November 10, 2018

The next Democratic nominee for President will almost certainly be

one of our great Senators or Congresspersons that rise to the top in a Senate or Congressional hearing.

We are in the middle of a great turbulence and everything is about to change.

Those old enough to see it know how the Watergate hearings completely redefined the political landscape in1973.

The President with the greatest landslide in history, winning every state but Mass, lost his mandate when one Senator asked a simple question, "What did the President know and when did he know it?"

You got a little hint of it with the Kavanaugh hearings but hearings held by the Democratic House will be considerably different, they will be like the Watergate hearings and we are going to have a lot of them because Pelosi is a genius at defining a message and keeping on message.

There are likely to be many important hearings besides open and public hearings on Russian interference, including a possible House hearing to consider the impeachment of Kavanaugh for perjury.

We have many who rise in these circumstances. Booker, Harris or Schiff are obvious possibilities but it could be someone like Klobuchar who rises to the top unexpectedly.

We should not spend much time trying to project candidates based on current realities and project where we are going to be in a year from now because everything will be different in a year (just see how they change week by week) and it is likely that the clash of power will be played out live on TV before the nation and unscripted one on one confrontations will reveal the grit and brilliance of our Senators and Representatives and that will be the pool for our next nominee.

November 10, 2018

Bernie

Over and over again we have to re examine the very substantive problems that moves Bernie from being a great Senator to being a problem for the Democratic Party, one that has enriched him and created this permanent canyon between those that suspend critical thinking because of some of the things that they agree with and principles that we expect all Democrats to embrace.

1) He significantly undermined Secretary Clinton on two key issues that provided substantial ammunition to the GOP in 2016. His persistent harping about "speeches" and revealing the content of these mysterious speeches to the finance community endorsed the GOP completely false narrative that somehow Clinton was dirty and untruthful.

The irony of this is that Sec. Clinton released decades of tax returns while Bernie refused.

Secondly Bernie endorsed economic nationalism of the radical GOP right coming out against the TPP which was on track to increase workers income by $ 131 billion. But if a "progressive" endorses exactly the same thing that Trump is saying then it must be true. Sanders positions undermined the perception of Hillary's integrity and gave Trump's economic nationalism a boost.

Here's a clue: I care exactly the same for the people in that caravan, the poor farmer in Burma, and the worker in Pennsylvania. Any politician of any stripe that wants to push a policy that leverages our inherent advantages and exploit the weaknesses is not only NOT progressive but not pursuing a strategy of mutual advantage. The United States will be more prosperous and more safe with a Central and South America that is developing and prospering.

2) There are things that Bernie does that we would never accept from any other politician. We would never accept any Republican not showing his taxes so why do we make an exception for Bernie?

But there are other things that are very worrisome about Bernie that would never be acceptable from any other politician, some examples:

When Jane Sanders was President of Burlington College she funnelled $500k to her daughter's woodworking school. She also made disastrous $ 10 million land purchase that pushed Burlington into bankruptcy. This is a clear case of nepotism and the results were a calamity all the way around. If nepotism is bad for Republicans, its bad for Democrats.

But it didn't stop there. The Sanders Institute raised money for a "think tank" which is fine if it employs leading academicians who have advance degrees and publishes peer review material.

Apparently they didn't have to go far they hired Jane's son David Driscoll who makes a six figure income leading the Sanders Institute. I have found no information about David Driscoll, his education or background except that he used to sell snow boards at Burton Snowboards.

3) Bernie Sanders didn't keep his word. He promised that he was a "Democrat for Life"

Since that time he has joined and left the Democratic Party twice.

He continues to deny that he is a Democrat as forcefully as he can.

Here he is in January of last year:



Except after this he rejoined the Democratic Party to tie up the nomination in Vermont and then left it again.

He talks about the Democratic in the third person (they, those, them) and never in the first person plural, (We US).

By staking out a separate brand Bernie continues to undermine the Democratic brand, and not help it. He could join the Democratic Party and state, like all Senators and Congresspeople do that they don't agree with everything in the party but he is proud to be a Democrat.

By continuing to push his "Independent" brand the "Our Revolution" brand he is stating, in neon signs, that The Democratic Party is better than Republican Party but only incrementally so.

