And one no hoper acknowdedges their reality tonight
Tom Steyer has dropped out of the presidential race.
The billionaire failed to gain significant traction in the early states, despite spending over $100 million on his campaign. https://t.co/fHp19oEqQb
— Vox (@voxdotcom) March 1, 2020
Recipe Exchange: Let’s Talk Bread
TaMara (HFG)
I hope he takes all that money and focuses on taking back the Senate. Because I did believe this wasn’t all about vanity for him in this race.
dmsilev
Good.
BGinCHI
More of a goer than a Steyer, I guess.
Baud
@TaMara (HFG):
His concession speech made it seem like he would do something positive. We’ll see.
khead
$100 million. One. Hundred. Million.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg dropped that on ESPN ads today.
Keith P
David Alexrod’s take on tonight seems to be that Joe Biden is a shitty campaigner.
BGinCHI
@Keith P: Clyburn saved his bacon.
lamh36
Stole Kamala Harris’ data, spend bout 20 million in SC, still came in 3rd to Bernie.
Bye Tom, thx for dropping out. Now put your money behind down ballot races.
Oh and if those rumors of you actually thinking bout primarying Kamala Harris are true…DIAF!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@TaMara (HFG):
He started out funding an Anti-Trump ad campaign didn’t he? For impeachment? I’d hope so too. If/when Bloomberg is eliminated, I hope he holds to his pledge to help the Dem nominee as well
JPL
@Keith P: He has been on a campaign for one a day grumpy pills for a long time.
lamh36
Welp, guess John will have to actually go back to posting more here at BJ once Twitter goes right wing.
Ohio Mom
I’m glad Steyer dropped out but would have been happier if Mayor Pete, Amy, and/or Bloomberg dropped out. Steyer wasn’t going much harm, just mostly wasting his money. Those three are skewing things by diluting the not-Bernie vote.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@lamh36:
It wasn’t already?
Baud
@Ohio Mom:
If Bernie ends up the nominee, Bloomberg will be a major reason.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Keith P: Biden’s no Obama, and he needs to focus, maybe talk a little slower? think about the words before he utters them? but people seem to like him, and Axelrood is a bit of an Eeyore, isn’t he?
Anyone else subscribe to my theory that Axelrod was at least a partial model for Ben Cafferty on Veep?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
That would be ironic, wouldn’t it? Bloomberg’s quixotic quest to defeat Warren/Sanders ending in Sanders getting the nom instead. I hope that doesn’t come to pass
Lacuna Synecdoche
(Test Post. Please Ignore.)
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
100 million is inaccurate.
According to Open Secrets Steyer had spent $252,841,942 by January 31 and he had another $17,857,605 slated for February spending, for a grand total of $270,666,548.
Bottom line: $270,666,548 spent and not a single delegate earned.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: I’ll have to get out my red yarn soon, but I’ll believe Bloomberg isn’t at least keeping and indie option open when the filing deadlines pass.
and a quick google and a look at Ballotpedia suggests that’s in the summer for most states, June through August
Omnes Omnibus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): We’ve talked about this stuff already.
tam1MI
I’d have no problems with him running for Harris’s seat when Harris becomes Biden’s Vice President. ;)
lamh36
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: he’s been disgruntled ever since he left the PBO administration. I honestly think he hates being a pundit, but he’s got to make a living somehow, and he’s not capable of earning the money that some architects of the PBO campaign have been, and sometime its shows.
He always seem to be just dialing it in to me
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That would surely hand the win to Trump.
Felanius Kootea
@lamh36: This. I am so glad he didn’t gain traction in SC after stealing her data.
Miss Bianca
@BGinCHI: D’oh!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Omnes Omnibus:
Look at the comment above yours. Jim’s not saying anything different than I am
Felanius Kootea
@TaMara (HFG): First time I ever even heard of Steyer, I was in Washington National Airport and he had an ad on about impeaching Trump. That certainly got my attention but it didn’t make me want to vote for him.
Nicole
Good, but I’m so fucking depressed tonight. I’m not going to live to see a woman President (and not because I’m foreseeing dying anytime soon, so don’t worry; it’s just I think it’s going to be that long and I don’t know that I’ll live to be elderly). I have instructed my husband, should he live to be elderly, and see it happen, that the first time one of my surviving religious relatives (I got several) says some, “Nicole must be smiling down from Heaven today” crap to tell them that I left instructions to him to reply, “No; in fact she went to her grave angry that she didn’t get to see this.” And if, by any chance, one of those people might be a couple of my relatives who I know voted either for Trump or 3rd party in 2016, to add that I also told him to tell them I also held them personally responsible. I gave him names.
I’m at the point in life where I get viscerally angry when I see “Girls Rock!” “Girls are Awesome!” or any other of the various female affirmations on children’s clothing because the whole reason those shirts exist is because society’s default assumption is that girls do not, in fact rock, and are not, in fact, awesome. That’s why you don’t see “Boys Rock!” or “Boys Are Awesome!” shirts- society’s default assumption is that they do and they are, so there’s no need to say it.
I had much more tolerance for living in patriarchy when I was younger, and I thought I was pretty mad about it then. But hoo boy, the older I get, the angrier I get. And tonight I’m particularly bad.
lamh36
I see alot of social media posts from some folks, not just BS supporters tyring to do exactly what Nate cautions against. The idea that Biden’s win in SC is being made too much of a big deal than it should be. But he’s right…Biden is over performing.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
Has the Baud campaign ruled out an independent run?
Omnes Omnibus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I don’t even know which of you I am talking to anymore.
khead
Tom Steyer blew almost $200 million on a campaign that had no chance. Mike Bloomberg probably spent that much on ESPN ads THIS WEEK.
The 8.9 mile Coalfields Expressway extension from Slab Fork, WV to Mullens, WV that provided the FIRST EVER four lane road into Wyoming County, WV cost $33 million.
Tax the rich.
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
In this country?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
Well, yeah. What other country did you have in mind? I hear North Korea is lovely this time of year
Betty Cracker
I don’t get to vote until 3/17, and if it’s down to Clueless Joe and Shouty McWaggyfinger, I may just skip that line on the ballot. (I’ll vote for either one in the general, obviously.) Jesus, this sucks.
BC in Illinois
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I have given time, money, and a coffee-maker to the local Warren campaign, but I still have four pictures of Joe Biden in my phone. Two from when he came to campaign for Jason Kander, Two from when he came to campaign for Claire McCaskill.
He know how to fire up a crowd, remind us of why we’re proud to be Democrats, and seems to enjoy doing it. He fired me up to go door-to-door for Jason Kander, and I suck at going door-to-door.
My dream was that he would be part of the all-star team that we send nation-wide this year to campaign for Democrats up and down the ticket. He was never my choice, but I think that sending the Obamas — and every Democrat of name — on the road to campaign for him, and for every other Democrat could bring the excitement and push that could (almost) match what we would have with Elizabeth Warren at the top of the ticket.
I’m not giving up on her until after Super Tuesday and the Missouri Primary the Tuesday thereafter.
Anya
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
My dad.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Betty Cracker:
If Biden can replicate his SC win nationwide, I think I’d have to vote for Joe over Mr. Coronary, if only to deny him the nom. As it happens my primary is on 3/17 as well
Richard Guhl
Joe Biden made a deeply emotional speech after, framed by Jim Clyburn calling him a good man.
Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders made a dishonest speech conflating all those opposing him with Billionaires and Health Insurance companies and Wall Street bankers. It’s him against the Establishment. But when were all those African American voters, who administered the thrashing, part of any Establishment?
Baud
Kornacki was explaining that the 15% threshold in California is key for Biden.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: Well, I guess we don’t need jk to show up now.
Jeffro
TCNJ dad and bro of mine have to be, um, depositing solid rectangular blocks of building materials right about now. They were all in on Sanders (with GOP ‘open primary’ support) screwing up this race, and/or sending this to a brokered convention, or Bloomberg somehow winning and losing support from our base, etc etc.
L
O
L
I know nothing is decided yet, but yet of COURSE I tweaked the heck out of them just now =)
Jay Noble
So Bloomberg wasn’t even on the ballot today nor New Hampshire and came up with goose eggs in Iowa and Nevada? Still early but nothing to show after 4 states?
What ballots will he be on, on Tuesday?
Will Steyer be on those Tuesday ballots.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Richard Guhl:
When they didn’t bend the knee to the One True God?
Adam L Silverman
@lamh36: He’s just going to have more time to focus on achieving his goal of becoming an Instagram influencer.
Jeffro
@khead: tax the holy hell out of them. We need the money for the country’s good; they’ll never miss it; and if we let them keeping having gobs of it they’ll just keep screwing up our democracy.
Baud
@Jay Noble:
Steyer dropped out.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jeffro:
What does your Dad think of Trump’s response to COVID-19?
Adam L Silverman
@Lacuna Synecdoche: All post’s lives matter!
The Dangerman
@khead:
Amen.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: The last thing this country needs is more people planting willows too close to houses.
schrodingers_cat
@Nicole: We could have a female VP and she could go on to become President.
Anya
@lamh36: This is actually a terrible development. Twitter is terrible but it can get even worse.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: And since it’s Balloon Juice we will definitely talk about it again and again and again and again, etc, etc, etc.
Jeffro
The night’s not over yet. =)
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Adam L Silverman:
What does that mean?
Jeffro
@schrodingers_cat: I think this is how it will most likely happen, in 2024. Several of the current Dem candidates are quite old and one coughBidencough has talked about only serving a single term.
But that’s then, this is now, and so…frankly I just want to get on with it, unify the party, and beat on trumpov & Co for the next eight months.
