On Twitter, free-wheeling Mandela Barnes called Trump a 'Russian spy' and rejected George Washington

[brooklynite]

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

"I would probably say I spend too much time online," Barnes, 35, said in a February 2021 interview. "I can be reading too, but I spend a little too much time online.”

But what's he saying on Twitter?

A lot. What we get here is an unvarnished and free-wheeling political candidate touching on a number of interesting and controversial topics over the past decade.

Early on, he demonstrated his liberal leanings by suggesting that progressives who move to the center are "compromising all integrity." He once jokingly referred to lefty U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, known by her initials AOC, as "my president." He imagined using the COVID-19 pandemic to revamp society.

"We should drastically reimagine society, our communities, and what quality of life actually means in a moment like this," Barnes tweeted in March 2020, just as coronavirus was starting to spread.

Barnes asked in November 2016 if the presidential election had been "rigged." Months later, the first-term Democrat declared Donald Trump, then president, a "Russian spy." More recently, he dismissed the notion that George Washington was one of the country's top presidents.

[JoeOtterbein]

1. K n R ! Thanks for posting!

We need him.

[jaysunb]

2. The future has arrived. Nt

[Poiuyt]

3. The future won't arrive unless he gets elected

And I'm not as optimistic as I was a few weeks ago.

[comradebillyboy]

4. I'd like to see him beat Ron Johnson but dissing George Washington

is political malpractice. His political skills leave a lot to be desired in my opinion.

[RockRaven]

5. Yeah. Being candid about your righteous opinions is great and all, but winning is better.

What's the use of being right if the guys who are wrong are the ones with the levers of power? Martyrdom? Fuck that. How about we WIN first and foremost, and keep the sociopathic party out of power?

[brush]

9. Agreed. Oppo research can kill a campaign. And the unfavorable stuff is usually found, then ...

released at critical times. Even if there's an argument for it, the Washington remark was best left unsaid. Washington was not the greatest general and the first president. He owned enslaved humans beings though, but didn't even free them upon his death, specifying in his will that the 317 humans he owned when he died, not be freed until his wife died.

Barnes should just keep quiet on issues with the first president.

https://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/slavery/ten-facts-about-washington-slavery/

[progree]

6. At least he hasn't advocated subjecting Social Security and Medicare to an annual vote by Congress

Wisconsin’s Johnson embraces controversy in reelection bid, AP, 9/28/22

Johnson [not Barnes, Johnson as in Ron Johnson(R) -P] has called for the end of guaranteed money for Medicare and Social Security, . . . He’s trafficked in conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and dabbled in pseudoscience around the coronavirus.

. . . [about Social Security and Medicare] Those comments caught Biden’s attention, with the president repeatedly called Johnson out by name, including at a White House event Tuesday, for wanting “to put Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block every year. . . . If Congress doesn’t vote to keep it, goodbye,” Biden said Tuesday.

Johnson also dismissed concerns about climate change, said that he would have been more fearful during the Jan. 6, 2021, riots if the U.S. Capitol invaders had been Black Lives Matter protesters, and advocated for unproven and untested alternative treatments for COVID-19, saying mouthwash could be one way to fight the virus.

Their race is one of a handful around the country that could decide control of the Senate next year, and the only one with an incumbent Republican seeking reelection in a state carried by President Joe Biden. It’s also shaping up as the kind of razor-close finish that’s become common in Wisconsin,

Polls suggest that a Barnes edge in midsummer, likely propelled by his emergence as key Democratic rivals dropped out right before the state’s primary election, has evaporated under a barrage of attack ads from Johnson and his allies. A Marquette University Law School poll in mid-September had the race within the margin of error, with Barnes’ unfavorable ratings increasing by 10 percentage points from a month earlier.

MORE: https://kstp.com/associated-press/ap-regional/wisconsins-johnson-embraces-controversy-in-reelection-bid/

Its the 3rd closest of all Senate races according to https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2022-election-forecast/senate
after Nevada and Georgia. He's behind Johnson by a 2 point margin.

Omaha Steve has set up a DU link for Barnes - https://secure.actblue.com/donate/duforbarnes22

From the link in the OP:

. . . 2010 campaign when he [Ron Johnson] claimed climate change was due primarily to sunspots

. . . his claim that mouthwash would kill coronavirus, his statements downplaying the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack

[DFW]

7. I know he won the Wisconsin primary and all

But it sounds like he is desperately trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Just because I despise Ron Johnson so much, I maxed out my legal contribution to Barnes, but it sounds like he is not overly interested in making great use of it. WTF? Who is his campaign director? Herschel Walker?

