Straw in the whirlwind… the Teahadi stench is so strong the neighbors are beginning to notice. Andrew Romano, at Yahoo News:
… With one month to go before Election Day, the major storyline about the 2014 midterms seems to be that the GOP is up and the Democrats are down. Republicans will hold the House; they’re even favored to win the Senate.
But turn your attention to the gubernatorial contests, and a different picture emerges. Eight Republican incumbents are in danger of losing re-election; only three of their Democratic counterparts find themselves in the same situation.
This is remarkable. According to Louis Jacobson, the re-election rate for governors between 1998 and 2012 was 82 percent, meaning that incumbent governors were almost five times as likely to win as to lose. To put the GOP’s current predicament in perspective, the number of Republicans currently at risk — again, eight — is the same as the total number who were unseated during the entire 14-year period that Jacobson surveyed.
So what’s going on?
It’s the electoral version of “be careful what you wish for — you just might get it.” For the most part, the new coterie of conservative leaders who swept into statehouses across the country four years ago weren’t your standard-issue Republicans. They were bolder. More principled. Less willing to compromise.
Sam Brownback in Kansas. Tom Corbett in Pennsylvania. Paul LePage in Maine. Rick Scott in Florida. Scott Walker in Wisconsin.
Their goal was to practice what the tea party preached. “My focus is to create a red-state model that allows the Republican ticket to say, ‘See, we’ve got a different way, and it works,'” said Brownback. “We’ll have a real, live experiment.”
And that’s just what they did…
Brownback, Corbett, LePage, Scott and Walker promised that governing 2010 style would be an economic slam-dunk. The data, however, tell a different story. Four years later, most of these states are struggling…
The bottom line is that the class of 2010 governors promised revolutionary policies that would, in turn, spark revolutionary economic results. But while they delivered on the first half of that equation, they didn’t deliver on the second — and in many cases, it’s easier to argue that austerity hurt their states than to argue it helped…
Liberty60
Meanwhile, in the People’s Republic of California, where we tossed the GOP to the curb in 2010, where no Republican holds any statewide office, where we agreed with Gov. Jerry Brown and raised taxes, the economy is doing very well.
Steeplejack (tablet)
Just saw The Judge this afternoon. Miss it if you can!
Comrade Jake
Friends of ours were on the front page of the Durham Herald-Sun the other day as the NC ban on gay marriage was struck down:
http://www.heraldsun.com/news/localnews/x1154809203/For-couples-the-wait-is-over
They were all over the local news as well. Quite a day.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Steeplejack (tablet): Sorry to hear that. I’m big Robert Duval fan–RDG kinda grates on me, though I can’t say why. I’ll probably watch it when it hits the cable.
Duval was on Letterman the other night and made a point of saying to DL something like: “You shouldn’t retire! That other guy’s not funny! He’s not funny!” Duval is a good friend of O’Reilly. I still really enjoy his acting.
Mr Stagger Lee
So what about Kasich in Ohio? Is he screwed blued and Tattooed?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mr Stagger Lee: 25 points ahead per TPM poll tracker.
Mr Stagger Lee
@Mr Stagger Lee: OK I just read RealClearPolitics. I see why now.
? Martin
@Liberty60: Yep. At our worst our unemployment rate was 4.1% higher than Texas. It’s now only 2.3% higher. We still have some work to do, but it’s improving faster than anywhere else in the country.
gogol's wife
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Are we really going to lose the Senate? I must have missed something.
Baud
@gogol’s wife:
Depends on turnout.
bemused
It will be interesting to see how Republicans vote in those states with lousy governors and if they have caught on that austerity economics can be a bitch.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@gogol’s wife: ?? My link was just to the OH gov’s race. That said, I am feeling pretty pessimistic about the Senate. The Denver Post endorsed Cory Gardener– who is running an astonishingly dishonest campaign, even for a contemporary Repubiican– based on what would seem to be a completely uncritical viewing of Gardener’s campaign commercials. I know endorsements mean pretty much bupkis, but this one strikes me as a perfect crystallization of the thoughts of the low-information but regular voter.
