That time Chuck Todd thought Trump needed his stamp of approval. pic.twitter.com/7Vd7BANdtB
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) August 4, 2015
Chuck Todd on Trump:
"It's not fair to what is the strongest Republican party presidential field in 36 years." pic.twitter.com/iT8jGDxSba
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) August 4, 2015
Trump's debate hat, revealed. pic.twitter.com/K9IVEaWDRk
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) August 4, 2015
Why can't Trump be sane like the rest of the party that wants to take away essential women's health services because of a YouTube video?
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) August 4, 2015
Sorry, Mr. Todd, it’s crazy all the way down. And they like it that way!
***********
Apart from Media Villagers being oblivious, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
different-church-lady
In which an old white guy explains to a brown guy why he has no standing to think another old white guy might be having some struggles with a “race problem”.
srv
Even the liberal Ezra Klein thinks you people can’t handle the truth:
Benw
Trump should wear an “I’m with stoopid” t-shirt.
Baud
Suddenly Chuck is concerned about fairness. What happened to it not being the media’s job to correct GOP lies about Obamacare? Where is that Chuck Todd?
Mike J
You remember the reaction of Lisa Simpson and neighbor Laura when Bart described Jimbo Jones, “He’s just a good-looking rebel who plays by his own rules.”?
Chuckie just uttered a Bartism, and the GOP base will react the same way Lisa and Laura did.
Keith G
What I am linking to is not a sexy news story in that it doesn’t show people we dislike saying foolish things. Neither is it (mostly) about racism or a dead lion.
No.
This NYT news story is documenting what is happening to tens of thousands of our citizens every year. It is one of the main ways that we are keeping and building a permanent underclass in our society. And this story does not even begin to crack the surface of the cancer that is how paroles and bonds are handled in this society. And it seems to be a story that will once again disappear into the ether since it is just not twitter ready or click-batey enough.
Patricia Kayden
Why is Chuck Todd pushing the lie that this is the “strongest Republican party presidential field in 36 years”? Really? And shouldn’t Todd be neutral about the strength of both parties’ fields?
different-church-lady
@Patricia Kayden: “Strength in numbers” perhaps?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Patricia Kayden: Well, it may be the most diverse field, going from the crazy to the batshit crazy.
RaflW
Free burgers at our local Neighborhood Night Out block party. Ice cream sandwiches, too, and fantastic weather. I am a winter lover (I know, you’re thinking what?), but this low humidity, 80ish daytime stuff we’re having in Minnesota could kinda make me be bi-seasonal.
eta: Come to think of it, free burgers, and a neighborhood block party – what is this, socialism??? I’ll take mine with cheese, please, comrade.
Baud
@srv:
Interesting question: who would we prefer to Trump if a Republican had to be president?
Patricia Kayden
@different-church-lady: To be fair to the author of that article, Sanders is one of the good guys and there is no reason for those of us on the Left to attack our own. Perhaps he doesn’t say things the way we would want him to but I don’t get the vitriolic attacks on Sanders at all. He’s a damn sight better on race relations and civil rights issues than any of the Clowns on the Right. And he has a history of actually fighting for civil rights which earns him a lot of credit in my opinion.
He’s not going to be the Democratic nominee, but he’s done a good job of getting Secretary Clinton to voice her opinion on some progressive issues important to the base. We need to learn to disagree with people without going all bonkers when they are on our side.
We can save our anger and vitriol for the Republican nominee.
Patricia Kayden
@Baud: Zombie Reagan sounds good about now since none of the current Clown Car is fit to be near the White House.
Smiling Mortician
@srv: Klein’s wrong. All Republican factions are angry and marginalized.
RaflW
@Baud:
Inside Area Man’s Butt, GQ reports.
Oh, wait, that’s Walker. Oops. So sorry for my casual misapprehension of the facts.
Baud
@RaflW:
Are you Chuck Todd?
different-church-lady
@Patricia Kayden: I agree that Sanders is one of the good guys. In fact, he might be the best “guy” in the race.
But it’s astonishing to me that a diary with its head about as far up the whitesplaining ass as it can go gets 400 stamps of approval. Even if you did it by accident, telling minorities they have “no standing” to have feelings about race is about as ignorant as a so-called “progressive” can be.
I don’t think Sanders has a race problem so much as a messaging problem. But a subset of his supporters sure as hell seem to have an entitlement problem.
And Daily Kos has a nutbag problem, but that’s been ongoing for quite a while.
slag
So glad to see that Chuck Todd has the Republican Party’s back. Such a worthy cause. Go, Chuck, go! Stand up for the little people.
Help them, Chuck Todd, you’re their only hope!
Litlebritdifrnt
@Keith G:
Our Chief District Court Judge has just banned children and cellphones from the Courthouse. So all single mothers and anyone with a cellphone will not be able to show up to Court to take care of their traffic ticket thereby incurring a $200.00 failure to appear fee in addition to the fines and court costs that are already incurred as a result of the ticket. The fact that the cops are writing tickets at a rate of hundreds a day tells you what is going on here.
RaflW
@Baud: Awww, you noticed. [blush]
Tom Levenson
Why they ever let little Chuck out of the kiddie pool I’ll never grasp. He’s an OK political junkie/technician — perfectly well suited to talking about the remaining GOP vote in whatever county or how effective in converting contacts to votes a given campaign may have been. Anything involving policy or making an actual judgment about something that requires some knowledge and analytical skill? Sweet Jeebus on a deep-fried Twinkie, is that little puppy out of his depth.
Brachiator
“Trump doesn’t play by a set of rules.”
Is he the Joker?
White Trash Liberal
@Keith G:
Probation, parole and fines are overwhelmingly a race problem. Probation terms stiffen and fines rise in urban areas and affect those dwellers the most, which is disproportionately black and Hispanic.
This issue is enormous and deserves scrutiny and reform. The criminal justice system post-Reagan, along with the Fair Isaac credit system are locking swaths of humanity into poverty and criminal recidivism. And that is how the majority of the US wants it to be. The areas of the US with the most egregious probation and parole terms are often in the most liberal cities.
kindness
@Baud: Bite your tongue. Republicans never HAVE to be President.
JustRuss
Poor Chucktodd will be so sad when he hears about Cruz’s bacon-cooking shenanigans.
RaflW
@Tom Levenson:
Which was at the top of his resume, naturally. NBC didn’t want competence, they wanted lame-ass conventional wisdom that won’t make frightened old people spit up their oatmeal on Sunday morning while the watch the TeeVee.
jl
@Patricia Kayden: I was thinking more like ‘idiot’ than ‘lie’ but… who knows what is going on the Todd’s head?
So, Chuck Todd is flummoxed because Trump does not conform to the corporate hack public affairs infortainment product specifications that Todd is familiar with.
Who watched that Mornin’ Joe crap anyway? Something like 200K people watch that junk in the whole country.
Edit: How much money does Todd make? And he cannot even handle a guy like Trump?
Howard Beale IV
@Brachiator: When you deal with Trump, you’re not dealing with him directly. He’s so insulated himself by using OPM you have no chance of getting him. Just look at his history.
And that is exactly what he will do to the United States.
Baud
@JustRuss:
Doubt it. What guy doesn’t appreciate the joy of chewing the hot piece of meat at the end of a long, hard tool used to launch projectiles?
Smiling Mortician
@White Trash Liberal: Absolutely the plundering of the poor by the law enforcement system is worse for those with darker skin. But it affects economically fragile, powerless people everywhere, including areas with large majorities of poor whites who must be fleeced for the enrichment of The System (and its sometimes corrupt employees). Police departments, courts, and attorneys suck up boatloads of cash from those who truly can’t afford it, all over this country, every day. Often — not always, but often — from those who never committed a crime (or at least never committed a crime that affected anyone negatively in any way). It sucks.
RaflW
@jl:
I do admit to being mystified by this. Even Fox Noooz gets what, 900K viewers for their top rated show? Out of 300,000,000 people? And everyone jumps as if the Emperor himself was in your livingroom. Really, the tail is wagging the dog. 1/3 of 1% (or for MorningBlow, more like 1/10th of 1%) should be a nothingburger extraordinaire.
jl
Schooley’s tweet needs fixing.
‘ Why can’t Trump be sane like the rest of the party that wants to take away essential women’s health services because of a YouTube video? ‘
should be
‘ Why can’t Trump be sane like the rest of the party that wants to take away essential women’s health services because of crooked YouTube video by fraudulent front group ‘
139 characters. BAM! I need to get me a twitter account and do it live!
White Trash Liberal
@different-church-lady:
This is why Bernie is having a problem. He’s chasing th Caucasian unicorn.
Mike in NC
Chuck Todd ought to be cozying up to Trump for combover tips.
White Trash Liberal
@Smiling Mortician:
I am saying that because it disproportionately affects minorities and has for over a generation, it is and continues to be ignored.
This is real and much more immediate civil liberties issue than metadata collection. Once you are on probation, you are more than likely going on a Kafkaesque thrill ride from which you cannot recover. But probation is not a problem in the suburbs and exurbs.