Anya
I am annoyed that Bernie Sanders is at 20% or so. I was hoping he’d be below 15%.
zhena gogolia
@Nicole:
I feel you. My anger surged in 2016. This is just the aftermath of that. That should have been the time.
feebog
This is why my California ballot is still on the dining room table. I was an avid Harris supporter. When she dropped out I slowly drifted towards Warren. But it’s getting real now folks. I really believe Sanders will not be able to overcome the massive bag o’ shit the Trump campaign will throw at him. And even if he does, he will be a placeholder at best. He has no friends on Capitol Hill, and is seemingly uninterested in building the kind of relationships that get things done. At least with Biden I am confident he will undo the worse damage Trump has wrought, and more importantly, I think he can beat Trump. Bottom line, another four years scares the living crap out me and I’m voting for the guy who I think can beat him.
O. Felix Culpa
@Betty Cracker: I’ve grieved over Senator Professor Warren’s failure to gain traction. I hate the way the Dem primaries started with so much hope and diversity…and narrowed down to (mostly) old white men. It’s been dispiriting. That said, I’m Team Biden if it’s between him and Shouty Red McShoutface. I have no confidence that the latter can win in the general. I think Biden actually can attract a sufficiently large coalition to take the Electoral College, so he’s my guy if that’s what we’re left with.
ETA: Our primary isn’t until June 2nd, so I have lots of time to deliberate if the decision hasn’t already been made for me.
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yeah, I can understand not being enthusiastic about Biden, but “Clueless Joe”?
Sab
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Don ‘t forget down ticket. Jennifer Brunner running for Ohio Supreme Court. She is why we have a paper trail in Ohuo voting. She ibsisted back un the day when she was Sec of State.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@BC in Illinois: I liked Harris and then Warren better, but Biden for all his fuzziness understood something that the rest of the field had trouble figuring out, that Bernie Sanders won twitter, but Barack Obama won the White House. Twice.
He might prove a leaky vessel in the general, and Nate Silver might be right that a lot of people– me included– are overestimating what this means, but I’ll bet on Biden over Sanders every day and twice on Sunday.
Bloomberg also embraced Obama more than any other candidate than Biden.
Anya
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I thought Silver was saying you cannot underestimate Biden’s huge win?
Adam L Silverman
@lamh36: It isn’t just that he’s over performing, it’s that the modeling, or even more accurately, the modelers were gaming themselves. We do this every time we have an election, but the polling and surveys always undercount people of color, especially African Americans and especially older African Americans. What was tonight’s actual turnout breakdown? It was older. It was African American (55%). And African Americans 35 and under only went for Senator Sanders by 10 points over VP Biden, though he won African Americans over 35 by a gigantic margin. Also, older voters turned out and, as usual, younger voters didn’t. Even liberals didn’t break as strongly for Senator Sanders as he and others had been predicting. Also, the first three contest were highly unrepresentative. And IA and NV were undemocratic caucuses. And in NV only 4% of eligible voters caucused/early voted. You don’t get a less representative electorate that that.
So we have three overlapping issues here:
There is one more emerging issue. The first is that as the coronavirus news dominates, including the economic fallout, more and more people are going to want normalcy and quiet competency. Senator Sanders may scream a lot, but he doesn’t scream normalcy and quiet competency. Neither do his senior staff, surrogates, and supporters.
Betty Cracker
@Nicole: Wow, I had a similar conversation with my husband tonight! I am beyond bitter and sick of it all.
@Omnes Omnibus: Who?
Mai naem mobile
Can I say again that while I will vote for him in the general I can’t stand Bernie. I do not get the appeal of the guy. I don’t think I would have gotten it even when I was younger. Also on a serious note what happens to public events of these guys in the event of a CoV19 pandemic? Does the convention get cancelled? The only young candidate is Pete. All the others are in the oldster category. And one has a fairly recent MI. Biden has some older(time wise not age) medical issues as well. Bloomie has stents.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That’s true. But it turned me off. It was very opportunistic of him. He and Obama never had the professional working relationship that Biden had with Obama. For me, Bloomberg will never live down “Stop and Frisk”
Zelma
I can’t believe it! I went to my inbox and there was no email from Joe asking me for money. And I was going to send him some. There’s always tomorrow.
I’ve been giving Warren a donation every month so I guess I’m disappointed. I hate what happened to her and I’m not even sure what happened to her. She seems so warm and witty and smart. Was it her professor vibe? I don’t know why anyone with reformist goals would choose Bernie over her.
Eolirin
@Anya: I think Sanders has a floor of around 20%. He does extremely well with young people of every ethnicity. (Though I suspect this is at least partially due to Russian interference; Twitter is a major news source for younger people on the left, much like Facebook is for older people on the right)
The Dangerman
@feebog:
Correct.
The chance of him passing anything of substance is zero.
scott (the other one)
Like several in this thread, I was Team Harris, and I’m still disappointed she had to drop out so (relatively) early. After that, I was Team Warren all the way, long having been insane about the good Senator Professor, and only having reservations over losing her senate seat (still a serious issue, even if it’s “only” the first three or so months–those months are crucial and there’s no guarantee, we know all too well, that she’d be replaced by a Dem).
But with her still not gaining traction, I was coming around to the reality of Sanders. But Biden…if the rumors are true that he’s considering only one term (I’m very skeptical he wouldn’t really want to run, were he to win), and considering picking Harris as his veep (I am so all over that, or even her as AG), well…yeah, I could get behind that.
lamh36
To all the dissappointed Warren supporters, at least you got the chance to actually vote for your candidate on a ballot. Warren isn’t dropping out. So you at least still have a chance to vote for her.
We’ll see after next week, still for now, deal with your disappointment the same way ya’ll told me to deal with mine.
Signed…voter who wished I’d had the chance to vote for Kamala Harris on my primary ballot.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
You don’t win a general election campaign this way. You can’t even get 1/3 the vote in a Dem primary.
Mai naem mobile
Jack Dorsey donated to Tulsi Gabbard. I don’t understand that ideologically and can only figure it has something to do with Putin. I think he also gave some bucks to Yang.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Adam L Silverman:
That’s a good point, actually. There’s already been a death that hasn’t been linked to recent travel or interacting with those that were infected that had been to China or other affected areas. This is sort of how it started in Italy and SK. People started dying, they were tested and found positive, and cases started being found all over the place
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I don’t pay much attention to Bloomberg, so I didn’t know that he sorta kinda disavowed his 2012 endorsement of Obama, but the point is more what his opportunism says about the misjudgment of the rest of the field
Does anyone know if Michael Bennet is still in it? Do you think he knows?
Jeffro
Spot-on. I don’t think too many folks see Biden and go, “oh sure, quiet competency!” but (obviously) this is where the close association with the Obama years kicks in.
Swing-state sure winner. Ties to Obama. Hasn’t tried to buy the election. Isn’t up for M4A but is good with a public option. Great name recognition.
Your move, Wilmer.
Omnes Omnibus
@Sab: Jennifer Brunner is great. I knew her slightly when I was in Columbus. One of the funny things about her is that she represented a porn store in Bexley in its fight to stay open and not be replaced by a McDonald’s. It says something that the rich folks of Bexley supported the porn store over the Mickey D’s.*
*Of course Bexley is also the town where Larry Flynt of Hustler fame had a house just across from the Columbus School for Girls.
Jeffro
@lamh36: You’ll have the chance to vote for her in November, in a way ;)
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Zelma: Sanders isn’t a reformist, he’s a grievance candidate.
In truth, there is very little overlap in their bases.
MisterForkbeard
@feebog: I think you and I are in the same place – in CA, was all in for Harris. Really liked Warren, but now feeling like Biden may be who I need to vote for. Sanders is not a good choice for the nominee in my opinion, though I do think he can win.
Biden is fine. Good in most ways with a few egregious examples of fucking up royally. I’ll take that over Sanders and the collateral damage he’d cause.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jeffro:
Hey Jeffro, I’m sorry if I touched a sore spot with your dad. I’m sure this COVID-19 thing must be pretty scary for you
HalfAssedHomesteader
@Jeffro: Damn it, any candidate that doesn’t think they have the vigor to serve 8 years is wasting our goddamn time. Like we’re supposed to sacrifice incumbent advantage to massage their ego?
O. Felix Culpa
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Michael Bennet withdrew from the race, not that it made any ripples.
Eolirin
@lamh36: I’m a disappointed Warren supporter, but I’m only that because Harris isn’t still in the race. I feel you.
Jeffro
@feebog:
@O. Felix Culpa:
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’m sensing a trend here…and I’m in too.
MazeDancer
Have been on Team Biden ever since Kamala withdrew. And not just because I think we’ll get her as VP.
But because I think he can win. And carry the House and Senate.
House and Senate are what matters and Biden is our best shot at those.
Love Warren, voted for her when I lived n MA, but Biden can win.
He can heal the nation, do the necessary repair work, have world’s greatest cabinet, bring people out of the woodwork leaving their high power jobs to help him.
Hope he gets the nom. Hope Bernie is stopped tonight.
wmd
@BC in Illinois:
March 17 is yet another primary – at that point 2446 delegates will have been selected. My hope is it is a two person race at that point – both at around 1000 delegates, with the remaining 3 splitting the remaining 446.
It could be 3 way all at about 700, with 2 also rans – left voters split, Biden gets the moderate/right vote. The screams for one candidate to drop out will be really strong. I’d have some schadenfreude if Warren is in the lead in the ~700 delegate club at that point. Some pride too, as I’ll be donating and making GoTY calls for her through Saint Patricks day.
