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Home » The Times endorses the two major women candidates still standing

The Times endorses the two major women candidates still standing

The New Neo Posted on by

The NY Times doesn’t know exactly what it likes, but it knows it likes the women. Calling the decision “a break with convention” – rather than a mark of waffling indecision – the paper has endorsed both Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar.

The Times wants to give each Democratic camp a candidate. Here’s the way the paper describes the split in the Democratic Party:

Some in the party view President Trump as an aberration and believe that a return to a more sensible America is possible. Then there are those who believe that President Trump was the product of political and economic systems so rotten that they must be replaced.

In other words – what passes as “moderate” these days for Democrats, and what is even more radical. The Times goes on to add the moderate/”progressive” distinction but to reject it (properly, I believe), because the editors write:

But when we spent significant time with the leading candidates, the similarity of their platforms on fundamental issues became striking.

Nearly any of them would be the most progressive president in decades on issues like health care, the economy and government’s allocations of resources. Where they differ most significantly is not the what but the how, in whether they believe the country’s institutions and norms are up to the challenge of the moment.

In other words, they’re all way to the left of anything we’ve experienced before. But some believe they can pull the country way to the left while working at least somewhat within the system and not having to change it overly (the slowly boiling frog theory), while the others are for a more fundamental and obvious break with all the checks and balances so carefully built into our system.

Later on the editors add their carefully-worded green light to the more radical of the radicals:

The history of the editorial board would suggest that we would side squarely with the candidate with a more traditional approach to pushing the nation forward, within the realities of a constitutional framework and a multiparty country. But the events of the past few years have shaken the confidence of even the most committed institutionalists. We are not veering away from the values we espouse, but we are rattled by the weakness of the institutions that we trusted to undergird those values.

Ha! The right could say the same as those last two sentences in particular, only we’d talking about the actions of the Times and the rest of the left, as well as the Democratic Party. In fact – to repeat a phrase we’ve heard often – that’s how you get Trump.

However, I actually don’t think it’s the “weakness of the institutions” that is at fault. It’s the fact that, just as the Founders knew, we need much more than institutions to be able to continue to safeguard our liberty against those – very much including those on the left such as the Times – who would undermine and even destroy them. We need a people who are well educated in American history, civics, and the way our government works and/or was designed to work, and we need to understand and counter the incessant campaign to undermine the values that support that liberty.

I wonder how many people care what the Times thinks. By “people,” I of course mean voters in the Democratic primary, not Republicans. It is Democrats who will decide the issue, not the Times, so perhaps it doesn’t matter whether the paper chooses Warren or Klobuchar or someone else or no one at all.

However, what I see as having led to this split, is this:

(1) The paper wanted to choose a minority person of color, and since none are left they had to go with the next best thing, a woman – or two women. Never a white man!

(2) The paper’s editorial board was itself split rather evenly between the slow radicals and the quick radicals, and thus the two endorsements.

(3) The paper is disturbed by the weakness of the field in general and in particular the so-called moderate side. Biden really alarms them, with his baggage and his fogginess, so Klobuchar is almost the only one left. They fear Warren cannot win, so they must choose an alternative, and they hope that their august gray weight can influence the entire moderate wing to swing to Klobuchar and coalesce behind her.

[ADDENDUM: The Times calls Warren a “gifted storyteller.”

Ha! Takes one to know one.]

Comments

The <i>Times</i> endorses the two major women candidates still standing — 45 Comments

  1. Warren candidacy is DOA. Wall St. will simply not fund her campaign because her stand on regulatory and tax issues. Her wealth tax proposal will lead to wealthy donors in other parts of US doing the same.

  2. IOW, they endorse a clownish academic with zero executive experience (and a history of mendacity) and a careerist with a history of treating her staff like dirt. What’s amusing about this is that someone with judgment as poor as A.G. Sulzberger is in charge of an antique (if tarnished) institution read by millions.

  3. I caught Howard Kurtz discussing this, this morning. He’s spent most of his life analyzing the media, first for WaPo and for Fox over the last 10 years or so.

    I believe the host introducing Kurtz mentioned Neo’s #1, which is obviously so true.

    Kurtz’s interpretation is that the Times is really endorsing Klobuchar as the more sensible and less rash woman in the race. Also, the only reason they put Warren in their endorsement is because they fear Klobuchar is too weak as a money and vote getter. (That is, another major loser like Walter Mondale or Hubert Humphrey would be my way of putting it.) So the populist appeal of Warren helps them cover their bets.

