2018 mid-term

[Danny Bateman]

4 hours ago, GSG said:

 

I had no idea Polis is gay and I live in his district! Either I'm just out of the loop or it's just not a big deal out here (which it shouldn't be).

 

I see he's going to be going up against Walker Stapleton whose campaign commercials are "Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump!"

 

Yeah I don't know much about either of them outside of what I looked up about Polis. His sexuality isn't a big deal for me I just thought that tidbit was kind of neat.

 

Ooof. Republicans running for Congress can get away with hugging Trump that tightly, but I'm not sure that's the best campaign tactic for someone running to govern a blue-ish state like Colorado.

[jsneb83]

30 minutes ago, Clifford Franklin said:

 

Yeah I don't know much about either of them outside of what I looked up about Polis. His sexuality isn't a big deal for me I just thought that tidbit was kind of neat.

 

Ooof. Republicans running for Congress can get away with hugging Trump that tightly, but I'm not sure that's the best campaign tactic for someone running to govern a blue-ish state like Colorado.

I'm sure it will come up quite a bit on the campaign trail

[RedDenver]

The first few paragraphs of this article explain a LOT about why Americans hate politicians and why Crowley lost:

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-influence/2018/06/27/crowleys-loss-ripples-through-k-street-265997

Quote

 

CROWLEY’S LOSS RIPPLES THROUGH K STREET: The upset loss of Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.), the No. 4 Democrat in the House, to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the primary on Tuesday is being felt on K Street this morning. “For me, personally, it’s losing a mentor and a best friend,” said Mervyn Jones, a lobbyist at Pine Street Strategies and a former Crowley staffer. Crowley had a great relationship with K Street, Jones said, and had a reputation for being upfront with lobbyists. “He would just tell you flat out why he wouldn’t be able to support what you were lobbying for,” Jones said.

 

— There are a number of former Crowley staffers downtown, the most prominent of whom might be Chris McCannell, a former chief of staff to Crowley who now represents clients including Paypal and the U.S. Travel Association as a lobbyist for the Eris Group. Others include Gregg Sheiowitz, a former legislative director for Crowley who now lobbies for Zurich North America; Eli Kogan, a former senior legislative assistant who’s now a lobbyist for Horizon Pharma; and Grisella Martinez, a former special adviser to Crowley who now lobbies for the National Association of Broadcasters.

 

— Crowley’s current staffers will have to find new jobs next year, of course. But Ivan Adler, a headhunter who specializes in placing people on K Street, said Crowley’s loss shouldn’t affect their ability to get hired if they decide to become lobbyists. Given Crowley’s position as Democratic caucus chairman and his spot on the House Ways and Means Committee, his staffers “are very well-connected and really shouldn’t suffer too much from losing their rabbi,” Adler said.

 

 

I hope so very, very much that Crowley losing is a start at getting money out of politics.

[BigRedBuster]

This is really an interesting story of her path to taking down such an entrenched politician.

 

http://www.businessinsider.com/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-used-to-be-a-bartender-2018-6

[Moiraine]

A friend of mine has lived in her district for years. For the record he's in his 60s and White. I feel like that's relevant since people have mentioned demographics. He wrote this on Facebook:

 

Quote

About Ocasio-Cortez:
Full disclosure; I've been a Crowley supporter for years, I even campaigned for him in 2016. I was planning on campaigning for him again this year, but a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. In the last 6 weeks or so, 10!!! campaigners for Ocasio-Cortez knocked on my door when I was home, I have no idea how many actually canvassed the neighborhood when I was out. They were all young, they were all intensely dedicated, and they all had a positive well thought campaign message. Surprisingly enough it wasn't anti-trump in tone. The views expressed were anti-trump (liberal immigration policy, single health payer system, free tech and state higher education, but it was completely about what she wanted to DO, not negative "trump is a monster" type stuff) In the same period of time I had innumerable mailings from Joe Crowley, all colorful, all slickly produced all evincing the same stuff I've heard from Joe the last 10 years.

 

Guess what? I voted for Alexandria, she out worked and out produced Joe Crowley, and her message was more positive besides. Final note, around 6:30 or so last night I got the first and only visit by a Crowley campaigner, I think they probably had exit poll data saying that Joe was losing, but it was too little and too late, I had already voted.

 

[BigRedBuster]

Something I've been thinking about as far as the farm vote and the mid terms.  

 

Many farmers have done their marketing for this year's crop.  If so, they probably already sold much of their crop before the bottom fallout in the last month.

 

So, there is a chance that most farmers are not going to feel the heat of this unless these low prices go well into the 2019 crop year.

 

What all happens between the midterms and 2020 is going to be very interesting.

[mrandyk]

17 hours ago, BigRedBuster said:

Something I've been thinking about as far as the farm vote and the mid terms.  

