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PoliGAF 2015 |OT2| Pls print

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With Jeb, Kasich, and Christie all crashing and burning to even greater extent, it's clear that Rubio has absorbed up most of The Establishment vote.

And he's in 4th place.
 

B-Dubs

No Scrubs
B-dubs is the biggest Trump shill of all time and I love every minute of it. I should have picked Trump. Bush is making me lose money.

I'm just being real. Not my fault everyone else refuses to see the classy and luxurious truth.

I should have bet money on Trump back after the first debate.
 

Certainly Democrats have plenty of incentives to mobilize the poor, who do tend to vote Democratic. But because of declining union infrastructure, various forms of disenfranchisement, and the weak social networks of the lower class, organization is difficult and costly. Moreover, the Democrats' most active donors may not be super eager to see the poor get super engaged in politics.

this, i think, is the most aggravating part of the democrats' off-year crisis: they need to mobilize the poor, yet the mechanisms generally used to do this were not only weaker than in our contemporaries in the "first world" to begin with, but they're actively getting weaker as a direct result of the status quo
 

User 406

Banned
this, i think, is the most aggravating part of the democrats' off-year crisis: they need to mobilize the poor, yet the mechanisms generally used to do this were not only weaker than in our contemporaries in the "first world" to begin with, but they're actively getting weaker as a direct result of the status quo

Well, we have at least a couple inevitable potential disruptors coming up: accelerated automation, and white people going from a majority to a plurality. We'll just have to hang on by our fingernails and keep the struggle going as best we can and hope something breaks our way.
 
I told y'all about Ted Cruz. Whatever black magic he's using to run a stealth campaign and tie rubio here is amazing.
Wait till he becomes the establishment candidate, when Rubio implodes and he becomes the GOPe's only chance of stopping Carson and Trump going into Super Tuesday.
 
Picking Trump, Carson, or Cruz is a quick way of delivering the election right to Clinton's lap. At least Rubio could move Florida in his favor.
 

Holmes

Member
Immigration will bring Rubio down. I'm feeling good about Cruz's chances. In the voting booth, Republican primary voters will decide against nominating inexperienced candidates who have never held political office for the presidential election.
 

ivysaur12

Banned
Full story:

http://theadvocate.com/news/acadiana/13888680-123/sources-jay-dardenne-ready-to

Republican Jay Dardenne is expected to endorse Democrat John Bel Edwards in the Louisiana governor’s race Thursday morning.

Edwards’ campaign had said it planned to make a “major campaign announcement” but offered no other details on Wednesday.

Multiple sources close to both Edwards and Dardenne have confirmed to The Advocate that the plan is for Dardenne to endorse Edwards during the news conference 9 a.m. at LSU’s “Free Speech Alley.” None had been authorized to make speak on the record.

Both Edwards and Republican David Vitter have spent the past week making major endorsement announcements. On Wednesday, Vitter announced that he has won the backing of former Republican Gov. Mike Foster.

Dardenne and Scott Angelle — the two key Republicans who didn’t make it into the Nov. 21 runoff — have not yet formally endorsed either candidate, but Dardenne, in particular, had been said to be edging toward an endorsement in recent days.

Vitter’s campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Dardenne’s decision to endorse.
 
Picking Trump, Carson, or Cruz is a quick way of delivering the election right to Clinton's lap. At least Rubio could move Florida in his favor.
Yeah. Cruz would be better than Carson or Trump, but not by much.

Dardenne probably has no future in LA politics now (unless he changes parties) but seriously, good for him. Fuck Vitter. I just hope this doesn't end up like Kansas did last year when Chad Taylor had like every Republican in the state endorsing him but he still lost.
 

kess

Member
CS_xe5aXIAgM4vl.jpg


We can all agree he's an idiot savant, right? How much more obvious could it be...?

Dude, Carson cracked the secret, you know, shaft rhymes with chaff, right? And Carson is going to separate the wheat from the chaff! The second coming is at hand, the winnowing is near, the wicked are gonna burn, yo.

gpmap2.jpg
 

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
I take back what I said about it being a better idea to lose the presidency in order to take back congress and the state legislatures. Aside from the pretty big deal of SC appointments, I completely forgot that there there's also a ton of federal judicial vacancies (66 at this point). Those are pretty dang important too.
 
I take back what I said about it being a better idea to lose the presidency in order to take back congress and the state legislatures. Aside from the pretty big deal of SC appointments, I completely forgot that there there's also a ton of federal judicial vacancies (66 at this point). Those are pretty dang important too.

