Yeah, Richard Mayhew is probably right about why Bevin won, because Kynect/Medicaid wasn’t a factor to voters.
You want to know why it wasn’t a factor to voters?
@phillipmbailey@kynectky@AlisonForKY@ConwayforKYpic.twitter.com/OK6PK68a3k
— Joe Sonka (@joesonka) November 13, 2015
Big ol goddamn goose egg, that’s why.
You can feel all the sympathy you want for people who voted against their self-interest here in the Bluegrass State, but considering Conway was too busy telling people how awful Obama is, he gets a big chunk of the blame too.
Democrats. Who Run Away. From Obama. Lose.
Why is this so goddamn hard for people to understand?
PaulW
because those idiots listen to campaign managers and media “experts” who reside in the Beltway Echo Chamber.
Betty
What PaulW said.
Cermet
Or pollsters that use land lines and tell them how unpopular President “kick their ass” Obama really is; the stupid apparently extends even up the chain to those running for higher office … .
The Gray Adder
What I don’t get is that Conway ran a shitty Senate campaign, then managed to get nominated for Governor, where he ran a predictably shitty campaign. Will he run for President next?
I think the problem lies with the state Democratic Party machine, that this was the best they could do.
Bobby Thomson
This post would be more persuasive if the objectively less friendly to Obama Secretary of State hadn’t outperformed Conway substantially in the same election.
benw
Before they had Obama, how did frightened Democrats know which way to run?
JPL
OT… Good news
A Utah judge on Friday reversed his order to take a foster child away from a same-sex couple because of their sexual orientation, state officials said.
JPL
When Conway ran for Senate, I chipped in a few dollars and paid attention to his campaigning. This time I didn’t waste my money.
BGinCHI
I was going to add something about “standing for things you believe in” but the giggles won out.
Thoughtful Today
Dems that create an alternate realities don’t help political conversations.
If only there was some sort of … national debate … on issues important to American voters.
Avoiding important conversations, refusing to take advantage of free national media, creating a cult of personality, instead of focusing on issues and policies that help or hurt Americans….
… ^ Those are the things that hurt Dems.
Punchy
Hard to sell a Black man’s accomplishments to a state full of racists.
OT: where the hell did the buttons go? Here for a day, gone tomorrow? WTF?
Betty Cracker
Yeah, that’s why Democrat Charlie Crist was able to defeat a deeply unpopular incumbent lizard-entity for Florida’s governorship. Oh wait…
It’s just not that simple, IMO. Every situation has its own nuances. It would be dumb for a candidate in the Dem presidential primary to run away from Obama — Democrats love Obama! It seems Kentuckians at large do not since PBO didn’t crack 40% in 2012.
Gene108
When the national Democratic Party started becoming toxic to Southern Democrats, in the 1980’s (and I’ll lump KY in with the South) and Liberal became a dirty word, running away from the National Democratic Party worked to keep Dems in control of Southern states into the 1990’s and early 2000’s.
It was, in its own way, a successful strategy.
The problem is still there. Embracing Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton and Obama is still a risky, at best strategy, when anthrax is more popular amongst the voters in some states or districts.
I really do not know a way forward to connect Democratic politics with rural white voters.
Dems don’t need those votes for the Presidency, but you need them to retake the House and state wide races.
I thought giving the working poor healthcare would flip some votes or get some new voters in the Dem column, but I was wrong.
Doug!
Would have gone with something from “Easy Lover” or an Earth, Wind, and Fire tune here as the title.
NonyNony
@Gene108:
You know how I knew this was wrong and wouldn’t work? Because Bill Kristol thought it would work.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-1993-kristol-memo-on-defeating-health-care-reform
Republicans fought so hard against healthcare reform because they thought that it would be a vote-getter for Democrats. Bill Kristol laid this out very carefully.
Bill Kristol is never right.
Healthcare reform is still the right thing to do. But I wouldn’t count on getting votes for it. People don’t vote for the things that you’ve done for them – hell they don’t even vote for the things you’re going to do for them. They vote for nebulous reasons that mostly seem to come down to voting for people who are “like them” and against people who are not “like them”. That’s what a lot of the “running away from Obama” strategery is about.
Zandar
@Betty Cracker: Great, so if running against Obama means you lose by 9 points, then what’s the answer?
Elizabelle
@ Paul W:
This permanent campaign is not helping democracy. It’s employing a huge swathe of political operatives and media (sometimes the same thing), and it’s become the new indoor sport.
But it’s making voters cynical and they’re tuning out.
Shorter campaign seasons. Public funding of elections. Federal standards for all federal elections.
Get rid of the midterms — make it a four-year electorate because the House is hardly easy to turn over, as the Founders intended. Get rid of gerrymandering for everyone. Make the politicians responsive to their constituents, not their funding sources and future employers.
We don’t need to worship tradition. We don’t ride horses to our county polling place. The wimmens and the blacks have been voting for some time. There is nothing sacred about practices that have become anti-democratic in use.
We could do this. That we’re not says a lot about the actual special interests’ lock on our electoral system.
Chyron HR
@Thoughtful Today:
Read more on http://www.bernisourlordandsavior.com!
Bobby Thomson
@Chyron HR: no fuckin’ shit. Talk about your glass houses.
catclub
@NonyNony: This.
But they are much more likley to vote for something that you will give them than for something you have already given them.
They should be most likely to vote for you if the other side is taking something away from them. But that case was not made, and is more nebulous. The Democrats taking $500B from Medicare was a winner for the GOP in 2010.
Bobby Thomson
@Zandar: other than getting the fuck out of Kentucky? Search me.
