I think Jennifer Rubin has been right about a lot of things in the Trump era, but she’s pretty wrong on this one. Her post-debate column barely mentions Warren, naming Biden (!?!) and Buttigieg (!?!) as the winners. Were she and I watching the same debate?
As we go forward, a bunch of never-Trumpers who have DC sinecures are going to lecture Democrats on who can win, why they can win, how they can win and so forth. We would be stupid to listen to them. Even if their advice is given sincerely (and I think in Rubin’s case, it is), their feelers are tuned to feel what an ever-shrinking group of moderate Republicans feel. In the real world, a lot of those moderate Republicans are already going to pull the lever for Trump because they can’t stomach voting for a Democrat. Some of them are going to vote for whichever Democrat makes the ticket (James Joyner at OTB is a good example). The rest of them may or may not vote. Rubin, Rick Wilson, David Frum and others like them just don’t represent a big enough constituency to be bothered about what they say. They’re great at criticizing Trump, but not so good on helping Democrats pick a candidate to beat him.
Martin
I know people think of me as a neo-liberal shill, but I do love AOC. I think she’s great for the party.
Laura Koerber
I love her comments too. However the fact remains that Liz probably can’t win because of the sexist aversion to strong smart feisty women. Sucks, but that’s the real world.
TS (the original)
Rubin wants Bloomberg to win – she will have her never trump republican.
OzarkHillbilly
@Martin: I like her too, even if I only agree with her about half the time (and half agree with her the rest of the time) but I love her fire.
guachi
I haven’t seen Rubin write many positive things about Bloomberg. She’s been quite positive about Buttigieg and Klobuchar, though.
Rubin wants a centrist/moderate who has decent values. Mostly it’s the values. She’ll vote for Sanders if she has to.
trollhattan
At day’s end Ruben can’t back a woman for president.
Still misses Mitten’s manly runway shoulders.
Cacti
In a perfect world, she would be right.
It’s not a perfect world. If Warren ended up on top of the ticket, the Rs would definitely caricature her as America’s hectoring mother in law. How much it would resonate is hard to say.
TS (the original)
@Laura Koerber:
The Rubin opinion piece on the debate is full of people praising Bloomberg & attacking the women. They truly have a task to get nominated, let alone elected.
Eolirin
Angry white men are powerful. Angry POC are just dangerous.
download my app in the app store mistermix
@Martin: You probably noticed that Bernie disagreed publicly with her (very reasonable) observation that you campaign on M4A because you make the maximal ask, but you also agree to what the House and Senate will pass, which might be a public option.
Kent
I actually think she is the strongest candidate against Trump. He is completely put off his game by strong women. Pelosi makes him utterly inhinged and incoherent. He as avoided putting any women any any positions of power or anywhere near him in the White House. And he fired Janet Yellen who was actually more in line with is monetary views than the more conservative Powell whom he replaced her with.
Trump has the male dominance routine down pat. He’s done it his entire life. He went through the entire GOP primary slate like butter. He simply doesn’t know how to deal with strong women because he never had to in the NYC real estate and construction world he is from.
In the top 10 list of reasons why Clinton lost, I don’t think being a woman is in the top 10.
Baud
Too bad AOC didn’t endorse Warren.
Kelly
@TS (the original):
Yep
Eolirin
@Kent: Idk. I don’t know that Trump being unhinged and incoherent actually hurts him with his base. The person Trump would struggle with the most and the person most likely to win the EC are not necessarily the same.
I personally think Warren’s worth the risk, and is the best candidate still in the fight, but if in the end she can’t even win the primary I don’t think we can say she’d have been able to win against Trump. And if she does win the primary, we’ll find out pretty soon if she can take him out.
Kent
In any world they will caricature every Dem candidate man or woman. Somehow they managed to make Kerry windsurfing on the fucking open ocean into something effete when it is actually pretty badass. The better question is which of the candidates will most easily swat it away. Obama had that ability. Of the current top 5 or 6 I think Liz comes the closest. Bernie will just wag his finger and get red in the face. Biden will yell about Malarkey and “lying dog faced pony soldiers”. Buttigieg will talk about his military record. And Klobuchar will either bake a hot dish or throw a binder. I honestly think Warren is the one with the quickest wit and ability to deflect.
