Establishment Republicans and establishment media have been trying to style Rubiobot 3.0 as the “comeback kid” a la Bill Clinton in 1992. But there aren’t many similarities. For example, Clinton won South Carolina in the sense of getting the most votes not just in the sense of being declared the Real Winner by right-center hacks.
The only precedent for a Republican winning South Carolina and then losing the establishment was Gingrich in 2012 (he won by 13 points, amazingly), and while Gingrich was wacky in the way that Trump is, Romney had already won New Hampshire and tied in Iowa. What I didn’t know until this day was how well Gary Hart did in the early states in 1984:
Few campaigns have seen more twists and turns than the 1984 Democratic primary. What began as a ceremonial coronation of former Vice President Walter Mondale was upended, with no advance warning, when Senator Gary Hart and his “new ideas” campaign won a landslide in New Hampshire. He followed that with five wins in the next two weeks; only Mondale victories in Georgia and Alabama, with crucial margins provided by black voters, kept him afloat.
I was but a lad in 1984 and all I can remember is “where’s the beef”…I had no idea the race was so close that Hart might have contested at the convention if he hadn’t made the joke about New Jersey being a big toxic waste dump. (I also didn’t know that Gary Hart’s real name was “Hartpence”, which I think is a better, more Real Murkin sounding name.)
I wonder why the pundits who are (a) obsessed with Ronald Maximus’ titanic victory in 1984 and (b) obsessed with any and all historical precedent for a Trump collapse haven’t brought the 1984 Democratic primary up more.
K488
Oh, and don’t forget Monkey Business and Donna Rice!
Anoniminous
In case this is a real question …
Because they don’t know anything about the 1984 Democratic Party primary. They only know about little Ronnie RayGuns because he became president and, eventually, turned into Zombie RayGuns – the All Powerful God of Conservationism.
BGinCHI
Wasn’t Hart brought down by a sex scandal?
If Trump got caught having an affair with a a lovely young lady I imagine he would shrug and say, “Can you blame me?”
And they wouldn’t.
Benw
War is peace.
2+2=5
Reagan has always been the greatest President.
Woozy
I wonder if Hartpence would have been more competitive or imploded too
Xantar
The latest euphemism from pundits appears to be, “JEB was the wrong candidate at the wrong time.”
This confuses me because that implies there’s some “right time” when JEB might succeed better. But since any time to run now is after his brother’s presidency, that means there will never be a good time for him.
Also, even setting his name and W’s legacy aside, JEB is just a lousy candidate. He wasn’t the “wrong candidate.” He just bad, and if it hadn’t been for his name and the brinks trucks full of cash, his campaign would have died months ago.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@K488: I was gonna say… are we assuming a counterfactual where that didn’t happen?
(OT: Whattaya think this guy’s own polling must be telling him:
Germy
Why the media doesn’t want to remember Gary Hart:
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/media-doesnt-want-remember-gary-hart
“…the way the press pursued Gary Hart, the leading Democratic candidate for President in the 1988 campaign, about his sex life. Reporters staked out his home to learn if he was sleeping with Donna Rice, a model; they asked whether he had ever committed adultery; and they investigated that very question. This process, Bai claimed, turned reporters into character cops, fundamentally changing the way the press covered campaigns. Instead of probing the substance of Hart’s positions, he said, reporters chased him from the race. Much of the political press turned into a supermarket tabloid.”
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Some asswipe who worked for Romney says that the Supreme Court should let Scalia’s votes count even after death. He says it wouldn’t be hard to figure out how he’d vote, after all. So we’ve reached the point where Republicans think a dead white guy has more right to help run the government than a living Black guy. This “Black presidents only get three fifths of a term” thing is beginning to look like a real thing.
MomSense
I was a Hart supporter in a decidedly Reagan town. I wasn’t eligible to vote but the other democrat in my school and I used to have lunch with my history teacher in his classroom and rant about the situation.
Anoniminous
@Anoniminous:
Since I can’t edit my comment to correct the typo: ” Conservationism” s/b “Conservatism”
Bill
@BGinCHI: Hart’s scandal was in 1988, which then gave us the seven dwarfs: Dukakis, Biden, Gore, Gephardt, Simon, Babbitt, and Jesse Jackson.
Matt McIrvin
@Bill: And Snow White (Pat Schroeder).
rikyrah
Luvvie’s done another one.
Between Luvvie and the comments, I am close to getting a stomach cramp from all the laughing.
Flossie Dickey is 110 and Done With All of Us
Awesomely Luvvie — February 22, 2016
Last week, a woman named Flossie Dickey celebrated turning 110 years old. She’s been here since 1906, and has seen more things than any of us could imagine. That also means she’s dealt with her share of bullshit.Flossie has 3 kids, 12 grandkids, 20 great grandkids and 15 great great grandkids.
Cameras showed up to her nursing home to interview her and Flossie wasn’t here to entertain them or even act like she wanted them to be there. The video interview is a gift to the cantankerous old person who lives in me
……………………….
my favorite comment:
Deja
February 22, 2016 at 7:09 am — Reply
your parents dont name you flossie unless they expect you to be bout that thug life for 100 years…serving us all that petty labelle at 9 in the damn morning…
BWA HA HA HA HA HA H HA HA HA HA HA
schrodinger's cat
So the press has been batting for the Republicans since 1988?
PaulW
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Kirk must have done some polling to see how his state would react to an obstructed SCOTUS nomination. He is in a Blue State and HOPEFULLY the Democrats are challenging him (please tell me they are, one thing I’ve come to hate about the Democrats is that since they kicked Howard Dean out of the DNC they don’t challenge ANYTHING).
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Bill: and “Snow White”, the great Pat Schroeder. Miss her.
ah, Hart was the great hope of the ’88 primary when he dared reporters to follow him around? that’s clarifying. I had no memory of Hart in ’84
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Tammy Duckworth. There’s a primary but I think she’s way ahead.
Applejinx
@PaulW: Maybe we can run a Berniebot against him, if the DNC doesn’t wish to?
