The Biden Veepstakes! [Updated: it's Harris]
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljJmrA3Nhe8]
Joe Biden @JoeBiden
'I have the great honor to announce that I’ve picked @KamalaHarris
— a fearless fighter for the little guy, and one of the country’s finest public servants — as my running mate' 2:17 PM · Aug 11, 202
Just for the hella fun of it! He'd said he'd make his choice by Sunday, but: Tick-Tock, Dementia Joe!
The Miami Herald on July 31 had the Las Vegas Odds from bookie.com; here's their August 11, 2020 update: ‘Biden VP Pick Odds: Harris & Rice Top 2; Whitmer Rising Fast’
"Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who early in the process was in the top tier of contenders to be Joe Biden’s running mate only to fall to +4000 as recently as Friday, has skyrocketed back into the top three, according to betting lines posted Saturday at British bookmaker Ladbrokes.Whitmer’s sudden surge to +500 came a day after an Associated Press report that the popular Michigan governor had flown from Lansing, Michigan, to Delaware to meet with Biden. Those odds ticked back to +550 on Sunday.
California Sen. Kamala Harris remains the frontrunner to become Biden’s running mate at -110, down from -167, with Susan Rice, the former UN ambassador and national security advisor under President Barack Obama, second in the odds at +200, her all-time best. No other potential pick is close to the top three.
Harris has long been the favorite, but Rice was +2500 to be Biden’s running mate before reports emerged in June that she was one of six women seen as serious contenders. Joining Rice, Harris and Florida Rep. Val Demings on the list at that time were Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham.
California Rep. Karen Bass, who catapulted into the top tier of potential choices for Biden, has plummeted even further, to +3300 on Saturday."
The odds on the rest of the possibilities, including Michelle ma Belle Obomba, are included.
Also discovered while Bingling for his choice: ‘Progressives alarmed by Rice's vast financial investments; The multimillionaire VP finalist bought into the company that owns the Keystone XL pipeline project — and many other Democratic Party villains;, politico.com, August 7, 2020
“A Rice spokeswoman would not comment on whether she still holds stock in the company that owns Keystone.
Progressive activists have started circulating dossiers among themselves that raise concerns about Rice’s holdings and foreign policy record. Left-wing Democrats — many of whom favor Rep. Karen Bass for VP — also said in interviews this week that they worried about the toll of recent critical stories examining the California congresswoman’s statements and record and complained that Rice had yet to face similar scrutiny."
..................
Rice had so many investments that a full analysis of her assets was only publicly released once, in 2009, by the Center for Responsive Politics. It estimated she was worth between $23.5 million and $43.5 million."
..................
Despite the controversy surrounding the TransCanada investment in 2012, Rice clung to the stock and listed as much as $100,000 of it in her last public financial disclosure as she exited the White House in 2017 as national security advisor. She was appointed to that post after John Kerry beat her out as secretary of state in the aftermath of her handling of the attacks on the lethal attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya."
Included is this video from Aug. 6: 'The case for Susan Rice in Biden's veepstakes'
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEiVQylwN1s]
But oh, my; Benghazi, TransCanada multi-millions, ye gods and little fishes! Don't they pale beside her friendship with genocidaire Paul Kagame?
‘A Second Wave of Genocide Looms in Congo, with Susan Rice on Point; Susan Rice has abetted the Congo genocide for much of her political career., Glen Ford, blackagenda report, Nov. 28, 2012
“Rice has fought a two-front battle to protect Washington’s murderous clients, delaying publication of a UN Group of Experts report on Washington’s clients’ depredations in Congo, and at the same time subverting efforts within the State Department to rein in Uganda and Rwanda. Last week, Rice blocked the UN Security Council from explicitly demanding that Rwanda immediately cease providing support to M23 rebels who vowed to march all the way to Kinshasa, the Congolese capital.
Susan Rice has abetted the Congo genocide for much of her political career. Appointed to President Bill Clinton’s National Security Council in 1993, at age 28, she rose to assistant secretary of state for African affairs in 1997 as Rwanda and Uganda were swarming across the eastern Congo, seizing control of mineral resources amid a sea of blood. She is known to be personally close to Rwanda’s minority Tutsi leadership, including President Paul Kagame, a ruthless soldier trained at the U.S. Army’s Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and mentored by Ugandan strongman (and Reagan administration favorite) Yoweri Museveni, who is believed to have pioneered the use of child soldiers in modern African conflicts."
