The Race For 2024

[lpetrich]

Nikki Haley must walk a fine line in bid to be next Republican president | Nikki Haley | The Guardian - "Former South Carolina governor and daughter of Indian immigrants aims to be standard bearer of party fired by race and gender fights while not alienating Trump supporters"

As the Republican governor of South Carolina in 2015, Nikki Haley stood shoulder to shoulder with political leaders from across the state to call for the removal of the Confederate flag from the statehouse grounds. Days before, an avowed white supremacist who posed with the flag in photographs massacred nine Black parishioners at a church in Charleston.

As her state – and the nation – reeled from the heinous act, Haley argued that the flag embraced by many southerners as a symbol of “noble” traditions was for too many others “a deeply offensive symbol of a brutally oppressive past”.

...
Haley faced backlash and accusations of hypocrisy in 2019, four years after she ordered the Confederate flag to be taken down, for telling the conservative podcast host Glenn Beck that the Confederate battle flag represented “service and sacrifice and heritage” before it was “hijacked” by Dylann Roof, the Charleston gunman. In an op-ed, Haley argued that her views hadn’t changed and blamed the “outrage culture” for stoking the response.

Trying to have it both ways about the Confederate battle flag.

Like for Trump, once warning that he is everything that we warn our kids not to be in kindergarten, then working in his administration, then being rather diffident about the Jan. 6 attacks.

 

[Oleg]

Is Haley running for president or VP? Probably VP.

 

[Shadowy Man]

The book shows us that he has two enemies, people who disagree with him and the word "to be", replacing many instances of that word with "to represent", like “Yale represented such a serious culture shock for me.”

To be fair, “represented” is four syllables while “was” is only one.

 

[lpetrich]

I agree that Nikki Haley is likely running for Vice President. Is Mike Pompeo also doing so?

Promise Me, Dad review – moving Biden memoir that wonders: could he have beaten Trump? | Joe Biden | The Guardian - Sun 26 Nov 2017 02.00 EST - "Joe Biden’s new book describes a year of unbelievable sensory overload, from his son Beau’s cancer to the dilemma of whether to run for president"

The first time he had been knocked down by what he calls “the Irishness of life” was immediately after he was first elected senator from Delaware, in 1972. Less than six weeks later his wife and his daughter were killed and his two sons were injured in a car accident.

The second time came four decades later, when his son Beau, by then attorney general and likely next governor of Delaware, was found to have brain cancer.

...
Folded into all of this activity was Biden’s struggle to decide whether he would try to succeed Barack Obama, or leave the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination to Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

...
And there is the vice-president making sure that each of his children and grandchildren visits a Nazi concentration camp, to give them a “visceral jolt” and to remind them that “this can happen again” and that “silence is complicity.”

That review does not mention it, but Beau died on May 30, 2015. Hunter is JB's remaining son, and JB also has a second daughter, Ashley. His first one, Naomi, had been killed by that car accident.

 

[lpetrich]

Kamala Harris' 'The Truths We Hold' Demonstrates What's Wrong With Campaign Books : NPR

If a great book is a sumptuous meal, the campaign book is a bottle of Soylent.

A novel by Nabokov, a play by Shakespeare, even a pulpy airport crime novel — these satisfy the basic urge to read a story with beginning, middle and end; to watch characters interact and to understand their complex motivations. These stories are there for the joy of consumption.

The campaign book is not that.

It's an extended written campaign advertisement and an exposition of the candidate's platform and claimed qualifications.

As with many campaign books, The Truths We Hold reads as a memoir-but-not-really. Harris does tell her life story, but she uses it as a vehicle for telling us what she really wants us to know about her.

Her childhood shows us the values that she received from her mother. The section about her time as a district attorney and then as California's attorney general allows her to tout her accomplishments and lay out her policy positions. Talking about her time in the Senate allows her to further expound upon her positions — and also to contrast herself with President Trump, whom she presumably hopes to face in a general election.

Thus some stylistic jumpiness like

In one section, for example, Harris talks about crafts she made as a kid. So you might think (as I did): She's into crocheting! What a fascinating insight into her hobb- gaaaaah. Nope — she's using this to tell us about the dignity of work.

Eek. What does she enjoy?

Similarly, the best protagonists have flaws. They struggle against something. And it's easy to see why a person who might soon launch a presidential campaign might not be excited to publish their struggles.

