I'd take a democratic Senate without the presidency if Schumer ran the Senate like McConnell until we got a Democratic President. However, I don't see that ever happening.
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US PoliEra 2020 |OT 1| THE ANTI BENGHAZI (Read Staff Post)
- Thread starter TheHunter
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The rounds aren't statewide they're precinct by precinct. So, if precinct A in the middle of nowhere has Warren 40% Bernie 14% and Biden 14%, Warren takes all the delegates from that precinct. Then again, Warren not getting 15% makes more delegates for Biden and Bernie, but it's marginal. Iowa doesn't have enough delegates to make a difference. It's more symbolic.
Interesting you should say that, since there is a very real chance that depending on who we nominate, and how close the election is, we could end up with a scenario where we have a Republican Senate with 52 or 53 majority.
The thing with McConnell and either Biden or Bernie is that he ends up hamstringing their first two years. Voters punish *the president* for that and hand the GOP majorities in both chambers again. Then Biden/Bernie are unable to go for a second term and we get something even worse, especially as the next recession hits in 2021 and the government's inability to respond due to McConnell makes things even worse.
It's really, really crucial that we take the Senate or else winning the presidency will be almost worse than worthless.
While a Trump reelection will fuck the Supreme Court through 2050 or so, the swing back to Dems in 2022 would tee us up for an effective win in 2024. Biden or Bernie without the Senate is going to be as bad as Hillary without the Senate would have been, for the party's prospects.
It's really, really crucial that we take the Senate or else winning the presidency will be almost worse than worthless.
While a Trump reelection will fuck the Supreme Court through 2050 or so, the swing back to Dems in 2022 would tee us up for an effective win in 2024. Biden or Bernie without the Senate is going to be as bad as Hillary without the Senate would have been, for the party's prospects.
IIRC the talking heads on msnbc were saying Wednesday for the witness vote (and it's a vote to just consider witnesses period, not a specific person I think). Suppose it could be even sooner than Wednesday considering the non-defense being put up by Trump's team.
They'll just use monday for the rest of their defense, but i guess they'll try to cram the 16 hours of questions and the witness votes on 2 days(Tuesday-Wednesday).
Spoke with a friend tonight who is working in Iowa on a campaign. My only takeaway was that lots of people have heard about the stapler and the salad comb, but not enough have heard about Amy Klobuchar dumping her staffer's purse out of the window of a moving car.
Hence the Heads on a Pike threat. My thing is, we don't know if they're breaking and Moscow Mitch is holding them back, or if they are still holding themselves from fear and anger at it being the party's death to do it and are lashing out.
Bolton's book's amazon page just went up...
The preference (and likely outcome?) here has to be B, surely. A neutered Democratic President still has the power of executive orders, and can unpick some of the damage Trump has done. And given the Senate map gets more favourable in 2022 (right?), then you'd potentially get to a place where you could be productive in the second half of the term. Not to mention what might with Supreme court vacancies over the next 4 years (you might not be able to fill them without the Senate, but at least somebody Trump nominated wouldn't be railroaded through).
Trump has already shown he doesn't care for political norms and the "gentlemens agreements" of the past. And the system has proven inadequate in terms of checks and balances on his power, and that doesn't seem likely to change much even if Republicans lost the Senate. If he got elected again, that means he got through impeachment "unscathed", and he managed to get away with all the other stuff he's done in his first term he should have been impeached and removed for but didn't. He'd be emboldened, claim a mandate, and things in a practical sense would likely get a lot worse. At an absolute minimum, he'd continue looting the country for personal gain.
I think we need one more drop to get witnesses. Parnas, Bolton, and...?
edit: I'm counting those as info drops, not witnesses FYI. Bolton would def be on witness list but nobody in the senate is going to touch Parnas with a 10 foot pole.
edit: I'm counting those as info drops, not witnesses FYI. Bolton would def be on witness list but nobody in the senate is going to touch Parnas with a 10 foot pole.
