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You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2016 / Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Some Local Primary Results

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Some Local Primary Results

by Anne Laurie|  August 31, 20166:16 am| 68 Comments

This post is in: Election 2016, Local Races 2018 and earlier, Open Threads

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Are you patriotic? A cartoon from the archives: #Kaepernick pic.twitter.com/1bvVdaKRWg

— Ann Telnaes (@AnnTelnaes) August 30, 2016

Which may or may not say anything useful about the big one in November…

Vox reports “Debbie Wasserman Schultz fends off primary challenge from insurgent backed by Bernie Sanders”:

… Wasserman Schultz faced a primary race from Tim Canova, a law professor who was endorsed by Bernie Sanders. But Wasserman Schultz looks to have won easily, with the Associated Press projecting at around 10pm that she’d defeat Canova in her bid for a seventh term…

… [I]t was never really clear how Canova’s bid threatened the long-time Democratic Congresswoman. Sanders’s endorsement of Canova helped him raise money, but probably didn’t make him that much popular — after all, Clinton easily defeated Sanders in Wasserman Schultz’s district.

Good night for Repub incumbents, too. The Washington Post:

Sen. John McCain beat back a primary challenge Tuesday from a Republican tea party activist to win the right to seek a sixth term in November in a race that has been inundated with questions about GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump.

The 2008 GOP presidential nominee easily defeated former state Sen. Kelli Ward and two other Republicans.

He faces a tough Democratic challenge in the November general election from U.S. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick. She advanced Tuesday after facing only a write-in opponent in the primary…

AZ ‘Juicers: Should ‘we’ set up an ActBlue widget for Kirkpatrick?

Speaking of thirsty, the WaPo also mentions 2020 presidential hopeful looking to keep his interim seat:

… Rubio easily won the Republican nomination to retain his seat and will be challenged by Democratic U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy, who defeated Congressman Alan Grayson in Tuesday’s Senate primary. It’s a race Democrats are targeting in an effort to regain a majority in the Senate, and their hope is that Rubio’s presidential ambitions have dulled the shine he had with Florida voters..

And a genuinely positive win, via commentor Hovercraft, from the Florida Times-Union:

Melissa Nelson, an unknown corporate lawyer and former prosecutor three months ago, cleared her path to become one of the most powerful and influential figures in Northeast Florida on Tuesday night when she easily defeated incumbent 4th Judicial State Attorney Angela Corey.

The election caps a dizzying rise for Nelson and an equally shocking fall for Corey, one of the most polarizing political figures in Jacksonville history who generated national attention and enormous criticism for her prosecutions of George Zimmerman, Marissa Alexander, 12-year-old Cristian Fernandez and many others. Corey will depart office in the first week of January as the first incumbent state attorney in modern history to lose a contested election…

Controversy had followed Corey even before she was elected as Duval, Clay and Nassau’s top prosecutor. She had engaged in a long-running feud with Shorstein, her predecessor and former boss that rose up again this year when Corey unsuccessfully tried to tie Nelson to Shorstein, blaming both for dropping the death penalty against convicted murderer William Wells, who would later kill again in prison.

Once in office Corey engaged in multiple feuds, refusing to speak to this newspaper for a year, and often lashed out at criticism of her.

And that criticism became more vocal when she chose to prosecute Zimmerman for the second-degree murder of Trayvon Martin, sought a 60-year prison sentence for Alexander after she fired a shot in the direction of her abusive husband and decided to try Fernandez as an adult…

What else is on the agenda for the day?

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Previous Post: « Early Morning WTF Open Thread: With Donald Trump, It Can Always Get Weirder
Next Post: Teens these days »

Reader Interactions

68Comments

  1. 1.

    Patricia Kayden

    August 31, 2016 at 6:21 am

    sought a 60-year prison sentence for Alexander after she fired a shot in the direction of her abusive husband

    Corey deserved to lose for that alone. Going after a woman for firing a shot, which struck no one, and trying to secure a 60-year prison sentence was insane.