TaMara (HFG)
@lamh36: come sit by me. I have to cast my ballot tomorrow, I was waiting until tonight’s results. I’m torn, but thinking I’m still voting for Warren. I wish I could check the Harris box (she’s still on the ballot here, along with all the other candidates, as ballots were in process months ago)
Anya
@Mai naem mobile: It has nothing to do with Putin. Jack is a weirdo who sees himself as a disrupter of the political system.
Jeffro
@HalfAssedHomesteader: Yeah, well hopefully he keeps it (puts it back?) under wraps until after the election and maybe even the 2022 midterms. That would help Kamala out tremendously.
I mean, I hear you…but you win the upcoming election with the candidate you have, not the one we wish we had.
The Dangerman
I don’t know how many crossovers (polite phrase tonight, rodentia fornicators) there will be in California…
…but there better not be enough for him to take it all in CA. I know CA hated going last (or it was close to last) when the ballgame was generally over, but if the several Non-Bernies split the vote enough for the crossovers to swing it … well, CA should be ashamed if that’s the case.
ETA: I think Warren tearing Trump several new ones in a debate would have been fun, but that assumes he debates, of course.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay Noble: @Baud: Yes, but he’ll still appear on a lot of ballots that have already been pre-printed and in many cases have been sent out for absentee/vote by mail or are on site at early voting locations.
Eljai
@Zelma: I feel your disappointment, but Warren was never going to have a strong showing in SC. SC was Biden’s to lose. Each candidate has their strengths. Warren seems to be concentrating resources in places that are her strength. I live in California. if you listen to the pundits, you would think that CA is BernieCentral. It’s not. There are places where he’s strong and districts where few will vote for him. And delegates are awarded proportionally and by district, so nobody knows yet how it all shakes out until after Tuesday, and maybe not even then.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: A commenter who shows up solely to bag on Biden with terms like Clueless Joe.
MisterForkbeard
@lamh36: Right there with you. I’m pondering the strategic benefits of my vote now, but I really wish I could vote for Harris instead. :(
But we gotta deal, I guess. And you’re right- Warren stans can still vote for her at least through Tuesday.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: I think he’s trying to get Oshkosh B’gosh to sponsor him as a brand influencer for overalls.
Jeffro
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I must have missed a comment somewhere but thank you for reaching out. I’m not worried at all about him, whether over COVID-19 or in general.
Adam L Silverman
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): It means that we tend to be a repetitive bunch.
Another Scott
@Jeffro: Biden denied that, of course.
NBC News (in December):
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jeffro:
Oh ok. Hope your dad stays safe
mrmoshpotato
A happy February 29th to all, and to all a “Fuck Bernie.” and good night.
Adam L Silverman
@O. Felix Culpa:
You can thank Tom Perez. He had sole control over the requirements to make it onto the debate stage.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@MazeDancer:
It’s not a sure thing, but I think it’s our best shot at this point. I do hope he asks KH to be his running mate. As I’ve said before, she’ll be taking one for the team if she does*, he needs her more than she needs him
* and now that I say that, she doesn’t have much to lose, does she? she’d still be Senator Harris if the Unspeakable happens.
Nicole
@schrodingers_cat: And isn’t that what women always get told- oh, you can have second place, and who knows, MAYBE SOMEDAY…
Hell, my 9-year-old son just tried that one on me. It starts early, even in the best-intentioned households.
Eolirin
@HalfAssedHomesteader: I really think Biden thinks that of the candidates, he’s the only one who can actually beat Trump. And he may not be wrong. He’s certainly got the best polling match ups in the battleground states.
If he picks a good VP and promotes them and then steps down so they can run, I think that’s fine. He’ll make it more likely for that person to win, especially if they wouldn’t necessarily have had the easiest time getting the nomination, like say, Harris, and we’ll have gotten rid of Trump.
lamh36
smh…what a dickish comment
Adam L Silverman
@Mai naem mobile: Dorsey is alt-light approaching alt-right curious.
Mai naem mobile
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Bennett dropped out after NH. It was soon after Carville called him the most electable. Hahaha. I like Bennett but shit if I am going to have a white bread guy I’ll go with Inslee.
O. Felix Culpa
@Adam L Silverman:
Perez has been awful. Not the right person for these times at all.
cokane
Honestly, everyone who did worse than Steyer in SC should probably drop out at this point too.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Adam L Silverman:
meh– he had no control over what candidates did, or didn’t do, to formulate their own platforms, and he couldn’t stop Steyer and Bloomberg from fucking things up with their checkbooks. If anything, the debates are what stopped Bloomberg’s momentum.
I don’t know how much control he had over the primary schedule– that should have been changed before this cycle
Miss Bianca
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I believe Bennet was out after NH.
Miss Bianca
@TaMara (HFG): Yeah, I think I’m still voting for Warren. Would have voted for Harris if I could have. But would definitely be Team Biden over Team Sanders.
Miss Bianca
@O. Felix Culpa:
IKR? So disappointed. I really thought he was going to be the better choice. But now I’m sitting here thinking, “Gee, I wish Pete Buttigieg had won that contest!”
O. Felix Culpa
@Miss Bianca: I have lots of time to think about it, but if Warren doesn’t score some wins – and delegates – soon, then my vote goes to Biden. I don’t want to cede the race to Sanders by diluting support for the candidate who can presumably beat him…and beat Trump.
Adam L Silverman
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): As the testing gets ramped up, especially as the states come on line with their own tests because the CDC’s private vendor 1) can’t get their act together and 2) the CDC’s protocols for who requires a test is wrong and the states will establish their own better ones, you’re going to see the number of cases go up very quickly. And we’re going to find out that some of the deaths being attributed to the flu over the past few weeks, as well as going forward, really should’ve been attributed to COVID19. And, of course, the fatality rate will go up. And the economic fallout will go up with it, because despite Dr. Fauci’s correct instructions this afternoon that if you do get COVID19 that the protocol is the same for the flu or a cold: stay home and rest. Most Americans don’t stay home and rest if they have the flu or a cold because they can’t. Because doing so means they get fired. Are you willing to go to a restaurant anytime soon and have someone you don’t know, whose health status you have no idea about, prepare your food? Serve your food? How about proximity to everyone else in the restaurant? Same thing at the grocery. You want to buy anything from the deli, the bakery, or the butcher shop where people, even though they may be gloved and wearing hair nets or hats, are handling food you’re going to eat? Some of it that won’t be cooked? You want to go to a sporting event any time soon with thousands of people you don’t know and you have no way of knowing their health status? How about a concert? Shopping at stores for clothes? Religious services? Go for a test drive in a car where you’re in a confined space with someone you don’t know and you have no way of knowing who was in the car before you? Travel by air? By train? Cruise ship? People’s responses to this may not be rational, but avoiding all of these things is what is going to happen. And that will have a significant effect on the economy.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Adam L Silverman:
Sorry. Sometimes I read more into things said on the internet than I should
O. Felix Culpa
@Miss Bianca: Funny, I was just thinking the same thing! I suspect that Buttigieg would have had a better strategic sense for how to run the DNC and the primaries in particular.
Sab
I canvassed today, and my Ohio city is actually quite hilly. I am not as young as I used to be. Climbing all those steps was a chore, and I actually needed the step rails.
One not very busy street I have spent years driving across at one end, and had never ventured to the other end. It was amazing. Way up at the top of a hill with a view of the whole valley. Only about 4 houses up there. Who knew? One of them had an exercise bike on the porch overlooking the valley. Poor man’s peloton. I was jealous.
ETA That’s why I love canvassing. A city looks a lot different on foot than it does by car. Lots of cool stuff you never see driving by.
And whether or not they support your candidate people appreciate that you are bothering to get out and contact them, even if you are only putting post-its on their porch window. They know you were there as a volunteer and that you care.
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: This was the whole point of Congressman Clymer’s remarks. He said, and I’m doing this from memory so it is more of a paraphrase, that not being good doesn’t mean one is weak. That not being bombastic and loud doesn’t mean one is weak. And that Biden is a very good man.
Another Scott
Cheers,
Scott.
Nicole
And the thing that worries me about Biden (obligatory obviously I’ll support him with vigor if he’s the nominee) is that I don’t think he has any interest in going after any of the big offenders in the GOP right now- I think it’ll be another “rear view mirror” moment, when we’ll be expected to shrug off the long national nightmare and forget it all, and 2 years later we lose the House and/or Senate AGAIN because the GOP will never, ever stop cheating and committing crimes to get what they want. This is the end result of Ford pardoning Nixon- a fucking idiot in the WH with his merry band dismantling the government.
It’s naive of Democrats to think they’ll change once a Democrat is back in the WH. I feel like Warren gets how dangerous the GOP is, and I felt like Harris got how dangerous the GOP is. Castro, too, I guess. The rest of them seem to all take time to brag about their some-of-my-best-friends-are-conservatives bonafides.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Gives new meaning to ‘drive through” and “make your day today”.
O. Felix Culpa
@Adam L Silverman:
I believe that to be true. He’s far from my first choice (started out Kamala, then shifted to Warren), but I’d rather vote for the flawed but good man than the flawed and not very good man.
mali muso
Welp, I may end up giving my primary vote next week in VA to Biden rather than Warren. Was in it for Harris initially but I can’t wrap my mind around a Bernie candidacy, so here we are.
