Hi Dave! Here’s a New York Times article about Angus King, an independent Senate candidate in Maine who is also the front-runner:
What’s interesting is that, while Congressional independents like Bernie Sanders have been nominally indepdendent but really sided with one of the two big parties, King seems to want to be a genuine independent. I don’t even know when the last time was that Congress had someone like that. There’s also this scenario where, even if he sides with one of the big two, he could be the deciding vote in determining who the majority is. I like that.
I hope he sticks to his guns, because this could inch us a little bit closer to breaking the two-party system than anything else in a while. (Probably only marginally and not long-term, but I’ll take what we can get. Baby steps.)
Hi Dave!
I don’t know what else to say about the Romney thing. Romney’s a dick and I don’t care what an old man did when he was in high school. That’s really it! I have nothing else to add! I don’t know where else to go! Nothing Romney did in high school means anything to me! I find the matter simple! I wish Romney had gay-bashed Herman Cain.
Oh, Hal. All the Hal.
I think you’re casting the Romney thing in a drastically more negative light than I think most people would even if it happened now, let alone at the time.
I don’t think I’m casting it in a particularly negative light, I simply think Romney gay bashed someone, based on the statements of the other people involved which were, essentially, ‘we gay bashed someone.’ The negativity comes from what they did, not me calling it what it was. Whether it’d be investigated beyond that now is likely a matter of whether and how the kid spoke up, whether and how the school investigated, and how the cops that were called reacted. I tend to feel somewhat nihilistic about the actual odds of anything happening legally, but who knows. That doesn’t particularly change the fact that Mitt Romney violently assaulted a kid for being gay. I mean, do you think something else happened? Would you classify it otherwise? I say assault because he brandished a weapon, and the kid was restrained violently. I say gay bashing because the witnesses said it was because the kid was gay. What do you call it, if not that?
I think from Romney’s point of view, it’s like if he gave a kid a wedgie or something— routine high school mischief that does not stand out and is not worth making a big deal about.
I don’t think it matters what Romney thinks of what he did, as much as it matters what he did. Thinking it’s no big deal to smear a kid doesn’t make it no big deal to do so. It clearly stuck with people, both the kid and other participants, for years, well into adulthood. That implies they thought it a reasonably big deal.
And probably from anyone else’s point of view, Romney was a routine high school asshole.
Well, we can’t ask the gay kid, he’s dead. Some of the participants and others who knew him have said Romney was Actually Horrible. Regardless, I think that it’s disappointing and sad that he gets away with it and gets to laugh about it.
Why are we talking about this? It’s not like either of us was considering voting for Romney. I don’t think it matters.
I’m not sure anything we’ve yet discussed would achieve the standard of important you imply here. We’ve talked about stuff all of the Republican candidates did, and neither of us are going to vote for any of them. With this blog, I’m stating my opinions, mostly to you.
Hi Dave!
I think you’re casting the Romney thing in a drastically more negative light than I think most people would even if it happened now, let alone at the time. I think from Romney’s point of view, it’s like if he gave a kid a wedgie or something— routine high school mischief that does not stand out and is not worth making a big deal about. And probably from anyone else’s point of view, Romney was a routine high school asshole.
Why are we talking about this? It’s not like either of us was considering voting for Romney. I don’t think it matters.
Yeah, Obama could’ve spun this into gold, and Romney could’ve used it as an opportunity and turned it into a positive— but Obama is good at campaigning and Romney is bad at it.
I’m not surprised about Americans Elect failing. All they were was this vague idea that third parties are generally a good thing. That’s not enough, because no potential candidate is that vague. Even if you’re going for a vague idea of “moderates” instead of an ideology, you still need, like… an actual person that you want to nominate. (I think they had hoped Bloomberg would run, and were formed largely with that in mind.) My only concern about Americans Elect failing is that it could potentially lead people to think third-party options in general are failing.
Hi Hal! Welcome front.
Here’s what I think happened, honestly, with the Romney thing:
I think Mitt Romney, when an adult, legitimately and violently assaulted someone for being gay.
