American Politics 3.0 - Back to Brunch

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

I think Shapiro would lock up PA, but actually reduce the chances of winning Michigan and Wisconsin due to the Gaza situation.

Listening to Walz speak, he has that comforting everything-is-going-to-be-okay vibe to him. I think he's the best choice. I also think he helps keep the male senior vote that Biden was doing so well with.

Just my 2c.

The latest polls out of Michigan have Harris up by 7 or 8% so she probably doesnt need to worry about that, a VP won't reduce her position, well unless she picks Vance and she aint that stupid

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by ResAlien

You guys are way more even keeled than my train of thought: we’re gonna bank on a ticket with a woman of colour and a Jew winning over the Midwest are we?

Yeeeeah... you're not wrong. Although thankfully they don't have to win Ohio.

[Paulie Walnuts]

The polls seem to show Vance being the worst VP pick of all time.

If he torpedoes Trumps chances, Trump was was about to hang Pence what will happen to JP?

[squiggs96]

Originally Posted by Paulie Walnuts

https://twitter.com/user/status/1818724810589192686

Using the 34 minute video, trump grabbed the bottle at 21:49 and it looks like he tried to open it, but failed. At 29:37 he takes the bottle and drinks out of it, with that weird pursed lips thing he does. He either thought it was his water or was drinking her water in a power move. I would doubt he would drink out of the same bottle a black woman drank out of. There are a ton of things to grill trump over, but this isn't one of them.

[opendoor]

Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin have voted in unision since the '80s and Harris needs all 3, so you go with the candidate who'll help you everywhere. Maybe that's Shapiro, and if you don't think he'll hurt you elsewhere, then he probably makes sense given his popularity in Pennsylvania.

But I'd definitely consider his downsides if I was Harris. I don't think the Israel stuff or support for charter schools will have any impact on swing voters, but it may lessen the enthusiasm among the Democratic base, which is going to be crucial to winning the election. And I do think his poor man's Obama cadence might come off as contrived in a race where all the other candidates are kind of phony. A straight talker VP candidate might be better in terms of balancing the ticket.

But really, unless the VP candidate is historically awful like Vance is (or Palin was), then it's probably not going to change a whole lot either way.

[marsplasticeraser]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

Yeah I'm not talking about 538's aggregation. He's not a pollster, he's an analyst that is often shooting his mouth off scattergun-style on Twitter and is frequently wrong but always posturing himself as the smartest guy in the room.

You can celebrate the handful of times he's swung for the fences and got it right, but you can't ignore the far larger mountain of bull#### he spews that is so absolutely wrong it's comical.

Statistically, he's better than a broken clock but not by a huge margin.

My experience is listening to him on the 538 podcast, reading 538 articles when he used to write and maintained the election forecast, and reading his book.

Can you really understand what he does from the odd Twitter post?

I agree he's not a pollster, but he's also not an analyst as you claim.

He's a statistician. He's not making predictions, he's sharing the statistical outcomes based on crunching others peoples numbers.

I don't see how you can be upset with what he says. He's dealing with a ton of uncertainty and bringing together a ton of disparate data.

To me it's like being upset with Excel because you don't like the financial model you created.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

I mean is it a lock up? He got a 54% favorability rating back in early April, but that was before he compared student protestors to the KKK, and didn't fully reflect his unpopular School Voucher program, announced in mid-Feb.

Is there lots of support for pro-palestinian student protestors among swing voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Wisconsin? The Democrats aren’t trying to appeal to the American counterparts of you and rubecube. They’re trying to win an election. And if Shapiro’s stance on Israel is a handicap, then the same is true of most of the other VP frontrunners.

Who’s Afraid of Josh Shapiro?

…Anti-Israel partisans have every right to advocate against candidates who oppose their cause, and there’s nothing inherently anti-Semitic about doing so. But as its name implies, the “Genocide Josh” campaign is not about applying a single standard on Palestine to all VP contenders; it’s about applying them to one person, who just so happens to be the only Jew on the shortlist. And to make matters more absurd, Shapiro’s positions on Israel don’t come close to fitting the epithet.

“I personally believe Benjamin Netanyahu is one of the worst leaders of all time,” Shapiro told reporters in January, months before Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called for the Israeli leader to resign. At the time, Shapiro also pressed for an “immediate two-state solution,” something Netanyahu and his hard-right government stridently oppose. The anti-Shapiro campaign ignores these remarks but makes much of the governor’s comparison of campus Gaza protesters to “people dressed up in KKK outfits.” When he said that in an interview, however, Shapiro was distinguishing between bigoted extremists—such as the Columbia campus-protest leader who called for killing “Zionists”—and peaceful demonstrators, about whom the governor has said, “It’s right for young people to righteously protest and question.”

Now consider the other vice-presidential contenders. Arizona’s Senator Mark Kelly leads the Democratic-nominee prediction markets along with Shapiro. Like the Pennsylvania governor, Kelly also supported using police to break up campus encampments. “Everybody has the right to protest peacefully,” he said, “but when it turns into unlawful acts—we’ve seen this in a number of colleges and universities, including here in Arizona—it’s appropriate for the police to step in.” In the same interview, Kelly said that the Israelis “have to do a better job” reducing civilian casualties in Gaza, but drew on his military experience to explain the difficulty of that task, and emphasized that “Hamas, without question, is the biggest impediment to peace in the Middle East.” Last week, Kelly attended Netanyahu’s address to Congress and applauded.

