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You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Election 2020 Open Thread: Smart Move, Sen. Harris

Election 2020 Open Thread: Smart Move, Sen. Harris

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The horse-race touts at Politico would *very much* like Kamala Harris to shut up and go back to her knitting the Senate, but Houle’s right; New Hampshire would not vote for a woman of color from the opposite coast even if she promised to rebuild the Old Man of the Mountain at (other states’) public expense. The state is very white and its politics are very retro; they’re working as hard as any formerly Confederate state to make sure the college kids who might not understand ‘our local traditions’ can’t corrupt the purity of their voting pool. Even leaving aside the cranky libertarians who’ll swarm the Dem primary before voting for Trump next year, Democratic primary voters are pretty much divided between Sanders and Warren. Also, too:

So Kamala went to Iowa, later that day, and did this:



Anybody counts Harris out at this point, I suspect, will regret it later.

Reader Interactions

72Comments

  3. 3.

    MazeDancer

    Media only talk about Biden,Warren, Pete, and Bernie.

    Very boring. And not celebrating our riches.

    Hope Senator Harris picks up some of Beto’s flock.

  4. 4.

    Raoul

    She isn’t my fave, but I donated a second $25 to her campaign at the end of October because I want her to do well (and would be happy if she’s the nominee).
    I do think there are structural (ie racist) reasons she has had less earned media and a harder time.
    Her campaign shares responsibility for her struggles, but the deck seems kinda stacked against black women.
    I know, it’s just shocking what I’m saying there.

  5. 5.

    hells littlest angel

    I really think a Warren-Harris ticket would win. People who wouldn’t vote for two women also wouldn’t vote for just one.

  6. 6.

    Aleta

    The bones of a former slave and black leader were missing — until a historian asked in the right place By Erin Cox, Wa Post 

    The grave holding the remains of Smith Price, founder of the first free black community in Maryland’s state capital, had been dug up during an urban renewal project in the 1980s.
    ….
    Born into bondage in the 1750s, Price — whose father was white — spent most of his life as the property of the first president of the Maryland Senate, Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer, an Annapolis man who built some of his wealth participating in the slave trade.

    Freed in 1791 after Jenifer’s death, Price leased land from white men, cultivated an orchard and prospered — enough to purchase and donate the land for what became Asbury United Methodist Church, which Hayes-Williams’s family has attended for generations.

    He also bought freedom for other enslaved people, some of whom helped create a thriving free black community outside the Annapolis city gates six decades before Maryland abolished slavery.

    Price died in 1807. He and a son both were buried behind the church he helped found. Their bodies presumably stayed in that small graveyard until the early 1980s, when the poor black residents who still lived in the neighborhood were displaced. The area was bulldozed to make way for townhouses they could not afford.

    Janice Hayes-Williams was just starting out as an amateur local historian. … She says she was disheartened by the disregard for his graveyard — and surprised to learn that post-revolutionary Annapolis had a thriving community of black people even as enslaved Africans were still being unloaded from ships in the Annapolis Harbor.

    “This is my story, my people,” Hayes-Williams said. “I mean, these guys were leasing lands, running shops and taverns, buying their own people out of slavery. And nobody knows.” She spent a lot of time trying to figure out where the bones had been taken.

    She became a well-known local history buff, working in local politics. Eventually, then-Maryland House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel) designated her to serve on a few committees. Four days after Busch died in April, Hayes-Williams drove to her final event as his representative — a commission meeting at the Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum in Calvert County, a multiuse state facility that also happens to house 8 million archaeological artifacts.

    When she arrived that day, she blurted out a question. Do you have any bones from Annapolis?

    “When they said, ‘We have the Smith Price graveyard,’ I almost passed out,” Hayes-Williams said “I hadn’t thought of him for a decade. At all.”

    A team led by state archaeologist Julie Schablitsky concluded that the bones seem to belong to a 6-year-old child and a man between 45 and 55 who had arthritis and a tooth worn down from a tobacco pipe. They used facial reconstruction techniques to create a portrait of the man they believe is probably Price, complete with a tobacco pipe sticking out of his mouth, the same way it would have as he walked the streets of Annapolis two centuries ago.

    On Friday, the 155th anniversary of Maryland abolishing slavery, that portrait was on display in the church sanctuary. Nine dark-suited pallbearers flanked the caskets.
    …
    “This child and this man brought an entire community together to remember who they are,” Schablitsky said, “and hopefully remind them of who they could be.”

    [(T) he bones of many others remain in storage at the museum.] The article also says that DNA testing of relatives is still in progress.

  7. 7.

    Chyron HR

    I like Harris and will vote for her over Warren if she’s still in the race on Super Tuesday, but it’s not a great look to be writing “Here’s how Kamala can still win!” articles a full year before election day.

  8. 8.

    Kathleen

    The Mary J Blige walk on was epic. I’ve had the feeling she’s a stealth candidate and I admire how she just keeps showing up and giving 100% in spite of the media’s dismissal and disparagement and the conventional wisdom of the Rethug ventriloquist dummies. She’s displayed real grit in the face of adversity. My admiration for her grows. She’s made mistakes but all candidates do and that’s why I think marathon primaries have some value. Give them time to settle into their stride and pace and run their own races.

    She reminds me of the Nats!

  10. 10.

    Mnemosyne

    That’s my junior senator! Never underestimate her — she has that Obama knack for driving her opponents crazy while just standing there and looking reasonable. She won her election in a walk against Democrat Loretta Sanchez because Sanchez had an on-stage meltdown at one of their debates. ?

  12. 12.

    Ella in New Mexico

    I want KH in there as long as it makes sense. If it’s just money right now, then, damn, I’m broke as hell while in career limbo but I’m gonna have to give her a little love come payday.

  13. 13.

    marduk

    Man, I can’t buy the happy spin on this one. You don’t pull out of NH because you know you won’t win it. Any credible showing would be OK. You pull out because your numbers are so terrible you need to provide a rationalization. Really bad sign for the campaign.

  14. 14.

    Ella in New Mexico

    By the way, is anyone here catching the Mueller Memos dump? None of us have the time to go thru all of it but there are some real freaking doozies of bad info for Trump coming out and I cannot see how the whole Mueller Report does not now get equal billing in the Articles of Impeachment.

    Jesus–just reading the handful of emails/texts between the likes of Bannon, Manafort, Flynn makes me think this could push the pro-Impeach polls into the 70’s.

    These people were just plain criminally sociopathic and brazenly reckless.

  16. 16.

    Mike in NC

    The media still wants an old white man to run against Fat Bastard. That’s a tough nut to crack.

  17. 17.

    Matthew J. McIrvin

    @Chyron HR: There are a lot of cases of candidates with a relatively high profile coming back from a seemingly dead campaign this early in the cycle, when the field is split. John Kerry in 2004 was one, for instance (not a great example considering how that turned out, but he seemed like a no-hoper for the nomination late in 2003). Things can change rapidly right around the time of the early primaries.

  18. 18.

    Martin

    So, this isn’t a great sign, but I agree that for her Iowa is more important. She’s not going to win NH with Warren and Biden in the race. But really, she should be fighting for both.

  19. 19.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @marduk:

    Really bad sign for the campaign.

    Because she will do poorly in a tiny, white New England state and decided to focus her efforts elsewhere? There is nothing to play for there. Sanders and Warren will split the vast majority of the vote and third place will go to one of NH’s kooky choices. Fourth, fifth, or sixth place isn’t worth the effort. She is better off putting money and time into Iowa and South Carolina.

  20. 20.

    Martin

    So, this is going well.

    Trump and Barr have also been asking other foreign governments for help in investigating the FBI, CIA and Mueller investigators. The US president has called on the Australian prime minister Scott Morrison for assistance, while the attorney general has been on similar missions to the UK and Italy.

    And the information being requested has left allies astonished. One British official with knowledge of Barr’s wish list presented to London commented that “it is like nothing we have come across before, they are basically asking, in quite robust terms, for help in doing a hatchet job on their own intelligence services”.

