NEW AMERICA SURVEY

On Thursday, I posted a draft letter to Florida Man Ron DeSantis, governor of the Sunshine State. The letter was copied liberally (progressively? extremistly?) from a letter my husband received from DeSantis; it asked for opinions on the state of the country, and of course, for a generous donation. 

Today, I'm sharing a revised survey, modeled very closely after the one My Sweet Baboo received from DeSantis. I'm sending my letter and the survey off to Tallahassee, with a return envelope so he can send his reply and his most generous donation to me to help return Sane Americans to power across the land.

Sane Americans

NEW AMERICA SURVEY

REGISTERED TO: 

Gov. Ron DeSantis

400 S. Monroe St.

Tallahassee, FL 32399-0001 

Registered Survey Number: 8675309 RWNJ O8iCuR12

**HELP SAVE OUR COUNTRY *** HELP SAVE OUR COUNTRY**

Survey Instructions: Please answer each question in the survey. Once you have completed your survey, please seal it in the envelope provided along with your special gift of $5,000, $2,900, $1,000, $500, $250, $100, $50, or even $35 to Veritable Pastiche and return immediately.

For EACH question, select from the following responses.

a. Damn Straight, Skippy!

b. HELL to the NO!

c. I'm clueless on this one

SECTION ONE: The Conservative Media, Small Government, and Free Speech

1. Do you believe the Conservative Media, Hollywood D-listers, and the extremist Right-wing Nut Jobs are hostile to Sane Americans? ___

2. Do you believe the "small government" extremist Right-wing Nut Jobs are hostile to people who care enough to think themselves? ___

3. Do you believe the biased Conservative Media is: unfair to Sane Americans, reports bald-faced lies as facts; are enemies of our Great Country; and are friends of our enemies? ___

4. Do you believe that "small government" extremist Right-wing Nut Jobs and their political correctness are ruining our Great Country? ___

5. Do you believe that forcing women to have children, arresting them for leaving their states to receive medical care, allowing professionals - including doctors - to refuse service to people they don't like, 'cancelling' American companies, and instigating an insurrection against our Capitol are "small government" principles? ___

6. Do you support the collective efforts of the Small Government extremist Right-wing Nut Jobs and their Conservative Media Partners to tear down our Country and promote foreign dictators? ___

SECTION TWO: The Right-wing Nut Job Agenda

7. Do you believe true Republicans are caving to the demands of the extremist Right-wing Nut Jobs who control the GOP, and they all refuse to work with Democrats and the President? __

8.  Do you support the extremist Right-wing Nut Jobs and their "small government" efforts to steal our freedoms and bring authoritarian rule to America? ___

9. Do you support the extremist Right-wing Nut Jobs and their fight to allow elections to be overturned if they don't win, their continued promotion of The Big Lie - that the 2020 election was stolen - and their loyalty to their chosen leader, Donald Trump, over their oath to protect and defend our Great Country? ___

10. Do you support allowing individual parents to try and control what is taught to all children in public schools? ___

11. Do you support taking taxpayer money from public schools and using it to pay for tuition at private schools - including religious schools? ___

SECTION THREE: Sane American Priorities 

12. Do you favor having all people – the living breathing ones, and the bricks-and-mortar or web-only ones that most Sane Americans realize are not people too – pay their fair share of taxes to support our Great Country and promote our American ideals and values? ___

13. Do you support Sane American efforts that are reasonable, bipartisan, and aggressive, t0 fully address all the immigration issues we face? ___

14. Do you support Sane American efforts to stop spending on new programs until we first ensure existing programs for supporting Americans in their efforts at achieving their American Dream are accessible, working as designed, and not riddled with fraud? ___

15. Do you support Sane American efforts to level the tax collection playing field by:

• taxing income without all the 'social engineering' deductions that most Americans enjoy; 
• removing the special tax and accounting rules that allow the richest Americans and multi-billion-dollar corporations to skirt their responsibilities; 
• and fully funding the IRS to identify tax fraud and recoup the nearly trillion dollars in taxes that go uncollected each year? ___

