The States. It's 10th Amendment or bust!

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Re: The States. It's 10th Amendment or bust!

new york doesn't even have one nba team...

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: The States. It's 10th Amendment or bust!

Surprise, surprise. Trump wins again in Montana despite assaulting a reporter. Wake up America.

Democrats better get busy hanging this guy around everyone's neck.

EDIT: I stand corrected.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/25/u...smtyp=cur&_r=0

Based on this America is siding with the Congressman on this issue. Surprise Surprise.

[Handyman]

Re: The States. It's 10th Amendment or bust!

Surprise, surprise. Trump wins again in Montana despite assaulting a reporter. Wake up America.

Democrats better get busy hanging this guy around everyone's neck.

EDIT: I stand corrected.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/25/u...smtyp=cur&_r=0

Based on this America is siding with the Congressman on this issue. Surprise Surprise.

I have heard the tape...the guy was not being aggressive at all. He asked a question, then a follow up and got attacked. These people (and the ones who defend them) are certifiable.

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: The States. It's 10th Amendment or bust!

I have heard the tape...the guy was not being aggressive at all. He asked a question, then a follow up and got attacked. These people (and the ones who defend them) are certifiable.

All they ALL vote.

[Rover]

Re: The States. It's 10th Amendment or bust!

All they ALL vote.

An important point.

You can't take too much away from special elections even if Dems have had a better showing than previous elections as the sample size is too small. Having said that what I've seen thus far is that Trumpsters are still voting as much as they did before even if the GOP candidate is less than stellar. Being a Republican is like being in a cult. With all due respect to the witty and erudite Kepler, there are no sane ones left who are going to abandon the party because of Trump. They're all in. Meaning while Dem enthusiasm and participation may be up across the country (about 6 months too late to matter) we should maybe put on hold the dreams of winning seats in Kentucky and West Virginia and Wyoming for a little bit and focus our expectations on the Gooper reps in Clinton and/or Obama won seats (or close losses).

GA-6 will be interesting. Its an evenly divided race in an evenly divided district on a Presidential level. If Dem enthusiasm is indeed up, this should be a place where it carries them over the finish line.

[Kepler]

Re: The States. It's 10th Amendment or bust!

An important point.

You can't take too much away from special elections even if Dems have had a better showing than previous elections as the sample size is too small. Having said that what I've seen thus far is that Trumpsters are still voting as much as they did before even if the GOP candidate is less than stellar. Being a Republican is like being in a cult. With all due respect to the witty and erudite Kepler, there are no sane ones left who are going to abandon the party because of Trump. They're all in. Meaning while Dem enthusiasm and participation may be up across the country (about 6 months too late to matter) we should maybe put on hold the dreams of winning seats in Kentucky and West Virginia and Wyoming for a little bit and focus our expectations on the Gooper reps in Clinton and/or Obama won seats (or close losses).

GA-6 will be interesting. Its an evenly divided race in an evenly divided district on a Presidential level. If Dem enthusiasm is indeed up, this should be a place where it carries them over the finish line.

Seems like the midterms have been trending about D+4 over their normal lean. The GOP analyst I was listening to on Steele & Unger had GA-6 pegged as an R+4 seat. So hold on to your hats.

[dxmnkd316]

Re: The States. It's 10th Amendment or bust!

I've noticed the sandbagging on both sides has become almost absurd. The GOP was basically forecasting a democratic win in Montana and the Dems were forecasting a 15% loss.

I don't trust any of the numbers I hear from operatives anymore. They just want to pimp their side's performance. "Oh look, he significantly outperformed expectations. Send us your paycheck!"

[Kepler]

Re: The States. It's 10th Amendment or bust!

I don't trust any of the numbers I hear from operatives anymore. They just want to pimp their side's performance. "Oh look, he significantly outperformed expectations. Send us your paycheck!"

Or, "We underperformed! This is a crisis! Send us your property deed!"

Fundraising is completely shameless. I made the mistake of contributing to one grassroots group early in the 2016 nom cycle and by the end I swear I was getting begging (or threatening) letters from thirty different sources.

[Rover]

Re: The States. It's 10th Amendment or bust!

Seems like the midterms have been trending about D+4 over their normal lean. The GOP analyst I was listening to on Steele & Unger had GA-6 pegged as an R+4 seat. So hold on to your hats.

I'm curious how they arrived at that. My take is a bit different. Since Trump won the seat by +1, and in the first round the results were similar, I'd say its a GOP +1 seat based on the most recent evidence. That means to me some combination of 3 things needs to occur: 1) Dem enthusiasm is indeed up, 2) some non-Handel GOP primary voters stay home, and 3) voters who didn't participate in the first round break Ossoff's way to send a message to Trump.

I do think Dem enthusiasm is up which should allow him to bring out the same people as the first round. I don't think as many GOP voters who backed losing candidates in the 1st round will stay home as my Dem friends are thinking. Again, its a cult, not a rational political movement. However, if its truly a +1 GOP district this may be enough to put Ossoff over the top. If its a +4 GOP district he's going to need fence sitters to show up and break his way.

