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

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I never miss a chance to vote, but in Texas it's like spitting in a red sea hoping it turns blue. Excluding state and local, Federally (other than Obama), I've only had one winner in years and that's due to right wing gerrymandering that made one district borderline semi-red in hopes of squeaking past the courts, but has remained in Dems hands - mainly because it extends into Austin from SATX.

Not only is my area in drought from weather, politically it's even worse.
"Being Republican is more than a difference of opinion - it's a character flaw." "COVID can fix STUPID!"
The greatest, most aggrieved mistake EVER made in USA was electing DJT as POTUS.

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YankeeTarheel wrote: Thu Jun 21, 2018 7:00 am The only way out, is turnout. These days, the worst Democrat is STILL far, far better than the best Republican. There's only one Republican congressman I'll be ALMOST sorry to see defeated, and that's Leonard Lance here in NJ's 7th District (not my district), who's been the boldest at breaking with Trump. In my own, 11th District, Rodney Frelinghuysen is retiring because he couldn't bear to face a REAL challenge this time. I don't think he's sponsored or co-sponsored a bill since 1995, always votes with the GOP leadership (except when they let him vote against them for political purposes--happened 2x in 23 years) and, even as Chair of the powerful Appropriations Committee has refused to stick his neck out.
I'm not at all happy with our Democratic nominee, hand-picked by the DCCC even though she didn't actually LIVE in our district, but flipping the seat is far too important.
I voted my conscience in the Primary, but I'll vote strategically in November. 23 seats more, out of 435 to get to 218...

The 3 most important rules of elections are like the 3 most important rules of real estate, but in elections are:
Turnout, Turnout, and Turnout.
If we can turn some red states to purple or blue, it can make a real difference. State government and local officials are also key, not just national races. We learned that the hard way this century.
It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

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If the thick New England accent did not already reveal that Boston Mayor Marty Walsh was not from around here, the polemic he launched into at a campaign rally in a union hall did. “We have an administration that is reckless,” Walsh said, attacking President Trump’s foreign policy. “It is reckless.” That’s not the approach that Danny O’Connor, one of the congressional candidates Walsh was here to boost, typically takes. “No one asks me,” O’Connor says about Trump’s unorthodox approach to diplomacy. “I love asking people, ‘What are you worried about? What keeps you up.?’ It is, ‘My social security, my healthcare.’ It is economic opportunity, student debt. If that is what people are telling me they are worried about, that is what I am going to talk about.”

O’Connor, 31, defines himself as a progressive, but he is highly selective about which pages of the progressive playbook he uses. You won’t hear him talking about Trump much at all. Or calling for socialized medicine. Or demanding a government-guaranteed minimum income. But as a Democrat running in what was long assumed to be a safely Republican district, he’s happy to have the outside help, even at the price of an occasional discordant note. It’s a strategy that may be about to pay off. In 2016, Donald Trump won this district by 11 points. The seat was held for 18 years by John Kasich, now Ohio’s Republican governor, who still lives within the district’s heavily gerrymandered boundaries. He handed it off to Patrick J. Tiberi, another business-oriented Republican, who held the district for 17 years until he stepped down to take a post heading the Ohio Business Roundtable.

Yet polls show the race to fill the remaining months of Tiberi’s term to be a tossup two weeks before the Aug. 7 election. It’s the latest in a series of special elections in the last 18 months in which Democrats have performed far better than normal patterns would predict. Like other Democrats in tough districts in the Rust Belt and the South, O’Connor has surged in the polls by hewing to the kind of pragmatic liberalism many party activists had forsworn after the Democrats’ painful loss in the presidential election. The energy on the party’s left has gotten lots of attention, especially after the victory in late June of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who defeated a longtime Democratic incumbent in a primary election in New York.

