Bob, many years ago while I was at CBS, “top management” hired McKinsey to see if we could do better. It was awful. In came these people, who I labled brown shirters, who knew nothing about the broadcast business. and I ushered one of them out of St.Louis where I was the V.P./G.M. of the CBS owned station, because he was “counseling” with the news department to "improve the news", which was on it’s way to becoming #1 and did. His “brown shirt” was full of air.
Tom Battista
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Famous words by Rob Tyner of the MC5 brother, either your part of the problem or part of the solution. Ramalamafafa!!!!
John Green
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Having a Millennial run the show IS change. Not to mention that it would be nice to have a president who is not on the front page every day... Take over congress and let them push the change agenda.
Mike Beuselinck
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Amidst all the corporate & top end shuffling at WB records in the ‘90’s McKinsey came in...they did a bunch of inside focus groups. Bean counter invasion, the beginning of the end.
Steve Tipp
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and pick your ace all over again and Mayor Pete can move mountains....even with his sordid white privilege background of Maroon and McKinsey. Remember there are two sides here - good and bad and Mayor will trample the bad. In so so many ways.
Coffee is hot. Take a big inhale and get on board. Maybe there is a hip hop
Option in there for you somewhere as well. Gotta keep learning and expanding....probably your words.
Scott Tavis
Management Consultant
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"...most people are pissed the bankers did not pay for breaking the economy back in 2008." The mere mention of this apparently radioactive topic is anathema to the US media.
"Look at the Arab Spring, started by a fruit vendor!" Thanks for your efforts to educate Americans. Also, the conflagration in Syria was started by a few teenagers painting graffiti on a few walls. Your right about tipping points when systems can go critical.
Robert Bond
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Let’s be honest - opening acts last for 10-15 minutes why are we spending a trillion dollar year on openers? We should have accepted the inevitable: Biden / Harris and shut up
Jeremiah Younossi
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Thanks, Bob. I've come to similar conclusions. My days as a centrist-moderate are done. Full on Bernie or Elizabeth. The DNC had better shit or get off the pot. Centrism is done for the foreseeable future.
Kevin Ritchie
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Make your fucking mind up about Warren, will you?
ONCE she didn’t have an answer ...and that’s it?!
FFS
Hugo Burnham
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Why do you have a bug up your ass about Buttigieg? I just don't understand that. Warren and Bernie are to far left for most Democrats and independents. Biden seems to have lost a step or two. McKinsey like Blackwater? Really. Having been hired by McKinsey should be a plus on one's resume. It just goes to show that democrats can be into the deep shit state conspiracies as republicans.
John Milo
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Bob,
With the whole point being a candidate that will bring real change, take on the corporate elite, and pushing past all this centrist bs, why have you basically ignored Bernie here?
Are you one of those boomers who claims “he’s too radical, he’ll never win, what’s the point?” Meanwhile all of the DNC talking points were parroted from his 2016 and current campaigns.
If it’s down to Mayor Pete and Bloomberg, were not too far off from another four years of Trump.
With your millions of readers, why sideline Bernie when you’re basically outlining his agenda? You have influence too.
Dylan Muhlberg
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I love Buttigieg. I listened to him on the podcast The Daily and he closed me. Very level headed and brilliant. I’m a fan. He’s my guy. He’s going to go all the way. Mark my words. I’m calling it.
Love you pal,
Steve Poltz
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Mr.Bloomberg is strong on gun control, reducing prescription prices and improving public health. He stopped people smoking in NYC restaurants which resulted in other cities doing the same.A lot of people breath easier because of him. He is also not politically corrupt. Not only did he not take a salary as mayor but he also paid for his own travel and accommodations.
Cordially;’
Bob Epstein
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Nice take. But I challenge you to find one policy issue where Pete “ran to the center.” Unlike most politicians, he’s been remarkably consistent from the moment he announced his candidacy. Yes, he’s not the lefty God the Netroots folks are looking for, but his proposals are much more in line with the majority of Americans.
Dave Curtis
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Bernie Sanders is being suppressed from almost all the mainstream media even though he's arguably the most electable of all. That's your "free press" for you, owned by billionaire oligarchs. Comparing the U.S. to countries most of us would consider authoritarian: here the censorship and control system is more subtle.
Even you barely mentioned Bernie Sanders until the very end of your latest post.
Depending on what poll you look at, Bernie is closing in on Biden, comfortably ahead of Warren.
www.politico.com/2020-election/democratic-presidential-candidates/polls/
Meanwhile, Andrew Yang is still in it and only growing in support every day.
It's time for Americans to wake up and realize We The People can take our government back RIGHT NOW, if only we want it. Defeatism serves the establishment, which wants you to believe a trustworthy candidate can never be viable.
Jonathan Steigman
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Pete is authentic...
