Fuck Me (Susan Rice)

Politics & Elections
41

You don’t give a heckler’s veto to the other party to determine your nominees. If Susan Rice wants to run, she should run. The best way to have a good candidate for the general is to have a robust, contested primary. If Rice were to win one of those then I think she’d be just fine as a candidate.

Part of why I think Hillary was, in retrospect, not a great candidate is because she struggled to put away a relatively weak primary opponent in Bernie Sanders (he clearly started the primary as a protest/issues candidate with no serious organization, and only started trying to win when he ended up doing surprisingly well.) Clinton is the result of letting the “silent primary” that occurs about 24 months before the “real” primary, push so many candidates into not running. Democrats had a very anemic field in 2016 and thus a candidate who won despite not being great. Obama beat Hillary against a ton of advantages she had in 2008 and to be frank that should’ve been the end of her time running for President.

42

The key part of this being “If Susan Rice wants”. Not if some outside strategist or group of sincere enthusiasts want. I’ve too often in my own dealings with elective politics seen “Run, [Name], run!” phenomena, heard parts of the base saying “S/he is the one who can do it!” and individuals being told “The [party/country/cause/statehouse/movement] needs YOU” only to see them immolated uselessly.

Hey, what happened to “if she wants to run”… but, no, seriously, yeah that’s what I was saying back in 2015. Things had become arranged to prevent another Obama from bursting into the scene from within the Dems. They were not counting on the world falling apart from the other side.

People apparently more familiar with Maine politics have mentioned in the thread that Maine is not New York when it comes to providing a seat to someone from outside just because “we (the national-level party) need her in the Senate”. ISTM between now and 2020 in Maine the priority should be finding a candidate who can tell the centrist Republicans and Independents in Maine “you can do better than Collins”. If it ends up also being “A Name” that will impress the editors in NY or California then that’s just bonus, it should not be determinative.

43

Amazing. Especially after your previous post, which was pretty good.

Here is what I asked:
“Name someone else in Maine with national notoriety other than LePage, who is unlikely to be the Democratic candidate for Senator.”

Here is how I would expect anyone whose first language is English, who is reasonably informed about American politics, and who had read the previous context, to interpret it:
“Name someone else in Maine politics with national notoriety other than LePage, because although LePage does have national notoriety, he is a Republican who is considered a buffoon by most Democrats, and is therefore highly unlikely to be the Democratic candidate for Senator.”

Here is how you interpreted it:
“Name someone else in Maine who is well-known for absolutely anything, good or bad, preferably someone not involved in politics at all, and who is unlikely to be the Democratic candidate for Senator, other than LePage.”

As you correctly observed, the question is pointless the way you interpreted it, so even if you didn’t get the obvious meaning at first glance, why didn’t you think about it for five seconds before posting?

44

I noticed you’re ignoring my questions.

45

It looks like everybody in this thread is baffled.

Some people are baffled about why I hate Rice, why I don’t have any balls, why I hate women in general, why I hate integrity and character, and why I insist that candidates be perfect.

On the other hand, I am baffled how people could deduce any of the above from my posts, and how they can consider themselves politically informed while proudly stating that they are unaware of any vilification of Rice, or even of her existence, before this thread.

How can anyone read my posts saying I think Rice was a victim of the Republican hate machine, that she is well qualified, that she would make a fine senator, etc., etc., and conclude that I hate her? Or when I mention Nancy Pelosi as another example of Republican vilification, conclude that I hate all women? I’m sure that if I had said Obama instead of Pelosi, Banquet Bear would have implied I’m racist rather than (or in addition to) sexist, so I dodged a bullet there.

And how could anyone over 18 not remember that Rice was Obama’s first choice for Secretary of State to replace Hillary, and was forced to withdraw her name from consideration when McCain, Graham, and the right wing media machine made her sound like she was feeding the ammo belt into the machine gun Hillary was using to kill our diplomats in Libya?

Even if you really are too young to remember something that happened in 2012, how could anyone not remember all the crap she took as recently as this year, over an email she wrote to herself regarding the Russia investigation, let alone weeks of Fox News pounding her last year for “unmasking” administration officials?

Sorry, but you are politically uninformed if you are an American and you didn’t know those things. You didn’t even have to watch Fox News, although you should.* MSNBC covered them repeatedly and thoroughly.

*Yes, you should. I’m a Tennessee Titans fan, which is why I’m so depressed right now – we played miserably today, after thinking we had finally left the horrible coaching of last season behind us.

It was horrible coaching because, among other things, our OC kept running up the middle against defenses expecting and deployed for exactly that, because he “thought he saw a hole.” He seemed to never consider what the other team was doing, he just did what he thought should work, over and over. It hardly ever worked.

