The Friday 2020s update

This weekend's official kickoffs include Liz Warren and Amy Klobuchar.  Cory Booker's declaration fizzled pretty quickly.  Sherrod Brown is going to wait until next month to tell us what he's doing.

-- Let's get the GOP out of the way at the top: former Libertarian vice presidential candidate William Weld is making all the right moves to challenge Trump in the Republican primary.

The clerk’s office in Canton, Massachusetts, confirms on Tuesday that Weld recently changed his party registration to the GOP. If he runs for president as a Republican, he could be Trump’s first challenger within the party. Weld has not returned messages from The Associated Press. He recently told WMUR-TV in New Hampshire that he would discuss his potential political plans during a Feb. 15 visit to the first primary state.

-- Now let's look at the Daily Kos Straw Poll, which the Interweb's most notorious Bernie-hater always spins against Sanders.  Here's the full results; here's the manipulated results.  There's more OCD vitriol from Markos at that second link, which you're welcome to read on your own.  Warning: It's clearly Bernie-Derangement Syndrome in full manifestation.

Kamala Harris is still the Kossack's chosen one despite having no issues pages posted to her website yet.  Lots of platitudes, plenty of swag, no policy.  I find that kind of ridiculous at this point.

-- Warren tripped again over her heritage.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is once again apologizing for claiming Native American ancestry after the Washington Post reported that she filled out a registration card for the State Bar of Texas in 1986 and wrote "American Indian" in the line asking her race. 

Her inability to resolve this matter obviously keeps it teed up for Trump to ridicule, and will be the chink in her armor until she can get it patched.

-- Bernie delivered a rebuttal to Trump's SOTU for which he drew bouquets from his supporters and brickbats from his detractors.  Not because of anything he said, mind you.  Just that he had the audacity to say it.



-- Joe Biden is lining up endorsements on Capitol Hill.  Recent polls favor his entrance.

Biden was the top performer in a Monmouth University poll gauging presidential preferences among registered Democrats. The former vice president received 29 percent support, with the next-closest finisher earning 16 percent. He also earned the highest net favorability rating, with 80 percent of registered Democrats viewing him favorably to 9 percent who viewed him unfavorably.

A CNN poll Wednesday showed that a majority of Democrats — 62 percent — wanted Biden to enter the presidential race.

Politico reported Thursday that Biden was nearing a decision on a run, and was reaching out to Capitol Hill allies including Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Bob Casey, D-Pa., and Chris Coons, D-Del., as well as Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C.

They like him in Iowa, too.  Uncle Joe would be the establishment's choice, perceived as having some ability to attract white blue-collar workers in Midwestern states back to the Donkey barn, which is viewed in the autopsy of Hillary Clinton's epic fail as her weakest link.  Some of us aren't so sure about Joe, including kos (from above).

Biden has his Anita Hill problem, authorship of that hated crime bill, and sell-past-date feeling. He can exit stage left a winner, or go out a loser.

Howie Klein:

Biden has started -- and aborted -- four runs for president in the past. His brand of Republican-lite centrism is worshiped Inside the Beltway. Outside? Not so much. He never polled outside single digits -- low single digits. Early Monday, Atlantic columnist Edward-Isaac Dovere asserted that as Biden contemplates a 2020 run, he is focused on whether primary voters will support a centrist septuagenarian. He's riding very high in the polls right now, but the overwhelming majority of people who back him don't know his sexist, racist corporate, pro-war record. And if he runs, they'll find out who the real Joe Biden is. Most of the low-info voters selecting him in polls, just see him as a stand-in for Obama ...

Within this Axios piece about Howard Schultz -- his CNN townhall is in Houston next week -- there was this, which was the most revealing thing I read about Biden's potential candidacy.

If Biden runs, look for (billionaire and former NY Mayor Michael) Bloomberg and (former VA Governor Terry) McAuliffe to bow out, the sources tell us.

-- In 'News You May Have Missed' Department, Marianne Williamson also jumped in.  See these posts from Democratic Underground and Down With Tyranny.



Still think she'd make the perfect successor to Jill Stein, running under the Green Party banner.

-- Finally, the Dithering of Beto reaches another crescendo.

O’Rourke admitted to “thinking about running for president” during a conversation with Oprah Winfrey in New York City Tuesday and said, of the prospect of helping to unify the country, “I’m so excited at the prospect of being able to play that role.” He said he would announce his decision about a run “before the end of the month.”

His Hamlet-esque ruminations have prompted much speculation, as well as heaps of unsolicited advice.  Let's go back once again to Nasty Markos.

Beto isn’t someone who will take the fight to the enemy, preferring to run as an eternal optimist. He wouldn’t even attack Ted Cruz, who was so attackable! I don’t criticize. There’s a place for that kind of politics, particularly in a red-to-purpling state like Texas. But for a Democratic presidential primary? I have doubts. And clearly, so does he.

Witness Beto’s precipitous collapse (in the DK poll) as other candidates emerge. His announcement delay may not be fatal if he eventually decides to run, but he just got off a brutal and long Senate battle. He clearly needed to recharge. Yet the race is rich in talent, so what’s his lane? The fresh new face? (Kamala) Harris has snagged that mantle.

More goat-entrail reading from Politico, with their premise being that Beto and others are waiting to see if some of the early front-runners stumble (note Warren's Native American problems and Harris' glossing over her questionable prosecutorial record).

