Tag Archives: Politics

Will John Kasich Challenge Trump in 2020?

Posted by Andy in Politics and tagged with

I was scrolling through some morning shows on Sunday and stopped when I saw a familiar face I had forgotten about. There was John Kasich live on CNN from the Munich Security Summit.

Election 2020 was still on my brain from a discussion I had earlier in the week about Mark Cuban. An idea crossed my mind. So I reached out to my left-leaning political expert in Phoenix to get his thoughts. We were in lockstep agreement. And then I turned to a right-leaning friend in Seattle. And he agreed with me as well.  Once is an occurrence, two times coincidence, three times a trend.

Here’s what we were thinking. John Kasich will run against Trump for the 2020 Republican Nomination. This is why it’ll happen and why he’ll win.

  1. It doesn’t happen often, but it’s not unheard of in years when the sitting president seems vulnerable in the General Election. In 1976 Reagan ran against Ford in the Republican primaries. In 1980 Ted Kennedy ran against Jimmy Carter in the Democratic primaries. In 1992 Pat Buchanan challenged H.W. Bush. Each sitting President survived his primary but lost the election to a challenger from another party.
  2. It’s unlikely any GOP Senators and Representatives will challenge a sitting President of their own party. Running as an outsider is one thing. Dividing your own Congress – when you already have a majority – is not a smart political move. Kasich is a Governor. He has nothing to lose by challenging for the nomination.
  3. His liabilities in a 12 person race are minimized in a 2 person race. For all his strengths, charisma is not one of them. And while Cruz and Trump were trying to out-nasty each other, Kasich became an afterthought. He could not get enough attention in a wild and crazy circus. He was like the smart guy at a party where people were doing kegstands and jump off roofs into pools. No one notices the smart guy. But in a race against Trump, the narrative changes. It’s now Good vs Evil and he’s the super hero wearing the cape. He gets to own the “anti-Trump” side of the Republican Party just for being able to breathe. Then he has a puncher’s chance at going after Trump voters because…
  4. The people in the states where won Trump the Presidency will either be richer or poorer than when they voted before. If they’re poorer, they’ll switch in a heartbeat. They will have no allegiance if their situation is no better than it was previously.
  5. He can lob subtle grenades from the sideline. Again, while people like Cruz, McConnell and Ryan have to somewhat toe the line with support for the President, Kasich does not. He can spend the next three years setting up his policy attacks with a media that might like to have a friendlier person to work with.

Thoughts? Objections? Agreements? Email me.

Mark Cuban 2020?

Posted by Andy in Politics and tagged with , ,

Mark Cuban set about to troll President Trump, in what was surely the only newsworthy event from the NBA’s Celebrity All-Star game.

Source: USA Today

But wait a minute, does a Mark Cuban presidency make sense? Have the times changed so greatly, that this something we should consider? Let’s speculate a little for fun.

  1. He’s not beholden to a single ideology. Cuban has self-identified as a Republican. Living in Dallas, that makes perfect sense. But he also has called himself fiercely independent and supported Hillary Clinton in 2016. So while so many want to force people into binary positions of Democrat or Republican, it’s fair to say that Cuban has pro-business values while also respecting the social causes and rights of all Americans. That’s a pretty good set of qualities for a leader of the free world.
  2. He identifies with everybody. He’s a Billionaire who really did scrap and claw from a middle class upbringing. He became a reasonably successful millionaire, then managed to see the future, leveraging some simple technology deals into a $6 billion payday for his company. He is the guy the middle class high school student can look to and say, “I can do that too.”
  3. He’d be able to assemble an incredible cabinet and set of advisors. Cuban runs in entrepreneurial circles, regularly engaging with the best and brightest minds around. But he’s also part of the business establishment, being part of venture capital groups and working with the key influencers in many industries. And most importantly, he seems to value the input and opinions of others to help him make his decisions. That’s someone who could recruit a top-notch team.

So, could he win?

