Tag Archives: Pete Buttigieg

Will there be a Brokered Democratic Convention?

  ,
Leave a comment

by Daveda Gruber:

It appears that there is no clear frontrunner in the Democratic race for the leadership of the party.

The Iowa caucuses are less than six weeks away and there is no outright favorite. In more than a half of a century we have not seen a convention that goes beyond a first ballot but we may see it happen.

If this first ballot does not work out, and it certainly looks like that is a possibility,  we will see a brokered or contested convention.

The last time that either of the major party nominating conventions went past a first ballot was 1952. In that year Adlai Stevenson won the Democratic nomination on the third ballot.

Kathy Sullivan, the Democratic National Committee member from New Hampshire, recently said, “It could happen, it would be exciting to see it go past the first ballot because it would be so unusual.”

Sullivan added, “It’s been a long, long, long time since there’s been a second ballot at a Democratic convention.”

Even if the possibility of a brokered convention is not a strong possibility, conditions in this race could possibly lead to no candidate holding a clear majority of delegates when they head into the July Democratic convention in Milwaukee.

Here’s where the electoral college comes into play. We’ve all heard about superdelegates. These delegates are the party elders and insiders. But the superdelegates were stripped of their power in the 2016 primary battle. After all, Hillary Clinton was destined to win, if only in the minds of the Democrats.

This upcoming election does not have a presumed frontrunner so the superdelegates could become important and their powers would be activated.

They would be free to boost the candidates of their choosing. Their choice is not an easy task. Who could possibly beat the incumbent, President Trump? None, as far as I can see.

The top tier consists of four candidates. They are former Vice President Joe Biden, Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

The donors to the Democrats are a diverse group. Sanders, Warren and even a long shot candidate like tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang could see their campaigns funded by people-powered donations into the primary process.

Online contributions are interfering with the once powerful wealthy donors  who still back more establishment candidates and those candidates would be Biden or possibly Buttigieg.

Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg and environmental advocate Tom Steyer are pouring hundreds of millions of their own money into their own campaigns. That alone could keep them going if they can manage to hang in the race long enough.

If three or four contenders are still standing when heading into April, they would all fall short of the 1,919 delegates that are needed to clinch the nomination on the first ballot.

Sullivan explained, “You’d have to have a situation where multiple candidates come out of the first four states with wins. You’d go into Super Tuesday and have some candidates concentrating in certain states, others in other states, because it’s very expensive to run in all the states on Super Tuesday. Not all the candidates can afford to do that.”

She went on to say, “So if we come out of Super Tuesday with no clear leader and then it becomes a state-by-state contest and then we end up in New York towards the end of April. If after that point we still don’t have [a clear leader], then yes, it goes to the convention and conceivably a second ballot.”

Democratic governors, senators, representatives, former high-ranking lawmakers and leading party officials, who make up the superdelegates, all backed their favorite candidate, Clinton, in 2016.

But after the 2016 election, the DNC pulled back the influence of superdelegates because of the anger of Sanders and his army of progressive supporters.

Now, the superdelegates are only unbound if the convention reaches a second round.

Then there is another scenario.

If one of the candidate gets strong in the early states, the nomination race could be over pretty fast.

In 2004 when then Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts wrapped his nomination early.

If the battle between the candidates goes to a second ballot in Milwaukee, Sullivan maintains that we shouldn’t expect to see a repeat of the contested conventions from the history books.

Sullivan said, “People refer to brokered conventions, which leads you to think of people in smoke-filled rooms making deals, cutting deals. I don’t think you’re going to see deal-making going on because all these people [delegates] are free agents. It would be a very democratic process.”

A Democratic process? Is she suggesting that the 2016 process wasn’t? No, Clinton was the clear choice for everyone in the party even if they cheated Sanders out of it.

Unfortunately for them, they were all wrong. They backed their candidate without any thought that Trump would or could defeat their choice for president.

Personally, I believe Trump will be the winner no matter who the Democrats put up against him.

If I were a Democrat, which I am not, I’d be panicking about now.

