It may not even be hard to get them chanting "Blood and Soil" without knowing the context, but it wouldn't stop them.

Thanks for posting this-had not heard-good to see some sanity return in Wisconsin.

I say lock them both up and anyone within two rings their circles.

Honestly, despite my own severely one-sided political leanings, if you could put that on the ballot I'd vote for it in a hot second.

The pro is a stronger relationship with an ally that had admittedly been deteriorating (right or wrong, it has been going downhill).

The con is Arab/Muslims in ME and in other moderate muslim countries are going to hate us more. its also going to put additional pressure on muslim countries that are friendly to us like Jordan.

And it helps reinforce Trump's base and arguably increase his base with US Jews.

Other than for poor Jordan and like, I think I like the move.

Let's put it this way. If Trump was to strongly condemn Israel for all her real/perceived transgressions, will it move the dial in changing muslim world opinion of the US. Doubtful, and if it does, temporary at best IMO.

Com'on already Mueller. Let's see it.

Yes, I know your investigation isn't longer than others but still, I'm dying to know how much you have on Trump himself (guess is not enough or no smoking gun to impeach him), and others around him (guess its plenty).

Ideal time would be Summer of next year but that's too long for me.

This is an interesting twist: 9 Reasons a Biden-Abrams Ticket Is a Brilliant Idea for Both

Do the people of Iraq get back the land they acquired in their war with Kuwait?

The media has been nearly non-stop with the "fact" that the Mueller Report is coming out any day now. Until I hear it from Mueller or his spokesman, I'm just not believing that. There's too much ongoing stuff happening-Stone, Gates getting his sentencing delayed, the mystery company still fighting a grand jury appearance, Rosenstein staying longer than expected, etc to think he would be ready for a full report yet.



I think everybody is tired of all the speculation and just want to see what he's found, but how much of an incomplete report do you really want?

Every other day there's a Trump headline to the effect of:

"This will finally be the thing that brings it all down!"

or

"Mueller smells blood!"

I'm so done with either and am just patiently ticking off the days now.

It's not even that I want it done soon, or that I want trump humbled, hobbled and humiliated (well I do, but that's not the goal here), it's that I just want he answers that we are do. We need to know the extent, methods and influence that was exerted to influence the population and the extent that a major political party worked with a foreign power to exploit that support.


The constant, bombastic headlines on every major media outlet have caused me to basically turn it off and tune it out.

WTF

John Bolton on Twitter: "Important actions today from @USTreasury; the maritime industry must do more to stop North Korea’s illicit shipping practices. Everyone should take notice and review their own activities to ensure they are not involved in North Korea’s sanctions evasion.… https://t.co/EigjioczUw"

Donald J. Trump on Twitter: "It was announced today by the U.S. Treasury that additional large scale Sanctions would be added to those already existing Sanctions on North Korea. I have today ordered the withdrawal of those additional Sanctions!"

John Harwood on Twitter: "press secretary Sanders explained to reporters: “President Trump likes Chairman Kim and he doesn’t think these sanctions will be necessary�"

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/22/polit...ina/index.html

I'm confident that it's decidedly non-zero. How high is anyone's guess, but there's a reason why there was historically high undecideds in the runup to the '16 vote. Regardless of how dumb it may seem to others, a lot of people legit had trouble choosing between Trump and Clinton.

When he says "Mr. Moore, you know who I'm talking about" he is 100% having a moment all of us have fallen prey to, he just forgot the guy's first name. Shit happens.

The Hill on Twitter: "President Trump on Stephen Moore: "I will be nominating Mr. Moore to the Fed. You know who I'm talking about." https://t.co/3auPZGqZke… https://t.co/PilQz19b2A"

Are we going to have to hear for two weeks how he was right all along, it's our fault for not listening correctly, a la Tim Apple?

This fuckin guy.

And from Trump's buddy at Fox news...

