Howard Dean: Democrats Need a 50 State Strategy

Posted on December 3, 2024 by Erik Schneider

Howard Dean: The Democratic Party's 50-State Strategy Has Gone Into Some DisrepairSource:Grabien– The Beat With Ari Melber & former Governor Vermont and DNC Chairman Howard Dean (2005-09)

“Just to start this off, I’m a JFK Liberal Democrat. I’m a big tent Democrat. And if you think about it, that’s the only way Democrats have ever won any national election, at least in the TV era. John F. Kennedy had Liberals like himself, conservative blue-collar Democrats, Northeastern Progressives, and Southern and rural Dixiecrats. And he still barely beat Richard Nixon, who was the sitting Vice President of the United States, in a very popular Eisenhower Administration in 1960.”

From The New Democrat

And people are going to say that 1960 is not 2024. And I’ll respond by saying: “Well, water is not fire. But you are missing the point”. Democrats will never win a national election with just white-collar, new-tech, hipsters, who drink coffee all day, from their favorite coffee house. Mixed in with militant Socialists, who want to democratically take down the American, Federal, form of government, and replace it with some type of socialist state. There just aren’t enough white-collar yuppies and Socialists, for the Democrats to even win California, statewide, let alone with a presidential election and compete not just in swing states, but mainstream Democratic states like Maryland, Illinois, New Jersey. (Just a few examples)

So, I go back to 1960, but go up to 1992 and 96 with Bill Clinton, look at Barack Obama in 2008 and 12, Joe Biden in 2020. What these campaigns had in common, is that they were all big tent campaigns. I mean then Governor Bill Clinton won Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia, in 1992. Not just Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, all states that Kamala Harris lost in 2024.

Go up to 2008, then Senator Barack Obama wins Iowa, Indiana, Ohio, North Carolina, to go with the Democratic Blue Wall states.

4 years ago, Joe Biden wins Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia, to go along with the Blue Wall states and got real close in North Carolina.

And of course left-wing Democrats as well as people who I at least call Yuppycrats, are going to say that American politics has changed and the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are just not the same anymore. My counterargument to that is that it’s not so much that the country has changed politically. But it’s the Democratic Party that has changed.

The Democratic Party today is heavily dependent on big money, big, individual donors, who don’t like MAGA and want to protect the country from MAGA. And the Democrats have taken that money and perhaps haven’t replaced their grassroots organizations with all the individuals doing to the day-to-day, on the ground political work, but they’re more dependent now on big advertising, in big and mid-size media markets, and do a lot less on the ground political campaigning, while relying on big name, “hot celebrities”, the so-called fabulous people, to do a lot of their groundwork for them.

So this brings me to what I think the Democrats should be doing instead. As I said yesterday, America is still 35-40% working class. 70% middle class, which combines both blue-collar and white-collar workers. The most reliable voters in America, are people who go to work everyday, who work very hard for their money, to pay their bills. Hoping to put some money away, and trying to give their kids a better opportunity at life, then they had when they started out.

So exit polls from Statista indicate how both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris did with certain income groups in America:

“Exit polls of the presidential election in the United States in 2024, share of votes by household income
According to exit polling in ten key states of the 2024 presidential election in the United States, 46 percent of voters with a 2023 household income of 30,000 U.S. dollars or less reported voting for Donald Trump. In comparison, 51 percent of voters with a total family income of 100,000 to 199,999 U.S. dollars reported voting for Kamala Harris.”

From Statista

If you look at the Statista poll, only to income groups that Vice President Harris won, were people making under 30,000 dollars and over 100,000 dollars. Not what you would call high turnout, reliable voters, since low-income workers tend not to vote at all for multiple reasons and Americans who make over 200,000 dollars in America, is still fairly small to the rest of the country. Which gets me back to my point about Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden.

The famous bank robber Willie Sutton coined the phrase: “Go where the money is”. He was once asked: “Why do you rob banks?” With his reply being: “Because that’s where the money is”. Take that line of thinking up to a political sense and I would add you have to go where the votes are. American presidential elections are always decided by middle class voters and at least to a certain extent blue-collar workers. Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, never get near The White House (at least as President) without these voters.

And this takes me up to Howard Dean’s 2005-06 50 state strategy, but take it up 20 years:

“Watch: Dem leader who powered wins after Bush re-election on thwarting Trump’s second term…

From MSNBC

“Howard Dean: The Democratic Party’s 50 state strategy has gone into som disrepair”

From Grabien

Now, when I’m talking about a Democratic 50 state strategy, am I expecting Democrats to win back Idaho, Wyoming, the Dakotas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, and West Virginia? No, of course not.

But the last time that Iowa had a Democratic governor, was Chet Culver from 2007-11.

The last time a Democrat won the governor’s mansion in Missouri, was 2008.

The last time that Indiana won the governor’s race, was 2003. Phil Bredesen was a two-term Democratic Governor of Tennessee from 2003-11.

Kentucky and North Carolina both have Democratic governors right now.

Roy E. Barnes was a Democratic Governor of Georgia from 1999-03.

There’s fairly recent evidence, as well as current evidence, of Democrats not just competing, but winning in overwhelmingly, blue-collar states, that lean right on cultural issues, but where Democrats can play and win, if they focus on economic issues. The current Governor of Kansas, is Laura Kelly, she’s a Democrat, she was reelected in 2022.

The 50 state strategy is not about winning every single state and being the governing party in every single state at the same time. But instead it’s about shooting for the stars and seeing how many stars that you can hit. Aiming for perfection knowing that you’ll never be perfect, but doing that to see how good you can be, how close to perfection that you can get. Instead of what the Yuppycrats are doing now, which is raising as much money as possible, from big donors, in hoping of holding the Blue Wall and winning all the Deep Blue states, to be a governing party in America.

