115th United States Congress

[Yuri-G]

Centrism by Dems = getting Lucy'd by the Repubs. Every. Single. TIME.


God damnit, we are the party of Charlie Fucking Brown.

[Andalusian girls]

However, I think you're being completely deaf to why we're even having special elections in the first place. These are to fill positions vacated by Trump's appointments -- appointments Trump's team made specifically because they were in unassailable districts.

this has been reiterated so many times i don't think it's ever going to get through to the people acting like the sky is falling because the Democrats lost elections in seats they had very little chance of winning. why look at the metrics which historically have the greatest predictive value for midterm elections when one can pull one's hair and gnash one's teeth and cry BUT WE LOST.

[kuronosan]

I'm more concerned with the prospect of continuing to lose democratic seats, furthering this shitty administration's grip on America.

I subscribe to the idea that people were so confident Trump would lose that he ended up winning and thus I cannot rule anything out anymore.

[Xajii]

this has been reiterated so many times i don't think it's ever going to get through to the people acting like the sky is falling because the Democrats lost elections in seats they had very little chance of winning. why look at the metrics which historically have the greatest predictive value for midterm elections when one can pull one's hair and gnash one's teeth and cry BUT WE LOST.

I think this is just as myopic as anything else though, and the Republicans never subscribe to this narrative of what seats can and can't be won.

If the Dems are going to win in 2018 they're going to have to win seats just like Ossoff's, except they'll be against incumbents. So what exactly is promising here?

And moreover, the DCCC's behavior doesn't align with this narrative that they weren't winnable. They threw somewhere around the most money for a House race in history behind this guy and he lost by 5 points.

The jurisdiction is red, but it's also a pretty solid microcosm of the "2 moderate republicans in Philly" / "Panera breads of America" suburb strategy that Schumer's slobbed on about. And again, it didn't work.

I don't know what is giving you optimism other than the party line here, and it's kind of annoying to have this constant smug detached "lol u guys are being so reactionary" when these are actual concerning developments and we're raising legitimate points of frustration.

[tyven]

this has been reiterated so many times i don't think it's ever going to get through to the people acting like the sky is falling because the Democrats lost elections in seats they had very little chance of winning. why look at the metrics which historically have the greatest predictive value for midterm elections when one can pull one's hair and gnash one's teeth and cry BUT WE LOST.

you won't fool me with your games. You're a republican. You want these idiot libs to "keep calm and carry on" so they can keep losing. Lucky for you that's exactly what they will do. Devious bastard

[Andalusian girls]

I think this is just as myopic as anything else though, and the Republicans never subscribe to this narrative of what seats can and can't be won.

If the Dems are going to win in 2018 they're going to have to win seats just like Ossoff's, except they'll be against incumbents. So what exactly is promising here?

And moreover, the DCCC's behavior doesn't align with this narrative that they weren't winnable. They threw somewhere around the most money for a House race in history behind this guy and he lost by 5 points.

The jurisdiction is red, but it's also a pretty solid microcosm of the "2 moderate republicans in Philly" / "Panera breads of America" suburb strategy that Schumer's slobbed on about. And again, it didn't work.

I don't know what is giving you optimism other than the party line here, and it's kind of annoying to have this constant smug detached "lol u guys are being so reactionary" when these are actual concerning developments and we're raising legitimate points of frustration.

hah, optimism stemming from the party line? i am not of your donkey ilk, and prefer a House led by Ryan than one led by Pelosi. but i do like conclusions based on evidence.

and no, these are not the seats Democrats are going to have to win to retake the House. Georgia's 6th District has not gone Democrat since 1976 and believe it or not the Democrats have had a few congressional majorities between then and now.

you're right the DNC+DCCC clearly believed it was winnable, or at least they felt compelled to make a visible effort following the temper tantrums of the young white liberal Sanders wing of their party after they lost a race in, gasp, a rural Montana that went +21 for Trump, but as previously stated the influx of money and outside attention likely went past some unmarked critical mass point and ending up having a deleterious impact on Ossoff's chances

in an about face of the usual election dynamics it is probable the smaller the turnout, the less widely engaged the citizenry, the better it is for Democratic prospects as they are a decided minority in these districts. that is to say an impassioned liberal minority could overwhelm the desires of a majority conservative demographic (as we often see in the inverse when conservatives punch above their weight because Democratic blocs in youths and minorities fail to turnout) simply by virtue of their mobilization, but that advantage is eroded the wider the electorate is. Parnell may well be overperforming because his race received so little outside attention. had he received the outside money and celebrity attention Ossoff did it is likely more nervous South Carolinian conservatives would have made their way to the polls.

i won't pretend Ossoff's campaign was well-run (very idiotic to not seek to link Handel to Trump giving the latter's unpopularity both within the district and nationally), and Tyven is possibly the only person on this board who despises Nancy Pelosi more than i do, but besides some calls for her head i've seen few 'legitimate points of frustration'. mostly just defeatist mewling and a demand the party cater to the fringe left because centrism is dead despite, you know, what it did in 2006 2008 and 2012. and for most of the 90s. and really the only times you've experienced large-scale national success since JFK and LBJ. the issue with you guys has always been personality over policy, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton ran on nearly identical platforms but one was hip and one was unlikable.

[Andalusian girls]

actually 2016 Hillary ran rather to the left of 2008 or 2012 Obama with her expanded minimum wage + gay rights + tax increase on the rich support and no calls for a massive military buildup in Afghanistan, and had a more liberal voting record than Obama during their Senate time together. guess the party went too far left with her eh

[Xajii]

i won't pretend Ossoff's campaign was well-run (very idiotic to not seek to link Handel to Trump giving the latter's unpopularity both within the district and nationally), and Tyven is possibly the only person on this board who despises Nancy Pelosi more than i do, but besides some calls for her head i've seen few 'legitimate points of frustration'. mostly just defeatist mewling and a demand the party cater to the fringe left because centrism is dead, despite, you know, what it did in 2006 2008 and 2012. the issue with you guys has always been personality over policy, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton ran on nearly identical platforms but one was hip and one was unlikable.