Adam L Silverman
@lamh36: This is another issue. The President is an incoherent, rambling liar on a good day. Yet the news media, including folks like Yglesias, normalize him because he’s the president. Biden gets folksy, fights his stutter a bit when he’s stressed, and occasionally over embellishes a story and the news media and punditariat treat him like a pariah.
cokane
@Nicole: this is well said. Biden’s biggest appeal for me is that he’s the one who consistently polls best with Trump. But yeah, your Lindsay Grahams and Mitch McConnells of the world will pull the same shit they did with Obama
lamh36
Like I said on the previous thread Jim Clyburn knows how to motivate and mobilize the voters he needs
My money says a sea change happens with Clyburn’s endorsement. It’s he highest endorsement any of the candidates may get. And Clyburn’s like I’ll be damned if I let ya’ll waste this momentum!
dmsilev
@Adam L Silverman: Re: travel impact, I just got an email saying that a conference I was supposed to attend on Monday is now cancelled. There are a lot of people (roughly 11K), some of whom are either en route to Denver or already there, who are going to be making abrupt u-turns and suddenly aren’t going to be staying in those hotel rooms or eating in those restaurants.
(would have been a lot easier if they’d cancelled it a couple of days ago. I’m not sure how much of my hotel bill I’ll have to eat, or WTF that’s going to do to our accounting, a lot of which has to answer to Federal grant agencies. I’m going to have to buy our financial admin a big box of chocolates or something; dealing with this mess will be miserable)
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: You’re missing my point. Perez came up with the fundraising and polling requirements to make it on the debate stage. That was his decision and his alone – it wasn’t negotiated with the other DNC senior officials or the unity and reconciliation committee. So if you are upset that Harris and Booker and Castro had to drop out because they didn’t have the funding and/or the polling to make the debates, that should all be directed at Perez who came up with those mandatory minimums.
Adam L Silverman
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): It’s the Zima. I told you it would rot your brain.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
/fixed
lamh36
@cokane: If GOP retains control of Senate, they do this to ANY Democrat, but they’ll get more mileage out of doing so with a more liberal POTUS that voters don’t like as much. So yeah, they’ll do what they continue to do regardless. But if the change that a Biden ticket leads to more turnovers, the better I’d say. Plus opposing party gets less traction when they are dicks to a POTUS folks seem to like…
Adam L Silverman
@O. Felix Culpa: That’s a direct quote from Clymer. I don’t necessarily disagree with him. Biden isn’t perfect. He’s made his share of mistakes, but who hasn’t by the time their in their mid to late 70s. But I don’t think anyone can argue he isn’t a decent human being.
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman: I didn’t read/watch/hear Clyburn’s remarks, and I’m not quite sure that he made the same points I’m making more specifically here, but I have no doubt that he’s a savvy politician and can ‘read’ what a Dem candidate is going to need to beat trumpov, and therefore know who (of the current field) has enough of those characteristics, and perhaps most importantly, that a couple of days ago was the exact right time to endorse.
I’d kind of like to buy Clyburn a beer, actually.
Jeffro
@mali muso: Same here, same reasons.
Adam L Silverman
@lamh36: Congressman Clymer has decided that he is going to act on the equity stake he has purchased in the Biden campaign.
dmsilev
@Adam L Silverman:Harris at least wasn’t barred from any of the debates; she met all of the donor and polling thresholds. Her campaign just plain ran out of money.
cokane
@lamh36: a solid point for sure, yeah it’s a corollary to my reason for being cool with nominee Biden, definitely ups the Senate odds
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Adam L Silverman:
Well, I’m not in the least upset about Booker or Castro, but they were all in debates, and those debates didn’t help them raise more money. you could say we’re arguing about the chicken and the egg, but as I see it, the strength of the Buttigieg and Sanders campaign hasn’t been in the debates, it’s been in spending money to organize, to set up offices and hire people to run their ground games, especially in Iowa. Someone said the Buttigieg flooded the Iowa TV stations the weekend before the caucus. Biden had better national polls numbers, he was in all the debates, but he didn’t have the cash.
Sab
@mali muso: Urk, but I am not criticizing. Warren is really determinedly agaimst corruption, legal or illegal. A lot of stuff is perfectly legal now that was shockingly illegal in my youth. Oligarchs rule.
One of the things that I love about Biden is that with all his connections he is squeaky clean. Obama put him in charge of the stimulus spending and there wasn’t a hint of corruption. One company went broke, but that was it.
Biden is squeaky clean but I am not sure he cares or is even aware of how systemic and legal that corruption is now. He is from Delaware, home base for headquartered out of state corporations.
Adam L Silverman
Senator Warren has decided to hit Senator Sanders!
oldgold
Pete should be suspend his campaign tomorrow.
Amy and Liz will be out on Wednesday. Staying in until Wednesday tamps down BS in Minn. and Mass.
Mike B. should never have been in. I wish he would bow out tomorrow. But, he probably lingers until Wednesday.
Kamala should endorse Joe tomorrow. She is the obvious VP choice for Joe.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Adam L Silverman:
I know the CDC tracks things like pneumonia deaths, and apparently there hasn’t been a noticeable uptick or unusual pneumonia-related deaths. At least as of yet. I have no doubt it’s spreading in the community right now though.
The scariest thing about it is that any of us could already be infected and either be in the incubation stage or simply be asymptomatic. It’s the not knowing that’s scary. I’m going to have to convince the rest of my family not to visit my isolated 85 year-old grandmother without wearing a mask and not taking her out to eat.
I bought 3 boxes of these: https://www.instacart.com/products/17133983-topcare-latex-free-surgical-grade-face-masks-10-ct
I know they’d do jack shit at protecting you from being infected, but I hope they would reduce transmission from somebody who’s already infected
I work as a cashier at a supermarket and I’m a nursing student. I’ve resigned myself somewhat to the likely possibility of contracting this, which is why I’ve shifted to buying up surgical masks instead of N95s, of which I own 10
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker:
Yes.
Our election is also on 3/17, but I am on the PEVL. So I got a mail-in ballot. I was considering waiting until after Super Tuesday to fill it out in case Warren drops out, but I decided that I would be heartbroken to vote for anyone else who is still in. So I mailed it in.
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: And those folks have now been forced to take the flights too and from and they have no idea who is on the plane with them, in the airports with them, etc. People are going to see and hear people cough and sneeze and not know if it is allergies, a cold, the flu, or COVID19. That is going to have a huge effect on people’s behavior.
Adam L Silverman
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: That too.
Kent
Was out canvassing for Warren today but I haven’t sent in my ballot yet in case I need to vote for Biden instead.
Yes, Biden has some egregious fuckups. Bankruptcy Bill and Clarence Thomas are the two the come to mind for me. But fuck, so does Obama. Timothy Geithner and Arne Duncan to name two of them. The utter failure to resolve the mortgage crisis in favor of ordinary people instead of the banks in the first case, and the complete throwing in with the charter school fraudsters and standardized testing and teacher pay for performance fiasco in the second case.
Only reason Bernie has less failures in his record is because he has less accomplishments in his record.
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: Unfortunately.
lamh36
So when it all falls out tonight, it looks like Biden will lead all candidates in total votes for all of the 4 contest so far. Bernie maintains slight delegate lead. Biden is 7 delegates behind at of right now with 96% reporting. Biden may end up with about a 30% lead over Bernie (49% to 20% right now). Steyer is at 11%, Liz is at 7% and Amy K is at 3%
Adam L Silverman
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): We’ll keep good thoughts from Grandma Goku!
Sab
@oldgold: I think Liz Warren ran Bloomberg off. One of the strategic things everyone who isn’t totally commited to a candidate needs to remember. She squashed him in two debates. I think we need her in there for a while so that he doesn’t buy the candidacy.
Kent
@lamh36: I guess the we need to listen to the “Midwestern common sense heartland values, white guy on a tractor” shtick from Buttigieg and Klobuchar didn’t play so well in South Carolina.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Adam L Silverman:
I bet you’re going to see a lot of Americans wearing masks in public from now on very soon. Right now it’s not socially acceptable to do
Kent
A couple of 3-way debates between Biden, Sanders, and Warren could be very eye-opening and cleansing of the palate so to speak.
Jeffro
Completely not aiming this at Adam, but just kind of throwing it out there to the jackals: what else was Perez supposed to base debate criteria on? I mean if it isn’t polling, donations, # of donors…maybe # of snarky comments on political blogs? Bumper stickers spotted in a given downtown area?
I don’t know Perez or care a whole lot how he ends up being viewed, but given the environment we’re in today (in any number of factors) I think the gradual ‘glide path’ the party has been on, winnowing out a HUGE number of candidates, has by and large worked. Did we end up with younger, more diverse candidates as we moved through the process? No (well, sorta – there are still young and young-ish candidates in the race as of 11:07p.m. Eastern, and one of them is gay) but what else would people suggest we do here?
I think at one point we were closing in on 30 candidates (FU Larry Sabato for ‘using your platform’ to opine for a ‘Baskin Robbins’ primary season on the D side – 31 flavors, right?) and now we’re down to about 5. People had their chance to win support and catch fire. It was hard to do that with such a huge field* and perhaps the better way to winnow them out is to winnow out who can even file to run in the first place.
Make them run for and hold federal office (or a state governor’s office) first. Make them do something more than have a couple hundred million to spend on their “hobby”. Show a real base of support instead of some collection of internet bros or a ‘gang’.
*the field is huge, btw, because so many of them looked at trumpov and the Rs and realized, “oh yeah, the county is NOT going for four more years of this!” Seriously!
Anyway…back OT for once in my life…I’m not sure what else Perez could have done except think bigger and get the word out that much more needs to happen if we really want to straighten out our democracy, including party primaries and the nominating processes. That starts with no more caucuses, CLOSED primaries, and upping the requirements to file and run.
Kent
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): My wife’s clinic was the one that identified the latest case here in the Portland metro area, a teacher from Lake Oswego. She’s a physician and says the whole thing is currently a giant cluster-fuck. They have to send samples to Atlanta for testing, apparently. Despite having the whole measles outbreak out here recently due to all the anti-vax crazies, they aren’t remotely ready for this.
