Iowa Now On the Bubble

February 02, 2021 By: El Jefe Category: 2024 Election, Democrats

The DNC is now considering what to do about Iowa in terms of where it sits in the order of presidential primaries, since it is traditionally first to go in the presidential race every 4 years.  My opinion?  Dump it.  The unmitigated shitshow of 2020’s caucuses should be the nail in the coffin of Number One Primary, but it goes beyond that.  Iowa voters are not predictive of a winner; its population is older, more rural, and generally less informed than many other states. As an aside, I even question the importance of New Hampshire, but whatever, let’s dump on Iowa tonight.  I’ve got an idea, how about we start out with Super Tuesday and just go from there?

There’s also other upsides to dumping Iowa; no more stupid steak fries, corn on the cob roasts, butter cow sculpture contests, and hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on bus rentals going from VFW hall to VFW hall to press the flesh of octogenarians.  On top of that, the Iowa Dems can’t even manage implementing a Goddam iPad app, hence 2020’s disaster.  In short, fuck those hayseeds.  Go to the back of the line; sit down, shut up. Eat your corn.

Not that I’m opinionated.  Or worn out.  Or just sick of hearing about Iowa.  Rant over, good night.

British Vote is a Lesson for the US

December 13, 2019 By: El Jefe Category: 2020 Election

Boris Johnson picked up 88 seats in Parliament yesterday assuring that Britain will leave the EU.  Scotland may very well secede from the UK and stay in the Union.  It’s a disaster for the Labour party and I believe a disaster for Britain, a move which could easily kick off a widespread recession.  Indeed the British pound is off today from both the US dollar and the Euro.

Beyond the economics and politics of Britain, are there any lessons for the US and our upcoming elections in 2020?  My answer is yes, and it’s a really serious lesson.  The Labour party, lead by Jeremy Corbyn, who describes himself as a democratic socialist, got slaughtered.  This is the worst result for Labour since 1935, and could easily set up a minority for them for a decade.  Boris Johnson sold smaller government, spouted anti-European rhetoric pitting Europe against England.  He also favors killing the National Health Service and privatizing virtually everything.  In short, he’s just a slightly less childish and offensive Donald Trump.  Did the Russians help?  Certainly, but Labour was its own worst enemy.  Corbyn is a terrible leader.  He and his colleagues are hard left and tone deaf.  While the voting populace was being bombarded with images of scary dark-skinned people and a long list of grievances, Corbyn stuck to his playbook of vilifying Britain’s colonial past and focusing on social issues (gender, social justice) and was self righteously pious, acting as if everyone who disagreed was somehow morally flawed.  The result was predictable – Labour lost voters in traditionally labour areas.  Corbyn got Trumped by Johnson (pun intended).

The lesson here is for the Dems to avoid the same mistakes.  They need to focus 2020 on one goal, and one goal only – beating Donald Trump.  Many of my Dem friends are having deep, thoughtful discussions comparing Warren’s and Sanders healthcare programs to Buttigieg’s and Klobuchar’s.  They dither over free college education and college debt forgiveness.  That’s just plain stupid and tone deaf.  Don’t get me wrong – these are all important issues that we need to deal with, but they don’t mean a goddam thing right now.  The Dems need a candidate that can win Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina.  That candidate needs to be competitive in Florida and Ohio.  NOTHING ELSE MATTERS.  Period.

Warren and Sanders are Jeremy Corbyns’ doppelgängers.  They are losers in the general because Trump will beat them in the swing states.  Klobuchar could be a good VP candidate because of her midwest appeal.  Like Warren and Sanders, Buttigieg is also a national loser, but for different reasons.  He needs to go home and win a statewide election in Indiana and comeback in 2028.  The Dems need to focus on winning, and stop focusing on their navels and esoteric policy questions.  The policy questions should be left for January 21, 2021.  The British Labour party got their asses kicked by Boris and his thugs while Corbyn dithered over policy and social issues.  This is not the time, and Corbyn proved it.

Many of you will hurl insults for this, but in my mind there is one prime candidate who can win the general, and that’s Joe Biden.  Bloomberg is interesting, but he has the billionaire baggage that I’m not sure he can shed.  Biden is the choice, especially with a strong VP who also has broad appeal.  Everyone else needs to go home.

