By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Let me get the pain out of the way right away and make my call: Republicans keep the Senate; Democrats win the House, with a margin closer to 23 than 30. There. I’ll explain my reasoning on the House, such as it is, in a bit. On the Senate, I’m just going with conventional wisdom. But first, via USA Today, polls that have not yet closed, as of 9:00PM EST:
Alaska: 8 p.m. (midnight and 1 a.m. Wednesday EST))
California: 8 p.m. (11 p.m. EST)
Montana: 8 p.m. (10 p.m. EST)
Nevada: 7 p.m. (10 p.m. EST)
Oregon: All voting is done by mail and must be received by 8 p.m. (11 p.m. EST)
Utah: 8 p.m. (10 p.m. EST)
Washington state: All voting is done by mail, and ballots must be received by 8 p.m. (11 p.m. EST)
So those of you in the above states who wish to vote and have not, there’s still time!
Now, we might ask ourselves what we’re going to get out of all this, should the Democrats win the House (or even the House and the Senate). This question interests me far more than the horserace, and I believe that I’ve shown the answer: “Not much.” This is true for at least two reasons: First, as I have shown, 2018’s left hasn’t got enough institutional power to force the Democrat Party to change direction; indeed, all signs point to a reactionary liberal Democrat desiire for restoration of the November 7, 2016 status quo ante ancien regime (perhaps with an admixture of new faces, as aspirational identity politicians assume new positions). This is clearly true if you make #MedicareForAll your litmus test on policy. Second, as I have shown, the composition of Democrat candidates in key districts is heavily weighted (25%) toward MILOs (Military, Intelligence, Law Enforcement, Other). Further militarizing the Democrat Party says nothing good about policy, domestic or foreign. Now, as usual given the choices on offer, gridlock is our friend, so there’s nothing wrong with Democrats controlling the House; but as far as using or even reconceptualizing government to convey universal concrete material benefits, especially to the working class…. Well, we won’t be seeing anything like that, thank you very much. Which is unfortunate, because if you wanted to arrest the country’s decades-long rightward slide, that would be the way to do it. See under Roosevelt, Franklin Delano.
So, on the House: Why do I think the Democrats will win, with a margin closer to 23 than 30? I should start by saying that I have a lot less confidence this year than I did in 2016. That’s because the data is awful. There’s plenty of national polling (“the generic ballot”) but the House races are fought out in the districts, not nationally. District polling is much harder to come by. The New York Times” Nate Cohn did a heroic job of trying to make up for this, but if you look at his margins of error, you’ll see they’re enormous, so while his polling is good directionally, it’s not at all clear how useful it is for any given race. (There also seems to be a general erosion of phone polling as a form; people don’t pick up any more, and those who do — I would urge — are almost by definition not representative.) And Cohn’s effort is, by definition, “just one poll.” Unfortunately, in many cases, that’s all we have. But nobody should ever get excited about just one poll. There is also a ton of anecdotal evidence on excitement, but it’s not clear to me that those who are excited have broken out of their own bubbles. Excitement is said to lead to turnout, and turnout generically seems to be up, but again we need to know where. If the Democrats simply rack up votes in districts they’d win anyhow, increased turnout is meaningless. Early voting is up to, but early voters tend to be affluent, so that doesn’t necessarily help Democrats.
Subjectively, then, because the data is awful, the key point seems to me to be that the Republicans have so many districts to defend that the Democrats are bound to break through in enough of them to take control. (This is in great contrast to the triumphalism of the summer, where talk of 40 or 50 seats was common. Still, if it brought in the big bucks from donors, the triumphalism was worth it!) Why do I say the Democrat margin will be on the low side?
First, we’ve seen districts turning more blue in polling. That’s not the same as having turned blue; bluer is not blue. (Again, Democrats can win. But can these Democrats — a “big tent” party that is institutionally incapable of adopting any principle at all, other than markets — win? That remains to be seen.) We also don’t know how the bombings and shootings affected voters; these “October surprises” were too close to election day.
Second, adopting for a moment the liberal Democrat frame of the “coalition of the ascendant,” and going through the canonical identities in grossly nationalized, insensitive-to-district form: Blacks (?): Probably better than 2016. Wealthy white suburban women (?): Will Republican women really go for the liberal? I’m guessing many, but not as many as Democrats would like to believe. Hispanics (?): Consistent turnout problems, reported this cycle. Youth (?): Even more consistent turnout problems, also reported this cycle. I know there’s a ton of anecdotes from canvassing, but the difficulty is that everybody, but everybody, is talking their book. (This makes sense, because there are billions of dollars being spent, and a lot of careers at stake.) If all of those thumbs were up, I’d be saying Democrat margins would be on the high side. Since they aren’t, I’m going for the low side. Finally, I should note that there’s an alternative narrative sneaking up on the outside: Democrats can actually appeal to rural votes from the left, as in Golden (ME-02) and Scholten (IA-04). The Great Slate has been working that ground. If Golden and Scholten make it, I’d expect that narrative to be drowned out, at least initially, but we’re all in this for the long haul.
So that, for what it’s worth, is a summary of my reasoning. We’ll know quite shortly whether it survives contact with reality! (Though I note that Larry Sabato and Stuart Rothenberg — they had the grace to make the call and not hedge, unlike the more PoMo handicappers — come out in more or less the same place, so at least I’m not crazy.)
And now let’s sit back and enjoy the evening, and watch the voters prove everybody wrong including me, as they so often do. Talk amongst yourselves until I arrive in an hour or two. Who’s got a drinking game?
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I’d like that awful chud Scott in FL to lose, but otherwise the above opening salvo is spot on.
Sorry about this folks, but waking up here in the Middle East, it is tough to see anything but the GOP winning the House and Sneate.
Bankers
Sorry but extreme swearing is not allowed on this site! NC policy.
Haha
I feel like im in trouble for swearing so much.
I have no prob droppin the B bomb!
I’m despondent to be incorrect above. I’m a registered document who wanted to see the Democrats lose the House. I don’t see another way to get them to abandon their pro-war pro-corporate fascist agenda than a long string of devastating losses. This would cause the donor money to be turned off, which is the only chance they have to win.
I voted for Palpatine over Voldemort. Whee!
I’d love a state-wide politician that ‘sheepdogs’ like Bernie.
$3 billion pissed away – and that’s just the Democrats. A mini-majority for the Democrats in the House will be a nightmare since all it will take is a handful of turncoats to pass Republican bills.
Also: What happens to those dozen or so Victorious Democrats who vowed to never vote for Nancy Pelosi as Speaker? Could get ugly fast.
well it may not be good as some R bills may get passed, but it is no worse nightmare than we are already living with full R control. Unfortunately they still have it for a few more months, and I expect some damage there.
I’ve got a bad feeling about this…
After so many days of “X is a long time in politics” it’s exciting that we’re finally here! One clarification on Oregon: you don’t have to send your ballot through the mail. It’s an option, but you can also drive it to the local election center and hand deliver it (in which case, no stamp required).
Same in Washington, but if you do mail it no stamp required.
At this point, you HAVE to drop your ballot in one of the many boxes provided. Postmarks don’t count. Check your county’s elections site, if you’ve left it this long. I dropped mine and my son’s this afternoon.
In Washington, the requirement is postmarked by election day.
727 days is a long time in politics….
Doh! And this time we get the Democrat version of the whole clown car circus show.
You’re lucky. At least you were able to get a ballot to mail in.
My attempt to do so failed here in this oblivious state of New Mexico, as I mentioned about a week ago on here. (The pre-addressed postage-paid return envelope that was included with my application for an absentee ballot from the 501c4 private company had the wrong[old]address on it for the county clerks ofc so was returned to me a week later as “undeliverable”).
I once again called ‘my’ news reporter guy & asked if they were going to do a story on this ‘voter suppression’ as I’d sent him all the proof & he’d seemed eager to follow up.
No. Apparently his editor didn’t want to pursue it. *heavy sigh*
I had sent the same proof to the Dem candidate I met who was running for the House.
I received no reply.
From what I’m seeing many, many races are extremely close.
After my experience, I’m even more leery of the numbers coming from electronic voting machines, as I trust them even less than those sending out the ballots.
Why do I have this ominous feeling there’s someone ‘pulling the strings’ on those machines to make the races seem legit?
Is my older age causing my cynicism, or is it the wisdom I’ve now gained over the years? (I tend to believe it’s the latter).
Either way, I am in full agreement with Lambert that we need paper ballots & a way to keep the count honest.
The news that barcoding ballots–so NO ONE can actually read them–as the ‘latest, greatest’ idea, leads me to believe we’ve gone over the abyss in regards to any honesty within our voting process.
The good news of my evening is that the Native American woman in the next district (whom I liked & is for Medicare for All) appears to have won in her run for the House.
The candidate for House in my district is neck & neck with her opponent as the numbers continue to roll in…
I think they were tuning the results for plausibility as far back as 2004. There was statistical evidence in the OH results, IIRC.
Crittermom Get in touch with Greg Palast. Check out his work, certainly not mentioned at all in mainstream media. He’s currently the reason that Stacey Abrams has not conceded. The voter suppression through Crosscheck, run by Koback, just ousted in his race for governor is rampant. Control the vote, control the outcome.
Three stars for dredging Greg Palast’s work, Etoile.
It sparked a neuron or two and I recalled an even older purveyor:
“voter suppression” site:bradblog.com
It’s like info about voter suppression has been suppressed…
Thanks for hosting, I’ll be following along halfheartedly. I hopped on liberal twitter (I’m subscribed to liberal twitter as a consequence of mostly following tech things) and people are approaching today like it’s D-Day. Not so sure about that.
I like the early Beto lead though, Cruz losing an election would really make my week.
