US Elections 2020

[Stavros]

I like Kamala Harris, but she does have a flawed record, as this hatchet job shows. Sometimes voters like someone who has looked tough on crime.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...cop-prosecutor

I have not looked closely at the others, but thought Elizabeth Warren said a few years ago she would not run, and she should not. I see the point of Biden, but should the Democrats now turn to a youger person like Castro? Don't know enough about the others to comment.

[broncofan]

I also like Kamala Harris. I am basing that off of the times I've seen her grill evasive witnesses appearing before the senate. She comes across as highly prepared, quick on her feet, incisive, and also reasonable. I skimmed the article and while I agree with the author that some of the actions she took as a prosecutor and attorney general were inappropriate I don't think it should impact her candidacy too much.

A prosecutor has a different mandate than a policymaker. While prosecutors are allowed to exercise judgment to decide who to prosecute and how to spend their finite resources, they are in the business of enforcing the laws (they are technically in the executive branch like the President who heads it at the federal level, but their discretion and policymaking role is a lot narrower). This doesn't completely excuse her actions with respect to failing to prosecute cases she should have or even for setting up sting operations that really didn't advance the cause of justice broadly, but it does mitigate them a bit.

The people that I like tend not to be viewed as serious candidates. My judgements are based more on personal characteristics than policies at this point. I'm sure that would change when we actually arrive at the primaries. I like Adam Schiff and Ted Lieu, but it's because I find them to be very competent and thoughtful. I am not sure I would agree with their policies or even that they would poll well.

We have had debates here in the U.S. about how calling a woman "unlikeable" may be suggestive of misogyny. I think it can be, particularly given that women are allowed a far narrower range of permitted expressions. Still, I think Elizabeth Warren is intelligent, but without charisma, I question her judgement, and her appeal. I find her to be in some respects like John Kerry. A very capable person whom I respect, but someone who is tone deaf as to how her proclamations are received and who is not very comfortable dealing with people on a personal level.

I don't know enough about Castro, so I also encourage someone to respond with some information.

[Stavros]

Beto O'Rourke -who he? I vaguely recall last November when Larry Sabato dismissed his chances as the Democrats nominee for the Presidency. This article is not so flattering either, though it does have a cute line -
He has the high energy and wholesome enthusiasm of a golden retriever
.https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...itical-saviour

I believe he was fined $50 for a traffic violation in New Hampshire -lucky guy. Had he been black with the same violation in Texas he would either have been sent to prison for five years, or dead while reaching for his licence. Or am I being cynical?

And who is Kirsten Gillibrand?

[Stavros]

Go, go, Groper Joe? Or bye-bye Biden?

I know its childish, so when I saw Peter Buttigieg from South Bend...then read he pronounes his name Boot-edge-edge which made me wonder -can Americans handle so many syllables in one name? One dreads to think the nickname BS-45 will have to devise to remember who he is.

[blackchubby38]

Go, go, Groper Joe? Or bye-bye Biden?

I know its childish, so when I saw Peter Buttigieg from South Bend...then read he pronounes his name Boot-edge-edge which made me wonder -can Americans handle so many syllables in one name? One dreads to think the nickname BS-45 will have to devise to remember who he is.

I have noticed a trend with both Biden and O' Rourke. As soon as they announced that they were running or in Biden's case was about to, all of the sudden things that they did in their past began to resurface. I don't know if its the Republicans doing it because they think both guys have a legitimate shot at beating Trump or its the "Anybody but a white guy" wing of the Democratic Party.

As long as neither guy committed an actual crime, I really don't give a shit what they did. Biden/O'Rourke 2020.

[Stavros]

Is it not the case that it has become standard practice in US politics, that when someone announces their intention to run for office, the opposition immediately looks for something with which to condemn them? Biden has been know for his 'affectionate' approach to people but obviously not everyone likes being hugged, but was it abusive? After all, a woman can feel uncomfortable just from the way a man is looking at her, he doesn't need to touch. But if the Democtats make groping an issue, and one of their own is alleged to have done it, maybe the worst aspect is the way it becomes legitimate.

As for the party, do the Democrats know what candidate they want, or the candidate with the best chance of defeating the President? The two may not be the same. I even read somewhere Hillary Clinton could return to the fight. It is hard being in the UK because all sorts of daily news doesn't make it here, and in the past candidates who were not considered strong in the early stages came through at the end. Spare a thought for the UK where instead of 12 people seeking the top job, nobody here wants it, or looks capable of doing it.

[blackchubby38]

Is it not the case that it has become standard practice in US politics, that when someone announces their intention to run for office, the opposition immediately looks for something with which to condemn them? Biden has been know for his 'affectionate' approach to people but obviously not everyone likes being hugged, but was it abusive? After all, a woman can feel uncomfortable just from the way a man is looking at her, he doesn't need to touch. But if the Democtats make groping an issue, and one of their own is alleged to have done it, maybe the worst aspect is the way it becomes legitimate.

As for the party, do the Democrats know what candidate they want, or the candidate with the best chance of defeating the President? The two may not be the same. I even read somewhere Hillary Clinton could return to the fight. It is hard being in the UK because all sorts of daily news doesn't make it here, and in the past candidates who were not considered strong in the early stages came through at the end. Spare a thought for the UK where instead of 12 people seeking the top job, nobody here wants it, or looks capable of doing it.

