OMFG, make it stop:
Maybe media outlets keep shuffling a vacuous incompetent like Cillizza around in high-paying jobs because he’s such a delightful addition to the weekly poker game: “Four kings you say? That makes my chances of completing this royal flush look that much better! Hit me again!” [Shoves all his chips into the pot.]
But then there’s this:
So maybe there’s an outbreak of dyscalculia that only affects pundits with last names containing the letters “lizza”? Nope:
So yeah, as we suspected, the media coverage of the 2020 Democratic primary will be as appallingly stupid and biased as it was in 2016. I recommend working the refs — decades of Republican whining paid off.
But babbling idiocy like the above is built in, and any candidate who isn’t a white man will be required to overcome it. That’s unfair, and unfairness sucks, but here we are.
JPL
David Brooks was drooling all over Mayor Pete also.
rikyrah
There is NO regard for NATIONAL SECURITY ???
Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) Tweeted:
All the guardrails are dead. “For “senior White House official one…the individual’s security clearance was denied after the background check revealed “significant disqualifying factors, including foreign influence, outside activities … and personal conduct.” https://twitter.com/JoyceWhiteVance/status/1113055561543806976?s=17
Duke of Clay
Reminds me of 2008 when everything was “Good News for John McCain.”
rikyrah
???
#ListenToBlackWomenKamalaHarris2020 (@psddluva4evah) Tweeted:
Liz Warren out here talking policy and substance and yet folk so busy riding the latest white male hope wave that now they writing articles bout her fundraising lacking. Heck Liz isn’t even my candidate but I sent some money her way cause at least she’s talking substance!
https://twitter.com/psddluva4evah/status/1113049125036199936?s=17
PST
I don’t think what these guys say is all that stupid (this time). For those of us who expect Bernie and Joe to fade fast as America gradually gets to know the real candidates, Harris is quite arguably the real front runner. For a newcomer like Buttigieg, appearing to play in the same league is a step up.
rikyrah
Ian Millhiser (@imillhiser) Tweeted:
I really cannot exaggerate how radical and how significant the opinion Gorsuch handed down today is. It completely rewrites the Court’s understanding of a provision of the Bill of Rights — and it portends similarly revolutionary opinions in the future.
https://t.co/0qpXBBizRg https://twitter.com/imillhiser/status/1112754142777393152?s=17
rikyrah
?Mayo Pedro Is A Cop (@Bravewriting) Tweeted:
I believe every white male writer or journalist should have a black female editor supervising him to tell him:
“Don’t say that.”
Whenever he writes stupid ass tone deaf post about women or minorities. https://twitter.com/Bravewriting/status/1113024458246111233?s=17
rikyrah
Armando (@armandodkos) Tweeted:
3 white bro journalists @RyanLizza @samstein and @CillizzaCNN decided to show their racist and sexist asses tonight by deciding that Kamala Harris raiding 5 million dollars more that Mayor Pete shows how great Pete is. That says it all. We need more women and PoC as journalists. https://twitter.com/armandodkos/status/1112924160240570369?s=17
MattF
I keep a “Post This In Case Of Cillizza” link on my desktop, just in case. You’re welcome.
Betty Cracker
@PST: What you just wrote isn’t stupid, but it isn’t what they wrote, which IS stupid. IMO. Is it impressive that Buttigieg raised $7M? Sure, but why use that achievement to knock Harris, who hauled in a lot more money with a lot less press coverage?
rikyrah
But, of course ???
Justin Miller (@justinjm1) Tweeted:
DHS quietly disbanded unit that works on domestic terrorism and reassigned analysts, @woodruffbets reports https://t.co/zBAgfzl1Dv https://twitter.com/justinjm1/status/1113040348102701056?s=17
rikyrah
Thread ??
Andrea González-Ramírez (@andreagonram) Tweeted:
I’m not gonna amplify the president’s tweets about Puerto Rico, but I want to clarify some things:
– 3,000 died. We lost them. Don’t forget that.
– There’s vast evidence the immediate response to Hurricane Maria was slower and less generous than that to Harvey and Irma. (1/x) https://twitter.com/andreagonram/status/1113053528422002688?s=17
Major Major Major Major
@rikyrah: that opinion is bad, bad news.
rikyrah
????
Detective J.J. Gittes (@DetectiveGittes) Tweeted:
Joe Scarborough, at his most tone deaf, just criticized #Kamala Harris’ impressive Q1 fundraising achievement as coming from “poor penniless church widows.” ? https://twitter.com/DetectiveGittes/status/1113057392437137409?s=17
bbleh
@PST: Yeah this was my take, plus what other commenters upthread said. Harris is already seen as a “serious” candidate. Buttigieg is the media darling of the moment. This is talking him up, not talking her down.
Major Major Major Major
@Betty Cracker: isn’t it important to compare it to something though?
Major Major Major Major
@rikyrah: why is that tweeter’s username “Mayo Pedro Is A Cop”? Weird.
Betty Cracker
@MattF: Thank you for that!
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Major Major Major Major:
This sucks
zhena gogolia
I gave money to both of them. I’d prefer not to see them pitted against each other. I want to hear all the voices (except BS).
Major Major Major Major
I will grant you that this is extremely white
Betty Cracker
@Major Major Major Major: Depends on the purpose of the comparison? One of the basic functions of numbers is to give people a way to wrap their minds around quantities, so it seems pointless to compare the numbers unless the comparison yields some insight about the state of the race. IMO, this comparison is a useless and fundamentally misleading horse race wank.
rikyrah
Moore is an all-around loser??
Katie Phang (@KatiePhang) Tweeted:
‼️NEW:
“In her 2010 divorce complaint, Ms. Moore accused Mr. Moore of ‘emotional and psychological abuse’ during their 20-year marriage, and accused him of carrying on an adulterous relationship that he was ‘neither discreet nor inconspicuous’ about.” https://t.co/8rTiSQumVn https://twitter.com/KatiePhang/status/1113055518065483776?s=17
chopper
these people realize that it’s only spring of 2019, right?
rikyrah
???