16. Do you support Sane American priorities, including: 

• accessible, affordable health care for all; accessible, affordable health insurance for all, including a public option; 
• the freedom to control your own body; freedom to seek health care outside your state's borders; 
• fair trade agreements that position American consumers as the primary beneficiaries;
• regulatory policies that prioritize protecting Americans and not picking corporate winners and losers; 
• education policies that work for all Americans, prepare them for the future, and better position us in the global economy; 
• a strong military, but one that does not necessitate dangerously limiting necessary social programs; 
• and a secure Homeland, protected from foreign AND domestic threats? ___

17. Will you support Veritable Pastiche’s campaign to win back Sane American majorities in both the House and Senate, elect more Sane American governors, and win sweeping victories up and down the ballot in the next election? __

SURVEY CERTIFICATION AND REPLY

Thank you, Governor DeSantis, for fighting back against the extremist, Right-wing Nut Jobs and their Conservative Media allies. I want to stop the RWNJs from building their Extremist New America, with less individual liberty for Sane Americans, and I know this survey will be a great first stop in the process. 

And thank you, Governor DeSantis, for your most generous contribution of $5,000, $2,900, $1,000, $500, $250, $100, $50, or even $35 to Veritable Pastiche. I promise you, this money will be put to good use immediately as we move ahead to bring more sanity to our Great Country!

NOTICE: Contributions to Veritable Pastiche 

are not deductible for federal income tax purposes. 

Please make your personal checks payable to Veritable Pastiche. 

Thank you.

Sincerely, and sanely,

Veritable Pastiche

Dear Democrats: Can We Talk?

You might not remember me, but I was one of you for decades, up until 2019. If you're interested, here's why I left you. And even if you don't care about me anymore, I still care about you - and I have to say this:

You will officially, completely screw things up 

if you don't get your heads out of the clouds, 

out of the sand, out of the weeds, and out of your caucus,

 and start paying attention. 

Here are some things I think you need to understand, from a person who always votes - but not always for you.

1. Joe Biden won the election, and you hold the majorities in DC, but you've never had a mandate. Biden got more votes not because of his policies, but because so many people who voted for him did so because they despised Donald Trump. I'd guess maybe as much as 30% of his votes came from us - yep, I'm one of them. 

Whether you remember this or not, we remember that Joe Biden was the nominee because the other candidates could not beat Trump. We were sick of Trump, and voted accordingly. But we also remember that the progressives were not hitting it out of the park in the primaries, because most people are not as progressive as you wanted us to be. 

Successfully denying Trump a second term while holding less than 51% of both the House and the Senate do not a legislative mandate make. Any thinking to the contrary is both foolish and foolhardy.

2. You act like a presidential term lasts only from Inauguration Day to Veterans Day. As a result, you prioritize everything equally, which means you prioritize nothing. 

To you, everything is an existential threat. Child Care. Universal pre-k. Climate. Broadband. Voting rights. Billionaires. Health insurance. Student loan debt. Drug prices. Corporate profits. Defunding the Police. Free college. You name it, it's an existential threat - except maybe immigration. You seem to have forgotten about that. 

But are these really threats to our very existence as a country? Are these really threats to the continuation of humanity? Arguably, the only one that meets that level is climate change; the others do not. That doesn't mean they aren't all important - but thinking you must solve all of them at once, coupled with your inability to prioritize them, is ridiculous. 

3.You throw everything you can think of into every bill. We are sick of that, frankly, whether it's you or the other guys doing it. Not to mention, it jeopardizes your chances of getting anything passed. 

Look, I get it. The tent is big, and everyone's got lofty goals and good intentions - but that's a foolish way to legislate.  Need an example? How's this one: what do a code of ethics for Supreme Court justices, requiring candidates for House, Senate, and the Presidency to release ten years of income tax returns, and public financing of campaigns have to do with my right to cast a ballot? Absolutely nothing.

We are not stupid. We know, and you do too, that those provisions were drafted because you wanted to stick it to Trump for not releasing his taxes, because you're mad about how blatantly chummy and political some of the Supremes are, and because you've long wanted to get the other guy's money out of the mix. 

