You've all heard of Elf on the Shelf, but in Canada we have: pic.twitter.com/AC3BotGP9p
— Windy101?????????????????? (@hey_butter) November 28, 2022
Looks like I might’ve been prematurely hopeful about Michigan, last night:
President Biden is pushing for South Carolina to hold the first Democratic presidential primary in 2024 instead of Iowa, saying the change would promote diversity.
Republicans have committed to keeping Iowa first on their calendar. https://t.co/d56igkT03S pic.twitter.com/4NbUCUqATt
— CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) December 2, 2022
Per the NYTimes:
… The plan, announced by party officials at a dinner Thursday in Washington, signals the end of Iowa’s long tenure as the Democrats’ first nominating contest, and it represents an effort to elevate the diverse, working-class constituencies that powered Mr. Biden’s primary victory in 2020.
The move would also be a reward for South Carolina, the state that saved Mr. Biden’s candidacy two years ago after he came in fourth in Iowa and fifth in New Hampshire, both of which are smaller and have a higher percentage of white voters.
“We must ensure that voters of color have a voice in choosing our nominee much earlier in the process and throughout the entire early window,” Mr. Biden wrote in a letter Thursday to members of the D.N.C.’s Rules and Bylaws Committee, a number of whom were stunned by the calendar proposals.
“Black voters in particular have been the backbone of the Democratic Party but have been pushed to the back of the early primary process,” he said. “We rely on these voters in elections but have not recognized their importance in our nominating calendar. It is time to stop taking these voters for granted, and time to give them a louder and earlier voice in the process.”
The letter went on to note bluntly, “Our party should no longer allow caucuses as part of our nominating process.” Iowa is a caucus state and does not hold a primary…
… [T]he president’s preferences will carry enormous weight with the D.N.C., a group that often functions as the White House political arm. Mr. Biden urged the Rules and Bylaws Committee to review the calendar every four years “to ensure that it continues to reflect the values and diversity of our party and our country.”…
“This president understands that any road to the White House goes through the heartland,” said Representative Debbie Dingell, a Michigan Democrat who was heavily involved in pushing her state’s bid, including by speaking with the White House. But she acknowledged that there were still crucial steps in the process.
“People are going to put up a fight,” she said.
As a lifelong Democrat, I suspect the next step will be some infighting over the weekend, followed by a period of public sulking, leading to a prolonged investigation as to whether South Carolina can / will / has lived up to its new job — verdict not settled until the 2028 primaries (if then). Sigh.
And if President Biden gets his wish, we’ll never get to use these time-honored Michigander japes:
2024 presidential hopefuls training for an early Michigan primary: https://t.co/hE68NFlste pic.twitter.com/V8DxepsU12
— Seasonal Affective Hard Seltzer 🫒 (@VernorsHerzog) December 1, 2022
(Spoiler: That last Michigan town is pronounced ‘Shar-LOT.’ Which is not my personal favorite MI read-only pronunciation, but Pierre (PEER-ee) is a much less prominent town. And pointing out that its original namers probably called the biggest city Day-twah just gets you funny looks.)
Some readership capture, as a consolation:
Obama: Mr. Walker has been talking about issues that are of great importance to the people of Georgia like if it’s better to be a vampire or a werewolf.. This is a debate that I must confess I once had myself.. when I was 7 pic.twitter.com/TonaibyZ1u
— Acyn (@Acyn) December 2, 2022
Obama’s return trip to Georgia gives Democrat @SenatorWarnock a unique advantage: The first Black US president wading into a rare statewide contest in which both contenders are Black men, @MarioDParker reports https://t.co/F1r3MbwLFQ
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) December 1, 2022
japa21
TGIF
Spanky
“Secretary of State”?
MazeDancer
Quack on a Rack.
And new states are good any way we can get them.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Shar-LOT? Really? I grew up in Detroit and we always pronounced it like the name. But maybe, as city folks, we were wrong.
It’s good that Iowa won’t have the same influence it’s had in the past, but one of my fondest memories is still being at the 2008 caucuses and shocking the country by nominating Obama. I think I’ve told the story before of standing next to an African-American woman who said her husband hadn’t wanted to come but she told him, “Baby, you have to. It’s history.” I had chills down my spine.
On a much less significant note, tomorrow from 1-3, I’ll be at the Highland Park IL library for the author fair. Attendance has been down at these things. It’s like the pandemic trained people to stay home. If you’re around, come see me!
japa21
@MazeDancer:
Geese don’t quack. Honk on a ?
Math Guy
Goose on a moose. Someone had to say it.
japa21
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Missed you at Schaumburg this year.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@japa21: There’s always next year!
OzarkHillbilly
Blech. Woke up this morning with, in addition to my usual AM aches and pains, severe stiffness all over. WTF did I do to myself yesterday? Oh well, things have loosened up now.
OzarkHillbilly
@japa21: Honk on a monk? Finally got to the tweet, now I know what you guys are on about.
JPL
Luckovich visions of the GOP’s elf on the shelf. link
Betty Cracker
Good riddance to Iowa, and we 100% need a more diverse state to go first, but making South Carolina that state is a truly terrible idea, IMO.
japa21
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Let me know if you ever do La Grange library.
Dorothy A. Winsor
A band called Switchback played here last night. They mostly do Irish music, but they gave it a Christmas twist. It was a lot of fun. They do a lot of high kicks while they sing. I’d break my hip.
One of them is from around here and at one point, a woman near the front called out, “Are you a McCormack?” and the guy says yes. And she says, “I know your family.”
Scott
Personally, I would like to see what happens if the 6 or 7 biggest states get together and hold primaries in late May or June. Would it may all the early primaries irrelevant? Save everybody a lot of time and aggravation.
Matt McIrvin
Georgia or NC would accomplish similar aims and be strategically better, but SC might be an OK proxy for them from a Democratic-electorate perspective.
MisterDancer
We keep saying we need to make inroads into the South. This sounds like a start.
