Which may be entirely due to name recognition rather than agreement with the idea of compromising with Republicans.
Enidigm
4281
I’ve said Harris is going to be a tough sell to many people offline because there’s no easy way to square being a Prosecutor with being a Democrat when so many Democrats today more or less believe the criminal justice is discriminatory and unfair at best. It’s just that on paper she has all the “bring all the boys to the yard” checkpoints that seemingly triangulate her as the best possible current candidate.
It’s why i thought it so strange she was target #1 by the moderators for a good hour+ during the last debates, when frankly everyone should have been gunning for the front runner Biden.
IE the debate was set up in such a way as to ask, in essence “Why should you move to the front runner when you have all these negatives?” instead of “Why should Biden remain the front runner with all these negatives we enumerate now?”
Oghier
4284
I’m not too worried about clown candidates like Williamson in the media spotlight, or this cycle’s Jill Stein (Gabbard) factoring into the results. Trump will unite Democrats well enough.
David Brooks.
So he’s a paid troll now?
Clay
4286
He always has been, from my perspective.
Shorter David Brooks: it’s all the Dems’ fault that Republicans have no morals or decency. So clearly they must appoint a person David Brooks would normally dismiss as a loon to lead them, because morals.
Enidigm
4288
Eh, I know every contemporary liberal hates David Brooks but i think he’s all right. He’s said enough over the years that i’m sure you can find examples of him saying the wrong thing but unlike most (virtually all) conservative pundits today i think his heart is in the right place.
Enidigm
4289
That’s not what he’s saying really - he’s appealing to the Democrats to save the unity of the country when conservatives not only can’t but see no need to.
He’s just aware - and i think he’s more right than wrong - that policy debates are neither the crisis of the moment nor the solution. Policy is at the heart of what most worry contemporary Democrats though, not “grand ideals”.
No, I can’t really grasp that view at all. Sorry.
Hearing that Hickenlooper is going to leave the presidential race and declare for the Senate race in Colorado to unseat Gardner.
Which is awesome news, if true.
Indeed, that is a race I think he should easily win.
I mean, if anything Cory Gardner has spent the last year essentially doing “What would Dean Heller do here?” in a state that is far more blue than Dean Heller’s was in 2018.
Ok I’ll bite.
Paraphrasing Willimanson, “wonkiness won’t solve the dark underbelly that plagues our Nation.”
Given the staggering stakes of this next election, arguing over policy minutiae (e.g. M4A v M4A who want it) does seem to be missing the boat a bit.
The problem is, if Democrats start talking about the election in broad moral tones, then they’ll get accused of “identify politics” and “ignoring the concerns of the (virtuous) Mid West voter.” Yet when they do discuss strategies to combat economic stagnation, they get chided that no one cares about policy and you need to be inspirational - or everyone’s favorite, that their policy proposals will usher in a new era of Chavez-inspired socialism. (If you’re lucky enough to be anything like she-who-shall-not-be-named, then you are taken out of context and accused of dismissing ‘white working class’ voters.) If they confront trump they’ll get accused of not standing for anything. If they start standing for anything they’ll get accused of standing for the wrong things.
As dumb as that sounds, that’s what if feels like reading stories from major outlets these days.
Matt_W
4295
No. Oh god no. He’s a charlatan and a hack and a hypocrite. He literally has no expertise and his whole job is to act as the NYT’s pet conservative continuously spouting his 800 words of “Republicans may be slavering lunatics who want to burn the world down and masturbate in the ashes, but on the other hand Democrats called someone racist that one time.”
Enidigm
4296
Yea, sure, but literally there isn’t anyone, other than Biden, that they can nominate that won’t get tarred and feathered by the media today, the way it’s set up now. Media is terrified of going all-in on an anti-Trump position and so let that overton window get shifted by the grossness of Trumpism and the current GOP just by default, and however appalled they may be, they’re unwilling to accidentally go too far and cause their networks to fold. And even today the media is doing the heavy lifting to dig up enough dirt on Biden that Trump is going to crow about “BIDEN SUPPORTED SEGREGATION” and “DEMOCRATS SUPPORTED SEGREGATION” and how he’s the only non-racist President ever, however nonsensical it is on its face.
So, i’m not worried about what could’ve would’ve should’ve been said because of potential accusations.
Brooks is kind of opining for the opposite of the Instrumentalist approach everyone with a brain is thinking right now. Of course it’s all well and good to be an ideologue if you lose the battle and the war if you’re sitting on the winning side. But the FOX crowd hates him, so he’s got that going for him. “The Canadian Socialist Liberal Hack Brooks” according to them.
Enidigm
4297
I mean he is their pet conservative, but it’s hardly like the NYT hasn’t skewed toward the “center as imagined by East Coast liberals” in recent years.
I just think it’s a matter of distance - they’re far more likely to be sympathetic, or maybe not just directly, outwardly antagonistic - toward “traditional” conservativism and probably, if anything, see propping up Brooks as a rather minor counterweight to the juggernaut of FOX et al worth his invoice.
Anyway i used to watch him on News Hour, and he’s been coming back to News Hour recently - I think he’s been waiting for Mark Shields to take a well deserved break, as he’s been seeming pretty old in recent months/years. Last time i saw him as a “counterweight” to Shields it was hardly a “debate” with both agreeing with each other how horrible Trump was, and frankly he was able to do more heavily lifting than Shields.
