There's nothing wrong with endorsing obvious winners. It doesn't change the fact that, in the tough races that really mattered, Trump's candidates mostly flopped. The easy wins are like yardage in a ball game, a comfort to the faithful and little more than that. Calling it an overall win for Trump? That's the kind of wishful thinking that obscures the real problem.
U.S Senate races
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Last: 1 yr ago by Osodecentx
Sam Lowry said:
There's nothing wrong with endorsing obvious winners. It doesn't change the fact that, in the tough races that really mattered, Trump's candidates mostly flopped. The easy wins are like yardage in a ball game, a comfort to the faithful and little more than that. Calling it an overall win for Trump? That's the kind of wishful thinking that obscures the real problem.
The real problem is that Trump is straight up poison to 100% of democrats and about 30% of Republicans. You cannot win like that.
The losers are Trump's. The real problem is Independents. The base turned out and rejected Trump candidates.whiterock said:Yet again we see the neverTrumper rule change to fit their needs. Trump was/is running for president, in what will be a billion dollar campaign. ALL candidates do what he did....raise money during campaign season. How much money did DeSantis donate? How much money was donated by Pence, or Pompeo, or Haley, etc....? How many candidates preparing to run for office have given away substantial portions of their campaign funds to support other candidates? (not many). That he gave away millions should be to his credit, not his deficit. The idea that it was his responsibility to fund GOP candidates in 9 hotly contested Senate races and an equal number of Gov races is amusingly preposterous.Osodecentx said:Trump wants your money. You sent him $100 million and he spent less than 10 on his candidates.whiterock said:Does that really stand the reason? Does the man not benefit from a robust GOP? Is he not harmed by a divided, weakened GOP? Has he not powerful incentive to heal and build the party stronger? Yeah, he took some shots at McConnell. Justified. McConnell is the bigger part of the failure to take the Senate, yet blamed others. But note that Trump supported McCarthy for speaker last week, stifling some of the more vocal Maga-heads to avoid a forlorn hope challenge that would only have divided a narrow majority. Trump can and does "play ball."RMF5630 said:This is what scares me the most. The "Nero Effect", Trump will fiddle as the GOP burns.Mothra said:Yup. If this board is any indication, the Never Trumpers would rather see the house burn to the ground than cast a vote for pragmatism and the lesser of the evils.whiterock said:MAGA 25-35% of the GOP base, and has always been around.Mothra said:A few things...J.R. said:I disagree on the old school republicans (which I basically am) and commonality with MAGA. Us, old school republicans have ZERO in common with the MAGA crazies!Mothra said:
Oldbear83There are two ways to guarantee we lose the White House in 2024:
1. Bank everything on supporting Trump
2. Alienate Trump supporters with endless attacks on Trump
Exactly right. I've been saying it for years, but the party can be a bigger tent. The old school Repubs and neocons have much more in common with MAGA than they do with the Dems, and there is room for populism and pugilism in the party. As much as they despise Trump, he has expanded the base, brought in conservative blue collar workers, and a Hispanic element to the voting block that really didn't exist before. If the MAGAs and Trump sycophants could let go of their absurd devotion to Trump, and embrace DeSantis, that is someone we could all get behind.
The Dems have absolutely nothing to offer the American people. They've gone completely woke to the point of absurdity. They have alienated moderates and blue dog democrats with their policies. They have literally done nothing right for the last year and a half. Every policy has been a disaster. There is no reason the next election should not be ripe for the taking, if they choose the right candidate (not Trump).I
You have advised us that you are socially liberal. That is not an old school Republican. Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, etc. - none were socially liberal.
You are wrong that MAGA has nothing in common with Republicans. Regardless of what you think about MAGA, fiscally you share much more in common with MAGA than today's Democrat party. They also share a lot more in common with old school Republicans (not you) on social policy.
JR is just embarrassed to have to caucus with them.
Democrats tend to be able to put such vanities aside and work together. But moderate Republicans? Ironically, they can be some of the least pragmatic people on the planet, when it comes to compromising within their own team.
Conservatives can be a strange lot.
Just to recap, Trump recruits 5 losing candidates for the US Senate and that's McConnell;ll's fault? McConnell raises and spends more than $250 million trying to drag the Dear Leader's recruits across the finish line & and they were bad candidates, but that is McConn ell's fault?
When do you take ownership? (I know Trump won't, but you'll believe him until he loses in 2024)
Same for history. He did not "recruit" any candidates." He did what any responsible leader should do - let primaries run for a bit until it was clear which candidate appeared to be the strongest, and then he endorsed to clear the field. (Just as he did with DeSantis and others. Just as Obama did with Biden). He in fact received at that time some criticism for jumping in front of the band....waiting to pick obvious winners rather than a more principled approach. (again, the ever-so convenient neverTrumper double standard....) The overall record of Turmp's endorsements is highly impressive - and include many now being proposed as better alternatives, to include DeSantis and Youngkin. But rather than drone on, I'l quote Spectator, who summed up the duplicity of the neverTrumper narrative quite nicely:
"The official narrative of the election is meant to drive the right to suicide. Democrats, NeverTrump ex-Republicans, and critics of the populist right who remain in the GOP have all blamed Trump voters for the party's failure to take the Senate and claim a commanding margin in the House. Donald Trump himself was not on the ballot, but he made endorsements, and voters who followed those endorsements chose weak candidates, the story goes.
