It reminds me a lot of 2010 where there were a lot of ideas being floated but a few Dems blew them up and then went on to take lucrative lobbying positions a couple years later.

Which pharmaceutical company or lobbying firm will Sinema be working at in a few years?

11 out of the past 12 Governor elections in VA have gone to the party that doesn't control the WH. Sometimes I wonder if campaigning matters at all.

dola

The FEC has ruled that foreign donors can directly contribute to referendums.

That seems problematic.

House Progressives Reverse Course, Say They’ll Vote For Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill After Manchin’s Press Conference

I guess Democrats want to come away with at least something for now.

It's unbelievable the extent that nothing has been accomplished in the last year. Feels like if they had to agree on a toilet for everyone to piss in, they'd all be wetting themselves regularly instead of trying to figure the solution.

One can agree or disagree with Manchin's policy preferences.

But a lot of the trouble the Dems have had is his addiction to attention. All of the negotiation could have taken place behind the scenes, allowing them to present a united front. But he had to make it all play out in public so he could keep getting everyone to follow him around and remind him how important he is.

I'm no marketing wiz, but it sure seems like the Democrats missed a golden opportunity by overshooting with the $3.5T plan and then making it look like it failed by (likely) passing a $1.2T bill + another $1.5T-1.75T reconciliation bill (plus the $1.9T American Rescue Plan Act in March). They are going to end up actually passing some transformative legislation and still look like failures and managed to sink Biden's approval ratings. I feel like going into the summer with those two pieces passed would have led to a much different narrative these last 4-5 months.

I get that we a lot of us liberals want bigger bills, but this + whatever they can get through next year will be pretty high impact and something to build on for the future, but instead of it being a victory it looks like a failure and will likely cost the Dems at the ballot box. Then the GOP will win, can take credit for the good economy they will inherit, and proceed to cut taxes for the wealthy again instead of paying down the debt.

The Dems best hope is that short attention spans work in their favor.

Maybe that's the plan? Do you think this is a party that likes being in control? Or would they prefer to fundraise as the opposition?

I think that both parties kind of like being in charge and kind of like being in the opposition.

dola:

I will say that highly partisan voters care more about who wins and loses than the politicians themselves. If you lose as a politician, you go make big money as a consultant/lobbyist/lawyer, etc. It is not nearly as life or death as it feels like from the outside.

I think, in order of preference, it probably goes like this:

1.) In the majority when things are going well
2.) In the minority when things are not going well
3.) In the minority when things are going well
4.) In the majority when things are not going well

I for one, welcome our pornography and video game overlords.

Nothing screams masculinity like going to a convention to hear Josh Hawley tell you that you jerk off too much.

Prescription drug negotiation is back in the package along with a lower out-of-pocket cap for Medicare. That is very good.

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Looks like Menendez is not on board so hold up. Not a surprise since he narrowly avoided prison years ago for aiding in the scamming of Medicare.

It's impossible to look at this from a rational perspective because so many politicians have personal financial goals that interfere with legislation. How does Sinema support a drug deal if she wants a $3 million a year job with the industry in a few years? How does Manchin support green energy when he is financially invested in coal?

I don't know who you're talking about but I would love to join a porn and video game political party.

Actually Menedez approved this version of the prescription negotiation according to NBC news.

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Looks like VA turnout will be well above the previous record turnout.

Missouri Republican Hawley says men are 'withdrawing' into pornography

That feels like a personal attack on this board.

Courting incels makes a lot of sense. Different perspective, but same pent-up angry, victimized energy.

Right? What world has he lived in the last 35 years? Men have always been into porn and video games.

I thought porn and video games was a sign of manhood. Who knew?

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Not sure why ISIS-K is fighting the Taliban but have at it.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/02/asia/...ntl/index.html

Shia/Sunni

It's the same story it's always been man. None of this shit is new.

The numbers coming out Virgina do not look good for McAuliffe.

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I just checked and yeah, unless major blue areas havent reported it is a very bad sign

dola- should we start a 2022 midterm thread or would that be overkill?

Most of the election experts predicting a 2% win for Younkin now.

Dems in deep shit going forward if the Republicans can replicate this strategy. Push hard on the fascist, racist stuff in rural areas to run up massive numbers and then just scare some of the suburban vote over.

People may not like the Republicans, but at least we know what they stand for. Democrats don't have a cause that attract voters like Republicans do in the rural areas.

Exactly my thought when I first heard about it.

Also, guessing the voter fraud software the Dems run was not working tonight?

Aren't they both Sunni?

Of course not. Mike Lindells crack team is on to them so they are afraid of getting caught.

There has to be a courtroom game out there where we can sue his ass. Let me see if I can find a good deal on it. :D

If there's any consolation in tonight's results, it's that the GOP should see that they can do better without Trump. They won't learn that lesson, so I don't know how much consolation that will be, but if the GOP is going to bounce back in 2022 and 2024, the best case scenario for the country is that they do it without Trump and perhaps party leaders bring the party back to something close to "normal" politics.

Not gonna happen.

Trump will claim responsibility for Youngkins win and the base will go along. 2022 candidates will then trip over themselves to be as Trumpy as possible to get his endorsement. He has made himself a kingmaker. The country is fucked.

Getting a little nervous. The Jersey race is getting closer with a lot of South Jersey yet to report in.

He already claimed victory.

"I would like to thank my BASE for coming out in force and voting for Glenn Youngkin. Without you, he would not have been close to winning. The MAGA movement is bigger and stronger than ever before...”

America is so fucked.

Just read that GOP areas are coming in before the big urban counties and Murphy should still win comfortably.

Also looks like the VA statehouse is going to flip to the GOP.

Hope so. I honestly can't live in a state where "Jack" is the governor.

Jack just took the lead.

Should have bought more edibles when I was in Maine last week, but at least it will be much easier for me to get a gun!

Yep. 538's blog expects this as well, Murphy by several points by the time they're all in.

Hope so, because right now his lead is growing. Regardless it will give fuel to the fire for the " he was up at 10PM" bros

The stuff I'm reading is basically saying lower D turnout than expected in urban areas.

Edit to clarify: In Virginia, not New Jersey.

Jack is barely outperforming 2017 and he needed to greatly overperform. Once Newark and Jersey City come in it will be a pretty easy Murphy win.

Crazy number for tonight. 2020 Trump won 58% of the non-college graduate white women. Tonight, Youngkin won them by 75%. McAulliff actually did better among female college grads than Biden, but obviously there are way more non-college grads.

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I think JPhillips is right, but this from Nate Cohn, who says there just isn't enough info to know in New Jersey yet.

The right has done a masterful job of terrifying moms into thinking their kids are going to be taught to hate themselves because they are white.

It is just so much easier to scare people over made up crap than inspire them over important things.

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Jack is going to win NJ. We are fucked

None of Newark is in yet.

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Virginia House has been called as a 50-50 split.

Race has been since its founding and will be for the foreseeable future, the most important issue in American elections.

Sure, but the battleground hasn't been schools since the 60s, and that fires up the suburban, white mothers.

Trust me. I have 2 kids in a town that is very red. CRT is such a hot button here. It's ridiculous.

About three-quarters of Essex is in, 30k vote gap now. My call is Murphy by closer than anyone thought; none of the good polls had a gap of less than four points going in and some were up around 10 points. Virginia polls seem to have been quite accurate though.

Can anybody here confirm something I saw in the twittersphere ... that VA doesn't have a tiebreaker procedure for their state house?

Correct. They have to work out a power-sharing agreement which, in the loving, cooperative and entirely rational political environment of the 2021 edition of the United States of America, has no chance whatsoever of becoming a train wreck and will be handled with grace and maturity.

Sooooo ... basically nothing makes it out of the legislature for two years. Got it.

I can think of worse scenarios in a whole lot of places frankly.

Me too. A dumpster fire is definitely preferable than a freight train on a direct path to your living room.

ABC has called the Virginia governor's race for Youngkin.

But it's not really about CRT. CRT isn't being taught in any of these schools and most people couldn't tell you what it even entails. It's just a dogwhistle.

And I'd disagree about the schools not being a battleground since the 60's. School busing was a massive issue in the 70's and 80's (of which Biden was right in the middle of). It led to the massive increase in private schools. Vouchers for these schools are still a hot button issue among white parents.

