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[benjipwns]

Howard Dean should have been the nominee in 2004.

the media killed Dean just because of one audio clip of "yeaaaahs!!" which is ridiculous

Dean had more balls than Kerry

Dean had busted well before his Dean Scream.

In December in NH he was polling at 44%. 30 points up on John Kerry.

Dean led in Iowa 30-23-18-11 over Gephardt-Kerry-Edwards, respectively on Jan 7th.

Dean had fallen to third a week later: 26-23-20-18 Kerry-Edwards-Dean-Gephardt.

On January 19th the results were 38-32-18-11 Kerry-Edwards-Dean-Gephardt.

Polling in NH on Jan 24-26 showed 35-25-15-13-6 Kerry-Dean-Edwards-Clark-Lieberman, Dean had actually cut three points off Kerry and added five to his total.

On January 27th, he lost 38-26-12-12-9 Kerry-Dean-Clark-Edwards-Lieberman. The "scream" clearly hadn't hurt him much.

He called Wisconsin a must win state and then got blasted 40-34-18 Kerry-Edwards-Dean. Following which he dropped out.

 

[benjipwns]

fun book

 

[HylianTom]

Hm. Kerry would have been able to replace Rehnquist. So you might have a point there.

I think the bigger problem is that politically these pendulum swings just tend to happen. Clinton was the start of the transformation of America from the Nixon-Bush era of GOP presidency domination (Carter being the exception and something of a fluke), and hopefully we'll see in 2016 a firm majority for the Democrats that started with Obama's presidency.

The pendulum sometimes gets helped along, too.

Democrats (the DLC/Third Way/etc), after another huge loss in 1984, began making moves to adjust their party to the country's rightward swing. After the comfortable loss that the GOP saw in 2012, I'm rather shocked that we haven't seen anything similar to the DLC on the right; they need to start organizing a sustained effort if they're ever going to be successful in convincing their incredibly recalcitrant base voters to adjust to the country's current leftward movement. The only real thing that would give them a shot without such adjustments is a major external event, like a huge scandal, terror attack, or economic meltdown (this lines-up with why they're so desperate to make a thing out of Hillary's email foibles).

In the meantime, I hope that they take their time. Another cycle or two would be perfect.

 

[benjipwns]

Hillary's candidacy short-circuited any of that. They're convinced the country hates her and it's an easy win.

The GOP did do one of those soul searchings before after 1992 and it led to the Contract with America.

I'm not convinced the country is moving "left" and I don't think it was moving "right" in the 1980s. The Democrats were really just putting up horrible candidates. Carter was a prude who lectured and got kneecapped twice right before his re-election with Kennedy and Iran, Walter Mondale was Walter fucking Mondale (who much of the Democratic Party hated because he was a fucking asshole), and Dukakis was somehow even colder and robotic than Bush.

Reagan was optimistic, constantly talked about how great America was and could be and things got better to the point that he got credit for it. It was arguably what the country needed after the whole Nixon Shock through to Iran Hostages. And really you could argue the lingering of Vietnam. Reagan was a fresh start to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN*. Clinton really sounded a lot of those same themes. And W. Bush and Obama also kinda picked up the idea of how you can be optimistic while also talking about how horrible the last guy was.

*copyright Donald Trump

 

[Retromelon]

Is walter fucking mondale supposed to sound bad because it sounds awesome

 

[benjipwns]

He probably would have done better if he put that on his campaign signs.

He was one of those dudes who was apparently decent to everyone else, but a dick to all his fellow Senators and stuff. Kinda like Harry Reid, who does things like not say goodbye, just hangs up. And abruptly walks out of rooms. And calls people he's supposed to work with racists and evil mongers and stuff.

I guess he annoyed Carter a lot too which is why Carter sent him off to all sorts of random jobs. Mondale that is. The funny thing being that was what Carter asked him to do in the first place, play devils advocate and bring him the left-wing of the Democratic Party's concerns. Come at him and his advisers from a peacenik angle, etc. Man, Carter really mishandled his Presidency despite the generally good policy.

 

[benjipwns]

One other thing about Mondale, he's now perceived as a McGovernite progressive and that's why he bombed. When he was pretty firmly in the center of the party. That's why Gary Hart and Jesse Jackson got traction against him in the primaries (which he led Hillary like initially) hitting him from the "left."

1984 was an oddball primary for Democrats. Fritz Hollings was running on cutting spending significantly, yet he tried to "out-left" a number of the other candidates on everything else. Ruben Askew was pro-life, wanted to keep Reagan's tax cuts, wanted to increase defense spending. George McGovern was running because...he had nothing better to do? Alan Cranston's hair kept changing colors.

They all (except McGovern) tried to top each other in calling for a stronger drug war, Jesse Jackson most of all.

I always thought John Glenn seemed like the most obvious best guy to run against Reagan. I forget why he flamed out, should look that up.

 

[eBay Huckster]

I always thought John Glenn seemed like the most obvious best guy to run against Reagan. I forget why he flamed out, should look that up.

In a nutshell, because he had the charisma and campaign organization of a wet fart.

 

[thepotatoman]

One other thing about Mondale, he's now perceived as a McGovernite progressive and that's why he bombed. When he was pretty firmly in the center of the party. That's why Gary Hart and Jesse Jackson got traction against him in the primaries (which he led Hillary like initially) hitting him from the "left."