Keith G
@Smiling Mortician: Gun violence (and other types as well) get so much press and devastate so many, but I think the personal and community devastation represented in that article is so much more profound with farther reaching and deeper impacts.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
JGabriel
Fox Propaganda announces the Republic Party’s debate line-up:
USA Today:
Mike E
@CSI:srv
God bless the USA!
Baud
@White Trash Liberal:
Give Bernie his due for this
Roger Moore
@Patricia Kayden:
He’s confused “biggest” and “strongest”. That and he’s trying to play up the idea that the Republicans are strong because it boosts the narrative that there’s going to be a close race. Telling the truth- that the Republican field is a clown car full of has-beens, never-weres, and certain-to-be-indicteds- would threaten their ratings.
shell
@Baud: Uhhhhhh, considering what the offerings are….
Barry Goldwater
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Is Nader allowed to use credit cards? Operate a motor vehicle? Big people scissors?
JPL
@Keith G: Horrific!
White Trash Liberal
@Patricia Kayden:
The attacks aren’t vitriolic. The defense of the candidate by his supporters is vitriolic.
Bernie is chasing white working class voters. He thinks that voting bloc is what aspiring liberal politicians should chase in order to bring on the revolution. That means appealing to a constituency that does not historically care about issues central to the African American and female base of the party.
His campaign is negatively race conscious. By that I mean he is very aware of race, and wants those concerns to take a back seat to an economic revolution becatae taming the Caucasian unicorn means not upsetting them with icky race or gender concerns.
This appeals to DKOS tards like that jackhole who wrote that ugly tone deaf missive because they are overwhelmingly white and young. But the traditional base does not find this aspect of Bernie appealing.
RaflW
@Keith G: The racial justice coalition I work/volunteer with in the Twin Cities is starting a new push around parole issues in our county. We are hoping to move the process more towards a focus on work skills and an exit plan for when people get off probation. We fully expect it to be very hard work. The system is set up for punishment, not for reform or second chances.
If we want to have a decent, civil society, we have to change the punishment culture. Of course we’ll be branded as soft on crime. But the NYT article really shows how that perception is so often bull**it. Thanks for linking & pointing out the urgency.
jl
@shell: Since the policy positions Trump is currently spouting are mostly same as other GOPers this cycle, I guess would have to go back to Dole, or McCain or Romney to get some policy difference.
currants
Just saw a new book that made me think of all you wonderful pet-rescuers: Dogland, by Jackie Skole.
ETA: link goes to publisher–Ashland Creek Press, if it matters.
Roger Moore
@JustRuss:
He should be happy. The Republicans aren’t a three ring circus; they must have at least five rings to fit that many clowns.
Keith G
@White Trash Liberal:
It is.
It is not an “several on every block” problem, but when I taught in a suburban school, I was amazed at the number of kids (and sometimes their parents) who were having a ongoing relationship with the county probation system. And when an hourly worker, who might be without a car, or even a licence, tries to hook up transpiration from the suburbs, it is …well….difficult.
Not too many buses in the exurbs either.
Anne Laurie
@srv:
Klein’s a self-professed libertarian, not a liberal. Learn the difference before you embarrass yourself — again.
Smiling Mortician
@White Trash Liberal: Probation is very much a problem in small towns. There are lots of those in America, most with poorly funded police and court systems. Money’s gotta come from somewhere, so it comes from those who can’t afford to fight or avoid the dragnet.
Keith G
@RaflW: That’s great. I hope hope other places hear of that and start their own efforts.
gogol's wife
@Baud:
Lowell Weicker.
White Trash Liberal
@Baud:
Ok. That’s a damn big bonus.
mai naem mobile
@Keith G: this judge is a special kind of beeyotch.http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2013-03-22/news/bs-md-ci-officer-wiretap-trial-20130322_1_vila-wiretap-case-baltimore-police-officer
She didn’t want to be disturbed on Saturday so the cop records her to cover his ass. I bet she’s getting some kind of kickback like the judge in Penn or that drug court story on This American Life.
Roger Moore
@RaflW:
It’s very simple: the people who are jumping and screaming about it are news junkies. DC insiders care deeply about the news and pay considerable attention to it. Most of the people they deal with are also DC insiders, so that’s what they hear about. The net result is that the decision makers care deeply about it even though the rest of the country doesn’t. You don’t have to have a big audience as long as you have an influential audience.
RaflW
@Roger Moore: It’s a one ring circus, they all perform the same stunts for the same narrow audience of interests.
Anne Laurie
@Litlebritdifrnt:
If your courthouse is like every other urban courthouse with similar idiot restrictions, there’s one or more convenience stores down the block doing good business babysitting phones for a small fee. (And frequently the kids as well, not always on purpose.) Free enterprise!
Baud
@gogol’s wife:
A plus for him
And a minus
Brachiator
I’m hearing that Rick Perry has dropped out. Any verification?
srv
@Anne Laurie:
Lol, relabel the people on your side libertarian, unitarian or unicornian, Klein is not a libertarian.
Let me google that for you:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezra_Klein
RaflW
@Roger Moore:
I think that influence is waning much faster than Chuckie or the politicians realize. Pollsters are starting to recognize that what happened in 2014 will only get worse as polling techniques struggle. But media saturation in younger generations is nothing like it has been, and the policy mechanism hasn’t adjusted to how the landscape of the internet has changed things.
Does Todd pay any attention to Last Week Tonight? Does McConnell? I doubt it, but they spread on the internet pretty widely and are beyond the electoral-sensing probes of the dinosaur newsmedia functions.
eta: I don’t mean to oversell that one weekly show’s influence, but that the center of gravity in politics is moving out of the 8pm Cable news slot/Sunday greenrooms.
bystander
Watched as much of Moanin’ Joe as I could stomach this morning. Is it really fair that Joe and Mika each have their own knee pads, but their sidekicks, The Nepotist and The Plagiarist, are forced to share a pillow every time they want to “ask a question”? Unfair and unsanitary, I say.
The other day Maureen Dowd’s fantasy column about Joe Biden had Mika and Joe both clenching all their sphincters with ecstasy. Can you imagine how many times they’d be able to say “gaffe prone” if Biden threw his hat in the ring? Does anyone want to guess how long it would be before the plagiarism incident (Biden’s, not The Barnicle’s) would be brought up? Their crocodile tears over Beau Biden wouldn’t be dry yet.
White Trash Liberal
@Keith G:
True. I shouldn’t have been so blithe. But the problem is much, much worse in inner cities. The juvenile and adult systems commingle to create a literal cradle to grave incarceration culture.
This is bleeding into these other areas, especially as city revenues slashed by chamber of commerce beholden politicians need to come from somewhere. But, having lived in and been part of coalitions trying to reform this system, the urban “liberal” centres are the worst. By far.
ruemara
@Patricia Kayden: Miss me with that. To say that BLM activists are being vitriolic is to be hyperbolic. Asking for a response to problem that’s going on now that isn’t about a speech or marching with MLK 50 years ago is vitriolic? Come on now.
It’s not even the old white person condescension from Sanders that has turned me off. I can deal with that, especially from someone of his generation. It’s not great, but in the end, he’s got a good heart on this issue and has proven it with a public stance. It’s been the dismissal, the anger and the condemnation from his supporters that has turned me right off. Y’all duke it out how you feel in the primary. If I have donations and fucks to give after that, it’ll go to the winner. Tired of this bullshit.
JPL
@Brachiator: His website says he is looking forward to the five o’clock debate.
Calouste
@JGabriel: Christie v. The Donald is going to be interesting. And didn’t Kasich have an anger management issue? Although I doubt he will get much attention from the others.
RaflW
@Brachiator: edit: NYT says out of the big table drinking game.
Mike in NC
NBC News reports that only Ten Angry Men will be allowed on the GOP Klown Kar stage on Thursday night. Jindal, Graham, Perry, Fiorina and the rest need to go away so that JEB! can get on with the serious business of the Clearing of the Field.
JEB! said today that half a billion dollars was too much to spend on womens’ health. Then said he misspoke. Idiot needs to hire a stupid translator.
sharl
@Brachiator: Nothing on Twitter or Google Search/{News} on “Rick Perry”. Just the news that he didn’t make the cut for Thursday’s debate, often served with a generous dollop of mockery. People are so mean; must be because he wears glasses.
beltane
@Mike in NC: Dang, I was looking forward to some Trump on Graham action.
JPL
@RaflW: I assumed he meant dropped out, like dropped out of the race.
The NYTimes said he didn’t make the cut for the late debate.
mai naem mobile
@JGabriel: so this is like the Miss America Pageant where they whittle them down to the top ten and then they have to do the talent competition and answer the bs question. So Walker’s talent is going to be Koch blo jobs. Cruz’s will be shutting down the government. Rubio’s will be skating away from foreclosed homes. Bush’s will be acting like he’s the smart one. Trump’s will be balancing talking and managing to keep Morris the cat on his head at the same time. Dr Ben Carson, noted pediatric surgeon, has the talent of separating the Koch twins and then transfusing.their money to the Bush twins who he also had to separate.
