I’m kind of laughing at the people of Kentucky right now. What can I really say?
I guess it’s “Good luck with that, suckers.”
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Get used to it, Booman.
Those that promise real change…even if they are full of shit, a judgement that awaits results just as it did in the case of Obama…are now going to be elected. A true majority of the U.S. electorate is so through with whatever the media and the PermaGov are offering that they will vote for whatever candidate promises change.
Bet on it.
Trump included.
Watch.
The fruits of your ongoing PermaGov bullshit.
Look inna mirror.
The laugh’s on you.
And the rest of us as a result.
WTFU.
AG
Well, we’ve got a new mayor in Philly who is a long way from Frank Rizzo.
And that’s a good thing.
Did he have an opponent?
Sure. His opponent got about 15% of the vote, which is typical for a Republican running in Philadelphia.
I fail to see how that refers to my post, Booman. Elucidate, please.
I wrote:
My understanding is that Kenney ran as a continuation of mainstream “modern” Philly Dem mayors.
No “change” there…Nutter is an HRC kinda guy.
He had the Clintonian nerve to say that he was looking forward to making some real money after being paid over $175,000 a year for his two terms of office.
28 years of government salaries. The undoubted beneficiary of untold inside info and a sure candidate for the PermaGov/Corporate revolving door. This shit resonates of HRC’s claim that she and Bill were “broke” after he ended his presidency. Pure, unadulterated bullshit.
People are tired of this game, Booman. No matter how “good” he may have been as mayor…I mean, at least he didn’t get busted for anything…Trump’s nationally televised public outing of how pols are bought and sold by billionaires is still resonating in the heads of millions of Americans. When they hear this kind of entitlement crap oozing out of a pol’s mouth they want to tear up the TV screen. Bet on it. Given a real “change” candidate”…even one as transparently jive as is Trump…they will flock to him like sheep to a Judas goat.
The other candidate?
What “other” candidate?
Oh.
You must mean the Republican.
From Wikipedia.
Actually, if elected Bailey would have become the first certifiable miracle in Philadelphia history.
So…where’s the “change” candidate?
Wasn’t none.
It looks to me like there is going to be one in 2016.
Donald Trump.
The end result of 50 years of PermaGov lies and fixes, and potentially worse than all of them.
Good work, y’all fence-sitting “progressives.”
Good work.
WTFU.
AG
Kentuckian here; just read the election results. A dreadful day for our Commonwealth, which has much to recommend it, but which is home to more than our fair share of sanctimonious bigots. Republican candidate Bevin’s embrace of the odious Kim Davis, along with racist anger at Obama (still!), was enough to overcome Jack Conway, who as a Kentucky Democrat is no prize, but still a decent guy.
Good luck to us, indeed.
Well, why isn’t he a prize? What was he running on during the campaign? What message was the KY Democratic Party sending?
Hello,Deathtongue. Conway was right on key issues: supported Kynect (our state ACA exchange)and courageously declined as state AG to fight against same-sex marriage. On the other hand, as a typical KY Democrat he was a lackluster campaigner and a panderer to the coal industry. He kept his head down and hoped Bevin, a serial liar, would self-destruct. In short, gave people little to hate and nothing to love.
He also lost in 2010 to that dynamo newbie Rand Paul.
An interesting tidbit Lee Fang:
Were they really key issues? Sounds like there’s a hint of projection here, especially since Conway lost. What did the KY electorate say were key issues, if such data exists?
Key Issues? God, gay marriage, etc. etc. Bevin played the Christianist card and that was plenty enough. It is unfortunate that the county clerk thingy played out right before the election. It brought up the gay issue at the wrong time, and reminded all the fundies that they NEEDED TO VOTE OUT THE SATANIST HERETIC LIBRUL OBAMA … uh, I mean Conway. That’s all you need here in Ky.
My commiserations. And I apologize for hoping on another thread that you all lose your health care. The only ones who deserve that are those that voted for the guy that vowed to do it. Temporarily, I forgot the guys like you.
We here in Illinois don’t deserve Bruce Rauner, either. Sometimes the two party system gives no decent choices.
Sounds as Conway borrowed Grimes 2014 campaign strategy book. Guess he figured by spending a lot more money than Bevins that it would work better the second time.
But Grimes won this time. Did she change her strategy at all?
Didn’t seem to me that KY voters didn’t like Grimes, they just preferred McConnell. Name ID and no complaints of her tenure as SOS plus
got her to 51%.
Nope. But a downticket race, and good enough in this case.
Grimes got a lot more votes than Conway.
What can I say? My condolences. I don’t laugh, Pennsylvania is not far away.
