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US Politics: A Mickey Mouse Operation


DMC

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3 hours ago, Triskele said:

Anyone else kind of astounded about how Biden's fundraising looks like shit but his poll numbers aren't budging and are maybe even improving?  

When I hear things like "that's not where the party is" or variations of it I've tended to agree, but when I see how consistently Biden's position has held I think something like "there's more to this party than we think" or something.  

It's not really that surprising. Biden doesn't have any particularly fanatical following, which means they're not doing small donations. He's not very good at campaigning so far, so he's not drumming up more support. He's basically got all the lazy dems who aren't sure about anyone else. 

Normally he'd be getting the large money donations too, but Buttigieg is eating his lunch there. And I guess normally he'd be getting money from the likes of Steyer, but again - oops. 

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Like I said a couple weeks ago, it's time to recognize that Biden's support is durable and unlikely to dissipate without something unanticipated happening.  He's even recovered from a brief Warren surge the first week this month.  His porous fundraising is an important indicator, but he'll have enough money to at least get him to when people start voting in February.  Hate it when this happens, but I agree with Silver that it's pretty bonkers that the candidate who has maintained a lead in polling average since announcing (and before, for that matter) has hovered around only 20-25 percent in the betting markets - and this mostly reflects that the people who both produce and consume political media are well-educated coastal elites (..*raises hand*).

That being said, while Biden looks he'll be fine for the time being outside of some unknown inflection point or debate debacle, he has a clear vulnerability once voting starts:  he is losing in both Iowa and New Hampshire, and the trend lines in both don't look too encouraging (especially Iowa).  If he doesn't win either, it's very easy to envision a rather rapid collapse of support.  And that's because of his manifest vulnerability - including his fundraising weakness and the distaste of many party activists.

Thing is though, he does seem to have a firewall in South Carolina.  It's very hard to see Buttigieg eating into Biden's support among South Carolinian African Americans even if he gets some run following a strong showing in Iowa.  The only way I see Warren even getting that support is if she wins both IA and NH, in which case she's almost certainly gonna be the nominee anyway.  Weirdly, Biden has benefited from how the primary has evolved.  A potential Buttigieg surge probably hurts Warren just as much as Biden, and his main competitors for the black vote - Harris and Booker - don't look to be emergent anytime soon.

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Pat Robertson compares Trump to Neville Chamberlain:  

Quote

Robertson believes that American withdrawal from the region will embolden other enemies to make plays for territory much like Hitler did, stating "The Kurds, we have abandoned them. They are being slaughtered by the Turks and we have given a major port of Syria, and I promise you as I'm sitting here right now, Russia is going to come against us, Turkey is going to come against us, China is going to come against us, North Korea is going to come against us."

Coupled with recent troubling poll numbers with white evangelicals, Syria has the potential to be far more threatening to Trump's reelection hopes than impeachment.  Trump won 81% of white evangelicals in 2016, and he absolutely needs at least that margin - and turnout - to win again:

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63 percent of white evangelical Protestants in the PRRI study said terrorism is a major concern for them — more than immigration (55 percent), which has been Trump’s single biggest issue, or health care (53 percent). Those figures come amid warnings that the U.S. pullout from Syria could rekindle terrorism in Europe and cause a resurgence of the Islamic State. Already, a separate NPR/Marist survey found that nearly 30% of white evangelicals believe U.S. security has been weakened by Trump.

To be fair, that PRRI poll also showed 99% of GOP white evangelicals oppose impeachment and removal.

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5 hours ago, DMC said:

That being said, while Biden looks he'll be fine for the time being outside of some unknown inflection point or debate debacle, he has a clear vulnerability once voting starts:  he is losing in both Iowa and New Hampshire, and the trend lines in both don't look too encouraging (especially Iowa).  If he doesn't win either, it's very easy to envision a rather rapid collapse of support.  And that's because of his manifest vulnerability - including his fundraising weakness and the distaste of many party activists.

Thing is though, he does seem to have a firewall in South Carolina.  It's very hard to see Buttigieg eating into Biden's support among South Carolinian African Americans even if he gets some run following a strong showing in Iowa.  The only way I see Warren even getting that support is if she wins both IA and NH, in which case she's almost certainly gonna be the nominee anyway.  Weirdly, Biden has benefited from how the primary has evolved.  A potential Buttigieg surge probably hurts Warren just as much as Biden, and his main competitors for the black vote - Harris and Booker - don't look to be emergent anytime soon.

But remember that Nevada votes before South Carolina as well.  While Biden has polled well with Latinos, it is nowhere near as well as his support in the AA community.  Warren has been making a strong push in Nevada, and if she wins NH (which looks likely) and gets top 2 in Iowa, I could easily see her winning Nevada as well.  In that scenario, Biden might turn into a rerun of 2008's Guiliani campaign, where he was the frontrunner but polled badly in early states so he committed to campaigning in Florida (which voted fifth), and lost all momentum. 

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2 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

But remember that Nevada votes before South Carolina as well.

I'll believe Nevada has a significant impact on the race when I see it.  I'm not sure why it doesn't, but I think a lot of it has do to with being a Saturday primary.

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Gabbard is claiming that she’s going to give up running for re-election in her district to focus on the presidential campaign.

Now that’s what I call good news! Might even be worth popping champagne over if it meant she was going away forever, but sadly I’m sure she has a lucrative career ahead of her going on right wing media and being their pet ex-Democrat who spends all her time talking and writing books about how terrible Democrats and liberals are.

