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Jose posted:lol at being so lazy and incompetent you don't even contest a seat even if its unlikely to be a win I would love to know the story behind each of them, as I wonder how many were something like "after we told them they'll be getting no financial or organizational support from the national or state parties, the only people who still wanted to run were so bad that we think they might become a statewide (if not national) embarrassment if allowed to run with a "D" next to their name". I don't mean that they have unpopular opinions, more "known alcohol problem, already has 3 DUIs and would likely get a 4th during the campaign" or "is known to frequent high-end escorts" or "kills drifters to get an erection" kind of embarrassment.
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Apr 4, 2017 19:00
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OAquinas posted:Much more banal, I'd imagine--the majority of them are in deep red shitholes like alabama, louisiana, and oklahoma. A few in Texas and Utah. So the story is probably less "only guy available is the one the town drunk looks down on" and more "the state party has been utterly abandoned by the DNC and has zero resources." I think these areas go uncontested once there aren't even down-ballot races that a losing campaign could at least theoretically help with, so people looking for candidates can't even say "sure you may lose, but you'll at least help people win down-ballot."
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Apr 4, 2017 20:41
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the black husserl posted:Just thinking about it gets me worked up. The Dems need to nominate a 65-year old funny, gruff, charismatic war veteran (or the relevant equivalent) in every single one of those districts. Political experience? Familiarity with the system? Fundraising potential? Who gives a poo poo. People are shallow. Branding and identity matter. Your candidate won't win, but people will have a new identity to associate with your party. Make some silly old man jokes on Twitter/Youtube and call the Republicans a bunch of carpetbagging greedy bosses. Represent.
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Apr 4, 2017 23:46
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Concerned Citizen posted:it's not novel, recruiting a viable candidate is just really difficult. like most people can't take a year of their lives off to go campaign for a congressional seat they're definitely going to lose. That said, candidates can make a big difference, look at Collin Peterson in MN-7, who is basically the House equivalent of Joe Manchin, winning as a rural populist, but his district is "only" R+6. There's 25 districts that are +20 or more Republican, and only 2 are in states that were competitive in 2016, AZ-4 and FL-1. With dollars being limited, even with SuperPACs in play, why run an ad in one of those 25 districts, when you could focus on ads in one of the 52 districts currently Republican that are between R+4 and Even. Democrats absolutely need to play offense in more Republican areas, but going into those +20-30 and spending any money running a candidate just for the sake of contesting every election is insane. Focus on getting good candidates in solid red but winnable districts.
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Apr 5, 2017 01:04
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the black husserl posted:See, that's thinking based in a pre-internet age. They don't need to "campaign" for a year. They need an intern with a camera, a Twitter/Youtube account, and a loving personality. That's it. It's about building a national brand, not turning the liberal 20% of nowheresville, MO into a winning majority. Also, if you're a left-leaning person with a personality and an ability to use Twitter/Youtube, why in the hell would you want to run a losing race somewhere that you have no hope of ever winning ever and not instead take those talents and put them to use for a candidate in an area that actually has a chance of winning? As red as most places are, there's usually a large enough town nearby to have a few blue state legislators at least if not a House Rep who would kill for someone with that skillset.
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Apr 5, 2017 03:49
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As someone who lives in an area (MN-1) that has a Republican lean but has a centrist Democrat rep (Tim Walz), I can tell you that it is still far better to have him there than any of the Republicans who ran against him. Reps can absolutely be pressured from the left, just like the Tea Party did for the right, but you're not gonna get an opportunity to do that unless that person has a "D" next to their name. Otherwise, they'll march in lock-step with Trump and Ryan. My rep makes some really infuriating votes, but he makes far more good votes than even the most centrist Republican.
