I’ve seen a number of people say that the stakes are lower in Georgia if CCM wins in Nevada, pulling ahead of Laxalt, because then it will be 50-49 with Kamala as thew tiebreaker. For a number of reasons, this is stupid and wrong. First, a win in Georgia makes it 51-49, with no powersharing agreement with Mitch. On top of thaty, it will foment a bloody revolt within the Senate as to who succeeds McConnell, and whoever that is will not have the wits or clout of Mitch, making the Republican Senate a clown caucus.
Second, winning that seat does not make it a Democratic seat for just the next two years, but the next six. And I don’t know if you have looked down the road or not, but the Senate outlook for 2024 is brutal. Of the 33 seats up in 2024, Dems hold 23 of them. It’s going to be very rough, so having that Warnock seat is extremely important.
Look at that list. I can tell you right now that Manchin likely will not run, but if he does, he will not win. It’s a fucking brutal list any way you look at it.
And third, and most important, Warnock is a GOOD MAN. He is a decent, good, kind, educated pleasant man with the good of the public at heart. That in and of itself is reason enough to act like that seat is the most important race in the country. There aren’t too many good people in politics. He’s one of them.\
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Absolutely Cole. We need every seat we can get. As you say, Warnock would be locked in for at least the next 6 years were he to win this runoff
I just really wish Ryan could have won
MobiusKlein
Looking at the R column, I don’t see a single plausible pickup at this point. Rick Scott (FL) if I squint hard.
dnfree
Excellent point. As with the Supreme Court, it sometimes seems Democrats have a problem with looking a little further down the road. There are current senators who could up and die, also.
MattF
From WaPo: Sean Hannity wonders where all that talk of a Red Tsumami could have possibly come from. Video reply: https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/how-fox-news-hyped-a-red-wave-for-weeks/2022/11/10/5e77b515-d5e7-44d7-aa9d-3e6203b572c0_video.html
BCHS Class of 1980
My hope is not that Dems won’t get complacent but more that the GOP will fall into the Pit of Des<ahem>Pit of Despair. It’s hard to get people up when the argument is “we can be a bigger pain in the ass” instead of “we can seize control.” Money has been given and will be given, both to the Rev himself and to 4D.
JoyceH
Frankly, I found the Walker nomination simply offensive. It gave me flashbacks to the Clarence Thomas nomination, proving once again that Republicans consider black guys to be interchangeable, like widgets. Issue – Thurgood Marshall is retiring. Guy whose pre-SC career involved winning 29 of the 32 cases he argued before the SC, including (maybe you’ve heard of it?) Brown VS Board. The fellow in the history books – that guy. So okay, to replace him, let’s go with this complete mediocrity, whose career has been almost entirely being a government paper-pushing bureaucrat. Because, hey – he’s a black guy, right? It’s exactly the same!
This time, “Huh. Ebeneezer Baptist, you say? Okay, hear me out – what if, instead, we go with this violent brain damaged thug?”
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
Scott or Cruz are the only possible pickups, and the odds of those are low. We will probably lose Manchin’s seat and we could lose Tester’s. Looking even further into the future, maybe Collin’s finally will get the boot in 2026.
raven
GO DAWGS!!!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@JoyceH:
“He played football too! He’s a shoo-in for sure!”
Baud
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
I thought we had a decent election night in Montana. Not sure. Red states are always dangerous regardless.
Agree with everything Cole said. I hope it’s the GOP that’s unmotivated in GA if we have 50 without Warnock.
eclare
@JoyceH: Same thing with Palin. Hey, she’s a woman! Put her on the ticket, all women will vote for her!
Warnock must win, and I think he will, regardless of the NV outcome.
Jackie
If the majority of the GQP still support TFG or risk saying it’s time to move on, it’ll be interesting to see if TFG’s base will still make a difference. And if TFG is on the ballot, do enough non-MAGA republicans exist to fight for democracy?
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Baud: We didn’t do badly in Montana, but red states are dangerous. It’s a risk.
I can only hope that COVID and associated restrictions recede in the background and Trump continues to spiral. That could deflate some of the Q energy on the crazy right.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
One thing that really makes me mad is the Johnson-Barnes WI senate race. Tony Evers won but Barnes didn’t? Imagine ticket-splitting for the guy who wants to end Social Security and Medicare
Citizen Alan
@JoyceH: It’s even more offensive than that! At the time Clarence Thomas was nominated, there were probably hundreds of conservative white judges who were vastly more qualified than him. And there were likely dozens African American judges who would not be ultra conservative but would at least fit in with Sandra Day O’Connor and Anthony Kennedy. But no, the Bush Sr. administration had to scour the countryside to find an African American jurist who was committed to white supremacy. Just as Barrett, is the youngest Republican judge who is both female and a devout believer in the patriarchy.
Grumpy Old Railroader
On the sunny side, it will be nice to see Feinstein in the rear view mirror
different-church-lady
Much rather be two runs up in the top of the 9th than one.
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Although thank God for ticket splitters in GA or Walker would already be in.
Ohio Mom
And then there is my heart throb, Sherrod Brown, who is also up for re-election in two years, in my increasingly nutty state. We are getting older and less educated and Redder by the day.
But a lot of things could happen in the next year or so to push things toward our favor. A better economy, the end of Putin, there could be lots of good momentum going forward. Plus on continued implosion of the Republicans. That’s always my hope, anyway.
different-church-lady
@MattF: Annnnnnd…. the WaPo sometimes played right along: “Oh, could the GOP make gains in New England?” “Oh, is Hassan vulnerable?” “Oh is this (year-over-year) INFLATION NUMBER going to kill the dems?”
different-church-lady
@Ohio Mom:
Trump could continue to be Trump…
Omnes Omnibus
@Ohio Mom: Assuming any result two years out is a mistake. Just a few days ago, the CW was that the GOP was going to romp home this year. Like you said, a lot can happen in the next few years. We can affect the result.
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
The map is less awful than it could be, because most of those Democratic seats aren’t realistic shots for Republicans. They are almost sure to win West Virginia, but beyond that, their prospects are pretty thin. What can they reasonably hope for? Montana. Arizona. Ohio. Maybe Nevada. That’s about it.
They can shoot their wad in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Michigan and Minnesota, but the odds of picking off one of those are low. If we can hold Montana, Nevada, Ohio and Arizona, which is by no means out of the question, then we’ll have a 50-50 Senate with Harris as the tiebreaker at worst. And if Manchin runs and hangs on, we’ll be up by one.
Soprano2
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I suspect that’s some people just not voting for Senate at all. I’ll be interested to see if there is an appreciable difference between the total vote for governor and senator in WI and GA. Black and/or female candidates still have a heavier lift than white men, even with Democrats. If R’s had run a white candidate for senator in GA, they probably would have won outright.
Cameron
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Hell, Tommy Tuberville coached football. He should have McConnell’s seat!
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Abortion bans will have been in effect for two years, since we don’t have the numbers to stop them. The end of Roe is still theoretical for a lot of people.
Omnes Omnibus
@Soprano2: Ben Wikler of the WisDems has pointed out that no sitting Senator lost in this election (so far). Our pick-up of PA was made possible because it was an open seat.
dmsilev
@JoyceH: Also reminds me of the 2004 IL Senate race. The original Republican nominee flamed out (remember “Parisian sex club”? A more innocent time…) and to face Obama, the GOP imported Alan Keyes, whose only evident qualification was his skin color.
Well, at least we got the Crazification Factor out of that race.
JPL
@Baud: I fear that gay marriage will be on the ballot also. The supremes are awful.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: Stacy Abrams is… not a very good candidate. Glad she didn’t have reverse coattails!
p.a.
I assume DiFi is done and it’s a safe seat no matter who the Dem is, so let’s hope for a spirited but not brutal primary.
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: I can’t find it now, but I saw some stats that showed that Abrams numbers were about that same as most statewide GA Dems. It is Warnock who outperformed the generic D in GA, not Abrams who underperformed.
mrmoshpotato
@MobiusKlein:
Remember that Batboy unseated Bill Nelson.
From Wikipedia: A recount showed that Scott had defeated Nelson by 10,033 votes.[3]
Defeating him in ’24 might be possible, but it would be tough IMO.
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus: Then we should find more Warnocks and stop celebrating serial mediocrities.
Old Dan and Little Ann
@MattF: I saw of glorious meme on the twitter machine. hannity’s open mouth covered in cheeto dust and the caption of “I love you Donald.” Sorry I don’t have any brain bleach left to share.
Parfigliano
Only morons and their dumbest cousin doesnt realize every election is important. GOPers figured this out long ago. Thats how society got stuck with “creation science” and their illiterate CRT cousins on school boards.
Gravie
I donated to the Warnock campaign, and I’m writing letters to young voters in GA through the Vote Forward program. https://votefwd.org
Knocked out 20 letters yesterday in about an hour — it’s super-easy — and just signed up for another 20. Highly recommend.