I think there are risks, but every approach has such; I also like Mich. but it’s damned cold and union-heavy in ways many states aren’t, which bends how you run that first primary, and who works it, in a different way.
kalakal
Chris Barker has put out Sgt Pepper* 2022. As usual it’s very moving and contains a few shocks
https://twitter.com/christhebarker/status/1598621837281337344/photo/1
And as usual there’s the key
https://twitter.com/hashtag/sgtpepper2022?src=hash
* Every year he recreates the album cover but with famous people who’ve died that year
Betty Cracker
@MisterDancer: If the idea is to focus on the South, Georgia is a much better bet, IMO. Trump won South Carolina by double digits twice. It’s a deeply conservative state that is short on a lot of constituencies we need. I just don’t get this move at all.
One proposal in Biden’s letter to the DNC that might be a good thing: reconfiguring the primaries every four years. I’m not sure it makes sense to let states become entrenched as we’ve been doing.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: Why do you say that?
MisterDancer
Not just the country. I dimly recall how Clinton led in polling Black folx until Obama won Iowa. As a group, it’s fair to say winning Iowa told Black folx that Obama wasn’t another Jesse Jackson — and even as a teen I remember Jackson’s run churning up a lot of emotions in the community. Emotions that reverb in events today (looking at you, Ye.)
Also same lines: I remember, before that, my first sign that Obama wasn’t running a shit campaign — when he reportedly lashed out at staffers who ran a currently racist-as-hell attack against Clinton for her support of H1B visas (if I recall correctly) and, thus, workers from (mostly) South Asia. That gave me a lot of confidence, really early on, that he had something like a moral core.
Anyway. Memories!
MisterDancer
OK, I can get that. Sincerely — thanks for explaining!
Raoul Paste
Trigger words for Bucky. LOL
prostratedragon
Michigan also has a MYlan and a DelHigh.
Cameron
If SC makes the cut, my old friend who lives in Denmark will be thrilled.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Benw
Every time I drive to VT I get hopeful when I see the MOOSE signs but I’ve never seen one.
Jeffro
Now that Greenberg has been sentenced, is there any kind of Gaetz Indictment Watch or Meter or anything?
I’ll take January ’23 ;)
Soprano2
Just gotta say, I really like Jill Biden’s taste in clothing. She looked fantastic at at the state dinner last night, much better IMHO than Macron’s wife. I know it’s shallow, but I love beautiful clothes when they’re worn well and suited to the wearer.
Ohio Mom
@Scott: I am not enamored of adding more Super Tuesday-type primary dates. You learn a lot about the candidates as the primary season drags on and that gets lost. Minds get changed as new information becomes available.
Also, if you live in a post- Super Tuesday primary state, it just feels pointless. Why vote, it’s already been decided by other states.
I don’t pretend to know the solution but I am glad Democrats are experimenting with new approaches.
Frankensteinbeck
You’d love Ver-sales Kentucky.
Eunicecycle
@Benw: when my brother lived in VT he often had moose (mooses?meese?) in his yard. He would always emphasize “They are big! REALLY BIG!”
Spanky
@Frankensteinbeck: As in Pennsylvania.
Eunicecycle
@Frankensteinbeck: I think there is also a VerSales (Versailles) in Indiana. In Ohio we have a Louisville that is pronounced like Lewisville.
Ohio Mom
@Soprano2: Me too. That black dress was fabulous. I enjoyed that it was vaguely floral, like so many of her dresses. And I really liked what Jill Biden wore in the Vogue photo shot as well.
She manages to dress in a way that is dignified while being fresh and fun.
Yes, it’s shallow and trivial of me but one takes one’s moments of visual pleasure where one can.
Benw
@Eunicecycle: so jelly!
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
MisterDancer
As someone with two different fashion Pinterest accounts? I say thee nay! :)
I’ve said it before, here: Fashion Matters. It’s the major thing we can control about how people see us, and fashion trends showcase so much of what a culture (or subculture!) thinks of itself and what it wants others to think of it.
You’re right: Doctor Jill Biden has a strong fashion game, and it should be acknowledged and celebrated. It’s almost the inverse of how Kyrsten Sinema uses eye-catching fashion to (as we now know all too well) “peacock” herself in ways that end up…unfortunate, whereas Dr. Biden’s brightness and joy in her fashion is a far more inclusive and celebratory way to dress.
Anyway. Y’all keep talking fashion, gang! :)
Anne Laurie
Drive to Portland, Maine instead — Lenny the Chocolate Moose is much easier to visit, and you can buy sweets, too!
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
That’s a good question. I always accepted it has to be SC because it ….has to be. But Georgia is better for Democrats.
Lapassionara
@Betty Cracker: Also, the primary there is open, meaning Republicans can vote in it to rat fuck the process. The state is even more red now than it was when I lived there. And the Democratic Party is just a mess there, with Dick Harpootlian being the most visible Dem, the one reporters go to when they need a quote.
indycat32
@Eunicecycle: There is, not far from MYlan, Indiana, where I grew up.
Anne Laurie
@Frankensteinbeck: Also BURRR-lyn (spelled Berlin), right here in MA.
Westyny
@Eunicecycle: I, for one, am very glad they are not carnivores.
Kay
I personally don’t think it makes that much difference but I am on board with rewarding states who elect Democrats and not rewarding states who don’t.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Benw: Eh, unless it is a fair distance away, you REALLY don’t want to see a moose from your car. They are ENOURMOOSE (yes I went there, but it’s true) The average whitetail deer weighs between 150 and 300 lbs and stands about 3.5 to 4.5 feet at the shoulder. The average bull Eastern moose weighs about 1200 to 1400 lbs and stand about 5.5 to 6.5 feet at the shoulder. Female moose run smaller, about 600 to 700 bs.
You hit a moose with your car you are luck if you survive.
Fun fact, years ago, a bull moose in rut felll in lust with some farmers cow and start hanging around the cow pasture fence.