Roger Moore
@Smiling Mortician:
The more I hear this, the more I’m convinced that depending predominantly on local funding for so many of our critical government services is a terrible idea. Plenty of states have been forced by lawsuits to provide statewide funding of education so that poor school districts have theoretically adequate levels of funding. It’s time to do the same thing for police, fire, and other basic functions of local government. In return, local courts should have to turn any money they recover from fines to the state general fund.
Calouste
@Mike in NC: Jeb! is just showing, once again, that he doesn’t really know what’s coming out of his mouth and that he can’t think on his feet. He’s going to drop a Perry-sized dollop at a debate sooner or later.
RaflW
@Calouste:
Ahh, jeb., the hope of establishment Republicans. Which of course shows just how hopeless they are.
shell
On the news they said the debate wil be two hours long. Think I need to get more Chex Mix….and bourbon.
Patrick
Based on what? Does anyone realistically (other than apparently the “insightful” Chuck Todd) think that any of the Republicans have any kind of chance to beat Clinton?
gian
@White Trash Liberal:
The Democratic party is a coalition. Each part of that coalition has a base. The largest demographic group of that coalition when Bernie was a kid was working class whites who voted for FDR.
That demographic split allegencies starting in the 60s.
I think Sanders may not realize the full extent of the role that racism had is causing that split. However until non-white voter turnout is as reliably large enough to carry the day number crunchers will chase the white vote.
This always shows cracks in the coalition that makes up the Democratic party. We have to compromise on candidates because we don’t have a distinct base.
The Republicans have a clear base, older religious white people. They don’t have much internal strife about which part of the coalition gets to go first because they are not a coalition.
The only thing that seems to split them recently is immigration as their wealthy overlords love cheap migrant labor and their old white Christian base is at best sceptical of the economics if not down right racist.
Whoever runs as the Democratic candidate has to appeal to the whole coalition to win. That means not simply chasing the fabled Reagan Democrat, but talking with listening to all of the coalition. It also means any part of the coalition defecting or sitting things out can sink the whole thing.
In 2008 the GOP fear over purple Virginia and Carolinas was palpable and you’d be foolish not to tie it to increased African American turnout.
But Indiana also went Democratic.
I think I need an editor.
Baud
@gian: I agree with all this.
shell
Why do I feel that Jeb, especially if he snags the nomination, will become like Romney’s mystery man. His campaign and spokesman will keep on saying, right up til election day, “Just wait, at (fill in whatever event you choose-Republican convention, major speech, etc.) today you’ll will get to meet the REAL Jeb.”
And it never happens.
goblue72
@White Trash Liberal: OTOH, chasing the traditional base has delivered us one branch of office in the last 8 years, while losing us the entire legislative branch to the enemy who has near record setting majority in the House, and a firm hold on the Senate (to which I see nothing on the horizon indicating they will lose, no matter how many seats they have to “defend”). Except for a brief 4 year window due almost entirely to Bush being the worst President in 100 years, we haven’t seen the GOP lose their grip on Congress since the Gingrich Revolution. And the third branch has been lost to us since Reagan was President.
So, I don’t know, maybe figure out how to appeal to down-market white voters isn’t exactly such a crazy idea. Given that regardless of current demographic trendlines overall in the U.S. population, its middle-aged white voters who by and large decide the composition of our Federal – and even more critically so – our state governments.
MomSense
A drinking game for this Republican/FOX debate could be dangerous. I have to admit I’m hesitant after my experience during a 2007/2008 Democratic debate when I drank every time Edwards said “millworker’s son”.
Not T
@Baud:
A ham sandwich
beltane
@MomSense: I was much younger back then. My liver may not be able to handle the Republican debates this time around.
Baud
@goblue72:
I don’t think anyone objects to trying to appeal to them. There is a lot of skepticism that they can be successfully appealed to without throwing some more loyal constituency under the bus.
Baud
@Not T:
I think ham sandwich is solidly No Labels.
Mandalay
@Patrick:
Well I do, depending on their candidate, and what happens between now and when we all vote. It’s unlikely, but it is definitely possible. Putting it the other way: does anyone reallly believe that Clinton is unbeatable?
She would certainly be the favorite at the moment, but the only way she is a certainty to win is if Trump runs as an independent.
oldgold
Chuck Todd always swims in the shallow end of the pool.
Cervantes
@Patrick:
Sheer horsepower.
different-church-lady
@goblue72:
It’s not such a crazy idea if your aim/understanding is to add them to the coalition.
If you think you can trade the two, on the other hand, then you’ve got one hell of a delusion going on.
At this point I’m not sure which view the Senator actually has.
Peale
@goblue72: Yep. I really don’t like our odds waiting around while the tide turns and our voters decide that voting for governor in off years is kind of important maybe. We lose one presidential election and Republicans will basically install federal barriers like the conservatives did in Hungary that will basically end any prospects for Democratic party policy choices for a few more generations. Frankly, I think we’re more likely to see the question of the return of slavery debated in Congress before we see a Democratic speaker in the House.
Gimlet
@MomSense:
I’ve heard the rules for this one are to drink whenever one of the candidates utters an entirely truthful statement.
BillinGlendaleCA
@gian:
No, you’re doing fine.
MomSense
@beltane:
HA! The recovery time does increase with age. I may have to get through these debates sober which sounds like a terrible idea.
Medical marijuana?
Mandalay
@MomSense:
A few sure bets on Thursday:
– Santorum will tell you that his grandfather was a coal miner
– Rubio will tell you his parents fled Cuba to live the American Dream.
– Kasich will tell you he worked for Reagan.
Cervantes
@Gimlet:
Coming from you that is an especially mischievous suggestion!
BillinGlendaleCA
@gian:
No, you’re doing fine.
@Baud: Nope, it’s a tuna sandwich.
goblue72
@Baud: Skepticism by whom? The status quo crowd whose genius strategy has delivered us enduring control of only one branch of office over the last 20 years?
Now who is delusional?
One white voter who switches to our team and the loss of one black voter for our team who stays home is still a net win. We gain net zero votes, but they are negative one vote. I’m not arguing in favor of that – just that the ugly electoral math is not a straight-forward as you’d like to think.
PaulW
@MomSense:
Too late, I already drew up a drinking game, and damn it’s one of the most popular blog articles I’ve ever wrote.
I’ve gone and made Updates to it, as well, to reflect the final line-up. http://noticeatrend.blogspot.com/2015/07/it-has-to-be-done-gop-debate-drinking.html
Poopyman
@MomSense: A shot for every time you agree with something one of them says.
Gimlet
@Cervantes:
Sit and watch it with a mountain of rolled up socks next to you.
PaulW
@Mandalay:
I got the Rubio thing in the drinking game rules already. I didn’t get the Santorum thing though.
White Trash Liberal
@gian:
Very well put. I agree. I do view the party base as AA and working women, in terms of agenda. Ignoring or second-placing them in order to chase unicorns is wrong-headed.
BillinGlendaleCA
@goblue72: The problem is, that you’re not going to get that 1 white voter shift. The Reagan Democrats are gone, and dying out.
Baud
@goblue72:
Skepticism by people who recognize that Romney received the same percentage of the white vote as Reagan, and that white voters would elect Trump over Hillary.
And more people vote for Democrats than Republicans in congressional elections. The GOP wins because of gerrymandering. Our side is getting more numerous and their side is getting smaller with each passing year. There is no going back.
And besides, if there was a way to reach white working class voters, it will show up in local and congressional elections before it shows up in the presidential elections. No evidence of that yet.
Gimlet
@PaulW:
Santorum will be watching it along with you. He didn’t make the cut.
Tripod
@White Trash Liberal:
Which all comes back to a political world view that is hopelessly past its sell by date.
The American working class – now a surprisingly diverse bunch!
It also ignores Dean 2004, which somehow managed to blow through $50 million and bomb out of Iowa a distant third, running to that same unicorn constituency….
Poopyman
Florida Man is at it again. Must be one of Betty’s neighbors.
BillinGlendaleCA
@PaulW:
You don’t need to worry about that, unless you start out with the “Happy Hour Debate”. In that case you should consider rehab.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Exactly, they’ll vote for a Republican before they’ll vote for a Republican Lite.
Republican Lite: tastes shitty, and make ya fat.
Mandalay
@PaulW:
Santorum wants the vote of the regular guy, so he wants to be seen as a regular guy, so he spews the coal miner nonsense to mask reality:
http://www.thenation.com/article/rick-santorums-elite-background/
PaulW
@Gimlet:
They got the 5 PM Happy Hour debate, the one Lindsey Graham joked about doing.
WereBear
Trump might go all the way. Because I do believe he has no idea when he’s being humiliated. He cannot be shamed out of it!
He’s got a cloak of invincibility there.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Poopyman: Looks like your link got pulled, I’m getting a 404 error.
