I’m never sure what to think about Senators like Joe Manchin, who do manage to reelected in red states but aren’t really reliable Democrats. I *do* know that we’ve got to support endangered incumbents who *are* reliable Democrats. Doug Jones is the most obvious one but Gary Peters (MI) and Tina Smith (MN) may have tough races too. This election could be funny — the demographics of the upper midwest may tilt MN, WI, and MI to Trump while delivering Texas and Arizona to Biden, which would mean Biden wins. Minnesota is a scary state in terms of having a very high-percentage of white voters who did not go to to college.
Anyway, let’s raise some money for some good Democratic senators.
Doug Jones, Alabama Senate (incumbent)
Gary Peters, Michigan Senate (incumbent)
Tina Smith, Minnesota Senate (incumbent)
You can see all of the candidates we are supporting here. We’re around 830K total since I started keeping track and about 330K this cycle.
Omnes Omnibus
FWIW Manchin has been a pretty good Democrat. He shows up for the big votes. It’s the rest of the time that he is a pill.
Kelly
Q: What do you call the swamped Trumpsters bobbing in Lake Travis?
A: Proud Buoys.
Azhrie139
I am not saying that Tina Smith doesn’t need money, but this is wrong: “Minnesota is a scary state in terms of having a very high-percentage of white voters who did not go to to college.”
Data would seem to indicate this is not true: “Minnesota ranks 2nd (50 percent) nationally behind Massachusetts (52 percent) in the percentage of its population (aged 25 to 64) with an associate degree or higher. In the 25 to 44 age group, 54 percent have an associate degree or higher.”
clay
Manchin is reliable! He has never* voted against the party on any issue where it would have made a difference. Including impeachment! Can’t get more reliable than that!
*At least, in the Trump era. Can’t speak to anything before that.
Omnes Omnibus
Also, I think that writing off WI is a mistake.
sdhays
@Omnes Omnibus: Yeah, if you look at the statistics, he looks bad. But even with Kavanaugh, if you were paying attention, it was pretty clear that Manchin had decided he wasn’t going to be the deciding vote. If Collins had voted against Kavanaugh, Manchin would have too. Which is annoying from a certain perspective, but practical – he only sticks his neck out when he believes it’s actually going to make a difference.
I wonder if Doug Jones doesn’t bother doing that because he knows that in Alabama, there’s no point really trying to thread that needle. He needs his base to know he’s there for them and hopes respect and apathy (during the run-off) on the other side gets him the rest of the way.
ALurkSupreme
Ever since the Supreme Court election there, I’ve believed that Wisconsin will be blue in November.
cmorenc
I’d rather have Manchin sticking with us as one of the more conservative Ds than jumping to R as one of the more sorta-kinda-for-an-R “what passes for “moderate” these days. He’s worth it if for the following reason alone if his seat is what gives us Ds a slim Senate majority post-November. Biden wins and the Senate is 50-50, we get to safely replace Ginsburg on SCOTUS (should she resign or die) with someone suitable. Biden wins and the Senate is 51-49 R, and McConnell will refuse to allow any nominee to come to a vote for however long the Rs still hold that majority and a D President is in office.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: I agree that Wisconsin deserves a special effort – specially with Ben Wickler at the helm. After the primary he deserves support for Wisconsin until the bitter end. Wisconsin came through big time, in spite of all the craziness and a million confusing last-minute changes.
WaterGirl
@sdhays: I have so much respect for Doug Jones. I still think we should give him our all. If there is ever a year when we could see some unexpected results, it’s this one.
Yutsano
Every piece of data so far has shown that Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota will be quite blue this election. If Florida is going for the Democratic side, so will all these states. Heck even South Carolina is wobbly for Dolt45. This is more a turnout election than anything. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t shore up our candidates. But it’s not looking all doom and gloom just yet.
japa21
Agree with the comments above about Manchin. He has actually surprised me with most of his votes, and generally when he voted the “wrong” way, it wouldn’t have made a difference.
Ohio Mom
What cmorenc said @8.
topclimber
@japa21: Honorable Mensch-tion, too, for pushing for gun control after Sandy Hook. Not an easy vote in a gun-friendly(fetish?) state.
Kay
This whole CBS battleground poll is good news for Biden.
Trump is only up 1 in Ohio which is worse than he was doing before they started (the latest) racist focus.
