Month: January 2019

I’m going to keep this short and sweet. NO, Ana Navarro, it is not incumbent on democrats to nominate a candidate that you and Bill Kristol approve of. You approved of George W Bush, and never admitted that you made a huge mistake. You already voted for a potted plant (or four), so you should fuck right off with your commentary on the democratic primary.

You don’t get to tell democrats what to do, just because you helped make your party so toxic that you can’t take them anymore. Stay in your fucking lane. You are never allowed to comment on anything other than the republican party. Not ever.

As you know, I’m committed to vetting each and every candidate who announces they’re running in the democratic presidential primary. I plan on vetting every single one with an open mind, and with as much research and information as I can get my hands on.

I am not trying to tell anyone who to vote for. My goal is to provide my readers and followers with accurate information with which to make informed decisions, and to hopefully provide a platform (via my Facebook page) for respectful, intellectually honest debate. With that in mind, I will be posting informative (and most importantly, honest) articles as I find them on each candidate.

These blog posts will serve as aggregate depositories for what I find on each candidate, so I will be updating them as more information becomes available.

That said, let’s start with Kamala Harris. I’ve spent a few days (I’m nowhere near done) looking at her record as a prosecutor. I’m focusing on her record as a prosecutor because she was elected to the senate in 2016, in a minority party situation where democrats are up against Trump. I don’t expect any glaring stand-out votes from any democratic senator under these circumstances, and I didn’t find any with her. I am however, looking for signs of true leadership qualities. In other words, I’m looking for instances where a candidate from the senate has led the party in a good direction, rather than simply followed the pack or followed on an issue where popular opinion leads our legislators. Bernie Sanders is a great example of what I mean: he led on Medicare for all in 2016, breaking from literally every member of the senate. Because of this, nearly all of the candidates who have announced so far for 2020 are supporting Medicare for all. By contrast, Hillary might have been the last person in America to support Marriage Equality. I want a politician who will lead on important issues, rather than to join a bandwagon. That’s just an important quality for me.

At any rate, I didn’t really find and stand out leadership instances from Harris’ short tenure in the senate, with the exception of her performance in questioning Jeff Sessions and Brett Kavanaugh during their confirmation hearings. She did a great job in both instances but I expected that she would because this was a time for her prosecutorial chops to shine. I will say that I find people who have emotionally committed to supporting Harris simply because she was mean to Brett Kavanaugh to be pretty childish. Yes, she was mean to a guy who deserved it, but what else? Well, that’s what I’m trying to learn.

I will say that I’m not generally predisposed to getting excited about prosecutors running for higher office because I understand what they have to do in order to earn the ever important “tough on crime” bona fides they must earn to get reelected. So I did start off with that bias. That said, I’m pleasantly surprised by what I’m finding out about Harris’ record.

Her record is very mixed, to the point of being a little ‘split personality disorder’. I’m not going to go into everything because I happened to (this is rare and probably won’t happen with the other candidates) find an article that takes a very deep dive into her record, and makes fair points about the good and the bad. I’d rather spend my time doing more research than typing out my version if a well balanced piece, so please take the time to read that whole article.

I will point out one facet of her record that resonates in a very positive way for me. She ran on an anti-capital punishment platform. In her first year as San Francisco DA, she got thrown a major test of her platform promises: there was a cop killer case. Everyone, including Diane Feinstein (I’m not a fan) had their pitchforks out, loudly demanding the death penalty. Harris stood up to that immense pressure and succeeded in sparing this killer’s life. This is exactly what I was referring to in regard to the leadership qualities that matter to me. Unfortunately, she wasn’t consistent in her anti-death penalty stance (please read that article!) so there is definitely a major mixed bag situation with her. But, she’s been trying to thread a very difficult needle as a prosecutor with aspirations for higher office. Granted, she’s from California so said threading isn’t as tricky as it would be for (say) a democratic prosecutor from Indiana, but it’s still a very difficult tight rope to stay on. My verdict is that she did about as well as one can reasonably expect.