A Ghost To Most
Yea, I’m giving Rubin the benefit of the doubt here. It could be anti-BernieBro bias, but I can live with the guilt.
Laura Koerber
@TS (the original): I wasn’t reacting to Rubin. I was reacting more to AOC but adding in my thoughts as I decide to to vote for in our primary. Much as I love her, I am not voting for Liz. My vote will be based on polling data of match ups with Trump in swing states. Sexism sucks
Fair Economist
@download my app in the app store mistermix: I knew Bernie had taken a “my way or the highway” approach to M4A but I didn’t know he had specifically disagreed with AOC for being practical about it.
Kent
@Eolirin: I guess none of us really know. By your argument we don’t dare ever run a woman in an election unless it’s an election that doesn’t really matter.
If we had someone with the talent of a young Obama or young Bill Clinton on the slate I might agree. But the alternatives to Warren are all hugely flawed. That we are even contemplating putting a 78 year old on the ticket just astonishes me. What is your plan if Biden or Bernie have a stroke or heart attack in October 2020 and spend the last two weeks of the campaign in a hospital bed? How will that “safe” choice look then?
pat
@TS (the original):
I read Rubin a lot and she is a real Biden fan.
Chyron HR
@Baud:
Well obviously at the end of the day Warren is still no better than a common Hillary, trying to steal Bernie’s
Lucky Charmsnomination.Arclite
Damn, that AOC woman has her head on straight. Talk about a devastating response.
Jeffro
@Martin: I’m a fan for good reasons but also because she just terrifies TCNJs of all ages…not afraid of their dumb attacks, in touch with the (much larger) D base, etc
Jeffro
@Kent: I thought it was throw a stapler?
cokane
NeverTrumpers should just be ignored during the primary season. They can squawk as much as they want. But it’s obvious that they would love a nominee like Bloomberg or someone else borderline unacceptable to much of the party. And that’s just not gonna happen, thank goodness.
jl
AOC has some sketchy company with her obsession with justice.
” Justice is the end of Government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been, and ever will be pursued, until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit. ”
James Madison
Federalist No. 51 (6 February 1788)
from https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Madison
I am somewhat concerned that we may be at the ‘lost in the pursuit’ stage in the US. Warren as president would be big help in preventing that. But, at least in important swing states, I think supporters like me have to face the sad fact that the toxic misogyny of US politics will be factor, so will have to do everything we can to overcome that.
Arclite
@Eolirin: “I don’t know that Trump being unhinged and incoherent actually hurts him with his base.”
Usually his poll numbers decline when he has some chaotic scandal or fires a bunch of people in his administration. It’s a bad look, even for him.
smintheus
All of the Republican pundits at the NYT also tried to portray Warren as the loser in that debate. They’re not blind, they’re heavily biased against good government reformers.
Jeffro
@Kent: Great point about Kerry. A party/followers that will gleefully wear Purple Heart Band-Aids and go along with someone who makes fun of POWs is not a party that respects anything but power – theirs.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Worth keeping in mind the Never Trumpers were the wusses who lost the their own party to Trumpism.
If someone isn’t willing to vote for Warren because of her pluming then they don’t want a serious change in the policies, just politer version of Trump and will never for a Democrat.
cokane
@smintheus: Also they’re just not being honest, imo. Which is what they were for decades in the Bush and Obama eras. Their record of insincerity shouldn’t be forgotten, even if they are clearing the low bar of not liking Trump.
I welcome them to vote for the nominee in the general, but I do not think they’re going make honest observations during this primary.
PST
@OzarkHillbilly:
For half a second, I thought you were talking about Jennifer Rubin, which was amusing.