So did the RGA start spending for Bevin again or did he win on his own?
Looking like a 28% turnout.
So 72% of the people in Kentucky couldn’t be bothered to get off their lazy asses and vote in a gubernatorial election.
They deserve everything they are going to get.
After all, it’s never the party nor the party platform nor its candidates nor its track record, it’s always the voters.
I agree with Deathtongue. 72% of the voters concluded (rightly or wrongly) that it didn’t matter who won. I have to lay that on the candidates and their campaign.
We clearly need our own bigots, just with a more identifiably leftist economic platform.
So why were Democrats able to win KY in previous elections? What changed between then and now?
The region has been on the back side of its production curve for a while, and ran into the perfect storm this year. The NG glut, MATS scrubber requirements mean plants can buy cheaper higher sulfur coal from elsewhere, and the Chinese tanked the steel market and met coal with it.
Lots of layoffs in mining and rail.
That looks like a definite GOTV failure. No excuses for that in a governor’s race.
GOTV failure is such a wonderfully weaselly and ambiguous term. It imparts no meaning because a failure to GOTV can happen for a lot of reasons and the phrase doesn’t even attempt to tease them out.
Interestingly, voters turn out most frequently in the election (Presidential) that has the least impact on their lives.
It’s only weird if you think that it’s weird that most Americans can name more Star Wars characters than Senators. I don’t, and not in a ‘haha look at these stupid voters that I am superior to’ way. It’s more understandable (and actionable) IMHO if you view the lack of interest in a local election as a mundane advertising problem instead of ‘what the fuck is wrong with America, scold scold scold’ problem.
I don’t disagree, necessarily.
Participation in politics largely takes the form of sports spectatorship, anyways. The problem is that so much real power is elected in this country. Besides explicitly political positions, we elect education, judiciary, and law enforcement positions. People don’t have the time to keep track of this shit and it’s a legitimate weakness in our electoral system.
I don’t think it’s just that. People learn a lot of complicated shit all of the time if they’re motivated to do so. How many people can name all of the major houses in Game of Thrones and the primary patriarch?
I think that task #2 for the Democratic Party is to find a way to get its base to understand to a basic level non-national government and how its functioning relates to issues they care about at all. If you asked an average person who thinks that, say, the city is too smoggy and asked them who would be the person who could change things the most in the smallest amount of time, how many people do you think would get even close to the right answer?
Task #1 of course is to get the base motivated enough to care about the government. If you do well enough in this step Task #2 pretty much takes care of itself.
Game of Thrones ratings are 8 million viewers when it sets records which would be a pretty lousy turnout for 150 million voters.
Don’t know that that is a fair comparison. Where’s the evidence that those that did vote today have absorbed less pop culture than those that didn’t and knew more about the candidates and their positions than the non-voters?
Voting is one part habit and one part peer pressure, and will the demise of unions and politicization of churches, the GOP has an advantage in midterms and off-year election. There is more glue holding partisan Republicans together than three is for Democrats.
There isn’t any difference between then and now. I’m just framing it as a motivation issue. People want to learn and retain the basics of Star Wars that they don’t for, say, E.T. (another megaton movie) because they like the movie. That’s what it boils down to. Generally speaking, people who want to vote, vote. I doubt that there are a lot of modern voters (even with the obstacles the GOP has been setting up) who really did want to vote but were unable to.
And while having organizations that make political activism a part of their identity does help motivate people, right now the Democratic Party doesn’t have them. So it needs to find a way to motivate people without those organizations.
I think that the first political initiative that HRC, Sanders, or anyone who wants to rebuild the Democratic Party should support is a tax break for voting. When you vote at the municipal election or above, you have the option of submitting a form that says that you, personally, voted and you get back a password. If you write in the number during tax time, you get a rebate. Like, say, a cool 150 dollars.
I think that another way to get people to vote would be an advertisement campaign that informed people about the functions and responsibilities of non-Presidential government. I don’t doubt that there are a significant number of people who don’t vote in off-year elections simply because they don’t know a damn thing about what they’re voting for short of emergent crises like that vile HERO election. If this initiative could boost turnout in off-year elections by 5% for the price of a few hundred million dollars, it’d more than pay for itself.
49% of Americans pay no federal income tax. So, your tax rebate scheme for voting would add to income inequality. Plus $150/person for that electorate that is potentially 75 million people (51%) is $11 billion.
Fine. They just get 150 dollars for whatever reason. I don’t care about the terminology. You vote in any election at least at the municipal level and the government cuts you a check for that much money with no regards to your income.
Also, $11 billion dollars to increase turnout, especially with poorer and apathetic voters? I’d consider that a fucking bargain. Shit, why not make it 500 dollars for ~$50 billion? It’s a stimulus and a GOTV scheme in one.
