Although, as a complete aside, that woman in Iowa who wanted to recast her vote was breathtaking in more than one respect. (A) Pretty homophobic. (B) Pretty ignorant not to know that Buttigieg is gay. (C) Pretty ignorant to think that she would be allowed a do-over.
I'm merely observing about the specific woman. I'm not advocating the rescinding of the 19th Amendment.
I reckon there is still a great big pool of anti-gay sentiment in many countries, including the USA. Is it the Millennials who use 'gay' to disparage things?
Well, I started hearing that in elementary school, mid-to-late 70s, so no, not a speciifically Millenial thing.
In fact, I tought it had vanished as an insult some time in the 80s, but then I noticed a bit of a revival on the internet, early 2000s.
Thinking about it, there were always insults around sexuality when I was a kid around the same time. We used different words though, and not in the way that it was used in the 2000's, as in 'your schoolbag is gay.' I wonder if it was just American until Southpark spread it.
I do wonder whether Buttigieg's being a big ol' gay would actually lose the ticket that many votes. I think that it would be a zero sum. I could be wrong. I live in a foreign bubble.
I can't think there are that many people who would be willing to vote for Bernie Sanders who would reconsider their ballot if his running mate were a gay man. Most of the folks for whom that would be an issue wouldn't vote for Sanders in the first place, so I'm not sure it's a net vote loser. Here's a thread from the Old Ship discussing how being anti-gay was probably a net vote loser in American presidential elections twelve years ago. I'm not sure anything has changed since then.
Doing what? The VP doesn't actually have any real duties. Buttigieg's not having been elected to any statewide office disqualifies him in my eyes.
The vice president doesn't have any real duties aside from breaking tie votes in the Senate and taking over for a dead or incapacitated president, but a running mate does have an important role in a campaign. Traditionally it's the running mate's job to 'go negative' so the candidate at the top of the ticket can be positive and be seen as a unifier. (For a good example see Joe Biden taking apart Sarah Palin in 2008 or Paul Ryan in 2012 in the vice presidential debates.) If Sanders is the nominee I'm not sure that will be necessary since he seems to do his own attacking.
What do you think of reports the Russians are interfering with the primaries because they want Trump to go against Sanders? They think Sanders is the most vulnerable candidate.
What do you think of reports the Russians are interfering with the primaries because they want Trump to go against Sanders? They think Sanders is the most vulnerable candidate.
Sounds plausible. It's also the case that Sanders is the most NATO-skeptical of any of the plausible Democratic nominees (though he's not that NATO-skeptical) so even a Sanders presidency would suit some of Russia's goals.
The Nevada Democratic Party has now released caucus results. My guess is that after Iowa they decided they'd rather be right than quick. Anyway, here's the current standings in national convention delegates.
Bernie Sanders - 45 (+24)
Pete Buttigieg - 26 (+3)
Joe Biden - 15 (+9)
Elizabeth Warren - 8 (+0)
Amy Klobuchar - 7 (+0)
The first number is the total number of delegates gained so far. The number in parentheses is the number of delegates added tonight from the Nevada caucuses. To put it in terms of delegates needed to get a majority:
Bernie Sanders - 2.3%
Pete Buttigieg - 1.3%
Joe Biden - 0.8%
Elizabeth Warren - 0.4%
Amy Klobuchar - 0.4%
I suspect Pete Buttigieg is just going to fall further down the list after this. He doesn't seem to have to polling that suggests huge support in upcoming states. Bernie Sanders has taken his position as frontrunner, but it's still early in the process. About 2.5% of all pledged delegates have been awarded so far.
What do you think of reports the Russians are interfering with the primaries because they want Trump to go against Sanders? They think Sanders is the most vulnerable candidate.
Sounds plausible. It's also the case that Sanders is the most NATO-skeptical of any of the plausible Democratic nominees (though he's not that NATO-skeptical) so even a Sanders presidency would suit some of Russia's goals.
This is from FeeltheBern.org
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was formed after World War II as a way to get the militaries of various countries to agree on mutual defense strategies. Bernie believes the United States should remain in NATO. He thinks that other members of the alliance should meet their funding commitments. He is opposed to expanding NATO membership because it antagonizes Russia and increases the risk of conflict. Although Bernie is generally anti-war, he supported NATO’s bombing of Serbia in 1999 and did not vigorously oppose NATO’s 2011 military intervention in Libya, although he did voice concerns.
Membership in NATO: Bernie supports the ongoing membership of the United States in NATO.
Funding NATO: Bernie believes that all member states in the alliance have a responsibility to meet the funding obligations that they have pledged to NATO.
Anti-Expansion: Bernie is against the expansion of NATO to include new member states because it risks provoking military conflict with Russia.
So, in regards to expansion, yes Bernie is against it, in regards to funding, this has been a standard Democratic line since JFK as I remember it.
What do you think of reports the Russians are interfering with the primaries because they want Trump to go against Sanders? They think Sanders is the most vulnerable candidate.
Sounds plausible. It's also the case that Sanders is the most NATO-skeptical of any of the plausible Democratic nominees (though he's not that NATO-skeptical) so even a Sanders presidency would suit some of Russia's goals.
