Joe's schtick is that he's "extra-sympathetic" because he's been through tragedy. So have lots of other people, many of whom didn't/don't have the protections he's had. Many of whom didn't when he was busily taking away people's ability to file for bankruptcy - when he was in the camp of those who thought people were just lazy and greedy and the sad credit card companies and banks shouldn't have to pay the price.

Oh, we're oversimplifying. Fun. Have you seen Elizabeth Warren's 1980 paper Regulated Industries' Automatic Cost of Service Adjustment Clauses: Do They Increase or Decrease Cost to the Consumer? arguing that utility companies were over-regulated and should receive automatic rate increases and dismissing the concerns of consumer advocates as "fallacious"?

https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2547&context=ndlr

Elizabeth Warren was a registered conservative until 1996. Discuss.

What a difference a day makes in the polls. Monmouth looks like an outlier.

You called that one, TS. Monmouth has now declared their own poll an outlier. :)

Yeah, it looks like I royally messed up Smith's piece.

Probably because I didn't read it and just quickly glossed over the quotes you provided.

I will do better!

As for {46] And, as for Biden being a mere side-kick to Obama and uncomfortable in front of black folks, well, this is yet another assertion by an ill-informed writer that couldn't be further from the truth.

That's a stupid stupid statement by you. What precisely do YOU know about Jamil Smith who writes for Rolling Stone? Exactly how is it that YOU can assert that YOU know more about how Black Americans are responding to Biden than does a black reporter who's been talking to black voters on the topic about which he writes?

You are not offering an effective defense of Biden and if that's the best his ardent defenders can do - simply announcing anyone who has an objection doesn't know they're talking about - he's gonna be in trouble.

BTW you misinterpreted the quote about Biden being comfortable/uncomfortable. Read it again.

Smith is asking the question: "why hasn't Biden done more meetings with black voter groups since he says he's never been uncomfortable with them". He's not saying Biden is uncomfortable - he's saying Biden claims to be very comfortable with them so why isn't he talking to them more now?

Do better.

Then, Paula, you should use better examples than the wholly ironic "disgruntled investor" when trying to make your point.

Republicans can attack Biden all they want about anything and they'll get as far as Senators Harris and Booker did.

And, as for Biden being a mere side-kick to Obama and uncomfortable in front of black folks, well, this is yet another assertion by an ill-informed writer that couldn't be further from the truth.

Biden has been deeply connected with the black community long before Barack Obama won his first election for public office.

My point is that he's vulnerable with respect to his coddling-of-banks in the past and he's likely to need to address attacks on the subject. Further he needs to be able to defend himself effectively coz if he gets the nomination he WILL be attacked by Repubs for the same things. Their goal will be to damage Biden among Democrats and Independents - it doesn't matter that THEY are 1% servants who coddle banks and hurt the little guy. It WILL matter if Biden is perceived to do/be the same.

Perhaps the former vice president appears to believe it is that previous familiarity with black voters which is getting him by. He spoke with a group of black journalists recently and said something that I’m sure he thinks sounds like an embrace of black voters. To me, it came off more like a shrug in our direction.

“People know me, or at least they think they know me, after all this time,” Biden said, per Astead Herndon of the New York Times. “They have a sense of who my character is and who I am — warts and all.”

Campaigns shouldn’t be about what voters already know about a candidate, though. They need to be learning new things all the time: platforms, facts, strategies to win. Granted, Biden has been in government for so long that the past may seemingly outweigh any new information, but every single aspect of his campaign appears to be sourced from his past. (This includes a new Biden health care ad that promotes the ACA accomplishment while invoking the tragic deaths of his own children.)

As Biden rambled on during a New Hampshire campaign appearance last week about the possibility of Obama being assassinated, I considered how that would have played in a majority-black setting. (Badly for him, would be my guess.) That led me to wonder why we haven’t seen much of him thus far in this campaign talking to the black communities that he told the Times he has “never, ever, ever, in my entire life, had a circumstance where I have felt uncomfortable,” introducing himself and his policies to our voters?

