The endorsement video begins with Castro talking about the strong women in his life, including his mom and grandma, and how they helped him and his twin brother succeed:
Today I'm proud to endorse @ewarren for president.
Elizabeth and I share a vision of America where everyone counts. An America where people—not the wealthy or well-connected—are put first. I'm proud to join her in the fight for big, structural change. pic.twitter.com/xDvMEKqpF3
— Julián Castro (@JulianCastro) January 6, 2020
Big deal or nah? Cynics will say Castro didn’t have enough support to stay in the race, so his endorsement won’t matter. Maybe. I think it could. We shall see.
Open thread!
Tom Levenson
This is good.
kindness
The focus on Iowa and New Hampshire is plain old wrong. There should be 5 or 6 regional primaries and the 1st group should rotate between them.
I don’t feel bad that that would make Iowa and NH sad.
Jeffro
It’ll be interesting to see if we have full tickets (ie, Biden/Harris and Warren/Castro) running in the primaries.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
Cynics? Or realists?
daveNYC
I don’t think it’s going to move the needle much on support for Warren, but it can’t hurt. I know people who are very interested in a Warren/Castro ticket, so this might just be getting his name out there as a supporter early in hopes of that.
laura
Any time a prominent male politician supports a qualified female candidate it should be viewed as a good thing. And frankly, most everyone of us can easily point out the strong, smart women in our lives. To continue to pretend that such skills and abilities are limited to the domestic setting and that political power properly rests solely in the hands of (white) men is to perpetuate the patrimony.
And Bloomberg can fuck right the fuck off with his current “healthcare” ad. He cannot bring himself to acknowledge that as Mayor he was able to offer healthcare coverage to uninsured/underinsured children via the expansion of Medicaid made possible through the ACA or mention that schip depended upon the tender mercies of a republican led senate – the same senate that cannot bring itself to extend or make permanent the VAWA. End of rant.
Betty Cracker
@Jeffro: I’d be surprised if that happened, but who knows? Given that the top two candidates in the national polls right now are in their late 70s, running mates are more relevant than ever
ETA: I wonder if there’s a rule about that, e.g., that primary candidates can’t designate a running mate until they win the nomination. Does anyone know?
Immanentize
I think it is more important than just one guy — Castro — making an endorsement. He still has people who were staff and volunteers who worked their asses off for him. They are mostly still there were they were (with the exception of some national travel staffers). If Warren can pick up most of his team, it will be a very big advantage indeed.
FlyingToaster
Yes!
And, alas, the Warren campaign finally tracked me down; I am not and never will be available for canvassing, nor phonebanking. Time constraints, being the only semi-able-bodied adult (sciatica crimps that sometimes), and the fact that when I speak I preach. Which nobody needs, and will not help.
I think I’m going to have to do the postcards thing; that’s one where I am infinitely less likely to offend people.
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker: It wouldn’t be official or binding until the convention, but a candidate for prez could ‘name’ a veep partner most anytime she or he wants.
Hildebrand
Somewhat OT – I am wondering how in the world Bernie is creeping back up in the polls. How in the world did his heart attack not signal to a whole bunch of people that he is not a good long term investment?
Joe Falco
I’m already a Warren supporter so what Castro’s endorsement means to me is more of a validation than anything else. What I hope his endorsement becomes if Sen Warren wins the nomination is a full-throated voter drive on his part to help bring Latinx voters to the polls in November. Democrats need to pull out all the stops this year to make sure every available vote is counted.
FlyingToaster
@Betty Cracker: There are no rules. Choosing early doesn’t necessarily help.
Smart candidates have a list from the campaign trail, and have already vetted and gotten consent from their chosen
foilsecond-in-command BEFORE the convention.Some of us remember Tom Eagleton.
tobie
I can’t say the endorsement surprises me. Castro has been running to be Warren’s VP for some time. He never cracked 3% in any poll of Texas, his own home state, and the only member of the Hispanic Caucus to endorse him was his brother, so I’m not sure how much pull he has. What little respect I had for him was lost when he was interviewed by CNN after the July debate and to show that he was not for open borders, he ended up endorsing the status quo of a militarized border.
This was also the debate where he suggested Biden was suffering from dementia. He’s not a nice guy.
clay
@Betty Cracker:
Remember when Ted Cruz said Carly Fiorina was his VP pick? There’s no rule against it
Immanentize
@Jeffro: That really did not work for the Ted Cruz/Fiorini ticket.
ETA Clay….!! Beat me by thaaat much.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Betty Cracker: It was on the Republican side, but Reagan choose a running mate in 1976 in a last ditch effort to win the nomination, it didn’t work. But it has happened before.
Chief Oshkosh
@Hildebrand: Oh ye of little faith. Bernie could be dead, buried in a cave with a big rock sealing off the opening, and his true believers would tell us all to just wait 3 days – just 3 more days and Bernie will appear with his tax returns in one hand and detailed plans for his proposals in the other! Just 3 days!
Immanentize
@Chief Oshkosh: And they would be saying “just three days” a month hence.
Served
@Betty Cracker: I remember Cruz/Fiorina last-ditch effort in 2016. It’s usually seen as an act of desperation by a failing candidate.
Mike in DC
Harris’ endorsement is the most valuable one out there right now. Biden doesn’t need it, but it could help Warren a fair amount.
Ocotillo
@Betty Cracker: Don’t know about the DNC but in ’16 Tailgunner Ted named Carly F. as his running mate. I think that was when she fell off the stage.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Chief Oshkosh: Heh, I see what you did there.
Hildebrand
@Chief Oshkosh: “He is not the messiah, he’s a very naughty boy!”
Betty Cracker
@Mike in DC: That’s probably true.
@Hildebrand: I think AOC’s endorsement helped Sanders a lot.
clay
@Immanentize: I woulda done it sooner, but I had to look up how to spell Fiorina. Nyah, nyah…
Anyway, I just went down a wiki hole about the Vice President. Did you know that there’s no term limits for VPs? And that the tradition of Presidential candidates picking their own Veeps is relatively recent, with FDR in 1940?
