11th-hour brinkmanship from the freight rail industry, its unions and both parties in Congress.

There were a lot of things that went into Hillary being the candidate and the decisions made by Obama were strategic and he believed that it would keep the Democrats from fracturing. First, Clinton was not going to back down or not run. Second, there were discussions within the party and they believed that it was "her time" and that her husband was still relevant. These power brokers in the Democratic party were old and had roots going back to at least Bill Clinton and remembered how he pulled the Democrats out of the Jimmy Carter gutter. These people were out of touch with the pulse of the country and they pushed hard for Hillary. Obama had asked for help and had been in regular contact with Bill Clinton and there was a lot of respect there.

Biden also had in the past had a very poor showing running for President. They knew that his son Hunter had a lot of baggage and Joe Biden could be guilty of gaffes.

FWIW I don't think that the divide between Obama and Biden is that bad at this point. Most of the people that Biden has surrounded himself are those that have been very loyal to Obama in the past and Biden has supposedly had calls and discussions with Obama and his level of involvement is up to him.

FWIW I don't think that Joe Biden is tapped into the average American. He is in his late 70's, has been a prominent politician for nearly 50 years and sounds like America of a half century ago. I do however believe that he lacks some of the pretense or arrogance that Trump or Obama had and that lack of pretense allows him to be open to those around him, younger and in advisory roles that are more in touch with the American people. Biden also isn't a radical, and for all the folksiness and Republican claims of senility; he is a very measured person when it comes to actual policy, so he keeps his more radical advisors and policy makers from going too far.

Personally I think in the Democratic party Stacey Abrams is the most brilliant and ambitious politician. She is extremely bright. There are a couple others like Sherrod Brown that are quite talented too. The most charismatic democrats are AOC and John Fetterman. AOC is very charismatic and very in tune with voting blocs that are often over looked; young and female. She really connects well with those demographics.

John Fetterman has a chance to be a monster. His charisma is off the charts, but we will have to see how he navigates his health and political issues. He has a very strong simplicity that appeals to voters and he avoids being labeled an extremist liberal because of his race, his gender and his size and how he presents himself.

 

This is a really interesting perspective and one that makes me think about what the party's state vs. national strategy should be. The GOP has a well-worn strategy (outside of loyalty to Trump and his lies) that works across states: anti-abortion, lower taxes for higher earners, isolationist foreign policy, anti-illegal immigration, culture wars to inflame the base, etc. A GOP candidate can run on that in Arizona, Ohio, Alaska, Montana, etc. Aside from a few incumbents like Collins, Romney and Murkowski, I can't imagine any nominee deviating too much from that playbook.

State-wide Democratic nominees have a lot more variance in which positions they can take and hope to win. More liberal candidates can win in the northeast and west coast while the party needs steady, moderate candidates in places like Montana, Arizona and, yes, West Virginia. I agree with your earlier post that Abrams' continued pursuit of Georgia's governorship is odd. Perhaps she would've been a Senate candidate if Warnock had not won in 2020, but she's boxed in by her home state's political ceiling similar to Pete Buttigieg.

Considering the math of the electoral college, I am currently a believer in a more moderate candidate (like Biden, Gretchen Whitmer, etc.) at the top of the ticket with regionally-appropriate candidates for Senate. I get the impulse among some liberals for firebrand candidates cut from the Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren cloth, but I just don't think that message can win the electoral college right now.

 

WOW?

You are just as bad as the resident conservatives.

Always at the extreme.

 

I don't see the business side of the labor dispute as having any merit... If that's the label you want to put on me, go ahead. The media part is completely speculative, but that's my guess.

 

The union leadership has agreed to it but I think the workers themselves have yet to review it. They still have to agree to it.

But it does apparently allow the workers to take time off for being sick, which was a major sticking point for them. So I could see the workers being cool with it.

 

Like Is said always at the extreme, it's the same as say I don't see the Liberal side having any merit.

So just because you are representing a business, none of what you say has merit?

Just because you represent business, you have to be greedy and evil.

All of this is completely speculative and the "media" can be both progressive, conservative and right down the middle.

I am not labelling you I am just responding to what you say in your post, I seldom label anything or anybody because I believe you can have a nuance or not be beholden to a strict ideology.


I take each discussion on its own merit, we are too quick to write somebody off because of a "label".

 

You give each discussion its own merit, but don't perceive me as having the same common sense? lol

I don't think business, in this case, should do anything but capitulate to labor. That doesn't hold for every case, even though if I had to guess, I'd side more with labor much more often than the average person. Probably more often than your average Democrat, but I don't know how to quantify such things without telepathy.

There was an incident I read the other day with an employer trying to dictate the clothing someone was wearing on their day off, because they received a complaint. I'd generally tell the employer to go to hell if I were making policy. If someone wanted to wear an ACAB t-shirt to work, and it didn't affect their work, and I generally agree with the statement, I'd still say the employer has the right to say no. I don't know where that puts me, and I purposefully avoided things like pensions and pay for simplicity sake.... but it's representative of my views. I find employer positions egregious in the case of the railroads.

The only caveat is that it is not my job to research the details, and there could be something lurking in the negotiations that I've missed that would change my mind or soften my stance. But from what I've seen...

 

Wut?

So you are comfortable just saying what should and should not be done when you don't even know the details?

Thanks for making my point for me about you and yours.

Sounds just like a MAGA person, my side is always right, or at least the ones that agree with me.

 

Bruh, I'm saying that of the details I've read I've formed my position. Knowing full well that reading personal experiences and news summaries isn't the full picture. There are too many stories and not enough hours in the day to know everything about everything. I haven't read meeting transcripts and legal documents going back years. I need to be a labor lawyer to have an opinion? A hedged opinion at that...

 

Ok.

 

Plus he did it mostly without burning too many bridges with a trail of destruction behind him. It is known he has a friendship with McConnell.

In what form it is or how that lasted or beyond the Obama years is still a mystery to me.

 

Would you? You don't even have children. You just live on the internet all day

 

Sure. Ask away

 

I did, lay it out for us, can't wait.

 

You didn't ask a direct question. You are a liberal p***y. Ask something direct

 

Biden also didn’t want to run 2016. He was in mourning over the loss of his son Beau. Joe Biden and others have said that he didn’t really want to run in 2020 but was angered over Trump and believed he was the only one who could unite Democrats to beat him.