1984 was an oddball primary for Democrats. Fritz Hollings was running on cutting spending significantly, yet he tried to "out-left" a number of the other candidates on everything else. Ruben Askew was pro-life, wanted to keep Reagan's tax cuts, wanted to increase defense spending. George McGovern was running because...he had nothing better to do? Alan Cranston's hair kept changing colors.

They all (except McGovern) tried to top each other in calling for a stronger drug war, Jesse Jackson most of all.

I always thought John Glenn seemed like the most obvious best guy to run against Reagan. I forget why he flamed out, should look that up.

Didn't realize that Jesse Jackson wanted to get tougher on the war on drugs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pWr_GQhZVc

Today the civil rights focus is more on The New Jim Crow, but that speech might still work surprisingly well today, if you change a few things around to match the modern times. Basically asking the police to get tough on actual crime instead of spending all their time harassing the small guys. Don't arrest the kid that's carrying around a small amount of drugs, arrest the bastards at HSBC that were illegally making billions off it, and all the other banks that are likely doing the same.

It's a shame that it now seems like asking the police to make black lives better seems like too much, and it seems like you have to settle for asking them to stop making black lives worse.

 

[JesseEwiak]

He was one of those dudes who was apparently decent to everyone else, but a dick to all his fellow Senators and stuff. Kinda like Harry Reid, who does things like not say goodbye, just hangs up. And abruptly walks out of rooms. And calls people he's supposed to work with racists and evil mongers and stuff.
.

You're really not helping the argument that Mondale wasn't awesome. I mean, Senator's should largely be treated as the whining children they are.

 

[JesseEwiak]

Didn't realize that Jesse Jackson wanted to get tougher on the war on drugs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pWr_GQhZVc

Today the civil rights focus is more on The New Jim Crow, but that speech might still work surprisingly well today, if you change a few things around to match the modern times. Basically asking the police to get tough on actual crime instead of spending all their time harassing the small guys. Don't arrest the kid that's carrying around a small amount of drugs, arrest the bastards at HSBC that were illegally making billions off it, and all the other banks that are likely doing the same.

It's a shame that it seems like asking the police to make black lives better seems like too much, and it seems like you have to settle for asking them to stop making black lives worse.

You got to realize when things like Escape from New York didn't seem all that out of the realm of possibility, and stories about the next generation of teenages and young adults being super predators were treated like something possible. The black community was kneecap'd by heroin and cocaine, but they were destroyed by crack, and the only reasonable way to react to it in 1988 was go in hard after drug use and dealing.

A lot of the 80's tough on crime rhetoric seems apocalyptic in current times, but it really did seem like crime was just going to to rise, rise, and rise, without any stop.

 

[JesseEwiak]

The pendulum sometimes gets helped along, too.

Democrats (the DLC/Third Way/etc), after another huge loss in 1984, began making moves to adjust their party to the country's rightward swing. After the comfortable loss that the GOP saw in 2012, I'm rather shocked that we haven't seen anything similar to the DLC on the right; they need to start organizing a sustained effort if they're ever going to be successful in convincing their incredibly recalcitrant base voters to adjust to the country's current leftward movement. The only real thing that would give them a shot without such adjustments is a major external event, like a huge scandal, terror attack, or economic meltdown (this lines-up with why they're so desperate to make a thing out of Hillary's email foibles).

In the meantime, I hope that they take their time. Another cycle or two would be perfect.

The problem for the GOP is two folk.

One, they have no moderates left. Even as the Democrat's nominated Mondale and Dukakis (who was no wild lefty himself), there were still moderate Democrat's all over the country winning elections and governing. Now, even in purple states, the GOP governs like they're in Texas (see Wisconsin) and their moderate Senators (Mark Kirk) still vote the GOP line 80% of the time. So, there's nobody out there who can actually say, "look, I governed differently and was a great success!"

Two, the base doesn't believe they've truly lost. In their minds, there are millions of white voters to mobilize, that a bunch of voter fraud happened, and most importantly, McCain and Romney were both horrible candidates who didn't give a true conservative message to resonate with America.

In 1989, as Bush Sr. was being sworn in, no serious liberal though the problem was that the DNC wasn't putting up the right candidate, or there wasn't the right guy giving the message. Even if those things happened to be possibly true, after three straight thumpings, and four in five elections, the DNC realized they needed to change.

Add in the fact that every election will be "close" by 1984 or even 1980 standards, and the GOP will continue to get big midterm wins for the time being, you have the perfect recipe for a continued belief among the base that all the GOP truly needs to win is the right messenger.

It's going to take a blatant liberal destroying a blatant conservative for the party to have a chance of shifting and even then, a large percentage of the party will just blame the media, promising "free stuff", voter fraud, or some other excuse why the true conservative didn't win. Or, like George W. Bush, that candidate will mysteriously become a liberal after the election according to those conservatives.

 

[benjipwns]

Didn't realize that Jesse Jackson wanted to get tougher on the war on drugs.

There was a period where black political figures were pushing for harsher penalties and a stronger war on drugs. They viewed the drug use as causing harm to their communities.

This was part of the origin of the crack/cocaine disparity. It had black support originally because crack use was higher among their demographic. The Congressional Black Caucus especially.

