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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Nope. Gillibrand is where I might draw the line. I couldn't in good consciousness vote for someone who would've put a bounty on some of my friends and some of my relatives. Once upon a time my parents and grand-parents were illegal immigrants. Not gonna spit in their face like that (Although my dad would do it if for a tax break).
I'm happy she's doing good as a Senator and I'm fine with receiving her help (although I think New York could do better) but I don't want her as my president.
edited 15th May '17 5:00:33 PM by MadSkillz
@Captain If I lived in a swing/ red state I would hold my nose and do it, but I live in California.
And I vote in California just because it's my duty as a citizen.
I mean I'd still vote in the election. I just wouldn't vote for either of them. I'd write in a candidate or something.
edited 15th May '17 5:22:28 PM by MadSkillz
I think TheWanderer outlines in general terms why I value competence over ideaology. Bring a True Progressive (tm) don't mean jack if you can't get elected and/or implement your True Progressive (tm) policies. So long as your chosen candidate at least claims to uphold the same values you do, you, as a voter, have they leverage, if not the right, to hold them accountable
@The Wanderer: We good. Let this be a lesson in "Anecdotes != Data" and "Don't generalize about Upstate you silly city slicker".
@Mad: Maybe "could do better" but you do have to keep the purpleness of Upstate in mind. NY reads blue in a lot of election maps because of NYC which is still one of the most populous cities in the world. The upstate/downstate divide tends to be played out a lot in the rhetoric of local politics so having Schumer from NYC and Gilbrand from Upstate makes a certain amount of apparent sense.
edited 15th May '17 5:18:40 PM by Elle
... where was any of that said? Have fun with whoever you are arguing against in your head, Cap. Here's the entirety of the post I was originally responding to:
Point out where either I or Mad mentioned 2020, or what that has to do with anything.
Again, I don't know why you're assuming things here and deciding to lash out based on that. No, I don't like 90s politics, I despised it and was pretty far to the left of it back then, just like I'm to the left of consensus politics right now. I was pointing out that I was jaded from growing up with that, and that I have 20+ years of being someone who has actively paid attention to the news and wanted to see political causes worked on only to see them thwarted again and again.
I'm jaded, and more than that, tired. I'm tired of 20+ years of missed opportunities, blown chances, and liberals/progressives shooting themselves in the foot. Including by passing up the chance for progress because it wouldn't push the envelope far enough.
That was what I was talking about when I mentioned the 90s, not whatever conclusion you jumped to that made you talk about neoliberalism and such. Please remember what they say about assuming in the future.
| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |My knowledge of New York politics is hardly in depth but I've been lead to believe it's "urban is blue, rural is red, with suburban areas being able to go either way", that's common in most states.
The difference being that "urban" in this case refers to one giant city with over 40% of the state's population, for the most part, but that other cities shouldn't be forgotten.
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Mad is definitely talking about Gillibrand in terms of her as a 2020 presidential candidate, and as far as my referencing the 90s goes, my point was that the 90s shouldn't be the bar by which we judge when enough is enough in a politician these days.
NYC (excluding Staten Island) and many of its suburbs are blue, mid-state is purple, upstate is red.
edited 15th May '17 5:32:09 PM by CaptainCapsase
Mad may be talking about that, I'm just talking about not looking a gift horse in the mouth when it comes to a Congress person or Senator.
And I can sympathize in some ways because I despise Cuomo down to the depths of my soul and would not vote for him for any higher office, (and left the governor's spot blank in 2014 rather than vote for the prick) and I can sympathize with her feelings about the immigration issue specifically because most of my mother's family were immigrants and weren't born here.
The difference being that "urban" in this case refers to one giant city with over 40% of the state's population, for the most part, but that other cities shouldn't be forgotten.
Mostly. Although the other thing is that most other cities aside from NYC are pretty low population and/or were crippled by changes in industry. NYC has 8.5 million residents, after that you get 3 or 4 cities with populations of 200,000 or so, and it drops pretty fast from there. The result is you can go maybe 40 miles north of the city and things are reliably blue, after that you have a purple belt, then things start getting red. Demographic changes and the insanity of republicans nationwide is pushing against that republican advantage upstate.
Gillibrand's former district got redrawn, for example, but nonetheless in the course of a decade it went from 70% republican to a 55-45 split going either way.
edited 15th May '17 5:44:04 PM by TheWanderer
| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |![]()
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It's true to a point. There are other cities and "red" NY is likely bluer than, say, Texas or Mississippi. Way fewer religious fundamentalists for one thing.
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There are bluish-purple bands along the Great Lakes. South of that it does get almost entirely rural and much redder. If we're going to break it out beyond downstate (NYC and its sphere) and "the rest" it probably ought to get into actual region names.
