2020 Elections

[Vrede too]

A Close Look at Kamala Harris’ Hawkish Foreign Policy
Harris has little to say on the subject. But her record speaks volumes.

I wanted to like her, and I think that the idea of Black woman POTUS that's not in her 70s would be great. However, her prohibitionist, mass incarceration history and her con policies have turned me off.

[neoplacebo]

A Close Look at Kamala Harris’ Hawkish Foreign Policy
Harris has little to say on the subject. But her record speaks volumes.

I wanted to like her, and I think that the idea of Black woman POTUS that's not in her 70s would be great. However, her prohibitionist, mass incarceration history and her con policies have turned me off.

I pretty much disregard all the Democratic candidates other than Biden, Warren, and Sanders. I like Beto but I don't consider any but the three I listed to be viable candidates.

[O Really]

The problem for a lot of the bottom feeders is that they're seen as unknowns. If you look at historical campaigns, most candidates with a chance of winning have already run before or played and important part of the last campaign. Obama captured attention with his convention speech, for example. Trump was somewhat an exception, except that he was known from his life being perceived as a hot shot real estate guy and being able to say "You're fired" without fluffing his line most of the time. But none of them has done anything much to stand out or have people saying, "oh yeah - we need him/her for President." It's probably possible to win just by being "not Trump" which obviously helped Obama in his first campaign being "not Bush." But to attract positive attention and enthusiasm, you've got to bring something of your own.

[O Really]

No President in the history of approval polling has ever been as consistently low as Trump. Bush the Younger and Nixon hit a lower point that Trump has (so far), but were well ahead of Trump during a lot of his two terms. No other President has racked up as many scandals, or scandals of the severity of Trump's. It's almost comical to think that the Watergate caper brought down a President. It pales in comparison to an average day in the Trump administration. No President has ever been as inept in his language, as callus to his constituents, as tone-deaf to the necessities of international diplomacy, or as disrespectful to the law as Trump. Any incumbent not named "Trump" with that record would have been written off and pre-labled a one-term loser and a top contender for the worst 10 Presidents list.

Why is this guy even in a sentence with "second term?" Why would it not be accurate to say that the only way he could win in 2020 is to wanker the voting equipment in every state and that in an honest election he'd be beaten by a three-legged chipmunk.

Yeah, I know his ratings among only Republicans are high, but we also know the hard-core is less than 30% of the electorate and they're not enough to elect him by themselves. And sure, he won in 2016 in part because he didn't seem (even to me) much worse than the other clowns in the Republican car and very few knew what he was really going to be like. But now everybody knows and only 30ish percent of the electorate approves. I know it's not wise for the Dems to be or seem overconfident, but why in hell do so many articles just take the approach that it's a close race, that it's Trump's to lose, yada. Because if that's really the true and accurate picture, the country is doomed.

[Vrede too]

... I know it's not wise for the Dems to be or seem overconfident, but why in hell do so many articles just take the approach that it's a close race, that it's Trump's to lose, yada. Because if that's really the true and accurate picture, the country is doomed.

$57M raised by the campaign in just the first two quarters of this year, who knows how much by the RNC and "independent" committees.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Tr ... n#Finances
That's why.

[O Really]

You've got to have money to win, and, all things being equal, the most money usually wins. But with that level of approval and the numbers of people who hate him, and a lot of money on the other side, I don't know that the ability to get paid off by a bunch of deep-pocket grifters is the best measure of strength in this particular election. Look, I'm not saying that IRL he actually has no chance - you can rarely if ever say that about an incumbent - but I'm saying he shouldn't have the chance of a Muslim black guy with NY plates in an Alabama traffic stop.

[Vrede too]

You've got to have money to win, and, all things being equal, the most money usually wins. But with that level of approval and the numbers of people who hate him, and a lot of money on the other side, I don't know that the ability to get paid off by a bunch of deep-pocket grifters is the best measure of strength in this particular election. Look, I'm not saying that IRL he actually has no chance - you can rarely if ever say that about an incumbent - but I'm saying he shouldn't have the chance of a Muslim black guy with NY plates in an Alabama traffic stop.

Not disagreeing, just saying that much money would keep the driver safe and Jeff Epstein or Bill Cosby in the POTUS conversation.

