June 12, 2019

America has gotten so weird that I thought this Drudge display...



... meant that Elizabeth Warren was considering naming Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as her VP choice.

The link goes to "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dangles 2020 endorsement: Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren?" That is, the "her" is AOC, and AOC might endorse Warren. That still strongly demonstrates the power of AOC. It didn't work on me, but Drudge assumed we'd look at that picture and those words and see AOC as the active participant, the "her" who might do something important. I assumed the dominance of Warren — she's the "her" — but I was imagining AOC, a freshman Congresswoman, as a potential VP choice.

So weird!

84 comments:

tim maguire said...

How many votes can AOC swing?

Visually, you are correct--regardless of what Drudge had in mind, Warren is the stronger person in this photo.

sean said...

AOC isn't legally old enough to be vice president.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

So is Drudge trying to hurt Warren or help her?

Imagine the resentment of the dour Harvard professor feeling like she has to pander to the halfbright bartender. Her self-abasement is the clearest indicator of her unworthiness. Oh, and the whole wagon burning thing...

Will Cate said...

I briefly thought the same thing. Betcha Drudge wanted us to think that. Fortunately the candidate for VP also must be at least 35 years old.

Nonapod said...

I suspect that the actual power of AOC is greatly exaggerated. I remember a while back seeing some poll that put her at something like 28% of Americans liking her. The rest... not so much. Sure, the kiddies like her. But kids don't have the best track record for... like... voting and stuff.

Howard said...

The hot chick is click bait

Darkisland said...

I can hear PDJT chortling right now and I am all the way across the country under the big sky. AOC is a stooge of PDJT. She probably doesn't even know it. Here is my theory:

Another theory, not mutually exclusive with the Amazon theory, is that AOC is a stooge of President Trump.

1) NY4 has a fairly senior congressman. Loyal soldier, does what he is told by the party and gets a safe seat in return.

2) Very difficult to unseat him, especially by a Republican.

3) Replacing him with anyone gets a freshman Rep, no seniority, no name recognition in the district, not much funding, no knowledge of how to get anything done in Congress and so on.

4) Replacing him with AOC, or someone like her, not only replaces and experienced Congressman with a nullity who is nevertheless loyal and does what they are told. It replaces him with someone who is actively fighting the party, not doing what they are told, not doing any party fundraising and generally being a pain in the ass to party leadership. Including threatening to not even support the presidential nominee.

5) Queering the Amazon deal, even if that it what Amazon wanted, pisses off a lot of people in the district. Voter type people. Now a save demmie seat is no longer safe. It may still be an uphill struggle but a Republican might just win there in 20. In any event, the party has to spend time, effort and MONEY fighting an election that would probably have been unopposed.

AOC has never had much support in her district. She got elected by about 5% of the registered voters in NY4. If enough of the other 95% are pissed off at her, she is back to bartending in 2021.

John Henry

Darkisland said...

AOC is probably also an Amazon stooge. Here is that theory:

One way to think about AOC is as an Amazon stooge. Here's the theory:

1) Amazon is in the data business on a number of levels as well as in the logistics and sales business. They all tie together of course. Any and all data on cities, demographic, geographic, economic and so on is extremely valuable to them.

2) Collecting that data is expensive. Much of it may not be available publicly. Some of it, a city's plans for future highways, zoning, infrastructure may be confidential and unobtainable.

3) In announcing the HQ2 plan, Amazon got pretty much every major and midsize city in the US and some in Canada to give them the data for free.

4) In addition to all the info, Amazon got offers of tax abatements, free land and other incentives to move to the city. They may not be building a second HQ there, but they will likely be building DCs and other facilities. These offers establish a negotiating floor when they do. "Well, you were willing to give us a 20 year abatement for HQ2, will you give us 15 for a DC?" "You mentioned that you had a piece of land you would give us free for HQ2. Would you give it to us for a DC? Why not? City X down the road offered something similar. Maybe we need to talk to them." and so on.

5) Amazon never had any plans to build HQ2 other than in DC but they could not tell all these cities they were scamming them for the free data.

6) So, announce NYC. Other cities will think "Oh, well. No way we can compete with the big apple" and not feel so bad about losing out.

7) Now Amazon has to get out of their commitment to NYC. They can't just say "Nevermind, we decided not to do it." They need a reason. So, get a looney bartender elected. If she doesn't go off on Amazon on her own, nudge her along.