We also know those things will make it nearly impossible to get a voting rights bill passed and signed.

4. You think all elections are a reflection of national politics, and you try and make them so. 

• Look at this ad the Virginia Dems ran against Glenn Youngkin. Why even mention Trump at all?  

• Or, this mailer placed by the New York State Dems against my mayor in Syracuse. No one's ever accused him of any affinity or affiliation with the Proud Boys - no one, until the Dems did. What the actual hell were they thinking?

Where do the state parties get those ideas? Are they getting them from the national parties, or from the various campaign committees? Even if they pull this stuff out of thin air, it's got to stop. 

5. You don't treat voters - particularly your own voters - with respect.

There've long been complaints that you only care about voters when you need them, not when they need you - particularly Black voters. And, you treat us as if we can't possibly understand how important your work is, and that our frustration with your inaction is unfounded. 

You're wrong on both counts. We never asked you for perfection, and we don't have the luxury of waiting for you to craft something perfect. We all need something, and we don't have the luxury of watching you accomplish nothing. You will lose us. You're already losing us. 

6. This cannot be overstated: you are horrible messengers.

• You are comfortable talking about what you're against, but not what you're for.
• You're miserable at marketing. Did you really think Defund the Police could hold a candle to Make America Great Again? Do you think it's helpful to hobnob with the rich while wearing a dress emblazoned with "tax the rich" - when the dress is worth more than a year's salary for someone earning $15/hour?
• You're either uncapable of fighting - or unwilling to fight - the lies told by the other side. Critical Race Theory and immigration are perfect examples. Need another? Election fraud, like the allegations in the VA gubernatorial race. 
• You're great at infighting. Progressives, in particular, are adept at attacking moderates and at making it nearly impossible to accomplish anything. The only people who think that's helpful are your GOP counterparts.
• You still haven't found anyone able and willing to get in front of microphones and in the faces of the talking heads and sell me and everyone else that your really understand what matters to us, what you stand for, how that'll help us, and how you're going to accomplish it. I've said it before, but it bears repeating: you need That Democrat, and you needed them way before yesterday.

In closing, I'd like to let you know that I just sent a thank you note to my Republican congressman; it's the second time I've done that in the past couple of months. I let him know that I'll be voting for him in the midterms next year. 

I didn't want to keep that last part from you, because I know I'm not the only one who's going to do that. I'll continue voting for people who understand what matters, regardless of their party affiliation. 

If you want me to vote for you again, I hope you'll take my advice to heart. 

Thanks. 

The Journal of Unpopular Opinions (Chapter 1)

No one in the leadership of the Democratic Party has what it takes to fight the battles the party is facing, much less win those battles. 

No one else in the Democratic Party is standing up to fight those battles.

No one in the Democratic Party will stand up to fight those battles. They're afraid of something, or of someone, or of the several someones in the part leadership. 

Face it: while Nancy Pelosi is considered by many to be a strong Speaker in terms of how she manages her caucus (although, that seems to be open to question these days), she is a horrible advocate for the Democratic Party and its priorities. 

I've shared my, shall we say, 'lack of enthusiasm' for Pelosi in the past, such as here, when she was re-elected Minority Leader in 2016. She lost 63 votes to Ohio's Rep. Tim Ryan, who expressed then the same frustrations as I have today. I suspect Ryan still has them, too.

...my level of frustration came from the idea that we're going to have, for two more years, the same conversation as we've been having since 2010 (when the Dems lost 63 seats and the House majority in the mid-term election).

And I think the level of frustration in our caucus is as great as I've ever seen it. And it's time to do something about it, not just talk about it. Because now we're not even the national party. We're a coastal party. And we've got to move forward. If we're not going to get voters in Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, go back down south. When I first got in Congress, we had members from Tennessee. We've got to go back there and campaign and get those folks back in the fold.

