[O]nly nine of the 93 superdelegates interviewed said that Mr. Sanders should become the nominee purely on the basis of arriving at the convention with a plurality, if he was short of a majority.Mondale! I was just thinking about Mondale the other day. The context was: Who is the most boring major-party nominee for President I've seen in my life?
“I’ve had 60 years experience with Democratic delegates — I don’t think they will do anything like that,” said former Vice President Walter Mondale, who is a superdelegate. “They will each do what they want to do, and somehow they will work it out. God knows how.”
In recent weeks, Democrats have placed a steady stream of calls to Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who opted against running for president nearly a year ago, suggesting that he can emerge as a white knight nominee at a brokered convention....That's exactly what gets my "if Trump could do it" tag.
“If you could get to a convention and pick Sherrod Brown, that would be wonderful, but that’s more like a novel,” Representative Steve Cohen of Tennessee said. “Donald Trump’s presidency is like a horror story, so if you can have a horror story you might as well have a novel.”
ADDED: I'm not saying boring like it's a bad thing. As I've said many times — and I have a tag for it — "I'm for Boring." And I voted for Mondale.
Sock it to 'em, Walter.
Posts
166 comments:
I voted for Mondale.
So you were the one.
Stealing the nomination from Bernie would be like laying palm fronds on the road as Trump approaches his second inauguration.
You do like an underdog.
Bernie Bros will Burn it Down!
Bern it DOWN!
Mondale isn't boring.
Mondale is tedious.
Why go for Sherrod when waiting in the wings you have a sociopath that once won the popular vote? ;-)
Despite all the armageddon talk surrounding a brokered convention it IS part of the process the party has invented for itself. You want your candidate to have strong support in order to perform in the general. The brokerage gives you options in case of emergency.
It also helps to keep in mind the whole primary thing is a political contrivance...
Long live Fritz. That's the first election I have distinct memories of, watching debates, seeing the headlines and photos in the newspapers. My mother now claims to have voted for Reagan in 1984, but I know she voted for Mondale.
“If you could get to a convention and pick Sherrod Brown, that would be wonderful, but that’s more like a novel,” Representative Steve Cohen of Tennessee said. “Donald Trump’s presidency is like a horror story, so if you can have a horror story you might as well have a novel.”
I agree. Trump is a horror story. IF you are a Democrat.
If you are an middle class American, tired of being called a racist, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamophobic, white supremacist,and being attacked in public for wearing a hat, you just MIGHT think differently.
Where's the beef?
Maybe @Laslo was right. Maybe Althouse would vote for Klobuchar because of 'boring'. But that can't be right because the most 'boring' dem is Steyer. I mean does anyone actually even register his existence?
Mondale, Dukakis, Dole. Lot of boring to go around. Although Dole did a get more interesting when he reinvented himself as a boner pill spokesman.
"Despite all the armageddon talk surrounding a brokered convention it IS part of the process the party has invented for itself.”
That would be a good argument, were it aimed at adults, rather than Bernie supporters.
In 1984 the democrats nominated a weak candidate knowing they were going to get their clocks cleaned.
This time is different.
Democrats having an institutional lock on so many delegates they only need to carry a few swing States notwithstanding, new poll shows 43% of Americans think socialism is good for America.
Althouse is overthinking this. Trump, although not to everyone’s taste, is one of the tactical and strategic communications geniuses of his time. Althouse has revealed her preferences by her history. She voted against Reagan twice. She voted for Clinton twice. She voted for Gore, Bush 43, Obama, Romney, and Hillary.
She lost me when she didn’t vote for Reagan either time. If she doesn’t vote for Trump, she will demonstrate once again her defective political judgment. We need Trump as a corrective measure to everything that has happened since Reagan left office.
“And I voted for Mondale.” Fritz won Minnesota, DC and university professors. The rest of the country enjoyed a moment of sanity.
Who is Sherwood Brown, again? Er, Sherrod.
They're looking for someone besides Bloomberg. I think they're finally realizing, nominating Bloomberg would destroy the party...and for nothing because he sucks.
The Democrats have been reduced to a cargo cult by Trump's arrival on their little island.
Who was a better candidate, McGovern or Mondale?
Speaking of McGovern, where are all the "Don't blame me. I voted for Hillary." bumper stickers?
I think Huber Horatio Humphrey deserves a shot at “most boring “. Ann was alive then, just not voting (I presume).
I like boring, but it must be boring that promises competence, expertise, and leaving me alone.
By the way, when's the last time the boring alternative won the presidency? I think the more boring person ALWAYS loses.
Go down the list. Within my lifetime, I think in every election, the more boring major-party candidate lost.
Ford was more boring than Carter. That's the most difficult one, going back to 1952, so I think my observation holds.
I knew all the lyrics to this song, long before I had a clue as to who Hubert was.
"Donald Trump’s presidency is like a horror story"
Not the main topic of the thread, I know, but: why? Higher growth, less unemployment, China held accountable, Congressionally approved Nafta replacement, pressure on Iran, Nato countries pushed to pay more, illegal immigration down, stronger military -- where's the horror?
