2018 Democrats thread

[caulfield12]

On 6/1/2018 at 7:42 PM, The Beast said:

 

Sorry, The Beast, not sure why it opened the quote box from earlier...

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/paul-kerr-democrats-california_us_5b12c1a9e4b0d5e89e200a8d

Democrats are blaming a big-spending candidate (Paul Kerr) for a potential disaster in one of the Southern California districts where Dem’s might get shut out of the general because too many are running  and also using millions of dollars on attack ads against each other

Problem affects 3 critical California districts that voted Hillary for president and need to be flipped.

[StrangeSox]

Jungle primaries are bad especially if you don't have ranked-choice voting.

[Balta1701]

1 hour ago, StrangeSox said:

Jungle primaries are bad especially if you don't have ranked-choice voting.

Bah, California's voting system could be improved, but the changes in voting system literally turned that state's government from a wreck where a couple Republicans could hamstring the entire state to a fairly smooth running state that occasionally does stupidly liberal things but where the government is now stable, no longer in crisis, and run by adults, because they don't need to listen to the non-adults/Republicans at all. 

[StrangeSox]

reddy I remember you getting hyped about this guy at one point

 

 

 

[StrangeSox]

 

[caulfield12]

The last time the unemployment rate was at 3.8%, as it is now, was in 2000. But back then, a combination of strong growth, low unemployment and solid earnings produced a federal budget surplus for four years in a row, from 1998 through 2001. The annual surplus peaked in 2000 at $236 billion.

There are no surpluses now, which suggests the Trump economy might have a hollow core.  The federal deficit this year will hit around $800 billion, up from $665 billion last year and $585 billion in Obama’s final year. And the Congressional Budget Office expects deficits to rise to more than $1 trillion per year by 2020, and go nowhere but up.

That’s one big reason some economists think strong numbers on jobs and growth won’t last.

“These solid numbers look increasingly illusory,” Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist of the Economic Outlook Group, wrote in a recent note to clients. “A healthy economy does not generate historic deficits.” He places the odds of a recession in 2019 at 55%. That’s a reminder that you only know how strong or weak the economy is with a few years of hindsight.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-wrong-greatest-economy-history-140003521.html

[StrangeSox]

4 hours ago, StrangeSox said:

reddy I remember you getting hyped about this guy at one point

 

 

 

 

 

[BigSqwert]

Billionaire white men are the answer to everything. They will save the day.

[caulfield12]

1 hour ago, BigSqwert said:

Billionaire white men are the answer to everything. They will save the day.

At least he built Starbucks from the ground up, and understood what it was like to grow up lower middle class border on poor in NYC...Trump was born with all the advantages in the world.

Makes a huge difference in terms of empathy, EQ, understanding, compassion...not saying Schultz should be the next president, but he CAN bring a lot of important economic "fairness" issues to the table and will have a built-in following for his viewpoints not unlike what Bernie Sanders has created for himself.

[Balta1701]

1 hour ago, caulfield12 said:

At least he built Starbucks from the ground up, and understood what it was like to grow up lower middle class border on poor in NYC...Trump was born with all the advantages in the world.

Makes a huge difference in terms of empathy, EQ, understanding, compassion...not saying Schultz should be the next president, but he CAN bring a lot of important economic "fairness" issues to the table and will have a built-in following for his viewpoints not unlike what Bernie Sanders has created for himself.

You're comparing a guy who is complaining about the deficit and saying we need to cut spending on entitlements to Bernie Sanders.

[caulfield12]

2 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

You're comparing a guy who is complaining about the deficit and saying we need to cut spending on entitlements to Bernie Sanders.

Right now, the Democrats don't have ANYONE that could beat Trump...other than POSSIBLY Biden.

Even then, it wouldn't be a slam dunk with how close the generic Congressional ballot is, under 4% from what used to be a lead well in the mid-teens.

I don't think Schultz can win simply because 1) he hasn't even decided to run (for anything, officially), and 2) the Trump baggage of billionaire/businessman/politically-inexperienced mixed with "politically correct/socially conscious at the cost of profits" will be a turnoff to enough people he won't actually stand a chance.

