While the Dems have been running for their nomination as long as the Repubs they have been less amusing and scary than their counterparts…..the biggest story on the Dem side is whether VP Biden will eventually succumb to the BS and announce that he is running for the nomination.
Clinton is still the odds on fave and Bernie is hot on her tail (at least in some states) and then there are the also ran……O’Malley, Chafee and Webb…..and that is where I pick up this post……Jim Webb.
Jim Webb has complained that the Democratic race is “rigged” for Hillary Clinton, and he’s apparently done playing along. The former Virginia senator will announce that he’s dropping from the Democratic race at 1pm Eastern today, reports Politico. As for a rumored run as an independent, we’ll have to wait and see. The New York Times doesn’t expect that to happen, and Fox News predicts that Webb will “take some time after his announcement to talk with people from across the political spectrum before making a decision.”
Seriously? An independent for president? This is the height of self-worth……he could not break the single digit approval ratings in polls and now he is thinking of running as an independent…..
At what point does he, Webb, start looking needy for attention?
Mr. Webb…..may I suggest….Go home and write another novel….leave politics to the adults…..tah tah!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY0WxgSXdEE&w=480&h=360%5D
Thanx for the link….chuq
Mood music…
He was a bit tight
Given how the media has been treating everybody that isn’t Hillary. He does have a point. Sanders get very little coverage and despite what the focus groups are saying, they automatically declared her the winner.
She has been their pick for well over 2 years….they will do what they must to make her the nominee…..
This just in…
There’s also plenty of other Democrats NOT running in Iowa for the Democratic nomination. They also withdrew themselves from the race even before it started. Their non-entries are equally as “relevant” as…er…whoever this story is about’s departure some 3.5 months before the Iowa vote that selects 1% of the delegates going to the Democratic Convention 9 months from now.
Here’s just a brief list of pre-race dropouts:
former landslide winners of past Iowa Caucuses: Walter Mondale, Dick Gephardt and Tom Harkin
Howard Dean
John Edwards
Anthony Wiener
former NY Governor Eliot Spitzer
former Senator Paul Simon
Art Garfunkel
Hall and/or Oates
Snoop Doggy Dog
…and John Fitzgerald Kennedy was unavailable for comment at this time, but is not expected to run for a 2nd term again. His great hair and hot wife will be missed in this never-ending election campaign coverage.
None of these folks will be on the Iowa ballot in February either. Yet they will still have garnered exactly the same result (and political impact) as whoever drops out between now and when the 2016 race actually starts.
(Man, I sure know how to beat a dead horse!)
Yes you do….LOL
Then again, that fucking dead horse keeps getting back up and trying to race! So, every time it gets back up, it needs to be beaten back down for the good of all mankind. It is an orange-haired beast from hell which breathes steaming hot bullshit that boils people’s brains right in their skulls. They are incapable of thinking of anything else, no matter how important.
Although…since I’m trying to kill something (2016 election) that doesn’t actually exist yet and won’t for several more months (and probably shouldn’t exist in the 1st place) ….perhaps a better analogy would be “I keep aborting that fetus, but that empty womb keeps getting filled with the byproduct of Media Boners.”
Actually, I could work that into a really good “mental-rape” metaphor.
I love politics….real politics….these guys have bastardized it into something hideous and disgusting…..
There’s something quaint and almost human about candidates crossing the country in a state-by-state process, rubbing elbows with the great unwashed. It’s very engaging and the delegate compilation process is admittedly very fun to watch.
But unfortunately, only Iowa & New Hampshire (states that generate only about 1.5% of the Delegates) are the only states that get that treatment anymore. Because there’s so much pre-game-hype, this fucking thing is ludicrously front-loaded on these 2 statistically meaningless states. Other bigger, more important & more Delegate-rich states get lumped together to speed up the actual Primary process so they get to hype the next stage. States late in the Primary schedule, (California is a great example) are all but entirely ignored despite their REAL significance. I’ll never understand why California, or NY, don’t move their Primaries into the first couple months. It’ll put their issues and values on the agenda. Good bye corn subsidies, hello surf board subsidies.
I think the only way to combat this bastardization (the media contribution anyway) is to boycott it. As difficult & painful as that may be. If the ratings drop, they’ll first do what they do to every network TV show. They’ll introduce new characters, insist on more violent & sexier story lines. And if that doesn’t work, they’ll shift the show to another time-slot, put it on hiatus until spring/summer, or take it off the schedule altogether.