MomSense
@Mandalay:
I’ll be happy if Santorum talks about his grandfather being a coal miner as that sounds a lot better than discussing bringing home a miscarried fetus in a jar to show his kids. EEEEEEWWWWW. Rubio will be utterly forgettable. Lindsey Graham is going to give his pathetic stump speech with the gratuitous lines about Bill “did not have sex with that woman” Clintion and his war with Iran bullshit.
PaulW
@Mandalay:
I did not even know that. I never paid attention to him. He openly goes around claiming he’s the grandson of a coal-miner? Hell, I’m the grandson of a WWII submarine commander. Vote for me, dammit.
Patrick
@Mandalay:
Just speaking for myself; who among the Goopers is going to beat her? Bush has the wrong last name, walker is not ready for primetime. Hillary’s campaign hasn’t even started yet. I’m not even a Hillary supporter, but based on what i see on the other side…
BillinGlendaleCA
@WereBear: I was thinking that contributing to Dems or having some liberal positions(health care) might do it; so far it’s not stopping The Donald.
SatanicPanic
@Peale: Oh come on, it was only 5 years ago that Nancy Pelosi was speaker. Yes, Republicans will try to restrict voting or whatever if they get someone in the White House (which is itself highly unlikely), but in the end, they can only ignore the will of the people so much.
MomSense
@Poopyman:
That game sounds survivable!
PaulW
@BillinGlendaleCA:
I don’t even drink. I wrote the game because I joked about there being one with Oliver Willis on Twitter and decided, “damn it, there’s a market for this sort of thing, I’LL write it.”
And there was. This Monday I got 2,006 pageviews on my blog, the busiest my site had ever been in one day.
PaulW
@BillinGlendaleCA:
And I did keep the also-rans on the list just in case people DID want to drink along to the Happy Hour Brew Krewe.
Kay
@Smiling Mortician:
Yup. It gets worse every year. They get in and they cannot get out. It’s worse for juveniles. They can be under court control until they are 21. They can spend 4 or 5 years in the system for a minor offense. Their are fines and court costs and fees for mandated counseling and evaluations that their parents have to pay. The longer they’re in it the more likely it is they’ WILL screw up in some fashion, and then they’re in on that. Out of control. Completely.
MomSense
@PaulW:
Drinking for every mention of HRC’s server/email/Benghazi/speaking fees/Clinton Foundation would be a guaranteed trip to the hospital with alcohol poisoning.
Baud
@MomSense:
Meh. You’re Obamacare is secure now. What do you care?
Botsplainer
@Baud:
I’d Twitter troll Todd, but he blocked me over a year ago, the chickenshit.
goblue72
@Peale: Pretty much. And the predicted “Coming Democratic Majority” predicted by John Judis and Ruy Texeira based on demographics has completely failed to materialize outside of the White House election, as its the only election purely based on total population vote and is not tied to & limited by geographic boundaries.
Which is the problem – our base is packed into urban areas, which occupies a relatively small portion of the national geography – a distinct disadvantage in an electoral system that is geographically based – even absent the further skewing effects of gerrymandering. Our voters are all jammed into places like SF, NYC, Chicago, etc. Their voters are everywhere.
Their base is indeed older and whiter – but its not entirely just a bunch of soon to pass away retirees. If anything, the real backbone core to the GOP dominance is white middle class voters with an undergraduate college degree (but not a graduate degree) – which are the voters who make up a quite large proportion of suburban America. And unlike our voters, they show up way more frequently every election.
And the kinds of public policies that speak to them are – frankly – not the kinds of social programs we are typically pitching. Put another way – Obamacare – which is an unmitigated “good” thing – mostly serves to benefit poorer (often browner) households. It provides only modest benefit to middle class suburbanites – most of whom already had employer-provided health insurance and are mostly seeing the ongoing trend of increasing cost/less benefits continue. Meanwhile, globalization, the lingering effects of the Great Recession, stagnating wages continues.
We need those votes to secure enduring power over the LEGISLATIVE process – which is the core endgame of politics – and most of those voters don’t really care – not in a motivating way – one way or another about police body cams or prison reform. OTOH, they do care that they haven’t gotten a decent raise in 20 years and the only thing the government seems to have done – from where they are standing – is expand a Medicaid program that can’t use.
PaulW
@Poopyman:
The object of a drinking game is to get drunk, not stay sober.
If there’s ever a moment a SANE person – which 87 percent of the commentariat here usually are – agrees with that GOP line-up’s platform of race-baiting, women-hating, war-mongering and tax cuts (good God, tax cuts aren’t even a major topic this week) that is a moment even *I* reach for the bottle of Jack Daniels. I’m even gonna have to drive out and buy a bottle of Jack Daniels for the occasion, dammit.
JPL
@MomSense: I worry about Doug’s meetup group to watch the debate.
MomSense
@Gimlet:
Who is doing the fact checking? Asking for my liver.
MomSense
@Baud:
I still haven’t met my deductible!
MomSense
@JPL:
At least they won’t be drinking alone?
Kay
@Smiling Mortician:
They know it, too. They know it’s a racket. They ask for detention instead of probation. They wheel and deal to get it done and over with. Only middle class juveniles want “community control”- the rest of them know they have to get out of this system, fast.
Baud
@goblue72:
And what do you think the Dems can do to attract these voters? I don’t think spouting good policies will work because they are so prejudiced against the Democratic Party.
goblue72
@Baud: Except for the fact that if the 2012 election results were applied to the Congressional district boundaries as they existed BEFORE the 2010 gerrymandering – Democrats would have STILL lost.
Baud
@MomSense:
Well, get crackin’!
Botsplainer
@Keith G:
Without looking, I can guess what it is, and it feeds into a discussion I had with somebody yesterday about the plethora of “it’s only a 30, or 60, or 90, or 180 day sentence” classsplainers out there, people who are heedless of the personal losses such sentences engender. They ruin lives by destroying marriages and relationships, ravage employability and job performance, shatter children’s dreams and their relationships with parents,
Baud
@goblue72:
Gotta source? Not that I find that surprising, because it’s pretty clear that a lot of white people turned against Obama since 2008.
Kay
@Baud:
Why do you believe Sanders is pitching to “working class voters”? Are income inequality and wage stagnation and economic anxiety limited to working class people? I don’t think it is. I don’t know where the idea comes from that he is pitching to this specific group.
Kropadope
@PaulW:
I don’t agree with most things any of them say, but Trump is usually spot on when he’s criticizing his fellow R candidates.
MomSense
@Baud:
Crackin’ sounds painful.
Kathleen
@Patricia Kayden: Because he is beholden to his corporate overlords and he doesn’t want to hurt GOP’s feelings like that mean Obama does.
different-church-lady
@PaulW:
The secondary objective of this particular drinking game is to stay alive.
WereBear
@BillinGlendaleCA: That’s why I’m so amazed. I’ll give him this: as an entertainer, he might not be my cup of tea, but he’s like the reincarnation of vaudeville to Republican primary voters.
This might be true love.
Baud
@Kay:
No, I think Sanders’ appeal is broader than working class voters. I am skeptical that a predominately economic populist message is a winning message should he win the nomination, however.
Baud
@MomSense:
Only at first.
@different-church-lady:
“Secondary” being the key term.
Botsplainer
@Keith G:
Yup, I went there, too depressed to finish.
WereBear
@Kay: And then, there’s judges who make money from throwing kids in jail for nothing:
Kids for Cash scandal
Smiling Mortician
@Kay: And in small, economically shaky towns, even the “middle-class juveniles” get sucked under the wave of fines, appearances, lost jobs, and overall damage to their grownup prospects. What we have now is actually worse than debtors’ prison.
Mandalay
@Patrick:
Well Bush and Walker are the obvious candidates to stand a chance, and Clinton has the wrong last name as well, but as things stand I agree that Clinton would win. But there is a very long way to go – plenty of time for gaffes and strategic errors amd memorable sound bites.
A poster here the other day memorably wrote that in 2008 the candidate Obama refused to fuck up, and if Clinton does that, and no real scandals are dug up, and she has no health issues, then she will be our next president. But once you throw in all those caveats she shoudn’t be viewed as a certainty.
Botsplainer
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Who is this tool, and why has nobody filed a retirement and removal complaint on it yet?
Kay
@Baud:
I get confused because last week he was the candidate of aging liberal elites in college towns and this week he’s supposedly pitching to “white working class voters”. If the complaint is economic populism won’t win elections that’s fine, but Bernie Sanders isn’t counting on “Reagan Democrats”.
WereBear
Open threadwise, I’ve been reading Friday Night Lights, and I have to do it in short sessions, because the incredible waste and misery and the flagwaving of the Texans and the laserlike focus on one thing and throwing humans away when they have served their purpose…
High school flashbacks…
Can’t do it. Can’t do it for long.
Cervantes
@Baud:
These are major elements of his message (quoting from his web-site):
What would you re-arrange, add, subtract, or alter?
