Watching the Republicans the last two weeks up to their same old bullshit (Hagel, Brennan, Benghazi, etc.), I don’t know how anyone can escape the fact that this midterm election we need an unprecedented Democratic turnout to stop electing these nutters.
What can we do otherwise? I listened to part of the Diane Rehm show with Susan Page and other journalists, and it was two hours of mealy mouthed both sides do it bullshit.
We’re going to get no help from the media, who love the status quo, so something has got to happen.
Baud
We need Samual Jackson to do a PSA:
“Turn the fuck out.”
By the way, all the GOP is doing right now is flinging poo. They’ve all but said they’re going to allow Hagel to be confirmed. We need to stop freaking out and show some resolve.
Redshirt
A-frakin’-men! 2014 might be more critical than 2012, as Obama had it fairly well wrapped up early. 2014 could be a disaster, or an awakening from the Republican Nightmare.
Let’s stay active – I’d suggest the blog does threads dedicated towards targeted fundraising to try and rally the troops.
Mike in NC
Hate to say it, but 2014 will most likely be a replay of 2010. Not enough teabaggers have kicked the bucket.
Zifnab25
Gerrymandered shit is still gerrymandered. I’m curious where Dems are expected to find the 34+ House seats they need. I mean, don’t get me wrong. Demographics change. People evolve new political views. But Obama just won reelection with nice fat coat-tails, the Dem Senate picked up seats when it was supposed to lose them, and the GOP House lost by 1.1M votes. That sounds about as good as it is going to get.
I’d love to retake the House. I just have no idea how we plan to do that.
Violet
@Baud: Yes. This. The Obama voters need to understand that the President can’t enact his agenda if he doesn’t have help in Congress.
T.
Today was truly an eye opening experience. I’m a young, AA female med student at a hospital in NYC and I had the unfortunate opportunity to work with a tech who is a Fox News loving, mealy mouth, Benghazi coverup, moochers, Mitt Romney lover, Obama tripled the deficit, Bush was the best President, nut bag. To say I was speechless was an understatement. I’ve read about these mystical wingnutters but to see one in the flesh? Wow.
He even went so far to say that people join the military looking for handouts, not because they love their country. However, he also said Hannity was too far right for him. *snort*
What a day.
Robin G.
Say what you want about Obama’s team, but they rarely make the same mistake twice. I anticipate unprecedented GOTV efforts.
Trollhattan
@Baud:
Wait, when does the Knesset vote? (Consulting Zuper Zecret rool bok.)
Baud
Teabaggers crested in popularity in 2010. They are not going to be popular in 2014 — they’ll be hated because the GOP house will obstruct progress and possibly force us into a another recession. Also, don’t discount the possibility of independent runs and Akin effects in a number of races.
Robin G.
@Zifnab25: Hopefully by benefitting from the Tea Party/Karl Rove Mutually Assured Destruction Extravaganza.
MikeJ
Don’t mourn, organize.
Have you volunteered for a congressional race yet? Been to the county Democratic party meetings? Offered to be a block captain? Know how many on your block are registered to vote, and which way they’ll go?
Baud
@Zifnab25:
For the right, the last election was about tribalism, pure and simple. Obama’s done electorally because of the Constitution. We can do better because we can get the majority of people to start focusing on policy instead of race and party loyalty. The GOP is screwed. They either lose their base, or they lose moderates and independents.
Just Some Fuckhead
Not to worry, John. Republicans are thinking about stopping talk like the world is ending, stopping repeal of regulations no one’s ever heard of and maybe sanding some of the rough edges. Republicans are sane again, yay!
Yutsano
@Baud: House races are local affairs. The teatards may be vulnerable by virtue of their lack of constituent services and getting the money flowing to their districts. If we can get them on those two vulnerabilities plus show that all they seem to be interested in is stopping anything from happening, we might just get 34 cracks in the wall. Not to mention 86 of them will be traitors to the teatard cause because they voted for the tax hikes which means there will be primaries. This behaviour should be highly encouraged.
Corner Stone
FUCK!! I forgot to study! And I don’t have any shorts on!!
Uh..uh..whew! That dream gets me every freakin’ time.
GregB
The GOP will be against some significant headwinds this time. 2010 they voted out a bunch of solid Democratic Governors and brought in a pack of incompetent criminals, hacks and quasi-fasicsts.
Scott in Florida, Corbett in PA, Snyder in Michigan are toast. No coat tails from those asswipes.
They have Jindal in LA who’s begun tanking in the polls and in Maine LePage is in the gutter too.
Scott Walker will get indicted before the elections.
Plus the GOP has Ted Cruz and Paul Broun and Steve King running their fucking moron mouths off and that will do them no good.
But yes, organize and get out the vote for God’s sake.
PLH in NYC
So, I’m game. What do you have in mind to do? I am in a City that is mostly Blue and elects mostly blue reps. I am not able to travel far and wide because of children and work commitments but want to do something.
JWL
It’s getting to a point where I think you were born too late, Cole. You belong in the ’60’s.
dr. bloor
Friends don’t let friends listen to Diane Rehm. She’s happy to let Hoover Institute, etc. lunatics spew nonsense forever to maintain that journamalismic balance, she is.
Total nitwit.
Yutsano
Halp! I r moderererated!!
Corner Stone
Well, this night is freakin toast. Just found the A-Team remake on FX.
Good night Mrs. Calabash.
SatanicPanic
Agree with everyone that it won’t be a Tea Party rout like in 2010, but how do we gain seats?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Zifnab25:
Jeepers, it seems like Groundhog Day every time this topic comes up. So let’s go over this, yet again:
The party which gains more seats thru Gerrymandering than they would have won under a neutral districting scheme, does so at the cost of shaving down their margins of victory in some of the districts they won, compared with that same neutral districting scheme. That’s how gerrymandering works, it is a leveraged bet against the future volatility of the electorate over the next 4 elections (i.e. until the next census-driven remapping).
Today that party is the GOP. Yes, in 2012 they leveraged a slim minority of total votes for the House into a slim majority of House seats. By definition that means more of their districts are vulnerable than is the case with the ones which Dems took/held.
Our job is to get 2012 turnout plus some small additional bonus. If we can do that, those seats are vulnerable. And yes, I agree with [email protected] that the 2014 midterms are extremely important.
Ted & Hellen
Oh please.
This old tripe.
In 2012 we had WH, Senate, and House.
STILL not enough. Dems LOVE the apparent pursuit of power, but aren’t so thrilled with actually having it.
They generally suck.
That said, my Senator Elizabeth Warren is kicking ass in her new position. Telling that hasn’t been mentioned here, as her performance makes her colleagues look like the milquetoasts they are.
some guy
@dr. bloor:
won’t repeat, but agree 1000 %. Rehm is the example par excellance of “useful idiot.”
Ted & Hellen
@Ted & Hellen:
In 2012 we had WH, Senate, and House.
A thousand pardons: In 2008-2010 we had the above.
Omnes Omnibus
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
You can gerrymander to make safe seats or to get more seats. The GOP went for more seats and, as you point out, that makes more of those seats vulnerable.
Ted & Hellen
@Corner Stone:
Dear God.
And hear I thought we had so much in common. ;)
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: A lot changes in two years. Not to mention the tea folk aren’t exactly known for constituent service or getting the pork back home. There might just be quite a few more purple districts than people are expecting, but the Democrats still need to get out and vote dammit.
NotMax
When a wheelchair-bound Bob Dole (Bob Dole!) showed up on the Senate floor to speak for passage of a bill, and the Senate Republicans immediately thereafter voted it down, it should have become crystal clear to even the most obtuse insider what was going on within that benighted party.
That it did not sink in then still puzzles me.
If it did sink in and the Dems (and media) refuse to acknowledge it and operate accordingly, that’s even worse.