Between Trump and Sanders, I think Sanders is the most likely to back up his Russia-friendly positions with action. So, if the Russians prefer him for the nomination, it's probably because they prefer him for the presidency, not because Trump is still their man.
Which is not neccessarily a reason to oppose Sanders, eg. I agree that further expansion of NATO is a bad idea. But I would hope the Russians realize by this point that ANY perceived support for a candidate on their part is going to be electoral poison: Trump won in 2016 because his supporers didn't buy the idea that he was a Kremlin stooge, not because they WANTED a Kremlin stooge.
Point is, Sanders is not Russian friendly. He has quite strong positions regarding NATO, the EU (he was opposed to Brexit). He has a more humanitarian position when it comes to world conflicts.
The Russians want Sanders to be the Democratic position because they feel Trump is more likely to win that contest.
I do wonder whether Buttigieg's being a big ol' gay would actually lose the ticket that many votes. I think that it would be a zero sum. I could be wrong. I live in a foreign bubble.
I can't think there are that many people who would be willing to vote for Bernie Sanders who would reconsider their ballot if his running mate were a gay man. Most of the folks for whom that would be an issue wouldn't vote for Sanders in the first place, so I'm not sure it's a net vote loser. Here's a thread from the Old Ship discussing how being anti-gay was probably a net vote loser in American presidential elections twelve years ago. I'm not sure anything has changed since then.
There's a difference between voting for someone who's not anti-gay and voting for a real live gay person, but considering the top of this potential ticket, you've got a good point.
Doing what? The VP doesn't actually have any real duties. Buttigieg's not having been elected to any statewide office disqualifies him in my eyes.
The vice president doesn't have any real duties aside from breaking tie votes in the Senate and taking over for a dead or incapacitated president, but a running mate does have an important role in a campaign. Traditionally it's the running mate's job to 'go negative' so the candidate at the top of the ticket can be positive and be seen as a unifier. (For a good example see Joe Biden taking apart Sarah Palin in 2008 or Paul Ryan in 2012 in the vice presidential debates.) If Sanders is the nominee I'm not sure that will be necessary since he seems to do his own attacking.[/quote]
Actually, that was me, and the issue was Buttigieg getting on-the-job training as VP so that he could be president if necessary, so my point stands -- being the running mate and later being VP wouldn't give him any applicable training for stepping into the POTUS job. He's only been the mayor of a small city. Whoever encouraged him to run for president should be ashamed of themselves.
Whoever encouraged him to run for president should be ashamed of themselves.
Let's see: He is a natural born citizen and has resided in the US for 14 years. He is the first Millennial to run, the first gay person to run, he is from the Midwest. He has a military background (unlike you know who). He is extemely intelligent.
He meets all the constitutional requirements and then some.
I can imagine people wondering why a person from a backwater state like Illinois would run back in the 1800's.
Whoever encouraged him to run for president should be ashamed of themselves.
Let's see: He is a natural born citizen and has resided in the US for 14 years. He is the first Millennial to run, the first gay person to run, he is from the Midwest. He has a military background (unlike you know who). He is extemely intelligent.
He meets all the constitutional requirements and then some.
I can imagine people wondering why a person from a backwater state like Illinois would run back in the 1800's.
Lincoln served in the Illinois state legislature and one term in Congress (by his own choice - he declined to run for a second term). Mayor Pete hasn't even been elected to statewide office. Come on. He seems to be a nice person and he certainly did well in school, but pretending he's in any way qualified to be president is ridiculous.
As for his intelligence - as someone on Twitter said, Pete went to Harvard. Elizabeth Warren taught at Harvard.
Chas Liccardello, host of Planet America, the now twice weekly show that analyses American politics for Australians, wears a different campaign t-shirt every week. It is a great show. Last week they interviewed the judge who put and end to Bloomberg's stop and frisk policy in New York. She was really interesting. Yes, many Aussies are as obsessed as me with American politics.
I would love to know where to buy old campaign merch. I can't buy the current merch because I would be a foreigner contributing to a Presidential campaign, and they have systems to stop that (yes, I tried already).
Last night's "debate" was more like a train wreck. Everyone was shouting at everyone. Bernie took the most hits. Warren seemed to try to give the impression she can carry the progressive banner further than Bernie. Bloomberg also took a lot of hits. Seems like Pete and Amy were not fighting with each other as much. Tom made a few good points. And then there was befuddled Joe. All in all, I think Bernie came out better than the rest.
South Carolina has an open primary, but the Republican party has chosen not to have one this year, so there is a movement to get Republicans to cross over to the Democrats and vote for the person they think is the more likely to lose to Trump in the national elections. Of course, they think that candidate will be Bernie. But I think it is going to come back to bite them.
I think he'd lose some, the way Obama lost some votes for being black and Hillary Clinton did for being female. I do find it interesting that we're having more discussions about the women's electability than the gay man's.
It is ever so, isn't it. I have a feeling we'll end up having a president representing every minority in America before we get one who represents 51% of us.
I think he'd lose some, the way Obama lost some votes for being black and Hillary Clinton did for being female. I do find it interesting that we're having more discussions about the women's electability than the gay man's.
