Getting noticed more and more…
The media's depiction of Ron DeSantis as some kind of culture-warrior-extraordinaire is not based in evidence. DeSantis's approval on the economy is strongish (50%), meanwhile more Floridians *disapprove* than approve on "race relations," climate change, & "unifying Floridians" pic.twitter.com/Si5Y49azDr
— Magdi Semrau (@magi_jay) July 17, 2022
In fact, DeSantis's approval across all categories has either fallen or remained steady since April, according to polling by the University of South Florida. His disapproval has risen, including on the economy/jobs, suggesting that perhaps his war w/ Disney wasn't so masterful af pic.twitter.com/QRRu1MHisa
— Magdi Semrau (@magi_jay) July 17, 2022
The overall picture here is that DeSantis is polling relatively poorly on "cultural issues" and his economic approval has actually fallen 6 pts since April, when the Disney controversy began. How do you get "strong man brilliance" out of these numbers? https://t.co/tytbQv60ix pic.twitter.com/t5MK4rdQan
— Magdi Semrau (@magi_jay) July 17, 2022
the reason I’m thinking about this being, I think whether Trump runs again and how aggressively he attacks others in the primary depends on whether he thinks specifically *he* has to be president or if any R will do https://t.co/21tw4khhN9
— counterfax?? (@counterfax) July 18, 2022
West of the Rockies
As I’ve previously stated, I am unable to fathom why so many people find this putz (same for Trump, Jordan, Hitler, and all other pissy tin-plated thugs) compelling. He is a sneering, sniveling ambulatory pool of vomit.
Major Major Major Major
I hate him so much.
MattF
A bit OT. Good news from Maryland. Republican primary voters chose the Trumpist over the Hogan- endorsed candidate for Maryland governor. Maryland will have a D governor and Hogan’s Presidential ambitions are done.
lgerard
@MattF:
Also the crazy confederate guy looks like he won the AG race, so that will also be a win for the dems.
The wingnuts have seemingly taken over the republican party there.
Brachiator
Nixon? To me, DeSantis looks like a heavily medicated version of Alfred E Neuman, of Mad Magazine.
I have read news stories about DeSantis’ actions with respect to Disney, Covid, etc., and recoiled in horror. But I have never read any op-ed pieces about him. I know that some Republicans love him and the national media picked up his stink and early on started writing about him as a Trump variant. But I am curious. Has he been covered favorably in the Florida press? Does he have many competent local critics?
Jager
I was watching a “how-to” video on Youtube an hour ago, Youtube ran a DeSantis ad. He has a wimpy voice, shitty delivery, and shifty eyes.
David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch
Dump doesn’t want to be president.
He repeatedly whigned about how hard the job is (even though he barely did anything), and that was “a living hell”.
His prior life was indulgent: play golf every day, attend Broadway and movie premieres, go to ball games, chase D-list escorts, eat like a pig at fancy New York eateries, and rate women like meat at grotesque pageant shows.
Washington on the other hand is a boring city. On top of that, he had a boring position: they required him to attend painfully boring briefings and dragged him to boring foreign trips. And he openly complained about the White House being a “dump”. He hated it there.
He doesn’t want to lose what remaining sins are available to him, albeit in exile, for another miserable experience.
But he’ll run again if it means playing for time (ie avoiding a felony trial).
David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch
Nixon was a horrible person. In addition to being a virulent racist and anti-Semite, he was a drug addict and alcoholic who beat his wife (link). Plus he was corrupt and a war criminal, guilty of genocide (link).
That said, Nixon is still better than an empty suit like DeathSantis.
ian
@MattF:
That is one of the great debates of this year. Did the Dems calculate correctly in helping the crazier candidates win primaries(like Todd Akin in 2012), or will it come back to bite us in the ass?
I didn’t see Hogan having a viable route to the GOP nomination either way, but why do you think his picked successor losing the primary is the end of his timeline?