The anti-right narrative is a remarkable thing: when a candidate Trump supported lost, like Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, it was Trump's fault; when a candidate Trump opposed lost, like Joe O'Dea in Colorado, it was Trump's fault. When a candidate Trump supported won, such as J.D. Vance in Ohio, pundits discounted the victory; when a candidate Trump opposed won, such as Brian Kemp in Georgia, the same pundits found it enormously significant. Ron DeSantis's nearly 20-point margin of victory in Florida, a big win for the right, was mostly hyped as a defeat for Trump, even though Florida is Trump's home base." (and to that I would add, even though DeSantis was EXACTLY the kind of candidate Trump is now being criticized for endorsing.)
We have to fix the problems. The REAL problems. Official RNC narrative is, as sombear has noted, "we hit all our metrics." If so, and we lost, doesn't that indicate a flawed plan by the RNC? If we accept the narrative that Trump alone is responsible for last Tuesday, in the face of a mountain of evidence to the contrary, then the real problems slumber on into 2024 to encumber whoever the nominee might be. So, again, we see that one of the bigger parts of the "problem" are the neverTrumpers, who will scorch their own underwear to destroy the object of their rage, engaging in precisely the kind of behavior they claim renders others unfit, while the party drifts further and further behind Democrat GOTV efforts under newer/looser election laws. The Democrats got a slobbering imbecilic Bernie-bro elected in PA, while we failed to get Paul Laxalt, a former statewide elected offiicial in NV who is the son of TWO former GOP Senators and grandson of another GOP Senator who was the best friend of one Ronald Wilson Reagan. And we have people telling us Trump is responsible.
Such is beyond unserious.
Now you want to double down on a losing strategy that failed in 18, 20,21, & 22.
Such a convenient scapegoat you have there ...nein51 said:
As long as Trump is around the Republicans are in trouble. It's really that simple.
That which does not kill me, will try again and get nastier
Geez, you are unhinged.Osodecentx said:Trump wants your money. You sent him $100 million and he spent less than 10 on his candidates.whiterock said:Does that really stand the reason? Does the man not benefit from a robust GOP? Is he not harmed by a divided, weakened GOP? Has he not powerful incentive to heal and build the party stronger? Yeah, he took some shots at McConnell. Justified. McConnell is the bigger part of the failure to take the Senate, yet blamed others. But note that Trump supported McCarthy for speaker last week, stifling some of the more vocal Maga-heads to avoid a forlorn hope challenge that would only have divided a narrow majority. Trump can and does "play ball."RMF5630 said:This is what scares me the most. The "Nero Effect", Trump will fiddle as the GOP burns.Mothra said:Yup. If this board is any indication, the Never Trumpers would rather see the house burn to the ground than cast a vote for pragmatism and the lesser of the evils.whiterock said:MAGA 25-35% of the GOP base, and has always been around.Mothra said:A few things...J.R. said:I disagree on the old school republicans (which I basically am) and commonality with MAGA. Us, old school republicans have ZERO in common with the MAGA crazies!Mothra said:Exactly right. I've been saying it for years, but the party can be a bigger tent. The old school Repubs and neocons have much more in common with MAGA than they do with the Dems, and there is room for populism and pugilism in the party. As much as they despise Trump, he has expanded the base, brought in conservative blue collar workers, and a Hispanic element to the voting block that really didn't exist before. If the MAGAs and Trump sycophants could let go of their absurd devotion to Trump, and embrace DeSantis, that is someone we could all get behind.Oldbear83 said:
There are two ways to guarantee we lose the White House in 2024:
1. Bank everything on supporting Trump
2. Alienate Trump supporters with endless attacks on Trump
The Dems have absolutely nothing to offer the American people. They've gone completely woke to the point of absurdity. They have alienated moderates and blue dog democrats with their policies. They have literally done nothing right for the last year and a half. Every policy has been a disaster. There is no reason the next election should not be ripe for the taking, if they choose the right candidate (not Trump).I
You have advised us that you are socially liberal. That is not an old school Republican. Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, etc. - none were socially liberal.
You are wrong that MAGA has nothing in common with Republicans. Regardless of what you think about MAGA, fiscally you share much more in common with MAGA than today's Democrat party. They also share a lot more in common with old school Republicans (not you) on social policy.
JR is just embarrassed to have to caucus with them.
Democrats tend to be able to put such vanities aside and work together. But moderate Republicans? Ironically, they can be some of the least pragmatic people on the planet, when it comes to compromising within their own team.
Conservatives can be a strange lot.
Just to recap, Trump recruits 5 losing candidates for the US Senate and that's McConnell;ll's fault? McConnell raises and spends more than $250 million trying to drag the Dear Leader's recruits across the finish line & and they were bad candidates, but that is McConn ell's fault?
When do you take ownership? (I know Trump won't, but you'll believe him until he loses in 2024)
I didn't send any money to Trump. I gave to local, state, and congressional candidates in 2020.
Last I heard, candidates running for office (which Trump has been doing since 2020) raise money. And from that money he's raised, he has given away $10m (slightly over 10% of his cash on hand at the moment) to other candidates. Has any other GOP contender done that? How much money did DeSantis donate to any of those Senate candidates? He had his race well in-hand. a 20-pt margin. He could have spared a million or two somewhere. Did he do it? No...he went out on the campaign trail for them, though. Normally, when someone touches a turd, we apply some accountability. Anybody criticizing DeSantis for not making a difference in any of those states he campaigned with losing candidates? (of course not). What Trump did was pretty magnanimous. But, you know, for a neverTrumper it's always about Trump. (It's a fetish, really...)
