a clown car full of millionaires: the 2016 presidential primary thread

CORRECTION: This story previously identified Reid as the Senate majority leader.

Old habits die hard.

harry reid is pretty good at politics

https://www.thenation.com/article/sorry-fellow-bernie-fans-maybe-hillary-really-did-win-the-debate/

This is not at all what they are saying

― a strawman stuffed with their collection of 12 cds (jjjusten), Monday, October 19, 2015 9:35 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

RONG

"The activists expressed particular concern over white people dominating the burgeoning legal marijuana industry"

http://www.dailydot.com/politics/bernie-sanders-we-the-protesters-marijuana-republican-debate/

The argument comes from Michelle Alexander as per http://www.alternet.org/drugs/michelle-alexander-white-men-get-rich-legal-pot-black-men-stay-prison e.g. She is a Board member of a leading #NottheBureauofLandManagement constituent organization: http://www.buzzfeed.com/darrensands/michelle-alexander-angela-davis-join-dream-defenders-advisor#.kbRAod3ne

Just because you are weirdly obsessed with location defining humanity doesn't mean you actually get to reform every argument on the planet to conform with that.

Don't worry BLM, benbbag is here to clarify your position for you

Interesting Bloomberg News interview with Jeb Bush campaign consultant Mike Murphy: Part 1, Part 2

One day after Jeb announced his candidacy, in mid-June, Trump got in. I assume you hadn’t anticipated what that would do to the campaign.
I don’t think he’s been particularly good for the process, he's trivialized it. I remember working in foreign countries in the past where like the beer brands would each run a candidate for president as a marketing gimmick. I thought “God, I hope this never comes to us,” because it just makes the election kind of a cheap card trick. And here we are.

How has Trump’s entry changed the race?
It created a false zombie front-runner. He’s dead politically, he'll never be president of the United States, ever. By definition I don't think you can be a front-runner if you're totally un-electable. I think there's there an a-priori logic problem in that.

Has he been dead since he got in?
I think so, yeah. So there's no meaningful outcome to it. But the question is what kind of catalyst is it? It's a huge amount of noise and so we're trying to find the signal in all this. You've seen Trump start to drop now. I think it'll be a very slow drop, but I think he'll continue to drop and the question is: is he ready to lose primaries, will he stay in? And nobody knows the answer to that.

...

It does seem as though, in your theory of the race, Rubio will be the biggest obstacle to being where you want to be on March 16.
The second and third look are going to be very tough on Marco Rubio. That’s just a prediction.

And that’s based on his record?
Based on: there’s not a lot there record-wise. I’m a Marco donor, I was one of his first donors when he ran for the Senate, I’m glad he did—Marco’s always had incredible possibilities. But he needs more time to reach them. Because we look at his record, I think we’re finding what the American voters are, that there’s not a lot. He hasn’t done much.

This was the challenge both Hillary and McCain faced in running against Obama in 2008. Running against the absence of a record is probably a lot harder than running against stuff on the record that more obviously a negative.
I think so, but it’s easier post-Obama than before because we’ve had the Less Filling, Tastes Great great experiment. Now we’ve got the terrible security situation of the world and two presidential terms where the middle class has gotten very little, more pain than anything else. So I think we’ve tried to pick “what’s behind pretty curtain number three” and then we found that it was an empty box there. So we’ll see.

Is there anything in particular in Rubio’s record or background that you feel is a vulnerability but hasn’t gotten media attention?
Well, I think Rubio’s been in this position of promising I’m going to be great eventually and not held to anything. Rubio can be up or down, nothing matters. None of the yardstick being applied to us is being applied to Rubio.

Isn’t that a testament to the fact that the Rubio’s campaign did a better job than Jeb’s of setting low expectations and deflecting media scrutiny as a result?
No, I think it’s just low stakes, you know? Rubio’s kind of an also-ran and everybody’s waiting for the golden moment. So now, if this is his golden moment, let’s take the second look. Why is he running television ads in all three early states and nationally that are paid for by mystery donors? Has he ever been even asked that question?

