#1984 Democratic Presidential nomination

[deadpresidents]

Is there anyone who could have given Reagan a bigger challenge than Walter Mondale did in 1984?

If John Glenn had just hired the right people and put together a better campaign strategy (and maybe had a bit more political charisma), he could have absolutely been able to give Ronald Reagan a run for his money in 1984.

Reagan's whole political identity was that he was the most All-Americany All-American that ever stepped foot on the political scene and that he was going to fight Communism and make America that shining city on a hill. Imagine if he had to run against John Fucking Glenn -- a fighter pilot in World War II and Korea who literally fought Communists in real combat. Oh, and then he was one of the Mercury Seven and just so happened to be the first American astronaut to ever orbit the Earth. John Glenn wasn't just an astronaut -- he was the image that people had in their heads when they thought about what an astronaut was. He's still the definition of astronaut to most Americans. He was also buddies with JFK and RFK and when he retired from NASA -- again, he was a fucking ASTRONAUT, in case I didn't make that clear -- instead of moving to Florida and going golfing, he became a U.S. Senator. Not only should John Glenn have been able to out-All-American Ronald Reagan, but he should have been able to make Reagan seem like Leonid Brezhnev. I mean, just picture Reagan trying to get cute in a debate and making some sort of joke and then Glenn saying, "I'm sorry, I don't think I heard you correctly. My ears are still adjusting from when I was a fighter pilot who shot down three actual MiG-15s and then became a FUCKING ASTRONAUT WHO ORBITED THE EARTH."

But when Glenn did seek the Democratic nomination in 1984, he ran a really crappy campaign and somehow lost to Walter Mondale (who went on to lose 49 out of 50 states to Reagan in the general election). Glenn's campaign is one of the all-time missed opportunities. He was running for President just a few months after The Right Stuff came out and reminded Americans that Glenn was not only an astronaut but THE astronaut! His campaign should have held screenings of that movie in every early primary state and just had Glenn serving apple pie and Coca-Cola outside every theater while wearing his space suit and sitting in a fighter jet and reminding folks that Reagan's "combat" duties during World War II was making training films in Burbank.

I don't know who ran John Glenn's disastrous 1984 Presidential campaign, but it was political malpractice. Just answering this question makes me mad because it's so obvious that he was the PERFECT candidate to run against Ronald Reagan. HE WAS JOHN GLENN. He was such a legendary astronaut that, years later, when NASA wanted to send an old guy to space to study the effects of space flight on aging people, they sent him! He was almost 80 years old and passed the same physicals as young astronauts! How the hell did Glenn lose the Democratic nomination to Mondale? John Glenn lost to a guy named "Fritz"! I can't believe that John Glenn couldn't even beat the guy who got beat in 49 out of 50 states in 1984.

I can't believe how frustrated I am from answering this question and slowly realizing the sheer political malpractice of John Glenn's failed 1984 Presidential campaign.

[mariacallous]

At its convention in Milwaukee, the Republican Party officially nominated Donald Trump as their presidential candidate. Democrats call Trump an existential threat to American democracy. If he returns to the White House, the former president would likely be able to have the criminal cases against himself dropped and significantly expand executive power. Developed by the Heritage Foundation and members of Trump's team, the Project 2025 program envisions mass deportation of illegal immigrants, a further assault on reproductive rights, a rollback of financial aid and health insurance programs for vulnerable populations, and the implementation of measures to place the Department of Justice under presidential control, which would allow Trump and his allies to bring cases against political opponents. The potential assault on human rights in the U.S. can be countered by Congress, local governments, and courts. However, matters are complicated by the Supreme Court — the ultimate arbiter in the American legal system — which may well end up siding with Trump on several contentious issues.

[justforbooks]

Ethel Kennedy

Widow of Bobby Kennedy who brought up 11 children after his 1968 assassination and later devoted herself to social causes

Ethel Kennedy, who has died aged 96, was one of the most active and best-known US political wives of the 20th century. As her husband, Robert F Kennedy, campaigned first for the Senate and then for the presidency, she supported him while also bringing up their children. The 11th and last of them, her daughter Rory, was born after Bobby was assassinated in 1968. From the 1970s onwards, Ethel devoted herself to social causes and was latterly co-chair of the Coalition of Gun Control.

Her life had been touched by tragedy earlier, when her parents died in a plane crash in 1955. Her brother-in-law, President John F Kennedy, was assassinated in 1963. Two of her children died prematurely – David of a drug overdose at the age of 28 in 1984 and Michael in a skiing accident in 1997, when he was 39. Her husband was shot at the Ambassador hotel in Los Angeles following his victory in the California primary for the US presidential race.

Sustained by a strong Catholic faith, she remained, in the view of writer Hays Gorey, “an incorrigibly cheerful widow”, never permitting gloom to descend on the frenetic lifestyle that had always been found at Hickory Hill, the family home in McLean, Virginia. The place was strewn with footballs and tennis rackets, and no one was allowed to sit around and mope.

Ethel used sport to promote her husband’s legacy and raise money for the wide variety of charities that fell under the umbrella of the Robert Kennedy Foundation, which also administered what is now Robert F Kennedy Human Rights. This led to the creation of a memorial tennis tournament at Forest Hills, New York, a pro-celebrity event that for several years in the 1970s was played on the eve of the US Open.

Born in Chicago, Ethel was the sixth of seven children of Ann (nee Brannack), a devout Catholic, and George Skakel, who went from an $8 a week job as a railway clerk to selling coal and founding a company called Great Lakes Coal & Coke. When Ethel was five the family moved east, eventually settling in Connecticut, where she attended Greenwich academy. She became friends with Jean Kennedy, Bobby’s sister, while they were both studying at Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart in New York City. Meanwhile, Bobby – whom Ethel first met on a skiing trip in Quebec in 1945 – was dating Ethel’s sister, Patricia. When they broke up, Ethel began the partnership that would define her life.

Ethel campaigned for John F Kennedy when he ran for Congress in Massachusetts in 1946. She married his younger brother in 1950, and the following year their first child, Kathleen, was born.

“They had a wonderful relationship, full of banter and repartee,” recalled Donald Dell, a US Davis Cup captain in the 60s, who played tennis with the couple and became a family friend. “Ethel used to needle Bobby all the time and he gave as good as he got. But he was always very protective of her and she was fiercely loyal to him.”

When JFK ran for the Senate in 1952, Bobby managed the campaign. Throughout the rest of the 50s, Ethel supported Bobby as he climbed the political ladder, and when JFK went to the White House in 1960, Bobby was appointed attorney general.

The assassination of JFK in 1963 changed Bobby and Ethel’s lives abruptly. Bobby continued the Kennedy story by successfully running for the Senate in 1964 and then decided to join the 1968 presidential race himself.

Early in the campaign, that March, came the stunning news that President Lyndon B Johnson had decided not to run for a second term. It immediately made Bobby Kennedy a hot favourite to win the Democratic nomination and, in many people’s minds, the presidency. But that dream died after shots were fired in the kitchen of the Los Angeles hotel in June.

Dealing steadfastly with her bereavement, Ethel drew on a wide and diverse array of “pals”, as she used to call them, to boost her charitable work. Sidney Poitier, Sammy Davis Jnr and Charlton Heston were among the celebrities who were always available when she called. A friend remembers her phoning Heston, whom she always referred to as Chuckles, in an attempt to get him to persuade Roy Emerson, the Wimbledon champion, to play in her tournament. “In return I’ll take a part in one of your movies,” she joked. “But I don’t want a maid’s part – I want some love interest!”

There was some speculation about possible “love interest” between Ethel and the singer Andy Williams during the years following her husband’s death. This gossip continued until, citing her Catholic views, she announced a decision never to re-marry.

In a later age, a new generation was swept up in the Kennedy lifestyle. Taylor Swift, the country music star, was 23 when she spent some time with the then 84-year-old widow at the family compound at Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, in 2012. Swift declined to go swimming because a couple of her friends had not brought their swimsuits. “Being that thoughtful, you’ll run the risk of being boring,” said Ethel. “Go on, get in the water!”

“So I jumped in,” said Swift. “I took it as a metaphor for life. You have to jump in; you have to take your chances. Ethel taught me that.”

In May 2014, the Benning Road Bridge, which links Washington DC to Anacostia in Maryland, was renamed the Ethel Kennedy Bridge in recognition of the decades of work she had put in to improve the lives of young people living alongside the Anacostia River, reportedly one of the most polluted in America. To kick start the project in 1992, Ethel had waded in to pluck old tyres and debris from the water.

The family member most in the news recently has been her son Robert Jr, who abandoned presidential runs first as a Democrat, and then as an independent. Ethel is survived by him, four other sons, Joseph, Christopher, Max and Douglas, and four daughters, Kathleen, Courtney, Kerry and Rory.