  21. 21.

    lamh36

    It takes a lot of arrogance to say the race is coming down to two candidates when you’re polling at 0% with African Americans and Latinos.

    twitter.com/sawyerhackett/status/1190375615167373312?s=21

    Among African-American voters in South Carolina
    Biden: 38
    Harris: 17
    Warren: 12
    Sanders: 9

    twitter.com/wyethwire/status/1190595584186601472?s=21

    .@JulianCastro: on Pete Buttigieg claiming it’s now a two person race between himself and Elizabeth Warren: “The Democratic Party cannot afford to nominate someone who can’t appeal to African Americans and Latinos”

    twitter.com/notcapnamerica/status/1190693791419813888?s=21

  23. 23.

    zhena gogolia

    @Aleta:

    Me too! I just imagine her going up against Trump and destroying him. She has the most passion for that.

    I think she doesn’t come off as well in these 20-candidate debates because she has no passion for attacking other Democrats. She did it with Biden, but it’s not really what she wants to be doing, I think.

    To me she is the standout “moderate” (which to me just means not a Bernie wannabe) candidate.

  24. 24.

    lamh36

    @lamh36: oh and before this argument comes up…

    Saying that Pete Buttigieg doesn’t have a lot of black support b/c he is gay is offensive. We have no data 2 support that point. We also have plenty of historical evidence that suggests white candidates do well in black communities when they have deep history w/ those communities

    Really one of the things that frustrates me the most about this is the continued bafflement in the white media re: “Why don’t black voters LIKE him?” This happened in 2016 w/r/t Sanders as well, at least in terms of older black voters.

    The media shouldn’t be baffled. If they listened to voters, they would hear similar messages: community ties matter. History matters. Comfort in spaces matters. Language matters. Trust matters.

    Finally, there are good reasons why all these factors might matter *more* when it comes to gaining support from black voters as compared to white voters. White voters can afford to follow their whims in a way black voters can’t.

    It bugs me when the media doesn’t see this.

    I mean, Step 1 to understanding some of this history might be asking why Hillary Clinton and, I believe, Bill Clinton, did better w/ black voters than other white Democrats have. The answers are staring pundits in the face, but they refuse to see them.

    FRFR…Black voters were also not feeling Bernie (yet he still isn’t at 0 BTW) in ‘16, for the same reason many aren’t feeling Pete…but instead Pete’s folks what u to think it’s because of Black homophobia.

  25. 25.

    BR

    @lamh36:

    As a brown supporter of Warren, I don’t really like the narrative that she has no support among minorities, because I know it’s not true, even if she doesn’t have Biden’s level of support. As for Mayor Pete, though, yeah — he has some work to do.

  26. 26.

    lamh36

    @zhena gogolia: Kamala Harris is the rarity of this group who actually defends her fellow candidates even those she’s had friction with. Even if she doesn’t get the same defense against the blatant bias reporting

  27. 27.

    DCrefugee

    Like many here, I don’t understand why Harris hasn’t done better. On the fundamentals, she’s great. But she wasn’t able to leverage her sound bite with Biden from the first debate to stand out, and here we are. Basically, I don’t think the mainstream pundits like her; maybe they’re saving her to be the flavor of the day next spring.

    Iowa won’t decide anything, but Harris I understand is reinforcing her staff there, and using resources cannibalized from NH to do it. South Carolina is what Harris is worried about. Because of the black vote % in the Dem primary in SC, if she’s not in the top three there, she’s done. Bypassing NH, where she won’t do well, allows her to spend time there when Biden/Warren/??? are freezing off their tookusses in NH.

    (This is basic West Wing, folks, c’mon…)

    As of tomorrow, we have exactly one year remaining.

  28. 28.

    BlueDWarrior

    @Omnes Omnibus: If anything she should be investing more in South Carolina and Nevada, outside of the usual trying to win/show/place in Iowa.

    Iowa might not win you a nomination, but getting blown out could suck all the oxygen out of your campaign.

  29. 29.

    BlueDWarrior

    @DCrefugee: Sometimes the universe just doesn’t make sense because of the people in it. I mean you see it all the time in sports: a very well-regarded roster at the start of the season flames out and doesn’t even make the playoffs for any number of reasons [injury, lack of cohesiveness, idiot coach].

  30. 30.

    lamh36

    @BR: Liz Warren does not have the numbers with Black and Brown voters that’s even some lesser non-candidates do.

    The tweets are mostly about Pete but it’s also true that you cannot have a Dem candidate polling in single digits numbers with AA voters. Even MY candidate Kamala Harris has had to deal with that.

