Support NeoGAF

[Pixieking]

How Democrats can win again

Chris Cillizza interviewing Guy Cecil. Worth reading it all (it's not overly long). Here's an excerpt:

FIX: You advocate for a central focus on redistricting in 2020 as key to reversing the party’s fortunes at the local level. Republicans have long funded these sorts of efforts. Democrats haven’t. Why? And how do you change that?

Cecil: I don’t know why more wasn’t done in years past, but I do know our party has become too focused on the presidential race, to the detriment on local and state races. While most of my experience has been in Senate races that benefit from getting attention, I have seen the other committees struggle to get the attention they need.

 

[Sirpopopop]

Re: The Politico Article -

So did Trump have a GOTV operation in Michigan or did he just do rallies?

That's the question to ask here... from what I remember, Trump didn't have much of a GOTV operation. Heck, he had a 12 year old kid running one of his offices in Colorado.

It's about the message: Trump's message was plain as day: Run to the left on Trade. Run to racism on Social Issues. That's a hard combination to beat. That's a winning formula in the United States.

I know people like MIMIC and Plinko like to think it comes down to the fact that Hillary was a terrible worthless candidate, but that's not the case. Trump got more votes than any other Republican candidate in history. You need to think on that before you put this all on Hillary.

 

[Wilsongt]

Re: The Politico Article -

So did Trump have a GOTV operation in Michigan or did he just do rallies?

That's the question to ask here... from what I remember, Trump didn't have much of a GOTV operation. Heck, he had a 12 year old kid running one of his offices in Colorado.

It's about the message: Trump's message was plain as day: Run to the left on Trade. Run to racism on Social Issues. That's a hard combination to beat. That's a winning formula in the United States.

I know people like MIMIC and Plinko like to think it comes down to the fact that Hillary was a terrible worthless candidate, but that's not the case. Trump got more votes than any other Republican candidate in history. You need to think on that before you put this all on Hillary.

And Hillary almost got as much as Obama.

 

[Bonen no Max'd]

Re: The Politico Article -

So did Trump have a GOTV operation in Michigan or did he just do rallies?

That's the question to ask here... from what I remember, Trump didn't have much of a GOTV operation. Heck, he had a 12 year old kid running one of his offices in Colorado.

It's about the message: Trump's message was plain as day: Run to the left on Trade. Run to racism on Social Issues. That's a hard combination to beat. That's a winning formula in the United States.

I know people like MIMIC and Plinko like to think it comes down to the fact that Hillary was a terrible worthless candidate, but that's not the case. Trump got more votes than any other Republican candidate in history. You need to think on that before you put this all on Hillary.

Using raw votes is a bad way of looking at Trump's success because he campaigned in the largest electorate in the US. Trump has the lowest success margin of the popular vote of any winner and would have lost with 80k votes redistributed to three states, one of which he probably won because of vote ID law.

It's important to look at Trump's strengths as a candidate but he narrowly won an election where he had the advantages of our terrible media and two intelligence apparatuses working to get him elected, combined with Hillary's notable flaws as a candidate.

 

[Hellwarden]

Listen, but never too hard.

 

[Sirpopopop]

Using raw votes is a bad way of looking at Trump's success because he campaigned in the largest electorate in the US. Trump has the lowest success margin of the popular vote of any winner and would have lost with 80k votes redistributed to three states, one of which he probably won because of vote ID law.

Maybe it was the largest electorate in history in part because he helped expand the pool of voters? One only needs to look at the Time article for evidence of that.

It's important to look at Trump's strengths as a candidate but he narrowly won an election where he had the advantages of our terrible media and two intelligence apparatuses working to get him elected, combined with Hillary's notable flaws as a candidate.

Any Democratic candidate other than Obama has had notable flaws, or the media successfully scared the Democratic electorate into thinking they had significant flaws. Did John Kerry really have any appreciable flaws that should have precluded him from being elected? No.

