Sleepy Joe seems to have engineered a landslide win.
and
Tom Steyer has had enough. He put the most money and time into SC of any candidate, but couldn’t do better than 11 or 12%.
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Based on the exit polls, it appears that the results will be (approximately) Biden 50, Bernie 20, with Biden winning every county.
South Carolina has open primaries, so those gross results include non-Democratic voters. Among Democratic voters only, Biden did even better, winning by nearly 40 points, about 57-18.
Operation Chaos was a failure. Biden even won a plurality among non-Democratic voters because the would-be Bringers of Chaos split their votes between Bernie, Buttigieg and Klobuchar.
Except for those scattered votes from non-Democrats, Klobuchar’s campaign was a total bust. She pulled only 1% of the Democrats who voted, and a perfect 0% of the black vote!
LBJ is rarely listed among the worst presidents, but he deserves to be. He was Trump before Trump – the “liberal” Trump – narcissistic, egomaniacal, unable to learn from his mistakes.
He had, as T see it, exactly one saving grace: he realized when he was the dead mouse on America’s kitchen floor, and swept himself up instead of trying to stink it up some more – meaning that, for all his faults and all his bullying, he did have a certain integrity of his own. Unlike Trump, he was capable of feeling shame.
My take on Vietnam: LBJ had all of the political smarts that ever existed, and absolutely no abilities relevant to dealing with Vietnam. He decided that domestic political reasons made it advantageous to preserve South Vietnam, and believed whoever told him what he wanted to hear, which was that it would be easy and cheap. This destroyed his presidency and squandered over 50,000 American lives. He got some fine domestic legislation passed, but that did not save him. Too many people were dying.
I remember a joke from 1968, about the 1964 LBJ vs Goldwater election: “They told me if I voted for Goldwater, we’d have four years of war, riots, crime, and inflation, and they were right!”
Eugene McCarthy’s comment at the time was that he thought Romney didn’t need to actually be brainwashed when a light rinse would have sufficed. About the same time Jim Rhodes, my governor, said that watching Romney run for President was like watching a duck try to make love to a football. No George didn’t exactly run a great race that year.
Btw two of us Alleghenians were Clean for Gene that year in Muncie Indiana. I was preRepublican (couldn’t vote yet) but very much antiwar and anti LBJ. Had no use for the “white boots marching in a yellow land” stuff, just thought the war was a dumbass thing to do and that it was screwing us up for anything that might flare up in Europe or Korea. I told one of the captains in my unit in Korea that any bullet we used on the Mekong was one which wouldn’t be available for use on the Elbe or the Main. Might be the only time in my life I was ever asked “Could I quote that “.
One of the cool things about motor pool clerk (typical Army- my automotive/mechanical aptitude score had to be one of the lowest ever recorded at Ft. Ord) duty in the backend of the world (a mile from the DMZ) was once you got your work cleared out, you were free to read as long as you stayed by the phone. And between the Yongsan PX in Seoul, the library truck, my folks, and the Colonel’s wife (she sent him books from back home), I had good reading by the shitload. And you actually got to shoot the breeze with the officers about the vital stuff like baseball and history. Never would have happened stateside.
Powell was conned into the Iraq#2 fiasco, like quite possibly even Bush, by Cheney and his crowd, Rummy, and the NeoCons (Bolton, Wolfowitz et al) in the Admin with bogus information about WMDs and supposed uranium purchases in Chad. He was never totally convinced as to the accuracy of the “information”, but when asked by his boss to make the case at the UN he did so. It didn’t take him long to have his doubts confirmed and he didn’t forgive Bush for the longest time. According to one of my family (first cousin once removed) who has known him since they were young officers together in Nam, he has never forgiven Cheney and is not about to. You’ve taken one episode from a distinguished career tarted it up a bit, and concluded the man wasn’t a leader. His full record says otherwise.
I liked Bush One but he sure as hell did his Washington-inexperienced kid no favors by bequeathing him both Cheney and Rumsfeld. One an egomaniacal bozo and the other simply the sleaziest person in politics in my lifetime excepting our beloved Orange Buffoon.
