IWasBored
Blue Crack Supplier
- Joined
- Nov 8, 2002
- Messages
- 36,783
cause going further left would surely have been the path to victory in georgia
you guarantee an openly leftist democrat would have won a special election in georgia, huh?
They lost by 5 points in Georgia. Chill.
No kidding...this was like the high school JV team coming down to the final possession against the Atlanta Falcons.
The 5 point margin shows just how many "base" are questioning their current direction on the GOP side. The GOP is timing out...they are dying and not being replaced in equal numbers. The November election was about to be their federal death knell, then a run of some of the most remarkable things to ever happen pre-election (DNC and Hillary diary opened wide to everyone, the DNC issues with Bernie (no shit...while I supported Bernie, he was an independent. Surprised the DNC wasn't his biggest fan?), the Comey comment, Hillary completely losing her mind (their mind, as a group) and following Obama/Romney numbers to chart campaigning, somehow deciding the entire rust belt into Wisconsin was unnecessary) led to an electoral college win for Trump with the mandate that comes with 4 million less votes...and on that, these idiots with their maps showing red, or counties won, etc, to try to overcome actual people voting and their numbers...land doesn't vote. Some states have 10,000,000 counties, some 10, and if all the city centers are in 2 counties, then yeah, the GOP will take more counties. This idea that rural America is more American is noxious.
Anyway...I drifted there. The GOP was on their last leg and threw a wild punch and connected. Those who try to make this into some insurgency, with comments like "this is why you lost...you underestimate us. We are powerful" are not actually performing math.
I keep thinking (hoping) that, for all the fuckery the Republicans have pulled on poor/middle America since Reagan, convincing them of what I call the "Lottery Postulate"..."hey, you should support the rich because someday, with hard work, and a Powerball ticket, you might be rich too, and will want these policies"...the policies were mostly un-impacting to their base. Heavy military spending? Yay...freedom. Heavy cuts to the true poor? Yay...lazy people of color. Heavy increases to health insurance? Well...stupid lazy people suing cost medical malpractice insurance to totally warrant me paying 100% more.
But if the Republicans get what they want, and the preexisting condition protections go away, along with some employer requirements for coverage, they will be feeling it for real. The trucker out of work for 2 years who got back to work after these changes whose wife is dying of cancer suddenly gets told "sorry...our plan won't help". Or they get no coverage because their employer is deemed to be too small under new policies to require coverage. Or, as Paul Ryan put it, the young healthy people shouldn't have to pay for old, sick people...and we all become old and sick, or know someone who is, and we see them die due to a lack of care they can afford. Those are going to be the real deal, the situations that can overcome political bias. That's where I think the GOP will have finally overreached, and that group of middle Americans and working poor Americans who used to believe in the Union and collective bargaining but let the propaganda of years convince them the Union were pinko commies, exposing themselves not to market conditions, but to the conditions of corporate collusion...THAT, I hope, is where they get it. No kidding, Bono, that the idea of labor is so confusing in this country. Maybe the best of all of Bono's rambles, or most poignant, after Red Hill Mining Town at the show I saw in LA...Laborers are confused. We have given up so much gain.
Anyways...yeah...5 points in GA is pretty amazing.
That's not what I implied at all. I implied that "something different" would have attracted red voters, regardless of whether or not it was logical.
"Guarantee" was a hyperbole, relax.
i really don't understand the point you're trying to make here. you're so sure this candidate would have made a difference in swinging red votes, but you aren't implying that they would win? so like they would have lost by 2 points instead of 5? that's no difference at all,the result is still the same.
I would think, rationally, that the more centrist the Dem, the more chance of having won GA. It isn't a state with some untapped reservoir of progressives biting for the chance to carry a similarly-aligned candidate to the win.
This particular centrist was also bland as mush, and really had little to offer other than not being them. So maybe a dynamic centrist with a history in the state of doing some good would have been enough to ride the wave of Trump discontent and the rare situation where funding was nearly that of the opposition to a shocking victory.
But Bernie, Georgia Style wasn't going to win that race. The fact that it was close at all speaks volumes about the true discontent of the begrudgingly Trump voter in 2016. They aren't getting what they hoped for, they didn't much care for the Yankee, non-religious (two Corinthians?) robber baron anyway, but swallowed and voted for him as the lesser of their perceived 2 evils. So, yeah, a really strong centrist candidate might have pulled this. But a progressive never would have won this race.
I tend to agree we need a more progressive national candidate, a Bernie type, but maybe a bit more polished and party-centric. And I think Bernie's success did help the planks move farther this way...student loans, pension gap, and single payor health care have become the backbone of the Dem platform. But in Georgia, in a largely-Republican district that hasn't been close since the ideological shift of Southern Democrats to the Republican party post-Civil Rights Act? No.
Centrism is a stance for nothing.
now there's a hot take
Incremental changes over time is how this country works. Breaking up the banks, higher taxes on the elites, and universal healthcare cannot happen at once. It will be a slow process.
Assuming liberals ever get the chance again
Taking nothing away from the campaign - I knew a lot of really smart people who did good work, and for the good of the cause, I think the party had to make some kind of an effort there (30 million was well beyond the point of diminishing returns), the basic match-up was uphill. Jon Ossoff, while an impressive young man, started out hardly more than a generic Democrat. The first time I spoke to one of my very smart Atlanta friends about Ossoff, she peppered her praise with a fair number of "but" to describe his weaknesses. Back when I was a candidate recruiter, I went out of my way to walk away from candidates whose qualities had to be modified by the word "but", especially in seats like this.