If you look Vice President Harris’s campaign message in 2024, it was mostly about freedom and opportunity. And you could argue that she made her freedom message too much about reproductive rights and let’s say non-straight people rights and didn’t have a broader and big enough freedom agenda, that included reproductive rights and rights for non-straights in America. And I would argue that. But her message wasn’t a far-left, big government, socialist and nanny state agenda.

The Vice President’s downfall was that she didn’t reach enough voters. Perhaps she didn’t ignore the Clinton/Obama/Biden coalition, that had both white-collar, as well as blue-collar voters, but she didn’t reach enough blue-collar voters. And it cost her and the Democrats the election.

You can follow me on Threads and Blue Sky.

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Tom Nichols: Why Democracy Is Not Over

Posted on December 2, 2024 by Rik Schneider

Tom Nichols: Why Democracy is Not OverSource:The Atlantic Magazine editor Tom Nichols.

Source:The New Democrat

“Americans who care about democracy have every right to feel appalled and frightened. But then they have work to do.

An aspiring fascist is the president-elect, again, of the United States. This is our political reality: Donald Trump is going to bring a claque of opportunists and kooks (led by the vice president–elect, a person who once compared Trump to Hitler) into government this winter, and even if senescence overtakes the president-elect, Trump’s minions will continue his assault on democracy, the rule of law, and the Constitution.

The urge to cast blame will be overwhelming, because there is so much of it to go around. When the history of this dark moment is written, those responsible will include not only Trump voters but also easily gulled Americans who didn’t vote or who voted for independent or third-party candidates because of their own selfish peeves.”

From The Atlantic

As my colleague Fred Schneider wrote about last December on a similar issue:

“Just to be completely honest and accurate: (not that I’m ever not completely honest and accurate) we don’t know what a 2nd Donald Trump presidency would look like. And besides that, he would have to get reelected first. And he might have to do that as a bankrupt and convicted felon, whose currently confined in prison, waiting on his sentence, after being remanded by Judge Tanya Chutkan. You can look at the polls all you want, but Donald Tump has a long, uphill, road to climb, before he even gets reelected again.

Having said all of that, I don’t want to wait and find out what a 2nd Donald Trump presidency could look like. I don’t think America can afford to take chance on him, because of what Jeffrey Goldberg and others have said. Which is why the U.S. Government, as well as American voters who love not just love America, but want to preserve and defend our liberal democracy, rule of law, and checks and balances, need to legally do whatever we can, to prevent Donald Trump from getting anywhere near The White House ever again.”

From The New Democrat

Tom Nichols literally wrote his article about what the next Trump presidency could look like, literally right after Election Night. And it appeared in the edition of The Atlantic that Wednesday. So maybe he wrote it on Election Night, thinking Donald Trump was going to win anyway.

Mr. Nichols would go on to say (and I’m paraphrasing) that Donald Trump and his MAGA crew are simply too old and stupid to try to figure out how to try to transform the American, Federal, form of government, with all of it’s checks and balances, (like any great liberal democracy) into a dictatorship.

And if you think the incoming Republican Congress is simply going to let President Trump get his way on everything, just look at the Senate Republicans right now, where Matt Gaetz has already dropped out, and Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, Bob Kennedy, and now Kash Patel are probably all under 50 votes right now. And House Republicans simply aren’t going to have the votes to give President Trump his way on everything anyway. They’ll start off the 119th Congress with just 217-435 seats.

As my father told me, who worked for the Public Health Service at the Food and Drug Administration for 29 years, before going into the private sector, the U.S. Government is simply too big, even with all the executive orders that President Trump could sign, to transform it into a dictatorship overnight. They would need more than just the Vice President, the Congress, Secretary of Defense, Attorney General, Secretary of Homeland Security, behind this Project 2025. They would need most, if not all the Federal agencies that are under these cabinet heads as well, a long with the workforce, which is around 10 million Federal employees.

As Fred Said:

“Having said all of that, I don’t want to wait and find out what a 2nd Donald Trump presidency could look like. I don’t think America can afford to take chance on him, because of what Jeffrey Goldberg and others have said. Which is why the U.S. Government, as well as American voters who love not just love America, but want to preserve and defend our liberal democracy, rule of law, and checks and balances, need to legally do whatever we can, to prevent Donald Trump from getting anywhere near The White House ever again.”

Donald Trump is such a big risk, because of his narcissism, his paranoia, his incompetency, his lack of government experience at any level, let alone the Federal level, that you simply don’t want a person like that to be anywhere near The White House, let alone President the 1st time, let alone back in office. But he’s 78 years old, he doesn’t learn from his mistakes, even when he privately admits them, and he might be too lazy to even try to make himself a dictator again.

I’ll leave you with one, positive, closing thought. The Democratic Party will be in much stronger position in 2025-26, then they were in 2017-18, the first time Donald Trump was President.

The Democrats only had 194 seats in the House at the start of 2017. They’ll have 215 at the start of 2025, with a House Republican Conference that’s even more divided now between MAGA and Never-Trump.

Yes, Senate Republicans will have 1 more seat in 2025, than they did in 2017. But it’s 53 instead of 52. And when House Republicans can’t pass anything on their own, that Senate majority won’t be worth much on legislation anyway. Especially with Chuck Schumer and the cloture rule.

Democrats only had 16-50 governorships in the states at the start of 2017. They’ll have 23 at the start of 2025. Democrats only had 19 state attorney generals at the end of 2016. They’ll have 23 at the start of 2025.