Harris does indeed gloss over hers. Her retelling of failing the bar on the first try, then passing it on the second, happens in the course of three paragraphs. Her "tough, determined" Senate runoff opponent, Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez, gets less than three sentences.

Also some "careful elision of facts", awkward ones like about immigration, and "plenty of platitudes", like where she grew up: "It was a close-knit neighborhood of working families who were focused on doing a good job, paying the bills, and being there for one another". Also, just plain awkward prose: "There were so many people that cellular networks had gone down, yet the energy was electric."

I must say that her campaign slogan, "For the People", fell completely flat for me.

 

[lpetrich]

'We need to speak truth': how does Kamala Harris's 2020 book stack up? | Politics books | The Guardian - Sun 27 Jan 2019 01.00 EST

Bernie Sanders’ latest, Where We Go from Here, recapitulates his traditional themes and rightly takes credit for defining the fight for the 2016 Democratic nomination, shaping the party’s platform and upping the use of social media as a campaign tool. But he leaves too many questions unanswered.

Disappointingly, Vermont’s septuagenarian junior senator essentially ignores how to pay for the vast expansion of government he expects.

Then discussing Kamala Harris's book.

The Truths we Hold: An American Journey by Kamala Harris – review | Autobiography and memoir | The Guardian - Sun 3 Feb 2019 09.00 EST - "This memoir by the new darling of the Democrats is aimed more at voters than readers"

But whereas Obama’s memoir Dreams from My Father earned praise as an elegant, exceptional work in its own right, Harris’s The Truths We Hold fits more squarely into the category of “serviceable” – not so much a literary event as the book tour as election campaign.

The formula is oddly familiar. Another 2020 Democratic candidate, Elizabeth Warren, starts her 2017 book, This Fight Is Our Fight, on the night she is re-elected to the Senate and Trump wins the presidency. The first line reads: “‘I’ll get the popcorn.’ I yelled up the stairs to let Bruce know I was coming. I also had the beer and my laptop ... It was November 8, 2016.”

Harris, herself elected to the Senate that night, starts her book: “Most mornings, my husband, Doug, wakes up before me and reads the news in bed. If I hear him making noises – a sigh, a groan, a gasp – I know what kind of day it’s going to be. November 8, 2016 had started well...”

Then saying that "Harris’s prose rarely sparkles and there is not much by way of self-revelation."

 

[lpetrich]

A candidate's tale | Books | The Guardian - Sun 26 Aug 2007 12.16 EDT - Barack Obama's book "Dreams From My Father"

Dreams From My Father is a remarkable story, beautifully told, and inspired by its author's divided family history. The son of a black African farmer from Kenya and a white American mother from the Midwest, Obama was two years old when his father walked out on the family. Years later, after many vicissitudes, Obama received a call from Nairobi to say that his father had been killed in a car crash.

This news triggered a quest in which Obama sought to discover the truth about his father, in the process becoming reconciled to his troubled inheritance. Travelling to Kansas, Hawaii and finally Kenya, Obama undertook a journey of heart and mind into a family maelstrom of identity, class and race.

Many American reviews of Dreams From My Father singled out the exceptional grace of Obama's prose, its honesty and freshness. Consciously or not, Obama has placed his book in a literary tradition of political prose that goes back to another master of the American language: Abraham Lincoln (Obama is the senator from Illinois, Lincoln's home state).

His hope springs eternal | Books | The Guardian - Sat 28 Apr 2007 19.18 EDT - "Democrat hopeful Barack Obama looks good and writes well in The Audacity of Hope - but can his third-way politics carry him to the ultimate prize, asks Peter Preston"

"Some of this personal credo arrives eloquent and moving. You can sense instinctively why Obama invites devotion. But then, because there's an election pending, you can also sense formulaic caution." and "And his onerously repetitive chapter structure also casts a pall if you read too much, too fast."

And even Obama can't keep the sermonising going indefinitely. He has to reach back into history and hail the great god FDR (also worshipped by old liberals, one seems to remember). He has to plump for less tax on the poor and hard-working Americans, not more tax cuts for the rich and rapacious. He believes in Middle East peace, not war, and spoke out against Iraqi invasion before it happened (though that doesn't mean he wouldn't be tough in crisis). His wonderful wife and kids get a chapter of their own.

