Wakes up, looks around.
“Shit, that really happened.”
I feel like I spent the night trapped in an elevator listening to Sarah Palin.
GBCW.
This post is in: Election 2014, Election 2016, Fucked-up-edness
Wakes up, looks around.
“Shit, that really happened.”
I feel like I spent the night trapped in an elevator listening to Sarah Palin.
GBCW.
Comments are closed.
Original Lee
You vote for the candidates you have, not the candidates you wished you had. Pretty sums up how I felt about voting for Anthony Brown. By default, I assume the Md. Democratic Party is disconnected from the electorate, but you think they would have learned their lesson after Townsend.
GregB
Get used to the sound of Joni Ernst laughing.
Shakezula
And you didn’t bludgeon your brains out? Strong man.
SiubhanDuinne
That is a joke, John, right? (I confess I had forgotten that acronym and actually had to google it to remind myself.)
Mont D. Law
You guys are completely fucked.
schrodinger's cat
My advice for future Democratic candidates
1. Don’t follow the advice of the media pundits, they are not your friends
2. Focus on highlighting contrasts not blurring differences between you and your opponent.
3. Running away from the President of your party does not work
Bobby Thomson
Music to rebuild by.
Xantar
@Original Lee:
My friend works for John Delaney, and he reported a lot of callers saying they would definitely vote for Delaney but were undecided on Brown. In the end, Delaney outperformed Brown by a lot. That tells me that even in this environment, the Democrats didn’t have to lose in Maryland.
I’m heartbroken for my friends in the Brown campaign, though. They worked hard and delivered the numbers they needed to. It wasn’t their fault.
Goblue72
@Mont D. Law: pretty much.
Largest GOP House majority since 1946.
GOP won all the close Governor races.
GOP over-performed in Senate races by 5%.
Added to their hold of state houses.
This was a bloodbath. This was not just a bad Senate map.
The white people’s party ran as the white people’s party and won. Dems could easily lose the White House in 2016. Easily.
The Party needs a serious house cleaning. And needs to start showing some stones.
Rob in CT
@Goblue72:
It also needs a Presidential election year electorate.
That’s the core problem: the Dems win when their voters & leaners show up and vote. Half the time, large numbers of those folks do not show up.
There is a lot of disagreement about exactly why that is.
beth
@schrodinger’s cat: And here’s another one – stop being so fucking nice! Stop referring to Ted Cruz as your esteemed colleague – call him what he is – a divisive lunatic. Stop telling the American people that you disagree with the Republicans – tell them their policies will destroy America. It’s time we hold our noses and start adopting the tactics they use.
SenyorDave
@Original Lee: I’m also in Maryland, I voted for Brown knowing he isn’t a good candidate. But Maryland Democrats have decided that Lt. Governor automatically is anointed as next governor. They didn’t learn a thing from the KKT debacle (although IMO it would have been tough to not run Brown, since Maryland has never had an AA governor). Hopefully, Hogan will be limited to putting in a bunch of unqualified donors into state positions and not fucking things up too much.
I keep wondering how many people who benefitted from the ACA didn’t vote, or worse, voted for Republicans. I don’t normally want to wish people ill, but if they don’t have kids I won’t lose any sleep if they lose their health care.
Ultimately, the people in this country get what they deserve.
lamh36
I woke up this morning hoping it would be like that time on Dallas when they killed off Bobby Ewing due to contract negotiations at that one season and then after negotiations went thru, Pam Ewing woke up and realized the whole season with out Bobby was all just a bad dream.
Alas I just woke up and last night wasn’t a dream, but then I thought…fuck this shit I’m in Hawaii and today is my 38th Birthday!
I’m going out to enjoy the rest of my day!
So Happy Birthday to me, now let’s see if this is the year I get Idris Elba to tweet me Happy Birthday!
skerry
@Xantar: I really don’t understand Kittleman winning in Howard Co. I thought Watson ran a good campaign. The county has done well under Ulman the last 8 years.