My point is that there will be a lot more accountability for the incoming Trump Administration, along with all those high-skilled Democratic, pro-democracy, private attorneys, as well as the Federal courts, to keep the incoming Trump Administration in check in 2025-26.

You can follow me on Threads, Blue Sky, and Twitter.

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Why The Democrats Lost

Posted on December 2, 2024 by Erik Schneider

Why Democrats Lost: Joe Biden & Kamala Harris

Source:PBS News– this photo is not meant to be insulting. At least not on my part.

“The Democratic Party is going to make a huge decision about the future of this party in February or March. Which of course will be deciding who will essentially be the leader of the party, since they’re going to be out of The White House again. And that position of course will be its next Chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

But before the Democrats do that, I think we need to look at why they’re going to be out of The White House for at least the next 4 years and why they’re going to be the opposition party again, as well as the minority party in Congress, and why there will even be an election to nominate it’s new leader. Instead of a President Kamala Harris just appointing the new DNC Chairman, while serving as the party leader…

From The New Democrat

I think the popular thing in American politics right after an election, is to jump right in and write your own article about what went right and what went wrong. Even do it that Wednesday morning, if not late Tuesday night (if we already know who the next President will be) and give your 2 cents (even it’s not even worth a penny) about what you think went well and what went wrong about the election. But I wanted to think about it and make sure I get this right. Plus, I literally had other things to do with this blog, like setting up pages for it, which took me at least another week after the election to do, so we’re ready to go completely again by December. And be ready for the return of President Donald Trump.

So I’m going to give you a few reasons why the Democrats lost The White House in 2024. It’s not all President Biden’s and Vice President Harris’s fault. But they’re both towards the top of the list.

Remember then citizen Joe Biden promising not to run for President in 2020:

“Former Vice President Joe Biden’s top advisers and prominent Democrats outside the Biden campaign have recently revived a long-running debate whether Biden should publicly pledge to serve only one term, with Biden himself signaling to aides that he would serve only a single term.

While the option of making a public pledge remains available, Biden has for now settled on an alternative strategy: quietly indicating that he will almost certainly not run for a second term while declining to make a promise that he and his advisers fear could turn him into a lame duck and sap him of his political capital.

According to four people who regularly talk to Biden, all of whom asked for anonymity to discuss internal campaign matters, it is virtually inconceivable that he will run for reelection in 2024, when he would be the first octogenarian president.

“If Biden is elected,” a prominent adviser to the campaign said, “he’s going to be 82 years old in four years and he won’t be running for reelection.”

From POLITICO

Even by October, 2023, it would’ve been too late for President Biden to drop out. But it would’ve been better than dropping out 6 months ago:

“Bill Maher called on Joe Biden to drop out of the 2024 presidential election, saying the 80-year-old incumbent is too old to run for president and likened him to the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The host of “Real Time with Bill Maher” mocked Biden on Friday night, describing the president as the “only democrat who can lose to Trump,” despite the men only having a four-year age difference.

“Someone has to convince President Biden that if he runs again, he’s going to turn the country back over to Trump and go… down in history as Ruth Bader Biden, the person who doesn’t know when to quit and so does great damage to their party and their country,” Maher said, referring to the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Ginsburg notoriously decided to not retire during the Obama administration when she could have been replaced with a liberal justice, only to die at the age of 87 in September 2020 during the Trump administration.”

From The New York Post

I don’t agree with comedian Bill Maher on everything. But when he’s right, he’s damn right. (You put that stronger) And he called it in October, 2023:

“The issue with President Biden isn’t if he will be replaced – it’s who will replace him.”

From Real Time With Bill Maher

To put it simply: if President Biden announced let’s say by April, 2023, that he promised not to run for reelection in 3-1/2 years a go to assure voters that he would pass the torch (so to speak) and because it was time “for a new generation of leadership”, the Democratic Party would’ve had a full primary season and Vice President Kamala Harris probably wins the nomination anyway. And she would’ve been my preferred candidate right out of the gate. And all those townhalls, those debates, those TV interviews, that she didn’t want to do this summer and to a certain extent this fall, all those things would’ve been taken care of during late 2023 and early 2024.

And it’s not just that President Biden broke his promise not to run for reelection. It’s why he did that is even worst, his lack of reasoning for it. He made it about the economy and that he was the only person up to task of bringing down the high cost of living. When the fact is he knew damn well that his background as a public servant is not economics. He made his carer in Congress as a foreign policy and national security expert. As well as criminal justice and the Constitution. Not economic policy.

The reason why President Biden tried to run for reelection, is the same reason why any other President who ran for reelection did that, because he wanted to be a two-term President. It’s almost embarrassing for President’s to not get the 2nd term. And probably feels worst when you don’t bother to run. Worst than that when you own damn party doesn’t want you to run for reelection.

And to set the record completely straight: my colleague Fred Schneider from The New Democrat argued against what Bill Maher was back 14 months ago and this was his reasoning for it:

“You can show me all the polls in the Democratic Party that suggest that President Biden shouldn’t run for reelection and that Donald Trump might actually beat him. But for me at least to even take those polls seriously, you need someone besides a professional conspiracy theorist, whose in the same age range and generation as both Donald Trump and Joe Biden, to not only announce their own presidential campaign, but show polling that suggests that they could not just beat Joe Biden, but then beat Donald Trump next year as well.”

From The New Democrat

And I agreed with Fred at the time. We thought 14 months ago that President Biden was simply the only Democrat who could beat Donald Trump. But then the debate happened and that changed everything for everybody. And to Bill Maher’s credit, he saw that President Biden was simply too weak at least politically, to beat Donald Trump 13 months before the election.

