The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    2020 Rejects & Remainders

    By PeraclesPlease on Tue, 01/29/2019 - 7:25am | Politics

    Ok, was trying to stay out of this, but so far the "no way Jose" list:

    - Tulsi Gabbard (Fox hawk if not Russian asset in Hawaiian hulu skirt with jackboots)

    - Howard Schultz (latte corporate vulture with an odd sense of "centrist" looking more like "blame the Dems for asking for nice things" misguided conception of "independent", while pitching a well-tarnished "businessman saves America" deficit-scold message. 15 years ago maybe - plus a business run only on young hipster easily-exploited youth hardly seems like it offers a breakthrough message for the rest of us)

    - Joe Biden (awful on women's issues and, as Warren's book notes, pushed much of the corporate entitlement that's created such inequality in 2019)

    - Hillary Clinton (I suspect someone's floating her name just to get people to pee themselves, but no, not again, sorry, just too fatiguing)

    - Beto (okay, he hasn't declared, but aside from being charismatic and knowing how to lose a Texas election, he has enough baggage over his city council support of his father-in-law, as well as his fairly wealthy lazy years as an adult. I'd rather vote Jack Black, who's roughly the same - in movies; in real life he's a raging success)

    - Bernie ("old & in the way" was Jerry Garcia's non-Dead band, and while arguably Bernie put some fire in the race in 2016 - some such as myself say too much - a repeat isn't in the cards aside from one of these aging rock star reunion tours. Besides, he lags too much with women's and minority issues, and he doesn't have the adoring crowd he had last time, plus he's getting old a.f.)

    - Trump, of course (GOP of course, & hopefully will be in Rikers by New Years at latest, but in any case, couldn't even manage the Republican Senate defections in this year's New Years stare-a-thon shutdown. Walking dead, so to speak)

    Dreamers?

    - Nancy Pelosi (she's starting to give "old a.f." a nice ring to it, what with her White House showdowns & her Cool Hand Lukette use of her shades after blowing someone away - perhaps she's the Devil  Wears Prada/in the Red Dress, but she's on our side - and with a lucky roll of the dice, she could be prez even without a vote)

    - Andrew Yang (has been in the race for a while, and has the businessman pedigree, but to claim that "the government's business is business" no longer works - and is baking in a Universal Basic Income into his program. Of course the events of the last year may put him more behind the 8-ball or firmly into irrelevance, and Elizabeth Warren has a much stronger regulatory & legislative record with stated on similar topics, but still an interesting character)

    - and all the rest - Liz, Kamala, Kirsten, Julian Castro, Buttibuig(?) - still not enough energy to look at the positive choices & their positives - too busy knocking off the easy low-hanging fruits.

    Who Knows?

    - Michael Bloomberg (old megarich white cat from New York might not be what's trending in Trump derangement/MeToo-Women's March times, but he's got credibility from being Mayor & just talking more reasonably than Schultz could ever muster. Here are some of Bloomberg's stumbles.  Are these enough to derail him, or are they already quaint by post-Trump daily insanity standards?)

    Do note that at this stage it's probably most important to keep the Democratic field from being an overstocked laughable chaotic mess like the GOP's assortment in 2016 that helped Trump, or the Dems' "7 Dwarves" in some earlier primary season. 5 serious contenders is probably the max number before it becomes a farce.

    Topics: 
    Politics

    Comments

    I can't do Kamala.  Too many innocent people in jail and she's done too little about it when she hasn't been making the problem worse.  Nobody was ever going to get me to vote for a former prosecutor anyway.

    I'm down with the rest of your "no" list.  Much as I like Bernie, he's too old and has no reason to run with Warren in the race.  Warren is my personal frontrunner.


    by Michael Maiello on Tue, 01/29/2019 - 10:43am

    Harris' record as a prosecutor was a mix of the draconian and the lenient. She now says she is on board with the merciful attitude that characterizes the Democrats(and some Republicans). Maybe we should believe her? Politicians can change once their constituents change.


    by Aaron Carine on Thu, 01/31/2019 - 12:20pm

    Pocahontas and The Rock.

    P -Warren - Dwayne Johnson, VP

    Kick ass smarts, intimidating toughness and  fame, humor (for the entertainment obsessed)


    by NCD on Thu, 01/31/2019 - 2:40pm

    You talking to me, Pence?


    by artappraiser on Thu, 01/31/2019 - 2:44pm

    but...sorry.....Trump made me do it..!!


    by NCD on Thu, 01/31/2019 - 3:57pm

    we are funning now, NCD, but your initial instinct struck me hard because I think there is great wisdom in the meme. Warren is actually a quite adequate centrist grownup to convince a majority to be open to some of her ideas that sound radical at first. But she has been tarred by the right with a label that is actually contra to what she is, a squeaky snowflake feminazi socialist lib or some such and that is the kind of label that turns off a lot of white male voters of all kinds and even "other" male voters, both white collar and working class. Put a tough talking no bullshit big masculine guy as her running mate and what I am seeing: problem solved, totally solved. Those falling for the Pocahontas narrative about her would be righted right quick. All those problematic male voters no problem any more. They start seeing Warren for the tough pro-middle class cookie she really is.


    by artappraiser on Thu, 01/31/2019 - 4:37pm

    If the Rock says she has street cred, who's gonna argue with him?


    by NCD on Thu, 01/31/2019 - 5:04pm

    He's running! laugh


    by artappraiser on Thu, 02/07/2019 - 1:00am

    Gabbard is too hawkish for Peracles? She opposes the war in Afghanistan and so does he; she supports the war with ISIS and so does he.


    by Aaron Carine on Thu, 01/31/2019 - 11:43am

    Wow, brilliant, you nailed my whole philosophical outlook in 2 sentences/yin-yangish examples. Checkmate, I fold.


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 01/31/2019 - 12:34pm

    If I don't understand your philosophy, explain it to me. How is she more hawkish than you are?


    by Aaron Carine on Thu, 01/31/2019 - 1:29pm

    She thinks she should sneak over to Assad to help Putin lock down his presence in Syria, and then thinkss going on Fox to brag about it is a great idea. She thinks Obama was funding ISIS rather than putting together a multiparty coalition to slowly displace them. I don't care whether i'm or or less a hawk - she's simply an asshat. And I still don't biy that working in a medical unit on athe base north of Baghdad for the Guard gives her advanced military strategic skills to weigh in as a heavy hitter on Mideast policy.


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 01/31/2019 - 4:06pm

      I've only read a little about her meeting with Assad, but I don't feel that meeting with Assad means she supports him. She says that a peace settlement requires meeting with him. There may be a grain of truth in the statement that Obama funded ISIS. An intelligence document from 2012 says that we briefly provided assistance to the Syrian rebels, including Al Qaida in Iraq. But I'm sure we haven't provided any help to ISIS since then--I mean, you don't help the people you're bombing. While I want an end to the wars, I admit there is some cause for fighting ISIS. They're really terrible, and unlike some of our other enemies they have no right to rule.


    by Aaron Carine on Fri, 02/01/2019 - 7:52pm

    A separate matter to consider in Gabbard meeting with Assad was that she did it by herself at the beginning of the Trump administration. Because that administration was not in any way prepared to actually govern, the meeting happened in a vacuum of policy.

    I could say more things about that odd moment but I won't. I wouldn't want to make it less odd by accident.


    by moat on Fri, 02/01/2019 - 8:43pm

    Will Tulsi make a statement on Assad killing journalists?

    https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/feb/03/marie-colvin-murder-verdic...

    If she can explain away this and bone saws, she just may be oresidential material. Meanwhile the disinfo on Assad held for years - "mistakes will happen". Just as he  muddied the waters just enough on use of chemical weapons and using refugees for politics to keep less than a total world condemnation. Perhaps credit Russians for helping him with PR.


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 02/04/2019 - 1:34am

    interesting point about Gillibrand:


    by artappraiser on Thu, 01/31/2019 - 5:49pm

    George Will writes a column that he likes Amy Klobuchar

    Before people do the usual dissing along the lines of: why do I care what George Will thinks?, I would like to mention a "DOH!" point that just came to me after seeing that. There is this whole new little demographic out there: I left the Republican Party. Now I want Democrats to take over, and they will affect this race, like it or not.


    by artappraiser on Thu, 01/31/2019 - 7:21pm

    I liked Klobuchar long before Will did.

    I take his point about the political football of electability and her lack of histrionics.

