Wake me up when it's over.
That's assuming heebie's right.
If she's wrong, don't bother.
If you're imagining an absolutely yuuuge, Goldwater-ian shellacking where married white women vote for HRC over Trump en masse and a bunch of upper-income Republicans stay home, I think the Senate seats that flip are (in rough order of likelihood) Wisconsin, Illinois, Florida, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Ohio, Arizona, and Iowa. I can't really see Missouri or Georgia going blue but I guess it's possible in the event of a complete collapse. Wisconsin and Illinois seem like likely pickups for the Dems regardless of what happens.
I like the way snarkout (and H-G) is thinking.
We're not quite there yet, as Digby reminds: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2016/04/teds-hail-mary-isnt-bad-play.html
I've been noticing TPM:JM's blog more recently. Does he tend toward too optimistic? I was gladdened at this evidence that the Youths are leftifying super-fast.
As for the general, it's going to depend on people actually voting. I'm fine with (and share) confidence in the outcome, but 1 is the scarier scenario.
I think the best chance is Cruz stealing the nomination from Trump and the Trumpublicans staying home out of spite. The GOP congress would more easily be able to distance itself from Trump than Cruz and getting UMC republicans to still get out to the polls to keep their tax cuts safe.
I think we'll see a third party protest candidate to make sure as many Republicans show up as possible so that they can keep congress. Keeping their tax breaks isn't at all dependent on taking the Presidency. If they're really lucky, enough "moderates" will be peeled off from Clinton that the House gets to pick the President and we can look forward in that case to inaugurating President Romney in January.
There is zero chance that a second right-wing candidate will result in Clinton doing less well in the presidential race. (maybe helping down-ticket races? Sure.)
The third party protest candidate would have to be Romney for Romney to be elected by the House. They can't just pull anyone out of their ass.
Barring an upset in Indiana or something else huge, I now predict no convention coup or independent challenge of any substance - NeverTrump is sputtering out. Trump's share of the vote is increasing, reflecting more of the GOP rank and file falling in line, and others are working on how to live within the new reality.
Boehner already knows how to do that. Be drunk and mean all the time.
Everything that works for Trump within the Republican Party is going to work against him in the general.
It's going to be interesting to see how much of the US is going to go for a guy who embodies white rage. Even among white folks, there's probably only a bare majority that will vote for him.
Seems to me, though, that Cruz immediately becomes the favorite for the 2020 nomination. But I'm not too worried about that. Wartime presidents are hard to defeat.
Seems to me, though, that Cruz immediately becomes the favorite for the 2020 nomination
And since he's following the Reagan template, Jeb Bush will be his VP.
Naw. The demographics for 2020 are even more unfavorable for the Republicans than they are in 2016. 2016 was their last chance, and look what they did with it!
I think 16 is right, but don't want to underestimate the role of chance -- an economic downturn at the wrong time -- or stupidity (say, getting into a failing war somewhere) impeding Clinton's reelection. Her foreign policy instincts are wrong, and the entire security/intelligence establishment has been mostly wrong my whole life. E.g., she could fuck it all up over Syria, about which she says a bunch of bad things and not very many good things.
13.last would be fantastic news. Cruz is possibly even less electable than Trump. I do, however, think both parties may be very very different by 2020/2024 than they are now. They both look fragile and unstable (despite being more ideologically cohesive than ever).
Presumably the 2020 nominee will be the unpredicted outsider who outtrumps Trump by being just slightly more sane, coded, and organized, riding a wave of resentment going back to this election.
It's going to be fun watching the grovelers who rejected him bend the knee to Trump.
18: it would be fantastic if Clinton is a wartime president?
(I'm not one iota worried about Cruz in 2020, per Megan.)
Ha ha, I see. No.
Though that's baked into every American presidency for the last sixty-odd years, so.
20: If nominated I will not run. If elected, I will not serve.
I'm not going to run. But I'll serve if you elect me.
"Serve" means helping people besides yourself.
Per previous discussion:
tedcruzforhumanpresident.com/
Wait, there's still more space dust! How to elect to serve for forty people.
28 is just redirecting to tedcruzforpresident.com. I don't get it.
Wartime presidents are hard to defeat.
Hmm. Do the numbers actually back this up?
Number of US elections in which a serving president was re-elected: 20. Number of elections in which a serving president was defeated: 10. So your overall odds of re-election are good, war or not.
How do the figures look for recent elections? Since 1900, say?
Wartime re-elections: Roosevelt '44, Nixon '72, Bush '04, Obama '12.
Peacetime re-elections: Roosevelt '04, Wilson '16, Coolidge '24, Roosevelt '36 and '40, Truman '48, Eisenhower '56, Johnson '64, Reagan '84, Clinton '96.
Wartime losses: none outright, but Truman '52 and Johnson '68 both withdrew and their parties subsequently lost.
Peacetime losses: Taft '12, Hoover '32, Ford '76, Carter '80, Bush '92.
No incumbent running: 1908, 1920, 1960, 1988, 2000, 2008.
So, going by recent history, your chance of re-election as a wartime president is 4/6 and as a peacetime president it's 10/15.
Exactly the same!
Facts are stupid things.
32 - looks like it's been taken down for whatever reason. It was pretty much an elaboration on the MadTV joke Moby (I think) posted earlier. Sad!
The site is still up, but you have to include the www or something.
Did y'all see Yggles' piece arguing that Dems are probably screwing up by refusing even to discuss taking the House this year? He acknowledges there's good reason for this--it's super-unlikely, and they have united behind a strategy to fix the map by retaking state houses in '20, so they don't want to destroy that unity by going all-in on this year--but he makes IMO a pretty good case that, if you don't talk up the possibility, you simply foreclose it, because the best candidates won't run, marginal candidates won't get enough $$, etc.
Part of me is convinced, part of me think it almost certainly doesn't matter. To me the key question is whether, with the current dysfunctional GOP caucus, a (say) 5 seat lead would even hold. That is, if it ends up 220-215 for the GOP, can they really vote the way they do with a 20 seat margin? I get that almost every seat is a safe one, and that basically every Republican fears being primaries more than they fear losing in the general, but it's also the case that Ryan is a terrible Speaker, that everyone who isn't a Tea Partier already hates the Tea Party, and that anyone who cares even a little bit about good governance (like not defaulting on debt) is disgusted by the (ugh) Freedom Caucus. PLUS, the assholes eat their own (see Cantor), so I could see a situation where, come late 2017, Ryan is deposed, but 3 Republicans refuse to vote for anyone acceptable to the Freedom Caucus.
I feel like we have an internalized threshold for "wartime president" that requires the war to be above a certain investment, above the background radiation of empire.
And the importance of memorable, easily differentiated pseudonyms is once again reinforced.
It's true. I briefly tried to go by this and she stopped me.
I think "Wry Cooter" is still available.
For anyone who doesn't have the archives memorized back to 07.
When the Republicans started gearing up to try to take a majority in the House in the 1994 election they viewed it as a long shot. So I tend to agree with the link in 38.
38 Who's supposed to be talking about what, and what difference is it supposed to be making in individual congressional races? Does he have some reason to believe that congressional races aren't essentially local, and that Dems could nationalize particular races to advantage? I'm sure there are Republican held House districts where touting the prospect of replacing Ryan with Pelosi would be a net gain -- but I don't think I live in one.
People around the country should definitely be donating to Denise Juneau.
And she'll bang on Trump, and how Rep. Zinke will be a lapdog. His pitch, though, that he should be re-elected as a counterweight to Clinton is likely to be fairly effective in the purplish regions of the state. What's Yggles got to offer -- that people in DC ought to be acting like it won't?
What we really need is a libertarian candidate to skim 5% of Zinke's vote.
I have no doubt that if Juneau looks is September like she could really win, she'll get some money from the nationals. More likely, we'll be hoping for national money to re-elect Gov. Bullock, and fend off the lying fundamentalist yes-dinosaurs-really-did-co-exist-with-humans-there's-evidence techzillionaire.
48.1: The point isn't to run differently in individual races; it's almost entirely about recruiting candidates and funding them. And, indeed, part of his point is that taking the House would mean having some Dems who are to the right of the current caucus*. Which is something no one is excited about as such, but if it's in the cause of Speaker Pelosi....
*and he rightly points out that this was the type of caucus that passed Obamacare and Dodd-Frank. While blue dog wankers are a real problem in the Senate, they're nearly irrelevant in the House.
Part of me is convinced, part of me think it almost certainly doesn't matter.
I thought the "recruiting candidates" argument was fairly weak, because I'd think it's late in the day to be recruiting candidates. I do think that, if in October it looks like there's a shot at retaking the house they should be using that as part of the GOTV effort, but that's a ways away.
I think the biggest argument against saying something now is that it's unwise to say, "we'd _love_ to run against candidate X, while the primaries are still going on." Even if everybody knows that it's bad form to say it publicly.
A series of "A Vote For [Local Republican Candidate Name] Is A Vote For Trump" ads spread out across the country couldn't hurt, and it would be easy enough to just make a basic template and then add in the unique bit for each district. If you did it consistently nationwide it would almost certainly be the sort of thing that would end up on the news all over the place and in op eds and think pieces from any number of analysts too, which would only multiply the effect. Just leaving how to do it up to each individual candidate's campaign wouldn't be as effective as far as that goes.
About this time in 2010, then-RNC Chairman Michael Steele said something about Republican not having a realistic chance of taking over the House in the fall. He actually appeared to be correct at the time, but took a whole lot of shit from the right for saying that. Then the Republicans went and took over the house.
The RNC and DNC don't have much to do with congressional races, though.
but he makes IMO a pretty good case that, if you don't talk up the possibility, you simply foreclose it, because the best candidates won't run, marginal candidates won't get enough $$, etc.
There must be a couple dozen districts that were held by Democrats 10 years ago that don't even have a Democratic candidate this year. There's two just in Pennsylvania.
I don't know, maybe it's done differently somewhere I haven't lived as an adult. IME, there really isn't a shortage of people who are willing to run a race they think they have a realistic chance of winning. What recruiting means is talking someone into spending a huge chunk of their life on a project that isn't obviously likely to be successful. And I really don't think potential candidates care all that much about what's going to happen across the country, or in the next district, when they're making the decision whether to take the plunge. Can they win, are they convinced the country needs them, do they really want to go to DC, do they think they can stand the lifestyle, all that stuff is going to loom a whole lot larger than whether some consultant is talking smack to captive journalists in the Village. Especially now, months after people have had to make the commitment to do it.
Cycle before last we made a big push to have a candidate in every single legislative race. Come the fall, though, when it was time to dole out the final tranches of party money, it went to people within striking distance, but not a lock. Strategically, it was great making the Republicans defend even their reddest seats. It wasn't all that much fun for the candidates, though, suffering what ended up having always been sure humiliation.
And of course more money for candidates would be great. Lots more money. Our statewide races are going to be swamped with out of state right wing dough. There isn't and will never be that kind of left wing money available, for obvious reasons. Especially for challengers to Republican incumbents.
I see from FB that Denise Juneau was out east today, visiting a couple of reservations. She said, correctly I think, that if Natives really turn out, she'll win. (Ok, its a necessary but maybe not sufficient condition, but big turnout in Native heavy districts would be good all up and down the ballot). I'm just a real long way from convinced that journalists and consultants talking to each other in DC means shit. Except of course to consultants and journalists, since that's what they do.
I feel like sold the right way it would be possible to recruit people to campaign in the obviously-not-going-to-go-Democratic districts, but the idea would have to be sold very differently from "you could win and have power!", because it would be obviously not true. If I lived in a completely uncontested Republican district I might be willing to put a moderate effort into running an essentially token campaign (some general fundraising for the low level party, a couple speeches, meeting with people in the neighborhood, maybe a debate)*.
The difference would be that the campaign would have to be less in terms of "I'm going to WIN!" and a lot more in terms of "Even though I'm almost certain to lose (1) this is a democracy and even if we know what they're going to do it's important for people to have a choice in who represents them, and (2) it's important that you all know that the Democratic party does value you/think of you as Americans who deserve representation/intend to fight for your interests as much as anyone else." And that's a genuinely good message to be sending since not doing it is one factor in getting those kind of districts in the first place.
The danger would be that I suspect people who would be potentially willing to do this kind of thing would (like me) be truly horrible and probably far less willing politicians. I certainly can't see any way I would enjoy being one, find it rewarding, or be even remotely successful at it.
*What I wouldn't be willing to do if it was at all avoidable was to live in one of those districts, so being potentially willing is pretty easy for me and probably empty to boot.