Kay
I’m sticking with Warren because of the focus on corruption. We have a huge corruption problem in this country and it is just getting worse:
“Both are real-estate executives who have refused to relinquish their private businesses while in office. Just as Trump maintained his ownership of the Trump Organization when he became president, Hogan maintained ownership of HOGAN, a multipurpose real-estate brokerage firm, when he became governor. Both have left close family members in charge of their businesses—Trump with his children; Hogan with his brother, Timothy—and created arrangements that allow them to be apprised of the company’s dealings. In other words, they have set up situations in which they can use their powerful government positions to increase their private profits.”
Maryland has state statutes that reach this behavior, so no one can use the excuse that there isn’t a specific federal statute on point, like they do with Trump. It doesn’t matter. Hogan is doing this anyway.
japa21
Castro can endorse whomever he wants. Does lower my opinion of his judgement, however. But then, he could have endorsed Sanders which would have been infinitely worse.
BC in Illinois
@Served:
In 1976, Ronald Reagan, in the process of losing the GOP nomination to Gerald Ford, named “liberal” Pennsylvania Senator Richard Schweiker as his VP candidate. All it did was anger his conservative base.
Kay
You see the lowered standards with Bloomberg too. Bloomberg is asking to be President of the United States and he has business interests all over the world.
They’re taking the corruption of the Trump Administration to mean they have license to do anything.
Hildebrand
@Betty Cracker: That makes sense. That said, I still can’t believe people aren’t rightly freaked out by his health issues and his unwillingness to be forthright in answering questions about his health.
Jinchi
I think this is a big deal for Warren. Most Democrats like Castro and know a bit about him, so his endorsement is worth more nationally than one from a random Senator or Governor. We’re entering the phase where people are starting to settle into their final picks and it’s pretty much down to a final 3. 4 if you think Buttigieg can suddenly gain traction in Nevada and South Carolina. I’ll be interested to see if Harris makes an endorsement.
Immanentize
@clay: That is one reason Presidential nominees wait so long to pick a partner — there are so many considerations. For example, look at the JFK/LBJ 1960 ticket. Or Reagan/Bush 1980. Both were partnerships to heal intraparty wounds and threatened revolts.
Ferny
I’ve been leaning towards Warren, but the Castro endorsement really turns me off. I want him to be as far away from VP as possible. He is a coward, an empty suit that has been looking for the right opportunity to ingratiate himself while doing less than I have (which isn’t a ton) to build the Texas Democratic Party.
the Conster
@Mike in DC:
I remember the look Harris gave Warren on the debate stage when Warren summarily dismissed Harris’ appeal to join her in calling for twitter to suspend Trump’s account. I don’t see an endorsement forthcoming.
Jinchi
Mike Pence’s office would like you to keep that to yourself, thanks.
Immanentize
@Kay: Hogan = Maryland = Agnew.
To add, these guys have been emboldened by the Supreme Court’s gutting of anti-bribery and corruption laws.
schrodingers_cat
@japa21: This. Word. I am best buddies with Sanders, Warren is marginally better than the Vt Jesus.
Immanentize
@the Conster: Stink eye during a debate is a bad indicator of political calculation.
ETA. I do know that Harris managed to score one of Obama’s mega bundlers here in Boston that Warren courted. I really need to check in on this person to see where they are at now .
Citizen Alan
Now that he’s out of the race, I have a confession to make about Julian Castro. I’m not proud of it and I’ve been ashamed to mention it so far, but I’ve never been able to get it out of my head.
Julian Castro’s eyebrows freak me the hell out.
Seriously, he looks like Namor the Submariner with a suntan.
zhena gogolia
@the Conster:
Yeah, I’d be extremely surprised.
Jinchi
Right now, because they’re splitting the liberal vote, the value of an endorsement to Warren is primarily to pull in people who are choosing between her and Sanders.
Amir Khalid
@Served:
Cruz thought Fiorina, whose own main credential for the presidency was a job where she failed spectacularly and nearly brought down the company, was a good running-mate choice. That couldn’t have won over anyone with doubts about Ted’s own fitness to be POTUS.
Immanentize
@Citizen Alan:
Like that’s a bad thing?!
catclub
@Chief Oshkosh: You forgot his complete medical records.
It may be problematic if his complete records include a Death Certificate.
Immanentize
@catclub: But the rebirth certificate was lost in the mail!
Kay
@Immanentize:
I think it’s a real problem. We need an immediate crack down. Every year the standards loosen. What was a scandal in 2000 is now just business as usual. Trump is so corrupt they can be slightly less corrupt and run as paragons of ethics. The bar has just crashed. It hit the floor.
It matters because it’s tied to QUALITY. These people are not actually competing. They’re cheating. What that means as a practical matter is lower quality WINS. That is starting to show. You don’t have high standards just to have them. You have them because they act as selection. They produce quality.
Nelle
I now live in Iowa (since April) and had three top picks – Harris, Castro, and Warren. I’m left with Warren but haven’t committed for the caucus yet. The only time I say I’m for Warren is when there is a Bernie person at the door, so that maybe they don’t come back. I don’t have the negative views of Castro that others here have. I wanted someone talking about immigration and poverty and he did that. I appreciate his endorsement of Warren. I’m dismayed by the polling and have decided to ignore that. I think I’ll have a potluck with new neighbors at my house and see what they have to say. I’m hoping that the “I’ve been a Republican all my life, as were my parents and grandparents” neighbors will stay home at voting time.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: When he became governor of Florida, Medicare-fraudster Rick Scott claimed he handed control of his vast portfolio of ill-gotten gains to his wife. It is to laugh. I suppose he’s still maintaining that fiction as a (corrupt) senator.
I agree about the importance of focusing on corruption. It’s killing democracy, and not just in the obvious ways. I’m convinced it’s one of the main reasons so many people don’t bother to vote.
Kent
@laura: Seriously? I didn’t find Bloomberg’s ad offensive. At least the one that played during the NFL playoffs yesterday. He attacked Trump, talked about Healthcare and didn’t attack or dis any other Dem candidates. I thought it was pretty milquetoast. It was a 30 second ad, not a history of health care funding in NYC.
Jeffro
@Citizen Alan: John Buscema Namor or John Byrne Namor?
