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

    You would like to have a beer with her and would also let her babysit your kids!

    By artappraiser on Sat, 09/21/2019 - 5:17pm |

    Liz Warren gets the hang of doing exactly the kind of campaigning that people like Peracles hate, while Bernie drones crabby-old-man socialist agitprop in the background:

    Need I mention eating beef is politically incorrect?

    Comments

    I see the steak as politically incorrect meme is "trending" right now over at the NYTimes, as the prince of foodies, Mark Bittman, reviews a new book:

    NONFICTION: Meat Is Murder. But You Know That Already.

    Sept. 17 review of WE ARE THE WEATHER/Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast by Jonathan Safran Foer


    by artappraiser on Sat, 09/21/2019 - 6:29pm

    ?? I didn't realize I had a big chip about campaign styles. Yeah, the public may demand you do X while the message is lost, just to show you're the avg Joe/Joette, but that's part of the show on the road.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 09/22/2019 - 2:50am

    Sorry if you feel misinterpreted, I shoulda left you outta it, I just wanted to plop this quickly because I thought it both funny and interesting. Mostly I wanted to share it because I found it funny, and not getting into to the more seriously marketing issues of selling candidates.

     I thought of how you often complain about how the media covers horse race with stories of personal peccadillos of the candidates. And then the candidate gets unfairly branded with that meme. In actuality, though, with that whole thing, it takes two to tango. They have experts working on branding the candidate as average guy or gal, and in a democracy where everyone voting is not highly educated and doesn't understand issues,  that whole often along the lines of the "humanizing" piece you posted from Hullabaloo.. It's not just the horse race media's fault, the candidates play to it and expect interpretation from the MSM. If the MSM misinteprets, the politicos haven't done their marketing job that well, that's the way I see it. Not the other way around. It's really not the horse race media people's fault, it's the fault of the marketers that are hired and the candidates themselves for following poor messaging.

    Liz is a wonk, a past professor. She has tried to be more of a political firebrand over her Senate career, sometimes succcessfully, sometimes coming off too "strident" to certain demographics. She now has decided to run for something where she has to sell herself as a person, too, to win. The role of Senator is one of the few where elitism is more encouraged.  She's not equipped with the Obama type star power to make young women swoon. I find it interesting to watch what she does. I saw one of her campaign ads a month or so where she actually was sitting and having a beer with two middle aged white guys on a porch (no wimmin and no people of color), was so struck by that that I did a screensot and tried to post it somewhere so I could post it here, but it was too difficult and I gave up.

    I don't know the effect that was intended here with the steak grilling, but the message I saw was "busy suburban mom, no time for the fancy culture and class war stuff." While Bernie drones in the background--never one to cotton much to marketing, himself, clearly.


    by artappraiser on Sun, 09/22/2019 - 2:56pm

    Didn't take offense, and am down with a certain amount of kissing hands and shaking babies and the usual amount of "what sloppy face-distorting embarrassing food can I swallow this morning, at noon, in the evening?" - there is a bit of value in feeling how human a candidate it  - just when it becomes an unwinnable "litmus test" for the kool kidz and when important speeches or presentations or policy releases are ignored in favor of the circus, I start to get pissed.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 09/22/2019 - 3:46pm

    Both Liz and Bernie also did the shindig of the anti-steak-eater types today, and guess who didn't, and guess who was their keynote speaker? Turns out the thing what she said as reported by The Guardian is the #1 most popular story @ The Hill right now?

    Ilhan Omar: Biden not right candidate for 'progress we all want to see'

    Congresswoman addressed Iowa People's Presidental Forum

    By Oliver Laughland in Des Moines for TheGuardian.com, 22 Sep 2019 19.31 BST

    At the Iowa People’s Presidential Forum on Saturday, organisers hoped to serve up an antidote to the Polk County Steak Fry, an event a few miles down the road that drew 17 Democratic presidential candidates to deliver stump speeches and pose for selfies with 12,000 attendees.

    The people’s forum, organized by a collective of grassroots groups, aimed to push progressive policy initiatives. It hosted four candidates, including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, frontrunners in the state that will hold the first nomination ballot on 3 February next year.

    Perhaps the most notable absence was that of Joe Biden, the former vice-president who Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement Action, the forum organiser, declined to invite after his campaign failed to respond to a questionnaire.

    Biden, a centrist in a field increasingly dominated by progressive ideas, has dropped behind Warren in the polls in Iowa for the first time.

    To a number of speakers at the forum, his absence spoke volumes.

    The Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar, one of four new members of the House of Representatives racially abused by Donald Trump, gave the keynote speech. She demanded “a president who realises we are not just fighting for one election, we are fighting for the very soul of our democracy and what society we want to become”.

    Asked by the Guardian if Biden could be that candidate, Omar was less than optimistic.

    “There are few people who fit into the kind of progress that we all want to see in this country,” Omar said. “And I would say he is not one of them.

    “I think it has been very clear to many of the people who have been creating the kind of movement that is exciting generations, that we want somebody who really has a plan that is going to tackle a lot of the systematic challenges that we have, and he doesn’t.”

    Asked about Biden’s absence, former housing secretary and presidential hopeful Julián Castro told the Guardian: [....]

     


    by artappraiser on Sun, 09/22/2019 - 11:49pm

    It would help if there were a Biden initiative from 8 years with Obama, but it's more the "we're great pals" thing.

    At the same time, all the new policies bit gets a tad exposed with "the raised my hourly wage but cut my hours" thing - you can't just defy gravity. These forces exist for reasons - circumventing them takes strategy, not just pthy platitudes & easy solutions.


