First, let me draw your attention to Jonathan Bernstein, on “Why You Should Care About 2016 Right Now“:
The pollsters at Quinnipiac are preparing their first Iowa polling for 2016, and will release the results in a few weeks. If you think that’s too soon — and everyone but the most extreme political junkies thinks that — you’re right! But it’s not too soon to be thinking about and working for the 2016 presidential nomination contest, because now is when it’s really possible to push the candidates on policy, which is what’s really important….
A large part of that is finding good issues to run on. And that’s where what happens now matters. Candidates — potential candidates — are looking around to determine which stances all party candidates must take, and are also looking for good issues to help differentiate themselves from the pack. What party actors — everything from think tankers to activists — can do, at this point, is to push the candidates to adopt their pet issues and make them central to the campaign….
Keeping that in mind, Douglas Brinkley has an interview with Vice-President Biden in the upcoming Rolling Stone:
There is a keen Kennedy-like vigor to Joe Biden that overwhelms any room. As was once said of Theodore Roosevelt, he, too, wants to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral. Unlike President Obama, who speaks in interviews with Hemingway-esque sparseness, Biden rambles like Thomas Wolfe, painting a robust picture of an ever-changing America where coal miners will soon be working in clean-tech jobs, gun-safety laws will be tougher and China will be reined in by the White House from poisoning the planet with megatons of choking pollutants…
What matters the most to Biden these days is whether he can persuade Congress to enact meaningful gun-control laws. After the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, in Newtown, Connecticut, President Obama asked Biden to head up the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force. Though his efforts so far have failed to overcome congressional resistance, he says that he is not giving up. If serious gun-control legislation is passed in the next three years – and Biden is convinced it will – he will deserve the lion’s share of the credit.
My takeaway from my one-hour White House interview with Joe Biden is that he must be considering a presidential run. There will be too much Obama-era unfinished business – implementing the Affordable Care Act, fighting for climate-change initiatives, for example – for Biden to throw in the towel. His strengths as a candidate are his blue-collar persona, family values, lifetime support of labor unions and farmers, foreign-policy expertise and stouthearted belief that the Obama administration’s record of accomplishment – from the economic recovery to the killing of Osama bin Laden – has been historic. With Air Force Two at his disposal and his two superbright sons, Hunter and Beau, probably working as his chief advisers, Biden can give Hillary Clinton a run for her money. Although she will have an unquestioned advantage among women, it’s not inconceivable to think that labor unions, environmentalists, African-Americans, LGBT voters and small-business owners will prefer the hypercaffeinated, hard-charging vice president. Like Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, a presumed Republican candidate, Biden has learned to turn the sound-bite culture on its head by speaking from the gut. Though he’s been a major political player since the Nixon years, Biden has pulled off the trick of not seeming like politics-as-usual. It could be a mistake to underestimate his populist appeal. And it’s hard to imagine that this highly ambitious man will choose not to pursue the office he’s wanted all his life…
***********
So… apart from getting in on the ground floor, what’s on the agenda for the start of the weekend?
PsiFighter37
Balloon Juice meetup Hellay this evening at Golden Road Brewery. About to take off from SF – looking forward to seeing a bunch of strangers from the Internet. Pretty sure they tell you not to do this when you’re a kid.
Suffern ACE
Well thanks to some suggestions earlier in the week, I’ve recieved one of the two Jackie Vernon records I ordered. Something about Man and a Watermelon. If I’m not laughing, then I’m gonna get grouchy on ya’ll.
JWL
Biden also endorsed the Bush-Cheney big lie war for oil.
As with the unrepentant H. Clinton, what else does anyone need to know about the guy?
Mnemosyne
Biden’s father lived to 87 and his mother lived to 93, so he’s got good longevity in his family. I love my crazy uncle Joe, but we’ll see how it shakes out.
Mnemosyne
@PsiFighter37:
I have to go to Ikea after work, but I may try to stop by Golden Road afterwards, unless Ikea makes me lose the will to live. It has that effect sometimes.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@JWL:
I’d like to know what he’s going to attempt going forward. Setting a one-issue purity test for prospective nominees is a good way to elect a Republican.
Amir Khalid
The foreign point of view — well, this foreigner’s POV, anyway:
Unless some younger and better Democrat shows up by early 2015, either Joe or Hillary will be fine.
beltane
Wow, the Kennedy School of Government is defending Richwine’s thesis http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/05/10/1208318/-Richwine-s-Harvard-PhD-The-Committee-and-Dean-Respond
Way to go, Harvard!