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Apr 12, 2017 17:40
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Vox Nihili posted:tho honestly Ossoff doesn't really look that bad He's pretty indicative of what you'll get from a Dem that's competitive in a district that's about 8 points towards Republican and elected Newt Gingrich for 20 loving years. I get that he's not the ideal candidate policy-wise, but by June 21, it's either gonna be Ossoff or a Republican representing the district and I know whose voting preferences I'd prefer. Plus, if Ossoff does win, you stand a reasonable chance of being able to sway, hector, or browbeat them on important votes if they waver far easier than if they are Republican, and you'll have to do it far less often.
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Apr 12, 2017 23:45
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If the Dem was a further left candidate that hit all your buttons, but was behind in the polls by 40-60, would you take the 20 minutes then? Or would it be "lol republicans always win not worth 20 minutes to vote in a pointless election"?
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Apr 13, 2017 06:12
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comedyblissoption posted:i want corporate dems to continue to lose
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Apr 13, 2017 06:52
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comedyblissoption posted:this reasoning is why the democrats are wiped out and republicans are in control at every level of government right now
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Apr 13, 2017 07:14
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:then we might as well just give up and kill ourselves because nothing will ever go our way again
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Apr 19, 2017 19:21
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:y'know I'm a Bernie Bro socialist of long standing but I'll take a milquetoast smoothbrain centrist Dem who's susceptible to browbeating from the left over a jackass Republican who isn't I'd rather have someone there that I agree with 80% of the time and who is able to be badgered on the 20% than a guy I have to badger to literally do anything I agree with. But I guess I should not vote and just hold out hope that the anime communists go all Enders Game and figure out how to tweet with such marvelous insight that they change the entire country to wanting FULL COMMUNISM NOW.
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Apr 20, 2017 03:09
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Oh Snapple! posted:the fact that he resoundingly rejected the idea of medicare for all, probably one of the absolute safest concessions he could have possibly made to progressives to get them on board, does not paint a positive picture on that front. I recently attended a town hall with my rep, and there was a group of about a dozen of us who wrote up questions in advance and went out to put him on the record on a bunch of progressive issues, and the only one that we didn't get full-throated support on was single-payer, with his wording being something like "I'll support it if we get there as a country, but I'm not convinced that it's a better solution than fixing what is broken about the ACA". It was disheartening, but I'm not going to let it detract from the fact that he agrees with me on immigration reform, tax reform, preventing voter suppression, not cutting social spending to pay for military spending, not invading Syria, fully supporting Planned Parenthood, and not paying for Trump's border wall. I should point out that the Republican who ran to replace him the last two elections, would likely have voted for Ryan's healthcare plan and would likely be with the Republicans on all those issues.
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Apr 21, 2017 22:12
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nachos posted:To play devil's advocate for a second, this stakes right now are significantly lower than the presidential election and if a message is to be sent to the DNC, this is a reasonably safe way to do it. I doubt it's gonna be "if only you'd nominated a more progressive candidate, you would have won", at least not until at least not until a solid progressive actually flips a red district. The message is gonna be "don't bother spending money in redder districts, because progressive Democrats won't turn out there anyways, even when we send Bernie loving Sanders down to vouch for the candidate".
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Apr 21, 2017 23:13
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GlyphGryph posted:That the people who are pushing the message that milktoast centrists are ideal dems and the only ones worth supporting should lose their jobs. Theres still a lot of them left. I would mind them as a minority in the party but they absolutely cannot be allowed to hold the reigns anymore. I think what gets me so riled up is that a lot of people seem to think that there's no place in the party for anyone with ideological variance on any significant issue, and that all Democrats need to do to win permanent majorities is to find the right set of issues that not only resonate with 50+% of the population, but in 50+% of the districts, which I think is about as realistic as the tea party thinking that if they just nominate TRUE CONSERVATIVES, it's the path to a Reagan-style landslide. I think it's reasonable to expect candidates to be with the party platform 90% of the time, and to make certain issues like abortion rights a dealbreaker, and if you do that, you can build a durable majority so that on any single vote you can have people who voted against it from your party without compromising the ability to pass a good, progressive legislative agenda overall while still being able to rely on their votes on the other 90% of the stuff you do agree with them on.