[Vrede too]

Well, maybe I'm being tribal, since Harris is from my part of California. And I wasn't aware of her foreign policy views. Still, I would classify those as centrist, not right wing or even conservative. And it could be a great strength in the general election, because she could not be so easily attacked on grounds of being soft on whatever.

And a lot of her "history" has to do with her needing to carry out the laws of the state while she was a prosecutor and state Attorney General. The comment about her being a "prohibitionist" had me scratching my head. Here's from her website: ...

Harris has changed her views since her prosecutor days. It’s always a question how much weight to give current words vs. past deeds.

I think the Dem will be called “socialist” regardless of actual positions, and I’m not sure how many folks decide on pure left-right comparisons, anyhow.

Is she who you favor for POTUS?

[Vrede too]

... I know it's not wise for the Dems to be or seem overconfident, but why in hell do so many articles just take the approach that it's a close race, that it's Trump's to lose, yada. Because if that's really the true and accurate picture, the country is doomed.

This is where we are, not who we are.
-- Billy Bragg, English singer-songwriter and left-wing activist speaking about (I think) UK politics

I don't entirely agree as it applies to the US, but it is an uplifting thought.

[Vrede too]

2020 Vision Monday: How Biden could lose the black vote — and the Democratic nomination

I just saw my first Biden ad and immediately thought that he must be worried about the SC Black vote, the majority of SC Dem primary voters.

[Vrede too]

Jimmy Carter Says He Couldn't Have Managed Presidency at 80

Ouch, take that POSPOTUS, Biden and Bernie!

[O Really]

Jimmy Carter Says He Couldn't Have Managed Presidency at 80

Ouch, take that POSPOTUS, Biden and Bernie!

It wouldn't be me, but some would say he couldn't manage the Presidency in his 50's.

[Vrede too]

It wouldn't be me, but some would say he couldn't manage the Presidency in his 50's.

Many folks are saying exactly that under different articles.

I choose to take this latest as coming from a wise ex-POTUS, perhaps the greatest we've ever had.

[O Really]

It wouldn't be me, but some would say he couldn't manage the Presidency in his 50's.

Many folks are saying exactly that under different articles.

I choose to take this latest as coming from a wise ex-POTUS, perhaps the greatest we've ever had.

For a variety of mostly trivial reasons, I wasn't a great fan of Carter when he was in office, but he had a tough time with difficult circumstance not entirely within his control. And of course the Iran issue killed his chances at the end.

But I agree - as an ex-Pres, he's the best.

[Vrede too]

For a variety of mostly trivial reasons, I wasn't a great fan of Carter when he was in office, but he had a tough time with difficult circumstance not entirely within his control....

I had one nontrivial reason that I still don't forgive him for - resuming military aid to vile El Salvador AFTER the assassination of Archbishop Romero and the rapes and murders of the 3 US Maryknoll Sisters and a lay missionary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_murd ... l_Salvador
I voted for John B. Anderson or a minor party candidate, in a state where it was certain the EC delegates would go to Reagan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Unit ... on#Results

[billy.pilgrim]

For a variety of mostly trivial reasons, I wasn't a great fan of Carter when he was in office, but he had a tough time with difficult circumstance not entirely within his control....

I had one nontrivial reason that I still don't forgive him for - resuming military aid to vile El Salvador AFTER the assassination of Archbishop Romero and the rapes and murders of the 3 US Maryknoll Sisters and a lay missionary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_murd ... l_Salvador
I voted for John B. Anderson or a minor party candidate, in a state where it was certain the EC delegates would go to Reagan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Unit ... on#Results

I would stack his presidency against any republican in the last hundred years or so.


Carter's birthday is October 1.vim sending a card with a nice check. I know it will be used wisely. Total administration and advertising run 8%. 92% goes to help people who need help.

[O Really]

I would stack his presidency against any republican in the last hundred years or so.

Well sure, but that's a pretty low bar.

[neoplacebo]

If you've never heard or read Carter's Law Day speech given at a ceremony to honor Dean Rusk you should. it's from 74. Here it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iF_H9A8RRU

Ah, the audio sucks on this, but you can easily find the text of it. it's worth reading. He pays tribute to Reinhold Niebuhr and Bob Dylan in it.