That’s what some of the people in this thread remind me of. It’s adorable that they actually believe that the best candidate will win, but they are ignoring the facts. The facts are that W won, and Trump won, over infinitely better candidates. And yet, people here are proud to say they don’t know and/or don’t care what the other side has been doing, or will do. And that’s why the other side keeps winning.

46

Trying to, because they’re stupid. But you feature prominently as an unnamed co-conspirator in my previous post.

47

When most people in the thread have English as their first language, are reasonably informed about American politics, and are reasonably well educated, are “baffled” trying to understand what one is saying, what is the simplest explanation?

You are on a level that we doofuses are not? Okay. Then communicate at the level we understand and keep down at our post graduate education levels.

I read and reread your post honestly to make any sense of it and to figure out what you meant to say. Could not do it. Which is why I asked.
In any case, trying to work with what you are saying you meant to say -

I am still baffled as to what possible reason you could have to ask that question. What point does that have?

But sure, I’ll play. Susan Collins and Angus King, who both have national notoriety by virtue of being the state’s senators. They did not become the state’s senators because they were of national notoriety. Susan Rice of course is not one.

I’d hazard to guess that relatively few states’ senators won on the backs of their already existing national notoriety. A few … HRC jumps to mind … but most had local name recognition to some degree and if they became of national significance it was by way of becoming senator of their state.

48

I wouldn’t call anyone a doofus simply because they don’t know much about recent American political history. But I don’t consider having knowledge of Rice and her vilification by the right to be a very high bar, especially after I mentioned Graham and McCain in my OP, so all they had to do was google Graham Susan Rice to find articles like this:

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/327224-graham-jabs-rices-political-manipulation

from just last year, where Graham said,

To be initially unaware of that, to not take the ten seconds to google it when I’ve given the names to google, and to then jump into a thread about her and demand to know where I get off saying she has been vilified — yeah, I guess that borders on at least political doofusdom.

Well, part of your problem seems to be that you think notoriety and fame are the same thing. They’re not. You are probably the only person in history who has ever said that Angus King is notorious for being a senator from Maine.

Unless it’s used jokingly or ironically, notoriety is fame for something bad. And just as people can be famous for something they never did, like Bogart saying, “Play it again, Sam,” people can be notorious for something they never did, like Susan Rice being notorious for deliberately lying about Benghazi to cover up the gross negligence and incompetence of HRC and Obama, and for her corrupt investigation of the Trump campaign, and the vindictive unmasking of people she illegally wiretapped. I solemnly assure you that there are tens of millions of American voters who have no doubt that she did all of those things.

People ask me for cites, so here are a couple of examples it took me five seconds to find:

and

Those are relatively mild samples of the right wing media’s reaction to her tweet, “Me,” and as the Breitbart article noted, she had already walked it back when they vilified her yet again. Imagine the constant crap from Hannity and the rest of Fox News if she actually runs.

So now I hope you can see why, when someone asserts, “Rice will be just fine. Anyone can be swiftboated. She brings no more baggage than anyone else would,” I would respond that because of her notoriety among Republicans, she brings far more baggage than any other likely Democratic candidate for senator from Maine, and challenge him to name anyone else likely to run who has any national notoriety, let alone as much as she does. And again, to dispute your original objection about my terminology, the despicable lies and abuses of power I listed above are still baggage in the minds of Republicans, even though none of them are true.

Even in the mind of McCain, who was probably the least in step with Trump of any prominent Republican, because he actually made a vote of significance against him on one issue one time.

49

I’ll tie up these last loose ends and then exit from this thread, because it’s taking up much more time than I have to spare for such little reward, and because with articles like I cited in my previous post, it’s becoming common knowledge (except here) that it would be a bad idea for Rice to run.

To try to fight the ignorance of people who think that it is sexist to say Nancy Pelosi is on the short list of people most demonized by the right, or who cannot conceive of Republicans being energized to vote by campaigns that demonize a Democratic candidate for the House or Senate from another state, I offer this article:

"GOP candidates have accepted they’re linked to President Donald Trump’s polarizing record, regardless of how they campaign, so to offset that, they try to saddle Democrats with their own bogeyman. In this case, a bogeywoman – Nancy Pelosi…

“In New York state, GOP Rep. Claudia Tenney released a TV ad that said her opponent “supports Pelosi’s (Medicare for All) plan” and would be a “rubber stamp” on her agenda.”

It is a NATIONAL Republican strategy to run against Nancy Pelosi, who represents less than 40 square miles of the US. Yes, she is the minority leader who would likely become Speaker if the Dems win the House, so it’s not apples to apples, but the same wingnut logic, that voting Republican in your state will prevent people like Pelosi from being in the majority in Congress, will be used to get the Fox News faithful to vote “against” Susan Rice, even though they’re voting in a different state.

50

Um, Barbara Bush passed away earlier this year.

