I have a bit of a different take on the NYT endorsement of the two women in the race. I think we all know assholes who’ve done us wrong – that includes cheating romantic partners, jerk friends, etc. These people do something bad that shows a specific asshole character trait, they can’t apologize or admit they did something wrong and therefore admit that they have that trait, so they make a gesture of some sort to show “see, you’re wrong, I really don’t have this bad character trait.”
So, in the case of the Times, they shat upon Hillary every chance they got, perhaps showing misogyny among other bad traits, and now they endorse not one but two women. We love women twice as much as you! Suck on that, haters!
Except, maybe, if you really respected women, you’d respect them enough to treat them with the same respect you give to men, and pick one to endorse.
zhena gogolia
I approve this message.
But I think they’re also calculating that Biden will get the nomination, so they have to get started early belittling him.
Kraux Pas
These were already my top two candidates (since Kamala dropped out). You aren’t making life any easier for me FTFNYT.
ETA: And the worst part is going to be watching Amy fade in favor of one more problematic centrist or another due to lack of penis. Ditto Warren with a problematic penis-bearer of the left.
Kay
I think this is true! Bernie will and has compromised plenty. But do they see the problem with admitting it WHILE attacking all the other candidates for compromising?
They can’t have it both ways. He can’t get credit for compromising while insisting everyone else is a sell-out. He can’t be both the unity candidate and the purity candidate. One of those EXCLUDES. He’s already expelled the voters he would be supposedly unifying.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Agree on both points.
Kay
The NYTimes has to reposition, too, because Trump is much, much worse than they told us he would be. It’s been a gradual realization for them but there’s no denying he’s a fucking disaster now and it literally gets worse every day. Today, for example, he’s egging on the gun nuts while whining about being impeached. They never DREAMED he’d be this bad. All that bs about “guardrails” and infrastructure deals- they completely and utterly missed the threat he poses.
Immanentize
I swear to Dog, I thought you were going to follow this up with a comment about Bernie!
Baud
Let’s leave Bernie in the morning thread.
Kay
So in response to the NYTimes endorsement Bernie is now going to say he compromises and works well with others? We’re all just supposed to forget the last 4 years of his campaign, which was wholly grounded in his uncompromising “authenticity”?
That’s pretty cynical. I mean a lot of politicians are cynical, but this one’s whole brand is he’s not.
OzarkHillbilly
Well said, very well said.
Baud
@Kraux Pas:
I hope Amy does well in Iowa, but to be fair, she never escaped mid-tier status, so her fade won’t be as drastic as Warren’s would be.
trollhattan
@Kay:
It’s enraging because they’re the New York Times and more than any major paper were far better positioned–geographically, newsroom aware, archivally, hell, even the society pages–to know and understand deeply that Trump is a crooked, ego-maniacal, predatory monster who, by the way, is a shitty businessman.
They have no excuse. The knew there was no chance that Trump would “pivot” into somebody who did not represent the Trump who had lived in front of their editorial noses for seventy years. They knew dad was arrested at a Klan rally and had been successfully prosecuted for violating fair labor laws.
They knew exactly what he was, is and would be.
Immanentize
@Baud: This is, after all, just a continuation of the morning thread where what would have been a comment is now a front page piece about the same topic as the morning thread. But I appreciate your effort.
Lynn Dee
I agree. It’s almost like they said, “Two middle-aged/elderly white women. What’s to choose between ’em?”
Emma from FL
For the first time since you started front-paging I am 100% in agreement. The FTFNYT has always been classist and misogynist. The problem is that while their endorsement will mean doodlysquat to the general voter population, it will carry great weight with the political reporter courtiers. Ugh. It’s going to be an ugly year.
Mo MacArbie
@Baud: This. This. For the love of Baud, this.
JPL
@zhena gogolia: Two new Iowa polls show Biden with a six point lead so I think you’re right. Although trump’s brother received a 33 million dollar fed. contract, expect the focus to be on Biden’s son and brother.
Baud
@JPL:
What’s the issue with Biden’s brother?
MomSense
@trollhattan:
I think if the NYT’s finances, especially concerning their HQ and the fallout from all the smaller newspapers they purchased were examined, the explanation for the coverage would make more sense.
Aleta
@Kay: The sane, experienced adults they promised would surround and modify him instead invoked their power of invisibility.
hilts
Olivia Nuzzi / @olivianuzzi: If an editorial board endorses two candidates whose ideologies cancel each other out that means zero candidates were endorsed.
David Axelrod / @davidaxelrod: If I had to choose just ONE newspaper, it would be The New York Times and The Washington Post.
scav
The NYT also loves their cheap stunts. Plus it gets them front page coverage, they’re the story, not the mere candidates they patted on the head.
Another Scott
@Kay: IIRC, the editorial board endorsed Hillary in 2016.
The problem with these endorsements is that they have absolutely no effect. They don’t even affect their own coverage of the candidates.
In 3 hours people will be talking about something else, and FTFNYT will continue to push garbage political stories while sensible people do what they can to vote the monsters out.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@scav:
Good point. As with Trump, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.
Aleta
Feels like the NYT finally decided on a way to rebut the JPEGs that won’t die of their Hillary headlines. ‘We have two blue female friends.’
Another Scott
@Baud:
Also, too.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
Joe Biden got stuck next to Tulsi on the parade line. I feel like he’s avoiding looking right at her, but maybe it’s his sunglasses.
Alien Radio
@MomSense:
Elaborate? I’m not quite understanding what your suspicions are.
Is this something About the Sulzburgers wanting to sell the HQ?
ThresherK
@Kay: I await every NYT article on the eventual nominee to be coated in a layer of “Here’s someone who held their nose and voted for (the Dem).”
Baud
@Kay:
It was nice of Putin to send a representative to the parade.
Kay
Do they not invite Bloomberg to walk with the other D candidates or does he dislike them and not go?
It’s both fascinating and awful how he’s purchased an entirely different election than the one the rest of them are engaged in.
The Dangerman
@trollhattan:
There once was a Man that was known nuts, that promised the 1 percent tax cuts…
hmmm, not enough coffee yet for limericks…
…but not only tax cuts, but eyeballs/clicks! Hell, Hillary would have been boring by comparison.
MomSense
@Alien Radio:
No, they went into huge debt. Had a bad cash flow problem. Kept getting emergency funding and renters. Who would keep lending to a company in such financial trouble?
