Let’s create a clearinghouse for ideas on how to generate mid-term election turnout. No discussion of 2016 presidential politics allowed! Or, at least, such discussion in this thread is strongly discouraged!
But if you find that mid-term election politics lack the reality-show sizzle of presidential election dramas, please feel free to talk about other crap, like the possibility that aliens put the missing 777 airliner in a tractor beam and whisked it off to Tralfamadore.
Or discuss pet posterior shaving or whatever. You know the drill.
Deb T
It’s “Lost”.
BGinCHI
The decision in KS and AZ today supporting voter suppression in the name of voter fraud (which is itself a fraud) ought to get people so angry they stop at nothing to vote.
Sometimes I think this is the only thing that will motivate an apathetic but angry electorate. They have their Fear of a Black Planet and we have our outrage at their effort to scuttle government by selling it to the rich.
So: They are taking away our right to vote needs to be the cry of the land.
AMinNC
In North Carolina, people I know are focusing on getting out women, because when women vote, Democrats win. In 2012 we got groups of women together to hand-write postcards to registered female Democrats who voted in 2008 but not in 2010 to try to get them re-engaged. We picked an issue important to us (for some education, for some healthcare, for some environmental issues, for some equal rights) and wrote about why it was important to elect Democratic candidates who are much better than Republicans on those issues.
I also think a focus on voting rights is a powerful motivator as well.
ETA: BG in CHI beat me to it.
patroclus
I voted yesterday in the Illinois Dem primary and voted for Quinn, Durbin and Quigley, but there was nobody else there when I voted and overall turnout was terrible; primarily because there were hardly any contested races. Quinn-Vallas had token opposition, but Durbin and Quigley were unopposed. Quinn will now face Bruce Rauner, a truly obnoxious neuvo Republican with oodles of money; Durbin’s got ice cream magnate Jim Oberweis and Quigley will win handily against any Republican slob they put up.
schrodinger's cat
In Soviet Rushya, cheezburger eats you: So run kitteh, run
Betty Cracker
@BGinCHI & @AMinNC: Both great ideas.
Trollhattan
Over on the left coast (CA, to be specific) there are some contested House seats and the Dem state house supermajority is on hold in the Senate, which has already killed an election finance openness bill–just like the good old days.
Our off-year elections turnouts are poor and I don’t know how that’s changing. Jerry will only have to fog a mirror to be reelected and neither U.S. Senate seat is up this go. And on that topic, i suspect Feinstein and Boxer might both be in their final terms, which would kick off the Two Mostest Expensivest Congressional Election Campaigns in the History of Ever. Just not in ’14.
BGinCHI
@patroclus: I didn’t vote because I can’t stand Quinn. I’ll hold my nose and vote for him against Rauner, though seeing the latter go to prison after a year as Gov would be nice too.
Oberweis is a fascist who is too lazy to espouse his views in any coherent form. He’s like a stupider Tom Tancredo.
I hate her father, but when is Lisa Madigan going to run for Gov?
c u n d gulag
Photoshop Torquemada’s Grand Inquisitor’s costume, onto a picture of Ted Cruz-ader.
Or Rand Paul.
Or, whoever.
But that’s more for 2016, than this year.
Ok, show a photo of all of the old, white. male Republican House members interviewing a woman about women’s issues, or a minority, about minority issues.
Also, too – send every Democrat a card saying:
“If you want more hearings on Benghazi, the IRS, and Solyndra, and probable impeachment proceedings – instead of passing laws about our economy, energy, immigration, women’s and minority issues, and our nation’s future – then by all means, sit on your fat asses during this election, and don’t vote.
But then, don’t come whining to us!!!”
mak
A single day, coordinated event in which every Democratic office holder – every single one – devotes a considerable chunk of the day – preferably at the same time – to raising awareness of the importance of registering and voting.
President Obama holds a press event/conference to kick it off, followed by the hugest TV ad buy in the history of TV ad buys, accompanied by a million people wearing the same t-shirt, handing out ice-cream and hot dogs along with the voter registration forms and flyers bearing the simple, single message: There are more of us than there are of them, so FUCKING REGISTER AND FUCKING VOTE, YOU FUCKING IDIOTS, OR THE FUCKING ASSHOLES WILL REMAIN IN CHARGE and continue to erode your rights and our society.
Full-on all-media (and other known forms of communication) blitz; it’s the only way to get heard through the noise.
BGinCHI
Heard an interview with the Los Angeles mayor today, Eric Garcetti. Holy shit. Unless he has skeletons he sounded pretty damn smart and progressive.
More of this, please, Dems.
mclaren
We could start by burning down the Carcosa on the Potomac misnamed the Pentagon. From there, we should move on to tarring and feathering all the participants in the Fellini Satyricon that goes by the name of congress.
If that doesn’t get voters to turn out, nothing will.
BGinCHI
@c u n d gulag: Saw your rant on maddowblog. Righteous. I hate how they have fucked that place up. I almost never visit anymore.
ranchandsyrup
Gonna volunteer to drive voters to the polls on election day.
Gonna volunteer for whomever has the better chance against Issa even though I’m not in the district any more.
Gonna increase number of direct contributions to candidates.
Non-related: Random music post on the Shins. This song won’t change yr life, but is very pretty.
gussie
I wonder if the key to generating mid-term election excitement isn’t offering policies that directly, emphatically, and as-immediately-as-possible actually help a great number of not-diehard voters.
What those policies are, though, I’m not entirely sure. I guess my theory is that while the right is perfectly happy to overtly buy support from the mega-rich (death taxes! makers not takers!), we on the left are too reluctant to simply, blatantly, buy votes in a parallel way: universal basic income! free college!
BGinCHI
@mclaren: OK, but set aside pragmatism for a minute and give us some ideas we can use!
BGinCHI
@ranchandsyrup: My buddy’s bro in law is the drummer for The War on Drugs. Going to see them gratis at Metro this Sunday night.
Also, I assume you know the band Parquet Courts. If you don’t have “Light Up Gold” please to get immediately.
