Current Affairs 2024 POTUS race

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carolinablue232 said:
Maybe you can help me out here…Why do people like Newsom/think he’s a good leader? Under his watch, California has seen a rise in crime, homelessness, little progress on education, and insignificant healthcare reforms. Add that to the absurd cost of living in the state that’s gotten worse despite the ridiculous state tax rate. He also came across as a little slimy with how he acted above others during the pandemic and some his recent statements about how they only cleaned up San Fransisco because there were world leaders coming to town…Seemed a lot like a “Screw you” to the people that live there. I just don’t get his appeal.
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what @Martin Alvito said

But the even shorter answer is that Newsom is articulate and a great debater. Something Democrats have been pining for - Biden ain't that by a long shot

He also says what essentially every non-MAGA person thinks. This is a very cathartic

But to your point, and to Martin's to a degree, that doesn't necessarily make a great leader.

But you know what? Given our current political climate, I'm not sure a great leader could ever win a national nomination, let alone a general election. Certainly not on the Republican side. Questionable on the Democratic side.
 
Pittsburgh Footy said:
Is there any way you see the bolded changing any time soon? There are so many barriers to this changing, I'm not optimistic.

We are broken
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The real debate we used to have in this country requires a commitment to not caring whether you win or lose on the day. It requires caring about constituents, and wanting what is best for them. It requires wanting the best information with which to make decisions, both in terms of how things work and in terms of what constituents want. It requires the ability to convince constituents that they may not fully understand how to get the things they want, and explain why. It requires the self-belief that if you do those things, they'll keep sending you back.

That's not the country we live in. Ask Jeff Flake. We live in a country where we raise our kids to participate in sports, then take the worst lessons from that environment into the legal and political arenas. Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing. Rules are for suckers. Winners practice the dark arts. They shirt-pull on corners. They simulate. They do what must be done to win on the field of contest today. They hate, and feed off that hate. They channel all of that hate by the hundred thousand into the players on the field, lest Michigan lose to Ohio State. Never mind the fact that serial winners like Messi and Ibra don't do any of that. They're not going down in the box, and they don't need hate. They're dribbling through six players, or scoring with a roundhouse kick.

There's a growing movement for authenticity out there. People are starting to sense that this is not the way, and that they want the real thing. They just don't know what it looks like, anymore. Someone would have to tap into that. Someone else would have to rise on the other side, in the Hegelian sense. They would need both the airtime for public debate and the backroom debate to settle enough of their differences to come up with some answers.

That's how the Senate once worked. Probably a dozen of them really mattered, at any given time. Biden's the last of that breed left, which is unfortunate because he was also the dimmest of the lot. He looks bad cognitively, having just turned eighty-one, because being a cognitive monster in your eighties requires starting from a higher baseline. Ditto Trump, who is the embodiment of hate. He hates us all, because he hates himself. Thanks, Fred.

The conditions for the result you want are there, but our institutions don't produce courage. They destroy those who possess it. If we are to observe anything else, we probably need people from outside those institutions to tap into the groundswell. That will require a new skill set. Your guess is as good as mine as to where that might come from, or if the result is possible. I agree that it's an uphill sled. I wouldn't classify it as impossible.
 
Ruairi77 said:
I'm not sure I can help. Probably best fielded by some of the CA posters here like @LinekersLegs
Seems to me like a fairly run of the mill politician. An opportunist with good and bad policies.
He wouldnt be my choice but I'm not overly bothered by him.

The problem here is that none of the Democrats are able to shine a light on the absolute crap show that is the MAGA GOP.
I find picking holes in Newsoms governance is all well and good in normal politics, it seems wasted in the climate where, with the exception of Liz Cheney, not one republican will stand up to Trump. Cowards to a man.

Just looking at Hannity and DeSantis the other night confirmed EVERYTHING that's screwed up with this country.
For a generation Republicans created a monster, then they lost control of it, and now they grovel at its feet in the false hope that it wont eat them.
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By no means does my criticism or questioning of Newsom imply the problems with the gop aren’t glaring. Republicans like Cheney and Romney are sadly a dying breed as you suggest. I’m just questioning Newsom’s record because I really don’t know much of him, but what I do know doesn’t seem great. I’m just not sure why he’s seen as a party front runner. Sure he governed a massive state but did he do a good job? My outsider perspective is no.

So why not pick someone better? It’s a shallow pool, I’ll admit but surely there are options who would be better. Whitmer? Buttigieg? Klobuchar?

I can see the appeal for each of them. Newsom, I really can’t.
 
Pittsburgh Footy said:
what @Martin Alvito said

But the even shorter answer is that Newsom is articulate and a great debater. Something Democrats have been pining for - Biden ain't that by a long shot

He also says what essentially every non-MAGA person thinks. This is a very cathartic

But to your point, and to Martin's to a degree, that doesn't necessarily make a great leader.

But you know what? Given our current political climate, I'm not sure a great leader could ever win a national nomination, let alone a general election. Certainly not on the Republican side. Questionable on the Democratic side.
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While likely true, this is quite a sad statement. A real leader is exactly what we need. Someone get Fat Sam on the horn before we get relegated.
 
