Author Topic: Can a serious Democrat please run for president?  (Read 5305 times)

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Offline Right_in_Virginia

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Can a serious Democrat please run for president?
« on: July 11, 2019, 12:13:58 pm »
Can a serious Democrat please run for president?
The Week, Jul 9, 2019, Damon Linker

I love those "Any Functioning Adult 2020" bumper stickers as much as any upper-middle-class suburban white liberal. But if I'm honest, it isn't really true. I will never vote for Donald Trump, but that doesn't mean I'll cast a ballot for any Democrat with a pulse. I would vote for no one rather than contribute to the victory of a candidate who fails to show minimal competence and capacity for responsible leadership.

Judged by that standard, the Democratic field isn't looking very good right now. Yes, it's early. There's plenty of time to mollify my concerns. But at the moment, none of the leading candidates seem like serious contenders.

This isn't just about me and my quirky obsessions. There's no make-or-break list of centrist policies I expect presidential nominees to embrace and advocate in order to win my support. I just want to see evidence that the person acts and speaks like a potential president. (Yes, of course, Trump failed that elementary test in 2016, and he continues to fail it nearly every day. But that doesn't mean those seeking to replace him get to play by new, vastly lower standards.)

Let's begin with Sen. Kamala Harris, who received a lot of attention for her debate performance on June 27. As an act of political theatrics, her confrontation with former Vice President Joe Biden over the latter's opposition to federally mandated busing of students to desegregate school districts during the 1970s was the undisputed highlight of the opening two-night Democratic debate. It was a gripping performance.


More:  https://theweek.com/articles/851404/serious-democrat-please-run-president

Offline Right_in_Virginia

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Re: Can a serious Democrat please run for president?
« Reply #1 on: July 11, 2019, 12:14:56 pm »
Is it fear I'm detecting from upper middle class white liberals?   88devil




Offline EdJames

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Re: Can a serious Democrat please run for president?
« Reply #2 on: July 11, 2019, 12:16:25 pm »
Is it fear I'm detecting from upper middle class white liberals?   88devil

If they weren't so damned brainwashed they would see voting for Trump as the only sane action....

Online sneakypete

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Re: Can a serious Democrat please run for president?
« Reply #3 on: July 11, 2019, 12:22:03 pm »
I think the author of that brain fart was more confused when he wrote it than I was after reading it,and that's saying something.
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Online sneakypete

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Re: Can a serious Democrat please run for president?
« Reply #4 on: July 11, 2019, 12:24:00 pm »
Is it fear I'm detecting from upper middle class white liberals?   88devil

@Right_in_Virginia

No,they are clueless "think happy thoughts and happy things will happen" airheads.

I think their confusion is finally finding a voice.
Anyone who isn't paranoid in 2021 just isn't thinking clearly!

Offline Right_in_Virginia

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Re: Can a serious Democrat please run for president?
« Reply #5 on: July 11, 2019, 12:27:04 pm »
@Right_in_Virginia

No,they are clueless "think happy thoughts and happy things will happen" airheads.

I think their confusion is finally finding a voice.

Tough to argue with @sneakypete  ......  :laugh:

Offline massadvj

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Re: Can a serious Democrat please run for president?
« Reply #6 on: July 11, 2019, 12:43:05 pm »
Is it fear I'm detecting from upper middle class white liberals?   88devil

Things were so much easier for them when they rested easy in the knowledge that their professed liberalism was a free ride to accumulate wealth, chase women and skirt the law through legal wrangling.  Even candidates like Obama talked the radical lingo, but once in office Goldman and Chase still ran the economy and it was pretty much business as usual.  Nowadays the candidates must show themselves to be "true believers" who really mean it.  For upper middle class urbanites, that means their own assets are at risk.

These days being a liberal in any urban setting is a necessary condition for getting laid.  But if you are male and not passive, being a lib no longer gets you a "get out of jail free" card like it once did.  People like Cosby, Epstein, Weinstein, Frankin and maybe even Bill Clinton are  being taught that the worst thing you can do for the so-called powerless is give them power.  They will end up eating their own.