David Sugerman (@DavidSug) Tweeted:
@docrocktex26 @Ange_Amene @mhmhart Brofest 2020 is not a good look for the Dems. The erasure of @KamalaHarris and the other talented women in the race is disgusting. https://twitter.com/DavidSug/status/1113059401655476224?s=17
rikyrah
????
??????? (@shereeny) Tweeted:
“A memorial dedicated to slaves and African-American workers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was vandalized Sunday…by two people, including one person with ties to a group called Heirs to the Confederacy”
https://t.co/b0QNIPa7ST https://twitter.com/shereeny/status/1113059003762970624?s=17
Arthur
After taking into account that the constitution values a person of color as three fifths of a white person, Buttiegig raised just as much as Harris.
Kay
I hope he does it. Trump and his low quality hires don’t understand the auto industry, like they don’t understand any industry. They don’t understand that it’s completely international.
Maybe it’s too early to be hopeful but this is the second HUGE fucking blunder in a week. They just had to reverse on health care and they’ll have to reverse on this. So much for “now that the Mueller cloud is gone the incompetents become competent”.
Trump is a bad person who hires the worst people. They can’t get better. If they could they wouldn’t be mid-career and still suck.
Major Major Major Major
@Betty Cracker: when I saw Buttigieg’s numbers I immediately googled what the other candidates’ were since even I have no goddamned idea how much a presidential campaign costs any more. Were recent figures available for others?
chopper
so when mayor pete outraised wilmer, the wilmerites kept giving reasons why wilmer’s haul was actually better. now harris outraises pete, so this should be fun.
JPL
@rikyrah: fuckem
tobie
@bbleh: My take on what makes you a media darling and earns you lavish praise from supposedly ‘reasonable’ Republicans like Brooks and Rubin is that you’re not strongly identified with the Democratic Party and haven’t labored in the world of Democratic politics for some time. It’s like sticking it to the Dems, even while claiming to support them (Rubin), by saying they’ve been doing everything wrong all along.
rikyrah
From across the pond??
BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) Tweeted:
MPs push to prevent no-deal #Brexit in law https://t.co/dycuDxxKuy https://twitter.com/BBCNews/status/1113058729434513408?s=17
MomSense
@bbleh:
I really think it’s both talking him up and talking her down.
Kay
I feel vindicated already on how political media hates Warren. They’ve always treated her like shit. It’s tiresome after the Clinton coverage debacle, to watch it again. It’s boring.
OzarkHillbilly
@Arthur: Ouch.
Betty Cracker
@Major Major Major Major: Nothing wrong with publishing all the candidates’ fundraising hauls — that’s useful information. It’s the bogus pundit filter above that’s objectionable. To me, at least.
Major Major Major Major
@tobie: FWIW, Brooks liked Obama.
PsiFighter37
Beto and Bernie will have the best numbers. That being said, I think you will see the fundraising totals for iindividual candidates be quite a bit lower since the field is so big. Another stopped-clock observation: I expected Harris to have better numbers, so I agree with Cillizza here.
Kay
I’m glad people are pushing back but I don’t think Mayor Pete, as a person, is responsible for political media loving him anymore than Warren is responsible for the fact that they hate her.
zhena gogolia
@Kay:
Right. He’s saying a lot of good things.
OzarkHillbilly
@Major Major Major Major: All the numbers for first quarter fundraising should be released in the next day or 2.
Immanentize
@PsiFighter37:
Hmmm. What exactly did you expect Harris’ numbers to be? What exactly do you expect Sanders’ and O’Rourke’s numbers will be?
I won’t even ask about your expectations about people you didn’t mention having expectations about.
Major Major Major Major
@OzarkHillbilly: right, but these reactions were written at a time when this was the only(?) available comparison.
guachi
The $7 million is impressive compared to the $12 million Harris raised.
I was looking at the Quinnipiac poll from a few days ago.
Buttigieg, Warren, and Klobuchar are the “white” candidates. They have 6, 7, 4 percent white support and <1% black support.
Biden, Sanders, O'Rourke do proportionately better among black voters. 29, 13, 9 percent among white voters and 44, 17, 16 percent among black voters.
Harris is at 8 for each.
Harris, Warren, Buttigieg are the "liberal" candidates drawing disproportionately from liberal voters.
Biden is the "moderate conservative" candidate as his support increases as voters get more conservative.
Just One More Canuck
@PsiFighter37: How much more? Why?
Can someone use their Soros bucks to hire someone to punch Cilizza et al in the throat?
Immanentize
@Major Major Major Major: you are not responding at all to what Ozark said which was a direct response to what you asked. You responded to the defensive voice in your head.
rp
I don’t think Cillizza’s and Lizza’s comments are all that dumb and I didn’t read them as a knock on Harris. Allen’s comment is really dumb.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Agree with that. I felt the same way about Obama when the media was awful to Clinton in the 2008 primary. I preferred Obama, but they really did treat her like shit, and that pissed me off.
Joe Falco
@JPL:
Please, this is a family website. No one deserves being looked at like if they were the Applebee’s salad bar by David Brooks.
guachi
For people upset that “white guys” are in the top three candidates – black voters like them more than white voters do.
OzarkHillbilly
@Major Major Major Major: Harris and Buttigieg were able to release their number’s quicker than everybody else is my take on that.
Kay
@zhena gogolia:
I think he’s fine. Biden trashed Clinton’s campaign last night at a closed door event. I think it’s unwise for them to do that- not productive and dumb and undisciplined- but I don’t think it’s malicious. They’re political people. They cannot stop themselves from weighing in :)
I also think Harris has a lot of room to grow and she’s managing this very well. She’s really appealing. The geographic diversity of the candidates is a plus. Having California and Texas and Indiana is all good.
