Liberals: help me and my wife decide which candidate to volunteer for

Politics & Elections
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(Mods: I assumed this was the best forum for this thread, but if you think it belongs in IMHO or MPSIMS, please feel free to move it.)

My wife and I have just moved to Georgia’s 6th district, so our current representative is Karen Handel and the leading candidate for governor is Brian Kemp. Both are Republicans, supporters of Trump, and nasty pieces of work. Handel, who beat Jon Ossoff in a special election last year, is pretty strongly anti-women, and anti-gay. Kemp, who is the current Secretary of State for Georgia, is a leading vote suppressor, named in a [NYT opinion piece](Brian Kemp, Enemy of Democracy https://nyti.ms/2Ou8LA5) as an enemy of democracy. As Secretary of State, he is directly in charge of making the rules for who will be allowed to vote for him this fall, a huge conflict of interest.

(Example: a few days after we moved here, my wife attended a march opposing the mistreatment of immigrant children at the border. Volunteers were helping people register to vote, and my wife filled out the form that was offered. She later learned, thanks to an article a friend posted on Facebook, that Kemp has disallowed registrations collected at such events. She checked, and her registration was not accepted; she registered online.)

We want to volunteer this fall to help turn our district, state, and country bluer, and to do whatever we can to undo the damage that Trump and the Republicans have been doing over the past two years. The question is, where will our efforts have the most impact: by supporting the Democratic candidate for the House, Lucy McBath, or for governor, Stacey Abrams. Both are women of color, and if elected, Abrams would be the first black female governor in the U. S.

So where would our support be most effective? We have considered splitting our efforts, one of us working for one, one for the other, but we’d prefer to work together. Assuming that, where do you think we would have the biggest impact?

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You should assist McBath and Abrams as much as you can, but both of those are pretty heavy lifts. I think Abrams has a little better chance of success right now but both are underdogs. Actually, unless polling drastically shifts, it may be worthwhile to support Abrams throughout.

The place where you might actually make a difference is nearby GA-07. Carolyn Bordeaux trails incumbent Rob Woodall there, but it’s Georgia’s most flippable district.

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One more thing, for the OP, and for anyone else who cares…

SwingLeft

4

that site says my district was lost by “only” 13% which I am pretty sure is a not a small margin. Nobody around here thinks the Dems have a shot there.

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That would be a stretch goal if both candidates were new since that’s close to the average swing for recent special elections! But even barring name recognition factors, I assume incumbents in non-special-election have already been vetted by their voters as not being too extreme in either direction and so I’m thinking the actual swing in incumbent districts will be significantly smaller, but what exactly it will be is beyond my vision.

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Over at Ballotpedia, I see that GA-6 is rated as lean Republican by Cook Political Report, and Likely Republican by Inside Elections and Larry Sabato. This might be a wave election, so I say that would be a good use of your time.

As for the Governor’s race, Cook rates it, lean Republican. Huh. Saboto agrees it is lean Republican and Inside Elections says it’s Likely Republican.

So which do you chose? I say a stronger Democratic Majority in the House means that Trump would have to release his tax returns, like every other modern President. A Republican majority means he won’t.

I say work at the national level for this election. Vote Lucy McBath!

Cook political report: https://www.cookpolitical.com/ratings/governor-race-ratings

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Here’s the thing about voter turnout in a very partisan climate; if you manage to get people in your district to turn out for Stacey Abrams, you’ve most likely also secured votes for Lucy McBath, and of course vice versa. And conversely, anybody who is going to vote for Kemp is never going to select McBath over Handel. So the best political use of your time is just getting the lean-Democratic or anti-RWNJ eligible voters to register and keep them motivated to actually vote.

I’m in GA-13, which is safe blue for Rep. David Scott. I’ll be doing what I can to get local folks to turn out for Abrams. I’m confident she’ll carry the county/district, but she’ll need every vote to win the state.

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If I were in your district I would be working to split the Republican vote. I would cherry pick whatever I could from Carlton Heston’s platform that might be appealing to young Republicans. I would represent him as the alternative candidate for Republicans who want to spank the Trump GOP but can never bring themselves to vote Democrat.

I would also tout him in old folk’s homes and retirement communities. Make flyers with his name and quotes on his real estate deflation plans. There are bound to be quite a few elderly people who will vote for him simply on name confusion.

He’s a joke candidate, but we know the GOP demographic is vulnerable to such. The best way to help Abrams and McBath is to bleed off as much GOP support as possible.

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Probably comes from a lifetime of having that name.

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In all seriousness, I couldn’t even find a photo of the guy. The name confusion makes him very difficult to research.

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Here’s his Facebook page.