If that’s true, of course it matters. High school or not, Rompers was 18. If an 18 year old (who wasn’t the son…
Hi Hal! Welcome front.
Here’s what I think happened, honestly, with the Romney thing:
I think Mitt Romney, when an adult, legitimately and violently assaulted someone for being gay.
If that’s true, of course it matters. High school or not, Rompers was 18. If an 18 year old (who wasn’t the son of Someone Important) clearly gay bashed someone today, he’d likely be rendered ineligible for the presidency. People don’t typically vote for violent felons, after all.
But let’s put aside my opinion of the act as gay bashing. We still have him using violence, and a weapon, wielded by a legal adult.
Put aside his age. He was an adult, but he was still in high school. So let’s ignore that.
Put aside the violence, and the weapon. In all the bullying I was on the shit end of, a weapon was only ever shown once. Violence was occasionally used, but more often than not, it wasn’t. Let’s say that the scissors were really blunt and that the kid was held down but not particularly roughed up. Somehow.
Ok, so we’ve defanged it rather seriously at this point. We’re ignoring a lot, and I still find the event one that Romney should at least say he remembers! This isn’t me walking up to Lucas Whateverthefuckhisnamewas and saying, ‘Remember when you followed me home and threatened me?’ and him mumbling some non-apology because he’s just tired and wants to go home to his family that hates him. This is a man who is gunning for the presidency. Lucas is probably a middle manager somewhere. Romney is looking to become the most powerful guy on the planet, and I’m left with:
A) He really doesn’t remember doing this. In which case:
A1) He has a seriously terrible memory, and should not be president for that reason.
A2) He has committed so many sociopathic acts that he has lost track of the details of them. He should not be president, he’s a fucking sociopath.
B) He really does remember it. He’s a fucking liar, and he’s a fucking liar over shit that he could just fucking own, and come out looking roses over. He could say he did it, he’s sorry, he’s learned and he’s grown. He won’t do that. He’s a fuck.
Obama turned relatively minor stuff like this into gold, fairly consistently, on the campaign trail (Rev. Wright, etc). Romney… just won’t. Fucking hell, why not? It does matter to people, it does send a message, it does take an opportunity to simply do the right thing and create something good - a message about bullying, about redemption, fuck! - and completely ignore that.
And it gives Obama a big ol’ gift, because there’s going to be some serious dot connecting on a silver spoon high school bully to a Bain Capital sociopath.
Regardless all of that, I care, and I care because I believe Romney gay bashed a kid and, not only was this never addressed by any authority, Romney himself seems to not care to this day, and he might get to be president. He’s certainly led a charmed enough life. The fuck.
Americans Elect appears to have failed.
Hi Dave! Welcome back.
I really can’t care about the Romney thing. I was bullied in high school too, and I’ve seen people who did it as recently as last night, and nobody cares because stuff we did in high school is clearly moot and we were all dumbasses. And if I brought something up to someone, I expect that they’d apologize, but not make a big deal out of it or seem that remorseful, because it doesn’t matter and we all know we were different people. And we’re half Romney’s age! What’s the threshold? Should we be upset about what someone did when they were five? Who cares? Romney should’ve made a bigger deal out of it for appearances, but I think he’s entitled to shrug it off if he wants. It can contribute to an impression that he’s a callous asshole, but that already exists, so this doesn’t matter. If we’re looking for excuses to dislike Romney, this is as good as anything else, but otherwise, I just don’t see how it matters. Obama was an unambitious stoner in high school, but I wouldn’t worry now that he’s irresponsible. There’s more important stuff to talk about and there are better reasons to have a problem with Romney.
I think it’s a given that Obama was backed into a corner. Biden’s even apologized. And Obama’s interview was arranged at the last minute. Obama had not intended to support gay marriage at this time, and then got pushed into it.