Silliest person in the whole Iraq#2 mess though was Saddam Hussein. By talking smack to everybody and refusing inspections – basically for internal PR reasons- he ended up getting his own neck extremely stretched.
You know, when people like Colin Powell and Tony Blair (who I then respected) voiced support for the war in Iraq, I was convinced there must be SOMETHING to it. So I guess I blew up my reputation too. The difference is, nobody cared what I thought.
Didn’t the same thing happen to Mitt Romeny’s father? Didn’t he say he had been “brainwashed” about Vietnam? That didn’t do his political chances any good either.
Scoop,
Bernie would do less damage If Elected- wouldn’t have a lapdog rump of a party to follow orders for one thing – but I don’t totally agree on the honesty part. I think he’s at least a singleplusgood bullshitter/fabricator (of course Trump is quadruple or quintuple). Never the slightest bit of detail or the slightest sign that he understands how the financial system he wants to replace or at least overhaul actually works. The idiot (or maybe just cynical PR) notion that he can fund all his stuff by merely taxing the rich. And a little too much of a my way or the highway attitude in general.
But I can’t see him ever getting elected and I do see him causing electoral catastrophe in the Congressional races if he gets the nomination. Speaker Jim Jordan – chew on that for a second. Give Trump a double-barreled Trumpstag of a Congress and those more judges and we’ll see bad things can get. The only way out at that point might be through Trump’s unhealthy lifestyle.
But it kind of comes back to the 1790 thing or why does the system give us this sorry bunch to choose among nowadays.
Roger had a good point about what kind of decent person would want to run nowadays. The last person I actually wanted to see run was Colin Powell. And he just wasn’t going to put his family through all that crap.
Colin Powell also decided to blow up his reputation by helping Bush the Younger lie his way into a war with Iraq. Powell was too much of a good soldier and a follower, and not enough of a leader. IMO, of course.
Bingo! And the more you see of Bernie, the less you like him.
No surprise here, and no surprise that Trump is going to win South Carolina by the same margin come general election versus any Democrat.
Bernie is going to dominate on Super Tuesday, so this is a nice headline and media coverage in a deep red state that means nothing, and nothing more.
Clearly the Biden strategy is to force a brokered convention where the corrupt DNC will put their ‘chosen one’ in, ALA Hillary in 2016. In which Bernie supporters will revolt, and Trump wins again.
Sanders is up in almost all polls against Trump, more than any other candidate head to head in the general election. Moderate Republicans who would vote Democrat DO NOT EXIST, if the last 12 years of either blocking Obama or falling in line with Trump haven’t proved that already. You’re trying to appease this fictional group of people who are authoritarianist in the end, who’ve moved the goalposts in any negotiation and tried to subvert any collaboration at ANY turn, and its not THERE.
A strong grassroots movement to mobilize more turnout among minorities and young voters is the only way to beat Trump. This idiotic idea that Biden will unify the party and somehow get this fictional centrist vote is ridiculous.
Lots of trying to fit everything into a do-nothing centrist or corporate Democrat philosophy despite all evidence to the contrary. Bernie’s policies just wont work, because well, they can’t. And he can’t win because, well he just can’t. Despite the fact that there’s been 40+ studies that Medicare for All would lower costs significantly, other countries do it, and Bernie is doing better in head to head polls with Trump than any other candidate.
Older voters who claim to be Democrats need to get out of their brainwashed shells for once. Just because you’ve been fed a bunch of ‘American Dream’ bullshit for 50+ years doesn’t mean it’s true.
If corona virus god forbid keeps going and stock market keeps falling and economy starts tanking,it will be bye bye Trump and a monkey could beat him.No incumbent with a bad economy has ever won Reelection and that is only thing saving Trump.
I think you will take note that this board is filled with moderate Republicans who would vote Democratic to oust a tyrant. We do have some hesitation with Bernie, however. The things that don’t seem to exist are moderate Republican POLITICIANS who will vote to support Democrats in any way. They stay in line because they are afraid of being primaried by right-wing crazies who will ride a Trump endorsement.
In looking at a Bernie/Trump contest, my first inclination is to stay home, but after thinking about it, I concluded that a vote for Bernie is safe because: (1) he’s unlikely to live four years, so we’re really voting for his veep; (2) pretty much everyone in both parties hates him, and the few that like him don’t generally support his agenda, so he would not actually be able to accomplish anything major as President in terms of legislation; (3) hey, it means Trump is out.
