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Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update for April 15, 2019

Monday, April 15th, 2019

More Q1 numbers are trickling out. Harris, Sanders and O’Rourke all did well, Gillibrand and Castro did poorly. Insert your own Biden as Hamlet sentence here.

Fundraising

More Q1 fundraising numbers, continued from last week, with new additions announced

  1. Bernie Sanders: $18.2 million from 525,000 donors
  2. Kamala Harris: $12 million from 138,000 donors
  3. Beto O’Rourke: $9.4 million from 218,000 contributions (number of donors not specified)
  4. Pete Buttigieg: $7 million from 158,550 donors
  5. Elizabeth Warren: $6 million from 135,000 individuals
  6. Amy Klobuchar: $5.2 million (number of donors not specified)
  7. Cory Booker: $5 million (number of donors not specified)
  8. Kirsten Gillibrand: $3 million
  9. Andrew Yang: $1.7 million from 80,000 donors
  10. Julian Castro: $1.1 million

For the sake of comparison, incumbent president Donald Trump pulled in pulled in $30 million, and has $40 million in hand.

Polls etc.

Emerson: Sanders 29, Biden 24%, Buttigieg 9%, Harris and O’Rourke at 8%. I think that’s the first poll that had Sanders over Biden, or Buttigieg over Harris and O’Rourke.

538 Presidential roundup.

538 polls.

Democratic Party presidential primary schedule.

Decision Desk has helpfully compiled a stream of 2020 Presidential candidate tweets.

Pundits

Washington Post‘s The Fix rates the candidates in order of likeliness to be a nominee. Any list that ranks Warren third and Biden sixth can’t be taken seriously.

Heh: “Scientists Recommend Reducing The Number Of Democratic Presidential Candidates To Help Fight Climate Change.” “Scientists recommend the current Democratic field be reduced to less than half the current number or we could see an increase in hurricanes, droughts, kaiju, and ‘other climate change things.'”

Now on to the clown car itself:

  • Losing Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams: Maybe? Krystal Ball (yes, her real name) make the case for Abrams. “You can just hear the narrator intoning: “With hard work and perseverance, anyone can succeed. America is the land of opportunity.’ But, Abrams doesn’t seem to buy that narrative. For one thing, in spite of all of her success in the grand American meritocracy, Abrams still found herself filing for governor at a time when she owed $170,000 in consumer and student loan debt and $50,000 in taxes.” Wait, you’re making the case for Abrams? As for running statewide:

  • Creepy Porn Lawyer Michael Avenatti: Out. But see Friday’s LinkSwarm for more information on this prince among men and his multiple felony indictments.
  • Addition: Actor Alec Baldwin: Maybe? No news from Baldwin himself since floating last week’s Twitter balloon, but this piece suggests Democrats should run a celebrity…just not Alec Baldwin.

    In one of the Twitter rants he is always getting up to, Alec Baldwin claimed the other day that if he ran for president in 2020, he could beat President Trump. It would be “easy,” he said. “So easy. So easy.”

    I’m not so sure he’s right about this. No one over the age of 35 watches Saturday Night Live anymore, certainly not outside our major cities. Normal people don’t know who is being parodied in your 37th different sketch about some minor White House official, which makes laughing along kind of difficult. What else do Americans associate Baldwin with these days, apart from 30 Rock and that one funny monologue in Glengarry Glen Ross? His stint narrating Thomas and Friends? The Hunt for Red October? I just don’t think he’s beloved enough.