Moose meets cow, love at first sigh
It’s not the first time it’s happened:
“In 1976, a 900-pound moose spent several days trying to court the cows at a Worcester farm. In 1977, a 1,000-pound moose stalked a Morrisville dairy farm and threatened anyone who tried to milk the cows. State game wardens tranquilized the moose and hauled it to a wildlife sanctuary near the Canadian border. However, the moose escaped and kidnapped a herd of heifers from a dairy farm in nearby Holland. When two men found them, the moose chased the men up a tree. There is also a story of a moose falling in love with a horse.”
Kristine
@Soprano2: ::goes to check::
Oh, that is a lovely dress. Classic.
Kristine
@Frankensteinbeck: And Mar-Sales Illinois.
tam1MI
Explain to people how Michiganders pronounce Sault St. Marie and Cheboygan and watch their brains melt.
Also we have a Lake ORE- ion.
Betty Cracker
@Ohio Mom: I agree on the one hand — a grueling, extended campaign reveals a lot. But on the other hand, our contests drag on forever, which can contribute to bitter infighting, and they cost an absurd amount of money. Other countries seem to get their crap together over a much shorter timeframe, so maybe that’s something the U.S. should explore too. I don’t know.
Cameron
@Betty Cracker: Is Jim Clyburn pushing it? Because I think the President owes him some.
Frankensteinbeck
@Eunicecycle:
At least in Kentucky it’s Loo-uh-vull.
zhena gogolia
@Soprano2:
Really nice. The NYT managed to make it a pretext for criticism:
OzarkHillbilly
@Frankensteinbeck: I’ll see your Ver-sales (MO) and raise you one Coat-a-way (Courtois) Creek.
Kay
Lol. Apparently only Right wingers may decide who to cancel. It was always about power, never about “free speech” and it was always going to fall apart because it never made sense.
Of course he has to censor people. The one and only difference is he (and his Right wing admirers) are the only people permitted to decide who gets censored.
OverTwistWillie
I’ll be deep in the cold, cold ground before I recognize Missouri.
Betty Cracker
@Cameron: Maybe? The DNC chair is also a South Carolinian. I can see making it an early state, but making one of the reddest states in the country first seems like a bad idea to me. Oh well, I sure hope it works out.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Back in central Misery, they had all kinds of ‘interesting’ ways to pronounce town names.
Per above, they had a Versailles and like above, it is pronounced “Vur Salez”.
Chamois is pronounced ‘Shah Moiz’.
They also have the only Frankenstein in the US, unincorporated wide spot in the road with a pretty, brick Catholic church. I ran ultra marathons that started and finished there for a number of years.
Soprano2
This, you articulated my thoughts better than I could. She dresses beautifully and appropriately for her age. I’m more of a classics person rather than wanting to wear every new thing that comes down the pike. For example, I totally avoided the “cold shoulder” top trend, because I thought it was dumb. Why would I buy a sweater that showed my shoulders, thus making me want to put on a jacket and totally defeat the purpose of the sweater? LOL
OzarkHillbilly
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone: Don’t forget the rutting bull moose who challenged his freight train rival. He lost. But if he had survived he probably would have insisted he was this close to winning.
Soprano2
There was a man who worked here a long time ago who hit an elk in Colorado when he was on his motorcycle. Seems like much the same thing. He lived, but it messed him up to badly he was permanently disabled and had to take disability retirement.
OzarkHillbilly
@OverTwistWillie: Is that pronounced Missouree or Missouruh?
Kay
Obviously. It’s just that certain people (exclusively elite Right wingers) wil be allowed to make the speech rules and all others who suggest rules or limits will be dismissed as promoting “cancel culture”.
lowtechcyclist
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Virginia has a few of these. Staunton is pronounced ‘Stanton.’ Buena Vista is pronounced ‘Byoona’ Vista. And Rio Road in Charlottesville is pronounced ‘Rye-o’ Road.
jonas
I get why Biden and some other Dems want SC, but I’m disappointed that MI is apparently out of the running now. As someone last night pointed out, it’s not just one single Democratic constituency you want to have represented in a first primary state. You want a state with as broad a cross-section of the Democratic coalition as possible and that is relatively inexpensive to advertise in and is also amenable to retail politics. That would have been places like Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, Washington, maybe NC. But not NV or SC.
Steeplejack
@Jeffro:
Popehat is not optimistic. Thread.
JPL
@Betty Cracker: Sen. Maggie Hansen is going to fight the change. Because the state receives a lot of money for outsiders during campaigns, it would have hurt her chance for reelection had it been announced sooner.
I can see rewarding JIm Clyburn, but why reward the state of SC.
Geminid
I managed to pick up last Friday’s Washington Post and read a long article titled, “Pelosi ends two decades in leadership.” It’s a good review of the Speaker’s political career. There is an interesting anecdote from right after she won a special election in 1987 to fill the late Sala Burton’s seat:
Kay
The anti cancel culture argument is …..evolving in real time as the dopes who promoted it finally realize it never made any sense.
It isn’t about “drawing the line in a different place” either. It’s about who gets to draw it. Women who are stalked and harrassed on social media (for example) DON”T get to draw it but Elon Musk and his fans DO get to draw it.
Just so we’re clear on the societal rules. Powerful people make them. We’re not allowed to.
About power, not speech.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: Is the Democratic population of SC more or less representative of the Democratic population of the other states in the Deep South? If so, putting it so early might allow candidates to test their appeal to Southern Dems in a smaller, more easy to manage environment. Part of the appeal of Iowa and NH has been that, aside for the symbolism, there aren’t that many delegates to be had there.
Jeffro
@Steeplejack: I’m having a hard time following the logic, but that’s more about me being a nimrod than anything else, probably.
Greenberg gave them a lot about things other than Gaetz, so they’re happy with him, but he probably isn’t cooperating about Gaetz so…oh well?