    But I am pretty sure he will stop liking her when progressives have more power than they do now. 


    by moat on Thu, 01/31/2019 - 8:53pm

    Histrionics is a good word to keep in mind as things move forward, it's pretty likely the masses may yearn to be free of them in the foreseeable future. Sharing one thought: his beginning rant about Beto sounded stereotypically like a "hey you kids get off my lawn" kinda guy. Is a reminder for the youngins that even though they may no longer influence the way campaigning is done, old farts vote religiously.


    by artappraiser on Thu, 01/31/2019 - 10:52pm

    moat, here is Never Trumper "Radio Free Tom" saying straight out what you predict from George Will.


    by artappraiser on Fri, 02/01/2019 - 1:34pm

    On a Klobuchar personal problem:


    by artappraiser on Thu, 02/07/2019 - 4:15pm

    You mean she might be a Michael Bloomberg in a skirt? Horrors. "Come back here, I haven't finished yelling at you..." Yes, the joys of the Captain at the helm.


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 02/07/2019 - 4:43pm

    ah, been on both sides of this er, issue, I see; me too. wink


    by artappraiser on Thu, 02/07/2019 - 7:02pm

    Wikileaks/Glen Greenwald/Tulsi Gabbard/supposed Dem op plot/Russia (& throw in Northam for good measure). Ironies abound:

    Whatever, but if you can’t forgive Northam for past deeds, the you can’t forgive Gabbard for her hate against LGBT,

    Apologies not accepted

    — Ben the Hammerhead (@nowell_ben) February 3, 2019

     


    by artappraiser on Mon, 02/04/2019 - 12:17am

    I checked out the Greenwald article. I didn't read the whole thing (any of it) but when I read the headline,

    NBC News, to Claim Russia Supports Tulsi Gabbard, Relies on Firm Just Caught Fabricating Russia Data for the Democratic Party

    I just assumed it was an anti-Gabbard article. Cause, you know, Greenwald couldn't support her since the evidence that Russia supports her was fabricated.


    by ocean-kat on Mon, 02/04/2019 - 1:10am

    Axelrod interview on topic, which I highly recommend: David Axelrod on Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, and the 2020 Field by Isaac Chotiner @ NewYorker.com, Feb. 2


    by artappraiser on Mon, 02/04/2019 - 12:50am

    Tulsi real popular topic @ Sputnik & RT:

    Experiment: download the most recent 10 days' worth of tweets linking to Russia Today or Sputnik, and see how often various Democratic presidential hopefuls are mentioned.

    Results are presented without comment.

    cc: @ZellaQuixote pic.twitter.com/QpcsuoKEXS

    — Conspirador Norteño (@conspirator0) February 4, 2019

    Edit to add: noted that he's been arguing with Greenwald about this:

    Both (1) and (2) are examples of the ad hominem fallacy, and are meaningless as arguments against observable reality.https://t.co/UGeQ0tFeez

    — Conspirador Norteño (@conspirator0) February 4, 2019

    by artappraiser on Mon, 02/04/2019 - 11:21am

    who the other side fears at the moment, according to NYTimes' reporters sources:

    Mr. Trump is especially fixated on two well-known Democrats, speaking frequently about Joseph R. Biden Jr., the former vice president whom Mr. Trump regards as his most dangerous potential opponent, and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Some of his advisers are more preoccupied with two other would-be challengers, who would offer a starker generational contrast with the 72-year-old president: Senator Kamala Harris of California and Beto O’Rourke, the former Texas Senate candidate.


    by artappraiser on Mon, 02/04/2019 - 11:39am


    by artappraiser on Thu, 02/07/2019 - 1:29am

    It's not that different from my story, and I don't see myself as presidential material. Yeah, even the disapproving but supportive father though his had more pull, except I was much more adventurous. He sounds a bit (only a bit) like the "undisciplined" Bill Clinton, but Bill had much more discipline and focus, and then he had a very disciplined Hillary at his side to cover while he did free-form feel-your-pain riffs. I don't get what Beto brings to the governing table aside from the youngish white dude who can tell a speech, with ideas that only a few million have had.

    And once they realize on a mass scale what O'Rourke's silence/collusion on the El Paso city council supporting his daddy-in-law meant, his shallow underdog cred goes goes to shit [note that this 2007 article's mention of latte-drinking Starbucks fans is oddly premonitient of this year's big independent flop - do read the whole article, it's an interesting lens to all the fucked-upness of our modern conception of "urban renewal", meaning bring in the heavy hitting chain stores for a generic affluence and let local real estate developers run wild with new glass offices]


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 02/07/2019 - 2:54am

    Alright, goddammit.

    I'll run. 

    "PSYCHO AS FUCK IN 2020"


    by Q (not verified) on Fri, 02/08/2019 - 10:12pm

    But you're not American - how you gonna get on the ballot?


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 02/09/2019 - 7:10am

    Here's Psycho as Fuck in 1969:


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 02/09/2019 - 7:48pm

    OMG. I had no idea that happened. Luckily I missed it back then.Talk about cross-cultural and appropriation!


    by artappraiser on Sat, 02/09/2019 - 7:53pm

    That was really unusual for this type of thing. I've seen a lot of this type of video with some rocker on a more mainstream tv variety show but they usually tone down the rock energy.


    by ocean-kat on Sat, 02/09/2019 - 8:50pm

    I've heard a bit of Tom Jones around the time his hit What's New Pussy Cat came out. He was always too mainstream and laid back for me to really follow. But your video really intrigued me so I did some searching. Here he is in another high energy rocking duet with Janis Joplin.

     


    by ocean-kat on Sat, 02/09/2019 - 9:11pm

    He was definitely a cultural phenomenon, I remember how much so. I just had no idea that the countercultural icons of the time were partaking of it! The culture he represented to me, to put it into two words: VEGAS, BABY! More so than where Elvis had gone. Elvis was still kinda quirky in comparison, had a little countercultural edge, still "rock n' roll" despite many of his later predilections, to the end.

    Edit to add: don't take this the wrong way, I actually enjoyed watching him on TV and the reason he was hot was clear, the panty throwing understandable. (Even made me even more puzzled about the greatest gen female prediliction for crooners like Sinatra. Because it was clear that Tom Jones was how you do sexy.And Sinatra et. al. was not that. But then, why did all the girls scream at the Beatles, they did not do the sexy shtick either. A mystery.)

    Another edit: maybe not as "off thread" as it might first appear. If we can figure this out, the Dems can find another candidate where people are fainting at the rallies!  wink


    by artappraiser on Sat, 02/09/2019 - 9:42pm

    Vegas is definitely how I saw him. I would never had thought he was Woodstock. Clearly he had some hidden depths. But musicians need to make money and he found his niche.


    by ocean-kat on Sat, 02/09/2019 - 10:14pm

    Sinatra was *15-20* years earlier. His great 1963 interview was still another time and place. Plus Frank was always his own thing - Tom Jones always curious about others. (Scottish dude with a made up name...)


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 03/16/2019 - 3:31pm

    my mom was the same age group as the bobby soxers fainting over the young Frank, and she didn't get it, she said she thought him skinny, wimpy and unattractive. I think it is this: smooth crooning is romantic, not sexy. Like young Beatles vs. young Rolling Stones.


    by artappraiser on Sat, 03/16/2019 - 4:29pm

    Tom Waits billed one of Frank Sinatra's concept albums as roughly his generation's Stairway to Heaven, 20 minutes in which to lose your virginity. But Bing Crosby was much more successful - who knows whaat that was about. Perhaps sexy didn't exist until mid-fifties. (But was Mick Jagger too skinny too?)


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 03/16/2019 - 5:14pm

    [Tom Jones moved here for bigger format]

    even w his Vegs stuff Jones has this weird cred with She's a Lady, What's New Pussycat.

    But he has a great ear & enthusiasm when playing with others, plus his voice is so strong, it sometimes makes it easier to forgive the Vegasisms. [tho with the I-murdered -my-sweetheart ballad "Delilah" and all his overt sexism, it's curious to see how he survives the #MeToo age]

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 02/10/2019 - 7:17am

    Interesting Nate Silver lost his temper at Frank Rich here:

    I thought a minute on why that might be and I suspect, rather than him being sympathetic to targets of smears about personality, like, say, Hillary, it might be more that there isn't a way to quantify the effect. That it adds a factor that's not easy to analyze...


    by artappraiser on Sun, 02/10/2019 - 4:59pm

    No, vaguely remember a 538 column or 2 that dug into all the ad hoc jump thru hoops suckup behavioral tests on the campaign trail  (for media more than real people) at the expense of actual issuea. (Hmmm, like the inadvertant Latin-like plural for "issues")

    BTW, tweet-o-sphere up on arms that Trump said "Trail" to Warren that must refer to "Trail of Tears" rather than any old Indian trail/path vs her heading down the campaign trail. Sometimes people try too hard.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 02/10/2019 - 5:10pm

    I spoke too soon, I see from further tweets Silver is thinking about how to quantify such damage:

    Strikes me as nerdiness to the extreme, is like trying to quantify literature. But then, I keep reading how A.I. can eventually do everything and we are just basically a bunch of firing neurons, complex though it may be, and that it will eventually all be cracked by the nerds. So what do I know?