It is ever so, isn't it. I have a feeling we'll end up having a president representing every minority in America before we get one who represents 51% of us.
This might be something for another thread, but I have long thought that sexism may be the last -ism to go in this country. I don't mean this to be an entry into some kind of oppression competition; I think sexism may simply hold on for a long time not because it's worse than other -isms but because it is structurally different to hold down half the population than it is to hold down a minority of the population.
I think he'd lose some, the way Obama lost some votes for being black and Hillary Clinton did for being female. I do find it interesting that we're having more discussions about the women's electability than the gay man's.
It is ever so, isn't it. I have a feeling we'll end up having a president representing every minority in America before we get one who represents 51% of us.
This might be something for another thread, but I have long thought that sexism may be the last -ism to go in this country. I don't mean this to be an entry into some kind of oppression competition; I think sexism may simply hold on for a long time not because it's worse than other -isms but because it is structurally different to hold down half the population than it is to hold down a minority of the population.
I think it less structurally different than it is sexism having major representation in every other minority.
I think it is a tragic question, whether sexism will outlast other prejudices. I reckon we will see a female President sooner or later. The elimination of prejudice, however, requires an educated and wealthy society. My fear is that we are at a summit right now for our European civilization, and that chaos, disorder and a falling away will precede further progress.
Please remember in interpreting my comments that my emotional state at present tends towards extremes.
I think it is a tragic question, whether sexism will outlast other prejudices. I reckon we will see a female President sooner or later. The elimination of prejudice, however, requires an educated and wealthy society.
With all respect, this is an educated and wealthy society--more educated and wealthy than most or all previous versions in its history, even with all its inequalities, and certainly more educated and wealthy than second-and-third-world societies around the globe. Perhaps you see diminutions in the implacable, cement-blinkered, heart-challenged, meniscus-brained, imagination-shriveled, arrogance-gluttoned and morally-skint obduracy of this society's wealthy, educated, drooling, snickering, slack-jawed white male privilege.
I don't.
I am not a Hilary Clinton fan. I could write at length about why, but to what purpose? The fact remains that of all the people running for President in 2016, HRC was smarter, better-prepared, more experienced, competent, nimble, knowledgeable, and savvy than any 3 of her original challengers combined. The fact that this educated, wealthy society bursting its testosterone-laden buttons could put Donald J. Trump in the Oval Office in preference to HRC tells me everything I need to know about putative connections between wealth, education, and prejudice.
At this point I frankly do not give a flying fetlock about electing a female President. I only care about evicting the Current Occupant. (I'd love to vote against Mitch McConnell, but am unwilling to move to Kentucky.) We elected an African American President in 2008. What observable reduction has that produced in US racism? I'll wait. What was the effect on members of Congress, particularly the Senate? Imagine that the Senate remains in Republican hands, or God forbid that Mitch McConnell is re-elected and keeps his lock on the Senate chains. How do you suppose they'll respond to a President Klobuchar or Warren?
If there's some positive trail of breadcrumbs linking the election of non-white, non-male members of this species to high office and improved treatment of non-white, non-males among the general population by the all-too-white all-too-male in power, by all means point it out to me.
IMO, the current candidate best prepared to put out the sewer fire set by Arsonist Trump is Elizabeth Warren. Given the fear and loathing our society turns on intelligent, articulate, and competent women, coupled with this administration's criminal refusal to guard against foreign meddling, I am not especially hopeful about November 3, 2020.
With all respect, this is an educated and wealthy society--more educated and wealthy than most or all previous versions in its history, even with all its inequalities, and certainly more educated and wealthy than second-and-third-world societies around the globe. Perhaps you see diminutions in the implacable, cement-blinkered, heart-challenged, meniscus-brained, imagination-shriveled, arrogance-gluttoned and morally-skint obduracy of this society's wealthy, educated, drooling, snickering, slack-jawed white male privilege.
I don't.
I agree with all that. While there has been progress in women's rights over the last couple of centuries, there is a backsliding going on now I think. It's a male thing though, an example being what I have recently heard about the views of Clarence Thomas. Although male thing? Hmmm, Bettina Arnt is an Australian social commentator and men's rights activist.
I got the impression that you disagreed with what I was saying. I'm confused by that. If you do think I've said something wrong can you please explain it to me. I am thoroughly comfortable with being wrong if I can understand why.
Things like sexism and racism tend to be a little selective, at least in terms of electoral politics. I suspect most of the conservatives who wouldn't vote for Clinton on the grounds that she was a woman, happily voted for McCain/Palin in 2008, and would vote for Palin in some alternate-history where she was at the top of a REPUBLICAN ticket.
Mind you, this might work best with prejudices that are sort of on their last legs to begin with. The Alabama klansmen who voted Democrat no matter what back in the days of the Solid South would probably have abandoned the party if they'd nominated a black candidate during that era. I'm sure most of their ideological offspring would vote for a black president today, though, as long as he promised to follow the current right-wing catechism on racial issues.