Pile up votes in blue venues but fail to go broader, the downside of demographic inevitability without concrete material benefits. My humble opinion.
How true !!
Maybe noone really cares that much about concrete material benefits. It often seems so, I mean even when people have a choice of a more liberal politician they DON”T vote for them over a neoliberal Dem (well assuming they got a vote and it was counted, maybe more than we should assume). But if so how else to explain that other than a victory for the status quo? How to explain that the Dems that win are almost Republicans and the furthest thing from Sander’s wing.
What “liberal politician” ran on any kind of platform that included concrete material benefits?
Other than AOC, there weren’t any. It was all mushy, focus-grouped language about “fighting for eligible, responsible working families”.
I think things will be lower for the Democrats than expected because of voter suppression, outright election fraud and e-vote flipping (see fraud).
They were warned more than a decade ago that this was where things were going but either didn’t care or couldn’t be bothered.
So whose coverage is everyone watching tonight? I’ve settled on CNN (bleh) – MSNBC and Fox are just too much.
The WSJ has a decent site, can’t watch the tube.
https://www.wsj.com/graphics/midterm-elections-2018-results/?mod=Election2018_Banner
Thanks for the link. I’m going Tube + WSJ site now. The tube provides nice background noise if you play it like MST3K.
Refreshing google and this page every few minutes while I play video games.
CNN is awful. Is Wolf Blitzer paid by the DCCC?
Wolf Blitzer is an abomination. He must have something on TPTB on CNN.
Wolf’s a 700 Club alum, so he can be counted to say and push repulsive lines.
Young Turks is also covering the election, and Democracy Now! + The Intercept:
TYT just announced that Fox called the House for Dems.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0DUJLc52Kw
https://theintercept.com/2018/11/01/live-midterm-election-night-2018-coverage-with-democracy-now-the-intercept/
This is great!
Also Axios has a map, good for a quick state-of-play overview. Also has governor’s races:
https://www.axios.com/live-map-axios-2018-midterm-elections-results-e54da558-b5e9-4b09-ad1e-5663cc78f1b7.html
Thanks for the reminder of the Young Turks, Yves, although they got rid of Jimmy Dore quickly–real dissent is not an option.
Democracy Now is collaborating with the Intercept on election night reporting. Better than CNN!
something to watch, once we get California #’s: there are two or three Greens who made the runoff in the Congressional race. One, in particular, is touted as having a chance – Rodolfo something. Did anyone else post the Jimmy Dore interview with Jill Stein that talks about this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHR5a_1XtUM&t=15s (prefaced by an ad.) Even one Green in Congress would be a major overturn – unlikely as it seems.
Rodolfo Cortes Barragan, running in CA-40 as a Green against legacy Dem Roybal-Allard (25 year incumbent). He was on a panel at the recent MMT conference: very impressive young man. I donated from a distance.
mle detroit thanks for donating. roybal’s been at the public trough for decades, although her dad ed roybal was pretty progressive at the time, i think he made the city council around 1950. this was not too long after the zoot suit ‘riots’ which was US servicement beating up mexican teenagers. too bad she won in a landslide but nevertheless barragan a good sign.
PBS on the TV, NYT and local newspaper on the laptop.
Sounds about right …
#AOC is in!
Good!
Good, I guess, but hardly a surprise in a deep blue district in a deep blue state. The republican running (was there one?) was just a token. But here we have it, people, the question is what *kind* of Dem just got elected? AOC, please, don’t let us down!
Although we are used to it.
Kris Kobach, election thief….LOSES in KS!!!! That’s nice!!!
#HellzYeah ??
Whoa, that is “totally lovely”!!! G’bye, Mr. Kobach!
But you know he’s gonna get a cushy job in the current admin…
What’s the matter with Kansas? Oh wait Kansas votes Democratic, never mind. The problem is the states voting R on largely cultural issues.
AOC will be the new Oprah—jes kidding.
I actually think she will be a strong voice.
Governorships in CO and KS go to Dems.
#TheZodiacIsBack … #Cruz
Interesting. MSNBC calling races that CNN isn’t …
#KillMeNow
Ranking member of Ways and Means Committee intends to …
” … request President’s tax returns.”
Seeing lots of #BarbaraLeeForSpeaker on #Twitter … is there any chance Pelosi would be challenged?!!
Interestingly, AOC looks like she’ll just about break the 100K vote mark. Crowley couldn’t do that in a midterm year, he got 70K in 2010 and 50K in 2014. He did get 120K and 140K during presidential years.
Mobilize your base!
Not a new observation, but ay-yi-yi is the MSM coverage awful. I watched a bit of NBC, until they brought on Chuck Todd. Switched to CBS, but they seem to like to have Democratic (all Democratic) consultants as guests. Fox has all the Team-R consultants?
In talking about the “first vote in xx years” numbers, one said “voting is a habit”. Really? Something people do once a year, or more likely once every other year is not enough repetition to form a habit. And then there was was the constant praise of the MILO candidates (although their proof that “it was not a wave” was that the MILO candidates weren’t doing well). I for one am happy the dogs won’t eat the dogfood. Then there was the constant talk about how the Democrats ran on healthcare (not really, and except when they didn’t), and how it was all down to the suburban women “(and the Kavanaugh effect).
Surprises so far–Donna Shalala winning (speaking of dogfood), and Beto O’Rourke winning (although Ted Cruz is repulsive). So maybe the midterm lesson is *still* that candidates matter. But we shall se
Beto is not a shoe in just yet.
Yup, tightening by the minute. And the counties that haven’t reported don’t look promising. Looks like I jumped the gun on that one.
Not that Beto is a progressive–but he is charismatic and Ted Cruz is, well, Ted Cruz.
El Paso – Beto’s hometown – is in Mountain Time Zone, so polls there close an hour later than the rest of TX.
Of note: SO glad to see Barbara Comstock go down in No. Va.
It’s a tight lace.
Let me get the pain out of the way right away and make my call: Republicans keep the Senate; Democrats win the House, with a margin closer to 23 than 30
OHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
I live in FL, and the thought of that assclown Desantis being Gov is chilling. Who are my fellow FL residents? I don’t see how anyone could vote for him after the debates. He became Kavanaugh style unhinged when asked a simple question…and the racism thinga ma gib
Worst thing is DJT will take credit for it. I’m moving…
Hunter S.Thompson lived in FL for a few years…..
““Successful con men are treated with considerable respect in the South. A good slice of the settler population of that region were men who’d been given a choice between being shipped off to the New World in leg-irons and spending the rest of their lives in English prisons.”
Scott defrauded Medicaid. Buck up. And now Voldemort’s got another 6 years in the world’s most exclusive club.
I’m getting bored with showing up for 48.9 vs 48.97 elections. At least Meeks gave us a blowout.
Sell your property to a ManMade Global Warming denier. Its the civilized thing to do.
Whether Gillum barely loses or wins his gubernatorial race, you have to conclude that racism is strong in Florida. For Ron “the racists think he’s a racist” Desantis to pull 49, 50 percent of the vote, a vote percentage larger than David Duke’s 40 percent in LA in the early 90’s, you would think that there was much straight line white nationalist identification in the vote. What does he give White Floridians in sound public policy outside of ratifying their racism?
I’m curious as to how the latino vote is breaking in this race considering his attitudes on race and immigration. In many elections latinos go republican for the social issues and alleged stronger identification with the white population against the black one. Will that continue even with the virulent attitudes against immigration?
He’s a total racist, just like his adopted father DJT
The problem with Hispanics voters and immigration as a concern is they are citizens. Its like women who vote Republican despite Republican positions on abortion, but most women aren’t getting abortions in the coming year or have had them in the previous year.
“Irish need not apply” type environments led to guys like Bill O’Reilly. Just because someone speaks Spanish doesn’t mean they will be enlightened. George W. Bush did well with young non-Cuban Hispanics in Florida in 2000.
Yes, its somewhat trendy to have a non-white back ground (ex. Liz Warren), but there is a huge difference between being black and being not black or “white” in this country. ICE might be an issue locally in how it affects Hispanic voters, but its not the same shared experience as the black experience which besides slavery and Jim Crow also included significant periods of prosperity during both World Wars (especially World War I) when their labor importance jumped. Losing their new found status quite rapidly was important especially maybe for blacks who thought they were free of the South. The Depression and World War II pushed back African American organizing and discussion about their place in the U.S., but unless those immigrants become voters, it just won’t be the same as chattel slavery.
This prediction has been made, but the African American vote swung decisively in 1932 to the Democrats. One of those Presidents who used his initials prominently was elected, so its possible that helped.
Alan (?) Nairn just made the case in the Intercept/Democracy Now election coverage that the problem is the Democratic Party. He makes the point that a progressive policy, broadening the enfranchisement to include felons, won by a landslide but Gillum suffers from the party not really supporting him.
Same deal with them not supporting Ben Jealous and pouring $$ into supporting worse candidates in other states.
So it’s not just racism, there are several dimensions to those in power not wanting to let others in.
Looking at you, Nancy Pelosi
Just now, Nairn observed that in 2016 Trump appealed to anti-elite and racist sentiments.
In 2018 he just appealed to racism.
Many toxic 2020 aspirants tried to attach themselves to Gillum and drug him down instead of lifting themselves up. It was rather blatant how the establishment try to rebuild it’s political power by attaching to young POC in 2018, that may be a factor in FL and elsewhere.
Also, identarian Democrats do not really understand that non WASP can also be racist so staying silent on policy does not work.
A final note, Chuck Schumer carrying water for Trump with his intentionally weak leadership really destroyed the Senate Democrats.