The Congressional Black Caucus secures a closed-door sit-down meeting with President Nixon in the Cabinet Room. During the session, the group demands more action to stop the flow of narcotics into urban neighborhoods. Members acknowledge that they are risking their credibility meeting with Nixon. The session is secretly recorded by the President.

Rep. Charles Rangel, a newly-elected Democrat from New York City and a former Federal prosecutor, urges Nixon to do more to fight drugs without waiting for further congressional action, warning that support might soon build for drug legalization. “You do have the power and we implore you to use it as you would if this were a national crisis and I think we’ve reached that,” Rangel insists.

Before departing, the Black Caucus presented Nixon with a manifesto of sixty priorities for the African American community. It included the demand that “drug abuse and addiction be declared a major national crisis” and a call to use “all existing resources” to stop the trafficking of drugs.

Congressional Black Caucus releases “Black Leadership Family Plan for the Unity, Survival and Progress of Black People.”

The document, penned by civil rights icon and Washington DC non-voting representative Walter Fauntroy, includes criticism that “diminished drug enforcement increases [black youth] vulnerability to drug abuse.”

Document complains about “police brutality” and warns that the “incidence of crime in black communities is increasing because of intentional and unintentional failure on the part of law enforcement agencies to provide adequate protection.”

Plan urges police to “increase drug enforcement efforts and include community sources of information and cooperation.”

“Drugs — and now ‘crack’ – are indeed the source of threat to all civilized society and each of us must accept 100% of the responsibility for eliminating this threat in our midst,” Fauntroy concludes, describing the drug war as a “terrible struggle.”

Two veteran civil rights activists have begun a 40-day fast to protest drug abuse. The Rev. Hosea Williams and Dick Gregory, the comedian, camped out at the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s grave here Wednesday and said they planned to spend two days each outside the White House, the United States Capitol and the New York Stock Exchange. The two men said they would send a telegram to President Reagan asking him to commit more Federal money to the fight against drug abuse.

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/05/17/opinion/legalize-drugs-not-on-your-life.html

He chastises President Reagan for not doing enough to battle illegal narcotics and calls crack “the worst drug epidemic in our history."

“Here we are talking about legalization, and we have yet to come up with any formal national strategy or any commitment from the Administration on fighting drugs beyond mere words,” Rangel argues. “We have never fought the war on drugs like we have fought other legitimate wars – with all the forces at our command.”

Ebony magazine publishes an article describing Rep. Rangel as “The Front-Line General In the War On Drugs.” Rangel talks about the “cancerous epidemic” of drugs hitting black communities in America.

Rangel chastises the administration of President George H.W. Bush for not doing enough to stop drugs. Blasts the White House for moving with “turtle-like speed” to tackle narcotics. “We need outrage,” Rangel says, “I don’t know what is behind the lackadaisical attitudes toward drugs, but I do know that the American people have made it abundantly clear: they are outraged by the indifference of the US government to this problem.”

According to Ebony, Rangel “credits” Richard Nixon with “taking positive steps to deal with the problem.”

William F Buckley & Charlie Rangel debate war on drugs circa '91: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_-dtU_esJ8

This is not to blame black political figures for the war on drugs escalation, but only to note that Jackson's position was not out of the ordinary among them for a period in the 1970s-1990s.

For the record, white politicians were obviously just as bad. George H. W. Bush at the same time he was moving at turtle like speed was thumping his chest about being the toughest drug warrior in history and invading countries to arrest people for drug trafficking.

You're really not helping the argument that Mondale wasn't awesome. I mean, Senator's should largely be treated as the whining children they are.

I was just talking about why they hated him, not suggesting anything like that.

 

[Diablos]

Was Carter a mistake or was it really that he had bad luck?

Iran hostage crisis, Three Mile Island, energy crisis, Soviets invading Afghanistan, and the cold war moved from the fridge to the freezer. ALL IN HIS FIRST AND ONLY TERM.
Seriously, that would doom any President. I think he did a lot in his one term despite the negative things that overshadow them.

 

[Cheebo]

Was Carter a mistake or was it really that he had bad luck?

Iran hostage crisis, Three Mile Island, energy crisis, Soviets invading Afghanistan, and the cold war moved from the fridge to the freezer. ALL IN HIS FIRST AND ONLY TERM.
Seriously, that would doom any President. I think he did a lot in his one term despite the negative things that overshadow them.

No President would survive what he was dealt in his term. Can you imagine Obama being re-elected in the middle of the Iran Hostage Crisis?

 

[benjipwns]

I didn't mean it in that regard, I meant from an administrative standpoint, day to day business, Carter was a disaster, from trying to be his own chief of staff, to his dealing with Congress, to his vindictive style, etc. he brought a lot of certain problems on himself.

I personally don't hold Presidents responsible for events they can't control, only the ones they can, and Carter had a lot of those missteps of his own making and by the time he had finally set things in place to recover it was too late. Then Afghanistan and the Iran hostages basically buried him as looking incompetent.

A couple of pieces that touch on Carter's just poor administration:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1979/05/the-passionless-presidency/308516/
https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/brinkley-unfinished.html

But to Carter, many Democratic senators were at best little more than celebrity lobbyists. Oregon senator Mark Hatfield, a Rockefeller Republican who had befriended Carter in the early 1970s, was startled by the president's inability to connect with other Democratic politicians. "Carter was so much smarter than most of the Democrats in Congress--and he let them know it," Hatfield explained: Henry "Scoop" Jackson of Washington State and Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts in particular were known to "grind their teeth" as they walked out of White House meetings, livid that Carter had "talked down to them."