    Wait, people under the age of 35 watch Saturday Night Live? I’ll need to see documented evidence of that…

  • Colorado Senator Michael Bennet: Leaning toward a run. Despite his cancer diagnosis, he was visiting Iowa, which suggests he’s not easily deterred.
  • Former Vice President Joe Biden: Leaning Towards Running. He’s evidently planning to run as Obama’s pale third term. I’m not sure that’s the red tofu Democratic activists are longing to hear, but it may not matter. Biden also has an advantage in having every old Democratic office holder at his beck and call. Here’s a Vanity Fair piece on how the #MeToo creeper stuff is going to hurt him; it’s unconvincing, and it’s the same argument liberals made about the Billy Bush tape sinking Trump. He’s also delivering Fritz Hollings’ eulogy.
  • Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg: Maybe. Nothing since last week’s “he might run after all” blip.
  • New Jersey Senator Cory Booker: In. Twitter. Facebook. He had a kickoff campaign event in Newark, where he did the usual “Republicans are evil racists who will kill you” scaremongering. Whistling past the graveyard: “Cory Booker Hasn’t Taken Off Yet, but His Campaign Doesn’t Mind.”
  • Former California Governor Jerry Brown: Doesn’t sound like it.
  • Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown: Out.
  • Montana Governor Steve Bullock: Leaning Toward In, but is reportedly going to wait until Montana’s legislative session finishes, which would be May 1. Now that date is not so far away…
  • South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg: In. Twitter. Facebook. He did the “I was already running but now I’m officially officially running” thing. A report on his speech makes it sounds like all the usual Democratic talking points. “Buttigieg criticized what he called the more conservative connotation of the word “freedom,” one that he said refers simply to freedom from the government. He instead talked about government having a role in promoting other freedoms: from racism, gender inequality, unfair working conditions, financial exploitation, a lack of affordable health care.” Big Brother needs to get bigger! Kurt Schlichter wants us to remember how annoying Buttigieg is. Hmmm: “Austin Mayor Steve Adler backing Buttigieg two weeks after welcoming Beto at hometown rally.” Those liberal college town mayors have to stick together…
  • Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, Jr.: Out.
  • Former San Antonio Mayor and Obama HUD Secretary Julian Castro: In. Twitter. Facebook. Castro only raised $1.1 million in Q1. Even by the standard of a guy that’s not setting the campaign trail on fire that’s piss-poor. Gets a Vox profile.
  • Former First Lady, New York Senator, Secretary of State and losing 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: Out. But for some inexplicable reason she and her husband are out on a speaking tour. Of course, it could be the very explicable reason of “money.”
  • New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio: Leaning toward In. “New York City mayor tests chilly waters for presidential run.” “Chilly” as in “Hydrogen freezes.”
  • Maryland Representative John Delaney: In. Twitter. Facebook. He campaigned in Pennsylvania. “At a Tuesday night event hosted by Penn Democrats, Delaney billed himself as a different type of Democrat, offering a centrist vision for the nation.” The picture shows a crowd of what looks to be about 25 people, despite a plate of free sandwiches in the room…
  • Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard: In. Twitter. Facebook. She hit the goal of 65,000 donors to put her on the debate stage, but no word yet of how much money she actually raised. Also, Hawaii Democratic State Senator Kai Kahele says he’s raised $250,000 to primary Gabbard for her U.S. congressional seat.
  • Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti: Out.
  • New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: In. Twitter. Facebook. She raised $3 million in Q1, which is piss poor by the standards of a sitting new York senator. She should have been able to shake down that much from Wall Street the day she announced. her staff is blaming her stand on Al Franken. Heh: “White House National Security Adviser John Bolton could not stop laughing when played a clip of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.) discussing her opposition to “tactile” nuclear weapons on the campaign trail.”
  • Former Tallahassee Mayor and failed Florida Senate candidate Andrew Gillum: Probably not. Seeing no sign he’s running for President in 2020. But this is interesting: “Former Gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum built up some serious hype when he launched a voter drive. That work will be done with his Forward Florida political committee, which he now chairs. But it appears Gillum also formed a corporation with a similar name and function. Division of Corporations records show on April 5, paperwork was filed for the Forward Florida Action not-for-profit corporation.”
  • California Senator Kamala Harris: In. Twitter. Facebook. She released 15 years of tax returns, which showed she and her lawyer husband made nearly $2 million in 2018. Must be nice. She’s leading the Hollywood fundraising race (just like Alan Cranston did in 1984), which donations from Shonda Rhimes, Elizabeth Banks, Quincy Jones, and J.J. Abrams, who is reportedly considering buffing up her campaign with more lens flare. She’s also the candidate of big tech:

    the national obsession with ethnicity and novelty obscures the more important reality: Harris is also the favored candidate of the tech and media oligarchy now almost uniformly aligned with the Democratic Party. She has been a hit in all the important places—the Hamptons, Hollywood, and Silicon Valley—that financed Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign.