Kay
@Immanentize:
To me it’s tied to privilege too, and entitlement. The idea behind this is rich people are GOOD people so they don’t need oversight. They are inherently better so if Bloomberg says “I would never put my business interests ahead of the country re: China” he thinks he is entitled to that trust.
I mean, you’re a lawyer. You know that ordinary people in our system are given NO benefit of the doubt. They have to REVEAL- papers, documents, sworn statements, appearances, endless vetting of each and every transaction. There are two sets of rules and those rules only work because most people obey them by consent. If we all had to be dragged into compliance like these people do the country would grind to a halt.
FlipYrWhig
@Jinchi: I know it’s counterintuitive but I still don’t think Warren and Sanders are splitting the same group. IMHO Sanders people are intensely Sanders-specific, while Warren and Buttigieg are splitting the “not Biden, not Sanders, dear God isn’t there anyone else?” vote.
Another Scott
@Amir Khalid: (Sorry if this appears twice, 502 earlier).
St. John McCain tried to puff-up Carly too, having her speak at some of his events. AFAIK, nobody was impressed.
The GOP knows that they can’t continue to win by only firing up 65+ year old angry white men. They need women, or at least they need to cut the lead that the Democrats have with women. There aren’t too many “accomplished”, “smart”, “powerful”, attack-dog type women who are willing to sign-up with the GOP these days – the ones with actual accomplishments see what a horrible train-wreck the party is.
Who else could Ted pick?
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@FlipYrWhig:
I think so too. Warren will endorse Sanders if she drops out, but I think a lot of her voters end up going to not-Sanders.
But that may be wishful thinking on my part.
Immanentize
@Kay:I just sent a long agreeing response. But the 502 monster et it.
PsiFighter37
Will have as much impact as me farting in the ocean. I like Castro, but he wasn’t ready for prime time, and his polling reflected negligible support.
Nicole
@Kay:
This. I’m annoyed she got caught up in the M4A budgeting (something I notice the MSM has excused Bernie Sanders from) because I think anti-corruption is a strong platform to run on.
Immanentize
@Baud: I do not think Warren would endorse Sanders at all. If she drops out, she will endorse the nominee at the end of the process. Her failure to endorse Sanders will be seen as a big betrayal and she will become the new Establishment Democrat to hate on.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Was also agreeing with Flip when the database ate my comment. I think the electorate is just really hard to segment this year. I suspect Jinchi is correct that there are liberals who are choosing between Sanders and Warren, but Flip is also right that a portion of current Sanders supporters are die-hards and that many folks in the Warren camp would nope-out on Bernie if Warren drops out, whether she endorses him or not.
Butter Emails
@FlipYrWhig:
Democrats are being ridiculous. The candidates are fine. Everyone just wants an Obama quality candidate when we didn’t even recognize Obama as such a candidate until 2 years after he was elected.
Baud
Speaking of endorsements, is it just me or is there less news and internet chatter about endorsements this time? I’m talking about both office holders and private organization endorsements. Is it still to early to expect those?
Dorothy A. Winsor
Question for those of you who follow Sanders supporters: Do they have a VP pick they favor?
JGabriel
Betty Cracker:
I don’t think it’ll convert many people into Warren supporters, but I think it might help affirm or shore up the support of primary voters already considering her or leaning her way.
JanieM
@FlipYrWhig:
Agree wholeheartedly. I like Warren a lot (not remotely in the “dear god isn’t there anyone else” mode). At the same time, I can’t stand Sanders. I think he’d be a terrible president.
I get tired of seeing voters modeled as choosing among candidates along one axis only (e.g. Warren and Sanders are seen to be similar on economic policy so some people think other people think they’re interchangeable).
Whereas, there are a lot of other dimensions to consider. E.g., “Do I think the candidate would make a good president?” — just to take the one that is most obviously, to me, relevant to a comparison between Warren and Sanders.
Immanentize
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Besides Tulsi?
Baud
@Immanentize:
I hope you are correct but
I agree with this and don’t think she will want this result. I’ll be pleasantly surprised to be wrong.
Another Scott
@Immanentize: +1
At least I hope that’s the way it turns out. Endorsing Wilmer only to have him lose the nomination (as surely he will??) would be an own-goal and damage her going forward.
We’ll see.
Cheers,
Scott.
zhena gogolia
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-impeachment-live-updates/2020/01/06/1540f98e-3074-11ea-9313-6cba89b1b9fb_story.html?utm_campaign=post_most&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=Newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1
Bolton says he’ll testify if subpoenaed by the Senate. Of course they won’t, but it’s interesting.
Baud
@JanieM:
I agree. Warren is high on my list and Sanders is at the bottom, so it’s not a question of ideology for me this year.
different-church-lady
@Baud: She’ll endorse Biden. Because she’s not stupid.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: The fact that superdelegates can’t vote of the first ballot might have something to do with that.
zhena gogolia
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Jesus Christ might do.
Kay
@Nicole:
I don’t think it’s that strong. I wish it was but I don’t think it’s there yet.
Warren makes the connection that I want to be made- she talks about how this cheating impacts markets. It isn’t just “government corruption” in the narrow sense. What they’re stealing is an unearned advantage in the private sector. Hogan isn’t embezzling on a roads contract. He’s turning the government he runs to the advantage of his business and what that means is his competitors are at a disadvantage. Free market people should be the MOST anti-corruption. It breaks markets. Makes them not serve their purpose, which is supposed to a quality mechanism.
The Moar You Know
@Hildebrand: The schtick sells. I think his entire platform is an easily disprovable crock of shit, myself, but what he’s selling is what a lot of Americans, and in particular a lot of disaffected lefties, want to hear. He’ll do well in this primary. Probably #2 all the way, through, just like last time.
Expect massive butthurt from the bros when Biden picks anyone else for VP.
mad citizen
@Kay: Quality. Sounds like an idea contained in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Which I fully support of course, the pursuit of quality. I’ve been thinking lately about how much art transcends.
Immanentize
@Baud: Besides being a senator for another decade, this is Warren’s last rodeo. She really is not thin skinned about being seen as this or that. She is a loyal and dutiful Democrat. She will not do anything to damage the party’s chances. If Sanders pulls it off, she will support him. If it is Buttigieg, she will support him. But she will not be playing king maker in the primary. Besides, she isn’t going anywhere but to her own nomination.,?