    I totally agree with you about 'TRAIL"!!!! (saw what u said) He had no clue,no way he even knows anything about something like the "Trail of Tears". He just meant it like Tonto and the Lone Ranger type trail This is a guy who has shown his ignorance of basic 5th grade historical facts over and over and over.


    by artappraiser on Sun, 02/10/2019 - 5:21pm


    by artappraiser on Sun, 02/10/2019 - 7:53pm

    An early look at the 2020 electorate

    By Anthony Cilluffo & Clifford Fry @ Pew Research Center, Jan. 20

    [....] While demographic changes unfold slowly, it’s already clear that the 2020 electorate will be unique in several ways. Nonwhites will account for a third of eligible voters – their largest share ever – driven by long-term increases among certain groups, especially Hispanics. At the same time, one-in-ten eligible voters will be members of Generation Z,  the Americans who will be between the ages 18 and 23 next year. That will occur as Millennials and all other older generations account for a smaller share of eligible voters than they did in 2016.

    What might these demographic shifts mean politically? In 2016, nonwhite voters were more likely to back Democrat Hillary Clinton, while white voters were more likely to back Republican Donald Trump. Younger generations, meanwhile, differ notably from older generations in their views on key social and political issues. It remains unclear how these patterns might factor into the 2020 election and, as always, a great deal will depend on who turns out to vote.

    More Hispanic than black eligible voters

    We project that the 2020 election will mark the first time that Hispanics will be the largest racial or ethnic minority group in the electorate, accounting for just over 13% of eligible voters – slightly more than blacks [....]

    continuation includes more graphs, the age change, for example, is quite striking.


    by artappraiser on Mon, 02/11/2019 - 12:06am

    I suspect a lot of Never Trumpers would love if this happened, get them all excited about the GOP again:


    by artappraiser on Mon, 02/11/2019 - 1:24am

    —> It Would Be Stupid for Democrats to Torpedo Klobuchar’s Campaign https://t.co/qNLWF63OPG via @BulwarkOnline

    — Charlie Sykes (@SykesCharlie) February 12, 2019

    Sub-heading: Her integrity and thoughtfulness could make her appealing to independents and anti-Trump conservatives. Author is Daniella Greenbaum Davis, never heard of her before, looks quite young and is a New Yorker.


    by artappraiser on Mon, 02/11/2019 - 9:47pm

    Recommended to check out the pages of tweeter and re-tweeter on this one as their "brands" don't exactly scream stereotype centrist or moderate, but they seem to get it nonetheless (& the one hates Bernie as well):

    Omg she’s gonna win, I just saw it. She’s is the one https://t.co/0uPuinhMnU

    — Martín (@martinangelh) February 11, 2019

    moderate is the new radical?


    by artappraiser on Tue, 02/12/2019 - 3:02am

    Sorry, but I saw it at the Kavanaugh hearing - she doesn't have enough edge, can't give the knife the final twist needed. She's not the only one - Dems are in general disastrous at cross-examination, let the slippery fish get away. Franken was good, Alan Grayson was good. Maybe the lady who treats her staff badly will be good. I'm watching 3 years of Brexit waiting for someone with fight in the belly to say "enough, we're taking you all to the tower and lopping off heads until we get this resolved". We're still suffering from the Obama "keep your head low" style. (and then there's Pelosi who's grown 10 feet in the last months)


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 02/12/2019 - 3:35am

    I was just surprised to see those two guys think the video was cool, if forced to guess, I would have guessed the opposite, that she was being an Obama sell out. And it was another data point about her to note, where she is going with the brand.


    by artappraiser on Tue, 02/12/2019 - 2:57pm

    "I don't understand the point of her being here" - sounds perfect - I bet Betsy de Vos is running for President - and she'd be another *billionaire*!!!


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 02/12/2019 - 3:58am

    Hilarious that here my suspicions have been confirmed, they are trying out the inclusion meme to counter the P.C. police activity on the left. Unfortunately for them, I am 100% sure he will not be compliant with staying on their message for more than a NY minute:

    pic.twitter.com/Ib5BUTCptO

    — GOP (@GOP) February 12, 2019

    Makes me think that the following tweet yesterday was probably suggested by a pro, it was out of character in general and there is dissonance with all the others before and after it:

    The Democrats are so self righteous and ANGRY! Loosen up and have some fun. The Country is doing well!

    — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 11, 2019

    Is more like something GW Bush would say


    by artappraiser on Tue, 02/12/2019 - 4:58pm

    Here it looks like the bot kidz already got those talking points, though they may not understand how to express them in a very convincing manner:

    Gotta wonder how many people there are like this! https://t.co/vvvodZ6VuR

    — Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) February 12, 2019

    America Unity Togetherness OR ELSE! Hah.


    by artappraiser on Tue, 02/12/2019 - 5:15pm

    Nate Silver:

    Hi, folks. We're likely to end up with something like *20* Democratic candidates for president. Here's my argument that this is a big deal. I think people are neglecting the possibility of ChAoS. https://t.co/J6ciG3x14h

    — Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) February 13, 2019

     


    by artappraiser on Thu, 02/14/2019 - 4:26am

    Whine. Carter won - he just didn't portray strength in office. (And he campaigned hard for 4years - wouldve won anyway). 

    McGovern is more apropos, but not for why Nate thinks - Dems were heavily focused on the evil GOP president and found it hard to define their own wants and style. Plus when fighting fascism, it's easy to think you want soft power rather than hard-edged driven small d democratic power.


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 02/14/2019 - 4:54am

    Interesting for who is saying it as well as what is said:

    Sherrod Brown Is Not an Idiot

    By RICH LOWRY @ Politico Magazine, February 13, 2019

    Rich Lowry is editor of National Review and a contributing editor with Politico Magazine.

    The day has arrived in the Democratic Party when Sherrod Brown is a kind of moderate.

    The impeccably progressive Ohio senator who has occupied a spot on the left flank of the Democratic Caucus for a very long time is declining to sign up for the fashionable radical causes of the hour.

    Brown has not endorsed the Bernie Sanders “Medicare for All” plan that contemplates the end of private insurance in America, nor for the outlandishly expensive and eminently mockable Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez “Green New Deal.”

    This marks Brown out from other Democratic senators running for president, who aren’t letting practicality or future worries about a general election keep them from putting their names to legislation that will never pass and opens them up to obvious attacks [....]


    by artappraiser on Fri, 02/15/2019 - 12:39am

    Emerson College Polling, Feb. 16 (more including graphs @ link):

    [....] In head-to-head matchups on the 2020 ballot against President Trump, all Democrats have a lead over the President, though all differences are within the margin of error, with one exception. When asked if voters would cast their ballots for Biden or Trump, 55% said they would vote for Biden, and 45% for Trump.

    List of other hypothetical 2020 Ballot Tests:

    • Trump 47% v. Elizabeth Warren 53%
    • Trump 49% v. Bernie Sanders 51%
    • Trump 48% v. Kamala Harris 52%
    • Trump 47% v. Beto O’Rourke 53%
    • Trump 49% v. Amy Klobuchar 51%
    • Trump 49% v. Cory Booker 51%
    • Trump 48% v. Sherrod Brown 52%

    Given a choice between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, 52% said they would support Harris to Trump’s 48%. However, if Howard Schultz is in the race, Trump receives 45%, Harris 43% and Schultz 12%.

    When Schultz is on the ballot with Biden and Trump, Biden maintains his advantage at 9 points ahead of Trump with 51% to the president’s 42%, and Schultz gets 7%. [....]


    by artappraiser on Mon, 02/18/2019 - 12:43am

    He's baaaaaaaack!


    by artappraiser on Tue, 02/19/2019 - 6:37am

    Home Alone 3?


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 02/19/2019 - 6:56am

    eh, not home for long, they just released nationally, is on the home page of WaPo:

    BREAKING NEWS Sen. Bernie Sanders will seek the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020


    by artappraiser on Tue, 02/19/2019 - 7:09am

    What was fresh in 2016 is homely and old hat in 2020. Sanders can't realistically think he has a chance, and it's either ego or agenda driving him. You know which one I pick.


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 02/19/2019 - 11:51am

    I think he thinks like he is Beowulf and only he can slay the Grendel.


    by artappraiser on Tue, 02/19/2019 - 8:15pm

    Ah, "Grendel-breaking news" - I myssed a goode lede-in


    by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 02/20/2019 - 2:01am

    Way down the page of one of two (totally warranted) screeds about Ivanka's latest Clueless (capitalization not a typo) statements @ WaPo Op-Ed section,by David Von Drehle, there was this important reminder point about running for prez. Who is doing this so far? Nobody that I can see yet. Please share if you find something that proves me and him wrong:

    But where in today’s politics is a robust, credible voice for optimism? Who’s pointing the way to a society of abundant opportunities for improvement? Not the right-veering Republicans, with their catalogue of resentments. And not the left-listing Democrats, with their litany of grievances. With less than a year before the presidential primaries begin, we have two parties of anger and no party of hope.

