New Poll, Same Positions
The first big poll of Dem primary candidates was completed this weekend by Politico/Morning Consult. In short, everyone pretty much stayed the same in ranking as before, with Biden staying in front at 33%, down 5%. Bernie and Warren pretty much stay where they were, but the big bump was for Harris who jumped up to 12%, tied with Warren. Beto is down and out at 2%, and Mayor Pete lost one point at 6%.
I’m looking for Harris to continue to pound on Biden’s record from 40 years ago, trying to erode his wide lead, with others piling. In my view, the circular firing squad will continue
Biden seems to be a self-executing firing squad. The sound bite nature of the news cycle is especially hard on him and his odd way of reaching out to trump’s base. I think he’s an okay guy but Bernie’s voters don’t. Voter turnout is going to be the difference in 2020 and we need every vote we can get and I don’t think the trumpkins are going to switch sides for any D.
1“the circular firing squad” is an inaccurate description. It’s a competition, chiefly distinguished, so far, by courtesy and a focus on policies and actual facts.
2Of course not. The Trumpski-ites will vote the way they always vote. Frankly, shooting fellow Dems would be my first rule for who NOT to vote for. Kamala is falling, in my estimation. And I’m ruling out both old white guys.
Please, candidates, be smart about the long game.
3No it’s not. Harris and Booker are accusing Joe Biden of being a racist or coddling racists. They KNOW that is a lie. They’re doing it ONLY to damage Biden’s image. That’s the very definition of circular firing squad.
4El Jefe @4. What is the acceptable level of criticism that can be leveled at a candidate within the party?
Is it permissible to question or strongly probe a candidates public position? Which can lead to a public discussion.
BTW, is it OK to hold strong opinions on what constitutes ‘coddling’ or is it necessary to accept someone else’s view or a consensus view of the definition?
I know that you hold strong positions on a lot of things and for the most part, I align with many of those opinions but this is one time, I want to understand your view in more detail. It hits at the crux of the party’s demand for a ‘unified’ front.
5Joe Biden reeks of white privilege and Kamala Harris has every right to distinguish herself by pointing that out. If you have a problem with that you might not be open to hearing all voices.
6Nuanced racism? Inadvertently contributing to systemic racism through the unintended consequences of bad policy is so 80s and 90s. Three strikes. Stop and frisk. Super criminalization of drug policy. Bill and Hilz also did it along with too many others. Biden? To distance himself from the past in which he wasn’t a sole actor, it won’t suffice for Biden to lay everything at the feet of the Dixiecrats or the Republicons. Maybe just admit it was wrong, apologize and offer up solutions to fix this damn mess.
Can Biden “fix” his appearance of being racist? He was with Obama for 8 years. It would be a bummer for Joe, if he can’t delineate a solid prison reform agenda. Prisons for profit? C’mon Joe that is so 20th century. Show us what you’ve got for 2020 going forward.
7Thing is, though, Pete raised 24 million since the debate.
Someone likes him!:)
As for me, undecided, no choice yet, too early.
8@Jane – Interesting. Question: Did you hang all of this on Hillary? Or did she get a pass because you supported her? Methinks it’s the latter. If find it fascinating that all of those who supported Hillary swept these VERY SAME ISSUES aside because it was inconvenient for them. Now, since it’s another WHITE GUY, the long knives (and really long memories) come out and go to work. Biden governed during a very difficult time for Dems after the Voting Rights and Civil Rights acts. Biden has always supported labor, always supported racial equality. EVERY politician made mistakes and compromises. To ignore the same acts committed by someone you support and amplify those very same acts by someone you don’t support is intellectually dishonest. Secondly, LYING is never OK and that’s what Harris and Booker are doing.
9I want someone who’s younger and smarter than I am. Uncle Joe fails on both counts.
My particular favorite two suiter of his was ramming through the bankruptcy “reform” legislation that basically presumed that anyone filing bankruptcy had to be a wasteful spendthrift, and made various types of consumer debt non dischargeable.
“Friend of working people” my foot.
10@Mel – I think criticism based on facts is fair game. What’s not acceptable is lying, taking actions or words WAY out of context, and rewriting past history in the light of the current environment. The problem with politics today, especially with the other side, is that most opinions are based on falsehood. Kamala and Booker have created an unfair image of Biden specifically designed to damage his image, and it’s working. No national politician supported marriage equality, including Hillary and Obama. Only after Biden got out in front of them supporting it did they come around. Biden gets ZERO credit for that and many other things he’s done, and Kamala has to reach back to 1968 to find something Biden did to assassinate his character. That is dishonest.
11El Jefe, I caucused for Bernie. But I wasn’t one of the imaginary Bernie Bros. I voted for Hilz in the general. Although more than 2 decades earlier, her “super predator” remark didn’t make it easy. Having the same problem with Biden in that he and many other Democrats meet Einstein’s definition of insanity on policy issues. They are better than any Republicon, but that’s a low bar. We can do better.
It’s way early in the campaign. But any candidate who cannot deliver a concise policy on prison reform and many other issues is not as good a candidate as those who have given considerable thought to the issues and have solid outlines on how to achieve the goals.
