5629

Just curious, but what’s that based on?

5630

I haven’t followed her at all, but isn’t she a nutjob?

5631

Well for starters, to her, Assad did nothing wrong and is a bff to her.

5632

We’ve talked about Tulsi before. (digs around) Here’s a post I made about her on August 1st.

She finally switched over to being pro-impeachment-inquiry last month when the stink of opposing it in a thoroughly Democratic state began to stick to her. But she has concerns. Many, many concerns. And hey - look who’s praising her for being so very concerned about how mean the Dems are being to Republicans - the Washington Examiner again.

5633

Ah, thanks. Nutjob it is.

5634

Anecdotally, she seems to agree with Sanders on most positions I’ve noticed. I’m pretty sure she’s in favor of, for example, free college, ‘Medicare’ for all, breaking up the banks and large tech companies, and disallowing corporations to use the offshore tax loophole. She also seems dovish on foreign policy, reducing military spending and withdrawing troops and the like, but as others have noted, her interests in doing so are compromised by her pro-Putin and pro-Assad leanings. She was also a big-time homophobe and Islamophobe at one point, if not still (not to imply this mirrors Sanders, merely continuing to note her problematic aspects following the pro-dictator stuff).

Perhaps “appreciably to the left of Warren” oversells it a bit, but she’s definitely on the left end of the US political spectrum. I admit that, being a red, I was briefly interested in her early on given Sanders’ and Warren’s ages, but quickly soured for obvious reasons.

5635

Yes, that’s certainly true. It’s hard to place her on a spectrum. She seems like the left version of, well, Trump. A demagogue who sells herself with conspiracy theories, excuses dictators, and would be totally unpredictable in office.

5636

Her record is pretty much straight down the line Democrat, other than her stance on Syria. So I guess now I wonder what the strategy would be to get her to pull votes away from real Dems. I imagine there are people at the fringes who will vote for any third-party candidate, but there needs to be a narrative akin to Bernie’s last year that she has been treated unfairly.

Even then, she’d be running with the only real differentiator between her and the candidate being that she’s pro-Assad and thumbs-up on Trump’s move to get troops out.

I think I agree with Wallapuctus that the only way she works as a spoiler is if the nominee is Biden. She could certainly position herself as way more progressive than him and there could be enough Dems who are tired of the centrists to move the needle. It only needs to be nudged a little in a few states anyway.

In any case, let’s not forget that her Russian handlers are probably not super concerned whether this specific gambit works or not. They have dozens of operations active at any time. Funding a Tulsi third-party candidacy would be relatively cheap since it only needs to be effective in Michigan, Ohio and maybe a few other states.

5637

That got a reaction. Tulsi is now all-in, ranting about and running against … Clinton (yes, she’s pushing the theory that Hillary is secretly waiting to jump into the race.)

Yep, that’s what 2020 is all about - Tulsi vs. Hillary!

… I notice that in all that, Tulsi never actually bothers to, y’know, say anything about Clinton’s statement being untrue.

5638

Sorry for posting David Brooks, but here’s his latest column.

This part amused me.

I’ll have to look up who Bennet and Bullock are.

(Btw, he argues that the only correct way to vote in such a scenario is to vote for Warren).

5639

Yep. Weapon quality nutjob.

5640

Holy crap, how the frickin’ frick does this guy continue to get published? If Warren gets nominated, we should pray for someone else to get nominated? How the hell does that work? And then he says one of Warren’s downsides is that she could lose. Yes, because of “moderate” numbnuts like Brooks who have to think about whether they should vote for her or for the mentally disabled hate-fueled monster currently occupying the office.

He gets the right answer in the end, but how is this even a question??

5641

Effectively, and this is what and why “conservatives” lean into Republicans, is that they don’t think she “makes sense”, and that claims about socialism are effectively claims about competence.

The train of thought goes something like:

Clearly socialism doesn’t work and is an economic disaster.
Fox News says that Warren’s policies are socialist.
Therefore, Warren is hopelessly incompetent.

That said Tudor Holt Pickering’s recent newsletter (energy market investment group) took seriously the desire of the “leading” Democratic candidates to “end fracking” and claimed to have worked out the numbers of what that would mean in the near term: natural gas over $9 MCF and crude oil over $150 BBL within three years of a fracking ban.

Whether or not, in effect, that’s rather the point or not isn’t really their concern, but this is the stereotypical view of most conservatives. OTOH, the cost of energy really is the single largest driver of economic growth in the West. [OTOOH, from my point of view, never-ending growth as an economic requirement is the problem we have to confront head-on]

Things are better than they’ve ever been, there’s literally no way to make things better, any change will make things worse, things are always getting worse anyway, so best to enjoy things now and keep things the way they are as long as you can. Or this is how the worlds seems to David Brooks and his kind. But I do think it’s instructive to look at what he has to say even if you don’t really agree with in just because I feel he does reflect a certain point of view that’s prominent in well-educated, conservative people of his age group.

5642

I get what you’re saying, and re-reading what I wrote, I realize I sidetracked myself from my own point.

It is a terribly written article. His answer to what to do if Warren is nominated is to pray for someone else to be nominated. That doesn’t make any sense. Is he praying for time travel? And then his lamentation that she could lose is stupid, because… you know, he’s a well-known media figure. Instead of this mealy-mouthed hemming and hawing (which I realize is his schtick), he could just go ahead and give her a full throated endorsement, thereby reducing the chance that she could lose.

5643

I think his intent is to emphasize that he would vote for her despite the fact that he disagrees with all her policy ideas. And his article is structured to show how much he disagrees her, and yet he would still vote for her over Trump.

5644

This is a really funny rant from Tulsi because I don’t think Hillary ever names her?

Also, I notice Tulsi didn’t vote in the Syria resolution the other day. Strange, that.

5645

There are many variables in play- but I think any third party candidate will do terrible this year- they do better when people think there isn’t as much of a difference between the two parties.

This is not going to be the case in 2020.

Also, if Tulsi ran 3rd party in 2020, her career is over. She’d never get re-elected in Hawaii again. If she lays low she can stay in the house and maybe get a cabinet spot.

5646

His article spoke to me. I worry about Warren for two reasons first her policies and second she could lose. The Republicans won’t even have to lie to portray as a leftist, with many bad socialist ideas. There is lot I don’t like about Joe Biden, but I find it hard to imagine that he will lose to Trump. He is a moderate Democrat, both in policies and temperament, and for independent and Republicans turned off by Trump he isn’t near as scary as Elizabeth or Bernie, despite what the Trump campaign will say about him.

Rockman got it right, Brooks spends 2/3 of the column talking about the horrors of Donald Trump, and makes a distinction between having policy issues with Warren as compared to another 4 years of the Trump. I think your response proves Brooks point, the purity test by Democrats could somehow.lose this election.

If its a two person race between Biden and Warren, and the Democrats nominate Warren, I understand. Joe has a lot baggage, he is older than Warren and acts much older, She is also much smarter.But don’t kid yourself that her policies are going to be popular with the American electorate at large, especially don’t delude yourself that just because a policy has nice name like Medicare for all, and it polled well last year before anybody knew what the hell it actually meant.

There are lot of solid Democrats running this year, that will be much easier for somebody like David Brooks or myself for, and more importantly folks who reluctantly voted for Trump last time,to vote for them compared to Bernie or Warren.

5647

I agree with your first paragraph as well. But we are rare as hen’s teeth here.

5648

You can seriously go jump in a lake. If “not committing crimes on the daily” is a purity test, then yeah, go vote for Trump, since you prefer his policies?