I think it is extremely unlikely that Obama will support legalizing medical marijuana during his presidency. Despite poll numbers, it’s a less mainstream issue than gay marriage, less emotional, easier to write off as frivolous, less likely to offend people. Opposing medical marijuana will not hurt Obama with his own party nearly as much as opposing gay marriage could. I think politicians are scared to support it for fear the opposition can portray them as frivolous and focused on less important issues than the economy and national security. I think the most that’s realistic during Obama’s presidency is that a state votes yes on a recreational legalization referendum, which will heighten the current tensions between the federal government and states, and may push the issue further to the forefront. (All of that said, Obama’s support of the drug war is a major reason why I do not plan to vote for him.)
Jill Stein does seem like the probable Green nominee, although Roseanne has gradually shifted from stunt-candidate to realish-candidate. I’d like to think it’s because she got more support than she’d expected.
Oh, Hal!
It’s 3:45 and I’m back in NYC.
Things have changed, and that’s great. The current president endorses gay marriage, publicly. People have been joking that Biden should start talking loosely about being comfortable with legalized weed. Maybe next term.
To an extent, I agree that Obama…
Oh, Hal!
It’s 3:45 and I’m back in NYC.
Things have changed, and that’s great. The current president endorses gay marriage, publicly. People have been joking that Biden should start talking loosely about being comfortable with legalized weed. Maybe next term.
To an extent, I agree that Obama was backed into a corner. It does strike me as a fairly political move in some ways; I think the campaign was big on pushing the Romney as bully story, as an obvious counterpoint, and I still hold that the positives for him pretty significantly outweigh the negatives (there’s the old SNL sketch with Clinton thanking the one person who actually made a decision to vote for him, “Minorities, women, yeah you were gonna vote for the other guy. Sure.”). Silver pointed out that it’s rare for a president to stand in counterpoint to an opinion held by a majority of his voters (to which I reply: weed.).
So, the Romney as bully thing bugs me, and I’m trying to work my way through it. In part, I think I have an emotional reaction to bullying; I was bullied. In part, I already dislike Romney.
But there are a couple things that have been written about it (New Yorker, New York Times) that capture another part of this pretty well: Romney’s lack of remorse, and the potential effects beyond that. As president, he’d have a decent amount he could say about bullying, a thing that does really hurt people. Romney need only signal that it is an actual regret, which I don’t find he does. He says he doesn’t remember it, but that he’s sorry if it caused pain, and he laughs while saying it. He minimizes the incident, which is classical bullying, grabbing the emotional high ground. Saying it that way means he wasn’t hurt, he doesn’t feel bad, he hasn’t grown, but beyond that, if you were hurt or caused pain: you’re alone.
I did some shitty stuff here and there when I was a kid, most people did. Most people, myself included, were nowhere near as bad as walking a blind guy into a door or holding a kid down and forcibly cutting his hair (The more I think about it, the more troublingly violent I find that. Disturbing. That would mark the kid for months. Every time he looked in the mirror. To say nothing of the swinging of a blade near his face. It’s really horrible.). I remember the shit I did. He says he doesn’t. I feel really bad about it, because it hurt people but also because of the type of person it meant I was at the time. He feels bad if someone was hurt by it. I can’t laugh when I think about it. Romney laughed.
To me, the question, “is it reflective of who he is now?” that’s the wrong question. Of course it’s not. He’s not the person who did that. An 18 year old did. He’s a person who laughs about it, though. I find the event troubling, I find his response gross.
I think among the Greens I’d favor Jill Stein. She seems to have more experience, intellectual weight and and charisma than Mesplay. I wouldn’t vote for Roseanne, as she is An Actual Crazy Person, and her run seems like a stunt, though I like her as a performer.
Hi Dave! You posted your last post at exactly 4:20.
Yeah, the Obama news is obviously huge, and interesting. I think it’s even bigger than it feels, because it feels kind of obvious and anticlimactic by now. This is the first president ever to support gay marriage! That was unthinkable not long ago! The previous Democratic president was the guy who signed DOMA, and now this! Things have changed so much.
I wrote this a few hours before the announcement. I think what happened here is, Obama was backed into a corner. On one hand, there was increased pressure on him from both his supporters and his administration to support gay marriage; on the other hand, you had North Carolina. Obama’s always tried to have it both ways on this issue, but I think the two sides have really hardened, and it just wasn’t possible anymore. Whether he liked it or not, he had to choose to either support gay marriage or oppose it— and maintaining the ambiguous status quo would’ve counted as opposing it, to his chagrin.
