About Joe and that coffee guy
by digby
I wrote about that Modo Column for Salon today. I started off, however, with a little trip down memory lane to 2008 when the "bipartisan" wankers held a little confab to anoint Michael Bloomberg as our savior:
In every open primary season there comes a moment when the political establishment gets panicky and rumors start to fly that it’s time to shake up the race and bring in someone to save the day. It doesn’t matter if there’s any particular reason to do it; it could be some churning in the polls or a sense that the candidates are straying too far from the comfortable centrism that establishment figures assume represents the truest desires of Real Americans.
Back in 2008, this took the form of a group of elder statesmen who came together out of concern that John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were insufficiently bipartisan, which this group believed to be the greatest threat to America. An event was held at the University of Oklahoma just prior to the New Hampshire primary and was hosted by former Senator David Boren,
who issued this plaintive plea at the outset:“We come together to appeal to all presidential candidates to tell us how they plan to bring us together: Hear our plea, bring us together.”
The star attraction at that gathering was then-New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who had recently converted from Republican to Independent and was known to be flirting with a run. Unfortunately for him,
hope and change got in the way:
[E]ven as the mayor gathered on Monday with the seasoned Washington hands on the campus of the University of Oklahoma, the surging presidential campaign of Senator Barack Obama seemed to steal energy from the event and set off worry elsewhere among Mr. Bloomberg’s supporters.“Obama is trying to reach out to independent voters, and that clearly would be the constituency that Mike Bloomberg would go after,” said Andrew MacRae, who heads the Washington chapter of Draft Mike Bloomberg for President 2008.
This past weekend, the Koch brothers took the Republican bull by the horns and reinstated the old smoke-filled rooms of generations past, sponsoring a high-profile summit with five hand-picked GOP candidates for their right-wing billionaire pals in attendance to choose among. It’s unknown whether Scott Walker, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz was the favorite. (We can be fairly certain that Carly Fiorina, also in attendance, was not.) But we do know that
Cruz got the biggest ovation of the event with his fiery denial of climate change and scathing indictment of Planned Parenthood. So it’s safe to say that bipartisanship isn’t of major concern to these particular billionaires.
Meanwhile, on the Democratic side of the aisle, the establishment has decided that it’s time to make a few waves of their own. Some little birdies
whispered in Maureen Dowd’s ear over the weekend that they are
very worried that Hillary Clinton’s commanding lead in the polls may not hold up, so they floated a couple of possibilities for a quick replacement.
That's right, Dowd didn't just float Biden, she floated Starbucks' Howard Schultz as well. Read on for an update on his contribution to our political culture...
*The headline has little to do with the column, btw. I don't write 'em ...