Rachel Barnhart is a Rochester-area celebrity who ran a primary challenge against another Democrat for a New York State Assembly seat earlier this year. Barnhart lost, and wrote a book about the experience, Broad-Casted. Her book contains lessons for anyone thinking about running for office, or even those of us who are looking for Democrats to challenge incumbents in the next elections, because Barnhart was probably a better candidate than the average first-time Democratic candidate, even Democrats running for federal office.
The seat Barnhart chose for her run was AD-138, the ultimate Democratic safe Assembly seat, which was gerrymandered all over the Rochester area but has as its base the white, liberal, Southeast suburbs. Bronson, who is by all accounts a nice guy, is an establishment Democrat – he went to Albany, voted with leadership, and really didn’t make much of an impression in local media.
While we can argue whether Barnhart should have chosen this fight, the realities of gerrymandering and New York State legislature politics gave her few other races to choose from. The other races this year were either in heavily Republican districts with well-financed incumbents, or power bases of long-entrenched Democratic leaders in the leg. In either case, she would have been crushed. Our federal, county and city offices all require a six or seven figure fundraising effort, which Barnhart (quite reasonably) wasn’t willing to undertake. This is lesson one: a good candidate is going to pick a race where there’s at least an outside chance of winning, with a fundraising goal that they think is achievable.
Because Barnhart had been a local TV news personality for more than 15 years, she was able to run an abbreviated campaign. Her run started in June, and the primary was in September. This is important because (as is exhaustively covered in the book), Barnhart is by no means independently wealthy. A less well-known candidate would have had to spend more time campaigning, and more money advertising, to get the kind of name recognition that Barnhart had coming off the starting block. Barnhart did devote every waking moment to her campaign once it began. Lesson two: it’s not enough to be recognized or popular in the community — a candidate needs the personal financial resources to campaign without any money coming in. It’s hard to overstate the personal risk and cost involved in launching a campaign.
On the topic of money, Barnhart was encouraged and initially financed by Scott Gaddy, a local political operative with a bit of a shady past. Gaddy was closely aligned with one mainly black faction of the local Democratic party, led by David Gantt, a rather corrupt Assembly member. That faction was able to successfully run Lovely Warren, Gantt’s protege, for the job of mayor by driving turnout in the mayoral primary. (The other faction, which is mostly white, is led by Joe Morelle, who is the Majority Leader of the Assembly.) Gaddy had some kind of falling out with Gantt and Warren, and he providing the initial campaign capital, as well as a lot of strategy and advice, to Barnhart. After that start, Barnhart’s campaign was mainly financed by small donations. Barnhart also got logistical support and advice from a couple of local Republican characters, Bill Nojay and Aaron Wicks — Wicks in particular helped her volunteers navigate New York’s finicky petitioning rules. Another lesson here: a purely grassroots campaign is a great theory, but there are financial and logistical barriers to entry that require establishment figures to navigate.
Barnhart was mainly done in by her opponent outspending and out-mailing her. He was supported by a number of local unions, including NYSUT, the teachers’ union. Barnhart’s pretty chapped about NYSUT’s role, since she felt that she’s was a better candidate for teachers, but NYSUT backed the guy that they’ve backed over the years, because turning on him would have sent a pretty negative messages to other candidates that they’ve backed over the years. In New York, until about 2008, we’ve seen unions back Republicans in some races due to long alliances between incumbents and unions. The lesson here is that you can’t expect to separate long-time institutional donors from candidates that they’ve supported in the past just because you have a better message. That’s a risk a lot of institutions won’t take.
If you’ve read this far, you might be interested in either buying the book from the website (a Kindle edition is available), or going to a book signing in Rochester this afternoon from 2-4 at the Little Theater cafe. There’s a lot of Rochester inside baseball in the piece, but I think a fair amount of it is generally applicable to any insurgent campaign, and we’re going to need quite a few of those in the coming years.
WereBear
Thanks for this! It is pertinent to my interests. :)
Morzer
What’s the evidence for the claim that it was the money/mailings wot won it? Might the unions have given her opponent a better ground game? Did he have better local name recognition among voters in that specific district?
Brachiator
Sounds a bit Trump-light in terms of parlaying celebrity status into voter awareness.
However, the book sounds interesting, informative and potentially useful.
Rachel Barnhart
He was not known outside of two southeast districts in the city made up of mostly white, more affluent voters. Everywhere else, he was not popular. That was our hunch going in and it held true in election results. We were outspent at least 3-1. The transaction costs for opponent to get an extra 500 votes were enormously high. (All explained in book.)
Keith G
I ended my two week news blackout and have begun wading in to the most gentle and yet thoughtful platforms for analysis of the group that I usually turn to. Though, I am most interested in empirical data and not hivemind CW.
To that end, I spent an hour while finishing laundry this morning listening to a discussion between Ezra Klein and Ron Brownstein. I found it thoughtful yet challenging and data-based.
Link: The Ezra Klein Show
Kay
Thanks for this mistermix. Running for office is hard. It’s no fun. It impacts your family and your financial well-being. For Democrats in red areas for House seats it means almost surely losing but spending a year on unpaid labor and giving up all your free time. I’ve helped with a lot of these races and I always thank them for doing it, because it’s a sacrifice.
We tend to get very young people or financially secure retirees for statehouse challenges, and there’s a reason for that. They either have not that much to lose or are secure enough to take a hit.
Half the time when we try to get people to run their spouse vetoes it. Can you blame them? They’re exposing their family to all kinds of scrutiny, half of which is invented or so poorly reported it’s 90% bullshit. They can also wave bye-bye to their spouse for a year. They won’t be seeing much of them.
One of the worst things anti-government people have succeeded in doing is portraying every public office as this cushy job that everyone is clamoring for and lucky to have. It’s the arrogance, that “this is EASY- why are they so bad at it?” It’s not easy. It’s not easy to run, it’s not easy to win and it’s not easy to do that work. Every single time I have helped one of these people there will be a point in the campaign where I thank God I am not the candidate and can stay behind the scenes. Every time.
Iowa Old Lady
Trump tweets:
And a reply from Alec Baldwin:
Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim
So she was working with a crook and two Republicans? Wow, sounds like a real winner.
Mind you, I’m just reacting to what you’ve told me here.
HelloRochester
The Rochester area is so weird. When I was home a few years ago and saw that there’s now a 24hr local news network, I groaned. There’s only so much worthy content that can be generated for a small dead/dying city and so it creates another layer of fear and confusion for the already bitter local olds. The east side/west side divide, though, is a good microcosm of blue/red state divide and how racism is used as self soothing behavior for disenfranchised people raised in a suck up/punch down culture that equates wealth with success; don’t turn on the people who took good care of themselves at your expense while disassembling Kodak and GM jobs, blame people of color and section 8 housing recipients.
JMG
@Kay So right. I know the people who from afar urge there be Democratic candidates in every election everywhere are right in principle, but they ignore the human cost of that approach. At a minimum, you are asking individuals to sustain a very public humiliation at considerable personal cost. And there’s nothing you can legally give them as compensation except gratitude.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Kudos to you for helping them do that thankless work.
@HelloRochester: It sure does sound like a microcosm — switch up the company names in your last sentence, and it would apply to so many other places.
Kay
@Iowa Old Lady:
You wonder when this gets too embarrassing and everyone has to admit this was a REALLY bad hire.
Maybe the institutional heft of that office can prop this clown up, but boy it is going to take a national effort to pretend he’s even remotely suited or qualified for this job. The cretin thinks there’s such a thing as “equal time” in comedy shows and ordinary citizens have to “apologize” for booing his Administration. Pence was booed at a baseball game in Indiana. He knows better than to demand an “apology”.
