Utah Democrats voted on Saturday to support independent candidate Evan McMullin, rather than a member of their own party, in an effort to unseat Republican U.S. Senator Mike Lee.https://t.co/XURWDB4Rrc
— The Salt Lake Tribune (@sltrib) April 23, 2022
I’m sure Mr. McMullin is a very nice man, who would be a wonderful neighbor, and certainly an immense improvement on Mike Lee. On the other hand, I also foresee a Senator McMullin cheerfully explaining how it’s only logical to vote for every racist, misogynistic proposal his more bloody-minded comrades propose, as long as the wording is sufficiently ‘centrist’. Oh, well, it’s Utah…
Evan McMullin still faces a seriously uphill climb against Mike Lee but this was one hurdle his campaign absolutely had to clear if he wanted a shot in November https://t.co/YBI45JEiix
— Jacob Rubashkin (@JacobRubashkin) April 23, 2022
Bold move from Utah's eleven Democrats. https://t.co/2Muld8ffih
— The Substack of Boba Fett (@agraybee) April 24, 2022
I interviewed @EvanMcMullin a few months back— if we want to purge anti-democracy Mike Lee from this Senate, Evan is how we get it done.https://t.co/c03y7aZhJT
— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen) April 24, 2022
Not much fanfare for the death of the @UtahDemocrats.
I suppose I'll vote for McMullin because he stands the best chance* of beating Mike Lee, but I'd rather be building a party than burying it.
*best chance here means "almost no chance at all." https://t.co/WaMkyGwf9i— soonergrunt ???? A Capybara Appreciation Account (@soonergrunt) April 23, 2022
NotMax
Q: How do you find a Utah Democrat?
A: Look behind the pile of hen’s teeth.
//
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
Republicans in disarray!
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
Say what you want about Bernie, but he never took his presidential ambitions “Independent” or 3rd party.
Dangerman
Utah’s 11 Democrats should could into a game of two hand touch with California’s 11 Republicans. THT as first injury ends game.
satby
Getting rid of the second traitor Lee is job 1.
McMullin is pretty obviously not on the same political spectrum that I am, but he earned my respect for endorsing Biden:
piratedan
I wouldn’t expect exactly good things from a possible “Senator McMullin”, but as we’ve mentioned here multiple times, incremental change is better than “no change” and replacing a treasonous POS like Lee; would be a step in the right direction.
What would be better, would be if the DOJ had the stones to actually charge Lee with sedition (as he deserves) and we could enjoy the theatre of his GOP collegues self-identify with their anti-democratic principals, which they hold more dearly than the Constitution itself.
Cameron
I thought McMullin used to be a writer at National Review. It sounds like I have him mixed up with somebody else.
Salt Creek
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
Say what you want about Bernie, but he never took his presidential ambitions “Independent” or 3rd party.
No. he was happy to destroy the Democrats from within.
artem1s
Really. HE’S NOT A DEMOCRAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He ran as a Democrat because he had no chance as an independent and no mailing list to grift campaign donations from. The very first thing he did when he got access to the party’s info was download the DNC’s high end donor lists. Please.
Splitting Image
Hot take: If McMullin wins, he and Romney will be filling the same role that Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins used to, as the Republican Senators’ reasonable moderate wing.
Which Sunday show host will be the first to call Utah the new Maine?
Van Buren
He can be the Liz Cheney of the Senate.
Geminid
@satby: The Deseret News had a good story about the Utah convention. Several high profile Demorats including Salt Lake County Judge Jenny Wilson and former Congressman Ben McAdams advocated for backing McMullin over the Democrat candidate, and their resolution carried 782-594. The Democratic candidate said afterwards that they’d had a good debate and that “I accept what the delegates have decided to do.”
The Deseret News ztory notes tha a Democrat has not won a Senate seat in Utah for 50 years. I think this was a rational decision that in no way compromises the ability of Utah Democrats to contest local races this year or statewide races in the future. Their Salt Lake City area Congressional candidate may even benefit from it this fall.
artem1s
Great, next up, Nina Turner is the only viable candidate who can beat JD Vance in Ohio. FSM help us.