McConnell made several mis-steps, not the least of which was publicly criticizing candidate quality, which kneecapped ALL of them in fundraising. Almost equally egregious was spending $12m+ in Alaska to protect a seat not at risk to Democrats. What would $12m have done in GA? in AZ? in NV? in NH? Third, he did not have response for a fantastic Democrat GOTV effort. And...(need I go on?) Mich crapped his pants and is tossing bombs at Trump to distract. But, for you, it's 100% Trump. (It's a fetish, really....)
https://thefederalist.com/2022/09/28/mcconnell-dumps-another-million-into-alaska-to-save-murkowski-after-ditching-arizonas-blake-masters/
If we continue the onanism on fetishes, we will not fix the real problems.
And there are many which have little or nothing to do with Trump.
Ahhh. but what principles?Married A Horn said:
Principles over party? The other side certainly cant say that.
Harrison Bergeron said:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/warnock-ex-wife-asks-court-compel-pastor-child-custody-questioning
Warnock really seems like a stand-up guy ...
1. Sexual abuse allegations at a kids camp
2. Evicting poor African Americans
3. Tries to kill his wife
4. Refuses child support
But it's okay to mock a black man's intelligence and speech if he's a Republican.
Democrats have it easy, don't they. Such great candidates. Easy to get elected.
Odd that they never criticize their own bad candidates, isn't it?
FIFYnein51 said:Sam Lowry said:
There's nothing wrong with endorsing obvious winners. It doesn't change the fact that, in the tough races that really mattered, Trump's candidates mostly flopped. The easy wins are like yardage in a ball game, a comfort to the faithful and little more than that. Calling it an overall win for Trump? That's the kind of wishful thinking that obscures the real problem.
The real problem is that Trump is straight up poison to 100% of democrats and about30%5% of Republicans. You cannot win like that.
whiterock said:FIFYnein51 said:Sam Lowry said:
There's nothing wrong with endorsing obvious winners. It doesn't change the fact that, in the tough races that really mattered, Trump's candidates mostly flopped. The easy wins are like yardage in a ball game, a comfort to the faithful and little more than that. Calling it an overall win for Trump? That's the kind of wishful thinking that obscures the real problem.
The real problem is that Trump is straight up poison to 100% of democrats and about30%5% of Republicans. You cannot win like that.
Except you're wrong. If it was only 5% he would be president right now.
Oldbear83 said:Such a convenient scapegoat you have there ...nein51 said:
As long as Trump is around the Republicans are in trouble. It's really that simple.
Scapegoat for what? I voted for him twice. He has a rabid base of voters, I'm not one of those. One could argue it's a near cult like base.
However, I'm right, as long as he is around it's trouble. He might be the most divisive politician in the history of the country. The guy could cure cancer, wipe out the budget deficit and single handedly defeat China and 100% of Democrats would vote against him.
There you go again, making stuff up.Osodecentx said:The losers are Trump's. The real problem is Independents. The base turned out and rejected Trump candidates.whiterock said:Yet again we see the neverTrumper rule change to fit their needs. Trump was/is running for president, in what will be a billion dollar campaign. ALL candidates do what he did....raise money during campaign season. How much money did DeSantis donate? How much money was donated by Pence, or Pompeo, or Haley, etc....? How many candidates preparing to run for office have given away substantial portions of their campaign funds to support other candidates? (not many). That he gave away millions should be to his credit, not his deficit. The idea that it was his responsibility to fund GOP candidates in 9 hotly contested Senate races and an equal number of Gov races is amusingly preposterous.Osodecentx said:Trump wants your money. You sent him $100 million and he spent less than 10 on his candidates.whiterock said:Does that really stand the reason? Does the man not benefit from a robust GOP? Is he not harmed by a divided, weakened GOP? Has he not powerful incentive to heal and build the party stronger? Yeah, he took some shots at McConnell. Justified. McConnell is the bigger part of the failure to take the Senate, yet blamed others. But note that Trump supported McCarthy for speaker last week, stifling some of the more vocal Maga-heads to avoid a forlorn hope challenge that would only have divided a narrow majority. Trump can and does "play ball."RMF5630 said:This is what scares me the most. The "Nero Effect", Trump will fiddle as the GOP burns.Mothra said:Yup. If this board is any indication, the Never Trumpers would rather see the house burn to the ground than cast a vote for pragmatism and the lesser of the evils.whiterock said:MAGA 25-35% of the GOP base, and has always been around.Mothra said:A few things...J.R. said:I disagree on the old school republicans (which I basically am) and commonality with MAGA. Us, old school republicans have ZERO in common with the MAGA crazies!Mothra said:
Oldbear83There are two ways to guarantee we lose the White House in 2024:
1. Bank everything on supporting Trump
2. Alienate Trump supporters with endless attacks on Trump
Exactly right. I've been saying it for years, but the party can be a bigger tent. The old school Repubs and neocons have much more in common with MAGA than they do with the Dems, and there is room for populism and pugilism in the party. As much as they despise Trump, he has expanded the base, brought in conservative blue collar workers, and a Hispanic element to the voting block that really didn't exist before. If the MAGAs and Trump sycophants could let go of their absurd devotion to Trump, and embrace DeSantis, that is someone we could all get behind.
The Dems have absolutely nothing to offer the American people. They've gone completely woke to the point of absurdity. They have alienated moderates and blue dog democrats with their policies. They have literally done nothing right for the last year and a half. Every policy has been a disaster. There is no reason the next election should not be ripe for the taking, if they choose the right candidate (not Trump).I
You have advised us that you are socially liberal. That is not an old school Republican. Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, etc. - none were socially liberal.