Ryan also talked about how the Dems don't unify the demographics, but "talk about them and treat them as individual groups" and emphasized that they've

... got to get the message right. We've got to have the right messenger. And we've got to have someone who can not just go on MSNBC, but go on Fox and Fox Business and CNBC, and go into union halls and fish frys and churches all over the country and start a brush fire about what a new Democratic Party looks like.

Ryan is now running for the US Senate; he faces a progressive challenger in the primary. Of course, he does - because one thing Dems are good at is fighting each other.

And don't get me started on Chuck Schumer. I've long not been a fan. Here's just one illustration of why: having the Judiciary Committee Dems pull a stupid stunt instead of voting against advancing the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett out of committee. Schumer thought that not showing up was the best way to "not lend a single ounce of legitimacy" to the process. My take? 

Rather than skipping out on the meeting, the adult thing to do would have been to show up, explain one more time for the record why it was the wrong thing for the Judiciary Committee to do, respond to whatever statements the Rs made (instead of just reading their remarkably similar prepared remarks), and then vote against moving the nomination forward. 

Instead, they put pictures of people who benefited from the Affordable Care Act in their chairs, hoping their colleagues on the other side of the aisle would look at those, feel bad, and delay the vote.

This is the leader of the Dems in the Senate? Good grief.

The issues facing the country today - and facing the majority Democrats - have not changed over the past many years. The solutions to those problems are still out there, and they're still not being talked about in a way that will bring us to the solutions we desperately need. 

Who is the Democrat who will stand up and say, "Before we start taxing the super-rich, why don't we make sure that the tax code doesn't contain 50,000 ways to avoid paying taxes? If they don't have to pay the taxes on the books now, what good is adding more going to do?"

Who is the Democrat who will stand up and say, "With literally hundreds of bills that may limit voting rights under consideration around the country, some already passed into law, why on earth are seven of ten articles in our voting rights bill not related to voting?"

Who is the Democrat who will stand up and say, "Do we really want to require banks to report $600 transactions to the IRS? Is that really the best way to find tax avoidance by the wealthy?"

Who is the Democrat who will stand up and say, "Why aren't we doing everything we possibly can to ensure that existing programs for student loan relief and repayment are accessible and working as intended, instead of pushing to eliminate all student debt?"

Who is the Democrat who will stand up and say, "What the hell are we doing, holding up nearly $2 trillion in infrastructure spending? Why aren't we pushing the bipartisan Senate bill through, getting it signed, and putting that to good use right now?"

Who is the Democrat who will stand up and say, "I don't care how we get it done, but we will have a plan - well before December - on the debt ceiling. Period."

Who is the Democrat who will stand up and say, "Where are the problem solvers? They don't have to be Problem Solvers, but we need to solve some problems, and fast."

I desperately want *That* Democrat to exist. The one who knows that getting something is better than getting nothing, the one who knows that trying to get Santa to give you everything you've ever wanted since you were three years old, all at once, is insane. I don't know if he or she even exists, but if *That* Democrat is out there, now is the time to stand up and be heard. Now is the time to read your caucus the riot act. Now is the time to get something done.

What they're doing now is not sustainable, and if they think the shellacking they took in 2010 was bad, wait until they see what happens next year.

Poll Watch: It's My Party (or not)

We all know that it took a broad coalition of voters to elect President Joe Biden. As this Global Risk Insights article pointed out, support came from former GOP elected officials, long-time GOP operatives who voted for Trump in 2016, and from progressive Dems (who probably held their noses when voting). 

Now, some of the Rs who voted Biden/Harris in an anti-Trump move may be open to forming a "fiscally conservative but socially liberal" party - FCSL, I'll call it. And we know that  the former president suggested he might just start a new "Patriot Party," a misnomer, for sure. So, what do we think about the idea of new political parties? 

There are a couple of insightful polls on that, starting with a Gallup poll from earlier this month. First, the small print: randomly dialed phone interviews occurred 1/21- 2/2/21, with minimum quotas of 70% cell/30% landline... 906 adults 18 and older, from all 50 states and DC (412 R/leaning R and 420 D/leaning D) participated; the sampling error is +/- 4% overall, and +/- 6% for party-specific responses. 