But I think having more "WELLSTONE-IAN" voices like Sanders, Schultz, Sherrod Brown, wherever they come from...is probably a good thing for the party.

[Heads22]

4 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

Right now, the Democrats don't have ANYONE that could beat Trump...other than POSSIBLY Biden.

Even then, it wouldn't be a slam dunk with how close the generic Congressional ballot is, under 4% from what used to be a lead well in the mid-teens.

I don't think Schultz can win simply because 1) he hasn't even decided to run (for anything, officially), and 2) the Trump baggage of billionaire/businessman/politically-inexperienced mixed with "politically correct/socially conscious at the cost of profits" will be a turnoff to enough people he won't actually stand a chance.

But I think having more "WELLSTONE-IAN" voices like Sanders, Schultz, Sherrod Brown, wherever they come from...is probably a good thing for the party.

Too early to worry about who the democrats have out there, methinks. There's going to be people emerging that we have no clue about yet.

In Iowa, Hubbell won the primary and certainly has the money to take on Kim Reynolds - it'll also be his issue as she's already painting him as out of touch. Fun fact, the governor's mansion in Iowa was originally from Hubbell's family.

Finkenauer wins in IA-1 and has a very real chance of being the youngest woman elected to Congress.

[caulfield12]

30 minutes ago, Heads22 said:

Too early to worry about who the democrats have out there, methinks. There's going to be people emerging that we have no clue about yet.

In Iowa, Hubbell won the primary and certainly has the money to take on Kim Reynolds - it'll also be his issue as she's already painting him as out of touch. Fun fact, the governor's mansion in Iowa was originally from Hubbell's family.

Finkenauer wins in IA-1 and has a very real chance of being the youngest woman elected to Congress.

Well, obviously Obama put himself on the map with that Democratic Convention speech (Purple States, not blue and red ones)...he had his autobiography out there, I remember distinctly thinking when he was in Kansas City in 2006 helping McCaskill out that HE WAS THE ONE.

Don't have that sense that there's an "anointed" guy on the Dem side yet, kind of like Rubio was SUPPOSED to be on the GOP list coming into the last election cycle.  It FELT like one of Gillibrand/Booker/Harris was being forced into that role, but they haven't fully earned it quite yet.

FWIW, I pay attention to Loebsack and Bustos, being from the Quad Cities originally...but no so much what happen west of Des Moines (unless it's Hawkeye FB/BB recruiting).

 

[Balta1701]

1 hour ago, caulfield12 said:

Right now, the Democrats don't have ANYONE that could beat Trump...other than POSSIBLY Biden.

Even then, it wouldn't be a slam dunk with how close the generic Congressional ballot is, under 4% from what used to be a lead well in the mid-teens.

I don't think Schultz can win simply because 1) he hasn't even decided to run (for anything, officially), and 2) the Trump baggage of billionaire/businessman/politically-inexperienced mixed with "politically correct/socially conscious at the cost of profits" will be a turnoff to enough people he won't actually stand a chance.

But I think having more "WELLSTONE-IAN" voices like Sanders, Schultz, Sherrod Brown, wherever they come from...is probably a good thing for the party.

If the Democrats don't have anyone who can beat trump then this country hates colors and wrong genders more than I think they do. If you don't understand why, then you haven't been watching the elections this year - the Democrats aren't just running against Trump, they're letting the Republicans run on their racist Trump bullcrap and countering with "Here's what we'll do for people" and it is working at least ok for now. 

But then again, I didn't figure on a campaign accepting the support of multiple foreign powers in the process either. 