Tim Pringle
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Bernie stands for all the things that you say the Democrats need to stand for in order to win and currently ranks 2nd in the national polls.
Get behind him Bob!! He’s the real deal!!
Benjamin Friedlander
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Yup - all true Bob
This election is absolute survival of the Republic. The ultimate test of a democracy created out of the blue 243 years ago. A system of government established before social media and partisan wholly focused news networks feeding a singular point of view. I hope democracy can prevail - can find its way in this new tech world. I think it can - and I think the Trump monarchy is painfully exactly what we need to point to and say “never again” and be awake and fix the process.
So...whoever can beat Trump - and motivate taking back the Senate - and get us back to compassion - to caring about all of us - and a global unified view - and a aligned world view on saving our planet and our less fortunate.... that’s my candidate. Whoever can win.
We are in SURVIVAL
Keep up the great work - love your voice
Peter van Roden
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Dude, it was his first fucking job out of college, where he was a junior analyst doing grunt work. He then dedicated the rest of his life to public service. Do you prefer politicians who NEVER were successful in the private sector, and thus don’t understand where the money they love to spend comes from???
Mark B. Siegel
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Bernie is still going to win 2 of the first 4 state primaries and then win California to bring momentum into the spring.
It’s going to be close between Bernie and Biden, if Biden can stay afloat.
Thanks, Bob.
Mike Vancha
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A more than insightful assessment not enough voters will read, but maybe, just maybe, 2020 will be like the early 1930’s, what my Polish immigrant grandparents all called “Hoover Times” that resulted in FDR and 16 years of the New Deal, that I heard about and benefitted from when I was growing up in the 60s.
And some kid in 2050 will hear his grandparents talking about Trump Times... and the changing tides of 2021...
Thanks as always for making me think..
Zannman Minneapolis
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Well said. I got into a conversation the other night with two neighbors at a popular local restaurant. They were at the next table and overheard me making a point to the person I was having dinner with. I said nothing ever changes until it changes and then the change is sudden. But we keep thinking it will be slow and gradual change that we can see coming and get ready for. But it never is. And I said I had given up on mainstream media to do anything except report on the status quo and I looked to other sources for insights into what was really happening. I said I had given up on the New York Times even though in my house it was regarded as revealed truth by my parents and by me up until their incessant fawning over Hilary four years ago.
At that point a neighbor at the next table leaned over and asked what did I mean I had given up on the NYT. Elizabeth Warren just held a big rally at a theater in our neighborhood and it was mobbed with people lined up for blocks and waiting for hours to get in. I asked him if he read much about that in the NYT or WaPo etc. I pointed out that all they do is urge a return to "reasonableness" whatever that is. Or they dither over silly PC issues to distract and divide us.
He admitted he was sliding into the "anybody but Trump" mindset and I asked what that exactly means. No clear answer to that. I said it is basically asking us to simply vote for the lesser of two evils and admitted that we were older and more rational and could make that kind of choice. Then I asked him if that kind of choice would have motivated him to get out and vote when he was 25 years old. He said no. Exactly, I said. We need ideas that will motivate the millenials to turn out.
If the millenials show up and vote we win. If they don't then we loose. Simple as that.
Michael Hugos
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If Bernie Sanders is the new Beatles, resulting in Warren becoming the new Monkees, then Buttigieg is the new Milli Vanilli. As fake as they make them. (And I guess that makes Biden the Pat Boone.)
Only the team of Bernie-Tulsi can beat Trump. Everyone else loses BIG, impeachment or not. Americans have been sick of politics as usual since Bush-Cheney pulled the wool over the nation's eyes. Just look at who we've considered since.
Why is Bernie the only one who can win? Nearly all dems will vote for Bernie, even the ones that have to hold their nose this time. (Except for maybe Hillary, who would rather vote for Trump.) Plus nearly all independents will come out to vote for Bernie. That's 42% of the electorate! Also, a big plus, Tulsi has tremendous appeal both to the blue collar Trump voter and the 18-20% antiwar protest vote that went to Trump in 2016 to vote against the war pig Clinton. No other Democrat can aggregate these numbers with this kind of broad based appeal.
Mark my words. This isn't about top down marketing of a candidate; it's about grass roots demand; the American people have been ready for someone like Bernie since the day FDR died; they couldn't even beat the notion out of us with the McCarthy era.
So stop watching the paid news and following the curated polls and start listening to the heartbeat of the nation. The folks you circulate amongst don't have a clue, so stop echoing their moneyed sensibilities. Get down here in the trenches with me and learn for yourself!
Your high school classmate and co-founder of The Glass Onion,
Ken Shain
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I love you but I think you're wrong about what will win in 2020.