🔔 Ethel Skakel Kennedy, socialite and campaigner, born 11 April 1928; died 10 October 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[heywoodsays]

Overturning Roe Is McConnell’s Legacy as Much as It Is Trump’s

With yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling, overturning Roe v. Wade and 50 years of legal precedent has left a majority of Americans feeling troubled, upset, and angry. Many are rightfully channeling their anger toward SCOTUS, whose slate of decisions this session represents an alarmingly extremist, backward-looking, and divisive slant. Many are channeling their anger at the former President, who appointed three of the five judges in the majority decision in Dobbs v. Jackson.

But let’s not forget the man who perhaps bears the lion’s share of credit for this – to use Justice Alito’s own term – egregious turn in American judicial history.

Mitch McConnell’s ruthless leadership of Senate Republicans since 2007 is the key element of the series of events that allowed Friday’s decision to transpire. His time as senate leader has been characterized by overreaching abuse of the filibuster and a propensity for changing procedural rules to achieve his objectives.

McConnell is the longest serving Senate Republican leader by far, surpassing Bob Dole by almost 4 years. Although he started out as a pro-choice moderate in the 60s, McConnell shifted strategies after a close election call in 1984 and embraced a more far-right agenda. In this respect, he perhaps embodies the dramatic shift in the Republican party over the last several decades.

McConnell stated in a 2010 interview with the National Journal, “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” In that moment, he admitted, publicly, what we all already knew. Republicans have no interest in working with Democrats to enact policies that help the American people. They make no attempt to find middle ground and work together. They seek only to obstruct, so voters become frustrated with the inaction and inefficacy of Dems, and vote them out.

Two-thirds of Americans did not want Roe v. Wade overturned. Yet the former Senate majority leader, overseeing a GOP that represented a minority of Americans, has been able to dictate policy and assert an extremist agenda on an unwilling nation. Let’s look at how he accomplished this.

Step 1: Obstruct Obama Appointees

Americans saw firsthand, in constant media coverage, McConnell’s often successful attempts to block President Barack Obama’s legislative agenda. The 44th President boldly proclaimed the importance of seeking middle ground on a host of issues, including abortion, in his 2008 nomination speech. This sentiment was widely supported by Americans at the time, but data also showed the issue becoming more and more polarizing. McConnell capitalized on this division, painting the centrist Obama as an extremist socialist.

It worked. The right always viewed Obama as a radical leftist. And then there were Dems who wanted him to be a champion of the left, a task at which he often failed. Repeated attempts to find middle ground were met with rejection. Obama could achieve little in partnership with the other side, especially after Republicans regained control of the Senate in January 2015.

But what Americans didn’t see on their front pages or the nightly news were McConnell’s successful efforts to block Obama’s appointments of federal judges. McConnell held votes on just two Obama appointees during the then-president’s last two years in office.

Trump was able to fill all 54 vacancies, with mostly white men.

Step 2: Merrick Garland

There was one judicial blockade that the public got to see unfold. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died on February 13, 2016, 270 days before election day. Just 10 days later, McConnell announced that there would be no hearing, and no vote on any appointee Obama may have.

This was shocking and had never been done before, but McConnell held firm, invoking the so-called “Biden Rule.” This rule supposedly suggested that the senate should not confirm a presidential nominee to the Supreme Court in an election year, and should instead wait to “give [voters] a voice.”

To be clear, no such rule exists. McConnell was referencing a comment made by Joe Biden in June 1992, an election year in which there was no Supreme Court vacancy. His comments were made in light of the recent contentious Clarence Thomas hearings in 1991. It’s worth noting that Biden only advocated postponing any hearing until after Election Day and never proposed not considering a nominee at all.

It ended up being a non-issue. There was never an opening, or an appointee, and the Senate never voted on any such rule. Nonetheless, McConnell was able to use the decades-old words of Obama’s own vice president against him. Thomas’ nomination process, the longest for any confirmed justice in modern history, took 99 days from nomination to confirmation. Joe Biden made his senate remarks 132 days before Election Day 1992. Merrick Garland was nominated on March 16, 2016, 238 days before the 2016 election.

Step 3: Neil Gorsuch

McConnell’s gamble paid off. In a result that most could not predict, Donald J. Trump was elected the 45th president of the United States. Merrick Garland would never get his day before the Senate, and Trump would get to appoint a justice for the open Supreme Court position.

Democrats (rightfully) cried foul. McConnell abused his power to subvert the will of the American people who had elected Barack Obama and given him the right to appoint Supreme Court justices for the duration of his term. Garland wasn’t even the biggest threat to McConnell’s agenda. Garland was a moderate. A theoretical President Hillary Clinton could have selected a much more progressive option.

Just 11 days after taking office, President Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch, a staunch pro-life conservative, to the Supreme Court. Gorsuch’s nomination process was not without controversy. Though in the majority, McConnell lacked the 60 votes needed to approve a Supreme Court justice.

So, he changed the rules. Invoking the “nuclear” option, McConnell lowered the threshold for approving an appointee from 60 votes to 50. After 20 hours of public testimony, Gorsuch was approved to SCOTUS with 54 votes. Three Democratic senators joined the majority – Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, and Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

Step 4: Brett Kavanaugh

At the end of the SCOTUS session in June 2018, Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement. Kennedy had been the swing vote on the court for years. He penned the majority opinion in the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges case that essentially made gay marriage the law of the land.

This was a gift to Trump and McConnell. Obama needed to pick a moderate like Garland to have any hope of a Republican-controlled Senate approving his nominee, should they even bother to consider him. Trump faced no such hurdle, and could appoint a stalwart conservative to fill the spot of the moderate Kennedy.

Trump nominated DC Appellate Court judge Brett Kavanaugh on July 9, 2018. Despite a history of advocating for pro-life causes, and passing Trump’s litmus test for only appointing pro-life judges, Kavanaugh insisted to senators like Maine’s Susan Collins that he was not going to overturn Roe. Kavanaugh proclaimed at his confirmation hearings, “Roe v. Wade is an important precedent of the Supreme Court. It has been reaffirmed many times.”

Kavanaugh’s abortion stance took backseat to the larger controversy – whether he had committed sexual assault against Christine Blasey Ford back in 1982. In the end, Kavanaugh was confirmed 50-48. Collins voted in favor.

Step 5: Amy Coney Barrett

Liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsberg passed away on September 18, 2020, just 47 days before the 2020 election. More than a year earlier, McConnell had been very glib in his insistence that he would proceed with confirming any Trump appointee in 2020, even though it broke the rule he had invented in the previous election cycle. And he did.

With their hypocrisy on full display, Trump announced that he would nominate Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court on September 26, 2020. With a mere 39 days before the election, Trump and McConnell though it appropriate to proceed with confirmation hearings. The previous five confirmation hearings took an average of 77.6 days. Recall from earlier that Merrick Garland was denied a hearing with 238 days before the election. There was no possible justification for proceeding with the nomination, but Trump and McConnell did anyway.

Naturally, Democrats bemoaned the Republicans’ haste. Coney Barrett was confirmed within 30 days of the announcement, the quickest since Chief Justice Roberts’ confirmation in 2005. When Democratic senators questioned both the rush attempt and her lack of experience, Coney Barrett responded that she had turned over 1,800 pages of documents addressing her 30-year record. By contrast, her immediate predecessors presented much more – Kagan, 170,000 pages; Gorsuch, 180,000; Kavanaugh, more than a million.

Not a single senate Democrat voted for Coney Barrett’s confirmation. She’s the first Supreme Court justice since 1869 not to receive a single vote from the minority party.

A Lasting Legacy

The conservative supermajority on the current Supreme Court has been assembled through flagrant disregard for tradition, bipartisanship, and even the Constitution. Each of the three was put in place under dubious circumstances that required rejection of precedent and abandonment of reason. For as much credit as Trump gets for flooding the court with his judges, none of it would have been possible without McConnell’s shameless distortion of procedural norms. Like a petulant child who’s about to lose a game, he changed the rules to secure his desired outcome.

This is not to say that a Democrat in the same position wouldn’t do the same thing. But we haven’t seen that, so speculation is irrelevant. All we know is that McConnell did.

The January 6 hearings are showing us how close we came to having our democracy overthrown by a seditious megalomaniac. Millions of Americans believe an otherwise preposterous fabrication, that our election was stolen. It is a lie concocted by the old guard, terrified of losing the semblance of power they once held. Their backwards, racist, anti-feminist ideology seeks to return us to a time when people of color and women knew their place. Their big lie embodies their bigotry, seeking to subvert the will of a diverse electorate. In their minds, the will of people of color, women, LGBTQ+ people, immigrants, and non-Christians is illegitimate. Theirs is the only true morality and the only valid vision.

Overturning Roe v. Wade is not the endgame. It is one landmark on a path of destruction of the principles of liberty and freedom, and restoration of the systems that oppress “the other.” As Justice Thomas openly admits, Friday’s decision paves the way for turning back the clock on contraception and gay marriage. (Interestingly, Thomas has been silent on Loving v. Virginia, which also uses the right to privacy to secure a right to interracial marriage.)

But even those are small pickings compared to the big picture. Filling the courts with judges to do their bidding was only the first phase of McConnell’s devious agenda. We are seeing the second phase unfold before our eyes, as Republic legislators across the country work to upend election laws, further marginalizing voters unlikely to agree with their policies. When the majority don’t agree with you, your best course of action is to silence the majority – to take away their voice.

The proposed changes to voting laws will undoubtedly favor Republic outcomes. This not only seeks to ensure the continued influence of a party that represents an increasingly minority viewpoint, but also floats the possibility of a re-emergent Trump or any of his successors that will move America closer to fascism.

These restrictive voter laws will inevitably find themselves before the courts. The next Presidential election might end up before the courts as well. McConnell has done everything to ensure he has the edge when that happens.

Image: Senator Mitch McConnell at Conservative Political Action Conference in 2011. Photo by Gage Skidmore. Used under CC BY-SA 2.0 / Cropped from original.

[blastnews]

Helping Harris on her way to the White House is a proven duo

'I'm betting on the American people and the voters,' Minyon Moore has said in the past. One of Kamala Harris's top advisers has one last week to get Americans to vote for the first female president in the country's history.

A woman is running for President of the United States after eight years. Kamala Harris was nominated by the Democratic Party after the resignation of Joe Biden, for whom she served as vice-president.

Her campaign, which in recent months has caused many a Republican to wrinkle his forehead, is being run by two women: Minyon Moore and Sheila Nix.

Who are the key advisers working to ensure that Harris defeats Republican nominee Donald Trump on 5th November?

Decades ago, the Democratic Party made it a point to make its leadership more reflective of its voter base, i.e., to bring women and minorities into the club of older white heterosexual men.

Minyon Moore, now a 66-year-old Chicago native, took up the program. She has worked for the Democrats for forty years. She never ran for office herself, gave speeches or basked in the limelight much, but she helped pave the way for other women and members of minorities to get it all.

Early in her career, she was more of an activist than a professional election manager. Her first experience was as an adviser to the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988.

Moore was successful in his service. An underrated civil rights activist with Native American and African American ancestry who was by no means a traditional politician, he finished third in his first primary, and second four years later.

Source: seznamzpravy.cz

Picture: illustrative

For more information, visit seznamzpravy.cz.

[lboogie1906]

Rev. Jesse Louis Jackson Sr. (October 8, 1941) is a civil rights activist, Baptist minister, and politician. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as a shadow US Senator DC. He is the founder of the organizations that merged to form Rainbow/PUSH.

He was born in Greenville, South Carolina to Helen Burns and Noah Louis Robinson. His mother married Charles Henry Jackson, a post office maintenance worker who adopted him. After high school, he rejected a contract from a minor league professional baseball team so that he could attend the University of Illinois on a football scholarship where he pledged Omega Psi Phi Fraternity. He transferred to NCATSU, played quarterback, and was elected student body president. He became active in local civil rights protests against segregated libraries, theaters, and restaurants. He graduated with a BS in Sociology, then attended the Chicago Theological Seminary on a scholarship. He withdrew three classes short of earning his MA, to focus on the civil rights movement. He was ordained a minister and was awarded an M. Div based on his previous credits earned plus his life experience and work.

People United to Save Humanity began operations on December 25, 1971; he changed the name to People United to Serve Humanity. He planned to orient Operation PUSH toward politics and pressure politicians to work to improve economic opportunities for African Americans and poor people of all races. SCLC officials felt a new organization would help African American businesses more than it would help the poor.

He organized the Rainbow Coalition and resigned from his post as president to run for POTUS, he remained involved as chairman of the board. PUSH’s activities were described as conducting boycotts of businesses to induce them to provide more jobs and business to African Americans and as running programs for housing, social services, and voter registration. In 1996 the Operation PUSH and Rainbow Coalition organizations were merged.

He married Jacqueline Brown. He is the father of six children. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence #omegapsiphi

[drunk-on-starlight]

"In addition, some of the Project 2025 theses deviate from the traditional Heritage position but coincide with Trump's own stance, once again corroborating the thesis of his team’s involvement in the drafting of the document. For example, the Heritage Foundation has always recommended cutting social programs like Social Security and Medicare, but Project 2025 does not mention such proposals. Trump, on the other hand, has publicly opposed such cuts"

[anthonybialy]

The Runner-Up Worst

Joe Biden can’t brag about anything dull like achievements.  But he can claim to somehow be only the second-worst option.  The only truthful thing he’s ever uttered fittingly involves the person for which he’s again competing for one job.  A declining octogenarian who was an imbecile in his prime couldn’t have chosen a better foe.  The only people who can beat each other face off again in a most formidable challenge to logic as we know it.

The last incumbent who deserves assistance can run on Donald Trump sucking.   Bipartisan assistance isn’t as appealing as it may seem in concept.  A wholly inspirational message of the other guy being demonstrably appalling has created the exact morale you’d figure.  It’s coincidentally the only case his similarly tiresome foe can make?  As far as which one, it doesn’t matter.

You were sick of this in 2016.  Sweet folks in 1984 tired of Trump’s grating shtick without realizing they’d be enduring it for decades and on a far grander scale than bringing tackiness to Atlantic City’s boardwalk.  A plague of phony alpha success will culminate in another wretched term whether it’s somehow winning or letting Biden complete the most undeserved tenure in human history.  Selectors should probably figure it out by one of these presidential years.

The leader of the once-free world is obviously going to make preposterous claims in his Bidenesque way.  Even his surrogates who can formulate sentences without notecards are unable to avoid calling a potential loss the Fourth Reich’s start.  A vague threat of imposing white supremacy by law comes before claiming Trump would divide the country.

Every single Republican option is branded racist before uttering a word.  The maniacal charge is similar to claiming the right to negotiate without subsidies equates to hating the poor.  We would presently be hearing about how the fantasy decent nominee dreams of wearing Klan robes to the inauguration.

AI-generated Democrats on alternate DC Comics Earths are issuing identically nonsensical slanders against a calm governor who’s only noticeable for creating jobs when it’s most unpopular.  The fact they’re right this one time by coincidence makes Trump’s infuriating nomination somehow even more appalling.

Using the challenger’s only successful business strategy would be cunning if it weren’t instinctual.  An utter failure of an executive is wagering on serving as only the second-worst possible nominee.  In the spirit of respecting the other side, that’s same way Trump won, namely by running against the worst possible candidate imaginable.  Today’s devilish decision is Hillary Clinton’s fault in her way.  

Politics appeals to black holes of humanity who just have to pretend to be less worse.  The election that makes Sophie’s Choice seem like it was between Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream and Cold Stone Creamery is the precise opposite of a free market with an endless array of options.  By contrast, one just must be better than the other one.  How did Biden get 81 million votes? This same way he will this year, namely by being a human being who is not Trump.

Noting Trump is a tantrum in human form is not quite a cunning election strategy.  But you can’t expect much from the person who spent half a century in politics thinking he’d finally make everyone rich by sending out checks.  The choice of all-time dreadful idiots who have lucked into roles mistakenly linked with success shows why the private sector is always better.  Imagine only getting to pick between Trump Ice and Trump Vodka if you’re thirsty.

Two candidates who have nothing but calling the other one awful are grateful for codependency.  Railing against each other is the only time each is accurate.

Nobody is happy, so let’s try more of what sucks.  A breakthrough is inevitable unless patterns are consistent, and life should feature more surprises.  Right now, nothing’s shocking.  This is a rather painful way to learn predictability can be torture.  Dinner at Burger King is out of reach even for royalty.  The only people not harassed are criminals and those sneaking into the country.

A competent candidate’s greatest worry against Joe Biden would be excessive cockiness.  The electoral vote total would be even higher than he can usually count.  Instead, the person who makes us feel the least worst might be at a disadvantage.  The sole thing older than Biden is the case against his beliefs.  The ghastly ideology of an idiot who doesn’t understand reality can be downplayed because his repeating adversary is on record as not getting anything he promised done.

There are no other options.  I mean, there were.  But primary voters were either too medicated or not enough.  As with getting poorer by printing more money, the result is sadly predictable.  If voters don’t like negative campaigns, then they should stop selecting the surliest messengers around.

The increasingly unlikely prospect of a candidate ever running by making the case for improvement is what voters wanted, so congratulations.  Each side demanding compliance by noting the binary choice should share blame.  It’s the one time collectivism is useful.  Never worrying about how options became this distasteful in the first place works out in the same way ignoring which way the debt clock rolls leads to breaking even.

[beesandwasps]

What I love about this reply is that you did not actually prove anything I said wrong, you just danced around my claims and pretended they were less important than your rhetoric, because — exactly as I said — you have a fantasy that these people are on your side instead of being a bunch of right-of-center assholes who deliberately kneecapped the left.