O’Rourke, who [was quoted saying two days before his Oprah interview that] his decision could “potentially” take months, said, “There are people who are smarter on this stuff and study this stuff and are following this and say you’ve got to do it this way or get in by this point or get in in this way if you were to get in.”

However, he said, “I think the truth is that nobody knows right now the rules on any of this stuff. I think the rules are being written in the moment.”

This leaves geniuses like Gilberto Hinojosa and Ed Espinosa of Progress Texas and Matt Angle of the Lone Star Project to offer Bob some career advice: run for the Senate against John Cornyn.  Because if he doesn't, who will?  (Clue to all of these Jackasses: there is a candidate running, an excellent progressive, and she drew 24% of the vote in the 2018 Democratic primary against O'Rourke despite raising only a few thousand dollars.  Get to know her.  Again.)

Our 2018 campaign was groundbreaking and we're just getting started.
Join our grassroots campaign➡ https://t.co/OgtcnqISpn
Donate➡ https://t.co/1nJyphRq1i#NewYearsResolution #Sema2020 pic.twitter.com/FZYu4vGatE

— Sema 🌹💋 (@_SemaHernandez_) December 28, 2018

But to answer the question: perhaps Julián Castro, if you can believe what he's saying about his no-traction presidential campaign.

Appearing on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” Tuesday night, Castro said he wasn’t interested in being another Democrat’s running mate should he not capture the nomination for himself, explaining that he’s “been there and done that last time,” in reference to his 2016 vetting by Hillary Clinton.

Frankly, I believe him.  My early money is going on Beto running for president, and staying in that race past the deadline to file for the US Senate -- which is in December of this year -- while Castro will eventually drop out and challenge Cornyn.

We'll see how it goes.

2020's campaign: Socialism

Trump used last night's State of the Union address to lay out themes, policies and symbols for his 2020 re-election race, winning over no Democrats in the chamber but giving new hope to supporters who were turning pessimistic. He softened some edges for his largest audience of the year, but made it clear that he's going to try to re-run many of his 2016 plays in 2020.

A notable new twist that we'll hear a lot more about on the campaign trail: "Tonight, we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country."

Jason Miller, a top official in Trump's 2016 campaign, told (Mike Allen of Axios) the president "elevated the wedge issue of 'socialism' in a way nobody else could."

Republicans love the freeze frame of Democrats sitting emotionlessly when Trump railed against late-term abortions. And loved even more the endorsement-by-sitting-and-silence when he hammered socialism.

Many Democrats, not jut the one named Joe Manchin, enthusiastically applauded this line.

So there it is, Donkeys.  By contrast, "Not a Democrat".

Sanders provided viewers with the results of a spate of polls that highlight massive American support for affordable prescription drugs and health care, infrastructure spending that would create jobs, background checks on gun purchases, the legalization of marijuana, a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, more regulation of Wall Street, a significant increase in minimum wage and government-paid college tuition. The Vermont senator goes on to say that the reason that Congress isn’t doing what the “overwhelming majority of Americans” want has “everything to do with the power of the monied interests.”

“Let us bring our people together,” concludes Sanders, “to take on and defeat a ruling class whose greed is destroying our nation. The billionaire class must learn that they cannot have it all. Our government belongs to each and every one of us, not just the few.

“Let us create the kind of America we know we can become.”

Where is the middle ground here?  Who do the compromises favor?

The time is upon us.  Be bold or be sold.



If anybody thinks there's a way to soft-pedal the changes that are long overdue past a president and a party that are going to fear-monger the shit out of them to their ignorant base of voters no matter who is running against them ... better think again.  Even Republicans want someone who will stand up for them against the 1%, as the polls reveal.

Who's going to negotiate that away?  Besides Nancy Pelosi, I mean.

Update:

“Here in the United States we are alarmed to hear new calls to accept socialism in our country,” Trump said, clearly referencing (Rep. Alexandria)  Ocasio-Cortez, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and other new Congresspeople who came into office on the back of their support for democratic socialism.

NBC’s anchors asked AOC whether she believed the comment was a dig at her. Rather than answering—she just grinned and calling it a “major coincidence” -- she launched into an explanation of what it is about so-called “socialism” that many people find so appealing.

“The vast, vast majority of Americans believe that you should be able to feed your family on 40 hours a week. We believe that health care is a right, that work should be dignified and we believe that all people should be accepted regardless of their race, gender, or ethnicity,” she said.

“At the end of the day, it’s not about an ‘ism,’” she added. “That’s exactly what the president is trying to do. He’s trying to mischaracterize, frame, associate. Because our policies are popular. Because we fight for improved and expanded Medicare for all, which has a 70 percent approval rating, because we believe in at least a $15 minimum wage, because we believe in the labor movement, we believe in the unionization of workers.”

“I think what he’s seeing is that he’s losing the war on the issues, so he’s going to try to go ad hominem, he’s going to call names, he’s going to try to distract. We’re not going to let him do it, we’re going to stay focused on our cause,” she concluded.

She’s right: Medicare for All, raising the minimum wage, taxing the rich... these are all incredibly popular policies. And Republicans, Trump included, are terrified that these ideas will gain so much popularity that they’ll be unable to oppose them. Better call her and her fellow lawmakers scary names before it gets out of hand.

But that’s not going to work either. People are no longer scared of the word “socialism.” In fact, most young people support it over capitalism. The time of Trump and his cronies is coming to a close. And AOC and her colleagues are setting the tone for a new era.