Righty judges -- OK, for progs that's a horror. Anything else?
"Speaking of McGovern, where are all the "Don't blame me. I voted for Hillary." bumper stickers?"
Most of those "Don't blame me, I voted for Hillary" bumper stickers are applied to tombstones in precincts Hillary won in 2016.
“If you could get to a convention and pick Sherrod Brown, that would be wonderful, but that’s more like a novel,” Representative Steve Cohen of Tennessee said. “Donald Trump’s presidency is like a horror story, so if you can have a horror story you might as well have a novel.”
Steve Cohen, the moron KFC guy.
Amadeus 48 said...She lost me when she didn’t vote for Reagan either time.
At heart, the prof is a moderate Democrat. She may want to think of herself as someone who votes issues and values, not people or parties, but no matter what her brain tells her, in the end she will vote with her heart. And that's the Democrat.
I didn’t read through the comments but I’m sure I am not the first to say, Mondale’s still alive? Who knew?
’That would be a good argument, were it aimed at adults, rather than Bernie supporters.’
They created the dreaded monster but never thought it would turn on them. More popcorn, please!!
“They will each do what they want to do, and somehow they will work it out. God knows how," said Mondale.
Given that the "they" about whom he's talking are members of the Democrat Party, perhaps he could have enlightened us as to which "god" he might have been referencing. For certain it ain't the God of the Jewish Bible or of the Christian Bible.
In the 16 years that I've been writing this blog, I've gone through 4 presidential elections. I voted for the Democrat twice and I voted for the Republican twice.
when's the last time the boring alternative won the presidency? I think the more boring person ALWAYS loses.
Radical Tedi-ist Pushes For Change
Go down the list. Within my lifetime, I think in every election, the more boring major-party candidate lost.
1988 Bush/Dukakis is a tough call.
The real panic sets in when Bernie wins South Carolina. Turnout is going to be way down except among the Bernie Believers.
I have finally come to realize American politics is simply Christian fundamentalism in two different forms. The Right are the “Bible is inerrant” crowd, the Left are the “Jesus was a good man (at least in Matthew 5-7)” crowd. Both draw their moral code from Jesus but the Left doesn’t buy the Born Again stuff. Jesus is a model, not an indwelling spirit.
I’m of the Christ liveth in me group. It’s liberating because it frees me from sins past and inherited. It’s also mystical and I like that.
Ann Althouse said...
I like boring, but it must be boring that promises competence, expertise, and leaving me alone.
Did you hear that Meade?
Democrats have to find a candidate who supports abortion on demand, infanticide, open borders, free health care for illegals, gun confiscation, the Green New Deal, confiscatory taxation, Castro, tranny conversions for nine year-olds, perpetual race-baiting and who opposes Christians, Jews and their God and Israel - you know, like that.
Bernie, however, is unacceptable because he admits to it.
I recall reading back in Mondale’s heyday that his wife was one of the Romper Room ladies. Remember them? They would look into the camera and say, “I see Billy ... and I see Dennis ... and I see Sally ....”. Sadly, I never got to hear my name from them. That a Romper Room lady would marry Mondale is not surprising. The show really lacked pizzazz.
Btw, maybe this Romper Room memory of mine is my oldest. I was born in ‘53. I gotta check. It was a loooong time ago.
This is going to be epic!
the more boring major-party candidate lost.
OTOH, Stalin beat Trotsky. Boring isn't a lost cause but it helps to have the deep state on your side.
The Right are the “Bible is inerrant” crowd, the Left are the “Jesus was a good man" crowd.
I'd say the Right are a spectrum of the “Bible is inerrant” crowd to “Jesus was a good man".
The left are the "Jesus may have been a good man, but it's not like he went to Harvard or anything" crowd.
Wow. I just read about Sherrod Brown. In an eight-way tie for most liberal Senator, “frequent ally of Bernie.”
Frying pan, meet fire.
"That a Romper Room lady would marry Mondale is not surprising.”
His daughter was gorgeous, you will have to ask Bill Clinton how she was at giving head though.
White knight, hmm. Wow, let's nominate Michael Bloomberg! He's also rich and he'll give us a billion dollars! And Sander didn't quite have a majority...
Joan Mondale was an accomplished artist, and her patronage won her the epithet Joan of Art. The Mondales' daughter Eleanor had a career in radio, TV, and film.
Whoa! Just found out that Romper Room lasted from 1953 until 1994! Doesn’t help me much in determining if that show is my oldest memory. I do remember the Pinky Lee Show too and that one ended in 1955 so maybe that’s my oldest TV memory. I still recall the words to his theme song: Yoo hoo, it’s me, my name is a Pinky Lee.” Something like that.
Hey, thanks for joining me on this trip down TV memory lane. It was fun, wasn’t it?
My Romper Room teacher was Miss Louise. My wife's name is Louise. Make of that what you will.
Pinky Lee was a Saint Paulite, too.
