2020 Presidential Election

[Reilly]

... people sending you a buck to make a debate stage will only take you so far...

I recall Orrin Hatch on a talk show when running in 2000 saying, seriously, if 36 million Americans sent just $1 to his campaign ... I also recall a Duke student stopping by my room freshman year saying if everyone gave him $1, he'd have the $6K needed for a mission trip to Africa (I'm hoping he made it and guessing if he did then somebody gave him $3 to make up for the response from my roommate and me).

[bundabergdevil]

I recall Orrin Hatch on a talk show when running in 2000 saying, seriously, if 36 million Americans sent just $1 to his campaign ... I also recall a Duke student stopping by my room freshman year saying if everyone gave him $1, he'd have the $6K needed for a mission trip to Africa (I'm hoping he made it and guessing if he did then somebody gave him $3 to make up for the response from my roommate and me).

It's very impressive that you recall Orrin Hatch at all!


...I guess he was Utah's Senator for more than 40 years.

[OldPhiKap]

Chris Wallace’s interview of Mick Mulvaney today is worth watching. Best interviewer in the TV press IMHO.

(And FWIW, I am not a big Fox guy)

Oh, and not as a political statement but because it is a favorite song from a favorite artist:

[Rich]

I recall Orrin Hatch on a talk show when running in 2000 saying, seriously, if 36 million Americans sent just $1 to his campaign ... I also recall a Duke student stopping by my room freshman year saying if everyone gave him $1, he'd have the $6K needed for a mission trip to Africa (I'm hoping he made it and guessing if he did then somebody gave him $3 to make up for the response from my roommate and me).

It's very impressive that you recall Orrin Hatch at all!


...I guess he was Utah's Senator for more than 40 years.

Not that it adds much to the conversation, but I was once at a Utah Jazz game and peed in the urinal next to Orrin Hatch. True story.

I also went to the same Arlington, Virginia, fitness center as an octogenarian Strom Thurmond, who was not shy about walking around the locker room sans clothes. I can't make this stuff up, people.

[OldPhiKap]

Not that it adds much to the conversation, but I was once at a Utah Jazz game and peed in the urinal next to Orrin Hatch. True story.

I met James Brown the same way at a pub in Augusta. We exchanged pleasantries.

[Rich]

I met James Brown the same way at a pub in Augusta. We exchanged pleasantries.

Which James Brown? Sportscaster or singer?

[OldPhiKap]

Which James Brown? Sportscaster or singer?

Singer. The Godfather of Soul himself. He lived in town and was quite the local celeb.

[bundabergdevil]

Not that it adds much to the conversation, but I was once at a Utah Jazz game and peed in the urinal next to Orrin Hatch. True story.

I also went to the same Arlington, Virginia, fitness center as an octogenarian Strom Thurmond, who was not shy about walking around the locker room sans clothes. I can't make this stuff up, people.

Did Strom offer you any candy? In his later years he famously --- maybe infamously (which, as the Three Amigos teaches us, means MORE than famous) --- puttered about the hill handing out candy to the pages.

[OldPhiKap]

Did Strom offer you any candy? In his later years he famously --- maybe infamously (which, as the Three Amigos teaches us, means MORE than famous) --- puttered about the hill handing out candy to the pages.

Would you say he had a plethora of candy?

[bundabergdevil]

Would you say he had a plethora of candy?

Yes, yes I would. But given the state of the Senators during Rich's interactions, I will absolutely not be making an invisible swordsman reference. That would be whatever the opposite of couth is.

[sagegrouse]

Susan Gordon, the Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, is a 1980 Duke grad. She was captain of the women's basketball team and played the first three years Duke was a Division I program. Sue joined the CIA after graduation. With the resignation of Coats announced today, the President will name an acting DNI, pending confirmation of Rep John Ratcliffe (R-Tex) Trump's likely nominee for the position. We'll see if Sue Gordon gets the nod as acting DNI.

[dudog84]

dudog84,

There is a significant thing missing when you post those polls that seem to show Biden as the only candidate above 15%. In most of those polls, there is about 12-15% of the electorate who are undecided and not registering for any candidate. One primary/caucus day everyone who votes will have to chose someone (except in some quirky states that allow you to vote for uncommitted, which is only done very rarely). What's more, as we approach actual voting, the candidates who are getting 1-3% are going to see their support dry up even more as voters flock to more viable candidates. As a result, those candidates who are currently getting 12-14% in the polls are very likely to find their way to that 15% threshold.

Biden would really have to thread a needle to get something like 34% and then see Harris, Sander, Warren, and Mayor Pete each get 14%, with Booker, Beto, Castro, Klobuchar, and the also rans totaling the remaining 10%. That would be some perfect storm kinda stuff that just seems really unlikely to me. Sure, there will likely be states where one or even two candidates get 14% and pout about being unfairly shut out of getting any delegates but I don't know if there will be any state where it becomes winner-take-all**.

-Jason "**-unless someone is running away with the state, getting like 50+% of the vote in a crowded field, but given where things are today, that seems unlikely" Evans

Well, if you're going to bring higher math into it...

Jason, I get it. It's just a scenario. A few things:

I said I was being a contrarian.

It's soooo early. Everything is conjecture right now. But if we can't talk about racism (I understand the board's stance) when it is the only thing the the only certain general election candidate appears to want to talk about, I've got to throw something out there for conversation.

So without getting into those weeds, I will say that if DJT continues down this path, and he will, I see the D constituency saying 'the heck with policies, the only thing that matters is beating him'. And Biden is clearly that candidate (for now), and he is the one that will pick up the majority of the lesser candidates' smattering of votes. Biden is beating Trump by 8 in Ohio for pete's sake! Unless Biden screws up another debate, voters will not leave him. And Sanders, Warren, and Harris will begin to shed votes.

