Thread: 2024 US Presidential election

Originally Posted by david44

Extrovert masons or exceptional eavesdrooping Helge

Both, David Davidovic

Originally Posted by helge

David Davidovic

Победа Фина
Резиновый Иван

Bulgarian ?

Originally Posted by helge

Bulgarian ?

Vulgarian ?

I am, unreservedly an 'Anyone but Trump' person, but I did find these amusing ...

For the English, a little Monty Python sarire

For the Star Wars fans ..

See someone removed my last post. Last meme was a bit too much

July-September third quarter of 2023

• President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris raised over $71 million for their 2024 re-election campaign, the highest amount ever accumulated by a Democratic candidate at this point in the cycle.

• Their campaign coffers reached nearly $91 million by the end of September, surpassing the total of all GOP 2024 campaigns combined.

• Donald Trump reported raising $46 million in the past three months

‘Actions speak louder than words’


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Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Desantis is a crafty politician.

Florida Governor DeSantis’ Campaign Spending Raises Eyebrows Among Donors

Over the past three months, DeSantis’ campaign juggled with over $11 million in donations. Yet, when the curtain fell, the coffers were nearly empty, with a million-dollar pile of unpaid invoices still lurking in the wings. The campaign’s lavish spending was mirrored in the travel expenses that soared to $650,000 for private jets alone. This high burn rate coupled with the audacious request to donors not to support rival Nikki Haley sparked skepticism and unease.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Desantis is a crafty politician.

Idiot!

speaking of crafty

trump has come out and said that " republicans eat their young"

Originally Posted by baldrick

trump has come out and said that " republicans eat their young"

Matt Gaetz ?

That young man has a big mouth and a unmistakable political talent

Why are Republicans still supporting Donald Trump?

Trump is the clear choice.

Originally Posted by spliff

Trump is the clear choice.

Lost by 7,060,347 votes. Clear choice

The fat loser has been spending his days thinking about the 91 felony charges against him and not sitting in the Oval Office ordering Burger King or KFC.

Clear choice.

• Biden team says election night wins show path to 2024 victory

A sense of vindication swept through the White House and Biden campaign on Wednesday after Democrats' strong showing in off-year elections, despite a slew of recent polls showing U.S. President Joe Biden's popularity is low.

"Pollsters, pundits, if I had $1, for every time they've counted Joe Biden or the Democrats out, I probably wouldn't have to work anymore," Sam Cornale, executive director of the Democratic National Committee, told Reuters. Democrats "won time and again, and we will next November," he predicted.

Real people, real votes boost Biden’s hopes on night of Democratic wins

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Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Desantis is a crafty politician.

• Ron DeSantis' biggest donor considers abandoning him for Trump

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ biggest 2024 donor, real estate tycoon Robert Bigelow, is considering jumping ship and backing the former president who is miles ahead in GOP primary polls.

“I’ve got to look at who would probably be the strongest commander, with the most experience ... And that’s only one guy,” Bigelow told the Financial Times in an interview published Wednesday.

“Who would you want as a commander? I’d want somebody that would be a hell of an ass kicker if he needed to be,” Bigelow said. “On the face of it, you lean toward Trump.”

Bigelow said his change of heart can be attributed in part to Hamas’ attack on Israel last month, which showed him that the United States needed a “streetwise” leader such as former President Donald Trump. Bigelow was also critical of DeSantis’ signing of a bill in April that banned abortion in Florida past six weeks.

“Six weeks, she just found out she’s pregnant, the odds are,” Bigelow told the outlet. “It’s a sham. It’s make-believe. It’s condescending.”

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Desantis is a crafty politician.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Desantis is a crafty politician.

• DeSantis Quietly Starts Building His Off-Ramp From 2024 Race

After a humbling loss in Iowa, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is starting to signal that he is building an off-ramp from the race for the Republican presidential nomination, a seeming acknowledgment of his dim prospects of defeating Donald J. Trump given his low poll numbers in New Hampshire and South Carolina.

So far this week, Mr. DeSantis has cast his eyes forward to 2028 with anecdotes about Trump supporters saying they would vote for him next time around if he runs again in four years. He has conceded that Mr. Trump’s thumping victory in Iowa on Monday made for a “good showing in terms of him winning the nomination.” And he has openly admitted that he believes he made a strategic mistake by icing out the traditional media earlier in the campaign.