It doesn’t seem to put Gaetz in the clear, to me. I guess we’ll see.
jonas
@Betty Cracker:
I love the idea. The only thing is that if a state like NY or CA drew the straw for nr. 1, those are very complicated and very, very expensive states to campaign in and some candidates that we might like to see have a shot might not get it there. I would also like to see a much shorter primary season. It’s basically a whole year now, which is ridiculous.
OzarkHillbilly
I has a sad, I was hoping for martyrdom:
Damned right, only she gets to threaten people (with the loss of their voting rights).
Geminid
@Lapassionara: I’m not worried about Republicans crossing over in South Carolina, at least not in 2024. There will be hotly contested Republican primaries that year, and Republicans will vote in that one.
And in general, I think strategic crossover voting is something a lot of people may talk about but relatively few actually ever do.
sab
@Dorothy A. Winsor: It is indeed pronounced with the accent on the secomd syllable.
lowtechcyclist
I can see why Biden would hold back from suggesting it, but I think Delaware would be an excellent, um, First State. It’s solidly Democratic these days, it’s got a good mix of urban and rural, and a higher-than-average proportion of its population is Black. And it’s small enough for the retail campaigning we associate with the early states.
If I were drawing up the pre-Super Tuesday lineup, it would be: Delaware, Colorado, South Carolina, Michigan.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Kay:
who decides?
Here we have the real reason Musk bought Twitter. I predict he will regret it.
Soprano2
@zhena gogolia: Oh good grief, I can’t roll my eyes enough at that. How about “I love the dress and it’s flattering to me”, and nothing more? Everything is not a political statement.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: I drive past MonteVIDeo every time I drive to Harrisonburg, Virginia.
Soprano2
@Kay: Have you seen that now right wingers are engaging in a concentrated, targeted effort to get hundreds of liberal accounts suspended by reporting them for spam? Since there’s no one there anymore to make any judgments accounts are getting suspended based on the number of complaints! Free speech my ass!
Betty Cracker
@Omnes Omnibus: Good question. My sense is Dems in SC tend to be more conservative overall than in a place like Georgia or even Louisiana because SC is more rural and churchy, but I’m no expert. I agree it makes sense to gauge candidates’ appeal among more conservative Dems, but putting SC first seems like making that the top priority. Should it be? Not IMO. I suspect the plan is to reward black Democrats with an earlier chance to weigh in on nominations, which I’m 100% in favor of, but IMO, it should be in a state Dems are competitive in, like GA or even NC.
Bex
@Eunicecycle: They are huge. Drove by a moose and her calf that were really close to the small two-lane road in (you guessed it) Moose, WY. Hit the gas especially quick when I saw the calf.
Steeplejack
@Betty Cracker:
It strikes me that, like almost everything else in capitalism, our election campaign system has been monetized. We’ve got a campaign-industrial complex—hordes of consultants, managers, handlers, pollsters, advertising people, pundits and political journalists who want full-time jobs, not temporary campaign-season gigs for 90 days (or similar) every two or four years. It takes a lot of money to pay for that. And we’re paying!
Joe Falco
Is Biden’s endorsement for SC to be first some sort of favor that Rep. Clyburn called in because other than it being the state primary that pushed Biden’s candidacy toward eventual victory, there’s no reason to let SC be the lodestar to start off the primary season. As others said earlier, Georgia would make more sense if a southern state should be “First in the Nation”™.
Geminid
@Jeffro: I think that Greenberg dished everything on Gaetz he could. The problem prosecutors have is that that the victim won’t testify, probably because the Gaetz camp bought her silence. No jury would convict Gaetz on Greenberg’s testimony alone. The guy was a one man crime wave, and most of his criming involved deception of some sort.
sab
@Betty Cracker: Oh dear. I hope it doesn’t hurt Raygun’s t-shirt business too badly.
lowtechcyclist
@jonas:
Really a year and a half, from January of the year before, through June of the year of the convention. Although it’s usually over but for the shouting by the end of April. But still, it’s an awfully long time.
The part that bothers me about it is the year before. The campaigns go on forever without any way to pare the field down a bit. If you have 25 candidates in February 2027, you’ll probably still have 24 of them in November, all vying to get a word in edgewise in the debates that happen that year.
There’s no way to force the candidates to start campaigning later, so I think they should just move a couple of small-state primaries into the year before, maybe one in June and another in September, just as a reality check for the minor candidates and bump them off the debate stages.
schrodingers_cat
@Steeplejack: Even though the national election calendar in India is short compared to the US, demagogues like Modi are in permanent campaign mode because there is always a state election somewhere.
Ken
@Kay: There is widespread speculation that Ye’s offense wasn’t the Nazi imagery, but posting an unflattering picture of Musk in swim trunks. Warning: look not into that abyss, for its pasty white expanse will etch itself into your brain.
Also, the EU’s reminders that such posts are not protected speech under their laws, and that large fines and other penalties are involved, have become more pointed.
lowtechcyclist
@Geminid: I’ll be honest, I didn’t know about that one
ETA: One I’m not sure about, but IIRC, Stanardsville is Stuh-NARDS-ville.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: Nah, it’s STANardsville. Although I hear people say Standardsville every now and then. The Stanardsville Great Value is a good place to get groceries.
Steeplejack
@schrodingers_cat:
So I guess they don’t have something like a “first Tuesday in November” tradition. Different dates would definitely keep the “season” going.
UncleEbeneezer
@Betty Cracker: What constituencies are underrepresented in SC
Never mind: I think you just answered it above that it is that SC Dems are more conservative than average.
Miss Bianca
@MisterDancer: I voted for Jesse Jackson in the Michigan primary. That was, what…1984? No, I think it was ’88. Anyway, I believe it was the first time I ever voted in a primary election!
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: I sure hope the cooperation from Greenberg on as yet unnamed non-Gaetz creeps was worth it because otherwise, it looks like yet another example of one justice system for the rich and well connected and another for the rest of us. Greenberg’s abuse of power and corruption were truly staggering, and the sentence is light compared to what crimes of a similar magnitude would net for you and me.
