Delaware Dem

Friday Open Thread [7.29.16]

Brian Beulter on Hillary’s plan to beat Trump:

The question is how she intends to do it. What kind of campaign will she run? She answered that question Thursday night. […]

The implicit theme of the convention’s final night was that Americans shouldn’t see the election as a contest between Democrats and Republicans, but between responsible citizens and Donald Trump. Reagan Republicans and devout Muslims on one team; Donald Trump and Scott Baio and the sewer scavengers of right-wing talk radio on the other.

“A man you can bait with a tweet,” Clinton said in her peroration, “is not a man you can trust with nuclear weapons.” This is indisputable. But has Clinton chosen the most surefire way to keep them out of his hands? [..]

The truth, though, is that this debate is unnecessarily binary [this maximal inclusive strategy v. labeling Trump a Republican]. Elections are state-based as much as they are national, and there is nothing stopping the Clinton campaign, buffeted by Obama and her other top surrogates, from running an inclusive campaign, while Democratic congressional candidates drape their opponents’ Trump endorsements around their necks.

And the larger point is that coalitions aren’t normally built on unforgiving honesty. In an ideal world, Clinton would trounce Trump, extending her coattails all the way down the ballot, to capture Congress as well, leaving Republicans branded as the Trump party for a generation. That outcome is still possible, but it can’t be pursued in a way that makes the risk of defeat unacceptably high. Clinton’s primary imperative is to prevent Trump from winning, even narrowly, and that in turn means leaving a door ajar to Republicans who can’t reconcile themselves to Trump’s nomination.

Clinton showcased on Thursday night what a campaign like that looks like: a maximal coalition to defeat a maximal threat.

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Thursday Open Thread [7.28.16]

Andrew Sullivan on Obama’s speech:

It’s been a long and entirely unexpected journey with this extraordinary figure. I’ve doubted and panicked, I’ve hyper-ventilated and wept, I’ve worried and persevered. We did a lot of that together, you and me. But I have one thing to say: he never let us down. He kept his cool, he kept his eyes on the prize, he never embarrassed and almost always lifted us up. He is a living, walking example of American exceptionalism, of why this amazing country can still keep surprising the world.

Readers know how I feel about the Clintons. But this is not about them or me. It’s about an idea of America that is under siege and under attack from a foul, divisive, dangerous demagogue. If you backed Obama, there is no choice in this election but Clinton. This is not a election to seek refuge in a third party or to preen in purist disdain from the messy, often unsatisfying duties of politics. It is an election to keep the America that Obama has helped bring into being, and the core democratic values that have defined this experiment from the very beginning: self-government, not rule by a strongman; pluralism and compassion rather than nativism and fear; an open embrace of the world, and not a terrified flight from it.

But you know what Obama gave us tonight? He gave some of us hope. Again. That’s what he does. And we will never see his like again.

Barack Obama is the best President of the life of anyone who is reading these words. It is simply an undisputed fact. Most certainly the best President since Roosevelt, there are not many of us here were alive for FDR. If not for the Constitution, I would vote for this man three to four times.

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Wednesday Open Thread [7.27.16]

Ezra Klein said Bill Clinton’s convention speech encapsulated how Hillary Clinton’s admirers see her, and why they think so much of the criticism she gets is unfair.

There was a moment in Bill Clinton’s winding, loving, and occasionally weird convention speech about his wife that encapsulated how Hillary Clinton’s admirers see her, and why they think so much of the criticism she gets is unfair.

“Speeches like this are fun,” said the former president, who clearly finds giving long, nationally televised speeches to be fun. “Actually doing the work is hard.”

That’s the view Hillary Clinton’s fans have of her. Hell, it’s the view Hillary Clinton has of herself. She knows she doesn’t give great speeches. “I am not a natural politician, in case you haven’t noticed, like my husband or President Obama,” she’s said. But then, she doesn’t think giving great speeches is the real work of politics, even though the media and sometimes the voters mistake it for the real work of politics.

That’s what her husband means when he dismisses speeches as “fun.” He gives great speeches. But he’s also been president. And he knows the difference.

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Two Person Race: Townsend, Rochester Lead in Poll

The News Journal and PublicMind, a polling outfit associated with Fairleigh Dickinson University, have released a poll showing both State Sen. Bryan Townsend and former Secretary of Labor Lisa Blunt Rochester tied at 11%. Shockingly, Mike Miller gets 9%, and somehow Scott Walker, they guy with the crazy hand made signs and who stands on a painted old car waving at traffic, gets 6%.

Devastatingly, Sean Barney only gets 4%, and the other candidate, New York transplant Elias Weir, could not garner 1%.

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Monday Open Thread [7.25.16]

The headlining speakers speak during the 10 pm hour. That’s 6 hours a day of speaking time left, some of which will be taken up by adopting the Platform and the Rules (on Monday) and going through the roll call starting on Tuesday where we tally up the delegate votes between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. I wonder if Bernie will pull a Hillary here and move to accept Hillary’s nomination by acclamation, which is what Hillary did half way through the roll call in 2008. Bernie has been very restrained during this past weekend, and I actually appreciate that. He has not gone nuts over the DNC emails, except to rightly say he was right and to say that he has been calling for DWS to resign for months. That’s all fair. And while he delivered some mild criticism of Tim Kaine, he was still a happy warrior about the need to elect Hillary Clinton.

In other words, Bernie realizes he has won a lot. He won the platform. He won a Primary Process Unity Commission that will look at reforms for 2020 and he won an immediate reform of the Super Delegates, tying most of them to the vote in their states, and he finally got DWS fired. I think we will see a great speech from Bernie tonight.

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Sunday Open Thread [7.24.16]

Politico has a must read it all story about the Clinton VP process. It has interesting nuggets about how Castro dropped out of favor because he was openly and privately campaigning for the job, about how Ed Rendell pushed Vilsack (God, how that guy’s political instincts have fallen apart) and how James Carville was pushing Elizabeth Warren (which garners him more respect from me), and about how Hillary sat each candidate down (Warren, Perez, Vilsack, Kaine and Castro), sang their praises and then asked “why do you want the job?” Like a normal job interview. Also, how Kaine called Bernie Sanders last night after the call from Hillary. Read the whole thing.

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