February 16, 20223 yr On 2/11/2022 at 9:42 AM, JohnSnowsHair said: Gary Chambers, the Louisiana candidate whose first ad with him smoking a blunt was pretty popular here, burns a confederate flag in his latest ad: I like it. Though I wonder if some who were on board after his first may be shaken off with this latest. Love it. I've long held the opinion that the confederate flag should be treated like the NSDAP flag. A symbol of a horrible past that we should never repeat, not something to be held sacred as many do down south.
February 18, 20223 yr Voter Suppression is working out Perfectly in Texas just as the Trump Cult members have planned. https://news.yahoo.com/thousands-texas-ballots-rejected-voter-111357936.html Thousands of Texas ballots rejected as new voter ID law causes confusion Thousands of Texas voters' mail-in ballots for midterm primary elections have been rejected for failing to comply with new Republican-backed identification requirements passed in the wake of former President Donald Trump's false claims of widespread fraud, county officials said. Election officials in six of the state's largest counties, which are collectively home to about a third of Texas' population, are reporting unprecedented rates of invalid ballots, almost entirely because voters are neglecting to include an ID number on the envelope as the new law demands... In Harris County, home to Houston and 4.7 million people, 3,475 ballots representing about 35% of those received by Tuesday could not be accepted because voters did not fill in the correct number. In past years, the overall rejection rate was between 5% and 10%.
February 19, 20223 yr 9 hours ago, jsdarkstar said: Voter Suppression is working out Perfectly in Texas just as the Trump Cult members have planned. https://news.yahoo.com/thousands-texas-ballots-rejected-voter-111357936.html Thousands of Texas ballots rejected as new voter ID law causes confusion Thousands of Texas voters' mail-in ballots for midterm primary elections have been rejected for failing to comply with new Republican-backed identification requirements passed in the wake of former President Donald Trump's false claims of widespread fraud, county officials said. Election officials in six of the state's largest counties, which are collectively home to about a third of Texas' population, are reporting unprecedented rates of invalid ballots, almost entirely because voters are neglecting to include an ID number on the envelope as the new law demands... In Harris County, home to Houston and 4.7 million people, 3,475 ballots representing about 35% of those received by Tuesday could not be accepted because voters did not fill in the correct number. In past years, the overall rejection rate was between 5% and 10%. Include an ID number on the envelope seems pretty self-explanatory.
February 19, 20223 yr 2 hours ago, Outlaw said: Include an ID number on the envelope seems pretty self-explanatory. ID numbers are racist
February 21, 20223 yr GOP Race for Governor in PA. Which Candidate will brown nose Trump the most? Candidates on the debate stage included: Shawn Berger, who owns two businesses in Carbon County Guy Ciarrocchi, CEO of the Chester County Chamber of Commerce Jake Corman, Pennsylvania Senate president pro tempore Joe Gale, Montgomery County commissioner Charlie Gerow, a Republican strategist and CEO of Quantum Communications Melissa Hart, former congresswoman and state senator Scott Martin, a state senator from Lancaster County Bill McSwain, a Marine veteran and former federal prosecutor Jason Monn, restaurant owner and former Corry mayor and councilman Jason Richey, a lawyer in Allegheny County John Ventre, a retired UPS security and public affairs executive Dave White, a business owner from Delaware County Nche Zama, a heart surgeon and Harvard Medical School graduate in Monroe County Those 13, along with Barletta and Mastriano, are running to replace outgoing Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat who is term limited and cannot seek reelection in 2022. My vote for the biggest Trump Brown noser. Doug Mastriano.
March 11, 20223 yr https://www.wsj.com/articles/wsj-poll-biden-ukraine-inflation-midterms-11646975533?st=7rw6mltwcrhukb6&reflink=article_copyURL_share Quote The survey also found Republicans making gains among minority groups. By 9 percentage points, Hispanic voters in the new poll said they would back a Republican candidate for Congress over a Democrat. The two parties had been tied among Hispanic voters in the Journal’s survey in November. Democratic margins also eroded among Black voters, who favored a Democrat for Congress by 35 percentage points in the new survey, down from 56 points in November. Support for a Republican candidate rose to 27% among Black voters, up from 12% in November.