But the candidates who have won the biggest elections in the last year have mostly not come from the party’s Bernie Sanders wing. These candidates may be anti-establishment, vowing to jettison Nancy Pelosi from her leadership role, but they are thoroughly moderate. The centrists are back. They just prefer you not call them that anymore. As with so much in the Democratic Party these days, what the center should look like remains very much up for debate. While O’Connor campaigned this week through his awkwardly shaped district, which stretches from the rapidly growing and well-to-do suburbs of Columbus into the depressed, industrial Trump strongholds an hour north, another big political event was taking place nearby. Its organizers have no affiliation with O’Connor, but they are encouraged by his success.

The Washington-based think tank Third Way, a growth-oriented, business-friendly policy powerhouse, had convened in Columbus with potential new recruits from 32 states, as well as some longtime allies, to map out a strategy for taking back the White House in 2020. An overarching concern of the group is the influence that the Democratic left, personified by Vermont’s Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, has gained since the last election. The conference leaders presented their new brand as “Opportunity Democrats” who would work to democratize economic opportunity and entrepreneurship, which has been increasingly concentrated in a few coastal areas. They showed maps of the large swaths of America that have seen a net loss in businesses over the last decade and questioned how it is possible that Switzerland dwarfs the United States in the number of apprenticeships available to aspiring skilled workers.

“Restoring the right to earn was a central promise of [Trump’s] pitch,” said Jon Cowan, the think tank’s president. “He got the question right. He got the answer appallingly wrong.” The organizers insisted socialism is also the wrong answer. But they also strained to shed their long-standing brand as moderates, acknowledging that label no longer appeals to voters and insisting it does not accurately reflect their agenda for a new economy. "We had to look at the baggage of our own brand and say, ‘is this the right way to brand us?’" said Lanae Erickson Hatalsky, who directs politics and policy at Third Way. "People will still call us moderate Democrats. But a lot of people here would not call themselves that.… You don’t have to be a self-described moderate to believe there is a path other than the end of capitalism.”

The rebranding of the center-left comes as the quest to find a unifying message for Democrats grows increasingly complicated with each unanticipated electoral victory. Ocasio-Cortez, a political newcomer, dislodged one of the most powerful House Democrats in the primary by running in New York City as an unapologetic democratic socialist. O’Connor is having his success running on a platform that looks more like that of the congressman she beat. How far Democrats should go in stoking class resentment was a persistent theme at the Third Way event.

“You are not going to make me hate somebody just because they are rich,” said Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan, a Democrat from the Youngstown area who has campaigned for O’Connor and who says voters in struggling Rust Belt communities want opportunity and government investment in local industries, not guaranteed government income. “People are dying for some new ideas. Are we really going to go through the next decade having the same arguments we have had for the last 30 or 40 years when the entire economy has changed?” Back in O’Connor’s district, the centrist candidate has drawn support from progressives by aligning himself closely with organized labor and narrowly focusing on a handful of economic issues that have broad appeal. “People want pragmatism,” said O’Connor, who ran an ad pronouncing he would not support Pelosi to lead the Democrats in the House. “If there is a good idea, it does not have to be a Republican or Democratic idea. If it will benefit the people in this district, I am going to embrace it.”

One sign of that pragmatism is O’Connor’s praise for Kasich on the issue of healthcare. The governor championed the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act — a stand that angered many conservative Republicans. Kasich, a sharp critic of Trump, also declared last year’s tax cut fiscally dangerous, a criticism O’Connor echoes. The governor has declined to endorse O’Connor’s opponent, state Sen. Troy Balderson, who says he agrees with Trump on everything but the president’s tweeting habit. Trump tweeted his “Full & Total Endorsement” of Balderson on Saturday. In an area traumatized by the opioid epidemic, O’Connor’s pitch to preserve government healthcare programs has particular appeal.

“You talk to doctors, especially rural doctors, and ask what getting rid of the Medicaid expansion would do to fighting back against opioid addiction, and they will tell you it is the single most devastating thing you can do,” O’Connor said. “You have to be such an extremist to oppose having that in place.” In fact, O’Connor said, one of the first things he’ll do if he wins will be to call Republican Kasich and suggest they join forces in the fight.
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-p ... tory.html#
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

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538, ABC News and Ballotpedia analyzed if progressive endorsements really help Democratic candidates win.
The organization with the best endorsement record in Democratic primaries remains the Democratic Party itself. Candidates who are on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s Red to Blue List or endorsed by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee7 had a win rate of 95 percent (37 wins out of 39 endorsements). In races where a party-endorsed candidate ran against a progressive-group-endorsed candidate (excluding any races where a candidate was endorsed by both sides), the party-endorsed candidate won 89 percent of the time.