More than any other president in memory, Carter had turned his back on money lenders and influence peddlers. He believed that even private conversations with senators, for example, might cause him to compromise--or look as though he were compromising--his principles. "Carter invited my husband and me to the White House for a private dinner only once," remembered Bethine Church, widow of the former Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Frank Church, "and he just refused to talk politics. It was so odd. He really believed his 1976 outsider campaign." In a December 1980 postmortem on Carter's presidency, Newsweek commented that he had "shown Reagan how not to do business in an insider's city" by acting "standoffish" toward "the lords and ladies of Washington society."

Carter never fit in the capital because his leadership style was essentially religious in nature, more preacher than politician. Among American presidents only Carter peppered his speeches with the word "love" and earnest Christian entreaties for "tenderness" and "healing." As commentator Eric Severeid once quipped, Carter was a "wheeler-healer" who simply refused to become a "wheeler-dealer." As president he spoke openly of his Christian faith and all it entailed: daily prayers, abhorrence of violence, the belief that the meek shall inherit the earth, the courage to champion the underdog. Most of all, his faith taught him that a clear conscience was always preferable to Machiavellian expediency--a pretty healthy attitude that proved both Carter's greatest strength and his bane.

The first clue to the solution of these questions was Carter's cast of mind: his view of problems as technical, not historical, his lack of curiosity about how the story turned out before. He wanted to analyze the "correct" answer, not to understand the intangible irrational forces that had skewed all previous answers. When he spoke of cleaning up the bureaucracy, he spoke like a Peace Corps volunteer explaining hygiene in Malaysia, imagining that such scientific insights had never occurred to the listeners before. When he said that, this time, tax reform was going to happen, it was not because he had carefully studied the tales of past failures and learned how to surmount them, but because he had ignored them so totally as to thinks his approach had never been tried. In two years the only historical allusions I heard Carter use with frequency were Harry Truman's rise from the depths of the polls and the effect of Roosevelt's New Deal on the southern farm. The rest of Roosevelt's record, especially his style of educating the public and getting the most out of his employees, was uncharted territory to the leaders of the Administration. Once, at dinner, Jody Powell was drawn into bitter argument with of my historically minded friends. As Powell fulminated against the sins and arrogance of reporters, my friend warned him that people would think of him as another Spiro Agnew if he went on that way. "We weren't here then," Powell replied—and Powell, who was a graduate student in history and who prides himself on his Civil War scholarship, is the most sensitive to history of all those around the President.

Carter occasionally read history—he loved David McCullough's book on the Panama Canal—but history had not become a part of him. Shortly before I left, I was startled to see, in Carter's private study, shelves crammed with books on American history. Later I read that he had decided history was important, and that he needed a better background for his job. This realization came at the same time as did many others—about Cabinet government, the need for staff coordination, the value of Washington's old hands. Half of one term had been wasted before Carter absorbed what I had thought he knew on the first day.

I mean a lot of this is reason to like Carter, but it didn't allow him to accomplish as much as he could have.

The Obama team had similar issues. As did the Clinton one. And by the time they got their footing they had Republican Houses/Congresses. Reagan and the W. Bush team did much better at managing hostile Congresses and taking advantage of friendly ones early on. Second terms, not so much.

And Carter had problems beyond Reagan: he had secured only a small portion of the organized-labor support that had backed Ted Kennedy, and he could not stanch the steady flow of liberals to John Anderson's third-party candidacy. Millions of anti-Reagan liberals lashed out at Carter for his "vapidity," as novelist E. L. Doctorow later put it, which was allowing "the electorate to bring in the wolves on the right who had all the time been pacing back and forth fitfully, baying in the darkness beyond the campsite." As poet Allen Ginsberg noted, "Any soul with even a mild streak of progressivism in their bones felt betrayed by Carter." The litany continued. Economist John Kenneth Galbraith, who ended up voting for Carter, concluded that it was his economic advisers who doomed his hopes of reelection. "Carter was an admirable man," Galbraith maintained, "subject to far from admirable advice on how to control inflation." To historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. the born-again president was a "narcissistic loner" who should never have been elected in 1976 and whose performance in the Oval Office certainly didn't merit a second term. "It was the only time in my life that I voted for anyone but a Democrat for president," Schlesinger admitted. "Carter's handling of the Iran hostage crisis and the economy had been disastrous."

Even the Democrat's most stalwart constituency--women--felt by and large betrayed that Carter had given only lukewarm support to the Equal Rights Amendment, opposed a constitutional amendment to legalize abortion, fired the popular Midge Costanza as presidential assistant, clashed with the indomitable Bella Abzug, and failed to mention women at all in his plan to stimulate the economy. Carter's cultural retardation certainly didn't help matters: feminists found it hard to believe that a born-again Southern Baptist known to address women as "honey" and "beautiful" could be on their side. In fact Carter had appointed more women, including a handful of genuine feminists, to federal agencies and the White House staff than any president in history. But in 1980 nobody--particularly liberals--felt like giving Jimmy Carter a break.

