"Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo" (rustyvandura)
09/18/2019 at 16:08 • Filed to: None | 0 | 45 |
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
1. Warren
I’ve always been partial to Elizabeth Warren, which is why I was bummed out a few months ago when it looked like her campaign was toast.
But she’s back from the dead! And she’s still rising! And she got !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! to show up for a rally in NYC a couple days ago!
Rally size is one of those phantom indicators, like lawn signage, that seems like it tells you something about a campaign.
And it does! Sort of. You will not often see a candidate like, say, Eric Swalwell attract 20,000 people to show up in a given place at an appointed time to see him. Just like you won’t get blanket lawn signage across a state for a candidate who’s pulling single digits. Unless that candidate is Ron Paul.
All of which is to say that big crowds are indicative of a certain type of energy. And that energy isn’t nothing. But it’s also not everything. Howard Dean got the biggest crowds of 2004. Obama got the biggest crowds of 2008. Bernie got the biggest crowds of the 2016 Dem primary and Trump got the biggest crowds of the 2016 general.
Of those four campaigns, only two of them were winners and only one of them won more votes than his opponent in their race.
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
2. Obama
All of that said, there are a couple of aspects about Warren’s challenge that I find interesting.
The first is the overall dynamic of Warren vs. Biden.
On its face, this is the classic tired establishment favorite versus energetic insurgent ideologue that we seen in politics all the time: Reagan-Ford. Mondale-Hart. Buchanan-Dole. Kerry-Dean. Obama-Clinton.
The difference is that normally the establishment candidate is charisma-deficient and the insurgent is a ball of fire. In this case, Biden has much better candidate skills and Warren is the horse trying to cover up her political liabilities with policy talk.
Then there’s this oddity:
We are today three years removed from what Democratic voters regard as the most successful presidency of their lifetimes.
And here is what Warren told the crowd in Manhattan the other night: “As bad as things are, we have to recognize that our problems didn’t start with Donald Trump. He made them worse, but we need to take a deep breath and recognize that a country that elects Donald Trump is already in serious trouble.”
Warren is asking Democratic voters to believe that Obama’s presidency left America “in serious trouble.”
Now maybe she’s correct. (I happen to agree with her, but that’s neither here nor there.) But the implications of this charge is everything is terrible and has been for generations.
Because if Obama’s administration left us in serious trouble, then the Bush years must have been horrible. The Clinton years—where the Democratic party first mortgaged itself to the bond market and big business—must have been really bad, too. And the Reagan-Bush years? Cataclysm. The ’70s? Forget about it.
In other words, to sign on with Warren, you need to take a really dark view of American history over the last two generations.
You can do that! Again, I generally agree with this idea. But the point is that Warren is hinting at this critique without being willing to openly criticize the Obama administration, in part because she is weak with black voters (who have strongly favorable views of Obama) and in part because she’s running against Obama’s implicit heir.
Bernie Sanders is willing to criticize the Obama years. He has that luxury because he’s an independent socialist who just happens to be running in the Democratic primary. But Warren’s play requires her to try to have it both ways: To make the big “system is rigged” argument that Bernie makes while also holding onto the “I’m part of the Democratic legacy that includes Barack Obama” that’s Biden’s main pitch.
This tension has not been explored just yet, but it will be. It’s inevitable because of how she is trying to position herself.
And it’s not clear to me how she will square this circle.
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
3. Worst. Watch. Ever.
I’m a fair-sized watch nerd but I’ve never really understood the attraction to the Italian watchmaker Panerai. I mean, I get the history. And in a sense you can see echoes of their World War II military heritage in their modern collection.
But it’s a real stretch to see purpose-built tool watch in hipster luxury.
Whatever. That’s not the point. The point is this:
Take in the full horror.
We have two kinds of index markers: a triangle and horizontal lines.
The horizontal markers are arranged asymmetrically, so that the markers at the 3 and 9 point toward the center of the dial and while the marker at the 6 is perpendicular to the center point, and thus leaves a big hole.
But Panerai decided to use indices and numbers.
And not just numbers, but both Arabic numbers and Roman numerals.
It’s like they want to hurt your brain. Or it’s an elaborate troll of their customers. I can’t figure out which.
Okay. That’s enough watch talk for the week. In case you’re jonesing for a longread, here’s a great Los Angeles magazine piece about how Waze is screwing up the city:
Today Los Angeles residents could be forgiven for feeling stuck in the film Groundhog Day , waking up over and over again to a tech-triggered, traffic-nightmare time loop now going on five years, with no end in sight. As early as December 2014, L.A. Councilman Paul Krekorian, whose district includes North Hollywood and Studio City, began hearing from the front lines of the nearly 100,000 households he oversees. “Neighborhood streets that had been quiet all of a sudden during the morning commute were filled bumper to bumper,” he recalls. “Residents were forcefully complaining to my office.” It came on like a tornado. “There was a sudden change. Mostly in the hillside areas with narrow streets. People looking for shortcuts. The impact was dramatic.” The minutes or seconds you might save by Wazing transformed dozens of peaceful L.A. neighborhoods into loud, exhaust-fumed residential gridlock. Drivers careened down local streets steeper than double-diamond ski slopes. Trucks got pinned on corners. Citizens fought back, reporting phony crashes and traffic jams in a desperate counterattack. Not so fast. A Waze spokesman, oblivious to the irony, reflexively sneered that “a group of neighbors can’t game the system.”The headlines from that long-ago December captured the first wave of what Krekorian termed “the ultimate failure of laissez-faire, libertarian thinking,” what happens when corporations wreak havoc on communities for profit . . .