“The Democrats lost big in 1980, 1984, and 1988”: in 1980, Jimmy Carter got only about 2% less of the popular vote than Bill Clinton did in 1992, with a highly successful third-party spoiler candidate from the left taking away 6% of the total. In 1984, Mondale got only about 4% less of the popular vote than Bill Clinton did in 1992, with all the advantages of incumbency against him. In 1988, Dukakis got about 2% more of the popular vote than Bill Clinton did in 1992. (And exit polls showed that the 1992 third party candidate, Ross Perot, overwhelmingly drew votes from the Republicans — by a ratio of 5 Republican voters to ever 1 Democratic one; if you do the math, you will see that had he not run, Clinton would have lost the popular vote decisively.) In all three of those Presidential elections where you claim they “lost big”, Democrats held the House, and from 1986 onward they held both the House and the Senate — but it took only 2 years of Clinton to convince Americans to put in a Republican majority in both houses of Congress.

(Hardly surprising, since Clinton actively campaigned on destroying Welfare, took all his economic advice from the big-L Libertarian Alan Greenspan — which, since he pushed for the repeal of the Glass-Steagall trading regulations, led directly to the 2008 meltdown which would not have been possible under them — and called in favors and twisted arms in Congress to get them to ratify the union-busting Reagan wet dream which was NAFTA. Clinton had already proved even before the election — go look up Gennifer Flowers — that he would use his government position to screw women, but it became clear immediately after the election that he would use it to screw everyone as well.)

Clarence Thomas didn’t pick his colleagues, but he was the proof of concept that Democrats would go along with the confirmation of right-wing judges. Specifically, he proved that right-of-center Democrats like Biden would sabotage opposition, which is how things have gone ever since. The Thomas confirmation was the blueprint for nearly all the later ones, and it was Biden who showed the Republicans how to make it work.

Biden voted to ban abortion regularly throughout his entire Congressional career, if you’ll actually look it up — the video I mentioned was from the early 1990s — and was publicly making statements about how he wanted to ban abortion as late as 2012, after he was already VP, so your claim that it was some kind of youthful indiscretion is just bullshit. He hasn’t publicly reversed his position, he has just learned to keep quiet about it, and trying to claim otherwise is just a lie. (You have to lie to excuse Biden’s career, because almost all of his career was spent championing positions which no sane, decent person could defend. For example, the only war I’ve been able to find, real or proposed, which he didn’t support in Congress was Operation Desert Storm under the first Bush — and his reason for doing so was not on humanitarian grounds or because it might destabilize the region; it was because he felt Europeans should pay for more of it. He has always been a vicious asshole wrapped up in a crinkly smug smile.)

As I said, the Democratic Leadership Council, which included the Clintons (Bill was the chairman when he got the Presidential nomination), Gore, and Biden, was a self-selected group dedicated to pushing the party rightward. They said, themselves, that the Democrats should stop talking about civil rights and the environment and start trying to court the white middle-class. (Until recently, there was a direct quote from their own statement of purpose on the Wikipedia page for the group; apparently somebody in the Biden administration found that embarrassing and it was edited out, despite being a properly-cited direct quotation.) The so-called “third way” was just a racist pro-corporate movement designed to destroy opposition to the Republicans. If the party is moving leftward, it is because the assholes who made up the Third Way are dying and retiring now, after having wrecked the party. (And none too soon — if only the Clintons had shut up and gone into full retirement in 2000, we would have been spared not just Hillary’s repeated losses but almost certainly the Trump Presidency, since he was only able to unite the Republicans by appealing to 20 years of orchestrated anti-Hillary sentiment. Think about how much better the world would be now if that had happened!)

But is the party actually moving left again? The rhetoric may be, but in policy, which is the only thing that makes a difference, they’re worse than ever. The Biden administration talked about the Green New Deal, but they haven’t actually pushed for it — what they have actually done is to lease a record amount of public land for fossil fuel extraction, including at least one project which is projected to be in the 2% worst ever for climate change. Biden has raised the wasteful military budget every year by billions of dollars, not even counting aid to Ukraine or Israel, just as we are no longer fighting any official wars. Obama enacted all of the authoritarian “Total Information Awareness” proposal from the Bush administration, except for the name. Both Obama and Biden increased drone bombings and deportations (at every point in his term, the Trump administration had deported fewer immigrants than either Obama at the equivalent point in his first term or Biden 4 years later). Obama gave us another war based on lies (in Libya) and — as Biden admitted in 2021 — backed Nazis in the attempted coup in Ukraine. Both Obama and Biden have offered to cut Social Security and Medicare to please Republicans, and have been fine with austerity for all government programs except the military and our spy programs.

It is extremely disturbing how many posts I see claiming that Roe v. Wade was overturned on Biden's watch and blaming him and the Democratic Party for it. It's disturbing on a number of levels.

First, it was Trump and Bush-appointed justices who handed down the Dobbs decision. This is a flagrant example of blaming Democrats for things Republicans did, and not coincidentally is one of the the most widely felt differences between the two parties. As a result, it's usually the first example Democrats and their allies point to; this misappropriation suggests a deliberate attempt to undercut that fact.

Secondly, and related to the first point, it obfuscates who the real enemy is, and I am comfortable using word "enemy" to describe the Republican Party because of the policies they advocate and enact. The truth is that states controlled by the Republican Party were where the effects of Dobbs are most severely felt, while states controlled by the Democratic Party are passing laws to protect abortion. It is important to know which party opposes abortion and which party supports it. If the Republicans gain control of the House, Senate, and White House, they will pass a national abortion ban, as they have done at the state level in several places.

Thirdly, blaming Biden for Dobbs demonstrates a very concerning lack of understanding of how the government functions. The judiciary is its own branch of government; judges are appointed by the president and confirmed by the senate. It doesn't matter who is president when a decision is handed down, it matters who was president when the justices were appointed. People sometimes react to this by moving the goalposts and claiming the real issue was a failure by Democrats to "codify" Roe v. Wade. I am not sure what "codify" means in this context, and I'm not sure they are either. One thing it does not mean is that congress can pass a law saying "abortion is legal forever." Republicans could easily repeal such a law and it the federal government cannot necessarily prevent states from restricting abortion at the state level. Roe v. Wade was a ruling stating that the constitution guaranteed a right to privacy, which included the right to have an abortion. This prevented abortion restrictions in a way federal law cannot. That doesn't mean passing federal law protecting abortion is a bad idea, but it isn't a foolproof protection. It's fair to argue that the Democratic Party and the left of center generally were complacent about abortion. The form of this complacency was not taking the courts seriously, while the right spent fifty years openly filling the courts with anti-abortion judges.

The last thing that worries me is that this is popping up phrased almost the exact same way all over the place. I am afraid that it is not merely incompetence, but intentional misinformation, that is then repeated by the incompetent who believe it.

I know some will probably dismiss this post as being from a "vote harder" liberal Biden supporter, but whatever your feelings about Biden, the Democratic Party, or the democratic process in the U.S., you should care about the truth. The truth is that Roe v. Wade was overturned by Republican-appointed judges and abortion bans are being enacted by Republican elected officials, and Joe Biden opposes these things. You can do with that information whatever you wish, but you denying it is dishonest.

[cattarattat]

Anyone who votes for Trump in the 2024 Presidential Election--after his Jan. 6th. preview dictatorship attempt--ought to be fully aware that they will be simultaneously voting for the transition of American Democracy into American Dictatorship.

When they are suddenly living in 'The Handmaid's Tale' or '1984' version of America where their and everyone else's CIVIL RIGHTS slowly or quickly dwindle away.

They don't get to act 'surprised' after the fact. They've been warned.

Neither is delusional extremist MAGA cultism an excuse.

Worth noting, the 100% corrupt monopolied corporate bought-and-paid-for Republican Party of politicians are already planning to plant a Democratic-Party-similar third-party into the 2024 presidential election to drought/split the available Democratic Party citizen votes away from the nominated Democratic Party presidential runner.

A dirty pool equivalent in order to put a Republican Party politician behind the presidency desk in 2024!

This same corrupt Republican Party of politicians will inevitably select Trump as their presidential nomination as he carries the majority of Republican Party citizen votes--their best shot at somewhat legitimately winning an election--even though the actual American Constitution states any insurrection attempts automatically disqualifies the same individual (i.e. Trump) from running for political office ever again in order to protect American democracy.

This is the political reality of the coming 2024 American presidential election, folks!

Not just a pipe dream of a few extremists.

(Think Germany's Adolf Hitler, if you need a real-life visually equivalent national outcome example of what Trump in power might be like.

Furthermore, America is currently the worldwide leader militarily. So not even a combination of exterior countries would be able to successfully aid us in the same way the American military aided European countries against a Nazi occupied Germany.)

Americans NATIONWIDE--whether identifying Republican, Democrat, or Independent--should be SERIOUSLY worried about this.

PLEASE take the initiative NOW to contact your state's congressmen/congresswomen with regularity to DEMAND treasonous Trump be REMOVED from the 2024 presidential ballot IN EVERY STATE based on Constitutional Law. Alert friends & family in other states to do the same.

The future of our American democracy as well as upholding the integrity of our American Constitution as a whole depends upon it!

