Happy Diwali! pic.twitter.com/idX5KxhVhy
— Brenna Parker (@BrennaParker46) November 4, 2021
.@POTUS inherited a flatlining economy, anemic job growth, and nearly 900,000 new unemployment claims each week.
There's still more work to do, but we've made incredible progress so far in getting Americans back to work, thanks to the Rescue Plan and getting shots in arms. https://t.co/zO51kBdtuj
— Jen Psaki (@PressSec) November 4, 2021
I’m not blame anyone for our failure getting the word out but it does seem like if independent analysis demonstrates that BBB would ease inflation and add lots of jobs that politics reporters may want to incorporate that into their reporting. https://t.co/IBEhMTF1A1
— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) November 4, 2021
county-level voting maps showing seas of red and islands of blue don't show "what real america looks like," they show that most americans live in cities, and the fact that we have to talk about this *every election* is frustrating
— Gerry Doyle (@mgerrydoyle) November 4, 2021
What might have been…
Thank you, Madame Secretary @HillaryClinton, for all your support! https://t.co/l5oYDPgGvn
— Shontel Brown for Congress (@ShontelMBrown) November 4, 2021
But, noooo…
(Clay Jones via GoComics.com)
Baud
Hillary is the best.
OzarkHillbilly
Blech.
PST
The days are sure getting shorter. Does anyone have any idea how to teach a dog to always poop under a streetlight?
Spanky
@OzarkHillbilly: He lives!
NotMax
While not an ironclad guarantee I’d peg it at a 99% chance you’ll find at least one which piques curiosity enough to click.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@OzarkHillbilly: I see in the COVID thread that the docs think they fixed what was wrong with you (Ha! they have no idea), but your recovery so far is nasty. Feel better soon. Let BJ distract you.
Soprano2
*sigh* This interview on NPR with a Republican lawyer in Virginia, who was publicly against Trump but voted for Youngkin and says he really isn’t anything at all like Trump, and that the VA election demonstrates that the Republican Party is moving away from Trump. Republicans like this are going to insist that if a candidate doesn’t look like Trump or sound like Trump publicly they aren’t like Trump. They are in denial about how much their party is captured by Trump. Here in MO the slate of Republicans vying to replace Roy Blunt in the Senate are competing to see how close they can be to Trump – that’s the reality of the Republican Party right now, not a tilt back to the seemingly-friendly grandpa candidate.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
Matt McIrvin
What it shows is that the white vote is still effectively overrepresented as a benefit of regional ethnic cleansing that occurred in decades past.
lowtechcyclist
And good morning back atcha! How’s the shoulder?
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
lowtechcyclist
@Soprano2:
No question about it, but they’ll run more presentable candidates in blue states where they think they might have a chance. In MO, they don’t have to pretend.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
Republicans get the benefit of being judged as individuals.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud: That too.
Kay
@Soprano2:
They’ll just get smarter about it though. We really can’t run the last cycle. It should be amusing to watch some of the GOP candidates dial it back. These are the people who went from Mitt Romney to Trump. Consistency and adherence to principles are not an issue.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Soprano2: As been pointed out Youngkin is Generic Republican, upon whom the voter could imagine anything they wanted about him.
Since the word is Youngkin was a fuck up at his Hedge fund, I cam curious why the Democrats didn’t go after that point. The Dems made the election about Trump so Youngkin merely had to not be Trump.
Another Scott
@PST: A neighbor down the street trained her dogs to always pee and poop in the middle of the street in front of their house. It’s so weird. :-\
It can be done the usual ways – praise, positive reinforcement.
Good luck!
Cheers,
Scott.
germy
One tumbleweed, one vote.
Kay
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
It is just so sad that Democrats don’t get more credit for good management of budgets.
Youngkin plans to take the state budget surplus Democrats left him and cut taxes with it- he wrote it in an op ed. It’ll be gone in a year. Kasich did the same thing- it was all budget trickery and moving money around. He left a huge hole, which they then filled with the most regressive taxes.
germy
Jeffrey Clark (trump DOJ official) is testifying today before the Jan. 6 committee.
