The Biden-Harris Era

[Sabin]

I'm obsessed with how many people Matt Gaetz is going to bring down with him.

[Sabin]

Democrats are looking to shake up the order of primary states. Couple of thoughts on my part:
1) Why can't they just reorganize the primary based on the closest margins of win or loss in the previous election and work outward from there? That way, the candidate we choose represents the choice of whatever the new swing state is? In 2024, it would be 1. Georgia, 2. Arizona, 3. Wisconsin, 4 Pennsylvania. And then, like, 5-10 are Super Tuesday? California and New York always go basically last.
2) The narrative of the article seems to be that South Carolina is the best option to begin the primary. That probably makes sense today, but we shouldn't make the mistake of looking to South Carolina as historically always choosing the best candidates for the general. Like George Wallace ('76), Jesse Jackson ('84, '88), sure, Bill Clinton ('92), sure, Al Gore ('00), and John Edwards ('04). And has been already pointed out, Obama probably wouldn't be the nominee in 2008 if South Carolina went first. (Jim Clyburn is being disingenuous by saying South Carolina "rescued" Obama).
3) The eventual Democratic nominee got second and first in the third and fourth state, but got fourth and fifth in the first and second state. Yes, something needs to change. And our current primary order artificially inflated the candidacy of Pete Buttigieg, who dropped off as soon as he needed the support of black voters.



https://apple.news/AWTg1_dOKQVuVjZ-FKCfISg

Dems could dethrone Iowa

The party, uncomfortable with the overwhelmingly white state's sway, is thinking about blowing up its presidential primary calendar.

Democratic Party leaders are considering overhauling the 2024 presidential primary calendar, a transformation that would include ousting Iowa and New Hampshire from their cherished perches as the first states to vote.

Senior party leaders and Democratic National Committee members are privately exploring the idea of pushing South Carolina and Nevada to the front of the primary election schedule, as well as the possibility of multiple states holding the first nominating contest on the same day.

Two political heavyweights with longtime bonds to President Joe Biden — South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn and former Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada — are among those discussing the possible changes.

Both have long insisted that Iowa and New Hampshire have an outsize role in framing the presidential contest despite being unrepresentative of the rest of the country.

“I don’t think it’s appropriate to have those two states to set the tone. It’s really a false premise that if you do well in Iowa and New Hampshire you’re going to do well across the country. That was proven wrong with Joe Biden,” Reid said in an interview. “There’s no diversity in Iowa. There’s certainly no diversity in New Hampshire.”

Interviews with more than a dozen Democratic leaders, DNC members and state party officials reveal that intense behind-the-scenes jockeying is already underway, with conversations ranging from reconfiguring the early state order to moving up Southern or Rust Belt states in the timeline.

Reid and Clyburn both make the case for their states voting first. But Clyburn said he wouldn’t lobby for it and would leave the decision to newly installed party chairman Jaime Harrison and the DNC.

Reid said he and Clyburn had spoken several times about the timing and possibility of both states going at the same time. But, the former Senate Leader said, he would be comfortable with South Carolina taking the lead, if necessary.

“I’m not going to arm wrestle Jim Clyburn,” Reid said.

The outline of the 2024 presidential nominating process is coming under scrutiny in part because of Iowa’s botched 2020 caucuses, which failed to deliver a clear winner at a time when the Democratic Party’s increasing diversity focused attention on the state’s predominantly white electorate. Elevating South Carolina’s role would pay homage to a changing electoral map, where Southern voters — including in Georgia — stepped up to support Biden in the general election.

Similar political and demographic considerations are at play in Nevada, where Reid has advocated ending caucuses altogether and the state Legislature is considering a proposal to do so.

Within the DNC, Democrats have talked about various approaches, including multiple states going first on the same day — such as Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina all voting together on a single date. Regional primaries are another option where, for instance, Iowa and another Midwestern state could vote at the same time.

“Many of us believe that the first four could be consolidated, and still provide a small-state focus,” said Larry Cohen, a longtime DNC member who was vice chair of the party’s post-2016 Unity Reform Commission. He also called for “further calendar consolidation so that states like New York and New Jersey actually mean something."

