The Phony Campaign

2019-12-01 Update

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Another big phony week for Mayor Pete, as he expands his lead in phony Google hits over President Bone Spurs.

And the big loser again this week among the Betfair punters: Senator Liz. Who is now behind both Wheezy Joe and Senator Bernie.

Did she have a plan for that?

Her plummet has been one for the history books. As recently as mid-October she was at 27.6%. Was she too honest about how she was planning to get the money to give back to all of us? Or too dishonest? Or did people actually listen to her and were turned off by her grating tone?

It's anyone's guess.

Candidate WinProb Change
Since
11/24
Phony
Results
Change
Since
11/24
Pete Buttigieg 10.1% +1.2% 6,120,000 +390,000
Donald Trump 41.8% +1.3% 1,980,000 -260,000
Hillary Clinton 2.7% -0.1% 892,000 -38,000
Bernie Sanders 7.8% unch 663,000 +69,000
Joe Biden 12.0% -0.7% 456,000 -41,000
Elizabeth Warren 7.5% -2.0% 344,000 +32,000
Michael Bloomberg 4.9% +0.1% 158,000 +34,000
Andrew Yang 2.0% unch 51,600 +4,700

Warning: Google result counts are bogus.

  • Real Donald Trump gets some phony hits the old-fashioned way Tweeting the word himself, which everyone talks about.

    Calling a hoax "phony" is a redundancy. I assume. Or is this one of Trump's famous 3-D chess moves, where a phony hoax is actually… something real!


  • Man, I really liked John Cusack in the movie Better Off Dead. But nowadays he's reduced to complaining that some people appearing on MSNBC say negative, hurtful things about his longtime favorite:

    Warning: the video is rated "PL" for "Pretty Lame." I'll continue my MSNBC boycott, which has been going on for roughly 8,539 days.


  • Over on Fox News, we have Co-founder of Home Depot and Billionaire Ken Langone calls Elizabeth Warren a 'phony and a liar,' wants to see her donations to charity.

    Presidential hopeful Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is a "phony and a liar" looking to paint wealthy people as the enemy, said billionaire and GOP donor Ken Langone on "Fox & Friends" Thursday, before calling on her to make her charitable donations public.

    "They can call me whatever they want. I still go to work every day... What I am is a grateful American," he said. "What happened to me in my life only happened because my grandparents came to America. She can call me whatever she wants. She's phony. She's a liar, we know that. We know she's a liar, a horrible liar."

    Ken, I may be going to Home Depot later today to get some shear pins for my snowblower. I know that money won't go directly into your pocket any more, but it's the thought that counts.


  • But it's not just rapacious capitalist pigs that find Senator Liz less than authentic. Writing in the Guardian, Nathan Robinson warns: Progressives, trust your gut: Elizabeth Warren is not one of us.

    But lately, Warren has finally begun to make her true feelings clear, and progressives no longer need to wonder whether she’s with us or not. She’s not. Warren released a Medicare for All plan that called it a “long-term” plan, which leftwing political analyst Ben Studebaker pointed out is “code to rich people for ‘this is all pretend’”.

    A few weeks later, Warren confirmed that while in theory she supported single-payer healthcare, it would not be one of her primary initiatives, and she would initially push for a more moderate proposal similar to those advocated by Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg. Political analysts quickly saw Warren’s statement for what it was: an admission that she did not really intend to pass single-payer at all. Doug Henwood noted that Barclays bank put out an analysis assuring Wall Street that Warren’s plan to put off Medicare for All until late in the first term “decreases the likelihood that this plan comes to fruition”. So much for big structural change.

    Aw darn. You mean she's a normal politician, unwilling to hang onto ideas that poll poorly? Fetch me the smelling salts!


  • Norman Rogers writes at American Thinker, and here's what he's been thinking about: Why Joe Biden seems so different. Specifically, his eyes were opened by "Frank", apparently a denizen of Chicago's Michigan Ave.:

    [Frank]

    Norman comments:

    Quite obviously Biden is the Russian Manchurian Candidate. In the 2004 movie version a candidate for vice president is discovered to have an implant connected to his brain. So, rather than substituting an impersonator, the Russians may have surgically altered the real Biden to obey their commands.

    The picture is from 2011, so it's possible that Frank has been taken out by the KGB since then. That's what would have happened in a decent movie anyway.


  • And what's behind Mayor Pete's perceived phoniness? Well, it may be that he's a soul whose intentions are good, but oh Lord maybe a little misunderstood. Take it away, Jim Downs at Slate: Pete Buttigieg’s gay best little boy archetype needs to be better understood..

    As Pete Buttigieg rises in the polls in early caucus and primary states like Iowa and New Hampshire, criticism of the candidate has mounted, particularly around his personality. Since entering the field, initial appreciation for the South Bend, Indiana, mayor’s relative youth and rolled-sleeves Midwestern energy has given way to a sense in certain incredulous quarters that he is robotic, overly polished, McKinsey-calculating, somehow fake. A related discontent has emerged in some corners of the LGBTQ community around Buttigieg’s relationship to his own gay identity. Here, too, he can come off as strangely circumspect, seemingly distant from gay culture and history—despite making it as the first serious openly gay presidential candidate. The privileges of race, class, and gender presentation that allow for his “pioneer” status relative to other sorts of queer people (and Buttigieg’s tepid acknowledgement of these) is another sore point.

    Article summary: he's no Liberace. But that should be OK.


Last Modified 2024-02-02 4:53 AM EDT