Yet, by the end of the election he was pretty tarred & feathered by the Swiftboat scandal. Democrats fall in love. They don't fall in line. They need to fall in line. They need to understand that 92% is better than 28%. That a compromise is acceptable.

 

[balladofwindfishes]

How did candidate Obama become such a media darling, anyway?

Any Democratic candidate other than Obama has had notable flaws, or the media successfully scared the Democratic electorate into thinking they had significant flaws. Did John Kerry really have any appreciable flaws that should have precluded him from being elected? No.

Yet, by the end of the election he was pretty tarred & feathered by the Swiftboat scandal. Democrats fall in love. They don't fall in line. They need to fall in line. They need to understand that 92% is better than 28%. That a compromise is acceptable.

His judgment of character for his VP pick was... bad. That could have ended ugly had he actually been president when that went down.

 

[jonjonaug]

Re: The Politico Article -

So did Trump have a GOTV operation in Michigan or did he just do rallies?

That's the question to ask here... from what I remember, Trump didn't have much of a GOTV operation. Heck, he had a 12 year old kid running one of his offices in Colorado.

It's about the message: Trump's message was plain as day: Run to the left on Trade. Run to racism on Social Issues. That's a hard combination to beat. That's a winning formula in the United States.

I know people like MIMIC and Plinko like to think it comes down to the fact that Hillary was a terrible worthless candidate, but that's not the case. Trump got more votes than any other Republican candidate in history. You need to think on that before you put this all on Hillary.

To my understanding: Trump didn't have a strong GOTV operation, but the RNC had a pretty good one. Clinton's campaign also neglected GOTV in areas where they had a decently strong lead going into mid-October, which bit them in the ass after the Comey letter.

 

[Wilsongt]

*rolls eyes*

An executive order issued by Louisiana's governor that was aimed at protecting the rights of LGBT people in state government was thrown out Wednesday by a judge who said the governor exceeded his authority.

State District Judge Todd Hernandez ruled that Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards' anti-discrimination order is unconstitutional because it seeks to create or expand state law. The order prohibited discrimination in government and state contracts based on sexual orientation and gender identity.


The decision delivered a significant victory to Republican Attorney General Jeff Landry, who filed the lawsuit challenging the LGBT-rights order. Landry praised the ruling and said his challenge was aimed at "upholding the checks and balances on executive authority as established in our state constitution."

Edwards said he plans to appeal. He said his order, which contains an exception for contractors that are religious organizations, is a statement that Louisiana doesn't discriminate.

"With great respect for the role of the Louisiana Legislature, we continue to believe that discrimination is not a Louisiana value and that we are best served as a state when employment decisions are based solely on an individual's qualifications and job performance," the governor said in a statement.

Landry said the order tried to establish a new protected class of people that doesn't exist in law and that lawmakers refused to add. He accused the governor of executive overreach.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/louisiana-governors-lgbt-rights-order-thrown-judge-44191156

 

[Sirpopopop]

To my understanding: Trump didn't have a strong GOTV operation, but the RNC had a pretty good one. Clinton's campaign also neglected GOTV in areas where they had a decently strong lead going into mid-October, which bit them in the ass after the Comey letter.

It seems to that judging by this article - the Clinton campaign had an overwhelming advantage over the RNC & Trump combined here when it came to GOTV:

http://thehill.com/campaign/302231-clinton-holds-huge-ground-game-advantage-over-team-trump

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/201...started-fall-5-1-paid-staff-advantage-n661656

So, I'm guessing that the RNC had enough people there that they were able to be good enough. The Democrats, on the other hand, may have overspent on the ground game operation.

 

[Plinko]

Re: The Politico Article -

So did Trump have a GOTV operation in Michigan or did he just do rallies?

That's the question to ask here... from what I remember, Trump didn't have much of a GOTV operation. Heck, he had a 12 year old kid running one of his offices in Colorado.