Mike E
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Get Low was great. Love the actor, but hate his politics.
debbie
@Mr Stagger Lee:
Kasich’s primping and waiting for his call on stage to acknowledge his mandate.
redbeardjim
Unlike a lot of the other GOP gov’s, Kasich learned from his mistakes in ’10-’11 and has been very very quiet ever since.
It’s been a strange election season here in Ohio, in the sense that it hardly seems like there’s an election happening at all for all the campaigning I haven’t been seeing.
Bobby B.
Get your news from the Yahoo page and you can always find the news you wish for.
Howard Beale IV
But if you believe CATO, those governor’s get A+ ratings because they downsized government.
Oh, wait-you mean you actually NEED a government?, Uh whoops….
JGabriel
Yahoo! News via Anne Laurie @ Top:
Fixed that for you, Yahoo.
Anoniminous
@gogol’s wife:
It’s a coin flip. Considering this was an awful year for Dems that’s a good position to be in.
@Baud:
And this.
jibeaux
@Comrade Jake: funny, Helena Cragg who’s also mentioned there is a former neighbor of ours, nice lady.
KG
@redbeardjim: california has been the same way, save for a couple of commercials on one of the propositions, I’ve seen nothing
The Dangerman
Crazy day in sports. Baylor’s comeback over TCU. Arkansas up over Alabama. Ned Yost is probably the worst manager in baseball (non-Mattingly, at least) and Showwalter is probably the best and the Orioles are getting punked at home. Lunacy.
Baud
@redbeardjim:
I hate to see him win, but it’s true I haven’t heard his name in the news much lately.
andy
You, know, morons.
Mike E
@The Dangerman: I weep for the upcoming all-Misery WS.
Mike in NC
Sadly, we’re stuck here with Governor Pat McCrory for two more years. He’s currently as popular as Ebola.
The Dangerman
@Mike E:
It could be worse (i.e., Giants; SF is a lovely city with lots of lovely people, but it also has the highest number of assholes per capita of anyplace I’ve been).
Corner Stone
@The Dangerman: Been to Dallas at any point?
Mike E
@The Dangerman: Gawd, SF is gorgeous and our IT overlords have it all to themselves now. Sob.
As much as I hate that red state I will be rooting for the Royals if they make it to the dance.
Iowa Old Lady
I just finished listening to Steve Kornacki’s show from this morning. He has some guests on talking about policies the Republicans would work for if they seized both houses in this election. Have these guests not been paying attention? The Rs have shown no interest in governing. If they win, they will vote to repeal the ACA and impeach the president. That’s their idea of what they’re in DC to do.
Baud
@Mike E:
Any noticeable changes for tourists?
Turgidson
@Liberty60:
Amazing what’s possible when GOP arsonists and saboteurs are kicked to the curb where they belong. Election night 2010 was all sorts of depressing, but I was sure proud of this state for resisting the Red Tide of Stupid.
pseudonymous in nc
That may affect the NC mid-terms. McCrony isn’t up for re-election till 2016, but two years of a total GOP control (and kid-in-candy shop crazy overreach) means that the state legislature race is very interesting. Even with gerrymandering: the state legislature districts are smaller and potentially more volatile than the federal districts, which have been stitched up to deliver a GOP advantage in a 50/50 state. A lot of ostensibly moderate GOP state reps in small-c conservative districts — that is, socially conservative but populist — are now having to defend themselves against the crazies on the other side of the state because, heck, you can only change who runs the state legislature by voting in your own district.
So the 2014 election has Hagan/Tillis at the top, but Hagan and Tillis are proxies for Obama and the NC state legislature.
jacy
@gogol’s wife:
Honestly, I quit listening to predictions, supposition, or basically any reporting. I’ll just make sure I vote and get as many other people to vote as is humanly possible and see what happens. I seriously have political supposition fatigue. (And I keep voting and calling and encouraging even though, living in Louisiana, its less painful to just set yourself on fire and be done with it than have anything to do with politics.)