OK, ignore the lessons of yesterday and reach for the torches and pitchforks. Ready, set, go…

Purity Tests – No, I’m Not Talking About Republicans

November 08, 2019 By: El Jefe Category: 2020 Election

Dems love to carp about Repubs and their purity tests on taxes, social conservatism, articles of faith on everything from religious freedom (so they can be assholes to people not like them), and voter suppression.  Most of that carping is done nose-in-the-air about how ignorant conservatives are, and how purity tests ruined the GOP.  Then, Dems blindly apply their own intolerant purity tests on their side:  Cases in point – Obama should have waited his turn (2008); Sanders wasn’t Democrat enough (2016 and 2020); Biden’s actions over 40 years ago disqualifies him today; Biden’s too old, too frail, sleepy (amplifying the right’s latest personal attack); male Dems who dare to favor a male candidate over all female candidates are “misogynist” (yes, I’ve been accused of that regularly).  Now the purity tests are already being applied to Bloomberg – he’s “a fool”, “a tool”, “not a democrat”, on and on and on.

I get it.  Dems want the perfect candidate with the perfect file cabinet full of perfect plans (that will never see the light of day).  They demand that their chosen candidate pledge to turn the entire system immediately on its head to fix everything the Repubs have done wrong since 1995.  AND, all candidates who don’t promise to do that are denigrated as “fools” and “not true Democrats”.

And that intolerance is a formula for LOSING.  I watched in disbelief in 2016 as the Dems pushed everyone out and followed the most unpopular Democratic candidate in US history over the cliff because it was “her turn”.  I watched as they dismissed all other comers because they weren’t pure enough.  Apparently, they’ve learned nothing because here we go again in 2019. The second most popular candidate in Iowa can’t get out of single digits nationally.  The most popular candidate in Iowa can demonstrate NO scenario where she can win the electoral college.  I know Dems that muse about a Warren/Buttigieg or Buttigieg/Warren ticket, neither of which would get within 50 electoral votes of a tie with Trump.

National elections are certainly about the vision of a future for our country.  They are a time for introspection and big thinking.  But they are also opportunities for gigantic disasters and averting disasters.  We are where we are today because the Dems were stupid in 2016, ignoring all the signs of loss with a weak unpopular candidate.  We have an opportunity to avert another gigantic disaster, but only if the Dems stop being stupid and start applying grade school level arithmetic.

It’s a hard truth.

Biden is In

April 25, 2019 By: El Jefe Category: 2020 Election

Here we go.  I have to say that just watching this video gives me hope.

Run, Joe, Run!

Why Not Oprah?

January 09, 2018 By: El Jefe Category: 2020 Election, Oprah

“I’m not a member of any organized political party…. I’m a Democrat.”

“Democrats never agree on anything, that’s why they’re Democrats. If they agreed with each other, they’d be Republicans.” – Will Rogers

I live to stir the pot, so I’m going to stir it again this morning.  Yesterday, I put Oprah at the top of my list for 2020, and the suggestion was met with considerable pushback.  “Amateur” and “celebrity” were some of the pejoratives used by readers to say no to Oprah.  Some people fled to their own corners, decrying outsiders and calling for mainstream politicians to run.  The very same mainstream politicians who have driven the Dems to minority status in DC and in 32 states.  Over the last 20 years, with only a few flashes of hope, the Democrats have SUCKED at what they are supposed to be doing, which is attaining, and keeping, political power.  You can’t govern if you can’t win and keep power in DC and state houses, and the Dems have failed miserably at that for over two decades.  I was active in party politics from about 2001 to 2012, when I threw up my hands in frustration at the incompetence and petty battles between factions (not to mention a lot of my dollars flushed down the toilet).   When Dems would call a meeting, they’d spend 75% of their effort counting noses rather than doing business.  The party structure wasted millions and millions of donor dollars, and the result was that the only ones doing well were the same political consultants that lost every race they managed. It drove me crazy, so I withdrew to hide behind my keyboard and…stir the pot.