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Hey, folks. Sorry to bump this if it was at the bottom.

I’m here to clarify a few things - firstly, I’m not a joke candidate. I’m completely serious about everything. The name is actually a nickname - it’s what I’ve been playing under for a few years, and a broader group of people know me by that. Not having a party coffer to reach into, it’s what I’m using - it’s more familiar with people who know me than my birth name is at this point. On the list of eligible write-in candidates, it will appear as Jeremy “Carlton Heston” Stubbs.

Support is welcome, but I’d really prefer that no one deliberately aim to confuse people into thinking I’m a dead guy. I’m also firmly of the belief that my platform is good enough to warrant serious consideration - that said, if anyone wants to “ironically” send me “zany” campaign contributions, you can do so via [deleted a bunch of links by Bone]

Cheers,
~ Carlton

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duplicate - was trying to fix the IMG tag, then realized it was disabled after ending up with this.

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Well, gee, thanks for dropping by! I apologize for the “joke” comment. If you want to be taken seriously though, I would get some real photos out there. The few that exist are over stylized and give a comic-book impression.

I also would advise you to go deeper into your plans behind each of the platform ideals. HOW will you go about getting real estate prices down, for instance. Without at least an outline of your legislative approach, it just reads as a list of complaints.

Glad to know you are taking this seriously, let 'em have it!

Well said, cheers!

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No worries, man! Good advice, too!

My platform outlines the details of how I’ll stop housing inflation, and can be viewed here:
[deleted by Bone]

Basically, by taxing only unimproved land values we’ll discourage speculation. This will make holding land for extended periods essentially unprofitable, and encourage people who are holding to sell. The market price will drop, and with everything else untaxed it will mean that working, trading, and doing productive business will all be encouraged and cheaper - both for lack of taxation on commerce and for lack of private rents.

I hope that link helps clear things up!

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That’s actually a pretty good idea. So if you’re serious, why do I have to go to a site called “pseudonymphet” to find out about it? Do you really expect us to trust you with our tax money when you can’t find a host site we feel safe opening from work?

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Although the “pseudonymphet” point seems trivial, it is rather a good point. If you’re trying to establish a credible brand you’ve got to project an image of competence, solidity and reliability. In the same way I tend to shy away from any business still using Hotmail accounts for their business, a candidate using a strangely-named third-party internet provider will look like a chancer who isn’t really serious about public service. Get yourself a mail server and proper website named after yourself (either name), young man.

Also, it’d be nice if you’d oppose the blatant vote suppression efforts of the Georgia Republican Party. Be the better man. (And while Big Pharma do need serious reining-in, I think advocating “life sentences in maximum security prisons” for Pfizer executives isn’t the most constructive approach and makes you look a bit frivolous. “Investigate, expose and charge” will work better.)

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RE Pseudonymphet - CarltonHeston.com is down.

Not changing the stance on the big opioid dealers - actually, Pfizer might get less if I was wrong about the degree of their involvement. I’ve been thinking about that one, I admit. But Richard Sackler and Purdue are dangerous - their practices were reckless and profitable, and the predictable result was some hundreds of thousands of deaths. With the resources they had and the deliberate campaign they pulled, I can hardly say with any confidence that they were any more unaware of what they were doing than Dahmer or somebody like that would be. It could probably be argued that the things Purdue did took a lot more planning and organization than a typical mass homicide, too. You can’t have people like that running around free, it’s absolutely an imminent risk to public safety.

Wrt GOP and voter suppression - I’m glad you brought that up. I agree with proposals to upgrade machines so that they leave a paper trail, and if paper ballots can be implemented this election (it looks like they can), then they probably should be, given that the security of the machines has been contested for a while now. I’m not sure about the voting place closures, but arguing that a polling place isn’t wheelchair accessible (was that it?) and should therefore be closed entirely seems like nonsense, and if I recall correctly that was the gist of the argument that was presented. I also see partisan (GOP & DNC) over-involvement in electoral policy as a national problem - from gerrymandering and “false positive” voter de-registration to the “winner take all” approach to the electoral college, which has no explicit constitutional basis and undermines voters. As a party-unaffiliated candidate, I don’t really have any reason to support stuff like that.

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Folks, my wife and I have settled on a plan to help Democrats this fall, so may I respectfully suggest that any further discussion of Carlon’s platform be moved to another thread.

Mods, we can close this one.

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I missed these posts when they were written. Typically we do not allow people to campaign for their own selves unless they get previous clearance. If you wish to have a campaign related thread, please PM or email a moderator and we can discuss.

This thread was about a different topic, not your campaign. At the request of the OP, I am closing it and editing the various campaign links throughout.

[/moderating]