Ann "I'm for boring" Althouse will have a tough time this election between the two LEAST boring candidates ever - Trump v Sanders.
"The Mondales' daughter Eleanor had a career in radio, TV, and film."
She is also said to have fucked Bill Clinton.
I worked for Mondale in both his PAC and campaign. Wasn’t a true believer in that I was more interested in the work I did than the philosophical and policy arguments. (I was even dating a Reaganite, which confused my friends.)
My main comment is that it always saddened me he came off as so bland and boring as a campaigner. In person, when relaxed, he had a quite dynamic personality and was very witty.
Mondale witty is a kiss of death praise. Witty is the liberal form of funny. Dick Cavett was witty. See what I’m saying?
Mondale witty is a kiss of death praise. Witty is the liberal form of funny. Dick Cavett was witty. See what I’m saying?
In 1984 I watched Mondale campaign we found the country falling about raising taxes for a host of New Deal/Great Society type programs. I thought, "He's running like it's 1964"
Biden strikes me the same way. It's like he's running for president of 1996. His time is past and he cant see it.
The "New York Slimes" is no longer a credible source.
Sherrod Brown?!
Oy veh!
There's no way the D's would stand for their votes being ignored and someone who didn't run being chosen. What's more likely is that Steyer, Bloomberg, and Buttigig will throw their delegates to Biden and that, plus the Superd-delegates will make him the nominee.
I like boring, but it must be boring that promises competence, expertise, and leaving me alone.
I’m going to take part of your sentence that I emphasized as a case of you lying to yourself, otherwise you would never it’s for any Democrat for anything. Leaving people alone is not what that party does.
Mondale seems like a Giant compared to these clowns. A boring Giant. But a Giant.
... never vote for any Democrat ....
Damn my lousy proofreading skills.
Getting back to the theme of this thread, it looks like it will be a brokered convention in Milwaukee. Sorry, Crazy Bernie, but they don't want you, and one of those reasons is that you are not a Democrat. Feel all butthurt, Crazy Bernie? Then, do something positive for your followers, quit the Democrat nominee race, and run on your own.
You're a loser, and that's all you'll be, a footnote in the history of Crazy People.
Ann Althouse said...
I like boring, but it must be boring that promises competence, expertise, and leaving me alone.
"leave me alone", something the Democrats will never do. They only want to control every aspect of your life.
I like competence. Trump 2020, and beyond.
I never vote for corruption. I never vote democrat.
No bloomberg is, pitching set asidesas a make or break element also skydragons which were let loose at the rio summit.
My main comment is that it always saddened me he came off as so bland and boring as a campaigner. In person, when relaxed, he had a quite dynamic personality and was very witty.
My father-in-law said the same about Humphrey. What is so different about Trump is that what you see is the same as his private personality. At least that is what I have read.
Hi lo, hi lee, my name is Pinky Lee.
I assumed Mondale had passed away. I'd rather have a dead Mondale as president than a live Sanders.
Sherrod Brown is closer to Sanders than Mondale.
Bloomberg is more acceptable to me than any of these other crypto-communists. And I despise Bloomie. Congrats, Democrat party -- you have turned me from the most reluctant Trump voter in the country to an enthusiastic voter for four more years.
A brokered convention is the quadrennial masturbatory fantasy of the media. With binding primaries it will never happen again.
EAB, 8:58:
"it always saddened me [Mondale] came off as so bland and boring as a campaigner. In person, when relaxed, he had a quite dynamic personality and was very witty."
I can readily believe this. Saw a flash of it when I revisited the clip of Reagan's joke about not using his opponent's youth and inexperience against him. The smile on Mondale's face - a bright, huge smile of genuine amusement - made me like him very much. How many politicians these days would laugh like that along with an opponent's joke?
I was very much in favor of Reagan. For foreign and domestic policy I was and am glad he won. But looking back I think of Mondale as a thoroughly decent man. His role in the Apollo I investigation is interesting to revisit in light of the later tragedies.
If Donald Trump’s presidency is like a horror story, Democrats are the monsters.
There's a comic/tragic element to this, in that the Democrat party could have smothered the Bernie candidacy in the cradle by saying "Bernie, bless your heart, but you're not a Democrat, so you can't participate in our debates/primaries/caucuses." But no, they had to court Bernie's supporters because they think they need their votes for their preferred candidate, who naturally would come out on top in the convention. (And they're not wrong about needing those Bernie voters.)
You know what will take matters to a whole new level of madness? Bernie wins a clear majority of the delegates. Bernie dies before the convention. I really hope Bernie takes his personal security seriously. I can think of any number of actors who would love to see this scenario come to be.
Mondale was only 56 when he ran for President.
I'd be thrilled with the D-party wasn't corrupt. America would be a better place.
Ann Althouse: How much of your decision to vote for Mondale was influenced by having a woman VP candidate?
Darrell: "If Donald Trump’s presidency is like a horror story, Democrats are the monsters."
The "solid economy is a hellscape" playbook is the same one the dems ran in 1984 with Mondale against Reagan.