But there’s already pushback to the idea of challenging the traditional order. New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley said adding multiple states at once would mean a TV-driven campaign, supplanting the intimacy that comes when an individual state is the sole focus of all the campaigns.

“People have been kicking around that flawed concept for decades,” Buckley said. “Only the self funders or celebrity candidates would be able to compete. Without question, that plan would have prevented JFK, Carter, Clinton, Obama and Biden from ever being nominated. It would make having hundreds of millions for slick TV ads more important than one-on-one conversations with people. That idea should stay in the trash can of discarded ideas.”

When told Buckley referred to the concept of consolidating early state contests as flawed, Reid shot back, “I think he’s flawed to think that’s a bad idea,” and dismissed the idea of candidates not visiting the states as “baloney.”

Reid and Clyburn contend that Biden himself is the case in point for rethinking the current Iowa-followed-by-New-Hampshire setup: The president came in fourth and fifth respectively in those states before landing second in Nevada and carrying South Carolina.

“Those states demographically do not represent the Democratic voting bloc. They should not have an outsize influence,” Clyburn said. While Barack Obama had won Iowa in 2008, he lost New Hampshire to Hillary Clinton, Clyburn noted.

“South Carolina rescued Obama. If Obama had not won South Carolina, he would never have gotten the nomination. It’s that simple.”

“South Carolina is a state that gives Democratic candidates the best chance for developing a national primary,” he said.

According to some Democrats, the task of pushing for South Carolina to go first — unaccompanied by other states — could be politically sensitive for Harrison due to his home state ties: He previously served as chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party and ran for the Senate there in 2020. For that reason, some expect him to avoid that path.

“I think he’ll be very cautious about South Carolina, because almost his total life experience since law school was there,” said one DNC member. “He’s not a heavy-handed person at all.”

Pennsylvania is another state that might see its status change. There has been talk of Pennsylvania, Biden’s birthstate and a critical battleground, voting earlier in the calendar along with similar Rust Belt states.

Sharif Street, vice chair of Pennsylvania’s Democratic Party, said that after the primary last year he spoke with other state parties about creating a "Rust Belt primary” in which multiple Midwestern states would vote during the second week of March. He said DNC leadership at the time did not oppose the idea.

“I expect it will come back,” he said of the proposal. “It would allow candidates in the primary to focus on messaging on issues that are important to people in Pennsylvania and people in areas like Pennsylvania. Our issues can be a little different than issues in other regions of the country."

DNC members said they are also talking about instituting changes to the caucus process, such as making it easier for people to vote absentee and streamlining the allocation of delegates — including perhaps ending Iowa’s “state delegate equivalents” and utilizing a headcount instead.

Attempting to eliminate caucuses altogether — not just in Iowa, but across the country — is also on the table, said one DNC member. The committee could do this by refusing to count delegates from states that use them, the person said.

“The general chatter consensus seems to be that caucuses should go, and everyone should have a primary election,” they added. “And that one state can’t be first-in-the-nation anymore.”

But a DNC official said not all states provide funding for government-run primaries and that there must be a way for such states to participate in the nominating process.

As for state delegate equivalents, the official said the party gives flexibility to states to determine how they allocate delegates, and it is unlikely it would write a rule on such a specific circumstance.

Critics of caucuses argue that they make it harder for disabled and older people, as well as those who work on weekends or at night, to vote. After the 2016 presidential election, the DNC advised states to use primaries “where possible.” Their reputation has fallen only further since the Iowa debacle last year.

Iowa is not without its defenders, though.

“There still is a lot of political capital around Iowa and New Hampshire that I think some people may underestimate inside the party,” said another DNC member. “Those two states have a long history, especially New Hampshire with Chair Buckley, and longstanding relationships” with those in the DNC.

Jim Zogby, a longtime member of the DNC, said, “I have always been a fan of the Iowa caucuses. I remain a fan of the Iowa caucuses.”

He called the idea of consolidating several states for the first voting day a “horrible" idea: “If you do Super Tuesday the first day, then the guy with the biggest money wins."

Iowa Democratic Party Chair Ross Wilburn said in a statement that he is “committed” to advocating to party leaders why the state should go first.

“Not only that, but the opportunity Iowa has created for presidents, leaders in our party, campaign staff, and volunteers to connect with voters and have critical debates about the future of our country,” he said. “We’re very early in this process but, as we do every four years, we’re willing to talk with folks about the importance of Iowa’s first-in-the-nation role and make improvements to our system to make it stronger and more accessible."


[Big Magilla]

I never thought of any of Trumps' predecessors as evil, misguided and wrong, yes, but not evil. Even Nixon I could feel sorry for, for the way in which he was forced to resign even though he brought it on himself, but Trump was and is pure evil. There's nothing he can do that will ever convince me otherwise.

[criddic3]

I don't know when he developed Alzheimer's but it was well before it was publicly disclosed. It was clearly evident by his second term to anyone who didn't have blinders on. You could see it in his responses at press conferences and other public speaking engagements where he had to respond to questions. Either Nancy or one of his trusted advisors would whisper the answer to him or he would stare blankly which would be interpreted by the too kindly press of the day as his ignoring the question to put the questioner in his or her place.

It is speculated by historians that the wound Reagan suffered in his assassination attempt, as well as a fall post-presidency precipitated his Alzheimer's. So it is not unreasonable to assume some early signs may have been there very late in his second term, although he could be quite sharp even after he left office. We should remember he was already the oldest elected president up to that time and seniors do have "senior moments," so it is rather difficult to say that he was deep into it that early (he was diagnosed in 1994). He made a warmly received speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention, though it wasn't among his blockbuster moments. So I'm not certain you can imply he wasn't all there when he was president.

I was a Republican for 22 years, from 1996 to 2018, but never considered myself a hardliner on many of the core issues. I liked their talk about responsible government and strong defense. But over the years I found that many of their signature themes were never followed through on, such as fixing the debt and deficit. They would always drum up that topic during Democratic administrations but then never do anything about it when they had the power. I also came to really dislike the Tea Party movement, which at first seemed like a "let's reign in government" thing but turned into a nastier social fringe group. I hated that Mitch McConnell was always just blocking everything instead of working to solve problems when President Obama was in office, especially blocking the Merrick Garland nomination to the Supreme Court which did seem opportunistic and greedy. But it wasn't until Trump came on the scene as an actual candidate that I knew the party was doomed.

I have no problem with someone raising opposition or concerns about any president, but I do think it kind of undermines the case when every Republican, for example, is called an idiot or evil. Reagan, to a lesser extent the first Bush, and then W. It's like the Boy Who Cried Wolf. "This is the worst president ever!" and then when Trump comes along, who truly is a terrible president, it rings hollow for a lot of people and they feel justified in sticking with him because they've heard that song before. On the flip side, you have Republicans saying that President Biden has dementia and that he's a gateway to a Communist takeover. I mean the extreme caricature of either party allows people to be as apathetic about politics as they have become. If the leaders are all bad, or all the same, why does it matter who holds the power?

[Big Magilla]

You left out that Reagan was a Democrat before he met Nancy and that Jane Wyman left him because he talked too much.

I did get my Bush initials wrong. He wasn't W. who called him out on his voodoo economics, it was his father whose middle initials were H.W.

Reagan wasn't a great actor, but he was a competent one. He had a winning personality that endeared him to many of his fellow actors, and later the country and the world at large, which is what got him elected to the presidency of the Screen Actors Guild and later the governorship of California.

Reagan's affability charmed many, including swarms of Democrats who followed him down the garden path. He did a lot of bone-headed things as governor, including closing down state-run mental institutions which created the rampant homelessness which still exists today, first in California, then by the copycats around the country.

His tax cuts as president were the first to benefit the rich and screw the middle class in my lifetime. The only tax deductions I could take as a renter in the early 80s was for reimbursement of state sales tax which was eliminated by his tax cuts for the rich.