I hope this crashes and burns so hard.
Suzanne
McMullin is likely the best we can hope for out of Utah. Mormons like Sinema in AZ.
Geminid
@Cameron: You may have McMullin mixed up with David French. That National Review writer was another potential never-trumper candidate in 2016, but he got cold feet.
Sure Lurkalot
Did the Utah Dems request anything for this endorsement? It would be good if he would, say, support voting rights legislation or propose a principled approach to immigration. Romney, Cheney and Kinzinger are our reasonable Republicans in that they are anti-fascist and anti-insurrection but they would vote for Trumpan policies at most every turn.
debbie
Get rid of Lee now and rebuild the party later. It’s not like there’s anything to build at the moment.
Yutsano
If (big if) McMullin wins, he’ll need to caucus with someone. That choice will be critical to whether we voted in another Republican without the name or we get by far the most conservative voice in the Democratic caucus.
wetzel
Mike Luckovich is the reason Atlanta is an artistic powerhouse.
I wish I could draw like him and have Dorothy, Scarecrow and Tin-man are coming up to the Wicked Witch’s castle. They are the FBI. You see Trump up in the tower. He is the Wicked Witch. The dialogue is three flying monkeys, the GOP, in the hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil pose, and one is wondering whether when the Wicked Witch is gone, if the GOP will be free.
My own feeling is after 1000 prosecutions and they change their name back to the Whigs.
Here’s to the season of nos occusens!!!! If the Democrats can’t landslide the next two elections just on the fact-set of criminality and the coup plotters including the fraudulent electors and all of their facilitators state by state are under Federal indictment. If the a quorum of the GOP leadership is decapitated by imprisonment, we ought to be able to win, at least in 2022 and then in 2024.
How can you debate seditionists? If a coup plotter is ever allowed power again, it is to ratchet towards fascism. They all have to be exposed. They have to be indicted. We cannot renew the rituals of Democracy until the GOP accounts for their crimes. Those who are guilty, which, if you read Marcy Wheeler, or listen to Rep. Raskin, know includes upwards of a thousand GOP big-wigs and hot-shots, almost the size of a Russian battalion tactical group. Pass the popcorn.
Nos occusens!!!
They are guilty. They tried to steal our fundamental birthright to choose our own government! They came to murder Nancy! Through the Oath Keepers, through Roger Stone, a plot to murder Nancy Pelosi attaches to Trump. We should bring back stocks. They must stand trial for sure.
In the last election, probably under the influence of Russian active measures, the GOP took things off the plane of debate and free elections and tried to stage a coup. I believe Trump’s victory was a part of Putin’s plan, and now we would be having a fake war with Russia if he had won.
Even the national party was involved. We shouldn’t even be debating the GOP until after the Jan 6 committee and the DOJ finish their work and the sedition plot. All of its accomplices must be rounded up, the interlocutors, enforcers, dupes, donors, crooks, dopes, fat-cats, doomed, ratfuckers, lawyers, militia-men and lunatics. As Marcy Wheeler has concluded, the counterintelligence portion of Robert Mueller’s investigation never has stopped. It’s not Mcarthyism for there to be a full accounting and accountability. This is where Democrats have implacable initiative because it is a righteous tribunal under law and within all norms to send these fuckers to the penitentiary, and we should make that our #1 priority for the 2022 elections and 2024.
Once the frog marches start, the GOP will enter a state of disarray. For at least ten years the presumption should be that not even the well-intentioned in that party have a goddamn thing to say about anything after all this. It’s really very incredible, what happened, if you think about it.
Patricia Kayden
@satby: Good that he endorsed Biden. Will be interesting to see if he supports President Biden’s agenda if he beats Lee.
eversor
@Suzanne:
This he’s also not a Russian stooge. Plenty of people in the IC or DoD identify as “Republican” but hold views all over the map. They’re used to socialized care, make great beaurocrats, and really don’t have much use for nonsense and conspiracies. Complaining about Mitt here is silly as well he did vote to impeach.
