Tag Archive: 2020 Elections

Kamala Harris quits presidential race: what went wrong?

U.S. Senator Kamala Harris

Yesterday, U.S. Senator Kamala Harris abandoned her efforts to win the Democratic Party presidential nomination for 2020. In an email to supporters, Harris wrote:

I’m not a billionaire. I can’t fund my own campaign. And as the campaign has gone on, it’s become harder and harder to raise the money we need to compete.

On paper at least, the highly accomplished Harris should have been one of the favorites to win the Democratic nomination, and, for a time, she was in the top tier, polling at 15 percent. So what went wrong?

No surprise as mainstream media fall short in Trump impeachment coverage

Protesters share their opinion on Donald Trump impeachment

While many mainstream media outlets have aired the Donald Trump impeachment hearings that began in the U.S. House on Wednesday, the commentary by some of the media afterward was cringeworthy. Special mention goes to NBC News and Reuters, who faulted the hearings for not being scintillating enough. According to NBC News:

Reuters followed up with “Consequential, but dull: Trump impeachment hearings begin without a bang.” Sadly, this is the kind of circus coverage that we have come to expect from our news media.

After election defeats, will Republicans finally abandon Trump?

Virginia Beach voting sticker

Yesterday, Republicans suffered stunning election losses in Kentucky and Virginia. In Kentucky, Democratic state Attorney General Andy Beshear defeated incumbent Republican Governor Matt Bevin to become the new Governor-elect (Bevin thus far has refused to concede the election). Bevin’s defeat is a major embarrassment for Donald Trump, who, on Monday night, held a rally in Kentucky’s second-largest city, Lexington, and pleaded with the audience to prevent a Democratic win in the state, saying, “You can’t let that happen to me!”

In Virginia, Democrats won the majority in the State House of Delegates and the State Senate, to go along with their Democratic Governor. This marks the first time in 26 years that Virginia has had a unified Democratic state government, which may well be a continuation of the “Blue Wave” that swept Democrats into the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2018 midterm elections. One of the issues for Virginia voters yesterday was gun violence, after 12 people were killed in a mass shooting in Virginia Beach last May. Republican lawmakers in Virginia, as well as nationally, have dragged their feet on or even blocked taking common-sense steps proposed by Democrats to reduce gun violence. The voters may have signaled that they have had enough.

Twitter throws up its hands, bans political ads

Message from Twitter

Last week, when Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before the U.S. House Financial Services Committee, he stated that Facebook would not review political ads for truthfulness, even though it reviews non-political ads. This cynical and inconsistent position has drawn a lot of criticism. Yesterday, seemingly in response, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced (via a series of tweets, of course) that Twitter will no longer carry political ads at all. Twitter’s announcement garnered some praise, especially in comparison to Facebook’s indefensible position. However, in truth, the Twitter position is lazy and even cowardly. Twitter, and Facebook, should instead adopt standards and do the work of vetting political ads.

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg testifies before House of Representatives

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before the U.S. House Financial Services Committee yesterday. The title of the hearing was: An Examination of Facebook and its Impact on the Financial Services and Housing Sectors. As we recently indicated, Messaging Matters has pulled the plug and stopped using Facebook, due to a combination of Facebook’s data mining business model, its history of user data breaches, and its pro-Republican bent. The rest of America is not likely to take much comfort after what was heard yesterday.

Democratic debate exposes everything that’s wrong with TV

Sign of unity outside 2019 Democratic debate

Are you reading or hearing about the “fireworks” or “clashes” at last night’s Democratic presidential debate aired on CNN? If so, that’s part of the problem. This year, the televised Democratic debates have shown more about the failure of the TV debate format than about the success or substance of the candidates.

First, CNN (along with the New York Times, which co-sponsored the debate) brought together the 12 qualifying candidates on one stage, on one night, instead of splitting the event into two debates with six candidates each. Right off the bat, this caused the candidates to be given inadequate time to answer most questions, and to be cut off just when getting to the substance of most of their answers.

Unplugging from Republican-leaning Facebook

Turning off Facebook

In the very first Messaging Matters post, nearly nine years ago, we wrote: “Republicans have placed a ‘matrix’ over this country” with the help of “news media [that] are largely controlled by giant corporations,” as well as an organized Republican “messaging machine.” Based on recent revelations, it turns out that Facebook is part of this Republican machine too. As a result, we’re unplugging from the Facebook matrix.

Top Democratic presidential candidates debate each other for first time

Aspen Times article on Democratic presidential debate

Last night, the top 10 candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination debated each other for the first time at Texas Southern University, a historically black university in Houston, TX. The debate was hosted jointly by ABC and Univision television networks, and featured Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Andrew Yang, Beto O’Rourke, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg and Julian Castro. In their two previous debates, up to 20 Democratic candidates were included, but that was over two separate nights for each debate, so that the top candidates according to the polls (especially Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren) had not faced each other directly. The debate also had a couple of very notable moments, not coincidentally from candidates who are quite far down in the polls:

The 2020 elections will be a war over inclusivity

Protest against Trump administration family separation policy

Sometimes, the difference between Democrats and Republicans can be distilled to one word. Right now, that word in “inclusivity.” Donald Trump set the tone for this war over inclusivity when he announced his candidacy for president four years ago. In that hate-filled announcement speech, Trump attacked immigrants who come to the U.S. across the Mexican border, saying, “They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” Since then, Trump instituted an anti-Muslim ban on foreign nationals entering the United States; instituted the inhumane family separation policy; hyped up false fears about a migrant “caravan” before the 2018 midterm elections; and even continues to try to build a Medieval-style wall on our southern border. This past Monday, Trump threatened to deport “millions” of undocumented immigrants beginning as soon as next week.

Beto O’Rourke does it differently

Beto O’Rourke on the campaign trail in Iowa

Since approximately 23 candidates are competing for the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential nomination, each candidate must try to stand out from the pack. In that respect, former Texas Congressman Robert “Beto” O’Rourke is making a name for himself by doing things differently. First, O’Rourke rolled out his campaign on a local level, with a flurry of town hall appearances in places like Pacific Junction and Davenport, Iowa, rather than making a national splash with televised rallies in big cities and associated online fundraising.

Only lately, O’Rourke has made the shift to more national appearances, including a CNN town hall and an appearance on ABC‘s The View.” As O’Rourke stated on “The View” regarding his local campaigning thus far,

I learned so much by being with them, by listening to them, by incorporating their stories into how I’m campaigning. So, with months to go before the first caucus or the first primary, listening to people, showing up everywhere. With 20 candidates, these elections might be decided in these various states by a thousand, a hundred, a dozen votes, so every single one of these conversations counts. I’m going to continue to show up everywhere to ensure that we have them.