• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

No one could have predicted…

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

In my day, never was longer.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Mobile Menu

  • Winnable House Races
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • Balloon Juice 2023 Pet Calendar (coming soon)
  • COVID-19 Coronavirus
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • War in Ukraine
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • 2021-22 Fundraising!
You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2018 / Proud to Be A Democrat Open Thread: Stacey Abrams Has A Bright Political Future

Proud to Be A Democrat Open Thread: Stacey Abrams Has A Bright Political Future

by Anne Laurie|  November 4, 201810:30 pm| 64 Comments

This post is in: Election 2018, Excellent Links, I'm With Her, Open Threads, Post-racial America, Proud to Be A Democrat

FacebookTweetEmail

Sure, she just has a Texas MPA, a Yale JD and ten years in the state legislature, most of them as the Democratic leader.

It’s not like she has *real* experience, running casinos into the ground or selling mail order steaks. https://t.co/tQIL3YbNVs

— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) November 1, 2018

As Dem Leader, I led the fight for Medicaid expansion and opposed efforts to privatize public schools. When HOPE was threatened, I helped save it—then worked with Gov. Deal to pass criminal justice reform. I am ready to lead Georgia forward as #GAGov. https://t.co/0zqDEnv3w2

— Stacey Abrams (@staceyabrams) November 5, 2018

Even if Kemp and his fellow Rethugs somehow manage to suppress or steal enough votes to contest her win on Tuesday, no question that Ms. Abrams will go far.

Bim Adewunmi reports for Buzzfeed:

With just over two weeks until Election Day, Stacey Abrams’ voice was raspier than normal as she delivered her well-honed speech to a crowd gathered at Theze Bonez, a ribs restaurant run by a military vet in Powder Springs, Georgia.

“I apologize for my voice,” she started off. “We have been traveling the state of Georgia and my voice is somewhere between Spalding County and Worth County.”

Over the course of an October weekend, Georgia’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate gave tweaked versions of a stump speech that she has polished to a gleam over the last few months. Among her stops were the city of Dalton in Whitfield County, aka “the carpet capital of the world,” which has a big Latino population, and Rome, Floyd County, in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. Abrams, the former Georgia House minority leader noted for working across the aisle, has visited all 159 state counties, meeting a demographically mixed cross section of Georgia’s 10.5 million citizens. The day before she spoke in Powder Springs, she was on a whistle-stop tour in five different counties. In her speeches, she hits the same important beats she believes will get her into the governor’s mansion after the election — including the importance of early voting.

Abrams is a rare thing for her state, and for the US in general. If she wins, she will be the first black woman governor in the history of this country — but she’s adamant that’s not reason enough to vote for her. “I don’t want you to vote for me because I’m black, or because I’m a woman,” she repeated all weekend, at stops that included a church, a barbershop, a jazz club, and the meeting hall of the local chapter of the electrical workers union. “I want you to vote for me because I’m better.” Cheers and applause met her, and that line, every single time. But Abrams’ speeches don’t start or end there.

There is the story of her previously incarcerated brother, Walter, who struggles with addiction and also has bipolar disorder: “We all know a Walter. Or are a Walter,” she said at Golden Memorial United Methodist Church in Douglas County on Friday evening. There is her clarion call for Medicaid expansion, including mental health coverage, in a state ranked 47th nationwide for affordable health care. (As Abrams points out, the prison system is the biggest provider of mental health care in Georgia: “We have leaders who believe it’s okay for folks to die from preventable diseases because they’re too mean and too cheap to expand Medicaid in the state of Georgia.”)

There are her big plans for education: making technical colleges free again, the introduction of need-based student aid, and a reimagining of the HOPE scholarship that looks beyond a B-grade average as a barometer for eligibility. “I don’t know about you but I come from a family of strong C’s and D’s doing the best they can,” said the graduate of Spelman College, the University of Texas, and Yale Law School, modestly. As a former small-business owner who couldn’t get business credit, she also has an interest in making capital available for small-business owners across Georgia — Abrams wants to create a $10 million small-business financing fund. Her voice fluctuated in pitch from time to time, but she stayed true to the speech’s central message, which in the words of the former president of the Atlanta City Council, Ceasar Mitchell, is that Abrams “is not only qualified to lead this state as governor, she is well prepared.”…

500,000 first-time voters have cast early ballots in Georgia.

Wow.

— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) November 2, 2018

Fun little interview on Abrams’ side career, from the Washington Post:

When she was 18, Stacey Abrams suffered heartbreak: Her second boyfriend, a guy named Chad, broke up with her. Rather than wallow in a tub of ice cream, Abrams sought comfort in the computer lab at Spelman College, where she spent the evening creating a spreadsheet mapping out the next 40 years of her life.