Kristine
@BGinCHI:
I’ve wondered about this, and figured that she wouldn’t run as long as Dad was Speaker as it could set up some really nasty family wars. Lisa’s young–maybe she’s waiting for Dad to retire?
ranchandsyrup
@BGinCHI: Love Parquet Courts and read the review on the new War on Drugs yesterday. I’m sorta familiar with WOD but need to delve deeper. Let me know how they are live, plz.
Stoned and Starving by PC makes me larf. But is a killer song.
BGinCHI
@Kristine: That’s my guess too. I have been waiting for her to become a terrible, terrible person like her criminal of a father, but so far she seems really solid.
BGinCHI
@ranchandsyrup: First two songs on LUG are just so perfect I can’t stand it. Out-Pavements Pavement.
WoD are pretty great, though it will be interesting to see how they develop. Their sound is a little one-D for me. Still, supposed to be wicked live.
Amir Khalid
MH370:
Peter King will be pleased. Per The New York Times, The government of Malaysia has finally asked the FBI for help, in recovering files deleted by Capt Zaharie from his homebuilt flight sim. The deletions are not in themselves suspicious, since they might just be routine housekeeping, but that still needs to be verified.
The Maldives “sighting” of MH370, like all the other sightings up to now, didn’t pan out.
MH370 passengers’ relatives staged something of a demonstration at the daily briefing in KL today and were forcibly removed by police from the briefing room, without the media being able to speak to them. Emotions are understandably high, but there’s been a lot of frustration in China and elsewhere with the Malaysian government’s not always reassuring management of this crisis.
The chief steward of MH370 and I support the same football club, it turns out. His teenage daughter tweeted to him on Sunday and got in reply messages of support from Liverpool FC itself as well as fellow fans all over the world.
[email protected]
fear. Because the country that the GOP wants to make us into is a Dystopian nightmare. Also, they got nothing. Of course it would help if the Democrats roused FDR’s mantra…
ranchandsyrup
@BGinCHI: Have heard that WoD is a great live band. Stoked for you. Have fun.
Agreed re: Light up Gold. Hadn’t put that together that they’re out pavementing pavement–totally true with the deliberate detuning and weirdness. Great insight.
BGinCHI
@Amir Khalid: I just assumed they kicked the shit out of ManU as a tribute.
BGinCHI
@ranchandsyrup: Fun fact. The lead singer of the band Speedy Ortiz used to front an all-female Pavement cover band called Babement.
ethan gach
First step is to support sufficiently liberal primary candidates.
ethan gach
First step is to support sufficiently liberal primary candidates.
Higgs Boson's Mate
How about having more Democratic candidates come out strongly in favor of policies that address economic and social inequalities? Ya’ know, like Bill de Blasio in NYC.
And how about Democratic candidates who talk up the benefits of the ACA?
Maybe a few Dems could summon up the courage to run as something other than “not quite a Republican.”
ranchandsyrup
@BGinCHI: LOL. Great tribute name. Speedy Ortiz gets a lot of love. Haven’t delved into them too much outside of hearing them occasionally on XM. You like?
BGinCHI
@ranchandsyrup: Yeah. Though not love. A band to watch though…
Tommy
I don’t know how you get folks to vote. My primary in IL was yesterday, I was out and about and saw the ” I Voted” sticker on a guy.We got into a long conversation about voting, he was to the far right, but we agreed voting was important.’ He told me everybody needed a photo ID to vote, I didn’t agree, but we did agree voting was important.
NotMax
Single most level-headed piece about the 777 plane story I’ve come across.
Violet
@Amir Khalid: That passenger protest and police removal of passengers was kind of amazing. The Malaysian authorities didn’t get good press for that.
Belafon
@mclaren: That wouldn’t get the voters out even if they cheered. Why would it?
Amir Khalid
@BGinCHI:
We could have had five penalties and their guy Rafael could have seen a red card, but for Clattenburg the Merciful.
Violet
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Yes. This. If Democrats acted like they were FOR policies that helped people it might help differentiate them from Republicans. Democrats are so often running scared from their own policies, it’s just embarrassing. No one wants to support something if the people who are supposedly for it can’t stand up and support it. That’s no way to rally folks around you or lead. Pathetic.
Amir Khalid
@Violet:
This is not going to make the Chinese government any happier, methinks. The Royal Malaysian Police can get away with doing it to Malaysians (or at least they could, once), but you don’t do that to foreigners in front of international media and escape criticism.
ThatPirateGuy
Since the biggest issue voters say they care about is jobs what if they ran on a national platform of a jobs bill. That and never ever even talk about being open to social security or Medicare cuts.
BGinCHI
@Amir Khalid: If we can keep playing like that we are going to win the thing. I’m not sure we can though. It’s making me feel very superstitious.
What was so impressive is that van Persie played and Rooney played and they did absolutely nothing. I’ve never seen a team destroy ManU like that.
beergoggles
Have the presidential primaries (or create pre-primaries) at the midterms. There, ur democrat turnout issue for midterms is solved.
ruemara
I do wish most of these election action threads didn’t mostly consist of fantasy Obama and the fantasy democratic party league. Here’s my idea: establish a Facebook group for 3 things, 1. Collect data on voting laws on a state by state basis for people to share. 2. Collect info on legal groups for voting rights issues. 3. Connect church and civic groups to organize registration drives, trips and voting caravans with a calendar for all to see and share. I’m willing to start it, but I wonder if someone has already done this.
Keith G
I’m broke, so giving $$ ain’t gunna happen. But I am in touch with Battle Ground Texas and will be one pair of their feet on the ground as they need them.
Have sent emails to Dem candidates imploring them to be dynamic liberals while they campaign. Playing defense will not bolster turnout. Being assertively different and proudly swinging for the progressive fences, being combative with a smile, might well create enough buzz to get more butts to the polls. Just saying, “We are not the crazy ones” will not be enough. Folks instinctively tend to believe and follow others who dynamically show that they believe in themselves.
Hence, I am worried, but I will never show it on the street.
Edit…
@Violet: And what you said.
IowaOldLady
State or local minimum wage increase. It’s popular on all fronts and particularly appeals to our voters.
