Posts Tagged ‘Sioux City’

Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update for September 30, 2019

Monday, September 30th, 2019

The Biden clan gets rich, Klobuchar kills a duck, O’Rourke threatens a kitten and calls Journey punk rock, while Yang channels The Dead Kennedys and the Q3 fundraising deadline looms. It’s your Democratic Presidential clown car update!

Polls

Too damn many polls this time around…

  • CNN (Nevada): Biden 22, Sanders 22, Warren 18, Harris 5, Buttigieg 4, Steyer 4, Yang 3, Booker 2, Gabbard 1, Klobuchar 1, Ryan 1, Williamson 1. 4% is as high as we’ve seen Steyer in any poll. Is his airdropping money on his campaign finally moving the needle?
  • CNN (South Carolina): Biden 17, Warren 16, Sanders 11, Buttigieg 4, Harris 3, Steyer 3, Booker 2, O’Rourke 2, Gabbard 1, Klobuchar 1. These numbers are from the RealClearPolitics summary, as they’ve double-linked the Nevada poll on their source link.
  • Harvard/Harris: Biden 28, Warren 17, Sanders 16, Harris 6, O’Rourke 3, Buttigieg 3, Yang 3, Castro 2, Booker 2, Steyer 2, Klobuchar 1, Gabbard 1. be prepared to click the zoom button a lot…
  • Quinnipiac: Warren 27, Biden 25, Sanders 16, Buttigieg 7, Harris 3, O’Rourke 2, Klobuchar 2, Castro 2, Yang 2, Bennet 1.
  • Economist/YouGov (page 185): Warren 25, Biden 25, Sanders 16, Buttigieg 7, Harris 6, O’Rourke 2, Yang 2, Gabbard 1, Castro 1, Klobuchar 1, Delaney 1, Bennet 1, Ryan 1, Bullock 1.
  • LA Times/Berkeley (California): Warren 29, Biden 20, Sanders 19, Harris 8, Buttigieg 6, O’Rourke 3, Yang 2, Klobuchar 2, Booker 1, Castro 1, Gabbard 1, Bennet 1.
  • Landmark Communications (Georgia): Biden 41.4, Warren 17.4, Sanders 8.1, Harris 5.6, Buttigieg 4.9, Booker 2.0, Yang 1.9, O’Rourke 1.4, Klobuchar 1.1, Gabbard 0.8, Bennett(sic) 0.1, Steyer 0.1, Castro 0.0. While I should theoretically appreciate the greater precision, I don’t understand how you get a 0.1 out of a sample of 500. Doesn’t that work out to half a person?
  • Goucher College (Maryland): Biden 33, Warren 21, Sanders 10, Harris 6, Buttigieg 5, Klobuchar 1. Yang 1, Booker 1, O’Rourke 1, Delaney 1.
  • Emerson Biden 26, Warren 23, Sanders 22, Yang 8, Buttigieg 6, Harris 4, Booker 2, Castro 2, O’Rourke 1, Ryan 1, Gabbard 1, Sestak 1, Williamson 1. Small sample size of 462, but 8 is a new high for Yang. A couple more points and he’s in Ron Paul territory…
  • Politico/Morning Consult: Biden 32, Warren 20, Sanders 19, Harris 6, Buttigieg 5, Booker 3, O’Rourke 3, Yang 3, Klobuchar 2, Bennet 1, Bullock 1, Castro 1, Delaney 1, Gabbard 1, Ryan 1, Steyer 1, Williamson 1.
  • Monmouth (New Hampshire): Warren 27, Biden 25, Sanders 12, Buttigieg 10, Harris 3, Booker 2 Gabbard 2, Klobuchar 2, Steyer 2, Yang 2, O’Rourke 1, Williamson 1.
  • USA Today/Suffolk (Nevada): Biden 23.2, Warren 19.4, Sanders 14.2. Harris 3.8, Buttigieg 3.4, Yang 3.0, Steyer 2.8, Booker 2.4, Bullock 1, O’Rourke 1.
  • Real Clear Politics
  • 538 polls
  • Election betting markets
  • Pundits, etc.

    Today is the Q3 fundraising deadline, so expect leading candidates to crow about their respective hauls right after I click Publish.

  • Which candidate is putting the most money into campaign ads? Right now, Steyer…and almost nobody else.

    The other candidates have not yet started seriously spending on TV. To date, most candidates have been committed more resources to Facebook and Google ads than to television ads (Pete Buttigieg, for example, has spent $5.3 million on digital vs. just $302,200 on TV). After Steyer, the active candidate who has spent the most on TV is Joe Biden, who has aired 882 spots for an estimated $384,220, almost all of it in Iowa.