Laura Kelly won the KS gubernatorial race over neo-con cro-mag Kobach w/o the Democratic Establishment support. Maybe the Democratic Establishment didn’t want her to win as well as Gillum, but voter rationality won out, unlike the racism in FL that allowed a candidate like Desantis to win.
White non left democratic candidate in KS running against an ultra right candidate minus democratic establishment support=win
Black non left democratic candidate in FL running against an ultra right candidate minus democratic establishment support=loss
ergo, when confronted with a Black face in the D column, the critical mass of FL voters went racist, err republican.
What percentage of the “Florida Hispanics” are the Miami Cubans? They are a very solid Republican bloc, are they not? Aren’t many of the other South Florida Hispanics refugees from various Leftist Revolutions and/or Reformations? Wouldn’t they also be solidly Republican?
I’m tempted to go buy alcohol and watch, but then again tomorrow is one of the last days I can go biking to Lexington, now that I’m aware it’s possible, and that’s far more valuable. So I’ll check-in tomorrow.
Have fun everyone!
Not looking good in FLA for Dems… Hard to believe Rick Scott will win again; Nelson did not run a great campaign. Gov race looks like a toss-up. Lots of interesting amendments, so interesting to see how that works.
Look like Tim Canova did not get even 10% of the vote in FL-23 against DWS, That’s a disappointment.
But yes, looking like a lot of close losses in FL.
If that’s true, it’s more than a disappointment, it means he’s been lying to me in his fundraising emails. That makes me mad. But of course it IS Florida, and of course fraud must be overlooked.
They flipped the votes most likely. Debbie is a professional cheater.
Seems appropriate, we were hoping for a blue wave in Florida and got an red tide instead… and it stinks to high heaven!
I’m gonna go ahead and predict a Dem loss, or at least much fainter victory than even pessimists on their side hope for; and a further period of the party chewing its own limbs off while throwing wild, unsupported accusations everywhere. Rationality will become deviationism and a shun-able offense, even more than it is now. The hard core oligarchs will emerge as the owners of a unified, efficient, gleaming political machine that no one trusts and everyone despises.
I worry that this is the desired goal because “they” think there will be some cataclysm that makes such an entity the clear choice for running society, the expedient and obvious choice when there’s no time to evaluate options.
Fox News just called the House for the Democrats.
Remember Florida 2000.
MSNBC called it just now as well.
And please do not make me remember the year 2000. It was a hard year for me outside of politics.
I have just been to CNN online. Their map shows wasserman-schultz as the projected winner with 58%, some rep in 2nd with 34 or so, and Tim Canova listed nowhere. Please tell me this just some foul, foul error on their part.
That’s not real, is it?
I thought they were neck and neck.
To refine the information about Oregon voting: Quite a few voters use drop boxes at the courthouse and some other locations. Mail would not get there in time. The polls are still open. I assume Washington is the same.
Preliminary Oregon results will come in at 8 – but again, I don’t expect them to be exciting. There are Greens running, so I’ll be watching those; one has a shot of sorts at Benton County Commissioner, a paid, partisan post.
Looks likes the democrats blew it in Florida. And yes, that include re-electing DWS. But Scott (ewww) wins and Gilum (Golum?) the neoliberal loses.
Compared to the de-facto Klansman Desantis, Gillum is Ron Dellums.
> Gillum is Ron Dellums.
There were giants in those days…
To expound a bit more, I wouldn’t say the democrats blew it but rather it was the majority voters of Florida who are perfectly fine with neocon cro-mags like Scott and Desantis. From what little I saw of Gillum on the campaign trail, he seemed like a perfectly fine gentleman to serve as governor even if he backed off a bit on medicare for all and wasn’t as pure progressive as some would have liked.
Conservative whites (and some moderate ones) talk a good game about blacks having to be clean cut, law abiding, well spoken and talented to get the job, to move up the career ladder, to be accepted and so forth, but it seems like time after time (with the exception of Obama) when it comes to make the hire of the qualified black person, many white people if given the choice, covertly, will fall back on racism.
Yet the people overwhelmingly voted to restore the vote to felons, a progressive move. The Democratic establishment had a good candidate but they didn’t really want him to win. They don’t represent their base.
Gillum’s backing off from M4A could have been a decisive factor in blunting his momentum — partly for the substance of it, and partly for what it symbolized.
No matter what color of your skin, it’s hard to inspire an electoral majority when you’re not willing to make hard commitments to them on things that actually matter to the broad mass of people.
This is what the Democrats just don’t seem to understand.
Totally correct. You are in for the moral good, or you’re not. Health care is a right, or it’s not. Most people think it should be a right. And America still has more money than God does. Chickening out is the D’ way, and it’s killing us. Especially people who understand a bit about MMT.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
Do you live here? If so how long?
I think the Florida Democratic Party has thoroughly demonstrated its disinterest in winning statewide offices. But yah, racists.
Be more careful with potential allies, the next time.
> the Florida Democratic Party has thoroughly demonstrated its disinterest in winning statewide offices.
Can you give some narrative on that? Is the idea that control of the ballot line is enough to bring in the bucks, win or lose?
But yah, a lot of racists. As I said, Gillum wasn’t as progressive as some of us would have liked, but a Bircher like Desantis was a very very low bar to jump over. With an opponent like this, I doubt that rational voters measuring the benefits vs the costs would let the perfect be the enemy of the good when you potentially get a lot less than good from Desantis.
Even if the Democratic structures nationally and statewide didn’t come out strong for Gillum (and they suck for it), it should have been plain as a thinking voter’s nose on his/her face who the superior candidate was. I’m not going to be understanding for those voters who voted for a stone racist just because the opponent wasn’t purist enough in his progressivism.
No I don’t live in Florida AND I DON’T GIVE A DAMN WHAT POTENTIAL ALLIES THINK IF I SHOOT FROM THE HIP ABOUT THE MAJORITY OF FLORIDA VOTERS VOTING FOR A RACIST.
the country moves ever further right in it’s voting patterns (except the Dems did win the house, so there is that tiny pushback), and I’m not so convinced progressivism/liberalism/leftism or any of them are really what people want, well the people that can vote.
Considering that there were no House or Senate races on the ballot where a committed leftist was going up against a Republican, there’s nothing on which to base your assertion that “the country moves ever further right” or that people don’t want real solutions to the real problems. Of all the Democrat House incumbents, only 2 lost their primaries (Crowley and Capuano), and Capuano lost to a candidate who ran at him slightly from the right.
Eastman in Nebraska and Gillum in FL both were nominated with the energy of the left/grassroots/whatever you wish to call them. Both of those candidates then proceeded to back away from health care — a powerful, salient issue — by trimming their previous support (in the primaries) for M4A. In both cases, the candidates appeared at first to be “change” candidates…and then they ran for stage right after winning the primaries. Eastman, in particular, didn’t wait a week before making her newfound single-payer opposition crystal clear. The alacrity of her about-face was facepalm stunning. Gillum waited a few months, until the primary season started.
According to current figures (6 AM EST Wednesday), Eastman lost her race by just over 3 points. Gillum lost by less than 1 point. Those margins are easily explained by the deflation felt by their own supporters. It’s easy to imagine any one of those voters taking their own candidates’ cues as abandonment. I followed their primary victories with interest back in the summer. But I’m not sure I myself would have voted for either of those two candidates yesterday if I were in their jurisdictions.
Democrats “won” the House…at present, by 3 seats. Running mostly MILO candidates and Blue Dogs who were thrown over the finish line by Democrat Party bouncers who made sure that any real left challengers were tossed out of the joint back in the primaries.
There’s also a huge disconnect between people who can vote, and people who do. There are way more of the former who vote with their feet.
A slight correction on the timing for Washington State mail-in ballots: they must be received or postmarked by 8PM today. This means that close races may not be called for a few days, as those mailed ballots dribble in from all over the country.
Drinking game:
1 shot every time an incumbent loses.
2 shots if Ted Cruz loses.
I like that, but I’ll only play in the Texas game. My wife drinks Woodford Reserve, so I’m good to go. I have two races I care about: I want Beto to win, and I want J.D. Sholten to win, no matter how he turns out. Steve King has to go.
Beto lost (though I imagine that doesn’t mean we’ll be spared his Presidential run).
The two races I’m following are Golden (ME-02) and Scholten (IA-04), because they’re running to the left in rural areas. That would imply that the Democrats don’t necessarily have to make Constitutional changes to bring elected representation more in line with the electorate; all they have to do is get off their fundaments and ask for votes a little bit outside their comfort zone.
ME-02
Golden 45.6
Poliquin 46.3
Counted: 39%
IA-04
Scholten 48.7
King 48.8
Counted: 67%
Here’s where it would be really nice to know which districts have been counted and which haven’t.
Looks like Maine will depend on how the ranked choice votes split!
FiveThirtyEight:
Squee!
The guy couldn’t beat Ted Cruz, but thinks people will vote for him for president?
Demographics is destiny, didn’t you get the memo?
King FTW! /s
I appreciate the framing in the introduction of the Democrats as a “coalition of the ascendant.” Reading it raised for me four questions, perhaps for the future rather than tonight: (a) are all the cited groups really still “ascendant”? (b) do several other identity/affinity groups that come to mind (GLBTQ, Asian-American, etc.) no longer matter much to either party? (c) are women the first — or only — one of the Democrats’ identity-communities to splinter along class/income lines? and (d) have the Republicans succeeded in drawing into their lofty ranks a ‘coalition of the descendant’?
Republicans still have a demographic advantage particularly in the Senate. A lot of those “flyover country” states are heavily white, older and more religious and they get two votes just like California and New York. This is not even getting into things like gerrymandering and voter suppression and the more banal fact that older people tend to be more reliable voters than young people.
As for your questions:
(a): From what I understand even native-born non-whites have falling birthrates so it looks like the growth of the “coalition of the ascendant” will have to be driven by immigration if it is to continue to grow.