New Poll Shows These Candidates Leading

 
Leave a comment

by Daveda Gruber:

A new national poll shows who is leading the still large group of Democrats in the race to become the presidential nominee for 2020.

In a NPR PBS News Hour Marist poll released on Monday which was conducted by Public Opinion Director Lee Miringoff, former Vice President Joe Biden is at 24 percent and Bernie Sanders D-VT, at 22 percent in the polling of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independent voters. The numbers are within the survey’s sampling error.

The poll was conducted between December 9th and 11th, with 1,508 registered voters nationwide, which included 704 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents. They were questioned by live telephone operators. The margin of error for questions on the Democratic presidential primary is plus or minus 5.4 percentage points.

Other candidates are Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth is at 17 percent after slipping slightly in the poll. South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who was a long-shot climbed to 13 percent support.

Tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang is at 5 percent and Senator Cory Booker  D-NJ., Senator Amy Klobuchar D-MN., and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg all at 4 percent.

Senator Michael Bennet D-CO, Representative Tulsi Gabbard D-HI, and former Obama housing secretary and former San Antonio, Texas Mayor Julian Castro are all at 1 percent.

All other candidate else registered at less than 1 percent.

The next debate is scheduled for December 19, 2019 at 9:00 PM at Gersten Pavilion at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California.

The field is large and diverse but the question in most American’s minds is can anyone of these candidates beat President Trump.

What say you? Can a Democratic candidate beat Trump?

Bernie Sanders: Gun Buybacks Unconstitutional?

  ,
Leave a comment

by Daveda Gruber:

On Sunday Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who is fighting to be the 2020 presidential nominee, gave his views on gun control.

At a green jobs town hall in Charles City, Iowa, during a question and answer period, Sanders was given a question about mandatory gun buybacks, specifically AR15s and AK47s.

Sanders replied, “I don’t support ˗˗˗a mandatory buyback is essentially confiscation, which I think is unconstitutional. It means that I am going to walk into your house and take something whether you like it or not. I don’t think that stands up to constitutional scrutiny.”

Sander does have a plan of his own to control gun ownership. He plans to take a strong stance against the National Rifle Association. Sanders wants to increase background checks and he wants to see assault weapons.

Sanders went on to say, “We cannot allow the NRA to dictate policy because they’ve intimidated [President] Trump and they’ve intimidated the Republican party. I’m not going to be intimidated by them.”

Recently another 2020 Democratic candidate, Beto (Robert Francis) O’Rourke made mandatory gun buybacks or confiscation, whichever way you want to say it, a center point of his campaign.

Considering that O’Rourke dropped out of the race, that policy of buybacks, red flag laws, and a national registry, didn’t seem to be a winning policy.

Before O’Rourke withdrew from the race, he stated that police officers would have to enforce the buybacks and enter private homes to carry out the confiscation.

Really? I’m pretty much certain that our brave men in blue didn’t want to have to face this type of a law that O’Rourke would have implemented.

South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg took the same stance as Sanders in saying that buybacks are the same as confiscation.

Two other presidential candidates, Senator Cory Booker D-NJ., and Senator Kamala Harris D-Calif., support the buyback plan.

Folks, taking away our second amendment is never a good idea. Once citizens of any country lose a right, it’s not easy to get it back. As a matter of fact, a right is nearly impossible to get back once it is made unlawful.

Food Faux Pas?

  ,
Leave a comment

by Daveda Gruber:

We know possible presidential candidates are under scrutiny when they are out in public, actually President Trump was closely watched as he ate steak in a New York restaurant.

It appears that Democratic presidential candidate South Bend, Indiana, mayor Pete Buttigieg eats cinnamon rolls. How he eats them seems to offend some people.

Trump likes his steak cooked well done and it has been noted that he puts ketchup on his meat. There are those who find this appalling.

Lindsey Graham has been cited for eating too many pancakes in a stack and John Kasich was mocked for eating pizza with a knife and fork.