I don’t plan on helping with propping him up. That’s not my job. I plan to hang on to the reality that is right in front of my nose. I’m not letting go of “obvious truth” to help with the effort to make Trump “presidential”. It won’t work anyway.
OzarkHillbilly
Repeat from the dying Morning Garden thread: If anyone is interested,
SPLC
I just sent them $25, so did Another Scott.
Kay
@JMG:
In a certain way they have to suspend disbelief. It has happened again and again and I’m not making fun of them- it’s very human and probably necessary. At some point they always tell me they saw a lot of yard signs :)
I was a treasurer in 2011 and I won’t do it again. It wasn’t the volunteer hours- it was responding to bullshit complaints from a rabid Republican on our Bd of Elections. This wasn’t even her idea. She’s not a bad lady and I know her quite well. She was pressured into making me spend hours on defending documentation on campaign finance in a race where we raised a total of 3200 dollars. I was faxing her sections of the Ohio code. That’s how ridiculous it was. My “defense” consisted or sending her the relevant sections of the state law she administers. It took hours.
Baud
@Kay: Thanks, Kay.
kirbster
My Democratic state senator chose not to run again this year. There were two bog-standard Democrats vying for the nomination to run for the seat and it was obvious that one of them had a ton of money behind him. I received phone calls, a dozen mailings, and a team of door-knockers for the candidate, while his opponent mailed me twice and relied on name recognition from a prior elected office she held. The newcomer won the nomination and went on to win the state senate seat. I guess this confirms Barnhart’s observations about the big money it takes to successfully run for political offiice
jeffreyw
@Kay:
He wasn’t asking for an apology.
He was asking for an “Amen”.
Brachiator
@Kay:
Unfortunately, even if people admitted their error, it would not make any difference.
The more fundamental question is why is the president-elect of the United States paying any attention to any of this stuff and going onto Twitter late at night to post his … “musings.”
This shit is dumber and more trivial than anything that Sarah Palin did when she was VP candidate, or even governor.
Peale
@Kay: yep. The press will run with the “look at him grow into the role” narrative and praise little “baby steps” and “first day at school” moments. But those are easier stories to sell about a normal, but otherwise well behaved president elect. No one wants to read stories about a neurotic, colicky baby.
GrandJury
@Kay: Got too embarassing sometime during the primaries.
Embarassing isn’t a strong enough word for where we are right now.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
are we a year away from that time Lorne thought it would adorbs and daring to have the Shitgibbon host the show?
@Kay: Alec McGillis, of whom I am usually a fan, is tut-tutting about “liberals” being more preoccupied with the Hamilton thing than the Trump U thing, the meetings with Indian business partners, the Japanese diplomats, the foreign officials swarming on Trump’s DC hotel…. Meanwhile I look at my dead tree NYT “above the fold”: two pretty standard articles on Trump forming his cabinet, one story , with two pictures, about Hamilton and Pense, and an analysis headlined (haven’t read the article yet) selling Jared Kushner as “a Steadying Hand”. A quick look through section 1 gets me to page 20 to get to a neutral headline about Trump maintaining his business activities while President. I’m guessing Alec McGillis has at least a social relationship with some of the reporters and editors involved in those choices. It’s not liberals snarking on twitter who are shaping this narrative.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: and Karen Tumulty calls out her own paper, good on her
Baud
I respect any Democrat who can run and win in this environment.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Not a cloud in the sky at the NYT.
GrandJury
@Peale: I read a story that tried to paint the Pence/Bannon thing as “building a team of rivals”. So yea, some press will try paint this clown as cinderella.
NobodySpecial
@Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim: Can’t blame you there, we’re long veterans of the spoiler candidate or the invisible challenger here in Illinois.
NJDave
@OzarkHillbilly: Because DW worked in pharma for a number of years, we got an unexpected “Trump bonus” on her stock the day after the election. Some of that went to SPLC, some to ACLU, some to Planned Parenthood, etc. I like the idea that an unintended consequence of Trump is increased funding to people doing God’s work.
Brachiator
@Peale:
I don’t care about narratives or metaphors. I just would like a little truth. I am not seeing much, hell, not seeing anything from Trump right now. But if he somehow manages to grow into the role, I want to hear about it. If he continues to stumble, I want to hear about it.
Right now, the more historically minded Trump supporters can get a lot of play from, “Hey, you know who else was considered unsuited for the office?”
Harper’s Cartoon of the Day
Trump doesn’t drink either. I guess he has one thing in common with Abe Lincoln.
Schlemazel
@GrandJury:
A team of rivals, like the SS and SA were rivals. That was a celebrated partnership that ended with Hummingbird. Good times.
debbie
@Iowa Old Lady:
Yay, Alec!
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
It doesn’t matter but I think this is a fool’s errand. I’m letting Trump happen. I don’t control the world.
The “institutions” piece has interested me for a long time, though, because of my job. I have watched lawyers deny what was right in front of their noses as far as incompetent or unfit judges because they are attached to, believe in, institutions. I get it. I too am a “rule” person. I don’t pretend to be disruptive or creative. I rely on the legitimacy of institutions and I know it but I won’t pretend this time. There’s been too much of that. It’s past time for hard truths and real examinations of what happened and the consequences of what happened. There will be consequences. People have to pay for bad decisions. I’m not in charge of that- it’s just true.
This is the reckoning. I didn’t want to bring it on- I value order and predictability and I’m not ashamed to admit that. But I will not deny that it’s here now that other people subjected me and mine to all this risk. It was reckless and stupid, but here we are. We can’t deal with it by denying.
mb
“Lovely Warren”
Now that’s a great name for a politician — or anyone, really.
Iowa Old Lady
@GrandJury: I read someone calling the inclusion of Priebus as “reaching across the aisle.” The chair of the RNC!
Matt McIrvin
@Brachiator:
George W. Bush!
Iowa Old Lady
@NJDave: When W sent everyone a few hundred bucks, the UU church we were going to paid its mortgage off from people donating it straight to them.
NeenerNeener
I can’t help thinking that the shmuck is going to get tired of all the criticism that goes with being President and start looking for ways to become a private citizen again. He’ll hang around for the inauguration because he’ll want the coronation, but sooner or later all the constant scrutiny is going to get to him and he’ll step down for “health reasons”. Then Dense becomes Prez and picks RMoney for VP. In 2020 Pense is radioactive like Gerald Ford and the Republicans present Romney/Ryan II: Electric Bugaloo.
And That Fucking Guy gets the title “Former President” and can continue to do rallies to his little shrunken heart’s content and swap out Melania for a younger model without having to wait 4 to 8 more years.
Emma
@JMG: And as a general rule, Dems love to piss on losers as much as Republicans do.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Not to Godwin, I’mnot comparing Trump to anyone- I don’t know who Donald Trump is an either does anyone else but my 8th grader has a great social studies teacher and they are listening to a transcript of the Nuremburg trials online. The transcript is read. I heard it last night while he was doing schoolwork and the starkness of the legal language is just amazing- their institutions failed, utterly and completely, and they had to re-establish “society”. They did that not thru “civility” or telling nice stories but thru harsh truth. People can deal with things. They can tell the truth. We don’t need “civility” we need a recitation of facts. We’re starved for that.
MomSense
This sounds like a silly thing to do but I am encouraging everyone I know to journal. Write down what you know to be true, the values you cherish, and the things you think are important to remember. I think we are going to be so overwhelmed with bullshit, misinformation, smears, denials,etc that we are all going to need our personal touchstone diaries to ground us in truth.
MomSense
@NeenerNeener:
They’ll just create state run media. Problem solved.
