Politics 2020 Field - DNC

Discussion in 'Blazers OT Forum' started by Further, Jan 1, 2019.

  1. Lanny

    Lanny Original Season Ticket Holder "Mr. Big Shot"

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    Just like in 2018, I suppose.
     
  2. barfo

    barfo triggered obsessive commie pinko Staff Member Global Moderator

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    Revisiting....

    I'll re-title category Y to category B, for Breakout - those folks need a big boost from the debates to become contenders.
    Swalwell and Inslee drop into Category B. De Blasio starts in Category B. All the others that were there, stay there - until the first debate, that is. I expect that somewhere between 1 and 3 Category B people will manage to hit a home run in the debates this month and get a bounce in the polls and donations. [Edit: Oh, Mike Gravel too. I keep forgetting he exists for some reason.]

    Category H - these are folks that haven't caught on but have enough fundraising horsepower to keep going in hopes of something good happening. Unlike Category B, they might not need a breakout moment in the debates - but they do need to make something happen sometime.
    Current members: Castro, Gillibrand, Booker, Klobuchar, and O'Rourke. The last three were contenders at last check, but they've fallen.

    Category C - Contenders. This is just Buttigieg, Harris, Sanders, and Warren. Within this group, I'm surprised by the strength of Buttigieg and Warren, and the relative weakness of Sanders and Harris.

    Category F for Frontrunner: Joe Biden. Very surprised by his polls. As I wrote several weeks ago, I expected him (and the other 2 old folks) to fade. I was very wrong about that. Could still happen of course, but hasn't so far.

    As for me, my early favorite is Mayor Pete. But I'm very open to the alternatives.

    barfo
     
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  3. VanillaGorilla

    VanillaGorilla Well-Known Member

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    What do you like about Buttigieg?
     
  4. barfo

    barfo triggered obsessive commie pinko Staff Member Global Moderator

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    Well, it's not really based on policy, because I haven't heard enough from him (or anyone else, really, other than maybe Warren and Yang) on that.

    At this point it's mostly that I like his biography and his attitude/personality. And he seems like quite a refreshing contrast to Trump.

    barfo
     
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  5. Lanny

    Lanny Original Season Ticket Holder "Mr. Big Shot"

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    He's a Veteran. He makes sense. He has a calm demeanor.
     
  6. VanillaGorilla

    VanillaGorilla Well-Known Member

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    I'm a little skeptical about him. As you said, there's very little out there about his policy, and I guess I'm not as sold on his personality as you are. He seems fake to me. Also, he's too religious for me personally. But I do look forward to finding out more about him.

    Him being a veteran does literally nothing for me.
     
  7. EL PRESIDENTE

    EL PRESIDENTE Username Retired in Honor of Lanny.

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    Harris got cucked by Matisahu.

     
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  8. barfo

    barfo triggered obsessive commie pinko Staff Member Global Moderator

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    Seems non-fake to me, at least less fake than the average candidate, which is of course pretty darn fake. It's interesting to ponder what about him makes him seem fake to you and not me, but unfortunately you and I don't know each other well enough to really know the answer.

    Me too, but at least so far he seems to use his religion for good rather than for evil.

    It does a little something for me. One, it tells me he is interested in serving the country (unlike Mr. Bone Spurs). Two, it gives him some small insight into the military, which would be useful if he does become president. Three, it goes to electability, although not as much as people usually think (see, e.g. John Kerry).

    barfo
     
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  9. Lanny

    Lanny Original Season Ticket Holder "Mr. Big Shot"

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    Nothing for you but a great deeal for me. He was willing to put his life on the line for his country. I know that feeling very well.
     
  10. MARIS61

    MARIS61 Real American

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    Translation: He's a ticking time bomb!
     
  11. MARIS61

    MARIS61 Real American

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    Such amazing ineptness with these clowns.

    Never-had-a-chance Gillibrand nevertheless suddenly decided in unison with other chanceless Cory Booker to go big on opposing the Second Amendment.

    Somehow she forgot who got her elected and how she groveled at their doorstep for $$$!

    NRA responds to Gillibrand put-down by posting her 2008 letter praising gun-rights group

    By Gregg Re | Fox News

    Town Hall with Kirsten Gillibrand: Part 1
    Democratic 2020 presidential candidate Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand discusses gun violence, the importance of women's voices in public life, push for Sen. Al Franken's resignation and her position on abortion with moderator Chris Wallace in Dubuque, Iowa.

    One day after Kirsten Gillibrand slammed the National Rifle Association (NRA) as the "worst organization in this country," the group on Monday posted an effusive letter it received from Gillibrand in 2008 in which she praised "the work that the NRA does to protect gun owners rights" and said she hoped to work with it "for many years in Congress."

