Back in our July/August 2005 issue, we aired a debate about Hillary Clinton’s electability as a presidential candidate. Carl M. Cannon said she could win and Amy Sullivan argued that, while it was not proven that she could not win, she wasn’t a good bet for the Democrats. Of course, they were thinking about the 2008 election cycle, but these essays still make for timely and interesting reading today.
Dana Houle makes the case in The New Republic that the Bush family should endorse Hillary. I think in many ways, they already have.
A poll from Suffolk University has Trump and Sen. Pat Toomey getting thumped in Pennsylvania, largely on the strength of Clinton and McGinty’s strength in the Philly metropolitan area. I live in the Philly metro area and the sentiment seems to be split between support for Clinton and a wistful desire for Obama to get a third term. Trump supporters are hard to find and I think they’re dwindling. But it’s a big state and Trump will do very well in a lot of it.
Suddenly, it’s safe to dump on Roger Ailes, so that’s what’s happening.
Hillary’s Wellesley College is expecting a boost in applications and donations after Clinton is done accepting the presidential nomination tonight.
Grateful Dead keyboardist Brent Mydland died 26 years ago this week, which makes me feel very old. Here’s an interview Al Franken did with him shortly after he joined the band in 1979.
Here’s what it was like to see Mydland perform (and I do believe I was in the audience for this one):
Heroin is a disaster.
Without Pennsylvania? Send Bill Clinton to Florida (good lord, with a short leash, please) and Kaine to Virginia and Ohio.
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I’d say send Kaine, systematically, to every congressional district that’s 15% Latino or above, and have him repeat, repeat, repeat – in Spanish – that there is an election coming in November, 2018 that’s just as important for Latinos as this one.
Yes, but that covers a LOT of territory these days.
Clinton has a LOT of ammo to use. Obama 1 and 2, Bubba, Kaine, Biden, Sanders, Warren, Franken….geeze the list goes on and on. Every state seems to have it’s own surrogate to put on on the stump.
Trump has…Christy, Pence, and errrrr……
Add to that he has not ‘on the ground’ campaign infrastructure. No ‘get out the vote’ structure. Even is money raising claims are suspect.
Seems like a 10 point win to me. She better not fuck it up.
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Trump also doesn’t have the big bucks boys behind him:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/28/politics/future-45-donald-trump-super-pac/index.html
The rich kids are going to try to talk the Koch brothers out of their money this weekend. They will end grifted of course.
I bet Trump is salivating when he thinks of getting that cash!
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I’m sure various KKK and neo-Nazi cells can go door to door for Trump. Alex Jones can scream at folks through his YouTube channel. Yeah, tons of talent to send out and mingle with the people. Maybe Vladimir Putin can come on over on Trump’s behalf. That’ll be a hoot. Julian Assange can stump for Trump while holed up in his little broom closet in an Ecuadorean embassy while running out the statute of limitations clock on those rape charges. This is a real winning team. Believe me. They have a lot of words for Trump. The greatest words.
Sarcasm aside, let’s hope any of us who find Trump’s behavior and the company he keeps abhorrent can keep it together long enough to make sure he never steps foot in the Oval Office. We owe that one to each other and our kids and grandkids.
THE DEMOCRATS ARE LED BY FUCKING GROWN-UPS, AND THE GOP IS LED BY AN ADOLESCENT CHEETO
Damon Young, 7/28/16
For as long as I’ve been aware of American politics and the differences — real and perceived — between our two major parties, I’ve also been aware that the GOP has been touted as the party for grown-ups. For serious (White) men and the women those serious (White) men were married to. The solid and sober and solemn oak trees of America, that stood stubbornly and valiantly steady while the winds of social change swayed anything unfortunate enough to be unsettled. No, you would not find many new ideas floating around them. Or platforms. Or concepts. Or even new types of people. In fact, not only would you not find these things, they’d be openly antagonistic towards them, regarding them as distractions. Weeds. Flotsam. But at least — at the very least — their performative grownassness was reliably reliable.
Yet, as I’ve watched both the RNC and the DNC over the past week and a half, listening to each party’s litany of speakers and celebrities and alphas, one theme has been a bit more stark and unambiguous than the rest: The Democrats are led by grown-ups. Which is something the Republicans can no longer say about themselves after collectively deciding to rally behind a half-baked soufflé of analog cucumbers.