Jim C.
Has anyone suggested “booth babes” at polling places yet?
Hey, it works for E3.
gussie
@ruemara: Problem is, I think, the easy stuff is being done. I can’t imagine the party heavy hitters don’t have all the stuff already. There seems–to me–to be a more fundamental, or fantastical, and less easily-addressed–problem.
MikeJ
@Amir Khalid:
So he installed either X-plane or FSX and hooked up more than one monitor, and plugged in a joystick.
Don’t tell anybody I have both a joystick and a throttle control.
SiubhanDuinne
I’ve already given some money and put in some volunteer time phone banking on behalf of Michelle Nunn. At this point in the off-year cycle, especially 7+ months out from the general, it is a pretty thankless task. One night last week I made something like 30 calls before I even got a live person to answer, and probably another 15 before I actually found a person who said yes, she would come to the Day of Action.
However, just keeping Michelle’s name out there is helping, I think. She is fund-raising pretty successfully, and seems to be coming across as the calm, smart, reasonable person in contrast to the Krazy Klown Kar Kavalkade, aka Republican candidates. She is pulling slightly ahead in the polls against all the Pubs, and the Cook Political Report (I know, but bear with me here, okay?) today moved the GA Senate race from “leans Republican” to “tossup.”
I know my friend JPL and probably other Juicers in the state don’t think Michelle has a chance, and maybe they’re right — but until and unless she gives a concession speech, I have to do what I can.
MikeJ
@Jim C.: Booth babes don’t actually help your company make more money.
http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/13/booth-babes-dont-convert/
MomSense
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
This. You know that Republicans will attack the ACA so we might as well sell it. It has done so much good for people and there are now about 13 million stories! Also, too please tell the Medicare seniors that they are getting more services now–and without co-pays. And even though I like holes in donuts, Obama closed the prescription donut hole.
c u n d gulag
@BGinCHI:
Yeah, I don’t know why I keep trying.
Insanity, is my best guess.
Amir Khalid
@BGinCHI:
Manchester United are at home to Olympiakos in the second leg of their Champions League round-of-16 match as we type. They’re 2-nil up on the night and level on aggregate. (ETA update: 3-nil up, and 3-2 ahead on aggregate, thanks to a van Persie hattrick.) They’re playing for the club’s future here: unless they win this season’s Champions League, there’ll be no European football next season, they’ll lose out in the transfer market like Liverpool did this year, and they could be in for a decade-long downward spiral.
They’re looking good tonight. But Man U’s problem this season has been that when they pick themselves up, they don’t stay picked up.
PaulW
1. Get the email listing of every Democratic and No-Party-Affiliate Voter out there across America and convince them that turning out to vote this November for the Democrats will result in 30 percent more punch and pie.
2. Arrest the entire Republican Party leadership at the state levels over their voter suppression efforts by pointing out they’re violating 18 U.S. Code § 594, Voter Intimidation.
Turgidson
@BGinCHI:
The new WOD album is so so good. And I forgot to get tickets to his/their now sold out shows here in SF. Eff bomb.
BGinCHI
@c u n d gulag: I added a similar comment. They have probably heard it a million times already. It couldn’t get worse if they paid me and you to make it worse on purpose.
BGinCHI
@Turgidson: That is why I depend on nepotism.
PaulW
@MomSense:
Remember the bit in The West Wing where Toby figures out that Ritchie’s people calling Bartlet arrogant was “a gift that they’re irreversibly convinced that he’s arrogant ’cause now he can be.’ If your guy’s seen that way, you might as well knock some bodies down with it.”
If they’re gonna rake the Dems over the coals with ObamaCare, then better effing defend ObamaCare to the hilt. No apologies. POINT OUT WHAT OBAMACARE HAS DONE, which is INSURE MORE PEOPLE AND REDUCE COSTS OF HEALTH CARE.
And the go after the Republicans for refusing to HELP VETERANS and HELP THE POOR and FEED THE KIDS.
ruemara
@gussie: they may have them but the largest orgs seem to sitting things out for 14 & focusing on 16. Any others are largely begging for money, circulating meme pics or sending me petitions about telling [station] to do whatever. Dems are not organized to win without a galvanizing figure. They prefer to whine, cry, pout and then get upset when told to do something.
MikeJ
@PaulW: For everything West Wing got wrong on policy, they certainly got a lot right on politics.
Kay (not the front-pager)
As for GOTV, the approach must be multi-pronged.
1. Message: Democrats want only enough government to ensure that all citizens are treated fairly. That means regulations aimed at making sure that businesses (e.g. big banks) treat customers fairly, energy companies don’t price-gouge or dump toxic waste into everyone’s water, etc, insurance companies can’t charge you premiums until you get sick and then cancel you… choose the group and laws/regulations that work in your area. Republicans want small government when it comes to protecting citizens, but want BIG government when it comes to citizens running their own lives: government intruding into decisions about basic reproductive healthcare (at least if you’re a woman; I haven’t heard any regulations proposed for vasectomies nor ED drugs), requiring drug testing for a growing number of public services, etc., intrusive and onerous regulations when it comes to exercising your right to vote.
2. Run registration and education drives. By education I mean, be sure your voters know what suppression they will face, and how to overcome it. Also, help them overcome it (bus trips to the DMV for state ID and such)
3. Call and canvass. This is basic, but it WORKS. Dems did it in 2008 and 2012 and voters actually, you know, VOTED. We did it in Va. in 2013 and were able to sweep all 4 state-wide offices, which was previously unheard of.
4. If your state has canceled all early voting when working folks can vote, hold absentee voter drives. Instead of churches bringing ‘Souls to the Polls” after Sunday service, have absentee ballot parties where church members get instruction in what they must do and must include in order to have their absentee ballot counted. Research shows that people are heavily influenced by what their friends and neighbors are doing. If everyone else is voting it puts pressure on them to vote also. Then provide postage and carry those ballots together to the post office.
If you can’t go through, go around. If you can’t go around, go over. If you can’t go over, go under. If you can’t go go under, just keep going till you get there. Get out the vote.