Parfigliano
@MattF: Sean Hannity is a blackhole sucking up an asshole with every breath he takes
mrmoshpotato
@Old Dan and Little Ann: OMG! 🤣🤢
prostratedragon
@Citizen Alan: Marshall himself said quietly that it’s less important that the successor be black than that they be good. I’m sure he’d have gladly offered some suggestions if asked.
narya
@Baud: I expect the [mostly male] Village to start chattering about “well, those wimmin managed to remember about Roe for six months, but two years is prolly more than they can handle.” But, as you correctly note, we will have two years of people dying, or nearly so, because of a lack of proper medical care. I wish that were not the case.
MobiusKlein
@mrmoshpotato: my squinting involves robust economy, low inflation, and some hot corruption patterns in FL. Maybe a viable D party there too.
Hitchhiker
Another unknown factor is Gen Z. They’re slowly but surely replacing the olds, and in places where margins are so tiny, at some point it matters. It’s not completely clear what happened on 11/8, but I’ve seen data that says Dem Gen Z turnout was very high, especially among women and in places where abortion was on the ballot.
Just another thing that’s hard to factor into current thinking — I’m with Cole. Let’s run up every score we can, everywhere we can.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
Well, if Boebert manages to eek out a victory, then she will be toast in 2024. She’ll either get primaried, which is a real risk, or Frisch can take another run at her. Right now she is shocked and disappointed, but I expect anger is next. I predict she will double down and lash out at her constituents. She doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who learns from experience.
Doug R
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Hawlin’ Hawley took his seat from Claire McCaskill, indictments and convictions could happen before 2024.
Doug R
@Jackie: TFG is drawing fewer and fewer to his rallies. 2,000 groupies ain’t much in a country with almost 200,000,000 voting age adults.
Parfigliano
@MattF: Sean Hannity is a blackhole sucking up an asshole with every breath he takes
Mai Naem mobile
I had heard the 2024 map was bad but hadn’t actually looked at it. Jeezus, it is really bad. I don’t see Scott or Cruz being beat with the current governors and their voter suppression shenanigans. There is nobody else on the GOP list not from a ruby red state.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Doug R: Hawley is no Greitens. He has embedded himself in MO politics like a tick, and MO keeps getting redder. I don’t see much chance of a pick up there. We should still try, though. Lightening could strike.
Cacti
We’ve reached the point where the replacement isn’t that slow anymore.
By 2024, about 7 million Boomers and Silents will have died from natural causes. In contrast, another 9 million or so Zoomers will have become voting age.
JPL
@Major Major Major Major: The rest of the democrats on the state ballot did suffer though.
anon
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: missouri has ballot measures. They legalized marijuana this year, and they approved medicaid expansion in 2020, albeit on the primary election. Put abortion on the 2020 general ….
Matt McIrvin
@Hitchhiker: My daughter will be able to vote in 2024.
James E Powell
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
White supremacy is a powerful enemy.
featheredsprite
VoteForward is staging a letter writing campaign to Georgia voters who are registered Dem but don’t always vote. I have signed up with them and encourage you to do likewise. It’s easy, even for a shy hermit crab such as myself.
Check it out.
Matt McIrvin
A bad Senate map is one that happens 6 years after a really good year. 2018 was a really good Senate election.
Hitchhiker
@Cacti:
It feels slow, but you’re right. I just read an analysis that Dem voters under 30 neutralized R voters over 65 last Tuesday.
The olds turnout is much higher, but the youngs loathe this iteration of the Republican party so hard that it evens out.
WaterGirl
@Major Major Major Major:
I beg to differ. They gerrymandered the hell out of GA and they kicked an ungodly number of people off the voter rolls.
Cmorenc
@john cole:
True, it would be much better if Warnock wins for advantages you cite, but if we win Nevada and have at least a 50-50 senate, chuck schumer controls the agenda, not mcconnell, meaning for one thing that the senate wont be wasting time and media attention on eg investigating hunter biden and a dozen other gop pet witch-hunts.
Redshift
Why do I feel like every election year, we’re told the Senate map is brutal for Democrats, but the next one is better, and then when next time comes, we’re told it’s bad again?
Major Major Major Major
@WaterGirl: What does gerrymandering have to do with the governor’s race? And Warnock outperformed her by 4.
Mousebumples
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Johnson and GOP PACs ran a lot of racist ads. It sucks, but I think there were too many White Wisconsinites willing to vote for a boring White governor that couldn’t do the same for the Black Senate candidate. 😔
My focus (*after Georgia runoffs) is now on the April Judicial election in Wisconsin to replace a retiring conservative judge (former Chief Justice, even) on the state Supreme Court. If we can get a liberal elected, we’d have a 4-3 majority – and that 3 judge minority would include a somewhat swingy conservative justice who has ruled with the current 3 justice liberal block a few times.
Related to Senator Warnock – music & Postcarding Party tonight at 7pm central (8pm blog time)! Help us #GOTV.
Citizen Alan
@prostratedragon: One of the great tragedies of the Supreme Court. Marshall didn’t die until a year or so into Clinton’s first term, though he’d been in ill health. If he’d hung on, Thomas would never have made it onto SCOTUS. Sadly, I think he saw Bush Sr.’s 95% or whatever approval rating in the immediate aftermath of the Gulf War, assumed he was a shoo-in for reelection, and didn’t want to spend his last few years thanklessly writing dissents to Rehnquist-Scalia opinions.
WaterGirl
@Major Major Major Major: Guessing your serial mediocrities was directed at Abrams, and perhaps others.
I imagine that Stacey Abrams is the smartest person in the room, in most rooms, and she is an excellent communicator.
Major Major Major Major
@WaterGirl: her and Beto.
Being smart is irrelevant if people don’t vote for you. “But we need a majority!”
BruceFromOhio
This provides a necessary balance to the simpering idiocy of the two-bit ratfuck soulless criminal rentboy that Peter “Nosferatu” Thiel foisted on the electorate, courtesy of your Ohio fascisti.
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Same. Alas.
Cacti
@Hitchhiker: And absent some paradigm shifting black swan event, I don’t think Generation Z is ever going to forget which party was indifferent to them being shot at school.
eclare
@Hitchhiker: Link?
Juju
@Ohio Mom: Better jobs related to the infrastructure and anti-inflation legislation that passed in combination with affordable real estate might bring more younger and educated people into your state as well. Things can change.
danielx
Forgot to post about this:
Democrats took an unconscionable gamble — and it worked
From one of our blogmaster’s favorite objects of ridicule, one Megan McArdle. McMegan’s bitch seems to be that Dems used a filthy underhanded political tactic, i.e. backing Republican nutcases in primaries – and adding insult to injury, it worked! How dare they take a gamble and play political hardball like Republicans! How dare they do something so irresponsible, so dangerous to America’s political future! And on and on.
The life of a center right pundit is a hard one.
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major:
You have to bear in mind the states in which they ran. I would not be at all surprised if the work that Abrams and O’Rourke have been doing bears fruit in the future. Right now, ii looks as though GA, for example, has a ceiling of 45% for statewide Dems unless they are exceptional. Expecting to always find an Obama or Warnock (or even a Bill Clinton) is not reasonable.
eclare
@Mousebumples: Thanks for the info on the WI Supreme Court! Remind me, are you in WI?
Major Major Major Major
@Juju: affordable real estate in real cities where people actually want to live is the key to attracting the youths, unfortunately we have so many forces aligned against creating and maintaining such places 😔
@Omnes Omnibus: if there’s a ceiling for unexceptional candidates why keep nominating the ones who don’t break it?
If they’re good at party infrastructure, put them in a party infrastructure role.
phdesmond
@WaterGirl:
i think the waters have been stirred by a recent pre-election article in The Atlantic disparaging Stacey and Beto:
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/11/beto-orourke-stacey-abrams-superstar-loser/671959/
eclare
@Major Major Major Major: I am so glad Pete and Chasten changed their residence to MI (Chasten has family there). He has a good chance of winning a state race there after he leaves the fed govt. That would not happen in IN.
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: Find me another shitload of Obamas.
JPL
@WaterGirl: She is! Stacey had the funding, but didn’t start running ads until after the primary, while Kemp started early. Kemp was able to paint her as someone with higher aspirations, that didn’t really care about GA.
James E Powell
@featheredsprite:
Is VoteForward emails or something in the US mail?
Omnes Omnibus
@Mousebumples: That election is going to be huge.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Major Major Major Major:
St Louis has so much potential to be one of those places. We have some great universities that bring young people to the city. Between our crime rate, corrupt and ineffective city government, and our crazy right wing state government, young people won’t stay. We’re their starter city. They get a job. Get some experience, and then move elsewhere. I had so much hope in the 2000’s that we were finally turning that around. Instead, St. Louis is continuing to lose population. If we were a growing, instead of shrinking city, we would be able to take this state back.
prostratedragon
@Citizen Alan: I suppose so, though I don’t recall the timing. Certainly true that Bush’s re-election was thought to be a sure thing, until it wasn’t.
Major Major Major Major
@phdesmond: all they had to do to prove that article wrong was get more votes than any other D candidate would have 😇
Instead they were money pits
mrmoshpotato
@MobiusKlein: Gotcha.
Matt McIrvin
@danielx: The thing is, they didn’t even really do that. They didn’t run ads supporting the MAGA nut candidates, they ran ads opposing them on liberal grounds, and the claim is that when they did this they were deliberately exercising reverse psychology to get Republicans to vote for them in the primary to own the libs. It’s the halo of a penumbra of an underhanded political tactic–like claiming someone is lying by telling the truth because they think you think they’re lying and will believe the opposite.