And then we get to Kamala Harris who for the most part inherited a strong campaign, as far as the organization, the people, the infrastructure, the finances. What she gave it, was energy, enthusiasm, and the only way I can put this but political adorableness, where she’s just so cute and sweet as a person, it’s really hard not to like her, if not love here. Assuming you are not a neanderthal jackass, who thinks that the only job that women should have, is to stay home and make their husbands happy.

On the downside, Vice President Harris not just starts off Election 2024 as an unpopular Vice President, with a approval rating at around 35%, but where maybe 1/2 American voters (depending on what poll you look at) don’t even know who she is, what she believes.

I was calling for on my Threads page back in July, that Kamala Harris needs to do a series of townhalls, maybe a week after figuring out exactly what kind of presidential campaign she wanted to run and do those townhalls in just the swing states in the beginning. So people, especially Independents and Republicans who didn’t want to vote for Donald Trump, as well as blue-collar Democrats who were considering voting for Donald Trump based on the economy, could get a good idea of who she and what here values are.

The Vice President doesn’t do any townhalls until October. It’s September with CNN anchor Dana Bash, before she does any network interviews at all. So it’s not just running for President late, which wasn’t her fault, but starting out real late in the gates to even do an interview, that I think set her back. And her first townhall at all was in October with Univision News and CNN.

And far as as the Harris Campaign’s strategy, it seemed to be about maxing out yuppy, white-collar, especially female, yuppy, white-collar voters, of all political backgrounds, including urban and suburban Republican women, to vote for her. And hope African-Americans fall in line, where they were even dragging with President Biden, who did so well with them in 2020. And as far as blue-collar Democrats, I guess they left that up to Governor Tim Walz.

According to the Roper Center

Barack Obama and John McCain split middle-income voters back in 2008. And then Senator Obama won the union vote with 59% of the vote. In 2012, according to the Roper Center, then President Obama won the union vote with 58 of the vote and they split the middle-income vote.

According to NBC News: “Biden won 56 percent of union households to Trump’s 40 percent, according to NBC News exit polls, doubling Hillary Clinton’s 8 percentage-point margin among the group four years ago.”

According to NBC News: “Biden won 56 percent of union households to Trump’s 40 percent, according to NBC News exit polls, doubling Hillary Clinton’s 8 percentage-point margin among the group four years ago.”

From NBC News

From Brookings: “The dominant post-election 2024 narrative is that Donald Trump’s victory over Kamala Harris was delivered largely by a multiracial working-class coalition. Backed by certain numbers, this narrative has many Democrats quaking in their 2026 campaign boots. For example, the exit polls show that working-class voters, defined as voters without a college degree, split 56% for Trump to 42% for Harris. The same polls tell us that white working-class voters favored Trump over Harris by 66% to 32%, and that Trump won a larger share of working-class Black and Latino voters than he did in 2020.

All true, but let’s put those numbers into historical context and then, starting with the white working class, dig into what the exit poll data reveal when you run cross-tabulations by education and sex.1

As I have documented elsewhere, after winning a 56% white working-class majority in 1984 with Ronald Reagan, the GOP lost the majority in the 1990s, then got back to even with George W. Bush in 2000 (50%) and again in 2004 (51%). Mitt Romney won 56% of the white working-class vote in 2012, followed by Trump with 62% in 2016, 59% in 2020, and 66% in 2024. That two-thirds share is impressive, but many other Republican candidates have done as well or better electorally with the white working class.

For example, in 2022, working-class whites broke 66% for Republican congressional candidates—the same percentage of those voters that Trump won in 2024. And several Republican governors who were not aligned with Trump won more than two-thirds of white working-class votes. For example, in 2022, Florida’s Ron DeSantis, who would go on to challenge Trump for the GOP presidential nomination before becoming his staunch ally, won 70% of the white working-class vote; and Ohio’s Mike DeWine, who received a congratulatory call from President Joe Biden the morning after his reelection win, received 72% of it.”

From Brookings

Left-wing, especially woke, PC oriented, militant, left-wing Democrats, are going to hate hearing this, but the fact is if you want to win a presidential election in America, you go where the votes are and get the voters who are most likely to show up and vote. The country is officially still 70% European racially and ethnically. More like 80% if you included Spanish Latinos who of at least some Spanish descent. As well as 35-40 working class of all backgrounds.

You can’t get blown out with working class European-Americans and then try to make it up with people who don’t tend to vote, like white-collar yuppies, young people, and African-Americans, as well as center-right Republicans, who don’t want to vote for you anyway. And then think you get these voters with the current “hot celebrities”. Who might just want the attention and money anyway.African-Americans will always be a major part of the Democratic Party. But they’re still 12% of the country roughly. And European and Asian-Americans still out vote them, at least on a percentage basis.

Hopefully tomorrow, I’ll have my 2nd piece ready for why I believed Democrats lost and where to go from here. But before you can rebuilt anything, (which is what the Democratic Party needs to do now) you have to first know why you have to rebuild in the first place and what went wrong.

You can follow me on Threads and Blue Sky.

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Tim Miller, Sarah Longwell & Jonathan V. Last: ‘Here’s What Needs to Happen’

Posted on June 28, 2024 by FredSchneiderUS

The Bulwark_ Here's What Needs to Happen (w_ JVL & Sarah Longwell)Source:The Bulwark talking about guess what.

Source:The New Democrat

“The Secret Pod makes an emergency appearance to work through last night’s terrible performance by Biden and to urge the Democratic Party to do the responsible thing in this moment.”