It's about the message: Trump's message was plain as day: Run to the left on Trade. Run to racism on Social Issues. That's a hard combination to beat. That's a winning formula in the United States.

I know people like MIMIC and Plinko like to think it comes down to the fact that Hillary was a terrible worthless candidate, but that's not the case. Trump got more votes than any other Republican candidate in history. You need to think on that before you put this all on Hillary.

Calling me out yet again with words I didn't say when I haven't talked about you at all. Are you an elected republican?

I never said she was a "terrible worthless" candidate. She wasn't a good candidate, and there were better choices. Her baggage opened the door for the perfect storm of attacks, including governmental interference that 99.9% certainly doesn't happen with another person.

Terrible choice? Yes. Terrible person? Absolutely not.

 

[Kusagari]

The only true evidence I've seen of Trump turning out significant amounts of new/lapsed voters is Florida. Nothing can explain his abnormal surge in the Panhandle.

Maybe you can argue PA as well.

In MI and WI he didn't even come close to Obama 12 numbers.

 

[Plinko]

The only true evidence I've seen of Trump turning out significant amounts of new/lapsed voters is Florida. Nothing can explain his abnormal surge in the Panhandle.

Maybe you can argue PA as well.

In MI and WI he didn't even come close to Obama 12 numbers.

Right, which speaks much more to depressed motivation of democratic voters due to the candidate. We know for a fact this was true in the AA community.

I still wonder how much Hillary's constant "lead" in polling led to voter apathy and the feeling that they didn't need to vote.

Still boggled my mind that even after they totally botched the Michigan ingredients in the primary, they still fell for the exact same thing. You have to make sure the state is secure. Just awful stuff from the campaign runners.

 

[Sirpopopop]

Calling me out yet again with words I didn't say when I haven't talked about you at all. Are you an elected republican?

I never said she was a "terrible worthless" candidate. She wasn't a good candidate, and there were better choices. Her baggage opened the door for the perfect storm of attacks, including governmental interference that 99.9% certainly doesn't happen with another person.

Terrible choice? Yes. Terrible person? Absolutely not.

I was using that as an expression of your general opinion of her as a candidate. You are on record in this thread as saying she was a terrible candidate:

I wouldn't freak out about Minnesota. I think that speaks more to Hillary being a terrible candidate than the state turning.

I've also never found the answers you said you posted in response to me and a few others calling you out on your about face pre-election to post-election. Can you please link me to them?

 

[thepotatoman]

Bernie Sanders Shows A Trump Voter How They Actually See Eye To Eye http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-town-hall_us_5850445de4b0bd9c3dff2d91

And yet she voted for Trump. I guess this is what a complete lack of critical thinking skills has done to a large portion of the adult population. This is so depressing yet infuriating at the same time. How can you be so fucking stupid?

Look at what the political conversation is right now. It's all about russian hacks, conflicts of interest, and intelegence breifing schedules. As important as those things may be, how do any of them affect that person as an individual?

They really only affect people in a theoretical abstract, but they get so much focus that stuff that actually do directly affect people gets buried like what we should actually do about entitlements. I can totally see why some people don't know the republican and democrat position on it given how politics has been treated as of late.

 

[Aaron Strife]

How did candidate Obama become such a media darling, anyway?



His judgment of character for his VP pick was... bad. That could have ended ugly had he actually been president when that went down.

In fairness, not really his judgment - my understanding is he wanted to pick Dick Gephardt, but his advisers pushed him towards Edwards who was seen as the more liberal candidate of the primary season.

 

[teiresias]

It's about the message: Trump's message was plain as day: Run to the left on Trade. Run to racism on Social Issues. That's a hard combination to beat. That's a winning formula in the United States.

I also think this message has a lifespan of one election when the candidate running on it comes into power with a single party government. This is particularly true if they go whole hog extreme and actually kill ACA and push forward on Medicaid and SS changes. At the very least it won't resonate as well with those that aren't hardcore deplorable.