Then there’s the ghouliani connection. They owned significant real estate in Times Square which went up significantly in value thanks to ghouliani “cleaning up” Times Sq. Some shady stuff went down but the NYT didn’t want to report on it.
chopper
this is like that time Time made Person of the Year “you”. this is so stupid.
Kay
We have an active Democrat locally, a retired railroad worker, who likes Bloomberg. he came up to me at a concert to tell me this. His name is actually Cletus. Well, “Clete” which is short for Cletus. He used to be such a nice man but now he’s kind of erratic and has fits of anger- I think it’s age-related, some decline there.
The NYTimes can email me if they want his number. They deserve a half hour on the phone with Clete.
dmsilev
@hilts:
Alexandra Petri is on-point:
Baud
@dmsilev:
My first endorsement!
JDM
I guess when the NYT bigwigs watched that Palin interview by Couric, they thought “all of them” was a great answer.
Kay
@dmsilev:
She’s genuinely funny. You wonder how she got in.
Kay
If you were thinking Trump got worse as time went on, he did. He made twice as many false claims in 2019 as he did in 2017 and 2018.
Bad hires always get worse. Mediocre hires can get better, but not bad ones. Always worse. It’s why they’re bad!
dmsilev
@Kay: Remember, she’s at the Post, not the Times. The Post has their own pathologies, but they’re not nearly as full of themselves as the Times is.
hilts
Elizabeth Warren / @ewarren: So, I guess @AmyKlobuchar and I are now both undefeated in elections and undefeated in New York Times endorsements!
different-church-lady
@hilts: If I had to choose all newspapers, one of them would not be the New York Times.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
different-church-lady
Let’s look at this from the NYT’s point of view: “Hey, this way we’ll have two female democrats to sabotage!”
hilts
Good point from Variety tv critic:
h/t https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/the-new-york-times-made-for-tv-endorsement-missed-the-mark-column-1203473013/
debbie
@hilts:
I like Axelrod’s tweet!
HalfAssedHomesteader
@Kay: One of the worst parts about Bernie is that now we will always have a Bernie candidate — someone who wants to free-ride on the good name of the Democrats while refusing to join the team.
Kraux Pas
So in the next few weeks are we going to be treated to hundreds of heartfelt interactions between candidates and their supporters?
Major Major Major Major
I read the endorsement and thought it was a strong argument for each candidate, I’m really not getting the problem. They didn’t pick one? They said why, it seemed like they were pretty up-front about their reasoning. How do we get from that to misogyny?
joel hanes
@Kay:
They can’t have it both ways.
Watch them.
They are vast; they contain multitudes.
Kraux Pas
@Major Major Major Major: I agree completely.
trollhattan
@hilts:
Liz is very quip-worthy. I suppose that makes her “uppity.” ?♂️
trollhattan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
What now, did Biden pee in the elevator?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Just watched about 8 seconds of Kellyanne Conway invoking Martin Luther King to defend trump again impeachment. These people are so vile
and as I’m sure has been noted already, trump has no scheduled event to mark the day
Kent
Honestly, I’m kind of not seeing this. I was a Warren supporter after starting with Harris. But I’ve become Klobuchar curious. I assume we all know that candidate’s platforms are largely aspirational and virtue signaling. But in terms of actual policy proposals, the only three places that Warren and Klobuchar really seem to diverge are:
In most other areas of policy they are really quite similar. Klobuchar is a co-sponsor of the Green New Deal and has essentially the same environmental policies as Warren. Their K12 education policies are similar. Both are for strengthening traditional public education and curtailing vouchers and charter schools. Both are for increased voting rights and the same criminal justice reforms. Have people actually Read Klobuchar’s platform and positions? She is far from centrist.
The only places they really diverge are in very big ticket legislative proposals that are exceedingly unlikely to pass through any Senate likely to be elected in 2020 or 2022. Not when Rand Paul or Pat Toomey is going to be your 60th vote.
The only real meaningful day-to-day differences are going to be with how well they can both repair our tattered standing in the world, and wield executive power to achieve their objectives in the absence of legislative accomplishments. I don’t discern much difference there. They are both very competent and hard-driving results-oriented politicians. They are both work-horses not show-horses.
I would happily vote for either one.
What it comes down to is if you think broad-sweeping legislative proposals are going to be where the action is in 2021 then you support Warren or maybe Sanders. If you think incremental executive-branch actions in the face of an obstructionist Senate are going to be where the action is then you support Klobuchar’s vision of change. I tend to think Klobuchar has the more realistic notion. If 8 years of Obama taught us anything, it’s that depending on Republicans to support your agenda is a recipe for disappointment.
scav
No doubt their endorsements for Republican who prefer international bullying and or domestic racism will follow in due course.
trollhattan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Jesus. Are the gun-toting Nazis in Virginia claiming they have Elie Wiesel’s support? Would make a great twofer.
Edmund Dantes
Over at Digby’s new digs. Digby has a pretty good take down off how it’s really only an endorsement of Amy, and how it’s a dig at Warren.
https://digbysblog.net/2020/01/the-double-endorsement-that-isnt/
TriassicSands
@Kay:
If people are honest, they’ll admit that no matter how bad they expected Trump to be, he is not only worse than that, but he continues to get worse every day. There is no bottom to the Trump abyss.
I thought Trump would be the worst president in American history. I don’t think there is any doubt that he is just that. However, He’s worse than I imagined he would be and he’s getting worse all the time.
The reason, I believe, that Trump has exceeded our ability to appreciate just how bad he would be is that, unlike normal human beings, Trump has 1) no capacity to learn or grow and 2) there is no tempering force at work to rein him in. His political party has totally abandoned any effort to limit his excesses. and his base, like congressional Republicans, approves of, excuses, or rationalizes everything he does no matter how appalling.
Even though the Times was better positioned than most to understand Trump’s incompetence and depravity, I don’t know if anyone could have anticipated what we’ve experienced over the last three years.
The Dangerman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I figured Trump would be the one to compare himself to MLK. Conway is just the warmup act (aka trial balloon to see how much shit she takes).
