Live and In Person Presidential Candidates

[Yppej]

https://www.wunc.org/2023-12-08/a-po...mary-tradition

Have ya seen these yokels?

Attachment 5694

No.

[Yppej]

Phillips

Thanks to free holiday parking in Nashua I decided to go hear Phillips after all. His event was downtown and not being familiar with that area I brought my brother as it would be after dark.

We arrived in time to get seats, but the venue was way too small, a hole in the wall coffee shop that appeared to have been selected because Phillips used to be in the coffee business. You could get free coffee but only caffeinated and since it started at 4:30 most people wanted decaf.

More and more people crammed into the tiny space including a bunch of media. If the fire marshal had come by I think they would have been fined. It got so claustrophobic my brother went outside but I stayed.

This was definitely a Democratic crowd rather reminiscent of the one at the Biden event I went to four years ago - not very enthusiastic but they think the candidate can beat Trump.

The only apparent policy difference between Biden and Phillips is that Phillips is for single payer.

The first questioner asked about covid vaccine injuries and knew (as did I) more about this and related topics like gain of function research than Phillips did. This was a pattern throughout the event. For instance, when asked how he would address the budget deficit he said make cuts but didn’t specify where. He also spent quite a bit of time on sappy stories of how bipartisan he is, he had an event where a liberal and Trumper hugged etc.

The AARP had at least five people there so they could get a question in, and Phillips wants to raise the cap on taxable earnings for Social Security to $250,000 and also let rich people voluntarily give up their benefits. The latter seems naive.

I asked what he offers to the growing number of Libertarians in the state and he said bodily autonomy (without specifying what he means by that despite the previous question on covid) and weed. Although in his introductory remarks he said people are unhappy with Biden over the economy and wars, he did not mention reining in military spending. Later when asked about global conflict he paid some lip service to peace, but also didn’t want to stop funding the wars going on now. He also didn’t have specific solutions to mitigating climate change, another audience question. When asked about immigration he said we should have people apply for asylum in their home countries and keep them safe there. He is delusional if he thinks there is room to house all the migrants in our embassies until their cases are heard.

He didn’t harp on Biden’s age a lot but did say he was too old to deal with “threats” like AI, crypto and Blockchain, another strike with Libertarians.

While the crowd was reasonably diverse for New Hampshire, the campaign staff were not. It was all young white males with a definite bro vibe, and while Phillips comes across as one of them, I didn’t relate to him like they did and don’t foresee myself voting for him. If I lived in NH and chose to vote in the Democratic primary I would choose Williamson.

The whole event left me tired - I was trying not to yawn - and I will postpone my planned trip to Vermont tomorrow.

[catherine]

Thanks for the great report, Jeppy.

[Simone]

Another helpful picture of a candidate. Thanks!

[Yppej]

Ryan Brinkley is finally coming to New Hampshire and it’s the day of a snowstorm.