    Assuming Kurtz is correct (I don’t have a strong preference for any of these theories), the Times must believe that papering over Warren’s “gifted fabulation” is easier than trying to light a fire of enthusiasm under Klobuchar.

  4. Billionaire George Soros says Elizabeth Warren ‘is the most qualified to be president’

    “She has emerged as the clear-cut person to beat,” he told The New York Times in an interview published Friday. “I don’t take a public stance, but I do believe that she is the most qualified to be president.”

    https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2019/10/25/george-soros-elizabeth-warren-is-the-most-qualified-for-president.html?__twitter_impression=true

    She’s their kind. She may not be able to beat Trump, but at least… if she did… her style of governance is in line with the current progressive masters of the universe.

    Burn-ee will burn it all to the ground. What use is being lord and master of all you survey, if all you survey is a burnt out cinder?

    Sleepy, Creepy Joe’s like an old piece of ordinance that didn’t go off when expected and is now more of a danger to the side that tries to use it than to the opponent for whom it was intended. Tick, tick, tick…

    I continue to believe that Booty-guy is a polite fiction maintained by the gentry left.

    Klobuchar has the lantern-jaw of a pioneer prizefighter but for all we know it’s all glass. No one wants to elevate her campaign by taking a poke at her so who knows. If she doesn’t move the needle soon she will simply evaporate.

    Warren appears to be the choice of the gramscian left.

  6. “I don’t take a public stance, but I do believe that she is the most qualified to be president.”

    Just think about that for a moment… (Seems that George is getting more and more Orwellian: one thing for sure is that he’s able to find inventive, innovative people to conjure up delicious company names!)

    But my word, that squaw sure has some heap powerful medicine. All you have to do is think about her and the fibs start aflowing. Naturally. Uncontrollably. (I’m not even certain that Soros even knew what he was saying.)

  7. Times is really endorsing Klobuchar as the more sensible and less rash woman in the race.

    Yeah. She only throws heavy looseleaf binders at little people.

  8. My husband, a registered independent, is deciding what Democrat would do the most damage to the Dems. He’s leaning towards voting for Bernie in their primary.

  9. Heavens, what is that thing, Auntie Em? I ain’t never seen anything quite like it here on the farm nor’s anywhere….

    Now don’t you worry none, Dorothy. It’s right ugly and it does make a dreadful noise, but don’t you pay it no mind and it won’t hurt you none.

    But what IS it!?

    Well, it’s what they call a warbuchar. Haven’t seen one in these parts for a long, long time. I thought they was even eggstinct. But like I said, don’t pay it no mind…. They look fiercesome but they’re really some of the silliest critters you’ll ever lay eyes on….

  10. Heh. Endorsement. Endorsement?

    I dunno, looks more like an Umdorsement to me, as in : **Um, there’s um, there’s this one an’ then um, there’s, um, that one. Yessir. Um, thems.**

  11. “Breaks with convention” are good only if the NYT endorses them.
    Disagreeing with the “paper of record” by pointing out it prints such nonsense like the 1619 Project is NOT a “break with convention” the NYT approves of. 🙂

    If my choices for President were limited to Liawatha, Slow Joe, or Bernie, I would flip coins or throw a pair of dice. I doubt the NYT came up with a better method of choosing. Amy? Who?
    (My contempt for Bernie is so great I can’t even think of a fitting nickname for him.)

  13. Art Deco,
    They must hate it when behind closed door events leak out into the public sphere. Like when Hillary purportedly threw a lamp at Bill, or was that a Dick Morris invention? Hillary and Amy are the calm moderates, when they’re not throwing things.

  14. George Soros on Liawatha:
    “I don’t take a public stance, but I do believe that she is the most qualified to be president.”
    Nor does she suffer in comparison with Hillary or Obama. That doesn’t say anything good about Liawatha, but rather something about Hillary or Obama.

  16. I’m glad you read the NYT, so I don’t have to!

    I’m wondering when more Reps start referring to more reporters as what they are:
    Liberal Hacks.

    It looks like the Times folk actually like Klobuchar better, but don’t think she can win the primaries, even with their help, and they do want to be supporting a winner. Since JFK 60 years ago, they’ve only supported Democrats. Don’t know if they supported Ike before that.

