A 2018 wave is building, but will it fizzle?

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Don't look now but the 2018 midterm elections are just over a year away! That may well be very unwelcome news to members of the House and Senate up for re-election next November, according to a new CNN national poll, which paints a very grim picture for incumbents -- especially on the Republican side. Asked whether "most members of Congress" deserve re-election, just 22% of Americans say they do while 68% think they don't. Among registered voters, only 20% want most members re-elected while 70% would rather the majority of members not return to Congress.

What's even more striking is how low those "yes, deserves re-election" numbers are among Republicans and self-identified conservatives who, presumably, should be pleased with the Republican majorities in Congress. In fact, the opposite is true. Just 3 in 10 Republicans say they want to see most members reelected while only 25% of conservatives say the same. (Just 1 in 5 Democrats want to see most members reelected -- not surprising given the GOP Congressional majorities.) It's worth noting that when it comes to the question of whether their own member of Congress deserves to be re-elected, people are far more supportive, with 44% saying they think their guy or a gal deserves another term. (The difference between the responses to those two questions is consistent historically; people may totally hate Congress but they tend to feel much more warmly about their own member.)

Still, the 22% of people -- and 20% of registered voters -- who say they want most members of Congress not to be reelected is the lowest ever measured in CNN polling, dating all the way back to 1991. That includes polling done in August 2010 (31% wanted most members re-elected) and October 2006 (42% wanted most members re-elected). In the former election, Republicans won 63 seats and control of the House. In the latter, Democrats picked up 30 seats and re-took the House majority. Both of those elections were Midterms -- like 2018 will be -- and functioned as a punishment for the party who controlled the White House. And, in both cases, the president wasn't terribly popular. In fact, according to Gallup calculations, the average seat loss for the president's party in Midterm elections dating back to 1946 is 36 seats -- when the president's approval is under 50% nationally. Trump is currently at 39% in the latest Gallup tracking poll.

The problem for Republicans is even if the "toss the bums out" attitude is directed at elected officials more generally rather than at their party in particular, they still stand to suffer losses. Republicans currently control 240 seats, to 194 for Democrats. (A single seat -- in a strongly GOP Utah district will be decided in November.) Inside Elections, a non-partisan political handicapping site, lists 48 Republican held-seats in jeopardy as compared to just 14 Democratic seats. In addition, there are 23 Republicans who hold seats that Hillary Clinton carried over Donald Trump in 2016. (There are 12 Democrats who hold seats where Trump beat Clinton last November.) Before Democrats begin eyeing the majority -- and the committee chairmanships that come with it -- though it's worth noting that it's (still) no easy road for the party to pick up the 24 seats it needs to retake control.

This, per the Cook Political Report's House editor David Wasserman, is telling: "Even if Democrats were to win every single 2018 House and Senate race for seats representing places that Hillary Clinton won or that Trump won by less than 3 percentage points — a pretty good midterm by historical standards — they could still fall short of the House majority and lose five Senate seats." The reason for this? Republicans controlled the decennial congressional line-drawing process in lots and lots of states in 2010/2011. And they drew districts across the country that are just very hard for any Democrat to win. What the new CNN polling suggests is that way out in the ocean, a wave is building. Some waves that form that far out disappear into nothing by the time they make shore. Some develop into decent swells but nothing to be concerned about. And some build into true monsters that overwhelm even the bulwarks built against them.
Which kind of wave will 2018 be?
http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/26/politics/ ... index.html
Last edited by highdesert on Wed Sep 27, 2017 10:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: A 2018 wave is building, but will it fissle?

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"whether their own member of Congress deserves to be re-elected, people are far more supportive, with 44% saying they think their guy or a gal deserves another term."
in other words, a great many voters think the guy or gal they voted for is fine, just fine. :wall: it's the other guys' candidates who need to go. :angry: IOW, don't expect this to mean change.
i'm retired. what's your excuse?

Re: A 2018 wave is building, but will it fissle?

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lurker wrote:"whether their own member of Congress deserves to be re-elected, people are far more supportive, with 44% saying they think their guy or a gal deserves another term."
in other words, a great many voters think the guy or gal they voted for is fine, just fine. :wall: it's the other guys' candidates who need to go. :angry: IOW, don't expect this to mean change.
Frustrating especially if it happens in those districts that HRC won. The Republican Party should pay a price for electing Trump, but I'm not going to hold my breathe that it will happen.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: A 2018 wave is building, but will it fissle?

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Bisbee wrote: As for my concern, has anyone read this article in TIME yet?
The article published 9/21/2017. h/t Bisbee
Like virtually all Democrats, Tim Ryan is no fan of Donald Trump. But as he speeds through his northeastern Ohio district in a silver Chevy Suburban, the eight-term Congressman sounds almost as frustrated with his own party. Popping fistfuls of almonds in the backseat, Ryan gripes about its fixation on divisive issues and its "demonization" of business owners. Ryan, 44, was briefly considered for the role of Hillary Clinton's running mate last year. Now he sounds ready to brawl with his political kin. "We're going to have a fight," Ryan says. "There's no question about it." That fight has already begun, though you'd be forgiven for missing it. On the surface, the Democratic Party has been united and energized by its shared disgust for Trump. But dig an inch deeper and it's clear that the party is divided, split on issues including free trade, health care, foreign affairs and Wall Street. They even disagree over the political wisdom of doing deals with Trump.

