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US Politics: the Moore things change...


Kalbear

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You ever notice that some people have a lot of effing nerve?
 

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/republicans-encourage-alabamas-doug-jones-vote-them

Quote

NRSC Chairman Cory Gardner made the following statement regarding the results of the Alabama special election:

“Tonight’s results are clear – the people of Alabama deemed Roy Moore unfit to serve in the U.S. Senate,” said NRSC Chairman Cory Gardner. “I hope Senator-elect Doug Jones will do the right thing and truly represent Alabama by choosing to vote with the Senate Republican Majority.”

Republican Party.:rolleyes::rolleyes:

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3 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

You ever notice that some people have a lot of effing nerve?

NRSC Chairman Cory Gardner made the following statement regarding the results of the Alabama special election:

“Tonight’s results are clear – the people of Alabama deemed Roy Moore unfit to serve in the U.S. Senate,” said NRSC Chairman Cory Gardner. “I hope Senator-elect Doug Jones will do the right thing and truly represent Alabama by choosing to vote with the Senate Republican Majority.”

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/republicans-encourage-alabamas-doug-jones-vote-them

Republican Party.:rolleyes::rolleyes:

I wonder if that means since Gardner represents Colorado, a "purple" state which, like Virginia and Nevada, is now trending "blue", if we can expect him to vote with the Republican majority less often in order to truly represent the people of Colorado. :laugh:

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I’d like to see the turnout data for self-identifying Republicans compared to other off year and special elections, because a shockingly high number of Republicans said they didn’t believe the sexual assault accusations. I think interpreting that specific data set will help to determine if this was a one off event or the precursor to a Democratic wave in 2018.

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2 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I’d like to see the turnout data for self-identifying Republicans compared to other off year and special elections, because a shockingly high number of Republicans said they didn’t believe the sexual assault accusations. I think interpreting that specific data set will help to determine if this was a one off event or the precursor to a Democratic wave in 2018.

This was based on exit polls. If people didn't show up to the polls because they're Republican and believed in it, they wouldn't be in the data set. And with GOP turnout lower than expected, this could be true.

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Thank the Lordessa for African American voters.  Jones couldn't have done it without them.  Just as the Union couldn't have won in Virginia, eventually, in the War of Rebellion, without the loyal, patriotic and terribly courageous and steadfast African American soldiers -- as Grant himself often stated.  Not after the casualties of the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and some of the others of the Overland Campaign.

Dem party -- learn something!  Stop crowing about what the rethugs need to learn, but think about yourselves!  Just as Grant growled that the Union army needed to stop worrying about Lee might do but think about what we are going do.

Also, African Americans didn't do this for white people, i.e. the Dem National Committee et al. -- they did it for self-preservation.  Dems better think hard about this and strategize and policy make in light of it.  Otherwise, again, they're dead, fred.

 

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2 hours ago, James Arryn said:

Screwed up the quotes, dunno how to fix, but cheers. The more I think on this the more I think there’s no way they don’t adopt this as a primary tactic. Basically they get a veto on any Dem candidate they want to tank. And if in response some Dems push back a bit on the whole guilt by accusation wave, that becomes divisive right quick. The Dems are sitting ducks for this...fuck. It’s free money.

Yes, they will weaponize it, just like they do everything.  I hope Dems aren't wretched enough to use this as a reason to begin turning against the #metoo movement.  Throwing women under the bus is not the answer to their problems.  

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15 minutes ago, Mexal said:

This was based on exit polls. If people didn't show up to the polls because they're Republican and believed in it, they wouldn't be in the data set. And with GOP turnout lower than expected, this could be true.

You have to assume it's true to some extent.  If you are a Republican who will never vote Democrat, but believe the allegations and find Moore unacceptable, why bother voting at all?  In the time it takes to vote, you could play three games of pool.  Three! 