--Republicans might have voted for Elizabeth Dole. I don't remember if she actually filed to run, or was just (rumored to be?) thinking about it. At the time, I thought I might even vote for her if she ran--and I've never been Republican.
--The Klan and similarly-minded groups are still around and active. I doubt very much that "their ideological offspring" would vote for a black president, no matter how right-wing the candidate might be. Unless they had an ulterior motive.
--The Klan and similarly-minded groups are still around and active. I doubt very much that "their ideological offspring" would vote for a black president, no matter how right-wing the candidate might be. Unless they had an ulterior motive.
By "klansmen", I meant southern racists generally during the Soild South era. Given that at the time, the KKK was a more respectable group than it is now, the corresponding demographic today would be mainstream right-wing southerners, not the ones who would join an organization now considered fringe.
(And that's not getting into the 1920s Hollywood-inspired version of the KKK, which was most powerful in the north, and focused more on anti-Catholicism and anti-immigration, than on anti-black bigotry. The equivalent to that today would be the MAGA-loving border posse crowd, who would also generally eschew klan imagery.)
I'd love to vote against Mitch McConnell, but am unwilling to move to Kentucky.
I also have no wish to move to Kentucky, and I'm optimistically supporting a candidate for Senate here in Arizona (former astronaut Mark Kelly, running against the disaster who was appointed to finish John McCain's Senate term -- after she lost the most recent election).
Anyway, while I can't vote against Mitch, I happily donate to the "Ditch Mitch" campaign and am hopeful that Amy McGrath will send Mitch packing.)
I think it is a tragic question, whether sexism will outlast other prejudices. I reckon we will see a female President sooner or later. The elimination of prejudice, however, requires an educated and wealthy society. My fear is that we are at a summit right now for our European civilization, and that chaos, disorder and a falling away will precede further progress.
Please remember in interpreting my comments that my emotional state at present tends towards extremes.
A female president would not indicate the elimination of sexism any more than a black president indicated the end of racism. Education can reduce prejudice, but it doesn't eliminate it. Wealth is typically concentrated in areas of minimal diversity, so unlikely to end prejudice.
Here is what a Bernie-Trump General Election may look like. However, this is a first take. I would not be surprised if this changes significantly, one way or the other.
I got the impression that you disagreed with what I was saying. I'm confused by that. If you do think I've said something wrong can you please explain it to me. I am thoroughly comfortable with being wrong if I can understand why.
I understood you to be saying that a materially-better-off (wealthier) and better-educated populace would shed its prejudices. That's where I disagree. I see no evidence that wealth and education affect prejudice except possibly to exacerbate it by tending to congregate like with like, so that wealthier, more-educated elites can wall themselves off from The Other to support, reinforce, and perpetuate existing prejudices.
I have zero evidence at hand to back this notion up and no time to hunt for any. I believe prejudice is most readily overcome by establishing institutions which bring diverse groups together to have direct, hands-on, face-to-face, heart-to-heart experience of one another. Experience pokes holes in stereotypes; stereotypes with enough holes in them fall away; then people can get down to honest, basic commonalities and actual (rather than myth-informed) differences.
Currently, US society is so minutely stratified by income and identity issues that opportunities for such experience seem to be vanishing.
I understood you to be saying that a materially-better-off (wealthier) and better-educated populace would shed its prejudices. That's where I disagree. I see no evidence that wealth and education affect prejudice except possibly to exacerbate it by tending to congregate like with like, so that wealthier, more-educated elites can wall themselves off from The Other to support, reinforce, and perpetuate existing prejudices
I can only give antidotal information to support this. My son did his Masters in Urban development. His thesis discussed the way the gold country area around Sacramento had become its suburbs and the efforts of people living there to restrict any further growth in the area as a way of limiting the spread of "those people" into their neighborhoods.
Moving on, Thomas Friedman, a columnist for the New York Times wrote a very interesting article on how the Democratic nominee (he is betting Sanders or Bloomberg) could put together a team of rivals in the cabinet which would beat the train wreck we now have in the White House.
Moving on, Thomas Friedman, a columnist for the New York Times wrote a very interesting article on how the Democratic nominee (he is betting Sanders or Bloomberg) could put together a team of rivals in the cabinet which would beat the train wreck we now have in the White House.
Thomas Friedman has been drawing a paycheck from the Sulzbergers covering one beat or another for nearly three decades now and I'm not sure what value they think they're getting out of him. (Here he is explaining his "suck on this" theory of Middle East geopolitics to serial sexual harasser Charlie Rose in 2003.) Friedman is allegedly an expert on American politics, yet he mostly seems to use this column to name check Democrats that he's heard mentioned in various cable news green rooms. For some reason (left unexplained) he cites Mike Bloomberg as Bernie Sanders' "most viable long-term challenger" despite the fact that Bloomberg has won exactly nothing so far and seems to get less popular with Democrats the more they see of him. Plus the whole idea that a self-described socialist and a billionaire whose main economic idea is that the financial services sector is too heavily regulated actually have the same economic agenda is laughable on its face. The idea that each could implement the other's agenda as Treasury Secretary is not as obvious as Friedman seems to think it is with his lack of explanation as to how this would work. Plus the idea that someone with a favorable view of redlining is the best choice "for addressing income inequality" needs more explanation than the simple assertion Friedman makes.
