First they infiltrated the Dem mouthpiece MSNBC, then the campaign and are now aiming for the next cabinet. Whitman, Kasich, Baker, Flake all being floated.

Out of respect to their own party they could have waited until after the election or maybe they're still trying to depress the Warren/Sanders/AOC vote participation?

Meh. I think rewarding reasonable Republicans is not bad. Their own/former party certainly won’t. And Biden could still appoint progressives too.

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pdq
Meh. I think rewarding reasonable Republicans is not bad. Their own/former party certainly won’t. And Biden could still appoint progressives too.

I agree. I'm deeply encouraged by the conservatives who are courageous enough to vote against Trump. I would want to encourage their voices and welcome them. I'm more middle progressive, and want to see intelligent conversations and relationships between all parties. Let's work together.

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Mac mini (M1 2020, 16G) • Big Sur 11.x • Dual 25" Acer 1440p LCDs • 11" i5 MacBook Air •

No actual conservative supports Trump. OR the Republican Party. Period.

Warren, Sanders and AOC are all congresspeople with the power of their positions. Who is depressing that?

When you want power, you have to win it. You can't win it being so pure and so righteous that you refuse to entertain adjusting your concepts in order to win over public support instead of just dictating to people. So, put their lack of influence in their hands.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg with the best quote:

"Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you."

I read the Politico article and the way it is being "leaked out" leads me to ponder the possibility that this is a final-weeks-of-the-campaign bid to reassure moderate Republicans still on the fence that Joe is no Rabid Socialist Communist Puppet of the Left. I'm not saying that a Republican or two cannot end up in his cabinet, I'm just saying that creating an entire mythology out of campaign activity is more or less an act of imagination and not knowledge. It's on the same level as Trump claiming that Bernie and AOC are controlling Joe just because he sought their input.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/20/2020 12:32PM by $tevie.

Depends on the person. Kasich never bought what Trump was selling, so I'd give him a chance. Flake pulled a muscle furrowing his brow a few times, but did he ever buck McConnell on any important vote? The other people I haven't followed closely to judge, I'll leave that to Joe. Well, Whitman seems universally mocked for her ability to "fail upwards."

Hire competent bureaucrats willing to take orders. That is all.

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rj
AKA
Vreemac, Moth of the Future

You don’t have to be a liberal, or progressive, or socialist to recognize that tRump is a conman, congenital liar, raging narcissist, and a real danger to the U.S.’s democratic republic.

Trial balloon.

Also a good way to entice would be voters to Biden. We'll see what happens if/when he's actually elected.

This is that Politico article, right?

Pure clickbait. Maybe two steps above the NYPost, but not three.

If I were Biden, I might be floating this now to soothe Republican voters.

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RgrF
First they infiltrated the Dem mouthpiece MSNBC, then the campaign and are now aiming for the next cabinet. Whitman, Kasich, Baker, Flake all being floated.

Out of respect to their own party they could have waited until after the election or maybe they're still trying to depress the Warren/Sanders/AOC vote participation?

Quote
Acer
Depends on the person. Kasich never bought what Trump was selling, so I'd give him a chance.

More on Kasich from TNR:

When he was running for the Republican nomination in 2016, Kasich was one of the few candidates hailed as a “moderate” with “commonsense” ideas. What does a Republican “moderate” mean these days, though? Under Kasich, half of Ohio’s abortion clinics closed. In his 2015 budget, Kasich proposed cutting Medicaid coverage for low-income pregnant women. He also slashed money from public school budgets in an effort to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into the state’s failing charter school system.

But because the president and his base are moving toward an extreme, Kasich has become a go-to example of what a moderate looks like in 2020. This is yet another alarming development of this high-stakes moment: the movement of the needle so that moderates are redefined, and those who consider themselves moderate find themselves becoming more lenient about what they will accept. All that plays into the concept of a “swing state,” at least for people who live here: swinging between what?

There ought to be two qualifying question for Biden appointees: at the time did you support the appointment of Kavanaugh or Gorsuch to the SCOTUS.

Agreed, this all depends on how you define moderate. The mainstream "moderate" Ds of today to me feel a lot like right-dominant, defense-industry and Wall Street loving Bush 2 Rs. Not completely, but definitely more that than anything one would call progressive, or the Ds of the '70s. Yeah, Trump is an entire order of magnitude further right than those Rs...facism is what he and his cronies are about.

And, true or no, I agree that floating R candidates is a good strategy for poaching R votes.

I think it depends on what Cabinet positions they are put up for. There's the Democratic president's go-to Cabinet position when they want to show bi-partisanship - Secretary of Defense - for example. There's probably some Republicans I would feel okay about being Secretary of Defense. I'll admit, though, that my preference is that the number of such positions would be very small.

A few of the Republicans in Obama’s administration:

Secretary of Defense
- Bob Gates - 2006—2011
- Chuck Hagel - 2013–2015

Secretary of Transportation
- Ray LaHood - 2009–2013

Secretary of Veterans Affairs
- Bob McDonald - 2014–2017

Chairperson of the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness
- Jeffrey R. Immelt - 2011–2017)

Whitman is a wingnut.

Kasich is not much better. There could be appointed positions where Kasich would not do much damage, while at the same time tainting him and ruining him as a future Republican candidate. Flake is a snake that would need to be kept on a short leash just short of a death grip. I don't know enough about Baker to comment.

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In tha 360. MRF User Map

Keep in mind also that a position going to a R means that's one less going to a D -- and all the influence and future stock rises that go with that for the party. I think Biden ought to look long at former KS guv Kathleen Sebelius (D)...she took ALL the heat on the ACA rollout...anyone with a brain knew that rollout would be tough. I'm guessing they were a bit too ambitious with promises around it - it had never been done before and there was definitely a learning curve.

Sebelius left KS with a large budget surplus and high approval ratings. She is a very capable leader and really, I'd like to see her run for Prez someday.

Keep your friends close ... and vet the hell out of your enemies?

Picking a conservative based on their celeb status is idiocy. I wanna see Biden consider conservatives “no one” knows about from national news stories, where he can defend his reasoning for constructing his own Cabinet of Rivals.

That said, there has been so much clusterfuckery lately he should just nominate the most progressively liberal ones he can find who will rubber stamp whatever is proposed. Use Google if that helps.

OR

We could just elect him first and worry about the counting of the eggs after they are hatched.

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deckeda
Keep your friends close ... and vet the hell out of your enemies?

Picking a conservative based on their celeb status is idiocy. I wanna see Biden consider conservatives “no one” knows about from national news stories, where he can defend his reasoning for constructing his own Cabinet of Rivals.

That said, there has been so much clusterfuckery lately he should just nominate the most progressively liberal ones he can find who will rubber stamp whatever is proposed. Use Google if that helps.

OR

We could just elect him first and worry about the counting of the eggs after they are hatched.

I'll take door number 3 Monty!