[aparch]

Or, "We underperformed! This is a crisis! Send us your property deed!"

Fundraising is completely shameless. I made the mistake of contributing to one grassroots group early in the 2016 nom cycle and by the end I swear I was getting begging (or threatening) letters from thirty different sources.

I learned my lesson in donating years ago. Bob Graham was running for President in 2004 and was sponsoring a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver I was rooting for. His campaign promised that for each $80 donation, you would get a die-cast model of the truck (don't judge me, I have a collection of NASCAR diecasts still in their boxes from a decade ago).

Cool, I'm still a noob on politics, but I kinda like the guy, what he's campaigning about, and it's a way to get a rare collectable diecast truck of a driver I root for. So I put a donation down for two trucks on my credit card mid-summer.

His campaign folds at the end of the NASCAR Truck Series season (October 2004), and a notice is sent right around the election that the die-cast truck order isn't happening. Anyone who donated solely because of the trucks has not and will not get charged.

Okay, fine, I wont be getting the trucks.

I'm confused when I get my December credit card statement. I was charged $160 by the campaign. Call the credit card company. Explain what happened. They reverse the charge and just ask to have me email them the correspondence stating no charges would be made to those who are only donating to get a diecast truck. I send them the email.

Then I get my January statement. Bob Graham's campaign tried to charge me the $160 again. I again call the CC company, they see the note in my file and reverse the December charge.

My February statement arrives. Same $160 charge again. Call the CC. They again reverse the charge and tell me that they are going to monitor my account for me. There have been others with this CC company with the same problems from the Bob Graham campaign.

March statement, no charges. Whew. Drama over.

Nope. Early April, I *get* a phone call from the CC company.
Bob Graham's campaign tried for a *fourth* time to charge the account. They're proactively cancelling my card number and moving my account to a new one and if the campaign tries to charge the old number again, they have a very solid case to bring to the FEC. I was one of many people that had this happen to them with this CC company alone.



TL;DR: Learned my lesson to never donate to a political campaign; yet I have an FEC record on my name that shows four separate donations of $160 each for the 2004 Presidential Election thanks to Bob Graham's campaign attempting fraud.

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: The States. It's 10th Amendment or bust!

Interview after interview on cable news indicates that the Constituency in Montana is proud of what their new representative did to the reporter the other night. Proud.

[Kepler]

Re: The States. It's 10th Amendment or bust!

I'm curious how they arrived at that. My take is a bit different. Since Trump won the seat by +1, and in the first round the results were similar, I'd say its a GOP +1 seat based on the most recent evidence. That means to me some combination of 3 things needs to occur: 1) Dem enthusiasm is indeed up, 2) some non-Handel GOP primary voters stay home, and 3) voters who didn't participate in the first round break Ossoff's way to send a message to Trump.

My impression from the interview, though I don't believe he ever stated it, was he was quoting from a standard industry source like Cook. I know those sources go back several cycles to try to flatten out effects caused by individual candidates and black swan events in order to boil down a "generic" affiliation lean. Having said which I haven't the slightest idea whether the methodology or that score stands scrutiny.

From coverage and trying to screen out partisan silliness on both sides I get, without attempting to weight, that (1) it's an R lean district, (2) the R candidate is much more well known, professional, and organized than the D candidate and in an ordinary race would outperform the lean, but (3) there is a metric sh-t ton of outside money pouring in on both sides, and (4) because it's an only game in town the constant media pressure probably tends to nationalize the local electorate to some extent.

I don't know whether Handel has run towards Trump, away from him, or has tried to keep in the Goldilocks Zone. You would think with Trump cratering it would be best to distance him, but Trump isn't cratering at all among certain demos. Are those well-represented in that district? Dunno.

[FreshFish]

Re: The States. It's 10th Amendment or bust!

Heck, pols have been elected from jail.

I cannot recall exactly where or when, but I know of at least one election in which a dead person won.

[Kepler]

Re: The States. It's 10th Amendment or bust!

I cannot recall exactly where or when, but I know of at least one election in which a dead person won.

At least 5 in Congress alone:

62 CA Clement Miller
72 AK Mick Begich
72 LA Hale Boggs
00 MO Mel Carnahan (the corpse that beat John Ashcroft; I do not think the people made a mistake here)
02 HI Patsy Mink

Gotta believe this happened a lot in the early days. For one thing, people died more often. For another, communications sucked.

I do love that they could not find a single candidate who died and lost. The people have spoken.

[St. Clown]

Re: The States. It's 10th Amendment or bust!

At least 5 in Congress alone:

62 CA Clement Miller
72 AK Mick Begich
72 LA Hale Boggs
00 MO Mel Carnahan (the corpse that beat John Ashcroft; I do not think the people made a mistake here)
02 HI Patsy Mink

Gotta believe this happened a lot in the early days. For one thing, people died more often. For another, communications sucked.

I do love that they could not find a single candidate who died and lost. The people have spoken.

People died more than once per lifetime back in the day?