This Republican Is Running Against Donald Trump. Is Anybody Listening?

[mia]

Near the end of his first visit to the Upper Valley as a 2020 candidate for president on Saturday, former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld estimated that he’d shaken the hands of some 240 people at three diners in Lebanon earlier in the day.

“I didn’t meet a single person who didn’t express disdain and dismay about Donald Trump,” Weld recalled during an afternoon forum at Hartford High School on Saturday.

The 73-year-old is counting on enough like-minded Republicans — and Democrats — to show up for next winter’s New Hampshire primary to boost his challenge to the incumbent president.

And just in case the anti-Trump voters aren’t enough, Weld has been highlighting his own credentials as a hard-line federal prosecutor and a two-term, tax-slashing governor of Massachusetts; his libertarian stance on gun ownership; and his current policy positions including support for LGBTQ Americans and welcoming instead of demonizing immigrants....

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/05/05/bill-weld-2020-trump-226796

[OhZone]

1. So he's like a -

pre-insanity Republican?

[Hortensis]

2. Weld is a long-time Koch associate.

He's a former governor of MA and like most of his sort knows how sell himself as basically mainstream. I imagine some conservatives are looking at him as someone they can cast a token vote for if they can't justify Trump any more.

[empedocles]

5. Allies are allies. We need them.

[Hortensis]

6. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend"

is a dark joke for powerful people, who might slit their “friend’s” throat when no longer needed.

Weld is no ally of ours.

[empedocles]

8. Stalin was long our enemy, but a very useful 'ally' in WWII

[for awhile]

[Hortensis]

9. But Russia WAS an ally. Weld and Trump are both

in the same camp as the RW billionaires who threaten our democracy.

Agree though, we hope Weld's criticisms manage to irritate Trump, but sadly there's no indication he can hurt him. Reportedly, Weld's libertarian social views cause their voters to reject him as not one of them, a gadfly candidacy for Trump to swat or ignore.

Too bad. I've read Bill Kristol and his never-Trumpers have been trying to find someone willing to go tilt at the giant orange windmill, a model of a traditional conservative to show their electorate.

[mia]

3. Bill Weld: Trump acting like Nixon right before he was impeached

Former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, who is challenging President Trump on the Republican ticket in 2020, believes the recent actions of the White House and Trump campaign resemble those of former President Richard Nixon's administration in the days before his impeachment....

Weld was one of 750 federal prosecutors who came forward earlier this month to say Mueller printed enough evidence in his report to indict Trump on obstruction charges.

"Volume two in the report sets out several instances of obstruction of justice by the president and it’s not even a close call — telling people to lie, that’s not even a close call as obstruction of justice. So I really don’t agree with Attorney General Bill Barr, who’s a hell of a lawyer and I don’t really understand why he’s gone down this line, but he says you can’t indict a president for obstruction, and that’s just not the law," said Weld.

"I worked on the [President Richard] Nixon impeachment back in 1974 and he refused to comply with subpoenas and that was Article Three of impeachment against him," he said.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/bill-weld-trump-acting-like-nixon-right-before-he-was-impeached

[samnsara]

4. heck yeah! I thought he should have been at the top of the ticket when he ran before...

....i have evn donated to him. I wont vote for him but Ill throw him some love..

[smirkymonkey]

7. K&R