Patricia Kayden
@Iowa Old Lady: SNL allowed Trump to host a whole show while no other presidential candidate from either party was accorded the same opportunity. Trump has gotten more than equal time from SNL. He needs to take several seats if he can’t handle booing or criticism (of himself or his VP).
NJDave
@Iowa Old Lady: Also UU. We recently had a great joint march for BLM with the local Baptist Church. Hundreds and hundreds showed up, great speakers at the end, and now ongoing projects between the churches. The main street of Summit was shut down for hours.
Of course, no coverage by anything but the local internet press.
The goal wasn’t coverage, though that would have been nice. The goal was for two churches to cooperate on points of alignment. “United we stand …”
mai naem mobile
Well, I am looking for silver linings and one is that Tbogg has upped his snarkaliciousness. Another is that if I go to a FEMA camp I’ll be there with the conservatives who shut up while the RWNJS were calling PBO a muslin Kenyan and dumb and cunning and calling Michelle all kinds ugly ugly names, and I can tell them what cowards they were.
Patricia Kayden
@NeenerNeener: Trump would only step down from the Presidency if it no longer provides a way for him to grift. The amount of money he can make off his Presidential stint is limitless so I think we’re stuck with him for at least 4 years. I’m hoping he’ll mess up enough to shake off some of his more avid supporters. It’s not as if he’s not prone to gaffes, missteps and an alarming lack of judgment. When his supporters realize that he’s not going to build the wall and that Black/Brown/gay people are still around, they’ll freak out and turn on him. Or so I hope.
Kay
@MomSense:
I’m having a lot of trouble with it, partly because: I’m a Democrat but I don’t think Democrats are up to this either. I know Republican leadership will fail the Trump Test and I’m not at all confident Democratic leadership can pass it either. It’s like we have a bunch of people acting like political operatives when we need something heftier and more legitimate :)
I wish Chuck Schumers clever machinations would solve this but it’s such a flimsy tool for such a huge job. I’m not getting any sense of the enormity of what has happened here.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
My bet is that many people who voted for him will close their eyes and refuse to recognize how bad he is until it’s completely unavoidable. They’d rather continue to pretend it was a good idea than admit they’re suckers.
MomSense
@Kay:
Our institutions completely failed us and it looks to me like Democrats are jockeying for position in the party and not organizing for resistance.
We’re on our own. We have to organize locally.
BBA
Meanwhile, in my district (AD-65), the incumbent Assemblywoman actually lost her primary. Not sure whether it was the community ties, the NY Times endorsement, or something else that put Niou over the top, but I’m glad we didn’t let the Silver crony stay in office for more than a few months.
EDIT: I should point out that this was the loathsome Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s district until his fraud conviction earlier this year.
Central Planning
@mistermix:
That’s not true. Rich Funke won the R seat to the NY Senate, and he was just a local newscaster/sports reporter here in Rochester.
Patricia Kayden
@WereBear: I’m going to watch the movie you suggested in the last thread, “Conspiracy”. Looks interesting. We can never learn too much about Nazis — especially since their themes have survived their reign and always seem to pop up in diverse countries, including our own. Rightwing political parties look poised to take over several Western European countries (possibly as a backlash to Islamist terrorist attacks). The world may become even scarier next year.
jeffreyw
@Roger Moore:
“Yeah, he’s a traitor, and a grifter but, By God, he’s OUR traitor and grifter!”
Betty Cracker
@Kay: In my heart of hearts, I was certain Trump would lose because he’s just too embarrassing to be president. I didn’t necessarily think his lies, viciousness, racism, misogyny or extremism would take him down, but I did truly believe Americans had enough national pride that a sufficient number would reject such an obvious buffoon to represent us.
I was wrong. Now I’m thinking that at best, Trump’s election represents the moment when America jumped the shark. We’ll almost certainly go on as a country after that clown exits the stage. But we’ve been incalculably diminished. He’s a joke. And now we’re a joke.
Gindy51
@Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim: My thoughts exactly, no wonder she lost. Maybe the people voting in that district found out about her support and said NO Way.
WereBear
That is where I am at. The only one who seems to see the whole dimension of the problem is President Obama, and I have never seen him so upset and concerned.
Baud
@Betty Cracker: Agree.
Sometimes I wonder if white people were more damaged by 9-11 or the black president.
Colleeniem
@OzarkHillbilly: Donated! Thanks for the reminder :).
WereBear
@Patricia Kayden: Do let me know what you think of the movie.
I was explaining to one of the staffers that this is typical of scared people, but the Dems trying to downplay the fear is the wrong response. They have to show themselves to be willing to stand up to this terrible trend, not go along with it!
If we need new leaders, let’s hope some will rise. So many of ours look so old and cowardly. It does not inspire.
WereBear
@Betty Cracker: Yes. I work very hard not to overestimate the stupidity of some chunks of the populace, and yet each time, I have not done it enough.
D58826
According to a Trump aid, Romney’s meeting yesterday was a chance fore Romney to kiss Das Fuhrer’s ring.
That’s what you get for dealing with Das Fuhrer. Romney’s good guy reputation just went up in smoke but I guess it was important to kiss the ring to keep the Romney business interests safe. The interests of thew United States not so much.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/306911-report-adviser-says-trump-meeting-was-chance-for-romney-to-kiss-his
Villago Delenda Est
@Iowa Old Lady: Drumpf is a crybaby. Fuck him, his moran veep, and his parasite family.
bemused
@Kay:
I think a lot of people have no idea how low most state legislators’ salaries are. In MN Reps and Senators not in leadership roles make just over $31,000 a year plus living and travel expenses during legislative session.
Brachiator
@Matt McIrvin: RE: Right now, the more historically minded Trump supporters can get a lot of play from, “Hey, you know who else was considered unsuited for the office?”
I could also tell you about the local talk radio hosts who gushed about what a great president Reagan was, and how he was accused of being a dummy.
Kay
@WereBear:
Right? So true. He’s the one who actually got me thinking that something new will appear. He said something to the effect of this may be an opportunity. So we’re watching institutional failure – looking on as each one fails- but something new and up to the task could appear. It isn’t Elizabeth Warren speeches or Democrats adopting guns and pickup trucks rhetoric. That’s just insufficient to the work at hand. Actually the FIRST institutional failure was the campaign system. That collapsed first. Looking to that for help seems oddly too little and too late.
WereBear
@Kay: If we didn’t have President Obama I would go right out of my tree at this point.
schrodinger's cat
@Kay: I don’t get the Liz Warren love that exists in the liberal bloggy world. The cutesy names Pierce and others give her etc. I have seen her speeches, she comes across as a hectoring know-it-all.
schrodinger's cat
Want to ask a house related question. How essential is a dehumidifier in the basement? Any recommendations or suggestions?
Baud
@Kay: Hopefully, something new in media. The media has now slimed Gore, Kerry and Clinton on manufactured stories to the benefit of the GOP. No reason to believe 2016 will be any different.
schrodinger's cat
I just saw the BBC North America page. If anything they are even more cloying than NYT and WashPost put together about you know who.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I hope so, but I doubt it, it was Romney and his aides who mainstreamed Trump to get his Birthers, but that’s gone down the memory hole
I suspect it’s more about maintaining the Deplorable vote for Tagg or Knob or Jagg when he/they attempt to fulfill that White Horse/Mormon Kennedy destiny
schrodinger's cat
@Baud: I have been seen saying that right from the time that O took office, he has had to combat 2 opposition parties the Republicans and MSM.
gogol's wife
@Kay:
You sound just like me.
In Germany in the 1930s and Russia in the 1990s, people had to deal with horrible, life-threatening upheaval for years and so they turned to a strongman. We have NO SUCH EXCUSE for this disastrous turn of events.
gogol's wife
@NeenerNeener:
Hate to say it, but this sounds like a best-case scenario to me.