  2. 2.

    amk

    August 31, 2016 at 6:27 am

    Not so fast.

    Joy Reid @JoyAnnReid

    Before Dems get excited, the woman who beat her (handily, 64% to 26%) Melissa Nelson, is an NRA gun zealot, and has no opponent in Nov.

    7:13 AM – 31 Aug 2016

  3. 3.

    Baud

    August 31, 2016 at 6:37 am

    @amk: A prerequisite in NE Florida.

  4. 4.

    rikyrah

    August 31, 2016 at 6:49 am

    Good Morning ? Again , Everyone ?

  5. 5.

    rikyrah

    August 31, 2016 at 6:54 am

    Under indictment Congresswoman Corinne Brown lost her primary election.

  6. 6.

    Betty Cracker

    August 31, 2016 at 6:57 am

    With a handful of exceptions, it looks like the anti-establishment wave was a fizzle.

    Very rainy and windy here in Central FL right now thanks to the tropical depression. No walking the dogs this morning!

  7. 7.

    Immanentize

    August 31, 2016 at 7:04 am

    Hello, All! Up and at ’em! First class today!

  8. 8.

    bystander

    August 31, 2016 at 7:13 am

    Ari Fleischer is on Morning Joe. I have a special loathing for him. Unwatchable unless I want more than caffeine to elevate my bp.

  9. 9.

    Applejinx

    August 31, 2016 at 7:14 am

    @Betty Cracker: It would have worked if not for those meddling kids ;)

    We may end up seeing a seeming total collapse of anti-establishment wave. Depends on several things.

    The more it’s associated with Trump, the dumber it looks. In these parts it’s pretty well accepted that Bernie wasn’t going to be effective at doing what he wanted, and there are plenty of constituencies for which that’s a dealbreaker. In so many areas ‘meaning well and doing jackshit’ is just not going to cut it.

    Also, all Clinton has to do is run with SOME of the non-anthrax-and-tire-rims ideas the anti-establishment wave wanted. It’s difficult to overstate that. Wingnut freakshows carry on about how we’re doomed, doomed if we don’t build a wall and cut all taxes to nothing and fight insane Weimar Republic inflation at every turn, but their past effectiveness has led to a world primed to explode in justice.

    There is SO MUCH MONEY out there to be had and put to good use. There are SO MANY things urgently needing to be done. There are SO MANY votes ready to be cast in favor of bread (not even circuses, just goddamn bread).

    This stuff won’t get done by puppet-waving hippies (as marvellous as they are). But it is waiting to be done by the very pragmatists who got us into this mess. All the ‘establishment’ has to do is some of the obvious right things, and we’ll bounce back. It would take active and wilful bullshit and arrogance to dig the hole any deeper at this point.

    When neoliberal bullshit and arrogance becomes a political liability, that’s when you’ll see the establishment drop it like a hot rock and deny they ever had anything to do with it. And possibly deny it was ever a thing, and claim to not know what people are even talking about when they’re called on it.

    Whatever. As long as we can get things fixed.

  10. 10.

    Iowa Old Lady

    August 31, 2016 at 7:15 am

    My rights for my first book revert to me today, so I’ll get it up on Amazon and Smashwords. That sounds simple, but I don’t speak tech.

  11. 11.

    Botsplainer

    August 31, 2016 at 7:22 am

    Fuck Bernie Sanders.

    DWS was actually effective at her job.

    On another note, I’m watching local news and a fluff segment on old white people square dancing. I remembered the tyranny of the square dance unit in grade school and the earnest teaching of white evangelical/Protestant culture in my public grade school as the default setting for ‘Murka, and was fillies once more with wonder at how ridiculously smug white Americans can be about their own culture.

  12. 12.

    p.a.

    August 31, 2016 at 7:23 am

    Some of my android phone’s calendar items synch to my iPad’s, some don’t. Some disappear after being there for a while. Push/fetch very inconsistent.
    FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS!

