From Politico. (Emphases mine):
O’Rourke: My Cabinet secretaries will hold monthly town halls By NOLAN D. MCCASKILL 04/01/2019 03:54 PM EDT
Beto O’Rourke pledged Monday to sign an executive order requiring his Cabinet secretaries to hold monthly public town halls if he’s elected president.
“As a member of Congress, six years in the minority, every major piece of legislation we were a part of came from a town hall meeting just like this,” the former Texas congressman told hundreds of progressive activists and organizers at the We The People summit in Washington, D.C. “That’s why as president I’ll sign an executive order on the first day in office requiring every single Cabinet secretary to hold a town meeting like this every single month.”
O’Rourke committed to tapping a set of Cabinet secretaries who reflect the diversity of America, a contrast to President Donald Trump’s Cabinet, whose leaders are overwhelmingly white and male.
“I also wanna make sure that our Cabinet and the entire executive branch reflects the diversity, the ingenuity, the genius of a country with 330 million people,” he said. “So making sure that that’s reflected in the composition of the Cabinet is absolutely important. And no, we will not have people who have corporate interests serving this country. Those positions of public trust will only be people who have the public interest in those positions of public trust.”
—snip—
O’Rourke’s campaign said he held more than 350 town halls during his closer-than-expected Senate run against Ted Cruz in 2018. He framed the town hall policy as a decision that gives more power to everyday people, in addition to rejecting PAC money and contributions from lobbyists.
“As I just committed, those Cabinet secretaries of those agencies and departments will be before you, not a handpicked audience, not a theatrical production, but a real, live town hall meeting not just to answer questions but to be held accountable,” he said.
I got yer “populism.”
Right here!!!
In my opinion, O’Rourke is the last, best hope for this nation.
You?
Think on it.
Please.
Later…
AG
going back to pre-Trump standards of honesty, competence, and diversity is of course a good thing, and the least we should expect from any Democratic candidate.
I am massively unimpressed by the “town hall” idea.
I do not see how having an official parachute into a meeting of randomly chosen people constitutes any kind of “accountability”. Cabinet secretaries are not “accountable” to voters, they are accountable to their boss, the President.
Nor do I see how the Sec of State or the Atty General is going to develop better policies based on input from such a group.
Well esquimaux…I’ll give you this. You are certainly consistent.
You write:
Your problem lies in your view of federal officialdom. It is…and unfortunately has been within living memory…quite accurate. You see them as somehow separated from the people… officials who need to be “parachuted” down from the rarefied heights of their official positions in order to get anywhere even nearly close to the citizens of this country.
And this is exactly where O’Rourke is a truly revolutionary figure. He is basing his entire campaign on the polar opposite of that attitude, and this idea about the cabinet is perfectly in line with the rest of his campaign.
Being in a room with a couple of hundred truly “randomly chosen”…let us pray it so… people would be an eye-opener for any longtime DC career pol with even a modicum of sense left after a few decades in the swamp. The closest most of them ever come to normal voters is either in some kind of master/servant relationship like diner/waiter or hotel guest/room cleaner or on a long, impersonal receiving line.
Up close and personal!!!???
Surrounded on all sides, as is O’Rourke in every “town hall” meeting?
They could not help but absorb some level of sreet-level passion and truth from repeated doses of something like that.
Outta the limousine and into reality.
It’s coming, esquimaux.
A truly popular reckoning.
Sooner rather than later, I hope.
Get used to it.
AG
Warren. And it’s not even close.
My only problem with Elizabeth Warren is her lack of…charisma, grace, talent, call it what you will…in public appearances. I am afraid that it renders here unelectable. She is simply not good on TV.
That necessity is a reality in this media-spun world today. I wish it was not, but it most definitely is.
Sorry, but there it is.
I mean…I saw a clip of her on the Colbert show. She can’t even handle snarky TV hosts. She looked…and worse, sounded…like she was about to jump out of her skin!!! It’s a game for which she simply has no talent. Too honest, too serious, too sincere. Clinton I had that particular gift and so did Obama. Clinton II wasn’t necessarily “good” at it, but she soldiered her way through fairly effectively. Well coached? I think so. But O’Rourke? He’s a natural. He’ll shine at it. Watch.
Just part of the electoral game…
Warren as Secretary of the Treasury, however?
YES!!!
With a Democratic congress that rode in on O’Rourke’s coattails?
What fun that would be!!!
AG
P.S. Or Vice President? With a truly charismatic presidential candidate like O’Rourke? Someone who…I hope…has the sense to make the vice-presidency more than just a figurehead office? Yes to that, too.
LOL no to Arthur’s attempt to catapult the propaganda. For someone who claims they want to rally the public to ignore media coverage, he sure does have a lot of takes on the candidates which mime common media analyses. The other thing that’s striking about what AG’s bringing in this and other Beto fanboy posts is that he’s prioritizing personality over policy substance right up front. He’s into “the electoral game” all of a sudden. How conventional and frivolous of him.
Me, I’m in agreement with this analysis. Warren’s charisma is just fine by me, and most importantly it’s fine in the rooms where she speaks to voters.
And here’s the appearance on the Colbert show which Gilroy references. How is the audience responding to her? Are they put off by her honesty, seriousness and sincerity?
Let’s have a serious look at the candidates, and let’s throw our shoulders into making sure the candidate who gets the nomination wins in November 2020. Don’t be like Arthur Gilroy as he refines his plan to campaign against Democratic Party candidates in the general election cycle if he is displeased with the choice made by voters in the Party primaries.
