Given how Ailes negotiated their coverage of Trump with the campaign, wonder what deal was cut with Fiorina to be promoted as debate winner?
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) August 13, 2015
I raised this possibility yesterday: If the GOP had to choose its candidates tomorrow, I think we might be looking at a Walker/Fiorina ticket. JEB! was supposed to be the “serious” Repub establishment candidate, but his recent #speechfails have been an embarrassment to the Bush Crime Cartel’s reputation. They were never the best-spoken bunch of expensively-educated thugs, but at least you could count on them to campaign ferociously. Big gowk John Ellis Not-Bush is shuffling around acting like he doesn’t want to be entertaining roomfuls of rich donors and cheap gawkers in return for a figurehead position in the Oval Office, the ingrate.
Scott Walker — another mean dumb homely jamoke, but one who’s always happy to dance for his masters’ money on command — has long been considered the first choice of the Koch brother industrialists and their insurgent “Heartland” campaign to capture the Teahadi-blasted shell of the GOP from those effete East Coast financiers. Unfortunately, Scotty can’t even be trusted to memorize a do-not-take-these-calls list, or to get through a media avail without some idiot boast about how making Eagle Scout prepared him to be commander-in-chief. No way can Walker be trusted to make it through the post-con portion of the campaign without revealing, even to the less-than-picky standards of the low-info American voter, that he believes hiding from protestors at the State Capital means he could face down ISIS. Fiorina, on the other hand, is extremely palatable to the Wall Street/Silicon Valley “disruptopians”, but her one prior campaign made her a laughingstock, and there’s thousands of ex-employees and ex-business-acquaintances standing by to tell the world how much she sucks. (Also, a predictable core of the Republican Base-in-every-sense voters simply won’t vote for a candidate without a penis, because ethics in gaming political journalism.)
Now comes a data-driven post on “winners and losers” from Harry Enten at FiveThirtyEight:
…[I]t’s been several days, and we have some post-debate polls to look at (seven as of this writing, to be exact). And there are a few clear winners and losers…
Winners
Carly Fiorina: She gained ground in every poll taken after the debate. In five of the seven polls, the gain was 6 percentage points or more. This shouldn’t be surprising given the initial reaction to her performance in Thursday’s earlier debate. Over 80 percent of Iowa Republicans, according to a Suffolk University poll, said she was the most impressive of the undercard debaters. We can’t be sure that she’ll be in the top tier for the next debate (on Sept. 16), but she has a good chance. And 93 percent of Iowa Republicans said she should be…Losers
Scott Walker: This one surprised me a little, but the polling is clear. Walker is the only candidate who lost ground in every single post-debate poll. In Iowa, where Walker had been leading, just 5 percent of voters said his performance was the most impressive of all the candidates. Walker’s debate night was bad enough that he has lost his edge in Iowa to Trump…
Vote for Scott Walker, America's sinister step dad. pic.twitter.com/oDjSKOQTZG
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) August 13, 2015
Hear me now and believe me later: We’re gonna see pundits floating WALKER/FIORINA ’16 trial balloons. After all, by the “right” standards, DUBYA/CHENEY was a big fvckin’ success!
***********
Apart from “Game of Thrones: Straw Poll Edition,” what’s on the agenda for the evening?
raven
Looks like Tommy got run off.
Turgidson
Carly has an op-ed at CNN going after Hillary that is so full of epic, hilarious fail that I almost wonder if someone impersonated her and slipped it past CNN’s filters to troll her.
She says getting fired from HP makes her a leader (lolol)
She says she has the character to never lie to the American people (uh, Carly? You’re a Republican. You have to lie to the American people to stay relevant).
and it goes on like that. Amazing stuff.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/13/opinions/carly-fiorina-hillary-clinton/index.html
beltane
This year, Republican voters want “classy”. Scott Walker is not classy, and Fiorina is not hawt. Why can’t the Kochs procure some candidates who are classy and voluptuous?
Baud
@raven:
Oh, you’re right. I haven’t seen him in a while.
piratedan
I think it’s going to be trivia at Buffalo Wild Wings tonight and then followed by a preview post for AZ Snakepit for the upcoming Braves and Diamondbacks series. So, there will most likely be alcohol involved. Hope that everyone else has an evening that involves the loving and adoring attention of the animals that they care for.
Also, rather disappointed that there wasn’t a meteor strike at Faux News, but I keep hoping that if there is a divine entity that they’ll get around to that soon enough.
FlyingToaster
I finally bit the bullet and updated my iOS devices to 8.4. Then I got to spend an hour making sure that Apple’s Music store/streaming/invasion was disabled. Along with their usual flipping of various settings.
I know they’ve gotta make a living, but I have an AARP card. Trust me, despite my 7-year-old, I am NOT the target audience for this shit.
beltane
@efgoldman: Sheesh, Ted Cruz is just an ugly, ugly man. Physical attractiveness shouldn’t be all-important, but Cruz is just hideous.
schrodinger's cat
@raven: Are you sad? Do you miss him? I was mildly critical of his repetitive stories and objected to his calling himself an immigrant.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I think her HP tenure makes her absolute poison on a national ticket. She makes Willard look like Jed Clampett
JustRuss
Walker’s the only one who makes me nervous, given how effectively he’s dismantled Wisconsin while managing to get re-elected. The fact that he can’t even debate the other clowns in the car makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. Carly might be the best they have, but anyone with a brain knows that disaster follows in her wake, while she’s too corporate, coastal, and female to appeal to the base. I pray the Democrats don’t figure out a way to lose to these chumps.
schrodinger's cat
On a shallow note, has Carly Fiorina had cosmetic surgery or is too much botox. She looks like a different person now, than say she did when she was McCain’s surrogate.
Kropadope
I thought for sure that Walker was going to be the nominee. Bush is just falling apart. Now so many signs point to Trump. He’s weathering the sort of pitfalls that destroyed the candidacies of the 2012 candidates who mini-surged. True, it may not hold when the field winnows, but will that be soon enough to give another candidate the nod and are we sure he peaks below 50% of the Rs?
Iowa Old Lady
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: People voted for a ticket with Sarah Palin on it. They won’t blink at Fiorina.
ThresherK
“Ms. Fiorina, your campaign seems to have the momentum of a runaway freight train. Why are you so popular?”
schrodinger's cat
Walker-Fiorina is a completely charisma free ticket. Although Fiorina does seem to have her fans among the Beltway bots so there is that.
raven
@schrodinger’s cat: I don’t know, I don’t think he meant any harm but I know how folks feel.
Mike J
mclaren
You know, it occurs to me that the superhuman sense of entitlement that’s always characterized the Bush Crime Family may have started to work against them. Jeb seems to actively resent having to do grubby inconvenient peonish things like…give speeches to potential donors in order to scare up blood money for his presidential campaign.
Like JustRuss, I too am only alarmed by Scott Walker. He’s no smarter than the rest, but sufficiently wily and vicious to have actually wrecked the state of Wisconsin despite concerted opposition. In the absence of intelligence, feral persistence and a heartfelt dedication to vandalism can win the day for Repubs, and these are traits Walk has in spades.
rikyrah
Willard is waiting in the cut. I stand by that.
Jeb is just a bad candidate.
The Republic of Stupidity
Aw geez… I just threw up in my mouth after reading that…
schrodinger's cat
@raven: He may just be busy IRL.
raven
@schrodinger’s cat: True, last time I tracked him down and that was the case. Now, Corner. . . .who knows?
Hal
So how big is Walker’s bald spot now?
