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The Race For 2024

Potential RFK Jr. third-party bid may spoil GOP hopes in elevating him - The Washington Post
The American right’s efforts to elevate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. were as transparent as they were cynical. The idea, as advanced by Stephen K. Bannon and the like, was clearly to try to embarrass President Biden in the Democratic primary. So they used Kennedy’s inflated early poll standing as an excuse to treat the primary challenge from a fringe figure as something real and threatening.

Fox News picked up the ball and ran with it, publishing many dozens of stories and featuring him regularly on-air. House Republicans even invited him to testify on Capitol Hill.

It hasn’t worked. And now, it’s looking as if the whole thing could backfire.
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So far, it seems to, with Republicans liking him much more than Democrats do.

9/13/23 - 2024 Primary Races: Nearly 3 In 10 Trump Supporters & Half Of Biden Supporters Signal They Are Open To Other Options, Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds; Voters Support Age Limits On Candidates For President & Congress | Quinnipiac University Poll

RFKJr:
Favorable: Ttl: 32%, R: 48%, D: 14%, I: 36%
Unfavorable: Ttl: 35%, R: 18%, D: 57%, I: 37%
Don't Know: Ttl: 31%, R: 33%, D: 28%, I: 26%
 
 List of presidents of the United States by previous experience
  • 32: military service, 9: generals
  • 27: lawyers
  • 20: governors, 17: state govs, 3: territory govs
  • 19: US Representatives, 1: Speaker
  • 17: US Senators. 1: President Pro Tempore, 1: Party Leader
  • 15: Vice Presidents
  • 9: Out of office just before being elected President
  • 8: Cabinet secretaries, 6: Secretaries of State
  • 7: Foreign service
  • 5: No previous election to public office
  • 1: Religious leader
  • 1: With a PhD
  • 1: No previous elected, administrative, or military experience: Donald Trump

 List of presidents of the United States by other offices held
Every President but Donald Trump has been at least one of these:
  • A Vice President of the United States
  • A member of Congress (either U.S. senator or representative)
  • A governor of a state
  • A Cabinet secretary
  • A general of the United States Army

Which Presidents have been business leaders?

Five: Warren Harding, Herbert Hoover, George Bush I and II, Donald Trump.

 Historical rankings of presidents of the United States

George Bush I was in the middle, much like our current President, but he was once head of the CIA.

George Bush II and Herbert Hoover were halfway between being mediocre and being the worst.

Warren Harding was one of the worst Presidents, comparable to Donald Trump himself.
 
Let's look at the previous experience of each of the candidates.

 2024 United States presidential election and Presidential candidates, 2024 - Ballotpedia

Democratic:
  • Joe Biden - incumbent President
  • Marianne Williamson - author, self-help entrepreneur

Republican:
  • Previous government positions: Doug Burgum (governor), Chris Christie (governor, Fed attorney), Ron DeSantis (governor, US Rep), Nikki Haley (ambassador, governor, state legislator), Asa Hutchinson (governor, administrator), Mike Pence (Vice President, governor, US Rep), Tim Scott (US Senator, US Rep, state legislator), Corey Stapleton (state SoS, state legislator), Donald Trump (President)
  • Business leaders: Doug Burgum, Ryan Binkley, Vivek Ramaswamy
  • Talk-show host: Larry Elder

Others:
  • Activists: Cornel West (university professor), RFK Jr. (lawyer)
  • (still unsettled) Libertarian Party, Green Party, No Labels

The track record of business leaders in office suggests that Doug Burgum would be mediocre, like George Bush I, and that Vivek Ramaswamy would be horrible. He'll find that he won't be able to bullshit himself out of trouble very easily.
 
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Young Turks host Cenk Uygur launches Democratic primary bid against Biden | US elections 2024 | The Guardian - "Obstacles include Uygur’s overseas birth in Istanbul that seemingly renders him unqualified under the US constitution"

He thinks that he could get around that, but that will require some very fancy lawyering.
Joe Biden “is not going to win”, Uygur, 53, said on his show on Wednesday, announcing his extremely long-shot primary campaign to challenge the sitting president.

“It should not have been me, it should have been somebody else, but unfortunately it was not anyone else. There’s only four months left [until the primaries begin]. We must change course. He has at best a 10% chance of winning. I’m running as a proxy. I am running to win. But I am also running as a proxy for any other candidate.”
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‘Young Turks’ host Cenk Uygur announces primary bid against Biden | The Hill
“We have got to get Biden out of the race,” Uygur said. “Thank you for winning in 2020. But if he loses this time around, it’s not just his problem, it’s all of our problems. I actually think democracy is on the line, and so if it takes me running, that’s what I’m gonna do.
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But he is confident that he can lawyer his way to eligibility.
“I have lawyered up,” Uygur said. “I have the same lawyer [Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)] used in both of his presidential runs. And my guess is I’m going to have some strong allies in this. Arnold Schwarzenegger. I’m going to the Supreme Court. Either I’m going to win or I’m going to lose. Now this case is on our side. The precedent is definitely on our side. So, what are you going to do, brother?“

