# Cenk Uygur running for Pres
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cenk-uygur-running-for-pres/991927
**Category:** Politics & Elections
**Created:** [October 22, 2023, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cenk-uygur-running-for-pres/991927 "2023-10-22T17:08:45Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 25
### Author:  [@Hatchie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hatchie)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2023, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cenk-uygur-running-for-pres/991927/481 "2023-10-31T18:41:01Z")
> [@ParallelLines](#):
>
> And while running for President, even if there is clear precedent for his ineligibility isn’t wrong, doing it, and then claiming you’re going to challenge such rulings WITHOUT doing so is fundamentally dishonest.
The elegibility hearing is a first step; the outcome is certainly pre-ordained; Cenk loses. But you can’t say he’s not doing what he said he’d do. It will be more interesting when and if the challenge gets to a courtroom. Let’s not assume it never will.
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### Author:  [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2023, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cenk-uygur-running-for-pres/991927/482 "2023-10-31T18:53:57Z")
That’s fine, but again, have you seen any actual signs that in the 3 weeks since his first failure, that he has, as he claimed he would, bring suit against the states in question? If so, I’ll give additional benefit of the doubt. But I have seen zero evidence of it. Compared to, say, the various states (including here in Colorado) of legal efforts to stop Trump from being on the ballot for “giving aid and comfort…”
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### Author:  [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2023, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cenk-uygur-running-for-pres/991927/483 "2023-10-31T19:41:52Z")
> [@ParallelLines](#):
>
> For examples of the first, given some of his statements of wanting to have other, qualified candidates challenge Biden, he should be working WITH them, ideally BEFORE demanding such things. If he is the influential progressive he claims to be, then influencing said individuals (Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro, JB Pritzker and Bernie Sanders from your list) should be priority number one. But we have no evidence of such, or at least non that Cenk has reported.
Well he’s been saying on his show, for a _year_ now, that other candidates should enter the race. Imploring them with tears in his eyes (he seems to get quite emotional in recent years).
I don’t know to what extent he might have a hotline to Democratic leadership. But in the meantime, it does not seem rational to be judging him harshly _based on your guess_.
I mean, by the same logic, one could criticize Biden for not talking to advisors about whether he should run again…I have no idea whether he did or not, but since he hasn’t mentioned it, to my knowledge, let’s assume the worst and judge him harshly for it.
> [@ParallelLines](#):
>
> Secondly in the “what he’s done” category, is that he keeps applying to run in various Primaries. This gets -him- free publicity, and funnels people back to him and his podcasts / channels, but I see little to no evidence he’s boosting the others.
Well he ran twice and got 6% and 7% of the vote in a 4 way split. That’s not an out and out joke candidate, he did make a serious run at it. And what happened was similar to this thread: Bernie Sanders initially endorsed Cenk, then people outed things Cenk had written decades earlier, when he was a conservative, and Sanders retracted his endorsement. It was all attempts to smear him, not attack any part of his platform.
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### Author:  [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2023, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cenk-uygur-running-for-pres/991927/484 "2023-10-31T19:47:31Z")
Regarding the first point, we’ll have to agree to disagree. I said, based on the entirety of his campaign to date, I have no reason to give him the benefit of the doubt as to his motives. You choose otherwise, and that’s fine. I even said that I’d extend a bit more belief if he was actually moving forward on legal challenges rather than just saying he would. But right now? Nope. And saying that it’s a guess isn’t exactly doing your argument favors - I laid out each and every action that he’s taken in this campaign to inform my opinion, which is quite different than just guessing.
Your second point is base don a misunderstanding though, I’m talking about him running for the 2024 Democratic primary, which he has attempted and been denied in several states to date. I am not at this time judging him based on his prior attempts to run, other than the obvious statement that there are more popular and successful popular candidates out there. But that’s true in many contests, and certainly subject to change, such as the early perceptions of Obama vs Hilary.
Still largely unrelated to my judgement of why Cenk is likely running.
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### Author:  [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2023, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cenk-uygur-running-for-pres/991927/485 "2023-10-31T23:32:26Z")
> [@ParallelLines](#):
>
> Secondly in the “what he’s done” category, is that he keeps applying to run in various Primaries. This gets -him- free publicity, and funnels people back to him and his podcasts / channels, but I see little to no evidence he’s boosting the others.
