Sad.
"Good morning. I’ll have two eggs over easy, two strips of crispy bacon, and a large goblet of the president’s tears, thank you."
— Martin Longman (@BooMan23) December 13, 2017
Sad.
"Good morning. I’ll have two eggs over easy, two strips of crispy bacon, and a large goblet of the president’s tears, thank you."
— Martin Longman (@BooMan23) December 13, 2017
Like dat.
Bet on it.
AAAAAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHHAHA!!
It was the Jew lawyer what did him in.
The KKK Party base can put up with weed heads, hitting on 14 year olds, molesting 16 year olds – but admitting you hired a lawyer who is a Jew? And then claiming to not be anti-Semitic?
You’re only going to get about 70% of the white vote talking that kind of crazy talk.
But Moore’s wife really did some performative art with her “Our lawyer is a Jeeeewwwww, suck it media” bit on election eve. I thought that contemptible defense might help Moore skate through, but you may be right.
This will significantly improve our situation in the Senate; it makes taking the majority in 2018 more likely.
I’m also hopeful that this will remind Alabamians that a Democrat can represent many of their interests very well, and improve future electoral prospects for the Party and its candidates there.
Good reminder to run people everywhere as well.
Yes, as the bed sheet-wearing tool(aka Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III) didn’t even face token opposition last re-election.
It will also daily remind Alabamians of a prosecutor who took down three sets of terrorists and dismantled part of the violent reaction of racists and misogynists.
And he is working claass, until he went to college and got a law degree and became a prosecutor. But he understands white steelworking Alabamians and that culture.
He seems to have good political instincts. Hopefully, he keeps his own counsel on staffing and brings people he trusts from Alabama and only minimal DC technical people for legislative drafting and strategy.
Increasingly in red states, Democrats are going to have to be awake to factors that will depress GOP enthusiasm for craziness.
And be able to find the swing geographies under certain policy conditions (like dropping out of Republican women). It turns out that Black Belt, major cities, and second tier cities were very good for Jones because of the black vote and enough white Democrats.
Moore nailed down rural and the old Klan Kountry (northeastern Alabama) with up to 82% of the vote and likely less turnout.
Trump will keep making these opportunities. Local Democrats will need to get they opposition to the Trumpcare tax bill now, keep repeating it, and have peopel ready to go with a policy statement that does what working class (all races) want done with tax policy and health care. Run and get traction. And don’t scare when the GOP lamely rolls out the “socialiast big government program” rhetoric. Find a good answer to that 50-year-old nonsense.
Let’s see how he does as senator, but … maybe the Democrats have just found someone who can run for president in 2020 and actually win.
If he can win in Alabama he can win in PA, NC, VA, FL … that should do.
Please no. That only reinforces the flawed DP myth that only a southern Democrat can win at the national level. Not that looking for an Obama-like AA man to run is any better. Bernie Sanders is the most popular active politician. And his highest poll rating at 73% is with African-Americans. That is not anything like what party elites would concoct.
Bernie Sanders? He will be 79 by election day, 2020.
Even Jones is pushing it. This is a difficult job – winning elections is one thing, being able to survive it successfully is another big hurdle.
Kirsten Gillibrand? Age is better but she just violated Kant’s Categorical Imperative – because of that I think there’s a good chance she’ll turn people off big time.
I like Kamala Harris myself. Another one we just have to see in play in the next 2 years. She can be abrasive too – maybe that’s ok, and I benefit from seeing her in action in CA for several years, but will she play well nationally.
But Jones won. He won a race he shouldn’t have. This is important, and lucky. He gets to carry the charm from that luck – for a while anyway.
Didn’t mean my comment to be read as support for a Sanders 2020 run. (I totally agree that he’ll be too old.) Only that voters want candidates like Sanders — ethical, consistent, and not in the pocket of well-heeled VIPs.
I don’t buy into the notion of ‘electible’ or ‘unelectible’ (except in the most extreme cases of being far too nutty). Inherently ‘electible’ or ‘unelectible’ is a fiction. Against whom, where, and most importantly (and most difficult) when are far more robust variables.
Of late, Gillibrand has been attempting to reposition herself. Unfortunately for her, she started six years too late and by 2020 will still be seen as Hillary’s and the DP’s chosen NY Senate successor. Personally, I don’t think her political instincts are keen enough and her chops strong enough to make the leap from NY and onto the national stage within a year or so. But there’s the possibility that she could significantly mature politically in the next year.