No one at the @WhiteHouse seems to know what this is about. @USTreasury did not announce any new sanctions against North Korea. Sanctions announced today were regarding Iran. https://t.co/nLpBil08Bz

— John Roberts (@johnrobertsFox) March 22, 2019

Well uh

the state Supreme Court is still a 4-3 conservative majority and it's the same majority that said 'yeah the John Doe investigations found evidence of illegal shit going on with the Walker Administration but shut the investigation down and destroy the evidence.'

Which means this is gonna get appealed up the ladder and I would bet money that despite the fact that this judge is almost certainly correct and that the session was illegally called (even if the Legislature otherwise would have had the legal ability to do what they did), it's gonna get overturned.

Because the conservative wing of SCOWI consists of Republican lapdogs.

I will be delighted to be wrong.

Hey Sack


Didn't I see somewhere there's an election soon for a state Supreme Court or appeals judge? And a Democrat is running for it/campaigning over this decision?

I believe it's to replace a liberal. Thankfully, the conservatives are running a legitimately batshit crazy candidate so I'm hoping the seat will be an easy hold.

ah thanks lungs

Washington Post reporter just tweeted:


BREAKING: The House Judiciary Committee is told to expect notification by 5pm that the Mueller report has been delivered to Barr

Looks like its offical-Barr has the Mueller Report

what does a Friday afternoon drop of it mean?

DOJ tells Congress they may get to see parts of it by tomorrow

There are reports (not from a US source yet) that Assange has been arrested.

Hearing some reports now that it was a british police operation near the embassy for an escaped burgulary suspect and the manhunt for him. Still no official word yet.

I think a lot of people are going to be disappointed by the Mueller Report. This isn't a country that holds wealthy power people to the law.

State Supreme Court. But it's to replace one of the liberal jurists, so a win maintains the status quo. Republicans will still have a lapdog majority.

I'm glad I didn't jump on the collusion bandwagon, because it appears that the Mueller Report found none. I'm sure people will just forget about it and pretend it never happened though.

By the way, this isn't an "I told you so" post, as I honestly had no idea if there really was collusion. Personally, I'm happy the president isn't a Russian agent, but I know there will be a lot of people who are not.

What was the initial goal of the Special Investigation? Wasn't it just an investigation into Russia's involvement in the election? This would obviously include collusion if it occurred, but I thought the driving motivation was simply to understand if Russia was involved, and if so how much they were involved.

It certainly feels like Trump & Co. have done a phenomenal job of twisting the narrative into "Collusion or bust," because the completion of the investigation with no additional indictments and no direct collusion arguments is being blasted by them and anyone who supports them as the investigation being a complete exoneration of them. The fact that Russia did meddle, extensively, and that several people within the "current" administration were convicted of crimes seems to be completely ignored.

I guess that is team politics in this day and age though? Team first, at all costs.

Yeah, dare I say there seems to be a little grey area in there between "I was completely exonerated from collusion!" and "my campaign manager was convicted of fraud and witness tampering, and my personal lawyer was also found guilty of fraud, lying about my ties to Russian businesses, and violating campaign finance laws at my personal behest."

The investigation ended with indictments to Trump's former campaign chair, his national security adviser, his former campaign manager, a campaign aide, a campaign adviser, Trump's personal attorney, 25 russian intelligence assets, and a handful of bit players.

The GOP spin now is that the entire investigation was a waste of money and came up empty because there are no additional indictments coming from Mueller, which ignores the fact that Mueller was working closely with the Southern District of New York and likely farmed any additional indictments out to them. It also ignores the fact that Trump's inner circle during his campaign was working closely with foreign assets and are criminals.

The fact that nearly half of our country is perfectly fine with all of this is embarrassing. This is the same group that cheered as their team led 6 investigations into Benghazi that came up empty every single time and want further investigations into the same person.

The fantasyland you have to live into believe this investigation somehow clears Trump is astounding.

The thing is, "collusion" is a word that Trump used, but has no real meaning in the context of the investigation.

"Conspiracy," on the other hand, does.

And that's what the second stage of the investigation was about - whether there was a criminal conspiracy between Trump/members of his circle and the Russian government to sway the outcome of the election, based on Trump's repeated efforts to obstruct the initial investigation into whether or not Russia meddled in the 2016 elections.