I recall a cartoon that captured the sense of the nation very well: it showed a hundred happy elephants in bathing gear on a beach on a sunny day having a blast and splashing about while also staring at this donkey dressed in multiple raincoats with an umbrella and a surly expression muttering about how terrible it all was!
But that's our dems, isn't it?
Lefties gonna lefty.
Bush was more boring than Gore.
Ken B: "Bush was more boring than Gore."
W has basically turned into Gore. In fact, W would win the "who's a better friend to obama, Gore or Bush?" contest.
Easily.
Nothing in the world is more boring than Gore. Even with his lame chakras thing.
Al Gore wasn't boring, he was overbearing.
If Sanders wins Saturday, it won't matter what the superdelegates want- he will win a majority of the pledged delegates. And I think it 50% probable that Sanders wins Saturday despite all the polling giving Biden hope.
'Despite all the armageddon talk surrounding a brokered convention it IS part of the process the party has invented for itself. You want your candidate to have strong support in order to perform in the general. The brokerage gives you options in case of emergency. It also helps to keep in mind the whole primary thing is a political contrivance...' So nonchalant, so flippant. Why do Democrats not notice corruption? Why doesn't it arouse the kind of hysterical frothiness that so many other aspects of the American political scene does? You either have primaries and delegates who vote in line with them, or you have an appointed-by-committee mandated candidate. This thing with super-delegates will always be corrupt. No way around it. A few people with the ability to simply wipe out a democratic win? Just the optics are terrible. But the morality of it? Much worse.
Lock. box.
Humphrey was called "The happy warrior" and I was around at the time, so I don't totally get seeing him as boring. Although most public figures had more gravitas back then, maybe that reads as boring in 2020.
Humphrey, McGovern, Mondale: whatever their deficits in charisma, seemed like decent, honest people. They were likable enough and with a bit extra....Bill Clinton was likable, but decent and honest are not adjectives that spring to mind when describing him. Gore and Kerry weren't dull in a dependable, reliable manner. They were boring in an aggressive, innovative way. Obama was boring, but he spoke well and didn't raise hackles..... The Dems had a few likable candidates this time around--Hickenlooper, Bennett, Delany--but they didn't register in the polls. Biden and Buttigieg pretend to be likable, but the effort shows. Bloomberg and Klobuchar are not overtly annoying. That makes them the best in field, especially when compared to Warren and Bernie who drill your back teeth.....Trump is like Stern or Imus. Being obnoxious is part of his charm. He transcends likability.
In the Carter era, people were convinced of the convergence of the two parties and joked about "the bland leading the bland." It is only retrospectively that we see the divergence. A lot of Democrats were conservative. Some voted for Mondale over Reagan out of habit or party loyalty. Is anyone sure Trump didn't vote for Mondale?
Why is boring being used as a synonym for normal or competent? People are boring because they have nothing to say or they have something to say but they don't say it because they like being silent, which is great (and rare) but doesn't give anyone else a reason to care about what they think. And that's hardly ever true about most boring people anyway. Most boring people are boring because they are dull mentally or they're bright enough but they mumble or they say what they have to say in an abstruse way and you can't stay focused and the mind wanders. Or they do talk and you can understand it but it's not interesting, it's inane or repetitive, yammering on incessantly about something only they care about until you want to scream, shut up!
Nobody boring in a good way, whatever that might be, is ever going to get elected to the Presidency of the United States in the Internet age. Calvin Coolidge isn't rising up out of his grave to rescue us.
Mondale was only 56 when he ran for President.
Now he's just a bit older than Sanders.
"Why is boring being used as a synonym for normal or competent?”
Step aside people and allow me to competently and expertly guide this ship onto the shoal!
If this effingvirus isn't corralled before Nov, no one will want to count paper ballots and we'll be stuck with hackable "electronic" voting, he opined.
Humphrey was charismatic in a small group setting, as was young Joe Biden. Both surprised me at the time, but I have since learned that it is true of most successful politicians.
Why is boring considered an admirable trait?
I want competence. The competent people I know are not boring.
The whole superdelegate thing was put in place to prevent another McGovern. What it did was give them Hillary, so they took the superdelegates out of the first ballot, which might give them Bernie. What will they tinker with next?
Bernie has a wife problem. Wives don’t think like statesmen, they think like mom’s looking out for their kids. Honesty, decency, and fair play are all well and good as long as you can still win.
"Why is boring being used as a synonym for normal or competent?"
Because Althouse professes to decide on the basis of style, or emanations thereof.
Though I am not sure Althouse would view boring and competent as synonyms--and in fact, they may not overlap, so even the style voter still has to rank her preferences.
Of course, even "competence" is a vacuous criterion: competent at what? competent, judged how?
Example: in '08 there was no reason to think Obama was competent at anything but self-promotion. In '16 we had a choice between a competent deal-maker and TV star, and a person who had not shown any competence in either her most recent job or the running of her campaign. My point is not that Althouse was wrong in her vote, but that she could easily rationalize that she voted for competence--which, in light of obvious contrary evidence, shows the criterion to be vacuous.