Martin Alvito said:
www.nbcnews.com

Hunter Biden hit with 9 tax-related charges in new indictment

The president's son was previously indicted on federal gun charges in September.
www.nbcnews.com www.nbcnews.com

This returning to the front page (where it will continue to appear on-and-off due to the legal wrangling) also is not good for his father.
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nope, not at all.

Was listening to a piece on NPR the other day where they were reviewing polling data.
They mentioned a fact that the majority of under 30's get their news from tiktok.
They proceeded to chuckle at the notion that tiktok could be a news source.

Fresh from this complete dismissal of modern media, they went on to question callers about what Bidens age had prevented him from accomplishing.
On the face of it, not very much, but they completely ignored the fact that its not great when the POTUS has no idea how news media for the majority of under 30s even works.

There's a dangerous apathy out there. I think the Democrats might be hopelessly out of touch and relying way to heavily on the outrage over Rowe.
 
Ruairi77 said:
nope, not at all.

Was listening to a piece on NPR the other day where they were reviewing polling data.
They mentioned a fact that the majority of under 30's get their news from tiktok.
They proceeded to chuckle at the notion that tiktok could be a news source.

Fresh from this complete dismissal of modern media, they went on to question callers about what Bidens age had prevented him from accomplishing.
On the face of it, not very much, but they completely ignored the fact that its not great when the POTUS has no idea how news media for the majority of under 30s even works.

There's a dangerous apathy out there. I think the Democrats might be hopelessly out of touch and relying way to heavily on the outrage over Rowe.
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Carville seems to think the Democrats can ride Roe. His instincts are usually good, but I'm inclined to agree with the assessment that the special election and off-year voting crowd isn't the presidential election year crowd, and that drawing inferences from those election results is dangerous.

A postmortem of the 2022 midterms by Pew suggests that vote-switching is all but non-existent, so the game is now entirely turnout. We know the presidential election crowd, on average, is less educated than the midterm crowd, which is less educated than the special election and off-year crowd.

If I had to guess, Trump wins if the election were held today. The questions on the table are how much support Biden manages to bleed or recover between now and November, and how much Trump leaks to his legal troubles.

How well Kennedy proves to run will also matter. Haley performs best against Biden (55/45) in a national head-to-head matchup set of polls conducted by Harris, but if we add Kennedy and look at polls of the few states that matter, only Trump beats Biden. Haley and DeSantis leak substantial support to Kennedy that Trump retains, throwing the election to Biden.

So, another way of looking at this is we have 1992-level chaos and nobody knows anything.
 
Spadge Vernacular said:
It seems completely nits that Biden and Trump appear to be the answers that both parties have settled on.
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I would call it a 'normal' American political outcome. The last sitting president who didn't run for a second time was Johnson, and Vietnam was something of a special case. Sitting presidents almost never face credible primary opposition when they do run. We also know Trump enjoys the unwavering support of about 25% of the electorate, almost all of whom identify with a single party. That renders him all but untouchable in a primary.

Our electoral process has severe structural problems. Those have been written about to death, but the bar to clear for constitutional amendments is simply too high for a two-party system. It's a zero-sum game where any given reform has a winner and a loser, which is why we haven't had meaningful reform since we extended the franchise down to 18 years of age. Instead, we get partisan Supreme Court decisions like Citizens United aimed at conferring advantage to one side.
 
Martin Alvito said:
Carville seems to think the Democrats can ride Roe. His instincts are usually good, but I'm inclined to agree with the assessment that the special election and off-year voting crowd isn't the presidential election year crowd, and that drawing inferences from those election results is dangerous.

A postmortem of the 2022 midterms by Pew suggests that vote-switching is all but non-existent, so the game is now entirely turnout. We know the presidential election crowd, on average, is less educated than the midterm crowd, which is less educated than the special election and off-year crowd.

If I had to guess, Trump wins if the election were held today. The questions on the table are how much support Biden manages to bleed or recover between now and November, and how much Trump leaks to his legal troubles.

How well Kennedy proves to run will also matter. Haley performs best against Biden (55/45) in a national head-to-head matchup set of polls conducted by Harris, but if we add Kennedy and look at polls of the few states that matter, only Trump beats Biden. Haley and DeSantis leak substantial support to Kennedy that Trump retains, throwing the election to Biden.

So, another way of looking at this is we have 1992-level chaos and nobody knows anything.
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Absolutely bonkers.

And this country will get everything it deserves then
 
Was at a dinner fundraiser for a children's charity last night and, as is often the case, my wife and I were the token "liberals" at our table of friends. This particular crowd often likes to take subtle political jabs at us which we most often laugh off. Last night, however, one of the more outspoken and hardcore Republican women flatly announced she was done with Trump. Completely, irrevocably done. To my surprise, most of the others nodded in agreement.

I took this as an opportunity to press them (rarely done given the number disadvantage and out of respect to my wife). So I asked if the two candidates next November are Trump and Biden would they vote for Biden? Of the crowd who had expressed similar negative reactions to Trump, about half said yes. I then asked the others what they would do and they said vote third party or abstain from voting for President and only vote down ballot.

Obviously cannot take this one incident and make much of it but any port in a storm, no?
 
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