I don’t think the media understand, it’s $6 million, nobody’s done that with (c)(4) money. We think (c)(4)s are totally appropriate. We have one. We’re proud of it. But it's basically been focused on policy research and things like that, not on television ads that are thinly disguised campaign ads. Rubio's entire spend has been that so far, $6 million all secret donors. It kind of stuns me that he's gotten away with that in the media.

So I think now is the time for Rubio to get out there and show some substance and perform a little bit. Second look...What’s interesting about Marco’s campaign—and in the end I think all the essential truth of the stuff bubbles up to the voters and they sort it out pretty well—is there's a cynicism to it. It’s cynical to run as the creature of new, fresh, while it’s all secret dark money. Maybe from one person, we don’t know. It’s cynical to say, “I’m going to take the lead on defeating this horrible Iran deal that we all hate,” and broadcast your ads to defeat that deal only on the Fox Network, where everybody is already against the deal, instead of running those ads on MSNBC to pressure Democratic senators that were the outcome to beating that deal. Cynically use it just to raise your name ID among Republican primary voters who already agree with you on the deal. There is a cynicism behind the young, fresh brand that I think is going to catch up with him.

This was the challenge both Hillary and McCain faced in running against Obama in 2008. Running against the absence of a record is probably a lot harder than running against stuff on the record that more obviously a negative.
I think so, but it’s easier post-Obama than before because we’ve had the Less Filling, Tastes Great great experiment. Now we’ve got the terrible security situation of the world and two presidential terms where the middle class has gotten very little, more pain than anything else. So I think we’ve tried to pick “what’s behind pretty curtain number three” and then we found that it was an empty box there. So we’ll see.

Looool. So people will look at Rubio, think 'I've been burned by someone like him in the past', and then go for Bush...

did ANY of the GOP candidates avoid going all in on #BENGHAZI? now that it's finally beginning to fall apart (maybe premature to say that) it seems like it would be a liability to those who couldn't stfu about it the last few years, namely Trump. but maybe they all couldn't stfu about it?

This is kinda creepy:

But we’re doing a lot of cool stuff in digital and I’m particularly interested in integrating people’s digital life, information about that, with what we know in their voter-file history. And that is slow, tedious work, but that is the puzzle you want to crack. And so we’re funding a lab here to work on that.

What does that mean, a lab?

So we’re doing a lot of lab experiments with different creative. We take ad concepts we have and we do a lot of online testing. We're very also interested, frankly, in the four million voters—like three and a half—who are going to decide the general election, so we’ve already started a lot of data-mining work on that. We’re taking their IP and mobile-device life and finding ways to link it up to the voter-file history we already know, so we get the 360-degree picture on people and can communicate with them really well. That’s the Holy Grail of this.

We’re scraping the Internet for clues about people. We’re very interested in geo-targeting in mobile devices, things like that we use to try to find new insights.

Geo-targeting to the actual location where somebody is using their device in real time?

Yeah, I want to know where the cell phone goes at night. I learn a lot about their mobile life and where they vote and then I start to figure out who they are.

"the american people have no fucking clue" cynicism of that murphy guy is only tempered by his inability to realize that his own candidate is similarly dead in the water

It’s cynical to run as the creature of new, fresh, while it’s all secret dark money. Maybe from one person, we don’t know. It’s cynical to say, “I’m going to take the lead on defeating this horrible Iran deal that we all hate,” and broadcast your ads to defeat that deal only on the Fox Network, where everybody is already against the deal, instead of running those ads on MSNBC to pressure Democratic senators that were the outcome to beating that deal.

this is almost rove-level though - who is this sneaky character, running ads targeted to REPUBLICANS during the republican primary? a real american would be campaigning in the OTHER party clearly! what else don't we know about this "marco" and his shadowy dark money?