Baud
@Kay:
Well, that’s my complaint anyway. ;-) My own view is that Bernie wants to focus his message, which is fine, but not realistic, especially if he becomes the nominee. At some point, he has to choose which side he’s on, and that choice will cause him to lose support from some group. I believe he won’t declare himself a Democrat because he wants the support of white people who hate Democrats regardless of the merits of any policy considerations. But if he is the nominee, he won’t be able to play both sides. That’s what Rand Paul tried to do to some extent, and he has failed miserably.
Germy Shoemangler
@WereBear:
He reminds me more of a burlesque M.C.
Vaudeville at least had some class… Ed Wynn, W.C. Fields, the Marx Brothers, Buster Keaton…
Patricia Kayden
@Mandalay: The Clinton surname is just fine. President Bill Clinton was a great president despite his personal foibles (i.e., womanizing). The economy boomed under his two terms and he had a swagger that made him cool and likable. Jebbie Bush is the one with the surname problem. The last Bush in office was a disaster.
JPL
@Cervantes: Even the Koch’s talk about family values and corporate welfare.
I understand the policies are different, but the words are the same.
Patrick
@Mandalay:
I guess my point was that Bush has the wrong last name in that people still remember his brother George W Bush as a terrible President responsible for perhaps the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression and responsible for the idiotic Iraq war.
Bill Clinton is known for a great economy. I think Hillary based on last names has a huge advantage.
As can be seen, Republicans are desperately scrambling to find stuff and hope that something will stick- thus the email stuff for example. No different than Obama and Ayers. In reality, people in general could care less. If the economy is decent, Hillary will win.
Baud
@Cervantes:
None of those abstract, general items distinguish Bernie from Hillary or O’Malley.
Kay
@Smiling Mortician:
Agreed. A couple of years ago my husband found this Ohio case from the early 1900’s on what were then called “jail fees”. A county court judge in Ohio once determined that these fees were akin to jailing people for debt. He shopped it around with the local judges, passionately argued, trying to get one of them to agree so he could take it up, but no dice.
The Ohio ACLU did a wonderful thing 2 years ago- they looked at records for every municipal court in the state and named the worst courts and the worst judges. They sent the analysis to the state supreme court. The justices took it seriously, but the most effective part was naming the judges. Finger wags at “courts”, generically, is one thing- naming the specific court and the judge is another. I was cheering. It was front page in our local paper because they pick up on local names.
different-church-lady
@Patrick:
They could?
Cervantes
@Baud:
OK.
@JPL:
OK.
I meant to provide a link to his “Issues” page so people can see what he actually means.
Prior question stands: What would you re-arrange, add, subtract, or alter on his “Issues” page?
Baud
@Cervantes:
Abortion and other gender issues seems to be the most glaring omission.
Nothing on foreign policy at all.
ETA: And clicking on the links does not provide that much detail — mostly things Bernie has previously done. I don’t fault Bernie for that — it’s still early. But it’s not overwhelmingly persuasive.]
ETA2: Nothing on voting rights either.
different-church-lady
@Cervantes: Hmmm… additions… additions…. what was that thing those rude people in Arizona were trying to get across?
Patrick
@different-church-lady:
Why don’t we have a President Mccain now then if you think people in general were so concerned with Ayers?
Keith G
@Botsplainer: And she is may be one of the better off of those like her. It seems at present, she still can climb out if the system gives her a space to do so (A big frikkin IF). So many other can’t after the first go ’round.
The downtown cafe I manage has a few guys in the back of house who now are clean (in some cases clean enough) and still being extorted for non-violent offenses adjudicated five (+) years ago. And it is a type of extortion.
We really are our worst enemy.
Germy Shoemangler
@Baud:
That is an interesting question. I don’t like any on the GOP side, and I’m ashamed to admit that if it HAD to be a repub, I’d almost want to see Trump in there.
Rather than a stealth moderate republican who can sound “sane” to the general public while pushing evil policies that harm us for years. At least Trump is an out and out maniac.
Germy Shoemangler
@Patrick: Because people in general were concerned about Palin?
Kay
@Baud:
Yeah, I just couldn’t be further away on Bernie Sanders. I don’t think he’s trying to appeal to people who hate Democrats. My guess would be the people who go to his rallies are all reliable Democratic voters. If you just look at his donors, Sanders is actually the labor candidate. He’s all small donations and labor unions.
If Sanders sticks past January Clinton and the other Democrats will court both his endorsement and his supporters, exactly like they did with John Edwards, and Edwards campaign didn’t have nearly the support Sanders’ campaign does. That’s how Sanders will influence the nominee. The nominee will go to Sanders, not the other way around. Remember the “summits” where Clinton and Obama were courting Edwards? Edwards ended up with something like 4 delegates. Sanders will have a lot more leverage than that.
I love primaries and I think they are great for Democrats, which is lucky, because we have them! :)
Baud
@Germy Shoemangler:
I kind of feel the same way.
different-church-lady
@Patrick: No, I meant if they could care less, then what’s stopping them from going right ahead and doing it?
RSA
Coming in late, but…
Is anyone else hearing echoes of Firesign Theater? Those guys are probably saying, “Hey, we scripted this almost 50 years ago. But it was satire, then.”
Renie
Finally get to a thread that still is going on and R2R troll is not around. Damn. I guess he is out getting his talking points in place in anticipation of Thursday’s debate.
Maybe next time I can get here when he’s still spouting nonsense.
Baud
@Kay:
I didn’t mean to suggest that he was exclusively courting anti-Democratic voters, but I do think they are an important part of his supporters. I also agree that his campaign can do a great deal of good. I’m just not at a point where I want him as our nominee.
Kay
@Smiling Mortician:
This is the Ohio ACLU study. It’s about jailing people for not paying fines but that’s of course part of the probation maze.
My muni court was on the list of bad actors.
different-church-lady
@RSA: “And you can believe me, because I never lie, and I’m always right. So, WAKE UP [SFX: slap, baby crying] And take a look at your only logical choice. Me. George Tirebiter.”
VOICE OVER: Paid for by the Tirebiter For Political Solutions Committee, Sector R.
Mandalay
@Patricia Kayden:
You and I may feel that way, but there are plenty of people who still loathe Bill Clinton, and there are plenty of people who simply don’t like the idea of voting yet again for a “Bush” or a “Clinton”.
Being a “Clinton” or a “Bush” is great for name recognition, but some baggage comes with it.
Turgidson
@gian:
Also on the strength of extraordinary African-American turnout. Indianapolis, Gary, Hammond and the rest of the Chicago collar have plenty of black folks. And they came out for Obama big-time in 2008. Big dropoff in 2012, and he lost by 11 points or so.
raven
@different-church-lady: Vote for me and I refuse to serve!
different-church-lady
@Mandalay:
Hell, even I don’t like the idea of voting “yet again” for a Clinton, and I’d still vote for her in a heartbeat.
Tree With Water
“If there’s to be war, let it begin here”:
HATTIESBURG, Miss. (AP) — A sheriff in Mississippi says authorities are searching for two men who fired gunshots from a vehicle at soldiers at a military facility. No injuries were reported.
Patrick
@different-church-lady:
Doing what? Coming up with side issues? Nothing will stop them. But as was seen with the “issue of Obama’s Reverend, Benghazi etc, people are more concerned about their pocket books.
Seriously, the friends I have that don’t follow politics unless there is an election coming up haven’t even heard of Benghazi, or Hillary’s email issue etc etc. They care about having a paycheck next week. A tad more important than whether Obama’s Reverend said something, or where the heck Hillary’s email server was located.
Kay
@Baud:
I’m not yelling at you! I just know that it bothers you that he’s an independent, because you’ve said it before. I don’t care that much. He’s a very reliable liberal Democratic vote in the Senate. He’s way more reliable than the Right-leaning Democrats who call themselves “Democrats” actually.
I don’t think Sanders is complicated. He thinks economic inequality and wage stagnation are the central issue, and he thinks we don’t remedy that because of money in politics. That’s what he says. It’s always been what he says. Sanders doesn’t believe we get crappy economic policy because we live in Right-leaning America. He thinks we get crappy economic policy because many of our politicians are working for monied interests.
Tom Q
@Patrick: Want to echo you that “Clinton has the wrong name, too” is a ridiculous statement. Clinton left office with the highest approval rating of any president since polling became prevalent; Bush left with the lowest. Any attempt to make them equivalent albatrosses is both-sides-ism of the densest sort.
As far as, can Clinton lose? — sure, if the economy crashes (always an anti-incumbent death knell) or if the party truly splits apart in the primaries. (I know a lot of people here think it’d be great for Sanders to really give her a tight fight, but I see no historic precedent for the incumbent party being helped by a pitched primary battle) Short of that, I think she’d have to be the big favorite, bigger with some opposition than with others.
FlyingToaster
@Renie: He’s not on a schedule, which supports my theory that he’s given a script every morning and once he’s completed it, his 75¢ is deposited and he can go back to his MLM gig.
different-church-lady
@Patrick: It’s “couldn’t”! Could NOT care less!
shell
I’m a fresh face + I’m a Washington outsider = I’ll have no clue what I’m doing.
gelfling545
@Gimlet: You could still end up seriously impaired even if they all just state their names. Given the duration of the debate & the number of participants it’ll be tough for them to do much more.