The main thing that I knew about Harris before I started my vetting process is that she failed to prosecute Steve Mnuchin and OneWest bank for their egregious ripoff of California home owners who were unfortunate enough to have done business with them. We do have another mixed bag situation with her in regard to prosecuting the powerful, but it’s mostly not awesome. Harris claims that she didn’t have enough evidence to prosecute OneWest. David Dayen (who is a journalist I respect very much) wrote a piece for The Intercept that provides evidence to the contrary. Again, please read that link! So that was bad. On the flip side, she pulled California out of a nationwide mortgage settlement with the five big banks and got a much better settlement than the rest of the country got. Was it a great deal for CA homeowners? Not remotely. Each homeowner basically got less than $2,000. Could she have gotten a better deal? I don’t know, and neither do you.

I have to digress for a minute to tell you something you probably already know, but I still want to spell it out. I’m a flaming liberal. The older I get, the more liberal I’ve become. I consider myself a democratic socialist. That does not make me a doe eyed little church mouse, who has no idea how politics work. Just the opposite. I’m very pragmatic about the situation we’re in. I’m acutely aware of our current system of government, and how it is institutionally designed to crush the working class and minimize any occurrences of justice. I get that the rich run the country and that there isn’t much leeway for justice in our current system. I also believe that we can change the system. So when Bernie talks about getting money out of politics, I can see that (albeit narrow) path. When someone tells me that it’s possible to slap a big enough fine on a big bank to actually hurt them, I don’t believe them because I can’t see that path. I know it’s counterintuitive, and that the money in politics issue seems like a bigger one to tackle, but it’s not.

Back to Harris’ settlement: I don’t know if she could have gotten more. I haven’t seen anyone else get more, so I’m going to put this in the win column for her. Believe it or not, I tend to be more generous with candidates that I don’t start off loving. So I’m going to choose to give her credit for this one.

Now to the money. She has pledged not to take Super PAC money so she passes my #1 threshold. I will not consider a candidate who doesn’t make this pledge. Super PAC money generally only makes up 30% of the total haul in a presidential race, but it’s something and I’ll take it. You can look at her donors here. It’s not terrible. She’s not funded by police unions, which is what I would expect from a prosecutor so that’s good. Her small dollar donations aren’t remotely close to what Bernie’s are but again, I’m realistic and I don’t necessarily expect everyone contribution data to look as good as his do (although I wish they would).

So the bottom line is that with the information that I’ve gathered so far, she is someone who will be on my “maybe” list.

I will be updating this post with more information as I get it, and reshaping to my social media outlets every time I make an update.

Much to my dismay, the 2020 election process is under way. I spent 2018 refusing to discuss 2020 because it’s pointless to discuss “candidates” who haven’t even announced that they’re running for president yet. Our election cycles are already entirely too long. I find the notion of making them longer absurd and painful.

But the election process has begun, so it’s time to start discussing. In so discussing, I would like to lay down some ground rules.

Rule #1 do not make a “viability” argument to me. This is a bullshit argument that is comprised of nothing but projection in favor of who you want to vote for. This is not a debatable topic. There is no empirical evidence that you can point to. So please don’t waste my time with it. Wanna know who is viable? Anyone who wins a (mostly) clean primary in which there are ten or more options. That’s who.

It was clear to me that something was amiss in the 2016 democratic primary when, in a year with no incumbent president from that party, only four people ran. And one of those four was Lincoln Chafee. Something was terribly wrong, right from the beginning. We didn’t find out why this happened until after the presidential election was concluded. That cannot happen again. The primary process is extremely important in vetting and testing candidates. So for everyone who is angry with Bernie for “costing” Hillary the election, please either grow up or shut up. He wasn’t even running in earnest until after the Iowa caucus. He was just in it to get a message out. He still managed to take 43% of all democratic primary votes, even though he didn’t start to build an infrastructure until February, 2016. Also, I don’t know why you all keep ignoring the fact that the democratic party allowed Bernie to run as a democrat. That’s right – he got permission from the party. Ralph Nader made the same request once. He was denied. If you don’t like primaries, you should feel a special kinship with Scott Walker, and every other republican who hates democracy and have therefore stripped power from the democratic governors who won elections. Primaries are good, and they’re the best way we have to vet candidates for resilience and viability. If you prefer to skip the primary process and simply have a coronation for your nominee of choice, you’re doomed to lose the general election over and over again.

Hillary referred to Barack as a child for the better part of 2007:

And then, Sarah Palin referred to him as a terrorist for three months, as Fox “News” had been doing for fourteen months. Nothing was going to stop him, and he had been thoroughly tested to prove it.

