2020 Democratic Candidates Tracker - Part II

[Delphic Oracle]

Believe it or not, presidents have had surgery done on themselves during their term of office that have sometimes required them to be knocked out during the operation. There are well-established procedures for handling the situation.

And to be honest, if it's President Bernie Sanders, I have a tough time believing the VP could possibly be worse prepared.

Two things. First I'm more concerned about how people will perceive his health than I, personally, am concerned about his health.

Secondly, I'm talking about emergencies, something not planned in advance.

The reality is we've had some serious blunders and delays when it comes to these procedures when it came time to need them in a crisis. Reassuring me that there are well-established procedures doesn't address my concern about them not being well-implemented.

ETA: If anything, given the front-runners are all in this age range it is a discussion we should have already been having, but now all the baggage of it lands in Bernie's lap.

 

[I Am The Scum]

You're going to try to reassure me be invoking an example where the proper procedures were not followed and people who knew they were not the proper procedures did not speak up?

Are you sure you want to do that?

I'm not trying to reassure you. I'm attempting to test your hypothesis that a medical emergency for the president would lead to some kind of major crisis outside the operating room. Multiple counterexamples have been offered. Do with it what you will.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

I'm not trying to reassure you. I'm attempting to test your hypothesis that a medical emergency for the president would lead to some kind of major crisis outside the operating room. Multiple counterexamples have been offered. Do with it what you will.

One counterexample of an emergency has been offered.

As I recall it involved a guy (ETA: summoning Toby Ziegler "WHO NO ONE ELECTED!") going into the White House Briefing Room and declaring to the world that according to the Constitution he was in charge when he was actually not supposed to be in charge.

I'm saying there's a lot of room between "nothing bad happened that one time" and "we have well-established procedures and everything will be fine."

 

[theprestige]

One counterexample of an emergency has been offered.

As I recall it involved a guy (ETA: summoning Toby Ziegler "WHO NO ONE ELECTED!") going into the White House Briefing Room and declaring to the world that according to the Constitution he was in charge when he was actually not supposed to be in charge.

I'm saying there's a lot of room between "nothing bad happened that one time" and "we have well-established procedures and everything will be fine."

I agree that there's a lot of room between those two points.

Indeed, there's enough room for me to comfortably fit in, "we have well-established procedures, that haven't always (ever?) been strictly followed, but in practice these incidents don't cause an international crisis even when the procedures aren't followed".

And I'm pretty comfortable with that. Where do you stand?

 

[Brainster]

Here's an all-day sucker from Time on Kamala:

In mid-September, Harris said she’d be focusing on the first-to-vote caucus state. It was something of an unwitting announcement: she was overheard in Washington joking to a colleague, “I’m ******* moving to Iowa.” (At least, a staffer quipped, “she didn’t say, ‘I’m moving to ******* Iowa.'”) Her campaign is doubling its staff in the state, to more than 130 people, and she has pledged to visit every week for the foreseeable future. “I’m really excited about it,” she tells me, saying the opportunity to engage in “old-school retail politics” reminds her of her San Francisco political roots. “I like people.”

What do you expect her to say? That she's already bored to tears with seeing so many cornfields?

The article is not entirely soft-focus; they point out some of the mistakes that she's made along the way (while also giving her a chance to get in her talking points on those matters). I did find this a little amusing:

Harris’ underdog campaign did better than expected. Partly as a result of her relationship with her former boyfriend Willie Brown, the legendary California politician who was then speaker of the state assembly, Harris had cultivated a strong fundraising base among the city’s wealthy socialites. Brown, 30 years her senior and technically still married, had also appointed Harris to boards and introduced her to his political network when they were dating in the 1990s, sparking accusations of nepotism.

So it was just a technicality?

 

[theprestige]

Here's an all-day sucker from Time on Kamala:







What do you expect her to say? That she's already bored to tears with seeing so many cornfields?



The article is not entirely soft-focus; they point out some of the mistakes that she's made along the way (while also giving her a chance to get in her talking points on those matters). I did find this a little amusing:







So it was just a technicality?

Of course it was a technicality. Political nepotism didn't exist until Joe and Hunter Biden invented it sometime in 1996.

 

[Foolmewunz]

Here's an all-day sucker from Time on Kamala:



What do you expect her to say? That she's already bored to tears with seeing so many cornfields?

The article is not entirely soft-focus; they point out some of the mistakes that she's made along the way (while also giving her a chance to get in her talking points on those matters). I did find this a little amusing:



So it was just a technicality?

Yes. I'm sure you know numerous people who separated, got involved with someone else, and then had the divorce finalized.

1. Why are you bothering with the "gotcha". It's pretty cheap and it's not an uncommon marital or dating situation. I know more than a dozen individuals who went on to another relationship while "technically still married".

2. Why is Time just catching up to Kamala, now? None of this information is new. The Get Kamala brigade has been pushing this stuff for ages.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

There's misreading and then there's making stuff up out of nowhere.

Is Trump not in his 70s? Did I make that up?

Does Trump not have a pathologic narcissistic personality disorder? (We have a whole thread of supporting evidence on this and most of the contrary debate is, no one should say so in public.) Did I make that up?

Are you not a Trump supporter? Did I make that up?

 

[Aridas]

Are you not a Trump supporter? Did I make that up?

Pretty sure he's not. Not even remotely.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Pretty sure he's not. Not even remotely.