PaulW
@schrodinger’s cat:
The current elements of the media – in their 30s and 40s at the youngest – came into their jobs during the great Conservative movement (1980 to 2006) that held Reagan as their saint and Atlas Shrugged as their Bible. There were likely a lot of FDR-to-LBJ media figures who held onto their jobs well into the 1990s as a kind of overlap who dismissed the horrors of the Far Right agenda until they retired.
Ex Libris
Matt Bai’s All the Truth is Out is a pretty good look at the “Monkey Business” “scandal” and the way it helped bring about our current “press” – there aren’t enough scare quotes to cover this topic!
AliceBlue
@Bill:
Ahh, Paul Simon. Nerdy looking guy, glasses, bow tie–but he had the most beautiful speaking voice I’ve ever heard from any politician in my lifetime.
Kirbster
Yeah, it’s still early in the process, but so far, Trump looks unstoppable no matter how much fluffing the Media does for the Nervous Neocon.
I doubt that Trump is worried about the Sweaty Slacker overtaking him. He’ll continue to pound on Cruz, but go relatively easy on Rubio because Trump’s going to need a running mate. Rubio should be delighted to accept because he’s going to lose his Senate job anyway and he can claim that he’ll add establishment cred to the ticket. Hell, VP would be a perfect high-prestige no-work job for an empty suit like Marco.
MomSense
@rikyrah:
I love it.
Thoroughly Pizzled
Fuck Gary Hart. Fuck Eliot Spitzer and Anthony Weiner, as well.
zzyzx
OT but yesterday the Seattle police killed a man literally around the corner from where I live. Today the news came out that – SHOCK – the man killed was African American. This is Seattle. We have like 50 AA’s in the entire city or something. The police story is just so vague. I like to always think the best of people, but it would be nice to get more details about what happened.
Steve in the ATL
@MomSense:
Hah–i lived that too, K through college!
Germy
@Matt McIrvin:
I remember hearing an interview with Abbie Hoffman after Pat Schroeder quit her campaign, and he suggested republican ratfuckers had basically blackmailed her out of the race. He didn’t go into detail, but he insisted someone close to the campaign told him that. I’ve always wondered if it was true, or if Hoffman was hallucinating.
K488
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Oh, that’s right. DR and MB were from the ’88 campaign. I remember his challenge to reporters to follow him around – that they’d be bored. That produced some wonderful political cartoons.
Matt McIrvin
@AliceBlue: Remember the time he hosted Saturday Night Live, and inevitably shared the stage with the other Paul Simon?
Future senator Al Franken did a great impression of him, too.
Germy
@AliceBlue: Hunter Thompson on Paul Simon:
“(Sen. Paul) Simon is small and ugly and weird and he almost never smiles. He has lips like Mick Jagger and ears of a young baboon. But none of these things really matters. Simon could be as ugly as the Elephant Man and as small as `the other Paul Simon` who wrote `Sounds of Silence` and `Bridge Over Troubled Water` and still stand alone among the Democratic hopefuls.”
Steve in the ATL
@K488:
One of my law school buds (yes, he enjoyed his weed, and presumably still does since he lives in Marin county) worked for Gary Hart in the ’80’s. He said he finally had to quit because he was so tired of showing up at events and having to apologize for Hart’s unexpected absence when Hart had met a woman earlier in the day and was having sexy time with her instead.
MomSense
@Steve in the ATL:
And then they friend you on facebook.
FML
K488
@AliceBlue: The Paul Simon Highway across southern Illinois has signs with polka dotted bow ties on them.
Germy
@Steve in the ATL:
I have a theory that Hart and Bill Clinton grew up worshipping JFK and thought they could get away with what he got away with. They didn’t anticipate the transformation of the press from enablers into tattlers.
Amir Khalid
@AliceBlue:
I remember reading in TIME about his presidential run. People apparently thought he was the Simon of Simon and Garfunkel.
ETA: I see quite a number of people were quicker to mention the other Paul Simon.
gene108
@BGinCHI:
In 1988. In 1984, not so much.
Bill
Trump is on a train that’s barreling toward the GOP nomination. He’s going to win Nevada (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/nv/nevada_republican_presidential_caucus-5336.html), and polling indicates that Super Tuesday is going to tilt heavily in his favor. Below is a breakdown based on what I was able to find at RCP. I’ve included averages where it seemed appropriate, but in some state’s the older data skewed the average pretty badly. (An August poll probably isn’t relevant anymore.) In that case I’ve included just the recent polling.
Alabama: No recent data at RCP. But this poll shows Trump with a 20 point lead. (http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2016/01/poll_shows_trump_and_cruz_in_l.html)
Alaska: Trump +4 (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/ak/alaska_republican_presidential_caucus-3661.html)
Arkansas: Trump +4 (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/ar/arkansas_republican_presidential_primary-5024.html)
Colorado: No recent data.
Georgia: Trump +9.7 (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/ga/georgia_republican_presidential_primary-5471.html)
Massachusetts: Trump +24, His Mass. numbers are yoooooge. 50% of the vote in the most recent polling. (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/ma/massachusetts_republican_presidential_primary-5205.html)
Minnesota: Rubio +2. Yes the RCP average is Trump +6, but that factors in some very cold polls. The most recent one has Rubio up 2. (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/mn/minnesota_republican_presidential_caucus-5025.html)
Oklahoma: Trump +7.5. (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/ok/oklahoma_republican_presidential_primary-4288.html)
Tennessee: No recent data.
Texas: Cruz +6.7. His numbers are down in the most recent polling but still solidly in the lead.(http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/tx/texas_republican_presidential_primary-3622.html)
Vermont: No recent data.
Virginia: Trump +6. (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/va/virginia_republican_presidential_primary-3921.html)
Those numbers looks awfully good for The Donald.
Steve in the ATL
@Germy: Could be.
For the record, the night I was drinking with Bill Clinton, he went home alone. Even though there were females (beautiful ones) all over him.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@Benw:
There are five lights!
The Ancient Randonneur
When John Kasich is the least offensive member of the pack you are trying to evaluate you could make an argument for almost any scenario. I do find it interesting that as soon as Jeb dropped out of the race establishment Republicans seem to be coalescing around Rubio. That is a sign of howt how weak they are. and I smell panic in the air.