March 14, 20223 yr So of course the Democrats are going to try harder to tell voters that they’re stupid and don’t know what they’re talking about. Definitely a winning strategy. Indeed, a majority of voters (54 percent) — including 56 percent of independents — explicitly say that they want Biden and Democrats to move closer to the center and embrace more moderate policies versus embracing more liberal policies (18 percent) or staying where they are politically (13 percent). Most voters (61 percent) also agree that Biden and Democrats are "out of touch with hardworking Americans” and "have been so focused on catering to the far-left wing of the party that they’re ignoring Americans’ day to day concerns” such as "rising prices” and "combatting violent crime.” Equally concerning for Democrats, there is a clear sense among the 2022 electorate that the state of the country has deteriorated since Biden became president and that he has not lived up to expectations.
March 14, 20223 yr On 2/18/2022 at 11:48 AM, jsdarkstar said: Voter Suppression is working out Perfectly in Texas just as the Trump Cult members have planned. https://news.yahoo.com/thousands-texas-ballots-rejected-voter-111357936.html Thousands of Texas ballots rejected as new voter ID law causes confusion I want those voices involved. 🙄 Perhaps we need to reconcider what we're emphasizing in primary education.
March 24, 20223 yr Quote Democrats Are Their Own Worst Enemy The past two Democratic presidents didn't do so well in their first midterms. The numbers don't lie. Here are the number of seats that flipped in those elections. House Senate Midterm President Dem GOP Dem GOP 1994 Bill Clinton -54 +54 -8 +8 2010 Barack Obama -63 +63 -6 +6 So even if the Democrats had pulled off a hugely successful first year in 2021-22, getting most of their agenda passed—which they haven't—it would be a struggle for them in November. But history is only part of the problem. Thomas Edsall has an essay in The New York Times that shows that the problem is deeper than just history of the midterms. It is worth reading. Fundamentally, Democrats are geographically concentrated, with most of them living in cities. Most city dwellers are fairly progressive, so progressive urban Democrats have a very large say in the Democratic Party's positions. The problem is that they do not represent a majority of the country or a majority of the (gerrymandered) House districts and many of the things they want are anathema to the rest of the country. On top of that, many of them want JRB to be the new FDR or LBJ and he wasn't elected for that purpose, and the votes aren't there in the Senate for a transformative presidency in any event. In fact, were it not for Donald Trump's help in Georgia telling Republicans not to bother voting in the runoffs because they were rigged, Republicans would have been in the majority and Mitch McConnell (R-KY) would be de facto running the country. All in all, this is not a huge mandate for massive change. So to avoid losing the House and maybe the Senate, Democrats have to pay more attention to how to win swing districts, and even pinkish R+3 districts. Edsall has written about this before. Now he has talked to more political scientists and looked at more studies and the conclusion is the same: To avoid a wipeout in November, Democrats have to listen to the voters, find out what they care about, and get on board with that, even when the voter's priorities aren't what the Democrats think they should be. Recent polls show that voters believe Republicans will do a better job on the top issues they care about, namely rebuilding the economy, inflation, crime, and securing the border. Democrats would prefer that the voters cared most about universal pre-K, free college, and a $15 minimum wage, but they don't. Those issues all poll well, but they are not top priority and talking about them at all just makes people think the Democrats don't care about their lives and issues. When you come down to it, a lot of voters live hand-to-mouth and care most about issues that will come up in the next 24 hours (like buying gas this afternoon) and less about improving the mean educational level of the country in 10 years. They also see the Democrats as elitist for failing to understand this. Edsall cites Jonathan Rodden's book Why Cities Lose which makes the point that ideas that get cheers in Berkeley, Seattle, and Minneapolis often don't play well in Peoria. He also cites Sarah Anzia, a professor at Berkeley, who notes that during the pandemic, the teachers' unions fought to keep schools closed for a long time and the Democrats were much more sensitive to the union pressure than to the desires of parents who couldn't go to work