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You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2020 / Hustings 2020 Open Thread: Go Home, Joe, You’re High on Your Own Supply

Hustings 2020 Open Thread: Go Home, Joe, You’re High on Your Own Supply

by Anne Laurie|  January 6, 201911:06 pm| 155 Comments

This post is in: Election 2020, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat, DC Press Corpse

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NEW: Biden is in the final stages of deciding about '20, told one ally over Xmas he's skeptical other potential Dem candidates can beat Trump & is meeting this week w Dem officials in DC

And he's facing pressure to decide this month

w @alexburnsNYT >https://t.co/7L6pDXEI6N

— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) January 6, 2019

The pro-Biden argument from his allies is three-fold: he's the most prepared, he has the best chance to win bc of voters he can win back and in a "national emergency" election he'd offer a reassuring hand

The anti-Biden argument is…longer: age, ideology, record, approach…

— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) January 7, 2019

Bless the man for a happy warrior in the best way, but let’s be honest: If he couldn’t win the nomination when ‘affable working-class white guy’ was the standard for potential candidates, he’s not gonna win now that it’s dropped so far out of fashion among the group of Democratic voters currently paying attention to the 2020 race.

Biden’s last best chance is probably repeating his stint under Obama, as The Experienced Older Guy Supporting A Charismatic Young Star. But even if Kamala Harris or Beto O’Rourke were to make him an offer, why would he want to go through that whole circus tour again? Is the “Presidential” spotlight really that addictive?

Or are the Media Village Idiots just that desperate for a candidate they can ‘recognize’?

Also Biden saying that he doesn’t want to run but is considering it because only he can beat Trump is hardly the best endorsement for him to be president … I think Dems might want someone who actually wants the job

— Michael Cohen (@speechboy71) January 6, 2019

Weird thing about Biden speculation IMO is that he’s the only possible challenger who Trump can twist into pretzels over the recession and the Iraq War. Never discussed. The argument is basically: “union guys love ol Joe.” https://t.co/oeMjclsgYC

— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) January 6, 2019

There’s a class of Democrats who saw the party sweep the gov/Senate races in MI/PA/WI and now think “no one but Biden can possibly beat Trump in these states.” https://t.co/jNIbpxVWKx

— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) January 6, 2019

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Reader Interactions

155Comments

  1. 1.

    lahke

    January 6, 2019 at 11:13 pm

    I love him in his Uncle Joe persona, but can we please have someone younger than Time for president? Sixty max, okay? I’m used to all the doctors and cops being younger than me and now I’m ready for younger politicians.

  2. 2.

    The Dangerman

    January 6, 2019 at 11:14 pm

    Holy Hell, did I just see a campaign style (“I’m Donald Trump and I approve this message”) commercial about the wall at the end of 60 minutes? Or did I switch over to FOX accidentally?

    I might have to stop watching TV, especially since it was the receiving end of an appropriately launched projectile when this commercial aired. And I’m a pacifist.

    OK, on topic, please, no Joe…

  3. 3.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    January 6, 2019 at 11:16 pm

    @lahke: what you said. I mean come on, it’s clear by now the voters are turned off by this Bomer redo the 60s nonsense.

  4. 4.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    January 6, 2019 at 11:17 pm

    Weird thing about Biden speculation IMO is that he’s the only possible challenger who Trump can twist into pretzels over the recession and the Iraq War. Never discussed. The argument is basically: “union guys love ol Joe

    I’m as fond of Veep Uncle Joe as anyone, but I also remember when he was the Senator from MBNA. In 2008 he was still. bragging. about writing the Iraq AUMF with his good friend John McCain. Now, granted he was bragging about writing a more limited version than Bush and Cheney wanted, but still….
    The inability of the Village to recognize the role Iraq, and their own role in the Iraq debacle, played in trump’s rise makes Biden look better to them.

  5. 5.

    feebog

    January 6, 2019 at 11:17 pm

    I’m a few years younger than Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, but not by much. I want someone new and fresh as our candidate. Harris, Klobachar, Booker, O’Rourke, any of em. No retreads.

  6. 6.

    Another Scott

    January 6, 2019 at 11:24 pm

    As is mentioned above, McAuliffe is putting out feelers as well. He did a decent job a Virginia governor – especially given the opposition he had in the legislature – but it’s hard to see him having much traction nationally. You know the anti-Clinton people would be rooting for him to run so that they can dust off all their binders of anti-Clinton stuff.

    (groucho-roll-eye.gif)

    I agree with most that Joe should retire, that he’s done very poorly in his earlier runs, etc. I can’t really believe that he’s going to run – he’s pretty much been invisible since January 2017. His foundation seems to be working on important topics, but so are dozens or thousands of others.

    We’ll see.

    Whether he runs or not, we should be concentrating on fighting Donnie and his minions, and supporting Nancy’s efforts in the House. We can’t wait until January 2021 to start turning things around…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  7. 7.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    January 6, 2019 at 11:28 pm

    @Another Scott: big “oh yeah” on McAuliffe. He was a very pleasant surprise as governor, but it’s amazing he won that race. Almost as comical is Bloomberg– the autocratic, party-hopping, Bush-loving, Rudi-loving billionaire wants to run for the Democratic nomination (based on his history) on a platform of ‘entitlement reform’? He can do real good work, IMHO, on gun safety and the environment. Someone should point out to him that people know who Andrew Carnegie was, you don’t have to be president.

  8. 8.

    Aleta

    January 6, 2019 at 11:31 pm

    Rahaf Mohammed, a Saudi trying to escape her family made it to Thailand but had her passport seized so she couldn’t continue on. Now, with the apparent cooperation of the Thai govt, she is being forced back onto a plane to Kuwait to be made to return. There are pleas for Americans etc. to protest and ask for her asylum. (One request to the govt of Sweden may have been made.) It’s said that she is in serious danger of being killed if she is made to return to SA.
    To follow: Rahaf Mohammed https://twitter.com/rahaf84427714
    and Mona Eltahawy https://twitter.com/monaeltahawy

  9. 9.

    Rose Weiss

    January 6, 2019 at 11:33 pm

    Uncle Joe is 76, several years older than me. I know how my intellectual capacity has diminished, and that of all my friends around my age, so no. I realize there are exceptions – people who luck out in genetics, and don’t age as rapidly. The thing is, there are so many younger candidates to consider. Joe had his time, it’s not now.

  10. 10.

    oatler.

    January 6, 2019 at 11:37 pm

    Don’t guess Joe wants to talk much about the RAVE Act nowadays.

  11. 11.

    debbie

    January 6, 2019 at 11:40 pm

    It wouldn’t hurt to have his voice in the debates; otherwise, nope.

  12. 12.

    Mary G

    January 6, 2019 at 11:42 pm

    Joe lost me when he didn’t let the additional women testify during the Clarence Thomas hearings. He was the chairman of the committee; he wussed out and left Anita Hill high and dry. It’s all well and good to laugh about the Onion memes, but he doesn’t deserve to be president, even if he did do the Violence Against Women Act to try to redeem himself.

    If California votes as early as they say they will, I doubt that he gets anywhere. People around me are in the mood for Rashida Tlaib types, not mushy moderates, and if Jerry gets in, everyone else can probably forget it.

  13. 13.

    Aleta

    January 6, 2019 at 11:42 pm

    Rahaf Mo ham med, a Saudi woman trying to escape her family, made it as far as Thailand but is in danger of being forced onto a plane back to Kuwait. It’s said her passport was seized so she couldn’t continue on; and that she’s in serious danger of being killed if returned to her family. People are being asked show support for her and protest.
    To follow:
    @rahaf84427714
    and Mona Eltahawy. @monaeltahawy

    UPDATE: @rahaf84427714’s friend tells me that Rahaf is still in her hotel room. I hope this means she will not be forcefully put on that @KuwaitAirways plane! Cautiously optimistic. #SaveRahaf
    Mona Eltahawy
    ‏
    I have deleted the tweets that Rahaf’s account posted about attempts to drag her to plane. Cautiously optimistic. #SaveRahaf

  14. 14.

    Mary G

    January 6, 2019 at 11:42 pm

    @Aleta: I’ve been following that on Mona’s twitter; sad to say she is probably dead by now.

  15. 15.

    jk

    January 6, 2019 at 11:42 pm

    Everyone here is forgetting Biden’s disgraceful treatment of Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas hearings. He never apologized to Hill.and according to recent news reports, he’s resentful towards people who think he mistreated Hill. This speaks volumes about how clueless and out of touch Biden is in the age of the Me Too movement.

    In addition, Biden is a non stop gaffe machine.who puts his foot in his mouth every other day of the week.

  16. 16.

    Aleta

    January 6, 2019 at 11:46 pm

    Mona Eltahawy. @monaeltahawy
    2m2 minutes ago

    Mona Eltahawy Retweeted GermanAmbTHA
    From the German ambassador about @rahaf84427714 “We share the great concern for Rahaf Mohammed and are in touch with the Thai party and the embassies of the countries she approached.” #SaveRahaf

    GermanAmbTHA
    Verified account
    @GermanAmbTHA
    Wir teilen die große Sorge um Rahaf Mohammed und stehen dazu in Verbindung mit der thailaendischen Seite und den Botschaften der Laender, an die sie sich gewandt hatte. #RahafMohamed
    4 replies 28 retweets 51 likes

  17. 17.