!!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .
facw
> Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
09/18/2019 at 15:25 | 6 |
I really don’t get the claim that Warren lacks charisma. I’m mean obviously she’s wonky, but she’s not at all wooden when discussing things, and frankly she’s doing a better job reaching out to the people than any other candidate. Maybe Biden is better at working a room of donors than Warren, but when they are speaking to crowds or in the debates, I think Warren comes off way better than Biden, who is rambling, gaff prone, and frequently unintelligible.
Aremmes
> Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
09/18/2019 at 15:30 | 1 |
Article summary: “Concerned
. So
concerned
. Ooga booga.
”
MrSnrub
> Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
09/18/2019 at 15:30 | 0 |
Do you mind posting the full text? It’s asking for an email to finish and my inbox is cluttered enough as it is.
E90M3
> MrSnrub
09/18/2019 at 15:33 | 0 |
I put in “suckit@gmail.com” as my email; it let me read the whole things. Or at least displayed the full text for me to read if I wanted to, I just read the part about the watch.
Textured Soy Protein
> Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
09/18/2019 at 15:33 | 1 |
I only got as far as the part where the paywall blocks it but all I have to say about that is I really want one of these official Warren campaign tote bags.
I’ll be sure to use it for buying my vegan groceries at my locally-owned chain hippie dippie market , and/or Aldi.
dogisbadob
> MrSnrub
09/18/2019 at 15:39 | 1 |
Here you go:
1. Warren
I’ve always been partial to Elizabeth Warren, which is why I was bummed out a few months ago when it looked like her campaign was toast.
But she’s back from the dead! And she’s still rising! And she got 20,000 people to show up for a rally in NYC a couple days ago!
Rally size is one of those phantom indicators, like lawn signage, that seems like it tells you something about a campaign.
And it does! Sort of. You will not often see a candidate like, say, Eric Swalwell attract 20,000 people to show up in a given place at an appointed time to see him. Just like you won’t get blanket lawn signage across a state for a candidate who’s pulling single digits. Unless that candidate is Ron Paul.
All of which is to say that big crowds are indicative of a certain type of energy. And that energy isn’t nothing. But it’s also not everything. Howard Dean got the biggest crowds of 2004. Obama got the biggest crowds of 2008. Bernie got the biggest crowds of the 2016 Dem primary and Trump got the biggest crowds of the 2016 general.
Of those four campaigns, only two of them were winners and only one of them won more votes than his opponent in their race.
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
2. Obama
All of that said, there are a couple of aspects about Warren’s challenge that I find interesting.
The first is the overall dynamic of Warren vs. Biden.
On its face, this is the classic tired establishment favorite versus energetic insurgent ideologue that we seen in politics all the time: Reagan-Ford. Mondale-Hart. Buchanan-Dole. Kerry-Dean. Obama-Clinton.
The difference is that normally the establishment candidate is charisma-deficient and the insurgent is a ball of fire. In this case, Biden has much better candidate skills and Warren is the horse trying to cover up her political liabilities with policy talk.
Then there’s this oddity:
We are today three years removed from what Democratic voters regard as the most successful presidency of their lifetimes.
And here is what Warren told the crowd in Manhattan the other night: “As bad as things are, we have to recognize that our problems didn’t start with Donald Trump. He made them worse, but we need to take a deep breath and recognize that a country that elects Donald Trump is already in serious trouble.”
Warren is asking Democratic voters to believe that Obama’s presidency left America “in serious trouble.”
Now maybe she’s correct. (I happen to agree with her, but that’s neither here nor there.) But the implications of this charge is everything is terrible and has been for generations.
Because if Obama’s administration left us in serious trouble, then the Bush years must have been horrible. The Clinton years—where the Democratic party first mortgaged itself to the bond market and big business—must have been really bad, too. And the Reagan-Bush years? Cataclysm. The ’70s? Forget about it.
In other words, to sign on with Warren, you need to take a really dark view of American history over the last two generations.
You can do that! Again, I generally agree with this idea. But the point is that Warren is hinting at this critique without being willing to openly criticize the Obama administration, in part because she is weak with black voters (who have strongly favorable views of Obama) and in part because she’s running against Obama’s implicit heir.
Bernie Sanders is willing to criticize the Obama years. He has that luxury because he’s an independent socialist who just happens to be running in the Democratic primary. But Warren’s play requires her to try to have it both ways: To make the big “system is rigged” argument that Bernie makes while also holding onto the “I’m part of the Democratic legacy that includes Barack Obama” that’s Biden’s main pitch.
This tension has not been explored just yet, but it will be. It’s inevitable because of how she is trying to position herself.
And it’s not clear to me how she will square this circle.
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
3. Worst. Watch. Ever.
I’m a fair-sized watch nerd but I’ve never really understood the attraction to the Italian watchmaker Panerai. I mean, I get the history. And in a sense you can see echoes of their World War II military heritage in their modern collection.