Betty Cracker
@Edmund Dantes: Digby makes a good point. And you know, if the NYT prefers a more centrist approach, they could have just endorsed Klobuchar. I can’t prove it, but I don’t think they would have “split the baby” like that between two men because, fundamentally, they take men more seriously.
hilts
@Kent:
While the NY Times is certainly deserving of the smackdown they’re now getting on this thread and elsewhere, for me personally Warren and Klobuchar project competence and gravitas whenever they speak and it would be a real stretch to make that same claim for Biden or Sanders.
bemused
@trollhattan:
Maybe they were counting on other Americans to do their jobs for them or they didn’t care that much about doing real journalism.
trollhattan
@hilts:
They’re my top two left, but I’m still presuming it’s Biden unless things change dramatically between now and March. I’m pulling the imaginary lever (filling in the oval doesn’t sound as poetic) for Liz then, when our primary hits.
Wilmer and Pete give me heartburn, and the rest are clutter. Especially the damn billionaires cluttering my teevee.
Major Major Major Major
@Betty Cracker: As digby quotes, the board made it pretty clear that they would be endorsing Klobuchar alone were it not for the fact that their trust in institutions has been shattered. Their endorsement for Warren will be accordingly more hemming-and-hawing. You don’t have to suppose any sort of long game when their words perfectly explain what they’ve done. An endorsement is a piece of rhetoric, not objective journalism. IMO
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I wonder if the NYT realizes how on-brand it is for them to make their endorsement buzzworthy only because it annoyed the hell out of pretty much everyone
Kraux Pas
Certainly not regarding politics. Trump already looked bad enough. If you want to cover elections like a hyped-up sporting event, it won’t do to have one side clearly outmatched.
trollhattan
@bemused:
Yeah, “She has it in the bag” seemed to drive everything.
I remember when poli blogs were becoming a thing, “We’ll fact-check your ass” was a rallying cry. Sadly, that didn’t seem to work out. Citizen journalism, it’s like journalism only without the training or editors.
James E Powell
@Kay:
I don’t think they gave it a thought. They didn’t care because they didn’t think he’d win. They were completely focused on slamming Clinton because they wanted her administration to be wounded and on defense from day one. See also James Comey.
@TriassicSands:
People in power are almost never honest about their own mistakes. The NYT will never acknowledge that it treated Bill & Hillary Clinton different than any other politicians.
Kent
Honestly, in my book they are the only two remaining candidates that are even worthy of consideration. Sanders and Biden are too geriatric. Buttigieg is too wet behind the ears. All the other legitimate male candidates in the prime of their lives with both the experience and energy to be president seem to have faded away (Castro, Booker, Beto, and all the western Senators).
The only thing I really found offensive was the dissing of Central American countries as “basket cases” when they are largely that way as a direct result of both US and Catholic church policy.
And honestly the really fine parsing as evidenced by Digby is really inside baseball and not going to be noticed by most. Only way this really has much effect at all is people arguing in Iowa Caucuses that the NYT endorsed both so they are both legit first or second choices. The only thing 98% of people notice about endorsements is the headline, if they even notice them at all.
WaterGirl
Women are interchangeable. Parts is parts.
trollhattan
@Major Major Major Major:
Are they going to make us chew our nails while awaiting the decision whether or not to endorse reelecting Trump?
I could even see “We’ve decided to sit this one out, here’s why.”
joel hanes
@dmsilev:
The Post has their own pathologies
The major one is named Hiatt.
As Opinion page editor, it’s ultimately his fault that Hewitt and Abernathy and Olsen and Theissen appear.
Betty Cracker
@Major Major Major Major: I understand what the difference between an endorsement and objective journalism is, and I read and comprehended their explanation, thanks. I don’t believe them. They have earned my distrust repeatedly. YMMV.
Kent
Yes, of course the NYT deserves a smackdown. But for their past decade of political coverage. That doesn’t make them wrong about Warren and Klobuchar being the best two remaining candidates.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Bennett has Conway’s whole spiel, if anyone wants to stomach it.
WaterGirl
@Baud: @Mo MacArbie: I am saying YES! to these comments so enthusiastically that I wonder if I could be mistaken for Meg Ryan in the classic diner scene in When Harry Met Sally.
PsiFighter37
The only real interesting thing of note is whether this will give Klobuchar any sort of material boost in Iowa, where she has climbed off of zero but is still clearly in the second tier. Otherwise, this is a great opportunity to remind everyone of just how silly the NYT usually is.
Major Major Major Major
@Betty Cracker: Wasn’t trying to say you didn’t, just making my case.
Baud
@Kent:
Agreed.
WaterGirl
@Baud:
I’m pretty sure the issue is that he’s related to Biden.
Oh, you want details? Sorry, I don’t have those. My sister is a trump-loving evangelical christian who is no doubt tying herself in knots to continue her support for Trump.
And that’s supposed to be a reflection on me?
At every turn, it’s obvious that these guys think no one has agency. No one is responsible for their own choices.
God, this all makes me cranky.
Baud
@PsiFighter37:
The other interesting thing to me is whether it will give Warren any boost to take back the lead in the progressive lane.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: Frank Biden. Fredo was tweeting about it the other day.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I can’t even look at you now.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Thanks.
WaterGirl
@chopper: They should have said:
Kraux Pas
Most of the Trump lovers I know aren’t undergoing any such contortions. “Just shout louder” seems to be the motto. You dont think the Iranian general should’ve been assassinated, you support terrorists. You want more legal immigration, you must personally put a stop to all unauthorized border crossings first. Don’t like the gun humpers marching on the VA capital? All your freedoms will crumble around you.
On the last one, I asked him if he even knows what the law they’re protesting does. He didn’t. It doesn’t matter. Everyone should have completely unfettered access to all weapons.
WaterGirl
@dmsilev: Petri is truly a national treasure.
smintheus
@trollhattan: In the Times’ interview with Biden, he began describing how bad Trump’s behavior is and the Times staff cut him off with ‘yeah we’re his hometown newspaper we know exactly what he’s like already’. But their coverage in 2015 and 2016 and 2017 and 2018 and 2019 never showed an awareness that Trump is an irreparably damaged and dangerous human being.
Kent
@PsiFighter37: I think it does boost Klobuchar into the conversation for Biden’s VP pick. She was probably already there. But there may be some tacit power-brokering her into the front of the conversation with this endorsement.
If Biden wins the nomination and presidency in 2020 then his VP pick essentially becomes the president in waiting. This is a MUCH more consequential pick than Biden himself was in 2008, or Kaine was in 2016. The chances of Biden’s VP moving up to the oval office is most definitely not zero.
From a purely mercenary perspective, a Biden-Klobuchar ticket would likely be pretty strong in the upper midwest It is basically tailor made to take back PA, MI and WI and maybe even make a play for Ohio.