Becoming the nation’s first black female governor — a position she’s now vying for in Georgia — was not part of the plan. But as she explains in her book “Minority Leader,” a memoir-cum-self-help book subtitled “How to Lead From the Outside and Make Real Change,” her goals were nonetheless lofty: By age 24, she planned to be the author of a bestselling romantic spy novel. By 30, she’d be a “millionaire running a corporation whose purpose I had not yet figured out.” By 35, she’d be mayor of Atlanta.

Now 44, the Democratic candidate has achieved one of those three goals — at least partly. None of Abrams’s eight novels became a bestseller, but the books did achieve another of her objectives: to show herself and other black women that they could be “as adventurous and attractive as any white woman.”…

"Recently, Oprah was 'sitting at home,' when she realized she ought to go to Georgia. There’s a helluva governor’s race underfoot here, but it had been missing a certain something, and that something was her." A++ dispatch from @mrdanzak. https://t.co/cNYyM06TXp

— Monica Hesse (@MonicaHesse) November 2, 2018

There are plenty black Georgians who were alive when the state lynched black folks for trying to vote. I get chills thinking about what a week involving Obama and Oprah campaigning for Abrams must mean for a lot of them.

— Dad (@fivefifths) November 2, 2018

There’s realpolitik too. There are often real and deep disagreements and withering criticisms of the party and even—perhaps especially—black politicians. But I’m always struck by the yearning and the joy too

— Dad (@fivefifths) November 2, 2018

GOP celebrities, though…

BLACK PANTHER was filmed in Georgia.
BLACK LIGHTNING is filmed in Georgia.
THE WALKING DEAD, too. List goes on.
A lot of films and TV are made in Georgia.
And they employ a lot of Georgians. https://t.co/ITQPY3nzWF

— Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith) November 2, 2018

Mike Pence, putting the white in white-bread guy. Horses for courses, as our Brit friends would phrase it… although Pence is only half a horse at best, and not the half most folk would travel to stare at behind a podium.

Imagine listening to this man and thinking, yes, that definitely makes sense. https://t.co/UQygavOhPh

— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) November 4, 2018

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: « Scenes From the Wedding
Next Post: On the Road and In Your Backyard »

Reader Interactions

64Comments

  1. 1.

    debbie

    November 4, 2018 at 10:35 pm

    People this stupid cannot possibly win.

  2. 2.

    Anne Laurie

    November 4, 2018 at 10:42 pm

    @debbie: … without cheating. Which is why that’s where the GOP is concentrating its efforts!

  3. 3.

    Suzanne

    November 4, 2018 at 10:45 pm

    He suggests people will come knocking on their door and say “please give us all guns right now.”

    How do people this fucking dumb leave the house without shitting their pants? Assumes facts not in evidence.

  4. 4.

    H.E.Wolf

    November 4, 2018 at 10:46 pm

    In honor of Governor Stacey Abrams…

    Lift every voice and sing,
    Till earth and heaven ring,
    Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
    Let our rejoicing rise
    High as the listening skies,
    Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
    Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
    Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
    Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
    Let us march on till victory is won.
    -James Weldon Johnson

  5. 5.

    rikyrah

    November 4, 2018 at 10:47 pm

    Stacey Abrams rocks.

    I can’t even put into words what I will feel if she wins on Tuesday.
    Been thinking about the words, but they haven’t come yet.

  6. 6.

    rikyrah

    November 4, 2018 at 10:48 pm

    About Georgia not being ‘ Hollywood’…
    Tyler Perry Studios, anyone?

    Maybe they don’t want the money that Mr. Perry and others , to the tune of $ 9.5 BILLION, have brought to the state.

    Uh huh
    Uh huh

  7. 7.

    trollhattan

    November 4, 2018 at 10:49 pm

    She, Beto and Gillum have me hopeful for the Democratic base going forward, regardless of Tuesday. A hat trick would have me an order of magnitude happier, but I don’t know I’ve been that good.

  8. 8.

    The at Kate Middleton

    November 4, 2018 at 10:49 pm

    I’m a lifelong Democrat (my first election was in 1968), but the the text messages, emails, and snail mail I’ve received since Friday are like no other. It makes me think they’re seeing something in their “internal polls” even worse than we’ve all been led to believe.

  9. 9.

    Steve in the ATL

    November 4, 2018 at 10:51 pm

    I feel confident that Mike Pence knows jack fucking shit about Georgia, but thanks for telling us what it’s like in our state.

  10. 10.

    The at Kate Middleton

    November 4, 2018 at 10:52 pm

    @The at Kate Middleton: Oops – neglected to mention all those missive were from the Repis, in case you couldn’t read my cryptic note.

  11. 11.