I cannot help but wonder whether he and his campaign consider it too risky to put Biden in front of black folks who may have a particular image of him as a sidekick to their beloved Obama, and then he opens his mouth and they’re all confronted with the reality.

The whole piece is interesting and touches on points I was making, plus more.

A disgruntled investor?

Seriously?

Does anyone here know anything about Biden's eventual support for the 2005 Bankruptcy bill and all that led up to his vote?

Well, he certainly needs to explain concisely why that accusation is untrue … for people who don't already know the accusation to be false.

For the record, there is no Democratic candidate for president who is more committed to and supportive of unions and unionization than Senator Biden.

College-educated men haven’t been doing great: their incomes have been treading water for the past 40 years. But men with only a high-school diploma have simply cratered: their incomes have dropped by nearly $20,000 since 1973. Trump appeals to the white segment of this group with his racial demagoguery because he has no real economic message for them and neither do Democrats.

The white working class may not be essential to Democrats these days, but it’s unquestionably a group that has suffered a lot in recent decades and would be receptive to a genuinely populist economic appeal—including, but not limited to, a truly full-throated commitment to unionization. It’s no wonder that Elizabeth Warren is making the inroads that she is.

https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2019/08/working-class-men-have-lost-nearly-20000-over-the-past-40-years/

a 90-minute interview with a small group of reporters at a campaign office in downtown Washington, Biden said racism has always been in America and white supremacists have always existed.

“It’s real,” he said. “It’s there, and the only way — from the founding of this country to today — you deal with it is you attack it. You expose it. You embarrass it. You put people in jail when they engage in things that are illegal when they’re doing it — you call them out. And most of all, you call it out to our children.”

“Silence,” he warned, “is complicity.”

But apparently it's going to be the subject of $500,000 worth of attack ads against JB.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-28/biden-targeted-in-attack-ad-as-being-too-close-to-business

A disgruntled investor has bought $500,000 worth of ads attacking Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden over a clash with Elizabeth Warren at a 2005 hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

I guess we'll see if they have any impact. If JB is going to be the nominee he needs to be able to deal with exactly this accusation - that he chooses business interests over people.

I don't disagree with either.

But when you really look at those two things - that he's capable of sympathy and empathy and that he assisted (we don't have any specifics re: how) in the passage of the ACA - what does that amount to?

Every Dem running - certainly the front-runners (with the possible exception of BS, who seems to operate from a more abstract place & has trouble with personal interactions) all exude empathy and fervent desire to protect/improve healthcare.

Every Dem running can be compared to Blotus and be seen as superior human beings.

Joe's schtick is that he's "extra-sympathetic" because he's been through tragedy. So have lots of other people, many of whom didn't/don't have the protections he's had. Many of whom didn't when he was busily taking away people's ability to file for bankruptcy - when he was in the camp of those who thought people were just lazy and greedy and the sad credit card companies and banks shouldn't have to pay the price.

See Joe may well be absolutely, genuinely able to feel the pain others feel when they lose loved ones. But he was very much NOT able to feel the pain people who were struggling financially feltl when they were beset by powerful entities from all sides and had nowhere to turn. Watch the back and forth between him and Liz Warren during the judiciary committee hearings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InVvVzprIxQ

Joe's concern was for the powerful. Yes, he heard Liz's points about how little people would be hurt and his response was to try to build in some things to mitigate the hurts - which betrayed a gigantic lack of empathy or understanding for what was happening to Americans who's income and security was being eroded from all sides. Joe lacked the vision (and he wasn't alone, to be fair) to grasp the bigger picture.

Joe is, in my view, using a "conservative" tactic - which is to make it all about the individual, ignoring "the system". (Bernie, to his credit, focuses on "the system" - I think he has difficulties with "the individual". Liz can see both. But I digress.)

I maintain my belief Joe is a fundamentally decent human being with a big heart and big areas of obliviousness. There's no question he'd be vast improvement over Blotus but so would every other candidate running.