8) "Well, if that's the way you feel about it, no HQ for you!" It is what is known in confidence games as "cooling the mark". All these cities, including NYC have been played and don't even know it.

In fairness to AOC, I doubt that she knows Amazon is responsible for her getting elected. I doubt she knows she is their stooge.

I suspect that she is a stooge of both PDJT and Amazon, though I doubt they worked together to elect her. Each had their own separate reasons.

John Henry

stever said...

So who of any substance cares what AOC thinks?

Mark O said...

Creepy.

Ken B said...

AOC isn’t old enough. Aside from being literally an existential threat.

Darkisland said...

As for qualification: The Constitution is old and tired. At least 100 years old and written by a bunch of old white men, some of whom owned slaves.

Why do we need to pay attention to that piece of parchment when we could have AOC as VP and a heartbeat away from the oval office? So what if she is not old enough. Doesn't the Bible say that a child will lead the way? (It also says "Turn your plowshares into swords". Just sayin')

That's just patriarchy with a bit of racism against Nyoricans thrown in for good measure. And sexism too, of course.

John Henry

Ken B said...

Biden might want to run with AOC. She has nice smelling hair.

Paul said...

Well since Pocahontas has a snowballs chance of winning... why not AOC? I mean.. what the hell!

madAsHell said...

In fairness to AOC, I doubt that she knows Amazon is responsible for her getting elected. I doubt she knows she is their stooge.

You know it's this kind of thinking that gets published as news.

Nonapod said...

Some dusty old white guy document from like a 100 years ago says that “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice President of the United States.” Plus maybe "attain[ing] the age of thirty five years" means that, like, you're an old soul or whatever.

MacMacConnell said...

It's vital that the Dem nominee gets AOC's endorsement, otherwise NY goes Repub. ;-0

traditionalguy said...

AOC has the killer smile and she is Hispanic. Obama won it with nothing but a killer smile and being half African American. Of the two AOC seems the most trustworthy in the sense that we see her as being too ignorant to trick us.

stlcdr said...

Saw the same thing; how much influence does AOC have? I suspect there's a lot of vacuous people who relate to AOC and would follow her off a cliff.

exhelodrvr1 said...

"Howard,
The hot chick is click bait"

I'd click that

tim in vermont said...

AOC can’t “swing” votes anymore than a weathervane can swing the wind, but she can point the direction it’s blowing.

Michael K said...

John Henry, not a bad theory on AOC. Nobody but the soldiers votes in NYC anymore, anyway. De Blassio (Wilhelm) was elected by about 20%^ of the voters. It was hilarious when Obamacare killed off all those small group health insurance policies that artists and musicians used. They vote as a reflex that ids not connected as high as the cortex. Definitely spinal cord level.

Otto said...

"So weird" - code for Swamp retention

narciso said...

In a sense, Cortez stole warrens shtick, so she should be resentful.

Sally327 said...

I thought it had something to do with abortion. What exactly I'm not sure, maybe that one was more for choice than the other, but any image of a politician with the word choice included makes me think it has to be about abortion. Because if it's not about race in this country then it's about abortion. It seems like anyway. When it comes to politics at least.

gilbar said...

i'm not sure that AOC is Old enough to be VP?

stevew said...

Does AOC's endorsement matter to the voting Democrats? Has DF's endorsement of Biden buoyed his candidacy? The NYT has implicitly endorsed Harris. Any endorsement love out there for Bernie?

Howard said...

AOC plus Major Pete are used to get out the Millennials to the poles and vote out Republican candidates for office

Howard said...

Convince young people they have a chip in the Big Game and can make a difference

Darkisland said...

Traditional Guy,

She is Hispanic, sort of but so what? She is Puerto Rican, sort of, (really Nyorican) so she might get other Puerto Ricans and Nyoricans to vote for he in that account. But the other 2 major Hispanic groups, Cuban-Americans and Mexican-Americans could give 2 shits aboout that. She might as well be German for all they care about her ethnicity.

As a Nyorican (a person born in NY) she won't even necessarily get support from Puerto Ricans.

Other than language, and not even that in 2nd and 3rd US generation, the 3 groups have nothing at all in common. Not the same music, not the same food, not the same ethnic background, not the same culture, pretty much nothing at all other than that their ancestors came from Spanish speaking countries. Like Ireland in AOC's case.

I say sort of Hispanic because "Sandy" was raised not as an Hispanic but basically as a gringa. Sort of like Bobby O'Rourke.

