So they should have focused on the man and not his and republican policies?
Not sure I buy Weigel’s argument. Find me 100 people in the Georgia 06 who are big Kathy Griffin fans. I’d be willing to wager a big pile of cash you couldn’t do it. In fact, her entire shtick is premised on being distinctly unlikable. Which makes Kathy Griffin a super-easy target for political ads. You tie someone NO ONE likes and a very controversial and off-putting thing that person did to a politician, it’s gold.
Now. Find me 100 people in the Georgia sixth who like Donald Trump. I’m betting you could do that pretty quickly. So that becomes a tough call to make. The people who already hate Donald Trump enough to vote for you are gonna do that. But when you’re trying to work with persuade-able voters in that district, just being against Donald Trump–and making that your message–is probably going to make them un-persuade-able.
Ossoff’s calculation, and I think it was a smart one, was that if he took in all this money from outside the district to run in the sixth, he’d better use that money to spend on ads and a message that wasn’t national, but local and specific to the district. For three weeks, it looked like it was working. Then suddenly last week the momentum of the race shifted dramatically.
Election cycles are simply too god damn long. I mean, in the space between the primary and runoff for the Georgia 6th, the Birts were able to call, and hold, a general election. And have two weeks to spare.
The length of the campaigns is extremely offputting to many people, increases the vitriol, makes outside money even more important, cuts into the time the politicians have to do their job, and further incentivises the disgusting practice of Congresspeople spending inordinate amounts of time calling donors. The balance between doing their jobs and calling for money is completely borked.
Yep. And one other point specific to Georgia’s 6th. Donald Trump wasn’t very popular there. Neither, really, was Hillary Clinton. And this endless special election had to feel like it was never ending sequel to a movie everyone there was trying to forget.
France elected a PM and their entire Parliament in less time than it took for a special election in one district in Georgia.It really is insane.
You might be on to something:
Maybe the GOP will start shooting themselves!
False Flag!
You know, I was going to make that joke but refrained. :P
I’d wanna see a chart showing when the GOP spent its money before I reached any sweeping conclusion about the role the shooting played. Note the gap starts to close before the shooting; it’s possible what’s really going on is that the GOP just saved a bunch of their spend until late.
I think it’d be natural to see the race tightening. But the ad went up very early (and Handel had surrogates making the argument immediately) and so “tightening” becomes “Bump to the lead.”
And ‘the ad’ was run by a PAC. Handel reaped the benefits both from the ad itself and from taking the high ground by denouncing it.Win - win.
Yep. And should also be noted, she didn’t ramp up her spending. She pretty much stayed at max, and the last two weeks both her campaign and Ossoff and related PACs) (which made up the spending difference between the two candidates were pretty much at saturation.
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What is the percentage breakdown of registered viewers in the 6th, by party?
Cause I’m pretty sure that’s gonna have the answer to why Ossoff lost.
R +9, and yes that is primarily the reason Ossoff lost. The initial observation that if he did not win the election outright during the runoff that he wouldn’t be able to win the seat turned out to be correct. (The shooting and maybe the rain had some impact but probably only on the margins; from what I can tell Handel did much better in early voting than expected.)
Things have to get more desperate- like as bad as they were in 2008.
The other thing the Dems need is new leadership, Pelosi is really toxic outside of super-blue areas.
And in the blue areas it’s not like she’s generating a lot of excitement.
Ok this is seriously awesome.
“That white boy ’bout to lose,” was the first thing he said.
At first I was kind of surprised: Most polls showed the Georgia special election to be close, with Democrat Ossoff performing reasonably well and sometimes even leading Republican Karen Handel. It was the most expensive congressional race in history, and I knew several Republicans who told me privately that Ossoff was going to pull off the upset.
However, with a few days on the ground and knowing the district, I expected Ossoff to lose in a close race, but hearing that sentiment from a campaign insider was unexpected. Yet it became a resounding theme, especially among the African-American political consultants and campaign insiders I spoke to. No matter what happened or how much money was spent, the racial dynamics of Georgia weren’t going to let a Democrat win in a red district.
Democratic armchair quarterbacks were throwing pretzels long before Ossoff’s 48 percent-to-52 percent loss to Handel was called on the cable news networks: The Democratic Party lacks a message; Jon Ossoff spent too much time talking about Trump; Jon Ossoff spent too little time talking about Trump; Jon Ossoff shoulda just kicked the field goal. Everyone seemed to know exactly what Atlanta Democrats should have done.