It went from "Did the Russians interfere?" to "holy shit this guy is a nutball who's actively trying to obstruct the investigation; WHY is he trying to obstruct? We need to investigate THAT, too."

Now, whether or not Trump/his circle were involved in a criminal conspiracy with a foreign power, the existence - or lack thereof - of additional federal indictments means nothing. You know, I know, Mueller knows, and my 2 year old nephew knows, that any federal indictments against inner-circle members of Team Trump would trigger a "PARDON!" tweet from Trump.

That means, yeah, Trump Jr lied to Congress and there's probably quite a lot of there there, but Mueller declined to pursue a federal indictment. That doesn't mean state-level indictments for related offenses aren't coming, just that he knows the DOJ won't indict a sitting president and going after his family will just result in an exercise of clemency.

So you submit the report with whatever evidence you've got and let the states and Congress deal with the fallout.

Lol

He is guilty as can be. He just surrounded himself with fall guys. Do you honestly think he’s innocent and had no knowledge of what was going on? Literally everyone in his circle has been found guilty or plead guilty to crimes.

Unfortunately, it looks as if (this Mueller) investigation does clear Trump or at least says there is not enough evidence. I'm willing to believe that Mueller was thorough and fair.

If all the indictments were dropped yesterday it would be an atom bomb, but the dilution of eighteen months of small scandals likely means Trump will skate.

And that means he has to be a pretty solid favorite in 2020.

Or he knows that the DoJ will not indict a sitting president. We'll have to wait and see.

That's true I guess.

But I've read re: collusion, because there are no other indictments, doesn't that mean it can't be collusion as he would need to collude with someone?

Like everybody else I'm caught up in the collective rush to know *WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN* immediately, but eventually it kinda dawns on me I'm not going to get any extra points or prizes for figuring it out early, and I might as well not get all hyped about it during the scant few days/weeks it'll take to get relatively full disclosure.

...and then I start obsessing again.

Bingo.

Go get a chocolate malt and watch the birds. That's what I do.

Easier said than done! Although a chocolate malt does sound delicious...

That's my early read as well. If, for example, an indictment had been secured against someone like Manafort for conspiracy against the United States or somesuch - and if the evidence was there I'm sure it would have been - then you might wonder who else was involved in the conspiracy.


I don't think we know at all where that line is for sure. People thought he would fire Mueller, and that he would pardon Cohen/Manafort/etc., and he didn't. Now maybe that's just because he knew he couldn't get away with it or whatever, but if so then the point still stands.

Random thread broken. Quit posting links. Fake news!!!

Where have all of you all read the report already?

The left won’t take any results as fact unless it supports bringing Trump down. I’m losing a lot of respect for people I’ve always considered to be extremely intelligent and level-headed, because it’s like they have lost their minds. And trust me, I’m an expert on being unhinged.

Like I’ve said, and will say just about every time I post in this thread, I’m not really a fan of Trump. All I’ve said was wait for the facts. Now they are here with no further indictments.....people still don’t want to accept them. It reminds me of conspiracy nuts throughout history.

Saw this online. seems to make sense to me.

“Here's what I'm predicting happens:
* The report is released in full to Congress, while a (partially redacted) version is released to the media.
* Trump, his immediate family, Kushner, and Pence will not have any provable ties to Russian election interference.
* The Democrats will not start impeachment process (at least over the contents of the report alone) because they know it wouldn't be strong enough evidence on its own.
* Pro-Trumpers will claim this vindicated them because Trump wasn't charged with collusion, and the reason only Manafort and Cohen were charged because the Deep State and their Soros-backed socialist political stooges were desperate for someone to blame.
* Anti-Trumpers will claim this vindicated them because it confirmed that the Russians did meddle, and the reason only Manafort and Cohen were charged because the corporate oligarchs and their Koch-backed alt-right political stooges let them be the fall guys to protect Trump.
* Fox and MSNBC will spend hundreds of hours poring over every single out-of-context sentence fragment that will possibly justify their worldview. It will fail to convince anyone to switch their views, and only galvanize their viewers more.
* The internet will be even more of a dumpster fire than usual.
* There will be several protests that total a couple hundred thousand across major cities, but they'll fizzle out over a couple days with no organized leadership and a lack of specific goals besides a mutual disdain for Trump.
* This will have little-to-no bearing on the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election.”

