[OFFICIAL] CORNEL WEST FOR PRESIDENT 2024 THREAD

This is the best day of my life. I am voting for this dude, no questions asked.

Professor Cornel West launches 2024 presidential run

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/na...0230605-4wgbyg26jrcardp6snun5554cm-story.html

Professor Cornel West announced his candidacy for the 2024 presidential race.

The 70-year-old educator, whose resume includes stints at Harvard, Yale and Princeton, threw his hat into the ring in a video posted to Twitter Monday.

“In these bleak times I have decided to run for truth and justice which takes the form of running for president of the United States as a candidate for the People’s Party,” the 70-year-old scholar said.



West’s nearly three-minute announcement was made to a jazzy soundtrack. He called the presidency “just one vehicle” to advance “truth and justice.” Among his stated concerns were the restrictions of women’s reproductive rights and threats to the democratic process. West’s declaration included a clip of him calling Republican frontrunner Donald Trump a “neo-fascist” and Democratic president Joe Biden a “milquetoast neo-liberal” during an interview with HBO “Real Time” host Bill Maher.

“Do we have what it takes?” West asks supporters in his video. “We shall see. But some of us are going to go down fighting. Go down swinging with style and a smile.”

West supported Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders for the presidency in 2016 and 2020. He’s been critical of mainstream liberal candidates including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, whom he supported but later faulted for his handling of foreign policy and the economy.

The democratic socialist is a long shot to win the White House in 2024. Millard Fillmore, who held office from 1850 to 1853, is the last president to have been affiliated with neither the Democratic or Republican party.

The People’s Party confirmed West’s candidacy on its website with an ad reading “Justice is what love looks like in public.”

On Twitter, West wrote his objectives will be “fighting to end poverty, mass incarceration, ending wars and ecological collapse, guaranteeing housing, health care, education and living wages for all!”

Reactions to his announcement were encouraging and discouraging. Some Twitter users worried West’s candidacy would split the liberal vote and hand the election to the Republican nominee. Many conservatives saw that as a good thing and blasted him for being too liberal. Others commented on his unique sartorial choices, even comparing the California-raised academic’s look to that of a “Scottish Baptist minister” from the past.
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good news for Cornel West

Nearly half of voters would consider backing third-party candidate in 2024: poll

https://thehill.com/homenews/campai...r-backing-third-party-candidate-in-2024-poll/

excerpt:

Close to half of American voters would consider backing a third-party candidate if President Biden and former President Trump head toward a rematch in 2024, according to a new poll.

A NewsNation/DDHQ poll released on Tuesday found that 49 percent of respondents said it was somewhat or very likely that they would consider voting for a third party candidate in 2024 if Trump and Biden were their parties’ respective nominees.
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more at the link

 

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archi...candidacy-of-far-left-cornel-west-matters.php

Here’s Why the Candidacy of Far Left Cornel West Matters
by Elizabeth Stauffer
June 7, 2023

Far Left activist Cornel West announced his decision to run for president as a candidate for the People’s Party on Monday in a Twitter video. West, 70, is a former Harvard University public philosophy professor and a professor emeritus at Princeton University. As crazy as a West candidacy may seem at first glance, it could actually have a profound impact on the outcome of the election.

As a jaunty little tune played in the background, West said, “In these bleak times, I have decided to run for truth and justice, which takes the form of running for president of the United States as a candidate for the People’s Party. I enter in the quest for truth. I enter in the quest for justice. And the presidency is just one vehicle to pursue that truth and justice.”

Kellyanne Conway, who served as a senior counselor to former President Donald Trump, told Fox News on Tuesday that West’s candidacy could decide the race much as Ross Perot’s candidacy cost President George H.W. Bush a second term in 1992.

Conway pointed out, “Even if you don’t become president, you, as a third-party candidate spoiler can decide who is the president.” She noted that Bill Clinton got elected with just 43.5% of the vote. “Why? Because Ross Perot got 19% of the popular vote, even though he didn’t rack up any electoral votes.”

She explained, “If you play to win and you are Cornel West, and you are still not satisfied with the trajectory of the Democratic Party being progressive enough for you under a Biden/Harris administration, then you’re going to run to the left of them. Number one.”