JPL
@Goblue72: That’s why I think medicare and Social Security is not mentioned for two years. They’ll wait until they have the Presidency and I think it’s Rand Paul.
Amir Khalid
Here’s a song to cheer up my liberal American friends.
JPL
@lamh36: Update your blog! Happy Birthday!
John Weiss
Australia has it right. If you’re an eligible voter you get a fine if you don’t vote.
I, for one, am not sad and pissed. I’m going to keep it up. There is nothing to be gained by wallowing about and second guessing.
Elizabelle
@lamh36:
Get out there and have a good birthday. Live it up, and enjoy sun and a refreshing tropical beverage for me. Cheers to you.
Sorry we served you up such a ghastly birthday present. Don’t watch TV. Look at Pacific gorgeousness.
JPL
We are a nation of frogs in cold water. When the heat is turned on, it’s to late to do anything.
SenyorDave
A special shout out to the people of Kansas. Have fun when Sammy-boy doubles down on stupidity! You rewarded him for multiple screw-ups, why shouldn’t he just stay the course?
schrodinger's cat
@beth: Exactly right! Nice guys finish last.
Elizabelle
GBCW. Goodbye, cruel world, per Urban Dictionary.
Although I wondered if it meant George Bush Compassionate Warrior, or George Bush Could Win. Or GW Bush, Christian (for dyslexics).
leeleeFL
I was thinking it was the worst election in my lifetime. This info backs up my feeling. I am unable to express how nauseous I am right now. I am actually a bit frightened for my Grandchildren. Hope it passes.
leeleeFL
I was thinking it was the worst election in my lifetime. This info backs up my feeling. I am unable to express how nauseous I am right now. I am actually a bit frightened for my Grandchildren. Hope it passes.
Alicia
@Goblue72:
There was only 38% voter turnout nationwide. The Democratic voters just didn’t turn up. If they had even 5%-10% more blue turnout, at least some of those governorships could have turned blue and a couple of the Democratic Senators would still have their jobs. Not that it would have saved the Senate, but it wouldn’t have been as bad.
I think 2016 will have a better turnout only because of the Presidential race. Democrats turn out in presidential years, it’s just fact.
danielx
@schrodinger’s cat:
@beth:
And yet another: when a Republican lies, call him/her a liar. Don’t be using all the euphemisms like less than fully informed, not quite accurate, all that. When they lie, call them the liars they are. I know it will result in weeping and pearl clutching amongst the Villagers, who generally get the vapors when someone calls a spade a fucking shovel, but Villager wisdom got us where we are now.
kindness
I really don’t understand way more of my fellow Americans than I had previously thought. The depth of their voting against their own self interest staggers me. Is it that they hate the black man at the top that much? I know they didn’t like the black guy but I didn’t realize it was quite so raging.
I lived through Reagan. I lived through bush43. I’ll live through this.
If I had one lesson I wish I could force on Red State Democrats it would be that they have to run as Democrats to actually win. Republican Lite doesn’t work.
SenyorDave
@lamh36: @beth: 100 times over, and may I add it would have been nice if the Blue Dog Democrats occasionally had the president’s back. Thirty years ago when there were still a few moderate Republicans they didn’t make a point of shitting all over Reagan.
Corner Stone
Given this was an piece in Politico prior to the elections, but isn’t it awesome?
“Vice President Joe Biden says he expects congressional Republicans to work to “get things done” if they win control of the Senate — and he notes the White House is prepared to give a little.”
“[L]ook, we’re — we’re ready to compromise,” Biden said.
edited slightly
JMG
@John Weiss: I’m unhappy, which you can’t turn off like light bulb, but you are right. Wailing and cursing defeat is for Election Night only. After that, it’s on to what to do next. If people on the left stopped fretting before and after elections, they’d feel better and win more elections, too.