I don't disagree that Sherrod Brown is a good thing for the party. I do disagree that Bernie Sanders is, when he will not declare himself to be a Democrat and he has shown little to no interest in building infrastructure that can beat a racist candidate with the support of multiple foreign powers. Even when people endorsed him, he never got behind them, helped them build campaigns, or fundraise. In Iowa tonight, one of his top campaign aids was running in one of the primaries and lost 57-16 or something like that. If your movement is all about you, and not about the things you are going to do for people, how you will make this world a better place when the US is locking brown people in cages on the floor because "we hate brown people" is official policy that everyone who thought emails were bad was ok with, then you are useless to me. That's where Bernie Sanders is to me.

[caulfield12]

33 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

If the Democrats don't have anyone who can beat trump then this country hates colors and wrong genders more than I think they do. If you don't understand why, then you haven't been watching the elections this year - the Democrats aren't just running against Trump, they're letting the Republicans run on their racist Trump bullcrap and countering with "Here's what we'll do for people" and it is working at least ok for now. 

But then again, I didn't figure on a campaign accepting the support of multiple foreign powers in the process either. 

I don't disagree that Sherrod Brown is a good thing for the party. I do disagree that Bernie Sanders is, when he will not declare himself to be a Democrat and he has shown little to no interest in building infrastructure that can beat a racist candidate with the support of multiple foreign powers. Even when people endorsed him, he never got behind them, helped them build campaigns, or fundraise. In Iowa tonight, one of his top campaign aids was running in one of the primaries and lost 57-16 or something like that. If your movement is all about you, and not about the things you are going to do for people, how you will make this world a better place when the US is locking brown people in cages on the floor because "we hate brown people" is official policy that everyone who thought emails were bad was ok with, then you are useless to me. That's where Bernie Sanders is to me.

Somehow I'm not surprised Rep. Steve King is getting almost 75% of the votes in his IA district primary.

For the time being, California Districts 39, 48 and 49 APPEAR like they won't have Democrats locked out.  That Paul Kerr who spent over $5 million attacking fellow Dems is at roughly 5%.   Talk about a waste of money...

I assume you're referring to D'Alessandro?  Yeah, you'd think with One Revolution's/Sanders 2016 Mailing Lists, he'd be able to do MUCH better than that.   I hate to judge candidates on appearance, but he's right out of Chris Christie Casting Central.

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2017/04/25/democrat-pete-dalessandro-exploring-congressional-run-iowas-3rd-district/306376001/

 

As to your final point about "sharing" success...I think you might be onto something there.

I will never admit this to Greg, but I actually watched a Christian movie called "I Can Only Imagine" about the origin of that song and the story of the group MercyMe (particularly lead singer/songwriter Brad Millard) and there's this powerful scene where Amy Grant is about to take his song and debut it in Nashville and she changes her mind at the last second and invites him to come up on stage and perform in front of a huge audience (because it's his story, a personal one about his father).  That's what has to happen here as well, politically speaking.

Sanders and Elizabeth Warren need to pass the torch on to SOMEONE on the progressive side...because neither one of them alone can carry it and win the Democratic nomination.   Most importantly, the future will be about technology and how it affects American workers...we need YOUNG/ER leaders who really understand how tech works, about the arguments for and against Universal Basic Income, who can speak intelligently to Silicon Valley leaders about AI/AR/VR/robotics and (specifically) about how to address the needs of Millennials.  Simply being much more palatable than a centrist/moderate in HRC doesn't mean you can win a general election unless you offer "REALISTIC" opportunities but not "FREE GIVEAWAYS" because investing in the country wins an election...but WASTING precious resources on BLAH/ILLEGAL people is going to be a position that the Dems have to fight back against (that particular GOP branding) and counter-punch hard.

Edited June 6, 2018 by caulfield12

[caulfield12]

District 10 (CA) Looks like the only race where the Dems COULD (eventually) be locked out of the general because of too many running against each other in the primary...

 

Republican Jeff Denham is running for reelection in this district that Hillary Clinton won in 2016. Democrat Michael Eggman lost to Denham in 2014 and 2016; five other Democrats, including investor Josh Harder, entered the race.

