Originally posted by ursus arctos
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The Laboratories of Democracy: US state and local politics
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Originally posted by San Bernardhinault View PostIt does seem that outside of the most liberal places, the New Culture War arguments appear to be making some headway among people who don't understand them. The two strands now are "The communists have taken over schools and are teaching Critical Race Theory which is something about making everyone hate white people but I can't precisely pin it down" and "liberals want to completely disband and remove all law enforcement and leave us in a world of lawless chaos".
The first one appears to have been particularly strong in Virginia where McAuliffe made what seems to me to be an uncontroversial statement - parents shouldn't dictate what schools teach, that should be done by schools - and was twisted into people believing that taking parents out of school curriculums would leave them free to train the stormtroopers for the upcoming race war.
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That surprises me. His lead is already fractionally under 1%. They are talking about maybe 300k votes uncounted, mostly early, mail, or provisional, mostly in Democrat leaning counties. I was expecting it to finish probably somewhere between 2 & 3%, any maybe inching up higher still.
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I've been criticising the Media Narrative on this for the last couple of days: NJ was close but was never "knife edge"; Virginia is not a shocker although it's not great for Democrats.
What I've seen recently takes the biscuit, though. "These results have Democrats worried about retaining their majorities in the Senate and House in the 2022 mid-terms"
What the fuck? If any Democrats had thought they had anything other than a really fucking tough time and a very outside chance in the mid-terms they are complete fucking idiots who shouldn't be anywhere near power. In a best case scenario, Democrats have the 2021 redistricting adding to the already existing gerrymander plus the innate self-sorting of Democrats moving to big coastal cities, that means they have to win by >5% of the vote to come anywhere near a majority in the house; and an even worse structural disadvantage in the Senate. Plus the near-inevitability of backlash against a sitting President in mid-terms (I think it's something like 2 in the last 20 haven't seen a backlash). Basically, if you expected anything other than a Republican House and Senate from 2022 to 24 you're off in cloud cuckoo land. These results don't change that.
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Gosar of Arizona, photoshopped into some kind of revenge anime fantasy by his own staff (who have told reporters that "people need to relax"). He was, of course, one of the prime insurrectionists.
Some responsible members have already called for his censure or expulsion, but I wouldn't bet our flat on that happening,
It is almost certainly not a crime, though it is as deranged as it is gross.
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A 60-something year old Republican posting an edited anime clip of him killing a Democratic congressman and then posting a Wojak meme when people got angry is truly one of the most embarrassing things possible. There really is no hope for our current system of government.
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Originally posted by ursus arctos View PostThe Boston result is encouraging for exactly those reasons, but it also demonstrates that the city's politics are a generation behind the city's reality when it comes to change.
The GOP also looks likely to have taken back control of the Virginia lower house, though the upper house remains Democratic, which likely means gridlock.Last edited by The Awesome Berbaslug!!!; 15-11-2021, 14:41.
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Originally posted by Lang Spoon View PostWatch him crash.
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Charlie Baker, governor of Massachusetts, has decided to not run for a third term.
He is a pretty centrist Republican, sort of in the same mold as Phil Scott and Larry Hogan. The kind of person who can win state-wide elections in states normally dominated by Democrats.
The issue he has was that he was going to have a lot of trouble winning the Republican nomination - basically the state Republican Party is dominated by Trumpy maniacs. They have no interest in winning elections with someone like Baker if they can lose elections while showing fealty to Trumpism. He was getting primaried hard.
Baker probably would have won a third term running as a Republican.
He may have won a third term running as an independent - the little polling suggested a pretty tight three-way split between him, the Trumpy idiot, and prospective Democratic nominees.
But he's decided against which means that next year we'll almost certainly have a Democratic governor.
A couple of interesting sides to this:
- this might give Joe Biden the opportunity to appoint Elizabeth Warren to a job, because Warren's replacement would then be appointed by a Democrat rather than by Baker
- if Republicans in Massachusetts are throwing away an elected governor in the pursuit of ever more Trump -purity test candidates, it basically means that the last few holdouts against Trumpyness in Republican state politics are going to fall soon. Hogan and Scott might survive, but the winnowing is continuing.
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Originally posted by San Bernardhinault View PostCharlie Baker, governor of Massachusetts, has decided to not run for a third term.
He is a pretty centrist Republican, sort of in the same mold as Phil Scott and Larry Hogan. The kind of person who can win state-wide elections in states normally dominated by Democrats.
The issue he has was that he was going to have a lot of trouble winning the Republican nomination - basically the state Republican Party is dominated by Trumpy maniacs. They have no interest in winning elections with someone like Baker if they can lose elections while showing fealty to Trumpism. He was getting primaried hard.
Baker probably would have won a third term running as a Republican.
He may have won a third term running as an independent - the little polling suggested a pretty tight three-way split between him, the Trumpy idiot, and prospective Democratic nominees.
But he's decided against which means that next year we'll almost certainly have a Democratic governor.
A couple of interesting sides to this:
- this might give Joe Biden the opportunity to appoint Elizabeth Warren to a job, because Warren's replacement would then be appointed by a Democrat rather than by Baker
- if Republicans in Massachusetts are throwing away an elected governor in the pursuit of ever more Trump -purity test candidates, it basically means that the last few holdouts against Trumpyness in Republican state politics are going to fall soon. Hogan and Scott might survive, but the winnowing is continuing.
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If I was guessing, I'd guess that they will probably just never get elected. If they do it will be as Democrats. Given that Democrat activists and becoming less tolerant of carpetbaggers and centrists, I don't think that's likely either. There's no viability of a third party here. There is potential viability as a highly visible independent candidate in certain races, but even then you probably have to align with one party or another who will withdraw their candidate or at least not campaign seriously.
The other alternative is to play Trumpy in primaries and then just ignore all that when it comes to a general election - a version of which worked in Virginia last month. But Youngkin is nothing like as moderate as Hogan or Scott, and that Trumpy-in-primary stuff would probably make you unelectable in Maryland or Vermont
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I would generally agree.
There are states in which a third party/independent candidacy for state-wide office can be viable, but it very much depends on what we call "ballot access" rules in the relevant state. In many/most states, the number and geographical distribution of signatures needed on nominating petitions can be prohibitive and write-in candidacies are only an option for very well known candidates in low population states (see Murkowski in Alaska).
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I'm not sure if this belongs here, on the WTF thread, or on the advert thread.
But there is an advert doing the rounds here basically attacking Maggie Hassan - NH Senator, (D) - for being in favour of Biden's "build back better". That is to be expected. But the reason they're saying that she should vote no is ... get this... because it's a tax cut for millionaires. Yes. Really. That's the reason. They apparently don't like tax cuts for millionaires. Oh no...
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