Given their behavior it may not even have a lifespan up to the midterms.

 

[Rebel Leader]

Elon musk is now a trump advisor!?!???

Why elon?

 

[studyguy]

I mean if you have a change to dissuade Trump from blowing up our climate or economy then you might as well give it a go. Again I have little faith in much of what's going down but anything to take the edge off Trump's nutjob cabinet.

 

[B-Dubs]

How did candidate Obama become such a media darling, anyway?

He was charismatic as balls. The press hung off his every word like he was feeding them the purest cocaine from god's own nipples.

In short, they fell in love.

 

[Randolph Freelander]

NC GOP is at it again.

https://twitter.com/Taniel/status/809132174461009920
https://twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/809135013161799680

 

[shinra-bansho]

The President being briefed on intelligence about threats seems pretty consequential.
http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB116/

When Paul Ryan actually passes his gutting of Medicare I'm sure the stories will be about that.

It's really, really weird how okay people are with Russia intervening in a US election to influence the outcome.

 

[Foffy]

Elon musk is now a trump advisor!?!???

Why elon?

Many reasons.

First, he's probably the guy being hit hardest by the climate change denying cult of the fossil fuel industry. Having bed buddies with Trump helps having a smart man at the table and a way to refute these interests.

Second, and most importantly, Musk is the most open figure in Silicon Valley about the necessity of a basic income via automation, and Musk is making many services to automate the fuck out of human labor with driverless cars and factories designed to never employ people.

He's probably our best asset to help fight conservative dogma as society gets fucking ruptured by the coming automation boom.

 

[Abinash117]

Elon musk is now a trump advisor!?!???

Why elon?

I assume it like that of Bill Gates and others are trying to persuade Trump and influence him in a way to sway him towards a particular agenda like climate change.

 

[Wilsongt]

NC GOP is at it again.

https://twitter.com/Taniel/status/809132174461009920
https://twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/809135013161799680

"Fuck the Democrats. We out. *drops mic*"

 

[avaya]

NC GOP is at it again.

https://twitter.com/Taniel/status/809132174461009920
https://twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/809135013161799680

"both sides"

 

[Plinko]

I was using that as an expression of your general opinion of her as a candidate. You are on record in this thread as saying she was a terrible candidate:



I've also never found the answers you said you posted in response to me and a few others calling you out on your about face pre-election to post-election. Can you please link me to them?

Working, so I don't have time now. Thought I linked to it before, but I could be mistaken.

As to the topic at hand, I still stand by that. She was not a good candidate because she (or, to be fair, her advisors) ran the worst possible campaign for the time.

 

[TheLaughingStock]

Look at what the political conversation is right now. It's all about russian hacks, conflicts of interest, and intelegence breifing schedules. As important as those things may be, how do any of them affect that person as an individual?

They really only affect people in a theoretical abstract, but they get so much focus that stuff that actually do directly affect people gets buried like what we should actually do about entitlements. I can totally see why some people don't know the republican and democrat position on it given how politics has been treated as of late.

What should we do about entitlements? Those things you mentioned are much bigger deals. I know some folks in Washington and their gullible followers have a fetish about privatisation and gutting programs that the average joe likes...but people don't talk about that stuff or deficit reduction nearly as much as they used to. One of the few good things to come out of this latest national race. I personally thank Hillary, Don, and Mr. Sanders for changing the conversation to something less ridiculous.

 

[Aaron Strife]

"both sides"

To be fair, Democrats want to make voting easy for everyone. Clearly just a radical ideological difference and not indication of corruption on the GOP side of things.