(b): I think the Democrats have the GLBTQ community in the bag but Asian-Americans could be trickier. On average they tend to be high earners and the Republicans could make inroads among Asian-Americans with the right candidates in the future.
(c): I always thought the split among women (or more specifically, white women) was based on marriage (single women were more likely to vote Democratic, married women were more likely to vote Republican) and education (the Democrats performed better with better-educated women and worse with women with less education). If we take education as a marker for class then yes, it looks like women (or at least white women) are splintering along class lines. I think you are right, women might be the only identity community to split along class lines. I believe the GOP wins white men across the board although I could be wrong. Class is an interesting and potentially explosive issue for the future of feminism.
(d): I do believe that working-class whites (defined as whites without a four-year degree) have shifted to the GOP.
I think the Democrats will be disappointed when the “coalition of the ascendant” doesn’t prove to deliver permanent majorities in the future. People should recall that white Catholics were once a solidly Democratic voting group but eventually started to vote more and more for Republicans to the point where I think the GOP now has an advantage among white Catholics.
White Catholics were once a despised group in this country. The second KKK was the most popular and powerful version of that group and it was heavily driven by anti-Catholic nativism. The Immigration Act of 1924 was directed against groups now considered “white” by most people: Southern and Eastern Europeans. There were more immigration restrictions on Europeans than Latin Americans.
My point is that these demographic categories are fuzzy and cannot really predict how politics will develop in the future. The Democrats are foolish if they think they can rely solely on demographic change to win elections in the future. Things will only get more complex as interracial marriage continues to become more common and identity lines become even fuzzier.
Also, the Republicans will likely make changes in the future to try to win over some of the members of the “coalition of the ascendant” and will probably succeed. Trump did better than expected with non-whites and not that long ago George W. Bush won about 40 percent of the Hispanic vote.
> I think the Democrats will be disappointed when the “coalition of the ascendant” doesn’t prove to deliver permanent majorities in the future.
Identity politics, I would argue, cannot deliver permanent coalitions. All it can deliver is temporary assemblages of factions. Because factions are based on material interests (property; Madison), the assemblage will disintegrate as material interests change, irrespective of identity. That’s the “average” toward which the whole system tends.
I actually vehemently disagree with the “coalition of the ascendant” framing, from Ruy Texeira (see here). It implies that the Democrats need merely sit back and wait for demographics to do their job for them. A corollary is the view that Republicans will be unable to adapt to changing demographics. You can see the voter suppression (and anti-immigration) tactics as such an adaptation, but I think the Republicans are pretty feral, and ultimately (maybe with a Trump 2.0 with the rough edges sanded off) they’ll work out an electoral strategy. That said, it was a handy frame….
I have been saying for a while now that a smarter, less racist version of Trumpism could be a potent political force. Right-wing populism is not going away and will likely be a major force in the future. In some respects we are lucky that Trump is so boorish and the Republicans are still seen as the party of rich white racists. I could see the Republicans developing a different ideology in the future that is more appealing to non-white ethnic groups, maybe a new version of “compassionate conservatism.”
Trump will win 2020 and the Democrats will start to see they are losing ground in cities. By 2024, the Republicans will be able to gain a majority in the Cali statehouse..maybe sooner.
My memory is a tad fuzzy, but “West Wing liberals” are attached to a book printed in 2002 called “The Emerging Democratic Majority” which largely made the promise all Team Blue had to do was sit around and wait for returns to come rolling in.
It scared the GOP enough for Shrub to make phony immigration appeals along with Ted Kennedy in a bipartisan bill which was largely a slave labor import bill. The language though was friendly though.
And for us mopes, will any of the “outcome” make any difference? “Across the aisle, Blue Dogs, Security State Police Military Caucus, etc.,” bipartisan boofooing of us mopes to continue and maybe accelerate. So much hope still invested in the rigged electoral “legitimizing” game, despite the clear evidence of how it is completely rigged against any kind of “change” in the direction of those plaintively yearned for universal concrete material benefits to the mopes — and such a near certainty that the flow of wealth inward and upward, the metastasis of the Panopticon and imperial wars, the destruction of any vestige of a livable environment, the hammering down of the chains of serfdom.
But let us parse the entrails, until the stink of rot and death finally overcomes us. In a wishful notion that “judiciously studying” the “new realities” might produce any different outcome. Or suggest ways to “reform the system,” which of course is constantly being “reformed” to further empower the Few and beggar the rest.
There’s talk of the virtues of a divided legislature, and how stalemate might be a friend to us mopes. What “stalemate” will that be? Some subpoena Kayfabe, maybe, to entertain and distract? Anyone really think the Grand Bargain is not in the Borg mind of the Unitary Oligoparty “representatives” who demonstrably trample the “policy preferences” of the 90%?
I stayed up to watch the first Obama Apotheosis, and got booted from Daily Kos for pointing out, to the people weeping tears of joyous exultation and relief, what the Obama platform actually promised, as compared to what the yodeling enthusiasts thought they were getting— “coming into Glory.”
But thanks to Lambert and everyone for trying to at least understand and describe the details of the systems and their processes. I guess there is some comfort in knowing which hands hold the knives.
Nope not one difference for us mopes. Same thing if my local sports team wins. I am in it for the spectacle.
But I am an Anarchist and do not vote so…
To answer your first question, no. But I take a tiny bit of comfort in not being duped by the process.
In the immortal lyrics of Pink Floyd –
You have to be trusted by the people that you lie to,
So that when they turn their backs on you,
You’ll get the chance to put the knife in.
JT, you make a great point. I can only add, in summary, bullshit is bullshit. Also thanks to Lambert, and future commenters, there will be more election results, and more election rat-fucking, and we might see Beto beat Cruz, and…whatever. Deb just mentioned that Kansas went Blue. Lambert thinks we’ll make 23…I hope so, but I’m not sure, and I’m certainly not waiting up for CA, since I’m Eastern time. Lambert, thanks for doing this. Your analysis at the top seems pretty good to me.
No matter who wins tonight, the American people will be the losers.
A guest on the latest Intercepted podcast defined fascism as requiring a one-party state. She said we are still a democracy and what we do matters can answer the worst because we have two parties.
I’m not so sure.
avoid
We have one party; The Capitalists. That is all fascism needs. That and a state to exert Capitalist power.
Fascism would still have to borrow from the glorious past. Election pageantry couldn’t be abolished in the U.S. Limiting the election outcomes and access would be necessary, but getting rid of them would be impossible with U.S. ethnic issues. In the 1770’s, most of the white colonials weren’t even English and would be aware of this.
Supression happens and is possible, but I don’t believe elections could be rescinded. Then again there was 2000.
> Then again there was 2000.
I think our legitimacy crisis began with Bush v. Gore. Which the Democrats rolled over for.
That was an eye opener for sure. You had one party setting up riots at ballot stations, and the other conducting crickets.
Democrats rolled over, then made things worse with Help America [Pretend to] Vote Act, which pushed no-paper electronic voting machines on the states. Georgia is still using those machines from 2002.
I have ‘really stupid thing didn’t happen’ locally. So that’s a nice thing. But I’m Clinically Optimistic.
I’m too tired to see if the Florida Democratic Party has finally achieved its goal of holding no statewide office at all. Imagine where they will go from there?
Yes it will make a difference. And here is the difference it will make: just-enough Catfood Democrats will work with the Republicans in the House to pass a destroy-Social-Security bill over to the Senate for McConnell to get it passed there.
Remember when McConnell said that “divided government would be needed” to be able to “address entitlements”? Well . . . this Democratic victory is what McConnell was talking about, and probably hoping for, in order to destroy Social Security and Medicare with Bipartisan Support. And THAT is the difference it WILL make.
Saw the following the other day so thought to put it in-
Australia’s ambassador to the US, Joe Hockey, has weighed in on the country’s mid-term elections by taking a swipe at journalists. “This mid-term election has revealed that, now more than ever, a vast number of journalists actually hate the people they write about,” Joe Hockey posted to Twitter overnight. “The most trusted journalists should be the ones that you’d never work out who they voted for.”
This is why it’s hard to watch tonight – so many MSM can’t contain their glee/disappointment. I want to play poker against these people.
Jeez, Joe Hockey? Shouldn’t he be ambassador to Canada?
Heard that he was a bit of an Americanophile so he’s probably in the right place. It was a good excuse to get him out of the country and make him somebody else’s problem. His problem in his political career was that there was less to him that met the eye.
I was wondering if the polls favoring Democrats have to be marked down by 5% to factor in being tagged as pro Republican = pro Trump. In 2016, Nate Silver was predicting a landslide for Hillary and he was widely off the mark. Trump was demonized back then and he’s even more demonized now. But after two years of Trump, people have gotten used to him and we have a better gauge of how he will govern for the next two years or even six years. The economy is humming along, he hasn’t started any new wars, the deportation rate is about the same as Obama’s. Plus, the trade war has impacted China much more than the US. People vote with their stomachs and they have not been going hungry under Trump. My guess is that Democrats have some gains but mainly in the blue states but they will fall short of the 23 needed to take back the House. If the local polling is as bad as Lambert says it is, then my default prediction is that Republicans retain control of both Houses
The problem is Gallup stopped doing its old tracking poll due to the decline in land lines and other issues such as their returns didn’t match up with the government metrics. All the pollsters just piggy backed off Gallup’s modeling of the electorate, and then they would just poll, poll, poll with updates from Gallup on what the electorate looks like.