Is any of this being televised, or will be televised?
Ken
I’m trying to work this into a variation of the “drunk looking for his lost keys under the streetlight” joke.
PST
@Another Scott: Thanks. I have to admit I’m not all that serious. Sometimes on these dark mornings when Bernie chooses a particularly unlit spot I find myself humming “Pinball Wizard” and fancying that I can play be sense of smell. I don’t know why she has become so keen on 6:00 a.m. walks, but I’m up anyway and it’s good for me. When we have two feet of snow on the ground I may stop indulging her preference for the nice grassy strip six blocks away.
Mustang Bobby
This is supposed to be the “dry season” in Miami and I awoke to about an inch of rain in an hour. But it was the harbinger of a cool front and it’s going to be clear and sunny tomorrow.
PST
@Ken: Q: Why are you feeling around under the streetlight with a baggy over your hand?
A: I’m picking up after my dog.
Q: But he pooped under that tree over there?
A: The light’s better here.
germy
News from upstate NY:
https://dailygazette.com/2021/11/04/convicted-imprisoned-sex-offender-thomas-yager-elected-to-minden-town-board-will-be-disqualified-from-holding-office/
He was a candidate on both the Republican and Conservative lines.
A lot of people in upstate NY vote the straight Republican line, no matter who is on the ballot. It could be a pile of dogshit under a street lamp, it’ll win its election.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: So say we all!
@NotMax: great resource, thanks. I just scrolled through and picked Schopenhauer.
Ken
@PST: Yeah, but I was hoping to add a novel twist. Maybe if the dog is blind?
Cheer up, in two days it will be at… (mutters, makes vague circular motions with his fingers, gets a globe and a flashlight) 5:00 a.m.
Soprano2
@lowtechcyclist: It was an amazing interview to listen to, how much this guy is fooling himself that one election in one state proves that Trump is in the rear view mirror for Republicans. It’s just a bunch of wishful thinking rather than a clear-eyed analysis of what’s actually happening in the country.
Betty Cracker
@Soprano2: It sucks for sure, but one possible upside is that Trump is too egotistical and undisciplined to allow the GOP to truly move on from Himself. As long as that sloshing bag of liposuction medical waste is still sucking up oxygen, he’ll demand shows of fealty that undermine the attempt.
Like you said, in red states, they’re all lining up to kiss Trump’s ass. Also, wasn’t Youngkin’s nomination somewhat atypical, meaning he didn’t have to face off against a bunch of slavering MAGA goons to win the primary? I didn’t follow the race closely, but that’s my understanding.
Soprano2
I do tend to think this is a mistake. They should show that the candidate is close to Trump, of course, because they all mostly are, but it can’t be the main emphasis of the campaign. You have to campaign against your opponent, not the former president.
Mustang Bobby
I’m shocked, shocked.
Not quite the level of the convicted sex offender. For once, Florida Man doesn’t rise to the occasion.
PST
@Ken: Maybe the dog is drunk and has to lean against a streetlamp.
Another Scott
The House is in session, working on the BBB vote. At the moment they are voting on whether to adjourn for the day (because why not?).
C-SPAN live video
Cheers,
Scott.
Soprano2
@Kay: This is why I think governments having a surplus is actually a bad thing. Republicans always want to pass tax cuts based on a one-year surplus!
Soprano2
@PST: I’ve got a little flashlight on my keychain. That might come in handy.
Baud
@Soprano2:
Context is irrelevant.
Gin & Tonic
Today’s entry in the “No shit, Sherlock” file: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/03/world/weapons-ukraine-russia.html
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
VA GOP literally rigged their primary so a crazy Trumpkin wouldn’t win and their base didn’t care one whit.
The two parties’ voters have slightly different outlooks.
germy
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
LOL. Glad that was cleared up.
PST
@Ken:
Twice a year for decades I would have the same argument with my first wife. “Time to spring forward,” I’d say. “No, no, no,” she’d reply. “One falls forward. Haven’t you ever tripped? And when you’re frightened you spring back. It’s fall forward, spring back.”