If one had to sum up Carter's leadership style in a phrase, it would be "handson engineering." Among Carter's greatest flaws as president--and one the Republicans exploited without mercy--was his excessive micromanagerial style. For better or worse, Carter was a control freak who wanted to know exactly what was happening around him at all times. The Panama Canal Treaties, for example, probably would never have been executed without the president's direct involvement in everything from seeing that CBS anchor Walter Cronkite pronounced Panamanian names correctly on the evening news to making sure that dictator Omar Torrijos was treated as a political equal. Carter may have wanted to be a great chief executive, Republicans argued, but he was blind to the fact that great presidents are so because they build great teams. The charge was valid: Americans had put an obsessive micromanager in the White House. Uninterested in assembling a dynamic squad of surrogates, Carter wanted to do it all himself from beginning to end. He would be a one-man band; there would be none of Eisenhower's "hidden-hand" advisers, FDR's "brain trust," or JFK's "best and brightest."

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

Yeah, but Romney ran the perfect campaign and he still lost to Obama.

No, he didn't. He run too far right in the primaries, and didn't modulate enough back in the general, and even still came off as disingenuous.

You can't take unpalatable positions and then reverse them and hope nobody notices.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

Yeesh, he just imploded, didn't he? How is Walker not even competitive in Michigan?

I doubt he was ever popular in MI, the purple state that's leaning red, but still has a huge Union component.

 

[Aaron Strife]

No, he didn't. He run too far right in the primaries, and didn't modulate enough back in the general, and even still came off as disingenuous.

You can't take unpalatable positions and then reverse them and hope nobody notices.

That was a PD dig, not my actual opinion. Romney's campaign was awful although I doubt any of the other candidates would have run a better one.

I doubt he was ever popular in MI, the purple state that's leaning red, but still has a huge Union component.

Only leaning red in midterms at that. And Snyder's 2014 win wasn't hugely impressive whereas Gary Peters romped the Senate race.

 

[thefro]

Dean had busted well before his Dean Scream.

In December in NH he was polling at 44%. 30 points up on John Kerry.

Dean led in Iowa 30-23-18-11 over Gephardt-Kerry-Edwards, respectively on Jan 7th.

Dean had fallen to third a week later: 26-23-20-18 Kerry-Edwards-Dean-Gephardt.

On January 19th the results were 38-32-18-11 Kerry-Edwards-Dean-Gephardt.

Polling in NH on Jan 24-26 showed 35-25-15-13-6 Kerry-Dean-Edwards-Clark-Lieberman, Dean had actually cut three points off Kerry and added five to his total.

On January 27th, he lost 38-26-12-12-9 Kerry-Dean-Clark-Edwards-Lieberman. The "scream" clearly hadn't hurt him much.

He called Wisconsin a must win state and then got blasted 40-34-18 Kerry-Edwards-Dean. Following which he dropped out.

Dean likely would have won New Hampshire had the "scream" not happened. He had enough of a lead on Kerry to absorb Kerry's momentum from winning Iowa, but not that and the "gaffe".

Dean's big mistake was saying that he was going to look into breaking up the big media companies 3-4 weeks before the Iowa caucuses. Media piled onto him after that. Obviously some of that still would have happened because he was the front-runner and facing several viable campaigns, but he got horribly negative coverage after those comments about breaking up the big media companies.

I still think he would have beaten Bush head to head (as that's what Trippi's campaign for Dean was built around doing), but we were better off to have Obama.

Kerry would have never gotten as close as he did to beating Bush without Dean's campaign. Would have been a Bush landslide. Kerry only declined public money in the primary because Dean did. Kerry also used a lot of Dean's lines of attack on Bush in the couple months before Iowa's caucus.

 

[benjipwns]

Dean's lead in NH over Kerry had evaporated before Iowa. He lost twenty points over a few weeks.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

The problem for the GOP is two folk.

One, they have no moderates left. Even as the Democrat's nominated Mondale and Dukakis (who was no wild lefty himself), there were still moderate Democrat's all over the country winning elections and governing. Now, even in purple states, the GOP governs like they're in Texas (see Wisconsin) and their moderate Senators (Mark Kirk) still vote the GOP line 80% of the time. So, there's nobody out there who can actually say, "look, I governed differently and was a great success!"

Two, the base doesn't believe they've truly lost. In their minds, there are millions of white voters to mobilize, that a bunch of voter fraud happened, and most importantly, McCain and Romney were both horrible candidates who didn't give a true conservative message to resonate with America.

In 1989, as Bush Sr. was being sworn in, no serious liberal though the problem was that the DNC wasn't putting up the right candidate, or there wasn't the right guy giving the message. Even if those things happened to be possibly true, after three straight thumpings, and four in five elections, the DNC realized they needed to change.

Add in the fact that every election will be "close" by 1984 or even 1980 standards, and the GOP will continue to get big midterm wins for the time being, you have the perfect recipe for a continued belief among the base that all the GOP truly needs to win is the right messenger.

It's going to take a blatant liberal destroying a blatant conservative for the party to have a chance of shifting and even then, a large percentage of the party will just blame the media, promising "free stuff", voter fraud, or some other excuse why the true conservative didn't win. Or, like George W. Bush, that candidate will mysteriously become a liberal after the election according to those conservatives.

