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computer parts posted:This was literally the easiest primary in the world to work this issue, I would be more surprised if it failed to be honest. Tell me when someone like this guy gets primaried for his gun issues and maybe you'll have an argument. Walz is bad on gun issues but since he didn't even get 50% in 2012 he would probably be lower on the list of targets if you were drawing up a map for where Bloomberg should be spending...
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Feb 27, 2013 17:08
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mcmagic posted:Walz is bad on gun issues but since he didn't even get 50% in 2012 he would probably be lower on the list of targets if you were drawing up a map for where Bloomberg should be spending... a map of where Bloomberg should be spending are Inner cities followed by Connecticut's 5th, or basically the easiest targets on the map.
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Feb 27, 2013 17:12
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Bloomberg has also poured a ton of money into funding an anti-teachers-union school board candidate here in L.A., so beware of looking at his beneficence through a single-issue lens. (Unless RTTT and other privatization "reforms" are your educational cup of tea.) His infusion of money to sway local races across the country is pretty gross, actually, for those who object to the influence of bought-and-sold politics. quote:Half a continent away, Bloomberg’s money also was at work in the political terrain: His pro-gun-control super PAC, Independence USA, spent at least $2.2 million in a special congressional election in Chicago, four times what the top five candidates' campaigns spent — combined. And it paid off. His candidate, gun-control backer Robin Kelly defeated former Rep. Debbie Halvorson, once the odds-on favorite to succeed Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. http://news.yahoo.com/michael-bloomberg%92s-cross-country-election-shopping-spree-141250310.html
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Feb 27, 2013 18:55
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Bloomberg is certainly an established piece of poo poo, but it's ok for the right things to happen for the wrong reasons sometimes. It's not as if Bloomberg will stop using his money to influence politics, so may as well utilize him on your side for once.
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Feb 27, 2013 19:25
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Tom Latham (R-IA) will not run for the open Senate seat, making Steve King the leading contender for the Republican nomination. 
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Feb 27, 2013 21:46
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Joementum posted:Tom Latham (R-IA) will not run for the open Senate seat, making Steve King the leading contender for the Republican nomination. Karl Rove sheds a single, sulfur smelling, tear.
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Feb 27, 2013 21:47
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The 2nd includes the dense urban south side of Chicago, but also goes well into sparser, exurban, racially mixed areas of the south suburbs. Halvorson was leading for a long time in polling. It was not a fait accompli that Kelly would win it.
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Feb 27, 2013 21:50
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menino posted:It was not a fait accompli that Kelly would win it. Yeah, it was. The Halvorson danger is that too many black candidates would crowd the ballot and Halvorson would win by geting a small plurality in a split field. Once the field cleared, it was over. Halvorson's ceiling was about 25%
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Feb 27, 2013 21:52
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Remember that short period when everyone stopped giving a poo poo about guns and only the Republicans still had stupid social signifier issues in their platform? That was awesome.
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Feb 27, 2013 22:43
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nachos posted:Bloomberg is certainly an established piece of poo poo, but it's ok for the right things to happen for the wrong reasons sometimes. It's not as if Bloomberg will stop using his money to influence politics, so may as well utilize him on your side for once. My point was the money he's also funneling personal money to anti-union candidates, which is the wrong thing to happen for the obvious wrong reasons. And using his personal wealth will carry far greater weight and garner far greater results to his liking by helping anti-union candidates rather than funding pro-gun-control candidates. If you're a Dem who agrees with the party's current stances on both gun control and teachers' unions, on the other hand--and also believe in the right of wealthy individuals to purchase candidates to their liking--then Bloomberg's your guy. Willa Rogers fucked around with this message at 23:56 on Feb 27, 2013 |
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Feb 27, 2013 23:46
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Old Kentucky Shark posted:This makes no sense if you are not from Kentucky, but being the de-facto head of the University of Kentucky Men's Basketball Boosters is roughly the equivalent of being touched by the left hand of God around here. Funny college basketball political subtext: UK has a bit of good ol' boy-ness to it, especially when you consider Rupp and such, whereas Louisville (being the home of most of Kentucky's black population) and the University of Louisville are considered more ... ah ... diverse. There's a reason the South End of Louisville roots for UK. (Basically, like most things in Kentucky politics, college basketball can often serve as a racial dogwhistle.)