There are basically 3 paths to electoral college victory: (1) retake the upper midwest, (2) southern strategy (Florida and Georgia and North Carolina, or (3) Southwest strategy (Arizona and one more state somewhere else like PA or Florida.
Biden is already probably the strongest of the remaining candidates in the south and southwest. I don’t see Bernie or Pete catching fire in AZ, FL, GA, or NC. So it’s really about winning back enough of the upper midwest.
bemused
@Kraux Pas:
Media conducting countless interviews of predominately old white guys in rural/small town coffee shops, truck stops, etc. made me sick. I suppose interviewing other americans with other views in other venues was too boring or something, something.
WaterGirl
@Kraux Pas: Yep, just like every election year!
hilts
@Kent:
@trollhattan:
As a 50ish white male, I have a hard time tolerating the rampant sexism during this campaign.
I can’t imagine a female presidential candidate in her upper 70’s often getting tripped up in her own word salads being treated with kid gloves by the MSM.
LuciaMia
“The reason, I believe, that Trump has exceeded our ability to appreciate just how bad he would be is that, unlike normal human beings…..”
All the people who blathered about how we needed “someone in the WH who’ll run this country like a business!” finally got their wish. Problem is Trump simply used the same tactics and attitude that made him a “success” in the business world. Lying, intimidation, bullying, cheating others, completely lack of concern for anything except himself and his profits. And when he cant get his way, threatening absurd legal action.
mrmoshpotato
@dmsilev: Hahahahahaha! Ms. Petri truly is a national treasure.
trollhattan
@Kent:
Had not considered that construction but Moderate-Moderate 2020 could well be in the cards. He can keep playing nice and she can do the nut-cutting.
WaterGirl
@Baud:
My best laugh of the day.
Kraux Pas
Maybe they just needed to get out of New York. Maybe they think rural diners are all there is to see outside of New York.
Betty Cracker
@Major Major Major Major: Sorry — my reply sounded snottier than I intended!
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: A second Biden brother (the name escapes me) is being sued by two different outfits that allege he claimed he could use his political connection to advance their products. It could be bullshit, but the scamminess of the Frank business sounds all too real.
Kraux Pas
These, of course, aren’t mutually exclusive.
Kent
I have plenty of evangelical MAGA relatives.
Honestly there are zero knots to be tied. There is no cognitive dissonance at all. They get all their talking points (to the extent that they even need them) from FOX and the entire right wing media world as well as the evangelical media world (which is similar but different and even more nuts).
And there is no point in even having any discussion because not matter what the issue is, the argument always comes around to “but what about abortion” which is the evangelical “checkmate” to any rational facts.
Betty Cracker
@Kent: I really don’t want Biden to be the nominee, but he does have one huge advantage over anyone else: he’d put Florida in play. I don’t think any other candidate would, to be honest.
patroclus
I’m getting a little more encouraged that Amy might actually have a chance – even a half endorsement from the NYT is better than none. She aligns with me on virtually all issues and is already the leading Democrat on many of them. I honestly believe that she would make the best President of the various candidates remaining and electorally, she has very little of the baggage that is easily identifiable in the other candidates. Yeah, I’m eventually going to probably migrate over to Biden or Warren, but for now, I’m currently enthusiastically for Klobuchar!
mrmoshpotato
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Nah. That’s ok. It’s lunchtime around these parts.
chopper
@WaterGirl:
like The Count used to say, “two! two endorsed vaginas! AH AH AHH”
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Damn. That’s nothing to sneeze at.
Baud
@mrmoshpotato:
Seseme Street After Midnight!
Kraux Pas
My non-Evangelical Trump-supporting friend is also very fired up about abortion. Unless he gets a woman pregnant, of course.
Kent
@Kraux Pas: Of course they aren’t mutually exclusive. Best would be to win them all. I’m just saying that a upper midwest VP pick strategy (Klobuchar) might be different from a southern strategy VP like Stacy Abrams who might be able to win GA and maybe FL but would be unlikely to help much in the upper midwest. Or a play for the southwest by picking some Hispanic VP.
I don’t know the extent to which this sort of geographic arbitrage even works anymore. But if you want to make that argument then you can make a strong case for Klobuchar.
Major Major Major Major
@Betty Cracker: Apparently my reply did too, so no worries. We’re all pretty stressed nowadays, huh?
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
Bump-It sales experienced no bump whatsoever. Biden fail.
MisterForkbeard
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yes, I too remember when Martin Luther King Jr was fighting to <checks notes> keep a racist white guy from facing the consequence of his actions.
Wait, no.
Kent
After decade of living in Texas where I met MANY MANY white men who would make similar claims, I came to conclude that abortion has just become a proxy for right wing racism. It is no longer politically acceptable to say you are voting GOP because it is the “white” party. Which is actually what it really is in the south. And even guns and gays is a little big gauche these days, especially in more suburban areas. But the one conversation stopper that everyone knows to deploy is abortion. Most of these people really aren’t religious and personally don’t give a shit about abortion except for misogynist reasons. I don’t even think they dislike Planned Parenthood because of abortion. They despise it because it has feminist roots and dissing Planned Parenthood is another way to “own the libs”. They have just been taught that abortion is the one excuse for always voting GOP that can’t be argued with because it is “questioning someone’s faith” and “we don’t do that here.”
Roger Moore
@WaterGirl:
Not at all. They believe the Democrats have agency, but nobody else. So everything bad that happens is either because the Democrats did something wrong or they failed to prevent someone else from doing something wrong.
smintheus
@Kraux Pas: It’s easier to walk into a diner and talk to the resident loud mouths than to spend hours trying to find a representative cross section of a town. That might involve a lot of walking and knocking on doors.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: You hear that @chopper: ?
Baud
@mrmoshpotato: Thanks for the assist!
smintheus
@patroclus: No baggage, such as harassing her staff and trying to destroy their career when they seek employment elsewhere? That is a huge red flag for lots of working people.
Kraux Pas
Ok, but how about a local volunteer organization? Book club? Card tournament? Library? Literally anywhere else with a lot of people?
smintheus
@Kraux Pas: Apparently that involves too much work and preparation, much quicker just to turn on ‘location’ and ask the google ‘diner with loud mouths’.