Mike E
Hartpence? None the richer.
Jewish Steel
-Dickensian urchin.
trollhattan
@K488:
Al Franken did a dead-on Paul Simon imitation back in the day. Maybe that’s how he groomed himself for the senate?
ETA curses, beaten to the punch.
raven
@AliceBlue: Too young for Dirksen huh?
glory b
@rikyrah: I looooove luvvie!
bemused
@Germy:
It wouldn’t surprise me. In Gail Collins book, When Everything Changed, there are a couple of stories about the sexism that Pat Schroeder had to put up with when she was a member of Congress. When she visited a high school in her Denver district, the basketball coach told his team to show her what they think of Title IX and they turned around and mooned her. When she and her husband had been given tickets to a black-tie dinner at the Touchdown Club, a guard stopped her who said no women were allowed and if she didn’t leave quietly, she’d be carried out.
Amir Khalid
Interesting, this: The RNC has a YouTube attack video out against Hillary (via TPM). Speculation among TPM’s commenters on the story is that this means the party would prefer that its candidate face Bernie in the election.
raven
@rikyrah: My grandmother was a Flossie. This is her aunt Venus.
singfoom
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Good on Mark Kirk. Maybe Obama will be able to peel off enough reasonable Republicans to be able to get his nominee to the SCOTUS. A boy can dream.
MattF
Kevin Drum notes that Georgie Will’s column today about Der Trump is a quite a WTF. An odd thing about the column Drum didn’t mention is that at least half of it is devoted to beating on Hillary Clinton. Maybe Georgie is experiencing his own personal singularity.
trollhattan
O/T Holy crap!
Simply can’t imagine, or don’t want to given my own daughter recently turned 14. No known motive and it’s being reported he picked up Uber customers between murders. Evidently Uber’s ban on drivers nor passengers carrying guns doesn’t have the influence they may have imagined.
trollhattan
@raven: Quite the tresses on Venus! Luckily, probably no drains to be clogged upon washing it, back in the day.
PPCLI
@Amir Khalid: Of course, that is what it means. Eight years ago there was a flood of planted stories about various Hard Core Conservative Senators saying basically the same thing — they had been skeptical of Hilary but had been won over by her hard work and ability to compromise and blah, blah, complete with quotes from the various Senators about how now he respected her. Karl Rove even gave an interview where he pushed that line.
I took it that this meant that they were worried about facing Obama but they were confident that their huge dossier of dirt on Hillary would make her an easier opponent.
I don’t hear any of those people saying that anymore….
Amir Khalid
@Xantar:
I’ve been told in these threads that Jeb didn’t get found out when he ran for governor only because his opponent was an even more inept candidate. But HW and W had three successful presidential campaigns between them. Why didn’t they sit Jeb down and gently explain that he just didn’t have the candidating chops to run for president himself?
raven
@trollhattan: I think it was pretty rare for her to let it down. All the other pictures are of a severe bun. Coal mining folks in Southern Illinois were a dour bunch.
(Which has little to do with what you said!)
? Martin
Trump has exactly 0 superdelegates. Even Carson has one. Rubio over 100.
What will the convention look like if the elected candidate has zero support from members of the party?
Amir Khalid
@? Martin:
If he has enough delegates from the primaries, will it matter? As certain commenters here have explained, superdelegates shouldn’t count in a candidate’s total; they weren’t elected, which is undemocratic and really not fair, and they’re free to change their minds at any time. (Of course, the commenters were talking about another party.)
Calouste
@Amir Khalid: And piss off Babs?
Amir Khalid
@Calouste:
As I recall, Mother Bush wasn’t all that keen on Jeb running in the first place, maybe because W had so recently made a dog’s breakfast of the job. She said there had been quite enough Presidents Bush already, or something to that effect.
Aleta
@MattF: Drum quoting George Will about taking down Trump:
No George, it’s time for you to talk about your culpability.
rk
Because Democrats don’t matter since real Americans don’t vote for them.
Applejinx
@PPCLI: I’m sure they’d rather go against Bernie. Hillary has weakened Bernie a lot, and Hillary is a far tougher opponent than she was back in ’08.
If they run anybody but Trump, they face full-party meltdown. If they run Trump against Hillary, they face everybody who’s ‘establishment’ aligning with Hillary against the intruder.
They’re completely fucked if it’s Hillary. I may prefer Bernie, but I can see how obvious it is. Early polls are one thing, but we’re talking inside-Beltway stuff here, where you have the parties and the media and all of Washington plus everybody who runs elections.
I don’t think Trump has ANY of that stuff. I think it was Bush who had that stuff, and he’s gone.
Bernie would beat Trump, but in that light I think Hillary would obliterate Trump. Trump could face all the power brokers from both parties aligning against him, rather than see their world overturned.
? Martin
@Amir Khalid: The idea is that superdelegates can tip the balance in favor of candidates that align with the party. They are there to do a job and in almost all cases that job gets done – they are the establishment endorsement.
So yes, the math can work out so that the superdelegates are irrelevant – but that’s never supposed to happen. That’s a bug in the matrix. And I wonder if there won’t be a corrective action to this that would lead to a brokered convention because that’s the next major point of authority that the party and the superdelegates have.
And this is unusual. Clinton tied up most of the super delegates in 2008 but Obama slowly peeled them off as he won states. It was difficult for the elected officials of a state to back a candidate that the voters didn’t support – but that’s exactly what’s happening in the GOP. There are no NH or SC super delegates supporting Trump. They’re standing firm, at least so far.
I’m thinking there’s going to be some consequence to this later. It’s not supposed to work this way.
Germy
(from Lindsey McPherson/CQ-Roll Call/TNS February 22, 2016)
Aleta
@Amir Khalid: I believe that they and their assorted backers needed him to run, for their own purposes.
Bobby Thomson
@Xantar: the right time is in 2000 after not losing to Chiles in Florida. But I think McCain would have kicked his ass.