Turgidson
@debbie:
That’s what I’m assuming. He had the good sense to pretend to be humbled by the asskicking his union busting shit received, but I fully expect him to unleash all kinds of braindead Teabagger destruction after he wins big, of course claiming a mandate.
Baud
@jacy:
My attitude also.
pseudonymous in nc
@Mike in NC:
Weird thought: McCrony might actually like having at least some of the legislature go back into Dem control for the back end of his term. Means less crazy coming out of the GA that he’d either need to sign or veto.
Turgidson
@The Dangerman:
Lived there for 10 years and didn’t have that experience at all. NYC and LA in particular have a lot more assholes per capita. Granted, SF has steadily gotten worse in the past few years with all the tech money gushing in. Lots and lots of rich nerd douchebros on the loose there now.
JPL
@The Dangerman: Bama up by one but with plenty of time left.
JR in WV
I sure hope the Dems keep the senate… we’re phone banking, depressing, so many people don’t want to talk about their politics. I can’t count the people who say “That’s none of your business!” I always say that right, can talk to you about why I’m volunteering my precious personal time to help a candidate? “NO!”
Here we have two women running for the US Senate. A pretty good Dem, a farm girl who worked her way through a 4 year degree at WVU, and a right-wing R who’s father went to federal prison for being a crroked politician. So I ask a guy “Have you decided who to vote for in the Senate race?”
“I’m not going to vote, God says never to put a woman above a man, so neither of the candidates is qualified, to me!”
ok, thanks….
The Dangerman
@Turgidson:
This.
As for whomever asked about Dallas, I was there only briefly (same applies to NYC); mostly a West Coaster.
Howard Beale IV
Of course, CATO rated these governors A because they wanted to eliminate government under their euphemism ‘downsizing’.
Not surprising, as it is the CATO folks have to work for CATO as no one else would dare employ them for their amoral anarchist views.
Sorry CATO, but if these governors lose, its because these governors followed your twisted inhuman failed ideology right off the cliff-and you only have yourselves to blame.
Iowa Old Lady
@JR in WV: It could have been worse. At least he’s not voting for the Republican. That’s worth, what, half a vote?
AndoChronic
A year ago I was hearing “just wait until Scott Walker becomes president, he’ll fix everything” from my neighbors in Wisco, they’ve since changed their tune however. How’s their economy and jobless rate doing compared to MN’s? Well, it’s not even comparable, apples to oranges. They all come to MN. to find work!
Baud
@JR in WV:
I’m phone banking tomorrow. Although maybe I’ll stick with data entry. I don’t handle idiots all that well.
Corner Stone
@The Dangerman: Yeah, asshole. I asked about Dallas. Not hard to see that, jerkhole.
Corner Stone
@JR in WV:
Someone in the USA actually said this out loud, without bursting into maniacal laughter?
Iowa Old Lady
@Corner Stone: Maybe it’s the same old guy I was forced to spend time with who said the trouble with congress was too many women. He’s the one in whose name I donated to Emily’s List. I trust he’s still getting their mailings.
PsiFighter37
@pseudonymous in nc: Given how gerrymandered the state legislature is, fat chance of that happening…
Any idea if Roy Cooper has a shot in 2016?
Mike G
And it blew chunks as badly as everyone-but-the-27% thought it would.
Violet
@Corner Stone: Awww, sweetie, you sound just as naive as the CDC director who was “saddened” by the irrational Ebola panic sweeping America, since we’re so educated here.
tech98
@The Dangerman:
I’m guessing you haven’t spent much time in Phoenix.
Mike E
@Baud: Dunno, it’ll always be a great place to visit (I went in ’87 and ’93) but I’ve seen reports about the working class getting gentrified out of their traditional neighborhoods. Sucks for them, especially if city hall doesn’t give a shit about vibrant and diverse SF.
