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'17 Specials & '18 Midterms Thread

Explains palma too. Maybe the Russians that hacked BobStack got to him too. The real palma is counting beans and counting cards.
 
myDeaconmyhand said:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/el...ty-seeks-oust-three-progressive-women-n888666

Good grief. Rhode Island State Democratic party endorses 3 conservative primary challengers to progressive INCUMBENTS. Icing on the fucking cake, the incumbents are women, and the challengers are all pro-life men - one with ties to the alt-right, and one who was a registered Republican for the last 10 years.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics...arty-may-have-endorsed-a-trump-supporter.html
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That is bad
 
Maybe Rhode Island Progressives will join the party machine and change it instead of believing they’re too good for it.
 
DeacWatcher said:
That’s interesting as I thought it was closer than that.
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It is. Scott has been up by a few points in most of the polls, though a couple have had Nelson up by a few. That looks like a bit of an outlier to me. AZ and NV are increasingly looking like pick-ups, but FL, MO and IN are looking like slightly uphill battles at this point.

FWIW, I saw a piece on Tester a week or so ago and was thinking the whole time why isn't this guy being mentioned for a 2020 run. He's Bullock with a personality. Dude would crush Trump or whoever the Pubs ran.
 
i can't tell if this poll is likely voters or just generic whoever picked up the phone. big difference. clicked on the link and it provides no clarity. As we get closer to the fall the "likely voters" polling will be interesting. Dems need to GOTV if they want to make this a wave election.
 
I’d be shocked if that poll was anywhere near accurate. There was a poll last week that showed Scott up with Puerto Rican voters. Scott has far more name recognition than Nelson.
 
Deacon923 said:
Dems need to GOTV if they want to make this a wave election.
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GOTV will be huge, and we cannot rely on the Democratic party to get it done. We're up against gerrymandering, voter disenfranchisement, an absurd amount of money, and a terrible Senate map. All of us that want Dems to win have to step up.

The most obvious way is by volunteering for a campaign in your own district. Boring congressional campaign? Check to see if the state or local level races are interesting. (Most states have info on who has filed to run on their state websites.)

Still no? Find the nearest race where you can possibly help flip a seat at Swing Left. Check Sister District, flippable, and Run for Something for state level races nearby. Volunteer with Let America Vote or Spread the Vote. Go to Mobilize America to find volunteer opportunities near you.

There is also technology (or old-fashioned writing to voters) that allows people to volunteer from anywhere. If there is a candidate that is not close by but you love the campaign, reach out to see if they have any opportunities to volunteer remotely.

Complacency had a large part in getting us into this mess, and it will take hard work to get us out.

(That was a general rant, not specifically directed at you, 923.)
 
avalon said:
GOTV will be huge, and we cannot rely on the Democratic party to get it done. We're up against gerrymandering, voter disenfranchisement, an absurd amount of money, and a terrible Senate map. All of us that want Dems to win have to step up.

The most obvious way is by volunteering for a campaign in your own district. Boring congressional campaign? Check to see if the state or local level races are interesting. (Most states have info on who has filed to run on their state websites.)

Still no? Find the nearest race where you can possibly help flip a seat at Swing Left. Check Sister District, flippable, and Run for Something for state level races nearby. Volunteer with Let America Vote or Spread the Vote. Go to Mobilize America to find volunteer opportunities near you.

There is also technology (or old-fashioned writing to voters) that allows people to volunteer from anywhere. If there is a candidate that is not close by but you love the campaign, reach out to see if they have any opportunities to volunteer remotely.

Complacency had a large part in getting us into this mess, and it will take hard work to get us out.

(That was a general rant, not specifically directed at you, 923.)
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Great post. Getting people out to vote is arguably the biggest thing any of us can do to impact this election. The ROI of your time on GOTV activities is far greater than the ROI of trying to enlighten Trump rubes on the error of their ways.
 
 
This Is No Time for Liberal Despair


Basically, the SC is lost for a good while. The fight to gain power (to do good and inhibit bad) is in organizing and winning elections. At all levels. By focusing on issues where they enjoy the preferred policies. Beginning with these upcoming midterms.



Behind paywall so I’ll quote...

The fight over President Trump’s second Supreme Court nominee is going to feel frustrating for Democrats. Not long after stealing one Supreme Court seat, Republicans will have a chance to fill a second and move the court further to the right.

Yet the confirmation process could still turn out to be productive for Democrats — or it could become the worst of all worlds, both frustrating and damaging. The key now for the party and its voters is to understand the difference between those outcomes. Here’s a three-step guide to doing so.

Step one: Be realistic.

Trump’s nominee is overwhelmingly likely to be confirmed regardless of what actions Democrats take. Republicans hold the Senate majority, and every Republican senator — yes, including Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski — has a history of voting for judges like those Trump is considering. Collins and Murkowski have a script: They make centrist-sounding statements, to shore up their images, and then vote aye.