In other words, the best predictor of primary success remains establishment support.

However, there are several caveats: First, we don’t know which way the causation runs. The Democratic establishment is probably purposefully lining up behind candidates who were already the strongest in their field. Second, “establishment” isn’t a synonym for “moderate,” so the success of establishment candidates doesn’t necessarily mean that progressives are losing. For instance, eight party-backed candidates were also endorsed by at least one progressive group. And at least one group explicitly backing centrist candidates in Democratic primaries has struck out so far. Groups financed by No Labels — a bipartisan organization pushing for more compromise in Congress — have supported candidates in two open Democratic primaries so far this year, and neither won.
If the candidates they endorse are avatars for their own 2020 campaigns, then Biden and Warren should be feeling pretty good right now. Candidates they endorsed have won 100 percent of their primaries so far in 2018, though each only endorsed a handful of people: Biden’s candidates went 10 for 10 and Warren’s went five for five. However, it’s worth noting that Biden mostly endorsed candidates who were facing token primary opposition, while most of the people Warren endorsed won truly competitive races. Finally, Bernie Sanders endorsed nine candidates, five of whom advanced to the general election, for a win rate of 56 percent.
Six months after the shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, appeared to spark sustained liberal activism, are Democratic primary voters voting for pro-gun-control candidates? To measure this, we counted up all the candidates who were labeled “gun sense candidates”8 by Moms Demand Action, part of the Everytown for Gun Safety organization. In races that have been called so far, 192 candidates were granted that label and 79 of them won, for a win rate of 41 percent. But in many cases, gun sense candidates were running against each other in the same districts, which brought their overall win rate down. It might be fairer to look at the how often any gun sense candidate was nominated in races where at least one person received that designation; when we do that, we find that a gun sense candidate won the Democratic nomination in 79 percent of races where Moms Demand Action had awarded the designation to at least one candidate.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/th ... es-so-far/
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

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Every election is local. What works in California doesn't necessarily work in Kansas or Florida. The prevailing opinion that this midterm is a referendum on the current President is probably true (as always after a new Prez election). Other factors (e.g. candidate strength) matter, too. Any unforeseen events (e.g. hurricanes, mass shootings) just before the election will probably have impact, too. I don't see any way to claim that one big thing matters more than Trump's popularity in each district/state.
It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

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It will be interesting to see if Republicans in Congress push through bills to energize their base to turn out in November. There are quite a few Republican House members retiring so they'd have nothing to lose by voting for something like concealed carry reciprocity. The bills would still have to get through the Senate before going to the WH. We could see a whole lot of activity before November 6th.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

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This awfulness didn't happen overnight and I suppose long hard effort will be needed to turn things around.
I'm volunteering with OpenProgress to do voter engagement by text. Concentrating on local races across the country - attorneys general, state legislatures, county councils, special races like Doug Jones vs. Roy Moore, etc.
I didn't think texting would be effective, but it seems to be low margin-but-useful, especially as fewer and fewer people accept phone (voice) calls.
It doesn't even involve your cell phone. They have a workspace on Slack to provide campaign materials, and the actual names to text are assigned on Relay. It's all webby, with boilerplate responses and a workflow, but flexibility to interact with people more if necessary.
I've helped a bunch of people get registered who didn't realize they'd been kicked off the polls for whatever reason, or who didn't know where to vote, etc.

I hope it's ok to post all that here. I'm not stumping for OpenProgress particularly, there are other groups using the same technique, like Red2Blue.
Also I'm not ignoring the discussion about discontent in the Democratic party. Just thinking about how important it is to slowly but steadily retake offices at all levels of government.

