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:
Continue Reading »
0 Comments -
Leave a comment! Tags: Amy Klobuchar, Andrew Yang, Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, Beto O'Rourke, climate change, CNN, Cory Booker, Donald Trump, Elizabeth Warren, Green New Deal, Hurricane Dorian, Joe Biden, Julián Castro, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg
Cartoon of Donald Trump clashing with Megyn Kelly at August 2015 debate
Republicans, as expected, are attacking the leading 2020 Democratic presidential candidates. Given that Joe Biden has been the Democratic front-runner essentially since the day he announced his candidacy, and indeed, beats Donald Trump in head-to-head match-up polls, Biden naturally is a target for many of these Republican assaults. The current line of GOP attack against Biden is that he makes “gaffes,” i.e. honest statements that politicians don’t always make, or misstatements using a wrong word, phrase or information. However, there are two big problems with this Republican attack on Biden: first, Biden has had the reputation of making gaffes for many years, and to a lot of voters, it adds to his likeability and authenticity. Second, and even more problematic for Republicans, Donald Trump has so lowered the bar with his own horrible history of misstatements, shocking statements, and outright lies, that he has negated any “gaffe” issue for Biden.
Continue Reading »
0 Comments -
Leave a comment! Tags: 2020 Election, Affordable Care Act, Barack Obama, border wall, Charlottesville, Democrats, Donald Trump, gaffes, Heather Heyer, immigration, Joe Biden, Mexico, Nazi, Republicans
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.
Continue Reading »
0 Comments -
Leave a comment! Tags: 2020 Democratic primaries, 2020 Elections, Bernie Sanders, Beto O'Rourke, Bobby Kennedy, climate change, CNN, Democratic Party, Donald Trump, healthcare, Hillary Clinton, immigration, Joe Biden, Kim Jong Un, North Korea, The View, trade
The White House, whose occupants have always been flawed
With some 23 candidates vying for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, we’re starting to hear that some of them have -gasp- flaws! As is the case in every presidential election, the current crop of candidates are not unicorns, and only an out-of-touch purity voter should expect otherwise. The good news, however, is that Donald Trump has made it more than okay to be a Democratic presidential candidate and be human. Let’s hear about some of these flaws:
Continue Reading »
Vice-President Joe Biden meets Pope Francis, 2016
If you follow the mainstream media, Fox News or liberal blogs, you might think that all activity on the Democratic side is at the liberal end of the spectrum, with attention placed on new House members like the female minority trio of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ilan Omar. You might think such activity and attention also translates directly to the field of 2020 Democratic presidential candidates. However, the person who currently tops the Democratic presidential polls is Joe Biden, who is considered a moderate and definitely not a fresh face. Although the media would portray this as a Democratic Party “rift,” it’s more like a disconnect. Folks following the latest media shiny objects might have forgotten, for example, that the last time the Democrats nominated an all-out liberal for president was U.S. Senator George McGovern in 1972, and he went down to one of the greatest defeats in presidential election history.
Continue Reading »
0 Comments -
Leave a comment! Tags: 2020 Elections, Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, Beto O'Rourke, Democratic Party, Democrats, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Michael Bloomberg, Repbublicans, Russia, Sherrod Brown, Supreme Court
Right-wing impeachment message, December 2011
For many of us, it’s heartbreaking to see our Republican friends and family members being brainwashed by Fox News and GOP identity politics beyond all rationality. Sometimes we try to argue the merits of issues with them, to no avail of course. Other times we just write them off, which can make for some estranged relationships. But here’s another idea: let’s try to point out to our Republican friends that they are being used by the Republican Party.
Continue Reading »
President George W. Bush announced his Medicare Part D prescription drug plan in his May 6, 2006 weekly radio address. In implementing Medicare Part D, the Republican Congress was all for extending deadlines for health insurance programs until President Barack Obama extended the March 31, 2014 Affordable Care Act signup deadline. But what was perhaps more striking about Bush’s announcement was its almost childlike simplicity of the language and delivery:
The average premium that seniors pay is a third less than had been expected, just $25 per month instead of $37 per month.
Thanks to this new coverage, America’s seniors are now getting the modern medicine they need at prices they can afford.
During George W. Bush’s presidency, Democrats made plenty of fun of Bush’s “Bartles and Jaymes” simplicity of speech. Before that, Democrats mocked the simplicity of presidential candidate and then President Ronald Reagan. But such simplicity often works. Indeed, Reagan became known as “The Great Communicator.” For these reasons, we now list Messaging Maxim #6: Keep it Stupidly Simple.
Continue Reading »
With the second Presidential debate between Barack Obama and Willard Mitt Romney around the corner and the third debate just six days later, President Obama should follow these four time-tested principles of successful political communication to gain the debate advantage:
Continue Reading »
Vice President Joe Biden, at a speech in New York City today, came up with the political bumper sticker of the year. He even told us that it could be used as a bumper sticker. Said the Veep:
“If you are looking for a bumper sticker to sum up how President Obama has handled what we inherited, it’s pretty simple: Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive.”
In fact, The Daily Kos liked Biden’s idea so much that they immediately created the very bumper sticker that Biden had suggested.
Biden’s bumper sticker becomes doubly effective when one recalls that Willard M. Romney both said “[i]t’s not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch” bin Laden AND suggested that Americans “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt”. That’s why Biden twisted the knife by adding: “You have to ask yourself … if Governor Romney were president, would he have used the same slogan in reverse?” Ouch!
Biden’s speech today serves as a reminder that good policy decisions or merely reciting facts and reasonable arguments likely will not be enough to win the Obama-Biden team reelection against a Republican candidate backed by a corporate army that will wage an air war of false tv ads. Messaging matters, and that Democratic messaging must include catchy, hard-hitting phrases that fit on bumper stickers. Vice President Biden proved today that, so far, his team is up to the task.