Here's the BLOT (bottom line on top), excerpted from the article. 

...appetite for a third party has never been greater in Gallup's nearly two decades of polling on the subject...a majority of Republicans are joining the usual majority of independents in wanting that option... The possibility still exists that a pro-Trump or anti-Trump third party will splinter off...

And, some highlights:

• 62% say the major parties are doing such a poor job that a third party is needed; only 33% feel the parties do an adequate job. In 2003, when the question was first asked, 56% said the parties were doing an adequate job, with 40% saying a third party was needed. 
• All age groups believe a third party is needed, with 77% of the 18-34 group and 55% of the 55+ cohort as the extremes. 
• Ideologically, Independents (70%) who don't really have a home with either party lead the way. Equally unsurprising, more Rs (63%) than Ds (46%) feel left out of their party, and the unhappy R population is up 23 points since September.
• Respondents of all ideologies - conservatives (63%), moderates (63%) and liberals (61%) - aren't feeling the love. That's an interesting challenge for Dems, I think.

Notably, the survey was taken before the start of the president Trump's second impeachment trial, and before there was open talk of officials from previous administrations were talking about forming an anti-Trump party. 

Let's turn to a more recent CBS News/YouGov poll. Small print first, though: a nationally representative sample of 2,508 U.S. residents was interviewed 2/5 - 2/8/21; it was weighted according to gender, age, race, and education based on the American Community Survey... the 2020 presidential vote and registration status. The margin of error is +/- 2.3%.

Here's the BLOT for this one, from the article:

...most still broadly value loyalty to Mr. Trump. Many current Republicans say they might even join a new party headed by Mr. Trump if he were to start one. 

First, here's what folks think about their parties:

• Only 37% of Dems think their party represents them most or all the time; 36% say it almost never or never does. It's even worse for the Rs, with 25% feeling represented most or all the time, and 44% saying almost never or never.
• Republican men and women are united in not feeling the love from their party (42% and 46%, respectively), while Dems are more divided along gender lines. 40% of women feel represented, while 39% of men don't think they are.
• Rs without degrees think better of the party than do those with degrees; 32% of the former feel represented most or all the time, compared to 26% of the latter. It's closer for the Ds: 38% without degrees, and 40% with degrees, think the party represents them most or all the time.

And now, to the fun stuff: 

• 73% of Republicans think it's important (46% saying it's very important) that their guys are loyal to Trump.
• Women (75% total, 49% very important), folks 65 and older (79% total, 59% very important) and those without college degrees (78% total, 52% very important) are the most focused on Trump loyalty.

Loyalty to Trump is important, but it's only motivated 15% of all respondents to go with him if he left the GOP; 20% said maybe, and.65% said no. 

• Conservatives (32%), whites without college degrees (21%), whites (18%) and the 65+ cohort (16%) are the most pro-Trump; that's been the case all along.
• Among the 'maybe I'd join him' cohorts, in addition to the ones above, men (23%), 45-64- year-olds (21%), and Hispanics (20%). Males are the fifth of the pro-Trump groups.
• Least likely to join him? Liberals, of course (8% combined yes/maybe), Blacks (15%), and women, whites with college degrees, and the under-30 crowd (all 31%).

Will Trump loyalists have a new home with him? Will there be a home for FCSLs like me, from the moderate part of both major parties? Trump's speaking to his devotees at CPAC on Sunday - maybe he'll make an announcement that'll give us some insight on all of this. 

I'll leave you with some thoughts from conservative columnist George Will, who's talking about the Trumpian wing of the GOP in his last sentence.

An essential conservative insight about everything is that nothing necessarily endures. Care must be taken. The Republican party will wither if the ascendant Lout Caucus is the face it presents to this nation of decent, congenial people. 

Drop a comment with your thoughts about a new party, or about what the parties can do to more represent "this nation of decent, congenial people."