David Hunt
Something for the GOP to remember before they start gloating: Today is Guy Fawkes Day.
Rob in CT
I expect the next couple of budgets to pretty much suck. I expect Pure Progressives to lambast POTUS when he inevitably has to cut deals with the jackals in Congress in order to, you know, pass budgets and keep the government running.
I expect that if/when Obama vetos GOP legislation, the narrative will not be “well, they filibustered everything he wanted” but “the arrogant President thinks he doesn’t have to adjust to the new reality after his part was shellacked in the midterms.” Same if/when the Dems filibuster something. It won’t be “well, the GOP racheted up use of the filibuster, so the Dems are following suit” it’ll be “oh those hypocritical Dems!” Ugh, just thinking about that…
So mostly I expect continued gridlock. Actually, I have to hope for that now. Gridlock only happens if the Dems can maintain the sort of cohesion the GOP has recently. I think they can do it, actually: the Dems are more ideologically consistent than they have been in living memory. The Dems who lost are mostly the moderates in purple/red states, not liberals in blue ones.
And yet, I also expect the Dems to win the Presidency in 2016 and either take back the Senate or come very close (ugh). The House is lost for a long time, though.
Goblue72
@Rob in CT: Young people never turn out in mid-terms. Ever. Voting rates increase with age. Always have.
Poor people in general do not vote, esp in midterms. And statistically, greater percentage of racial minorities are lower income than whites.
Our coalition is highly dependent on those two groups. That’s a problem.
We also depend on women, esp brown women. So in midterms, we have same racial issue above (i.e. – SES correlation with race, and thus voting patterns). White women are Dem leaning at times, but they’ve also shown a propensity to go the other way, particularly in the older cohorts.
We have a coalition make-up problem that we need to seriously fix, the way FDR built his New Deal coalition.
Corner Stone
Besides “Man, I am fucking rich!”, I kind of wonder what Eric Cantor is thinking about right now.
Scamp Dog
One bright side: the Colorado personhood amendment failed, even though we’re host to the headquarters of the American Taliban (Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs, which has made that city wingnut central).
TaMara (BHF)
@lamh36: Happy birthday!
bemused
Now I can’t get the thought of listening to Palin talking in an elevator mixed in with Ernst laugh out of my head. You guys are cruel and inhuman.
beth
@danielx: Tough shit. I’ve seen too many CNN anchors sit there stone faced while some Republican says the president is anti-american or lies about the effects of Obamacare. I saw Ron Christie on CNN yesterday say that Obama is bad for the economy because “this country’s lost 3 million jobs”. Well of course we lost 7 million under the Republicans and gained back 4 million under Obama but god forbid the CNN shill point that out. She just shook her head and said nothing. Seriously, is there any way we can convince John Cole to become a Democratic talking head?
Corner Stone
Fucking Wisconsin! Now we get to hear for two years what a vital, viable presidential candidate Walker will be for 2016!
lamh36
@JPL: I have been to busy enjoying the beach I think…lol. But I’m going off to see a tour of the island today, so the blog will be updated by tonight with some great pictures I’m sure!
Cacti
@Goblue72:
By completely ignoring civil rights for non-whites?
Goblue72
@Alicia: There are elections every 2 years. Including for state governments.
We can’t build an electoral strategy around once every 4 years and cross your fingers..
Our coalition needs re-jiggering.
Corner Stone
Man, the people on stage behind Ernst during her speech. Creeee-pee!
Goblue72
@Cacti: Did I effing say that?
No I did not. So go fuck yourself.
skerry
@Goblue72: Howard Dean tried with the 50 state strategy. Look what it got him.
ruemara
@lamh36: happy birthday!
And the biggest issue is the white female voter. She doesn’t seem to like all those other people who died so she could benefit highly from EEOP laws. The majority vote hard-line GOP. And Democratic voters stayed the hell home. I’d like to thank America for fucking over everything. Morons.
Goblue72
@David Hunt: Nice.
