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berlinerbaer

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Everything posted by berlinerbaer

  1. Oh, and the GOP in the AZ state senate is pulling this stunt with a bare 16-14 majority. 31-29 majority in the State House. Clearly, there are no Kinzingers or Collinses in that bunch.
  2. Yeah, this audit is too much of a shit show for it not to hurt the Arizona GOP. This is a state that is trending blue with the speed of Colorado or Virginia. These assholes can't stop what's coming. Georgia, Florida, and Texas are different stories, unfortunately. I'm afraid tactics such as these will be far more effective at allowing the GOP to maintain their grip on power in these places.
  3. There will be substantial blowback from the left and the center, although I don't think the right will just declare mission accomplished either. There will be much at stake on both sides, legislatively speaking, at both the state and federal level. I don't think the Republicans could ever ban it nationwide, but they will be able to turn out the base by claiming the Dems will legalize it without restrictions. Some kind of grand bargain will become the next legislative unicorn, kind of like immigration reform, for many future Democratic presidents to run on.
  4. This. Assumptions that a splintering of the Republican party will turn out well for Dems are misguided and dangerous. Most of us rightly thought it was a bad idea when Justin Amash floated his third party run for president last summer. Luckily, he eventually figured it out too. The surest way to defeat Team A is to join Team B, not to start Team C. People think this will divide the conservative vote into pro and anti-Trump. Instead, it will divide the anti-Trump votes into conservative and liberal. The Dems need to make this upcoming election about issues and not another Trump referendum. They cannot link arms with the anti-Trumper Republicans. The Dems need to paint them as people who voted to repeal the ACA, voted against Biden's Covid stimulus and (likely) infrastructure, and whose failed policies set the stage for Trump's rise to power in the first place.
  5. I'd buy an argument that the national party didn't want to make this into a race since they knew voter enthusiasm was minimal, although I'd point out that a single tweet from Biden (fuck, where was Beto?) would have sent Sanchez to the runoff. No need to endorse anyone. Just remind people to vote. An extra 1500 blue votes would have done it. I'd rather not focus on the national party anyway, as I'm most concerned about Dem voter enthusiasm, or lack thereof. The fact is that the national party wasn't needed to win elections for Democrats during the Trump era. Add to the fact that it's more difficult for the Democratic party to manufacture enthusiasm among its supporters than it is for Republicans, and I'm not convinced things are just going to work themselves out in 2022. You can't just look at the win column. Democrats outperformed across the board in 2017, even if they came up short in flipping some deeply red districts left vacant by Trump appointees. Tom Price won GA-6 by 23 points in 2016. Ossoff came short by only 4 points a year later. Kansas, Montana, the VA elections, and of course Alabama Senate. Not all wins, but the trend was obvious. 2009 was a similar story for the Republicans. They lost close races trying to fill vacancies of Obama appointees, but those races shouldn't have been close on paper. It didn't take long for them to start winning.
  6. Option 2 should have happened. It would have been valuable for party leadership and activists to learn, early on and unequivocally, that their base has a motivation problem. Instead, this election gets swept under the rug, excuses are made, and we don't hear anything until Virginia later this year.
  7. Dems collectively beaten in votes by almost 2 to 1. Total turnout only 23% of November numbers, and only 31% of 2018 turnout. So those new Democratic suburban high propensity voters who were supposed to turn out failed to turn out. We have our first data point showing that one of our key assumptions of the post-Trump electoral landscape may be flawed. Either those voters who switched allegiance the last few years aren't dying to head to the polls, or they didn't switch after all. Meanwhile, this bullshit was posted on DailyKos yesterday. Idiots.
  8. Jana Lynne Sanchez (the leading Dem) is currently in 3rd place, where she trails #2, Jake Ellzey, by 366 votes. Only 9% of Tarrant county precincts are left to report. Pretending these precincts are identical to the ones that already reported in Tarrant County, there are 4723 votes still left to count. She is pulling 15.7% of the vote there currently while Ellzey is getting 8.1%. Assuming the remainder break the same way, she'll net another 741 votes compared to 382 for Ellzey. This will put her behind Ellzey by 8 votes. She needs to hope those final precincts are in populous areas of Fort Worth or the Dems are going to be locked out of the runoff.
  9. Tomorrow's the last day to vote in the Texas 6th special. 24 candidates in all. Pubs are beating Dems collectively almost 2 to 1 in fundraising. On each side, the frontrunner in the polls does not lead the party in fundraising.
  10. No fences is a dead give-away for Trumpland.
  11. If anything, it's good for filibuster reform. Biden is basically buying his vote.
  12. Got stuck with the first Moderna this afternoon. My arm is sore but that's it so far. The lady that stuck me was a pro. It was the least painful shot I've ever gotten, which might just be because I was happy as shit to get it. Overall I was impressed with the city of Houston's operation.
  13. I didn't know jungle primaries were a thing in Texas. R support will likely coalesce around Ms. Wright, ensuring she moves on. There is some real risk that a D gets left out if there isn't a well-known local name.
  14. This, except one minor correction. They knew they never had the votes to repeal Obamacare. They backed themselves into a corner after their shitty tantrums the previous six years and had to pretend to their base they really wanted it. John Boener called this one back in February of 2017 almost exactly as it happened. The ONLY thing the GOP wanted to do during the Trump years was give their donors a tax cut. That, and confirm judges.
  15. Blount committed GOP seppuku by helping plan Biden's inauguration and then speaking at said inauguration.
  16. This was my thought as well. My guess is that the new bills were designed with past court rulings in mind. The justices had to state why they ruled the way they did, so the new bills could use that as a legal framework on which to build something more robust.
  17. I miss Germany. You live in a great city. As for Tanden, come on, Joe. Pull her nomination. Quit wasting time or deal with the embarrassment of a failed appointee.
  18. Lulz https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/16/trump-attacks-mcconnell-in-fiery-statement-469150
  19. The notion that politicians and pundits on the Right are at the mercy of their base is a dangerous myth. The masses have been whipped into a frenzy by a steady stream of lies from callous depraved "leaders", like Rush and Trump. These people are treacherous manipulators and we should celebrate every time they get their microphones taken away, by whatever means.
  20. I like your spunk but three bills, the maximum amount of bills that could pass through reconciliation, is a far cry from a "whole bunch of bills". Or do you think the Dems nuke the filibuster?
  21. My point was that this vote did not have to happen if McCarthy would have dealt with MTG on his own or among leadership. Instead, he made all his caucus go on record. There are several freshmen Rs in purple districts who have had a rough first month in office, voting wise. I'm talking about the two ladies in CA, the one still undecided in NY, and the one in IA who won by like 10 votes. The whole reason Mitch built a pile of Dem House bills up on his desk was to prevent them from coming up for a vote and making his members stick their necks out. One explanation is that Trump told McCarthy to hold the vote in order to find out who the "traitors" are, after flying down to Mar a Lago and slob his knob.
  22. This must have been a brutal vote for so many Republicans, especially the ones in swingy districts. It was all avoidable if McCarthy would have just handled MTG by himself. Between this saga and the internal vote over Cheney, I can't think of a less effective leader. Mitch, or even Pelosi would have never allowed this to happen.
  23. Q-CA. Awesome. Please let this stick. I'm going to start doing it from now on.
  24. Her district isn't nearly as red as I thought. It swung 10 points blueward in the Trump years. R +6 according to Cook in 2018 after the former incumbent R won by 22 and 14 in 2014 and 2016.
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