Category: Politics
The search for Wayne Messam’s campaign for president website
Pop quiz: Can anyone identify the black bald candidate for president who isn’t Cory Booker? If you can, you are likely a resident of Miramar, FL, the town which Wayne Messam is mayor of (not to be confused with Miramar Naval Air Station, the setting for the movie Top Gun in Southern California).
Quiz #2:
Can you name the other 2 current Mayors running for president?
Pete Buttigieg, South Bend, IN
Bill de Blasio, New York, NY
How about the 3 former mayors?
Cory Booker, former mayor of Newark
Julián Castro, former mayor of San Antonio
John Hickenlooper, former mayor of Denver
.
As I discussed in the previous post, while Wayne Messam does have a presence on the internet (via various social media and news outlets), he has invested very little in search engine optimization (SEO) leaving his actual campaign website almost completely unfindable.
Googling “Wayne Messam“, “Wayne Messam for President“, “Wayne Messam for President website” all did not turn up his campaign website. It did turn up his “Wayne Messam 2020 presidential campaign” Wikipedia page, which did (finally!) have a link to his official website, WayneForAmerica.com… whiiich is a broken link.
Continue reading
Presidential candidate 404 pages, round 2 of 3 – folks who don’t have much of a chance
Continuing from my previous post, I pulled the 404 pages for 4 more of the Democratic nominees. This lot is challenged – they are polling so poorly and raised so little money that they didn’t make the first debate. However, “down” does not mean “out.” For those of you who have already written off (say) Steve Bullock, remember that history has shown us that there are MANY examples of upsets that could never have been predicted this early on…
- Despite facing much higher profile adversaries than himself, getting stomped in Iowa then having his affair with Gennifer Flowers exposed, Bill Clinton he still went on to win in 1992
- As an aside, just like Stormy Daniels is such a great pornstar name, Gennifer Flower is definitely a great “mistress name”
- In 2008 Barack Obama stumbled in his early debate and didn’t seem capable of knocking Hillary Clinton off her status as the presumptive nominee and yet still ended up winning
- And really… 3 years ago, Donald Trump riding down his gold escalator was the biggest joke of all – to think that he could knock off Jeb Bush was craziness at the time
Don’t get me wrong, these guys’ chances aren’t good, but it’s not zero. In any case, roughly in order their likeliness (IMHO), here are the 404 pages for the 4 candidates least likely to get the nomination:
Steve Bullock Continue reading
Presidential candidate 404 pages
I was looking at the website for the clown leading this country when I hit a broken link and brought up the site’s 404 page (you know, the page that a web server generates when a user attempts to follow a broken/dead link).
Hah. “You’re looking for something that doesn’t exist” followed by a picture of a smiling President Hillary Clinton.
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/stablegenius
The page is actually brilliant. No matter who looks at it will get riled up in the exact way he wants them to – his supporters, disappointed at the fact that they are a broken link, will chuckle, “Hah! Yeah, that’s right, we show’d her!” Everyone else (myself included) will wring their hands “Why does he keep on bringing up Hillary? Can’t he just move on??” Both of us are then offered a chance to view more of Trump’s glory or give him money.
In any case, I thought it would be interesting to check out the 404 pages for the other presidential candidates. Let’s start with those who were at night 1 of the debate.
Bill de Blasio Continue reading
Vicente for Presidente
Most people (Donald Trump excluded), once they reach a certain level of respectability, try to behave, you know, respectably. Thank god Vicente Fox, president of Mexico until 2006, got sick of that and started speaking his true mind.
If you want to see him trying to make a reasoned argument you can, but this sampling of off the rail rants are fantastic…
A MESSAGE TO DONALD TRUMP:
VICENTE FOR PRESIDENTE:
Jimmy Carter, step down. Vicente Fox, you are now officially my favorite former world leader and you have my vote!
The Democratic field – where they’re from, by state
A simple visualization of what state these folks are from (and easy mapping is one of the few things that Google Sheets does that Excel doesn’t!).
Where the candidates are from, by state:
Key:
| State | Name(s) |
| CO | Michael Bennet, John Hickenlooper |
| DE | Joseph R. Biden Jr. |
| NJ | Cory Booker |
| MT | Steve Bullock |
| IN | Pete Buttigieg |
| TX | Julián Castro, Beto O’Rourke |
| MD | John Delaney |
| NY | Bill de Blasio, Kirsten Gillibrand, Andrew Yang |
| HI | Tulsi Gabbard |
| CA | Kamala Harris, Eric, Swalwell, Marianne Williamson |
| WA | Jay Inslee |
| MN | Amy Klobuchar |
| FL | Wayne Messam |
| MA | Seth Moulton, Elizabeth Warren |
| OH | Tim Ryan |
| VT | Bernie Sanders |
Democratic field, a visualization redux
It seems like the Democratic field is baked in and with the debates looming, figured I’d update this view from about 4 months back.
Democrats by age, redux
This is the same chart as I made yesterday except, in addition to the colored bars which represent the age when they become president (and shows the full 8 years of their term), I ALSO overlaid the average life expectancy* (yellow diamonds) for that candidate based on the year they were born (I couldn’t make Google sheets do it so had to use Excel instead).
Obviously as time goes on, life expectancies have been increasing so I find it encouraging that most of the oldies running here are much closer to their average life expectancies than Reagan was. As such, depending on the problems that Reagan did or didn’t have, it seems that this is a much smaller concern for us going forward with this lot (except for maybe Bernie who is only slightly below his average than Reagan was for his (24 years vs. 27 for Reagan)).
Democrats by age
Ok, here is a view by age. The bars represent their age when (if!) they become president and shows the full 8 years of their term.
There are basically 3 groups here – the first are the kids, in their late 30s/early 40s, they would be younger than JFK by 4-5 years if they win to become the youngest US president by far. The mid-tier, from their mid-50s to late 60s makes up the bulk of the bunch. Finally, the oldies will be in their late 70s or older when they start. Elizabeth Warren would be the oldest president ever if she went 2 terms and Bernie would be the oldest president ever on day 1!
Frankly, I didn’t realize that Trump was older when Reagan when they started, so if he serves 2 terms, he will be the oldest president we have ever had.
Democratic field, a visualization
I feel like I’m a little late in getting up to speed on the rolling circus that will be the Democratic field for president. Working on some interesting visualizations… here is a start looking at prior government experience…
Pop Quiz, they’re all children
Following are 2 conversations I have recently heard (one is loosely paraphrased, click on the quote to see the full context)… one was had between 60 year olds and one was between 6 year olds. Your goal is to determine which is which…
Conversation #1:
“I want to play with blocks”
Donald Trump: I want to build a wall
“No”
Nancy Pelosi: No
“Well, I’m going to take all my money and go home”
Donald Trump: I’m going to shut down the government if you don’t give me what I want
“Fine, go ahead”
Nancy Pelosi: Try me bitch
“I’m all alone, poor me”
Donald Trump:
“Yeah? And you can’t come to my birthday party”
Nancy Pelosi: Well, you can’t come to Congress to give the State of the Union
“Oh yeah?? Well, you can’t play with my airplanes”
Donald Trump: Well you can’t take military airplanes for your trip to Afghanistan
.
Conversation #2
“Play ‘life is fun'”
6 year old: Alexa, play Life is Fun
“I’m sorry, i don’t know ‘big white bun'”
Alexa (6 year old AI): “I’m sorry, i don’t know Big White Bun
.
Stop the madness!!!
Salim's World 