Inmourning
Up first in January is Medicare phaseout. A terrible idea that Trump opposed during the election, but now supports. It has received almost no attention, except at Josh Marshall’s place. Please call your representatives and get them on record on this.
Betty Cracker
@schrodinger’s cat: Ever seen her shame the ever loving hell out of a billionaire banker on a televised hearing? I get the Warren love, and I think she has an important role to play in the post-Trumpocalypse Democratic Party. And unlike Sanders, she’s actually a Democrat.
schrodinger's cat
@Betty Cracker: The Wells Fargo hearing? The Congressional hearing theatrics don’t impress me. Has she taken to task her ex-colleagues at Harvard, you know the ones that doctored the data about austerity?
Kathleen
@MomSense: Brilliant idea. I just had that conversation with a friend about the importance of claiming who we are and what we want. Self care is so important right now.
WereBear
@Betty Cracker: I see the future Democratic leaders as primarily NOT your basic white man.
Women, people of color, marginalized religions and the LBTQ community; this is where our next generation will have to come from.
People who understand tyranny and oppression.
schrodinger's cat
@Kay: Agreed that’s my motto henceforth.Satyameva Jayate. Truth alone triumphs.
Roger Moore
@NeenerNeener:
I don’t think so. When he gets tired of the criticism, he’s going to focus on how to silence it. He’s looking at by far the biggest money making opportunity of his life, and he’s not going to give that up easily.
mai naem mobile
The only solution I have is the Dems run out the clock as much as you can. Basically what they did with the ACA. Unfortuna tell I think the GOP is probably going to be too smart to let that happen that much. The Dems also need to start hanging Putisconi on his neck now because there’s basically a 99% chance he’s going to find himself in a scanal pretty soon.
Villago Delenda Est
@Emma: I see that going on right now with second guessing Hillary. It’s always blame the campaign, not the idiots who fell for Donald’s blatant, obvious lies.
Avery Greynold
@OzarkHillbilly: Giving to deserving organizations (SPLC) is great, but I hate it when it is done with dishonest sales tactics such as “your donation will be doubled, matched by another donor”. Do we really think a donor approached them and proposed a $800K donation conditional upon other donors? That they wouldn’t have given a dime if small donors didn’t supply a match?
Baud
@schrodinger’s cat: I like Warren, but I tend to agree that I’m ready for something beyond talk.
Amir Khalid
@Iowa Old Lady:
Well that’s only ow far little fingers can reach, n’est-ce pas?
@D58826:
makes me cringe. It should be der Führer, But then that may have been the reaction you meant to cause.
SuzieC
@OzarkHillbilly: Thanks for the link. I also sent them $25.00.
BBA
@mai naem mobile: Scandals aren’t going to work, because they’ll be easily dismissed as attempts to distract us from the real issue – namely, BENGHAZI!!!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: I like Warren, and I think she’s a very good Senator, and a very good base-rally speaker, but I’m skeptical about her broader appeal. And while HRC created some self-inflicted wounds, and in some ways over-learned the wrong lessons from the Obama campaigns, the terrible awful worst candidate ever ran ahead of several Dem Senate candidates in important states, including IIANM the very Bernie-ish Russ Feingold
schrodinger's cat
@Baud: She is good at what she does, highlight the malign influence financialization has played but she is hardly the savior some on the left thinks she is.
Baud
@Avery Greynold: Nothing dishonest about it if those are the terms of the offer. Imagining an alternative reality doesn’t make the current reality dishonest.
Another Scott
@NeenerNeener: I can’t see that happening, myself. I think we’re stuck with Donnie for 4 years unless he has a MI in office. We really know very little about his medical history (his doc’s September letter says he’s on Rosuvastatin and that brings his cholesterol down to 169 (What was it like before then? How clogged are his arteries? And of course, there’s nothing about any evaluation for early-onset dementia…).
Too many grifting people are being enabled by Trump. They’ll prop him up in the corner if they have to – they’re not going to let him resign.
Donnie doesn’t have to do anything public as POTUS. He could put a YouTube up for the SOTU. He could send Pence or Melania to be anywhere in his stead. He could go back to living in Trump Tower if he wants and run everything via Twitter. It’s only a demanding job if he takes it seriously and works at it. W showed us that there’s no requirement to actually work hard and do the job…
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
@schrodinger’s cat:
I agree. There’s no evidence that our worldview has a broad appeal.
gogol's wife
All I get from the Democrats are requests for money.
Another Scott
@NeenerNeener: I can’t see that happening, myself. I think we’re stuck with Donnie for 4 years unless he has a MI in office. We really know very little about his medical history (his doc’s September letter says he’s on Rosuvastatin and that brings his cholesterol down to 169 (What was it like before then? How clogged are his arteries? And of course, there’s nothing about any evaluation for early-onset dementia…).
Too many grifting people are being enabled by Trump. They’ll prop him up in the corner if they have to – they’re not going to let him resign.
Donnie doesn’t have to do anything public as POTUS. He could put a YouTube up for the SOTU. He could send Pence or Melania to be anywhere in his stead. He could go back to living in Trump Tower if he wants and run everything via Twitter. It’s only a demanding job if he takes it seriously and works at it. W showed us that there’s no requirement to actually work hard and do the job…
:-/
(Third try…)
[ For some reason, FYWP is disappearing my posts whenever I include a properly anchored URL now. (sigh) ]
Cheers,
Scott.
schrodinger's cat
That’s the reason I am not on Facebook or other social media. I will not lie to keep the peace, if you don’t want to know the truth don’t ask me, as the Modi bhakts in my extended family (mostly husband kitteh’s relatives) have found out to their dismay. So they don’t include me in their stupid mass emails.
Elizabelle
@WereBear: A moment of grace yesterday: watching the C-Span rebroadcast of PBO and the young entrepreneurs/students in Peru.
I hope to see more of Obama reaching out to the world, and our fellow citizens, those reachable and unreachable.
BUT: any links for your comment about PBO’s concern? Did see his comments on the “fake news” problem. Of course, among the “fake news” purveyors are the NY Times’ crack Hillary political team, and all the clouds and shadows and EMAILS EMAILS EMAILS the headline-writing editors saw.
Fuck the fucking New York Times. Paper of record? No longer.
WereBear
@Baud: People with money tend to have a money orientation; it simply follows.
In this case, it is a persuasion technique that makes large donors sign on in proportion to the importance of the cause to other donors. This reassures them about their “return” on the investment.
And it has prompted me to donate, because I “double my money,” so it is a good technique.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
This is a total WTF moment: Trump is meeting with Ari Emmanuel, model for Jeremy Piven’s foul-mouthed Hollywood agent character on that show, brother of the loathed RAHM! and, most interesting to me, of Dr Zeke Emmanuel
(and Trump goes to church with Pence. It’s gonna be like when we had to go to mass when my grandma was visiting, and my brothers and I all had to watch her out of the corner of our eyes to figure out the choreography)
Baud
@Another Scott: You obviously watched this recently.
NMgal
@gogol’s wife: Inorite? That’s one thing that gets me. This is not by any stretch of the imagination the Weimar Republic. Yes, I know a lot of people choose to only consume media that assure them that crime is at historically high levels, the economy is the WURST EVAR, and Obummer is a tyrant, but… c’mon. Look around. Some places are doing well, some are vaguely shitty, but the shitty places have by and large been shitty for a long time – offshoring and automation ain’t new. It’s not the Great Depression, or runaway inflation, or people being disappeared in the middle of the night.