While conceding the concept that this is a “centrist” country, it is still clear that a hard left Progressive era is necessary to rectify the mess created by ‘conservative’ notions such as “law & order” and trickle down economics. The Cons have been pulling us off course since the New Deal. The mess is way beyond what incrementalism can repair.
12Harris appears to have prepared for the debate whereas Biden seems to have just had a bowl of tapioca pudding as preparation. I want someone with fresh ideas who will work hard – Biden seems to just want to say Barack three times and magically be ensconced in the White House.
13Jane & PKM – nice delineation, and I agree. I also primary’d Bernie and General’d Hilz in the last election. Have to say, biggest crisis issue in my book for the forseeable future is climate chaos.
14First of all, “circular firing squad” is the remark of someone who believes dissent shouldn’t be part of the public policy process. Perhaps you would prefer a coronation?…
I say “get over yourself” … democracy, with a small “d,” requires dissent.
And for the people decrying Democrats dissenting with one another…that’s kind of the point of a primary.
151) I do not support anyone who was so stupid as to be played by faux that only hurts the d’s and gave faux a false legitimacy. So goodbye bernie and boy mayor who prefers thuglican voters anyway.
2) In a longer post (#50 under El Jefe’s -My Take) I explored how social standards evolve and that I believe biden has not kept up. Just as Lincoln at the time was a progressive today if he held onto his ideas of African Americans being repaitraitead and on their full membership in society he would be considered a racist. This does not destroy his legacy but gives perspective. So it is with Joe the corporate, polite liberalism of the ’60’s
where yucking it up with racist’s ( and homophobes – see Seattle speech) at parties was acceptable it no longer is. Having been senator from Mastercard for so many years he fatally flawed.
3) No matter who the d’s nominate they will smeared as pinko commie preverts no matter what so stop worrying about the unhinged accusations that will come and focus upon real weaknesses based upon facts.
4) Inslee as Climate czar who the EPA and Interior answer to. Give him authority to hire and fire as well as direct line to the Oval office.
16Harris’s call-out to Biden seems legitimate to me. The first person to pop into Biden’s head as someone he could work with was James Eastland, the exemplar of white supremacist, racist politics from Mississippi in the 50s and 60s, arguably the worst place in the country in those years. My college classmate, Myrlie Evers, lost her husband, Medgar, who was shot in his own driveway by racists whose rhetoric was identical to Eastland’s. I imagine it would feel like a dagger in the heart to hear Eastland offered as an example of not-so-bad people. Then Biden had the gall to ask for an apology from Cory Booker, who also pointed this out.
For me, the equivalent dagger-in-the-heart is Biden’s treatment of Anita Hill and vote to let Clarence Thomas onto the Supreme Court. I listened to that hearing, in company with several other women who were on a National Academy of Science panel, and all of us were enraged. Biden has yet to apologize in full for that atrocity. If I had Harris’s podium and skills, I’d call him out for that. And I bet he wouldn’t have any more effective answer on that front.
Sure, Harris took political advantage of some of Biden’s past statements. She is a very effective prosecutor, and one of those tactics is to throw someone off balance. But Biden put himself in this position, not by his history, but by his failure to acknowledge fully his mistakes and the pain they caused.
My verdict: a decent guy, but clueless in a changing world, and unable to acknowledge that.
17Harris (and everyone else) needn’t go back 40 years, Biden’s been a consistent horror show for his entire political career. they didn’t call him the “Senator from MBNA” just because someone thought it sounded cute.
18What Laurel in CA said. (Plus, I’ve been rather shocked to see how frail Biden looks outside of still photos.)
EJ, your prejudices or predilections (I don’t know you, of course, so can’t say which it is), are leading you astray again. Your response to me is based on ignoring Harris’s first sentence to Biden. Your response to Jane & PKM ignores a complete sentence: “Bill and Hillz did it too”. If you want people to use fact-based arguments, you could set an example.
19@msb – when you start splitting hairs, you’re losing. I’m not wrong; you just don’t like the answer. I’m not arguing “Bill and Hilz did it, too,” I’m asking for consistency. If a Hillary supporter gave her and Bill a pass for doing the same thing that they’re now pounding on Biden for, that’s the dishonesty. But I think you know that.
20El Jefe, there’s the saying “before you ask for it, make sure you want it.” Consistency? Really? You want Biden treated the same way Hilz was treated? While it’s fairly apparent she was the “chosen” of the DNC, that does not negate the fact the “long knives” came for her early and often. There were legitimate things for which to criticize the Sec/Sen, but dayum she was hung in effigy daily for things the Big Dog did and didn’t do. And for everything the Mare and Pear Conway types rumored, lied, and otherwise generated about the Clintons before they ever thought about leaving Arkansas. El Jefe, you can take this to the bank, I am not a Clintonista and not particularly happy with a scintilla of seeming to defend Hilz. But fair is fair and it is the reality.
So, let’s keep it real about Biden. Anita Hill deserved better from the Senate. Young black males deserved better than the ‘justice’ of the 80s and 90s that created a cradle to prison pipeline for too many blacks. As stated before, Joe didn’t do all that alone. There were Dixiecrats and Republicons. What fails for Joe is that he demonstrated a lack of leadership, missed the fair is fair, and he is being unreal about the past now. Can he get real? It’s a long campaign season and the choice is his. But right now, today, he is not what many of us expect from a leader.
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