I think we were wrong to put troops in Syria in the first place, but we still want to leave in a manner that doesn’t suddenly pull the rug out from under our local allies. At least, if we want to continue to have allies.
Saudi Arabia owns the shares of Trump that aren’t owned by Putin. He’ll stop aiding KSA in Yemen when KSA no longer wants the help.
Buahahahahahaha!!!
Like our NATO ally Turkey? Or are you referring to the Saudi backed jihadist rebels?
Are you among the Dem masses? I’m trying to see how Warren’s antiwar position and hopefully future positions might play in the primary. Not looking good so far.
It is baffling how you can say Trump is owned by Saudi, but then complain that our local allies (I.e. Saudi backed rebels) will be at a loss. Was this a typo?
That’s not exactly what happened. Her “strong antiwar position” is basically eventual pullout after careful planning and consultation with allies. That isn’t backing Trump’s sudden twitter plans. And I doubt "let’s eventually pull out of Afghanistan " will be super controversial during the primaries.
If you are interested in Democrat masses’ opinions on the wars, might I suggest you start a thread on the subject?
Minimally I think we can agree that the statement that was being denied:
can be denied. I was not too serious in claiming that there is a curse based on the small n we have but that has more basis than a claim that it brings any advantage.
Agreed though that she has apparently used the stage well over the week end. But one good week end or even week of exposure this early in the process? Not sure that translates into anything.
I’d call it ‘proof of concept.’
And certainly disproof of the notion that she’s going to be a crappy campaigner because she’s all schoolmarmish and unlikable.
again-
*We should withdraw why? Because Putin wants us to?
How many troops do you think we have there and what are their roles?
*
And it was the GOp who got us into our last wars, not the “center left”.
I have had shared with me posts from the 4chan trolls organizing to post on MB, FB, etc as “concerned Democrats” and attack her.
Not sure why you’d consider that proof of concept (or of which concept even) but it certainly is NOT disproof that she is going to be a crappy campaigner.
The dings on her as a campaigner, at least my concerns, have not been on her ability to deliver a single well rehearsed familiar set piece over a single weekend to those who agree with her positions. I’ve heard her do that before and I know she can it. The set stump speech is nice to have, but having a decent one is not in and itself enough.
The concerns have been her ability (or lack of) to sell the ideas to those who have not yet thought deeply about them or who have somewhat different pre-existing thoughts about them, ideally to convince them that this is the way they have thought about it all along they just hadn’t realized it yet (Bill Clinton was a master of that). In that context the concern is that she comes off as a professor lecturing. (Which when stated in a sexist manner is called “schoolmarmish”.)
They’ve been her ability (or lack of) to respond to unexpected questions and challenges on the fly, with confidence, strength, and relatability all at the same time.
A good week end of stump speechifying simply is not enough to inform about those things or to offset past impressions of her. The road is long and and longer attention paid will mean more time for negatives as well as positives. I’m not even sure that a bad first week end of speechifying would have falsified a position that she will be a good campaigner. But it would have hurt more than a good one helps.
From the reporting I’ve read, apparently she got a lot of that sort of reaction when describing to a bunch of white Iowans how black Americans hadn’t been able to build up wealth the way white Americans had, due to systemic racism.
One of the cool things she did was that everyone in attendance at one of her gigs got a numbered ticket, and numbers were chosen at random to determine who got to ask her questions.
Rallies tend to give bad pictures of the broader electorate in a state. They are by their nature an audience that is self selected. In IA and NH the love of retail politics usually obscures some of that. People who are skeptical probably are more represented than normal in other states. Except we’re over a year from the caucus and there are no other major candidates in the race. That’s early to get skeptical turnout to rallies and town halls. We also haven’t seen whether she holds up when a couple other candidates starts working the same part of the Democratic
Her campaign staff probably carefully managed the venue selection to be in areas that were going to be most favorable for her rollout rallies. If they couldn’t manage that they need to be fired, and soon. This weekend allowed the campaign to produce an image of a lot of support. That’s different than there being broad support among Iowa Democrats.
How does one identify such areas? I mean, sure, one can identify areas that are more pro-Dem than others, but is there really enough polling to say something like, “Cedar Rapids loves Warren, but Ames is more Bernie territory, and Des Moines is Biden country”?
I’m. Not. Buying. That.
Sure, her supporters were more likely to turn out than others out of sheer enthusiasm, but she was going to get Dems showing up who were merely curious about her, as well as committed supporters. No way to weed them out, or even tip the scales that much, beyond the enthusiasm factor.
I’m glad the first week went off without a hitch but I think some should dial down the satisfaction. Warren is, as already mentioned in this thread, something of a celeb/hero of the progressives. It should not be impressive to anyone that she sold out a couple of 700 seat venues. Great White can sell out a damn 700 seat venue.
FWIW, the WaPo’s Dave Weigel characterizes the DKos community like this:
And as others have noted, Bernie easily won all of the dKos straw polls in the 2016 cycle. Clearly the bloom’s off that particular rose.
Once again: I’m not saying she’s going to win the nomination. I’m not even sure she’ll be the one I ultimately support. Wherever the center of the Democratic Party is these days, the Daily Kos community is unquestionably to its left. If there were an organization that was the within-Dem mirror image of DKos, Beto and Biden would be polling better than Warren in its straw poll.
But compared with just two weeks ago, Warren’s really boosted her position in the Dem race. She’s in the top tier now; you couldn’t have said that two weeks ago.
Who is Mr. or Ms. Bernie, and what is his or her first name?
And where is Mr. Sanders on that list?
“Mr. Sanders”? What does Sarah Huckabee’s husband have to do with anything? 
Nah, he’s talking about Winnie-the-Pooh, who lived “under the name of Sanders.”
Actually, on second look, they also refer to O’Rourke by his first name, too, so it’s not just one first name in a sea of lasts, which was what looked incongruous to me.
Warren has been in the top 5 of every poll I saw before this, and as this is the first DKos straw poll you really can’t say what we couldn’t have said 2 weeks ago. Here’s a WaPo article from November putting her as a favorite:
She also clearly has friends in the party, after her stumping for Hillary and garnering a seat on the Armed Services Committee in her first term as Senator.
All I can say is, as someone who isn’t decided on whether to support her, you sure seem overly impressed with her first week out.
Apparently Warren impressed Tom Steyer enough that he doesn’t see the need to run anymore:
Ok, last time and I’ll stop: you are reaching real hard to claim victories for someone you are unsure of. And would it be so hard to link to the actual article that your tweet link referred to?