I have searched for, and cannot find, the Jules Pfiefer cartoon that taks about the Democrats adapting after the 80s. The punchline is something like "The Republicans are the ones with the wrong principles, and the Democrats are the ones with none."

 

[Aaron Strife]

I have searched for, and cannot find, the Jules Pfiefer cartoon that taks about the Democrats adapting after the 80s. The punchline is something like "The Republicans are the ones with the wrong principles, and the Democrats are the ones with none."

That's like when people are like "Both sides are the same, might as well vote Republican for those tax cuts!"

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

That was a PD dig, not my actual opinion. Romney's campaign was awful although I doubt any of the other candidates would have run a better one.


Only leaning red in midterms at that. And Snyder's 2014 win wasn't hugely impressive whereas Gary Peters romped the Senate race.

1) Oh, ah.

2) True. I guess my main point was that an anti-Union candidate isn't going to fare well in MI, even with the GOP.

 

[PlayALLtheGames]

You guys are in such a Democrat bubble you didn't even know that Hillary supports the Iran Deal ONLY because of her e-mail legal problems:

What evidence is there of that? I mean you posted an article from a random site which makes the same claim without actual evidence.

 

[NYCmetsfan]

Al Gore not running

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/al-gore-not-planning-to-run-against-hillary-advisors-say-121351.html#ixzz3ilBV1oW2

The story will bullshit from the moment buzzfeed clicked published and they knew it.

Some one wanted a news story told buzzfeed some bullshit "gore it thinking about it" Ben Smith knowing its nonsense still realizes he can get some pageviews and more ad investment drafts up a few paragraphs of nothing. Click publish, people tweet like its a real story even though everybody knows its bullshit, cue getting candidate responses and rinse and repeat.

What evidence is there of that, other than an article from a random site you posted, which simply makes the same claim without actual evidence?

Typical hillary apologist

 

[NYCmetsfan]

Howard Dean should have been the nominee in 2004.

the media killed Dean just because of one audio clip of "yeaaaahs!!" which is ridiculous

Dean had more balls than Kerry

no it didn't

 

[dramatis]

What evidence is there of that, other than an article from a random site you posted, which simply makes the same claim without actual evidence?

It's benji.

He posts all sorts of things to try and trigger people. He's not really serious.

 

[benjipwns]

What evidence is there of that? I mean you posted an article from a random site which makes the same claim without actual evidence.

What other explanation is there for Hillary who regarding TPP said that Presidential candidates should not inject themselves into Congressional debate suddenly out there spouting the Administration line on the Iran deal and demanding Congress agree to it if not for the fact that Obama can kill her Presidential campaign in heartbeat by letting the DoJ prosecute her for her rampant crimes?

The story will bullshit from the moment buzzfeed clicked published and they knew it.

Some one wanted a news story told buzzfeed some bullshit "gore it thinking about it" Ben Smith knowing its nonsense still realizes he can get some pageviews and more ad investment drafts up a few paragraphs of nothing. Click publish, people tweet like its a real story even though everybody knows its bullshit, cue getting candidate responses and rinse and repeat.

You'd like This Town.

 

[benjipwns]

The hits keep coming for Jeb!

http://www.ora.tv/offthegrid/2015/8/13/jesse-ventura-jeb-bush-sent-me-a-box-of-cuban-cigars

Former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura said Thursday he was "astounded" that Jeb Bush's campaign would deny a decades-old gift of Cuban cigars.

The controversy centers on a box of Romeo y Julieta cigars Bush gave Ventura after a meeting of governors at the White House, where Ventura complained to then-president Bill Clinton about the “ridiculous” Cuban embargo and how it should be lifted.

Ventura, who recounted the story Wednesday on his Ora.TV “Off the Grid” show, said the gift was ironic, since Bush supported the embargo.

Bush’s presidential campaign denied the claim, saying the cigars weren’t from Cuba.

“The cigars were Dominican,” Bush spokeswoman Kristy Campell told POLITICO, echoing comments the campaign made to McClatchy, which first reported the story.

Ventura told POLITICO that Bush’s campaign isn’t being honest.

“What happened to the truth?” Ventura said in a phone interview. “They’re trying to say that he sent me a box of Dominicans? I’m astounded by that. Why would they send me a box of Dominican cigars when I could go buy them in any cigar shop?”

Ventura, echoing comments on his show, said the gift — and now the denial — speak to problems with Bush’s campaign.

“Come on. You’re even going to cover this up? You’re going to deny a box of cigars, like what: that’s going to determine the election? It’s a simple and true story,” Ventura said. “I guess the point that I’m making is elites live by a different set of rules than all the rest of us because they can get Cuban cigars, clearly, when the rest of us can’t.”

...

“I hate to feel like a criminal every time I go to smoke a Cuban cigar,” Ventura said he told the president. “Jeb approached me and told me to keep it down.”

“Don’t bring that up, I don’t want that up. I’ll send you all the Cuban cigars you need,” Bush said privately to his Minnesota counterpart, according to Ventura. Ventura said he later walked over to Bush and put an empty aluminum Romeo y Julieta cigar tube in the Florida governor’s top pocket and said “there’s my brand.”

Ventura said that, 10 days later, “I got a box of Romeo Julieta Cubans delivered to the Capitol in Minnesota.”