So to summarize, primaries are great because they objectively answer the viability question. You should all want a vigorous primary.

Rule #2: don’t tell me that you don’t want someone to run. Why? Why do you hate democracy? You don’t have to vote for anyone you don’t want to vote for, but why would you want to take choices away from others? I want everyone who has presidential aspirations to run in the primaries. More choices are always better, and make for a stronger vetting process. If Ivanka decides she wants to run against her father by throwing her hat into the democratic primary, I say go for it. I sure as shit won’t vote for her, but if her entry into the process more thoroughly tests the eventual nominee, then I’m in because I believe in democracy. For the love of god, think about what you’re saying when you make that point. If you don’t want somebody to run, it’s because you’re not feeling all that confident in your choice. Choose differently, but don’t advocate for limiting everyone else’s choices.

I supported Bernie in the last primary. That doesn’t necessarily mean that if he announces he’s running again, that he will be my choice again. I am going to wait for the last candidate to announce before I decide which candidate best represents my self interests. He was the right candidate for me in the last primary. That doesn’t mean that he’s going to be the right candidate for me in this primary. I plan to carefully vet each candidate as they announce that they’re running so that I can have all of the information I need to make my decision when the last candidate announces. I am not wasting time vetting anyone who hasn’t announced yet. So right now, I’m vetting Richard Ojeda, Elizabeth Warren, and Julian Castro because they’re definitely running. Warren announced that she was launching an exploratory committee. For those who don’t understand how politics works, she announced this so that she can get two news days for her candidacy. She’s running. Castro announced that he’s going to announce on the 12th for the same reason.

These are my choices right now, so these are the candidates I’m vetting. It’s okay to rule people out before everyone has announced, but you have to do it objectively. Create a list of your three most important issues and vet the candidates against those issues. My number one issue is corporate money in politics. I will not support any candidate who is taking big dollar donations from corporations in the primary. That is a hard line for me. That said, if all of the candidates are taking large corporate contributions, I’m going to have to move that hard line and settle for looking at candidates who aren’t taking super PAC money. You have to adjust your criteria as the situation on the ground changes.

My second issue is Medicare For All. I don’t plan on supporting a primary candidate who isn’t vocal in their support for Medicare For All. My third main issue is the regulation of banks. I’m not going to be particularly enthusiastic about anyone who isn’t coming out hard for regulating all industries, but particularly the banks.

You need to make up your own list, and start your own vetting process. Please don’t talk to me about candidates who aren’t running yet. When you do that, it tells me that your mind is closed and that you’re not taking this election seriously. If you can’t tell me something seriously troubling about the candidate that you’ve chosen to support, then you’re telling me that you haven’t done any vetting at all.

When I chose Bernie in 2016, I did so knowing that his record on gun control was completely anathema to my views on gun control. And by the way, I never defended his record there because I’m not a child and he’s not my daddy. I made the calculation that his stand on corporate money in politics was going to solve our issues with gun control. Without the NRA buying out politicians, sensible gun control laws become totally viable. That was my conclusion. I did it like an adult, by acknowledging the problem and deciding if it was a big picture deal breaker for me.

When Bernie conceded the primary to, and endorsed Hillary, I advocated for her in the general because my options had changed. You cannot be so emotional about these candidates, that you’re willing to cut off your nose to spite your face. Hillary was clearly the better (by far) choice in the general election. Unfortunately, she wasn’t sufficiently vetted for viability in the primary. She wasn’t a strong candidate, which is why the propaganda against her worked. Propaganda only works if people are receptive to it. As I said earlier, nothing was going to stop Obama. So please stop relitigating 2016. It’s over. She lost because she didn’t run an effective campaign since she didn’t have to. She cock blocked any real competition in the primary, and therefore wasn’t sufficiently tested for viability. Biden didn’t even run – that should have told you that something stinky happened there. Get over it and move on. We have another election to focus on.

So let’s get on with it. Let’s look at all the candidates, and all of our priorities and make some intellectually honest and vigorous arguments advocating for the candidates we like.

I will be sharing information I find through my vetting process for each candidate so that you can decide how that information effects your decision. I will not be making my primary choice until (probably) during the summer, when everyone who is going to run is actually in the race.