Miss Bianca
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone: I remember driving over a pass between Crested Butte and Salida here in CO (Tincup? One of the ones that’s only open seasonally) back when I had my little Honda Civic hybrid and seeing a mama moose and her two babies ambling across the road in front of me. I seem to recall that the *babies* were taller at the shoulder than my car!
Ken
You’re never going to win a Darwin Award that way. Every year there are a couple candidates whose last words were “Aw, it’s so cute! Get a picture of me with it.”
Betty Cracker
@Ken: I accidentally ran across that image in my timeline. Hoo boy. It’s unfair to innocent and honorable cetaceans, but I now think of the chief twit as Beluga Boy.
Miss Bianca
@Kristine: *peeks at FLOTUS’s dress* really nice!
@zhena gogolia: WTF are they on about? Do they ever make an actual *point* about what “teachable moment” the FLOTUS’s dress is supposed to convey? Or not? Not going to read any further, it’s just too stupid for words.
JPL
@Miss Bianca: You have to remember that they only allowed Vogue to take pictures before their granddaughter’s wedding.
What a bunch of whiners.
Miss Bianca
@lowtechcyclist:
We have a Byoona Vista here in CO as well.
@Soprano2:
In addition to seeing moose in the road towering over me in my tiny Honda, I also once rounded a corner on Hwy 92 on the rim of the Black Canyon only to discover an *enormous* bull elk in the middle of the road. Thank God I wasn’t going fast enough to cause a collision!
ian
I’ve been a fan and advocate of rotating regional pools of primaries. One presidential election, 10 Western states go first, then 2 or 3 weeks later 10 Northeastern states, then 10 Southern states, then 10 Midwestern states, then 10 Great Plains/Mountain West states. Every four years rotate them so that whoever went first goes last the next time, and then over 20 years everyone gets cycled through.
It shortens the campaign season, gives candidates one region to travel around (reducing campaign travel and allowing staff to concentrate in one area), and no one state keeps getting to go in the first couple contest.
Not sure how we would implement it, given how difficult it would be to get all 50 states on board, but a man can dream!
Also not sure where to add the 7 territorial primaries in this scheme…
kindness
In an ideal world primaries would be regional. There would be 8 to 10 of them and they would encompass several local states. In a perfect world the order of voting would rotate.
But this isn’t a perfect world. Oh well…. Best to make the most of it, right?
(and require only primaries! Caucuses can kiss my posterior)
schrodingers_cat
@Steeplejack: Yes. Besides the Loksabha elections (House of Commons) there are Vidhansabha(State Assembly elections) and then there are local elections for municipal bodies.
Before the current thespian in power, the national level politicians didn’t use to campaign at the state level. But the camera-preening Modi has changed that calculus
The Election Commission is now thoroughly compromised and provides no checks to BJP’s shenanigans.
Anyway
@zhena gogolia:
FTFTNYT
@Soprano2:
Thanks for the heads-up. Yes, she has a nice sense of style.
No One You Know
@MisterDancer: Have you read Queen of Fashion? You might enjoy it. It describes how Marie Antoinette used fashion to make political statements. Interesting discussion of the Affair of the Diamond Necklace– and her actual political acumen.
Miss Bianca
@Ken:
Too late.
.
Steeplejack
How do you pronounce Salina, Kansas?
Kay
@Soprano2:
No! The free speech warriors are culling all the liberals?
You could knock me over with a feather! So it wasn’t ever about “free speech” but instead about who gets to make the speech/ideological rules? So a POWER struggle?
All one had to do was watch the Florida governor to see what this was really about. THEY make the rules. That’s the only rule. Us? We get to follow their rules but may not suggest or promote any of our own.
BenCisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️
@Eunicecycle: It’s MEESES! TO PIECES!
Wait, that’s not right
Cameron
And in news from Florida, Governor Sassy Boots has announced he’s going to fuck with the state’s finances – but the libtards will be pwned! Haw, haw, haw.
Worthless fuck. And all the MAGA lemmings jump right on board.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/florida-desantis-yank-billions-in-investments-from-woke-blackrock-over-esg-investing/ar-AA14Ny27
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack: sa-LAI-na
Can’t do it — long “i”, not “ee”
Ken
“I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U?”
(Oooh, I think I got several levels of meta-commentary in there.)
Kay
@Mr. Bemused Senior:
Twitter was promoting Kanye West as trending so I clicked on it. Fully half the tweets are vile anti-semitism. So is Musk (now) going to be consistent and coherent and ban all those accounts? Or will we just continue to pretend this lazy, sloppy “free speech!” theory the anti-cancel culture crowd came up with isn’t incoherent garbage that doesn’t survive the slightest encounter with the real world?
Geminid
@UncleEbeneezer: White hipsters!
More seriously, I think South Carolina does not have as many Latinos as neighboring Georgia and Noth Carolina. But the Nevada primary is soon after, I think and there are a plenty of Latino Democrats there.
Personally, I like giving a little clout to the rural and urban (and suburban too!) Black Democrats of South Carolina. There are a lot of Black Democrats all across the deep South, and Republican gerrymandering keeps them under-represented in the House. They are valuable in their own right and deserve representation even if they can’t deliver Senators or Electoral votes.
Betty Cracker
@Miss Bianca: Jeez, you’ve had some close calls with massive ungulates. I have not seen one from a car, but one time I was canoeing on Rangely Lake in Maine, and a moose started swimming toward the canoe. I was thrilled at first, but the closer it got, the BIGGER it got. And it looked not only vaguely angry but also like it intended to climb into the canoe with us. We paddled away so fast we could have pulled Elon Musk on a wakeboard!
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
Thanks. Always wondered about that.
Another Scott
@Steeplejack: +1. Follow the money.