To be fair, it’s not really “free” publicity since the fees involved can be pretty high depending on the state. For example, it costs $10,000 [to file in Kansas](https://sos.ks.gov/elections/presidential-preference-primary.html) (unless he gets 5,000 registered Kansas Democrat voters to sign a petition). But it’s probably a lot cheaper than paying for an ad campaign, so I’d say it’s a relatively cost-effective form of publicity.
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### Author:  [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2023, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cenk-uygur-running-for-pres/991927/486 "2023-11-01T00:38:33Z")
Okay, fair, BUT it’s cheap/free by comparison, especially as in New Hampshire Cenk got his application refunded, AND I suspect $5-10k is in the realm a good lawyer would charge _per day_ if he actually moved forward with a challenge in courts. Which was what I mentioned earlier in why it makes more sense to apply for the primary but NOT actively challenge the results in court.
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### Author:  [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2023, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cenk-uygur-running-for-pres/991927/487 "2023-11-01T16:22:13Z")
Is he honest? Is he lying? Is he delusional? Folks, I think we have to consider another possibility:
He’s stupid.
He has cooked up an elaborate scheme that will never in a million years come within a million miles of its stated purpose. Rather, it can only result in damage if anything. The word for that is “stupid.” But, you object, you can’t call him stupid because he’s demonstrably intelligent. Well, when an otherwise intelligent person comes up with a big stupid idea, the word for that is “stupid.”
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### Author:  [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2023, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cenk-uygur-running-for-pres/991927/488 "2023-11-02T01:14:52Z")
>
So much for “Democrats want a different candidate”, then.
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### Author:  [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2023, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cenk-uygur-running-for-pres/991927/489 "2023-11-02T01:23:07Z")
Eh, I -think- that Democrats as a whole would like a different candidate, but the ones that might have a bigger appeal are all putting Party and Nation ahead of their immediate ambitions. It’s (almost) all hands on beating Trump, and while Biden isn’t perfect (and no one is, so I don’t expect him to be) he’s also one of the hardest for Trump to generate ire against.
He’s not as progressive, melanin enhanced, “wrong” religioned, female, etc - so much so that really all Trump has to throw is the oft-repeated old and slow. Which, were it not for the Fox-news bubble would rebound the hell on him.
So, from the Trump world POV, all Democrats still HATE Trump, but comparatively few Republicans personally hate Biden. The policies and the party, sure, but Biden personally? He’s just a lot of “meh.” Which in an ideal world will mean that the turnout against Trump (distinctly different than the “for” Biden) will be huge, while the anti-Biden turnout will be smaller.
But we have plenty of evidence we’re not in an ideal world.
But I utterly agree with @Smapti that the poll as it stands certainly doesn’t show a lot of enthusiasm for the subject of the thread.
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### Author:  [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2023, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cenk-uygur-running-for-pres/991927/490 "2023-11-02T01:31:01Z")
Clearly that poll show Cenk is winning!
Where ‘winning’ is defined as being the least likely to be nominated.
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### Author:  [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2023, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cenk-uygur-running-for-pres/991927/491 "2023-11-02T01:42:10Z")
> [@Smapti](#):
>
> So much for “Democrats want a different candidate”, then.
Note that, as far as I can tell, they only asked about actual Democratic candidates; obviously, the three other declared candidates haven’t gotten any traction.
But, note this observation, from another part of that poll:
> [@](#):
>
> Among Democratic and Democratic leaning voters who support a candidate in the 2024 Democratic presidential primary, 34 percent say they are firmly set on their choice for the Democratic nomination no matter what happens leading up to the Democratic primary, while 63 percent say they might change their candidate choice depending on what happens leading up to the Democratic primary.
The above would suggest that a lot of Democratic voters (and Biden supporters) are still sort of hedging their bets, even though there are no other declared candidates _today_ whom they would prefer.