"'This is what authoritarians do. This is what fascists do,' historian says, warning to take Trump threat seriously…

Former President Donald Trump said while campaigning in Iowa this year that he was kept from using the military to quell violence in primarily Democratic cities and states during his presidency. The 2024 Republican primary frontrunner called New York City and Chicago 'crime dens,' telling his audience, 'The next time, I’m not waiting. One of the things I did was let them run it and we’re going to show how bad a job they do,' he said. 'Well, we did that. We don’t have to wait any longer.'

The former president has not precisely explained how he plans to employ the military during a potential second term, though he and his advisors have suggested they would have a far reach to call its units. While regularly deploying the military within the nation's borders would depart from precedent, Trump has already foreshadowed his aggressive agenda if he wins, including mass deportations and travel bans imposed on certain Muslim-majority countries, the Associated Press reports.

A law crafted early in the nation's history would give the former president — as commander in chief — almost unbridled power to call upon the military, legal and military experts told the AP.

The Insurrection Act authorizes presidents to summon reserve or active-duty military units to respond to unrest in the states, a power that is not reviewable by the courts. One of its few limitations requires the president to request that participants in the unrest disperse.

'The principal constraint on the president’s use of the Insurrection Act is basically political, that presidents don’t want to be the guy who sent tanks rolling down Main Street,' Joseph Nunn, a national security expert with the Brennan Center for Justice, told the AP. 'There’s not much really in the law to stay the president’s hand.'

'Nightmare scenario': Legal scholars alarmed over Trump's 'plot to abuse his power' for revenge Nunn said the act, which passed in 1792, just four years after the Constitution was ratified, is now a fusion of different statutes enacted between then and the 1870s, a moment when local law enforcement had few restrictions.

'It is a law that in many ways was created for a country that doesn’t exist anymore,' he added.

It's also one of the most significant exceptions to the Posse Comitatus Act, which generally bars the use of the military for purposes of law enforcement.

Trump has openly voiced his plans around using the military at the southern border and in cities struggling with violent crime if he wins the presidency. His agenda has also included employing the military against foreign drug cartels, a measure echoed by fellow Republican candidates Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, the former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina governor. Those threats have prompted questions about presidential power, the meaning of military oaths, and who Trump could appoint to further his plan.

He's already floated the idea of bringing back retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who served briefly as the national security advisor in the Trump administration and twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI during its Russian interference probe before being pardoned by Trump. In the wake of the 2020 election, Flynn suggested that Trump could snatch up voting machines and order the military in some states to aid in rerunning the election.

Attempts to invoke the Insurrection Act would likely garner pushback from the Pentagon where the new Joint Chiefs of Staff is Gen. Charles Q. Brown. Brown was among eight members of the group who signed a memo to military personnel in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack emphasizing the oaths they took and called the day's attempts to stop the certification President Joe Biden's electoral victory 'sedition and insurrection.'

Throughout history, presidents have issued 40 total proclamations invoking the law, some of which were done multiple times for the same discord, Nunn told the AP. Lyndon Johnson invoked it three times — in Baltimore, Chicago and Washington — in response to the civil unrest in cities following the 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dwight Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne to Little Rock, Arkansas, to protect Black students who were integrating Central High School after the state's governor called the National Guard to prevent them from doing so.

George H.W. Bush was the last president to invoke the act in response to the 1992 Los Angeles riots that followed the acquittal of white police officers who beat Black motorist Rodney King in a videotaped incident.

Repeated attempts from Trump to invoke the act could apply undue pressure on military leaders, who could face consequences for their actions even if carried out at the president's behest.

Michael O'Hanlon, the director of research in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution think tank, told the AP that the question is whether the military is being imaginative enough with the scenarios it presents to future officers. Ambiguity is not something military personnel are comfortable with, he said.

'There are a lot of institutional checks and balances in our country that are pretty well-developed legally, and it’ll make it hard for a president to just do something randomly out of the blue,' O’Hanlon, who specializes in U.S. defense strategy and the use of military force, told the outlet. 'But Trump is good at developing a semi-logical train of thought that might lead to a place where there’s enough mayhem, there’s enough violence and legal murkiness' to summon the military.

Rep. Pat Ryan, D-N.Y., the first graduate of the U.S. Military Academy to represent the congressional district that includes West Point, told the AP that he took the oath three times while attending the school and additional times during his time in the military. He added that classes extended much focus on an officer's responsibilities to the Constitution and the people under their command.

'They really hammer into us the seriousness of the oath and who it was to, and who it wasn’t to,' Ryan said, adding that he believed it was universally understood, but the Capitol attack 'was deeply disturbing and a wakeup call for me.'

While those connections were troubling — several veterans and active-duty personnel were charged with crimes in connection to the riot — Ryan said he thinks those who feel similarly to the rioters make up a small percentage of the military.

A military officer is also not forced to follow 'unlawful orders,' William Banks, a Syracuse University law professor and national security law expert, told the AP. Forcing an officer could drum up a difficult situation for leaders whose units are called on for domestic policing since they can be charged for carrying out unlawful actions.

'But there is a big thumb on the scale in favor of the president’s interpretation of whether the order is lawful,' Banks said. 'You’d have a really big row to hoe and you would have a big fuss inside the military if you chose not to follow a presidential order.'

'Members of the military are legally obliged to disobey an unlawful order. At the same time, that is a lot to ask of the military because they are also obliged to obey orders,' he told the AP. 'And the punishment for disobeying an order that turns out to be lawful is your career is over, and you may well be going to jail for a very long time. The stakes for them are extraordinarily high.'

During an MSNBC appearance, NBC News presidential historian and author Michael Beschloss urged Americans to take Trump's voiced plans to invoke the law should he win in 2024 'seriously' recalling how some Americans following Trump's 2016 victory said his campaign comments about violence and presidential powers were 'just bluster' and that the former president was really a 'moderate who loves to make deals.'

'Remember that? That was all totally wrong,' Beschloss warned per HuffPost. 'Take him at his word.'

He went on to note that Trump has said he'd use the military, unlike his predecessors, to 'suppress his domestic opponents' and referenced evidence from the House Jan. 6 Committee's probe that pointed to how frequently Trump 'was aching to use the Insurrection Act to send in the American military into a city or a state to crush the opposition.'

'This is what authoritarians do. This is what fascists do,' Beschloss insisted.

He later expressed surprise that the 2024 GOP primary frontrunner and his allies had been so open with their agenda, arguing the move was likely not in his best interest 'because if he wants to get elected next year, it probably makes more sense to him to pretend to be someone who’s more moderated.'

Beschloss then noted that, even with several of Trump's allies threatening to resign in the aftermath of the 2020 election if he invoked the law or abused his presidential power, the former president continued at rallies to hint at his authority to use the law.

'If you elect Donald Trump, we're going to incur the serious danger that all of us Americans are going to be living under a presidential dictatorship,' Beschloss concluded. 'That's not what our founders intended.'"

[deadpresidents]

Is Trump the first person to run for president three different times?

No, there have been numerous people through the history of the United States who have run for President three or more times, but most of them didn't get their party's nomination.

Interestingly, a lot of people forget that the 2024 election is actually Joe Biden's fourth, full-fledged, formal Presidential campaign, in addition to Trump's third campaign. Biden unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination in 1988 and 2008 before finally winning the nomination and general election in 2020. Ronald Reagan first ran for President in 1968 when he jumped into the race for the Republican nomination as an alternative to Richard Nixon, but it was kind of a half-hearted, late bid and Reagan later admitted that he wasn't quite ready to run for President at that point, which was only about a year into his tenure as Governor of California. Reagan challenged incumbent President Ford for the Republican nomination in 1976 and very nearly pulled off a rare intraparty defeat of a sitting President from his own party. And of course, Reagan ran and won in 1980 and 1984.

It's not just a relatively recent phenomenon, either; candidates have been running for President three or more times for as long as the Presidency has existed. Thomas Jefferson sought the Presidency in 1796 , 1800, and 1804, and there are many more examples, including Ulysses S. Grant, who was the first former President to make a serious attempt at breaking George Washington's tradition of serving two terms and then retiring. Grant won Presidential elections in 1868 and 1872, and allowed his supporters to actively work for his nomination at the 1880 Republican National Convention after President Hayes retired without seeking a second term. Grant was the frontrunner for the nomination, but once the balloting for the nominee started, the convention became deadlocked between Grant and James G. Blaine -- another person who ran for President multiple times: 1876, 1880, and 1884 (when he was nominated, but lost the general election). On the thirty-sixth ballot, the Republicans finally nominated James Garfield, who had emerged as a compromise candidate.