Of course, George and Barbara’s granddaughter, also named Barbara, just got married at Kennebunkport. However, she and her new husband will reside in Manhattan.

51

Still not getting why you think that having been the target of national smear work that results in “baggage in the minds of Republicans” has any particular importance to a race in Maine. Pelosi? D majority means her as Speaker. Yeah that is not the same.

Here’s the circumstance in Maine, at least as of 2014’s exit polls -

Conservatives vote for the GOP candidate. 92% of 'em. Now admittedly Shenna Bellows was not a very strong general election candidate but that is what you can expect in any case. That’s about 28% of voters that Democratic candidate national baggage and vilification or not will vote R.

Collins has consistently won though because liberals have not been as unified in voting for the D candidate and because she’s won a majority of the moderates, who are almost half of the voters. She, to 2014 at least, had them convinced that she was a moderate who happened to have an R after her name.

National baggage in the minds of Republicans is not what drives those moderate and liberal voters and I would hazard a guess that most really never followed the GOP smears at all. They don’t hang on Hannity. My guess is that a majority would recognize Rice’s name, maybe associate it with Obama, but not be able to tell you anything else at all, what her position was or anything. Benghazi shmenghazi that association with Obama would serve her well with the moderates and liberals of Maine.
I still don’t think that it would offset her not being of Maine. The more serious contenders for the nom don’t ping on the national news yet but Chellie Pingree, for example, won Maine’s 1st Congressional district in both 2012 and 2014 by about 30 points even if only by 16 in 2016. She’s delivered for the state in ways that even conservatives in the North can appreciate. In Maine many more know who she is than know who Susan Rice is. Sara Gideon has won her elections by just about as much and is also well known in the state.

That said Rice does do a decent job giving her Maine bonafides.

Still family roots, summering visiting grandparents, and owning a home that you visit, isn’t the same as being “of Maine”.

She goes on -

I suspect she will do her homework … and decide to work on national fundraising for the local person who will be the actual nominee.

Yeah Railer13 … oops.

52

…BYE!!!

What a big fricken strawman.

I never said it was sexist to say that Nancy Pelosi is on the short list of people most demonized by the right. And neither has anyone else.

Take a moment to look at your list. Pelosi. Hillary. Rice. Some other names to consider: Gillibrand. Maxine Waters.

You concede Rice hasn’t done anything wrong. Neither has Hillary, or Rice, or Gillibrand, or Waters.

If the GOP are going to single out women candidates and women representatives: and Hillary, Gillibrand, Waters and Pelosi have all been targeted as part of a NATIONAL strategy…then what should the Dems do about that? Waters energizes the Republican base. Should the Dems ask her to resign?

This is where your argument falls over. People in this thread have made a very good case that Rice would be a poor candidate to run in Maine and those people have won me over. But your arguments fail to convince me. You’ve failed to convince anyone else in this thread. Perhaps you should take that into account before you “declare victory” and run away from the thread.

Strawman.

Everybody, including myself, concede that running Rice may well energize the Republican base.

Perhaps if you’d slow down for a minute and actually acknowledge the arguments people have **actually **made in this thread you’d spend less time repeating the same things over-and-over again.

53

Well, Hillary did have the email debacle. Not that big a deal, but it *was *a mistake.

54

Bye.

Please. You didn’t say it word for word, but nobody missed your meaning. Own up to it, or lose more credibility.

Talk about a straw man. You add your own names to my list, and then lecture me on why they shouldn’t be there.

They weren’t on my list because they don’t belong there. They’re not remotely in the same league. Gillibrand isn’t even on the same planet. She has received no more Fox bashing than any Dem in the headlines for supporting Dem issues. Any Dem will, by default, be characterized by the right as tax-and-spend, soft on defense, soft on crime, mandatory gay sex and abortions, wants to confiscate guns and give them to illegal immigrants, etc. But she’s not going to energize anyone outside of NY.

And any Dem who criticizes Trump where he can hear about it will be the victim of his crap on Twitter or at rallies, but only as the flavor of the day. So Waters does get some national attention, but mostly for saying what Republicans consider outrageous things, especially after being taken out of context and “explained” by Fox News. She is to Republicans about half a tick more than what Louie Gohmert is to Dems, although comparing the two is really an insult to her. Not energizing.

Rice is, according to RW media since last year, the woman who conspired to use the full force of the US national security apparatus to rob Trump of his righteous victory. And since 2012, one of the chief architects of the huge Benghazi coverup. Probably the Bowling Green massacre as well. Pelosi is the woman who used unethical and probably illegal tricks to shove Obamacare down the throats of the American people in complete secrecy, without a single hearing, busing in illegal aliens for the final vote. Hillary, of course, is responsible for several murders we know about, including Vince Foster and several of Bill’s mistresses, and probably dozens more we don’t know about. Energizing.