Patrick
@different-church-lady:
Sorry. It’s been a long day…
Cervantes
@Patrick:
No, she’s just trying to correct your language. It used to be that “I could not care less about X” was a way of suggesting “I don’t care about X at all.” See the logic behind it? Whereas you — and millions of others nowadays — say “I could care less” to mean the same thing. The contemporary usage — or mis-usage — annoys or amuses some people.
Patrick
@Tom Q:
I agree totally on everything you said.
different-church-lady
@Patrick: I’m sorry too, but unfortunately I’m under contractual obligation to correct that whenever I come across it.
Baud
@Kay:
I would support him without hesitation if he were the nominee, but I’m not at the point where I would vote for him in the primary. And I like him as a person. But I don’t agree entirely with this
I think we are where we are because Democrats cannot win (or do not believe they can win) a large portion of the electorate on the merits of a good economic policy. Maybe enough has changed that 2016 will be different, but I don’t see it yet.
Patrick
@Cervantes:
I finally got it. She is right of course.
different-church-lady
@Cervantes:
I do my best to go for both at the same time.
jl
@jl: Actually, I just read at TPM that Trump does support cutting off all Planned Parenthood funding based on the crooked and misleadingly edited video put out by a fraudulent front group.
And I read Christie called his previous more moderate stand on immigration reform ‘garbage’ today.
So, other than Trump using his own style manual for pumping out BS, rather than the RNC approved style manual. what exactly is the difference? Trump entertains while he pumps out the same BS as the other GOP hucksters. What is not to like for a GOPer primary voter.
Lucky for us, there is still plenty not to like about Trump for most of the general election voters.
Patrick
@different-church-lady:
I’m actually glad you did. I should know better from my college days.It is always good to learn new things or unlearn wrong things.
Cervantes
@different-church-lady:
Well, if you can’t enunciate it then I can’t, either — but are you suggesting that Bernie’s platform is opposed to what they want or merely that he does not use the same words?
Kay
@Baud:
I actually think Biden will run and then you jackals can stop hating on Bernie Sanders and have a Biden v Clinton battle :)
That “speculation” that was floated looked to me like it came from Joe Biden.
Germy Shoemangler
Just turned on CBS (Mrs. Shoemangler wants to watch “Zoo” at 9:00.
NCIS is on. Can someone tell me: what is the deal with Mark Harmon’s hair?
Baud
@Kay:
Oh wow. I thought that was all media garbage.
Goblue72
@Baud:
http://www.salon.com/2013/01/13/the_house_gop_cant_be_beat_its_worse_than_gerrymandering/
Scroll down to section about House bias and the Brennan Center report. It’s about 1/3 way through the article.
Baud
@Goblue72:
Thanks. So be it then. I don’t see a solution that is viable.
Kay
@Baud:
I always read your comments so I know you don’t believe it. It’s central to Bernie Sanders though. He believes that people support liberal economic policy already. Most people. A huge variety of people. A majority. He think they don’t get it but he doesn’t believe that’s because it’s unpopular.
He’s refreshing to me because he genuinely believes this – he thinks he has a majority already. That’s very appealing to a lot of liberals, because it’s unapologetic, in the same way conservatives are unapologetic.
David Koch
@Kay:
So why is he afraid to stand up to the NRA?
If he can’t stand up to the NRA then how is he going to stand up to bankers who are far more powerful.
Baud
@Kay:
I’m touched.
I can definitely see Bernie’s appeal, and I believe him to be probably the most sincere person in the race. I wish I believed that was sufficient.
Cervantes
@Patrick:
Truer words were never spoken.
I appreciate all your comments, grammar and usage notwithstanding.
Mandalay
@Tom Q:
It’s not. The perceptions on BJ of Bill Clinton and George Bush are obviously far more extreme than that of the general public. Here are some favorability numbers for them from last year:
– Bill Clinton: favorable 64%, unfavorable 34%
– George Bush: favorable 53%, unfavorable 44%
So the “Clinton” name wins that contest, but the difference is hardly a landslide. And if Clinton runs against anyone but Bush the baggage associated with the Bush name becomes irrelevant, and the Clinton name becomes a liability rather than an asset.
Kay
@Baud:
I just threw that in that in there, but I think it was understood that Biden was an obvious candidate if he wants it, and I (personally) believe he does. I don’t think it means Clinton is tanking or any of that Maureen Dowd crap. I just think it’s obvious that he would run if he wants to.
It’s fine. Primaries are good. Democrats, the people who care about primaries, would love it. They’re a lot alike, Clinton and Biden, on issues, so in that sense it could be horrible- all about personality and “lunch bucket voters” and bowling or something :)
PurpleGirl
What makes Nader think that Bernie Sanders, or anyone else for that matter, wants to discuss his campaign with Nader? Doesn’t Nader realize that he is poison to any political campaign? I know, rhetorical questions… Nader is clueless as to how the rest of us see him.
David Koch
@Baud: I want to express my support and compassion on your sudden loss. For anyone who has experienced that we know the pain. Thinking about the good times always helps fill the void.
Baud
@David Koch:
Thanks, DK. Folks here are really wonderful.
Mandalay
@different-church-lady:
Me too. I think the issue of the Clinton and Bush last names matters more to undecided/independent voters when the choices are Bush vs Anyone-but-Clinton, or Clinton vs Anyone-but-Bush.
Most who loathe Bill Clinton are unlikely to vote for Hillary anyway, and most who loathe GW Bush are unlikely to vote for Jeb anyway.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Keith G:
If want both low taxes and fire departments, you have to make the difference up somewhere. The poor and working class are paying extra so the middle and upper classes can enjoy historically low tax rates.
ETA: With “you” meaning “generic person” in this construction, obviously, not you personally.
David Koch
@Baud: Well, that’s a reflection on your standing and contribution to this site.
Splitting Image
@Patrick:
I don’t think anyone can beat Clinton, but there are a couple who might be dragged over the finish line if enough money lines up behind them.
In fact that is the real difference between the frontrunners and the also-rans. Bush isn’t any less of a clown than Santorum or Fiorina, but he has some serious money behind him and may get his hands on more. Scott Walker can’t beat Clinton on his own, but with a billion dollars of the Kochs’ money backing him, who knows?
Kay
@David Koch:
You know, if this were an issue where Obama split with liberals you would be yelling about “purity ponies”. Because it’s Sanders it’s disqualifying. Don’t vote for him. I don’t care. But don’t pretend every Democrat lines up on every issue or is disqualified. That isn’t true and it has never been true. I know you think Bernie Sanders is some kind of proxy for “firebaggers” but that’s bullshit too. He was NEVER an Obama critic and he promoted the President’s policies over and over, right up until the trade deal, and on THAT Sanders was with the majority of the Democrats in Congress against Obama.
Another Holocene Human
@different-church-lady:
Word.
Another Holocene Human
@White Trash Liberal: Please elaborate on that because it seems like the rural South is the very soul of draconian sentencing and chances to get screwed.
OTOH, there seem to be more employers willing to employ felons, as there are so many of them. Naturally the pay isn’t quite what it would be for a non-felon, or the working conditions….
RSA
@different-church-lady: Exactly! Not to mention,
Kay
@David Koch:
The daily kos event has a protest nearly every year. The years I was there there was a marriage equality protest (against Obama staffer) and an immigration protest (against Joe Biden). Did you support those? Or were those the work of “firebaggers”?
David Koch
ya know, I’ve never been personal with anyone for supporting Sanders. not one. Even when they’re obnoxious and engage in Oldsplaining to millennials or Whitesplaining to people of color (as Sanders supporter and valued commentator different-church lady does above). Yet offer any legitimate observation on Sanders and instead of responding on the merits, I’m attacked personally.
It’s like the old court room motto: if the law is against you, argue the facts; if the facts are against you, argue the law; if the law and facts are both against you, call the other side names and hope you can confuse the jury.
Cervantes
@David Koch:
Hmm …
Spike
@WereBear: Bookmark this link for when you finish “Friday Night Lights”. The author did a “Where are they now?” retrospective for the 25th anniversary edition of the book, and SI published an adaptation of it here. Highly recommended for anyone who read it.
David Koch
should say “(as Sanders supporter and valued commentator different-church lady
does*explains* above).Kay
@David Koch:
I didn’t attack you personally. I said you have always made fun of people who insist on Democrat’s adhering to Democratic positions as “purity pony” and “firebaggers”. You also made fun of the Daily Kos convention protests as “firebaggers” until one was directed at Martin O’Malley and Bernie Sanders. I was fine with the Daily Kos protests in Detroit and Minneapolis, and also fine with the one in Arizona. You’re not a purity pony on guns, I hope. That would be very bad and not at all sensible.
Another Holocene Human
@Baud: I loved that.