Its like a star wide receiver who joins a team and they accept him because he has particular skills that help them and its better that he is inside the tent than out. But this player insists on wearing gold and blue jersey when the team wears silver and green. They go along. But then the WR complains about every strategy and every play. He eventually says that the only way to win is to make him quarterback. In fact they should just hand the entire team over to him and let him be the coach too.

4) This whole populism shtick is dangerous and counter productive.

It sells the idea that the only problem with the country is that a few people are destroying everything. (Sanders used to rail against the 'Millionaires and Billionaires' except that once he became a Presidential Candidate he saw his personal income increase by 500% and edited out the 'Millionaires')

I have lived in countries where I have witnessed it in detail and the damage and death that follows. Populism does 3 terrible things:

a) it sells the idea that in our highly complex technical society that things can be solved with solutions that can fit on bumper stickers. It creates social disharmony because it raises expectations that cannot be met and gives birth to deep anger when those expectations are not met.

b) it bankrupts the treasury. Whether it gives unrealistic subsidies or gigantic tax breaks to the rich the government becomes more insolvent until it cannot carry out its basic functions because of debt burden. Sanders advocated over a trillion dollars in additional benefit but never articulated where the revenue would come from.

c) it always ends up creating boogeymen of outsiders



The problem is that it is gibberish which would be laughed off the stage anywhere outside the US. The direct labor that is in your Smart phones is 85% located in California where the hard ware is designed and the software made. The 15% of the direct labor which is involved in assembling, quality control and packaging is in Malaysia or Korea, etc.

I have sat in Qualcomm Stadium and listened to idiots talk about "an unfair trade system" without realizing that the company that purchased naming rights for the stadium gets a revenue stream from every phone in the world, that those repatriated profits and fees never appear on a balance of trade sheet and that janitors at Qualcomm drive $ 75,000 BMWs because they got their bonuses in stock.

5) I continue to be astonished that Sanders gets away with actions that would never be accepted by a regular candidate and that is because he holds an independent brand and he is in essence extorting the Democratic Party, if we hurt his feelings then he is going to walk out the door. No other Democratic candidate carries that kind of threat.

Now I will give you a list of qualities and you tell me what politician you think it represents

- never admits that any vote or any action he has undertaken is wrong

- refuses to release all of his taxes

- engages in populist rhetoric that is based on emotion

- involves his children in nepotistic schemes that funnel money to them

- doesn't submit to party norms and discipline but holds him out as being exceptional to the party

- makes promises to party loyalty and then walks away from them


If you think that many people at DU are not interested in him because of some superficial reason then I have to tell you that most of the Democrats I know are all too aware of the double standard that Bernie (and I would normally refer to him as Senator Sanders but you used the familial term Bernie) has gotten away with it and really would prefer to return to bring up the next generation of Democratic leaders and let Bernie continue with his independent brand.

Politics is not an individual sport, it is a team sport and team solidarity is a critical element to victory and Bernie does not share that solidarity with the Democratic Party although he wants all of the benefits that association with the Democrats brings.

November 6, 2018

A very real path to taking the Senate Part II

Yesterday I had a thread that documented multiple sources showing a 3-4% bump for Democrats in the final polls.

This probably represents a small number of GOP changing and 7-8% of independents who were effected by the bombing attempts, the Synagogue shootings and the capricious attempt to rewrite birth right citizenship in the 14th amendment. We finally hit the straw that broke a lot of independents backs. Details here:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100211367865

There may be a broader "mass dynamic" at play here that you see in herds that are going in one direction and then move in another election. It turns out that when there are big moves in the House and the Senate has around 9 competitive seats that they don't split the seats but they go overwhelming in one direction.

We see other data points like huge increases in youth vote, including a 2500% increase in the youth vote in North Dakota. Does it make any sense that the youth in ND would show up in mass numbers if they thought the race was over? It is their perception that something still matters that creates a new reality and while the pundits have written ND off the youth, the tribes, and the Democrats haven't.

Those same data points ripple through every competitive Senate race. The Senate hasn't been decided and if we follow the patterns of herd movement in the past then we could end the night 51 Dems 48 Republicans and a seat in Mississippi that is headed for a run off election.