@pseudonymous in nc: That’s all that smarmy smooth talking Duke Energy plant needs, is even better cover for his fuck-over of NC. Yuck.
JPL
@Violet: Now that made me smile. lol
The Dangerman
@tech98:
Minimal; I’ve think I’ve spent more days in China than in Phoenix.
Corner Stone
@Violet: I agree. Women should stay a step or so behind their man (if they’re lucky enough to have one!) so as to show proper respect, and acquiesce to their superior decision making skills.
Thanks!
Corner Stone
@The Dangerman: Edward Snowden, is that you?
cmorenc
@Mike in NC:
What’s particularly sad about McCrory is that up until he began running for governor, he had built a reputation as what passes for a genuinely moderate, pragmatic Republican in the south, particularly while Mayor of Charlotte. This isn’t to say he was remotely close to passing progressive muster, but nevertheless he was in the mold of civic-minded Chamber-of-Commerce Republicans rather than a hard-right ideologue. I had a long conversation on a plane ride with a seatmate who regularly worked with him for years at Duke Energy (McCrory’s longtime private employer) who said he and many others who worked with McCrory there and as Charlotte Mayor were shocked at how at odds his more recent political transformation is from what they thought they knew of him.
WHAT HAPPENED was only in part a shift by McCrory, already underway to an extent when he ran unsuccessfully against Democrat Bev Perdue for Governor in 2008, to adapt to the increasing rightward tide of the GOP in order to retain its support. THE BIGGEST PART OF THE TRANSFORMATION, HOWEVER, was that McCrory decided during the interim between 2008-2012 that he wanted badly enough to succeed in winning himself the Governor’s seat, that he became willing to sell his political soul to Art Pope, our local North Carolina version of the Koch Brothers. Art Pope is wealthy enough to give political and financial support on the scale of N.C. state politics that is as toxically powerful as the Koch Bros. are on a national level. So much so that McCrory named Art Pope his budget director for much of his first two years in office – and a seat intimately at McCrory’s side for every decision he made.
Hopefully, McCrory will end up with just desserts for selling his political soul to North Carolina’s version of the political devil in the post-Jesse Helms era.
Corner Stone
@cmorenc:
How fucking funny/ironic is it that when we now categorize Republicans we put the CoC ones in the nominally “sane” box?
Those guys are assholes, and have always been assholes! They’ve been trying to actively kill all of us for decades!
It’s something else to see them named as “reasonable”, etc.
merrinc
Unfortunately, we’re stuck with our useless puppet of a governor in NC until 2016 but I spent the morning canvassing for Senator Kay Hagan and the afternoon for Natasha Marcus who is running to pick up the most odious Thom Tillis’s seat in the NC General Assembly and let me tell you, I am PUMPED! I am feeling more confident than I have in a very long time – my fellow Tarheels are tired of the bullshit. Fingers crossed that we can not only deprive Tillis from picking up Hagan’s seat but also keep his hand-picked successor from holding his seat in the NCGA. Who’s taking their country back now, buckos? Fired up! Ready to go!
Mike E
@PsiFighter37: Cooper would win easily as long as he fights the good fight. A presidential year helps him, but a pseudo-centrist Hagan campaign would not…don’t get me started about that Goldilocks business she’s trying to pull.
Corner Stone
@Mike E: The porridge or the beds?
Corner Stone
Ole Miss came to ball.
Ruckus
@KG:
I’ve been getting a bunch of mail and one email from a republican. Now that was a waste of electrons. There will have to be a catastrophic change in the political winds for me to even contemplate voting for the Greasy Old Poop party for the remainder of my life.
Violet
@Corner Stone: I once lived in a developing country where that’s where a wife walked–a step or two behind her husband.
Corner Stone
Wow. TAINT for Ole Miss.
21 – 0
Mike E
@merrinc: I’m working for a phone bank that’s looking to contact 15,000 voters. Courage!
Mike E
@Corner Stone: Ugh. If Tillis wins, it’ll be on her.
