It was inevitable.
Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochol, who hasn't spoken to him since January, becomes the first female governor of New York in 14 days and the the first governor from Buffalo since Grover Cleveland.
The Biden-Harris Era
-
Big Magilla
- Site Admin
- Posts: 19336
- Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 3:22 pm
- Location: Jersey Shore
Re: The Biden-Harris Era
In other news, this never works.
https://www.axios.com/rural-democrats-2 ... 89c01.html
Swing Country: Rural Dems run from party
A growing swath of House Democratic candidates says the party needs to radically improve its heartland appeal to have any hope of keeping power in Washington.
Why it matters: With control of the House and Senate on the bubble, many ambitious Democrats — from the South to the Midwest to the Rockies — are running against their own national party's image.
What's happening: After four years of listening to President Trump, many rural voters are reflexively distrustful of progressive solutions to everything from the pandemic to infrastructure.
In a 3-min. ad for his Senate campaign, Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio never says he's a Democrat.
What we're hearing: Democratic strategists are advising candidates in states like these to refrain from "fancy" language, and focus on populist economic policies.
Several consultants insisted that Democratic policies — on labor rights, broadband, climate and infrastructure — are popular in rural areas. It's the messaging that's causing heartburn.
Case in point: In Montana, where Republicans have held the state's only U.S. House seat since 1997, Democrat Monica Tranel is seeking a second seat Montana is picking up from new census results. Her ad declares: "So many people I grew up with don’t vote for Democrats anymore."
"They feel like Democrats look down on rural America," she says.
Recent moves by President Biden on infrastructure and the child tax credit are "consistent with traditional, economic, Democratic populism that has real currency in rural areas," said Zac McCrary, a Dem pollster and partner at ALG Research.
McCrary added that in swing districts and states, "Democrats need to have an answer to the question: What makes you different from a lot of the other Democrats?"
Context: These concerns aren't new. Some Democratic leaders have long warned that the language of the left hurts Democrats in swing and rural districts. Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) discouraged "defund the police."
What we're watching: In Iowa, former Democratic congressional candidate J.D. Scholten announced last week that instead of running again, he'll head Rural Voter PAC, aimed at improving the party's brand.
The group will target 39 U.S. counties in rural battleground states, aiming to improve Democratic candidates' performance by 5%.
https://www.axios.com/rural-democrats-2 ... 89c01.html
Swing Country: Rural Dems run from party
A growing swath of House Democratic candidates says the party needs to radically improve its heartland appeal to have any hope of keeping power in Washington.
Why it matters: With control of the House and Senate on the bubble, many ambitious Democrats — from the South to the Midwest to the Rockies — are running against their own national party's image.
What's happening: After four years of listening to President Trump, many rural voters are reflexively distrustful of progressive solutions to everything from the pandemic to infrastructure.
In a 3-min. ad for his Senate campaign, Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio never says he's a Democrat.
What we're hearing: Democratic strategists are advising candidates in states like these to refrain from "fancy" language, and focus on populist economic policies.
Several consultants insisted that Democratic policies — on labor rights, broadband, climate and infrastructure — are popular in rural areas. It's the messaging that's causing heartburn.
Case in point: In Montana, where Republicans have held the state's only U.S. House seat since 1997, Democrat Monica Tranel is seeking a second seat Montana is picking up from new census results. Her ad declares: "So many people I grew up with don’t vote for Democrats anymore."
"They feel like Democrats look down on rural America," she says.
Recent moves by President Biden on infrastructure and the child tax credit are "consistent with traditional, economic, Democratic populism that has real currency in rural areas," said Zac McCrary, a Dem pollster and partner at ALG Research.
McCrary added that in swing districts and states, "Democrats need to have an answer to the question: What makes you different from a lot of the other Democrats?"
Context: These concerns aren't new. Some Democratic leaders have long warned that the language of the left hurts Democrats in swing and rural districts. Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) discouraged "defund the police."
What we're watching: In Iowa, former Democratic congressional candidate J.D. Scholten announced last week that instead of running again, he'll head Rural Voter PAC, aimed at improving the party's brand.