I remember being shocked and disheartened in the aftermath of 9/11 at how weenie so many – most? – Americans were about it. Not the New Yorkers who were actually right there, but vast swaths of both our leadership and ordinary people wet their pants and were thrilled to give up civil liberties and to declare that we just had to trust the Bush administration about the need to attack Iraq, etc. Seems like this election is of a piece with it – people who at best are kinda sorta uncomfortable lashing out against the wrong people, again. White people, man.
WereBear
Just look at his face.
schrodinger's cat
@Elizabelle: NYT is on my blacklist forever. I have zero respect for them. Its easy to blame the Fox and other but NYT built this.
Kay
This is the sort of blatant lie that Jake Tapper is asking people to accept in the name of “civility”. That’s a really high price to pay. Abandon all of what happens to make everyone comfy. How can there be any integrity at all if this is what we’re being asked to do? It’s too high a personal price, let alone at the national level.
So, no. The answer is to that demand is “no”. Fact: Donald Trump has not made one effort to “bring people together”. In fact, he nominated a person who was unacceptable for his racist views in 1986. That’s now acceptable? Too racist in 1986 is now mainstream in 2016?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
This is the best thing I’ve seen on that
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker: Agreed. This is going to sound horribly elitist and effete and judgey, because it is, but……I thought that enough Americans had better taste. I really thought that there were enough of us who were not gross and gauche to win. I knew that there were plenty of deplorables, of course, but what hasn’t really been said is that most of the deplorables are considered trashy by the rest of us who, as Garrison Keillor wrote, “have books on our shelves”.
I realize that I am enormously judgey on this, so please feel free to resound lay kick my ass.
Elizabelle
@Kay: Thank you. I see no point in normalizing this behavior.
Fucking courtier press. I hope they go down hard.
D58826
@Amir Khalid: well with the Fuhrer part but never could keep the male/female/neuter straight when I was taking German many many years ago
Applejinx
@bemused:
That’s low? In ten years as an indie software developer for the pro audio market I’ve never made that. $31K a year is fucking huge. I would happily make that and consider it pretty expansive.
Sab
@Kay: And my idiot congressman (OH 13)Tim Ryan thinks now is a good time to challenge Nancy Pelosi, because we need a novice backbencher leading the opposition. He was on Fox last summer advocating banning Syrian refugees; he was on MSNBC the morning FBI directors letter came out defending the guy, and now he wants to challenge Pelosi.
Baud
@Suzanne:
I just hope Trump doesn’t put his feet on the Oval Office desk and besmirch the dignity of the office.
Another Scott
@Baud: Actually, no. I have a vague recollection of seeing it long ago, but it didn’t consciously inform my post. Thanks for the pointer!
Cheers,
Scott.
Roger Moore
@schrodinger’s cat:
She says what we want to hear, and that always makes somebody seem smart and wonderful.
schrodinger's cat
@Suzanne: I think because of America’s international stature at least since WWII, people have been insulated from their own bad decisions. This is not just a malady of people on the right but also the left who voted for Stein. They cannot imagine bad things happening to them. Our press is another example. So the election is treated like a giant reality TV show.
Baud
@Sab: I like Pelosi but I can see the argument for new blood. But not someone like that.
LesGS
@Elizabelle: This interview with Obama isn’t super explicit in showing his concern, but it’s there, and I found the whole thing interesting. (You may have already read it.)
Elizabelle
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Thank you. Cruising that now.
I listen to news more than watch the visuals, even on TV, and find it amusing how much PBO refers to “the President-Elect.” He uses the last name as little as possible.
I pick up a “America, he’s all yours. Pottery Barn rules, folks.”
Obama is a patriot. But he’s not sugarcoating what (a significant minority! of) his fellow Americans have done to themselves and the rest of us.
Baud
@Applejinx: It depends if it’s a full time legislative position or not. For a full time position, that’s pretty low.
Keith G
@Betty Cracker: I generally agree, but with the idea that I have seen so many predictions of ultimate impact be wildly off the mark. This will be another turn of the wheel in American politics. It will be more harmful to more people than most, but I imagine less conclusively devastating than I have heard. I could very well be one of its victims, but I plan to get through.
I am old. I have heard so many “this is the end of…” or “This is the beginning of…” speeches that they tend to blur together. Trump’s support is wider than we thought, but I’ll wager that it is very shallow. He and Congress will get bad stuff done, but that partnership will not be peaceful or fully in place for as long as many dread.
For how long depends on the Democrats. I have been suspicious of the fruits of the great demographic shift for some time. To live in Texas, seeing a state that should have a greater Hispanic political voice than it has, has been a lesson. Neither skin color nor ethnic attachment equals voting behavior (to the extent many of us would like). There needs to be more. That needs to be a focus of the Democrats. Being absolutely the party out of power, hopefully will serve to focus the mind.
SenyorDave
When yo elect a self-admitted sexual predator as your POTUS I think you pretty much get what you expect.
Elizabelle
@Roger Moore: Actually, I hear Elizabeth Warren loud and clear when she talks about the decline of middle class wages and lifestyles. She connects with people, and can make complex issues understandable.
I don’t think she’s merely a performance artist. In the least.
D58826
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
God is a republican it is that simple. Obama came into office with the global economy on a high speed train to Hades. After 8 years of blood sweat and tears and w/o one pinch of help from the GOP. the economy is perking up. and der Fuhrer and the GOP will get the credit.
Kay
@Sab:
That’s what I mean by political maneuvers being insufficient. I knew it would happen, though. That’s the tools they have, right? They can switch up leadership so they will try.
It’s that attitude I’ve become impatient with – “this is easy to fix- just plug in this politician or this strategy or this approach”. It’s not going to be easy to fix. Trump is the collapse when the roof falls in. He’s not a “sign” of anything. He’s the result of a systemic failure that already occurred.
schrodinger's cat
@Elizabelle: No, but she is pretty much a one trick pony.
trollhattan
@Baud:
Dollars to donuts his WH dress code will be penned by Ailes and as to him, hell’s bells he won’t take off his suitcoat to eat a damn taco bowl.
What must the WH residential staff think?
Glidwrith
@WereBear: I tried for the second time to go to a Democratic meeting in the area. The first won’t meet again until Jan 12th. This one the average age had to be in the low 60’s. The head spoke for maybe 2 minutes, then turned it over to the guest speakers on legislation here in CA:
Assisted Suicide
I shit you not. Nothing on organizing, nothing to actively call people to action. They won’t meet again until February.
Elizabelle
@LesGS: The David Remnick interview from The New Yorker. Thank you. Will read it in the next few days.
Thinking I will subscribe to The New Yorker, to replace the fucking New York Times. Got to support Jane Mayer’s employer! And fuck the fucking NYTimes that gave us Amy Chozick, Patrick Healey, their national desk editor, and the moron who’s posing as Public Editor. Formerly of the WaPost, but mostly a Villager, through and through.
I found it interesting the NY Times publisher had to write to his readers after the election. They’re a disappearing bunch, would be my guess.
Baud
@Elizabelle: I don’t think she’s insincere, but I’m getting impatient for her efforts to bear fruit.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Another Scott:
Naked links are okay now, if that helps.
schrodinger's cat
@D58826: There is no God and we are on our own and now we have to deal to with the weapons grade stupid that also has absolute power. The good name and reputation this country has built over more than half a century is at risk.
Baud
@Elizabelle: They need a complete management overhaul at a minimum.
Baud
@Glidwrith:
To be fair, California is one of our more excellent states.