to pay the rent as long as their kids were at home. This is another example of where the long-term good was probably on the Democrats' side, but the voters were with the Republicans. When given a choice between "do what's right" and "do what the voters want," the Democrats generally choose the former—and pay the price at the ballot box. This is a clear example. Isabel Sawhill of the (left-wing) Brookings Institution ran a study of the white working class wants. To her horror, they have a negative view of government, believe in personal responsibility, and see family and religion as the main aspects of their lives. That's the Republicans' platform (or was, back when they had a platform). Sean Westwood, a professor of political science at Dartmouth, said that misguided social policies are driving voters away from the Democrats and toward the Republicans. He noted that crippling the police and injecting social justice into math classes are not the way to win elections. Will Bunch, a liberal columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, isn't buying this and says "full-speed ahead, damn the torpedoes." What he didn't mention is that Democrats who want to go full-bore progressive had the chance in 2016 and 2020. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was an authentic, well-funded, progressive who ran excellent campaigns buoyed by devoted supporters. And he couldn't even win among Democrats. Matt Bennet, executive vice president of Third Way, pointed out that these are no ordinary midterms. If Republicans flip 50-60 seats in the House and 6-8 in the Senate this year (as they did in 1994 and 2010), the Democrats may not be able to undo the damage in the 2024 congressional election. If Republicans control both chambers on Jan. 6, 2025, they could discard the electoral votes of states that voted for the Democratic presidential candidate and potentially put Donald Trump back in the White House, even after a fairly decisive loss in the electoral college. Of course, the entire House is up in 2024, so, in theory, even a huge loss in 2022 could be made good in 2024, but the 2024 Senate map looks awful for the Democrats as many vulnerable Democrats are up then and few, if any, vulnerable Republicans will be on the ballot then. So if Democrats lose the Senate this year, they are not going to get it back in 2024. Here is the 2024 Senate map. John Lawrence, who was a House aide for 38 years including 8 years as chief of staff for Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), knows politics better than just about anyone, wrote this to Edsall: I think a lot of voters will use 2022 to remind Biden (and Democrats, since they can't vote against him) that their vote in 2020 was a vote to return to normalcy, not a blank check to build on the New Deal and Great Society. Once in office —albeit with ridiculously narrow margins—Democrats used the crisis to swing for the stands, ignoring the historical lesson of the Senate's moderating role. So they have created the worst of all worlds: a failure to enact what the base demanded (but they did not have the votes to deliver) and the appearance of having overreached and invited an electoral haircut by many 2020 supporters who never embraced such a sweeping agenda. Another essay in the Times yesterday is from Mike Madrid, cofounder of the Lincoln Project, which attacked Trump brilliantly and mercilessly in 2020. The headline sums it up pretty well: "While Democrats Debate 'Latinx,' Latinos Head to the GOP." Latinos can't stand the term (which is not Spanish) and they resent the Democrats' "We know what is good for you better than you do" attitude. It is exactly the same problem Democrats have with the white working class. There could be a pattern in there somewhere.
March 31, 20223 yr Oof. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/31/enthusiasm-gap-dems-00021774 At the end of October, Republicans held an 11-percentage-point advantage in voter enthusiasm. By January, that margin had ticked up to 14 points. Now, according to the most recent NBC News poll, it has swelled to 17 — a massive advantage that has foreshadowed devastating losses in Congress in prior years. The latest poll would be bad enough for Democrats. But it’s the trend line that is especially grim, seemingly impervious to a series of events — including President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address and the nomination of a judge to the Supreme Court — that Democrats had predicted might improve their candidates’ prospects in the fall.
May 3, 20223 yr 17 minutes ago, DrPhilly said: This is a game changer Republicans role-playing as Democrats and doing their best to lose an election that they should win in their sleep.
