US Politics: Sing us a song, you're the Tariff man

[Tywin et al.]

17 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

I wouldn't mind letting the loser be Veep.

Well that begs the difficult question that many here are uncomfortable to ask: Can you put two minorities on the ticket in 2020? In a better world the answer would obviously be yes, but we don’t live in that better world.

16 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

CAn somebody explain me this crush on Corey Booker of all people? Policywise he is really not that awesome, is he?

He’s charismatic and plays well on T.V. I personally don’t care for him that much, but it’s easy to see how he would succeed on the campaign trail.  

[Jace, Extat]

Just now, Tywin et al. said:

Well that begs the difficult question that many here are uncomfortable to ask: Can you put two minorities on the ticket in 2020? In a better world the answer would obviously be yes, but we don’t live in that better world.

He’s charismatic and plays well on T.V. I personally don’t care for him that much, but it’s easy to see how he would succeed on the campaign trail.  

Who the fuck said something about two minorities? Beto is going to be Biden's Veep.

[Ormond]

2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Plus she can just higher an assistant to do all the actual duties of the CoS that don’t pertain to telling the president the hard truths.

Completely irrelevant -- but just today for the first time that I remember I had a student paper where "hire" was misspelled as "higher" and here it turns up on this thread. Is there some stupid new spell check error operating?

[Maithanet]

35 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

The argument for Beto is that he's young, charismatic, and an outsider, and has centrist appeal while also appealing to a broad group of the coalitions in the Democratic party. The big problem is that he is a loser and doesn't have a lot of experience, but when going against Trump that might not be a big deal. 

The other calculus is that in order to overvote Trump you need to do one of two things - either make voters who voted for Trump defect, or make more of a turnout in the places where Trump wins. A centrist makes the former more likely, but only for certain people (Rust belt voters, other independents, etc). The latter requires charisma and energy for certain populations, and that's where Beto is doing well. 

Beto is actually the one candidate who MIGHT (very speculative) be able to do both.  He's young and interesting enough to excite the liberal base, and yet he's an approachable, political outsider from Texas, which Midwesterners seem to really like for some reason. 

25 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Well that begs the difficult question that many here are uncomfortable to ask: Can you put two minorities on the ticket in 2020? In a better world the answer would obviously be yes, but we don’t live in that better world.

I don't think you would want to find out.  I think if Harris wins, the ideal ticket would be a white man with some midwestern appeal, like Hickenlooper or Brown (though the latter would mean losing a Senate seat).  For Booker it might be a little more complicated since the ideal choice would be a white woman, but I'm not sure if that would short fuse some people's brains out of repressed fear of a black man and white woman together. 

[Kalbear]

I don't really think the VP matters all that much. Maybe if you want to secure a very specific state, you go for a VP who does a good job campaigning in that state specifically - but otherwise it's the top of the ticket, and not much else, which matters. 

[mormont]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

Well that begs the difficult question that many here are uncomfortable to ask: Can you put two minorities on the ticket in 2020? In a better world the answer would obviously be yes, but we don’t live in that better world.

We do, however, live in a world where ther vast majority of voters who will be put off by two minorities on the ticket would be equally put off by just one.

[Maithanet]

7 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I don't really think the VP matters all that much. Maybe if you want to secure a very specific state, you go for a VP who does a good job campaigning in that state specifically - but otherwise it's the top of the ticket, and not much else, which matters. 

Agreed, which is why losing a Senate seat with your VP pick is so foolish. 

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

CAn somebody explain me this crush on Corey Booker of all people? Policywise he is really not that awesome, is he?

Personally, I think it's stupid -- his relationship with Chris Christie is much too warm.  But you know, the orange nazi hates him, so....  I dunno.

Most of all because he wants it!  Feh.

 

 

[Fez]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

I still don’t get the argument for Beto to be the nominee. Sure he was a great campaigner, but he lost. Cruz is a weak candidate and Beto ran in a wave year, so it’s not surprising that he over performed, and honestly, Democrats should do a lot better in Texas than they have over the last few decades. IMO Beto would better serve the party by becoming a member of leadership at the DNC. I think that’s where you can maximize his value.

But I do agree that it will probably be Harris or Booker in the end. They’ll likely perform the best on T.V.

He's exciting to a lot of Democratic voters and has shown an impressive fundraising ability, which will be critical in the summer and fall of this year when there's tons of potential candidates competing for attention.

He's not my first choice, that's Amy Klobuchar; but I'm trying to be realistic about who I think can win a Democratic presidential primary in the era of Trump. I'll see where things on Super Tuesday, when my state votes, to figure out who I'll personally vote for in the primary.

One possible name for VP is Bloomberg. I think he bought a lot of goodwill inside the party for how much money he donated this past cycle and how successfully he targeted his funding too. And if the nominee is one of the more liberal options, I think a legitimately famous centrist name like him could reassure the sorts of suburban moderates who voted Democratic for their first time ever this past November.

[Mexal]

1 hour ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

CAn somebody explain me this crush on Corey Booker of all people? Policywise he is really not that awesome, is he?

Nope. Don't get it myself. Really, he's just loud with sound bites and therefore gets visibility. But when you look deep into who funds him, it's ugly.