Apparently two schools in WA are now shut down and one in OR. I expect that to get widespread really fast as parents start pulling kids out of schools in panic and the schools finally giving up and caving to the community pressure.
lamh36
I am ALL the way here for this. If Tom Stoyer can help get rid of ole Lindsey, I will be too happy.
BTW, Biden gave a shoutout of support to Jamie Harrison’s campaign in his speech tonight. I don’t know if any other candidate did the same tho.
I do know Liz and Pete congratulated Biden, and Bernie did not.
Omnes Omnibus
@lamh36: It wouldn’t surprise me if Biden has one or two more endorsers that will speak up at opportune times. His years of making connections should have some effect.
Edited.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@lamh36:
Well a completely unironic bless his heart for Tom– god that would be great if he devoted a couple dozen million to trolling trump’s little buddy
This surprises me not.
Kent
@Jeffro: I agree Jeffro:
My view is that this entire primary season was utterly poisoned and ruined by the three 78-year old white guys who all three let their own egos get in the way of what is best for the country. Take Sanders, Biden, and Bloomberg out of the picture and we are looking at perhaps a 6-way race between Warren, Klobuchar, Harris, Buttigieg, Castro, and Booker right now. That would have been a completely different and much more inspiring race.
78 is WAY to fucking old to be running for an 8-year job for which you will be aound 87 when you leave office
That said, I’ll vote for Biden if it comes to it. I just won’t be overjoyed about it.
debbie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
He could have cut back on the excessive debates. He could have set up town halls instead of debates.Those two things alone would have greatly improved things.
lamh36
@Omnes Omnibus: Biden is already leading with CBC endorsements I believe (Kamala was leading before she dropped out), and I think he’s leading in all endorsements actaully….but dont’ quote me on that.
I can certainly see him trickling in endorsements leading up to Tuesday, lotta big gets in Cali, not sure if they can move votes like Clyburn moves votes, but who knows.
Sab
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I sympathize with you but I don’t know what it feels like. I am doing tax returns all day, pawing over piles of papers that our clients bring in for us to paw over. This year is the first year where I thought about hmmm?
My father was an aging out physician when the AIDS crisis hit. Nobody knew much about it or how infectious it was. One of my best friends from college was a new physician and died of it , contracted on the job.
I know my dad’s lab discussed it a lot, and decided the older guys would handle all the known AIDS cases passing through. The younger doctors were more than willing to participate, but the older guys didn’t want the young doctor/parents exposed to what was at that time a mostly fatal disease.
Medical professionals have always dealt with these risks. Antibiotics haven’t been around that long. Everyone before lived with the risk of contagion from their patients.
You’ll do fine.
What I really like about your concern is it’s about your grandmother, not you.
Adam L Silverman
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I’m not talking about a spike, just that deaths that have been attributed to the flu or pneumonia or some other respiratory infection will have been misattributed. One of the things that stuck me in terms of nat-sec after the anthrax letters in 2001 was something one of the senior government epidemiologists said, which was: how many old people or immunocompromised people who die every year and whose deaths are attributed to the flu are really dying of exposure to anthrax, specifically naturally occurring anthrax, since the symptoms present very similarly? You’re going to have the same issue here.
Kent
Town halls are boring as hell. Perhaps going back to the League of Women Voters as moderators would have improved things greatly. And doing a better job of controlling the actual debates. None of those damn raise your hands gotcha questions that serve no purpose other than create Republican ads.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@debbie:
True, town halls are much better than the shit-show debates. Can you imagine Bloomberg in a town hall?
as to the number of debates: That was an effort to appease a certain faction of the party that convinced itself that having only six primary debates was an evil conspiracy
lamh36
Alright, I’m out.
See ya on Super Tuesday!
I’ll leave ya’ll with this
Adam L Silverman
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Obligatory:
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro:
Ten point must system and scoring according to good ring generalship, clean punching, and effective aggression.
Kent
Yes. Most really old people with compromised immune systems and creaky respiratory systems on respirators in the hospital end up dying at some point. It is almost routine. Once you reach a certain age and level of physical decay they do very little post-mortem analysis. They don’t have the pathologists to even begin doing that sort of thing.
Kent
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: You guys must have watched better town halls then me. I’ve never seen one when a candidate EVER gets pinned down from the audience in remotely the same way that say Harris did to Biden over busing, or the whipping that Warren laid on Bloomberg. The ones I’ve watched are usually just free TV time for candidates to give their 1-minute campaign speeches on whatever topic.
Adam L Silverman
@Kent: It is why I always tell everyone to get a flu shot as a nat-sec requirement. Just takes one potential nat-sec issue off the table.
Adam L Silverman
My sweetened only with agave chocolate cheesecake DID NOT CRACK!
Kent
Clean bill of health and maximum age of say…75?
Which by the way, is the CURRENT age of both Bill Clinton and George W Bush.
Anya
MSNBC is showing a clip of Trump’s press conference and his skin looks hideous. I haven’t seen him mug in awhile so it’s shocking to me. Did something happen to him or was it always this way and I missed it?
khead
Y’all worry too much. As much as I hate it, Warren is out. It’s Biden or bust now. Let’s get it on!
dww44
@Kent: And I not only agree with you about the 78 year old white guys and said so in other places, it actually angers me that they are so selfish. I do think, too, that Biden’s dithering at the outset made it more difficult for some of the others to get a foothold and resulted in their having to drop out. Bloomberg helicoptered in when he saw how weak a candidate Biden was versus Bernie. There was never any doubt that Bernie would run again, but what has surprised and dismayed me is how much traction he has continued to build with the under 35’s. I’m up there in age with the 3 B’s. I will still be voting for Warren in my state’s primary on March 24. Indeed, I have an absentee ballot and will be mailing on Monday.
Adam L Silverman
They’ve put the flag in quarantine!
Kent
ALL your fucking shots for that matter. It still astonishes me that we have MEASLES outbreaks in modern America. What’s next, a revival of polio?
Omnes Omnibus
SNL manages to combine Purell and the .01% in a “Bernie” line.
Jeffro
@Kent: that’s a good (implied) addition to the “qualifications to file/run for/assume the office” section of election reform we’re going to need after this…”must be no older than X at the time of filing to run”, etc.
Sorry but it’s just true folks.
so much to do…to REGULATE…after this reign of error ends
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kent:
Yeah, I’ve heard about that. It takes like 4-5 days to get results back, which is asinine. I really hope it’s true that new, more effective tests will be available to all state and local health departments to ramp up screening
@Kent:
I have to wonder if my regional campus might be closed at some point. Hopefully not.
Did they identify in the lab or by clinical presentation?
Poptartacus
Smoking joes back
goddamm tooting fig Newton
woohoo mutha fuckas
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: Why don’t you just go full Logan’s Run on us. You know you want to.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman:
Yay-ee!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Anya: I had the same thought– I don’t now if it was just the lighting, or if we saw the effect of all the stories about how little he’s sleeping– that they’re trying to pass off as evidence of his machism
ETA: and this may be my pre-existing bias again, but I thought Bernie looked and sounded awful tonight
Anya
@lamh36: Bernie did congratulate Biden.
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman: someone ought to set that footage to his gross recitation of the Strozk/Page texts at that rally a couple months ago (if they haven’t already)
Alternatively, someone (I’m looking at you, Bloomberg and Steyer) ought to run an ad asking voters “what would you think if any other candidate for any other office in America walked up to an American flag and, er, um, er, fondled it like this? Not really someone you’d want in your community, amirite?”
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: And don’t bring in any of that power punch shit either.
Redshift
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Um, yes he did. I saw a bit of his speech him tonight, and that was in it.
Kent
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I honestly don’t know. She works for Kaiser Permanente here in Vancouver and this was a patient across the river in Portland who was an elementary school teacher in Lake Oswego (old money uber rich suburb of Portland).
The Portland newspaper is now 100% Coronavirus coverage on the front page in all black background. I mean fuck, can we ramp up the panic any more? Take a look: https://www.oregonlive.com/
dww44
@Kent: Nope, they all turn 74 on their birthdays this year. And DT with them. I’ve always been intrigued by the fact that 3 of the 4 most recent Presidents were all born in 1946, Trump in June, Bush in July, and Clinton in August. I don’t know what impact that has on the current state of our democracy, but it is not inconsequential.
Ruckus
@lamh36:
I was Harris, strongly for her. She was and is the real deal. After she dropped out I had to struggle to figure out who to vote for. Didn’t have to struggle to hard with 2/3 of the field at all but I voted today in CA and I’m hoping my choice kicks butt here in CA. I’m not saying who I voted for, as my jinx system seems to be working full time and force.
ByRookorbyCrook
Logan’s Run as a guideline for Democratic candidates for Prez. Hot damn I’m in. Election after that we go full Beyond Thunderdome, two candidates enter, Tina Turner still rules after.
Kelly
@Kent:
No more millionaire newsreaders for moderators
Adam L Silverman
@Kent: When people get on me about vaccines, I recount my day inprocessing into the Army program that would send me to Iraq. After I did my initial paperwork, my Area Specialty Officer (ASO) took me over to the hospital at Leavenworth where they did a hearing exam, basic physical, took a copy of my medical records, and then gave me shots. In the space of about five minutes I got my flu shot, a fourth MMR vaccine (I had to have a third when there was a measles outbreak while I was an undergrad, my parents couldn’t quickly find the record of my second vaccination as a child, so I went to the clinic and got a third one) just because they offered, a meningitis vaccine, whichever color of fever they vaccinate for if you deploy to Afghanistan, because in case of emergency I could have been sent there instead of Iraq, a tetanus booster, a pertussis booster/vaccination, and the first shot in the seven shot anthrax series of vaccination. If vaccines caused serious problems, those five minutes would have finished me off. Over the next four months, I had the next three shots in the anthrax series and a smallpox vaccination.