I don't know when he developed Alzheimer's but it was well before it was publicly disclosed. It was clearly evident by his second term to anyone who didn't have blinders on. You could see it in his responses at press conferences and other public speaking engagements where he had to respond to questions. Either Nancy or one of his trusted advisors would whisper the answer to him or he would stare blankly which would be interpreted by the too kindly press of the day as his ignoring the question to put the questioner in his or her place.

While I have been a registered Democrat since my first election, I always vote for the person I think will do the best job regardless of party. For example, in California, I voted for Schwartzenegger twice because the Democrats he was running against were jackasses. I can say, however, that I never voted for a Republican for President because I always found the Democrats running to be the better choice.

[criddic3]

The Reagan thing I never got. He was an actor whose greatest performance was his pretending to be president while his writers wrote the lines for him and his wife fed him the lines when he couldn't remember them which was all the time when he wasn't in front of a teleprompter. He was the worst president between Nixon and Trump, but you'll never convince the bulk of the population of that. History will eventually paint a much less flattering picture of him than all those who fell for his voodoo economics as George W. Bush rightly called them before he, too, drank the Kool-Aid.

Actually this is factually and historically wrong. I may have switched parties, but I'm not going to let someone throw Reagan under the bus with a falsehood. Oppose his policies, even dislike the man, but the truth is he wrote a lot of his own material though he did have (like they all do) speech writers. He wasn't an airhead. He had real ideas about where the country should go, right or wrong. Not only was he an actor for nearly three decades, but he was elected 7 times as the President of the Screen Actors Guild and later became a two-term Governor of California. Obviously people liked him and thought he did a good job for them. He wrote most of his own speeches while working for General Motors and he also wrote his "Time for Choosing" speech supporting Barry Goldwater in 1964, which got much praise and attention, launching his own political career. So whether you liked him or not doesn't mean he was an empty suit. I don't think it's fair for one side to say that about every leader of the opposition party. There are good and bad leaders in both parties. But somehow Reagan and Bush are simply idiots to hardline Democrats. That's like the Republicans in my family who think Clinton and Obama were "evil people out to destroy the country." I think that's unfair, too, even if I didn't vote for them at the time.

[Okri]

It's worth writing somewhere but the Atlanta Spa Shooting was super racist.

Also I'm not usually the first to call on law enforcement to resign. But the combination of Sheriff Baker saying that Robert Aaron Long wasn't racist but was just having a bad day (trying to protect him) plus his social media promoting sales of an T-shirt referring to the coronavirus as an “imported virus from Chy-na" probably can't go without consequence.

The official response doesn't make me feel better.

[Big Magilla]

Big Magilla wrote
It shouldn't go without consequence but may if he doesn't resign. Sheriffs are elected officials. They can't be fired but can be recalled by special election.

Yeah, I'm not really interested in game-planning what those consequences are. That's up to the people of Atlanta. It's just really bad.

Correction: The spokesman for the Sheriff's office who made those stupid remarks is not the sheriff. He's a captain in the sheriff's office, a county employee, not an elected official so he can be fired by the sheriff but so far that's not happening.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/sh ... r-n1261447

[Sabin]

Big Magilla wrote
It shouldn't go without consequence but may if he doesn't resign. Sheriffs are elected officials. They can't be fired but can be recalled by special election.

Yeah, I'm not really interested in game-planning what those consequences are. That's up to the people of Atlanta. It's just really bad.

[mlrg]

I think it’s very troublesome when you have a president of USA calling the president of Russia a “killer” during an interview.

[Big Magilla]

It's worth writing somewhere but the Atlanta Spa Shooting was super racist.

Also I'm not usually the first to call on law enforcement to resign. But the combination of Sheriff Baker saying that Robert Aaron Long wasn't racist but was just having a bad day (trying to protect him) plus his social media promoting sales of an T-shirt referring to the coronavirus as an “imported virus from Chy-na" probably can't go without consequence.

It shouldn't go without consequence but may if he doesn't resign. Sheriffs are elected officials. They can't be fired but can be recalled by special election.

[Sabin]

It's worth writing somewhere but the Atlanta Spa Shooting was super racist.