MattF
@ian: Potential endorsers will back off.
debbie
@West of the Rockies:
I think because he’s the first to admit that.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
As bad as Nixon was, and he was BAD, he looks sane compared to TFG – That Florida Guy. Or That Fucking Guy fits as well, but he’d have to be TFG II. A shitty copy of the other guy known as TFG, or in my book SFB. Hey, both monikers both fit either shithead.
Betty Cracker
@Brachiator: The Florida dailies have mostly done a decent job of covering DeSantis, including the corruption, authoritarian leanings, and kooky, profligate and/or incompetent underlings. It’s the outlets like Politico, Axios, etc., that gush mindlessly over him.
One thing most commentators get right is that the sumbitch will probably be reelected. I’d love to be wrong, but he’s got a ridiculous amount of money, and the FL Dems have been a hot mess for years, and I’m not seeing any signs it’ll be different this year. Crist is probably going to win the primary. Again. And go on to lose the general. Again.
Geminid
@ian: I was glad to see that Wes Moore won the Democratic nomination for Governor in Maryland. Moore leads a nonprofit organization and has never held public office, but he has been active in politics as an advocate and he won endorsements from many state legislators, the Maryland State Education Association of teachers, as well as VoteVets. Wes Moore intends to bring Pre-K eduction to all of Maryland and work to break the school-to-pison pipeline.
I too question the tactic used by Democrats sometimes to shape Republican primary results by building up the most conservative candidate. It worked once for Claire McCaskill, but that was because Todd Akin was both very conservative and very stupid. A lot of these radical Republican candidates have more going on upstairs than Akin. Resources expended on this strategy might be better used on GOTV efforts or saved for general campaign advertising.
Baud
@Geminid:
What did the Dems do in MD?
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I wish people paid more attention to state and local media coverage of politicians. National media coverage often seems to be skewed to fit a narrative. As someone once said, your shit don’t stink out of town.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I think the national media helps trigger liberals, which helps his poll numbers with Republicans.
Geminid
@Baud: I think there was an effort to build up the more conservative opponent in Maryland. I’ve heard of this going on in other races, and I think it may be bad practice for practical and optical reasons.
PAM Dirac
@ian:
A republican needs to get a lot of D votes to win in Maryland. Hogan won by getting a lot of Montgomery and Baltimore County Ds to get their bipartisan jollies by voting for a “sensible” R. Cox is adamantly not a “sensible” R and wants no part of any bipartisan efforts. My guess is that he won’t even get to the 32% that drumpf got in 2020.
Baud
@PAM Dirac:
While not better than a Dem would have been, Hogan does seem to have played his role as a sensible Republican pretty well. He didn’t win election and then change his stripes, from what I can tell.
Spanky
I don’t know. I’ve lived in Maryland for 44 years, and I’m not sure a Black man can win the governorship. Sad to say, that’s still too big a stretch for a lot of voters.
It’ll take the leveraging of changing demographics, driving the youth vote, and pounding the consequences of a Trumpist in the mansion to give Moore the win. Can be done, but there’s work to be done.
PAM Dirac
@Geminid: But in this case it was really just an informational campaign highlighting what an extremist he is. Things like making sure people knew that he is all in on drump’s delusions, sent a bus down to Jan 6, COVID nut, etc. and pointing out how all these things are out of step with the vast majority of Marylanders. I’m not sure how that qualifies as building him up.
Baud
@PAM Dirac:
Oh, you really don’t understand the GOP base, do you?
Spanky
@Baud: Nope! Hogan vetoed a lot of the Dem bills only to have his vetoes overridden.
He’s a pure Republican, constrained by his legislature.
Cameron
@Betty Cracker: Agree. Florida papers have shown a lot more guts in dealing with Guv D than Our Liberal Media.
Baud
@Spanky:
Tom Perez came in second, so there was going to be a black man as the nominee either way (Google says the race is too close to call, although Moore had a big lead).
MagdaInBlack
@Betty Cracker: On of our Chicago billionaires, Ken Griffin and his hedge fund, Citadel, is moving to Florida. He says because of Chicago crime, but really its to buy himself a President.
MagdaInBlack
@Betty Cracker: One of our Chicago billionaires, Ken Griffin and his hedge fund Citadel, is moving to Florida. He says because of Chicago crime, but really its to buy himself a President
( also he doesn’t play well with our billionaire Dem governor)
Baud
@Spanky:
I’m not taking him out of the Republican camp. But on the GOP scale of moderate to conservative to batshit crazy, where would you classify him?
Cameron
@Betty Cracker: Ms. Cracker, you’re a Floridian and I’m just another old carpetbagger, so I’d appreciate your analysis. WTF is wrong with Florida Democrats?
Spanky
@Baud: Moore and Perez have a combined 240,000 votes, with 61% counted. Maryland has 4 million registered voters.
Baud
@Spanky:
We’ll see. MD went heavily for Obama and Clinton. Lots of blue NE states love “reasonable” GOP governors for some reason.
PAM Dirac
@Baud:
If you paid close attention there were a number of things where the R came out, but overall you are right, he didn’t do anything to clearly contradict the sensible, competent, and bipartisan impression.
Spanky
@Baud: Not batshit crazy, but he knows he’s constrained by his leg and in a blue state. Given a bigger stage, he could let his freak flag fly.
His wife is an immigrant. He is a cancer survivor. Neither of those things seem to have softened a bog standard GOP stance on immigration or public health.
Baud
@Spanky:
I don’t know what’s in his heart. I’m just talking about his public persona.
He was limited, right? No reason he couldn’t have gone all MAGA if he wanted to.
PAM Dirac
@Spanky:
That is a worry, but I think is is going to be pretty easy to present Moore as the sensible, competent, even a bit corporate one and Cox the extremist. As you say, work to be done, but no reason why it can’t be done.
Geminid
@PAM Dirac: If as you say the ads drew attention to the Republican’s radicalism then the ads serve a purpose for the general election. I’ve read that the intent was to attract radicals to the candidate and “build him up” among Republican primary voters. We’ll get to see how this social science project plays out in the general election. I think the downside of this strategy may be greater in states and districts more purple than Maryland.
Baud
@MagdaInBlack:
The IL gov gives billionaires a good name.
SFAW
One of the things that always cheers me up in the morning is the “Oh, goody, this guy as the nominee guarantees a Dem win” and “this guy’s polling numbers [a year or more before the election] are great news” takes by various pundits and “regular people.” Because I know the electorate is completely rational, and will vote accordingly.
Baud
@Baud:
Limited = term limited
Baud
I guess one question is whether Hogan will endorse or campaign with the new GOP nominee.
SFAW
@Cameron:
As a Masshole, I’d ask a similar question re: MA Democrats. [Although it’s more related to the Gov race.] Every so often, a Dem gets elected governor, but in a state as Blue as MA, you’d think we’d never elect a Rethug, even one as “moderate” as Charlie Baker. Part of it is weak candidates on the Dem side, which in turn raises the question: why is the “bench” so shallow? I don’t know the answer. But I do “know” * (so to speak) that Charlie Crist getting the nom again is kinda like Bullwinkle trying to pull a rabbit out of a hat.
ETA: * Speaking as a Masshole with no particular insight into FL; thus probably worng.
MagdaInBlack
@Baud: Yes he does.
SFAW
@Baud:
Not sure I understand those terms (vis-a-vis Rethugs).
Cameron
@SFAW: That does really baffle me that MA voters have a sweet tooth for Republican governors. Maybe it’s just a way of comforting one’s self into believing that a two-party system actually works.