Kraux Pas
@smintheus: If I wanted to lazily obtain some loud-mouth’s opinion, I’d just talk to a friend or family member. Or, apparently, read the NYT.
patroclus
@smintheus: I’ve read those stories and don’t agree with your characterization of them, but against Trump (and his record of firings and hate tweets about former employees), I don’t think there’s much of a comparison in any event. And by “baggage,” I mostly meant policy issues like trade, tax plans, guns, women’s liberty, the environment, health insurance and civil rights, with which I have disagreements with the other candidates. I think working people will benefit from Klobuchar policies.
Kent
Anonymous hatchet jobs in the press are also a red flag. We also saw them with Harris (Kamala the cop). We saw them against Warren (Claimed Indian heritage for career advancement). And we most definitely saw it manufactured in plain sight with the Biden Ukraine thing starting with John Solomon that was close to being successful were it not for one single whistleblower.
Frankensteinbeck
@Kent:
You cannot understand the politics of abortion without understanding that evangelicals believe most abortions are had by black women, who they believe are as sexually irresponsible as animals.
patroclus
@Kent: Indeed, I’d put more credence in those allegations if there were names, dates, lawsuits and publicly available evidence attached to them. In Trump’s case, all of that not only exists, but in large volume.
smintheus
@Kent: I don’t think there can be any doubt that Klobuchar is at least somewhat abusive toward her staff, particularly when she has admitted she needs to treat them better and she has massive turnover in her Senate office. It’s not remotely comparable to Trump’s abusiveness, but I think we can be sure that if she were to become the nominee that Trump would try to innoculate himself by talking up real and fictitious abuses by Klobuchar. So I would consider that baggage, possibly more damaging than ‘Warren believed true family stories about her ancestry’.
zhena gogolia
@hilts:
Haha, Axe got in a good one for a change.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: I am curious… what’s the Biden connection to Florida? Or vice versa?
debbie
@The Dangerman:
A lot of RWNJs (ie, Glenn Beck) have compared themselves to MLK. It appears to be a thing. //
trollhattan
@smintheus:
Harris would have had this issue to deal with had she remained in the campaign.
Everybody’s got luggage. Everybody.
WaterGirl
@Roger Moore: Hmm.
Democrats are responsible for everything bad. Republicans are responsible for everything good.
Do I have that right?
patroclus
@smintheus: It’s good that you’ve backed off from “harassment” and “career ruination” to “somewhat abusive” and “needs to treat better” in two short posts. The dearth of evidence to back up your first claims seems dispositive of that “baggage.” Moreover, you seem to agree that Trump is far worse, which would be the issue in a general election in any event.
WaterGirl
@smintheus: ding ding ding
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
It’s the lack of irony in DJTJ that cracks me up. Dude, look in the mirror lately????
Kraux Pas
smintheus
@patroclus: I haven’t seen anything to challenge the accuracy of the report that Klobuchar tried to torpedo a staffer who sought to move on. That is harassment per se. Whether other people judge the allegation to be unlikely is neither here nor there; I would need to see evidence it is untrue because the reporting on it struck me as credible, and some other reporters who did not publish on the subject stated that they too had heard similar reports from Klobuchar staffers.
Kent
I don’t deny she appears to be a harsh taskmaster. However:
Roger Moore
@smintheus:
There’s no point in running away from a candidate because they had some minor issue in their past. Every candidate has something, and the Republicans’ ability to blow it out of proportion has no relationship with how big it was. We might as well try to find the candidate whose program we like the most, because it’s inevitable the Republicans will lie about them.
Roger Moore
@WaterGirl:
Nice succinct summary.
trollhattan
@debbie:
Too many broken mirrors. :)
patroclus
@smintheus: Submarines launch torpedoes – people do not. In law, there really is no such thing as “harassment per se.” It all depends on actual facts, actual testimony and actual evidence. You are engaging in meaningless hyperbole with virtually no evidence whatsoever to back it up. Law actually presumes innocence and the burden of persuasion is on the one making the allegation – your construct notwithstanding. Making reference to something not published is unconvincing
If this is all you have, it certainly doesn’t convince me. You’ll need Trump-level evidence, with names, dates, lawsuits and actual on-the-record stuff. To even make a dent.
janesays
@Baud: Iowa’s the whole ballgame for Klobuchar. If she doesn’t win or wind up in a strong second place, her campaign is finished.
patroclus
@janesays: In a horse race sense, that’s probably correct. But Iowa could have multiple “winners.” There’s the straw vote when they first enter the caucus; there’s the delegate count at the precinct level; there’s the projected delegate count for the county and state levels; and there’s the perception of momentum regarding who is moving up or down. An unclear or muddled result might allow Amy to move on if she’s top tier. Today’s half endorsement is a good sign of possible momentum.
smintheus
@Kent: I was responding to a statement that Klobuchar has no baggage. I pointed out, correctly, that she does have baggage. I don’t see why that is hard to understand. I’m not trying to persuade her supporters away from supporting her, and I never argued that her alleged faults are remotely in the same league as Trump’s.
smintheus
@patroclus: I didn’t expect to convince you. I was correcting your false statement that Klobuchar carries no baggage. I’m not interested in quibbling about the meaning of words like torpedo.
Brachiator
Yep. That just about nails it.
James E Powell
@smintheus:
Among the many reasons why I could never run for office. There is no way I could sit through that interview and not launch into a tirade. If I ever got close to Baquet, I might have to be physically restrained.
patroclus
@smintheus: No, you were responding to a statement that she has no “easily identifiable” baggage. And then you flailed away with terms like “harassment per se” and “torpedo(ing) careers” that don’t really have a factual basis. Which demonstrated that Amy’s “baggage” (which you correctly identify) isn’t really all that “easily identifiable. Which was the reason for the initial qualifier.
If voters believe what you correctly describe is an issue, then they won’t vote for her. And I don’t have a problem with you raising it – you are right to do so. The stories are indeed baggage. we’ll see if they matter.
WaterGirl
@Roger Moore: You are a good teacher!
Tom Q
I want to throw in here that I think Biden/Klobuchar would be, in Rachel Bitecofer’s phrase, a risky ticket masquerading as a safe one.
It would no doubt be praised to the skies by Beltway media and never-Trumpers, both of whom think the best Dem strategy is to be as close to a non-entity as possible. It’s a strategy born in the 80s, when Dems truly were a presidential-minority party, and positioning oneself as inoffensive was the best way for down-ballot candidates to survive.
But Obama created a new coalition, one that made Dems a national majority by goosing turnout of minority and young voters. Even Hillary activated this coalition enough to win the popular vote, and her EC failing was not solely due to losing those diner-attending old white guys, but in failing to motivate enough young and minorities (compared to Obama) in those three fatal states.
