Well, I’m certainly not voting for Obama in 2016, I’ll tell you!
There you go RTFirefly with your facts, over-ruling my recollections. Good! I think we agree in both broad and narrow strokes.
Mark Warner is very popular, and an incumbent, but I think he lacks a deep emotional connection with the voters. For that and other reasons he could lose re-election. It seems past time for VA to revert to its right-leaning ways, but that does depend on how both candidates campaign. Right now it seems like Gillespie is the GOP’s answer to McAulliffe - but who asked that question? McAulliffe wasn’t just some rich carpetbagger, he turned out to have had a good strategy, plenty of funding, the incumbent taken off the board, and an opponent who was every bit as bat-shit crazy as his record indicated. Will Gillespie get past the Teahadists to get the nomination? If so, can he win his base but keep enough of Teh Crazee off of him to appeal to the middle? Can Gillespie make a case why Warner should not be Senator, or why he should be? It’s way to early for answers yet, but how Gillespie and the VA GOP behave in the coming months will show whether the GOP - at least in Virginia - is finally trying to win elections.
Gillespie has no shot at Warner. However, winning isn’t everything, as I’ve tried to point out here. What Gillespie can do is test how well he can degrade Warner’s lead by running ads reminding voters that thanks to him, ACA is the law of the land. Right now it’s a 29-point lead for Warner. If that lead falls 10 points over the next couple of weeks, it may not do Gillespie much good, but a lot of Democratic incumbents can’t afford to lose 10 points in the polls like Warner can.
Yes, let’s hope he does exactly that. 
Were Republicans trying to talk Medicare down for years after it was passed? Just curious as to whether our perpetually wrong friend is unique or just trudging down a well-worn GOP path.
They just nominated a VP candidate who wants to gut Medicare by converting it into a voucher system, allowing the insurance companies to milk it while eliminating coverage guarantees, so, yes.
Second, to paraphrase Napolean, don’t interrupt the Republicans when they are making a mistake (and that’s “when,” not “if”). Third, use the tools of the frickin’ Information Age to get the message out. Stop letting ignorant right-wing nutjobs control the narrative.
What’s the problem? I thought demographics made Democratic victory all but inevitable? What’s with this persuasion you’re trying to do, this messaging? I thought Democrats didn’t need to worry about such things anymore?
Oh no… he’s moved on from just talking about the imaginary fantasy caricature liberals in his own head to thinking that they’re here in the forum, and speaking to him!
You noticed that too, huh? :dubious: One wonders why he bothers to post here…
Doom, certain doom. After all, what are demographics but just a bunch of people? Sure, the Dems have women, latinos, blacks, asians, so on and so forth, but have made no headway in the all important grumpy old white men category! Name me one thing Obama has done in regard to youthful yard intrusion and lawn trampling!
Drone strikes?
I think adaher makes a good point that the Democratic demographic and Electoral College advantages are not enough to lock out a good Republican candidate. He rightly points out that Obama’s approval rating is cause for concern for Democratic candidates and that a 2 term president is almost never hands over the office to another member of his party. But historic trends do not trump the realities of the day. The political reality is that today’s GOP has become so extremist that it faces major obstacles to producing a presidential candidate that appeals to the general electorate.
If you’re responding to CaptMurdock, that was his first post in this thread. You’re attributing beliefs to him without any basis.
Believe it or not, the non-adaher posters in this thread don’t constitute a Borg hive mind.
Yeppers.
According to Rasmussen, Warner’s lead is down to 14 - OMG, he’s lost 15 points already in just a week!
On a calmer note, that 29-point lead is from a Roanoke College poll. As I’ve been watching the polls for Virginia over the past couple of years (President and Senator in 2012, Governor in 2013), I’ve noticed that Roanoke College’s poll results tend to be all over the place. I don’t know what they’re doing wrong methodologically, but their survey design is definitely screwy somewhere, somehow. If you look at RCP’s list of polls for the governor’s race last year, Roanoke’s at both extremes, with the only poll favoring Cooch (by 6, even!) and the second most pro-McAuliffe poll, showing him up by 15 in late October.
If you’re looking at Virginia politics, just filter out any Roanoke College polls, and you’ll be better off.
In the Senate race this year, that leaves us a Christopher Newport U. (Randall Munroe’s alma mater :)) poll, which shows Warner with a 20-point lead, and the aforementioned Ras poll.
I wouldn’t have a problem with a good Republican candidate, for any office. But that is someone a lot closer to the center than any of the current crop.
No Pub is going to get any fresh traction by running against the ACA this year, adaher.
Besides which, the Republicans do have a major demographics problem, and if they don’t do anything to address that demographics problem, there will come a time when they really will find it impossible to win.
But note the qualifiers in my statement: First, there will come a time when demographics make Republican wins impossible, but that time has not yet come. And second, this depends on the Republicans not doing anything to address their demographic problems. Now, the current Republican party doesn’t seem to be making any efforts in that direction, but it’s sheerest folly to rely on your opponents to continue to make a mistake. And besides which, we also want to win elections right now, not just in the indeterminate future. So, while Democrats should certainly be happy about the demographic trends, we shouldn’t rely entirely upon them.
Then, the Democrats should start looking color-blind at class demographics as distinct from ethnic demographics.