Like all election threads, this one will inevitably be better if you mentally substitute "erection" for each occurrence of the word.
It will be even better if you physically substitute an erection for each occurrence.
I still have a bunch of shit I need to do so I let Mrs. K-sky drop off our absentee ballots at the polling place. I'm a little sad that I'm not taking Φ in for a cute system-affirming selfie, and dreading 2016 when I have to square the circle of having a 3-year-old daughter with Having Mixed Feelings About Girl President. Lefty parents of daughters, should we start our support group now?
4: Supporting Obama over Hillary in 2008 already did enough damage to my marriage. When she runs in 2016 I'm not going to have much wiggle room.
5: I'll take all the credit, thanks.
It's been years since I've been there but every election year I used to go back to Eschaton to spawn live-comment.
So are we fucked yet or what?
Is anybody other than Hillary running? Do candidates usually wait until after the mid-terms to announce/ openly explore?
I'm a little sad that I'm not taking Φ in for a cute system-affirming selfie
That worked out all right, actually.
Why the fuck is Virginia close? That wasn't even supposed to be in play!
I hate that the local news is already reporting all of the local (ok, all of New England) races with 0-2% reporting. It's not sophisticated exit-poll analysis; it's just junk.
6: Same here. I'm going to have a really tough time explaining my vote for Bernie Sanders, or whomever. Even if Elizabeth Warren runs, I'm gonna have some 'splainin' to do.
11: Nice poster behind her there.
16: Thanks. Came in a three-pack a while back.
(it was a gift to my ex, who worked on the show in 1998 or so. Disregard the price tag at that page.)
What website are y'all watching for returns? The NPR station here has a good site for MA, but its national stuff isn't very in depth.
No votes are in yet, but keep an eye on Maine House District 139 (halfway down the page).
My sister is the Democrat. She's the incumbent - and seems to have campaigned her ass off - but its a pretty red district.
Fun fact: its also the easternmost legislative district in the United States. At least until Puerto Rico comes on board.
20: Good luck to your sister. My BIL lost in the last gubernatorial election, and though I can't stand his politics, he'd still have been better than the loathsome LePage.
It looks like LePage is going down, partly because of the snow storm.
Who has been the most loathsome Governor over the past few years? I'm thinking the finalists have got to include LePage, Scott Walker, Lord Voldemort.... who am I missing?
My dad ran for state house at request of his state party org. Against a couple of teabillies. Going to get crushed because of the locale, but still glad for him.
Out of gin, but at least I have wine. This is a shitshow. Amerika is devouring its children.
Folks will remember from last time that in Virginia, Dem areas get counted later.
Upshot adjusts the Virginia results to get Warner at +1.2%.
Chris Christie is a special kind of loathsome. I think there needs to be a tournament bracket for this.
Colorado is pink on the map. Why is Colorado pink? Colorado should not be pink.
Having a tough time finding non loathsome govs. I have nostalgia for Kitzhaber but he's been riding that shit into the ground.
19: What website are y'all watching for returns?
Actually, The Guardian's live blog is best suited for me, since I want an overview.
DKos Elections, which has basically taken over their front page for tonight, is decent. TPM is a little too chatty for my needs.
Isn't there some place that just tracks results as they come in? I may go over to television.
36: Shit. I told you guys that somebody I know, who voted for Berwick and who supports all the ballot initiatives that Baker opposes, was thinking about voting for Baker.
Alright. My sister is up 372 to 349. One out of eight precincts reporting. She's supposed to need about 2000 votes to win.
1: yeah, and just look at all this fucking cargo.
You know, its too bad Mitch McConnell won, but I'm not sorry Grimes lost. Democrats for Coal is bullshit.
New Hampshire's been held. That's nice. Technically, its now my home state.
41.last: you and Scott brown.
Re-elected Ohio Governor John Kasich: Also loathsome.
35 Steve Bullock's a pretty good guy.
35: Yeah, I'm hoping Kitzhaber enjoys one more term and lets someone else have the time to step up. He got lucky having a weak opponent this time around.
There's a Senate election in Vermont in a couple years. Maybe Scott Brown could run there.
48: I really don't know state politics there anymore,though, so I deeply fear e.g. beaverton or the ghost of gordon smith.
46: Aren't Democratic areas usually the last to report?
Brown should keep going north, and run in Quebec.
What happened in Virginia? That seems like an awful huge error for the polls.
I just do via twitter Dkos/Taniel etc. etc.r. Rare good news: Arkansas minimum wage hike approved nearly 2 to 1.
Predictable bad news: Udall looks like toast in Colorado. But at least "personhood" losing there.
If Brown can't win in New Hampshire, no way is he going to win in Vermont. Maine, maybe.
48: If the GOP could come up with another Gordon Smith type, as they almost did with Chris Dudley four years ago, they could make a serious play.
NMM to Massachusetts Question 2 (FORCED! deposits on bottled water).
54: Seemingly without a meaningful race Dems cannot get voters out...
An apparently meaningful race. If Fairfax does not turn out it could happen for the dick.
The Upshot's graphs are really cool. It's pretty impressive how quickly their estimate seem to be stabilizing.
boston.com "Baker asks Patrick to discuss transition while polls still open."
God, I almost want him to lose just because of his arrogance.
Could Grossman have beat him with hsi record as treasurer?
So the 372 to 349 was in the town where my sister lives. It was supposed to break a bit better for her. This could be rough.
Gee, maybe compelling forthright candidates matter? Franken goes from protracted recount to easy victor.
Rare good news: Arkansas minimum wage hike approved nearly 2 to 1.
Goddamn if that shit can win in Arkansas. Why can't Democrats run on some proper economic populism for a change? Grrr.
Polls just closed in Iowa. Now we see just how bad this bloodbath gets.
Boy, what a horrorshow Kentucky senate race turned out to be.
NYT is calling a runoff in Louisiana. Sure will be fun to go through another month of this.
71 -- Republicans will win the Senate without La. I'd guess that seriously dampens interest in that race.
Thanks---I knew of 51 as a truism, but wasn't sure how it applied in Mass.
The Greatest Country on Earth™: Where the fate of the world rests with the shitheads who vote and the fuckstains who don't bother.
La. is just going to draw out the pain. We all know the inevitable outcome of that.
I've switched to beer. Banks Beer. Did you know Barbados makes shitty beer?
Did Orman really commit to caucusing with the GOP if they win a majority? That seems like the sort of thing the Democrats should have gotten some assurances about before withdrawing their own candidate.
Ugh. Now my sister is down 743 to 696. That's just not good.
the fuckstains who don't bother
Fuck those lazy fucks. That's your "American Exceptionalism" right there.
41: yes, as much as I'd love to see McConnell gone, Grimes was terrible. Terrible.
77: Of course he can switch back in two years if the D's can pick up a seat or two.
D's can pick up a seat or two.
Or five.
Apparently Walker projected to win... Hagan will really have to win Mecklenburg (Charlotte) big to come back, and I think Warner squeaks in. Pretty much a mess.
The Colorado race is depressing. I figured that in a state like Colorado once a good democrat got in, they'd just be able to cruise on incumbency. But it doesn't even look like that race is going to be all that close. What happened?
Narrative will be Dems need to "moderate" more.
82: Right, and as Josh Marshall notes caucusing with them doesn't mean he actually has to vote with them. It still seems weird, though.
North Carolina is now pink. It was supposed to be light blue! WTF?
At this rate no one's even going to care about the Alaska results when they come in.
Narrative will be Dems need to "moderate" more.
Fuck narratives. Narratives had Obama campaigning for the already sewn-up Pennsylvania Governor's race this weekend, instead of in a place that mattered. Narratives must be ignored.
77 The Dem was not going to win, no matter what.
I guess we always knew Amanda wasn't going to win -- hell, Max wasn't looking all that good, if he'd wanted to try again. Good news, though, is that the very early results -- which skew Republican, I think -- are showing defeat for the Koch/Stanford Supreme Court candidate, and for the Republican sponsored ballot measure to get rid of same day registration.
Nothing's been counted in the legislative races my friends are running in.
The Dem was not going to win, no matter what.
Of course, but his dropping out helped Orman a lot, and it would have been good for the party to have used that as leverage to get something in return.
It's all going to shit now. Looks like Crist held in Fla. Ernst declared in Iowa (by a local station)... others as well.
93: Heard that the Dems might not have come out in South Florida.
Warner might eke out a victory in VA.
It's all going to shit now
Not as long as we have Coakleymentum!
86 There isn't going to be a narrative about Dems. Just drooling over McConnell and Boehner, and how the country has completely rejected Obama. He just needs to stand up to them.
OK, some more votes counted, and a couple of friends are in closer races than hoped. Glad I'm not down at the union hall chewing on fingernails with everyone else.
92 I doubt they could have gotten anything binding from him, and anyway, parties don't drop out, candidates do.
96: We'll see. But glad we finally taught that Obama feller. I really should shut down twitter and internet in general and catch up on my desperately behind work...
CC, your prediction on impeachment proceedings?
I still can't believe that someone named "Cory" is old enough to run for the Senate.
And now saying no runoff in Ga.. Perdue outright...
93- AP called FL for He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Prosecuted
It would be funnier if George Zimmer ran for office.
I'm sure Zimmerman will run for governor of Florida at some point. He'll probably win, too.
Everybody I voted for today won. The rest of you didn't want it bad enough.
20: Neat! My uncle's girlfriend is running unopposed for selectperson in their small Maine city. She's pretty awesome, so it's nice that she will win.
Results here are looking mixed. Not surprisingly, 6th district minus Bachmann is staying Republican. Pretty worried about the governor's race though. Dayton only won by 9,000 votes last time, and his opponent is some kind of stealth-Scott Walker type. A big Republican switchover in St Paul would be disastrous. Also bizarre, as the Republicans here have not been able to find their ass with both hands for several years now.
I suspect Democrats could have done better this year if they'd had some sort of coherent strategy.
It would be most funny if Invader Zim ran for office.
Well, at least now we'll be protected from Ebola and ISIS.
This day in history: George Prescott Bush is elected as part of the next generation of leaders.
EBOLA, ISIS, BENGHAZI -- REMEMBER WHEN SCANDALS WERE AMERICAN?
112: Like maybe don;t run away so fast from the President...
112: Like maybe don;t run away so fast from the President...
I guess it's a sign of how much academia has warped me that at the moment I'm more agitated about people working on stuff super closely related to what I've been doing inexplicably not citing my papers than about Republicans retaking the Senate. Or maybe that just means I'm more resigned to the awfulness of politics politics than career politics.
My boss is keeping his job. Not that anything else was likely, of course. He's not bad, and the alternative is a Republican.
Seriously. If they don't hang together, they hang separately.
112 to every election I can remember.
And tomorrow I have to try to convince a bunch of string theorists that my career won't suddenly implode if experiments fail to turn up new things to confirm my ideas within the next few years. The temptation to just bring along a mirror and hold it up to them is pretty strong.
I was having such a nice fantasy the other day about how Repugs would take the Senate, but then lame-duck Obama would just call every one of their bluffs and refuse to sign anything at all. But, of course, such things can never be in our wonderful oligarchy of small differences.
Brown gaining on Shaheen. Fuck.
Now that Republicans are in charge of the Senate, I don't imagine that the 60 vote filibuster rule is long for this world.
We should place bets on the date that the Senate passes the Gut Obamacare Act.
Is Le Page really going to win in Maine. Very sad.
I'm not sure I understand what I'm looking at, but I think the Democrats solidified control of the NY state senate. So, something?
Gonna be a lonely fucking two years for the Obamameister. Vetomatic if the filibuster goes.
The evil Walker won re-election in Wisconsin.
Is it possible to believe that unions are deader than I thought before?
How about bets for when impeachment proceedings begin.
See, I think 112 and 118 are just dead wrong. There are no magic words Udall could have used to hold his seat. His coalition includes a bunch of people who don't vote in midterms. And there states have a bunch of people upset about Obama, no matter what he says or does. Ditto Hagan.
It's not like Obama or Reid, or anyone else, could have gone to Colorado and talked their way to a better result. Or North Carolina.
Neither Udall nor Hagan could promise a single damn thing, since the House was always going to stay Republican. What you asking for is better smoke and mirrors -- smoke and mirrors good enough to get people who aren't really wound up to go vote.
Second midterm is often brutal. 2006, 1986 had Dem takeovers of the Senate. 1998 didn't because Republicans already had the Senate. You guys with you 'Dems blew it' are just as reality challenged as the pundits with their 'America has rejected Obama.' We had a bad map, and the sun rose in the east.
The Minimum Mandatory CO2 Emissions Act of 2015 is gonna be a real doozy.
135: Yeah, this will probably embolden a few state legislatures & governors. I don't know who that is that hasn't yet been emboldened.
Also it means Walker'll probably lose an election to Hillary Clinton in the near future. Although never underestimate the speed at which a Republican front-runner can burn out. Your take is more meaningful.
138: My God, you're right! Although Cory #1 is older than I thought.
Well, my sister had gone to bed, which is not a good sign. I'm going to bed too.
137: I feel like the Dems blew it in MA. Couldn't we have put forward a better candidate than Martha Coakley?
137, 1540: Fuck that shit. Stand for something and lose like a mensch. A disgrace.
Walker'll probably lose an election to Hillary Clinton
Pod people all the way down.
His coalition includes a bunch of people who don't vote in midterms.
You know, this isn't some natural law. No campaign tactics would've helped but they've really done a great job defusing any movement building energy.
145: What do you mean by 1540?
Okay, so if there is some essential quality of "people who don't vote in midterms" why do we have so many fewer of them here in Minnesota?
My next task fir tonight is to fill in my "year end" accomplishments. I am possibly not in the best psychological and emotional state to do that in an appropriate and professional manner. (And not been that great of a year professionally, either.)
I hate everybody and everything. Road trip?
I am interested in apparent nationwide poll bias for Dems.
And thank goodness, it looks like Dayton retained the governorship. We're probably screwed every other way though. Sigh.
You think Pryor, Hagan and Udall don't stand for something? Really? I didn't follow their campaigns, but I did follow Curtis. She's on the right side of every issue, and Daines, the winner, is wrong on every issue.
If you road trip out here, I could introduce you to quite a few DFL activists. And we could have some garlic mashed potato pizza. That would be fun.
Moby neglected to mention in 109 that two of the three races we could vote on were unopposed. But this is the first election where everyone I've voted for won, so that's neat. I guess.
PA House delegation is the same as it was last time: 13 red, 5 blue. A shitty deja vu which reminds me that I've been commenting here for over two years.
144: MA will be close enough that a better candidate could've won. Not sure that's true of many of the other races tonight.
Let's just say that I rather vehemently disagree with how one communicates those things effectively as a national party during an election. I also think you (like many lawyers) overestimate the degree of rationality that people bring to their voting choices.
Initial election results for the local races aren't good. A couple of races which I'd thought were close are 55:45 for the Republican right now.
Ugh. An acquaintance posted this on FB:
Discouraged, briefly. Turn off the newswire and hear the rain fall. Quietly, in the dark, know things are exactly as they are supposed to be, though the path steepens.
Practically makes me want to go mcmanus on her ass.
Why the fuck did only 1/3 of Boston voters vote. That could have been the margin of error.
Quite low, but maybe it is typical for a midterm election?
For the Senate, I'm less concerned about the next 2 years than the diminished chances for Dem majority after that. 6 years of Pryor, Ernst and Tillis.
Also the 'ratification" of Republican governance in Florida/Kansas/Wisconsin and probably Maine. That is where the real boost to the ACA could have come.
162: The Secretary of State was predicting 52.5% overall.
161: See, that's what I'm saying. We only had 1 seriously contested race here, plus a couple of low-intensity ballot measures, and I'm sure we'll have at least 50% turnout for the city of Minneapolis. Boston is just as, if not more, Democratic, educated, liberal, etc. Demographics are a bit different, but still, I don't think you can chalk these differences in turnout up to some random or arbitrary set of circumstances. We have a political culture here that really prioritizes high election turnout. Admittedly, one thing that helped historically, was that our Republicans were less evil, but that's not really the case anymore.
158 -- Do national parties even exist? As an entity that can communicate? I think it's all way too diffuse for that. You may say that's the problem -- and sure, if we were organized better we'd be better organized. But there's no central authority, I don't think, that could have said something to people in Colorado or North Carolina or Arkansas that would have changed anything.
But you're the one griping: who is supposed to have said what? The President? Incumbents were begging him to stay away, and they weren't wrong about the political import in places like those states.
163: Fuck a bunch of LePage winning. Maine deserves Medicaid expansion. (So does everyone, but it's extra painful to me to see a lone hold out in New England.)
The LePage thing is just bizarre. What a complete asshole and incompetent. Makes Scott Walker look like Hubert Humphrey. Maine has some real problems.
What pisses me off, is that the Democrats don't know how to bear a grudge. It was only last year that the House GOP shut down the government. And what about those Tea Party lunatics? I don't remember signing a truce with those #@$!s. I don't care if Obama's second term hasn't given me much to vote for, I've still got things to vote against.
David Frum had a great tweet. "Is tonight's takeaway that Republicans do great when voter turnout drops below 38%?"
163.1 -- The Senate map for 2016 looks pretty good: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c2/Competitive_2016_Senate_seats.png
I think I knew some Democrats who supported the Independent. They definitely voted for King, and I know that they would fall into line to defeat LePage, but they liked Cutler.
Ticket splitting, in this day and age, makes no goddamn sense at all.
NPR seems to be going with the narrative of a structural Republican advantage this election, rather than a blowout story, and suggesting that Republicans have an incentive to work with Obama. Weird.
I'll vote straight dem--unless a Ravenstahl is running--but I'm never selecting the vote-a-straight-party-ticket line. Let me have my dignity.
But no goddamn sense at all indeed. Abolish first-past-the-post.
I am interested in apparent nationwide poll bias for Dems.
This might be related to the nationwide vote suppression bias for Dems.
I'm not looking forward to the media treating whatever immigration bill the Republicans concoct as a good faith effort at reform.
176, JP: The media has done a fantastic job of scaring the bejesus out of the voters, which may interfere with any projections based on likely voter models.
Polls close in Alaska! Not that anyone else cares now.
Alaska results here for anyone who does care.
Connecticut Dem is ahead by only 7 votes.
No info on the Alaska ballot initiative(s)?
Bah, looking not great in MA. And only 1 for 4 on the ballot initiatives, though arguably the most important one (sick days).
Bizarrely, not only is the governor's race close enough that a third-party candidate could be considered a spoiler, but the other two third-party candidates together would also count that way.
No info on the Alaska ballot initiative(s)?
What sort of info do you want?
Anyway, there are three statewide initiatives:
Ballot Measure 2: Legalizes marijuana
Ballot Measure 3: Raises the minimum wage
Ballot Measure 4: Requires legislative approval of large mines in the Bristol Bay area
(Ballot Measure 1 was on the primary ballot. It would have repealed recent changes to the oil tax system passed by the legislature. It failed.)
There's also an Anchorage municipal ballot question that appeared on the state ballot (for Anchorage voters) by special arrangement. It confirms recent changes the assembly made to the city's labor laws that weakened union power.
You can probably guess how I voted on all of those. I have no idea what the overall results will be.
Results are starting to come in. With 28% reporting, Sullivan is leading Begich by a narrow margin, but Walker is leading Parnell by a much narrower margin. All the state initiatives show "Yes" in the lead; "No" is leading on the Anchorage initiative. The precincts that have reported so far seem to be largely in more conservative areas.
It will be very weird if Begich and Parnell both lose, but Alaska politics is weird in general.
Current figures show my state house rep losing by 1 vote. The newspaper is acting like that's it, but I think they're still counting. One vote is pretty tough.
Her husband is running for justice court. He's getting beaten by 5 points or so.
185: I was curious about the marijuana one. I'm also interested in learning more about the minimum wage one.
Coakley clearly lost. Damn it.
190: The marijuana one is closely modeled on the Colorado law. There's been a heavy focus on how it regulates and taxes marijuana in addition to just legalizing it, including explicit references to how this is analogous to how the state treats alcohol. The main organization pushing it is actually officially called "The Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol in Alaska."
The minimum wage one raises the minimum wage from $7.75 currently to $8.75 in 2015 and $9.75 in 2016, adjusted for inflation after that, unless that adjustment results in a minimum wage less than $1 over the federal minimum wage, in which case it will be set at $1 over the federal level.
At a bar IL listening to local repub complaint den supermajority will prevent them from wrecking state even with R gov. Haha eat it
Up to 55% with no real change in the overall patterns. The Senate race may still come down to Begich's ground game in the Bush, which has been the subject of many articles in the national media but still needs to be proven.
The most surprising race for me is Brownback. Kansas' economy is fucked, and it's directly Brownback's fault.
They seem to have finished counting here, and my house rep won by 29 votes. The woman I know running for the next senate district over won by 7 votes.
Koch/Stanford guy lost the Supreme Court seat 41-59.
The aggregate isn't surprising, but the details of knowing which races broke which way is depressing.
Jesus. Well, thank god the DFL still controls the governor's mansion and MN state senate. Only so much the Repugs can do to fuck things up with just the house. Once again, it's pretty frustrating to be stuck in a rotten borough, even if that does mean being represented by a black muslim radical and the longest-serving queer elected official in the country.
And it looks like the MN Sec'y of State race was spoiled for the Republicans by the Libertarian candidate! That's rare as hen's teeth around here.
Not all the votes are in, but my sister appears to have lost her re-election. 1,424 - 1,147.
In case anyone was cheered by my saying that Democrats took the NY state senate, I was wrong about that last night. This did not in fact happen.
I feel less depressed about the election results than I did in 2004.
And, to complete the thought: I was less depressed about 2012 than I was about 2002. I was less depressed about 2010 than I was about 2000. I was less depressed about 2008 than I was about 1998.
Stated that way, it almost sounds like progress.
182: I knew that the casino thing was going down, but I'm really worried about allowing those casinos. Might be more important to the health of the Commonwealth than sick days. The gas tax thing sucks for revenue and climate change reasons.
201: that sucks, Spike. But good for her for running. Honestly, my sense today is that people* who didn't spend at least, I don't know, an hour/week organizing -- even broadly defined -- shouldn't be allowed to complain too much.
* At least people in good health and with the means to have a disposable hour/week.
the House GOP will almost certainly come away with a larger majority than they enjoyed after the 2010 landslide. Does anyone else see Hillary Clinton bringing in 30+ Democratic Reps on her coattails to regain the majority in 2016?
I don't think it's out of the question.
To be clear, I'm not judging people who didn't work to get out the vote or whatever; I'm judging people who didn't work to get out the vote or whatever and then decided to perform their outrage on facebook about the GOP's gains.
Eh, I'm not even judging them, I guess.
Mostly I'm just muttering to myself.
I feel less depressed about the election results than I did in 2004.
Me too. That was probably the political nadir that I'll ever see in my lifetime, partly for how it shattered the last vestige of my political innocence.
I think the more important issue for the House isn't Hillary, but control of the state legislatures during the next redistricting. For example, see 156.
This is the mindfulness and meditation thread now, I assume.
208-212: I didn't do anything to get out the vote, although I suppose that I should have. I didn't think "We need to stop Baker from getting in" was the message that needed to be out there, and I wouldn't have been all that good at talking up why Martha Coakley was good.
I mean, I'm kind of angry with her for not opposing a merger between Partners (our leading Academic hospital chain with the highest prices) and a few regional community hospitals.
I didn't do anything to get out the vote, although I suppose that I should have.
Me neither.
I loathe doing anything activist-ish, for all the same reasons that I was reluctant to email the pregnant Spaniard. Fear of confrontation, dislike of talking to and getting to know new people, etc. Also it hinders my fragile ability to compartmentalize.
I recognize these are terrible reasons, and I try to donate money instead.
(Pregnant Spaniard has updated that she is not sure when to remove her nipple rings and not sure how the holes will affect breastfeeding. In a different post, I realized she lives about five houses down from us.)
Can't the baby just put the nipple in his or her mouth with the ring?
One of the real downsides of living in the Pauline Kael bubble is that it's hard to direct political energy. I should do much more than I do, but nothing relevant is local, and then I never get around to picking something non-local to focus on. I need a red state, or ideally a balanced state, pen pal or something, whose location I could think of as local for political purposes.
To be pessimistic, am I the only one who finds HRC to be a hopelessly wooden public speaker? I always cringe at how unnaturally stiff she sounds.
I don't understand why Pennsylvania is the one place where people realized the Republican governor was doing a bad job. It's not like our economy is particularly in turmoil. Maybe the deciding factor was that stupid email porn scandal or whatever that was.
I need a red state, or ideally a balanced state, pen pal or something, whose location I could think of as local for political purposes.
You can have HeebieTown.
HeebieTown is actually closer to being balanced than not. The two city council spots went the way I wanted. The mayor is useless but not exactly destructive. Business and inequality are simultaneously booming.
224: relatively strong union presence. And we moved here.
223: the electoral math is terrible for the GOP in two years, but I still think it's no sure thing that Clinton wins. She's proven herself to be at best a deeply mediocre candidate. On the other hand, I have a hard time figuring out how Bush, Martinez, Romney, Ryan, or Walker win -- not to mention the cavalcade of crazy that is a Cruz or Paul candidacy.
I guess it shouldn't surprise me when any group of people votes to lower their own taxes, but really, Massachusetts? Indexing the gas tax to inflation is too much? Fuck.
One of the real downsides of living in the Pauline Kael bubble is that it's hard to direct political energy
If people have money or energy or time to give in solidly blue areas, I would say give it to organizations effectively organizing low-income people who can then make demands on whatever Democratic candidates get elected. Worker and immigrant centers, especially.
I actually think this is what people should maybe focusing their energy on everywhere, but it's an easier argument to make in this case.
Some pluses: in addition to four states passing higher minimum wages, Oakland and SF both increased theirs significantly over the state minimum (which was itself raised by the Legislature last year). Recreational pot in DC and Oregon, so that may well spread downcoast in 2016. California rejected the education reform bannerman and cut down on mass incarceration.
Nebraska did vote to raise the minimum wage also. If it can pass there, I don't see why it won't make a good issue nationally to beat on Republicans in Congress.
Ernst nearly lost this race to a guy who insulted farmers. In Iowa. And now she has to start voting for the Republican majority. All of which is to say, if the Dems can find a decent candidate -- and that's no sure thing, as this election cycle demonstrated around the country -- she's toast in six years.
Unless, of course, Iowa keeps getting older, in which case it won't be a light blue state anymore.
157. Not to burst anyone's bubble about MA Gov being close enough that "a better candidate than Coakley" would have won, but if Baker hadn't decided to make up a story about a fisherman, he would have much more easily. Remember that the other two primary candidates couldn't even beat her, much as I like Don Berwick and voted for him.
223. I'm with Heebie on this. HRC is not an inspiring candidate. If she wins the nomination it'll be on the same principle Republicans award theirs: "It's her turn."
230. Does any other state index the gas tax? I thought it was a long-shot for the same reason you mention. I am very disappointed at how badly Question 2 (expanding bottle deposits) did; another "don't 'tax' me" vote. Opponents painted it as a tax and an inconvenience.
238.last: yes, a dozen or so, in one form or another (directly indexing to CPI; indexing to price of fuel; levying a percentage tax on the retail price rather than/in addition to a per-gallon excise). Desperately needed at the federal level (along with a steep initial hike) and the loss in Massachusetts certainly doesn't bode well for that. But who needs roads and bridges when you have slightly cheaper gas!
HRC is not an inspiring candidate. If she wins the nomination it'll be on the same principle Republicans award theirs: "It's her turn."
I don't think that's true. There are lots of people very excited to vote for Hillary.
She's proven herself to be at best a deeply mediocre candidate.
I don't think I agree with this. I agree she's proven that she's not a great candidate, but I think your framing understates Obama's skills, elides the importance of the Iraq vote, and relies too heavily on the Mark Penn factor. Mind you, she's responsible for having picked a shitty team*, but that's certainly a mistake that can be corrected in a way that actually being a shitty candidate (I'm thinking Dukakis or Tsongas, probably Dole) can't.
*if her people had simply been on the ball with caucuses, she arguably wins in '08; IIRC, she continued to do well in primaries even after Obama was fait accompli.
240 is an example of the incompetence that got the dems defeated so badly.
224: Corbett's first act as governor was to cut school funding in a way that affected even wealthy suburban districts, plus he fucked over the state college system. He basically pissed off every non-elderly voter in the state on day one, and never did anything else to make up for it.
That said, I agree that it's weird that every other state with a shitty Republican governor basically said, "Well, maybe he'll get better if we give him another chance." In general, I don't understand the mindset of "I'm afraid of Ebola, therefore I'm going to punish the party in power by reëlecting every incumbent who isn't a Democrat." I mean, I get that midterm electorates skew strongly GOP, but...
IIRC, she continued to do well in primaries even after Obama was fait accompli.
She continued to do extremely well. She won Ohio.
And then she had a few years as Sec. of State when she became an icon of coolness. It was all just clever pr, but that's all it takes.
244: And the Penn State stuff hurt him in complicated ways per this article. He was accused of stalling (and the investigation led to the porn scandal), but the fact that he did anything at all enraged a significant natural constituency, Penn State asshat alums.
A hearty thanks to anyone who can find precinct-level results for Illinois.
knecht has successfully snuffed out all my glimmers of non-despair.
I can find asshat Penn State alums far more easily.
Christ - looks like LePage actually got tens of thousands more absolute votes than in 2010.
Anyway, they're 4 for 4 so far this season. The arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice?
"We've secretly replaced Maine's Governor LePage with LeBron James. Let's see if they notice."
Quite a lot of clueless stuff on Slate this morning. Here's Weisberg:
The first argument for conciliation is that Republicans will soon bear an equal share of responsibility for what happens in Washington. They will have the power to pass bills on their own. Passing only legislation that Obama is certain to veto, like overturning the Affordable Care Act, will not win them much credit with voters.
Right. Because that strategy did so much damage to the Republicans in this election.
I don't think I agree with this.
I'm not sure I'm up for fighting with you about this, but I think it takes some real doing to lose to an inexperienced black man named Barack Hussein Obama -- especially when you're the presumptive nominee, you have better name recognition than Slavoj Žižek, and all the money in the world is lined up behind you. Obama ran a pretty great race, yes, but Clinton was just as bad as any of those mopes you mention.
I'm pretty shocked that Quinn lost. Shouldn't be, but am. At least we raised the minimum wage/made insurance cover birth control/raised taxes on millionaires. We also passed a "victim's rights" act which I was confused about - each provision sounds unobjectionable, but I felt like the overall effect would be to throw more people in prison.
Does anyone know how the language gets chosen for the summaries of each amendment/initiative that make it to the ballot?
On the other hand, I have a hard time figuring out how Bush, Martinez, Romney, Ryan, or Walker win -- not to mention the cavalcade of crazy that is a Cruz or Paul candidacy.
The only thing that needs to happen is the economy needs to suck in 2016.
The Republican Party has considerable influence over the state of the economy, and is smart and ruthless enough to use that influence.
I was doing really well at "It's not like I expected anything good so I may as well go along not thinking about it." But then I came here! Now I'm going to just lie down and moan.
Is Congress going to let DC go forward with recreational marijuana?
255: Aw, yuck. I checked before (early) bed yesterday, saw Quinn leading and didn't look this morning. MD got a Republican governor, too. WTF, blue states?
I'm in DC enough that recreational pot there is going to significantly improve my quality of life. Unless Congress fucks it up, which they probably will.
While not as good, occupational pot is still a nice thing.
238: I feel like there were people who voted for Coakley in the primary, because she seemed inevitable, and then she lost. That doesn't mean I think that Berwick could have won, because, much as I liked him, he's too left. He did have more executive experience, though. I wonder whether Grossman would have been better able to connect with the small-business folks plus he had worked for Goldman Sachs in the past.
That fishermen story was the lamest thing ever.
239. Thanks, potchkeh. I apologize for being too lazy to look it up.
I do need to re-evaluate my relative lack of direct engagement beyond funds. Whining on blogs is dispiriting.
Beyond just providing modest funds. And even there for instance, we gave to Franken (I will lay that one on my wife).
258: Unclear. Obama did oppose it on home rule grounds when Congress tried to veto DC making small possession a citation. But Congress will probably go after this initiative, and on balance I doubt Obama will want to directly enable legalization. But who knows, maybe all the tsuris of the next twelve months will give him another kumbayah moment.
I think the Hillary wave in 2016 is going to be muted. Its clear, from last night, that its all about voter turnout. But there is no evidence that she can inspire the base, and, unlike Obama, she's not going to be able to mobilize historically high numbers of African-American voters. And sure, the Senate map is good relatively, but Team D also just lost a bunch of seats in purple states, which means the deficit to climb back from is a lot more to overcome than people were projecting as of a few days ago. Those seats are gone for all of the next presidential term.
I could join the 14th Ward Independent Democratic Club. On the one hand, it costs $15. On the other hand hand, of all the wards, it's the coolest.
Not judging by the election returns she didn't.
My point was that it was a close race until Braley fucked up so catastrophically that he should have been ground up and refined into ethanol.
255.2: In IL, looks like the proponents write the explanation, and the Attorney General can edit for fairness and accuracy.
Let's not start that. I don't want to have to pick vegan or not when I buy gasoline.
Silver is saying pretty much across the board 4% Dem skew in the polls. Fear Factor?
Here in Dem Msla, turnout in the predominantly student precinct near the U was 10%. In the low income precincts downtown under 40%. I haven't looked at heavily Native precincts yet -- they're still counting -- but I bet the numbers are low there too.
(My precinct was 55%.)
I'm pretty sure that if everyone who would be affected by Medicaid expansion had turned up to vote, we'd have a blue leg. Candidates were pounding on this.
The party works as closely as it can with whatever advocacy organizations there are on this issue, and pretty much any others on our side.
We have vote by mail -- you get 30 days to turn in your ballot -- same day registration, I don't know what we can do to make it easier, or get the message out better.
At a certain point, if people won't vote for a life changing benefit for themselves, there's not much you can do for them.
Fuck it, there was something Obama could've done to improve their chances, however slightly and inadequately. Does anyone believe a lack of executive action on immigration did anything to dispel Republican's fear mongering? Did it have any effect except for lowering Democratic turnout?
275: What's up with the students not voting?
DC resident here. Local news: Democrats won solidly and we hate them. The Democratic mayor-elect's biggest accomplishment is bringing Wal-Mart into DC. The Democratic at-large councilwoman-elect is only not corrupt by DC standards. To be specific, she worked for a construction company until within days of voting on stuff relevant to them. (We're happy with the other at-large councilwoman-elect.)
I probably wouldn't want to actually smoke pot in my house, so I'll definitely need to start looking into other places.
Senate was going to continue to be a hot mess either way for the next two years, but I was hoping for some rejection of Repub governance in the states with some prospects for Medicare expansion. Florida hurts the most on that one. (Granted I do not know to what extent governor could have influenced that--could have been a Virginia situation.)
A Republican-controlled Congress does give Obama one last chance for a Grand Bargain. He can make the Social Security cuts he's always wanted while claiming "the Republicans made me do it."
277 -- Other than the U being closed, so they didn't have to go to class, and there being a polling place in the student union building?* It must be Obama's fault. Or Harry Reid's. Or the Democratic Party, for not giving them an exciting, historic, dynamic candidate to vote for. (Whoops, they did have that.)
* There have been midterm elections where no one voted there. The county elections office has wanted to close the polling place, and have the students vote at an elementary school half a mile away, but the Dem party has pushed back and kept it open.
I feel like there were people who voted for Coakley in the primary, because she seemed inevitable, and then she lost.
What? Who are these people? Why would you bother voting in the primary if that's what you're going on? (Grumbles the person who walked a good mile out of her way late in the day to cast a vote for Berwick that she knew was hopeless.)
He can make the Social Security cuts he's always wanted while claiming "the Republicans made me do it."
This will certainly be the moment that we get to test the PGD/mcmanus theory of Obama's cravenness re. social security.
282: A healthcare business blogger described feeling as though casting a vote for anyone else would be pointless.
283: Also may further test theory that Republicans will reject any proposal that Obama accepts.
281: Was anybody pushing student issues? I think that Warren connects pretty well with younger people, because she's so fierce about the student debt issue.
279: Agreed. The senate results are depressing but it was already disfunctional. What's really upsetting is the fact that so many GOP governors were reelected despite basically destroying their states. I mean seriously, Kansas? The voters like the way things are going there so much that they want more?
Ugh.
Last night was dispiriting. I had some small hope that a local feisty race was going to swing, but it stayed solidly R. And a local to me but not my rep blue dog congressman (Costa) looks like he's going down--and I didn't have an impression that he was in trouble prior to the polls closing.
For my city council race, there's a 20 vote margin: 3783 to 3803. I'd be happy with either, really, so that's my sliver of good news. Well, not including California staying solidly blue for statewide offices, which is great but I'd largely assumed it was going to happen.
I heard some dude on NPR this morning saying that the most urgent issue facing congress is tax reform. Bullshit. Taxes are too low, but there's no real crisis, and there's no hope that the right will go along with fixing that particular problem.
IME the big issue that needs to be dealt with is immigration reform, but again the GOP isn't going to do anything constructive on that front.
Can they even do that as a stand-alone measure? I thought they had to be revenue neutral.
Ooh, can we look forward to dynamic scoring from the CBO?
I could join the 14th Ward Independent Democratic Club. On the one hand, it costs $15. On the other hand hand, of all the wards, it's the coolest.
I guess that isn't that impressive since there's a county with only 4k people. But I get those, too. Maybe I should join.
294: CBO is one of the things the Repubs will look to "reform."
289: that this House Republican majority will never under any circumstances pass a bill that raises taxes on the rich, no matter what concessions Obama and the Democrats are willing to make to get it.
The only unifying principle in modern conservatism/Republicanism/FoxNews/hate radio: Rich people not paying taxes/keeping more of their money/ being unconstrained in their activities in general. All of the bigotry and crap basically in the service of that goal.
271: Interesting. I strongly suspect the VRA wouldn't have passed with different wording.
Anyone know where to find nationwide popular vote numbers for the House? ISTM like it would be a good metric of gerrymandering. Obviously, turnout is important too, and messaging and all that other stuff, but I'm curious if that factor has got worse or what.
292 strikes me as completely right. I also wouldn't be surprised to see some serious discussion of a change to chained CPI for Social Security.
No recount will be needed to declare one unambiguous winner in Tuesday's gubernatorial elections: the financial services industry. From Illinois to Massachusetts, voters effectively placed more than $100 billion worth of public pension investments under the control of executives-turned-politicians whose firms profit by managing state pension money.
The elections played out as states and cities across the country debate the merits of shifting public pension money -- the retirement savings for police, firefighters, teachers and other public employees -- from plain vanilla investments such as index funds into higher-risk alternatives like hedge funds and private equity funds.
Critics have argued that this course has often failed to boost returns enough to compensate for taxpayer-financed fees paid to the financial services companies that manage the money. Wall Street firms and executives have poured campaign contributions into states that have embraced the strategy, eager for expanded opportunities. Tuesday's results affirmed that this money was well spent: More public pension money will now likely be entrusted to the financial services industry.
Since this doesn't rightly belong in the "Things that cheered me" thread, it's here.
h/t BillMoyers.com
Digby Sent Me
Why Steve Israel Failed Miserably ...Down With Tyranny
But Ileana gets a reelection free-pass from Israel and Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Last year Wasserman Schultz was complicit in recruiting a cardboard candidate, Manny Yevancey, who no one ever heard of, who raised zero dollars and who campaigned exactly zero days. His only job was to occupy the Democratic ballot slot so no one else could run against Wasserman Schultz's and Israel's BBF.There are 21 seats like this in the House, winnable seats Steve Israel willfully ignored, even if they were much easier than impossible targets in deep red districts where he ran his handpicked Blue Dogs and New Dems. All of these incumbents represent districts where Obama won in 2008 and/or 2012 but where Israel has refused to back the grassroots local candidate or has frightened off anyone from running against his Republican pals
Also the Consultants ...Down With Tyranny
The money EMILY's List demands cannot be spent on something useful-- like a field operation-- but must be wasted on a lame Beltway firm which is going to personally enrich an EMILY's List executive. It's how EMILY's List killed the campaigns this year of Alex Sink, Wendy Greuel, Eloise Reyes and several other women they led down the garden path. Several despairing candidates have said to me that they are forced to sit on the phone all day begging for money and that all the money winds up in the pockets of utterly worthless consultants they are forced to hire. And then they lose. We all lose, except the executives at EMILY's List and the crooked consultants they are enriching-- like Parker's wife.
Two political parties for the little people to get scared and excited and give money but one happy corrupt family and friends in DC raking the money in.
Fuck the Democrats.
Not sure about SS and Medicare or grand bargain, but net neutrality and tax repatriation and other business-friendly legislation are sure to come. The Republicans will be sure to distract the peons with red meat firing up the base and scandalizing the Dems while making deals with Obama, Just like the second Clinton term.
The two huge trade deals are an uphill climb, because of growing overseas opposition and worse economies in Europe. Be interesting if the hegemon can force those through, it's my contention that Evil Empire America is ascending, not declining.
Lost a ton of the best pro-gay marriage congresspersons.
And we are due for a Black Swan, so I predict nuthin.
Looks to me like we actually increased our minority in the state house of representatives from 39 to 41. That means no veto gets overridden. I'm sure our fine campaign staff is going to find 10 races where we'll be able to close the gap in '16, with better turnout (and maybe some better recruiting in a couple of races).
I haven't counted the senate yet. We won 9 of the 25 races yesterday, but I don't know how many of our 21 seats were not up this time. We lost a couple we really wanted to win, I know, so maybe we didn't gain any ground. That has an impact on appointments, but not on governance.
I walked the dogs right past the polling place. 2012 I tied them up for a couple minutes. This year I kept on walking.
The Chait above was decent, but honestly, I don't trust any Beltway or NYC insiders. All are well-paid courtiers.
Is the link in 305 credible? Because it's really blood-boilingly outrageous.
I walked the dogs right past the polling place. 2012 I tied them up for a couple minutes. This year I kept on walking.
How honorable of you.
It seems like progressive issues generally won on the ballot initiatives, or at least many of them. How does that happen in the same election and with the same electorate showing up at the polls in which the Republicans have a landslide victory? I don't know how to interpret that as anything other than a complete failure on the part of Democrats to capitalize on popular issues. Minimum wage increases, drug decriminalization, etc. If voters approve of these issues but are voting for Republican candidates (because they don't realize where the Republican party is on these issues?), that's a failure on the part of Democrats.
Wait, Bob is predicting that a Republican congress will pass net neutrality, and that it's "business friendly" and hence a bad thing? I never imagined we'd get Telco Lobby Bob to go with all the other Bobs.
310, the problem is a combination of Democratic Party being afraid to stand for anything that their opponents don't also stand for, and the media. Based on media coverage, the only national politician interested in any of those progressive issues is the compulsively intriguing and endlessly fascinating Rand Paul.
310 is a really good point. This election was a nice demonstration of the gap between the policy preferences of the electorate and their party preferences.
Yeah, see, I think this is a disconnect with how people are thinking abut stuff. Did you see that NYT thing were voters were complaining about inequality, how everything is run for the rich, and that's why they were voting for the Republican challenger? There's no shortage of messaging out there -- but lots and lots of people in this rump electorate identify the status quo with the president, and therefore any opposition to the president registers as opposition to the status quo.
I have no idea how you reach people like this, but I think you people complaining about messaging aren't paying attention to the vast efforts going on in this regard. You really think Sens Pryor, Hagan, Udall, or Begich left any arguments about Republican positions on the table? The problem is that low information voters are low information by choice, not because no one is trying to talk to them.
I mean really we're trying everything we can think of, and if anyone has an actual idea, rather than an inchoate gripe, there's people looking to go with it. Running away from Dem positions just isn't a 2014 issue, ime.
Not embracing the personality of the President is an issue in states like MT, AR, NC, AK, but I don't think anyone can show that the candidates are misapprehending the situation in doing so.
The Pres fucked up 2009 and 2010 for not focusing on employment and letting his people spend even a minute thinking about debt. Since then, though, nothing he's done or not done is really a part of anything relevant to this election.
I don't know what was happening locally in other states, but I don't remember a lot of national Democrats talking very much about things like the minimum wage.
Did Grimes not talk about the minimum wage?
The President has talked about it, certainly, including in the lest several days. But the media is more interested in ebola and isis and isn't there a missing blonde woman? No. Wait a minute, there will be.
And what's a national Democrat, anyway? Other than Obama or Biden? Pelosi and Reid?
You think Chris Van Hollen could have turned the tide against McConnell?
Grimes "supported" an increase in the minimum wage, but no, she didn't actually talk about that much--almost all the ads she ran just talked about was how she loved coal/hated the EPA more than that notoriously soft-on-the-EPA McConnell (some variation of this attack was literally probably 75+% of her ads that I saw), or how she hated immigrants more than the notoriously soft-on-immigrants McConnell.
Out-of-staters may want to actually click those links and watch those ads. They are pretty hard to believe. I despise McConnell but I was not very sorry at all to see her lose.
322: Similarly, Kay "I'M A MODERATE'S MODERATE" Hagan gave me very little to cheer during her six years, but Tillis is such a complete jackwagon that she looked golden by comparison.
There's only key issue before the Senate: Whom do you support for Majority Leader? Grimes got that one right.
Very dispiriting experience, this election, even for those of us who believe in the fundamentals and were determined not to be down about it. Nobody I'd be able to persuade wasn't already persuaded, and turnout was low everywhere even though everybody I know voted.
Which leaves us with the off-year electorate, the lesser Kulaks of American life. I'm still determined to find ways to persuade, very much against my inclination.
It brings home to me just how much I've been able to associate with people of my own choosing, which makes my life pleasant to be sure.
Sure. I mean, look, I voted for her. But she was a lesser evil that was actively advertising herself (falsely) as a greater evil. Not very inspiring. And all of that's a bit beside the point, which was: no, she didn't talk a lot about the minimum wage. Have other democrats been hammering that point? What about more progressive taxes? What about reinstating estate taxes? What about decriminalizing marijuana? What about student debt? I don't hear a lot of noise from Democrats on these issues, and what I hear is pretty soft. For some reason, there's a perception that these are fringe progressive issues--and campaign losers--but polling would suggest otherwise. (I'm perfectly willing to believe that anyone being vocal about the need for more progressive taxes might suddenly find themselves having trouble funding their campaign. Maybe that is the issue.)
Or, democrats don't want to get voted in on those issues because it would piss off their campaign donors.
And what's a national Democrat, anyway? Other than Obama or Biden? Pelosi and Reid?
Maybe someone who's name rhymes with "Chillary Blinton?"
Or their polling tells them they've more to lose than gain from taking that position. In terms of people that can actually vote in their election, and are actually going to do so.
We've got a fairly progressive party here -- we had a battle about what to say about coal at the party platform convention this summer, and more or less decided not to talk much about it (over my objection) -- and I know there was talk of getting zillionaires to pay their fair share. But I don't think there are the votes you folks think there are in a whole lot of the country for an aggressively re-distributionist agenda.
You're welcome to give it a shot, though: run for office. Or join a party committee that works on messaging.
Or their polling tells them they've more to lose than gain from taking that position.
There might be a prisoners dilemma situation there.
No purple state Democrat stands to benefit from taking $PROGRESSIVE_POLICY_POSITION, in isolation, because the polls tell them they would appear to be Radical Leftists, which the voters would reject. In fact, they can gain some benefit by gaining Moderate Cred(TM), by downplaying their association with the Radical Left of the Democrat Party.
However, if all the Democrats were taking $PROGRESSIVE_POLICY_POSITION, backed up by Consistent National Messaging, it would be considered a Respectable Mainstream Position instead of Radical Leftism. The base would be excited and would show up on polling day.
Instead, Democrats consistently reach for the promise of increased Moderate Cred. But when everybody does that, progressive positions down the line become viewed as Radical Lefty Positions. And then the Democrats lose because the base stays home and the rest of the electorate doesn't support politicians who don't hold Respectable Mainstream Positions.
Meanwhile, on the Republican side, Respectable Mainstream Positions include Global Warming is a Fib, Tax Cuts Pay for Themselves, Obama Will Take Your Guns, and YIKES! EBOLA!
For those of you looking for bright spots in this election, we've got a bunch of them up here. Begich does seem to have probably lost (although he hasn't conceded), but the gubernatorial race is extremely tight and the final result won't be known for days, maybe weeks. All of the state initiatives passed, and the Anchorage municipal question lost.
Loomis Has a Plan For Midterms ...the problem is old white guys so run against old white guys with hip rainbow waycool young stuff.
Problem is, y'all grassroots voteserfs may hate old white guys, but Pelosi and Obama and HRC and Booker love their old white guys, because before and after office, in and out of gov't, in the boardrooms and banks...
...old white guys write the checks.
And how come the depicted Old White Guy the voteserfs are supposed to hate is always some trailer trash redneck potbellied Duckdynast with a bad haircut...and not some razorslim Armani clad studmuffin with a diamond earring and a Hollywood speedial?
I wonder...
Can you try to update your stereotypes? It's not the 80s.
Does that mean I need to buy new ties?
331 is close enough to what I would say but less coherently.
Not something you could work on in last x months before election but right up front.
That said, I'm not even sure it is a plausible strategy in a world that has mainstreamed racist bigoted hate speech radio and TV political outlets. No sane political world can exist in conjunction with that. Where to start is the issue. I have personally failed spectacularly in modest attempts to not have FoxNews on anywhere at my workplace. No way for it to not seem "just politics." Working on a new attempt via our relatively active LGBT support organization but I am 99% sure they will shun that like the plague for fairly obvious internal political reasons.
332: I think the Smearcase half of the show has good local election news, too, but that is good to hear!
I forgot to mention in 332 that the super-tight gubernatorial race has shown the Independent candidate with a consistent lead over the Republican incumbent so far. It's a very small lead, though, swamped by the number of outstanding ballots (absentee and questioned) still to be counted. Details here for anyone who's interested.
Something like 331 is what I think has happened in Minnesota (but , of course, over many years, and it is fragile and tenuous.
and prone to its own failures.)
It can't spring up fully formed at a national level. That may be more or less how the Republican party got going in the 1850s, but I just don't see how it can happen now. It has to start at the state level -- you have to convince state parties to be more aggressive in platforms, and people -- actual human beings -- have to (a) run for office and (b) provide all the other support that people who run for office need (volunteers and money).
I don't believe that there's a progressive majority out there waiting to be awakened, but I'm happy to join in the experiment. But it's going to take years of total dedication by hordes of people, and I've never seen anything like the willingness required to do that. Instead, what people tend to do, ime, is specialize into issue advocacy. Or, much more likely, become internet cranks.
I also don't agree that Respectable Mainstream Position is something within reach of an activist community. Respectable has come to mean that rich folks and their employees tolerate the position. It doesn't mean some other thing: the only respect that matters to the low information person is the respect of media corporations.
Spike's 331 is brilliant.
I feel like CharleyCarp is making a lot of sense especially with 343.
I think that is part of why it will probably be a mercy when our civilization collapses. It is definitely not going anywhere good.
Round here we constantly get told that the politicians pander to old people "because they vote", as if all the young'uns had to do was turn up and the pols were just waiting all this time. The problem, of course, is what on earth they would vote for, because nothing is offered but patronising bullshit. I remember K/athryn C/ramer saying that politics had reached a Nash-equilibrium in which any move away from the local maximum would be penalised. That was in 2005.
Eh, we'll pick this discussion up later I'm sure, but the "progressive" majority I am talking about is not all that progressive. For instance, see Pryor's contortions on minimum wage.