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Feb 27, 2013 23:52
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computer parts posted:a map of where Bloomberg should be spending are Inner cities followed by Connecticut's 5th, or basically the easiest targets on the map. What's wrong with Jim Himes? He seems pretty reasonable to me. He's my representative, technically. He's a former finance hack but he's reasonably liberal anyway. Anyone more liberal than him will be beaten by a Republican from Greenwich or New Canaan or some godawful place like that.
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Feb 28, 2013 00:24
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Ogmius815 posted:What's wrong with Jim Himes? He seems pretty reasonable to me. He's my representative, technically. He's a former finance hack but he's reasonably liberal anyway. Anyone more liberal than him will be beaten by a Republican from Greenwich or New Canaan or some godawful place like that. It's a Sandy Hook reference. e: Specifically, it's an easy district because that's where Newtown is located.
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Feb 28, 2013 00:32
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The Warszawa posted:Funny college basketball political subtext: UK has a bit of good ol' boy-ness to it, especially when you consider Rupp and such, whereas Louisville (being the home of most of Kentucky's black population) and the University of Louisville are considered more ... ah ... diverse. There's a reason the South End of Louisville roots for UK.
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Feb 28, 2013 00:39
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Old Kentucky Shark posted:Sooort of, although for the most part any racial subtext tends to drown in the all-encompassing ubiquity of UK support. Yeah, but "all-encompassing ubiquity" also accurately describes Kentucky's animosity towards nonwhite people. Louisville support in the West End, etc. is overwhelming.
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Feb 28, 2013 00:40
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computer parts posted:It's a Sandy Hook reference. Unless it's been redrawn, I believe that Newtown is in the fourth district. EDIT: Nope I got my numbers messed up. Himes represents most of Fairfield county in the Fourth district and Newtown is in the fifth. I should have known that since I used to work for Chris Murphy.
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Feb 28, 2013 00:46
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The Warszawa posted:Yeah, but "all-encompassing ubiquity" also accurately describes Kentucky's animosity towards nonwhite people. Louisville support in the West End, etc. is overwhelming. Parts of Louisville overwhelmingly support the university of Louisville athletics team? I am loving shocked!
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Feb 28, 2013 00:47
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Old Kentucky Shark posted:Parts of Louisville overwhelmingly support the university of Louisville athletics team? I am loving shocked! Yeah, but you get my point, right? The West End is predominantly black (or was before I got the hell out). Ubiquity of UK support is debatable. The Warszawa fucked around with this message at 01:10 on Feb 28, 2013 |
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Feb 28, 2013 01:07
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It's really put down more to a city/country divide and Louisville and Lexington's centuries old rivalry, (AKA why the capital is in Frankfort), than it does racial motivations. Race was a part of it until the Wildcats hired Tubby Smith and he won March Madness. Then it really just came down to what part of the state your family was from. The West End goes Louisville because most of the people there's families have been in the city for generations. If you look at Black people in Louisville whose families are from the country or Lexington they go UK. There is a tinge of racism to it, but it has more to do with how the countryside perceives Louisville. I understand where you're coming from, racism is a huge problem in Kentucky. I'm speaking anecdotal here, but I went to a minority-majority high school in the East End, and the students who were bused in from the West End did overwhelmingly support UofL but the African-American students from the East End, (Fun Fact! The majority of African Americans in Louisville no longer live in the West End.) were about evenly split between the two schools. We also had a pretty sizable immigrant/refugee population and they overwhelmingly went UK when they actually cared about College Athletics. Go figure. BIG FLUFFY DOG fucked around with this message at 04:15 on Feb 28, 2013 |
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Feb 28, 2013 01:42
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Ashley Judd is now calling state-level Democrats in Kentucky to talk to them about politics. They're as confused as everyone else. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q47N6wGD5oU
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Feb 28, 2013 14:11
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Joementum posted:Ashley Judd is now calling state-level Democrats in Kentucky to talk to them about politics. They're as confused as everyone else. Hahaha. I'm imagining one of those terribly vague messages that are loaded with insinuation and hidden meaning. "Hey it's Ashley. We should talk okay. Tomorrow? It's kinda important ..."