    At a fiery Fox News town hall in Dubuque, Iowa Sunday, Gillibrand charged that the NRA cares "more about their profits than the American people" and "lies" for the sake of profit. But the NRA has countered that Gillibrand, whose campaign has attracted at most 1 percent support in national and early voting state polls, was a cynical political opportunist trying to gin up support for her candidacy.

    "Gillibrand called us the worst org in the country, but when she represented NY20, she wrote us: 'I appreciate the work that the NRA does to protect gun owners rights, and I look forward to working with you for many years,'" the NRA wrote on Twitter. "Now that she’s looking to crack 1%, she’ll say anything."

    Gillibrand, according to the NRA, sent the letter to NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris Cox on Sept. 19, 2008, when she was a member of Congress representing a rural district in upstate New York. The ILA, or Institute for Legislative Action, is the lobbying arm of the NRA.

    "I want to be very clear that I always have and always will believe that the correct interpretation of the 2nd amendment [sic] is that it applies to an individual's right to carry guns, and does not apply generally to the National Guard or a group of individuals in a State," Gillibrand wrote to Cox, following what she described as a meeting with him the previous August.

    Gillibrand, in the letter, went on to reject a slew of gun control measures, saying she was "adamantly opposed" to the idea "outright banning firearms for cosmetic features, bullets of an [sic] random size, or banning magazines from holding an arbitrary number of cartridges."

    Those limitations, she said, were "random" and intended solely to "limit[] gun ownership or usage."

    Gillibrand concluded: "I appreciate the work that the NRA does to protect gun owners rights, and I look forward to working with you for many years.”

    "I appreciate the work that the NRA does to protect gun owners rights, and I look forward to working with you for many years.”

    — Kirsten Gillibrand, in 2008
    The letter was not out of the ordinary for Gillibrand at the time. Gillibrand boasted in 2009 about receiving a 100 percent "A" rating from the NRA and said she kept two guns under her bed. She was also a member of the conservative Democratic Blue Dog coalition when she represented New York's rural 20th congressional district in the House.

    At the town hall, Gillibrand called for universal background checks, a bump stock ban, and a federal anti-weapons trafficking law. She also accused the NRA of having a "chokehold" on members of Congress. (The Trump administration has already banned bump stocks, over the objections of some conservatives who raised concerns about the constitutionality of the sweeping executive order.)

    Wallace pointed out that Friday's shooting at the Virginia Beach municipal complex would not have been stopped by any of Gillibrand's proposed initiatives, and inquired whether she could provide more specific ideas that could have prevented the murders.

    The NRA says the law would force supporters to drop their memberships for fear of losing their livelihoods; Jonathan Hunt reports from Los Angeles.

    "Stop being beholden to the NRA like President Trump is," Gillibrand offered. "The NRA is lying to the American people. It is not about the Second Amendment. It is about gun sales. ... It is literally about greed and corruption, and making sure the status quo remains the same."

    Democrats, including key donors, have accused Gillibrand of opportunism in other instances. Notably, Gillibrand said in 2017 -- after Hillary Clinton lost her presidential bid the previous year -- that Bill Clinton should have resigned during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. She made no mention of it, however, before then, including when Bill Clinton campaigned and fundraised for Gillibrand in 2006 and 2009.

    And last October, when asked during a debate whether she would serve out her full term in the Senate or seek the presidency, Gillibrand responded: "I will serve my six-year term."

    Gillibrand won re-election the next month, to a six-year Senate term, and announced her presidential candidacy in January.

    Billionaire left-wing megadonor George Soros, in an interview with The Washington Post, said Gillibrand was the only Democrat he hoped would not win the presidency, because of what he termed her political opportunism.

    Gillibrand's office did not respond to Fox News' request for comment. But by Gillibrand's own admission, time is running out to generate momentum.

    "The first debate is coming fast, but we're still short of the 65,000 donors we need," Gillibrand tweeted June 1. "Help guarantee my spot on the debate stage by sending a donation tonight—even $1 helps!"
     
    Last edited: Jun 3, 2019
  12. MARIS61

    MARIS61 Real American

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  13. barfo

    barfo triggered obsessive commie pinko Staff Member Global Moderator

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    If Fox News is worried about her, then she must be doing something right.

    barfo
     
  14. MARIS61

    MARIS61 Real American

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    Frank Miniter: Cory Booker knows the truth about gun violence -- but sadly, he can’t say it

    By Frank Miniter | Fox News

    As he runs for president, Senator Cory Booker, D-N.J., is stumbling over his past positions on guns. This is worth noting because his dilemma is a poignant example of why America really can’t come together behind honest solutions.

