US Politics: Culture Club

[Centrist Simon Steele]

I think that's it Trial, he just seems sooo disingenuous. But he's far from the worst

[GrimTuesday]

33 minutes ago, Triskele said:

Why is Booker not more popular?  It makes no sense to me. 

I think he's almost the perfect thread-the-needle of progressive versus pragmatic, right in his prime, and totally capable of beating Trump.   

I'm aware of some of the nitpicks like the authenticity thing.  But all of these candidates have something like that.  As Rick Pitino said, Barack Obama is not walking through that door.  I think that Booker's positives are high and his ceiling is high and his negatives have been oversold.  

Man, he seems like a human who was grown in a vat by aliens and programed to to act how they think humans act. I mean, they even made a spare.

On a more serious note, I have big problems with his connections with wall street and in a field that has Warren and Sanders, why would I settle for Booker at this point.

As for Hillary, a lot of folks were yelling from the rooftops that she was a incredibly flawed candidate. I mean, I voted for her, thought she would win, but I had an awful lot of conversations about how focus tested she came across as well as the fact that a massive segment of the population thinks she is the devil or just didn't trust her.

[GrimTuesday]

29 minutes ago, Triskele said:

Thank you for that response.  I get all of that.  

But it feels a little bit like we're all investors looking for a "safe harbor" investment.  

If there's a class project or journalism assignment to list the flaws of all of the candidates there's plenty to say about most.  I guess what I'm thinking right now is that I think we're blaming Booker for having some fairly politician flaws while ignoring how ideal he is in several other respects.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not dismissing him. In fact, his lurch to the left has definitely raised him in my esteem. He has acceptable politics if I had to rank candidates, he is probably number 4 for me (Sanders, Warren, Inslee, then Booker) it's not like he is John Delaney or the Master of Darkness Hickenlooper.

His greatest failing is that he isn't Obama, and honestly, I think that that is a major flaw. Obviously I personally don't consider it to be an issue, but people have such a high expectation that he is never going to meet and I think that it has become all but impossible to reset that expectation to the public at large.

 

ETA, I was just making a joke that they made a spare since he and his brother often look eerily similar in pictures.

[IheartIheartTesla]

I didn't watch the debates, but I did read some hot takes. Looks like I didnt miss much, and its good that this debate will have minimal effect on almost anything.

In my opinion the economy will become noticeably softer in 2020, but not enough to undergo a full blown recession (at least I hope so), which may peel just enough voters away from Trump for the Democrats to eke out a victory.  If Biden is the eventual nominee we better hope that is the case - there is a reason his past attempts to get the Presidency failed, which the GoP will fully take advantage of.

[aceluby]

The more I see him, the more I'm pulling for Castro.  I don't think he'll get it, but I feel like he threads the needle extremely well for progressives and moderates to get behind him and could rebuild and possibly expand on the Obama coalition of voters.  Him next to Trump on the debate stage would show some staggering differences

[Paladin of Ice]

I’ve been waiting and waiting for Booker to get a bigger profile in this race, from the start I thought he would be one of the few that matters in the end and I’ve consistently had him in my second tier of candidates. (First tier is reserved for Elizabeth Warren only.) Especially considering that he was a somewhat notorious media hound in NJ, the fact that he’s been flying quietly under the radar, (aside from some exchanges with Biden) was outright baffling to me for a long time.

 I did hear a few weeks ago that Booker has been going all in on the early states in terms of doing retail politics, that a year before the early primaries he was already spending every hour he could going door to door and giving talks in coffee shops to try to get word of mouth going. He explicitly compared it to his first local city council race, where he was the challenger against a better known and funded incumbent, and saying how he had to be on the grind shaking hands, listening to issues, etc. months before the incumbent even began campaigning. That let him slowly build his name and build buzz until the people in the area actually saw him as a credible challenger, whereas if he didn’t have that head start he’d just be the guy they didn’t know who was challenging the guy they did know, and most times that gets you nowhere.

On one hand I see the sense of that, you can go into primaries with no buzz, but if you score a surprise victory or do significantly better than expected, the buzz will create itself around you. If you come in with tons of media buzz but lose or do worse than expected, you’ll just be yesterday’s headline, (which is worth somewhere between zero and nothing) and you’ll suddenly have a big hole that you’ll need to climb out of.