 

[lpetrich]

Bernie Sanders has written several books. Back in 2016, he wrote  Our Revolution (Sanders book) about his political positions, and the next year  Bernie Sanders Guide to Political Revolution

The year after,  Where We Go from Here

Throughout the entire book, Bernie Sanders repeats his belief that only grassroots movements of people can bring political change. He explains that many of the people who attend his rallies are young people and that a large number of 2018 candidates were first or second time candidates.

I think that he's right about that. Looking back at other progressive periods in US history, they also involved mass movements. The American Revolution, Jacksonism, antislavery activism, the Progressive Era, the New Deal Era, and the Sixties Era.

He has come out with It’s OK to be Angry About Capitalism by Bernie Sanders review – straight talking from the socialist senator | Books | The Guardian - "Sanders tackles the grim facts about the economic order that the political establishment wilfully ignores"

“When we talk about uber-capitalism in its rawest form – about greed that knows no limit, about corporations that viciously oppose the right of workers to organize, about the abuses of wealth and power that tear apart our society – we’re talking about Amazon,” writes Bernie Sanders in his new book. “And when we’re talking about Amazon, we’re talking about Jeff Bezos.”

These are typical lines in what comprises an attack on the status quo from every conceivable direction. ...

Sanders’ popularity and his immense value to the political ecosystem stems from his willingness to say all this out loud, defying the credo which has defined mainstream discourse since at least the Clinton era: that the class war is over, that capitalism is as inevitable as the weather, and that markets don’t need morals, because they have their own separate schematics, drawn by an invisible hand.

In other words, his book is easily as frustrating and depressing as it is galvanising and uplifting; reading one story or statistic after another, about growing inequality, child poverty, financial insecurity – 77% of Americans are now anxious about their financial situation – one’s very lack of surprise reinforces a sense of hopelessness.

The book also covers his 2016 and 2020 Presidential campaigns, and his often-thwarted work as head of the Senate Budget Committee.

I don't know if BS will run this time around, or whether he will support Marianne Williamson if he doesn't.

 

[lpetrich]

Who is  Marianne Williamson?

For much of her life, she was not very, being mainly a sort of spiritual-but-not-religious guru. After wandering aimlessly in her early twenties, she discovered Helen Schucman's  A Course in Miracles with its greatest "miracle" being gaining a full "awareness of love's presence" in one's life. HS claimed that Jesus Christ dictated that book to her, word for word, by "inner dictation".

A Course in Miracles - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.com

ACIM is Christianity improved: Jesus wants less suffering, sacrifice, separation, and sacrament. He also wants more love and forgiveness.

...
Essentially, in ACIM, the term "miracle" refers to that change of mind that makes it possible for the Love of [Abraham's god] to be somehow expressed in the world. This expression of love is referred to as forgiveness in the Course and it is reasonably accurate to say that the miracle spoken of in the Course (and indicated in its title) is forgiveness.

MW herself:

A Course in Miracles [is] a self-study program in spiritual psychotherapy. It is a book that is based on universal spiritual themes. It is not a religion. It does not claim any kind of monopoly on truth. It has no dogma. It has no doctrine. It talks about love and forgiveness and I think that many of the people who are students of A Course in Miracles come from all religions and even no religion. The book says nothing about [Jesus]. The book does not get us to try to believe in God. [...] The book tries to get us to believe in each other

Then MW made a career out of promoting ACIM.

Williamson might be called Oprah's patron saint. She's all about love and healing, yin and yang, being wounded, and using love and prayer to heal all wounds. A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course In Miracles (1992) was number one on the Publishers Weekly non-fiction best-sellers list for eleven weeks. Williamson promoted her book and ACIM when she appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show, an episode that received more pro viewer mail than any other show for 1992. She also plugged the book and the course when she was interviewed by Barbara Walters on the ABC television news show 20/20.

 

[lpetrich]

"Divine love is the core and essence of every human mind," MW tells us, and from Wikipedia, "She saw this message as a remedy to misinterpretations of the Bible that, through an emphasis on sin and guilt, could lead to harm (e.g. slavery, depression, self-loathing)." She was "the young woman talking about a God who loves you, no matter what" and she gradually grew in popularity.