    Ella in New Mexico

    November 4, 2018 at 10:53 pm

    I posted this down below but thought it’d fit here in case anyone has missed this. Via TPM: Josh Marshall has linked to a story that Kemp’s accusations against the Democratic Party of Georgia having “hacked” the SOS website are
    pure unadulterated horse shit

    When Georgia Democrats were alerted to what they believe to be major vulnerabilities in the state’s voter registration system Saturday, they contacted computer security experts who verified the problems. They then notified Secretary of State Brian Kemp’s lawyers and national intelligence officials in the hope of getting the problems fixed.

    Instead of addressing the security issues, Kemp’s office put out a statement Sunday saying he had opened an investigation that targets the Democrats for hacking.

    JR in WV made a good point about this:

    Having read the story you linked, Kemp has hired a completely incompetent contract house that has written a voter management system that could be hacked by anyone who knows or can guess the file naming convention used by the system. With no way to track changes made by a hacker, people can be kicked off the voter rolls by having inconsistencies entered on their personal data. Worse, at least 12 or 14 other states are using an incompetent and unprotected system to manage their voter registration rolls.

    I graduated with a BS CS degree in 1984 and worked in software development for the rest of my working career, so when I describe how I feel about this, you may bank on the opinions. This is so wrong, so incompetent and pathetic, so amateurish, I cannot explain it better than to say the bank left the vault unlocked, just pushed it shut in the evenings. This is not how databases are supposed to work, ever!

    Then, when independent systems experts noticed the overwhelming vulnerabilities in the system, reported those vulnerabilities to federal authorities, Kemp, rather than attempting to remediate the situation, instantly decided to falsely accuse the GA Democratic Party of attempting to hack the GA voter database. So crooked, so pathetic. So Republican!

    Any time data is accessed, that should be booked to the audit trail data in the database. Whenever it is changed, the time and user id of the change should be booked, and in important systems, the before and after data is kept forever. You don’t change data, you mark an end date on the old information and add a new row of data with a begin date of the change date.

    This is a normal way of doing business for a regulatory agency or any government agency, for it to not be the case here means anyone could change any number of Democratic voters name data to cause a mismatch when the voter attempts to vote, and no one could even tell a change was made. I could go on for 10,000 words, but it’s late.

    Accusing the other party (The GA Democratic Party, of course) most interested in the integrity of this database of attempting to hack it when in fact it was never protected in any meaningful way is even worse then allowing it to be so vulnerable in the first place. So very Republican, when caught being incompetent in doing one’s single most important job, to accuse the other political party of causing one’s lack of competence ~!!~~!!~

    I really think this guy is playing with fire now, though. He called out the FBI to investigate. The same FBI he pitched a hissy fit with when they tried to warn him about this same issue being a vulnerability during the 2016 election. The same guy a Federal judge just ruled against for holding up all those voter registrations-for the second time in his career.

    I’m hoping they end up investigating him.

  12. 12.

    debbie

    November 4, 2018 at 10:54 pm

    @Anne Laurie:

    Can someone who’s better at Twitter than I am post the tweet with the screenshot of a post extolling Trump’s military service in Vietnam? It’s ANGRY NAVAL OFFICER.

  13. 13.

    trollhattan

    November 4, 2018 at 11:00 pm

    @Steve in the ATL:
    Indiana
    Georgia

    Same number of letters–QED, Lib!

  14. 14.

    The Moar You Know

    November 4, 2018 at 11:01 pm

    Just wait until Democrats finally work up the courage to start lying about Republicans the way that they have been lying about us for the last forty years.

    The truth is bad enough, but we start lying like they have…they’ll be unelectable.

  15. 15.

    Ruckus

    November 4, 2018 at 11:02 pm

    @Steve in the ATL:
    Why should dense know more about GA than he does any other subject in the universe? Of course all he knows is jack shit. Bet he doesn’t know why it’s called jack shit or what it means.

  16. 16.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)

    November 4, 2018 at 11:08 pm

    I keep going back to last year. I live in Virginia, and right abut now, people were losing their shit. “Northam is blowing it!” Northam is going to lose, and he’s taking the whole party down with him!” “Why can’t Democrats win anything? How can we be losing in Virginia? Trump is more hated than anal warts! What’s wrong with us?”

    And we won. Not only did Northam win, he won by a bigger margin than any Democrat running for governor since 1985, and Fairfax and Herring won, too, and we picked up 16 seats in the House of Delegates. But for a coin flip, we would have taken the House back. I don’t know how or why it looked so iffy going in, or whether it really even did look iffy, or whether people were just flipping out out of fear. I don’t know. But we kicked their asses here last year, and I’m feeling hopeful that we might just see this same thing happen all over the country, in states and districts we never would have thought of as likely to go Democratic. I’ve been careful not to forecast anything this year. I’ve never thought or said that we would win in 2018, only that we could. And we can. All we have to do is work at it, and it looks like we’re doing that. I don’t think it’s likely that we can take the Senate this year, but I’m still hoping for a big night, and if it’s big enough, well, you never know…

  17. 17.