Ultimately we really do have to realize that anybody who holds a socially conservative view on anything related to race, sex, gender, lgbtq is an utterly lost cause when it comes to voting Democratic. And that means the majority of the religious.
satby
@Patricia Kayden: He’s conservative, so not likely to support much. But he’s also opposed to the extreme crazy his former party has developed, and considers Roe and Obergefell (sp) settled law. I’m not in Utah and I presume the folks there know what it will take to get rid of Lee. Incremental change indeed.
edit: interestingly, though he’s opposed to same sex marriage personally (he’s stated), his mother is in one after having divorced his father.
Another Scott
Yet another reminder that their arguments aren’t about logic. While logic is important, we have to fight their memes too. Their memes reinforce their tribalism, and that’s the hardest thing to break.
Cheers,
Scott.
Cameron
@Geminid: That sounds like it – thanks.
zhena gogolia
@satby: Yeah, he’s one of the better ones.
Omnes Omnibus
A citation would be nice.
satby
@zhena gogolia: I was watching that Brian Taylor Cohen interview with McMullin. Conservative, but sane. And it’s all hands on deck to defeat the fascists.
Edit: he mentions ensuring voting rights in that interview.
Another Scott
Remembering George Wallace, and regretting my votes for Anderson, Perot, and Nader, I’ve become increasingly suspicious of 3rd party candidates.
Wikipedia – McMullin’s 2016 Presidential Campaign:
The evil, unpopular, Hillary beat him in two
reactionaryconservative states. Interesting… ;-)Seriously, maybe this is a sensible way to take down Lee. But I would hope that the Democratic Party in Utah is working on ways to ultimately build their strength and not planning on being a group that just endorses non-GQPers.
Cheers,
Scott.
eversor
@wetzel:
Nobody is going to be prosecuted and the GOPs new name won’t matter. The issue is we have a large and dedicated portion of this country that will settle for nothing less than a Christian theocracy with the full traditional values enforced by law and with them having a special status.
The GOP and even Fox are not creating this monster. They are simply going to where the bibles are and scooping them up for fun and profit. The rot is in the Churches. I distinctly remember the George Bush cut outs people prayed for in tounges in that era. I saw the Christian battle flags, prayers, and crosses at Jan 6. The current right wing judges, all due to their Catholic religion. Bill Barr openly stated repeatedly he supported Trump and did all he did because of his religions traditional values.
We keep dodging this and pointing at other things but until we are willing to face it the GOP and conservatism will still rule.
Starfish
@Splitting Image: How many Kavanaugh votes do you get if you plan to be in the “reasonable, moderate” wing of the Republican Party?
eversor
@Another Scott:
No that’s another reason why Christianity is the core of the problem we face. Either fight that religion or this is all pointless.
Geminid
@Patricia Kayden: That’s an interesting prospect. If elected McMullin will have a choice as to which party to caucus with. I could see him doing what Maine Independent Angus King does and caucus with the Democrats. McMullin is more conservative than King, but both Senators are similar in that they seem to occupy the approximate idealogical center of their respective states.
This option might be attractive especially if Democrats have an overall majority in the Senate. McMullin can explain to constituents that he can better further their interests while still maintaining his independence if he caucuses with the majority.
Mike Lee will probably try to get McMullin to commit one way or another. McMullin can fall back on the position that he’ll do whatever is best for Utah’s citizens, and not what is best for Donald Trump “like my treasonous, toadying opponent will.”
Kay
Cereal ads with non white families in them are “attempting to make him feel guilty”
So far the MI GOP nominated a raving conspiracy theorist sec of state candidate, an ethical train wreck AG candidate, and now this person is running who thinks ads should only have white people in them. That’s just this weekend.
Another Scott
@eversor: European history tells us that religious wars are a very, very bad idea.
Cheers,
Scott.
wetzel
@eversor: You are not persuading me, being Christian myself, that you understand what you are talking about with Christianity. What do you think Christian religious experience entails?
No that’s another reason why Christianity is the core of the problem we face. Either fight that religion or this is all pointless.