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
That CNN tale on the goober family really chaps my ass. Everybody is focusing on the ridiculous milk claims, but I’m focusing on just how deep a Cletus dive you have to do to find a huge Texas family.
Where have the stories been on the urban families that are working but struggling on their meager EBT allotments?
Gin & Tonic
@PST: Truly, a full-service blog.
Ken
@Gin & Tonic: Does the article start with one of those self-congratulatory pat on the back from the reporters? Like, “An extensive, months-long investigation by NYT reporters has revealed <fact obvious to anyone with a functioning brain>.”
Baud
As a reminder, Baud! 20XX! proposes to eliminate spring forward so hard working Americans can keep the extra hour of sleep they earned.
germy
@Baud:
Media: “Liberal candidate wants Americans to “fall back” but how will this be paid for?”
OzarkHillbilly
@Spanky: I’m only telling this story once as typing is a real pain in the ass:
The surgery apparently went fine, tho the damage was as bad or worse than expected (still a little foggy on this, for reasons) Post op went to hell in a hand basket. It began about 1 pm.
Before the surgery there was a lot of back and forth between the surgeon, the anesthetist, and me over my blood thinners. Worries about excessive bleeding (too many Docs involved with the management and not enuf communication I think), worries about a nerve block (not sure why, but chose not use one), worries about my past issues with anesthesia (in I’d guess 15-20% of previous surgeries I have not gone all the way out, or out at all).The end result was I was “very agitated” post op and could not come out of it. All I remember is getting yelled at (with some slapping) to breathe. My wife was there and scared half to death (she was yelling too).
I was wondering what all the excitement was about.
Eventually this all passed and I came around, around about 7-8 PM. According to my wife, my first words were “Can I get something to eat?”, When I reached my unreserved private room I got some vanilla pudding, crackers, a couple small Sierra sodas and eventually a lukewarm Hamburger and some chips as the kitchen was already all but closed.
During the night I got in trouble for getting out of bed to pee without calling for help. I didn’t fall but I didn’t pee either. The nurse came in at 6 to see I finally needed to pee. I tried. I couldn’t. I needed to. I tried again She told me this was a common side effect of anesthesia and if I couldn’t go I’d get the catheter. @ 6:30. Still no go. So as a going away present, the nurse shoved a king kong sized catheter up my suddenly toddler sized penis. She apologized profusely for it but I know that nurses secretly live for those moments. She also told me that after this temporary catheterization, all would return to normal.
She lied.
I peed twice more that AM and they finally kicked me out at noon. By the time we got home an hour and a half later, I had to go again. Dribble dribble.
An hour later, dribble dribble.
A half hour later, dribble.
So, to the local ER we went. “Just give me some Flomax.” I said to the NP. “It worked great when I had kidney stones.”
“Sounds like a plan.” she lied and walked out the door.
A cute little nurse comes in.
“Just give me some Flomax.” I said to the nurse. “It worked great when I had kidney stones.”
“Sounds like a plan.” she lied and walked out the door.
When she came back, she had a King Kong sized box in her hands and an evil grin on her face so big that even the mask could not hide it. I knew what was coming and my penis got even smaller than it had that AM.
So now I am sitting with a sack of piss hanging on the desk drawer as I try to type with one free hand and another strapped to my chest hoping and praying I can get into a urologist today and convince them to remove this monstrosity, this insult to my my manhood from my body, and pee like a normal human again sometime today. Because if I can’t, I’ll be hauling it around all weekend.
The moral of the story? “Don’t go to England.” Or something like that.
Gin & Tonic
@Ken: No, what I blockquoted was the first paragraph. It’s a pretty objective article; Andrew Kramer, the Moscow correspondent, isn’t bad.
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: Is your sweet Percy trying to take care of you?
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Mmmm. Vanilla pudding.
Gin & Tonic
@OzarkHillbilly: Ouch, sorry to hear. I recall, years ago, after my hip surgery I hadn’t peed in a long-enough time that they got worried, so some time in the middle of the night (could have been the middle of the day, who knows with all the demerol) an angelic nurse came in and, as I recall, painlessly (see, demerol) slid in the catheter and I produced about a liter and a half. I never saw her again, much to my regret.