    President Trump feeds on anger. But Democrats still have a chance to pivot toward optimism. There’s no reason a campaign to cut carbon emissions must be a burden equivalent to fighting a world war — but that’s the rhetoric of the Green New Deal. It can be an opportunity to lead the next great era of invention.

    There’s no reason a campaign to make higher education more affordable must be pitched as a fight against banks and corporations. No reason justice for all must come at the expense of any. The record of human history clearly demonstrates that health, wealth, education and freedom can rise simultaneously. Abundance begets abundance; investments deliver returns; problems cheerfully faced with determination yield unimagined solutions.

    The American Dream is about more than just money. That’s why it can’t be addressed with the dreary language of mere economists. Democrats will do well in 2020 if they speak of hope, of the upside of our national life, of the problems we will solve together. That’s the spirit we all inherit and the legacy we must tend.


    by artappraiser on Tue, 02/26/2019 - 11:49pm

    Is Inslee the white dark horse that can pull it all together for dems, with a solid record on both liberal issues like global warming and minimum wage, yet pro-corporate policies to spur economic growth and pay for reforms? In a weird year, he may be too male and white for that to matter.

    https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-jay-inslee-could-win-the-2020-d...

    Meanwhile Bulwark has an article that seems to reasonably claim Liz Warren seems to be going nowhere, that she's second or third fav in too many categories (and can't shake the Cherokee thing), and that "fight" may not be the effective rallying cry for Dems, at least not from a woman. (Fox had a weird all-female segment on women candidates judged by different standards which seemed to fall on, "but yeah, people talk about Trump's anger and looks too", which somehow misses that Trump's anger is praised as a maverick, his looks given a pass. And then the Fox panel did an odd segue into Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex. Only thing stranger would have been a Beyoncé report.)


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 03/03/2019 - 12:12pm

    Liz Warren seems to be going nowhere

    I get that sense from what I am reading too. That could easily change but right now seems like: yawn.

    "fight" may not be the effective rallying cry for Dems, at least not from a woman

    I think that's not about the woman thing, I think that's about the problem of the whole country being sick of anger. Presidential candidates famously gotta do the inspiring better nature of ourselves thing, even more so in the current situation. But somehow they've got to do that with a troll-in-chief and a huge number of assistant trollsters ramping up the anger every day. Throw in internet trolls and bots paid by all kinds of entities to rile up this or that tribe about this or that grievance and you've got a nearly impossible task to evoke a positive message. Strikes me at this point of the game that if any have the magic/charisma to do that, they will outshine the others rather quickly. The trick would probably be to direct the "fight" only towards divisive trolling. That would include any of their fellow Dems who might do it.

    Hit me watching that "angry old man railing at the world" town hall by Bernie. The audience was like looking at him agape, like they were the grownups.

    It's like the one who would make a good internet moderator and also can be inspirational will win?

    Oh and this: can't  be flustered by outrage over "gotcha" things. There's an army out there researching for "gotcha" in candidate history.  i.e. Native American on applications or questionable photos in high school yearbooks, a 5-yr. old tweet or an old Facebook post.

    Just saying that now, reminds me: the Joy Reed personality is the example of the ideal. She just comes back with cheery and nice to everyone while still being tough. That can make up for all kinds of past sins. Hate to be trite, but the country this time is truly ready for a uniter not a divider. I think: sick of "fight." This is the president you are talking about, not a congressional leader. Yeah he/she is supposed to be the leader of their party, too, but in this case and time, I don't think a partisan president is going to cut it. Not even partisan within party, i.e., left vs. center. Has to show themselves to be a healer type even in the primary debates.


    by artappraiser on Sun, 03/03/2019 - 12:50pm

    P.S. A good sense of humor would cover a multitude of sins. Righteous anger as the dominating trait just won't cut it, not for the presidential position, think Al Franken type as an example. I realize that "fight" is what political people think we need, but they've got to get outside of their political bubble and think right now about where their non-political friends and family are at: sick to death of it, frightened to even speak the president's name at a family gathering or dinner with friends for fear of what might happen next. They want "peace," not "fight".


    by artappraiser on Sun, 03/03/2019 - 1:11pm

    That was why I thought AOC was effective - she turned the Breakfast Club dance "problem" into a viral video of fun. Her "where's Mitch/Waldo" knocking on closet doors in the Senate was fun but effective. Her cross-examination in Congress this week was straight-forward, efficient, not angry (though exacted clear responses & actionable info). Even when going after the Dems who are voting with Republicans, it came across more as "I'm going back to my constituents in the Bronx and they will not understand", along with "we can do better than this". (in this case it sounds like a good deal of the rift is between Pelosi & her deputies, and Nancy & AOC are roughly on the same page somehow).

    Think Kathy Griffin will run?


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 03/03/2019 - 3:16pm

    Here ya go, I've just ran across bias confirmation for my suppositions from "screenwriter of Mrs. Doubtfire", hah:


    by artappraiser on Sun, 03/03/2019 - 11:24pm

    This is really saying something about the outrage and p.c. police and victim Olympics thing growing tiresome, Hard to care at this point

    Omar has lots of critics who want to silence anyone in mainstream politics who is critical of Israel. She also routinely expresses her views with words and phrases charged w deep anti-semitic histories. Hard to care at this point whether that's from misunderstanding or animus. https://t.co/G9HluX7I5h

    — Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) March 4, 2019

    by artappraiser on Sun, 03/03/2019 - 11:39pm

    Here is an example of the more detailed scenario that I imagine triggered Josh's "fed up with this":

    Dem Congresswoman @NitaLowey rightly condemns Islamophobic attacks on Omar, then politely exhorts her to talk to Jews about why her talk of dual loyalty is so hurtful.

    In response, Omar claims Lowey is forcing her to swear allegiance to Israel.

    This is anti-Semitic gaslighting. pic.twitter.com/4qfZBRMLzq

    — Yascha Mounk (@Yascha_Mounk) March 3, 2019

    by artappraiser on Mon, 03/04/2019 - 12:15pm

    Screw that - I find it painful when Republicans - including the goys - are more loyal to Bibi Netanyahu than their own president. Anyone got a victimhood label to help me out of this one?

    How about when American politicians are funneling money from Russia and giving their sons-in-law positions in the White House to go do nuclear deals with some Mideast scourge who whacks journalists and tortures women - got a "dual loyalty" pain point for me there too?

    And then I seem to remember JFK talking himself out of those "dual loyalty" concerns when Protestants thought he'd be taking marching orders from the Vatican. Yeah, we all got our cross to bear (his just happened to be named Marilyn, not St John XIII as presumed)

    Many blacks voted for Obama because he was, lessee, a black candidate. Sure, they might not have voted for him if he was Ben Carson, but anywhere close to normal, he was getting their vote - should I whimper about that?

    This is the world as we know it. Many people have dual identities or more. I don't have a uterus, but sometimes I vote it anyway.


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 03/04/2019 - 3:40pm

    happened to be at the top of my feed, is a comment by an art critic, but sort of applies:


    by artappraiser on Mon, 03/04/2019 - 9:00pm

    Talk about "hurtful" -


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 03/05/2019 - 6:41pm

    Nate Silver and Alex Burns of NYTimes tweeting positive to each other about Inslee Monday evening:


    by artappraiser on Tue, 03/05/2019 - 12:53am

    I'm much more enamoured of someone who's been in the trenches doing various jobs, rather than a new up-and-coming savior with little proven record or someone on the fringes who never has to commit to real stuff. And that goes for any ethnic/gender group. Of course it's hard for someone with experience to shake the inevitable compromises of their work, as well as find that new blood excitement needed to rouse new acolytes. 

    I'm interested in Andrew Yang's Universal Minimum Income, and a year ago his "business leader with a plan" was still a bit viable, but I think Zuckerberg following Trump has queered that deal for good (along with Bezos & the Amazon bidding war). Also, besides him being a bit of a 1-trick-pony, 1 problem I see with UMI is that the sharks will come for Grandpa's UMI check like Enron did for "Aunt Millie", and quickly any hedge against poverty will be gone. I think I need it in a "lock box", for health, retirement, housing benefits, senior care, childcare, etc., even though the locks can be (and often are) jimmied.

    Insee (oops, Inslee - see?) is likely much more expansive than that. But let's see - the burn rate of new candidates announcing is pretty fast and furious, especially unknown ones. If he can stay in the news 2 months, perhaps he has a chance.


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 03/05/2019 - 2:43am

    Nate Silver measures burn rate.

    https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/which-2020-candidate-got-the-bigges...


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 03/05/2019 - 4:14pm

    And Hillary's out, as expected.
    Cue the conspiracy theories about how this is actually 13-dimensional chess and she plans a coup...
    along with the Nany Pelosi becomes Pres & names Hillary VP & then resigns hallucination.
    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/05/hillary-clinton-rules-ou...


