I'll probably get bashed all to Hell for this, but I think Booker needs to decide whether he wants to be a calm, cool, and collected policy guy, or an Angry Black Man. He see-saws between the two. When he goes into Angry Black Man mode, it's off-putting, at least to me, and I doubt I'm alone in that.
Electability
- Thread starter Rockfish1
- Start date
Holy crap, I was going to post this almost word for word but didn't want the usual crew sobbing at me again. It is a showstopper for him, Harris isn't much better.
Hmmm...can we capitalize Angry White Man and start talking about how off-putting it is when Bernie goes all Angry White Man?
It's off-putting as it's so glaringly disingenuous. As abused as his Spartacus. He's trying to be someone he isn't.
I keep seeing this mentioned that Biden would just step aside in 2024. What is that based upon? That's no way to succeed in US politics (lame ducking a POTUS from day 1)
You can if you wish because he has the anger act. Difference I see is that Bernie is angry at life in general, and less focused on race.
I don't think he should run on it or even say he might do it but he will very old in 2024.
After Thursday's debates the candidates waded into the media, but one candidate waved off:
Thursday night’s biggest casualty — former vice president Joe Biden — didn’t even bother to show his face after his halting, befuddled and roundly panned performance. Instead, Biden dispatched a small army of spinmeisters with gold-plated Beltway credentials, led by former Obama White House communications guru Anita Dunn, who had a lot to clean up.
I'd absolutely vote for Biden over Trump, but those mesmerized by Biden's supposed electability should recall what a deeply flawed candidate he's always been. It should at least strike Biden supporters as incongruous that it's the most "electable" candidate who has to be kept under wraps.
It should strike fear into liberal hearts that Biden is the most electable candidate. None of the other nineteen struck me as remotely electable, defined as able to beat Trump in 2020.
More important than electability is connectability. Kamala Harris, perhaps the most electable after Biden, connects with precisely whom, pray tell? Her message is directed at those suffering from injustice, social, economic and otherwise. From her website:
OUR AMERICA
Kamala has been a fearless advocate for the voiceless and vulnerable throughout her career. As president she will fight to restore truth and justice in America and build an economy that works for everyone.
Nothing I heard from her spoke to me. I personally don't need her to, but it felt to me like she's pleading for us to help the broken people. Most people aren't. THe broad swath of people are adults who don't need or want someone pleading for them. She should simplify her message to building an economy that works for everyone, but that doesn't seem to be her MO. That message stands a chance of connecting with most people.Kamala has been a fearless advocate for the voiceless and vulnerable throughout her career. As president she will fight to restore truth and justice in America and build an economy that works for everyone.
It doesn't help that the main message from the debates was open borders and medicare for all. Let us not forget we're electing a real person to be president, not an apple pie in the sky.
That's some political scientology right there.
I favor beating Trump, but your “analysis” consists entirely of you projecting your own woolly notions onto the electorate. It’s all adjectives.
Not entirely. Plenty of people, here and elsewhere, are asking the same questions. The basic question is, is the left shifting too far left?
Mark Shields, whether you esteem him or not, is far from a moderate like David Brooks, and he gives his takeaway:
More voices. Rahm Emanual knows how to win an election:
Claire McCaskill:
“We’re fighting immigration on his terrain and giving up our advantage on health care,” said Rahm Emanuel, the former mayor of Chicago. “That’s the travesty: We’re ceding an advantage Trump knows we have on him.”
James Carville won with Clinton:
“This is an election that Trump can’t win but Democrats can lose.”
Claire McCaskill:
“It’s imperative that our candidates are listening carefully to all of the voices in the party,” said former Senator Claire McCaskill, a Missouri moderate. Referencing the frequent liberal outrage on Twitter, she added, “social media may promote the loudest voices, but they’re not the majority.”
And as if to offer an inducement, Ms. McCaskill cited current polling and said that “the reason Biden is the front-runner by such a large margin is because he’s speaking to those voters.”
And as if to offer an inducement, Ms. McCaskill cited current polling and said that “the reason Biden is the front-runner by such a large margin is because he’s speaking to those voters.”
FromHarry Truman ( and Snopes):
[Republican Senator Robert] Taft explained that the great issue in this campaign is “creeping socialism.” Now that is the patented trademark of the special interest lobbies. Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years.
Socialism is what they called public power.
Socialism is what they called social security.
Socialism is what they called farm price supports.
Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance.
Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations.
Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.
When the Republican candidate inscribes the slogan “Down With Socialism” on the banner of his “great crusade,” that is really not what he means at all.
What he really means is, “Down with Progress — down with Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal,” and “down with Harry Truman’s fair Deal.” That is what he means.