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Feb 28, 2013 17:25
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Kaal posted:Hahaha. I'm imagining one of those terribly vague messages that are loaded with insinuation and hidden meaning. "Hey it's Ashley. We should talk okay. Tomorrow? It's kinda important ..." So basically the subject line from the trillions of OFA emails from the past few years.
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Feb 28, 2013 17:38
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watt par posted:So basically the subject line from the trillions of OFA emails from the past few years.  Though the OFA email subjects seem to be written by that dog from "Up".
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Feb 28, 2013 17:48
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OAquinas posted:
I await the subject line that says "I'm sending you an email because I LOVE you!"
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Feb 28, 2013 17:50
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OAquinas posted:
I never once received an email from them with the subject line squirrel. 
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Feb 28, 2013 17:51
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I'd honestly rather have Beshear jsut because he would have a much better chance of winning. The majority of Kentucky's electorate is actually Democratic. It's just that Democrats being Democrats and Republicans being Republicans, the rural Democrats from Eastern Kentucky and the Purchase, who mostly vote Democrat on Labor and anti-poverty issues are much more likely to vote across party lines if a candidate's too liberal than the Republicans are if a candidates too Conservative. (No such thing.) Running a Blue Dog is critical to winning because winning those rural strongholds with high turnout like Eastern Kentucky and the Purchase are critical for any Democrat to win state-wide office. The best demonstration I can give to that importance for out-of-staters is the 2011 statewide elections where Beshear was running against the establishment Republican candidate who had very low favorability. The Tea Party hated him; they wanted Moffet. The Democrats hated him, he controlled the Senate and had spent his entire ten years there stonewalling Democratic legislation, while never proposing legislation of his own. He was basically a Southern-Fried Mitt Romney without the advantage of running against a Black Guy. And he knew it. He never appeared in his campaign commercials instead he had his running mate do it, who was a goddamned former UK Basketball player who had had his jersey retired. (He also ran attack ads against Abramson, Beshear's running-mate, former mayor of Louisville and also one of the most popular politicians in the state, he served for 20 years and never had approval ratings below 70. I guess he thought people care about Lt. Govs?) Anyway the purpose of that really long tangent was the Republicans were running a really weak candidate at the top of the ticket. Here's the results http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Kentucky_state_executive_official_elections,_2011 4 of the 6 Democratic candidates won by double digits. Now admittedly Hollenbach barely eked out a win and probably would have lost if there wasn't the Libertarian Spoiler, but that's not the point. I want you to look down at Commissioner for Agriculture, the Democratic Candidate lost by 27 points. Now Bob Farmer was a really lovely candidate. He had no farming experience what-so-ever (He was a banker) and was from Louisville which isn't exactly known for being a major agricultural region. He literally ran because his last name was Farmer. He looked at the incumbent whose last name was also Farmer, (He was the Republican running mate I was talking about earlier) and thought he didn't win because he was a famous UK basketball player, or he had actual loving qualifications like a degree in agriculture or actually running a farm before. No, he thought, he won because of his last name. But, you know, he still could have won. People don't really research races like this. No, what, sunk him was this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoARFmiVcFQ For those of you who can't or don't want to watch video. Bob used to have dreams. Dreams of being a stand-up comedian and he had an entire routine where he did nothing but recite stereotypes about East Kentucky. Comer pretty much aired that video and the race was over. Comer ended up being a pretty good commissioner. You're not really in a position to gently caress over poor people and minorities when your jurisdiction's corn. Plus he spearheaded the drive to legalize Industrial Hemp, which would be a tremendous boon to the state's economy. (Our climate and soil are perfect for growing it.) Honestly, I think the best thing would be for Beshear to run in 2014 and either Judd or Grimes run against Paul in 2016, who's a much weaker candidate. He and Conway were running neck and neck 'till the Aqua Buddha ad ended up backfiring horribly.
