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US Politics: the Moore things change...


Kalbear

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12 minutes ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

Is Charles Barkley now the moral chaplain of America?

I distinctly remember being told as a youth that Charles Barkley was not a role model.  Can't imagine he's now a moral chaplain.  Now, if he wants to try to run for statewide office in Alabama - godspeed.

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Great news.  It really increases the chances of getting control of the Senate in 2018 as well (as this article says):

https://www.vox.com/2017/12/12/16766516/alabama-senate-election-2017-roy-moore-doug-jones

Quote

 

Democrats’ odds of retaking the US Senate in 2018 are, as it stands, not that great. Both 2006 and 2012 were strong Democratic years, and as a result, most seats up in 2018 are already controlled by the Democrats: 25 are in Democratic or Democrat-aligned independent hands, and only eight are controlled by Republicans. Ten are in states won by Donald Trump. Only one Republican-held seat in a state Hillary Clinton won is up for reelection in 2018. To retake the Senate before the Alabama election, Democrats would’ve needed to win three of the Republican seats while holding all 25 of the Democratic ones. The math was rough, to say the least.

The challenge got less imposing for a number of reasons at the end of 2018. First, Dean Heller of Nevada, the one Republican up for reelection in a Clinton state, saw his popularity collapse as he collaborated on Obamacare repeal efforts. Then Republican Bob Corker of Tennessee announced his retirement — and popular former Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen announced a bid for the seat. Then Democratic Arizona Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, a popular representative from a swing district, announced she’d run against Sen. Jeff Flake, who, facing both Sinema and a potent right-wing primary challenge, announced his retirementas well. Those, right there, were the three races Democrats needed to win, and they were starting to look winnable.

Then Doug Jones won a seat in Alabama, of all places, and reduced the number of seats Democrats needed to net to only two. 

 

 

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Don’t want to get too excited about 2018, as we know that Trump has his die hards.  But I would not be surprised by a Dem surge in 2018.  As it turns out Trump is kind of a dick as president as he was in private life and a lot of people, even some who voted for him, do not really like the guy.  His overall numbers are terrible.  

Pairing the abysmal numbers with the GOP losing in Virginia and now in Alabama in state wide elections should be at least a mild indicator that the country isn’t all-in on the Trump train despite the year long victory lap of real life internet trolls.  I’m really hoping this won’t be lost on establishment republicans who have been living in fear of the most conservative part of the base and may find their long lost spines.   If we must have a 2 party system, let’s not have one of them be transformed into the party of Trump/Bannon for the next generation as it was the party of Reagan for this one.  That’s a dark path.  I mean if they’d have run the regular Republican and not the Bannon guy they would’ve won the election.  If nothing else hope this takes Bannon down a notch in conservative circles.

And I also hope it’s not lost on Democrats that they should fight for every state, every district.

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30 minutes ago, ants said:

Great news.  It really increases the chances of getting control of the Senate in 2018 as well (as this article says):

One does not need a vox article to know Arizona and Nevada are ripe for the picking.  After that, yeah, it gets much harder.

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1 minute ago, dmc515 said:

One does not need a vox article to know Arizona and Nevada are ripe for the picking.  After that, yeah, it gets much harder.

Well, the small, pathetic, vestigial optimist in me would point out that Trumpism has a problem - which is that many of the Republicans that would normally be voted for and win are resigning or are retiring, and they're likely to be replaced in primaries by Republicans that mirror Trumpist ideals.

And it is not particularly clear that Trumpist ideals do very well in general elections. As tonight shows, the candidate matters a whole lot, and I'm not convinced that a lot of the candidates who will appeal in an age of Trump will be, shall we say, particularly honorable people.

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Just now, Kalbear said:

Well, the small, pathetic, vestigial optimist in me would point out that Trumpism has a problem - which is that many of the Republicans that would normally be voted for and win are resigning or are retiring, and they're likely to be replaced in primaries by Republicans that mirror Trumpist ideals.

Seems like you're describing safe seats being replaced by safe newcomers.  No one's really interested in that - thing is there are more GOP members that have retired in competitive seats at this point than is usually the case.  We'll see how that plays out in the next few months, but I can't imagine losing Alabama talked any potential retiree off the ledge.

6 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

And it is not particularly clear that Trumpist ideals do very well in general elections. As tonight shows, the candidate matters a whole lot, and I'm not convinced that a lot of the candidates who will appeal in an age of Trump will be, shall we say, particularly honorable people.