May 3, 20223 yr 16 minutes ago, EaglesRocker97 said: Republicans role-playing as Democrats and doing their best to lose an election that they should win in their sleep. This at least means we have a fight on our hands. I’m expecting some level of wide spread protests to break out and the left base will be very energized. A chunk of swing voting will move as well. Still may not be enough.
May 3, 20223 yr 9 hours ago, DrPhilly said: This at least means we have a fight on our hands. I’m expecting some level of wide spread protests to break out and the left base will be very energized. A chunk of swing voting will move as well. Still may not be enough. Calm down
May 5, 20223 yr Quote Can Democrats Win Back Rural Voters? It should be obvious to the Democrats: There are not enough blue states to produce a working majority in the Senate. Currently there are 50 members of the Democratic caucus and three of them (Jon Tester, MT; Sherrod Brown, OH; and Joe Manchin, WV) are from red states and any of them could easily be dumped at their next election. The Democrats' margin in the House is only 5 seats. The message here is that if the Democrats want to elect enough members of Congress to get anything done, they have to start winning in rural areas A 29-year-old Maine state senator, Chloe Maxmin (D), and her campaign manager, Canyon Woodward, have written an op-ed in The New York Times on this topic that should be required reading for all Democrats. Maxmin was a 25-year-old progressive climate activist when she got the nutty idea to run for the Maine House of Representatives in an entirely rural district that falls in the Maine county with the oldest average age in the state. And she won. Two years later she challenged the minority leader in the state Senate in one of the most rural districts in the state. And she beat him, too. Maybe other Democrats could learn something from her. Her message is the Democrats have simply given up on winning rural voters and that is a big mistake. Some are indeed hopeless, but some are winnable, if approached properly. Her campaigns were entirely on the ground. She didn't have expensive consultants produce nasty negative ads about her opponents. She knocked on doors, talked to voters, and, especially, listened to them. And she certainly didn't take the advice of then-DNC chairman Tom Perez who told MSNBC: "You can't door-knock in rural America." Actually, you can, Maxmin did, and she won. Twice. What Democratic consultants don't understand is that in rural areas, values are often much more important than policies. Rural values include independence, tradition, community, hard work, and common sense. When a candidate comes calling, they are thinking: "Can this person be trusted?" They are not thinking about some wonky policy issue. Many of the rural values fit in with what Democrats believe. Community isn't hard to defend. Neither is helping people when they are down and need a hand. These people aren't stupid and if you point out that Republicans do nothing for them when they are in power, it can sink in. The candidate can't talk to every voter in a state Senate district and certainly not in a U.S. House district, But if the candidate can get enough volunteers, enough voters can be personally approached to move the needle. A key point is listening to what they think the problems are and then trying to explain how the Democrats are trying to solve at least some of them and arguing how Republicans really care only about very rich people. Because there is virtually no outreach to rural voters, they (rightly) conclude that Democrats don't care about them. But again, winning rural voters is not impossible. In addition to the op-ed. Maxmin and Woodward wrote a book explaining how they did it in more detail and giving concrete advice about how to approach rural America and win. (V) How Minority Parties Could Compete in One-Party States Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball has an article that is complementary to the op-ed discussed above. It is what the minority party can do in states that lean strongly the other way—say, Democrats in Idaho or Republicans in Illinois. Sometimes there are things they can do. Simply giving up is not a good political strategy. The approach depends on the local circumstances. Consider Utah, a very red state where Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) is running for reelection. The Democrats could have found some sacrificial lamb, run a campaign, and maybe harvested 38% of the vote (Joe Biden's total in 2020). But they didn't. They didn't nominate anyone. Instead they are backing independent Evan McMullin, who ran for president in 2020 and got 22% of the vote in 2020. If all the Utah Democrats vote for him, he might actually be able to pull it off. And he would no doubt realize how he won and act accordingly as a senator. As another example, Alaska has a new all-party primary in August followed by a ranked-choice election in November among the top four primary finishers. Donald Trump has endorsed Kelly