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 03/05/2019 - 5:12am

    Nate Silver polled his Twitter followers. Keep in mind these are probably mostly cynical betting people rather than passionate politicos or fans:

    Here's the data. pic.twitter.com/w1WJigC7qE

    — Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) March 5, 2019

    by artappraiser on Tue, 03/05/2019 - 11:44am

    Delusional both on Biden - he's run twice, he's old, his greatest gaffes haven't aged well, he hardly fits the reform image that needs to be checked. How are his insurance and bank speeches?


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 03/05/2019 - 4:18pm

    The gotchas are going to be a continual surprise:


    by artappraiser on Tue, 03/05/2019 - 11:50am

    Bloomberg: not just out but plans $$$$$$$ for the Dem nominee!


    by artappraiser on Tue, 03/05/2019 - 5:49pm

    Excerpt from Bloomberg:


    by artappraiser on Tue, 03/05/2019 - 5:56pm

    This is an excellent point that should not be underestimated:

    Joe Biden's not so secret weapon: Barack Obama, Analysis by Harry Enten, CNN, Updated 8:33 AM ET, Sat March 9, 2019

    [....] I would argue that looking at ideology through the normal left-right spectrum doesn't get at Biden's appeal. Voters like Biden not because they don't know or don't understand his left-right ideology (though he does better with moderate Democrats than liberals).

    Democrats like Biden because he was the vice president to the most popular Democrat in the country, Barack Obama. Biden's best chance of winning is not to run from his record. It's merely to focus on his most recent record. Biden should point voters to his time as Obama's number two. It's far from a guarantee that it will work, though it really could help ameliorate the potential flaws of his past record in the Senate.

    Obama is still a rock star to Democrats throughout the nation. His favorable rating stood at an astounding 97% among Democrats in a CNN poll taken last year.

    To give you an understanding of how popular Obama is with Democrats, compare his popularity among them to President Donald Trump's popularity with Republicans.[.....]

    As all the legal moves against Trump start to snowball and his actual deeds become more well known, and if he continues to melt down, how many more of the crucial voters who tipped the tide to him will grow disgusted that they decided to bet on someone "new and different"?  Throw in if a recession starts to show.

    Might there not be a reaction against the "we want someone new and different" thing? And more of a nostalgia for grownups?

    This would not impact Dem primary voters as much, of course. But if the overall zeitgeist seems to go that way, i.e. "gee I miss the Obama years" that mood will transfer to even many high info. primary voters.  It is a good point, that people may go for "safe", not for experimenting with new paradigms.

    The more I think on Enten's point, the more I like it. Heck, even I'd welcome a slightly slower news cycle, and a little more "boring" and "steady ship."


    by artappraiser on Sun, 03/10/2019 - 3:15am

    Is Joe this generation's Al Gore? except Al had the Internet Superhighway, work against Climate Change, and the Social Security lock box. Joe's is "I was best buds with Obama for 8 years". At that point, I'd kinda even consider Michelle as a better choice. I liked the "Who calls Biden 'Middle Class Joe'? He does" article - that kind of self-serving self-promotion Biden does.

    For the 2nd year in a row Biden was speaking at JP Morgan Week (yay! - I assume they're more loved than Goldman Sachs? do we get the transcripts?). A listing of things Biden would love to say about our awful getting worse health care system  (that's a fine lede for someone who was 2nd in command of our healthcare reboot for 8 years).

    More reasons why Joe may poll well now, but would be a disaster in 2020 - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/23/joe-biden-2020-can... (including yes, I think Biden would be easy to goad into losing his temper and saying stupid things. He's been fine as a non-target all these years, but and of course "Anita Hill" vs MeToo).


    I don't know why  Bloomberg & Sherrod Brown hung it up so quick, but they both would have fit the niche that Biden occupies much much better.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 03/10/2019 - 6:34am

    Needless to say, my heart is with Berrnie.  He is, besides everything else, the point man on bringing it to Trump personally ("pathological liar")

     

    That said, I wonder if the Dems ought not concede to the logic that a person of color is their antidote to Trumpian 40% enthusiasm.

     

    Hence, (Dear (deity of choice) the woman is a fuckin' cop!) Harris.  or maybe Booker.

     

    I loves me some Warren, but, alas, she is, in fact, white.  Really white.


    by jollyroger on Sun, 03/10/2019 - 12:31pm

    Huh? They used to say she was a red, and then *she* started saying she was red (a bit different), and now we're all a bit red-faced.

    Personally I'm just waiting for someone to have a basic combination of experience, decent ideas and appeal, which means something a bit different from last decade or the one before. I'm not sure why that's so tough to find right now, but it's a bit mehs-ville at the moment. "Likable enough" failed in 2008.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 03/10/2019 - 1:29pm

    My Ashkenazic genome is programed to detect XX blond dna at 500 yds  away on a moonless night.  She's white.


    by jollyroger on Sun, 03/10/2019 - 1:38pm

    Get me that Darwin on the phone - wondering when being a stalker became genetic. Really, you're begging for all those "hereditary" tropes. How's your dancing?


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 03/10/2019 - 3:27pm

    Let's be fair, the campaign has barely begun. A lot more valuable information will come out to help us make our decision. We haven't yet seen videos of Warren or any of the other candidates dancing. If/when she puts out a video like this she might get honorary status as a black candidate.

     


    by ocean-kat on Sun, 03/10/2019 - 4:45pm

    Isn't that Ivanka's brand, "Women who Twerk"?

    Anyway, the campaign's barely begun, but a number of candidates have already dropped out, others forming their brand.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 03/10/2019 - 5:07pm

    How's your dancing?

    Thanks for asking--I was, after all, a stripper.  While female strippers can get away with only rudimentary rhythm, the bar is higher for guys.

     

    To answer with precision, by way of clearing the floor in a competitive environment, if it's a straight, white club, I'm in the top ten.

     

    In a gay club, or worse still, a gay black club, I sit down and take notes.


    by jollyroger on Sun, 03/10/2019 - 8:44pm

    I can vouch for the fact that Jolly talks about liking to dance a lot.


    by artappraiser on Sun, 03/10/2019 - 8:56pm

    When I vote I focus mostly on policy and some on personality. But if we're going to go with the Melanin Standard you propose one quick glance makes it clear that Booker gets more votes than Harris.

    Using the Black Panther cast can be useful visual aid to help sort through this complex issue. Martin Freeman is out as well as Angela Basset. Michael Jordan scores low while Latitia Wright scores high. The winners getting the most votes using your standard would be Daniel Kaluuya and Lupita Nyong'o.

     

     

     


    by ocean-kat on Sun, 03/10/2019 - 2:54pm

    what is up with the server??


    by jollyroger on Sun, 03/10/2019 - 8:32pm

    see above


    by jollyroger on Sun, 03/10/2019 - 8:32pm

    see see above above

     


    by jollyroger on Sun, 03/10/2019 - 8:33pm

    Race is a social construct, of perpetual fluidity--Ashkenazim, for instance, are only recently (if at all)  "white" in much of this country--Irish, likewise, from an earlier century, and (ironically?) in Russia Caucasians (as in natives of the former Soviet Caucasus  Republics) are not.

     

    That said, I don't think it brands me as a troglodyte to remark that African Americans must vote for a Democratic candidate with enthusiasm and persistence (given the vote suppression mechanisms in place) if the catastrophic turn out deficits that sunk Hilary in Detroit and Milwaukee are not to be repeated.

     

    I concede that ideally a "white" candidate (whatever that means exactly) could hope for the same enthusiasm that Obama elicited (and it is even possible that another African American candidate who was not "a first" might not duplicate his appeal, even as he was, at heart, a neo-lib (Booker and Harris ditto).

     

    Since I don't expect an epiphany to seize the lupenproletariat "white working class" 2016 Trump voters, I would rather hope to invigorate the stay at home Obama voter of color, in which endeavor  (I hope without risking accusations of racism) I submit Harris or Booker are more  credible messengers.

     


    by jollyroger on Sun, 03/10/2019 - 8:30pm

    The majority of voters will be white. While the democrat is unlikely to get a majority of the white vote even with the minority of the white vote the majority of the democrat's votes will be white. Yet you don't propose a white candidate to appeal to them. The premise you imply is white democrats will vote for a black or white candidate.

    While the vast majority of blacks will vote for the democratic candidate still they will be only a minority of their votes. Yet you propose we appeal to this smaller segment of the voters with a black candidate. The premise you imply is that black democrats are more likely to vote for a black candidate.

    Your theory rests on the premise that black voters are more racist than white voters. 

    Let us assume that an equal percentage of white voters and black voters are racist. Since there are more white voters than black voters that equal percentage represents a larger number of white voters. If we follow your suggestion that we attempt to appeal to those racists it's more likely the democrat will win by choosing a white candidate.

