July 16, 2018

"The irony of being opposed by her own party must weigh on Feinstein...."

"But Feinstein didn’t keep up with the changes in California. Her opponent [Kevin] de León apparently has: He’s running on abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, promoting national health insurance, and impeaching President Trump. Feinstein seemed a little stunned as she watched her party turn on her this past weekend. Feinstein knew that she was vulnerable and shifted left by abandoning her support of the death penalty along with her opposition to the legalization of recreational marijuana. But it wasn’t enough. Left-wing activists are demanding that she confront President Trump head-on and help shut down the Senate rather than allow Brett Kavanaugh to be confirmed for the Supreme Court.... Asked why her liberal stances over the course of 50 years in California politics weren’t appreciated, she shrugged: 'Well, that thought occurred to me — but I wiped it out of my mind completely.'"

From "Democrats Are Dumping Moderates" by John Fund (National Review).

52 comments:

Darrell said...

The irony of Diane Feinstein being a moderate in today's Democratic Party weighs heavily on everybody's future.

Earnest Prole said...

I suspect Diane Feinstein will carry a majority of Democratic voters in her race against Kevin de León, not to mention Republicans who will choose the less radical candidate.

stevew said...

Can't find it now but I read yesterday that Feinstein polls well above de Leon among the voting public in CA, 45% to 25% or so.

-sw

Gahrie said...

The irony of Diane Feinstein being a moderate in today's Democratic Party weighs heavily on everybody's future.

To be fair, Feinstein has always been a rational Democrat and a moderate. Not quite as conservative as Lieberman, but definitely a moderate. She was always the sane senator from California. (Compared to Boxer or Harris)

What is disturbing is that Feinstein is now considered too moderate for the Democratic Party.

mezzrow said...

So what you're saying is that Feinstein is the de facto Republican in this race. I believe this means the pendulum may have reached its apogee in the Golden State.

disclosure: I have been wrong before.

Clyde said...

Seriously, WTF is an 85-year-old woman doing running for another six year term in the Senate? Stop and smell the roses, DiFi.

DavidD said...

“ ‘ “Well, that thought occurred to me — but I wiped it out of my mind completely.” ’ ”

“What, like with a cloth?”

Humperdink said...

" Stop and smell the roses, DiFi."

Therein lies the rub. An 85 year old person's olfactory sense is history, along with her other senses. It too late for her to get off freight train. (See: SCOTUS Justice Darth Vader Ginsberg)

Big Mike said...

Dianne Feinstein as the moderate in the race. The mind boggles.

Gahrie said...

SCOTUS Justice Darth Vader Ginsberg

I've always seen RBG as more a creature from an Anne Rice novel.

JAORE said...

whenever I see RBG, my mind translates that to RPG.

Ralph L said...

She wants to break Thurmond's record, since she didn't have a kid at 70.

Phil 314 said...

Words that have lost their meaning in the last 10 years:

-racist

- moderate

Tommy Duncan said...

Blogger JAORE said...

"whenever I see RBG, my mind translates that to RPG."


Report Program Generator?

Or Rocket Propelled Grenade?

MadisonMan said...

I will never weep when an entrenched legislator gets thrown to the curb.

mccullough said...

Why wouldn’t the Calif Dem party support the more dogmatic candidate. The dogma doesn’t live as loudly within Duane. And she is old and cold. Get the Socialist in there who wants to abolish ICE. This is the Dem Party. They are fucking nuts.

Bay Area Guy said...

I hate the "jungle primary" in California, where you often are left with 2 Democrats in the General election. I express my distaste I think I might vote for deLeon. And if all Republicans voted for deLeon, well, you'd have a wacko leftist in the Senate.

MayBee said...

The Democratic party is going to rely on Democrats being entrenched as Democrats, and completely unable to vote for Republicans. That's why it's so important for Donald Trump to be a Russian asset racist homophobic kidnapper of brown children. Because what the Democratic Party stands for right now has nothing to do with the Democrat voters I know (and I know a LOT of them).

MayBee said...

I've like DiFi a lot in my life, and when I lived in California she was my favorite. She has a really great comms staff and outreach. If you wrote a letter to her office, it really felt like someone there read it and wrote back in an appropriate manner, even if it opposed her current stance or the stance of the Democratic Party.