Shorter: win back a chunk of the Stein voters or stay-at-homes, and you win MI/WI/PA. Biden-plus-soggy-toast-white-lady isn’t the way to do that. Vitality and diversity — Kamala/Castro/Abrams/Booker as veep — would be.
I think Trump is so despised by Dem voters that even an all-pablum ticket could win. But injecting excitement onto the ticket (not the phony Bernie way — with a whiff of the future) would make it much more likely.
Betty Cracker
@WaterGirl: Frank Biden is a real estate developer in Florida, which rings all kinds of alarm bells for me. :)
patrick II
@Major Major Major Major:
Shorter NYT : We would like to endorse Klobacher, except her moderate solutions will not fix or broken institutions and we don’t have the nerve to fully endorse Warren.
hilts
A musical dedication to the NY Times Editorial Board
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L1UngfqojI
Kent
@Tom Q: I think you are putting your finger on the fact that there are really no sure and safe paths to the presidency. And that political talent trumps everything. Obama was not by any remote definition a safe choice. He won because: (1) he was a once-in-a-lifetime political talent, and (2) the nation was primed for a change after the last disastrous years of the Bush presidency.
If I knew the answers I wouldn’t be sitting here commenting on an obscure blog over lunch. But I do think that Biden more than anyone needs to pick a VP who is a legitimate president in waiting who also shares his philosophy of government. Biden’s VP has the chance to be the most powerful VP since Cheney. And is most definitely the president in waiting. That isn’t a choice to be made lightly.
tomtofa
@Kraux Pas:
As someone wrote recently, think of the types who hang out in small town diners all day.
Yes, a library, club – almost any other venue – would give a more realistic picture of the residents.
EthylEster
@Another Scott: thanks for mentioning this.
Brachiator
@smintheus:
Ha! I wouldn’t be surprised to see someone try to turn this is into a feature.
hilts
@Tom Q:
In spite of the NY Times, I’d support a Warren / Klobuchar ticket in a second. Biden’s age sets off too many alarm bells for me.
Kent
The only real daylight between Klobuchar and Warren is: (1) M4A vs public option, (2) free college and loan forgiveness, and (3) wealth tax.
Do you see Warren getting any of those through the next Congress?
Most of the rest of their policy platforms are pretty similar. Klobuchar is a co-sponsor of the green new deal, for example. Their education, criminal justice, voting rights, and environmental policies are all similar as are their approaches towards foreign affairs.
EthylEster
@different-church-lady: I was reading an article today’s NYT and they popped up a survey. They asked about my 3 fav goto news sites. It was thrilling to leave them out! I also suggested that they replace one of their conservative columnist with Daniel Larison.
At the end they asked if I wanted to be a paid user. I don’t know WTF that is but I wasn’t even tempted.
geg6
@TriassicSands:
Oh, I don’t know about that. To a person, my friends from New York and New Jersey pretty much called it. They knew how bad he was and how he would get worse. My good friend Tracey (New Jersey born and bred) said that we, who didn’t grow up knowing who he was, had no idea what was going to hit us and that he would be worse than our worst nightmares. She was right and she wasn’t the only one who said similar things.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: ha! What makes you confident that Joe Biden could win Florida, while the others wouldn’t?
Betty Cracker
@Kent: It’s a subjective thing, political talent. I wonder how much we identify it in retrospect — once candidates prove themselves by winning — and assign it value based on our personal preferences?
I personally found Obama incredibly inspiring, more than any candidate I’d seen to that time, but lots of folks didn’t and voted for him because GWB buggered the Iraq War and tanked the economy. GWB supposedly had folksy charm, and Republicans loved him to pieces. I didn’t see it. At all.
That could be a partisan thing, but I was also mostly immune to the charms of Bill Clinton, who everyone said was the greatest natural talent since Kennedy after he won. To me, he seemed like less of a douche than his opponents both times he appeared on my ballot, so I voted for him.
Anyhoo, just wondering if we make too much of the concept of natural political talent. Perhaps it’s akin to what used to be called the “great man theory” of history. Maybe it’s more complicated than it looks and that factors like luck (good and bad), media framing, etc., are much more important.
Tom Q
@Kent: “But I do think that Biden more than anyone needs to pick a VP who is a legitimate president in waiting who also shares his philosophy of government. ”
I most definitely agree with your first clause, but am a tad ambivalent about the second. As far as I’m concerned, the broad field of Dem candidates, minus Sanders and sometimes Warren, share Biden’s philosophy — it’s the baseline Dem party philosophy. What Klobuchar shares with him is a don’t-rock-the-boat approach that I don’t think is universally held in the party, and I think the ticket needs to appeal to those who hold that alternative view.
To repeat: this is not meant to reference Bernie’s approach, which is too much “the Dems are just as bad/burn it all down”. But it does ask for inclusion of the coming generations of Dems whose primary goal in life is not to find common ground with Republicans on abortion, marijuana or income inequality.
J R in WV
Just speculating here, but there are lots of people in FLA who moved there from NJ/DE/NY etc, etc. Plus the age match between retirees and Unca Joe Biden. So there’s two ways Biden may do better in FLA than other Democratic candidates.
Anyone who lives there should feel free to pitch in, I lived down there for a couple of years, but that was 40+ years ago… while I was in the USN serving on a ship stationed at the tiny Key West Naval Station. A sub squadron, not the Air Station on Boca Chica. Also spent most of a year on a shipyard overhaul in Miississippi, where I try to not even drive through any more. Being in the service is somehow a little different from just living there…
Tom Q
@hilts: Believe me, I came into this electoral season thinking Biden wasn’t a great choice, not least because of the age thing. But having watched my three top choices (Kamala, Beto, Booker) dissolve before anyone even voted, I’m forced to choose among lessers. And I think, even with his age, Biden is a far more dynamic candidate than Klobuchar. Warren, I’m still on the fence about.
Kent
@Tom Q: What I meant by “shares his political philosophy” is that I can see Biden’s VP as taking a larger role in the next administration even than Cheney did with Bush. Which honestly might be a good thing, especially if the next VP is going to be the president in waiting.
If the next VP is going to have actual power over large swaths of the Federal government then they had better share governing philosophies with POTUS and his/her cabinet or we will be treated to 4 years of conflict and infighting between POTUS and the VP and especially their staffs. Do you really want the soap opera of a powerful VP and staff always in conflict with the chief of staff and various cabinet officials. It would be a recipe for constant soap opera and dysfunction. That kind of shit always leaks out.