I wonder if they’ll look back and think they should have focused on the economy. It’s an area of (relative) strength for Trump but inexplicably Team Trump decided to ignore it all summer and instead conduct fake interviews with people pretending to own businesses in Kenosha.
Another Scott
@japa21: The best thing about Manchin is that he votes for the leadership at the start of the session. The leadership determines what happens. Without the leadership, Manchin could be Lefty McLeftish and it wouldn’t matter as far as getting anything good passed is concerned.
The next best thing about Manchin is that, yes, he does vote with the party on bills and nominees and impeachment far more often than his rhetoric might indicate.
I’m reminded that Ted Kennedy had no problems at all being the punching bag of conservative Dems in the South – he understood that it was part of the “game” of politics, and if it helped get more Democrats elected then that was fine with him.
As Nancy says, “Just win baby.”
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
And Biden’s actually enthusiastic about competing on the economy- it’s what Democrats want to talk about- so Biden now has the luxury of going after Trump on Trump’s one area of relative strength because he’s ahead on everything else.
Not a bad place to be.
Baud
@Kay:
Talking about the economy doesn’t get you boat parades.
Baud
Manchin is fine. It’s West Virginia that’s gone wrong.
artem1s
Hillary won high education, medium income voters. It was the low education, white voters that were the problem – especially protestant. Al Franken’s first election recount in Minnesota was tipped by urban districts. It’s the rural, protestant, educated and/or non-educated voters we need to worry about in MN, and probably the rest of the country.
Kay
@Baud:
Health care. We’re going back to our favorite subject :)
They should too! It’s 100% true that Republicans offered nothing on health care. What do you want to know about health care? Ask Joe Biden. He has already answered every conceivable health care question, many, many times over, during the (literally) endless Obamacare “debate”.
Another Scott
@Kay: It’s really hard for Donnie to focus on the economy now.
https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2020/09/q3-gdp-forecasts.html
Vote for me because I blew up the economy bigly! Twice as bad as George Bush!! And we’re still in a huge hole!!11 Deeper than the Great Recession!!111ONE
:-/
Biden made the point in his economy speech that Donnie is likely to be the first(?) president to have no job growth during his term. (I guess W’s two terms had net growth, but his 2nd certainly didn’t (or it was just a tiny net gain).)
Cheers,
Scott.
Uncle Cosmo
@Omnes Omnibus: @clay: @sdhays: @cmorenc: @japa21:
Thanks to you all for bucking the “perceived political whizzdumb” on this site. Manchin is our Susan Collins – he makes a lot of noise about voting against the Democratic position (which gets all the political naïfs this site is crawling with shrieking their heads off) but when the chips are down he votes with us.
Manchin is as good of a Democratic Senator as we are going to get from a state as bat-shit insane as WV (& I double-dog-dare Cole or JR in WV or any other ‘Eer here to even try & say otherwise). If Amy McGrath were to beat the Turtle & then desert the Democrats twice as often as he has, yinz would be lining up to kiss her feet in gratitude.
scribbler
@artem1s: Rural Catholic too. There’s lots of them in MN.
Kay
@Baud:
I read that Newt Gingrich was one of the masterminds who told Trump to ignore the economy and focus on scary (black) protesters. The plan was to turn Biden into “McGovern”. The fact that actual suburban moms are WAY too young to even know who “McGovern” is didn’t enter into this discussion, I guess.
Kay
@Another Scott:
I know! Biden kept bringing it up but media were focused on insisting he denounce looters all summer. Now that he’s done that 50,000 times I suppose we can now go back to the millions of unemployed people who are flooding food banks.
Baud
@Kay: I don’t think Trump needed much convincing.
White suburban moms don’t need to know who McGovern is to be made to fear black people.
Don K
@Yutsano:
I’ve tossed a few bucks in Peters’ direction twice so far. Early on, a super PAC went after James for his support of repealing the ACA, which I would suppose softened him up a bit. The other night I saw a Peters ad tying James to Betsy DeVos. Our side needs to create some devil figures on the Right, as Reps have done with Nancy and AOC, and DeVos fills the bill. Peters runs good campaigns, and shouyldn’t be in trouble, but it’s Michigan (Metro Detroit in the SE, surrounded by Indiana with better scenery), so you never know.
The Moar You Know
Manchin puts McConnell in the minority, maybe. No Dem senator is expendable. We need to learn that and so do our voters.