Applejinx
@trollhattan: I love how they call him a ‘taxi driver’. Er, nope. The guy was an Uber driver, which is not the same thing. It’s the ‘disruptive, unregulated’ replacement for too-expensive taxi services. But suddenly he’s a ‘taxi driver’, for the media.
Gin & Tonic
@Aleta: I think talking about his taxes could be quite a lot of fun. This week’s issue of The Economist has a longish piece about Il Donaldo’s finances in which they have to make a lot of assumptions and wild-ass guesses because of the opacity of his business ventures. None of his companies are public, so he is not subject to SEC requirements. Interesting point, though, that they are all very small, i.e. he has no experience running a large organization of any sort, and never has.
Gin & Tonic
@Applejinx: So Uber is not a taxi business? That’s news.
Peale
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Why not just ask the guy who paid for his trip to that private resort?
jl
@Gin & Tonic: It’s a taxi business for the associated revenue, but not a taxi business for any of the associated costs and service standards.
Maybe ‘toxic business’?
Applejinx
@Gin & Tonic: They’re pretty famously not. They are one of the most extreme examples of Silicon Valley tech douches trying to wipe out entire industries and take control of that market segment, and they are pointedly arguing in court all over the place that they should not be restricted by any taxi-related regulations because they’re an app for connecting riders to car owners.
I better cut it off because you might know all this and it’d be too ‘Rain Man’ to give a 5000 word dissertation: sometimes it’s tough not to.
Uber is sort of the glibertarian fantasy writ large. They want to move to driverless cars. At this point, that might sound pretty good! :)
Bobby Thomson
@trollhattan: they won’t try to resuscitate you if you’ve signed a donor card.
Amir Khalid
@Applejinx:
Maybe in some people’s minds, shooter driving Uber car = Travis Bickle = “taxi driver”
Aleta
@Gin & Tonic:
You’re right about that! And I’d like to know how the taxes will work for all the companies that are his own, that he is hiring to do the jobs for his campaign.
AliceBlue
@raven:
I remember him; I just don’t remember his voice!
Benw
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: noooo! Don’t let them break you, Captain Picard!
Bobby Thomson
@Applejinx: one day a rain is going to come.
Bobby Thomson
@Amir Khalid: and you beat me to it.
NonyNony
@Amir Khalid:
Republican superdelegates are very different from Democratic superdelegates. In that they don’t really have superdelegates. The GOP allocates delegates as:
* Base delegates – each state gets 5 for each Senator (so 10 as a base)
* By population – each state gets 3 for each congressional district
* Bonus delegates – each state gets 3 bonus delegates for the party chair, and two national party reps from the state
* Super bonus delegates – states the voted Republican in the last election get bonus delegates, as do states with sitting Republican governors, Republican Senators, and bonus delegates for sitting Republican Congressmen
Anyway the big thing is that all of those bonus delegates? They’re committed by the proportionality rules that govern each state due to a rules change that the GOP put into place for 2016. Including the 3 party votes that would add up to an extra 168 votes (because DC, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, etc. get party delegates assigned to them) If you’re from a winner take all state, you get all of the votes. If you’re from a proportional state, you get the proportion of delegates as based on the math that governs the proportionality rules. On the first ballot NONE of these delegates are free to vote for whoever they want (the way the Democratic superdelegates are). They’re already committed this year (in an attempt to make it easier for the party to avoid the situation Romney ran into in 2008, in an ironic twist). This is how Trump ended up with all 50 of SC’s delegates. They got 3 per congressional district (21 from congressional districts), 26 from the calculations above and 3 for their party apparatchiks. That’s all 50, and as of Saturday all 50 are committed to Trump – even the apparatchiks who would might want to vote for Rubio are bound by the convention rules to have their votes count for Trump.
So no, the GOP cannot thwart the will of their own base voters via superdelegates. Because their own rules will not let them.
raven
@AliceBlue: He was know as “The Wizard of Ooze” for his oratorical style.
NonyNony
@? Martin:
Sorry, no – there are no superdelegates in the GOP this year. All 50 of SC’s delegates support Trump, including the party delegates. And Trump gets 10 of the total 23 delegates from NH total.
The GOP only has state-allocated delegates. There are no other delegates. And all of the GOP’s state-allocated delegates are required to be allocated according to the rules for that state (proportional or winner take all). Party officials do not get to exercise their own judgment – the way the vote shakes out is the way the vote shakes out.
raven
Cruz asks spokesman to resign over ‘inaccurate’ Rubio video
trollhattan
@Applejinx:
Yeah, a pretty big distinction, especially given Uber’s insistence (and potential Achilles’s heel) their drivers are “independent contractors” and not employees.
Daulnay
@schrodinger’s cat:
Not 1988, 1978.
Gin & Tonic
@Applejinx:
I do.
raven
@Daulnay: Uh, Tricky Dick ring a bell?
Yutsano
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Senator Duckworth. Hopefully.
Gimlet
Former Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole is throwing his support behind Marco Rubio in the 2016 presidential contest after his early favorite – former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush – dropped out of the race on Saturday.
“Now that my good friend Jeb Bush is no longer running, I’m supporting Rubio,” Dole told ABC’s Jonathan Karl and Rick Klein in an interview for their new podcast “Powerhouse Politics” on Monday.
Calouste
@NonyNony: I think in about half the states the three apparatchik candidates are unpledged, but that is really all the GOP has that is similar to the Democratic superdelegates.
I think the poster above who mentioned that Rubio had 100 superdelegates missed that detail and what Rubio really has is 100 endorsements, which count for bupkis in the GOP system.
In the Democratic primary, if a Congressperson/Senator/Governor endorses you, you have a superdelegate in the bag (on paper at least). In the GOP primary, if a Congressperson/Senator/Governor endorses you, you have an endorsement, and that’s it.
GregB
@Amir Khalid:
I had actually thought of doing a spoof of Taxi Driver with Uber Driver.
Life trumps parody yet again.
Daulnay
@raven:
Sorry, too young to notice press bias at that time. But I sure noticed it towards the end of the Carter admin.
And especially when Reagan ran, said stupid, false things, and the press whistled innocently and looked away.
Calouste
@raven: IMO the “accurate” video is damning for Rubio, although it won’t be used as such by anyone. He says about the bible that “all the answers are in there”.