Offline Jazzhead

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Re: Can a serious Democrat please run for president?
« Reply #7 on: July 11, 2019, 12:53:51 pm »
It is a shame that the Dems are reacting to Trump's professional wrestling-style themes of divisiveness, bombast and conflict by doubling down with the same.   It will be difficult if not impossible for any adult in the room to break through the cheering anti-Trump media, which exults in the hate.   

It used to be that two wrongs didn't make a right.   Now we don't even have the option of a "right" choice,  a candidate who is decent-minded and willing to listen to opposing arguments without first labelling them as racist and irredeemable. 

There is one Democrat I could possibly support - Sen.  Michael Bennett, who almost alone among the clown car denizens has been willing to call out the extremists and avoid the cheap 'n easy labels.   But the Dems want their schoolyard brawl with the President;  the last thing they are willing to nominate is a grown-up.     
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Online sneakypete

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Re: Can a serious Democrat please run for president?
« Reply #8 on: July 11, 2019, 01:44:07 pm »

These days being a liberal in any urban setting is a necessary condition for getting laid.  But if you are male and not passive, being a lib no longer gets you a "get out of jail free" card like it once did.  People like Cosby, Epstein, Weinstein, Frankin and maybe even Bill Clinton are  being taught that the worst thing you can do for the so-called powerless is give them power.  They will end up eating their own.

@massadvj

Couldn't happen to a more deserving group of people.
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Re: Can a serious Democrat please run for president?
« Reply #9 on: July 11, 2019, 02:41:36 pm »
These days being a liberal in any urban setting is a necessary condition for getting laid.

It's a lot easier to be conservative and pretend to be liberal than it is to be a leftist trying to feign conservatism.  I'm remind of a Star Trek TOS episode, "Mirror Mirror," when some of the crew was transported to a parallel dimension of savages.  As Spock said at the end, "We caught them right away.  You were able to disguise your selves as barbarians, but it was impossible for your counterparts to behave civilized."

Advantage:  Conservatives.  Lefties will fall for anything.
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Offline Jazzhead

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Re: Can a serious Democrat please run for president?
« Reply #10 on: July 11, 2019, 02:47:50 pm »
It's a lot easier to be conservative and pretend to be liberal than it is to be a leftist trying to feign conservatism.  I'm remind of a Star Trek TOS episode, "Mirror Mirror," when some of the crew was transported to a parallel dimension of savages.  As Spock said at the end, "We caught them right away.  You were able to disguise your selves as barbarians, but it was impossible for your counterparts to behave civilized."

Advantage:  Conservatives.  Lefties will fall for anything.

 888high58888
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Offline massadvj

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Re: Can a serious Democrat please run for president?
« Reply #11 on: July 11, 2019, 02:50:59 pm »
@massadvj

Couldn't happen to a more deserving group of people.

The Dems are the party of Boss Tweed, Edwin Edwards, Huey Long, James Traficant, Richard Daley and Lyndon Johnson.  All of these people had one thing in common: they were populist leftists.  The current crop of "true believers" would be no less corrupt, and maybe even more so, were they to attain power.


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Re: Can a serious Democrat please run for president?
« Reply #12 on: July 11, 2019, 02:55:11 pm »
888high58888

 888high58888

Keeping conservatives at the top of the gene pool, one conquest at a time.  Thank goodness I'm too old for that kind of crap anymore...
For unvaccinated, we are looking at a winter of severe illness and death — if you’re unvaccinated — for themselves, their families, and the hospitals they’ll soon overwhelm. Sloe Joe Biteme 12/16
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Offline IsailedawayfromFR

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Re: Can a serious Democrat please run for president?
« Reply #13 on: July 11, 2019, 03:53:23 pm »
This might be ominously a setup to select Michelle Obama as the nominee.

Strange isn't it that someone like her, eminently unqualified and unserious most of her "first time I am proud to be an American" life, might be more sane than what is currently the Democrat field?
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Online catfish1957

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Re: Can a serious Democrat please run for president?
« Reply #14 on: July 11, 2019, 03:56:30 pm »
IF Zell Miller was alive, I'd vote for him over Tump.  Maybe Scoop Jackson too.