Kay
I’m surprised that the pandemic is issue number one, because reading America’s public intellectuals I would have guessed “cancel culture” was foremost on our minds.
Real finger on the pulse of the nation, our Great Thinkers. I bet cancel culture, important as it, recedes a bit when you’re a suburban mom waiting 4 hours to get your box of food.
Baud
@Kay:
Nothing cancels you like COVID.
H.E.Wolf
Sen. Tina Smith is pro-choice and pro-economic fairness (her campaign slogan is “A champion for Minnesota working families”), which I appreciate in an elected official. Here is her EMILY’s List bio page:
https://www.emilyslist.org/candidates/tina-smith-20
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
Hasn’t it largely fallen flat, though? And Trump is the incumbent
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
So far. But that’s their strategy.
Kay
@Baud:
I know we’re trapped with the electoral college so “overall” matters less, but in broad terms the tactic works less well than it used to:
That’s remarkable. Most of the Trump analysis comes out of an assumption of Trump’s strengths, a focus there- but there’s all kind of ways of looking at numbers and this is as valid as any other.
Emma from FL
@Baud: Most (but not all, obviously) white suburban moms live in already integrated neighborhoods. And not only have they encountered black families but black-not-American families. Yes, there are bigots but there are also lots of people who are more concerned with the state of the local schools, parks, and libraries than about if the doctors two doors down are from India or Chicago or whatever.
I live in one such. Small neighborhood in Miami-Dade County that was built as a bedroom community but turned into small township. It was starting to diversify when we bought our house in 1997 and integration continues as we speak.
Roger Moore
@japa21:
Manchin also seems to be in really good touch with his voters. He can argue in favor of things like ACA or USPS in ways that appeal to people who might otherwise be swayed by the Republicans. We desperately need that.
Cheryl Rofer
Hey DougJ!
It occurred to me yesterday that I don’t remember seeing you raising money for Gym Jordan’s opponent. Is he unbeatable? Did I miss it?
Congressional hearings would sure benefit from his absence.
Hungry Joe
@Kay: Newt also said that the Nancy Hairgate scandal assured a landslide for Trump. Why anyone gives airtime or electron space to this vastly clueless putrescent glob of suet is way beyond me.
Chyron HR
@Kay:
Obviously the GOP needs to convince the
master racewhite working class that they’re unemployed, homeless, and starving because Rob Reiner and the cast of the Princess Bride “cancelled” them.Kay
@Baud:
The President of the United States has issued direct threats to 4 people and one publication who reported bad news about him in the last two days. He names the individuals he’s targeting.
Jesus Christ. If your whole thing is “cancel culture” you should be screaming. This is it! This is what “chilling speech” with the state apparatus looks like. It’s right in front of them.
germy
japa21
@Roger Moore: You make an excellent point. He can never be accused of being an “intellectual elitist” because he doesn’t come across that way. It would be interesting to see him campaign for Biden in the middle of PA.
Baud
@Kay:
Cancel culture is the new political correctness. Progressives started it, but the right engages in the most egregious examples of it while exaggerating what the left has done.
Kay
@germy:
In other news, the President called for a Fox news reporter to be fired, and set his screeching supporters on her.
Roger Moore
@topclimber:
It’s good that he did it, but I don’t think this is quite as brave as you’re making it out to be. The gun lobby has the Republican politicians in its pocket, but moderate gun control measures, like universal background checks, are popular even among Republican voters. Understanding issues like that, where he can talk about broadly popular issues where the Republican politicians are wildly out of step, is part of the way any Democrat can try to keep getting elected in a red trending area.
geg6
@Roger Moore:
Agreed on that.
germy
Hungry Joe
@The Moar You Know: The Art of the Possible seems beyond the ken of many on the far left. Building a coalition, not getting everything you want (because coalition partners get a say, too) right now … that’s selling out. I mostly agree with this crowd on policy, but their blindness to political reality is infuriating.
San Diego note: No smoke in the sky this morning! (We’re in Kensington.) You okay?
germy
@Kay: this must be the cancel culture I’ve been hearing so much about.
debbie
@Baud:
The earliest example of cancel culture I can remember is the War on Christmas, where people would boycott stores that focused more on Christmas’ commercialization than on the message of Jesus. I remember visiting a site where people were testifying who and why they were boycotting. One woman was appalled Target couldn’t offer her Baby Jesus wrapping paper.