From The Bulwark

As I wrote about this yesterday:

“President Biden’s task tonight, is to show that he’s in full command, he’s doing the job, he has a record to run on and this is what he wants to continue to do as President, if just given another term. While at the same time he’s making the case that he’s physically and mentally up for the job and doing the job, Donald Trump as the Biden Campaign has already said: “Is only in it for himself.”

From The New Democrat

As my colleague Rik Schneider wrote earlier today:

“Just to take on 1 point first. The New Democrat is not going to get into what the race would look like, if President Biden literally steps down and releases his delegates at the Democratic National Convention. I don’t think that’s going to happen. Whether it should or not, that’s a different question. I’m just going to look at this as if the President decides to move forward, and what are the consequences of last night’s debate and where the election goes from here.

If there was anything good about last night’s debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, is that Mr. Trump didn’t add any new voters to his base. Even with all the baggage of the Biden presidency, mostly relating to the President’s age, and inflation, the Trump-Biden race was essentially in a dead heat. At least in the popular vote. Which tells me, as well as a lot of other people, that whatever problems they have with President Joe Biden, they don’t like Donald Trump.

What people don’t like about Donald Trump having to do with his self-obsession, his lying, his inability to stick to the same script, they got 100 minutes of that Donald Trump. The problem is that you didn’t have a strong, sharp, opponent, for the most part, there to point about all of Donald Trump’s lies and hold him accountable for that, with few exceptions.”

From The New Democrat

As my colleague Kire Schneider wrote earlier today:

“If think Jonathan Martin had a great line here when he said: “Joe Biden might not be able to recover. But Trump could still lose it.” Democrats, especially the Biden Campaign, need to always remember exactly who they’re running against and the actual threat that Donald Trump and MAGA represents and the threat that they are to the country.

The Biden Campaign, assuming that President Biden doesn’t step aside, has to go on the offense, after they hopefully successful pivot from the President’s bad debate by simply owning his bad performance last night, is simply pound Donald Trump, like you need a knockout to win the fight, or at least the last 3-5 rounds of the fight.

And while they are doing that, they’ll be able to do that with a lot of negative commercials about Donald Trump, not just from the debate but going forward and perhaps even with what DJT’s eventual vice presidential selection has said and written about him in the past.”

From The New Democrat

Just to go off what Sarah Longwell said: “I would be very disappointed after that, if Joe Biden decided just to continue to go on. It would be a very selfish proposition. And of course I’ll back him and do everything that I can for him. But I think it’s wrong. (Talking about Joe Biden continuing with his campaign) And I think there’s a consensus that can be reached. And people can go out strong with a consensus candidate that they can back.”

If you are wondering why The New Democrat is going with the center-right, Republican, Never-Trumper reactions to this debate, I’ll tell you anyway. We”re not Republicans at The New Democrat. But we are New Democrats and we are center-right, JFK/Henry Jackson/even Joe Biden even Democrats. We know what MSNBC and company is saying. You either have far-left Democrats up there saying that Joe Biden has to step down. Or Democrats trying to argue that the debate doesn’t matter. I’m not interested in that. And to their credit, even left-wing, hippie, Rachel Maddow talking about what’s the best move going forward, knowing that Joe Biden will most likely still be the Democrat for President. So it’s not all MSNBC arguing that it’s not a disaster for the President, or he should simply drop out.

And I don’t think there’s much point in talking about President Biden stepping down, until he actually does that, because it would be like debating what would happen if Donald Trump suddenly plead guilty to all the felonies that he’s facing. There’s not much point in talking about what it would be like if this happened, if there’ very little, if any possibility of it happening.

If you want to defeat Donald Trump, you have to go with the best available candidate, who has their party’s nomination for president, who has the best chance at defeating Donald Trump. And right now, for better or for worst, whatever you think of Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom, they’re not going to be the Democratic nominee for president in 2024. So we as anti-Trump voters have to decide what’s the best strategy for Joe Biden and company going forward.

I still stand by what I said about the debate yesterday. The President didn’t accomplish what he had to do . And we’re now even hearing discussions about whether Joe Biden should drop out or not as a result. But going forward, if you don’t want Donald Trump to ever be President of the United States again, you have to develop the best strategy that can be used to defeat Donald Trump, knowing that Joe Biden is the only person who can beat Trump.

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Tim Miller & Jonathan Martin: Unpacking Last Night’s Debate

Posted on June 28, 2024 by kireschneider

The Bulwark_ Unpacking Last Night's Debate (w_ Jonathan Martin)Source:The Bulwark talking about Joe Biden’s post-debate options.

Source:The New Democrat

“Jonathan Martin discusses the strategy behind Biden’s failed gamble and whether sitting Democrats would actually publicly push the president to leave the ticket. Sarah Longwell, JVL, and Martin join Tim Miller for the weekend pod.”

From The Bulwark

As my colleague Rik Schneider said earlier today:

“Just to take on 1 point first. The New Democrat is not going to get into what the race would look like, if President Biden literally steps down and releases his delegates at the Democratic National Convention. I don’t think that’s going to happen. Whether it should or not, that’s a different question. I’m just going to look at this as if the President decides to move forward, and what are the consequences of last night’s debate and where the election goes from here.

If there was anything good about last night’s debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, is that Mr. Trump didn’t add any new voters to his base. Even with all the baggage of the Biden presidency, mostly relating to the President’s age, and inflation, the Trump-Biden race was essentially in a dead heat. At least in the popular vote. Which tells me, as well as a lot of other people, that whatever problems they have with President Joe Biden, they don’t like Donald Trump.

