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#Post#: 11561--------------------------------------------------
U.S. 2020 Presidential candidates
By: Susan Date: January 21, 2019, 10:39 pm
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I do not know how many candidates we usually have this early in
the race--- but it looks like there are several democrats and at
least three women.
HTML https://ballotpedia.org/Presidential_candidates,_2020
SHL-- I had not heard of Kamala Harris before but being from
that part of California I am sure you have. What is her
reputation? Do you think she has a chance? She announced her
candidacy today. I wonder if a ¨woman of color¨ has a very good
chance against Trump (who also filed his plan to run for
re-election.) Apparently she is the daughter of an immigrant
from India and an immigrant from Jamaica. Looks like we will
definitely have some candidates clearly different from Trump.
HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamala_Harris
#Post#: 11563--------------------------------------------------
Re: U.S. 2020 Presidential candidates
By: SHL Date: January 22, 2019, 12:42 am
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[quote author=Susan link=topic=784.msg11561#msg11561
date=1548131979]
I do not know how many candidates we usually have this early in
the race--- but it looks like there are several democrats and at
least three women.
HTML https://ballotpedia.org/Presidential_candidates,_2020
SHL-- I had not heard of Kamala Harris before but being from
that part of California I am sure you have. What is her
reputation? Do you think she has a chance? She announced her
candidacy today. I wonder if a ¨woman of color¨ has a very good
chance against Trump (who also filed his plan to run for
re-election.) Apparently she is the daughter of an immigrant
from India and an immigrant from Jamaica. Looks like we will
definitely have some candidates clearly different from Trump.
HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamala_Harris
[/quote]
Kamala Harris was the former California Attorney General. I
remember her from a few years ago when this maniac, who actually
is a real lawyer in California, drew up this insane proposed
State Ballot Referendum. You know how California has this really
stupid ballot initiative thing that allows anyone to propose any
law he or she can dream up, by writing it up, paying like a $200
fee to the Secretary of State, and then start a signature
gathering campaign to put the proposal as a referendum on the
next election? You have to get like 350,000 signatures or
something to qualify to put it on the ballot. Well, this
mental-case (again, a real lawyer) wrote up this screwball „kill
the gays“ initiative to allow anyone to kill gay people on sight
and not be charged with committing a crime (no kidding, this
made the news). He paid the filing fee, but all the initiative
proposals have to be cleared by the Attorney General and titled
and written up before they can even start the signature
gathering process. When this one came across Harris`desk, she
summarily rejected it and filed a lawsuit for an injunction to
prevent her for having to write this up. The court granted the
injunction and she returned his filing fee.
Why California has so many crazy people, I have no idea. It`s
like it just produces them from someplace. Very strange. What,
we put out Robert McNamara, Nixon, that lunatic who drew up that
ballot thing, Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple (although he was
from Indianapolis, he went off the deep end when he got here).
Charlie Manson, and the list just goes on and on.
Anyway, earlier, Kamala Harris had been the District Attorney
for the City and County of San Francisco. She has a good record
on reducing violent crime in San Francisco. Most violent crime
in the San Francisco dropped off significantly during her tenure
in office. She is for gun control, opposes the death penalty,
favors abortion rights for women, favors universal health
insurance for everyone. The National Riflemen`s Association gave
her an „F“ rating (the worst one) for her anti-gun stance. Then
she became a US Democratic Senator.
She is definitely a talented and smart lady. Ah, she`s a law
school graduate from Hastings Law School, in San Francisco, a
great school and very competitive one too. Overall, she`s what
much of the country would call quite liberal. Oh, she
co-sponsored the legislation to make marijuana legal in
California, so she favored that. That was the one that made
recreational marijuana legal, like in Holland. We had medical
marijuana legal for years before that.
As a liberal candidate I would doubt she`s got that great of a
chance in a Presidential run, because she`s not what many US
voters want. Quite the contrary. Not because of her ethnicity,
but her political views. But, she is highly qualified for the
office. I think Trump will wind up being a one-term President if
he doesn`t get the Wall he wants. That´s why he`s making such a
fuss over it, like a kid in kindergarten now. I really doubt he
cares about the Wall deep down. It´s just that not getting it
built would likely cost him the election.
The „Sodomite Suppression Act“ as this looney California lawyer,
Matt McLaughlin, called it, got a lot of press and many groups
filed complaints with the State Bar asking he be disbarred as an
attorney. The State Bar never disbarred him because they are so
wishy-washy they won`t disbar anyone unless you flat out steal
money from your clients. It´s pretty much that bad. Everyone
just gets a slap on the hands for almost anything.