I agree with JPS on Mondale. His response to Reagan's joke made him appear to be a good and genuine person.
Are there any Democrats today that you can say that about?
“ Ann Althouse: How much of your decision to vote for Mondale was influenced by having a woman VP candidate?”
None. I hated Reagan.
I was so busy in 1984. I didn’t spend any time worrying about the election.
I had a baby, my second, in 1983, worked in a law firm and looked for a teaching job, then moved the whole family to Wisconsin in the summer of 1984, and started the new career. I could not have been more distracted.
I was in a milieu where everyone loathed Reagan.
I think Althouse means by "boring" that the president "doesn't intrude into every aspect of my life." I remember being annoyed in the early days of the Obama administration that you couldn't go a day without seeing that man on TV, opining on this or that topic, no matter how small. The media was fascinated by Obama and wanted to give him the limelight. The media is even more fascinated by Trump, but from the standpoint of wanting to destroy him. Granted, both Obama and Trump played along and kept the focus squarely on them.
A "boring" president would be one that bored the media and/or ignored the media's attention. He may or may not be supremely competent, dazzling in personality and a raconteur. Frankly he would probably be competent because, no matter how private he was, the media would take an interest in his incompetence.
"I was in a milieu where everyone loathed Reagan."
And since Reagan won 49 states and a smashing 59% to 41% victory, it kinda sorta reflects poorly on the dislocated and delusional "millieu" you were in.
The good news is that you have rebounded nicely:)
I didn’t like politics at all. I was far more interested in art and all the pleasures of life. I only followed politics because I thought a decent person was supposed to care (because it had something to do with unfortunate others).
I thought the bourgeois “women’s movement” stuff was bullshit. A few years later, I was interested in radical feminism, but never in this Ms. Magazine level politics.
Hated? It was the milieu? I had a baby, and I was full of hate. Is that correct?
I wanted my personal life to be exciting. That’s a corollary to wanting politics to be boring.
I thought it was embarrassing to look for your excitement in political engagement. I’ve more or less always thought that.
Elections are designed to be a boring substitute for periodically having to kill the king and install a new one.
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/02/bernie-sanders-funded-wealthiest-zip-codes-america-daniel-greenfield/?fbclid=IwAR15drcdk4i0ipdkekKKsze4yLrlHDq5bOwswSUBC1r3c9AuKQbw5q8IKa0
Althouse
Yes, the Reagan hatred was widespread and noted for its juvenile vilification of the man. Bedtime for Bonzo etc. very similar to Trump derangement at lower volume. I had made the switch from youthful liberalism to a more mature conservatism by then but I was close enough to see the disturbing herd tendencies of my former liberal cohorts, watching the closing of minds.
I wonder how much Greenfield was paid by Bloomberg for that article?
By the way, I just loved the appropriateness of this part of the publication:
"Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center"
he's no fan of Bloomberg, I'll assure you, the bosch family of Bacardi, funded fidel, the Chamorro newspaper syndicate was part of the Sandinista board, and the Cisneros were not totally at odds with Chavez, one take the data and read it however,
Greenfield, of course, misses the point (probably deliberately) about Sander's support- he isn't depending on PAC money or personal finance- it is all, basically, individual contributions, and the wealthy addresses are able to contribute the maximum- this will be true of any candidate's individual contributions, Left or Right. You can, of course, just look at the filings of the Sanders campaign to get understand the fact that most of the contributors are not wealthy, but they only donate 50-100 dollars each.
"I thought it was embarrassing to look for your excitement in political engagement. I’ve more or less always thought that."
Totally agree. But here's the problem. The Left, more so than the Right, lives for politics. It's their religion. Recently, I was stuck in a hotel room with MSNBC on, and it was remarkably slanted and bad. I can't imagine what it was like during the Russian Collusion Hoax and Ukraine Impeachment Farce.
If the Left would pause their political crusades, and go back to macrame, organic herb gardens, and reading Kon-Tiki and Khalil Gibran, we could stand down and focus more on the good things in life.
its not coming from the Bronx or rush's 'beloved' rio linda, its from the pampered not the toilers,
https://twitchy.com/brettt-3136/2020/02/26/wapo-video-editor-combs-through-footage-of-bernie-sanders-stressing-the-positives-of-authoritarian-regimes/
things you could have pointed out years ago,
Greenfield, of course, misses the point (probably deliberately) about Sander's support- he isn't depending on PAC money or personal finance-
I think his point is valid because this is where the enthusiasm is. The tech crowd tends to be very naive about anything but tech. I was an engineer and know a bit about how they think. Plus, there may be a segment that worries about the future as they are submerged in a dysfunctional community.
it's the two minute hate, going on for four years,
Ann was still in diapers when the Dems ran Stevenson against Eisenhower. Stevenson was certainly considered the more interesting man, at least by intellectuals. Eisenhower deliberately promoted a rather bland persona. He golfed and read Westerns, while Stevenson made witty and erudite comments and charmed college professors from coast-to-coast. On the other hand, Eisenhower had Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces and the North African and Normandy campaigns on his resume so how boring could he actually have been?