And: ‘How Susan Rice’s Role in the Rwandan Genocide Predicted Obamagate;
A woman who can turn her back on genocide would hardly blink at spying on Republicans’, Tue May 26, 2020
Wanna Bet? Remember: Kamala (the lotus flower) Harris raised money for him.. Of course...you can just text him...and be the first one on your block to know!
@JoeBiden 17h
It’s an important choice, and I want you to be one of the first to know who I’ve picked as my running mate – text FIRST to 30330 to get notified when I’ve made my decision.
Comments
I think I'm tired.
I read "...and I want to be one of the first to know who I've picked...." and it didn't even faze me in the slightest. I thought,"That's about right for Joe, you Shmoe." before I decided I'd better reread that last line.
"Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now..."
big grin.
in the 'susan rice in the Veepstakes' video, dementia joe said at the very end: "It's really important that the next president is able to do what barack did with me'. ooopsie.
5800 expatriated amerikans ain't many, but there are many reasons those who might imagine it...can't do it.
This might be a bit radical for me
but I can understand why.
"Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now..."
choosing Susan Rice throws it back into 50/50
sensible thing would be to pick someone who's a Senator or Governor or Congressperson who won't rile up the wingnuts. Rice "checks all the boxes" of the wrong type of pick. It also would show who's in charge: the faceless people behind the facade that's Joe. The clueless who think Pelosi is the right person for whatever she's supposed to be doing.
Just Curious ...
Wonder if anyone has posted odds on the female (and a woman of color) who in my view would be the best choice -- Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii.
It won't be Tulsi.
ignorant Q,
if i might: what color is she?
on edit: is gretch whitmer a person of color?
Gabbard is well liked
on the wingnut side because of her opposition to "endless war".
She would draw votes from both sides.
Of course she would not be a good little soldier for tptb.
IMHO
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
and yet she wasn't one of
the 12 democrats who'd voted Nay on this House appropriations bill:
go figure.
she says she voted against NDAA this year
am I getting this mixed up?
https://gabbard.house.gov/news/press-releases/rep-tulsi-gabbard-votes-ag...
thx
this was an approptiations
bill. but it's good that she voted against the NDAA.
If it's Whitmer
and they lose, she's done as governor. Even if they win she's lost all of my respect.
Anybody that sides with joe is a loser in my book.
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
@Pricknick I know next to nothing
Except that she is the Governor of a state Biden needs to win.
Rice and Kamala have no positives that I can think of. Other than checking off WOC box, of course. Positive for the Identity Politics enthusiasts. Not so thrilling for the rest of us.
NYCVG
Whitmer
was voted in on the get rid of currupt repugs movement.
She's been good on some issues but looks bad when she looks for power.
There's no way having her on the ticket changes my mind about biden.
There's actually nobody he could pick that would change my mind about voting third party.
Never biden.
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
@Pricknick i hear you.
My comment about Whitmer was about her bringing something to Biden more than the color of her skin.
As far as voting for Biden, I can't think of any VP pick that would get me on board. So I'm looking at it as a numbers problem that Biden will or won't solve.
NYCVG
If Joe wins, his VP will be the next president
I can't see Joe going beyond two years before he becomes a vegetable that can talk. Question is which of the choices will walk us into a nuclear war with Russia.
Not necessarily.
It’s Mayo Pete
The Twit is abuzz with a plane going from South Bend to Delaware tonight and people think it’s the bland Mayo Pete who is on it. Khive will blow a gasket if it ain’t Kambama Harris.
Rice would give us a hint at ByeDone's foreign policy. I don’t see what Harris brings to the table. Nor Bass, but she has been getting hammered on social media for things she did in the past.
Warren is busy making lots of money for Joe, but I doubt he’d pick her. It should be Tulsi or Nina .
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
Why???
Whitmer would at least cement flipping MI. Although Trump is polling poorly enough in MI that it's not likely that he'll carry for a second time anyway.
Of the three states that flipped in 2016 - MI, PA, WI - Trump is currently polling best in PA; still losing but by a smaller margin. Trump's number in FL and PA are similar, but curiously Biden's number in FL are better than his in PA. Is there anyone out there that can get Biden over the top in both those states?
Adjust your snark meter
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
Biden as the presumptive nominee
@snoopydawg Corporate Pete. McKinsey
Hideous choice on every level.
NYCVG
Who do either of those two excite?