As for MA370, I have said before on other fora and I’ll say again: test rapture. Everyone knows you don’t do a big project rollout without testing (Judge Roy Bean anyone?) and a pilot project. Someone who is infallible would definitely know this. Duh…
gussie
@ruemara: Good point.
Eric U.
@MikeJ: I always wanted to build a 5-dof flight simulator in my garage. Homeland security would probably come down on me like flies on a dead dog
Hungry Joe
@ranchandsyrup: Issa, I fear, is a lock: totally red district. Maybe better to help out Scott Peters, who’s facing that wild-eyed, spittle-flinging lunatic Carl deMaio.
I don’t understand how getting rid of early voting is supposed to reduce voter fraud. What, fraudsters — those intrepid folk who go from precinct to precinct casting votes in other people’s names and somehow manage never to get caught — are more likely to do it on a Sunday, or a week before election day, rather than on election day? Does anyone ever think to ask the voter suppression crowd about this? If so, what’s their answer/excuse/dodge?
Trollhattan
@ranchandsyrup:
Understand your newly elected mayor was prominant at the recent annual state Republican gathering, saying “See, look at what we can do here!” or somesuch.
Am guessing one of their prime tasks is stuffing Donnelly and the other baggers into a large box before fall.
Steeplejack
@BGinCHI:
But Maureen Dowd likes him, which makes me nervous.
ranchandsyrup
@Hungry Joe: I hear you and agree that Issa’s a lock. To unlock it (eventually), it’s gotta start here. Things have to get better in that district to get better candidates with $$ to run against him. I’ll be donating to Peters, definitely. DO NOT WANT Carl DeMaio. So smug.
FlyingToaster
@Hungry Joe:
An unendng litany of codewords that decode to “the wrong people are voting”.
***
@Deb T: The MH370 accident was Millenium, not Lost.
In real life, it was a slow electrical fire in the belly; when recognized, the pilot turned to hit the nearest runway but either he or the controls died before they overflew it and autopiloted out to the Indian Ocean.
ranchandsyrup
@Trollhattan: Ugh, indeed. Tactically, the gopers gotta pimp that win for all it’s worth. I only hope the local dems learn from that race. Gopers were able to get the matchup they wanted by funneling $ and ads into the Dem race.
I think they’ll try to play both sides with our local teabaggers. Minimize them unless the race turns in a way that they become useful.
hilts
Ken Langone is sorry if anyone had a sad when he went Godwin:
“I hope it’s not working,” Ken Langone, the billionaire co-founder of Home Depot and major GOP donor, said of populist political appeals. “Because if you go back to 1933, with different words, this is what Hitler was saying in Germany. You don’t survive as a society if you encourage and thrive on envy or jealousy.”
Source: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/the-rich-strike-back-104753.html
“My remarks were intended to discourage pitting one group against another group in a society. If my choice of words was inappropriate — and they well may have been that — I extend my profound apologies to anyone and everyone who I may have offended,” Langone said in the statement.
Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2014/03/ken-langone-apologizes-for-comments-linking-fight-against-income-inequality-to
Amir Khalid
@MikeJ:
It seems a bit more involved than that.
ranchandsyrup
@hilts: His remarks were intended to discourage pitting one group against another group. He intended to achieve this by pitting one group against another group.
Elizabelle
@AMinNC:
I really like that idea. It’s personal, and maybe easier for the volunteers than drafting a letter to the editor.
John O
@FlyingToaster:
I think that is an excellent use of Occam’s ol’ Razor.
Elizabelle
Betty: I like that you and Balloon Juice are doing this, and agree that it should be a weekly feature.
Stay motivated, Democrats!!
BGinCHI
@Steeplejack: She does have that Kristol touch.
Anoniminous
We’ve already made our preliminary calls lining people up for GOTV.
Next step is gearing up for the primary and I need to decide which candidate to work for. Leaning towards Webber but going to give Morales and Rael a hard look; it’s darm near impossible to unseat a governor here, running a white carpetbagger against a Hispanic women would only make it harder.
If you’ve got some extra coin, Roxanne Lara is running against the odious Steve Pearce. You can contribute here
MomSense
@PaulW:
I’m in your amen corner on this comment!!!
raven
@Elizabelle: I like that you say I like that.
Amir Khalid
@FlyingToaster:
In real life, no one knows any such thing for sure.
JPL
@hilts: I call bullshit to his statement…“My remarks were intended to discourage pitting one group against another group in a society. Mitt ran a campaign separating the classes and Langone supported him. What a jerk!
Nazgul35
One simple thing we did in our corner of Michigan (which doesn’t have party registration, which is its own nightmare) was to go through the list of Dems who voted in the last four election cycles. We would draw up lists of Democrats who only voted in Presidential elections and door knock to convince them o the importance of voting, fill them in on issues, etc.
The response on many of the doors was “we haven’t had anyone knock on our door in decades.”
It’s also important to differentiate between people who will vote and those who infrequently vote. Door knocking on frequent voters runs the risk of pissing them off. They just need info as to who the Dems are and when the elections are. Leave them alone otherwise.
gogol's wife
@MomSense:
Me too. I don’t understand why Democrats are so lame at this kind of thing. The New York Times keeps hitting the theme that the Democrats are running from ACA and running from Obama. Obama won two presidential elections handily. Do they really think he’s a liability?
MomSense
@Elizabelle:
We did the same thing in Maine. We also had grandmothers write to grandmothers–worked really well.
gogol's wife
OT but not really. Today I looked up the word “feckless” because somebody wanted to use it in a text I was supposed to approve, and I hate it because it’s always used by people to characterize Obama, so I wanted to make sure of the definition before I deleted it. When I googled it, the first couple of hits were definitions from dictionaries. The rest of the hits were statements about Obama by various a-holes.
Amir Khalid
Hmm.
FlyingToaster
@John O: Even in bed with a 100.3° fever, I can remember tracing wiring plots on 5′ x 3′ paper in colored marker for a Lockheed 1011.