[progree]

8. These were all tweets before the 2022 campaigns ...

Last edited Fri Sep 30, 2022, 10:18 AM - Edit history (2)

sounds like he is desperately trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

It is disappointing that these tweets were made not so long ago, but they weren't made during the 2022 primary or GE campaigns AFAIK. From everything I've read, he has been cautious this campaign.

I didn't max out my contribution limit to Barnes, but Omaha Steve created a link when I said I would contribute $1,000 and that I wanted DU to get credited for it.

https://secure.actblue.com/donate/duforbarnes22

It's the 3rd closest U.S. Senate contest.

Wish as much energy was spent tearing down THEIR candidates.

Edited to AddThe primaries are fucking over, at least in Wisconsin.

From terms of service https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=termsofservice

Do not post anything that could be construed as bashing, trashing, undermining, or depressing turnout for any Democratic general election candidate,

Do not post right-wing talking points or smears. News media and the Internet are already awash with conservative propagandists attacking our candidates and our values -- we're not interested in providing them with another outlet.

Note there are no escape exceptions like "unless it's true" or "unless it's already 'out there' "

Note DFW - I'm not targeting your post with this and I wouldn't dream of alerting on yours. I'll leave it at that.

[DFW]

15. It wasn't specified that these were pre-campaign tweets

Otherwise, I would never had been as shocked by them. Thanks for the clarification. I have been in touch with his campaign by phone, and they obviously didn't mention any of this (nor did I). Again, I DID max out to his campaign. I'm not as close to them as I was to Russ Feingold, but they haven't remained strangers, either. They even indicated they would like me at the swearing in party, but I said, get elected, first. I'll be going to enough of them anyway, so I'll be in DC that day no matter what. But I'd be happy for his to be another.

I ALWAYS contribute by check, as I can't stand Act Blue, and will never contribute through them. I don't care if I get credited for it on some board or not, and if it takes 8 or 9 days for my checks to get to North America from here, so be it. What I DO care about is that the candidate I am contributing to gets 100% of my contribution, and not 92%. In what is bound to be a big money race, 8% of a campaign's budget can make the difference, although it would be a black eye to the voters of Wisconsin if they end up returning Johnson to the Senate. That this race is even close in the first place is shocking. Johnson is just about as bad an embarrassment to the Senate as a northern Marsha Blackburn.

[progree]

20. Thanks for info. I couldn't find a clear answer from googling, but is the $2,900 donation limit

per donor per campaign? E.g. could I contribute say $2,900 to Barnes and $2,900 to Ryan and $2,900 to Beto and on and so on? (Not that I would, I've been upgrading my donation amounts in recent years, but I'm nowhere near doing something like that!). Thanks

I had no idea ActBlue was skimming off 8% of donations. That really seems excessive. They always ask for a tip, so I'll remember to tip $0 next time, and certainly will strongly consider writing checks next time.

To me, the Omaha Steve links are more than just giving credit to DU -- sort of a visible fund-raising (hopefully, and I think it does, nudge people to contribute, and contribute more often)- he posts each contribution daily to each candidate in a separate thread in General Discussion. Lately, almost daily, I search General Discussion https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1002&sort=time sorted by time of OP, for "Omaha Steve" to see what's going on with a couple of individual candidates. Every one has the daily haul for all the candidates that got donations the previous day.

e.g. You raised $2,770.00 on September 30, 2022
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217212987

He usually posts those around 930 am ET.

[DFW]

22. The limits are per campaign, but primary and General are considered separate

You can donate to the two at once, so $5800 is the limit. If the primary is over, of course, then it drops to $2900. I'm sure all campaigns find a way to blur the lines between the two so that anything left over from the primary money can somehow be shoved into the campaign for the General.

By the way, Act Blue does not take 8%. They are not THAT greedy. They take 3.95% to be exact. At least that's what they took when I stopped using them, which is several years ago now. But they don't own Visa or Mastercard, so you have to figure another 4% or so for them, too. My greatest concern, of course, is what the candidate nets. In a high-profile campaign like Beto in TX or Stacey in Georgia, or, to re-introduce the name, Mandela Barnes, a drop of 8% of gross contributions can mean a huge amount of money that the campaign isn't getting. If some high profile campaign raises $5 million, and 8% gets siphoned off before the horses leave the gate, that's $400,000 that the campaign dearly would have liked to have had.

