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Created
Thu, 07/03/2024 - 10:33
I don’t think TV ads work the way they used to but it can’t hurt to try a simple message and repeat it over and over again. Repetition is key: An estimated $2.7 billion is expected to be spent just on presidential campaign advertising this cycle. Pro-Biden super PACs Future Forward and American Bridge already have committed to a blizzard of ads, with $250 million and $200 million in spending respectively, as Democrats prepare an onslaught of ads to turn voters’ attention away from Biden’s age and remind them of Trump’s chaotic first term. In a memo released Wednesday morning, the Biden campaign said that groups allied with it had committed to spending more than $700 million to help defeat Trump. And with the president’s team eager to turn 2024 into a choice election for voters, plans are in place for the campaign itself to ramp up contrast ad-spending this spring. A person familiar with Biden’s campaign strategy but not authorized to speak about it publicly said it will come earlier than when then-President Barack Obama’s allies began turning up the heat on Republican rival Mitt Romney in 2012.
Created
Wed, 06/03/2024 - 08:00
Elie Mystal’s latest piece in The Nation is a must read. I agree with his title and his premise: The Supreme Court Must Me Stopped. My question is “So how do we stop them?” There IS a way, and we need to act. Before you go into the, “Yeah, but…” read the whole piece, he lays out several steps to take, starting with changing our attitudes. We have to stop treating them as they want to be treated, as 9 law shamans. We need to treat them as “politicians in robes.” This court has proven with its actions—through one politically motivated decision after another—that it is unfit to wield the power that it does.” The Supreme Court Must Be Stopped, Elie Mystal in the Nation. March 1, 2024 I’m an activist so I know that there are multiple steps to make something happen. Elie starts out with changing how we in the public perceive the court. Mystal, “The first step toward stopping the Supreme Court’s political actions is to treat the justices as political actors and subject them to all of the scrutiny, pressure, and protest normal political actors face every day.
Created
Wed, 06/03/2024 - 11:00
As I write this we’re awaiting the results of the Super Tuesday primary elections and obviously, we’ll be talking about that tomorrow. For now, I thought you might be interested in smart discussion of the presidential polls from Josh Marshall. First of all, he says that the good pollsters have a pretty good way of modeling the electorate and we shouldn’t dismiss the polls just because people don’t answer the phone. Ok. I’m a little bit skeptical that anyone can correctly divine who’s going to turn out in election in these weird times but I’ll take his word for it. Anyway, here are a couple more good insights worth thinking about: You need to believe these polls. But we need to break down what we’re talking about. People often say polling right now isn’t the same as this fall. But it’s not just that the election’s eight months from now and things can change over eight months. Public opinion just functions differently in the weeks before a national election than it does eight months before it. It becomes clearer who is and who isn’t going to vote.
Created
Thu, 07/03/2024 - 02:28
“Reproductive rights, gun control and the environment.” The greatest untapped source of votes for Democrats is younger voters. (No, I won’t reproduce the chart again.) They are registered heavily independent (or unaffiliated) and those tend to fall off Democrats’ targeting computers. What do they care about? What might get them to turn out in the fall? Here you go.     Post by @juliefornc View on Threads   Post by @housejuddems View on Threads Reproductive rights are under assault. MAGA Republicans mean to get Stasi about it.   Post by @maddowshow View on Threads No, I haven’t forgotten gun control. Post by @prof.donx View on Threads Democrats want to do something for you. Republicans want to do something to you. Governor Hobbs Launches Affordable Arizona: Tackling Medical Debt for Working Families My friend Kim Yaman reminds North Carolinians, “If you think NC Lt. Gov.
Created
Wed, 06/03/2024 - 03:29
Economist Dean Baker: Just to quickly point out why some of us would be very happy to see Biden back in the White House, apart from keeping the dictator out, let’s recount the record.  Biden’s recovery act quickly boosted the economy back to full employment. We know Trump has problems with numbers, but employment growth had slowed sharply by the end of his term.  Biden’s recovery package, which passed with zero R votes and over the yells and screams of many Democratic economists, quickly boosted the economy back to full employment.  The bout of inflation we saw was overwhelmingly due to disruptions created by Covid and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Our inflation was little different than Germany’s, France’s or even Japan’s.  The media tell us people don’t care about inflation in Germany, they care about inflation here.
Created
Wed, 06/03/2024 - 09:30
Let ‘er rip: Biden has told friends he thinks Trump is wobbly, both intellectually and emotionally, and will explode if Biden mercilessly gigs and goads him — “go haywire in public,” as one adviser put it. Other sources tell us that Biden is looking for a fight. Biden’s instincts tell him to let it fly when warning about the consequences of Trump winning the presidency again. Biden told The New Yorker that Trump would refuse to admit losing, again. The “trigger Trump” approach would be a departure from a traditional Rose Garden re-election campaign. Instead of focusing on jobs and the economy — areas in which polls suggest Americans aren’t giving Biden much credit — Biden would be making the contest as much about Trump as his own accomplishments. One potential upside: It would help assuage concerns about Biden’s age by showing that at 81, he can still throw a Scranton punch. Some Democrats want to see a return of the Joe Biden who sliced and diced his 2012 opponent, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), in the 2012 vice presidential debate.
Created
Thu, 07/03/2024 - 01:00
Super Tuesday is over “Presidential primary season is effectively over,” writes Jim Newell at Slate, rather anticlimactically. California’s Rep. Adam Schiff is on his way to being Senator Schiff. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema announced she would not seek reelection in Arizona, clearing the way for Rep. Ruben Gallego to become Senator Gallego. And Joe Biden and Donald “91 Counts” Trump will battle again for the presidency. Didn’t see that coming, didja? Here in North Carolina, Attorney General Josh Stein will battle Lt. Gov. Mark “Choking on my own blood” Robinson for governor. Guess which is the Republican? The problem going forward to November, as Digby observed of Josh Marshall’s take on the polling, is that “half the country doesn’t have a clue what actually going on, in some cases because they’ve been brainwashed and in others they’ve stopped paying attention order to preserve their mental health.” Ours here remains tenuous.