The whole column is full of missteps, like this:
I will ask Elizabeth Warren to serve as health and human services secretary. No one could bring more energy and intellect to the task of expanding health care for more Americans than Senator Warren.
Health care is very far outside Warren's usual area of expertise. (For some reason Friedman doesn't think she'd be a good Treasury Secretary. I'm guessing it's a kind of lazy 'Democrat + woman = health care' formulation that doesn't rely on actually knowing anything about Warren.) Also, for a supposed politics expert he doesn't seem to be at all concerned about pulling a lot of Democrats out of the Senate (Klobuchar, Warren, Sanders, Harris, Booker). I know most folks are concentrating on the presidential race, but maybe a paid political columnist should give some thought as to whether or not a Democratic president could pass their legislative agenda or be able to appoint judges.
And then there's the idea that what Democrats really want is a president who will install vulture capitalist Mitt "47%" Romney as Commerce Secretary. Leaving aside the way most Americans would regard pre-selecting a cabinet during an election as exceedingly arrogant, I'm not sure that many Democrats want to hand some of the levers of power to the guy they overwhelmingly rejected in the 2012 presidential race.
I would grant Warren has HHS secretary seemed far fetched to me. I would have preferred her as Commerce Secretary--or better yet, make the Consumer Protection Agency, which she ramrodded, a cabinet-level position and give it to her.
I would grant Warren has HHS secretary seemed far fetched to me. I would have preferred her as Commerce Secretary--or better yet, make the Consumer Protection Agency, which she ramrodded, a cabinet-level position and give it to her.
I think you mean the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which Warren did indeed design and advocate for back before she held elected office. In fact, Senate Republicans torpedoing her nomination to head the CFPB is what led to her running for the Senate in the first place, so they (indirectly and not at all deliberately) created Warren-as-politician.
Biden wins South Carolina. Next up are the Super Primary States, in particular California and Texas. However, current polls indicate only Sanders will make the 15 percent threshold in California, which means he might get up to 300 of the California delegates (415 total).
After going 0 for 2 on the late billionaire strategy (skip early states and spend a lot of your personal fortune to make up the difference in later states) Tom Steyer is calling it quits for 2020. Total delegates earned = 0.
I got the impression that you disagreed with what I was saying. I'm confused by that. If you do think I've said something wrong can you please explain it to me. I am thoroughly comfortable with being wrong if I can understand why.
I understood you to be saying that a materially-better-off (wealthier) and better-educated populace would shed its prejudices. That's where I disagree. I see no evidence that wealth and education affect prejudice except possibly to exacerbate it by tending to congregate like with like, so that wealthier, more-educated elites can wall themselves off from The Other to support, reinforce, and perpetuate existing prejudices.
I have zero evidence at hand to back this notion up and no time to hunt for any. I believe prejudice is most readily overcome by establishing institutions which bring diverse groups together to have direct, hands-on, face-to-face, heart-to-heart experience of one another. Experience pokes holes in stereotypes; stereotypes with enough holes in them fall away; then people can get down to honest, basic commonalities and actual (rather than myth-informed) differences.
Currently, US society is so minutely stratified by income and identity issues that opportunities for such experience seem to be vanishing.
Thanks for this Ohher. You are spot on. I think I was spouting a liberal myth.
The results are in from the South Carolina Democratic Primary, the last of the early states. Here are the current standings in terms of convention delegates:
Bernie Sanders - 59 (+14)
Joe Biden - 55 (+40)
Pete Buttigieg - 26 (+0)
Elizabeth Warren - 8 (+0)
Amy Klobuchar - 7 (+0)
The first number is the total number of delegates gained so far. The number in parentheses is the number of delegates added from the South Carolina primary. To put it in terms of delegates needed to get a majority:
Bernie Sanders - 3.0%
Joe Biden - 2.8%
Pete Buttigieg - 1.3%
Elizabeth Warren - 0.4%
Amy Klobuchar - 0.4%
Slightly less than 4% of all convention delegates have been awarded at this point. Here's a summary of all the primary contests so far.
Iowa
1. Pete Buttigieg - 14
2. Bernie Sanders - 12
3. Elizabeth Warren - 8
4. Joe Biden - 6
5. Amy Klobuchar - 1
New Hampshire
1. Pete Buttigieg - 9
1. Bernie Sanders - 9
3. Amy Klobuchar - 6
Nevada
1. Bernie Sanders - 24
2. Joe Biden - 9
3. Pete Buttigieg - 3
South Carolina
1. Joe Biden - 40
2. Bernie Sanders - 14
Sanders and Biden are the frontrunners at this point, with Sanders having a bit of an edge in polling going forward. Buttigieg needs to demonstrate that he can win somewhere other than mostly white, low population states. Klobuchar and Warren both need to demonstrate that they can win somewhere. Both Minnesota (75 delegates) and Massachusetts (91 delegates) are Super Tuesday states so that's their chance, possibly their last one. The big unknown at this point is Michael Bloomberg, who will be on the ballot for the first time on Super Tuesday and is pursuing the same strategy that failed to work for Tom Steyer, but Bloomberg has a bigger bankroll and more name recognition than Steyer, so who knows? Tulsi Gabbard needs to hang it up. Maybe she feels the need to keep going through Super Tuesday just to make a decent show of it, but if it hasn't happened for her by now it's not going to happen.
