The Circuit: 2020 Candidate Overload
Buttigieg: Smart? Bernie: Likable? Warren: No student debt? Biden: Avengers?
The 2020 election has officially become a Brady Bunch grid of candidates, with over 20 people in the running to be America’s Next Political Superstar. In lieu of lip-syncing for their life, they’re desperately trying to differentiate themselves in speeches and on social media.
This week we have: tater tots, Goop, rap videos, farm-to-table restaurants, Avengers, Guy Fieri hair, Glee, and the saddest game of beer pong ever caught on camera. Candidates are ordered roughly by their prominence in the news cycle: Headliners, The Pack, and The Leftovers.
This is Chris Thomas; welcome to Issue 1 of Rubber Chicken Circuit, a weekly election newsletter from Study Hall (if you’re a SH member you get the paid version of this newsletter free). Read more about us, subscribe here or forward us to your friends!
Headliners
PETE BUTTIGIEG: The podcaster’s wet dream.
The election’s favorite underdog has made a fan out of Goop queen Gwyneth Paltrow. She is one of many celebs (including Ryan Murphy and Bradley Whitford) scheduled to host a fundraiser in Los Angeles for Mayor Pete.
Another secret ingredient to his success? A blitz across the political podcast landscape, where he’s become impossible to escape thanks to appearances on everything from the New Yorker Radio Hour and The Intercept’s Deconstructed to Pod Save America and even The West Wing Weekly. Between this and his polyglot literary background, he’s become a political wet dream for America’s liberal intellectual voting bloc as they continue to forget that Elizabeth Warren is just as intellectually impressive and actually has policy ideas. Oh, to be a handsome white man in an election.
ANDREW YANG: Saving journalism...or his campaign.
No, not because of how fun it is to report on a rapper named Paperboy the Prince making a song in praise of Andrew Yang. The meme-worthy tech entrepreneur introduced an idea called the American Journalism Fellows program that would use the government to pay for putting 535 experienced, vetted journalists in local newsrooms around the country. Now is as good a time as any to kiss ass to a profession on the brink of death in exchange for more coverage, even if it probably won’t give him a Buttigieg-sized bump.
BETO O’ROURKE: Category is Farm-to-Table Realness.
Most people have turned their eyes to the shiny new white guy on the scene, but Beto is still on his vision quest to the White House (despite polling at 8 percent). The Texan got Twitter talking after Washington Post reporter Annie Linskey tweeted an out-of-context quote: “Beto says he wants farm to table restaurants in *every* community when asked about poor nutrition in many places.” The problem is that this tweet (like most) oversimplified what Beto said. As another Washington Post reporter, Dave Weigel, explained: “Beto gets a question about nutrition; he has a very handy series of answers based on conversations with people in food deserts, says farm bill should factor in nutrition more than it does.”
ELIZABETH WARREN: Student debt destroyer.
Only three things are certain in life: Death, taxes, and a steady stream of big policy proposals from Elizabeth Warren. The intellectual powerhouse continued her blitz of legislative ideas this week with a massive plan for student loan forgiveness that should make any 20-something’s ears perk up. Her massive plan includes debt forgiveness for over 75 percent of Americans with student debt, would make public 2- and 4-year colleges free, and all be funded by a new wealth tax. A way to obliterate America’s crippling student loan crisis that’s also a takedown of capitalist billionaires? Elizabeth Warren knows her millennial socialists well.
BERNIE SANDERS: Women of color still aren’t feeling the Bern.
At the first-ever presidential forum for women of color at Houston’s Texas Southern University, the Democratic frontrunner failed to make the crowd feel the Bern. He responded to a question about the rise in white supremacy by touting a campaign focused on speaking to “all people” and then… pivoting back to a health care stump speech. To anyone who has ever seen even a bit of a Sanders stump speech, it’s clear the man favors policy over personality.
JOE BIDEN: Avengers: Endgame, Basically.
Even if you’ve been living in the forest cut off from all technology and civilization (which might be a good idea at this point), you’d know Joe Biden is officially running for president. His announcement is a lot like the release of Avengers. Both raised huge amounts of money and have taken over the news cycle, which makes this image of Biden sniffing Black Widow’s hair a much-needed break from the billion think pieces about Biden’s campaign we’re drowning in.
KAMALA HARRIS: Passed the “angry provocateur ambush” test.
While posing for photos at an airport, the California Senator and an aide fended off the fury of a right-wing political organizer who accused her of “exploiting” migrant women and children for political clout. Turning Point USA's Anna Paulina, who acts as Director of Hispanic Engagement for the Koch-funded conservative front group known for embarrassing itself, is seen in the video shouting that Harris’s backing of family reunification hurts Hispanic women at the border and gives support to MS-13 gangs. In response, Harris shows a zen-like calm and ignores her like a 20-something ignoring their overdraft fees.