El Cid
Fuck YES.
Too bad no authority existed which could have tried, convicted and jailed all his funders, suppliers, directors, and protectors in the Reagan administration including the doddering evil fool himself.
The U.S.’ role in Guatemala during this time period (as if the other time periods were pretty) is one of the most immoral and disgusting records in history.
Hal
It’s not too early for Republicans. Benghazi is all about Hillary. Even Christie in current polling does not beat Hillary in NJ, and watching MSNBC the other day, something like 55% of people polled in NJ didn’t even want Christie to run for President. Still so early anything could change, but Republicans may be anticipating a weak candidate like Paul or (please glob) Ted Cruz and are trying to weaken Hillary as much as possible.
Oh, and I watched 30 seconds of Hannity the other night with the worlds Mayor Rudy, and according to Rudy Benghazi would either come back to bite Obama or Hillary. Very convenient.
JPL
Hillary should be on the morning shows, if she wants to stop the bleeding.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: Ikea? My wife works in the Mongolian BBQ in the mall next to there.
rda909
In more Obama FAILYORE news…Consumer Reports names the Tesla Model S the best car they have EVER tested, of any kind.
http://news.consumerreports.org/cars/2013/05/video-the-tesla-model-s-is-our-top-scoring-car.html
And Tesla’s sales are skyrocketing along with the stock price. I BLAME OBUMMER and his “fuck-ups” like BenGayzi! How dare he LOAN that company money to create entirely new car manufacturing plants in America. The nerve of that drone-lover! Same as Bush, yeppers!
Yatsuno
@BillinGlendaleCA: Small world, it is.
Hoping the phone traffic drops to zero tonight. I’m tired of humans this week.
El Cid
@rda909: Ha ha! Solyndra!
Trollhattan
Per another commenter today, May 10, 2011 was the day the teabaggers sold their souls to the alter of Medicare. Or something.
Move the calendar forward two years and let’s jot down May 10, 2013 as the day our atmosphere reached 400ppm CO2.
This is a day humanity might consider paying attention to.
Can somebody remind me what it was that Inhofe was concerned about today? I’m sure it was more important than this sciency trivia.
MikeJ
Open thread? Good. If you’re looking for a restaurant to take your mom to this weekend, in Seattle make sure you you avoid Wild Ginger. The owner of Wild Ginger Restaurant in Seattle was one of those who whined about a city law allowing sick people to not not sneeze in your food. Rick Yoder, owner of Wild Ginger Restaurant in Seattle is objectively pro-snot in your food.
The law has passed and he has to obey it, but the fact that the owner of Wild Ginger Restaurant in Seattle campaigned in favour of snot makes me never want to eat there.
beltane
@rda909: I guess this means that that NYT Broder hack really was a corrupt POS after all. Color me shocked.
Davis X. Machina
@El Cid:
Rios Montt was tighter than a tick with the burgeoning US religious right.
Even the attenuated JP-II-era Catholic social justice movement in the region was an intolerable left-wing threat to the oligarchs.
Trollhattan
@MikeJ:
Ugh.
Have actually eaten there while mom was still alive. Not that a boycott from two states away is meaningful but I’m with ya.
BillinGlendaleCA
@PsiFighter37: A couple of things about the location of Golden Road for those unfamiliar with the area. You can get off on either the 5 at Colorado or the 134 at San Fernando. There are 2 San Fernando’s: the main one on the east side of the railroad tracks and the small one on the west side. The Golden Road is on the smaller west one.
If you use Colorado you would cross the tracks on Broadway/Brazil(the street changes name there). However, that RR crossing may not be open, they’re doing construction and it was closed last weekend. If that’s the case continue north up to Doran. If the Broadway crossing is open, cross the tracks and hang a right. You’ll see the Golden Road(it’s yellow) a few blocks ahead.
If you get off the 134 you will actually exit onto Doran. Continue straight across the tracks and make a left at the propane place. The Golden Road is the series of buildings south of the propane place, the pub is the most southerly one.
I’ll be the short fat guy wearing black pants and a blue and gold shirt with the piercings.
jl
Man, what did crazy old uncle in the attack and probably senile Joe Biden do to deserve this abject puff piece? Remember, loose-lips goofy old out of it Joe?
I’m more of a Biden fan than many. But ‘Kennedy-like vigor”? C’mon dude, yer killing me with the jokes. That’s a joke right?