I'm not much of a fringe left type and I don't think it's fringe left to expect a more cohesive message out of the party. A goddamn sitting D Senator described the party's last five years as "hyper-confused' and admitted that the Russia investigation has been a "distraction" from policy and campaign.

I don't want or think the party needs to say anything about free college or universal basic income or nationalizing shit or noninterventionism or anti corporate fantasy. But the blue collar workers of this country are not fringe, and they also don't have to vote R. They haven't always, and haven't reliably even recently. The Dem message completely ignores them. If there's one thing Sanders and his ilk gets right, it's that these are the missing votes, not the Panera bread Republicans. That's my frustration. Can't speak for anyone else obviously, but I do think many agree.

[Xajii]

actually 2016 Hillary ran rather to the left of 2008 or 2012 Obama with her expanded minimum wage + gay rights + tax increase on the rich support and no calls for a massive military buildup in Afghanistan, and had a more liberal voting record than Obama during their Senate time together. guess the party went too far left with her eh

This is willfully dismissive and snarky. You know she had no actual messaging on the campaign trail. You could pull these policies from her websites, but she did a piss poor job of talking about them, and every single time they were brought up it began with an anecdote, included 3 different hedges, and was delivered in a tone so robotic you had trouble believing she believed herself.

ETA: And let's not act like the Republicans are immune from "personality over policy," or the need to use some measure of populist rhetoric to actually get people interested enough to vote. Thevast majority of the voting population aren't exactly policy wonks, and Trump basically rolled through the primaries by knocking down personalities, not policies. The only pathology unique to the left in this topic is their willingness to conitnue pushing garbage personalities. But hey, maybe the next emaciated Spider man actor lookin mother fucker will at least be from the district he's fuckin running for

[Andalusian girls]

I'm not much of a fringe left type and I don't think it's fringe left to expect a more cohesive message out of the party. A goddamn sitting D Senator described the party's last five years as "hyper-confused' and admitted that the Russia investigation has been a "distraction" from policy and campaign.

I don't want or think the party needs to say anything about free college or universal basic income or nationalizing shit or noninterventionism or anti corporate fantasy. But the blue collar workers of this country are not fringe, and they also don't have to vote R. They haven't always, and haven't reliably even recently. The Dem message completely ignores them. If there's one thing Sanders and his ilk gets right, it's that these are the missing votes, not the Panera bread Republicans. That's my frustration. Can't speak for anyone else obviously, but I do think many agree.

a fair point. i would say the desires of the white blue-collar working class and those of minorities + young college educated liberals are often in direct contrast, appealing to one often alienates the other, but there are divisions within every party, and divisions can be mended nationally by a magnetic personality, and locally by candidates tailored to their constituency.

however i don't think the panera bread strategy is entirely useless, though it will appeal to conservative-leaning and centrist independents much more than Republicans. if Trump's historically unprecedented unpopularity continues to worsen (most of the drop has come from independents) a lot of voters are going to come into play.

This is willfully dismissive and snarky. You know she had no actual messaging on the campaign trail. You could pull these policies from her websites, but she did a piss poor job of talking about them, and every single time they were brought up it began with an anecdote, included 3 different hedges, and was delivered in a tone so robotic you had trouble believing she believed herself.

but that's exactly the point, her issue was her skills as a campaigner not the policies she advocated. this belief she just wasn't liberal enough when she ran as the most liberal general election candidate of a major American party ever is rather silly no.

snark may have also been the point.

[Kaslo]

The Centralist policy point would probably work if it included something for Rural America. But it doesn't.

[archibaldcrane]

I love that Dems get pilloried for "Trump is bad" messaging, and then get pilloried for not using "Trump is bad" messaging.

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[tyven]

Dang you're usually better than somebody that would get this:

I love that Dems get pilloried for "Trump is bad" messaging, and then get pilloried for not using "Trump is bad" messaging.

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From This:

It's also worth noting that *even if you think the anti-Trump angle works* they couldn't even fucking do that right. Ossoff's campaign didn't run a single ad linking Handel to Trump, and she managed to link him to Kathy Griffin because she tweeted about him once.

[archibaldcrane]

i won't pretend Ossoff's campaign was well-run (very idiotic to not seek to link Handel to Trump giving the latter's unpopularity both within the district and nationally)

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[archibaldcrane]

NOT EVERYTHING IS ABOUT YOU TYVEN

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[tyven]

oh sorry i dont read AG's posts anymore because he's a wolf in sheep's clothing trying to keep team loser on the losing side while Heady, Xajii, Talint, and I try to drag you guys kicking and screaming into the light.

[archibaldcrane]

Dragging dems into the light with the inspiring message of "dems are losers and all they know how to do is lose"

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[Headspace]

Dragging dems into the light with the inspiring message of "dems are losers and all they know how to do is lose"

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For a numbers guy, you seem to dislike the hard data that shows that the only thing the democrats know how to do in the last 8.5 years is lose.

[archibaldcrane]

Hey, they've won half of the presidential elections in that time period!

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[tyven]

Dragging dems into the light with the inspiring message of "dems are losers and all they know how to do is lose"

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idk man I'm a dem and I'm pretty sick of losing. What about you? Or did that one taste of victory (Barack/Aaron Rodgers superbowl win) make you think that losing doesn't matter anymore (Everything the Dems have done since 08/ Rodgers has done since his superbowl win)?