Jeffro
no worries here…trumpov will remind them soon enough who’s boss… =)
germy
Rose twitter: “Centrist candidate insists on work requirements before Americans can fall back”
Ken
@OzarkHillbilly: Wishing you a speedy recovery, and a urologist who is generous with the Flomax scrips.
Jeffro
I’m sensing a theme in this thread…
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: Oh, Ozark, even Percy isn’t enough to console you after all of that. To say that I’m glad you came though, even with all the shit you are going through, is an understatement. We all love you here. Tell the docs that there will be hell to pay if they don’t take that thing out for you today.
Betty Cracker
@OzarkHillbilly: Lord, that sounds medieval!
Ken
@Baud: How about replacing spring forward with 23 days of spring back? We get an extra hour of sleep every day for nearly a whole month, with absolutely no downside except for a slight chance of mass insanity due to circadian rhythm disruption.
Spanky
@OzarkHillbilly: Ah.
Oh!
Oh my!
Good luck! And while you’re there, ask the urologist why they put barbs on those things.
Jeffro
I wonder if we’ll be hearing much about this today from the All-Doom-All-The-Time (for Democrats, anyway) media: economy adds a half million jobs last month.
Soprano2
Heard John McWhorter interviewed about his new book on NPR this morning. It’s about how bad woke Democrats are, or something. He completely dodged the question Inskeep asked him about how Republican legislatures are actually passing laws banning the teaching of certain concepts in schools and even the use of particular words in schools, and Inskeep let him dodge it! He gave an example of someone in San Francisco getting fired from a job at a museum for saying we shouldn’t neglect the art of white people in our race for equity (I suspect there might be more to that story), but totally wouldn’t address the passage of actually laws censoring education. Figures.
PST
@Spanky:
To anchor them so they don’t fall out. First off, deepest sympathies to Ozark. I can remember times after surgery when I had to have a catheter for a few days and was also encouraged to walk as much as possible. So I would be wandering the halls of the hospital pushing a pole with an IV bag at the top adding fluids to my body and a collection bag at the bottom taking the drainage. The catheter is actually anchored by a little balloon they inflate in your bladder, so I was always praying that I wouldn’t trip over the line. I imagine that would hurt.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Yes, while I can see the yearning to run against Donny Dumbass, he wasn’t on ballet.
What the mistake was, Youngkin isn’t Trump, quite likely isn’t the blatant racist and serial rapist like Trump is, likely Youngkin can do teh maths and read, he is still the same kind of political beast Trump is; a failed businessman who ran from his mistakes to politics.
M31
@Jeffro:
NYTPitchbot (probably)
“Nation, anticipating big GOP win in VA, adds 500K jobs last month”
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Doubtless the Dems had to raise taxes doing that and the good people Virginia have the sads they can’t dump it all on the grandkids.
I am going to speculate that as a former Hedge Fund Manager Youngkin is going to slash taxes and that surplus will be a deficit in a year.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So who is going to staff these GOP administrators – only the grads of the finest of Christian Dominionist Madrassas. Remember it was Miller who was pushing all the racist bullshit in the Trump admin while Trump was twittering about Judge Judy.
PST
@Jeffro:
Democratic mismanagement of the economy risks runaway inflation. BBB must be stopped!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Media “Republican candidates promise American will be able to chose whatever time zone they want.”
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: The Republican nomination was decided in an “Unassembled Convention” that had some 34,000 self-selected delegates vote at 27 locations around Virginia. Virginia has a population of over 8 million. The State Committee was deadlocked over method right up until an April deadline, and then the process was quick and generated relatively little attention.
An article in Bearing Drift reviewed Republican nominating methods in 50 states. A large majority use primaries, a few go the caucus/convention route. Virginia was the exception: it used either method, by decision of the party Central Committee. The author pointed out that this allows a candidate to use the process to shape the result, and that is what Youngkin did.
zhena gogolia
@Soprano2: He’s an ass.