    Warren still has a ways to go, but no as bad as Pete. And just sitting back and assuming the Black voters will just fall in line is an insult to those voters and an abuse of their loyalty.

    The effort need to be made for ANY of the single digit candidates…that includes Warren. might make u uncomfortable but doesn’t make it untrue.

  33. 33.

    Mike G

    Who decided that Iowa and New Hampshire get a disproportionate voice in the primaries in the first place?
    Yet more systemic favoritism toward Cletuses?

  35. 35.

    The Castle

    A Granite Stater myself, I do not understand the bull posted above about how NH would never go for a woman of color. Case in point — the state capital, the next town over from me, just elected a 27 year old Muslim refugee from Afghanistan to the state legislature. And she was pregnant when she was running for office! She beat a long time white male incumbent in the primary and another white male in the general election. We voted for Obama twice and Hillary Clinton once in the Prez GE, so the people of color and woman thing don’t seem to be deal-breakers, in a state that is still over 90% white.

    the.ismaili/usa/journey-refugee-state-legislator

    And I don’t think Dana Houle is saying this either. He is just saying that skipping IA would be much worse than skipping NH.

    Nationally, in polls, Warren, Sanders, and Biden are clearly the 3 front runners. Harris and Buttigieg are the clear 2nd tier, and there is everyone else.

    In NH, in polls, Warren, Sanders, and Biden are clearly the 3 front runners. Harris and Buttigieg are the clear 2nd tier, and there is everyone else.

    I don’t understand why this turns into a slur against NH, when the state’s preferences seem to match those of Democrats everywhere.

    If you are looking for a state that is out of step with what the rest of the country thinks, look no further than SC and the polling there.

  36. 36.

    divF

    @Mike G:

    Who decided that Iowa and New Hampshire get a disproportionate voice in the primaries in the first place?

    Iowa and New Hampshire did (SATSQ). The Dems haven’t cut them off at the knees by not participating, for reasons that I cannot fathom.

  39. 39.

    WhatsMyNym

    CA will start voting on Feb 3rd and mail-in ballots should be showing up starting then. Any other Super Tues states start then? WA will start getting ballots out (Accessible Voting Units are available too) 18 days before March 10th.

    I don’t see the early states having the impact they once did.

  40. 40.

    divF

    @The Castle: Your example doesn’t address the issue. Dems live or die on the enthusiastic turnout of POC. Having Iowa and NH up first does not measure that. Furthermore, results there can kill off candidates before they make it to states that are more representative of the Democratic voting population.

  41. 41.

    Cermet

    New Hampshire would not vote for a woman of color from the opposite coast

    Maybe true but they did go for Obama both times and went for Hillary, too. So, they aren’t unwilling to consider non-white males or females; a lot more than I can say for many of the fly over states.

  42. 42.

    divF

    @Omnes Omnibus: Not entirely. There have been efforts to move other states up earlier than NH and Iowa, and they have responded pushing their dates forward. The NH primary used to be in early March.

  44. 44.

    J R in WV

    I just hit Senator Harris up with my second presidential contribution of this election season. I’ve been into Senatorial and congressional and even VA state legislature contributions already.

  47. 47.

    divF

    @Omnes Omnibus: Of course NH and Iowa like it – it gives them a disproportionate influence on the nomination. The question is, why should the Democratic party put up with it?

  48. 48.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @divF: This is the question I was answering: Who decided that Iowa and New Hampshire get a disproportionate voice in the primaries in the first place?

  50. 50.

    J R in WV

    @Ella in New Mexico:

    Jesus–just reading the handful of emails/texts between the likes of Bannon, Manafort, Flynn makes me think this could push the pro-Impeach polls into the 70’s.

    Maybe this is why Trump and his scummier minions have been beating around the world to tear down the Mueller investigation? I wondered why they were putting so much effort into that work, and if the undisclosed material is that damming, that could explain their fear of Mueller’s work.

  51. 51.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @hells littlest angel:

    I really think a Warren-Harris ticket would win.

    I’m quite certain you’re delusional. Between Warren’s horrific own-goal re M4A the other day (2 million jobs lost, ehh, so what?) and Harris’s apparent inability to make any headway with what should be her natural constituencies, that ticket would get crushed so badly the Rooskies might not even have to steal any votes for Twitler.

