She keeps texting me to ask for donations.
I guess the attempt to make her a celebrity, with a supposedly devoted and energetic online fandom, failed. I'm sure this defeat has many parents.
Media is more like 5 year old soccer than ever. There's greater availability of information about nearly everything that at any time in human history, but if you want to know anything about anything more than 5 feet from the ball, you have to seek it out yourself.
3 is a great line, and I'm going to steal it.
There was some sparring by proxy between different access journalists over whether she was performing poorly or being treated poorly. Earlier this year I think? Very typical DC stuff.
It's interesting that she doesn't seem to be seen as the natural stepper-in if Biden doesn't run in 2024. I realize she's lackluster in various ways but I can't imagine her race/gender has nothing to do with it; usually the VP is seen as having a pretty big starting advantage.
It would be pretty rich if in 2024 or 2028 the big competitors for the nomination are Harris and Newsom - two people who both got their start as proteges of Willie Brown.
(I realized a week or two ago something that was probably already obvious to many California observers - if Biden doesn't step down and is nominated a second time, Newsom is likely to step into Feinstein's Senate seat to have a platform to run from in 2028 or later.)
How can a VP have a built-in advantage with all the thermostatic public opinion papers that I see referenced but will never read because I decline to play Dungeons & Dragons with orcs and knights, much less with polls and nerds.
I am not a crackpot.
I have such a hard time when an imaginary pollster asks me if I want Biden to run in 2024. On the one hand, I've never been a Biden fan, and I definitely thought he was too old in 2020, and since time seems to still be working in mostly the same way as before, he will be even older in 2024. But, the only question that matters is who will give Dems the best shot of winning in 2024, and maybe that's Biden? I don't think it's Kamala Harris, and I guess it has a lot to do with her being a black woman -- but also because I don't get the sense that a lot of black men and women or a lot of black and white women are super excited about her.
I get texted political polls for the PA governor race. Maybe it's a tracking poll?
I feel like you usually don't hear much about VPs. If she were more popular (she's pretty consistently 3 or 4 points behind Biden in approval) maybe you'd see her more often, or if Biden decided to not run for reelection and favored her as a candidate. But otherwise there's no reason to expect her in the news much.
True - you didn't hear much about Biden in those days either, except his occasional gaffes and the Onion articles. And Pence mostly only about what he was being implicated in day-to-day.
I hear all kinds of stuff about Biden.
Some of you haven't spent seven years living in a swing state where people are paid money to try to turn you into a resentful asshole and it shows.
Newsom is likely to step into Feinstein's Senate seat to have a platform to run from in 2028 or later.
It is going to be hard to pretend that he's never had a single thought about running for president if he does that. Also, appointing himself senator? And leaving the governorship vacant? I mean, he could, but oh man, that'll give me another reason to consider him a tool. It will also give me yet another reason to resent Feinstein and that cup was already overflowing.
I don't know why we aren't hearing more about VP Harris. I was 'meh' about her (she's a cop!!1!) and 'meh' about Biden. Biden is apparently doing his job well, so I guess I'm coming around, but if he vanished tomorrow I wouldn't give him another thought.
But then there isn't anyone else I'm excited for. My moderate friend is super excited for Buttigieg and I get the charm but oh my fucking god I'll be so irate if another white man gets elected. I realized the other day that my Mom in her 80's really could die without ever seeing a woman president. She loooooooves Biden so there are consolations, but we are in 2022. It doesn't take much to make my simmering anger boil.
Was also thinking the other day about how much I'd love for my preferred progressive candidate to win the primary and then turn all the "welp, you have to support the Dem!!!' arguments back on the moderates. 'Well, yes', I'll say sweetly. 'Sure, [drawbacks]. But you just gotta! because the alternative is a Republican. Suck it up and get out there to VOTE!!'
God it would feel good to turn that around.
Wrong cup, Moby. I have one for Newsom's toolishness and one for resenting Feinstein. I mean, I suppose they're both full and this would top off each, but the Feinstein one has been full longer.
That's how our local House primary went. The people who tried to put in a moderate (lawyer who busts unions) lost and were at least publicly vigorously supporting the winner, PA Rep. Lee, at the campaign kickoff. That she got the loudest cheers from the group was probably not lost on anyone.
Also, appointing himself senator? And leaving the governorship vacant?