Major Major Major Major
@Immanentize: ???
@OzarkHillbilly: right, and these were written about… those numbers. It’s important to contextualize these figures, and these two figures were the available context. ETA: While it’s entirely possible I’m missing some subtlety here, I agree with BC that the idea of putting these two numbers next to each other is not a problem.
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker: This was my wife’s view. I was in for Obama, she for Clinton. She would point out the different tone in the reporting. I was amazed that I wasn’t hearing it at first…. But there were always some people (not media) talking direct trash about Obama to even some of that out. Including, sadly, Bill.
cliosfanboy
@Just One More Canuck: you left off the word “repeatedly”
TaMara (HFG)
No one should see that first thing in the a.m. What a bunch of…oh, I can’t even. I just went and donated to Harris. Fuck ’em.
Immanentize
@Major Major Major Major:
You asked when the numbers would be released for other candidates.
Ozark told you when that information would likely appear.
You then responded to his accurate answer/information by explaining to him about the comparisons being the product of available data. A sort of nonsequitur, no?
ETA. You should agree that hot takes on partial data are really not very valuable at all.
Major Major Major Major
@Immanentize: not at all. Read the conversation I was having with BC when OH helpfully provided information.
TaMara (HFG)
@Duke of Clay:That’s feels right.
@Betty Cracker: All of this
Just One More Canuck
@cliosfanboy: mea culpa
delk
That 7 million just put a huge target on his back and I expect Sander’s campaign attack dogs will be taking aim.
rikyrah
@Kay:
You did tell us, Kay. You were absolutely on point long ago.
B.B.A.
@delk: Hopefully the white men will take each other out in the preseason, leaving the field clear for all the candidates of substance when voting starts.
janesays
@chopper: I wish that were true, but it isn’t. Wilmer raised $5.9 million on his first day of the campaign, and more than $10 million in his first week. Buttigieg and Harris’ numbers were for the whole first quarter. Wilmer hasn’t released his Q1 fundraising numbers yet, but they’re obviously going to be much larger than either Buttigieg or Harris. The only person who raised more money than Wilmer was Beto O’Rourke, at least in the first 24 hours of his campaign – $6.1 million.
I’m not sure it really means a whole lot, though. For perspective, Rudy Giuliani raised $16M in his first quarter of campaigning in 2007, and we all see how well that panned out for him.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/01/pete-buttigieg-announces-7-million-fundraising-haul-in-first-quarter.html
O. Felix Culpa
@Betty Cracker:
This. And it DOES fluff white man over black woman. Not to see that is to choose not to see it. I’ve lived it (the woman, not the black part), and I KNOW HOW IT WORKS. Plausible deniability, folks, and so much baked-in misogyny even valued BJ commenters swim in it.
Edited.
Betty
I did donate some money to Bernie last time so I have been getting frequent pleadings for some this time. They seem desperate to up their numbers. I have unsubscribed so hope to hear no more from them.
Aleta
@rikyrah: So horrible.
Major Major Major Major
For what it’s worth the extremely early fundraising totals meant jack shit in the 2016 GOP primary.
Kay
@rikyrah:
It’s hard to fit into boxes because a lot of the bullshit Clinton coverage was produced by women. Some of them aren’t old enough to have had some first hand, years long experience where she is a lying, scheming witch so it’s somehow passed down, like received wisdom from (the awful) Maureen Dowd. It’s like “institutional knowing” at this point.
As far as I can tell Warren is clean as a whistle – there hasn’t been even a hint of corruption, etc. around her, so what the fuck is THIS one about? Who knows. She’s an older smart lady? Ok, but so is Klobachur.
Citizen Alan
@rikyrah:
I said it before and I’ll say it again. Every single purity-pony liberal who mocked the idea that the composition of SCOTUS should play a role in their voting decisions should be spat upon. And to think, if Garland had made it on the court, we might now be reading about an opinion striking down the death penalty entirely.
PsiFighter37
@Immanentize: Jesus, y’all are so goddamn sensitive. I would have expected Harris to be higher because everyone talks about her being in the top tier of candidates, and clearing Mayor Pete, who is going to be a flash in the pan this cycle, by only $5mm despite making a point of holding high-dollar fundraisers, is relatively disappointing.
Does that mean I am criticizing Harris? No, but I suspect that folks will find any fucking nitpick to start a primary pie fight over.
OzarkHillbilly
@Major Major Major Major: The only thing they are indicative of is where the not so smart money is betting.
rikyrah
@Citizen Alan:
They will NEVER EVER BE FORGIVEN.
O. Felix Culpa
“I have certainly met much more discrimination in terms of being a woman than being black, in the field of politics.” ~Shirley Chisholm
In re: baked-in misogyny. Things haven’t changed much, for any of the serious women running in the Democratic primaries. Nothing against Beto and Mayor Pete, but the press swooning over the great white MALE hopes and the relative silence over Amy, Elizabeth, Kamala and Kirsten is…irritating.
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
The MSM, constantly t(w)eetering on the Brink’s.
Kay
@Citizen Alan:
Gorsuch compared the death penalty to the crime, which is …I don’t know. Death penalty enthusiasts have generally shied away from portraying state actions as an equal and opposite reaction to an unlawful killing. He’s a nutjob. If the death penalty is an eye for an eye they’ll rubber stamp stoning. All bets are off.
The reason prosecutors like the death penalty is it makes it easier for them to get people to plead to draconian LIFE sentences, which means they don’t have to go to trial. They’ll admit this privately. It’s a lever. That’s another reason it’s bad- it corrupts the process and leads to bad pleas. But it does make their job easier, as a threat.
matt
The reason the media is impressed with Buttigieg is because all of the favorable unpaid media is what has propelled Buttigieg. They’re proud of themselves.