I didn’t declare victory, I declared the issue moot. I didn’t run away (criticizing the size of my balls again), although I wish I had more resistance to people just flailing like you. And it’s difficult to convince people that the North won the Civil War if they haven’t heard of the Civil War.

Everybody? By all means, quote the relevant parts of their posts. Even, say, five of them.

I did a quick search, maybe too quick, but I didn’t see anybody even use the term “energize” other than me, frequently, and your grudging concession that Rice would energize the Republicans, which you immediately rendered irrelevant by adding, “every fucking thing energizes the base.”

I’m not going to reread the whole thread carefully to look for paraphrases of your claim, but I did see DrDeth saying Rice hadn’t been vilified and hadn’t any national notoriety, and I did see TimeWinder refuse to believe that even Hillary was any more vulnerable to Republican smears than Biden.

And I’ve already acknowledged that DSeid made a good post about the carpetbagging aspect of Rice’s candidacy.

So where’s my straw man? Or were you announcing yet another of your own?

55

There are more black bears in Maine than there are black people. I think Fir na tine is right about the carpetbagging issue, but there is also race to consider. Race is always a factor in the US of A. I’m not saying that white Mainers are more racist than anyone else, but has a state with such a tiny African-American population ever elected an African-American politician to Congress? Or to statewide office?

56

I’m not familiar with Maine politics, and I wonder if there are some other good candidates who are likely to run as a Democrat against Collins in 2020. I think if he really wanted to Stephen King has enough name recognition that he would have a pretty good chance at beating Collins, but AFAIK he has no interest in running. Are there any other likely good candidates?

57

…I thought you were leaving? Didn’t you have more important things to do?

I didn’t say that at all.

I’m pretty sure you did.

Own up to something you admit I never said? Not going to happen.

Not a strawman. I asked you consider some additional names.

Here’s the reality.

The news cycle is all that matters now.

And there is too much fucking news right now. The life-cycle of a news story can be as short as half-a-day. Nikki Haley resigned today, nobody will care about that in a few hours time. The President has been potentially implicated in multi-million dollar fraud. Nobody fucking cares.

And nobody fucking cares what happened in 2012. Well the Trump base cares: but why the fuck should we worry about that? Thats the question that we keep putting to you but you don’t answer.

And?

So?

And what should the Democrats do about that?

And I heard that Obama was a secret Muslim who was born and raised in Kenya. I heard that from the President of the United States. Is that not a disqualifying fact? Should he have not run for office?

You have to convince us that something “energizing the Trump base” is enough to disqualify somebody for running for higher office. That is a very different level to reach than “the North won the Civil War.”

You haven’t quantified what “energizing” means. How do we measure it? How do we compare it? What effect does it have on the base? What effect does it have on the independent voter, or the person who tends to vote Democrat?

If energizing the base is so disqualifying you need to do better than citing your own opinion.

I don’t need too. The mere fact that people have chosen not to debate that point is concession enough.

It wasn’t a “grudging concession.” It was a concession. There was nothing grudging about it.

That doesn’t disprove my point.

This.

I can conceive of Republicans being energized to vote by campaigns that demonize a Democratic candidate for the House or Senate from another state. Who in this thread has argued otherwise?

58

I know multiquote is a thing you can do, but it makes it very hard to follow your argument.

59

I absolutely do, so this really will be it. You’re not just flailing now; you’re denying the obvious, so this is a complete waste of time. Yes, you implied I was sexist, OBVIOUSLY. Yes, you brought up a straw man, obviously. Yes, I have been challenged in this thread about my assertion that Rice would energize the Republican electorate, and no, even your erroneous perception that I have not would not prove that everyone concedes it.

Geez, weren’t you the guy who said I keep repeating myself to no purpose? And yet, even though I’ve repeated several times that Fox News and other right wing media would pound and pound on anything Rice did after puberty if she ran, you seem to have missed it.

The fact that legitimate news sources drop a story after it’s not news anymore has nothing to do with Fox News. They will blow up the tiniest stories, or make shit up if necessary, and keep pounding on them for years. I don’t think Hannity has gone a week this year without spending at least half an hour on the HUGE Uranium One scandal, which you’ve probably never heard of if you don’t watch Fox News. The “scandal” is about a perfectly mundane mineral rights purchase that required the unanimous approval of nine different cabinet-level agencies in 2010. But since one of the agencies was the State Dept., it’s portrayed as Hillary giving all our uranium to the Russians, leaving us defenseless, in return for bribes. It’s just one of many reasons they want to lock her up.

So maybe you don’t care what happened last month, but Fox News viewers are still infuriated over what happened when Bill was still attorney general in Arkansas.

Wow, you must suck at “Where’s Waldo?” Go back to the post you just quoted and look really, really hard.

60

A parting gift: