Best Of

The Democrats are really searching for an answer for Trump at the moment. I'm not quite sure who that is, but what I do know is it's not Kamala Harris.

I quite like Harris, and I think a lot of the criticism of her is rather overblown. She was, unquestionably, dealt a very bad hand and in 2024 she played it... broadly as well as she could have done, I think. But her big issue is her seeming inability to shift this incredibly tortured way of communicating. She looked at the start of the 2024 campaign like she was finally shaking it off, only to revert more and more to type as the election approached. She fired up Democrats, but it wasn't enough in an election where swing voters were feeling helpless and casting around for solutions - she couldn't speak to those people. I see nothing to suggest she's suddenly learned how to do so.

To put it more simply - Harris is a B- politician at national level.

What the Democrats need is A*

Buttigieg is probably their best bet, though if the approval rating of the Trump and Vance administration remains under 40% still by 2028 even AOC could win

There's a part of me that thinks it should be Bernie, but he might be too old now.

Bernie shot his bolt a long time ago.

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/end-of-the-keir-show-how-senior-labour-figures-now-believe-starmer-is-already-toast_uk_68fb5cfee4b03bb1113194c0

“But there was no energy, no ideas and he didn’t have any answers to our questions. It was really very damaging.”

I'm reminded of Basil Fawlty to the moaning guest.

It's the UK in a low growth era with maxed out public finances. What do they expect ... milk and honey and thundering herds of wildebeest?

A plan isn't that much to ask....

They don't need a plan. They need a sustained economic upswing.

Even they must realise that repeatedly shafting the private sector and shovelling money at layabouts isn't the best way to get the economy working again?

You'd think that about two hours in an undergraduate level economics course, or a week working in any private sector firm, would teach them that, but evidently that's beyond them.

Still, why did anyone expect anything better from Labour?

Mmm if only your Thatcher re-tread ideas were implemented we'd be powering ahead of all our peers. Easy peasy. Wonder why it doesn't happen. Ship of fools.

Smeakybpartial quote from talktv, but Labour have picked up on it. Pochin is surely right here, I mean the figures do back her up. Farage won’t condemn it, and he shouldn’t either

Nigel Farage needs to condemn this now, and urgently clarify whether Sarah Pochin’s views on race are welcome in his party.

https://x.com/labourpress/status/1982106185672314978?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

I'd be interested in an advertiser's/marketers view on this. I suspect there are some hard stats behind the diversity we see in adverts - the most valuable customers tend to be in their 20s/30s ; Gen Z/Millenials with their woke views on stuff like race and trans. Does that offset the unease it generates in boomers?

Stuart in London seems to be asking for white DEI hires... and his accidental description of Farage was quite memeable too.

I thought it was just that if you only have white people in your adverts you'll get called racist so everyone has non-white people in which results in the ridiculous statistics.

Yes, that's my point. I don't think there is any advertising standard that means you have to include non-white people, so what you see on the telly just reflects what the advertiser thinks is the most likely to do best for them in sales.

Pretty simple really. If some firm wants to have a whites only policy in their adverts then good luck to them - they'll need it because their target demographic is going to be typically older and poorer, which in my (limited) experience isn't exactly what you should be aiming for. We did used to put old white folk on adverts for binoculars and knee-length waterproofs, come to think of it...

I think the theory is that older people are more set in they buying habits, so are a less promising target for advertisers. Same reason that there are loads of commercial radio stations targeting under fifties and relatively few going for older audiences.

But yeah, the bottom line is that advertising can't afford to be sentimental. If more money could be made by having more white characters in adverts, that's what someone would do. What Pochin, Farage and the rest of them are really cross about is that they are getting old, and one of the consequences is that adverts are no longer aimed at them.

There's no sane politics that solves that problem.

Smeakybpartial quote from talktv, but Labour have picked up on it. Pochin is surely right here, I mean the figures do back her up. Farage won’t condemn it, and he shouldn’t either

Nigel Farage needs to condemn this now, and urgently clarify whether Sarah Pochin’s views on race are welcome in his party.

https://x.com/labourpress/status/1982106185672314978?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

I'd be interested in an advertiser's/marketers view on this. I suspect there are some hard stats behind the diversity we see in adverts - the most valuable customers tend to be in their 20s/30s ; Gen Z/Millenials with their woke views on stuff like race and trans. Does that offset the unease it generates in boomers?

Stuart in London seems to be asking for white DEI hires... and his accidental description of Farage was quite memeable too.

I thought it was just that if you only have white people in your adverts you'll get called racist so everyone has non-white people in which results in the ridiculous statistics.

Yes, that's my point. I don't think there is any advertising standard that means you have to include non-white people, so what you see on the telly just reflects what the advertiser thinks is the most likely to do best for them in sales.