Super Tuesday is in two days (March 3) and will determine the distribution of about a third of convention delegates. Fourteen states and American Samoa will be casting their ballots that day. The Democrats Abroad caucus will start casting their ballots on Super Tuesday but, due to the widespread distribution of the group, will not finish until March 10.
Comments
That is a wise decision...
Well, I started hearing that in elementary school, mid-to-late 70s, so no, not a speciifically Millenial thing.
In fact, I tought it had vanished as an insult some time in the 80s, but then I noticed a bit of a revival on the internet, early 2000s.
I can't think there are that many people who would be willing to vote for Bernie Sanders who would reconsider their ballot if his running mate were a gay man. Most of the folks for whom that would be an issue wouldn't vote for Sanders in the first place, so I'm not sure it's a net vote loser. Here's a thread from the Old Ship discussing how being anti-gay was probably a net vote loser in American presidential elections twelve years ago. I'm not sure anything has changed since then.
The vice president doesn't have any real duties aside from breaking tie votes in the Senate and taking over for a dead or incapacitated president, but a running mate does have an important role in a campaign. Traditionally it's the running mate's job to 'go negative' so the candidate at the top of the ticket can be positive and be seen as a unifier. (For a good example see Joe Biden taking apart Sarah Palin in 2008 or Paul Ryan in 2012 in the vice presidential debates.) If Sanders is the nominee I'm not sure that will be necessary since he seems to do his own attacking.
Sounds plausible. It's also the case that Sanders is the most NATO-skeptical of any of the plausible Democratic nominees (though he's not that NATO-skeptical) so even a Sanders presidency would suit some of Russia's goals.
The first number is the total number of delegates gained so far. The number in parentheses is the number of delegates added tonight from the Nevada caucuses. To put it in terms of delegates needed to get a majority:
I suspect Pete Buttigieg is just going to fall further down the list after this. He doesn't seem to have to polling that suggests huge support in upcoming states. Bernie Sanders has taken his position as frontrunner, but it's still early in the process. About 2.5% of all pledged delegates have been awarded so far.
Onward to South Carolina!
This is from FeeltheBern.org
So, in regards to expansion, yes Bernie is against it, in regards to funding, this has been a standard Democratic line since JFK as I remember it.
Between Trump and Sanders, I think Sanders is the most likely to back up his Russia-friendly positions with action. So, if the Russians prefer him for the nomination, it's probably because they prefer him for the presidency, not because Trump is still their man.
Which is not neccessarily a reason to oppose Sanders, eg. I agree that further expansion of NATO is a bad idea. But I would hope the Russians realize by this point that ANY perceived support for a candidate on their part is going to be electoral poison: Trump won in 2016 because his supporers didn't buy the idea that he was a Kremlin stooge, not because they WANTED a Kremlin stooge.
The Russians want Sanders to be the Democratic position because they feel Trump is more likely to win that contest.
There's a difference between voting for someone who's not anti-gay and voting for a real live gay person, but considering the top of this potential ticket, you've got a good point.
The vice president doesn't have any real duties aside from breaking tie votes in the Senate and taking over for a dead or incapacitated president, but a running mate does have an important role in a campaign. Traditionally it's the running mate's job to 'go negative' so the candidate at the top of the ticket can be positive and be seen as a unifier. (For a good example see Joe Biden taking apart Sarah Palin in 2008 or Paul Ryan in 2012 in the vice presidential debates.) If Sanders is the nominee I'm not sure that will be necessary since he seems to do his own attacking.[/quote]
Actually, that was me, and the issue was Buttigieg getting on-the-job training as VP so that he could be president if necessary, so my point stands -- being the running mate and later being VP wouldn't give him any applicable training for stepping into the POTUS job. He's only been the mayor of a small city. Whoever encouraged him to run for president should be ashamed of themselves.
Let's see: He is a natural born citizen and has resided in the US for 14 years. He is the first Millennial to run, the first gay person to run, he is from the Midwest. He has a military background (unlike you know who). He is extemely intelligent.
He meets all the constitutional requirements and then some.
I can imagine people wondering why a person from a backwater state like Illinois would run back in the 1800's.
Lincoln served in the Illinois state legislature and one term in Congress (by his own choice - he declined to run for a second term). Mayor Pete hasn't even been elected to statewide office. Come on. He seems to be a nice person and he certainly did well in school, but pretending he's in any way qualified to be president is ridiculous.
As for his intelligence - as someone on Twitter said, Pete went to Harvard. Elizabeth Warren taught at Harvard.
"Where Does All the Swag Go After Campaigns Fail? Everywhere" (SFGate, from NY Times).
("Swag" being the campaign-related freebies: t-shirts, mugs, signs, bumperstickers, hats...)
I would love to know where to buy old campaign merch. I can't buy the current merch because I would be a foreigner contributing to a Presidential campaign, and they have systems to stop that (yes, I tried already).
