Thanks for the Correction, Gordon!
I believe Issa was the richest man in Congress, so he literally did just that.
Yup, totally voted against the interest of his constituents just to jump off a sinking ship with as large a raft as he could smuggle.
The amazing thing isn’t how many GOP congressmen are retiring, but how many of those guys are actually chairmen of various committees.
I’m in Mimi Walters district. I have high hopes she’ll get voted out. If the responses to her facebook posts are any indication it shouldn’t be hard.
I’m in the same district and have been calling her frequently to let her know my displeasure with her stances. There seems to be a lot of motivation to replace her, but this is a very conservative district.
True enough, but in 2016 it was Clinton +5. With a good candidate (and there are a few who’ll be in the primary there) and that environment, she’s very vulnerable.
I’ll be working hard to make it happen, for sure. Some very qualified people have put their hats in the ring to oppose her.
This could be one to bookmark and watch. Have heard a couple of folks in DC mention Pureval’s name as one to watch.
Pronounced pure evil?
While Dems are having a recruiting bonanza, Republicans are surprisingly having a harder time finding recruits.
Pureval ran ads here in Hamilton County (where he won the election for Clerk of Courts) that played off the Aflak duck and his own first name. They were cheesy but entertaining, certainly different and with a much more positive vibe than you usually see in political commercials. Of course, that was for Clerk of Courts, not a Congressional seat, and it was here in still-blue-by-the-thinnest-of-threads Hamilton County.
While Pureval has barely spent a year as Clerk of Courts, he does have a nice resume previous to that, earning a law degree from UC and working for several years as an attorney at a prestigious Washington D.C. litigation firm. He’s following the proscribed path to political ambition, even though the jump to Congress might be a bit premature. Still, Chabot has lost a lot of the love Ohioans once held for him due to his near rubber-stamping of everything the GOP have put forth, no matter how ridiculously short-sighted. He won his last election in 2012 primarily due to the redistricting of Warren county, which is heavily Republican, into his district (to combat the Democratic leaning of Hamilton County, where the city of Cincinnati and University of Cincinnati are both located). The idea at the time was to redistrict to benefit the Presidential election (District 1 went to Obama both elections) but Chabot got the boost he needed as well.
Interesting info.
Most of the stuff I’ve read about Pureval was related to the fact that he took down a pretty ensonced candidate for clerk of courts and that that was eye-opening and put him on the map.
And the other half I think you cover nicely: that he’s probably jumping the gun a little…but as a few national pundits point out, if you’re gonna run and you have a good resume, why not just go for it if you’re a Democrat?
Still think beating Chabot is a tough ask.
This one’s a biggie. Heitkamp looked pretty vulnerable 15 months ago. She looks like – barring something ex machina – like she’ll cruise.
The two most vulnerable Democrats in 2018 are Claire McCaskill in Missouri and Joe Donnelly in Indiana. I think Donnelly can hold that seat. Claire is in for a fight.
One could hope that the new controversy over the Missouri’s governor might help her some.
Maybe the biggest challenge for Pureval is that he currently lives in the 2nd District, on the East side of Cincinnati. Might not sound like much, but Cincinnati is an incredibly parochial city. Chabot would portray him as a carpetbagger and that alone might be enough.
The 2nd district is much, much harder for a Democrat, although Jean Schmidt almost managed to lose a few times.
New PPP Poll:
President Shithole won Missouri by 19 points. He’s currently at +1, 48 to 47. LOL.
Maybe for a few west-side enclaves, which probably wouldn’t be pre-disposed to vote Democrat anyhow. The biggest challenge is that Chabot is pretty firmly entrenched in the position, having been there for most of 20+ years.
Just a little anecdote I thought I might share:
My parents have retired to central Virginia, and we visit them every month or so. Their house also serves as a nice little jumping-off point for trips further south. This past weekend we were in Richmond for a volleyball thng, and we stopped at my parent’s place on our way down.
To get from my parent’s place to Richmond, you drive through some very pretty, hilly countryside that runs the gamut from fairly poor (by Virginia standards) to relatively affluent. The things that all this country has in common is that it is (a) very rural, and (b) deep, deep red.
In particular, you drive through a swath of Hanover County, whose native son was Patrick Henry of “Give me liberty of give me death!” fame.
The local uber-Conservatives call themselves the “Patrick Henry Tea Party Patriots”, and they have littered the county with bright yellow signs that they erect on private property along the busier roads. The signs are generally just sloganeering and haranguing people for not being conservative enough.
Back when Obama was president, the signs were a reminder that there was a loud opposition. Now that Trump is in charge, some of the unchanged signs are inadvertently sending an opposite message:
Driving through this area the other day, the thing that struck me were the new, anti-Trump opposition signs that had popped up here and there. I didn’t think to snap any pictures, but they were equally loud and bright – if not quite as well-constructed. Not what I had thought to encounter.
Things are changing.