Still a risky as hell strategy though, because it’s kinda all or nothing. If you don’t have the media buzz and don’t pull off an upset showing, you’re essentially left with nothing at all.

8 hours ago, Triskele said:

Why is Booker not more popular?  It makes no sense to me. 

I think he's almost the perfect thread-the-needle of progressive versus pragmatic, right in his prime, and totally capable of beating Trump.   

I'm aware of some of the nitpicks like the authenticity thing.  But all of these candidates have something like that.  As Rick Pitino said, Barack Obama is not walking through that door.  I think that Booker's positives are high and his ceiling is high and his negatives have been oversold.  

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

What a mess. CNN didn’t hold a debate, they tried to start a fight, and everyone but Booker fell for it. The only candidates that mattered, Biden and Harris, had bad showings. Meanwhile, the candidates with no chance wrote attack ads for Republicans in droves last night. It’s time to cut the field down to six to eight candidates.

[Zorral]

Booker's negs in terms of nation-wide 1) he's African American; 2) mayor of an East Coast City -- this latter he shares with de Blasio, who, as my mayor, I view with very high negatives.  Last night he repeated word-for-word a response I've heard him give many times on local public radio when asked about lead and public housing.  Sheesh.  Lazy much?  He's also a lazy thinker.

I thought Harris looked tired.  Biden irritates me every time he opens his mouth, as do so many white males of his generation: their complacent knowledge that they are at the top of the pyramid means that no one should even think they are ever wrong about anything and should always understand that they know everything and are always right, so it's always that slightly patronizing, hectoring tone that gets through.  Just want to throw them into the general prison population for a few weeks.

I really like Julián Castro.  The dynamics of the entire event were very different from Tuesday night, because not only was the roster diversified, but all the candidates of color were on the stage.  Again, this is why my great take-away of most weird from Wednesday night was that the only representation of African American issues in particular, and that of people with 'brown' skin generally, came from -- Marianne Williamson! Since she began at zero, it almost looks as though if anyone got any kind of bounce since the first round of the debates, it was her.  Woo!

Another of my take-aways from last night was from the introduction of the candidates, and how clear from their interpersonal dynamics it is, that Castro, Booker, Harris, and Gabbard are very familiar with each other from working together already.  Thought that was cool.

But the real take-away is that this nation has no business whatsoever allowing television to run our selection of candidates and elections.  I HATE THE MEDIA, particularly TV.

Which is why I bailed before it was entirely over last night.  Two nights of this, back-to-back, my head hurt, especially as the format and questions deliberately made actual substance impossible, thus to learn more of the details of candidates' thinking and plans, forcing us into waiting for some dramatic fail, melt-down, wrangle.  They deliberately framed most of last night around Biden - Harris, and that was not only unfair, it was wrong.

[DMC]

Yeah the only significance of these debates is how bad - in a multitude of ways - CNN was at conducting them.  I don't think they'll have much of any discernible effect on the candidates except ones that don't matter (e.g. Delaney, Williamson).

[Centrist Simon Steele]

11 hours ago, Triskele said:

Think about Hillary's negatives and think about how puny Booker's seem by comparison.  

ETA:  My outrageously early prediction is that it will be a Warren/Booker ticket.  

I was going to say that I don't know enough about Booker to know what negatives he has, but Grim's post below kind of reminded me. It's not just that he seems fake, it seems like he doesn't even know how to be fake. Which is too bad, this just may be who he is, and that shouldn't be held against him. These complaints are similar to ones about Hillary coming across as too scripted and programmed and her inability to seem normal. There is something there, when a candidate feels insincere, but it's not enough to not vote for them on the big day.

More concerning is the big money donor connections, but I really think Booker isn't a problem in this group. If it came down to pulling the lever for him, I wouldn't even have to close my eyes and hold my breath. Right now I'd do it more with a shrug.

11 hours ago, GrimTuesday said:

Man, he seems like a human who was grown in a vat by aliens and programed to to act how they think humans act. I mean, they even made a spare.

On a more serious note, I have big problems with his connections with wall street and in a field that has Warren and Sanders, why would I settle for Booker at this point.