Kylroy
Any electoral advice from Never Trumpers can safely be ignored – because if these jackasses had a read on the electorate, they would have beaten him in the primary.
smintheus
@Cacti: You need to keep track of your misogynistic tropes. A few hours ago you were describing Warren as having beaten wife syndrome because she was too friendly with Sanders to suit you, now you’re wondering whether she’s a hectoring mil <s>schoolmarm</s>.
SFAW
In the real world, a standard-issue Republican will never vote for a Dem. They’d vote for the leopard, even after the leopard says he’s going to eat their faces. However, a “moderate” Republican — if such an animal actually exists — might actually vote Dem.
Eolirin
@Kent: I just said she was worth the risk, so no, that isn’t my position. At all. But I don’t think you can just blithely discount the concern either. I think you take the risk despite the reality that it’s a disadvantage in this country, at this time, and you fight twice as hard.
But the primary electorate has to agree with that or she’s not getting anywhere.
And if there was another Obama or Bill Clinton on the ticket, she definitely wouldn’t even get close. She wouldn’t even be considered. A large part of that is the misogyny. Even with a strong male candidate she’s good enough that she should be considered. With a weaker field she’s still struggling. That’s the misogyny.
Bex
Given the latest news, why don’t we just find out who the Russians want and not nominate them?
Baud
@Bex: I thought that’s what we were doing.
Eolirin
@Arclite: They also bounce back pretty shortly thereafter too. The debates wouldn’t be close enough to the election, and his supporters get over their concerns very quickly.
OzarkHillbilly
@PST: I like Rubin too, just not her politics.
JGabriel
Republicans spent 25 years vilifying and caricaturing Hillary Clinton as a crooked man-hating emasculating lesbian who killed her male lover because he knew too much, AND SHE STILL WON THE POPULAR VOTE.
The 2020 electorate will be even less likely to credit GOP misogyny as having any validity. At this point, most men below the age of 60 were raised by feminist mothers.
A woman can beat Trump. A woman already has. And the next woman to run against Trump will be running in an electorate that is even more pro-woman than 2016’s electorate, having been born on average four years later.
Frankly, as a late-middle-aged man, I’m fucking sick of the presidency being the sole domain of men. And I’m sure I’m not the only one. So, yeah, at this point I think a woman has a better chance of winning the presidency than yet another white guy.
Finally, the hectoring mother-in-law cliche hasn’t been a viable sitcom trope since the 1970’s. Anyone politician resorting to it in this day and age will just make himself look clueless, out of touch, senile and old.
hells littlest angel
Of course you were watching the same debate. You just weren’t inhabiting the same reality. I like what she’s been saying lately, but Rubin is not a progressive liberal Democrat. She is a conservative Republican never-Trumper.
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: There are no moderate Republicans any more. They are all independents trying to find a way to vote for the Republican anyway and despondent when they just can’t do it anymore. At least they don’t have to vote for Hillary this time around. *There was a definite spike in suicides* the week before election day in 2016.
**s// for those who don’t know me.
Bex
@Baud: We found out?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Buttigieg shown he can deal with that crap, gays have to deal with that all the time. I am sure the Buttigieg pushing his own military career all the time is no accident because undercuts the whole gays are a effete mem from the right and begs the question of why didn’t Trump serve. Biden seems to use his goofy, affable uncle persona as armor. But I agree that Warren will just blow it off. I mean the media had her out of the race before the last debate and she sure turned that around.
I also think Warren being a bit homely really helps her. It makes all the attacks on her femininity just a little silly. Everyone knows Warren isn’t going to be swanning around in lace dress and swooning.
Bex
@JGabriel: I don’t think Vlad is a feminist.
smintheus
@JGabriel: The only person who has beaten Trump in an election thus far is a woman. All his male rivals in the Republican primary failed miserably to stand up to him.
Anya
@Baud: I am convinced AOC endorsed Bernie because it was politically safest thing for her.
JGabriel
Exactly.
Another Scott
Mara on the top-of-the-hour NPR news this evening said that it was obvious that Bernie won the debate; that only he and ex-Mayor Mike have the money necessary to campaign to the convention; that everyone else was just trying to hang on and get a bump on Super Tuesday (with the implication that they’re all doomed anyway).