    NotMax

    January 6, 2019 at 11:48 pm

    Time to hang up the battle scarred gloves and go gently into that good civilian life, Joe. Nothing of merit to recommend you then, nothing now.

    P.S.: Ignore the entreaties from the banking industry nabobs. If you haven’t learned that lesson by now, one more strike against you.

  18. 18.

    Chetan Murthy

    January 6, 2019 at 11:50 pm

    @Mary G:

    Joe lost me when he didn’t let the additional women testify during the Clarence Thomas hearings.

    Goddamn right. Goddamn right.

  19. 19.

    Aleta

    January 6, 2019 at 11:53 pm

    Mona Eltahawy. @monaeltahawy
    The @KuwaitAirways flight has taken off! I hope that means that we can be more optimistic for @rahaf84427714 #SaveRahaf

    Mona Eltahawy Retweeted Robert Rutledge
    Robert Rutledge. @rerutled
    The plane KU412 has taken off, and Rahaf is still in her hotel room! KU 412! https://flightaware.com/live/flight/KAC412/history/20190107/0415Z/VTBS/OKBK … #SaveRahaf

    (I think that plane was the friends’ best guess as to what they were trying to do, but it’s not known for certain.)

  20. 20.

    Another Scott

    January 6, 2019 at 11:53 pm

    @Aleta: Reuters story.

    I hope she can stay safe.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  21. 21.

    Redshift

    January 6, 2019 at 11:55 pm

    I’m having a hard time, because local Virginia elected officials I talk to, including some who are friends, seem really excited about McAuliffe running, and I’m just not. He was a good governor, much better than I was expecting. He did mass restoration of ex-felon voting rights (arguably helping to put the issue on the map nationally.) He fought hard enough for Medicaid expansion that after last year’s landslide, a few Republicans saw the writing on the wall and flipped. And if the electeds are excited, I guess he must have been good for them to work with.

    But he still has the persona of a used car salesman, and I can’t get excited about his candidacy. Especially since his opening salvo was about keeping proposals “reasonable” and not being negative.

  22. 22.

    Aleta

    January 6, 2019 at 11:57 pm

    Raif’s request to a European or NA country for asylum has been put on youtube.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV-_NY41AzQ&feature=youtu.be

    Raif’s twitter: https://twitter.com/rahaf84427714

  23. 23.

    eldorado

    January 6, 2019 at 11:59 pm

    hard pass

  24. 24.

    Mike J

    January 7, 2019 at 12:00 am

    If I vote for an older white guy it’ll be Inslee. Other than that I’m looking at black women DAs.

  25. 25.

    Another Scott

    January 7, 2019 at 12:02 am

    @Redshift: He also undercut the Democratic VA Attorney General (Herring) on some seemingly common-sense gun rules, for reasons that I still don’t fully understand.

    WaPo story.

    I’m much, much more enthusiastic about Herring than I have ever been about McAuliffe. Terry Mac was good, especially considering the Teabagger alternative, but he still was an unknown, inscrutable figure in several cases …

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  26. 26.

    Mandalay

    January 7, 2019 at 12:06 am

    Everyone here is forgetting Biden’s disgraceful treatment of Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas hearings.

    You really believe that fourteen comments is sufficient to reach that conclusion about “everyone here”?

  27. 27.

    Redshift

    January 7, 2019 at 12:10 am

    @Another Scott: The next governor’s race is going to be tough, in a good way, because Mark Herring and Justin Fairfax are both really good.

  28. 28.

    Mnemosyne

    January 7, 2019 at 12:12 am

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I also remember when he was the Senator from MBNA.

    Anyone who sneered about Hillary being “too close to banksters/corporations/Wall Street” that supports Joe Biden is a straight-up misogynist. Period.

  29. 29.

    sukabi

    January 7, 2019 at 12:12 am

    @Redshift: the “establishment” is going to be working overtime to maintain the status quo. Biden, McAuliffe and any other ‘safe’ (white) male dem will be promoted over any and all other more interesting, younger candidates.

    The country is moving on.

  30. 30.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    January 7, 2019 at 12:13 am

    I love Handsome Joe, but if he runs he’ll get a ton of flak for the “panty-melters” interview

    “She’s a real beaut, ain’t she?” said Biden, popping open a wide-mouth can of Coors Light and tilting back his head to take a long drink. “Back when Smokey And The Bandit came out, everyone wanted the black paint job, but looking back now, I’m thankful the dealership didn’t have it in stock.”

    “Oops, looks like I got a little brewha in the flavor-saver,” added Biden, referring to his wispy, four-day-old mustache. “Any of you girls care to join me for another tallboy?”

    Biden then spent the next 15 minutes boasting about the features on his Trans Am.

    “They don’t make kick-ass T-tops like this anymore, sweetheart,” said Biden, shaking his head in exaggerated disappointment. “And check out these gold snowflake rims. They’re a real bitch to clean, but they’re totally worth it.”

    “Back in the day we used to call ’em panty-melters,” Biden continued. “One babe caught a glimpse of those rims after a Cinderella concert in ’86 and she couldn’t get into that backseat fast enough. If any of you girls wanna take a ride, just let ol’ Joe know.”

    For the remainder of the day, Biden occupied himself with hosing off his car, giving the side doors an extra coat of wax, and throwing out a variety of items from beneath its front seats, including crumpled-up fast food wrappers, a number of soft packs of Doral kings, an issue of Cheri magazine from 1991, and Senate bill S. 486.

    According to White House officials, Biden was still hanging out in the driveway long after dusk, revving the engine at passersby and explaining the intricacies of a turbocharged V-8 motor to anyone within earshot.

    As of press time, Biden had convinced Jennifer Britmore, a 41-year-old mother of four visiting from Indiana, to let him show her around D.C. (link)

  31. 31.

    rikyrah

    January 7, 2019 at 12:17 am

    @Aleta:
    She is only 18???

  32. 32.

    Jean

    January 7, 2019 at 12:18 am

    @Redshift: I agree, Redshift. I like both Herring and Fairfax. Worked on their campaigns.

  33. 33.

    rikyrah

    January 7, 2019 at 12:18 am

    Biden should have run in 2016.
    So, no go Joe.

  34. 34.

    frosty fred

    January 7, 2019 at 12:20 am

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Seriously? That’s not the Onion?

  35. 35.

    Ruckus

    January 7, 2019 at 12:23 am

    Uncle Joe,
    You’ve gone as far as you are going to go. It’s no longer your time. It was no longer your time the last two times you ran. You had a good finish, you did a fine job as VP.
    Let it go. It’s someone else’s turn. It’s a number of someone else’s turns. You passed your prime and we need someone better. You’ve got too much baggage, and too much of that is not even close to good enough.
    Retire from politics while you are as high up as you are going to go.
    Don’t make us not vote for you for president. Again.
    Don’t make us shout out to the world everything I’ve said here and far more. Don’t embarrass yourself and your party by being that guy.
    Be a man and recognize that enough is enough, that the world has moved on. And that you haven’t.

  36. 36.

    poleaxedbyboatwork

    January 7, 2019 at 12:23 am

    Re: Biden.

    Please, no. Fer-fuck’s-sakes, a thousand times no.

    Biden won’t win the nom and were he to enter the fray, would likely just sully his reputation, which has done nothing but improve since his association with Obama. That’s why most like him, seems like, b/c of his fruitful, collegial, warm relationship with Obama. (Talk aboutta guy who stands in reflected glory!)

    But if we enter the Wayback Machine, affable Uncle Joe is he same guy who:

    * voted for the Iraq War
    * voted for the Bankruptcy Bill (MBNA Joe!)
    * has no real constituency apart from the largely imaginary but oh-so-coveted (by the press corpse) (WHITE) working class
    * is gaffe-prone as fuck, which is lovable enough — as long as you’re not responsible for getting shit done by not stepping on your own dick alla time
    * failed miserably every other time he ran for prez and is not a particularly gifted speaker, campaigner or thinker
    * is old, which ain’t disqualifying necessarily, but if yer old, you better bring a lotta juice, i.e. enthusiasm and fresh vigor (a la Warren) if you hope to survive the Dem primaries

    Biden, imo, has improved with age in the estimation of many largely b/c he ain’t really responsible for anything anymore and hasn’t been for years. Even back in his own day, Biden was uninspiring — so what has changed?

    What annoys me greatly, apart from the hysterical impatience of the press corpse to just let things play out in the Dem race before creaming their pants over a (old, white, penis-enabled) savior is the unmentioned counterpoint to the “gotta-get-me-some-Joe-white-lunchbucket” votes:

    If you (sorta, hope to, maybe) inspire those handfulla white voters in MI WI and PA and elsewhere to check D stead a R this time, what the fuck about alla the women you fail to inspire (if not demoralize) with your tired old retread — who didn’t exactly cover himself in glory back when it counted (Anita Hill on line 1!)? Or what about folks who are endowed with more pigment than the press’ WWC heroes? Or young people? You know, the Democratic base? Is reassuring a buncha older white dudes that yer not one a them CRAY-ZEEE leftists really a reasonable path to victory?

    Seems to me, ideally, you want crossover appeal, like Obama had, and lovable ol’ Joe just ain’t got it. Am entirely unpersuaded Biden’s got much juice of any kind with anyone — except our dear friends in the commentariat chattering classes, bless ther hearts.

    So do yourself and everyone a favor, Joe, and sit this one out. You ain’t never gonna win the Dem nod and that’s OK. (Plus, the rep you save may be your own.)

