Comments

  1. anteprepro says

    No, anything but the guy who just became a Democrat in 2013 and was until then “the least conservative Senate Republican”. Anyone but him.

    (In fairness, considering how few options there are among Democrats right now and how very many ridiculous options there are for the Republicans, it would be nice to not lose one so early. On the other hand, still over a year until the actual elections. I just can’t wait to see the 2020 election season to start up before the 2017 inauguration!)

  2. Big Boppa says

    I think the time is ripe for Sidney Blumenthal to throw his hat into the ring. Thanks to Gollum Trey Gowdy and his band of merry mouth breathers, he’s definitely got the name recognition now.

  3. Pierce R. Butler says

    Clinton – New York.

    Sanders – Vermont.

    O’Malley – Maryland.

    Webb – Virginia.

    Chafee – Rhode Island

    Howcum the whole Democratic field comes from the NE quadrant of the country, with all but one on the Atlantic coast and that one just a single small state away?

  4. Big Boppa says

    Pierce @3

    Don’t worry. The repubs are bound to bring up Hillary’s “Chicago connection” (scare quotes intentional) as they become more and more desperate. She was born and raised in Park Ridge, a suburb NW of the city but hasn’t lived there for over 40 years. That won’t stop them from trying to use it to work up the rubes in Buttfukk Idaho.

  5. anteprepro says

    Article mentions a Democratic candidate that wasn’t in the debates: Lawrence Lessig.

    http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/larry-lessig-nbc-saturday-night-live-equal-time-1201623473/
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Lessig_presidential_campaign,_2016

    Most likely not getting much attention because he is a law professor and activist which is not the Proper means of becoming an acknowledged candidate. You either must be a politician of some kind, and get railed at for being Establishment. Or you must be a wealthy businessperson, and claim to be Anti-Establishment in between bouts of rolling around in piles of cash. Anything beyond that is just too risky and subversive.

    See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2016

    Democrats have four major candidates currently running who have been featured in polls, two that have dropped, and six that have technically announced their candidacies but haven’t been featured in enough polls (One is a 9/11 truther described as “a perennial candidate” so I can’t blame them on that one….)

    Republicans have 15 (!) major candidates running who have been featured in polls, excluding Rick Perry and Scott Walker. And there are four more running who haven’t been featured in polls.

    It’s interesting because it seems like the Democrats are hiding more of their candidates (while already having less candidates). Not sure if that is a good or bad thing.

  6. petesh says

    Lessig started his candidacy by announcing he was a one-issue guy who would magically persuade Congress to enact campaign finance reform and then quit. Everyone laughed, so he’s now saying he wouldn’t quit. He has some excellent ideas but politically he’s a complete idiot and any major party that let him onto a debate stage with polling number approximating to zero would be a joke. He should try the Rethuglicans.

  7. petesh says

    That said, it would be nice if there were more than one viable Democratic candidate. Bernie is doing a great job shifting the conversation, but he isn’t going to get nominated or elected. And O’Malley ought to join Webb & Chafee.

  8. says

    I think Chafee just wanted to add to his list of descriptive adjectives:
    mayor
    governor
    senator
    Republican
    Independent
    Democrat
    presidential candidate

    guy who dithers

  9. says

    Jeb Bush’s campaign really is in disarray. He should follow Chafee’s example and just quit.

    But then, most of the Republican scrum is always in some sort of disarray. Most of them will stumble toward defeat tripping over their own feet.

    The flagging GOP presidential campaign of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is cutting staff at its Miami headquarters to save more than $1 million per month and slash payroll by 40 percent this week, according to reports on Friday. […]

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/jeb-bush-campaign-hq-cuts

    Donald Trump has plenty of his own money to spend, or so he keeps bragging, so something else will have to take him out. Carson is now leading Trump by 10 points in Iowa. Carson is effing awful, but it is nice to see The Donald looking sour.

    From Chafee’s exit speech:

    […] As you know I have been campaigning on a platform of Prosperity Through Peace. But after much thought I have decided to end my campaign for president today. I would like to take this opportunity one last time to advocate for a chance be given to peace.

    During his remarks, Chafee lambasted Republicans for lacking knowledge about the Middle East.

    “Ladies and gentleman, from what I’ve heard none of the Republicans running for president want to understand anything about the Middle East and North Africa. Instead they prefer to espouse more bellicosity, more saber rattling and more blind macho posturing,” he said. […]

    “Do we want to be remembered as a bomber of weddings and hospitals? Or do we want to be remembered as peacemakers, as pioneers of a more harmonious world?”

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/lincoln-chafee-drops-out-president

  10. petesh says

    Chafee could have been useful doing in foreign policy what Sanders is doing domestically — shifting the national conversation. But in that debate, he just looked worn out, and he is after all basically a Republican. (Webb might have had a chance as a Republican, by the way.) Chafee can claim with some justice that the party left him but it doesn’t give him much of a toehold to be a pro-peace Democrat.

    I’ll settle for Clinton, reluctantly, but is this thing really over this early? That just seems ridiculous.