Posts Tagged ‘Daily Kos’

Daily Kos: Man, We Sure Love Us Some Old White Heterosexual Millionaires!

Wednesday, January 9th, 2019

Lefty site DailyKos has released their first Presidential straw poll of 2019. Results?


ELIZABETH WARREN 22%
BETO O’ROURKE 15
KAMALA HARRIS 14
JOE BIDEN 14
BERNIE SANDERS 11
UNSURE 9
OTHER 9
CORY BOOKER 3
JULIAN CASTRO 1
KRISTEN GILLIBRAND 1

So: Of their top five choices, all are straight, four are white millionaires, three are men, three will be over the age of 71 on January 20, 2021, two will be 78 or older, and none are Hispanic.

The outliers are Kamala Harris, 55, with a net worth of $3,310,537 (a neat trick for someone who has been continuously in government positions since 1990), and Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke, 46, with an estimated worth of only $9 million. (Forbes wants us to know that his father-in-law, William Sanders, is probably only worth a mere $500 million. Also, as far as I can tell, William Sanders is not related to Bernie Sanders.)

The low ranking of Bernie Sanders may be a surprise to those who don’t follow every twist and turn of leftwing politics, but Kos deliberately drove out the Bernie Brigades in 2016 for the high crime of complaining about Hillary rigging the primary.

So too is the high standing of Warren, whose “Hey, I’m just a common person drinking beer” Instagram video drew such ridicule, surprising.

For all that Democrats swear up and down they’re the party of “people of color,” and the heavy influence of SJW “intersectionality” on the party’s rhetoric, four out of their top five Presidential candidates sure don’t show it.

Maybe the real driver of the Democratic Party isn’t intersectionality, but middle-aged feminists looking for the next Hillary. (And maybe the young feminists find O’Rourke “dreamy.”)

Or maybe I just don’t know enough about Daily Kos biases relative to the rest of the left in 2019. 2016 showed that lots of accepted wisdom about who shows up to vote for who in presidential election primaries was wrong.

Or maybe straw polls this far out are simply meaningless. Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Ben Carson were mopping up straw poll victories back in 2015…

What If You Gave a Netroots Nation And Nobody Came?

Sunday, August 19th, 2018

Did you know that the Daily Kos-founded Netroots Nation had their annual conference earlier this month?

If not, that’s OK. Evidently neither did anyone else.

Netroots Nation bills itself as “the largest annual conference for progressives.” This year’s conference was plagued with nearly empty events, racial incitement and wild radicalism far outside of the American mainstream, including items for sale with threats of violence.

This year’s conference just wrapped in New Orleans.

Wait a minute, how do you throw an under-attended conference in New Orleans? I mean, it’s in New Orleans.

Of course, the dwindling ranks of Netroot Nation are probably packed with dour feminists and vegetarians, so perhaps New Orleans offers less of an appeal to them than you might think.

Keynote addresses were delivered at Netroots Nation by Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Cynthia Nixon, and self-described democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. These speakers, and the conference’s legion of panelists, pushed an unrelenting new era of racially-focused activism and organizing.

The problem was, much of the time there was nobody there to hear it.

The conference was plagued by nearly empty events. “This is What Democracy Should Look Like” was a panel featuring Atima Omara, A’shanti Gholar, and Carol McDonald. With seating for more than 200 at the event, barely 20 Netroots attendees came to hear.

Also this:

“Among the topics at Netroots Nation were race, mobilization, race, voting rights, race, and cultural oppression by the dominant patriarchy.”

Media reports claim Netroots Nation got its usual 3,000 attendees, but I’m not seeing it in these tweeted photos:

And here’s Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, supposedly a serious Presidential candidate, speaking to what appears to be a half-full luncheon:

(Speaking of Booker, he claimed that he had no idea this sign he was holding had anything do do with Israel:

Which means Cory Booker is either a liar or an idiot…)

I would think that if they had anywhere close to three thousand people, there would be at least one picture from the event that showed at least a thousand people in one room, and I’m not seeing one anywhere online.

My impression is that far-left organizations like Netroots Nation suffer from one of the same problems plaguing the libertarians: All chiefs and no indians.

(Hat tip: NiceDeb.)

“Your Tears, Kos! Let Me Drink Your Tears!”

Thursday, December 1st, 2016

The chief Kossak is still enraged at the election results, and just let his bile spew in an epic rant about that continued enragement (which is pretty much a textbook case of “anger issues”). A bunch is the usual “racist/sexist/white supremacist” crap, but much takes square aim at his own side for such an epic cock-up.

Some of the tastier bits:

  • I’m angry at Hillary Clinton for losing. Plain and simple, her campaign had one job. And it should’ve been an easy job! And yes, they won the popular vote, and let’s never forget that. But they weren’t even polling in Michigan! It was rank incompetence.
  • I’m angry at Clinton for running an old-world campaign. She was in California TWO WEEKS BEFORE THE ELECTION raising money. She was in CALIFORNIA! TWO WEEKS before the election! Clinton’s campaign raised $500 million for itself, and another $175 million through Priorities USA. Donald Trump’s campaign raised about $250 million total. But Clinton, who lived through both the Obama campaign and the Bernie Sanders one, was still stuck in that old way of thinking, that more money meant more victory.
  • And speaking of the Obama and Sanders campaigns, Clinton still didn’t learn the obvious lessons from a people-powered campaign. I mean, spend time in front of crowds in battleground states, and the money will come in, easily! You don’t have to have a rich-people fundraiser in California weeks before the election to raise the money.
  • Oh, and what was all that money spent on? The biggest chunk was on worthless TV ads that did nothing to move the needle. Donald Trump knew that, and spent almost nothing on TV. Yes, he was on TV a lot, but that’s because he gave the media reasons to cover him. Meanwhile, the Michigan Democratic Party had to scramble to raise $200,000 for its GOTV efforts, completely ignored by the Clinton campaign.
  • I’m angry at the Democratic consultant class, who really shit the bed this year in epic, glorious fashion. All that money you donated? Either pissed away by these assholes, or tucked into their pockets. It’s on Clinton for letting them run the asylum. And related, I’m angry at myself for thinking that campaign manager Robbie Mook—a decent guy—heralded a different way of running the campaign. Either he went along with the bullshit, or he got sidelined. Either way, any top consultant working for this campaign should be blacklisted into eternity. Not the staffers who toiled away! Those people are heroes. But the assholes at the top making the decisions.
  • But most of all, he seems really angry that people are allowed to express opinions he doesn’t agree with:

  • I’m angry at those who are angry at me for trying to tamp down the Clinton criticism after the primary, as if endless sniping from the left, through Election Day, would’ve done anything to improve her chances. Goddam liberals, why couldn’t we wait until after she was elected to snipe at her? She ran the most explicitly liberal campaign in Democratic history, yet that was never enough. Meanwhile, the religious right never took their eye off the ball, and rallied fiercely behind Trump despite his overt moral failures. Now they get that Supreme Court, and we don’t. Congrats!
  • I’m angry at the media, who thought endlessly harping over a non-scandal email story was clever and smart and necessary. Then, after Trump announced he would kill the White House traveling press corps, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer declared that Trump had “gone too far!” Fuck you. NOW he had gone too far? Fuck them all. I hope Trump kills the White House press corps altogether, so maybe the assholes will be properly motivated and incentivized to hold the presidency accountable, rather than playing “stenography” from inside the White House.
  • Remember when the Clinton Foundation was a BIG STORY, despite there being ZERO evidence of wrongdoing, while a single reporter at the Washington Post dug up example after example of wrongdoing at the Trump family foundation? Remember? Yup. Fuck those assholes.
  • I’m angry at ME. It was easy to trust the data, and I expected it to continue working. And then it didn’t, and fuck that shit. So I built an entire narrative around what the data said, and it was wrong. And I still don’t know how else I would’ve handled it, so that makes me angry as well. I know what we must do in the future—organize with a vengeance—but when it comes to covering the election, I’m at a bit of a loss.
  • I’m angry at me because I don’t know what I could’ve done better. I know there are people who want to scream “you shouldn’t have squelched Clinton dissent!” And to that, I say that’s one of the things I did RIGHT. Heck, maybe I should’ve tamped it down sooner. I don’t know how anyone can argue that having liberals diarying about “Clinton’s imminent email-related indictment” was in any way helpful. Clinton Derangement Syndrome was strong, and it cost us.
  • Takeaways:

  • “Spend time in front of crowds in battleground states, and the money will come in.” Really? Have you seen Clinton speak? There more she speaks, the less people like her. Hillary’s great at scarfing up big bundled donations from special interests expecting political favors. Drawing donations from small donors thanks to her electric personality? Not so much.
  • How dare Bernie Sanders supporters not fall in line and do the Party’s bidding?
  • Saint Hillary is pure as the driven snow! How dare you investigate those silly email and Clinton Foundation scandals?
  • Clinton got the most biased coverage in her favor ever in Presidential election history, and Kos is screaming that it just wasn’t fawning enough.
  • Note that Kos is screaming about both how was he to know all the polls were wrong and how he should have squelched dissent harder! Don’t see a little disconnect there, Commissar Kos? Like how your side’s ruthless insistence on squelching dissent skews polls, or having a press so in-the-tank for Hillary dangerously impaired your side’s situational awareness? Ever hear the term “preference cascade”?
  • Take a nice refreshing drought of Kos’ anger, and liberal self-delusion, at the same time.