  37. 37.

    Archon

    January 7, 2019 at 12:28 am

    I love Joe and if he would have ran in 2016 as a continuation of the Obama legacy I would have heartily supported him. That time is passed though the party needs new leadership.

  38. 38.

    Repatriated

    January 7, 2019 at 12:31 am

    @frosty fred: Onion, behind a Tinyurl redirect.

  39. 39.

    jl

    January 7, 2019 at 12:31 am

    It’s a free country and anyone qualified can run. So, I don’t see the point in worrying to much about it. I think there are dozens of Democrats who could beat Trump, Biden included.

    As I typed a day or so ago, I watched C-SPAN speech of Biden, in what seemed to be a trial run of his campaign schtick. It seemed so overly thought out, over rehearsed and precious ‘affable, moderate, thoughtful avuncular story telling Joe’ that I had a hard time figuring out what he was saying in much of it. And from audience shots, seemed like that they had a hard time too. It’s like Trump O’Malley’d himself into an incomprehensible oily political salesman.

    So, let him run. If he continues such a lame approach, the campaign won’t last long enough to leave any trace on the political scene.

  40. 40.

    Suzanne

    January 7, 2019 at 12:34 am

    Weird thing about Biden speculation IMO is that he’s the only possible challenger who Trump can twist into pretzels over the recession and the Iraq War. Never discussed. The argument is basically: “union guys love ol Joe.”

    The Democratic coalition is:
    1) Minorities and immigrants (ESPECIALLY black women)
    2) Urban dwellers
    3) White people with a college degree
    4) Young people

    Not to say that union guys can’t rejoin the coalition, but they are far from loyal members. Ergo, I am more interested in holding together and inspiring and turning out the coalition that we have. I will need a better justification to support a Biden candidacy than “union doods love Joe”.

    (And I say this as someone who feels pretty positively about Biden.)

  41. 41.

    Gozer

    January 7, 2019 at 12:34 am

    Not to be ageist, but this is the same problem happening in many sectors of the economy, boomers (and younger silent gen) are not fucking letting go and giving X’ers and millennials a go at things.

    And I’m fond of Joe Biden, but dude, him and Bernie and anyone else over 60-65 need to just give it a rest. There are better, younger candidates that are more in tune with the world of 2019-20.

  42. 42.

    LisGatosCA

    January 7, 2019 at 12:36 am

    I like Biden taking up some news cycles, keep the misdirection going for awhile.

    And then deciding – ‘I had my chances but it didn’t work out. No regrets and no run in 2020.’

    Take the whole month of January, no rush. But then put us out of your misery. I’m sure the donors are in the same frame of mind – make up your mind to not run in timely fashion.

    His real friends have to be thinking – don’t humiliate yourself or waste our money.

  43. 43.

    Mandalay

    January 7, 2019 at 12:37 am

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Trump and the Republican media would eviscerate Biden as a serial groper and kiddy fiddler on the basis of repeatedly having inappropriate contact with females at public functions.

    Every time Biden mentions Trump’s behavior towards women they’ll bombard the media with video of Biden sticking his nose is some poor teenage girl’s hair. The scary voice in the campaign ad:

    Would you trust “cuddly” Joe Biden as president? Would you even trust him alone with your mother? Your wife? YOUR DAUGHTER!!!!!!

    And even if Biden’s intentions and conduct are entirely innocent, his “friendly” behavior is hardly going to inspire women to vote for him.

  44. 44.

    jk

    January 7, 2019 at 12:38 am

    Biden’s plagiarism problem

    Biden’s exit from the 1988 race is worth recalling in detail, because his transgressions far exceeded Obama’s own relatively innocent lifting of rhetorical set pieces from his friend Deval Patrick, which occasioned a brief flap last February. Biden’s misdeeds encompassed numerous self-aggrandizing thefts, misstatements, and exaggerations that seemed to point to a serious character defect.

    Biden’s downfall began when his aides alerted him to a videotape of the British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock, who had run unsuccessfully against Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The tape showed Kinnock delivering a powerful speech about his rise from humble roots. Taken by the performance, Biden adapted it for his own stump speech. Biden, after all, was the son of a car salesman, a working-class kid made good. Kinnock’s material fit with the story he was trying to sell.

    At first Biden would credit Kinnock when he quoted him. But at some point he failed to offer the attribution. Biden maintained that he lapsed only once—at a debate at the Iowa State Fair, on Aug. 23, when cameras recorded it—but Maureen Dowd of the New York Times reported two incidents of nonattribution, and no one kept track exactly of every time Biden used the Kinnock bit. (Click here for examples of Biden’s lifting.) What is certain is that Biden didn’t simply borrow the sort of boilerplate that counts as common currency in political discourse—phrases like “fighting for working families.” What he borrowed was Kinnock’s life.

    Biden lifted Kinnock’s precise turns of phrase and his sequences of ideas—a degree of plagiarism that would qualify any student for failure, if not expulsion from school. But the even greater sin was to borrow biographical facts from Kinnock that, although true about Kinnock, didn’t apply to Biden. Unlike Kinnock, Biden wasn’t the first person in his family history to attend college, as he asserted; nor were his ancestors coal miners, as he claimed when he used Kinnock’s words. Once exposed, Biden’s campaign team managed to come up with a great-grandfather who had been a mining engineer, but he hardly fit the candidate’s description of one who “would come up [from the mines] after 12 hours and play football.” At any rate, Biden had delivered his offending remarks with an introduction that clearly implied he had come up with them himself and that they pertained to his own life.

    Most American political reporters were not so attuned to Britain’s politics that they recognized Kinnock’s words. But Michael Dukakis’ adviser John Sasso had seen the Kinnock tape. Without his boss’s knowledge or consent, he prepared a video juxtaposing the two men’s speeches and got it into the hands of Dowd at the Times, David Yepsen of the Des Moines Register, and NBC News. When the story broke on Sept. 12, Biden was gearing up to chair the Supreme Court nomination hearings for Robert Bork, Ronald Reagan’s far-right nominee. Biden angrily denied having done anything wrong and urged the press to chase after the political rival who had sent out what came to be called the “attack video.”

    Unfortunately for Biden, more revelations of plagiarism followed, distracting him from the Bork hearings. Over the next days, it emerged that Biden had lifted significant portions of speeches from Robert Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey. From Kennedy, he took four long sentences in one case and two memorable sentences in another. (In one account, Biden said that Pat Caddell had inserted them in his speech without Biden’s knowledge; in another account, the failure to credit RFK was chalked up to the hasty cutting and pasting that went into the speech.) From Humphrey, the hot passage was a particularly affecting appeal for government to help the neediest. Yet another uncited borrowing came from John F. Kennedy.

    If that wasn’t bad enough, Biden admitted the next day that while in law school he had received an F for a course because he had plagiarized five pages from a published article in a term paper that he submitted. He admitted as well that he had falsely stated that British Labor official Denis Healey had given him the Kinnock tape. (Healey had denied the claim.) And Biden conceded that he had exaggerated in another matter by stating in a speech some years earlier that he had joined sit-ins to desegregate restaurants and movie theaters, and was thus actively involved in the civil rights movement.

    h/t https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2008/08/why-biden-s-plagiarims-shouldn-t-be-forgotten.html

  45. 45.

    jl

    January 7, 2019 at 12:39 am

    Also, I think Biden’s behind the scenes sniffing around about if his run is feasible, and the weird posturing about why and how he’s running just shows how out of date his thinking is.

    Just my opinion, but I don’t see how people will be much less pissed off in general about things than they were in 2016. Trump’s stunts certainly haven’t helped. So, I think voters will still vastly prefer people who appear to be outsiders, and most importantly, people who will very clearly and boldly state exactly what their policies will be, so hemming and hawing and ‘it’s complicated’ talking. I don’t think there is enough trust for anything but baldly stated simple policies that are hard to twist or backtrack on into more face-stomping and filching from the bottom 90 percent of the population.

    So, some people’s thinking, IMHO, has just gone sadly out of date. And sadly, even though at the top of some of the polls, looks like Biden is one of them.

  46. 46.

    jk

    January 7, 2019 at 12:41 am

    @Gozer:

    Not to be ageist,

    You’re not being ageist, you’re telling the truth. Biden and Sanders need to stay the fuck of this race. We have plenty of younger qualified candidates. They are both seriously too old for this job.

  47. 47.

    jl

    January 7, 2019 at 12:42 am

    @jl: Meant to type “so people do NOT want to hear hemming and hawing and ‘it’s complicated’ talking.”
    And that includes Uncle Joe spinning his policy platform into long complicated avuncular yarns that are hard to follow.

  48. 48.

    MomSense

    January 7, 2019 at 12:47 am

    It’s too early for me. I figure that by the time we all have to caucus or vote, the better options will reveal themselves. Both Biden and Warren are not on my short list of ideal candidates. Not feeling Brown and I loathe Wilmer. I still like Harris, Murphy, Yates, and Booker but we have to wait and see who declares. There may be some governors who jump in and it should be interesting to see if any of them spark some excitement.

    If only Michelle Obama wanted the White House. That would be epic.

  49. 49.

    Mandalay

    January 7, 2019 at 12:48 am

    @LisGatosCA:

    I like Biden taking up some news cycles, keep the misdirection going for awhile.

