Menzo
1709
Not to mention Trump is in a position to do very powerful favors for those who donate to his campaign. Or stay in one of his hotels. Or join his country club.
Yep, that’s a super click-baity headline, and one that no one should really be falling for. It says Trump is “lapping the Democratic Field”, which by implication says that Trump is beating ALL candidates in the Democratic field combined, and by a large amount.
And then it turns out his numbers are slightly higher than Sanders and Harris’ combined totals.
But if you compare Trump’s $30.3 million haul (which has no compunctions about taking money from large corporate donors) and Democrats (who are mostly individual donors), here’s the breakdown:
Sanders: $18m
Harris: $12m
Buttigieg: $7m
Warren: $6m
Klobuchar: $5m
Booker: $5m
Gillibrand: $3m
Yang: $1.7m
Combining the rest of the Democratic candidates to that, and “the Field” of Democratic candidates have raised about double what Trump has raised, and at donation levels that are about $50 or less from individual donors.
Timex
1711
Trump is the GOP nominee… it’s expected that he’d be getting money, while all of the Democratic field isn’t settled.
Partisan donors are heavily based on beating the other team. Tons of folks aren’t giving money to the Democrats yet, because they don’t yet know who’s going up against Trump.
That being said, the fact that candidates like Buttigieg, who is essentially unknown, is already pulling the kind of money he is? That’s kind of a big deal, because he’s apparently inspiring enough interest that folks are willing to give him money so that he can be their guy.
Alstein
1712
Beto held a rally here today- so packed they had to cut off folks. Gives a clue about the level of excitement.
Wanted to make it but overslept.
Not to disrespect Beto at all, but I wonder how much of the enthusiasm right now is about any individual candidate, and how much is about wanting SOMETHING, ANYTHING to give us hope for the next cycle. I’d probably turn out for Triumph the Comic Dog if it gave me hope of Trump losing.
He’d kill it in the debates. “That’s a great immigration policy… FOR ME TO POOP ON”
Timex
1715
I would vote for insult the comic dog over Trump.
I finished Mayor Pete’s book a couple of weeks ago.
TL:DR Very well crafted book, of not that an interesting story, most of Mayor Pete applause lines come from the book. The reason its not that interesting of a story is I think many high schools in America produce the equivalent of a Mayor Pete every generation.
Nathan goes to great length to mock Pete description of him arriving at Harvard. Part of that is Pete’s writing style, he spends several pages describing his running route, complete with an entertaining description of the ducks on the route. It maybe a bit over the top, but it beats the shit out of “I use the best words”.
I grew up in LA, and went to Berkeley, which while a good school, and old for the west, ain’t Harvard in terms of prestige or history. .I remember feeling a bit awed, intimidated, excited, along with realizing that I’m in the big leagues and I could definitely strike out here… I suspect that unless you grew up In
New York, or Boston and your parents were Harvard alums I think most Harvard freshman have similar feelings.
The Buzzfeed article was a good one, if Mayor Pete is exaggerating South Bends turn around especially since overall IN did pretty well the last few years, he deserves to be called on it.
Oh, for sure. I’ll vote for the dude if he’s the nominee without batting an eye, and be relatively satisfied. Another neoliberal is certainly better than literally anyone on the GOP side, and it’s fun to make jokes about how he should get the Hong Kong Cavaliers back together, but man, I really want someone more progressive- Warren has my vote in the primaries, and I can’t imagine what would change that.
Point of information from personal experience. My daughter came to the UK from the US when she was five and a half. Five years of English friends and English schooling haven’t changed her accent. She still sees herself as American first; America is where she was born, where her Mum is from, where her Grandpa died and where her Grandma lives. She doesn’t want to change where she’s from or who she is, and so she doesn’t want to change her accent. So I realise this is completely irrelevant to your main criticism… but I do recognise that as a reasonable and understandable decision that a child would make.
Menzo
1719
Maybe it’s different for everyone. I live in Arkansas from birth to 8 and lost my southern accent very quickly when I moved to Ohio.
Understandable. I notice that Mayor Pete is pretty much the consensus choice for the Never-Trumper, so I can see how he would be suspect for the progressive wing of the party. I can live with Warren, I listened to her speeches when she was a professor. I liked Professor Warren much better than Senator Warren. Some of the things she said as professor will probably get her in trouble in the general. (I don’t remember specifics)
Timex
1722
The idea that Buttigieg isn’t left wing enough is kind of nuts, when you compare his started positions to… Every other president ever.
It’s like… Maybe don’t try to win the fight with a single punch, every time?
A guy who gets you solid progress in the direction of your goals is better than someone who just fails to get elected.
KevinC
1723
I agree it might be smarter to go for someone not as far left, but you have to look at it from the point of view from the more progressive wing of the party. Both Bill Clinton and Obama were centrists more than anything, so for the majority of voters there hasn’t been a left wing president in their lifetimes - only centrists as the Republicans have pulled the country further to the Right. For the left wing of the party, it’s been a long time of either having Republicans in charge or Democrats trying to appeal to Republicans.
Timex
1724
It’d be great to watch a debate between these two, but i doubt that will happen.
Miramon
1725
Weld won’t even get any MA delegate votes. The local party, such as it is, despises him. And they despise the current governor as a RINO, too, which makes one wonder how these people continue to get elected in a blue state.
RichVR
1726
Might this be the crack in the dam?
Way to go Republicans let’s challenge Trump, with a guy who is older than Trump (Weld is 73 vs Trump’s 72), and is pretty much the definition of a white wonder bread old school Republican.
If we are going to run a Mass. Gov. let’s nominate Mitt again. Mitt looks and sounds better.
Timex
1728
Trump is gonna be the nominee, no matter what.
But I’d to watch weld debate him.