She’s shameless about pushing her opinions as facts.
Grr…
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@Bex: Sorry, I misread your comments.
rachel
Has anyone pointed out that Hillary won the popular vote in spite of misogynist voters yet?
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
Haha, you put your finger on it. I knew there was something bothering me about this.
Baud
@Anya:
Makes sense. Still disappointing. Her endorsing Warren could have made this a very different primary.
Geoduck
Rather than going with the Hectoring Mother-in-Law route with Warren, the GOP will just launch into 24 hour a day Pocahontas “jokes”.
zhena gogolia
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
She’s not homely in the slightest.
Bill Arnold
@Another Scott:
Coincidently the Republicans really really want to run against either Sanders or Buttigieg.
Mara Liasson is why (OK one reason why) I stopped listening to NPR.
Roger Moore
@Martin:
I also like AOC. I don’t agree with her about everything, but her heart is in the right place. That tweet about Warren is a good example. Rather than being a typical asshole Bernie or Buster who’s happy to see all the other candidates get slammed, she’s willing to back up a different candidate who was being treated unfairly.
AnonPhenom
Republicans have screwed everything up so bad that the only way to fix it is to let Republicans decide for Democrats which Republican they should nominate to run as the Democrat’s nominee.
…every never Trumper ever
gwangung
@Laura Koerber:
Garbage in, garbage out.
sukabi
@Martin: I love her too…and she’s right about this. Glad she’s got Warren’s back on this. Rubin’s not the only one trying to disappear Warren… apparently Tweety just had an entire show / panel that talked about the debate and completely ignored Warren.
Anya
@Baud: I don’t think her endorsement made any difference, except maybe in New York. OAC’s base already supports Bernie.
JGabriel
Vlad is a sociopath. The world would be a better place if he died tomorrow in a humiliating, compromising circumstance (two wetsuits and dildo, perhaps). I don’t give a fuck what Vlad thinks.
smintheus
@Bill Arnold: Fox News; nuff said.
sukabi
@smintheus: stood in line to wash his balls. Still offering service.
Baud
@Anya:
Maybe more of that base follows her to Warren, however, if AOC went that route. We’ll never know.
Another Scott
@Laura Koerber: Polls are too volatile, too easily manipulated, and too subject to black swan events, to (exclusively?) base one’s vote on them.
IMHO, you should vote for who you think is the best candidate in the primary. Even if they don’t win, they can help move the party in the direction you want it to go in the future. And then, of course, vote for the nominee in the general.
Cheers,
Scott.
JGabriel
Yes. Me.
Roger Moore
@download my app in the app store mistermix:
In the long run, AOC is a Democrat, not an independent. She obviously likes Bernie’s platform, but she sees a long career ahead of herself within the party. I think the big thing is that she doesn’t want to be a back bencher like Bernie; she sees herself becoming part of Democratic leadership within a few election cycles and Madam Speaker before she retires.
sukabi
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: ok. Your definition of “homely” is a helluva lot different than mine.
Elizabeth is a damn fine looking woman for ANY age. That she looks as young as she does at 70 is amazing. And she’s maintained her youth WITHOUT going the cosmetic surgery route, or plastering on tons of makeup.
She’s as real as it gets.
cokane
@Another Scott: Aggregation of multiple polls, over a long enough period of time are actually not at all susceptible to “black swan events”. And I think they should be paid attention to. They aren’t dispositive entirely in of themselves, but they can give you a rough sense of how candidates fare against Trump. Especially they can serve as an apples-to-apples comparison of the relative strength of each candidate against him.
At the same time, of course other factors have to be considered such as a lack of name recognition hurting some candidates there.
sukabi
@Roger Moore: she knows she doesn’t have 30+ years to rely on platitudes and ideals. That gal has come to WORK and get shit done!
Chip Daniels
The thing is, we don’t need the Never Trumpers.