It's also a false choice. Any Republican presidential win next year is likely to accompany them holding onto the Senate and Congress. We get a Republican President and it means they're controlling the entire government, probably even for 4 years considering how many Dems are up for relection in the Senate in 2018.
 
I take back what I said about it being a better idea to lose the presidency in order to take back congress and the state legislatures. Aside from the pretty big deal of SC appointments, I completely forgot that there there's also a ton of federal judicial vacancies (66 at this point). Those are pretty dang important too.
I would always argue the presidency is more important. Half of politics is perception. The Reagan years greatly contributed to the notion that America is Republican by default even though Democrats held huge majorities in the House during his presidency.

For all the hullabaloo going on right now about Democrats not winning in off-year elections consider this: when Reagan came into office Republicans had 53 seats in the Senate. By the time he left they had 45. Loss of eight. Clinton going into office, Democrats had 57 seats which went to 50 by the time he left. Loss of seven (the only one to end with a majority, too, if only barely and short-lived). Bush started with 50 and ended with 41, loss of nine. Every recent two-term president has left their party in ruins in downballot races, whether they were seen as successful (Reagan, Clinton) or not (Bush).

Same in the House, Clinton's Democrats lost 46 seats during his presidency while Bush's Republicans lost 43. Reagan did better by only losing 17 seats but the Republicans were already in a huge ditch in the House anyway by that point.

Obama is currently doing worse by that measurement (13 Senate seats lost, 69 House seats) but if 2016 is even okay for Democrats (enough to produce a presidential victory) his numbers will probably end up around the average.
 

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery

A good place to start is by educting Dem voters how important all the non-Presidential offices truly are. I know when I started really following politics in 2008 that I didn't initially understand what the big deal was when Arlen Specter became a Democrat (I remember being puzzled by Obama personally welcoming him to the party and being really confused what all the hubbub was about). And I didn't even understand what the hell gerrymandering was until 2010. If this could happen with someone who did follow politics, imagine what would happen with people who don't.
 
I would always argue the presidency is more important. Half of politics is perception. The Reagan years greatly contributed to the notion that America is Republican by default even though Democrats held huge majorities in the House during his presidency.

The issue is that Democrats have always been willing to compromise. During the Reagan years they started the practice of asking way too much and the Democrats compromising down to what the Republicans actually wanted. I think it's only been recently that the Democrats have decided to let the Republicans tank themselves.
 

ivysaur12

Banned
This should give Republicans pause:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...b74b2a7_story.html?postshare=9221446685549192

Two weeks before Election Day, the TV screens of New Jersey’s 11th Legislative District glowed with a new negative ad. Republicans Mary Pat Angelini and Caroline Casagrande were under attack.

“Voting records proved they routinely sabotaged women’s health services,” said a frustrated-sounding female narrator in the ad. “They blocked even the most sensible gun safety measures.”

It worked. Just two years after New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) won a landslide in the state and district, suburban votes ousted the Republicans — and helped boost Democrats to their biggest legislative majority since Jimmy Carter was president.

“Chris Christie’s left a lot of Republican political body bags along the side of the road,” said Michael Muller, a strategist for state Democrats.

The 2015 elections were rougher for Democrats in redder states, as they suffered a surprisingly large defeat in the Kentucky governor’s race, failed to win a majority in the Virginia Senate and saw voters thump an LGBT rights ordinance in Houston. But in blue states and cities, the party held or gained ground. As the parties head into a new presidential year, the country’s partisan divide has deepened. Republicans walked away from Tuesday with the big wins. Democrats walked away with fresh confidence that their map can win a third presidential election.

“It says good things for Hillary Clinton,” said Carolyn Fiddler, communications director of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. “I’m sure she would have preferred it if [Gov.] Terry McAuliffe won a Senate majority for Virginia Democrats, but despite all the money spent there, the status quo continued. The blueness is seeping out from the cities as folks move and settle families. It’s a long-term shift.”

Democrats were not papering over the failure in Virginia, but they were encouraged to see where the blue vote held. The race for the 29th Senate District, centered on Manassas in the Washington exurbs, was one of the year’s most expensive. Democrat Jeremy McPike won it by eight points, thanks to votes from fast-growing, racially diverse Prince William County. Democrats failed to defeat Sen. Richard H. Black (R-Loudoun County), a perennial target, but they cut his margin from 14 points in 2011 to five points Tuesday. The race for an open seat in the Richmond suburbs was even closer, with the Republicans triumphing by 2.7 points in a seat they’d last won by 13 points.

