AOC had an interview with the NYT. I don’t read that rag, so I’ve only seen excerpts. She was her usual honest self and didn’t commit to the 2028 race, Schumer or President. Also, this:
Oliver had some threads on Bluesky talking about “electability,” pointing out that the supposed “electable” candidates like Hillary Clinton and John Kerrey went down in flames against eminently beatable and Republicans.
Anyway, while we’re on the topic of 2028 Presidential aspirations, this Bluesky thread was a great list of how much Gavin Newsom sucks. He panicked and followed the crowd into “ignore ICE” and “trans under the bus” with the rest of the dummy institutional Democrats. This is a guy who has a supermajority in his legislature in a state as blue as the ocean.
You can click on that to see all the dumb things he did, but this one really stood out to me:
What kind of a psychopath does this? I live in the Denver metro and encounter homeless people and encampments all the time. I don’t like them, and it’s clear that many of them are either psychotic or on drugs, or both. But they’re human beings who in many cases have been failed by society. They are not objects of hate, and someone who tries to make them that out of ambition doesn’t deserve to be elected to any office, much less President.
Oliver made the point, and I agree, that the Democratic Party needs a no-holds-barred, knock down, drag out primary. That’s why I hope AOC runs, because it will happen with her in it. Of all the things that Joe Biden did that I didn’t like, denying us a real primary was one of the worst.
Moving on to Republicans and the presidency, presidential hopeful JD Vance just got this headline:
This guy has the political sense of week old roadkill.
Finally, one of the things that I hope we can get if AOC runs is to start ridding the party of shitty consultants. Scott sent in this piece from New York magazine about the role of consultants in Troy Jackson’s campaign, and it is really ugly:
The Jackson campaign’s wariness of in-person events seems to merge with a general suspicion of Mainers and their conviction that they know what’s best for Jackson. A handful of them who work as staffers at this point “are treated like garbage” by the campaign bosses, according to one source. What’s more, this person went on, “in their mind, Troy is lumped in with them. There’s a vision of Maine that these folks have.” Multiple sources said campaign managers turned up their noses at some of the hokier events on his schedule, including a boisterous karaoke night and a contra dance on Labor Day weekend. “They think it’s going well when Troy is boring AF,” said another person with knowledge of the campaign. Karaoke, held at Baxter Brewing Co. in Lewiston, “was a blast,” according to one attendant, packed with people who were Jackson’s delegates or organizers. “Troy was on fire, and he was just himself again.” Members of the Washington contingent, according to multiple people present, hung out on a couch by themselves and left after about half an hour.
Another source familiar with the campaign said, “I don’t even think it’s disdain for Maine so much as it’s just disdain for, more generally, people. They want to run this campaign through numbers and spreadsheets. And wherever a campaign is connecting with people or doing anything quirky or unique, they’re like, ‘This is bad and weird.’”
A lot of this friction comes down to competing theories of how to win elections. The people running Jackson’s campaign are relying on heavy vetting, poll testing, and data that pinpoints exactly who may be persuadable. They focus on ads, the messages neatly sculpted, while the candidate attends fundraisers and does call time, raising more money to pay for more ads. Emphasizing ads over a field operation is more profitable for the companies running that campaign. TKO and McCollister’s firm, Frame, make and sell ads for Jackson. “It’s a bit of a perverse incentive,” said one person close to Jackson. This is true across politics, and no one would argue lawn signs or town halls reach more people than ads.
Jackson was not a great candidate to begin with, but he did seem like a real person: somewhat inarticulate, a bit of a temper, but people seemed to like him. Well, it sounds like whatever strengths he has are being ignored. Few campaign events, he’s not allowed to take questions, he’s even more inarticulate because he’s trying to parrot consultant-laundered talking points, and they’re trying to get him to dress in button up dress shirts. Just the usual uninspiring shit that we’ve seen from the Democratic establishment time and again. This was right:
In a Citizens United universe of unlimited money, the Democratic Party depends on donors who have all kinds of interests, and those donors give money in exchange for control over messages. “The only candidates who stand a chance in that context are these unicorns like El-Sayed, Platner, Mamdani,” she went on, “who are so compelling and charismatic” that they can fund their own campaigns. When you’re a non-unicorn candidate, especially one with 100 days from nomination to election, “you really just need the money.”