Steeplejack
@Soprano2:
Fixed your bad link: “Republicans may have landed on an effective political strategy post Trump.”
OzarkHillbilly
And I just found out that I have to have this accoutrement for a minimum of 5-7 days and the first available appointment is….
.
.
.
.
the 11th, thursday. Sucks to be me.
zhena gogolia
@OzarkHillbilly: Oh, sorry it’s been like this. Praying for you!
Something similar happened to a friend after shoulder surgery this fall. He had to go back to the ER after they’d sent him home.
O. Felix Culpa
@OzarkHillbilly: Oooh, sounds awful. You have my sympathies, which alas won’t do much for you. Hopefully this is the worst of it and you start getting better, and better news, soon.
Jeffro
@M31: he’s already got several ‘hot takes’ up on how this jobs report is good news for Glenn Youngkin, etc. =)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
If he’s alive, he’s running, and if he’s not, I think their ’24 primary will be a pot of really nasty crabs
OzarkHillbilly
@PST: I’ve already stepped on the damn thing twice and hooked it on stuff twice too.
6 days… This is going to feel as bad as the chest tube I had by the time it finally comes out.
O. Felix Culpa
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
See: Ohio Republican senatorial primary candidates. A preview of what’s to come.
Another Scott
@Jeffro:
CalculatedRiskBlog.com:
Eyes on the prizes.
Cheers,
Scott.
Geminid
@Soprano2: Youngkin’s strategists certainly thought that campaigning against Trump was a mistake. They say so in an interview they gave to Politico, titled “The Strategists who made the ‘Youngkin Republican,’ ” published this morning.
This is a fascinating, candid look at the two campaigns by the people who engineered the winning one. People might not like Ryan Lizza, the interviewer, or Jeff Roe and Kristen Davison, the Youngkin strategists. And one’s response might be, “but that strategy and those tactics shouldn’t have worked!” But the fact is, they did work, and it’s worth looking at an insider view of how they did work.
japa21
@OzarkHillbilly: Deepest sympathies. Just take it easy, as best you can. Fortunately, since you are such an upbeat positive person, that shouldn’t be hard.
OzarkHillbilly
@zhena gogolia: My last shoulder surgery I aspirated in post op. The pneumonia didn’t show until we got home. Had to turn around right away and barely made it to the local hospital where I spent the next 3 days recovering.
I’m sensing a pattern here.
zhena gogolia
@OzarkHillbilly: Blech!
lowtechcyclist
@PST: Avoiding the whole debate about standard v. DST, my thought is that IF we’re going to go back and forth twice a year, the time change in the fall should be Sunday night/Monday morning rather than Saturday night/Sunday morning.
After all, most of us get to sleep late on Sunday anyway, so what’s the use of that extra hour? But if the time change was on Sunday night/early a.m. Monday, we’d get an extra hour to sleep in before work.
Conversely, in the spring, the time change should be Friday night/Saturday morning, so we’ve got the whole weekend to adjust to having lost that hour before going back to work on Monday.
OzarkHillbilly
Piece of cake!
WaterGirl
I’m sure people will be asking about Ozark all day. In case anyone wants to help answer the queries, here’s the direct link to Ozark’s comment in this thread:
Link to Ozark’s story
You can just copy that line and paste it into a comment in other threads.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: that CNN story is a train-wreck, and McMorris-Santo, who I believe is a TPM alumnus?, will learn nothing from it
“mom and dad”, oy, how ’bout “the parents” or “the Smiths”
J R in WV
@lowtechcyclist:
This is brilliant !! Now all you need to do is convince the pols and employees at the Govt to do it. Good luck with that!
@OzarkHillbilly:
Sorry your shoulder is F’ed up, and the post-op is worse than expected. I had nerve blocks for both shoulder replacements, seems to have worked well. My surgeon was a god-send… really good. And recovery was uneventful. Just luck, of course!
Also had a PT guy I had seen for other problems in the more distant past who was really sharp. Lucky again!
Ocotillo
@Jeffro: Not sure what else they had on but I emerged from my office and the wife had the Today show on and they were interviewing former officials about how Biden is screwing up on Haiti.