The idea that Kamala Harris (or Barbara Boxer before her) is the best that great state has to offer the US Government is freakin' depressing.

Anonymous said...

Kevin De Leon (D) Mexico

Darkisland said...

Republicans, liberals, conservatives should support Leon (or de Leon as he styles himself) even though he is batshit crazy and antithetical to all we hold dear:

1) DiFi has been in the senate for a long time, has a lot of seniority and knows how to get stuff done. Not as much, perhaps, when she is in the minority, but enough. de Leon will not have any seniority and nobody will pay attention to him.

2) DiFi has good relations with other senators, including republicans. de Leon may eventually be able to establish good relationships but it will take a while. That also limits his effectiveness in his first term.

3) de Leon will want to hire his own staff which means that his staff will be relatively inexperienced and will not be developed as a team for at least a while. Maybe his entire term but for a year or so at least.

4) Because de Leon makes DiFi look relatively moderate, his nuttiness will drive more people to the #walkaway movement

5) Just on the general principle of fucking with the opposition.

Perhaps, along about September, President Trump can go to California and hold one of his massive rallies. I am not sure whether he should support de Leon or DiFi "Here's a Senator that can work with me and with whom I can work. Vote for XXX"

The goal would be to get out the vote for de Leon. Someone needs to research whether supporting or opposing him works better for that.

Support de Leon!!! Retire DiFi!!!

Make checks payable to Kevin de León for Senate and send them to 1910 W. Sunset Blvd. Suite 660 Los Angeles CA 90026 United States.

Send checks, DO NOT contribute via credit card. Credit card donations will go to Act Blue, not to de Leon. They will be used as Act Blue feels best. Possibly even to support DiFi.

As a general comment, always donate by check directly to a candidate of either party. If they need to give some to the party, fine. But let them decide how much of your contribution goes to the party rather than the party deciding how much goes to the candidate.

I'm going to be sending $20 later today. "CONFUSION TO OUR ENEMIES!" - Frank Sinatra

John Henry

tcrosse said...

This doesn't bode well for Hillary's chances in the Primaries.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

The Democrats forget that even though they have totally disenfranchised the Republican voters, we can still vote. I'm voting for Feinstein because I can. Better the devil you know...right.

They also forget that there are Independent voters and Moderates who can also vote.

Ray - SoCal said...

I’m surprised she ran again.

Democrats in Ca getting crazier and crazier.

Perhaps the loss of union money will restore some sanity in the politics here.

Along with the change in state deductions by the Feds.



Ray - SoCal said...

I don’t know if Althouse posted on it, but he added the de to his name to sound more Latino.

mockturtle said...

The Democratic Party's self-immolation is fascinating and downright fun to watch.

The Drill SGT said...

Earnest Prole said...
I suspect Diane Feinstein will carry a majority of Democratic voters in her race against Kevin de León, not to mention Republicans who will choose the less radical candidate.


Feistein has always been the better of CA's Senators. Rather than vote for de Lean (D) Mexico, Pull the lever for DiFi. Given the voting patterns, it's a lifetime appt for de Leon (D) Mexico.

DiFi will die in office and the GOP gets a shot again soon.

Michael K said...


Blogger Earnest Prole said...
I suspect Diane Feinstein will carry a majority of Democratic voters in her race against Kevin de León, not to mention Republicans who will choose the less radical candidate.


I agree but the illegal vote, which is substantial, will go for de.

Chris N said...

So you thought you could live a rather sober life based on family, earning money and public service while also undermining those very same things...?

There’s always someone further Left to use the same logic against you.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

She's 85.

I think both parties are tired of "for life" candidates. At 85, it might be time to gracefully step aside. *cough* McCain.

walter said...

mccullough said... The dogma doesn’t live as loudly within Duane.
--
That's it.
Going Trans will make her contemporary.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

We need more age discrimination in politics. Too young and too old, get lost.

Comanche Voter said...

DiFi needs to go talk with Fauxcahontas about the practices of many Indian tribes. When an elder gets old and useless, they are abandoned and left to die. Who knew that Dems were an Indian tribe? Now the Sachems of Tammany Hall were Indians of a sort--a tribe designed to maraud the public treasury--but they were more conservative than the current Dems.

wildswan said...