    But, your theory rests on the premise that black voters are more racist than white voters. That's the only way it can work. You're probably not too good at math or logic or you'd realize that.


    by ocean-kat on Sun, 03/10/2019 - 9:17pm

    My premise is that it has been easier to identify the areas aggregating black voters where state authorities wishing to advantage Republicans can most efficiently do so by limiting access (few voting machines, inconvenient and reduced locations, etc.) 

     

    This puts, I believe , a higher premium for the Dems upon a candidate who will energise those overburdened voters.

     

    I don't see the hurdles to white voters, whether Dem or Repugnant, as being equally high.  

     

    YMMV


    by jollyroger on Sun, 03/10/2019 - 10:53pm

    Even Nate Silver thinks it is good to keep in mind you might not get what you wish for:

    A contrary view: candidates such as Kamala Harris, Beto O'Rourke and Elizabeth Warren are more fashionable picks among savvy journalists, and polls showing that Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are still extremely popular among rank-and-file Democrats are good reality checks. https://t.co/arutboXNP5

    — Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) March 11, 2019

    And arta would like to add: keep in mind that in early primary areas there are fewer and fewer active Dem party members, as more have switched to "to hell with all of youse Independents" or "none of the above." Of those that are left participating in the Dem party activities, what kind of candidate do those people like? Let me be blunt: in like Iowa. Active Dem Party members in Iowa...


    by artappraiser on Sun, 03/10/2019 - 8:55pm

    Seth loves Mayor Pete:


    by artappraiser on Sun, 03/10/2019 - 9:37pm

    Mayor Pete impresses another major legal guy:


    by artappraiser on Sat, 03/16/2019 - 12:52am

    Beto:

    Beto O'Rourke has confirmed, via a text-message sent to a local news network, that he is running for President of the United States.

    Announcement is tomorrow https://t.co/DdveNWutDI

    — Yashar Ali (@yashar) March 13, 2019

    In a strange coincidence (NOT?) concurrent with publication of long-form Vanity Fair profile and cover story (with Annie Liebowitz photography):

    Cover Story: Beto O’Rourke: “I’m Just Born to Do This”

    Riding around with the Beto O’Rourke as he comes to grips with a presidential run.


    by artappraiser on Wed, 03/13/2019 - 8:45pm

    Nate Silver makes joke (?) about Beto and the Dem base:


    by artappraiser on Thu, 03/14/2019 - 4:22pm

    I'm worried that this isn't a joke.

    Has no one conducted a job interview?


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 03/14/2019 - 7:46pm

    I've been pretty honest that I don't know who people will vote for or why. So perhaps nominating a famous loser is the path to victory. But how do we know if Beto is the famous loser who's the best of several losers? Stacy Abrams is also a famous loser who is thinking of entering the race. Then there's McCaskill and Heitkamp who lost in 2018 but won in previous senate elections. Perhaps those wins excludes them from running as a famous loser. Maybe we should have a loser debate to chose which famous loser is the best loser to run against Trump. 


    by ocean-kat on Thu, 03/14/2019 - 8:13pm

    Go with Abba - "The Loser Takes It All"


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 03/15/2019 - 2:51am

    FWIW-prolly not much-my guess from reading his tweets for a while now was that the description of a stereotype struck him as somewhat accurate in a SNL-parody kinda way for the base as well as Beto, and that's why he retweeted it. Important: Doesn't mean they'd vote for their own kind! BTW, he also defined "Democratic base" in 3 tweets today, so he was definitely thinking on the meme:

    Sometimes there are dumb arguments because people define the Democratic "base" in two different ways.

    Definition 1 is roughly: Loyal Democratic rank-and-file voters who regularly vote in primaries and general elections. This might be 20% of the US adult population.

    — Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) March 14, 2019

    Definition 2 is roughly: Activists who are deeply concerned with Democratic/liberal politics and whose participation goes beyond merely voting, e.g. organizing, donating substantial sums, participating in local D groups, writing about politics, etc. Maybe 1-2% of the population.

    — Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) March 14, 2019

    IMO, Definition 1 is correct—"base" refers to a fairly broad group of loyal Democratic voters. There are lots of other ways to refer to the second group, e.g. "activists", "influential Democrats". The term "party elites" is narrower still but sometimes OK.

    — Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) March 14, 2019

    by artappraiser on Thu, 03/14/2019 - 10:52pm

    oh and here's a related tweet tonight, shows he's still thinking on it and doing that same kind of demographic character stereotyping. seems to help him figure things out:

    I think Beto's sort of in the blind spot for journalists where he shares a lot in common with the modal journalist demographically (46-year-old father who went to Columbia and once played in a band) but isn't seen as shrewd/cynical enough and that leads to some underestimation. https://t.co/LNvPhgfJgw

    — Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) March 14, 2019

    I.E. ultra complicated versions of  the "soccer mom" thing....

    He's got a strange mind!  For me, that's what makes him interesting to read, that's all, really. I guess in a way it's what a lot of gamblers do with like, poker, typing people, so that you can better guess what they are going to do.


    by artappraiser on Thu, 03/14/2019 - 11:20pm

    You're attracted to grifters and low-lifes, aintcha lady?


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 03/15/2019 - 2:51am

    Your quip got me thinking more seriously about what really attracts: I am eternally hopelessly seeking someone who can tell the future by analyzing clues in the present. Sad!


    by artappraiser on Fri, 03/15/2019 - 1:01pm

    Ah, gypsy fortune-teller grifters - not as many of those as used to be - most are endlessly regurgitating the past.


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 03/15/2019 - 2:30pm

    Beto wins the "fast news cycle these days" competition. Here's the current headline @ Politico:

    ‘Not one woman got that kind of coverage’: Beto backlash begins

    Many Democrats see a double standard in the fanfare surrounding O’Rourke’s 2020 campaign launch.

    BY 

    “I feel like the media is always captivated by the person they seem to think is a phenom: Bernie. Trump. Beto. But they always seem to be white men who are phenoms. In a year where we have more choices than ever, more women and more persons of color than ever, none of them seem to be deemed a phenom."

    DEMOCRATIC POLITICAL CONSULTANT MARY ANNE MARSH

    Meanwhile, right under that story is

    O’Rourke calls America’s capitalist economy ‘racist’

    "It is clearly an imperfect, unfair, unjust and racist capitalist economy,” he said.

    BY 

    while just a few moments ago on Twitter I saw that he had said he was a proud capitalist, placing him firmly in the counter-Ocasio camp of candidates....

    All that strikes me so far about him is that his "people" really know how to play the current game, starting with his announcement coinciding with a Vanity Fair cover story (a publication which conveniently still has placement in the grocery store aisles for those that not into social media while also has a strong social media viral meme intersection--people who read celeb gossip online end up at Vanity Fair website via cross linking from like TMZ....)


    by artappraiser on Fri, 03/15/2019 - 4:15pm

    https://splinternews.com/this-is-all-so-ridiculous-1833317729

    Then he took questions. It’s good that he took questions, both because it is vital to give the public true access to public discourse with civic leaders, and because it revealed that he really has no policy platform as such. On education, he talked a lot about some welding program at a local community college he had visited earlier in the day. He is in favor of mental health care. The Republican tax cuts were bad. The Supreme Court is messed up. But still, we should all get along. “When we learn to respect one another, there’s nothing we can’t do,” he said at one point. And later: “We need to find enough common ground to pursue the common good.”

    The most revealing moment came when a local man asked him about a Siemens factory in town that had shut down, and how he planned to keep those types of jobs in America. Beto’s answer to this vital question—and I will do my best to characterize it accurately—was, like, uhhh, why don’t you tell me? “You share with people like me, how we can partner together,” the man running for president told the Iowa citizen in search of answers. “Gimme your best idea for how we do this.” The local man was caught off guard. “Would legislation be an option?”

    Presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke agreed with the man that legislation might be an option.

    The balance of this event was useful only for driving home what a farce we were all participating in. The national media, flooding en masse into a small town that they would never otherwise visit and did not care to learn about at all, focusing relentlessly on a guy who does not seem to have any particular beliefs or qualifications to become our nation’s most important political leader other than the fact that he can wear a blue shirt all day without sweating through the armpits. 


    by ocean-kat on Fri, 03/15/2019 - 10:04pm

    Hmmm, actually, I am curious how he keeps the shirt unstained, but then again I was always against anti-perspirants as they clog the pores - seems unhealthy. Is this listed on his platform? any other candidate have views on this?


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 03/16/2019 - 5:00am

    O'Rourke isn't getting great press over here either...

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/15/beto-orourke-friend-fossil-fuel-industry-climate-change

    With the snippets I've seen I don't get the appeal, frankly. That said, my sister living in the bay area is a big fan.


    by Obey on Sat, 03/16/2019 - 7:34am

    It's called cheerleading. Everyone wants their own Woodstock, however pathetic the imitation.

    It's disturbing that we're chewing over this nothingburger, but it's a long way out, and that's always what we do this time of the (pre-) campaign season.

