US Politics, June 2020 — You have to dominate.

just ftr my comment isn’t to dunk on KY democrats per se;

just that these kinda of wins will only serve to embolden the absolute worst ppl outside of MAGAland

McGrath, by winning (assuming she won), proves she better reflects the party atm, but only barely.

i think it only proves that she was the outsized benefit of early voting (booker didn't pick up steam til late) and that she had a ton of money from outside actors, and at an early stage of her campiagn, while booker did not

We need tipsy mothra in here.

McGrath is a good candidate, and in the South, characters like her or my current governor (West Point/airborne CPT Jon Bel Edwards) are the best chance of preventing the very worst of the ignoramuses from winning. It's a big tent. I don't like it, but squeaking out wins for non-monsters means moderates painted in the flag.

McGrath will do very well in out of state funding, as she did in the primary.

so I have a confession

Jon Ossoff's hot.

Was at a red light and thought that said Stossel

yumz

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/17/74/c5/1774c538167f2c371ec5b9f7dbf4bde5.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfyA5whMGAw

Dems really going to take every single wrong lesson from this election huh

evergreen post

xxpost No, I disagree that Booker would do much or any better than McGrath. They are both doomed to lose to Mitch, though you never know, it could be closer than past elections.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, June 30, 2020 12:48 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

is this an xpost to me? it seems like a misreading of my comment. if you think they'll both lose, what's your definition of "better"?

think that was an xpost to me. i had asked "josh, just curious, what do you think about my point about booker being more inspiring to democrats in KY than mcgrath, that it's about more than this single election, it's about showing democrats in KY that they could actually be involved in something inspiring and important, etc"

you asked that after his post.

whoops sorry, i need to stop multitasking ilx with work, everything's getting screwed up today.

Yeah, it was to Karl. McGrath or Booker would likely lose to Mitch, but I don't think Booker would necessarily do better than McGrath.

But we will never know.

To follow on to Karl's point, is there any utility in talking about how this race is perceived outside Kentucky?

Especially if you think either D candidate would lose. Seems like some of the reflected warmth from a Booker victory would be about non-Kentuckian progressives being made to feel better, or more energized, or more vindicated, or ore hopeful or whatever.

Like, as far as I know nobody here lives in Kentucky (though I'd be happy to be contradicted on this point). But we're all watching it and trying to read the tea leaves.

Well, I suppose one reason to pay attention is that a state is more than its senators and congressmen. There are governors, local government, school boards, that sort of thing. So seeing how far one side goes in one direction could give hints on where all those other races could go, or could one day go. And if that persists then it could indicate where top ballot races might be heading.

This is why I asked what your definition of “better” is in a race that neither candidate can win. “Loses by the least” is missing an opportunity imo (although I guess that tends to help downballot races).

tipsy and roxymuzak live in TN

Would the loser be in opposition throughout the next political term and therefore be being influential on what was happening during the period. Or is it just a figurehead role for the one position?
Would have thought having a more liberal opposition might have some effect anyway.

Also I thought McConnell was becoming really unpopular i KY according to things i was hearing a few months ago. So has he got less unpopular since then?
Thought he was recognised to be completely evil.

I think he's the least popular member of Congress but idk how his numbers are in Kentucky

speaking of kentucky

A quote from Rand Paul at the Senate coronavirus hearing: "We shouldn't presume that a group of experts somehow knows what's best for everyone."

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 30, 2020

Thought he was recognised to be completely evil.

― Stevolende, Tuesday, June 30, 2020 3:53 PM (eleven minutes ago)

Evil gets pretty good poll numbers in the US

.@PressSec: ‘The President does read’

— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) June 30, 2020

The White House says Trump has now been briefed on what was in his daily written intelligence briefing back in February, per the NYT.

— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) June 30, 2020

TFW you tell your boss the thing you already told him in an email and he goes 'why didn't you tell me that before'

"The president does read" for July thread title.

Has anyone pieced together what he was actually doing that day, and the following day?

he met with D1amond and S1lk in the oval office, for one thing

tipsy and roxymuzak live in TN

roxy is actually in Virginia these days fwiw.

From TN, it's always interesting to watch Kentucky. Democrats have obviously not been eliminated from serious statewide competition in Kentucky the way they have here for at least the near future. But the same kind of Booker-McGrath arguments play out among progressives here. The most recent iteration was in 2018, when a lot of Tennessee lefties bemoaned the nomination of super-old white guy moderate Phil Bredesen to run against Marsha Blackburn. When he got trounced, there were some definite told-you-so's from the left, but imo anyone farther left than Bredesen would have done worse. He did in fact rack up a good number of moderate Republican votes — which you could see in the difference between the Senate results and the governor's race — but not nearly enough to be competitive.