Every party cast out of power endures a period of soul-searching. But the Democrats' dilemma was unimaginable even a year ago, when Clinton seemed to be coasting toward the White House and demographic change fueled dreams of a permanent national majority. Now, eight months into the Trump presidency, the party looks to face its toughest odds since Ronald Reagan won 49 states in 1984. The Democrats are in their deepest congressional rut since the class of 1946 was elected, and hold the fewest governors' mansions--15--since 1922. Of the 98 partisan legislatures in the U.S., Republicans control 67. During Barack Obama's presidency, Democrats lost 970 seats in state legislatures, leaving the party's bench almost bare. The median age of their congressional leadership is 67, and many of the obvious early presidential front runners will be in their 70s by the 2020 election. Meanwhile, there's still no sign the Democrats have learned the lessons of the last one. "I've tried to learn from my own mistakes. There are plenty," Clinton writes in her campaign memoir What Happened. The book, released on Sept. 12, casts blame on Russia, the FBI and the candidate herself, but never quite finds a satisfying answer to the titular question. Even if it did, these days the party seems to prize ideological purity over Clintonian pragmatism. "There is no confusion about what we Democrats are against. The only disagreement," says strategist Neil Sroka, "is what we're for."

Which leaves the party confronting a puzzle. The momentum may be on the left, but picking up the 24 seats required to retake the House, and the three states needed for control of the Senate, will mean luring back blue collar workers in places like Ryan's Mahoning Valley district, where the steel plants are shells of their former selves, small businesses are boarded up and payday lenders seem to be on every corner. This used to be a Democratic stronghold, but Trump won three of the five counties in Ryan's district. If Democrats don't refine their pitch to alienated white voters, Trump could win re-election with ease. "The resistance can only be part of it," Ryan says. "We have to be on the offense too." It's not clear who has the influence or inclination to spearhead that shift. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and House minority leader Nancy Pelosi are seasoned dealmakers who can raise Brink's trucks full of cash. Their Sept. 6 pact with Trump, which pushed back a pair of fiscal showdowns and delivered hurricane relief money to storm-stricken southeastern Texas, was hailed as a fleecing by the Democrats. After a dinner of Chinese food in the Blue Room of the White House a week later, the pair said they had reached a tentative agreement with Trump to sidestep the Justice Department's rollback of an Obama-era program that helped young immigrants who were in the country illegally. But among the grassroots, any agreement with the President is viewed as cause for suspicion. When Schumer dared to back a handful of Trump's Cabinet picks earlier this year, activists protested outside his Brooklyn apartment, hoisting signs with slogans like Grow a spine, Chuck. In her San Francisco district on Sept. 18, Pelosi was shouted down by activists who were angry that her proposed immigration deal with Trump did not cover more people.

For all these challenges, the party's time in the wilderness could prove to be an opportunity. A poll from CNN/SSRS in August showed Democrats with an 11-percentage-point advantage over Republicans on a generic congressional ballot. "Winning is the first goal of governing," says Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a former head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "You can't have a governing part without a winning part." But before the party comes together, first it has to banish the furies that threaten to tear it apart. The counterpoint to Ryan's call for moderation could be found onstage in August in a Hyatt ballroom in Atlanta. Senator Elizabeth Warren, the former Harvard Law School professor and consumer advocate, had come to deliver a battle cry to 1,000 grassroots activists. "The Democratic Party isn't going back to the days of welfare reform and the crime bill," she said in not-at-all-veiled criticism of President Bill Clinton's mid-'90s strategy to peel off Republican votes. "We are not a wing of today's Democratic Party," Warren declared to her fellow liberals. "We are the heart and soul of today's Democratic Party." Warren is clearly thinking of running for President in 2020. If she does, a crowd will be waiting to cheer her on: a year ago, under pressure from supporters of insurgent Senator Bernie Sanders, the Democrats adopted the most progressive platform in their history, which called for free college for families earning $125,000 or less and Medicare options for Americans as young as 55. This march to the left has become a sprint since Clinton's defeat.

Groups that support abortion rights have stopped offering polite silence to Democrats who disagree. Others are demanding jail time for bank executives. Small-dollar donors are goading progressive groups to advance liberal policies and challenge lawmakers who balk. A group of prominent liberal Democrats, including some 2020 hopefuls, are pushing a national single-payer health care plan--even though its strongest backers acknowledge that it has zero chance of becoming law in this Republican-controlled Congress. Representative Luis Gutiérrez of Illinois threatened on Sept. 8 that Democrats may shut down the government in December if Congress doesn't provide a pathway for undocumented immigrants to become citizens. "Running on progressive values," strategist Adam Green told a candidates' training session in Washington this summer, "is how Democrats will win." History counters this, at least at the presidential level. The most progressive nominees in recent memory--Michael Dukakis in 1988, Walter Mondale in 1984 and George McGovern in 1972--all suffered landslide defeats. But this liberal vision is most popular among the younger ranks of Democrats. A survey in July of young voters likely to participate in primaries spells out where the Democrats are headed: 43% of 18-to-29-year-olds said they were more liberal than the party, while 20% described the party as "conservative."