Geminid
@Spanky: Some of many pieces of good news in the 2018 midterms were two Black women winning majority white Congressional districts, Lauren Underwood in Illinois and Jahana Hayes in Connecticut, as well as Colin Allred winning a suburban district near Dallas. Both Underwood and Allred flipped red seats. Native American Sharice Davids also flipped a red district in the Kansas City, Kansas suburbs. There is still plenty of racism out there but white voters may be increasingly willing to look beyond race
Although they may have been overshadowed by “stars” in the Democratic Class of 2018, Allred, Hayes, Underwood and Davids are very capable Reps and I think we’ll hear more from them in the future. Davids has a tougher reelection fight, though, due to Republican gerrymandering.
Baud
@Cameron:
My theory is that Dem voters think a GOP governor is better than letting someone from one of the other Dem factions get the upper hand.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: The only Democratic governor Massachusetts elected in the past 30 years was a black man. Massachusetts isn’t Maryland, but… Massachusetts isn’t exactly known for not being racist either.
SFAW
@Cameron:
Part of it is that there is actually a large redneck/RWMF streak in MA. When “Citizens for Limited Taxation” — a Howard-Jarvis-like org in the 1970s and after — hit the scene, it tapped into that.
Part of it has been running weak candidates: Scott Harshbarger, Shannon O’Brien, Martha Coakley were all good people, and had (if I recall) good policy positions, but shitty campaigners. [I imagine there was some misogyny contributing to O’Brien’s and Coakley’s losses, as well as maybe contributing to Jane Swift getting primaried by Mittens.] Martha Coakley’s campaign was near-legendary for its crappiness.
SFAW
@Baud:
Interesting theory (I mean it), but I don’t think it’s borne out by history.
Baud
@SFAW:
My theories rarely are.
SFAW
@Baud:
We’re more alike than I previously thought.
ETA: Do you also have a theory about brontosauri/brontosauruses. [Monty Python ref, in case you’re not familiar with it.]
Matt McIrvin
@SFAW: The Republican governors get elected by a coalition of actual Republicans, who are a minority but loud and proud, and bourgeois educated NPR-liberal types who for some reason value bipartisanship for its own sake and are itching to vote for a sane-sounding Republican who doesn’t do crazy culture-war stuff, so they can say they’re not knee-jerk partisan robots. The governorship is often a position where there’s some latitude to not toe the party line on everything, so it’s a natural place to vote across party lines.
Also, the Democrats tend to run women candidates and there’s still a truckload of misogyny in politics here.
That said, I understand the Republicans’ leading guy this time around is a complete frothing wingnut, so it may not go the usual way.
PAM Dirac
@Baud: I doubt that Cox would want him. Cox tried to impeach Hogan and has called him a RINO and more. Cox is not only unconcerned about reaching out to Ds, he’s burning bridges with the “RINO” Rs. I think Schultz (the R loser) has said something like “Maryland Rs have decided to commit suicide”. Cox is currently my state delegate so I see and hear more about him than most people. He is nasty, stupid, and disconnected from reality. drumpf got only 32% in Maryland in 2020 and I don’t see how a dime store knockoff does better.
Spanky
CNN.com’s blaring headline this morning:
They’re not even trying to hide that middle finger. Amazing.
Spanky
@PAM Dirac: Thank FSM that Schultz lost. The next one would be Klink.
Cameron
@PAM Dirac: “Nasty, stupid, and disconnected.” I think my campaign ad for governor here in FL has written itself – what other qualities would I need to offer voters?
SFAW
@Matt McIrvin:
I’m a “bourgeois educated NPR-liberal type,” and I would almost never vote for a Rethug. [“Almost” because I do entertain the possibility that the Dems might nominate an outright racist/misogynist/fascist, and the Rethugs might not. Highly unlikely, but possible. Maybe.]
I expect I’m not an outlier.
Baud
@PAM Dirac:
Maybe Trump will come to MD to campaign for him.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
The GOP or the media has really gotten into a lot of Dems’ heads. So many of us can’t stand up to their teasing. Republicans don’t care about proudly supporting their party.