What people don’t like about Donald Trump having to do with his self-obsession, his lying, his inability to stick to the same script, they got 100 minutes of that Donald Trump. The problem is that you didn’t have a strong, sharp, opponent, for the most part, there to point about all of Donald Trump’s lies and hold him accountable for that, with few exceptions.”

From The New Democrat

If think Jonathan Martin had a great line here when he said: “Joe Biden might not be able to recover. But Trump could still lose it.” Democrats, especially the Biden Campaign, need to always remember exactly who they’re running against and the actual threat that Donald Trump and MAGA represents and the threat that they are to the country.

The Biden Campaign, assuming that President Biden doesn’t step aside, has to go on the offense, after they hopefully successful pivot from the President’s bad debate by simply owning his bad performance last night, is simply pound Donald Trump, like you need a knockout to win the fight, or at least the last 3-5 rounds of the fight.

And while they are doing that, they’ll be able to do that with a lot of negative commercials about Donald Trump, not just from the debate but going forward and perhaps even with what DJT’s eventual vice presidential selection has said and written about him in the past.

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Jonathan V. Last: The Trump-Biden Debate

Posted on June 28, 2024 by Rik Schneider

The Bulwark_ Debate Night With The BulwarkSource:The Bulwark give their post-debate analysis.

Source:The New Democrat

“Come watch the first 2024 presidential debate with The Bulwark and stay after for our analysis.”

From The Bulwark

Just to take on 1 point first. The New Democrat is not going to get into what the race would look like, if President Biden literally steps down and releases his delegates at the Democratic National Convention. I don’t think that’s going to happen. Whether it should or not, that’s a different question. I’m just going to look at this as if the President decides to move forward, and what are the consequences of last night’s debate and where the election goes from here.

If there was anything good about last night’s debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, is that Mr. Trump didn’t add any new voters to his base. Even with all the baggage of the Biden presidency, mostly relating to the President’s age, and inflation, the Trump-Biden race was essentially in a dead heat. At least in the popular vote. Which tells me, as well as a lot of other people, that whatever problems they have with President Joe Biden, they don’t like Donald Trump.

What people don’t like about Donald Trump having to do with his self-obsession, his lying, his inability to stick to the same script, they got 100 minutes of that Donald Trump. The problem is that you didn’t have a strong, sharp, opponent, for the most part, there to point about all of Donald Trump’s lies and hold him accountable for that, with few exceptions.

President Biden did call Mr. Trump a liar and a whiner, multiple times, Trump said that they shouldn’t be childish on stage, the President called him a child right after that in response. The President said Trump has the morals of an ally cat. But what too many voters from the Biden Campaign’s perspective saw last night, was an 81 year old man, who struggles to get his words and thoughts out of his mouth.

I think what we may see from the debate last night, is two politicians who had bad nights at least as far as being able to communicate to new voters.

In President Biden’s case, he has now his own voters worried about whether he can still win at this point. But maybe the popular vote polling stays about the same, because you still have 1-5 Republicans who still don’t want to vote for Donald Trump again. And Independents saying they’re not ready to vote for the President yet, but they still don’t like Donald Trump either.

So maybe Donald Trump remains the favorite to win in November, or the election leans in his direction, but he hasn’t added any new voters beyond his base and Republicans holding their noses and deciding to vote for him again anyway. But I think this could be the best case scenario for Joe Biden.

The other scenario is, Independents are now saying that they don’t like Donald Trump. But they don’t think Joe Biden is up for the job physically or mentally. And therefor they’re going to vote for Trump and perhaps hope that our governmental institutions are strong enough to hold him accountable and prevent a Donald Trump dictatorship. Or as at least one person on this Bulwark show: “Maybe American voters now want a dictator.”

I think going forward, the next few days, the weekend and even next week are very important for Joe Biden. He and Vice President Kamala Harris have to be out there and out in public a lot over the next 7-10 days.

A longtime Republican strategist Cheri Jacobus on Threads said today that President Biden needs to be doing a series of network town halls right now out there, taking questions, speaking to the voters to try to convince these voters that he’s still up for the job and can still do a good job. That along with getting Vice President Harris out a lot more, doing a lot more TV, more campaign rallies, perhaps even town halls on her own, I think is the best post-debate advice that anyone can give this campaign.

As well as what Michael Steele said on MSNBC last night: “The President needs to own his debate performance and not try to deny it, or act like it was better than what everyone else saw.”

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John King: ‘What to Watch For in the Biden-Trump Debate’

Posted on June 27, 2024 by FredSchneiderUS

CNN_ What to Watch For in the Biden-Trump DebateSource:CNN with a little analysis about the debate.

Source:The New Democrat

“With less than five months until the election, the stakes are high as President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump make their pitch to voters on key issues such as immigration and the economy.”

From CNN

This is what I said about this debate on Tuesday:

“Anderson Cooper had a panel last week on CNN talking this upcoming debate as well. And Democratic political analyst Paul Begala had the perfect point here when he said Joe Biden should say: “I’m in it for you. Donald Trump is in it for himself.”

And what I believe that means is Donald Trump is simply running for President again, to stay out of prison. He doesn’t get his immunity from the U.S. Supreme Court, he loses the presidential election, he’ll become the political and legal version of the goldfish out of water, right in front of hungry kitty cat. He’ll be completely exposed and there won’t be anything that anyone can do about that to bail him out, until he’s convicted again, at least once, probably in 2025.”

