Tag Archive: Bernie Sanders

Mike Bloomberg’s amazing ads

2020 Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg

There is plenty of debate in Democratic Party circles about Mike Bloomberg, who is one of the party’s newest and few remaining presidential candidates. Some voters feel that Bloomberg’s record is not liberal enough on certain issues. Others feel that Bloomberg’s bypassing of the first several Democratic presidential primaries and caucuses, such as Iowa and New Hampshire, should not be rewarded. And still other voters say that Bloomberg is trying to “buy” the election, having spent nearly $200 million in his first two months of campaigning alone. However, money does not always translate into votes or poll ratings, but Bloomberg has been running third in recent nationwide Democratic primary polls, and is in the lead in the crucial state of Florida. Obviously, Bloomberg is doing something right. And that something seems to be Bloomberg’s ads.

In Democratic primary predictions, media have no clue

Pete Buttigieg campaign truck in front of Iowa Democratic presidential debate

When it comes to the Democratic presidential nomination, our mainstream media are quick to make snap judgments and predictions without much reflection. Currently, the media are overemphasizing the results of the outlier Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primaries, to declare Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders, respectively, the front-runners, while simultaneously declaring Joe Biden‘s moderate candidacy dead in favor of either Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar or Mike Bloomberg. The media likely are wrong in these conclusions. At minimum, their declarations are premature and lacking in evidence. For perspective, let’s take a look at the 1992 and 2004 Democratic presidential nominations, since that’s the last two times the Democrats were running against an incumbent Republican president:

Joe Biden’s closing Iowa argument: defeat Trump first

Former Vice President Joe Biden

Just before Iowa’s first in the nation Democratic presidential caucus next Tuesday, Joe Biden‘s campaign has released its latest Iowa-targeted ad. Entitled “Imagine,” the ad has Biden himself on camera, asking viewers to “imagine all the progress we can make in the next four years,” including affordable healthcare, renewable energy to tackle climate change, and banning assault weapons to reduce gun violence in our schools. At the end of the ad comes the kicker from Biden:

But first, we need to beat Donald Trump. Then there will be no limit to what we can do.

What happens after Trump’s impeachment?

Trump impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., speaks at trial of Donald Trump in U.S. Senate

Last May, when U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was still reticent to impeach Donald Trump, she explained that Trump was “self-impeaching.” What Pelosi likely meant was that Trump was digging his own political grave, hurting his chances for reelection in 2020. Pelosi’s prediction seems to be coming true now, as the latest polls indicate that the top six Trump challengers for the general election — Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Michael Bloomberg, Bernie Sanders, Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigiegall beat Trump in head to head match-ups. This latest good news for Democrats comes as Trump has been impeached (“for life,” as Nancy Pelosi brilliantly said), and is now undergoing a trial for removal in the U.S. Senate.

The anti-Trump ad that Joe Biden should run immediately

Former Vice President Joe Biden

Joe Biden has run essentially a general election campaign against Donald Trump from the day Biden joined the 2020 presidential race. For example, while the Democratic primaries don’t even begin until February 2020 and the candidates are slugging it out with each other, Biden aims most of his rhetoric, and his ads, directly at Trump or the general electorate itself. Biden’s first big ad showed world leaders laughing at, ridiculing, and even ignoring Trump on the world stage. Biden’s latest ad, released just yesterday, warns that, if America is to continue its progress towards justice for all, Donald Trump must not be reelected.

Biden’s general election campaign in the primaries may make good sense, given that Biden is the only Democratic candidate this year to have served eight years as Vice President (to beloved Democratic President Barack Obama), as well as having been a long-serving leader in the U.S. Senate, including being Chairman of the Foreign Relations and Judiciary Committees. And such gamble apparently has paid off, as Biden has led the Democratic presidential primary polls, on the national level and in most states, virtually every day since joining the contest.

Therefore, Biden’s next ad should continue his general election theme, and attack Donald Trump on something on which Trump is extremely vulnerable: his physical and mental health, as evidenced by his speech slurring and other behavior.

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?

Democrats go on offense at CNN “Climate Crisis” town hall

Earth on fire

CNN aired a seven-hour marathon town hall on the “Climate Crisis” yesterday evening. The event featured the top 10 presidential candidates for the Democratic Party nomination, chosen using the Democratic Party’s criteria for its presidential debates.

The first CNN host of the evening, Wolf Blitzer, mentioned Hurricane Dorian in the first sixty seconds of the town hall, and he and the subsequent hosts returned to current reports about the hurricane during the program. Most questions came from the audience, both those in the room and others via satellite from various locations. Many of the questioners were environmental activists, students, or academics, and most such questions were very specific and pointed.

Here are some of the highlights of what each candidate, in order of appearance, had to say:

What’s in a Republican’s email inbox?

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, current enemy in Republican email inboxes

If you have a friend or family member of the opposite political party who is politically active, and you trust each other, here’s a fun experiment you can do: ask to take a look at their email inbox. You might be amazed at what you see.

Democrats

Chances are, the Democratic person in your duo has emails on the following subjects:

–Fighting climate change

–Fighting animal extinction

–Reducing gun violence

Donald Trump‘s latest outrage, including the latest rape allegations against him

–Avoiding war with Iran or other countries

–Fair taxation, or, more specifically, raising taxes on the rich

–The latest lies of Kellyanne Conway

–The appalling conditions of immigrant kids locked in cages under Donald Trump’s family separation policy

–Extending voting rights and civil rights

–Protecting our election system against foreign interference

–Protecting the Affordable Care Act and its pre-existing conditions coverage against attacks by the Trump administration and Republican governors

–Calls for Donald Trump’s impeachment

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.

Trump impeachment process begins to take shape

Sign from July 2, 2017 Impeachment March

One of the biggest political events to take place last week was U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren‘s announcement that, after reading the Mueller Report, she believes that the U.S. House “should initiate impeachment proceedings” against Donald Trump. Here is Warren’s tweet containing this announcement, which Warren reiterated during subsequent tweets and television interviews: