mtutiger

You should try practicing what you preach.

Trump's contradictory messaging is a big reason why his administration doesn't get the credit they may deserve on the vaccines. He just never embraced it as forcefully as he should have politically, and his latest pivot toward vaccine promotion is probably a recognition of it bring one of the more popular things accomplished during his term.

Regardless, I don't watch cable news and honestly don't give a flying F what Joy Reid, Rachel Maddow or other media commentators have say about any of this stuff.

But here's the thing. Archie appears to be blaming Joe Biden for not fixing the virus when we have learned that a highly transmissibile variant has arisen and has caused this latest surge. By extension, he's basically doing what you are complaining "people in media and in conversations" did with Trump. Yet you led off by saying "Archie is right". That seems contradictory to me.

Correct. And? I'm not sure why I have to answer for the claims of others.

I mean, I don't think Biden engineered the new variant and released it into the South African public.

Incredible

Exactly. The Democratic Party, compared to the GOP, is pretty diverse and ideologically factionalized. When you have that many groups under one tent, each group may have a different definition for "best candidate" Not sure why Archie doesn't get that... just because I think Jared Polis would be a great candidate doesn't mean other parts of the party think so. Hell, look at the debate over Sherrod Brown... maybe he would be a great candidate, but that's not unanimous here either. Much different dynamic than the GOP, where the majority polls out as supporting Trump being nominated again.

Joe Randa... I legit forgot he was a Tiger at one point.

I actually agree with you on this one... Brown is probably the one progressive candidate who can break through nationally imo.

Of course, with the "2024 is a long way away" caveat 😉

Assuming he scores a good reelection in a tough environment, Polis may be the best positioned. The added wrinkle is that relationships with the AA community are critical in the Democratic Party. I have no idea where Polis stands there. But all else equal, he's acquitted himself well lately imo

Isn't one half of the hypothetical that he might be facing Donald Trump again?

Really, the moment where Cruz showed his true colors in terms of weakness was after he made his statement in Cleveland back in 2016. It was a high stakes moment for his career and he actually took a stand for something for a change. But, like the invertebrate that he is, he reneged the moment there was any adversity to his career. That's the thing about political courage.... you kind of have to make a decision and stick with it. Reversing on something like that just projects weakness and, to use conservative terminology, makes him look like a cuck. I don't agree with Liz Cheney on much, but she gets credit for taking a stand and not reversing out of convenience.

👀

She's not running. They'll have to find one from the pool of people who would actually want the job....

In terms of Biden's predecessor as standard bearer (whether it's 2024 or 2028), the challenge remains that the Democratic Party, structurally, is just a lot different than the GOP. Where the GOP currently is more rigid in terms of ideology and in terms of bent (ie. toward Trump), the Democrats are a much more factionalized group made up of different coalitions who don't always agree on every issue. Just inherently, the challenges of uniting the Democratic Party are just bigger. People like to downplay the strength of Biden's win in 2020 (ie. anybody could have beaten Trump, didn't beat him by enough, etc.), but his win was probably in no small part because he was the only candidate who could pull enough support from each of those disparate groups within the Democratic coalition to get it done. In particular, states like Arizona and Wisconsin were so close that you could point to multiple parts of that coalition (ie. suburbanites, young voters, Hispanics) who made the difference in the end. And Biden also doesn't get enough credit for how he leveraged his relationship with some of his rivals from the campaign (particularly Bernie Sanders) in order to get his full support and effort in the general election. So, the question I have is, if not Biden, who else can replicate that in 2024? Who is that person? I agree that Harris hasn't sold me on that question (on paper she looks good, but just haven't seen it in practice), but whoever they nominate is going to have to be nimble enough to keep all groups in the coalition happy enough. And I don't know who that person is at that point....

Michelle may be the dream candidate, but by all accounts, she doesn't want the job.

Agreed.... while I do think the media frames the economy much more negatively than it actually is at the moment, I cringe every time I see someone online downplay the impact of inflation. Mostly because we see it in our day to day life... makes people seem out of touch. There isn't a lot the executive branch can do about it, but at a minimum, they need to be seen doing something about. They've been doing more of that since about November or so, particularly with backups at the ports, but they were slow out of the gate and it is hurting them. I mean, they did pass BIF. Which is, despite how the left of the party feels about the bill, is pretty popular with the general public as a whole. Overall, they've done a lot considering the absolutely minimal margins they have in the Senate.... had Ossoff/Warnock not won, there'd be way more to complain about. Of course, that's a hard sell to people who don't follow this stuff closely, but that is the lay of the land regardless. In terms of the House, unless a miracle happens, they are gonna lose it in 2022 regardless, although because of how redistricting has played out and the fact that 2010 happened in part because Obama helped expand the map into districts that Ds had no business winning, I doubt it approaches the 63 lost seats that happened in 2010. Probably more like 40-45 in the worst case scenario.

Had this debate with fife about a month ago, but to play devil's advocate, Trump is also not currently in the public sphere in the way that he would be should he be campaigning to run for President again. And his favorability/approval #'s (and the extent that they have risen somewhat) probably reflect that. But definitely, he can win. I don't know of many who believe he can't at this point. I don't know what will happen with Biden.... although I think the chances he runs again are significantly higher than the conventional wisdom suggests.

A couple of things: One: I remember having a conversation with my old man about Cruz back in 2018 (when he was up for reelection here).... he's always been a big fan and continues to be one, owing to his firebrand style and his archconservative politics. My response was simple: it's easy for you to say that you're a fan because you don't live here and you have two Senators (Peters and Stabenow) who, while they don't share your party preference, at least take the constituent services part of the job seriously. Because in terms of actual value delivered to the state, he's probably the most worthless Senator out there.... his only real strength seems to be going out and finding a camera. Very little else. Regardless of party, I would rather have a Workhorse Senator that takes their work on committees and legislation seriously versus one who just shows up on The Shows and Cable TV all the time. Two: Some of you maybe remember the debacle last February in Texas and how this clown abandoned ship and then, when proceeding to get caught abandoning ship, blamed his kids and wife. That's the guy in a nutshell... setting aside the debate over whether he could effectively do the job remotely (Melody from the old board made that argument frequently at the time), in terms of doing the absolute bare minimum and standing in solidarity with people here, he didn't have the sense to do the work from Texas. Just as his Senate colleague John Cornyn, who I disagree with most of the time as well, did. At the end of the day, maybe he represents the views of 50-55% of his constituents, but in terms of whether he actually cares? Fuck no, the guy only cares about himself and his political future and does everything with that in mind. This despite the fact that he's proven time and again to have some of the worst political instincts in Washington, and that he may be the only person in the United States who believes he even has a 10% chance of ever becoming President. The clip doesn't surprise me at all.... for all the tough talk, deep down he's an invertebrate.

2024 is a really long way away. Not even saying that things will be better in 2024 or that there aren't scenarios where the climate in 2024 wouldn't redound to Trump or DeSantis' benefit, but rather it's unlikely that we're dealing with the exact same issues then as we are dealing with in Jan 2022.

But are they?