PAM Dirac
@Matt McIrvin:
I think this is the same as in Maryland. I think the “sane-sounding” can also be a cover for misogyny and/or racism. “I’m not voting against the woman I’m voting for sane and sensible management”.
Matt McIrvin
@SFAW: I’m more or less one of them too, though actual NPR pissed me off too much for me to keep listening to them. But I’m thinking of a lot of my colleagues in the tech industry who were terrified and outraged by Trump but whose reaction to him was that America needs more guys like 2002-vintage Mitt Romney, and that maybe it’d be great if we had a Center Party that just had all the sensible smart people in it, etc., etc… These people usually vote for Democrats but they hate the idea of really being Democrats.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: There may also have been working class white Massachusetts voters who vote Democratic in federal elections but not neccesarily in state elections. It might not have been just the maligned NPR totebaggers.
A larger lesson from the success of Republican Governor candidates in Massachusetts, Vermont and Maryland races may be that there are still in fact a substantial number of “fiscal conservative/social liberal” swing voters in these states.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Matt McIrvin: I’d say its more the suburbanites who want low taxes, not NPR liberals, who are responsible for Republican governors. They don’t like extremist, crazy Republicans, but they also don’t like progressives.
Betty Cracker
@Cameron: I think the FL Dems face the same challenges the national party faces, only more so, plus have problems that are unique to the state.
The macro problem that applies nationally and to the state is that Republicans are a mostly homogeneous group (socially conservative white or Hispanic Christians) whose members have common interests and enemies and have traditionally held family, civic and economic power. Democrats are a fragile coalition of outgroups that don’t necessarily have common goals and were traditionally excluded from power.
On the micro level, one thing I think lots of pundits get wrong is the cause of the party’s collapse after decades of dominance. Back when the Democratic Party dominated the state, for all but a few years, it comprised the same groups that call themselves Republicans now because white Christian so-cons were Dixiecrats back then.
IIRC, Bob Martinez in the 1980s was the first GOP gov since Reconstruction. That was a reflection of the national parties’ realignment on race, and in Florida, it folded in Cuban American voters attracted by the GOP’s anti-communism rhetoric.
Our last Dem gov, Lawton Chiles, was an old school blue dog Dem who could bridge the realignment. To a lesser extent, that was Bill Nelson’s story too, who coasted on that until he lost in 2018.
So, when the realities on the ground changed dramatically, the state party needed to adjust too, and it hasn’t. Why? I think there’s some truth to the criticism that it relies too much on the same consultants. Crab bucket politics definitely come into play, and IMO, the party has always been too South FL-centric.
I’m not sure what would fix it. Maybe splitting the state party into three operating units — one for South FL, one for the I-4 corridor, and one for the northern part of the state — would improve local focus. Diaz, the current chair, announced a new initiative to open local offices statewide a while back, but I’ve heard nothing about it since.
Whew, this got long! To sum up, it’s a shit-show, and nobody seems to be able to fix it.
David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch
Tip O’Neill famously said “all politics is local”. There are three other truisms: politics is about timing, incumbency is powerful, and don’t wear out your welcome.
Lastly, Dems leaning voters don’t turn out in the same numbers during midterms, unless there is a republican in the WH.
Almost all midterm elections are determined by these 5 factors.
For example New Yawk: Dems held the Governor’s office from 1974 to 1994. But 94 was a bad cycle for Dems and Mario Cuomo had served 3 terms and shit happens on your watch, which alienates voters. So repubs ran someone with a blank slate, who was pro-choice. Because of incumbency he held on to the job for 12 years. In 2006, the GOP governor knew it was time to leave the stage, plug into the calculus a great cycle for Dems and repubs inability to find a pro choice candidate and you get the Governor’s seat for 16 years and counting.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: You are not wrong! That’s the crab bucket mentality referenced in my long screed.