One mitigating circumstance is that I observed that fewer and fewer people in the States these days seem to be actually writing checks, and may not even use them at all. It's either online banking or credit cards. Act Blue just filled a niche that was bound to appear sooner or later. To give your contribution recipient 100% of your donation, you have to write out a check, put it in an envelope, get a stamp, bring it to a mailbox and send it off. With Act Blue, just click on a button and you're done. They were smart, and they reward themselves handsomely for it, but it IS easier, no question. When I stopped, they were also very sly, and sometimes automatically checked the "make it every month (or was it week? I forget)" box, and you had to actively UN-check it, or you were debited regularly, whether it was your intention or not. When I tried to get help in undoing that, they were very nasty and un-cooperative. I said, fine, we're done here. I'm sure not everyone there is like that, but it was enough for me, and besides, the 8% issue doesn't go away whether they call me stupid or nominate me for a Nobel Prize..

My wife, as an old-fashioned European, finds this cash-aversion especially appalling. She was in a grocery store in Cape Cod a year ago, and the credit card/debit card processing machine in a small grocery store had broken down, so they were accepting cash only. There was a young mother there trying to buy some formula to feed her baby, and she ONLY had a credit/debit card. She broke down in tears because she didn't even have $5 in cash on her, and couldn't feed her child. My wife rolled her eyes and gave the woman $5, and said don't bother to pay it back, but promise never to depend only on plastic in the future. In some countries here, the tendency is to all plastic. In Sweden, you are looked at as an exotic from another planet if you want to pay cash, even for a taxi ride or a cup of coffee. But in countries with tumultuous economic history and turmoil in their currencies (especially Germany and France, but also Spain and Italy), cash is still king. The governments want to stifle this, of course, since their control freak tendencies love cashless worlds where they can follow every move you make (as the song goes). Socialist East Germany collapsed under the weight of information their secret police collected on their citizens (all came out after the regime collapsed), and their information-gathering technology was stone age compared to now. A few years back, Cyprus was having a budget crunch, so they just electronically went into every bank account in the country, saw who had a balance of over €100,000 and helped themselves to 10% of everything. NO government is so benevolent that I would trust them with that capability.

[Dorian Gray]

10. Are you sharing this

bc you think Barnes is problematic and we shouldn't vote for him?

Bc as I see it, Ron Johnson is much more problematic, and I think we should post a list of his MOST problematic words, actions and beliefs.

Barnes is our candidate, and while it would be nice if this wasn't out there, it's not as serious as most of Ron's actions. We need to keep that in mind.

I'm all for holding candidates and politicians accountable, but not sure how we should be doing that here.

[scarletlib]

12. Absolutely. I have donated to Mandela. I hope he wins. This country has got to move forward.

[ananda]

14. Same. I also donated.

But he doesn't appear able to control a winning narrative.

I still hope he wins, though!

[Greybnk48]

18. Most of us here don't give a fat f84K what this right wing rag has to say.

I'm surprised this was posted on DU.

[xmas74]

21. But it's a good idea to know what the talking points against him are

So a plan can be formulated on how to react- deflect, counterpoint or walk away.

I'm originally from WI. My family is there. I hope to return in a few years once I'm in better shape medically. (I just entered remission and my appointments are every three months. Once I'm every six months I'd consider moving and traveling for appointments.) Anyway, these arguments against him are already out there. It's best to know about them and sometimes the best way is to read the rw crud.

[scarletlib]

11. Honestly, and i know I am out of step with credentialed Historians, I sort of agree with him.

I rank Abraham Lincoln as number 1 greatest President. He saved & preserved the Union in its hour of greatest crisis. Seriously how do you top that?
I rank FDR as number 2. Again a time of deep crisis for the country. He saved the nation’s economy, made needed reforms and preserved our Democracy. Then he led the Nation in the world’s fight against Nazism.
For me George comes in at number 3. He set the norms for the Presidency. Norms which we mostly followed until Trump came along.

[mcar]

13. He seems to be going down in the polls

Pity. This should have been a good pickup chance.

[DFW]

16. It still is a good pickup chance

With an opposnent as awful as Johnson, it should have been a runaway lock for us.

[Greybnk48]

17. the Journal-Sentinal is campaigning for the Republicans again.

We don't have a paper in Wisconsin that wasn't taken over by right wing media. Years ago they were gobbled up by Gannett, now I don't know who controls them (including M J-S), or what's left of them.

[newdayneeded]

19. Can someone explain the "no cash bail"

that Johnson keeps referring too? Everytime I see that, I think that they are spinning Mandela's words. That Mandela could've said no cash bail, where these criminals post bond and walk out of jail, but Johnson is spinning to mean the opposite.

What is Mandela's real meaning behind this statement?

!Also, Mandela should be running on a simple change based campaign. Simple statements like, "Johnson has been in the senate for years and hasn't accomplished anything. It's simply time for a change."