But it’s a real stretch to see purpose-built tool watch in hipster luxury.
Whatever. That’s not the point. The point is this:
Take in the full horror.
We have two kinds of index markers: a triangle and horizontal lines.
The horizontal markers are arranged asymmetrically, so that the markers at the 3 and 9 point toward the center of the dial and while the marker at the 6 is perpendicular to the center point, and thus leaves a big hole.
But Panerai decided to use indices and numbers.
And not just numbers, but both Arabic numbers and Roman numerals.
It’s like they want to hurt your brain. Or it’s an elaborate troll of their customers. I can’t figure out which.
Okay. That’s enough watch talk for the week. In case you’re jonesing for a longread, here’s a great Los Angeles magazine piece about how Waze is screwing up the city:
Today Los Angeles residents could be forgiven for feeling stuck in the film Groundhog Day , waking up over and over again to a tech-triggered, traffic-nightmare time loop now going on five years, with no end in sight. As early as December 2014, L.A. Councilman Paul Krekorian, whose district includes North Hollywood and Studio City, began hearing from the front lines of the nearly 100,000 households he oversees. “Neighborhood streets that had been quiet all of a sudden during the morning commute were filled bumper to bumper,” he recalls. “Residents were forcefully complaining to my office.” It came on like a tornado. “There was a sudden change. Mostly in the hillside areas with narrow streets. People looking for shortcuts. The impact was dramatic.” The minutes or seconds you might save by Wazing transformed dozens of peaceful L.A. neighborhoods into loud, exhaust-fumed residential gridlock. Drivers careened down local streets steeper than double-diamond ski slopes. Trucks got pinned on corners. Citizens fought back, reporting phony crashes and traffic jams in a desperate counterattack. Not so fast. A Waze spokesman, oblivious to the irony, reflexively sneered that “a group of neighbors can’t game the system.”The headlines from that long-ago December captured the first wave of what Krekorian termed “the ultimate failure of laissez-faire, libertarian thinking,” what happens when corporations wreak havoc on communities for profit . . .
davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
> facw
09/18/2019 at 15:47 | 0 |
Thank you for being here.
It’s my house!
MrSnrub
> dogisbadob
09/18/2019 at 15:47 | 1 |
Thanks!
MrSnrub
> E90M3
09/18/2019 at 15:48 | 1 |
Ah, a rebel I see
Chariotoflove
> Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
09/18/2019 at 15:49 | 0 |
Not here for the politics, just to barf at that watch. It’s even worse than the roman numeral bedecked clocks that have “ IIII” for “4".
davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
> E90M3
09/18/2019 at 15:49 | 0 |
“Arabic numbers and Roman numeral” Ugh.
I’m partial to your@mom.com
E90M3
> davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
09/18/2019 at 15:50 | 0 |
I tried with something like that and it wouldn’t take it.
davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
> E90M3
09/18/2019 at 15:52 | 1 |
Hmm... they trust me more than you, apparently.
gettingoldercarguy
> Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
09/18/2019 at 16:06 | 0 |
That take on Warren is so horribly off it’s comical.
MrSnrub
> Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
09/18/2019 at 16:14 | 1 |
Ok, now that I can see it: i n regards to the politics, there’s nothing there I really disagree with .
Obama was probably the most successful president in a long time, maybe since Eisenhower, but that says less about Obama and more about the low overall quality of postwar presidents. He helped stop a massive crisis from getting worse , which is no small thing, but he also missed a huge opportunity to push through real reforms a la FDR . Warren has to walk a fine line by saying this without looking like she’s attacking Obama directly.
As to whether she
has charisma or not, well, she’s certainly no Obama in that respect. She does come across to me as a bit
preachy and shrill, but
that could reflect some latent sexism on my part
. Nevertheless, it’s worrisome, like the whole native ancestry thing, which is not a good indicator of how she might
respond to Trump’s bullying in the general. I like her, but she’s not my first choice for those and some
other reasons.
Grindintosecond
> Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
09/18/2019 at 16:20 | 1 |
“Warren is asking Democratic voters to believe that Obama’s presidency left America “in serious trouble.”
disagree here. Trouble from many before, not Obama...or not just him. Perhaps her talk meant
It was in trouble despite Obamas best efforts?
Whatever, at least shes saying what she mostly means instead of needing a whole white house to interpret what the president actually meant.every. single. time.
Agree with the watch. Ugh.
MandatoryCake
> Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
09/18/2019 at 16:39 | 0 |
That dial on the Panerai is called a California dial and dates back to at least the 1930s. Rolex - which actually supplied most of the parts for early Panerais - used California dials on its bubble-back watches in the 30s and 40s. Panerai was a Florentine company (but not initially a watchmaker) that had the contract to make watches for the Italian navy and contracted with Rolex. The watch in your post is actually a recreation of one of those first military Panerais. Not really my style either, but interesting history for watch nerds.
Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
> gettingoldercarguy
09/18/2019 at 16:49 | 0 |
I think it’s a fair take. Check out the piece below, and consider the source: Chris Buskirk is an established conservative commentator who is good at talking to Liberals. (Any conservative who does not show fealty to President Trump is a whiny Liberal, according to members of the Trump Ilk...) He’s one of my favorite commentators of any stripe. The Buskirk column cemented me in the Warren camp.