Probably goes without saying: props to Biden. He made this happen. Obama seemingly did NOT want to do this; Biden made it do-or-die. And the contrast between Biden and North Carolina had a lot to do with making ambiguity impossible.
I absolutely do NOT think this is a back-to-basics energize-the-base strategy. No way. It’s clear from how this played out that Obama did this because he had to, not because he wanted to. I’m sure he calculated that the benefits outweigh the risks, but I think it’s clear that he would’ve preferred to remain ambiguous and to have that be okay with everybody. Now that it’s happened anyway, it’s an energize-the-base thing, but that’s retroactive.
I do think this will not hurt him much. People who oppose gay marriage mostly weren’t going to vote for him anyway. Up-for-grabs swing voters who oppose gay marriage probably care more about the economy. It’s May, and everybody will have forgotten about this by November (unless Romney decides to make a big deal out of it, which I think would do him more harm than good). Worst case scenario, he loses one or two close swing states— but I think he’s headed for a lopsided victory anyway. Someone did point out that one of the most anti-gay marriage constituencies is black voters, who are also one of Obama’s most supportive constituencies— but again, I just don’t think people are going to care.
And yes: it’s nice to see him do the right thing for whatever reason. At the end of the day, I care about what my elected officials do, not what they’re like as people. I want a president who supports gay marriage, and now I have one. This also means that now, ALL of my elected officials support gay marriage. That’s cool.
I’ve never seen Burn Notice! The SNL sketch about it was funny.
The Romney thing doesn’t bother me much, simply because teenagers are dumbasses. I can think of times in high school when I was a prick to people for no good reason, and I feel bad about it, and I will apologize for it at any chance I get, and I feel comfortable that the things I’m thinking of do not reflect the kind of person I am today— and if I can feel that way about myself, it’s hard to begrudge that in someone else. I don’t get the impression Romney’s particularly broken up about it— but again, I think it’s such a given that the dumb shit you did in high school doesn’t count that I can imagine anyone being dismissive about it. I mean… what else is he supposed to say or do? Or to put it another way: what should he do? If a guy in his 60s was a prick as a teenager, what has to happen for us to be comfortable absolving him? A more sincere-seeming apology?
Worst case scenario, yeah, it makes Romney look like a prick who lacks empathy— although I think there’s plenty of evidence for that in his adult life.
I do think character matters, and I agree with everything you said about that. I care more about policies than character, for sure; at the end of the day, I’m not voting for who I’d most like to hang out with (although I think that’s what most people do). But yes, you want a basically good person, someone who’s a good leader. It’s a non-issue for me, because it’s not like I supported Romney before this— and that may sound like a dodge, but like you said, there are economies of scale. If a candidate whose policies I agreed with was a terrible person, how would I react? I think it’d have to be a situational call. Fortunately, I seldom find myself in that position. Same goes for you: you have plenty of reasons to despise Romney as a candidate, regardless of whether or not the high school thing matters. All it can do is make someone awful a little bit more awful.
The closest I’ve come to having to make a decision like that was when Bob Barr ran for president. That wasn’t about being a good or bad person; that was about sincerity. Does this ex-conservative who’s changed all his positions really mean it, or is he trying to play me? Ultimately, for several reasons, I decided I was not comfortable with Bob Barr, and I voted for Nader. And I stand by it.
By the way: do you have any preference among the Green Party candidates? Jill Stein, Kent Mesplay, Roseanne Barr?
Hey Hal.It’s been an interesting couple days, I suppose. BREAKING NEWS MUST CREDIT THIS BLOG: Obama believes in a position he held back in like 1998.I think it’s great, of course, that he’s come out as pro-gay marriage. That’s neat of him, since he’s the first sitting president…
Hi Dave!
Unsurprising news today: the Libertarian Party officially nominated Gary Johnson for president.