Immanentize
FlipYrWhig
@PsiFighter37: I don’t get where this “only” is coming from. 12M vs. 7M is verging on double. It’s 71% higher, right?
matt
@rikyrah: Joe Scarborough continues to be a bog-standard, racist Republican asshole.
chopper
@janesays:
that was it, beto. when beto’s first day came in the sandernistas were all about how it was good news for wilmer. for some reason i got my young white democratic messiahs confused.
guachi
@O. Felix Culpa:
Are you guys irritated that, according to the latest Quinnipiac poll, black voters like the top three candidates – all white men – more than white voters do?
77% of black voters support Biden/Sanders/O’Rourke.
Who’s doing the “swooning” in this case?
mali muso
Well, I donated to Mayor Pete back in the “let’s get him to 65,000 donations so he can be in the debates” period, and I don’t regret it. That said, I’m going to send some bucks to Warren and Harris. In actuality, I would prefer either one of them to be at the top of the ticket.
O. Felix Culpa
@guachi: I’m not in a position to speak for black voters. But there couldn’t be any cause-and-effect relationship between slanted press coverage (and general familiarity with names like Biden) and the molding of public perception, I’m sure.
arrieve
So apparently we’re going to be riding the Bullshit Express in 2020 having learned nothing. The Villago cannot be Delendaed soon enough.
At least this reminded me to give some money to Warren, who has been releasing interesting well-thought out policies that no one is paying any attention to.
Kay
I’m hoping the Democratic candidate will do what the media failed to do in debates with Trump- ask basic questions. It won’t matter to his most rabid fans but Trump doesn’t know shit about shit, and his career-long bellowing and torrent of words is a cover for that. His ignorance and laziness can be used to humiliate him, and it won’t be difficult. Ask him to explain or define something. He’s a bullshitter. It’s a millimeter deep. I don’t think he’s ever been asked a simple, basic question. Make it EASY. He hides in specifics.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: @PsiFighter37: At this stage of the game, I suspect it’s less about actual dollars raised and more about dollars raised compared to expectations.
As one of the frontrunners, Harris would be expected to raise a ton of money. As an underdog, expectations were low for Buttigieg. In that sense, a comparison between them makes sense. But their framing is ridiculous and based on bullshit.
matt
@guachi: That just seems like dumb trolling to me, easily explained by the fact that black voters are more committed Democrats than other voters. Sorry.
PsiFighter37
@FlipYrWhig: That’s a shitty math argument. $2mm is 100% higher than $1mm, but no one would say either total is a great fundraising quarter for a presidential candidate. Think the absolute number is more important than a percentage calculation.
Kay
Health care will be a big issue. Ask him what a preexisting condition is, in his own words. Ask him why that was a problem, and what Obamacare did to fix it. They started with the ordinary, higher bar for presidential candidates and he doesn’t reach that. He benefited from that assumption. This is a chance for a do-over. They won’t do it so our candidate will have to.
WaterGirl
@Kay: @zhena gogolia: Yes to both of those things!
Last night I listened to a really good interview with Buttigieg. The interviewer was a woman, an editor for Mother Jones. I had never heard of her before, but she is a really great interviewer. Great questions, great framing of the questions.
Pete Buttigieg at the Commonwealth Club (whatever the hell that is) being interviewed by the editor for Mother Jones, followed by good questions from the audience). 64 minutes.
https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/archive/podcast/mayor-pete-buttigieg-democratic-presidential-candidate
Kay
Ask him what we import from Mexico and why Mexico is important to auto production in the US. Just pick a topic- any topic will do. Soybeans, automobiles, health insurance. Doesn’t matter. He won’t know the basics of anything.
guachi
@O. Felix Culpa: How has the press coverage been slanted such that black voters would find Biden/Sander/O’Rourke more appealing than white voters?
I don’t think slanted press coverage has anything to do with it. I think it’s that the candidates appeal to certain voters and don’t appeal to other voters.
Warren/Klobuchar/Buttigieg have a combined 17% among white voters and around 1% among black voters.
Ladyraxterinok
@rikyrah: So now she’s the stereotypical televangelist preying on old peoples’ social security?!? Don’t think I ever heard this charge about a white politician!!
Kay
@WaterGirl:
This is horrible to say but I don’t have time to defend him what with all these women to defend :)
I am going to end up backing a woman. I feel this is inevitable. I’m simply too cranky a person to let this stand.
O. Felix Culpa
@guachi: Slanted with respect to women often = silence. Lack of coverage. For example – “why didn’t HRC talk about her policy ideas” when all she did was talk about policy and post it on her website. So yes, slanted coverage. Let the person with eyes to see, begin to see.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@guachi: Why are you singling out black voters for criticism? That’s what I find “irritating”. Your comment is tone deaf at best.
Betty Cracker
@WaterGirl: Is Harris really considered a front-runner by the Beltway types at this point? She is in my book — I believe she’ll be the nominee. From what I’ve seen, she’s not polling all that well in the (meaningless) early-stage polls, trailing way behind Biden and Sanders and tied with Beto.
Just One More Canuck
@PsiFighter37: So what number for Harris would have satisfied you?$15 million? $20 million?
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Betty Cracker: I’d say the beltway is doing it’s best to ignore Harris.
Immanentize
@Kay: Your second paragraph is so very true (death penalty as leverage) especially in federal court. In State courts, it’s also used politically around election times for prosecutors much more than just after elections.
As for everyone’s concern about Gorsuch’s opinion. Really this is nothing new. This is Scalia’s position which has been the Court’s position on the actual carrying out of the sentence for a very long time. Death is always cruel, it’s just not that unusual. And everytime a Justice wants to justify their pro-death penalty decision, they will write about the details of the underlying crime. Which in a case about execution methods is frankly irrelevant. This technique was also used by Kennedy in Gonzales v. Carhart which upheld a ban on a certain type of abortion procedure. He wrote about it in gruesome detail…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Hogan Gidlely, White House flack, just says the Mueller report totally exonerated trump on collusion and instruction. Ace reporter Hallie Jackson lets it lie there to get back to the Russert thing of asking a question he already answered because they think that’s tough.