    But that Bloomberg & Sherrod Brown (& Hillary, of course) decided no already, while so many less decent candidates are gobbing up the space isn't exactly the sign I want to see. Will it stop before we find our own Sarah Palin?

    To note one, I like Stacey Abrams, but do I think she's anywhere ready to be president? even though I'd much rather hear her speeches & prefer her long hard work & qualifications to Beto's. (btw, what's up with her meeting with Biden? is he going to bow out to support her? that would be an interesting move - https://www.salon.com/2019/03/15/joe-bidens-meeting-with-stacey-abrams-s... )

    PS - we have to carry more than the Bay Area - that's like "shooting fish in a barrel" territory.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 03/16/2019 - 8:08am

    I don't give Bernie much of a chance in the primary, and the others strike me as superficial and mediocre candidates in the general, with their hopes pinned on "nice enough" being good enough. Stacey Abrams is the only Democrat I've seen who got me to perk up. So would be great to see her run. 

    I don't think readiness as a criterion counts for much. No one is ready for it. And the readier candidates tend to have spent decades in the Washington bubble, leaving them unable to speak to ordinary people and take the temperature of the country. 


    by Obey on Sat, 03/16/2019 - 9:12am

    Yes, some people are ready.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 03/16/2019 - 3:19pm

    I've decided to support Rodney King. The media keeps telling me how popular Beto is and Rodney has the same policy position, "Can't we all just get along?" And Jr has written extensively that we have to nominate a black man to get enough black votes to win. He's Beto with enough melanin to win. There is one small problem but the benefits far out way it.


    by ocean-kat on Sat, 03/16/2019 - 10:40am

    Mayor Pete could be the new Beto-Rodney. Beto is on the verge of becoming tiresome.


    by artappraiser on Sat, 03/16/2019 - 1:18pm

    oy, looks like that story is going viral amongst the poltical cognescenti, Laura Rozen just retweeted this and she saw it because she follows Jentleson who is 

    Former Deputy Chief of Staff, Senator Harry Reid | @moscow_project | @DemocracyFWD | Song #1 is not a

    democracyforward.org

    When this kind of buzz happens, then political editors take another look and say "let's do a story on him."


    by artappraiser on Sat, 03/16/2019 - 2:03pm

    Damn it, I haven't been able to get any in depth information about Buttigieg. Every time I click on an article I get blocked by a subscription requirement or "already used free articles" limitation. So far I haven't seen anything about him on free sites or the sites I subscribe to, WP and NYT. That in itself is interesting to me. 


    by ocean-kat on Sat, 03/16/2019 - 7:31pm

    There's a new one by two reporters @ WaPo yesterday: Pete Buttigieg, the young and openly gay Midwest mayor, finds a voice in crowded Democratic presidential field from a West Hollywood fund raiser, natch.

    You probably found this but just in case you didn't, back in  late Jan. when he announced exploratory, the NYT did this basic C.V. roundup. I got a kick out of how they sort of snuck in that he's gay at the end. There's a link to his twitter feed in there and announcing the website. And Leonhardt @ NYTimes did this op-ed/newsletter item right after: The Millennial Candidate; Pete Buttigieg, a 37-year-old who entered the presidential race, deserves a hearing. I don't know how 37 years old qualifies as a Millennial, but who am I to say?

    Then there was the CNN townhall.

    And I see from my NYTimes search that he's chosen to go on Fox News Sunday today!

    Edit to add: I note now that the NYT Leonhardt link has a bunch of cross-links to stories in this paragraph (and the one before it, too) including @ WaPo and NYT:

    For more about the candidate, you can listen to him tell his life story — including a transition from Rhodes scholar to naval intelligence officer in Afghanistan — on David Axelrod’s podcast. Also: Bob Moser has profiled Buttigieg in The Washington Post Magazine, asking if he could become the first millennial president. In 2016, my colleague Frank Bruni asked if Buttigieg could become the first gay president. In Indianapolis Monthly, Adam Wren tells the story of Buttigieg impressing top Democrats. And The Washington Post’s Cathleen Decker and Chelsea Janes write that his Midwestern credentials could help the Democrats rebuild the “blue wall” that crumbled in 2016.


    by artappraiser on Sun, 03/17/2019 - 11:53am

    NYTimes "Vows" wedding section did a long story about Mayor Pete's wedding last summer Pete Buttigieg Might Be President Someday. He’s Already Got the First Man It is clear from a paragraph there that Axelrod is one of his big boosters:

    “Pete’s going to be a force in the Democratic Party,” David Axelrod, the political strategist credited with helping propel Mr. Obama to the nation’s highest office, told Politico. “The question is just whether that’s as a candidate for president, or something else.”

    The link there is to a Politico Magazine story from March 2018:

    Buttigieg Gets Closer to a 2020 Campaign

    The South Bend mayor has a PAC spending money in Iowa, is staffing up with presidential campaign vets and quietly building key relationships ahead of 2020.

    In the end, oceankat, what your comment made me see by looking stuff up is that, contrary to your current impression, he's actually gotten lots of media coverage for a "nobody", someone behind him knows how to create a slow buildup of buzz. Savvy Axelrod types. That Politico article is proof.


    by artappraiser on Sun, 03/17/2019 - 12:03pm

    Yeah, also getting media or Twitter coverage for little snippy comments about Hillary or the Dems, with his whataboutism both-sides-do-it posture - don't quite get it. 37-year-old is a bit know-it-all for me.


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 04/01/2019 - 2:59am

    Near the end of the tape he says "now, let's talk about some mother fucking policy...":


    by artappraiser on Sat, 03/16/2019 - 1:50pm

    What I find interesting is that Fallon is being forced by the late night audience to do political humor against his inclinations and desires. Before the Trump era he was only doing silly or good natured ribbing type of humor.


    by ocean-kat on Sat, 03/16/2019 - 7:51pm

    Great point on GOP making Beto a replacement for currently inconvenient Omar. Talk about playing theidentity politics card, sheesh....

     


    by artappraiser on Sun, 03/17/2019 - 1:59pm

    And I do see that many on the left can't resist taking the bait. That's horse race for ya: every smear followed by whaddaboutism. Oh yeah, well your mother wears army boots!

    Let me get this straight: the @GOP is mocking Beto O'Rourke by deploying vicious anti-Irish stereotypes that have historically been used to marginalize Irish immigrants and citizens while ignoring that Bush, Cheney, and Matt Gaetz have four DUIs between them. Classy. https://t.co/swSQDGbvsZ

    — Charlotte Clymer(@cmclymer) March 17, 2019

    Edit to add: I would be curious to know whether Flavius has grievance about the ethnic slur involved here! devil


    by artappraiser on Sun, 03/17/2019 - 2:16pm

    Just one more on the St. Pat's Day smearing of Beto, former CEO of RedState.org, Erick Erickson:


    by artappraiser on Sun, 03/17/2019 - 4:28pm

    Nate Silver uses all caps in praise of candidate Yang:


    by artappraiser on Sun, 03/17/2019 - 2:07pm

    Thanks for the update - good to see Yang's greatly evolving past his 1-issue launch.

    And since not white, might skin past the "old rich white guy" scourge.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 03/17/2019 - 3:57pm

    Looking through his platform, it's easy to feel a bit superficial, but then again, with the opioid situation or Google breakup, I don't necessarily want someone running in with simple cures for complex problems - in the end I'm happy these issues are on the list and there's a bit of thought going into them. They will not be cured via Presidential order.

    I also compared theto tone and my heartrate going through Yang's site and Warren's. I'm not sure most voters/Americans want to follow up Trump with another firebrand, be it Warren, Bernie or someone else perceived as angry. Yeah, there's a lot to be angry about, but we're exhausted with the 24x7 outrage - I'm pretty sure normalcy will sell. Part of AOC's charm is she does know how to dance, to joke, to have fun while being an activist - she hasn't lost the human side, she "has a life". (Beto has this w/o being much of an activist , otay, thanks, no thanks).

    Yang's "Fair Capitalism" or however he puts it at #3 is one huge point (as is UBI) - we're all mostly capitalists, but the American Dream was Horatio Alger, rags to riches, try hard and harder and you likely will succeed. The reality and odds right now are basically a shit sandwich, but I'd guess most want the real dream back, not to pull back the curtain even more. In Europe people seem to be enjoying life more, working less, more vacations, good infrastructure, guaranteed health care, low-cost college... why is the "prosperous" US a continuing maelstrom of opioids and immigration fear and WalMarts and unaffordable necessities? Can it be the 99% down in the pits for the 1% isn't sellable anymore, even with a 1/1000 one of the worker drones can rise to the top? Silicon Valley is largely our new dream - work fairly hard (in an office), good ideas, network => live well, maybe have your own startup, maybe go viral. How to spread *that* model (and LA's, etc) to other locations, micro-valleys with more affordable housing and more access to nature for those who want it?


    by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 03/20/2019 - 3:20am

    I'm not sure most voters/Americans want to follow up Trump with another firebrand, be it Warren, Bernie or someone else perceived as angry. Yeah, there's a lot to be angry about, but we're exhausted with the 24x7 outrage - I'm pretty sure normalcy will sell. Part of AOC's charm is she does know how to dance, to joke, to have fun while being an activist - she hasn't lost the human side, she "has a life".

