As new revelations of ‘Benedict Treason Weasel’s Reign of Terror’ abuse of power/obstruction-corruption unfold daily, think of how brilliant Speaker Pelosi’s “HOLD’ strategy is on impeachment articles.
And remember the lyrics from The Gambler by Kenny Rogers:
You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, Know when to walk away and know when to run.
Nancy is driving Donnie Dollhands, Moscow Mitch and the KGOP absolutely NUTS!
Please share widely!
Can you believe a year ago there was much handwringing about whether Pelosi should get another shot at the Speakership?
Again, please see the largest military budget ever with no strings attached passed a couple weeks ago or renewal of the Patriot Act with no concessions or safeguards. Does that stuff really not matter to you?
This reminds me of the uncritical praise for Obama. People thinking that the only “scandal” was the tan suit and then sweeping away the record deportations, the increased surveillance state, the expanded drone war, the kill lists, supporting the Saudi genocide in Yemen, etc.
In answer to your perhaps rhetorical question at the end of your first paragraph, that stuff matters a great deal to me. That’s why I think it is crucial for Democrats to take control of the government in 2020. There is no way that a GOP government, even led by some other GOP candidate besides Donald Trump, will do anything but double down on the worst aspects that you correctly complain about.
I think most important question remains the same — who holds the Oval Office at the end of January 2021.
If the answer is “the GOP nominee”, then Ms. Pelosi and the entire Democratic leadership should be summarily dismissed for incompetence. If the answer is “the Democratic nominee”, then none of the Obama-era complaints matter.
However much we dislike the less-savory aspects of the Barack Obama administration, they aren’t relevant to the 2020 election. If the Barack Obama administration did terrible things, surely you don’t suggest that the GOP of today or tomorrow will do better.
I agree with much of what you write but have an issue with this part.
I think it is relevant because to defeat Trump and the GOP we have to do things differently and commit to change. Holding up Pelosi or Obama (or any other Dem) as infallible will always keep us from making those changes. This problem could not be more clearly stated than by the campaign of Joe Biden. He explicitly wants to bring us back to the environment that immediately gave rise to Trump. I think we have to be real about our leaders and commit to moving forward not just trying for a reset to something still bad, even if it is much better than the alternative. I don’t want to see Tom Cotton as President in 2028.
In my view, holding up Bernie Sanders or any other newcomer as infallible is no better than doing the same for Nancy Pelosi or Barack Obama.
While my heart and soul share your passion for doing the right thing, my head says that Joe Biden’s strategy of peeling off disaffected GOP voters is the most realistic path to victory.
I fear that you and I gravely understate the contempt that virtually ALL of middle America has for pretty much every Democratic candidate except Joe Biden, and for EVERYTHING that Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats have been doing in Congress.
I think Joe Biden and his running mate win by positioning themselves just barely to the left of Donald Trump and Mike Pence. I think the Joe Biden campaign will be very much like the Mitt Romney campaign of 2012. I think that pretty much every one of the issues of the primary season will be discarded one-by-one. There will be no proposed tax increases for anybody. There will be no proposed changes to health care. Mr. Biden’s campaign spots will feel like reruns of Ozzie & Harriet, Leave It To Beaver, and Father Knows Best. Nothing remotely edgy.
The Joe Biden campaign will be offering comfort food.
Donald Trump panders to his base. His nauseating flood of insults towards the various congressional Democrats are a better measure of the electorate than any polls. He writes that rubbish in slavish response to what he hears from his own polls and media outlets.
I desperately want the good guys — Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler, etc — to win. My read of the information available to us is that we are behind by 24 points going into the fourth quarter.
I don’t hold Bernie up as infallible, although I think he (and Warren) are much better than the other leaders. When he does bad stuff or holds bad positions (like his unwillingness to fully end the filibuster), I will criticize him and not claim it’s some kind of 8-dimensional chess thinking that others just don’t understand. I’m more committed to issues and change than to personalities or party. Many here consider party favorites above reproach. I wish we had leaders explicitly committed to full destruction of the GOP. Unfortunately, we don’t.
We tried peeling off disaffected GOP voters in 2016. It didn’t work. Also, how many are there of those people anyway? People will say they don’t like Trump but still vote for him. He’s more popular among Republicans than any GOP candidate in recent history, with perhaps the exception of Reagan.
I think part of what you describe is correct. That is the campaign Biden will run.
And it will lead to a remarkably uninspired base. Youth turnout will be in the toilet. African American turnout will be down again, like in 2016. Biden may pull that out, but I think it’s a more likely recipe for losing.
Biden is generally well-liked now, but let’s see after the drumbeat of Hunter/Ukraine. He could be dragged down a lot. And the truth of it is, he is a creature of the swamp.
Trump is an impeached President with nothing but bad press, and he’s still sitting at 42-46% approval rating.
I think you need a real contrast and a platform and organizing to bring out new voters to beat this guy.
@We tried peeling off disaffected GOP voters in 2016:
I fear you misunderstand what I mean. At no time in the 2016 campaign did the nominee or party actively endorse the GOP position on issues, nor did the nominee or party shrink from endorsing and promoting Democratic positions on choice, taxes, health care, civil rights, voting rights, and long list of similar topics. Hillary Clinton NEVER suggested that she was open to a member of the GOP on her ticket.