Is there a chance that the cigars he got were actually from the Dominican Republic?

“No,” Ventura told POLITICO. “The cigar box was sealed and the cigars each came in a silver tube that said ‘Cuba’ on the side.’”

“How would Jeb be able to get his hands on a box of Cuban illegal cigars?” Ventura asked. “It shows the embargo isn’t working.”

 

[PlayALLtheGames]

Typical hillary apologist

What other explanation is there for Hillary who regarding TPP said that Presidential candidates should not inject themselves into Congressional debate suddenly out there spouting the Administration line on the Iran deal and demanding Congress agree to it if not for the fact that Obama can kill her Presidential campaign in heartbeat by letting the DoJ prosecute her for her rampant crimes?
.

Yo, you guys need to quit fucking with me. I'm hungover and cannot deal with this right now.

 

[Plinko]

Hahaha...I love Ventura.

As for the whole Kerry thing, a lot of people forget that the media played a decent role in him losing that election. Early exit polling on election day was great for Kerry. That, of course, led to huge reports throughout the day of Kerry leading and headlines online of, "Kerry blowout in the making?" and stuff like that. It completely mobilized GOP voters and immobilized younger democrat voters, who may have thought, "If he's got this in the bag, why even bother voting?"

Notice how next election they stopped doing early exit poll reporting like that.

 

[Retromelon]

It was mind control!!! I was a governor a fighter a navy seal!

 

[Plinko]

OK, Ben Carson is an absolute nut:

My view is that, rather than attempting to fight against poverty, we should be encouraging growth. The mental shift may be subtle, but it has profound implications for how we approach public policy. The assumption that people are "poor" grounds them in a mentality that reduces agency and creates more dependency. And more tragically, it obscures the reality that there is an abundance of opportunity that is ready for people who want to avail themselves of it. ...

This calls for a new model in public policy that departs from the traditional progressive model. What I am advocating is that civil society — including the corporate sector, education community, the religious establishment and philanthropic institutions —invest in people, to empower them with tools in the form of education and character development, role models, and concrete pathways into productive and rewarding work.

Hey, if you simply don't tell people they're poor, everything will fix itself! Yeah, the private sector will fix all the poverty problems! It has worked so well so far.

If we lived in a country that wasn't overrun with corporate greed, this plan would be reasonable. However, I refuse to believe this man is as ignorant as he appears here. The thing that really bothers me is that, again, he is saying absolutely nothing. He is basically arguing for economic growth and peop,e to help each other. OK, great--what is your plan to accomplish that? Because your flat tax would destroy the poor, hurt the middle-class, and cause huge debt.

 

[FiggyCal]

OK, Ben Carson is an absolute nut:



Hey, if you simply don't tell people they're poor, everything will fix itself! Yeah, the private sector will fix all the poverty problems! It has worked so well so far.

If we lived in a country that wasn't overrun with corporate greed, this plan would be reasonable. However, I refuse to believe this man is as ignorant as he appears here.

I don't think that's what he was saying. Hes saying to be positive; that's pretty much it. It's not really corporate greed that screws people over anyhow; it's the politicians that act in their favor that do. And I would say there's nothing wrong with what Carson said, until you realize that his solution is to dramatically cut taxes. If we took his quote at face value, it actually sounds like he's advocating for more government and private investment to combat poverty "civil society".

 

[Retromelon]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXCptu3ckMI
Watch this if you dare, you bunch of gatekeeping government patsies

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

In 2005, he [Jeb Bush] intervened in the case of 13-year-old girl, known as L.G., who was a ward of the state and was 13½ weeks pregnant when she tried to get an abortion. Bush fought hard to prevent the procedure, but was overruled by a judge.

Shortly after those episodes Bush told Republicans at the 2005 Georgia GOP convention that "there is such a thing as right and wrong."

"Republicans cannot continue to win unless we talk with compassion and passion about absolute truth," he said.

............................................... Okay........

http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/28/politics/bush-politics-analysis/

 

[NYCmetsfan]

You'd like This Town.

I've read it. Its were I get a lot of my disdain for the bullshit of the media.

Also the book made me hate the church of tim russert

 

[Retromelon]

Im going to read it now because i want to find out what the church of tim russert is

 

[Chichikov]

Regarding Kerry, I think the fact that he faked his Vietnam war record and murdered a vet to steal his purple heart kinda hurt him in that election.

 

[benjipwns]

I've read it. Its were I get a lot of my disdain for the bullshit of the media.

Also the book made me hate the church of tim russert

There's a sequel I didn't know about until the other day:

 

[Aaron Strife]

Regarding Kerry, I think the fact that he faked his Vietnam war record and murdered a vet to steal his purple heart kinda hurt him in that election.

At least he didn't fake his birth certificate

 

[benjipwns]

At least he didn't fake his birth certificate

He threw it over the fence with his medals. Well, some other guys birth certificate maybe.

 

[NYCmetsfan]

There's a sequel I didn't know about until the other day:

In it for the anecdotes. Hope it has stuff on trump

 

[speculawyer]

Hillary's candidacy short-circuited any of that. They're convinced the country hates her and it's an easy win.

The GOP did do one of those soul searchings before after 1992 and it led to the Contract with America.

