Tag Archives: Pete Buttigieg

Political Rants

Ten in Georgia.

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It would be hard to overstate the sheer joy being felt by our corporate media over the last couple of weeks. It reminds me of those times when there’s three major stories and a hurricane. They are never so happy as when the news machine is firing on all cylinders, and that is certainly what’s happening now – impeachment hearings, international upheaval, Democratic debates. Lots and lots of content, and very little effort needed to push it out.

So here I am, sitting in front of the television on debate night, watching the long wind-up led by erstwhile nightly news anchor Brian Williams, basking in the lights, moderating a conversation between failed Senate re-elect candidate Claire McCaskill, former Howard Schultz vendor Steve Schmidt, perennial talk show host Joy Ann Reid, and Chris Hayes, smartest man on TV.

The ten candidates include a billionaire who basically bought his way onto this stage. Cautionary comments from Schmidt and McCaskill counseling centrism. Hoo boy.

First question from Rachel Maddow to Warren, about impeachment. She gives a strong, sharp answer. Klobuchar nervously harkens back to Walter Mondale. Bernie starts with focus on poor and working people – thank you, senator. Birthday Joe stumbles into his first response … hoo boy.

Still too big by half.

Cory Booker’s criticism of Warren’s wealth tax is as vacuous as Buttigieg’s criticism of Medicare for All. Biden thinks 160 million people are happy with their health insurance.  I suspect he’s including me in that count, and if so, he fucking bonkers.

Gabbard vs. Harris is, frankly, irritating. They are both deeply problematic people.

The billionaire speaks! He’s pushing power down to the American people. The other rich guy compliments him. Tom Steyer wants to build millions of new housing units. Sounds good, but … how? Amy Klobuchar, who happily votes for $750B military budgets, thinks we can’t afford more than 3 months of paid parental leave. Priorities, right?

Climate change question! But it’s put to Tulsi. Let’s start that one with someone who, I don’t know, might be president. Tom Steyer gets the second whack at it. Really? Pissing match between him and fellow white guy Biden. Bernie leaps in, like Lester (ask your jazz fan mother).

Harris defends confrontation with North Korea. Joe doubles down on that, and gets the stand off between Russia and NATO backwards. I’m no fan of Putin, but NATO expansion is a legitimate concern for any Russian government, given their history of being invaded from the west.

Kudos to Booker for raising the war in Yemen. Double kudos to Bernie for his comments on Israel-Palestine and Saudi. He’s way out ahead on that. Commercials. Someone has to pay for that expensive stage set, including, apparently, a California based anti-immigration group.

Joe responds to a question about #metoo and resorts to an unfortunate metaphor for his fight against partner violence. “Keep punching at it” is a poor choice of words.

Finally an immigration question! That’s what happens when Castro and Beto aren’t invited.

Halfway decent (and congenial) conversation on abortion rights, though I wish to hell they would raise the judiciary in this context.

That’s about it. Cue commercial.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

No half measures.

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Yes, I watched the Democratic presidential debate on CNN this past week, god help me. The best thing I can say about it is that CNN dropped the dramatic WWF candidate intro segment and went straight into the questions. That said, the fact that there were twelve candidates on stage made the event a ridiculous parody of an actual debate. Candidates are given 75 seconds to respond to a question, and 45 seconds for rebuttals. It is simply impossible to grapple with the complex issues facing our nation in any meaningful way within those time constraints. The format drives a kind of Twitter-like approach to discourse, complete with the trolling. Seventy-five seconds is something like 125 words. Try talking a nation out of decades of for-profit healthcare or a century of oil dependence in that little time. It’s a format that greatly favors the status quo.

About seven too many.

And the status quo had many defenders last night. As was predicted the previous week by talking heads and broadcast journalists, undoubtedly briefed by opposing campaigns, Elizabeth Warren was targeted repeatedly throughout the proceedings, with the most pointed attacks coming from “Mayor Pete”, Amy Klobuchar, Kamela Harris, and of course, Joe Biden. Buttigieg came after her on single payer health insurance, claiming that she was being disingenuous by not providing her opponents with sound bites of her saying taxes will go up on middle class families. I will say that Warren needs to come up with a better way of talking about the funding mechanism for single payer. She stuck to her position, but it was kind of the same phrases over and over, and though true, they lose their salience on repetition.

The most ridiculous attack came from Kamela Harris, who was trying to get Warren to take a position on compelling Twitter to delete Donald Trump’s account. Mind you, this was in the section of the debate that focused on holding social media and other big tech companies accountable through anti-trust measures, etc. Warren has proposed breaking Facebook up, and I can’t say as I disagree. But somehow Harris thought it might be politically advantageous to reduce this entire conversation to a simple question of whether or not the President should be allowed to tweet like your drunk racist uncle.  As if deleting Trump’s Twitter profile would address the antitrust issue … or, really, accomplish anything substantive. Just strange.

Bernie was set up in advance to fail, the media constantly harping on his heart trouble. He put in a very strong performance, I thought, but again … the format is so limiting it just barely makes a difference. Klobuchar, Buttigieg and the half-measure chorus were crowed about by the talking heads, but will this debate move the needle at all? I doubt it. This party’s just getting started.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Rundown.

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The first Democratic debates will take place in less than two weeks, so I thought it might be appropriate for me to do a rundown on the various contenders. No, I’m not going to comment on all 24 (or is it 25?) – just the ones that rise to the top of my tiny mind. I am not using any polling or fundraising criteria to make this determination. My standard is a simple one: if I know nothing about you, I will not express an opinion; if I do know something about you, I may not express an opinion. Sound fair? Great … here goes.

Joe Biden. I’m not a huge fan of the former vice president, though I will admit that in 1988 I was more than ready to vote for him over some of the other flaccid contenders. His record in the Senate is worse than patchy, with odious votes on the crime bill, the Iraq war, the bankruptcy bill, and so on, though it was worse than mere voting, as he presided over committees with jurisdiction over various pieces of destructive legislation. In spite of his cultivated “regular Joe” image, he’s quite cozy with Wall Street and high tech, and is kind of a gaffe machine besides. My biggest hope for him is that he is made to debate either Sanders or Warren.

Bernie Sanders. Clearly my favorite in this field, both from a policy standpoint and from a consistency / trustworthiness perspective. Bernie has fought the good fight for decades and would make a great president. (He even came out in support of Lula this past week – extra points!)

Elizabeth Warren. She is certainly among the smartest, most considered candidates in this group, and has very well articulated policies. Haven’t heard much out of her on foreign policy, but all will be revealed, I suspect.

Shake your fist all you want, Joe. I ain't buying.

Kamala Harris. Says some okay things and has proposed one or two serviceable policies, but at present there isn’t a lot of there there, and aspects of her record are troubling – particularly her failure to prosecute Steve Mnuchin’s mortgage bank when she was California attorney general. A bit Obama-like in that people tend to project progressivism onto her.

Cory Booker. Problematic on education privatization and financial services. Okay on criminal justice reform and reparations.

Pete Buttigieg. Smooth talker, that mayor Pete. Has said some good, vague things, and some not so good. His record as mayor is not so hot, but let’s see what he says.

What about Frackenlooper and the others? That’s what next week is for. Assuming we’re not at war with Iran by then. Lord help us.

luv u,

jp