Anyway, I’m sorry you feel that way about a world religion, I guess. I think feeling that way about a world religion makes you a sufferer of bigotry. I would recommend Jesus to help you with that, but I don’t know if you would be interested, because of the contemptuous stereotype you have of me and other Christians. I will tell you that as a Methodist we have long-standing arguments with the Baptists, but I don’t feel like betraying them, like they deserve it more than us, the Methodists, your contempt that is.
Kay
We tried this locally about ten years ago. Prepare to have your heart broken. The minute they get in they switch from Independent to GOP and become loyal Republicans. There’s never any reciprocity.
Raven
Kemp and Perdue debating
Scout211
Slightly off topic, but amusing. This happened In SF on Friday
JML
Mike Lee is an utter disaster, a traitorous shitbag that does immense damage on the daily. I don’t particularly love McMullin, but he’s probably closer to Murkowski/Romney ideologically who will likely go for a McCain-style “maverick” identity. He’ll side with the GOP on most votes, but he’ll be gettable on some stuff and solidly against the Trumpist/kleptocracy wing of the GOP. I can live with that in Utah, since I don’t really see any democrat winning there right now, even against the Traitor Mike Lee.
But I’m not going to pretend it’s anything other than a little danger mitigation. Maybe get us a little “bi-partisan” cred from the idiot bobos at the Post and the Times without having to sell anything for once.
debbie
@Another Scott:
I never went third party. Some Democratic candidates may have been eye-rollers, but I was also voting for the party’s values.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’d say wish him well and send your money to Dems who can win
debbie
@Kay:
There’s one less nutjob, though.
Geminid
@Raven: Ewww!
Kay
@JML:
They LOVE it. It’s their dream. A conservative uni-Party. It’s almost unseemly how happy it makes them.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Agreed. This is really an intra-GOP fight.
kindness
If McMullin wins as an Independent, I doubt he would be Utah’s Angus King. I suspect he would be more Joe Manchin. Still, better than Lee so he should be supported.
Citizen Alan
@debbie: I voted for Nader in 2000 (from a ruby red stare) and it is the greatest source of personal humiliation in my life.
Kay
@debbie:
Sure, but don’t expect reciprocity. There won’t be any. It doesn’t work the other way in their world.
The conservative challenging Madison Cawthorne is asking Democrats to do the same thing and she seems to intend to impeach Joe Biden is she’s elected, looking at her Facebook page. I hope they know.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I believe David Geffen was one of the biggest supporters of the Lincoln Project (who also will never see a dime of mine even if I don’t mistrust them like a lot of people around the tubes). Wiki tells me he’s got $10B. Let him bankroll McMullin
debbie
@Kay:
It’s definitely on a case-by-case basis. Cawthorn will self-destruct. Let’s just enjoy that clown show while it lasts.
wetzel
So I’ll go check out Raw Story to see my battling Democrats. They send me to this episode of Donna Brazille facing off against Chris Christie:
Donna Brazille Shreds Chris Christie’s blah blah blah
I am hoping for je accuse and it’s the same weak crap, like we’re still playing the same old goddamn game!!!!
There is Chris Christie trying to reframe a treasonous, seditious coup plot as just something the voters don’t care about. What about Chris Christie’s own record??? What did he know??? When did he know it???
And Donna Brazille looks like the cat who ate the canary, pointing out the little bitty wedge she found. It’s just pathetic. After watching decades of this kind of pathetic TV representation on the part of practically the entire crew of professional Democrats, I’ve got programmed escape and avoidance. It was my mistake to follow the link.
I just cannot believe the GOP tried to steal the government and professional Democrats are afraid to call them out on it because it might upset the apple cart too much on TV. We’re on the road to nowhere. Democrats need to understand the existentiality of the moment. If we cannot make political points out of the fact that the other party entered into seditious conspiracy then we are a sad bunch.
Geminid
@Omnes Omnibus: I don’t think McMullin’s going to pull much money from Democratic donors outside of Utah. Not with Kelly, Warnock and the rest of our battleground-state candidates competing with him for money. It would be a good time, though, for independent Third Way types to put their money where their mouths are. Same with Republican never-trumpers.
And Utah is a fairly small state with it’s one major media market in a central spot. If McMullin can’t win with $20 million I doubt if he’d win with $60 million.