Well, that would probably be up to the Democrats in power today. Will the DNC have the same pollsters and strategists who mishandled the Clinton campaign running their 2020 program? So for the sake of argument, let’s say the DNC didn’t get in the way of a populist Mark Cuban campaign in the primaries and just let it play out.

Primaries:

I don’t know enough to know who the leading Democratic challengers will be. I assume Elizabeth Warren will be a front runner. So let’s focus the conversation on Cuban vs Warren and a bunch of wild cards.

  1. Cuban has his own financial resources and doesn’t need to rely on donations from fringe groups. He can buy a talented team and build a ground game. I don’t know if Warren could raise the same amount of money.
  2. He’ll win Texas, and probably all the midwest and rust belt states that Obama and Trump won. That’s a good starting point.
  3. Can he take Warren in New York, California and Florida? I don’t know.
  4. I don’t think he has an issue with women voters. He seems to have mainstream appeal across all genders.

General Election:

  1. There will never be an election in which more Democrats come out to support whoever is running against Trump. So he’ll have that going for him.
  2. After 4 years of being beaten up by Trump, every media outlet in the world would be giving Cuban free air time.
  3. He can be a unicorn – a Democrat who wins Texas. Assuming Democrats also win New York and California, he’s almost halfway home at that point.
  4. Then he wins the middle of the country, the people who didn’t get what they were promised by the current President.

It’s a far out scenario, but reasonable at the same time. The question is if it’s a job he’d actually want.

How Much Should We Blame the News Media for Donald Trump?

Posted by Andy in Media, Politics and tagged with , , ,

There have been a lot of articles about how the media, needing a way to breathe life into this election 12 months ago, hooked itself up to the Trump Train and rode it through every area of chaos it went, cashing their checks whenever it came into the station to refuel. It really wasn’t until they realized that a Trump Presidency was becoming ACTUALLY POSSIBLE, that the media jumped off and then started blowing up the tracks ahead in hopes of derailing it.

But that’s not the question I’m asking now. What I’m curious about is how much we should blame the collective news media for dumbing-down the news so much over the last 10-20 years? Was it only a matter of time before someone like Trump was able to attract the hearts and the simplified minds of “Soundbite America?”

Maybe it’s not their fault. Maybe it’s ours for only being able to absorb 8-10 minutes before needing a commercial break. Maybe we need to be mesmerized with four talking heads each bringing their best two to three minutes of content to a discussion. In this format, no one ever has time to discuss a “How.” It’s only about the “Why” and you usually have a full screen of people with polar opposite opinions fighting to get in the best dig.

But then, I could argue that IS the media’s fault for forcing that format down our eyeballs and earholes. What is the total cost of losing a few viewers to make sure that the people who keep watching get something more thorough than clever quips and cut downs?

I don’t know the answer to that. Broadcasters are owned by public companies so they need as much money as they can get to survive this new media economy that forced them to lose their near oligopoly status. Yes, it is much harder to compete in a bifurcated market than to be one of a handful of outlets covering news. So I understand the need to dumb down the news to make it appeal to more people. But I’m not sure I’m happy with the results.

Imagining Presidential Candidates as League Commissioners

Posted by Andy in Creative Writing, Favorites, Personal, Politics, Sports and tagged with , , ,

I don’t know what made me think about this, but indulge me if you will. If you took the remaining Presidential candidates and put them in charge of the sports leagues, which ones would they run? Here’s my proposal.

1) MLS
Let’s start with the easiest one first. Major League Soccer is by definition a socialist endeavor. The league revenues are split, the labor force has few rights for negotiating wages, and all transactions must go through the league office. This is Bernie Sanders’ league, plain and simple.

2) NFL
The country’s most powerful league is going to need a member of the establishment to carry out its charter. Someone who knows everyone on Wall Street as well as the rest of the Billionaire owners. They must have political clout to wield or they’ll be a lame duck. But also, the NFL needs someone who can deflect controversy, pretend things that are happening aren’t actually happening, and show a strong willingness to tiptoe on the wrong side of the rules. I think the NFL goes to Hillary Clinton.