The group will target 39 U.S. counties in rural battleground states, aiming to improve Democratic candidates' performance by 5%.
"How's the despair?"
Re: The Biden-Harris Era
Good news double-post.
1970s paper predicting we’ll hit societal collapse is right on schedule
Upward trajectories for economic and population growth, combined with environmental damage, provide early warning
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-c ... 84673.html
And Rachel Bitecofer essentially gives the Democrats a choice: they can put the Republicans on defense by accusing them of supporting a military coup or get wiped out in 2022 and 2024.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=3f9UaDXAJxA
1970s paper predicting we’ll hit societal collapse is right on schedule
Upward trajectories for economic and population growth, combined with environmental damage, provide early warning
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-c ... 84673.html
And Rachel Bitecofer essentially gives the Democrats a choice: they can put the Republicans on defense by accusing them of supporting a military coup or get wiped out in 2022 and 2024.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=3f9UaDXAJxA
"How's the despair?"
Re: The Biden-Harris Era
What if instead of doing that, he continues to cater to them for fear of alienating a single Republican-leaning individual, and refuses to let in a single Cuban refugees?Big Magilla wrote
He needs to read the riot act to Manchin and Sinema and go for broke on strong-arming the Senate Dems to either kill or severely maim the filibuster. Once that's done, he can go back to his across the country pep talks, the modern equivalent of FDR's fireside chats.
"How's the despair?"
-
Big Magilla
- Site Admin
- Posts: 19336
- Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 3:22 pm
- Location: Jersey Shore
Re: The Biden-Harris Era
No, he's still FDR at heart. He just needs to get over trying to appeal to everyone, which is different from trying to appease everyone. He's not Chamberlain, and he's far from being Buchanan.
He needs to read the riot act to Manchin and Sinema and go for broke on strong-arming the Senate Dems to either kill or severely maim the filibuster. Once that's done, he can go back to his across the country pep talks, the modern equivalent of FDR's fireside chats.
He needs to read the riot act to Manchin and Sinema and go for broke on strong-arming the Senate Dems to either kill or severely maim the filibuster. Once that's done, he can go back to his across the country pep talks, the modern equivalent of FDR's fireside chats.
Re: The Biden-Harris Era
One minute he’s FDR, now he’s Buchanan.Big Magilla wrote
What's going on in this country is disheartening and disgusting. All these Republican run states are slipping back in time to the middle ages whether they realize it or not. Where are they now, the 2020s or the 1920s?
I'm losing patience with Biden and Harris. The time for rah-rah speeches is over. They have the support of most of the country, it's time to do something other than talk. Do not allow the Democratic Texas state legislators to go home without some action in Congress to stop these crazy voter suppression laws from taking effect and force back the ones in other states that have already been signed into law.
"How's the despair?"
-
Big Magilla
- Site Admin
- Posts: 19336
- Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 3:22 pm
- Location: Jersey Shore
Re: The Biden-Harris Era
What's going on in this country is disheartening and disgusting. All these Republican run states are slipping back in time to the middle ages whether they realize it or not. Where are they now, the 2020s or the 1920s?
I'm losing patience with Biden and Harris. The time for rah-rah speeches is over. They have the support of most of the country, it's time to do something other than talk. Do not allow the Democratic Texas state legislators to go home without some action in Congress to stop these crazy voter suppression laws from taking effect and force back the ones in other states that have already been signed into law.
I'm losing patience with Biden and Harris. The time for rah-rah speeches is over. They have the support of most of the country, it's time to do something other than talk. Do not allow the Democratic Texas state legislators to go home without some action in Congress to stop these crazy voter suppression laws from taking effect and force back the ones in other states that have already been signed into law.
Re: The Biden-Harris Era
a) The Tennessee Department of Health fired it's top vaccine official for promoting COVID vaccination and halted all vaccination outreach (not just COVID),
b) Texas state Democrats left Texas to prevent Republicans from having a quorum to pass their draconian anti-voting legislation.
b) Texas state Democrats left Texas to prevent Republicans from having a quorum to pass their draconian anti-voting legislation.