You are wrong that MAGA has nothing in common with Republicans. Regardless of what you think about MAGA, fiscally you share much more in common with MAGA than today's Democrat party. They also share a lot more in common with old school Republicans (not you) on social policy.
JR is just embarrassed to have to caucus with them.
Democrats tend to be able to put such vanities aside and work together. But moderate Republicans? Ironically, they can be some of the least pragmatic people on the planet, when it comes to compromising within their own team.
Conservatives can be a strange lot.
Just to recap, Trump recruits 5 losing candidates for the US Senate and that's McConnell;ll's fault? McConnell raises and spends more than $250 million trying to drag the Dear Leader's recruits across the finish line & and they were bad candidates, but that is McConn ell's fault?
When do you take ownership? (I know Trump won't, but you'll believe him until he loses in 2024)
Same for history. He did not "recruit" any candidates." He did what any responsible leader should do - let primaries run for a bit until it was clear which candidate appeared to be the strongest, and then he endorsed to clear the field. (Just as he did with DeSantis and others. Just as Obama did with Biden). He in fact received at that time some criticism for jumping in front of the band....waiting to pick obvious winners rather than a more principled approach. (again, the ever-so convenient neverTrumper double standard....) The overall record of Turmp's endorsements is highly impressive - and include many now being proposed as better alternatives, to include DeSantis and Youngkin. But rather than drone on, I'l quote Spectator, who summed up the duplicity of the neverTrumper narrative quite nicely:
"The official narrative of the election is meant to drive the right to suicide. Democrats, NeverTrump ex-Republicans, and critics of the populist right who remain in the GOP have all blamed Trump voters for the party's failure to take the Senate and claim a commanding margin in the House. Donald Trump himself was not on the ballot, but he made endorsements, and voters who followed those endorsements chose weak candidates, the story goes.
The anti-right narrative is a remarkable thing: when a candidate Trump supported lost, like Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, it was Trump's fault; when a candidate Trump opposed lost, like Joe O'Dea in Colorado, it was Trump's fault. When a candidate Trump supported won, such as J.D. Vance in Ohio, pundits discounted the victory; when a candidate Trump opposed won, such as Brian Kemp in Georgia, the same pundits found it enormously significant. Ron DeSantis's nearly 20-point margin of victory in Florida, a big win for the right, was mostly hyped as a defeat for Trump, even though Florida is Trump's home base." (and to that I would add, even though DeSantis was EXACTLY the kind of candidate Trump is now being criticized for endorsing.)
We have to fix the problems. The REAL problems. Official RNC narrative is, as sombear has noted, "we hit all our metrics." If so, and we lost, doesn't that indicate a flawed plan by the RNC? If we accept the narrative that Trump alone is responsible for last Tuesday, in the face of a mountain of evidence to the contrary, then the real problems slumber on into 2024 to encumber whoever the nominee might be. So, again, we see that one of the bigger parts of the "problem" are the neverTrumpers, who will scorch their own underwear to destroy the object of their rage, engaging in precisely the kind of behavior they claim renders others unfit, while the party drifts further and further behind Democrat GOTV efforts under newer/looser election laws. The Democrats got a slobbering imbecilic Bernie-bro elected in PA, while we failed to get Paul Laxalt, a former statewide elected offiicial in NV who is the son of TWO former GOP Senators and grandson of another GOP Senator who was the best friend of one Ronald Wilson Reagan. And we have people telling us Trump is responsible.
Such is beyond unserious.
Now you want to double down on a losing strategy that failed in 18, 20,21, & 22.
All polling showed independents supporting GOP by wide margins, some by over 20% points.
Yet, we hear ON ELECTION DAY, the independents who voted broke Blue by substantial margins.
How do we reconcile that?
I have mentioned the answer here several times, mostly in conversations with you. It's about turnout. It's about that part in bold. Doesn't matter what a large demographic polls if they don't actually vote. (and the problem with independents is that their turnout is not reliable. You have to inspire them to show up at all.) There is a set generically called "independents." Inside that set are three subsets:
1) independents who can be persuaded to vote red
2) independents who can be persuaded to vote blue
3) independents who will not vote.
Polling showed that the overall set was leaning red by huge margins. Election data showed that a larger percentage of subset 3 than anticipated simply did not vote, and that those who did voted BLUE. In other words, DEMS got the turnout they needed. Republicans did not. The GOP leaners did not turnout big and the GOP base turnout was not sufficient to overcome the micro-targeting and ballot harvesting operation Dems used to get THEIR voters to vote in key races. Most people get it wrong about independents - they are not one large monolithic constituency. They are an amorphous blob than can be shaped into various forms by messaging on various issues, and they tend to get turned off by negative campaigning and just sit it out at much higher rates than partisan bases. Dems got their parts of the blob to show up. We didn't.
The two big factors?
Dems are light years ahead of us in ballot harvesting. They are registering people to vote in 2024 TODAY. They will be talking to those people for months. Then mailing out ballots all over the country the moment they are available. Then they will be calling people to confirm they received their ballot (and mail them another one if they didn't). Then, they will be nagging them to fill out the ballot. Then, they will if necessary even come pick up the ballot and carry it to the polling box. As the ballots start coming in a month or more out from election day, they start marking off their voters....they know to the day, if not hour, who has voted. That allows them to focus their resources ever more specifically on the outstanding ballot holders, and tailor their messaging to motivate them to get that ballot in. They reached into subset 3 and pulled out the ballots they needed to save 4 Senate seats and over a dozen House seats they should have lost.
GOP has nothing to compete with that.