We are one of the only advanced nations that does not fund education equally among kids. Politicians rarely bring it up due to how controversial it is.

Eliminating desegregation was a huge part of Reagan and HW Bush's appeal in the 80's and 90's. Redlining, public housing, and a bunch of other issues come back to who your child has to attend school with. Heck, Trump flat out said you shouldn't vote for Biden because he'll let more black people into your nice suburbs.

A lot of these issues don't make it into a gubernatorial race, but they are still the most important issues on a local level.

Legitimately surprised there isn't some weird old obscure tiebreaker from the 1800's where they have to draw straws or something.

Getting the feeling New Jersey's going to be a day-after call in best case.

So this likely strengthens the hand of the right leaning moderate Dems and weakens the Dem progressives. Hopefully the D’s learn from this by 2022 or else we can forget any chance in 2024.

Fair point about bussing.

as for CRT theory, you and I know that, but massive swaths of Americans do not and are easily frightened, especially when it comes to their kids white privilege. Trust me, I am on the front lines and it is terrifying parents.

Saw this come across the FB feed last night, which sums things up fairly well:

"The people who threw rocks at Ruby Bridges for trying to go to school are now upset their grandchildren might learn about them throwing rocks at Ruby Bridges for trying to go to school."

It's amazing how Republicans can turn something that doesn't even happen into an issue to rally their base.

As true at that might be, it's still not what CRT is.

In a sane world, the GOP would look at turnout in both VA and NJ and start backing reforms to make voting easier. High turnout elections don't necessarily benefit Dems.

So Republicans…We trust elections again now? Surely there was massive fraud going on last night. That level of sophistication doesn’t simply vanish in 365 days.

Late term abortion, massive voter fraud, widespread welfare fraud, et al. As you said, it really is amazing.

SI

Having lived in Virginia a couple of years, this also surprises me - some tiebreaker involving drawing straws, marbles, or a three legged race would be par for the course.

SI

It doesn't matter what CRT is though. They are told it is bad. It will be shoved down their kids throats. It will make their kids feel guilty about being white.

Just like other things will make their kids gay, or deranged sex addicts.

That's the fun thing about conspiracy theories and other types of unfalsifiable beliefs. There's no such thing as evidence sufficient to disprove it. In this case, it's really an easy answer; the fraud/cheating was still there, it just wasn't enough to overcome the masses who voted for Youngkin.

That's the easy answer, but there's no explanation for the follow-up: why wouldn't you want to prove that the fraud happened so that it doesn't happen again and cost you an election LIKE IT DID FOR THE DONALD?

GOP has this figured out. Float fraud theories in the lead-up to an election. If you lose, you have a track record of being clairvoyant and if you win, you just forget everything you said about fraud yesterday.

They would say - and have - that they have proven it, but the fix is in and the courts won't listen. I.e., it's just evidence of how deep the conspiracy goes.

If the fix is in to that extent, wouldn't the Dems - in a Dem-controlled state - have made sure they won VA?

Either the fix is in or it's not.

When are you going to learn this has nothing to do with logic?

People are going to see what that want to see as always. Progressive are going to say the Dems weren't progressive enough. The moderates are going to say we need to be more bipartisan. The Republicans are going to say that JFK jr prevented the lizard people Democrats from drinking enough blood so that Hugo Chavez's ghost could rig the voting machines good enough. You know, the standard stuff.

Spock_smoke_ears dot gif

The right-leaning moderate Democrat just lost a state-wide race in a blue state. How does this make them stronger?

I read that McAulliffe (sp?) actually got a higher percentage of the vote in this election than the previous one, but that there was a third party that helped him win before.

Cliff Schecter says what I've been complaining about for years.


Dems can learn a lot from how the GOP made CRT such a big thing. It was all over the media, everybody from Senators to school board members was talking about it, it was repeated over and over and over, paid media was full of it, etc.

This. We as humans believe all manner of illogical things at times that have nothing do with conspiracies. When you add that on top of it, many people will find a way to justify what they believe to themselves. It will make sense to them, because that's how human brains work. If you're bound and determined to hold on to what you believe, nobody can stop you.

No doubt. I am definitely guilty of it. We simplify the others arguments/issues/what have you into a straw-man we mock. We rarely look deeper than what we can label as "woke" or "racist".