Harris actually did start strong in the early phase of the primary process. Then voters had the opportunity to hear her speak and check out her record. Eek! She was out before IA.
Rice has zero campaign chops; hence, all her foot in the mouth statements.
If Joe's team wants to go with a woman, she better be someone that ordinary people can envision in the top job and not have a gender gap larger than Biden's, preferably smaller than Biden's. Whitmer could be that woman, but it wouldn't be based on any solid data.
Kamala is an empty pantsuit
Kamala is more
Correct about Rice. But none of that will hurt her with establishmentarian Biden as he has similar views, though perhaps overall slightly less hawkish or knee-jerk interventionist.
Ultimately, unless Biden pulls out a major surprise, the VP pick this cycle won't matter much. It's all about another 4 yrs of Mad King Donald, Donald's botching of the Covid response, Donald and the disastrous economy. Oh, and also, perhaps most importantly, whether there will be any USPS still capable by Nov to process more than a small % of the tens of millions of incoming mail-in ballots.
amen to the PO,
and i sure do individual states are deciding/have decided how to arrange mail in votes.
making my racist brain going overboard ...
Is Whitmer white? I think Biden is too coward to choose a white VP, because he is just too white for himself to not choose at least a someone who resembles a 'personof color' to make good for that.
Sorry, I am so racist, but helas, it happens even to the best of us /bitter monring sacrasn of an overheated, exhausted mind.
I want none of the above.
https://www.euronews.com/live
So, to be fair, I should post this, and read it before
I show my true ugly colors in public.
[video:https://youtu.be/Td0essDvm0k]
I decided she is beyond race and a very beautiful woman.
My favorite candidate would be raceless and genderless and would look like snoopy.
https://www.euronews.com/live
so...you're thinkin' she
gives biden some extra BLM chops then?
this from the Gaffe Man slayed me, though. Biden says Latinos are ‘incredibly diverse,’ UNLIKE BLACK VOTERS, 6 Aug, 2020 note to joe: when you've dug yourself into a hole...quit digging!
I have stopped thinking a long time ago
and frankly have given up. And either racial or gender issues can go to hell in my mind.
I am on strike when it concerns those two.
Cheers, keep on doing what you are doing, You are doing good. At least I can see that, even if I don't understand much.
https://www.euronews.com/live
okey-dokey.
Unclear what u mean by
re Rice, "campaign chops" won't be much of a consideration given the virus situation. Virtual campaign coming up -- except for Donald running around to a few cherished national monument sites to make himself feel he's actually among the Great Ones.
Debate chops would be a much stronger factor. Not much prepping needed for her, at least compared with a few other short listers.
Otherwise, this will be a highly scripted virtual campaign. She'll check the Woman and POC boxes, the Can Easily Be Seen As President box, and the Known Quantity Who Can Easily Partner With Joe box, so at least two box points ahead of most other contenders.
How about the case for Bernie Sanders?
Would unite the party and sweep Trump aside.
No Joe?
Then go fuck yourself Biden.
love it!
we'd also have to wonder if those flying to
delaware might not be srsly in the Veep sweepstakes, but being offered jobs in his transition team. had to look up Mayo Pete, but his early endorsement would earn him a job in a biden presidency i'd think. (loads of guesses out there which position/s, though.)
i'm guessing the Lotus Flower, but if i were to place a bet, i'd take Michelle Ma Belle. as a longshot, one buck would get ya $1200. ; )
he also loves and owes AOC bigtime, for her campaign rally star power, as well as his Green Newish Nuclear Deal. she'll want to serve in his administration (EPA according to business insider, someone had claimed treasury, as a jest i hope) especially as she's being groomed for a 2024 run for the Oval Office.
i'd seen on the msn page rolling thunder that the Big Banks have given him triple the bucks (close to a million) they've given MAGA man, even though his EO cutting the corporate tax rate by some whopping percentage (40%, i checked) served them...quite well. but yanno, they say DT just might be a bit too socially divisive. you remember jamie dimon dropping a knew for nine minutes to honor the assassination of george floyd. it's likely he didn't sport a kinte cloth stole like nancy and friends though.
by the by: Did the congressional Ds squawk at that move off his?
i'd gone back to the
july 29 miami herald and one portion i'd clipped before going to bookie.com for updates:
i hadn't thought much about 'the note', nor had i clicked into the USA today link, but it's kinda a wowser:
OTOH, we have no idea if it's actually biden who'll decide who his Veep will be but i guess dr. biden's advice will be key. say if she wants to keep his confusion at a low level, she might want to reconstitute part of the familiar faces from the obomba/biden team: rice, kerry, sam power, (i reckon not timothy geitner), lol.