So Democrats should go into the confirmation debate recognizing that it is almost certainly unwinnable. It will not depend on how hard Democratic leaders fight or which tactics they choose, alluring as that fantasy may be. In these polarized times, court nominations unite political parties, even more than individual issues, like, say, health care.

Shortly after Justice Anthony Kennedy retired, Senator Elizabeth Warren called the coming nomination “the fight of our lives.” It is not. The great political fights are still ahead. When a new justice is sworn in this fall, Democrats should not declare generational defeat or turn on each other.

Step two: Don’t lose hope.

The Harvard political scientist Theda Skocpol has spent decades studying political power and change, from the Civil War to the Tea Party and anti-Trump resistance. She believes that Kennedy’s retirement can be a clarifying moment for American liberals.

Over the last half-century, conservatives have put more energy into building a movement — creating ideological institutions, grooming judges and, perhaps above all, winning local, state and congressional elections. Democrats have emphasized higher-profile politics, like the presidency and landmark court cases. Democrats can’t afford to do so anymore.

For years to come, the Supreme Court is likely to have a very conservative majority. But remember that the modern conservative movement began when the court seemed implacably liberal, under Chief Justice Earl Warren in the 1950s and ’60s. “Conservatives were facing a Washington complex that horrified them,” Skocpol told me, “so they built from the bottom up.”

Remember, too, the limits of the court’s power. On some big issues, the court is not imposing right-wing policies on the entire country. It is instead refusing to ban state-based right-wing policies — like abortion restrictions and partisan gerrymandering — that progressives consider unconstitutional. (And, by the way, the court was already doing so with Kennedy.)

Progressives can still win many of these issues. They simply will have to do so in a small-d democratic way, by winning elections — as they’ve begun to do lately. If Democrats win more governorships and state legislatures, they can keep Republicans from drawing ridiculous congressional maps and infringing on African-Americans’ voting rights — among many other things. If Democrats retake Congress this fall, they can halt the Republican legislative agenda and gain subpoena power.

I realize that a post-Kennedy Supreme Court may one day start throwing out progressive legislation, as happened in the early 20th century. But that’s a fight for another day. Most experts I’ve talked to — scholars and people in politics — believe that elected politicians can prevail in a long-term struggle with unelected judges. Regardless, until Democrats win more elections, it’s a hypothetical concern. “The potential center-left majority in this country — and it’s very real — has to actually organize and elect people to office,” Skocpol says.

Step three: Know your strengths.

Some Democrats will be tempted to turn the next two months into a national conversation about abortion, affirmative action and other social issues that inspire liberal passion. That would be a mistake. Those are not the best issues for Democrats during a midterm campaign.

The best issues are those on which Democrats hold a decisive advantage in public opinion. Health insurance is a good example. So are taxation, corporate power and the Trump administration’s corruption. All of these issues can be grist for a nominee’s Senate hearing.

I’m not suggesting that Democratic senators ignore social issues. They just shouldn’t fool themselves into thinking that the country is further to the left than it is. For instance, about two-thirds of Americans believe abortion should be illegal at least sometimes, according to Gallup, and many of the strongest opponents base their votes on the issue. That’s why Republicans are happy to have these arguments.

Nothing in American politics matters more right now than the outcome of the midterms. It is the difference between emboldening Trump and starting to hold him accountable. It really may be “the fight of our lives.” And unlike the confirmation battle, the midterms remain up for grabs. In the coming weeks, Democrats will be talking about the Supreme Court, but they should be thinking about the midterms.
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^ True. If Democrats don't take at least the house in November, the administration's authoritarian tendencies will be greatly reinforced and Republicans in Congress even less likely to even attempt to exercise oversight than they are now. That does not leave the country in a very good place going into 2020, the census, redistricting, etc.
 
Another positive of the Progressive/DSA agenda is the focus on economic issues with clear goals. All these young women running on D tickets are obviously pro-choice but they’re running on basic economic issues.
 
Best to never ever play defense. DSA types understand this, loser centrists Dems are always pleading for, like, David Brooks to fuck them or something. It's undignified.
 
I'm prepared to be annoyed by this race through November, not least of which because both sides are airing TV ads across the Philadelphia area already.

PA-01: Fitzpatrick Moves from Toss Up to Lean Republican

Plenty of DC Democrats have expressed excitement about Wallace's potential to spend whatever it takes to win, especially in the expensive Philadelphia market. In the primary, he loaned his campaign $2.5 million and crushed 32-year old Navy veteran Rachel Reddick on the airwaves, winning 57 percent to 36 percent. Reddick only raised $363,000 and was shunned by most party strategists, and Wallace attacked her for being a registered Republican in the past.

But Reddick might have made a much stronger general election nominee. Reddick had also only recently moved back to the district. However, her profile as a young, female JAG corps officer could have made her more difficult to attack as a carpetbagger (after all, Fitzpatrick, a former FBI agent, moved back from California to run for his brother's seat). And, her status as a former Republican might have made her more appealing beyond the Democratic base.
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