Not an inadequate version.
They have a big, gaping void.
Ballot harvesting makes it much much easier to turnout your base, and to reach into the blob and pull out very high rates of your voters.
I will be supporting the GOP candidate who pledges to build an even better version of what Dems have. We are not going to win any more elections in purple or blue states until we do. I have inquiries out to see what DeSantis has. I'd be stunned, given his margin of victory, if he doesn't. Ned Ryun (serious dude) will be meeting with Trump on that same subject, too. Will see.
New dawn is upon us. It's not about voters anymore. It's about ballots. I suspect that what we get what we need built in time for 2024. And while that hard work happens, I'm quite sure you'll still be blaming Trump for everything right down to your ingrown toenail.
Does not stand close inspection.Sam Lowry said:
There's nothing wrong with endorsing obvious winners. It doesn't change the fact that, in the tough races that really mattered, Trump's candidates mostly flopped. The easy wins are like yardage in a ball game, a comfort to the faithful and little more than that. Calling it an overall win for Trump? That's the kind of wishful thinking that obscures the real problem.
They flopped for sure in blue states like WA and NH. But they are blue states, right? Haven't other candidates flopped there, too? Been blue for a while now, right?
And Joe O'Dea, who was an anti-Trumper running in the middle, he flopped in a blue state, right?
tIs PA a purple state? Or a blue state? Is OZ really a MAGA candidate? Truth is, he had a well-documented problem in PA with solidifying his base. And as a candidate was he really SOOOO inferior to Cro-Magnon Fetterman? Isn't he the kind of well spoken moderate guy the neverTrumpers think we need?
They didn't flop in true battlegrounds like WI, or NC, or OH.
They didn't flop in AK, where Mitch tossed in $12m into a race the GOP could not lose, in order to save Murkowski, who would not have won anyway without ranked choice voting.
The jury is still out on Walker, right?
So we're down to really just two races. Was Laxalt really a flop? Sure, GOP won the Gov race, but by a pretty tight margin. Kinda hard to call the gap there a "flop."
So that leaves us AZ. Yeah, he was a first time candidate. He was also young, fresh, techie, and finally got his feet up underneath him. Was he so much worse than McSally?
And then there is the spending margin. What if instead of dumping $12m into AK, Mitch would have sent it to AZ? could that have closed the gap? Maybe.
Damned sure woulda made a difference in NV, though.
So yeah, no question. Trump is 110% entirely totally universally to blame for your analysis of our discontent.
Now I understand your disconnect. You severely underestimate the number of Republicans put off by Trump. And that is why your record of predictions continues to be dreadful.whiterock said:FIFYnein51 said:Sam Lowry said:
There's nothing wrong with endorsing obvious winners. It doesn't change the fact that, in the tough races that really mattered, Trump's candidates mostly flopped. The easy wins are like yardage in a ball game, a comfort to the faithful and little more than that. Calling it an overall win for Trump? That's the kind of wishful thinking that obscures the real problem.
The real problem is that Trump is straight up poison to 100% of democrats and about30%5% of Republicans. You cannot win like that.
It might not be 30%, but it's much closer to that number than it is to 5%. And when you are in the minority, as Republicans are, losing any percentage of the base is a recipe for disaster unless you can get the independents on board, which as the last two elections have proven, Trump and his candidates cannot.
Lots of revisionist history and excuses here. GA was indeed a flop. It's a red state, and Trump's choice is most likely going to lose. That's one that shouldn't have even been close.whiterock said:Does not stand close inspection.Sam Lowry said:
There's nothing wrong with endorsing obvious winners. It doesn't change the fact that, in the tough races that really mattered, Trump's candidates mostly flopped. The easy wins are like yardage in a ball game, a comfort to the faithful and little more than that. Calling it an overall win for Trump? That's the kind of wishful thinking that obscures the real problem.
They flopped for sure in blue states like WA and NH. But they are blue states, right? Haven't other candidates flopped there, too? Been blue for a while now, right?
And Joe O'Dea, who was an anti-Trumper running in the middle, he flopped in a blue state, right?
tIs PA a purple state? Or a blue state? Is OZ really a MAGA candidate? Truth is, he had a well-documented problem in PA with solidifying his base. And as a candidate was he really SOOOO inferior to Cro-Magnon Fetterman? Isn't he the kind of well spoken moderate guy the neverTrumpers think we need?
They didn't flop in true battlegrounds like WI, or NC, or OH.
They didn't flop in AK, where Mitch tossed in $12m into a race the GOP could not lose, in order to save Murkowski, who would not have won anyway without ranked choice voting.
The jury is still out on Walker, right?
So we're down to really just two races. Was Laxalt really a flop? Sure, GOP won the Gov race, but by a pretty tight margin. Kinda hard to call the gap there a "flop."
So that leaves us AZ. Yeah, he was a first time candidate. He was also young, fresh, techie, and finally got his feet up underneath him. Was he so much worse than McSally?
And then there is the spending margin. What if instead of dumping $12m into AK, Mitch would have sent it to AZ? could that have closed the gap? Maybe.
Damned sure woulda made a difference in NV, though.
So yeah, no question. Trump is 110% entirely totally universally to blame for your analysis of our discontent.