This is the Wikipedia story on it, which is wild. I bring this
up because I think it says a lot about Kamala Harris` character.
The whole story became like a circus.
„In an effort to defend the LGBT community, Dr. Charlotte Laws
drafted her own initiative called the "Intolerant Jackass Act"
and submitted it to the Attorney General's office on March 23,
2015. It stated that "any person, herein known as an intolerant
jackass, who brings forth a ballot measure that suggests the
killing of gays and/or lesbians, shall be required to attend
sensitivity training" and donate $5,000 to an LGBT cause. Laws
said she had no intention of circulating her measure for
signatures. It was created merely to mock McLaughlin and take
his power away.“
In response to this whole crazy store, Kamala Harris did say to
the court, as it pertained to her requested injunction, it
"threatens public safety, it is patently unconstitutional,
utterly reprehensible, and has no place in a civil society."
HTML https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomite_Suppression_Act
#Post#: 11575--------------------------------------------------
Re: U.S. 2020 Presidential candidates
By: NealC Date: January 22, 2019, 3:39 am
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Certainly more qualified than Obama ever was.
We just got over the mid-terms and now we have to start talking
2020? Can't we get a break from politics here in the U.S.?
#Post#: 11576--------------------------------------------------
Re: U.S. 2020 Presidential candidates
By: Alharacas Date: January 22, 2019, 3:45 am
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Funnily enough, Kamala Harris is about the only candidate I'd
heard of, because of this article I came across a while ago:
HTML https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/22/kamala-harris-democratic-candidate-for-2020
I'd be really interested to know what kind of person you, Susan
(and the other US members here, of course), think it would take
to defeat the current President. The human equivalent to a Swiss
Army knife - a staunch democrat, who isn't seen as being in
cahoots with the political establishment, and who'd appeal to
lots of Republicans as well?
I'd also like to know whether the "woman factor" matters at all
in the US. What I mean is that I think (this is impossible to
prove or disprove, of course) that being a woman has been a
decisive factor in terms of Chancellor Merkel's election and
subsequent re-elections: not only is she from the Eastern part
of Germany (garnering strong support there), but also a vicar's
daughter (therefore by association
anti-former-socialist-GDR-establishment), plus a conservative
(therefore getting establishment votes), but she's also a woman
and thus appealed to the female half of rather
anti-establishment voters in the Western part of Germany.
#Post#: 11579--------------------------------------------------
Re: U.S. 2020 Presidential candidates
By: NealC Date: January 22, 2019, 4:30 am
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It is a good article, though this paragraph makes me angry
"In an America where racism has been emboldened and where the
white supremacist Ku Klux Klan recently held a rally in a
college town and was confronted with more than a thousand
furious protesters"
How do those two sentences go together? Does the author think
everyone protesting the KKK were Democrats?
"The Democratic party is still negotiating its own racial
politics. It is caught between those who are moving to woo back
white working-class voters who defected to Trump, and those who
argue that it would be better to focus on mobilising African
American voters, whose turnout dropped in 2016".
African American turnout did not drop that much in 2016, and it
was mostly because blacks do not like Hilary much. Blacks will
not help the Democrats win back the states Trump won. They have
to win back white working class voters. To many of the
Democratic candidates the white working class is repulsive (or
"deplorable"). Others are, imho - too far to the left for the
working class.
Biden is a mistake, he is just too old. He had a chance in
2016, it is gone now. And he is almost as much of a big mouth
boob as Trump. Warren and Bernie are too left, and Bernie
really burned his young supporters in 2016. I don't think the
kids will be out for either of them in 2020. Trump calls Warren
"Pocahontas" because she tried to pass herself off as Americans
Indian, not became she has Indian blood.
As a Republican it is my hope the Democrats continue to be
stupid about why Trump won, and they continue to move to the
left and appeal to minority voters. Hopefully they will take
another beating before they figure it all out. The broad swath
of the U.S. is fed up with Washington being sold to the highest
bidder, and would probably prefer to hang the lot of them.
#Post#: 11639--------------------------------------------------
Re: U.S. 2020 Presidential candidates
By: SHL Date: January 22, 2019, 2:32 pm
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The Swiss Army knife example of the kind of person it would take
for the Democrats to run in a 2020 campaign to defeat Trump is
probably a good one. I like Kamala Harris. She reminds me of one
of these highly successful and talented women coming from the
Oakland-San Francisco Bay Area who went far. Becoming San
Francisco `s District Attorney was no small accomplishment, and
especially beating Terence Hallinan, from the long-term Hallinan
family of San Francisco (Hallinan`s father was a famous criminal
defense lawyer in San Francisco for years in the 1930s, as was
his son, Terence Hallinan, later on). Then becoming California
Attorney General was a big step. Her family was highly
educated, she went to good schools. She’s got a reputation as
not being soft on crime, certainly not as a prosecutor, but she
wrote a 2009 book, Not Tough on Crime, but Smart on Crime. That
she is highly qualified is indisputable. Her prosecutorial
background will appeal to the „tough-on-crime“ crowd. But, she
doesn`t carry it too far and keeps it reasonable and balanced.