But I also maintain that Joe was very much a cog in the wheel that brought us TO Blotus. THAT part of his history and career must also be noted. Joe had real power as a Senator to affect people's lives - how did he wield it? To me that is significantly more important than his personal story of dealing with personal tragedy.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/06/upshot/when-you-hear-the-margin-of-error-is-plus-or-minus-3-percent-think-7-instead.html

....and this was for a field much smaller than the thundering herd of Democratic Party presidential hopefuls.

https://engineering.stanford.edu/magazine/article/margin-error-bigger-you-think

If the commonly used estimation techniques work, 95% of election results should fall within the margin of error. In real life application, 88% of Presidential races fell within the margin error. Senate and gubernatorial races that fell within the margin of error was closer to 75%. Mind you, this was for contests with a filed much smaller than the 20 horse races of the 2020 Presidential primaries.

It's Senator Biden's farewell address to the Senate as he was about to assume the office of the vice presidency.

On a personal level I certainly feel sympathy for his sorrows and believe his feelings to be sincere. Many people will respond emotionally and as such it's effective.

I don't feel any sympathy for Joe, and I seriously don't think that he's looking for any. All too often, career politicians like him are looked on as "those who don't understand the common man." Just my opinion, but these type ads are to show Joe's been through a lot like everybody else and that health care is just as important to him and his family as it is to everyone else and their families, that he's fought like hell on multiple fronts to pass it, and it's a personal issue for him just like the majority of us. Empathy.

OTOH, I've started to be a bit repelled by Biden's constant reminders to everyone that he's suffered these tragedies - there's an element of emotional blackmail at work.

Blackmail? That's harsh. Keep in mind that not everyone is tuned into the political arena like we are, there are a whole lot of voters tuned in now more than in the past, and they're new and learning. Health care is a major issue for a lot of Americans, and Joe is telling them who will fight to keep them from losing theirs.

In this video he basically hit his two elect-me-justifications: "I've suffered" and "I was Obama's Veep".

Rephrasing: "I might be a career politician, but I know what it's like to suffer, and health care is a personal issue with me just as much as it is for everyone else" and "I was Obama's VP who fought like hell right along with him and the Democratic Party in order to bring Obamacare into the world, and I will protect our baby while at the same time protecting yours... a win-win."

To me the meta-message is "elect me for ME, not for you - I deserve this because I have suffered." The Obama connection is important too, but the impact revolves around his personal trauma.

To me, the meta-message is: Health care is as important to me as it is to you, and I'll protect yours because it's also my legacy.

Kind of a variation on the joke about how Ivy League graduates ALWAYS find a way to drop into conversation that they are Ivy League grads.

I wouldn't joke about the "Ivy League" if I was a fan of Elizabeth Warren. ;)

He gets sympathy and, whether knowingly or instinctively, the backdrop of tragedy he evokes gains him an advantage over opponents who have to tread carefully around the brave, bereaved survivor.

I don't think he's looking for sympathy... just to show that he knows what it's like to suffer like everyone else and how he shares their top priorities like health care, jobs, transportation... he rode Amtrak for decades. Does Trump strike you as the kind of guy who can empathize with anyone? Hell no. Does Joe?

His candidacy is heavily reliant on nostalgia; not on what he will do nearly as much as what he's been through and what he/Obama did, so it will probably please his base.

It's early, though. I think Joe is quite astute to stay out of the burgeoning pissing contest to see who can propose the most "free" stuff that somebody else is going to pay... like Trump's wall only a whole lot more stuff.

It's the sympathy card and he's playing it. It will be interesting to see how well it works.

Empathy card. :)

On a personal level I certainly feel sympathy for his sorrows and believe his feelings to be sincere. Many people will respond emotionally and as such it's effective.

OTOH, I've started to be a bit repelled by Biden's constant reminders to everyone that he's suffered these tragedies - there's an element of emotional blackmail at work. In this video he basically hit his two elect-me-justifications: "I've suffered" and "I was Obama's Veep".

To me the meta-message is "elect me for ME, not for you - I deserve this because I have suffered." The Obama connection is important too, but the impact revolves around his personal trauma.