My dad was a mechanic for [defunct airline]; he got his promotion to Lead Inspector when I was 15. He’d bring home diagrams printed out on the giant HP line printer, get out a pack of markers, make a key in one of the corners, and set me and my brother to tracing them after we finished our homework.
Commercial Jet Airliners are fucking difficult; regardless of the amount of safety features we build in, sometimes 15 or 16 things go wrong. And then you drop TWA880 into Long Island Sound, AirFrance 447 into the Atlantic, and now MH370 into the Indian Ocean.
They’ll claim it was one or two things in a year or two, when they find the black box (which may be useless if it flew past the loop; on old jets the loop was last 30 minutes of flight data); but it was a bunch of things that all went kinda wrong.
Villago Delenda Est
@Hungry Joe:
When you read “voter fraud” as “the wrong people are voting for the wrong party” it becomes clearer what the deal is.
Elizabelle
@Nazgul35:
Yes. Waste of resources.
Villago Delenda Est
@hilts: This asshole needs a tumbrel ride. Stat.
FlyingToaster
@Amir Khalid: True. But this “getting the FBI to undelete his home built flight simulator data” is a freaking sideshow.
I (and people who are pilots, including some relatives with single engine licenses) am pretty sure that something like what this pilot said is what happened.
FlyingToaster
@Nazgul35: this.
I got door-knocks (4 in three days), back during the Elizabeth Warren / Senator Centerfold election.
I’ve voted in every election since moving to Massachusetts, as has my husband. One door knock was sufficient. I called up their local office and chewed them out. Never knocked again.
MomSense
@gogol’s wife:
I don’t know why they do this especially since the Republicans are going to run the same tired ads saying so and so democrat voted with Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama 99% of the time. They should just say “Yes, I support my president because he has ended the war in Iraq and is bringing the troops home from Afghanistan, has made it possible for 13 million more Americans to see the doctor when they get sick, created 8.7 million jobs in the aftermath of the great recession, and has cut the deficit in half. The Republicans haven’t lifted a finger to help working families so I’m going to fight for this election and I’m going to work with President Obama and keep fighting for families here in ______ and all across this country.”
Anoniminous
@Nazgul35:
It’s amazingly depressing how awful Dem outreach is. The SO called a guy who has been a reliable Dem vote for 60 years and she was the first person from the Party to call and thank him.
Good points about the difference between solid and loosely attached voters.
Chyron HR
@gogol’s wife:
They’re just showing off their True Progressive bonafides to appeal to the Netroots base.
John O
@FlyingToaster:
I have not ruled out that the plane is sitting on a remote runway somewhere for purposes as yet unknown, but generally speaking, I’m with you.
Hope you feel better!
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid: No, dressing in FABULOUS Nazi regalia in no ways glorifies the Third Reich. How could anyone imagine such a thing?
Yet, amazingly, there were no US, British, French, or Soviet flags displayed. Plenty of Axis flags. Well, less Italy, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Finland, and Japan…
Omnes Omnibus
@gogol’s wife: Is there any real evidence that Dems are running away from Obama or this this just some thing that gets said like “Dems in disarray?”
Villago Delenda Est
@Chyron HR: Also, too, they are apparently in need of engraved invitations to their own tumbrel parties.
Hungry Joe
Here’s how to GOTV — one way, anyway: Shoe leather. Precinct walking. Especially on election day. We lost the mayoral election here in San Diego a few weeks ago, but I know, I just KNOW that my 7-8 hours on the street got at the very least five more people to vote because I saw them get in their cars and head for the polls. Surely there were a few others as well. My wife probably got more. (She’s better at it.) Multiply that by, oh, half a million new volunteers, and see what happens.
So … how many of you BJ’ers will sign on to walk the (precinct) walk?
Villago Delenda Est
@gogol’s wife: I’m wondering if the deserting coward, the Dark Lord, Gramps Walnuts, and the Marquis de Mittens are, in contrast to the “feckless” Obama, well, feckful.
Hungry Joe
@Villago Delenda Est: Yeah, I got that. I’m just wondering what their official explanation is: “Getting rid of early voting reduces voter fraud by (blank).” What do they say? Or do they even bother?
BGinCHI
@gogol’s wife: In my opinion he is chock full of feck.
Villago Delenda Est
@Hungry Joe: They can’t. Not if they’re being honest. And they’re never honest.
They’re scum.
David in NY
@hilts: I’m against Ken Langone because his stores (Home Dep.) are disorganized and dirty and he doesn’t hire enough people or pay the people he does hire enough to be of actual assistance to customers.
Calouste
@FlyingToaster:
I don’t think the safety inspection will claim it’s only one or two things. It’s the journalists that report on it that can’t count further than two.
Hungry Joe
@Nazgul35: I did run into a number of people who were fed up with us door-knockers. And you’re right: The frequent voters — and we have that info — need only to be given the voter info and approached once. But there are groups working independently; one of the precincts I walked a few days before the election already had door hangers on every Dem door: I was working with the Labor Council, and the local Dem Party had people covering the same ground. Ideally we’d coordinate, but, you know …
As for infrequent voters — just once or twice in the last five elections, say — we probably can’t hit them too many times. Anybody who says that they’re pissed off by all the door-knockers and now won’t vote wasn’t going to vote anyway.
Mike in NC
@Hungry Joe: The point is to simply make it harder to vote. When we vote here in November, I’m betting they will somehow install fewer voting machines than in 2012.
Mike in NC
@David in NY: Good to have a reason to not set foot in a Home Depot store.
Trollhattan
@FlyingToaster:
Far from a consensus opinion, FWIW, and opinioning is what we’ve got for the most part.
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-26640114
Trollhattan
@Hungry Joe:
You can imagine my NH bro, who endures about two years of campaigning out of the four-year cycle. He’s…displeased by the whole circus and it’s a pox on everybody’s house.
scav
Well, apparently we now have a solid clue about how Christmas parties are supposed to be held, In January. On MLK Day. In Costume. Anybody care to guess guess the theme of the garb?
And now, after all the details that had to line up to attain that level of utter coincidink, they’re all fluttering their big ingeneue eyes and lecturing others about freedom and how startled they are that “some” might be made “uncomfortable”.