 

Candidate	Votes	Pct.
Jeff Denham* (R)	22,272	38.0%
Josh Harder (D)	9,014	15.4%
Ted Howze (R)	8,406	14.3%
Michael Eggman (D)	6,290	10.7%
Virginia Madueno (D)	5,326	9.1%
Sue Zwahlen (D)	5,256	9.0%
Mike Barkley (D)	1,473	2.5%
Dotty Nygard (D)	567	1.0%

*Incumbent

70.6% of precincts reporting

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Balta1701]

The judge in the Brock Turner rape case was recalled last night.

[StrangeSox]

Democrats won a state Senate seat in Missouri by 20 points last night. Trump had won the district by 4 points in 2016 as did Romney in 2012. That's gotta be a positive sign for McCaskill's chances in November.

 

3 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

The judge in the Brock Turner rape case was recalled last night.

 

Read that it was the first judicial recall in California since the 1930's.

Edited June 6, 2018 by StrangeSox

[caulfield12]

1 hour ago, StrangeSox said:

Democrats won a state Senate seat in Missouri by 20 points last night. Trump had won the district by 4 points in 2016 as did Romney in 2012. That's gotta be a positive sign for McCaskill's chances in November.

 

 

Read that it was the first judicial recall in California since the 1930's.

Hard to say how much of that is chaos with Greitens scandal and/or Hawley seemingly running a terrible/non-existent or overconfident campaign up until this point in time...but yeah, in general, the “Show Me” signals keep trending blue overall.

 

Here are Howard Schultz’s credentials (should he pursue higher office)...must be putting out feelers since national reporters are starting to at least consider it a possibility

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/howard-schultz-runs-president-credentials-212211806.html

Schultz was a confidante of Clinton during her 2016 presidential campaign, and private advice he gave to the candidate leaked when hackers published hundreds of emails from the account of John Podesta, who was chairman of Clinton’s campaign. “The campaign feels ‘yesterday,’” Schultz wrote in one email to a top Clinton aide. “It’s too packaged and prescribed. … Her inner circle and the powers to be need to … understand how brands (and she is a brand) in the world we now live in are built. It requires a vision for the future that is steeped in truth and authenticity and builds an enduring emotional connection with the voters.”

In another email, Schultz wrote to a Clinton aide, “We are seeing a seismic shift in consumer behavior and in the attitudes of the American people. We’ve seen it … in our core Starbucks business … and, it certainly is acutely present in this political presidential primary season.” How right he was. Now he must decide whether to do something about it.

 

Edited June 6, 2018 by caulfield12

[caulfield12]

Apparently the Trump White House has the paperwork in place to pardon “dozens” of people...headline chyron.

source: CNN.com

[BigSqwert]

 

[caulfield12]

6 hours ago, raBBit said:

I see a lot of Biden talk but I think that'd be a really bad idea for the Democrats. Biden has some skeletons in his closet. Some of the stuff is out there already and there is definitely at least one comment out there like Trump's "grab them by the pussy" or HRC calling black people super predators. Just comments that were socially acceptable when said but not now. Given the last election cycle and the eventual election of Trump had the democrats throwing everything and the kitchen sink at Trump you would think that most of his dirt is already out there on him. This isn't even touching Biden's sexual history. I just don't think Biden would do well under the microscope. 

When Biden was still a Senator they used to have Joe Biden night at Stitches Comedy Club in Boston. The comedians would do none on their own material and everyone would just each other's materials. The idea was Biden plagiarized all of his speeches so the comedians would steal everyone else's material. 

I think the democrats would be better off going with Kamala Harris or Schultz. 

Harris has been a noted opponent of Trump and I believe she's black, pacific Indian and seemingly a woman. The left can run on having a minority and a woman and just focus on being virtuous as opposed to running on policy. There's plenty of intersectionality and superficial aspects that make her a great candidate for the left. She's also far more likable (than HRC) so the same woman platform should work better as she is also a minority and her personality is far more welcoming than HRC. I know that's a low bar but Harris is impressive and young if anyone is unfamiliar. 

