Hear, hear!
You don’t know the meaning of heartbreak, buddy.
That would be bad.
Disclaimer: I am Canadian and don’t have a dog in this fight.
Having said that, I followed the midterms. And as I recall, there was no contest. There never was a contest. Those seats that were up for grabs this time around were either solid red or purple enough that it didn’t matter. Get out the vote didn’t matter. Obama appearing with candidates didn’t matter. Obama staying away didn’t matter. The math never worked in favor of the Democrats, regardless of what they did. So why the backlash on Obama? It was never up to him and there was nothing he could have done that would have changed the outcome.
Now as I understand it, the situation reverses in 2016. A lot of seats are up for grabs in areas that are solid blue. The Republicans, regardless of charismatic candidates or issues of the day, do not have a chance to take these seats. Will they also suffer a backlash for failing to do the mathematically impossible?
It’s not exactly like that. The Republcans also won in many blue states. In 2016, if the Republicans lose say, 1 or 2 seats, that can be written off as just an unlucky map. No excuse for losing the 4 that mean Senate control. That only happens when you screw up.
As a general rule, a seat you can win is a seat you can win again. The Democrats lost 8 seats because they screwed up, not because the map was against them.
And you know this how? You say its not because the math was against them, which implicitly acknowledges that the map *was *against them, but then offhandedly assert that this was not why. Did it have no bearing at all, or have you some reason to believe it was inconsequential? Perhaps you will share the reasoning behind that bald statement?
The Obama WH and the DNC counted on Gruber-izing (aka bullshitting) more and more supporters for the passage of ACA/Obamacare . Gruber, Obama, and the DNC counted on stupid voters acting stupidly and on their well established avoidance of questioning Obama’s actions.
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Of course there was a contest. After the contest was over, Democrats lost seats and Republicans and Tea Party gained seats. Democrats could NOT turn out the vote because many of their former supporters were no longer buying what the Democrats were selling.
President Obama has an extremely poor record of getting fellow Democrats elected. Obama can get Obama elected but his words and actions seem to turn out more opposition voters.
So how did those Democrats in solid red states win in the first place? The math precluded their winning, according to your logic.
I don’t know how they got in. Random chance? Voter discontent? Obama appeared and/or stayed away? But that’s not the point. The point was that they had no chance to hold those seats. I’m not saying they shouldn’t have tried. I just don’t think they need to flagellate themselves too viciously over a contest that wasn’t really a contest.
Which many blue states did the Republicans win Senate seats in?
I’m referring to governors’ races, which are also statewide.
The Democrats’ big win in 2006 was much more than random chance.
A 9-seat Senate swing (assuming Landrieu loses) in 2014 is much more than random chance.
Oh yeah, forgot to mention that the Republicans also won again in Maine by a huge margin. There’s no reason Mark Pryor or Kay Hagan couldn’t have done that. It’s actually not hard at all for incumbents to represent their constituents well. Losing so many incumbents means they were selling out to the DC leadership.
So what you’re saying is that to avoid being defeated, what Democrats needed to do was, essentially, to become Republicans. In that case, why bother to have elections at all? It would be so much easier in a one-party state to solve societal problems by simply declaring them not to exist.
As events proved, there really wasn’t time. If the bill hadn’t been ready for a legislative vote by late 2010, it never would have passed. I don’t know to what extent it was anticipated at the time, but in hindsight there’s no question that Obama and his party had only that two-year window in which to get this done.
HUGE concessions were made to stakeholders in the established private-enterprise insurance based system, and still the outrage was sufficient to start the Tea Party boiling.
Not at all. It remains my personal privilege to believe that those who vote Republican usually do so against their own interests, and ultimately against those of the country. Elections have consequences, but winning doesn’t always make one right.
The party only got a two year window because they failed to do the job they were elected to do, instead going after long cherished Democratic dreams.
So now you wait another 20 years.
No, you aren’t. Below is where I got the quote. In what way is this about governors? Do you ever stop and think for even one second about what you’re typing?
Fine. They won Maine by a landslide, despite that not being possible according to his argument.