The truth is, the Republican Party had a 9 percent advantage in voter registration in the Georgia 6th. Hardworking local organizations got more than 129,000 people to early-vote, and more than 50,000 new voters registered between the April primary and the special election in June. But gerrymandering is a serious drug.
The Georgia 6th was drawn in a way to guarantee that a ham sandwich, a wet tablecloth, Team Rocket or a Margo Martindale clone will win any race so long as they have an “R” by their name. There was no “message” from Ossoff on how he was going to turn college-educated Republicans into Democratic special election voters. There is no cheat code to make up a 9 percent registration deficit that either Bernie Sanders, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton or JFK could have come up with to change the election results. Privately, most Republicans in Atlanta will acknowledge that Ossoff ran about as flawless a campaign as possible, given the circumstances, but he couldn’t overcome the structure of the district.
https://twitter.com/CandyAppleAlly/status/877590385236729856
But seriously, the main organizing principle for the GOP is “hate liberals.” That’s it. Doesn’t even matter what their policy proposals are, and since Republican voters are the easiest marks in the country it is especially simple to motivate them by ridiculous propaganda. (And GA-6 is a highly educated, affluent district.)
Democratic messaging will never matter, suburban Romney Republicans may not like Trump, but they hate liberals more. What’s the solution then, run racists white guys? Because really that’s the only thing that will work to “sway” Republicans. Hint: Democrats have not won the white vote since 1964. It’s not a cosmic coincidence that’s also the same year Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act.
With all the blather amongst the mainstream punditry yesterday, not one mentioned anything about Handel’s positive message (she didn’t have one.) They didn’t bother talking about the 2:1 PAC money spent against Ossoff. Republicans are about to pass a health care bill the will quite literally cause untold damage to their own constituents and they don’t care. “Entitlement reform” finally is revealed for what it’s always been: Fuck poor people, more money for us.
Anyway sorry for the mini-rant. Not directed toward anyone, just more flailing about in a sea of despair.
Edit: This rant is far better:
[details=Summary]1) Ok,the whole day, I have been looking at the aftereffects of the GA6 Congressional Race. And my conclusion is, Liberals suck as teammates https://twitter.com/AnotherSlyfox/status/877645957659213826/photo/1
2) I mean, seriously. Nearly every Liberal, hard leftist, Democrat has been doing this ALL day. https://twitter.com/AnotherSlyfox/status/877646315588468736/photo/1
3)We’ve had Democratic Senators saying Russia is a distraction to former Clinton supporters saying back Trump, and a Drop Pelosi movement.
4) I see this, and I go, “THIS is why Republicans beat us.” The same ones panicking today were the ones in 09 saying Reps were through.
5) Oh yes, I remember the triumphalism Liberals had as though their work was done. They finally had the presidency, house and senate.
6) And that meant Repubicans would simply just bend to our will, just because…they would NEVER ever come back. After Bush, pshhhh!
7) But see, Republicans didn’t do that, now did they? They plotted, they planned, they schemed. That Inauguration Night meeting they had…
Newt Gingrich with the then House and Senate Minority teams and other Republican members, they planned that night. Total obstruction.
8) Total dysfunction. They relied on two things, conservatives getting energized and liberals getting demoralized.
9) And damnit, IT WORKED! In 2010, they sweeped Dems out of the House, shrunk the senate, took back majority of state houses.Governors, etc.
10) Liberals, were demoralized due to not only Republican dysfunction, but Limousine Liberal/Ratfucking tactics beating up our own team.
11) Its one thing for the Republicans to attack Democrats, thats expected. But when people who are supposed to be on our side attack us…
12) …in tandem with Republicans, then Independent voters see that and go, damn maybe Democrats are bad and vote Republican.
13) It happened last year between Trump and Clinton. Trump was just horrendous, but the left just couldn’t help equating Clinton with him.
14) When the question arises about who has the better supporters, its always the Republicans/Conservatives.
15) They care about winning. They know that winning means their policies are enacted.
16) It means the Supreme Court and other Judicial Offices are filled by Republicans. Trump WILL put Republicans in those seats.
