2. Cruder gloating from Kellyanne Conway: "Laughing my #Ossoff." "Thanks to everyone who breathlessly and snarkily proclaimed #GA06 as a "referendum on POTUS @realDonaldTrump"/You were right/#winning."
3. A WaPo column (by Paul Kane) rationalizes: "Ossoff chose civility and it didn’t work": "So Ossoff chose the high priest route instead of the fierce warrior. It was civil disobedience rather than civil unrest. And he still lost, by an even wider margin than the almost forgotten Parnell."
4. A Daily Beast columnist (Patricia Murphy): "Jon Ossoff's $23 Million Loss Shows Dems Have No Idea How to Win in the Age of Trump."
5. Another WaPo column (by Aaron Blake): The Democrats "had nine weeks after the primary to get from 49 percent of the vote that day to 50 percent-plus-one on Tuesday, and they didn't do it. For a party still smarting from somehow losing a 2016 presidential race that was well within their grasp, they have to feel the need to do some soul-searching and figure out why their strategies aren't resulting in actual wins. Commence bloodletting."
6. Matt Yglesias at Vox: "Jon Ossoff’s Georgia special election loss shows Democrats could use a substantive agenda."
Karen Handel didn’t argue that the Republican Party’s health care bill is a good idea (it’s very unpopular) or that tax cuts for millionaires should be the country’s top economic priority (another policy that polls dismally). Instead, her campaign and its allies buried Ossoff under a pile of what basically amounts to nonsense — stuff about Kathy Griffin, stuff about Samuel L. Jackson, stuff about his home being just over the district line, stuff about him having raised money from out of state — lumped together under the broad heading that he’s an “outsider.”...7. Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin in the NYT: "Democrats Seethe After Georgia Loss: ‘Our Brand Is Worse Than Trump.'"
Ossoff’s team... attempted to counter this move by positioning Ossoff as blandly as possible — just a kind of nice guy who doesn’t like Donald Trump — and dissociating him from any hard-edged ideas or themes....
[A] half-dozen Democratic elected officials and operatives privately vented in text messages and phone calls about a dispiriting trend emerging in this year’s special elections: When their candidates appear to gain traction in the polls, Republicans can easily halt the momentum by invoking Ms. Pelosi....
[P]opulist forces on the left took Mr. Ossoff’s defeat as an occasion to criticize the whole notion of centrism as a Democratic strategy. Jim Dean, the chairman of Democracy for America, a liberal activist group, blasted Mr. Ossoff overnight for “lighting millions of dollars on fire” and delivering an “uninspiring message” that he predicted would fail again in 2018. “The same, tired centrist Democratic playbook that has come up short cycle after cycle will not suffice,” Mr. Dean said in a statement.
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216 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 216 of 216The most remarkable factoid of the special election is that all Ossoff's money and volunteers and ads and phone calls raised his % of the vote from 48.1 to 48.1.
Of course, more people showed up in the runoff, and the campaigns may have changed some minds, but still: these elections are mostly numbers games. Money and candidate and "substance" are irrelevant for the Dems: they just need to find a way to import more of the right people into that district-- more northern liberals, more minorities.
Apparently Greg Palast has a reputation for shoddy reporting. During Bush II he thought he had evidence of vote suppression among black soldiers serving in Iraq.
Someone looked at his evidence and called bullshit. Irony alert: It was a Daily Kos reader.
I thought this was "revealing":
. Matt Yglesias at Vox: "Jon Ossoff’s Georgia special election loss shows Democrats could use a substantive agenda."
Karen Handel didn’t argue that the Republican Party’s health care bill is a good idea (it’s very unpopular) or that tax cuts for millionaires should be the country’s top economic priority (another policy that polls dismally). Instead, her campaign and its allies buried Ossoff under a pile of what basically amounts to nonsense — stuff about Kathy Griffin, stuff about Samuel L. Jackson, stuff about his home being just over the district line, stuff about him having raised money from out of state — lumped together under the broad heading that he’s an “outsider.”...