3) MLB
This league is much harder to determine a proper commissioner for. Its leader must have the clout to appease 30 billionaire owners, manage municipalities to get stadiums built, and negotiate billion dollar TV deals, all while presiding over a sport that is losing its appeal to much of America. In some ways, to some people, MLB has become somewhat a relic of days gone by. A memory of what once was, rather than what will be. And with that in mind, I hand the keys to Jeb Bush.

4) NBA
Another tough decision. We’re looking for someone who can see the international picture while not overlooking the inner cities. Someone who can manage across different cultures. But also someone who can simply step into the shoes of his mentor and merely continue to operate the machine rather than create a new one from scratch. I think this role is given to Marco Rubio.

5) NHL
Here we have a league that not enough people get excited about. It rarely registers on your sports mind, even though the few times you pay attention to it, you find it quite enjoyable. It is the epitome of being John Kasich.

6) NCAA
With this organization, we’re looking for a few key qualities. This leader must be fairly tone deaf to the cries from its labor force who want to be paid. The leader must embrace the idea of the 1% receiving all of the money, and have strong convictions about who should be let into the system. Plus this leader must be stubborn, resistant to the opinion of others, and able to hold true to their beliefs. I believe Ted Cruz is our answer here.

7) WWE
Come on, is this one really that hard? There’s only one Presidential candidate capable of running the circus that is Worldwide Wrestling. The one and only, Donald Trump.

Have I missed a league that needs a Presidential candidate as a commissioner? Let me know.

A Request to the Writers of The Daily Show

Posted by Andy in Politics and tagged with , ,

Dear Trevor Noah and the rest of The Daily Show writing team,

I have a request for this election season.

Every candidate is busy lining up endorsements from the people they thing will most energize voters. Candidates need endorsements from all the individual politicians, tastemakers and influencers, from President Obama to Jay Inslee to Ed Murray.

But here’s what I would find REALLY interesting. Not who the thought leaders are endorsing. But who the crackpots, weirdos and psychopaths want to see in office. I would learn way more about a candidate by knowing if they are being supported by the craziest of the crazy. After all, candidates can try to hand pick and choreograph the endorsements they get from positive figures. But they’re helpless to defend themselves against endorsements from the “wrong people.”

So Mr. Noah, this is where you come in.

You have the power, the prestige, the connections and the brains to pull together a list of some of the biggest wackos in America AND get them on camera and find out who they are endorsing. You all can dive in and find out why. And as Americans, in some cases we’ll have to reconcile the fact that we support the same candidate as someone we’d never invite over to dinner.

I think the rare combination of ratings winner and public service. Thanks for your consideration.

Your loyal viewer,

Andy

A Dumb Idea for Gun Control Compromise

Posted by Andy in Politics and tagged with ,

If there’s one thing I know for sure about the gun control debate, it’s that none of the sides are absolutely right.In a country of 350 million people from hundreds of thousands of different cultural backgrounds, you aren’t going to find a solution that appeases everyone. Rather than discuss this point, I’ll direct you to this very well written piece on the complication of legislating gun control.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t take baby steps in one direction or another to at least try to make things a little bit better. I have one such idea for making things just a little bit better.

For the purposes of this discussion, we are going to ignore assault weapons and even hunting rifles. We are going to simply address handguns.

Now, the argument FOR handguns is personal protection. Some people feel a God-given, or 2nd Amendment given, right to bear arms for the purpose of self-preservation. The problem is when people use that purchasing opportunity to go on the attack instead, sneaking into a school or restaurant and rattling off as many shots as they can before using the last one on themselves.

So if the true purpose of a handgun is PROTECTION, what can we do to make it a purely defensive weapon?

The answer, is to make it non-lethal.