I don't think Manafort/Cohen carry quite the same oomph as Don Jr, Ivanka, or Kushner would. That's not to say that those two aren't "his guys," but I wouldn't qualify them as "inner-circle" on the same level as the three I just mentioned, for example.

I think you are right on. There is still a chance there is big surprise one or another in the report, but it is probably going exactly how you say.

The fact that literally every power player in his inner circle *was* indicted, some of his closest partners explicitly for talking to Russia about interfering in the election, is just signal noise to you, and anyone who would define that as conspiracy, simply because it meets every dictionary's definition of the word, is nuts? Likewise, every post you've ever made on the subject supports Trump or his position 100%, and as such your repeated claims regarding your personal feelings about the man himself seem irrelevant and obscuring.

Schmidty, you're obviously sensitive to this stuff, and I do want to respect that, but you have previously said you genuinely weren't even aware of any of the criticism Obama took during the 8 years of his presidency, and I am curious as to where/how you are getting your news, and am left questioning the level of your information relative to the passion you're obviously putting behind it.

I'm sure there are some loose ends and what-abouts but this seems pretty definitive to me. I, for one, am relieved we don't have a Manchurian candidate.

Let's get focused back on 2020.

DOJ: Trump campaign did not coordinate with Russia in 2016

The hype of Mueller report has consumed so much energy of the Trump opposition and it will continue to do so in the months to come as everyone will be convinced there is some silver bullet in there that will change everything, so the battle to reveal it will rage on. Just like with the tax returns.

Oh of course. He's still having people chant lock her up at rallies. He's the master at winning the last battle.

Also, reading between the lines, I find the use of the word "knowingly" in the quoted portion of the report regarding conspiracy and coordination interesting. Seems to infer that the campaign may have unwittingly aided the Russian influence (or kind of, you know, the definition of a Manchurian candidate). Will be interesting to see how much the full Mueller Report goes into this.

It's typical dirtbag trump procedure. Have others do the dirty work while keeping a distance for plausible deniability.

We're so fucked in 2020.

Russia interfered with the election to help elect Trump.

Russians met with Trump campaign folks several times in an attempt to get them to work together.

Manafort gave polling data to a guy connected to the Kremlin.

And the Russians have basically gotten off free and Trump has gone on to dismantle some of the election security apparatus.

I have no doubt they'll do it again in 2020.

I have to admit I'm having a hard time reconciling that this report explicitly says that Russia hacked the DNC servers, disseminated their emails to WikiLeaks, expressly offered to help the Trump campaign, Trump is on camera saying "I'd love to see them!", and then somehow this didn't happen? The collective results of the report & the indictments seem to be that the Russians had a conspiracy to influence the 2018 election, repeatedly sought to help Trump's campaign, individuals in Trump's campaign sought out Russian assistance in the campaign and/or shady real estate deals within Russia itself, and somehow none of those streams ever crossed.

So about those 12 dirty democrats and the fraud named Mueller who Trump tailed on for months and months. Now their word is gospel. This clown just needs to fucking go.

*I have no problem with this ending with no definitive action by the Special Counsel. Hoping the SDNY brings the hammer once he’s out of office*

We're completely fucked, permanently. We live in a world where something like 33% of the country believes that democrats are the real threat to their way of the security of the nation, significantly greater than ISIS, China or Russia. Just last week our president was talking about the uprising and violence that his supporters are capable of. These people have been convinced that Fox News is the only reliable source of news left in the country. Literally every other source is effectively state sponsored for Democrats. How do we ever get back to a point where facts matter? We can't even agree that climate change is real and action is required to save our species existence on this planet. Immunizations cause autism, the earth is flat, if you just ignore facts you can say literally anything and a significant number of people will get behind it.