Kay
@rikyrah:
But Walker is worse. The longer he’s out nationally the worse he does. He has one note- he’s anti-union. It’s enough for a governor in that state in that period but there is absolutely nothing else to recommend him.
jl
@mclaren: Jeb! seems especially put out and resentful that he has to answer to mere plebes, students with no money means at all (I mean, really…), and uppity journalists who have the sheer insolence to ask him a question, any question at all, even questions that his Bush family retainers have told him he will be asked and he has to answer, even though it is a mere formality.
NonyNony
@Kropadope:
We’re still 5+ months away from the first primary. And we’re still in silly season. If Trump is a flash-in-the-pan it’s likely that we won’t know until February.
I don’t believe that Trump can go the distance. I may be wrong, but I just don’t see him being able to pull it off. I don’t think he’s got the chops for the ground game. He can do the high profile TV stuff, but I don’t see him putting together the machine to win Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.
Trump’s one big hope is that he can keep 8 or so of the candidates in the race with him until after Super Tuesday. If he can stick it out that long and can manage to achieve 27% of the GOP primary voters in each primary, with the rest spread out among the other 8 or so candidates, then he’ll eventually get the air of “inevitable winner” and the rest of the states will coalesce around him. If he can’t bring it to the first few contests, though, he can forget about it.
If too many of the other 16 candidates give up and go home before Super Tuesday, Trump will be toast (because their supporters will likely not move to Trump if they haven’t already. Except maybe Ted Cruz’s supporters – I still can’t figure out why they would be backing the Trump suck-up when they could be backing Trump himself.)
mclaren
@rikyrah:
Yes, it’s amazing, isn’t it? Jeb isn’t just bad, he’s astoundingly awful. Every time the guy opens his mouth, he manages to bring up horrible disastrous stuff from his brother’s garbage fire of a presidency that the entire Republican party/Fox News noise machine had managed to bury or gloss over or explain away.
You wonder how the hell Jeb ever got to be governor with a spine-crushingly awful campaign style like this.
p.a.
@schrodinger’s cat: Fiorina does seem to have her fans among the Beltway bots so there is that.
How many layoffs did she instigate before she got dumped? That’ll bring the Village lurv raining down.
schrodinger's cat
@raven: I vaguely remember Cornerstone mentioning that he was going to be on vacation with his son.
jl
@beltane:
” Ted Cruz is just an ugly, ugly man. ”
A little unfair to Ted Cruz’ mere physical form, since it is very difficult to separate the smug from the mug.
Ted Cruz is smugly.
Edit: or more accurately, but rudely, smfugly.
Kay
@efgoldman:
I think it had more meaning for both base Republicans and base Democrats because it was Wisconsin and they fought so hard, but I agree with you.
Tree With Water
How It’s Done, When It’s Done Right:
BY JONATHAN S. LANDAY AND LESLEY CLARK
McClatchy Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON
Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush, in his Tuesday speech that was billed as a major foreign policy address, provided a distorted version of the U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq and an incorrect account of the origins of the Islamic State.
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article30935661.html#storylink=cpy
dmsilev
@Turgidson: That was impressive. I like how she described being fired as “due to a boardroom brawl” and that the left was attacking her for it. No, she got fired for damn near running the company into a ditch, and her firing was wildly applauded by that bastion of progressive liberalism known as Wall Street.
Tom Q
@JustRuss: Walker has never faced voters in an unfavorable environment — i.e., a presidential year, where turnout favors Dems.
Wisconsin may be the most dramatic illustration of the current gap between presidential and midterm electorates: in 2010, voters ousted 3-term Senator Russ Feingold for a modestly-known Rand disciple; in 2012, Tammy Baldwin, a liberal lesbian, easily beat a popular/comparatively centrist former governor Tommy Thompson. It’s like you’re talking about two different states.
Walker’s victories give the illusion of strength in a blue-ish state, but should come with a footnote — “Only applies in Republican-leaning electorates”
NonyNony
@mclaren:
Eh – I have Florida Man on my Twitter feed. I’m not surprised that Jeb! could win Florida. We are talking about the only state that seems to have elected an actual supervillain to the governor’s mansion after all. (And when he finishes that green-and-purple battle armor, Superman will certainly feel his wrath!)
But as a campaigner, Jeb! kind of reminds me of a less competent version of his father. HW Bush was not a great campaigner at all and Jeb! is kind of the same way. But with more missteps. I don’t know where W got his campaign mojo, but his brother certainly didn’t get any of it.
Kay
@mclaren:
Romney was bad too but because he was the only viable candidate they had to vote for him :)
I’m surprised this year because it’s open (no incumbent) and they have every single remotely possible Republican running but I still think they end up with the “default”.
JustRuss
@Iowa Old Lady: Yes, but Palin was the hawt real-American down-home Rutabaga Festival Queen. Fiorina can’t pull that off. The base might vote for her, but they won’t be very happy about it.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
We ended up watching the original “Amityville Horror” last night and, man, was that a crappy movie. I think Stephen King is right, though — it’s all about the horror of getting in over your head with a fixer-upper money pit you can’t really afford.
redshirt
I can impersonate Tommy if you all are missing him.
Gimlet
I await commentary from any of the GOP clowns on how the world’s economy tanked because banks were forced to lend mortgage money to undeserving blacks.
JPL
@raven: My opinion, is that we are all repetitive. Tommy did add to the discussion, though, and hopefully he’ll come back.
raven
@redshirt: It was just me.
Splitting Image
My guess is that the VP candidate won’t be one of the current crop of candidates. Remember that whichever one of these clowns ends up with the nomination, the other 16 will by definition be less popular. Picking someone who didn’t run (cf. Palin, Ryan) will allow the TV bobbleheads to talk about the shiny new object instead of the VP’s performance in the early campaign.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the VP ends up being Tom Cotton.
As for the eventual nominee, I think people are making the mistake of thinking of the candidates as candidates, instead of as the tools being used in their sugar-daddies’ dick measuring contest. Sure, Trump is a larger-than-life asshole, but the Kochs are even larger, and if they want him taken down, then down he comes. Bush’s organization is probably capable of booting him to the curb too.
The real story going on behind the scenes is that the Kochs, Sheldon Adelson, and a bunch of others are all rebelling in various ways from the Chamber of Commerce and the “old money” Republican bankrollers. The G.O.P. campaign is about who is winning that fight, not the relative merits of the proxy. (If Walker weren’t the Kochs’ man, he’d be no man at all.) Trump’s main novelty is that he is running himself rather than hiring a catspaw, but he doesn’t have the resources to take on the really high rollers. He’ll win the fight if the Kochs decide to back him.
Mike J
@dmsilev:
Every time you hear that she doubled revenues, remember that she cut profits by 2/3rds.
celticdragonchick
Can we redo Game of Thrones history and have Walker and Fiorina at The Red Wedding?
I would sooooooo pay to hear somebody start playing the “Rains of Castamere” at a Walker campaign event…
JPL
What’s Walker’s platform? Vote for me, I’m the person gutting colleges to pay for an arena. This is his plan for solving income equality.
David Koch
jl
@Tree With Water: Looks like a very good article, I will read it later when I have time.
Sorry to repeat myself on this, but normally good criticism of a GOPer campaign speech would not get any play in corporate media, but since Jeb! has done so poorly, and not at all a dominating figure, other GOPers will pick up these lines of attack on misleading nonsense that Jeb! spews in public, so they may actually get some attention. Christie is already out critiquing Jeb!’s foreign policy speech.
As other commenters have noted, sooner or later, the Bush political murder machine will rev up, but a lot of damage will be done in the meantime.
So far, Willard stands like a colossus above this crowd of clowns.
Hope the GOP mess keeps going, and some schlub wins by merely surviving longer with largest plurality, producing a very unenthusiastic GOP base for the general.