The 37 year old Buttigieg cut his cinnamon roll into small pieces and then proceeded to eat it in small cut portions like a chicken wing. Yes, he used both hands to hold his tiny potion of the roll.

Recently, at a Ruby’s Restaurant in Decorah, Iowa, Buttigieg made a food faux pas when he bit into his cinnamon roll.

Buttigieg’s way of eating food has caused the picture of him eating to go viral.

A Twitter user tweeted this:

Some of the responses were downright hysterical. Take a peek:

Okay, I’ve had my fun for the day, at least for now.

Does it bother you that people don’t always eat the same way that you eat?

I’ll tell you a little secret. It bothers me when I see someone cutting up their spaghetti. It wasn’t meant to be eaten that way. Maybe I should tweet that?

Which Democrat Will be Next to Drop Out of the Race?

 
Leave a comment

by Daveda Gruber:

As time goes on, the group of presidential runners for the Democratic nomination is slowly shrinking. The next person to be stepping out of the race will most likely be the man who had a Spartacus moment earlier this year.

Senator Cory Booker’s D-NJ., campaign manager, Addisu Demissie, sent out a memo to staffers that warned that Booker must raise an additional $1.7 million by the end of the third quarter of fundraising, which is only 10 days away. If this can’t be done, Booker’s campaign will not have a “legitimate long-term path forward.”

Two sources have allegedly explained that the memo was leaked to NBC News and for good reason. There is now an ongoing effort to spark a rise in fundraising over the next ten days.

Booker tweeted this:

On Saturday morning a campaign memo was sent to political reporters.

The memo reads, “This isn’t an end-of-quarter stunt or another one of those memos from a campaign trying to spin the press. This is a real, unvarnished look under the hood of our operation at a level of transparency unprecedented in modern presidential campaigns.”

Booker had built an intimidating operation in the early voting primary and caucus states. Large staff on the ground in Iowa, New Hampshire, and other early voting states is rather expensive to maintain.

Demissie has warned that while the campaign can continue at its current size and strength,  it does need more funding if it wants to expand to what it needs to be.

Demissie wrote in the memo, “If our campaign is not in a financial position to grow, he’s not going to continue to consume resources and attention that can be used to focus on beating Donald Trump, which needs to be everyone’s first priority.”

Booker launched his run for president early in February and qualified for the third and fourth round Democratic presidential primary debates.

The New Jersey Senator raised 4.5 million in the April-June second quarter of fundraising. That many sound like a lot but it actually is far behind former Vice President, Joe Biden; Senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders; Senator from Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren; and South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

But Booker has also struggled in polling. He averages in the low to mid-single digits, which is far behind the top-tier contenders who are former Vice President Joe Biden and Senators  Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

From what I see, one of these top three will be the Democratic nominee.

How Much Does Buttigieg Want to Spend on Public Health Care?

 
Leave a comment

by Daveda Gruber:

Democratic presidential candidates have been promising a lot of free stuff this election season. After all, the voting public want things that don’t cost them anything, right?

On Thursday, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg, got right into the thick of free stuff and announced his $1.5 trillion public option health care plan.

Buttigieg calls his plan “Medicare-for-all who want it.” Mayor Pete said that he would balance the rather large price tag with “cost savings and corporate tax reform to ensure big corporations pay their fair share.”

The comments from Buttigieg were very clear in an op-ed that he wrote in “The Washington Post.”

The first openly gay candidate wrote, “Rather than flipping a switch and kicking almost 160 million Americans off their private insurance, including 20 million seniors already choosing private plans within Medicare, my plan lets Americans keep a private plan if they want to. If private insurers are unable or unwilling to offer better plans than they do today, competition from this public alternative will naturally lead to Medicare-for-all.”

Buttigieg’s plan differs from the health care plans of his fellow Democratic candidates. The plans that Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts would all but spell the end of private health insurance. The cost to the federal government is allegedly estimated to be an extra $32 trillion over a decade.

Buttigieg also said that his plan would cap marketplace premiums for Americans on private insurance at 8.5% of a person’s income.