Ella in New Mexico
@Citizen Alan:
Hoping this is just a really bad funny-haha comment.
Julian Castro’s eyebrows look like a lot of people in my community’s eyebrows, as does his “suntanned” skin and his less angular facial features. They reflect his ancestry, including both Caucasian and indigenous peoples of Northern or Central America.
I think he looks just right.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Immanentize:
I trust you’re joking. But I’m getting the impression they don’t see beyond him. They’re not looking to create a team. Gee. What a surprise
Kay
@Nicole:
It’s just this desperation I see- like people are out of ideas on how to make money honestly.
There is now a whole industry in Florida devoted to finding customers for drug treatment. They hire people to go out and find junkies with health insurance and they bill insurance over and over and over. Just the urine testing alone is an industry. They “poach” each others junkies.
Running a treatment center wasn’t profitable enough so they all decided to steal from heroin addicts. This is fine. Perfectly acceptable “business”. I worry that we’ll have a country that is like 90% scams.
Immanentize
@Baud: 538 has an endorsements primary section that tracks candidate endorsements. I think the springtime is the traditional biggest splash endorsement time.
Nicole
@Kay: I keep thinking about how, when Warren’s Wealth Tax proposal was floated without it being linked to a Democrat, that 60% of white non-college educated men responded favorably. I guess I’m lumping our tilted-to-the-rich tax system in with “corruption,” as it’s all aiming toward the same goal- the wealthy sucking as much money out of the system to hoard as possible. Americans get very indignant about “fair”- we’re all a bunch of 9-year-olds in that respect, and I think she has some good takes on economic fairness, but got caught up in presenting her M4A, like with the genealogy stuff, in showing people she wasn’t lying, and it bit her again.
That and she peaked pretty early, which I was worried about at the time. The media likes to anoint a darling and then stomp all over them and timing is a lot. One of the reasons I was so broken up about when Harris dropped out is that I figured her peak time was coming, and at a more opportune time.
All of these thoughts, of course, are why I’d be terrible at politics.
Another Scott
@Kay: It looks like O’Malley and others were talking about Hogan’s land deals, etc., before the 2018 election. Maryland voters apparently didn’t care enough to vote for Ben Jealous instead.
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
Nicole
@Kay:
Oh my God. The sheer amount of money that has been made off of human misery in this country’s 400 years boggles the mind.
Baud
@The Moar You Know: That last thing is the issue. The butthurt would have been more muted if he was never close.
@Immanentize: Hopefully she can come back in the polls and moot the issue.
Kay
@Nicole:
I think it leads to a kind of cynicism, like “suckers” are the only people who run honest businesses. Like if you’re a bank who DOESN’T steal from your customers you are at a disadvantage. Which is true. You are. Larry Hogan has competitors. His corruption harms them.
the Conster
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Tulsi, of course. Russian assets gotta Russian asset.
Immanentize
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I am joking that he would pick her, but there was a real group of “if not Bernie, then Tulsi” people on the intertubes when he had his heart something something. Now, bots they might be, still, “it’s out there” and the Immp has talked about it.
PS. Yang brought in a good haul last quarter (16.5 m) for a guy with no discernable base.
JGabriel
@Jeffro:
I can’t see why any of the candidates would want to do that this early in the race.
The presidential candidate risks alienating supporters who want a different VP pick, or don’t like the VP pick. The VP choice risks alienating other candidates who might win the race and plausibly pick him/her. An older candidate who picks a younger candidate this early in the race, to address concerns about his age (looking at you Joe and Bernie), risks exacerbating those concerns. And, finally, the pair that announces themselves as a team this early in the primary risks alienating voters would see such an early announcement as a political gaffe.
I’m afraid the most interesting thing about announcing a VP pick this early in the primary would be the insecurity it conveys – a quality no candidate wants to project.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’ve never been overly impressed with Castro. Seems like forever people have been waiting for him or his brother to make a statewide run in TX, and then O’Rourke did it. I was never all-in on the Beto bandwagon, but he seems to have gotten new voters out and had coattails in lower-ticket races. I would’ve been more impressed if Castro had tried that. Same with Beto– he should have tried again, or done something like Gillum and Stacey Abrams are doing.
Joy Reid introduced Castro yesterday as “one of the most influential voices in the Democratic party”, and I laughed out loud. Maybe she’s right, I don’t see it.
Betty Cracker
@JanieM: IMO, the real similarity between Warren and Sanders is that both recognize that a fundamental course correction is needed, and both were advocating that long before Trump came along. I suspect many — maybe even most? — voters believe we need a major overhaul too, but some are afraid that voting for that kind of platform this year will get Trump reelected.
the Conster
@Betty Cracker:
Unfortunately for both Warren and Sanders, that’s the white populist take on what’s wrong. The black base of the party sees that systemic racism is what distorts politics and policies, and it’s become very clear that the white majority will pay any price to have the system of straight white patriarchy enforced and their white privilege maintained. The evidence is all around us. I stopped saying long ago that poor and middle class whites are voting against their interests. They’re not. They want what the GOP has to offer, and like to think that they’ll be powerful and rich too someday, or at least their kids will. If not, they at least get to see *those people* kept down too.
Warren is big into calling for structural change, but when the subject of frontloading white states’ primaries was raised, she said she’s “just a player in the game”. I’m surprised Castro endorses that, when his big splash was to be critical of all white states getting overemphasized.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
The Sanders advantage with young people should not be ignored by the Democratic Party. They’re saying something with that. Something is amiss with our youths. Our “youngsters”, as my middle school principal said. They don’t have to endorse Bernie Sanders but they should look into what is going on there and perhaps adopt some of what works for him there with those voters.
Baud
@Kay:
What if what “works” for young people is being an outsider and running against the party? There’s no policy proposal that can fix that attitudinal problem. The entire party can’t run as anti-Establishment.
Josie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Beto has done something similar. He has formed an organization called Powered by People that is based on volunteers from his campaign. They are working on registering voters and encouraging people to vote. Currently they are supporting a Democratic candidate for a Texas special election in Fort Bend County. He is not going to disappear and is indeed doing much more to build the party in Texas than Castro ever thought of.