Hugh Hewitt casually is pimping for a GOP pick up of 4 seats and he has been wrong 493,932 times.

We don't know who is going to win the Senate but a careful examination of the data, including the last day bump in Dem numbers and a well established historical pattern points in our direction. The Senate is still in play.

November 6, 2018

****** RandySF Appreciation Thread ****** Thank you *****

Every election cycle one DUer steps up and gets into the weeds and fleshes out all of the important races across the country.

This cycle we were particularly fortunate that RandySF stepped up and gave us hourly reports on all of the competitive House seats as well as the Senate seats.

This is a huge benefit to our community and saves us thousands of hours. His posts were accurate and supported Democratic challengers without succumbing to a cheerleader bias.

I had budgeted my time today to spend hours combing through the minutiae of 90 competitive races to have a check off list on who to watch. I prepared pencils, pads and two beers to get me through it.

Now I can just download RandySF's list and check it off as the night unfolds. Still keeping the beers.

You can find RandySF's list here:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=journals&uid=231353&page=3

I for one think that he should be rewarded with lots of pats on the back and a doubling of his DU stipend.

Thanks for a gigantic amount of research which saved us a lot of time.

October 30, 2018

This the last Monday

This is the last Monday that Donald Trump can go to bed without wondering what the House of Representatives is going to do to hold him accountable for his actions.

This is the last Monday that Donald Trump can go to bed and not wonder what the Republicans in the House and the Senate will do to ensure that they aren't wiped out in the next blue wave and will they turn on him to save their seats.

It is not the last night that he will hear rumours of serious infighting in his cabinet.

It is not the last night that he will go to bed reading embarrassing stories about his actions leaked by his own staff.

Where we are behind we can catch up.

Where it is close we can take the seat.

The Senate is still up for grabs.

Where we are ahead we can pile up a mountain of votes so that no one will want to challenge our incumbent.

And the reason for this is very simple.

Forget the Presidential approval numbers, forget the generic ballot because we didn't recruit generic candidates.

In fact we didn't recruit these candidates they sat down at their kitchen table and figured that they had enough and went down and put their name on the ballot.

Having looked at dozens and dozens of districts (aided by the indefatigable RandySF ambition posting on dozens of districts) it is clear that the team that we have on the ballot is the most inspiring, talented, articulate, compassionate team of candidates in the history of the Republic.

And they are being led by an astonishing number of brilliant, capable, talented experienced women.

Women candidates and women voters are going to give the Republic a chance to redeem itself.

This is the last Monday where we have to live in a constitutional Republic where the people's house has been paralyzed by atrophy and just like most of our houses it will be the women that clean up the house and put things straight.

October 29, 2018

Hate speech is protected

Precursor to a crime?

So you want to arrest something because they might do something?

I hate intolerant people. I hate NAZIS. Now arrest me.

Making a speech inciting people to attack someone is a crime.

Limitations to the right of absolute speech have been carefully worked out over 240 years. What new limitation do you propose that isn't already in existance?

October 29, 2018

These aren't the worst days of the Republic but they are the most vulgar.

Vietnam, the McCarthy Era, World Wars, Japanese Internment, Jim Crow, the Civil War, two hundred years of aggressive slavery and the genocide of Native Americans are but a few of the times where the Republic suffered more and/or suffered more.

But it has never been this vulgar or vain.


So while we have seen greater evil by scale in terms of the number of lives and the amount of suffering by individuals we have never seen this level of degradation of spirit, mind numbing banality and trivialization of American values.

In five days we have witnessed more political violence combined than in decades.

1) Gregory Bush tries to enter the predominately African American First Baptist Church in Jeffersontown but the doors were locked. He runs to the store to start shooting random blacks and fortunately is stopped by a good Samaritan who is armed and starts shooting at him.

2) Cesar Sayoc mails 14 IEDs and is stopped by outstanding law enforcement action.

3) Robert Bowers murders 11 unarmed synagogue members because he thinks that they are funding the caravan that is going to come up and destroy "his people". Within minutes of his tweeting "screw your optics I am going in" and discharging the first round law enforcement was there to stop him.

If these these three had an ounce of the strategic awareness that the Las Vegas shooter had we would be looking at casualty rates in the hundreds and what does Donald Trump discuss at his first public appearance with the FFA?