Sunday School 11/8/20

For today's Sunday School, we had an interesting cast of characters to choose from. Utah's Sen. Mitt Romney was in three classrooms (I've got one of them); House Majority Whip Rep Jim Clyburn of South Carolina was scheduled for two (I've got him, too); and so was Maryland's Republican Gov. Larry Hogan. 

Others wandering around?  My Sonofa Gov Andrew Cuomo; South Dakota Gov Kristi Noem; Stacy Abrams (I've got her) and Sen. Joe Manchin of WVA (I've got him, too). 

Let's start with Clyburn and Abrams and their visits to the CNN State of the Union classroom, with Jake Tapper in the host's chair. Clyburn was asked about the little family feuding going on in the Democratic Party, specifically concerns that the progressives have made it hard for the party by forcing them further and further to the left.

Clyburn noted that he's long not been a fan of sloganeering, and pointed to a conversation he had with the late John Lewis.

John and I sat on the House floor and talked about that 'defund the police' slogan, and both of us concluded that it had the possibilities of doing to the Black Lives Matter movement and current movements across the country what "Burn, baby, burn" did to us back in 1960. We lost that movement over that slogan... and so, we saw the same thing happening here...

We need to work on what makes headway, rather than what makes headlines. 

As they say, "damn straight, Skippy."

In his chat with Stacey Abrams, whom many are crediting with delivering Georgia for Joe Biden, Tapper wondered about Dems and minorities, given that the president made "some inroads" with minority groups himself.

Abrams said, as pretty much every Tom, Dick and Harry has said since last Tuesday, "the Latino community is not a monolith." And while Latinos will be behind Biden's victories in Arizona, Nevada and even Georgia, the key is consistent engagement.

We began early on saying that this is not about black and white; this is about pulling together coalitions of people of color, of the poor, of the disadvantaged, of the marginalized, and being consistent with our engagement, not waiting for an election to meet them, and certainly not waiting until the end of an election to acknowledge their value.

We have been doing this work from the very beginning. But I also want to acknowledge the very strong work of progressive whites who've been working to help build these opportunities as well. We are not a majority-minority country yet. And that means that this is a coalition that has to be built and sustained across racial lines, across demography, across geography, because our mission should be the protection of our democracy and the action of progress for all.

I'll give her a "damn straight, Skippy" as well. 

I picked Meet the Press for my Mitt Romney interview, where Chuck Todd asked him about alleged 'rigged' voting, which the president is alleging. The question, in a nutshell, since we know it's possible that someone might have voted for Joe Biden for president but chose to vote for a Republican for Senate, does Romney think that if one vote on that ballot is 'rigged,' the others could be too.

Well, I think that's a pretty fair point... I think you make an important point, which is a lot of Republicans, a lot of voters, voted for Republicans but did not vote for the president. And that suggests to me that conservative principles are still in the majority in our country.

On that point, Todd mentioned Romney's 12-point win in Cobb County, in the Atlanta suburbs, which was the same margin Biden won by. So, while maybe there are still conservative values, is there a suburban problem for the Rs?

Romney noted that the Ds have their own problems, too. But he did make an interesting point.

...I think if you look at the numbers and look at the pickup that Republicans had in statehouses across the country, in Congress and holding the Senate so far, versus our loss in the presidency, you'd suggest that the presidential race was more a matter of a referendum on a person. And that when it came to policy, we did pretty well.

Back to the suburbs, Romney admitted the Rs have challenges, that they need to do better with young people and minorities, and that he thinks they can get the suburban women back, but "we've got some work to do."

And on whether it's still Donald Trump's Republican Party, Romney said Trump is the most powerful voice in the GOP.

He will have an enormous impact on our party going forward. I believe the great majority of people who voted for Donald Trump want to make sure his principles and his priorities are pursued. So, yeah, I mean, he's not - he's not disappearing by any means. He's the, you know, the 900-pound gorilla when it comes to the Republican Party.

A very angry 900-poung gorilla, it would seem.  

Finally, let's check in with Margaret Brennan's conversation with West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin on Face the Nation. She asked him about the election being a wakeup call for senators, and what president-elect Biden's first order of business should be. 