    Steve in the ATL

    November 4, 2018 at 11:08 pm

    @The Moar You Know: the truth about republicans is worse than the lies they tell about democrats, but we don’t have Fox News and rush and AEI and so on and so forth.

  18. 18.

    Chetan Murthy

    November 4, 2018 at 11:09 pm

    [only somewhat OT] Nice time: Woman pretends to be persecuted Trump supporter — and scams conservatives out of $150,000

  19. 19.

    Ruckus

    November 4, 2018 at 11:09 pm

    @The Moar You Know:
    We don’t have to lie, we just have to have a way to get the truth out there and have them caught lying about it. That’s what’s missing, that actual real truth, the thing republicans despise more than anything, because that truth fucks them. And they know it. They’ve known it for decades. It’s taken social media to have an avenue of exposure to their lies. Yes it also gives them one more avenue of exposure, but that exposure is also their weak link.

  20. 20.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    November 4, 2018 at 11:12 pm

    @Ruckus:
    @Steve in the ATL:

    This is the same guy who can’t meet women alone without Mother or somebody else being there. He’s probably too stupid to keep his hands off of them otherwise, like Lenny from Of Mice and Men.

  21. 21.

    TaMara (HFG)

    November 4, 2018 at 11:14 pm

    I hope when the Dems finally take back GA, they pass legislation that requires any SOS who runs for another office must resign their SOS position first. What a fucking joke. Come to think of it, every state should do it if they don’t already have safeguards in place to avoid this fuckery in the future.

  22. 22.

    SFAW

    November 4, 2018 at 11:14 pm

    Trump baselessly:

    Dan Dale generally does some pretty good work, but:

    It’s not “Trump baselessly,” it’s “Trump lied yet again. This time it’s about X”

    Another possibility: “Reagan was The Great Communicator, Trump is The Great Fabricator.”

  23. 23.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    November 4, 2018 at 11:19 pm

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
    What I’m worried about is all this progress being undone, at least partially, in the coming years. I get the feeling that we’re in a cycle where government is deadlocked and only occasionally changes hands every few years. We won Congress in 2006 and then the Presidency in 2008 but lost the House in 2010. 2014 saw the loss of the Senate. 2016 goes without saying. We could win again in 2018 and maybe 2020 if not in 2024. This wouldn’t be a problem if the GOP was sane. It’s like 2 steps forward, 1 step backwards for the foreseeable future.

    I’m still hopeful however. I just hope people are getting over the idea that every 2-4 years, the other party should be given power just because. We have a long fight ahead regardless.

  24. 24.

    B.B.A.

    November 4, 2018 at 11:21 pm

    @TaMara (HFG): In NY, a bipartisan board of elections oversees the vote instead of the SOS. It may be the only thing our hopelessly arcane, inefficient electoral apparatus does right.

  25. 25.

    divF

    November 4, 2018 at 11:40 pm

    @trollhattan: I’ve haven’t noticed O’Rourke getting grief about going by the name Beto, ever since that preschool picture with him wearing a sweatshirt with his name surfaced.

    He was a cutie as a little kid, as well.

  26. 26.

    GregB

    November 4, 2018 at 11:55 pm

    Final UNH poll is loaded with good news for NH Democrats.

    The Governor’s race is too close to call. Which is means the Democrat Molly Kelly closed a huge gap with the popular legacy incumbent Sununu.

    Dems hold leads in both Congressional seats amd for both Houses of NH legislature.

    Hold steady.

  27. 27.

    Redshift

    November 4, 2018 at 11:58 pm

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):

    I don’t know how or why it looked so iffy going in, or whether it really even did look iffy, or whether people were just flipping out out of fear.

    It looked iffy based on the usual turnout models, and we completely blew those away. No pollster is going to predict that, because they have no way of determining who the additional people are.

    I’m pretty optimistic about a lot of these races, because we’re seeing extremely high turnout, and while it may be “high enthusiasm on both sides,” there’s a decent chance it’s 2017 all over again, and no chance it’s only high Republican turnout.

  28. 28.

    James E Powell

    November 5, 2018 at 12:09 am

    @debbie:

    People this stupid cannot possibly win.

    Oh, but they have. Many times.

  29. 29.

    MisterForkbeard

    November 5, 2018 at 12:28 am

    @Suzanne: Pretty dumb. But that’s the thing – they condition you to be this stupid. I had a friend/acquaintance from college who was a pretty smart guy. Didn’t have the same politics as me, but was generally cool and knew what he was talking about.