Outside her district, I don't think her ethnicity is a big help.

Darkisland said...

Blogger madAsHell said...

You know it's this kind of thinking that gets published as news.

Naah.. The PDJT/Amazon stooge theory is too plausible for the news media.

John Henry

gilbar said...

stever said... So who of any substance cares what AOC thinks?

I think Adlai Stevenson (is said to have) addressed this
" I’m afraid that won’t do—I need a majority."

Joaquin said...

I continue to be amazed at how this woman has gone from zero to hero in the Democrat Party. It's amazing!

jwl said...

"Human beings evolved in small hunter-gatherer groups where everyone knew one another. We aren’t necessarily adapted to be interacting with strangers all the time. People find it incredibly tiring."
-------

Who is 'we' in this quote? Humans can be extrovert, introvert, somewhere in between or entirely anti social.

I am introvert, don't mind to meet new people but only for an hour or two and then I get tired and cranky, a few females in my life are extrovert and love to meet new people and learn their life stories and than there are a couple of fellas I know who are anti social and loathe meeting anyone new.

Francisco D said...

So who of any substance cares what AOC thinks?

Who of any substance wonders if AOC thinks or if she just spouts what she heard in college.

Birkel said...

She's not old enough to be VP.
And you, a constitutional law professor!

When memes collide!!

Danno said...

Blogger Howard said...AOC plus Major Pete are used to get out the Millennials to the poles and vote out Republican candidates for office

What kind of poles are you talking about? The kind in strip clubs?

Nonapod said...

AOC plus Major Pete are used to get out the Millennials to the poles and vote out Republican candidates for office

At this point it seems unlikely that Mayor Pete will end up as the nominee and almost certain that Biden will get it. It's Biden's race to lose. Not that Biden can't screw it up, history has shown that he's very good at losing.

There's an outside chance that Mayor Pete could end up as Biden's VP choice, but I believe it's far more likely that Biden will choose a woman (and AOC is ineligible).

It's far from a guarantee that AOC will endorse Biden if he ends up as the nominee. She's demonstrated herself to be a bit of a loose canon, a young Turk who won't just fall into line much to the chagrin of people like Pelosi. It's even possible that she could work against the party, encouraging young voters to obstain in a fit of pique.

I'm pretty certain Mayor Pete would endorse Biden however. He seems to be a bit more of a Dem team player. What that would actually mean in terms of getting out the youth vote for Biden is difficult to gauge though.

My guess is the youth vote in 2020, such that it is, will be far more motivated by just hating Trump than any of the current personalities on the Dem bench. OrangeManBad is a strong feeling, a strong emotion that is unmoored from cold reason that often eludes youth.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

that photo is ripe for a caption contest

Rosalyn C. said...

I thought the same thing, that maybe Warren was going to be a "bad girl" and pick AOC as her VP, and that the story was too weird to even click on it. As others have pointed out, would AOC's endorsement matter in the least to anyone? Was this a subliminal suggestion of an imaginary movie of two lesbians running as president and vice president? OITNB?

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Her Choice?

I assumed Warren was considering aborting AOC.

narciso said...

Sidney Powell Is general flynns new atty

TWWren said...

Can she be a VP candidate when she can't be President because of age?

Fernandinande said...

How to Choose the Best Tampons and Pads for You

Michael K said...

Blogger narciso said...
Sidney Powell Is general flynns new atty


Flynn seems to have been poorly served by what he had. In Papadopolous' book he writes that he wishes he had not taken the plea that his atty negotiated. Flynn will probably back out, too.

Fernandinande said...

^^^^^ OK
that photo is ripe for a caption contest

campy said...

No rule written by a dead white male can restrict a Womyn of Color.

PM said...

Or a shoop where AOC is sporting an Indian feather.

narayanan said...

AOC - Born: October 13, 1989 (age 30 years), The Bronx, New York, NY

Shoo in for 2024 if she gets cabinet position after 2020

narciso said...

Well besides being from Covington and Burling holders shop as well as that of the judge in northern California it was like shadow boxing in the dark

madAsHell said...

I can see the thought bubble over Warren's head....."I wonder if the crazy eyes thing will work for me?".

Jersey Fled said...

AOC thinks everyone should have a house before anyone is entitled to a profit.

Wonder who is going to build those houses.

Sam L. said...

For me, both of them are weird.

AllenS said...

