I’m Canadian so I don’t really get a say in this, but he seems like a decent guy. Most astronauts are hard working, smart, and know to rely on other smart people to get tasks accomplished. His wife ain’t no pushover either, nobody can question that couple’s commitment to America.
For those that don’t remember:
What does this have to do with anything? Edit: figured it out, he is married to Gabby Giffords.
ctrl-f Kelly on that page
One of the people who was shot at this event is then-US representative Gabby Giffords. She was shot in the head and survived, but six people were killed. She is Mark Kelly’s wife. I would presume they’re going to have very strong opinions on gun control laws because of this.
And he would def have something to say about the nature of political violence. A madman with a gun is no basis for doling out governmental powers.
A madman with a gun is no basis for doling out governmental powers
Almost as bad as becoming king because some moistened bint lobs a scimitar at you!
And, just like AOC, he will understand on a personal level what’s at stake in the current contest for America.
I changed my mind, I like this guy, oil drilling or no.
Not just an opinion, she/they started an entire organization to fight the gun lobbies.
It’s funny. Literally every astronaut I’ve met is exactly like this - quietly competent, affable, team player. As is the astronaut candidate I’ve met.
And yet…
Every person I’ve met who has been keen on becoming an astronaut or astronaut candidate has been an insufferable self-aggrandizing jerk face. Like, just awful people who suck all the air out of any room they’re in, expounding on how they (or the idea they’re selling) are the most amazing thing ever.
Whoa wait hol up
How many astronauts have you met???
3 Astronauts. 1 candidate. Only really got to know one astronaut (family friend) and one candidate (supervised her training in an unrelated field) super well. I’ve had long term interactions with two wannabes who were disasters.
I take it you never met Lisa Nowak.
My BIL was selected as an alternate for teacher in space. He did some of the training, but he honestly wasn’t even too bothered that he never got called to go, which probably means he’d have done well up there.
Here’s a hint, it’s the same with politicians.
Unfortunately, in contrast to astronauts, most of the politicians I’ve met are complete shits. Only met a few at the civic level who are excellent. And one at the federal level. Everyone else has been truly🤮.
I’m still shocked no one is taking seriously the “Democrats should pick Romney as Presidential choice because reasons” that has seriously been floated.
I wonder: how many times has someone given a big platform to someone so they can suggest that the Republicans should select a Democrat as their choice? Probably never? Why is it that people always say - with a straight face and very, very seriously - that it is Democrats that should run Republicans on their tickets, because something something unity and tone.
I’d rather not be one bullet away from a Republican president in the current climate…
We are two bullets away from a theocratic nutjob president, that’s a really concerning thought with the large number of Repub terrorists in this country.
Because it’s not a good idea. They select him and don’t convert Republican voters, lose a good portion of the progressive base and only get marginal, less reliable, swing voters with that move. That’s at least a ten point loss right there.
It’s going to be a safe bet like Josh Shapiro or, slightly less safe, Cooper.
Cooper
Was curious why “less safe”? I was thinking that’s a decent strategic pick, a southern democrat that’s able to win the same elections that Trump and Robinson won, while still pretty well aligned with the democrat platform broadly. He has a good chance to immediately be 16 electoral votes, he has to vacate his governorship this year anyway, so you don’t vacate a known factor in favor of a less known factor. Pandering to Pennsylvania may be a bit more likely with more bang for the buck though given that Pennsylvania has historically been more “winnable” and has more votes though…
I say that only because the lift effect may not actually turn it into a locked swing state. NC has been more lean-right than a true swing state so it’s, in my mind, riskier than picking the PA governor for the reasons that you highlight. But regardless, I think any of Shapiro, Cooper or Kelly would be a great balance to the ticket and i would not at all be disappointed with any of them. Honestly it’s an embarrassment of riches with regards to potential VPs and a great position for Democrats.
Yeah, it’s of course a ridiculous idea that moderates and Republicans seem to suggest that Democrats do, but I never see anyone given a big platform to suggest that, say, the Republicans should force donnie to step down and select Hillary as the centrist option, for example. I mean, the New York Fucking Times let Aaron Sorkin suggest that Mitt Romney should be the Democratic pick. I mean, what. The. Actual. Fuck.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/21/opinion/biden-west-wing-aaron-sorkin.html
Add this to another in a long list to why I laugh right out loud in someone’s face when they insist that NYT is “liberal”.
It’s also a near-perfect demonstration of Murc’s Law - it’s not up to Republicans to amend their awful and despicable ways, no, the Democratic Party has to nominate someone like Mitt Romney in the hopes that would somehow heal a divide (by coming all the way over to the right, basically) that the right wing is entirely responsible for.