Pollsters aren’t necessarily bright. Nate Silver rose to political prominence because he couldn’t figure out why CNN’s Poll of Polls was so inaccurate when it had so much data. What he realized was CNN was averaging end results and wasn’t remodeling. CNN was simply averaging polls together that could be wildly different such as one with a 50/50 self identified split or 70/30 self identified split. Silver just went back and just did what CNN should have done in the first place. He use to have an explanation on his site.
The 2016 polls would have turned out right if 2008 results were the new normal. 2008 was both the combination of promises and hard on the ground work, expanding the base versus coalition politics (trying to line up endorsements and then get the votes of the endorsers followers). politics. HRC did receive a certain amount of novelty voting, but she did worse than Kerry, KERRY, in the states that were competitive in 2004 and 2016. Kerry’s campaign (the Democrats at large) didn’t put in the on the ground efforts and didn’t make worthwhile promises. “Reporting for duty” and “ready for Hillary” were just dumb slogans.
One out of give kids is dealing with food security issues, so people are hungry, but that was in 2016. The Democrats aren’t going to be the beneficiaries of that issue. The predictions of doom from the Democrats didn’t come true for the white flight Republicans that the Clintons coveted, and outside of Maddow acolytes and white flight Republicans, the Democrats don’t pitch to anyone else. They didn’t miss brunch.
Down goes Donnelly-D in IN. No big loss there. Turns out people don’t bother with fake republicans when they can pick real ones.
Heitkamp looks soon to follow….so much for the blue wave….
CNN saying Bill Nelson going down, possibly in FL. Gillum, too. Ugh…Scott and DeSantis are really awful.
I agree. Hate to see a Dem lose because I want Trump repudiated, but if one has to go, Donnelly is fine with me. He’s a DINO.
Oh no. Just announced that Mittens is going to the Senate from Utah.
Get set for his 2020 Presidential run.
and his 2024 run and one more time in 2028
Picturing Romney/Haley vs Harris/O’Rourke in 2020.
Pass the victory gin.
I dunno. People forgot that Trump demolished two (2) party establishments on his way to victory in 2016. He is much more formidable than people think. I find it hard to picture a Republican Party that by this point has gone all in for Trump “reverting” to Romney, whose brand of Republicanism has passed.
Why would Romney, father of Obamacare, run as a Republican? I’d go with Romney/Bloomberg for the dems in 2020, assuming the animatronic HRC isn’t appointed by the convention after not running.
Ben Jealous very close to Larry Hogan in Maryland but behind. That against a popular incumbent, No Corporate Dem Support, No Oprah, No Obama. There was even smear commercials quoting establishment dems, calling him “radical” and “leftist”, pledging support for Hogan.
Yeah, the local Dems were HORRID re Jealous, yet they expect other Dems to rally behind THEIR candidate.
Jealous is African-American and from Prince George’s County, which is largely African-American. Another source of his support was the AA segment in Baltimore. The white DC suburbs apparently would rather have the lardy Hogan as their governor than allow a progressive AA to gain the state house.
Spot on. His campaign was perpetually smeared by dems, when not silenced; yet he still came close. All the taglines- “Unity”, “Our values unite us”, “Any blue will do”, “Existential threat”, all that bull went out the window and the corporate dems left him out to dry. Sad.
They would rather have a Republican than a Progressive… as if it wasn’t obvious in 16.
All the taglines-
“Unity”“Fealty”, …There, FIFY.
That is infuriating.
We have to leave.
I feel like the person in the group in the horror movie telling everyone we have to leave. No cassandra. We really do have to leave them behind if we want to live.
And yet so many of them also chose to go for the godawful…..Ben Cardin….
It’s almost like the wealthy blue strongholds are the enemy? :)
Almost?
Dem gated communities and rep ones quite similar; keep the unwashed out.
go Ben!
Please excuse my digression;
The other night I watched Steve Bannon debate David From concerning the proposition that “The future belongs to populism not to liberalism.”
(Monk Debates)
The debate was held in Toronto, and the venue was large, the crowd what I would call the credentialed class, Canada.
So, for Bannon, a hostile audience.
Pre-debate poll showed 28% agreed, the future was populist.
My impression, despite my loathing of Steve Bannon, was that he mopped the floor with From.
Gannon’s delivery was patient and measured, while From piled lie on top of lie and did a perfect imitation of Hillary Clinton saving the Titanic by spewing platitudes and B.S.
Gannon explained clearly that We the People had been had by greedy elites who received $7 Trillion in bank bail-outs, and who spent $4 Trillion on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and despite thousands of dead and wounded, and all that money, we have nothing to show for all of this, in fact 50% of us can’t put together $400 in cash should an emergency come up.
Gannon stated that the only question was will that populist future be Trump’s Nationalistic Populism, or Bernie Sanders’ socialist populism?
Gannon explained that Trump was busy dismantling the government owned by ‘elites’ and replacing it with a new smaller version more responsive to We the People.”
(And of course, Trump’s down-sized government will be less expensive to tax-payers than socialism.)
I can read between the lines.
David From’s performance was what you would expect, only more disgusting, if that’s possible.
Short version; both Democrats and Republicans are really trying to build a ‘Liberal’ future, in the classical, western culture sort of sense, but they differ in the details of how to achieve that goal.
And populism is way too weird for America, and probably amounts to fascism.
So, the end of the debate, the audience votes again, and now, 57% agree with Bannon, the future belongs to Populism, not Liberalism.
Ok, back to the election;
The Democrats haven’t learned a thing, and should they take the House, we have to figure out how to hold their feet to the fire enough to prevent another war, this time against Iran.
I’m not happy to foresee that a Trumped-up war with Iran, enabled by feckless, defeatist democrats could be our last…
OK, I think that your ‘Gannon’ should be ‘Bannon’, but is your ‘Monk’ ‘Munk’, as in ‘Peter Munk’, this guy? And is your ‘David From’ this ‘David Frum’, son of this lady?
Just so we can look these people up.
lol
I hope you both understand that I’m not endorsing his policies or agenda, what I’m pointing out is the audience reaction.
He convinced an additional 29% of the audience that populism owns the future.
These were solid 10 percenters who were ‘booing’ him in the beginning, but came to agree.
It confirms to me as much as anything that our ‘elites’, don’t care a wit about us.
They are all on the same page, this is why we can’t have nice things, tangible benefits are forbidden, no matter which party is in power.
What I can’t figure out is, by what reason do these people feel themselves ‘immune’ from the dismantling, or down-sizing, or what ever they call it?
Academia isn’t even as defensible as the Hamptons.
Yes, yes, to all, yes.
But, I did provide the link, and I stand by my analysis, tell me I’m wrong.
PS: I’m not making light of the sorry state we’re in, I was just hoping for a smidge better.
I enjoyed your post, spelling notwithstanding, thanks!
Frum wrote about the debate at The Atlantic, he says there was a problem with the voting mechanism, which was new, and the true vote was not what was first reported.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/11/bannon-frum-munk-debate-what-really-happened/574867/
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/11/bannon-frum-munk-debate-what-really-happened/574867/
That’s Frum’s report on the encounter. Alot of haggling over the vote count for the winner of the debate. Hilarious that the debate was about Democracy and they bungled the vote count.
I won’t watch the debate, not a fan of either. But I posted the link to show how obtuse the liberal establishment is. He can’t figure out why it could have possibly been close and never mentions the specifics of what Bannon said that was your takeway. Despite the motives none of this was a lie and the likes of Frum never say what they want to say because it would make their own authoritarian streak ever more noticeable.
“Bannon explained clearly that We the People had been had by greedy elites who received $7 Trillion in bank bail-outs, and who spent $4 Trillion on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and despite thousands of dead and wounded, and all that money, we have nothing to show for all of this, in fact 50% of us can’t put together $400 in cash should an emergency come up…”
You don’t have to be a fan to benefit from this sort of forum, I’d say it’s a rare opportunity to see exactly what we’re up against.
And having witnessed the debate provides life-time immunity to Frum’s BS, which means every word that comes out of his mouth, except of course his admission that the Ds and Rs are working towards the same goal.
I found that completely believable.
You don’t have to be a fan to benefit from seeing something like this debate.
I highly recommend watching it, “Know your enemy” and all that, plus it was actually quite entertaining in a weird way.
True, Bannon wiped the floor with Frum. Or better said, Frum wiped the floor with himself since there was no emotion based cliche he wasn’t willing to sink to. It was embarrassing. Bannon’s criticisms of the “elite” that brought so much misery, war, economic collapse, bailouts, etc were correct and forcefully delivered. But Bannon, as I remember it, really had no positive policy proposals for the deplorables. Immigration, tariffs, and tax cuts although he did seem to be uncomfortable with the type of cuts Trump eventually passed.
He was speaking to the “credentialed class” and it was my eerie impression that what he really wanted to tell them was: Look, because you guys have blown it, in the future it’s going to be either left populism like with Bernie and you won’t like that because Bernie will cost you money, or right populism with me where not much will really change except for the theme music. Learn to tolerate the right populist theme music and your bank accounts will be OK. But you’re all too politically correct dense to understand that.
Another problem, Bannon criticized the wars, in a debate with Frum! But Bannon’s own foreign policy of anti Iran, anti China, which as things stand, implies in the end anti Russia and can lead to even bigger and worse wars. The debate was interesting to watch.
And, Watt4Bob, thanks for that diversion on an evening like tonight.
Thanks for your comment.
Yes, Bannon had the advantage of an un-armed opponent, so he felt free to ignore the policy questions that would have naturally come up if Frum wasn’t such an obvious fool.
More parallels to the larger universe:
There is NO “party” that represents the general welfare. The takers and looters have diligently applied themselves to seizing all the levers of power and the access points to the platform where the levers are moved. Which cements in place the behaviors and structures that are destroying the habitability of the planet. And as we mopes, some of us at least, are coming to realize, which is a horrific awakening, that assiduous application of the Few to feathering their luxurious nests and gaining “ownership” of pretty much everything, across the planet, has resulted in the building in of enough insults to Gaia, like end-the-world greenhouse gassing, that it is already too late (barring maybe “nuclear winter”) to do anything about.