Another Scott
Mulaney had the 3rd Amendment in his SNL monologue tonight.
Excellent.
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus:
Subsole
@lamh36:
“Goes”? Dude that place is already overrun with fash and the admins…well, they don’t act too concerned about it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Ro Kanna just used an exit poll of SC primary voters to argue that BernieCare has majority supporting South Carolina. I’m seeing that poll tossed around on twitter, not many people pointing out, as Ali Velshi did not to Kanna, that their sample size is about 1/5 of SC’s actual electorate
khead
@Adam L Silverman:
You’re no Box.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Damn straight!
mad citizen
@oldgold: I agree with these suggestions. These things can happen quickly these days. Funny how the debate questioner a couple weeks ago was about a contested convention.
I’ve been really tired about hearing how Wilmer is the National Frontrunner from the three networks.
Kelly
@Kent: I’d like to minimize debate moderator role by publishing a topic (yep just one) and the speaking order in advance. Have a timer switch on every microphone. Everyone gets time slot for an initial statement and a time slot for a response.
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
In boot camp they gave us all the shots in the space of about a minute, with pneumatic guns and one needle. That got me a stay in the hospital for a week after passing out in the chow line the day after, with a temp between 104/105, which stayed there for 4 days. That was fun. Ever since if I get the flu shot I get sick for at least 5 days with a high fever. I don’t do flu shots. I get everything else no problem. If I get this new virus I’d bet I either am completely fine or dead in a week.
Adam L Silverman
@khead: I’m more of a Susquatch.
Subsole
@schrodingers_cat:
Hey, OT and not to be a pest, but I had a question about India’s media. You mentioned it was even more rancid than ours, and I was wondering what made it so? Is it a Murdoch-type situation, or what?
Kent
The only top executive job I can think of where actual performance is the ONLY measure of success is the NFL coaching arena, where success is measured in win-loss. Plenty of old white guys in the NFL…right? Actually the oldest current NFL coach is Pete Carroll who is 68. The next oldest is Bill Belichik who is 67. Andy Reid, the old guy who just won the Super Bowl? He is 61. The average age of new NFL head coaches when hired is about 44-45 (same age as Obama when inaugurated) and that is actually trending younger.
A month ago the NFL inducted Jimmy Johnson into the NFL Hall of Fame for his success winning Super Bowls with the Cowboys back from 1989 to 1993 when he had Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, and Michael Irvin. Jimmy Johnson last coached an NFL team in 1999 when he resigned from the Dolphins and is considered enough of a coaching great to be put in the Pro Football Hall of Fame this year. Jimmy Johnson is now 75 years old. How many NFL teams are looking to hire themselves some 75 year old Jimmy Johnson for an 8-year guaranteed contract to bring back some 1990s “establish the run” office to the NFL? And he is 3-years younger than both Biden, Bloomberg, and Sanders.
I’ll vote for Biden and campaign for him. But sheesh. We are talking about perhaps the most stressful job on the planet. The next president is going to have to cover the globe putting all of our international alliances back together. You seriously telling me that Biden or Sanders are really up for that job? And that they will still be up for it 9 years from now in the final year of their presidency?
Bill Arnold
@Jeffro:
Good political timing should be admired, I agree.
Adam L Silverman
@Ruckus: I was a bit woozy that evening. My ASO basically ran me around to a couple of more stops, then took me to get something to eat, then took me home and told me to go right to bed as I had a lot of vaccine circulating in my system. He was an old, retired E7 18D/Special Forces shooting medic who’d served in and after Vietnam. Everything I know about small team operations and how to run them I learned from him.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@dww44:
Yikes. That’s pretty bad, but I hardly blame them. It’s in their backyard now
glory b
@Betty Cracker: For the reasons Richard Guhl gave at nimber 39, do like Black women and vote for Biden.
He’s the better of the two of them.
khead
@Kent:
Probably not the example you are looking for. I would hire Jimmy Johnson tomorrow. Tanned, rested, and ready. And his hair is still spectacular.
Kent
Sanders peaked to early.
Repeat it again and again. Maybe we can make that the next conventional wisdom.
Sab
@Kent: On a lot of these threads our older commenters reminisce about having had these diseases that there are vaccinations for now.
I had chicken pox when I was tiny. 60 plus years later I still have scars and concerns about shingles. I don’t remember measles when we were all locked up in the house with splitting headaches and the blinds drawn. My older sister remembers it vividly. I did get a full case of mumps. My sister and brother just got headaches, not the full face blow-up. I got the polio icecube in second grade. My sister and my husband both had classmates who had polio ( by the way, so did Mitch McConnell.)
My granddaughter is six and is on the autism spectrum. In retrospect, her problems were obvious long before her first vaccine. A new parent wouldn’t know that.
I have been struck by the contrast between her early behaviors and my nephew’s eight month old son. We struggled to get my granddaughter’s attention. Baby nephew can’t take his eyes off us. Etc etc. It was all there to see long before her vaccinations. Just bad timing.
MisterForkbeard
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Our local school has started issuing their public plans for an epidemic – basically, they’re getting short-term contracts for remote teaching paid for by an emergency fund IF they start needing to shut down schools.
But now they’re publicly talking about it. Downplaying danger, but playing up the fact that they’re prepared. I can only wish Trump’s administration was half as professional as the teachers at the local bilingual immersion school :/
MisterForkbeard
@Jeffro: I think we’ve pretty much established at this point that fondling and assault is how Trump shows interest.
He wants to fuck that flag. Anyone want to bet there’s some seriously weird laundry coming out of the white house these days?
Kent
OK, what about Jerry Jones? He’s a spry 77? Do you trust his judgement?
Just saying though. The NFL has had the past 21 years to lure Jimmy Johnson back into coaching. No one has bit on that notion. Most of the new coaches hired are in their 40s.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Adam L Silverman:
Such a good movie. I was reminded of this gem:
Batman Can Breathe in Spac
Also, the artist did a pretty good job imitating Bruce Timm’s DCAU art style
Kent
@Sab: Me too. I’m 56 and I had full blown chicken pox and mumps as a child in the early 70s. I still have the pox scars and the mumps was not pleasant.
I’m curious how fast we will see a vaccine for this latest virus when you have the full resources of 20 industrial countries thrown at it with all the science money can buy.
Subsole
@Mai naem mobile:
I don’t really get it either, but if I had to guess, partly it’s that they like someone who doesn’t spend time justifying his existence to the lords and ladies of the conventional wisdom – e.g. network media.
If you spent your whole life surrounded by people mercilessly shitting on you for not being a Reaganite – calling you a terrorist simp or a mooch or a helpless snot-nosed college puke or whatnot, that could have a visceral appeal.
That said, my bougie ass thinks he’s about as appealing as a microwaved barfbag. I’m just spitballing here.
The Dangerman
I’m thinking right to the burn barrel.
ETA: My Parents would have shit bricks at his humping the flag.
piratedan
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): it’s not that asinine…
think about it, first you have to have some protocol in place to identify the patient presenting the symptoms, then whoever is collecting the sample has to have an approved container information from the CDC (or whoever is doing the testing for you) and depending upon the size of your shop, they may not even have it or have a protocol worked out for collection, processing, transport and storage, plus you have to find a courier to deliver it (i.e. how many times do you think samples come from the Pacific northwest to go to Atlanta).
While some shops/labs are busy ramping up protocols for handling this, a great number of folks are probably presenting at an urgent care/immediate care who may be doing who knows what, depending upon if they’re affiliated with a hospital system or an independent lab testing system.
As far as I understand it, I’m not even sure that there is a standard test designation for this as of yet (i’ve heard that there are two or three different field tests out there, depending upon your instrumentation), while the CDC has one, I can guarantee you that there are variations on the theme, especially so since the virus was identified overseas.
Also remember that this is the profit based US Health Care system, who’s gonna pay for all of this? Have the insurance companies just said, oh by all means, do everything you have to do and we’ll just reimburse you?
khead
@Kent:
How do you know it’s not Jimmy who hasn’t taken the bait? ;)
West of the Rockies
@Omnes Omnibus:
There is nooo sanctuary.
Bill Arnold
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
As Adam says, [depending on rates of infection and whether there are any widely manufactured and deployed breakthroughs in treatment (or i suppose infection control)] there will be a lot of behavioral changes. The economy will be hit hard wherever close F2F human interactions are currently the norm. These behavioral changes will in turn affect infection rates, etc. (The modeling being used to guide public health policy re COVID 19 sucks, TBH, and IMO.) On the plus side, GHG emissions will drop significantly, saving 10s(100s?) of millions in the fullness of time. China GHG emissions are already way down.
(I’m currently looking for work, and expect hiring to dry up almost entirely shortly; nursing excepted lucky you. :-)
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: Jerry Jones has always been a shit bag. The thing is, you can bitch about how we got here and play with counterfactuals all day, but here is where we are.
In my counterfactual pretend world, the 22d Amendment doesn’t exist, and we went straight from Bill Clinton’s fourth term to Obama’s first. And now we are gearing up to elect him a fourth time. I mean, why not go big?
dmsilev
@MisterForkbeard: The university I work for has been doing more or less the same thing. Lots of messages going out about precautions to take, coordination with the local authorities, what to do if you do get sick, contingency plans, etc.
cokane
@Kent: It’s Trumpian to suggest these kinds of bad faith mind games. Just advocate for someone because you think they’d be the better nominee or president, and accept the voters’ choice.
