I should have been clearer about who he’s suing - it’s not the state but the Democratic party of South Carolina, who decide who gets to be on the ballot and who doesn’t.
Ultimately though it’s just a sideshow, even if it’s in pursuit of a worthy goal. Wouldn’t it be nice though if Joe Biden could be goaded into a debate or two if only to demonstrate in public that he’s still a hale and hearty combatant worthy of our staunch support. Something scripted campaign rallies can’t do.
Joe seems to have a messaging problem and current polls reflect it, which is why people like Cenk Uygur are doing this. You can say “early polls don’t matter” and you may be right, but that’s not reassuring and the stakes are too high to just shrug it off.
The dude knows he isn’t constitutionally eligible. This is his first worthy battle, and he isn’t fighting it.
It seems more reasonable to surmise that he is working to drive traffic to his youtube channel, his podcast, whatever.
For a Democrat running in a very safe Republican district, electoral victory is still a goal. The chance of winning is not zero. But mainly, the goals are usually are swinging even a few voters and generally hoping to sway voters on at least some positions and hopefully setting things up for future elections and generally building up a base of support.
In this case, the actual chance of winning is not low, it’s actually zero. So what is the actual goal? It’s not really stupid vs evil so much as stupid vs self-serving. Maybe evil is a valid third option but I’ll credit him for not being actually evil.
As mentioned in numerous posts to date, if the goal was to legitimately examine eligibility requirements, there are better/more effective ways of doing that.
If the goal was getting some sort of national message out, there are better/more effective ways of doing that.
If the goal were setting up voters for future elections or positions, this serves as an active distraction away from that and clearly (if this thread is any indication) turns a lot of folks off.
If the goal was actually a sincere belief that the office of President could be won and a legal challenge successfully mounted, well, I guess this is the way to go about it but that falls on the foolish side of things.
To play Devil’s Advocate, he can’t challenge the US Constitution without trying to get elected, and he can’t be elected if he isn’t nominated, and he can’t be nominated if he’s not allowed on the primary ballot. So if it was a sincere effort to make change, it’s not an illogical step toward it. (Though it might be a futile one.)
I disagree about one situation being zero change and the other being non-zero. It’s pretty slim in both cases, one might be more likely than the other, but that doesn’t change the argument.
But anyway, yeah, I think just as you can argue there are more goals inbetween outright defeat and winning the seat, so Cenk could say (and probably is thinking of) the same. Indeed just getting on one ballot may advance the discussion next time. And the cases are getting some media coverage.
So I don’t see any reason to think he’s stupid or underhand in this. I mean, perhaps he is. But the reasons given in this thread are not convincing to me.
Your analogy is badly flawed at base since it’s inherently legitimate. A better one would be me, a New Yorker, suing to run in Florida’s Republican Governor’s primary because I feel the governor has violated the Constitution’s equal protection provisions. What motives might I have of pure do gooderism?
Yer right, and considering his primary goal as stated was not to get nominated but to wake people up to the liability of the potentially fatal dodge of unquestioning loyalty to the incumbent, it hasn’t gone well if the response to this thread by the Dope punters (85% “Constitution say no!” to 15% “Never heard of him but I’m willing to listen”, with “He’s not a real progressive! Cancelled forever!” as a side dish) is any indication, so you might as well call it a failed enterprise, but at least we’re having a not-always-elucidating conversation. Go ahead, call him names, he can take it, but please be kind to my little thread.
Sure, it’s popping up in this particular random corner of the internet but otherwise, I would hazard a guess that the needle on the general awareness of the man and the case he’s making hasn’t budged at all.
If the debate is whether or not we want to amend the Constitution to allow for such candidates, sure, l can get behind it (and Arnold Schwarzenegger would have loved that debate to have been held a generation ago). A lot of people on either side of that debate would probably agree it’s a good debate to have, regardless of result.
But that’s not even the debate. The case presented to us is the Constitution already allows for it, we’re silly for not realizing it, and the way forward, instead of getting this settled now, is to go ahead and nominate him and then the Supreme Court will be somehow be forced at that time to admit it’s got merit.
Sure, we can always find differences between an analogy and the original, but it is dancing around needing to acknowledge the point made: that there are other reasons for attempting a near-hopeless cause than stupidity and dishonesty. Or are you maintaining that it is necessarily the case that if a cause looks hopeless that that means the person embarking on it is stupid or dishonest?
Because that’s the thing relevant to this thread. It’s the argument several people are giving here for why they are assuming the worst motive.
You asked me what Cenk’s goals might be, and I gave a couple of examples.
And then I stated a couple of ways that these goals have had some progress. Note that this was not necessary – if we’re talking about Cenk’s motivation, it was only necessary to talk about what goals he may have had, not claim he has any progress in any of them.
Your response is to pick one of the examples and scoff at the idea that it has had some progress because it hasn’t had much progress.
But it’s a pointless response. It’s irrelevant whether you consider it a lot of progress or not.
My “case” is the null hypothesis: that Cenk may be entering for the right reasons, or he might not. I have simply said I have no reason to question his motives yet, and no good reason has been given in this thread.
Because challenging the inevitability of Biden, who he regards as a weakened frontrunner in the Dem contest, was always his stated point. Doing an independent run would make no sense in that context. Make sense? Note that Bernie Sanders, who never declared as a Democrat, ran for that party’s nomination because that’s where the action is.