The Dems could run Joe Manchin and Republicans would call him a socialist. Anyone who does not subscribe to take from the poor and give to the rich is a rabid socialist.Socialism is what they called public power.
Socialism is what they called social security.
Socialism is what they called farm price supports.
Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance.
Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations.
Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.
When the Republican candidate inscribes the slogan “Down With Socialism” on the banner of his “great crusade,” that is really not what he means at all.
What he really means is, “Down with Progress — down with Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal,” and “down with Harry Truman’s fair Deal.” That is what he means.
The only people I pay attention to about what moves voters are people with data. I ignore people with adjectives. You have adjectives.
Why didn't you say, "anyone that subscribes to take from the rich and give to the poor is a rabid socialist?"
I'm not saying that any of those things are socialism, but it's interesting that you chose that phrasing. No Republican advocates taking from the poor and giving to the rich. The Republican tax cuts over the years that Democrats love to lambaste took more poor off the taxpayer roles than ever before. They were good for me when I was poor and I appreciated them. Why don't people appreciate that fact now?
Of course the tax cuts have been good for me now that I'm not at all poor, and I've said I'm not in favor of the last tax cut bill at all other than the corporate tax cut part. Don't attack me for that one.
Why didn't you say, "anyone that subscribes to take from the rich and give to the poor is a rabid socialist?"
I'm not saying that any of those things are socialism, but it's interesting that you chose that phrasing. No Republican advocates taking from the poor and giving to the rich. The Republican tax cuts over the years that Democrats love to lambaste took more poor off the taxpayer roles than ever before. They were good for me when I was poor and I appreciated them. Why don't people appreciate that fact now?
Of course the tax cuts have been good for me now that I'm not at all poor, and I've said I'm not in favor of the last tax cut bill at all other than the corporate tax cut part. Don't attack me for that one.
Currently my complaint is the last tax cut. The individual was ridiculous and the corporate should have included loophole tightening.
When I make comments like that, the subjects are the current Trump is God crowd. You do not fit that. Twenty doesn't as another example. Some of our posters would gleefully return to zero safety net. Those are the take from the poor and give to the rich.
Obamacare got passed after a monumental landslide victory giving the Democrats 60 seats in the Senate. What were Obama's campaign promises to win that landslide? Related to healthcare, it was Universal healthcare. Related to immigration is was Immigration Reform. His promises weren't as extreme as what's happening now. Furthermore, 2008 was before the cataclysmic gerrymandering by the Republicans in 2010 and after. Since then, Republicans have dominated Congress, making it highly unlikely Democrats will win the transformationally necessary 60 seats in the Senate. Obama put together the Obama Coalition of voters to get his landslide. He spoke about uniting. No blue states, red state, just the United States. The only change was 2018 when Democrats managed to win the House because of Trump. Now they assume they can do it again in 2020 so why not go all in and propose a freaking political Revolution?
Brain damage is what I call it. Winning the presidency isn't enough. At the very least, Democrats should strategize to win the Senate and oust McConnell forever. Liberals are nowhere near 53% of the electorate. What are you guys thinking?
And people with data all say this: general election polls this far out mean nothing. Maybe Biden has the best shot at beating Trump. Maybe not.
That speaks more to those denying than those suggesting ideas.
We can gather lots of data from the 2016 election to predict whether Trump won in 2016. Lot of good that does us for 2020.
How about some facts. When have Democrats been slaughtered in the Presidential election? When have they done well? The hard-core liberals have been slaughtered -- McGovern, Dukakis, Mondale.. They've won with more moderate candidates, Obama, Bill Clinton.
Too many adjectives?
Your confidence that you've ever learned any social graces is probably misbased on fawning, failing freshmen.
(By the way, please don't take that too seriously. I mean, it wouldn't be the first time I got banned for encroaching on your thin personal skin.)
FDR did pretty well.
Some of us want a Republican Party and a Republican Light Party. The Republican Light Party will pander to Alex Jones supporters too, but will just furrow their brow slightly.
FDR was an entirely different time, politically, economically, and historically.
I don't consider Bill Clinton or Obama Democrat Light. Do you?
Obama campaigned toward the middle, won in a landslide and passed something close to universal healthcare for the first time in history. Those who don't know history won't repeat it.
Obama won, then 2 years later the Dems began losing everything. Under him the Dems lost 13 governorships, over 800 state representatives 12 Senators, and 64 Representatives? Obama won because people found him personally likeable but those same people ran out and voted Republican for everything from dog catcher to Senator. If ACA was such a brilliant win, how did that all happen? How did Americans decide that to honor Obama's legacy they would elect a birther? The GOP successfully sales EVERY Democrat is a socialist. The Dems could nominate the ghost of Barry Goldwater and some Republicans (not Aloha) would come here with damming proof he is socialist.