There aren’t enough of them to move the needle, and anything we did to try to get them would turn off ten reliable Dems for every one Jennifer Rubin we managed to pick up.
gwangung
@Roger Moore: She should be studying…HARD…the tactics of Pelosi and others.
Not all of them will be applicable in the future…some are ant-democratic in nature….but learning about them will ALWAYS be useful. (If only to know how to block them if you don’t like them, to know how ruthless you have to be).
hilts
File this under Are you fucking kidding me?
In spite of his piss poor debate performance, Bloomberg has picked up 3 more endorsements:
h/t https://apnews.com/086087e47b2d26144c43bab63da5f8e1
Eolirin
@cokane: Honestly, I’m not sure what they meant when they said they’re susceptible to black swan events, but aggregated polls can still be subject to sampling bias, if everyone is making the same kind of mistakes (landline polling skews the population older and will fail to capture a surge of young people, etc) and the likely voter models needed to calibrate results and compensate for low response rates can break if the election turnout composition is well out of line with expectations. WI, MI, and PA in 2016 had a mix of these sorts of problems.
Kent
@Geoduck:
Hope they do. Just makes them look like racist fools. If that is the worst thing they have on Warren then she’s good to go.
Trump needs to keep suburban white women to win the election . I’m not sure the Pocahontas nonsense is the way to do that. But making Sanders into the next Hugo Chavez, hoping to turn America into the next Venezuelan hell hole is. You don’t think they have about 10,000 hours of violent rioting by vicious brown people in Venezuela all cued up and ready for the first Bernie ad? Hugo Chavez was his good buddy. Fellow socialists. And it’s a two-fer cause you get the scary brown people too
Last elections we had caravans of death 24/7. This time will be the same except they will have Sanders leading them.
Kent
@hilts: Isn’t that about 8 more than Bernie?
sukabi
@hilts: looking for that sweet, sweet lucre.
Look at it this way, it makes it easier to really see who’s working for you and who’s working for the wealth mongers.
Peale
@hilts: ugh. Nita is my rep. Sigh
Roger Moore
@gwangung:
It’s always possible she’ll fizzle out, but she obviously has charisma and leadership potential. She shouldn’t just be watching. Somebody within Democratic leadership, maybe even Nancy Pelosi, should be acting as her mentor and teaching her this stuff. It would be good not just to groom her for possible future leadership but also to keep her from turning into a loose cannon.
Roger Moore
@hilts:
FTFY.
sukabi
@Roger Moore: let’s hope (or not) they got significantly more than the $2500 / month for posting positive Bloomberg content on their social media pages. ??
germy
I saw AOC on The View yesterday, and she was very protective of Nancy Pelosi. Called her a real leader, said “you don’t mess with Mama Bear”
Mary G
Another polling company has disappeared Warren from face-to-face comparisons:
Once could be a mistake; twice looks like a conspiracy.
Both Rubin and Tom Nichols proved they are still Republicans at heart. Neither think a woman is allowed to be angry. Nichols was so unhinged that Charlie Pierce has muted his tweets.
Angry women fueled the Democratic takeover of the House in 2018. I am one of them.
Another Scott
@Eolirin: Good point.
It’s really, really hard to do good polls, and it’s getting harder all the time. And it’s really, really easy to do bad polls (as you illustrate).
I’m sure we all remember GHWB’s 89+% approval rating in February 1991 and losing to Clinton in November 1992.
Polls are an answer to a counter-factual – “You’re not voting today, but if you were who would you vote for?” Things can (and do) change before election day.
Life is complicated enough. Pick the person you like best and vote for them. Your single vote isn’t likely to change the outcome, but it will make you feel better and if more people do the same instead of paying attention to the polls, then we might come closer to the outcome we want.
Polling’s main purpose is to build and feed narratives. Narratives that are often contrary to what we want. We don’t have to play that game.
Cheers,
Scott.
Mary G
Can a front pager free my comment from moderation? I failed to count links.