Unlike Shapiro, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper didn’t simply enforce preexisting state laws against boycotts of Israel while in office—he signed one himself in 2017. This month, Cooper codified into state law a definition of anti-Semitism that has been adopted by many countries around the world, but that left-wing critics argue penalizes speech critical of Israel. Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, flew state flags at half-mast after October 7 and did not respond to activists who called on the state to divest from Israel. Some were arrested after protesting outside his residence.

That all of these politicians support Israel should not come as a surprise. After all, Harris is searching for a moderate to help her win swing voters in states that are currently polling in the Trump column. Although some Democrats have grown more critical of Israel, Americans back the country by a two-to-one margin and oppose the recent campus protests, which means that any VP nominee considered by Harris would likely share such views…

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...ish-vp/679300/

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by Paulie Walnuts

They are stealing black jobs. Sir what is a black job? All the jobs.

That seemed like a clear attempt to rile up the Black population against a boogeyman, the Mexican population. Pretty despicable.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by squiggs96

Using the 34 minute video, trump grabbed the bottle at 21:49 and it looks like he tried to open it, but failed. At 29:37 he takes the bottle and drinks out of it, with that weird pursed lips thing he does. He either thought it was his water or was drinking her water in a power move. I would doubt he would drink out of the same bottle a black woman drank out of. There are a ton of things to grill trump over, but this isn't one of them.

Yo would think with how far to the right he moves, he would have run into his own water bottle.

[Paulie Walnuts]

His water bottle is right beside him. He had to reach to get that bottle.

I mean he is dumb enough to not notice it, but that's strange.

[Paulie Walnuts]

How the #### did Alina Habba become a lawyer. "Unlike you Kamela, I know who my roots are"

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Is there lots of support for pro-palestinian student protestors among swing voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Wisconsin? The Democrats aren’t trying to appeal to the American counterparts of you and rubecube. They’re trying to win an election. And if Shapiro’s stance on Israel is a handicap, then the same is true of most of the other VP frontrunners.

The Democrats have always needed their coalition, which includes progressives, to show up. Moreover, Biden won the last election partially on the backs of young voters.

The polls show that the move to Harris has increased enthusiasm among younger Democratic voters. Bringing in Shapiro puts that enthusiasm at risk. I think the bigger risk, as pointed out by Res, is the antisemitic sentiments in the rustbelt.

I know your two favourite hobbies are ####ting on progressives and coddling neofascists, but you could try a little harder to look beyond those two things.

[flylock shox]

I have to say, I knew nothing of Walz a week ago, but can see how he'd have broad appeal, particularly to groups who may not otherwise be inclined to vote for Harris. The campaign will be short, but I could see how he might not have the profile to do well in polls now but could also gain lots of momentum as he becomes a more widely seen figure.

I suppose if you can lock up Pennysylvania with him you maybe go for Shapiro, but I think you'd better be really sure he can deliver that state. Otherwise I suspect he'd just appeal to people Harris already has in the bank, and could turn off a good few of them too.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by flylock shox

I have to say, I knew nothing of Walz a week ago, but can see how he'd have broad appeal, particularly to groups who may not otherwise be inclined to vote for Harris. The campaign will be short, but I could see how he might not have the profile to do well in polls now but could also gain lots of momentum as he becomes a more widely seen figure.

I suppose if you can lock up Pennysylvania with him you maybe go for Shapiro, but I think you'd better be really sure he can deliver that state. Otherwise I suspect he'd just appeal to people Harris already has in the bank, and could turn off a good few of them too.

Yeah, Walz seems to be the least offensive option. I tend to think Philadelphia alone puts Pennsylvania out of reach for Trump at this point, but if there are internal strategists who think it's still in play, then maybe you play it safe with Shapiro.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by ResAlien

You guys are way more even keeled than my train of thought: we’re gonna bank on a ticket with a woman of colour and a Jew winning over the Midwest are we? We have higher opinions of people in those regions than I do.

This was my thought as well. It sucks, but I think it is a reality that things like that influence who people vote for. I remember when Lieberman was on the ticket and it brought the anti-Semites out of the word work. Considering the current climate, I can see it happening again.

[Muta]

Originally Posted by Paulie Walnuts

https://twitter.com/user/status/1818722254542590012

The entire train wreck.

How anyone can watch this and then be like "yeah, that's the mentally fit leader that I want running this country and representing us on the international stage" is absolutely bat#### insane.

[ah123]

Originally Posted by Muta

How anyone can watch this and then be like "yeah, that's the mentally fit leader that I want running this country and representing us on the international stage" is absolutely bat#### insane.

The answer is:

cause that interview is fake, made by AI and propagated by the left wing media.


If you see some of the Fox News clips, Trump cannot do wrong. It is scary

[KelVarnsen]

Cults do that

[Paulie Walnuts]

Apparently Trump is speaking later on tonight.

I wonder if he's so angry after today that he drops the N word.

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by Paulie Walnuts

Apparently Trump is speaking later on tonight.

I wonder if he's so angry after today that he drops the N word.

Would it matter? Just add it to the scandal stew.