Kind of a variation on the joke about how Ivy League graduates ALWAYS find a way to drop into conversation that they are Ivy League grads. I don't know if it's deliberate at all or just habit, or some murky combination, but he always brings up his wife's car crash and now Beau's cancer death. He gets sympathy and, whether knowingly or instinctively, the backdrop of tragedy he evokes gains him an advantage over opponents who have to tread carefully around the brave, bereaved survivor.

His candidacy is heavily reliant on nostalgia; not on what he will do nearly as much as what he's been through and what he/Obama did, so it will probably please his base. And it may cause opponents to take it easier on him - in which case it's a smart political tactic. It's the sympathy card and he's playing it. It will be interesting to see how well it works.

What I am asking for is a dialogue on is One Demand.

You're not asking, you're trolling.

The only times (twice) he commented on One Demand it was pretty much the same nonsense you see from Kick, Listen, etc. where he changed what One Demand is to fit his argument and did not address the questions I asked.

No, he didn't. You've trolled him for multiple years asking him to shill for you, and he has repeatedly refused to do that. He's encouraged you to get your own blog and also to "shove off."

You have a website outdated by multiple years and have admitted on this blog to using a picture of a celebrity therein. If you feel like you are receiving answers that are "nonsense" from either the author or any of the other commenters here, you should consider the fact that your outdated shit isn't just ridiculous claptrap, it's also legitimate grounds for legal action against you or anyone else who promotes it.

Now, in the very apt words of CW: "Shove off." :)

Funny, I have asked you multiple times to tell us what you believe CW would be able to report about One Demand if he chose to write about it, and you have ignored this request every time. Why is that? This should be easy to do, I’m asking you to tell us what about your idea makes it a winner that people should be excited about.

What positive things could he say about the website he’d be telling the world is where they need to go to sign up for One Demand?

You want people to pledge to only vote for small donation candidates, but you have gotten zero candidates to agree to become an One Demand candidate. You have said that people should write in their own name when there are no small donation candidates on the ballot — as a way to send the message that they will only vote for small donation candidates — but you have yet to explain how anyone looking at the voting results in their districts will be able to know which write-in candidates are doing so in protest and which ones are actually voting for themselves because they want the job.

You would have to make the names and addresses of everyone who sign up with One Demand available to the public for anyone to know that a person’s write in was done in protest, correct? Yet, no where on your sign up page do you inform those who sign up that their info will be made public.

Your website states:

For example, if 20% of the general election voters that don’t normally vote in the primaries voted in the primaries using a write-in vote to write-in their own name because there were no hundred dollar candidates running in the primaries that would total about 40-50% of the primary vote because in many primary elections only 20-30% general election voters participate in the primaries.

So you are counting on getting people who do not vote in elections to commit to voting with the knowledge that their vote won’t make a difference unless other non-voters can be convinced to do the same?

Well, Kick, I won't be surprised if he gets explicit about this in the next debate.

I suspect he'll bloody well have to since he's the front runner with a giant target likely to get "tag teamed" by Sanders/Warren and piled on by multiple others. Even for the guy trying to take the high road and avoid "punching down" at members of his own Party at this early stage, "punching back" in a debate setting is to be expected and encouraged. :)

Does his newest ad in Iowa Re. healthcare and the ACA set him on the right course for that?

Yes. I was just posting about the same thing before I saw your post. I totally agree.

Biden implicitly argues against scrapping the ACA and starting over and against efforts to kill it by a thousand cuts. Implicit may not be strong enough so I hope he gets more blunt about it.

He's in the lead with no need whatsoever to "punch down" at the moment. It's the perfect pitch. :)

"Why do you want to be president, Joe?"

It's personal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi4bcatoFns

_______________

Good choice. ;)

As I have said before, I think Joe is in a unique position to run on protecting health care now that Trump has chosen poorly to double down in his attempts to kill it. It's personal for Joe; he has a unique story that includes his family and his son Beau and friends Ted Kennedy and John McCain who passed away from glioblastoma. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has chosen to double down on his attempts to kill the ACA a.k.a. Obamacare.