[Mexal]

1 minute ago, Fez said:

He's exciting to a lot of Democratic voters and has shown an impressive fundraising ability, which will be critical in the summer and fall of this year when there's tons of potential candidates competing for attention.

I think this point matters. The small dollar donations he got was insane and he did it in a digital, interesting way. I don't think you can underestimate that ability. He inspired a lot of people with his charisma. Losing in Texas isn't really a big deal since Dems don't win in Texas but his lack of experience might.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 minutes ago, Mexal said:

Nope. Don't get it myself. Really, he's just loud with sound bites and therefore gets visibility. But when you look deep into who funds him, it's ugly.

Who funds him?

[Maithanet]

Just now, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Who funds him?

He's a Senator from NJ, who do you think?  Big Banks, Big Pharma.

[Mexal]

2 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

He's a Senator from NJ, who do you think?  Big Banks, Big Pharma.

This.

[DanteGabriel]

Booker gives me the creeps. He's a corporate Democrat, too obviously thirsty (everyone who gets that far has to be, but he's so blatant), and his voice grates (Obama's voice is underrated as a political asset). His resume looks fine on a two minute review but everything else is full of red flags.

[mormont]

20 minutes ago, Mexal said:

Nope. Don't get it myself. Really, he's just loud with sound bites and therefore gets visibility. But when you look deep into who funds him, it's ugly.

 

19 minutes ago, Mexal said:

I think this point matters. The small dollar donations he got was insane and he did it in a digital, interesting way. I don't think you can underestimate that ability. He inspired a lot of people with his charisma. Losing in Texas isn't really a big deal since Dems don't win in Texas but his lack of experience might.

Um. About that.

https://splinternews.com/by-accepting-oil-money-beto-orourke-broke-a-promise-to-1831000480

Now, OK. It's Texas. There's a lot of oil money around. But still.

[Zorral]

52 minutes ago, Fez said:

He's exciting to a lot of Democratic voters and has shown an impressive fundraising ability, which will be critical in the summer and fall of this year when there's tons of potential candidates competing for attention.

He's not my first choice, that's Amy Klobuchar; but I'm trying to be realistic about who I think can win a Democratic presidential primary in the era of Trump. I'll see where things on Super Tuesday, when my state votes, to figure out who I'll personally vote for in the primary.

One possible name for VP is Bloomberg. I think he bought a lot of goodwill inside the party for how much money he donated this past cycle and how successfully he targeted his funding too. And if the nominee is one of the more liberal options, I think a legitimately famous centrist name like him could reassure the sorts of suburban moderates who voted Democratic for their first time ever this past November.

Absolutely no!  You will be so sorry -- you will lose your home, just for starters.

Also, he'll never do #2.  He's The Boss.  Period.

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, mormont said:

 

Um. About that.

https://splinternews.com/by-accepting-oil-money-beto-orourke-broke-a-promise-to-1831000480

Now, OK. It's Texas. There's a lot of oil money around. But still.

Okay, people need to figure out that donations from people WHO WORK IN oil is not the same thing as donations FROM THE COMPANY. If I donate to Clinton it shows up as a donation from Microsoft, but it doesn't mean Microsoft donated him money, nor does it give Microsoft any particular say in his funding.

[Bonnot OG]

1 hour ago, DanteGabriel said:

Booker gives me the creeps. He's a corporate Democrat, too obviously thirsty (everyone who gets that far has to be, but he's so blatant), and his voice grates (Obama's voice is underrated as a political asset). His resume looks fine on a two minute review but everything else is full of red flags.

He's my senator, and when he was the mayor of Newark my cousin bumped heads with him a lot (hes union rep for newark school district). Booker can be real scummy at times and counterproductive to down right harmful.

 

I bother Bookers office at least weekly with emails, letters, and sometimes calls lol.

[Tywin et al.]

3 hours ago, Kalbear said:

The argument for Beto is that he's young, charismatic, and an outsider, and has centrist appeal while also appealing to a broad group of the coalitions in the Democratic party. The big problem is that he is a loser and doesn't have a lot of experience, but when going against Trump that might not be a big deal. 

The other calculus is that in order to overvote Trump you need to do one of two things - either make voters who voted for Trump defect, or make more of a turnout in the places where Trump wins. A centrist makes the former more likely, but only for certain people (Rust belt voters, other independents, etc). The latter requires charisma and energy for certain populations, and that's where Beto is doing well. 

I think the key thing here is that he is a loser. I'm not sure he should have ran even if he won. 

3 hours ago, Maithanet said:

I don't think you would want to find out.  I think if Harris wins, the ideal ticket would be a white man with some midwestern appeal, like Hickenlooper or Brown (though the latter would mean losing a Senate seat).  For Booker it might be a little more complicated since the ideal choice would be a white woman, but I'm not sure if that would short fuse some people's brains out of repressed fear of a black man and white woman together. 

Yeah, this is essentially where I'm at too. 

2 hours ago, mormont said:

We do, however, live in a world where ther vast majority of voters who will be put off by two minorities on the ticket would be equally put off by just one.

Sure, but I'm curious what the difference would be. There was chatter back in 2016 that Hillary couldn't pick a woman as her running mate because it would be too risky. 

2 hours ago, Fez said:

One possible name for VP is Bloomberg. 

How dare you!!!!