  13. 13.

    Baud

    August 31, 2016 at 7:24 am

    @Botsplainer: You know who else liked to square dance….

  14. 14.

    sherparick

    August 31, 2016 at 7:27 am

    The economy continues its slow improvement and median income is rising for the first time in 10 years, so that takes the edge off the discontent. I definitely hope Act Blue supports Kirkpatrick, as well as McGinty in PA and Hassan in New Hampshire. Even Murphy, who is very much a Neoliberal, Tory DINO, is far preferable to sociopath Marco Rubio.

  15. 15.

    p.a.

    August 31, 2016 at 7:31 am

    @Botsplainer: didn’t she refuse to help Florida Dems who were running against her Repub buddies?

    This time around, Wasserman Schultz and Meek say their relationships with the Republican incumbents, Reps. Lincoln Diaz-Balart and his brother Mario, and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, leave them little choice but to sit out the three races.

    She initially sought to protect payday lenders (loansharks).

    And a major responsibility was midterm elections.

  16. 16.

    debbie

    August 31, 2016 at 7:39 am

    I don’t know which part of this sentence is more horrifying:

    Former Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), who has been advising Donald Trump on foreign policy,

    or

    said on Tuesday that God played a role in the real estate mogul becoming the Republican presidential nominee.

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/bachmann-god-raised-up-trump

  17. 17.

    amk

    August 31, 2016 at 7:43 am

    Donald Trump may have accepted the invitation of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto for a Wednesday meeting in Mexico City, but the Republican presidential nominee is getting the cold shoulder in a country where public views of its own president are already abysmally low.

    Within minutes of Trump announcing that he would travel to Mexico City on Wednesday before his speech laying out his immigration stance in Phoenix, reaction was fast and furious among those in the Mexican political cognoscenti.

    “There is no turning back,” former Mexican President Vicente Fox tweeted Tuesday night, ripping into Trump for his offensive remarks about Mexicans, Muslims and others that he said “have led you to the pit where you are today.”

    Added Fox, who previously apologized to the candidate after declaring that Mexico was not going to pay for “that f—-ing wall”: “¡Adiós, Trump!”

    Trump is “not welcome” in her country, former Mexican first lady Margarita Zavala de Calderón tweeted Wednesday morning, as news broke of the Republican nominee’s impending visit and meeting with President Enrique Peña Nieto.

  18. 18.

    gene108

    August 31, 2016 at 7:51 am

    @debbie:

    Doesn’t every Republican run for President because it is God’s will they win, but somehow God seems rather indifferent to their cause.

    I mean when God wanted back up Moses, for example, didn’t he unleash a plague of locusts on Mo’s enemies and have the rivers run red with blood?

    IDK, but maybe God’s not that into Reoublican Presidential nominees.

  19. 19.

    Betty Cracker

    August 31, 2016 at 7:53 am

    @sherparick: Murphy has a Blue Doggy-record as a congressman as befits the constituency he wrested from the odious tea party loon Allen West. But he has evolved into a bog-standard Democrat at this point and is on the record supporting gay rights, immigration, reproductive rights, voting rights, criminal justice reform, etc. I think he’s not only a helluva lot better than Lil’ Marco, he’ll actually make a fine senator if elected.

  20. 20.

    David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch

    August 31, 2016 at 7:53 am

    @debbie: She’s right.

    God wants the republicans to lose.

  21. 21.

    Gin & Tonic

    August 31, 2016 at 7:54 am

    @debbie: It’s been quite some time since I studied Christian theology, and I know He is supposed to work in mysterious ways, but Il Donaldo seems to me to be just about the polar opposite of what He wanted from us humans.

  22. 22.

    Chyron HR

    August 31, 2016 at 7:58 am

    @p.a.:

    And yet Bernie’s chosen one instead ran against her insufficient deference to Israel and pledged to do everything he could do destroy Iran. Go figure.