So basically the new career path for GOP politicians is:
- Do nothing to stop bad things from happening while you have the actual power to do so
- Later, write a book where you dish dirt. Act like this is "just doing my duty as a patriotic American"
- Do nothing to stop bad things from happening while you have the actual power to do so
- Later, write a book where you dish dirt. Act like this is "just doing my duty as a patriotic American"
If we somehow got 55 Senate seats but Trump won re-election this year, the silver lining is we'd probably enjoy a midterm bounce in a much better Senate map. Here's what we'd be looking at in terms of potential pickups:
Arizona - actually assuming we'd hold this by now, since Kelly winning is one of the lower-hanging fruit. If we won 55 Senate seats we'd have to have put Arizona away.
Florida - I know the state disappointed in 2018, but it's still a naturally competitive state. Nonzero chance Rubio retires anyway, since he wanted to in 2016.
Georgia - refer back to Arizona, it's not as obviously flippable but if we got to 55, it probably means we won Georgia's special election (and probably their regular election, too).
Iowa - Grassley is old as shit and thus would likely retire, and Democrats won the House vote in 2018.
Missouri - probably a stretch, but maybe Kander would be willing to run, especially if Blunt retires. Kander lost by 3 in 2016 while sharing the ticket with Clinton, whereas McCaskill lost by 6 in a much better environment for Democrats, so I think you could make the case that Kander could win an open seat during a Trump six-year-itch, even with Missouri being as far gone as it is. Still doubtful.
North Carolina - red-leaning swing state, possibly open seat (I believe Burr said he'd retire at the end of this term). Would definitely be a tier two pickup right behind Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Ohio - like Missouri, probably a stretch, especially since Portman has Kasich-esque, fake moderate popularity in a state that's moving right. Still worth keeping on the board, IMO - Brown is obviously a rare breed, but he still won, as did two Supreme Court candidates in Republican-held seats. Still, losing the gubernatorial race was probably a sign that Ohio won't be winnable in a normal environment anytime soon.
Pennsylvania - an obvious flip opportunity. Toomey isn't very popular as far as I'm aware, and the state went hard left in 2018. I think it's worth targeting even if Democrats win the presidency.
Wisconsin - pretty much the above, but with the added benefit that Johnson also made a "I'll retire after two terms" promise that would leave the seat open if he sticks to it. Evers' close win gave a lot of folks pause about Wisconsin, but it's important to remember that Democrats won the generic House vote by a much wider margin, as did Baldwin in winning re-election.
...and that's probably it. In a 2022 midterm under President Trump, I could see Democrats flipping FL-IA-NC-PA-WI at most. MO-OH are just a bridge too far, and if we're assuming we hold 55 seats it means we're probably playing defense in AZ-GA. That gets us to 60, still 7 short of removing Trump. Maybe Democrats could convince Trump to sign statehood for DC and Puerto Rico which would give us four extra Senators, but that still leaves us at 64, and that would raise the 2/3rds threshold anyway (if I'm not mistaken, to 69 - nice).
Arizona - actually assuming we'd hold this by now, since Kelly winning is one of the lower-hanging fruit. If we won 55 Senate seats we'd have to have put Arizona away.
Florida - I know the state disappointed in 2018, but it's still a naturally competitive state. Nonzero chance Rubio retires anyway, since he wanted to in 2016.
Georgia - refer back to Arizona, it's not as obviously flippable but if we got to 55, it probably means we won Georgia's special election (and probably their regular election, too).
Iowa - Grassley is old as shit and thus would likely retire, and Democrats won the House vote in 2018.
Missouri - probably a stretch, but maybe Kander would be willing to run, especially if Blunt retires. Kander lost by 3 in 2016 while sharing the ticket with Clinton, whereas McCaskill lost by 6 in a much better environment for Democrats, so I think you could make the case that Kander could win an open seat during a Trump six-year-itch, even with Missouri being as far gone as it is. Still doubtful.
North Carolina - red-leaning swing state, possibly open seat (I believe Burr said he'd retire at the end of this term). Would definitely be a tier two pickup right behind Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Ohio - like Missouri, probably a stretch, especially since Portman has Kasich-esque, fake moderate popularity in a state that's moving right. Still worth keeping on the board, IMO - Brown is obviously a rare breed, but he still won, as did two Supreme Court candidates in Republican-held seats. Still, losing the gubernatorial race was probably a sign that Ohio won't be winnable in a normal environment anytime soon.
Pennsylvania - an obvious flip opportunity. Toomey isn't very popular as far as I'm aware, and the state went hard left in 2018. I think it's worth targeting even if Democrats win the presidency.