Re: The Biden-Harris Era
A different take on what I wrote about Kamala Harris. "She did a bad job after being set up to fail."
Ezra Klein jumps in: https://twitter.com/ezraklein/status/14 ... 9233147905
"This seems right. Kamala Harris will probably be the Democratic nominee in 24 or 28. Biden's team should be giving her portfolios that make it likelier she'll win. Instead they're giving her impossible problems that will likely become liabilities."
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/29/opin ... biden.html
Dear Kamala Harris: It’s a Trap!
June 29, 2021
By Christina Greer
On Sunday, after Vice President Kamala Harris’s visit to the southern border, the White House felt the need to issue a statement calling her trip a “success.” The statement cited as supporting evidence five tweets by Democratic allies of hers and some neutral media accounts. That’s a relatively modest definition of success, but then again, there were no defensive moments like during the NBC News interview in Guatemala in which she called a border visit a “grand gesture” and noted that she hadn’t visited Europe as vice president, either.
Addressing the root causes of migration is one of several jobs President Biden has handed Ms. Harris, who had no deep expertise with Latin America issues or the decades-long quandary of federal immigration reform. He has also asked her to lead the administration’s voting-rights efforts, which are in a filibuster limbo. According to The Times, he has her working on combating vaccine hesitancy and fighting for policing reform, too, among other uphill battles.
It’s gotten to the point that every time I see Ms. Harris, I immediately think of “The Wiz” and hear Michael Jackson singing:
You can’t win, you can’t break even
And you can’t get out of the game
People keep sayin’ things are gonna change
But they look just like they’re stayin’ the same
Ms. Harris, at this point, can’t seem to win for trying. She is a historic yet inexperienced vice president who is taking on work that can easily backfire as so many people sit in judgment, with critics sniping (especially right-wing commentators) and allies spinning (like with official statements about “success”).
And all the while, the clock is ticking. Most political observers think that if Mr. Biden decides not to run for re-election in 2024 (when he will be 81), Ms. Harris most definitely will. He had to know that in choosing her as his vice president, he was making her his heir apparent. But based on how things look now, her work as his No. 2 could end up being baggage more than a boon. Mr. Biden and his team aren’t giving her chances to get some wins and more experience on her ledger. Rather, it’s the hardest of the hard stuff.
Ms. Harris is a complicated figure. She is not a progressive darling — never has been. As with Barack Obama, the only thing radical about her is her skin color (and gender, in her case) in the Oval Office. On a more substantive level, how Ms. Harris deals with her portfolio will surely alienate the left and centrist factions of the Democratic Party. She was far from a diversity hire for Mr. Biden, and she has clear potential as a national leader, but she needs the time, support and right combination of goals to learn and grow. She needs a mix of tough targets and ones that show her ideas and creativity, as Al Gore had with his Reinventing Government effort, rather than a portfolio consisting of the most difficult policy challenges in 21st-century America.
The way things are going, if Mr. Biden decides not to run again in 2024, countless male Democratic senators and governors will challenge Ms. Harris for the nomination. On one level, there are far too many male leaders who wake up each morning, brush their teeth, look in the mirror and say: “I can do this job I am wholly unqualified for. Let’s go!” But there are also other reasons she would face competition — ones we aren’t talking about.
This country has yet to have an honest conversation and reflection on the ways in which race and gender play out in electoral politics. There are voters who look at Ms. Harris and immediately believe she is unqualified for the job because of her gender, her immigrant parents and the color of her skin. Republicans tend to say the quiet part loud, but if we are being honest, far too many Democrats would never be able to vote for a Black woman at the top of the ticket, no matter how qualified.
Many white liberals like racial and gender equality in theory but get a little gun-shy when asked to make room at the table for others on a long list of issues — school integration, housing, homelessness, incarceration, policing and executive leadership among them. And for those of you scoffing, ask yourself why you can list almost every major and minor flaw of Hillary Clinton, Kirsten Gillibrand, Elizabeth Warren, Maxine Waters and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to name just a few. Many liberals struggle with issues of gender and race in practice; they may not admit to having a problem with Ms. Harris per se, but many still expect her to conform to certain standards and judge her harshly when she struggles on issues that are difficult to begin with.
