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Harris Was Good in Theory, Buttigieg Makes Us Weary and Biden Sees Things Clearly: 2020 Presidential Black Power Rankings, Week 19
“Kamala Harris is dropping out but Pete Buttigieg is still in?” I got about a million incredulous texts just like this from black folks I know when Senator Kamala Harris dropped out of the 2020 campaign earlier this week. I got so many texts from black people about Harris I thought Tom Steyer was going…
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Mayor Pete Ain’t Got to Lie, Deval Patrick Is Gonna Try and the Harris Campaign Won’t Die: 2020 Presidential Black Power Rankings, Week 18 1/2
“Seriously, you might as well bathe yourself in barbecue sauce for all the smoke you’re gonna take this week” —My well-intentioned warning to fellow Black Power Rankings judge Marcus Ferrell (former director of African American Outreach, Bernie for America 2016, and senior adviser for Swing Left). Mr. Ferrell is the silent partner in the Black…
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Julian Castro Says the Democratic Primary Isn’t Fair to Black Folks. He’s Right and Here’s How You Fix It
For weeks now, former Housing and Urban Development secretary, presidential candidate and one true heir to the Obama legacy, Julian Castro, has been pointing out the obvious: It’s peak hypocrisy that the Democratic Party, whose base is largely black, starts the primary process in Iowa and New Hampshire, states that are 90 percent white. The…
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Buttigieg Says 'It's Gonna be Me,' Harris Says 'Just Wait and See' and Booker Says His Campaign's So Good He Shouldn't Have to Run for Free: 2020 Presidential Black Power Rankings, Week 17
When am I going to get my invitation? Elie [Mystal] got to do it and I haven’t yet? Which week can I do it? I’d like to pretend that these are typical texts, tweets and messages we get from politicos interested in being the special guest analyst for The Root 2020 Presidential Black Power Rankings…
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Beto Battles the Undead, Booker Said What He SAID and Mayor Pete’s Been Left on Read: 2020 Presidential Black Power Rankings, Week 16 [Updated]
The committee absolutely loves Halloween—and by the committee, I mean me (Dr. Johnson, politics editor of The Root), because other committee members have said they hate haunted houses and sexy nurse costumes (not to mention this ongoing battle on The Root Slack about the evils of candy corn). For political purposes, we love Halloween because…
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Bernie Can’t Say Our Name, Beto Has No Shame, and Biden Can’t Be Tamed: 2020 Presidential Black Power Rankings, Week 14
During a week where there is a Democratic debate the Power Rankings usually focus on who performed best, and how much time candidates spent speaking to issues and policies that concern African-American voters, but not this week. This whole committee was hit hard by the news that Rep. Elijah Cummings died early Thursday morning, and…
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Bernie Rises Above, Kamala Cries Like a Dove and Yang’s Got No Computer Love: 2020 Presidential Black Power Rankings, Week 13
Earlier this week, Marcus Ferrell (former African-American outreach director for Bernie Sanders for America 2016, and senior adviser for Swing Left) sent me the following meme: It was perfect, actually, since in making the Power Rankings this week we caught a few candidates slipping. It seems like in the midst of crowing over new fundraising…
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SNL Does Kamala, Mayor Pete Starts to Holla and Booker Says ‘Can I Hold a Dollar?’: 2020 Presidential Black Power Rankings, Week 12
This is by far one of the strangest weeks in the history of The Root Presidential Black Power Rankings. We had a mutiny within our committee, we had a special guest analyst who is just brilliant, and we had half a dozen major events occur this week that scrambled the rankings like an old-school Etch…
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I Am Probably the Worst Person to Write a Review of the New Movie Always a Bridesmaid, but I Did It Anyway
I’m not the target market. That’s usually what I say when a new movie or TV show comes out that may or may not be good but I know for a fact that I’m not the audience they’re shooting for. Nashville, a rousing drama about competing country music stars? The only country song I’ve listened…
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Biden Gets Impeachment, Castro Talks High Rents and Booker's Totally Spent: 2020 Presidential Black Power Rankings, Week 11
The Root 2020 Presidential Black Power Rankings take a one-week snapshot of the campaign season and imagine, using just that week, which candidate running for president would be best for black America. Most weeks, we (me, Dr. Jason Johnson, politics editor of The Root; Marcus Ferrell, former African-American outreach director for Bernie Sanders for America…