Chris
@Corner Stone:
YEEEESSS.
Fantastic movie. How the hell did G. I. Joe get a sequel when the A-Team didn’t? :( :( :(
General Stuck
As we get closer to the midterms, expect to see razed wingnut villages with heads on pikes, rampant cannibalism, and lots of river dancing.
Democrats just have to look and act like adults, and maybe deploy a few shiny footballs for the left, to get Lucy’d after the election. Ought to go like water off a ducks back.
max
@T.: He even went so far to say that people join the military looking for handouts, not because they love their country.
Well. That’s a theory. Did you ask him about people who worked at public hospitals?
max
[‘There are an amazing number of masochists running around.’]
Chris
@Yutsano:
That is a true fact. And pretty much all there is to it.
Obama’s GOTV effort was pretty solid in 2008 and 2012 – can he deploy it for the midterms again?
Davis X. Machina
@Chris: GI Joe had complexity, nuance, characters you could identify with. The A-Team was just a glorified cartoon.
In further Hollywood news, hard on the heels of the movie version of Battleship, Peter Jackson has just inked an agreement for a four-film tetralogy based on the game Othello.
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: Also. Too. I kinda hope the Seahacks give him at least an eyeball, we could use the experience on our defence.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yutsano: Eek.
General Stuck
@Chris:
The history is ‘the 6 year itch’ that says the party with the WH loses seats. But not as bad as the 2 year rage that was 2010.
Most of the experts I look at are saying new history is being made as we speak, and for the wingers to not count on those patterns past for voting this go around.
I think it all depends on how crazy the republicans get, not only with policy and their caveman attitudes toward women and sex, but mostly with each other. There are two camps that will be warring the whole way, and republicans put on the most vicious party civil wars.
FlipYrWhig
@Davis X. Machina: I’m looking forward to Guillermo Del Toro’s _Candyland_.
askew
@GregB:
Is that investigation still even going on? I haven’t heard anything about it in months.
I think you are right about the GOP governors having negative coattails. However, that may be offset by new GOP bills to make voting harder and the possible blowback to Dems if the sequester goes through as it would likely send the economy crashing again.
Chris
@General Stuck:
I don’t expect anything like a repeat of 2010 either, mostly because they’ve burned themselves out to quite an extent. I don’t really expect that much movement either way, actually.
A civil war among them would be a godsend – you think it’ll happen in the midterms already? I don’t doubt that they’re due for one, but only if enough of the big money comes around to Karl Rove’s point of view that the teabaggers are a liability. Don’t know if they’re there yet.
Corner Stone
@Yutsano:
Say what? You want to add Woodson to the Seattle secondary? What position would he play?
If you mean bringing him in as a coach that would work out better.
magurakurin
blah blah, dems suck, weak gurg 2008 majorities in two houses nada blah gurg dems suck Warren kicks ass blah but Obama sold us out not fighting for her to head spittle drool blah Consumer Protction Bureau blah Dems suck weak cowards Harry Reid milk toast blah gurgle
what happened in 2008-2010? Oh yeah, Obamacare was passed. But there was no public option so it’s just worthless shit.
Cheryl from Maryland
Please people, don’t forget GOTV for 2013 — Cucinelli is running in Virginia.
General Stuck
@Chris:
The tea baggers might be a liability, but they are in the drivers seat for a midterm, versus the old guard and their voters. And they are plenty steamed that Rove is running his mouth and waving the big bucks around. If the repubs hold onto the House , the tea party will still have enough members to own Boehner and continue to make the repubs a laughing stock unfit for governance. And if it goes on like that for much longer, they risk a generation in the wilderness if that becomes a firm label in voters heads.
It is a perfect storm, and I don’t know how bad it will get for the midterm. There are so many moving parts, but I think the tea party has the upper hand right now for the midterm, due to their voters being more likely to turn out for primaries and the general election. None of it is good news for the GOP. Dems should get out of the way mostly, or bait the nutters at opportune times, like Obama has been doing.