There's no coming back. It's just a matter if we go down in our lifetime's or if it takes a little longer than that.

In one sense the Mueller report shouldn't even matter. I can totally accept that its possible that it wasn't reasonable to attempt to indict a sitting president. I can accept a conclusion that the president is merely incompetent, but not actively evil. I cannot accept that conclusion coming from an individual hand picked by trump for this purpose without seeing the report. The house voted unanimously that the entire report should be released. so, redact information regarding open investigations and release the damn thing.


To anyone sayin that this exonerates the president of all wrongdoing:

-- Paul Manafort is in jail and while his crimes that he was tried for were mostly his own financial wrongdoing, his own team fucked up a redaction in a release that Paul Manafort gave polling data to a Russian official and lied about his contacts with Russians to congress. Presumably more details about this are in the report.

Roger Stone is charged with lying to congress about his involvement in the knowledge of the russian hack of the DNC and having knowledge of WikiLeaks releasing information obtained by a russian hacking effort and with witness tampering.

Michael Flynn is in prison for lying to investigators about his contact with Russians. That's the guy Trump hand picked to be his National Security Advisor.

Campaign aid Robert Gates has plead guilty to lying to investigators about contacts and for conspiring to commit other crimes. His trial has been delayed five times because he apparently has provided so much valuable information to the Special Counsel leading to other criminal investigations that he's still, a year later, being useful.

Trump's personal lawyer is in jail for many of his own issues, but also for campaign finance violations. and for lying to congress to protect the president.

Trump campaign advisor somehow obtained information about Russia having damaging information on Hillary Clinton. Instead of reporting that information to the FBI because "both sides" are supposed to have a vested interest in protecting our national from foreign influence in our governing process, he instead kept it to himself and bragged about it to other diplomats who reported him. He then repeatedly lied to investigators about his contacts with Russia.

Two of Michael Flynn's assistants while he was national security advisor have been charged with conspiracy for their involvement in working on behalf ofa Turkish to overthrow their president.

Also its been reported that Mueller's investigation has led to US Attorney's investigating Trump for crimes involving the use of funds with his charity, and for Campaign Finance Violations.

There are secret grand juries and things we may not know about for years on top of what we do know now.


If nothing else, the full Mueller Report likely has evidence documenting all of these contacts with Russia that Trump's entire campaign staff felt the need to lie about.


So what is there to be happy about no matter what the final conclusions of the Mueller report are? If Trump didn't actively collude with the Russians - which we don't know yet but we know that he's not currently being indicted for it - then he's a completely incompetent fool with the worst judgement of the people he chooses to put around him that i can name in my lifetime.


And what is the right's response to this? "no collusion, fake news, Fox says its no big deal, fuck you" or "LOL at least we pwned the libs"


Lets get the Mueller report out there and see what it says, but lets not forget that there are a number of people in Trump's inner circle in jail because of this investigation already and numerous other open investigations happening, and countless questions that still need answering about why so many of Trump's people were having conversations with Russian officials that they felt the need to lie under oath about - even if those details don't directly lead to Trump being imprisoned directly. That'd be ok. We've unearthed so many horribble truths about Trump and his innercircle in the last 2 1/2 years. Lets keep doing that until we know the full truth.

If Trump wins in 2020 it's Dems fault.

We're more than 2 years into Trump's presidency and he's done nothing to expand his base. In fact, his voting base has shrunk because he continues to cater to the far right while throwing the occasional bone to the evangelicals and ignoring everyone else.

He's sitting at a 40% approval rating despite a strong economy. That's unheard of and there's little room for improvement to the economy from here thanks to his corporate tax cuts. Even 538, which continues to be cautious about Trump's chances in 2020, admits there's little chance Trump takes all of Michigan (42% approval), Wisconsin (42% approval), and PA (42% approval) again. Florida? 43%. Arizona? 43%. Texas? 41%. North Carolina? 45%.