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 09/23/2019 - 6:41am

    Yes, good point . But it would help only with the progressive bunch to get on board with him, or trust him at least. But this goes to what this thread is getting at. It really is that many presidential-year-type voters don't trust progressive policy wonks, i.e., the stuff never gets enacted like that so why even bother taking the time to do "homework" you don't have time for and don't understand. They vote for who they trust in their gut from personality cues. And before people get dismissive about that, think of how most bosses hire people, looking at a C.V. is not as helpful as meeting the person.


    by artappraiser on Mon, 09/23/2019 - 11:57am

    Hmmm, you're getting a bit scatter-gun or just writing fast?

    Yes:
    1) trust matters (but far-left doesn't trust center-left and vice-versa) - what to do? Maybe go back to our "tell that story, make them human" approach?
    2) big ticket "socialism can work" ideas get some enthusiasm, but unsurprisingly are fairly unlikely to pass as-is.
    2b) though there are a lot of these big-ticket items - some more doable & useful & practical than others
    3) relationships matter, not just programs & policies. Humans derive relationships in eclectic ways - sharing food as one basic get-to-know-you. "Come to our neighborhood". What else?


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 09/23/2019 - 1:53pm

    Huh, the like thing gets thrown for a loop:


    by artappraiser on Mon, 09/23/2019 - 11:20pm

    This reminds me of a satire that I/Genghis posted at TPM Cafe in '08. It didn't receive much attention in the threads, but I always thought it was one of my finer contributions, one of those rare works of snark that manages to mock everyone at the same time (if I do say myself). http://dagblog.com/politics/blue-collar-boot-camp


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 09/25/2019 - 10:24am

    Was wondering if that one was inspired by the Obama infamous "cling to their guns and bibles" fund raiser statement. And then I looked it up for the exact wording and it's shocking how accurate that was :

     "They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

    2016 shouldn't really have been such a shock, it's very clear that 2008 candidates in know had the data about the Trump demographic...


    by artappraiser on Wed, 09/25/2019 - 5:07pm

    Just saw this as to that "proletariat," It's the second number here, even if exaggerated, that is worrisome to me: 58-32 voters believe the Democrats and the WashDC establishment are blocking changes President is trying to make

    66-29 huge majority believes the Democrats should work w/ ⁦@realDonaldTrump⁩ to solve the nations problems rather than impeachment; 58-32 voters believe the Democrats and the WashDC establishment are blocking changes President is trying to make. https://t.co/snIBa12vSs

    — John McLaughlin (@jmclghln) September 25, 2019

    by artappraiser on Wed, 09/25/2019 - 5:15pm

    I have no strong opinion about whether democrats should attempt to impeach Trump. But before impeachment stronger majorities were against the impeachment of Nixon. The process of impeachment is about bringing awareness to the public of the "crimes" of the president. If sufficient numbers of the public learns and agrees the senate will vote to convict.

    Forty-one percent of Americans think Trump “should be impeached and compelled to leave the presidency,” versus 53 percent who do not, according to the poll. That compares with 24 percent who supported Nixon’s impeachment and 62 percent who did not in July 1973, when the Watergate scandal was escalating and about a year before Nixon resigned.  

     As for the 58% that believe the democrats are blocking Trump, I'm one of them. I would have answered that I strongly agree. But I'm happy about it and I wish they could block Trump more. I wonder how many republicans celebrated when ever Obama and the democrats were blocked? That question doesn't really give us any information that is useful.


    by ocean-kat on Wed, 09/25/2019 - 6:30pm

    Well, a lot of shit went down after that July 1973 poll was taken, including the Saturday Night Massacre, the​ 18.5 minute gap, and the "smoking gun" tape. So I don't think we can credit the impeachment process itself with changing public opinion.

    Now if the House should uncover an 18.5 minute gap in Trump's phone call transcription, that's another matter.


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 09/25/2019 - 10:12pm

    Yes but even a year later support for impeachment was a bit below 50%. It didn't rise above 50% until a month before he resigned. I only cited that '73 poll because it was the first one I found. As I recall while support rose the majority didn't support impeachment until the very end, and then not by much. It's all part of my shtick here of being critical of polling.


    by ocean-kat on Wed, 09/25/2019 - 10:26pm

    You have a shtick?

    I would add that even when the polls are accurate, public opinion is a crude measure of political influence. Joe Congressman doesn't really care about national opinion. He cares about his donors' opinions and his constituency's opinions.


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 09/25/2019 - 11:09pm

    I think we all have our shticks here. Those particular areas that tend to trigger a response. One of my pet peeves is not so much polling but poorly designed questions that don't give much useful information. Like the question about Trump being blocked by democrats. I'd bet a large part of the majority were democrats saying Fuck yeah, and high fiving. Or Hal constantly posting polls about how a large majority love Sanders Medicare for all plan when the moment it's explained that it bans all private insurance and employer based insurance support drops like a stone.

     


    by ocean-kat on Wed, 09/25/2019 - 11:31pm

    Uncovered - Team Trump moves incriminating records to non-obvious networks:

    Rose Mary Woods is all grown up now.


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 09/26/2019 - 2:46am

    Maggie Haberman surprisingly just offered an opinion on topic! Is odd, because she doesn't often go there:


    by artappraiser on Wed, 09/25/2019 - 10:30pm

    Yeah. History clearly shows that public opinion can change quickly and dramatically, so we should avoid the misconception that today's polls determine tomorrow's. But history is much less clear about how and why public opinion changes, so we also shouldn't assume that it will change in a predictable way.


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 09/25/2019 - 10:39pm

    Well, if John McLaughlin polled it, it must be true


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 09/25/2019 - 10:02pm

    Oh crap, that was satire? What happened to my money?


    by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 09/25/2019 - 10:10pm

    Donated to the White Christian Heterosexual Cisgender Gun-Owning Male With No College Degree Defense Fund


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 09/25/2019 - 10:15pm