Stevenson, the intellectuals' darling, lost in a landslide.
The tech crowd tends to be very naive about anything but tech.
True, true. I liked it better when they tended to Libertarian.
Prediction: Come the convention, Milwaukee will bern. Blue on blue on blue in the streets, making '68 look like a sedate drum circle by comparison.
The brokerage gives you options in case of emergency.
Like when those dum-dum primary voters pick the wrong candidate.
I like boring, but it must be boring that promises competence, expertise, and leaving me alone.
And thus Chuck was banned...
...out of 771 Automatic Delegates (aka. unpledged delegates, aka. superdelagates).
Why are they called Automatic delegates? Looks like another case of democrats calling something a name that it isn't.
I was in a milieu where everyone loathed Reagan.
Deja vu all over again.
When I read/hear the name Sherrod Brown, I think of Pigford.
"Prediction: Come the convention, Milwaukee will bern. Blue on blue on blue in the streets, making '68 look like a sedate drum circle by comparison."
Regarding the '68 DNC convention, the general narrative is that innocent Dem protesters were getting beaten up Mayor Dick Dailey's racist Chicago Demo cops.
Recall the famous speech by Dem Sen. Abe Ribicoff where he called out Dailey for "Gestapo tactics"
Problem: Twice loser Nixon only barely squeaked by Humphrey 43% to 42%.
So, it's probably fair to say that the Dem v. Dem riots in '68 turned off the middle-of-the-roaders and ended up helping Nixon win. The Law of Unintended consequences -- we hate LBJ, the Vietnam War, and we hate Humphrey for tacitly supporting it under LBJ, so we are gonna help Nixon win and prolong it another 5 years.
Bay Area Guy said: "The Left, more so than the Right, lives for politics. It's their religion."
I have an in-law who recently was on vacation on a tropical island. She posted on Facebook -- while on vacation -- that she had recently been trying to figure out why people support Trump. She then went on to give her theory, which I didn't really bother reading. All I could think was: can't you stop thinking about politics for a second?
I'd love the luxury of not paying attention to politics. The left are corrupt and they want to destroy freedom. I have no choice but to pay attention.
Politics is not exciting to me either. But when it threatens your basic life as it does when Democrats are in power, you better get interested for your own good, or else.
Sherrod Brown, eh? How much would that piss off the people who actually ran?
He's neither too young nor too old (67), certainly seems quite liberal/progressive (but maybe wouldn't spook the children or horses), has extensive legislative and executive (Ohio Sec of State) experience, and could presumably win Ohio. Hmmmmm.
In the 16 years that I've been writing this blog, I've gone through 4 presidential elections. I voted for the Democrat twice and I voted for the Republican twice.
Did you regret any of those votes?
They want to destroy your religion, take your money, control what and how you live, force you to do stuff that is against your conscience, and so on.These people are completely nuts. And dangerous. You better get interested, I tell my kids. Fortunately, they are all conservative and are now interested.
I was in a milieu where everyone loathed Reagan.
I think is representative for many people. Not that Libs get it wrong but that none of us really knows much about the person we are voting for. His or her image is shaped and crafted by both their own handlers and by the opposition and our perception of those images is shaped by the community in which we associate and none of those perceptions are highly indicative of who that person is or how they will operate, nor what their real views are. I know I was absolutely wrong about Trump.
I saw above that a person who knew Mondale said that her real personality was not the same as the perception of him for the campaign, namely boring. If we are honest we can look back at what we thought about a candidate and compare it to what he became in the role and see that we were off in a lot of ways. In some ways we project, in other ways we let other people project for us.
We should step back a bit and think about what the person would really be like based on what we can tell about their actual activities, but we can only do that with people who have enough of a track record to judge. We did not have that with Obama, we did not with Trump, and we did with Hillary. I am not saying we did not have clues. I think Obama left many clues, but people did not want to see them. Trump is acting just like Trump, so his style was there for all to see, but his agenda was a mystery. Of our current candidates, we have some who we know and some we do not. We should be careful to accept the unknown simply because we can wish-cast our desires onto their blank slate.
Sherrod Brown, eh? How much would that piss off the people who actually ran?
How much would that piss off the people who bankrolled the people who actually ran?
It's more fun to read about interesting times than live through the most interesting of them.
I'm pretty much an Althousian on politics, but as others point out, too many people get their meaning from politics, especially IME Lefties. The only time I get emails or texts about politics from people I know, it's always from a left POV . . . out of the blue "Can you believe this!?!" messages full of heat.
In 1980 I had lefties assuring me that "Ronnie Raygun (zap!)" was going to blow us all up (of course).
In 2004 I had lefties assuring me that Bush/Cheney would cancel the elections (of course).
In 2012 I had lefties assuring me that Romney drove around the country with a dog on top of his car giving nice ladies cancer (of course that might be true).