Gin & Tonic
@Gimlet: Do you ever find yourself wondering why there’s a “link” button right above the comment box?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@raven: I wonder if there’s video
Pretty sure Tyler is the one who looks like Jack Nicholson’s bastard.
Gin & Tonic
OT, but Claire McCaskill is reporting that she has breast cancer.
AliceBlue
@raven:
Wikipedia tells me he died in 1969. I was 16 years old and didn’t get interested in politics or politicians for a few years yet. In ’69 I was obsessing over the cute new guy in math class and thinking how groovy it would be if he asked me out.
Ruviana
@Amir Khalid: I’ve seen some references to “going Uber” as a gig-economy analogy to the “going postal” of yore.
Gin & Tonic
@AliceBlue: Did he?
Wrb
Myself, I’m leaning toward the projecting a Trump victory.
The large gap between those who think he is more electable than Clinton seems to be a gap between those in the pundit/wealthy insider bubble and those out in the sticks. Those on the inside don’t realize how badly Clinton is damaged by real things, like her taking unconsciable amounts of money from Goldman, or taking home a server, have worked to confirm the unfair attacks she suffered previously, in the minds of those who don’t follow closely. They also overestimate the importance of a label like “socialist” vs. the perception that a man says what he thinks and sticks to it. If Trup is the non idea logical machevellian I’m starting to see him as, his path to the presidency is clear: secure the nomination, remain anti emigrant and pro gun, which would keep the entire right. Then run to the left of Hillary on militarism and financial regulation. If really smart, start talking about appointing the sort of traditional Republican judges like those Isenhower appointed.Warren, Brennan,master art sound OK). So anyway, He’ll likely take whom insideiness, Wall Street (the occupy crowd), and war are paramount. he,Ll also take the democratic working class who fear immigration.
So Immgloomy today. Hillary would beat Cruz but lose to Trump and Trump is looking strong. Sanders would beat all the republicans, but has a tough road ahead, especially with bubble-resident wonks trying to kneecap him, because they thing they understand what they don’t understand.
trollhattan
@Daulnay:
But Jimmy scolded us about wearing sweaters and keeping the thermostat down, and that’s not Morning in America, y’all! Ronny didn’t even need a tire swing.
AliceBlue
@Gin & Tonic:
Nope. Betsy Parnell got to him first. (Drat her long blonde hair and blue eyes).
D58826
@Amir Khalid: Jeb should have listened to his Momma
retiredeng
@rikyrah: That video was great. Loved Ms Dickey. Wish her another birthday next year. But the interviewer and the others were too flip about it for my taste. Any age past about 95 seems like forced overtime to me.
catclub
@NonyNony:
At least until you change those rules at the convention.
D58826
Any one heard what the shooter’s motive was. Other than being an angry white guy with a house full of guns not much is being said about the reasons why he did it or if there was a pattern to his victims.
Barbara
OMG. 1984. The year that the Democratic Party had four flat tires all before August. My father really liked Gary Hart and was super pissed that Hart effectively threw his chances away, making (in his view) the party look utterly ridiculous — and giving it an aura of lax morals in the process. My dad was super liberal politically but super conservative at a personal level. He and my mother both were scandalized by divorce among anyone (though they were always discreet and kind). And then — NOW decided that it was the best time possible to raise a complete ruckus about getting a female VP nominee, so we got Geraldine Ferraro and her ethically challenged husband. My mom was so excited, but as I pointed out to her, it made Mondale look weak and it made Ferraro seem like nothing but an affirmative action choice (which she didn’t have to be). But really, none of it mattered, did it? Reagan was destined to be re-elected, but the party experienced a lot of carnage as a result.
I have no idea what will happen this year. Sometime in August I will have to decide whether to canvass and GOTV where I grew up or where I live, which has, blessedly become a state that is strongly trending blue in statewide elections.
D58826
@Wrb: Something else you can be gloomy about. The democratic turnout in the 3 primaries so far is down significantly from 2008 while the GOP turnout is up. And the smallest segment of voters on Sat. in NV were Bernie’s young revolutionaries. Seems they turn out to cheer at rallies but don’t necessarily turn out to vote. Bad news for either candidate.
Central Planning
@Applejinx:
So taxi drivers follow the rules of not bringing guns in the cabs and not shooting people?
Wrb
@Gin & Tonic: I am always grateful to those who have the courtesy cut and paste the meaningful content rather than just supply a link. It is a huge time saver when on a slow connection, and a huge money saver when in a metered one. Here the only connection is through sell and a few extra downloads a month can add hundreds to the bill. You don’t have to download the site’s ads. Also, often the link is to some firewall-protected place (WSJ, NYT) and after going through uploading their page, you aren’t allowed to read the content.
trollhattan
@Barbara:
For me, John Edwards was basically Gary Hart redux. Some folks don’t learn from history, or at least think they’re above such trivialities. All while thrice-married Trump leads the Republicans, telling us how hawt his daughter is.
Chyron HR
@Wrb:
Whereas if Bernie gets the Democratic nomination, the evil “establishment” and “bubble-resident wonks” will start playing fair with him, right?
Barbara
@trollhattan: I actually forgot that the Hart/Rice scandal was in 1988. Hart stirred the pot in 1984 but had a real chance in 1988. I know my dad supported him both times. My dad probably would have supported Sanders. He really wanted a different political narrative for the U.S. 1984 was also the year that Jesse Jackson mounted a serious run, which he also did in 1988. My uncle chaired his campaign in a rural county in Pennsylvania in 1988 and tried to persuade all of my relatives to vote for him over Dukakis for the nomination.
BillinGlendaleCA
@? Martin: Superdelegates are a much smaller proportion of the total in the Republican party than in the Democratic party. They could make a difference in a very close delegate race, but not much more than that.
Kylroy
@Barbara: I think you touched on the other reason nobody remembers the 1984 D primary – it was a race to see who would be the speedbump for Reagan’s reelection.