One critic called her style a "trendy amalgam of Christianity, Buddhism, pop psychology and 12-step recovery wisdom", and another one said about her teaching that "its focus on the power of the individual to conquer all without the help of stodgy institutions that are out of touch with modern generations." Her teachings also "filled a void left by the isolationism of established Christianity and Judaism, maintained an open-door policy with her teaching, but did not engage in actively evangelizing the Course, saying that she believed doing so would devalue the spirit of the teaching"

Over 1998 - 2003, she was the pastor of the  Unity Church of Warren, Michigan. It is an offshoot of  New Though, which emerged in the early 19th cy.

New Thought:

1. God or Infinite Intelligence is "supreme, universal, and everlasting";
2. divinity dwells within each person, that all people are spiritual beings;
3. "the highest spiritual principle [is] loving one another unconditionally... and teaching and healing one another"; and
4. "our mental states are carried forward into manifestation and become our experience in daily living"

Unity:

1. God is all there is and present everywhere. This is the force of love and wisdom that underlies all of existence.
2. Human beings are divine at their core and therefore inherently good.
3. Thoughts have creative power to determine events and attract experiences.
4. Prayer and meditation keep us aligned with the one great power in the universe.
5. It is not enough to understand spiritual teachings. We must live the Truth we know.

 

[lpetrich]

MW has done a lot of charitable work and activism over the decades, like helping AIDS patients back in the 1980's. She has also written several books, notably  A Return to Love

"The book contains Williamson's reflections on the book A Course in Miracles and her thoughts on finding inner peace through love." From Amazon.com's blurb on the book, it describes "how we each can become a miracle worker by accepting God and by the expression of love in our daily lives."

The book is written with the understanding that the reader will have a working knowledge of religious concepts. Some of Williamson's explanations are not mainstream Christian theology views. For example, in chapter 3 ("You"), section 2 ("The divine mind"), when referring to Christ she writes "The word 'Christ' is a psychological term. No religion has a monopoly on the truth. Christ refers to the common thread of divine love that is the core and essence of every human mind."

A grossly misleading renaming.

From Chapter 8, "Body",

A friend of mine told me that we're not punished for our sins, but by our sins. Sickness is not a sign of God’s judgment on us, but of our judgment on ourselves. If we were to think that God created our sickness, how could we turn to Him for healing? As we’ve already established, God is all that is good. He creates only love, therefore he did not create sickness. Sickness is an illusion and does not actually exist. It is part of our worldly dream, our self-created nightmare. Our prayer to God is that He awaken us from the dream.

That bullshit is what's in Christian Science. That sect claims that disease is not real, but false beliefs, and that one can become cured by making oneself recognize the falsehood of those beliefs. Yet Val Kilmer went to a materialist hospital for some throat cancer, and Isaac Asimov once discovered that some Sunday-morning air-conditioning noise came from a Christian Science church.

Healing results from transformed perception of our relationships to illness, one in which we respond to the problem with love instead of fear. When a child presents a cut finger to his or her mother, the woman doesn’t say, 'Bad cut.' Rather, she kisses the finger, showers it with love in an unconscious, instinctive activation of the healing process. Why should we think differently about critical illness? Cancer and AIDS and other serious illnesses are physical manifestations of a psychic scream and their message is not 'hate me, but 'Love me.'"

More and more bull doo-doo.

In the traditional Western medical model, a healer’s job is to attack disease. But if the consciousness of attack is the ultimate problem, how could it be the ultimate answer? A miracle worker’s job is not to attack illness, but rather to stimulate the natural forces of healing. We turn our eyes away from sickness to the love that lies beyond it. No sickness can diminish our capacity to love. Does that mean that it is a mistake to take medicine? Absolutely not.

She contradicts herself.

When the cure for AIDS is finally found, we will give prizes to a few scientists, but many of us will know that millions and millions of prayers helped it happen.

What bullpoop. People have been praying and doing sorcery for millennia to try to cure disease, but it took materialist biomedical research to put a dent in it.

 

[lpetrich]

Marianne Williamson ran for office for the first time in 2014, as an Independent in  California's 33rd congressional district - then on the southwestern and western coast of Los Angeles County.

She was praised as a "tireless" campaigner but criticized for not articulating specifics in her plans. Her supporters deemed her lack of plans a strength and said she was not a "made-to-order candidate" who gave "lip service."

She got endorsements from Ben Cohen (of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream); former governors Jennifer Granholm and Jesse Ventura; former representatives Dennis Kucinich and Alan Grayson; and Van Jones. She campaigned on issues like campaign finance reform, women's reproductive rights and LGBTQ equality, and she raised $2.4 million, 25% from herself.