    Not when Biden is spewing shit like this:

    …Mr. Biden repeated a variation of a line he has used publicly: “If you can persuade me there is somebody better who can win, I’m happy not to do it,” he said, according to the Democrat he spoke to, who shared the conversation on condition of anonymity to discuss a private talk.

    But then Mr. Biden said something he has not stated so bluntly in public: “But I don’t see the candidate who can clearly do what has to be done to win.”

    With friends like Biden the other Democratic candidates don’t need enemies. He needs to shut his mouth immediately, and apologize for (or disavow) those remarks.

  50. 50.

    hilts

    January 7, 2019 at 12:48 am

    Biden talks to a woman in biker gear, who’s sitting on a chair in front of him at a diner in Ohio in September 2012. She’s not sitting on his lap, but it sure looks like it.
    https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/10/21/450547349/5-things-to-know-about-joe-biden

  51. 51.

    Chetan Murthy

    January 7, 2019 at 12:51 am

    @Mike J:

    Other than that I’m looking at black women DAs.

    I can’t say that I’ve thought things thru enough to say more than this: Senator Perfesser Warren [thanks, Charlie!] seems like she’d be a great President. But I won’t shed any tears if she doesn’t win. I’d love it if former AG My Senator Kamala Harris were my President. But I wont’ shed any tears if she doesn’t win. Kirsten Gillibrand is kickin’ ass and takin’ names. But I won’t shed any tears, yadda yadda yadda.

    One way or another, our next President needs to be a woman. There are enough qualified and ambitious women, that it’s fucking time. And She. Was. Robbed. Yes, I would prefer that out next President be a woman of color. But whoever our next President is, she needs to be a woman.

  52. 52.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    January 7, 2019 at 12:53 am

    @Mandalay: Lighten-up, Francis. We’re just having fun, here.

  53. 53.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    January 7, 2019 at 12:54 am

    @jl:

    I think voters will still vastly prefer people who appear to be outsiders, and most importantly, people who will very clearly and boldly state exactly what their policies will be

    So you’ll be lending your support to the Baud!2020 campaign?

  54. 54.

    sukabi

    January 7, 2019 at 12:54 am

    @jl: yep. There’s been so much word salad served up as political commentary over the last 2 decades people are hungry for straightforward, no nonsense truth telling. That’s why the newly elected women, Warren, Beto are having such an impact. Biden gets lost in his ramblings and doesn’t complete a thought before he’s off on another one…

  55. 55.

    Fair Economist

    January 7, 2019 at 12:55 am

    @Mandalay: If Biden’s argument is that only he can beat Trump his campaign will flop like a fish in a boat because polls show any potential nominee with decent name recognition beats Trump, along with a generic democrat.

  56. 56.

    Chetan Murthy

    January 7, 2019 at 12:55 am

    @MomSense:

    Yates

    Wait, wut? Do you mean Sally Yates? I didn’t know she was even thinking of elective office? And, uh, while I surely wish she would Run For Something ™, i don ‘t even know if she’s a Dem. Whom do you mean, uh, please?

  57. 57.

    poleaxedbyboatwork

    January 7, 2019 at 12:55 am

    Re: Biden.

    Please, no. Fer-fuck’s-sakes, a thousand times no.

    Biden won’t win the nom and were he to enter the fray, would likely just sully his reputation, which has done nothing but improve (and it hadda ways to go) since his association with Obama. Seems like those who like him do so b/c of his fruitful, collegial, warm relationship with Obama. (Talk aboutta guy who stands in reflected glory!)

    But if we enter the Wayback Machine, affable Uncle Joe is he same guy who:

    * voted for the Iraq War
    * voted for the Bankruptcy Bill (MBNA Joe!)
    * has no real constituency apart from the largely imaginary but oh-so-coveted (by the press corpse) (WHITE) working class
    * is gaffe-prone as fuck, which is lovable enough — as long as you’re not responsible for getting shit done by not stepping on your own dick alla time
    * failed miserably every other time he ran for prez and is not a particularly gifted speaker, campaigner or thinker
    * is old, which ain’t disqualifying necessarily, but if yer old, you better bring a lotta juice, i.e. enthusiasm and fresh vigor (a la Warren) if you hope to survive the Dem primaries

    Biden, imo, has improved with age in the estimation of many largely b/c he ain’t really responsible for anything anymore and hasn’t been for years. Even back in his own day, Biden was uninspiring — so what has changed?

    What annoys me greatly, apart from the hysterical impatience of the press corpse to just let things play out in the Dem race before creaming their pants over a (old, white, pen1s-enabled) savior is the unmentioned counterpoint to the “gotta-get-me-some-Joe-white-lunchbucket-votes” panic:

    If you (sorta, hope to, maybe) inspire those handfulla white voters in MI WI and PA and elsewhere to check D stead a R this time, what the fuck about alla the women you fail to inspire (if not demoralize) with your tired old retread — who didn’t exactly cover himself in glory back when it counted? (Anita Hill on line 1!) Or what about folks who are endowed with more pigment than the press’ WWC heroes? Or young people? You know, the Democratic base? Is reassuring a buncha older white dudes that yer not one a them CRAY-ZEEE leftists really a reasonable path to victory?

    Seems to me, ideally, you want crossover appeal, like Obama had, and lovable ol’ Joe just ain’t got it. Am entirely unpersuaded Biden’s got much juice of *any* kind with *anyone* — except our dear, dear friends in the commentariat chattering classes, bless ther hearts.

    So do yourself and everyone a favor, Joe, and sit this one out. You ain’t never gonna win the Dem nod and that’s OK. (Plus, the rep you save may be your own.)

  58. 58.

    magurakurin

    January 7, 2019 at 1:00 am

    @rikyrah:

    Biden should have run in 2016.
    So, no go Joe.

    Same can be said for Warren. They were both afraid of Hillary Clinton…don’t see how that makes them heroic warriors for the cause now.

    Just like my opinion for Warren, for Biden I say

    next….

  59. 59.

    Raoul

    January 7, 2019 at 1:03 am

    May be repeating (got to get to sleep so I’m skipping down here unread), but:
    Are the Media Village Idiots just that desperate for a candidate they can ‘recognize’?
    Yes. Yes they are.
    As in, 1. desperate and 2. idiots.

  60. 60.

    MomSense

    January 7, 2019 at 1:03 am

    @Chetan Murthy:

    I do mean Sally Yates. She’s a Dem and I don’t think she would ever run but I think she would be perfect.

  61. 61.

    Suzanne

    January 7, 2019 at 1:04 am

    Not to be ageist, but this is the same problem happening in many sectors of the economy, boomers (and younger silent gen) are not fucking letting go and giving X’ers and millennials a go at things.

    I’ll be ageist about it. I don’t want to vote for any more Baby Boomers. The president sets the agenda, and I want younger people to set that agenda. That, of course, is not to say that the interests of Baby Boomers are not important. But it’s time for the Boomers to sit the fuck down.

  62. 62.

    magurakurin

    January 7, 2019 at 1:05 am

    @jk: The cry of ageism is stupid. I’m not in Joe’s league, I’m 20 years younger, but I can feel the effects of time already. It’s just a fucking fact that people grow old, grow weaker, and die. Why try to pretend otherwise with the charge of ageism. Some things should be left to younger women…the presidency is one of them.

  63. 63.

    Yutsano

    January 7, 2019 at 1:05 am

    @poleaxedbyboatwork: Just gonna say THIS here. Cause that about sums up where I am.

    @MomSense: I would LOVE if Sally would run for something in her native Georgia. Hell if I didn’t want Stacy Abrams to totally eviscerate Perdue I’d encourage Yates to try for the Senate. Except I don’t know what she’s doing now.

  64. 64.

    magurakurin

    January 7, 2019 at 1:05 am

    @Suzanne: The youngest Boomers were born in 1964…generational tags aren’t of much value either.

  65. 65.

    NotMax

    January 7, 2019 at 1:06 am

    Never was drawn to him at all (no, not as Veep either), yet find it pathetic to see him becoming the Bob (“It’s my turn!”) Dole of the Democratic party.

  66. 66.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    January 7, 2019 at 1:07 am

    @Suzanne: So anyone over 55 is out?

    (That should narrow the field quite a bit.)

  67. 67.

    gwangung

    January 7, 2019 at 1:07 am

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    So you’ll be lending your support to the Baud!2020 campaign?

    Fuck, yeah, mothafuckers.

  68. 68.

    Amir Khalid

    January 7, 2019 at 1:09 am

    As far as I know, no one rates Joe Biden’s chances at the presidency in 2020 but Biden himself. And both times he ran before, Biden turned out to be a weak candidate who was quickly overshadowed by the real contenders. I can see his candidacy getting a bit of traction if Obama endorses him, but I think such an endorsement is unlikely unless Biden can get traction on his own and make it to the front of the pack.

  69. 69.

    sukabi

    January 7, 2019 at 1:09 am

    @MomSense: I don’t know anything about if she’s interested or not, but I suspect her calendar may be busy with House and Mueller related things…

  70. 70.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    January 7, 2019 at 1:11 am

    @gwangung: You’ll be perfect for the Baud!2020! press spokesperson.

  71. 71.

    jl

    January 7, 2019 at 1:11 am

    @sukabi: I really don’t care who runs. I think any Dem who runs a good campaign can win easily. Whatever gets us a Dem WH and Dem Congress in 2020 is fine with me.