ETA: and Conway didn’t really run against Obama. Grimes did and won.
catclub
@Elizabelle:
for all the changes you are recommending, you mean the constitution.
Thoughtful Today
Authoritarianism:
Demanding unconditional support for a leader is _pure_ authoritarianism.
I appreciate Obama’s nuke deal with Iran, (I don’t see Iran as an “enemy”).
But I detest a slew of other policies: TPP, militarization of the police, failure to prosecute war crimes, failure to prosecute banksters, corporate insurance masquerading as health care….
Authoritarian support for Obama, or any politician, Clinton, Sanders, Trump, Carson…, is … deeply disturbing.
Betty Cracker
@Zandar: I think it’ll vary for each contest. My grand unifying theory is that there is no grand unifying theory.
gvg
Um, I think you may be wrong this time. Kentucky voters have demonstrated that they do not like Obama. I think embracing him would have been a bigger loss. Running away from the party doesn’t work either. It may be that Kentucky is not winnable by Democrats right now. I would suggest another thing that could be tried. First some blunt specific defense of ACA by parties not running that can’t be “hurt” by it. How about candidates defending the policy and letting Obama not be the issue? Frankly, he was a big piece of the final passage however it was the entire party that passed if and we worked for it for a long time because it matches our party principles that people should get health care. It is time we started standing up for ourselves too. This fight started before Obama was born. He is really good at strategy. Much better than I am, but there are millions of Democrats who thought something like ACA was a good thing.
If they need to in Kentucky, a Dem running has every right to say I think the ACA is great, the X foreign policy is great, etc. I disagree with Obama on y. here is why.
Personally I think he is wrong on education policy, soft on corporate monopoly issues and I don’t see the point on this trade deal. But he has kept us out of more dumb wars and stayed calm while too many of the opposition has tried to drag us into every pointless bloodletting they could throw a tantrum at plus allowed the economy to get much better. Nobody is perfect. I don’t see why the Kentucky democrats can’t say that and make themselves look smarter and more trustable to boot.
John from Minneapolis
The stupidest political move in recent memory was A.L. Grimes’ refusal to say who she voted for. Made her look dishonest, disloyal,weaselly, weak and afraid.
gene108
@NonyNony:
Kristol was right that killing “Hillary-Care” in 1993/1994 was a winning move for Republicans. You know as the saying goes, “even blind nut can find a squirrel every so often” or something like that…
Considering the damage Kristol did when he was right, I shudder to think the path of ruin he’d lead us down, if he was right a second time.
gene108
@gvg:
The did. No one, specifically the media, paid them much attention.
This happened:
Link
Trying to drum up posititve media attention for the Dem platform is a hard hurdle to overcome.
rikyrah
I hear you.
If you don’t run on something as successful as Kynect.
phuck you.
Thoughtful Today
Exactly. Injecting _Obama_ into _Kentucky_ politics… Have you really thought that through?
If you’re a ConservaDem in a Red State: Celebrate the Republican-led Romney-Dole-Gingrich-care created by the extremely conservative Heritage Foundation that is keeping some Kentucky Citizens alive!
Through in some Matthew 25 for good measure.
Duke of Clay
@Bobby Thomson: But the preponderance of the TV commercials here were about the governor’s race and practically every Bevin commercial contained the phrase “Obamaliberal Conway.” This allowed Grimes to run under the radar.
Duke of Clay
I agree that “embracing” Obama would have been a loser in Kentucky this year, but I think embracing Kynect and pointing out the disastrous results of Bevins’ advertised policies in Kansas and Wisconsin would have helped. Conway ran a lackluster campaign, and every commercial I saw was “Matt Bevins is a conman who had/has tax problems.” I live in the Louisville suburbs and didn’t see the first sign of a ground game.
low-tech cyclist
I don’t care whether or not Dems in state and local races run for or against Obama or Hillary or whoever. But in the long run, the only way to build support for Dem policies is for Dem candidates to run on those policies. And building support for Dem policies should be the Democratic Party’s goal, right? Because once you do that, winning elections should flow from that.
And if they run on those policies and win, then they don’t have to worry about the reaction back home when they vote for those policies in Congress or in the state legislature or wherever.
Brachiator
@gvg:
Has any of this ever been a big deal with Kentucky voters?
And even here, I don’t see this as a major cornerstone of federal domestic policy.
But if the key is to find a way to highlight Democratic party successes without mentioning the president, go ahead and give it a go (even though it seems kinda dumb to me).
Hal
I somewhat get the strategy if it actually worked, but first Grimes and then Conway proved acting like they didn’t even know who Barack Obama was a losing strategy. I was listening to Here and now a few months ago and Kay Hagan was another Senator who distanced herself from Obama (among other things) and still didn’t see to connect a lack of enthusiasm for her loss. She only lost by 47-48 thousand votes, so why not go all out and fight the narrative. If you’re going to lose anyway, go out with a bang.
Thoughtful Today
doh! … throw
:(
Calouste
@Elizabelle: Worshipping tradition is America’s favorite pastime.
Kay
I just put Kentucky inside the larger truth that Democrats are absolutely bleeding at the state level. Kentucky is not near the worst example.
They don’t seem to care. I would have thought Illinois would have gotten their attention, or Ohio, or Michigan, but they just seem to be blissfully driving off a cliff.
There’s something horribly wrong with a political party that claims to care about so many (predominately) state-level issues- crim justice, education, voting process, consumer protection- yet simply doesn’t care that they control so few states. I don’t know what it is- I’m stumped why their hair isn’t on fire about this. If it starts to bleed into national elections in the upper midwest they are screwed.