  23. 23.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    August 31, 2016 at 8:01 am

    Keep in mind that one of the reasons the locals decided to hate Angela Corey was because she decided to prosecute Zimmerman for shooting Trayvon Martin. So, I’m not nearly as thrilled that she lost as a lot of other people seem to be.

  24. 24.

    Schlemazel

    August 31, 2016 at 8:03 am

    @Botsplainer:
    My complaint on DWS was that she endorsed 2 Republican Congressional candidates in South FL a few years back.

    I had forgotten that campaigning is allowed outside polling places her in Americas wang. I’m used to seeing a flag and a “VOTE HERE” sign on the street when I vote. Yseterday I could tell where the polling places where by the large number of people milling around with campaign signs to wave in peoples face – or on poles so they could wave them in traffic. Voting in Brevard always made me feel I was running a gauntlet.

    It finally stopped raining here in sunny Florida but it is still overcast.

  25. 25.

    Emma

    August 31, 2016 at 8:03 am

    @Iowa Old Lady: Seriously, if you’re formatting for Kindle, get an expert. A lot of self-published books get returned by people because the formatting makes it annoying to read. If you insist on DIY, Amazon publishes guides on formatting for Kindle.

  26. 26.

    gvg

    August 31, 2016 at 8:06 am

    I approved of her prosecuting Zimmerman. didn’t like the other choices she made.

    DWS was NOT good at her job although the actual convention seemed to go well. Bernie’s opinion didn’t matter to me. I wanted her gone several years ago. Oh well.

  27. 27.

    Shalimar

    August 31, 2016 at 8:18 am

    @Schlemazel: That was my biggest complaint about her too. Acceptable for a House member, unforgivable for the person who is supposed to lead party election efforts. I’m glad she is out at DNC, but would have voted for her yesterday based on what I have read about her and her challenger if I was in her district.

  28. 28.

    Kay

    August 31, 2016 at 8:25 am

    When a federal appeals court overturned much of North Carolina’s sweeping 2013 election law last month, saying it had been deliberately intended to discourage African-Americans from voting, something else was tossed out as well: the ground rules for this year’s elections in a critical swing state. In each of the state’s 100 counties, local elections boards scheduled new hearings and last week filed the last of their new election rules with the state.
    Now, critics are accusing some of the boards, all of which are controlled by Republicans, of staging an end run around a court ruling they are supposed to carry out. Like the law that was struck down, say voting rights advocacy groups and some Democrats who are contesting the rewritten election plans, many election plans have been intentionally written to suppress the black vote.

    I’d just like to point out this coordinated voter suppression efforts by Republicans predates Donald Trump and includes some very fancy and “esteemed” conservative lawyers.

    It’s mainstream. Republicans control both chambers of Congress and they could do something about this today, but they won’t. All the bullshit “outreach” you’re hearing about (and will hear about after the election) means nothing. They won’t protect this basic right and they could easily do it. It would actually HELP them long term, because they have an (earned) reputation for this sleazy garbage. They’d rather get whatever short term voter edge they can finagle than DO SOMETHING about this.

    Governors, Senators, hotshot Federalist Society lawyers with Ivy League credentials- they’re ALL colluding on this.

    They hire and pay hundreds of consultants and we keep hearing about how they want to change, but this continues and they do nothing. Cowards, all of them.

  29. 29.

    Oldgold

    August 31, 2016 at 8:27 am

    Any word as to whether Trump will be handing out Play Dough in Mexico?

    This trip just emphasizes what an impetuous grandstanding fool he is.

  30. 30.

    Keith G

    August 31, 2016 at 8:28 am

    @p.a.: DWS is a cancer on the notion that the Democratic Party wants to reform itself and become a party more relevant to the needs of America’s barely scraping by workers.

  31. 31.

