Glad I’m not the only one to think that.
I was thinking mainly of the part where he said “If anyone expected Republicans to lose districts they’ve held onto for decades, then they’re daydreaming.”
That’s very different than “I suspect that Handel will probably get just enough votes to win in a squeaker.”
In that post I also said that the district was strongly red to begin with, and the pre-runoff vote diluted GOP support among multiple contenders. With one GOP candidate to choose from I felt confident that support would coalesce around Handel.
Even so, Ossoff himself got awfully close to 50% in the primary, so even if all of the Republicans did converge on Handel, it’d still be a close one. And there’s also the possibility that some of them, despite voting for other Republicans in the primary, would still vote against Handel. And there’s also the possibility that a different set of people would turn out for the runoff than for the primary, which turns out to have been quite true, given the difference in turnout.
Yes, a rational assessment would probably still have had the race favoring Handel, but she didn’t need for all that much to go wrong for her in order to lose it anyway. In other words, it made sense for a non-risk-averse person who had the money available to make the bet you did, but perhaps not with as much confidence as you stated.
What would your threshold have been for making this bet? That is to say, at what offered price would you have shifted from taking the bet to not taking the bet? It’s easy to see that a price of $0.42 was too low, but what price wouldn’t have been too low?
Even when followed by “when you factor in the historical and demographic advantages that a republican enjoys in this particular district, it’s hard to bet against it.”? That’s not a change in spin, it’s just a little hopeful pre-vote is all.
You brought those things up in order to say “based on those fundamentals I thought it was underpriced”; I didn’t realize that you also thought they were also predictors of victory.
Hard to see, also. Even if every Republican primary voter coalesced around Handel - a very shaky assumption, IMO - it would only give her a margin of a few points. It’s not uncommon for a race to move by a few points in a several months, especially considering everything that’s been going on at the national level and the unprecedented amount of money that went into this race. And even more especially in the face of polls showing that actually happening.
Obviously it worked out for you here. But even with hindsight it still looks like a close call to me.
Disagree. “It’s hard to bet against it” is not remotely the same thing as saying you’d have to be “daydreaming” in order to think it won’t happen.
The phrase you used was “anything more than a long shot”. Both posts acknowledged it was a long shot.
That’s not going to work in GA-06. The Pelosi attacks were not a ‘politics as usual’ attack but a ‘look how crazy far left he is’ attack.
I disagree. “Hard to bet against it” does not indicate a long shot. And “I suspect that Handel will probably get just enough votes to win in a squeaker” is the opposite of a long shot.
In any event, it’s not about any one poster, as above. I don’t intend to keep arguing this.
If that’s the best example that comes to mind, probably for the best that you do.
I get the sense I’m giving you a chance to feel like a winner. A good deed for the day.
Lol, I bet you get that sense every time you lose an argument. Gotta protect that ego!
This post is pretty much exactly why I let that point go to begin with–I knew following up on it would eventually result in a post like this :).
As you give so shall you receive …
Maybe on the national level, but how does that square with districts like GA-06 who already have a strong-seated mistrust of liberals/progressives? I could understand if you’re suggesting Democrats should just write off these areas. There’s a strategic case for that. But the idea that they’re waiting around for someone to show them a REAL progressive? Though I agree with you on many things, that’s just nuts.
I shake my head at thoughts like this. I NEVER thought Ossoff would win, after the vote tallies in the primary were clear. He didn’t have 50% and how he was going to get 50% in the face of unified Republican opposition was never made clear. I’m certain Bricker felt the exact same way.
And this gets to the core of what I find so bizarre about so much of what is written by the “left” of this MB currently: The assumption that there is this huge group of voters who vote(d) Republican who are having second thoughts now and would vote for a Democrat instead. I contend that there is almost zero evidence of this. That leaves Democrats hoping for larger turnout from their own base of constituents (including supposedly “neutral” voters who nevertheless routinely vote for a Democrat). There may well be a few districts in the US where this would be enough to flip the district (though with modern gerrymandering software, the parties have really done their best to avoid having such districts). But in the absence of some solid evidence that this is a potential in a district, it’s just wishful thinking. The primary numbers in both SC - 5 and GA - 6 gave Democrats no such hope.
These races were never a “close call”. And the polls in GA - 6 just go to show that the pollsters still haven’t figured out how to avoid the sort of polling errors that caused most of them to get the 2016 elections so wrong in advance. :dubious:
Indeed. I would assert that being more progressive will do nothing but increase turnout for Democrats in places where Democrats already win handily. Progressive politics will not win the suburbs of America, and most certainly will never dent the rural areas of America (unless “progressive” goes back to meaning what it did in the days when populist progressives were all the rage in some parts of the Upper Midwest).
Of course, being more “progressive” might mean that the 2020 election will be “won” by the Democrat by even more than 3M votes. If that’s what the Democratic Party wants to achieve, well, have fun. :rolleyes:
Here’s a thoughtful piece from Reuters on the results of the GA - 6 race and what they mean for Democrats: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-politics-georgia-idUSKBN19C1KK
Why “obviously”? Just because she’s a Republican? Or based on other things you’ve said about her in particular that I’ve missed?
And I already know from other threads that you agree with her that the notion of a living wage is nonsense… What do you think about her staunch opposition to homosexual couples adopting on religious grounds?
The notion that everyone is clearly, definitively, and permanently defined as either a Republican or a Democrat is incorrect. There are many people who are somewhere in middle and could vote either way based on the issues at hand, the nature of the specific candidates, and mood in the country, or whatever.
For this particular election there didn’t need to be a “huge” group of voters having second thoughts, even a small group would have tipped the scale. (Which is even leaving aside the point above - not all Republican primary voters necessarily preferred Handel - there could have been some group which disliked her for whatever reason.)
And there is plenty of evidence that some Republicans voters have been having second thoughts. This evidence would be in the form of Trump’s approval ratings, plus various other polls (including the GA race ones).