Political Fundraising

It’s nut-cutting time up in the hizouse today, as the House votes to formalize the impeachment process. Here are the four arguments we will hear against impeachment

1. Trump did nothing wrong, it’s a witch hunt! (Hannity)
2. Trump may have done something wrong but nothing that rises to the level of impeachment (Susan Collins, John Thune)
3. Trump have done something impeachable but derp derp the Democrats haven’t prove it at all (Jonathan Turley)
4. Trump did something impeachable and the Dems’ case is airtight but they shouldn’t impeach because Applebee’s (Bobo

Not so different than the arguments against taking action against climate change

1. Climate change isn’t happening
2. Climate change is happening but it’s not because of human activity
3. Climate change is happening because of human activity but we can’t do anything about it
4. Climate change is happening and we should do something but Dems are doing cap-and-trade and a carbon tax would be better. Or, alternately, Dems are doing a carbon tax and cap-and-trade would be better.

This is why I’m skeptical of all nonsense about civil discourse and the marketplace of ideas. It’s all based on a faulty model of the human mind. In many, maybe most, cases, people decide pick a side first and then make up reasons why that side is the right one.

Anywho, let’s raise some money for the 17 most endangered House democrats incumbents. They may not all vote for the impeachment resolution today but you can be sure if they don’t it’s because Nancy told them they didn’t have to.

Update. Benny says Happy Halloween.

All our illusions were just a paradePost + Comments

I’ll be curious to see if John Bolton shows up when he gets his subpoena and also if he actually throws Trump under the bus or just makes up stuff that supports Trump’s positions. It would be funny if he threw Trump under the bus and then Tucker and John Woo Yoo called him a liberal traitor. But no matter what happens, we know that in the diners and bars of Rust Belt America, Trump will be as popular as ever.

With the vote on impeachment coming up, let’s try to hit our targets for the Balloon Juice House Fund, which is split among the 17 most vulnerable Democratic incumbents.

Send me a subpoena baby, tell me what to doPost + Comments

I’ve always thought that McConnell cares most about Republicans retaining the Senate. An impeachment trial in the Senate complicates that:

Mr. McConnell sees the proceedings as necessary to protect a half a dozen moderates in states like Maine, Colorado and North Carolina who face re-election next year and must show voters they are giving the House impeachment charges a serious review.

But none of this will come to fruition unless we get the House to vote for impeachment. Let’s raise some more money for the seventeen most vulnerable Democratic House incumbents (you can divide the money among them however you like):

Hold on looselyPost + Comments

Susan Collins now trails a generic Democrat by 3 points. That goes up to 7 points in the poll when voters are asked who they would vote for if Collins opposes impeachment, which she likely will. Last month she led a generic Democrat by six points.

Give here to the Balloon Juice Senate Fund, split among eventual Democratic nominees in several of the most competitive Senate races. Feel free to distribute the money among them however you like!

Thanks again everybody. I’ll do some fundraising for the guv races in LA, KY, and MS soon.

Susie baby looks like we goofed againPost + Comments

I didn’t realize til now that Trump’s crazy rally in Lake Charles was because there’s a governor’s race in Louisiana today. If the Dem incumbent can avoid a run-off, that will be a big win for Dems. There’s also governor race in Kentucky and Mississippi coming up soon.

You can write postcards to voters in Kentucky here.

Are people interested in raising money for the governor’s races in Mississippi and Kentucky? Say the word and I’ll create a fundraising page.

I continue to believe that these elections, if they tilt heavily to Dems, could affect GOP Senators’ calculation on impeachment and removal.

He had a reason to get back to Lake CharlesPost + Comments

Who knows how nuts the Trumpkins will get trying to block impeachment, but we can do our part to help vulnerable House Dems do the right thing and impeach Dolt 45. Give here to the Balloon Juice 2020 House Fund, split equally among the 17 most vulnerable Democratic incumbents (you can also parcel it out among them however you like).

Lady of the House wondering where it’s gonna stopPost + Comments

If you’ve got local elections this fall, don’t forget to vote. And if you’ve got time, get involved. We’ve got a big one coming up here — a county exec raise the Dems have a real chance of winning. If we do it will be the first time in over 30 years. That’s the Trump effect, my friends. This November’s locals are important nationally in a way that most local elections are not. If Republicans take enough of a beating in November, it’s going to be that much tougher for them to keep clapping for Dear Leader.

The most high profile state elections are Virginia. The numbers look great for Democrats right now.

Voters prefer that Democrats control the General Assembly after the election, 53% to 37%, powered by a 17-point advantage among Independents.

Give here to the Balloon Juice Virginia Democratic Legislative Caucus Fund. I upped the goal to 8K. This blog has become a fundraising powerhouse, we’ve raised 535K since August 2016. And I think for the most part we’ve given wisely. Thanks a lot to everyone.

Remember, remember the fifth of NovemberPost + Comments

The official Republican defense of Trump — from Tucker, from Bobo, from Ken Starr — is that sure Trump may have done something wrong but it doesn’t merit impeachment. I don’t think this is a great defense because frankly, what makes the Ukraine call vastly different from Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewisnky and even somewhat different from the vast evidence amassed by Robert Mueller that Trump obstructed justice is that at some gut level, most Americans are appalled by the idea of a president getting other countries’ criminal justice systems to go after the president’s rival. David Brooks has taught me that this kind of thing goes on all the time in Flyover country, but even at the Applebee’s salad bar, I doubt there’s much support for this kind of corruption.

We raised about 3K yesterday for the legislative races in Virginia. Thanks everybody! Today, let’s raise some more money for the House Dems who might feel the heat when impeachment goes down. The fund below is split equally among the 17 most vulnerable Democratic incumbents. (You can also parcel it out however you like to avoid getting on too many mailing lists.)