    Warren’s major problem (IMO) goes far beyond M4A – it’s running a campaign based entirely on “having a plan for that.” Most of the self-styled “sophisticates” of the Democratic Party – including all too many Jackals, most of whom are at best naive – completely misunderstand the contempt of ordinary citizens for “plans”. Particularly ones that would cost major $$$. Even – especially – when the candidate blithely promises to “make the rich pay for it.”

    Pro tip: In the average voter’s experience, the rich don’t pay for anything. For one, the politicians (who may have the noblest intentions in the world) won’t or more often can’t do what is necessary to make them. The rich threaten them, they conduct media campaigns against them (with the full complicity of a bought&paidfor MSM), they amend the proposals to the death-of-a-thousand-paper-cuts, they go to court to stop whatever’s signed into law that will cost them even pennies, they delay, distract…& if all else fails they set their high-priced accountants to finding loopholes & hideyholes so that there’s nothing to be taxed.

    And when it becomes clear that the rich aren’t paying, do the Democrats back off their ambitious plans? Dog forbid! They tax ordinary citizens to pay instead – not just for themselves, but for all the people too poor to pay. (Customarily bleating that “there aren’t enough rich people to fund this”.) While the rich stay rich, or even get richer. No one trusts plans because they always seem to make them worse off.

    (NB I would be much less upset with Warren if she publicly promised to allow none of her plans to become law unless & until there was a dedicated & locked-down source of revenue to pay for it that doesn’t raise taxes on the average citizen. And even then I’m not sure I’d trust such a promise. I think most of the country won’t.)

    The main reason Harris is getting no traction is WOC. Jackals are constantly bleating “listen to African-American women” but cover their ears & lalalalala when they don’t like what they’re hearing. IMO those women understand – on a visceral level – that removing Orangecandyass from the White House is jobs 1 through 6, at least . They look at Kamala & see an angry “too black for wypipo, not black enough for some POCs” woman, a former hardass prosecutor whom AA men would be less than enthusiastic to support. And how many other constituencies would crawl naked down a road paved with broken glass & over their dying grandmothers & stand in line for days just to vote against her?

    I’ll guess that another reason African-American women are reluctant to back Harris is her vigorous campaign to kneecap Joe Biden. They like Biden. As a white guy high up in the Federal government who willingly subordinated himself to a black man & by all accounts was a completely loyal second banana, they trust him. They support him because they consider him the best chance to win in 2020 – in large part because they understand he appeals to people across the board who remember a time before politics went BSI, & he doesn’t punch the negative buttons that would (at best) keep people home if a Warren or Harris was the nominee.

    Harris seems to think all those POC Biden supporters will fall to her once she destroys Joe, when in fact almost none of them will, because she has essentially none of the qualities that could replace him, most notably electability

    Disclaimers: (1) Were either woman the Democratic nominee I would contribute to them & work for them & vote for them. I think either would make a phenomenal POTUS – at a time when the very existence of the Republic is not hanging by a fraying thread. I have my deep doubts because – ICYMI – now is not such a time.

    (2) I have no connection to the Biden campaign. To the extent I support Uncle Joe it is malgré lui et faute de mieux. I simply do not see any other possible nominee who as POTUS could persuade this country to step back from the cliff whose edge we are teetering vertiginously over.

  53. 53.

    Matt

    Sadly, the Harris boom is over. She seemed like a great option, but her attacks on Biden fell flat.

    As I see it, Biden is going to keep slipping…
    Bernie & Warren will pull half of the Very Liberal and Liberal blocks (which is about 20% each)
    Which leaves either Buttegieg, Klobachar or Julian Castro to sneak into the lead if the liberals don’t sway towards one candidate.

    As a Bernie fan, I’m happy with any of those options, but my ranking is:

    1. Bernie
    2. Warren
    3. Julian Castro
    4. Klobachar
    5. Buttegieg

  55. 55.

    The Castle

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    Just to add —

    I am not a big proponent of NH consistently having the first primary. I think rotating these elections is a good idea. Although not perfect, I like the idea of rewarding states with the highest voter turnout with the earliest spots in the primary calendar. It gives a hat tip to the most engaged citizens and punishes states that suppress the vote. But by that measure, New Hampshire would still vote really early (3rd highest voter turnout in 2016, behind only Minnesota and Maine).