Tshibaka, who is (naturally) very Trumpy. Democrats should, and presumably will, tell voters to vote for Al Gross (who ran as a Democrat in 2020 and is running as an independent this year) in the primary, and if he is in the top four, to vote for him as #1 in November and for Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) as #2 in the general election. Yes, she is a Republican, but she is a lot better than Tshibaka. A similar lesser-of-two-evils strategy can be used in states with an open primary, where anyone can get either party's ballot just by asking for it. Red states with open primaries include Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, and South Carolina. Democrats in those states have no chance to elect a Democrat statewide unless the Republicans blow it, but by voting in the Republican primary they may be able to force the Republicans to nominate the least-bad candidate for every office. The same holds for Republicans in blue states. Going a step further, in red states with a closed primary, Democrats could reregister as Republicans in order to help pick a not-too-toxic nominee. Same for Republicans in blue states with closed primaries. Going much further, Democrats running for office in red states could run as Republicans and emphasize issues that Republicans like and keep a narrow focus on them. For example, in some states in the West, running as a Democrat and talking abstractly about the environment won't work because all the voters will see is that (D) after the name. But running with an (R) after the name and making the whole campaign about protecting the state's natural beauty and preserving the wilderness for hunters and fisherman might actually work in some cases, especially if the dominant party's preferred candidate is deeply flawed. Depending on the local circumstances and rules, minority parties can actually have some impact in some cases, but it may require thinking outside the box. (V) New Voting Restrictions Hit Disabled Voters Hard To combat (nonexistent) voter fraud, Republican-controlled state legislatures have effectively disenfranchised many disabled voters. For example, in some states, "ballot harvesting" is now forbidden. That means that a disabled voter who can't walk and can't drive also can't vote, even if absentee ballots are available, because he or she can't bring the ballot to a drop box personally. In Wisconsin, for example, conservatives have gone to court to argue that giving your ballot to someone else to deposit violates state law. A decision is expected in June. In Georgia, legislators have greatly reduced the number of drop boxes, making it harder for people who can't drive to get to one. In Florida, it is legal to hand an absentee ballot to someone else to bring to a drop box, but no one can bring more than two ballots. Researchers at Rutgers University estimate that 38 million Americans with disabilities were eligible to vote in 2020. About 62% of them voted, in part because absentee voting became much easier on account of the pandemic. The laws that allowed widespread absentee voting then have been repealed in a number of states, which is likely to create insurmountable barriers for many of them in 2022. The issue is not always mobility. For example, a new Texas law requires disabled voters (one of the few categories of voters allowed to vote by absentee ballot) to provide an ID number twice. The first time is when requesting an absentee ballot and the second time on the envelope containing the ballot. The official can then check if they match. But the place on the envelope where the number goes is so small that people with a visual impairment often can't find it. In all, 23,000 mail-in ballots were disqualified as a result of the new law, many from people with disabilities, some of them physical and some of them mental. Numerous other laws, restrictions, and procedures make it difficult for disabled people to vote, despite the Americans with Disabilities Act. In some cases, poll workers and other officials are not familiar with the ADA and refuse to make the accommodations it requires. Also, to register to vote in some states, one needs to show a birth certificate. But getting to the office that issues birth certificates and handling the paperwork can be a huge problem for some people with disabilities. For a long time, it was generally easier and easier every year for people with disabilities to vote, but in the past 2 years, Republicans have reversed the trend and made it more difficult—all in the name of fighting nonexistent voter fraud. (V)