Frankensteinbeck
Warren is my preference. Whoever is nominated, we are not facing a presidential election like any previous. The last three years have proven that. We’re used to a dynamic of trying to inspire our voters with love, hope, and things they want, and the challenge of mercurial soft liberals who don’t care enough to vote consistently. Republicans were the party that voted consistently out of fear and hate.
That has changed. Liberals, apparently most of all soft liberals in suburbs, are pissed. They hate and fear Trump. This won’t be an election about who we nominate. It will be an election about stopping Trump.
germy
@Another Scott:
Thank you. I keep seeing so many comments here: “I really agree with everything Warren says, but I’m not voting for her, based on my calculations after reading newspaper op-eds and polls!”
It’s maddening.
germy
hilts
@Kent
I have not taken the time to count how many Congressional endorsements Sanders has received.
@Roger Moore @Peale @sukabi
I wonder how many more Congressional endorsements Bloomberg can roll up before Super Tuesday arrives. Every one of these House members is a fucking disgrace.
Cacti
Which had the real world effect of putting her in the company of Samuel Tilden and Albert Gore, Jr.
There are no moral victories in elections. Just winners and losers.
Cacti
@smintheus: Comrade! You never did answer how many proletariat live in Bernie’s summer home gated community.
germy
@Cacti: It’s quite a mansion:
Jinchi
Interesting. Remember how they pulled a whole poll before Iowa because one of the questioners forgot to ask about Buttigieg?
James E Powell
Rubin and the other Never Trump Republicans had zero influence on their own party in 2016. I don’t see any reason why they should have any on ours. Instead of writing columns telling Democrats what to do, they ought to be writing to and about the people they know best: Republicans who have been reading their stuff for years.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Too bad AOC didn’t see this earlier and endorse Warren.
Lyrebird
@germy: Hmm. Real estate is not in my list of reasons I hope we nominate someone other than BS, but it’s interesting that the picture Jordan Uhl (in your link) is using to say “oh this is so blown out of proportion” is actually a picture of the guest house and not the main cabin. Still small potatoes compared to Bloomberg’s houses of course.
Martin
@Jeffro: I really, fundamentally believe we need more young people in government. Though, Tom Cotton can DIAF.
kindness
Rubin is a Republican. During Dubya & Barack she was an asshole. She just hates Trump. She’ll vote Republican for every other office this fall I bet.
I think some powers that be have considered their best way to beat Warren is to say nothing about her. It isn’t just coincidental all over the place. Our MSM is helping them there.
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
@germy: Between the people saying ‘misogyny sucks but I will vote for yet another old white man because of the polls’ and the folks who just generally don’t like Warren for stupid crap like her earnestness, I’m about ready to pull my hair out.
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
@kindness: It is kind of weird how people like Tweety were practically foaming at the mouth with happiness over how aggressive Warrenwas being in the debate and today have discussions where they don’t even mention her. What the hell happened in the last 24 hours that they decided she was awesome but they’re not even going mention her.
sgrAstar
SPW@zhena gogolia:
Agree100%! PSW is not homely. At all. Frumpy, yes. :)
?
janesays
@cokane: The one thing they seem to be unified about is their collective disdain for Bernie Sanders. If there’s a group of people who have an even greater dislike of the junior senator from Vermont than most BJ commenters, it’s the Never-Trumpers. They really can’t stand him.
joel hanes
@Roger Moore:
maybe even Nancy Pelosi, should be acting as her mentor and teaching her this stuff
This has been happening, quietly. Even before she recovered the Speakership, Pelosi said that she saw her main job as developing a new generation of Democratic women in the House, and she has been doing so.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@janesays: They sure loved him when he was trashing Hillary.
J R in WV
deleted
Dadadadadadada
@Laura Koerber: The world is what we make it. If sexism sucks, you need to *vote against it*.
No One You Know
@JGabriel: Amen. Preach! Because there’s no point in moaning about the misogyny “of others” means some folk get comfortable with their own.
Put another way, a person who begins with the premise that since Warren can’t win, they won’t vote for her. That’s more about wanting to be on the winning side, than on making the effort to win.