 

[soul creator]

Recent YouGov/Economist poll from December 10-13

Some of the things I found interesting to note, though others are more than welcome to add their own spin to counter mine

-hardly anyone thinks the country is going in the right direction
-Almost half of the people polled have no opinion on Steve Bannon (roughly the same percentage even when looking at individual demographic groups)
-The vast majority of people (pretty much across all demographics) only have "some" or "very little" confidence in the CIA
-Health Care/Economy/Social Security/Medicare are the most important issues, pretty much across all demographics.
-Clinton's favorability (very + somewhat) among black people is 67%. Sanders is 64%. In the same demographic, Sanders beats her in "very favorable" by 6%, and Clinton beats him in "very unfavorable" by 7%
-Obama is still popular, of course
-Clinton voters dislike Trump waaay more than Trump voters dislike Obama. Still majorities in both cases though. Wasn't able to find a "likeability" rating for Trump voters towards Clinton, but Trump voters definitely find Clinton "unfavorable" at a huge percentage though.
-Very few people, across all demographics, think they're better off financially than a year ago. Most feel things are the same, or worse off
-Very few people, across all demographics, are "unhappy" with their current job. They're mostly either happy or ambivalent. But...most people think it would be very or somewhat hard to find a new job that pays the same if they lose the one they have.

Spoiler

Economic anxiety?

Anyhoo, thought this was interesting to see where "common sense" lines up with some poll numbers and where it doesn't.

 

[thepotatoman]

What should we do about entitlements? Those things you mentioned are much bigger deals. I know some folks in Washington and their gullible followers have a fetish about privatisation and gutting programs that the average joe likes...but people don't talk about that stuff or deficit reduction nearly as much as they used to. One of the few good things to come out of this latest national race. I personally thank Hillary, Don, and Mr. Sanders for changing the conversation to something less ridiculous.

Entitlement reform was the topic that Sanders used to connect with the trump voter in the video i was responding to. I don't see why it's ridiculous to talk about people on the right that want to cut it.

 

[Abinash117]

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/republicans-trump-obamacare-tax-cuts-232633


Basically the GOP is going to focus on tax cuts and healthcare reform for the first 9 months. Also Trump is going to let Raul Ryan deal with tax cuts and repealing ACA .

I has been my view depending on how be the tax cuts and eventually cuts in some programs, that it might cause the infrastructure bill to not happen anytime soon or at all.

 

[Oblivion]

So...I just found out that we got slaughtered in the LA senate special election.

Yup, 2018 is looking REAL good...

 

[Kusagari]

So going off these recent post election polls, Bernie seems to basically be the most popular politician in the country.

 

[Chumley]

Putin directly tied to election hacks https://twitter.com/jesserodriguez/status/809179767966748672

 

[balladofwindfishes]

So...I just found out that we got slaughtered in the LA senate special election.

Yup, 2018 is looking REAL good...

We had no chance at all of even getting close to winning that election

 

[shinra-bansho]

Polling the favourability of losers doesn't seem particularly useful.

 

[Black Mamba]

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/republicans-trump-obamacare-tax-cuts-232633


Basically the GOP is going to focus on tax cuts and healthcare reform for the first 9 months. Also Trump is going to let Raul Ryan deal with tax cuts and repealing ACA .

I has been my view depending on how be the tax cuts and eventually cuts in some programs, that it might cause the infrastructure bill to not happen anytime soon or at all.

yeah no shit, i've been saying from day 1 paul ryan is the de facto domestic president.

Welcome to Kansas, everyone.

 

[Oblivion]

We had no chance at all of even getting close to winning that election

We won the governorship last year.

 

[balladofwindfishes]

We won the governorship last year.

And we lost the presidency and the senate this year. There was no way this was a winnable election.

 

[Totakeke]

Recent YouGov/Economist poll from December 10-13

I'd like to think that just means people don't pay attention to politics in general, otherwise how the hell do blacks, hispanics, and others have the same level or better confidence in the direction of the country? And older people are actually the most pessimistic? lol

Edit: Okay, they actually break it down into a lot more detail afterwards.

 

[Wilsongt]

This year has been so horrible I forgot we had the Olympics this year and this was also the year of the super, super white Oscars.