That would be super-sus, even if it was an arrangement where he resigned and Kounalakis appointed him Senator. I just mean that assuming Feinstein doesn't run for reelection, he could easily get elected to replace her the normal way.
In 2024? That'd be exciting. Two years into his second term? Man, I'd be happy if I only had to wait out his administration two more years.
I don't know if California is ready for two male senators.
On the minus side, it implies another two years of Feinstein. (I guess best of both worlds is she resigns and he appoints a caretaker who promises him not to run.)
Trying to figure out how greater availability of information about nearly everything that at any time in human history is a feature of 5yo soccer.
I don't know if I care about senile Feinstein. I mean, they prop her up and she votes the right way, right? At least she's not brokering water deals if she's senile.
What's the drawback? The opportunity cost from what a vigorous senator could accomplish? Eh. Oh. Maybe the danger that she'll die right before some important vote? I guess.
19: the moderate business guy lost to the Trump endorsed candidate in MA. Our Democratic candidate, AG Maura Healey, explicitly reached out to Baker supporters, aka moderate Republicans.
26: Yes, I'm having trouble with the metaphor (analogy????) too, but from what I remember of 5-year old soccer there is always one kid sitting in the field, ignoring the ball and everyone else, and totally intent on sucking his thumb, and that's David Brooks.
Yeah, I suspect Feinstein can stay physically alive until 2024, so not a big deal.
I don't want to be buried,
In a pet cemetery.
there is always one kid sitting in the field, ignoring the ball and everyone else, and totally intent on sucking his thumb, and that's David Brooks.
This reminds me of one of my favorite stories. Jammies' little brother was on a competitive travel team. The coach - we may as well call him Coach Brooks - was really into the whole thing and very competitive. Young David was not that into it, and was put in goalie, which didn't matter much because the team was so good that the goalie wasn't needed much.
Finally, partway through the season, an opponent gets a breakaway and is heading towards their goal. Everyone turns to look...and the goal is empty!
Young David had wandered behind the goal, and gotten his hand stuck in the netting, and couldn't get himself untangled.
Father-Coach Brooks was irate, and the other dads had to hustle him away so that he didn't let loose to an alarming degree on his own son.
That happens to Arsenal goalkeepers all the time.
Oh. I've never watched them play but figured nobody else had either.
Is it because adult fingers don't fit in the holes of the netting?
I wonder what you're picturing.
I am not actually an expert. The only thing I know about Arsenal is the Arsenal offside trap.
So I guess we should assume 33 might be right until an expert comes along.
The experts are all mourning the queen. Could be a while.
I think it's just that I'm getting older and more cynical, but good lord are the prospective 2024 candidates a depressing lot (other than Biden; he's too old, but at this point I'm good with keeping him until 2029 or he keels over, whichever comes first). Is it too much to hope that there might be someone out there with decent policy positions, some clue what to do with executive authority, and a plausible shot at being elected, all in the same person?
Surely one of the popular governors would be ok? Jared Polis? Laura Kelly? Andy Beshear?
If we can take the AZ governor's race, Mark Kelly would be a great candidate.
Plausibly sufficient on policy and executive chopes, but Jay Inslee's total flameout last time doesn't give a lot of hope for electability. None of them has much of a national profile.
48 to 46. 47 is plausible provided he gets reelected first.
Similarly Warnock has potential, but similar issues around whether he can get reelected and whether that would lose the seat.
Neither of them really checks the executive experience box, either. OTOH Warnock shares an unusual middle name with a former President (why did I not know this before?), so he's got that going for him.
Yeah, though it could be worse on that front, Warnock's run a church and Kelly was a Captain in Navy (though probably just the flying kind of officer not an organizing stuff kind of officer).
I can't see what could go wrong with a Cuomo/Yang ticket.
Aside from the vote-getting thing, of course.
True, but the skills to run a church or a squadron don't necessarily scale to a job where so much depends on personnel choices and how to use the boss's personal engagement. Political skills are part of it, but not the only part.
53: antisemite. The right answer is Bloomberg/Lieberman.
56: Lieberman can go ahead and concede now, saving us the trouble and expense of running an election.
Ned Lamont!
56: "Why Not Me?" was one of the funniest books I ever read.
Michelle Lujan Grisham is also a good Dem governor.
