Hanaguma

The thing is, Trump never had any real loyalty to the GOP. He was a Democratic supporter for years- essential if you do business in New York. So he doesn't care if he causes the party damage. He cares about his personal brand most of all. As I said before, he was a good president but is a terrible former president.

The devil's lettuce? Never touched the stuff. Makes me sick to my stomach just smelling it. Rather have a nice cold beer. Your buddy sounds like a nice guy though. Tell him to get an account here!

It was a cynical and very "Washington" move. Perhaps tactically it worked, but then you can't turn around and claim that the threat to democracy was real. It is playing with fire. What if some of them actually won their elections, and many came close? What then? It is OK to "stir the pot" with some issues and gainsay your opponents, but not this one. Can't have it both ways. Either they are a threat to democracy or they aren't. And if you TRULY believed that they were, you would not take even a 1% chance that they could be elected and spread their message. So much for the Democrats insisting that they hold the moral high ground.

Yet they still supported them against more moderate candidates? What nonsense is that... At best it is craven political calculus. At worse it puts the entire "threat to democracy" argument to rest for good.

Forgot to mention reshaping the Supreme Court, stomping a mudhole in ISIS, and killing terrorists like al Bagdhadi and Soleimani...

Good economy, low inflation, low unemployment, Middle East peace, prison sentencing reform, low gas prices...

Agreed. Trump strikes me as the 100% counterpart to Jimmy Carter. Carter was a failure as a president, but has had a great life as a former president. Trump is the opposite. A good presidency followed up by a disastrous post-presidential time.

About Arizona in particular I think the former governor, Ducey, would have been a far better choice in the run for the senate seat. But he didn't want to go through the hassle and spectacle of getting "pre vetted" by Trump. He had his pride as a successful governor and I respect that. As for governor, as I said before Lake's mistake was in not creating enough of a brand for herself. That, and as others have said, foolishly running down the McCains, cost her support. Even so, it was a tight race, decided by what, 1%?

Newsweek disagrees. "This choice by the DCCC to put a huge amount of money into supporting far-right candidates who support the conspiracy theories about a fraudulent election, is another egregious attack on people's trust in our government," Carolyn Lukensmeyer, the founding executive director of the National Institute for Civil Discourse, told Newsweek. https://www.newsweek.com/democrats-spent-43-million-helping-election-deniers-win-their-primaries-1731068 The Democrats spent tens of millions of dollars trying to get MAGA extreme candidates on the ballot at the expense of less extreme ones.

I agree it would be an idiotic thing to do. They need to do a few things; a/ clear out the dead wood at the top (McConnell and McCarthy especially) b/ break free of the Trump hold c/ propose legislation that actually addresses the issues of inflation and national debt. d/ rely on their bench of relatively young and scandal free people to get the message out.

Absolutely. AND the Democrats need to own that they were lying when they cried wolf about "the threat to Our Democracy" and then tried to get candidates who they claimed WERE "threats to Our Democracy" on the ballot in numerous states. Can't have it both ways.

They are bad for doing it IF they deliberately back candidates who you ALSO claim are direct threats to the country. It is the height of hypicrisy to pretend to be scared of election denyers and also support them. See CNN on this; Democrats have expressly said that the 2020 election and its aftermath are about more than hardball politics. Those events threatened the fabric of our democracy and the people who pushed them need to be punished. Playing politics – as Democrats are doing – elevates these false views about both the election and January 6 whether or not the Republican nominees spouting those opinions wind up winning. You can’t have it both ways. Either the lies about the election – and those who propagate them – are an active danger to our democracy or they’re not. https://edition.cnn.com/2022/07/26/politics/peter-meijer-dccc-january-6/index.html

Not at all. But they DID encourage it and did so at the risk of "dangerous" candidates winning the GOP primaries. It was part of an effort to keep more mainstream but stronger GOP hopefuls out of various races.