I’m not talking about a centrist Democrat running somewhat to the right of the most radical candidate since the 1960s and significantly to the left of an outgoing Democratic administration.
I’m talking about a campaign that explicitly and intentionally targets GOP voters. I’m talking about words and phrases like “compromise”, “evolve”, and “reach out to” in campaign appearances, press briefings, and campaign spots about hot-button issues.
If Mr. Biden wins the nomination, I predict that he will run a campaign somewhat to the right of Mitt Romney, and filled with sepia-toned images and clips of Republican leaders — Dwight Eisenhower, John McCain, Mitt Romney (or George Romney), Everett Dirksen — and a narrator talking of a time when “Americans of all political parties put the nation’s well-being above partisan politics”.
I’m talking about a campaign different from every prior Democratic campaign of my lifetime.
To the right of Romney? I want some of whatever it is you are smoking:)
I think the campaign will go wherever it needs to get those votes. I’m describing where I think the electorate is the campaign will target, not where the candidate starts from.
Well, if that is in fact where the votes are, isn’t it better to go for them if the alternative is another four years of Trump?
@if that is in fact where the votes are…,:
You make my case for me.
To paraphrase Harry Truman, if you run a Republican versus a Republican, the Republican will win every time.
“When the Democratic candidate allows himself to be put on the defensive and starts apologizing for the New Deal and the Fair Deal … he is sure to lose. The people don’t want a phony Democrat. If it’s a choice between a genuine Republican and a Republican in Democratic clothing, the people will choose the genuine article, every time.” Harry Truman
You say comfort food like it’s a bad thing. Part of me feels that’s just what we need right now so we can all take a few deep breaths after the emotional and political roller coaster that has been the Trump presidency.
@[comfort food is] just what we need right now:
The Donald Trump presidency has been a non-stop combination of floods, fires, earthquakes, tornadoes, and hurricanes. Much of the political and governmental infrastructure that we desperately need — EPA, FDA, FEC, IRS, State, DoD, FBI, CIA, judiciary, congress, and more — lie in smoking ruins.
I fear we are paying so much attention to the here-and-now pain and chaos of this disaster that we are ignoring the damage it has done to virtually every aspect of American life, at home and abroad.
I don’t think we have the luxury of 4-8 years of “taking a few deep breaths”.
I think we must hit the ground running so that we can rebuild the America we love and cherish while that rebuilding is still possible.
She has been a masterful foil of 45, which matters above all else in these times.
And again, giving this existential threat to our democracy the largest military budget and free rein on surveillance doesn’t matter in these times?
I try to judge the totality of the record, and under her leadership the Dem House has passed something like 400 bills, most of which are now collecting dust on McConnell’s desk. Sometimes to get stuff done in divided government you swallow things. Clearly you are the honorary chair of the Never-satisfied Caucus:( Your constant bashing of pillars of the party is so tiresome and counterproductive.
There was a right wing stealth campaign to make Democrats hate Nancy Pelosi to stop her speakership and it almost worked.
Handwringing and pearl necklace clutching and ‘she’s too old’ to be Speaker as I recall. 🙂
“I think I may have figured out why Speaker Pelosi is holding the articles of impeachment (or at least part of the reason) : she wants to make sure that when POTUS gives the SOTU on Feb. 4, he is still under impeachment.” Paul Rosenzweig, former Bush aide
“Imagine what it would be like if he got to give the SOTU having been cleared by the Senate — it would be a full-blown triumphal rout. But if the impeachment is still pending, it might, instead, be an unhinged narcissistic screed of almost unimaginable insanity.” PR
This interim between impeachment is President Banananov’s worst nightmare- not only because of the prospect of a State of the Union address occurring mid-impeachment trial, as Fred points out, but also because we are seeing that there is an endless stream of additional damning evidence pouring out that will be harder and harder for all but the shilliest, most invertebrate Republican Senators to ignore as time slowly, so slowly, ticks away for the asset at 1600.
It is also worth pointing out for historical perspective that Clinton was impeached at roughly the same date, and yet those Clinton Articles also had not been sent to the Senate as of the first of the year. So we are all, in part, implicitly following this White House’s script by even talking about this interim period between impeachment and trial as being particularly unusual.
The Senate Rules on Impeachment are explicit that the House must choose its managers (prosecutors) prior to the presentation to the formal presentation to the Senate:
“RULES OF PROCEDURE AND PRACTICE IN THE SENATE WHEN SITTING ON IMPEACHMENT TRIALS
II. Whensoever the Senate shall receive notice from the House of Representatives that managers are appointed on their part to conduct an impeachment against any person and are directed to carry articles of impeachment to the Senate, the Secretary of the Senate shall immediately inform the House of Representatives that the Senate is ready to receive the managers for the purpose of exhibiting such articles of impeachment, agreeably to such notice.”
“Just think of how painful it would be for 53 Republican senators to sit in the halls of Congress, watching a live meltdown on national TV. That, alone, would be worth the price of admission. Maybe I’m wrong and this hasn’t crossed her mind — but I love the idea.” PR
Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Sunday that the House “will introduce and vote on a War Powers Resolution to limit President Trump’s military action regarding Iran.”
Speaker Pelosi response to Bolton saying he is now willing to testify if subpoenaed: ‘The President and Sen. McConnell have run out of excuses. They must allow key witnesses to testify, and produce the documents Trump has blocked, so Americans can see the facts for themselves.”