In his last congressional run in California’s 25th District, Uygur came up with 6.6 percent of the vote and finished fourth in the field of 12 candidates.
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He joins Marianne Williamson in challenging Joe Biden.
“Marianne Williamson has been in there but unfortunately, she hasn’t broken through,” Uygur said. “I have nothing but respect for her courage and her policies, but at this point, we’re not at progressives versus establishment. We’re at four months left, and things must change. Otherwise, we’re almost definitely going to lose to Trump.”
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Post-Left Watch on X: "Cenk Uygur says his purpose in running for president is to get to 20-25% in the polls, at which point he believes the pressure will be enough for Biden to drop out, and presumably other candidates will run instead.
He describes this plan as "realistic". (vid link)" / X
Realistic? Is he serious?

Post-Left Watch on X: "Ana Kasparian is actually the voice of reason, criticizing Cenk Uygur's rationale for running for president.
"I really fail to understand how any potential Democratic candidate would see your run as a sign that they need to enter the race, I really do, I don't see it." (vid link)" / X

Between the two of them, AK seems to me the more analytical of the two; CY gets onto a high horse of outrage an awful lot. It must be admitted that AK does it herself, but CY does it more.

The latest news: CY now has over 1,000 donors -- all small-dollar donations.
 
Trump loses first of several bids to toss suit seeking to block him from Colorado ballot

Former President Donald Trump has lost the first of several attempts to throw out a lawsuit that seeks to block him from the 2024 presidential ballot in Colorado, based on the 14th Amendment’s prohibition against insurrectionists holding public office.

Colorado District Judge Sarah Wallace this week rejected Trump’s bid to get the lawsuit dismissed on free-speech grounds.

The former president still has several pending challenges against the case, which was initiated by a liberal government watchdog group.
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The Left's Response to Israel/Palestine Violence (w/ Cornel West) - YouTube - by Briahna Joy Gray of Bad Faith

The first half of that interview covers much of the territory of CW's recent interview by Sabby Sabs.

CW moaned and groaned yet again about having to win the support of Green Party people to get their support for nominating him.

This reminds me of how someone I'll call S joined the United Kingdom Independence Party and wanted to run for the British Parliament in that party (they call it "standing for Parliament" there, I must note). When the party refused to support him, he sued it for racial discrimination because S is from India. Seems to me that S ought to have gotten much better established in the party before running, and that he could have helped expand the party's base by reaching out to Hindu Indian immigrants who dislike Muslims.

So he's now running as an Independent, complete with ballot-access problems.

He said yet again that the Green Party's focus is too narrow to become a broad-based left-wing party. For instance, it doesn't have much of a focus on racial justice, something that CW is interested in. Then what one should do is build a coalition. Nobody is interested in every issue, and one would say "I'll support you on your issues if you support me on mine."
 
It’s Not Me, It's You: Cornel West’s Messy Breakup - POLITICO - "The presidential candidate’s last-minute decision to ghost the Green Party is just the latest rift within the perennially squabbling American left."
When dealing with a breakup, there are some obvious best practices: break out the tissues and fire up a movie you’ve seen 20 times; do some vaguely reckless online shopping; wonder aloud about calling your other exes; invite some friends over to convince you not to do that.

Alternatively, you can just keep running for president.

When Cornel West, famed public intellectual, philosopher, jazz man, pastor, actor and frequent provocateur, told me about his recent divorce from the Green Party, he sounded almost giddy. He was obviously the initiator.

“I do feel freed up, I must say,” he said with a chuckle.
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Greenie Jill Stein had been CW's acting campaign manager, and she responded “I see this as a bit of a transition for us as Greens. … I see this as a crisis for Cornel’s campaign.”

The pros and cons of departing from the GP:
Cons: ballot access headaches; continued questions about his seriousness as a political figure; the destruction of a potentially mutually beneficial coalition.

Pros: getting to set your own agenda; removing yourself from some of the intractable and unserious elements of the party; crucially, for West, no more need to kiss any ass.

“The moment of transition became clear, given the internal dynamics of the Green Party,” West said. “The procedures and requirements for debate, you have to go to various Green Party events in a variety of different states. … I said, ‘Oh my God, this is a lot of energy and time and effort.’”
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I just can't help but think about how dumb this makes CW look.
 
“[The Green Party] has had a whole host of different campaigns,” West said. “It’s still very difficult to see the ways in which the movement has flowed from the campaign. … Young people have not been that tied to the Greens at all. Black people have not been that tied to the Greens at all. Brown people, trade union people, they haven’t been that tied to the Greens at all.”

West thinks the Greens can’t take him where he wants to go. The Greens think West is throwing away movement politics and blowing up his own campaign to boot.
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The Judean People's Front vs. the People's Front of Judea.