It all amounted to a kind of frankness that Mr. DeSantis has not always shown in his public comments about the nominating contest — and a marked change in tone for a candidate who spent most of last year brashly promising he would win Iowa, which he lost by 30 points.

On Thursday, the conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt asked Mr. DeSantis if his campaign would survive through the end of March. The Florida governor replied that things were not necessarily going to plan.

The DeSantis Team Ran the Worst Campaign in History

DeSantis has cast his eyes forward to 2028

A look down the road…….

Newsom will run in 2028 and win.

Little further down the road,…….Newsom will run in 2032 and win a second term.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Desantis is a crafty politician.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Desantis is a crafty politician.

• Biden wins NH primary after Democrats write him in on ballot

Biden wins the New Hampshire primary after Democrats write him on the ballot

President Biden won the New Hampshire Democratic primary on Tuesday, an unusual race that he skipped after his party changed its rules in favor of seeing South Carolina hold the first nominating contest of the year.

As a result, Biden wasn't on the printed ballot. But Biden won regardless, according to a race call by The Associated Press.

The victory comes after a grassroots campaign urged Democrats to write in his name and a super PAC raised about $1.5 million to back the effort.

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Feelings hurt (2 below)

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Desantis is a crafty politician.

• DeSantis unloads on Trump right after endorsing him

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis may have endorsed former President Trump, but his rhetoric since dropping out of the GOP presidential race on Sunday suggests their bitter rivalry is far from over.

Why it matters: Most Republicans who have gone through phases of Trump skepticism or opposition — including candidates for president this cycle — ultimately end up "kissing the ring," as DeSantis himself described it.

• Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) are among the latest examples.
• But for DeSantis — whose promising campaign was crushed by relentless, often deeply personal attacks from Trump and his allies — the wounds appear too fresh to go quietly.

Driving the news: Just one day after dropping out of the race, DeSantis publicly vowed to veto a Republican proposal to authorize the use of Florida's tax dollars to pay Trump's legal bills.

• On Tuesday, with the New Hampshire primary set to determine whether Trump will romp to the nomination, DeSantis appeared on "The Steve Deace Show" to sound the alarm about the man he just endorsed.
• The Florida governor claimed that after months of boosting Trump as a "juggernaut" who will defeat President Biden, the "corporate media" has "flipped" to warning of the former president's vulnerabilities.

What they're saying: "I think that was part of the reason the turnout was low [in Iowa], because people had been told it's a fait accompli," DeSantis said. "Trump's up so much in the polls, he's got the nomination."

• "It's a huge warning sign for Republicans nationally, based on what we saw in Iowa," he continued, citing lifelong conservatives he spoke to who said they couldn't bring themselves to vote for Trump again.
• "So he's got to figure out a way to solve that. I think there's an enthusiasm problem overall."

Regarding New Hampshire, DeSantis cast doubt on some experts' predictions that there would be "record turnout."

• "To the extent that turnout's up, it's probably going to be up amongst the more liberal voters who are coming out," DeSantis suggested.
• He went on to hammer Trump for his handling of COVID and lamented that "no one else wanted to talk about" the pandemic during the campaign.

• "This was one of the biggest events in our life. And yet we had one candidate who was the president at the start of it, and when he'd get interviewed, no one would even ask him questions about it!"

The intrigue: DeSantis saved fire for his former Republican colleagues in Congress, blasting them for what he called "failure theater."

• "I would always ask audiences, 'Republicans took the House in 2022. Have you noticed a difference in anything that's happening?' And I never had anyone raise their hand and say things are better as a result," he said.
• The vast majority of Republicans in Congress have endorsed Trump, with more expected to follow suit after New Hampshire.

What to watch: DeSantis, who is only 45 and will remain governor of Florida until 2026, was asked whether he would run again for president in 2028.

• "We'll see what kind — if we have a country left by 2028," he quipped.
• "I viewed '24 as really a hinge point in American history, and if we don't get it right, I don't know what it's going to look like in the future."