VeniceRiley
@Nelle: I’m sure Warren’s campaign would be both happy and also dismayed to hear it. It gets very expensive to campaign, and if you can get people to commit to caucus for your candidate, then you can use resources to concentrate on closing the deal of uncommitted voters. Everyone holding their card to their chest just causes campaigns to continue to dump futile money in the state. But good for Iowa, I guess.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: what seems to work for the “young people” is over-simplified, cult-of-the-presidency, over-promising.
Anybody really believe Mark Kelly and Betsy Sweet want to run with Bernie at the top of the ticket?
the Conster
@Baud:
Sanders ran a propaganda operation – literally – touting himself as anti-Establishment after being in Congress for 35 years accomplishing nothing. If climate change was as big an issue as I heard it was, AND IT IS, the youth should have flocked to Jay Inslee. He was my first pick, because of his executive experience implementing policy, but then I didn’t fall for Russian active measures.
Lyrebird
@FlyingToaster: Shout out from another person who’s really NOT made for canvassing… I did ~100 or so postcards last time and that was great! I do not recall the age of your younguns, but some of the postcards can be stamped or colored on, too.
I think the endorsement is great news, for whatever that’s worth.
mad citizen
@Butter Emails: Great points. I would vote for Clint Eastwood’s empty chair over the current occupant, but it would be nice to have a highly competent or even a transcendent President. I thought Harris had a chance at being that, and Warren has a big upside as well. It’s about learning and getting better all the time. Continuous improvement. And Deep Structural Change.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: I think that’s going to be Beto’s role going forward: party guy (in the partisan sense, not the So Wasted sense) with a cool factor.
Kay
@Baud:
Maybe. Sanders advantage really shows up with non-college young people. That interests me. I feel like they’re an under-explored group. Bigger than the college group, too.
Always be selling, Baud! :)
As you know I will let literally anyone in the tent. Except for Gabbard. Jesus. Horrible.
mad citizen
@the Conster: It would be political suicide to attack the privileged front positions of Iowa and New Hampshire. Above all else, these states are now reaping millions from the quadrennial circus starting there.
Make changes after you’re elected.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
@the Conster:
On a more general level, I fear we’re in a period in world history when cults of personality are ascendent.
Nelle
@VeniceRiley: I hear that, but it isn’t about money for Iowa. I have developed no loyalty to that and I’m appalled to see the money dumped into the system (even though my son managed to work for CBS last time around and help out with his college expenses). I think the TV stations coast on the money they pull in every four years (though my son said that Hearst Corp siphons most of it off to New York hdqts). I’m truly watching them all, reading (mostly here – so feel free to extend your influence!), and listening to friends. I have a close friend who is fierce for Klobuchar, but I just can’t see her catching fire. She doesn’t get the cop label that Harris did, even though she too was a prosecutor.
My cynical side says that Harris was seen as a formidable challenge so was taken out early with the “cop” label (sort of like Grey Davis had to be knocked out in California before he got on the national stage). By the Bernie coalition and by the Republicans. I was sure more excited by the field in September than I am now.
Hoodie
Don’t see Castro’s endorsement having any effect, and seems kind of dumb if he wants to be a VP choice. I’m increasingly thinking that the bulk of the progressive candidates are missing the boat and ceding the nomination to Biden because they’re focusing almost exclusively on domestic policy at a time when Trump is picking fights with Iran, destabilizing North Korea’s neighbors, and letting Putin strong arm former Soviet bloc states. When you have an impulsive moron in the White House, the biggest issue is avoiding catastrophe and maintaining international standing. In addition, arguing about free college, medicare for all, etc. is pretty useless when McConnell has the power to block legislation, the 5th circuit is gutting the ACA and the SC is moving to resuscitate Lochner.
Baud
@Kay: Gabbard I can understand, but what do you have against Jesus?
:-)
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
There was a poll where Beto was popular with the youngs.
Beto, despite his many detractors, is actually doing the thankless drudge work of trying to win statehouse races. Not at all glamorous. Good for him.
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
Did he at the time say, “My wife…Morgan Fairchild, whom I’ve seen naked.”?
How is letting the family handle the family bidnez whilst one’s in office keeping said bidnez at arm’s length and free of political cross-contamination?
VeniceRiley
Here’s the thing about postcards (during the primary especially) It’s the same issue. Campaigns are looking for the state of the race so they can better spend resources targeting voters who they have a shot at. They need the information. That’s why they spend so much on calling and canvassing. They need to know who is coming to caucus/vote in each precinct and which candidate they are coming for etc.
Miss Bianca
@FlyingToaster: Ruefully, I am with you. I come on very strong and I am actually kind of an asshole, I have come to realize (a big shocker to the BJ community, I’m sure). Postcards are probably the safest way for me to engage with potential voters.
germy
trollhattan
@the Conster:
Inslee would have a pretty good shot at Australia P.M. right now.
I was hoping he could last longer into the campaign to keep climate on the front burner. Alas, one of a dozen long gone. Or is it a dozen-and-a-half?
germy
@Miss Bianca:
That would be a great rotating tag.
trollhattan
@germy:
Hogan!
/Col. Klink voice
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud:
it is weird and frightening. I know a lot of right-wingers and purity lefties talk about a cult of personality around Obama, but at 52, I’ve never seen anything like the trump and Bernie cults, not even retroactive Reaganism
germy
Kay
@Miss Bianca:
Some of our canvassers in 18 were afraid of guns and I think it will come up again in 20. I can’t reassure them- I do think there’s an increased risk they’ll get shot. I think that’s a reasonable fear. They’re not freaking out and panicking- they’re just saying it where they didn’t used to. What they want is a reliable list of Democrats so as to avoid Trump homes. I was trying to make them comfortable saying it because I think they should be able to talk about it.
Betty Cracker
@the Conster: I don’t think what ails our politics can be fully explained by racism any more than it can be attributed solely to economics. It’s complicated and interconnected, IMO. As for Warren’s “player in the game” remark, I don’t think she endorsed Iowa and New Hampshire’s lock in perpetuity; she was saying that’s the rule this year, and she was declining to piss off voters in those states by saying they should be knocked from their perch in the future. Whether that’s cynicism or smart politics is in the eye of the beholder here, I suspect.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Reagan was popular, but his cult developed after he left office.