    D58826

    August 31, 2016 at 8:32 am

    We maybe watching the mainstreaming of another Clinton ‘scandal’. For a week or so the state of her health, never mind the statement from her doctor, has been buzzing around the RWNJ fever swamps and the Trump campaign (which may well be the same thing). We now have Dr. Drew, a TV doctor/personality calling for additional information. The Hill is reporting that Obama’s pre-presidential personal physician is calling for a neurological exam. Apparently several other ‘mainstream’ doctors have also raised questions about her health, w/o ever having examined her.

    Now all of this is nonsense but once you get a couple of supposed reasonable mainstream voices giving cover to the RWNJ’s then the MSM feels bound to report on it and keep the story alive. In a week or so it will be another Clinton ‘scandal’ where she is trying to hide something.

    In the meantime J. Capeheart has a piece about the several thousand calendar entries that were released in the past day or so. Seem to to show someone who puts in long days both at home and the office. The most ‘syndicalist’ item was she does not believe in snow days. She was in New York for the big 2010 blizzard. After working the phones from home she was driven to DC,. Took 6 hours and went into the office. A truly evil/corrupt person. .https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/08/30/a-clearer-view-of-hillary-clinton-in-3721-pages/?utm_term=.f04d33bac4d8

  32. 32.

    Rob in CT

    August 31, 2016 at 8:33 am

    Re: sending dollars to close races:

    Go here:

    And click on the ActBlue link.

  33. 33.

    Iowa Old Lady

    August 31, 2016 at 8:37 am

    @Emma: Thanks, Emma. I’ll have to see how it goes.

  34. 34.

    Betty Cracker

    August 31, 2016 at 8:48 am

    @Keith G: I’m glad DWS is out as DNC chair, though I wish the circumstances had been different. The way it went down, it seemed like a cave to the loudest Sanders supporters and made it seem as if WikiLeaks was doing God’s work when nothing could be further from the truth right now. But in any case, she’s not doing that job any longer. As a legislator, she sucks on a handful of issues but votes with Democrats and progressives on the overwhelming majority of issues, so describing her as a “cancer” seems a bit strong.

  35. 35.

    OzarkHillbilly

    August 31, 2016 at 8:53 am

    @Kay: Meanwhile, actual voter fraud in STL. Of course, they won’t do anything about this either (outside of pointing and talking about “those people”) because it involves absentee ballots:

    After interviewing dozens of people and reviewing thousands of documents related to the Aug. 2 election, the Post-Dispatch has so far found:

    • Caldwell and another voter both said people who identified themselves as Hubbard campaign workers filled out their ballots for them. Voting records obtained by the Post-Dispatch show that those individuals voted in the Aug. 2 primary. Under state law, “any person who assists a voter and in any manner coerces or initiates a request or a suggestion that the voter vote for or against or refrain from voting on any question, ticket or candidate, shall be guilty of a class one election offense,” a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

    • At least 60 instances where two applications for an absentee ballot were submitted to the St. Louis Election Board on behalf of a single voter. Some voters contacted by the Post-Dispatch said they had not applied twice and had no idea why someone would have filled out a second application for them.

    • More than a dozen voters said they never claimed to be incapacitated as their applications to vote absentee show. They said they don’t know who marked that box on their forms. Of the six legal reasons a person can vote absentee, only one — incapacity — does not require voter to sign a notarized affidavit.

    • Two former Election Board employees say that in previous election campaigns, Penny Hubbard’s husband, Rodney Hubbard Sr., routinely delivered stacks of absentee ballots to the Election Board offices. Missouri election law says only a second-degree relative can deliver ballots for another person. Yet the board accepted the ballots anyway, the former employees said.

    ….

    On Aug. 2, Franks won nearly 53 percent of the votes cast on Election Day in the 78th District, which runs along the Mississippi riverfront in St. Louis. But it was Penny Hubbard’s dominant performance among absentee voters — she won 416-114 — that gave her the victory. The final combined tally: Hubbard, 2,203 votes; Franks, 2,113 votes.

    …..