As an older person I notice the age issue. People are living longer and staying healthy so we get Feinstein, Pelosi and RBG. They are still sharp in a way - Pelosi forgets names intermittently but I expect she quite constantly remembers the names of all her enemies and how all Democrats are voting. But Feinstein simply was unaware of changes in the voting group; RBG has a ridiculous ambition to be the longest sitting, not the best serving, justice; Pelosi's presence makes Keith Ellison's recent support for Louis Farrakhan seem unimportant. Maybe the lesson about age and power is know when to go - which is when you can't take a danger seriously and you do nothing about it and you wouldn't know what to do if you wanted to act.

SGT Ted said...

After years of false claims that the GOP has gone father to the right in order to marginalize them as fascists ( never mind that the fascists were a splinter group of socialist parties of Europe), the hard corps Democrats have pretty much openly gone Full Communist with the rise of the 'Democratic Socialists".

Original Mike said...

It seems to me the jungle primary makes it less likely that the more extreme democrat gets elected. Unintended consequences.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

Tommy Duncan,

Report Program Generator is actually a new one on me. For me, the confusion was always Rocket-Propelled Grenade vs. Role-Playing Game :-)

Big Mike said...

Report Program Generator is an IBM product that dates back to the 1960s and, per Wiki, still exists today. But it became thoroughly obsolete with the rise of spreadsheet tools. I personally have not seen it used since 1971.

Howard said...

The old battleaxe still hungers for life in the arena, good for her.

Real American said...

Feinstein made it clear years ago that she doesn't represent California voters, but rather, she represents "women." Fuck her. I hope she loses.

Churchy LaFemme: said...

whenever I see RBG, my mind translates that to RPG.

She actually caused me to waste an hour a few months ago. I was writing a program to generate
24-bit pixels. I finally got it to generate the image I was trying for, but the colors were wrong. I spent a lot of time looking at the logic, which appeared to be correct (but your logic always *looks* correct until you see the bug..).

Finally I had a blinding flash of the obvious and saw that the logic was fine, but I had been writing out the pixels in Red Blue Green order (RBG) instead of the correct Red Green Blue order (RBG). In between the last time I had to deal at the pixel level, RBG was in the news so much that she drove out my longtime knowledge of the correct pixel order.

Churchy LaFemme: said...

And see, I did it again! Tried to write (RGB) above and still wrote (RBG)!

Fernandinande said...

"The irony of being opposed by her own party must weigh on Feinstein...."

Being opposed by her own party must weigh on Feinstein even though it's not ironic.

readering said...

I'll be voting against Feinstein (again--too old) but she'll win in a walk.

Tyrone Slothrop said...

Feinstein will mop the floor with Leon. He's a complete idiot and too extreme even for California Democrats.

FIDO said...

The Jacobins are purging the Girondins

Yancey Ward said...

Feinstein is sure to win November- a Republicans in CA are going to vote for Feinstein vs her opponent by a wide margin, but they probably shouldn't do so if you take politics alone into the calculation- is is far better for the Republican Party in CA to have DeLeon as the Senator.

Original Mike said...

I think Republicans should start a vigourous “Vote de Leon” campaign. The likely result would be a democrat Mark Pocan “I’m not voting for my own bill!” response.

Pass the popcorn.

SeanF said...

Big Mike: Report Program Generator is an IBM product that dates back to the 1960s and, per Wiki, still exists today. But it became thoroughly obsolete with the rise of spreadsheet tools. I personally have not seen it used since 1971.

I program RPGLE (the most recent version) every day. I'm working on a program in it right now.

Jim at said...

I hate the "jungle primary" in California, where you often are left with 2 Democrats in the General election.

Washington state has the same thing.
It sucks.

Capt. Schmoe said...

Sadly, as there is no other option, I will have to vote for Feinstein. DeLeon is a rabid reconquista who will not rest until we are all living in garage-door homes. Except the ruling class that is.

It will be fun to watch Dianne re-invent herself to capture the republican and independent vote. I am starting to fucking hate this state.

fivewheels said...

Feinstein must love being in the Senate. I never understood why she didn't run for president at some point. She was well known, not a complete doofus who wouldn't be up to it, has areas of genuine expertise, and has an excellent resume with important executive experience.

It makes me sick that half the country would get behind Hillary Clinton when people like Feinstein were available, as much as I disagree with her about most things. Isn't she just, clearly, a far and away better choice than someone whose top credential is being someone's wife? What are the Democrats doing?