Anyone who liked or defended Obama was called a cult member, so that doesn’t mean much to me.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Bolton has been tweeting his joy at the escalation with Iran over the weekend, and people were saying he’d never testify now…
I would think that could increase the pressure on McConnell, but I thought the revelations about the trump tower meeting were a “Nixon has tapes” moment, so what the fuck do I know?
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Maybe I’m paranoid, but I smell a rat, particularly given the timing after the escalation with Iran.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I was half-listening to NPR this morning, an interview with the producer and “star” of a new documentary about grassroots activism– I didn’t catch names and details cause my head’s a bit fuzzy this morning– but they talked a lot about Citizens United and gerrymandering, and I wonder what might have been if Bernie had taught the children to chant for cleaning up money in politics in politics instead of all the things that will scare off their parents and aunts and uncles who are much more consistent and reliable voters
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Betty Cracker: I don’t think you can be too paranoid with these fuckers. I feel the same way about Lev Parnas. But Bolton also strikes me as a guy who carries grudges, so… I’m back WTF do I know?
?BillinGlendaleCA
Test. Was getting 502 errors.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@germy:
Someone on twitter said he resigned to spend more time with his family and less time at The Hague.
Let’s see if this posts.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I don’t have proof, and health care is an important and legitimate issue, but sometimes I think the reason M4A gets as much attention as it does is lingering resentment that the Dems didn’t Kill The Bill in 2010.
ETA: added missing words
Another Scott
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: But the relevant Senate GOP majority (some committee, or the Senate as a whole, or whatever Moscow Mitch and Schumer decide the rules would be) would have to approve any subpoena, wouldn’t it? How likely is that?
“Please, please don’t throw me in that briar patch!!11”
[eta] – TheHill:
Good, good. But I’m sure Chuck knows that they’ve been doing the cover-up thing ever since (at least) “This is how we know we’re a real family here.”…
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
It’s been going on for hours now. I don’t understand why they just can’t turn off Recent Comments if that’s the culprit.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: it’s a huge issue for me politically and personally– I self-insure and the premiums are a burden, and if nothing changes I’m looking at 13 years of big annual increases. But Sanders has convinced a dangerous chunk of the population that anything less that single-payer is not just a compromise, it’s immoral. “Obamacare is killing poor people” is an article of faith on Rose Twitter. Along with “every other industrialized nation has single-payer.”
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: Its smart not to trust Mustache of War.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I’ve done work with databases(not FYWP) and there would seem to be a way to set up a table for recent comments that would be written to as a comment is posted and the drop the oldest one and not do a search each time. I actually use recent comments to see what thread is active as well as to see if anyone replied to my comment on a dead thread.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I’m a Recent Comments fan too, but not at the cost of these irritating server errors.
Mnemosyne
I have what will probably seem like a weird objecting to Warren having a male VP on the ticket with her — I think that having Hillary as Tim Kaine’s “boss” was one of the smaller factors that got misogynists to not vote for her. Weirdly, I think we could change that dynamic by putting two women on the ticket — Warren/Harris by preference, but I could live with Warren/Klobuchar if necessary. Or even an out-of-the-box pairing like Warren/Abrams.
MisterForkbeard
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: This sounds patronizing but I think it’s actually true. What works now is the stuff that shows up in memes:
Lots of “It only costs $300b to stop climate change, but the top 100 richest people earned $1.2T. See the solution?”
Ultimately it’s kind of stupid – there’s no ‘solution’ there. But it speaks well to people because it’s simple and it presents a clear problem.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Obviously, the solution is nested threads.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I’m clueless about the tech issues, but I think it’s been conclusively established that it’s not just the recent comments thingy.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Right. Some argue it’s a negotiating tactic, but that only works with people commited to compromise. I’m not sure how many fit into that box.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@MisterForkbeard: Simple solutions to complex problems is always a winning message, look at Reagan.
Another Scott
@Baud: WaterGirl knows about it.
I suspect it’s not just the Recent Comments stuff. Sometimes I get a 502 or 524 instantly. Sometimes things will trundle on and on before giving a timeout. Sometimes it only happens when I’m trying to post something. Sometimes it happens when I’m simply doing a refresh. Sometimes the front page refreshes fine, but clicking on any thread header gives a 502/524.
It doesn’t seem like it’s a simple thing to fix, and having more traffic after the holidays seems to be making it worse.
I agree that it should be a solvable problem though, and it should be easy to make a separate list for recent comment URLs that has little or nothing to do with the main bass-ackwards FYWP database. But the people doing the coding must realize this as well… :-/
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
(“Fingers crossed that this posts!”)
FlipYrWhig
@Hoodie: Sanders’s foreign policy tends to devolve into “don’t be Kissinger and stay out of Nam.” It’s fine to say what you don’t want to do but he needs to come up with a way to address the circumstances under which military action should indeed happen or he’ll never assuage enough people that he has the cojones to be president. Obama and Hillary Clinton both figured that out. I’m not sure Sanders will, or can.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: and we have to win the White House and the Senate, and keep the House, before it becomes a negotiating tactic.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
and trump
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
@Another Scott:
I don’t know enough to judge. I just know how I feel. Which I think these days makes me some kind of expert.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Must I?
Steeplejack (phone)
@germy:
Another Scott
@Baud:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QWBJSrVJSA
Hehe.
Cheers,
Scott.
the Conster
@Betty Cracker:
The country was founded on racism, and America is now running a white supremacy OS akin to laptops running Microsoft. I think there’s no financial incentive or will to design a more equitable system until the majority of whites/males reject the GOP. There were counties in the upper midwest and the deep south – poor counties – that voted around 90% for Trump and tax cuts for billionaires. No billionaire made them vote for a racist sexist anti-immigrant con man, but billionaires have been made by them emptying their pockets for them.
LBJ knew what he was talking about.
Ruckus
@laura:
A nice rant. I like.
MisterForkbeard
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Right, but those simple solutions are a lot of what drives Sanders’ support too. He’s unequivocal on a lot of this stuff: “Capitalism is bad! Health Care is good! Wealth gap is bad! I’ll fix those things!”