Here is Buskirk’s recent Warren piece from the New Republic : National Review:
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
But Elizabeth Warren has revealed herself as a formidable adversary, and the president knows it.
Mr. Buskirk is the editor and publisher of the journal American Greatness and a contributing Opinion writer.
Sept. 13, 2019
Julián Castro framed the debate almost perfectly in his opening statement: The 2020 election will be won or lost in a handful of states, starting with Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and maybe a few others like Arizona, where I live. So the question for Democrats remains what it has been all along: Who can beat President Trump in those states?
That’s the thesis for the Biden candidacy. But last night showed that while Joe Biden, the former vice president, is still the one to beat, Elizabeth Warren remains the most interesting and potentially the most formidable Democrat in the race. If Mr. Biden stumbles, Senator Warren will be ready to make her move.
There was no spontaneous clamor for a Biden candidacy. It was created. He was brought out of retirement because a lot of Democrats think he is purpose built to win those three key states. That’s why Mr. Biden didn’t have to win Thursday night’s debate outright. He just had to avoid disaster, show some signs of life and allow his supporters to continue in the belief that they can cover up his frequent gaffes and the inescapable effects of age and carry him to victory on a combination of a prodigious shower of campaign cash and a media establishment desperate to be rid of Mr. Trump.
But Mr. Biden is dogged by both Ms. Warren and her fellow senator Bernie Sanders. Mr. Sanders has plenty of money, is authentic in his beliefs and has a large but ultimately limited base of loyal supporters. He’s also widely despised by Democratic insiders. His campaign can go the distance if he wants to, but he can’t win the nomination.
Senator Warren is a different story altogether. She’s smart, she’s serious and she has a certain nerdy charisma that attracts some people, though the flip side is that for others she reads as a hectoring know-it-all. She’s also energetic. Compared with her energy and ideas, Mr. Biden seemed like last year’s model. But I don’t think that deters his supporters, at least not right now.
The Biden candidacy is predicated on pitching swing voters, especially among the white working class and even more particularly among the millions of Obama-to-Trump voters, in battleground states. The idea is that he is a steady, experienced political hand who will bring about a return to normalcy and competence. But that’s a sham. He has never really accomplished anything in office. He has always been a supporting character in someone else’s show. It was true in the Senate, and it was painfully obvious during his years as vice president that he was an extra, not an intimate, in the Obama White House.
But somehow Joe Biden is always there, still standing, which has made him the patron saint of failing upward. Elizabeth Warren, by contrast, is offering a choice, not an echo. And her bold proposals, though I certainly do not support them, may prove more attractive and more difficult for Mr. Trump to counter in the states that will decide the election.
The bigger problem for Democrats is that the theory behind the Biden candidacy is wrong, probably because it is based on a Democratic anti-Trump talking point that has hardened into dogma. Mr. Trump, the argument goes, is America’s crazy old white uncle but America elected him anyway. Well, not America, the narrative continues, but downscale whites in the Rust Belt, the bitter clingers and deplorables who are rapidly becoming the Republican base as the Democrats become the party of the rich and their retainers. So if a crazy uncle is what it takes to win those states right now, then we’ll get our own crazy uncle and it just so happens his nickname is Uncle Joe, he was born in Scranton, Pa., and he was Mr. Obama’s vice president. What could go wrong? That’s the way public relations people think. It’s not the way voters think.
I’m skeptical of the mind-set that views everything as a straightforward demographic triangulation. It can be true, but only in the absence of a charismatic opponent. And Mr. Trump has a certain animal cunning and roguish charisma that make him a very effective campaigner. If Democrats select Mr. Biden as their nominee, he is going to run into a rhetorical buzz saw and campaign tempo that he is going to find difficult to counter.
Once the general election campaign really starts, the dynamics change from what we saw on the debate stage. And there the issues still favor Mr. Trump. Ms. Warren’s government monopoly on health care is a tough sell. She was right to say that she has never met anyone who loves their health insurance company, but not many people who have health insurance want to get rid of it. Gun control is very popular with the Democratic base, but much less so in western Pennsylvania and rural Michigan and Wisconsin, where this election may be decided. Likewise with the Green New Deal, reparations and the whole progressive social justice agenda.
If Mr. Biden falters, though — and maybe even if he doesn’t — Ms. Warren is a strong, viable candidate who, in some ways, might be more effective against Mr. Trump simply because she can articulate the challenges of the middle and working classes that are the source of his political power. She was at her strongest when she was telling her own life story. She came from modest means and went to the University of Houston for $50 per semester as a nonresident. It’s $13,000 to $15,000 for nonresidents now. Then she went to law school while her aunt helped care for her two small children. She got ahead in the way that many Americans want their children to get ahead but see as less and less possible.
It’s a powerful narrative because it describes an America with a large, self-confident, self-sustaining middle class. Today, much of that is gone, and what’s left is under pressure. This is the same sense of decline that Mr. Trump tapped into. It’s powerful because it’s real. This is where the narrative of blue-collar, lunch-bucket Joe Biden feels less authentic and less relevant than Elizabeth Warren, the special ed teacher turned law professor.