Hey, no one would love it more than me if Fenno's Home Style made a comeback, but I really don't think that's what tonight showed.  To an extent?  Sure.  Dude was a pedophile, or at least an ephebophile.  However, this race was nationalized, as you yourself noted.  That indicates that yes, "Trumpist ideals," or whatever the fuck you wanna call it, do have a significant effect on the race.  In which case, GOP in trouble.

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2 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Seems like you're describing safe seats being replaced by safe newcomers.  No one's really interested in that - thing is there are more GOP members that have retired in competitive seats at this point than is usually the case.  We'll see how that plays out in the next few months, but I can't imagine losing Alabama talked any potential retiree off the ledge.

I'm describing the opposite. I'm saying that the 'safe' newcomers aren't going to come in with Trump, they'll be turned off from politics or sitting out this round, because they don't want to hitch their wagon on the trump train. Furthermore, the primaries will encourage more Trump voter types too, which means more weird-ass tea-partiers who are declaring that every amendment past the 10th should be removed or something. 

Basically, you'll see primaries going extreme Trump heavy (as Trump will support them, meaning the RNC will, and his base will) and then those same people will have a much harder time than 'typical Republican'. 

2 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Hey, no one would love it more than me if Fenno's Home Style made a comeback, but I really don't think that's what tonight showed.  To an extent?  Sure.  Dude was a pedophile, or at least an ephebophile.  However, this race was nationalized, as you yourself noted.  That indicates that yes, "Trumpist ideals," or whatever the fuck you wanna call it, do have a significant effect on the race.  In which case, GOP in trouble.

I'm saying simply that Trump will attract more candidates like Trump, especially as he pisses off the more traditional conservatives in his wake and emboldens others to take a stand. Tonight showed that Trump's support is not a particularly heavy winner for someone (Moore's polling went up only slightly after Trump's endorsement, to my surprise), and I think you'll see fewer Republicans who want to kowtow to Trump. Sometimes that might work, but in other cases those will get primaried out by the ones who DO want it - but those ones are going to be the shittier candidates, with more baggage and more personal gaffes. 

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2 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Basically, you'll see primaries going extreme Trump heavy (as Trump will support them, meaning the RNC will, and his base will) and then those same people will have a much harder time than 'typical Republican'. 

I think you're underestimating the influence of the congressional campaign committees (NRCC) that will be directly against what you're referring to (as will the RNC).  This was a blow to Bannon and his ilk, not an encouragement.  Doesn't mean Bannon still isn't going to be locked and loaded.  Hope he is - would love to see it.  But the results tonight will give state parties significantly more pause.

8 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Tonight showed that Trump's support is not a particularly heavy winner for someone (Moore's polling went up only slightly after Trump's endorsement, to my surprise), and I think you'll see fewer Republicans who want to kowtow to Trump. Sometimes that might work, but in other cases those will get primaried out by the ones who DO want it - but those ones are going to be the shittier candidates, with more baggage and more personal gaffes. 

I can't follow this.  Seriously - wanted to argue with it, but I'm not sure what exactly you're arguing here.  Don't mean that as an insult - I equivocate all the time - just for some reason I feel like I should apologize for not bringing it. ;)

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2 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

I think you're underestimating the influence of the congressional campaign committees (NRCC) that will be directly against what you're referring to (as will the RNC).  This was a blow to Bannon and his ilk, not an encouragement.  Doesn't mean Bannon still isn't going to be locked and loaded.  Hope he is - would love to see it.  But the results tonight will give state parties significantly more pause.

Maybe. I would have thought that was the case before - and for a while, it did.

And then Trump said "Moore is good", so the RNC followed, because Trump is basically the RNC's lead.

I'm more subscribing to the model that got Moore here in the first place - that parties are weak, but partisanship is strong.

2 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

I can't follow this.  Seriously - wanted to argue with it, but I'm not sure what exactly you're arguing here.  Don't mean that as an insult - I equivocate all the time - just for some reason I feel like I should apologize for not bringing it. ;)

Okay, I'll break it down some.

Normally you have to have some semblance of blessing from the leader of your party in order to run. And normally this is in line with the actual party wants. What Trump is showing is that Trump's support matters more than party support does. (this was true during his whole election, and it continues to be true). If party support mattered more in Alabama, Moore would have bailed out. Or never have run, honestly. 

So you have three groups of Republicans right now, in this weird space of party being weak but also being against Trump.