The good news is that Bernie would re-invigorate the domestic executive bureaus like Agriculture, EPA, HHS, NASA, NOAA and Interior, all of which need to be headed by objective thinkers with the good of the country in mind, as opposed to the assortment of sycophants and political hacks that Trump has been running through them. (Not to mention Justice and the Director of Intelligence position).
I trust Bernie to be non-corrupt, and to fill expert positions either with experts or smart guys who can manage experts properly, which at this point would make him seem like a combination of Lincoln and fuckin’ Pericles compared to the existing administration.
And if he manages to sneak in a few useful aspects of socialism, no problem. Even an old-line Reaganite like me knows you have to invest in education (and in children in general), so I would not object to universal pre-k, for example, or healthy free meals in school, and I would support free college under certain conditions (for example: keep your grades high, and give the country one year of public service for every year of college we pay for).
I started reading Indys bedtime story wondering when the dragons are coming, but then saw your response. There are plenty of us right leaning moderates who would vote for Biden or Bloomberg. In fact Bloomberg is my first choice. If the Dems roll out Bernie or Warren however, I’ll vote for Trump. I do agree that if Bernie won, the government would be completely frozen for four years, so that may not be the worst thing.
When we had under 4 mill, you had the likes of Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, the Adamses, Hamilton, Madison, Mason, Jay running around. Even counting for Founding Fathers worship, those were heavyweights. At 333 mill we have the Orange Buffoon and the folks from the one party left going against him.
What The Fuck?
Must be that “Shitstem” Bob Marley used to talk about.
Oh well, in DC our electorals have already been giftwrapped so I can write in for the second time in a row. Leaning toward one Francis Vincent Zappa. “Better one dead live head than two live dead ones”.
Seriously, either Trump or Bernie would do damage. Not sure I could vote for either if I lived elsewhere.
Well, I look at it like this: Trump can do too much damage on both the legislative and judicial side
In terms of legislation, the GOP will follow him blindly into right-wing extremism. On the other hand, Bernie is going to run into roadblocks no matter who controls Congress. Even if they control both houses, the Democrats will not follow Bernie blindly, if at all, into left-wing extremism (although he will have his champions).
As far as appointments go, that’s the big reason to vote for Bernie, just to prevent Trump from having a free hand with appointments, especially judicial appointments, for another four years. That alone is enough reason to vote for him.
And finally, as I noted, although I don’t trust Bernie’s judgment, I do trust his honesty. That’s a major improvement over today’s government.
Bill Deecee asked “What The Fuck?”
The answer to this question that occurs to me right this minute are two trends that started about 120 years ago: the necessity of the Federal to become involved in regulating business, and the desire of the American people to use their government to insure people against individual misfortune.
The first trend began with the obvious necessity of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, and the many analogous laws in effect today.
The second resulted in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and so on.
Both of these mean that the Federal government is massively involved in business, and therefore it is worthwhile for the richest corporations and individuals in America to do their best to buy control of the Federal government, and to fund media that lies endlessly, where necessary, on behalf of their financial interest.
I think this has corrupted, directly or indirectly, both the people who run for political office, and the perspective of much of the American people on almost every major issue.
I am sure there are an enormous number of other answers to your question. One that also occurs to me is the endless vituperation politicians are subjected to. It is hard for me to imagine who WANTS to run for office, given how much people affect to despise them.
Time to bail, Amy…I bet Steyer or Hickenlooper would would join you for a drink. Maybe try again in four years? I liked Klobuchar, she has this not-evil vibe that you don’t often see in a politician.
Biden is a pretty lousy candidate, but he’s less lousy than all the others, so this is a good result for the Democrats.
Bloomberg should drop out and endorse Biden, but I doubt his pride will allow it. Also, the complete failure of Warren, Buttigieg, and Klobuchar to win over black voters shows you how flawed their campaigns were from the beginning.
True dat. Those three have basically struck out completely with black voters. It looks like Klobuchar posted a goose egg, while Pete and Poc didn’t fare much better at 2 and 4% respectively.