Whoa! You just gave me a great idea…
Corner Stone
@Violet: One of my best friends was married to a petro engineer who was sent to Saudi, right before Gulf War I.
She has some fun things to say about her time there. Although their daughter had a great time in school going on field trips, to Russia and other places.
Corner Stone
Ole Miss is dropping TAMU like it’s hot.
Culture of Truth
Thus we have 8 previews of a GOP President.
Culture of Truth
@Violet: Utah?
Corner Stone
@Culture of Truth: She said “developing”.
ex ipso requisciate facto ante
wmd
Polarization is out of control. I’m a bit out of sorts, an acquaintance watching Cards vs Giants locally was saying how she couldn’t vote for a democrat under any circumstances. I tapped her on the shoulder and asked her if she approved of ill conceived and unpaid for wars as US policy, at which point she said that was my opinion, then went to her SO and complained I’d laid hands on her. Her SO said just leave you liberal fuck.
guess that’s the 27% in action. alcohol didn’t help. Good thing no one was armed.
Mike in NC
@Mike E: Hagan’s ads have been largely awful, but the Tillis ads pretty much demonstrate that he’s an inarticulate moron who’d have trouble walking and chewing gum at the same time. Hey, he was once a paperboy!
Koch brothers have to go with the candidates they have, not the candidates they’d like.
Mike E
@wmd: SF is taking this one, it’s Obama’s fault.
But wait until they go Godwin…you know it doesn’t even take a light tap to push’em over that edge!
El Caganer
@wmd: Yeah, like religion and alcohol, politics and alcohol don’t mix well. Come to think of it, religion and politics don’t do so hot together, either.
Corner Stone
@efgoldman: Nuh uh! Res ipsa loquitur!
To be fair, it’s too late in the evening to be challenging Davis X Machina so blatantly.
Mike in NC
@cmorenc: Sadly, we’re not yet out of the Jesse Helms era. My next congressman will be a pudgy redneck asshole who actually brags about working for that miserable bastard, because NC-7 has been gerrymandered by the Tea Party activists in Raleigh to overlay his former NC Senate district almost precisely.
His TV ads talk about “taking our country back” (from you know who). Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink.
Corner Stone
@wmd: You were in a bar and did this?
Mike E
@Mike in NC: Yeah, when he’s got Richard Petty tapping out endorsements on peoples’ rear bumpers you now he’s going to a pretty dry well.
wmd
@Corner Stone: @Mike E:
I’m home now. And staying at home. No need for more idiocy.
And I really don’t see that touching someone’s shoulder is “laying hands on them”
Botsplainer
Goddamnit, I just found out that a sweet young woman from my Greek Orthodox parish carried a Trisomy 18 baby nearly to term (and had the inevitable stillbirth) because of anti choice considerations. She’s only a few years older than my oldest daughter, and I taught her in a Sunday School class when she was 10. She’s a sweet kid married to a priest’s son, and I guess they guzzled the lately flowing Right to Life koolaid that’s been bubbling around Orthodoxy lately.
It’ll be impossible to get my wife back to regular parish attendance after this, and she’s right.
MomSense
@Baud:
Whichever you choose, thank you.
I have been phonebanking and some days it is frustrating.
Mike E
@wmd: Getting a tap from a liberal, after getting tagged for spouting off against librulz, must’ve been pain and suffering amirite?
Seriously though, as raven would say, fuck ’em.
raven
@Mike E: fuckin a
Chris T.
@KG: There are three commercials sucking up all the radio airtime in the Bay Area. One is against Prop E in SF (the sugar tax, $.02/oz on sodas and such: great idea, PepsiCo hates it so you know it’s a good thing :D), and the other two are Props 45 and 46, which I have not had time to study (but I won’t be registered in the state in time anyway).
This site seems to be good, not that I’ve spent much time there yet either: http://ballotpedia.org/California_2014_ballot_propositions
Chris T.