From The New Democrat

To John King’s point first about which presidential election this feels like: he said it feels like 1992. In 1992, then Governor Bill Clinton, even though the country was just recovering from a recession, dealing with a high budget deficit, high unemployment, high interest rates, high inflation, even with real 2% economic growth, but Governor Clinton needed Ross Perot’s 20% of the popular vote to defeat incumbent President George H.W. Bush, whose approval rating at the time was also in the high 30s, low 40s. This is a two-man race in 2024. Robert F. Kennedy JR. can’t even get into the debates right now. It’s just a matter if he will be able to get enough votes to hurt either of the major candidates or not.

This feels more like 2012 for me. In 2012, 8% unemployment, the economy growing at around 1%, at least in the 1st two quarters, President Barack Obama’s approval rating in the mid 40s. But, we had a Tea Party led House of Representatives and Senate Republican within position of winning back the Senate, and the Republican Party nominating someone who was basically stuck in between a Tea Party populist and a center-right, establishment Republican, leaving too many voters for Mitt Romney wondering who is this guy.

I think 2024 is different from 1992 and 2012 , at least in this sense. The country knows what it’s like to have Joe Biden as President of the United States. They also know what it’s like to have Donald Trump as President of the United States. And to go back to what John King said on Anderson Cooper 360 last night, where he said this election is about whether you want to keep the same car, or buy a new one, as Keisha Lance-Bottoms, who was on the same show with John King last night said: “Donald Trump is not a new car. He’s a used car.” Americans already know what it’s like to have Donald Trump as President.

As Phill Mattingly was essentially saying on this show, American voters like Joe Biden, at least when they see him and to get to hear him speak. And as Republican political strategist Sarah Longwell, whose one of the founding members of The Bulwark Podcast said on CNN a couple weeks ago, American voters outside of MAGA do not like Donald Trump personally or as President. He was always in the upper 30s, to mid 40s in approval, only got 45% of the voter total between 2016 and 2020.

President Biden’s task tonight, is to show that he’s in full command, he’s doing the job, he has a record to run on and this is what he wants to continue to do as President, if just given another term. While at the same time he’s making the case that he’s physically and mentally up for the job and doing the job, Donald Trump as the Biden Campaign has already said: “Is only in it for himself.”

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Eddie Muller & Paula Zahn: The Barbara Graham Story

Posted on June 27, 2024 by kireschneider

Classic Couple: Exclusive Interview_ Eddie Muller on True Crime - Classic CoupleSource:Classic Couple look at the Barbara Graham story that was featured on Turner Classic Movies last year.

Source:The New Democrat

“On Monday night, January 9, 2023, TCM programming focuses on True Crime. TCM host Eddie Muller will be joined by journalist and newscaster Paula Zahn for the special prime-time programming.

Paula Zahn brings to the discussion her work on On the Case With Paula Zahn an American documentary and news program broadcast on Investigation Discovery since October 18, 2009. The program, now in its 25th season, explores in-depth stories of crime mysteries and interviews with involved individuals, closest to the cases and includes expert analysis. Find where to watch On the Case With Paula Zahn here. Eddie Muller brings to the discussion his expertise as an author, move historian, film restorer, film festival programmer and founder of the Film Noir Foundation, which is dedicated to preserving America’s film noir heritage.”

From Classic Couple

“Henry Graham was addicted to illegal drugs and known as a hardened but low-level criminal. Through him, Barbara met his friends Jack Santo and Emmett “The Weasel” Perkins, both with criminal records. She started an affair with Perkins, who told her about a 64-year-old widow, Mabel Monohan,[7] who was alleged to keep a large amount of cash and jewelry in her home in Burbank, California.

Monohan was a retired vaudeville performer who had previously worked the Keith-Albee circuit. Her ex-son-in-law was 74-year-old Luther B. Scherer (1879–1957), a multi-millionaire who was well known through his ownership of various gambling clubs in locations such as Palm Springs and casinos in Las Vegas. It is speculated that he had deep ties to various crime syndicates. Monahan’s daughter Iris had divorced Scherer two years prior and received the Burbank residence in the divorce settlement. Iris shortly thereafter married a different man and moved to New York, leaving her mother, Mabel Monohan, to reside in their former home. Monohan and Scherer had remained close friends after the divorce and their continued friendship piqued public interest, gossip, and rumors that would later prove deadly.[8] One rumor that was widely circulated amongst criminals and in local bars was that Scherer, due to his deep trust of Monohan, had left $100,000 ($1,044,292 value in 2022) cash stashed in a safe within the residence.”

From Wikipedia

I saw I Want To Live with Hollywood Goddess Susan Hayward, playing Barbara Graham, who definitely was a compulsive liar and career criminal.This was part of TCM’s month long series about true crime films, with this film being one of them. And their Film Noir expert Eddie Muller hosted this series and had true crime journalist Paula Zahn as one of his guest on this series to talk about this movie.

To give you an example of how weak the case against Barbara Graham was: imagine if Donald J. Trump was only convicted based on the testimony of Michael Cohen. For me, Donald Trump is a career criminal an conman, who until recently, was never caught committing any felonies. But Cohen alone, especially with his track record as a liar himself, wouldn’t have been enough to get a credible conviction of Trump.

Barbara Graham was basically convicted on the testimony of one of her co-defendants, William Upshaw, who was also a convicted felon. And that’s the point that Paula Zahn was making here. And not just the weak case against Graham for 1st degree murder, but they gave her the death penalty based on a weak case.

California for the last 30 years, maybe longer, has gotten the reputation has being a very hippie, left-wing state. A place where all the social radicals and left-wing political radicals can feel at home and as part of the mainstream. The official nickname of California is the People’s Republic of California.