Gvg
@Kay: Trump thinks the economy is bad for him and he is right. In fact I don’t know what a good subject for him is. Trump doesn’t really get the economy from a regular persons point of view. He thinks it’s the stock market and a scoring game. To us, it’s jobs, wages and sometimes starting businesses. Can you imagine starting one in this time?
I’m actually surprised it isn’t worse.Starting trade wars was stupid. I assume the world’s businesses think the next President will end all that.
rikyrah
Manchin is better than ANYONE running as a Republican.
Period.
That’s how I feel about the woman running against Moscow Mitch.
She can be Manchin with XX chromosomes. I don’t care. Her job is 95% done if she wins on November 3rd.
Kay
@germy:
Oh, there’s more! That’s just the last 48 hours of assaults on a free press! The cancel culture warriors will also be restricting what history is taught in public schools! The President has vowed to condition federal funding on which essays and books are taught.
Admittedly he can’t, because that isn’t how public schools work in the United States, but neither the cancel culture warriors or the President know that, never having entered a public school, so the free speech threat, to them, should be obvious.
debbie
@Kay:
This appears to be the tweet that set him off:
DougJ
I’m pro Manchin too in the end
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: apparently he’s trying to start a twitter mob after Laurene Powell jobs after Charlie Kirk (or somebody) found out she’s donated half a million to Biden and the Dems this year (ETA: apparently she is also an investor in The Atlantic)
his creepy, sexist and probably projecting interest in a real billionaire’s wife is not new:
divF
@Hungry Joe:
That is Betty Cracker level of invective. Nice.
(I’m still looking for an opportunity for using Wallace Shawn’s “ass-licking poseur” here).
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Trump says Department of Education will investigate use of 1619 Project in schools
This is outrageous. I’m old enough to remember that as recently as 2012 conservatives wanted the Department of Education to be abolished. Where are those conservatives now on this? Again, so much for federalism and local control. I guess principles are only followed when it suits their interests. Hell, wasn’t Tom Cotton one of them? Now he’s introducing a bill prohibiting federal funding to k-12 schools that use the 1619 Project materials in their curriculum
I mean, this is crazy. It’s a Pulitzer-Prize winning project. This isn’t “un-American”. It’s simply history. “We’re the greatest country in the history of the world” is a toddler’s understanding of American history.
And I’m sure the “cancel culture” comparison would be lost on them. Or maybe it wouldn’t because they know and just don’t care
germy
Thread about a play from 1938 called “The Last Trump”
germy
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Where did trump get that idea?
Geminid
According to an article by Gabby Orr in today’s Politico, the new republican gambit will be to brand Kamala Harris as a scary radical she-devil. From California. I guess they figure this will play to their strong suits of racism and misogyny. Hopefully she and the Democrats will be ready to counter the lies and half truths.
Kay
@Gvg:
It’s anecdotal but it’s weird, close up. They’re spending LIKE CRAZY. Everyone thinks it’s built on sand and will crash at any moment but they are spending like crazy people and loading up on debt. It has a frantic quality – I feel like it’s connected to the pandemic. I don’t think it’s healthy. Not an expression of a healthy country. It feels like buying a ridiculous amount of toilet paper, writ large.
rikyrah
@Kay:
They keep on bringing up Biden either leading by a point, tied, but always in the margin of error in TEXAS. How many polls have to come out before folks stop saying that it’s an “outlier” . we are coming up on two solid months of Texas “outlier” polls.
Sometimes, everything aligns and you hit the bankshot.
The Democrats need to go, in earnest, after the White Whale.?
MomSense
I’m not conflicted at all about the red state, conservadems. WIFT to win. Vote for a Democratic Senate Majority Leader.
BlueGuitarist
@Cheryl Rofer:
Gym Jordan’s district is wickedly gerrymandered, including tacking on a prison. Gym won that district by 30 points. Sherrod Brown lost it by 14 while winning statewide by 7.
WaterGirl
@divF: Hungry Joe is also the author of a great book called:
Anyway*
Kay
@Geminid:
It’s nice to have someone new for ordinary Democrats- our real base- they’re excited about her and I think there’s a lot of room for growth there. I think she’ll be a more effective surrogate for Biden because Democrats don’t really know her and they’re interested in her separately. Biden they already know. She’s what’s keeping them interested.
Cheryl Rofer
@BlueGuitarist: Thanks. I thought it might be something like that.
WaterGirl
@MomSense:
WIFT?