I’m still waiting to see who all the third party candidates are (particularly the Green Party nominee), but I will probably end up voting for Johnson. Unlike Obama and Romney, he is pro-gay marriage, pro-drug legalization, anti-war, and anti-death penalty.
I’m a lowercase-“l” libertarian, but I don’t always love the Libertarian Party itself. It frequently skews too conservative for me, and I did not vote for Bob Barr for president in 2008 or Warren Redlich for governor in 2010 (went with Ralph Nader for president and Green Party nominee Howie Hawkins for governor). But Gary Johnson is what a libertarian candidate should be. He’s focusing on social issues, especially drug legalization, and he’s generally practical, not a crazy zealot. He’s not perfect, because nobody is, but he’s probably the best case scenario for the Libertarian Party— and he’s vastly preferable to Obama and Romney.
(As far as realistic hopes? It’d be nice if he did a little better than the last few Libertarian nominees, prompting the party to move further in that direction and away from quasi-Republicanism. And it’d be nice if he could attract attention to some of Obama’s more objectionable policies, which could help boost public support for things like drug legalization. We’ll see!)
Hi Dave! I finished grad school last night and now I am listening to Gang Starr.
Your take on how Clinton should approach a presidential campaign sounds like what didn’t work for her last time. People didn’t want her experience and record; they wanted someone shiny and new and exciting. Democrats in particular seem to want to feel like they’re ushering in a bold new era, not coronating the heir apparent. Clinton had more success last time when she dropped the accomplished insider schtick and painted herself as the champion of the working class.
There absolutely will NOT be an anti-outsider backlash. Obama will not be an outsider; he will be the current president of eight years, as insidery as it gets. Winning presidential candidates don’t alternate between outsiders and insiders; they alternate between parties, because one major party is the insider party and the other one looks like the outsider party. If there is one non-negotiable piece of the formula, one thing that is more likely than anything else to help someone win the presidency, it is being an outsider.
The last election in which a more insidery candidate beat a more outsidery candidate (excluding when incumbents ran for reelection) was 1988. Before that… arguably 1952? And if not 1952… I don’t know, 1920? A Clinton campaign based on being an experienced insider is just asking to lose to Obama, or Warren, or Christie.
Condoleezza Rice even came off well the last time I saw her on the Daily Show, when Jon Stewart all but said that she was the good guy of the Bush administration.
Americans Elect just seems… naive. This idea about how a candidate will be chosen by the people instead of the parties: isn’t that just what an election is? A primary, even? The people chose Obama over Clinton. It feels a little like an earnest, well-intentioned attempt to create a third party, by people who don’t know what that means or how it works. (That said, I still hope it goes well.)
HAL.
I, Dave, hope you have slept. I was in Chicago, not sleeping.
I guess my feeling on Clinton’s shot as an insider is that pointing to her legislative successes, her success as a Sec of State, etc, would serve her better than, well, the fantasy that she’s not an insider. Further, Warren would…
HAL.
I, Dave, hope you have slept. I was in Chicago, not sleeping.
I guess my feeling on Clinton’s shot as an insider is that pointing to her legislative successes, her success as a Sec of State, etc, would serve her better than, well, the fantasy that she’s not an insider. Further, Warren would beat her with legitimacy, on that score. Finally, I feel like, if the next election will be a snap back against this one, Obama was an outsider.
I think that my take on Rice and Powell is the take of the person educated on them; which is often the case with the person who stands in opposition to someone. The Right as a whole may not be currently educated on them; that doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t come to know them well in an election setting.
The Right knew a lot more about what was wrong with Edwards than I did until Edwards hit the microscope.
So. Americans Elect. Briefly, I get a MoveOn vibe off of it, one I’d define that as cynical on their part. They seem to be branding based off of presumptions about the demo they’re trying to court, rather than having actual convictions. They email me a lot. These emails say very little. It’s not going anywhere. It could have, I guess. It’s an interesting idea, trying to use the collective actual interests of the people to put up a candidate they’d presumably support. There’s obvious problems with that (the interests of the people are pretty well known through polling, the people are pretty well split on a lot of issues, etc), but it could have been an interesting experiment. Americans Elect seems to be much more about the fact that AMERICANS ELECT EXISTS than anything else, though.