JMG
Warren has a simple, coherent message, “They’re ripping you off.” This makes her effective as a party leader. THE party leader? Maybe not, as her field of finance is somewhat esoteric for many voters. The opposition, however, doesn’t need a single leader. It can have many. Schumer is regarded with distrust by many here, and I’m not saying he should be trusted, but if he emerges as an effective legislative fighter to prevent Medicare privatization, well, he’ll be more trusted.
Let’s face it. The white men who dominate mass media, especially political mass media, are uncomfortable unless power is held by white men. They are also loathed by all. A “break up big media” stance could be a counter for Trump’s wild lashing out at all forms of criticism.
Suzanne
@Baud: Trump seems like the candidate of people who wear socks with sandals and drive Ford F-150s and eat at chain restaurants and decorate with antlers *unironically*.
Baud
@Suzanne:
You know, we don’t all live in warm climates. And it’s convenient for going through the airport security line.
pamelabrown53
@schrodinger’s cat: #110
I think you may have inadvertently hit the proverbial nail..with your comment re the election being treated like a reality show. I’d say the reality show treatment is continuing past the campaign. Here’s a question I’ve considered since this horrifying upset: what if her extremely marginal losses were due to enough folks who absolutely adored “The Apprentice”? While I recognize there were a myriad of other factors (cable t.v. “news”, FBI, Russia, Julian Assange, voter suppression,etc.) it does satisfy the law of parsimony.
D58826
@Baud: I wonder how many parents will let their teenage/college age daughters apply for WH internships next year?
Baud
@D58826: Enough. Wingnut parents don’t care.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
He got a standing O at 21– which I saw some people call “Keene’s Steak House”, I don’t know if they got confused about restaurants, or if 21 is just the traditional name
BBA
Oh, god, Andrew Cuomo is going to be the D nominee in 2020, isn’t he?
A man who is actually everything they said Hillary was – a nepotism hire from a political dynasty with no principles whatsoever besides the accumulation of further power. An awful candidate, devoid of charisma, who’s only gotten as far as he has through machine connections and the fact that his opponents were even worse. He probably sees Hillary’s defeat as his big chance.
We are so royally fucked.
Baud
@BBA: Probably not.
Brachiator
@JMG:
What big media? And what would be the point of this stance?
The last time I checked, legacy media was dying a slow, thrashing death. Soon, the only thing to break up will be the bones of the carcass.
JMG
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: No, they are different restaurants many blocks apart. Pretty much same clientele, though.
karen marie
I don’t know how many of you all read Lawyers, Guns & Money (you should) but those who do and are familiar with SEK/Scott Eric Kaufman might kick in what you can to the medical expense gofundme set up by his sister. He is dying, and costs are outstripping insurance coverage. It’s very sad.
Baud
@BBA: And screw you on the Hillary attack. Just for that I’m supporting Cuomo.
Brachiator
@BBA:
Don’t know. Don’t care. You got to survive the next couple of years. Hopefully bounce back in the mid terms.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: The CFPB was a good start, and that was Warren’s baby. I’m sure the shit-gibbon and crew are plotting its demise even now, though.
BBA
@Baud: I was not attacking Hillary. I’ve read the attacks on Hillary, and they weren’t true, but they are true about Cuomo.
Brachiator
@Suzanne:
What’s the point of the put down? Are folks who drive some other vehicle better people? Will that matter when the whip comes down?
Baud
@BBA: Sorry. I missed the word “actually” and “they said” in your comment.
Cuomo endorsement withdrawn.
Rachel Barnhart
@Central Planning: General election. If I was in a general, I would have won. Among the <6,000 primary voters, my profession was held against me. My opponent successfully portrayed me as a TV news bimbo.
schrodinger's cat
@Suzanne: I am surrounded by Bernie bots who may have voted for Stein and who drive Volvos and Nissan Leaf and drink Fair Trade coffee and artisinal donuts. Does that make them better in your eyes? All though I too have seen the socks with sandals thing, footie socks that too!
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Baud:
Nobody’s taking style pointers from a self-avowed nudist.
Baud
@schrodinger’s cat: Stop it with the sandels thing.
Baud
@Steeplejack (tablet): Only when I’m commenting. I wear protective footwear on the street.
karen marie
@Keith G: Lack of focus has too long been a problem for the DNC, which is why the idea of appointing anyone currently holding office is so irritating. That Ellison doesn’t see the problem tells me he’s not as smart as people give him credit for.
D58826
@Baud: sigh. probably right. Will serve as validation that their daughters are HOT
schrodinger's cat
@Baud: May I suggest boat-mocs with no socks? They are comfortable and cute too.
Baud
@karen marie: Agree. I thought it was the one thing we all agreed on during the DWS fiasco.
Corner Stone
@Steeplejack (tablet): I haven’t even said anything in this thread!
JMG
The future is unknowable except for one thing. Andrew Cuomo will not be the Democratic nominee for President in 2020. He would lose his home state primary.
Baud
@schrodinger’s cat: Will check that out.
tobie
@gogol’s wife:
And please tell them you won’t give a dime if they kick Nancy Pelosi to the curb and replace her with a neophyte (Tim Ryan), who just “evolved” to supporting a woman’s right to choose and frankly has neither the experience nor the chops to help Democrats leverage whatever influence they can in the House as a minority party.
karen marie
@schrodinger’s cat: Let us know when you get elected to anything and get one thing done, m’kay? Warren made the CFCB happen in her first term. Sanders has been a senator for decades, with precisely zero accomplishments.
Corner Stone
@D58826: Muh daughter got her first groping by Dear Leader! Now, where’s muh ballot?
Baud
@karen marie: You have the timing wrong. The CFPB was Warren’s idea, but it was part of Dodd Frank before Warren was elected.
Gvg
@Applejinx: yes that is low. I make more as a low level state employee with few promotion chances and frequent years of no raises. The thing is I rarely get criticized. All politicitians get unending venom even if they are good for their district. That wage is so low compared to likely exspenses that I would check for lots of graft. It’s not enough. Campaigning costs money, so does two residences.
I have had the impression in prior posts that your economic situation wasn’t great and that’s why you were initially a Bernie supporter. The thing is, it’s not quite as bad in most areas. It’s been eroding for years as the very rich take in all the cream and never spend it again, but it’s not actually as dire for most now. And if you are black and are being murdered under cover of law, even the economics just aren’t as important, so the social justice war is sucking a lot of air out of our attention. It is more urgent now. So those that are in a bad place feel ignored. The rich guys have used the 2 problems interests against each other so both lose. We have to stick together to win.
I don’t think there is enough public interest to push reforms needed yet. People are so ignorant about economics and trade that they scapegoat the wrong things. Somehow we have to get certain ideas out there
bemused
@Applejinx:
Definitely a lot lower than a lot of people imagine, who think they have really cushy jobs.
WereBear
@Glidwrith: I would have gone on a rant. Or at least wanted to very badly :)
Yes, that is very discouraging. Fortunately, that is not the only way to go about it any more. Democrats might be the ones fracturing first, at this point. Because they are so very very disconnected.
tobie
@Sab: Oops…just saw this after typing my note re Ryan. Thanks for the additional info about him. H’s a terrible speaker and the Dems seem hell bent on learning the wrong lessons from the election. Push women, blacks, latinos, Asians, Muslims, other religious minorities to the side…all we need to appeal to now are white, blue collar, Christian males.
If you have a Dem rep, call them to tell them to support Pelosi (or at least someone with far more experience and more liberal chops than Ryan).
schrodinger's cat
@karen marie: Nothing but unfailing loyalty is allowed, now is it?. I did say that she is very good about her signature issue, financialization and the dangers thereof.
PsiFighter37
@karen marie: Ellison running the DNC, and having Warren and Sanders being seen as the direction the party needs to go, is a recipe for disaster. Period. Their hearts are in the right place, but we are going to get wiped out if we think the answer is trying to appeal to GOP voters via willfully ignorant populism.