The text of the speech.
https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speech ... ay1974.htm

[Vrede too]

You've got to have money to win, and, all things being equal, the most money usually wins. But with that level of approval and the numbers of people who hate him, and a lot of money on the other side, I don't know that the ability to get paid off by a bunch of deep-pocket grifters is the best measure of strength in this particular election. Look, I'm not saying that IRL he actually has no chance - you can rarely if ever say that about an incumbent - but I'm saying he shouldn't have the chance of a Muslim black guy with NY plates in an Alabama traffic stop.

Not disagreeing, just saying that much money would keep the driver safe and Jeff Epstein or Bill Cosby in the POTUS conversation.

2020 Vision Wednesday: Trump raised $15 million in California in one day. That should worry Democrats.

... Instead, Democrats’ cause for concern should be the mountains of money Trump is raising here — and, more importantly, the right-wing energy that money represents....

That’s $15 million in a single state in less than 24 hours. By comparison, Kamala Harris raised $11.8 million nationwide during the entire second quarter of 2019.

Though he ran an unconventional and underfunded campaign in 2016, big money has become the new normal for Trump. Back in June, the president’s reelection campaign and two joint-fundraising committees raised nearly $25 million in a single day — an all-time record and more than any 2020 Democrat (other than Pete Buttigieg) has raised in an entire quarter. Then Trump and his various committees announced that they had amassed $108 million in the second quarter of 2019, surpassing even Barack Obama’s haul from the equivalent period of his 2012 reelection campaign. Overall, Team Trump has raised $204 million to date for 2020, which is more than every Democrat combined.

The usual fear about such huge sums of cash — which could eventually total as much as $2 billion, if the wildest GOP predictions are to be believed — is that Trump and his allies could spend it on data, organization and advertising while Democrats are busy tearing each other apart, leaving the party’s eventual nominee at a financial disadvantage next fall.

Perhaps. But fundraising isn’t everything. Remember, Hillary Clinton outspent Trump two-to-one in 2016. She still lost. That year, Trump benefited from an estimated $5 billion in free earned media coverage, and cable news isn’t likely to stop covering his transgressions anytime soon. In this Trumpian media climate, who’s airing the most ads in Michigan eventually stops mattering as much as it once did.

What doesn’t stop mattering, however, is energy and enthusiasm. And that’s what should worry Democrats about Trump’s trip to California.

In 2018, dispirited Trump voters stayed home; their man wasn’t on the ballot.

That’s unlikely to happen again in 2020. Sure, the president may be hobnobbing this week with wealthy California conservatives. But their readiness to shell out $1,000, or $100,000 mirrors what’s happening on the lower rungs of the Republican fundraising ladder — and that reflects real grassroots energy.

In the second quarter of 2019, for instance, Trump campaign officials said they received 725,000 individual donations online, with supporters giving an average of $48 — small-donor enthusiasm that was, as the New York Times said, “unprecedented in Republican politics, according to a committee official, who noted it was the first time the Republican National Committee attracted a larger share of donations under $200 than the Democratic National Committee.”

At the same time, 61 percent of the money raised directly by the Trump campaign has come from small donors — up from roughly a quarter of direct contributions back when Mitt Romney and John McCain were the party’s nominees.

In other words, Trump may still be broadly unpopular next November, and Democrats may still be fired up. But they shouldn’t fool themselves into thinking their Republican counterparts won’t be just as eager to get out and vote.

Not to put you down, O Really, but it's like the author read your reasonable posts and is responding directly to them. Yikes.

[O Really]

Not to put you down, O Really, but it's like the author read your reasonable posts and is responding directly to them. Yikes.

And it's certainly a valid point of view.

Here's the part I find most troubling...

"The usual fear about such huge sums of cash — which could eventually total as much as $2 billion, if the wildest GOP predictions are to be believed — is that Trump and his allies could spend it on data, organization and advertising while Democrats are busy tearing each other apart, leaving the party’s eventual nominee at a financial disadvantage next fall."

I have long complained about the Dems circular firing squad, and I'd say they've got until first of the year maybe, to get on the same team or they'll be their own worst enemy.