    15 years later, he wasnt sure if he should vote for Trump. Trump was weird, but oddly persuasive to him. He started on a heavy diet of hating Hillary and then went for Trump enthusiastically because of Guns, and the rest of the stuff followed suit. He made a public declaration that he’d discovered that vaccines were awful a few weeks ago and implores us all to “look at the facts”.

    In order to believe Trump and the Republook and, you have to actively disable your reasoning abilities. They train you do to this over time, and to reject “establishment” media and experts because that’s the only way they can keep you.

    Basically, I’m sure “Democrats hacker Georgia is a thing now.

  30. 30.

    cain

    November 5, 2018 at 12:41 am

    @MisterForkbeard:

    Ugh, how do you break out of it unless you are deeply affected personally by the choices?

  31. 31.

    SFAW

    November 5, 2018 at 12:51 am

    @MisterForkbeard:

    In order to believe Trump and the Republook and, you have to actively disable your reasoning abilities. They train you do to this over time, and to reject “establishment” media and experts because that’s the only way they can keep you.

    It took them between 30 and 50 years to (almost) destroy public education in America; it’ll take REAL Americans a long time to restore it, even without the RWAs continuing to sabotage it.

  32. 32.

    Ruckus

    November 5, 2018 at 1:01 am

    @The at Kate Middleton:
    Either that or they aren’t wasting any time they have to help win.
    I just deleted 68 political emails. That’s the second time today that I’ve done this.
    Also just wondered if you still want to talk. Adam emailed you but never got an answer as of the last time he was around. He said he’d be gone until tomorrow so if you have answered I doubt he’d have been able to get back to you. No is a perfectly acceptable answer but I’m still here if you want.

  33. 33.

    PIGL

    November 5, 2018 at 1:23 am

    @MisterForkbeard: What are his views on chemtrails and the shape of the earth?

  34. 34.

    joel hanes

    November 5, 2018 at 1:30 am

    @SFAW:

    Reagan was The Great Communicator, Trump is The Great Fabricator

    Reagan lied many times about many things, but was always excused because of his genial manner and his Alzheimers, or because his prevarications told Americans things they wanted to believe: that white Americans should feel neither guilt nor shame over our history, that tax cuts would increase government revenue, that government was the enemy of the American people, that the Contras in Nicaraugau were “the moral equivalent of the Founding Fathers”, that there was no limit to greed and no benefit to regulating business, that his administration had not traded arms for hostages, …

  35. 35.

    MisterForkbeard

    November 5, 2018 at 2:06 am

    @PIGL: He does think the government is out to get him and his family, thinks CA is purposefully depriving the agriculture areas of water to “benefit ducks and destroy farming” and similar things. BUT he hasn’t explicitly gone in for chemtrails and I’m pretty sure he’s a round-worlder.

  36. 36.

    SFAW

    November 5, 2018 at 2:23 am

    @joel hanes:

    I don’t disagree re: Reagan; I think America continues to suffer from the evil he and his aiders/abetters visited on us, and he made it OK (so to speak) to kick the shit out of the middle class and not-quite-middle class. That, combined with the destruction of public education, and the decimation [sic] of the industrial base (thereby reducing the long-term economic prospects for the non-wealthy, which leads to scapegoat-seeking), makes it that much harder to get the message across that the RWAs are fucking over most of the country.

  37. 37.

    poleaxedbyboatwork

    November 5, 2018 at 2:26 am

    AK field report, fwiw:

    Live in Sitka, Alaska (fourth largest “city” in AK by pop., natch, at just under 9K strong, woo-hoo!; known as a funky mix a artsy-fartsy liberals and pot-smoking don’t-be-a-dick trollers in contradistinction to evangelical tub-thumping hay-shaking god-botherers n doctrinaire movement-conservative whinging, victimized, excuse-making, whiny-ass-titty-baby ideologues; yeah, we’re unapologetically schizophrenically weird).

    Gotta talk-to list from local rep of dems and indies that ain’t voted yet. Been shuffling about knocking on doors, saying howdy. Expect I spoke to ’bout 40 peeps, bunch more not home. Let me just say I realize there’s lotsa you out there that’s done way more’n me; I ain’t holding to being anyone’s champion. What I *am* saying is that, I think, I hope, this shit actually works. I.e. Encountered lotsa squishy resigned liberal folks who, *by my mere presence* (and it ain’t about me, it’s about their guilty goddam conscience), *knew* how fucked up our situation was, knew by rights they oughtta do sumpin, and (whether they do or not) pledged to vote. Because *someone* (it ain’t about me, I get it) showed up.

    I.e. the gentle nudge of a worldview simpatico to your own shows up at your doorstep, enthusiastic, encouraging, hopeful, concerned, anxious, imploring: is seemingly enough to shame/guilt/inspire some folks into doing what they are inclined (but mordantly reluctant!) to do anyway.