Now on to Obamacare and she’s every bit as weak. This is what I get for being too lazy to get up and turn off the fucking TV.
WaterGirl
@Major Major Major Major: What’s important is for all the (real) Democratic candidates to raise enough money that they can’t be dismissed and ignored. If every Democratic candidate does well enough to get press coverage, then all Democrats win, and there’s a chance that the coverage allows us to compare the candidates in a “hard science” way as well as a “softer” how we feel about the candidates, do-we-trust-them kind of way.
I am sick at heart watching the rabid-dogs-fighting tone of balloon juice lately. It reminds me so much of the rabid ugliness of Daily Kos around 2008, where they lost much of their readership — and many of those people came here — and in my opinion regardless of how much traffic they have, they have never recovered from that.
I sure as hell hope we can wake up here at BJ before we destroy ourselves. We are not stupid, but damn, we are kind of acting like we are when we fall for all the ratfucking and the “oh my god this person said that” news of the day.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: OMG, yes! Remember when someone accidentally asked him a healthcare question once and he started babbling about a 21-year-old getting a policy for “$12 dollars a year” and then ending up with “a nice plan” at age 70? I have no idea why that wasn’t on 100-point font on the front page of every newspaper and the subject of endless late night TV skits like Poppy Bush’s astonishment at grocery store scanners, etc. Talk about out of touch! (Actually, I do know why — Trump has lowered the bar on his personal behavior and incompetence to the point where the bar has melded with the molten core of the earth.) Anyhoo, yes to your suggestion about asking him about literally anything. He won’t know.
Immanentize
@mali muso: I am exactly in your position. I liked the democracy aspects of increasing the first debate pool.
But, no more. I see the media will be supplying plenty of in-kind support to the white guys. So I will not be giving any more money to any Jim Jeffries campaign during the primary.
But Julian Castro deserves some scratch. And Harris and Warren from me.
Gin & Tonic
@zhena gogolia: You’ll like this. As Ukraine heads to a second round in the Presidential election process, some wag on Twitter writes “a kak po-russky ‘vtoroy tur’?”
Barbara
@Kay: They don’t fucking understand anything. They live lives in which things magically show up for them because of the hard work of others trying to make sure they never encounter any obstacles of any kind. Just like the MPs in England who are, after nearly three years, still living in magical pony unicorn land about what Brexit will or won’t mean. Meanwhile, the UK’s GDP is already lower even before anything final happens, and automakers and financial companies are moving jobs abroad. Money does not equal brains. I just wish we didn’t need a generational clusterfuck to make it quite so obvious.
Barbara
@Just One More Canuck: Nothing. There is nothing that Harris could do that would satisfy them. That’s the whole point of a double standard. Meanwhile, even a dollar would have satisfied them for Mayor Pete, who will now getting NO money from me, given the millions he is getting free from his “peers.” Nothing against him, but fuck this shit.
O. Felix Culpa
@Immanentize:
Thank you. For my part, this is not a knock on Beto (whom I’ve met and found impressive) and Mayor Pete (whom I’ve not met and find impressive), but on the inherent sexism and misogyny of the media and our culture. It’s time to change.
NotMax
@WaterGirl
This. With a capital THIS.
Ladyraxterinok
@Kay: Warren much better known than Klobacher. She–absolute horrors –has a track record of knowledge and accomplishments re money/finance (NOT a field appropriate for women!!//s). She’s OLD (by definition re women not sexually attractive).
Leto
@Kay: HRC did this during their debates, pointedly showed that Trumpov didn’t know shit from Shinola wrt basic policy/nuts and bolts. The issue there, as it will be here, is that we won’t have any push back from the moderators. They won’t know the facts, and will revert back to the dashboard nodding bubblehead, saying, “Mmhmm, good point.”
They’ll ask Trumpov about the impact of closing the boarder with Mexico on the automotive industry, and he’ll reply that he and Kim Jong Ding Dong are great friends, the best, just the best of fiends, and that NO COLLUSION! And they’ll move along. We need better moderators like the woman who punched Mittens Rmoney in the dick when she corrected him, on air, about the Benghazi bullshit he was pedaling during his debate with President Obama. Bring back the League of Women Voters moderators. Anything but the sad sacks we have now.
O. Felix Culpa
@Leto:
Hear! hear!
schrodingers_cat
These tone deaf statements make it clear why the Beltway media overlaps considerably with the T voting demographic. They are
1. Overwhelmingly male and white
2. Wealthy
Being a misogynist, racist xenophobe is not a deal breaker for them.
WaterGirl
I can’t recall whether this was on one of the podcasts I listened to last night or whether it’s something I read here last night as I caught up on the HORRIBLE Buttigieg thread with the article posted by Cole.
Whoever it was said that the ratfuckers started their ratfucking way too soon. The point being that they are wasting their current ratfucking because as soon as the Democratic candidates get on stage for the first debates, people will get to see the candidates for themselves. That made a lot of sense to me; I surely hope they are right.
Unless you are someone who listening to interviews with candidates or watching videos of the candidate as they campaign, people’s opinions are mostly being formed by the beltway and by the ratfucking and by something they saw on twitter. At the debates, you don’t have to work that hard to get to actually see all the candidates so you can judge for yourself.