His bad hair day.

https://metro.co.uk/2018/10/28/donald-trump-jokes-of-bad-hair-day-after-being-caught-in-rain-on-day-of-mass-shooting-8082040/

We are looking at a very high chance that this vulgarian will be front and center for everyone to see for the next 2 years.

And the evil is compounding. The DACA children are at risk. The legal TPS holders number exceed 600,000. If the asylum seekers reach the border and successfully apply for asylum he will lash out at them and others.

The competence of the regime is going to disintegrate as cabinet leaders leave in mass.

We are watching a dystopian mix between Groundhog Day and Lord of the Flies.

The really disturbing question is why is this mid term even going to be close? Before he was elected there was a theoretical argument that some could make that he was going to pivot and become Presidential.

Now we see that he has only card to play, the double down card and nothing is going to change.

October 25, 2018

AZ early voting statistics 10/24

Background

Registered Voters

2018 3.7 million
2016 3.58
2014 3.2

Current breakdown by party affiliation

1.288 Republican 35%
1,238 Independents 34%
1,151 Democratic 31%

Early voting

Total

Republicans 291K 44.4%
Democratic 214K 32.7%
Independent 147K 22.4%

Links: http://www.arizona.vote/early-ballot-statistics
https://azsos.gov/elections/voter-registration-historical-election-data

The one stat I really don't understand is Women are only 49.7% of the vote.

For Sinema to have a chance we nee 54% of the vote by women.

Need everyone to get to their nearest campaign office and help calling to get Dems out to vote. If you need information on the nearest office respond to this thread with your zip code.

October 22, 2018

Monday 10/22 Today's GOTV Good news update thread It is still possible to take the Senate.

1) Everything is still in play. Our strong showing in the House simply means that we have more Republican incumbents that are in seats we can take.

The Senate is still in play. Even North Dakota is still in play. Cramer polls consistently at 50% Heitkamp at 42% with large MOE and 8% undecideds. Wouldn't put it in the win column but we haven't lost in North Dakota. John Ralston had a county by county analysis on MSNBC where he detailed why it is much closer in ND than people give credit for it. Ralston (who picked Reid when the polls had him losing) had a very specific analysis of why ND polls are less reliable than other states. He also credits Heitkamp for being very effective in closing in the rural areas where she came from. He didn't say that she was leading but he said that she was still in the game.


2) Nevada Perhaps the best Democratic GOTV effort on a per capita basis has been unleashed and is rolling

The polls in NV are basically tied. Its going to be down to who has better GOTV
https://www.270towin.com/2018-senate-polls/nevada/

The machine that beat the polls that showed that Harry Reid was losing is back in full operation:

Ralston says that "Another big turnout day in Clark. In 2014, it was about 7,500 on Day Two. As of 3 PM today, 17,000 had turned out. Going to be three or four times last midterm.

3) Florida: A million votes are in already and the polls look strong

https://www.270towin.com/2018-senate-polls/florida/

The most reliable polls show Nelson moving to a 4-5% lead but Florida is always within 1-2% in heavily contested state wide elections. We need a high turnout to win.
A total of 55,640 mail-in ballots have already been cast in Broward County, 28,617 in Palm Beach County and 71,152 in Miami-Dade.



4) Tennessee Blackburn's Kavanaugh bounce is going away

The last 3 polls show Blackburn's numbers going down. The latest poll by Vanderbilt shows Bredesen up by 1%

https://www.270towin.com/2018-senate-polls/tennessee/

The good/bad news is that TN is nearly last in the country in election turnout.

https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2018/08/27/tennessee-voter-registration-turnout-panel/1115860002/

The party that is the most motivated and the most organized is going to win TN. As Bredesen has won state wide campaigns he should be the most organized and Dems are the most motivated.

5) AZ Sinema appears to hold her lead


https://www.270towin.com/2018-senate-polls/arizona/

The DSCC and MoveOn have made a huge investment in GOTV along with the AFL CIO. There are over 40 full time GOTV staffers from DSCC and MoveOn in AZ. The action in Tucson has been robust. Friends in Phoenix say it is less. Its hard to for me to judge because I am on the inside and every campaign beside President Obama's that I have worked on has underperformed, lol.

