andym
andym's JournalPPP: Biden, Sanders, Warren, Franken, Booker and Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson all would beat Trump
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2017/PPP_Release_National_51617.pdf"Looking Toward 2020:
It's very early, but Trump trails by wide margins in hypothetical match ups for reelection. He does particularly poorly against Joe Biden (54/40 deficit) and Bernie Sanders (52/39 deficit.) There's significant defection from people who voted for Trump in November in each of those match ups- 15% of Trump voters say they'd choose Sanders over him and 14% say they'd choose Biden over him. Trump also trails Elizabeth Warren (49/39), Al Franken (46/38), and Cory Booker (46/39).
We also looked at Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson's prospects if he were to run for President as a Democrat. 36% of voters see Johnson favorably to 13% with a negative view of him, although 50% of voters have no opinion about him either way. Both Democrats (38/15) and Republicans (31/17) see him positively. Johnson would lead Trump 42/37 in a prospective contest, and wins over 15% of people who supported Trump last fall.
Public Policy Polling surveyed 692 registered voters between May 12th and 14th. The margin of error is +/-3.7%. 80% of participants, selected through a list based sample, responded via the phone, while 20% of respondents who did not have landlines conducted the survey over the internet through an opt-in internet panel."
How many people buy into the whole Democratic or GOP program?
Certainly core activists do for both parties. But how many people just care about a few key issues or even personality factors or party identity in a vague way and nothing more. Could it be a large number of people? I think it must be, given the complete party turnover from Democratic to GOP in the last 8 years. And the large movement in the opposite direction from 2006-9.
I think people on DU, DK and also conservative sites tend to overlook this political reality. But the vote manipulators like the Koch brothers have perfected ways to influence these people.
Also, this assumes there is a unified program, which for argument's sake I would think is close to the platforms of the two parties in the last Presidential election. Do people agree?
Thoughts? Anyone have any relevant polling data?
Optimism and the Democratic Party
When Democrats have succeeded in the last 80 years, optimism has been integral to our success. Optimism was FDR's calling card, and we heard echos of optimism in the Camelot of JFK, and in Obama's "Hope and Change" in 2008/9. The GOP has also succeeded by the same strategy with Reagan ("Shining City on the Hill"
being the key example.
Today, most of the political press centers on the daily outrages of Trump. The Democratic party gets much less press and some of that is counterproductive as highlighted by continuing coverage of squabbling among some Democrats about the future of the party.
What the Democratic Party needs now is to return to it's most successful strategy emphasizing the bright future of America, the power of collective action through the government to accomplish great things (like curing cancer), the promotion of both freedom AND equal rights for all. "America is great and we will make it better yet for everyone..." I think this requires remembering to inject optimism into political discourse by Democrats at the grass roots on upward to Congressional and Senate Democrats. And to inject optimism, one must feel optimistic that the dark days of Trump and the GOP will pass and that great things are still possible. Biden's Moonshot for Cancer is the best example I think of in the recent past of something that was both realistic and achievable in the not to distant future that almost all Americans (perhaps besides some folks like Trump who want to cut the NIH budget) would agree is worth achieving.
Two-thirds of Americans think that the Democratic Party is out of touch with the country
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/04/23/two-thirds-of-americans-think-that-the-democratic-party-is-out-of-touch-with-the-country/?utm_term=.dc0d1db65142By Philip Bump April 23 at 12:41 PM
"You might not be surprised if I were to tell you that a majority of Americans think that President Trump is out of touch with the concerns of most people in the United States today. Sure, he won the election, but a plurality of voters opposed him, and a new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that he hasn’t expanded his base of support significantly since then. You certainly wouldn’t be surprised to learn that there’s a broad partisan split on the question, as there is on nearly everything in politics these days.
Only 1 in 10 of those who voted for Trump in November think he’s out of touch — but 90 percent of Hillary Clinton voters do. Partisan views are slightly more moderate, with 20 percent of Republicans and 87 percent of Democrats holding that position.
When it comes to the Republican Party, the numbers are a bit worse. Sixty-two percent of Americans, and 30 percent of Republicans themselves, think that the GOP is out of touch with the concerns of most people in the United States.
But none of this means that Democrats are seen as echoing the concerns of the common man. In fact, the Democratic Party is viewed as more out of touch than either Trump or the party’s political opponents. Two-thirds of Americans think the Democrats are out of touch — including nearly half of Democrats themselves."
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I was surprised to see this. That the GOP (62%) and Democratic parties (67%) are both viewed as out of touch by ~2/3 of voters. For the Democrats 44% of Democrats say the party is out of touch.
The question is out of touch in exactly which ways?
Hope to find a followup to this.
A simple solution for Trump to end the Russian scandal
Trump should ask Congress to pass legislation making Putin a US citizen retroactive to the election. Then under Citizen's United, Putin would be well within his rights to legally manipulate the election to his heart's content, as many right wing billionaires and PACs are wont to do.