    Unlike Warren and Sanders, or Minnesota’s Amy Klobuchar, Harris has not called for curbs on, let alone for breaking up, the tech giants. As California’s attorney general, she did little to prevent the agglomeration of economic power that has increasingly turned California into a semi-feudal state dominated by a handful of large tech firms. These corporate behemoths now occupy 20 percent of Silicon Valley’s office space, and they have undermined the start-up culture that once drove the area’s growth.

    Snip.

    By the time Harris ran for the Senate, she could count on massive support from Bay Area law firms, real-estate developers, and Hollywood. More important, she appealed, early on, to tech mavens such as Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg and Sean Parker, Marc Benioff of Salesforce, Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer, venture capitalist John Doerr, Steve Jobs’s widow Laurene Powell, and various executives at tech firms such as Airbnb, Google, and Nest, who have collectively poured money into her campaigns. Their investment was not ill-considered. Harris seems a sure bet for the tech leaders. Her husband, attorney Doug Emhoff, was a managing partner with Venable Partners, whose clients include Microsoft, Apple, Verizon, and trade associations opposing strict Internet regulations.

    She’s also building out her campaign in South Carolina, probably a smart move. With so many candidates in the race and proportional delegate allocation, I don’t think Iowa and new Hampshire are going to winnow the field nearly as much in the past, which is going to make South Carolina’s February 29th primary more important than in year’s past. Speaking of which: “Bakari Sellers, a CNN commentator and former South Carolina state representative, endorsed Sen. Kamala Harris for president, her campaign announced Monday.” Wait, Harris is a gun owner? That will make for some interesting Harris-Swalwell deabtes. (Hat tip: CarpeDonktum.)

  • Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper: In. Twitter. Facebook. “John Hickenlooper is misrepresenting his record on the death penalty.” He visited some Iowa brewpubs.
  • Former Attorney General Eric Holder: Out.
  • Washington Governor Jay Inslee: In. Twitter. He had a CNN town hall. At least one review was not kind: “He really did sound like he has just half a brain, as he himself said earlier this week. CNN didn’t do Inslee any favors by airing this interview.” He said his state would love to get all those illegal aliens. One wonders if his constituents feel the same.
  • Virginia Senator and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Vice Presidential running mate Tim Kaine: Out.
  • Former Obama Secretary of State and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry: Not seeing any sign.
  • Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar: In. Facebook. Twitter. She raised $5.2 million in Q1. She also released her most recent tax return, showing a modest (by u.S. senatorial standards) $338,483 in income. She’s in Iowa pimping for ethanol. She visited Boulder.
  • New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu: Probably Out.
  • Former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe: Leaning toward a run? Why can’t Terry meme?