    My ‘out of date’ list, from what I have seen so far is Biden, Cuomo, Booker.
    My ‘up to date’ list, from what I have seen so far is Harris, Gillibrand, Warren and (sorry to say this) BS.
    Edit: ‘up to date’ means understanding message that voters will respond to. BS’ policies are most assuredly not ‘up to date’, though much better than anything GOP can offer.

    I don’t know about O’Rourke. I think the recent BS/Beto wars was just meaningless posturing and positioning by motivated pundits, political operators and various camp followers. What will make a difference is how O’Rourke does when he has to win elections and caucuses. My understanding is that he’s backed off from supporting Medicare for All and other policies that made him a favorite of some progressives. If that is the case, we need to see what he comes up with. I don’t care that much about Medicare for All versus an improved Obamacare, both approaches can get the US to good system. But O’Rourke needs to come out with clear strong policies that people can see will benefit them and cannot be sabotaged or subverted.

    I’m not sure about Sherrod Brown either.

    Now that Warren is in, I don’t care whether BS runs to get progressive policies in public debate, but if he does run, will be interesting to see if he can offer anything but repetition of his 2016 slogans.

  72. 72.

    Suzanne

    January 7, 2019 at 1:11 am

    @magurakurin: OK, I will be more precise: I think the presidency is ideally a job for someone in their late-40s to early-50s, and that, if the person serves two terms, they are done by their early 60s. AT LATEST. I would prefer to vote for someone who is in their mid-50s or younger in 2020.

    The job takes vigor and energy and the ability to connect with a wide range of people.

  73. 73.

    Chetan Murthy

    January 7, 2019 at 1:12 am

    @MomSense:

    Sally Yates. She’s a Dem

    Really? Oh damn. Oh damn. Uh, I can’t pretend that it doesn’t matter to me that she’s a Dem. But even if she *weren’t* a Dem, I’d still want her to Run For Something ™. But that she’s a Dem, makes me hope even more.

    Is there someplace that civilians like me could write letters, to let her know that we’d support her electoral ambitions, if she chose to have same?

  74. 74.

    Martin

    January 7, 2019 at 1:12 am

    While everyone is free to discount Joe because of the Hill hearing, good Christ that was 28 years and a handful of #metoo movements ago. Surely we have more recent information with which to judge him (good or bad).

    That said, the Dem electorate in 2018 was fairly different from 2016 and I don’t see it going back. 2016 was about old white men getting all anxious about uppity young brown women taking over, and 2018 was about the uppity young brown women supporters turning out. You want that turnout to continue, put as close to a young brown woman across from Trump in the general. AOC is too young, but they’re afraid of her for a reason.

  75. 75.

    joel hanes

    January 7, 2019 at 1:13 am

    @jk:

    Everyone here is forgetting Biden’s disgraceful treatment of Anita Hill

    Not I. He’s been dead to me ever since.

    He had a hand in the awful bankruptcy bill, too.

    Please choose anyone else except Wilmer.

  76. 76.

    Aussie Sheila

    January 7, 2019 at 1:18 am

    From a land far away, filled with foreboding about the complete cluster $&@k that the US has become, it would be good to see the following in a successful Dem candidate:

    1. Someone under 60 years old

    2 A woman, preferably a woman of colour

    3. Someone capable of putting forward concrete proposals that deliver guaranteed healthcare, higher wages and a clean environment for US people

    4. Someone capable of beating back on the execrable US beltway media.

    A sample ticket?

    Kamal Harris/Sherrod Brown

    My 0.02 worth.

  77. 77.

    magurakurin

    January 7, 2019 at 1:18 am

    @Suzanne: completely agree.

  78. 78.

    magurakurin

    January 7, 2019 at 1:21 am

    @Martin:

    AOC is too young, but they’re afraid of her for a reason.

    I’m kind of afraid of her, too, to be honest. I get a bad vibe from her. Too bad someone like Sharice Davids wasn’t anointed to be “the face of the party.”

  79. 79.

    Suzanne

    January 7, 2019 at 1:21 am

    @Martin: AOC is an excellent communicator. Absolutely excellent. That is more important to me than any specific policy position. IMO, anyone the Dems nominate will be acceptable from a policy standpoint. I may have disagreements and preferences here and there, but advancing the interests of the country as a whole are more important than specific issues, and there is not likely to be a lot of daylight here.

    So…..who is the best at articulating a vision? Who is the best at establishing an agenda for the future that the American people will want to get behind? Who is the best at shifting the Overton window and in effect making the things we want possible?

  80. 80.

    Burnspbesq

    January 7, 2019 at 1:22 am

    @Chetan Murthy:

    All—repeat, ALL—litmus tests are asinine. Specifically including race or gender-based litmus tests.

  81. 81.

    Raoul

    January 7, 2019 at 1:23 am

    @Suzanne: Saw an info graphic that Congress is still majority Boomer (by a good bit). Heck, there’s still a fair number of Silent Gen MOCs.

    Their needs will not be abandoned if POTUS isn’t one too.

  82. 82.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    January 7, 2019 at 1:24 am

    @Suzanne: OK, that leaves you with Booker, Gillibrand, and Beto.

  83. 83.

    Martin

    January 7, 2019 at 1:26 am

    @Suzanne: I don’t care about the vigor argument so much. But the world is changing rapidly, and the domestic issues that will dominate the next 20 years are pretty much out of reach of most 50+ year olds. The economy and labor are no longer synonymous, but our national policies and attitudes assume that they still are. It’s hard to find anyone over age 50 that really gets that.

  84. 84.

    jl

    January 7, 2019 at 1:27 am

    @Raoul: House must of got the age distribution down into Boomer range. Senate seems on average a lot older then boomer. GOP Senate seems of Robber Baron age, in spirit if not by calendar.

    I think main thing is most of Congress is, by standard of the average voter, filthy rich, either when they get in, or due to our very corrupt political system, after a couple of terms. Especially again, the Senate.

  85. 85.

    Martin

    January 7, 2019 at 1:27 am

    @Raoul: Culture wars aren’t won by being generous to those outside your group.

  86. 86.

    jk

    January 7, 2019 at 1:28 am

    @poleaxedbyboatwork:

    Thanks for providing that rundown of Joe Biden’s greatest hits

    @joel hanes:
    Glad to hear that you were disgusted by Biden’s actions as well.

    @magurakurin:

    Biden and Sanders are acting like selfish pricks. They’re obviously too old and we have so many great candidates to choose from, so I’m hoping that friends of theirs can convince them to stay the hell out of the 2020 race.

  87. 87.

    gwangung

    January 7, 2019 at 1:28 am

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: My motto for Baud!2020! is “Baud!2020! Fuck, yeah!”

  88. 88.

    Raoul

    January 7, 2019 at 1:28 am

    @Suzanne: 50-54 is historically the most common POTUS age at first inaugural, followed closely by 55-59 age band. Median is 55-1/4.
    So I’d say you’re spot on in your wishes!

  89. 89.

    Martin

    January 7, 2019 at 1:29 am

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Harris will be 56 in 2020.

  90. 90.

    jl

    January 7, 2019 at 1:29 am

    @gwangung: And Baud 2020! is virtual, so can meet any and all litmus tests.

  91. 91.

    magurakurin

    January 7, 2019 at 1:30 am

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    OK, that leaves you with Booker, Gillibrand, and Beto.

    but, to tell the truth, I’d be fine with any of those three.

  92. 92.

    Raoul

    January 7, 2019 at 1:30 am

    @Martin: Yes. I suppose I naively want people to govern and serve, not be warriors for their tribe. How very sad and quaint I am.

  93. 93.

    Mnemosyne

    January 7, 2019 at 1:31 am

    @Suzanne:

    So Kamala Harris is out, because she’s both a Baby Boomer and will be 56 years old in 2020 (born in 1964). Who else you got that has the requisite experience but was born no later than 1965?

    Oh, and the people who talked about Obama’s lack of experience tended to discount his 7 years in the Illinois State Senate before he went to the US Senate.

  94. 94.

    Chetan Murthy

    January 7, 2019 at 1:31 am

    @Burnspbesq: Let me paraphrase from some European org, about undder-representation of women: the historical barriers to women’s participation guarantees that those women who make it thru are by construction superlative, and also fewer in number than we would desire. Selected for, by the filter we instituted generation ago. If we wish for real equality, if we wish to find out what women are really able to do, then we need to proactively promote women until equality is achieved.

    But really, there’s another reason. Men are a fucking blight. I don’t give a damn what other people think about this. Young women, just like young men, suffer from poverty and stunted futures. But they don’t descend into criminality and terrorism in anywhere near the numbers that young men do. I want my nieces and nephews to have a future on this planet. So I’m voting for a woman. A Democratic woman, but a woman.

    Now, you can choose not to believe the second paragraph. But it doesn’t change the first para. Every woman who’s made it to the top of her field (politics) has had to fight thru a gauntlet that NOT ONE man has had to endure. EVERY ONE. That should mean something. It does to me.

    Oh, and it should mean something, that for every one of us who ways “oh, we’ll choose evenly, without regard to gender” there are a dozen of those daughter-rapers out there, who think “the b***h might win! we can’t have that!”

  95. 95.

    Mandalay

    January 7, 2019 at 1:31 am

    @Amir Khalid:

    I can see his candidacy getting a bit of traction if Obama endorses him, but I think such an endorsement is unlikely unless Biden can get traction on his own and make it to the front of the pack.