    The last 5 states in voter turnout, who would vote last, would be West Virginia, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Hawaii.

    I like Sen. Harris, but she is not doing particularly well anywhere, including in her home state of California. The last 5 polls there have her at exactly 8% in all of them, far behind the front runners. This is not the fault of people of Iowa or New Hampshire. Could she still win though? Yes.

  56. 56.

    smintheus

    The NH hate really gets old. It wasn’t that long ago that we were being assured that nobody but Sanders had any chance of winning NH because of [extended Sanders hate rant]. Now that Warren has worked her way up it’s because of [unedifying reasons]. And the fact that Harris is doing as poorly in NH as she is nearly everywhere else is because of [even more unedifying reason].

    Meanwhile Iowa of all places has become the first bastion of political reasonableness! The fact that Iowa is more than any other early state about money and the ability to leverage that money, can be relegated to an afterthought.

  57. 57.

    marduk

    @Omnes Omnibus: She had a significant operation in NH and she’s abandoning it. And of course it would be a waste to put in time and effort to come out in 5th or 6th place- but that’s the position she appears to be in. How do you see that as anything but a bad sign?

  59. 59.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @marduk:

    How do you see that as anything but a bad sign?

    Because I don’t think that coming in higher than fourth was achievable and I doubt that her team calculated a path to victory that included NH.

  61. 61.

    patrick II

    @marduk:
    It’s not a good sign, but she’s hoping to make it a recoverable one by concentrating in areas of her str.engths

  62. 62.

    mad citizen

    What the Castle said. Rotate the primary states based on voting rates. I’m so tired of the Iowa/New Hampshire stuff every cycle. I watched the Kamala speech. I thought it was stirring, she is certainly going to go for it in Iowa. EIther she gets momentum or not–either way, she’ll be a big player in the party going forward, so happy for that.

    Was hit up and signed a petition to put Klobachar on the ballot today as I was going into my library in Indiana–thanked the young man for doing it.

  63. 63.

    Heywood J.

    I forget — why is it that the trajectory of the world’s largest economy and most powerful military gets determined by a state with more livestock and evangelicals (but I repeat myself) than humans? Or New Hampshire, which seems like a perfectly cromulent state, but one where no one lives, and like Iowa is almost monolithically white.

    It’s no wonder such a great system keeps producing such tremendous results. Count me in with the folks who want the process rotated through the states with each election cycle. It should not always come down to a state that jerks off to giant sculptures of butter.

  64. 64.

    Zelma

    (I posted this to a dead thread, but I think it fits here.)

    I know I’ll get plastered for this, but I’m thinking of supporting Biden. I understand the attraction of “I’ve got a plan,” but the most important task of a Democratic administration in 2021 will be repairing all the damage that the last three years have wrought. Our foreign policy is in shambles and our government structures are tottering. The first tasks will be protecting what we will still have and putting things back together again.

    None of these worthwhile reforms can be enacted and all of them will provide ammunition for the kinds of attacks at which Trump and the Republicans have perfected. Remember we won in 2018 based on protecting the gains that had been made. This is something that the voters can understand and support.

    The most important goal has to be defeating Trump and the Republicans. The Republicans will campaign based on fear and, frankly, I think we have to do the same thing. We have to make the voters very afraid of what Trump and the Republicans will do if given four more years. I’m not sure which candidate will be best at stoking that fear and reassuring voters that a Democratic president will not be scary, but whoever it is will get my support.

    I now await the brickbats.

  66. 66.

    zhena gogolia

    @stinger:

    It’s not hate. It’s frustration that we loyal Democrats in other states with very different profiles have no say in the matter.

  67. 67.

    low-tech cyclist

    My choices are:

    1. Warren
    2. Harris
    3. Lord, I really hope it’s one of those two

    But this does smack of desperation. The last five polls of Iowa have had Harris at 3%, except for the one that had her at 2%. It’s a really lousy basket for her to have to put all her eggs in, which is why it comes across as desperation.

  68. 68.

    James E Powell

    @divF:

    True. The very famous NH primary in which Gene McCarthy did not beat Johnson was on March 12th – We ought to go back to starting later in the year. There’s too much time between clinching and the convention.