Dems won the house vote by a total of 7% and Trump's approval has dropped a couple of points since then. I don't see Russia or anyone else swinging an election that much.

Whoever wins the Democrat nomination hopefully campaigns in battleground states this time and tries to push the battlegrounds into Georgia, Texas, Arizona. Trump prefers to stay away from states he's not popular in so he won't step foot in democrat states this time.

In the meantime I'd like to see the House continue to pursue Trump's tax returns, get the Mueller report made public, and focus on popular policy like the anti-corruption bill, net neutrality, and legalization.

In the the end, dems outnumber the GOP and simply need to show up to the polls.

Thing is, expanding the map is exactly what Clinton tried to do. Instead of locking down the "blue wall," she tried to run up the score by trying to flip Georgia and Arizona and maybe give Trump a run for his money in Texas.

And then Trump somehow took the upper Midwest and pantsed her.

Politics aside, I'd think that the 2016 election shows that you can't really trust polls when it comes to Trump.

National polling was generally good, it was the state level polling that was more inaccurate.

538 actually looked at all the polling post election and found that it was very representative, and within the margin of error.

I'm not doubting you, but if that's the case, then why was EVERYONE shocked that Trump won?

Hey, even Giant Douche was shocked when he won.

That's my point - if everyone was shocked, how could the polls be accurate?

The political "experts" aren't necessarily pollsters.

Fair enough, but I don't seem to recall 538 calling a Trump win, but maybe I'm wrong.

538 called a 1 in 3 chance, I think. Probably reasonable when one guy picks up 300+ electoral votes but 3 million less votes.

The numbers were telling us that Trump had a decent chance of winning (about 1 in 3). I think that it feels like "everyone" was shocked because the sorts of people whose opinions about such things were widely shared (media and pundits and insiders) were predisposed to find an outsider candidate like Trump impossible. So they just assumed the numbers were wrong.

Yes, it would be.

There are 33% of Americans who love Trump, voted for him in 2016, and would vote again in 2020. But there are roughly another 15-20% of Americans who held their nose and voted for him, because the Dems offered up Hillary Clinton. That's how we got 2016.

That same 15-20%, however, is looking at the Dems now making concessions to far leftists and outright socialists, with the possibility such a character may even win the nomination.

If the Dems can't be a convincing a center-left party, and if they put up a far-left candidate, that same 15-20% who couldn't stand Hillary will be flat out scared of the 2020 D candidate. (This is, of course, the inherent problem with a 2-party system - I may hate one candidate, but the other one is worse, so I'll vote for the guy I hate least). They'll vote Trump just out of fear that the AOCs or Bernies of the world would actually take over.

Trump has consistently gotten approval ratings in the 40-44% range. Polling indicates that he hasn't lost much support over the past two-plus years. He'll also be the incumbent, which historically has been the favorite, and if the economy doesn't flop over the next 18 months that would also indicate he's in good shape.

Re-elections are referendums on the incumbent. At this point the fundamentals generally favor Trump, and he should be looked at as the favorite. As always, though, if he wins it won't be the fault of the people that don't vote for him.

She tried to expand the map while ignoring the Midwest. I think expanding the map is the right call, but maybe make a stop or 2 in those Midwest states I mentioned. Whoever wins the nomination needs a stronger campaign strategy.

I don't see trump campaigning much in states he's not popular in so he's not going to put much effort pushing back into blue states. Thats also where his policy is going to hurt him. What is he going to tell a blue state after 4 years of actively trying to damage them or, at best, ignore them? Trump would be happy staying in Georgia, Florida, and Texas where, despite his approval ratings, he still maintains a solid base and can draw a nice rally.

I largely agree, but I do feel we're a major recession away from democratic socialism sounding really good to 2/3 of the country.

In looking at an electoral map, it sure looks like it will come down to Michigan and Pennsylvania. If Trump holds one of those, the Dems have to win FL or NC.

The simple fact is that battles over complicated things tend to boil down to short pithy sound bites. And where are we there:

-Complete exoneration. Witch hunt!