Redshift
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Virginian here. For everyone who’s pissed off at the political media bullshit about What This Means For The Democrats, “Dems made the election all about Trump” is also media bullshit that everyone seems to be accepting without question.
Leaving aside lots of non-Trump-related campaigning, there were ads about how he was promoting the Big Lie, and questioning our state’s elections and calling for a phony audit. There were ads about campaign events involving the insurrection that Youngkin only skipped after blowback. Plus the recording of him saying he was going to do everything he could to stop abortion but he had to lie about that or he wouldn’t get elected.
You know, things you’d think might motivate Democrats who just kicked out TFG. If just “not being Trump” is enough to make all that not matter, then we are truly screwed.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Redshift:
that’s the one I can’t believe wasn’t more effective
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Same. Not just anti-choice, but obvious duplicity.
Soprano2
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I’m pretty angry that CNN knew that they benefited a lot from the expanded child tax credit but didn’t think it was important to mention that in their story.
UncleEbeneezer
@Dorothy A. Winsor: “Let BJ distract you.”
Hey now, this is supposed to be a family-friendly blog!
Ohio Mom
Before everyone gets too excited about Aftan Pureval winning the Cincinnati Mayoral race (looking at you, Hillary), let’s remember he was running against another fabulous Democrat, David Mann.
Mann deserves our thanks for a lifetime of serving our area as a Councilmember, Mayor and (for a short time) Congressional Rep. He’s may be getting on in years but he’s a very good egg.
If I lived in the city instead of the suburbs, I would have had to flip a coin between them.
zhena gogolia
I thought the ads didn’t bother me, but I am finding their absence to be soothing.
PJ
@OzarkHillbilly: Ouch. So sorry.
germy
Jeffro
@Geminid: the article is fascinating, thanks for the note here!
The Surprising Strategy Behind Youngkin’s Stunner
Sounds positively…Bidenesque!
Jeffro
More from Youngkin’s team:
She couches it nicely, but most of these (‘defund the police’…SROs…violence in the schools…CRT) were straight-up fear arguments from the GQP, aided by poor Democratic messaging. And the idea of “soaking the rich” is really quite popular.
Stay disingenuous, Repubs!
The Moar You Know
@germy: I have voted for a Republican once, due to a request from my wife’s union, which I will not do again as he did exactly what I said he’d do and promptly turned around and fucked over the union in spite of what he’d promised them. But I also would not vote for a sex offender. It’s not hard to leave a box blank.
Geminid
@Jeffro: Youngkin is a devious, slick-talking asshole. He was a stronger candidate than Democrats want to admit, though. But I still think this was a winnable race for McAuliffe, and the Republican strategists’ critique of McAuliffe’s campaign confirms that, I believe.
Jeffro
Heads up, Dems:
Geminid
@Jeffro: The stategists also describe how they ran ads in eleven different foreign language publications read by immigrants. They went after voters wherever they could find them.
Mrearl
@Spanky: Yeah, and why both ways?
Jeffro
@Geminid: oh, absolutely McAuliffe could have beaten him. It was still a pretty close race in the end, despite the gaffes, running against trumpov instead of Youngkin, etc etc.
A lot of folks around here are despondent. I’m not. I mean, I wanted a win this week but if we lose a battle and it wakes Dem candidates/campaigns up now, so that we win the war in 2022 and 2024? I’ll take it.
Wapiti
@PST: Not a current dog owner, but I read that the dog wants a walk, so the person needs to be trained to let the dog do its business in a convenient place and then take it for a walk.
SteveinPHX
@lowtechcyclist:
Move to AZ! The cowboys in charge at the state capital won’t entertain any such changes to the clock.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Geminid: a whole lot of people, including Betty and Adam here, said that FL Dems’ Spanish-language outreach has been embarrassing, especially Nelson’s. I hope Val Demmings and her staffers are paying attention.