Coverage of that last Democratic loss centered on big ad spending by pro-gun-control groups, which were outmatched by the National Rifle Association. “Please, please run on gun control,” Republican strategist Chris LaCivita advised Clinton, sarcastically.

But LaCivita, who worked another suburban campaign that went against Republicans, cautioned that the results were close. “What Tuesday showed is that Virginia is still a swing state, an up-for-grabs state,” he said. “We’ve got to draw a message that has crossover appeal to suburban voters.”

Democrats, who have long viewed the 2016 election as a demographic grind, finished Tuesday with confidence that they’d cracked the suburbs. In Colorado, where Democrats lost a 2014 U.S. Senate race after a heavy focus on abortion rights, party activists ousted three members of the Jefferson County school board.

Progressives put recall elections on the ballot after the board members introduced merit pay and challenged history lessons that did not respect “American exceptionalism.” Julie Williams, one of the defeated conservatives, told the Denver Post that “the liberal agenda and union bosses” were responsible for a 28-point landslide against her. But nearly half a million dollars in pro-recall spending was matched — unsuccessfully — by the local branch of Americans for Prosperity, funded in part by the Koch brothers.

In Pennsylvania, another swing state that Democrats include in their 2016 map, the party celebrated a sweep of state Supreme Court elections. That was a break from tradition, of the party’s base staying home in sleepy off-year races. It was enabled by direct mail to Democrats featuring President Obama, a nationalization of the race — and a mirror image of Obama-centric ads that buried Democrats in Kentucky.

“The worry behind this election was that Philadelphia would not turn out, or produce a very low turnout,” said Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pa.), who made nearly a dozen campaign appearances for the Democratic candidates between Halloween and Election Day and who has endorsed Hillary Rodham Clinton for president. “As it turned out, Philly contributed more than 10 percent of the statewide vote. Hillary, who already has a very strong base, can look to that. Her potential in our state is strong because she’ll keep the Philly vote, do well in suburbs, and has a chance to exceed the president’s numbers in western Pennsylvania.”

In an interview, Pennsylvania Republican Party Chairman Rob Gleason pointed to wins in some county and legislative races to argue for a “good night” marred by an “unconscionable” judicial campaign. “We didn’t have a good candidate for mayor in Philadelphia,” he said, “and the unions spent $10 million. Of course that was a problem.”

Urban turnout, a key to Democratic hopes in 2016, was strong enough to notch wins. The party took back city hall in Indianapolis and held it in Charlotte. In both cases, Democratic strategists suggested that they benefited from anger at Republican control, epitomized by Indiana’s bungle of a Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

If applied to 2016, that strategy points to an election fought by inches, on the issues most likely to drive out the base. Clinton, who has built a lead in Democratic primary polling after a shaky summer, has focused on gun control and other base-driving issues to a greater degree than most Democratic nominees. Kentucky, a swing state in both of Bill Clinton’s presidential runs, is off the Democrats’ new map. Colorado’s Jefferson County and Virginia’s Prince William County are decidedly on it. And in New Jersey, Democrats reached out to voters who did not necessarily turn out every election and found the cultural issues that scared them most.

“We discovered that we could treat them like a base voter if we talked in the right way,” Muller said.
 
A good place to start is by educting Dem voters how important all the non-Presidential offices truly are. I know when I started really following politics in 2008 that I didn't initially understand what the big deal was when Arlen Specter became a Democrat (I remember being puzzled by Obama personally welcoming him to the party and being really confused what all the hubbub was about). And I didn't even understand what the hell gerrymandering was until 2010. If this could happen with someone who did follow politics, imagine what would happen with people who don't.

doesn't work. You can't really "Educate" democratic voters because at the moment they are predominantly young and urban. There are simply too many life distractions for this demographic to take politics seriously outside of election years.

There is nothing you can do to get them at parity with retirees who live in flyover country where they might not see another neighbor for half a mile, and the most exciting attraction is the local costco. Nothing.

Fortunately the old adage that people become more conservative as they age isn't actually true (political leanings tend to ossify in the early 20s), and demographic changes heavily favor democrats. The party will simply have to do what it can to engage those who are paying attention until the boomers die off and their base ages into voting regularly.
 

NeoXChaos

Member
Reid Wilson ‏@ConsultReid 4h4 hours ago
Addendum: Included NE in purple states because Obama won the Omaha district in 2008.