Arizona Democrats, who boosted Lake during her primary, had hoped that her refusal to moderate her stances, which include declaring an invasion at the southern border and to enforce new abortion bans following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in June, would help Hobbs court independent voters. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-election/democrat-katie-hobbs-defeats-maga-favorite-kari-lake-high-stakes-race-rcna55172 The state (Democratic) party, in an email blast this week, thanked her opponent, Karrin Taylor Robson, for past donations she made to Democratic candidates. The move was quickly interpreted as another example of Democrats’ meddling in midterm election primaries to help draw the general election opponent believed to offer the easier matchup in November — in this case Lake, an election denier endorsed by former President Donald Trump. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-election/trump-backed-kari-lake-gets-hand-unlikely-source-arizona-democrats-rcna38084 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-election/democrats-test-midterm-strategy-meddling-gop-governors-races-rcna28023

Also interesting is that Lake was one of the supposedly "dangerous" people who were endorsed by the Democratic Party in the primaries. This was a very crass strategy that unfortunately paid off in the election. On the one hand, "democracy is on the ballot" proclaimed every Democratic candidate". On the other, their party was actively trying to get enemies of democracy and election deniers through GOP primaries. Kind of tells you where the reality of the issue lies.

This one was a shocker. Hobbs has all the personal charm of a potato. I think it shows the extent of the taint that being too closely aligned with the Trump brand influenced voting. Lake is clearly the better speaker and more charismatic, but she erred in not clearly distancing herself and developing her own brand.

But how does early voting equate to slow counting afterwards? It has been 5 days and parts of California are barely over 55% counted. Yet Florida somehow was able to get finished within 12 hours. Canda has advance polls from 10 to 7 days before the actual voting day, provided you have ID and proof of address. Mail in voting is also allowed if you apply for it. And the votes are counted on election night. Seems like more than enough opportunities to me. Seeing the voting process get drawn out longer and longer with each election does nothing but fuel the fire of people who claim election fraud.

To be honest, I agree. I was just taking the...urine... on people who spent years following the 2016 election crowing about how Hillary "won the popular vote", several of them posters on this good forum. What matters now are the final few congressional districts- what the hell is taking so long? I don't remember elections being so agonizingly drawn out back in the days of my youth.

Perhaps this isn't the right venue, but the Democrats would do well to remember that the GOP actually DID win the popular vote in the mid-terms by some 6 million votes. They don't have any kind of mandate. Just dodged a bullet really, due to a very rare and lucky combination of circumstances.

I was a big Trump fan when he was President. Good economy, Middle East peace accords, genuine action on criminal justice reform, tightening up border security. Afterwards........... it got tiring. The problem is , he just can't admit defeat. Talk to anyone who knows him and Trump's worst epithet is "loser". He has a New Yorker's braggadocio and inherent need to BS. So now, he just needs to go away. OR be quietly 'retired' by the GOP. A fresh infusion of new faces and new plans are both needed. Kemp and DeSantis showed the way, but as governors they could focus on states issues. Some of the GOP congressional members need to nut up and take action, and soon.

Well, the Court has swung right and will be that way for the next 10-20 years at least. The problem in the election was that, as usual, too many GOP candidates tried free-lancing their answers about abortion rather than staying on message. "The Supreme Court has made its decision, it is now up to the states to decide. I won't interfere in that process" was all they needed to say. Too many state legislatures jumped the gun and started crafting unrealistic bills as well. I don't really blame pro choice people for feeling uneasy about it.

True, IF Biden can do anything "at a record pace" other than dashing off for weekends at the beach... for better or worse, probably the biggest legacy of the Trump presidency is shifting the balance of the Supreme Court from left to right for some decades to come.

Actually the polling confirmed that those issues were important, but people didn't vote on them. On that I was wrong. Seems that the difference this time around was independent voters. Traditionally they lean towards the party OUT of power- the Democrats in 2018, the GOP in 2014, etc by a substantial margin. This time around their vote was basically split 50/50. As to why that anomaly happened, I can only think of the ever looming Bad Orange Man and his shadow.

I can't disagree with that. Too many distractions were happening and a bit of overconfidence. When Trump was media silent, the polls went up. When he started musing about running in 2024, things went back down. The GOP are also bad at message discipline. On abortion, they just had to say, "it is up to the individual states and I will respect their decisions". But that was a bridge too far for some.

Oh, I agree, hence my "Kiss the Ring" comment. Of the major Trump choices, only perhaps Kari Lake will win. And only because she has serious chops in communication and media (in spite of what you may think of her political positions) and her opponent has the personality of a potato.