Less is more and vice-versa. The less they show, the “better” (aka less bad) it will be. The more we watch, the more they’ll give us.
I agree with a boycott….the problem is that we are programmed to believe that we MUST vote or the system will implode….
Oh, no! I am NOT talking about boycotting the actually vote/s at all. Just the media circus, especially the pre-game bullshit that now lasts a year before the 1st vote is cast. Worse than the fucking Superbowl.
The reality is that absolutely nothing productive comes from the pre-game coverage, just ratings & riches for the strategists. Most of these “candidates” the media stalks like deranged fans don’t even wind up on the Iowa ballot. (The point of the above list of non-candidates)
What good is served by covering, or even thinking about, this nonsense in 2015? Christ, you guys are STILL farther away from the 1st vote than it took Canada to hold it’s longest national election ever. (Still waiting for the story on that topic to appear 🙂 ) And Canada’s population is a HELL of a lot bigger than Iowa & New Hampshire combined. (It’s California-ish.) January 2016 provides MORE than enough time to cover the actual candidates in the Iowa Caucuses. But the ignored truth is, Iowa itself is actually more of a pre-season game and should be considered as such.
As for voting itself….While next to meaningless in terms of meaningful political impact, voting is the only influence us common serfs are allowed to have. It’s bread & water, but that’s all we’re EVER going to get. And they’d eagerly take that away too, if we let them. Besides, voting boycotts always fail because somebody always wins. It doesn’t matter if they win with 8 million votes, or 8 votes. The winner gets the same prize and the exact same amount of power. Boycotting only takes the voice of the boycotter out of the equation altogether.
Always vote. I can’t stress that enough. Even if it’s a write-in for Charles Manson….Actually, I like his drug policies & environmental policies. (“If we could just kill a billion people, Mother Nature might be able to repair herself.”)
Here I think we need a national primary day…make it a holiday….eliminate the electoral college…..and make national election day a holiday and make it easier for everyone to vote….finally we need to make campaign funds publicly administrated…..no more PACS or Super PACs
This will go a long way of making this a true democracy….all we have now is games for the filthy rich…..chuq
This is topic all on its own…several topics/ongoing discussions actually….and MUCH better than talking about next year’s horse race.
What you suggest is “ultra-radical” change. Remember, forcing insurance companies to offer policies to (almost) everyone and forcing them to actually give people the coverage they bought was considered “hyper-radical socialism”. Think microscopically small…and even that will be seen as “too radical.”
I like the Primary concept, but the longer before Jan 2016 it starts, the more expensive it gets and the more billionaires and their PACS matter. I don’t think it should be legal to spend a penny until 2016. That alone would cut a lot of money & bullshit out. That’s why that idea will go nowhere.
But I think the Primaries would be vastly improved and costs cut by doing something as incredibly simple as changing the Primary schedule. Something like breaking them into 8-10-ish regional groupings. You’d see reduced travel costs, ad overlaps (NY ads also seen in NJ) and less need for long spaces in between. For example:
– Iowa & NH to kick off, if only to help sell it.
– all New England right after NH
– NY, NJ, Penn
– East Coast Maryland to S.C
– Georgia Florida, etc
-etc
Give only 1 week or10 days a group. Shortens time, trims costs, and still allows the dramatic horse-race narrative “everybody loves”. Because of the geographical approach, it probably even improves the narrative and allows politicos to send out a “more uniform message”.
It’s really the only change I can see ever happening.
Nothing will happen until we beat back “Citizen’s United”…..
The only reason I think my suggestion is a mildly feasible, mildly productive, change is that States have proven they’re willing to change the schedule. An election (or two?) ago, many states moved & threatened to move their primary up to increase their relevancy.
Obviously, you’re probably right about “Citizen’s United” being (arguably) the single biggest stumbling block to anything resembling democracy in America because it’s nearly impossible to fix. It requires the rarely tried Constitutional Amendment, or a decade worth of stacking the Supreme Court with people who aren’t Jesters.
I’m no weaselly tax lawyer, but isn’t it possible to go after the bullshit tax codes that allow for the existence of PACs? While politically unlikely, it CAN be undone without involving the courts, or violating Citizen’s United. It is a tax code issue, not political speech, or corporate “personhood”. On the downside, it wouldn’t change either of those two things. But it would at least force the billionaires to spend their billions in public. Corporations would be hesitant to spend that kind of money in public, lest they offend red/blue customers. Corporate “people” really like the secrecy.
Aim as low as you can. Only then do you have a chance.