Peale
@Barbara: Wasn’t Hart really the harbinger of the DLC takeover of the party? I know that Mondale was Carter’s VP, but Carter was the outsider, the hawkish let’s revisit the new deal candidate. Mondale was the traditional liberal. I thought Hart, Gore, Clinton, Tsongas were all supposed to be these New Democrats that we’re now supposed to blame for the party’s problems.
Gin & Tonic
@Wrb: Others of us like to see the primary source, and to view the quote in context. Nothing prevents Gimlet from pasting a couple of paragraphs *and* providing the URL they came from. That is considered normal practice in most places. Gimlet too often chooses just to provide the text and no URL.
Steve in the ATL
My Houston friends told me that Babs was terribly upset when Jeb… lost his first gubernatorial race because that threw off the timeline and meant that Georgie would be president instead of him
japa21
@D58826: I’m not worried about the turnout in the primaries. The GOP is up because of the large number of candidates, including the fire breathing dragon with the frump on top.
A lot of Democrats, I think, feel fairly comfortable with either candidate so are into other things. And additionally, the GOP is probably getting about 80% of the media attention.
This is a fight to the death in the GOP, whereas it is just a stroll through the park for the Dems.
Pretty sure you will not have a turnout problem come November.
Steve in the ATL
@Amir Khalid:
Define “successful”–became president? Stayed president? Sure–that’s true. But I refuse to accept that W won either of his elections. Scalia and his fellow corrupt liars gave him the first one, and Diebold and/or Ken Blackwell gave him the second one.
Wrb
@Chyron HR: They would be any nicer to the Hillary,mwhen they have been trained to despise for decades. My limited sample might have little application in other regions, but within it the majority are intrigued by Sanders, and most have sworn they will never vote for Hillary. The word of the media doesn’t seem to be at play except with those who aren’t in play: Joe couch potato will vot Fox regardless. But among those who think and are open minded, there is concern about Clinton’s Wall Street connections, and the deregulation and outsourcing, and respect for Sanders straight-shooting. “I never thought I’d support a man who calls himself a socialist, but he’s been saying the same thing for 30 years. I can respect that. He walks his talk. He’s been for us.”
But that is just the buzz in my region. It might not apply elsewhere. But it does give me a sick feeling when I contemplate a Clinto v Trump contest.
I always dreamed of walking Patagonia. Maybe this is the year.
agorabum
@Peale: I don’t blame the DLC folks – you can’t run the same play all the time. The other side gets wise, and it looks stale. In a time when the Democrats finally lost the white southern vote because of racism, Bill Clinton got elected twice and Gore should have been elected but for a whole litany of bad luck (one aspect of which is named “Nader”). But just as DLC ideas played in the late 80s and 90s, they don’t today.
The current failure of the Republican establishment was this idea to run George W Bush ideas again. Trump has most of those same ideas, but he still feels different. He’s not in the lead because of his tax policies…he dusted off the Wallace policies, updated them, and is running with that. It hasn’t been heard in awhile, not since Pat Buchanan, really.
jl
Huh who wudda thunk? Unless we can find other examples, will have to go back further than Teddy Roosevelt to find a GOPer pres who excused torture.
At LGM blog, i read that Teddy did say current GOP boilerplate about water boarding (or the close cousin used in the Filipino insurrection) wasn’t all that bad, and the other guys did far worse, but looks like he wanted US personnel who tortured enemies to be held to ‘sharp account’.
So, that leaves the current crop of GOP crazies, W and Dick, and then how far back to we have to go?
Not to excuse T Roosevelt, who held some problematic foreign policy views. But then he lived a hundred years ago, and looks like he would be an improvement over what the GOP offers today on torture, though maybe not much. But still, he lived a hundred years ago.
Better on health care policy too.
How to Excuse Torture
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2016/02/how-to-excuse-torture
les
@Wrb:
Broken record is broken. “Unconscianble:” more than other organizations gave her for similar speeches? More than Goldman paid other comparable speakers? More than Bern’s definition for corruption–which apparently includes all politicians except Independent Socialists? More than your tender fee-fees can tolerate? “Taking home a server:” like Condi, Rummy, Powell; or just using a private server, like the entire Bush White House?
How come you don’t include Benghazi!!!! your list of gripes is typical discredited Republican bullshit. Is Trump second on your list after the Bern?
Wrb
@Gin & Tonic: oh ok, link, plus paste is best, agreed. Sorry. Didn’t understand the context
Amir Khalid
@Steve in the ATL:
Successful because HW and W held the White House for three terms. 2000 stank to high heaven, for sure, but despite the suspicions in 2004 no cheating was ever proven.
jl
@les: I guess I use ‘real things’ differently than Wrb does.
So far, the purported email scandal non-scandal is not a ‘real thing’ by any rational definition of ‘real’.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
Have you been reading BJ the last few days? Apparently the Dems are in a fight pitting Satan against Hitler from what I am reading here. I’m torn because Satan has some really good ideas and Hitler will make the trains run on time but I feel like I am alone in this corner.
Steve in the ATL
@jl: I feel your pain–I accidentally started reading a Wrb post earlier
Snarkworth, short-fingered Bulgarian
I remember Hart’s campaigns well. I hated the “New Ideas” slogan. It was bland and meaningless. Sort of like calling the articles in a newspaper “content.”
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor):
and as if on queue we get the opening shot of Hitler v. Satan
Barbara
@trollhattan: Well, Gary Hart but with a popular and sympathetic wife suffering from breast cancer. I have read that it’s actually not that uncommon for spouses (okay, especially husbands) to seek extramarital sexual solace. But then, most of those spouses aren’t running for president and probably make more of an effort to avoid offspring.
Geeno
The Dems instituted super delegates after McGovern. An insurgent candidate the establishment didn’t want who won enough delegates, then tanked in the general. The poobahs of the party decided they needed a way to keep that from happening again – finally doing the superdelegate thing in …. late 70’s? very early 80’s?
A Ghost To Most
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor):
It’s all because of you and your parmesan rancor.
Steve in the ATL
@Geeno: Started in 1984, I believe
raven
@AliceBlue: I was 19 and in Vietnam until September. Politics were interesting to me.
Mike J
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): cue
SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel
@AliceBlue:
His voice was one of the most memorable things about him!