OK, 2 out of 3 then.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

Yes. I'm sure you know numerous people who separated, got involved with someone else, and then had the divorce finalized.

1. Why are you bothering with the "gotcha". It's pretty cheap and it's not an uncommon marital or dating situation. I know more than a dozen individuals who went on to another relationship while "technically still married".

2. Why is Time just catching up to Kamala, now? None of this information is new. The Get Kamala brigade has been pushing this stuff for ages.

1. I entirely agree, the salaciousness is not the problem its the fact that she's controlled the prosecutorial arm of government at various levels almost precisely because of political patronage and nepotism. That doesn't mean she didn't also have merit, but it does make it really hard to prove (and then there's all kinds of things to say about her policy choices in those offices, but we can avoid that digression for now).

2. It is not necessary to assume Time thinks this is new information. For the very reasons you state, not including this information in a lengthy profile would seem more nefarious than including it, don't you think?

 

[Brainster]

Yes. I'm sure you know numerous people who separated, got involved with someone else, and then had the divorce finalized.

But that's not what happened, or have you forgotten? In fact, Willie dumped Kamala and went back to his wife. IIRC he gave her a BMW as a parting gift.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

Is Trump not in his 70s? Did I make that up?

Does Trump not have a pathologic narcissistic personality disorder? (We have a whole thread of supporting evidence on this and most of the contrary debate is, no one should say so in public.) Did I make that up?

Are you not a Trump supporter? Did I make that up?

I was discussing public perception of Presidents (and candidates) health.

Regardless of their respective ages, a report of a heart operation is going to have an impact on those perceptions.

Trumps behavioral disorders (which I don't dispute) are effectively non-sequitur to the specific point I was making.

I'm not sure where you could possibly have arrived at the idea I'm a Trump supporter and again it would be entirely off the point anyways.

I'll just add this to my mountain of examples in my own discussions or those I've observed where the go-to way to disagree is to accuse the other party of secretly or unwittingly supporting Trump. It's just the current vogue for how to say "heretic!"

 

[Travis]

How is it we are not talking about how Warren broke some poor Marine's penis by being too good at sex?


And that she responded by reminding everyone she was a University of Houston COUGAR!

 

[Aridas]

How is it we are not talking about how Warren broke some poor Marine's penis by being too good at sex?


And that she responded by reminding everyone she was a University of Houston COUGAR!

And that she makes jokes that are actually funny and jokes, unlike Trump?

 

[Travis]

And that she makes jokes that are actually funny and jokes, unlike Trump?

I know I legit laughed out loud when I saw she actually did that. I'm not big on Warren but that was top rate.

 

[Foolmewunz]

I know I legit laughed out loud when I saw she actually did that. I'm not big on Warren but that was top rate.

Yeah, I was afraid of a clickbait lure when I saw the headline "Warren Trolls Conspiracy Theorists" and was delighted that she'd actually coined a great line. Either she's got moxie, that lady, or she's got great writers who she listens to. Both choices are so far superior to Trump that it's like returning to the era of grown ups running things. Dorothy Sayers at the Algonquin roundtable.

 

[Brainster]

Mayor Pete gets the "he's the new Obama" treatment at the New Republic:

Watching the way that people listen to a presidential candidate is a surprisingly good indicator of raw political talent. In September 2006, at the annual Tom Harkin Steak Fry near Des Moines, a fledgling Illinois senator named Barack Obama (not yet a presidential candidate) mesmerized 3,500 Iowa Democrats. I knew then, studying the rapt expressions on people’s faces as they listened to Obama deliver his first political speech in Iowa, that 2008 would be his year. The Iowa Democrats all looked like extras from Frank Capra’s movie Meet John Doe.

Needless to say, in 2016, neither major Democratic candidate rewarded intense listening. Hillary Clinton offered predictable bromides and Bernie Sanders has a passion for yelling. But this time around, Pete Buttigieg, the 37-year-old gay mayor of a small Indiana city (South Bend) half the size of Des Moines, is acing the listening test. His words, even in a stump speech, tend to be more thoughtful and more surprising than the standard political applause lines of his rivals.

Followed by a pretty flimsy bit of horserace analysis:

Four months before the Iowa caucuses, it is time to reckon with the reality that Buttigieg probably has a better chance to be the Democratic nominee than anyone aside from Biden and the surging Warren. With Sanders ailing and Kamala Harris sputtering, Buttigieg has enough money to go the distance (he has raised $44 million in the last six months) and enough polling support to guarantee his place on every debate stage. Whatever happens next, this youthful candidate with a long resume (Harvard, Rhodes Scholar, McKinsey analyst, failed statewide candidate, mayor, and intelligence officer in Afghanistan) has already emerged as the political surprise of 2019.

The long resume is the reason the "high-SAT-score wing of the Democratic electorate" has fallen for him. But there is a much larger wing (with some overlap) of the Democratic electorate that has not fallen for him: African-Americans.

Look at any of the polls. The latest poll of South Carolina has Buttigieg with about 4% overall support, all coming from white people; Buttigieg actually got no support at all from blacks in that poll.

 

[theprestige]

The real question with Buttigieg is how much support he gets from straights vs gays.

"How much support do they get from blacks" is a Harris question.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

The real question with Buttigieg is how much support he gets from straights vs gays.

Not seeing how this applies.

"How much support do they get from blacks" is a Harris question.

It's the question for everybody but Biden.