It is less common for someone to be a major party nominee for President on three or more occasions, which Trump has a shot of being in 2024 if he's not in prison. However, it is still not unprecedented. Obviously, Franklin D. Roosevelt won four Presidential elections (1932, 1936, 1940, and 1944), which had never happened before and will never happen again unless the Constitution is amended. William Jennings Bryan was the Democratic nominee in 1896, 1900, and 1908, and lost all three times. Grover Cleveland won the Democratic nomination in three straight elections: 1884 (which he won), 1888 (which he lost), and 1892 (which he won). Trump is hoping to join Cleveland as the only Presidents to serve two non-consecutive terms. Henry Clay was his party's nominee on three different occasions, and lost all three times. In an odd quirk of the times, because the major political parties were still in the process of forming in the first half of the 19th Century, Clay was technically the Presidential nominee for three different political parties: Democratic-Republican in 1824, National Republican in 1832, and Whig in 1844. Martin Van Buren was elected President as the Democratic nominee in 1836 and renominated in 1840, but lost the general election, After breaking with his party over the spread of slavery to new American territories, former President Van Buren ran as the Free Soil nominee in 1848, but came in third in the general election behind Zachary Taylor and Lewis Cass. And, one more recent example would be Richard Nixon, who was the 1960 Republican Presidential nominee and narrowly lost the general election in John F. Kennedy. Despite the belief that his political career was finished -- particularly after a humiliating loss in the 1962 campaign for Governor of California -- Nixon won the Republican nomination again in 1968 and 1972 and went on to win the general election both times (as well as winning 49 out of 50 states in 1972).

(I'm sorry...I understand that was a long-winded, overly-detailed way of answering your question when I also could have just said, "No.")

[mariacallous]

“Does anybody see a V.P. in that group? I don’t think so,” joked Donald Trump as he was speaking in Michigan before the Republican presidential debate. As far as Trump and many others are concerned, the contest for the Republican presidential nomination is already over and he can dismiss the entire GOP field as political nobodies. As his seven remaining Republican challengers gathered at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi, California, Trump was near Detroit addressing auto workers in a non-union plant just one day after President Biden appeared on a picket line near Bellville, Michigan with unionized autoworkers, all members of the United Auto Workers (UAW). Inveighing against President Biden’s electric vehicle mandate, he proclaimed that in a Trump administration, gas vehicles will be allowed and sex change operations for minors will be banned.

It’s not hard to understand why the president and the former president made back-to-back appearances in Michigan. In 2016, Trump won Michigan by 11,000 votes on his way to a shocking upset victory over Hillary Clinton. In 2020, Biden took back the state by 154,000 votes, and union workers made a big difference. Biden got 62% of their vote in 2020, compared to just 53% for Clinton four years earlier.

The struggle between Democrats and Republicans over the working-class vote is a story that stretches back more than half a century. From the New Deal through the mid-1960s, these Americans formed the heart of the Democratic coalition, whose string of victories was interrupted only by a war hero, Dwight Eisenhower, who was courted by both parties. But after Lyndon B. Johnson’s landslide victory in 1964, discord over the Vietnam War, race, and the counterculture began to divide college educated and non-college Democrats. Unlike more upscale Democrats, white working-class voters supported the war, opposed the counterculture, and opposed racial integration when it seemed to threaten their neighborhoods, schools, and jobs.

Republicans exploited these divisions with robust appeals to patriotism and “traditional values” and by opposing affirmative action in hiring. After Ronald Reagan’s landslide victory over Walter Mondale in 1984, Democrats could no longer ignore their waning appeal to the white working class. In a study commissioned by the Michigan Democratic Party and financed primarily by the UAW, Stanley Greenberg, a public opinion expert and political analyst questioned focus groups in Macomb County, a working-class suburb of Detroit where Democratic voters had shifted extensively to the Republican column.

Greenberg’s findings triggered an intense debate among Democrats and led to efforts to elevate economic interests shared by white and Black voters over race-specific appeals. Bill Clinton rode this new strategy to victory over incumbent president George H. W. Bush in 1992 and an 8-point reelection victory in 1996, recovering a significant share of white working-class voters from the Republicans while retaining supermajorities of Black Americans.

For the next two decades, Republican candidates competed for white working-class voters predominantly with cultural appeals while retaining a pro-business economic agenda focused on tax and spending cuts—including reduced outlays for Social Security and Medicare. For their part, Democrats focused on economics, defending the large entitlement programs and charging that the Republicans’ plans for taxing and spending favored wealthy individuals and big business.

Trump’s insurgent 2016 campaign brushed aside the Reagan-Bush conservatism on his populist-style march to the Republican nomination. Trump claimed to be the only true defender of working-class interests and values, denouncing globalization, “unfair” trade deals, and China’s rise, which he argued had come at the expense of American workers. In the famous “down the escalator” speech announcing his candidacy, he insisted that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid needed to be saved without any cuts to beneficiaries. As president, Trump worked to retain his position as the working-class champion by drawing back from international economic institutions, pursuing a more protectionist strategy on trade, and denouncing Chinese exports as an assault on American workers. Democrats were thrown on the defensive, backing away from policies such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership that President Obama had advocated for.

The nomination of Joe Biden, who had long styled himself as the defender of the working class and of organized labor, represented the Democrats’ recognition of the changed landscape. Biden deemphasized trade treaties, pushed for “Buy American” policies in federal programs, and embraced an industrial strategy designed, as he often stated, to “create millions of high-paying union jobs right here in the USA.” This shift undergirded the increased working-class support that helped him accomplish in 2020 what Hillary Clinton could not in 2016.

This history set the stage for the clash between Biden and Trump in Michigan this week. More than a year before the general election, Trump and Biden have begun their campaign, with Biden aligning himself with the UAW leader’s attack on “corporate greed” and Trump proclaiming that Biden’s electric vehicle (EV) mandate would destroy autoworkers’ jobs and “assassinate” the U.S. automotive industry. EVs, Trump proclaimed, don’t travel far enough, cost too much, and are mostly made in China. He told the autoworkers that Biden is selling them out to the “radical environmentalists” and that their negotiations with the Big 3 automakers were meaningless if their leadership didn’t oppose the EV mandate. If the mandate persists, he predicted, their jobs will disappear and all the EVs will be made in China.

Rather than imposing mandates and regulations on our domestic auto production, Trump ticked off the accomplishments on trade during his presidency and promised what he termed “patriotic protectionism”—a new 10% across-the-board tariff—and what he termed “reciprocal tariffs” to match the barriers imposed by other countries. He offered a vision of American-made cars running on fossil fuels produced in America, a future in which American manufacturing is restored to what it was decades ago, where the gleaming factories and humming assembly lines are in the U.S. and the rusting factories are overseas.

While Trump was starting the general election, seven Republicans were on stage in California fighting for the Republican nomination. They didn’t seem to know that the race was over. Trump leads the Republican field in every poll, pulling off the amazing feat of increasing his lead even as an unprecedented number of indictments rolled in and his reputation as a brilliant businessman and his business itself was destroyed by a judge in New York.

So, what were those seven Republicans doing onstage?

Hoping for lightning to strike. If you read today’s polls, their collective stance sounds ridiculous, but the history of nomination races says not so fast. In a nomination race, one of the most dangerous positions to be in is “front-runner.” That’s because in the early stage of the nomination race, before many delegates are actually awarded, “winning” is defined by “winning” the expectations game and front-runners can run afoul of “expectations.”

A bit of history shows what could happen. In 1984, former Vice President Walter Mondale was running for the Democratic nomination. He was considered by most to be the front-runner and in the first contest, the Iowa caucuses, he garnered a substantial vote. It was so big, in fact, that the next day, the New York Times declared, “The magnitude of Mr. Mondale’s lead, however, also underscored predictions that no one would be able to stop him if he won a majority or near- majority victory over a crowded field.”

But what happened next is a warning to front-runners everywhere in every decade. The second-place candidate was a young, largely unknown U.S. Senator from Colorado, Gary Hart. He had no organization, no money, and no national name recognition save having been George McGovern’s campaign manager 12 years earlier. And yet it was Hart, not Mondale, who came out of Iowa like a shot and won the New Hampshire primary eight days later on the strength of momentum alone. And while he didn’t end up winning the nomination, he gave Mondale a run for his money all the way to the last primary.

So, what were all those candidates doing on stage? Trying to be Gary Hart or, in other words, trying to be the number two candidate who can go one-on-one with Trump. Nationally, Trump runs about 42 points ahead of the rest of the field, but in New Hampshire, he runs about 31% ahead of the rest of the field. In the early states, the voters are beginning to be engaged and tell pollsters they are open to alternatives.

The second Republican debate showed some signs of a nomination race that is maturing. The first sign is that they have figured out how to criticize Trump. With one solitary exception, it became clear that no one was going to touch Trump’s many indictments and the day’s ruling on fraud in his business empire with a 10-foot pole. However, they did criticize Trump’s record. The lead critic, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, said, “Trump, you’re afraid of being on this stage tonight, not because of the polls, not because of the indictments, but because you can’t defend your record.” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis accused Biden of being missing in action on the shutdown talks and then added, “You know who else is? Donald Trump. He should be here tonight.” And former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley accused Trump of being wrong on China, reciting a long list of policies that Trump did not focus on.