Narr
Made you look
I think in recent times a politician who best represented "boring" was Dick Cheney. A safe pair of hands and all that. Until he was unmasked as the evil power behind the throne during the Bush years, which by then it was too late. A lesson in that perhaps. As Baudelaire said, the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist. Maybe we need to fear boring. Maybe there is no way to detach from politics. The new opiate of the masses.
I’ve had 60 years experience with Democratic delegates — I don’t think they will do anything like that,” said former Vice President Walter Mondale, who is a superdelegate. “They will each do what they want to do, and somehow they will work it out. God knows how.
Translation: "Voters. We don't need no stinkin' voters. We gotz dah Pahty!"
So I guess this means they're gonna steal it from Bernie again. I'm sure all his supporters will be very understanding about that.
Apparatchiks are boring. So are civil service drones. Few of them are demonstrably competent and that is by design. They are ploders, yes-men, marginally competent (if that). Leaders on the other hand are not boring. They are competent, at least in the ability to acquire power. That is why they are leaders.
Mondale was boring, thank God. And he ran a boring campaign.
I don't think Ronnie Reagan could get elected in the current environment. The Dems woulda gone to court to unseal his divorce records re Jane Wyman and woulda found various Hollywood starlets to claim Ronnie either cheated with them on his wife, or sexually harassed them.
That's how these delusional fuckheads now roll. Getting power is everything.
Ann Althouse said...
I like boring, but it must be boring that promises competence, expertise, and leaving me alone.
Never going to happen.
The U.S. Government is not a machine that will go of itself. It is baked into the Constitution that the President must be a leader who leads the nation toward something or other that a majority of the voters find desirable at the time.
A large part of the present situation is that the AA voters have gotten everything that was promised them, and now they think we can stop there. Not so. Either we go farther left or we say whoa, this is too much of a muchness and let us get back to traditional values, etc.
What the United States will not do is to stand still.
And AA had better consider that the folks that look likely to control the Democratic Party for the near future have no intention of letting her, or anyone else, "alone."
These people are totalitarians.
Ann Althouse: "I was in a milieu where everyone loathed Reagan."
"I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon (Reagan). Where they are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes when I’m in a theater (Sam's Club) I can feel them.”
ADDED: I'm not saying boring like it's a bad thing. As I've said many times — and I have a tag for it — "I'm for Boring." And I voted for Mondale.
You should add in the part where you like to shit on people who you see as below you.
Boring = supporting obvious corruption so the media will say nice things about a president again.
Wow, he even looks boring.
It's been a while. I'd forgotten.
Trump hijacked the Presidency and has a 90-95% approval rating among those who voted for him. But that is just the voters. The Republican Party is at best divided and if, or when, Trump goes will not provide much protection against the Jacobins.
I like how when Mondale promises to raise taxes, the crowd cheers! The Stockholm Syndrome and "liberal" sadomasochism at its finest!
Ann Althouse: "I was in a milieu where everyone loathed Reagan."
You and I were in likely similar milieus where everyone feared and loathed Republicans.
“Blogger Sebastian said...
‘Donald Trump’s presidency is like a horror story’
Not the main topic of the thread, I know, but: why? Higher growth, less unemployment, China held accountable, Congressionally approved Nafta replacement, pressure on Iran, Nato countries pushed to pay more, illegal immigration down, stronger military -- where's the horror?”
To the left, those are bugs, not features.
A considerable amount of hand-wringing could be avoided with a rule saying the eventual nominee must start with at least 15% of the delegates (10% for women, POC and the transgendered — it’s the Dems).
What if Sanders gets a majority of the ELECTED delegates? What then?
What if the only reason that Sanders does not get a majority of all the delegates needed for the nomination is because of this anti-democratic power grab by the party establishment that is the "super delegate" system?
That will be their excuse for denying him the nomination? Their own corrupt system?
looking back fondly to the unbeatable string of Charles Evans Hughes, James Cox, John W. Davis, Herbert Hoover and Alf Landon.
>I was in a milieu where everyone loathed Reagan."
Mrs DtM’s parents were educators in a university town. On that November night in 1980 they scared the hell out of their two young daughters telling them that Reagan’s victory meant there would be a nuclear war.
I loved my in laws but if I could go back in time I’d slap them both.
Ok Ann. May I call you Ann? I was all set to write that given your support for Klobuchar, defining her as the boring candidate, you and I have a very different definition of boring. But then you defined boring at 8:25am and I have to admit I agree, especially with the leave me alone part. Not convinced Amy fits your definition, but I'm onboard otherwise.
I had a conversation that surprised me with a couple of very liberal Jewish friends (yes, it’s possible, sometimes) who say they hope neither Bloomberg or Bernie wins, as when things go wrong, “the Jews will get the blame”. Interesting, I hadn’t thought of that, possibly true. Also interesting is that they do not accept that the Dem party is considerably anti Semitic. Neither has ever or, they say, will ever vote republican.