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7 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

You have to assume it's true to some extent.  If you are a Republican who will never vote Democrat, but believe the allegations and find Moore unacceptable, why bother voting at all?  In the time it takes to vote, you could play three games of pool.  Three! 

And if you're black, 10 games.

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36 minutes ago, Ormond said:

I wonder if that means since Gardner represents Colorado, a "purple" state which, like Virginia and Nevada, is now trending "blue", if we can expect him to vote with the Republican majority less often in order to truly represent the people of Colorado. :laugh:

Take it a step further. Trump also won narrowly, in fact a numerical majority voted against him. So by Gardner's logic, Trump should do the right thing and work on Dem priorities.

As for the 'weaponising sexual assault' fears, with all due respect these concerns make me feel slightly uncomfortable, I think because they are an echo of the idea that 'you can't even say good morning or you'll be accused of sexual assault'. By that I mean that they take as a starting point that 'believe the woman' equals 'any allegation made against a man is instant death to his career, no matter what'. That is absolutely not the case. It isn't so easy to gin up a completely false allegation, as we've already seen. 

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1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

Tom Perez got about a million in funding to support Jones. The DNC used that entirely on gotv campaigns for African Americans and younger voters. 

The NAACP spent a ton of time and money on calling all registered AA voters, organized drive pools to polling places, and organized registration drives. 

This DNC chair might get it. Don't try winning republicans. Go negative on their candidates, and then gotv as much as you can with AA populations (especially black women, who showed up well beyond the norm and voted 98% for Jones) and youth. 

And the white women in Alabama who voted, voted overwhelmingly for Moore.  LISTEN TO TO THIS DEMS!  But the Dems are still in denial that to be viable they must admit to being the party that is overwhelmingly not white . . . .

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45 minutes ago, Ormond said:

I wonder if that means since Gardner represents Colorado, a "purple" state which, like Virginia and Nevada, is now trending "blue", if we can expect him to vote with the Republican majority less often in order to truly represent the people of Colorado. :laugh:

So I just did the math, leaving WI, MI and PA in the blue column, and giving FL, OH and IA to the red column, and I found that there are 80 Republicans in blue states and 51 Democrats in red states, so if we follow this new way of political representation, the Democrats now control the House with 222 seats.

Sweet!

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50 minutes ago, Mexal said:

This was based on exit polls. If people didn't show up to the polls because they're Republican and believed in it, they wouldn't be in the data set. And with GOP turnout lower than expected, this could be true.

Exactly. That’s why I want the data. If turnout was down in Republican strongholds then we could guess that this election won’t be reflective of what’s a bout to come. But if it didn’t dip that much, then we could expect a wave.

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7 minutes ago, Zorral said:

And the white women in Alabama who voted, voted overwhelmingly for Moore.  LISTEN TO TO THIS DEMS!  But the Dems are still in denial that to be viable they must admit to being the party that is overwhelmingly not white . . . .

Yeah, white women voted overwhelmingly for Moore. BUT, 34% voted for Jones, and without that 34% Jones would've lost in a landslide. Alabama hasn't had exit polls since 2012, but in 2012 only 16% of white women voted for Obama. 

Democrats need their base, absolutely, but they also need everyone else who votes for them too. Jones probably didn't flip that many usually Republican voters, but he did flip some of them, and they provided the margin of victory last night.  

Per the exit polls, Jones got 9% of the voters who approve of Trump, 5% of the voters who said Moore shared their values, 6% of the voters who said Jones didn't share their values, and 6% of voters who said they wanted Republicans to control the senate (there's likely a ton of overlap between these groups). These aren't large numbers, but these are the Republicans that Jones convinced that Moore was so unacceptable that they needed to vote for a Democrat; and without them Jones would've lost.

He also would've lost if African American turnout wasn't as high as it was, but that's the point. Democrats need all their voters. 