Really, Medicare for All is a Big Idea? Please. It's an easy pitch but hard to hit, especially when it's mandatory. If it's so great, let people choose.
As for Mayor Pete, he's the one Dem candidate who I think could take on Trump in a televised debate. That said, Pete is all about reason and reason is not going to win in 2020. What is the FIRE the Dems could tame to win? Bernie? Nah, he's not saying anything that hasn't been said since Stalin (a cheap shot, yes, but socialism sucks, history has proven that). Warren? Never. A detailed plan is not emotional. Worse, it makes everyday people feel stupid. Biden? He's got a god complex but no fire and brimstone to spread The Word. Plus, let's be honest, he's incoherent on today's big issues. Is he suffering a bit of dementia? Maybe, but that's not the problem. He's supposed to be the center, but what's his center? The past? The way we were?
Back to Mayor Pete. So what if he worked for McKinsey? Or Bain (in the ass)? Or BCG? I consider that quality an asset. He knows how the rich think, what big corporations want. Know your enemy, right? If Mayor Pete can stoke some real emotion -- and I think he can -- he could win. No other Dem that I know of has a chance. Except...
Maybe Bloomberg. He's a battle hardened New Yorker and could go toe to toe with Trump and STOMP The Donald, no sweat. And he's a LOT richer than Trump, which will unhinge the Orange Menace.
So that's where I stand, Mayor Pete or Bloomberg. I'll vote for either over Trump (admittedly, I would vote for a Pet Rock over DT).
Jeff Shattuck
PS: Sorry for all the Caps. It's Trumpian!
____________________________________
Agree with so much of this, Bob.
The Presidency is a beast of a job to have as your first real capital-R responsibility. That's a hard weight for anyone to carry. Without the inner strength of having done it before, it's too easy to fall back on what advisors tell you to do, and to give up on your convictions.
You're exactly right that Buttiegieg is the candidate of the status quo of three years ago. Considering what's around us now, this seems deceptively attractive. But the world before was already rotting from greed, from the abuse of power, by the tyranny of a financial value system that's come to rule all else.
But the Democratic Party remains invested in protecting that system. The whole reason Bloomberg is in the race is to stop Bernie or Warren, even to throw the election to Trump by staying in with a third party bid. Like Ross Perot, only shorter and with weirdly the same ears. We need major changes to break this pattern.
I'm Team Bernie as I think he knows what those changes are, he has the stomach to push on them as much as is possible, and I think he can win. It's the last of those Bernie factors that might be scariest of all to the rest of the field, and people like Bloomberg.
To some these ideas may seem radical. But to me -- and I think to history -- it's the last four decades that have been radical as money has overtaken us (as I write about in my book, This Could Be Our Future), and this is the kind of change we need to get back to normal.
Anyway, great email!
Yancey Strickler
____________________________________
Thank you, Bob. Great piece. We needed a revolution in 2016; we need one now. Well, you know.
Liz Warren was my prof at Penn and she’s brilliant. Maybe I’m biased, but I loved office hours with her: she was kind, engaging, super smart, good-natured and funny. Honest to Universe, her presentation was so conservative I was convinced she was a conservative. When her actual political beliefs filtered out in Massachusetts, I was thrilled. Sad. Flub one answer – and yes, she did indeed flub during the second debate – and you’re dead in the water? The man in the White House is a walking flub, which I suppose isn’t so much of an accomplishment with a vocabulary of twenty words.
Also unfortunate that Harris and Booker and Castro got no traction. So what are we left with? A fumbling old-school Biden and Buttegieg, a boy scout with a questionable past and present that cleaves to the politics of the middle and mediocrity. I’m gay and even in the gay community the honeymoon is over, at least among those who don’t have a knee-jerk reaction to love Mayor Petey just because he shares our sexual identity. Identity politics could have me supporting Sanders or Bloomberg, I suppose. Honestly, I know nothing about the billionaire except that my friends in NYC seemed to think he was a good mayor. Is Bloomberg responsible for the Highline? Maybe that explains it. Maybe folks won’t admit that they were actually in favor of “stop and frisk.”
The party is a mess and the impeachment process isn’t rousing the populace… at least not enough … and doesn’t seem to be converting hearts and minds in the numbers it needs to.
And now I’ll go listen to “Ball of Confusion” for the rest of the day ponder my medical insurance that costs over $1000/month and weep.
Myles Silton
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Agree,
Marshall Crenshaw
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Lefsetz, you hit the nail on the head today. i’ve followed your work since 2001 when i did a short interview with you while I was at the Bay Guardian, and i’ve been fascinated by the evolution of your ideas. We’re a long way from the Napster-or-not days, and I look forward to reading your columns more today than I did then. Your work is honest - and i know you know how rare that is. Thanks, man.
Tommy Amano-Tompkins
LA
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