I think with HRC, Sanders, and maybe Biden, the Democratic primary shows more promise of being a constructive force. I hope O’Malley can perform likewise, though seems like he tends to go more towards negative campaigning than others, though don’t know for sure.
p.a.
At this time Nate Silver thinks Trump drops as the field narrows. He doesn’t think he’ll gain proportionally as voters reshuffle to the primary survivors. Whichever candidates have the $ and the will to continue have a chance. (Insert unfortunate ‘Triumph of the Will’ reference here.) With Kochbucks behind him Walker could still be strong.
Tree With Water
@NonyNony: “I don’t know where W got his campaign mojo..”. Don’t you remember? Al Gore was fat and lied about having invented the internet.
Turgidson
@schrodinger’s cat:
She’s a woman, which allows them to pretend the GOP isn’t stuck in the 1920s on gender issues, and she’s not a fire breathing teabagger nutjob like Bachmann or Palin were, so they can pretend she’s mainstream and reasonable.
These days, that’s about all it takes to impress the Villagers. Their “both sides do it” template is getting stretched to the breaking point and they’ll take anything they can get.
redshirt
I can’t wait to vote for Hillz-Rod in the 2016 Hizlection. Yo.
redshirt
Seriously, though. For real.
David Koch
¡Jeb! just isn’t good at this
PurpleGirl
Watching Bye, Bye Birdie. Not in the mood for politics tonight. Will read the thread now, but my attention is really on Bye, Bye Birdie.
Jeffro
I’m already seeing Rubio/Kaisch, Kaisch/Ernst, Rubio/Haley (and variants) here and there. Not really data but I think the idea is Walker might not be ready for prime time – neither is Rubio but at least he’s Hispanic and (gack) somewhat attractive to some.
I think the Koch brothers’ vetting questionnaire consists of three questions:
1) How well do you take direction?
2) How attractive and/or ethnic and/or female do you think I think you are?
3) Is your last name Bush?
raven
@PurpleGirl: KIDS!
Anne Laurie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Nobody ever looked at Dick Cheney and thought, There’s a guy I’d like to have a beer with.
Walker’s got — or so I’m told — the aw-shucks preachers-kid shuffle that pleases the “I don’t want no Presnint what’s smarter’n me” base; Fiorina’s got the “fvck you, serfs” snarl that pleases the plutocrats & their wanna-be admirers.
The combination scares me more than most other potential matchups at the moment, if only because it would signal a truce between the warring GOP camps, and I don’t want those thugs to stop fighting with each other!
David Koch
Debbie
@JustRuss:
Remember her catty hot-mike slam on Barbara Boxer’s haircut? Yeah, that was presidential.
rikyrah
@NonyNony:
but HW didn’t have Barbara’s obvious disdain for ‘ the little people’, and Jeb does. He can’t hide it. The contempt he has for actually having to go through the campaign is palpable.
Turgidson
@JPL:
His platform is basically that he has been an insufferable asshole to his constituents in many of the ways that impress the GOP base and many the asshole billionaires who finance the GOP, but still won elections in a blue state.
If he actually gets the nomination, he’ll either try to shake the Etch-a-Sketch even harder than Mittens did and be even clumsier at it, or he’ll actually campaign as an insufferable asshole. Either way I think he’d be a terrible general election candidate. But then again, I thought he’d lose in 2014, so he’s more resilient than I thought.
Gimlet
@Turgidson:
What about Joni Ernst?
She’s forceful, a bit of a grassroots character, female and seemingly less certifiable than the others mentioned.
rikyrah
Tommy – hope you come back. loved your stories about your family.
JPL
@PurpleGirl: A friend went to see the play, put on by a musicale, last weekend and mentioned how she happened to hate it. I mocked her. Enjoy!
Turgidson
@David Koch:
Isn’t there still plurality support in this country for torture at least being an option? I feel like I saw a poll to that effect not too long ago.
So I agree that Jeb isn’t good at this, but his position on torture isn’t likely to hurt him – especially with the rage-filled voters he needs to appeal to in the primary.
redshirt
I read “The Lowland” in my book club. Liked it, but not overly. A depressing book.
jl
@David Koch:
” that the musical “Hamilton” is based on. ”
There is a musical about Alexander Hamilton?
Sex scenes? If so should be good, Hamilton TMI’d that things got quite steamy and boisterous in his political confession.
I assume that the Reports will be set in some kind of Broadway pitter patter style.
Count me IN!
Jeffro
@NonyNony:
Assuming he’s still going by the time SC rolls around, the ugly stuff flying around from the fundie wing is going to be unbelievable. He’ll lose there bigtime. Rubio and Cruz should still be looking good by then – that’ll be an interesting showdown.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Yeah, but he also didn’t have the job-killing record that Fiorina had at HP. During the campaign, Cheney seemed like quiet if slightly grumpy competence, I think it’s much easier to make people hate Fiorina
I still think Walker would want Rubio or, maybe, Kasich.
Mack
I still think Fiorina is on the ticket…but as VP. That should placate enough GOP women and independents to at least mitigate the whole gender thing.
Debbie
not sure how to link to Twitter, but I just saw Carly’s Palin shot:
https://twitter.com/NRO/status/630808380639019008
schrodinger's cat
@Kay: Did you check out the op-ed in NYT written by Marie Antoinette’s spiritual heir? NYT gave him more column space today to answer reader queries.
He doesn’t want to pay more taxes but wants tax incentives for businesses so that they can pay their employees a fair compensation.
Turgidson
@Gimlet:
They like her too (despite the fact that she’s a total fucking lunatic), and she might be on the VP shortlist.
The media took a monumental dive for her in that Senate race, throwing the “make fun of Al Gore over nonsense” template at Bruce Braley with gusto. She’s basically Sharron Angle, just with more media savvy and more photogenic.
David Koch
@jl: believe or not, it’s a rap musical
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@jl: a hip-hop musical written, as I learned today on Chris Hayes’ WTF interview, by an old friend of Hayes– who wanted to work in theater but reporting paid better. Supposed to be the hippest ticket since The Book Of Mormon, which I also didn’t see.
Jeffro
@Gimlet:
You’re kidding, right? She is Palin, she is Cruz, she is absolutely off-the-right-cliff far right.
Kropadope
Jeez, these Republicans; never any details, never any responsibility, always a victim, always someone else’s fault.
Alex
Fiorina has an oped posted on HuffPost today — http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carly-fiorina/the-status-quo-isnt-working-for-women-in-america_b_7983718.html?1439485489
The TLDR: “The status quo for women in the workplace is terrible. And that is why I oppose requiring maternity leave.”
I’m serious. The majority is about how tough it is for women in the work place. Then there’s a section on how awful Democratic policies are, such as maternity leave (which she offered at H-P because maternity leave is awesome). And then the last part is “Vote for me, I will fix everything”. There are literally zero policy ideas, but that doesn’t matter apparently when complaining about the status quo.
Turgidson
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yeah, Cheney is possibly the worst human being on the planet, but he did play the part of “serious, experienced adult to GWB’s jovial mediocrity” very successfully, especially back in 2000 before anyone realized he was barking mad.
Tree With Water
Speaking of Jeb! (The Smart One!), TPM has posted:
“Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) said on Thursday during a campaign stop in Iowa that “taking out Saddam Hussein turned out to be a pretty good deal,” according to multiple reports.
From the Wall Street Journal’s Reid Epstein: The quote was also reported on by The Daily Beast. Bush was speaking at a forum sponsored by Americans for Peace, Prosperity and Security at St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa, according to the website.
The Beast reported that Bush went on to say he didn’t want to hypothesize about what would have happened if his brother, former President George W. Bush, had not ordered the invasion of Iraq, which led to the toppling of Hussein..”