Now he is a gimlet eyed, steely jawed international decisive man of action.
I guess the Dems chances are so good in 2016, that if “Benghazi!” damages HRC, then better start grooming (relatively weak candidate) Old Handsome Joe for access in the next election.
I mean, this is kind of embarrassing for Biden. But that is OK, he’s used to it. But for the writer, Douglas Brinkley? The name sounds familiar, but I can’t keep all these people straight, so not sure who he is.
Trollhattan
@Trollhattan:
p.s. Is Texas pro, or anti-sneeze? What say the Free Markets(pbut)?
El Cid
@Davis X. Machina: I know. What’s great is that they knew — partly because they had been advised by U.S. backers — to play up their evangelical anti-communist attitudes.
And Ronald Reagan was such a personally mean, vicious, and yet trusting callous bastard that they played up the role he himself wanted them to play.
There have been certain events at which I was waiting for the UFO’s to arrive and put on the trials no one else could, but it appears to be up to watch as South America over the last decade or so tries to teach us how to be decent humans again.
joes527
I loves me some crazy Joe. But he is too old. So is Hillary. The sooner everyone makes their peace with those 2 facts the sooner we can start thinking about serious possibilities.
rda909
@Hal: I don’t get this theory at all. Newt Gingrich, Rupert Murdoch, Arianna Huffington and so many other republicans are promoting a Hillary run like crazy. Why is that? I have my own answers to that question.
This about taking away anything positive about President Obama in the minds of as many people possible. They did the same with Clinton…I’m still amazed how many people seem surprised when you let them know about the Clinton’s jobs record and how it compares to other Presidents. They still talk about Whitewater and Vince Foster to this day, yet they can explain not one single things about those issues and certainly have no idea how they were created just to hurt the Clinton legacy, which is exactly what they’re doing with BenGayzi now. I don’t watch much news, but I haven’t heard one word about Hillary in recent days since they’ve decided to make this THE MOST IMPORTANT STORY EVAH for the 5th time now. It’s all Obama-bashing all the time, no matter how many times it’s shown there’s no proof to the republican claims, and in fact, the proof shows the opposite, but the news bobbleheads don’t let that get in the way.
This isn’t about Hillary at all. They WANT Hillary. If she runs (I don’t think she will), it will be the end of the Obama Revolution. It would be a move backward, not forward. She cannot win a nation election. Why is this so hard to understand?
TaMara (BHF)
@Yatsuno:Did I miss something or is it dyslexia?
rda909
@beltane: Yea, that hit job has been debunked 20 ways to Sunday.
Turgidson
@JPL:
Meh. If BENGHAZI really does threaten to materially damage her candidacy – and so far I don’t see it – I think she’d be content to just put her feet up, have a mojito, and call it a career rather than wade back into the fever swamps.
Just my idle speculation, but I think she’s definitely interested in running again, but hasn’t decided yet, and would prefer to avoid the fight-for-every-inch slog that she and Obama ended up in in 2008. She’s probably also smart enough to know that, no matter how clear her glide path to the presidency may look today, it won’t stay that way, and the GOP will fling many, many tons of poo at her regardless. And she may just not want to deal with that anymore.
Yatsuno
@MikeJ: Damn. I really wanted to try that place. Please tell me Tom Douglas was on the side of the good guy in this one. I really really really lurves me some Serious Pie.
Trollhattan
@Trollhattan:
Duh. cite:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22486153
Yatsuno
@TaMara (BHF): My old nym got stuck in a semi-permanent state of banishment. FYWP. Never could figure it out although I have my suspicions Soonergrunt is up to something.
rda909
@joes527: Agreed. Senator Elizabeth Warren needs to be the candidate in 2016. First female President. We can do this.
mclaren
@rda909:
“Tesla expected Model S deliveries to total 5000.” “Skyrocketing.”
Yes, people are rushing to buy the $50,000 Tesla Model S in the midst of the worst economic collapse since 1930.
For a glimpse of the real world, as opposed to rda909’s delusional fantasyland, check out the Car And Driver article: ‘The Spark is Gone: What’s Going On with Electric Cars — EVs haven’t yet caught on the way they were supposed to. Will they ever?’ January 2013.
Davis X. Machina
@El Cid: We had Guatemalans pass in some numbers through the church in the parish I was living in then — it was part of the sanctuary movement. The stories were hair-raising.