Many years ago a wise political sage told me that Dems and Repubs run their parties very differently, especially since the 60s after Goldwater lost to Johnson.  For 20 years after Goldwater, the GOP rebuilt themselves from the bottom up starting at precinct chairs, local school boards, county commissioners and so on.  When they would then get control of the local level, they would go to the next level.  Once they finally controlled a state, they would then immediately gerrymander themselves into what Karl Rove called the “permanent majority”. The GOP has organized itself as a pyramid with a strong base from which leadership grows.  It worked, and worked really well until Trump turned the party on its ear.  What’s comes next is an opportunity for Dems, if they don’t blow it.

Dems, on the other hand, have relied on traditional constituencies – unions, working class, minorities, and machine politicians.  When they would win office, though, the lip service to their constituencies would go silent and it would be business as usual.  They, too, have relied on gerrymandering, but not to the art form it has been raised to by the GOP.  Dems are generally far less organized between elections and then scramble to rally around a presidential candidate who rises to prominence.  Barack Obama is the textbook example of this characteristic.  The Dems are organized in a pyramid, too, but an inverted one where the entire organization stands on the shoulders of the presidential candidate.  It worked for Obama, but failed miserably with Hillary as the standard bearer.  The party needs to change, but it won’t, especially with its calcified leadership parodied by Saturday Night Live last fall:

The textbook example of this calcification?  It’s the Dems idiotic program it rolled out last year dubbed “A Better Deal”.  “A Better Deal?” What moron thought that slogan was a good idea?  How about, “We Don’t Have Cavities”, or “Make America Just OK Again”?  Here’s a good one – “We Didn’t Get a Flat this Morning”.  Stupid.  This kind of silly sloganeering and message massage is what kills momentum. Trump has provided the biggest opportunity for Dems to grab control since Bush/Cheney, but they’re doing everything they can to blow it.  Again.

That’s why I say Oprah.  In the general election, you have to get a good portion of the middle 6% who doesn’t pay attention until the end of October when they tear themselves away from The Voice or Dancing with the Stars long enough to drag themselves to the polls.  Turnout is key.  Obama won twice because of turnout.  Hillary lost because of turnout.  Turnout is everything.  I look at Oprah as that turnout machine.  Because the Dems SUCK at GOTV, the candidate has to pull the vote.  Oprah will do that, hands down.  The base of the right wing will hate her as they do all Dems; no Dem will get that vote.  So, turnout of the base and the majority of the middle is required to take it.  Oprah can accomplish that like no other Dem on the bench.  Period.  AND, Oprah is a super successful business person as well as a television personality with gigantic recognition numbers.

People say she’s an amateur and inexperienced.  I say hogwash.  Obama announced for president 23 months after he took office in the Senate.  Was he perfect?  No, but he was a hell of a lot better than McCain or Romney would have been.  Oprah can inspire, she’s successful, she’ll pull the middle vote, and she’ll have her pick of the best and brightest for her advisors who will readily serve.  And, the big bonus is that she’s not nuts.  She’s not a malfunctioning narcissist.  She’s not lazy or self obsessed.  The key, though, is that after she took the White House, the Dems would have to stand on their hind legs, get themselves organized and raise money (and candidates) as fast as possible during that first term.  New leadership and a fresh bench are the only assets that will help cement a longer term influence on national politics.

You purists out there who want to keep doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result knock yourselves out.  Me, I want to win 2020, and I damn sure don’t want that task in the hands of the same good folks who got us in this mess in the first place.

 

 

Now HERE’S a Candidate We Can All Support…But Be Careful

January 23, 2017 By: El Jefe Category: 2020 Election, Hillary

WARNING: IF YOU ARE A DIEHARD HILLARY SUPPORTER, PLEASE SKIP THIS POST AND GO TO THE NEXT.  I’M SERIOUS, GO TO THE NEXT.

Yesterday, the New York Post floated Caroline Kennedy as a possible Senate candidate from New York in 2018 and possibly president in 2020.  Coming home after a successful Ambassadorship to Japan (and summarily fired by Cheeto Jesus on Friday), she is apparently weighing a Senate run and there is speculation she could run for president in 2020.  In the article, the Post said that she could be the “next Hillary Clinton, but without the Clinton baggage”.  For God’s sake, let’s not call her the “next Hillary”.  Talk about jinxing her before she ever gets started.

I know this is going to piss off my Hillary friends (hence the above warning), but the last thing we (more…)