Anne Laurie
Massachusetts is a ‘weak governor’ state; the dweller in our corner office are severely constrained by state laws, even leaving aside a deep-blue legislature. Electing a Repub governor seems to be ingrained as a See, we’re really moderate centrists at heart! folk mythology.
On the other hand… I have great hopes for Democrat Maura Healey this year! She’s been very popular as Attorney General, and her Repub opponent is (a) a nonentity and (b) insane.
Sure Lurkalot
Like Nixon, DeSantis’ thick skinned face always looks moist and shiny. His mimicry of TFG’s hand gestures is a sign of his earlier sycophancy…which maybe should be emphasized as he tries to distinguish himself. He’s as hard to look at and listen to as Trump; no doubt his lack of appeal is very appealing to RWers like my bro who thinks he’s the bee’s knees.
PAM Dirac
@Spanky:
Hogan!!!!!!
Soprano2
@Geminid: I saw what McCaskill did in 2012. The ads she ran emphasized that Todd Akin was the “most conservative” candidate of all those running as Republicans. The ads told the truth about him in order to drive R primary voters to him. He was the one candidate she had a chance of beating – any of the others probably would have beaten her. In a state where a lot of Democrats are willing to vote for a “sensible” Republican, I can see why the Democrat would go with this strategy. Can anyone argue that the Hogan-endorsed candidate wouldn’t have had a good chance to win the race?
ETA – you should see the ads that are running now in our Senate and House races. One ad says Vicki Hartzler is the person to fight for us; the next ad says she sold us out to China and doesn’t care about us! I’ve seen instances of this with several different candidates, it’s kind of hilarious when the ads are back-to-back. I’ve seen almost no TV ads for any Democrats, but I’ve gotten mailers for them.
Anne Laurie
Masshole politicians have traditionally been really really sexist, and as a result, only female ‘doormats’ — go along to get along, ladies — have been able to rise high enough in the party ranks to be nominated, on either side of the aisle.
This is, please Murphy, changing. I take Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s election as a good omen for Maura Healey.
NotMax
Re: some of the above
Maryland elected Agnew governor.
Just sayin’.
Geminid
@Soprano2: This tactic certainly worked for McCaskill. I think McCaskill got a little lucky, though when Akin stuck his foot down his throat with that “legitimate rape” remark. Then again, McCaskill might quote baseball manager Leo Durocher: “Luck is the residue of good planning.”
Dorothy A. Winsor
Kos has the results of a CNN poll showing major shifts in the D direction since May:
Registered voters:
May: 42 D, 49 R
July: 46 D, 46 R
WOMEN:
May 46D – 44R
July 51D – 40R (!)
Ken
For a GOP politician, Akin was ten years ahead of his time.
Soprano2
@Betty Cracker: It’s much the same in Missouri. I think Mel Carnahan’s death in a small plane crash in 2000 dealt a body blow to the state party that it never completely recovered from. (Small plane crashes have hurt Dems in MO before; Democratic rising star Jerry Litton was killed in one in 1976.) He had a good chance to win that Senate seat, and he would have had it for 6 years rather than the 2 years his wife had it. Also, in 1992 Republicans got the voters to pass term limits on the state legislature, because they knew if they could get rid of some of the “legacy” Democrats from the more rural areas they would be replaced by Republicans. Sure enough, in 2003 Republicans took control of the state legislature, and they’ve controlled it ever since. Not that long ago we had a Democratic governor, a Democratic Secretary of State, a Democratic lieutenant governor, and a Democratic auditor. Now all that’s left is the auditor, who is not running for re-election and will most likely be replaced by a Republican.
I think one factor is the shrinking of St. Louis. Its population was over 800,000 in the 1950’s; now, it’s a little over 300,000. Kansas City’s population is growing, but slowly. The metro areas around these cities are huge, however, and much more Republican. The strangest thing, though, is that statewide we’ve defeated right-to-work, passed Medicaid expansion, and approved medical marijuana. It’s so strange.