Rob in CT
@Goblue72:
So what you’re saying is that the Dems need to do more to appeal to older, whiter voters?
How, exactly? And consider the potential downsides of that, please. You mention FDR. Well, the New Deal was not for black people. That was part of the deal, and how the coalition stayed together. The JFK/LBJ era Dem coalition was shredded by a combo of Vietnam and Civil Rights (hmm, that pops up again. Pesky, innit?).
So how do you propose to thread the needle? Appeal to those older white folks who vote more consistently whilst not throwing minorities & the poor under the bus?
Cacti
@Rob in CT:
The GOP gerrymandered themselves a safe House majority through 2020.
In 2016, they’ll be defending Senate seats in Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Florida, and Colorado.
Rob in CT
@Goblue72:
Well, it’s sort of implicit in what you said. Or maybe you haven’t really thought this through.
schrodinger's cat
I am not so sanguine about Hillary’s chances in 2016
Cacti
@Goblue72:
Then how do you propose FDR-style coalition building? Fairy dust?
White resentment politics are what fractured the New Deal coaltion.
Josie
I was so put off by Ernst’s laugh that I was unable to pay attention to what she actually said. That was probably no great loss, but I don’t expect the media to focus on that the way they did on Howard Dean’s scream. I was hoping they would play it on a loop the way they did with him. I live in mortal fear of her becoming a rising star in the party.
Goblue72
@skerry: A Democratic House in 2006?
Rob in CT
@schrodinger’s cat:
Oh, she could fuck it up. I’m not a huge fan, myself. But if she does blow it, it’ll be an upset. I expect her to win, but that doesn’t mean it’s a sure thing.
bemused
Someone on the Stephanie Miller Show said this is the mid-term 6 year itch. When Dems are in power, they get voted out and vice versa. I don’t know if there is anything to glean from that factoid other than Americans are cranky two year olds who continually dissolve into meltdown tantrums. I do refuse to despair or rage I’ve done too much of that in the last 14 years.
David Fud
@Goblue72: Labor is dead, so good luck on enticing non-demographic groups to join the fight. Goes hand in hand with income inequality.
Rob in CT
@Goblue72:
I think skerry means it got him packed off to wherever he is now. His strategy was successful (remember, though, the Dems didn’t have anywhere to go but up and the Bushies had fucked up everything they touched) but he was kicked to the curb.
I agree with a “50 state” strategy: compete everywhere. Stay on message. Have a fucking message. But let’s be realistic. That’s easier to do when you’re the party out of power and the party that has all three branches of government has obviously and dramatically shit the bed.
schrodinger's cat
@Rob in CT: If she adopts her husband’s triangulating ways and neoliberal economic policies, that won’t win her the election
Rob in CT
@schrodinger’s cat:
That’s a quite a bold statement. Especially considering her husband was a two-term President.
schrodinger's cat
@Rob in CT: 2016 is not 1994. And playing Republican lite has not turned out well for the Democrats has it?
Cacti
@schrodinger’s cat:
My concern about Hillary has always been that she’s not a very good campaigner.
Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be another Obama type challenger waiting in the wings, and this time when she face plants, it’s likely to be in the general election.
Hildebrand
Those who keep telling themselves that this is a short-term problem – because, of course, the base will turn out in 2016 – are likely to be fooling themselves more than just a bit. It was Obama’s coalition that came out in 2008 and 2012 – he was the one that excited the youngs and minority voters. I really don’t think that Hillary is going to be able to rev up the base in the same way. Last time we nominated decent, established pols and put them up against a dangerous freak from Texas, we lost.
Running Clinton in this environment is not all that different than pinning our hopes on Grimes, Nunn, Hagan, or any of the other ‘Centrists’ that got waxed last night. Hillary is already sprinting away from the Obama legacy as fast as she can, I think we saw that that is not a winning strategy. Why do we think her calculated third-way strategy is going to fire up the masses?
