Monday Morning Tabs
Gotta clear 'em all!
Steven L. Taylor
·
Monday, April 15, 2024
·
28 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
Follow Steven on
Twitter
From the article on RFK:
This is absurd. Kennedy is not going to get on the ballot in all 50 states as an indie, or by forming his own party. Maybe that doesn’t matter a whole lot–what matters is whether he gets on the ballot in swing states. But the likely reason he’s ruling out a Libertarian bid isn’t a sudden surge in confidence he doesn’t need the party’s expanded ballot access, but doubts he’d win the nomination if he tried.
Of course it does. It’s a serf state, where one has the right to die on the job in stupid avoidable ways.
*less pay, fewer labor rights, less control, ad nauseum.
If anyone still had any illusions that the Libertarian Party was guided by principle, the fact that they were recruiting Robert F Kennedy should put that to bed. There is nothing in his decades long history that gives any hint to Libertarian philosophy and much that works directly against it.
Well at least “Lantine” looks and sounds good. I’ve often thought that the substitution of “X” to or for other words is an expression of self hate.
From the Florida story:
I hope the earlier version had “DeSatan”.
Remind me again: aren’t Republicans the ones who have been saying for 100 years that local jurisdictions know their own problems and needs best, and so local legislation should be given great deference absent some overwhelming and obvious problem?
I guess “donors gonna lose a little profit” is an overwhelming and obvious problem.
@MarkedMan: RFK has been talking more like a libertarian as of late, leaning into global-warming skepticism (even though he once said people with such views should be jailed) and saying the solution to climate change must rest with the free market.
@OzarkHillbilly: Note that this law preempts local action. Miami-Dade was about to enact protections within the county. The linked article mentions a construction industry lobbyist in passing. Construction and ag lobbyists are, of course, why the state acted. The publicly stated rationale is that they can’t have a patchwork of regs, but the lege isn’t in any hurry to pass statewide protections. And fergawdsake, don’t mention summers are getting hotter.
Gov. DeUseless likes to brag about “the free state of Florida”. By which, typically for a conservative, he means free to do what he thinks is right. And, typically for a Republican, lobbyist money will dictate what’s right.
@Kylopod:
Yep. As he floated running as a libertarian, he did several 180’s and started mouthing some of their talking points, especially ones dear to the billionaire hobbyists who fund them. I think the fact that the Party was satisfied with that fig leaf rather proves my point that there is no guiding philosophy. Anyone shiny enough to get them attention only needs to say “Ayn Rand” three times while clicking their heels together and “Poof”, they’re a Libertarian.
@Sleeping Dog: yes, and it is perfectly scrumptious to us native romance language speakers (bilinguals included). Avoids the Anglo-saxone Academese
ugliness and tone-deafness of the horrid X. A more elegant and nativised way to achieve same or similar goal.
Why the dear Prof evokes the doomedness is even ironically not very coherent. I note I had evoked this myself in the posting here, Latine as the more romance-language native way to address.
It’s rather a decent example of adaptation.
@Lounsbury:
It is a dig at some ongoing commentary by some denizens of OTB. Nothing more, nothing less. (Well, to some broader political commentary as well, I suppose).
@MarkedMan: What doesn’t get talked about as much is that a significant portion of the so-called libertarian movement consists of conspiracy nuts. This has been true for a long time. I’m betting that many of the former supporters of Ron Paul are currently on team RFK (though probably more are supporting Trump).
And even though I think (as I hinted before) that the reason RFK ruled out a Libertarian bid was due to looking at internal polls and deciding he wasn’t going to win the nomination (or at least that it wouldn’t be a cakewalk), it’s not implausible to me that he could. What came to my mind was Pat Buchanan’s hostile takeover of the Reform Party in 2000. While Buchanan and Perot had the common thread of opposition to NAFTA, Buchanan’s theocratic Christianist views seemed at odds with the relatively secular, pro-choice Perot and the party he created to continue his legacy.
Obviously the Libertarian Party has been around a lot longer than the Reform Party was in 2000, but they’ve already repeatedly shown some level of ideological flexibility to nominate bigger-name candidates. At this point I’d say RFK’s worldview is probably more in line with party members than William Weld’s ever was.
@Kylopod: If what you are saying is a large portion of the card carrying Libertarians consist of conspiracy theory nuts disconnected from reality, and Robert Kennedy also fits that description, then I’ve got no argument.
@Lounsbury:
Indeed. Latine has the distinct advantage of being pronounceable by Spanish speakers, and it seems, a broader acceptance by the actual people involved. A good rule of thumb is to make neologisms pronounceable.
@MarkedMan:
Lolololol
@Lounsbury:
Here’s a novel thought: maybe Latinos should continue to be called what they want to be called.
(By “they” I mean most people, not a handful of activists or handful of academics from which a bored journalist can invent a non-story.)
I can help Marjorie Trailer Queen answer that query about her DJT stock: it’s worth $27 a share as of this morning.
@CSK:
It would be deleterious to her health had she shorted the stock.
Someone should start a rumor to that effect.
@Kathy: No, I suspect that even in the heart of MAGAritaville MGTs move to sell short would be praised as the savvy move of a market insider/genius. These are the same people (or at least the same type) who looked at Jim and Tammy Faye and said “yep, rich because of God’s blessing, all right.”
I put this in the open forum, but it may belong here: RFK Jr. says Trump asked him to be his V.P.
@CSK: “I put this in the open forum, but it may belong here: RFK Jr. says Trump asked him to be his V.P.”
Hmmm. I suddenly realize I can’t figure out which I’d trust more to tell the truth.
@wr:
I agree; it’s a tough choice. In this instance, however, I think I’d go with RFK Jr. Trump lies like he breathes: reflexively.
@wr: @CSK:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grOpvXBmTx8
@CSK: Do you have a cite? I couldn’t find one.
But it would be beautiful, a total Trump move: get the Tim Scotts, Elise Stefaniks, Kristie Noems, etc to humiliate themselves and crawl around on their belly licking his boots, and then pick none of them.
Oh, and I finally looked something up for the “historically low approval ratings crowd”. Obama was reelected with a 43% approval rating. The latest poll has Biden at 43%.
I’m not saying Biden will win. I’m just saying that its best to not get ahead of your skis if you are with the dramatic claims.
@MarkedMan:
Huh? The last Gallup before Election Day 2012 showed Obama with 52% approval.
In the mid-April poll from that year, though, he was indeed at 43%. Is that what you meant by “reelected with a 43% approval”? Not where he was on Election Day, but where he was at this point in the race? In other words, did you mean, “Obama was reelected despite having 43% in April of that year”?
In any case, the most recent Gallup poll for Biden (late March) shows him at 40%. Checking 538, there are two early-April polls that have him at 43% (Global Strategy Group & RMG Research)–however, those are his best ones currently. His avg at 538 is still 39.5%.
Which polls were you looking at?
@MarkedMan:
Newsweek, Politico, The Hill, and Mediaite are all carrying the story.
@wr: @CSK: Why believe either one?
@Kylopod:
Sorry. Yes