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Just now, Tywin et al. said:

Exactly. That’s why I want the data. If turnout was down in Republican strongholds then we could guess that this election won’t be reflective of what’s a bout to come. But if it didn’t dip that much, then we could expect a wave.

It was down from what was expected while Dem stronghold turnout was significantly up. At this point, there is enough evidence to suggest Dems are a lot more engaged than Repubs and that if they keep working, it looks good for Dems in 2018.

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13 minutes ago, Mexal said:

It was down from what was expected while Dem stronghold turnout was significantly up. At this point, there is enough evidence to suggest Dems are a lot more engaged than Repubs and that if they keep working, it looks good for Dems in 2018.

Generally speaking yes, but this election could tell us more about the current political climate than the handful of House races over the last year or it could be completely meaningless. Moore historically under performs to begin with and then had all this extra baggage hit him (I wonder if his slavery comment hurt him more than all the child molestation stuff), so it’s hard to tell if the data here means anything. That’s why I want to see the turnout data, specifically in Republican areas.

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Also, the biggest victory from last night was not Jones defeating Moore. It was further turning McConnell and Bannon against one another. I told you guys last year not to worry about the Republican party gaining strength. Trump’s victory masked significant fissures in the party, but it was inevitable that they would reemerge. Now they’re about to explode.

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DEMS -- Listen up!

Eugene Scott on Twitter -- 

Quote

 

I spoke to nearly two dozen black voters today. All except for one said some variation of this:

Today I voted to defeat Roy Moore because he's horrible, not because I felt encouraged by Doug Jones. I still think Jones' campaign was a mess that disrespected the Black community. I know other Black Alabamians felt the same too, but we did what was needed.

 

 

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16 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Generally speaking yes, but this election could tell us more about the current political climate than the handful of House races over the last year or it could be completely meaningless. Moore historically under performs to begin with and then had all this extra baggage hit him (I wonder if his slavery comment hurt him more than all the child molestation stuff), so it’s hard to tell if the data here means anything. That’s why I want to see the turnout data, specifically in Republican areas.

I mean, I understand what you're saying but I'm not really that worried about it. In a State that Clinton lost by 30 pts, Jones won a Senate seat. That's extraordinary. Yes, Moore, being a terrible candidate helped, but so did the mobilization of the Democratic base, the same mobilization we've seen in every election so far this year. In addition, this is a good article to read about the common threads between these different races. 

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3 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Also, the biggest victory from last night was not Jones defeating Moore. It was further turning McConnell and Bannon against one another. I told you guys last year not to worry about the Republican party gaining strength. Trump’s victory masked significant fissures in the party, but it was inevitable that they would reemerge. Now they’re about to explode.

Bannon looks like the most obvious loser in all this - he supported the one Republican who could lose a Senate seat in Alabama.  Luther Strange was a forgettable Republican, and he almost assuredly would have defeated Jones by ~10 points.  Mo Brooks also would have.  Virtually any Republican could.  Bannon's anti-establishment mantra meant ignoring all warnings about Moore as "just the swamp trying to protect their own" rather than common sense that Moore was a horrible, horrible candidate. 

So Bannon has no choice but to blame McConnell for Moore's failure.  And he's (sort of) right, that if Republicans had been 100% united behind Moore, they could have made Republican voters less likely to defect.  Shelby in particular said he believed the accusations against Moore, and would have to vote for someone else. 

But Bannon's argument is somewhat self defeating.  He wants a Republican party that is totally impervious to facts and decency, that will vote in lockstep for Moore because all allegations against him are false, because he said they were false.  If the Republican party were totally united in this way, then they wouldn't need the Bannon insurgency.  They would already be a party totally beyond reason.  As it stands, most Republicans were able to hold their nose and support Moore.  But many Republicans, particularly in Congress, could see that Bannon is already planning to unseat them, and that Moore is the kind of toxic candidate that can drag his peers down.  So it's no surprise that McConnell and most of the Republican Senate wanted to distance themselves from Moore. 

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