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Who wants to tell him what Melania is going to do when he dies?
Baud
@Geminid:
Huh?
MomSense
@WaterGirl:
It’s from the 2012 Maine Obama campaign. Whatever It Fucking Takes!
Hungry Joe
@divF: Betty Cracker needs to write a book. Seriously. Her sentences crackle, she’s deeply savvy, and she’s funny as hell. You read about ten words and you kind of relax, because you know you’re in good hands.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Dems have already sent Lamh to Texas.
Hungry Joe
@WaterGirl: Awwwwwwww …
zhena gogolia
Sickening (and quite believable) details from Cohen’s book (WaPo link):
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/cohen-trump-book/2020/09/05/235aa10a-ef96-11ea-ab4e-581edb849379_story.html?
BlueGuitarist
MarcoPolo: thanks for advice earlier, which i saw belatedly.
germy
If some reports are to be believed, she didn’t wait for his passing.
Elizabelle
@Hungry Joe:
Betty Cracker is the Molly Ivins of the Manatee Coast.
divF
@Hungry Joe: Agree !
debbie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Is he deluded enough to think Jobs would have had anything to do with him?
divF
@WaterGirl: I know – I’ve been making heavier use of footnotes ever since it came out.
Hungry has been giving 110% for a long time.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@debbie: I’m thinking there’s a backstory there, either she laughed off a ham-fisted attempt at romance, or she didn’t invite him to a Big Billionaire’s Manhattan Fund-Raiser, featuring Michael Bloomberg and Warren Buffett
Jared and Ivanka were at a table near the waiters’ station
debbie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’m thinking she turned down an invitation from him to donate money to his campaign.
Suzanne
@Kay:
“Cancel culture” is just what social conservatives call it when they find out that some people don’t want to be their friends or colleagues.
They LOVE canceling. They loved canceling atheists who ran for public office. They love canceling LGBTQ people from housing and engaging in public commerce. They love canceling Disney and Nike and Google for any kind of public alignment with any cause they don’t support.
The irony is that Dreher has a book coming out called “Live Not By Lies”, when they live by the biggest lies of them all.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@germy:
OANN has Russian connections doesn’t it? Some years ago, I remember coming across some guy on the internet claiming to be a Russian academic who was trying to discredit Edward E Baptist’s The Half Has Never Been Told, where he explored how slavery built American capitalism
germy
From what I understand, the proper thing to do is for the widow to toss herself onto her husband’s funeral pyre.
oatler.
I’ve said it before but Chuck Todd can eat a bag of dicks
https://crooksandliars.com/2020/09/chuck-todd-trumps-attempt-undermine-postal
FelonyGovt
@Kay: Who would’ve thought that a president who lost the popular vote by almost 3 million votes, and has spent his entire term denigrating that majority, as well as alienating others, would have trouble at re-election time?
PPCLI
@Suzanne: Some of us are old enough to remember the explosion of outrage at the Dixie Chicks for expressing a low opinion of Bush onstage.
Or when Phil Donahue was hit with an avalanche of criticism for opposing the calls to the Iraq war, culminating in the cancellation of his MSNBC show.
I don’t remember a single right winger uttering a peep to defend their free speech.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
interesting framing from CNN
I’d never heard of the Jobs-Axios connection, but it is interesting that The Beast if picking a public and very personal fight with someone who can easily–I think, not being one of your billionaires– do what Mike Bloomberg promised to do, and apparently isn’t
PPCLI
In other news, it appears that DeJoy has been a very naughty guy. A, like, “against the law” kind of naughty:
https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1302645526039597061
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@PPCLI: Ashleigh Banfield, as I recall, was hounded out of the media for saying something critical of Bush. Janeane Garofolo was viciously attacked for telling people to read books. Even Bill Maher got fired from ABC.
Geminid
@Baud: Yeah, the republicans have been taking their whacks at Harris already. Orr made it sound like they are going to try to be more deliberate and focused. Kind of like a walnut sized brontosaurus brain sending a message to the tail, “now, swing harder!”
Jesse
@Omnes Omnibus: Same here. I don’t understand writing off *anything*. That’s what a party is for: we support each other through thick and thin. Sure, some races are clearly unlikely to be won. But sometimes you do win. What’s the point of someone in such a district thinking “they’re gonna write me off”. We don’t want people on our team to think that.
There go two miscreants
I’m in for all three here; sent some $ to Jones previously, but new month so I added some today.