Yeah, I didn't have her on that list just because she's not as popular.
It also seems like a broad chunk of the country now feels justified in never voting for anyone but a white man for the job because people had the temerity to keep talking about racism even after we elected a black guy and there's obviously no hope of finding common ground with such unreasonable sorts.
29 OK, I'll be clearer. The media is too busy clustered around the same few stories to explain/discuss the huge variety of other things going on out there, including whatever the VP is doing every day. (I suppose she's doing something most days. You wouldn't know, because it's not clickbaity enough.)
Here's what she did today:
Sep. 12
5:00 PM Eastern Time
The Vice President will meet with Civil Rights and Reproductive Rights leaders to discuss the fight to secure reproductive justice for all. The opening remarks in the Diplomatic Reception Room will be pooled press and live-streamed at whitehouse.gov/live.
Thursday and Friday she was in Houston, to meet with Baptists and NASA. These events were also open to the press and livestreamed.
On Sept 1 she had a couple of events in Durham NC. I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't even local press coverage. But I bet the people she was interacting with cared a whole lot about that. So, really, it's a question of whether her job is to get the attention of a fickle and frankly worthless national press, or to interact with important constituencies.
Instead, the national press spent more attention on whether Trump would be invited to the QEII funeral, and whether she secretly knighted him.
(I don't mean to intrude too much of Stormcrow's domain here. My added value is that not only is the press completely worthless (at best) in their framing, they are positively malevolent in what they choose not to cover at all.)
To be fair to them, "powerless politician meets people" really isn't news by any standard.
67: Is the "powerless politician" meant to be Harris?
Because since Gore, that hasn't been true. Cheney was probably more powerful than Bush, though outsiders are unlikely to ever know for sure. Pence is the possible exception, being as worthless as the rest of TFG's upper-level chairwarmers.
68: at this point, I think, we get into a rather tiresome argument about different definitions of "power", which I don't want to do, but I'm using the one where you actually have some sort of independent ability to make things happen or stop things from happening, which the VP does not have, except in the case of a tied vote in the Senate. Harris, like Cheney and Biden, has influence, but not power.
On Sept 1 she had a couple of events in Durham NC. I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't even local press coverage.
If you google "kamala harris north carolina" you can read all the local press coverage there was.
Also, 12 rings true - how much attention did Biden get as VP?
67 We live in a world where speculation about whether Trump will be invited to the funeral is considered newsworthy. Where his meeting with the groundskeepers at one of his golf courses sets of a frantic round of speculation.
70 Glad to see it. My initial point starting off was that there is vast information out there -- as you rightly point out, even about the VP in Durham -- and if one limits oneself to national media, a whole lot will be missed. A huge problem we have in local politics is that a great number of voters not only aren't seeing local news in other places in the country (why would they, it would be a huge effort) but not even local news here. So you end up with everything being nationalized, and from that you get people electing a dumb Republican in some red state because they are pissed off at the cartoon version of AOC presented as hatefotainment.
Anyway, our local news might even break through locally today, because our city counsel took over four hours and over 25 ballots to elect a new mayor to replace the incumbent who died last year. The two main contenders were members of the city council: one of 8 years tenure, the other of 8 months. Everyone stayed dug in, and finally even when the junior guy tearfully announced that he was going to vote for the senior guy, the junior guy's supporters still voted for him.
Is it too much to hope that there might be someone out there with decent policy positions, some clue what to do with executive authority, and a plausible shot at being elected, all in the same person?
Despite my many reservations about him, I don't see how Newsom doesn't fit these criteria. (If he finally starts parting his hair to stop looking like a movie villain.)
I really think looking like a movie villain is less of a problem than being a Californian.
Middle America expects a certain amount of evil.
I feel like being Californian these days gives you about as much middle America suspicion as, you know, being a Democrat. Might as well lean into it.
77: I sympathize with the psychology behind this, but I don't think it's good political strategy.
Yeah. Maybe California Democrat hated by other California Democrats because he's evil will work?
He's hated by Twitter Democrats. California Democrats mostly either support him or see him as decent enough given the persistence of the Dem establishment. Delaine Eastin would be better, but she got 3.4% of the open primary vote.
Great. He's planning ahead. Can he execute someone with mental retardation? Or at least defend someone who does?
