Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Politics In General Is it too soon to be talking 2020?

Let's ignore all the revisionist history going on here and get back to the topic, shall we? With 2019 coming fast, announcements are going to start being made. Julian Castro will be in, along with fellow Texan, Beto O'Rourke; probably Bernie and Biden; I expect Cuomo and Bloomberg, with Gillibrand filling out the New York contingent; then Corey Booker from across the river; maybe some Midwesterners, like Klobuchar and Hickenlooper; and from the West, Inslee. Who else to round out the score?

Not at all. And I have failed to be able to insulate myself from Trumpism, too.
My wife's illness is such now that, together with my vision problems, I am pretty much retired against my will. I mean, even if my eyes weren't going bad, it's damn hard to get much work because Karen needs a lot more supervision now than she did ten years ago. I can't leave town for more than a day, really.

So the little I pull in from DVD sales is all I am making now, together with Karen's VA money. I am three years away from collecting Social Security, and the only other income I am making is part of the monthly rent from one tenant. And that has been iffy for the last six months because of tenant problems. I've actually lost money a few months. And if the economy tanks, I'll lose even more if my current tenant gets screwed over.

So we are pretty vulnerable and have been for the last two or three years.

Sorry, we cannot afford another Trump term in the White House, there is no way in Hell we can survive it.
And we're nowhere near as vulnerable as a lot of others.

Here is a bit of wishful thinking. PBS decides to allot 2 hours of prime time to them running for public office, either side. To avail the candidate must agree to stand in front of a mike and camera and explain why he/she is the best candidate to vote for. Another situation might be for one candidate to challenge another candidate to a debate. In that case pre-defined judges would be assigned and the winner of the debate announced (unless it was a draw).

I also wouldn't mind a situation wherein the candidate is questioned by, say, a group of 4 persons (two to each side)

I see no sense in a debate between 20/30 candidates at a time.

TV is the right place, other than door belling. PBS is supported by gov and this would be payback. I remember when ALL tv stations did public announcements and services (one of which was the news). Too bad public services can't return to the good old days. I know, some stations do some public services. I would prefer that public services be pre-announced, and explained.

Once the PBS thing got into high gear the next thing would be to disallow any spending on elections and PBS would offer exposure to all viable candidates. ("viable" to be defined)

Whilst at it I might also suggest that the Dems start working on 'fixing' stuff. Is there any reason, for instance, that we have a federal flood insurance that is paying to rebuild seaside homes of the rich that get flooded every year. They have made runs at restricting insurance when that to be insured is also sure to get flooded year after year.

How about the Dems actually passing a law that would force INDIVIDUALS to put their names on any and all political ads (print, tv, whatever) they pay or or sponsor. Last time they tried the unions fought them tooth and nail. Apparently the unions didn't want to be associated with some of their political ads. This is also true of the donor class in general.

The Dems should pick specific actual problems, that they plan on attacking and solving. No generalities (like: for folks of different color, for children, for food, against murder and mayhem, rape and pillaging, etc) but specific stuff that effects everybody.

Whats revisionist NWP?

Ojeda from W.V.

Well Jeff, your situation is not that different from a lot of others including myself. You and your wife's value in society is only as much as you are able to earn in the marketplace. When I can no longer produce I will no longer hold much value either. You are no longer a profitable position of the yield curve in neoliberal marketworld.
I don't like it and find neoliberal politics odious and sociopathic but here we are. It's the market above everything and 'there is no other way' so don't even bring up other ideas. Ideas such as Sanders raised.

My guess is another neoliberal Dollar Bill Clinton play with Beto. He's telegenic and has been a mostly empty vessel of positions and his 'Beto for Texas' campaign website ( Still up) literally drips of neoliberal jingoism.
His vote record is being examined and the push back (mainly aimed at Sanders supporters) by the neolibs and the media has been fierce. This indicates to me that he is the next 'anointed' one.
Bill Gates News coverage of Sanders supporters war on Beto

Note the article never talks about the actual critique any voter, never mind Sanders supporters, might have for Beto's vote. The framing is all about their being a 'war' with an aggressor and a victim....
You've been in the creative field Jeff. What does it mean when a fair critique is seen as an act of war?
Signs are pointing to Beto getting picked for us groundlings to vote for in 2020.
Hillary's still a stalking horse. The recent meltdown of Goldman's Malaysian scam and the possible embarrassment for who knows who in this country, as the scandal risks spreading here, has the possibility of damaging her more than her speaking fees to the Boardroom. Something to keep an eye on. I can see money sloshing around in the charity world to keep that story from blowing up.