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Apr 22, 2017 00:10
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Yeah sorry, I meant 90% agreement on any given issue, not a Freedom Caucus cabal of 10% that can hold the party hostage like Republicans have. Leaders need to be able to provide political cover for the 10% who, for whatever practical reason cannot support a particular bill or issue. We've gotten to a point where the only way that legislation gets passed is on straight party lines, and as a matter of practicality, that isn't sustainable, since our system makes control of the presidency and both chambers of Congress really hard to achieve and even harder to maintain.
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Apr 22, 2017 02:15
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Terror Sweat posted:democrat politicians think that americans are more right wing than they actually are Haha. Trump won his district by 14 points and he won reelection. This district really is that red.
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Apr 22, 2017 04:39
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comedyblissoption posted:this is a meaningless statement. "really blue" districts and counties that went obama in 2012 swung heavily to trump in 2016. labeling areas as red or blue in this way misses the entire point and underlies why Clinton lost those areas she took for granted. Obama did win the district by 4 points in 2008 and 2 points in 2012, but Walz won reelection by 30 points and 15 points respectively. It isn't that the district is secretly blue and votes Republican. This is a centrist Democrat who is really good at getting Republicans to vote for him. Same thing happens up on the Iron Range in MN-7 with Collin Peterson. These are the kind of candidates that should have a place in the Democratic coalition, and will need to if you want to actually build a governing coalition. However, if you've got even a shred of evidence that all we need to do to win in rural Minnesota is nominate full-on socialists, I'd encourage you to bring it up now.
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Apr 22, 2017 15:41
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comedyblissoption posted:hey cool there's my shred of evidence in your own words. you have to sell people something to get them to vote for you. obama won because he sold something, but it turned out he was a neoliberal rear end in a top hat and didn't push for what he was selling. writing off the gerrymandered district as red is a loser's mentality. As for buying and selling, what Tim Walz was selling was far better than what Obama was selling for this district, which the CPVI now puts at 5 points Republican, maybe there's a lesson there that diving to the left isn't necessarily the right decision for every district. Obama, a generationally good campaigner, could barely win the district and couldn't win it better than his national margins. On a national level, I think you're right that Democrats need to move left overall, but each district needs to nominate someone who is selling what the district wants to buy, and you should accept that if Democrats want to compete in places like MN-1 or KS-4, then you're gonna need to allow things like Democrats who support free trade (because farmers love free trade) or who publicly say they support the 2nd amendment or who are skeptical on single payer. Tim Walz is pretty close on the issues to James Thompson, who just lost in KS-4, and tend to focus on similar issues. That's the template for a rural Democrat in the current political climate, but it doesn't stop TIm Walz from getting a 100% rating from Planned Parenthood or supporting GLBTQ rights. Also, this district isn't gerrymandered, this is basically the same district it was in 1996. If it was gerrymandered, it'd include some of the collar county Twin Cities suburbs that currently have a Republican bent, but they don't need to do that, since this district is gonna be Republican leaning with or without that. However, if you want to keep believing that a carbon copy of Keith Ellison or Betty McCollum could realistically win here, you go right ahead. As someone who was born and raised here, and who has lived in both the rural Republican parts and in the Democratic cities, I can tell you that there is literally zero appetite for a far left candidate and all that nominating one would get you is a slapdown at the polls.
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Apr 22, 2017 16:24
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comedyblissoption posted:also keep in mind the thing we are arguing about is whether or not ossuf and like-minded dems should throw a non-commital bone to progressives. they don't even have to push for it. when asked about single payer, they can simply say they support it but don't think it's realistic and say they will focus their efforts on improving obamacare or putting in a public option or something like that. they won't even throw progressives a bone. this will gain them votes overall. republican ads will portray them as supporting gay luxury space communism healthcare no matter what they do or say. the main disadvantage for ossuf saying he supports a medicare-for-all-like is scaring away wealthy donors.
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Apr 22, 2017 16:25
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