Violet
@Elizabelle: Agreed this should be a weekly feature. Front page post could be updated with “what works” or “good idea of the week” and as things go forward, group info for those who might want to work together, etc.
Amir Khalid
@FlyingToaster:
Have you seen this?
Elizabelle
@Omnes Omnibus:
I am quite sure the NYTimes writers and Villagers are reporting it back and forth, to each other.
“Some say…” you know.
Baud
We can hold free cat ass shaving events where people can register to vote.
Libby's person
Democrats in Durham NC are working hard now on voter registration and on getting volunteers on board to help with GOTV here and in neighboring districts. I and a couple of others are hosting an April Fools’ Day fundraiser for the NC House Democratic Caucus (check us out on facebook), which is as much about getting people energized as it is about raising money. The Moral Monday effort got us going; it’s getting a lot of others engaged as well.
Eric U.
@David in NY: he’s not running them any more. They heard the complaints and now you can’t move in a Home Depot without running into an employee. I hope it tapers off once they repair their reputation, too many employees can also be a pain
different-church-lady
@mclaren: That sounds like a hell of a big CGI budget.
different-church-lady
@Amir Khalid: Cue complaints the FBI cares more about a missing plane than mortgage fraud in 5… 4… 3… 2…
WaterGirl
@BGinCHI:
I don’t think she will run for governor until the whole pension thing is resolved and the state is on better financial footing. I think that’s why she didn’t run last time, and I think that’s why she’s not running this time.
gogol's wife
@Omnes Omnibus:
I don’t know because I can’t stand to read New York Times articles any more unless they involve concerts or recipes.
dmsilev
@WaterGirl: Also primarying a sitting governor is hard to do. Even granting Quinn’s problems, going after him and losing would have killed her political career dead. And, as noted above, she really does need to wait until her father steps down. There are enough grumblings as it is that he has too much influence over her as AG; she’d never be seen as her own person as Governor if he were still Speaker.
gogol's wife
@Violet:
Yes, I like this thread if only because Villago is getting us all riled up. That’s what we need.
different-church-lady
Anyone interested in knowing who the candidates are in the local elections, and then helping them sell the strong points?
Anyone other than Kos that is? (And I mean Kos himself — his “community” couldn’t give a flying fuck at this point.)
We keep insisting on viewing the midterms through a national lens. But it’s only a small component. In the end everyone looks at two candidates from their own district or state and chooses the one the like better (or can tolerate the most). National strategies don’t mean a thing when someone looks at a ballot and says “I ain’t voting for him/her.” National issues only matter when applied to whether that candidate is going to fight for them or not.
FlyingToaster
@Amir Khalid: That’s the second version I’ve seen (the other pointed to above was at the BBC).
As one of the BBC commenters noted, the climb to 45K is where things seem to have gone to hell. Which is one possibility for the pilots to try to extinguish the fire. But that’s at the operational ceiling, and very much a hail-mary attempt to extinguish a slow burn.
Either the cockpit crew was dead and you had an amateur at the helm, or everyone was dead and the autopilot was failing due to systemic damage.
I agree it’s not going to be a straight line from whatever the military radar had them last, but it’s going to be in the Indian Ocean. Hopefully a container ship will notice the debris field, if they can distinguish it from a field of plastic trash.
There’s no money in stealing a commercial liner full of people and mail — there’s nowhere to effectively hide it. There’s no winning a propaganda war or terrorist campaign when the damn plane just disappears. Every neighboring country has military radar that scramble if there’s no IFF, except maybe Burma, and I don’t think they’re interested in pissing off the Chinese.
It’s an accident, and a tragedy, and not anything else. IMNSHO.
different-church-lady
@gogol’s wife: No love for crosswords, eh?
Mandalay
@NotMax:
I challenge that assertion. If the plane is thousands of feet down at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, and largely intact, then it seems quite likely that it will never be found. Or at least it won’t be found until some new deep water technology emerges.
WaterGirl
@dmsilev: Completely agree with everything you wrote.
Violet
@FlyingToaster: The climb to 45,000 is apparently suspect. Something about the radar being unreliable about altitude.
WaterGirl
OT, but does anyone know how to report to weather underground that their “wind” and “wind gust” hasn’t been working on their website for most of the past 2-3 weeks?
JPL
@WaterGirl: hmm.. Report it to the weather channel since they now own the underground site. I might be wrong but I think weather underground depends on individuals who monitor their equipment.
Omnes Omnibus
@Elizabelle: That is my impression.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Tweety is so hysterical about the Dems losing the Senate I’m almost ready to feel optimistic.
Violet
@WaterGirl: Assuming you’ve tried the obvious “contact us” link? Facebook? Twitter? Have you tried changing to a different weather station or personal weather station (PWS) to see if it’s just a problem with the one you’re looking at. Even pick another city where you know it’s windy and check that?
They’re owned by the Weather Channel now, so you could try contacting them. Don’t expect much.
JPL
@Violet: haha.. Actually I have it on good authority that they are trying to be more attentive to problems.
Violet
@JPL: Either they’re being more attentive or they’re not. There is no try. I have little confidence that they are. They’re a hype organization now.
Mandalay
@WaterGirl: They have a contact page full of information: http://www.wunderground.com/about/contact.asp
I have written to them a couple of times myself about incorrect data (a few years ago) and received very friendly replies.
WaterGirl
@Violet: I couldn’t find any “contact us” info and I don’t do Facebook or twitter. Tried the “pick another city thing”, too. Tried two different browsers, too, in case it was a Safari issue, too, before posting my question.
@JPL: I will check out the weather channel for contact info. I do not like the weather channel website, so I don’t use that.
I have been pretty sensitive to wind since last may when a huge gust of wind (not a big storm) crashed my huge tree on my house. It comforts me a bit to be able to check the weather underground page and see what the wind and gusts really are, so I wish they would fix it.
Edit: found a support button on the weather channel, then looked for a third time on weather underground. Searched for “support” and found a tiny link. Thanks!