Clinton's "it took Nixon to go to China moment" was with welfare reform. The system is no longer a safety net, it is barely a safety string.
You are basically suggesting, using other words, that Democrats can only pass legislation approved by older white, straight, Christian middle class men. As an older, white, straight, Christian middle class male, I should not be the arbiter of what everyone else is allowed. The modern Democratic Party is saying that blacks, gays, women, poor, Latinos, religious minorities Rand others are allowed at the table. I am sorry that scares the he'll out of some of my older, white, straight middle class male friends. Sometimes it scares the he'll out of me, but I believe in equality so it is my personal responsibility to put on my big boy pants and get over some fear of who is in the stall next to me. Maybe my idea on this will lose elections, but calling up the KKK and asking what they want is so morally reprehensible i will vote what is right instead.
You're proving my point. Obama ran as a moderate and succeeded. Yes, the Republicans marketed him as a socialist, as always, but they failed to sell him as one. After Democrats passed Obamacare, Republicans marketed and sold the Democrats as socialists because they had created Obamacare.
No, I'm saying it takes a coalition of all of the people you are dividing into two groups. You're the one suggesting that only one of the two groups is necessary, the liberal ones.
Look at it this way. In 2016, too many liberals (disgruntled Bernheads, uninspired Obama coalitioners, etc) stayed home, and some Obama coalitioners flipped to Trump. Only one of those two might not have been enough to elect Trump. In 2018, people who stayed home said Oops, Trump's a Huge Mistake, voted en masse, and the Democrats re-captured the House and then some. They didn't do that because of some promise of radical social, economic, and political change. They just woke up from their complacence.
Now, extreme liberal Democrats are going whole hog and promising a drastic social, economic, healthcare, and historical revolution. Why? Where's the evidence that the average voter wants such revolution? Yes, clearly they want to get of Trump, but radical change to their lifestyle? Since when has that been part of the American fabric? There's a reason Americans frequently elect Republicans as president. What is that reason?
As David Brooks pointed out, roughly 13% of Americans want to eliminate private health insurance. 13%. Bernie and Warren openly and assertively advocate that. Castro openly and assertively advocated decriminalizing illegal border crossings and he "crushed" Beto in their mini-debate. I DON'T WANT OPEN BORDERS. I will vote for Trump rather than open borders. Yes, I said it. I don't want what happened to Europe to happen here.
How do you explain those huge Democratic losses under Obama? The Democrats lost everything, we immediately elected anyone and everyone who said they would make sure poor people went without healthcare. Obama won, no other Dem did for the next 6 years. Funny way of rewarding Dems for ACA.
I don't see that as hard to explain at all. Most voters already had health care insurance. Their original vote for Obama was a hope for change for the better in a time when Lehman Brothers went bankrupt and the financial sector seemed to be unraveling. People in general are happy if "poor people" do better, but not at their own expense. Most people are not bleeding heart liberals. The backlash in 2010 did not have the goal of "mak[ing] sure poor people went without healthcare" but rather the goal of putting the brakes on excessive change people feared was going too far. That is precisely, precisely, precisely what I think the current liberal platform will trigger again. There are many people in the middle who are likely to lean Democratic but not if it means radical change.
That doesn't mean those people haven't come to accept Obamacare. It can simply mean it took them time to accept that change. They are likely to have finally come to accept that change but that doessn't mean they want to launch off into the unknown of massive new change, likely to cost who knows how much money, when both our deficit and debt are at an all-time high.
You're asking too much for the average Joe. They're open to change but risk averse. You're asking them to bet the farm and they don't see any reason to.
Shorter answer: People have come to like the ACA primarily for one thing: Protection against pre-existing conditions. They have that now. They don't need more change.
I was raised hillbilly elegy. My family, my neighbors all used the N word as if it were no other words for black. Making fun of gays was "natural". When my friends played war, we were the Germans or the Confederates.i did not get why. But when I saw Bobby Kennedy in 1968 speak in my home town, I came to a realization everything I knew up to that point was a lie. I was 7 and a half. I did not know many liberals until high school, so I was the oddball for several years.
I am sorry Joe Average desperately wants to keep the white advantage. Life is not a bowl of cherries even with it, I get that. But those without it deserve the same opportunities at even a hard life over a desperate life. It has been 50 years, it is time for them to let go.
WOUld you explain what you mean by elegy. please?