South Carolina has an open primary, but the Republican party has chosen not to have one this year, so there is a movement to get Republicans to cross over to the Democrats and vote for the person they think is the more likely to lose to Trump in the national elections. Of course, they think that candidate will be Bernie. But I think it is going to come back to bite them.
Well, a girl can dream. Much better than wishing for a pony!
Ann Coulter, right-wing icon with a very nasty persona, kinda sorta managed to publicly endorse...Elizabeth Warren! (MarketWatch)
ROTFL!!!
Ruth - I get in enough trouble by myself without your misattributions!
This might be something for another thread, but I have long thought that sexism may be the last -ism to go in this country. I don't mean this to be an entry into some kind of oppression competition; I think sexism may simply hold on for a long time not because it's worse than other -isms but because it is structurally different to hold down half the population than it is to hold down a minority of the population.
Please remember in interpreting my comments that my emotional state at present tends towards extremes.
With all respect, this is an educated and wealthy society--more educated and wealthy than most or all previous versions in its history, even with all its inequalities, and certainly more educated and wealthy than second-and-third-world societies around the globe. Perhaps you see diminutions in the implacable, cement-blinkered, heart-challenged, meniscus-brained, imagination-shriveled, arrogance-gluttoned and morally-skint obduracy of this society's wealthy, educated, drooling, snickering, slack-jawed white male privilege.
I don't.
I am not a Hilary Clinton fan. I could write at length about why, but to what purpose? The fact remains that of all the people running for President in 2016, HRC was smarter, better-prepared, more experienced, competent, nimble, knowledgeable, and savvy than any 3 of her original challengers combined. The fact that this educated, wealthy society bursting its testosterone-laden buttons could put Donald J. Trump in the Oval Office in preference to HRC tells me everything I need to know about putative connections between wealth, education, and prejudice.
At this point I frankly do not give a flying fetlock about electing a female President. I only care about evicting the Current Occupant. (I'd love to vote against Mitch McConnell, but am unwilling to move to Kentucky.) We elected an African American President in 2008. What observable reduction has that produced in US racism? I'll wait. What was the effect on members of Congress, particularly the Senate? Imagine that the Senate remains in Republican hands, or God forbid that Mitch McConnell is re-elected and keeps his lock on the Senate chains. How do you suppose they'll respond to a President Klobuchar or Warren?
If there's some positive trail of breadcrumbs linking the election of non-white, non-male members of this species to high office and improved treatment of non-white, non-males among the general population by the all-too-white all-too-male in power, by all means point it out to me.
IMO, the current candidate best prepared to put out the sewer fire set by Arsonist Trump is Elizabeth Warren. Given the fear and loathing our society turns on intelligent, articulate, and competent women, coupled with this administration's criminal refusal to guard against foreign meddling, I am not especially hopeful about November 3, 2020.
Good post.
I agree with all that. While there has been progress in women's rights over the last couple of centuries, there is a backsliding going on now I think. It's a male thing though, an example being what I have recently heard about the views of Clarence Thomas. Although male thing? Hmmm, Bettina Arnt is an Australian social commentator and men's rights activist.
I got the impression that you disagreed with what I was saying. I'm confused by that. If you do think I've said something wrong can you please explain it to me. I am thoroughly comfortable with being wrong if I can understand why.
Mind you, this might work best with prejudices that are sort of on their last legs to begin with. The Alabama klansmen who voted Democrat no matter what back in the days of the Solid South would probably have abandoned the party if they'd nominated a black candidate during that era. I'm sure most of their ideological offspring would vote for a black president today, though, as long as he promised to follow the current right-wing catechism on racial issues.
--Republicans might have voted for Elizabeth Dole. I don't remember if she actually filed to run, or was just (rumored to be?) thinking about it. At the time, I thought I might even vote for her if she ran--and I've never been Republican.
--The Klan and similarly-minded groups are still around and active. I doubt very much that "their ideological offspring" would vote for a black president, no matter how right-wing the candidate might be. Unless they had an ulterior motive.
By "klansmen", I meant southern racists generally during the Soild South era. Given that at the time, the KKK was a more respectable group than it is now, the corresponding demographic today would be mainstream right-wing southerners, not the ones who would join an organization now considered fringe.
(And that's not getting into the 1920s Hollywood-inspired version of the KKK, which was most powerful in the north, and focused more on anti-Catholicism and anti-immigration, than on anti-black bigotry. The equivalent to that today would be the MAGA-loving border posse crowd, who would also generally eschew klan imagery.)
Anyway, while I can't vote against Mitch, I happily donate to the "Ditch Mitch" campaign and am hopeful that Amy McGrath will send Mitch packing.)
I understood you to be saying that a materially-better-off (wealthier) and better-educated populace would shed its prejudices. That's where I disagree. I see no evidence that wealth and education affect prejudice except possibly to exacerbate it by tending to congregate like with like, so that wealthier, more-educated elites can wall themselves off from The Other to support, reinforce, and perpetuate existing prejudices.
