Former Obama Adviser Sounds Alarm for Biden on Third Party Candidate Cornel West
“I don’t know why alarm bells aren’t going off now, and they should be at a steady drumbeat from now until the election.”
Former Obama adviser David Axelrod is sending up flares for Joe Biden on third party candidates in 2024. Biden is facing political threats from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and a possible No Labels candidate, but the person that Axelrod seems the most concerned about is Cornel West.
FOX News reports:
Top Obama strategist warns Democrats about another third-party threat to Biden re-election: ‘Alarm bells’
A previous senior adviser to former President Barack Obama is warning Democrats about a potential threat to President Biden’s re-election campaign from third-party candidates like Cornel West, a 2024 Green Party presidential candidate.
David Axelrod, who served as a top adviser to Obama for two years in the White House before becoming the senior strategist for Obama’s successful 2012 re-election campaign, is questioning “why alarm bells aren’t going off” for Democrats amid mounting concern over West’s candidacy in the race.
Ever since he announced last month he would make a run for the White House as a third-party candidate, West, a progressive activist and philosopher, has largely been dismissed by Democrats as a serious candidate as they work to shore up support for Biden ahead of the 2024 election.
“This is going to sneak up on people,” Axelrod, a CNN political commentator, said this week. “I don’t know why alarm bells aren’t going off now, and they should be at a steady drumbeat from now until the election.”
The folks at CNN also seem a bit concerned:
Democratic worries bubble up over Cornel West’s Green Party run as Biden campaign takes hands-off approach
Cornel West’s candidacy on the Green Party line confuses some of his longtime political allies and friends – while also alarming top Democrats and Black leaders as a potential ticking time bomb for President Joe Biden in next year’s election.
The political philosopher and proud agitator is tapping into his semi-celebrity to attack Biden from the left – where the president has never been fully embraced – and describing his administrations as a mere “postponement of fascism.” And as concerns over Black voter enthusiasm bubble among Democratic operatives, West is also making a deliberately race-based argument, accusing the Democratic establishment of treating the electorate like “a plantation where you got ownership status in terms of which way you vote.”…
… his decision to run on a ballot line which Democrats blame for spoiling both the 2000 and 2016 elections, when Green presidential nominees drew enough votes to help give Republicans key states in the Electoral College, has made his candidacy a running source of angst and, increasingly, a topic of private conversations among multiple Democratic leaders nationally and in battleground states.
Will anyone be surprised if Democrats find some way to force Cornel West out of the race?
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
The Dims are terrified that Cornel West will convince a few million blacks to leave the Dim Plantation and vote for him. That would be enough to throw their vote totals outside the plausible cheating margin.
If West starts to look like a serious threat to Biden expect him to be either bought off in some way or come under criminal investigation.
Or, have a tragic accident, or encounter with armed street thugs, or…
There are only a few states (PA, MI, WI, GA) where a 3rd candidate siphoning off a few Black votes could make a difference. Expect the Dims to fight tooth and nail to ensure that Cornel West is not on the ballot in those states.
Plus vengeful ‘Bernie Bros’ among other lefty progressive true believers. AOC got lots of pushback for her recent very tepid endorsement of Biden’24.
Some of those leaving the d/prog plantation are bypassing the Indy stage and moving directly to embrace much of what the GoP is selling. Particularly so for those concerned about the lefty war on Parents rights and pushing trans ideology on kids.
This is why the culture war battles are important, they create clear bright line choices that are easy to understand and articulate. Much easier to get someone to understand the threat of trans ideology v esoteric tax policy re cap gains.
Bernie Bros will crawl over broken glass and through barbed wire before they turn over government towards us.
You are right about parents and others who care about the culture war and couldn’t care less about the top rate taxes (or in many cases are against lowering it very strongly but very strongly in the culture war).
If I wasn’t clear I meant some decent % of the Bernie bros going to Cornel West not the GoP. Though I wouldn’t rule it out completely. About 10 million Obama voters crossed over in ’16 to vote for the GoP nominee.
We may get a few of those Bernie Bro types moving from merely PO to enraged b/c they got hosed for the third consecutive time in the d/prog primary by their own party establishment; ’16, ’20 and now in ’24.
ya know, if your chosen candidate is so weak you do not want to have a primary, you have to accept that there will be third party choices.
If the Dems want to win with a D in the Oval Office, they should have a primary and let the infighting happen there.
But they will not. Their hubris is too much.
They think they can just cheat and install whomever they choose via their corrupt ‘super delegate’ process.
Then why would they object to having a primary? Oh, because with the demented pedophile they’re currently trying to push on everyone it just wouldn’t be believable, even for the retards that follow them.
Historically, incumbent presidents run unchallenged by a serious primary opponent (as Trump did in 2020). And when they don’t, when their party has a serious challenger, things tend to go bad for the incumbent in the general (think Ted Kennedy’s damaging challenge to Carter that led to the election of Reagan). Pat Buchanan’s challenge to HW Bush damaged him sufficiently that Ross Perot saw an opening and jumped in as a third party; we ended up with Bill Clinton.