It’s not our fault if the reason that ads espousing our principles help us is that Republicans are fools.
eclare
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
I have the same thoughts about Memphis. The cost of living is so low here, decent size of around 1M, big enough to have a nightlife for whatever you like, very Democratic city, but the kids move to Nashville.
prostratedragon
@Major Major Major Major:
Why have these divine beings not revealed themselves to a yearning polity?!
Cmorenc
@Citizen Alan: Part of why Bush sr. picked Thomas was because of how his other SCOTUS nomination worked out who was a seemingly a mainstream but conservative nominee of the sort the chamber of commerce would approve, David Souter, who turned out to vote on Scotus more like a nominee of a D president. And so, he sought to kill two birds with one stone – in Thomas he had a seemingly reliably hard-core ideological nominee AND a black nominee to replace the court’s first black member, Marshall. Could Bush have found a more mainstream conservative black nominee with better credentials ? Likely so, but Bush rightly felt he was in a box where the optics of replacing the court’s first and up to then only black member politically for ed him to choose a black nominee – ant Thomas was also a way to poke Ds in the eye nominating a black with completely opposite jurisprudence than Marshall.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@eclare: I like Memphis. I can see why you feel that way.
zhena gogolia
@danielx: THEY NEVER BACKED ANY NUT JOBS.
This canard has to be stopped.
apocalipstick
@anon: MO passed Amendment 3 and still sent Chunky Josh Hawley to the Senate. Jason Kander couldn’t defeat Whisperin’ Roy Blount six years ago. Absent major scandal, and maybe not even then, Missouri is not sending a Democrat to the Senate.
zhena gogolia
@Matt McIrvin: Right.
Mousebumples
@eclare: Yup. Apparently I’m in the BOW corridor, from what I’ve been reading in the election aftermath. (Brown/Outagamie/Winnebago counties) Basically between Green Bay and the Fox Valley (Appleton/Oshkosh) area.
@Omnes Omnibus: Yup. I already got a fundraising text. (asked to opt out of texts) Rumor has it the Conservative that Walker nominated (that we rejected to elect to a full term in… 2019?) is thinking of running again. Daniel something or other? I’ll be in Madison for the February primary date (work thing), but last I checked, I couldn’t request 2023 mail ballots.
Eta – Daniel Kelly who was beaten by Karofsky in 2020.
BlueGuitarist
@Major Major Major Major:
Wendy Davis & Beto agreed that he did better in his 2018 campaign than she did in her 2014 run for TX governor largely not because of them but the increase in the number and quality of down-ballot candidates, who provide reverse coattails. Those local candidates sometimes bring their friends and neighbors, and people they meet canvassing, to the polls, people who otherwise might not vote.
Harder to get many good candidates to run many good down-ballot campaigns when gerrymandering means there’s little chance of winning or even raising funds to run an effective campaign.
hope it isn’t obnoxious to say, I share the view of groups like Run for Something in emphasizing the importance of reverse coattails, as in
reverse coattails = down-ballot candidates help candidates at the top of the ticket
as opposed to
Negative coattails = top of the ticket has negative effect down-ballot
zhena gogolia
@Cmorenc: It was a crass and cynical move. Whenever anyone gets teary eyed about Poppy, I just have two words for them. Clarence Thomas.
Major Major Major Major
@prostratedragon: they literally ran one in Georgia this year! He outperformed Abrams by four points and will probably win the run-off! If she keeps losing what’s the worst that could happen by nominating somebody else?
Cacti
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Missourian by birth and spent most of my formative years in the greater St. Louis area. You speak the truth. The friends that I’m still in touch with who stayed local are generally the people who didn’t go to college, and married someone they knew in high school. A handful who went to college came back. Most went somewhere else.
Middle America brain drain is real, and has contributed to the reddening of formerly purple states like Missouri and Iowa.
Omnes Omnibus
Happy Exploding Whale Day.
Geminid
@Major Major Major Major: Warnock had a weak opponent. Abrams had a tough one- a competent, incumbent Governor in a prospering state. If you’ve got a gripe angainst Abrams you would do better to state it then float this invidious and inapt comparison.
Redshift
@Major Major Major Major:
The premise of your question seems to be that there are exceptional candidates who we aren’t nominating, which seems highly suspect.
apocalipstick
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: There is also that weird ‘independent city’ designation that’s been used to reinforce white flight in the metro St. Louis area.
gwangung
@JPL: I always thought she had a tough rematch. Kemp made no major mis-steps, he presided over a good economy and he was seen as standing up to TFG’s more egregious tricks.
That’s appealing to the low-info voters, which is where the votes to be gotten.
That’s not going to change until an influx of young, affluent voters attracted to the economy (like film-making) and a. more active youth makes its changes on the state’s demographics.
Hob
@Matt McIrvin:
General Custer: Still trying to outsmart me, aren’t you, mule-skinner. You want me to think that you don’t want me to go down there, but the subtle truth is you really don’t want me to go down there!
Yeah, the “unscrupulous Democrats backed the extreme wingnut candidates by opposing them!!!” bullshit has been one of the stupidest things I’ve heard in campaign coverage in years, and that is really saying something. I’m not sure whether it started as deliberate disinformation, or just some dim bulb opining randomly online and getting echoed by a ton of people who didn’t think it through, but wow. The extreme wingnuts were going to win those primaries, because that is who wins Republican primaries now. Campaigning against them early and calling them extremists was a normal, rational thing to do.
Major Major Major Major
@Redshift: why is everybody choosing the most negative interpretation of what I’m saying?
I don’t think democrats should nominate people who keep losing elections (ETA by large margins); at the very least we should stop celebrating them as politicians so they stop soaking up money.
Geminid
@Major Major Major Major:
@Geminid: And who’s talking about running Abrams instead someone else anyway? And when?
That’s just a straw herring!
mrmoshpotato
@Omnes Omnibus: Never knew that happened on my dad’s birthday. I’ll have to let him know. I imagine he remembers the news stories.
H.E.Wolf
Black female Democratic candidates are at a disadvantage compared to Black male Democratic candidates, because of endemic misogyny on top of endemic racism. To disparage Black female candidates who face that double burden is a poor choice of target.
With a goal of more Democrats in statewide political offices, is the solution to require intelligent, experienced Black women – Stacey Abrams served 10 years in the GA State House, 6 of them as Minority Leader; Val Demings rose to Police Chief in Orlando FL, and from there to the US House of Representatives – to sit outside the doors to power and let only their male peers run for high office? I would hope not.
Let’s continue to work on getting out every Democratic vote, especially in voter-suppression states in the former slave-owning South, rather than denigrating Stacey Abrams, Val Demings, and similar public servants for losing hard-fought campaigns with heavy systemic odds against them.
Stacey Abrams will be working hard for Warnock’s victory in the runoff. I invite everyone to join the Warnock postcard party this evening, 8 pm blog time! Let’s be good allies to our fellow voters in GA!
Major Major Major Major
@Geminid: we just did it this year! There was no reason to think she’d do better this time—and indeed she did worse.
@H.E.Wolf: Politics ain’t beanbag.
BlueGuitarist
@JPL:
aspiration for higher office didn’t hurt DeSantis: IOKIYAR.
IOKIYAR also the reason that there weren’t negative repercussions to DeSantis contempt for Biblical instructions, eg how to treat immigrants, or others in general; and his blasphemous pre-election ad.
Saw somewhere that 88% of (white?) evangelicals — voted for Walker instead of the Reverend. That seems a good measure of how many self-described evangelicals are Chrinos.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@apocalipstick: Yes. The separation from St. Louis County skews our crime rate to look worse than other cities, even though it really isn’t.
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major:
That is what you said. How should we have interpreted it?
anon
@Cmorenc: no one knew how Souter would vote at the time of Thomas’s nomination. Souter was nominated because Bush was preoccupated at the time
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus: And it’s STACEY.
cain
@eclare: Our kids want to move out but found that places they want to live has too high in terms of living. So, LA and other big cities are out for these young 23 year olds – instead they are gonna stay in Portland which still has affordable (I guess) and end up in the Pearl district or some place that has things for twenty somethings to do.
Cacti
As for rising stars in the Dem Party for 2024:
Gretchen Whitmer.
Stood up to everything Republicans threw at her, including a kidnapping attempt, and spanked the ass of her 2022 wingnut, Trumper opponent by 11 points.
cain
@zhena gogolia: I think their thought process is “if the Dems think these candidates are bad, and I wanto to own the libs – well, they are the candidates to me” – you’d think they would be suspicious – but nope.
prostratedragon
@Major Major Major Major: A Senator and a governor!
zhena gogolia
@cain: I’m more concerned about the CW that somehow the Dem ads were “supporting” these candidates. Nothing of the sort.
Citizen Alan
@Geminid: You also left out the fact that Is Kemp is a white male. I don’t think Senator Warnock would have had a chance in Georgia if Herschel Walker had been a white man, even if he carried the exact same revolting baggage.
zhena gogolia
@Major Major Major Major: So please tell us whom you would have run for governor of GA.
prostratedragon
@Geminid: And of course there’s the misogyny tax to be paid.