As for Hillary, a lot of folks were yelling from the rooftops that she was a incredibly flawed candidate. I mean, I voted for her, thought she would win, but I had an awful lot of conversations about how focus tested she came across as well as the fact that a massive segment of the population thinks she is the devil or just didn't trust her.

 

[aceluby]

1 hour ago, DMC said:

Yeah the only significance of these debates is how bad - in a multitude of ways - CNN was at conducting them.  I don't think they'll have much of any discernible effect on the candidates except ones that don't matter (e.g. Delaney, Williamson).

It's like they were going for Republican street cred more than anything.  Never saw anything quite like this before from them, so it leads me to believe that this is their response to the constant barrage of attacks that have been going their way for the last 3 years or so from the WH.

[Larry of the Lawn]

Is there a price point where say Beto could win Cornyns seat (and maybe push Texas blue in the process)?  Like if say Delaney, Yang, and Steyer pooled together $100 mil, or are there some things that money just can't buy?

[Maithanet]

11 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

Is there a price point where say Beto could win Cornyns seat (and maybe push Texas blue in the process)?  Like if say Delaney, Yang, and Steyer pooled together $100 mil, or are there some things that money just can't buy?

Money can help you win, but it will never guarantee victory.  According to Wikipedia, Beto spent $60 million in the race vs Ted Cruz last year.  I don't know if he would have won if he'd spent $100 million, but I personally doubt it.

As for 2020 vs Corbyn, I think that is a much more difficult seat to win than Cruz's.  Corbyn isn't nearly the sleazeball that Cruz is, and Trump will be on the ballot.  It is hard to believe there will be a lot of split ticket voting in any state in 2020, and Texas least of all.  So unless the Democrats actually win Texas next year (not completely impossible, but very unlikely), then Beto's chances are slim, whether he spends $100 or $100 million. 

[DMC]

39 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

Is there a price point where say Beto could win Cornyns seat (and maybe push Texas blue in the process)?  Like if say Delaney, Yang, and Steyer pooled together $100 mil, or are there some things that money just can't buy?

Beto outspent Cruz $79 to $45 million.  That's around a 3/4 or 75% advantage.  And it was a very favorable year for Dems.  And I suspect Cornyn will be significantly more popular than Cruz was (the former is at 43-25 right now).  Generally, campaign spending has diminishing returns.  It's not as bad for challengers, but I'm not sure there's any "price point" that can get you over.  Eventually you're just wasting money.

[Jace, Extat]

7 minutes ago, DMC said:

.  Eventually you're just wasting money.

I also agree that Dems should give up the Florida ghost.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

If you want to flip Texas, register Latinos and minorities more generally by showing them images of the kids in cages and make the mental link that that’s because of Trump and Republicans in general. That’s more important than just mindlessly dumping money on the state.

[Larry of the Lawn]

Just now, Tywin et al. said:

If you want to flip Texas, register Latinos and minorities more generally by showing them images of the kids in cages and make the mental link that that’s because of Trump and Republicans in general. That’s more important than just mindlessly dumping money on the state.

Sure, but that stuff costs money too.  I've been getting involved with DSA stuff this spring and summer but am still a registered Dem and our local Dem shit is starting to organize.  I almost want to move to a battleground state where I could actually do something 

[Maithanet]

4 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

If you want to flip Texas, register Latinos and minorities more generally by showing them images of the kids in cages and make the mental link that that’s because of Trump and Republicans in general. That’s more important than just mindlessly dumping money on the state.

Of course, in Texas, you have to take a state class that has very limited spots in order to legally register voters.  So big voter registration drives are essentially illegal. 

[TrueMetis]

6 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

If you want to flip Texas, register Latinos and minorities more generally by showing them images of the kids in cages and make the mental link that that’s because of Trump and Republicans in general. That’s more important than just mindlessly dumping money on the state.

Make sure to include the various non-white US citizens that were also locked up. Remember, the Republican focus on "illegal" immigration is just a starting point.

[Larry of the Lawn]

3 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Of course, in Texas, you have to take a state class that has very limited spots in order to legally register voters.  So big voter registration drives are essentially illegal. 

These clowns like Steyer, Delaney, Schultz, Yang should just pony up some dough to gotv shit