A non-lethal handgun could cause immense amounts of pain. It could render an attacker helpless. It might even knock them out. Either way, it would be powerful enough that if you were attacked and got off a couple of shots that hit your assailant, even an MMA fighter would be down long enough that the police could be called, or at least for you to flee to safety.

We could make these guns available anywhere, no background check at all. Shooting someone would be the equivalent of hitting them with a baseball bat and we could treat it as such.

Now sure, you are still mostly defenseless against a group of trained and heavily armored assassins carrying AK-47’s into a French bistro. But you are less likely to get anything ore than a major headache if some guy goes nutso in a movie theater.

We need to get a few minuscule wins if we’re going to get any real compromises underway. Maybe this could be one.

I’ve Become One of “Those” People, and You Guys Can’t Drive

Posted by Andy in Achievement, Favorites, Personal, Seattle and tagged with , ,

I like to think that at my advanced age, I have the ability to shift opinions. To change my mind. To “evolve,” as it were.

For years, I did not understand the concept of riding a bike to work. I found it non-sensical. Foolish and childish even.

But then about 3-4 weeks ago my doctor explained some things that were going to happen to me in the coming years if I did not lose a fairly significant amount of weight. And he wasn’t saying things like, “Wow you are going to feel great!”

So I left his office, went to the bike store, and bought myself a new way to commute to the office. I’m now one of “those people” who are in the way when you are driving to work.

What I’ve learned

Now I’m in no way an expert yet. I’ve maybe done the Wallingford to Downtown Cannonball Run about 8-10 times. But here are some initial impressions.

1) You people can’t drive. I never noticed it before, but there really is no consistency from one driver to another. You make crazy left turns out of nowhere, pull over in bike lanes (it doesn’t matter if your hazards are on, I still can’t jump over you), block interceptions at red lights, and nose your car out into the middle of the road. Bring on the driverless cars.
2) Texting and driving is seriously dangerous. There aren’t a lot of things a biker finds scarier than seeing someone in a car with their face buried in their cell phone. We have no idea where you are headed, if you see us, or what you are going to do.
3) We need more bike lanes. On my way in, I zip down Stone to 34th to Dexter to Bell to 2nd and it’s a breeze. On my way out of town, inexplicably you can’t head back UP 2nd very far. So I have to weave through buses, cars and/or pedestrians on 3rd and Blanchard to get back to a safe path.
4) Some bikers are really decent humans. Contrary to my previous belief about bikers being traffic-causing, egotistical, stubborn jerks, a lot of bikers are pretty nice. We usually end up in a nice little pack around stop lights. There’s safety in numbers and we’re all more visible when we’re traveling in a flock. Usually everyone is following traffic rules, being courteous to drivers, and being safe.
5) Some bikers are total jerks. Nothing is more frustrating to a rookie biker like me than seeing some yahoo zipping through traffic, slinging between lanes, ignoring street signs and signals, and generally creating chaos. For the record, I’m the guy following every rule, doing everything like you’d expect the guy on the bike to do. Bikers who flaunt the fact that they are on a bike scare me because they make you unpredictable.
6) The time is comparable. On an average day at rush hour, driving 6 miles downtown plus parking takes me about 25-30 minutes door to desk. On a bike, 30-35.

Ok, I’m a cheater
So here’s the thing. I’m not in good enough shape to get up Stone Way. And I don’t like the idea of being stuck at 8mph in traffic. So I bought an electric bike. I’m an absolute believer in these things.

The electric bike is great because you really only use it up hills, or if you need to maintain a consistent speed of 15-20 mph. You can shut it off if you’re by yourself and can go at your own pace. And maybe one day when I’m in better shape I’ll be able to keep it off altogether. But if you are considering becoming a bike commuter, look into the electric bike. It will help get you off the fence.

So there you go
So I’m a convert, at least when I can be. It’s still totally impractical for anyone who needs to wear a suit or pick up the kids after work. But there might be a good number of you who could pull it off.

And try that electric bike.