If the Democrats are going to keep the White House in 2016, they are going to have to offer a better rationale than ‘Its Hillary’s turn’, because no one believes that she is a gifted politician that can rev up the base. And frankly, fear of the freaks in the other party is not a good rationale either. Fear of a potential horror-show doesn’t motivate people to vote. We have to give them a reason to vote ‘for’ a great Democratic candidate.
No, I don’t know who that is – but hoping for a Clinton restoration doesn’t seem to be the answer either.
Mike E
And thru the “Wah wah wah” Charlie Brown adult intonation, your nightmare Palin said in a clear voice “Eyes up here, Cole”, amirite?
Corner Stone
@Josie:
You owe it to yourself to not find a transcript of that speech. She sounded completely off her rocker. Talking about how her mom used to wrap her feet in plastic on rainy days because they were so poor her sh03s had holes in them. But it was ok because she’d look around and see that everybody was just like her. And this was good, because it was Iowa. And that was good because Iowa was in America. And America!!
I thought she was going to slip at some point and do some hog farm version of the Mommie Dearest speech, “No. more. hog. balls! EVERRR!!”
Iowa fucking sucks.
Corner Stone
@Hildebrand: Oh, hey, good to see you. How was your dinner with Godot last night?
Goblue72
@Rob in CT: I didn’t say recreate it. I said we need a rejiggered coalition that is built for electoral success long term. That’s what FDR did. Doesn’t mean assembling the same kind of coalition. But it does mean taking a cold hard pragmatic look at our coalition and figuring what we need to emphasize and what we need to add.
Our current strategy is a loser. We’ve had control for 2 years out of the last 18. Winning the White House is important, but controlling Congress is just as important.
Democrats obsess too much on the WH, and not enough on Congress or state legislatures.
Hildebrand
@Corner Stone: I understand your snark. I get it. That said, you at least have to admit that pinning our hopes on Clinton may not yield the results we would like.
Corner Stone
@Mike E: Well, you know what she says. “Todd got the rifle, and I got the rack.”
Tripod
@Rob in CT:
They’re long ago branded. This is why advertisers spend so much on reaching young consumers. The old fuckers are going to continue to buy the same shit until they die.
This has the added effect of making GOP marketing low cost relative to getting out the youth vote.
David Fud
@schrodinger’s cat: It sounds like you don’t think she will win because of a typical liberal reasons not to like her (i.e., not a real Dem, playing a moderate, not being true to the Democratic brand). Those seem to be most applicable to a primary to me.
I think it is more likely that she could lose the general election because she is female (just ask any woman in Massachusetts, especially if their name is Martha) and that she is not a Republican. There are some of the base issues that she will run against because she will be trying to draw moderates and women (i.e., playing the moderate).
All I can say is in the general presidential election, Republican Lite is a hell of a lot better than Republican. I would take the paper cuts of Clinton over the gaping wounds of GWB any day.
But, generationally, a GWB type is better for building a liberal base, because you can point to it and say “this is what you get when you vote Republican”.
I am concluding that the American voting public is always simply reacting against whatever they have experienced, now and in the past. When do we stop riding the metronome back and forth? When one of the oligarchs decide they want to run things, just like in Rome.
Makes me want to just stick my head in the sand and hope that science beats out the rush to destroy our planet. Don’t know what else to do, given our coalition’s complete lack of effective collective ballot box action on any year that isn’t a presidential election.
Corner Stone
@Hildebrand: I was more clearly referencing your previous comments on expectations for Hispanic voter turnout in TX.
As to the rest, I have been very consistent in commenting that sitting around waiting for demographic tides to just naturally sweep D’s into office is foolish. We’re going to need to work extremely hard to not only register a lot more people to vote, but give them impetus to do so.
Whether Clinton is that figurehead for the work, I don’t know.
jake the antisoshul soshulist
Maybe we should be playing “One Tin Soldier”. heh.