JGW,
I agree with most of what you say. I liked the League of Women Voters conducting the debates back before we let the political corporations decide between themselves how the debates would be run. I say 'give it back to the ladies'.
I think the politicians should be decked out like NASCAR. The larger the donation the bigger and better placed the corporate logo patch on their suit.

Sanders has given a clear 10 point plan that he outlined in the Op-Ed of the Washington Post on Thanksgiving. You can read about it here

Oddly, I could not link the the actual op-ed piece from the Washington Post itself. Seems to have disappeared.

It means, if it bleeds, it leads, same old same old.
That's why the PBS idea is an idea whose time has come, because PBS still gets taxpayer money and is therefore the appropriate vehicle, along with at least ONE of the C-SPAN channels. Thereafter, campaigning material needs to eventually be restricted to those outlets. The regular news media can continue to cover issues raised by the candidates.

We have to move in the direction of taxpayer funded and regulated campaigning and away from organized money, and that's going to require a reversal of some recent rulings, so it will be very tough.

No one's bothered by the amount of 'charitable' contributions that are taken in by PBS? Koch's? Gates?
Just asking because their has been some whiff of scandal from that direction.

Understood. PBS has been beggared thanks to Republicans and their death by a thousand cuts campaign against public funding. Maybe we Americans can work to restore the network to full public funding again thus negating the need for them to go begging to oligarchs.

It only works if we have the stomach for it and the political will to make it happen.

It's not the party apparatus at all. It is Our Corporate Overlords™

They own both parties and the propaganda machine. In 2016 they chose Hillary Clinton and ran her against a racist assh*le. No way she could lose. She lost.

Hilly was s'posed to be president. Worldwide markets would have remained stable, The ACA would be getting shored up, we'd be seeing incremental change for the better. Capitalism would continue to lurch from crisis to crisis but would still reign supreme. The rich get richer and the poor stay poor.

2016 was a finger in their eye.

Except things have been getting incrementally worse for decades now on every front.
Aside from a growing cottage industry of 'no actually, it's really getting better' writers and pundits, by most measures it's getting worse.
On reflection, there was only two candidates that spoke to that situation. One is in the White House and the other is still working like a Roman to fix what he can.
I didn't agree with the formers empty promises and sh!t talk. He did, though, speak to much of the economic pain and destruction that global capitalism has brought. Again, much like Sanders.
One party let the process play out as they had no real way to but the brakes on him. The other party rigged the primary away from the populist candidate, having undemocratically preselected the winner and went on to lose. Theirs something tragically funny in all this and yet I fear it will play out all over in 2020.
Face it, it's the candidate that can deliver the most compelling vision for the future will have the best chance. The voters are not happy in neoliberal market land anymore. They want change that Corporate won't allow. I don't think incrementalism is going to cut it. Its a time for bold policy. Trumps bold. Sanders bold. The rest of the field... Meh.
I'm hoping there is a bold enough candidate to come forward and offer solutions for the problems facing America beyond colledge towns. Having some kind of grass roots qualifications is a suprising proposal coming from such a bankrupt and corrupted organization as the DNC.
What should have been an obvious lesson of Trumps election (bold ideas, if phoney, with small dollar donations, grass roots mobilization) has been lost by the usual scapegoating, redirecting, finger pointing and doubling down.
I don't believe the midterm blue wave was accomplished as much by party competency (remember the fortune poured in the Georgia special election with Ossof that lost large compared to the squeaker in Oklahoma the party chose to ignore?) as it was by counter forces generated by the POTUS and his majority.
My guess is the democrat party have to go bold and trust the voters to pick the winner. The corporate centrists have proven out if touch and incompetent in 2016. Let's hope they are restrained in some way and aren't allowed to pick the candidate in 2020.