"the american people have no fucking clue" cynicism of that murphy guy is only tempered by his inability to realize that his own candidate is similarly dead in the water

whether or not he realizes this is not gonna come across in a interview that he's doing to market the bush candidacy

He is also really high on the idea that 'positive conservatism' is the majority view amongst republican, as opposed to 'grievance conservatism', considering the latest WaPo-ABC polls have Trump, Carson, Cruz and Fiorina combining for 65%.

positive conservatism
compassionate conservatism

Is the data-mining stuff more creepy or less creepy than the same tactics being used to sell you a particular pair of shoes or sports drink, vs. a political candidate?

I don't disagree that it's creepy, btw - I'm just not sure whom to blame: the whole privacy-free technical infrastructure? Marketing/pr/advertising types for exploiting said infrastructure (which could also be called "being good at their jobs")? People in general, for leaving digital trails in the first place? The unholy alliance of money and politics that conspires to protect such creepy intrusion as long as it is good for business?

The entire subtext of that interview is Dan Aykroyd's line from Tommy Boy: "What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public."

Biden: I'm Not Running For President

I'm crushed.

Biden...because I AM THE PRESIDENT

*heavy metal riffs*

https://twitter.com/BillKristol/status/655584572554498048

lmao yesterday

https://twitter.com/BillKristol/status/656476177620692992

Bill Kristol, always wrong

he is amazing

I never paid much attention to Biden as VP. From what I could tell, there seemed to be a lot memes generated that many people enjoyed.

YES!!!!!!!

I think people like Biden knowing he's completely harmless and his creep moves only affect poor children of congressfolk he happens to inappropriately kiss.

Can Debbie Wasserman-Schultz step down from DNC too?

let's ask gabbneb

xxpost Kristol Ball

Biden kept people guessing long enough for all the good will to seep away and had Dems going on shows bashing him over the Bankruptcy bill

https://twitter.com/prisonculture/status/656870549273079813

Watch the video of how he treated Anita Hill. One TV commercial of that would have had Black women REVOLTING against Biden. Trust.

idk if biden ever intended to run but i wonder if the mess that the republican party is making of their collective campaign played a part in it. hillary is pretty obviously going to be the nominee and this sort of rallying behind one pretty strong, known candidate looks like a good move for the democrats. biden jumping in would lessen that and i think the republicans might have welcomed his presence to some extent, as someone to muddy the dem waters at least.

trump won't be the nominee (i don't think???) but dang is he making everyone else competing with him look weak by their need to even acknowledge and confront him.

lol goole, I was about to comment on how unusually sassy your posting style had become and then I looked at the tweet

the GOP hoping now that FBI report in January destroys her, and if it doesn't the NRO commentators say that it's thanks to the Muslim's stand down order to Comey.

Mike Murphy's grasp of how to talk about this stuff is honestly dazzling

Bill Kristol, even higher than we had guessed.

https://twitter.com/BillKristol/status/656886241594576896

omg

"I MEANT LIZ."

"Yeah right."

I'd say he's trolling but he's a gnome.

lol the responses

cheney left office with like the worst approval ratings of any politician ever who didn't kill or molest someone

he tried to directly kill someone, give him some credit

c'mon that was just a friendly faceshooting

Could Slate stan any harder for HRC?

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/10/21/joe_biden_s_departure_will_already_boost_hillary_s_poll_numbers.html

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson said Wednesday he would use the U.S. Department of Education to police speech on college campuses.

During an interview, Glenn Beck asked Carson if he would shut down the Education Department as president.

"I actually have something I would use the Department of Education to do," Carson responded. "It would be to monitor our institutions of higher education for extreme political bias and deny federal funding if it exists."

Carson discussed this same idea with a Las Vegas radio host in June. Although he did not explain details, the host, Heidi Harris, said she "loves that idea."

During a town hall meeting in Des Moines, Iowa, last month, a student asked President Barack Obama last month what he thought of Carson's plan to monitor for political bias on campuses. Obama responded, "I have no idea what that means, and I suspect he doesn't either."

zing

pretty good line

also giving an interview to glenn beck should preclude you from running for political office imo

potus: defender of free speech, jailer of whistleblowers

kicker of elves

@SenTedCruz
In 1985, Doc Brown gave Libyan terrorists a fake nuclear bomb. In 2015, @POTUS gave Iran keys to the real thing.