He said: “I think we need new leadership on both sides.” His position is that he appreciates her skills as both a fundraiser and as a field marshal, but: “I don’t think that changes the fact that people are ready for a new day.”
Which in Maher’s book makes him “a pussy.”
If Pelosi were smart - and she appears to be - she’d be perfectly happy to let new candidates play the “I hate Pelosi” card if it helps them get elected. They can hate her all the way into the Speaker’s chair.
Exactly!
Democrats can’t afford to splinter over anything when it comes to elections.
Damn straight. We should allow that to be the province of the Tea Party guys.
I’ve started a thread here to discuss whether Pelosi should be replaced, and if so, by whom.
And the final answer to this thread is yes as Rick Saccone decided to concede defeat today rather than pursue some sort of challenge to the result.
As a very unusual postscript, due to the fact that Pennsylvania will be using different districts in November and both Saccone and Conor Lamb have filed to run but not in the same race, it’s entirely plausible that both men could end up sitting in Congress next January anyway.
I wonder why the GOP is rolling over and playing dead so quickly on this one? That’s not their usual MO. Do you suppose they judge the protracted publicity that a challenge would bring would only serve to remind the American public the party lost yet another seat in a special election that took place in ruby red district, while providing the very marginal benefit of putting one of their boys in a district that likely won’t exist in a few months?
Rick Saccone is not the right hill to die on in Pennsylvania. He was a bad, unpopular candidate, and this race is small potatoes in the long run. Plus, there really is zero way that they flip the results of this election. A recount wouldn’t do it, so they’d have to somehow prove widespread Democrat voter fraud. Widespread Democrat voter fraud is something that the GOP is good at talking about but bad at proving.
The PA GOP has chosen a different and even more ridiculous hill to die on instead.
It’s definitely the smart move to not fight too hard against this result, both because the stakes are so low, and because the cost is so high.
In other words, I’m not sure why the Republicans aren’t doing it, either.
This is the latest news on the attempt to impeach the Democratic PA Supreme Court judges. For those more knowledgeable about PA politics, does this have any chance of happening? As a related question, are the PA state house and senate seats as badly gerrymandered as the US congressional districts were? If so, is that gerrymandering being addressed?
And now that the elections are no longer rigged in his favor, Rep. Ryan Costello will no longer seek re-election.
The state legislative districts are pretty egregious (in my opinion). I don’t know if there are any challenges to them now, but given the way they’re drawn, impeaching judges is the only way for the Republicans to maintain their nearly guaranteed majority.
After the census, a five member commission is formed to draw a map. Two members are appointed by Republicans, two by Democrats, and unless they can agree on a fifth member (why would they?), the last is appointed by the State Supreme Court. As the court will likely be heavily Democratic for a long time, Republicans won’t get anything as favourable as the current map for at least two or three decades.
Unless they impeach the judges. So while there’s a short-term benefit if they can pull that off, I see the attempt to remove Democratic judges to be more about ensuring long-term dominance.
Two Democratic Socialist candidates have defeated mainline incumbent Democrats for PA Assembly seats. There were no Republicans on the ballot, so it looks like they’re the shoo-ins. One of the mainstream Democrats,seeing the writing on the walls, tried to run a write-in candidacy for the Republican nomination, but apparently he didn’t get enough votes to make the November ballot.