Maybe NASA or MuskMelon ought to be sending a nice “light sail probe” off into interstellar space, broadcasting the message for any other “intelligent species” who might be deterred, a simple message: “Don’t do like we did — we were given a wonderful planet, and we f@cked it up and killed ourselves and most or all other life here off. Oh, and here’s the recipe for Soylent Green…”
NY-11 (Staten Island) shocker: Dan Donovan has conceded to Max Rose.
Possibly helping Rose might have been that the ballot on SI was simpler than in the other 4 boroughs –
there were fewer problems with machines and would-be voters just giving up due to the long lines.
Cruz wins Texas.
Beto will now run fro President.
MSNBC just called it for Cruz.
Beat ya. :P
I doubt Beto runs for President though! Maybe VP on the Warren ticket?
Oh, good call. #MeToo! Ha!
I would like a Nina Turner in that case if we can’t have candidates with a history of state wide victories or long term legislative accomplishments. Admittedly, the Democratic Party hasn’t been a place for growing proper candidates, but its the state of the party.
Warren has demonstrated she is a trumped up back bencher. She’s going no where.
Bernie tulsi.
Listening to NPR, their memories of the Clinton years as some era of bipartisanship and co-operation are giving me real cognitive dissonance. I was apparently not in the same universe then that they were, or am not now.
Come to think of it its not the only moment of “wow, did history just change?” the wife and i have shared tonight. The “Blue Wave” was always going to be a gentle rain of small impacts? Next thing you know, we’ll never have been at war with EastAsia again.
Ugh. Try:
https://theintercept.com/2018/11/01/live-midterm-election-night-2018-coverage-with-democracy-now-the-intercept/
Much better…
“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
― George Orwell, 1984
Don’t let them control the past in your head!!! You know better!!!
No, bipartisanship & cooperation, as in Bill Clinton implementing Republican proposals and doing so much of the Republican agenda that a Republican president could never do. If not for Monica, he might have completed the “bipartisanship” by gutting Medicare and Social Security.
That is how neoliberals define (and applaud) bipartisanship. Look at the bigest part of Obama’s legacy, The Affordable Care Act, courtesy of the Heritage Foundation.
See also Listen, Liberal for the full “bipartisan” agenda
Even if shockingly open voter suppression and corrupt governing for example in Georgia, were not occurring, we still have a system where money and more dark money buys elections/ politicians/judges. If elections are bought in a so-called democratic republic then where’s the institutional legitimacy? The outrages and spectacles that get worse each cycle function to extract the buy-in and votes of the people — the legitimacy — that the system needs for ‘optics’ so that it can really serve the oligarchy and corporate powers in this country. Perhaps as it ever was… But its that so? To the extent that Congress, Judicial and Executive branches do the exact opposite of what the majority of the country wants?
anyone here from Maryland? any insight into the problems with Ben Jealous campaign?
See a few posts above. He came close with no Dem support, No Oprah (who campaigned for Abrams), No Obama (Gillum), perpetual corporate dem smearing and endorsing of his republican opponent.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/09/18/the-washington-post-really-wants-to-stop-ben-jealous/
Apparently Dems are voting for the R rather than a Black man
Hmm I don’t know, must have been an internal campaign problem.
No, it’s a party problem.
The Democratic Party’s “big tent” argument is only brought out to browbeat progressives into supporting right-wing Democrats, never vice-versa.
Obama proved a bad president AND precedent.
How much of Obama was and is “black?” Is he thus an exemplar of the “black misleadership class?”
I’m guessing South Side blacks might be of several minds about the Obama fambly.
I think what dcblogger is asking is whether there are any state-level issues in the electorate that are holding Jealous back.
Like a gaffe that meant a lot in the state, but didn’t get national coverage, or a whispering campaign of some sort.
Maryland readers?
I would say the problems are 90% with the MD Dem. party, as I’ve outlined elsewhere on this thread. Also, Jealous has a stutter, so he couldn’t make eloquent tv ads. His appearance is sort of rough, not smoothly political or handsome. He has to run on issues/ideas, and I guess that wasn’t enough for some of the rich suburban DC Marylanders.
And here in sunny, soon to be submerged FL, “100% of the problems are with the FL Dem party.” Pretty close to a sweep by the forking Patent Party of Great Wealth, aided and abetted by the scum wannabes that make up the Dem Social Club rulership here. Jeebus, Rick Scott who is a paragon of corruption beating that old man mope Bill Nelson, who hardly bothered to campaign that I could see?
And to all you people who are inclined to make jokes about “Floriduh,” remember who rolled over and exposed its belly and throat when chads were hanging here. And look to your own states and your federal “representation,” and how your local “Dem” parties and ineffectual “independents” and “greenies” have done in the CONTACT SPORT of politics.
The Dem brand is still attractive to a lot of Floridians, for whom it harkens back to FDR and all that jazz. There are enough branded Dems that there ought to be a constant flow of decent candidates, supported by the central structure, to achieve those “concrete universal material benefits” we NCers talk about. But the Dem Social Club is pure Fifth Column any more. I cannot stand to go to local party meetings any more, the Quisling Factor is so blatant. Special Snowflakes, happy to have their itty-bitty particular “issues” dominate the floor, IdPol and parades as the fundamentals, “fighting for access to less unaffordable health care” as a rallying cry. Oh, and money for “education,” where the state legislature dominated by Reds will be happy to take that and divert the energy into more charter schools, nailing the lid down ever further. And gerrymandering, so shits like Wasserman Schultz have nice safe seats for their fat a$$es to be ensconced upon.
But that is all FL stuff. As I say, for all you “progressives” living in other states, before you make FL jokes, remember that there are millions here who suffer from the status quo getting worse. That the Dems are a fraud here is notorious, but look at the whole country, look at your own states and localities — “progressives” do not have the ORGANIZING PRINCIPLE and drive that have led to oligarchy, and other than Bernie Sanders and a very few others, don;t have the fire in the belly and the desire to do more than keep their heads below the trench line, as hostile fire from the looter armies keeps lowering the trench parapets and exposing them unless they stoop and crawl ever lower.
In addition to malfeasance by the MD Dems [see my comment above], the Washington Post has been going on non-stop for probably the last 6 months about a) how Hogan [current Republican governor] is loved by so many Dems; and b) how Hogan has tons of money and Jealous not much.
The “attack ads” on Jealous were horrid, and utilized the Post’s endorsement of Hogan and its remark that Jealous was “too liberal” for Maryland.
During all these attacks, the “conventional Dems” didn’t make a peep.
AOC is a wonderful speaker, very strong and inspirational
“In 2018 Beto turned Texas purple. We WILL flip Texas, it’s only a matter of time”
> only a matter of time
That sounds like Democrat brain rot to me. “All we have to do is wait, and changing demographics will do our job for us.”
It’s safe to assume that there won’t be any new MENSA Chapters opening up on Capitol Hill.
Listening to Nancy Pelosi talk about the bold new Democratic initiatives in store for all of us once they take the House… …I could *feel* neurons dying.
Heavy drinking, spontaneous synaptic combustion or both?
Pelosi is another geriatric millionaire way past retirement age, but she’s clamped on like a lamprey eel. Probably be carried out of office with her stilettos on.
Yea but who needs initiatives, “Our values unite us.”
Listening to Nancy, two phrases sprung to mind: 1) “kill it with fire” and 2) “kill me now.”
Decent turnout, about 75% of registered, here in blueish MN inner-ring suburbs, despite the snow and wind. Looks like it should be slotted into team D running up the numbers in blue states as far as national impact.
Well, generally they calculate voter turnout with the voting eligible population (not registered voters) currently 4,064,389 in MN.
Which, with 97.6% of precincts reporting, is currently at 63.01%. Largest since 2004 (64%). Keep in mind MN has had the highest turnout in the country for years.
Luckily Ellison won so I don’t have to go insane.
Ralph Nader is live on the Intercept. Almost makes up for having to listen to Amy Goodman.
So with you on that. Her voice is so grating.
10:30 here in Michigan, per NYT:
Governor: Called for Whitmer (Dem), a flip
Senate: Stabenow (Dem incumbent) 53%, James (AA Rep) 46%
House: Called for Rashida Tlaib — she and AOC are gonna be firecrackers!
House: Elissa Slotkin, the CIA Dem, loses to incumbent Mike Bishop
House: Haley Stevens (Dem) wins open seat that had been Republican
Anti-gerrymandering citizens redistricting commission ahead ahead 61% to 39%
Easy voting (automatic registration, any-reason absentee) ahead 68% to 32%
Legal pot ahead 57% to 42%
Wow, good news from MI! Thanks, mle Detroit. Neither Whitmer nor Stab are my avs, but after years, *years* of Rep rule, a breathing space.
Little known fact: the first think tank to be set up after the Powell memo recommendations was the Mackinac Policy Institute in Michigan. Been downhill in that formerly deep blue state since then.
Michigan was a swing state until the 1980s. George Romney was governor in the late 1960s, and there were several prominent Republicans who hailed from there.
I’m particularly pleased to see Slotkin go down in flames. Thank Dog!
Spoke too soon. As of 6AM Wednesday EST, Slotkin is still neck-and-neck in her race to complete the Democrat Party’s transition to neoconservativism.
“American Taliban” Pete Sessions goes down in TX-32.
#HellzYeah ??
40 percent of my city’s participating voters want to give our municipal utility to totally unspecified others. Simply anything other than the big meanie who sends them bills. Forty percent of my fellow citizens are complete marks.