    Patricia Wicks, who lives across the street from Franks in the Benton Park West neighborhood, said people who identified themselves as Hubbard campaign workers knocked on her door. She said they asked her to sign a sheet of paper. She thought the signature was to confirm that she was a registered voter. Then the man asked for her Social Security number. “I said, ‘I don’t give anybody my Social Security number,’” Wicks recalled saying.

    Wicks said she received a phone call a few days later from a woman identifying herself as a Hubbard campaign worker. Had Wicks’ ballot arrived? she asked. “I said, ‘No, why would I receive an absentee ballot?’” Wicks said. “I’m able to go to the polls.” But on Aug. 2, Wicks discovered an absentee ballot in her mailbox, she said. Wicks didn’t know if she could legally go to the polls. So she didn’t vote at all.

    Markeisha Franklin, 34, recounted a similar experience. She also remembered being visited by a man who identified himself as a Hubbard campaign worker who asked her to sign something. She thought she was making sure her address was correct, she said. When she arrived at her precinct to vote, a poll worker told her she had registered to vote absentee. “I’m like, ‘How?’” she said. “I always go in and vote.” Franklin said she was allowed to vote after the worker verified that her absentee ballot had not been cast.

  36. 36.

    Amir Khalid

    August 31, 2016 at 9:03 am

    @Betty Cracker:
    I don’t understand how the DNC chairwoman can endorse Republican candidates for the House, as DWS did, and not deserve to be ousted on the spot — from that post. But instead of endorsing some other candidate for DNC chair, Bernie endorsed her primary opponent for her Congressional seat, which doesn’t make sense to me. Then he failed to actually help Canova compete against DWS, which tells me Bernie’s support in anything isn’t worth much.

  37. 37.

    OzarkHillbilly

    August 31, 2016 at 9:11 am

    @Amir Khalid: Bernie is not now, and never has been, a DEM. It’s a corrupt party that only exists for it’s own enrichment.

  38. 38.

    rikyrah

    August 31, 2016 at 9:13 am

    @Kay:
    Kay,
    I know that I harp on this, but insights this good should be Front Paged. You connect the dots for us in the comments, but a lot of these should be posts of their own.

  39. 39.

    O. Felix Culpa

    August 31, 2016 at 9:18 am

    @Baud:

    You know who else liked to square dance….

    I did! Because it was predictable and logical and required no actual ability, you know, to dance. And it was a lot more fun and less dangerous than dodge ball. Junior high was filled with landmines.

  40. 40.

    Uncle Cosmo

    August 31, 2016 at 9:28 am

    This kinda puzzled me:

    the first incumbent state attorney in modern history to lose a contested election…

    How would an incumbent state attorney (or any other candidate for that matter) manage to lose an uncontested election???

  41. 41.

    Barb2

    August 31, 2016 at 9:29 am

    @Iowa Old Lady:
    There are some really good how to books for tech illiterate writers on Amazon.com. I helped a friend publish her novels – format, design covers, change from doc files to pdf files. She now does the formatting herself.

    Check out the published authors – self published – in your genre. Formatting improvements are evolving rapidly. CreateSpace is where you’ll find the self publishing tools & tutorials. Several – how to books – for first time self publishers in Kindle books using CreatSpace.

    Good luck!

  42. 42.

    D58826

    August 31, 2016 at 9:33 am

    from NYT (paywall)

    The Real Clinton Foundation Revelation

    By RICHARD W. PAINTERAUG. 31, 2016

    When I was the chief White House ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush, I asked many prospective administration officials if they would sell stock in companies, give up stock options, step down from nonprofit boards or make other painful choices to enter public service. Some balked. I told them that someone more important than I was, perhaps the president or the White House chief of staff, would ask them, “Do you want this job or don’t you?”

    I know about the difficult questions, and entanglements, that crop up in public service. I believe that Hillary Clinton has asked and successfully answered those questions as they pertain to the Clinton Foundation. There is little if any evidence that federal ethics laws were broken by Mrs. Clinton or anyone working for her at the State Department in their dealings with the foundation. Unfortunately, the foundation is still fuel for Mrs. Clinton’s persistent critics.

    These critics have yet to point to any provision of the federal statutes or ethics regulations that was violated by Secretary Clinton or her staff in their dealings with the foundation and its principals, agents and donors. Was there favoritism? Probably, yes. But laws were not broken. If favoritism by political appointees toward outside persons and organizations were illegal, the United States government would be quite different than it is today.

    White House political appointees and members of Congress show favoritism regularly, from how quickly they return campaign contributors’ telephone calls to which meeting requests they honor to who gets what they want in the policy arena.

    While he thin ks it is pretty much business as usual; in Washington, he does think Hillary should, fair or not, go the extra mile in cutting ties to the Foundation.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/31/opinion/the-real-clinton-foundation-revelation.html?em_pos=large&emc=edit_ty_20160831&nl=opinion-today&nlid=75827191&ref=headline&te=1&_r=0

  43. 43.

    opiejeanne

    August 31, 2016 at 9:35 am

    @debbie: God is having a little joke on Michelle. He told 16 other Republicans that they were His Chosen One.

  44. 44.

    Guam Guy

    August 31, 2016 at 9:44 am

    OT, but I was watching RT TV for sh*ts & giggles here in Bangkok tonight and who should turn up for a lengthy interview but Dr. Jill Stein! I wonder how`many voters in the US are watching RT TV? Those pix of Dr. Jill Stein at the banquet in Moscow with Putin’s toadies speak louder than words.

  45. 45.

    opiejeanne

    August 31, 2016 at 9:50 am

    @O. Felix Culpa: Virginia Reel? I think I learned that in 4th grade, and at some point they tried to teach us to waltz.

  46. 46.

    Bobby Thomson

    August 31, 2016 at 10:01 am

    @Betty Cracker: what anti-establishment wave?

  47. 47.

    Bobby Thomson

    August 31, 2016 at 10:03 am

    @D58826: that guy should be doing hard time.

  48. 48.

    Amir Khalid

    August 31, 2016 at 10:03 am

    @Uncle Cosmo:
    I guess a candidate would have to be really unpopular to lose an election in which they were running unopposed.

  49. 49.

    Hal

    August 31, 2016 at 10:05 am

    I don’t get why people voted for Rubio. He’s on record as hating his job, said he wasn’t going to run again multiple times and now he won’t commit to even staying the full 6 years if he does win. This is just him bidding his time until 2020.

  50. 50.

    Bobby Thomson

    August 31, 2016 at 10:10 am

    @Hal: forget it, Hal. It’s Florida.

  51. 51.

    lamh36

    August 31, 2016 at 10:17 am

    if you are on Twitter check out the hashtag #VeteransForKaepernick

  52. 52.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    August 31, 2016 at 10:18 am

    Dying thread, but one for OO: BBC: Evil Clowns in the woods with money and lasers (in South Carolina).

    What’s that expression? “Too small for a country, too large for an asylum?” :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  53. 53.

    Tripod

    August 31, 2016 at 10:21 am

    Welp… Grayson is available for the Green VP slot….

  54. 54.

    MomSense

    August 31, 2016 at 10:23 am

    @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:

    OH NO! Clowns and attempted child abduction combined? Both are terrifying enough separately.

  55. 55.

    Iowa Old Lady

    August 31, 2016 at 10:26 am

    @Barb2: Despite my dithering, I’m not too concerned. The book’s publisher gave me files I can use including the cover, and I already did the Create Space format. That was easy. I’ve self-published a short story before, so I know the basic moves. It’s just that there are always landmines.

    I knew that publisher wasn’t long for this world when they listed their best sellers and my book was third on the list. Unless the first two writers were selling a ton of books, that was not going to end well. That’s one reason the new book is with a different press.

  56. 56.

    1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet)

    August 31, 2016 at 10:42 am

    My sister lives in the Phoenix area and speaks quite highly of Ms. Kirkpatrick. I think a page for her would be a great idea.