    It ain’t much, I’ll own, but it’s something. Roughly 16 folks (partners of peeps on the list was prominent) of them 40 I spoke to pledged to vote either Mon. (we got early voting here) or Tues.

    Will say: I very much wish that such devotionalablutions were not necessary. It annoys me greatly that *anyone* is required to refute the (to me) self-evident perfidies of our age, but … since Walker (our sitting governor; a shoe ain’t quite droppt on that’n) decided now’s when he needs to spend more time wid his fambly —> Begich is gotta shot, even tho’ R-Dunleavy is a douche in every way and he’s still the natural choice in our contorted convoluted state. Galvin is running a point up on recurring herpes sore and political carbuncle Don Young, and our local rep, JKT — who knows? JKT is a squish (I like him as a person, and in normal times —
    which these ain’t — he’d be fine; but speaking objectively, he’s a squish). His opponent is a guy named Richard Wein, who ain’t all bad, he’s been supportive of the local fisherman, for which I’m thankful, but Wein’s running as a Republican, and in this year, of all years, my position is fuck you and the horseshit your rode in on.

    Being a Republican, in our age, in our time, forces even a seemingly good person to become a bad person. Because you can be a good American and you can be a good Republican. But as many have oft-noted: You can’t be fucking both.

    Choose.

  38. 38.

    Schlemazel

    November 5, 2018 at 2:31 am

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??: I said this in an earlier thread. Nothing is over on 11/7 . Things are not going to get magically better. What will happen is the getting worse can be slowed down. We are going to have to work harder for 2020 and we are going to have to work harder starting on 11/7. It took 50 years to get to this condition, the GOP will not give up they must be beaten.

  39. 39.

    Ruckus

    November 5, 2018 at 2:42 am

    @poleaxedbyboatwork:

    Choose.

    No shit. 3 yrs ago I’d have said that a republican could possibly just hold their nose and vote republican. 2 yrs ago changed all that. The stench of drumpf is far too skank to stop with 2 fingers. So, if someone is still a republican, they want to be a republican. They think the message is OK, they think the politicians are OK and that does not speak well for them. They are at the very least delusional. They are at the very worst nazi scum.

  40. 40.

    Joey Maloney

    November 5, 2018 at 2:49 am

    @rikyrah:

    I can’t even put into words what I will feel if she wins on Tuesday.

    Oh, I can verbalize my feeling easily enough. It’ll be something like, “In your fucking FACE, Kemp, you racist piece of garbage. Suck it!”

    I am an uncomplicated man.

  41. 41.

    prostratedragon

    November 5, 2018 at 3:03 am

    @H.E.Wolf: Especially for those who’ve never heard it: Committed.

    My late father used to say that “Lift Every Voice” should be the nation’s anthem (it’s already known as the Black national anthem).

  42. 42.

    CarolDuhart2

    November 5, 2018 at 3:20 am

    Posted in another thread, but I thought it’s worth cross-posting here;

    If we flip some state legislatures I think the first thing we should work on, barring emergencies, is work on voting issues: My suggestions:

    1) Back to paper, whether it be mail ballots, hand counted ballots, scanned ballots. Beyond the obvious issues with electronic voting, there’s the cost/and ability to upgrade and replace parts and software. Pen and Pencil never need upgrades and spare parts, and if the power goes out, ballots could still be counted. When you think about it, our system relied on pen and paper for generations, and as long as we made sure there were observers, worked pretty fine.

    2) Early voting everywhere. People can’t do the standing in line on one day anymore when they have long commutes before and after work.

    3) End partisan administration of elections. It’s a conflict of interest and a guarantee of cheating, or at least getting “help” by co-workers. Have an electoral commission of bureaucrats administer elections.

    4) End felon disenfranchisement-hell, even let some prisoners vote from County Jail. Might speed up prison reform measures.

  43. 43.

    Gretchen

    November 5, 2018 at 3:25 am

    @trollhattan: these three, Amy McGrath, and Sharice Davids would be a great night.

  44. 44.

    CarolDuhart2

    November 5, 2018 at 3:44 am

    If anyone is responsible for there being a (so far) Resistance, it’s Obama. He led us after decades of despair, to believe in our ability to do change. He also gave us the tools by teaching hundreds of us to canvass, self-organize and run our own affairs. Back in 2004, I was canvassing for Kerry on Election Day. We were a group of paid canvassers, assembled just that day, competing with another group (ACT), union canvassers and the like. We only had vaguely drawn maps of areas to canvass. Nothing else. No walk lists. One of the areas we were driven to was Downtown, where anywhere residential was either not home or in locked buildings not accessible to people who didn’t have an access code.