  17. I have a great anecdote about fauxcahantas. Just a few years ago my husband was hustling in the real estate market, on the phone to these lending companies from around the country, he even had dealings with that one * Countrywide*,i believe it was called.
    Anyway with all his efforts etc he got his loans but worked hard to accomplish it. Low and behold one day a check for $2000 some odd dollars arrives courtesy of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency !! We were shocked not much by way of an explanation but in unison we both said thank you Elizabeth Warren.

  18. “The paper wanted to choose a minority person of color, and since none are left… ”

    Isn’t Tulsi Gabbard still in the race, and a woman of color?

  19. Perhaps the NYT’s ‘rationale’ is that America twice elected a radical (Obama) and a ‘moderate’ VP (Biden). So in 2020 why not radical Warren + ‘moderate’ Klobuchar?

    Also, Soros may be thinking a bit down the road, betting that by 2024 ‘native’ american Warren can beat ‘religious fanatic’ Pence…

  20. They fear Warren cannot win, so they must choose an alternative, and they hope that their august gray weight can influence the entire moderate wing to swing to Klobuchar and coalesce behind her.

    neo: I’m not sure the Times even has hopes for Klobuchar — its august gray weight notwithstanding.

    More likely the Times has written off a Democrat winning next year and only hopes to shore up its influence among post-2020 Democrats.

  21. Jimmy:

    Oh, she’s still in all right – that’s why I wrote the word “major” in the title of the post.

    I guess you are indeed correct that she might be considered “of color,” but sometimes I forget what the definition of that is according to the latest leftist definition. After all, I doubt they would define Nikki Haley as being “of color,” although she’s of Indian (Asian type of “Indian) Sikh descent on both sides. But as I understand it, Haley’s politics cause her to forfeit the stamp of “woman of color” approval from the left.

    Tulsi Gabbard probably doesn’t qualify, either. First of all, I don’t think she plays the victim card or trades on her ethnicity (at least, I’m not aware of her doing it). Secondly, she is only somewhat non-white – although the degree wouldn’t matter to the left if she had the proper progressive politics. Sounds as though her mom is Caucasian and dad is mixed Samoan-Asian-European:

    Gabbard was raised in a multicultural household. She is of mixed ethnicity, including Asian, Polynesian, and Caucasian descent. Her mother was born in Indiana and grew up in Michigan. Her father was born in American Samoa and lived in Hawaii and Florida as a child; he is of Samoan and European ancestry.

    But more importantly, she doesn’t count for two reasons: (1) she’s a kind of maverick, sometimes quite far left but sometimes to the right, who committed the crime of undoing Kamala Harris early in the game; and (2) she’s just not polling at all well. Of course, Klobuchar’s not doing great either, but at the moment she’s doing about twice as well in the RealClearPolitics average as Gabbard is (3% to 1.6%).

  22. Or it could be that the NYT editorial staff has simply been scrutinizing the tea leaves and/or the coffee grinds (or even, perhaps, carefully studying the daily horoscopes in the NY Post—or wherever it is they get their information from) and concluded that Biden is damaged goods:
    https://pjmedia.com/trending/heres-how-joe-bidens-family-got-rich-while-he-was-vice-president/
    …which is a real shame cuz he’s such a huggable guy—with that ready smile and all that experience in, in, oh, never mind….

    (Where was it that I read that Bloomberg is waiting in the wings to pick up the pieces when the whole charade that is the Democratic nomination ultimately collapses like a Jenga tower…? Oh yeah:
    https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/01/a-new-theory-about-bloombergs-grand-strategy.php )

  24. More likely the Times has written off a Democrat winning next year and only hopes to shore up its influence among post-2020 Democrats.

    They haven’t. All the Democrats poll satisfactorily contra Trump. Their support may begin to erode once they’re under the lens during the general election campaign.

  25. Looking at the current polling, I think that Biden is likely to be the Democrat nominee. He will need a “moderate” female running mate and I think that will be Klobuchar.

  26. Come Convention time, after the first ballot fails to nominate a clear leader, Bloomberg steps in and says it is his time. But then, lo and behold, a real Leader announces that she is there to same the day. It is Michelle!! And then BO can be President again.

  27. They haven’t.

    Art Deco: You don’t know that. You may believe in your omniscience, but I certainly don’t.