The problem is that these primary challenges damage the incumbent and create third party openings, so far, Democrats don’t have a serious primary challenge in Williamson or RFK, Jr. nor a serious third party challenge in West, but the fear is that West, in particular, will damage Biden sufficiently with socialists and black voters that the GOP wins the WH. No one, probably not even West, thinks West can actually win the general.
That is how democracy works in a 2-party system. In this case, to the possible benefit of all Americans, unlike the travesty that was the Clinton administration.
Just a former Obama advisor, not a former black panther member.
So say that against all odds Cornel West wins the presidency: what then? Much of the government is composed of factions loyal to either main political party. We saw with Trump that there was an active resistance in much of the bureaucracy working against his agenda, I imagine it will be much the same with West if he tries to implement change they don’t want made. Though I do confess I have not paid any real attention to West or what he’s campaigning on so that may be a moot point. The main point I’m trying to get across though is that a 3rd party candidate is going to have a tough time getting anything done in D.C. outside of executive orders that go against either party’s agenda and perhaps even some things that do align with their agendas simply because they want to be the ones who receive credit for it.
Cornell West is the least of it for Biden and Democrats. He should be impeached. That process will expose Democrats for who they are, anti-American, corrupt and unfit to lead, no matter who is at the helm.
Impeachment, based on real evidence of wrongdoing, could be a true turning point to reclaiming the country, but recovery from the damage caused by Obama’s malfeasance will take a very long time.
Only to those who watch or already believe that. The MSM will not look at anything that a Republican impeachment hearing would bring up.
He wants to be paid off to go away. On another front how did he all of a sudden become the Green Party candidate,, they didn’t have any type of primary process.
There is no requirement that a political party use a primary system to select their candidate. The parties can choose what method they want to select anyone that they want as their candidate.
Will anyone be surprised if Democrats find some way to force Cornel West out of the race?
Surprised? No. What surprises me the most is that the democrat leadership hasn’t already sat West down and had a little backroom conversation with him about how it might be a good idea for him to return to the plantation and stop his third-party candidate nonsense. Because it might be a little embarrassing for him if the IRS had to start looking into his finances and all. And really, nobody wants that to happen, Mr. West. So how’s about it. You just bow out now and save everyone the embarrassment. OK?
IDK man, using the levers of govt power and coercion to go after two opponents might be a little too obvious for folks to swallow.
Or it may be a way to rub our noses in the corruption of the electoral system.
Subotai Bahadur
IDK man, doesn’t seem to me that the democrat party is overly worried about the optics of anything they do. As long as it results in their staying in power they see no problems with their behavior. So I’m quite surprised that West hasn’t had a backroom visit from the IRS or FBI to point out that things could get very uncomfortable for him if he persists in running as a democrat third-party candidate.
‘Well that’s just like….your opinion man’
Seriously though it would not be that huge a surprise to see more overt efforts deployed v any potential rival of Biden whether primary or general election. Whatever restraint the d/prog used to have about being too public with their shenanigans does seem to be receding fast.
Third Parties are not a good bet for how you are going to win. In case your memory is short remember Oregon the state that had a third party candidate polling in the “hand Oregon to Republicans” territory? 3rd party intervention is unreliable at best.
Third parties have their uses in election manipulation. In 2010 Dan Maes flat swept the nomination for governor here in Colorado from precinct caucuses through the state primary election. I know, as I caucused and was a delegate to all the lower conventions and the state convention. Among the groups supporting him was the then new TEA Party. This annoyed the GOPe, because he beat their chosen loser for the general election.
Their response was to go to the Constitution Party [third party], pay them off to drop their already designated candidate for governor and insert GOPe selection Tom Tancredo. Which was legal under election law. The Republicans then flat refused to fund or campaign for Maes at all, and paid for the entire Constitution Party campaign.
The result was the GOPe getting what they wanted. Democrat John Hickenlooper became governor and we have had Democrat governors since. Tancredo came in second for the Constitution Party. Incidentally, Tancredo tried to run as a Republican for statewide office a few years later and found that he got boo-ed every time he made a public appearance.
Subotai Bahadur
Smart move on the part of the Green Party. The hard-core greenies are NOT beholden to Democrats. Their goal is to get to 5% of the popular vote which then would qualify them for federal election funding in the next election. Yes, yes, the notion of the greenies angling for federal money is humorous, and it’s even more so now that the two major parties have rejected the funding and resulting FEC oversight.
But the Green Party would very much want to be acknowledged as the ‘official’ third party, and to do that they need their five percent. Mr. West just might be able to help them do that in a way that Jill Stein never could.
Alarm bells . . . steady drumbeat?
Mix those metaphors much Axelrod?
Well, until Cornel West gets on the ballot in 8~10 battleground stayes, I wouldnt cry about milk that spills over the bridge.
Alarm bells . . . steady drumbeat?
Mix those metaphors much Axelrod?
Well, until Cornel West gets on the ballot in 8~10 battleground states, I wouldnt cry about milk that spills over the bridge.
You can say that again!
;-{)}}}