Somebody said Cheney was evil. Bullshit, he was the only smart, tough guy in the midst of the many incompetents Bush hired, most notably in his communications teams. Having spent hours alone with Cheney before he was VP, leading Halliburton, I did a Board search for him. Decent, honorable, and VERY smart man. As Sec Def under Bush I, he was outstanding. The meanness shtick probably was a Colin Powell planted myth. Powell is one of the true political, egoistic snakes in America.
looking back fondly to the unbeatable string of Charles Evans Hughes,
Hughes, aside from being a Justice of the Supreme Court, is famous for going to bed on election night and his people told the reporters that "The president is asleep." The reporters responded with "When he wakes up, tell him he is not president." California had come in for Wilson.
The result was disaster.
In the meantime, Bernie backers are starting to get disruptive. Blessedly, they're tormenting Democrats for a change:
"The night before the Nevada caucuses, the chairman of the state’s Democratic Party called police after several supporters of Bernie Sanders gathered outside his home at 11 p.m. with a bullhorn to issue a warning about the next day’s election.
“I want assurances that there isn’t going to be any shenanigans going on tomorrow. The Democratic Party does not control what happens,” Maria Estrada, a self-described “Berner” from Los Angeles, said into the bullhorn, according to a Facebook Live video she streamed on her personal page."
"This week, the campaign fired a regional field director after the Daily Beast reported that the staffer had an alternative, locked Twitter account in which he said Buttigieg “is what happens when the therapist botches the conversion,” Elizabeth Warren was a “dumb Okie” who “looks like shit,” and Amy Klobuchar “looks like her name: pained, chunky, [and] confused origin/purpose.”
The incidents also raise the possibility that Sanders’ most passionate supporters are now beyond the control of the campaign despite efforts from senior leadership to rein them in.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/26/cops-called-bernie-backers-protest-117782
They'll go completely feral if there is a brokered convention. Stock up on popcorn!
"I agree. Trump is a horror story. IF you are a Democrat.
If you are an middle class American, tired of being called a racist, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamophobic, white supremacist,and being attacked in public for wearing a hat, you just MIGHT think differently."
Or if you're African-American and working a decent job for the first time in awhile.
"like boring, but it must be boring that promises competence, expertise, and leaving me alone."
As the song says, two out of three ain't bad.
Politics at its core is about control. Who do you want to control you?
Sierra Blanca, Bernie!
And hasta la vista.
John Henry
What if Sanders gets a majority of the ELECTED delegates? What then?
Answering my own question -- I just read that superdelegates do NOT get a vote on the first ballot.
If there is a majority of 1,991 elected delegates on the first ballot, then the supers never get a say. If it does go to a second or subsequent ballot, the supers get a vote, but the necessary majority goes up to 2376.
Watching the Klobuchar town hall on Fox News, which why is Fox News giving her a town hall, I guess they're not such right-wing bravos, inga. My question is, is there something wrong with her eyebrows? The right eyebrow seems to be permanently higher than the left.
I was in a milieu where everyone loathed Reagan.
Name a time when that milieu didn't loathe any and every Republican.
@Nichevo: humans are not symmetrical across their sides, right and left. Similar, nearly the same, but not exactly so.
Which reminds me of this: "What hump?".
Boring but competent can turn out to be too boring to be competent. The ability to inspire counts for something, and that's a big reason why Reagan was preferable to Mondale.
I guess it could be true that the more boring candidate loses, but it could also be true that we find the winners more interesting because they won. If Dole or Dukakis or Humphrey had been able to win, we might think of them as more interesting than we do.
So Cheney has friends and admirers. That still doesn't mean he wasn't awful.
I see more than a passing resemblance to Mondale when I can stomach looking at a photo of Jeff “Flakey” Flake.
Althouse voted for Mondale. He promised he would pickpocket the citizenry by raising taxes. Professor, I will never understand your claim of cruel neutrality when you tend to vote for the Dems. You even voted for Hillary. Will you go for Bernie? Or will you just sit this one out? I have a very high regard for your blog and your views and your approach, but, your actions, at least in voting, show a predilection instead of impartiality.
"Most boring candidate"? Do you remember the 1976 Ford-Carter Debate? The candidates walk onto the stage and stand behind their respective microphones, but there's a TECHNICAL PROBLEM. The sound doesn't work. So they each stand there, 20 feet from each other, for what seems like an eternity, while somebody tries to fix the sound. Neither one moves. Neither one says anything. They both just STAND THERE.
I swear that if either of them had walked over to the other, with a big smile, and said "[Gerry or Jimmy] what a foul up! Let's go get us a beer while they fix this thing", that guy would have won the election in a walk.
But neither one moved a muscle.
I cried in my beer when Reagan got elected, with my friend, at a bar. I still have an image of that map on the TV over the bar where we watched the returns come it. But two years later I was a Republican.
stevew said...
@Nichevo: humans are not symmetrical across their sides, right and left. Similar, nearly the same, but not exactly so.
Which reminds me of this: "What hump?".
2/27/20, 6:51 PM
I know, but this ain't that, I think. In her case I will accept this explanation if and only if she has the same look in her publicity photos.
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