That remark insults the memory of every victim of the Bush-Cheny successful plot to war, as well as the intelligence of even the most dim witted of Americans. Jeb! will never be POTUS, and I once again call on Hillary to explain what she has learned from that great betrayal. If indeed she has learned anything at all..
NotMax
@PurpleGirl
Am incapable of sitting through that hot mess of two-dimensional stereotypes, either on the screen or the stage.
jl
@David Koch: I can see it, Rap is kind of R&B pitter patter. Report on Manufactures would sound good as rap, and Chuck D would agree with some of it, at least compared to the GOP.
schrodinger's cat
I saw Fiorina once she was shopping in one of the boutiques on M street in DC, she was there with a younger woman, probably her daughter. She is quite tall.
Kropadope
@Tree With Water:
…for government contractors!!!
David Koch
Anne Laurie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: You could be right. But I don’t think it’s about what Scotty “wants” — he’ll take the Veep the Kochs choose for him, and be grateful. Or at least quiet, while in public/on mic.
It’ll be an “establishment-friendly” pick, assuming Walker takes back his lead. But it won’t be JEB!, because even if Bar was able to force her kid into taking second slot, he’s the one candidate I can see Walker self-immolating rather than accept.
Omnes Omnibus
@jl: It’s a hip-hop musical. It is brilliant. This is Lin-Manuel Miranda performing the first song from it at the White House.
jl
@Kropadope: Nuking a world renowned successful corporation with a disastrous business deal is upsetting the status quo.
Give her points for candor.
Alex
Oh, and open thread.
If you want to get your hate clickbait on, there’s a Chicago Tribune op-ed arguing that Hurricane Katrina would be a good thing for Chicago because of debt restructuring and union busting. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-chicago-katrina-financial-disaster-landrieu-new-orleans-mcqueary-emanuel-pers-20150813-column.html
A metaphorical one of course. But really, look at how well everything turned out in New Orleans!
sacrablue
@Splitting Image: I believe the establishment/Wall Street crowd is quietly pushing Niki Haley for VP. They’ve got CNBC promoting her record on manufacturing jobs increasing in her state, no doubt the result of tax credits and anti union laws.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@schrodinger’s cat: I gather she currently gets her mail at a big spread in Virginia? I buy into the idea that she’s building up a mailing list and gathering chits for a Senate run. Does somebody in her already shaky position want to go through the vetting of a Veep slot, risk more dirt being dug up and exposed, and quite possibly having the loser taint? I kind of doubt it.
Gimlet
@efgoldman:
She’s still the “fresh” one without the clay feet from public exposure the other women have (mixed metaphor alert).
Peale
Polls of likely Iowa caucus voters are rather meaningless unless they tell us where that support is. And in the end it will go to whichever social conservative is backed bay Vander whathisname out in Steve Kings district. It should go to a Walker, but my guess is still it will go to Cruz. But it won’t matter. President Gephart would like to talk with you about that famed Iowa momentum.
jl
Marshall psychoanalyzes Biff Bush. I think Swaggering Chip would be better, since it connects to chimp and Chip and Dale.
Swaggering Biff
” Even the language has that weird brand of tough guy braggadocio that can’t break free of the yacht basin or even quite want to. Swaggering Biff. ”
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/its-a-family-thing
Edit: think about this, is that Jeb!’s personal Iraq quagmire is more than a gaffe, it is a bizarre strategic error that won’t go away. After he humiliated himself with his previous performance on the topic. He knew he was going with the Dub-Cheney crew on foreign policy. The guy is clueless and n idiot in many ways. Such a dolt or so inept he could not prepare himself for the obvious an inevitable.
JPL
@schrodinger’s cat: I didn’t realize that he was going to have a q and a. I would have asked him about our current tax code. As much as we would like to think it is progressive, it’s not. Deductions are regressive. The Koch’s might donate to the arts. but theoretically, it is because we are paying higher taxes to subsidy them.
His answers were so vague. Spending is to high and Government is to big. What does that even mean? Does he want to rid us of food inspections or social security.
I would have asked him about earned and unearned income also.
Anne Laurie
@schrodinger’s cat:
Hmm… taller than Rubio? Taller than Walker?
msdc
They will if they want to put their penis in the candidate.
NotMax
So will it be Bush or Fiorina who eats a corn dog at the Iowa State Fair with a knife and fork?
Dolly Llama
@efgoldman: Lord, what has happened to Tommy? Can somebody link back to that thread? He was incapable of writing outside the first person, but damn if I didn’t always think of him as Opie Cunningham.
Kropadope
@Dolly Llama: Did you know he’s a POW? Wait, are we talking about the same guy?
JPL
@efgoldman: If you give them an entitlement to increase wages, you can call them job creators, unlike those that work at Walmart and get food stamps. They are users.
Don’t think I jest.
raven
@Dolly Llama: He said some pretty dumb shit and got jumped ugly.
Iowa Old Lady
Fiorina can come across as smart and articulate. She’d probably have to be in order to get where she did. That’s why she looked good in the kiddy debate, although of course she also had the advantage of contrast.
mclaren
@Kay:
I suspect that the Repubs will wind up with the default, Jeb, as their candidate. Jeb has made many many more flubs than his brother had at this point, though, and I don’t see how he can possibly win against Hillary if this is his level of campaign speechifying.
The other point, that Jeb won in Florida back before the giant housing bubble crashed, is a good one. Back when America actually had money and the middle class had not yet imploded, American voters didn’t care much about whether a lunatic incompetent got into office. They figured they could laugh it off.
Now, after the Dubya presidency, they know better.
JPL
@Iowa Old Lady: She said some shit about Hillary, that could be proven false, but that wasn’t what the debate about. That was all she did.
beltane
@schrodinger’s cat: Maybe her surviving step-daughter. She does not have any biological children.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
Mocking McClaren for being a clueless douchenozzel
@raven:
Speaking of douchenozzels and missing Nyms, where is Corner Stone?
Gimlet
Jeb has made many many more flubs than his brother had at this point, though, and I don’t see how he can possibly win against Hillary if this is his level of campaign speechifying.
Sometimes the independent voter figures that after 8 years of a Democrat, it’s time for a change. If both candidates are legacies – dynasties that will figure too. Policy will be a distant third.
schrodinger's cat
@Anne Laurie: I don’t know how tall they are. If I had to guess Fiorina’s height I would say that she is between 5ft 8 and 5ft 10.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JPL: I know Fiorina likes to talk about HRC’s ‘lies’ about Benghazi. If anyone’s asked her what HRC is lying about, I’ve missed it.
kc
@rikyrah:
I liked Tommy. He was never nasty to anyone here-at least, he never initiated it.
Dolly Llama
@raven: On what thread, at least? This fascinates me. I thought I was the only one who found Tommy to be … something.
redshirt
Imperator Fiorina
mainmata
I can’t believe BJers are taking rat-faced Walker seriously as a viable candidate. Yes, the Gooper field is extraordinarily bad but Walker is not only a crook, he’s also incompetent and would be laughable in the general. JEB(!) is a truly awful candidate and clearly is only going through the motions but he is also the only “credible” candidate against a likely Hillary opponent.
Dolly Llama
@kc: I’d much rather see him back than the poster who went by a synonym for small footwear. Thinking that one must’ve gotten banned, finally. In my mind’s eye, he definitely did NOT look or sound like Opie Cunningham.
JPL
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That’s her entire campaign, since her leadership at HP can be questioned.
@kc: Agree.
redshirt
@mainmata: I don’t think there are any serious Republican candidates.
pseudonymous in nc
Scottie Wanker is the unwanted Bush sibling who got adopted, and he knows it.
