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Sunday, March 22, 2020
Saturday, March 21, 2020
Please Joe pick her
Progressive group's analysis finds Stacey Abrams is Biden's best choice. Here’s why.
March 20, 2020, 6:00 AM EDT / Updated March 20, 2020, 9:06 AM EDT
WASHINGTON — Stacey Abrams would be the strongest running mate for Joe Biden in the November election against President Donald Trump, according to an analysis by a progressive think tank.
Way to Win, a women-led network of deep-pocketed donors, commissioned Data for Progress to look into potential vice presidential picks after Super Tuesday, when Biden ran up an imposing delegate lead over Sen. Bernie Sanders.
The think tank, whose polls of presidential primary contests this year have been highly regarded for their accuracy, conducted an online survey of 4,998 likely voters across the country on March 12 to gauge how potential Democratic tickets would fare against Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.
The group tested five buzzed-about potential options: Abrams and Sens. Kamala Harris of California, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Cory Booker of New Jersey (Biden has since committed to picking a woman).
Data for Progress founder Sean McElwee wrote in a memo analyzing the findings that Abrams performed uniquely well across a range of demographic groups, including both independent voters and core Democratic constituencies whose lower-than-expected turnout in 2016 hurt Hillary Clinton.
"A Biden–Abrams ticket would beat a Trump-Pence ticket and perform competitively with other hypothetical tickets, while also over performing with key groups that constitute the Democratic Party's base," McElwee wrote.
Really...
While a hypothetical Biden-Warren ticket performed slightly better among young voters, a Biden-Abrams pairing was not far behind and tied with a Biden-Klobuchar ticket among independent voters (a weaker spot for Warren). But most notably, a Biden-Abrams ticket was the strongest of the options among black voters and women of color.
Biden did well among black voters in the Democratic primaries, but 2016 showed that doesn't necessarily translate to November, said Tory Gavito, executive director of Way to Win.
"Primary voters are your regular voters. If it was church, those are people who show up every Sunday. We need to figure out how to get new people in the pews," Gavito said.
Abrams is the least well known of the potential candidates, but her favorability ratings improved more than those of some other potential candidates after survey respondents were given short bios of each, which included both positive and negative points.
The memo also raised concerns about picking any senator, even from relatively blue states like Minnesota or Nevada (Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada has also been discussed as a potential option), because doing so might give Republicans a chance to win the seat or could, at a minimum, leave the seat vacant during the critical early days of a new administration, when every Democratic vote in the Senate might be crucial.
"Other hypothetical tickets raise significant concerns about control of the Senate," the memo states. "There are even risks for Biden picking Warren to run as his vice president. The governor of Massachusetts is Charlie Baker, a Republican, who will have the power to appoint a replacement for Warren until a special election takes place."
Gavito said that the choice of a running mate will be unusually important this year and that Biden needs not to repeat Clinton's mistake of choosing someone whose main role is to essentially do no harm (she chose Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia in 2016).
"Historically, folks will tell you the VP pick is less important. I think we are not in a typical historic moment," Gavito told NBC News. "When it comes to what it takes to win, we have to balance the ticket with gender, ideological, geographic, racial and generational diversity.
Friday, March 20, 2020
Our virtuous leaders
U.S. Senators Sold Stock After Coronavirus Briefings in January
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Four U.S. senators sold stock after receiving sensitive briefings in late January about the emerging threat of the coronavirus, sparking concerns that they put safeguarding their private finances before their duty to protect public health.
Senator Richard Burr, a Republican from North Carolina, and Kelly Loeffler, a Republican from Georgia, both completed their sales at a time when the Trump administration and GOP leaders were downplaying the potential damage the virus might cause in the U.S. and before drastic stock-market plunges set off by the pandemic.
Burr is chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which receives frequent briefings about threats facing the country, and has experience responding to public-health crises. Loeffler – who was appointed to her seat in December after Senator Johnny Isakson announced that he was resigning because of health problems – is married to the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, Jeffrey Sprecher.
Two other members of the Intelligence Committee, Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California, and Senator James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, also sold stock after the briefings, according to financial records.
Loeffler did not make any sales from Jan. 6 until Jan. 24 -- the day the health committee she sits on held a briefing that included presentations from top level U.S. public-health officials including Dr. Anthony Fauci.
She and her husband began selling 27 stocks on Jan. 24, according to her financial disclosure form, including investments in Auto Zone and Ross Stores, worth millions of dollars. Loeffler’s stock sales were first reported by the Daily Beast.
Loeffler responded on Twitter by calling criticism of her stock sales “a ridiculous and baseless attack.” The tweet said “I do not make investment decisions for my portfolio. Investment decisions are made by multiple third-party advisors without my or my husband’s knowledge or involvement.”
Burr sold 33 stocks on Feb. 13, according to his financial disclosure form, with a total value between $628,000 and $1.7 million. His stock sales were first reported by ProPublica. Three of the assets he sold were in hotel companies, which have seen their value plummet as the coronavirus threat has drastically curtailed travel.
His office said that his sales were unrelated to any information he received by virtue of his position as intelligence committee chairman.
“Senator Burr filed a financial disclosure form for personal transactions made several weeks before the U.S. and financial markets showed signs of volatility due to the growing coronavirus outbreak,” a Burr spokesperson said in a statement. “As the situation continues to evolve daily, he has been deeply concerned by the steep and sudden toll this pandemic is taking on our economy.”
With the virus now spreading, its death toll rising and the global economy reeling, news of the stock sales brought angry calls for Burr to resign.
“As Intel chairman,” Burr “got private briefings about coronavirus weeks ago,” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York tweeted. “Burr knew how bad it would be. He told the truth to his wealthy donors while assuring the public that we were fine.”
“THEN he sold off $1.6 million in stock before the fall. He needs to resign,” she added. According to NPR, Burr told a private group in late February that the virus could present a greater economic danger than had been publicly discussed.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson also called for Burr’s resignation.
Feinstein made transactions on Jan. 31 and Feb. 18, selling between $1.5 million and $6 million worth of shares in Allogene Therapeutics, a biotech company. Inhofe sold $400,000 worth of stock on Jan. 27, including PayPal and the real estate company Brookfield Asset Management.
Wonder what we don't know?
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