  • Oregon senator Jeff Merkley: Out. Filing for reelection to the senate instead.
  • Miramar, Florida Mayor Wayne Messam: In. Twitter. Facebook. “Wayne Messam presidential campaign staffs up with women and alumni from Gillum and Obama.” “His staff currently numbers about 20, mostly women. Of the eight senior staffers, five are women.”
  • Massachusetts Representative Seth Moulton: Maybe? “Seth Moulton is running social media ads asking if he should run for higher office.” Expect him to throw his hat into the ring under his new name of Candidate McCandidateFace.
  • Former First Lady Michelle Obama: Out.
  • Former West Virginia State Senator Richard Ojeda: Out.
  • Former Texas Representative and failed Senatorial candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke: In. Twitter. Facebook. “The big idea? Beto doesn’t have one.” “Beto O’Rourke’s most distinctive policy position? To be determined. There’s no signature issue yet, no single policy proposal sparking his campaign. Convening crowds — and listening to them — is the central thrust of his early presidential bid.” The roots of Beto’s money. Hint: It’s not record sales. “O’Rourke co-owns a shopping mall worth seven figures; He received his half as a gift from his mother.”
  • New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Constitutionally ineligible to run in 2020.
  • Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick: Out.
  • Ohio Representative Tim Ryan: In. Twitter. Facebook. “Why is Tim Ryan running for president, anyway?” “There are not a lot of discernible reasons why Tim is doing this.” But rapper Cardi B says she’s endorsing both Sanders and Ryan, based on seeing Ryan promising free health care on TV. So he’s got that going for him…
  • Vermont Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders: In. Twitter. Facebook. Evidently some people still hold a grudge from 2016:

    Sen. Bernie Sanders has accused a leading liberal think tank, founded and run by longtime Hillary Clinton allies, of orchestrating attacks on him and two other 2020 Democratic presidential candidates.

    In a letter provided to CNN by his campaign, Sanders addressed the board of the Center for American Progress and CAP Action Fund on Saturday, alleging that its activities are playing a “destructive role” in the “critical mission to defeat Donald Trump.” Sanders cited two posts about him by ThinkProgress, a website run by CAP’s political arm, and past pieces focused on Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker.

    The exchange threatens to shred an already frayed public détente between the wider circles surrounding both Sanders and Clinton, who fought a bitter 2016 presidential primary that still looms large in the minds of many Democrats — if only because they fear a divisive replay in 2020.

    CAP, founded in 2003 by John Podesta, who was former President Bill Clinton’s final chief of staff and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign chairman, and its top officials have often been accused by progressives loyal to Sanders of seeking to undermine his political agenda — debates that frequently blow up on social media platforms like Twitter.

  • Democratic billionaire Tom Steyer: Probably Out? Said he wasn’t running, but there’s this: “California billionaire Tom Steyer may be reconsidering his decision last January to remove himself as a possible candidate for the Democratic nomination for president, according to a new report. A citizen in Iowa recently recorded a robocall that tested political messaging related to Steyer, according to a report from Iowa Starting Line.” Still think he’s out, but not this for the record.
  • California Representative Eric Swalwell: In. Twitter. Facebook. Officially kicked off his campaign in Dublin, California, staying all in on the gun grabbing issue. There’s also a parody website.
  • Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren: In. Twitter. Facebook. Warren pulled in $6 million in Q1 from 135,000 individuals. “Elizabeth Warren doesn’t like to talk about it, but for years she was a registered Republican.” And here’s the Warren Policy Proposal of the Week: “Ban new fossil fuel production on federal lands.”
  • Author and spiritual advisor Marianne Williamson: In. Twitter. Facebook. She got a joint town hall on CNN with Andrew Yang. Williamson’s part is filled with bad ideas: A hardline approach to Israel (undoing President Trump’s Golan heights resolution, for instance) and supporting reparations.
  • Talk show host Oprah Winfrey: Out.
  • Venture capitalist Andrew Yang: In. Twitter. Facebook. Yang had some of his own bad ideas, like “monitoring malicious speech.” He also wants to decriminalize heroin and other opiates (along the lines of Portugal), which may be the first genuinely new idea any Democratic Presidential candidate has floated this cycle. Here’s a review of his book. “Once you read his book, it is apparent that Andrew Yang is running for president because he is afraid of normal people.” He’s an idea-a-minute guy, many of them bad, sort of a Democratic version of 2012’s Newt Gingrich. Yang also leads the candidates in Facebook spending.

