But not winning GA06, normally, wouldn’t have even registered on the radar. “Oh noes, the Dems lost a seat that they LITERALLY NEVER WIN.”
Instead, they’ve hyped it up into a tragic defeat.
I honestly hope I’m wrong and he somehow wins, but I’m not feeling it. If he wins, then I’ll happily admit my error. The Dems will have done the right thing.
Democrats ignore this, Ossoff runs and loses narrowly, and we get 50 posts about how ineffectual and worthless the Democratic Party is, because they didn’t put any effort into this race.
FWIW, the hype and money for this race started and has been built via grassroots. DNC got involved fairly early, but it’s folks like DailyKos and MoveOn that targeted this race early and “hyped” it.
I have no clue who will actually win. Recent polls still say Ossoff barely, but it’s within the margin of error and I have little faith in them. Seems I’ve seen more expectation management from the Democrat side of the aisle, lately, which makes me think the polls are wrong.
The lunatic shooting the congressman helped Handel out a lot. Nothing gets old GOP suburbanites to the polls like fear.
More of this, please, Democrats.
This article is hopeful.
The Black Church Dems are really conservative and skeptical of Berniecrats- I’m learning that one through some conversations I’ve been having with Black Church Dems.
This is why I think Bernie’s ideas are probably 10-20 years away from being politically realistic- but they gotta keep pounding.
As for the shooting last week, I think there will be some fear from the GOP suburbanites, but they’re going to put some of the blame on Trump as well- or make it a both sides issue. They might also be afraid more radicalism will lead to more violence.
Also, if Ossoff loses by 1 or 2, he’s in good shape to win a 2018 rematch when the country is even more unstable and the economy starts suffering.
The disconnect between the BernieCrats–and really all young progressives in the Democratic Party–and the rest of the party is based a lot around one thing: taxes.
Walter Mondale was never going to beat Ronald Reagan in 1984. But he also wasn’t going to get completely, horrifically stomped and give Reagan a second wind of coattails in the House the way he did.
But…in the most-watched televised debate between the two candidates, Mondale criticized Reagan for his deficit spending ways. Mondale was then asked how he would pay for his agenda, and Mondale was blunt: he’d raise taxes to do that.
It’s hard to fully appreciate the impact of that statement now, but in 1984 terms, it was essentially like Walter Mondale had just admitted to being the mastermind of 9-11 in front of a national TV audience. Pundits had suspected that taxes was the third rail of American politics for a while, but Mondale sure proved it. His already iffy poll numbers collapsed into the pit after this.
In 1988, George W. Bush should have been a beat-able candidate for the Democrats, but they ran a weak candidate against him, and then GHWB scored major points with his own Tax declaration in a debate: “Read my lips, no new taxes!” It resonated, and helped him to win. Dukakis promised, well, “revenue enhancements.”
And so what Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and a whole host of Democrats in the House and Senate discovered in the years after that is that you could be fiscally prudent and figure out ways to pay for stuff…but you had to make shit up so you didn’t say “We’re going to raise taxes.”
So…the ACA? That gets a mandate and penalty. But not a tax to pay for it. Need to raise other money? We “roll back the Bush tax cuts”…but not “raise taxes.” Need to pay for other programs? We frame it by class: “We’ll raise taxes on families earning $200,000 or more” to give the middle class a break.
All that careful parsing of language seems ridiculous to Berniecrats and young progressives. What the hell are you geezers talking about? We’ll cut defense spending and raise taxes where we can and pay for this shit. We need this shit. Come on, quit dancing around.
What it boils down to–and this is true not just on taxes, but other stuff as well, is that a lot of Democrats within the party are very used to having to hide the necessary pills for the dog that is American voters inside a peanut butter sandwich. And a lot of young progressives find that detrimental and even ridiculous to consider.
That I think is the source of a lot of fricton between Democrats right now. The good news is, I think a lot of it is resolve-able. It isn’t like the goals are any different…it’s just a level of frustration on both sides that the other side has NO IDEA what they’re doing. I suspect that eventually some common ground can be found there.
Good post trig, thanks for the insight.
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To put GA-6 into perspective:
They’re still saying record turn-out in the district is possible.
To watch:
Ossoff needs about 62-63% in DeKalb County
50% in Fulton
42-44 in Cobb County to have a chance tonight.
So go ahead and pull on your Charlie Brown t-shirt and get ready to run up to that football!
NYT live modeling tonight’s returns, so you can feel your disappointment, impotence, frustration and sadness grow in real-time!
I just love how optimistic this forum is when it comes to both elections and Kickstarters.
Even if Ossoff won, he’d have to win in 18 too for it to matter. There’s probably going to be a rematch in 18.
Read that originally as “win it by 18 for it to matter” and was briefly shaken out of my malaise to say, “Damn, man.”
If he can’t get to 59%, then wtf are we even doin’ here.
Honestly, today is way more important than 2018.
This is A GOP district. It’s unlikely the Democrats can get and hold it.
If he wins today, the importance will be the effect it has on OTHER Republicans. It will make them say, “ohhhhhshit”. It will cause then to revaluate their alliance with Trump, who is incredibly unpopular. It will likely end their attempt to repeal the ACA. It would be an epic victory for ossoff.
Now, the flip side is basically nothing. Like I said, this is a GOP district. Like Chris Rock said, “you don’t get credit for doing what you are supposed to do.”
But because people are dumb, and because it’s been so hyped by Democrats, the GOP and Trump will absolutely use a victory here as some sort of mandate. Even if it’s a minor victory, much smaller than normal. And the soon will work, because Trump supporters are dumb as posts, and the GOP who is following along really don’t care about anything but winning political combat.
So I suspect ossoff will lose, and Trump will be tweeting about how it vindicates him tomorrow morning at 4 am while he’s taking his morning shit.
Pray to God I’m wrong.
Oh god there’s that dial again.
If reports on the ground are correct, you can call it early. Ossoff getting nothing of the vote totals he needed in Dekalb County or Fulton.
This is probably going to be a 2-3 point win for Handel.