Max on the Rice choice
Max Blumenthal: "Susan Rice Is A Servant Of Empire" (12 min)
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6y7oXHLTak]
Great comment below the clip...
If the 2020 Presidential debates were held on an Ocean liner and it sank, who would win? ....
The People!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
fun comment below the clip,
alright. only have time for 7 mins so far, but rice as red-baiting cubano karen bass?
makes sense, as does marco rubio right-wing venezuelans, but hell, nothing on rice mugabe?
on edit: finished, glad he had the viagra story.
i'd give pluto's republic three links about rice i'd seen recently on twitter; this is one, sorry i don't have time to unwind any of it (but at least i remembered when and where it was!):
on edit: i'll unwind some of it soonish.
Susan Rice: Being Attacked for All of the Wrong Reasons
, Sean Fenley / November 20th, 2012 dissident voice
i'll finish max later: Pwer-to, not porto rico, israyel, not isreeel, comrades. ; )
Which one --
finally brings us to the dead end of "better vote (D) because the (R) is worse"?
America chases the Almighty Buck while the edifice of whatever that buck could possibly buy crumbles before its eyes.
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
Bill Gates!
the most famous doctor on the planet, knows and uses vaccines (and eugenics) globally, knows how to block out the sun with geo-engineering, loves monsanto, controls the svalbard Doomsday seed vault...he's the prefect choice.
hmmmm...of course, Boss Tweet could dump pence and choose him, too. but i did see a thing in the bing cache saying the Great Orange should tap...Nikki Haley!
I can't understand why you'd want it?
The potential Biden administration will be a disaster. To be fair, they'd be walking into a really bad situation with the country being as it is. But I don't think repeating the Obama years technique of blaming the previous administrations while doing nothing to change things is going to work out well for long term political prospects.
As noted, Biden lasting four years seems a stretch. So if you're his VP, you're probably going to end up as the unelected president. That's never been a good situation, at least not that I can recall. You'd be taking over on a bad situation which won't have been repaired in any manner. And, at the end of your term, you'll be facing a Republican who, I can almost bet, will be a socially acceptable version of Trump.
I guess if you just want to say you sat in the power seat and want to position yourself for the post-presidency grift, it wouldn't be bad. But I don't think people like Harris and Warren have their sites set that low. I think they want the whole package. They're likely delusional enough to think this will get them there, but I don't agree.
FWIW, I think Biden himself wanted Buttiedge or Klobachar, in that order, but neither make the cut for various IDpol reasons. It seems like the Dems are trying to McCain him with the VP pick, but they are too factional to rally around one pick like the Repubs did with Palin. In the end, I couldn't care less who it is except I'm ready to stop hearing about it.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
i'd only put it up for
the fun of it, amigo, as i've voted Green for the past four presidential cycles. but on a lark, i did check into who won the Libertarian Party nomination (not the bloke who calls himself Vermin Supreme, as it runs out), but Jo Jorgenson. : )
by my lights, any The Presidency is one of those jobs applying for which should immediately disqualify a person. ; ) but given the likelihood of biden not being able to serve four years in any event, the vice-presidency won't likely 'just amount to a pail of warm spit'.
Indeed!
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
Dr. John -- you are exactly right
If Biden wins (a big if) as soon as Trump is gone there will exist no reason for Biden. Given that, and the impossible mess of the pandemic, the economy and unresolved social issues and endless wars they are stepping into a patch of quicksand surrounded by landmines. Within one year the American people will be fed up with a feeble Biden admin and will despise the entire Democrat cabal, Nancy, Chucky and the whole cast, and the people will vote in an all Republican Congress. In my opinion all of his candidates are people that you are going to love to hate. Think about it.
Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.
LBJ was initially unelected
That article you cite Wendy
is now a month old, and in things like the VP race, it's probably at least 2 weeks past its sell-by date.
The scuttlebutt in the past 10 days has been that it appears to be down to Kamala or Rice, Rice or Kamala. I haven't seen Gov Whitmer mentioned except to fill out a longer short list. Although, imo, Biden could make a number of worse picks, including Rice and Kamala.