I'm not convinced the country is moving "left" and I don't think it was moving "right" in the 1980s. The Democrats were really just putting up horrible candidates. Carter was a prude who lectured and got kneecapped twice right before his re-election with Kennedy and Iran, Walter Mondale was Walter fucking Mondale (who much of the Democratic Party hated because he was a fucking asshole), and Dukakis was somehow even colder and robotic than Bush.

Reagan was optimistic, constantly talked about how great America was and could be and things got better to the point that he got credit for it. It was arguably what the country needed after the whole Nixon Shock through to Iran Hostages. And really you could argue the lingering of Vietnam. Reagan was a fresh start to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN*. Clinton really sounded a lot of those same themes. And W. Bush and Obama also kinda picked up the idea of how you can be optimistic while also talking about how horrible the last guy was.

*copyright Donald Trump

It would be a trademark. You can't copyright short phrases.

 

[NYCmetsfan]

First page of the new book. (green room)

I just learned Huckabee likes poop jokes! and John edwards walks like a duck.

 

[Retromelon]

It was at this point speculawyer realized that his hundred thousand dollar law degree was finally worth it

 

[Coriolanus]

It would be a trademark. You can't copyright short phrases.

Shows how much you know.

Trump claimed he had come up with Cruz's line about making America great again and questioned whether he should have secured the rights to it ahead of the 2016 campaign.

"The line of 'Make America great again,' the phrase, that was mine, I came up with it about a year ago, and I kept using it, and everybody's now using it, they are all loving it," Trump said.

"I don’t know I guess I should copyright it, maybe I have copyrighted it."

Trump don't care about what's in some book that only a limp-wristed legal clerk would read. He copyrighted it. The end.

(and yes, in a subsequent interview he confirmed that he had copyrighted it. It's trump. the fuck do you expect?)

 

[Mario]

Shows how much you know.

Trump don't care about what's in some book that only a limp-wristed legal clerk would read. He copyrighted it. The end.

(and yes, in a subsequent interview he confirmed that he had copyrighted it. It's trump. the fuck do you expect?)

USPTO trademark database has this

Word Mark MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN
Goods and Services IC 035. US 100 101 102. G & S: Political action committee services, namely, promoting public awareness of political issues. FIRST USE: 20150412. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20150412

IC 036. US 100 101 102. G & S: Fundraising in the field of politics. FIRST USE: 20150522. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20150522
Standard Characters Claimed
Mark Drawing Code (4) STANDARD CHARACTER MARK
Serial Number 85783371
Filing Date November 19, 2012
Current Basis 1A
Original Filing Basis 1B
Published for Opposition October 29, 2013
Registration Number 4773272
Registration Date July 14, 2015
Owner (REGISTRANT) Trump, Donald J. INDIVIDUAL UNITED STATES 725 Fifth Avenue New York NEW YORK 10022
Attorney of Record Natasha N. Reed
Type of Mark SERVICE MARK
Register PRINCIPAL
Live/Dead Indicator LIVE

Unfortunately, it also has this.

Word Mark MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN
Goods and Services IC 018. US 001 002 003 022 041. G & S: All-purpose athletic bags; All-purpose carrying bags; Backpacks; Beach bags; Book bags; Carry-all bags; Change purses; Clutches; Coin purses; Dog apparel; Duffel bags; Garment bags for travel; Handbags; Key cases; Pet clothing; Purses and wallets; School bags; Small backpacks; Travel bags

IC 025. US 022 039. G & S: Footwear; Hats; Jackets; Pants; Shirts; Short-sleeved or long-sleeved t-shirts; Shorts; Socks; Sweat shirts; Swim wear
Standard Characters Claimed
Mark Drawing Code (4) STANDARD CHARACTER MARK
Serial Number 86716074
Filing Date August 5, 2015
Current Basis 1B
Original Filing Basis 1B
Owner (APPLICANT) Estell, Bobby INDIVIDUAL UNITED STATES 12836 Alondra Boulevard Cerritos CALIFORNIA 90703

(APPLICANT) Barnes, Meri INDIVIDUAL UNITED STATES 12836 Alondra Boulevard Cerritos CALIFORNIA 90703
Attorney of Record DONALD GRIER
Disclaimer NO CLAIM IS MADE TO THE EXCLUSIVE RIGHT TO USE "AMERICA" APART FROM THE MARK AS SHOWN
Type of Mark TRADEMARK
Register PRINCIPAL
Live/Dead Indicator LIVE

Hope Trump isn't planning to print his slogan on any shirts or hats lest he fall foul to a trademark infringement suit from Bobby Estell.

A shrewdly timed registration by Bobby too.

 

[PlayALLtheGames]

OK, Ben Carson is an absolute nut:



Hey, if you simply don't tell people they're poor, everything will fix itself! Yeah, the private sector will fix all the poverty problems! It has worked so well so far.

If we lived in a country that wasn't overrun with corporate greed, this plan would be reasonable. However, I refuse to believe this man is as ignorant as he appears here. The thing that really bothers me is that, again, he is saying absolutely nothing. He is basically arguing for economic growth and peop,e to help each other. OK, great--what is your plan to accomplish that? Because your flat tax would destroy the poor, hurt the middle-class, and cause huge debt.

That's not nutty; that's just fucking stupid. And I'm not surprised he isn't offering any solutions. The right-wing mantra is just to talk about how people should pick themselves up and stop being poor.