"Obama won it with nothing but a killer smile and being half African American"

Obama is half African.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

"Obama is half African."

And half American.

Francisco D said...

Roger Simon thinks Fauxcohantas will be the nominee and choose BootyBoy as her VP.

Yancey Ward said...

Francisco D,

I have been watching the recordings of the various campaigns, and Warren looks the strongest in the field. All she really needs to do is to start targeting Biden with the right weaponry.

Bruce Hayden said...

I am not so sure that Biden will get the nomination. Are the Democrats really that dumb that they would, again, run a career politician with apparent health issues? With Biden, we are fairly close to Crooked Hillary 2.0. Almost as corrupt, and possibly almost as unhealthy. Definitely doesn’t have the endurance to run against Trump. Heck, Trump ran circles around Biden last week, after returning from having dinner with the Queen, headlining the 75th D Day celebration, beating the Mexicans into helping us with immigration through tariffs, etc. The contrast between the two men is stark.

The other thing is that the last well known Washington DC Democrat to win the White House was LBJ, and there is reason to believe that he would have lost to Nixon in 1960, without JFK’s father buying the IL electoral votes. Carter, Clinton, and Obama were all fairly unknown in DC when they won the Presidency. On the flip side, think of all of the well known Washington DC politicians after LBJ who got the Dem nomination, and went on to lose the general election, starting with his VP, Humphrey, and running through Clinton’s wife, Crooked Hillary.

I expect that for a lot of Dems, the question is going to be “Who can beat Trump?” And Slo Joe is probably not the best choice there.

On the flip side here, Fauxhantis has shown herself to be a plodder. She has nice policy positions on almost any subject imaginable. She will go wherever she can to be visible, and be seen with anyone who might bring her attention. She seems to be working harder than most for the nomination. Right now, I would give her the nod over her female rivals, to be the last woman standing.

narciso said...

Where is she going to win, Iowa new Hampshire South Carolina I dont see her path.

MadisonMan said...

I am puzzled as to how Warren can win. Will blacks vote for a white woman who gamed the system to her own advantage, to the disadvantage of minorities?

Yancey Ward said...

Narciso,

The field won't be 24 when Iowa does the caucus- it will be 5 real candidates at most, and it will likely only be 3 that get more than 1 1/2%. Practically no one will caucus for a candidate that can't break 5% in the public polls, or vote for such a candidate in a primary.

Achilles said...

Paul said...
Well since Pocahontas has a snowballs chance of winning... why not AOC? I mean.. what the hell!

Warren is the only candidate that is listening to her voters.

All of the other candidates are listening to the loudest voices. She is listening to the most voices.

Warren is wrong about almost everything but she is running the best campaign out of the democrats so far.

Biden is finished and democrat primary voters are noticing. Trump is calling Biden stupid. Biden can't really fight back because if he gets mad it just proves Trump right. His only recourse would be to not be stupid. But air has touched that brain and he was never the brightest bulb to start.

Things are going to shake up soon.

Rick said...

Imagine the resentment of the dour Harvard professor feeling like she has to pander to the halfbright bartender.

Don't you think she's used to it from her campus days?

Yancey Ward said...

Achilles wrote:

"Warren is wrong about almost everything but she is running the best campaign out of the democrats so far."

Exactly. I have found myself surprised at finding that she is the best at campaigning. Perhaps it is in comparison to the awfulness of the field. The only candidates in that field I have observed that come close to matching her energy and attention to detail are Sanders and Buttuvwxyz, and I think neither of them have a real chance at winning the nomination.

However, if you want to know who the nominee will be, it will likely be the first person who takes on Biden directly by attacking his ethics. Sanders missed this opportunity in 2016, and probably regrets it to this day.

Tomcc said...

MadisonMan: Will blacks vote for a white woman who gamed the system to her own advantage...?
Some may see that as a feature, not a bug! She's a professional at it!

narciso said...

This is all vaporware:



https://mobile.twitter.com/KevinDaleyDC/status/1138810252500099072

Fen said...

Democrat Front-runner: "As a male I truly appreciate how I have appropriated positions of power from qualified women only to make condescending gestures that minimized my patriarchal oppression. As penance, I promise to name some random chick as my VP and pat her on the head. She can make my staff a sandwich."

narciso said...

Shes down to 10% among candidates in her ownstate shes going to do better across the state line?

pacwest said...