Regardless of what you say about Hillary Clinton — and there are many, many, many, many uncomplimentary things you could say about her (and be right) — you can not deny that she’s a serious woman. With a serious career. And serious ideas. Who has devoted her life to doing serious things. And who is comfortable in a room with equally serious people. Basically, she’s a fucking grown up. As is our President and Vice President. And Hillary’s husband, the former President. All men who could and should be criticized and held accountable for decisions they’ve made. But all fucking grown ups.
Thanks.
Damon Young had fallen off my radar. I always liked his writing.
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Liked Brent’s keys, hated his vocals. I remember seeing them at Carter Finley Stadium in Raleigh in 1990. Hornsby opened and played accordion later in the show with them. I told all my friends at that show “I wish they’d just hire him and replace him with Hornsby”.
Two weeks later… well lets just say my friends all told me I killed him. Very sad. I still think that Hornsby would have been the perfect keyboardist for them if things had worked out. The shows where Bruce played were awesome, fast, country-tinged affairs.
He was looking so sick that tour…I was hanging on the rail at the show in Louisville the first week of July, and he looked completely strung out; so much so that I commented to the friends that I was traveling that I didn’t think he would be with us too much longer…and then he wasn’t.
I loved his voice but I didn’t like his songwriting. So, I basically did not want to hear him do his songs.
Exceptions include: I Don’t Need Love, I Will Take You Home, and It’ll Blow Away.
I also enjoyed his rendition of Dr. Mr Fantasy and I liked his harmonies and (almost) duets on a few songs.
A lot of times, he was the sole reason that boring songs were tolerable, like Little Red Rooster.
Listen to the Rooster from a 1988 Pittsburgh show I was at with my girlfriend and homies.
That is Brent at his best.
with you there.
uh huh
MSNBC’s Tamron Hall lays waste to DNC protesters for shouting down John Lewis
David Edwards DAVID EDWARDS
28 JUL 2016 AT 13:17 ET
Protesters at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia shouted down civil rights icon John Lewis while he was being interviewed by MSNBC’s Tamron Hall on Thursday.
Although the Georgia congressman’s introduction was met with cheers, things quickly turned ugly when Hall asked about Hillary Clinton’s historic nomination.
…………………
“I can’t ignore there are a couple of people in our audience that have yelled things,” Hall said, pointing to the crowd. “Some of them have been ugly and vitriolic, others have been their beliefs in democracy and that Bernie Sanders does not get the shake that they believe that he deserves.”
“You were beaten within an inch of your life,” she observed. “You’ve seen democracy or the battle for civil rights at its ugliest. How do you communicate to those who choose to speak civilly and not violently toward you here that there’s something greater at risk here if Donald Trump becomes the president in your eyes?”
Houle? Yuck! A dishonest bully boy from the early days of dKos.
Indeed. But the byline doesn’t make it unworthy of discussion.
Sorry can’t. He was serving the interests of the Clintons then and deceptively so. Guess he got a good payoff.
You can’t read something because you don’t like the author?
You do that all the time. All day long.
there’s more than one way to look at that for me.
I can read anything I want, also ignore anything I want.
You feel, correctly, that it’s your job to read all kinds of shit and tell your readers about it. You read Brooks and Will and Dowd and lots of others who make me want to puke. I don’t have to. If you want to read Houle, go ahead. I will read opinion from people who I respect. As marie remembered, whoever Houle is serving, he’s a mean bully; in an environment noted for assholes he was at the top.
We all read you, though I doubt anyone likes you, even as an author. You’re kind of a hack. You’re provocative and inscrutable. On purpose. Just hard to resist. (Goes without saying ‘good for you’ and ‘fuck off’ at the same time.) Bloggers. What a racket.
>> provocative and inscrutable
BooMan, you should put that on the banner. What a great tagline.
Think I’ll go with “Nobody likes me” instead.
Has anyone mentioned the Islamic State? I havent heard a word but maybe I missed it. Seems like something you should at least touch on.
There were a few mentions last night.
I wasn’t watching earlier but apparently General John Allen mentioned them in the middle of a psychopathic rant that terrified everybody and would have been better suited to the RNC.
I was also taken aback by Gen. Allen’s speech.
The failed state that is about to be crushed and metastasize into yet another terrorist group who knows where?
That’s a mosquito on the national security scene right now, which is moving rapidly toward confrontations with Russia and China.
And tonight. HRC covered it.
