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US Politics: Stormy Weather Ahead


Fragile Bird

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18 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

b). It was Tillerson, Mattis and Mnuchin, though McMaster will be out the door soon. I wouldn't be shocked if Mnuchin resigned soon. He accomplished his main goal, the tax cut, and he doesn't seem to enjoy government work. He'll go back to making tons of money by the end of 2018. Mattis is harder to peg. There have been reports that he will leave soon too, but they're less reliable. And I think he loves his job, plus he sees it as his duty to not let Trump use the military to destroy the world. There have been countless reports of him stopping Trump from making horrible mistakes. My guess is that of the three who remain that I listed, he's the last to go.

Thanks, I just put the members of the suicide pact together by memory. And since my memory for names is usually not that great, I am sorta relieved I got 2/3 right. Never thought Mnuchin would be the third one, he looks a bit off on that list. Anyway, I stand corrected.

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3 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Really? I thought I heard last night that there are over a hundred seats (I believe they said 112) that are held by Republicans that are less safe than PA-18.

Yes.  First, this was solely based on the 2016 presidential election result, whereas somewhat Cook PVI is different (see below).  Second, I was not counting all Republican-held seats with a Cook PVI of R+11 or less, only those that were rated R-lean or likely (instead of safe).  Was trying to be fair - using a combination of quantitative and qualitative measures.

3 hours ago, Maithanet said:

I've seen PA-18 described as both R+11 and R+21.  538 definitely describes it as R+21, based on the past two presidential races where Romney won +20 and Trump was +21.  I don't really know where the R+11 is coming from, perhaps they are mixing in some data on things like the 2014 governor's race and the last time the seat was contested in 2012?

Cook PVI's methodology is described here:

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To determine the national average for these latest ratings, we have taken the average Democratic share of the two-party presidential vote for 2012 and 2016, which is roughly 51.5 percent, and that of Republicans, which is roughly 48.5 percent. So, if Barack Obama carried 58 percent of the vote in a given district in 2012 and Hillary Clinton carried 55 percent in the district in 2012, the district would have a PVI score of roughly D+5.

538 use their own PVI score, but with slight differences because they're the cool nerds:

Quote
  • Our PVI calculations are similar to those used by Cook Political Report, although we weight 2012 more heavily (75 percent) than 2008 (25 percent) instead of weighting them evenly.

 

3 hours ago, Maithanet said:

However, there is also reason not to take too much from this one race.  Lamb was the better candidate, running for a seat that was vacated due to a nasty sex scandal.  Those kinds of scandals make it hard to hold any seat, and most Republicans won't have that handicap. 

This is all true, but it's also true that the vast majority of GOP incumbents are not going to have anything near the institutional and SuperPAC support Saccone received.

47 minutes ago, IamMe90 said:

What are you referring to?

Good question.  If it's McCain and Paul opposing Haspel that's, um, entirely different.

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7 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

This will drive retirements.

Indeed.  Looking at the filing deadlines for primaries, one would think this should start happening quite soon in most states so as to give the party enough time to recruit new candidates before they need to get on the ballot.

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4 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

This is all true, but it's also true that the vast majority of GOP incumbents are not going to have anything near the institutional and SuperPAC support Saccone received.

That's fair.  But incumbency comes with advantages too.  We saw that in the VA House in 2017, in spite of a wipeout in the governor's race and far higher Democratic turnout, the combination of gerrymandering and incumbency protected the Republican majority (by literally the slimmest of margins: one vote and drawing lots).

Both sides need to learn the proper lessons from these special election successes.  In open races, Republicans are doing very badly.  But defeating incumbents is hard - Republicans have been more successful in the Trump era defending their own seats.  Which leads me to think that while Democrats just won in a special in R+20 PA-18, not that many districts are really in play.  Bad candidates running in R+12 districts should worry and even strong Republicans in R+5 districts are in for a real fight. 

Further, looking just at PA, if Lamb can win in PA-18, you have to think Democrats are the favorites in PA-1, PA-6, PA-7 and PA-17 (in addition to the virtually certain pickup in PA-5).  If the mood in PA in November is anything like last night, Democrats probably take 10 of PA's 18 seats. 

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This seems like a good analysis of the Lamb/Saccone race - which is that even in higher turnout elections, Republicans are facing trouble

Quote

 

Thus, Republicans have one less excuse for their string of really awful special election performances. It’s true that other measures aren’t as bad for Republicans as these special elections — for instance, they trail Democrats by “only” 8 or 9 percentage points on the generic congressional ballot, which suggests a close race for control of the House this year that only narrowly favors Democrats. By contrast, the 16- or 17-point5 average Democratic overperformance in special elections so far suggests a Democratic mega-tsunami.