It was a tactical mistake for Biden to publicly announce it would be a woman. He could have kept this angle private, and so made the public search look less awkward and artificially constrained. His second mistake was to allow the process to focus so substantially on a WOC. All along, non-black female possibles have been an afterthought in the public guessing game. As all this has gone unchallenged by the Biden camp, it makes it all the tougher to turn around suddenly and announce a non-black pick, say Gov Whitmer, Liz or Gov Grisham of NM. It would very likely upset a number of prominent black pols -- among them Rep Clyburn -- who would feel greatly disappointed, maybe a feeling too of being misled.
Iow, I think Biden has backed himself into now having to go WOC. I lean towards anticipating a Rice pick. Mostly bc fewer negatives than Kamala and some of the other black women.
can't make out which article
you mean, but at the top of the OP w/ hyperlinks:
hope that helps.
I was reacting
Anyway, I'd imagine Whitmer is no higher than #3 on his short list. If she is picked, Biden will have many many phone calls to make to soothe over a number of influential black pols.
my sincere apologies:
it was their Aug 11 update. kinda late but i'll try to change it. i'd hoped that was what would make it fun: los Vegas betting odds. and no, the punters don't always get it right. doesn't really matter where any of them are on 'his list'
A pick from the Obama Administration could open another attack
If the Durham investigation report is released and/or charges brought between now and November, or even between the election and inauguration:
Trump’s Hail Mary vs Biden? Hail Durham; Hail Barr! Or will Biden Hail Dunn-Bauer?
Ex-Colleagues See Durham Dropping Bombshells Before Labor Day
Anything that involves any White House personnel could splatter on not ony Joe Biden but also his V.P. pick, giving the Trump campaign a two-fer.
oh, my; thanks, amigo.
the RC politics one is 2 L 2 read 4 now 4 me, but oooof! let the chips fall where they may, mr. durham!
The republicans are looking into the origins
of Russia Gate right now and the information that has been released is damning for both the dems and Biden and his son. Then there will be the Durham investigation, but a few articles have said that Durham hasn't questioned the key players yet. If that is true then it's going to be as big a disappointment as Fitz-Mas and the Mueller report. Plus there is the 90 day before an election rule that the dems said Comey broke when he wrote his letter to congress telling them that the NYC FBI office found most of Hillary's emails on Weiner's laptop. Weiner was the husband of her BFF Huma Abedin. Ooop. Problem there was Comey and Strzok knew they had them for well over a month, but refused to look at them until the office said they would go public.
I am thinking it's 50/50 on whether the Durham investigation delivers on anything. The swamp protects its creatures.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
thanks for adding that.
i know that you know this issue inside out, and can rattle off all the players names and parts off the top of your head.
Oh my Gawd, the
dem convention is about to start. Be still, my beating heart. I have been waiting 4 years since I didn't watch it last time. I will absolutely go out of my way to not watch it again this time. Oh, what a list of speakers: imagine the soaring rhetoric! Oh, imagine the joy of the wall-to-wall political ads for hours and HOURS straight! I swear, this will be the absolute peak of my "Nope-didn't-watch-that" season.
Oh, the anticipation. Somebody wake me up when it's over, willya?
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
no, we won't wake you
when it's over! B there, or B square! srsly, will it be a Virtual Convention by Skype instead? yanno, social distancing and all? but balloooooons! there must be red white & blue balloooooooons falling from the ceilings!
only one i ever watched was the first time Barry O'bomba was on the national stage...and boy bowdy, did i tell mr. wd: that one's already runnn' for Prez!
just scored the schedule in
the Twitterverse:
I’ve got to be honest I kind of expected to speak.
— Andrew Yang (@AndrewYang) August 11, 2020
I'm with you,
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
Sorry Joe, but the best WOC has been taken, Angela Walker
Angela Walker is a labor organizer, Socialist, reservist and a bus and truck driver. She is Howie Hawkins running mate. She's a real person unlike the political hacks that you are looking at.
#neverTrumporBiden
Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.
amen to that!
Meet Angela Walker:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccy5JJOH4A8]
i can go OT, can't i? ; )
Given the level of racism . . .
held by many white swing voters, it's worth noting that Harris has by far the lightest complexion of the black contenders.
It'a Kamala.
Per CNN new break.
Bleh! My stomach must be psychic. It’s been
upset all day.
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
indeed it is;
i've updated the OP with video at the top and:
Joe Biden @JoeBiden
'I have the great honor to announce that I’ve picked @KamalaHarris
— a fearless fighter for the little guy, and one of the country’s finest public servants — as my running mate.'