• United Auto Workers endorses Biden's reelection bid

The United Auto Workers announced its endorsement of President Biden on Wednesday, a key, if expected, show of support as the president hones in on the general election.

The endorsement of the 400,000-member union is critical for Mr. Biden as he seeks to bolster his support among working class Americans. Mr. Biden became the first president in modern history to join a picket line when he visited striking workers near Detroit in September, a move UAW President Shawn Fain touted as he made the case to members that Mr. Biden, not former President Donald Trump, is their champion.

"Joe Biden bet on the American worker while Donald Trump blamed the American worker," Fain said in his announcement during the UAW's political convention in Washington, D.C. "We need to know who's gonna sit in the most powerful seat in the world and help us win as a united working class. So if our endorsements must be earned, Joe Biden has earned it ... UAW is endorsing Joe Biden for president of the United States!"

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Two petulant little girls below

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Desantis is a crafty politician.

Some highlights………

• Florida insiders fear vengeful DeSantis will ‘burn it all down’

Ron DeSantis is out of the Republican presidential race. But in Florida, his second term as governor has only just gotten started.

As DeSantis returns to Tallahassee, the state capital is ablaze with speculation — and anxiety — about how the governor will wield power in the remaining almost-three years of his term. How will he seek to rebuild his stature in Florida after washing out at the national level? Will he lay the groundwork to run for president again?

And, most of all: Will he take political retribution against Republicans who he sees as having betrayed him in the presidential race?

“You have a choice: You can accept responsibility or you can blame others,” said state Rep. Randy Fine, a Republican who flipped his endorsement from DeSantis to Trump and found himself drawing the ire of those in the governor’s circle. “I don’t know which he’ll choose. I hope he uses it as a learning experience.”

One Tallahassee political operative, who was granted anonymity in order to avoid drawing DeSantis’ wrath, put it this way: “Will it be the prickly, thin-skinned vengeful guy we have learned to love or can he learn he has to build rather than burn bridges?”

Fears of a vengeful DeSantis aren’t unfounded. He went after Disney after the corporate giant vowed to undo a law limiting the classroom instruction of sexual orientation and gender identity that critics called “Don’t Say Gay.” DeSantis had a falling out with Susie Wiles, his 2018 campaign manager who is now a top adviser to Trump, that led him to advocate for her removal from Trump’s reelection campaign in late 2019. Last year, state Sen. Joe Gruters, a former chair of the Republican Party of Florida, contended that DeSantis used his line-item veto to wipe out funding for projects backed by Gruters because he endorsed Trump.

The first signs of DeSantis’ reengagement with Tallahassee politics came on Monday night when the governor posted on X, the platform formally known as Twitter, that he was opposed to legislation that would have taxpayers help pay for Trump’s legal bills. The GOP Senate sponsor of the bill, within an hour of his announcement, said she was withdrawing the bill — a stinging blow to Jimmy Patronis, the state’s chief financial officer and a member of the state Cabinet, since Patronis had been pushing for the legislation for months. Patronis never endorsed DeSantis’ presidential bid and instead endorsed Trump right after DeSantis ended his campaign.

DeSantis’ fiercest critics predict he could lash out at those he faults for his failure. Nikki Fried, chair of the Florida Democratic Party, feuded with DeSantis when she was the state’s agriculture commissioner — and sole Democrat in DeSantis’ cabinet — during the governor’s first term.

“It depends on who he blames for his downfall,” Fried said. “If he’s frustrated and he’s angry, he may come back and try to burn it all down.”

2 dickheads in platform shoes arguing about how big their hands are

• Biden’s economy keeps messing up Trump’s message

The U.S. economy just keeps getting better. And it’s forcing Donald Trump and his allies to contort the talking points they thought would guide them back to the White House.

A remarkable run of good economic news has tripped up the Trump campaign’s initial plans to paint President Joe Biden as a disaster on the economy. Now, the GOP frontrunner is grasping for new ways to attack the administration’s increasingly robust record.

The labor market added 353,000 new jobs in January, blowing away expectations and marking the 36th straight month of job gains under Biden. The stock market has hit a series of record highs, and workers’ wages are once again beginning to outpace the rate of inflation.