Sinnedbackwards
@Zifnab25: 17 seats switching gives Nancy a majority of 1. Padding would be nice, but 17 is a lot shorter climb.
Anne Laurie
@Davis X. Machina:
Been done, only beter: Hikaru no Go.
Chris
@General Stuck:
Word.
Let the other party tear itself to shreds and pick up the pieces when they’re done. Worked for the Republicans in the 1960s, worked for the Democrats in the 1910s.
Hungry Joe
@Corner Stone:
DECADES since I was in college, and I still have that dream. Usually I’m thinking, “I can’t believe I did this again.”
Zifnab25
@Sinnedbackwards: Oh, right. Because when they lose a Republican we also gain a Democrat. *sigh* Math is hard.
However, my point still stands. I’d like to know which 17 seats we plan to target.
Corner Stone
@Hungry Joe:
For some reason mine always starts out with the knowledge that I haven’t actually attended class for like two weeks but the test is this morning. I always think, “Eh, I’ll just drop the class.” Then the realization that the drop date has passed sets in and I am soooo pissed.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Corner Stone:
People study in college? Damn, glad I was a Lit. Major.
Corner Stone
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Don’t try and lie to us. When you were in college they had some old bearded dude barely wrapped in a toga who did nothing but ask you really annoying fucking questions all day.
Redshirt
Why would one go to college – presumably paying for the experience – and slack/cut/goof off? I never figured that out.
It’s not High School. You’re choosing to go there. If Dad’s paying for it, I suppose I understand why some might slack – who gives a shit, right? Otherwise, I got nothing.
bemused
@T.:
A motormouth wingnut…what fun.
Corner Stone
@Davis X. Machina:
You, sir, lack the refined education and historical background to fully appreciate the nature of classicism on display here. I pity you.
Corner Stone
@Redshirt:
Speaking just for myself, that was the whole basis of the dream/nightmare. Why didn’t I attend those classes? Why wasn’t I ready? What the hell was I thinking?
And the negated easy out just added to the whole sucked in surreal feel. Why did I think dropping was an acceptable choice?
I think you’re missing the existential nature of this whole discussion.
Hungry Joe
@Corner Stone: Yep, I’ve had that variation, too. In real life I went to class, did the reading, prepared for midterms and finals … which is why I have the dreams: They’re called “good student dreams,” because “bad students” — people who DON’T go to class, etc. — mostly don’t care about school, so there’s no emotional attachment that manifests itself in unnerving dreams. Probably they have unnerving dreams about not making it to the party on time, something I didn’t have to worry about a whole lot.
Corner Stone
@Chris:
When Face is happily firing the chain fed weapon at the drones coming to shoot down the tank they are “flying”?
That was like orgasmic poetry.
Hungry Joe
@Corner Stone:
Exactly. Nailed it.
kuvasz
In 2014, NO FUCKING PRISONERS!
Tie around the neck of every Republican the words and acts of their most bizarre colleagues and demand that they denounce them. When they don’t, attack them, and define them as the most bizarre human being outside of a circus geek.
You do not negotiate with cannibals.
Omnes Omnibus
@Redshirt: Well, there is always the argument that you learn as much from your fellow students outside of class as you do in classes.
Also, much like people noted above, whenever I have that dream it is not involving a class I was intentionally blowing off; it always involves a class that for some reason I had completely forgotten was on my schedule. Additionally, I never have those dreams about undergrad when I did slack off, but rather about law school when I didn’t.
BC
One thing OFA can do – start registering new voters. Between now and 2014, many young people turn 18; let’s register them and then, once we have them registered, let’s get them to turn out and vote. People move from one congressional district to another – let’s make sure they are registered. The gerrymandered districts are based on the voting and housing patterns of the 2010 census. We Americans don’t stay in the same place year after year – let’s get the voters who moved in and the voters just eligible to vote registered and then let’s get them to the polls. This is the hard work, but it can be done. BTW, I’m in Colorado and we have targeted Mike (birther) Coffman and have a very good candidate for his seat.