Efforts to mend the rifts of the 2016 election have fallen flat. Earlier this year, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) launched a national tour with Sanders and newly minted party chairman Tom Perez, who was elected in February. Things didn't go well. When Sanders thanked Perez at rallies, his so-called Bernie bros heckled the new chairman. The attempt at unity was a footnote within a month. "The current model and the current strategy of the Democratic Party is an absolute failure," declared Sanders, who plans to seek a third term in the Senate next year as an independent. Activists aligned with Sanders are working to mount primary challenges against centrist Democrats. Our Revolution, a group that rose from the ashes of Sanders' presidential campaign, led a protest in August outside the DNC, demanding a more liberal platform. Party staffers tried handing out snacks and bottles of water, but the hospitality did little to defuse the tension. "They tried to seduce us with doughnuts," said former Ohio state senator Nina Turner, a protest organizer. Some of the grievances hinge on strategy as much as substance. Kamala Harris, the popular junior Senator from California, backs Sanders' health plan and won an endorsement from Warren during her election last year. But as California's former top cop, Harris declined to prosecute bankers, including Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, for their role in the 2008 financial crisis. She also spent part of her summer raising cash in the tony precincts of the Hamptons. As a result, Sanders allies say she's a Wall Street shill. "Follow the money," says Nomiki Konst, a Sanders supporter who serves on the DNC panel tasked with forging postelection unity. No one waits on the horizon to broker a peace. The DNC has been hollowed out, first by Obama's neglect and then by a Clinton campaign that raided its talent. Now it is trying to play catch-up, sending $10,000 a month to each state party to help add bodies and channel activists' energy into permanent organizations. But the party is still $3.5 million in the red, and Republicans are outraising it by a margin of roughly 2 to 1. Meanwhile, Perez is serving as a visiting fellow at Brown University, where he teaches a course called Governance and Leadership in Challenging Times.

Schumer says the party lost the White House in 2016 because it had a "namby-pamby" message on the economy. He's not risking that again, working with members from both chambers on an aggressive, worker-focused message. The blueprint, dubbed "A Better Deal," has Warren's fingerprints all over it, calling for a national $15-per-hour minimum wage and cheaper drugs, colleges and child care. "The focus starts on economic issues," Schumer said. "That's where the American people are hurting." Ignoring that struggle has caused headaches in the heartland. Today only 28% of House Democrats hail from states that don't touch the Atlantic or Pacific oceans, down from 37% in 2007. The survivors have tried to distance themselves from the party's leftward drift. "When I'm back home, I'm not talking party issues," says Representative Ron Kind, an 11-term Democrat from La Crosse, Wis., whose Capitol Hill office features pictures of him hunting. "I'm not on the stump bashing Republicans." This breed of Democrat is endangered but hardly extinct. Dave Loebsack, who represents a district in eastern Iowa, spent his August break from Washington meeting with rural farmers. John Yarmuth, the lone Democrat in Congress from Kentucky, focuses on his work to preserve Obamacare, which provides health care coverage to almost 500,000 low- and middle-income residents in his state. Cheri Bustos represents parts of northwestern Illinois, where she gamely pivots away from divisive issues like guns to local workers' families and business prospects at John Deere and Caterpillar, which both have big footprints in her district.

Governing in Washington these days is "the most frustrating thing I've ever done," complains Senator Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat. "Most of my life, there was about 20% on the right fringe and the left fringe, but 60% in the middle, where common sense would prevail. Now I'm thinking 40% on each fringe." Part of the problem is that red states are getting redder, while blue states are growing ever more blue. Consider West Virginia, where Manchin is still popular from his days as governor. When Bill Clinton ran for President in 1992, he carried 42 of the state's 55 counties. That number climbed to 43 four years later. But by 2000, West Virginia residents were sour on Democratic trade policies that many saw as costing them coal and steel jobs. Al Gore won 13 counties that year, and John Kerry took just nine in 2004. It's little wonder that during Manchin's first campaign for Senate, in 2010, he cut an ad that showed him firing a rifle at an Obama-backed environmental bill. Obama would go on to lose all 55 counties in 2012--a feat Hillary Clinton repeated. Democrats still outnumber Republicans in West Virginia by 12 percentage points. These Democrats, however, don't want to hear about NFL players protesting during the national anthem or the latest in the ongoing investigation into Trump's alleged ties to Moscow. They care far less about Black Lives Matter than keeping their checking accounts in the black. Add in the 21% of West Virginians who say they don't identify with either party, and it's a dangerous proposition for candidates like Manchin to parrot talking points from MSNBC. It's not that he's a squish on cultural issues; it's that he'd rather talk about lifting the economy in his state, where 18% live in poverty.

The Democrats' focus on identity politics is one reason Manchin suggested, half-heartedly, that he doesn't care if he wins another term next year. "The Washington Democrats' mentality has been more urban," he says. "They forgot about rural America and rural states. They don't want you to tell them about their bathrooms or their bedrooms or all this other stuff we're trying to control." Some say another problem is Pelosi. The first female House speaker and a legendary vote wrangler, she was widely, if wrongly, blamed for a series of special-election defeats in the spring, even though Democrats fared far better than usual in places like Kansas and Georgia. A special election in June became less about the candidates than about the specter of Pelosi, whom Republicans cast as a puppet mistress for the Democratic nominee. "A lot of the demonization directed toward her," says Kind, "is patently unfair. But that's been the perception that's been created." Ryan's long-shot bid to replace her as House Democratic leader won 63 votes last year. Part of Ryan's pitch has been to put away the pitchforks and modulate the tone. "We cannot be a party that is hostile to business. We need those businesspeople to hire our people, who just want a shot," Ryan fumes. "We can be business-friendly and still be progressive." And while it puts him at odds with some peers, such arguments have also won him some unlikely fans. "The smart guys in the Democratic Party, they understand what's going on. [Ohio Democratic Senator] Sherrod Brown gets this. Tim Ryan gets this," Trump's former chief strategist Stephen Bannon told 60 Minutes' Charlie Rose in an interview that aired on Sept. 10. "The only question before us: Is it going to be a left-wing populism or a right-wing populism?"