We should win but it could be close. AZ 2 is going to flip to blue. The Senate could come down to a few hundred votes.

6) Missouri is tied

This should have been an easy pick up for the GOP but the polling could not be closer, and it hasn't moved much, especially if you compare poll to poll. No word on early voting. Perhaps the best variable in Missouri is that the GOP has consistently underestimated McCaskill

https://www.270towin.com/2018-senate-polls/missouri/

7) Texas, something big is happening in Texas

The polls in Texas show us down 6% but there is one critical problem with these polls, they are based on models that show low performance by the young and Latino voters in past elections. This isn't an ideological war in Texas it is a leadership/personality war. A very small change in the modelling will put Beto on top.

https://www.270towin.com/2018-senate-polls/texas/

Four years ago only 54% of registered voters voted in the off year election. We simply need moderate increase in Democratic voters and a swing of independents and disenchanted Republicans to make up the 5-6% in the polls.



We currently have 49 Senate seats. If we accept the positive polls in FL, WV, MT, NJ and Ohio as likely wins we end up with 3 Dem states that are real toss ups or likely loss:

If we put IN ND or MI into toss up or lean Republican then we have 46 Senate seats needing 5 to make 51.

The Rep/Dem toss up "pool" then has 7 seats for us to make 5. Those 7 are: AZ ND NV IN MI TN TX

We look like we have a good chance in MI, NV, IN and AZ. If we take those then we there are 3 seats to make one:

ND, TX, TN

If we lose MI, NV, IN or AZ then we would need to take 2 out of the 3 longshot states.

It is a long shot but the Senate is still in play.

Its like drawing to an inside straight.

Or it is less likely than if you asked pollsters 12 years ago what are the odds we could elect someone by the name of Barack Hussein Obama to be President of the United States.

September 30, 2018

Just think. If only 17 year old Kavanaugh liked girls as much as he liked beer . . .

If Republicans were as committed to the Constitution as they are in getting a 5th seat on the Supreme Court.

If rural red America knew as much about the rules of economics as the rules of NASCAR championship ranking.

If rich Americans were as motivated to get universal health car as they were another tax advantage.

If the Tea Party hated war as much as they hated Hillary Clinton.

If Evangelical Christians were as well informed about the actual meaning of the bible as they were on how to post their views on Facebook.

If the NRA was as committed to gun safety as gun proliferation and increasing gun lethality.

If Nunes and the other Trump sycophants were as committed to stopping our involvement in the Saudi bombing of innocents in Yemen as they are in stopping the FBI investigating Russian involvement in our internal affairs.

If NRA members loved children as much as they loved their guns.

If farmers knew as much about the destructive nature of punitive tariffs as they know about crop rotation.


If all, any or some of those things happened then this last week would have been a pleasant week and we could have had reasonable bipartisan talks in the Senate. But none of those things happened and it came down to one Republican Senator. One person. I love Lawrence O'Donnell but when he is talking about how great the Senate is because one person can make a difference it defies a rational view of our world. What if Flake had food poisoning or what if he had taken the Senator's elevator where citizens can't go? Its when systems are designed to be saved by a single person that you end up with Civil and World Wars.

I was going to add "If only Trump loved one other human being as much as he loved himself" but while all of the other things listed above are conceivable that is not. It is the one and only absolute in our present political nightmare. Donald Trump is, like Mussolini and others like him, in a party of one.

We could have it all. Universal health care, world peace, massive third world development, significant reduction in CO2 gasses, huge increase in health care outcomes for every person in the world, and a truly decent college football playoff calendar (OK, I went to far). We have the technology, we have the ability.

This morning had a haircut and the barber asked "how is your summer?"

"Not good. I am an angry white male." (I like to give provocative statements that will illicit a response)

"Oh" and after a few minutes "what are you angry about?"

"Angry white males", I answered. It took a minute or two and she finally got the absurdity of it and started chuckling. Eventually she was laughing too hard to cut hair.

"Its a good thing in Tucson we don't have to vote for angry white males, we can vote for Ann Kirkpatrick and Kristen Synema." Sharing moment. Felt pretty safe that a person covered in tattoos wasn't a right winger.

If only angry white males like Senator Graham weren't so angry maybe they wouldn't be single white males.