-Well, technically, in the footnotes you see where the Commission spelled out the variance in the legal theory behind the framework of the contacts, and while they didn't exactly say that there was a coordinated effort to obstruct justice, they do make reference to the legal precedent in this other case from 1971, and if you read the dissent there you'll find language that substantially leaves the door open to an interpretation that this was tanamount to, if not expclicitly, a violation of federal code number 01.154.104(c)(8) et seq, and here's a tweet from some guy at Montana Tech who seems inclined to believe there was a typo in section seventeen, where...

We know how this story goes. Trump is at 38c on PredictIt to win in 2020. I think that's a bargain right now.

Is there any Dem outside of Joe Manchin that won't be portrayed as far-left?

That was my point too lungs. BClinton was probably the most far right D in modern history, yet HClinton was pretty much one notch to the right of Lenin. There is no candidate that R's can't turn into a scary threat to the good ol way of life.

That's why I think it's important that Dems put out a fresh voice. One that hasn't been targeted for years or have decades of material for the right to pick through (Biden, Sanders). To me, Warren is the new Hillary (and AOC is the newer Hillary, though she isn't running for Prez).

That's why I said specifically that the Dems have to convince America they're center-left, not a specific candidate.

As long as the party is seen as far left, anyone running under that banner, no matter how centrist, will have a hard time dodging the charge of, "Look what they (the party) will do once they (the party) get control!"

Those 15-20% are looking at what the House Dems are doing NOW, and they're all already making judgments about what would happen if a Dem, no matter how centrist, would be elected. And I think the left-swing of the Dem party right now will hurt the candidate - whoever he or she may be - in 2020.

How exactly is this fresh voice going to have the experience enough to actually lead? One can say that Harris and Booker are fresh voices that have some decent experience, but the right have been savaging them during those experiential years.

Like it or not, Obama and Trump are showing that relevant experience is not necessary to get people to vote for you and win the Presidency. I'm not really looking at it through the prism of 'Who will make the best President?'. Rather I'm looking at it in terms of winning the election.

Hillary was probably one of the most qualified candidates for the Presidency in a long time and look how far that got us. Perhaps this is a sad commentary on our country as a whole, but it's the reality we are currently living in.

Obama was a US Senator. That's entirely different than Trump, coasting on his celeb name.

His lack of experience was an issue, was it not? A few mostly inconsequential years as a US Senator after being a State Senator. His resume was not that deep.

The national polls were right. The state polls were off in a few key states.

As a Cory Booker fan I feel like he gets attacked more frequently from the left than the right.

And regardless, I think the key is that any candidate will get demonized, so they (and not their handlers) need to have some charisma and be able to sell something about themselves or their vision that will stick more than the other sides attacks.

Some tried to make his experience an issue as his opponents had a lot more experience than he did - but no one denied that he was a US Senator and therefore qualified enough to run for the highest office.

Both Booker and Harris are first term Senators (Harris just got the job in 2018). Without that position, they wouldn't really be taken seriously as candidates.

He was intellectually qualified, but expectations and promises were a lot higher going in than what was ultimately delivered.

We heard that was all the Republicans' fault (which ways weird to me, since they were the opposition party and everything), but could experience and political savvy be a difference-maker in maneuvering a hostile political environment and fulfilling more campaign promises? Putting aside electability for a second, doesn't it make sense that someone like Biden would have a better chance of being effective than an outsider, or someone less experienced?

Or does it not matter at all, and the only role of a Democratic president is to keep the presidency away from a Republican?

Edit: I guess campaigning on ideas and themes always worked and it gets people to the polls. But anybody can say what they would do in a perfect world without anyone working against them or without any other roadblocks. I could find some eloquent redditors or FOFC posters to vote for if that's all it took. I'm much more interested in who will actually do this hugely difficult job well, and it's hard to know how to evaluate that besides experience.

Relevant experience is still a factor, but it's clearly no longer a high-importance one like (I'd argue) it once was.

Ranks lower than "person I'd want to have a beer with" and "tells it like it is" and "makes me feel like he understands me" and the like.

