2017: Whither Democrats?

The GOP should really hope not. The ones I’ve seen cited on the news all seem to be focused on how the voting machines might not be accurate or how they might be hackable… but of course if you say that this election might be suspect due to problems with the machines, then that opens the door to look askance at OTHER recent elections that have used the same machines.

Maybe this would be true in a world that makes any sense, but remember that Republican hypocrisy knows no limits anymore. If a Dem wins then the machines were hacked. If a Rep wins there is no way they could be hacked and why do you hate our troops?

I think the GOP would be totally hosed if they ditched Trump. They would look like dumbasses to their own party. They really have to stick by him in order to save their careers.

… which is literally their only priority.

… aaaand as expected the usual suspects do the usual suspect thing:

Yep, a blue dog winning a seat away from a Republican in a Republican district clearly means a full-fledged civil war is raging within the Democratic Party. Meanwhile, I expect to see Politico barf out a couple of pieces about how Trump is re-energized and finally mastering his job as buckets of blood seep out of the White House.

Ayup.
Look, there’s more (actually don’t click the link and give them traffic)

This Establishment line about there suddenly being a brewing schism in the Dems is such a crock. They win one special election with a dude who isn’t Maxine Waters and the hand-wringing begins.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/18/politics/blue-dog-mafia-efforts/index.html

The committee responsible for supporting the election of House Democrats began an effort to target candidates like Lamb last spring after losing a high profile special election in suburban Atlanta, according to multiple Democratic party strategists who detailed the effort to CNN. The effort ramped up in the fall, when the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee invited a group of moderate Democrats that put them in the majority in 2006 to talk through a winning strategy.
The committee gave the “Blue Dog mafia,” as some call them, free rein to work with candidates on campaign operations in some of the toughest districts on the expanded Democratic target list.

The NYT is feeling left out:

image

Cynthia Nixon, of Sex in the City Fame, just announced she’s running for governor of New York.

Okay then.

Is Cuomo moving on? Is he thinking of a bigger run?

What, you don’t think being an actress makes you qualified to be governor of the financial capital of the country?

It’s more like the position is already being held by a member of her own party, and as far as I understand (I don’t keep close tabs on NY politics), he’s pretty safe.

Cuomo is generally hated (and for a lot of good reasons) by a large parcel of New York Democrats.

Yeah, like he decided, “Dad was widely viewed as honorable, intelligent and competent, so I’m going to rebel against that.”

I dunno if Mario was mobbed up or what but I have seldom heard liberal principles espoused as cogently, feistily, and unapologetically as he did it. I think he might have made a hell of a president in an alternate universe, if breaks had gone differently and he didn’t have whatever skeletons he had.

The majority of the NY political establishment had mob connections for a while back then, but so far as I know there was never any serious suggestion that Mario Cuomo did. And given the reality of politics, I’m pretty sure even a faint sniff of it would have resulted in a lot of controversy.

For the last year, I’m betting there’s been no political figure who has been more retweeted by others to my timeline than Renato Mariotti, who does occasional TV legal expert analyst work for the big news nets. He used to be a federal prosecutor, and he’s running for Attorney General in Illinois. He has nearly 200,000 twitter followers.

And tonight he’s pulling (squints) 2.5% of the statewide vote in the primary.

Echo chambers. They’re a thing.

Marie Newman leading Dan Lipinski by 1,600 votes with 86% reporting in IL-3

And David Beard (who would know) says it’s a vote count error, and that Newman still trails by 1400 instead. Lipinski likely to win.

Ha ha!