One Democrat who has found a happy middle ground is Ryan's colleague Brown, who is campaigning for his third term in 2018. He's tough on trade but hardly a protectionist, as progressive as Warren but willing to work with fellow Ohioan Rob Portman, a Republican Senator, to write legislation to address their state's opioid crisis. Brown recognizes that the shifts influencing his colleagues can change from state to state. "Demographics are not changing dramatically in Ohio. They are changing in Colorado and Virginia and Arizona and Nevada and North Carolina," Brown says, "and making those states more Democratic." Ohio is experiencing a different kind of upheaval. In Mahoning County, home to Youngstown, Hillary Clinton won just shy of 50% of the vote; Obama carried 63% four years earlier. In Trumbull County next door, where Ryan lives, Trump became the first Republican to win since 1972. Overall, Trump won 44% of the vote in Ryan's district, four years after Mitt Romney captured just 36%. "Our members didn't know better, unfortunately, and they did vote for him," says Tony DiTommaso Jr., secretary-treasurer of Western Reserve Building Trades, a coordinating body for 7,500 unionized workers in northeastern Ohio. "They wanted a change. They didn't care what it was." One only needs to look at the shuttered mom-and-pop businesses dotting Ryan's district to see why voters were inclined to listen to Trump's promises. Which is why Ryan is pushing plans to bring high-speed Internet to the farming communities and to recruit tech giants to the cheap real estate in local cities and towns.

On a Friday in late July, Ryan was padding through the Basilica of Our Lady of Mount Carmel's annual Italian festival in Youngstown. Simmering red sauce was heaped on polenta, and elephant ears layered with powdered sugar were matched with mostaccioli showered with ground Parmesan from plastic tubes. It was a throwback to a time when church socials defined communities. "These are my peeps," Ryan says to no one in particular as voters swarm him. "He doesn't forget where he came from," says Robert Rodkey, 71, after saying hello to Ryan. "Union isn't a word for him. It's a way of life. Now if only the Democrats would follow him." If Ryan has bigger ambitions to lead, he is not alone. A shadow campaign for the 2020 nomination is quietly taking shape in early-nominating states like Iowa and New Hampshire. Some of the most interesting names are unfamiliar ones. Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Ind., visited Iowa in early September to check in. Jason Kander, the former Missouri secretary of state who is viewed as a rising party star, recruited a Sanders aide to stake out territory in Iowa and has announced plans to open offices for his voting-rights group in five states. The Iowa steak fry, previously led by former Senator Tom Harkin, is an annual rite of passage for Democratic presidential hopefuls and will draw Ryan, Bustos and Representative Seth Moulton of Massachusetts in September. "We have the next generation of Democratic leaders. We need to lift them up in the public eye," says Stephanie Schriock, president of Emily's List, a group dedicated to electing women who support abortion rights. "This is not a party of one leader. It's just not."Back in Youngstown, you can see the wheels spinning in Ryan's head. He sees a role for a Midwesterner who can connect with the working-class voters who took comfort in Trump's rage. Indeed, he thinks the Democrats' future depends on it. "We can get the party back on track," Ryan says as his SUV rolls away from a meeting with Ohio union chiefs. "Someone's going to figure this out. Someone needs to."
http://time.com/4951191/divided-democra ... ts-future/
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: A 2018 wave is building, but will it fizzle?

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President Donald Trump has done “really terrible things,” but that doesn't mean top Democrats are ready to push impeachment, according to a senior lawmaker.

“We’re not there yet” on impeachment, said Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, though he quickly added that the president has done “really terrible things.”

“I don’t want to vote on impeachment. I think it’s too early. We don’t have the evidence; we don’t have the case,” Nadler told The Hill. “You don’t want to discredit it by voting for impeachment resolutions before you have the facts."
http://www.newsweek.com/democrats-not-r ... ngs-672210

It's a wave of neoliberalism, which is as bad as audible halitosis combined with tactical acne.

FDT

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: A 2018 wave is building, but will it fizzle?

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CDFingers wrote:
President Donald Trump has done “really terrible things,” but that doesn't mean top Democrats are ready to push impeachment, according to a senior lawmaker.
we want to get this right the first time, with a mountain of incontrovertible evidence. metaphorical head shot, no do-overs, no yes-buts, no wiggle room. he broke the law here, here, and here, here's the evidence, guilty, guilty, guilty, penalty phase, case closed. bam! next. good afternoon, mr. pence,,,, lather rinse repeat.
i'm retired. what's your excuse?

Re: A 2018 wave is building, but will it fizzle?

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senorgrand wrote:Hillary says she didn't make any mistakes.
Yeah, right.