JPL
I think it so cool, that Kerry is going to raise the flag over the US embassy in Cuba.
rikyrah
@Dolly Llama:
I don’t know what happened either.
JPL
@redshirt: Kasich actually sound acceptable, which will be his undoing. The Republicans aren’t interested in acceptable and sane, anymore.
Kropadope
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Now, to be fair, have we once heard any of the people who like to bang on and on about Benghazi give a realistic answer? Most Democrats can probably list more actual mistakes and lessons learned from Benghazi than any Republican.
beltane
My son spent the summer working as a counselor at an evangelical summer camp (don’t ask) in New Hampshire. He reports that the kids there, acting as the vessels of their parents opinions, think that Jeb should be the next president. He was also in disbelief that there are lots of people out there who like Donald Trump in an un-ironic way. No mention of the other clowns, who seems not to have broken through yet.
Before you all yell at me about my son, he is a liberal Bernie supporter who happens to be on very sincere Jesus kick right now. I think this is my fault for not sending him to Catholic school where he would have learned to be more cynical about such things.
raven
@Dolly Llama: Man I don’t know. I’ve been on the road to the low-country and hung up on this house addition nightmare so I can’t really pinpoint it. Maybe the search function would do it? Ommes may swing by and shed some light.
NotMax
@JPL
Remember the Maine!
:)
redshirt
@JPL:
Heck yeah. John Kerry is a true American hero and getting this honor is a capstone on an incredible career.
beltane
@JPL: That is incredibly cool.
pseudonymous in nc
@Tree With Water:
Landay (back when McClatchy was Knight Ridder) was one of the journalists on the Iraq beat who came away with an enhanced reputation, because he called out bullshit. He’s a professional, and won’t let Jeb! do one on him or the public.
JPL
@NotMax: Not really. I did read about it though.
tybee
@raven:
and with corner…who cares…
Kropadope
@beltane:
Unintentional on the part of the Catholic schools, or so I understand.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kropadope: Seems like they’ve moved on to the email “scandal”. I turned on MSNBC in the car today and the anchor whose name escapes me was almost giddy talking about the possibility of a “smoking gun” in the emails. I was thinking “where’s the body? what, exactly, is the scandal?”. Norm Ornstein, who used to be considered conservative, pretty much said the same thing, comparing this to the all-smoke-no-fire of Whitewater.
I gather there’s a Benghazi movie coming up by a celebrity action film maker that includes the “stand down” order that never happened.
pseudonymous in nc
@JPL:
About fucking time. One of the long-lasting achievements of the Obama years, and one that Fidel and Raul managed to finesse on their side.
Also, it’ll be good for Americans to grow up knowing what Havana actually looks like, as opposed to being made to imagine it as a load of shacks.
raven
OK, this may be the one where redshirt got all up in Tommy’s ass.
raven
@tybee: yup
Tree With Water
@Iowa Old Lady: Horace Mann 1845: “For, however loftily the intellect of a man may have been gifted, however skillfully it might have been trained, if it is not guided by a sense of justice, and a devotion to duty, its possessor is only a splendid, as he is a more dangerous, barbarian”.
I wonder if that’s what inspired Dean Acheson to describe the forebears of today’s GOP – i.e..e., the 1950’s Bircher & McCarthyite wing of the republican party- as ‘barbarians’? It certainly pertains to every republican aspirant vying for the party’s nomination, doesn’t it?… every member of congress, too.
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: I got nothin’ on this one; I wasn’t a part of the immigrant brouhaha with him – if that is what you are taking about. As much as he annoys me, I thought everyone else was beating him up enough that I wasn’t going to jump in.
OTOH he’s disappeared before when he was busy with work and then come back.
Kropadope
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Honestly, I think she was unwise not conducting her e-mail business according to modern professional standards. That said, to the extent that is even an issue, the reporting on it is way overheated. See: NY Times reporting on “criminal inquiry.”
SatanicPanic
Who will it be then, I wonder? Rubio? I don’t know how to pick a winner out of this bunch
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: Yea, I was saying that upstream. I should have left it alone, he’s full growed.
JPL
@raven: Sometimes it’s better to just ignore those challenging you. You’ve been there. I hope that Tommy realizes that he can comment and ignore those who are attacking him personally.
Personal attacks say more about those doing it, imo.
raven
@JPL: Well, I’d be lying if I said I let that shit slide. I’m of the cut the head of the snake school.
JPL
@Omnes Omnibus: Well at least Tommy would have shared how to say casino… if he knew.
just sayin
Bex
I haven’t seen Violet here in a long time.
schrodinger's cat
@JPL: It seemed like the centrist no-label claptrap.
JPL
@raven: NO SHIT. LOL
I mean that it in the nicest way.
You should post pics showing the remodel in the morning. It’s close to my bedtimes, so I’ll miss them tonight.
Gimlet
@Kropadope:
Didn’t Dubya and Cheney conduct government business via emails on nongovernment servers?
tybee
@rikyrah:
+1
Jim, Foolish Literalist
It was stupid, especially since her reasoning, as I understand it, is that Clintons are held to a different standard, so she didn’t want her emails to become fodder for hearings. So talk on the fucking phone like Condi did. Bill is supposed to be able around a corner that’s ten miles down the road on a dark and stormy night. He didn’t think “private server” would be a red cape for the heirs of Dan Burton? Anyway. I still more or less think that once she starts really campaigning, our bitter old uncles and Luke Russert will be the only ones talking about her emails.
raven
@JPL: We’re on our way to bed too. They hung the drywall, taped it and did the 1st run of mud this week. They didn’t get her until 1pm and left after 8 today. We’re really squeezed in the house with no kitchen and we are at the end of the projected 3 weeks with no end in site.
JPL
@schrodinger’s cat: What was interesting, he never really said anything during the q and a. It was all blah blah blah. There was nothing concrete except incentives.
kc
@Dolly Llama:
I’m curious, too, though maybe I shouldn’t look. The idea of a bunch of grown-ass people bullying a good-natured, non-malicious, non-trolly guy off a blog is kind of disturbing.
JPL
@raven: When I was doing heavy duty sanding, I covered everything with plastic. My dog got caught in the plastic, panicked and wrapped her self up. It scared the heck out of me and I decided to live with the dust. Better than the alternative.
kc
@raven:
Wow, way to go, people.
Pat yourselves on the back.
Redshift
@Tree With Water: I’m beginning to suspect that Jeb! suffers from a variation of one of the reasons Shrub wanted to go after Saddam (“he tried to kill my daddy!”) No matter how much better it would be for his campaign if he avoided the subject of Iraq as much as possible, he didn’t seem to be able to keep from trying to defend his brother, and in the process, reminding everyone of what a disaster Shrub’s presidency was.
Either that or his neocon advisors are still so convinced that they were right, dammit, that they think voters will agree if they just tell them loud enough.
Either way, it’s a weird (but welcome) tic.
elftx
@Debbie: So they have her ‘sitting’ on the memorial to Joe Louis in Detroit???
Got IT!!
PurpleGirl
@jl: I don’t know if the play gets into that side of Hamilton. What I do know is that it is rap music.
Kropadope
@Gimlet:
Yes, RNC servers, if I remember correctly. I wouldn’t be using that pair as a basis for comparison on matters of modern professional standards or government transparency, though.
Another Holocene Human
@mclaren:
Ahem.
Because Florida.
(The GOP was surging. Then they got in charge of stuff and broke it all, stole all the moneys, and squealed like pigs when they couldn’t buy off the judges, also, too. Not so surger-y any more.)
