As a minor diversion, let’s compare this week’s Twitter content from South Dakota’s two declared statewide Democratic candidates, Senator Billie Sutton and Tim Bjorkman.
Billie Sutton is running for governor. He’s been on Twitter since May 2011, sending out notes about Legislative action and other news. Since announcing his bid for governor on May 31, Team Sutton has devoted his Tweets exclusively to his campaign. His only tweet over the last seven days was a July 24 promotion of a July 21 pro-Sutton letter to the editor from a Vermillion supporter:
Tim Bjorkman joined Twitter in January 2011, but the earliest Bjorkman Tweet currently available is a July 12 invitation to his campaign kick-off in Canistota. Tweeting six times this week, Bjorkman posted two media reports of his Rapid City town hall (which means he’s held as many public meetings in Rapid City in two weeks of campaigning as Rep. Kristi Noem has held in seven months of this session of Congress) and four comments or articles related to the health care debate:
Notice that Democrat Bjorkman highlights the comments of prominent Republicans to support his criticism of Congress, the GOP health care bill, and the President. His Twitter feed includes no references yet to Pelosi, Ellison, or other prominent Democrats, even though at his campaign launch he talked an awful lot like a South Dakota Bernie Sanders.
Using Twitter to promote one’s campaign makes sense. But this week, Bjorkman outdid Sutton in volume and variety of posts by commenting directly on policy issues and sharing Senator McCain’s Tuesday floor speech to suggest his political values.
Republicans tricks are already infiltrating as Tim introduced himself to PenDems in his run against Kristi Noem, when Kansas Republican Mike Sanborn slunk in then out without saying a word. He recently torpedoed Democratic gubernatorial candidate Billy Sutton with this zinger:
“He’ll lose because the national Democratic Party will likely throw him under the bus. And, Democrats in the state won’t support him with the CASH he’ll need to defeat whomever wins the GOP ticket,” Sanborn wrote.
Run against the national Democratic leadership. Pelosi and Schumer are out of touch with working class Americans. Repubs make a living running against Pelosi! Maybe red state Democrats can do the same.
Working class Republicans in this state would probably open their minds to an anti-establishment Democrat. Working class Republicans want a living wage, healthcare and opportunities for their kids as well! Working class Republicans voted for Trump in 2016. After this healthcare debacle they might be willing to follow a Democrat with an economic vision.
Working class Republicans want a living wage, healthcare and opportunities for their kids as well! Working class Republicans voted for Trump in 2016. After this healthcare debacle they might be willing to follow a Democrat with an economic vision.
If working class wingnuts wanted a living wage, healthcare and opportunities for their kids they wouldn’t have voted for right wing jingoism and would have instead voted a straight Democratic ticket.
Coal jobs are not coming back. Obama did not kill them off with Nixon era environmental regulations. Dems are the ones that work to get a livable wage and healthcare for all. Wingnuts want taxcuts for the wealthy. Wingnuts want to force legal voters off voter rolls. Wingnuts don’t want people of color to have the same rights whitey wingnut has. Wingnuts don’t care about following the constitution or the 10 commandments.
HRC had a 30 billion plan to aid people in Appalachia. Drumpf claimed he would bring those coal jobs back and then kicked his supporters in the teeth. All they got from Drumpf was the right to re-pollute their drinking water supplies with coal slurry. Then Drumpf took credit for a new coal mine that was planned several years ago in Pennsylvania.
Drumpf is riding the Obama economy and has done nothing to sustain it and yet he takescredit for the stock market and job numbers he called fake 7 months ago.
Democrats controlled the House, Senate and WH from 2009-2011. We got a right wing healthcare plan! The ACA was a Heritage plan that enriched the health insurance industry. Thanks, Obama.
HRC called Trump voters a basket of deplorables and then said she would offer them some retraining. And how much money did the Clinton’s take from Big Money Interests in the years after they left the WH? HRC has zero credibility with the working class.
HRC represented the interests of Walmart throughout most of her career. She favored the TPP until it became an obvious misstep. Bill and Hill sold out the working class in the 90’s in favor of neoliberal policies. It is a long and dirty list of failed ideas …
NAFTA
Deregulation of the banks, telecommunications and energy
Austerity (Bill even had a plan to privatize Social Security!)
Privatization
Welfare Reform
Crime Bill
And now you are suggesting that working class people should have voted for HRC and the failed Democratic policies of the last 25 years? Stop focusing on Trump and work on creating a better alternative. The reason we have Trump as president is because the Democrats nominated a failed candidate.
Oh please. Speeches to big corporations is where easy money can be made and both Clinton’s were good speakers. They speak there, does not mean they endorse the corporations.
Clinton’s only connection to NAFTA was the fact he signed it into law. He believed it would create jobs. Maybe he was wrong, but it was a Hitler Weasel Bush negotiated treaty.
HRC’s career had her involved with women and children’s issues long before she got into politics.
Clinton may have had a plan to privatize SS, but it never happened.
Dems had a filibuster proof majority for exactly 4 months in the first 2 years of Obama’s successful presidency. They were lucky to get anything passed at all.
And Drumpf has been very busy taking away protections for workers that Obama and Dems had put in place. Taking away health insurance and giving billions of taxpayer dollars to the wealthy helps workers out-exactly how?
The reason we have the freaking moron in the WH is because Russia helped put their candidate in the WH. Deny it all you want. There is all kinds of evidence showing interference from Russia and the FBI.
And since you got what you deserved, how do you like the dysfunctional MAGAT now?
Neither Sutton nor Bjorkman is using Twitter the way Trump does, to blurt, berate, and bully, thank goodness. The point here is that, last week, Bjorkman used Twitter more diversely, promoting his campaign not just with testimonial material but with timely political observations that help lay out how he would legislate.
JASON- “Pelosi and Schumer are out of touch with working class Americans.” you mean the deplorables, or the true lower and middle class that don’t vote against their own interests?
thx mfi, Jason seems pissed but misinformed.
Jason, start with this article. How Schumer Held Democrats Together Through a Health Care Maelstrom https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/29/us/politics/chuck-schumer-new-york-senate.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
Next, JASON, consider this: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/07/30/democrats-2020-elections-2018-midterms-240958?lo=ap_a1
And this : Trump/Brexit/Alt-Right populist authoritarianism around the world https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/30/al-gore-interview-our-crumbling-planet-the-rich-have-subverted-all-reason-al-gore