Schumer's actually been a far better leader than Reid ever was, keeping party unity really well. Pelosi's done the same in the House, but she's a TERRIBLE speaker and far more out of touch with the Dem base than Schumer.

Nadler's actually not wrong. Dems are not yet in position to publicly push for impeachment. What they need to do is, as they work bi-partisan on stuff they can, whisper in friendly GOP ears how they'd MUCH rather have Pence because at least he respects the Constitution, mainly, and Congress. Unlike Trump, who only respects guys tougher than him....like Putin.
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

Re: A 2018 wave is building, but will it fizzle?

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I still think they should leave him in office after the blue wave and make him live through investigations and hearings (remember Benghazi?). With 48 hours to go, they should impeach and remove him with Andrew McCabe as in the room as a witness.
It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Re: A 2018 wave is building, but will it fizzle?

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YankeeTarheel wrote: Wed Sep 27, 2017 3:14 pm
senorgrand wrote:Hillary says she didn't make any mistakes.
Yeah, right.

Schumer's actually been a far better leader than Reid ever was, keeping party unity really well. Pelosi's done the same in the House, but she's a TERRIBLE speaker and far more out of touch with the Dem base than Schumer.

Nadler's actually not wrong. Dems are not yet in position to publicly push for impeachment. What they need to do is, as they work bi-partisan on stuff they can, whisper in friendly GOP ears how they'd MUCH rather have Pence because at least he respects the Constitution, mainly, and Congress. Unlike Trump, who only respects guys tougher than him....like Putin.

To be frank, keeping democrats unified and pushing forward as normal is horrible leadership.

That party needs to make some big changes IMHO.

Re: A 2018 wave is building, but will it fizzle?

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https://www.axios.com/polls-show-democr ... da02c.html

By the numbers:
CNN/SSRS:

March 29: Democrats +6 — 50% to 44%
February 26: Democrats +16 — 54% to 38%
Quinnipiac University:

March 21: Democrats +6 — 49% to 43% for both the House and Senate.
December 5, 2017: Democrats +14 — 50% to 36% for the House and 51% to 37% for the Senate.
Fox News:

March 25: Democrats +5 — 46% to 41%.
October 25, 2017: Democrats +15 — 50% to 35%.
EAT,SLEEP,RANGE,REPEAT

Re: A 2018 wave is building, but will it fizzle?

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This week, a Democratic Navy veteran and prosecutor who hopes to win a GOP-held House seat declined to support House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and called for "new leadership" in Washington. Brendan Kelly, who easily won the March 20 Democratic primary for Illinois' 12th District, also said he could sometimes break with his party and work with Republicans if he gets elected to Congress. "I think we are at a point in our country's history where it is courageous to come forward and break the party mold and reach out across party lines and actually get some things done," he told the Southern Illinoisan in an interview published Monday. Sound familiar? Kelly echoes parts of what propelled Marine veteran and former prosecutor Conor Lamb to victory in a special election this month in Pennsylvania's 18th District, which tilted heavily toward Republicans in recent years. Lamb supported Obamacare and labor unions, criticized the GOP tax plan, opposed new gun rules and said he personally was against abortion but backed a women's legal right to choose. He also withheld support for Pelosi.

Both Kelly and Lamb emulate the qualities some Democrats feel are necessary to win in Republican-leaning districts this year. Pockets of the Democratic Party believe candidates with national security experience who promote some middle-ground policies can win the independents and GOP voters needed to unseat House Republicans. Voters will put the theory to the test in the coming months as Democratic voters will choose among a variety of candidates, from centrist types like Lamb to more progressive and liberal candidates. Progressives – whom Republicans think they can easily beat in red areas – could outright defeat candidates whom establishment Democrats believe have a better chance in swing districts. Those progressive candidates could also force moderate candidates to take more liberal stances heading into the general election, which could deter swing voters or push them toward the GOP. "No side has ever lost an election because of too much energy, and it's clear that Democrats have all the energy," said Tyler Law, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, or DCCC. "Ultimately, robust primaries can be very helpful for candidates, especially those who haven't run for office before."
Trend or a one-off?

Democratic performance in Republican-leaning districts will prove crucial in determining control of the House in November. Lamb's win in an area President Donald Trump won by about 20 percentage points gave the minority party in Congress fresh optimism about its ability to win the 24 seats needed to control the House. Doing so would require beating Republican incumbents in districts won in 2016 by not only Democrat Hillary Clinton and but also some carried by Trump. After Lamb's victory, Republicans shrugged him off as a unique candidate whom Democrats will struggle to replicate. On the GOP side, lawmakers and strategists argue Democrats will have trouble finding other moderate military veterans who do not face a serious primary challenge. Primary elections can pull candidates toward their party's extremes and make them less appealing in a general election. "This is something that you're not going to see repeated, because they didn't have a primary. They were able to pick a candidate who could run as a conservative, who ran against the minority leader, who ran on a conservative agenda," House Speaker Paul Ryan said earlier this month after Lamb's win.