The Associated Press is calling the NJ Governor's race for Phil Murphy.

AP Politics on Twitter: "BREAKING: Democrat Philip Murphy wins reelection for governor in New Jersey. #APracecall at 6:26 p.m. EDT. #Election2021 #NJelection"

All depends on what you think just happened. To what extent was this even about McAullife and Yougkin versus being a referendum on Biden versus concern about inflation/COVID/Afghanistan/infighting in Congress versus just not having a good feeling about the direction of the country versus waking up on the wrong side of the bed too many times ...

538 leans towards referendum on Biden which I think is the best bet, but as usual it's a mix of factors, it's not 'one thing', and we're not going to nail it down very precisely in these kinds of off-year elections where there are only so many data points.

Virginia turnout looking like 52%+. I will say for all the (very accurate and appropriate) concern about the downfall of democracy, this is another sign that higher turnout may be here to stay.

Also looks, though not final, like the reports of the Virginia house being a 50-50 split were premature. Right now probably 51-49 in favor of Republicans.

I just think it's weird that someone would see a moderate Democrat losing in a blue state and say this is a sign that moderate Democrats are getting stronger.

If he had won, would it be a sign moderate Democrats were getting weaker?

So many people on my social media claiming fraud, late night ballot dumps, etc...while not mentioning Virginia at all.

An independent Pentagon review has concluded that the U.S. drone strike that killed innocent Kabul civilians and children in the final days of the Afghanistan war was not caused by misconduct or negligence, and it doesn’t recommend any disciplinary action.

I am not sure VA is really a blue state quite yet. I also would not call McLauffe a moderate but sure compared to the lunacy of the squad yes.
I don’t see us being successful in 2022 running on Defund the cops, Trump is bad and Biden’s record as of now in 2022 midterms. We are likely going to get destroyed in 2022 and lose the House plus the Senate. Then, after more restrictive election laws are passed Trump wins again in 2024.

I think Republicans probably win Congress in '22 no matter what Biden does, it's more a case of the margin. They can't enact more restrictive election laws at the federal level though. They can try, but Biden can and almost certainly will veto anything like that.

Republicans hadn't won a statewide race there since 2009. Biden just won the state by over 10 points. It's pretty blue.

If you don't think McAuliffe is moderate, you just don't know who he is. He's a corporate Democrat who spent most of his career fundraising for the Clintons. The guy wrote a book a couple of years ago praising the private insurance system and trashing green initiatives. The guy made his money in banking, real estate, and private equity.

Also, no one ran on "Defund the Police" and nowhere did they actually do that. It's a made up talking point from Fox News-esque propoganda outlets. And the squad is lunacy to you, but pretty normal politics to the rest of the world. Remember, we're the extremists in global politics.

The "squad" has actually been very pragmatic about things and willing to work with moderates. The lunacy is from Manchin and Sinema, who are being ridiculously irrational and torpedoing their party's chances.

Biden was right. The election result was a reaction to the inability to get significant agenda items passed. The moderates are the main reason for that. And they're shooting themselves in the foot, because if a red wave does happen in 2022, the "squad" and other progressives won't be the ones who lose their seats. It will be the moderates in swing districts.

This isn't relevant to US elections though. What matters is where they are in relation to the US populace. There are are people running and voting on defund the police proposals. As in Minneapolis, where it was on the ballot and failed.


I see zero evidence that the electorate found this that significant. Haven't seen any exit polling showing that, polling on what people think of the proposals in Congress doesn't say that, etc.

It's just as possible, and IMO more likely, that the election result is mostly a historically typical swing against the party in power, modified by various factors but I don't see any reason not to see that as the main one. Moderates are going to lose seats anyway in 2022. Barring a highly unusual confluence of events, that would happen to a degree if the infrastructure bills were passed six months ago or if they didn't pass at all. It's a very open question whether passing it will be good or bad for moderates; enacting an agenda motivates the base, but it also motivates the opposition and independents who don't like elements of it. That's a pendulum that swings both ways.

So that's not important to elections but a referendum in Minneapolis that was not supported by any Democrat holding statewide office besides Ellison is?

I understand where you get your news makes this a HUGE deal, but very few Democrats are actually calling for "defunding the police".