So yes, I want someone who is on the same page politically with the president. I don’t want the British style palace intrigue and waking up every morning to anonymous leaks to the NYT about how the president and VP are disagreeing about some such shit and how the president is being undermined. That sort of thing. The press would report it with glee and blow up the slightest differences into scandal. Look at how AOC’s staff created little or not so little media shitstorms in her first year. And she was a freshman back bencher. Multiply that by 100-fold if it is happening in the VPs office.
Betty Cracker
@WaterGirl: Two reasons: 1) It’ll be hard for Trump to paint Biden as a radical socialist, which is a charge that resonates down here because so many folks either fled failed socialist states themselves or have family ties to people who live in them. Biden has been a known quantity for 40-plus years, so I don’t think it will stick. 2) I also think age will be less of a factor for Biden since Florida skews old.
Tom Q
@Betty Cracker: I grant you, that charisma is a quality often assigned after the fact. When Reagan was running neck-and-neck with Carter right up to Election Day, few were calling him the Great Communicator. A unexpected big win does wonders for one’s reputation.
But I do think there’s a pretty strong correlation between candidates with dynamic qualities and success at the presidential level: both Roosevelts, Kennedy, Reagan, and Obama (Clinton is a more iffy case, and he obviously doesn’t work for you, but his ability to connect with audiences was always part of why political pundits rated him high when he was still in Arkansas). None of those people ever lost a presidential election, and Kennedy was the only one who didn’t win comfortably.
This is why I was high on Kamala, Beto and Booker this year, and why I’m dubious about the field that remains.
Tom Q
@Kent: And that would certainly rule out Bernie, and likely Warren. But would you have a problem with any of the others I mentioned (Harris/Castro/Abrams)? I see no reason to suspect their loyalty to a Biden presidency, but at the same time any of them would reassure the younger part of the party that their concerns were at least being given an airing inside the White House.
Klobuchar to me just says “We old middle-of-the-roaders have it under control, and we don’t need any input from anyone under 50”. And let me add: I’m in my 60s, and I find that view offensive.
Kent
@Betty Cracker: It is subjective, of course. But I remember Obama’s open-air nomination speech at Mile High stadium in front of 80,000 or however many where there. The Black-Eyed Peas opening the show. It was absolutely mesmerizing the command that he had. Like nothing I had ever seen before or since in politics.
We can talk all about Obama’s “coalition” but the fact that a black man from Chicago with a terrorist name and Kenyan father could go in and win states like Ohio and North Carolina with a large segment of the white vote was all about his political talent and not because he had triangulated on the right political message to win the white working class, or whatever the fuck.
Yes, the country was ripe for change. But it also took the right messenger.
zhena gogolia
@Tom Q:
I agree with you.
debbie
@geg6:
I left NYC in 1995, but his existence was burned into my brain. You don’t forget someone with so much horribleness in him.
I think he got less than 15% of the vote in Manhattan in 2016. Considering the Wall Street types living downtown and the Upper East Side ladies who lunch (and their tweedish husbands), he made a very bad showing. I know he bitches at the NYT for not complementing him more (“my hometown paper”), but I don’t remember hearing him bitch about the low turnout for him.
Kent
@Tom Q: You tell me.
If it turns out Biden is going to be our nominee, then I want to see him and the presidency succeed. That means a seamless operation in the White House and the VPs office. Obama understood this and ran the tightest most no-drama operation we have seen since maybe Eisenhower which was way before my time.
I don’t think that means a bunch of crusty old folks. I could see Biden surrounding himself with a bunch of relative youngsters. He would probably thrive in that environment. But they better fucking be team players. And their staff better be too. Which probably means steering clear of all the drama queens (young and old) surrounding the Sanders operation.
None of the political operatives we associate with Obama like the Pod Save America guys were particular lefty flame throwers. They are all extremely talented and were unbelievably loyal to Obama. We never ever had petty dirt leak. That’s the type who Biden needs to be finding. And what he should be looking for if he goes off in search of a VP candidate. He should absolutely fucking not be doing the Dem equivalent of the McCain thing and let consultants pick a prima donna VP he doesn’t know or get along with.
janesays
Generally agree with all of that, but a small historical nitpick – Theodore Roosevelt did, in fact, lose a presidential election. In 1912, four years out of office, he ran on the Progressive ticket, and lost to Woodrow Wilson. TR did finish ahead of incumbent President Taft in both the popular vote and the electoral vote, but his impact in that race mostly had the impact of splitting the Republican vote between himself and Taft.
Betty Cracker
@Tom Q: Seems like Bernie resonates with young people so much even though he is ancient because he confirms their suspicion that it’s all fucked up and bullshit. Warren to a much lesser degree, alas, but that’s her message too: big, structural change is needed, tinkering around the edges won’t do.
I’m not sure putting a younger candidate in the VP slot who essentially agrees with Biden’s political philosophy would work. Maybe it would. But it seems irreconcilable to me: if Biden is the nominee, “revolution” and “big structural change” are off the table, no?
Kent
@Tom Q: Clinton may not have been everyone’s cup of tea. He was not mine for a whole lot of reasons, mostly to do with environmental and marine policy which I was working in at the time. But he connected with the Wal-Mart and McDonald’s crowd better than anyone ever has before or since. And they vote too. People REALLY believed in him. He wouldn’t have cruise through impeachment by RAISING his approval ratings any other way.
Kraux Pas
@Betty Cracker: We need a new trust-buster. Monopolies, monopsonies, theyre all out of control.
Tom Q
@janesays: Of course; I should have specified, when running as a major party candidate in the post-Civil War two-party system.
And, even in that exception, Roosevelt distinguishes himself, getting the highest percentage of the vote of any third party candidate in that 150-year stretch.
Barbara
@Kent: I see it the same way. I donate to Klobuchar and Warren for that reason. I am also okay with Biden, though I do have age concerns too.
Kent
@Betty Cracker: Buttigieg is young and has basically the same political philosophy as Biden. His is currently about tied with Sanders in Iowa. There are plenty of young candidates that share the same political philosophy. A whole bunch of the 2018 Congressional freshmen for example, that weren’t part of “the squad” So I don’t young equals “revolutionary” 538 has the current Iowa polling averages at:
Biden 21.5
Sanders 17.4
Buttigieg 16.4
Warren 16.3
Klobuchar 8.4
Which you can look at as the “centrists” holding down 1st, 3rd, and 5th place, or leading 46.3% to 33.7% in aggregate.