    If Obama had the slightest intention of endorsing Biden then Biden would have blabbed it by now. It’s not going to happen unless he gets the nomination, which he won’t.

    That said I can imagine Obama might step in and lend his support if (say) Harris or Warren was running neck and neck with Sanders.

  96. 96.

    joel hanes

    January 7, 2019 at 1:31 am

    On the electric twitter machine, hilzoy points out

    5/ Wonkier related point: did you know that [Joe Biden] also sponsored and helped to write the 1984 bill that greatly expanded civil forfeiture (otherwise known as: police taking your property even if you’re never convicted of a crime, and using the proceeds to fund their departments.)

  97. 97.

    Suzanne

    January 7, 2019 at 1:32 am

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Right now, I am most into a Harris/O’Rourke ticket. Harris is just a hair over my age preference. They are both notable for being exceedingly charismatic and they’re both exciting to the coalition as described above. This could change, though. I think Booker is also an exciting guy to watch.

  98. 98.

    magurakurin

    January 7, 2019 at 1:33 am

    @Martin:

    born in 1964…the last year of the Boomers and the smaller, younger, sub generation…Generation Jones…

  99. 99.

    hilts

    January 7, 2019 at 1:35 am

    @Suzanne:

    I’ll be ageist about it. I don’t want to vote for any more Baby Boomers. The president sets the agenda, and I want younger people to set that agenda.

    I second your sentiment 1,000%. In addition, poleaxedbyboatwork has provided an excellent list of reasons why Biden does not deserve to be elected President.

  100. 100.

    gogiggs

    January 7, 2019 at 1:36 am

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9_TMj8GB6s

  101. 101.

    Raoul

    January 7, 2019 at 1:37 am

    Just looking a few more things up, didn’t realize tRump and dubya were born less than a month apart, with Donnie Dazzlehands being older.

    Biden is abt 3.5 years their senior.

    I think 2020 is time to, roughly speaking, revert to the mean.

  102. 102.

    jl

    January 7, 2019 at 1:38 am

    I can see advantages to a big field at the beginning. For example, in a large field, especially with several progressives, BS won’t have enough share to make trouble if he loses. Warren surely matches BS on progressive policy, and probably understands policy and how to compromise effectively than BS.

    I’m curious to see how Gillibrand’s recent more progressive stands develop, if she decides to run. I’m interested to see candidates who have lead with clear and unequivocal policy proposals in the forefront. I think Warren, Harris, Gillibrand and BS have done that.

  103. 103.

    Suzanne

    January 7, 2019 at 1:39 am

    Should also note that Obama, Clinton, and Carter were all younger than their opponents when they won.

    Guerilla warfare: take your weaknesses and turn them into strengths.

  104. 104.

    hilts

    January 7, 2019 at 1:39 am

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    You forgot Klobuchar.

  105. 105.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    January 7, 2019 at 1:41 am

    @hilts: No, Amy’s a few months younger than I am; she was born in 1960.

  106. 106.

    CarolDuhart2

    January 7, 2019 at 1:41 am

    @Suzanne: For women, I’d add a decade for two reason: health, and often women can’t really take their shot until the kids are out of the house. Also older women have a “I don’t give a-attitude” that doesn’t really kick in a lot of times until menopause or close to it, which is essential in a chief executive.

    Biden-I love him, but if he comes across like the rest of you suggest, his time has passed-he would be better in a cabinet position, where his experience would be of immense use. Could he do that, or again, a Jerry Brown, where freed from the need to be the pedestal guy again, he could have a real legacy?

  107. 107.

    poleaxedbyboatwork

    January 7, 2019 at 1:41 am

    @Burnspbesq:

    All—repeat, ALL—litmus tests are asinine. 

    Alkalies about acids.

  108. 108.

    hilts

    January 7, 2019 at 1:41 am

    @Suzanne:

    Have you considered Kirsten Gillibrand?

  109. 109.

    Suzanne

    January 7, 2019 at 1:42 am

    @hilts: I should note that I will crawl through broken glass to vote for whomever becomes the Dem nominee. Hell, we could nominate a reanimated corpse and I would vote for it over the alternative.

  110. 110.

    jl

    January 7, 2019 at 1:44 am

    @Suzanne: ” we could nominate a reanimated corpse and I would vote for it over the alternative. ”

    A reminder that, Baud 2020! is virtual and could be that if the country becomes so unhinged that the reanimated corpse vote is crucial.

  111. 111.

    westyny

    January 7, 2019 at 1:45 am

    I agree with wanting a younger candidate, and any major candidate from 2016 and before (including, especially BS) has the taint of that Russian-engineered fiasco. But I think we should remember with gratitude Biden blowing up Ryan in the VP debate, blunting the momentum Romney had from his first debate with Obama and basically showing Obama how to do it (and do it he did, with “please proceed”). It was an astounding performance and completely pantsed Ryan in public. It was also a point by point destruction of a punch list of conservative talking points, That debate and its contexts should studied for a long time.

  112. 112.

    magurakurin

    January 7, 2019 at 1:45 am

    @Suzanne: I reckon that pretty much goes without saying for just about everybody here. I mean, even if…gasp…horrors…it’s Wilmer…whaddaya gonna do? Anything is better than a Republican at this point.

  113. 113.

    Suzanne

    January 7, 2019 at 1:46 am

    @hilts: Gillibrand is fine. Comes across a bit stilted and wooden, IMO.

    @CarolDuhart2: That’s a solid point. Please note that this is my preference, out of many preferences. No one thing is going to be determinate.

  114. 114.

    gwangung

    January 7, 2019 at 1:49 am

    @jl: Fuck, yes!

  115. 115.

    poleaxedbyboatwork

    January 7, 2019 at 1:56 am

    @Mandalay:

    If Obama had the slightest intention of endorsing Biden then Biden would have blabbed it by now.

    Expect that’s spot on. Fact, that ringing Obama silence purty much tells you all you need to know about Biden’s prospects from Obama’s perspective. Obama din’t pipe up for Biden in ’16, n he ain’t doin it now.

    Obama is the big dog that din’t bark. Myself, have allus concluded that while Obama likes and respects Biden as a man, he ain’t much taken with him as a pol.

    Someone aways back on this thread opined that, in (very) rough paraphrase, fuckit, just let Joe run, he’ll prolly play himself out anyways cuz he’s a spent shell. And fair enough, prolly true. He’s free to run.

    But personally, I don’t *want* Biden running primarily b/c he’ll suck up a lotta oxygen by virtue of the press corpse propping him up long past the point when it’s obvious to ever’one but him n them that he has no real constituency, no shot.

    If Joe vaingloriously enters the race, I can see, easily, the press corpse carrying him longer’n his mother did. Rather that were not the case.

  116. 116.

    CarolDuhart2

    January 7, 2019 at 2:00 am

    So far, I’m impressed with Senator Professor Elizabeth Warren. She does have the energy and clearly the chops to go toe to toe with Orange Cheeto. And her age is an asset-“no nice ass” from Trumpy, even though I suspect it’s been a decade or better since he’s seen any but his own.

    I have yet to hear what she thinks about America’s place in the world, but I don’t think she would make many mistakes. She has no need to be the world’s swinging dick, which is going to be an asset as we rebuild our foreign policy.

    And someone who knows how to read a balance sheet and actually can fix things is going to be an asset once Cheeto has done with us what he has done with his businesses.

    Not eloguent like Obama, but then, who is close these days? She’s plainspoken, with a refreshing bluntness that will serve her well, like it served Truman.

  117. 117.

    Fair Economist

    January 7, 2019 at 2:10 am

    @Suzanne:

    [on candidate policies]there is not likely to be a lot of daylight here.

    So…..who is the best at articulating a vision?

    That’s it in a nutshell, folks.

  118. 118.

    Suzanne

    January 7, 2019 at 2:12 am

    @poleaxedbyboatwork: I don’t like the idea that we would nominate Joe in order to chase the “white working class in rural Pennsylvania” vote. I want to chase the votes of the people who are already reliable Dems and to turn out more people in those groups who may have sat previous elections out. We will not win by betraying the base. The coalition is different now than it was in Joe’s heyday. Sherrod Brown had no coat tails, but Beto O’Rourke did. That matters. A lot.

    The presidential race is essentially a big aspirational marketing campaign. Voters typically select someone they see as a positive avatar for themselves and their social cohort. Does anyone in the Dem coalition look to Joe and think that he represents a positive, successful vision of themselves or any constituency?

  119. 119.

    Ruckus

    January 7, 2019 at 2:16 am

    @hilts:
    Uncle Joe is a man of the people, if the people are my age, on the cusp of 7 decades or past that.
    I want someone who is mid to late 40s to mid to late 50s. Long enough to have become an adult with a history that can be seen. I want someone at ease in their own skin. I want someone who agrees with me on at least 80% of policy. And the other 20% is even more democratic. I want someone who is inclusive of the entire nation, young and geezer, and all colors. I want someone who understands how to get things done in politics without giving away the store. I want someone who isn’t filthy rich, but who has earned a reasonable living, is educated and willing to say they don’t know everything. I don’t care what genitalia they posses or whom they like to share it with, although I prefer a woman, men have had more than their turns.
    IOW at this time I only know who I don’t want and there are a number of people who fill in my requirements easily.

  120. 120.