Pretty simple really. If some firm wants to have a whites only policy in their adverts then good luck to them - they'll need it because their target demographic is going to be typically older and poorer, which in my (limited) experience isn't exactly what you should be aiming for. We did used to put old white folk on adverts for binoculars and knee-length waterproofs, come to think of it...

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/end-of-the-keir-show-how-senior-labour-figures-now-believe-starmer-is-already-toast_uk_68fb5cfee4b03bb1113194c0

“But there was no energy, no ideas and he didn’t have any answers to our questions. It was really very damaging.”

I'm reminded of Basil Fawlty to the moaning guest.

It's the UK in a low growth era with maxed out public finances. What do they expect ... milk and honey and thundering herds of wildebeest?

What's the difference between a thundering herd of wildebeest and a large group of lawyers?

One will leave a real mess all over your carpet, and the other are wild animals from Africa?

The former would never get around to sending a bill just for the cost of a single first class letter delivery.

The latter happened to me with a lawyer.

How many lawyers does it take to change a lightbulb?
How many can you afford?

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/end-of-the-keir-show-how-senior-labour-figures-now-believe-starmer-is-already-toast_uk_68fb5cfee4b03bb1113194c0

“But there was no energy, no ideas and he didn’t have any answers to our questions. It was really very damaging.”

I'm reminded of Basil Fawlty to the moaning guest.

It's the UK in a low growth era with maxed out public finances. What do they expect ... milk and honey and thundering herds of wildebeest?

A plan isn't that much to ask....

They don't need a plan. They need a sustained economic upswing.

Even they must realise that repeatedly shafting the private sector and shovelling money at layabouts isn't the best way to get the economy working again?

You'd think that about two hours in an undergraduate level economics course, or a week working in any private sector firm, would teach them that, but evidently that's beyond them.

Still, why did anyone expect anything better from Labour?

The Democrats are really searching for an answer for Trump at the moment. I'm not quite sure who that is, but what I do know is it's not Kamala Harris.

I quite like Harris, and I think a lot of the criticism of her is rather overblown. She was, unquestionably, dealt a very bad hand and in 2024 she played it... broadly as well as she could have done, I think. But her big issue is her seeming inability to shift this incredibly tortured way of communicating. She looked at the start of the 2024 campaign like she was finally shaking it off, only to revert more and more to type as the election approached. She fired up Democrats, but it wasn't enough in an election where swing voters were feeling helpless and casting around for solutions - she couldn't speak to those people. I see nothing to suggest she's suddenly learned how to do so.

To put it more simply - Harris is a B- politician at national level.

What the Democrats need is A*

Buttigieg is probably their best bet, though if the approval rating of the Trump and Vance administration remains under 40% still by 2028 even AOC could win

There's a part of me that thinks it should be Bernie, but he might be too old now.

Kamala Harris is considering running for US President again and brands Donald Trump a 'tyrant'

https://x.com/mikeysmith/status/1982064101669892584

She has had two chances now and fucked up twice. She should have taken the Burnham route and become Governor of California, which she would have been adequate at. You can't run without an ability to explain and be a teacher, and she doesn't have that.

Indeed, the only losing Presidential nominee for their party who came back to win again since WW2 was Nixon and even he waited 8 years until running again. He ran for California governor in 1962 narrowly losing then

Errr...Donald Trump?

Edit - it's worth noting even before then comparatively few losing nominees have come back to become President at a later stage. Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland are two that spring to mind. After that I am struggling.

Reagan and Bush Sr both mounted primary campaigns before being nominated later.

Trump won in 2016 on his first attempt so a different scenario, even if he lost his re election bid and then came back to win

Yes, but that's even rarer than your scenario. Only Grover Cleveland had won two non-consecutive elections before (and he won the popular vote three times).

Maybe but Trump had at least proved he could win a presidential election outright before he ran again, unlike Harris, as had Cleveland

Yes, but do you know who the last defeated incumbent to get their party's nomination and run again afterwards was?

It was actually Cleveland...

Cleveland had won before in 1884 though, like Trump, even though he lost in 1888 and then ran and won again in 1892

Yes, I know. The point being that since then no fewer than five presidents (Taft, Hoover, Carter, Bush Sr and Trump) have been eligible to run again after a defeat and only one has actually done so.

And Trump is a special case because of the widespread corruption he introduced into the Republican Party and the electorate via both blatant rigging of votes within the Republican organisation (removing anyone who dared to point out he lost in 2020 by a huge margin and replacing them with sycophants who claimed otherwise) and his control of the media (does anyone think he would have won if Twitter had been reporting the news accurately)?

The point therefore being, contrary to your assertion, people do not go back to proven winners. Trump apart, they shy away from proven losers.

Cleveland was an exception for one very good reason - he won the popular vote in every election he fought, losing to Harrison by a fluke of the electoral college in the middle. But since then, nothing.