Perez and Ellison are actually friends. Make them co-chairs of the DNC
The DNC should be smart about this and in the interests of unity name both Perez and Ellison ch-chairs of the Party. Perez seems to have the backing of the some key people of the last administration, like Biden while Ellison has the backing of key people like Sanders and Schumer. Both candidates are progressives and want to shake up the Democratic party. Both have made valid criticisms of the last election and have specific plans for what they would improve. Since they like each other, they can split up the job duties and work as a team. The best effects of this would be to help heal the rift created within the party by the last election campaign.
The Daily 202: DNC chair candidates say Clinton lost because she talked too much about Trump
Source: Washington Post
With Breanne Deppisch
THE BIG IDEA:
BALTIMORE Every leading contender to take over the Democratic National Committee believes Hillary Clinton focused too much on attacking Donald Trump at the expense of articulating an affirmative case for holding the White House. During their final showdown before the chairmans election in Atlanta on Feb. 25, there was consensus that the partys problems derive mainly from subpar organization and communication not anything fundamental.
We forgot to talk to people, said Tom Perez, who was secretary of labor until last month and a finalist to be Clintons running mate last summer. Im a big believer in data analytics, but data analytics cannot supplant good old fashioned door knocking. We didnt communicate our values to people. When Donald Trump says, Im going to bring the coal jobs back, we know thats a lie. But people understand that he feels their pain. And our response was: Vote for us because hes crazy. Ill stipulate to that, but thats not a message.
.....
Buttigiegs goal is to be the second choice for as many Perez and Ellison supporters as possible. But his diagnosis of what went wrong in 2016 sounds a lot like Perezs. We spent so much time talking about the politicians, like thats what really matters, he said. I was guilty of it. I had a button when we were campaigning for Hillary that said Im with her. It was all about her. Then when we realized who the opponent was going to be, it was all about him. We said, Im against him because he is terrible. He is terrible. But the people at home were saying, Who is talking to me? Who is talking about me? Everything we talk about has to be explained in terms of how it directly touches peoples actual lives.
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While many of you know that Im openly gay, many of you dont know that I come from the lowest of the white working class, he[Ray Buckley] added later. We ran hundreds of millions of dollars of commercials telling the voters that, Oh, our opponent if offensive. When youre worried about your damn paycheck, about your job, about where youre going to live and if your kids are going to go to school, you dont really give a crap if the president is insulting. The reality is we didnt have a positive message for anyone Im related to. We didnt offer a message to my neighbors. We didnt offer a message to the people in Indiana or Ohio or Pennsylvania or Kentucky.
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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2017/02/13/daily-202-dnc-chair-candidates-say-clinton-lost-because-she-talked-too-much-about-trump/58a1023ee9b69b1406c75cac/?utm_term=.37f0144bb3d4
This is an expansion of the story in
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?comview_post&forum1014&pid1699043
which only discusses one DNC candidate, Buckley. They probably should be merged.
The author in this article discusses how all the DNC chair candidates have made the same point about the last election and how the Democrats need to take back power by promoting traditional Democratic values over everything else.
What "Draining the Swamp" really means courtesy of the Twilight Zone's "To Serve Man"
In the classic Twilight Zone, "To Serve Man," an eponymous book provided by generous aliens who had gifted mankind new technology to prevent illness, etc, when translated is actually a cookbook.
Similarly to most people "Draining the Swamp" meant removing corporate leaders, old style politicians, corruption, and bureaucrats from power. But in reality, Trump meant removing from government Democrats and non-partisan bureaucrats/experts/scientists, especially those with moral fiber as can be evidenced by the recent firings of the ICE director and Attorney General. Draining the Swamp is really a euphemism for removing Trump opponents from power.
Trump is showing signs of being an amazingly effective President
at transforming his agenda into reality. The thing is that many of his changes are destructive and will be irreversible. It's much more difficult to construct new legislation than it is to take it apart: the ACA comes to mind as well as Trump selling off public lands, or removing federal funding from PBS. Once they are gone, it will be difficult to recreate them, because legislation that creates something new usually requires 60 votes in the Senate-- the great wall of Trump being the exception that proves the rule.
In retrospect, the strongest argument that should have been made against electing Trump
beyond his obvious unpresidential qualities was the rubber stamping of the conservative agenda the GOP had planned-- especially against the safety net-- Medicare etc. The GOP had made very clear what they were planning. So few ads really emphasized this idea (some did), even though elected Democrats knew what could come if Trump won. Even Democratic Senate and House candidates probably did not publicize this enough as perhaps the key reason to reduce rather than add to GOP power. But the public, outside of politically active partisans, basically had very little idea what was coming-- and now they are in for a surprise.