JML
@Kay: I get it. but there’s no Democrat that can be Mike Lee right now (despite him being a traitor) and I’d rather push his ass out in favor of a saner, old-school republican who might find he likes the attention he gets as an “independent” and occasionally act like one. McMullin could help break the GOP ranks a little more, and I’ll take it.
I wouldn’t waste any money on him, of course. Let the Lincoln Project play in that pool. (they’ll never get my money either)
Kay
@debbie:
I know it’s ungenerous but I can’t get over the entitlement of it. I didn’t have anything to do with creating their nutjob, insurrectionist cult Party. They built that. They should clean up their own mess. For once.
eversor
@wetzel:
Good Christians are like good conservatives, honest fox news hosts, or good republicans. Sure they exist, but they are not the vast majority and in the end they only serve to give cover to the monster. The reality is the “traditional values” Christians are the only honest one and every other one is a snake in the grass who gives them cover.
Until that is recognized as a nation we are in deep shit. It’s why we are at a fracture, we can be Christian or we can have womens rights, gay rights, free speech but we can’t do it all at the same time. So one side is going to go down and be jailed or killed for their opinions and the other side is going to be the bully. That’s the only way this all ends.
So pick your side!
Splitting Image
@Kay:
The best way to look at this is that the seat isn’t really getable for the Democrats right now and all McMullin is doing is maybe replacing a radical Republican with a less-radical Republican.
So many “moderate” Republicans have been primaried by teabaggers and Trumpists over the last 10-12 years who have been subsequently elected and re-elected that the party has gone completely off the rails. McMullin may not be a good Senator by anybody’s standards, but at some point, you have to start primarying the crazies and replacing them with moderates.
I wouldn’t support this decision in Ohio or Iowa, where the Democrats need to try to win, but in Utah? This allows the state party to pass on the expensive Senate race and use their money to focus on local races and build up a bench. In six years or twelve years, maybe.
Liberals aren’t going to put Trumpists on the run by winning a few seats in swing states. They have to emphasize the differences between an acceptable conservative and an unacceptable one. This seems to be as good a place to start as any.
Omnes Omnibus
@eversor: Bigotry is bigotry; however you want to dress it up. It is always ugly.
debbie
@Kay:
No argument here.
debbie
@Citizen Alan:
Your intentions were good, I’m sure.
Kay
@Splitting Image:
I’m with soonergrunt. I’d rather be building a Party than burying it. I just hope Democrats don’t pour money into it. It’ll never flow the other way.
Eolirin
@Kay: I get the impulse, but everything in life ultimately comes down to harm reduction. This is probably the right call in Utah.
Geminid
@Kay: No one is burying the Utah Democratic Party but Soonergrunt.
pajaro
Admitting my almost complete ignorance…..
It would seem to me that someone going to the lengths he has to oppose Trumpism, and who actually said he was going to vote for Biden, is what he says he is–an anti-trump conservative in a world where his former party is owned lock, stock and barrel by the Trumpkins.
I’d like to think that his voting record, were he to be elected, would reflect what anti-Trump conservatives who are not dependent on the Republican establishment, or even Republican voters, might support. I would assume he would support pro-democracy and anti-insurrection legislation. I’d assume he would also not go out of his way to cripple the Biden administration, so he would be decent on appointments. Id assume he’d be very good on foreign policy, and again, not rush to the mikes to bash Biden. I’d like to think he’d be a bit better than Collins/Murkowski/Romney, if only because he doesn’t need Republican votes. I assume he’d be at very best, like Manchin, and probably not that good (if you can call Manchin good), as he starts from a more conservative philosophical place.
I admit I could be completely wrong.
RepubAnon
@Geminid: I agree – as the song goes, “Politics is the art of the possible.” Revive Howard Dean’s 50 state strategy, and in 10-20 years, we’ll have a chance to elect a Democrat as a Senator from Utah. Until then, lets urge people to vote out the Trumpistas by any means necessary.