IMO, we already monetize too much of our lives. What today has intrinsic worth/value other than the gobs of entertainment, and that’s merely superficial, that we consume?
Non-voters see nothing in it for themselves to bother voting. They are as narcissistic as those that vote to ban abortion and make the Bible the law of the land. And both political parties prey on that narcissism by promising voters something — in 2000 didn’t GWB promise a $150 rebate check to all taxpayers?
Oh, so voting for someone because you get a check if you do is base and corrupt but voting for someone because you believe that they’ll raise the minimum wage and lower college costs doesn’t harm the integrity of voting?
If you vote but not because you expect to see tangible improvement in your life, then why are you voting? You even pooh-poohed votes for stuff that don’t directly enrich the voter. So tell me, what is a valid reason for voting?
And in any case, why not worry about spiritual and moral edification after we win some elections?
Voting to deny others rights you don’t want them to have or forcing others to live by your religious beliefs does directly enrich those voters — it’s a power over thing. White people that supported and voted for Jim Crow laws were narcissistic. White people that opposed those laws believed in equality for the good of all. Didn’t think I had to spell out the difference for you.
Seattle’s democracy vouchers passed.
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/democracy-vouchers/
Should be an interesting experiment.
I absolutely agree with this;
.
Until the Democratic party can figure out how to motivate voters whose voting habits are not ingrained we are gonna be always losing elections we should win.
Habit and peer pressure are intertwined but can function independently from each other. Unionization of working men and women was peer pressure that led to Democratic Party gains and those gains produced positives for those men and women and that in turn increased the level of voting by habit. While that was happening in the non-southern states, the habit of voting and voting DEM existed in southern and border states.
The civil rights decisions/legislation slashed a big hole in habitual southern voters voting DEM. Adding AA votes to the DEM column didn’t make up for the loss of whites shifting to GOP but not by so much that once the new normal of a more integrated society was achieved, DEMs would at least become competitive in the South. That’s what LBJ foresaw with his prediction of a generation.
What LBJ didn’t/couldn’t acknowledge was that outside the south the habit of voting wasn’t being passed down to the next generation. Kids were being sent off to a war by both political parties and on the home front, private sector unions were being decimated. Take away the union “glue” (affiliation/peer pressure) but leave the decent wages and benefits in place was like a good deal because it came without having to pay union dues. The habit of voting was lost before such workers could begin to perceive that the jobs and decent wages were disappearing.
In real time, it wasn’t even all that apparent unions were being decimated because efforts shifted from “blue collar” to public sector “white collar” workers. The kicker is that there is no “man” against whom public sector white collar workers can rally against other than the GOP and much of the GOP messaging appeals more to them than it once did to unionized blue collar workers. So, while Democrats retained an advantage with public sector unionized workers, it was less of an advantage and the habit of voting was also lessened.
As workers became alienated from unions and by extension to the habit of voting, the GOP slowly made gains at the ballot box. Team Reagan consolidated those gains, but a new and significant voting bloc emerged by 1980 — the “fundies” that until then had been more apolitical. Fascinating because not only did they become politicized, but politicized over an issue on which they flipped by 180 degrees, contraception.
Habit and peer pressure are also enhanced by low population mobility because that increases personal investment in a community. etc.
excellent point. huge amounts of $ going in to entertainment advertising
In this case it means failing to recruit the volunteers to canvass enough voters and see that issues that can prevent some voters from going to the polls — transportation, childcare, even negotiating with employers, get handled so that these people actually can vote.
It also means ensuring that voting places in the precincts in which you expect to have strength definitely have sufficient hours and resources to accommodate the large number of voters that you have gotten out without their going home from too long a wait.
Those are just two things that it means.
Were those two things really the reason why turnout was so low? If so, do you have a comparative analysis? Like, an election where volunteerism and convenience was significantly higher-than-average than elections before and/or afterwards that made a difference? I’m not asking for anything exact since I know that teasing out correlation from causation is pretty much impossible. I’m just asking if there’s any measurable correlation at all.
OR, we could do like the Aussies and make voting and registration MANDATORY. You get fined if you don’t show up. Register EVERYONE at the age of 18, just like Selective Service, and keep accurate up-to-date voting rolls. Voting turnout there is usually in the 90% range.
Clinton and the rest of the establishment Dems should take tonight as a grave warning. Past victories and slow gains and promises of ‘it sucks right now, but we won’t make it worse’ only go so far.
Demographics may carry the Democratic Party past the finish line in 2016 despite running this message. But they will taste bitter defeat in 2018 and 2020 unless they pull their head out of their asses.
