Marianne Williamson has now officially assumed the “Moonbeam” mantle previously borne by former Governor Jerry Brown. Unless tuned in to her historical target audience - many will undoubtedly conclude she’s way out there.
But her statement that to beat Trump the Democratic candidate has to speak to those who are really hurting in America today is right on. She’s right that to a large extent Trump didn’t win on policy positions, he won by making a connection with the powerless who voted Trump last time around. The Democrat candidate must establish that connection with a message, before policy can make a big difference.
I didn’t hear a lot of that Tuesday night. Sure the candidates said all of the things a policy wonk wants to hear, but to those extra voters needed to beat Trump she’s right that it’s all yada yada yada. In my view, ironically, Joe Biden may have the best chance to make that connection.
In terms of CNN’s debate promotion of “watch and see which candidate stands out”, I can’t help but think that President Lincoln wouldn’t have made it past the gate if CNN rules prevailed then.
I don’t care what her message is because she’s not a legitimate candidate. Same goes for Yang, Gabbard, de Blasio, etc. They all got to have their 5 minutes in the first debate. We should not still be talking about any of them because we need to focus on the real candidates so we can best prepare for 2020.
Who are you or I to determine that for the rest of the primary electorate? If the message of a candidate (say, Jay Inslee, noting that if we let atmospheric change ruin the ecosystem, then taxation and health care and trade disputes won’t matter) is important to enough people, then he or she deserves a real voice in the early stages of the process to identify whether they can develop specific proposals and sell them to the public. This is what the summer 2019 open process is about. It’s the reason that progressive reformers pushed to get rid of the smoke-filled room, where only the party bosses and top donors decided who could even get heard.
If the Democratic Party is really the “people’s party”, then they owe it to the people to give candidates a real chance to prove their worth. Bernie and Trump were able to make the lightly-informed not-very-partisan voters believe that the DNC was running 2016 like the smoke-filled room era. That helped defeat Mrs. Clinton, at least as much as Comey’s announcement.
The Democratic Party does. And, thankfully, now that this second circus/debate is done with we can begin having serious debates with serious candidates. 2020 is far too important for any more clowning around. Sorry, I feel quite strongly about this.
No need to apologize for political exuberance. You and unCritical are hard core leftists who still believe that whoever promises you the most handouts is who you want to win- got it.
For the rest of us, we find Williamson a bit more entertaining than the pious Stalinism, and thinly veiled hatred of White people from candidates like Harris, Booker, and Castro (he’s still in?). The problem for you is that all the bullshit promises will never help you:
There is not enough money to do all the silly assed stuff like free college, ubi, reparations, green new deal, medicare for all etc. etc. etc. by taxing and confiscating the wealth of the ‘evil rich’. It just isn’t there; even if you confiscated everything from the 400 wealthiest Americans it would be roughly 2.7 trillion - that would not even cover the first year of two of those panders to pinheaded. After that - there would be----zero! Thatcher was right “The problem with Socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people’s money.”
And where would those trillions go? Let’s look at Baltimore - 16 billion fed. dollars to a city of just over 600,000 people. Every metric continues to decline, and the parts of the city that were hell holes are now Hellscapes. Where did that money go? Into the Democrat fraud vortex.
Gabbard is probably the most dangerous candidate of the herd. She could actually have broad appeal across party lines which is why the hard core leftists want her gone.