I’m drilling down into the state races in NC (my son & family live there); already sent some $ to the NC Dems. I suspect polling is kind of sparse at that level so I’m probably just going to distribute some money around. Suggestions from those in the area are welcome!
Jesse
@germy: Didn’t he publicly promise he would spend a ton of $$$, regardless of who won the primary? (I recall that his army of Macbook-equipped volunteers were let go a while ago. The ones to whom he promised jobs until November.)
Jesse
@Yutsano: What triggered DougJ into setting up a thingy for Tina (MN) in particular was a couple of comments in an earlier DougJ fundraising thread which pointed out that there’s some tightening in the MN senate race. Not *all* data points point towards Smith winning beyond a doubt. (Admittedly, it would be a big change. But the winds may be blowing in the Republicans’ favor in MN at the moment, and we’re trying to head that off.)
Kay
So DeJoy laundered campaign contributions thru his employees. “Conduits” they’re called. You can’t do it in campaign finance. One of George W Bush’s bundlers went to prison for using employees to launder campaign donations. I think he’s out but he did at least ten years.
mrmoshpotato
Via Karoli
Kay
@PPCLI:
Every single Trump hire is corrupt. The incompetence leads to discovering the corruption.
Chyron HR
@germy:
He’s going to be really surprised when he finds out how faithful President Trump was to his first three wives.
germy
@Chyron HR: The Newt Gingrich school of marital bliss.
mrmoshpotato
@oatler.: Excellent headline (to tell me not to waste the minute reading)
Upchuck Todd is a walking sack of shit.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
as someone with what snobs would call middlebrow taste, I hesitate to criticize anyone’s taste, and the big surprise here is that trump noticed objets d’art that weren’t somehow about him– (they are shiny!), but this article is pretty funny. And now I have to figure out exactly how awful Jamie McCourt is to have snagged the ambassadorship to France
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@mrmoshpotato: NBC is often a clueless outfit, but at least Chuck Todd got very publicly demoted. If Chris Cillizza’s colleagues don’t mock him behind his back, they’re not much better than he is.
“Is there a fan blowing on Ivanka? Or does her hair just do that?“
Another Scott
The laziness in too much political reporting these days is, …, breathtaking. Assuming it’s laziness and not gaslighting, of course…
Grr…
(via Popehat)
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@Kay:
Thread.
Nobody sensible would have accepted a significant appointment under Donnie’s administration. Of course he’s crooked. That’s the only kind of person left.
Cheers,
Scott.
Suzanne
@PPCLI:
I would probably be more concerned about threats to free speech if there were any that I actually witnessed first- or even secondhand. What I see a lot of is social conservatives realizing that they should have supported stronger labor protections. But since they decided to enter into electoral coalition with libertarians…. fuckem. Life by the right to work, die by the right to work.
Oh, your perception of fairness changes when you are not on the top of the social strata? Funny, that.
Frankensteinbeck
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
One of the scenarios I consider highly likely when Trump loses is that he’ll steal a lot of shit from the White House. He’s an incredibly petty person.
Another Scott
@Frankensteinbeck:
The cat’s out of the bag. Too late for him to get away with anything so overt.
[eta:] That said, we need to remember that presidents often buy the furnishings to take home (e.g. the Clintons did) – so I wouldn’t be surprised if there are arguments (again) about the value and payments (if any).
Cheers,
Scott.
mrmoshpotato
@Another Scott: Relax. I’m sure the orange Soviet shitpile will have the bill for anything sent to St Jude’s.
Kay
@Another Scott:
This is the “conduit” case:
He got 27 months on the federal charges but they brought state charges too, because he used the same methods for two state GOP candidates. He did years and years in prison.
rikyrah
@Elizabelle:
???
James E Powell
@Hungry Joe:
Purity Lefties are not interesting in winning elections. For them election campaigns are opportunities to demonstrate their moral and social superiority by refusing to ally with a potential winner. They would never approve of any policy or program because the fact of its enactment would be proof that it is an immoral compromise.
It’s like people who stop liking a band when their albums start selling. It’s like people who claim they like Tom Waits, but never actually listen to Tom Waits.
There is no point in “reaching out” or doing anything with the expectation that they will turn out and vote for a Democrat. Their whole identity is based on not voting for a Democrat.