Lamb did not run as a "conservative," as he opposed major Ryan initiatives such as the GOP tax cuts and Obamacare repeal, but he certainly took centrist stances on some issues. "House Republicans won't say it publicly but they woke up after the special election terrified by the fact that we have a huge amount of Democratic candidates who uniquely fit their districts and have deep records of service," said the DCCC's Law. "But that's not all that keeps them up at night – Republicans know that their stale playbook backfired, particularly on taxes, and now they're stuck without a single popular accomplishment to campaign on." Along with Kelly, the House Democrats' campaign arm has put its weight behind several candidates challenging Republican incumbents who share at least some qualities with Lamb. Of the 33 challengers getting the DCCC's organizational and fundraising support as part of its "red to blue" effort, at least a dozen have some military or national security experience. Democrats often try to run candidates with military or national security backgrounds to counter a GOP narrative that the party is weak on defense or crime, said Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a Democratic National Committee member. That experience is "particularly valuable" in swing districts where Democrats will need voters to cross ideological lines, she said.

Of course, many of those candidates will not mirror Lamb on issues such as abortion or gun rights. The districts they hope to represent have varying local priorities and ideological leanings that can lead to different policy platforms from Democrats. For instance, Lamb and Kelly have both courted steelworkers' unions, which have a presence in their districts but not as big of a foothold in other Republican-held areas. But the Democrats' push to win GOP-held seats this year will test candidates' ability to balance the concerns of an energized Democratic base and general election voters. Progressive pockets of the party have argued for more liberal candidates, even in Republican-leaning areas. Republicans argue Democrats will struggle to resonate with general election voters in red areas once they emerge from primary elections. "The progressive wing of the party has taken full control of the direction that they're going in moving forward, and they're demanding ideological purity on a host of pet issues that will not resonate with voters in a general election," said Jesse Hunt, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, or NRCC, the House GOP's campaign arm.

It remains to be seen how many Democrats can walk the tightrope to effectively compete against Republican incumbents. So far, only Texas and Illinois have held their primary elections, so results are limited. Two of the DCCC's chosen candidates with military backgrounds have already gone through the first stage of a primary. Kelly easily beat a poorly funded opponent, garnering more than 80 percent of the vote. He will face second-term Rep. Mike Bost in Illinois' 12th District in November. Trump won the area by about 15 points in 2016. Nonpartisan election analysis site Cook Political Report's Partisan Voter Index, which gauges how a district voted in recent presidential elections relative to the whole nation, rates it as an "R+5" district. It currently lists the House race as a toss-up. Meanwhile, Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones finished first in the March 6 primary for Texas' 23rd District, a swing region in the red state. The former Air Force intelligence officer won 41 percent of the vote, falling short of the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff on May 22. The winner of the contest between her and high school teacher Rick Trevino will challenge second-term Rep. Will Hurd.

In the 23rd District, which sits west of San Antonio, a Democrat may not have to tread quite as carefully around social issues as Lamb did in Pennsylvania. Clinton won the district by about 4 percentage points in 2016, and Cook rates it as only an "R+1" seat. Ortiz Jones has the backing of Emily's List, an organization that aims to help elect pro-choice women. Still, more centrist positions on local issues such as immigration may be important to winning a general election in Texas. Ortiz Jones' campaign website says "our nation's border security cannot be compromised, but our safety does not require us to abandon the principles and the people on which this country was founded." In an environment of opposition to Trump and many GOP policies, Democrats face a challenge in nominating candidates who can appeal to general election voters in their specific districts, DNC member Kamarck said. If the party wants to win red seats, it has to "be very, very careful to find centrist Democrats" who do not motivate Republicans to vote against them, she added. "The obvious risk is that the moderate candidate gets beaten by the candidate who's seen as way too far left for the district," Kamarck said.

Democratic turnout has proven strong in recent elections. For instance, more votes were cast on the Democratic side of both the Illinois 12th District and Texas 23rd District primaries than the GOP side. High turnout can actually help moderate candidates emerge in swing districts, as low primary participation can mean only the most passionate and ideological voters turn out, Kamarck said. Many voters in battleground areas also have more of a focus on the general election than voters in districts considered safe for one party. Even if Democrats' chosen candidates for battleground districts emerge from a primary unscathed, Republicans think they have a universal attack target in their arsenal: Pelosi. The California Democrat, who is unpopular nationally, has become a reliable rhetorical target for the GOP in recent election years.

Before Lamb refused to back Pelosi, a pro-House GOP super PAC repeatedly tied him to the House Democratic leader. Withholding support worked out for Lamb, because his campaign's fundraising effort was strong enough that he did not need cash injections from the national party. Still, the NRCC's Hunt thinks Democrats will have a Pelosi problem even if they denounce her. He contended candidates could have an issue if they want to take money from the Democratic Party apparatus but do not back the party's top House member. There is no indication that the DCCC will pull support from Kelly, the Illinois candidate, because of his comments about Pelosi. "Nancy Pelosi will be front and center in every competitive race in the country in 2018," Hunt said.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/28/democra ... -lamb.html


The Cook Political Report rating of all US House races:
https://www.cookpolitical.com/ratings/h ... ce-ratings
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: A 2018 wave is building, but will it fizzle?

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DougMasters wrote: Mon Mar 26, 2018 10:05 am
YankeeTarheel wrote: Wed Sep 27, 2017 3:14 pm
senorgrand wrote:Hillary says she didn't make any mistakes.
Yeah, right.

Schumer's actually been a far better leader than Reid ever was, keeping party unity really well. Pelosi's done the same in the House, but she's a TERRIBLE speaker and far more out of touch with the Dem base than Schumer.