Many voters do not see women of color, and Black women specifically, as capable of executive leadership, as evidenced by the lack of any Black female governors in the history of the United States. We must also wrestle with the fact that there have been only two Black female U.S. senators in history. Therefore, for Mr. Biden to select an African American woman from the traditional pool of acceptable vice-presidential candidates of senators and governors, he had an N of one. As brilliant as Stacey Abrams has proved herself to be, the political imagination in this country has yet to evolve to the point that many voters would support a selection of a brilliant politician and policy expert whose highest elected office was minority leader of the Georgia House.
No one has been able to solve the complicated issue of immigration and undocumented immigrants coming to the U.S. border, yet Ms. Harris is charged with solving it. As the child of not one but two immigrants and the No. 2 leader of an imperial nation, she is the one charged with telling people in Guatemala “do not come” to the United States. She undertakes tasks at the pleasure of the president, but this particular role reminds me of Admiral Ackbar’s declaration in “Return of the Jedi”: “It’s a trap!” If she is somehow miraculously able to detangle the complex “immigration crisis,” she will be heralded by some, but not all, as a success and worthy of the Democratic presidential nomination in 2024. If she becomes only the latest leader (in either party) who cannot solve the problem, she specifically will be viewed as a failure.
The role of the vice president has always been undefined, left largely up to the president to shape. Ms. Harris is clearly not a yes man like Mike Pence, the one completely running the show like Dick Cheney or an institutional encyclopedia and counsel the way Mr. Biden was to Mr. Obama.
Ms. Harris’s political aspirations clearly extend beyond the vice presidency, but the way the Biden team seems to be playing out the old Life cereal commercial here — “Let’s get Mikey” — makes her political future uncertain. There will be no shortage of Democratic colleagues gunning for her, not to mention Republican politicians and the right-wing media that together revel in misinformation and caricature. I can imagine a scenario in which she is the face that launches a thousand ships but all of those ships will be fighting against her, not for her.
Until then, Ms. Harris will do what any faithful vice president does: put her head down, let the president shine and work on her vast portfolio with the staff she has. Hopefully for her, those lyrics from “The Wiz” won’t ring true.
Good analysis... but, y'know, on the flip side:
‘Not a healthy environment’: Kamala Harris’ office rife with dissent
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/3 ... ent-497290
Ezra Klein jumps in: https://twitter.com/ezraklein/status/14 ... 9233147905
"This seems right. Kamala Harris will probably be the Democratic nominee in 24 or 28. Biden's team should be giving her portfolios that make it likelier she'll win. Instead they're giving her impossible problems that will likely become liabilities."
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/29/opin ... biden.html
Dear Kamala Harris: It’s a Trap!
June 29, 2021
By Christina Greer
On Sunday, after Vice President Kamala Harris’s visit to the southern border, the White House felt the need to issue a statement calling her trip a “success.” The statement cited as supporting evidence five tweets by Democratic allies of hers and some neutral media accounts. That’s a relatively modest definition of success, but then again, there were no defensive moments like during the NBC News interview in Guatemala in which she called a border visit a “grand gesture” and noted that she hadn’t visited Europe as vice president, either.
Addressing the root causes of migration is one of several jobs President Biden has handed Ms. Harris, who had no deep expertise with Latin America issues or the decades-long quandary of federal immigration reform. He has also asked her to lead the administration’s voting-rights efforts, which are in a filibuster limbo. According to The Times, he has her working on combating vaccine hesitancy and fighting for policing reform, too, among other uphill battles.
It’s gotten to the point that every time I see Ms. Harris, I immediately think of “The Wiz” and hear Michael Jackson singing:
You can’t win, you can’t break even
And you can’t get out of the game
People keep sayin’ things are gonna change
But they look just like they’re stayin’ the same
Ms. Harris, at this point, can’t seem to win for trying. She is a historic yet inexperienced vice president who is taking on work that can easily backfire as so many people sit in judgment, with critics sniping (especially right-wing commentators) and allies spinning (like with official statements about “success”).