May 10, 20223 yr Quote Oz's Opponents Go There Although today's primaries will be somewhat low on drama, next Tuesday should make up for that, since there are five states taking their turn, and at least four of them (Idaho, North Carolina, Oregon, and Pennsylvania) have races of interest. Sorry, Kentucky, but renominating a bunch of Republican incumbents isn't going to get you many headlines. The two biggest races next week are both Senate contests and are both in Pennsylvania. On the Democratic side, we are all-but-certain to see the nomination of Lt. Gov. John Fetterman. The latest poll, conducted from Apr. 20 to May 1 by Franklin & Marshall College, has him with 52% support. Not only is that close to quadruple the support of Rep. Conor Lamb (14%), it means that Lamb could somehow attract all the undecideds (22%), and all the Malcolm Kenyatta voters (4%), and all the voters backing other candidates (6%), and it still wouldn't be enough. But although the drama level is likely to be low, unless Fetterman is caught on his motorcycle—er, in his Jeep—with a goat, there will be much attention paid to that result since many Democrats see big things in the Lieutenant Governor's future. On the other hand, the race on the Republican side of the contest is neck-and-neck. On one hand, the Donald Trump-backed TV quack Mehmet Oz has consistently led in polls for the last month. On the other hand, that lead is consistently small and is within the margin of error. For example, the Trafalgar Group released their latest yesterday, and it had Oz at 25%, Kathy Barnette at 23%, and David McCormick at 22%, with 15% of voters undecided and a margin of error of 3.0%. So, it's anyone's race. Still, McCormick is nervous, as well he should be. And so, he and his wife have been making increasingly frequent use of dog whistles in the past couple of weeks. As most people know, Oz is of Turkish descent. Fewer know that he served in the Turkish military and he still holds Turkish citizenship. And so, McCormick is claiming that if Oz is elected to the Senate, he "could pose significant security risks." McCormick has also accused Oz of having "dual loyalties." However, McCormick campaign spokespeople have repeatedly insisted (bragged?) that they are not making an issue out of Oz's Muslim faith. Yeah, whatever. "Dual loyalties" is the great-grandfather of all dog whistles, dating back to at least the 19th century. It has historically been used to denigrate Jews, but the core message is: "This person is not a Christian, is not one of us, and might betray us." So, for McCormick's people to claim that they haven't brought up Oz's religion is incredibly disingenuous. McCormick has degrees from the U.S. Military Academy (B.S.) and Princeton (M.A. and Ph.D.), and so either the education being proffered at those institutions isn't as good as we thought, or else he's lying when he insists he is as pure and innocent as the driven snow. Readers can decide for themselves which it is. Note also that McCormick isn't the only Republican foe of Oz to resort to this sort of language. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Gab founder Andrew Torba have questioned Oz's "loyalty," with the latter going so far as to refer to Oz as a "globalist." This is the other great-grandfather of all dog whistles, has also historically been used to denigrate Jews, and also means "This person is not one of us, and might betray us." Torba has also attacked Trump for endorsing Oz, wondering if the former president has been "compromised." When Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) decided, a few years back, that his Canadian citizenship might be a problem, he promptly renounced it. But Oz's explanation for retaining his Turkish citizenship, which we have no reason to doubt, is that keeping that citizenship (and passport) makes it easier for him to return to Turkey to visit his ailing mother. So, if Oz renounces now, like Cruz did, it will look like Oz is throwing his sick mother under the bus. Oz does say he will renounce if elected, which is probably the best middle path available for him, at least politically. In any event, this is exactly the kind of thing that we are referring to when we write that a bitter primary can leave a candidate badly damaged for the general. Assuming Oz wins, and our guess is that he will, McCormick will have made sure that every Pennsylvania Republican is reminded that the doctor is a Turkish citizen and a Muslim. And in the modern Republican Party, there are certainly some voters for whom that is a problem. (Z)
May 18, 20223 yr Cawthorn had zero credibility. If he had won the primary I think he would have had a tough race in November. I did enjoy him accusing colleagues of having cocaine-infused sex parties though.
May 18, 20223 yr 3 minutes ago, Dave Moss said: Cawthorn had zero credibility. If he had won the primary I think he would have had a tough race in November. I did enjoy him accusing colleagues of having cocaine-infused sex parties though. Lost to this guy
May 18, 20223 yr I think both Shapiro and Fetterman can win. Shapiro's opponent is a loon. Shapiro is heavily favored. Fetterman I think can beat Oz. Fetterman checks the "doesn't look or talk like a politician" box that people seem to be looking for these days. It's one of the reasons I voted for him over Lamb. Lamb struck me as the typical corporate candidate who will make votes in the senate based on how special interests wanted him to vote.
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