When it came to the other candidates, I couldn’t shake the sense that they were role-playing the version of themselves they had read about in a friendly profile of their campaign or that came in a briefing book. Beto O’Rourke and Julián Castro both played their parts perfectly, genuflecting to the gods of multiculturalism by speaking Spanish during the debate. Andrew Yang told us, “I am Asian, so I know a lot of doctors” and pushed a $12,000-per-year sweepstakes for 10 lucky families because he’s the rich novelty candidate from Silicon Valley. The only thing that would have been more in character is if he had said the payments would be made in Bitcoin.
Among the other candidates, Cory Booker wound us up with another anecdote about some person he met as soon as he moved to Newark, while Pete Buttigieg tried to maintain the imperial, aloof self-confidence of the Rhodes scholar who became the mayor of a small Midwestern city and defies stereotypes. It all seemed too packaged, too planned, too in character. Slick, consultant-driven, focus-group-tested, too-perfect candidates seem less believable these days when the best candidates let loose on social media and connect directly with voters.
But the question on which all of this turns remains the same: How do these candidates and these issues play in the handful of states that will decide the election? Arizona and other Democratic dream states probably remain out of reach. But in the upper Midwest the election will again turn on issues of economic security and American identity. Rust Belt voters have seen their communities decimated first by deindustrialization and the exportation of their jobs and are now dealing with the fallout in the form of opiate addiction, alcohol abuse and increased suicide rates.
They are looking for a president with a plan not just to alleviate their immediate economic need with a handout, but to rebuild the country’s economy in a way that encourages the growth and security of the middle class and restores a sense of confidence in the American nation. Elizabeth Warren is interesting because she correctly identifies many of the challenges facing the broad middle class, but this is still ground that favors Mr. Trump if he returns to the issues that worked in 2016.
DipodomysDeserti
> davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
09/18/2019 at 16:50 | 1 |
As my students would say, that was “cringy”.
Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
> MandatoryCake
09/18/2019 at 16:51 | 0 |
I have not worn a wristwatch in more than twenty years because I hate how they get to stinking (How’s that for an elitist view on wristwatches?), but if I had lots of spare dough, I’d probably collect them, along with firearms, cameras and used automobiles.
I do not find myself so quick to dismiss that watch, though the horizontal bar at 6 o’clock is a bit mystifying to me. Otherwise, I find it oddly compelling.
Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
> Aremmes
09/18/2019 at 16:52 | 0 |
Any conservative unwilling to show fealty to the emperor is to be considered a whiny Liberal.
Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
> Textured Soy Protein
09/18/2019 at 16:53 | 0 |
I want a Warren-branded stainless steel drinking straw. I can’t figure out how to land that suggestion with someone who might run with it. Perhaps I should make my own...
Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
> facw
09/18/2019 at 16:56 | 2 |
And just a day or two ago, we had Emperor Trump whining about EW’s crowd sizes, that she’d inflated them. This causes me to think she’s got Trump scared.
Check this story. Chris Buskirk is one of my favorite writers, a conservative who is good at selling his wares to Liberals. I like that. Anyhow, here’s his take on Warren from the National Review. Reading this cemented me into the Warren Camp:
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
But Elizabeth Warren has revealed herself as a formidable adversary, and the president knows it.
Mr. Buskirk is the editor and publisher of the journal American Greatness and a contributing Opinion writer.
Sept. 13, 2019
Julián Castro framed the debate almost perfectly in his opening statement: The 2020 election will be won or lost in a handful of states, starting with Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and maybe a few others like Arizona, where I live. So the question for Democrats remains what it has been all along: Who can beat President Trump in those states?
That’s the thesis for the Biden candidacy. But last night showed that while Joe Biden, the former vice president, is still the one to beat, Elizabeth Warren remains the most interesting and potentially the most formidable Democrat in the race. If Mr. Biden stumbles, Senator Warren will be ready to make her move.
There was no spontaneous clamor for a Biden candidacy. It was created. He was brought out of retirement because a lot of Democrats think he is purpose built to win those three key states. That’s why Mr. Biden didn’t have to win Thursday night’s debate outright. He just had to avoid disaster, show some signs of life and allow his supporters to continue in the belief that they can cover up his frequent gaffes and the inescapable effects of age and carry him to victory on a combination of a prodigious shower of campaign cash and a media establishment desperate to be rid of Mr. Trump.
But Mr. Biden is dogged by both Ms. Warren and her fellow senator Bernie Sanders. Mr. Sanders has plenty of money, is authentic in his beliefs and has a large but ultimately limited base of loyal supporters. He’s also widely despised by Democratic insiders. His campaign can go the distance if he wants to, but he can’t win the nomination.
Senator Warren is a different story altogether. She’s smart, she’s serious and she has a certain nerdy charisma that attracts some people, though the flip side is that for others she reads as a hectoring know-it-all. She’s also energetic. Compared with her energy and ideas, Mr. Biden seemed like last year’s model. But I don’t think that deters his supporters, at least not right now.