So my gut instinct is that in a legitimately close race in a mostly red state, a more moderate candidate is more likely to capitalize on anti-Trump disgust than a more progressive one. The trade-off is that it alienates the younger activists -- so if you don't have a really close race, if you're probably going to lose anyway, you might do better with a younger, more inspiring candidate who can energize people and build for the future. But it's a hard call.

Ahh! i had forgotten that roxy was 'gone'.

So my gut instinct is that in a legitimately close race in a mostly red state, a more moderate candidate is more likely to capitalize on anti-Trump disgust than a more progressive one.

i lean toward this view too. i had typed out a long post earlier that i think i deleted about doug jones vs roy moore, 2017 special election. in those circumstances, doug jones was a great candidate for that situation. roy moore seemed to be purposefully self-sabotaging his campaign. democrats just needed to run a non-pedophile that didn't scare anyone in alabama off with thoughts of imminent marxist revolution, and it worked.

but for the more common races in red states, where everything is so heavily tilted toward the republican candidate, i don't think it always makes sense to run a moderate - in general i'd lean toward the candidate that inspires the most ANYTHING out of left-leaning voters. mcgrath is not that candidate, booker is (imo)

but then again, i'm not your typical potential democratic voter in KY. maybe a lot of KY democrats are really stoked about mcgrath, who knows. but as a kid growing up in another red rural state, all i know is that i didn't get interesting in politics until my early 20s, after i had left missouri, and part of the reason was that i didn't encounter any inspiring state-wide politicians until i got the fuck out of dodge

/typos, sorry

in general i'd lean toward the candidate that inspires the most ANYTHING out of left-leaning voters. mcgrath is not that candidate, booker is (imo)

I get that, but my question is: is that more about inspiring people who are like, well, ilxorz (who don't live there and just want to applaud a progressive Quixote from outside Kentucky), or inspiring actual Kentuckians?

To put it more crudely, does it make sense for Kentucky Democrats to go in with the candidate that excites Brooklyn? Or the one that excites Louisville?

xp and then your subsequent post addresses exactly that so never mind

haha yeah, i realize it's way more complicated than i make it seem.

i guess to address your question, it probably makes more sense for KY Democrats to go for a fighter pilot, but they shouldn't be surprised with the persistent brain drain of their KY's most thoughtful people moving to blue states

you can move to queens and AOC will be your rep, or you can move to missouri and try to get anyone on earth excited for whoever inherited the legacy of dick gephardt

lol, i'm not making any sense. i am having a nightmare day at WFH (work from hell) and i'm taking it out on dick gephardt. this is a new low

I always take out my bad days by beating the dick

dick gephardt is a concept
by which we take out our bad days
i'll say it again

hence my turn to the writing of Ossoff slashfic

I was born in lville and lived there til I was 18, most of my living relatives are there and I have tons of friends there so I pay pretty close attention, and I gave $$$ to the Booker campaign. There is no question that Booker excited Louisville, but also he was entirely obscure until the murders of Breanna Taylor/ David MCAtee. And there is no question that a white woman is going to do better throughout the state than a black man in a senate contest. Should McConnell persist, which is more than likely, I would tend to think that Booker has a much brighter future than McGrath, who most people on this thread must know is consulted within an inch of her life and is from the part of Kentucky that is more or less part of Cincinatti, alongside the lunatic Thomas "Dr. No" Msssie and those dick kids who fucked with the native american man at the washington monument.

I went to school with and knew well McConnell's eldest daughter and knew her two younger sisters. It is clear to me that they plainly despise him and were particularly humiliated by his role shephereding Brett Kavanaugh. The middle daughter is a DC do gooder of some note.

xp I'm from Missouri and even I have no interest in defending the honor of Dick Gephardt.

In other news people are just going to shrug at and ignore, Arizona GOP official Paul Peterson pleaded guilty to selling Pacific Islander babies https://t.co/FMorZoX67P

— Jeff Yang (@originalspin) June 25, 2020

hey isn't this the shit all the QAnon folks are supposed to care about

Hey, who hasn't sold a few babies here and there

frogbs, you seem to not understand that they only care about babies who lack melanin

oh, you don't get that I was being SARCASTIC !????

Point taken, could be read as non-sarcastic, too.

sorry, my brain is totally broken by all this shit

it's one thing to see the right wing conspiracy machine get more and more insane and implausible but it's something else to see all those crazy conspiracies manifest themselves inside the Republican party and nobody giving a shit