17) It means climate change, student loan reform, health care reform, minimum wage, LGBT rights, womens rights, Black Lives Mattering…DEAD
18) But hey,Dems are too corporate, too Goldman Sachs. Never mind Trump’s whole economic team are a SLEW of Goldman Sachs & Corporate execs.
19) Yeah, Hillary as First Lady of Arkansas apparently was the house mistress with slaves, so she would be terrible on civil rights…
20)…though now we have an Attorney General with a “the South shall rise again” name and disposition gutting Civil Rights depts at Justice
21) Rescinding EVERYTHING Attorneys General Holder and Lynch did to fix those Departments.Mad about Castille verdicts, no support at Justice
22) Yeah, Obamacare is not single payer, though now it seems Obamacare is under attack from Trump and the Republican Party…
23) …which is going to result in the shittiest, most detrimental transfer of wealth upwards in a damn century…
24) We’re about to get FUCKED by Republicans, and I STILL have some twits coming on my timeline, preaching Bernie would’ve won.
25) Ok, let me tell you the reason Bernie lost. He had no answer to HOW he would do anything. Single payer, HOW? Minimum wage, HOW?
26) HOW would we do all the shit. I heard his platform, sounded all good. I agreed with most of it, I did. But I didn’t have HOW!
27) How would we get single payer? We would win all seats in Congress needed. Most of those seats are gerrymandered though?We would win them
28) Seriously, THAT was a convo I had with a Bernie canvasser back in 2016 during the primaries. They had NO answers to how.
29) it was nothing but prepackaged talking points made to give hard left the feels, but left the logical thinkers out. We need how.
30) In 2008, Barack Obama won by explaining how and being unaffraid of explaining how. He had policy speeches and Town Halls like Ted Talks.
31) He waded into EVERY issue, even the controversial ones, even the ones he politically wasn’t strong on.
32) He didn’t hesitate to say reasons why he believed a policy position was either wrong or wrong at the moment.Its why he was trusted.
33) He won over black voters with that approach. Had Bernie Sanders done some of that, we MAY be looking at a President Sanders today.
34) And this is where my critique with Clinton was as well. I believe she was strongest with those meetings with folks and town halls.
35) She stopped doing them during the campaign. I believe it was because of her coal miners comments, that gave her bad press.
36) Instead, I believe she should have took all of that head on, clarified her remarks, explained her position.She could have overcame that.
37) I TOTALLY believe the contrast with Trump would have been immense had she just done town halls like that.
38) Its something I pray the next Democratic nominee does and keeps doing. Will make the contrast with the PuzziGrabber garguantuan.
39) Now, I get Hillary had some shit coming her way. Irrational hatred of her personally. Comey’s overzealousness about being impartial.
40) Putin’s hatred of her due to her calling out his election rigging when she was Secretary of State. All of that hurt her.
41) But remember, it was a race that came after eight years of a Democrat being in office, with people more likely being itchy for change.
42) And she got 3 million more votes in a statistical fluke with Trump. Yes, Trump won, but it wasn’t a popular victory.
43) Hell, even Republicans weren’t really ecstatic. Of course, defeating us was wonderful to them, but even they seemed to feel off about it
44) With his victory, Trump chose congressmen from safe, reliably Republican districts to serve in his cabinet.
45) They do that KNOWING those seats will stay in the GOP column, even if there is an influx of Democratic votes. They designed it that way.
Hell, a state senator from Georgia CONFIRMS this. And people are seriously bugging out about not winning?
http://www.salon.com/2017/04/18/jon-ossoff-has-been-gerrymandered-to-defeat-georgia-republican-admits-his-district-was-not-drawn-for-democrats-to-win/
Liberals have to think differently.Republicans keep winning because they know every 0 year,they have an opportunity to reapportion districts
48) Reapportioning districts means they keep control, EVEN WHEN the broader public doesn’t want them in control. We got to get smart.
49) We can rail about Citizens United all we want, but the truth is, with the Supreme Court makeup as it is, Citizens United IS. LAW.
50) We can’t push a bill in congress,since we have no control.We can’t push it in state legislatures, the majority of which we don’t control
51) We don’t control anything right now, we need control. We need power. We need to be unafraid of power.I find Liberals very afraid of that
52) We’re so ok with railing against power, we have no idea how to handle having power. And we think having power means we have ALL power.