How do self driving cars do on gravel? It sucks for bikes.
Biking on gravel is OK with the right high-volume tires and commensurately low pressures.
First, this has been very funny-
https://www.twitch.tv/chapotraphouse
Winning platform
NY22
“I hate the cable companies!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZcl2A631AU
Can it really be that simple? How would the consultants get paid!
This district is written off as red. Tenney is trump. Runs ads loving him.
Nader now saying the problem isn’t only voter suppression but candidate suppression.
The first is on the Rs, the second on the Ds.
That’s very acute. As a street gang exacts tribute by controlling a corner, so the Democrats exact tribute by controlling the ballot line. The Democrats are, in fact, very good at doing this. It may be the only think they’re good at.
Eh, their only unique job from the paymasters is as a firewall against the left. They are very good at that. I expect the donors are happy enough with the return on their investment into graft as well.
There was (IIRC) ONE green candidate on the ballot in St. Paul MN, with very few progressive Dems to pick from. In the past, there have been far more than that to pick from.
It’s utterly depressing.
However, this would have been a great election to run on the “End Daylight Savings Time Now” ticket, as everyone is out of sorts from the clocking.
A couple greens with a chance in CA 40 and 34.
DeWine won in Ohio, major implications for voter suppression and 2020. It will be MUCH more difficult to win Ohio now.
Here in Iowa: Abby Finkenaur has taken the 1st House seat from Rod Blum. I sent her $25 even though I’m District 2, and I got back a thick glossy packet asking for more. Sigh. She talks up Medicare and Social Security. But no Medicare For All that I know of.
Steve King slightly trailing Scholten.
Cindy Axne ahead of David Young. Iowa’s 1st and 2nd? female congress critters.
Governor seems to be going to uber-rich Dem over Branstad-appointed toadie.
Congratulations to indicted insider trader Chris Collins for winning reëlection.
Heckuva job, NY-27.
59% of white women in TX voted for Cruz according to Linda Sarsour making the point that a history making 100 women were elected to Congress but we need to look at who elected them.
She says what Dems do in response to a challenge is cower. It is largely POC who voted for genuinely progressive candidates.
Calls this a Blue Dribble and says Dems cannot win from the center, they need to get behind their base.
Great line: I vote Democratic as harm reduction, not cuz I’m excited about them.
Linda Sarsour is sharp. Very impressive commentary.
Linda Sarsour has dined out on her Palestinian background. Do you think there was one mention of the Palestinians in any Congressional race in this country outside of Dearborn? She promotes the most blatantly squishy aspects of “intersectionality.”
gridlock for the next 2 years. unless you’re in the business of confirming judges.
With candidates like Bob Menendez (given a last minute cash infusion of a few million by Chuck Schumer to boast his blah campaign when that money might have been spent in Florida) on your side who needs an opposition.
-Or MIC funding
-phony “support the troop” rhetoric
-tax incentives (wink wink)
-minor “reefer madness” style outrages will still keep Congress going. Does base ball have a home run problem? The Waxman Committee had perfect attendance. Making Sammy Sosa cry really brought out the Congress Creeps.
-sanctions on the enemy of the day.
-anti-Palestinian issues will still be passed.
It will most likely be business as usual. Oh a few times, the Dems will raise a stink and then lament the narrow majority as a different villain has to cross enemy lines because of local politics.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/11/07/arkansas-just-approved-big-minimum-wage-increase-liberal-victory-red-state/
Arkansas and Missouri!
https://www.vox.com/a/midterms-2018/ballot-initiatives
Interesting rundown of ballot initiatives….good night for min wage hikes and weed.
Electorate to the left of Democrat candidates on policy. Film at 11.
How far back do you have to go to when it was not so? 1944?
War
Health
Min wage
Bankers
SS
‘64
rent control just failed in CA by a massive margin. So chalk one up for progressive blue state electorate sold as being more progressive than it ever actually was. This is always the case in Cali, real progressive initiatives seldom ever win.
Brindisi ahead in NY-22 by 0.8 percent with 98 percent of precincts reporting.
Long line this evening in my tiny little town. The county went light red.
Democrats now +20.
(I’m very happy with RealClearPolitics 1995-style results table, where it’s also easy to drill down to each race.
UPDATE +22.
That is good, thanks.
AK just closed and i would like to see the old knob outed. Not that i have any hope for the dem running not turning bluedog. When we get the results i will be waking. Is that too early to start drinking. Hope to hell we don’t get the nut job republican gov. I could not vote for governor as they did not have space for none of the above.
Georgia Governor:
Abrams 46.4
Kemp 52.6
Counted: 92%
Kansas Governor:
Kelly 48.1
Kobach 43.0
Counted: 96%
So it looks like the strategy of running for office while controlling the voter rolls and balloting has a 50% rate of success.
You think that problem just snuck up on Democrats just before the election?
Is it possible that it needed all the watchdog attention these past months?
None of those votes were counted by Putin.
Noting that three Democrat “rising stars” lost: Gillum, Abrams, O’Rourke.
CNN blames progressives. I’m not kidding. They said if they’d all won, the “Elizabeth Warren wing” of the party would be making noise and instead Joe Biden will wake up and like what he sees. Now, their take is that the struggle between the two sides of the Dem Party will likely continue.
Bernie has been erased from the election ‘conversation’ on cable news….I guess it must be election season! :)
Would that make Bernie the Valdermort of American politics on cable, as in “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named”?
They won’t mention him until he wins primaries again.
They’re becoming less relevant by the day.
so that leaves us with all that “new blood” fighting for 2020:
Sanders 79 years old
Biden 77 years old
Warren 71 years old
Hillary 73 years old.
Kill me now.
And Zuckerberg will be a breath of fresh air?
Electoral politics are simply the circus in a collapsing empire.
No one can call a cigar a cigar, and no one wants to know it is a cigar anyways. They just want their digital distractions during the sixth mass extinction event.
As Paul Jay says, “The billionaire class is not fit to rule”.
Plus they’d kill Sanders before letting him be president anyway, or at least prevent him from doing anything at all.
New Jimmy Dore points out the Chuck Todd doesn’t even mention Sanders as a potential for 2020. Same old fascism. Get out before it collapses.
Right. Get out where though, to Mars?
I fled to Berlin.
I’d be a homeless unemployed scientist in the US.
Also historically when the fascist thugs take over they kill off the intelligentsia first. I figure Berlin is a pretty safe place for that now.
No I won’t miss out on the sixth-mass-extinction event, but at least I won’t be surrounded by lunatics with guns. Berlin is quite an amusing city, and thanks to abrupt climate change, it’s been almost California here all year. Heck, even here in November it is 16C as a high (low 60’s in F).
I have already accepted my imminent death, and in fact am fully happy when it happens. Capitalism does nothing but cause me misery in every aspect of my life.
Nor are the 10% fit to govern. That was the verdict of 2016. It’s still unresolved.
Indeed. I like when Joe Rogan said something along the lines of “Why are we still voting for individuals, we should have councils of the wise”.
His show has been very good recently, with great interviews of Tulsi Gabbard, Jimmy Dore, and Kyle Kulinski.
Nice to see that he’s open to a range of ideas.
Trump calls Pelosi to congratulate her on House majority WaPo. Oh.
Nancy Pelosi sees ‘new day in America’ WaPo. No.
Is Pelosi likely to be speaker again? I like AOC’s suggestion of Barbara Lee.
Bernie Sanders campaigns with Barbara Lee in Berkeley but skips most of California’s competitive House races San Jose Mercury-News. So that should be the kiss of death for Lee as speaker.
IIRC, Pelosi’s “new generation” challengers are to her right. Seth Moulton, who if not a challenger wants a challenge, is a MILO.
McCaskill loses, good riddance.
She, Heitkamp, and Joe Donnelly all get lobbying jobs within the month. Ka-ching.
Bryce lost in WI-01, looks like Scholten couldn’t quite oust King in IA-04. Blue dogs got their wish, a bare House majority. Look for that call for more bipartisanship and cooperation.
And, as with every election since 1980, Goldman-Sachs crushed it.
Bryce didn’t just lose, he got clobbered:
Bryce 42.3
Steil 54.6
I wonder what went wrong, there. And I wonder how Cathy Myers would have done. “IronStache” always did seem rather anointed to me. Anyhow, another “rising star” gone.
It’s a pretty solid Republican district.
He was an anointed candidate whom the establishment coalesced around very quickly in order to kneecap his more progressive primary opppnent.
Exactly. And it was the national establishment. Cathy Myers was a much better candidate. Elected locally to the school board, great personality and very smart. Don’t think she would have won, but might have closed the gap a bit more. Districts are complete gerrymandered in Wisconsin.
This is how Republicans lost the House McClatchy. McClatchy first out of the box with the narrative.
Meanwhile, McCaskill got clobbered, 52.1% to 44.8%, as voters chose a real Republican. One less Blue Dog, which is a good thing, though doubtless the Democrats will immediately try to install more of them.
Nelson(FL), McCaskill(MO), Donnelly(IN), and Heitkamp(ND) all lost…few tears will be shed.
Nelson was trash but at least he didnt do everything possible to personally cover Florida coasts with poison slime. Need no bigger evidence that everyone in Florida is a dumb fuck that they decided Scott should be a senator after his abysmal run as governor.
Tester might go down. He wasn’t the worst of them, but he was a favorite of Little Lord Fuckpants (a/k/a Markos of Daily Kos) so his defeat would be delicious just for that.
Haha L.L.F.P.