    Fair Economist

    January 7, 2019 at 2:21 am

    @Fair Economist: Except I make one exception on policy: Warren. Because she really knows her shit. All through the great housing bubble she was hectoring the big financial companies to stop predatory lending – and she was *still* one of the top speakers to the big financial companies because she was so good at what she did they’d pay her to hector them so they could hear what she had to say. She understands the legal web that underlies our predatory corporate culture and she knows how to fix it. Nobody else running can do that.

  121. 121.

    Chetan Murthy

    January 7, 2019 at 2:26 am

    @Fair Economist:

    Except I make one exception on policy: Warren.

    Yes, *this*. She’s old. Maybe too old. But out of all the people who might run, she’s the one who stands out on policy. Everybody else, it’s somewhat about charisma and people skills. SPW? She gets caricatured by Kate McKinnon on SNL as an endearing schoolmarm. She’s got that locked-up. Honestly, even though I think she’s too old (I’m 54, and my last really high-powered IT job just *ate* me up) I’d be happy if she won.

  122. 122.

    Ruckus

    January 7, 2019 at 2:29 am

    @CarolDuhart2:
    As we’ve seen her come out swinging I’ll give Warren a bunch of points. But, we’re the same age and that’s too old for this job. And I will of course vote for her if she’s the candidate. But she’s not my preference.
    Kamala Harris is my senator and if her emails about being my senator are any indication, I’d prefer her. If Maxine Waters was 25 yrs younger I’d choose her, she swears really well and has more than paid her dues.

  123. 123.

    poleaxedbyboatwork

    January 7, 2019 at 2:31 am

    @Suzanne:

    Started to cobble together a long way round the porch to saying sumpin similar n then thought better of it, mostly cuz you already said it crisper n shorter n better.

    So, instead: Agreed. Muchly.

  124. 124.

    poleaxedbyboatwork

    January 7, 2019 at 2:46 am

    @Fair Economist:

    Except I make one exception on policy: Warren.

    While it ain’t my preference for the Dem nom to be an oldster, I very much agree with your assessment for why Warren is a valuable addition to a lively productive debate.

    And, just to slag on Uncle Joe s’more, one point I ain’t seen anyone raise is: Who the fuck talks like “If only I saw someone in the Dem Party capable of defeating Trump, but ….”

    That there’s one (very fucking small) step away from “I alone can fix it.”

    Some peeps wanna be Prez cuz they wanna Be Somebody, and some peeps wanna be Prez cuz they wanna Do Something.

    In marked contradistinction to Warren, one of the (many) reasons I’m so down on Biden is cuz, for all his self-important maundering, I ain’t heard word fucking one — apart from his saviour complex — about *why* he wants to be president. About what he wants to *do* as president.

    That, to me, is the mark of an unserious egotist. And I’ve already hadda bellyful a that for one lifetime.

  125. 125.

    Ruckus

    January 7, 2019 at 2:47 am

    Let’s face it folks, no one is going to suit all of us 100%, it just isn’t possible. But right now we have some great choices, if they decide to run. And there could be someone we haven’t discussed who could be the one, but I’d doubt that, politics right now is crazy and we are paying about as much attention as anyone.
    Maybe we could have some policy discussions about what we’d like to see happen, other than individual 1 in custody.
    Like something realistic in the healthcare field, other than pie in the sky. I’ll start. Medicare for All is not the magic panacea that some make it out to be, because Medicare isn’t either. What makes Medicare work is that private insurance companies don’t like us olds, we use way too much healthcare so they want none of it. They will write Medicare Advantage programs because that pays much better. But many of us could not afford Medicare Advantage and food and shelter on SS. Now add in that we have a large private insurance industry. So if you get rid of that there are a lot of people out of work who’d have major issues finding other jobs. We’re stuck with the system we have, what we need to do is refine that, make it work better. The ACA was an attempt at that and over all not a bad first attempt. Of course the court and congress fucked that up. Other countries have private insurance companies and reasonable healthcare. It can work.
    Any other policy ideas that we’d like to see from our ideal candidates?

  126. 126.

    Mary G

    January 7, 2019 at 2:47 am

    @Fair Economist: I think Warren might just be the most radical Democrat out there, talking about things like making companies put workers on their boards, putting in much more stringent restrictions on the revolving door of lobbying, etc.

  127. 127.

    jl

    January 7, 2019 at 2:56 am

    @poleaxedbyboatwork: ” About what he wants to *do* as president. ”
    I think very clear statements about what easy to understand policies a candidate intends to pursue are very important. I think many voters have become too cynical to respond to a general vision, or lots of nuanced arguments about complicated situations and need for complicated policies, I think that just makes them suspicious.

    I could well be wrong, but I think candidates who’ll do best will share voters’ anger at being ripped off by a corrupt system, and they are going to do A, B, C and D about the shitty system, and do E F and G to help out the average person, No ifs ands for buts. No bafflegab about ‘it’s complicated’. No bafflegab like ‘well, yeah, we need adjustments to social insurance’, like Biden babbled about in his recent speech, trying to be all nuanced and moderate and careful. Voters don’t want to hear that. Too many voters will get cynical and smell another rip off in the air with nuanced talk or more unspecified ‘adjustments’ to their ever shrinking means of support.

    I could be wrong but that is my IMHO about it. We’ll see. Warrne, Harris, Gillbrand, despite the fact they come from different ideological niches of the Democratic party, have recently just lead with clear statements on major policies.That is why the are on my ‘up to date’ politician list.

  128. 128.

    Brachiator

    January 7, 2019 at 2:56 am

    @Ruckus:

    As we’ve seen her come out swinging I’ll give Warren a bunch of points. But, we’re the same age and that’s too old for this job.

    And Hillary Clinton is 71. Hmm.

    Ambition is a hell of a drug. Biden was soooo close before that I can understand why he would want to try for the job.

    Right now, I am not excluding anyone. It’s early. Let’s see what they got.

  129. 129.

    jl

    January 7, 2019 at 3:05 am

    @jl: Though I have to admit I am biased against politicians saying something is complicated. They should take the time to explain it to voters so it isn’t complicated any more. Big Dawg and Obama were good at that. I disagreed with them often particularly on international macrofinancial policy and trade agreements, but that’s another matter. They were politically successful because they tried to bring the voters along with them on how they thought about issues and how they made decisions and why, and could thereby gain voter trust.

    People like GHW Bush, and O’Malley showed the limits of the generalized ‘vision thing’. Well, GHW was successful once when he could ride on Reagan’s coattails, but not twice.

  130. 130.

    Ruckus

    January 7, 2019 at 3:17 am

    @Brachiator:
    Yes she is 71. Who else was running in 2016 – BS. The reality was that she was the best choice at the time and like Warren running now, who’ll be 71 in 2 yrs and I’ll vote for her if she’s the candidate. But she’s not my first choice, I’d like younger.
    You mean that Biden got close to the office, not that he was close running for president. He was never close to winning even a primary, not even in his home state.

  131. 131.

    Gozer

    January 7, 2019 at 3:20 am

    I’m either the oldest of millennials or youngest of Gen X (37) and would like to see someone that grew up knowing the GOP as I’ve always known it. A post-Nixon, post-Southern Strategy, post-Reagan GOP.

    I’ve only known republicans to be unrepentant, authoritarian, racist, homophobic shitheels and have absolutely no patience with talk of “what old school republicans were”. There is no “back in the day” for my generation. So I could care less about Rockefeller republicans. All I’ve seen is Gingrich, Bush, and Trump.

    That’s the GOP I know and that GOP has made clear that my friends and I and everyone we love have no place in their America. I want a candidate that acknowledges that reality.

  132. 132.

    Brachiator

    January 7, 2019 at 3:28 am

    @jl:

    Though I have to admit I am biased against politicians saying something is complicated.

    Well, we’ve got Trump saying everything is so easy that he can decide everything using his brain and instinct. Where has this got us?

    If I remember correctly, Clinton would over explain stuff. And it was Ross Perot who seemed to cut through the fog.

    Early on, Obama was criticized for being vague and too general.

    But somewhere along the way, Clinton, Obama, even Hillary convinced a majority of voters that no matter how complicated things might be, they would be able to deal with it.

  133. 133.

    Amir Khalid

    January 7, 2019 at 3:58 am

    @jl:
    Since things are in fact complicated, I would be biased against politicians who will not admit that a thing is compicated. I would seek out a politician who grasps the complexities and knows how to deal with them.

  134. 134.

    TS (the original)

    January 7, 2019 at 4:02 am

    I always remember (I hope correctly) that Joe got the job from President Obama, after the Sandy Hook shooting, to work on gun laws – they went nowhere. I didn’t see him as President in 2008, sure don’t see him that way in 2020. Obama gave him 8 good years as VP, but he achieved little.

  135. 135.

    Amir Khalid

    January 7, 2019 at 4:22 am

    @TS (the original):
    In fairness to Biden, he wasn’t going to get anywhere on that with a Republican Congress determined to oppose any and all Democratic initiatives.

  136. 136.

    OzarkHillbilly

    January 7, 2019 at 5:10 am

    @TS (the original): He made it politically acceptable to be pro LGBT.

  137. 137.

    OzarkHillbilly

    January 7, 2019 at 5:18 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: Let me rephrase that: He proved it was politically acceptable to be pro LGBT.

    Didn’t like the use of “made” before I even hit ‘post’ the first time around, took me a little bit to figure out why.

  138. 138.

