2024 Elections

[billy.pilgrim]

LOL

This is worth watching. I hope her "constituents" are paying attention, but I wouldn't count on it.

https://twitter.com/Melissa_In_DC/statu ... 1018739827

It's a purple district, there's hope.

What a load of She is not some gullible airhead like Bozobert or EmptyG.

María Elvira Salazar

... Before entering politics, Salazar worked for the Spanish-language network Telemundo for three decades after serving as a news anchor for Miami-based WSBS TV. She has also worked for CNN Español and Univision....

Salazar studied at the Deerborne School of Coral Gables and graduated from Miami Dade College. In 1983, she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in communications from the University of Miami, and in 1995, she earned a master's degree in public administration from Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University....

She knows exactly what Jim DeFede is asking and what the truthful answer is

Daughter of Cuban exiles, of course, represents South Miami.

You give them too much credit by calling them exiles.

[Vrede too]

You give them too much credit by calling them exiles.

I copied and pasted from Wiki, which might have copied and pasted from the Miami Herald. I hear you and don't know any more about their particular circumstances. I did think of you while including that in my post. I know how much you like them

[billy.pilgrim]

You give them too much credit by calling them exiles.

I copied and pasted from Wiki, which might have copied and pasted from the Miami Herald. I hear you and don't know any more about their particular circumstances. I did think of you while including that in my post. I know how much you like them

I only know that they are the far right republicans who once ran an economy similar to where ours is headed with their own precious 2% living the fat and wonderful life of luxury and the 10 or 15% who lived comfortably working in the necessary services I.e. doctors, teachers, government and of course cops, lots of cops and who were driven out along with our good friend Batista and who are responsible for our insane relationship with our neigh or, Cuba.
Theirs is a truly Lost Cause

[Vrede too]

I only know that they are the far right republicans who once ran an economy similar to where ours is headed with their own precious 2% living the fat and wonderful life of luxury and the 10 or 15% who lived comfortably working in the necessary services I.e. doctors, teachers, government and of course cops, lots of cops and who were driven out along with our good friend Batista and who are responsible for our insane relationship with our neighbor, Cuba.
Theirs is a truly Lost Cause

Speaking of Lost Causes, fiscal responsibility far right RepuQ style:

Here’s How Much Cash Ron DeSantis Burned Against Trump

It cost more than $160 million for Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida to come in second place in a single nominating contest.

That astounding sum makes Mr. DeSantis’s failed presidential bid among the most expensive in modern Republican primary elections. But the details of where the money went, laid out in filings to the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday, show just how free-spending Mr. DeSantis and his allied super PACs were.

They directed at least $53 million through firms controlled or owned by Jeff Roe, the powerful Republican strategist who served as the top adviser to Never Back Down, Mr. DeSantis’s main super PAC.

They spent $31.3 million on television advertising time.

They spent at least $3.3 million on private airfare, between the campaign and Never Back Down.

And they donated roughly $110,000 to the campaigns of state and federal elected officials who had endorsed Mr. DeSantis.

Wow, a whole $110,000 out of more than $160 million. How generous!

All for 23,420 votes in Iowa.

$6,832 per vote.

... Never Back Down took an unprecedented role in managing Mr. DeSantis’s campaign, even though campaigns and super PACs are not allowed to coordinate their strategies. Mr. DeSantis handed over many duties traditionally overseen by campaign officials — like arranging events and organizing get-out-the-vote efforts — to the outside group.

Blatantly illegal, as if that matters anymore

The awkward arrangement left key decisions in the hands of super PAC leaders, rather than Mr. DeSantis’s tight circle of trusted advisers. Tensions between Never Back Down and the campaign generated flurries of negative news stories that sometimes overshadowed Mr. DeSantis’s candidacy, particularly among wealthy donors.

Opps, serves him right.

Representatives for the DeSantis campaign and Never Back Down did not respond to requests for comment. Neither did Mr. Roe.

Wimps.

Mr. DeSantis was not the only Republican candidate this cycle to spend vast sums only to drop out. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina entered the race with $22 million in his campaign coffers, carried over from his 2022 re-election bid. Within weeks, a super PAC backing him had raised an additional $20 million.

But by the fall, Mr. Scott’s fund-raising stream was drying up as enthusiasm for his candidacy dipped, new federal filings show. His groups spent heavily, with the campaign spending more than $30 million in all and the super PAC laying out $21.8 million, including about $15 million in advertising.

Zero votes. OPPS!

Details of his spending are hard to discern, because large chunks of the money went to two limited-liability companies with no other apparent business, based at suburban Staples stores.

Sounds very fishy.

In the end, Mr. Scott didn’t even make it to Iowa, dropping out in November.

If only someone had predicted that the national GQP will only nominate a White male, oh wait . . . Another non-White:

The entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy put $25.6 million of his own money into his campaign, in loans and contributions, before departing the race after coming in fourth place in Iowa. At the end of December, his campaign had $1.5 million left. A super PAC backing him raised $8.7 million and spent nearly all of it.