I was in Colorado in 2014, when Mark Udall, of whom I was a big fan, lost to Cory Gardner. Udall never adapted his campaign from running against who Gardner was– a far-right anti-immigration loon– to the guy he pretended to be in his ads, a friendly young dad strolling through a field, grinning about how we can all get along! IIRC Udall only started running Spanish language ads two weeks before the election, and it was his standard ad translated into Spanish.
I thought Gardner might be the next George W Bush, till trump dignity-wraithed him.
Jeffro
This kind of stuff fascinates me:
Here’s a lesson for Dems: compete for everyone’s vote, and don’t establish your opponent’s conservative bonafides for him(!)
Ugh (even if not completely true):
Jeffro
Final note here – learn how to drill down like this, Dems!
Redshift
@Jeffro:
Except what they were talking about was absolutely what talking heads were talking about on TV — the ones on Fox. They can describe it in bland terms, but “safety” was ads about “violence in schools” (from a wingnut outlet misrepresenting one incident to fit their “trans people are dangerous” bullshit, and lying about “defund the police.” “Cost of living” was amplifying right-wing bullshit about “Biden inflation.” And so on.
Of course Youngkin strategists are going to say it was their brilliant strategy, and trash the opposing strategy, but that doesn’t mean it’s true.
The biggest lesson I take from this election is that most of the people (Republicans and independents) who voted against Trump and gave the Dems a big boost in the past two elections only cared that Trump was a braying jackass and an embarassment, not about anything he did (like trying to overthrow the government.) And not that they necessarily turned out for Younkin, they just didn’t turn out. (Political coverage constantly misrepresents shifts in turnout as voters switching from one party to another, because voter switches are much more interesting.)
zhena gogolia
I hate Republicans.
Betty Cracker
@Jeffro: The thing about not conceding the rural vote rings true. We don’t have to win it, but we can’t lose it by such huge margins.
germy
@The Moar You Know:
Republicans vote the straight “R” ticket. That’s how it is up here. They don’t examine each candidate. Registered Republicans vote Republican, and sometimes for a registered sex criminal.
Baud
@Jeffro: I think it was Another Scott that said the Dems were microtargeting too.
prostratedragon
@Another Scott: Glad someone is watching participation rates. CR is one who always has been good for that kind of thing.
Baud
@Jeffro:
The problem is that doesn’t work in reverse. If the GOP accuses a Dem of being just like scary Bernie Sanders or AOC, it doesn’t have any effect on progressive turnout (one way or the other).
Enhanced Voting Techniques
The irony being if the Dems jumped on Youngkin for being a screw up of a Hedge Fund manager they would have also under cut he’s a TRUE Conservative.
“I was thinking Youngkin just one of them RINOs until the Dems started on him, that made up my mind”
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
This type of malpractice kills me more than the content of any particular “message,” about which everyone has an opinion.
Another Scott
@Jeffro: Meh. Political operatives say they’re geniuses and need to be hired for next race. Film at 11.
The results was 51:49. McAuliffe (and the rest of Team D – it wasn’t just McAuliffe, it was party-line) lost because turnout was down 20 points from last year. That’s the story.
We need to turn out our voters every time or bad things happen.
Cheers,
Scott.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Betty Cracker: Governor elections are by the state popular vote, not by counties.
Baud
Instead of drawing lessons from GOP strategists who win, perhaps we can get more advice from Dem strategists who win.
Baud
@Another Scott: But how was turnout compared to governor elections that Dems had been winning in the past? You’re never going to get presidential election turnout numbers in off-year elections.
Soprano2
I keep repeating this fact over and over again when people talk about the tight labor market. I think people who don’t know people with school-age kids have no idea what parents have gone through the past 1 1/2 years. For many people the only way to manage the pandemic and school was for one parent to drop out of the job market, and most of the time it was the woman.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Look at this way – Youngkin avoided outraging the left and Dems never gave their base a reason to come out. Try tried to get the Dem base voting claiming Youngkin is just Trump in a fleece jacket and Youngkin obviously isn’t.
Soprano2
@Steeplejack: Thanks, I was having trouble getting it to work, thought I had gotten it.