It was hard to do ecumenical stuff with some of the competition cross town when they were bigging up Guatemala as a mission field at the same time.
El Cid
@mclaren: Oh, good lord, Tesla’s cars wouldn’t be the first products bringing a technology first to richer consumers that later made their way to more buyers. Good grief.
I couldn’t afford a $50,000 car, but f***ing big U.S. trucks get those prices too.
Make an argument against $50,000+ cars in general, but it should hardly make a difference once in that price range whether your toy has a gas-powered zoom-zoom or an electrically-powered zoom-zoom, right?
The Sailor
Nobody gives a fuck about what the beltway thinks, except people in the beltway.
Yatsuno
@mclaren: Sigh. Yet again you put up an article that doesn’t say what you think it says. Or did you bother to read past the first paragraph?
joes527
@rda909: I _seriously_ loves me some Elizabeth Warren. But I’m afraid that her age + lack of political experience are a double whammy. If she were an elder statesman, she might (almost) be able to skate on the age thing, but she isn’t. She should stay where she’s at. We need her there.
Trollhattan
@mclaren:
To be fair, C&D and much of the automotive press has always held DFH cars in contempt, along with notching up of safety regs, emmission regs and CAFE standards. I stopped subscribing to them after becoming fed up with their being mouthpieces for the oil companies and intransigent automakers first, and “journalists” second.
Can’t afford a Tesla but it’s fucking impressive. Beautiful too, in person.
El Cid
@Davis X. Machina: Miserable sons of bitches made it a point to wage domestic war against those meddling churchers, too. It was the Reagan administration’s Christian war against U.S. faithful who were anti-American in their opposition to having women and children have their throats slit and skulls bashed open and bellies ripped open.
Yatsuno
@joes527: I lurves me some Liz Warren. But I think she’s best off staying in the Senate where she’s already making some big noises regarding bankstahs and student loans.
Cassidy
So whats up with this fired General and Admiral horseshit showing up in my winger acquaintances feeds? Have you all seen this shit?
Cassidy +0 because one of the kids took a class trip and isn’t home yet. dammit.
TaMara (BHF)
@Yatsuno: Well you’ll take a co-starring role in tonight’s recipe exchange. :-)
Spaghetti Lee
@rda909:
Like I’ve said before, I kind of like the idea of Warren staying in the Senate. In the White House she’d have less power to go after the banks because, well, she’d have to go through congress. At least if she stayed she’d be making the Senate less sucky.
Also, all three are about the same age, so I don’t think that makes a difference.
ETA: Jinx, I owe Joe and Yatsy a soda.
rda909
@mclaren: Heh. A couple THOUSAND percent increase in sales from the previous quarter? Yea, I’d call that skyrocketing. The Consumer Reports video where they say the Tesla Model S is the best car they have EVER tested, also says the Model S is now outselling every car in the same category in the US (it’s more like $80K-$90K), including the Mercedes and BMW non-electrics in the same class. Yep, skyrocketing.
You might also want to try reading articles before using them as your “proof,” because there’s this little bit at the end:
The graph on the bottom also shows a massive increase in sales from 2011 to 2012 for all EVs, and 2013 is shaping up to be a break-out year for nearly all of them, with many more charging stations and models coming out this year. Reality: Try It Sometime.
BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: I believe Douglas Brinkley is a historian, seen him on MSNBC.
BillinGlendaleCA
@rda909: Reality? mclaren? Surely you jest.
Susan K of the tech support
Tonight’s venue is just down the street from Topline liquor. 556 Riverdale Drive, Glendale, CA 91204 A nice little hole-in-the-wall place in a warehousey district. Am drinking a single malt that comes from there, though I haven’t personally been in there for a while. Closes today at 6. Think I won’t make it there today, either. But hey, it’s gotta be said, since it’s close by.
Also, just looking at the map of the area, isn’t the restaurant that Jamie The Food Guy helped inspire/feature/revamp when he was doing the Jamie’s Food Revolution in LA?
quannlace
I love me some Biden, but Jesus! It’s too fucking early to even be thinking of 2016. Well, the parties involved can be starting the windup, but please. Can you give the rest of us a break for …another year at least?
David Koch
@rda909: can we really trust Warren considering her closeness to history’s worst monster?
Alistair
@mclaren:
Car and Driver has reliably right-wing editorial views. It’s not surprising that they have an anti electric car slant.