    Last Sunday, CNN host Jake Tapper pushed Booker on his show "State of the Union," to explain what he would do to stop a murderer like the one who struck in Virginia Beach, killing at least 12 people last Friday.

    “You said yesterday that mass shootings in America ‘cannot just go on in our country.’ And you have unveiled a comprehensive gun-reform plan,” Tapper said. “Now, ATF says that the two weapons used in the attack were handguns, not semiautomatic assault rifles. They say that they were purchased legally. How would your plan have stopped this tragedy, if at all?”

    Booker knew he couldn’t be honest without hurting his chances in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries, so he tried to sidestep the important question with generalities. “This is a tragedy today,” he said, “but you know that every single day in the United States of America, in the aggregate, we have mass shootings that go on in neighborhoods like mine….”

    Tapper soon said, “I’m sorry to interrupt, but you keep saying, ‘We’re not helpless.’ So, I’m saying: What would have prevented this tragedy?”

    Booker just continued to evade the question. Part of the reason for the obvious dodge was that none of Booker’s (or other Democrat’s) proposals would have stopped this murderer, as the killer’s handguns had been purchased legally and there is no red flag, at least that’s now publicly known, that would have put this man on law enforcement’s or public health official’s radars.

    But Booker likely also has trouble answering because he knows that the honesty he expressed just a few years ago would hurt him politically today.

    “Listen to me, the people dying in Chicago, the people dying in Newark are not being done with law-abiding gun owners. We do not need to go after the guns. A law-abiding, mentally stable American, that’s not America’s problem,” said Senator Cory Booker in 2012.

    The deeply-rooted narrative from the left that American gun owners and their guns are a public-health problem has made honesty impossible for politicians who hope to win in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries.

    Clearly, he was aware then—and likely still is now—that American freedom is not a problem that needs to be solved.

    Booker can’t be honest today because he knows that Democrat primary voters have only been fed one narrative on guns for a long time. He knows that voters who only read publications like the New York Times and who only watch networks like CNN have no trouble adhering to a one-sided, ideologically anti-gun opinion—and feeling morally superior for it.

    Booker must also know, based on his previous statements, that the left’s ideological push for gun control is treating law-abiding American gun owners as if they are the cause of evil, instead of the actual criminals or those with serious mental-health issues. He then must also be aware that this tactic pits one segment of the American citizenry against the other—those who choose not to own or carry firearms against the 100 million or more who do—for no good reason.

    The shocking truth of it is, if the Democrats running for president would only be as honest as Booker used to be, we’d have a much better chance of coming together behind actual solutions. We could come up with better ways to find and treat those with potentially violent mental-health issues. We could find and build on honest policies to break up the cycle of inner-city gang violence. We could continue to empower more good, law-abiding Americans to carry concealed so they can act even more often as a line of defense against the rare and random mass-killers.

    To stay in step with the current mainstream-media narrative, Booker also told Tapper: “This is a uniquely American problem. We have carnage in our country at levels that no other nation sees.”

    That statement isn’t just misinformation, it is completely false. Many other nations have higher murder rates per capita than the U.S. Even if Booker was only referring to mass murders, he’d be wrong. Last year John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, debunked a study that many on the anti-gun left cite to make this false claim.

    What is happening is that the deeply-rooted narrative from the left that American gun owners and their guns are a public-health problem has made honesty impossible for politicians who hope to win in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries.

    In the process, they are also making real solutions impossible to achieve – and that is the most unfortunate thing of all.
     
  15. Lanny

    Lanny Original Season Ticket Holder "Mr. Big Shot"

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    In gibberish dialect?
     
  16. Lanny

    Lanny Original Season Ticket Holder "Mr. Big Shot"

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    Are you telling us that she's a politician? Oh, the shocking truth.
     
  17. jonnyboy

    jonnyboy Well-Known Member

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    Enjoy the crisp, refreshing taste of Obama Lite.
     
  18. jonnyboy

    jonnyboy Well-Known Member

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    So was Tulsi Gabbard but the progressive mainstream news has no problem smearing her shamelessly and without conscience.
     
  19. barfo

    barfo triggered obsessive commie pinko Staff Member Global Moderator

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    Far as I can tell the mainstream media is almost entirely ignoring her (as with most of the <2%-ers). I think I know what you are talking about about the smearing, but I don't really agree. Every candidate gets some dirt thrown at them, she's not unique in that.

    It's tough to break out in a pack of 24, but she'll have a shot at the debates.

    barfo
     
  20. barfo

    barfo triggered obsessive commie pinko Staff Member Global Moderator

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    Although you intend that as a negative, it doesn't sound too bad right now.

    barfo
     
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