Cameron
@Betty Cracker: Thanks, and your response wasn’t too long – not everything can be summed up in five words or less. I live in Manatee County, where registered R’s outnumber registered D’s about 3-2, with a whole bunch of [presumably R] Unaffiliated. My voting D has roughly the same impact as breaking wind off the deck in my apartment. Might as well keep doing it, though. Can’t hurt.
Soprano2
@Geminid: Yep, that comment most certainly put the nail in his coffin. McCaskill also used the tactic of working hard in the rural areas to increase her vote total; she knew she couldn’t win those counties, but if she decreased the Republican’s votes even a few percent it meant she could win the state. Lucas Kunce is using that same tactic; he had an op-ed in our local paper about how Big Ag is trying to get the National ID program for farmers enacted into law. Small farmers would be put at a disadvantage by the program, so of course they hate the idea. He’s been working hard to talk to people in rural counties.
Betty Cracker
@Soprano2: Wow, I had no idea the population of St. Louis had dropped so precipitously! What’s up with that?
It does sound like MO and FL have some commonalities. During a time of absolute Republican dominance in FL, we’ve passed some progressive ballot initiatives, i.e., ex-felon voter rights registration and recently a higher minimum wage. These had to get 60% to pass, and they did! Statehouse Republicans shit all over them, though, and so far, haven’t paid a political price for it.
I keep coming back to the idea that the Republican “brand,” for want of a better word, is just naturally more powerful because of the party’s homogeneity (and because it encompasses traditional power centers). The Dems are a bigger tent in the sense that we’re where the outgroups land, but we’re not cohesive. Sometimes it seems like we hate each other more every cycle and can only rally in an existential crisis.
Matt McIrvin
@Anne Laurie: It does also seem as if, nationwide, a surprising number of states are willing to elect governors of the opposite party from their usual lean. That applies to Democratic governors in deep, deep red states too–not all the time, but some of the time. I think that in many states the governorship is just a less ideologically loaded position.
PAM Dirac
@Geminid:
Kinda of a dead thread, but if you look at the R Attorney General primary in Maryland, which wasn’t the subject of D paid ads, you see that an even more extreme wingnut won by almost the same margin as Cox. Maryland Rs want their nutjobs, regardless ads. I think the D ads were timed to make sure the Rs know who the nutjob was, but also to make sure Ds are reinforced early and often that Cox is in no way shape or form like Hogan.
ETA: The tag line of the D ads is “Cox is too conservative for Maryland”. The only reason they wouldn’t run the exact same ads in the general is if the race isn’t close enough to make it cost effective.
Geminid
@Cameron: Unaffiliated voters are not neccesarily Republican. Some of them consistantly vote Democratic, more of them consistently vote Republican and a smaller portion are actual swing voters. These can make the difference in purple states. In Arizona, for instance, registrations before the 2020 election were Republican 35%, Democrat 32% and unaffiliated 31.7%. That was a high turnout election, and it’s hard to see how Mark Kelly and Joe Biden could have won without winning a majority of independents.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: My impression is the Democrats’ intraparty tensions have actually gone down some since the period 2016-2020. There’s still plenty of noise about them though. Tis may track with your comment about Democrats needing an existential threat to come together, but my sense is that many Democrats both liberal and moderate approach their party’s politics in a more pragmatic way mow.
Another Scott
@Betty Cracker: Betty Cracker for Florida Democratic Party Chair!!
Seriously, having strong local party groups is the way forward in a large diverse state. The Miami party is going to be different from the Panhandle party and different from the Space Coast and Orlando and T/SP parties but all are needed.
Cheers,
Scott.
The Truffle
I’ve asked this before–but does the Florida Dem party have a Ben Wikler or a Stacey Abrams?