Tom Q
@Mandalay: How in the name of god does a name — Clinton — that gets 64% favorability in the poll you just posted, and left office with approvals in the high 50s, constitute a liability? No matter who Hillary is running against. That’s the part of your argument that makes no sense, and I can’t help but think you’re externalizing some personal bias. Bill is an asset.
And, for the record, I give less credence to the “favorable” rating Bush gets in that poll than I do to the truly grisly, 29% number he was sporting when he left office. It’s easy for polled folk to shrug “he doesn’t bother me” if they’re not forced to confront the effect of his policies. I guarantee you, if Bush is the nominee, the Dems will see to it that people are reminded of every single thing that made them dislike W. Bush at the end, and it will redound against his brother.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I wonder if Wallace has orders to load his doozies for Trump
SiubhanDuinne
@Anne Laurie:
I happened to catch a few minutes of Ezra Klein on whatever MSNBC show comes on right after Tweety, and he was saying with utter confidence (regarding TV exposure for Thursday’s debates) that “5:00 p.m. on the East Coast is 8:00 p.m. Pacific, so people in California would be able to watch the kiddy-table debate in prime time, but 9:00 p.m. Eastern would be midnight on the West Coast for the main debate.” He was just blithely getting time zones bass-ackwards until the anchor flat-out corrected him on air. (To his credit, he accepted the correction with thanks and an apology, but still. That shit should be pretty basic for a Smart Person like Ezra.)
Another Holocene Human
@Roger Moore:
It’s ALWAYS been a terrible idea.
State income tax! State income tax! State income tax! Now!
SiubhanDuinne
@Anne Laurie:
Every court or government building I’ve ever been to has a locker system for stashing phones in the security area for free. Although I’m not terribly surprised that if there’s a chance to monetize the service, someone’s going to do it.
SiubhanDuinne
@Brachiator:
Maybe his new glasses told him it would be the smart thing to do.
Another Holocene Human
@gian:
I agree. Although NC also has a group of white liberal voters, and locally in NC the crooks tried to create a permanent Republican majority not just by suppressing the African American vote but also by going after such subversives as students and recent migrants to the state with that ID crap (even though a lot of the nasty GOP action are recently settled whites and the whites protesting in the Capital were NC natives, so shows what they know).
Elie
@Baud:
I have been in and out lately but want to express my concern and support for any sudden loss of a loved one you have experienced. Apologies for my ragged follow up but I did not want to pass on sending you my thoughts and sympathies.
Tom Q
@SiubhanDuinne: Just for the record: it wasn’t Ezra who made that ridiculous error. Ezra was on the panel, but it was Ted Cruz’s representative who fumbled the math.
Another Holocene Human
@Tripod: I feel you. Look at all the action in the labor movement right now. Workers of color who are enduring terrible pay and working conditions and organizing around their interests.
The recession got a bunch of white workers organizing for the first time, too, but they’re about 10 years behind the curve.
That image of white labor (organized or otherwise) is rather out of date.
different-church-lady
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That sounds a whole lot like something one would be sorry to look up on Urban Dictionary.
Another Holocene Human
@Poopyman: Gollum retired to Florida?
Groucho48
Say either Clinton or Sanders was elected with enough Dems in Congress to get a fair amount of their agenda passed. Whose agenda do you folks think would mostly likely be beneficial to minorities? I would say Sanders by a fair amount.
Another Holocene Human
@Mandalay: He was a slimy politician, also, too.
SiubhanDuinne
@Gimlet:
So it’s going to be a very sober night.
SiubhanDuinne
@Tom Q:
Oh, thank you! I was only listening to the audio feed in the car. Thought I heard the woman who was anchoring address him as Ezra, but must have been mistaken. I’m actually quite relieved to know I was wrong.
Anne Laurie
@Mandalay:
In my experience, those in the first category are Republican voters, and those in the second are looking for an excuse not to bother voting — just as they did in the last election, and the one before that. YMMV.
different-church-lady
@David Koch: Thanks for the clarification, but I should note I’m not officially a supporter of any one candidate at this point. There are things I like and things I don’t like about Sanders, and the same for Hillary.
Morzer
@Mandalay:
Technically true, since you can’t get a landslide in the opinion polls – but a win by 10% in the actual presidential race would be pretty darn landslidesque.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Tom Q: ah, that makes more sense. Was Cruz’s rep the one who look liked he could be Jack Nicholson’s son with a nearly fatal hangover?
Morzer
@SiubhanDuinne:
Positively carrot-juice detoxesque.
Another Holocene Human
@Turgidson: Huge organizing by eeeeeevil libs in IL to GOTV in IN. They didn’t contest IN the next time around. I think white voters were the reason.
It’s a shame what’s going on in IN, state/local gov and culture wise.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Goblue72:
Are we allowed to discuss the decades of gerrymandering prior to 2010 plus the voting ID restrictions that were put in place throughout the 2000s, or do we just decide that it’s okay that black and brown people are being deliberately denied their right to vote so we’ll concentrate on white voters instead?
It’s hard to turn out the vote when your voters are told they have to produce a $30 birth certificate and a $25 drivers license to do it.
ETA: Formerly blue states like Wiconsin went red once their legislators passed restrictive voter ID laws. Must be a total co-inkydink, amirite?
different-church-lady
@Groucho48: Without specific remedies for systemic racism, blacks get shut out of economic reform just as much as they do today.
Tom Q
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Good description, yes.
Anne Laurie
@Cervantes: I always tell those people, if it comforts them, they can assume the parenthetical: “I could care less, but it would take a very precise instrument to measure how much less.”
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@PurpleGirl: I saw a few minutes of an interview with Nader on C-SPAN a few weeks ago. He was pushing his new book on his unanswered letters to the White House.
The man seems to have no conception of how many millions of letters the White House gets every year. There’s a reason why they ask that people send e-mail rather than paper mail… :-/
He was also asked about the 2000 election. Of course he said that he had no regrets about running and blamed Gore for losing (“he didn’t even win his own state!”). He did talk about how horrible Bush was. If he were honest he would have said that he was wrong to say there was (effectively) no difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. A few moments of thought would show that it had an impact on the election (maybe not enough to matter, but not nothing). But, of course, he couldn’t say he was wrong. After all, he couldn’t say it 14 years ago, so why should he say it now?
He should be embarrassed, but he’s too convinced of his righteousness for introspection, it seems.
Cheers,
Scott.
SiubhanDuinne
@PaulW:
I hope you get even more. I just put up the link on my Facebook page (the vast majority of my FB friends are like-minded political junkies, so I expect several of them will want to click).
Another Holocene Human
@Morzer: My thoughts exactly.
different-church-lady
@Cervantes:
No — absence does not imply opposition in my view.
It’s more like he entirely misses the idea that systemic racism is a separate item in the litany of injustice. It’s tightly linked to economic injustice, but dealing with the latter doesn’t magically make the former go away.
And as we’ve seen in graphic detail, cops are not asking for financial statements before engaging in their behaviors.
Another Holocene Human
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: God, that’s like a description of clinical Narcissism, his fucking letters, his inability to be wrong even once.
I pity the people closest to him.
RaflW
@Kay:
Totally not a statistical sample, but a lot of Unitarians I know are Bernie fans. They aren’t the richest UUs, but even so, these are by and large college educated (often masters level), white collar, and comfortable.
They (we? I’m not on the Bernie bandwagon but I am UU) fundamentally get that income inequality is about our communities and neighborhoods, and, frankly, us. We may be in the upper half, often upper 20% of the income distribution, but almost all the income gains are going to the top 5%. Plus it’s just so blatantly unfair. Pisses us off. Denominationally, even.
Another Holocene Human
@Anne Laurie: In Boston we reverse our R’s (ReVEEyah and BillRICKer) and reverse our not’s. Cf: and so don’t I.
Groucho48
@different-church-lady:
I agree. And, I think Sanders is more likely to address that than Clinton. Bill’s policies set blacks back quite a bit. I don’t see Hillary’s being that much different. She has a tendency to prove she is the toughest talker in the room. Whereas Sanders has a long history of being involved in civil rights.
Mandalay
@Tom Q:
You are completely missing the point. It’s not the 64% favorability rating that is relevant – it is the 34% unfavorable.
Now GW Bush is certainly regarded less favorably than Bill Clinton, but not by a huge amount. So if Clinton is running against someone other than Bush the Clinton name will be a negative, partly because of the association with Bill Cinton (34% unfavorable), and partly because some people are agnostically hostile to the idea of voting for any Bush or Clinton.
Now if Clinton runs against (say) Walker then there is no baggage associated with his name. Zero. Of course he has personal baggage, but that is a separate argument. But Clinton is carrying Bill’s 34% unfavorability rating, along with her own negatives.
The opposite is true. I have explained exactly why the Clinton name is a net liability, but you seem unwilling/unable to understand. All you see is that Bill was a good president and GWB was a bad president, so having the Clinton name is automatically a good thing, and that just isn’t so. And doubly so if Bush is not her opponent.