The Biden candidacy is predicated on pitching swing voters, especially among the white working class and even more particularly among the millions of Obama-to-Trump voters, in battleground states. The idea is that he is a steady, experienced political hand who will bring about a return to normalcy and competence. But that’s a sham. He has never really accomplished anything in office. He has always been a supporting character in someone else’s show. It was true in the Senate, and it was painfully obvious during his years as vice president that he was an extra, not an intimate, in the Obama White House.
But somehow Joe Biden is always there, still standing, which has made him the patron saint of failing upward. Elizabeth Warren, by contrast, is offering a choice, not an echo. And her bold proposals, though I certainly do not support them, may prove more attractive and more difficult for Mr. Trump to counter in the states that will decide the election.
The bigger problem for Democrats is that the theory behind the Biden candidacy is wrong, probably because it is based on a Democratic anti-Trump talking point that has hardened into dogma. Mr. Trump, the argument goes, is America’s crazy old white uncle but America elected him anyway. Well, not America, the narrative continues, but downscale whites in the Rust Belt, the bitter clingers and deplorables who are rapidly becoming the Republican base as the Democrats become the party of the rich and their retainers. So if a crazy uncle is what it takes to win those states right now, then we’ll get our own crazy uncle and it just so happens his nickname is Uncle Joe, he was born in Scranton, Pa., and he was Mr. Obama’s vice president. What could go wrong? That’s the way public relations people think. It’s not the way voters think.
I’m skeptical of the mind-set that views everything as a straightforward demographic triangulation. It can be true, but only in the absence of a charismatic opponent. And Mr. Trump has a certain animal cunning and roguish charisma that make him a very effective campaigner. If Democrats select Mr. Biden as their nominee, he is going to run into a rhetorical buzz saw and campaign tempo that he is going to find difficult to counter.
Once the general election campaign really starts, the dynamics change from what we saw on the debate stage. And there the issues still favor Mr. Trump. Ms. Warren’s government monopoly on health care is a tough sell. She was right to say that she has never met anyone who loves their health insurance company, but not many people who have health insurance want to get rid of it. Gun control is very popular with the Democratic base, but much less so in western Pennsylvania and rural Michigan and Wisconsin, where this election may be decided. Likewise with the Green New Deal, reparations and the whole progressive social justice agenda.
If Mr. Biden falters, though — and maybe even if he doesn’t — Ms. Warren is a strong, viable candidate who, in some ways, might be more effective against Mr. Trump simply because she can articulate the challenges of the middle and working classes that are the source of his political power. She was at her strongest when she was telling her own life story. She came from modest means and went to the University of Houston for $50 per semester as a nonresident. It’s $13,000 to $15,000 for nonresidents now. Then she went to law school while her aunt helped care for her two small children. She got ahead in the way that many Americans want their children to get ahead but see as less and less possible.
It’s a powerful narrative because it describes an America with a large, self-confident, self-sustaining middle class. Today, much of that is gone, and what’s left is under pressure. This is the same sense of decline that Mr. Trump tapped into. It’s powerful because it’s real. This is where the narrative of blue-collar, lunch-bucket Joe Biden feels less authentic and less relevant than Elizabeth Warren, the special ed teacher turned law professor.
When it came to the other candidates, I couldn’t shake the sense that they were role-playing the version of themselves they had read about in a friendly profile of their campaign or that came in a briefing book. Beto O’Rourke and Julián Castro both played their parts perfectly, genuflecting to the gods of multiculturalism by speaking Spanish during the debate. Andrew Yang told us, “I am Asian, so I know a lot of doctors” and pushed a $12,000-per-year sweepstakes for 10 lucky families because he’s the rich novelty candidate from Silicon Valley. The only thing that would have been more in character is if he had said the payments would be made in Bitcoin.
Among the other candidates, Cory Booker wound us up with another anecdote about some person he met as soon as he moved to Newark, while Pete Buttigieg tried to maintain the imperial, aloof self-confidence of the Rhodes scholar who became the mayor of a small Midwestern city and defies stereotypes. It all seemed too packaged, too planned, too in character. Slick, consultant-driven, focus-group-tested, too-perfect candidates seem less believable these days when the best candidates let loose on social media and connect directly with voters.
But the question on which all of this turns remains the same: How do these candidates and these issues play in the handful of states that will decide the election? Arizona and other Democratic dream states probably remain out of reach. But in the upper Midwest the election will again turn on issues of economic security and American identity. Rust Belt voters have seen their communities decimated first by deindustrialization and the exportation of their jobs and are now dealing with the fallout in the form of opiate addiction, alcohol abuse and increased suicide rates.
They are looking for a president with a plan not just to alleviate their immediate economic need with a handout, but to rebuild the country’s economy in a way that encourages the growth and security of the middle class and restores a sense of confidence in the American nation. Elizabeth Warren is interesting because she correctly identifies many of the challenges facing the broad middle class, but this is still ground that favors Mr. Trump if he returns to the issues that worked in 2016.
davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
> DipodomysDeserti
09/18/2019 at 17:00 | 2 |
Very.
Love how she
casually
goes to get a beer right after she
casually
starts
the video...
at the exact time she and her staff (just out of frame)
decided would be the optimal to have the best odds to go
“
viral”
.
Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
> Grindintosecond
09/18/2019 at 17:05 | 0 |
I’m squarely in the Warren Camp. And POTUS is now whining because EW is getting big crowds. Obama wasn’t the best president ever by any means. But he also was not a troll.
gettingoldercarguy
> Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
09/18/2019 at 17:10 | 1 |
“ Warren is asking Democratic voters to believe that Obama’s presidency left America “in serious trouble.”"
Not even close, she’s asking people to push forward into what’s next. She applauds Obama for the work he’s done.
“ In other words, to sign on with Warren, you need to take a really dark view of American history over the last two generations.”
Again, not even close. The last two generations she repeatedly references positive gains made by society. The author is conflating corporate advances with societal advances.
And that’s disheartening, because people, especially the au thor should know better.
Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
> MrSnrub
09/18/2019 at 17:10 | 2 |
That’s a great comment. I appreciate you mentioning latent sexism; I want to check myself on that always. And other things. There’s so much punditry flying about, people surmising whether or not who can win what. But Warren appeals to me. When they’re campaigning against each other, and Trump is sticking out his tongue at Warren and waggling his fingers, and crying , “ Pocahontas, Pocahontas, Pocahontas...” and Warren is ignoring him and talking a bout real policy, we’ll have a juxtaposition of serious with unserious. That’s about as much as I could hope for in this election.
Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
> gettingoldercarguy
09/18/2019 at 17:14 | 0 |
Remember that this is an ostensibly conservative commentator. That’s his spin. I disagree with that aspect of what he’s saying, though some fence sitter may be swayed, and that’s where he’s aiming, and probably why the piece caught my eye. But as I said, it’s pieces like these that tell me Warren is a contender. She ain’t perfect, but she’s a helluva juxtaposition to Emperor Donald.
gettingoldercarguy
> Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
09/18/2019 at 17:17 | 0 |
He’s purposely conflating her position to snipe off undecided/independent voters. Using a velvet razor he is.
Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
> gettingoldercarguy
09/18/2019 at 17:22 | 0 |
Yup. It’s what I do, only in reverse. Like I said: he’s managed to sold me on Warren. How desperate will serious voters be come the next election? Should be interesting. Trump fundraisers in California are claiming to be awash in cash. Really? Or alternative facts?
BrianGriffin thinks “reliable” is just a state of mind
> Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
09/18/2019 at 17:23 | 0 |
I would be all about that watch if it was $500. Then i checked the price and it was $5000-20000. Insane.
Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
> gettingoldercarguy
09/18/2019 at 17:26 | 0 |
Also, if you are correct, voters will see that as well.
gettingoldercarguy
> Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
09/18/2019 at 17:26 | 0 |
Probably getting a lot of cash. I like Warren , I don’t like her taking cheap shots at Biden. I think her ideas are great, but they won’t get anywhere. Biden has shown he can work across the aisle and our country needs a lot more of that. Warren is very rigid and that’s great for a senator. Executive? Not so much.
Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
> gettingoldercarguy
09/18/2019 at 17:28 | 0 |
Who on either side of the aisle is left standing and inclined to work with anyone on the other side of the aisle? The end of that comity began with Newt Gingrich.
Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
> BrianGriffin thinks “reliable” is just a state of mind
09/18/2019 at 17:28 | 1 |
Wristwatches are not about rational expenditures or exuberance.
gettingoldercarguy
> Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
09/18/2019 at 17:29 | 0 |
I’m hoping it can be restored.
Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
> gettingoldercarguy
09/18/2019 at 17:32 | 1 |
I’m hoping the decay can be arrested. We’ve gone so far away from politics and so far into plain-and-simple trolling ... It distresses me. How do the people who hawk this even manage civil discourse at the dinner table with their children?
gettingoldercarguy
> Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
09/18/2019 at 17:40 | 1 |
I choose not to lose hope
ZHP Sparky, the 5th
> Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
09/18/2019 at 18:39 | 1 |
It’s pretty laughable to think that Trump might have any success using the “Pocahontas” thing against Warren, given all HIS unsavory baggage. I personally find her entire premise on that story completely believable although she probably shouldn’t have gone ahead with that blood test and publicized its results as if it proved anything. Meanwhile, Trump, TRUMP of all people with his documented history of adultery, vulgarity, horrible unempathetic positions, and father born in a wonderful little town in Germany (NOT – how is not significantly worse than the Pocahontas situation, being an outright and willing lie???) is the savior for the evangelical right. What a crazy world we’re living in.
People who are already squarely in Camp Trump will love the
Pocahontas stuff for the LOLs, actual independents will likely get turned off
by it or have no effect
, and of course it will do absolutely nothing to pull in anyone from the
left. Let him have at it and make an even bigger mockery of himself.
Nick Has an Exocet
> Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
09/18/2019 at 19:13 | 1 |
If big crowds were truly an indicator, Bernie would be the top candidate. But the simple fact that the Democrat elite see him as an outsider will keep him out in the cold AGAIN. Personally, I think the guy is nuts, but I also think running anything other than crazy Bernie against Trump will end in yet another failure. As a Massachusetts native, I find it hard to get behind any Massachusetts politician. They’re a bunch of a self-interested twats . Like dogs chasing their tails, they wouldn’t know what to do with it if they ever caught it.
