Wolfgang622 wrote:Bloomberg Hires Thousands of Canvassers to Stop Black Men On Street and Force Them To Hear Campaign Pitch

He was so eager to get himself into a debate. He's got it coming, and he's about to get it.

Who he can buy notwithstanding, the base of the Democratic Party - African Americans - aren't going to sit still for this.

Modified stop and frisk. Go with what you know.

JFLNYC wrote:

A national poll from NPR, PBS NewsHour and Marist released on Tuesday showed Mr. Bloomberg with 19 percent support among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, putting him in second place behind Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who had 31 percent. That was a substantial surge since the group’s poll in December, when Mr. Bloomberg received only 4 percent support.

Sure - because he has used his effectively endless fortune to blanket the airwaves with messaging coming completely from his side. Heard one on the way down to work today that tried its very damnedest to imply Obama endorses Bloomberg in any meaningful way.

Black voters, by and large, will not support him. And once the negatives start getting out, beginning with the next debate, his numbers will plummet.

reminiscent of what we said 4 years ago about the wealthy republican candidate

Bucky wrote:reminiscent of what we said 4 years ago about the wealthy republican candidate

Yes... but Trump was speaking a truth that was extremely, fervently felt by a large portion of the Republican-voting base.*

Bloomberg is speaking the truth of... who exactly? Elite white liberals who aren't really very interested in working class issues but like to virtue signal and want to protect their investments?

* - Not a real truth, but the truth felt by a certain group of people. The white working class man's Obama. Also the white middle class and upper class man's Obama.

jerseyhoya wrote:Commuting Blago's sentence

Let's go with Warren ahead of Trump for the time being

Am curious how you think Sanders would be worse at foreign policy than trump? Not trying bait you by any means here

thephan wrote:

Wolfgang622 wrote:Bloomberg Hires Thousands of Canvassers to Stop Black Men On Street and Force Them To Hear Campaign Pitch

He was so eager to get himself into a debate. He's got it coming, and he's about to get it.

Who he can buy notwithstanding, the base of the Democratic Party - African Americans - aren't going to sit still for this.

Modified stop and frisk. Go with what you know.

Stop and Pitch

On the other hand, some good advice for the eventual Democratic nominee, from Dan Pfeiffer of Politico:

Dan Pfeiffer wrote:The Democratic nominee needs to recognize that a lot of the voters we need see Trump very differently than most of us that populate liberal Twitter, watch MSNBC and listen to Pod Save America. According to polling and focus groups, despite a Cheesecake Factory's menu worth of scandal, they still see Trump as someone who represents change. Despite multiple bankruptcies and investigations into his finances, they believe that Trump's business experience makes him qualified to deal with the economy. And despite a plethora of plutocratic policies, they see Trump as a populist. Voters are not naïve. Outside of the MAGA base, most have a pretty nuanced view of Trump. These impressions can and must be changed - in some cases with only a modicum of new information. But only if Democrats run against the person these voters see, not the person they know Trump to be.

Insulting Trump and railing on about his corruption, or his intelligence, or his ego, etc., serves only to anger and thus fire up his base. Calling him names is like calling them names, the identification between him and them is that close.

Point out where his policies leave the people he claims to help behind, use his past record of doing that as essentially a general contractor in NY, and present people with a real, policy-driven alternative, not a virtue-signaling "Not Trump" who otherwise presents as a "steward of the economy." The voters think they already have a steward, and are more than prepared to look the other way on his virtues so long as things don't get worse.

We must show how they can be better.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/ ... ons-115340

jerseyhoya wrote:Commuting Blago's sentence

Let's go with Warren ahead of Trump for the time being

Still do not know why he would waste a drop of political capital on that guy.

Wolfgang622 wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:Commuting Blago's sentence

Let's go with Warren ahead of Trump for the time being

Still do not know why he would waste a drop of political capital on that guy.

Trump doesn't view political capital as a finite amount. He's the President, he gets to do whatever he wants and Blago was on his TV show.

asked about political capital, he said "oh, that's washington d.c."

@jeffzeleny
"I'm actually the chief law enforcement officer of the country," @realDonaldTrump says on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews, moments after announcing his decision to pardon Blagojevich.

Wolfgang622 wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:Commuting Blago's sentence

Let's go with Warren ahead of Trump for the time being

Still do not know why he would waste a drop of political capital on that guy.

Political capital is a foreign concept to Trump. When it comes to other politicians having an issue with his actions, the Democrats don’t have the firepower to stop him and the Republicans don’t have the spine to stop him.

His supporters fall into three camps: low information voters who aren’t paying attention, people who are so deep into the con that they won’t admit something he does is wrong, and people who are pretty much internet trolls who thrive on people they don’t like getting upset and then arguing with them.

None of these people can/will hold his feet to the fire and, in order to further entrench people in Trump-ism by getting them to dig in their heels and defend him, it weirdly benefits him to do objectionable bullshit.

Besides, he’s just trolling now. He’s doing it because he can.

JFLNYC wrote:Besides, he’s just trolling now. He’s doing it because he can.

See, this I believe, but I don't understand who he thinks he is trolling with pardoning Blago. As an honest person I do not like what he did, but I am not trolled by Trump's pardoning of a former Democratic governor as a Democrat.

I realize they were Apprentice buddies but I mean... does it really mean that much to him? I find it hard to believe Trump would do anything for anybody where he did not personally stand to gain, or at least not lose, and this would at best be a not-loss for him, as he absolutely nothing to gain by doing it, and it's much more likely to be a ding, however small, against him.

Gimpy wrote:None of these people can/will hold his feet to the fire and, in order to further entrench people in Trump-ism by getting them to dig in their heels and defend him, it weirdly benefits him to do objectionable bullshit.

I mean maybe I guess I could see this... maybe... but honestly even the Trumpiest of the trumpeters have a hard time with this one. I know because I asked a few when the idea was first floated. It flummoxes even them.

Unless Blago has something...

I really have a hard time parsing this. It seems so very odd.

Trump does not see corruption as a crime and he knows him from the apprentice. He thinks that a rich white man who was just doing what anyone would do with that office (in Trump's mind) got a raw deal.

“I did commute his sentence. So he’ll be able to go back home with his family after serving eight years in jail,” Trump told reporters. “That was a tremendously powerful, ridiculous sentence, in my opinion, and in the opinion of many others.”

Blagojevich literally tried to sell an appointment to Obama’s Senate seat.

thephan wrote:

“I did commute his sentence. So he’ll be able to go back home with his family after serving eight years in jail,” Trump told reporters. “That was a tremendously powerful, ridiculous sentence, in my opinion, and in the opinion of many others.”

Blagojevich literally tried to sell an appointment to Obama’s Senate seat.

and he withheld state funding for a children's hospital until the CEO made a donation to his campaign. It's odd that the guy who cares so much about corruption let one of the most corrupt politicians in recent history out of jail early.

Aaron Rupar
@atrupar
Trump on commuting sentence for Blagojevich: "It was a prosecution by the same people -- Comey, Fitzpatrick -- the same group."

Comey wasn't involved in the case. He was working at Lockheed at the time.

Someone persuasive must have got in his ear that the Stone stuff was bad, and this is an opportunity to make it appear he actually thinks prison sentences for political corruption-type crimes are too long and he'll forgive Democrats for it as well. Just not sure who the adults are left in the administration who convinced him. [/analysis]

I don't think it's the Stone stuff--maybe a little on the timing, but my understanding is he's been considering a pardon for Blago for awhile.