Schultz would be a good candidate if the left wanted to come back closer to the center of the spectrum. He knows business and could call Trump on his generalizations. He also talks about real issues like the debt and the issues in our government that could help him win over the blue collar white middle class that both President Obama and Trump got to get them over the top.  

I will not support Biden until it comes down to Final 2.

Those are not compelling or sincere reasons to support Harris.

Schultz will have more of a Rand Paul, Kasich, Perot niche role...on their area of expertise, and bringing it to the forefront of the conversation.   

[Balta1701]

8 hours ago, raBBit said:

Schultz would be a good candidate if the left wanted to come back closer to the center of the spectrum. He knows business and could call Trump on his generalizations. He also talks about real issues like the debt and the issues in our government that could help him win over the blue collar white middle class that both President Obama and Trump got to get them over the top.  

Nobody cares about the debt. People pretend to because it's a slogan. Then you give them the choice of increased debt or tax cuts, and well, the Republicans have done the same choice 3 times in my adult life. They care about the debt when they can use it to berate a Democrat and people like you go along with it because it is an excuse to berate democrats and not Republicans. 

[caulfield12]

56 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

Nobody cares about the debt. People pretend to because it's a slogan. Then you give them the choice of increased debt or tax cuts, and well, the Republicans have done the same choice 3 times in my adult life. They care about the debt when they can use it to berate a Democrat and people like you go along with it because it is an excuse to berate democrats and not Republicans. 

This is exactly the point of the "starve the government" philosophy.   See Ryan, Paul.   He has been waiting for this moment since the 1980 election of Reagan.

 

Here's how it goes:

Appoint directors at HUD, Energy, Education, Interior, State....who want to eviscerate their departments.

Then you can claim.....well, we don't want to burden future generations with $21+ trillion in debt....and we simply can't afford to cut ANY military spending, so, what do we chop off?

Foreign Aid

Head Start

Medicaid (just "block grant" everything, let the states go bankrupt)

Vocational/training/GED programs

Social Security must be pared back, withholding increased or retirement age bumped up yet again

Health insurance (see Social Security above, can't afford it...let's stay with our private solution, the Top 20% can keep their own doctor and everyone else is basically screwed)

Infrastructure...well, we can basically tax the people twice by using partial Federal money with state matches then turn around and tack on use fees, tolls for highways and bridge crossings, tax the delivery trucks for Amazon at 10X the normal rate because Bezos is EVIL EVIL EVIL, bad bad guy, trust me

Quality/affordable daycare....FORGET ABOUT IT!!!

 

Meanwhile, we can put ex-soldiers or extra police at every door/exit at every school in America (who pays?  who cares!!! just not the Federal government)...turn lots more Federal prisons into "for profit" enterprises for warehousing all these illegal immigrants and separate detention centers (when we're not losing track of 1,500 kids) for the dependent children....if we separate them, then we can have TWICE as many for-profit detention centers, WIN WIN!!!

 

[caulfield12]

https://www.c-span.org/video/?446461-1/dignitaries-gather-50th-anniversary-assassination-robert-kennedy

50th Anniversary of RFK’s death celebration   (Clinton speech begins around 51 min mark)

Bill Clinton at first glance seems awfully frail/wounded, almost a shadow of his former self at age 72....but, boy, can he still give a great speech.  I keep trying to talk myself into Kennedy’s grandson having a shot at higher office, then you see their two speeches side by side and you realize how far this younger generation has to go in terms of being able to connect with people.

Clinton just has that gift...to make people reminisce, to share a common experience (sorrow/pain or joy) and can connect like no other politician in my lifetime.

The problem is that no CURRENT Democrat possesses anything resembling that same political gift...a few times, you even start wondering if Clinton’s lost it, his train of thought seems to be meandering off course, and then he ties it all back together, and manages to capture what RFK (especially the 1968 campaign) represented in a way none of the other speakers came close to approximating.

We can do better, be better...we have to, it’s our obligation.  It’s so jarring to listen to a speech like this and then turn around and be bombarded by the vitriolic/acidic attacks back and forth from both sides of the aisle at each other.