Oh shit. From your link: “Ultimately, Conor Lamb’s victory in that western Pennsylvania district offered a template for the eventual Democratic takeover, as a telegenic, well-funded Marine Corps veteran with no voting record and a profile independent of the national Democratic Party beat out a GOP politician who couldn’t keep up in fundraising.” Here come more hedge fund fuckheads and movie moguls. It’s amazing the Dems never ran Harvey Weinstein for anything.
Yes, that was the paragraph I had in mind when mentioning the congealing narrative. Why, it’s almost like they had it all pre-positioned and ready to go!
MN-01 on CNN right now:
Hagedorn (R): 130,092
Feehan (D): 130,070
Thtat’s what I call a tight race…
I think it is far more interesting to see the progress of Berniecrats.
The neoliberal Democrats and the GOP pretty much serve the same oligarchs. Sure they may have different factions and disagree on a few social issues, but they have more in common than anything else. The Democrat message of “We suck slightly less” doesn’t excite me.
The question will be how many of these “Blue Dogs” will vote Republican on the issues. Another question is how well the Berniecrats will stand their ground? Will they be lone voices like Barbara Lee solely voted against the use of force after 9/11?
Unfortunately, there aren’t many.
There are more and more. See chart here, on the composition of the Democrat Party.
Keith Ellison elected MN atty general (http://www.startribune.com/keith-ellison-elected-minnesota-attorney-general-over-doug-wardlow/499701441). I guess that’s good.
Yes. They’ll be needing another cunning plan to make him go away.
Well, you all know the script now.
The Democrats will talk about how “we” need a gov’t that “gets things done” and proceed with the Kabuki of presenting half-assed bills and water those down just so they can “work across the aisle”.
Or the twist will be the performance art around the Mueller investigation.
They only really care about that war-making machine….the Executive Branch. Everything is about that for the Beltway Dems.
That and retiring rich so they can become lobbyists or do what the Clintons are doing.
Looks like a bunch of American women grabbed Trump by the balls and squeezed real hard!
Evidence, please, given that Abrams and O’Rourke just lost (along with McCaskill, bless her heart). But thank you for your witty contribution.
After UAW members had occupied the strategically important Fisher Body plant during the sit-down strikes in 1937, and tied up virtually all of GM’s production, genius local organizer Bob Travis told his friend and Lead Organizer Wyndham Mortimer (both of whom were CP members, btw), “We’ve got them by the balls; squeeze a little.”
Claire McCaskill and Heidi Heitkamp would beg to differ.
The post-modern view. FiveThirtyEight:
Paging Jacques Derrida….
Moi.
https://reecegoscinski.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/jacquesderrida.jpg?w=1200&h=914&crop=1
The RCP vote counter (not projections, yech) has been stalled at +25 for some time. Now up to 26. I went through the races (3:11AM) and collected those not decided.
Awfully tight margins* for a wave. (Also, GA both at 100% but not called. Challenges coming?)
NOTE * Average difference is ~3.6%
East Bay Express:
Jovanka Beckles: 38.70%
Buffy Wicks: 61.30%
A bad result, for reasons explained here:
SlateStarCodex endorsed Wicks… I was like why do I read this?
Politico showing WI for Evers.
https://www.politico.com/election-results/2018/wisconsin/
And Dem defeats Scott Walker in Wisconsin governor’s race The Hill. I wonder if Evers will be able to undo Walker’s Foxconn debacle.
He’s been saying “the contract is signed” for the past few months so, short answer – no.
That said, my prediction is that the plant will last about 10 years and then technology will move on, along with the Taiwanese, leaving another massive industrial scar on Racine County and taxpayers holding the bag for the whole mess.
Let’s not forget the poisoned water supply!
Since the current in Lake Michigan runs South, then rolls around to Door County and back down again, yes, all 4 states will reap the “benefits” of LCD panel production. There were some pristine shorelines back in the day.
As far as CT Gov goes this is where it stands now:
82.0% of precincts reporting
Win/lead Pct.
Stefanowski (R) 48.4%
Lamont (D) 46.9%
Griebel (I) 4.0%
I would put money on Lamont winning. All the biggest Dem Strongholds are still out. 5 of the 6 largest cities which have been going 40-70 points for Lamont have 0, 20, 45, 50, and 60 percent of precincts reporting. So that’s good.
Walker finally going down and McCaskill losing are rare bright spots in an election year where being a despicable example of representative of or tool for the “right” people never most people was a winning position even when the electorate had plenty of evidence. Scott, Cruz, Wasserman Schultz, Maloney…depressing.
(I fully admit I should include Menendez in there, but Hugin was so despicable I actually understood and sympathized with his voters.)
NYT has 85% odds for tester taking MT.
While the GOP only has 55% odds for taking AZ and FL. Interesting since FL is like 99% counted.
Democrat House margin of victory has been hung at +3 (26) for some hours. So I’m going to take a rest. Thank you all!
Whoa. You stuck it out much longer than I’d have been able to. I knocked out at midnight, but then I had to get up at 5AM today.
From what I saw most of the success came from suburbs which Dems ran young female candidates, which I believe, was a core agenda in getting the moderate suburban republican female vote. Lest some forget the currant DNC is more accurately described as moderate republican economically [neoliberal compliant] with a liberal social palate [the lady’s are inclusive to the neoliberal private club mens room].
I also thought the post Tea Party effect interesting since it was mostly a male oriented platform.
In my book either way you cut it both parties are using PR firms and psychologists in a total win or lose battle and the voters are just grist for the mill with corporatists hedging their bets to keep a seat at the table.
Rosen (whoever that is) beat Heller in Nevada so Dem senate loss is down to 3. I don’t remember whether Heller was one of the less crazy Republicans. No idea at all about Rosen. Sinema might loose in AZ though.
That’s disappointing about Beckles. Also, Manchin was re-elected. It would have been great to see him lose.
Feinstein re-elected, currently with 53.9% of the vote. I had no idea she was in a competitive race at all. She is terrible. Added: oh interesting, she was running against another Democrat. All the more disappointing that she won.
Californian here, agree about Feinstein. It would have been a great message to the Dems that we are sick of her Republican lite which-way-is-the-wind-blowing? voting record.
And there is now Governor Gavin Newsom. Ick. The man is a opportunistic conman, but he is now the governor.
I know! That diabolical grin, the marriage to Guilfoyle….he a devil.
right Brown loved him some fracking, and his bullet train. But still he was an old school politician of the type they don’t make anymore, not the new slick opportunistic breed. And he didn’t mind being governor of CA, he wasn’t using it as a stepping stone to bigger and better things, because being governor of the most populous state in the nation just isn’t good enough for ego or bank account. But it was Newsom or a Republican …
Newsom is the son of Judge Newsom, who has managed the Getty trust, several of whom reside in San Francisco. Newsom was involved in restaurant businesses with the younger Getty generation before launching his political career. His current wife is daughter of Thomas Siebel, self made software billionaire #85 according to Google. So his bread is buttered on both sides and floats in thin air.
It was a competitive race though she was favored, DeLeon ran left of her. The DEM PARTY ITSELF backed her opponent DeLeon. The @#$# Dem party itself backed her opponent who tried to run at least somewhat left of her. And still Feinstein won, because it’s what the people wanted. So don’t tell me the people are left of the parties.
She won by $ old and new media propping her.
Depressing. People don’t mind dropping them bombs on muslim villages just like Trump, who offends them because he’s so crude about it.
Name recognition and she is wealthy woman deeply entrenched in the state’s political machine. Had she been a representative, she probably would have lost her district. However as a senator all her advantages are overwhelming.
As predictable as the sun coming up, the usual reprobate rabble may resume their assorted rackets, perhaps ratcheting them up thanks to the go ahead from their constituency here…
The CVBB wouldn’t have it any other way, it’s the one place in California where the donkey show is exposed for it’s shortcomings.
What is the CVBB?
There is a second political dimension beyond that which is known to man in the Golden State. It is a dimension as vast as Bakersfield and as timeless as infinity and as boring as Modesto. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his lack of knowledge aside from dogma. This is the dimension of imagination-but only if supplied by Fox News. It is an area which we call the Central Valley Bible Belt zone.
Oh heck man, the Central Valley was like that even before the invention of the tv, and certainly before the interwebs. Faux News just amped the whole area from like 8 to 11 or 12 on the faux Christian Crazy Train. Honestly, I think it’s the blue coastal areas, not the Eastern and inner red areas, that have gotten even more whacked but the blues clean up better.
Just noticed that in the Florida senate race, Scott spent $51 miilion of his own money to win. Must be mighty lucrative to be a ‘Senator’ in the USA. Perhaps I should run for senate, but I guess I need to become a ‘health care executive’ first.
Oh me, oh my-oh
Look at Miss Ohio
She’s a-running around with her rag-top down
She says, I want to do right but not right now
–Gillian Welch – Look At Miss Ohio
Looks like my state is no longer a purple state. It’s done gone and stayed red once again at all state offices. Not that I found great hope in Cordray, but he might have stopped the bleeding (as long as he wasn’t a like -minded Obama thinker), especially to city governments and public education. But the Dems just no longer know how to win in Ohio, though Sherrod Brown with his working class schtick seems to know how to do it. It is no wonder Ohio was one of the leading states over the last few years losing 18 to 35 year old residents to other states. Our good union paying jobs gutted by the real collusion in our elections–the Dem and Repub unified front on destroying the legacy of FDR, unions, and all that is public. Looks like the decline will continue unabated. As a child in the sixties I use to see the charts in schools and note just in how many areas Ohio lead the nation or was near the top. I even worked as a rubber rat while going through college at a tire factory, all of which are gone except some offices and some small experimental work. Good pay, benefits, and paid holidays, and here 36 years later, most people don’t make what I made back then, $12.80 an hour. The Great American Dream? It’s not gone. It’s just that now only a small slice of citizens will ever see it. FDR. We hardly knew ya..
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