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1 minute ago, DMC said:

I'll believe Nevada has a significant impact on the race when I see it.  I'm not sure why it doesn't, but I think a lot of it has do to with being a Saturday primary.

It's clearly the 4th more important, but if it feeds the narrative that Biden is losing momentum, it could be very important nonetheless. 

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1 minute ago, Maithanet said:

It's clearly the 4th more important, but if it feeds the narrative that Biden is losing momentum, it could be very important nonetheless. 

Yeah, maybe.  But Biden's still looking better there than IA and NH, albeit with sparse and older polling - both of which are also reasons I didn't mention it.

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 writing books about how terrible Democrats and liberals are

yeah, she should be cautious of strange political bedfellows.  a marxist radical and a de maistrean reactionary might both have systemic objections to liberal capitalism, but the premises of the objections are completely antagonistic to each other: too little/too late versus too much/too soon.  if either objects to liberalism, they object to each other a fortiori. 

the comical thing is that this a fortiori objection does not always occur in the laboratory of history--we see fascist theory before WWII thinking of bolshevism as merely a branch of 'manchester liberalism,' which is construed as the main enemy within the rightwing doctrine. this makes an easy transition to modern crypto-fascist accusations that vanilla liberals are secret socialists.  

ETA--

and is the human scum custom title taken yet?

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43 minutes ago, sologdin said:

 writing books about how terrible Democrats and liberals are

yeah, she should be cautious of strange political bedfellows.  a marxist radical and a de maistrean reactionary might both have systemic objections to liberal capitalism, but the premises of the objections are completely antagonistic to each other: too little/too late versus too much/too soon.  if either objects to liberalism, they object to each other a fortiori. 

the comical thing is that this a fortiori objection does not always occur in the laboratory of history--we see fascist theory before WWII thinking of bolshevism as merely a branch of 'manchester liberalism,' which is construed as the main enemy within the rightwing doctrine. this makes an easy transition to modern crypto-fascist accusations that vanilla liberals are secret socialists.  

ETA--

and is the human scum custom title taken yet?

Being human scum seems to involve being self identified as a Republican. Tempting as it seems as a title, give it a second thought. 

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Evidently the storm troopers kept asking the cops to arrest them and lead them away in hand cuffs.

~~~~~~~~

AOC invited voters to send in the question they would like to hear asked of the Dem 2020 election candidates.

I would ask them if they are now making plans and contacting people with extended knowledge and experience of the federal government, its agencies and functioning, for lists of qualified people to rebuild what has been and continues to be gutted over these last years.  The damage is so great, especially in the State Department, the Environmental Agency, the Judicial system, that every candidate has to start thinking about this now -- and be willing to confer with each other after the election -- and get to work even before inauguration to put things to rights.

~~~~~~~~

AOC's questioning of the Big $ucker was so to the point, and he was not looking so good, still pretending 1) he didn't really know anything about Cambridge Analytica and what was going on with that, or with the Russians; 2) that it didn't matter; 3) hasn't really done anything to fix the conditions that allow this.

BTW zuckerberg is giving Buttigieg a whole lot of support in many ways, from ads on FB to donations.  Suddenly Buttigieg's ranking among the candidates moved way up.  Coincidence?

 

 

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2 hours ago, Zorral said:

Evidently the storm troopers kept asking the cops to arrest them and lead them away in hand cuffs.

~~~~~~~~

AOC invited voters to send in the question they would like to hear asked of the Dem 2020 election candidates.

I would ask them if they are now making plans and contacting people with extended knowledge and experience of the federal government, its agencies and functioning, for lists of qualified people to rebuild what has been and continues to be gutted over these last years.  The damage is so great, especially in the State Department, the Environmental Agency, the Judicial system, that every candidate has to start thinking about this now -- and be willing to confer with each other after the election -- and get to work even before inauguration to put things to rights.

~~~~~~~~

AOC's questioning of the Big $ucker was so to the point, and he was not looking so good, still pretending 1) he didn't really know anything about Cambridge Analytica and what was going on with that, or with the Russians; 2) that it didn't matter; 3) hasn't really done anything to fix the conditions that allow this.

BTW zuckerberg is giving Buttigieg a whole lot of support in many ways, from ads on FB to donations.  Suddenly Buttigieg's ranking among the candidates moved way up.  Coincidence?

 

 

When do we send in the pink dildos as a show of support?

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32 minutes ago, Reny of Storms End said:

So I definitely over-reacted to the storming the room situation, especially since the Repubs wanted to be arrested. 

Yeah, me too.  Although it does tend to feel like they get away with breaking rules over and over again with no consequences.

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26 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Support of what or whom?  Not a good look for supporters, whomever they might be of whatever it might be ....

 

I was thinking back to those militia types who occupied the national park a while ago. They made an online appeal for support and received boxes of pink dildos in response. Because,you know, being manly men types with winter coming in Montana, pink dildos seemed appropriate.

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54 minutes ago, maarsen said:

I was thinking back to those militia types who occupied the national park a while ago. They made an online appeal for support and received boxes of pink dildos in response. Because,you know, being manly men types with winter coming in Montana, pink dildos seemed appropriate.

Ah!  I missed that.  It's impossible to keep up with hardly anything these days.  Thank you!

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