    2008-I canvassed for Obama. We had walk lists of people who we could contact, and we canvassed over several weekends. No van driven around several neighborhoods hoping someone was actually home. I wasn’t paid (would have liked some cash), but it didn’t really matter on my part. Or really anyone’s. We had far more volunteers and coverage.

    From the Dean meetups and the Obama organizing skills, we have millions of people who can do outreach, run campaigns, and virtually cover the field now. That means the Republicans re getting flummoxed by this activity. “Who is the Resistance?” “who are these people”?. Trying to punch back is like punching jello for them-there’s no one person, no one group they can focus their hate on.

  45. 45.

    Gretchen

    November 5, 2018 at 3:46 am

    @poleaxedbyboatwork: thank you

  46. 46.

    CarolDuhart2

    November 5, 2018 at 3:57 am

    @CarolDuhart2: They are wondering-“who is running this massive nationwide effort?”. There no national mastermind, so they have to invent one, try to lure Hillary out of retirement, go through an endless list of “possibles”, and finding nobody really fits the bill. Which must drive Trump and his associates crazy. They really can’t stop a Resistance with a rotating list of leaders-none of which control everything.

    I believe that’s one of the reasons the bomber sent all those bombs-and was also ineffective. Too many and too many who are canny. But with dozens of targets he couldn’t focus on a single spot or a single bomb. Hastily assembled, he probably skipped several steps along the way.

  47. 47.

    J R in WV

    November 5, 2018 at 4:50 am

    I really think we have a great shot at taking the whole enchilada – the House and the Senate. Enough to completely stop the round robin appointment of unqualified idiots anywhere in the government. Not to override Vetos, OK.

    But Trump won’t veto stuff, I don’t think. He doesn’t have the mindset to be able to do that! When is the last time we heard “You’re Fired!” out of his mouth for anyone he could really fire? As opposed to someone not in office, or in another government, like France or Canada.

  48. 48.

    JPL

    November 5, 2018 at 5:01 am

    @J R in WV: I hope that you are right!

  49. 49.

    TS (the original)

    November 5, 2018 at 5:06 am

    @JPL: X2!

  50. 50.

    SiubhanDuinne

    November 5, 2018 at 5:09 am

    @poleaxedbyboatwork:

    It ain’t much, I’ll own, but it’s something.

    You misspelled sumpthin’.

  51. 51.

    poleaxedbyboatwork

    November 5, 2018 at 5:22 am

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    You misspelled sumpthin’.

    OK. Will just say it takes a purty poor imagination that can only think a one way to spell a word.

  52. 52.

    raven

    November 5, 2018 at 5:23 am

    @SiubhanDuinne: So did you, it’s sumpin.

  53. 53.

    satby

    November 5, 2018 at 5:41 am

    @SiubhanDuinne: INORITE?
    I get that the “folksy” thing is his shtick, but even potentially valuable comments I stop reading after two or three lines because it’s just so annoying to plow through. And it’s so artificially done, like a smart persons idea of what colloquial is. Fail.

  54. 54.

    satby

    November 5, 2018 at 5:42 am

    @raven: but being deliberately illiterate isn’t her thing.

  55. 55.

    poleaxedbyboatwork

    November 5, 2018 at 5:46 am

    @satby:

    INORITE?
    I get that the “folksy” thing is his shtick, but even potentially valuable comments I stop reading after two or three lines because it’s just so annoying to plow through. And it’s so artificially done, like a smart persons idea of what colloquial is. Fail.

    In your high-minded way, you valiantly admit you’ve tried. Lord knows, that’s all any reasonable human being could expect from you. Thank you for your superhuman efforts. Know that it shows.

  56. 56.

    NobodySpecial

    November 5, 2018 at 5:51 am

    I don’t trust polls because Republicans don’t answer them.

    I do trust hard numbers. Those look good, but there’s no way I’m resting easy.

  57. 57.

    satby

    November 5, 2018 at 5:53 am

    @poleaxedbyboatwork: and there you just gave it away. You’re perfectly capable of writing clear concise English, but choose not to.

    And it’s so artificially done, like a smart persons idea of what colloquial is. Fail.

  58. 58.

    poleaxedbyboatwork

    November 5, 2018 at 6:10 am

    @satby:

    and there you just gave it away. You’re perfectly capable of writing clear concise English, but choose not to.

    Fair enough. That’s (notionally) true.

    I contain multitudes. You are (acting as, not that you are always) a back-biting ninny (on this subject, anyway; why, I know not).

    I know which approach I prefer; you are welcome to your (petty, judgmental) preference.

    Go and God be with you, or not, just as you please. But it ain’t my station in life to suffer your snippy pissiness without objection.

    Reread your comment about mine. Unbidden you sailed in and were quite severe. Why, I know not. Now as it happens, for me, it’s water offa duck’s back, cuz I don’t give a fuck what you think. I only request that you review your insulting approach for your benefit, not mine.