    Chetan Murthy

    January 7, 2019 at 5:25 am

    It’s late at night, but something occurs: is there anything other than her age, that disqualifies Warren? I’ve read that she doesn’t have much foreign policy experience. But her deep policy experience and work shaping both bureaucracies and legislation, argues that she can learn that. Anything else?

    Not arguing that age shouldn’t be disqualifying. Just wondering if that’s all there is. B/c wow, that’d be sad. I will state again, that once you get to a certain age, really hard work can wear. Only so many double-shifts you can pull in a row, without it telling on both body and soul. I don’t know if somebody 15yr older than me can take the drain of being President. Hell, I’m sure I couldn’t.

  139. 139.

    OzarkHillbilly

    January 7, 2019 at 5:57 am

    @Chetan Murthy: She’s so unlikable. To Republicans and WWC men who would never vote for a DEM even at pain of death. And we must consider their feelings before all others.

  140. 140.

    Chetan Murthy

    January 7, 2019 at 6:03 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: Well, that’s true and all. But I was actually asking seriously. I mean, all the female candidates are either gonna be shrill harpies, fussy busybodies, stern teachers (and who wants one of those) or floozies, right? The stories are already written, just waiting to slot in the name of the candidate. So I’m not really concerned about that. We each gotta figure out who we’re gonna vote for in the primaries. And right now, if Warren were 20yr younger, or even 10yr younger, dammit, I’d have trouble finding a reason not to vote for her. And I’d fricken’ love it if Sen. Harris were the nominee, just from California pride (ok, ok, and b/c she’s part South-Asian, and so am I). But shit, that wouldn’t stop me from pulling the lever for Warren if she were a bit younger.

    I’m asking if I’m wrong, and also asking if there’s anything else I should be looking at. Seriously, asking for advice & guidance.

  141. 141.

    OzarkHillbilly

    January 7, 2019 at 6:29 am

    @Chetan Murthy: And I was answering in all earnestness. And Yes with heaping loads of sarcasm. Because…. That’s all they’ve got.

    Just as I got sick to death of people saying “We need to get rid of Nancy Pelosi as the leader of House DEMs because she’s so old she’s going to cost us this election that we would totally win if only she would go away!!!!!”, I am already sick to death of the “She/He is too old.” argument. I am also tired of the “we need a woman” or the “we need a person of color” arguments some are making.

    There are only 2 criteria I am concerned with::

    1) Is s/he the best person for the job?
    2) Is s/he the most electable candidate?

    I will vote for some imperfect combination of those comparative qualifications but as of right now we don’t even know who all will be running (and none of them will be perfect so let us please not apply some arbitrary pre-primary litmus test that nobody could check all the boxes of). I’ve got better than a year to make up my mind.

    ETA just in case it wasn’t clear, my sarcasm is aimed at them, not you.

  142. 142.

    Matt McIrvin

    January 7, 2019 at 6:50 am

    @Chetan Murthy: Warren’s equivalent of “emails”– the mostly bullshit controversy where it’s still difficult to defend her because it requires nuance while everyone is screaming and the headlines hammer the key word–is already the main thing most people know about her. That’s the one bit about her that really concerns me, not as a President but as a candidate.

  143. 143.

    JR

    January 7, 2019 at 6:58 am

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Carnegie was, by some measures, the wealthiest man in American history.

  144. 144.

    Bobby Thomson

    January 7, 2019 at 7:25 am

    @jk: in his 2008 run he referred to running into people in Wilmington at a restaurant that had been closed for years.

    Handsy Joe is his own worst enemy and I don’t think he will make it to Iowa or get past it if he does. You can forget about New Hampshire, and the only way he could win South Carolina is with an Obama endorsement he won’t get.

  145. 145.

    Bobby Thomson

    January 7, 2019 at 7:31 am

    @Chetan Murthy:

    1. She backed up Sanders with that “rigged primary” bullshit.

    2. She was a Reagan Republican and became a Democrat only very recently.

    3. She’s not a good campaigner and finished 15 points behind Obama in Massachusetts.

    4. She has a tendency to demagogue all people of wealth and imply that it is an inherent moral failing, a la Sanders.

    5. I can’t see her laughing in Trump’s face and that’s what it will take to win in 2020.

    6. And yeah, she, Biden, and Sanders are all too old, in increasing order of relevance.

  146. 146.

    BC in Illinpis

    January 7, 2019 at 8:25 am

    I like everything that Elizabeth Warren brings to the campaign. Having her in the debates will improve everybody’s game.

    I have seen Joe Biden stumping for other candidates twice: 2016 with Jason Kander and 2018 with Claire McCaskill and local St Louis County candidates. He’s good. I want him doing that in all of 2020, for all sorts of Democrats.

    [I also want two Obamas, two Clintons, Nancy Pelosi, John Lewis, Adam Schiff, and a whole host of other Democrats going coast to coast for our Party’s candidates.]

    As has been said, there is not a lot of difference policy-wise among the Democratic candidates. The question is who can lay out a vision to inspire the country – – a combination of “there’s so much to un-do” and “we are all in this together.”

    I have been most impressed, so far, with Kamala Harris, Beto O’Rourke, and Elizabeth Warren. Each of them can be exciting.

  147. 147.

    LAC

    January 7, 2019 at 8:55 am

    @Bobby Thomson: I am not on the Warren bandwagon but not really because of her age but because of some of what you said. It is too early to annoint her as the one. If my politically active POC 24 year old daughter is any indication,Warren has quite a hill to climb- BS without the spittle flecked tirades. And that is faint praise indeed. But we will be voting for the democat come 202 whoever it is. Just not canonizing her this early.

  148. 148.

    J R in WV

    January 7, 2019 at 9:32 am

    @magurakurin:

    I mean, even if…gasp…horrors…it’s Wilmer…whaddaya gonna do? Anything is better than a Republican at this point.

    Nope. Trading a Russian stooge with an (R) on his name for a Russian stooge with a FAKE (D) on his name will not be any better than we are today. Sanders hates women, black folks, immigrants, and kept his tax returns secret JUST LIKE TRUMP!

    Sanders is NOT A DEMOCRAT~! He just stole our good name for his independent run in 2016, much to the harm of our actual Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton.

    Same goes for Biden, Anita Hill, Bankruptcy Distortion Act, Civil Theft Act, voted for the fake illegal war in Iraq, too old, not progressive, and a real sell out to wall street, actually, not MSM fake. I’m old, too old, and I’m years younger than Biden and Sanders. But I’m an actual progressive Democrat and have been since 1968.

    Has Biden ever been a union member, had a job where being in a union was even possible? Sanders sure hasn’t! Thrown out of a Kibbutz for being to lazy to work?! Yeah, that’s the guy to be President!

  149. 149.

    J R in WV

    January 7, 2019 at 9:47 am

    @poleaxedbyboatwork:

    You seem to be a smart, good guy. For God’s sake, please drop your terrible, awful, no good country hick voice. Mark Twain could do that, and you can’t. Please just stop. I live in the country, surrounded by people who talk like that quite a bit. You can’t even fake it well. Please. Just stop and speak regular English.

    Thanks!

    Cause otherswise I’ma gonna Pie your dumass and never have to read your schtick again!

  150. 150.

    J R in WV

    January 7, 2019 at 9:57 am

    @Gozer:

    I’m 68 now, born in 1950.

    When you say “I’ve only known republicans to be unrepentant, authoritarian, racist, homophobic shitheels and have absolutely no patience with talk of “what old school republicans were”. There is no “back in the day” for my generation. So I could care less about Rockefeller republicans. All I’ve seen is Gingrich, Bush, and Trump.” You speak for me too.

    Rockefeller could never even win a Republican primary back in the day, because most all Rs were “unrepentant, authoritarian, racist, homophobic shitheels” even back in the day, just as bad as they are today. Only you left out Fascist, Theocratic, Patriarchal Monsters from your list of their failings.

    So we’re on the same page here. I think a woman of color who is a prior prosecutor is the ticket now. I’ll take any good progressive Democratic woman… or even a really good progressive Democratic man, but he’ll have to be special, and the women will have to love him. No Sherod Brown for me, no coat tails in Ohio, even.

  151. 151.

    J R in WV

    January 7, 2019 at 10:11 am

    @Bobby Thomson:

    Who is your “She” in your list of points? Cause I think many of them were Clinton points. And I know that isn’t who you mean… I know who I suppose you mean, but you need to say it, don’t make me guess.

    Thanks god there are so many women in the race I need to ask the question!

  152. 152.

    Hob

    January 7, 2019 at 12:03 pm

    @J R in WV: You may have missed the first few weeks that Poleaxed showed up here. Their shtick was much, much, much worse. Lots of people complained about it, and P. was very defensive and refused to change. But then at some point they dropped about 80% of it anyway (which I only know because I was reading on a different device that doesn’t have the pie filter). I’m guessing that’s as good as we’re going to get.

  153. 153.

    Hob

    January 7, 2019 at 12:06 pm

    @J R in WV: It’s about Warren – follow the replying-to link. I think “finished behind Obama” refers to comparing the MA state race to the presidential race, not actually running against Obama.

  154. 154.

    Bobby Thomson

    January 7, 2019 at 2:29 pm

    @J R in WV: both the context and the reply link make it crystal clear.

  155. 155.

    Matt

    January 7, 2019 at 3:04 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    Totally agreed….Joe Biden is well to the right of Clinton economically,

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