My view on modern politics tends to start around the Clinton era. It was generally pretty milk toast, save for stumbling into an IPO bubble that was really a symptom of Bush Sr’s work at loosening some controls. I don’t really subscribe to a negative view until 2001 when the Patriot Act severely unbalanced the US political system and placed too much power in the hands of the Presidency and almost infinite power to the intelligence agencies. That second part is way too often overlooked and I’m not sure it can EVER be undone. There have been rumblings that the agencies meddled in the election in ways that make Russia look like child play. For what it’s worth, we don’t really know what kind of a President Bush Jr would have been without a terrorist attack and a major dot com bust.
I’m not sold on the Obama years. I think time will probably place it as the beginning of a particularly rocky time in a social context . I now wonder whether the Democrats themselves were ready to welcome a minority in the White House . There were a lot of failed promises that could have been done if he wasn’t fighting his own party . After Hilary’s failure to beat Trump, there has been a fallback to using race/gender as a way of shame baiting that feels like it’s the opposite of being progressive. Plus, with so many backing Biden, it’s a total outing of how stodgy the party still is. The guy is creepy and gross .
I need to wait and see on Trump. I think he’s squeezing the lemon a little too hard on China but having many friends from Asian countries (including China), many of them seem to agree with his stance on that particular country. It’s economics 101 to increase tariffs in a strong economy and decrease in a weak one. We had kind of a tariff debt and I tend to think that this is the right direction to soften a future a economic blow but as I said - needs more time to play out. It’s possible that it was all for nothing. He’s a PR nightmare but the Clinton scandal was a 4+ year ordeal too and seemed like the sky was falling. Time does funny things to presidents.
Oh, and agreed on that watch. It’s weird and not right . I would love to have 1 nice watch, but for now I’ll settle with my Vincero Bellwe ther. I put a matching aluminum band on it. I only tend to wear it when I’m on stage at a conference. or something anyways. I don’t really wear watches.
Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
> Nick Has an Exocet
09/18/2019 at 19:46 | 0 |
Did you tell me that you are in Richmond? We really ought to coffee sometime.
Donald Trump is k ryptonite to Liberals. And he’s anathema to me personally. It’s not even the politics; it’s the trolling . I’m one of the kids the 11-year-old bully was beating up on the school yard and he triggers me.
I was media-fed for too many years, but then again, what isn’t media any more?
As a guy who is into language and word choice and overthinking certain things, I find Elizabeth Warren appealing enough to vote for her over any of the rest of the Democratic pack. I’d like to see her on a ticket with Mayor Pete as her running mate.
Regarding infinite power to intelligence agencies, wouldn’t they have had total spook power no matter what? My psychiatrist once said something to me about how the notes she was making would be safe in the Kaiser Permanente computer system and I laughed out loud. I said, “You don’t think if the NSA or the FBI wanted to see what you just typed, they couldn’t hack in there in about thirty seconds?” She allowed that I was probably correct.
Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
> ZHP Sparky, the 5th
09/18/2019 at 19:49 | 1 |
At least we might have serious versus unserious , and at this point, I’d happily settle for that much. But I think your viewpoint is not very realistic; the grave double standards you mention are the norm for this president.
nermal
> Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
09/18/2019 at 21:21 | 0 |
It’s definitely going to be interesting to watch how things play out , much like watching the debates to date has been. One glaring thing missed in this article was the fact that some candidates i n the last debate had to really side step acknowledging something remotely positive about Trump, particular ly in regards to China or immigration . Regardless, t he D nominee should be determined early, as whoever wins Super Tuesday is likely to win the nomination.
As is traditional, voter turnout will determine
who wins. Remember the last election, roughly 1 in 6 people voted for Hillary, 1 in 6 voted for Trump, and 4 in 6 didn’t vote for whatever reason.
The D candidates are already losing bigly on fundraising - Trump already has nearly three times more raised than the next highest person. That is only gonna grow now that you can buy Official Trump Sharpies to go with your Offici al Trump Straws and Official Trump “WITCH HUNT!” Tweet Coffee Mug.
MrSnrub
> Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
09/18/2019 at 23:45 | 0 |
She may end up doing quite well, especially if the Pocahontas thing is the only real thing Trump can attack her with . Part of t he problem with Clinton was that her email scandal was under investigation the entire election , so it became a renewed source of ammunition every time some detail came out . Not to mention Clinton’s reflexively secretive behavior only provoked more suspicion . Warren’s controversy occurred a long time ago , and everything that can be revealed probably has been, so she has time to nail down a good response if she makes it to the general election.
But
I have no idea how things will turn out really. I’m already surprised by how well she’s doing in the polls.
I appreciate you mentioning latent sexism; I want to check myself on that always. And other things.
Yeah, that’s basically my thinking: e veryone has their biases, including some level of racism and sexism . What makes the difference is being aware of it, and resisting it instead of indulging it.
Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
> MrSnrub
09/19/2019 at 13:19 | 1 |
I’m with you. Everyone is naturally curious or put off or _whatever_ by someone who looks different from them or is different some other way. It’s only natural. That tendency gets labeled with broad, vague brushes as sexism , or racism , when all it really is is somebody trying to unpack the fact that they’re different from someone else. Or recognizing that the difference has brought about some kind of reflexive response. So many are so eager to seek and find offense.