It’s a clear upward turn for Biden following a grueling period of price spikes that soured voters’ mood and damaged the president’s approval ratings. Biden has consistently received low marks on his handling of the economy, with polls showing cost of living issues among Americans top concerns.

But now, with the risk of a recession seeming to recede, even Trump’s close allies acknowledge it’s getting tough to tell voters a bleak story about the economy. And though far from certain, it’s now possible that the nation’s economic health could become an electoral asset for Biden in an unexpected way.

“I think that is the question of the day,” said Stephen Moore, a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation and an economist with FreedomWorks who is close to the Trump campaign. “You can’t blame the president when policies go wrong, and then say he’s not responsible if things are going right.”

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• Harris caps off SC charge ahead of Dems' first-in-the-nation primary

In her fourth visit to the state this year, Vice President Kamala Harris reminded voters at South Carolina State University of their newly influential perch.

“South Carolina, you are the first primary in the nation, and President [Joe] Biden and I are counting on you,” Harris said, standing before a stage stamped with “First in the Nation.”

Harris’ get-out-the-vote rally on Friday — where she was joined by Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) and Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison — caps off the campaign’s first sanctioned Democratic primary contest.

The president is expected to cruise to victory here on Saturday, facing only nominal challenges from Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) and self-help author Marianne Williamson. But the contest still drew significant attention from the Biden campaign, which pumped more than $400,000 into ads and sent high-level surrogates to blanket the state over the last month.

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Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Desantis is a crafty politician.

• Guess How Much Ron DeSantis' Campaign Spent on Each Iowa Vote

I maintain that pretty much the only people who were served by Ron DeSantis’ failed bid for the presidency were American voters with a humiliation kink. Yet, somehow, his campaign has only gotten more embarrassing since he dropped out last month.

According to a recent Rolling Stone report that looked at new Federal Election Commission filings, DeSantis spent over $7,000 on each vote he received in the Iowa caucus. Specifically, the Florida governor and his allies—namely two PACs called Never Back Down (lol) and Fight Right—spent about $170 million on his bid for the nomination, which comes out to approximately $7,169 per vote. Seven Thousand One Hundred and Sixty Nine. Dollars. Per. Vote.

I’m not saying money doesn’t play a huge role in politics. But it’s at least vaguely heartening to see that money can really only take you so far if you’re robotic and weird and make everyone uncomfortable...? That, at least, is the silver-ish lining I’m choosing to take away in a political system where rich donors can set almost $200 million on fire for a man whose only real political “achievement” is bullying LGBTQ kids.

So here's an "expert in probably everything American" and a professor at that, making a claim, that there is no doubts, what so ever in the DNC, about Biden's capabilities.

Well that's not exactly what he says, but when experts start quoting the "inner circles", I'll load the gun.

Still

I find that hard to believe.

There must be at least some with a "Hmm" or two


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'It's worrying for Biden': Voters believe Biden is too old to be an effective president

OF
Marie Serup Scott


"There's no doubt it's worrying for Biden.

This is what Professor of American Studies Jørn Brøndal says about a new voter survey from the New York Times that focuses on the 81-year-old president's age. In the survey, 73 percent of American voters say Biden is too old to be an effective president. The same is true of 59 percent of voters who otherwise intend to vote for him.

"Recently, his handling of secret documents had to be investigated. The prosecutor concluded that Biden was a well-meaning, elderly gentleman with a poor memory. Such a predicate can have negative consequences, says Jørn Brøndal.

A series of incidents have put the issue of Biden's age high on the agenda in American politics. Most recently, Joe Biden spoke about Ukraine at a press conference about aid to Gaza, and in February he referred to Egypt's President al-Sisi as Mexican president. At the same time, social media is filled with clips of Biden stumbling, sniffing or getting stuck during press conferences.

But concerns about Biden's age among voters do not shake his support within the Democratic Party, Brøndal said.

"The internal discussion is that there is no doubt that
Biden should be the presidential candidate. There are no opposing candidates in play. The inner circle claims that when Biden is in meetings with his advisers, he is sharp, has an overview and is in no way demented.

Originally Posted by helge

There must be at least some with a "Hmm" or two

Not a Dem but have a few hmms. Joe and I about same age so I am well aware what age can do to degrade mental and physical capability.