Hildebrand
@Betty Cracker: Sen. Harris is the front-runner in my thinking, as well. I also think she is one of the few building a campaign for the long-haul. Her team knows that this is going to be a slog, and so ‘slow and steady will win the race’ is an important bit of wisdom they have taken seriously. Out of all of them, Sen. Harris and Sen. Warren seem to be the two who learned from Obama’s long-game style of planning. Some will flame out, some really weren’t suited to run in the first place – and those will start dropping out by the end of the summer – but Sen. Harris and Sen.Warren will still be chugging away, doing their thing.
My hope is that they are also already planning a general election strategy – which I would bet that they do (both are too savvy to leave that to chance, even at this stage).
O. Felix Culpa
@schrodingers_cat: Yup.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: I thought so – it seemed to me that Harris was up there with the Bernie, Biden, Beto grouping. But I am not particularly tuned in with the beltway crowd, so maybe not?
Just One More Canuck
@Barbara: I’m sure you’re right – saying something is ‘relatively disappointing’ is an easy way to move the goal posts whenever it’s convenient
Immanentize
@O. Felix Culpa:
It is also still at the name recognition stage. People are saying, “yeah that guy I know about.”. By October, still six months before the primaries, that will change greatly.
Barbara
@WaterGirl: Yep, DK lost me, not in 2008 but a few years later. I did come here and a few other places, like WM, which I also moved away from as they started including long essays that were not much more than screeds and jeremiads.
rikyrah
@guachi:
Black voters are the most pragmatic of all Democratic Voters.
They aren’t interested in symbolism. They want to win.
But, let Kamala prove that she can earn White Non-Californian voters…then, the numbers actually mean something
Barbara
@WaterGirl: Did everyone or anyone see Nancy Pelosi’s advice to Biden? From The Guardian’s coverage of her press conference, it makes me sad that Pelosi will never have the opportunity to run a national campaign, because she is just that brilliant:
mali muso
@Immanentize: Yes, and thanks for reminding me about Julian Castro. I had made a note to toss some his way as well. I want to see more diverse voices in the conversation, preferably some that aren’t white men.
FlipYrWhig
@Barbara: The Washington Monthly weekend bros (Ryan Cooper, execrable David Atkins, et al.) wrecked the place.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I don’t really understand this, but political reporters have a funny way of counting
Scares me a little that so many people– they claim 900K individual donors– are still drinking the Wilmer-Ade, and that’s $18 million better spent on down-ticket races, but… we’ll see what happens.
A little context from Nate Silver
Immanentize
@Barbara: I liked Pelosi’s not disqualifying comment because it is supportive and technically true, but not that supportive.
Technically, only if you are not at least 35 years old and not born a US citizen, you are not “disqualified.”
ETA The whole statement also says, Joe don’t run.
Amir Khalid
@janesays:
McCain, if I remember it right, was running out of money at one point in the 2008 campaign, but he wound up as the nominee. And everyone thought that the Republican nomination in 2016 was Jeb’s for the taking. Since recent history tells us that early fundraising is not indicative of the candidate’s actual support or their chances of becoming the nominee, maybe everyone should not get all het up. This is just the media doing horse-race coverage.
Ideally the media should assess candidacies in depth. E.g. looking at the organisation each candidate is building, or at policy proposals, or at their political skills level. That tells us something about what kind of CEO they’d be. But that kind of thing is not a quick story to do, so they don’t.
Immanentize
@Barbara: I liked Pelosi’s not disqualifying comment because it is supportive and technically true, but not that supportive.
Technically, only if you are not at least 35 years old and not born a US citizen, are you “disqualified.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
My recollection as well, that he was running out of money in late summer of 2007. When I stop and think that we’re still almost a year out from the first votes… oy. I think I should spend some of the time I spend following politics to bird watching or something.
ThresherK
@FlipYrWhig: The time I’ve spent perusing WaMo has dwindled to seconds, and I was wondering why.
Immanentize
Sorry about repeat comments. I know I got my “nots” doubled. Also, train WiFi is weird.
Major Major Major Major
@Amir Khalid: as I recall, Warren snapped up many of the experienced party hands very early, which is generally considered a very good, though “invisible,” sign.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Barbara
@ThresherK: I have started occasionally going back because the overall project, not just the blog, is often very good. Also, they have Nancy LeTorneau and some new writers.
Barbara
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yeah, and he didn’t get his wish, so the precedent is to release these reports, as it should be since they concern the president of the United States.
TaMara (HFG)
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
They’re losing on this, though. People want it released. Trump can bellow all he wants. It looks like he’s hiding something, because he is.
This is another blunder. They’re going to blow that huge assist they got from media when the “summary” came out, if they haven’t already. They’re fucking up all over the place. Health care, border shut and now ranting about their hiding of this report. It’s a good trend.
Just One More Canuck
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: the field is a lot larger * than it was in 2007, so any one candidate’s fund raising total is less likely to stand out like Obama’s did.
* I was also going to say ‘and more serious’ as well, but there’s Gabbard, Gravel, Marianne Williamson and Andrew Yang, whereas 2008 had Kucinich and .. Gravel
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I think so too, or is it hope? Anyway, it is interesting that the media went into self-flagellation mode and the public seems to have ho-hummed the Barr letter.
smintheus
The “mayor Pete” business is really precious; reminds me of the chiropractor who tells his clients to call him “doctor Jeff”.
Seriously, it is rather a disturbing insight into Democratic politics that a small town mayor with virtually no accomplishments or specific policies to speak of can raise that kind of money. It’s the kind of collective insanity I’ve associated with Republican voters.
WaterGirl
@Barbara:
Perfect!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’ve been an old fart most of my life, and first-namification in politics drives me crazy. I remember being creeped out when Edwards volunteers (yeah, I fell for it) would call and tell me about how important it was to support “John”
Kay
@Immanentize:
I appreciated that they told the truth, because it explains a lot. But that’s bad! Those are bad pleas! If they’re holding “death” over your head you’re likely to agree to anything. So the fact that the penalty exists poisons all those pleas, makes them unreliable and to a certain extent coerced. Bad things always ripple. They’re never just bad and that’s that. They poison things around them.