Don’t forget that the 2016 demographics look much better than 2014 demographics.
Don’t mourn, organize.
I went into a long depression after Reagan won the first time, and gave up on politics for many years. Don’t let a temporary
setback discourage you. If our ideas and policies are better (and I think they are), they will eventually win out.
the Conster
Republicans run for the most minor offices and take over local school boards, zoning boards and so on all the way up. Every single Republican office holder who didn’t fellate the tea party was primaried, and ousted. Democrats sit at home and bitch about how we need an FDR.
Corner Stone
Looks like we’re going to lose AK, and with LA in a runoff maybe that one as well.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@bemused:
But christ all, this isn’t just the usual Congressional shitfit where the electorate sends a protest vote to the two-termer or anything. This was a massacre from top to bottom, and arguably it’s the state level down where we’ve become irreparably fucked. The GOP basically fucking owns the entire country state level down. They essentially have won, entirely, outright.
And I don’t even know what to do anymore. Obama being there or not being there didn’t seem to help regardless, seems like even those who tried to be Dem stalwarts got bowled over same with the cowards…it just feels like the entire country basically just said “FUCK YOU, YOU DON’T BELONG HERE, THIS IS OUR FUCKING COUNTRY, SAVE US FROM THE COMMIES DADDY GOP!! The only take away I can find is that the country simply fucking hates us to the core and will forever fucking hate us to the point of running screaming away from anything with a D attached to its name now.
shortstop
@GregB:
And what a terrible sound it is. Fingernails on a chalkboard are sweetly melodic in comparison.
In other news, I’ve walked my last precinct in Wisconsin. All these years I’ve been going up there to help them GOTV, which I could afford to do because my state was not insane. My efforts are staying in Illinois now — we need boots on the ground here and Wisconsin is officially hopeless.
shortstop
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
But that’s it — people didn’t want to believe it because it’s too simple, but they really do hate us — black people, Latino people, women, immigrants, gay people, Muslims, atheists, liberals — much more than they love themselves. They are willing to put themselves through endless economic hell, denying all the while that they’re suffering, because it’s their Tribe.
SenyorDave
@Corner Stone: I thought she was going to slip at some point and do some hog farm version of the Mommie Dearest speech, “No. more. hog. balls! EVERRR!!”
OMG, that sounds like a biopic that needs to be made!
Corner Stone
For the love of Crist, will they please tell Luke to get away from in front of that damn Joni Ernst campaign vehicle when they go to him live. It’s kind of blurry and all you can tell is her hair and this blurry huge white blob where her impossible teeth are.
shortstop
@schrodinger’s cat: Whom do you see as having better chances?
Chris
@Goblue72:
The New Deal coalition was based on one general theme that 1) the vast majority of people agreed with, and 2) was such an overriding concern that most people were voting on that. (Broadly speaking: “capitalism, industrialization, modernization [call it what you want] has gone too far, we’ve lost control of our lives to a group of unelected gangsters, the federal government needs to step in, rein in these gangsters and help us take our lives back.”)
You want a modern New Deal coalition? Easy: find me one issue or one general theme that most voters not only agree on, but feel so strongly about that they’re willing to let it override all other issues (guns, gays, abortion, scary terrorists, welfare queens, whatever).
(And, like the original New Deal coalition… that’ll only help you as far as that one issue is concerned. The Democratic coalition was big tent because it was basically agnostic on everything but economics – when the leaders found another issue that they tried to push on, the coalition broke, permanently).
ETA: none of which is to say that it’s not a good goal. Just pointing out 1) what it would take and 2) what the limitations of that coalition would be.
shortstop
@Corner Stone:
Apparently no one does. Third time not the charm.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@shortstop:
And how the fuck do you fight that? Where fighting back literally drives people away all the more, where trying to give the people what they want simply has them scream “FUCK YOU” in spite and run toward the guy trying to screw them over but with a nice white sheen to his smile? It feels like we’re in a no-win death spiral at this point, and it just makes me want to curl up and just sleep the rest of the world away, because there really does seem to be no legitimate hope anymore.