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    Posted in Border Control, Democrats, Elections, Guns | 3 Comments »

    Singapore Summit: Trump, North Korea, Dennis Rodman, And The Continuing Liberal Freakout

    Wednesday, June 13th, 2018

    President Donald Trump met with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un in Singapore, and they signed a broad joint agreement to denuclearize the Korean peninsula. Which is all well and good, if not terribly meaningful if Kim doesn’t follow-through and allow U.S. inspectors access to verify denuclearization. North Korea has broken several agreements in the past, and there’s no guarantee they won’t break this one, but President Trump has been a lot better about keeping economic pressure on North Korea to comply than Clinton or Obama was. But even if nothing ever comes of it, we’ve already come out ahead:

    I do not fault Trump for throwing out the status quo playbook, which has led to many years of bipartisan failures vis-a-vis North Korea. Shaking things up, grabbing Kim’s attention, and alternatively using sticks (“fire and fury”) and carrots (charm offensive) to land the Hermit Kingdom’s dictator at the negotiating table, in person, involved a series of bold strokes. Ramping up biting sanctions while ratcheting up bellicose rhetoric seems to have spooked the regime, at least to some degree. Kim released three hostages (let’s not forget the one his goons murdered), allegedly destroyed a nuclear test site, and agreed to leave the safety of his country for a face-to-face meeting. For all of this, Trump deserves some real credit.

    (Some Facebook friends were apoplectic when I pointed out that President Trump got hostages released in North Korea, which they furiously insisted happened a month ago and thus had absolutely nothing to do with this summit. Sure, sport, if that’s the hill you want to die on, whatever you say. Trump Derangement Syndrome is a hell of a drug.)

    And even if it is a meaningless agreement, at least it didn’t cost us $150 billion to produce the failure, unlike Obama’s Iran deal. All it cost us was a cancelled wargame with South Korea (a pretty nominal cost) and President Trump serving up some oleaginous flattery to his negotiating counterpart. None of that should obscure that Kim is, in fact, still a communist scumbag. Can he stop being a communist scumbag? Five years ago I would have said no. But no one expected Saudi Arabia to give up Wahabbism, but that seems to be happening, and President Trump had some role in that as well. Old approaches haven’t worked, and maybe Kim is smart enough to grasp what every non-leftist outside his country already has: communism is a miserable failure and capitalism is the only path forward to prosperity.

    At least one person was overjoyed at the summit: Ex-basketball player Dennis Rodman.

    Does that sound like the ravings of a naive fool?

    Yes. Yes it does. (Though I can understand him being upset at receiving hundreds of death threats.) But that naive fool may have provided the crack through which President Trump could channel his persuasion techniques. And his much-derided basketball trip may turn out to be the equivalent of Nixon’s “ping-pong diplomacy” with China.

    Also supporting President Trump’s North Korean initiative were…15 House Democrats? (Well, 14 if you discount the non-voting representative from Guam.)

    The House Democrat letter is signed by Reps. Raul Grijalva (AZ), Barbara Lee (CA), Mark Pocan (WI), Pramila Jayapal (WA), Tulsi Gabbard (HI), Bobby Rush (IL), Zoe Lofgren (CA), Madeleine Bordallo (GUAM), Colleen Hanabusa (HI), Mark DeSaulnier (CA), Richard Nolan (MN), Karen Bass (CA), Jared Huffman (CA), and Jamie Raskin (MD)

    Most interesting from that list: Both of Hawaii’s representatives support President Trump’s negotiations. Funny how being threatened with direct nuclear annihilation can clarify the mind.

    Opposed to President Trump’s negotiations: liberals in the media:

    The media rebuked Ronald Reagan for calling the Soviet Union an evil empire. These days the media is demanding that Donald Trump isolate North Korea as one. Suddenly the peaceniks of the press corps deplore dialogue and demand to know why “Trump is legitimizing” Kim Jong Un.

