2020: The Two Year Long Election

[SilverBeach]

Michael Bennett for President!

[milkteeth]

10 hours ago, Destiny said:

I saw something this morning from ... CNN? Político? One of those that Bernie is going to announce any day. I liked Bernie in 2016, and i voted for him in the primary, but, i really don’t want him to run again. I am in no way interested in another divisive round of Bernie bros bs in 2020. 

Personally I'm a Bernie supporter and I'm glad that he is running in the primary. I think he's far from perfect, but I think he is still the most progressive choice for 2020 and our best bet to beat Trump - but again that's my opinion. The 2016 primaries were incredibly bitter and traumatic for everyone, and I'm hoping with a wider field of candidates it will be different this time around. The vast majority of Bernie supporters supported Hillary in the general, and I think the worst of the so called 'Bernie Bros' are attaching themselves to Tulsi this time around anyway. 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[fraurosena]

16 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

 

Is he that popular though? Or will he just garner a handful of votes? Plus, this would only be a problem if it's going to be a tight race between repugs and dems. I don't think that will be the case. There is so much anti-presidunce sentiment that the Repugs will get a clouting no matter who else is running. Anyone but their candidate will be how most people are going to vote.

If Schultz does gather a loyal following, it could very well be that this time the race will be between the Democratic and the Independent candidates. Which in and of itself wouldn't be such a bad thing. 

The only thing that bothers me about Schultz running is that he has no political experience. Choosing a presidential candidate without that experience didn't work out so well last time, and I don't think it ever will. 

[mamallama]

Sadly the Democrats are correct.  Trump still has a 40% approval rating and that doesn't mean the other 10% won't vote for him.  Whenever there has been a third candidate the party most closely alligned with their views loses.  Even Jill Stein took away enough votes that Hillary lost.  The best thing would be if a Republican ran as a third party candidate.

[milkteeth]

3 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Is he that popular though? Or will he just garner a handful of votes? Plus, this would only be a problem if it's going to be a tight race between repugs and dems. I don't think that will be the case. There is so much anti-presidunce sentiment that the Repugs will get a clouting no matter who else is running. Anyone but their candidate will be how most people are going to vote.

If Schultz does gather a loyal following, it could very well be that this time the race will be between the Democratic and the Independent candidates. Which in and of itself wouldn't be such a bad thing. 

 The only thing that bothers me about Schultz running is that he has no political experience. Choosing a presidential candidate without that experience didn't work out so well last time, and I don't think it ever will. 

 

I really don't think there is too much to worry about with Schultz as an Independent candidate, I  mean who would be his constituency? Grotesquely wealthy people who don't like Trump? What billionaires like Schultz and Bloomberg don't get with these threats for vanity campaigns is that Trump didn't get this far in politics because he is a billionaire. It's because he was on a reality tv show (and of course because we have a deeply broken political system in this country).

 

 

Edited January 26, 2019 by milkteeth

[mamallama]

Bloomberg has two terms as Mayor of New York.  

[fraurosena]

Unanimously. More proof of the GOP thralldom to Russia. Must keep the asset in place, even if it politically kills us. 

 

[AmazonGrace]

Kamala Harris rally on Sunday seems to have been great 

 

[milkteeth]

Twitter weighs in on a Howard Schultz presidential run:

 

 

 

[AmazonGrace]

 Campaigning on issues and policies is so oldfashioned

[AmazonGrace]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

From Joe Scarborough: "Kamala Harris has what it takes"

Spoiler

Kamala Harris has what it takes to fill a big political stage. During Sunday’s announcement of her 2020 presidential run, the California senator looked very much like a political contender who belongs in the big leagues.

It’s always a great unknown leading up to such events whether a particular politician has the charisma to carry off the successful launch of a presidential campaign. Whether that certain someone has what it takes to step up to a microphone, heart pounding, and seize the moment. All this while tens of thousands of supporters hang on every word and a ravenous political world lurches forward, ready to pass savage judgment: Is this a pathetic political pretender or the Next Great Hope? To policy wizards, pundits and most candidates themselves, the answer is unknown until the first words of that first speech begin ringing out of the forum’s public address system.

Harris’s introductory remarks were predictable enough for a progressive Democratic candidate seeking the party’s nomination in what may prove to be the most crowded political field in U.S. history. The content of her Oakland speech did little to differentiate her worldview from those of the dozens of other progressive politicians eyeing a nomination that will move its winner within close reach of the White House.

Still, while Harris’s speech may have been boilerplate, her presence was inspiring. Like Barack Obama’s contagious laugh and Ronald Reagan’s winning smile, Harris’s electrifying announcement was powered by under-the-radar years of experience and shrewd political calculation. It could all be enough to move the former California attorney general to the cusp of a history-bending breakthrough.

To be sure, Harris’s oratory was short on specifics. Her “policy” proposals were predictably progressive and vague. Every worker should be able to join a union. Every working-class American has a right to health care and a raise. College students should be able to graduate debt-free. The wealthy should absorb tax increases so middle-class Americans can receive the largest tax cut in a generation.

Even in a party conditioned by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to accept liberal rhetoric without policy specifics, Harris will surely have to flesh out her agenda to prove to Democrats across the political spectrum that she has what it takes to defeat President Trump in 2020. That trait — above all other considerations — will determine who wins the most valuable Democratic nomination since 2008.

