2020 Democratic Challengers III: Weekend at Bernie's

[aparch]

As a Wildcat, not sure what Schultz's money goes to, but it's not sports.

Last I was aware, it wasn't much of anything he donated. Other than the branding for the first Starbucks in the UP in the LRC.

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Wow, never knew he was a Wildcat.

It's OK, I'm quite certain he's forgotten about it, too.

[mookie1995]

Re: 2020 Democratic Challengers III: Weekend at Bernie's

Kepler is onto this and mookie been saying since the start.
Conservatism 1dn liberalism have taken on entirely new definitions.
At there base is one believes the constitution as written while the other believes it is the living breathing document that one can interpret accordingly.
One is a conservative view
One is a liberal view

However now people spew these headings about to back free money for rich people vs free money for poor people
For caring about white folk over browns vs caring about gays and colored other others (or whatever shtick is being bandied about.

However none of it is true liberalism nor true conservatism.

It is like calling water "couch".

[Rover]

Re: 2020 Democratic Challengers III: Weekend at Bernie's

I think you and Kep want to have a discussion that would play out on PBS Newshour. Which is fine, but the new definition of conservatism has so drowned out the old one that its completely irrelevant. Really, who cares?

A historical example. Swastikas go back to Roman times I believe. However, if you hang one outside your house, you can expect to have some problems and most likely can't smooth them over by telling your angry Jewish neighbor that you're just "celebrating your Roman heritage". The original meaning of that symbol has been completely obliterated by events that happened since the fall of the Roman empire.

Same thing with conservatism. Are there still like 3 old geezers left who truly believe that conservatives are about strict adherence to the Constitution? Maybe, although like unicorns I suspect they exist only in mythology. The current definition of conservatism is the modern Republican party of the past 50 years - a party of racial resentment mixed with nostalgia. The rest is just academic blah blah blah.

[mookie1995]

Re: 2020 Democratic Challengers III: Weekend at Bernie's

Go get mookie a drink of couch, will ya??

[Rover]

Re: 2020 Democratic Challengers III: Weekend at Bernie's

Go get mookie a drink of couch, will ya??

Sure you wouldn't prefer some yummy hemlock instead?

[Kepler]

Re: 2020 Democratic Challengers III: Weekend at Bernie's

Sure you wouldn't prefer some yummy hemlock instead?

[Handyman]

Re: 2020 Democratic Challengers III: Weekend at Bernie's

Howard Shultz is already shooting himself in the foot.His comments about Warren and Harris (which he has deleted) prove he is a liberal in sheep's clothing. He will be DOA by summer time.

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Re: 2020 Democratic Challengers III: Weekend at Bernie's

Howard Shultz is already shooting himself in the foot.His comments about Warren and Harris (which he has deleted) prove he is a liberal in sheep's clothing. He will be DOA by summer time.

I think you meant a conservative in sheep's clothing.

[Slap Shot]

Re: 2020 Democratic Challengers III: Weekend at Bernie's

George Will endorses Klobuchar?

urely the silliest aspirant for the Democrats’ 2020 presidential nomination is already known: “Beto,” aka Robert Francis, O’Rourke is a skateboarding man-child whose fascination with himself caused him to livestream a recent dental appointment for — open-wide, please — teeth cleaning.

O’Rourke’s journal about his postelection recuperation-through-road-trip-to-nowhere-in-particular is so without wit or interesting observations that it merits Truman Capote’s description of “On the Road” author Jack Kerouac’s work: That’s not writing, that’s typing.

When Democrats are done flirting with such insipidity, their wandering attentions can flit to a contrastingly serious candidacy, coming soon from Minnesota. The land of 10,000 lakes and four unsuccessful presidential candidates (Harold Stassen, Hubert Humphrey, Eugene McCarthy, Walter Mondale) now has someone who could break the state’s losing streak.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar is the person perhaps best equipped to send the current president packing.

To get the boring part over with, she satisfies the 2020 Chromosome Criterion: The Democratic nominating electorate is disproportionately female and eager to achieve what they came tantalizingly close to in 2016, a female president. Now, about politics and policy.

She is from a state contiguous with Iowa, whose caucuses might, or might not, be as big a deal in 2020 as they have been since Jimmy Carter’s 1976 success in them propelled him toward the presidency. (Early voting for California’s March 3 primary, in which probably 11 percent of delegates to the Democratic National Convention will be allocated, begins the day of Iowa’s caucuses, so some candidates might slight Iowa in order to court California.)