Big hat tip for remembering Brent! I’m a 70s lover, but I love what he added to the band…B3, harmonies, cheesy FM radio love ballads…
RIP!
based on your name, I would have thought you were a Pigpen-era guy.
I saw the Grateful Dead in San Francisco in 1977 or 1978. I think my companion and I were the only two people in the place who weren’t high. Still enjoyed the show.
Khizr Khan’s speech was the best of the night, perhaps of the convention. Communicated so much without having to say much at all.
Hillary gave a pretty good speech. It was different. And pretty much the same as always. What a woman.
I saw Hillary live in a campaign speech back in 1992 for Bill, and she seemed like she was having a good time then. Tonight she looked older, of course. But the most telling part for me was when she mentioned what I assume is something like the Methodist creed: “Do all the good you can, for all the people you can, in all the ways you can, as long as ever you can.” Hard to argue with that. (It’s akin to ‘from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs’, so like most of Christianity, socialist, and I like that.)
She made it clear that she’s in it for something. Something that means a lot to her. So she appears a little more authentic. She left out a lot about how bad cops are killing too many people on the streets and why, so it appears she doesn’t care about it. But good for you if you were a victim of a terrorist attack: she’s got your back.
She’s semi-evolved. A young Republican grown up running her whole life as a Democrat. Confusing.
Must be confusing to her, too.
I wondered if there would be any late commentary on the speech.
I didn’t even intend to watch it, but when the time came I couldn’t resist. She did well. Good speech, included the stuff that needed to be there, she looked good and gave the speech well. Some surprises, and some places I wish she’d surprised me. And some things where she’s changed course a LOT more recently than her conversion from the other party. She didn’t look or sound confused.
She listed a set of very liberal policy priorities. This speech didn’t prioritize scooping up persuadable moderate voters by offering them policy concessions. Infrastructure spending, expand Social Security, tax the shit out of the rich, etc.
Nothing at all for the social conservatives/moderates, either. Abortion rights, immigration reform allowing immigrants to stay, etc.
Hillary is interested in getting those moderate voters, but she tried to bring them in tonight by detailing how vile Trump is.
…a pretty good speech.
Don’t push it.
She looks well-practiced at not being confused, to me. It’s hard to know. I expect she’ll get middling reviews generally.
It’s not that she’s confused consciously. But she’s malleable. And she likes big checks (like I do), perhaps on principle (like I do). And when it comes to big checks, it’s all good, isn’t it? But none of us gonna write her a big check. We can’t afford it. So, where do we fit in? Like I said, confusing.
And, just to give her some credit for being a conversant Methodist, I hope she’s a little bit confused herself.
” … Dana Houle makes the case in The New Republic that the Bush family should endorse Hillary. I think in many ways, they already have.”
Indeed they already have — over many, many years.
You see, Jackson Stephens, one of the most powerful men in Arkansas, whose Stephens Inc. of Little Rock was one of the largest U.S. investment banks outside of Wall Street, was very close to George Bush, Sr. George Bush had “known him since the 1980 Reagan-Bush campaign. Mr. Stephens’s wife, Mary Anne, would soon become Arkansas co-chairman of the Bush for President campaign, while Mr. Stephens would donate $100,000 to Team 100, a GOP group that collected money for the campaign. Stephens Inc. kicked in another $100,000 to the Bush dinner committee last May [i.e. 1991].
In 1986, officials of Harken Energy — which had recently acquired George Bush, Jr. as a member of its board of directors, got together with Stephens Inc. to discuss “cash for [the financially strapped company]. Ultimately, Stephens put a rescue plan in motion: Union Bank of Switzerland, which ordinarily didn’t invest in small U.S. firms, would make an exception, giving Harken $25 million in exchange for a stock interest.”
(There is much more to this story, which also connects to BCCI and many other dubious dealings.)
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1026171349507350200
But interestingly enough, Stephens was absolutely central to Bill Clinton’s career as well:
http://articles.philly.com/1993-01-17/news/25959645_1_worthen-bank-stephens-family-bill-clinton
And it hardly needs saying that Bill Clinton was instrumental to Hillary Clinton’s career! So it’s interesting to note that all of this was made possible by Jackson a man with huge financial and political links to George Bush and his son, Jackson Stephens.
That being the case, this picture, taken at the funeral of Ronald Reagan, should come as no surprise:
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/272869-photo-shows-hillary-clinton-george-w-bush-together-at-rea
gans-funeral
Nor should it come as a surprise if one or more Bushes should eventually endorse Hillary Clinton for president.