Hi Dave! I can’t sleep.
I don’t see how running as an insider rather than an outsider would benefit Clinton. That hurt her last time— harping on “experience” and trotting out Madeleine Albright when people wanted a populist insurgent. Maybe that’s not as true for someone from the incumbent’s party (so long as the incumbent’s popular), but Democrats in general seem to prefer insurgents over insiders. Clinton had the most success last time when she positioned herself as the outsider candidate of working-class/rednecky voters.
I don’t think there’s ever outsider fatigue. I think it’s the opposite: people love outsiders so much that we keep alternating parties. The nominations go to outsiders who pledge to “fix Washington”. The 2016 Republican nominee will have the built-in advantage of seeming like a change from the current regime— which, eight years in, will have felt like an eternity.
I think your take on Rice and Powell is the take of hardcore liberal Democrats who hate anyone tainted by the Bush administration, not the apolitical general public. I think to the public, Rice in particular comes off as someone intelligent and reasonable who is not to blame for the worst excesses of the Bush administration. (Even Jon Stewart seemed to think so!)
Tina Fey didn’t run SNL in 2008; she just did guest spots as Sarah Palin. Jim Downey wrote all the political stuff (and took a lot of shit for the show’s stance on Obama). Also, Fred Armisen is mostly non-white (although not black). Jay Pharaoh actually does a great Obama impression that you can find on YouTube, and I wish they’d let him do it on SNL.
You’re absolutely right when you say the show is apolitical and just makes fun of everyone’s goofiest trait— but I’m talking about unintentional bias. I think that frequently reveals itself in the assumptions people make, or in who they’re skeptical of vs. who gets the benefit of the doubt. Romney is boring to the point where it’s his character game, whereas Obama is boring in such a way that they don’t know how to make fun of him. I think that has a lot to do with perception!
Obama has already started attacking Romney directly. He clearly does feel confident in his odds, since he was caught telling Medvedev that he expects to get reelected— but I think you’re overstating how almost-done the deal is. Some recent polls have even had Romney in the lead! I still think it’ll be Obama in a landslide, but that doesn’t mean he can have it without exerting effort.
I do think Obama remains a master campaigner. He’s also been really great at defining his own enemies. There was that whole coordinated effort by the White House a while ago to paint Rush Limbaugh as the “leader” of the Republican Party— a guy who’s not even explicitly a politician! A talk show host! But a divisive one who makes himself look pretty bad— so by getting people to equate Limbaugh with Republicans, he got to translate Limbaugh’s awfulness into Republican awfulness. Now there’s the “war on women”: Democrats are accusing Republicans of waging a war on women and positioning themselves as against it. Obviously, it’s based on real positions Republicans have taken, but packaging it as the “war on women” is a Democratic maneuver to make Republicans look bad— and it’s working! Obama and his people have been really good at negative campaigning, and I think it’ll get uglier.
I actually think disagreeing with the House would look good for Romney. Makes him seem independent. Although, there’s still the matter of whether he “wins” or “loses” those battles; I think he’ll lose. ‘Cause he sucks.
I wish I could sleep!
OHHAIHAL
I am Dave.
Warren would have a shot at the crown next time, over Hil. She’s everything Hil is, plus fresher and more exciting and less Whitewater style baggage. I’d say Warren could excite the kids more. It’s really up to Hillary though, and depends on what’s she’s learned. If she’s…
OHHAIHAL
I am Dave.
Warren would have a shot at the crown next time, over Hil. She’s everything Hil is, plus fresher and more exciting and less Whitewater style baggage. I’d say Warren could excite the kids more. It’s really up to Hillary though, and depends on what’s she’s learned. If she’s learned that she’s now more insider than outsider, and needs to run a campaign that way, she’d still have a shot, I think. She can’t beat outsiders for whipping up optimism, but by 2016 the country is probably going to have a significant amount of outsider fatigue.
