Thursday, July 11, 2019

Drink, because Tom Steyer is running on National Mojito Day 2019


Happy National Mojito Day!  I was planning on writing about Cuba today, but a shinier object flashed at me  this week, Tom Steyer declaring his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for the President.  CBS News reported yesterday in Billionaire Tom Steyer latest presidential candidate to join 2020 field

Tom Steyer has had a change of heart over the past few months. CBS News political correspondent Ed O'Keefe and CBSN political reporter Caitlin Huey-Burns join "Red and Blue" to discuss the crowded democratic primary field.
As soon as Eric Swalwell dropped out, Steyer replaced him, so there are still 25 candidates in the field.  Steyer wasted no time in keeping the field just as crowded as it was before.

On The Issues also wasted no time rating Steyer, it put up a page for him within the day of his announcing.  It also wasted little time evaluating him.  Unlike Wayne Messam, who had a page for weeks with no evaluation, Steyer's page had initial scores of 38 economic and 60 social yesterday morning, revised to 30 economic and 73 social by 9:00 P.M. EDT last night.  Just like the Senators and Representatives running for the Democratic nomination, Steyer appears to be drifting to the left as he campaigns, although that's really an artifact of his positions being examined.  For what it's worth, both scores led On The Issues to classify Steyer as a Moderate Liberal with the more recent scores placing him between Messam and Tulsi Gabbard according to how I rank the candidates.  That seems right to me.

All this reminds me that I promised updated ratings and rankings for all the candidates.  I'm working on it.  When I have them ready, I'll post them.


Enough politics.  It's time for the recipe for today.  Since Steyer is a billionaire, I'm sharing the ritziest mojito recipe I can find on Tipsy Bartender's YouTube channel, the Champagne Mojito.

CHAMPAGNE MOJITO
1 1/2 oz. (45ml) White Rum
Splash Champagne
1 oz. (30ml) Lime Juice
Splash Simple Syrup
Mint Leaves
Ice

PREPARATION
1. Rim edge of coupe glass with lime juice and sugar. Set aside.
2. In a blender combine ice, rum, lime juice, simple syrup and mint leaves and pulse until combined and ice is lightly crushed.
3. Pour mixture into glass and garnish with a lime wheel. Enjoy responsibly!
I'm still not done with national days celebrating cocktails from Caribbean island nations, as July 19th is National Daiquiri Day.  I can write about Cuba then.  Stay tuned.

4 comments:

  1. Yet another "now who's that guy again?" candidate..... This primary is becoming farcical. And of course another billionaire on an ego trip is exactly what the Democratic rank-and-file is in the mood for these days.

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    1. Yeah, although Steyer at least is known to people who watch MSNBC and CNN as the man behind the Need to Impeach ads. That written, this year's Democratic primary campaign is even more crowded and chaotic than the Republican one four years ago. No one dropped out of that one until December 2015, so Swalwell is more rational than any of them. And, yeah, this is going over like a lead balloon. The videos I watched on YouTube had far more dislikes than likes and the Twitter reaction is about the same as for Howard Schultz running for president as an independent, mockery and contempt.

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  2. While I agree that a lot of the prezzinitial corndidates seem hopeless, hey -- that's democracy. People can stand up and shout "Elect me!" Better a confusing clatter of candidates than a select few emerging from party machinations. Steyer's been using his money to push a political point about impeachment, which makes him a more qualified person to campaign than that crap-coffee mook Schultz, IMHO. Too bad it's so often the stinking rich bastards who are the ones who think they can afford to run, whereas average folks are not seen as serious by the party and media legitimacy conferrers.

    The obsessive focus that humans have on who's competing to be Big Chief strikes me as an aspect of sociobiology. Have you read much by E.O. Wilson, the father of sociobiology, Pinku? I find that his theories about how much of what we think is social behaviour is actually the result of long-evolved biology-based instincts to be a good lens through which to view humanity.

    How many millions of years did our ancestors, both the human kind and hairy tree-swinging things, evolve in small bands where the Alpha Ape was the most important primate? We're hard-wired to focus on the Maximum Leader. As individual voters and/or political activists, we have a better percentage chance of making a difference in electoral contests involving a Congrifter, or shitty councilperson, etc. But what we think about instead is "Who's going to be #1 for the whole mob?" It's our default thought pattern, even in parliamentary countries such as Oz, where we're voting for individual MPs who then select the Prime Minister. Yet the news coverage, and the popular imagination, zeroes in on competitors for party leader, even though most of us who live outside their electorates have no direct say in their elevation or failure as head of the legislature. Political sociobiology...

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    1. I agree with you about Steyer vs. Schultz. That doesn't change my thinking that both of them are on ego trips.

      "[A]verage folks are not seen as serious by the party and media legitimacy conferrers" — That's a lot of what I think is happening to AOC, who was a bartender before being elected.

      I'm quite familiar with E. O. Wilson, as I'm an evolutionary biologist as well as a paleontologist. I think he's generally on the right track, including the implications of his ideas for politics.

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