ETA I see that H. Wolf beat me to it.
Baud
@Cacti:
Agree. She deserves more attention.
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus: gosh let’s see well she lost by even more than she did last time. Doesn’t seem super great to me. We should run candidates who we have reason to expect will win; if that’s not available we should run new candidates; if that’s not even available we should at least donate our money elsewhere. She got a hundred million dollars! Beto got seventy!
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: She’s no Jennifer Granholm though.
eclare
@cain: Huh…I would have thought Portland would be pretty pricey too. I moved here from ATL eighteen years ago, and the difference in the cost of living was amazing. I have seen recent photos of ATL with all the fancy condo towers in Midtown and can’t imagine the cost of living there now.
WaterGirl
@danielx: Except we really didn’t back the nut jobs that we’re running.
We just ran ads about who they were, and that led the nut job voters to think, “hey, that person is for me!”
We did not promote the nut jobs or encourage people to vote for them in the primary.
Let’s be careful not to spread the BS that the republicans are saying.
cain
If Trump is on th ballot – and teh DOJ investigation and waht not – hopefully it will create a negative atmosphere for GOP making their voters less interested in voting. Hell the whole thing about “it’s rigged!” could mean “why bother?”.
I’m manifesting that we are going to hold congress and we are going to pass laws that is going to help make the argument that we know what the fuck we are doing. I think it’s important to constantly make the argument over the two years of what we are doing.
Facebook and Twitter seem to be both having trouble – so we might have less memes getting spread. Without social media – russia and china might have less chance to gerrymander MAGA minds. We’ll see.
Facebook is going to be interesting because that platform thrives on GenXers and Boomers – a demographic that is not sustainable if that is your ownly audience. That’s why they are pivoting to VR and other stuff. I suspect the layoffs are part of that pivot.
Citizen Alan
@Cmorenc: It is still astonishing to me after all these years that Thomas had spent only 2 years total as a judge at any level when he was nominated to the Supreme Court.
WaterGirl
@eclare: Yes, Mousebumples is in Wisconsin.
WaterGirl
@phdesmond: Whoever wrote that is a short-sighted idiot.
WaterGirl
@JPL: Yeah, that was a mistake. But she’s not the first excellent candidate to make a mistake. Remember Obama and his clinging to guns are religion comment?
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
She’s sober.
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: I suggest that we trust the primary voters of the various states.* The GA primary voters decided that she had the best shot. You have no evidence that they were wrong.
*Democracy and all that.
ETA: As far as funding goes, isn’t that what Balloon Juice, in its collective wisdom, decided? To support get out the vote efforts and bang for the buck candidates. That is a different question though.
eclare
@Mousebumples: Thanks!
eclare
@WaterGirl: Thanks!
Geminid
@Major Major Major Major: So who do you think would have done better? Gotta name?
Abrams came closer to winning in 2018 than any Democrat in decades. Georgia Democrats made their choice and you know what? They just might know their state better than some Democrat in New York City with 20/20 hindsight.
I suspect you have some personal animus towards Abrams. Maybe it’s ideological, maybe something else.
But like it or not, Democrats will run candidates in 2024 who lost this year. Mr. Fritsch in Colorado and Elaine Luria in Virginia are two of them. And they won’t be doing this because they’re not as wise as you.
Major Major Major Major
@Cacti: Whitmer definitely deserves more attention than she’d been getting, fortunately pundits seem to have noticed this week. Polis too. Obviously Colorado isn’t Michigan but I think he has great national potential too. Way better than Pete, if we can only pick one gay dude.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
Wait till you see how much the guy who ran against MTG raised.
Hitchhiker
@eclare:
https://twitter.com/dellavolpe/status/1591507440285122560?cxt=HHwWgICwubbllZYsAAAA
James E Powell
@raven:
I’m all in for Ole Miss today
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus: I have pretty solid evidence that she lost, though!
@Baud: or the seventy million we wasted against Mitch in 2020. Republicans don’t spend like that against Pelosi, we should take a cue from them.
cain
@MajorMajorMajor – I don’t think any candidate is going to win Texas. Just think about the merits – you ahd a major school shooting, a busted power grid, and just wide spread incompetence. On paper, there is enough there to have booted this incompetent moron out of the governorship. Just the shit around the power grid should have been enough to convert some GOP to votes to Democrat or simply not vote at all.
But that didn’t happen – so we’re going to need to analyze Texas and figure things out.
James E Powell
@danielx:
I’m pretty sure the “Dems promoted MAGAs!” story is right-wing bullshit.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
Small donors via ActBlue means you’re not going to get wise allocation of resources.
The alternative is to encourage everyone to donate to the central committees, which a lot of Dems hate to do.
Geminid
@Baud: I think Marcus Flowers’ big black cowboy hat was worth a few million alone.
sab
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Yes. After the state supreme court results I’m not even sure Sherrod Brown can win next time. Our state has collectively losta its mind.
Major Major Major Major
@Geminid:
Fine, replace her name with “Beto” (or “Amy McGrath” if you’d like to focus more on wasting money than on celebrity losers.)
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major:
The question is whether someone else could have won. Neither of us live there, so I am going to trust that Dems of GA made the best choice available at the time.
Geminid
@James E Powell: That story is a staple on the dirtbag left too.
eclare
@Hitchhiker: Thanks!
Baud
@Geminid:
Same thing.
Brachiator
@Soprano2:
In Georgia, total votes for governor and senator were about the same, 3.9 million. However, 203,000 more Republicans voted for Kemp than voted for Walker. A chunk of Republicans chose not to vote for Walker.
Possibly. But the fact remains that Georgia Republicans (and Trump) settled on Walker because they thought he could win, and would have some appeal to white voters.
And they are stuck with Walker for the runoff.
Democrats need to press every advantage, including trying to get more Hispanic and Asian voters.
eclare
@James E Powell: Same. And happy with the Vols today (my Alma mater).
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major:
You now seem to be conflating the funding question with the quality of the candidate question.
ETA: Someone could be the best available candidate, but the race might not be worth huge outside donations.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: DCCC could’ve been better this time around for sure. Didn’t really follow DSCC spending.
But yeah, I’m mostly discussing problems that only occur at the collective scale… nothing little ol me can do about it…
@Omnes Omnibus: they’re both part of the “celebrity loser” issue or whatever you’d like to call it, it attracts both primary votes and donations. Bad nominations and wasted money can occur in the absence of celebrity of course, though it’s often based on a sort of anti-celebrity, opposing Mitch, Collins, etc. Rand Paul. You get the idea.
Cacti
Analysis of Texas:
All of the historic bigotry of the old south, but without any of the charm.
Done.
zhena gogolia
@Major Major Major Major: Who were the better candidates who should have been nominated?
sab
@Omnes Omnibus: Sherrod Brown originally beat Mike DeWine when DeWine was a sitting senator. So they aren’t always safe.
Geminid
@Major Major Major Major: Oh, you are not the only person who focuses on saving money. I am as aware as you but I draw fifferent conclusions.
But mocking candidates and the people who support them just because they lose is a lousy response to failure. I don’t think you would have this superior attitude if you lived in a purple state or district where Dem candidates lose as much as they win.
WaterGirl
@Citizen Alan: You are right about that!
A white male incumbent governor where the economy is thriving.
Omnes Omnibus
@sab: I did not say they were. I said that in this cycle no sitting senator was defeated. The statement by Wikler was meant to put Barnes’s loss in perspective.
WaterGirl
@eclare: I know Mousebumples is in and out with the little ones and I had no idea if she would be back to answer your question. But of course she was. :-)
Ivan X
@Major Major Major Major: You’re hating on Stacey Abrams, who has done a lot of good work for the party, at least in the perception of the jackaltariat. You may well be right that she had a disappointing performance and that should be kept in mind if she considers any future attempts at office, but by saying “she sucks, and she sucks all our money, everyone stop paying attention to her” without acknoweldging anything good about her is gonna get you blowback. (And I’m writing this as someone who’s not specifically a fan or even all that knoweldgable about her, but it seems naïve for you to not expect this reaction.)
WaterGirl
@Hitchhiker: That is so awesome, it deserves an embed.
eclare
@WaterGirl: I figured that she probably was with her knowledge of WI. But she could have been just really into politics!
Elizabelle
@BlueGuitarist:
It took me a moment, but that is perfect.
WaterGirl
Trashing the candidates that take on the tough races – Beto in TX, Abrams in GA, Tim Ryan in OH – is unbelievably shortsighted.
We will lose until we win.
Major Major Major Major
@Geminid: I promise you I would! It happens with local issues I care about, and primaries too.
Apologies if I came across as mocking, though. Temper got the better of me when people piled on with accusations of bad faith.
@WaterGirl: Tim Ryan was a much better use of money than Beto or Abrams or any of the other candidates I’ve named.
eclare
@Elizabelle: I had to Google! But yes, perfect.