Self-Righteous Little White Guy
Bring on the Bidens!
Suffern ACE
@quannlace: I can see a lot of problems ahead if the dems don’t take back some of those statehouses that were lost in 2010. How to get dem voters out in off year elections is something that has to have some solution. But there is going to be problems if those upper mw states, Florida and PA vote to split their electoral college vote.
MikeJ
@Yatsuno:
Frankly I never heard any restaurant owner coming out in favor of the sick leave law publicly, but not publicly campaigning against it is a start.
BillinGlendaleCA
@David Koch: So Obama is “history’s worst monster”, while Jimmy Carter is “history’s greatest monster”?
NotMax
@mclaren
Mino
Bankruptcy bill will be the big difference between Biden and Hillary. Elizabeth Warren opposed Biden on it, too.
jl
Maybe this puff piece is just for access to loose lips Biden for the rest of the Nobama term?
Don’t fall for it, Joe, it’s a trap! That Brinkley fellow will break your heart. Stay strong and be disciplined! (yeah, like that could happen).
NotMax
@BillinGlendaleCA
Pity Caligula.
Always the bridesmaid…
Not to mention several fellows who sport the nickname. “the Terrible.”
BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax: Caligula? Shhh, he may show up, shows up a lot on Fridays.
JWL
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: “..Setting a one-issue purity test for prospective nominees is a good way to elect a Republican”.
Were it any other issue but war or peace, I would agree.
I’ve turned my back on any number of perceived transgressions by politicians I’ve continued to support.
I even voted for John Kerry in 2004, such was my utter contempt for the Bush-Cheney regime. That remains the only vote I’ve ever cast for which I’m ashamed.
But never again.
Calouste
@Turgidson:
Clinton could do a good job for the Democrats by never denying she is going to run in 2016, even though she might already have decided she is not going to. It will draw the fire from the RWNM from the actual candidates until the primaries come into view.
jl
@Calouste:
The evil Dr. Evil Nobama’s mind control techniques have implanted eleventy D chess in the minds of the DemocRAT hordes. Oh no! The Republick is dooooomed!
Hill Dweller
I really loathe the Beltway press. They will turn even the slightest Dem mistake into a crime against humanity. But Republicans can spend 4+ years tearing down the country in hopes of destroying Obama, without as much as a peep from the Village. Hell, they blame Obama for Republican insanity.
ulee
I hope Biden runs. He laughed Paul Ryan out of the room, made him look junior varsity. Imagine what he would do to Rand Paul. Rand would start out smug and leave the debate literally shaking from fear and humiliation.
Suffern ACE
@Hill Dweller: were still at more questions? Maybe troubling questions? But what?
Even the notes they are releasing seem normal. I guess what they want is an email from Axelrod telling the president to go with specific wording?
eemom
Not that it matters, but this
from whoever the fuck Douglas Brinkley is, is all there is to Joe’s supposed designs on the candidacy at this point.
Well, that and AL’s stoically unspoken shitfit at the very concept of him upstaging Hillary.
Hill Dweller
@Suffern ACE: That dumbfuck Jonathan Karl is implying the emails are evidence of a strategy to downplay terrorism, while Obama was publicly calling it terrorism. The stupidity is astounding.
Yatsuno
@Hill Dweller: Yesbut…he didn’t declare it terrorism right away you see. Therefore worse than Watergate and Iran Contra right away just from the get-go.
Todd
@eemom:
It did have the faintest little whiff of nothingburger, didn’t it?
Higgs Boson's Mate
@JWL:
That’s an interesting point of view. If you weed out all of the Dems who didn’t oppose the Iraq war with whom are you left?
Suffern ACE
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: those who weren’t in office yet and those who were in state government so their opinions were unknown.
Hey, it’s not a bad idea to want to turn from those folks who didn’t stand up.
Also, after watching the behavior of these senators, I’m beginning to think being a senator for any period of time might be a net negative.
MikeJ
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
It leaves you with Obama, who, as we know, is worse than Bush sold us out under the bus,
Mike in NC
Breaking news: Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) will appear on this Sunday’s “Meet the Press” to announce that he has legally changed his first name to Benghazi.
JoyfulA
@MikeJ: We’re left with Howard Dean!
something fabulous
@MikeJ: Edit? made joke about spinach artichoke dip being suddenly… unappealing. Leery of posting twice.
David Koch
I wonder who Hillary will pick as her running mate, Harold Ford or Jamie Dimon?