But with Trump not being present, they spent the bulk of their airtime attacking each other. It was clear that Haley wanted to send Vivek Ramaswamy to the corner—continually interrupting him and criticizing him for his dealings with China and TikTok. Senator Tim Scott (and former Vice President Mike Pence) rolled out some opposition research on Vivek Ramaswamy supposedly making money from business dealings in China. Pence attacked DeSantis for his spending in Florida, Haley attacked DeSantis for his energy policies and Scott for his lack of executive experience.

The two people who no one attacked were the Governor of North Dakota, Doug Burgum, and former Vice President Pence. Burgum kept trying to convince the audience that his experience as a business leader was key, but on the same day Trump was unveiled as more con artist than business leader, it was probably not the best time for that argument. Pence kept talking about his experience for the office, taking both of us back to 1984 when we worked for former Vice President Mondale. It didn’t work so well then, and it probably won’t work so well today. If no one criticizes you, it may be because they don’t think you’re a threat.

Debates don’t correlate exactly to votes, but they do give the voter a sense of how the candidates make their case. And, as the second Republican debate made clear, the battle for second place is on. We don’t know yet who may emerge as the alternative to Trump, although Haley is making a strong bid for that scenario. But last night’s debate showed that the GOP field understands that, for the time being, their real enemy is not Trump but one another, and the task over the next few months will be deciding who confronts Trump if the race becomes a one-on-one match against the former president. Whether that battle will center on Trump’s indictments, experience, or governing record will decide if there is a “Gary Hart” in this field or if Trump will romp untouched to the GOP nomination.

[pastdaily]

Mondale Clinches Nomination - Mass Murder At McDonalds - France Goes House-Cleaning - July 19, 1984

San Francisco – the air was filled with Mondale. (Photo – Ron Dirito) https://pastdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/News-July-19-1984.mp3 – July 19, 1984 – CBS World News Roundup – Gordon Skene Sound Collection – A day mixed with celebration and horror, this July 19th in 1984. From San Francisco it was the once-every-four-year ritual of selecting a Presidential candidate, For the Democrats it…

[nbmsports]

Jesse Jackson to Step Down From Rainbow PUSH Coalition

The Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr., the longtime civil rights leader and former Democratic presidential candidate, plans to step down as president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the organization he founded, the group said in a statement on Friday.Mr. Jackson, 81, who has had several health issues in recent years and announced in 2017 that he had Parkinson’s disease, spoke about the decision on the organization’s weekly radio broadcast on Saturday, Fox 32 Chicago reported.“I’m going to make a transition pretty soon,” Mr. Jackson said, according to the news station. “I’ve been doing this stuff for 64 years. I was 18 years old. I’m going to get a new president for Rainbow PUSH Coalition.”He said he would work with the new president and the board through the change. “I want to see us grow and prosper,” he said, adding: “We have the ability to build on what we’ve established over the years.”The Rainbow PUSH Coalition said in a statement that a successor to Mr. Jackson would be introduced at its annual convention, which is being held this weekend in Chicago and includes a celebration of the 35th anniversary of his 1988 presidential campaign.Vice President Kamala Harris is scheduled to address the convention on Sunday.In the statement announcing Mr. Jackson’s decision to step down, the organization said: “His commitment is unwavering, and he will elevate his life’s work by teaching ministers how to fight for social justice and continue the freedom movement.”Mr. Jackson has been a stalwart figure in the civil rights movement since he was a teenager in the 1960s. He worked with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988.He founded the Rainbow PUSH Coalition in 1996 as a result of a merger between two groups he had previously started.He began Operation PUSH, or People United to Save Humanity, in 1971, with the goal of improving the economic conditions of Black communities across the United States. The group later changed the word “Save” to “Serve.”The other group was the Rainbow Coalition, which Mr. Jackson started in 1984 after his first presidential campaign. That group opposed President Reagan’s domestic spending cuts and sought greater investments in American cities, particularly in minority communities.In 2017, Mr. Jackson announced that he had Parkinson’s disease. He said that he and his family had noticed three years earlier that he was having increasing difficulty performing routine tasks.In early 2021, he underwent gallbladder surgery after experiencing “abdominal discomfort,” a spokesman told The Associated Press. Later that year, Mr. Jackson and his wife, Jacqueline, were hospitalized after testing positive for the coronavirus.One of his sons, Representative Jonathan L. Jackson, Democrat of Illinois, told The Chicago Sun-Times that there was “a determination made that in his current health and condition that he has appointed a successor and will formally announce it Sunday.”He said that his father’s Parkinson’s was “progressive” and that he had been using a wheelchair.Mr. Jackson, his son said, “has forever been on the scene of justice and has never stopped fighting for civil rights,” and that would be “his mark upon history.” Source link Read the full article

[eleanorblue]

EleanorBlue’s Five-Part 2022 Midterm Recap; Part Two, Section C: The Blue States

Wow, finally almost through with the state government races. This took way longer than I anticipated. In this section, I’m going to talk about the states that are mostly blue, or are at least a blue-ish purple. Somehow I ended up doing a lot of research on Republican governors in blue states. Let me clarify: I’m not trying to endorse Republican governors by giving them so much text space. I wrote about them to try to explain how and why Republican governors were elected in such blue states...and how red seats in blue states flipped back to blue.

There weren’t a ton of surprises in this section, with one exception, but a few notable ballot measures, a couple of gubernatorial flips, and a state legislature flip. 

Let’s start with the exception, shall we?

New York

What the hell happened in New York?

I’m going to talk about this a LOT more in my House breakdown, because it seems more relevant there. For now, let’s just take a moment to talk about incumbent Governor Kathy Hochul (D), who faced off with state Senator Lee Zeldin (R). New York is a very, very blue state. Biden won it in 2020 by 23 points, 60.9% to 37.7%. It hasn’t elected a Republican governor since 2002. So, should’ve been a cakewalk for Hochul, right?

Well...she won, but...only by six points, 52.7% to 47.1%. 

Yikes!

Okay, so, uh, why? Did the redder upstate areas just turn out more? Was there one specific region of New York that Democrats didn’t focus on enough? 

Yikes!

The redder areas got even redder. The blue areas got redder, too.

The state legislature remained blue, though we don’t know yet if Democrats still have a supermajority in the Senate. Practically, this has no major impact. Democrats have a trifecta in the state government. But the shift should be cause for concern, and Democrats should not take New York for granted.

More on New York later. Let’s go west. 

Minnesota

Fun Fact #1: The last time Minnesota voted Republican in a presidential election was 1972. Fun fact #2: Minnesota was the only state to go for Mondale in 1984. Neither of those facts are particularly relevant, but I think they’re interesting. 

Let’s start by saying congrats to incumbent Governor Tim Walz (D) for winning reelection against state Senator Scott Jensen (R) 52.2% to 44.7%, and to incumbent Secretary of State Steve Simon (D) for winning reelection against Kim Crockett (R) 54.6% to 45.4%.

Second, the Minnesota Senate flipped R to D, giving Democrats a trifecta! LFG, Minnesota!

Governor Walz says one of the first things he and the newly-elected legislature are going to do is pass a bill legalizing marijuana.

Colorado

Colorado had a great week! Incumbent Governor Jared Polis (D) won reelection against Heidi Ganahl (R) by 18 points, 57.9% to 39.8%. For context, Biden won Colorado in 2020 by 14 points, 55.4% to 41.9%. Colorado Democrats also held their majorities in both the state House and Senate, and in the Secretary of State Race, incumbent Jena Griswold (D) defeated Pam Anderson (R) 54.5% to 42.7%. 

Honestly, this isn't really a surprising result and I could have just included it in the summary at the bottom. But I wanted to touch on Colorado because it used to be considered a purple state--and it does have some very red regions. But at the statewide level...it’s almost like the Democrat-version of Florida. 

Yay Colorado! Let’s go somewhere else. 

Oregon

Oregon hasn’t had a Republican governor since 1987, but this race was a three-way race so I’m going to take a moment to talk about it. Oregon Speaker of the House Tina Kotek (D) was her party’s nominee, running against state Rep. Christine Drazan (R). However, state Senator Betsy Johnson (D turned I), was mad I guess that Kotek (a progressive) got the nomination and decided to run as an independent, saying “Having to choose between another left-wing liberal promising more of the same or a Trump apologist is no choice at all.” That’s annoying. Johnson got 8.6% of the vote--a surprising percentage for an unaffiliated candidate. However, Tina Kotek prevailed, with 47.1% (Drazan got 43.5%). Kotek is one of the two first openly lesbian governors, both elected this cycle.

Democrats held their trifecta in Oregon. Oregon residents also voted on two ballot measures. The first added language to the Oregon constitution stating that every resident has a fundamental right to health care. The second increased gun control in the state, requiring people to get a permit, undergo a background check, and take safety training before purchasing a gun, and prohibiting the manufacture or sale or ammunition magazines that hold more than ten rounds.

Time to look at some flips!