Karen Handel, on paper, was a proven commodity. Take ideology and everything else off the test, and she wins the bio test. I don't know if a more proven candidate, either some kind of prominent business leader, or prior elected, would have done better, but my gut says the odds are pretty decent. I was definitely in camp that our best shot here was in the big primary.
Even in districts like this, the road to 45-47%, with enough money and a good enough candidate, can be smooth. But the road from there to 50+1 can be like climbing Everest without oxygen -- sure it can be done, but it requires a really amazing climber and a fair amount of luck. Gwen Graham getting over the top in Florida 02 in 2014 (R+5 seat) when several others had come just short is a good example of this.
I don't think Democrats should get too down on this one, or Republicans get too excited. Districts like this show that the map in 2018 is likely to be fairly broad. Take away the money spent in the seat, and I think most Dems would rightfully feel very good about it. As we saw in South Carolina tonight, there are a lot of places that are more interesting than they normally are.
Which gets back to the lesson. One of the biggest forgotten lessons of 2006 is the importance of recruitment. My side will never have the money to go toe-to-toe with Republicans everywhere. We have to have the "better" candidate in a lot of places to win, particularly due to gerrymandering whch means we have to win more seats on GOP turf than they do on ours. At the Congressional level, the DCCC in 2006 fielded a rock-star slate of candidates. At the legislative cycle, in a year when we picked up seven GOP-held seats and held two Democratic open seats, we had the "better" candidate in almost every instance. We also recruited broadly, trying to find the best candidates we could in as many plausible seats as possible, to compete broadly, to give ourselves lots of options - and when the wave happened, the map blew wide open. Had we not put the work in on the recruitment side -- occasionally in places where a Democratic candidate had already filed, at best we would have gone plus 2 or 3, even with the wave. At same time, if we had more money, our +7 year might have been +10 or more.
Ossoff clearly has a bright future, and would have won in a lot of places last night. But in many ways, his was a candidacy created from whole cloth, and funding and turnout operations alone won't get just anyone across the line - especially somewhere like GA08. Even in this hyper partisan environment, campaigns aren't simply plug and play operations -- they are choices.
When folks ask me what the national and state party should be doing, my answer is simple: Two things, recruit high quality candidates, and register voters. And if Democrats expect to have success in November 2018, that is the work that must be done between now and then.
One big lesson from GA 06. - home - Steve Schale -- Florida from a Leading Politico
Everything in politics cannot be solved by compromise. Abortion is legal, or it’s not. That awful Supreme Court justice is confirmed, or he’s not. Pollution is properly regulated, or it’s not. Our tax system is sufficiently progressive, or it’s not. We go to war, or we don’t. Every one of these choices is ultimately a statement of morality—a conviction about what is right and wrong. Valuing “bipartisanship” on the really important issues is an admission that you have no real beliefs. What are bipartisanship and civility in comparison to life and death and human rights? How important is bipartisanship in the context of losing your health care, or sending your son off to be shot in a war? Where is the compromise to be found in an economic system that allows the very rich to accumulate staggering fortunes as tens of millions struggle to survive? Anyone with any sense of decency would be ashamed to be caught railing about the value of Congressional games when there is a real possibility that these people could force your neighbor to seek a back alley abortion and then be bankrupted by the resulting medical complications. Anyone with a proper understanding of the stakes of politics will find this fetish for politeness obscene. Is civility a greater value than life and death and war and human rights? The bipartisans, who desperately seek compromise for the sake of their own social comfort with little regard for the human costs, are amoral monsters. And they should be treated as such.
Some things cannot be reconciled. Democratic socialism cannot be reconciled with crony capitalism. A belief that health care is a human right cannot be reconciled with a belief that only those with enough money deserve decent care. A belief that workers deserve the right to organize cannot be reconciled with a belief that unions should be eradicated. A belief that a certain military action is immoral cannot be reconciled with a belief that it is necessary. Bipartisan compromise on such issues is not a virtue; it is a sin. And a pathetic one. It is a sin of not caring about things that you should really care about. It is, ultimately, an admission that you feel that matters that do not hurt you personally do not rise to the level of things that are worth speaking up about.
Politics is a fight. Some people will lose. This is good. Some people deserve to lose. Some policies deserve to be eradicated. Some things deserve to be fought for. Bad things are happening, and we can try to do something about them, or not. You cannot change this fact with apathy. All you can do is hide the bad things behind a curtain and pretend they don’t exist. If that is your approach, you deserve to be told to fuck off.
The Republicans have pushed anyone who'd consider themselves moderate out of the party, and the Bernie or bust crowd wants to do the same.That quote is a load of bullshit. It does paint a clear picture though of the political climate in the US though and the delusion of the 'Bernie or bust' crowd. They rather want to have a huge defeat instead of a small step of progress. In a climate like this, getting any real progress will be difficult. Especially since the other side appears to be much better in extremism and deluding their supporters into supporting these extreme non-compromising ideas.
Even on important issues there can be 'bipartisanship' and compromise. But there must be a climate where parties are willing to talk to each other and come together. This is one of the main things missing in the US right now. And it looks like the left is just as bad as the right.
Framing it with some bad examples is not helping the discussion.
I think history has taught us that two uncompromising parties are good for a nation's future. Or maybe the opposite, I dunno. I was a sports management major.
But I didn't finish.