I have zero evidence at hand to back this notion up and no time to hunt for any. I believe prejudice is most readily overcome by establishing institutions which bring diverse groups together to have direct, hands-on, face-to-face, heart-to-heart experience of one another. Experience pokes holes in stereotypes; stereotypes with enough holes in them fall away; then people can get down to honest, basic commonalities and actual (rather than myth-informed) differences.
Currently, US society is so minutely stratified by income and identity issues that opportunities for such experience seem to be vanishing.
I can only give antidotal information to support this. My son did his Masters in Urban development. His thesis discussed the way the gold country area around Sacramento had become its suburbs and the efforts of people living there to restrict any further growth in the area as a way of limiting the spread of "those people" into their neighborhoods.
Moving on, Thomas Friedman, a columnist for the New York Times wrote a very interesting article on how the Democratic nominee (he is betting Sanders or Bloomberg) could put together a team of rivals in the cabinet which would beat the train wreck we now have in the White House.
Thomas Friedman has been drawing a paycheck from the Sulzbergers covering one beat or another for nearly three decades now and I'm not sure what value they think they're getting out of him. (Here he is explaining his "suck on this" theory of Middle East geopolitics to serial sexual harasser Charlie Rose in 2003.) Friedman is allegedly an expert on American politics, yet he mostly seems to use this column to name check Democrats that he's heard mentioned in various cable news green rooms. For some reason (left unexplained) he cites Mike Bloomberg as Bernie Sanders' "most viable long-term challenger" despite the fact that Bloomberg has won exactly nothing so far and seems to get less popular with Democrats the more they see of him. Plus the whole idea that a self-described socialist and a billionaire whose main economic idea is that the financial services sector is too heavily regulated actually have the same economic agenda is laughable on its face. The idea that each could implement the other's agenda as Treasury Secretary is not as obvious as Friedman seems to think it is with his lack of explanation as to how this would work. Plus the idea that someone with a favorable view of redlining is the best choice "for addressing income inequality" needs more explanation than the simple assertion Friedman makes.
The whole column is full of missteps, like this:
Health care is very far outside Warren's usual area of expertise. (For some reason Friedman doesn't think she'd be a good Treasury Secretary. I'm guessing it's a kind of lazy 'Democrat + woman = health care' formulation that doesn't rely on actually knowing anything about Warren.) Also, for a supposed politics expert he doesn't seem to be at all concerned about pulling a lot of Democrats out of the Senate (Klobuchar, Warren, Sanders, Harris, Booker). I know most folks are concentrating on the presidential race, but maybe a paid political columnist should give some thought as to whether or not a Democratic president could pass their legislative agenda or be able to appoint judges.
And then there's the idea that what Democrats really want is a president who will install vulture capitalist Mitt "47%" Romney as Commerce Secretary. Leaving aside the way most Americans would regard pre-selecting a cabinet during an election as exceedingly arrogant, I'm not sure that many Democrats want to hand some of the levers of power to the guy they overwhelmingly rejected in the 2012 presidential race.
I think you mean the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which Warren did indeed design and advocate for back before she held elected office. In fact, Senate Republicans torpedoing her nomination to head the CFPB is what led to her running for the Senate in the first place, so they (indirectly and not at all deliberately) created Warren-as-politician.
Thanks for this Ohher. You are spot on. I think I was spouting a liberal myth.
The first number is the total number of delegates gained so far. The number in parentheses is the number of delegates added from the South Carolina primary. To put it in terms of delegates needed to get a majority:
Slightly less than 4% of all convention delegates have been awarded at this point. Here's a summary of all the primary contests so far.
Iowa
1. Pete Buttigieg - 14
2. Bernie Sanders - 12
3. Elizabeth Warren - 8
4. Joe Biden - 6
5. Amy Klobuchar - 1
New Hampshire
1. Pete Buttigieg - 9
1. Bernie Sanders - 9
3. Amy Klobuchar - 6
Nevada
1. Bernie Sanders - 24
2. Joe Biden - 9
3. Pete Buttigieg - 3
South Carolina
1. Joe Biden - 40
2. Bernie Sanders - 14
Sanders and Biden are the frontrunners at this point, with Sanders having a bit of an edge in polling going forward. Buttigieg needs to demonstrate that he can win somewhere other than mostly white, low population states. Klobuchar and Warren both need to demonstrate that they can win somewhere. Both Minnesota (75 delegates) and Massachusetts (91 delegates) are Super Tuesday states so that's their chance, possibly their last one. The big unknown at this point is Michael Bloomberg, who will be on the ballot for the first time on Super Tuesday and is pursuing the same strategy that failed to work for Tom Steyer, but Bloomberg has a bigger bankroll and more name recognition than Steyer, so who knows? Tulsi Gabbard needs to hang it up. Maybe she feels the need to keep going through Super Tuesday just to make a decent show of it, but if it hasn't happened for her by now it's not going to happen.
Super Tuesday is in two days (March 3) and will determine the distribution of about a third of convention delegates. Fourteen states and American Samoa will be casting their ballots that day. The Democrats Abroad caucus will start casting their ballots on Super Tuesday but, due to the widespread distribution of the group, will not finish until March 10.