He’s perfectly adequate at lying and spinning things to benefit him…probably better than Obama was in 08. If for no other reason than he’s been doing this for 30+ years. Like he did a good job imo lying about why he voted for the crime bill. His contemporaneous statements are well in line with dem orthodoxy of the time but he’s convinced a lot of people that he voted for it despite the things he was initially praising it for. That’s pretty good politicking.
I think his biggest weakness is probably one on one retail politics. Making individual, personal connections with different types of people of various backgrounds. Incidentally, that might be Biden’s biggest (only?) strength. I’ve heard of other dems not personally liking Clinton, Obama, Warren, Sanders etc but Biden seems to get along with everyone. Sanders apparently likes Biden because Joe was nice to him back when Bernie had no national profile and you hear stories like this about him regularly
Bernie spoke out at length before Congress on the crime bill in 1994. Pretty sure you’re full of shit, but maybe I’ll look into your CNN piece at some point.
You can also find the video of his speech before congress and see all of it in context. But, it’s been posted a lot and I’m sure you’ve already seen it.
I’m only claiming his view at the time was pretty mainstream dem in the 90s and not at all how dems talk about crime and prison reform now. He voted for the bill and thought that more jails and harsher punishments were part of the solution. I don’t see why his speech matters when the CNN article quotes him saying exactly that. I mean, good for him if he’s convinced a bunch of people he’s always hated the fact that the bill included more jails and harsher punishments. That’s why I thought he was a good enough politician to win earlier in this race. Being able to shit the narrative to a favorable light is a crucial skill for someone wanting to be president after a lietime in politics.
Hope not. But if he does I won’t ignore the systemic problem responsible in favor of the “bad candidate” narrative that so many seem so comfortable holding on to.
Is a candidate that runs up the popular vote score in the North East and on the West Coast but loses the swing states a bad candidate in the current EC system?
Americans are where they are. A candidate in an election that earns fewer votes for whatever the reason can hardly be argued to be the better. That is unless the only goal is to defend the outcome of a flawed system that says otherwise.
Couldn’t imagine anyone defending the result of an election that gave more weight to votes based on color, or gender, or wealth, or education. To hide behind a system that rewards geography (no matter what the original intention was) is no less absurd.
We all agree the Electoral College blows, but that is the contest. If Hillary had received 200 million votes and Trump had received 183 total votes but Trump won the Electoral College, then he is the winner of the election. To argue otherwise is, and I’m going to be as polite as I possibly can, extraordinarily fucking stupid and/or an attempt to destroy the meanings of words because it makes you feel better.
Zero humans in the history of unstuckpolitics dot com have argued against any of these points. In fact, most of it seems entirely trivial. Despite that, you’re still completely wrong that “Hillary won the election”, according to all the accepted concepts of logic and language.
The result is the result is the result. Is the result. It’s the result. The result.
She earned more votes. She won. Clutch those pearls but only in a broken democracy does the language of “winning” mean otherwise bc there is nothing logical about a system that affords more weight to votes in certain parts of the country than in others.
That triviality put an incompetent, ignorant know nothing who is going to be responsible for the death of thousands of Americans in the WH. To reference the election without pointing out the disparity in votes at every opportunity only serves to validate what happened and suggest that it is an acceptable practice moving forward. It is not.