$32.8 million, 8,449 Iowa votes = 3,882 per vote.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-p ... nt-results

Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, a wealthy businessman, lent his campaign $14.8 million; the campaign spent $17.8 million before he left the race in December. A super PAC backing him raised $24.1 million and spent $24 million.

Another very expensive opps.

... Mr. DeSantis insisted on flying on private aircraft, a habit he picked up during his time in Tallahassee — and an unsustainable one for a candidate who was not independently wealthy.

The campaign spent beyond its means in its opening weeks, prompting a reshuffling and deep staff cuts in July. Never Back Down, which had also been laying out large sums of money, picked up much of the slack, records show, including footing the bill for Mr. DeSantis’s flights.

"not allowed to coordinate" - riiiight

... Never Back Down also quietly sent some of its money, $2.75 million, to Win It Back, a super PAC supported by the Club for Growth, an influential conservative anti-tax group. Around the same time, Win It Back ran a series of anti-Trump advertisements. The contribution was not revealed until after Mr. DeSantis had dropped out.

While Mr. DeSantis pulled his punches against Mr. Trump for much of the campaign, the donation illustrated how super PACs can be used to do a candidate’s dirty work without leaving many fingerprints....

Sleazy, typical.

$287+ million that didn't go to Dolt .45, his legal costs or other GQP evil, pending more current reporting and any revelations of illegal finance. Cool Of course, some of that spending served to spread evil ideas or create an evil atmosphere independent of the pol being supported Then, there’s all the massive ongoing spending by TRE45QN and Nikki Heat. Yuck. This is not what democracy should look like.

[O Really]

$287 mil that would have served more good to be ground into pothole filler. Assholes make me want to barf.

[GoCubsGo]

How long until the nutty?

[billy.pilgrim]

So much fun watching repugs spend their own money and that of their cult fans on losing.

[GoCubsGo]

Did he just roll out of bed?

[Vrede too]

Did he just roll out of bed?

https://twitter.com/FPWellman/status/17 ... 3297669287

Sometimes, it's hard to tell where the huckstering ends and the delusions begin.


Speaking of delusions,

These women support abortion rights. They’re still voting Trump.
Focus groups illustrate how a set of female Pennsylvania voters who backed Trump in 2020 are weighing abortion and other issues in their 2024 choice.

A group of female Pennsylvania voters who backed former President Donald Trump in 2020 and support at least some abortion rights said in focus group interviews that they don’t see their views on abortion as a barrier to voting for Trump again in 2024.

It’s an illuminating window into how a group of potential swing voters — previous Trump voters concerned about abortion access — are engaging with one of Democrats’ key issues ahead of the next election. Despite labeling abortion as a top issue facing women in America, most of the women who participated in the two focus groups said they’d back Trump in a rematch against President Joe Biden, explaining that other issues are more important to their vote.

Okay, I get that. They're cultists and if that entails self-loathing misogyny, so be it. But then, we divert into an alternate reality:

And critically, the participants largely refused to hold Trump responsible for the end of Roe v. Wade, though he appointed three of the five Supreme Court justices who backed the June 2022 decision.

... Only three of the 15 women considered Trump at least partially responsible for the court’s decision....

TRE45QN literally takes credit for overturning Roe, one of his few brags that's actually accurate:

Trump: 'I was able to kill Roe v. Wade'
The former president and front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination leans into his key role in eliminating federal abortion rights, taking credit for state-level bans.

This is no one-off, it's frequently part of his stump speech. Are these women liars or ar they sick in the head?

[GoCubsGo]

I am not at all surprised they did that.

I'm shocked they reported it.



.

[Vrede too]

I am not at all surprised they did that.

I'm shocked they reported it.

https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/ ... 8830342284

They don't care. The fake rally gets shown on the evening news while campaign finance revelations are reported by lefty outfits months later.

[Vrede too]

Since the rightwingnuts are having a cow and we discussed them:

A Taylor Swift endorsement? It's delicate.

Interesting analysis.

... "All the MAGA people have been super annoying this week," said another.

... On the right: speculation that Swift and her "vaccine shill boyfriend" - a reference to Kelce's advertisements for the coronavirus vaccine - are a "psyop" (spy-world shorthand for a psychological operation) to throw the election to Biden.

I think it's cool that Travis is doing the vax ads. Fuck the COVIDiots.

... "I have no idea if Taylor Swift would actively offer herself or not, but of course, he'd love to have her endorsement," said Mitch Landrieu, a co-chair of the Biden reelection campaign who said he loves Swift and also Beyoncé.

Beyoncé, Jay-Z, john Legend and others could make a big difference with tepid Black enthusiasm this year.

... The recent Swift backlash on the right - dominated by a vocal, mostly male, minority - has been giving some conservatives the ick, regardless of whether they're fans of Swift.

"This 'psyop' stuff makes us look QAnon crazy," says Alex Clark, a hardcore Swiftie who hosts a pop culture podcast for Turning Point USA, a right-wing youth organization. "The left tries to say we're insane, and this doesn't help."

"tries"?