I understand that a lot of Bernie Bros are not going to go quietly. That is a pretty big voting block. By the math I think a VP slot for him at minimum might be mandatory. Warren might be able to suffice?

Fen said...

"Imagine the resentment of the dour Harvard professor feeling like she has to pander to the halfbright bartender."

Don't you think she's used to it from her campus days?

It is deliciously ironic though. The AOC's are the Frankenstein Monsters the professors like Warren created. And now they are lumbering back to meet their maker. Yummy.

Rick said...

Nonapod said...
I suspect that the actual power of AOC is greatly exaggerated.


This mistakes the nature of power. She's not widely popular and in fact is likely to lose her seat quickly. But because the most powerful political party in the country has a "no enemies to the left" policy she can force the entire slate of candidates. And in fact we saw this with her juvenile Green New Deal where supposed moderates fell over themselves to announce they were co-sponsors of this insane and less than half thought through plan.

She has the power to set the Dems entire agenda.

Not Sure said...

In his prime, Drudge would've headlined it as "Sophist's Choice?" He's lost a couple of steps.

Narr said...

Since we're still on ethnic and cultural (Nyorican, gringa, etc.) factors, and I missed some chances on older threads to comment as Vikings, Normans, sayyids, were brought up--

The late historian C. Vann Woodward, author of The Strange Career of Jim Crow, grew up across the river from where I sit, and spoke on our campus a few years before he died. I actually can't recall much of his lecture--it was fairly anodyne academic tsk-tsking about right wing threats to democracy or the like, with some reminiscence thrown in. A young, new faculty member, not from the Southland, asked him to comment on the following observation--

Where he was from (which turned out to be Iowa I think) a gubernatorial election with a (here he does some good Scandahoovian) Bray-day-zen and a Soond-qveest running, everyone would know one was Danish and the other was Norwegian--and why it mattered! Down here, nobody knew or cared.

The answer of course is that in politics "down here" white ethnicity barely registers. (I say in politics; in a lot of other things we can fetishize with the best.) I told the guy afterward, t-i-c, that they were both just carpetbaggers to us.

Narr
The Norsker won

The Godfather said...

A Warren-Cortez ticket would sweep Cambridge and Brooklyn.

wwww said...

"I am puzzled as to how Warren can win."

I doubt she will get the nomination unless something changes. Her appeal is too narrow. Her gable is that she wins Iowa. All of her eggs in that basket. I expect her numbers to surpass Sanders at some point. I do not expect her to be able to win in the southern primaries.

The Trump attention to Biden propels him forward. It pulls him out of the horde of candidates and distracts news attention away from those candidates, who need the attention in order to win.

Unknown said...

That is a creepy picture and a creepy title. It looks like AOC is going gay for Warren.

Otto said...

Ann is trying to steer the herd steering towards Biden

Francisco D said...

I have been watching the recordings of the various campaigns, and Warren looks the strongest in the field.

Yancy,

Isn't that damning her with faint praise?

Liz and BootyBoy are the only bright ones in the flock, but she comes across as shrill. He comes across as smug and morally certain.

Come to think of it, they are the perfect candidates for academia, Hollywood, and the Upper West Side.

Qwerty Smith said...

Several commenters say veep candidates need to be 35 yo.

Why? the Constitution is a living, breathing document, and who can tell what the framers even meant by "the Age of thirty-five Years"?

Maybe the years were shorter back then. Do you really think Adam and Moses and Noah and Gouverneur Morris and James Madison and the rest of those guys from the Bible lived for hundreds of our years?

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Thanks Narciso. Wray is still trying to cover for the Bureau and Comey. But will they really produce the documents?

narciso said...

magic eightball says maybe, the daily caller seems to be getting the richman memos, judicial watch turned up communications between steny hoyer and Victoria Nuland, shes at least three kevin bacon reference points, from everybody else,

cacimbo said...

I also assumed AOC for VP.

Hard to imagine Fauxcahontas/the original Rachel Dolezal convincing blacks to turn out for her in large numbers.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

"toria" = victoria nuland

Victoria Nuland, shes at least three kevin bacon reference points...

"This game is more fun than the "Kevin Bacon" game. I call it "AND Benghazi." Just go to the State Department's FOIA search page, enter the last name of your favorite Spygate character, followed by AND Benghazi. Like: Clapper AND Benghazi. Enjoy. "https://foia.state.gov/Search/Search.aspx …

readering said...

There has been so much discussion of AOC's age in relation to Constitution, I don't understand this issue.