53) Which we think that the minority doesn’thave any tools to stop anything, which if we learned anything from the GOP in 2009,its not true.
54) Coming back to Jon @ossoff , he did a hell of a job. No, he didn’t win, but he showed that Liberals and Democrats are on the upswing.
@ossoff 55) Turning a 24 Rep district into a 5 is no small feat.
@ossoff 56) And if he could do that there, what makes you think a 5 point swing district isn’t possible next year? We’ve got time here.
@ossoff 57) We’ve got to stop panicking and look at the silver linings with everything. Remember in 2009, Dems won our congressional districts back.
@ossoff 58) By November 2010, John Boehner was speaker-elect of the U.S. House of Representatives. It shows we have to be strategic.
@ossoff 59) We’ve got to go back to thinking long term again. Instant gratification has messed us up in America. Sometimes, slow and steady wins.
@ossoff 60) Right now, should be the time people look at potential candidates in ALL 435 U.S. Congressional Districts. Right now.
@ossoff 61) Right now, every Liberal in every state needs to see the Gubernatorial candidates, as well as other constitutional officers running
@ossoff 62) Check your State Legislatures, General Assemblies, State Delegations, what have you for potential candidates. One could be president.
@ossoff 63) Lest we forget, Illinois State Senator Barack Obama. State Senators and State Representatives are just as important.
@ossoff 64) Solicitor, Comptroller, Insurance Commissioner, Alderman Ward 5, ALL OF THOSE need candidates. Stop just going for the big baby.
@ossoff 65) Chairman of the Gaming Commission. I have no idea what the fuck that is in my state. I thought it was arcade games. But a Dem was on it.
@ossoff 66) I voted for it.I have no idea if he’s won or lost, but I pray my vote counted and he is the Chairman,because he could run for State Sen.
@ossoff 67) We’ve got to think differently Liberals. NO MORE voting for president, and then leaving everything else blank.
@ossoff 68) Voting the Quarterback in without a special teams, linebackers, and tightends does not work in Football, why would it in politics. https://twitter.com/AnotherSlyfox/status/877666424835248129/photo/1
@ossoff 69) And we need to stop tearing our candidates down.There is no suchthing as a perfect candidate.Republicans don’t give a shit about perfect
@ossoff 70) It is absolutely brave for anyone to put aside time, money and mental strength to run for political office. Its hell to put yourself out
@ossoff 71) and knowing all of your business is going to be out in the street. If someone is running as a Democrat, its more than likely he or she…
@ossoff 72)…wants to help. If that weren’t the case, they would run as a Republican and win that way. Doesn’t mean we don’t have those types…
@ossoff 73) But its way less likely on this side than the others. I’d rather be here than there. And realistically, its here where we will win.
@ossoff 74) And not to knock third party candidates, but until you can point out a third party president, a third party governor that worked out,…
@ossoff 75) a third party representative or senator that did NOT have to caucus with a majority or minority party to have any clout…
@ossoff 76) The I can’t see a third party vote for president being a wise choice. Hell, staying home would actually be the same in that instance.
@ossoff 77) All in all, my whole tweet storm here is to just tell Liberals/Democrats, just get yourself together. Just dry your tears. Woosah. https://twitter.com/AnotherSlyfox/status/877669474522071042/photo/1
@ossoff 78) We will get back to power someday. We will get the legislatures back. The Congress back, the presidency back.
@ossoff 79) We just got to work hard at this. We gotta think long term. We gotta come together again, let old shit die off. 2018 and 20 is new day.
@ossoff 80) 2016 has got to die, seriously. We lost that one, BOTH Bernie and Hillary voters. Neither one of us won that. Nowoulda, coulda, shouldas
@ossoff 81) 2020, there’s gonna be more candidates running to take on Orange Biff. We’ve got to be ready to kneecap his power. Take him down.
@ossoff 82) So, whats it gonna be folks. Wallow in panic for the next two years, or are we gonna be like Black Pantherand prepare to jack the GOP up https://twitter.com/AnotherSlyfox/status/877671696014114816/photo/1
@ossoff 83) We’ve got the intelligence and passion to do it, we’ve just got to use it. And now I leave you, because I’m hungry. See y’all. https://t.co/pNzRcpgSza[/details]
Guess what though: isn’t just the right that will demonize female leaders. Absolute shit-tons of misogyny within the left as well.