Under normal circumstances, I would agree with you that this was just standard practice. But in the case of Biden it just reeks of a hatchet job to force to guy into not running.

It also illustrates a problem that I have had with the "Me Too Movement" from the beginning. They want treat to every transgression the same and not take things into account such as degrees and context. Yes, people's private space should be respected. But what Biden did was not abusive and it shouldn't keep him from being able to run for President.

Finally, I think the practical Democrats know what candidate they want. They want one who has the best chance at beating Trump in 20/20. If that candidate happens to be a minority or a woman, so be it. But should it should because they have the best chance at winning and not just because of their race and gender.

[Stavros]

I agree with what you say about Biden, but think we have for some time been living in a world where the headline determines the conversation, not the truth. Rupert Murdoch, when, in the 1960s, he took over a UK newspaper on its deathbed, The Sun, saw a gap in the market for a paper that would combine what he thinks the 'average bloke' wants in terms of news and content: bite-sized politics, and lots of celebrity gossip, sex and sport. His personal agenda has always been libertarian, hostile to government, supportive of markets. This has enabled him to simultaneously back politicians who maintain a system he doesn't believe in, while hammering the policies he does -low taxes being the key. In terms of tone, crude works, so snappy headlines become the tool that is used to ridicule this politician, praise that one. Murdoch bases his strategy on the view that most people most of the time are not interested in politics, but can be swayed by perception and uses his papers and broadcasting networks to continuously pump out a biased argument that need have no connection to the truth if the truth does not contain his vision of a US without government.

So perception is everything, so that even people with no bias one way or the other will pause to reflect -maybe Biden has been a creep- all it needs is a small seed of doubt, which is why the standard operation now when someone, anyone puts themself forward for public office, is to find something negative -anything will do, like a $20 dollar parking fine- and use it to smear the person as unfit for that office. And to never stop until the person has been defeated -just as the same media machine will support those who do have dirt under their fingernails because, again, the truth is irrelevant. It was critical for the President to get in the first reaction to what we now know was a misleading declaration by William Barr on the Mueller Report, which is explict in not exonerating the President from charges that he obstructed justice- yet 'Exonerated' and 'Not Guilty' were screaming at people from the start, because perception is everything, and if the truth is that the President broke the law, so what? The Democrats were always going to claim that.

I don't know if this is a turning point in US politics, because we don't know if the Republican Party will allow anyone to challenge their leader for the 2020 nomination, and we don't know who the Democrats will choose. Even if he wins again in 2020 it might not be the end, but the point is that rather than take on the US government and downsize it, what the President and his supporters, led by Mudoch are doing, is constantly demeaning public office as a virtuous endeavour. Again and again, Congress and the Media are attacked as 'enemies of the people', they are held to be in contempt, to orchestrate a hoax, to be indifferent to security on the southern border. The Democrats are anti-Jewish, not by accident, but by design, and the President will even ridicule his own staff -fundamentally, it is absolutely essential that the broad mass of American people lose their faith in their elected representatives, that they come to understand that Government is the problem, not the solution.

It is essential that the President lie all the time, be exposed as a liar, and enjoy telling lies, because he wants to smash to pieces all and any respect for the Presidency as an Office, just as he is committed to denigrating Congress as a 'swamp', just as he loves giving high office to men who will use it to stuff their pockets with tax-payers cash via 'expenses' and give jobs to family members knowing how bad it looks, knowing it is unethical-it is all part of the plan, to smash American government to pieces, to re-orient politics to the personal, to argue that only markets work, and that this gives the people real power to make choices for themselves they do not need to give to politicians.

Yes, unlike Murdoch, the President doesn't believe in markets -his experience of them is one of failure, all his succeses have come from fixed trade and borrowing, lots of borrowing- but Murdoch and the Koch Brothers are using him to their own end -he is their useful idiot-, to bring an end to the 'Big Government' that they believe has been an obstacle to freedom and prosperity since either 1933 or 1865 depending on how far back you want to go.

It may be the US is now divided beyond repair, a lot depends on whether the US has flirted with 'populism' at the expense of democracy and doesn't like it, but does the Democrat party have a candidate who can offer people hope that things will get better -and can that candidate win? For what it's worth, I think the US has a better selection of politicians than the UK, but the fragmentation of information that characterizes the way information is distributed means I cannot decide if this is a benefit to democracy, or the agency of its demise.

[Stavros]

Would a Biden-Harris ticket be a worthwhile compromise to unite the 'safe as houses' Biden faction with Harris the acceptable candidate for the 'radicals'? And it would once again put a woman in the frame for the top job, in 2024.

[blackchubby38]

Would a Biden-Harris ticket be a worthwhile compromise to unite the 'safe as houses' Biden faction with Harris the acceptable candidate for the 'radicals'? And it would once again put a woman in the frame for the top job, in 2024.

I don't think so. It would be acceptable for the centrist wing of the party. But the far left wing of the party wouldn't go for it. They don't want Biden and apparently since Harris was a prosecutor who sent men of color to prison, they don't like her either.