Wisconsin - pretty much the above, but with the added benefit that Johnson also made a "I'll retire after two terms" promise that would leave the seat open if he sticks to it. Evers' close win gave a lot of folks pause about Wisconsin, but it's important to remember that Democrats won the generic House vote by a much wider margin, as did Baldwin in winning re-election.
...and that's probably it. In a 2022 midterm under President Trump, I could see Democrats flipping FL-IA-NC-PA-WI at most. MO-OH are just a bridge too far, and if we're assuming we hold 55 seats it means we're probably playing defense in AZ-GA. That gets us to 60, still 7 short of removing Trump. Maybe Democrats could convince Trump to sign statehood for DC and Puerto Rico which would give us four extra Senators, but that still leaves us at 64, and that would raise the 2/3rds threshold anyway (if I'm not mistaken, to 69 - nice).
What auspicious timing! 🙄
This coupled with the indignation at the NYT from his lawyer about the "leak" and you might get the impression they planned this.
That progressive mayor Ted Terry running a long-shot bid for GA Senate has dropped out and will run for DeKalb County Commissioner instead
Timing matters: it happening during h th e trial when the spotlight is on the senators.
Appearances matter: It being a "leak" vs something the house managers brought over with the articles.
Similar reasons why ukraine whistleblower was more impactful than mueller. For better or worse.
The room where the pee-pee tape was filmed must be what he's referring to, right?
It's Emerson but lol. "A plurality of Gabbard supporters (35%) will leave the caucus if she does not reach viability, followed by 26% who would move to Warren, and 18% who would move to Sanders." This does not compute. The leaving part sounds about right but Warren getting most Tulsi second votes. Abolish Emerson.
The issue is that the 2022 elections *will* be an anti-Democratic backlash if we win the White House. Take all of the midterms since 1946, a sample of 19, and only three of them have not had that happen (1962 which was a wash and 1998 and 2002 where the President's party gained). You can't rely on things getting better. Especially since the odds of Biden or Sanders going two terms are fairly low, they will be lame ducks if they don't get that Senate, because they're not going to get it afterwards. The most we could hope for from *either* of them in that case is simply stopping the country from getting actively worse, they'd have no power to make things better beyond fixing Trump's executive fuckery, which is merely turning back the clock to 1/1/2017.
Just got some white fragility. I posted about the Amtrak NAACP incident that was Rosa Parks esque over a week ago and said "White people sure want to make America "Great Again"". My white cousin in law just responds minutes ago with "Not all 'white people' support what he did. He acted on his own. You sound like you don't like white people."
What did you expect from crosstabs on 5%, it's incredibly noisy and that's not just an Emerson thing.
What's this now? She played the game as best as she could. She did her job, even though everyone knew the outcome in advance. it's the Senate that's not and it shows.
It's been discussed before in these threads that midterm precedent wouldn't necessarily apply given the way the particular races coming up and that there is some baked in favourability for Democrats. I'm not informed enough to argue it other than to remember I believe that's the general sentiment (am happy to be corrected). Of course, an ineffectual first two years could certainly be problematic and erase any current strategic advantage.
Regardless of what happened in the midterms (and I already conceded in my post winning the Senate wasn't a given), I think it would still be better to have a Democratic President without the Senate at least initially than 4 more years of Trump doubling down. Most of the damage he has done hasn't needed legislation to pass both houses, and he'll dial up that approach to 11. And "merely turning back the clock to 2017" would be a damn sight better than where things are now.
Question.
President Biden with a Dem Senate Majority...
Or
President Sanders with a GOP Senate Majority.
President Biden with a Dem Senate Majority...
Or
President Sanders with a GOP Senate Majority.
I cant believe this is a question that has to be asked.
The supreme court justices alone make this an easy choice.
It's the room where Bolton, after many decades of tearful failed attempts, was successfully impregnated through the might of Donald Trump's penis, resulting in the birth of a healthy eight pound mustache.
It's possible that she didn't want to express condolences about the death of a man credibly accused of rape. Expressing sympathy for everyone else would also highlight that she didn't say it about him.
It tracks with Siena, it isn't alone in showing sanders surging, in fact they all are. Even Sanders worst poll had him +10 since somehow they found him at 9 percent last time they polled Iowa.
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