Violet
@WaterGirl: What sort of problem are you having with it? I use the “classic” version of wunderground and I’m seeing both wind and gusts for my area. Just put classic and a dot in front of the wunderground on your URL and the classic version should come up for you. Take out the “www” part.
HRA
The greatest problem facing whoever is intent on GOTV is not at all hidden from view. Turn on the TV, read the newspaper or go online and you will see plenty of Republicans out there and nary a Democrat. My husband and I discuss what news there is on Rand Paul, Paul Ryan and Priebus. Ugh! I omitted Ted Cruz. Ugh X2!
I must also confess we became worn out by politics when we were most engaged and excited in 2008 and 2012. We even supported Democrat candidates in other states by contributing to their campaigns.
Today I learned what should be a disturbing fact for Democrat candidates. My work environment consists of 90+% registered Democrats. At happy hour excursions they would easily tick off any Republican among us with their insistent support for Democrats. It’s not now, not this time and never for Hillary. Wake up Democrats!
different-church-lady
@WaterGirl: Try changing your weather station to a different one in your area. The one you’re defaulting to is probably gooficated. It’s a grey button labeled “Station Select”
JPL
@Violet: Like a lot of corporations i.e. Home Depot, they tried to cut costs by hiring lower wage individuals. They lost viewers and web users because of it. It sounds good on paper, cut wages, make more money but it doesn’t work. The new hires are paid more with excellent benefits and they are now seeing better results. It will take time though. The other change at the weather channel is the discussion on global warming but a lot of that is because of Jeff Masters.
Violet
@JPL: Has Jeff Masters gone to the Weather Channel? I mean, I know the Wunderground is owned by them now (sad) but I thought he was still over on that side. His blogs during hurricane season are always excellent.
I almost never go to weather.com. I’m a weather geek and every other weather geek I know avoids it too. It’s like the Weather Channel is toxic.
hitchhiker
Must brag on my young friend, Katie Stultz, who is part of this awesome organization. I’m fairly sure she’s headed for office one of these days; I certainly hope so.
different-church-lady
@Violet: So where do the weather geeks go?
WaterGirl
@Violet: Thanks for the tip on the classic site. That shows 0.0 for me, too. The equipment for Champaign, IL must be down, and it has been for weeks. Frustrating.
I just sent them an email message, and who knows, maybe someone will actually read it! :-)
Violet
@different-church-lady: For what? Standard weather updates online? Weather underground. Following hurricane tracks? I have several online forums and websites I visit. On TV? I don’t know. I tend to pay attention to my local forecasters because that’s what I’m usually most interested in. I used to watch the Weather Channel years ago but it’s not worth it anymore. Their naming of winter storms has been ridiculous.
Violet
@WaterGirl: Did you check some other places? California or North Carolina or Oklahoma City or something?
JPL
@Violet: No but he would not sell to the weather channel unless they paid more attention to global warming.
different-church-lady
@Violet: Standard weather updates. I’ve been relying on Wunderground for years, but I’m taking from this thread that the weather geeks are frowning on it now because Weather Channel took them over? Or am I misunderstanding?
WaterGirl
@different-church-lady: Thanks! Just switched to the airport station – several miles away – and it shows the wind. Yay! When I switch back to the one in my neighborhood, just a few blocks away, it’s still 0.0.
Just send a follow-up message to weather underground letting them know which station is having the problem. Hopefully they will fix it!
But in the meantime, I have something at least! Yay.
Tenzil Kem
It strikes me that the Dem goal this year, federally, has to be holding two Senate seats. That gives us 50 seats and Joe Biden to tide us over til 2016. So the question then is, what are the best marginal races to concentrate resources and attention on? Can we Big Data our way to wins in small population Alaska and Montana? Can Kay Hagan be saved in NC? Is Landrieu enough of a street fighter to win? Unfortunately I don’t know how we in the grassroots figure this out.
danielx
Pet posterior shaving….mmmmm.
ranchandsyrup
Tibetan mastiffs have a short life span and aren’t that rare, but someone still plunked down $2M on a mastiff puppy in China.
WaterGirl
@Violet: Yeah, I could see from my weather widget that my sister was having crazy winds in Colorado, so I entered her zip code and it showed wind speeds. But mine did not. After weeks of frustration, I asked the question here, and now at least I have wind info, even if it’s from miles (not blocks) away.
Violet
@WaterGirl:
Just FYI, I put Champaign, IL into weatherunderground.com (new site, not classic) and got wind at 26.6 from the west. Wind gust also 26.6. That seems pretty high for no wind advisory. Scrolling down to the weather stations the wind seems to be all over the place.
different-church-lady
@WaterGirl: Glad to help.
I was just poking around on my Wunderground page and when you go to the station select page there’s a link marked “report” — hover over it and it says, “Click the “report” link only if you think this station is reporting bad data.” So that’s probably your quickest path to getting it fixed.
You probably need to switch back to the bad station beofre hitting the link.
gogol's wife
@different-church-lady:
The crosswords are really the only reason I keep up my subscription. But even they can be annoying, with anti-Obama clues. I swear.
JPL
@WaterGirl: I do think that they depend on weather geeks for different locations so in your situation, they might need to find someone else.
Cervantes
@hitchhiker: Looks promising. I like the Board — good people. I bet Katie is a great campus organizer. Donation is on its way. Thank you.
Violet
@different-church-lady: Weather geeks were really fretful when they learned that Weather Channel was buying weather underground. So far it hasn’t been a disaster but there hasn’t seemed to be any visible benefit to users either. So the jury is out, imho. So long as it doesn’t get worse, that’s okay for me.
Cervantes
@gogol’s wife:
From my perspective, the NYT crosswords went to hell in a hand-basket when Will Shortz took over — too cheap, too much commercialism — a sop to advertisers.
Some people still enjoy them — that’s great.
Luckily, there are other crosswords. Now if only I could find the time …
John Revolta
Why does anyone go anywhere except the National Weather Service (weather.gov)??
hitchhiker
@Cervantes:
Mensch, you.
Thanks!
gogol's wife
@Cervantes:
Where are the good crosswords? The Times is really deteriorating.