Juju
@Major Major Major Major: Stacy Abrams is an excellent candidate, but she has some qualities that that may handicap her, especially in the south. She’s black and a woman. My guess is you have no idea how that can work against even a stellar candidate. She lost to a white male mediocrity that she can run circles around. It happens all the time. I live in NC and the stellar Democratic senate candidate, a black woman, lost to another white male mediocrity. The sad thing is there are a lot of white men who won’t vote for a black female candidate ever, no matter how qualified she is, and that’s disheartening. The thing that is worse are the number of white women who won’t vote for outstanding black women, not because they think they are racist and or sexist, but because there’s just something they can’t put their finger on that they don’t like about that black woman candidate or any female candidate. So they vote for the white male, because they are more comfortable with that, or they leave that oval blank.
I have heard so many white women say that they’d vote for a woman, but not that woman, and that excuse works for both black and white women candidates. As an example, I have a friend who was born and raised in my state. I convinced her to vote for Hillary, but she didn’t want to vote for that woman. To her credit, she did vote for Hillary. During the 2016 election, she lamented that she would have preferred Elizabeth Warren. She’d have no problem voting for Warren. When the 2020 primary came up in this state I asked her if she was a Warren supporter. She said no, that she couldn’t vote for that woman. She then said she supported Biden because she was convinced he could beat Trump. I agreed, but her phrasing really disturbed me. When it was time to vote in the general election she was a strong Biden supporter, but didn’t understand why he picked Harris as his running mate. My friend thought Harris was too nasal when she spoke and thought she laughed too much. I showed her the videos of Harris making Brett Cavanaugh and Bill Barr wet their pants when they were questioned by Harris during hearings, she had never seen them, and I also pointed out she never criticized men with nasal voices, and there are plenty, and Mike Pence was human mayonnaise.
I don’t know if you realize or remember that Stacy Abrams is the person who convinced Warnock to run for that senate seat and helped a great deal with his campaign. She also originated Fair Fight, the organization that was a major reason Biden got the electoral votes of Georgia in 2020. I’m curious as to what you see in her that makes her a mediocre candidate.
I don’t usually make a stink about things here, and you usually seem like a thoughtful person, but that comment was beneath you. Do me a favor and put your ass away.
livewyre
@Major Major Major Major: The charitable interpretation of the words you’re saying is that we can’t be seen putting money and vocal support into a candidate with “loser stink” – that whoever doesn’t win has shown bad essence and needs to be abandoned. That’s at best either a failure of analysis, or a failure to perform analysis. Of course, there are other interpretations.
Major Major Major Major
@Juju: you yourself just made a very strong argument that she should focus her energies on being the woman behind the curtain.
different-church-lady
I don’t know how much this applies, but when we put up Martha Coakley for MA governor in 2014 after she lost the senate to Scott Brown, my first thought was, “She’s not going to win this one either.”
Beto and Stacey are better candidates than Coakley, but they now have multiple losses on their records, and I think it would be foolish to think it’s going to change. (Crist in FL too)
WaterGirl
@Major Major Major Major: That may or may not be true, but my point still stands.
WaterGirl
@Juju:
“I would vote for a black woman, just not that black woman.”
karen marie
I could tell this post was by John Cole because of the typos. Hahaha.
Doesn’t matter that there are typos, what matters is the message, and that is absolutely accurate.
Thanks, John!
PS When does the new cat arrive?
sab
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m not disagreeing with you. I’m just trying to be hopeful for next time.
different-church-lady
@WaterGirl: OK, now we gotta keep them going to the polls.
WaterGirl
@karen marie: The only thing that’s wrong with this post is the title, and that John Cole assumes that we don’t already know just how much Georgia matters.
We are more tuned in and sophisticated than he thinks.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: He should read his own blog.
Baud
Stacey cam.close last time. It made sense to give her another shot. A third shot may be too much.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud:
I won’t disagree with that. OTOH, how many times did Biden try for the presidency before 2020?
karen marie
@different-church-lady: I guess I don’t understand why Beto hasn’t run for another House seat or for the TX legislature. He’s been out of office since 2019 when he (foolishly, in my opinion) ran for president. It may seem harsh to say but from where I sit – outside Texas – he’s spent more time making himself a celebrity than actually serving in any office.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Major Major Major Major: I saw an analysis on MSNBC last night from someone in TX (on a panel) that said Beto running for POTUS was a big mistake for his chances at winning a Gov race in TX. Interesting if true; I have no idea how that factors into TX politics.
I do truly believe Mandela Barnes lost to racism, sadly.
Jackie
TFG is busy with a wedding today, but when he gets wind of McConnell trying to recruit Kemp in assisting Walker’s runoff, I don’t think he’ll react well. And, I read somewhere there’s interest in asking DeSantis to come to Georgia and campaign for Walker. Trump will implode. *Hershel Walker is HIS HANDPICKED CHOICE to run for senator!!!*
Trump could derail Walker quite easily should Walker accept Kemp and/or DeSantis’ help.
Major Major Major Major
@livewyre:
lol no it isn’t.
Yes yes, I’m a flaming bigot who only thinks Beto O’Rourke shouldn’t have run again because I hate Irish men.
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): His promise to come take your guns probably didn’t do him any favors, yeah. I suppose the prez run might have given him a carpetbagger vibe too but I also just made that up.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Cacti: Yeah, I heard a discussion on MSNBC yesterday where they talked about how Gen-Z kids have been doing active shooter drills since they were in kindergarten. How awful. A whole generation where getting shot at school is a definite possibility. That will definitely focus your mind on which politician to support and vote for!
zhena gogolia
@Major Major Major Major: I haven’t yet seen who you think would have been better candidates.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@danielx: Of course, what Ds actually did was just run (truthful) ads pointing out how horrible and MAGA those folks were. Not our fault if R primary voters like awful people.
ETA: Matt McIrvin got there way ahead of me at #84. I’m late to the show as usual.
Squid696
I can see Cruz losing in a primary if he gets primaried. He really is hated by everyone now, but Republicans will still vote for him in a general if he is the choice. I don’t have any idea who might primary him, though. I know it sounds bizarre, but Mathew McConaughey might be able to beat him if he ran as Democrat or maybe even as Independent.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: I saw some more interesting poll numbers this morning:
Major Major Major Major
@zhena gogolia: I’ve been told not to question the wisdom of Georgia and Texas voters so I guess it’s up to them to name them.
At any rate, you’re allowed to criticize something without having a solution. You’re allowed to dislike a painting you couldn’t have made, or say why a story falls flat even if you don’t have an editorial recommendation for fixing it.
Omnes Omnibus
@zhena gogolia:
Or addressed the premise that GA primary voters probably have a better handle on who the best candidate among those running might be than any random observer.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Squid696:
If McConaughey ran as an Independent and the Texas Democratic party backed his bid, he would wipe the floor with Cruz.
Juju
@Major Major Major Major: sometimes people will move to an area just for the opportunity of having something that is out of reach in other more desirable areas. They then create that desirability. Why did people move across this country in the first place?
As to the second part of your reply directed at I don’t remember who, and my phone is acting weird, sometimes it takes people some time to adapt to different types of candidates. If we followed your direction in that regard, there would only be white men running for office. The diversity of especially the Democratic candidates and office holders is a very recent development.
James E Powell
@Major Major Major Major:
Allowed, certainly, but encouraged? No. Helpful. No.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
If someone taos Stacey as Veep, she’ll have a new lease as well.
zhena gogolia
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Would he be a good senator?
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major:
You clearly have a pet peeve about “celebrity candidates.” That’s fine. But you are bumping up against mine about counterfactuals. You are suggesting that someone else would have done better (or, at least, it seems so to me). I say we have know way of knowing and that the best evidence that we have of the best candidate is the choice of the voters.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
He’d be alright, alright, alright.
livewyre
@Major Major Major Major: We’re allowed to do a lot of things that don’t end up working, no matter what the odds are supposed to be. That might be the point we agree on.
ETA: Mainly what I take exception to is the seeming blanket invalidation of voting as a process for selecting candidates. If the affirmative claim is that she should not have run and made herself eligible to lose an election in the first place, then it’s going to need more of a case than that she lost, I would hope.
Major Major Major Major
@Juju: Your second point is definitely true! Or at least there’s a lot of truth to it. It’s a balancing act; to put it cynically, I’m not convinced that losing elections is the path to empowering non-white-men; and we do have polls to work with when it comes to evaluating individual candidates, though early polls are a lot less useful. Ultimately nobody has solved the riddle of how to win elections in the world we have to usher in the world we want.
As for moving (having something that is out of reach in other more desirable areas) you have to make the area livable first, that means a measure of safety and growth and affordability, and housing abundance is a huge factor for those. Obviously building a bunch of apartments in crumbling rust belt exurban towns isn’t a panacea, but for the places we want to save, rather than the ones that are more lost causes, it’s a good start.
eclare
@Baud: Too easy! But perfect.
Geminid
@karen marie: O’Rourke’s El Paso seat is now held by the excellent Veronica Escobar, a political ally of his. He may look elsewhere. But I think he’ll step back from elective politics for a while.
Escobar’s Wikipedia entry is well worth reading. It tells the story of how Escobar, O’Rourke and friends Susie Bird and Steven Gomez made a plan ca. 2005 to reshape El Paso politics and supplant the city’s old guard. They did, and by 2016 they had all won public office. O’Rourke won a primary against a Democratic incumbent to win a seat in Congress, and Escobar was El Paso County Judge, which is a powerful position in Texas. The four were known locally as “the Progressives.”