So, in other words, independents did not turn out in support of Trump's candidates.whiterock said:There you go again, making stuff up.Osodecentx said:The losers are Trump's. The real problem is Independents. The base turned out and rejected Trump candidates.whiterock said:Yet again we see the neverTrumper rule change to fit their needs. Trump was/is running for president, in what will be a billion dollar campaign. ALL candidates do what he did....raise money during campaign season. How much money did DeSantis donate? How much money was donated by Pence, or Pompeo, or Haley, etc....? How many candidates preparing to run for office have given away substantial portions of their campaign funds to support other candidates? (not many). That he gave away millions should be to his credit, not his deficit. The idea that it was his responsibility to fund GOP candidates in 9 hotly contested Senate races and an equal number of Gov races is amusingly preposterous.Osodecentx said:Trump wants your money. You sent him $100 million and he spent less than 10 on his candidates.whiterock said:Does that really stand the reason? Does the man not benefit from a robust GOP? Is he not harmed by a divided, weakened GOP? Has he not powerful incentive to heal and build the party stronger? Yeah, he took some shots at McConnell. Justified. McConnell is the bigger part of the failure to take the Senate, yet blamed others. But note that Trump supported McCarthy for speaker last week, stifling some of the more vocal Maga-heads to avoid a forlorn hope challenge that would only have divided a narrow majority. Trump can and does "play ball."RMF5630 said:This is what scares me the most. The "Nero Effect", Trump will fiddle as the GOP burns.Mothra said:Yup. If this board is any indication, the Never Trumpers would rather see the house burn to the ground than cast a vote for pragmatism and the lesser of the evils.whiterock said:MAGA 25-35% of the GOP base, and has always been around.Mothra said:A few things...J.R. said:I disagree on the old school republicans (which I basically am) and commonality with MAGA. Us, old school republicans have ZERO in common with the MAGA crazies!Mothra said:
Oldbear83There are two ways to guarantee we lose the White House in 2024:
1. Bank everything on supporting Trump
2. Alienate Trump supporters with endless attacks on Trump
Exactly right. I've been saying it for years, but the party can be a bigger tent. The old school Repubs and neocons have much more in common with MAGA than they do with the Dems, and there is room for populism and pugilism in the party. As much as they despise Trump, he has expanded the base, brought in conservative blue collar workers, and a Hispanic element to the voting block that really didn't exist before. If the MAGAs and Trump sycophants could let go of their absurd devotion to Trump, and embrace DeSantis, that is someone we could all get behind.
The Dems have absolutely nothing to offer the American people. They've gone completely woke to the point of absurdity. They have alienated moderates and blue dog democrats with their policies. They have literally done nothing right for the last year and a half. Every policy has been a disaster. There is no reason the next election should not be ripe for the taking, if they choose the right candidate (not Trump).I
You have advised us that you are socially liberal. That is not an old school Republican. Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, etc. - none were socially liberal.
You are wrong that MAGA has nothing in common with Republicans. Regardless of what you think about MAGA, fiscally you share much more in common with MAGA than today's Democrat party. They also share a lot more in common with old school Republicans (not you) on social policy.
JR is just embarrassed to have to caucus with them.
Democrats tend to be able to put such vanities aside and work together. But moderate Republicans? Ironically, they can be some of the least pragmatic people on the planet, when it comes to compromising within their own team.
Conservatives can be a strange lot.
Just to recap, Trump recruits 5 losing candidates for the US Senate and that's McConnell;ll's fault? McConnell raises and spends more than $250 million trying to drag the Dear Leader's recruits across the finish line & and they were bad candidates, but that is McConn ell's fault?
When do you take ownership? (I know Trump won't, but you'll believe him until he loses in 2024)
Same for history. He did not "recruit" any candidates." He did what any responsible leader should do - let primaries run for a bit until it was clear which candidate appeared to be the strongest, and then he endorsed to clear the field. (Just as he did with DeSantis and others. Just as Obama did with Biden). He in fact received at that time some criticism for jumping in front of the band....waiting to pick obvious winners rather than a more principled approach. (again, the ever-so convenient neverTrumper double standard....) The overall record of Turmp's endorsements is highly impressive - and include many now being proposed as better alternatives, to include DeSantis and Youngkin. But rather than drone on, I'l quote Spectator, who summed up the duplicity of the neverTrumper narrative quite nicely:
"The official narrative of the election is meant to drive the right to suicide. Democrats, NeverTrump ex-Republicans, and critics of the populist right who remain in the GOP have all blamed Trump voters for the party's failure to take the Senate and claim a commanding margin in the House. Donald Trump himself was not on the ballot, but he made endorsements, and voters who followed those endorsements chose weak candidates, the story goes.
The anti-right narrative is a remarkable thing: when a candidate Trump supported lost, like Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, it was Trump's fault; when a candidate Trump opposed lost, like Joe O'Dea in Colorado, it was Trump's fault. When a candidate Trump supported won, such as J.D. Vance in Ohio, pundits discounted the victory; when a candidate Trump opposed won, such as Brian Kemp in Georgia, the same pundits found it enormously significant. Ron DeSantis's nearly 20-point margin of victory in Florida, a big win for the right, was mostly hyped as a defeat for Trump, even though Florida is Trump's home base." (and to that I would add, even though DeSantis was EXACTLY the kind of candidate Trump is now being criticized for endorsing.)
We have to fix the problems. The REAL problems. Official RNC narrative is, as sombear has noted, "we hit all our metrics." If so, and we lost, doesn't that indicate a flawed plan by the RNC? If we accept the narrative that Trump alone is responsible for last Tuesday, in the face of a mountain of evidence to the contrary, then the real problems slumber on into 2024 to encumber whoever the nominee might be. So, again, we see that one of the bigger parts of the "problem" are the neverTrumpers, who will scorch their own underwear to destroy the object of their rage, engaging in precisely the kind of behavior they claim renders others unfit, while the party drifts further and further behind Democrat GOTV efforts under newer/looser election laws. The Democrats got a slobbering imbecilic Bernie-bro elected in PA, while we failed to get Paul Laxalt, a former statewide elected offiicial in NV who is the son of TWO former GOP Senators and grandson of another GOP Senator who was the best friend of one Ronald Wilson Reagan. And we have people telling us Trump is responsible.