  1. You have the NeverTrumpers like Romney and Flake - they're retiring for the most part, or making ideological spaces for themselves (like Sasse is). You're not going to get a lot of them running to replace retirees, because they don't want to be anywhere near this mess unless they can position themselves specifically as anti-Trump AND face the onslaught of Trump's base. 
  2. You have the Trump supporters - like Sessions, and Moore, and Nunes, and Bannon and whatnot. There aren't a ton of these politicians who are actually in sync with Trump, but these are the ones that his base wants - so you're going to find more out there who are going to run, and they're going to run on basically a platform of 'win for Trump'. They're going to do really well in the primary.
  3. You have the ones that are biding time. The Ryans and McConnells and whatnot. Most of the congress are probably like this. These folks are also going to be discouraged with running in 2018, because they've seen the wave coming against them and don't want to be associated with Trump, but probably can't afford to take an anti-Trump stance like, say, Romney can and still win. 

The end result is that you're going to get a lot fewer seasoned politicians running against the Democrats in the open seats because either they'll be primaried out in favor of newer, more Trumpy Republicans, or they'll simply choose to keep their seat where they are and hang tight. And those unseasoned, ideologically pure politicians are going to have a lot more baggage. And this time, the press is going to be hunting hard for it, because they also know they'll likely be able to land some hits and find some things out that aren't great.

And that means not only are there more seats that are in play, but the candidates that will be running for Republicans are likely to be weaker ones. 

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12 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

And then Trump said "Moore is good", so the RNC followed, because Trump is basically the RNC's lead.

I don't think that's why the RNC followed in this case, but the the NC following its president is pretty much SOP.

15 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I'm more subscribing to the model that got Moore here in the first place - that parties are weak, but partisanship is strong.

Yes.  This not only speaks to a fundamental argument in the lit, but my position IRT that argument.  Agreed times infinity.

19 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

What Trump is showing is that Trump's support matters more than party support does. (this was true during his whole election, and it continues to be true). If party support mattered more in Alabama, Moore would have bailed out. Or never have run, honestly. 

I think the election results showed this isn't the case; if Trump's support was all Moore needed, he would have won handily.  The fact he lost (and yeah, we're talking a few thousand of votes, so you could equally say the fact he only won 50-49 if that was the case) in Alabama directly contradicts Trump's influence.

On your three point typology of GOP members, I think you're missing quite a bit of the variance within the conference.  But identifying all the different factions isn't something I want to do right now, so I guess I'm just being a dick, sorry.

27 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

The end result is that you're going to get a lot fewer seasoned politicians running against the Democrats in the open seats because either they'll be primaried out in favor of newer, more Trumpy Republicans, or they'll simply choose to keep their seat where they are and hang tight.

The reason there is and will be more open GOP seats is because recruiting quality candidates in a shit environment is very hard - which is why there are so many open seats in the first place.  Getting primaried certainly doesn't help, but the extent to which that affects GOP candidates remains to be seen.

32 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

And that means not only are there more seats that are in play, but the candidates that will be running for Republicans are likely to be weaker ones.

Yup.  Sounds like you're getting on board to what I've been saying for awhile.

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Considering his recluse style, I think this is quite notable:

Quote

“Luther Strange would have won in a landslide... Just too much crazy in nerve racking times,” Drudge said Tuesday night in a rare tweet. “There IS a limit!”

 

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3 hours ago, ants said:

Great news.  It really increases the chances of getting control of the Senate in 2018 as well (as this article says):

https://www.vox.com/2017/12/12/16766516/alabama-senate-election-2017-roy-moore-doug-jones

 

The Senate map has Democrats playing defence in North Dakota, Indiana, Montana, Ohio, and West Virginia. And those will be seriously tough holds.

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9 minutes ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

North Dakota, Indiana, Montana, Ohio, and West Virginia

I think Tester (MT) and Brown (OH) will be fine, and Manchin (WV) seems to have figured his state as well.  Wouldn't bet against Heitkamp (ND) either, she's incredibly resilient.  Do worry about Donnelly (IN) though - as well as McCaskill in Mizzou.  And if Scott runs for Nelson's seat in Florida that's gonna be a dog fight.

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11 minutes ago, Mindwalker said:

Waiting for that bra eating vid

Recently rewatched Sopranos.  Inclined to give a pass, lest I end up like Gandolfini all drugged out or even worse Tony eating cold cuts after dipping them in a jar of mayo.  Don't mean to be bigoted, but that's not the life for me.

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How Doug Jones Changes (Almost) Everything in the Senate

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/12/how-doug-jones-changes-almost-everything-in-the-senate.html

Roy Moore’s Brother Says Doug Jones Will Pay for What He’s Done in the Afterlife

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/12/roy-moore-brother-doug-jones-will-be-punished-in-afterlife.html

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