Sharpton is famous for Tawana Brawley, Freddie’s Fashion Mart, and Crown Heights. How does that make him electable? The guy’s a race bater, he’s antisemitic, he’s homophobic, he doesn’t pay his taxes…how’s he going to energize the Democratic base or bring in votes?
Well, he has a better chance than Roger Moore.
South Carolina WAS one of his better states when he ran for the Democratic nomination. he finished third at 10% on the strength of the African American vote. He got 19% of that demographic …compared to Kerry and Edwards getting 32% and 36%. South Carolina African-Americans weren’t particularly inspired by him. What’s changed?
I’m going to assume you’re trying to set us up for another bad pun. Sharpton comes across as a two-bit huckster.
I agree with this. I left his Columbine movie poking holes in his statistics left and right. If he could just restrain himself from the cherry-picking, his message would be much more solid. As it is, my eyes roll as soon as I hear his name, and I agree with a lot of his politics.
Well whatever the Right wants to do to make Michael Moore a boogie man, go for it.
Because the man has no heft on the left. I don’t listen to him, I don’t recall seeing articles about him crossing my feed, he is not someone I’d even remotely think of to be counted on as a liberal thought leader.
I’d wager that he is less popular on the left than Michelle Bachmann is on the right.
Well I’m sure he’s a better communicator than you. Frankly, you are being silly. I would have no trouble believing Moore could get a bunch of angry blue collar workers agreeing with him - it’s his roots. I have trouble believing a bunch of people who support Trump would have gone to a movie theater to hear a lecture from super lefty Hollywood guy who was public about hating Trump.
And I guess we’ll leave it there since there’s no goddamn way I’m watching a campaign film from the previous election.
I assure you, the “More than Moore” thing was completely unintentional. 
I see.
Anyway, Wilmington (population around 12,500) does not afford its residents an infinite array of choices for their evening’s entertainment; I expect ‘going downtown to laugh at the liberal weirdo’ sounded like a better bet than yet another night parked in front of the tube.
FWIW, the Times and Roger Ebert didn’t quite describe it as a Pro-Trump crowd.
NYT:
Ebert:
So my impression is that it was a mixed bag and I would agree that he chose a town where Moore fans would be unlikely to fill the joint.
Quite a concession. Certainly he could have found an audience who’d agree with his every point right from minute one of the talk–but he didn’t.
My main point in posting about this was to alert progressives-hoping-to-get-through-to-right-leaners to the techniques Moore uses in this film. What he says to get the pro-Trump part of the audience to unfold their arms could serve as a lesson to anyone hoping to reach conservatives.
Ebert died in 2013. You mean Siskel? He died in 1999.
Oh yeah I forgot about that. Whoever is writing reviews at his namesake site nowadays:
Too bad; you should have taken the credit.
And then, frankly, quit while you were ahead. Relative to now, of course. At this point, you’re in little danger of being taken seriously. Might as well wave your class clown banner proudly.
The Democratic party has literal millions of very smart people who will never run for President because they think they couldn’t possibly ever do the job. (So does the GOP, really.) But show me a madman who thinks he can, and is determined to try, and that madman can win over swing voters–yes, even though the party thinks he’s too stupid to know what he doesn’t know.
The voters you need are swing voters. And they don’t typically respond well to the cautious and the sane. They prefer the fool who says that he can do the job easily over the person who sounds like he can’t do it. It’s that way in business, and it’s that way in elections too. It’s not just about confidence, but a willingness to stick your neck out and take chances.
Al Sharpton may be madder than a bag of minks, but if he has the cocksureness to think he can do the job, and communicates that cocksureness, then he can actually win.
We will never get a competent President. All we can do is get a madman who can win over swing voters with his arrogance, and is politically more on our side than the other madmen.
Cory Booker is a competent non-madman. Just saying…
Then he will lose a Presidential race, unless he is able to convey the same level of confidence as an incompetent madman.
He has a documentary on Netflix called Street Fight about his first mayoral race (which he lost.) Really interesting stuff, and it’s how he first pinged my radar.
Booker is the shit and I can’t wait for him to run.
(FWIW I am super liberal and I wouldn’t vote for Michael Moore.)
Does it honestly not occur to you that someone who appeals so strongly to a “super liberal” is almost certain to lose the presidential race? Please, let’s not set up the Democrats to lose again. With the GOP in control of even one House in Congress, I want a Democrat in the White House.
Now, now, he’s had an ongoing bromance with Chris Cristie, has been accused of being a Wall Street, Big Pharma, big-business shill, and there was the 2013 piece in The Atlantic called Why do liberals hate Cory Booker?
He’s imitation Obama.
Well, not really, but that’s how a lot of people will see him. Not an actual imitation, just a substitute, like putting in pollock when the recipe called for crab.