  • Evidently Saturday Night Live is still on, and they had a DNC Town Hall skit Saturday:

  • If you think this section is light this week, you’re right: I think the impeachment nothingburger has sucked a lot of the air out of the room for the 2020 race. One way or another, Trump always manages to do that…
  • Now on to the clown car itself:

  • Colorado Senator Michael Bennet: In. Twitter. Facebook. Says he’s staying in the race until New Hampshire. Gets a Politico interview, says he’s not on the impeachment train. Also says far left candidates hurt Democratic chances of beating Trump. He’s the third richest Democrat running, behind Steyer and Delaney. “Within days of the appointment [to the senate in 2009], Bennet sold off at least $2 million worth of stock, in companies like Philip Morris, Eli Lilly and Chevron, according to federal filings.”
  • Former Vice President Joe Biden: In. Twitter. Facebook. “Wherever Joe Biden went, son Hunter cashed in.”

    Biden has been leading the Democratic field. The central case for his candidacy rests on the supposedly exemplary work he did as a senior member of Team Obama. Well, in 2016, acting as the Obama administration’s point man in Ukraine, the vice president — unlike Trump — openly threatened to withhold $1 billion in American loan guarantees if the embattled nation didn’t fire the country’s top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin.

    As Biden later bragged, “I looked at them and said, ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a bitch. He got fired.’ ”

    Most of the media assure us that, though by the Democrats’ new standards this kind of ­intimidation constitutes a flagrant abuse of power, Biden’s reasons for threatening Ukraine were chaste.

    But simply repeating this talking point doesn’t make it true. Granted, Shokin was a shady character. Yet at some point he had been investigating Burisma, the largest gas company in Ukraine, which also happened to be paying Hunter Biden a $50,000 monthly salary as a board member.

    By coincidence, Hunter had landed this cushy gig in a foreign country only a few months after the Obama ­administration began dispatching his father, Joe, to the very same foreign country on a regular basis.

    There was, of course, absolutely nothing in Hunter’s résumé to indicate that he would be a valuable addition to foreign energy interest. He didn’t speak the language, and he had no particular expertise in the energy industry. Oh, he did have one thing, though: his last name.

    I suppose, that isn’t entirely fair. Hunter once ran a hedge fund with his dad’s brother, James Biden, and associated with a notorious Ponzi schemer. James would go on to snag a job as executive vice president of a construction company in 2010, despite having virtually no experience in the field. And only a few months into his tenure, the company would win one of its biggest contracts in its history, a $1.5 billion deal to build affordable homes in Iraq.

    By pure happenstance, Joe was also the Obama administration’s point man in Iraq at the time. Funny how these things work out.

    Liberal reporters, who are framing Trump’s conversation with Zelensky as the most perilous threat in the ­republic’s history, have shown little curiosity about Biden’s dealings with the Ukrainian government. Many media personalities, in fact, have rallied to ­Biden’s defense, calling any intimation of wrongdoing a smear.

    NBC’s Chuck Todd dismissed any Biden talk as a mere distraction. CNN called questions into the former vice president’s actions “baseless.” Other liberals now argue that the Biden firing of Shokin actually worked against the interests of Hunter.

    We have no way of knowing if this is true, either. According to The New York Times, Hunter’s work for Burisma had “prompted concerns” among Obama administration State Department officials, because it undermined diplomacy in Ukraine. Was Biden really the only person available to pressure Ukrainian officials while his son was raking in the cash? Does anyone really believe Biden’s claims that he never once spoke to his 49-year-old son about business in the two years they spent working in the same country?

    A comprehensive timeline of Hunter Biden’s business dealings:

    Late Summer 2006: Hunter Biden and his uncle, James Biden, purchase the hedge fund Paradigm Global Advisors. According to an unnamed executive quoted in Politico in August, James Biden declared to employees on his first day, “Don’t worry about investors. We’ve got people all around the world who want to invest in Joe Biden.” At this time, Joe Biden is months away from becoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and launching his second bid for president.

    The unnamed executive who spoke to Politico charged that the purchase of the fund was designed to work around campaign-finance laws:

    According to the executive, James Biden made it clear that he viewed the fund as a way to take money from rich foreigners who could not legally give money to his older brother or his campaign account. “We’ve got investors lined up in a line of 747s filled with cash ready to invest in this company,” the executive remembers James Biden saying.

    It’s not just Hunter:

    Joe Biden’s brother told executives at a healthcare firm that the former vice president’s cancer initiative would promote their business, according to a participant in the conversation, who said the promise came as part of a pitch on behalf of potential investors in the firm.

    The allegation is the latest of many times Biden’s relatives have invoked the former vice president and his political clout to further their private business dealings. It is the first that involves the Biden Cancer Initiative, a project Joe Biden made the centerpiece of his post-White House life following the death of his son Beau.

    Biden’s brother, James, made the promise to executives at Florida-based Integrate Oral Care during a phone call on or around November 8, 2018, according to Michael Frey, CEO of Diverse Medical Management, a health-care firm that is suing James Biden. At the time, James Biden’s business partners were pursuing a potential investment in Integrate, according to Frey and court records. Frey, who had a business relationship with James Biden and his associates, had introduced the group to Integrate.

    James Biden told the Integrate executives that he would get the Biden Cancer Initiative to promote an oral rinse made by the firm and used by cancer patients, Frey, who said he participated in the call, told POLITICO. He added that James Biden directly invoked the former vice president on the call. “He said his brother would be very excited about this product,” Frey said.

    “Is Impeaching Trump Really About Kneecapping Joe Biden?”

    Make no mistake: This is a risky game the Democrats are playing. On the one hand, their most energetic voters practically demand Trump’s immediate removal. On the other hand, most voters are apathetic at best to the idea of impeachment, and will probably turn against it quite sharply if yet another investigation fails to reveal enough dirt on Trump. But as I wrote at Instapundit earlier today, maybe the only thing worse to the Democrats’ kamikaze wing than not going ahead with an impeachment inquiry would be an unsuccessful one.

    But for some Democrats, that might be a risk worth taking. So let’s go back to our earlier thought, courtesy of GMU law prof David Bernstein.

    The payoff here for “some very powerful Democrats” — and it wouldn’t be prudent to point fingers at anyone in particular — might be well worth the risk. Weaken Trump and force Biden out of the race, probably before Iowa? You can picture a particular presidential candidate or three saying “Deeeeeeliiiiiicious” in their best Dr. Evil voice.

    How bad is the scandal hurting Biden? “Biden Campaign Demands TV News Execs Stop Booking Giuliani.” Long 538 piece on Biden’s popularity among black voters, and how he could lose it.

    In order to win the nomination in a crowded race, Biden needs to cultivate support across demographic groups, to at least feint at his ability to win back the Obama coalition in the general election. His bedrock of support is black voters. Black voters made up around one-quarter of the 2016 Democratic primary electorate and are a crucial demographic group for any candidate. According to Gallup, 63 percent of non-Hispanic black Democratic voters self-identify as moderate or conservative. This, even as the Democratic Party overall has gotten more liberal — 2018 was the first year that over half of Democrats (51 percent) identified as liberal (in 1994, that number was only 25 percent.)

    But while black voters have remained more moderate or conservative, white voters have become increasingly likely to identify as liberal — 65 percent of non-Hispanic white Democrats called themselves liberal and have become rapidly more liberal on issues of race over the past 10 years. With white liberals comprising a key demographic not just in the first two primary states, Iowa and New Hampshire, but also in the media, it’s no wonder that Biden’s campaign has felt the pile-on of Twitter chatter.

    Caveat: Includes analysis from Al Sharpton.

  • New Jersey Senator Cory Booker: In. Twitter. Facebook. Announced he met the donor threshold for the November debates. Can he raise enough money to stay in?
  • Montana Governor Steve Bullock: In. Twitter. Facebook. Unveiled a public lands proposal.
  • South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg: In. Twitter. Facebook. Plans to take on Sanders and Warren on socialized medicine. He campaigned in Reno. At a campaign stop in Sparks, he was literally left in the dark during a power outage.
  • Former San Antonio Mayor and Obama HUD Secretary Julian Castro: In. Twitter. Facebook. Swears he’s not going to run for the senate even if he drops the presidential run. Which is understandable, since (like O’Rourke) he would lose either. “Julián Castro’s campaign manager says fundraising email not ‘a threat to quit.'” Like I said last week about Booker, it’s the standard campaign solicitation shuck.
  • Former Maryland Representative John Delaney: In. Twitter. Facebook. His Iowa State Director Monica Biddix left the campaign to “pursue other opportunities,” which is hardly reassuring for Delaney’s longshot hopes. “His campaign announced later Friday that it had named Brent Roske the new Iowa state director. Roske earlier served as Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson’s Iowa state director.” I’m guessing this is a step up in neither prestige nor likelihood of success, but probably a much stronger chance of receiving additional paychecks until the caucuses. BEEEEEFCAAAAKE!
  • Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard: In. Twitter. Facebook. Qualifies for October debate. Caves on impeachment. Every day a little more of her “not quite as insane as the rest” credibility slips down the drain.
  • California Senator Kamala Harris: In. Twitter. Facebook. Declining popularity in her home state. “The highs and lows of Kamala Harris’ roller coaster summer.” You know, the sort of roller coaster that climbs one big hill near the beginning, and then it’s all downhill…
  • Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar: In. Twitter. Facebook. She killed a duck while golfing. The fact this is the big news of the week for her should give you an inkling of her chances…
  • Miramar, Florida Mayor Wayne Messam: In. Twitter. Facebook. No Messam news this week. Trust me, I looked.
  • Former Texas Representative and failed Senatorial candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke: In. Twitter. Facebook. He’s reached the “don’t give a shit” phase of his campaign, or at least he’s come up with a brand new form of phoniness. Also commits the unpardonable sin of calling Journey “punk rock.” “Give me money or I’ll kill this kitten!”
  • Ohio Representative Tim Ryan: In. Twitter. Facebook. Says he’s not dropping out.
  • Vermont Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders: In. Twitter. Facebook. Plans to step up the campaign in Iowa and New Hampshire. He wants national rent control, because he’s obviously not satsified with it just screwing up New York and California. Wants to register but not ban AR-15s.
  • Former Pennsylvania Congressman Joe Sestak: In. Twitter. Facebook. Appeared at something called the Harry Hopkins Democratic Dinner in Sioux City, Iowa.
  • Billionaire Tom Steyer: In. Twitter. Facebook. Gets interviewed by the Council on Foreign Relations. Naturally he’s crowing about leading the impeachment charge.
  • Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren: In. Twitter. Facebook. It’s not just the Biden Family profiting from the insider sleaze. “Elizabeth Warren’s daughter, Amelia Warren Tyagi, is reportedly chairwoman [of] Demos, a liberal think tank, which gave the Working Families Party $45,000 in 2017-2018. This is significant because the Working Families Party just issued a surprise endorsement of Elizabeth Warren for president.” What do you know, some people are taking that unconstitutional wealth tax proposal personally: “Wall Street Democratic donors warn the party: We’ll sit out, or back Trump, if you nominate Elizabeth Warren.”