As a leftist, you kind of should hate the NYT opinion essays. They’re written by people who are explicitly invited to write the opposite of the NYT’s editorial board’s point of view. The old name was “Op Ed” which stands for “Opposite the editorial opinion”. They changed it because the term started to lose meaning when the op-ed no longer showed up literally opposite the editorial column in the printed newspaper, and is instead its own page on a website.
https://open.nytimes.com/how-we-redesigned-the-new-york-times-opinion-essay-ad5e0270f5bc
The entire point is to not be an echo chamber. The redesign makes it very clear that it’s an opinionated essay written by a guest by putting the words “Opinion - Guest Essay” in bold and red at the top.
In that vein, why not Liz Cheney? She’s vehemently anti-trump / maga… <shrug>
The irony is that liz is much more right wing than donnie; she just happens to believe in the rule of law.
Which platform was that? Fucking lunacy.
New York Times.
Of course. Basically the top journal for Nazi op-eds.
To see an example of how they are getting hilarious dragged for it…
https://www.wonkette.com/p/aaron-sorkin-sets-land-speed-record?utm_source=publication-search
I don’t like that option, but I do think it would be effective to disrupt the Republican party. It’d really force a lot of modern “Republicans” to face what the party has become.
I think it’d be better to out him as VP under Harris than president though. To have a traditionally popular Republican candidate on the ticket would give them a huge platform to point out that the MAGA party is not the Republican party many supported before. It’s just Fascists who stole it because people were too dumb to pay attention.
He has a horse in the olympics and does not even watch them!
He is center enough to balance her ticket. Problem is we’ll stave off fascism for one more cycle but we won’t get important changes pushed. It’ll be a don’t rock the boat presidency.
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Finish the sentence.
Did you literally stop reading right there? If so that’s on you.
Finish the fucking sentence.
Winning the presidency will be a wake up call for Republicans. Trump would be finished politically. If Dems hold the Senate and take the House it’s a mandate
I certainly hope so.
People said the same thing in 2020.
We’re playing for time here. Good chance that Trump will be dead or clearly too old to run in 4 years. MAGA is a cult and without the cult leader, much of the danger is diffused.
That’s kind of assuming they can’t just find any other freak to take command while doing everything the foundations and conservative PACs and corporate donors want. I don’t actually think trump really has all that much charisma beyond his slightly flamboyant mannerisms and his weird accent that I’ve never heard anywhere else. They could pretty easily replace him with some other brainworm candidate, probably get someone way younger and slightly more well-spoken, lose maybe like, 10% of the diehard trump supporters, and then gain back those numbers and more after running their candidate for like five months and trying to ride with slightly more centrist appeal.
Trump isn’t like, the end of this, he’s just a kind of canary in the coal mine for what’s to come, because the conditions which created him still exist and are actively worsening pretty much all the time. It’s not gonna end with him.
How does center balance center? Or do you merely mean she’s a woman of color and he’s a white man?
Jump right in there with allegations and accusations do you?
Hell yes.
Not a fan of him teaming up with Manchin to promote more oil drilling.
I’m just not a fan of Manchin.
Manchin can go to hell.
Manchin got us to 50 in a deep red state. There are so many red states in middle America that, in the current political spectrum, it is nigh impossible to get to 50 dems in the senate.
I hear you, Manchin wasn’t my guy, but we would have got bunk from the Biden administration without him.
Something something, it’s easy to hate, harder to love.
Manchin got us to 50 in a deep red state
With significantly more funding from the party coffers than other candidates and significant efforts to make sure that West Virginia would never get a choice of anyone but him and Republicans.
The desperately poor white working class of West Virginia might have primarily defaulted to Republican because of far right demagogues doing a better job than conservative Democrats of pretending to want to change the system to something that doesn’t abuse the poor as much.
A progressive candidate who genuinely cares about systemic poverty and agrees with the majority of West Virginians on the need for single payer health care could feasibly win in WV if not for the DNC fighting so hard to avoid it in favor of a coal baron beloved by party brass even know that he’s registered as an independent.
I recognize he’s done some decent things and he’s a dem in a deep red. I’m not a fan - but recognize his position. Rather have a DINO than Rep.
Not that he would be a bad choice for VP but I want him to stay in the Senate. He can do more good there.
In office vs in Senate I do agree. However I think the good he can do by being on the ticket does more for the nation than if he was in the Senate and Trump won. (Not saying thats the only option but its a possible outcome)
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He does not support Medicare for all, and also does not support the green new deal, according to his wiki. He also supported increased oil drilling.
So he’s pretty moderate right IMO, which sucks. I hope he’s not her choice.
I think it’s a healthy balance, on the ticket, that helps reach those purple states more.
The Green New Deal was a white paper produced by a DC think tank. Obama implemented some of it. Biden implemented a lot of it through the climate change bill.
His position on healthcare seems to be Medicare for All Who Want It, without forcing people to drop their private health insurance if they prefer to go that route.
I think he’s pretty electable and, right now, anyone who helps win is good.
I think “electable” is dead in the water and, for now, a thing of the past. What the Democrats need is someone who will get dems to the polls come election day. Luke warm glass of milk isn’t going to cut it because MAGA is fired up. Dems need to be fired up too.