2:17 PM · Aug 11, 2020
DoubleSpeak, DemSpeak, potayto, potahto
dunno who runs his
Twitter account, but yes: 'fights for the little convicts, and negotiates higher pay as private prison laborers'. remember in oregon, prisoners were 'paid' to roust homeless camps, toss all their worldly goods into dumpsters? #WhatABurn.
four more years.....
four more years.....
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
It's the 'free jailhouse labor' Copmala for VP
Read it and weep.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/kamala-harris-biden-vice-president/
ah, she's asian american
and black; thus, a more pale face. hella more telegenic than rice, for instance.
'Copmala'; good one.
and no, nate; i don't think it makes her the 2024 presumptive nominee. as i'd said, (and see the convention schedule): AOC will shine like Obomba did!
ooops; it was written by harry bacon, jr.
from the 'real' donald trump:
(don't we wish...)
He doesn't need to go that far,
while i take your
comment as correctly analytical, may i say i don't give a fig whether or not they flips them...or not.
i'm a socialist, anti-imperialist, and vote Green. (and i know you know that, this is just for the record.)
I've also been known
yes, as i'd said
your comment is simply a correct analysis. as to this:
and why is that? imo, because 'leftists' have been continually herded back into the D party,
'where all the best social movements...go to die'. oh: but 'our revolution', etc.
The Right had no trouble voting for Ross Perot.
Nobody.
Oh but if you call yourself a "Leftist" you must consistently vote for (D) Presidents so you can defend them throughout their terms while they give the store away to the Republican Party.
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
The Right in 1992
left and right
designations still baffle me, i admit. were perot voters 'the right'? i'd forgotten about him, but didn't he lose in the main after being labelled a racist for having used the term 'folks' or 'those folks', i.e.: charged with racist dog-whistle politics?
heh; did he run as a libertarian or an indie? sorry,, too lazy to look it up. "all ya gotta do is just lift the hood, and tinker around with the engine a bit", or close to that. yanno, folksy, conman man, and so on.
in his 'Biden picks former law-and-order prosecutor Kamala Harris to be his Democratic running mate' this a.m., patrick martin wrote something that seems right, but that i'd never considered. (it's a great historical exposé, as well) see what you all think:
this is the part i'd meant:
Kamala Harris, then California Attorney General, poses for a photo with U.S. border patrol agents at the U.S.-Mexico border fence in 2011 (Photo: Office of the Attorney General of California)
he also has a brief narrative of the DLC/DNCC (whatever) tanking bernie sanders in favor of biden...guess i hadn't followed that story very well.
Hellary, by the by, is thrilled with Joe's Lotus Flower choice! but hearing that caused me to remember that i actually lost a couple female friends for NOT voting for 'I'm with HER': the first female president.
Perot ran as
I have seen reports that he pulled as many votes from the right, and thus Poppy Bush, as from the left and Clinton, so his presence on the ballot was a wash. My take, briefly, is that to the extent he was more aggressive against incumbent Bush, he helped drive down enthusiasm and turnout among Rs and so helped Clinton a bit more.
As for Kamala and her pro-law enforcement past, overall in the national electorate, but not with many progressives, she is not going to be hurt by perceptions she was too soft on LE misconduct -- politically, she erred on the right side -- and most AAs will forgive her. In fact, little of her prior record will be greatly debated or matter much in the final vote in Nov. Few will care to go into the weeds of what the VP pick did 10 yrs ago. Most voters will be interested to hear what she says about how Biden/Harris would handle the virus emergency and how they would get the economy running again. After that, they would be interested in her suggestions about police reform and the like.
thank you for that history,
and your opinions on biden-kamala's place in the voters' minds )or what's left of them).
"SF Liberal"
No, Donald will go all Radical Leftie on Harris, with plenty of Socialist! thrown in. Maybe some Communist! for good measure. Donald and the GOP party hacks will have Harris as leading the BLM Rioters in the streets of "our beautiful cities".
Yeah right.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
might you mean:
"Not the Onion"? now as far as 'radical leftists', i can't think of any, can you?
and from 'i'll be a door-knocker for biden' rice:
she doesn't seem to be on the convention schedule.
Harris Adds Zero Electoral College Votes
As many have noted, Senator Harris adds nothing to this ticket in terms of swing state votes.
One possible explanation is that the Democrats are not worried about votes. As I have argued before, rather than a being a bunch of idiots, they are a gang of criminals. Democratic Party Now -- Stupid or Crooked?