Harris has much more to prove, but so does everyone else thinking about entering this contest. Can she raise hundreds of millions of dollars? Can she debate effectively? Can she survive the enormous scrutiny of her record, scrutiny that will surely intensify if her success continues?

It is one thing to propel a presidential campaign off a launch pad and quite another to successfully send it into safe political orbit. But a few days into her campaign, even Harris’s critics should take note that the junior senator managed something in her first campaign speech that the last Democratic nominee failed to do throughout the whole of the 2016 campaign. She gave Americans a compelling explanation as to why she wanted to be president.

Her message — “we are better than this” — was delivered with the fierce urgency of now. In that, it was much like the earlier campaign launch by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), who framed her own White House bid as the continuation of her quest to protect consumers, to hold corporate leaders accountable and to promote a fiery brand of progressivism shaped by the prairie populism of Oklahoma and the liberal ethos of Harvard intellectualism.

Like Warren, Harris will be underestimated by Team Trump at its own peril. We are, of course, in the opening steps of a grueling, nonstop, two-year battle. Perhaps Harris will prove far more adept at beginning a presidential campaign than actually running one. And Warren may prove her critics correct by proving she lacks the personal touch to navigate the ugly give-and-take of modern presidential politics.

But I doubt it.

There are other interesting candidates in the race. But with Harris’s and Warren’s entrance into the pitched battle to crush Trumpism and its toxic legacy, Democratic primary voters may at last have reason to believe that their eventual nominee can take on Trump, win back the White House for Democrats, and bring a sense of stability and sanity back to Washington for all Americans.

More tests and more candidates are coming soon enough. But a party that produced a weakened nominee in 2016 has begun the 2020 cycle on a path that looks certain to produce a tougher political challenger than Trump has ever faced before.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Kamala Harris conducted a town hall in Iowa. It was on CNN last night. I thought it was quite interesting.

 

[AmazonGrace]

Oh man I gotta run for president to lower my taxes.

 

[TuringMachine]

On 1/28/2019 at 9:44 AM, AmazonGrace said:

 

I was there! This photo doesn't even do the crowd justice. There were tons of people to the left beyond the barriers and between the buildings.

I dunno who I'm voting for yet. I'm trying to vote on principle not who could win, but I can't deal with 4 more years of this administration. 

Also: ditch mitch! The poopistan situation has made me have low faith in Kentucky, but if y'all could vote him out I would take back anything bad I said about your state.

[AmazonGrace]

https://theweek.com/speedreads/820694/howard-schultz-no-idea-how-much-box-cheerios-costs

Quote

Brzezinski asked Schultz to name his favorite GOP and Democratic presidents of the past 50 years. Schultz said Ronald Reagan because he "never took his jacket off in Oval Office" out of his "respect for the office," and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The first claim is not true, and FDR died 74 years ago.

 

[onekidanddone]

57 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

https://theweek.com/speedreads/820694/howard-schultz-no-idea-how-much-box-cheerios-costs

 

I was sure he would pick Martin Sheen

[fraurosena]

As this pertains to elections, I decided to put this here:

McTurtle knows full well that without voter suppression there would be a snowball's chance in hell of Republicans being voted in office. Because If elections were democratic in a self-proclaimed democracy, the minority simply wouldn't be able to rule like it does now. 

[Audrey2]

4 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

https://theweek.com/speedreads/820694/howard-schultz-no-idea-how-much-box-cheerios-costs

 

In his defense, and I know he needs a good one, if you asked me to name my favorite Republican president in the last 50 years I don't think I could do that. My favorite is still Theodore Roosevelt.

[onekidanddone]

1 hour ago, Audrey2 said:

In his defense, and I know he needs a good one, if you asked me to name my favorite Republican president in the last 50 years I don't think I could do that. My favorite is still Theodore Roosevelt.

I'd say Lincoln as well, but as well all know his Republican party in in no way shape or form the Republicans we have today. 

[GreyhoundFan]

2 hours ago, Audrey2 said:

In his defense, and I know he needs a good one, if you asked me to name my favorite Republican president in the last 50 years I don't think I could do that. My favorite is still Theodore Roosevelt.

Sadly, I couldn't pick a favorite. I'd have to pick the one I despised least. And that would be difficult.  Let's see, in the last 50 years, we've had Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush Sr, Bush Jr. and ofPutin. Of those, I'd probably pick Ford, though I was a child when he was in office and don't think he did a good job. At least he seemed like a decent human being.

 

I love Alexandra Petri's take on the possible candidacy of Mr. Starbucks:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[Penny]

On 1/26/2019 at 12:04 AM, BernRul said:

Beto 2020. He's able to unite most factions of the Democrats and has the same emapthetic progressivism as the Kennedys and Obama (and even Roosevelt and Lincoln). That's the kind of liberalism that wins over the masses. That's what makes a president great. 

Plus he's young and handsome. Americans like that. Kennedy Nixon debate anyone? Put him next to Trump and he'll kill it.

I'm all in favor of having more diversity, and I want a woman president, but the most important thing in 2020 is a candidate who can end Trump. That's an issue of life or death for some of us. IMO Beto stands the best chance. 

I would love him to run. He is so down to earth. When you hear him speak, you truly feels that he is on your side. I saw him speak this summer and would back him 100%.