Nadler's actually not wrong. Dems are not yet in position to publicly push for impeachment. What they need to do is, as they work bi-partisan on stuff they can, whisper in friendly GOP ears how they'd MUCH rather have Pence because at least he respects the Constitution, mainly, and Congress. Unlike Trump, who only respects guys tougher than him....like Putin.

To be frank, keeping democrats unified and pushing forward as normal is horrible leadership.

That party needs to make some big changes IMHO.
I must admit, things look very different now, fully 6 months later. Pelosi has been tone-deaf, had terrible timing and even declared, out of total fantasy land even Trump could admire, that SHE was indispensible to Democratic success in the House, and the nation.
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

Re: A 2018 wave is building, but will it fizzle?

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Political calculations can change about as quickly as the news. Just look at last week: The news that a speaker of the House announced his retirement, and a Robert Mueller Russia investigation that keeps ensnaring people close to the president, were drowned out temporarily when President Trump announced a military strike against Syria. But barring deeper involvement in Syria, the midterm calculus remains the same — Democrats have a distinct advantage at this point.

That's true for several reasons — and it was highlighted by data from the Pew Research Center presented at a National Press Club panel last week for Washington embassy staffers from various countries (at which your author was a panelist). The Pew presentation set the backdrop for the midterms well. It drew on interviews from multiple recent Pew surveys, and also looked at ones from 2017 with the same questions. In other words, it considered a lot of people's responses, much more than one typical poll. There were some fascinating details about gender, race and education, differences between the generations, who's making up the parties and how that's changed over the last two decades. It was chock full of charts, which are used below (with permission) in this post.

Speaker Paul Ryan's retirement highlights the main question for the 2018 elections — which party will control the House? (The Senate is more of an uphill climb for Democrats, based on the multiple seats they are defending, so, for now, let's focus on the House). Democrats have advantages in their quest to take back the House. First and foremost, the president's low approval ratings. It's been a chaotic start to the Trump presidency, and yet his approval ratings have remained steady, steadily low. "There's been a lot more stability than change" on that measure, said Carroll Doherty, director of policy research for Pew. (Doherty presented the data.) That's a major problem for the party in power. Almost more than anything else, presidential approval has tracked with the performance of the president's party in midterms.

History

Add that to the fact that history is not kind to a president's party in midterms, and it creates problems for GOP candidates. For context of just how bad history is to the president's party in midterms, just three times in the last 84 years — 1934, 1998 and 2002 — has the president's party gained seats in the House.

And those were extraordinary years, as panelist Darrell West of the Brookings Institution pointed out:

- In 1934, the country was dealing with the aftermath of the Great Depression;
- In 1998, Republicans faced a backlash over their impeachment of President Clinton; and
- 2002 was right after 9/11

On average, the president's party has lost 27 House seats in midterms since 1934 (25 in a president's first midterm). And when the president's approval rating is below 50 percent, it's even worse. When that's the case, on average, the president's party loses 34 House seats, or 41 in his first midterm.

Enthusiasm

Republicans are also suffering from an enthusiasm gap. As Pew notes in the presentation slide below, more Democrats than Republicans are "looking forward" to the midterms, which is a notable shift from 2010 and 2014, two past midterm years when Republicans took over the House and Senate, respectively. Look particularly at liberals versus conservatives. There's a 25-point gap between the two, with 83 percent of liberals looking forward to these midterms, as opposed to 58 percent of conservatives.

The percentage of people saying control of Congress is a factor in their vote is already higher now than it was in the last polls of the wave years of 2006, 2010 and 2014. And Trump is a major factor — more so than Bush or Obama were in any of those three recent wave elections. More Democratic voters say their vote this Fall is a vote against Trump than they said it was one against Bush in 2006 in the middle of the spiraling Iraq civil war. Conversely, more Republican voters are saying their votes are a vote for Trump than they said their vote was one for Bush in 2006 — and it's also higher than the Democrats who said their vote was one for Obama in 2010, when Democrats lost 63 House seats.

Women

Driving much of that enthusiasm for Democrats are women. A record number of women have signed up to be candidates. And the highest percentage of women in at least two decades are identifying as Democrats.

Congressional ballot

Democrats are consistently leading on the survey question of who Americans would prefer to have in charge of Congress, known to pollsters as the congressional ballot test. All of the poll average aggregators show Democrats with a consistent advantage on this question this year. FiveThirtyEight has Democrats at +6.9 points, RealClearPolitics +6.6 and Huffington Post's Pollster also +6.6. But before Democrats get too far ahead of themselves here and think they're a shoo-in, in 2006, Democrats had an 11.5-percentage-point advantage in the polls and finished with about an 8-point advantage in the actual results on election night nationally, according to the RealClearPolitics average that year.

And Democrats had a more even playing field. Republican gerrymandering has insulated many GOP congressional candidates from competitive races. But there are signs that they're not all so confident.

Retirements

There are a record number of Republican retirements from the House this year — 39 are calling it quits from their congressional jobs. The only year that comes close to this many retirements by either party were Democrats in 1992 when 41 of them exited. In 1992, Democrats only lost 10 seats, but it set up a very bad year for the party two years later in Bill Clinton's first midterm.