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus:
Basically: when faced with the choice between somebody with a known track record of losing and fundamentals suggesting even stronger headwinds, and somebody with more unknowns, I think it would be wise to pick the fresh face, all else being equal. And with celebrity, on one side or the other, and you get a lot of misplaced donations.
Hob
@Major Major Major Major: Yes, of course you’re allowed to criticize something without having a solution. But come on. You haven’t just been saying it sucks that O’Rourke and Abrams lost, you’ve been insisting, over and over again, that the solution is to nominate some unknown great candidates that you are absolutely sure were passed over in favor of O’Rourke and Abrams. When people ask you who those might be, they aren’t saying it is literally your job to pick them, they’re asking a natural question about why you’re so certain of this.
Like, if I posted half a dozen times that Balloon Juice sucks because they have some front-page writers that I don’t think are so great, and why doesn’t Cole pick one of the many better writers who would be great and do a great job, and you said “Like who?”, and I said “It’s not for me to say who! That’s Cole’s job!”… would you maybe think that was a little silly?
NotMax
@Geminid
Biden could do worse than offer Beto the ambassadorship to Mexico.
/multi-dimensional chess
livewyre
@Major Major Major Major: That brings us back to: whose wisdom do you suggest be applied to this end, when the nomination takes place? Yours? Are we looking for a more dictatorial process, or less of one?
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: And don’t forget Abraham Lincoln!
Juju
@livewyre: And out current is an example of why that kind of attitude is wrong.
WaterGirl
@Geminid: That is interesting!
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major:
We were also told that there was going to be a red wave.
In California, no Republican won a statewide office. Whoever the schmo was who ran against Gavin Newsom had no chance. I suppose a case could be made that Newsom should have run unopposed.
But sometimes if you get out the vote, a candidate who had no chance will win. That’s why we are still counting the vote in many elections and why we had some electoral surprises.
Geminid
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: I don’t think Texas Democrats are going to back an independent bid. This was done in Utah this year, but that was a much redder state and I think it was a one-off.
Anyway, I think Texas Democrats should not run away from the Democratic brand but instead build it, and try to make the Republican brand stink.
McConaughey can always run in a Democratic primary if he wants a shot at that Senate seat. He’ll have competition, maybe Rep. Veronica Escobar (El Paso) or Rep. Joachin(sp?) Castro (San Antonio), among others.
zhena gogolia
@Geminid: Oh, you made me look. Too bad about Mike Lee. I guess that was a long shot.
Juju
@Major Major Major Major: So she should just stay in the background and help the menfolks?
WaterGirl
@Major Major Major Major: All else isn’t equal when you are taking about a movie star deciding to run for office without any relevant experience.
Juju
@WaterGirl: I live in the south. I’ve heard that one too.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator:
You could make a pretty strong case that donating money to whoever that was was a waste of money.
PaulB
To be honest, it’s easy to see why some reached that conclusion. Of the five major statewide races in Georgia, here were the numbers:
Senator – Warnock: 1,941,769 votes
Gov – Abrams: 1,809,782
SoS – Nguyen: 1,716,302
Lt. Gov – Bailey – 1,811,720
AT – Jordan – 1,822,619
Abrams’ numbers were right in line with the other three non-Senator races. She didn’t under-perform; Warnock over-performed, likely because he was facing a weaker candidate.
TriassicSands
Every seat Democrats can win in either house is important. But if the Democrats can’t hold the Senate in 2024, then Warnock’s seat will matter much less, or not at all, at least until the next cycle.
Sadly, 51 does not allow the Democrats to overcome the Sinema/Manchin obstruction team. Even with 52, I’m not sure Kelly would be on board, since he spent the campaign running away from Biden and Democrats. And there are other potentially questionable Democrats as well on the issue of the filibuster.
As for McConnell, I’d love it, but I don’t see a major revolt coming to turn him out. The blame for the Senate losses is on Trump, not McConnell.
@James E Powell:
I agree somewhat with MMMM’s comments about O’Rourke and Abrams. I didn’t think either had any real chance of winning. But the problem is, who else would have? Beto and Stacey can either move, find a different calling, or give up on the idea of holding statewide office. Both would be much better governors than the people they lost to, but, hey, Georgians might still put Herschel Walker in the Senate. When the electorate is that stupid, there probably isn’t a good Democratic candidate that can ever be assured of winning. Walker is, however, so questionable that Warnock, who is superior in every positive way, could beat him. Sadly, Kemp didn’t give Republicans any good reason to oust him, so Abrams wasn’t likely to do better than she did last time. One thing that may have helped Kemp was his primary against the Trump chump that very few Republicans wanted to be governor.
Our problems remain the same — an ignorant, often stupid electorate and a system with severe anti-democratic features.And despite the hoopla, apparently turnout this year — with democracy and women’s autonomy both on the ballot — was less than in 2018. There are far too many people who should be voting for Democrats, who either aren’t voting or they’re voting for Republicans. You can’t fix stupid.
Immanentize
@Omnes Omnibus: Isn’t it clear that M4 himself would have done better?
Now I have criticized the selection of Terry Mac and Crist as candidates. But that was primarily because those guys were running nostalgia campaigns, not because they ran and lost (or didn’t) before. The new tire is always better than a retread.*
* Do they even sell those anymore? Thank God for Sears actual retreads in my college years.
Major Major Major Major
@Hob:
I think “the New York Times
should fire Brett Stephens or whoever because he sucks” is perfectly cromulent without having to name a replacement.
“NBC should cancel [some terrible sitcom]” is fine even if you don’t say which unproduced pilot they should use to fill the slot.
“We should have more women in boardrooms!”
“Oh yeah? Like who?”
Birdie
@Geminid: this. I’m thankful I don’t work for or with this person. Conditions matter to outcomes. Binary evaluations are extremely limited when determining quality of execution on the things people can control.
PaulB
Sure, but your criticism needs to be based on fact, not on your own personal feelings.
Gov – O’Rourke: 3,544,142
Lt. Gov – Collier: 3,483,758
AG – Garza: 3,483,151
O’Rourke actually did better than the other two candidates for major statewide office.
Another Scott
There was some show rebroadcast on C-SPAN radio this afternoon from an event at Brookings. Norm Ornstein made the huge point – if the Senate is 50:50 then so are the committees and that really slows things down. If Team D has 51:49 then the have more power in the committees and can move things like judges and nominations much more expeditiously.
Every seat matters!!
Forward!!
Cheers,
Scott.
Birdie
@Birdie: also, the right person to make this argument about is Charlie Crist. Why was Abrams the first candidate who came to mind. Implicit bias is insidious and everywhere.
PaulB
Do I really need to point out the obvious? If it’s “everybody,” then the problem is not with us. I’d suggest you take a step back, “touch grass,” and drop this for now.
Major Major Major Major
@PaulB: did he do seventy million dollars better?
Or come close to winning?
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: The pieces fell on my friend’s uncle’s car and he had a bumper sticker from the dealer that said “A Whale of a Deal”!
PaulB
@Major Major Major Major: It depends on what he did with that $70 million. And how much of that $70 million also helped out those other candidates. None of which you have any idea about.
Just stop; you’ve already done yourself enough damage with this thread. It’s long past time for you to move on.
And with that, I’m going to take my own advice and withdraw. Feel free to have the last word.
Ivan X
@Major Major Major Major: Keep digging.
Dan B
@Immanentize: I believe retread is illegal due to many catastrophic failures. BTW my father worked in a factory in Arkansas that made retread – the material made for retreading tires. He never had tires retreaded.
Steeplejack
@Cacti:
I read the other day that at age 70 I’m older than 85% of the U.S. population. That’s a lot of people to get off my lawn.
Major Major Major Major
@Birdie: gosh why would Abrams have come up in the comments to a post about Georgia. Total mystery, must be something nefarious.
kalakal
I have a feeling and though I may be channeling my inner Pollyanna here I’m going with it that the party that is in trouble after these elections is the GOP.
This should have been a perfect storm for them.
Midterms against a relatively unpopular president whose considerable achievements have been obscured by GOP smears and MSM stooges. A partisan judiciary with its fingers on the scales so hard that masked goons with AR15s at drop off boxes isn’t seen as a problem. Poll workers quitting after death threats.
Billionaires pouring money into the propaganda campaigns, whipping astro turf movements and panics over made up issues CRT? Defund the police?
An robust economy portrayed by the MSM as on the verge of collapse, ditto ending a forever war.
Decades of gerrymandering & voter suppression and yet…
we held firm. Could it have been better? of course but we are going to pick up a senate seat, Michigan has kicked the bastards in the crotch at all local levels, secretary of state & governor pickups across the nation. All abortion ballots went our way. Election denying candidates nearly all lost. With the senate Biden still gets to appoint judges
The Gop are going into a civil war over TFG. Even if they get a small majority in the house their fruitcakes are going to make our problems with Manchin & Sinema look like nothing. Sadly Dobbs will take it’s tragic toll, they got punished for that vileness last week and will be in the next election even more. Putin isn’t going to be around to ratfuck.