Okay, I would like to humbly suggest you're conflating two things here and the consequence of that conflation important and dysfunctional. You're conflating 1) people's need for stability in their life and 2) how to go about making life more equitable for all. Note that I'm not even touching on your "keep white advantage" slant, which is a millions miles from what Average Joe needs or wants. Average Joe in Detroit works alongside all sorts of "brown" people without problem and certainly doesn't need or want DWB to be a crime.
The ultimate politically feasible point I'm making here is that the way to achieve greater equity for all is to seize political power (aside from social change naturally evolving in society) and alienating people with pie-in-the-sky political agendas hinders gaining that political power.
1. Obama quietly seized power.
2. Obamacare shocked the Nation, but it was too late to pull back.
3. The shocked Nation took power away from the Democrats.
4. The Nation adjusted to Obamacare because there was enough rightness in it.
Rinse and repeat.
Rinsing and repeating means starting by quietly seizing power. Shocking the Nation tends to lose votes. "Eliminating private healthcare insurance" is shocking. "Open borders" is shocking. Don't shock before the election. Win the election in a landslide, enact legislation and if the legislation shocks the Nation, so be it. As long as it's right enough, the Nation will come to accept it. But they're not likely to accept it as an unknown in advance. You don't even know if it's right enough in advance.
One more thing. McCain was leading in the polls before 1) he said the fundamentals of the economy are strong and 2) Lehman Brothers went bankrupt within a short few hours. That led to a landslide victory and 60 seats in the Senate. That was a RARE opportunity. Trump is providing another rare opportunity. Unemployment is at an extreme low point, the economy is doing well, indicators are all in favor of Trump getting re-elected and yet he's managing to do everything he can to diminish his popularity. I assert this is another RARE opportunity for the Democrats. In any case, it's an opportunity gifted on a silver platter. Why blow it?
That is the title of a book that many believe explains Donald Trump's win. It is about the Scotch-Irish ethnic group, a group that makes up huge numbers of the lower middle to lower class white population. Amazon link. This group has serious problems, I get that. Again, these people were what I was raised to be. Being told we were poor because the elites were keeping us down was gospel. And minorities were not our friends, they were our competition. If it were not for the black, we would be the lowest level. We had to fight to make sure they did not pass us.
I have not read the book, his experience may be different. But in the area of Columbus i grew up in, torn down during urban renewal, and in the dirt poor areas of East Columbus, that was life. These were big time voters of George Wallace. You weren't anyone without a Wallace sign. And this same group voted Trump.
To the rest, Reagan delivered a brilliant speech with the shining city on the hill speech. He also delivered a horribly racist speech about the Cadillac driving Chicago welfare Queen. The person was totally made up. So ask yourself about that imagery. Why driving a caddy? Why from Chicago and not Appalachia? He was targeting Scotch Irish fear and it worked. Donald Trump targeted the same thing, the same fear of the brown person. It worked. I am not joining the fear of the brown, if we have to do that to win, screw it. The demographic growths occurring will eventually swamp the fear.
Some of my family has changed. My sister had a total conversion from racist to not sometime during Obama's presidency. She loves her evangelical church. She cannot figure out why she is the only member who liked Obama and the only one who dislikes Trump. I think she is 78, so change is possible for us old dogs. But it is time for the 21st century to stop waiting.
Brown people are not scary.
This is fascinating. Thanks for the thought-provoking post.
It sounds like there's a block of voters that will uniformly vote for Trump, similar to Blacks almost universally voting for Obama. Is that what you're suggesting? What percentage of voters would you guess that to be? Are any of them part of the "Obama Coalition" or completely separate? In other words, would any of them vote for Biden but never in a million years vote for Kamala? (Not because they're racist, but because they want to "maintain" their rung on the ladder.)
When I think of independents, I'm thinking of an entirely different, perhaps somewhat amorphous group. I'm thinking of everyday people who are getting by okay in life, who aren't strongly political in either direction, and who favor gradual, sensible progress. They quite possibly aren't too viscerally aware of the plight of the people liberals are trying to help. I think that group is rather large, maybe even the vast majority of independents. They'd take practically anyone over Trump unless you give them a really good reason to vote for Trump. So then the question becomes, what sort of reason(s) might that be?
I can see why you didn’t vote for Trump, you don’t own your own business!
party over policy is one of the big obstacles for this country.
and the same money that fuels the GOP, fuels the DNC.
Bernie has more liberal DNA in him than Hilary and Biden put together.
the DNC and their donors want a dino to head the DNC ticket.
do you think Comcast, AT&T, and all the other corporations hedging their bets by buying DNC shares too, actually want a liberal to win?