    Some big bank executives and hedge fund managers have been stunned by Warren’s ascent, and they are primed to resist her.

    “They will not support her. It would be like shutting down their industry,” an executive at one of the nation’s largest banks told CNBC, also speaking on condition of anonymity. This person said Warren’s policies could be worse for Wall Street than those of President Barack Obama, who signed the Dodd-Frank bank regulation bill in the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown.

    She’s all about leading the charge…except when it comes to fulfilling her actual senate voting duties:

  • Author and spiritual advisor Marianne Williamson: In. Twitter. Facebook. Gets a New York magazine profile. “How Spiritual Snobs Became the New One Percent. Enlightenment is the new status symbol for the elite, and Jack Dorsey, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Marianne Williamson the undisputed gods of the wellness aristocracy.” Eh, it’s a sort of irritating, scattershot attack on a real issue. Oh, and in that SNL skit, Williamson appeared via astral projection…
  • Venture capitalist Andrew Yang: In. Twitter. Facebook. While Beto was calling Journey punk rock, Yang was declaring his devotion to the real thing:

    $5 for anyone who can find a video of him doing a karaoke cover of “Holiday in Cambodia.” Gets a BBC profile. He proposed a VAT, which a New York Times writer says will raise more money than Warren’s wealth tax. In truth, both will earn exactly the same amount: zero, since neither has a hope in hell of passing.

  • Out of the Running

    These are people who were formerly in the roundup who have announced they’re not running, for which I’ve seen no recent signs they’re running, or who declared then dropped out:

  • Creepy Porn Lawyer Michael Avenatti
  • Losing Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams
  • Actor Alec Baldwin.
  • Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg
  • Former California Governor Jerry Brown
  • Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown
  • Former one-term President Jimmy Carter
  • Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, Jr.
  • Former First Lady, New York Senator, Secretary of State and losing 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton
  • New York Governor Andrew Cuomo
  • New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (Dropped out September 20, 2019)
  • Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti
  • New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (Dropped out August 29, 2019)
  • Former Tallahassee Mayor and failed Florida Senate candidate Andrew Gillum
  • Former Vice President Al Gore
  • Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel (Dropped out August 2, 2019)
  • Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper (Dropped out August 15, 2019; running for Senate instead)
  • Former Attorney General Eric Holder
  • Washington Governor Jay Inslee: Dropped Out (Dropped out August 21, 2019; running for a third gubernatorial term)
  • Virginia Senator and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Vice Presidential running mate Tim Kaine
  • Former Obama Secretary of State and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry
  • New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu
  • Former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe
  • Oregon senator Jeff Merkley
  • Massachusetts Representative Seth Moulton (dropped out August 23, 2019)
  • Former First Lady Michelle Obama
  • Former West Virginia State Senator Richard Ojeda (Dropped out January 29, 2019)
  • New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (constitutionally ineligible)
  • Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick
  • California Representative Eric Swalwell (Dropped out July 8, 2019)
  • Talk show host Oprah Winfrey
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