Gorsuch is a ghoul, BTW. A slick, polished ghoul. Yuck. Just repellent. How do our “elite” institutions keep creating these absolute low lifes?
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yeah, well Nate Silver could use a bit of context, as well.
This is not 2008 or 2016 where we have only 2 or 3 major candidates.
Major Major Major Major
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: it’s because Buttigieg is a hard name, sheesh.
And let’s not forget the Hillary campaign.
smintheus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: People already know whether they like or trust Trump. Most don’t. The media thinks it’s just a matter of Trump finding the right words or turning off the twitter machine and his popularity will rise on the principle (I guess) that even shit floats. But years of polling tells you that Trump is less than shit.
WaterGirl
@Immanentize:
Yep. But conveyed in a gentle, face-saving way that I think will allow Biden to hear not just her words but also the underlying meaning.
She really is a pro.
Barbara
@smintheus: Okay, I will commit to using his last name. It’s just hard for me to remember how to spell it, even though I once knew the rudimentary spelling and pronunciation rules for half a dozen European languages because of where I grew up. My last name was constantly mispronounced and misspelled. It gets so tiresome.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Major Major Major Major: Like I said, I’m an old fart.
smintheus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think that trend took hold with Jimmy Carter. I hated it then. He was another candidate who talked a smooth reformist game – and the media ignored the massive gap between his new image and the reality of his conservative and underwhelming record in office.
glory b
@guachi: As A black voter, I can tell you that a lot of us distinguish between “our favorite” and who we think is likely to actually win.
We NEED Dem victories in ways that many white folks don’t.
WaterGirl
@smintheus: You must not have a last name like mine, then, that people routinely butcher. When I have to supply my name for anything requiring something to be picked up, I use only the last half of my name. If you did, you might not have such a harsh assessment of Mayor Pete.
I mean, one has only to look at the horrible abuses of Buttigieg’s name that some here on BJ have been using over the last few days to understand why he might go with Mayor Pete.
If people here are going to diss Democratic candidates here, I sure wish they would supply substantive reasons and a lot less than the bullshit reasons that I am seeing, more often than not.
smintheus
@Barbara: It’s not *that* hard, though, and if low-info voters don’t learn how to pronounce his name he’s going to be a harder sell in the general election.
WaterGirl
@Major Major Major Major: Good point. The double standard for women goes in more than one direction.
Leto
@Kay:
Because they don’t see them as “ghouls”, they see them as precious little gems from the “elite” education mills that funnel these douchhebags into the Ivy Leagues. The Ivy Leagues produce no better educated students than state schools. It’s simply another networking conference, a mall job fair of the four year variety. Plus you now have “side door entrances” so if your parents can’t name a building after you, well there’s always the water polo team.
Betty Cracker
New data point: Sanders released his Q1 numbers — $18.2 million. I look forward to all the unflattering comparisons to Harris’s $12M. After all, Sanders was the runner-up for the Democratic Party nomination last time and has been a national figure for years, whereas Harris has only been a senator since 2017. //
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Major Major Major Major: @WaterGirl: that’s why I always try to refer to her as Hillary Clinton or HRC, to differentiate her from her husband, which I believe is why she went with Hillary in the first place. And I usually call him Bubba, cause I’m always kind of low-grade pissed off at him.
Gin & Tonic
@Kay: He is a product of his mother.
Just One More Canuck
@WaterGirl: same issue with me – I automatically start spelling it when someone asks me (like at the passport office yesterday)
smintheus
@WaterGirl: Living outside the US I grew used to people routinely butchering it.
mrmoshpotato
@Just One More Canuck: @cliosfanboy: Should Cilizza be punched 7 times or 12 times? Seven is greater than 12 to some people after all. But it seems to be for very white, very male quantities of 7.
Can the Brits recolonize the US? I’d love some universal healthcare and sensible campaign laws.
The Daily Show – Democracy in the U.K.
Herman_Newticks
This nonsense means that in addition to the pundits being amazingly biased and dumb, Mayor Pete has a good press shop. Those idiots aren’t thinking these tweets up themselves. Mayor Pete’s press shop is thinking up the hot takes and disseminating them to these cretins who post them as their own.
smintheus
@TaMara (HFG): I love that.
Searcher
Proposed left-wing goal: get three national political news personalities fired over their 2020 coverage by the end of 2019.
Kay
@Immanentize:
I had such a nice interlude Saturday. I was listening to oral arguments in the gerrymandering case and Kagan was wonderful. I feel she’s under-rated.
But the best part was Kagan started to flag- you get tired- it’s like tennis- back and forth, back and forth, as you know. So then Sotomayor jumps in, all fresh, with her equal protection argument. It was fun to listen to the “two ladies” :)
zhena gogolia
@Barbara:
Oh, what BS (not from you, from the commenter who’s complaining about ANYTHING related to Buttigieg). Call him whatever you want to call him.
Major Major Major Major
@WaterGirl: I don’t even use the name I go by half the time. I tweeted about this the other day in fact!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Major Major Major Major: does anyone ever ask if you’re a long lost Lannister?
Jerzy Russian
@Major Major Major Major: Nice to meet you John Major.
Major Major Major Major
@Jerzy Russian: ? Ground control to Major John… ?
Kay
@Leto:
My youngest got an email from Yale pitching their 2000 dollar a week “enrichment” program for high school students.
The median income here is 32k, and we have a free program for “advanced” students at Bowling Green State University. It’s math. It’s really good. My oldest took it 2 years in a row. I’d like to know whether his school just gives out his email to anyone selling anything. Jesus.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: How much of that haul was in rubles?