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Can anyone name one thing that Republicans did for gun owners since 2016? Anything?

They tear things down, but they build nothing.

The voter suppression efforts here in this state are going to become an issue after the mid-term elections. It doesn't take foreign interference to get people to doubt the legitimacy of elections. Republicans are doing just fine with that.

In the meantime, the effort to turn a Red state to Blue will take place at the local level and could take decades. I think it is inevitable with highly populated states like NC, GA, and FL. It will take a little longer with other Red states.
It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

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Yeah, yeah. LOL

If they wouldn't pass a suppressor/NFA law, they won't pass national reciprocity.

But, now that I think about it, they might pass national reciprocity because they know it would never happen. It *might* help rile up the base with "they gunna take away yer guns!"

Anyone who actually thinks they want (non-LEO, non-private security, non-Republican donor) individuals to own firearms is mistaken. The Trump base doesn't care if he confiscates all guns, in my opinion. It is a cult of lies.
It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

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K9s wrote: Fri Aug 17, 2018 7:20 pm The Trump base doesn't care if he confiscates all guns, in my opinion.
The Rs have two separate bases:

The voter base. Middle-class and below; largely opposed to taking guns away from (white) people.

The donor base. Gated-community dwelling, multiple home owning; largely in favor of taking guns away from people who aren't LEOs and don't work for them.

The noisy voter base thinks they are calling the shots, but they only have any real influence during the primaries. The donors will always stab them in the backs when the bills are actually voted on.
IMR4227: Zero to 900 in 0.001 seconds

I'm only killing paper and my self-esteem.

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Buck13 wrote: Fri Aug 24, 2018 1:13 pm
K9s wrote: Fri Aug 17, 2018 7:20 pm The Trump base doesn't care if he confiscates all guns, in my opinion.
The Rs have two separate bases:

The voter base. Middle-class and below; largely opposed to taking guns away from (white) people.

The donor base. Gated-community dwelling, multiple home owning; largely in favor of taking guns away from people who aren't LEOs and don't work for them.

The noisy voter base thinks they are calling the shots, but they only have any real influence during the primaries. The donors will always stab them in the backs when the bills are actually voted on.
Truth
It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

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They aren't opposed to taking guns from liberal white people, that's for sure. So much for 2nd applying to all in their POV. It's ok to take from anyone that they don't agree or like. Frankly, they have more to fear from the orange puke than any Dem regarding gun confiscation.

FDT
"Being Republican is more than a difference of opinion - it's a character flaw." "COVID can fix STUPID!"
The greatest, most aggrieved mistake EVER made in USA was electing DJT as POTUS.

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A SNEAK PEEK FOR PLAYBOOKERS … DAVE WASSERMAN of the Cook Political Report just released a 22,000-word analysis of the House to his subscribers. Here’s a peek, in which he predicts a 20- to 40-seat pickup for Democrats: “The most critical phase of the battle for the House isn’t October; it’s right now. Republicans’ only hope of defying a ‘Blue Wave’ and saving their 23-seat House majority is to personally disqualify Democratic nominees on a race-by-race basis with quality opposition research. But there’s a narrow window of time to do so before the airwaves get clogged, and Republicans will need to be selective.

“The playing field of competitive races has expanded, and not in a good way for the GOP: of the 66 races in our ‘Lean’ and ‘Toss Up’ columns, Republicans are defending 62 and Democrats just four. The battlefield includes all types of places: northeastern suburbs, Sun Belt exurbs, Trump zones in the Rust Belt and unexpected locales like Little Rock, Spokane and even the coalfields of southern West Virginia.

“Many Republicans wish they could simply run on a great economy, but complain President Trump’s constant distractions won’t let them. Instead, Republicans will have to convince voters that the Democratic alternatives are unacceptable. …

“Of the 25 Republicans sitting in districts Hillary Clinton carried, only five are currently well-positioned to survive a wave: Reps. David Valadao (CA-21), Carlos Curbelo (FL-26), John Katko (NY-24), Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-01) and Will Hurd (TX-23). But eight others aren’t seeking reelection, and 12 others are in Toss Up or worse. Those 20 largely suburban, college-educated seats make up the bulk of the 23 seats Democrats need. …

“Democrats remain clear but not overwhelming House favorites. On the low end, it’s possible House control may not be decided until days after the election. It’s also possible a ‘Blue Wave’ could propel Democrats to historic gains, well past the 23 they need. Right now, Democrats appear poised to gain between 20 and 40 seats, with 25 to 35 the likeliest outcome.”
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/pl ... kup-300747
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

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Interesting read from WaPo.
To varying degrees, Republicans are now unabashedly campaigning on this idea — that if Republican voters don’t show up to keep the GOP in charge of Congress, a Democratic-led House will exercise real oversight on Trump.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/pl ... 556d5465e4

Since that's their strategy, we should amplify it: yes: get some real oversight on that bozo. Investigate the living tar out of him.

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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Wino wrote: Fri Aug 24, 2018 2:50 pm They aren't opposed to taking guns from liberal white people, that's for sure. So much for 2nd applying to all in their POV. It's ok to take from anyone that they don't agree or like. Frankly, they have more to fear from the orange puke than any Dem regarding gun confiscation.
I'm currently reading "Everything Trump Touches Dies" and it's remarkable that he says when Republican politicians get criticized in a Trump tweet, they get a rash of death threats from the alt-reich loonies. Way to cut your own throats, idiots! Don't expect the Rs to reliably vote for any pro-gun bills.
IMR4227: Zero to 900 in 0.001 seconds

I'm only killing paper and my self-esteem.

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There are plenty of alt-reich loonies to vote for their own lunatic candidates. Never-Trumper Republicans need to figure something out quick. Dems won't support their policies and pro-Trumpers want to jail them (or worse). The Republicans created this mess and let it happen. I have no sympathy for them.
It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

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I live in a solid blue congressional district in an otherwise solid red state. Which is odd - I remember during my adult lifetime when we had two Democratic senators, all the way through the mid 90s. Now, we have two Republican senators and a Republican governor and the possibility that a Democrat could defeat them is unlikely. The state government is solidly Republican (75%) and they of course control re-districting.

However, we have a Senate seat open due to the retirement of the (republican) Incumbent and the Democrat has a shot at it. That's the only race my vote has a chance at affecting, so I will definitely be voting.

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

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Minnesota Dem voting up 206% etc. You never know what might happen if everyone votes.

https://www.npr.org/2018/09/04/64368687 ... -elections
Minnesota saw one of the biggest surges in Democratic ballots cast in the primary this year — a 206 percent increase from 2014. The state has four competitive House races this year, including two Twin Cities-area seats that Democrats hope to flip and two open Democratic-held seats on turf in districts President Trump carried by double digits two years ago. While the uptick in turnout is good news for Democrats, Republicans can hope that the 74 percent increase on their side will keep things competitive.

In two important Midwestern states with multiple House seats up for grabs, Democratic turnout spiked while Republican turnout actually dropped from 2014 levels. In Illinois — where there are four seats that the Cook Political Report rates as competitive — there was a 170 percent increase in Democratic ballots, while Republicans saw a 12 percent dip. And in Iowa, where as many as three of its four congressional races are competitive, Democrats had a 154 percent increase in turnout, while Republicans saw a 36 percent decrease.

Other states with multiple important House races also saw major Democratic turnout increases — Texas (up 88 percent for Democrats, compared to 16 percent bump for the GOP), California (82 percent increase for Democrats, with a 46 percent uptick for Republicans), New Jersey (89 percent increase for Democrats, with a 43 percent increase among GOP ballots), Kansas (133 percent increase for Democrats, while Republicans saw a 20 percent uptick), Michigan (120 percent surge for Democrats, compared to a 60 percent increase among GOP ballots) and Washington (76 percent increase among Democratic ballots, with only a 12 percent uptick among Republicans).

For Republicans in those states' largely suburban districts that are considered the most vulnerable, these numbers are not a good harbinger of things to come in November.
It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

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