The first amendment means that people can campaign all they want, and mass media is built on paid ads so they will push perpetual campaigning for the ad dollars.
We really need a public finance system and instant disclosure of political donations, sensible limits on donations (money is not speech), and actual criminal penalties for breaking campaign rules and laws. You want to pretend to be representing some group that you’re not? That’s fraud. Go to jail.
How to do it? Beats me. But we need to work on it.
Cheers,
Scott.
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack: Any other place name questions for KS, MO, IA, or NE? I’m the source.
Central Planning
Just like the small town north of Rochester, NY along Lake Ontario.
Miss Bianca
@Betty Cracker: LOL! But yipes! I think your close encounter was a lot closer (as in. more hazardous) than mine!
Soprano2
@Kay: The most ironic thing about this is that if they succeed in getting most of the liberals off Twitter they’ll all be bored with it and leave, so then no one will be there! I think it’s all performance art for them – they’re trying to show that they have the power to do whatever they want, to make Twitter ban whoever they want banned. Somehow they think liberals are going to want to stay and put up with their nonsense.
Central Planning
@japa21:
Thank God I’m First?
Kay
Ohio Republicans are promoting legislation written by anti-choice lobbyists to raise the threshold to pass a statewide ballot initative from 50% to 60%. The anti-choice lobby are pushing this same change all over the country.
Terrified that the people in this country will reject the far Right fundamenalist agenda if it’s put to a popular vote. They know how unpopular their agenda is but they plan to shove it down your throat.
It’s so incredibly disrespectful to women, too. The anti-choice lobby will decide what’s good for you, ladies- they don’t want you to have a say.
UncleEbeneezer
@Geminid: Yes it looks like SC Latinx is only 5% compared to ~10% in neighboring states. I’m with you. No Southern state is gonna have perfect demo % that mirrors US, AND is a state where Dems are competitive on the state level. I don’t really see SC being first as being that big of a problem personally. But I’m also not really passionate about this issue in general. Iowa sucks mostly because of the Caucus format (and because of demographics but most the the former), imo.
Soprano2
@Ken: To be fair, Michelle Obama used her fashion choices to promote designers who were POC. I think perhaps the press got used to the idea that that Michelle was doing that, and now expects Jill Biden to do the same thing.
Layer8Problem
@UncleEbeneezer: “What constituencies are underrepresented in SC”
@Geminid: “White hipsters!”
Charleston Dandies!
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
I’m mostly covered. I went to Mizzou back in the Dark Ages. But it was weird that I never ran across the pronunciation of Salina.
kalakal
@Steeplejack: The UK one is short, 38 days. Party funding is limited to £30,000 per constituency that they are running a candidate in, their are 650 constituencies. Candidates can spend up to £8,700 + 6p or 9p per registered voter – there are around 70,000 voters in a constituency.
To give an idea of the amounts involved in the 2019 election the Tories spent most at £16 million
The free boosting the Tories get from the media is overlooked
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
I support South Carolina going first, because I support Black agency and Black leadership. If Rep. Clyburn thinks SC should go first, then more power to him.
The primary voters of SC saved Biden’s ass in the primary, and that means they saved ALL of us from a weak D nominee and another 4 years of TFG. I’m still grateful and have not forgotten.
Geminid
@Soprano2: I noticed the other day that Magdi Jacobs, aka Mangy Jay, asked her followers what would be a good Mastodon instance to join.
Kay
@Soprano2:
It’s a real dilemma because I think Twitter is really valuable for people who are marginalized or actually silenced by their government – sorry whiners- getting booed at Yale Law School or having to look at Lefty women with colorful hair doesn’t count as “persecution”.
I don’t know how normie liberals should respond. Maybe if you are not marginalized in the US or living under a repressive regime elsewhere get off Twitter? If you have that luxury?
Steeplejack
@Soprano2:
That’s the douchebro paradox: They don’t want to be on Parler, Gab or Truth Social, because there are no libs to pwn and they’re just talking to themselves, but anywhere they go and commence the (uncontrolled) pwning the libtards just leave. Before Musk, Twitter kept them at bay. Now the struggle is on to see how it turns out.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: A similar plot is afoot in Florida, where the threshold is already 60% — they want to push it higher. I’m not sure if it’s anti-choice people specifically or Republicans in general. Probably the latter — they got spooked when people voted to raise the minimum wage — but it’s the same people anyway.
@Layer8Problem: Yeah, I was tempted to reply “tell me you’ve never been to Charleston and Columbia without telling me you’ve never been to Charleston and Columbia…”
lowtechcyclist
@Steeplejack:
I don’t know, but don’t pronounce Arkansas City (or the adjacent section of the Arkansas River) ‘Arkansaw.’ In Kansas, the river is the Ar-Kansas River, just like the state it’s in, and same with Arkansas City (often called Ark City for short).
Quiltingfool
@Soprano2: First Lady rocked that dress! Sleek silhouette, elegant, beautiful appliqué designs. I also agree that Mme Macron’s gown wasn’t quite as awesome. Surprised me, really.
Steeplejack
@Layer8Problem:
“Charleston Dandies” would be a good band name.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@BenCisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️:
I love those meeses to pieces! (Have you ever seen such a sight in your life…)
zhena gogolia
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: I agree.
schrodingers_cat
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: Agreed. Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Gravenstone
Lived in Lansing in the mid-80s. As such I had ample opportunity to drive through Charlotte on my trips back to Ohio. Even bought a car down there once.
Quiltingfool
@Frankensteinbeck: And Ver-sale Missouri. And Bow-dark, Missouri (spelled “Bois d’Arc).
Miss Bianca
@Soprano2: Oh, is *that* what that’s about. I bet we could find a FTFNYT article whining about Michelle Obama’s fashion choices too, if we looked hard enough. (editor’s note: *no way* am I wasting my energy on that project.)
Nelle
@zhena gogolia: Zhena, where did you grow up?