PsiFighter37
@Kent: I’m not exactly sure who fits the bill for Biden, though. I actually think he and Sherrod Brown would work great together on a ticket, but given the state of Ohio Democrats, we really need Brown to stay in his seat.
Tom Q
@Betty Cracker: I grant that, not being young, it’s hard for me to quantify Bernie’s appeal to that younger age group. But I would note that Beto didn’t run anything like a Bernie campaign in ’18, and he seemed to activate the youth vote as well as anyone short of Obama has done. So maybe it isn’t about “big structural changes”, but about seeming open to a new generation.
Also, I don’t think the minority part of the equation should be overlooked. Biden clearly has older African-Americans locked up — but so did Hillary. Failing to generate enough turnout among the younger generations was fatal in those three death-star Midwestern states. This ticket needs to do that, and I don’t see a Biden/Klobuchar ticket as the answer.
Betty Cracker
@Kent: Don’t have time to look up polls right now, but I’m under the impression Sanders is far and away the choice of the under 30 set. My point is I’m not sure putting a younger VP who shares Biden’s political philosophy will mollify younger voters who seem to be saying (via their enduring support for Sanders) that they’re looking for more dramatic change. If Sanders is no longer the darling of the yoots, never mind! ;-)
Miss Bianca
@Frankensteinbeck: So, really, all that these white anti-abortionists are saying is, “black (babies’) lives matter”?
Who knew! This wonderful world!
Kent
@Betty Cracker: I honestly don’t know. There is the young lefty activist set which is tilting towards Sanders. At least it seems so. I don’t actually know. Then there is the younger electorate as a whole. Which is really all that matters in November. I see no indication that a majority of young people across the country, a large percentage of whom are people of color, are drinking the Sanders Kool-Aid. Especially in the swing states. I’m old enough to remember when young people voted for Reagan.
janesays
@PsiFighter37: Sherrod Brown is totally off the table as a VP consideration. Ohio law allows the governor to name any replacement he wants, who holds the seat until a special election, which wouldn’t be held until November 2022. The governor of Ohio is a Republican. Which means the seat is definitely gone for at least 2 years, and probably much longer since the vacancy appointment would go into the special election with 2 years of incumbency.
Considering it’s not yet a foregone conclusion that we even win back the Senate, every seat matters. It would be utterly disastrous if we were to have a net gain of 3 seats in the election, only to lose that seat and keep McConnell in the Majority Leader position. As it stands right now, if either Warren or Sanders becomes president, we’ll be losing their seats for at least a couple of months (both MA and VT have Republican governors who will appoint Republicans to fill the seats until the special election).
Winning the presidency is indisputably the most important thing we need to accomplish in this election. But taking back the Senate is a pretty strong #2 priority. Sherrod Brown will need to remain a senator for the foreseeable future because of this.
Kraux Pas
@Kent: People’s voting behavior when they’re young tends to continue throughout their lives. Bringing young voters on board should always be at least a consideration.
janesays
@Kent: Biden is leading the African-American vote overall, but Sanders is 12 points ahead of Biden among A-A voters under 35.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-holds-wide-lead-among-black-voters-in-democratic-presidential-race-post-ipsos-poll-finds/2020/01/11/76ecff08-3325-11ea-a053-dc6d944ba776_story.htm
I don’t care for Bernie Sanders and really hope he isn’t the nominee, but he’s clearly blowing everyone else away among younger voters, and the polls back that up. If the nomination were to be decided by voters under 35, he wins it in a landslide. Fortunately, other voters will get a say in who we choose.
Kent
One would think that white supremacists would want to see LESS black babies being born. But I guess controlling black women is more important to them and the misogyny wins over the racism.
There is a similar phenomenon with the right wing policies in Latin America. I served in the Peace Corps in Guatemala in the late 1980s when the Reagan Administration started curtailing funding of all family planning efforts in Latin America and the Catholic Church under John Paul was virulently fighting even the hint of any family planning in rural Guatemala and Central America. Same thing went on all through both Bush Administrations. Yes they opposed abortion. But basically they opposed all family planning of any kind.
And now they are surprised that there are millions of young Central Americans with no jobs or future coming to the US in caravans because they come from rural farm families with 10 or 12 kids on patches of land that can’t hardly support one?
Kent
@janesays: This. With a country of over 300 million people I have a hard time believing that Sherrod Brown is the only good VP candidate. Or even the best one. He would actually be the WORST one if picking him meant losing the Senate and the chance for Supreme Court nominations.
Kent
@janesays: I really don’t follow the polls that closely. The polls you cited are only young black voters, not young voters overall, or young Hispanic voters, for example. But I have to wonder if this is also due to the fact that most of the other younger inspirational type candidates like Beto, Castro, Harris, etc. have all faded away. If you are young and ideological then Warren is really your only other choice at this point. Buttigieg seems like he is more like that prom date who appeals more to the parents than the girl herself.
janesays
@Kent: Sanders popularity among younger voters may have increased due to other candidates dropping out, but he’s always been the frontrunner among the under 30 crowd. The student loan debt thing has a lot to do with it. A lot of kids are finishing undergrad these days nearly 6 figures in debt for a piece of paper. The rise in the cost of college is worse than anything else I’ve seen in the last 30 years. A first year freshman at an upper tier private school might pay three times as much as someone who went to the same school just 25 years ago. If the rise in college costs stays on its current trajectory, kids being born in 2020 will be looking at total undergrad expenses from upper tier schools far exceeding $500,000. That’s insane.
hilts
@Tom Q:
I’ve seen no such evidence, but hopefully we’ll have a clearer picture after Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina.
I’ve always found Biden extremely underwhelming as a public speaker, but perhaps with some good coaching he could become serviceable.
Tom Q
@janesays: I actually developed the theory during the 2016 primaries that student loans were, for Bernie’s young supporters, what the Vietnam War was for McGovern supporters (including me) in my day: an existential issue that overrode pretty much all other concerns.
Tom Q
@hilts: Well, my comparison is more based on Klobuchar’s failings than Biden’s strength.
Biden was definitely considered a good orator back in the day, which is of course a long time ago. He’s clearly lost steps since, but, I guess, for me, Klobuchar has never possessed any such gifts to begin with, so Biden still runs ahead. YMMV.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: That makes total sense, thanks.