Also I'm not usually the first to call on law enforcement to resign. But the combination of Sheriff Baker saying that Robert Aaron Long wasn't racist but was just having a bad day (trying to protect him) plus his social media promoting sales of an T-shirt referring to the coronavirus as an “imported virus from Chy-na" probably can't go without consequence.

[Big Magilla]

Joe Scarborough pointed out what Tee has said about burgeoning and failing coalitions. From 1940 to 1980, it was FDR's world. Then in 1980, it was Reagan's world. But 76% of Americans support this bill. It's not Reagan's world anymore (even though he never has the House and Senate for more than two years).

I watch Morning Joe while I'm having breakfast Monday-Friday. Although I don't watch the whole show, I do recall one of the historian's bringing this up, so if Scarborough said it, he's quoting one of them.

The Reagan thing I never got. He was an actor whose greatest performance was his pretending to be president while his writers wrote the lines for him and his wife fed him the lines when he couldn't remember them which was all the time when he wasn't in front of a teleprompter. He was the worst president between Nixon and Trump, but you'll never convince the bulk of the population of that. History will eventually paint a much less flattering picture of him than all those who fell for his voodoo economics as George W. Bush rightly called them before he, too, drank the Kool-Aid.

[Mister Tee]

This past week, Marco Rubio came out in support of unionization of Amazon workers.

To clarify a bit: Rubio came out for this because Jeff Bezos (via the Washington Post) has been an enemy of Trump, and therefore deserves to be "punished" with a union. So, just another element of what you rightly characterize as "we all like cancel culture, it just depends on who's cancelled." I don't see that as a useful way to bring organized labor over to the GOP, other than those who are already in the camp.

Possibly the most remarkable moment of the week, if not year, occurred yesterday and got practically no attention. In introducing the bill, Biden proclaimed that trickle-down economics is and always has been horseshit. This is something many of us have understood/known for a long time, but much of electoral politics for the past 40 years has operated on the premise it was at least something you had to accommodate. Biden being so blunt about this is the clearest signal that the Reagan paradigm is history.

[Sabin]

Joe Scarborough pointed out what Tee has said about burgeoning and failing coalitions. From 1940 to 1980, it was FDR's world. Then in 1980, it was Reagan's world. But 76% of Americans support this bill. It's not Reagan's world anymore (even though he never has the House and Senate for more than two years).

Yes, I've underrated Joe Biden as well. He's doing a good job in picking his fights, staying above the fray, and positioning himself as a president for everyone. He's the only one who could've gotten this stimulus package passed. As Andrew Yang said in his DNC spotlight (paraphrasing), "He can take anything and make it sound sensible." With all the political sniping we have across and within the aisle, that's a very useful tool. He is, as David Brooks wrote this week, a Transformational President.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/11/opin ... e=Homepage

But so was Trump and I'm not convinced Trumpism is dead. This past week, Marco Rubio came out in support of unionization of Amazon workers. The GOP is flailing about trying to figure out how to position itself with a coherent ideology, or rather how to wrestle Trump's incoherent ideology into something useful. He basically stood for a grab bag of "America First" that could be read at once as Pro-War and Anti-War, Pro-Labor and Free Market, etc. I could see Rubio and other Republicans start to embrace more Union actions against mega-corporations trying to lock in the Union Trump voter and kissing goodbye to the bedrock conservative. It’s simultaneously absurd and dangerously close to full blown fascism, where the right co-opts the language of the left. I remain also concerned as overblown, nonsense fears of "cancel culture" dominate greater and greater swaths of news. There is a scary populism to voting based on which party's candidate has what opinion of your favorite celebrity losing their job, and Trump understood that very early on by weighing in on Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson's breakup.

On the other hand (as Sam Seder said the past week or so), a party can't be in good shape when there is nobody to send on Jake Tapper to talk boring policy. Ten years ago, they had dozens of pols who could sit down and talk for an hour without appearing like a psychopath. Seriously, who can the GOP send on Tapper today? Ben Sasse? Bueller...?

Yes, we're beyond the Reagan era. That much is sure. And we couldn't have gotten here without Joe Biden, who is the only candidate that could have defeated Trump. That much seems undeniable.