SatanicPanic
@kc: yeah, come on, Tommy says some inadvisable things every now and then, but can’t everyone just be nice to him? He’s a gentle soul, not like the rest of us hyenas or jackals or whatever we are
raven
@JPL: We had the addition and kitchen sealed off when this started but the access has gotten more limited and it’s not protecting mush at this point. I mentioned it to the general contractor today and I think they’ll put it back together before they start sanding.
Tree With Water
@beltane: Your son’s reaction sort of reminds me of my own disbelief at the extent of Nixon’s landslide in ’72. I was so green that someone needed to explain that the San Francisco Bay Area (like NYC, Chicago, etc.) was not typical of most of the country. I mean, I knew McGovern was going to get beat, but my god, not like that, not that bad. I sure never looked at my fellow ‘Mericans the same way again, the fuckin’ idiots.
raven
@SatanicPanic: Agreed. I just scroll on past it when he throws out some doozie.
kc
@Dolly Llama:
I know that one got put on time out for a week or so, but I saw that he had returned recently. Is he gone again? I think he usually posted late at night, so I didn’t see too much of him anyway.
Gimlet
@Kropadope:
If it was OK for them to do it why the problem with Hillary using nongovernment servers?
PurpleGirl
@raven: Yes, that’s a good number. But I love the whole cast — Ann Margret, Janet Leigh, Jesse Pearson, Paul Lynde, Dick Van Dyke, Maureen Stapleton. I like Janet Leigh’s number with the Shriners. And Jesse Pearson in gold lame.
Kropadope
@SatanicPanic:
We can’t all be as well-loved as I am :: hides head ::
SatanicPanic
@beltane:
Amen to that. Nothing drives Christianity out of you like Catholic school. Drove it right out of me.
Cervantes
@Tree With Water:
McClatchy is good.
Kropadope
@Gimlet: If it wasn’t clear from my comment, I do NOT believe it was OK for them to do it.
SatanicPanic
@Kropadope: Lol, we’re all friends, right?
Another Holocene Human
@Tom Q: Thanks for this explanation. I had been wondering about that.
Cervantes
@redshirt:
Imperatrice, surely.
schrodinger's cat
@SatanicPanic: His comments used to remind of life in the Truman Show.
raven
Hash it out and I’ll see what ya’ll figure out.
Another Holocene Human
@NonyNony:
Poppy was good at nasty digs at his campaign opponents. JEB! prefers to make his nasty digs at the electorate.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Redshift: The one thing MoDo* was good for, once upon a time, was explaining the Bushes. I think she was on the money with the oedipal loop-de-loop theory that Dumbya had to avenge daddy, and at the same time show he was a ‘tougher’ man. Jeb! has a parallel dilemma, he has to redeem the family name (that he doesn’t know at its best only stood for WASPy mediocrity) after the disasters and tragedy his dimwitted elder brother perpetrated, but at the same time try to protect the dimwit’s reputation. Seems like the strain is getting to him.
*there was some internet gossip a while back that she wanted to give up politics and start being a full-time TV /pop culture columnist. I saw yesterday the Times hired a new TV critic, so I’m guessing we’ll be treated to her biweekly, incoherent jabber about HRC through 2016
raven
Rachel is just all a fucking twitter about Webb.
VidaLoca
I know I’m late to the party but since the topic is Scott Walker, a few comments:
1. In general it’s not true that Walker has prevailed in three elections over the last four years because of low turnout. Fall 2010 regular election (vs. Tom Barrett) was about average for an off-year election. June 2012 (the recall, vs. Tom Barrett) on the other hand broke all kinds of records statewide; 70% and up in some counties. Unfortunately those counties are the right-wing bastions west and north of Milwaukee. Fall 2014 regular election (vs. Mary Burke) was large but not as big as 2012.
2. Walker has been blessed by the fecklessness and incompetence of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, the campaigns they run and the candidates they choose. This pattern goes back as far as his original election to Milw. Co. Executive in 2002 and was compounded by the disappointment that was the Democratic administration of Gov. Jim Doyle (2002-2010. Doyle chose to quit in 2010 rather than run for another term he could not win; Barrett stepped in to try to salvage what could be saved but failed). None of these were close elections, in each case Walker won by margins of roughly 54%-46%.
3. Also, Walker runs a very professional field operation. They don’t leave much to chance and they get their people to the polls when it counts. This in contrast to the DPW who could not organize a sleepover for a bunch of third-grade kids
(the DPW is — finally — trying to clean house and reform itself but it will take years before they succeed at that).
4. I agree with many of you that over the past months Walker has given many reasons to believe that as a candidate he is in over his head. Where I disagree is that I think you underestimate the power of his message, which is white working-class resentment. His skill has been in repackaging the old Southern Strategy for the 21st century, selling a social program of resentment while letting others take the point on the culture-war issues and never — until recently — having to take a position on foreign-policy matters. Turns out he’s not that good as a culture warrior and ignorant on foreign affairs but the problem he’s facing right now is that Trump is pantsing everyone on resentment.
All Walker has to do is keep a low profile, conserve his money, build up a field operation in the early primary states and keep his foot out of his mouth (the last will be the hardest for him). He can’t beat Trump at being Trump but he can step in and build on the wreckage if Trump implodes.
Iowa Old Lady
I believe Colin Powell used a private e-mail server too.
Secretaries of State before that didn’t use much e-mail, hard as it is to picture now.
Frankensteinbeck
I don’t think Jeb’s positions, even supporting the Iraq War, will hurt him much. The GOP is all style over substance. It’s the way he seems fumbling and petulant that will kill him. Conservatives hate weakness.
@Redshift:
The neocons are true believers, zealots. Yes, they think Iraq was the right thing to do, and if America just swings its dick harder at Iran, the whole world will bow down in loving awe of our manliness. Cheney wrote a paper about it at AEI.
kc
@SatanicPanic:
Let’s face it . . . we suck.
Kropadope
@SatanicPanic: I try. Still, when I find myself on the wrong side of some pushback for a heterodox opinion, I can get a little too sarcastic and/or persistent for my own good. My proudest moment, though, was once I got pretty well-complimented for a troll slaying, I forget when or who, but I think it was something about immigration.
Redshift
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Where did you get that understanding? My understanding is that every SoS in the email era before Kerry did something similar (Colin Powell absolutely did), which doesn’t seem to support that theory. Federal government IT is notoriously bad, and was even worse then, so I find the official explanation pretty plausible.
Calouste
@NonyNony:
Not that unlikely really.
Paul, Carson and Huckabee are in it for the grift. As long as they can get 4-5% they’ll stay in so they can keep fleecing the rubes. They are not that likely to run out of money, because the aim of their campaign is to rake it in, not to spend it, so they are not going to set up much of a ground game in the first place. If there is a ground game, the churches or in Paul case, some glibertarians, will do it for them.
Walker, Bush, Cruz, Rubio, Kasich, and possibly Fiorina are fairly close together in the polls and have big financial backers. Can’t see any of them dropping out unless there is significant movement in the polls. They will all think they are going to be the one to win if Trump fails.
The rest (Perry, Santorum, Christie, Pataki, Gilmore, Jindal, Graham) don’t really poll outside the margin of error, so them dropping out of the race won’t have much of an effect.
Another Holocene Human
@Gimlet: Ernst is seemingly less certifiable? Assumes premise not proven.
Another Holocene Human
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: what little I’ve seen on youtube was fucking sweet
so jealous
Iowa Old Lady
@Another Holocene Human: She’s completely insane. She believes there were WMD in Iraq. She’s worried about the UN taking over. She says a minimum wage–any minimum wage–is ridiculous.
mclaren
@Gimlet:
So far, the speeches and the reactions to them this election cycle have worked exactly the opposite of that dynamic. Sanders (whose speech I saw in person on Sunday in Portland) got standing ovations because of his policy points. And every time Jeb makes a speech, it raises all kinds of ugly skeletons in the closet about policy blunders by Dubya — like the decision to start the Iraq war in 2003, like the massive orgy of fraud and deregulation that crashed the U.S. economy, and so on.