As was pointed out above voters under 30 cancelled out voters over 65, by 2024 there will be 7 million less voters over 65 and 9 million more under 30.
Not only was the Red Wave a Ripple, it may very well have been the Crest.
Geminid
@NotMax: He would be a good ambassador to Mexico. Although I think Ken Salazar has the job now and I expect he’s good at it.
But O’Rourke would make a good ambassador to other countries, too I think. And maybe his successor as El Paso Rep, Veronica Escobar, will take a shot at higher office and O’Rourke will take her place. Escobar and O’Rourke are long time political allies (see #203 above).
eclare
@raven: Wow! Too funny, hopefully not much damage.
Suzanne
@Major Major Major Major: I’m with you on this. I don’t think Abrams is a great candidate, either. That’s not to say that she isn’t smart or capable of good governance. But when I hear her speak, she has this sort of lecturing tone, and she sort of…..talks around stuff? I don’t know how else to describe it. It feels a bit disingenuous to me. A bit off-putting. I told Mr. Suzanne that she kind of sounds like a high school guidance counselor.
Beto, I think, is better. But he’ll never win in Texas. Texas isn’t electing any Democrats, no matter how good they are. But Georgia is.
eclare
@kalakal: I like this take! And I think we will win NV and GA. If we lose the House, I don’t think most voters will like seeing Gym Jordan on tv 24/7 with inane investigations.
dww44
@Omnes Omnibus: this take that Abrams is not a good candidate… how did this become a meme when a couple years ago she was described as a rare political talen? And that was according to LGM when this time she’s a weak political candidate who will only drag on Warnock.
I say bah humbug. She’s the sort of candidate Hillary was… smart, focused, and full of ideas. Her problem was racism compounded by misogyny.
Cacti
@Major Major Major Major: You’ve upset the hivemind. My condolences.
Skepticat
Georgia matters not only for party seat numbers but also very much for IQ numbers. We already are suffering from some of the most addled “senators” and “reps” this country ever has been afflicted with. I cannot believe how disgustingly low Walker would bring the average.
NotMax
@Geminis
Shift the seasoned Salazar to Brazil?
Evap
If we do manage to keep the House, is there any chance of statehood for PR and/or DC in the next two years?
Dan B
@kalakal: It was a pink tinkle.
different-church-lady
@Geminid: He would make a good governor or senator too. The problem lies in convincing more voters in Texas of that.
TriassicSands
@WaterGirl:
I don’t think that pointing out that candidates had little chance of winning is synonymous with “trashing” them. However, I definitely believe that it’s important for Democrats to give voters good (or better) candidates to vote for — win or lose. Both O’Rourke and Abrams were better Democratic candidates than quite a few other Democrats who ran this year. I listened to Mark Kelly go on and on about Biden and Democrats and not in a good way. Yes, candidates have to be realistic to win in the states and districts in which they run, but Kelly didn’t sound much like a Democrat to me in the clips I heard. His comments seemed especially targeted at anti-immigration Independents and “moderate” Republicans.
In the end, every elected Democrat will caucus with the Democrats and vote for a Democrat to lead their House. Or, like Ben Nighthorse Campbell, they will suddenly, miraculously discover that they really are Republicans and switch parties. Happily, that is rare. Manchin and Sinema, as loathsome as they often are, give the Democrats the majority in the Senate.
We’re never going to win in some states until the quality of our electorate improves significantly. Alas, I don’t see that happening. The trend seems to be the other way. But the quality of our candidates could often be better — case in point, Crist in Florida. But no Democrat was going to beat DeSantis this year, so putting up a great Democrat for governor would have been a waste. Look what happened to Val Demmings against world-class mediocrity Rubio.
NotMax
@Evap
Nope. Much higher priorities take precedence.
And the assumption that Puerto Rico will elect Ds stands on shaky ground. The major parties in Puerto Rico are not doppelgangers of the major U.S. parties.
Suzanne
@dww44:
I actually don’t think HRC was ever a great “candidate”. I think she was — and would have been — excellent in leadership roles. She’s a good listener, she knows how to use the institutions of governance to affect change.
But candidacy isn’t a bit of a different thing, yeah? It requires a different kind of communication skill. You know who I think is great at that part of the job? AOC, Secretary Pete, Katie Porter. And of course, BHO.
Geminid
@Squid696: I have a hunch that Cruz won’t run for reelection, but run for President instead. He’ll lose, but then he can make the big bucks in private law practice, maybe for a big Houston outfit. Ex-Senators are valuable to such law firms.
Cruz wouldn’t be a shoo-in as a Senate candidate and like you say, he might face a tough primary. I’ve read that Rep. Dan Crenshaw wants a shot at him, and there could be others. Cruz may not be that popular in Texas any more.
Juju
@Major Major Major Major: My point is minority men and women candidates are going to lose races whether it’s a good idea or not, is because it’s not completely normalized as a concept yet. The fact that you think Stacey Abrams is a bad candidate because she lost shows we are getting there. You need to pay more attention to our history. This sort of change takes a long time
kalakal
@TriassicSands:
That one shocked me, Crist ran a better campaign than I expected but I was always pessimistic, Demmings though I thought had a really good chance. I guess DeSantis had really good coat tails.
TriassicSands
@dww44:
I think it is less a question of how good a candidate Abrams is than how bad the Georgia electorate is.
Warnock, a fine candidate, if he wins again will have won in two unusual elections. In 2020, he was undoubtedly helped by having Trump on the ticket and just enough people were sick of Trump to help Warnock win.
This year, Warnock is running against arguably the worst, most unqualified, dumbest, most dishonest Senate candidate imaginable. But he’s barely ahead. The problem in Geogia, as it is across the country, is the quality of the electorate.
Had the Republicans nominated someone different in PA, Fetterman might have lost. But they let Trump choose a snake-oil salesman with meager PA credentials.
raven
@eclare: It was totaled but that was a long time ago.
Another Scott
Haven’t read the full thread yet. But…
Another thing that someone pointed out at the Brookings thing mentioned above – candidates often wait too long. And we know that races often turn on things way outside the candidate’s control (e.g. Ann Richards picking up votes because Williams wouldn’t shake her hand).
Women have it very hard – minority women even harder. Pioneers get the arrows, but pave the way for the people who follow. Maybe Abrams will have a door open the way that Warren did after Moscow Mitch kept her out of the CFPB – we don’t know.
dick_nixon said before that Beto should write a book on Ann Richards and go all over the state talking about it. I’m not a fan of “one weird trick”, but finding a non-political way to stay in people’s minds is important after a loss.
They’re smart, they’re young, they have a lot to offer and will have a positive impact even if they never win elected office again. Life isn’t linear. Yeah, losses suck, but what matters is how we learn from them.
Cheers,
Scott.
catclub
@TriassicSands:
Yes, I continue to think that Kemp voters dragged walker into that runoff. And Kemp is not on the runoff ballot.
A Good Woman
@WaterGirl:
Yeah, however this post is worth sharing with my network, which includes many people who don’t tune in to political stuff as much as I do and rely on nuggets I find in my internet wanderings.
The detail on the seats up in ’24 caught my eye. Cruz and Hawley getting kicked to the curb, among many others, is my dream.
Geminid
@kalakal: DeSantis had some ungodly amount of money to spend in Florida’s expensive media markets. I think he had as much as $200 million going into the summer. Some of that was bound to help Rubio, who had his own money too.
janesays
@MobiusKlein: Rick Scott, the Republican U.S. senator who represents the same state where the Republican governor and the other Republican U.S. senator both just won their re-election races by more than 15 points each in an election cycle that was otherwise hugely successful for Democrats?
That Rick Scott?
catclub
@Another Scott:
My wife asked “what the heck job does Beto do outside of run for office?”
TriassicSands
@kalakal:
The NY Times ran a discussion among Florida voters. Even some of the self-proclaimed “progressives” were positively inclined toward DeSantis. And that points to what I think is the real problem in this country — the quality of our electorate. Levels of misinformation and ignorance run high even among Democratic voters.
Juju
@Another Scott: oh wow! I did not know that. That’s a very good point indeed.
janesays
@BCHS Class of 1980: I think this is spot-on. Securing our 50th vote with CCM’s re-election in NV will seriously weaken Republican enthusiasm for the GA runoff, because they’ll know that a Walker win won’t change the fact that Schumer is still gonna be Majority Leader in the next congress.
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major:
Even having this candidate on the ballot may have helped increase turnout for other, more competitive races.
And unless you have a time machine or crystal ball, you cannot always know which races are sure things. You know, like that red wave that everyone knew was coming.
Suzanne
@TriassicSands:
AKA people suck. True.
This is why I can never run for office. I just think there’s too many stupid people and I don’t feel like persuading them that hard.
NotMax
@catclub
No way is Walker going to keep his yap shut. Which, every time he spouts, incrementally works to Warnock’s advantage (even if not adding numerically in Warnock’s favor, in discouraging voters from choosing Walker).
lowtechcyclist
@MobiusKlein:
Yeah, I was looking at the 2024 Senate map a day or two ago, and that was what jumped out at me right away: essentially no pickup opportunities, and we have to expect to lose WV, as Cole said.