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Feb 28, 2013 17:53
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BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:I'd honestly rather have Beshear jsut because he would have a much better chance of winning. The majority of Kentucky's electorate is actually Democratic. It's just that Democrats being Democrats and Republicans being Republicans, the rural Democrats from Eastern Kentucky and the Purchase, who mostly vote Democrat on Labor and anti-poverty issues are much more likely to vote across party lines if a candidate's too liberal than the Republicans are if a candidates too Conservative. (No such thing.) Running a Blue Dog is critical to winning because winning those rural strongholds with high turnout like Eastern Kentucky and the Purchase are critical for any Democrat to win state-wide office. Two things: 1. This is basically what all of Appalachia is like. West Virginia and SW Virginia break down this same way. Virginia just ends up falling GOP these days because Rick Boucher, the de facto SW Va Dem leader and former congressman, made the mistake of backing Cap and Trade and not coming up with an explanation for it since he thought he was so safe in office. He also didn't spend nearly 100k of his campaign funds in 2010 because it was his tradition to save the last 10% of his cash for the next election. Oops. Otherwise, he would have won due to labor and poverty issues. 2. This is why it's important to have local infrastructure that knows the populace beyond some statistics and assumptions that "people in rural states want god, guns, and gays." That ad was puffed up big time on Daily Kos and it sucked poo poo. Oops, you're assuming that rural people care more about weird religion assumptions and not, you know, integrity.
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Feb 28, 2013 23:37
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There's a good article in the Atlantic about common election myths. Number 3 in particular is one that D&Ders often perpetuate.
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Mar 1, 2013 18:02
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Family Values posted:There's a good article in the Atlantic about common election myths. Number 3 in particular is one that D&Ders often perpetuate. Nope. "Independent" is still often used as shorthand when people really mean "swing voters" or "centrists," and the pop-science article you linked blurs that point in favor of making a technical point that while true is meaningless to horserace discussion. eta: Driving further into the Fiorina paper Ball is quoting, the relevant part is actually a comparison of an ANES panel between independent leaners and weak partisans, i.e. the barely distinguishable borders of said groups. The conclusion that weak partisans are still slightly more partisan than leaners is bordering on a truism. Semi-interesting research, doesn't support the much broader claim Ball makes in the Atlantic article. oldfan fucked around with this message at 19:06 on Mar 1, 2013 |
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Mar 1, 2013 18:56
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jeffersonlives posted:Nope. "Independent" is still often used as shorthand when people really mean "swing voters" or "centrists," and the pop-science article you linked blurs that point in favor of making a technical point that while true is meaningless to horserace discussion. I'm not sure who you're disagreeing with here, me, the article, or the paper. Does D&D not often proclaim that there are no independents, only closeted partisans?
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Mar 1, 2013 19:38
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Family Values posted:I'm not sure who you're disagreeing with here, me, the article, or the paper. Does D&D not often proclaim that there are no independents, only closeted partisans? Part of the problem is that he poses this question at the start of the section: quote:A first source of confusion is their number: is it more than a third of the eligible electorate and thus the largest “party” in the US, or is it <10%, a number so small that it justifies the modern strategy of mobilizing the base as opposed to the traditional strategy of moving to the center? My own sense is that a majority of the people who say they are independent clearly are not. Despite their claim, they routinely vote for one party consistently. The hard-core truly independent voters are generally uninformed and uninterested in politics and tend to vote based on non-political issues.