Senator Edward Kennedy didn't live to see his life's work signed into law by Barack Obama because he passed away on August 25, 2009, from a brain tumor... glioblastoma... the same type that would take one of his closest personal friends, Senator John McCain who saved the ACA with the swift downturn of his right thumb before he passed away exactly nine years later to the day of Kennedy on August 25, 2018.

"John McCain will cast a long shadow," Joe Biden said. "His impact on America hasn't ended. Not even close." It was that same cancer that also took Joe Biden’s son, Beau, in 2015.

If you pay careful attention, you will notice the uncanny way that history sometimes rhymes. If I noticed patterns in things, I would wager that Joe Biden will be entering the 2020 race for the presidency with a story to tell and a fight against Trump uniquely his own. As CW rightly points out, Trump has chosen poorly. :)

http://www.chrisweigant.com/2019/03/26/trump-doubles-down-on-losing-strategy/#comment-132544

continued...

As I have said before, I think Joe is in a unique position to run on protecting health care now that Trump has chosen poorly to double down in his attempts to kill it. It's personal for Joe; he has a unique story that includes his family and his son Beau and friends Ted Kennedy and John McCain who passed away from glioblastoma. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has chosen to double down on his attempts to kill the ACA a.k.a. Obamacare.

Senator Edward Kennedy didn't live to see his life's work signed into law by Barack Obama because he passed away on August 25, 2009, from a brain tumor... glioblastoma... the same type that would take one of his closest personal friends, Senator John McCain who saved the ACA with the swift downturn of his right thumb before he passed away exactly nine years later to the day of Kennedy on August 25, 2018.

"John McCain will cast a long shadow," Joe Biden said. "His impact on America hasn't ended. Not even close." It was that same cancer that also took Joe Biden’s son, Beau, in 2015.

If you pay careful attention, you will notice the uncanny way that history sometimes rhymes. If I noticed patterns in things, I would wager that Joe Biden will be entering the 2020 race for the presidency with a story to tell and a fight against Trump uniquely his own. As CW rightly points out, Trump has chosen poorly. :)

http://www.chrisweigant.com/2019/03/26/trump-doubles-down-on-losing-strategy/#comment-132544

Having said all that, it looks like Joe has a new ad wherein he takes on his opponents and outlines what I have always believed would be his best argument to the question:

"Why do you want to be president, Joe?"

It's personal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi4bcatoFns

_______________

Good choice. ;)

Does his newest ad in Iowa Re. healthcare and the ACA set him on the right course for that?

Biden implicitly argues against scrapping the ACA and starting over and against efforts to kill it by a thousand cuts. Implicit may not be strong enough so I hope he gets more blunt about it.

And, they are so very right about that. Just not in the way they think. :)

Yes! That's just what I said. And, I think it will work, given the incumbent and the field of Democratic candidates.

If his polling numbers drop for real, then he just has to make any number of other arguments to demonstrate why he bests Trump and his Democratic rivals.

In other words, Biden has a huge tool box. Ahem.

Well, the way I see it, there is one too many 'do so's' in that sentence.

I sounds funny.

Heh.

I would just like to point out that my comments to CW are nothing compared to the other commenters comments to me.

Bullshit.

And I am just following the advice of other commenters here that said what I was doing (asking CW nicely) wasn't working so I should try something different. So I did.

This is pure bullshit, Don. Lies. Who is the commenter you're blaming for your own decision to troll the author of the blog in multiple ways? If you truly want to follow the advice of "other commenters,":

Your most repeated advice:

A. Start your own blog.
B. Stop trolling the author to shill for you.
C. A and B

I am here to get CW to address reality and provide the 10% fruit juice in the comments until CW decides to put 100% fruit juice in the articles or explains why he won't.

Admitted troll, he already did. It's his blog. See blockquote above.

Your welcome.