They probably won’t, though. I bet their first reaction is to sneer at the stupid rednecks and complain about offyear elections and to guilt-trip voters on the edge of the Dem margins into voting more. Because economic centrism and incrementalism cannot fail, it can only be failed.
BUT…I have been told, over and over, that these are the White folks that Hillary Clinton can reach.
Now, I’ve been saying this is a sucker’s bet…but, I’ve been told otherwise.
Same stupid muthaphuckas voting against their best interests.
Well, what would it take to reach ‘them’ or at least an acceptable proportion? I’ve been saying for awhile that the Clinton/Gore/Kerry/Dukakis/Obama platform of ‘social liberalism and economic centrism’ is not going to do the trick because human beings are myopic and selfish.
I’d like to try Sanders’ platform of ‘social liberalism and economic liberalism’ for a few cycles before throwing in the towel. I’m not expecting miracles here. I know how powerful bigotry and tribalism is as a force. However, I’m trying to reach the selfish non-bigoted people. The people who don’t really care either way about white supremacy and won’t really lift a finger to fight or support it on its own terms. Just getting 10% more of these voters would completely upend American politics.
I do know that running the old post-Mondale playbook where Democrats do their damnedest to pretend that their proposals come from the right or center and try to make elections more about personality and sound bites and zingers is going to lead us to a lot of Pyrrhic victories.
Bevin’s ads claimed electing Conway would mean electing Obama.
Kentucky is horribly racist.
Deathtongue, sir or madam, I can only agree.
Demographics are not a thing set in stone. A demographic advantage during one election may not hold for the next.
I hear about “demographic inevitability” all the time. How Dems cannot lose POTUS, how they will SWEEEEEP to victory simply due to the interest group stuff.
That’s a huge pile of shit.
And another huge pile of shit is the current, on-going inability of pollsters to get it right. Another failure here in KY. Cell phones? People lying to pollsters?
The polling in KY seems to be particularly weak and biased in favor of Democrats. A quick and dirty approach would be to add five points to the GOP candidate’s number.
We had the same polling and same results last year in our Senatorial election. Perdue did way better against Nunn than had been polled right up to the day before the election.
As a Democrat it is really really disheartening to get these sorts of results over and over again. The national and state Democratic apparatus needs to figure out a different approach and playbook. They can begin by soliciting candidates who are not afraid to let their unabashed lefty flags fly. It certainly behooves the party to try something different. For example, in my state, the Dems oughta try running an African American candidate for the Senate seat against Isakson. He’s predicted to win handily, Parkinson’s disease not withstanding.
Has to go back and check, but you’re correct in both GA and KY, the polling for the DEM Senate candidates (always slightly behind the GOP) was close enough to the DEM actual vote percentage, but the GOP was understated by approximately five points. The contests weren’t close at all.
So, have to ask why the various pollsters in KY and GA all fail to get a representative sample and all err in the same direction. Or we could wonder if the votes are being accurately counted.
Or it could be the old “unwilling to admit, but willing to vote” deal. Or it could be differential turnout in rural turfs.
Absolutely right. The past year has been one polling failure after another. The polls were wrong about the Senate in 2014, wrong about the Israeli election, wrong about the UK election. And in all cases, the error was in the same direction (right wing overperformed). Something is going on here, and it needs more attention.
I have no sympathy. To all you muthaphuckas that had Kynect, but didn’t vote…..STFU
I would like to see Oscar in Louisville’s take on this turn of events, especially the low turnout.
Would be interested if there was any voter suppression going on in urban areas.
Hmm, so I guess its a normal electorate after all.
Bassem
(click on link for the photo)
Appears he was photoshopped in.
Yeah, he is overdressed for wait staff at the event. But makes the point better than a photo without the waiter that says “What no Syrians at the table.”
Well, regardless of the received wisdom above, you can chalk this loss up to Coal. Folks in Coal country voted against the Obama Party.
The American Nazi Party is ascendant. Not by that name of course. Instead of the swastika they have the stars-and-bars. Instead of a Gott mitt Uns (God is with Us) belt buckle they have an Xtian cross. But they are the exact same people. The unholy alliance of rich and racists.
This never turns out well.
KY has been an anomaly. The state is pretty conservative, but D pols do well.
My guess is that is being rectified, and KY will be more like OK or other southern states. The D vote may have been more historically D than D in policy terms. The election of this unprepared bidnessman will be repeated in the future.
The Kynect issue is going to be very interesting. Glad I get to watch it from the bleachers.
I wonder if Conway will get elected to anything again.
Tennessee was in the same place Ky is now 20 years ago… and Arkansas six to ten years ago.