    On Monday night, MSNBC assembled a panel of spiteful Trump critics to throw a wet blanket over the summit. The doves turned into hawks and spent much of the evening trying to peck at Trump. Most of the people on the panel are apologists for this or that communist thug—just go back and look at MSNBC’s fawning coverage of Fidel Castro’s death—but on Monday night they played hardliners. Rachel Maddow, furrowing her brow as usual, objected to Trump even holding a summit. She has finally found a communist leader she thinks America should ostracize. When Obama met with the Castro brothers, she burbled with enthusiasm. But she covered this moment of historic diplomacy like a funeral, shuddering at the thought of North Korea joining the “community” of nations.

    MSNBC saw the summit as just one more occasion for obsessive anti-Trump fault-finding. The disgraced Brian Williams is still hanging around for some reason and looked like he wanted to give the summit the kind of newsy, anchormanish treatment of old, but he couldn’t pull it off in the company of jabbering Trump haters, for whom wild opining is all that counts. Plus, Williams is too reduced a figure for the cocksure Maddow to give any equal time. But Williams’s ego still asserts itself from time to time. On Monday night he fed it by asking one of the sham historians on the panel an arcane, look-at-what-I-know style question about the USS Pueblo, a ship the North Koreans captured in 1968.

    The utterly contemptible Nicole Wallace, whose smugness and nastiness are beyond caricature, drove much of the shrill coverage. She was at her whiny, know-it-all worst, droning on about Trump’s lack of “preparation” and so forth. But Trump seemed perfectly at ease, getting a stiff Kim Jong Un to crack a smile. Trump had said it would only take “a minute” for him to sense if the relationship between the two countries could improve. By that measure, the summit appeared to start promisingly. Normally such friendly gestures between an American leader and an adversary would warm the hearts of liberals. Not this time. The MSNBC panel looked on coldly and muttered suspiciously about Trump’s body language.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

    Remember how last year liberals were saying that Donald Trump’s statements about North Korea were going to result in nuclear war?

    Good times, good times…

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    Posted in Democrats, Foreign Policy, Media Watch, video | No Comments »

    LinkSwarm for January 13, 2017

    Saturday, January 13th, 2018

    Welcome to an out-of-band Saturday LinkSwarm!

  • Hawaii missile alert is a false alarm. Ooopsie…
  • The Gang of Six floats a terrible DACA deal.
  • Democrats are more worried about the color of immigrant’s skin than the content of their character. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Convicted felon running for Governor of Connecticut. As a Democrat, naturally…
  • Pamela Harris, a Democratic Brooklyn assemblywoman, was indicted on “four counts of making false statements, two counts of wire fraud, two counts of bankruptcy fraud, and a single count each of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, witness tampering and conspiracy to obstruct justice.”
  • Every county in Wisconsin has unemployment under 4%.
  • Waving an Israeli flag in Austria is now a hate crime. Insert your own “You know who else was from Austria?” joke here.
  • Feminists in a rage over something someone might say. So what else is new? (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • “Lasers are getting ten times more powerful every 3 years, soon Exawatt lasers will unlock fusion and more.” That’s cool and all, but practical fusion has always been 20 years away the entirety of my life… (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Houston man combines his two passions. Namely cooking and forensic pathology. By making really cool knives.
  • Ohio bans sale of some 600 brands of alcohol merely because they can. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Does Magic: The Gathering have a pedophile problem?
  • People travel to Waco to see reality-TV foxed-up homes. Problem: They’re still in Waco. “It’s a mansion surrounded by homes that are falling apart.”
  • Conservative author Matt Margolis temporarily banned from Facebook for sharing ads for his book The Scandalous Presidency of Barack Obama…even though he had already paid for Facebook ads for it. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Outstanding life advice from Will Smith: “Fail early. Fail often. Fail forward.”

  • Important Florida Man safety tip: Do not pick up frozen iguanas and put them in your car intending to sell them for meat, because they will thaw out, revive, and bite you, causing your car to crash.
  • It looks like the mothership has arrived:

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

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    Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | No Comments »

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