But in the 1950s, California, except of perhaps San Francisco and the broader San Francisco area, fit in very well with 1950s, Leave it to Beaver, Father Knows Best, Phyllis Schlafly’s and Pat Buchanan’s culturally collectivist America, where every “real American” was supposed to be the same and believe in the same things. Not that difficult to get 1st degree murder convictions back then.

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Jack Hunter: Conservatism & Libertarianism

Posted on June 27, 2024 by Rik Schneider

Young Americans For Liberty_ JACK HUNTER_ CONSERVATISM WITHOUT LIBERTARIANISM_Source:Young Americans For Liberty featuring conservative blogger Jack Hunter.

Source:The New Democrat

“JACK HUNTER: CONSERVATISM WITHOUT LIBERTARIANISM?”

From Young Americans For Liberty

“Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology, which seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values.[1][2][3] The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilisation in which it appears.[4] In Western culture, depending on the particular nation, conservatives seek to promote and preserve a range of institutions, such as the nuclear family, organised religion, the military, the nation-state, property rights, rule of law, aristocracy, and monarchy.[5] Conservatives tend to favour institutions and practices that enhance social order and historical continuity.”

From Wikipedia

“Libertarianism (from French: libertaire, itself from the Latin: libertas, lit. ’freedom’) is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value.[1][2][3][4] Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, emphasizing equality before the law and civil rights to freedom of association, freedom of speech, freedom of thought and freedom of choice.[4][5] Libertarians are often skeptical of or opposed to authority, state power, warfare, militarism and nationalism, but some libertarians diverge on the scope of their opposition to existing economic and political systems. Various schools of libertarian thought offer a range of views regarding the legitimate functions of state and private power. Different categorizations have been used to distinguish various forms of Libertarianism.[6][7] Scholars distinguish libertarian views on the nature of property and capital, usually along left–right or socialist–capitalist lines.[8] Libertarians of various schools were influenced by liberal ideas.”

From Wikipedia

I’ll get into what Jack Hunter said as well. But if you look at the Wikipedia definition of conservatism, that basically looks like the opposite of MAGA. Show me I’m wrong, if you disagree with that.

Think about it, MAGA and the broader, right-wing national movement, is always talking about blowing up the system and taking down the establishment. Not that different in language from what the New Left Socialists and Communists were talking about in the late 1960s and early 70s. The difference being that the New Left was talking about taking down “The Man” and replacing it with some type of socialist state.

Whereas MAGA, would take down the U.S. Government (if their militants had their way) and replace it with some type of nationalistic state, where “The Man” or the men would be back in charge, ruling over everyone else.

If you look at conservatism in it’s classical sense, you look at the Calvin Coolidge’s, the Robert Taft’s, the Barry Goldwater’s, conservatism is very similar to what Jack Hunter is talking about. Government, especially the national government, should be very limited in what it does and only do what the states, localities, and the people can’t do for themselves, or do well enough for themselves. So that’s national security, foreign policy, trade, regulating interstate commerce, and interstate law enforcement. With everything else, including education, social welfare, marriage, gambling, entertainment, reproductive rights, being left up to the states or the people themselves. So in that sense I agree with Jack Hunter.

But conservatism in its original form, is about conserving. I mean that’s what it means to be a Conservative, you are someone who believes in conserving. Conserving a certain form of government, like our liberal democratic republic, a certain way of life, like our western liberal democratic values, conserving religious freedom, and all of our individual rights.

And then you look at libertarianism, again in it’s classical form, not the Anarcho-Libertarians, or the so-called Libertarian Populists like the Alex Jones’s and others, classical Libertarians put the rights of the individual and individual freedom, over everything else, including public safety. Which is why Libertarians believe that all narcotics should be legal, that even drunk driving should be legal. No speed limits, no age requirements when someone should be allowed to smoke and drink alcohol, that sort of thing.

So I agree with Jack Hunter that Conservatives and Libertarians are very similar when it comes to individual rights, limited government, that government closest to home is the best government, that sort of thing. But Conservatives put limits on individuals when it comes to public health and safety.

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Harry Litman: ‘Judge Merchan Makes HUGE Decision Before Sentencing Donald Trump’

Posted on June 26, 2024 by FredSchneiderUS

Talking Feds With Harry Litman_ Judge Merchan Makes HUGE Decision Before Sentencing Donald TrumpSource:Talking Feds With Harry Litman talking about Judge Juan Merchan’s partial lifting of Convicted Felon Don’s gag order.

Source:The New Democrat

“Judge Merchan partially lifted a gag order on Trump yesterday while still maintaining some crucial provisions. Harry explains why this is significant.”

From Talking Feds With Harry Litman

This might sound sick, so bare with me: but I don’t mean to sound the death row inmate whose trying to convince his guard that he’s actually innocent and shouldn’t be executed tomorrow night, but I’m actually not a lawyer. I’m just going off the information from what I’ve read and seen from people who are not just real lawyers, but accomplished lawyers as well.

I just don’t want people to take my observations here as legal observations here. They’re at best like observations from legal affairs correspondents who don’t have law degrees. But even there I’m relying on those folks information and observations as well.

I think the lifting of gag order could be a problem for Donald J. Trump. Why do I say that? Anyone whose watched any police documentaries, or followed any high profile case, knows the phrase: “Anything that you say can and will be held against you in a court of law.”

If Convicted Felon Don uses this order to put anyone whose involved in this case, life, or physical safety in jeopardy, either directly or indirectly, like trying to get someone else to do that for him, or reposting what one of his militants said about someone whose directly involved in this case, those words could come back in directly hurting Donald Trump here. And Judge Juan Merchan could use DJT’s own words against him when rendering his sentence here.

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