Betty Cracker
@The Truffle: I’ve often wondered if a Wikler or Abrams clone could work magic in Florida as they have in their own states, but maybe that’s an unrealistic way to look at it. The challenges in each state are unique, so it’s possible Abrams wouldn’t work in Wisconsin and Wikler wouldn’t work in Georgia. We’ve never had anything close to that in Florida, and I can’t help noticing that the FL Republicans’ election strategists don’t seem all that sharp either. I think they just benefit from the circumstances.
ian
@PAM Dirac:
After the primary it is a good negative campaign ad. Before the primary it makes Republicans more likely to vote for candidate. If negative ads fail to have desired effect, then being done before primary can cause said candidate to advance to political office over more reasonable alternative.
Uncle Cosmo
I don’t think you know anything about MD politics. This is not good news (other than Hogan’s irrelevance) AT ALL.
My considered opinion is that Thuglicans will sweep the statewide races in November riding the wave of a METRIC FUCKTON of white DINOs out in the redder areas (and a bunch hunkered down in the blue ones as well) who will crawl over their dying grandmothers to vote against any POC or woman (unless she has an “R” beside her name).
Villago Delenda Est
The vermin of the Village have a directed from above narrative to push on DeathSentence, and without regard to the facts, they’re going to push it like the good lickspittles they are.
Uncle Cosmo
“Just sayin'” that you don’t know a fucking thing about MD politics.
In 1966, with sitting Governor J. Millard Tawes term-limited out, there were 3 major candidates for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination: Tom Finan, sitting Attorney General, a centrist; Carleton Sickles, liberal Congressman-At-Large whose seat was redistricted out of existence; and George P. Mahoney, an asphalt contractor and political gadfly, whose (barely-disguised racist) campaign motto was “Your Home Is Your Castle – Protect It.”
Mahoney won the primary with 30.21% of the vote, 1,839 more than Sickles (29.84%) out of 491,366 cast (Finan in third with 27.31%). (You can look it up.)
Agnew, the Baltimore County Executive who was a big fan of Nelson Rockefeller, was the liberal in the race, and Democrats horrified by Mahoney’s obvious bigotry (and his ill-fitting dentures) came out to vote for Spiro.
FTR Agnew continued to back Rockefeller until Nixon picked him for his Veep two years later – on the strength of Spiro’s public lambasting of black leaders for not having restrained those who rioted in Baltimore after the MLK assassination in April 1968.
(Also FTR: A HS sophomore, in 1965 I stood all of 20 feet from County Executive Agnew at the dedication of the North Point library down the street from my home. It was the closest I ever came to an opportunity to alter history, but I lacked the martial arts skills or weaponry, not to mention foresight, to act on it.)
…Next time pick a subject you actually know something about, hm?
PAM Dirac
@Uncle Cosmo:
It is a concern, but as I mentioned above, I think the “sane and sensible republican” act gives a lot of Ds cover for biased voting, a bias that they might not even be conscious of and in any event certainly don’t want to face. Hammering on the point that Cox is a full on nutjob takes that cover away, voting for Cox is voting for all the things you supposedly hate. And it isn’t really the red areas that are the problem. I don’t have the numbers at hand, but almost the entirety of Hogan’s 2018 margin (and it was pretty big) came from D underperformance in Montgomery County, Baltimore County and maybe some disappointing turnout in Baltimore City. I suspect that the nice, upstanding MC Ds won’t be able to vote R when they can’t escape the fact that the only reason to do so is racism. We will see.
Paul in KY
@Ruckus: As bad as the ole bastard was, Nixon cared more about this country than either TFG or DeSatanis. No doubt!
PAM Dirac
@Uncle Cosmo:
I think that that is the history I’m thinking of. To say that there is no bigotry or bias in MD voting is absurd, but there is a history of not supporting the blatant, out and proud kind. Will this hold this year? We will see.
Ben Cisco
Looks liek no one picked up on the Kim Possible reference in the title.
J R in WV
@Baud:
I think I have a pretty good name — now all I need is the Billion $$>.