The Circuit: How Many Clowns in the Election Clown Car?
Please run for Congress instead of president.
Just when you thought the 2020 election couldn’t get any more ridiculous, another candidate has entered the race. Please welcome White Male #7: Colorado Senator Michael Bennet (not to be confused with Colorado’s other presidential hopeful John Hickenlooper).
This is the Please Run for Congress Instead edition of The Circuit and we have: calculators, smear campaigns, chocolate and vanilla twist ice cream cones, coal, Democracy Dollars, Dixie Chicks references, horse races, leis, PowerPoints, adequacy, and mooooore white men.
This is Chris Thomas. Welcome to Issue 2 of Rubber Chicken Circuit, the weekly election newsletter from Study Hall. Read more about us, subscribe here or forward us to your friends!
Headliners
JOE BIDEN: America loves the Amtrak Masseuse.
Getting roasted on SNL for having a habit of sniffing women’s hair while you rub their shoulders is bad. Having a realistic-looking parody site show visual proof of this on search engines? Far worse. The “Amtrak Masseuse” is running into some tech trouble as his official campaign site has disappeared from the first page of searches for “Joe Biden website.” In its place is JoeBiden.info, whose bio begins: “Uncle Joe is back and ready to take a hands-on approach to America’s problems!”
The good news for him is that none of his creepy past behavior seems to matter to voters. The Democratic frontrunner cemented his “electability” status in early voting states and vaulted ahead of Bernie Sanders by double-digits in all recent polls (as shoddy as they might be) while sensually licking a chocolate and vanilla twist ice cream cone.
ELIZABETH WARREN: SNL and Calculators.
Please hire Kate McKinnon for everything. The SNL castmate stepped into the blazer of Elizabeth Warren for a flawless pitch for why the Senator should be a frontrunner—or at least VP. In less than four minutes, she dragged Mayor Pete Buju-gee-juts, Beto O’Dork, and the Amtrak Masseuse. Maybe now that Warren has received the SNL treatment, people will start to pay attention to her incredibly detailed and extensive policy page.
Speaking of policies, after last week’s student debt destroying plan was unveiled, she’s now added a debt calculator so you can see how much debt of yours would disappear under her presidency. Props to Warren for making calculators cool again.
PETE BUTTIGIEG: Fighting off far-right smear campaigns.
There are a lot of metrics for the rise of underdogs and Mayor Pete has been obliterating all of them. He’s skyrocketed in polls, dominated news coverage (he loves exotic whiskey if you were wondering), been compared to Harvey Milk, and now, he’s been caught in the far-right’s slimy crosshairs. The big story for the South Bend mayor was an attempted smear campaign that falsely accused Buttigieg of sexually assaulting a young man. The plot was organized by Internet troll and shitty human Jacob Wohl and lobbyist Jack Burkman, but fell apart when the “victim” reached out to The Daily Beast with proof it was all fake.
KAMALA HARRIS: “Electability” favors white men.
Voters seem to want two things in 2020: electability and old white men. It’s a common refrain to hear that Biden and Bernie are the most “electable” candidates in the race but a certain Barr-breaking, Trump-targeting California Senator is trying to change that narrative. Harris told a 10K-strong crowd at an NAACP dinner that the obsession with winning over white Midwestern voters has left out the region’s black voter bloc, saying: “They usually put the Midwest in a simplistic box and a narrow narrative. It leaves out people in this room, who helped build cities like Detroit.”
BERNIE SANDERS: Not ready to make nice.
If you were expecting Senator Sanders to keep the feel-good framework of his 2016 campaign in place, we’ve got bad news. He’s mad as hell and can't bring himself to do what it is you think he should. See, he’s just not ready to make nice and he’s really not ready to back down. The gloves are off, the claws are out, and Bernie isn’t afraid to call out the Center for American Progress think tank for “using its resources to smear” him by suggesting Bernie’s attacks on income inequality are hypocritical given his millionaire status.
He’s also not afraid to scoff at Joe Biden for claiming that he has "the most progressive record" of any candidate in the race, which… lol. The only thing more constant than Bernie’s progressive political positions is his crazy hair (see this video for both), while Biden has voted to authorize the Iraq War, deregulate Wall Street, and backed measures that led to mass incarceration.
But, speaking of the Amtrak Masseuse, Bernie is going to need to figure out some winning strategy to break Biden’s blistering lead in the polls if he doesn’t want to come in second… again.
The Pack
BETO O’ROURKE: One man. Two arms.
We don’t know how much Beto paid for this but, right as a poll showed the Texan as most likely to beat Trump one-on-one, Jimmy Fallon unveiled a new parody series called Beto Breaks the Internet. With the tagline “One man. Two arms. Six viral videos,” the late-night host slipped into the persona of the aggressive, arm-flailing candidate to bring his message to every social media platform—yes, including MySpace. There’s even an ASMR video for those of you who want to have nightmares about Fallon-as-O’Rourke whispering about the Dewey Decimal system.
JAY INSLEE: Coal, sashay away.