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### Author:  [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2023, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cenk-uygur-running-for-pres/991927/492 "2023-11-23T19:27:31Z")
Since this seems to have become the Dean Phillips thread as well, here’s an interview showing that Phillips is in no way ready to be President. Maybe not ready to be a Congressman:
>
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### Author:  [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2023, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cenk-uygur-running-for-pres/991927/493 "2023-11-23T20:31:00Z")
I believe that any American should be offended by the idea that the US government should take on the responsibility of rescuing them from a foreign entity simply because they are a US citizen. I mean, if Musk went to Bangaladesh and pissed off the locals so much that they locked him up, I would not want Washington trying to free him with _my tax dollars_.
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### Author:  [@Hatchie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hatchie)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2023, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cenk-uygur-running-for-pres/991927/494 "2023-11-24T22:32:37Z")
Cenk Uygur makes the Arkansas primary ballot.
[ ](https://imgur.com/stAbHWa)
(I couldn’t find a lot of information on how this happened; whether there was any pushback other than from the predictable DNC, or if there were lawyers working on Cenk’s behalf - in any case, it appears to be a done deal. Go ahead, naysayers: you know, all of you who said this could never fly; better hitch a ride to Little Rock and be sure to pack your copy of the Constitution to wave in some hapless functionary’s mush. And here I was just about to tear my Cenk 2024 bumper sticker off my Camry - nope, not yet folks. Though South Carolina did turn him down, so that’s one win to three losses by my count - but challenges to that win might be just what Cenk is hoping for, as a foot in the door and up the chain of litigation. We’ll see.)
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### Author:  [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2023, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cenk-uygur-running-for-pres/991927/495 "2023-11-24T22:52:24Z")
> [@Hatchie](#):
>
> but challenges to that win might be just what Cenk is hoping for, as a foot in the door and up the chain of litigation.
To what end? As was discussed when you first started this thread, there’s a mechanism in the U.S. for changing the Constitution, and it’s not litigation.
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### Author:  [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2023, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cenk-uygur-running-for-pres/991927/496 "2023-11-24T23:02:13Z")
Meh, Perez-Serrato and Lazoda will kick his butt in the primary.
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### Author:  [@Hatchie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hatchie)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2023, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cenk-uygur-running-for-pres/991927/497 "2023-11-24T23:07:24Z")
As was discussed before, and before that, and yet again before.
But what is litigation good for, if not to jumpstart a dialogue and, maybe by the thinnest of likelihoods, effect change by a reinterpretation of what we thought was a settled provision (because no one ever tried to litigate it before, at least not effectively).
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### Author:  [@Hatchie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hatchie)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2023, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cenk-uygur-running-for-pres/991927/498 "2023-11-24T23:09:41Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#):
>
> Meh, Perez-Serrato and Lazoda will kick his butt in the primary.
Ah, but Uygur has a Wikipedia page, and those guys don’t even rate a blued-out link.
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### Author:  [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2023, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cenk-uygur-running-for-pres/991927/499 "2023-11-24T23:13:37Z")
> [@Hatchie](#):
>
> But what is litigation good for, if not to jumpstart a dialogue and, maybe by the thinnest of likelihoods, effect change by a reinterpretation of what we thought was a settled provision (because no one ever tried to litigate it before, at least not effectively).
Let’s just say I disagree.
If Uygur’s **true** goal in this quixotic campaign is to get that portion of the Constitution changed (which you’ve seemed to say, several times), cloaking that goal in a presidential run (and a bunch of lawsuits he can’t win) doesn’t do much for the cause, IMO, because he’s **making it about him** , more than about the broader issue.
The moment that his lawsuits run out of steam, and once a few primaries pass without him on the ballot (or, if he actually gets into a primary, and he gets a low-single-digit percentage of the vote), Uygur and his cause vanish from the public consciousness (to the extent that they were even _in_ the public consciousness in the first place).
If he really wants to get the Constitution changed, that’s a PR campaign, not a bunch of hopeless lawsuits.
I still believe that his true goal in all of this is greater visibility for himself, and more views of his videos.
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### Author:  [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2023, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cenk-uygur-running-for-pres/991927/500 "2023-11-24T23:19:28Z")
He’s just in this to take votes away from Marianne Williamson, which just helps Biden. Thanks, Cenk Uygur!!
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