So if we want 50+VP in 2025 when we hope to win back the House, we need to win Georgia right now.
And then we’ll need to hang onto everything besides WV in 2024, but we can worry about that later. Right now, Georgia.
zhena gogolia
@kalakal: Good summary.
Geminid
@TriassicSands: Georgia Republicans will try to convince their voters that they are not voting for Walker so much as voting against Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden. They may toss Elizabeth Warren and “AOC” in too. This so called “negative partisanship” is the Republican party’s best weapon now, maybe their only good one
zhena gogolia
@Dan B: I think that’s a symptom of a kidney stone.
kalakal
@Geminid: I’m sure you’re right, it wasn’t just Rubio winning, it was the margin that really shocked me. However no matter how many billionaires throw money at the GQP they can’t do that everywhere.
@TriassicSands: I didn’t see that article but it fits with a few conversations I’ve had. I cannot see how anyone can find anything ‘positive’ about DeSantis
janesays
@Grumpy Old Railroader: Don’t count your chickens on that one. Grassley just getting re-elected to his EIGHTH term may have given her all the motivation she needs to go for one more, even though she’ll be literally 9,842 years old in 2024.
WaterGirl
@Dan B: LOL.
kalakal
@janesays: or about 0.2 of a Keef
Juju
@kalakal: I believe the voter fraud squads scared a lot of people and kept them from voting, as they were meant to do. If you think a squad is going to come to your front door to arrest you for voting, when you’ve been told it was ok to vote, you might think twice before voting as well.
WaterGirl
@TriassicSands: You’ll notice that my “trashing” comment was not a reply to M4, but rather a general statement of my opinion.
janesays
@Omnes Omnibus: I think there were only about 4 seats in play with incumbents running that were genuinely competitive: AZ, GA, NV, and WI. Neither Florida nor Iowa were ever really competitive, even if we wanted to believe otherwise. There were three competitive open seats (PA, OH, NC), and only one of them was flipped, thankfully to us. Ohio was only slightly competitive because we had a really good candidate and they had a really terrible candidate. It would have been a double-digit blowout for the GOP if Portman had run for re-election. The state of Ohio is what it is – Missouri, circa 2012.
kalakal
@Juju: I fully agree. And he made sure they were all over the news. There was nothing subtle about that threat
lowtechcyclist
@danielx:
But the truth is, the Dems didn’t back them. They attacked them – but in ways that made them more attractive to MAGAts, while getting a head start in the general election messaging against them. Brilliant, actually.
And yeah, McMegan is an idiot. I found out about that piece when someone linked to it without naming the author. When I saw the byline, I laughed and killed that tab.
Elizabelle
@kalakal: I like your post, and agree with it. The world needs more optimists. Pragmatic optimists.
May well have been. Often, you do not know for some time. We can hope.
prostratedragon
@kalakal: Now that’s my kind of talk.
TriassicSands
@WaterGirl:
I realize that, but there were other comments to that effect. I replied to your comment, but my point was more general. I think there may be too little objective criticism of Democratic candidates here at BJ. Criticism, right or wrong, may get people to think.
lowtechcyclist
@zhena gogolia:
Indeed. And then I follow that up with his Christmas 1992 pardon of the entire Iran-Contra gang.
TriassicSands
@WaterGirl:
I realize that, but there were other comments to that effect. I replied to your comment, but my point was more general. I think there may be too little objective criticism of Democratic candidates here at BJ. Criticism, right or wrong, may get people to think.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: One number that interested me was the 25% I got when I subtracted the 43% of young Latino voters who identified as Democrats from the 68% total who voted for Democratic Congressional candidates. Some people here like to slag on Independents, but like it or not they’re here and they can be a valuable component of the Democratic electoral coalition.
And over time I think that many of these unaffiliated Latinos under 30 will be identifying as Democrats when they 40. Not that I care how they identify, so long as they keep voting for Democrats.
Miss Bianca
@Major Major Major Major: You do remember Polis *had* national exposure, right? He was a US Representative for CD-2, as I recall. Wanted to come back to Colorado because he didn’t want to raise his kids in DC, was the message I got.
Maybe he’ll change his mind after Governorship, maybe not.
TriassicSands
@Geminid:
And that is true. Increasingly, we’re more like a parliamentary system. No matter how “moderate” a Republican candidate is, he or she will caucus with Republicans and the Trump/McConnell agenda will prevail. So, electing any Republican to national office is a vote for authoritarianism. Things are not any better in most red states.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: And the candidates this tactic was used against were going to win their primaries anyway. Doug Mastriano won his Pennsylvania primary easily, and so did Peter Meijer’s opponent in Michigan. Meijar did not do any worse in his primary than did fellow Impeachers Tom Rice (SC), Liz Cheney (WY) and Jaime Herrera Butler (WA), and Democrats did not spend a dime in thier primaries. Like you said, Democrats just got their licks in early, and I think the poutrage I’m seeing from Republicans and dirtbag lefties is faked.
TriassicSands
John listed the Democratic senators up for re-election in 2024. If you want to see something horrifying, check out the ages of those senators. Many, most probably, should not run again. I’m old, now, and I value experience, but once people pass 70 their fates are becoming increasingly iffy. I’ve voted for and donated money to Patty Murray every election I’ve lived in WA (that’s 5 of her 6 terms), but she’s 72 now, which means she’ll be 78 when this next term is over. I hope she puts in a couple more good years and retires and lets Inslee appoint her successor. That would give that person the advantage of incumbency in 2030. Diane Feinstein has become an embarrassment (and never was that good).
70-80 year old candidates are not likely to be very attractive in the minds of younger voters whom we desperately need. On the other hand, the Post recently suggested AOC as a candidate for president in 2024. She will have just reached 35 and have only a few terms as a representative, which is never a good place from which to launch a presidential campaign. That isn’t a credible candidate to me, no matter what I think of her politics.
I don’t expect Trump to be the Republican candidate and I doubt Biden will be able to beat the eventual fascist nominee. He is widely seen as too old. Reality doesn’t matter. Perception does. The majority of Democrats don’t want him to run, and I agree. I’ve been focusing more and more on Governor Whitmer in the past year. Her main, and so far only, drawback is that she is a woman in a country with a sexist electorate. But Clinton did win the popular vote and Whitmer could be a much more attractive candidate than HRC was, without Hillary’s baggage. Time will tell.
Wyatt Salamanca
McConnell was Trump’s number 1 enabler which makes him evil incarnate in my book, so I agree with Cole on the need to move Heaven and Earth to get Warnock over the finish line. I want McConnell to be as miserable as possible for the remainder of his term in the Senate.
Walker is the complete antithesis of Warnock. He’s an indecent, breathtakingly stupid person incapable of expressing a single intelligent or coherent thought. I’ll never forget his joint appearance on Hannity’s show with Lindsey Graham where he wasn’t allowed to say a single word because even Hannity and Graham understood that he’s a fucking moron.
zhena gogolia
@TriassicSands: Governor Whitmer would go down in flames in a national race.
Biden is the strongest candidate.
ETA: The idea that Whitmer would have as much success as Hillary Clinton is insane.
TriassicSands
@zhena gogolia:
We’ll just have to agree to disagree.
dww44
@Baud: thanks for pointing this out. What others are missing, in my opinion, is that the Democratic Party in Georgia is not strong because it holds no actual power at the state level. What power it has is attributable to African Americans. They are the state party. So, Stacey earned the right to run again.
Al Rennick
@zhena gogolia:
You’re dead wrong on both counts. Any Republican other than Trump would destroy Biden on a debate stage. His debating skills are horrible and he’d be a massive liability in 2024.
Miss Bianca
@WaterGirl: BRING IT, GEN Z!
Miss Bianca
@kalakal: Wow, I feel like copying that out in its entirety and quoting it to anyone who tells me that they’re disappointed with the election results.
Now I think we need to keep our attention laser-focused on Gen Z, a). because they voted and if we keep them voting Democratic I will die happy;
b). Because anything that helps the 18-29 year-old cohort helps out *everyone*, in the long run.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@zhena gogolia: No idea, but he would win.
GibberJack
I gave Sen. Warnock $50 a few days ago via Four Directions (heh almost typed Four Seasons!), and I donated to his first election campaign.
I don’t live in GA I just like the man, and I know he’s good for Dems.
GibberJack
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Barnes is Black. Outside of Milwaukee and Madison that matters a lot.
GibberJack
Looking at that list of dem seats up for reelection, and the repub seats, I realize we only have 2 years to get any shit done before it becomes even harder. And NY hamstrung us.
On the other hand dems did better than almost anyone thought they would, me included.
But NY dem politics…the spawn pit of Donald Trump <makes the sign of the horns>.
TheronWare
Democrats keep control of Senate!!
jefft452
@Major Major Major Major: “Tim Ryan was a much better use of money than Beto or Abrams or any of the other candidates I’ve named”
Why? Isnt he a “celebrity loser” too? And why do you think extra cash would have changed the result?
GibberJack
@Cacti: I would vote for Whitmer over Harris. I have a much better sense of what Whitmer is made of, and I like it.
WaterGirl
@Al Rennick: Oh, you again.