Things are looking grim for our political system. I didn't watch the State of the Union nor the Democratic rebuttal. I saw that Trump refused to shake Pelosi's hand and then she ripped up his printed speech. This is our leaders behaving like children!
Then there is the Iowa caucus. The results, more than 24 hours later, is still not completely available. I don't understand the technology of apps, which is what the Democratic party was blaming last night. But if every precinct simply call in the results or fax the results, wouldn't we have gotten the final count after a few hours delay? I mean, I saw that in these caucuses, everyone just line up behind their candidates' signs and then they count the heads. There is no paper ballot even. So it seems to me they count, write it on paper, send it to a centralized location and then add it all up. How hard can this be?
With about 70% counted by midnight Wednesday on the eastern time, it looks like Pete is ahead on delegates won and Sanders ahead on the popular vote. Biden did worse than expected, even though he was not expected to win. Will Pete be the standard bearer for the moderates instead of Biden or Klobuchar? Too early to tell, but it must be a boost for Pete and a big warning for Biden.
Besides the snafu on caucus night, I don't think that Iowa is necessary as important as some other years. The population is way too white compare to the democratic electorate of most of the country. Pete has a big problem with the black vote so what happens when the campaign goes to states with big black population? More importantly, can he or anyone else bring out the black vote during the general election. If whoever is nominated cannot get blacks to be enthusiastic near the level of when Obama was running, the Democrats are in big trouble.
On a light note from the last blog, Rick Barry was not on the Warrior team with Wilt. The Warriors drafted Nate Thurmond and then traded Wilt before Barry joined the team. Barry went to the ABA for a few seasons when the Warriors didn't want to pay him what he wanted. If Barry and Wilt were on the same team, they would have had the distinction of two underhanded free throw shooters. They would also have one of the best and one of the worst free throw shooter in NBA history on the same team!
I guess we are lucky you are so old you remember the history of when Rick Barry was on the Warriors! I think I had mentioned last year that I was not a fan of the State of the Union. It's almost outdated and am not even sure if it should be televised on network TV. The rebuttal is just as bad. I did end up watching the rebuttal since it was the Michigan governor. I was disappointed in it since it didn't address Trump's speech and was more of an advertisement for the Democratic party.
ReplyDeleteI do like Mayor Pete, but I am worried that he wouldn't be able to win the general election. Though I thought the same of Obama, so maybe there is hope in this country that a gay man could win. Would you think that if Pete got the nomination, do you think if he had Kamala Harris as his running mate that it would help?
-LBOAYM
I understand there was a Democratic rebuttal in Spanish by someone from Texas. I didn't see or read about either one but I wonder if they say the same thing but in English and Spanish or each person gave a completely different speech? I guess not many people care either way as no pundit is talking about them.
ReplyDeleteA black woman may help get out the black and woman vote but Harris was not very good during her campaign. She seemed cold and not able to connect with people. Given her great start, she certainly crashed quickly so I don't think she would help much.
I happened to catch some of Andrew Yang's town hall on CNN last night. He was amazingly energetic, and answered a variety of questions intelligently. Unlike the debates where he had the least number of questions, he had a whole hour to himself and he was great. Tom Steyer, Warren and Biden also got an hour yesterday. I didn't watch them but afterwards the CNN panel all agreed that Yang was the best of the night. One guy who I never seen before so must not be a journalist on the network said that he would hire Yang even if he doesn't know what job to give him because he would be great for his company no matter what! Too bad there are not more Asians in this country.