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Steeplejack: I found a similar dynamic in a computer MMORPG I subscribed to for a while. Eve Online prided itself on its merciless player-versus-player environment. Some high-level players would make a point to prey on newbies, smashing them flat, wiping out all their resources and leaving them flat broke, and then they’d complain when rules were put in place to protect new players from predation in their starting regions.
And they also complained when player counts went down as many newbies found the “harden the [email protected]!$ up” attitude to not be fun, quit, and failed to offset the attrition of veteran players.
Same dynamic among the schoolyard-bully types on the right.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I know there are white hipsters in South Carolina. They’re just about anywhere younger adults are.
I just don’t think they are as large component of the population as they are in Northern cities like, say, Brooklyn, or Atlanta for that matter.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Kay: You are 100% correct – it’s all about power, and folks like Matt Y think everything is an intellectual exercise where an ideal outcome can be achieved via the virtue of its own design.
”It’s all about power, baby”
Lapassionara
@lowtechcyclist: I lived there. It is Sa- li – na, with a long I.
Layer8Problem
@Steeplejack: Stephen Colbert probably owns that one already.
Soprano2
@zhena gogolia: Oregon and Washington State have some crazy place names, too. I learned that when I worked for a trucking company and had to schedule deliveries and pickups.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Geminid: Or Portland, OR
zhena gogolia
@Nelle: Kansas City, MO.
Quiltingfool
I worked at Ozark Caverns as a seasonal naturalist; well, I was a tour guide, heh. Had a visitor ask me about how to get to Osage Beach…but instead of saying O-Sage (like the herb), she said O-Soggy. I very gently told her that around here, we call it O-Sage. I really didn’t want her to get weird looks from other places when she said Osoggy Beach. Lol.
Soprano2
@Kay: Republicans here are going to try that, too, but I think they have to put the change on the ballot, so the chances of it actually passing probably aren’t that good. Imagine asking people to reduce their power to have a say in government!
Another Scott
Meanwhile, …Defense.gov:
This stuff takes time. It’s good that it’s moving forward.
(via Oryx)
Cheers,
Scott.
Cameron
@Betty Cracker: They were also undone about the restoration of voting rights to ex-cons. I suspect they never dreamed that would actually be a pretty popular position.
prostratedragon
@tam1MI: “Also we have a Lake ORE- ion.”
Ah yes, forgot that one, but I’ve even been there.
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca:
My father and I had a moose peak into our tent once while backpacking on Isle Royale. We were apparently a little to close to her path. She looked at us and then went back into the woods and got her calf. Then they did a little half circle off the trail away from us and swam across the little lake near which we had pitch our tent. Moose are big.
Geminid
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: And don’t forget the Motor City!
Soprano2
@Quiltingfool: It surprised me too. I guess the idea that the French are best at fashion isn’t always true. I don’t think I’ve seen Jill Biden in anything where I thought “That wasn’t a good choice for her”. OTOH, when I saw that glittery gold turtleneck Michelle Obama wore on The Tonight Show, I thought that it wasn’t that flattering to her. I didn’t like the pants she was wearing, either. I love her, but sometimes I don’t think her fashion choices are that great.
Soprano2
@Quiltingfool: I used to be related to a lot of people who lived in Bois D’Arc! My parents were married in the stone Methodist church there, and my sister and I were christened there. At one time my grandma and grandpa lived there, as did an aunt and uncle, three cousins, a great-grandmother and a great aunt and uncle. My parents graduated from high school there in the early ’50’s.
sab
@Miss Bianca: We paddled by a moose and calf in Boundary Waters. Even the calf was huge. Fortunately there were enough canoes that the moose decided that ignoring us was the best course of action. Nobody was stupid enough to get any closer than we had to to get past them.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: Well, that sort of gets back to one of the major constituencies that’s in short supply in South Carolina; it’s not the absence of hipsters but the dearth of urban centers. Are largely rural, small-c conservative Dems in South Carolina the best population to select a candidate that has to win almost every major city in America to prevail? It’s worth thinking about, maybe. On the other hand, winning the first-in-the-nation state is no guarantee of winning the nomination anyway, so maybe it doesn’t matter.
Miss Bianca
Meanwhile, here in the socialist hell-hole that is Colorado, where Republicans got thoroughly trounced at all state-office levels, a group of GOPers have decided that the problem (surprise, surprise!) is that Colorado Republicans aren’t conservative enough:
Yes, because doubling down on the crazy is going to work *so well* for all y’all! At least, according to TIna Peters:
Wait, who was Tina Peters again?
According to these bozos, the Republican candidate for governor lost to Jared Polis by 20 percentage points because Republican leadership *refused to endorse a “stolen election” narrative!* Yeah, that One Weird Trick would have changed everything!
It’s times like these that I keep thinking about the great Bertolt Brecht poem, The Solution:
click through and read the whole article. It’s total jam.
stacib
@MisterDancer: For me, it was when Obama got 25% of the white, male vote in SC. That’s when I jumped fully onboard with every emotion I could muster. :-) Until then, like many others, I truly had doubts he could make it to Super Tuesday. SC convinced me. I’m good with them going first.
Soprano2
@Quiltingfool: There used to be a department store in Springfield called Heers, pronounced “Hers”. You could always tell someone was from out of town when they pronounced it the way it was spelled.
Miss Bianca
@Omnes Omnibus: Isle Royale is on my bucket list for destinations. (Wolf pack!) Can’t believe I never made it there when I still lived *in* Michigan!
piratedan
seems like the obvious connection is that Clyburn helped turn Biden’s fortunes around and as such, Joe is doing the quid pro quo in return. It would be a boon to SC Democrats to get the media and the attention and also cements the messaging that not only does the South matter, black voters in the South matter.
SteveinPHX
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:
Parliament – “Sir Nose D’Voidoffunk”
A funk opera!