  57. 57.

    artem1s

    August 31, 2016 at 10:44 am

    Emily’s List already has a fund for Kirkpatrick. They have been on this one for awhile.
    http://www.emilyslist.org/candidates/ann-kirkpatrick1

  58. 58.

    catclub

    August 31, 2016 at 10:57 am

    @Uncle Cosmo: but wouldn’t it be a contested primary, if it happened yesterday?

  59. 59.

    catclub

    August 31, 2016 at 11:00 am

    @Hal: Forget it Hal, they’re Republicans.

    Seriously, it is perfectly sensible. The voters think he has the best chance of winning in November. Democrats would vote the same way.
    Better a GOP winner in November ( for them), who quits, than a Democrat winner in November.

  60. 60.

    piratedan

    August 31, 2016 at 11:18 am

    @1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet): she’s actually won a congressional seat in rural AZ, so she really has a chance. Plus with McCain garnering his own challenge from the Right, there are enough folks on that side of the political spectrum that really don’t like John McCain. Kirkpatrick has been doing the rounds all over the state and much of the polling shows that she really has a legit shot at unseating him. The unknown factor is how much of the GOP will come home for McCain and which way the independents swing. The fact that Clinton is doing better than expected really helps her chances as well.

  61. 61.

    Xantar

    August 31, 2016 at 12:11 pm

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    I don’t know about state’s attorney, but there was that time John Ashcroft lost re-election to a dead guy. Does that count as uncontested?

  62. 62.

    Gelfling 545

    August 31, 2016 at 12:21 pm

    @amk: Unless the Mexican president plans to slap Trump’s face with his glove & demand an apology, I can’t imagine how his approval numbers would i prove from this.

  63. 63.

    1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet)

    August 31, 2016 at 12:22 pm

    @Xantar: In Tennessee we had a candidate for the state senate kill the incumbent, timing it so it was too late for the Democrats to produce a new candidate. He lost to the dead incumbent’s widow, in a write-in campaign. Elections can become very strange.

  64. 64.

    Mai.naem.mobile

    August 31, 2016 at 12:26 pm

    I think Kirkpatrick is worth putting some money behind. With the Perfect Storm of higher Hispanic turnout, depressed GOP turnout ,higher Tucson and Navajo Reservation turnout McCain can be retired.

  65. 65.

    Turgidson

    August 31, 2016 at 1:05 pm

    Trying not to read too much into the fact that Rubio received about as many votes as the total number of votes cast in the Democratic primary, which was more fiercely contested, at least until Grayson predictably self-destructed. I was really hoping we’d send Lil Marco packing in November. Not looking great right now. Hopefully the Trump millstone pulls him under.

  66. 66.

    Barb2

    August 31, 2016 at 2:11 pm

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    CreateSpace is great. From what I’ve seen – pay attention to the details and self publishers can produce a high quality product.

    Oce of the – books how to publish on CreatSpace – is by a best selling author who has a publisher but when she wrote a new series she chose to self publish. She wanted more control. I’ve seen big publishing houses mess up the digital version of the books (while asking an inflated price for the book).

    Congratulations on publishing your book.

  67. 67.

    r€nato

    August 31, 2016 at 3:17 pm

    Kirkpatrick can beat McCain, IF she has enough money. An ActBlue link would be great. She currently has $2MM to McCain’s $5MM, and if this race continues to be close he will get even more money. The usual suspects (US Chamber of Commerce, military contractors, media giants) badly want him to stick around.

    She is centrist, she can appeal to and attract rural voters, and there’s a great deal of McCain fatigue. She needs to make comfortable a number of the lean-GOP voters who publicly said “anybody but McCain” but in the voting booth have difficulty bringing themselves to mark the ballot for a D.

  68. 68.

    Vlad

    August 31, 2016 at 4:49 pm

    @Botsplainer: Sure, if you define “job” as “shilling for the payday loan industry”.

    She’s a shitty lawmaker, and it’s a shame she won. C’est la vie, I guess.

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