And all the while, the clock is ticking. Most political observers think that if Mr. Biden decides not to run for re-election in 2024 (when he will be 81), Ms. Harris most definitely will. He had to know that in choosing her as his vice president, he was making her his heir apparent. But based on how things look now, her work as his No. 2 could end up being baggage more than a boon. Mr. Biden and his team aren’t giving her chances to get some wins and more experience on her ledger. Rather, it’s the hardest of the hard stuff.
Ms. Harris is a complicated figure. She is not a progressive darling — never has been. As with Barack Obama, the only thing radical about her is her skin color (and gender, in her case) in the Oval Office. On a more substantive level, how Ms. Harris deals with her portfolio will surely alienate the left and centrist factions of the Democratic Party. She was far from a diversity hire for Mr. Biden, and she has clear potential as a national leader, but she needs the time, support and right combination of goals to learn and grow. She needs a mix of tough targets and ones that show her ideas and creativity, as Al Gore had with his Reinventing Government effort, rather than a portfolio consisting of the most difficult policy challenges in 21st-century America.
The way things are going, if Mr. Biden decides not to run again in 2024, countless male Democratic senators and governors will challenge Ms. Harris for the nomination. On one level, there are far too many male leaders who wake up each morning, brush their teeth, look in the mirror and say: “I can do this job I am wholly unqualified for. Let’s go!” But there are also other reasons she would face competition — ones we aren’t talking about.
This country has yet to have an honest conversation and reflection on the ways in which race and gender play out in electoral politics. There are voters who look at Ms. Harris and immediately believe she is unqualified for the job because of her gender, her immigrant parents and the color of her skin. Republicans tend to say the quiet part loud, but if we are being honest, far too many Democrats would never be able to vote for a Black woman at the top of the ticket, no matter how qualified.
Many white liberals like racial and gender equality in theory but get a little gun-shy when asked to make room at the table for others on a long list of issues — school integration, housing, homelessness, incarceration, policing and executive leadership among them. And for those of you scoffing, ask yourself why you can list almost every major and minor flaw of Hillary Clinton, Kirsten Gillibrand, Elizabeth Warren, Maxine Waters and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to name just a few. Many liberals struggle with issues of gender and race in practice; they may not admit to having a problem with Ms. Harris per se, but many still expect her to conform to certain standards and judge her harshly when she struggles on issues that are difficult to begin with.
Many voters do not see women of color, and Black women specifically, as capable of executive leadership, as evidenced by the lack of any Black female governors in the history of the United States. We must also wrestle with the fact that there have been only two Black female U.S. senators in history. Therefore, for Mr. Biden to select an African American woman from the traditional pool of acceptable vice-presidential candidates of senators and governors, he had an N of one. As brilliant as Stacey Abrams has proved herself to be, the political imagination in this country has yet to evolve to the point that many voters would support a selection of a brilliant politician and policy expert whose highest elected office was minority leader of the Georgia House.
No one has been able to solve the complicated issue of immigration and undocumented immigrants coming to the U.S. border, yet Ms. Harris is charged with solving it. As the child of not one but two immigrants and the No. 2 leader of an imperial nation, she is the one charged with telling people in Guatemala “do not come” to the United States. She undertakes tasks at the pleasure of the president, but this particular role reminds me of Admiral Ackbar’s declaration in “Return of the Jedi”: “It’s a trap!” If she is somehow miraculously able to detangle the complex “immigration crisis,” she will be heralded by some, but not all, as a success and worthy of the Democratic presidential nomination in 2024. If she becomes only the latest leader (in either party) who cannot solve the problem, she specifically will be viewed as a failure.
The role of the vice president has always been undefined, left largely up to the president to shape. Ms. Harris is clearly not a yes man like Mike Pence, the one completely running the show like Dick Cheney or an institutional encyclopedia and counsel the way Mr. Biden was to Mr. Obama.