At a gathering where he spoke, some of the attendees said that they won't be voting for him even though they like what he says. That is to keep Donald Trump out of office by voting for Joe Biden, his biggest opposition. Another one said that he'd likely vote Green instead.
The Green Party and West respond by essentially saying the idea of a spoiler candidate is a myth. No candidate is owed any votes. They have to earn them. And moreover, if major parties are afraid of these third-party candidates, that means they’re getting closer to their goal of breaking up the establishment duopoly in the U.S. If anyone’s angry or dismissive, they figure, that means what they’re doing is working.
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Cornel West is known for making acerbic comments about establishment figures.

Harvard President Larry Summers is "a bull in a china shop and a bully, in a very delicate and dangerous situation.”

Barack Obama is “a war president with a [Nobel] peace prize” who “talked to me like I was a Cub Scout, and he was a pack master,” and “a Black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a Black muppet of corporate plutocrats.”

More recently, West has supported Julian Assange and called the Russian invasion of Ukraine “a criminal invasion, provoked by the expansion of NATO,” arguing against U.S. aid to Ukraine.
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Principles are a funny thing in politics. Everyone’s sure they have them and their opponent has none. In West’s case, his political opponents extend to many of the people he shared the stage with at Bernie rallies. West recently called Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez “window dressing, at worst” for the Democratic Party. Both Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, for their part, have already endorsed Biden in 2024.

Waleed Shahid, who’s spent the better part of the last decade working for Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez, Bowman and the progressive PAC and caucus Justice Democrats, called West’s campaign “embarrassing.”

“The naivety and the amateurishness of the campaign is striking. … It’s incredibly hard to get third-party ballot access, and I do not trust the skills of the West campaign to do it,” Shahid said.

“Giving people false hope who might have been inspired by Bernie or AOC is pretty disappointing.”
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Waleed Shahid can point to an actual record of helping people get elected, while the Green party is a big fat zero there.
Shahid, Minsky and much of the U.S. left had problems with West’s campaign from the get-go. As liberal commentator Krystal Ball told The Nation when West announced his run, “I don’t think third-party efforts have proven successful even in pushing the establishment left. In fact, it appears to me they’ve backfired.”
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Greenies were startled at the news of CW's departure - it was all of a sudden for them.

Toward the end, "West is not an ordinary public intellectual. In addition to the spate of professorships and fellowships, influential books and speeches, he’s also released multiple albums that span musical genres, including spoken word."
 
www.newsweek.com

Joe Biden campaign already has more followers than Trump's on Truth Social

The Biden campaign team said it joined Truth Social this week because "we thought it would be very funny."
www.newsweek.com www.newsweek.com
President Joe Biden's election campaign account on Donald Trump's Truth Social site now has more followers than the latter's own campaign account.

The Biden-Harris HQ account was set up on the former president's social network on Monday and had around 28,300 followers as of early Thursday morning, while Trump's campaign account—Team Trump—had around 23,800 followers and was set up in February 2022.
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My guess is most of those people are there to troll the account but it still gets the Biden side in front of them to read.
 
lpetrich said:
Waleed Shahid can point to an actual record of helping people get elected, while the Green party is a big fat zero there.
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Give credit where credit is due. The Green Party certainly helped G.W. Bush get elected in 2000: Gore would have won easily if the Greens hadn't implicitly supported Bush.
 
Democratic Minnesota Congressman Dean Phillips is hinting he may challenge Joe Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination. Wikipedia claims Phillips is a "centrist", whatever that means in today 's political climate. With $90 million dollars, Phillips is one of the richest members of Congress. Lack of name recognition nationwide will be a problem.
 
Swammerdami said:
lpetrich said:
Waleed Shahid can point to an actual record of helping people get elected, while the Green party is a big fat zero there.
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Give credit where credit is due. The Green Party certainly helped G.W. Bush get elected in 2000: Gore would have won easily if the Greens hadn't implicitly supported Bush.
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Fair enough. I was thinking of the Green Party's own candidates. But helping George Bush II get elected when he was on the opposite side from the Greens, that seems to me like the Greens' election record should be less than zero, a negative number. It's an own goal, getting the game's ball to one's side instead of to one's opponents' side.
 
It looks like California governor Gavin Newsom is hitting the campaign trail with a visit to Israel and China.

Newsom 2024!!

No way Brandon runs, NO WAY.
 
TSwizzle said:
No way Brandon runs, NO WAY.
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@AdamWho agrees with you on that. But he also says Trump won't run.
What do you think about that as an idea, or as a forecast?
Would any Republican besides Trump stand a chance in a general election?

It seems to me like yet another trouncing of Agent Orange by Sleepy Joe Biden is in the cards, if nothing else changes.
Biden's speech yesterday surprised me considerably. It was powerful - but of course only to those who made the considerable investment to try to understand the words he was forcing out of his mouth.
 
538 polling. Trump's positive ratings, 39.8%. Joe Biden's positive ratings, 40.3%. Essentially even at this point. A lot now hangs on Trump's indictments.
 
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