As I just recently started reading the Comments section would you please briefly summarize your running dialogue with CW? Are you trying to get CW to address the money in politics issue? And to get him to agree with you and perhaps even direct folks to your blog? Do you have a blog?If so, please provide it.

I wonder (given the volume of commentary that CW has posted for years now) if he hasn't already weighed in. I cannot imagine that CW's attitude on this subject varies much from ours.

As passionate about rescuing American politics as you and I are, please remember that it's CW's show and it's up to him to decide what to write. And in a "kinder, gentler and less chaotic time, with far less craziness coming at us hourly" (the Eisenhower years, perhaps) CW would have time to step back from the trees to contemplate the forest.

as 2016 clearly demonstrated, polling is an inexact science. i think biden is simply the best democratic candidate at the moment, and that's why he's held his lead thus far. not because of name recognition, the centrist "lane," or because he's "electable," but because many people believe his peculiar blend of idealism and pragmatism, with his strengths and weaknesses on full display, is the antidote to what currently ails the executive branch. that doesn't mean liz warren won't catch fire and beat him in the primary - she's certainly capable of it. bernie doing so i consider somewhat less likely. still, i feel biden being perceived as a "boring" candidate is more of a feature than a bug.

JL

Cause Biden's got the centrist flag all to himself, and he's playing a long game, which has to be hard on a Bernie fan. Moreover, I doubt that he'll even compete in New Hampshire this time around, given that the two of them pretty much have it tied up.

So, South Carolina? ugh. No Bernie fans there..

Says the guy who commandeers the face of Willie Nelson on his website and is unwilling to provide a resume with a verifiable name and address...so potential supporters can check out his qualifications and whether he's done any time in jail before they send him THEIR personal data.

I can understand reluctance to provide such to the world wide web, and I don't give out my personal data for precisely that reason....but I'm not pitching any business, profit or nonprofit, to readers of CW.com. I've published under my name in professional journals, but that is a very different world with reasonable privacy buffers.

Your little "demand" has nothing to do with "basic democracy." In fact, you've repeatedly demonstrated that your grasp of the definition of "democracy" is sorely lacking.

I am sick of your trolling the author to shill for your failed BS. He's already asked you to allow him to have his own blog without your snotty comments, and I think the vast majority of your comments are snotty toward him.

So take the hint. :)

DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY
Biden …... 33%
Sanders …20%
Warren ….15%
Harris …….8%

EARLY STATES' PRIMARIES
Biden …... 33%
Sanders …17%
Warren ….12%
Harris …….8%

Biden has yet to really address this, as he is continuing to focus his campaign on Trump himself rather than his primary challengers. He still has the luxury of doing so because he is so far out in front of the rest of the field.

Yes, because "punching down" on your Party's other candidates when you have been running ahead by double digits for multiple months is a ridiculous thing to do and makes you look like a jerk to their voters who are your potential voters.

If Biden slips to a three-way fight with Sanders and Warren, then he's going to have to engage with them or risk looking like he thinks he's entitled to the nomination.

He's going to have to engage with "them"? Warren and Sanders are going to have to engage with each other and stop treating themselves as a "twofer" when they're obviously also running against each other and not just Joe Biden. Discuss. :)

While I COMPLETELY agree with what you are trying to accomplish here ('tis truely a NO BRAINER IMO) I must point out that you are trying to do the the same thing as "paid in Rubles and Methamphetamine" "Michale" and perhaps "C.R. Stucki" as well. You are trying to "piggyback" on this web blog in order to further your/our cause.

Nothing wrong with that but I DO suggest you show restraint so as to not NEEDLESSLY antagonize those of us who visit this site to read what CW has to say. As a lifelong salesman I've learned of the perils of "over selling," ya dig?

Otherwise...DRIVE ON, fellow traveler. If enough voices rise up we shall overcome - woot!

Personally, I’d prefer Biden and every other candidate focused solely on what they want to do for this country and ignored their primary challengers all together! If all you can do is attack someone else’s ideas, it just screams the message that you aren’t intelligent enough to offer anything better. People are saying that Trump is the very best example of this to ever have existed!