Their Ideal Candidate
Look The Bulwark: Your favorite Dems are unelectable in national elections, and you should stop fawning over them.
This is going to be more bagging on the Never Trumpers at The Bulwark.
One thing they do their circular onanism over is how much they love their centrist Democrats. Abigail Spanberger, Mickie Sherrill, Josh Shapiro, Wes Moore are their absolute favorites.
But these centrist, middling pols are not really fit for purpose, as they are "pragmatic" and "unoffensive" to those who have a conservative leaning (like the Never Trump folks who staff The Bulwark).
I was walking my dog this morning, and I fired up the recording of The Secret podcast that was perfomed live at their show Saturday Night in NYC[1], and about half way through, they began their common grouse that the Democrats aren't being very "effective" at messaging.
Actually, they were whinging about how the Democrats that they like are so bad at messaging. The examples were how both Mickie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger were playing it "safe" and (likely) listening to their consultants who are no doubt advising them to not be too avant garde in their messaging and that "a win is a win" because you have to work with these people and going full edgelord Meme-fied is undignified.
Then, they gave a nod to the Democrats that are stepping up to the moment. That are messaging correctly. That are bringing the heat.
Wanna guess who they are?
Gavin Newsom, Zohran Mamdani, AOC, and Bernie Sanders.
Of course, they don't want those Dems to be in the race. They just want their tame centrists who happen to share their fucked up policy preferences that were part of the path to where we are.
Look, Mickie, Abigail, Wes, Josh, and even the Big Gretch aren't gonna fight fire with fire. And if you can't get on-board with Newsom[2] or one of the others who can go toe-to-toe with the MAGA intelligentsia, then you are backing the losing horse.
All this to remind myself that while I am glad that the Bulwark exists, and that it is anti-MAGA and anti-Trump, they are not really our friends, and the Dems cannot take policy or candidate advice from them.
Period.
(Needed to get that off my chest)
1 - Sorry, it is behind the paywall, you're gonna have to take my word for it
2 - Newsom, even though he's my Governor, is not my cup of tea either. But if he is the one that can break through, so be it. I do know that Josh Shapiro will get beaten like a rented mule in a nationwide election.