What this election shows me is that Americans will vote out of self-interest, no matter what, unless we have star politicians who can convince them otherwise.
schrodinger's cat
@Baud: Hush! We have to always fangirl Warren or else we are a neoliberal elitist whatever.
Baud
@PsiFighter37: Schumer supports Ellison, and he’s not a populist at all.
Suzanne
@Brachiator: First off, I noted above that I am admitting to my elitism and judgment, not that I am proud of it. Pickup trucks, especially the huge ones that soak up gas and are American-made, are (IMHO and that of many marketers) culturally coded as being kinda low-class. I am confronting the fact that my own prejudice—of which I am not proud but I am admitting my own bias—was that there would be enough people with “good” taste to outweigh the people with “bad” taste who voted for Trump.
Baud
@schrodinger’s cat: I assume it was an honest mistake.
Ruviana
@karen marie: read his FB carefully. Unless things have changed dramatically in the last 24 hours he’s still very very sick but not dying. His family and friends at the hospital are posting to that effect.
JMG
I will be very surprised if Ryan’s leadership challenge gets anywhere except a token sub-leadership position for himself. Pelosi knows how to count votes. If she didn’t have ’em, she’d have already stepped down to avoid humiliation.
debbie
@schrodinger’s cat:
She’s an uncompromising, knowledgeable voice. She won’t shut up during the next session and she won’t look for paths of compromise or accommodation. I suggest you wait and see before dismissing Warren.
Warren and others like Sherrod Brown, at this moment, are our hope. Please don’t undermine any of them.
PsiFighter37
@Baud: Schumer – and the rest of the party players – will support anyone who is not Howard Dean. He also appointed Bernie as chair of outreach – great, so we’re appointing someone who isn’t even a member of the party to do our outreach?
I really do hope Obama decides to focus more on the nuts and bolts of rebuilding the Democratic Party when he leaves office. It sounds like he is coming to the realization that he’s not going to simply be able to walk away from the fight once January 20th comes.
schrodinger's cat
@Baud: karen marie seems to think I am a Bernie supporter! I have no idea what gave her that idea, since it is certainly not my comments.
tybee
@Rachel Barnhart: would you do it again?
schrodinger's cat
@debbie: Her initial statement of working together and finding common ground doesn’t give me a lot of hope. Besides hope is not a strategy.
Corner Stone
Jared Kushner looks like he is about 22 years old.
Suzanne
@Suzanne: I should note that Trump is the embodiment of bad taste. All that flashy gold-plated shit and those shiny suits and the hot, uneducated wife and the putting his name on everything just screams nouveau riche, or “trash with money”.
Baud
@PsiFighter37:
That doesn’t sit well with me either. But his people exist and we have to deal with it.
trollhattan
@Baud:
No wonder Baud 2016 fail; Baud fix by 2020.
Omnes Omnibus
@debbie: Warren is good at what she does. She, however, is not our savior.
schrodinger's cat
@Baud: Bernie went on and on about rigged elections BS for a long time and how the DNC was crooked.
Baud
@schrodinger’s cat:
I remember. I think he’s going to find that a lot of his support was conditioned on him attacking the Democratic Party.
PsiFighter37
@Baud: Appointing a scold who is already capitulating on minimum wage issues is not a good way of dealing with it.
We are going to lose by worse than we did this time around in 2020 if we do not focus on the Obama coalition and keeping them engaged. Trying to figure out how to contort ourselves to winning over racist white folks in the middle of nowhere is not going to end well. Frankly – and Obama made this point – what we need is the next candidate to go to these communities and make their pitches in person. If they do that, whomever he or she ends up being, and they only lose 70-30 instead of 80-20, we will win the presidency with relative ease. Of course, that is assuming that folks other than white male property owners are still allowed to vote in 4 years after Sessions institutionalizes voter suppression at DOJ.
Groucho48
Warren is a rookie Senator for the minority party. Which means she has almost no real power. What she has is a soapbox and she is using it. She is also responsible for creating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has done good stuff for consumers and which Republicans loath.
I can understand having reservations about her readiness for the Presidency. I had reservations, too. She has shown little interest or knowledge of affairs outside the financial sphere. But, as a rookie Senator, she has done very well. She was also a strong advocate for Clinton and perhaps the leading critic of Trump. Unlike my Senators, Schumer and Gillebrand, who were both almost monkishly silent for most of the campaign.
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
The CFPB has been a work of genius. I doubt most people have any idea of everything they’ve been able to accomplish so far. We should fight for the CFPB as passionately as we do for the ACA.
(I don’t work for them, but I see what they do.)
Baud
@PsiFighter37: Yeah, but the immediate task is the 2018 midterms, which may not be Obama coalition friendly.
Brachiator
@Suzanne:
Fair enough. I forget that the times change, but people do not. I remember the West-siders here in Southern California who kept having to parrot about how much smarter they were than Dubya. Funny thing, they also leaked their disdain for anyone, even other Democrats, who were not on the same level as they were. And of course they were useless when Bush proved to be such a disaster.
They were good when it came time for fundraising.
PsiFighter37
@debbie: It’s dead as soon as Congress repeals Dodd-Frank.
When Pence said they are planning on moving fast, I take it to mean they are going to do everything in their power to erase any legislative or regulatory achievements Obama has put in place as quickly as they can.
bemused
@Corner Stone:
He reminds me of James O’Keefe but I’m not quite sure why. It’s not physical looks. Maybe it’s the punkass vibe they both give off.
debbie
@Omnes Omnibus:
I didn’t mean to imply she was a savior, but it’s wrong to dismiss her.
Remember Brooksie Born? The voice in the wilderness against banks’ diversifying? Had people paid more attention to what she was saying instead of laughing along with Phil Gramm’s dickish and dismissive treatment of her, we’d all be in a better place.
Suzanne
@PsiFighter37:
This. I am interested in passing policies that help working-class Americans of every color, but I am not interested in “the WWC” as an interest group. I am not interested in their cultural grievances. I am not interested in shitting on immigrants or starting trade wars so they can artificially keep wages high for low-skill jobs.
MomSense
@Baud:
DNC does even less in a non presidential election cycle. I actually think this is sort of a consolation prize situation.
SenyorDave
@PsiFighter37: I agree, maintain and expand the Obama coalition. The WWC voted overwhelmingly for Trump despite the GOP has screwed them for 35 years. An overt racist was running, the WWC jumped on board.
Glidwrith
@WereBear: “Because they are so very, very disconnected.”
That was why I went: how much interaction is there between the different clubs, how much between city, county, state and Fed? Prior to taking my seat, I heard from another newcomer that there is some communication. Also heard there is a group called EMERGE (emergeamerica.org) which works on grooming women to run for office and one of their leaders is going to try for the head of the Dem party here in CA.
I think the separate cells of the Party need to coordinate specific message campaigns to help preserve the ideals of equality that we aspire to. It would also be nice if there is enough interaction between them that we can use their contacts to build voter ID and registration networks.
Baud
@MomSense: Right. Bernie as the outreach guy for 2018. Ellison for DNC for 2020, where hopefully he can appeal to both the Bros and the Obama coalition.
I think that’s the idea anyway.
Peale
@Brachiator: I wouldn’t worry about Andrew Cuomo. A lot of us “establishment” “corporatist” liberals supported Hillary over Bernie because we looked back fondly on her career. She’s been a national presence for 20 years and we stuck with her. Cuomo has no such luck. If he ran, it really would be the NY wealthy Dems vs. everyone else in the party, and he’d loose. the guy who could be seen as protecting Chris Christie isn’t going to impress anyone.