    Yes, I am aware of those polls, but even the Times, I suspect, remembers how well polls worked in 2016. Does anyone really believe these 2020 polls on either side? Aside from mentioning them as data points?

  28. Warren, Sanders backers feud after ‘Pocahontas’ text message

    A text message that referred to Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahontas” that was sent through rival Bernie Sanders’ volunteer messaging system led to social media feuding and confusion among supporters of both candidates.

    https://apnews.com/706033a61500deffe2412c109fae6d4b

    Trump’s mischief snares two at once.

  30. Yes, I am aware of those polls, but even the Times, I suspect, remembers how well polls worked in 2016. Does anyone really believe these 2020 polls on either side? Aside from mentioning them as data points?

    Contemporary public opinion surveys are unreliable. You asserted that The Times had written-off the Democratic candidates. They have no reason to do so. The surveys are unreliable. They’d write off their preferred candidates only if the surveys were giving consistently unwelcome responses, which they’re not.

  31. IMO you are missing the most important story of the day: the peaceful rally in Richmond, Va in support of the 2nd. If one does not understand the importance of the 2nd, 9th, and 10th; you don’t understand the Constitution of the Founders.

  32. parker:

    Sometimes I don’t write as much as I’d like to because I have an unusually busy day. This is one of these days, but I agree that the rally – and all the brouhaha about it from the left – is important. Maybe I’ll just put up a quick link.

  33. I had the same reaction to the “gifted storyteller” bit. Kind of made the whole dumb encyclical worthwhile.

  35. re Barry Meislin’s en-passant remark about Bloomberg:

    The Bloomster was just at an AME Church in an Oklahoma small town talking/preaching on MLKJr Day about how not enough has been done for the impoverished black communities throughout the land, and that, as president, he would “invest”(yes, his word) in them with blah and blah, bricks and mortar, this and that. A $70 billion program, precisely.

    If it’s an investment, Bloomie, why has no one discovered it? And done it? Investments yield, hopefully, profits.
    What should we have called the War on Poverty? An investment? A hedge fund to end all funds? And our return on this multi-trillion dollar ‘investment’ is what?

    Another Democratic fraudster.

  37. I recall in 2006 Amy Klobucher was running against a GOP candidate named Mark Kennedy, who struck me a talented guy who would have made a fine senator.

    Alas, he had to run while George Bush was busy nuking the GOP from orbit, and Kennedy vanished into political oblivion.

    Anyway, Klobucher was running ads making the rather obvious point that the Bush medicare part D legislation that forbid the government from negotiating for bulk discounts was stupid. I agreed, as did most voters, I’m sure. She promised to do something about it.

    She did not. In 2018, she was again running ads claiming she was going to “stand up” to the drug companies, etc, etc.

    Recently, I’ve read that she’s taken 400k from those companies which she promised to stand up against, and I have no doubt why she’s never made a peep about ending that particular provision of Medicare part D.

    She’s just another shameless liar, like every other democrat, and I’m not surprised at all that the chief organ of democrat deception- the NY Times- gave her an endorsement.

  39. Not only will Nikki Haley not be a woman of colour, she won’t even be considered a woman.

    After all, when Obama speaks of how it would be better if women ruled, he isn’t expecting it to be Sarah Palin, Nikki Haley or Condoleezza Rice or pretty much anyone of the conservative bent.

  40. “We need a people who are well educated in American history, civics, and the way our government works and/or was designed to work, and we need to understand and counter the incessant campaign to undermine the values that support that liberty.” – Neo

    Instead we get the 1619 Project and the Gramscian March Stampede.
    How can we actually get what we need?
    MAGA 2020 (KAG) is a start.

  42. Tom Grey on January 20, 2020 at 5:10 pm said:
    … they do want to be supporting a winner.

    TommyJay on January 20, 2020 at 4:04 pm said:
    …So the populist appeal of Warren helps them cover their bets.

    * * *
    This way they get to claim they called the primary election if either women wins it.

  43. J.J. on January 20, 2020 at 7:04 pm said:
    The Times calls Warren a “gifted storyteller.”

    Wow! Just WOW!
    * * *
    Shouldn’t that be “Just POWWOW!” ?

  44. Cicero on January 20, 2020 at 7:48 pm said:
    …
    If it’s an investment, Bloomie, why has no one discovered it? And done it? Investments yield, hopefully, profits.
    * * *
    Ever notice how politicians only invest OUR money, not theirs?

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