Reid Wilson ‏@ConsultReid 4h4 hours ago
11 Purple states (flipped at least 1x since 2000: CO, FL, IA, IN, NC, NE, NH, NM, NV, OH, VA): Total of 31 D House members, 68 Rs. (4/4)

Reid Wilson ‏@ConsultReid 4h4 hours ago
21 Red Wall states (voted last 4 times for GOP): Total of 28 D House members, 106 Rs. (3/4)

Reid Wilson ‏@ConsultReid 4h4 hours ago
18 Blue Wall states (voted last 6 times for Dems): Total of 130 D House members, 73 Rs, plus DC's Dem delegate (2/4)

Reid Wilson ‏@ConsultReid 4h4 hours ago
Repubs win many more House seats in Blue Wall states than Dems do in Red Wall states, GOP has 2-1 edge in purple states (1/4)

.
 

kess

Member
A good place to start is by educting Dem voters how important all the non-Presidential offices truly are. I know when I started really following politics in 2008 that I didn't initially understand what the big deal was when Arlen Specter became a Democrat (I remember being puzzled by Obama personally welcoming him to the party and being really confused what all the hubbub was about). And I didn't even understand what the hell gerrymandering was until 2010. If this could happen with someone who did follow politics, imagine what would happen with people who don't.

Poor Specter, I'm not even sure many Democrats realized that he (aside from the bailout package) was a more reliable vote than Ben Nelson, Landrieu, et al. But what is more concerning is how so many of the essential local races in this country are run unopposed, or worse, vacant. People aren't running for tax collectors, town councils, and likewise, my ballot had unopposed candidates as far up as the County Council, which represents more than 250,000 people. I wonder if other mature democracies are exhibiting similar symptoms -- there are plenty of local issues that are going to affect people directly, but turnout was at best a quarter of eligible voters.
 

Wall

Member
Nothing is going to come of any of the discussions in that morning consult article. The centrist DLC/New Democrat types are going to argue that the party needs to move to the center. The leftish progressive types like myself are going to argue the party needs a stronger message on economics to turn people out to vote. Nobodies' mind is going to be changed, and the party will continue to muddle on until it is forced to change direction by a loss at the Presidential level.

The weird place the Democrats find themselves in right now is that they are essentially trying to run as an incumbent party despite the opposition controlling the other branches of government. As a result, the Democrats are trying to uphold a status quo they had little part in creating. Nevertheless, the Democratic rank and file clearly desires a continuation of the direction the party is currently taking, but that path also appears to lead to ever steeper losses in any election that isn't held in a Presidential year at the state level.

Something has to give eventually.
 

NeoXChaos

Member
Nothing is going to come of any of the discussions in that morning consult article. The centrist DLC/New Democrat types are going to argue that the party needs to move to the center. The leftish progressive types like myself are going to argue the party needs a stronger message on economics to turn people out to vote. Nobodies' mind is going to be changed, and the party will continue to muddle on until it is forced to change direction by a loss at the Presidential level.

The weird place the Democrats find themselves in right now is that they are essentially trying to run as an incumbent party despite the opposition controlling the other branches of government. As a result, the Democrats are trying to uphold a status quo they had little part in creating. Nevertheless, the Democratic rank and file clearly desires a continuation of the direction the party is currently taking, but that path also appears to lead to ever steeper losses in any election that isn't held in a Presidential year at the state level.

Something has to give eventually.

What is this something?
 
The only thing Democrats can do now is hold the White House, and hope for a strong wave during the presidential election years. Expect the worse for midterms, unless a Republican wins the White House.

Sounds morbid, but we need to wait a good twenty years before the majority of the baby boomers are dead. I still don't know if anything will change in the Deep South and Midwest, demographically speaking, but if the Dems can make TX, AZ, and GA purple, and NC and VA solid blue, then the future looks bright.
 
Nothing is going to come of any of the discussions in that morning consult article. The centrist DLC/New Democrat types are going to argue that the party needs to move to the center. The leftish progressive types like myself are going to argue the party needs a stronger message on economics to turn people out to vote. Nobodies' mind is going to be changed, and the party will continue to muddle on until it is forced to change direction by a loss at the Presidential level.

The weird place the Democrats find themselves in right now is that they are essentially trying to run as an incumbent party despite the opposition controlling the other branches of government. As a result, the Democrats are trying to uphold a status quo they had little part in creating. Nevertheless, the Democratic rank and file clearly desires a continuation of the direction the party is currently taking, but that path also appears to lead to ever steeper losses in any election that isn't held in a Presidential year at the state level.

Something has to give eventually.

There is a 99% chance the democrats are taking back the senate in 2016 at this point. The odds of republicans keeping it is EXACTLY the same odds as hillary and biden being jointly wiped out by a rogue strain of the ebola virus, and the democrats being forced to run Lincoln Chafee.
 