Again, it's early. But right now, California looks to split evenly among the top 4 so it's moot. In the 4 early contests and the other big 4 on Super Tuesday (TX, NC, VA, and MA (I could not find a poll for GA)), Biden has double digit leads (sometimes large) in every contest but NH (+6) and MA (+7). Not surprising, that's Sanders/Warren country. Harris is only above 8% in three of those polls (3 of the 4 smallest states) and never above 13%. It's conceivable she could get very few delegates outside CA, and she'll only get a quarter of those.

In those 8 states, sometimes Sanders beats Warren, sometimes Warren beats Sanders. They are very close, and it's very conceivable that one will get 18-20% while keeping the other below 15%, and vice versa. So neither really makes a delegate run while Biden keeps getting the most in every state.

I think it's very possible SC becomes winner-take-all, and SC has over a third of the delegates of those 4 early states. I think it's very possible TX becomes winner-take-all, Beto will be a non-factor by then and Texas Ds are probably going to be more conservative than other states. So right there Biden has 282 delegates to the others' 0. Harris has about 100 from CA and maybe a few more. Sanders and Warren are splitting the other states with usually only one qualifying for delegates, even then a minority with 15-20% while shutting out the other. Meanwhile Biden keeps piling up the majority. Biden could have three or four times the delegates of the #2 candidate on March 4. That would spark an inevitability conversation.

I don't think it's partisan to say the Electoral College has to go. It was not genius of the Founding Fathers, it was a compromise necessary for a fledgling nation. We're 230 years beyond that. If you're an R in California or Maryland, or a D in Oklahoma or Mississippi, your vote DOES NOT MATTER. That is wrong. Also, it is tearing this country apart. It's inconceivable that a national leader would make the comments about citizens that he does if he had to worry about losing the votes in that state. It wasn't right when HRC talked about "deplorables", and it's not right now.

[Wander]

It's inconceivable that a national leader would make the comments about citizens that he does if he had to worry about losing the votes in that state.

If I was in a position of leadership in the Democratic Party, I would try and get the three Democratic congresswomen who represent Detroit-area districts to goad Trump into trashing Detroit and calling it "infested" or whatever. A very small increase in voter turnout in Detroit would have handed Michigan to Clinton, and maybe things will be similarly close in 2020. That's in contrast to Baltimore, since Maryland isn't a swing state.

[PackMan97]

I met James Brown the same way at a pub in Augusta. We exchanged pleasantries.

My father is James Browne. Seriously.

[OldPhiKap]

My father is James Browne. Seriously.

Is he Superbad?

[bundabergdevil]

Some of y'all may find this interesting. The first conference on National Conservatism was held last week in DC. It was hosted by the Edmund Burke Society and had some fairly prominent keynotes. The conference description is below in italics. I'm also linking a few articles that provide well-quoted overviews and slightly more opinionated pieces. To an outsider, these conferences and the NGOs and PACs and what not that spring up often seem like they're trying to co-opt and put the bit in popular movements. Essentially the anti-establishment becoming the establishment. But I found it all interesting because it's pretty clear conservatism is changing and having a pretty big impact on it's primary political vehicle --- the Republican party. All of this is germane to the types of narratives and arguments we saw in 2016 and that we'll see made in 2020 and possibly beyond.

The National Interest - The Republican Party is Transforming Before Our Very Eyes

The Atlantic, The Nationalists Take Washington



>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>
Politics in America, Britain, and other Western nations have taken a sharp turn toward nationalism—a commitment to a world of independent nations. This has been disorienting to many, not least the American conservative movement, which has, since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, grown increasingly attached to a vision of a global “rules-based liberal order” that would bring peace and prosperity to the entire world while attenuating the independence of nations.

The return of nationalism has created a much-discussed “crisis of conservatism” that may be unprecedented since modern Anglo-American conservatism was formulated by Russell Kirk, William Buckley, and their colleagues in the 1950s. At the heart of this crisis is a question: Is the new American and British nationalism a hostile usurper that has arrived on the scene to displace political conservatism? Or is nationalism an essential, if neglected, part of the Anglo-American conservative tradition at its best?

[Reilly]

Which James Brown? Sportscaster or singer?

I met James Brown the sportscaster when he did some sideline reporting in Cameron and kneeled down in front of the Crazies at the corner of the court. I complimented him on "Fast Break" and told him how much I liked it -- that was a local DC basketball skills show shown on Saturday mornings that he did w/ his old coach Morgan Wootten. That show might've been only a few episodes long, and I might've been the only one who watched it. You take your left foot and jab it quickly right, but stop, so then the defender thinks that's the end of your fake, and now you're going back to the left ... but then you pick up steam again and keep going right (the same direction you started; using your dribble now) and the defender's weight is going to your left b/c the of-so-smart defender 'figured out' your fake.

[budwom]

Not that it adds much to the conversation, but I was once at a Utah Jazz game and peed in the urinal next to Orrin Hatch. True story.

I also went to the same Arlington, Virginia, fitness center as an octogenarian Strom Thurmond, who was not shy about walking around the locker room sans clothes. I can't make this stuff up, people.

Would it be uncouth for me to say that a U.S. Senator told me years ago that Strom's nickname in the Senate was Sperm? This was after he became a father at age 75 or so...

[bundabergdevil]

Grant Hill getting involved. What could be more on-topic in a DBR thread about the presidential election than Grant Hill talking about the presidential election? Zion dunking on Mike Pence? Jason Williams crossing up Stephen Miller? Patrick Davidson staring at Kim Jung Un until he voluntarily democratizes?

[OldPhiKap]

Booker has now qualified for third and fourth debates.