Of the 18 candidates, she finished 4th, at 13.2% of the vote. She talked about starting "conversation of a politics of conscience, a politics of the heart," something more important than winning, she said.

What would be more worth doing would be to build a political movement, something like what happened to Bernie Sanders. His campaigners then went on to try to elect similar sorts of candidates, and AOC is the most notable of them.

 

[lpetrich]

She ran for President in 2020, starting in January 28, 2019, and she appeared in two of the candidate debates.

The LA Times wrote that Democratic voters were "confused" and "transfixed" by Williamson, who declared that her first act as president would be to call New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and say, "Girlfriend, you are so on", a reference to Ardern's emphasis on building a country that treats its children well.

...
The spike in searches was prompted by her reference to the Flint water crisis (which she described as a "part of the dark underbelly of American society") and her assertion that President Trump was harnessing a "dark psychic force of the collectivized hatred" which she later described as racism, bigotry, antisemitism, homophobia, Islamophobia, and xenophobia propelled by social media.

She did not qualify for the third one, however.

Williamson did an interview with Eric Bolling and expressed further frustration with the media when she thought she was not being recorded. Among her unscripted comments was "what does it say that Fox News is nicer to me than the lefties are?"

He campaign was not very successful at raising money, and on January 2, 2020, she decided to campaign alone, without her campaign staff. On January 10, she ended her campaign, and she pledged to support the Democratic nominee.

 

[lpetrich]

Looking under WILLIAMSON, MARIANNE - Candidate overview | FEC I find Statement of Candidacy 2023 which was filed on March 2. So she's now officially in the race.

I couldn't resist inlining this tweet:

We’re just not tracking that. If I had a, what’s it called? A little globe here, a crystal ball, then I can tell you, a Magic 8 Ball, whatever. If I could feel her aura. I just don’t have anything to share on that.

(some reporters laughed)

Gosh, you guys are making me laugh now.

 

[lpetrich]

Marianne Williamson Not Happy At White House Press Secretary's Crystal Ball Joke
noting

linking to Marianne Williamson 2024 | Official Presidential Campaign Website

I was so sad to see the commentary of the President's press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, about me, about crystal balls, which I've never spoken or written about, and auras, which I've never spoken or written about. And just speaking so derisively and in such mocking terms about someone who is running for President of the United States, and as a woman. And this is the Democratic Party?

I have a constitutional right to run and my candidacy is about substantive issues and policies. I have made it clear in interview after interview that the President is a nice man and that I have no interest in taking personal pot shots. But apparently, the White House, or at least as expressed by Karine doesn't share my commitment to the high ground. The hypocrisy here is something that all of us can see, because the President has said on his first day in office that anyone in his administration who spoke disrespectfully about anyone would be fired on the spot.

You know, I'm not hoping that Karine Jean-Pierre loses her job over this, but I do hope that, from now on, this low, derisive, this narrative about me, just obviously meant to get me out of the conversation. I hope that this path is not pursued. It's not good for any of us, it's not good for America, it's not good for the Democratic Party. People are watching, and I hope that everyone who is watching realizes that this is not just about me. They're not just telling me to get away, like, flick her off like a mosquito. It's about you, it's about anyone who, first of all, I think what has faith and takes faith seriously. Or is it just about any woman who speaks out of turn?

I don't know. It's for you to decide. But whichever it is, I hope that we will stop that kind of nonsense. It's not good for any of us. Thanks.

 

[lpetrich]

Marianne Williamson Not Happy At White House Press Secretary's Crystal Ball Joke

Although Williamson told Yahoo! News in 2019 that her image as a “crystal woo woo lady” has no relation to reality, she did suggest creating a Department of Peace when she ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020.

In the 2020 primaries, Williamson rarely polled higher than 1%. She dropped out in January 2020.

Bernie Sanders says Marianne Williamson will run a 'strong campaign' and raise 'very important issues' in 2024

Williamson announced her campaign to a packed room at Union Station in Washington, DC on Saturday, drawing applause from the crowd for her critiques about a "sociopathic economic system." While she made clear in her speech that she was glad to see Biden prevail over former President Donald Trump in 2020, she said that America still remains "six inches away from the cliff."

"This country is drowning in information and starving for understanding," she declared during the speech.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-MA

"I think that President Biden is going to be the Democratic nominee, and he's going to be re-elected," said Warren, saying she supported Biden because he's "accomplished a tremendous amount in the last two years, and he's got real momentum to keep on delivering for the American people."