But those special election results consist of actual people voting, whereas generic ballot polls are mostly conducted among registered voters — or sometimes all adults. (Very few pollsters will apply their likely voter models until later this year.) In midterm years, polls of likely voters sometimes show a substantial gap from those of registered voters — there was about a 6-point enthusiasm gap favoring Republicans in 2010, for instance, which took that year from being mildly problematic for Democrats into a massive Republican wave that saw them pick up 63 House seats.

 

 

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I’m just watching CNBC and the current hostess (host, but it’s a woman?) said that they had a long discussion about the dead dog and United’s pr problems, and suggested that the dog died because stewards have a strong union and don’t give a shit. Whereas other airlines don’t have unions so their employees care more.

Union bashing taken to a different level.

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10 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

But defeating incumbents is hard - Republicans have been more successful in the Trump era defending their own seats.  Which leads me to think that while Democrats just won in a special in R+20 PA-18, not that many districts are really in play.

Of course.  The incumbency advantage didn't go away last night and that 112 number was ultimately just a scary statistic for pundits to parrot last night.  Hell, it's higher than even the party's list of targets.

Also, forgot to mention about retirements (even though it was the main reason I used that link) - it should be noted that in quite a few states it's already too late to get an alternative candidate on the primary ballot.

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5 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

I’m just watching CNBC and the current hostess (host, but it’s a woman?) said that they had a long discussion about the dead dog and United’s pr problems, and suggested that the dog died because stewards have a strong union and don’t give a shit. Whereas other airlines don’t have unions so their employees care more.

Union bashing taken to a different level.

I work for a union and pay my union dues with the scalps of puppies and kittens.  We all do. 

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1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

NOW DO YOU PEOPLE UNDERSTAND WHY I SPENT LAST WEEK TALKING ABOUT THE MAKE UP OF THE SENATE, AND HOW KENNEDY RETIRING NOW COULD FORCE A MORE MODERATE NOMINEE?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Listen to the former Senate staffer when he talks about the politics of the Senate!!!!!!

Yeah dude, look at how the moderate Republicans have totally held to their word over time. They have certainly not caved over and over and over and over again.

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1 hour ago, IamMe90 said:

What are you referring to?

About how the current makeup of the Senate, especially with McCain’s absence, allows one or two Republican senators to block anything they please, so if Susan Collins, Rand Paul and/or Jeff Flake find a nominee to be unacceptable, be it for a cabinet appointment or the SC, they can sink them.

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Can we all agree to just retire the terms "Blue Wave" and "Blue Tsunami" until Nov. 7?  I don't know why Democrats are always so eager to count their victories before they happen.  The expectations game matters people, you have to act like the score is tied!  Confidently predicting victories a year out is just stupid.

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23 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

About how the current makeup of the Senate, especially with McCain’s absence, allows one or two Republican senators to block anything they please, so if Susan Collins, Rand Paul and/or Jeff Flake find a nominee to be unacceptable, be it for a cabinet appointment or the SC, they can sink them.

I agree that a few Republican senators hold quite a bit of power. I disagree that this means they will suddenly be more moderate.

This doesn't mean that a more moderate candidate will be allowed; it means that candidates who do not appeal to those specific people won't be. For example, as we saw with the tax cut, all of the above would be fine with someone who is super economically lame and a hardcore supply sider for certain positions, provided they didn't torture anyone or have a sex tape. They've been fine with almost every judicial nomination so far, with only a couple exceptions being people who were literally unqualified to practice law in that way.

 

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8 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

I have been hearing about Blue Waves since before the VA elections last November. 

Ginning up liberals' electoral expectations is a legitimate trade at this point.

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4 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I agree that a few Republican senators hold quite a bit of power. I disagree that this means they will suddenly be more moderate.

This doesn't mean that a more moderate candidate will be allowed; it means that candidates who do not appeal to those specific people won't be. For example, as we saw with the tax cut, all of the above would be fine with someone who is super economically lame and a hardcore supply sider for certain positions, provided they didn't torture anyone or have a sex tape. They've been fine with almost every judicial nomination so far, with only a couple exceptions being people who were literally unqualified to practice law in that way.

Possibly the biggest impact so far has been Corey Gardner single-handedly preventing DOJ from changing almost any Obama-era marijuana policies by blocking almost every relevant nominee and holding some other ones hostage to ensure continued compliance (There'd be other roadblocks if it wasn't for him, but they haven't come up yet).

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10 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

I have been hearing about Blue Waves since before the VA elections last November. 

"Blue Enema"? Time to clean up Congress where it really needs it. 

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