 

[Aaron Strife]

We won the governorship last year.

The out party in red/blue states always has a better chance at state/local races than in federal.

Like, the GOP isn't going to compete for the Maryland Senate race anytime soon.

 

[Suikoguy]

The President being briefed on intelligence about threats seems pretty consequential.
http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB116/

When Paul Ryan actually passes his gutting of Medicare I'm sure the stories will be about that.

It's really, really weird how okay people are with Russia intervening in a US election to influence the outcome.

And it's people on both the Right AND particularly ornery people on the Left that's particularly disturbing.

 

[DynamicG]

We won the governorship last year.

That win was not based on a democratic wave of any sort. It was because the republican running was deeply unpopular. Campbell was also not a popular candidate who had several failed runs in the past.

 

[Totakeke]

Damn millenials.

Also this is not as bad as I expected.

 

[shinra-bansho]

I'd like to think that just means people don't pay attention to politics in general, otherwise how the hell do blacks, hispanics, and others have the same level or better confidence in the direction of the country? And older people are actually the most pessimistic? lol

Edit: Okay, they actually break it down into a lot more detail afterwards.

I don't know about this particular poll and the post Trump world, but it's been a trend for a while of black and Hispanic optimism and white pessimism.
http://www.apnorc.org/news-media/Pages/News+Media/blacks-hispanics-more-optimistic-than-whites.aspx

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics...mism-of-african-americans-and-latinos/401054/

Young black men are being slain by police officers, seemingly on a weekly basis, leading to protests in cities from Ferguson to Baltimore and an uncomfortable national debate over the extent of racial progress. The unemployment rate for African Americans remains nearly twice as high as for white Americans and only recently dipped below 10 percent. Latinos have seen their push for immigration reform stymied in both Congress and the courts, and they remain targets of choice for prominent Republicans.

Yet a recent poll finds that for all of the challenges they face, African Americans and Latinos are far more likely to be optimistic than their white counterparts, both about their personal station in life and the future of the country more broadly. The poll of nearly 2,000 adults was conducted in mid-June by Penn Schoen Berland for The Atlantic and the Aspen Institute. The findings overall suggest that the concept of The Dream is in trouble: Seventy-five percent of respondents said The Dream was “suffering,” while just one-quarter said it was “alive and well.” Break down the results by age and race, however, and the more startling finding is that in the age of Obama, white Americans—and in particular those under 30 or nearing retirement age—have all but given up on the American Dream. More than four out of five younger whites, and more than four out of five respondents between the ages of 51 and 64 said The Dream is suffering.


By contrast, 43 percent of African Americans and 36 percent of Latinos said The Dream is alive and well. The same two groups, along with Asian Americans, were also more likely to say that The Dream was still achievable for those who are willing to work for it, and they reported being more optimistic than white Americans about their own future. When it came to the state of the country, barely one in four whites believe the nation is on the right track, while nearly two-thirds of African Americans do. And the poll found a similar gap in perceptions about the country’s future: Less than half of white respondents said America’s “best days” were ahead of it, while fully 80 percent of African Americans said they were.

 

[Totakeke]

So going off these recent post election polls, Bernie seems to basically be the most popular politician in the country.

Barack Obama

Bernie Sanders

I don't know how this translates to the other favorability ratings we've seen. Like Obama is very favorable among Democrats, but also very unfavorable among Republicans. Independents are mostly a wash.

 

[Chumley]

Brian Stelter is only 31.

My mind was blown. Always thought he was in his 40's.

WHAT

Wow. Shaving his head would probably help but still god damn.

 

[Plinko]

Barack Obama

Bernie Sanders

I don't know how this translates to the other favorability ratings we've seen. Like Obama is very favorable among Democrats, but also very unfavorable among Republicans. Independents are mostly a wash.

Looks like Sanders has the ability to cross party lines a bit better than Obama. My guess is there is something else at play here (Spoiler alert: Bernie is white).