    (Hat tip: Kurt Schlichter’s Twitter feed.)

    The Sound of a Million Liberal Teeth Gnashing

    Wednesday, December 8th, 2010

    The best thing about the deal Obama cut with Republicans to extend the Bush Tax Cuts for two years is the uncertainty it removed from the market and the fact that it will let millions of taxpayers continue to keep more of their own money.

    The second best thing about the deal is the full-flavored, zesty schadenfreude from the howls of outraged anguish and betrayal coming from the nutroots over Obama’s unthinkable perfidy. The reactions were so extreme you’d think he’d just agreed to hand over part of Czechoslovakia to Hitler. (Think I’m exaggerating? Look below and you’ll see that more than one very prominent liberal suggested that very analogy.)

    So here’s a Whitman’s sampler of outraged reactions from the left. The problem wasn’t finding them, it was determining which ones to include. There are only so many hours in the day…

    • Here’s a very unreconstructed liberal who starts out his lament in classic style: “While the corporate oligarchy tightens it’s grip over power…” Man, I guess that “corporate oligarchy” bit never goes out of fashion on the hard left.
    • This Counterpunch commentator suggests that Obama is only doing the bidding of his true constituency, Wall Street, in order to fulfill his ultimate goal: privatizing Social Security. Evidently Obama is just a puppet for Steve Forbes. Who knew?
    • This poster on Alternet.org agrees: Now that Obama has caved, “Wall Street executives and Congressional Republicans will demand Social Security be slashed.” Yeah, I can still remember how all those Republican House candidates were demanding that Social Security be slashed.
    • Moveon.org asks Obama to stand tough, not realizing he’s already down the street in a saloon, toasting his new friends.
    • Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel says that Obama is shirking his “clear and imperative historic mandate.” It’s like the 2010 general election never happened for these people.
    • Some liberals are even suggesting that Obama has sunk so far he’s become that most evil and unclean of creatures: a Republican.
    • More than one, in fact: “The Democrats, elected and rank-and-file, for our own good, must come to terms with the notion that a Republican is in the White House, and that Democrats are the opposition party.”
    • The head Kossack himself pulls a Quarter-Godwin by comparing Obama to Neville Chamberlain. (It also offers another glimpse into that parallel reality liberals inhabit, where “Republicans were so worried that the government-run program would be so efficient, effective, and affordable that it would drive the private insurers out of business.” Yeah, Republicans are so well known for fearing that giant government programs will be too efficient.)
    • Oliver Willis deploys the same meme “I see President Obama has returned from his meetings with the GOP leadership and has come back waving and bragging of the agreement that cedes the Sudentenland to the Republican party on taxes.”
    • Any more liberals hopping on the Obama-as-Neville Chamberlain bandwagon? Why yes! The ever-dependable Keith Olbermann: “I will confess I won’t fight if anyone wants to draw a comparison between what you’ve done with our domestic policies of our day to what Neville Chamberlain did with the domestic policies of his.” Ah, Keith. Don’t ever change.
    • Finally, over in the most fevered swamps of Democratic Underground, one poster brings up the only measured and reasonable response to the situation: Armed socialist revolution! “There are 300 million of us and only 200,000 rich people in the US. Unite with your fellow workers. Tear down the walls of their mansions and haul them off to jail.”

    Post-Election Roundup for 11/4/10

    Thursday, November 4th, 2010

    A few bits:

    • Jim Gegharty speaks to Obi Wan: “The people tried trusting Democratic claims that they would govern as moderates. That didn’t work out, and that trust won’t be back any time soon”
    • Republicans increased their share of trifectas (i.e., where they control both state congressional chambers and the Governorship) from 8 to 20, while the Democratic Party’s trifectas declined from 16 to 9. That means Republican’s big win will become even bigger next year for redistricting.
    • The GOP also picked up state legislative chambers in New Hampshire, Maine, Wisconsin and Minnesota.
    • Battle10 on the Republican takeover of Wisconsin.
    • The quantity of Republican senators elected yesterday was lacking, but the quality of the ones getting in is impressive, especially considering who they replaced.
    • I’m not a big Ann Coulter fan, but this debunking of pre-election myths has some nice bits of snark: “Republican landslides are apparently inevitable whenever Democrats try to turn our health care over to the Department of Motor Vehicles.” “Even Lindsey Graham is going to start voting with the Republicans!”
    • Another Daily Kos writer employees the calm, dispassionate reason for which that site is known far and wide: “Screw you, whitey!”
    • Today’s winner of the Least Psychic Pundit Award: Stuart Rothenberg: “There are no signs of a dramatic rebound for the party, and the chance of Republicans winning control of either chamber in the 2010 midterm elections is zero. Not ‘close to zero.’ Not ‘slight’ or ‘small.’ Zero.”