Ms. Harris’s political aspirations clearly extend beyond the vice presidency, but the way the Biden team seems to be playing out the old Life cereal commercial here — “Let’s get Mikey” — makes her political future uncertain. There will be no shortage of Democratic colleagues gunning for her, not to mention Republican politicians and the right-wing media that together revel in misinformation and caricature. I can imagine a scenario in which she is the face that launches a thousand ships but all of those ships will be fighting against her, not for her.
Until then, Ms. Harris will do what any faithful vice president does: put her head down, let the president shine and work on her vast portfolio with the staff she has. Hopefully for her, those lyrics from “The Wiz” won’t ring true.
Good analysis... but, y'know, on the flip side:
‘Not a healthy environment’: Kamala Harris’ office rife with dissent
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/3 ... ent-497290
"How's the despair?"
Re: The Biden-Harris Era
Wow. The Republicans didn't go for the compromise voting rights act. Can you believe it?
"How's the despair?"
-
Big Magilla
- Site Admin
- Posts: 19336
- Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 3:22 pm
- Location: Jersey Shore
Re: The Biden-Harris Era
Garcia. Like Adams, she has the management skills, but without the baggage.Sabin wrote:Interesting.Big Magilla wrote
I'm beginning to think that Garcia could win this.
Once all candidates except the top four are eliminated it comes down to who voters for third and fourth place candidates listed second.
Who do you think would be the best Mayor of those listed?
Re: The Biden-Harris Era
Interesting.Big Magilla wrote
I'm beginning to think that Garcia could win this.
Once all candidates except the top four are eliminated it comes down to who voters for third and fourth place candidates listed second.
Who do you think would be the best Mayor of those listed?
"How's the despair?"
-
Big Magilla
- Site Admin
- Posts: 19336
- Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 3:22 pm
- Location: Jersey Shore
Re: The Biden-Harris Era
I'm beginning to think that Garcia could win this.
Once all candidates except the top four are eliminated it comes down to who voters for third and fourth place candidates listed second.
Adams now leads in the polls with 21.3 %. Lets assume that he has the lead going into the homestretch with Wiley (now at 16.5%), Garcia (now at 16.3%), and Yang (now at 9.6%) next in line.
Yang, unless he has picked up the preponderance of the second place votes from the other eleven candidates, would be the next to go. His supporters are probably evenly split between Adams, Wiley, and Garcia, so the reallocation of his votes wouldn't do anything to the eventual outcome.
If Garcia leaves next, more of her votes are likely to go to Adams than Wiley, and he wins, but if Wiley leaves first, it's a whole different ballgame.
I don't see many progressives voting for Adams, so in that case, most of Wiley's votes should go to Garcia and she wins.
Once all candidates except the top four are eliminated it comes down to who voters for third and fourth place candidates listed second.
Adams now leads in the polls with 21.3 %. Lets assume that he has the lead going into the homestretch with Wiley (now at 16.5%), Garcia (now at 16.3%), and Yang (now at 9.6%) next in line.
Yang, unless he has picked up the preponderance of the second place votes from the other eleven candidates, would be the next to go. His supporters are probably evenly split between Adams, Wiley, and Garcia, so the reallocation of his votes wouldn't do anything to the eventual outcome.
If Garcia leaves next, more of her votes are likely to go to Adams than Wiley, and he wins, but if Wiley leaves first, it's a whole different ballgame.
I don't see many progressives voting for Adams, so in that case, most of Wiley's votes should go to Garcia and she wins.
-
Big Magilla
- Site Admin
- Posts: 19336
- Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 3:22 pm
- Location: Jersey Shore
Re: The Biden-Harris Era
Not necessarily. Although voters can list up to five candidates in order of preference, they can list fewer if they so choose.
Interestingly, the unions, which are still very powerful in New York, are urging their members to list only Adams, Garcia, and Yang in order of preference. They consider all other candidates to be anti-police to some degree. They really hate Wiley who recently questioned whether or not police should be allowed to carry weapons while on duty.
Interestingly, the unions, which are still very powerful in New York, are urging their members to list only Adams, Garcia, and Yang in order of preference. They consider all other candidates to be anti-police to some degree. They really hate Wiley who recently questioned whether or not police should be allowed to carry weapons while on duty.