What the Democrats need is someone who will get dems to the polls come election day.
Democrats in contested states.
We win the popularity contest, time and again, but because we keep picking blue-state Democrats, we keep losing elections.
If we would ever pick a Democratic candidate who has actually won an election in a red state, the election would be a runaway landslide, and the GOP would have to come crawling left.
Because we abandon the Red and contested states entirely, the GOP is free to run candidates like Trump.
Yeah, see this is why I was so attached to Biden. The average Democrat isn’t really all that left. All this stuff with climate change and unions under Biden was very much an anomaly, and we’re probably returning to a certain amount of status quo with Harris.
Idk, I could be wrong; maybe she’s super left and this guy’s being floated as a gift to the New York Timeses of the world so the ticket will be acceptable to the six figure Manhattan shitheads that their editors are friends with, so they won’t print bullshit about her to try to lose her the election. And she still doesn’t want to destroy American democracy and all climate change remediation since Obama, which makes her worth voting for. But yeah we can expect a certain amount of corporate bullshit to come back into the equation now, I think. 😕
From what I’ve heard, it sounds like her senator policy stances were left of Joe? But chances are, her vp will prolly be more center, and who knows what her policies look like when she has to take stances that aren’t representing just California.
Joe did a pretty good job as president courting progressives though. It was all much further left than his time in the senate. Still not far enough left for me, but better. I hope Harris follows that. The population generally is moving in that direction, so they need to.
The average Democrat is to the left of their representatives on a lot of things, including climate change: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/09/what-the-data-says-about-americans-views-of-climate-change/
Kelly is not an average Democrat representative, he’s definitely on the right end of the caucus.
True, but he is representing AZ, and technically he should be following the wishes of his constituents.
The real problem with picking him I would think, would be opening a senate seat in a purple/red state like AZ. The last thing the senate needs is another Sinema (or an even worse republican ).
Not a problem. The governor of Arizona, a Democrat, will fill that seat, and Arizona law requires she fill it with a Democrat.
Ah, good to know, thanks!
Yet the people around this instance thinks he’s a great VP candidate…
Funny how you’re upvoted a lot for mentioning this, but someone else does, then it’s a downvote parade.
If the goal is preventing Trump from winning and shoring up harris’s weak points, Kelly is a pretty good choice. We can argue about drilling and green energy after Trump is in jail for all his crimes.
Trump is never going to jail. For fuck sakes, when will you stop drinking that kool-aid? It’s a practical fantasy at this point. If he hadn’t gone to jail for two impeachments and so far hasn’t gone to jail for the recent convictions - what makes you think he’ll ever go to jail now? Get over it.
Impeachment don’t come with jail sentences. He hasn’t gone through sentencing for his convictions yet. There’s still time.
I’d say it’s likely either him or Beshear, with Beshear having a slight edge.
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I’d like it to be mayor Pete. Young, smart, well spoken, Rhodes scholar, veteran. Plus it would set him up for a serious run at the presidency in the future.
Fucking sold
HELL YES
Not just that! Fuck yeah!
Our first astronaut president. If he had a little Aldrin, we might see him punch a flat earther in the face. That would be awesome. Specially if it was a republican flat earther. LOL.
Anecdote time: last week a 30 year old woman I work with stated with confidence she wouldn’t be voting this year. Earlier today she told me she would be voting for Harris and asked who the vp would be. I said Shapiro, beshear, or Kelly. She looked up each of them on Wikipedia and immediately said something to the effect of, “why have I never heard of Kelly? I’d vote for this guy at the top of the ticket. I hope she picks him.”
The guy’s bio speaks for itself. Plus we’d get fun twins hijinks at the naval observatory and I think we as a nation need that.
I would love to see Mark at the top of the ticket, and Scott as his Chief of Staff.
Can you imagine a VP debate between an actual fucking astronaut and Peter Thiel’s former blood boy?
Let’s see what you folks missed…
Navy combat pilot. Would be the first of those in the administration since HW.
Arizona would be a nice get electoral wise.
GW left the military as a First Lieutenant (O2). Kelly retired as a Navy Captain, (O7).
If their careers were firearms, GW’s would be a .22LR revolver; Kelly’s would be a 20mm CIWS.
Navy combat pilot. Would be the first of those in the administration since HW.
Why would this ever be an asset for the presidency? It’s completely unrelated to the skills involved and doesn’t demonstrate any particular merit of bravery or understanding the costs of war. I don’t particularly want someone whose chosen role in warfare was comfortably dropping bombs on people they couldn’t even see.
Some people would say that when you are commander in chief it’s good tha5 you have military experience. So far, JD Vance is the only person with such experience.
JD Vance was a “combat correspondent” in the Marine Corps, and separated after one tour as a Corporal (E4).
Kelly was a Navy Captain (O7).
One of these men was trained and entrusted to operate the space shuttle; the other, a digital camera.
Didn’t you see the movie Independency Day? Clearly it could be a huge asset for a US President.