In 2016, just about everybody on the internet noticed how Hillary Clinton neglected to campaign in several states that wound up going to Trump by tiny margins of the reported vote. Back then, before election day, I figured that she was campaigning so badly because she "knew" the election was in the bag, exactly as the primary against Sanders was in the bag.
That interpretation I believe is a better explanation of Russiagate than simple panic at losing a close, but legitimate, election. Like Robert Shaw in The Sting, Hillary and her crew could not very well claim that Trump just cheated better than they did. So they hoked up a tale drawn from the latest fairy tale concocted by The Intelligence Community -- pointing the nuclear button pushing finger at PUTIN!
Impossible to prove and, better, blowing up the planet if it were somehow proven to be true -- that preposterous tale lives on today even as it remains a proven loser with the public.
The only way to make sense out of the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden is that their party has no intention of winning the most votes. That is decided in a Mad Magazine Spy vs. Spy type of battle that the general public is not allowed to know about. Hacker vs. hacker or perhaps a simpler kind of "vote" among the Biggest Dawgs, the decision will not be made by the citizens who cast ballots.
Today's selection of Harris is another exhibit in my Call Me Paranoid, I Don't Give a Shit case against the fraudulence of American politics.
Conspiracy Theory? I don't give a shit. If the counting of the votes mattered to anybody in power, it would not be so laughably easy to hack the voting process.
I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.
Trump's nomination gave HRC and her team
Trump never gave up on NH (and remained ticked off that he lost it) and only gave up on CO and NV relatively late in the campaign. He fought for PA and WI -- which should have been long-shots for him, but he only needed one of the two to win.
OH has long been a tough
If HRC had been smarter -- and she was never in hubby Bill's league as a political natural -- she wouldn't have picked the lame, do-no-good Tim Kaine for her VP. He added nothing in the states she needed in the D firewall. The lack of enthusiasm in the cities in those states, the suboptimal minority voter turnout, was due in important part to her taking the AA vote for granted with her white bread VP pick. She needed an excitement factor added to the ticket in 2016 more even than the aging Biden needs one now.
Obama carried OH twice.
The number one criteria for HRC's VP was her comfort level and that he would defer to her star power and not challenge that. IOW act like Biden did in '08. Who HRC really wanted on her ticket was Bayh, but he was out of office and running to reclaim an IN Senate seat. Unlike Obama in '08, HRC had no weaknesses or shortcomings; so, her VP only had one major task, not lose the VP debate.
"No weaknesses or shortcomings" - except
that a large percentage of the electorate hated her guts; that she had no Electoral College strategy; that the more the voting public saw and heard of her, the less they liked her; and that she very publicly collapsed at the 2016 9/11 ceremony, raising questions about her overall health and fitness which have never been laid to rest.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
Absolutely re HRC.
By contrast, Obama was very likable out of the gate, had no years of negative publicity leading into 2008 to overcome, and his main negative in that campaign, Rev Wright, was a tempest in a teapot for 2 weeks, and overall he handled it fairly well. A non-issue in Nov. And he benefitted from a suddenly teetering economy in the weeks leading up to Nov. And an opponent who looked weak and rudderless on the economic issue, and who had put the embarrassing Sarah Palin on his ticket out of pure desperation.
In 2012, with general satisfaction, no wars, economy growing again, re-elect was rather easy. No wonder he carried even OH both times.
Most qualified evah -- remember?
No potential VP for HRC could minimize her personal shortcomings. At least not if that person was comfortable playing third fiddle to HRC first and Bill second. And she and her team had no idea that her shortcomings could hobble her so much in MI, PA and WI that have been 'blue' for a very long time. Even Gore and Kerry won all three.
Strategically, Pence was a smart move; a dozen years in the House, four years as governor, and rock solid with the fundies. AndAnd:
I'm not defending the Kaine pick, merely explaining what led to it. It added nothing but did no damage either.
I've explained in other
Not really a question of picking someone to overcome HRC's own shortcomings. Just boosting enthusiasm and turnout sufficiently, not massively, to keep the Blue Wall intact.
Kaine was a lousy pick and thereby Hillary squandered the opportunity to put the election away. We can all speculate why she chose him. My take is she feels more comfortable with the moderate type, but more importantly felt a bit overconfident about the election and so didn't feel a need to cater to the Bernie wing or worry about AA turnout.
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