“Number two, he’s going to make a play for people who feel forgotten, who feel abandoned by the Democratic Party and feel like nobody is listening to them and including them. It’s part of how Trump won in 2016, but I think he [West] can do it from the left.”

Conway also cited the 1980 primary battle between then-President Jimmy Carter and challenger Sen. Ted Kennedy, noting that “Carter came out of that very damaged and as an incumbent president, lost to Ronald Reagan.”

Few would argue that West could garner anywhere near 19% of the vote as Perot did in 1992 or win 12 state primaries as Kennedy did in 1980, but the 2016 election showed that far smaller shares of the vote can sway the outcome.

In the 2016 presidential election, for example, nearly 6% of the popular vote went to third party candidates. Some analysts go so far as to say this handed the presidency to Trump. In Pennsylvania, third party candidates won 4% of the vote. In Michigan and Wisconsin, they won 6%. Considering the margin of victory in each of these battleground states was under a point, these candidates made a difference.

Third party candidates played less of a role in the 2020 election when they won only 2% of the vote nationally.

In addition, the well-funded, centrist political group “No Labels” could also become a force in the 2024 election. Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, is the group’s national co-chairman. According to the New York Times, No Labels is planning to field a “unity ticket” and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) tops the list of potential candidates.

A Manchin candidacy would pose an even greater threat to Joe Biden’s reelection bid than the progressive Cornel West because he would likely appeal to a larger slice of the electorate.

And then, of course, there’s Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose candidacy and recent endorsement by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey I discussed here.

All things considered, Biden’s second term is looking less inevitable by the day.
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https://thehill.com/homenews/campai...s-run-could-tank-bidens-reelection-prospects/

3 hours ago
Kellyanne Conway: Cornel West's run could tank Biden's reelection prospects
by Sarah Fortinsky
06/07/23 2:10 PM ET

Kellyanne Conway said it’s “very likely” that progressive scholar Cornel West, who recently announced his third-party presidential campaign, poses more of a threat to President Biden’s reelection prospects than does Democratic candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

In an interview on Fox News, the former senior counselor to then-President Trump laid out a case that West’s candidacy with the progressive People’s Party could tank Biden’s chances in the general election, comparing it to the doomed reelection bids of former Presidents Carter and George H.W. Bush.

Conway was asked to respond to a tweet from The Cook Report's Amy Walter who responded to West’s announcement video on Twitter, writing, “Isn’t this candidacy more threatening to Biden in general election (esp. w/ young & voters of color) than RFK Jr in the primary?”

“The answer to that is yes. It’s very likely,” Conway said in response to Walter’s question. ”Amy Walter is onto something, and I’ll tell you why: Even if you don’t become president, you, as a third-party candidate spoiler, can decide who is the president.”

She gave the example of the presidential election of 1992, when Ross Perot ran as an independent on a platform further to the right ideologically than Bush’s platform. Perot ultimately won nearly 19 percent of the popular vote – most of which could be reasonably assumed to have gone to Bush over Democratic candidate Bill Clinton at the time.

“It’s important also, what Amy Walter is pointing out, is that: if you play to win and you’re Cornel West, and you are still not satisfied with the trajectory of the Democratic Party being progressive enough for you under a Biden-Harris administration,” she said, “then you’re going to run to the left of them.”

Conway also argued that any serious candidate competing for an overlapping share of voters with the president could cause serious damage to his favorability in the general election. She noted how Sen. Ted Kennedy refused to drop out of the race until the Democratic convention, when he challenged Carter in 1980, despite losing in a majority of states in the primaries.

“Carter came out of that very damaged, and, as an incumbent president, lost to Ronald Reagan, so we do have some precedent there, that Cornel West can point to as to what he’s doing.

She noted West shares some similarities with Trump in his ability to tap into what an untapped section of the electorate truly wants to hear.