Hildebrand
@Corner Stone: Ah yes, sorry about that – little tetchy this morning, my apologies.
Turnout down here was ghastly – 26% in Hidalgo County (83K out of 322K). Wendy Davis took 62% of the county vote, so the percentages are there, but unless you can motivate folks down here to actually vote (and we had early voting for a full week before election day – there were polling places everywhere (the State ID requirement sucks, and likely siphoned off some votes, but not a full damned 74%), Democrats don’t have a bloody prayer in this state.
shortstop
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik: I don’t know, Snarx. I just don’t know.
burnspbesq
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
But see California.
For a while last night, it looked like we might lose Secretary of State, but ultimately we retained EVERY statewide office.
Goblue72
@burnspbesq: do you have a plan to Latino-ize the rest of the country to the same degree?
Hildebrand
@Goblue72: Latino-izeing won’t help. See my previous post (#85). Latinos down here vote 60-70% Democratic, but they just don’t vote in numbers that actually help.
lamh36
@burnspbesq: shit, maybe I’ll move to California…it may be I’ll never leave Hawaii
burnspbesq
@Goblue72:
Your demographic analysis is for shit. Los Angeles County is 50 percent white and only 28 percent Hispanic. Santa Clara County has more Asians than Hispanics.
White people vote Dem here, because we know which party genuinely cares about the entire population.
burnspbesq
@lamh36:
Bring it on; we will make room for you.
The Moar You Know
Well, open thread. OK. Just a few things and then I am pulling a GBCW from here.
I’m a San Diego resident, for starters, so most of what I want to say is local with a few words on the statewide results.
Yes, Brown won, but Neel Kashkari, who in any sane world would not have pulled over 10 percent, got 42 percent of the statewide vote last night and won the county. This is well beyond the crazification factor. I honestly am at a loss for words on this one. Brown turns the state around in six years, from 30 billion dollar debt to none, and he gets only 58 percent running against a literally crazy person? WHAT THE FUCK
The GOP dumped money into every single local race, from school board on up, and we got fucking ruined here in every single race last night. The national Democratic Party was nowhere to be found, either with money or with any other kind of support at all. You build a successful, long term political party by starting from the bottom and keeping a deep bench of candidates from the bottom up. The GOP is doing that. Dems are not. I have nothing else I can say about that.
The dismantling of Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy is paying off exactly as predicted.
With that, I am done here. Thank you for the opportunity, John.
Goblue72
@burnspbesq: I lived in California for close to a decade. I’m fully aware of the demographics. I’m also fully aware as a former California Democratic Party activist of the role that statewide increase in the Latino (and Asian) population has had on the changing fortunes of the Party over the last several decades.
Hungry Joe
My wife and I walked a precinct for almost 10 hours yesterday — on election day this is known as “knock and drag” — only to have our candidate (city council) lose to a carpetbagger the GOP and San Diego Chamber of Commerce brought in; they outspent us 5-1. I’ll be back out there next time, but I don’t think that a day or two of disgust, despair, and flat-black humor is out of order.
“It’s come to this / Yes it’s come to this / And wasn’t it a long way down? / Yes, wasn’t it a strange way down?” — Leonard Cohen
shortstop
@burnspbesq:
Well, they do in the counties you mentioned. Not so much in yours.
Hildebrand
A step in the right direction – dump Debbie Wasserman-Shultz as head of the DNC. Get somebody in there who actually has a strategy and knows how to sell Democratic policies effectively.
shortstop
@The Moar You Know:
This is indeed a huge red flag.
Goblue72
@The Moar You Know: I know. I couldn’t believe. Kashkari had no money, a joke of a campaign and he was himself a loon. Yet somehow he managed to pull almost the same % as Meg Ryan did, who was not insane, had a real campaign and tons of money.