Massachusetts

Republican Governor Charlie Baker did not run for a third term after facing a tough primary challenge. How could there be a Republican governor of blue Massachusetts, a state that voted for Biden 65.6% to 32.1% in 2020, you might ask? Well, Massachusetts has a tendency to elect moderate Republicans--they like the socially liberal/fiscally conservative vibe. (Yeah, I know, there’s not really such a thing, but that’s what the Washington Post says and I get what they mean.) Baker was a very outspoken critic of Trump--he did not endorse him in the 2020 campaign, and he called on Trump to step down immediately after January 6. Trump didn’t take too kindly to that, and endorsed Geoff Diehl in the Republican primary. Diehl called the 2020 election “rigged” and “stolen from Trump”, wanted to eliminate COVID-19 vaccine requirements in public schools, and, bizarrely, planned to introduce a bill that would require parental consent for children to use their school libraries. 

*puts on pundit hat*

Here is one of the clearest examples of Trump’s influence biting the Republican party in the ass. I really believe Charlie Baker could have won reelection. His approval rating was high among Democrats. But he would have had a really hard time beating Diehl in a Republican primary made up of MAGA voters. I don’t think Baker wanted to run the kind of campaign he would have needed to run to beat Diehl. So, he dropped out.

And state Attorney General Maura Healy (D) won by 29 points, 63.6% to 34.7%.

Not only that, Republicans lost every single statewide race, all nine Congressional races, and a number of other legislative races. Incumbent Secretary of State William Galvin (D) won reelection against Rayla Campbell by 40 points, 67.5% to 29.6%. And of course, Massachusetts held the state House and the Senate. Absolutely great stuff. 

*takes off pundit hat*

Maura Healy (along with the aforementioned Tina Kotek of Oregon) is one of the first two openly lesbian governors. I knew a kid in college who interned for her, and he was absolutely devoted to her. She was a fantastic attorney general--she joined a number of lawsuits against Trump, challenging the Muslim ban and suing the EPA for rolling back environmental protections. I’m sure she will be an equally fantastic governor, as she campaigned on healthcare, green energy, lower costs of living, and decreased unemployment. Great day to flip a governorship! 

Let's flip another. 

Maryland

The former governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan (R), was term-limited and therefore unable to run for reelection. Hogan has been described as a ”moderate” Republican, though as far as I can tell the only area in which Hogan is really “moderate” is that he really hates Donald Trump and has been vocal about it. He did not vote for Trump in 2020, instead writing in Ronald Reagan, which is obnoxious and silly but better than voting for Trump, I suppose. (In 2016, he wrote in his dad instead of voting for Clinton or Trump.)

I guess if we're grading on a curve against people like Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott then Hogan is a moderate, but still. C’mon. 

Hogan describes himself as a “lifelong conservative Republican,” not a moderate, anyway. Maryland is a pretty blue state, voting for Biden by 33 points in 2020, 65.4%-62.1%. I don’t really understand how Hogan was elected, especially considering that in the eight years prior to his election in 2014, Democrats had a trifecta in the state legislature.

(Actually, maybe that’s it. 2014 was a pretty good year for Republicans in the midterms, and if you’re unhappy with the economy/your life and the state is totally controlled by Democrats...)

Anyway, by 2020, Democrats had a veto-proof majority in the state legislature, so that’s fun for Hogan. Hogan was thoroughly fed up with Trump by this point, going around campaigning for moderate Republican candidates. Trump returned the favor and, in this election cycle, endorsed Dan Cox, a former Maryland Delegate who sued Hogan for stay-at-home orders and tried to impeach him over other COVID restrictions. Cox beat Kelly Schulz, the candidate backed by Hogan, in the Republican primary. Hogan did NOT endorse Cox, instead saying the week after the election that Cox’s nomination meant that Republicans had no chance of holding the seat. 

Well, he wasn’t wrong. 

Wes Moore (D) beat Dan Cox (R) by 27 points, 62.1%-32.7%. Moore, who will be the first Black governor of Maryland, campaigned on ending child poverty in Maryland and transitioning to renewable energy. An author, Moore is relatively new to politics. He secured the endorsements of Maryland Democratic leadership and also Oprah Winfrey in the primary. I guess Maryland voters liked that a lot more than the guy who, like Mastriano in Pennsylvania, organized buses to the “Stop the Steal” rally on January 6.

Maryland also kept the state legislature under Democratic control and voted for a ballot initiative to legalize marijuana 66.1% to 33.9%. 

One more blue state, then we’ll wrap things up.

Vermont

Remember how I felt when I saw the Kansas gubernatorial race? I felt something similar with Vermont. 

Um, excuse me? 

Vermont (like Maryland, like Massachusetts) is pretty blue these days! Biden won the state by 35 points in 2020, 66.1% to 30.7%. So who is Phil Scott and how did he win?

First of all, he’s an incumbent. Second of all, he’s the most liberal Republican governor I’ve seen yet. He raised the age to purchase guns to 21 and banned bump stocks.  He signed a bill in 2019 that recognizes the fundamental right to choose and states that no one shall ever be prosecuted for obtaining or performing an abortion. He supports same-sex marriage and in April 2022 released a statement condemning transphobia. He opposed Trump’s immigration policies, particularly that of family separation. After Trump left the Paris Climate Accord (which Scott spoke against), he had Vermont join the U.S. Climate Alliance. 

He is probably the most outspoken Republican governor against Trump--and has been for the longest amount of time. He supported both impeachments. He voted for Biden in 2020. 

Is Phil Scott even a Republican? I know Democrats who are way more conservative. I guess he hates taxes, which is definitely a Republican trait. Honestly, he seems more like an Independent than a Republican, though he’s said he has no plans to leave the Republican party. 

Anyway. Phil Scott won against Brenda Siegel (D) by 49 points, 70.9% to 24%. The Secretary of State race went to Sarah Copeland Hanzas (D) over H. Brooke Paige 65% to 35%. Not only did Democrats hold the Vermont state legislature, they held their supermajority in both chambers. Also, Vermont passed a ballot measure enshrining the right to reproductive autonomy in the state constitution.

Vermont is fine.

Wrap-Up

Quickly, let’s run through some races in blue states that I didn’t really feel the need to discuss in detail (but they’re still important! Every race matters!) 

Gubernatorial Races: Incumbent Gavin Newsom (D) won California by 17 points, incumbent Ned Lamont (D) won Connecticut by 13 points, Josh Green (D) won Hawaii by 26 points, incumbent JB Pritzker (D) won Illinois by 10 points, Janet Mills (D) won Maine by 15 points, incumbent Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) won New Mexico by 6 points, and incumbent Daniel McKee won Rhode Island by 19 points.

Secretary of State Races: Incumbent Shirley Weber (D) won California by 17 points, Stephanie Thomas (D) won Connecticut by 12 points, Alexi Giannoulias (D) won Illinois by 9 points, incumbent Maggie Toulouse Oliver (D) won New Mexico by 12 points, Gregg Amore (D) won Rhode Island by 19 points, and incumbent Steve Hobbs won Washington by 4 points. 

State Legislatures: The California state legislature remained blue, the Connecticut state legislature remained blue, the Delaware state legislature remained blue, the Hawaii state legislature remained blue, the Illinois state legislature remained blue, the Maine state legislature remained blue, the New Mexico state House remained blue and the Senate was not up for election, the Rhode Island state legislature remained blue, and the Washington state legislature remained blue.

Ballot Measures: California passed three ballot measures. The first prohibits the state from interfering with an individual’s reproductive choice, essentially ensuring the right to abortion. The second and third legalized sports betting and online sports betting, respectively. (Okay...?) Connecticut passed a ballot measure authorizing early in-person voting. And...that’s the last of the ballot measures.

Whew! That took a lot longer than I anticipated. I’m glad I broke up the state government races into three sections. Up next, we’ve got the Senate. See you tomorrow, and thanks for reading. 

[takeonmetakemeon]

US presidential elections after 1956 with Kennedys, Bushes and Clintons:

1960 JFK elected president 1968 RFK assassinated during campaign for Democratic nomination 1980 Ted Kennedy ran for the Democratic nomination; George H. W. Bush ran for the Republican nomination and was elected vice-president 1984 George H. W. Bush reelected vice-president 1988 George H. W. Bush elected president 1992 George H. W. Bush lost to Bill Clinton 1996 Bill Clinton reelected 2000 George W. Bush elected president 2004 George W. Bush reelected 2008 Hillary Clinton ran for the Democratic nomination 2016 Jeb Bush ran for the Republican nomination; Hillary Clinton won the Democratic nomination 2024 RFK Jr runs as an independent

That's 12 with Kennedys, Bushes or Clintons and only 5 without.

(This isn't counting other national offices like Senator, Attorney General, Secretary of State or Representative. There was at least one Kennedy in Washington from 1946-2010, and from 2000-2008 one member of each of the families served as US President or Senator.

Members of the three families, a spouse and a former spouse have been elected as governors of California, Texas, Florida, New York and Arkansas.)

US presidential elections after 1956 without a Kennedy, Bush or Clinton running for president or vice-president:

1964 1972 1976 2012 2020