OF course those dinosaurs are extinct.
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Offline goatprairie

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Re: Can a serious Democrat please run for president?
« Reply #15 on: July 11, 2019, 04:30:53 pm »
The writer does not come to the obvious conclusion: the party has lurched so far to the left,  that there might not be any decent, moderate Dem pols left anymore.
« Last Edit: July 11, 2019, 04:53:22 pm by goatprairie »

Offline roamer_1

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Re: Can a serious Democrat please run for president?
« Reply #16 on: July 11, 2019, 04:46:42 pm »
It is a shame that the Dems are reacting to Trump's professional wrestling-style themes of divisiveness, bombast and conflict by doubling down with the same.   It will be difficult if not impossible for any adult in the room to break through the cheering anti-Trump media, which exults in the hate.   

It used to be that two wrongs didn't make a right.   Now we don't even have the option of a "right" choice,  a candidate who is decent-minded and willing to listen to opposing arguments without first labelling them as racist and irredeemable. 

There is one Democrat I could possibly support - Sen.  Michael Bennett, who almost alone among the clown car denizens has been willing to call out the extremists and avoid the cheap 'n easy labels.   But the Dems want their schoolyard brawl with the President;  the last thing they are willing to nominate is a grown-up.   

Hell must be freezing over @Jazzhead - Because while not in the particular (I plead ignorance), I will agree with you in spirit. If the Dems were capable of lofting a classical liberal (roughly Dave Rubin-esque, let's say), we would all be better for it, with a real choice in the offing...

Not that they can, I think.
And I would submit that while you are right about the Dems being more interested in a schoolyard brawl, the Republicans, and this administration in particular, are no different in that regard.

One side or the other willing to offer up a grownup would be a sign of healing.

Offline Jazzhead

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Re: Can a serious Democrat please run for president?
« Reply #17 on: July 11, 2019, 04:52:44 pm »

One side or the other willing to offer up a grownup would be a sign of healing.

Indeed it would, @roamer_1 .   But this time around, at least, it won't be the Republicans.   And the chance of a Bennett or Hickenlooper breaking though to the Dem nomination is, basically, no chance.

So a schoolyard brawl it is.   Why should I be complicit in enabling it?   
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Offline roamer_1

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Re: Can a serious Democrat please run for president?
« Reply #18 on: July 11, 2019, 05:04:31 pm »
Indeed it would, @roamer_1 .   But this time around, at least, it won't be the Republicans.   And the chance of a Bennett or Hickenlooper breaking though to the Dem nomination is, basically, no chance.

So a schoolyard brawl it is.   Why should I be complicit in enabling it?   

That's right @Jazzhead , and hence, my reticence.
and in the mean time,
both Conservatism and classic liberalism languish.

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Offline Bigun

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Re: Can a serious Democrat please run for president?
« Reply #19 on: July 11, 2019, 05:06:30 pm »
A serious Democrat???  There is such a thing???  Who knew???
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
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Re: Can a serious Democrat please run for president?
« Reply #20 on: July 11, 2019, 05:08:03 pm »
Don't look now, but there isn't a non-bully in the bunch.
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Offline roamer_1

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Re: Can a serious Democrat please run for president?
« Reply #21 on: July 11, 2019, 05:10:21 pm »
Don't look now, but there isn't a non-bully in the bunch.

On either side...
Jussayin.

Offline roamer_1

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Re: Can a serious Democrat please run for president?
« Reply #22 on: July 11, 2019, 05:20:14 pm »
IF Zell Miller was alive, I'd vote for him over Tump.  Maybe Scoop Jackson too.

OF course those dinosaurs are extinct.

And btw, @catfish1957 , me too.
 happy77

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Re: Can a serious Democrat please run for president?
« Reply #23 on: July 11, 2019, 05:20:37 pm »
On either side...
Jussayin.

I believe I just sad that too.   rrthree
For unvaccinated, we are looking at a winter of severe illness and death — if you’re unvaccinated — for themselves, their families, and the hospitals they’ll soon overwhelm. Sloe Joe Biteme 12/16
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Offline Bigun

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Re: Can a serious Democrat please run for president?
« Reply #24 on: July 11, 2019, 05:24:54 pm »
Don't look now, but there isn't a non-bully in the bunch.

Having myself been a candidate in an unsuccessful political race at a low level, I think one NEEDS to be a bit of a bully to be successful these days.  Sad as that is, I believe it to be true.
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
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