Sab
@Kent: I had a co-worker last year whose family was very casual about flu vaccines. Her strapping young healthy husband got flu last year and she spent a scaring weekend backing him in ice to get his fever level down blow convulsing so he could survive a tip to the hospital. He survived, thank God. In the meantime she infected most of the office, but we had had our shots so we were just a little bit sick.
She is very focused on the corona virus this year. Not so casual about the risk.
Also someone I know locally just had her 8 year ols granddaughter home from hospital after flu, including a week in a medically induced coma while they tried to get the fever down.
Flu shot isn’t just about you. It’s about herd immunity so that small children don’t die in the hospital from diseases they never should have gotten.
MisterForkbeard
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Shortpacked was a real gem. It’s also responsible for the “if Batman was drawn for women” comic that was famous for awhile.
If you haven’t watched it, you and Adam need to watch the Batman: Brave and the Bold series. It’s like someone took all the ridiculous batman memes and made them into a cartoon. Pure loveliness.
khead
@Adam L Silverman:
Wow! An Alpha Flight reference! I have the first 20 issues if anyone is interested.
Kent
Unfortunately we live in a Trumpian world don’t we?
How did the earnest advocacy for the best candidate based on the issues work out for Hillary Clinton (emails!! lock her up!!) John Kerry (swift boats! and effete windsurfing! ) and Al Gore (invented the internet! while wearing earth tones!)
cokane
@Kent: no, we don’t have to live in that world at all. he’s just a president, he doesn’t have to define everyone’s political campaign
also, post hoc pundit cliche talk “Sanders peaked early” doesn’t win campaigns. You are confusing the coverage of campaigns with campaigns themselves.
Subsole
@O. Felix Culpa:
If not Perez, who? I mean, agreed, the guy has not been impressive, but wasn’t the runner-up Bernie-bloc? Good Christ imagine THAT fustercluck…
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Bernie looked terrible tonight (photo)
Starfish
@dmsilev: Was that after Bloomberg stole her voter data and before all her staff went to work for him?
The Dangerman
@Bill Arnold:
Anything discretionary is going to tank quickly; I bet there are some SWEET deals in Vegas right now. And I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be running a restaurant right now.
MisterForkbeard
@Starfish: It was Steyer who stole her voter data in SC.
Jackie
@Kent: I’m all for Pete Carroll! If only he’d run for Prez!?
Kent
It was Keith Ellison who was supported by Sanders and has endorsed Sanders in 2020.
Buttigieg was the other candidate but didn’t have the support that Perez ad Ellison had so dropped out.
Starfish
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Yes. “Let us be midwest nice” does not play well with the black voters because they see that the midwest is white as toilet paper, and places don’t get that way by accident.
Starfish
@MisterForkbeard: All billionaires look the same to me. ??♀️
Kent
@Jackie: Seahawks fan here. But Carroll would somehow figure out how to throw the equivalent of a pick-6 on November 2 when we are at the 1 inch line.
Belichick would figure out how to steal Trump’s tax returns. Except that he’s a big Trump fan so maybe not.
Starfish
@Jeffro: He could have set the number of polls needed higher. He could have set the number of donors higher. He could have set it up so billionaires could not game the system by scoring okay in a few polls in states that they had bombarded with advertising.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
/fixed
Kent
They CORRECTLY see the “midwest nice”, white guy on a tractor who just wants to bring common sense back to Washington as what gave us Trump.
Kent
We have to figure out how to get around the problem of Steyer and Bloomberg being able to drop half a billion dollars into their own campaigns but being limited by law to giving no more than $2,800 to any other candidate.
I don’t know the answer without a new supreme court.
Jackie
@Kent: ???
Sab
@Sab: I sounded like atack on Kent. Not so.
Jackie
@Kent: ???
@Kent: ???
Subsole
@Adam L Silverman:
He is such a little weirdo…
Kent
@Sab: Attack away. I have a thick skin.
If we can’t come here late night and vent on this obscure blog where our comments will vanish into the ether in a couple of hours, never to be read again, then where can we vent?
I want Trump gone as much as anyone. But I will freely admit that as a 50-something white guy with secure employment and finances, I’m not exactly going to be suffering the most if that doesn’t happen. But sometimes I just have to go somewhere and rage-post. Better here than say twitter, where what you write has more permanence.
Kent
@Subsole: I have a ton of evangelical MAGA relatives who can’t get enough of that kind of shit. It is utterly unreal. I always knew they were basically backwards as hell with their religion and all. But never in a way that would affect the future of this country and the planet. And it is impossible to talk to them. Cousins that I grew up with and have known since we were 2 years old. Absolutely cannot have a civil conversation with them about anything more than the weather and sports.
Ruckus
@Sab:
Went to a birthday party put on for a girl I went to HS with, she did a 65th party, a 50th reunion party, and last year a 70th party. I talked to a lot of the attendees at all three and we all had every childhood disease of the 1950s and earlier. Mumps, measles, chickenpox, most of us have had shingles, I got encephalitis after the measles, we had girl in our class with polio, I had 2 friends whose moms had polio. I was 4 or 5 when the polio vaccine first became available. Anyone my age went through similar. Chickenpox didn’t get a vaccine till 1984 so a lot more people have had it.
Cacti
I’m sure that Biden’s win is in some way good news for Elizabeth Warren.
AL and BC will fill us in on the details tomorrow.
chris
Dancing and cheering on my way to bed! Good night!
ziggy
Since this is an open thread….seems like the situation in Kirkland is turning into a real clusterf**k. A nursing home (what an awful location!) with 2 people that tested positive, and about 52 with respiratory symptoms. Several being moved by ambulance to hospitals, so I assume they’ve gotten worse. The firefighters that moved many of them are all going into quarantine. Many visitors recently, including local tech college students. Seems like they’ll have a lot more cases when the testing gets back. Yes, I’m not terribly far from this area. Am I crazy to worry that there will be some kind of geographical quarantine? and the fact that we are a very blue area?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@chris: very cool! Good for Ms Bassett for speaking up
Cacti
Big thanks to Bernie for going on 60 Minutes and giving a handjob to Fidel Castro’s corpse.
Before that, he was trending upward in South Carolina.
MisterForkbeard
@Cacti: Jesus dude. BC was in here earlier and obviously broken up about the results.
Can you try not being an asshole and not twisting the knife?
MisterForkbeard
@MisterForkbeard: And in Cacti’s very next comment I find myself in total agreement.
Sigh.
Sister Golden Bear
@Jeffro:
Fixed it for you.
Subsole
@Kent: Dude. My background is a lot of central TX, and a lot of West TX. I know exactly what you mean.
Like, you could tell folks the simple facts and WATCH them forcibly delete it from their memory banks right there in front of you…drove me effing crazy.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Cacti: and today he said the only difference between Kennedy and Nixon was that Kennedy made him sick
Not like I think there’s 60,000 Kennedy fans in Wisconsin who will get mad and stay home, it just makes him look weird, and its one of many things that will just make him look weird.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@MisterForkbeard:
I’ve watched Batman: TBATB. It’s pretty good! It’s usually silly in tone (not a bad thing as it’s a riot), but the Joe Chill episode where Batman confronts Chill and reveals who he is was phenomenal
sgrAstar
@tam1MI: nope. CA doesn’t need Senator Steyer. We have great people who can and should replace (kick to the curb) DiFi- including Schiff, Lieu, and our AG Xavier Becerra. There’s a ton of political talent in California.
?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Found this in that thread as well (video included):
In 1985 @berniesanders said “I was no great fan of President Carter’s. Carter had the naive point of view that you are supposed to have press conferences and answer hard questions.”
Video for further context, at 39 minute mark
Kent
I spent 13 years in Waco TX from 2003 to 2016. We went there for my wife’s residency and then she was offered a faculty job and one thing led to another, then we had a kid in HS and waited until she graduated until finally escaping back to the Northwest.
During that time I watched Waco go from basically a blue city with a Dem mayor and a local Dem congressman (Chet Edwards) who was a truly good guy and did tremendous stuff for the region. To seeing nothing but a sea of crazy red everywhere the eye could see by the 2014 elections when there were no more Dems within 100 miles. Yes there was gerrymandering and Tom Delay but the people also turned fucking crazy after Obama got elected in 2008. That was basically it.
I used to walk down the halls of my HS in the mornings before class and would see classroom after classroom with white middle aged teachers playing FOX news on their classroom TVs at 7:30 in the morning. Fucking TEACHERS. Mostly middle-aged white women who were married to bankers and insurance salesmen and such. They finally ripped out all the TVs by about 2014 when they went to flat screens and stopped buying cable TV for classrooms because no one was ever using cable anymore for any educational purpose when everything was online streaming. But I was always dumbfounded that Teachers were supporting the GOP that at the state level ended up gutting education funding and leaving them with gutted budgets, lower pay, and 30 kids per class by the time I left TX when it was more like 20 kids per class and all the resources we could want when I started 10 years earlier.
Sigh….
Eljai
@MisterForkbeard: There is a toxicity to Bernie’s campaign that prevents me from supporting it, even though I agree with many of the policy positions. Biden is a fundamentally decent man and he deserves the win he got tonight and I’m happy for him. I am still concerned about a two-person race with two risky candidates pushing 80. It’s a shame other candidates had to drop out. I was all in for Kamala, but there’s still another really viable candidate left and I already voted for her in the California primary and I have no regrets. I want to see her get to the convention as I believe she’ll be an important voice. I just wish we could let the process play out without TV pundits crafting the narrative and everybody else piling on. We are in uncharted territory. There’s never been an election like this in my lifetime. The fear is beyond measure.
ziggy
@ziggy:
and a “local” (Seattle area I presume) US postal service employee just tested positive, no known contact with previous victims. Doesn’t sound great for this area. I’ve got to quit looking at news and go to bed!
ruemara
@Adam L Silverman: So… nudes
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kent: I remember during the first Scott Walker term, i think during the recall effort, This American Life went to a town in northern Wisconsin, I forget which one, and among the people they interviewed was a public school teacher who was very pro-Walker, all his “reforms” were necessary, etc. In the third or fourth time they had her speaking it came out that her husband owned the local Chevy dealership (bailed out by Obama, of course).
(David Byrne the SNL musical guest. I recognize music guest on SNL, even know the song. I feel like I’m thirty-five again.)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@feebog: I voted yesterday, that’s what I did.
Cacti
She dropped out way too soon.
Kent
@Cacti: Biden needs to clear the field. Start campaigning in CA side by side Harris, offer secretary of Commerce to Buttigieg. Offer Secretary of Treasury to Bloomberg. I don’t know what all. But the clock is fucking ticking.
DB11
@dww44: Wikipedia can be your friend before asserting such ‘facts’:
Bernie: February 14, 1942
Biden: November 20, 1942
Bloomberg: September 8, 1941
Joe & Mike will be 78 at Inauguration and Bernie, 79.
Kent
@DB11: DWW44 is right. You misunderstood what he was referencing. He was correcting MY post in which I said that both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were 75 when, in fact, they are both currently 73, the same age as Trump.
But yes, Bernie, Biden, and Bloomberg are all FIVE years older than both Bill Clinton and George W Bush.
The Lodger
@ByRookorbyCrook: Who needs Nina when we’ve got Tina?
DB11
@Kent: I stand corrected: apologies to DWW44 for misinterpreting his point.
Must have missed that comment and thought he was replying to your earlier post — which I completely concur with.
I’m so pissed that these old white men’s egos prevented them from stepping aside this cycle, as they all should have done for the health of the party.
Subsole
@Kent: No kidding! A fellow Waco escapee! Glad to hear you’re kickin’ it in the great green north! Would like to visit the region sometime. I hear the country is beautiful beyond words.
Lord, I miss Chet. As you say, decent guy.
I lived in Waco for about 15 years. Watched everyone go apeshit after the Towers. Then Iraq, the whole disaster. Noped out in ’06. Visiting the folks at Christmas was like something out of fucking Haldeman. Every year just got… worse. We eventually just stopped talking politics while we still had a family.
I put a LOT of it on the church. I mean, even the secular institutions there felt pretty churchy to me. And the church? Let’s just say it did not surprise me AT ALL when Baylor hired Ken Starr…(hope I don’t step on your toes saying that).
Which HS, if you don’t mind me asking? The one I went to I can TOTALLY see showing Fox.
Subsole
@Subsole:
And that’s not to say there aren’t a lot of good people there, but it is a VERY good ol’ boy town.
Kent
@Subsole: Nothing you can say about any church in Waco would offend me. I taught at Midway HS for 10 years. Bunch of the administrators there and in the district were deep into the Antioch church, same one as attended by the famous Chip and Joanna. The rest were mostly Waco First Baptist loyalists. The local megachurch that was so big it had a full size gym inside and an indoor playground for the kiddos like the ones in fancy malls.
I was on several hiring committees for principals and such during my time there. They always had teachers sit on those committees I could never figure out whey certain candidates would get selected and. They would often talk about ambiguous “leadership qualities” as the reason for selecting a certain candidate. When another teacher pulled me aside and told me “that means he goes to the right church” These were for public jobs but there was still a secret religious qualification. My wife experienced the same thing working for a public clinic. That’s how things work in the south.
Read this article if you want to know about the new Waco: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/annehelenpetersen/waco-texas-magnolia-fixer-upper-antioch-chip-joanna-gaines
Kent
After Katrina Texas got flooded with refugees from New Orleans. Mostly to the Houston area but some made their way up Highway 6 to Waco. Chet and his wife were working in one of the local shelters, met a big African-American family from New Orleans with 6 kids or something and just gave them the keys to their house and keys to their car. It wasn’t public. It didn’t come out until later. They were truly good people. I worked on their last campaign in…2010? But it was no use. We were just surrounded by a sea of red at that point, mostly just stirred up tea party hatred for Obama.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@DB11: you got the dates wrong. Sanders was born before Pearl Harbor, Bloomberg was born after Pearl Harbor.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Kent: Offer Bernie Secretary of Fingerwagging
Subsole
@Kent: I was at one time very familiar with both Midway and Antioch. Antioch creeped me out back in the 90’s, and it didn’t improve a bit over the years. Not surprised to hear that about Midway, either. What subjects did you teach?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kent: Bill Clinton and George Bush are 73, they’ll be 74 this year. So will Trump, he’s a few months older than Bill and George.
janesays
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Cheetolini is 3 weeks and 1 day older than Bush, and 2 months and 5 days older than Clinton. All three were born in the summer of 1946.
janesays
@Betty Cracker: It’s hard to imagine how it could possibly be anyone other than those two at this point. Neither Warren nor Klobuchar are going anywhere. Sorry, but if your best performance is third place in only one of the first four contests and worse than that in the other three, you are finished.
Pete started out hot, and the second he had to face any electorate that wasn’t 90% white, he took a nosedive. He’s finished.
Gabbard is a “Never Was”, and Bloomberg’s campaign died on a stage in Nevada at the hands of Elizabeth Warren (thankfully).
I honestly won’t be shocked if Klobuchar, Warren, and Buttigieg all drop out before the week is over. Maybe Bloomberg, too. Gabbard is going to be that one weirdo who doesn’t call it quits until the very end of the primaries, despite never being remotely close to being a legit contender at any point.
In the end, the last person standing is gonna be one the two soon-to-be octogenarian white dudes who will be facing Trump in November. Ugh.
spc123
@feebog: agree 100%. I like Liz, but feel like it is wasting a vote at this point. Time for voting with your heart is over. Any candidate that wins at this point is going to be more of a roadblock/damage mitigator than some sort of revolutionary and Biden will make a more effective roadblock than Bernie (and has a significantly better chance at winning in Nov.).
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Interesting, one of Bernie’s ads opens with a JFK clip.
spc123
@feebog: agree 100%. I like Liz, but feel like it is wasting a vote at this point. Time for voting with your heart is over. Any candidate that wins at this point is going to be more of a roadblock/damage mitigator than some sort of revolutionary and Biden will make a more effective roadblock than Bernie (and has a significantly better chance at winning in Nov.).
@Mai naem mobile: simple, he fancies himself a contrarian. He’s a really, really weird dude. New management will be worse though, no doubt.
Chris Johnson
@Eljai: The Russian influence is what threw me off the Bernie train, and it’s only gotten worse. I see the whole ‘all the Dems are snakes and traitors and should be destroyed’ as enemy action, frankly. It’s inserting a wedge and driving it, and it’s producing a NeverBernie (arguably NeverLeft at the worst possible time) faction that’s huge.
The flip side is this: if it was only Russian influence and enemy action, the guy would not be getting actual votes out of it. And in some places like Iowa not many votes were needed, but we’ll see in California and some other places that there are real voters involved, voters being roped into this Bernie zone, voters being influenced to shun and mistrust the Democratic party. Why would that work?
Speaking as someone who’s chosen to be a Democrat and not a Bernie-at, we have to be cognizant of that question. Putin or no Putin, you can’t drive a wedge where a fault line doesn’t exist. If the tactic is working (and being used to hurt the party) it documents that the fault line exists, and we can even get a record of how big it is based on how big of a faction Bernie can get even while acting like a bozo and having his shock troops be obvious enemy action. (fuck you, Chapo Trap House, you’re half an inch from telling people to vote Trump: I expect it.)
Ideal situation for the enemy is that the factions be about equal size. I’m seeing that, and it’s damn worrying. It means we don’t get to throw away either faction, and Bernie’s people (and obvious people here and on the centrist faction) are trying to make their faction throw away the opposing faction. That can’t happen.
I’ll be reassured somewhat if Biden makes progressive-appeasing noises. I’ll be real concerned if Bernie proposes a dead-giveaway russian-asset Veep, which I more or less expect. I’ll be watching what Warren does and what Pelosi says: Pelosi more than anyone has a sense of what’s up tactically within the factions of the Democratic Party.
Just One More Canuck
@Kent: why on earth would Jimmy Johnson go back to coaching? Being a teevee pundit is way better – no responsibility and the pay is pretty good. I don’t know what he gets but CBS is supposedly paying Tony Romo $17 million to yammer about giving 110% and there’s no tomorrow
AM in NC
I feel the same way. I was angry at patriarchy as a girl in the 1970s, then things seemed to get better as second wave feminism made a lot of gains. But since the sex-positive 3rd wave, things seem to have hit a wall in many respects. My friends also feel the same way: we are increasingly pissed off at how the deck is still so, so, so fucking stacked against women, and how totally normal and invisible these distorted power relationships are in our culture/work/home- life/school/entertainment/government/etc. It’s just exhausting to have to do everything men do but backwards and in high heels. @Nicole:
dww44
Comment deleted, because I see that Kent already came to my rescue.
dww44
@Eljai: Thanks for this. Speaks for me exactly. The incessant cable tv pundit coverage and polls are not doing our democracy any favors. They are making it less healthy.
J R in WV
@khead:
An interesting comparison. I remember the first time I drove that short but expensive road, had to have been in the 1970s while I still lived in Raleigh County. I think today that roadway would cost more like $500 million dollars. And really, I think it was built to provide access to Twin Falls State Park.
But your point stands up, still. Tax the Rich. They can afford it better than any other sector of the population!