Posted on 03/02/2017 1:16:55 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) is criticizing the Democratic rebuttal speech to President Trump's first address to a joint session of Congress, calling it "a mistake" to have chosen former Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear.
"You're asking about thinking, and that didn't happen," Cleaver said Wednesday when questioned on MSNBC about the diner-set rebuttal speech.
"Look, the governor did a fabulous job in terms of healthcare when he was in Kentucky ... but I would love to have had [Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julián] Castro as giving the response or somebody like [Rep.] Cedric Richmond from New Orleans," Cleaver said.
Beshear lauded the success of ObamaCare in his state during his opposition-party rebuttal. He also faulted Trump for antagonizing Democrats and vilifying the press.
While Cleaver acknowledged the former governor's experience in Kentucky, he noted that he would have preferred to see a younger or more diverse Democratic voice.
"I don't mind when we make mistakes, and that was a mistake," he said.
"I just left a meeting where we were discussing the fact that we think we are going to have a problem if we don't start presenting an image of the millennials and that there is a youth movement in the Democratic Party," Cleaver added.
Ah. As I suspected.
{{ giggles }}
That dude reminded me of that Heaven’s Gate leader.
My bet is Beshear wasn’t picked. He was the first guy willing to do it.
My bet is Beshear picked the short staw.
I’d love to know if anyone else was asked....
Why didn’t the new DNC chairman do it. Or his, snort, deputy....?
Who chose Beshear, do we know?
Selecting a retired former governor who is virtually unknown outside of the state of Kentucky to do the rebuttal illustrates just how thin the Democrat bench is. If Beshear had turned them down, their next choice was a guy who knows someone who lives down the street from the cousin of a guy who dated girl who once met Mike Dukakis.
Reportedly Karl Marx, Josef Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, Che Guevara, and Fidel Castro were at the top of the Democrats' list of qualified rebuttal speakers, but were unavailable.
The speech was step ONE
Step Two is to take back control of Congress by running squeaky clean white traditional Americans in areas Trump won. Democrats will do their best to recruit vets... people WE might want to vote for... but they'll use them as place-holders.
Democrats will lie to potential candidates - telling them they're trying to 'take back' the democrat party from the leftists extremists... when in fact this plot is designed by leftist extremists.
The goal is for democrats is to take back control based on lying to the American people about who they really are - - opening the door for Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Obama to step back into influence and power.
I thought the dems response was a commercial for life alert.
I’ve lived long enough to see the democrats become the party of the retirement home. Talk about old hippies refusing to give up their power.
They could have picked Ruth Ginsburg, but they were afraid she would fall asleep in the middle of her rebuttal.
Ya think?
‘I am a proud Democrat. But first and foremost, I am a proud Republican. But I am a Democrat and a Republican but mostly an American.’
Then he rambled on about being [former] governor [who cares?] and stuff about Kentucky.
One thing — the clip of his opening remark ‘I am a Democrat. But I am a Republican ...’ will go down in history alongside Miss South Carolina at Miss Teen USA 2007.
And it is up to us to prevent that
I certainly don't, and I'd love to find out. Whoever it was showed a political tin ear past anything we've seen in recent years, and worse, did not bother even to edit the embarrassing opening once the comedy was in the can. And what was that setting, anyway, the Democrat vision of the future being funereal faces in a diner? You'd have to be pretty out of touch to consider that inspirational.
This extended to the speech itself. Whoever thought it would be good optics to dress the feminist gang up like a Chinese funeral party or the KKK really ought not to be allowed out of the house without a minder. Bad enough that Trump spent the evening hitting grand slams, the Dems managed to tee a few of them up for him themselves.
This argues a party as short on leadership as it is on credible candidates. It argues, as well, a party leadership stuck in the 90's PR mode of branding, packaging, and posturing. "Younger, blacker, browner, gayer" is nothing but window dressing. Progressive racism is stale, confiscatory wealth redistribution is blind and stupid in the face of such disasters as Venezuela, militant feminism is rapidly devolving into nursery school victimhood. They're looking for a celebrity to make up for the hollowness and Hillary wasn't it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.