At the same time she against the „tough on drugs“ nonsense from
the 80s.
I doubt that being a woman would be the slightest hindrance to
her being elected. It´s as irrelevant to voters as her
ethnicity. No one really cares about that. In fact, it`s
possible that being a woman would actually give her a leg up.
(Hillary couldn`t gain any advantage from just being a woman
because she had so many other issues against her, and her past
in politics).
Sanders ruined it for Democrats by losing all the support in
2016 of younger voters by letting them down and giving up and
supporting Hillary. Biden is probably too old, and old-school to
have a chance and he`s too connected to Obama, who always had
his haters. Even Obama had to be a chameleon when he started
out, pretending to be against same sex marriage at first and
then changing his tune after the US Supreme Court declared it a
constitutional right in 2015. So the Supreme Court did the job,
and then Obama came out as supporting it. I`m sure he always
supported same sex marriage but just was afraid to admit it.
So far, I like Kamala Harris and hope she runs a good campaign.
It´s going to be tough wooing the support of the Trump
supporters from back East, but if she plays her cards right, and
understands how Trump supporters think to begin with, she might
have a chance. It´s a bit early to tell, but she may have to be
that Swiss Army knife in the long run. And, I think Trump will
have to rack up some more points against him and lose a lot of
his fan base, which would certainly bode well for Harris.
#Post#: 11674--------------------------------------------------
Re: U.S. 2020 Presidential candidates
By: SHL Date: January 23, 2019, 4:28 pm
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..
#Post#: 11675--------------------------------------------------
Re: U.S. 2020 Presidential candidates
By: Susan Date: January 23, 2019, 8:56 pm
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Thanks for your replies. Personally I do not usually follow
U.S. politics. This past election was the first time I did not
vote for the Republican presidential candidate-- only my concern
about having a character like Trump has pulled me into interest
on this. I do not have a clue who might be able to bridge the
divide we have right now. I think it would have to be someone
charismatic and moderate enough to get enough people crossing
party lines. I think it also depends on what the economy is
doing. Add a bad economy to the current picture and someone
else symbolizing change would have a chance.
#Post#: 11676--------------------------------------------------
Re: U.S. 2020 Presidential candidates
By: SHL Date: January 23, 2019, 11:36 pm
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Not long ago I rarely paid much attention to politics myself. It
reminds me a lot of what comedian Doug Stanhope said on stage
once that, in his entire life, he never noticed the slightest
difference in his own life based on who the President was. To a
large extent I understand that. Many people feel the same way.
One of the things that strikes me is this major problem: the US
has something like 325,000,000 people over a land mass of around
3,000 miles, or around 5,000 km, from Coast-to-Coast. The EU has
a population of around 512,000,000 people. That means the US has
a population of about 2/3rd that of the EU. Can you imagine how
difficult it would be for one person to be elected to an office
of President of the EU if there were such an office? It would be
a near impossibility. 28 different countries with different
languages (with the exception only of a few with the same
language), and different histories and cultures? The whole idea
is just absurd.
I know the US is no where near as old as Europe, has one basic
language and one history (even if it only spans 240 odd years,
which is nothing compared to Europe`s history) but you can see a
similar problem. The US is just too big and diverse to find
someone who would be the most electable person as President.
Whenever you have a country of this size, there is going to be
an enormous amount of diversity for there to be an easy answer
to this. It`s a near impossibility. Where are you going to find
such a person?
Kamala Harris could easily be elected governor of California
(she`s probably even a bit more conservative than the current
governor, Gavin Newsome), but how is she going to be perceived
in Ohio? It´s the same problem with anyone you put up there to
run for office.
So, unfortunately, US Presidental elections wind up being a
choice between the lesser of two bad candidates, as in the last
election. So, the whole thing becomes extremely difficult to
predict.
I agree the state of the economy does tie into electability.
But, it´s far more complicated than that. People say the country
is divided? Of course it is. How could it not be, being the size
it is?
So, I don`t have much of an answer. I wish I did. They`re just
no simple answers to complicated questions, as much as people
want to look for them.
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