@Mike E: I still prefer Berkeley anyway. Live in the east bay, take the BART into SF.
Mike E
@raven: Ha! Hope you’re feeling ok and spell free.
Miss E changed her voter registration before yesterday’s deadline, without her old dad naggin’ her! Not too shabby, now that I’m calling people who couldn’t give a shit about changing theirs in time. Oh well…we’ll have to just win without them.
burnspbesq
@merrinc:
Does your script say anything about how Coach Smith would never have voted for anybody like Tillis, but Coach Ratface loves him?
raven
@Mike E: Seems ok but I’ll see if I get anything when I wake up in a couple of hours. thx
Violet
@raven: Did I see you say something about having a dizzy spell after getting your new hearing aids? Figure out what that’s about?
Bill E Pilgrim
@Chris T.: BART. You take BART. Not “take the BART”.
I don’t know why it’s that way, but it always has been.
Just sort of teasing BTW. But it is true.
Berkeley’s incredibly expensive also, most escapees from the city move to Oakland these days.
Chris T.
@Bill E Pilgrim: Yes, we’re actually winding up in Montclair rather than the Berkeley hills, or my old haunts just a bit further north. We did find one house in the Berkeley hills that would have been quite good, except for one small insurmountable problem having to do with stairs (one of us is effectively disabled).
I’ve always said “BART” and “the BART” sort of interchangeably, like I switch back and forth between “I-5” and “the 5”. However, 80, 580, 880, 980, and 24 are never “the”. When driving in SoCal “10” and “the 10” become interchangeable though!
Corner Stone
@wmd: That’s probably reasonable. But in a bar, people are in a bar.
Mike E
@Bill E Pilgrim: That’s where my cousin lived for a good long time, then her twin sister decided she needed a change from living in NYC and moved out to Oakland too. A couple years later she lost everything in the Oakland Fires in the early 90s. She’s now staying put in NYC.
kindness
Giants win.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Chris T.: You’re moving to Montclair? Very nice. Yeah it’s funny about the name, BART’s own Web site is a good example, that’s the way I’ve always used/heard it, never with the article. I remember very well when it was built. Space age.
wmd
I’ve calmed myself (I’m +3.5) I also downloaded and modified this post about why I’ll not vote Republican (I worked to elect Tom Campbell over Dianne Feinstein in 2000, registered as Republican that year because I felt a choice between McCain and Gore was better than one between Gore and Bush… ran as an Independent for state legislature in 1994 and 1998 in Indiana, plus worked on Independent Municipal elections… I relate to that post strongly). I may end up handing it to the idiots in a week or so, not that I expect them to actually read it.
I’ve done significant work for the US Navy to assure that Navy jets would return from missions while targeted by Soviet and other missile systems. I’ve done other work for the US Navy that I won’t document because it is too sensitive.
I’m not a strong democrat, but the Republican Party is batshit insane and determined to destroy our country.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Mike E: Interesting. Anyone who was living in that fire zone was in pretty exclusive territory, mostly really expensive places up there. They replaced them with even bigger places, in many cases.
Chris T.
@Mike E: After a big fire like that, you’re good for another 70 years though! :-)
(For instance the water lines are upgraded, there are storage tanks at the top of the hills that were not there before, and all the hydrants now have the standard connectors. Berkeley and Oakland still use different radio frequencies for dispatching fire trucks, but they have each others’ equipment and hence can actually talk to each other now.)
That was a really terrible fire-storm … friends of mine lost their (rental) house (and most possessions of course) but they were all OK, not sure where they went in the end. Fire is a big risk there: there was a similar fire storm in the Berkeley hills in 1923. (Hence the “70 years” thing, 1923 to 1991 = 68 years. Not that it’s that regular, but there is a cycle to these things, driven by people forgetting.)
The house in Montclair that I’m in the process of buying was built (properly, not shoddily like some) after the fire burned the house that was there before.