NotMax
@Mandalay
I’ll defer to people who, you know, perform those kinds of operations.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@WaterGirl: You can always go to the National Weather Service for Champaign, IL – it says winds are 23 MPH with gusts to 28 MPH at the moment.
(The National Composite Radar Loop is good, too.)
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
sherparick
1. Replace Congresswoman Wasseman-Schultz with someone who will once again adopt Howard Dean 50 state strategy. I know the Village media is biased against women and for Republicans, but she is very much part of Rahm Emanuel’s legacy. In addition, it should have been her job organize the media response to sell the good news stories about the Affordable Care Act.
2. Make the Progressive Budget part of a new “Contract for America.” Put in it minimum wage increase and $600 increase in social security benefits NOW. The MSM wont’ say it, but the story Jolly put out about Sink supporting the “Catfood” commission and chained CPI I believe was decisive in sinking Sink’s turnout (I could not resist:-). It was hard to defend because it was true.
Mandaly
@NotMax:
You are conflating apples and oranges: locating the plane and accessing the plane once it is located are not a single operation. As your link states, “the searchers have to know where to look”, and the search area for this plane is over 7 million sq. kms. of deep ocean – much greater than that for the Air France flight. All the bleeding edge technology coming out of Woods Hole is unlikely to be able to find a plane in that haystack.
And apparently you didn’t even read to the end of the article you linked to, which states:
And someone who located the Air France wreck is also skeptical about ever finding this plane:
Do you want to defer to her as well, or do you only defer to the experts who share your opinion?
NotMax
@Mandalay
That’s a cheap shot, blaming Woods Hole for being unable to do something no one claimed they are equipped to do.
And yes, I read the entire less than a full page article, contrary to your smug assertion. Not reporting that skepticism exists would be untoward. If you followed the links in that paragraph you cited, you’d find speculation from one news station’s own ‘aviation expert’ and the other at CNN (which has been terrible in its reporting) from someone whose expertise is in air traffic control, not search and recovery.
The wreck or evidence of it will eventually be found. The time frame may be months, years or decades. The only limiting constriction is the continued cost of looking.
Betty Cracker
@WaterGirl: Ever considered getting one of those home weather station thingies? I got one as a present for the mister a few years back.
He installed the wind measurement doohickey on the roof of our henhouse and hung a rain gauge somewhere in the yard. It sends info to a digital receiver or PC in the house, and you can also rig it up to transmit data to WU.
Ocassionally a vine climbs up on the wind thingy and fouls it up and we climb on the roof and trim it back. Something like that may have happened to the local weather station near you that is reading zero. I think our weather station cost about $200?
noabsolutes
Yup, putting local minimum wage increases on the ballot always works. So does promoting early voting, weekend voting, and voting by mail (including absentee). And trying to turn out women only works to a limited degree–as we saw in the VA governor’s race, more than half of white women voted for the Republican. The reason women in the aggregate appeared to be the group that won for the Dems was that black women, along with the rest of the black voters who turned out, voted overwhelmingly that way.
Also, in the 2012 elections, black voters turned out at 2008 levels–and in 2010, they voted for Democrats by huge margins, while the rest of the electorate was less solid. So turning out the black vote is essential and decisive, while boosting the share of the white vote Democrats can get is only going to go so far… getting more educated white folks to the polls is essential, so moving them off the “it doesn’t matter” fence is what’s really important. They’ll vote Democratic, but they register and choose not to vote; that has to change.
Absentee voting typically favors Republicans but there’s no reason it has to stay that way. It’s basically their equivalent of early voting. If it turns into a winning tactic for Democrats, that might stem the tide of in-person voter suppression.
Also, GOTV is only so effective as long as active voter suppression is going on, so poll-watchers from the D side are vital to keep shenanigans to a minimum. There will always be white 70+ Rs out to intimidate voters of color and young people who have only voted a few times in their lives; but there are more of us than there are of them.
J R in WV
@WaterGirl:
Weather Underground uses individually owned weather stations for more locally granular data – NOAA has great data where they have installed data sources, WU has far more reporting stations.
They even have a link anyone can use to install their own weather station AND connect it to the Weather Underground web site.
That said, if an individual weather station owner doesn’t pay attention to and maintain their weather station, pretty soon it is contributing garbage to the network, rather than useful data.
I’m at a loss on the mid term elections. Here in WV we’re likely to lose our last Democratic Senator when Jay Rockefeller retires and Shelly Moore Capito gets elected to his seat. WV has been known as a Democratic blue state for years, when it has been Democratic by tradition and deeply conservative by nature.
FDR and JFK were nearly worshipped in WV, yet Obama lost both elections, badly. Many of the so-called Democrats in the state are actually red conservatives, birthers, anti-union activists, who hate tree-huggers, activists, and members of the Sierra Club!
Most people in my rural county used to vote to get a drink on election day. Now that the Feds have shut down the illegal electioneering pretty well, the voting population has dwindled. Actually getting more people to vote would probably raise the number of R votes! Sad.
So I’ll probably contribute to the Dem Senatorial candidate, and work the phones for her, and do the same for Dem candidates in NC, WI, AZ, and other states where there will at least be a battle over real issues.
West Virginia, which should be more liberal than any other state because of the way the people are treated by industries that control the levers of power, is more like Mississippi every day. And I’ve lived there (in MS) and I know how bad that slide really is!
WaterGirl
@different-church-lady: Just getting back to this thread now, so you will likely never see this, but thanks for the “report” link. I just changed my station and clicked the link to report. Thanks!
WaterGirl
@John Revolta: I just went to that site, and even if I enter my location, all I get related to my location is a tiny little bar on the left hand side that shows me what any weather widget would. I like the real time information on weather underground, and I get it on most of the screen.
(I know you will likely never see this, either!)
WaterGirl
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: I didn’t know about the first site you linked. (I’m not weather geeky enough for the radar one.)
I may use that until weather underground gets fixed.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: I had no idea there was such a thing! I saved the info for later when I have a bit more money.
@J R in WV: Didn’t know that, either! Thanks.
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