Plus, let’s hire all the top Democratic campaign consultants, and have them work for Republicans. One of the reasons Obama won in 2008 was because all the top Democratic campaign consultants worked for Hillary’s campaign. They routinely lose winnable elections because they still think Republican Lite is a path to victory for Democrats – all their advice to Democratic candidates really does is elect Republicans. Given how terrible their advice is, let’s have them provide their expertise in losing elections to the Republicans.
Kay
@Geminid:
This is a reporter who was there. It was wildly contentious. These people are furious and they’re loyal, red state Democrats who have probably done party scut work for years or they wouldn’t be at a state convention. Do you blame them? They kicked the Democrat off the ballot.
Geminid
@Kay: The vote was 782 to 594. The Democratic hopeful said “I accept what the delegates have decided to do.” Those angry Democrats will get over it and you can too.
Another Scott
Oof. I feel the power of that punch landing on Nate Silver way over here.
Cheers,
Scott.
Martin
Something going down in Bryansk Russia. Multiple fires/explosions. Not too far from the Ukraine and Belarus borders.
Bill Arnold
@eversor:
How much money would you put on that (my bold), at say, even odds?
ETA: or, if you are not a gambler, what is your personal estimate of the probability that your assertion is true?
James E Powell
@Kay:
Exactly. Lisa Murkowski, for example.
James E Powell
@wetzel:
Completely agree with you. Democrats who regularly appear on cable & Sunday shows are Beltway Insiders whose one and only goal is to remain a Beltway Insider who regularly appears on cable & Sunday shows.
Christie is a disgusting toad, but he is right. Voters don’t care about this now and they certainly will not care about it in November.
Honus
@James E Powell: hell, Jim Justice switched from democrat (back to) to republican after a year.
Bill Arnold
@Scout211:
Egg in a car/cab interior can be cleaned up.
Milk, on the other hand, will spoil then rot, and the inside of the vehicle will smell nasty for months. (Milk plus a sardine puree, maybe.)
That tactic would escalate though once the right wing picked it up. (I’ve literally had a low-end Prius C (bought used) keyed because it was a Prius, probably by some RW wanabee coal-roller.)
Yutsano
@Bill Arnold: Fish sauce. All the power of anchovies plus it’s been fermented to a beautiful pungent smell. Plus you get the cheap stuff and it’s even more effective!
cain
@Honus: They make more money as a republican – so many options for grifting. If you’re in in it for power and money – then the GOP is the best place to be.
Bill Arnold
@wetzel:
They came too close to igniting an actual low-intensity civil war, and even if it started non-violent, it would not have have remained non-violent for very long.
They persist in maintaining the utterly false belief that only Republicans know how to fight, or how to kill; that Democrats are cowardly wusses. This is after D.J Trump was defeated , as an incumbent POTUS, and the Democrats gained minimal control of the Senate and held the House. they (most of them) still do not understand how those defeats happened, and many of them are unable to accept the reality of those defeats.
(As a single example among many, the ability to kill a human at 800 meters with an elk rifle is not exclusively Republican. Killing humans at long range with guns is not my thing, to be clear.)
Christie was on D.J. Trump’s debate prep team, and may have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 by DJT; he was in the hospital for it. I wonder if he thinks this is the case and has forgiven DJT for it.
The Moar You Know
This is idiotic. He’ll lose anyway. Run a real fucking Dem for Chissakes
Bill Arnold
@James E Powell:
Enough voters cared about Her Email Server to swing the election to Trump in 2016. They were made to care. Most of them had no clue what an email server actually is. It was pounded into them by their favored propaganda outlets continuously.
Almost none of them knew that the Russians had penetrated and were reading the unclassified State Department email servers that HRC was supposed to use, and that this subversion was happening the entire time that HRC was Secretary of State. That was a Paragraph 12 buried lede (one of the biggest buried ledes of all time) in this NY Times piece: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/07/us/hillary-clintons-email-was-probably-hacked-experts-say.html
Glidwrith
FWIW, the 2016 results showed Utah went 45.54% Shitgibbon, 27.46% Clinton and 21.54% Evans. Given a chance to deny Shitgibbon the presidency, even if it wouldn’t be enough, Utah voters themselves still went with TFG. In 2020, seeing what he did they went back for more and voted 58.1% for Shitgibbon.