The Congressional Progressive Caucus reportedly endorses Joe Biden, but I have not found any official confirmation of that.

 

[lpetrich]

Biden leads Williamson by more than 70 points among Democratic primary voters: poll
77% JB, 4% MW

Of Democratic primary voters, 52% have not heard of her, and of those who have, 20% are favorable toward her, 13% are unfavorable, and 15% had no opinion. I find it surprising that she is now so well-known.

Williamson on Sunday accused the Democratic National Committee (DNC) of “rigging” the primary system in favor of Biden by reorganizing the calendar.

By making South Carolina first, the first state that voted for him in 2020.

However, Biden and other Democrats appear to have largely dismissed Williamson’s presidential bid. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) suggested on Sunday that no “serious” Democrats are considering a challenge to Biden, while White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre joked about Williamson’s “aura” on Monday.

 

[lpetrich]

GOP Is Hyping Marianne Williamson to Mess With Biden

The Republican National Committee’s research page tweeted out three separate clips of Williamson over the weekend—one in which she said the Democratic National Committee is rigging the primary for Biden, one comparing the news reports pronouncing her campaign a long shot to the ones that called Hillary Clinton a “shoo-in,” and one in which she said Biden should debate her.

...
Republican insiders say there’s reason for boosting Williamson. She represents a divide among Democrats—one Republicans want to amplify, perhaps to distract from their own intra-party chaos.

“The more we talk about Marianne Williamson, the weaker Biden looks. And Marianne Williamson, a perfect caricature of the Democratic Party, is a lot of fun to talk about,” one senior GOP aide told The Daily Beast.

The last time around, she was caught saying

“What does it say that Fox News is nicer to me than the lefties are? What does it say that the conservatives are nicer to me?” she wondered in the 2019 hot-mic moment, going on to add, “I’m such a lefty. I mean, I’m a serious lefty… I didn’t think the left was as mean as the right. They are.”

Nina Turner:

“There is an appetite among people across our movement to keep working-class issues front and center in the national discourse. I am often asked if I am willing to take on that responsibility, but as of now, I have not made any decision,” Turner said in a statement. “However, what I do know is that our party will only benefit from having a transparent and open process, where dissent is welcomed and not shut out,” Turner added.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is “thinking about it,” saying “And I’ve passed the biggest hurdle, which is my wife has green-lighted it.”

In February, the DNC also passed a resolution explicitly supporting Biden’s re-election, expressing the committee’s “complete support for President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and the Biden administration, and support their re-election in 2024.”

...
“The Democratic Party needs to be a conduit for the healing of this country,” Williamson told ABC News. “But first, the Democratic Party needs to look in the mirror and heal itself.”

 

[lpetrich]

Democrats in Array on Twitter: "Not according to Marianne Williamson. (pic link)" / Twitter
With this purported deleted tweet by her:

I wouldn't be a good mayor, or a good governor either for that matter. Those are managerial positions and it's not my forté.

Date: 3/30/21

I like this response:
Giovanni Torre on Twitter: "@therecount The funny thing is Marianne Williamson is a more serious candidate than Joe Biden, in terms of both policy and capacity." / Twitter
She's younger, at 70 years old, as opposed to JB's 80 years, and I like her positions, but she does not seem to have much experience with politics. She has no experience either in elected office or as an administrator, though she has had a long history of activism. That's more than what Donald Trump can plausibly claim, and MW has another advantage over DT: greater humility. MW's first run for office was for a Congressional seat, while DT's was for the Presidency.

I doubt that Bernie Sanders will run again; he's 81 years old, even older than JB. But will BS endorse MW?

 

[Swammerdami]

One name that doesn't appear on most of these lists is Gretchen Whitmer. I hereby throw her hat into the ring, and direct my delegates to support her!

Whitmer is of course the Governor of Michigan whom MAGAites conspired to assassinate.

She is smart of course. Like Kamala Harris she is a former prosecutor. But she is seven years younger than Kamala, more charismatic I think, and -- yes, it DOES matter -- more photogenic.

The GOPlins and hate-drenched racists are unlikely to come to their senses, but if they do they'll push for Nikki Haley. Will the D's need to put forth a female of their own? I'm afraid Haley wins in a Haley-Harris contest.

Gretchen Whitmer for President​