Redshift
@KG: We’ve had quite a lot of ads here in Northern Virginia. Seems kind of strange, since Ed Gillespie doesn’t have a chance against Mark Warner, and two it of the three congressional races are a lock for the Dems, and it’s an expensive media market. Thinking about it, I guess I’m only seeing ads for the Senate race and VA-10 (Foust/Comstock.) If Republican donors want to waste their money on Gillespie, who am I to argue?
Bill E Pilgrim
@Chris T.: I was staying in the hills over the winter (I grew up close by but have been all over the map in recent years) and when the hair-trigger fire alarm went off and I was fumbling with the manual and buttons trying to turn it off, I heard a rumbling up on the street and realized that the fire truck was there, far faster than you’d even think possible, at least up in those windy streets way up.
I had reached the alarm company on the phone by then and they said oh okay it’s a false alarm, fine, but the firefighters said yeah, we like to come check anyway, even if it’s called off. Doing their job, that’s for sure, taking every precaution it seems ever since.
Chris T.
@Bill E Pilgrim: I dunno, I remember there were quite a few smaller cottage-like places up in the Claremont hills, before the fire swept through. Kind of a mix of ~1000 sqft places with 2500 sqft places.
It’s true, though, that the rebuilt houses were generally much bigger (going to edges of setbacks, having more floors, and so on).
Mike E
@Chris T.: @Bill E Pilgrim: Sensible, if utterly frightening, heh. She and her roommate had barely enough time to pile sensitive belongings into one car (my cousin’s car was destroyed in the garage…she wasn’t much of a driver, being a lifelong New Yorker) and escaped with their lives. Also.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Chris T.: Could well be, I was actually in NYC that year so missed the whole thing, but you’re probably right. I noticed mostly the giant mansions going up in the years after that, but those were the ones most noticeable, e.g. just driving by.
I heard something about the insurance settlements having to do with why people built so much bigger, but I can’t remember the details.
Edit: A quick Google:
“Many residents got large insurance settlements for their homes after the fire which allowed them to build extravagant new houses. ”
https://oaklandnorth.net/2011/10/19/after-oakland-hills-fire-residents-build-off-the-wall-homes/
RaflW
So in other words, if the GOP had helped Obama just a bit, and helped the economy recover a bit faster (and helped Americans along the way), then GOP governors would be in much better positions vis. re-election.
I’m lovin’ this little (OK, 8 is big!) blowback. Lovin’ it.*
*Not loving the suck-a** economy and the many people still in dire straits. Just loving the way the GOP accidentally f*kd over their own Govs.
Chris T.
@Bill E Pilgrim:
I actually predicted that. The economy in 1991 was pretty slow and I said the firestorm, while terrible, was going to boost the economy because of all the insurance settlements and reconstruction, and I figured people would take their couple-hundred-K of “new” money, toss in a large new mortgage, and build big.
Kathleen
@redbeardjim: I’m seeing a lot of ads for Kasich here in Southwestern Ohio. What strikes me is how he’s gone from a fire breathing TP’er in 2010 to a a “warm and fuzzy guy in his ads.
Kathleen
@Mike E: I’m with you there. I’m rootoing for “Not The Cardinals” all the way.
SFAW
@Mike in NC:
@merrinc:
Thank FSM the two-year-out polling determines who will win. I mean, look at how badly Rick Scott is getting killed in FL.
The ability of right-wing/Rethug voters to behave irrationally is like Peak Wingnut, you know.
SFAW
@Kathleen:
Is it too late for the Mets to get in?
And since I’m being non sequitur-ish: what’s the over/under on the delta for the Jets-Broncos game? 50 points? 75? Will Peyton throw for 10 TDs, and rush for three more?
S. cerevisiae
I hope the WI Democrats run hundreds of commercials contrasting how well MN is doing under Dayton and a Democratic leg. vs. how bad WI is lagging under Walker and the GOP. This is an excellent contrast since both have had the same amount of time and the states have always been similar in economics and demographics. Right now unemployment and jobs numbers aren’t even close, MN is kicking their ass.