Redshift
@BC: OFA can register voters, but unfortunately, they’re limited in doing GOTV, because the new organization is a 501(c)4 advocacy organization, which can do issue advocacy, but can’t get involved in elections.
I find this enormously frustrating.
Redshift
@Omnes Omnibus:
This is true, but from what I understand, they balanced this somewhat by making some Democratic seats extremely safe, so it’s unfortunately not quite so open and shut.
In addition, I’ve read some convincing analysis (don’t have a link handy, though) that part of the Dems’ problem is that since we’re the urban party, even “fair” districts that satisfy compactness criteria result in an inherent advantage for Republicans. Basically, splitting up cities/suburbs and joining the pieces with part of the surrounding area, which would result in a congressional split reflecting the actual nationwide vote, wouldn’t be non-gerrymandered districts that are compact and respect natural boundaries.
Gerrymandering makes it worse, of course, but even without it the more urban party is still at a disadvantage.
Omnes Omnibus
@Redshift:
This is definitely the case in Wisconsin. it is one of the reasons we tend to vote Democratic in statewide elections but still end up with a Republican legislature. (Walker is an anomaly.)
Bill Arnold
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
These seats will be hard-fought in 2014. Best start now.
(My local Tea Party house member, Nan Hayworth, lost decisively in 2012, in part due to reshaped district due to a loss of 2 NY seats, and in part due to high turnout.)
Redshift
@Omnes Omnibus: For future reference, here’s the link (PDF):
http://www.stanford.edu/~jrodden/chen_rodden_florida.pdf
fuckwit
Where is Nate Silver when you need him?
Get his happy ass embedded in Excel, crunching the numbers on the voting histories of these districts, the demographics, and what the hell is actually going on.
Shit, the DNC or The Action or OFA should fucking HIRE HIS ASS TO DO THIS WORK. NOW.
cmorenc
@Zifnab25:
To cause a 34-seat net swing between parties in the next election, recognize that it’s only necessary to flip 17 seats, not 34. That’s because each seat flipped BOTH subtracts one from the party who had more seats coming into the election, AND adds one to the party who had fewer. FOR EXAMPLE: the current US House is 234-R to 201-D, a difference of 33 seats; let’s hypothetically assume one of the GOP representatives resigns before completing his regular term, and the laws of his home state require a special election to fill the remainder of his term. Suppose the democratic nominee wins the seat. The new house split will be: 233-R to 202-D, a difference of 31 seats (vs 33 seats before, even though the special election only involved one seat).
TriassicSands
Diane Rehm seems like a very nice elderly lady, but she is much, much too polite to confront any of her guests with worthwhile questions. The worst part of her show? Her guests. They are almost always drawn from the same ol’ tiny roster of MSM regulars. One exception to that was a show I heard a while back that had Stephen Moore on spewing truly noxious right wing lies about food stamps and food insecurity. It was appalling. Or it would have been if one of the other guests hadn’t been unquestionably the best expert guest I’ve heard paired with an ass like Moore, who has no expertise on the subject, just an encyclopedia of rancid, ideological nonsense. Anyway, the woman treated him with barely controlled contempt and crushed him repeatedly. It was beautiful to hear.
David in NY
Re: mealy mouthed NPR.
Heard one of the panelists on Tom Ashbrook’s “On Point” actually say about Obama’s programme that those “on the other side of the aisle are going to have to compromise.” Now, I saw this as a great advance, putting the obligation to compromise on the other guys, without saying Obama had to move over too. But, as my wife said, can’t they just say “Republicans”? Are the afraid?
piratedan
@Anne Laurie: I believe that casting has David Bowie slated for the role of Sai.
The Sailor
@Ted & Hellen:
What planet do you live on? This is the same meme spread by republicans, but in reality it never happened.