. . . characterization of the interview could not possibly be more absurdly, ridiculously false and wrong.
If Beto’s a poor choice for Dem 2020 nominee, though, then ag’s repetitive kissing of Beto’s ass here must be a good thing, as it will continue to clue in thoughtful, decent, honest, Reality-Based folks here who may have formed positive initial impressions of Beto, but who are also familiar with ag’s, um, “opus” here, to take hard, critical 2nd (and 3rd, and . . . ) looks at the Beto flaws — from a Dem/liberal/”progressive” perspective — that ag keeps so helpfully documenting here.
I’d be fine if Beto won the primary. I’d work to see him get elected as enthusiastically as I would any other candidate who wins the nomination. He brings some real campaign skills to the table. But absolutely, he and his campaign deserve scrutiny.
I don’t find O’Rourke uniquely valuable, and in a campaign with more than a dozen candidates, everyone is an underdog. Arthur is being way too obvious in his attempts to polarize the discussions here and set up his already announced plan to campaign against the Democratic Party nominee during the 2020 general election campaign.
I wish that I could…to some degree, at least…”rally the public to ignore media coverage.” But it ain’t gonna happen. May as well comment on how well people do within that coverage.
You write:
That is an audience…mostly tourists, bet on it… that has waited for however many hours to be allowed the privilege of watching some people on a stage hundreds of feet away talk for a few minutes at a time…with big “APPLAUSE” signs flashing all over the place…and then wait (bored to tears) as the ads run. Hell, centristfield…they are obediently screaming and cheering as Colbert sips whatever is in his coffee mug!!!
Can they really see Warren’s face? Her actions and reactions? Can they really hear her voice up close and (TV-wise) personal? Is there any sort of cognitive bias at work that led them to choose the (supposedly) liberal/progressive Colbert show to visit instead of any number of other spectacles that they might consume while staggering around Times Square gawking at all the big, flashy signage?
I watched it on a screen, and carefully ran the feed back again a few times, just so I might get a good feel for her actions and reactions. And…I had some “cognitive bias” myself. I wanted her to do well, to spring out of the screen with the power and strength…and yes, “authenticity” that Beto O’Rourke projects consistently
She did not do that.
In fact, what I mostly heard was fragments of stump speeches. From her first awkwardly springy steps to her initial broken-voiced “Hello!!!” and pasted-on smile right on through the semi-scripted “interview”…there are never any curveballs thrown on these things, just big, fat “Hit it out of the park!!!” giftballs…she just played along.
And Colbert’s whole schtick!!!
When he faked being happy about the $50 million taxing point, if she had said…”jokingly” as well…said something like:
But NOOOOOoooo…
Or perhaps:
No obviously staged speeches, just the real thing…
Then I’d begin to pay attention to her supermajority chances!!!
About the only thing she said that got my attention and approval was towards the end, when she changed manner and said “I believe in markets, but markets need rules, and they need a cop on the beat to enforce the rules!!! Markets without rules are theft, and we cannot have that.”
YES, ELIZABETH WARREN!!!
Please!!!
AG
LOL WTF…
We’re well aware of your cognitive biases, AG. You are right, and Sadie Doyle is wrong. None of these expressions suggest you have a general problem with women. It’s not like women are almost certain to be more than 50% of the 2020 electorate or anything.
Carefully run the feed back and forth a few dozen more time, why dontcha.
Tell us more.
. . . bias” myself.’
No!!!
You can’t seriously expect anyone here familiar with your . . . um . . . “output” here to give any credence to this wild new claim of yours now, can you?!
</snark>
“That is an audience…mostly tourists, bet on it… that has waited for however many hours to be allowed the privilege of watching some people on a stage hundreds of feet away talk for a few minutes at a time…with big “APPLAUSE” signs flashing all over the place…and then wait (bored to tears) as the ads run. “
And this is somehow different to the town hall proposal?
Ypou write:
Have you even seen any of the the town hall meetings that O’Rourke is running?
I doubt it.
People come to political “town hall” meetings like those because they are interested in what is going to happen and want to have a say in it.
People come to passively watch celebrations of mediocrity like the current late night TV shows because…because they simply don’t have anything better to do.
Duh!!!
Unbelievable.
AC
Get off Arthur Gilroy’s lawn, popular entertainment!
Also, too, declaring “town hall” type meetings universally superior in some way is quite, quite misleading. Campaign town halls are most frequently intended to flatter people who the candidate wants to hold in their coalition, and the questions from the general public who show up are most often carefully selected. They’re absolutely meant to entertain.
One of many obvious examples: People who come to Trump rallies “…are interested in what is going to happen and want to have a say in it…”, but Trump rallies are exceedingly bad for our society, a place where citizens go to wallow in lies and misinformation intended to stoke their confirmation bias and deepen their hatred for other Americans.
Have you even seen any of O’Rourke’s town halls?
Loose as a goose.
The exact opposite of Trump’s staged rallies.
What a piece of work you are, centristfield!!!! Sometimes I wonder if it is not you…the serial accuser of me as some kind of undercover pro-Trump agitator…who is the real pro-Trump spook here.
All you do is support the habitual Dem losers.
Very effective.
Who’da thunk it?
Go away.
Your time is well over.
AG
Tell us more about your expressed and defended belief that Cliven Bundy was “…fucking right…”.
Apologies for the bad first link. Here’s a good link to Sady Doyle’s “The Media Gaslighting of 2020’s Most Likable Candidate”.
thanks for that, a very good article.