Jerry rescued California from near bankruptcy while at the same time getting voters to pass a tax increase. He’s the Gandalf of California state politics.
PJ
@Hildebrand: I hope to FSM that Warren runs, but, if not, there’s still O’Malley.
shortstop
@Goblue72:
Hard to tell whether this is more insulting to Whitman or to Ryan. Either way, I enjoyed it.
jake the antisoshul soshulist
The thing about local elections is that everyone is fiscally conservative to moderate. You have the people who want the city/county to never, ever spend any money on anything. And the liberal alternative to that is to cautiously spend what money there is on the schools and to promote reasonable development. You can do some social things like anti-discrimination ordinances, but in small towns in red states, you are always outnumbered by the godbotherers.
There is a little more that can be done on a state level, but a great deal of that depends on federal funds. And state money is mostly spent on maintaining infrastructure and services.
Hungry Joe
Also: It looks like San Diego County will be sending the deranged Carl DeMaio to Congress.
sparrow
@Original Lee: It makes me really wish for open primaries like California has. Brown vs Mizeur in the general would have been more interesting…
Goblue72
Latinos the margin of victory for Dem candidates in California – http://regionalchange.ucdavis.edu/ourwork/publications/ccep/ucdavis-ccep-brief-6-impact-of-ca-latino-vote
The Party has actually been quite good about getting Latinos – as well as Asians – in leadership positions in Sacramento.
schrodinger's cat
@David Fud: She does have to win the primary first and she also needs the votes of those who voted for Obama in 08 and 12.
sparrow
@PJ: I hate to tell you but O’Malley kind of sucks (not being a purity pony, I mean I don’t think he could win in the general). On the other hand, he is a white male so at least we won’t be hearing racist dogwhistles all campaign season. So much of what Obama could have gotten done as a white male just wasn’t possible because of his race. It makes me so fucking depressed about our country.
catclub
@Corner Stone:
Iowa is certainly wierd. The combination of Grassley and Harkin as senators from the same state is mind boggling.
@The Moar You Know:
You want gratitude, get a dog. resentment is a much better motivator. I do not know what to do either.
beth
@Alicia:
alicia, do you have a cite for that statistic? i’d like to toss it at a few of my conservatives but i can’t find any solid numbers on nation wide turnout.
Lady Bug
@beth:
I’m sure this has been said a hundred times, but I think that any ‘looking forward” strategy is going have to re-access how Democrats deal with the media, messaging strategy etc.
For YEARS Republicans have talked about the “liberal media”-it’s b.s. but that doesn’t matter-you repeat it often enough and enough people begin to believe it, and then members of the media feel obligated to bend over backwards to not appear ‘partisan.’
Don’t forget what Chuck Todd said about his job not being to correct misinformation but simply regurgitate it? With few exceptions, i.e. Maddow, that seems to be the philosophy of 90% of the pudits/talking heads.
John Weiss
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik: Don’t be silly. It’s not the end of the world, it’s time to get busy.
Corner Stone
@John Weiss:
“Everybody dance now!”
Dun dundundun
cmorenc
@catclub:
What’s really weird is that had Harkin run for re-election, he would have beat Jodi Ernst by a clear enough margin to have been declared the victor at about the same time as Ernst was over Braley last night.
LanceThruster
“The receptivity of the masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan.”
― Adolf Hitler
Bob In Portland
Enjoy your Ukrainian freedom fighters.
PhilbertDesanex
@Chris: All that, and the collapse of the Great Depression had gone on for 4 years. They voted GOP in 1930! Byy late 1932 people were giving up, meanwhile Fascism in Germany and Italy was doing well. We’ll probably have to re-do it again, now that everyone who remembers it is about gone and the GOP has rewritten history. People tell me FDR caused the Depression. FFS. I don’t think the bailout and stimulus would pass again, so there we would go.