“He’s going to make a play for people who feel forgotten, who feel abandoned by this Democratic Party, who feel like nobody’s listening to them and including them. It’s part of how Trump won in 2016, but I think he could do it from the left,” Conway said, later adding, “I know him. He’s a super smart guy. He’s very committed to the principles and policies that he thinks more Americans want to hear.”
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commentary on the commentary:

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2023/06/2024-panic-growing-on-the-left.php

17 minutes ago
2024 Panic Growing on the Left
by Steven Hayward
JUNE 8, 2023

Elizabeth wrote yesterday about taking seriously the presidential candidacy of Cornel West, and while no one thinks West will actually gain many votes, the memory of Ralph Nader’s 95,000 votes in Florida in the 2000 election still haunts the memories of Democrats. (By the way, since Cornel West has put out his own rap CDs, clearly his running mate should be the other West who has made noises about running for president—Kanye West. The ticket/bumper sticker could be “West2.“)

Clearly the left is worried about West, too. MSNBC is out with an attack on West claiming that he is . . . a conservative!

Cornel West’s ‘leftist’ presidential bid has right-wing DNA

Ostensibly leftist academic Cornel West launched his third-party presidential campaign the way any true progressive would — by promoting it on a podcast known to spread right-wing extremist conspiracy theories, hosted on a video platform popular among right-wing extremists, just weeks after having praised Florida’s right-wing extremist governor, Ron DeSantis.

In his praise for the Florida Republican — in a Wall Street Journal op-ed headlined “DeSantis’s Revolutionary Defense of the Classics” — West and a conservative co-author endorsed the governor’s support for Florida high schoolers being able to qualify for scholarships by using scores from the Classic Learning Test.​

So here’s the thing about West: he is a self-proclaimed radical socialist, an admirer of Castro and Cuba and likely other Communist “utopias.” He generally parrots the despicable leftist line about Israel. But he is also a devout Christian, team-teaches a very popular Great Books course with Robbie George at Princeton, and actually does think the Western Great Books canon contains enduring wisdom. (He publicly criticized Howard University for closing down its Classics department recently.) He’s departed openly from the censorious campus cancel culture. I’ve actually met him once or twice in the most unlikely circumstance: he occasionally turned up for Claremont Institute panels at the American Political Science Association annual convention, showing that he has some level of curiosity about what conservative political philosophers have to say. He often asked respectful questions during the discussion portion of the panels. No wonder the left think he is a puppet of the right.

Meanwhile, the left is also freaked out about Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s renegade candidacy. With his famous name and family legacy of helping to take down incumbent Democrat presidents (LBJ and Carter), and already polling around 20 percent among Democrats, you can sense the disturbance in The Force of the leftist Evil Empire. So what do leftists want to say about RFK Jr? That he’s . . . a conservative!

That’s the line the New York Times is taking:

Robert Kennedy Jr., With Musk, Pushes Right-Wing Ideas and Misinformation

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a scion of one of the country’s most famous Democratic families, on Monday dived into the full embrace of a host of conservative figures who eagerly promoted his long-shot primary challenge to President Biden. . . On Monday, he sounded like a candidate far more at ease in the mushrooming Republican presidential contest. . .

He said he planned to travel to the Mexican border this week to “try to formulate policies that will seal the border permanently,” called for the federal government to consider the war in Ukraine from the perspective of Russians and said pharmaceutical drugs were responsible for the rise of mass shootings in America. . .

Asked during the discussion by David Sacks, a top DeSantis donor who is also close to Mr. Musk, “what happened to the Democratic Party,” Mr. Kennedy spent nine uninterrupted minutes attacking Mr. Biden as a warmonger and claimed that their party was under the control of the pharmaceutical industry.​

There followed a lot of Times fact-checking of RFK Jr’s claims. Funny how the Times—or any other media outlet—never did any fact-checking of RFK Jr’s claims over the years about vaccines, climate change, or anything else when he was a leftist icon. But now that they are clearly worried he might do some damage to the Democratic Party, he must be destroyed. And the best way to do that for Times readers is to call him a conservative. That’ll show him!

While most of the attention on the 2024 election cycle is centered on the GOP and its Trump drama, I still say the Democrats are likely to provide us with the biggest surprises and bombshells before we get to election day next year. And I haven’t even gotten to the Joe Manchin story line yet. Stay tuned. . .
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Cornel West Discusses His Presidential Campaign

https://blackagendareport.com/cornel-west-discusses-his-presidential-campaign

 

Cornel West seeking Green Party nomination for presidential run

https://thehill.com/homenews/campai...-green-party-nomination-for-presidential-run/