... Their group chat is actually a spinoff of another - one dedicated to queer women staffers on the Hill. Swift's advocacy on LGBTQ+ rights has been meaningful to members of both chats. One of them recalls crying when she saw Swift cast a trans man as her love interest in her music video for her song "Lavender Haze."

"Maybe she can't convince a Republican to vote for Joe Biden," one Hill Swiftie said, "but she could convince them that trans people are people."

My opinion:
Since she's known to lean liberal and endorsed Joe in 2020 an endorsement this year won't affect much.
She may choose to wait until after the nomination, either out of fairness or because she's as concerned about Joe as the rest of us. This may be most effective, being "new" in the Fall.
Given 2020, a lack of endorsement would be glaring.
She might make a big difference with independents and turnout if she actively campaigns beyond just an endorsement. Just one appearance at a rally for Joe would be big news that the left would share for months. She could craft the campaign's anthem if she chose.

[O Really]

A potential weakness for Dems this year is apathy among the youngish, largely because of lack of enthusiasm for Joe. That would be really rampant among many more of us, too, if the repugs were normalish and ran normalish candidates, but we're too afraid of Trump II to sit it out. So if Taylor can get her Swifties mobilized just to participate, that'll do a lot of good for Joe.

[Vrede too]

LOL

He's got a ready-made campaign staff:

"She's a joke": Nancy Mace's ex-aides spill the beans after entire staff bails in just 3 months

... “All this is why pretty much every staffer and fellow member on the Hill thinks she’s a joke. Also a big reason why she’s only able to hire former George Santos staffers right now," the former staffer said....

Ouch.

[GoCubsGo]

She might not be wrong.

[Vrede too]

She might not be wrong.

https://twitter.com/AccountableGOP/stat ... 2727109855

Doesn't Dolt .45 raise more money if he has a credible primary opponent?

The ‘None Of These Candidates’ Option Wins Nevada GOP Primary
The result is a symbolic rejection of Nikki Haley, who was the only major candidate on the ballot.

The “none of these candidates” option has won in Nevada’s symbolic Republican presidential primary contest, an embarrassing result for Nikki Haley, who was the only major candidate on the ballot.

The former U.N. ambassador opted to compete in the state-run primary election Tuesday instead of the party’s presidential caucuses, the only contest in the state that awards delegates toward the nomination. Former President Donald Trump is the only major candidate competing in the caucuses on Thursday and will likely sweep the state’s Republican delegates as a result....

Haley’s campaign balked at the $55,000 fee the Nevada GOP was charging candidates to participate in the caucuses.

“We have not spent a dime nor an ounce of energy on Nevada. We made the decision early on that we were not going to pay $55,000 to a Trump entity to participate in a process that is rigged for Trump,” Haley campaign manager Betsy Ankney told reporters on Monday. “Nevada is not and has not been our focus.”

... “None” can’t win an elected office but it came in first in primary congressional contests in 1976 and 1978. It also finished ahead of both George Bush and Edward Kennedy in Nevada’s 1980 presidential primaries....

Republican Presidential Primary: Nevada

None of these candidates 63.2% 43,893, 22,694 ahead
Nikki Haley 30.5% 21,199
Mike Pence 4.0% 2,752
Tim Scott 1.4% 950

Est. vote in: 93%
Updated 8:14 a.m. ET, Feb. 7

Ouch. Nikki, maybe lose that number.

[GoCubsGo]

She might not be wrong.

https://twitter.com/AccountableGOP/stat ... 2727109855

Doesn't Dolt .45 raise more money if he has a credible primary opponent?

Don't think so. He's been getting the small donations but struggling overall and spending like a drunken sailor. He's way behind Jolting Joe and the RNC just had to beg for a credit line increase.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/31/politics ... index.html

[Vrede too]

She might not be wrong.

https://twitter.com/AccountableGOP/stat ... 2727109855

Doesn't Dolt .45 raise more money if he has a credible primary opponent?

Don't think so. He's been getting the small donations but struggling overall and spending like a drunken sailor. He's way behind Jolting Joe and the RNC just had to beg for a credit line increase.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/31/politics ... index.html

Excellent news, but I solely meant more money if he has a credible primary opponent than if he doesn't. Idk if he's raising enough. In a sane world his minions would start getting tired of seeing campaign donations going to his exorbitant legal costs, instead.

Your link is from January 31, 2023. Opps.

[GoCubsGo]

Your link is from January 31, 2023. Opps.

He does have $$ problems coming though.

Donald Trump's Fundraising Plummets

[Vrede too]

He does have $$ problems coming though.

Donald Trump's Fundraising Plummets

Bravo.

... Trump was recently ordered by a jury to pay writer E. Jean Carroll more than $83 million in damages for defaming her while denying that he sexually assaulted her.

The former president could also soon face a fine totaling hundreds of millions of dollars as part of the fraud lawsuit filed against him by New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Trump has not explicitly stated that he would not use campaign funds to help pay the penalties handed to him in the civil cases.

On top of very high priced lawyers, MAGAts donating to Dolt .45-accusers, and NYC, NY State and federal courts is beyond perfect!