Pointing out that it’s more complicated than that (Warren) gets you labeled a corporate sellout, because you’re seen as not agreeing with those basic tenets. The sad truth is that Bernie can’t actually solve any of those problems because he’s not willing to deal with them on real terms, but he’s sort of encouraging his supporters to go after people who WILL deal with the problem.
glory b
@mad citizen: No one can change this. If I’m not mistaken, Iowa has a law that automatically resets their primary to before the earliest date any other state sets. They’ve made it so they will ALWAYS be first.
Maybe make it so their delegates don’t count, that’s about it. Cane you see the MSM going after the butt hurt Iowans?
piratedan
@FlipYrWhig: that’s my biggest issue with Bernie… its not that the concepts/ideas that he supports are bad, just that he has no real idea on how to get that done short of what appears to be executive fiat…
I tried explaining the difference between Warren and Sanders to some folks who thought they were the same… so I ended up using the how do you get to Vegas from Phoenix by car example…
Bernie’s answer…. – drive northwest
Warren’s answer – Well, there are options…do you want to stay on the interstates or do you want to get their by the shortest distance and btw how do you feel about the completion of Interstate 11……?
While I understand that big ideas are sometimes “big ideas”, but you also want someone who has done more than think of the big idea itself, they’ve thought about how to actually get there and make it a reality.
I find that Bernie people do not give a fuck about making the sausage, that’s the job of lesser mortals and it gives them more time to determine what’s the next big idea they want to support.
Cacti
With a large helping of “I heart communist strongmen.”
gvg
I never had website problems when everybody else did. Now that they said they were turning off recent comments (but the comments are still there) I am having lots of problems today.
Doubt this will post, the last 4 haven’t
?BillinGlendaleCA
@piratedan: I never realized that Interstate 11 was a real thing.
JanieM
@glory b:
Somehow I doubt that.
If some other state passes the same law, then what?
Ruckus
@Hildebrand:
First, it’s difficult to see what you don’t want to see.
Second, It’s a cult, nothing more. A shouty old man, shouts at the sky. And that is the only there, there.
We have real candidates. Some would be better than others but all but 3 or 4 are far better than anyone from the other side but are especially far better than the current dipshit. No one is a savior in the form of perfection but realistically Warren, Castro, Biden, Klobuchar and Harris could do the job. Some might be better than others. Someone will be better than others. This should not be a personality contest, we are not electing a HS class president. But we are all human and we make choices about people based not only on logic and reason. We all have our favorites, those that better fit our preconceived notions of what a president should be.
The press is really no help at all, they have their prejudices and desires, all the while telling us they don’t.
Look at the person. At the overall. No one is going to be perfect because no human is. Most are not even close. Can you live with, be comfortable with the warts that we all have?
I’d say close your eyes and think about what each wants for all of us as the candidate. Look at what they think they can do, is it at all realistic? Do they work well with others or would their gigantic ego get in the way?
We get to choose, not necessarily the best person for the job, but hopefully the best person willing to attempt the job.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@JanieM: Then they keep moving up their respective primaries until they’re held on inauguration day.
joel hanes
@Baud:
Warren will endorse Sanders if she drops out
I think not.
Want to make it interesting ?
$50 to the charity of your choice if this happens.
Suggestions of other stakes will be seriously considered.
Chyron HR
@piratedan:
Citizen Alan
@The Moar You Know:
Hence my repeated statement that Bernie supporters are left wing Teabaggers.
Cheryl from Maryland
@Kay: Where the heck was this article in 2018? You are totally correct, Hogan is corrupt and just a more well-spoken and competent version of Trump. Some of us in Maryland during Hogan’s re-election campaign were crying out for the D opponent Jealous to make Hogan’s real estate firm a campaign issue. The Baltimore Sun newspaper had little on this issue other than an op-ed by the former governor, O’Malley, which was seen as sour grapes. WaPo had nothing. Hogan’s firm’s website alone was upfront amount how much additional business had come to the firm since 2015 (his first year as governor). The only saving grace is that it seems Hogan’s plan to toll road I-270 and I-495, especially I-270 about which it was clearly stated the tolls were mainly to fund the rest of this rotten project, has lowered his approval rating in Maryland.
Baud
@joel hanes:
Hmmm. I’m not usually a gambling man, but the Baud Foundation could use a new portrait of me.
Citizen Alan
@JGabriel:
I genuinely believe that there should only be two criteria for picking someone as VP: (1) Would this person make a good President if the worst happened? (2) Will this person help us in more swing states than they hurt us?
I will repeat once more my long held believe that Al Gore would have cruised to victory if he’d picked Ben Nelson instead of Joe Lieberman.
Ruckus
@gvg:
And for me the site has never worked this good.
It’s very difficult to trouble shoot when the troubles keep floating around and some have posting issues and others don’t have any. It is possible that something you have set up doesn’t play well with how the site or the server is programed. Or how the system timing is working/not working. There are a lot of moving parts to this blog and some of the pieces are because of the structure, like saving every comment from the start of time. How that’s searched, how that’s stored, how that’s accessed affects everything. And a lot of it is out of the hands of the programers. This blog is what, 17 yrs old and that’s a long time in modern computing.
piratedan
@?BillinGlendaleCA: it is supposedly the last finishing touch to complete linking, by interstate, of major metropolitan population centers. Construction has actually begun (about 10 miles extended south of Vegas to Hoover Dam) some final planning is still in the works on where to end it, most likely destination, Phoenix metro, although there has been some speculation of running it down all the way to Tucson.
joel hanes
@Baud:
It’s probably a good bet for you — I was foolish/optimistic enough that I was surprised and disappointed when AOC endorsed Sanders. I had thought she was smarter than that.
Citizen Alan
@Baud:
If I had to, I could live with that. It’s just the personalities that people want to worship are so shitty. I honestly can’t see someone as functionally human if they truly hold Fat Bastard up as someone to blindly worship.
Kay
@Cheryl from Maryland:
I don’t know but I suspect it’s because it’s hardly even newsworthy anymore:
She’s passing out tens of millions of dollars to help get her husband re-elected. It’s just blatant and she hasn’t slowed down at all- if anything she’s grabbing more.