This is why the “Gore didn’t even carry his own state” bleatings are nonsense. The state that had sent him to Congress and the Senate had essentially ceased to exist before he even began his 2000 campaign.
Bevin’s spokesman said this morning the Governor-elect will keep the current Medicaid expansion while he seeks to craft a privatized alternative which could gain an 1115 waiver from the Obama Administration.
And, she says the Governor will scrap Kynect and allow the Federal exchange to cover Kentuckians. Which makes no sense from a states’ rights and smaller Federal government perspectives and is likely to provide similar results to Kynect, but there you have it. Even a Tea Party multi- millionnaire understands you can’t take away health insurance from hundreds of thousands of people in your State.
Why, you’d almost think that Kentucky Democrats are conservative and thus running a more liberal candidate would be a losing bet! Nah, can’t be, probably it was that all the many liberals in Kentucky were disaffected this time because the headline candidate wasn’t liberal enough.
And just how “many liberals” do you think there are in KY, percentage-wise speaking? 10%? 15%? Every move to the left gains votes to the left and loses votes to the right. So there needs to be a BOATLOAD on the left to offset the loss in the center.
And I really doubt that the “real liberal” percent is > 10%.
The problem is the Democratic brand, which simply sucks in KY.
Mr. NFTG was BLISTERING ON TWITTER LAST NIGHT.
……………..
Mr. NFTG @Kennymack1971
Okay here goes… I am sick of the coddling of White Working Class Voters in this country… The rest of us pay the price for their BS.
Mr. NFTG @Kennymack1971
I mean… Who gleefully ushered in the Reagan Revolution? Not just elected him but reelected him in a landslide?
Mr. NFTG @Kennymack1971
Who couldn’t bring themselves to vote for a Democrat until that Democrat “Felt their pain” and started cribbing from St. Ronnie’s notebook?
Mr. NFTG @Kennymack1971
Who after that Dem left office with an economy in decent shape turned the USA over to the most criminally incompetent administration ever?
Mr. NFTG @Kennymack1971
And after that criminally incompetent administration damn near drives this country into a ditch we have a moment of sanity in 2008…
Mr. NFTG @Kennymack1971
We finally get someone who genuinely tries to fix the mess his predecessors left behind but then…
Mr. NFTG @Kennymack1971
Who decided that change wasn’t coming fast enough and saddled him with the most inept Congress in history?
Mr. NFTG @Kennymack1971
Get mad if you wish but we can’t move forward the way we could because we’re constantly having to account for butthurt White folks..
Mr. NFTG @Kennymack1971
And this shit isn’t new KY is just part of the same bullshit story that unfolds all over. KS, WI, IL, FL, MI, and here in TX.
Mr. NFTG @Kennymack1971
Matt Bevin is a clown. And yet all he had to do was basically go “OGGA BUGGA SCARY BLACK MAN!” and he gets the keys to the Govs mansion.
Mr. NFTG @Kennymack1971
And I am going to be a hard ass about this. Because every other ethnic group had to get the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” speech…
Mr. NFTG @Kennymack1971
So yeah I hear y’all about low turnout, sorry leadership at the DNC, RW media/billionaires… I get it and it’s all valid however….
Mr. NFTG @Kennymack1971
We’ve been dealing with this bullshit since Nixon. White Working Class Voters consistently voting against their own interests.
Mr. NFTG @Kennymack1971
I was already incredulous over that NY Times story about White folks wanting a “gentler drug war” this KY thing just added to it.
Mr. NFTG @Kennymack1971
There’s more I can and probably will say later but I’m tired.. I’m tired of good people in states like KY having to suffer b/c of dumb MFs.
Mr. NFTG @Kennymack1971
Last thing: If you think you hurt Obama by voting against your own interests you’re a fucking idiot and deserve what’s coming to you.
Mr. NFTG @Kennymack1971
Barack Obama is going to be good. Especially after he leaves office. His and his family’s health care is secure….but the rest of y’all?
Mr. NFTG @Kennymack1971
That’s it. I’m done. Maybe one day Working Class White folks you’ll wake up and join the rest of us who get it… One day.
http://jaybookman.blog.ajc.com/2015/11/03/the-epidemic-of-despair-in-white-working-class-america-now
-revealed/
Thanks for sharing the link. I’ve now shared with a bunch of relatives. Noted that bookman’s piece now has close to 1600 comments and one doesn’t not want to wade into the abyss by reading them. Nothing like the comments at the NY Times piece which were informative and enlightening.
Yes, I always read comments…
I’ve moved so I need to change my moniker to Oscar In Dallas – is that possible or do I need to create a new account?