Wrb
@jl: You are dicing too finely much of the electorate, I fear. It may have been common practice, but it does seem to be arguably illegal, and certainly dubious with respect to responsibility. So, however you want to litigate that case, it presents problems for electability. A savvy person would not have provided the enemy the opening. Also an opening is made by the brain-dead acceptance of Goldman money. The willful refusal to even see the effects of these strategic errors is curious.
SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel
@AliceBlue:
@raven:
Here’s Senator Everett Dirksen. What a great voice.
jl
@Wrb: I would have agreed with you more a while back, but HRC spent eleven hours at the GOP hearings and I saw the response to that. Then news that, OMG hoocuddanode, Powell had ‘tip top seekerts’ in his email too.
Unless something quite unexpected and much much more definitive comes out, no one will care by November. That is my prediction.
SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel
@Gin & Tonic:
Heh. Not the first time you, or someone, has addressed that very question to that very commenter.
SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel
@Gin & Tonic:
Not for the first time, and not for the last, but FUCK CANCER.
All best wishes for a full, speedy, and comfortable recovery to Senator McCaskill.
Miss Bianca
@Wrb:
“Sanders would beat all the republicans, but has a tough road ahead”
errr…yeah…particularly if he can’t manage to, y’know, win the Democratic party nomination. And I’m willing to go out on a limb here and say that he’s unlikely to do so. In what universe does the candidate who can’t even manage to sway a majority of his own supposed base to vote for him in the primaries, manage to beat the Republicans? Must be some interesting polls you’re reading.
les
@Wrb:It may have been common practice, but it does seem to be arguably illegal, and certainly dubious with respect to responsibility. So, however you want to litigate that case, it presents problems for electability.
gex
@Wrb: yeah, but people could also include the link too so people can read the entire thing.
les
@les: Well, poop on the quote button. I used to have a handy add-on to do that, but it won’t work any more. Please to invert quoteblock. Oh and also too, FYWP.
SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel
@Wrb:
The problem is, Gimlet doesn’t even provide the source most of the time — let alone a link. If s/he did, we could make our own decisions as to whether to click or ignore, but merely to paste-and-run, as s/he does, is rude and unhelpful.
Wrb
@jl: that performance impressed me considerably, But I’m worried it won’t transmit: watch an impressive 12 hour performance, or get focused on insane money from Goldman and the others who destroyed your family. Which is easier to put across?
Miss Bianca
@Wrb:
you do realize that the “Insane money from Goldman” did not go into her pocket, but went to the Clinton Foundation? I dunno…maybe some people will look at its mission statement and decide that the goals of “improving global health and wellness, increasing opportunity for girls and women, reducing childhood obesity, creating economic opportunity and growth, and helping communities address the effects of climate change” might be WORTH charging Wall Street 600 grand a pop per appearance to fund. Or maybe that’s just me. Since even tho’ I hate Koch Brother guts, you’d better believe I went to my friendly neighborhood billionaire David K. when he came to town, smiled like an ape, and shook him down for a donation to our family literacy program.
NonyNony
@catclub: The FSN does not love me enough for the GOP to try to change the rules to steal the nom from Trump at the convention.
Imagine the 1968 Democratic Convention, but with angry white guys with guns and cowboy hats instead of student protesters. The only downside is that the good people of Cleveland do not deserve that crap.
Tom Q
@Geeno: Actually, the Dems didn’t feel a need to create super-delegates after McGovern, because, while his loss was catastrophic at the presidential level, it had no down-ballot impact: Dems I believe actually picked up a Senate seat, and suffered very minor losses in the House.
In 1980, though, Dems got wiped out, losing control of the Senate for the first time since the 50s, and dropping almost 40 House seats, giving effective control to the GOP with Southern Dem support. Since Carter had been a party outsider in 1976, and only got the nomination that year by winning a high number of primaries, party elders decided in the wake of his re-election fiasco that they needed more input into the process, and thus created the super-delegate system.
les
@Wrb:
Classic wrb: do some work in the real world that says something about a candidate, or get your panties in a bunch over content free accusations with some corruption tingle? I’m sure Mother Jones represents the capitalist running dog ruling class to wrb, but anyway, they don’t find much there.
Nice switch from “unconscionable” to “insane” money. To repeat: did they pay her more than other groups she spoke to, while not employed by the government and not in a position to influence policy or implementation? (Actually, they were on the low end of her fee range.) Did they pay her more than other speakers?
Why aren’t you worried about her speeches to the scrap recyclers–SHE’S GONNA GUT ENVIRONMENTAL REGS!!!– or the camp association–SHE’S GONNA SELL THE NATIONAL PARKS!!!
Why can’t you come up with something she’s actually done in her political life to be paralyzed with fear over?
les
@Miss Bianca:
Please to not introduce rationality into wrb worldview. No time for that.
FlipYrWhig
@Miss Bianca: Also, the INSANE MONEY FROM GOLDMAN is $675,000. Now, I would like to have $675,000. But, really, in 2016, that’s a pretty cheap pricetag for “insane.”
FlipYrWhig
BTW, apropos of the OP, Gary Hart was both the insurgent candidate and the technocrat-verging-on-DLC candidate.
Wrb
@les: you are missing my point. Which is that due to these tone-deaf actions her electability is impaired, and her history opens a highway to the presidency for an un-ideological machevellian like Trump. We’ll see.mI’m gloomy, and if betting real money I’d place mine on Trump if facing Clinton, and on Sanders if facing Trump, However, my accuracy as a trackside tout has been imperfect.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Miss Bianca: leaving aside for the moment any remarks on the remarkable coincidence that, like Tom Friedman’s cab drivers, all of wrb’s ready-to-abandon-the-GOP acquaintances share his/her personal obsessions*, the Clintons do need to start emphasizing the work the foundation does, cause this is gonna come up again. And when I say “The Clintons”, I mean Bubba
*has anyone ever done a name-ID poll on GS? I am somewhat skeptical that those words have the boogeyman power with the country at large that they do in the blogosphere. A couple of weeks ago, our long time cut’n’paste troll and one of our new Feelie McBernfeelers joined together to assert that Obama’s failure to prosecute Jamie Dimon for the things Goldman Sachs had done was the greatest outrage in history.