After the messes that were Patterson and Spitzer, Cuomo looks good by comparison to me, but I was living out of state for five years. The worst I can say is I get occasional sleezy vibes from him.
edited 15th May '17 5:47:18 PM by Elle
It appears that he, along with other (mostly Democratic) Senators, do not believe H.R. McMaster's claims that no Classified Information was leaked by Trump.
Question: Are they saying has he deceased prior to the info being leaked or is he deceased because of what was leaked?
If the latter, I guess that means I can actually check off "getting people killed singlehandedly" as part of my "has done everything Clinton was accused of" list. Honestly hadn't expected that conspiracy theory to get ticked off the list.
edited 15th May '17 6:05:01 PM by sgamer82
Cuomo is competent enough, but he's also a supremely vindictive political bully and a believer in ruthlessly controlling and consolidating power. On of the things he's infamous for is bashing fellow Democrats if they say something he doesn't like. He's given press conferences or newspaper interviews or anonymous comments solely to bash a local politician they day after they propose something for their town or city, only to later try to present whatever he was bashing as his own idea.
He also somewhat infamously bashed fellow Democrats following their losses in 2014 for being too liberal and more or less saying "See, this is what you get for pushing for extremes like 12 and 13 dollar an hour minimum wages"... and then tried to make himself the face of the $15 an hour minimum wage. He's done things like that so often that he's been openly called out by other state Democrats and the press.
Here's one of many articles written about it over the years
They say Mr. Cuomo has been quick to embrace conflict with his own party and too willing to enlist Republicans and political donors as allies against them.
Confronted with a restive party, Mr. Cuomo, 57, now faces the most consequential political choice of his second term: whether to appease downtrodden Democrats by adjusting his personal style, or to continue relying on a set of hard-edged methods that his supporters call essential to maintaining political order in the state.
But some Democrats contend that his brusqueness goes beyond what is strictly necessary for the purposes of governing. They say Mr. Cuomo can be bluntly scornful of his critics and their staffs, branding proposals from other Democrats as “incompetent” or rejecting criticism with a belittling “Spare me.” (A spokesman for the governor disputed that such language was used.)
One particularly familiar and vexing tactic to some Democrats is Mr. Cuomo’s habit of delivering acid attacks on them in the press, in the form of anonymous quotations served up by his staff or the governor himself.
Peter Ragone, a former senior adviser to Mr. de Blasio who previously worked for Mr. Cuomo, recalled setting up off-the-record phone calls for Mr. Cuomo at an earlier point in their careers: “Everybody knows that that’s what Andrew does, that he’s calling and he’s talking off the record and he’s trashing people.”
Mr. Ragone said Democrats had grown disillusioned with the tactics of a governor who, he said, had lost touch with his party’s liberal agenda.
“Politics is a tough business,” he said. “It’s a contact sport. But a contact sport just to hit people is not the way you do it.”
Mayor Stephanie A. Miner of Syracuse, a former Cuomo ally who is now one of his most vocal critics, said she had experienced extraordinary pressure tactics from the governor and his allies, including florid expressions of hostility in the press.
The practice, widely recognized in political circles, flared into public view last month after The Daily News quoted a “top Cuomo administration official” ridiculing Mr. de Blasio. In a news conference, Mr. Cuomo did not deny he was that official. The same week, Cuomo and de Blasio aides traded anonymous criticism in The Wall Street Journal, with a Cuomo official saying the mayor was “universally acknowledged to be bumbling and incompetent.”
Ms. Miner said, “The one that I remember distinctly was the anonymous quote in a New York paper saying that they were going to take me out at the knees.” Arm-twisting from Mr. Cuomo, she said, “takes the form of anonymous threats and also third parties coming to you and threatening.”
Long story short, Cuomo is everything Christie is as far as payback and political games, he's just somewhat cleaner and too bright/sneaky to get caught do something blatantly illegal or unethical.
| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |Republicans will try to ride the Trump wave for as long as they can. As long as Trump has enough fingers to sign the bills or executive orders they like, he'll be their man. About the only way that changes is if something happens that brings a widespread public uprising. At this point, I'm half convinced Trump's approval ratings would need to be 20% or below before Republicans seriously think about jumping ship.
And if it is a scandal that does him in, keep in mind it will take time to develop. It took more than two years from Nixon's men breaking into the Watergate Complex to when Nixon resigned. No matter what happens, we'll probably get a full term of Trump.
| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |

@Wanderer: Not wanting Gillibrand as the democratic nominee for 2020 somehow means we want her primaried out of the party. Lolwut?
As far as the 90s go, that was the height of neoliberalism when even the democrats wanted to dismantle the welfare state; that's hardly a period to be proud of, nor should we be proud of how politics were conducted in the 90s.
edited 15th May '17 4:59:33 PM by CaptainCapsase