Nothing to get hung aboutPost + Comments

I’ve come to the conclusion that one of the few things that might scare Republicans into voting to remove Trump would be an epic ass-whupping this fall in state and local elections. So vote in your local elections if you have them this fall!

The most high-profile state elections are in Virginia. So let’s flip both chambers (both held by Rs by a single seat right now). You can give here to the Virginia Democratic Legislative Caucus.

Drop your redsPost + Comments

Laika passed on Saturday afternoon. My whole family is pretty broken up about it. As my wife put it “Laika knew things that we didn’t know, she was like a yogi”. Laika was the Will Rogers of dogs, she never met a person she didn’t like. When I think of how quickly she died after we first found out she had a tumor, I know that she must have been putting up a brave face, hiding it from us for a while, because all she wanted was for the people around her to be happy. So we are trying out best not to be too sad, because the last thing she would have wanted was for us to be sad. Laika didn’t have a mean bone in her body, as one of the groomers put it. She wished everyone the best.

I’ve never been too much into the whole “he’s a nice guy” school of politics. Nice guy? I don’t give a shit. Good father? Fuck you. Go home and play with your kids. But Trump is such an incredible asshole that I do hold it against him. I don’t think it’s healthy for us as a country to have someone like that in the White House. That is not reason enough to impeach him, but it is part of why I now think it’s time for him to be removed. I don’t know how great the politics of that are, I don’t know if Pence might have a better chance of winning in 2016 2020 than Trump. But it doesn’t matter to me, anymore. What he did with Ukraine is completely beyond the pale and it’s not isolated. He needs to go.

If you made me guess, I’d say that if there’s a Senate trial, there is almost no chance that more than 2 or 3 Republicans in the Senate would vote for his removal. And I think zero or 1 is most likely. But I don’t know for sure.

First step is the House. Democrats in competitive districts may be hurt by the politics of impeachment so let’s raise some more money for them.

But I’ll see you in the sky abovePost + Comments

Our dog Laika isn’t doing so well. She had a big seizure Tuesday night and since then she’s had trouble with balance. We are hoping it is just the anvi-convulsant medicine we have been giving her, and that it will pass (the side effects lessen over time) but we don’t know. The doctor thinks it is probably a brain tumor. People always say their dog is the best dog but Laika REALLY IS the best dog in the world.

When Benny was a little baby, Laika would lie down next to him whenever there weren’t people within ten feet of him, to make sure he was ok and to protect him.

Let’s raise some more money for vulnerable Democrats in the House to support the impeachment process. I’m afraid that if Trump skates on this, there’s no going back to a world where presidents are expected to follow the law…at least until we get a Democrat in the White House again, at which time wearing tan suits and asking for Dijon mustard will once again become high crimes and misdemeanors. Do it for Laika.

The next few lines come really hardPost + Comments

The most amazing and terrible part of the impeachment discussion is that Ken Starr and Jonathan Turley, who led and cheerled Clinton’s impeachment, respectively, are now Trump’s biggest defenders. There is no present or future, only the past, happening over and over again.

Democrats in tough districts are showing a lot of guts right now in backing an impeachment inquiry. Let’s help them out with a little campaign money — the fund below is split among the 17 most endangered Dem incumbents.

Whenever I think of the early 90’s your face comes up with a vengeance like it was yesterdayPost + Comments

I’ve been an impeachment skeptic but after the Ukraine story, Democrats have no choice but to begin an impeachment inquiry. The following things will happen: Republicans won’t convict him in the Senate (and they probably will block having a trial at all), Ken Starr and Jonathan Turley will appear constantly on tv defending Trump, there will be a lot of concern-trolling about “Democratic overreach”. The whole exercise will be difficult. Jed Bartlett’s not going to show up and solve the whole thing with some crisp dialogue.

The politics of impeachment may be tricky for Democratic members of the House in competitive districts. So let’s raise a lot of money for them right now.

Shit your pants and dive in and swimPost + Comments

At first glance, Democrats’ performance last night in the North Carolina specials looks pretty crappy. They ran slightly behind Hillary ’16 in NC-3 and about ten points better in NC-9. The average of the two then was almost exactly the 5.5 over-performance that Dems have averaged in 34 specials since the mid-term. If the all-but-inevitable Williamson-Moulton ticket does 5.5 points better nationwide than Clinton-Kaine did, then they’ll win the popular vote by 7.5 points, which would be a fairly easy win.

Here’s a scary point, by the way: Dems win the popular vote by less than 4 points, Trump has a good chance to prevail in the Electoral College. And here’s another scary point: if the election comes out exactly like last time only with Dems flipping PA, MI, and WI, and in one of those three the margin is under 2 points or so, I think Trump is likely to contest the results and refuse to leave office. I don’t think anyone other than Jonathan Turley and Marc Thiessen will fully support him on that, on the other hand.

Anyway, I thought now might be a good time to do some fundraising. The Dem performance in NC-9 certainly frightens Republicans. Let’s raise some more money for the 17 most endangered House Democrats and help them put up fundraising totals that will scare away potential challengers.

Whatever happened to predictability?Post + Comments

I didn’t go all in on fundraising for the NC-9 special election earlier because I had heard the poll numbers didn’t look that good for Democrats a few weeks ago. They look pretty good now.

The survey, conducted Aug. 26-28 by Harper Polling and Clarity Campaign Labs, showed McCready (D) with a 46-42 percent advantage over Bishop (R), and two third party candidates receiving a combined 3 percent. When leaners are included, McCready’s advantage extended to 49-44 percent.

Trump won this district by 11 points in 2016.

If we can flip this seat, expect a pretty big Republican freak-out and some more retirements. There have already been quite a few. So let’s raise a little more. I think this is a real opportunity.

So fucking specialPost + Comments