This doesn’t strike me as a state that is willing to stop wallowing in the sewer.
different-church-lady
The big surprise here is that Soonergrunt is a small brown mammal of some sort.
Kay
@Geminid:
“Get over it” isn’t great party building. There will be more Republicans and fewer Democrats in Utah at the end of this. The condition Mitt Romney has set down to go along with any part of Biden’s agenda is cutting social security and Medicare. He wants “entitlement reform” in exchange for anything, which is how he’ll pay for it because he will never repeal any Trump tax cuts.
I wish them luck. It’s a very noble thing they’re doing. There won’t be a reward.
Glidwrith
@Bill Arnold: Nah, they didn’t give a shit about that server, it was just an excuse to hide the rampant misogyny that is now openly raging through the States. All I have to do is look at a map to see that women have less rights than a corpse in huge tranches of the US.
Captain C
@Bill Arnold:
Christie seems like one of the ultimate examples of kiss-up/kick-down. The photo of him snarfing a horrified-looking Jerry Jones’ armpit after a Cowboys touchdown should be his defining picture (and also should have been used by the Democrats against him with Eagles and Giants fans).
Geminid
@Kay: You assert that there will be more Republicans and less Democrats in Utah at the end of the year. How? Why? It seems to me that it is as or more likely there will be as many Democrats, but more Independents and fewer Republicans.
The Utah Democrats who voted for this are no less dedicated to the party as you, and they are every bit as smart as you, at least when it comes to their own state. And it’s not just the 594 delegates in the minority that did the scut work; the majority did too, and probably more. But you are certain the majority are doing it wrong, even though you live 1800 miles away.
I understand there is some principle here you want to Utah Democrats to vindicate. But this is a one-off event in a singular state. Democrats in who actually live in Utah made a pragmatic decision and are turning to all the other elections they still are contesting.
I’m sure they’ll catch a lot of grief from out of state sources. They’ll pay about as much attention to the critics as you’ll pay to Utahans who question Ohio Democrats for picking a Senate candidate who tried to keep Nancy Pelosi from being Speaker in 2018. That’s another issue of little practical consequence that some people don’t want to let go of.
Geminid
@Kay: I think the reward Utah Democrats are looking for is getting Mike Lee out of the Senate. They wouldn’t have done this if they thought McMullin had no chance, and they know their state better than outsiders.
As for Romney, they are stuck with him but he is not relevant in this matter.
Sister Golden Bear
@Scout211:
They went to Berkeley and they were shocked at the reception??? What absolutely idiotic trucknutters.
Kay
@Geminid:
Even McCullin is anti-abortion, anti-Obamacare, anti public school, anti tax and he cares so little about voting rights it wasn’t even mentioned on his 2016 campaign page.
They can fold up the tent and close down the Democratic Party in Utah if that’s what a majority of state party leadership want to do in return for the “prize” of Evan McMullin but all they’re getting is a far Right Republican who isn’t an insurrectionist. Yet.
Republicans successfully lowered the bar again. Now all far Right conservatives have to do is not actively burn the country down and they’ll be rewarded with Democratic votes. That’s the terms Utah Democrats just accepted. Vote for a conservative, abandon every single issue you say you care about, or another group of conservatives will destroy the country.
Wny stop with Utah? Democrats can also close up shop in Wyoming, Montana, North and South Dakota too. Why wouldn’t they in this ridiculous version of 12 dimensional chess where the Republican wins either way except one of them has the backing of the Democratic Party?
cain
@Kay: Word. Great post.
Felanius Kootea
@Kay: Damn. Is there anything he stands for that Democrats stand for (besides not supporting Trump or insurrectionists)?
Geminid
@Kay: Utah Democrats aren’t folding their tent down and they aren’t playing 12 dimensional chess either. It’s a pragmatic decision about one race in one state.
lowtechcyclist
@debbie:
I voted for Anderson in 1980, but I’d been a Republican up to that point, and I wouldn’t have yet voted for an actual Democrat: I wouldn’t have voted for Carter even if Anderson hadn’t run.
Geminid
@Felanius Kootea: You can always find out for yourself if you are really interested.