Frosty Fred
@James E Powell: It isn’t only the far left, either; I know any number of people who seem to view elections as intellectual exercises, apart from any concern for the actual outcome.
janesays
@WaterGirl: The biggest thing working against Doug Jones is the fact that Donald Trump is also on the ballot. And Donald Trump is still wildly popular in Alabama – he’ll win there by no less than 15 points. So, for Doug Jones to win, quite a few people who vote for Trump in that state will also have to vote for Jones. I’m not going to hold my breath on that happening.
Eolirin
@janesays: If Trump doesn’t see a large erosion of support between now and the election, that’s probably right. But it’s not impossible that he will. Highly improbable, sure. But if we have the resources, being prepared for it, even if it’s a long shot, isn’t the worst idea on the world.
That being said, there’s no way that Doug Jones is the 50th D. If he holds his seat we’re sweeping the board.
janesays
@Eolirin: To be clear, I love Doug Jones, and think he’s one of the most principled senators we have. I want him to get re-elected, and if he did, that might be the second best thing to happen on Election Night, given the improbability of it. I’m just not getting my hopes too high, and in my mind, the Democrats need to win the White House AND flip at least 4 seats to have a senate majority, even though technically they could do it with three seats flipped as long as Jones holds his seat. Basically, we can’t count on him being our 50th seat on Election Night. We have to win at least four other seats.
Eolirin
@janesays: If Jones is still in the senate in 2021, we have like 56 seats there. It’s very much a running up the score race.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Dump is just jealous he’ll only have massive debts to leave his daughter-wife Ivanka.
Geminid
@Eolirin: I think Collins ME, Gardner CO, and McSally AZ are goners. There are 8 other republican Senate seats in play: Perdue GA, Loeffler GA, Graham, SC, McConnell KY, Ernst IO, Cornyn TX, Open KS, and Daines MT. The Democratic candidates are all fairly good, and some could be very good. They could all get in if the Democrats have a big enough wave. And trump is a big enough anchor.
Eolirin
@Geminid: If KY is in play so is Alaska, and you missed NC which is a more likely pick up. If we take out McConnell we probably have 60 seats. I don’t think that’s all that likely though. Things would need to worsen dramatically for the GOP.
J R in WV
@Uncle Cosmo:
I hate to confess that in this case you are probably correct.
And he is so much better than Shelly Moore Capito, daughter of the last Gov of WV to serve time for pleading guilty to bribery charges after being recorded by a federal witness soliciting bribes, and accepting cash in the back of a limo.
But I worked for Manchin as a state employee. The first thing he did that changed how I did business was require managers interviewing potential employees to ask those recruits the minimum salary they would accept. Then the state personnel office would authorize an offer thousands of dollars a year less than that minimum.
While trying to recruit software developers, this made truly excellent developers really, really hard to bring on board.
And when I was in a group of people that Manchin was shaking hands with, he looked me in the eye, long hair and beard, and I could feel his hate for my existence on his payroll.
I’m still glad he can vote D in the Senate when needed, and is willing to do so. But what a squirm when I shook his hand…
Calouste
@Hungry Joe:
Those people on the far left should be made to read the history of the Greens in Germany. There was a big fight in that party in the 80s between the realos and the fundis. The realos won, got in a coalition government with the socialists, made compromises, but moved Germany a lot to the left on green issues. For example, Germany is going to decommission its last nuclear plant in 2022.
Geminid
@Eolirin: That’s right, I left out Tillis NC, who is currently down in the polls. And Alaska is in play. It’s getting hard to keep track. Alaska now has the Pebble Gold mine hanging over it again, and I don’t think that helps republicans.
janesays
@Eolirin: I don’t think there’s any realistic scenario where we get to 60 seats, because that would entail flipping 13 GOP seats AND Doug Jones keeping his seat.
AZ, CO, ME, NC, IA, MT, AK, KS, GA, GA, SC, TX, KY would bring us to exactly 60, but not one of the remaining GOP states in play is remotely winnable: ID, WY, SD, NE, OK, AR, LA, MS, TN, or WV. At least six or seven of the states I listed among the 13 potential flips are going to be huge longshots. Realistically, our ceiling is probably about 55 seats, if tons of things go exactly right.
I’d say any outcome that leaves us with 53 or more seats is an overwhelming success. If we wind up with 60 seats, Biden is going to have the largest EC win margin since at least 1988, if not 1984.
SWMBO
@Hungry Joe: She could be the new Molly Ivins. I would buy *all* her books.