Soprano2
@Jeffro: Well, all the NPR coverage is “The jobs number was good, but not as good as the 1,000,000 that were created in July”. *facepalm* Of course they would frame it this way, the knives have been out for Biden since he ended the Afghanistan occupation.
Another Scott
@Baud: Someone posted recently that McAuliffe got 200,000 more votes than Northam did in 2017 when Northam won by 7 points (IIRC).
We know that the GQP can turn out their voters. We have to up our game even more.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@Another Scott:
Some of it is simply that the GOP has been shut out of the governorship for quite some time, and VA is still a moderate state. They were more eager.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: You have earned my vote. I hate the time change. I haven’t still figured out what purpose it achieves.
Geminid
@Redshift: The Youngkin strategists certainly are interested parties, and their analysis should be seen in that light. But the interview can be read in full in ten minutes or less, and it is worth reading. The excerpts Jeffro is giving are good, but are not the whole story.
A lot of the analysis of the Virginia race that I see here comes out of a Democratic frame of reference, and basically comes down to disparaging the Republican candidate and his voters. I think this analysis expresses a certain complacency that the Democratic candidate may have shared. And it is also incurious, and I want to know what really happened. This interview is part of that story.
Geminid
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: The counties’ votes are included in the state totals, aren’t they?
Another Scott
@Baud: Yes, that’s part of it. Terry Mac being the first and only other-party winner of the Governor race (in 2013) since Nixon was a factor too. And only one person winning the governor race twice is a factor too. But things have also changed a lot in ways that should ultimately benefit Democrats – like weeks of no-excuses absentee voting.
I want to see real data so that we learn the right lessons.
Cheers,
Scott.
Geminid
Baud: I bet Democratic strategists are reading this interview very attentively.
Baud
@Geminid: I’m sure. The problem we have is that our side tends to treat Republicans as having god-like powers and so is susceptible to GOP spin, if not outright propaganda, when it comes to Republican “analysis” of what the Dems are doing wrong.
VOR
@Kay: Minnesota had an R governor (Pawlenty) from 2003-10 who did the exact same thing. Drained every rainy day, reserve, or surplus fund dry in order to avoid a hint of a tax increase.
Geminid
@Baud: You can get past Republican spin. But these are not just Republican talking heads. They are the people who engineered a Republican win in a state Joe Biden won by 10 points. They don’t have god-like powers, but they showed some capability on a temporal level.
But anyone who wants to read the interview can form their own conclusions. I have to say, though, that having seen this race at first hand I think the strategists report pretty accurately what they did and how it worked.
Anyway
@Geminid:
Analysis for the NJ election is scarier for Dems, imo. The base just didn’t show up and South Jersey voted in droves against Murphy.
Baud
@Anyway: That doesn’t scare me. NJ elected Chris Christie not too long ago, and the NJ election was a bit of a sleeper except for the result. First Dem reelect since 1977.
Another Scott
@Another Scott:
other-partysame partyCheers,
Scott.
rikyrah
@OzarkHillbilly:
Hi OH :)
Hope that you are doing better. :)
Soprano2
@Betty Cracker: This is something Claire McCaskill in Missouri worked on a lot. She knew she couldn’t win those rural counties, but if she could get 35% rather than 30% in most of them, she could win. She finally couldn’t get 35% there anymore, which is one of the reasons she lost.
PST
@OzarkHillbilly: A couple of times after bladder surgery when they didn’t keep me in the hospital they strapped the collection bag to my ankle so I could go about my business. Maybe you could rig something like that. No tight jeans, of course, but I’m more of a baggy khakis kind of guy anyway. It did draw stares in restaurants, of course, because it became visible while sitting, but who cares? Mine was especially gross because of all the blood in the urine.
Jeffro
This.
I think some folks are misinterpreting my comments and especially the strategists’ words that I selected and highlighted as evidence of their magical powers. Nope. Most of the selections are just things I found fascinating.
Clearly, in some places the strategists were outright lying, and in others they’re kidding themselves – there were plenty of normal reasons and dynamics at play here.
But whatever. The main thing (for me) is that it happened in 2021, in time for Dems to learn and adapt for 2022/2024.