I don’t think Rice and Powell came out particularly well, and I certainly don’t think they’d withstand much scrutiny thrown their way, especially as regards the invasion of Iraq and the statements they made around then. Their own party would leave them alone but, if they made it out of the primary, pretty much anyone they ran against on the left would be able to say, ‘So. Stupid or liar?’ Because that’s pretty much the options there.
Re: SNL, the Hillary endorsement was a strange outlier. Testament, I think, to Fey’s control over the show around then, if I’m recalling the timeline correctly. Regardless, that aside, the show’s always struck me as apolitical, and not in the sense of ‘let’s attack everyone for being hypocrites’ a la, say Carlin, but more in the ‘let’s make fun of Dukakis for being hairy and Bush for not speaking clearly.’
There’s plenty even within that limitation that one could make fun of Obama for. Shit, you could wrap around and make fun of him for being perfect, if you think he’s perfect. No one likes someone who’s perfect. But picking a non-black dude to do the impression was a bad move, it makes the whole thing feel weird, pulls one out of the comedy. And Fred doesn’t do a particularly good impression of the guy. So they’re already fighting uphill here.
Romney won a bunch more states last night. Paul to the end. Gingrich will drop out officially next week according to my trusted sources (google news).
So, Romney has it sewn, which if the world was being honest, he had six months or so ago (six months he could have spent not having to deal with Santorum and Krampus, to say nothing of dumbasses like Perry and Cain).
The convention isn’t until August, though, which is a pretty good chunk of time to spend solidifying and fundraising. Still, Obama’s way ahead of him there, and I’d assume Barack will start to attack him more directly. Or not? I wonder what strategy each side employes from now until November. Obama has to feel pretty confident at his odds, but it’s not a done deal when Something Could Happen to the economy or Iran or New Orleans, or whatever.
With that said, Obama has to be pretty confident. Romney just is kinda weak, pretty boring, and Obama will do well against him in debates, and beats him on most messaging except, maybe, small issues in the economy (Obama’s managed to do a fairly good job of linking “fault” to “rich” to “Republican”, “stagnation” to “blocking economic bills” to “Republican controlled House” and all of that to “Romney” which isn’t to say it’s not a massive oversimplification, merely that it’s getting pretty well aligned and Romney is going to be put in the position of having to agree or disagree with the actions of the House.)
I’m going to have to stop abruptly here as well! So, I’ll get to my thoughts on Americans Elect (spoiler, I’m not very impressed) in my next li’l missive.
Excelsior!
Hi Dave! Here is why I’m concerned about Americans Elect:
I think when people speak longingly about wishing there were “a third party”, especially regarding the presidency, they’re mostly just wishing for a magical Easter Bunny candidate who agrees with them about everything. They want someone famous, like Bloomberg. They want a “moderate”— but that would fall apart the moment any given candidate took a stand on anything controversial. Right? Like, the moment you’re either for Obamacare or against Obamacare, half the country stops calling you a “moderate”.
Obviously, we have several third parties. There are lots of reasons why people don’t take Greens or Libertarians seriously: perceived hopelessness, perceived ideological extremity, etc. But mostly, I think they’re just real. They’re not superstars who’ll save us from politics; they’re just humans with boring names like Jill Stein who have stances on issues. People want a third party to be an exciting plot twist.
So I think Americans Elect sounds wonderful from where it is now. There’ll be a third party on the ballot in every state! It’ll be someone moderate! The running mate will be from a different party! It’s what people hope for! It’s a bipartisan Republican/Democrat team, not some weird Libertarian! It’s an independent, not an actual party!
The problem is: the person they nominate will not be spectacular. No candidate can live up to people’s imagined third-party savior. It’ll just be Buddy Roemer, sounding like a normal, boring politician.
So I think that the moment Americans Elect chooses a nominee, all the air will go out of their whole project, and people will mostly stop caring, to the extent they care now.
I also fear that that will make the plight of the aspiring third party even worse. It’ll seem like there was this promise of something new and it ended up just being boring and old.
I will stop here abruptly because I just got tired of writing. Now I will eat some broccoli.
