I’m not sure that’s a particularly useful measure. He was the Democrat running in what I’m given to understand is an old-school, Democratic-machine city. The council has 9 seats, 8 of which are occupied by Democrats. I’ll bet if you look back at the previous (D) mayors, they also won by large margins.
Timex
2053
Maybe, although he increased his margin of victory compared to his initial election, while running on his accomplishments.
It seems that among the population of South Bend, they like him.
Of course, that article was from before Sanders, Warren, and Biden turned their political cannons in his direction. Maybe they don’t like him anymore.
Gabbard seems to have picked up a heckler
I keep forgetting that she’s even running.
Biden’s in! Also, this made me laugh 👉
Banzai
2057
I would argue the exact opposite. Being a mayor is much closer to being president than the work of a senator. Senators are primarily concerned with writing and passing laws, have at most a couple hundred people working for them, and do not have to face the public often. Being a mayor means managing a city council (legislature), making policy decisions about everything from the economy to trash collection, and having to go on tv to support or drum up support for all of it. The scale is different, but the actual work is very similar. I’d take a big city mayor or governor over a senator any day.
I don’t see anything that indicates a ‘mixed’ result.
There are two marks against him that I can see, that you might be alluding to.
First, the South Bend rise hasn’t impacted minority communities as much as other sections of the city.
Second, the firing of the first African American Police Chief after he was charged with illegal wire tapping.
Outside of that, he seems very charismatic, thoughtful and intelligent. Now, I can understand how some might worry about his electiability, especially since his is out and openly Christian. That doesn’t always help with the left wing of the party, but it’s nice to see someone that can take the usually banners of the GOP and show hypercritical they are.
Governor, Yes. Big City Mayor, Yes. South Bend, that’s a bit on the small side.
I still like him a lot though. So far, he is my candidate of choice, but that may just be the Honey Moon period talking.
As @abidingdude mentioned, Biden officially throws his hat (and baggage) into the ring. Decent video;
KevinC
2061
Though that video was pretty great. I like him, even if he’s not in my top 5. Really wish he’d take a mentorship role for someone like Buttigieg or Beto or one of the other younger candidates.
He’ll make a great campaigner in the midwest, I think he’s going to have an important role to play for the party regardless if he wins the nomination or not.
MikeJ
2062
I get that there are reasons to make prison unpleasant, some mixture of deterrence and vengeance. However, I honestly doubt that any crime has ever been prevented by the would-be criminal’s concern over losing their voting rights. Taking away voting rights doesn’t contribute much I think to the misery of prison. I doubt many people who end up in prison took much joy in voting.
That’s an angle I hadn’t considered.
Regarding Biden: I’m not thrilled about his candidacy, but I’ll vote for him over Trump if he ends up the nominee.
Timex
2064
This is largely a self defeating argument, as it suggests that restriction of voting rights as part of the punishment incurred through incarceration isn’t that effective, because the incarcerated don’t care about those rights anyway. That’s not an effective argument for why those rights shouldn’t be restricted.
To take away a fundamental right, one that needn’t be taken in order to keep them in prison? Isn’t ‘yes’ the only reasonable answer?
MikeJ
2066
Maybe I am crazy, but I keep thinking that there needs to be an effective argument for why the right should be taken away.
antlers
2067
Perhaps we should have prisoners sit on juries as well. They’ve got the time.
MikeJ
2068
It’s a lot easier for a single juror with bad intentions to disrupt a jury trial than it is for a single voter with bad intentions to disrupt an election.
This is what I like about conservative moderateness. It’s so…authoritarian at heart.
Ehhh, I feel like I’m fairly progressive but it’s not clear to me that all prisoners should be able to vote. By jailing someone, you’re saying among other things that they can’t be trusted to be in charge of many of the normal aspects of life. Like we don’t trust them to handle their schedule, finances, feeding, movement, interactions with the general public, etc. etc. So it doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch to also not trust them to help make political decisions. There might be an argument that certain classes of crimes shouldn’t interfere with your ability to vote (e.g. low level and non-violent), but I certainly wouldn’t extend that privilege to all prisoners.
On a separate axis, it seems like a terrible idea politically. It would be a continual series of Willie Horton’s, as conservatives could point to the literal crowds of pedophiles, murderers, rapists, etc. that the liberals were allowing to vote and destroy this great god fearing country and come after your kids and etc. etc. etc.