The Pack
TULSI GABBARD: A contractor nightmare.
A review of Federal Election Commission records found that field staffer Amaury Dujardin is the only employee on Gabbard’s payroll, receiving a single payment of less than $2,600. All of her other staffers, including her campaign manager, are paid as consultants, a move that helps her avoid paying out full-time benefits and coughing up payroll taxes. If this is how she treats her own staff, I fully expect her first act as president would be to rename the country the United States of Permalancers.
SETH MOULTON: White Male Candidate #5.
The Massachusetts congressman announced his campaign last week, and besides looking like Ken from the cinematic masterpiece about bestiality Bee Movie, he’s essentially the heterosexual alternative to Pete Buttigieg. Moulton has yet to prove he’s any different than the other white guys running, but if young white guys with military experience are your kink, keep an eye on this one. And speaking of white men...
ERIC SWALWELL: White and Guy Fieri lite.
Pledging to pick a woman as his VP and to “pass the mic” on issues he can’t speak to as a white man is good. Prefacing this by saying “breaking news: I’m a white man” is not so good. But at least we’re finally paying attention to him and, thanks to a clip that feels like an 80s speed dating VHS tape, we also know he stans for old T Swift and spent his high school days rocking spiked, bleached hair that Guy Fieri would be proud of.
MIKE GRAVEL: The Teen Meme Team take the spotlight.
If you didn’t already know that a group of teenagers convinced the former Alaska senator to run for president, you do now. They’ve turned the 88-year-old anti-war advocate into an Internet meme sensation, which isn’t difficult considering the radical leftists no-bullshit attitude towards everyone is ripe for internet glory. Now the spotlight turns to the teen meme team too young to vote but old enough to cause political chaos in the trailer for Teen Kingmakers.
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: Gleeks and Gandhi.
An inspirational speaker-turned-candidate sounds like an SNL sketch, but she’s real and definitely running for president. Even more surprising is the fact that she might have just locked down the Glee vote. Matthew Morrison, who played Glee coach Will Schuester, recently praised Oprah’s spiritual guru while attending an event called “Funeral For a Tree” that raised awareness about how toilet paper is killing our forests, saying that we need, “someone in there that has more of a spiritual approach to things.” He also compared her to Dr. Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi, which is… a choice.
CORY BOOKER: Making Rosario Dawson a soundtrack to his heart.
This week we learned that Mimi Marquez from Rent calls her boo “Cab” and when she’s not with her man, he sends her a song a day (or just Khia’s “My Neck, My Back” 20 times in a row at 3 a.m.). Booker also pledged to select a woman as a running-mate if he wins the nomination, which means that we need to figure out how to change the Constitution to make Rosario Dawson the country’s first-ever VPFLOTUS.
WAYNE MESSAM: Ghosting his campaign staffers.
Whomst? The long-shot Florida mayor announced his presidential aspirations on March 28 and might already be finished. According to a report in The Miami New Times, many of his staffers resigned after Messam’s wife refused to issue paychecks earlier this month because of confusion over who is actually working on the campaign. Sounds promising!
JOHN HICKENLOOPER: “Our gross, whatever that stands for.”
Government acronyms might be hard to remember but it’s probably best not to flub GDP (gross domestic product) by saying “our gross, whatever that stands for, demographic product” — especially at an event called the "National Forum on Wages and Working People." No wonder the audience photographed at his campaign events look like they’re simultaneously daydreaming about matriarchal revolutions and realizing they’ve left their ovens on.
The Leftovers
AMY KLOBUCHAR: The musical.
The Minnesota Senator took a break from terrorizing her staff to share her passion for The Sound of Music, a movie that’s ironically about kindness and compassion. The hills are alive with the sound of office supplies flying through the air.
KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND: Water pong champion.
With 22 candidates in the running for America’s Next Political Superstar, it’s hard to set yourself apart from the pack. That said, staging a photo to show how cool and relatable you are falls flat if the beer pong prop cups are filled with water.
JAY INSLEE: Polling below 1% but loves tater tots. TIM RYAN: Qualified for the debates. JOHN DELAY: #UnfollowTrump. JULIÁN CASTRO: Actually his twin? WILLIAM WELD: The only Republican trying to beat Trump.
The Trump Check
10,000 false claims (and counting).
Updating the Washington Post's Fact Checker database with Trump’s lies sounds like one of the most depressing jobs ever made but at least now we can fuel our nightmares with some data. There is still at least another full year of his presidency to go so it might be time to take bets on how many falsehoods he’ll spew (and how many golf photos he’ll post) before he’s gone.
Now that you’re stuffed full of knowledge about what all 3,457 presidential candidates are doing, saying, and (occasionally) eating, we’ll see you next week with another serving of Rubber Chicken Circuit.
