Politics

[PopeBeanieModerator]

Michael Bloomberg’s Secret Plans to Take Down Trump

Here’s a paragraph from the article:

Much of the thinking is informed by Bloomberg’s experience in the 2018 midterms, when he spent more than $100 million to become the single biggest Democratic donor, winning in 21 of the 24 races where his Independence USA PAC got directly involved.

[UnseenParticipant]

We are slowly entering an age where accepting PAC money is unacceptable for Democrat Party candidates.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

I read this yesterday about them saying “No” to PAC money.

[DavisModerator]

Canada has had limited donations laws for a decade now. A centre-left government introduced very limited donations from both businesses (a few thousand dollars at most) and invidivudals (a few hundred). In return after each election the parties were given around $1 per vote for financing. The next government (centre-right) partially repealed this law, obviously because business friendly parties are good at getting corporate donations etc. The Trudeau Government (centre-left) restored these laws. In general there is a whole lot less mudslinging, and sensationalist adds via misinformation and full out lies. In fact their budgets for adds is relatively low and there is a lot more focus on debates, political analysis and platforms.

I think the law was extremely successful in tempering the connections between lobbyists and government.

However most of the Scandanavian countries go much further than this. Political donations are extremely limited. In some countries political adds are not permitted at all focusing the campaign on platforms, political analysis and debates. After watching a selection of American political adds (mostly attack adds, other highly idealised feel-good politicians with images of the American countryside and the politician posing) I really ask myself what on Earth does anyone actually learn from these? Their platforms are barely mentioned and in any case most people already know quite well what the two party’s platforms are, that is with only two political parties usually that ever get elected any seats.

A couple of those countries go much further than even this. A political leader (or a cabinet leader whose position is in a conflict of interest) may not take a leadership role on any topic where they have financial interest, worked for more than 5 years in that industry, have family members or close friends in a managerial role in those industries and they are prohibited from working on a company board in any corporation or lobby group for at least 10 years, more years if it is related to legislation that the leader/cabinet minister/notable-participant took part in. This for me, is the ultimate expression of the separation of business interest and state. I cannot imagine that happening in Spain (while quite democratic, it is also chronically corrupt at every level) and perhaps this would never ever in the United States in our lifetimes.

[PopeBeanieModerator]

BIKINI PHOTOS!? DUMP THE TRUMP!!

Just kidding, no link there. But while you’re here, if you haven’t seen it in the general Small Talk forum, @unseen started an interesting discussion about Tulsi Gabbard running in 2020.

[PopeBeanieModerator]

[…] a look back at the 2016 presidential candidate media coverage

Graph of Trump vs Clinton media coverage before 2016 election

(Data covers up to Dec 1 2016. I might add more to this topic later wrt 2020 election media coverage.)

source

[PopeBeanieModerator]

#PB_Like #25316

[UnseenParticipant]

Here’s a campaign funding idea. Campaign donations are allowed up to some ungodly high limit. But the government’s Handicapper General (a character borrowed from a Kurt Vonnegut novel) would handicap the election by making up the difference for the candidate receiving less money. If one candidate receives $22 million in donations but the other only $10 million, the government would chip in $12 million to even things out.

In further actions by the HG, all horse races and Olympic sprints would be ties, all chess matches would end in draws, and basketball games would go on forever.

[PopeBeanieModerator]

Unseen wrote:

handicap the election

Not sure what to take seriously (if anything) here, but I’ll say anyway that if big money corrupts campaigns, more of it will just invite even more corruption and undesirable opportunists.

I’m betting on candidates voluntarily greatly limiting big money donations, founding or finding an internet-wide platform where they can state their finances and political positions with transparency (and for posterity), and (fingers crossed) said internet-wide platform would attract intelligent voters who are seeking those kinds of candidates.

[PopeBeanieModerator]

Here is some graphed data on internet research by people interested in the democratic candidates during, and before the debate. (Vox story link).

 

 

• This reply was modified 5 years, 5 months ago by  PopeBeanie.

[PopeBeanieModerator]

Detailed Maps of the Donors Powering the 2020 Democratic Campaigns (as of July 2019, per New York Times)

Focus is mostly on Sanders, Warren, Buttigieg, Harris, Biden, and O’Rourke, with mentions of 15 others.

I’ve neglected to follow the debates, but am hoping/wishing that Dems can favor a moderate candidate that can more likely beat Trump. Our two party electoral system unfortunately favors the election of candidates infamously leftist or rightist.

Without deeply researching the field, I’m impressed by John Hickenlooper (here’s a pic and a WaPo article excerpt):

Hickenlooper’s pitch is that he can appeal to both liberal Democrats and the white working-class voters who have flocked to Trump. He entered the race in March as a businessman-turned-politician who had attracted notice for his ability to bring together warring political factions in a western swing state.

A former geologist who founded one of Colorado’s first microbreweries and turned it into a small chain of brewpubs throughout the Midwest, Hickenlooper was a celebrated mayor of Denver, known for bringing the city and suburbs together in an economic renaissance. That propelled him to the governor’s office in 2010, where his two terms earned him a reputation as a bipartisan dealmaker even as he slowly edged Colorado, a state split almost 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats, to the left.

On the trail, Hickenlooper brags of bringing “near-universal health-care coverage” to his state and signing tough environmental and gun-control laws. “I’m perhaps the one person running who has actually done what most everybody else has just talked about,” Hickenlooper told about 25 voters recently at a coffee shop in Mason City, Iowa.

But Hickenlooper also rejects some of the high-profile liberal initiatives embraced by other Democratic hopefuls. He is against Medicare-for-all, arguing there are “less disruptive ways” of achieving universal health care. And while citing a “sense of urgency” on climate change, Hickenlooper opposes the Green New Deal, saying it could never win Republican support.

He’s sought a similar middle path on immigration. At a deli in Boone, Iowa, Dean Lyons, a utility company manager, asked Hickenlooper what he would do about the “mess” at the border. The former governor replied, “We need borders. And we need people to obey the law. You cannot continue to have laws that people don’t obey.”

But he also said the nation can’t ignore the humanitarian issues at the border or its need for low-skilled workers, and he listed several policy ideas, such as a 10-year renewable visa program. Afterward, Lyons praised the nuanced answer but also stressed Hickenlooper’s long odds. “I was pretty impressed with him,” Lyons said. “But he’s got a long road to get up the ladder.”

Hickenlooper has recently tried to stand out by being ever more aggressive about the party’s leftward turn, arguing that “socialism is not the answer” and that embracing it will only lead to a Democratic defeat. “If we’re not careful, we’re going to end up reelecting the worst president ever in American history,” he has argued.

[_Robert_Participant]

I also like Hickenlooper, but that name. President Hickenlooper. OK we can do that, I guess. LOL.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

There is some interesting info on this site (which seems legit). How or where do you get to see a breakdown of the individual donations that each candidate gets. Similar to this from the NRA.

Is there any merit to thinking that Trump might become his own worst enemy when the campaign really gets going? Will there be such a thing as Trump fatigue, even among left leaning Reps? I spoke with a few tourists today who did vote him but will not again.

[PopeBeanieModerator]

Found in r/PoliticalHumor from r/BetterEveryLoop

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