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| I think the answer's obvious, so I'll talk about the ones I've noticed so far. by Mischief Maker 04/06/2019, 9:48am PDT | ||||
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| TL;DR: *points finger high in the air* Bernie Sanders, *points finger at eye-level* Elizabeth Warren, *dismissively waves hand at the floor* all the rest of them.
Sanders and Warren are the only two candidates that have actually shown willingness and taken action in the past against big banks and tech monopolies and that's why I put them in a class separate from all the rest. I prefer Sanders because he's more politically aggressive (2016 was supposed to be Warren's year to run, but she blinked) and he doesn't allow himself to get sidetracked by Trump's childish nicknames (Pocahontas!) He's the only candidate that seems to understand that to get any progressive legislation passed, we're going to need to have a grassroots mass movement on the left to scare weaselly centrists into compliance. Also from a simple negotiating standpoint, it's stronger to come to the table with Sanders' Democratic Socialism than Warren's Progressive Liberalism because the resulting middle ground compromise will be further to the left. And let's be honest, in terms of name-recognition, money raised, and total pledged supporters already, Sanders is the front runner as of now, his only weakness is the mainstream media hates him more than Trump. That said, Warren's been making some exciting proposals to the left of Bernie and if she somehow beat Sanders I would still be very happy. Kamala Harris at this early point seems to be the establishment candidate to beat. She has a major structual advantage now that her home state of California's been moved into Super Tuesday. And at first she did a pretty good job trying to pass herself off as being "just like Bernie," but younger! However her past record of prosecuting poor families whose kids play hooky yet allowing Steve Mnuchin to skate on stealing the houses from little old grannies via mortgate fraud, and her recent (and sudden) reversals on things like Medicare for All tells me she would govern as a typical disappointing Democrat. Joe Biden is a frontrunner on name-recognition alone, just like Joe Lieberman was the 2004 frontrunner for five minutes. I was expecting him to get #Metoo'ed, and I was expecting centrists to pull a cynical about-face and start telling women to suck it up, I just didn't expect it so soon. I think Biden's presence in the race would be a positive because he would siphon votes from Harris and neutralize claims that Bernie's "too old." But while Harris is a new face and could surprise me, Biden is clearly an utterly devoted thrall of the banking industry and was one of the biggest proponents for Obama to privatize social security in the (thankfully) failed "grand bargain." I would be shocked if he wins the primary. Beto O'Rourke legitimately pisses me off, not only because I don't like his politics, but because he's spoiling a golden opportunity to run against and plausibly unseat Republican Senator John Cornyn. Democrats like O'Rourke remind me of that old Alexander the Great quote, "I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion." While he would have been an improvement over Cruz, no question, he's got a bad voting record, pals up with the most legitimately corrupt figures in the Democratic establishment, and broke his promise not to take oil money in his campaign. Near as I can tell, the only people who truly like him are aging boomers whose brains are melting because he vaguely reminds them of Bobby Kennedy, the same boomers who shriek George McGovern's name any time someone talks about Bernie Sanders. Cory Booker has made some legitimately good promises, but he's a thrall to Betsy DeVos and that's an automatic disqualifier in my book. He's also a just a weirdo and I expect voters would be offput by his signature move of opening his eyes really wide and cupping his invisible tits. I don't know what Rosario Dawson sees in him. Pete Buttigieg has said some good things about court packing and getting rid of the filibuster. I dunno, he's also openly gay? Howard Schultz is legitimately hilarious and I hope he runs as an independent in the general. He will not be a Jill Stein because at least Stein was promising things people actually want I expect you'll be able to count his final vote total on one hand, and the political consultants he hired will be laughing all the way to the bank. But in the meantime he's incredibly politically useful. When Sanders is on the debate stage he won't have to talk about some nebulous depersonalized concept like "the 1%" he can just point at Schultz and say, "look at this asshole!" Nothing shatters the concept of "Job Creators" being higher beings than Schultz's hilariously gormless speeches and roundtables. He's the greatest gift to Democratic Socialists since the Koch brothers' nephew Wyatt Koch: No, this is not a Tim & Eric sketch. And it was released the same week that Trump's tax cut made this fancy lad even richer! Who is John Galt? You're looking at him. Schultz 2020: Risk the imagination of a new kind of possibility! |
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