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Mar 1, 2013 19:50
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Family Values posted:I'm not sure who you're disagreeing with here, me, the article, or the paper. Does D&D not often proclaim that there are no independents, only closeted partisans? The article's third point and your endorsement of it. The Fiorina paper simply doesn't reach the sweeping conclusion that Ball's article does that "independents aren't partisan." The discussion is far more nuanced than that.
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Mar 1, 2013 19:53
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Deteriorata posted:Part of the problem is that he poses this question at the start of the section: I agree with your characterizations, although I would phrase it as 'disengaged' rather than uninformed (there are an awful lot of engaged partisans who are grossly un- or misinformed). I'm not sure I agree with the claim that they're a minority though. I think there are a lot of disengaged voters who have the weakest of leans or are easily swayed. Personal charisma of the candidate matters for a reason, if all voters were ideologues it wouldn't.
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Mar 1, 2013 20:01
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As someone who has worked in Kentucky politics I can tell you that the Democratic Party, which operates out of Beshear's office, is designed to win off year super low turn out elections, such as Beshear's 2011 reelection. Beshear won with less votes than Jack Conway received when he lost to Rand Paul in 2010. It's why the state GOP wants the elections to align with the federal timetable to increase their turnout. I say run Judd because McConnell may the least popular Senator in the country but that still didn't stop Harry Reid in 2010. Might as well make him sweat the spotlight of running against a well financed celebrity. Grimes, Conway, Edelen, Luellan, and all the rest would rather get ready for a good ol fashioned Kentucy Democratic civil war in the 2015 primary. The best shot at taking out McConnell is in the primary, and even then that person would still beat the Dem in the general. Look at Rand Paul. Maybe if McConnell pulls a David Williams and barely survives his primary, but even in that scenario it's hard to imagine Kentucky electing a Dem to senate when Obama is in office. There's no obvious Joe Manchin type candidate for the Dems.
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Mar 1, 2013 20:18
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Swonga posted:As someone who has worked in Kentucky politics I can tell you that the Democratic Party, which operates out of Beshear's office, is designed to win off year super low turn out elections, such as Beshear's 2011 reelection. Beshear won with less votes than Jack Conway received when he lost to Rand Paul in 2010. It's why the state GOP wants the elections to align with the federal timetable to increase their turnout. Reid was running against a certifiable nutjob, though--if Judd's even half credible against McConnell, she's got a better than zero chance. We almost got him a few cycles ago when Bruce Lunsford ran--I'd really like to finish the job. Payback for Daschle in 2004.
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Mar 1, 2013 20:24
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Alter Ego posted:Reid was running against a certifiable nutjob, though--if Judd's even half credible against McConnell, she's got a better than zero chance. That Lunsford got anywhere close to winning despite being the most loathsome Democrat in the state, between Vencor and endorsing Fletcher after losing the gubernatorial primary to Chandler, is a testament to how weak McConnell is. gently caress the DSCC for basically anointing Lunsford against Fischer in the '08 primary because Lunsford said he was willing to self-finance.
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Mar 1, 2013 20:51
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Joementum posted:Ashley Judd is now calling state-level Democrats in Kentucky to talk to them about politics. They're as confused as everyone else.
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Mar 1, 2013 21:05
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Family Values posted:I'm not sure who you're disagreeing with here, me, the article, or the paper. Does D&D not often proclaim that there are no independents, only closeted partisans? I don't think I've ever seen D&D argue that swing voters don't exist but rather are stupid. I have seen posts similar to what you're describing with regards to people like Sean hannity who is clearly a republican shill but pretends he's "independent".
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Mar 1, 2013 21:13
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Audience fakes a polite laugh for Judd's joke about wintering in Scotland. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7FcziIB4uY
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Mar 2, 2013 01:15
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Ashley Judd's only chance is if cult for liberty and the tea party remnant join together to rouse sleeping Jim Bunning, dreaming in his city beneath the sea, to consume Mitch McConnell and threaten the Commonwealth with eternal madness. She would still probably lose to that hate demon. Kentuckians always did prefer non-Euclidean geometries.
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Mar 2, 2013 17:01
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