The ridiculous backlash against Obama is mostly to blame for setting things up, but we're now so removed from that point that I'm not sure him leaving office is going to change much. Especially if we're just swapping in Hillary who the right hates equally venomously. I mean, all a Republican candidate had to do was decry that Obama was ruining America and they would fight to put a stop to it, boom, easy path to victory; "Screw Obama, Vote for me to help stop him!" Such a simple and effective strategy that created a tidal wave.

Obviously the hope is that you swing what you can back to Dems in 2016, take some dramatic political action to campaign on and then batten down the hatches as the 2018 anti-Hillary wave begins to surge.
 

kess

Member
Sounds morbid, but we need to wait a good twenty years before the majority of the baby boomers are dead. I still don't know if anything will change in the Deep South and Midwest, demographically speaking, but if the Dems can make TX, AZ, and GA purple, and NC and VA solid blue, then the future looks bright.

Waiting for boomers to die isn't going to change much, the older Gen X demographic that grew up with Reagan is voting nearly as conservative, and almost certainly sending more right wing politicans to office than the generation before it.
 
It's long-established that people get more conservative as they get older. Heck, I've thought about it.

Isn't it just that they get relatively more conservative?

I mean, Germaine Greer was liberal for her day, but is pretty close to the far right now and I don't think her opinions have changed much.
 
Waiting for boomers to die isn't going to change much, the older Gen X demographic that grew up with Reagan is voting nearly as conservative, and almost certainly sending more right wing politicans to office than the generation before it.

It's long-established that people get more conservative as they get older. Heck, I've thought about it.

Isn't it just that they get relatively more conservative?

I mean, Germaine Greer was liberal for her day, but is pretty close to the far right now and I don't think her opinions have changed much.

"The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out, the conservative adopts them." -Mark Twain
 

Makai

Member
Isn't it just that they get relatively more conservative?

I mean, Germaine Greer was liberal for her day, but is pretty close to the far right now and I don't think her opinions have changed much.
You mean relative to everyone else? Sure, that happens, too. But I recall a case study of people becoming more supportive of neoliberalism as they grew older and started to accumulate wealth. Home-ownership was another one that tipped people. The professor concluded this partly explains Bush's home-ownership push - get 'em a home and they'll vote to protect it.
 
No they don't.

Politics just tend to move left over time. Moral arc of the universe and whatnot.

I dunno man. Owning a house and stuff kinda brings taxes into forefront, as it did for me. But when I was a college student or when living in an apartment, I never would have worried about stuff like that.
 
There was a study, that's probably been posted before, that basically showed that whatever impressions and party identity affiliations people develop during their formative years tends to stick.

Also, it's been posted before, but "young people" are pretty inconsistently "liberal" really. They don't really want to be taxed, but want a lot of services. Basically young people are dumb.

Part of that is probably also because there's something of a conflict between social identity politics and some economically leftist political planks, e.g. unions vs immigration.
I don't think the Democratic base is going to respond well to this. But we'll see I guess.

This continues to solidify the idea posited earlier by myself and others, I think. His staff - who have largely run failed campaigns - are probably more thirsty for the WH and pushing this more than he is. And they're more willing to do so by any means necessary.
 
It's long-established that people get more conservative as they get older. Heck, I've thought about it.

I'm pretty sure this is incorrect assumption. The Greatest Generation that swept FDR into office for four terms, for example, voted Democratic/liberal for their entire lives.
While Silents, I think, have always been rather conservative.

There was a study, that's probably been posted before, that basically showed that whatever impressions and party identity affiliations people develop during their formative years tends to stick.
.

KrdYjtR.jpg
 

NeoXChaos

Member
There was a study, that's probably been posted before, that basically showed that whatever impressions and party identity affiliations people develop during their formative years tends to stick.

Also, it's been posted before, but "young people" are pretty inconsistently "liberal" really. They don't really want to be taxed, but want a lot of services. Basically young people are dumb.

Part of that is probably also because there's something of a conflict between social identity politics and some economically leftist political planks, e.g. unions vs immigration.

I don't think the Democratic base is going to respond well to this. But we'll see I guess.

This continues to solidify the idea posited earlier by myself and others, I think. His staff - who have largely run failed campaigns - are probably more thirsty for the WH and pushing this more than he is. And they're more willing to do so by any means necessary.

If you are on the side of Bernie you have everything to gain and nothing to lose or everything to lose and nothing to gain by attacking Hillary.

He also has another problem:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/questio...fying-for-first-democratic-primary-1446674092
 
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