Kanye’s candidacy was thrown out in Illinois after it was determined that he only had 1,200 legitimate signatures out of 2,500 needed. Without being on the Illinois ballot, Kanye has no way of reaching 270 electoral votes with the states remaining to file in.
That was never the concern; he can do serious damage to Biden if he gets on the ballot in WI, PA, OH, FL, and elsewhere. The goal isn’t to win; it’s to disrupt.
Jasmine, that’s enough.
I’d prefer our discussions in Politics and Elections to NOT include wishes of death on other people. Let’s not lose perspective.
Yeah, I know he was never going to get 270. More of an academic milestone. And, I guess, it means he can’t participate in the debates since having a potential 270 EVs is one of the requirements.
I’m not so sure there is going to be a debate. What’s there to debate? It’s not like there are subtle policy differences that need to be brought to fore for contrast. Trump can shoot his dumb mouth off without having to share a stage with Biden simply by calling a WH news conference. For Biden, the risk of becoming tongue tied while on stage with Trump is too great, so there’s nothing in it for him either.
When has this ever mattered? Were there subtle differences between Trump & Clinton? Obama and McCain? Both campaigns agreed to three debates (plus one VP debate) and there’s no reason to assume that the debates won’t happen.
Kanye’s name has been removed from the Illinois ballot after more than half of the signatures were ruled invalid.
There are also questions about the validity of his Wisconsin signatures because the Republican operative who turned them in did so after the deadline.
As I mentioned upthread, I’ve seen proposals and bids rejected by WI state officials for being turned in five minutes past the deadline.
Happened to our ad agency once. Weeks of work down the tubes because the intern delivering it was late due to traffic. Despite a lot of pleading and a few tears, they said “It is now 5:04, the deadline was 5:00. We’re very sorry.”
Hmmm, I wonder if we can find out who it was who unlocked the doors to let Trump’s lawyer in late.
We’re not in Kansas anymore.
That’s not really an argument. But Trump wants debates because he’s trailing and is praying for Biden to somehow mess it up. In fact, Trump is mad that he couldn’t browbeat the commission into more debates. Biden, even if he was inclined to, wouldn’t skip the debates because of the “OMG Biden can’t debate!!!” nonsense.
Ironically, Biden is a pretty good debater and has decades of practice. But the Trump campaign is setting the bar so low that all Biden has to do is show up and find the right room and he’ll have already exceeded expectations. In any event, there’s still zero reason to expect the debates not to happen no matter where we are relative to Kansas.
Kanye’s ballot signatures for Wisconsin were 14 seconds late; campaign says that doesn’t matter.
TL;DR of arguments
“5:00:14” counts as “Not later than 5pm” since it’s still technically 5pm until it’s 5:01pm
The doors were locked so it doesn’t count
They were harassed by media and/or Democrats and that’s why they were late so it doesn’t count
Something something racism something something
Signatures such as “Mickey Mouse” and “Bernie Sanders” should count until someone proves that they’re fraudulent
Other videos showing the signatures arriving late don’t count because iPhone clocks are wrong
The office didn’t time stamp the signatures so… they can’t be late, I guess
Just as an FYI, people who do like hip-hop generally have a ton of respect for West’s talent. Like, best of his generation-level respect. Not anymore, but once.
His first two albums, in particular, were critical darlings (as well as huge commercial successes). Groundbreaking works that changed how hip-hop sounded going forward. There began to be a slight decline starting (IMHO) with Graduation, but he was still making some good, catchy, and innovative music through the 2000s.
Even as his work has greatly suffered from his psychological troubles, critics still often praise it — comments like ”a fascinating mess” and the like are common.
The man’s no longer much of an innovator, but he was, once, absolutely worth paying attention to. If you liked hip-hop, which I know you don’t, but I wanted to battle your ignorance of his talent.
Also, please note he was already incredibly famous before marrying KK. I always thought of it as a step up for her, not him! She may have been slightly more well-known among the tabloid-reader set, but he absolutely had more status — having, among other things, worked hard in a creative field to earn his money.
I’ve been following rap since the 1980s, going back to Public Enemy, Run DMC, Whodini. I appreciate innovation, but I didn’t see Kanye as an innovator.
This is kind of an encouraging column (and poll) from Politico today. Shows that Kanye is at 2% among African American voters, and - thus far - hasn’t had any impact in Biden’s 9 point poll lead nationally.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/12/kanye-west-flops-among-black-voters-393860
In Montana, signature collectors for Kanye are openly telling people to sign so they can help Trump.
A group seeking to place rapper Kanye West’s name on the Montana’s presidential ballot this fall has spent the past few days gathering signatures from Yellowstone County residents, telling them their signature could help take votes away from Joe Biden.
“You want to help Trump?” one of the organizers called out Tuesday afternoon in front of the Yellowstone County Courthouse. “We’re trying to take votes away from creepy Uncle Joe.”
Kanye West, who is pursuing a spot on the 2020 ballot, met with Jared Kushner.
So the Kanye campaign mathematically can not win and they are coordinating with the Trump campaign. How is the whole thing not an illegal campaign contribution?
The entire concept is ridiculous though. All it shows is how little respect Trumpers have for African Americans. The idea that this would be effective is insulting.
With poll numbers that low, it’s probably best for the Biden campaign to ignore Kanye. But I can imagine an ad with prominent black politicians like Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Stacey Abrams, and Susan Rice saying, “The Republican party thinks black people are so dumb that we’ll vote for Kanye West. Let’s show them how smart we really are.”
This seems to be a reasonable line of inquiry.
In addition to potential investigation for illegal campaign contribution, Kanye could be legally vulnerable due to the invalid signatures issue:
Turns out that West and Kushner are speaking on a near-daily basis, not the one-off the previous reporting made it out to be.
A few years from now someone is going to win a Tony for their post-modern play, featuring an onstage pit of sewage, with puppets depicting Satan, a two-legged insane giraffe, and the ghost of Heinrich Himmler, Jared and Kanye: Best Buds.