Harris is another stealth corporatist (but not as effectively stealth as Obama was). Clinton plus Obama couldn’t get the job done in 2016 and Harris picking up from where they left off doesn’t strike me as a winner.
If a winner can emerge from the ranks of Democrats, it will be based on public policy (the edge Trump found in 2016 and won’t work as well for him in 2020) and not status — ie, race, gender, home state/region. Throw that old box away.
Trump’s edge in 2016 was on public policy?
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL….
Yes, he was such a credible and articulate candidate on policy issues. That’s totally what Trump was doing when he was talking about all the raping Real Americans were suffering at the hands of Mexicans and the Chinese and the Arabs and the stupid liberals and…
And we can see how terrifically unpopular Trump’s policies are when there is an attempt to implement them, such as the attacks on the ACA. We can also see how untrustworthy he was in a number of policy areas, where in completely foreseeable ways he abandoned his pretty promises to slam down on Wall Street, pharmaceutical companies, and the war machine.
When I hear a progressive say we should abandon social status as a Party priority and campaign issue, what I hear is that we are fine with calling on Democrats to abandon the fight to reverse the disproportionate losses and attacks that Americans with lower incomes, non-whites, women, Muslims, younger Americans and other vulnerable communities have suffered and are suffering. I think that would be bad politics and bad policy.
These demands that Democratic Party institutions and candidates abandon “identity politics” are particularly peculiar given the fact that Trump’s campaign was the most extreme identity politics campaign imaginable in 2016, and it managed to win a fluke Electoral College edge while doing so.
Stop reading things into my comments that aren’t there.
Only a strictly partisan, deaf, dumb, and blind Democrat could fail to have seen that Trump co-opted a populist stance from Bernie in his campaign. Only fools thought there was any authentic substance to his version of populism, but unfortunately, most (or just enough in just the right locations) voters are fools.
Those GOP voters aren’t going to respond to whatever it is that rocks your boat, but trashing them as deplorables energizes them to turn out and stick a poke in the eye of your whatevers. It all becomes an exercise in dueling negatives, and in case you haven’t noticed, Republicans have been winning those contests up and down the country for the past six years.
Doug Jones avoided that swamp by sticking to running a local campaign and pushing a positive message. He put a chink in the armor of those Republicans; they stayed home. Getting some of them is a longer term prospect than a single election or election cycle. But they sure as hell aren’t going to move a millimeter with your approach.
Jones’ campaign prioritized a number of social status issues, as we see represented here on his campaign website.
He also ran a ton of ads highlighting Moore’s glaring unfitness for office.
If his campaign had neglected to do these things, they wouldn’t have gotten the strong turnout they gained from Jones’ base, and they wouldn’t have been as effective as they were in depressing Moore’s base.
HRC was hugely popular until she became a legitimate general election candidate circa late 2015. I wouldn’t put too much stock in popularity during the off-cycle.
Not all public approval ratings before, during, and after elections are equal. Give anyone mostly positive media attention and lots of it and that person will enjoy high approval ratings. Bernie is unique because he gets more negative than positive media attention (WaPo bashed him how many times?) and not much attention at all. IMHO it’s the message more than the person that is driving Sanders’ approval rating. Why ignore that?
If Bernie were to sustain a lengthy, well-funded, well-executed, truly negative campaign by an opponent, he wouldn’t be as unique as you claim he is. No one is immune from political gravity, not even Trump.
As a Bernie fan, I’d quarrel with your claim that he gets, or got, mostly negative media attention. From a prime study of the pre-primary news coverage of the candidates:
“…Sanders’ media coverage during the pre-primary period was a sore spot with his followers, who complained the media was biased against his candidacy. In relative terms at least, their complaint lacks substance. Among candidates in recent decades who entered the campaign with no money, no organization, and no national following, Sanders fared better than nearly all of them. Sanders’ initial low poll numbers marked him as less newsworthy than Clinton but, as he gained strength, the news tilted in his favor. On the eve of the Iowa caucuses, Sanders had achieved what was unthinkable in early 2015. He was positioned to make a credible run at the Democratic nomination.
For her part, Clinton might have wished that the Democratic race received even less attention than it did, given that her coverage was the least favorable of the leading contenders, Democratic and Republican. Month after month, as Figure 6 indicates, her coverage was more negative than positive. There was only one month in the whole of 2015 where the tone of her coverage was not in the red and, even then, it barely touched positive territory. During the first half of the year, excluding neutral references, it averaged three to one negative statements over positive statements. Her coverage in the second half of the year was more favorable, but still damning. The ratio for that period was more than three to two negative over positive…”
If you have data which shows that Senator Sanders gets more negative than positive media coverage, in absolute terms and in comparison with his opponent, feel free to share it.
This will push a few influential Republicans more publicly anti-Trumpward.
The drip-drip-drip of Trump’s eventual failure continues.
AG
Might embolden some more renegade Democrats to run in hopeless cases. A lot of the longterm Republicans never have gotten a strong challenge.
The Democratic party really needs to get off it’s collective azzes and get back to basics. Like emulating the GOP in terms of supporting/developing Democratic candidates at the local and state levels in order to create a bench for the fed levels.
Howard Dean did a great job developing the 50 State strategy, which, at least in part, was the engine that drove Obama into office in 2008. And then Obama immediately smashed that and put worthless stooges in charge of the DLC – bought off worthless stooges.
Thanks, Obama.
Can we now get back to basics? If it wasn’t for Charles Barkley, I’m not sure that Jones would’ve won. As usual, the DLC was pretty much a dollar short and almost a day late in providing credible support for Jones. And the Democratic party has almost refused to do squat in any Red State. WHY? Clearly doing nothing, or as little as possible, will lead to one thing only: LOSING. If you put forward some effort, why hey? Isn’t it amazing? Your party might actually win sometimes.
Just a thought. Call me crazy, if you want.
It’s funny that you put the DLC, since they are what screwed the party, but I think you meant DNC. At least I think most of us understood what you meant. And yeah, Perez supposedly said that all the money the DNC spent went to millennial and minority turnout efforts.
They were just involved under the radar so Jones could continue to keep his distance from the national party
“Despite publicly remaining mum on the race, the Democratic National Committee spent nearly $1 million on the contest while dispatching and funding 30 aides here, a party official told POLITICO. That push came just as Jones sought to distance himself from the national party and win over conservatives.
It was a politically delicate move. Jones’ detractors have tried painting him as a tool of the national party, so Democrats in Washington have tried treading carefully in order to avoid leaving too much of a footprint in a state where Democrats haven’t won a Senate seat in over two decades. The effort paid off: Jones prevailed Tuesday.”
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/12/alabama-senate-democrats-jones-293496
House Dems spend $2M more on Ossoff in Ga. House election
But yes, Jones and his AL Democratic associates did make the conscious decision not to nationalize this election. It was the best strategy available to them; work the base and let GOP turnout drop to normal off-year elections and hope that Moore’s weak showing in the ’17 GOP primaries (and prior elections) would depress that GOP turnout even more.
Jones is a good enough candidate and there are changes afoot in AL (ie Randall Woodfin), progressive challenger to the incumbent Birmingham Democratic mayor.) that it was possible for Jones to eke out a win.
I had tabulated the Virginia general assembly results from the November elections.
Of the 100 seats, 22 had NO Republicans running, while 12 had NO Democrats running. Some of these had libertarians or Green party candidates running.
The fact that in an assembly that was 66R-34D prior to that election, there were many more seats not contested by Republican candidates was a big surprise for me.
Also sometime ago Rachel Maddow showed a graphic of how many serious candidates (as defined by having raised at least $5K) had entered the field for the 2018 mid-term elections, 18 months before the primary – this has been a leading indicator.
This swamped any previous wave – like the 2010 Republican wave – by a YUUGE factor. The enthusiasm on the Democratic side is massive.
I waited for this morning’s paper. It’s odd but the paper is still the best way to receive news. There’s a genuine excitement/surprise when you read headlines like these and in general the reporting is more sound than anything you’ll find on the internet.
Editorial commentary is basically dead in newsprint (aside from the occasional Krugman column, it’s mostly recycling whatever vomit the right-wing think tanks spew up). So I come here for that. No commentary needed, though.
Glad to see there’s still enough decency in the world.
Here’s one:
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/new-york-daily-news-front-pages-gallery-1.2943303?pmSlide=1.3694
937
My very favorite part of this is Trump’s pathetic claim that he REALLY AND FOR TRUE supported Strange the whole time.
So funny. Now, let’s kill that tax bill and save the Internet
I don’t generally spend a lot of time enjoying the sadness of others. But I must say that last night was the exception. On CNN, a food fight broke out between two Republican strategists. I’ve never known more schadenfreude. And these bastards deserve every ounce of it — from Trump to McConnell on down.
The next few years promise to be a lot of fun, particularly for those who get involved and make a real effort to push back. Never has the landscape been riper for a shift to the left. Imagine the fun people were having at Jones HQ last night! We can all be a part of that.