    But suit yourself. I am resolutely immune to your feeble efforts.

  59. 59.

    satby

    November 5, 2018 at 7:05 am

    @poleaxedbyboatwork: oh, blow it outta yo azz.

  60. 60.

    poleaxedbyboatwork

    November 5, 2018 at 7:18 am

    @satby:

    oh, blow it outta yo azz.

    Can’t when you already did.

    (More’s the pity for you.)

  61. 61.

    Tokyokie

    November 5, 2018 at 7:29 am

    @The at Kate Middleton: Back in the early days of talk radio, when it wasn’t everywhere on the dial and wasn’t yet exclusively right-wing, I used to listen to talk radio on clear-chanel station WOAI in San Antonio (where I’d also listen to Spurs games). Anyway, the city, which had been majority Hispanic for years, had an Anglo majority City Council and an Anglo mayor until the early ’80s. Why? All the council districts were citywide, and the council, as I recall, then chose one of its member as mayor. But for the 1981 election, that was changed (I believe by court order) to single-member districts and a mayor elected by a citywide vote. And the afternoon drive-time host on WOAI would rail against the evils of “ward politics,” his way of saying dirty, filthy messkins without actually calling Latinos dirty, filthy messkins.

    The main target of this guy’s rants was Henry B. Cisneros, who, had you gone solely by the radio guy’s depiction, was some kind of blend of Pancho Villa and a drug-cartel boss. But if one were to actually listen to Cisneros, they’d have found him to be consistently kind, optimistic, and reassuring, far from the evil monster the radio host had conjured up. As election day drew nearer, the radio guy ramped up the vitriol, making clear that if Cisneros were to win, then DIRTY, FILTHY MESSKINS WOULD SLASH YOUR THROAT IN YOUR SLEEP THEN RAPE YOUR WIFE’S CORPSE!!!!!!!!

    And the effect of this Rush Limbaugh predecessor’s attacks? Cisneros won election with 62% of the vote.

    In other words, the more desperate these assholes sound, the more they know they’re fucked, and they don’t have anything else to fall back on. Keep your eyes on the prize, folks. We’re almost there, and we have a lot of work to do.

  62. 62.

    satby

    November 5, 2018 at 7:34 am

    @Tokyokie: agree! The ads against Donnelly here in Indiana almost sound like an SNL parody they’re so over the top. And they’re going to backfire I think, because they’re so obviously stupid that no one but the Alex Jones fans will want to be associated with that team.

  63. 63.

    Skepticat

    November 5, 2018 at 9:28 am

    @debbie:

    People this stupid cannot possibly win.

    IF FREAKING ONLY!

  64. 64.

    Ella in New Mexico

    November 5, 2018 at 9:42 am

    @CarolDuhart2: I am SO right where you are on this. I’d place installing voting reform and protections as well as campaign finance reform as our number one priority. National rules, national standards, national rights that supersede the Kris Kobachs and Brian Kemps at the state level’s power to rig elections. It’s bigger than anything else at this point.

    Here’s a Threadreader summation of a thread I saw on Twitter that snapshots just a TINY fraction of what it’s like in TX to get people out to vote

Comments are closed.

Primary Sidebar

Recent Comments

  • StringOnAStick on Repub Enablement Open Thread: The NYTimes Has *CONCERNS* (Apr 1, 2023 @ 12:57pm)
  • Origuy on Repub Enablement Open Thread: The NYTimes Has *CONCERNS* (Apr 1, 2023 @ 12:56pm)
  • sdhays on Repub Enablement Open Thread: The NYTimes Has *CONCERNS* (Apr 1, 2023 @ 12:55pm)
  • Sister Golden Bear on Saturday Morning Open Thread: Good Morning (Apr 1, 2023 @ 12:55pm)
  • cain on Repub Enablement Open Thread: The NYTimes Has *CONCERNS* (Apr 1, 2023 @ 12:55pm)

Balloon Juice Meetups!

All Meetups
Seattle Meetup coming up on April 4!

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

Fundraising 2023-24

Wis*Dems Supreme Court + SD-8

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
We All Need A Little Kindness
Classified Documents: A Primer
State & Local Elections Discussion

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Mailing List Signup
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)

Twitter / Spoutible

Balloon Juice (Spoutible)
WaterGirl (Spoutible)
TaMara (Spoutible)
John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
TaMara
David Anderson
Major Major Major Major
ActualCitizensUnited

Join the Fight!

Join the Fight Signup Form
All Join the Fight Posts

Balloon Juice Events

5/14  The Apocalypse
5/20  Home Away from Home
5/29  We’re Back, Baby
7/21  Merging!

Balloon Juice for Ukraine

Donate

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2023 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!