Silver on some of the O’Rourke hot-takes about that race being over (raises hand):
Whether or not confirming Kavanaugh helped those Republicans in their Senate races, there’s no evidence at all that Avenatti played any part in it. All of those people were ‘yes’ on Kavanaugh from the start. No Republican Senator changed their mind because of Avenatti.
Also, that CNN story has just one Senator on the record, right? All the rest are anonymous source quotes. I don’t doubt that some Democrats were irritated by Avenatti, as I am, but I still don’t see any smart Democrats making the claim that his interference cost them the fight. Except for you, that is.
If it helps, Mark Murray at NBC – who seems quite bright, and very professional – has also repeated that point. As has Rachel Bade the congressional reporter at Politico and Nick Riccardi of the AP. And also commentators such as Nate Silver of 538 and Noah Shachtman, the EIC at the DailyBeast.
At any rate, to call it strictly a Republican talking point doesn’t seem to be a particularly accurate characterization.
Sherrod Brown, who seems to have the Ohio senate race well in hand now, raised $27.1 million in Q3 2018, a record in the state.
Also, as Liam Donovan just pointed out, Senate candidates can freely transfer as much of this money as they want to the DSCC, who can then say, send it Jackie Rosen or Kyrsten Sinema’s way, perhaps.
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5081
While initially I hated the idea of the gas tax I don’t see it as a big deal except in relation to the general public distrust that the money will never be spent on fixing roads. It will be spent on the boondoggle called high speed rail and on bike paths. Money that was already raised thru gas taxes for maintenance was spent on general fund projects so the level of trust is about zero.
Just wait until the state starts taxing by the mile driven and people who drive hybrids and electric vehicles find themselves paying taxes they never considered.
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5082
The Nunes campaign is using pictures of Avenetti (the porn lawyer) in their ads against the democratic challenger.
Yet here is the Weekly Standard making that allegation:
Pretty great that everyone agrees it was the scapegoat clown’s fault. I mean, lots of folks were excited to have the clown on their side until we lost, but clearly it’s his fault.
Instead of bitching about whether he provided cover or not, perhaps people should strongly denounce his claims at the time, or set a clear bar for what they expect him to do to prove them. You can’t mention Swetnick as someone who deserves to be heard and investigated and then denounce Avenatti for bringing her claims to everyone’s attention. If you couldn’t articulate a reason why she should be ignored (other than “Avenatti is basically Trump”) before the hearing, then blaming the GOP false outrage machine on him is absurd.
Yes, something can be a something that conservatives bring up, but the key thing is that it is not strictly Republicans bringing it up.
If a Republican mentions that the sun rises in the east, that doesn’t make it a Republican talking point, for instance.
Just to quibble a little -
The NV race has been a dead heat and it still is. The Marist/NBC poll (which came out right after the confirmation):
Regarding Beto, his approval numbers seemed to have gone done as much for his DUI - or rather, his explanation for it (that he tried to leave the scene, which he denies but which WaPo fact checked as a lie.)
(As far as the Avenatti debate that I’m interrupting, I think overall he’s probably a net negative.)
Yes, fair enough. Yet there’s still no evidence that Avenatti changed a single Senator’s vote. And there isn’t even evidence that he directly impacted the polls.
Folks who do this stuff professionally – Nate Silver, Nate Cohn, Harry Enten, Dave Wasserman – would sharply disagree with that statement. I’m gonna go with them.
This is very well said.
I don’t see how to measure it. Republicans are excited because Kavanaugh got confirmed and Trump thereby owned the libs. That was going to happen no matter what. Hell, they mostly think Ford was a liar, so what does it matter what they think of Avenatti?
The issue with Avenatti is that he had a very credible client in Swetnick. She was willing to come forward. But the way he presented her and the way he promised “more evidence” and corroboration and then never materialized it felt like it undercut his own client.
At any rate, the main beef – above all others – I have with Avenatti is that he’s now used his celebrity status to enrich himself personally by shilling for donations for Beto O’Rourke, donations it seems at least somewhat clear that O’Rourke would never accept in the first place.
This is a question I asked from the start: Who are the smart folks saying this? Now, would you mind linking to them actually saying it? I’ve looked, e.g. at FiveThirtyEight, and I don’t see Silver saying it. I’m not saying he doesn’t say so.
Indeed, a search of any of these names plus Avenatti and Kavanaugh produces, well, nothing along those lines at all.
I’ve followed him on Twitter (and elsewhere of course) and I can’t believe I’ve never actually seen him until this morning on MJ. He’s totally adorable! (and smart as shit)
I disagree - I think he just didn’t have much evidence and tried to play it up as maximally credible in order to get attention for what was otherwise a beyond-the-pale claim. Her statement seemed plausible and she never got a chance to seem credible or not because we never really heard from her. We never heard the details of these incidents only the broad outlines. It was a tabloid allegation no matter how it was spun and the only chance for her to be heard was his megaphone.
Let’s remember that he’s famous for representing Stormy Daniels and there’s a concerted effort to discredit him as “the porn lawyer” because it undercuts Daniels. But she has hard evidence in the form of the hush money. He doesn’t do favors to his credibility by being so belligerent and self-aggrandizing, yet the attack ads go after the fact that he represents a porn star. We should be fighting back against that bullshit, not steering into it because he’s too full of himself.
You’ll need to help me out by quoting the part where I mentioned any affiliation with Stormy Daniels.
I mean, should we be silent on his grifting of O’Rourke supporters for his own financial gain? Is that your suggestion here?
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5096
Avenetti has become the new Gloria Allred. When she hits the news with some new female client you think Allred without even considering the merits (or lack thereof) of her client.
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Avenatti tweeted a link to an a Actblue donation page. On the page it says that half the donation will go to Beto, and half to the FightPAC, which Avenatti is in charge of. The money isn’t going directly into Avenatti’s bank account, as some people seem to imply.