Running as the climate candidate means doing more than just talking the talk. This week, Inslee laid out a three-part plan with a lot of ones and zeros that sounds like the Green New Deal in a new suit (See: Taylor Swift’s rebranding). The legislation would require that 100 percent of new cars sold in America be electric, 100 percent of electricity be carbon-neutral, and 100 percent of new buildings emit no greenhouse gas from kitchens, chimneys, or heating systems.
That means the coal industry that Trump loves to hype up would officially shutter. It may sound crazy but it mirrors a lot of the legislation that Inslee is putting into place as Governor of Washington that commits to making the state carbon-neutral by 2030. If it succeeds against the partisan drama and lobbyists that scaled back his previous legislative efforts, the state could become a Great Gatsby-hued green light in the fight against climate change.
KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND: “Democracy Dollars.”
The water pong champion laid out a proposal to get money out of politics in the form of a Clean Elections Plan that would give up to $600 in "Democracy Dollars" to eligible voters. They’d be able to give $200 each to House, Senate, and presidential candidates but with a twist—candidates can only take the money if they agree to only take contributions of $200 or less.
It’s a simple but effective policy proposal from a candidate who has failed to make a dent in the overcrowded race despite spending more on “communications consulting” services than any other candidate. While we don’t see the Clean Elections Plan catching fire for Gillibrand, we won’t be surprised if one of the higher-polling candidates suddenly has the same idea in a few weeks.
AMY KLOBUCHAR: Thank Obama for the economy.
If you hadn’t heard, the economy is booming. Jobs are up, unemployment is down, and Democrats are losing their shit trying to figure out how to spin the news in a way that doesn’t give Trump credit. Senator Klobuchar’s strategy is to thank Obama instead of Trump for the upswing, which seemed to give Jake Tapper an aneurysm when she went this route on his show.
The Leftovers
TIM RYAN: "No one gives a damn about the workers!"
With more candidates than ever, a little viral moment can go a long way. The Ohio Senator was interesting enough for a NowThis video after dragging Trump by the wig for his broken promise to the people of his state.
BILL WELD: Not the best, but “adequate.”
What’s the best way to convince zero people to support your campaign? Have a long Politico Magazine interview end with this: “Why then, I asked, is he the best candidate to take on Trump? ‘I don’t know that I am the best,’ Weld says. ‘I think I’m adequate to the task.’”
MICHAEL BENNET: The latest Coloradan to get too high and decide to run for president. TULSI GABBARD: Wants every American to get lei’d. ANDREW YANG: Would bring a PowerPoint to his #SOTU. MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: 4,999 donors away from bringing inspirational quotes to the debates. WAYNE MESSAM: Still trying to get you to remember he’s a candidate. JOHN DELANEY: Mental Health Care for All. JOHN HICKENLOOPER: Wants to “rescue American capitalism." (Yikes!) JULIÁN CASTRO: Crossed the 65,000 donor threshold for the debate. MIKE GRAVEL: Running to win, lol. SETH MOULTON: “Absolutely for holding impeachment hearings” against Barr. ERIC SWALWELL: Trump is a “really bad kid.” CORY BOOKER: A van crashed outside a campaign event, which is probably an omen for his candidacy.
The Trump Check
“Stollen” hopes, dreams, and horse races.
Donald Trump’s Twitter stream usually either looks like your angry aunt on Facebook or word vomit from an algorithm forming sentences out of a database of political tweets. This week, as he continued his subpoena war with Congressional Democrats, the President found time to give the world his thoughts on a major cultural event for white people in big hats: the Kentucky Derby, which had drama of its own. “Only in these days of political correctness could such an overturn occur,” he lamented as he sat on a throne of McDonald’s cheeseburgers (without the bun). “The best horse did NOT win the Kentucky Derby - not even close!?”
The winner of the annual horse race, Maximum Security (also the name of Trump’s next border policy), was disqualified because it impeded another horse in the final turn. The win was then granted to second place finisher, Country House (did we mention this sport is for rich people?).
Also apparently stolen was Trump’s first two years in office. Well, “stollen” if you use the Trump Dictionary of Word-Things, which is a kind of Germanic dessert bread. He retweeted (and later deleted) a tweet by conservative religious leader Jerry Falwell Jr. that read “I now support reparations — Trump should have 2 yrs added to his 1st term as pay back for time stolen by this corrupt failed coup,” and later tweeted (and also deleted):
“Despite the tremendous success that I have had as President, including perhaps the greatest ECONOMY and most successful first two years of any President in history, they have stollen two years of my (our) Presidency (Collusion Delusion) that we will never be able to get back.”
There’s a special kind of irony in Trump using a racing event whose audience is largely viewed as out-of-touch rich people as a symbol of the theft of two years of his presidency. In an ideal world, he’d focus on bringing some Maximum Security to the voting booths so Russia doesn’t hack them again, rather than lamenting a horse’s loss at the Kentucky Derby.
If you need us, we’ll be lighting a prayer candle for the debate organizers having nervous breakdowns at their desks. See you next week for another serving of Rubber Chicken Circuit.