In a normal business cycle the U.S. economy would have recovered from the 2009 recession by now and you would by and large be correct. At this point, policy would not be a big issue.
But it’s 2015 and the U.S. economy still hasn’t recovered from the 2009 global financial collapse. At the same time, rents have skyrocketed nationwide to levels never before seen in U.S. history:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-13/renting-in-america-has-never-been-this-expensive
Read between the lines of this next report, and you discover that the inventory-to-sales ratio for businesses in the U.S. is still flatlined at recessionary levels. 6 years into the so-called ‘recovery,’ and businesses are still effectively in recession:
http://econintersect.com/pages/releases/release.php?post=201508130925
More evidence that the U.S. economy is flat on its back: rolling stock is at a multiyear low. Train shipments of consumer durables and commodities like lumber, coal, etc. are way, way way down. The consumer just isn’t buying. The economy is very weak, even 6 years after the financial meltdown. That’s because everyone is using their available income to pay down their debts instead of buying cars and furniture and houses, so aggregate demand is massively depressed.
Source: ” Rail Week Ending 08 August 2015: Continued Decline of One Year Rolling Average: Week 31 of 2015 shows same week total rail traffic (from same week one year ago) contracted according to the Association of American Railroads (AAR) traffic data. Intermodal traffic expanded year-over-year, which accounts for approximately half of movements. and weekly railcar counts continued in contraction.”
Here’s the really worrisome part of the current economic situation:
“The Fed finds itself in a dangerous quandary: no ability to cut rates to stimulate the economy if growth starts to tank again because the Fed is already at the zero bound range; while conversely running the risk of setting off a global financial asset selloff that destabilizes markets further if it raises rates.”
Picking the wrong prez in 2000 seemed to have no serious downside. Ergo few voters gave a damn about policy. Voters are well aware, however, that picking the wrong prez in 2016 may leave them homeless. Ergo many many voters give a damn about policy in this electoral cycle.
rikyrah
@VidaLoca:
You keep on saying this, and I keep on repeating..
Willard ran a perfect Southern strategy campaign – he won SIXTY PERCENT of the White vote.
SIXTY PERCENT.
The likelihood of the 2016 Democratic candidate being Black is less than zero.
Willard won 60 percent of the White vote – and it didn’t even matter.
Jeffro
@Calouste:
I feel like I wrote a variation of this a few days ago…great minds and all that…
Other than some sort of dramatic Trump implosion, Calouste has it: there is ample reason to think that come February, we will still be looking at Rubio, Walker, Bush, Cruz, Carson, and Paul along with Trump. (Huckabee maybe, just for the grift as Calouste says)
Kaisch’s support would almost certainly come directly out of Bush’s, so it’s one or the other or a very low-polling “both”. Fiorina is nobody’s first pick (well, almost nobody’s) so she is likely to have support dry up between now and then (and a lot of the commentariat seem to see her as just a possible VP anyway).
That’s six major candidates going into Feb. Assuming Carson and Paul drop back a bit after that, that is Rubio, Walker, Cruz, Bush, and Trump heading into Super Tuesday. Easy to see pretty much everyone getting within the 15-25% range there, no reason to think anyone will be higher.
I think it’ll be interesting to see if Bush or his backers decide to pull the plug in the next few months before it gets really sad. And some Koch consigliere is going to have to talk with either Rubio’s or Walker’s campaigns by January and figure out who’s going to get their chance at the brass ring this time. Cruz doesn’t care – he would push it to the convention if he has to – but I think he’ll try and extort his way onto the ticket in the VP slot around then. Be a shame if he got double crossed and Haley was put in there.
Kropadope
@mclaren:
Except literally everything you wrote about in that very post.
mai naem mobile
I.can’t.be bothered to read through this whole thread but Walker/Fiorina are the two most unattractive people in the field. Walkers got the weird eye thing going and Fiorina just had that mean nasty long time prison inmate look about her. I cannot be forced to look at those two for 4 long years.
Another Holocene Human
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Relevant.
(Available for sale.)
Another Holocene Human
@Iowa Old Lady: That’s right, and we can start economizing by wearing breadbags instead of shoes.
pseudonymous in nc
@Redshift:
I’m sympathetic to that argument, especially in the era of mobile email, which the high-level federal contracts never really anticipated. On the other hand, I also think that the record-keeping requirements matter, for now and for future historians.
Another Holocene Human
Hanes is too expensive, think I’ll make underwear out of Dollar General bags.
VidaLoca
@rikyrah: Understood. But I think that argument leads you to a position of complacency which is not a good thing.
Kropadope
@Redshift:
Now, who was in a position to improve IT infrastructure at the state department…?
Tree With Water
I’m about to watch a baseball game, and will keep the remote close because a commercial I despise will run 3 or 4 times, guaranteed. In it Eli Manning looks as stupid as Rowe Lowe did doing that incredibly annoying schtick about a “cool Manning” as cable subscriber vs. his “loser Manning” satellite customer persona. Or vice versa, I don’t know or care.. to think the man is already a millionaire, many times over, and he does that to himself.
Another Holocene Human
@mclaren:
Oh Keee-rist, way to misrepresent a source there, buckaroo.
This turnaround in carloads has been TOTALLY anticipated. (And has been going on for months.) Short version? It all has to do with fossil fuel markets. Because railroads transport oil and coal. Oh, and the falling demand? It’s in China.
Troll harder, mcclaren.
rikyrah
@VidaLoca:
On the contrary – I believe it’s all about GOTV. I believe in the Obama roadmap to 270. And, there is nothing, nothing about Scott Walker that makes me believe he can make one iota of encroachment into the numbers of Non-Whites in this country. But, there is a great deal about him that would repulse non-Whites, and it’s up to us to get that information out to them.
Vhh
@schrodinger’s cat: Fiorina does not have children.
Another Holocene Human
@VidaLoca: I don’t think anyone really knows what the implications are of the Southern Strategy working in Midwestern statewide races.
Does Walkerism translate outside of Wisconsin? Or is it just a lamer version of the same red meat that’s been tossed at these slavering curs before? Are Dems in big trouble pulling a minority of the white vote? Right, that’s a question that’s been asked before. Or is it a regional phenomenon? Or is it all of flyover country now? And does that matter?
I don’t think we’ll really have a handle on that until 2020.
Heliopause
Never thought I’d say this but Mitt Romney exudes charisma compared to Walker or Bush.
Kay
@rikyrah:
Republicans think, believe, whatever, that white working class didn’t come out for Romney in the way they might have come out for some, I don’t know, mythical GOP candidate who doesn’t exist :)
So that might be what Vida is talking about. That Romney didn’t inspire that lower income GOP group to come out and Walker might, in higher numbers.
Lower income people have lower turnout and that’s true for GOP voters too. Hardly anyone says that, they use “education level” but that’s almost the same thing as “income” so it doesn’t matter what they call it.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/01/income-gap-at-the-polls-113997.html#.Vc1Rb4gViko
schrodinger's cat
@Vhh: Niece? or step daughter as someone suggested above.
Jeffro
@Heliopause: See, that’s just that weird documentary that came out, making you think he’s human and all that…
…he’s not.
schrodinger's cat
@Kay: In India its the opposite, its the wealthy and educated that are apathetic voters.
Peale
@rikyrah: What they are banking on I think is the idea that the “new voters” voted for Obama and those voters will stay home if they don’t think Hillary is worth voting for.
schrodinger's cat
@efgoldman: Agreed, went to a Jesuit run school till grade 10, got an excellent education without any religious indoctrination. I am not Catholic, so the religious indoctrination was only for the Catholic girls (it was a girls school).