Thank you George! (and poster)
Lady WereBear
@Dorothy A. Winsor: At least you’re in a library 🤣
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I wouldn’t characterize rural Black people in South Carolina as conservative, even small c conservative. At least, I haven’t seen that in the rural Black people I’ve known in Virginia. They may not be as be as “progressive” as you but that doesn’t mean make them conservatives, just moderates. And moderates deserve as big a voice in the Democratic party as “progressives” because they are just as many.
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid:
There are also two distinct varieties that tend to push in opposite directions: voting for the other party’s most hated candidate on the theory that they’ll be a general-election liability, vs. voting for the other party’s least hated candidate because you want an early shot at voting against the worse ones. I’ve mostly seen Democrats doing the latter, even if it might hurt their chances further down the line, though this is not exclusive.
mrmoshpotato
Dogwhack!
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Geminid: All we need is music!
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Betty Cracker: Biden was a pretty good choice.
Kay
@piratedan:
All that applies to GA though and GA has a huge city so both urban and rural. If it’s quid pro that’s fine but GA seems like the better choice -hits all the SC advantages and adds some that SC doesn’t have.
Ksmiami
@Cameron: Seriously does that fucking fuck actually do anything good- ? What the fuck? Florida is a disaster
Betty Cracker
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: The new primary calendar is about the future, not the past. So the relevant question is, does it make sense to give relatively conservative, rural Democrats in a deeply red state more power to shape the nomination, especially if you can achieve the same aim (giving more power to black Dems in a Southern state) in a state where Dems are actually competitive and other constituencies are better represented, e.g., Georgia? The only argument I’ve heard for it is “Biden owes Clyburn.” I don’t think that’s a good argument.
Geminid
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: This makes me think of a judgement I made awhile ago that I’ll state as an opinion now: Black Democrats are more practical then white Democrats, and have their feet on the ground in a way many white Democrats do not.
For instance, I don’t think South Carolina went heavily for Biden in the primary because he was more moderate than the other contenders, but because Black people there understood that that Trump would be hard to beat and that Biden had a better chance of winning than the others. They had a lot to lose if Trump won a second term, more than I did for sure.
Kay
In addition, Atlanta is a center of black political power in the south. IMO everyone (white) in the Democratic Party forgets about black political power centers – elected black officials who are in power. Where are they? Which cities do they run?
I see this odd blindness in Ohio all the time. There’s this whole discussion of urban voters but no recognition of black mayors and city council members in urban centers. It’s weird. Obama certainluy recognized it. Key to his Ohio strategy was calling on AA Democratic mayors to get out the same voters who put them in power to put him in power. I had never seen any pol leverage existing Black political power to expand black political power like Obama did. Masterful.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Not the only argument you’ve heard. I made a different one at #114.
And I think another commenter argued that we owe South Carolina Democrats for helping pick our strongest candidate in 2020.
trollhattan
Fired Twitter employees are suing Musk & Co. for breach of contract (my words) and the lawyers’ letter is the best thing I’ve read in ages. (Basically, threatening to enter into arbitration for each employee in their home district.)
https://twitter.com/AkivaMCohen/status/1598487532764798983?cxt=HHwWjoCxhaT8-64sAAAA
Pardon me while I go and take up smoking.
The Moar You Know
@Betty Cracker: I gotta get my granpa’s harpoon out of storage.
Miss Bianca
@trollhattan: that letter was a thing of beauty and a joy forever.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: No one is arguing against giving black Democrats in the South more clout — making Georgia first would do that. North Carolina too.
Betty Cracker
@trollhattan: Wow! Bravo, Mr. Cohen!
The Moar You Know
I have relatives in SC. They have open primaries.
There are so few Dems there that you will be signing up to get the Dem candidates that the GOP wants to run against.
This is such a bad idea I have not the words for the badness. If SC is the alternative I’d honestly rather leave it in Iowa – and I don’t think that’s a great idea either.
Kay
@trollhattan:
It’s interesting. My daughter was employed by a giant health care company that was purchased by another giant health care company. The new owner refused to honor the maternity leave provisions the former employer had in place when she was hired and that she relied upon when she got pregnant.
NY has a similiar arbitration statute to that of CA and she went to arbitration (w/out a lawyer, although I researched the NY admin code and then prepped her) and she won.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I just don’t think it’s that big a deal. If comparative demography is being considered, there are plenty of Black people in Charleston and Columbia and the smaller cities of South Carolina (except maybe Greenville and Spartanburg). And there are plenty of Black people in rural counties south and east of Atlanta. Same goes for North Carolina.
And I’m not sure there was a push to put those two larger states up with or ahead of South Carolina anyway. This is kind of an academic argument in that respect.
Yutsano
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Heh. Noofs gonna noof.
schrodingers_cat
Not being a fan of Bernie Sanders does not necessarily make one conservative. I am talking about the Democratic primary electorate of South Carolina.
BenCisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: Everyone can use a little more George Clinton in your life.
BenCisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️
@SteveinPHX:
Gravenstone
Been there, done that. After getting podded, decided the game clearly wasn’t for me.
GibberJack
@Miss Bianca: They are sick of “feeling unsafe”. Feeling unsafe.
These entitled privileged white conservative christian whiners.
They aren’t LBGTQ people getting massacred. They aren’t the ones being threatened for wearing masks during a pandemic. They aren’t the school board members who need a police escort home for safety. They aren’t black or brown or Muslim or Jewish.
But it’s always all about their feelings isn’t it? We all must pay attention to their feelings. Everyone else has to make them feel better.
GibberJack
@trollhattan: Is the tone that letter typical for that sort of legal action? It seems very informal, more like internet trash talk than a serious legal missive.
Ruckus
@OzarkHillbilly:
I think it’s just age. (And yes I have age. Not as much as some but more than a sizable majority) And I say this because I have the same issues. Random pains, stiffness, tough decisions on actually getting up some mornings, aw the fun of getting to the age of Old Fart!
Far better than the alternative though.
planetjanet
@Geminid:
This is so true. I am very happy with South Carolina moving forward.