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'17 Specials & '18 Midterms Thread

avalon said:
What we learned from the Virginia primary

Two stories: (1) high turnout for the Dems; (2) establishment Republican expected to win by 20 pts won a surprisingly narrow race against an ardent Trump supporter who referred to his opponent as a "cuckservative."

Any insight into the races from our VA posters?
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Certainly a much higher Dem turnout than Pub turnout. Low Pub turnout I believe explains why Trump clone Corey Stewart almost won the Pub nomination - his followers are fewer but more fanatic.

Another take is, though VA is not traditionally a populist state, populism did surprisingly well in a few races, though not for Periello running for governor. First, Stewart came withing a whisker of being the Pub nominee for governor - extremely unexpected result - the Dem race was supposed to be nip and tuck and totally wasn't. Second, locally here in central VA, we had a couple of not really close, but not really blowout races that should have been extreme blowouts. My local delegate is David Toscano, who is well respected locally and in Richmond, and who is often unopposed or only has nominal opposition in both the primary and general. But he only won 2/3 of the vote against a totally unknown newcomer from the left wing of the party. And we also had a local commonwealth attorney race that pitted a liberal and current deputy CA against an antifa type zealot who currently has A&B charges pending against him and who has never done criminal law. The deputy CA won, but like Toscano, only with like 2/3 of the vote. I'm thinking that the current toxic local political climate with confederate statues, white nationalists, the Klan and antifas dominating local news maybe made those 2 races closer than they should have been on paper.
 
Let me add something about the Dem governor's race. Though Periello was supported by Bernie, I believe that was mostly because Tom was the insurgent and late dark horse candidate. He and Northam really had few current policy differences. And with the General Assembly solidly in Pub hands, it's not like our Dem governor can do much anyway. Basically, his job is to veto bad shite from the Pubs and not get embroiled in a scandal. I've been pleasantly surprised that McAuliffe has so far successfully avoided scandals, but would expect that out of both Northam and Periello. But I think Tom went about this the wrong way politically. Herring, our AG, decided to stay out of Northam's way and run for AG again and would then run for governor the following time. The Lt Gov position was vacant with 3 relative unknowns running for that. Tom's better strategy would have been to become Lt Gov, then AG with Herring as governor and then run for governor. It wasn't good party politics to make Northam waste a lot of money in a primary. And I don't know that Bernie's endorsement helped. On the 1 hand, it probably helped get a few Bernie supporters out to the polls who may not have otherwise voted or cared. On the other, it further pissed off the party establishment types to the point where most all of the party regulars I know around here voted for Ralph, even though Tom is from Cville and extremely well liked around these parts. And lastly, I'm not sure why Bernie took such an interest in the VA race. There was next to no difference between Ralph and Tom politically, and even though Tom was the insurgent, he's also a conservative Catholic who I believe is against abortion personally though would support abortion rights publically. Tom's a cool and very smart guy - has done prosecutions or justice development stuff in Africa, former Yugoslavia and Afghanistan. I just think he made a strategic mistake running uphill against a pecking order that had already been set up.
 
Looks like the Republicans will hold on in GA and SC by relatively narrow margins.
 
It's interesting because it's a don't poke the bee hive thing. GA got way way way too much attention which drove up the turn out numbers and let the fall in line republicans do what they do best, tow the party line. South Carolina I didn't even know they had an election till today and the race ends up being 2 points.
 
'17 Specials & '18 Midterms: Despite assault charge, Gianforte wins MT-AL

Yeah. That's the lesson. The Dems may end up doing better in SC than GA. Both look between 3-3.5%.

The Republicans are motivated by liberal tears. More hype means more tears.
 
Maybe the left lib crybabies are right; heard Ossof on NPR this morning and he sounded like a Generic tv show politician. No wonder he lost.

Dems need a demagogue of their own
 
Dems light 31 million dollars on fire trying to elect a Jos A Bank mannequin to congress, will probably blame racism and various other isms.
 
ImTheCaptain said:
heard Ossof on NPR this morning and he sounded like a Generic tv show politician. No wonder he lost.
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This. I'm not in GA 6th but I'm in Atlanta and have heard all of Ossoff's ads. He ran a bunch of Karen Handel attack ads and ads talking about how he would cut wasteful spending in Washington. It was a generic campaign that probably didn't motivate any of the Republicans who are sick of Trump to cross the line just because they're sick of Trump. Not sure why his campaign message wasn't "A vote for me is a vote for one more person in Washington who will keep Trump in check"
 
Newenglanddeac said:
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It'd be worth remembering if those races were competitive at all.

CBS46 clowned 2016 GA06 dem candidate Rodney Stooksbury by calling him a "ghost candidate."

Fran Person was actually a candidate, though his biggest political contribution came as Biden's aid. Doesn't play well among anti-Obama '16 SC voters.
 
Jon Ossoff's "priorities" page is inspiring af

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bobknightfan said:
A great day for President Trump and a great day for America....and another downer for the Hollywood crowd and the Liberal Elitists.
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Yep.

White conservatives in the south. For them, nothing matters more than saying FU to outsiders a tellin' us a whut t' do. Except maybe racism. But that for many is just below the surface of what they'll admit to theyselfs or anyone else.
 
ConnorEl said:
Yep.

White conservatives in the south. For them, nothing matters more than saying FU to outsiders a tellin' us a whut t' do. Except maybe racism. But that for many is just below the surface of what they'll admit to theyselfs or anyone else.
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While I continue to support them with my blue state tax dollars. Folks like BKF are just takers, BKF in particular given he was just handed everything.

When the Dems ultimately win power back, and they will, unless the cancer in this country that has metastasized through gerrymandering complety kills democracy, I'm sure BKF will just switch back and act like nothing happened.
 
Well, now we have about four months to argue amongst ourselves.

It is interesting that SC 5 ended up being closer than GA 6. The lack of national attention may have helped? That is a good thing going into 2018 since not every election can be a big national story, but going against incumbents is going to be harder than a race with two newcomers.

And ugh at another anti Planned Parenthood member of Congress.
 
myDeaconmyhand said:
Dems light 31 million dollars on fire trying to elect a Jos A Bank mannequin to congress, will probably blame racism and various other isms.
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Another day.
Another loss.
Still somehow not their fault.
 
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