The Dem frustration is that people on the left were pushing President Obama to enact single-payer healthcare or, at least, create a full public option for health insurance.

And, instead, he adopted the budget-conscious and market-friendly plan that was modeled after the GOP candidate's signature legislative accomplishment and it was still parodied as far-left socialism instead of the center-left (or even center-center) moderate plan that it was.

So the argument from that side is that since anything they do will be portrayed as leftist extremism and lose them the moderates, why not actually govern from the left and try to keep the base excited.

I'm saying this as a center-leftist myself. I think that, policywise, it is the way to go. But I wonder if it really is the correct electoral strategy in this media environment.

I mean, I think promising more than was delivered is literally every single politician ever. However, he did get the ACA passed, which was his major campaign promise. And righted the economy from 2018's complete mess. Repealed Don't Ask Don't Tell and added LGBTQ to federal hate crimes law. Signed the Lilly Ledbetter Act for equal pay lawsuits. I think he did a decent job of getting his promises into action. And did quite a lot of things.

I think people expected a lot more. Republican obstructionism became the main discussion point of the Obama presidency here. Of course we remember those years more fondly now.

Edit: Everybody's memory/perspective can be reasonably different on that, my point is just that doesn't it make sense that an experienced candidate would more likely to be effective? And if not, how can we evaluate how effective someone will be? It has to be more than just promises and ideas and what they'd do in a perfect world with no obstacles or opposition. Even though that's what gets people to vote. What separates Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from a redditor who has the same political opinions? Or is just getting into the office all that matters. If we replaced her with the most eloquent FOFCer with the same opinions, would they be just as effective?

Republican obstructionism was partially brought up when the Democrats couldn't get a public option in the ACA, but mostly after the Democrats had lost Congress, which is pretty obvious.

I think experience can matter, but I also think that someone who has experience being a Senator has the requisite experience to pass policy. I don't know how much more you may learn with an additional decade in the job (now if you were in other jobs as well - like Cabinet member, etc, then sure). At some point personality and natural deal making is more important than experience.

There is an argument to be made that the Obama Administration passed more substantial legislation than most and is on par with the Reagan and LBJ Administrations in terms of policy.

Definitely, but how do we evaluate which candidate has those things? Isn't it just what they've done before (that is, experience)? Or is this where "who I'd like to have a beer with" becomes a thing.

I think campaign and stump speech personality and charisma is way different than the type of personality that that makes one effective in office.

Arguably only once in the post WW2 era has the Dem party not nominated one of the more moderate candidates. Perhaps that will change, but even now Biden has a big lead in polling.

Just for fun, are you saying McCarthy in 1972? I think JFK in 1960 was also much more progressive than his main competition LBJ and Stevenson, and while Obama governed closer to the middle, he campaigned as the much more progressive option in 2008 (only Kucinich was to his left iirc and he was never a serious candidate.)

Little bit of A and a little bit of B. Experience as a legislator doesn't track necessarily with experience as an executive as well. Perhaps that's why Governors were usually tasked with being nominated as Presidents.

Stevenson was far more left than Kennedy. And while Obama campaigned more progressively, he wasn't all that dissimilar than Clinton in terms of policy positions in 2008.

The argument could be made that Nixon was well further to the left than any D president or presidential nominee since.

The rights playbook is the same no matter who the democratic nominee is. “They’re coming for your guns” “they’re basically socialist” (whether it’s true or not) etc. Insert some soecifics for what makes any specific candidate more scary.

I’m voting for the furthest left candidate I can find in the primaries. An actual centrist democrat will turn off a lot of the left. If that 15-20% in the middle isn’t dead set on voting against trump no matter what, fuck em. Excite the base. Get the left voter count up as much as possible.

No matter which democrat wins, the swing back to the right after trumo claims fraud is going to be immense, way scarier than trump. So the left might as well go as far left as possible and try to make some real progress on the environment, fixing the wage gap, etc. because no matter what happens, if trump loses in 2020 the backlash is going to be fierce and not based in fact or reality at all.