Such is beyond unserious.
Now you want to double down on a losing strategy that failed in 18, 20,21, & 22.
All polling showed independents supporting GOP by wide margins, some by over 20% points.
Yet, we hear ON ELECTION DAY, the independents who voted broke Blue by substantial margins.
How do we reconcile that?
I have mentioned the answer here several times, mostly in conversations with you. It's about turnout. It's about that part in bold. Doesn't matter what a large demographic polls if they don't actually vote. (and the problem with independents is that their turnout is not reliable. You have to inspire them to show up at all.) There is a set generically called "independents." Inside that set are three subsets:
1) independents who can be persuaded to vote red
2) independents who can be persuaded to vote blue
3) independents who will not vote.
Polling showed that the overall set was leaning red by huge margins. Election data showed that a larger percentage of subset 3 than anticipated simply did not vote, and that those who did voted BLUE. In other words, DEMS got the turnout they needed. Republicans did not. The GOP leaners did not turnout big and the GOP base turnout was not sufficient to overcome the micro-targeting and ballot harvesting operation Dems used to get THEIR voters to vote in key races. Most people get it wrong about independents - they are not one large monolithic constituency. They are an amorphous blob than can be shaped into various forms by messaging on various issues, and they tend to get turned off by negative campaigning and just sit it out at much higher rates than partisan bases. Dems got their parts of the blob to show up. We didn't.
The two big factors?
Dems are light years ahead of us in ballot harvesting. They are registering people to vote in 2024 TODAY. They will be talking to those people for months. Then mailing out ballots all over the country the moment they are available. Then they will be calling people to confirm they received their ballot (and mail them another one if they didn't). Then, they will be nagging them to fill out the ballot. Then, they will if necessary even come pick up the ballot and carry it to the polling box. As the ballots start coming in a month or more out from election day, they start marking off their voters....they know to the day, if not hour, who has voted. That allows them to focus their resources ever more specifically on the outstanding ballot holders, and tailor their messaging to motivate them to get that ballot in. They reached into subset 3 and pulled out the ballots they needed to save 4 Senate seats and over a dozen House seats they should have lost.
GOP has nothing to compete with that.
Not an inadequate version.
They have a big, gaping void.
Ballot harvesting makes it much much easier to turnout your base, and to reach into the blob and pull out very high rates of your voters.
I will be supporting the GOP candidate who pledges to build an even better version of what Dems have. We are not going to win any more elections in purple or blue states until we do. I have inquiries out to see what DeSantis has. I'd be stunned, given his margin of victory, if he doesn't. Ned Ryun (serious dude) will be meeting with Trump on that same subject, too. Will see.
New dawn is upon us. It's not about voters anymore. It's about ballots. I suspect that what we get what we need built in time for 2024. And while that hard work happens, I'm quite sure you'll still be blaming Trump for everything right down to your ingrown toenail.
But their lack of motivation is the fault of someone other than Trump.
Gotcha.
BTW, for someone who claims it's unfair that other posters are putting this all on Trump, I have to say you seem to have a blind spot to the fact you don't put ANY of this on Trump. It's all someone else's fault, and has nothing to do with Trump's toxicity or actions, in your book. Lots of irony in those accusations.
I guess that's what you're going to be saying in 2024, when Trump's gets his ass kicked? Lots of excuses, but not accountability for the man in charge.
I took your words in bold at face value as the neverTrumper faction. It's very vocal, but very small. 5% might be twice too many.Mothra said:Now I understand your disconnect. You severely underestimate the number of Republicans put off by Trump. And that is why your record of predictions continues to be dreadful.whiterock said:FIFYnein51 said:Sam Lowry said:
There's nothing wrong with endorsing obvious winners. It doesn't change the fact that, in the tough races that really mattered, Trump's candidates mostly flopped. The easy wins are like yardage in a ball game, a comfort to the faithful and little more than that. Calling it an overall win for Trump? That's the kind of wishful thinking that obscures the real problem.
The real problem is that Trump is straight up poison to 100% of democrats and about30%5% of Republicans. You cannot win like that.
It might not be 30%, but it's much closer to that number than it is to 5%. And when you are in the minority, as Republicans are, losing any percentage of the base is a recipe for disaster unless you can get the independents on board, which as the last two elections have proven, Trump and his candidates cannot.
Now, if you define that group as "people who are unsettled by Trump antics and conclude he's too divisive for us to win." Then sure, your 30% number might be too low.
I hear a LOT of GOP voters say stuff like that...."too much baggage, need to move on with fresh blood, etc...." DeSantis will win that demographic in the primary. But 99% of them will, if Trump wins the primary, be there to vote for him in the general.