Minnesota also borders Wisconsin, one of the three Rust Belt states (the others are Michigan and Pennsylvania) that Donald Trump took that had voted Democratic in at least six consecutive presidential elections. She is from the Midwest, where Democrats need help in Michigan (Trump carried it by just 0.3 percent of the vote), Iowa (Trump by 9 percentage points), Ohio (Trump by 9 points).

Minnesota has voted Democratic in 11 consecutive presidential elections (since it spurned George McGovern, from neighboring South Dakota, in 1972). It has more electoral votes (10) than such swing states as New Hampshire (4), Iowa (6), Nevada (6) and Colorado (9). But Minnesota’s blueness has been fading: Barack Obama defeated Mitt Romney by 8 percentage points in 2012, but four years later Hillary Clinton defeated Trump by just 1.5 points.

Klobuchar, who will be 59 in May, is the daughter of a newspaper columnist. Surmounting this handicap, she went to Yale, then to the University of Chicago Law School, then to a law firm. Then to a maternity ward, where she was provoked: Her infant daughter had a serious problem, but the rule at the time was that new mothers should be out of the hospital in 24 hours, which kindled her interest in public policy.

After a stint as the elected prosecuting attorney of Hennepin County, she won an open U.S. Senate seat in 2006. Last year she won a third term by a 24-point margin.

Her state has a significant farming population and agribusiness (e.g., Cargill, General Mills, Land O’Lakes, Hormel), so she has had practice speaking to populations and interests that Democrats need, and speaking against trade wars in which farmers quickly become collateral damage. She has become informed about what could be one of the most salient issues in 2020 — the high costs of prescription drugs.

In the Almanac of American Politics’ most recent (2015) vote rankings, she was the 27th most liberal senator, liberal enough to soothe other liberals without annoying everyone else.

As the bidding war for the affection of the Democratic left spirals into inanity — “Abolish ICE!”; “70 percent marginal tax rate!”;”Impeach the president!”; “Pack the Supreme Court!”; “Medicare for all!”; “Free college!”; “Free other stuff!” — Klobuchar is the potential top-tier candidate most apt to resist forfeiting the general election while winning the nomination.

Her special strength, however, is her temperament. Baseball, it has been said, is not a game you can play with your teeth clenched. That is also true of politics, another day-by-day game with a long season: It requires an emotional equipoise, a blend of relaxation and concentration, stamina leavened by cheerfulness. Klobuchar laughs easily and often.

If the nation wants an angry president, it can pick from among the many seething Democratic aspirants, or can keep the one president it has. If, however, it would like someone to lead a fatigued nation in a long exhale, it can pick a Minnesotan, at last.

[Kepler]

Re: 2020 Democratic Challengers III: Weekend at Bernie's

George Will makes David Brooks look relevant.

[Handyman]

Re: 2020 Democratic Challengers III: Weekend at Bernie's

I think you meant a conservative in sheep's clothing.

Yeah I meant to say "in name only" and completely biffed it.

[Deutsche Gopher Fan]

Yeah I meant to say "in name only" and completely biffed it.

This is what happens when you reply to Drew enough times

[Rover]

Re: 2020 Democratic Challengers III: Weekend at Bernie's

“My objection to Donald Trump is the way he’s filling his current role, in terms of representing the country, in terms of representing the public. There’s an attitude, and a style, and lack of civility that I think is bad for the country, and I find offensive.”

— Michael Bloomberg, quoted by the Washington Post.


Ya know, I appreciate the Trump criticisms, but I'm looking for something a little less academic and more real! Something like, "President Chump is a fuking corrupt treasonous Putin ball licker like the rest of his party and I'm sick of the WH being run as an annex of the Kremlin". Step it up Mike. You're from Medford for chrissakes. Should already be well versed in using the F word in polite conversation.

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Re: 2020 Democratic Challengers III: Weekend at Bernie's

Nah, what Bloomy is really saying is that he would run the country as Trump Lite. All the populist policies, just none of the Twitter fights with celebs, the very public lack of civility, etc.

He's a loser. And for that matter so is Klobuchar, no matter how much Minnesotans here want to cheerlead for her.