Setting aside Newsom (I don't know why I keep bringing him up), I think an underestimated strength of Democrats is they can probably put up someone who seems relatively normal. Most prominent Republicans now are weirdos obsessed with weird shit.
81: He vetoed safe injection clinics, will that do?
Not unless he also throws rocks at the addicts.
Can he throw footballs like this? https://twitter.com/TimRyan/status/1568585673929621506
JB Pritzker has been surprisingly good as a governor, even considering the low standard set by the average Illinois governor, and might even be a good person, even considering the low standard set by the average hotel billionaire.
NMM to Ken Starr, ya perverts.
Does 87 mean what I meant? He belongs to two categories of people who have generally negative qualities yet he seems to be an outlier way over on the positive side. I think 87 maybe says the opposite.
Yeah, it makes perfect sense with that meaning and seems to be true AFAICT.
The bar for an above-average Illinois governor being, like, "doesn't get imprisoned for corruption."
I'm less familiar with hotel billionaires but they don't seem like great people either.
Although the Hiltons seem to be coming around on Paris. That seems like progress.
I admit I have a certain affection for the Hiltons since Conrad was from San Antonio, New Mexico. Try the green chile cheeseburger at the Owl Cafe. The Buckhorn Saloon allegedly has a good one too, but when I stopped by to try it recently they were closed.
The original Hilton Hotel is in Albuquerque. I had my Bar Mitzah party there, when it was no longer a Hilton and was called the La Posada. It later closed entirely; I don't know if it ever reopened.
95: Infallible Wikipedia says that it's now known as the Hotel Andaluz and is part of the "Curio Collection by Hilton" brand.
In the article about Conrad Hilton, Wikipedia says it was his first hotel outside of Texas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_Andaluz
More indication of Newsom's popularity with normies:
Those polled after hearing a description of Prop 30: 61% support, about 30% oppose
After hearing Newsom is against it: 61% oppose
94: I have two t-shirts I love that I bought at Bosque Del Apache! So I suppose I've driven through San Antonio, though I'm struggling to pull up any memory of it.
I only remember the Ramada Inn in Roswell.
97: Interesting! What do you think of it?
100: Still on the fence, working on a blog post. On one hand, it could be too much investment in EVs at the expense of everything else, especially on top of IRA rebates which may be plentiful next year. ($1-2b/yr on car subsidies, plus $1.2-1.75b/yr on charging infrastructure, in homes, apartments, and elsewhere.) On the other, it does seem like some significant level of investment is needed, so maybe I'm making the perfect the enemy of the good. It also becomes more flexible in how it can be spent after 5 years, and runs for 20.
Oh, and the companies that keep fleets of cars for Uber/Lyft could snap up more of the subsidies than we want, given their large likely appetite compared to individuals who will mostly wait until their cars need replacement. To its credit, despite being almost entirely funded by Lyft, it does explicitly put companies behind individuals in line - just that doesn't do a lot if there are fewer individuals in line in the first place.
Why is that bad? I'm looking at buying an electric car, but I'll drive it maybe 8,000 miles a year.
101, 102: Thanks! It seems like something you really have to get in the weeds to figure out if it's good - - tax the rich -- good! fund electric vehicles -- good! But also seemed like it might turn out to be a corporate welfare plan.
So I suppose I've driven through San Antonio, though I'm struggling to pull up any memory of it.
There's not much to it. Very much a "blink and you'll miss it" kind of place.
If you blink and miss a town, you've probably violated the reduced speed limit for that town.
106: Did you hear about New Rome when you lived here, Moby? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Rome,_Ohio
I missed the part where the village council claimed dictator-for-life status.
San Antonio is unincorporated, so it's not really one of those speed-trap towns.
This was a weird conversation to read in reverse chronology.
We stayed at a great little B&B in San Antonio. One of the proprietors was a former manager at Bosque. Owl Cafe has an interesting history; Hangout of Manhattan Project scientists.
San Antonio a great base for exploring birds, rocks, and other things old and new. Bosque, Valley of Fires lava flows, Three Rivers petroglyphs, VLA radio telescopes, and the Quebradas Backcountry byway (backroad tour of colorful and interesting geology) are all in the immediate or general vicinity (within an hour and half drive).
There was small place for sale down the street from the B&B and I briefly became obsessed with buying it for a 2nd home.