  69. 69.

    Heywood J.

    @Zelma: Seems reasonable. The only reluctance I have with Biden, aside from his age, is that he seems to think that if we just get rid of Trump, he can “work with” the Republicans. I would prefer a candidate who understands why that is no longer true, has not been true for a long time, and will probably never be true again.

    The Republican Party hates this country and the (non-wealthy) people who live in it. The sooner it is crushed to a fine powder and scattered to the four winds, the better off the country and the planet will be. They cannot be “worked with”. They are traitors, and will undermine any Democratic president, no matter how much they try to “work with” them.

    Even so, as badly as Trump sucks, if it’s Biden in the general election, I’ll be more than happy to vote for him. But it might be time to hand the reins of power over to a new generation, rather than this endless rotation of septuagenarians.

  70. 70.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @hells littlest angel: In fact I am a popular guest at Thanksgiving dinner. Some years I attend several.

    Maybe you should fasten your palms even more firmly over your ears & lalalalala even louder if a post like mine upsets you. It won’t change the validity of what I wrote one iota. Ignore it at your (& the nation’s) peril.

  71. 71.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Zelma: No brickbats here either – your reasoning seems sound to me. Uncle Joe is by no means the ideal candidate but IMO there is no one else out there that can talk the remaining sane people back from the cliff’s edge & send the fascisti skulking back under their flat rocks for a generation or so.

    One of the most disheartening threads I’ve seen here was put up by Adam a couple of months ago. In it he asserted (I paraphrase) “we can’t go back, we can only go forward.” I thought at the time, & more now than ever, that this is an egregiously wrong-headed notion. Trying to push a derailed train forward is an exercise in futility; we must first go back to where the train jumped the tracks & get engine & cars back on the rails. Reculer pour mieux sauter is an approach not to be sneered at.

    I also disagreed with his assertion in that thread that (again paraphrased) “2020 will be about who gets to be an American.” Again, egregiously wrong-headed: If we permit the election to be fought on those grounds, we agree to our adversaries’ terms & conditions. IMO our approach should flat out assert that

    Whoever accepts the idea of America, the ideals of America – whoever acts like an American toward fellow Americans and all the human race – “gets to be American.” We assert that the Republican Party, from Mango Mussolini the President on down, has abused the trust of the American people by turning the powers of government to immoral, illegal, unethical & completely un-American purposes. As Democrats we will put an end to that!

    i sensed an unwarranted eagerness on most jackals’ part to take Adam’s pronunciamenti & run with them as if they were gospel. Now I have great respect for Adam’s experience in national security matters & I highly value his insights thereon – as I do the rest of our resident SMEs. And I am always happy to read & consider whatever he has to say about electoral politics (or for that matter any other subject that isn’t “stupidhero” movies). But I always, always, always recognize that once outside his area of expertise, he is at best (like most of the Jackaltariat) an intelligent amateur, & his opinions need to be taken with a very large grain of salt.

  72. 72.

    Heywood J.

    @Uncle Cosmo: The train has been off the tracks for a very long time. Merely getting rid of Trump only gets rid of the most obvious tumor, it doesn’t cure or even treat the cancer. How do you “go back” to before a cult took over the nation? How do you deprogram a third of the electorate?

    Either the Democrats find a way to solidify their base and motivate the couch-dwellers, or everyone gets another four years of Grampa Walnuts and his gang of thieves and dipshits. That’s the message — we can hang together or hang separately.

    Whether this or that demographic sliver is onboard with that, or their delicate sensibilities are tweaked by Warren and her stack of plans, really is up to them. Not being in any vulnerable demographic myself (except the non-wealthy), I can’t imagine what goes through the mind of someone who is in a vulnerable demographic, who can’t be sufficiently motivated to vote against Freddie Krueger. If they insist on starving with their integrity because someone didn’t come correct enough for them and tell them everything they wanted to hear, then that’s on them.

    None of the candidates are perfect. All of them have some flaw or other. But any of them — yes, even Tulsi Gabbard, even Marianne Williamson — would be an upgrade over that fucking thing in there right now. If some group of voters out there can’t be sufficiently convinced of what’s right in front of them, then they get what they get.

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