Matt McIrvin
@efgoldman:
Less populous states are overrepresented in the aggregate, though, because every state gets two extra votes for their Senators, and at least one for a Representative.
My impression is that this is a Republican advantage that roughly counterbalances the Democratic advantage that comes from their being able to get all the EVs for a big state by winning 50%+1. The last time there was a popular/electoral split it went to the Republicans, but the opposite is also possible.
Citizen Alan
@Baud: they were never for him. I’ll never forget that interview with some hillbilly who had McCain ‘ s policies explained to him and said “I guess I’ll vote for the n*****.”
different-church-lady
@Mandalay:
That doesn’t make a scrap of sense. You seem to be saying that if 34% don’t like Bill and 40% don’t like Hillary then she’s carrying a 74% disapproval into the election. It doesn’t work like that.
Morzer
@different-church-lady:
If you add Bill’s 66% favorable to Hill’s 60% favorable, you end up with 126% favorable, all of which goes to show that Hill is so popular that 26% of the population plans to vote for her twice!
Groucho48
@Matt McIrvin:
I came across a site that had an interactive electoral map. The Dems start with about 240 EV in hand, out of 270 needed to win. Florida would put them over. Ohio and any other purple state would put them over. Virginia and a couple other mid-population purple states would put them over. There are a couple other combos that work.
The Reps have a much tougher road. They absolutely cannot lose Florida. Ohio would be a TKO. They have to win a LOT of toss up states to get to 270.
Basically, if the Dems don’t screw up…which we are perfectly capable of doing…we win.
Mandalay
@different-church-lady:
Except I wan’t remotely saying that. You just made that up. If you actually believe I made that argument then you are hopelessly lost.
Tom Q
@Mandalay: It’s not I don’t understand. It’s that your point is silly. 34% unfavorability is a liability? FDR was elected 4 times with numbers no better. Reagan at his peak had more unfavorables than that. Can you do math? 34% unfavorability leaves 66% — well more than any president in history has scored.
Are you suggesting that (Bill) Clinton having 34% unfavorability means Hillary starts 34% behind? That’s ridiculous, but I honestly don’t know what else you could be driving at. That 34% is people who wouldn’t vote for a Democrat if they parted the Red Sea. Who gives a damn about them? They constitute no liability whatever.
Morzer
@Mandalay:
I rather wonder how the folks in Wisconsin feel about that argument. I also don’t see how a divisive politician like Walker, who has been constantly in the national news over the last half-dozen years, doesn’t have any baggage except personal. Then, of course, there’s the issue of the baggage candidates automatically acquire when they become the standard-bearer of their party. In sum, I don’t see how your calculation on this one works when compared to reality.
Tom Q
@Groucho48: Republicans need to run the table, to barely eke out an Electoral College win. It’s not accidental that Bush’s two “wins” were by 271 and 286 EVs, where Clinton & Obama surpassed 330 both times. That’s the lay of the land at present: Dems won’t match the electoral wipeout levels of the Nixon & Reagan wins, but they have a clear edge the GOP can only hope to work around.
different-church-lady
@Mandalay: Then you are going to have to clear this up:
Morzer
@different-church-lady:
I haven’t seen math like that since the last Paul Ryan budget.
different-church-lady
@Morzer: But if you simply disregard all the people who view her favorably then nobody likes her.
Morzer
@different-church-lady:
Nate Silver could not have analyzed it better.
Mandalay
@different-church-lady:
Hillary shares the same last name with Bill who has 34% unfavorability rating. Some fraction of that 34% will view her unfavorably simply because they share the last name. FFS, it does not mean that every single person who views Bill unfavorably automatically views Hillary unfavorably, and I never remotely claimed that. But it does mean that there is some negative baggage associated with the Clinton name, especially if she runs against a candidate such as Walker who has a last name with no baggage. Plenty of voters won’t like Walker, but none of them will be turned off because of his last name.
And exactly the same baggage arguments would apply to Bush if he ends up running against someone other than Hillary Clinton. More so in fact, since GWB is more recent in the memory of voters, and also because he is less well regarded.
It’s amazing how there are endless posts here about how Jeb’s last name is a liability, but poutrage ensues at the idea that having a last name of Clinton could be a negative, purely because Bill was a good guy, or a great president, or he is more popular than GWB….or something.
mai naem mobile
@Mandalay: you aren’t taking into consideration that Hillary is a woman. She will get some boomer women who might have voted GOP or not voted at all,to come out and vote for her.I think she’ll also increase voter turnout of younger women. And if she has Joaquin Castro running as Veep, she’ll push non Cuban Hispanic turnout. If the GOP uses Suzanne Martinez or Brian.Sandoval, it may be a bit of a wash but not if they have Rubio as a Veep because I think he only affects the Cuban vote.
Groucho48
That’s kind of because Bill was one of the most popular Presidents of all time and Bush was one of the most unpopular Presidents of all time.
JMV Pyro
@efgoldman:
While this is true for the Presidency, real reform is only going to come through control of the legislatures and the state governments. Those are areas where a lot of policies get thought up and where the candidates for president cut their teeth, and goblue isn’t wrong when he says that the Democrats have done a piss poor job at controlling anything but the Presidency during the Obama Era.
That being said, I don’t think that appealing to the white voter and abandoning everyone else is going to work. It chases after the long-dead unstable unicorn that was the New Deal Coalition, which itself was built on selling out Women and People of Color to keep the South placated. That’s not something I’d like to go back to.
In this young person’s opinion, the only way we’re going to win is if we find a way to synthesize the Economic message that Sanders and FPers like Kay talk about with the younger and increasingly diverse social justice activists. How we do this isn’t something I can answer on my own, but I don’t think a successful left can exist without emphasizing economic injustice and countering various systemic prejudices that exist within society.
Morzer
@Mandalay:
Occasional posts. And no, it really isn’t amazing when you look at the polls.
I see one person getting their poutrage on – eight letters, starts with M ends with Y.
Well, the fact that Bill Clinton regularly polls extremely well might give you a clue as to why the Clinton name isn’t the negative you want it to be. I am not a big fan of Bill and I think his presidential success was more by luck than judgment, but he’s still extremely popular, whether you like it or not.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mandalay: Wow. smh
Omnes Omnibus
@Morzer: I started a long form response to M’s comment and then realized I would be better off clubbing myself to death like a seal.
Morzer
@Omnes Omnibus:
Join the club – we’ve got seal-skin jackets!
RaflW
@different-church-lady: Hillary has fairly high negatives, that seems true. But she is well know, and from what I read/hear, the thinking is her negatives probably won’t change much, won’t go up much I should say.
We are watching the klown kar closely, but most voters tune in about a year from now. The question is, how high can the GOP nominees negatives be pushed once likely R voters and leaners wake up?
In shorter words: Hillary is gonna be OK on her negatives. We’ve just gotta GOTV (for her or whoever is the D nominee).
The Lodger
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Sounds like Ted L. Nancy, except poor Ralph didn’t get any responses,
Omnes Omnibus
@RaflW: She has been in the public eye for nearly 25 years.
different-church-lady
@Mandalay:
It’s exactly what your words claim. I accept that it is not what you intended to claim, but I don’t see how anyone could interpret the sentence I quoted in any other fashion. But I accept the clarification.
Next I wonder why you theorize that Bill’s negatives transfer to Hillary, but his positives do not.
mclaren
Unlike mainstream responsible Republicans, like Ann Coulter, who suggested murdering a supreme court judge:
“We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens’ creme brulee.”
Or mainstream responsible Republicans like Ronald Reagan, who proposed murdering antiwar protesters:
“If it takes a blood bath, let’s get it over with.”
Or mainstream responsible Republicans like Barry Goldwater, who suggested using nuclear weapons against North Vietnam in a 24 May 1964 interview.
Morzer
@different-church-lady:
Well, if you’d been paying attention, you’d know that political particle physics as mediated through the consciousness of Maureen Dowd explains that Bill Boy Positive Particles experience repulsion from Hill Girl Cootie Particles.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@The Lodger: Mr. Nancy seems to have some issues, too. :-)
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Bobby Thomson
@Patricia Kayden: Neither was Reagan.
TriassicSands
Chuck Todd:
I may never stop laughing…or crying…or throwing up.
Yeah, the strongest GOP presidential field since Reagan, GHW Bush, John Anderson, Howard Baker, Phil Crane, John Connally, Bob Dole, Ben Fernandez, Harold Stassen (OMG was he still alive?), Larry Pressler, and Lowell Weiker.
Apparently, Todd thinks having lots of people running is equivalent to a “strong field.” However, when compared with today’s Bozo Brigade, the 1980 group is interesting. Lowell Weiker? There is no such animal left in the Modern Republican Party. The same goes for Anderson and Baker. Today, they’d be vilified as communists by the Republican mainstream. Ditto for Reagan and GHW Bush if you put them in disguises and they ran on their records.
Cervantes
@Tom Levenson:
Think of him as an Affirmative-Action promotion.
Very-Affirmative-Action.