    I'm nearly 100% sure they do not; "Stop the outrage, stop the trolling" is the main thing the last election was about.

    I think you are right to point out AOC's general modus operandi as a good replacement. This is exactly the difference I was pointing to in that long thread about Ilhan Omar. Omar was getting branded with Trump style outrage, even her smarter constituents could see it. The right is trying to brand AOC with the same, scary outraged righteous grievance, but because she knows how to disarm trolls without feeding, it hasn't worked so well as of yet.

    I find it helpful to imagine the "suburban women" demographic (silly in ways but it's all we got until they let us see micro-targeting stats from Cambridge Analytica type outfits) who helped to swing the last election, and how they would react. Does AOC having power scare them? No.  Does Omar? So far: maybe, hopefully she can get her act together and stop using lefty in-group dog whistles that even turn off male people like Bruce Levine and Michael Wolraich.

    Calm is really something people crave right now?


    by artappraiser on Wed, 03/20/2019 - 10:59am

    More along these lines, just hit me, you might think it crazy hijacking, if so, I am sorry but decided to share it anyway.

    This, regarding all the McCain crap Trump is instigating as another trollish narcissist diversion:

    How many Republican senators besides Romney have defended McCain? https://t.co/FHGarxMG4T

    — Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) March 20, 2019

    cc: @LindseyGrahamSC https://t.co/bgsXenGYJ2

    — Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) March 20, 2019

    It just would not be that hard not to feed the troll. Mitt Romney shows it's not that hard. A simple tweet. Done!

    Why are the others not doing it?

    Because to get the votes of the Trump base, they have to support Trump's trolling. Not Trump, in actuality they don't always support what he wants. They do their own thing on most policy. He doesn't even know about it with most things. But they don't dare challenge his trolling because it is liked by too large a chunk of GOP voters. Romney doesn't have to worry about them, so he can object.

    More and more I think the election will be about those who like trolling and those who don't. The Dems need to clearly offer the choice of the anti-troll party. Just by doing that they'll get a lot of the Romney-type votes as well as their own.


    by artappraiser on Wed, 03/20/2019 - 6:10pm

    I agree:

    Uh oh, some will put up with the trolling for tax cuts, and after all, there's always the chance of President Pence:


    by artappraiser on Thu, 03/21/2019 - 3:34pm

    Didn't mention a loveless marriage of pseudo-convenience, did they?
    Remember how much shit Hillary took for not getting a divorce?


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 03/22/2019 - 4:55am


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 03/22/2019 - 6:48am

    Now that is one great point. Really gets ya thinking.

    One that a lot of millennials won't get, just as us boomers didn't get it when we were young.

    I myself love to complain about the Dem machine bureaucracy in NY. But I've lived long enough to see that it would not be a solution to "throw all the bums out" at once tomorrow.

    Reality is incrementalism, anything else is a delusional wish for chaos during one's lifetime. Most people just won't chose that when voting. Because it takes a big part of a lifetime to recover from radical change. I imagine being a boomer born in like Venezuela, any economic class, what they have lived through. All those that complained about Obama not being left enough on this and that, how many of them miss the stability and "boredom" now? It was radical enough that he had black skin--let's do one thing at a time!

    Gets me thinking about how governors make the best presidents, as they have real "establishment" bonafides and experience. I am a little disturbed that we have bloviating Senators running. Obama was an outlier that way, he had governor-type management skills already, i.e. "establishment". Establishment = civilization.


    by artappraiser on Fri, 03/22/2019 - 1:12pm

    Like I thought Eizabeth Warren would have been a better VP pick last time, but who would have even *more* disoriented with *2* women on the ticket. (And have the Bernie fans hated her for going over to "the dark side")


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 03/22/2019 - 1:40pm

    So Middle Class Joe's kid works for Yanukovych lite -
    another Anthony Kennedy's kid/Deutsche Bank moment waiting?
    Say it ain't so, Joe - we already long forgave you for voting for the Iraq invasion
    (since we decided to luv your winning smile & ignore your suckup to the insurance & finance industries).
    You are the front-runner we've been waiting for, right?

     

    It's troubling to me that Joe Biden's son works for a Ukrainian gas mogul/corrupt Yanukovych crony

    — Scott Stedman (@ScottMStedman) March 25, 2019

     


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 03/25/2019 - 4:19am

    More Joe from Huffpost

    https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5c79a414e4b0614614d9f8d3


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 03/30/2019 - 12:43pm

    There are many reasons to reject Biden as a candidate. I agree with most of them though I tend to be more forgiving of politicians changing their minds and modifying their views over the years then many people. But there's one important thing for me that I haven't seen discussed by pundits. I don't think Biden is intelligent or knowledgeable. The pundits mostly declared Biden the winner of the vp debate with Paul Ryan. I didn't think he won. I didn't even think there was a real debate, in that it wasn't an intellectual clash of ideas. For Biden it was a performance of extroversion and aggression. He didn't explain his views and make good arguments defending them. He masked his lack of knowledge with an outward show of boisterous noise. His first reply to Ryan was often derisive laughter which I could tolerate if it was followed by an equally devastating argument or even a decent argument or explanation. But it rarely was. I don't think he knows much about what he's talking about and he attempts to hide that lack of knowledge with aggressive extroversion. I'm not just looking for someone with liberal principles and progressive policy ideas. I also want someone who is knowledgeable and smart.


    by ocean-kat on Sat, 03/30/2019 - 1:43pm

    Good point.

    I also didn't see him as a driver of good policy ideas in the way Gore and Hillary were in their time in the White House - more the traditional showplate VP.

    (of course Ryan's policy cred was vastly overrated, which makes the lack of debate handling even less forgivable - punching a hole in that airbag would have been useful)


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 03/30/2019 - 2:12pm

    Yeah, his 8 years as vp isn't a plus for me. He was just the nondescript rough spun white male on the ticket to balance out Obama's blackness.


    by ocean-kat on Sat, 03/30/2019 - 2:49pm

    I got the impression it was more like they were trying to balance Obama's global eliteness. There were lots of white guys and gals they could pick, they picked him because they also needed some sort of lunchpail vibe.

    Edit to add: also a secondary thing I took note of--Obama was famously "cool" and cerebral, the no drama Obama thing, the intellectual. Joe was a counter to that with touchy feely weepie (even if fake), in trouble for same touching now--the "I feel your pain" thing


    by artappraiser on Sat, 03/30/2019 - 3:25pm

    David Cop-a-feel was Bush Sr's side of the street. Or maybe it's all a mashup/smashup.

     


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 03/30/2019 - 3:37pm

    Yes, that's why I said rough spun. They definitely wanted the lunch pail vibe rather than someone who could be successfully label cerebral or elite. No one like Gore or Kaine.


    by ocean-kat on Sat, 03/30/2019 - 4:44pm

    Gore famously stretched the role of V.P. with Bill's approval and did a damn good job of doing that.  I remember reading very convincing arguments by historians that he was the best V.P. ever. It's not fair to compare in a way,  he had a talent for not losing his gravitas in that job where most do lose it and are humiliated.  That actually came back to bite him, mho, when he was running himself, he was a bit too arrogant towards W in some debates. (And there's the everyman/lunchpail thing creeping in there I mentioned in my other comment about Joe. I don't vote like that, but a lot of people do, like my mother, who had extreme emotional I.Q., an empath, but a high school education. She judged candidates on how they interact with others. Like Alice Roosevelt Longworth's famous comment about Coolidge: He looks as though he's been weaned on a pickle!--that kind of thing.)


    by artappraiser on Sat, 03/30/2019 - 3:22pm

    deja vus allover agin


    by artappraiser on Sun, 03/31/2019 - 12:19am

    Lying campaign managers, for money:


    by artappraiser on Sun, 03/31/2019 - 10:31pm

    It's a happy meal...


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 04/02/2019 - 10:55am

    Strikes me as not a bad idea at all for someone selling happy instead of anger to be a part of the Dem primary crew. I fear "a pox on all your houses" reaction if there's a lot of nastiness within the party.Sassy is OK but I feel they have to offer an alternative to the righteous anger thing. We all know Trumpies anger is more faux than righteous but it's all the same to most people in a "can we just stop the insanity?" kind of way. I know you like the aggressive fighter type but I just have this intuition that it's really going to come down to knowing how to stop feeding trolling and presenting a sunny calming assurance. Daddy or mommy going to make it all better.


    by artappraiser on Tue, 04/02/2019 - 12:37pm

    hmmm: target Pence?!? strange theory....


    by artappraiser on Tue, 04/02/2019 - 12:53pm