a certain concern for the environment and natural resources. What passes for “Conservative” today is really a kind of “Know Nothing” nationalism and racism, the kind of thing were are seeing far too often in Europe now. They don’t want to conserve anything except having all the foreigners and minorities go away. Those in office who get away with using those terms only care about tax breaks for the wealthy, consorting with dictators, taking away freedoms, particularly the First Amendment. Apparently in Missouri they are passing legislation to ban certain books,and prosecute those who sell them. What does that rmind you of? Savonarola? The Inquisition? Burning “Peyton Place” and “Catcher in the Rye?” in the ’40’s and ’50’s? Nazi Germany? These are in the main uneducated people who hate knowledge and ideas. They would happily believe that the earth is flat, if the say it enough times on Fox News.
I really wish that people on our side would find another term besides “conservative,” because it is affording them a respect for positions that they do not deserve. “Fascist? Maybe too pejorative, but maybe not. “Antediluvian”? Probably too complex. “Reactionary” might fit the best. The majority of five on the Supreme Court is not “Conservative,” they are Radical Right jurists who want to reform the Constitution to take away all the rights except the Second Amendment. The minority of four are really the conservatives trying to save it. But they are called
“liberals,” when at this point, they really are not in Constitutional sense. As they always told us in law school, and certainly do in marketing and politics, the issue is always “framing.” When it is, “Those liberals are trying to tear down your values, create a world of free love and drugs and weird looking people,” it works for them. We actual liberals have struggled to find an effective frame. I did always like Clinton’s identifying with “people who work hard and play by the rules.” As opposed to Republicans, who break all the rules, and subsist on rich donors money.
Turning on the news this morning is like a Sanders love fest. Jennifer Palmieri should know better, she looks askance at Bloomberg skipping the first four primaries, and wants to tell us how much support Sanders has, look at all that money he is raising, $25 million! I guarantee you that much of it is coming from Republicans who are ready to cross over to win primaries for him. I hope that Palmieri has an island that she is ready to move to when Sanders gets 40% or less of the popular vote, and a fascist state becomes an unassailable reality here. She’d rather lose badly with Sanders than possibly win with Bloomberg, More likely, she does not realize it. James Carville, as usual, has the right view of this. David Plouffe, not surprisingly, has an insipid view of it, as do all the Obama people I have seen in recent months. I guess he made enough money and fame working for Obama to be able to live in some eyrie and just bask in the wondrousness of 2008 for him.
“…and a fascist state becomes an unassailable reality here.”
Cadet Bone Spurs the Very Stable Genius has neither the guts nor the brains to make himself a dictator. If he did, Putin (an actual evil genius dictator) would never have chosen him. Putin needs a stooge, not an American Putin, who might be smart enough to double-cross Original Recipe Putin–as Hitler double-crossed Stalin in 1941.
Yes, it would be catastrophic if Benedict Donald won a second term, but not for that reason.
Have you taken a look at the comments flooding various social media sites from Sanders supporters about Iowa? They claim that the state of Iowa is rigged against Bernie. Buttigieg cheated. The DNC fixed the results. Perez did. The media doesn’t want them to win. This is not a few people, it is the whole of Sanders Nation doing this.
What a surprise. They did this in 2016. Every state where he lost was fixed against him. Somehow, out of this they think they are going to win the Presidency, where all the people that they hate, and have accused of cheating, will joyfully get behind Sanders. Where do these people come from? Cosseted Millennials? People who have spent their lives hating “the system,” whatever it is? Cultists? They are furious that Pete my have gotten 14-12 or 13-12 delegates, because “Bernie won the popular vote.” There is not popular vote in a caucus system, there is only the final tally. Sanders and his people demanded more caucuses,. but they don’t accept the rules of caucuses. It is foolish of us to think that they will ever stop, that they will ever accept any result which might give the nomination to someone else. They’ll stay home again. Steve Bannon was on Maher, a show I never watch, and he said that Sanders handed the election to the Republicans in 2016, and that he will do it again. Bannon is a horrible person, but he is right about this. The Democrats should never have let him run in the first place.
I still don’t understand why the Democratic Party allowed a non-Democrat to run for the Democratic Presidential nomination. 😕
That little exchange I was having with Propertius (who is NOT a troll) and the new troll further up the thread?
P. M. Carpenter answers them better than I could. 😈
https://www.pmcarpenter.com/2020/02/the-platonic-ideal-of-the-male-trumpeteer-.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+pmcarpenterscommentary+%28p+m+carpenter%27s+commentary%29
Haha the media is just not capable of treating a woman and maybe a woman who is not a Liberal candidate with the same positive coverage as that of a unqualified male candidate. Oh yes, sorry, forgot, 2008 comes to mind. Amy hauls in 3 million after the debate is rapidly climbing the polls, totally qualified but she was mean to an unknown staffer yak yak, ya know women are nod wink xitches after all. CNN again takes asinine coverage prize, Amy would be a risky nominee because you know she is a meanie and these campaigns are covered 7×24 everyone has a iphone and uh oh caught. That was by the way actually said by a female Democrat supporting guess who. And wow WAPO of oh her emails, but her emails, but her emails …recall ranked number 1 in print media for oh but her emails stories and who I perceive as being not favorable of pale female pols in general, reports today Amy has a moment but of course everyone else was surging, surging, surging. Looks like stupid and bias are again going to be the election cycles click bait.
it would make my day for a women take first in NH.
Peep, i turned off the TV, even Rachel. I am sick of everyone taking their turn at who can and cannot win and why. My biggest takeaway is that there are a lot of voters who are still undecided. I hope whatever choice they make it is their choice and not the last media voice they heard. My real concern, as always, is ratf*cking, party raiding and voter intimidation or suppression. If nothing else, I yearn naively for a fair fight. And I am with you, peep, a win by Amy or Liz would feel real good!
I don’t watch cable talk shows, unfortunately, that CNN blip was a hit that was supposedly about a new poll for NH. Ugh, fell for the click bait BS.
Funny, but for me I’m thinking we might finally have a real race. It is not a bad thing that the Democrats nomination process has been exposed, as a dud and not what talented people would usually craft as a process to elect a President. Way too many masters, too much baggage, too many grudges, too many hangovers from the last Democrat administration, boring, defensive, and seriously Iowa. But maybe now we will hear current relevant campaign themes that fit today’s needs for our communities.