 

Many farmers have done their marketing for this year's crop.  If so, they probably already sold much of their crop before the bottom fallout in the last month.

 

So, there is a chance that most farmers are not going to feel the heat of this unless these low prices go well into the 2019 crop year.

 

What all happens between the midterms and 2020 is going to be very interesting.

I don't think that even a direct threat to their livelihood would sway their vote. The blame will be pinned on the obstructionist Democrats', or they'll stick with their platform because of god, guns, and abortions.

[Moiraine]

1 hour ago, mrandyk said:

I don't think that even a direct threat to their livelihood would sway their vote. The blame will be pinned on the obstructionist Democrats', or they'll stick with their platform because of god, guns, and abortions.

 

 

I can see it already. "This was caused by the Democrats' failed trade policies over the past 5 decades."

[NM11046]

On 6/27/2018 at 5:03 PM, Moiraine said:

A friend of mine has lived in her district for years. For the record he's in his 60s and White. I feel like that's relevant since people have mentioned demographics. He wrote this on Facebook:

 

 

This is great - thank you for sharing.  It's comments like these that should inspire those who are fighting the good fight to turn things around.  Efforts make a difference.  

 

Would your friend mind if I shared this in one of my local action groups?

[Moiraine]

4 minutes ago, NM11046 said:

This is great - thank you for sharing.  It's comments like these that should inspire those who are fighting the good fight to turn things around.  Efforts make a difference.  

 

Would your friend mind if I shared this in one of my local action groups?

 

 

I don't think so. He was okay with me sharing it here.

[Danny Bateman]

Not sure where to put this, so I'll stick it here.

 

Thread on Tom Nichols on the people that are beyond helping. We've got to square as a nation that there are people out there like this who are completely bought in and impervious to reason. We don't need to focus group why these people still like Trump; we don't need to try to convince them to see the light. We need to accept that they're beyond reasonable discourse and focus on others.

 

Interesting that the second one is one of those vaunted Obama-Trump voters the pundits love to focus on. I'm beginning to think that focusing on turning out those people to vote Dem is a waste of time. If I were advising the Dems, I'd say focus on turning out your base - the Obama voters who stayed home - and hope that enough moderates, centrists and independents break your way over another 2 years of unchecked GOP control or 4 years of Trump in 2020. 

 

Thoughts?

 

 

(Also, if anyone knows why getting photos like these to all be the same size for embedding on Imgur is so hard, tell me what I'm doing wrong!)

[Moiraine]

1 hour ago, Clifford Franklin said:

Not sure where to put this, so I'll stick it here.

 

Thread on Tom Nichols on the people that are beyond helping. We've got to square as a nation that there are people out there like this who are completely bought in and impervious to reason. We don't need to focus group why these people still like Trump; we don't need to try to convince them to see the light. We need to accept that they're beyond reasonable discourse and focus on others.

 

Interesting that the second one is one of those vaunted Obama-Trump voters the pundits love to focus on. I'm beginning to think that focusing on turning out those people to vote Dem is a waste of time. If I were advising the Dems, I'd say focus on turning out your base - the Obama voters who stayed home - and hope that enough moderates, centrists and independents break your way over another 2 years of unchecked GOP control or 4 years of Trump in 2020. 

 

Thoughts?

 

 

(Also, if anyone knows why getting photos like these to all be the same size for embedding on Imgur is so hard, tell me what I'm doing wrong!)

 

 

 

The scary thing is these people have always existed. There was always someone out there capable of duping a high % of them toward one awful cause. And I feel like, even if we survive this, there's someone out there who's worse than Trump.

 

This is also an easy time to find a lot of them. Cable news and the internet make it hard for them to hear/find the truth.

[Danny Bateman]

Well, we have our first confirmed Russian election hacking attempt of 2018.  This is a big deal. The GOP badly wants McCaskill's Senate seat. Continues a pattern of the Russians targeting Democrats to try to sow discord.

 

Apparently the VP of Microsoft mentioned two other unnamed midterm candidates were also subjects of attempted hacking. Wonder who they might be?

 

 

[Moiraine]

It's a tie right now in Ohio district 12, but they think with what's left the Republican will win.

In 2016 the Republican incumbent won 66.6% of the vote vs. 29.8% for the Democrat.

[Danny Bateman]

1 hour ago, Moiraine said:

It's a tie right now in Ohio district 12, but they think with what's left the Republican will win.

In 2016 the Republican incumbent won 66.6% of the vote vs. 29.8% for the Democrat.

 

As usual, the president is busy bragging about his own exploits on Twitter and getting his facts wrong.

 

I hope this emboldens him to think he's the panacea that's needed in close districts to put candidates over the edge. If he starts jet-setting all over competitive districts leading up the elections (let's be honest, he will... he can barely be bothered to do much besides golf and watch Fox News now as it is), he's going to tip a lot of scales the wrong way.