It's undoubtedly a bad sign for Republicans — and open seats are easier to win than defeating incumbents — but not always has the party with the most retirements seen the most losses. Republican issue arguments haven't taken hold. Americans are saying they don't yet feel the benefits from the tax plan and have moved more in favor of free trade, which is counter to Trump's populist push. On the tax plan, just by a 29-to-27 margin do Americans say it will have a mostly positive effect on them and their families in the years ahead. Even Republicans don't seem that confident in it. Just over half of them say it will have a positive effect.

Overall, the tax plan is not viewed positively for the country on the whole, with just 35 percent saying it will have a positive effect in the coming years; 40 percent say its effect will be mostly negative. And on trade, something critical to President Trump's economic philosophy, Americans seem unconvinced. A majority say free trade has been a good thing and more say it's likely helped their financial situation than hurt.

The economy

The economy continues to chug along. Unemployment is at its lowest in decades, and while GDP growth is slow, it continues to be positive. And Pew finds that views of the economy are the highest they've been since the early aughts. But some cold water on those views of the economy: They might not matter as much because of the partisan split. Republicans are the ones now feeling good about the economy, flipping from when Obama was in office. Democrats, on the other hand, have also reversed themselves from the Obama years and now see it negatively. Republicans' positive views of the economy might be pacifying for them. And anger — and being against someone or something — tend to be greater motivating factors in midterms (because it fires up activists). That continues to be on Democrats' side.

Foreign policy

Trump continues to get negative marks overall and Americans are worried about the threat posed by North Korea. But it could be worse. The Syria strike was a reminder about the potential consequences of involvement in a foreign conflict. Americans are war-weary and especially wary of becoming entangled in another nation-building effort in a faraway land.

It's why the White House was so quick Sunday to respond when French President Emmanuel Macron said he had "convinced" Trump to "remain" in Syria after threatening to pull out a week and a half ago.

"The U.S. mission has not changed — the president has been clear that he wants U.S. forces to come home as quickly as possible," White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said. "We are determined to completely crush ISIS and create the conditions that will prevent its return. In addition, we expect our regional allies and partners to take greater responsibility both militarily and financially for securing the region."

Democrats are critical of Trump lacking a comprehensive approach in Syria, and Trump's foreign-policy doctrine is not at all clear — when should the U.S. intervene or not? For Trump, he has struck Syria twice — both times limited and both times when pictures of the results of chemical weapons attacks became too difficult to ignore. That means he understands the political risk of getting stuck in a place like Syria — even if it means not solving the problem long term. There is always the risk of escalation, and that could change the calculus — and quickly.

Gerrymandering

Republicans have a key structural advantage. After winning state legislatures and governors' races in 2010, they were able to draw maps to insulate their congressional candidates. That was a task made easier by the fact that Democrats are so heavily clustered in cities. Because of that, Democratic votes are not being spread out. In 2016, Republicans won 49.1 percent of the vote in House contests nationwide, according to the Cook Political Report, but 55 percent of seats. Democrats, on the other hand, won 48 percent of House votes and just 45 percent of seats.

Demography

Longer-term demographic trends continue to favor Democrats, as Pew's slides show. But older voters are still in the GOP's corner — and they vote at higher rates. That can be particularly helpful in midterms when Democrats have struggled to turn out young voters and non-whites, and they make up an increasingly larger share of the Democratic Party.
https://www.npr.org/2018/04/16/60152583 ... capitalize
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: A 2018 wave is building, but will it fizzle?

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I'd love to see the leadership of our Government change in 2018 and again in 2020 and again until our "leaders" get the point that we are all very unhappy with their performance. I don't ssee any decent Democrat leadership arising....little bits and pieces here and there but certainly no good plan to replace what we have with something any better. I won't vote Democrat this Fall just because they aren't Republican.

They gotta show me something good/better and I have not seen that yet. I don't think what ails America - Our Government- is gonna get fixed at the polls. Not this year or 2 years beyond.

VooDoo
Tyrants disarm the people they intend to oppress.

I am sworn to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Re: A 2018 wave is building, but will it fizzle?

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I think this sort of turmoil was vaguely predicted in the past. Baby boomers retiring, whites becoming majority-minority, and the WW2 generation receding from politics were all predicted. We need young immigrants to provide tax $$ to pay for entitlements and defense spending, but that immigration means a clash with the existing culture.

This shift of the culture to tolerance vs intolerance is the most dangerous time for America. Will we step up and remain a liberal democracy? I think it will all work out eventually, but I sure hope this is as rocky as it gets.
It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Re: A 2018 wave is building, but will it fizzle?

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K9s wrote: Wed Apr 18, 2018 3:26 pm ...... I think it will all work out eventually, but I sure hope this is as rocky as it gets.
Me too, Brother. Me too. Somehow I believe we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg...if Liberal Democrats don't force the Democrat party (note the use of the word force) to stop cheating and manipulating and to allow the Progressive and Socialist end of the party to have a say, and stop taking Establishment and Oligarchy money this will never change. I have no hope that we will see true Liberal candidates in sufficient numbers this fall. We'll get rhetorical Democrats - Establishment and Neoliberal candidates owned and operated by the same Oligarchy that runs the Republicans only in a gun banning flavor.

I'm afraid this will get much worse before it breaks. And nothing gets fixed until it's broken. If it ain't broke don't fix it.

I say we break it so it gets fixed but I'm a loony tune so....

VooDoo
Tyrants disarm the people they intend to oppress.

I am sworn to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

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