Peale
@Kay: Yeah. I think those are the “53 million Evangelicals” that Ted Cruz believe sat out the last election that he’s going to inspire to vote.
GxB
@VidaLoca: I concur. You’re way wonkier than I so I wont touch your first 3 points as I’m sure they’re quite accurate, but where you really knock it out of the park is that 4th point.
Someone snarked earlier in the thread that Scoot’s running on cutting education to give absurd sums to the Bucks to make a new arena. Yes, that is exactly what he’d crow about, and damn near 50% of the electorate would applaud it. Merkins are not a bright bunch on average when all is said. Having underestimated Scoot three times now, I’m not counting him out of the running until there is a tag on his toe.
That said the Kochs would do better pimping Kasich. Same batshit ideas (but not as immediately apparent), from a bigger state, and probably smarter – though that may have been his biggest drawback for their purposes.
Oh, BTW a frontpager really needs to swipe that gif from Wonkette featuring Scoot and post it every time he comes up. It perfectly sums up the derp.
Elizabelle
Not interested in Scott Walker or Carly Fiorina or Trump.
Can we haz chickens or Lily or Rosie or food or something?
NonyNony
@Kropadope: To be fair here – mclaren was talking about the view at the time. Not the view with 20/20 hindsight.
schrodinger's cat
@Elizabelle: If you click on my post, it has kitteh!
Kay
@schrodinger’s cat:
Well, the US would be hard to beat in this area:
We win in “barriers to voting”, too.
Peale
@Calouste: If it’s true what someone wrote the other night that Donald hasn’t actually started building the ground team to gather signatures to put him on the ballots in certain states, his own incompetence could keep lots of candidates in the race as they pick up states he’s not on the ballot on. I could totally see someone like Trump miss filing deadlines. Apparently they guy in charge now is Mr. Citizen’s United who just wants to e-mail blast his way to victory.
Kropadope
@schrodinger’s cat:
I got an excellent education at a Roman Catholic School with no indoctrination also. Didn’t make me any less cynical about organized religion.
In fact, that was where I picked up one of the most cynical religious anecdotes I ever heard; from a nun, no less.
@NonyNony:That is fair, god damn it.
Kay
@Peale:
That’s funny he said that, because that’s my personal theory- that they relied (or are relying, in his case) too much on churches to bring out their lower income voters. It was clearly the strategy in Bush’s re-election here, and they came out. It worked. You really have to get low income people out. It takes effort- one by one.
Kropadope
@efgoldman:
Also consider that the white vote wasn’t evenly distributed. Romney got a far larger percentage of the white vote in the south. Meanwhile, Obama won the white vote in many blue states. He even won the white male vote in a few states; I believe MA, VT, and maybe one more.
beltane
@Heliopause: Mitt Romney certainly showed more, as they say, gravitas than Walker or Bush. And though Sarah Palin is an idiot, back in her starburst days she exuded a zillion times more charisma than Carly Fiorina. The thing about Palin is that she and her family were same kind of squalid as the people voting for her.
schrodinger's cat
@Kay: Indian elections are quite well run. There is a Election Commission which is federal body that runs the national elections.
Cervantes
@efgoldman:
After March 15, yes.
beltane
@Kay: It seems that the evangelicals are still reeling from the Supreme Court decision on marriage equality. The fact that Cruz isn’t wiping the floor with Trump in the Iowa polling may indicate that they’re not terribly fired up with any of the candidates this time around.
Cervantes
@efgoldman:
The Law School does not want its degree back; if anything, it wants Cruz to vanish, disappear, never be heard from again.
I can’t say how Brown feels about Jindal — I can imagine it’s much the same over there.
Cervantes
@schrodinger’s cat:
Do you know why?
Kropadope
@Cervantes: My guess would be that their power for some reason goes unchallenged regardless of voting.
schrodinger's cat
@Cervantes: My guess is that the educated and wealthy types tend to look down on the politicians and the political process. They like to pretend that they are above it all, much like our MSM bots.
Last national elections which were held in April and May of last year had about 66% turn out.
Kay
@beltane:
I wonder about them, if they’re mad that they’re not this big powerhouse in the GOP anymore. It’s like the Tea Party knocked them out and they haven;t regained their former clout. Maybe the latest anti-abortion campaign is intended to bring them out.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I think very few top-level Republicans really care about abortion. GW Bush was arguably the only presidential nominee since Roe v Wade who sincerely cared at all about abortion— Reagan…. I’m sure he believed everything he ever said, for as long as it took him to say it, but he somehow never managed to find the time to push for that Constitutional amendment did he? And Bush Jr didn’t care enough to risk any electoral votes. Dropping down ticket… maybe Kemp? ETA: Maybe Ryan, but like Reagan and Bush II, it’s way down on his list of priorities
Redshift
@Kropadope:
If you you think the answer to that question is the Secretary of State, and that she could do it on a time scale that would produce any results during her tenure, I’d suggest learning a bit more about how government budgeting and IT projects work.
On the other hand, since Kerry was the first SoS who used State Department email, maybe she did! :-)
Kropadope
@Redshift: Didn’t Condi? Granted, she didn’t conduct much of her business by email.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: @Jim, Foolish Literalist: wasn’t Fiorina prochoice when she ran for the CA Senate seat?
also, too, Florina:
elitist bashing from a woman with a hundred-plus million? simple case of “Fuck me? Fuck you!”?
Calouste
@Peale: Of course, if Trump planned to go third party all along, there is no need for him to get on the GOP primary ballots. He might just be in the GOP race to get extra attention before “they insult him” and he goes third party.
JMV Pyro
@Another Holocene Human:
On top of that, hasn’t coal in general been declining as a source of energy nationwide for the past few years due to a shift towards natural gas, wind, and solar, as well as new regulations on the industry?
It doesn’t seem like a good barometer to measure nationwide economic stagnation.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I don’t think the politicians care about it either, but if they want to bring out their religious base that might be something they could leverage. They seem much more fractured than they did in 2004, like they’ve split off into factions in a way that is almost…Democratic :)
I would think they would be stronger than they are, really. They have a lot of states with GOP governors and it’s rare for a Party to keep the WH for three terms. They have every single possible GOP candidate on deck and they’re still polling even or below Clinton. Arguably they should be ahead. This is their big A Team and head to head it’s like 45/42 or thereabouts. That’s why I’m more optimistic than a lot of you seem to be.
They have every advantage and they’re wrestling around in the mud with Donald Trump. It’s kind of crazy.
Radio One
I anticipate that the Fox News Crew is going to be pushing hard that Marco Rubio should win the Republican nomination at some point in the next six or seven months.
AxelFoley
@Hal:
YUUUUUUUGE!
SWMBO
Since we’re asking about Tommy, I do hope he’s busy or on vacation and comes back. Sometimes he puts his foot in it but don’t we all on occasion?
The one I’m curious about is Dances Around in her Bones. She was in some rehab facility for her (I think) hip but she’s been gone long enough, she should be back. I miss her stories and her free spirit.
Violet may be back under a crushing amount of parental responsibilities. I hope she comes back soon.
Amir Khalid
@raven:
All I remember of that thread is the surreal, albeit very flattering, discussion over whether I was “universally respected” or “universally beloved”.
Anne Laurie
@schrodinger’s cat: I went to a Dominican-run parochial school. Second most frequent comment I garnered over twelve years there (right behind, You could do so much better if only you would focus) was Too bad you’re not a boy, the Jesuits would have loved you arguing with them all the time!
Anne Laurie
@Amir Khalid: Surely, both!