Wrb
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: @les: you are missing my point. Which is that due to these tone-deaf actions her electability is impaired, and her history opens a highway to the presidency for an un-ideological machevellian like Trump. We’ll see.mI’m gloomy, and if betting real money I’d place mine on Trump if facing Clinton, and on Sanders if facing Trump, However, my accuracy as a trackside tout has been imperfect.
les
@Wrb:
Electability is impaired among whom? Berniebros who’ve never bothered with politics before now? People you hang with, who share your paranoia and similarly can’t be bothered to learn anything that actually says something about how Clinton might govern? Well, ya know, it’s hard for me to give a shit about folks who insist on living in fantasy land.
And honestly, anyone whose political calculus goes Bernie, then Trump, is really too demented to try to reach anyway. “huh, yeah, if I can’t have destruction of Goldman Sachs and immediate universal single payer health care, I’m gonna vote for rampant racism, increased capital and income inequality, more sexism and by god we’re gonna stick it Mexico for that fence.” That’s, ya know, not sane.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Wrb: @Wrb: is that you, Senator Rubio?
Wrb
Jim what are these obsessions you see? My observation has been is that there is huge anger against Wall Street, and those who have caused the pain,many gotten off. It is largely inchoate; who is moves against depends on the story told. Those on the right have had great luck with the story that the pain is due to democrats forcing banks to lend to brown people. The story that is better supported by history and numbers is that the problem was due to deregulation achieved during the Reagan and Clinton administrations, that tore down the New Deal firewalls, and lead to the devastation. Trump seems to see a beauty shot in running against Clinton on these issues. Why shouldn’t he? Why should you condemn and insult those who are cringing at how this approach will play and trying the reasons for the trouble we foresee?g
Wrb
@Wrb: akkk I’m trying to learn how to write on an IPad. It makes inventive corrections to what I wrote.
singfoom
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I don’t think it’s the greatest outrage in history, but as far as domestic politics goes, it’s the biggest disappointment I have with the Obama administration. One can argue about the tactics and the strategy and how we had to rescue the economy, that’s fine.
But whether it’s true or not, the perception is that the Obama administration had Wall Street by the short & curlies. They could have gotten whatever they wanted.
Remember what Obama said during that meeting with the bankers:
For me, the greatest thing about this country is the idea of the rule of law, not of men. This is a case when the rule of law (in my opinion) meant that those who had broken the law (hundreds, perhaps thousands) should have been called to account for it.
There was systemic fraud that ALL of the banks have paid fines for. People committed those crimes and those people’s managers HAD to be aware of what they were doing.
So, it’s not the greatest crime in the world, and I’ll still say Obama is the greatest president I’ve seen in my lifetime and he accomplished some great things but I’ll forever be disappointed by the lack of prosecutions and the lack of strings tied to the bailout.
YMMV of course, but there’s still a lot of anger out there about that.
Cheers
ETA: LLoyd Blankfein is the head of Goldman Sachs, Jamie Dimon is the head of JPMorgan Chase, But you were probably using that to hyperbolic effect.
Wrb
@les: insulting and juvinileizing those of us who are older than our president, and who went to similar schools, is a great way to lose the election for democrats. Yes, the people I hang with are diverse. I’m asked to jury the projects at the best architecture and urban design schools.. There much of the intellectual force is directed at how to solve our problems by tweaking both the economic and physical structure. The rest of the time I’ve mostly been building, often in rural and empoverished areas, and have witnessed the destruction and pain that has occurred there, while my one dorm mates have become the very most privileged on Wall Street.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@singfoom: ETA: LLoyd Blankfein is the head of Goldman Sachs, Jamie Dimon is the head of JPMorgan Chase, But you were probably using that to hyperbolic effect.
Nope, that was the conversation. McClaren was quite adamant about Jamie Dimon and Goldman Sachs, which was my point about boogeymen.
As to the rest, IANAL but my understanding is that the problem with these cases is the way the relevant laws are written, i.e. prosecutors have to prove intent to commit fraud. Someone last week or the week before referred to the failed prosecution of two Bear Sterns muckety-mucks, with a link, but I didn’t have time to follow and can’t remember who it was. What bugs me most about this discussion, here and on other blogs, is that so many people talk about it as if all Obama had to do was order the scoundrels seized! the “Banksters” would have had very good lawyers, limitless funds for appeals, and juries made up of people who care more about American Idol and The Biggest Loser than their congressional reps and state legislators. Prosecutors don’t like to take cases they don’t think they can win.
singfoom
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
And that’s a fair point. I don’t think that Obama could do exactly like you suggested, but as the head of the executive branch if he said to the Attorney General: “There was widespread fraud and I need the American people to know that we take this seriously and are going to fix it and make it clear to everyone that this will not be tolerated.” and ordered the AG to treat the 2008 Collapse like the S&L scandal?
IANAL either, but all I know is that multiple companies have been fined multiple billions of dollars for “bad behavior” and again, if they can prove the companies did it, then can they not prove that a specific person in said company was the one who did it and then from there build a case?
The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle, but I think to a lot of people’s perception the government never even tried.
Cheers
Wrb
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I believe that Obama was probably correct in not prosecuting, and in even in appointing Geithner, considering how close the financial system was to complete collapse at that moment.
The errors come from those who try to establish situation-independent principles. In a time less desparete, we should break up too-big-to-fail-banks, end high frequency trading, and appoint an Elisibeth Warren as chief regulator. The belief that Obama did brilliantly and the belief that we should now try to do more are not mutually exclusive.
Wrb
@singfoom: well said
mclaren
Pundits are obsessed with Ronald Reagan’s landslide victories because he was such a freakish candidate. He broke all the rules. He was a newspaper political reporter’s dream — a senile sociopathic thug who nonetheless managed to get the people whose lives his policies destroyed to love and worship him.
It was positively eerie to see people getting impoverished and crushed economically and politically flocking to the polls to vote for Reagan. The only historical parallel I can think of is Hitler.