Manchin said Biden wants to be a president for everyone, and that's exactly what he'll have to do.

Joe Biden got elected in a very, very contested primary, and all the nuances that were thrown on the Democratic Party is not who we are. He was not for any of this stuff. And I think Jim Clyburn said it best, that was an albatross around us. Basically, labeling every Democrat as a socialist or supporting socialism, that's not who we are. It's not who I am. It's not how we were raised. And it hurt a lot of good Democrats in rural America, Montana, for one. Other places around the country.

Brennan wondered about West Virginia going "ruby red" for Trump and wondered why the Dem's message break through there. It wasn't a good message he said, because the Dems had been tagged as socialists before they even had a chance to "remind people who we are."

Here is the thing, four years ago in rural America, in America in general, voted for Donald Trump because Democrats were mad, independents were mad. They thought they'd been left behind...They went from being mad to being scared in 2020. They were scared of this socialism that was thrown out there by a radical part of the so-called left that was throwing all this out, that basically scared the bejesus out of people and that hung on and hung on strongly. And it's not who we are. It is not who we are and it's not what we're about. And I have fought against that. Joe Biden has fought against that. We're not for New Green Deal. We're not for all the things that he's talked about, Medicare for all. We can't even pay for Medicare for some. We've got to take care of a lot of things.

Manchin took pains to separate Biden from the Green New Deal, when Brennan pushed on that. He said Biden's plan is all-inclusive and that we have to remain energy independent

To have the most powerful nation on earth, we can't be dependent on foreign-- on any foreigners-- foreign countries for our energy sources.

Innovation, not elimination, he believes. And he talks like Biden is on the same page with him.

Finally, Brennan wondered what the Biden administration would be able to get done, and whether the message from the election is that the Dems need to be moderate.

Manchin said he's always been moderate, and that he'd encourage his fellow Dems to "find the middle" if they can. He said they're not going to be able to govern "from the extremes or from the fringes" and, he added, 

... I've always said I'm fiscally responsible and socially compassionate. I believe most Americans are, my moderate Republican friends and the moderate Democrats. We've got to govern from that middle, that moderate middle. Joe Biden has always been there. He knows how to work across the aisle. He'll reach out first and make this Senate work and give it every chance he can... There'll be more and more crossing over wanting to work in a more moderate, moderate Senate. I really believe that.

Brennan was skeptical, and she didn't offer a "damn straight, Skippy" to Manchin. But I will. And I'll have more on the moderates vs. progressives stuff as things unfold. 

See you around campus. Keep your sense of optimism, keep your sense of joy, keep your happy feet moving - but listen to me when I tell you, keep your masks on. We're depending on you. 

The Update Desk: Just Say No, Joe

Back in September 2015, when Joe Biden was agonizing over mounting a primary challenge against Hillary Clinton, I wrote a post suggesting that he not do it.

I thought he shouldn't, for a number of reasons including these.

Beyond the personal issues, he's contemplating going up against the Clinton Machine, and the money, and the full wrath and fury that will come to anyone who seriously challenges her as the campaign goes on. She's playing softball now, with Bernie Sanders, and ignoring Marty O'Malley and Lincoln Chafee altogether (as is just about everyone else). But when push comes to shove, this kinder, gentler, softer haired Hillary will go by the wayside - it's only a matter of time.

Biden, not even in the race, is polling very well. But great polling numbers aside, I think it's too late and the public agonizing, while honest and transparent, would end up hurting, not helping him. Sadly, in this day and age, any political operative (from either party) who failed to turn some of those musings into anti-Joe soundbites would surely lose their job.

And, I think his entering the race would have been more meaningful and successful with Beau as trusted adviser, closest confidant, head cheerleader, and political compass than it would with Beau as the one who, by his absence, looms larger than life over his dad's shoulder...

Please, Joe - be selfish, for yourself and your family. Just say no. 

And here we are again with headlines telling us that our Papa Joe is agonizing about getting into the 2020 race, at the age of 78, against what's looking like a pretty big - and relatively young - field of generally progressive opponents.