Buttigieg tweeted this out:

Along with this rather expensive plan, earlier in September Buttigieg released his climate proposal that could cost between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion over the next ten years.

Yes folks that’s trillion with a big “T”.

Dems Want Health Care for Illegal Migrants – Which Candidate is Not Eligible?

  ,
Leave a comment

by Daveda Gruber:

Another evening of Democratic debates was watched on millions of TV screens across America. Part two of the first time the candidates stood at podiums on a stage and debated was aired for all to watch. But no one has mentioned that one of the candidates is not eligible to run for the presidency.

Democratic presidential hopefuls went far left when they agreed that they would support healthcare for illegal immigrants. They also support no deportations of illegal migrants whose only offense is being undocumented and they want to decriminalize crossing the southern border illegally.

NBC anchor Savannah Guthrie asked the candidates, who were lined up on the stage, if their universal health care plans would include “undocumented immigrants.”

The candidates on the stage, who represent about one half of the candidates running for the party 2020 nomination, all raised their hands in unity.

The candidates seen last night include former Vice President Joe Biden; Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif.;  Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.; Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-NY.; Eric Swalwell, D-U.S. Representative for California’s 15th congressional district since 2013; Pete Buttigieg D- mayor of South Bend, Indiana, since 2012; Michael Bennet, D-CO.; John Hickenlooper D- 42nd Governor of Colorado from 2011 to 2019; Andrew Yang, D-businessman; and Marianne Williamson, D-author.

President Trump was apparently watching TV in Japan. He tweeted this:

The president was not the only one who had those thoughts. The New York Post put out the paper and on the front page was an image of the candidates raising their hands and a question was asked: “Who wants to lose the election?”

No one was safe from the mud-slinging. Even Obama was criticized by Harris for allowing the deportation of illegal immigrants she described as “non-criminals.”

Harris said, “On this issue I disagreed with my president because the policy was to allow deportation of people who by [Immigration and Customs Enforcement]’s own definition were non-criminals.”

She went on to say that she told sheriffs they did not have to comply with ICE detainers when she served as California attorney general.

The former Obama Vice President, Biden was asked if he would deport “an individual living in the United States without documents” if that was their only offense.

Biden answered only “if they committed a major crime” should they be deported. It is not clear what constitutes a “major crime.”

Biden was asked the question again and he said, “That person should not be the focus of deportation.”

“We should fundamentally change the way we deal with things,” Biden said.

The Center for Immigration Studies, Mark Krikorian, responded to the statements by accusing Democrats of wanting to essentially abolish U.S. federal immigration law.

Krikorian tweeted this:

There was another question asked by one of the moderators and the answer was given by candidates with a show of hands.

Candidates were asked if they supported making crossing the border illegally a civil, rather than a criminal, offense.

Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., did not raise his hand and former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper hesitated.

Biden, on the other hand, asked to clarify but then said that the “first thing I would do is unite families. He added that he would “surge billions of dollars worth of help to the region, immediately.”

This group of Democrats have hopes of being the leader of the free world, as POTUS.

What I saw was a group of people trying to beat each other up and threw into the mix that they thought President Trump was a terrible leader and that they could beat him in a run for the presidency.

Also, as many of you know, I research my work. After going through the list of potential presidential candidates, I had to open my eyes wide and see that one of the candidates allegedly, does not legally qualify to be president.

Yes, really. Michael Farrand Bennet is an American businessman, lawyer, and politician serving as the senior United States Senator from Colorado since 2009. A member of the Democratic Party, he was appointed to the seat when Senator Ken Salazar became Secretary of the Interior.

He was born on  November 28, 1964 (age 54 years) in, get this, NEW DELHI, INDIA.

The president is constitutionally required to be natural born, but foreign-born Senators need only nine years of U.S. citizenship to qualify for office.

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States shall be eligible to the Office of President.

The Twelfth Amendment states that “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice President of the United States.

I’ve discovered that we have an ineligible Democratic contender. Why has no one else discovered this? Fact checking is important.

Stay tuned. Who knows what I’ll uncover next.