Ossoff’s team... attempted to counter this move by positioning Ossoff as blandly as possible — just a kind of nice guy who doesn’t like Donald Trump — and dissociating him from any hard-edged ideas or themes....
Shorter version, Handel told [sometimes] unrelated facts whereas Ossoff pretended to be a centralist. There is the reason she won and he lost right there and Matt believes Ossoff wasn't nasty enough and should let he's lefty freak flag fly.
Yes, please follow Matt's advice!
Unknown, we were assured that the special election was a referendum on Trump.
Let me fix that passive voice for you: Democrats said the special election was a referendum on Trump as a way of getting their donors to give money.
The idiotic Unknown wrote: Go and crow as much as you want but it doesn't change the ground truth.
Correct. And the truths are:
1) Donald J. Trump is the President of the United States
2) He will be re-elected in 2020
3) The Democrats have staked their future on an absurd fantasy concocted by Hillary Clinton in between bouts of white-knuckled consumption of toxic amounts of vodka.
4) The GOP controls the White House, both Houses of Congress, most of the governorships, and most of the state legislatures.
5) Conservatives control the Supreme Court by 5 to 4. When RBG croaks, which could happen today, the margin will be 6 to 3. Stephen Bryer ain't lookin' too good, either.
6) If Unknown and Abby Someone (aka Inga) are typical Democrats the GOP will rule forever.
I think Ossoff has a great future. All he has to do is move to Marin County CA and run for County Supervisor. He already has 100% name recognition and donor lists.
That's how Barbara Boxer got her start. He could take his girlfriend, even, once she finishes medical school.
Much better fit in CA than GA.,
Another aspect of this loss is the voter suppression from the Republicans.
Complaining about roesch/voltaire bullshit is like J.J. Gittes complain about corruption in Chinatown.
Robert Cook says: "Americans want what Dems promise..." Really? Do you have any proof of that? If so, why didn't Hillary win? Why haven't they won any of the post-2016 elections? I have only a handful of crazy left-wing family members and friends that want what the Dems promise. I, and most of the people I have known over the years, have no desire whatsoever to live in a totalitarian socialist utopia, which is what the Dems are promising.
Let me fix that passive voice for you: Democrats said the special election was a referendum on Trump as a way of getting their donors to give money.
Sorry, since I believe almost nothing of what you guys say, I take you at your word on everything for the sake of argument. But if you say they were lying to fellow Democrats to raise money, I will take your word on that too!
Lying on he ground, not laying. Other than that your remarks are generally very good.
To expand on my previous comment (and risk belaboring the obvious): By touting this election as a referendum on Trump, the Dems and their media mouthpieces turned what would've been a ho-hum headline-- the GOP win in a district where they always win-- into a victory for Trump. Hubris, vanity, whatever, caused them to pick a fight with Trump that they stood a good chance of losing. The headline people see today is "Trump wins, Dems-- and the media-- lose." The ridicule they are getting they brought on themselves.
And as for whether they are gaining ground in GA, I certainly wouldn't bet on it. They put all they had into this election, hyped it up and still lost by a substantial margin.
After Ossoff... After Scalise. It may have been an assassination bump.
Revitalization. Rehabilitation. Reconciliation.
Time, and separation of Press and State, will tell.
Night Owl, the district was tweaked to be less R, as I understand it. Simple as that.
Please! Keep that thought. Centrism, moderation, all that silly old fashioned stuff won't win elections. If the Dems want to win they have to go even harder left. Poppa Umma Mao Mao. Momma Umma Mao Mao. Bring on the Cultural Revolution. They can't go left enough. Dump Pelosi. See if they can raise Lenin from the dead.
Maybe if they had an actual agenda to pump up the economy or make life in the ghettos better someone would pay attention. They're so hysterical they can't even see how crazy they've become. Keep it up. It's working.
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