Betty Cracker
@the Conster: Before he figured out that he couldn’t win a Democratic Party primary without black voters, Bernie Sanders used to say that addressing wealth inequality was the most effective way to combat racism. I don’t believe that either. This is a huge, diverse and complicated country, and there just aren’t any one-size-fits all explanations for its pathologies OR solutions to its problems.
Kay
@Cheryl from Maryland:
There’s a distance growing between levels of government, too. Lower levels are held accountable. The more powerful you are, the less ethical you are.
We had a muni court judge here who got dinged for hiring his daughter for a 8 dollar an hour summer job. It was big news! Against the rules.
If you’re a governor or senator or president or cabinet secretary you can rob and steal with abandon and nothing happens. If you’re a local official you get hammered.
PJ
@Mnemosyne: whoever the Dem candidate picks, in addition to being someone who would be a good President, has to be someone who will bring more people out to vote in swing states (rather than less, or the same). I don’t know if that’s Harris or Klobuchar, or even Biden, but it has to be someone who will bring out the votes where it counts.
Soprano2
@Kay: Your comment about a bank that doesn’t steal being at a disadvantage reminds me of a banker I heard in the podcast “The Giant Pool of Money” that “This American Life” did in 2008. He said they were late to get into the credit default swaps/subprime mortgage thing because he thought it was a terrible way to do business, and was making the industry a house of cards. He said they had to get into it because all the other banks were eating their lunch making so much money. I assume that’s the kind of thing you’re talking about.
Kay
@Cheryl from Maryland:
It’s nuts. You can steal 40 million dollars but take a 140 dollar laptop home and you’ll lose your school superintendent job. I don’t think this is supposed to work like this.
JGabriel
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Really? I’m about 55, and, to my long-jaundiced eye, Trumpism and Reaganism (and their supporters) look pretty much identical. I see the same authoritarianism, the same puffed-up blowhard self-righteous ignorance, the same sociopathic lack of empathy, the same greed, and the same xenophobia & racism in each of them.
PJ
@joel hanes: Warren will endorse someone when they win the primaries, not before.
AOC worked for Bernie’s campaign in 2016, so it makes sense that she endorsed him. Not endorsing him might cause a primary challenge from the same people that put her in office (though it’s unlikely), but there is no downside to endorsing him – it won’t affect her political career.
Conversely, if Ayanna Presley had endorsed Bernie over Warren, that would have been political suicide.
Kay
@Soprano2:
That is what I’m talking about. Say you’re an ethical provider of drug treatment. Your competitors are trolling the streets of Florida looking for marks, excuse, me, PATIENTS. You have to meet that with a sales force of your own. The bad drives out the good.
James E Powell
@Baud:
Nailed it.
Ruckus
@Kay:
In my mind, overall wealth has a huge impact on my voting. I don’t have a hard limit but if you want to be a politician and are a billionaire, or even half that, you are out. You won’t have the slightest concept of how the majority that you are asking to vote for you lives. If you’ve been a politician for decades and have become a multimillionaire during that time you are out. I want someone who has held a real job, with real time constraints, limits, effects, and an actual product or service to show for. Effectively a time clock and rules and a boss. They have to know and understand that they work for all of us, we do not work for them. They have to understand that they are the leader of a free country, not the owner of 300+ million people. If I wanted that I’d vote republican.
Zelma
@Nelle: why does Bucher never come up as a possibility for people that’s something I don’t understand. He talks about poverty. He talks about immigration. He’s an impressive speaker. He’s got executive experience. And yet he can’t get any traction. I don’t understand.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Zelma: I didn’t think much of him as the show-boating mayor of Newark, he pissed me off with his sweaty defense of Mitt Romney (and Wall St– and I am not one of your Wall St-obsessive lefties) against an Obama campaign that he found nauseating, and that was in a lot of ways his debut on the national stage. I really haven’t seen anything to dramatically change that opinion
Ruckus
@Zelma:
Do you mean Booker?
I believe that he keeps sticking his foot in his mouth. He’s got a lot to say for himself and yes he’s a democrat, but I understand he has a history that’s not quite up to par. I’ve dismissed him long ago enough that I don’t remember details but I’d bet others do.
IOW he’s not horrible, like some other dem candidates but he’s not at the top of the heap either.
Brachiator
@FlipYrWhig:
There may be some overlap between Sanders and Warren supporters, but I think you pretty much nail it here.
trollhattan
@joel hanes:
Warren, should it come to that, will endorse a Democrat.
She would campaign for Sanders if he were the nominee but at that point we’ll all be concerning ourselves with the world having shifted its axis to the equator.
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, JFK.
This sounds like conservatives who insist that a president should be someone who has run a business, met a payroll.
I understand what you are saying, but ultimately I do not believe that empathy is determined by or limited based on social class or income.
As always, your mileage may vary.
Zelma
@Ruckus:
WaterGirl
@Immanentize: Long before this point for 2007/2008, Obama was strategically rolling out endorsements, very strategically. He had them in his pocket and seemed to roll them out when they would have the most benefit.
Ted Kennedy’s came while I was working for the Obama campaign in Colorado in January.
My thought is that most people don’t feel strongly enough about any of the candidates to put their name out there. With Obama it was high risk, high reward – I think people really believed in him. This year I don’t see that much of that.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@WaterGirl: I don’t think anybody in the party, except maybe Obama himself, has the stature Kennedy had. Biden, if he hadn’t run, probably would’ve been the closest thing
Brachiator
@WaterGirl:
Great point.
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I agree. My point was that even big people were willing to take a stand early in that cycle. I think endorsements are coming way late this time, and I understand it.
Half of the really good candidates are out – so why stick your neck out when your first choice is already out?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@WaterGirl: I’m wandery-brained these days, and when you mentioned the Kennedy endorsement it reminded me that I’ve been thinking that we don’t really have any lions in the party these days. As soon as I posted I realized it wasn’t really a response to what you said
ETA: NYMag has a puff piece on AOC today, arguing that she’s changed Washington, and her endorsement revived Bernie’s campaign. I had to bail on it with rolling eyes
the Conster
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
It was written by a dudebro, which is all you need to know. He probably hopes she’ll sleep with him.
AxelFoley
@Betty Cracker: Thing is, Betty, he STILL says that. Bernie is a broken record.