Suzanne
@Brachiator: FWIW, I think we should capitalize on this as a strategy. The Millenials are brand-conscious. The Dems need to become the brand of choice, the place where smart, cool people with “good taste” associate. Make the GOP become the party of deplorables with all of their attendant cultural markers (clinging to guns and religion).
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid: I see it as a deliberate allusion to Donald’s short fingers problem, and all that it implies about what motivates the crybaby toddler who is 70 years old.
Another Scott
@BBA: Isn’t Cuomo tied up with Bridgegate? Wasn’t he informed of Christie’s Minions’ plans before they happened? Didn’t he somehow participate in the coverup? That’s what Wildstein said under oath.
Cuomo is a bad, bad Democrat. I can’t believe that we’d run another NY establishment guy after Trump (and HIllary) – especially him. Then who? Dunno. It’s early.
I like Warren, but I like her where she is fighting in the Senate. (And nobody really knows anything about her policy positions except her views on finance and economics. Where is she on Putin and Kim and what’s going on in Africa and Burma and Pakistan? How does she envision dividing up investments in science? She was a Republican not that long ago, remember…)
Cheers,
Scott.
Omnes Omnibus
@Another Scott: I have no idea other than pure panic why BBA would think the Cuomo would be the 2020 Dem nominee.
Brachiator
@Suzanne:
Uh, no.
This is one of the things that got the Democrats’ ass beat the last time. You’re supposed to learn from your mistakes, not double down and ask for more ass whupping.
karen marie
@Baud: So you think without her in the senate, there would be a CFPB at this point? Or that Cordray would be the director? I consider that to be pretty significant, whether it was an effort she started before or not.
karen marie
@schrodinger’s cat: Calling Warren a “one-trick pony” is dismissive and insulting.
karen marie
@PsiFighter37: The problem is not with Ellison except insofar as he already has a full-time job in the House. GOP never does that, DNC almost always does, and we can see where that has gotten Dems.
Omnes Omnibus
@karen marie: Since she wasn’t yet in the senate when it was started, I think we can safely say that it would have happened without her in the senate.
@karen marie: It’s a good trick. Seriously, what else does she work on or advocate for? Finance reform is her bag.
schrodinger's cat
@karen marie: I don’t see Warren as a savior, I do acknowledge her strength on her signature issue. If that offends you, so be it.
Suzanne
@Brachiator: Disagree. Obama excited the young in large part because he is smart and good-looking and cool as hell. His policies were not in any way amazingly liberal or revolutionary. He made people feel better about themselves in voting for him. He reflected back those qualities to people. This is what wins. If you can’t be cool yourself, you can be cool-adjacent with your vote.
HRC, OTOH, didn’t get this. Her policy positions were everything she had, and they will never be enough, not from any candidate. Not anymore.
Trump gets this instinctively, as someone who has been hawking nothing but a brand for years. He is devastatingly good at finding the “deep story” that people want to hear, and telling it back to them. He got votes because a lot of people want that to reflect back onto them. They are angry and aggrieved, and voting for Trump is a way of casting themselves in that light.
Marketers do this as a career and make shit-tons of money at it. People do not make decisions rationally. They do not.
Underestimate this human need for this kind of collective understanding and identification, and underestimate the skill it takes to exploit, and we will never win again.
Central Planning
@Rachel Barnhart: If you would have won in the general, why didn’t you run against Funke? He was unopposed.
opiejeanne
@Suzanne: Hey now, I own a Ford F-150 and we eat at chain restaurants sometimes. The local Red Robin has its charms, especially in Western Washington.
But not Applebees. Never Applebees.
Morzer
@Betty Cracker:
Bernie’s been a better Democrat than many Senators and Congressmen with an official D after their names. We need to stop the anti-Sanders stupidity and admit that Clinton lost because of her own inadequate campaign combined with Trump’s skills as a con artist. Then we need to move on and rebuild the Democratic party with all factions working together. Starting a civil war with the Sanders folks will only help Trump.
Brachiator
@Peale:
As I noted before, I don’t care about Cuomo. Nor do I care about speculation about the next election.
I thought that Clinton had been an adequate senator, a superior secretary of state, and was by far the best of any who ran for the office in 2016. But I didn’t look back fondly on her entire career, nor her husband’s, and thanked heaven that Obama came along to defeat her for the nomination in 2008.
Brachiator
@Suzanne:
As you suggested earlier, some people cannot get beyond their need to be part of an elite. What is more elite, or more trivial, than the need to be part of the cool crowd?
opiejeanne
@Suzanne: Truckist! *sticks tongue out*
wobbly
Uh, didn’t she run against an actually GOOD state legislator?
The local left-wing rag-CITY- actually devoted two pages to endorsing Harry Bronson over her.
Yeah, and now she’s got a book to sell you.
Don’t buy it.
She should not have quit her day job, for God’s sake.
Let her come crawling back.
Suzanne
@Brachiator: Oh, I’m not saying that it isn’t ridiculous. Good governance and sensible policy should be all it takes. But….that’s not the world we live in. If we want to make change, we need to win elections. If we want to win elections, we need to understand what motivates people, even when those people don’t understand it themselves. I guarantee you that the other side gets this.
Keith G
@Suzanne: @Suzanne: Exactly. The “We are right and you are stupid” approach is a great way to get exactly where we are. A website overflowing with policies means nothing if you cannot engineer a way to incline needed voters to invest in the first place.
Suzanne
@Keith G: Someone who is really good at connecting with people and being really persuasive can suss out a “deep story” that resonates with their lives, and then plays to it. Most people feel insecure in their social standing, and lonely to some degree. They want to feel the emotional potency that comes with meaning. Obama knew that. Change we can believe in. We can believe, we can be better versions of ourselves, we can be consequential.
Trump also knows this. You are angry, you are left behind, you have been robbed and mocked and shamed and abandoned. I am angry on your behalf. I will restore the pride you used to feel. I will make people respect you again.
HRC offered up real solutions. But the heart wants what it wants.
Mnemosyne
@Suzanne:
This is probably a dead thread, but … Hillary’s story was “Stronger Together.” Unfortunately, Trump was able to tap into the opposite feeling from people who are feeling alienated from the culture and think their rightful spot is on top of the heap. They preferred to burn the country down rather than share.
Keith G
@Mnemosyne:
Stop that. Yes that explains some, but not all. And the ones that it does not explain may have been voters who were in play, but lost due to inadequate effort.
Broad brush explanations of the voter behavior has flaws. We need to learn that lesson since that concept f*cked us over. Listen to Ron Brownstein on the Ezra Klein Show (I linked above)
J R in WV
@schrodinger’s cat:
They are critical in preventing the development of mold attacking the structure of a house. I follow building trends, and in a magazine I once saw a photo feature of a tight New England house that was kept too damp. It was 10 years old, or so. They tore it down, and documented everything that had failed due to moisture – virtually everything.
But, if your moisture levels are already low, the house is properly ventilated, the dryer has a functional exhaust, etc… then your dehumidifier won’t run very much. They only come on when the moisture level passes a preset level.
Get a good one, Consumer Reports probably has a listing of units from very good to pretty crummy. Price is surprisingly not really well correlated with quality.
Ian
@Patricia Kayden:
His supporter have proven beyond doubt they do not give a flying fuck about this.
Ian
@Applejinx:
I make 31k as a line cook. You must truly suck at software development.
Big Picture Pathologist
Late, but thanks for this MM.
Big Picture Pathologist
@Patricia Kayden:
He did it TWICE IIRC.
Big Picture Pathologist
@Applejinx:
Dude, what do you do? I love audio recording and VST plugins.