UncleEbeneezer
@Barbara: As the saying goes: Women and Black People need to be “twice as good.” Kamala nets almost double what Buttigieg raised and not-far-from what Bernie raised (even with his greater name-recognition and his email donor list (that remember he refused to share with the DNC)) and did so in a field with 5 BILLION other candidates dividing up donations, but of course the headline HAS TO BE about how Sen. Harris hasn’t met expectations…
Ruckus
@Kay:
Those high institutions don’t create them, they just nurture them and give them stature. Assholes like him were assholes before college.
O. Felix Culpa
@Kay: @Ruckus:
Ruckus makes an excellent point. The Obamas went to those elite institutions – for example – and are not assholes, as did Sonia Sotomayor, Ruth Ginsburg, and Elena Kagan, also not assholes. The elite institutions give an imprimatur to both good and bad alike. (One can argue that the imprimatur is undeserved, or that other institutions are just as good if unrecognized, but find me a society that doesn’t have its elite institutions.) Unfortunately the bad – looking at you, GWB, Ted Cruz, and one DJ Trump – are very bad indeed.
Barbara
@UncleEbeneezer: Women NEVER meet expectations. That’s the conclusion that has been written on their brains for so long it doesn’t even feel like a thought process.
O. Felix Culpa
@Barbara:
QFT
J R in WV
@Betty:
I didn’t donate a nickel to Sanders (I-Russia) last time, yet they have my email [probably stolen from Clinton’s data — we know he did that!] and claim I supported him last election cycle. I went to the support site and registered with the email addr
[email protected], then I unsubscribed.
If I get another email from them, I’ll block the addrs they’re coming from, send them straight to the spam folder. I so hope we don’t wind up with two Russian agents in the general election!!!
J R in WV
@WaterGirl:
It is a well drawn statement, as we would expect from madam Speaker Pelosi.
But the real hard question is, Can Biden hear a serious message from a woman? All signs point to NO.
J R in WV
@WaterGirl:
My last name is 5 letters, two syllables, emphasis on the first. Sounds simple… but at least 40-50% want badly to put the emphasis on the second half of the simple name. No z’s, no y’s, no x’s simple letters like 2 vowels and ordinary consonants. Grrrr.
J R in WV
@O. Felix Culpa:
And one of the problems in Parliment attempting to deal with Brexit is that much of the “elite leadership class” in G Britain is in that class because their Great-G-G-G-Grandfather helped slaughter Irish, or Indian, or Boer, or Scots, or even poor English factory workers or farmers or miners… for the King. And got awarded property stolen from Monks, or Scots, or Welsh royalty, etc.
Not smart back then, less so today.
VeniceRiley
@Betty Cracker: That means Harris outraised Bernie since launch week- because her 1st 24 hours was 1 1/2 million and his was 10 million. So he only raised 8 million or so since then, and she has raised over 10.
Gravenstone
@smintheus:
You realize it’s solely due to his rather unusual and for some difficult to approach last name, yes? But by all means, continue to be the dismissive prick you’ve shown yourself to be over these recent days.
Gravenstone
@VeniceRiley: Yeah, Bernie’s numbers don’t seem so robust in that direct comparison. His people likely front loaded everything by letting the faithful know his intentions so they could “make a splash”. Then the sheep apparently considered their work done and didn’t realize they needed to keep giving until it hurt, since his appeal likely isn’t nearly as broad as 2016. The downside of familiarity with his shtick.
O. Felix Culpa
@J R in WV:
Fair point, but I will note that American elite institutions are much more porous, in that they take in many students from non-elite backgrounds and actively seek to increase that number – through recruiting and significant financial aid. (I know, because I’m one of the lucky beneficiaries and have used my position to recruit other non-elites.) As a result, American elite institutions are far less inbred than the English. One could argue that some newcomers/outsiders get co-opted by these institutions – and that is true in some cases – but I can also attest to the fact that many use their positions and leverage for social change and justice issues. A lot depends on character and personal choices made.
smintheus
@Gravenstone: “solely” Interesting assumption.
Mayor Pete by contrast is not at all a dismissive prick when he dismisses questions about why he hasn’t released any actual policies.
ruemara
@Kay: Mayor Pete is not saying a lot of good things. To say he is ignores he’s running on the “I See White People” platform. He is definitely eating up the oxygen in the media because he’s yet another great white hope, but he’s not going to do well enough to justify all that hope.
Ruckus
@J R in WV:
I never supported BS last time but I got probably the same email. I sent back a reply using as much swearing as I could squeeze in a couple of sentences. I got another email from him a few days later, and upped the proper word count in my reply. Haven’t seen anything more. It is possible that his crew finally got the message. Maybe someone on the staff is capable of navy to Russian translation.
Ruckus
@Barbara:
My first name is 3 letters, last is 4, rather recognizable and common and a lot of people can’t seem to get it right. I’m not sure this has a lot to do with the name it self, and more to do with the culture we live in.
Bobby Thomson
@rikyrah: same.
Bobby Thomson
@Major Major Major Major: Mayo Pedro is a Cop is parodying three different things.
1.the Twitter handle Kamala is a Cop, which is run by a ratfucking troll.
2.vote for Pedro
3. The unbearable whiteness of Buttigeig
WaterGirl
never mind. thread is dead.
Bobby Thomson
@PsiFighter37: that making a point of high dollar fundraisers thing is way overblown and the FTFNYT sucks. Ninety-eight percent of her donations were less than $100. If she had just been trolling Hollywood and San Francisco she could have doubled her take without breaking a sweat. She’s building an organization.
Bobby Thomson
@matt: correct. It’s a self high five.
Bobby Thomson
@guachi: Biden I would have expected. He’s earned trust. The others I don’t get.
Bobby Thomson
@Amir Khalid: Kerry famously had to mortgage his house to stay in the race.
janesays
@Bobby Thomson: I don’t know all of the intricacies of campaign finance law, but was there some reason he couldn’t just borrow the money from his wife? She has a net worth over $750 million.