And there is an enormous sea of primary voters who are either enervated or not terribly bothered by Trump's rhetoric. The assembled experts here are waived off as if they were gnats. That's wishful thinking. We do have at least a third of our base that thinks we're in the 2nd civil war. They're not entirely wrong. What we cannot do is dismiss them as crazies to be expunged from the process. We have to do what Democrats do and find productive things for them to do. Now, about that ballot harvesting operation I've been talking about.....
none of thats revisionist history- he didnt proclaim GA was anything orher than unsettled.Mothra said:Lots of revisionist history and excuses here. GA was indeed a flop. It's a red state, and Trump's choice is most likely going to lose. That's one that shouldn't have even been close.whiterock said:Does not stand close inspection.Sam Lowry said:
There's nothing wrong with endorsing obvious winners. It doesn't change the fact that, in the tough races that really mattered, Trump's candidates mostly flopped. The easy wins are like yardage in a ball game, a comfort to the faithful and little more than that. Calling it an overall win for Trump? That's the kind of wishful thinking that obscures the real problem.
They flopped for sure in blue states like WA and NH. But they are blue states, right? Haven't other candidates flopped there, too? Been blue for a while now, right?
And Joe O'Dea, who was an anti-Trumper running in the middle, he flopped in a blue state, right?
tIs PA a purple state? Or a blue state? Is OZ really a MAGA candidate? Truth is, he had a well-documented problem in PA with solidifying his base. And as a candidate was he really SOOOO inferior to Cro-Magnon Fetterman? Isn't he the kind of well spoken moderate guy the neverTrumpers think we need?
They didn't flop in true battlegrounds like WI, or NC, or OH.
They didn't flop in AK, where Mitch tossed in $12m into a race the GOP could not lose, in order to save Murkowski, who would not have won anyway without ranked choice voting.
The jury is still out on Walker, right?
So we're down to really just two races. Was Laxalt really a flop? Sure, GOP won the Gov race, but by a pretty tight margin. Kinda hard to call the gap there a "flop."
So that leaves us AZ. Yeah, he was a first time candidate. He was also young, fresh, techie, and finally got his feet up underneath him. Was he so much worse than McSally?
And then there is the spending margin. What if instead of dumping $12m into AK, Mitch would have sent it to AZ? could that have closed the gap? Maybe.
Damned sure woulda made a difference in NV, though.
So yeah, no question. Trump is 110% entirely totally universally to blame for your analysis of our discontent.
“Mix a little foolishness with your serious plans. It is lovely to be silly at the right moment.”
–Horace
“Insomnia sharpens your math skills because you spend all night calculating how much sleep you’ll get if you’re able to ‘fall asleep right now.’ “
–Horace
“Insomnia sharpens your math skills because you spend all night calculating how much sleep you’ll get if you’re able to ‘fall asleep right now.’ “
blah blah blah. again you contort things you do not understand to fit your NT agenda.Osodecentx said:The losers are Trump's. The real problem is Independents. The base turned out and rejected Trump candidates.whiterock said:Yet again we see the neverTrumper rule change to fit their needs. Trump was/is running for president, in what will be a billion dollar campaign. ALL candidates do what he did....raise money during campaign season. How much money did DeSantis donate? How much money was donated by Pence, or Pompeo, or Haley, etc....? How many candidates preparing to run for office have given away substantial portions of their campaign funds to support other candidates? (not many). That he gave away millions should be to his credit, not his deficit. The idea that it was his responsibility to fund GOP candidates in 9 hotly contested Senate races and an equal number of Gov races is amusingly preposterous.Osodecentx said:Trump wants your money. You sent him $100 million and he spent less than 10 on his candidates.whiterock said:Does that really stand the reason? Does the man not benefit from a robust GOP? Is he not harmed by a divided, weakened GOP? Has he not powerful incentive to heal and build the party stronger? Yeah, he took some shots at McConnell. Justified. McConnell is the bigger part of the failure to take the Senate, yet blamed others. But note that Trump supported McCarthy for speaker last week, stifling some of the more vocal Maga-heads to avoid a forlorn hope challenge that would only have divided a narrow majority. Trump can and does "play ball."RMF5630 said:This is what scares me the most. The "Nero Effect", Trump will fiddle as the GOP burns.Mothra said:Yup. If this board is any indication, the Never Trumpers would rather see the house burn to the ground than cast a vote for pragmatism and the lesser of the evils.whiterock said:MAGA 25-35% of the GOP base, and has always been around.Mothra said:A few things...J.R. said:I disagree on the old school republicans (which I basically am) and commonality with MAGA. Us, old school republicans have ZERO in common with the MAGA crazies!Mothra said:
Oldbear83There are two ways to guarantee we lose the White House in 2024:
1. Bank everything on supporting Trump
2. Alienate Trump supporters with endless attacks on Trump
Exactly right. I've been saying it for years, but the party can be a bigger tent. The old school Repubs and neocons have much more in common with MAGA than they do with the Dems, and there is room for populism and pugilism in the party. As much as they despise Trump, he has expanded the base, brought in conservative blue collar workers, and a Hispanic element to the voting block that really didn't exist before. If the MAGAs and Trump sycophants could let go of their absurd devotion to Trump, and embrace DeSantis, that is someone we could all get behind.
The Dems have absolutely nothing to offer the American people. They've gone completely woke to the point of absurdity. They have alienated moderates and blue dog democrats with their policies. They have literally done nothing right for the last year and a half. Every policy has been a disaster. There is no reason the next election should not be ripe for the taking, if they choose the right candidate (not Trump).I
You have advised us that you are socially liberal. That is not an old school Republican. Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, etc. - none were socially liberal.
You are wrong that MAGA has nothing in common with Republicans. Regardless of what you think about MAGA, fiscally you share much more in common with MAGA than today's Democrat party. They also share a lot more in common with old school Republicans (not you) on social policy.
JR is just embarrassed to have to caucus with them.
Democrats tend to be able to put such vanities aside and work together. But moderate Republicans? Ironically, they can be some of the least pragmatic people on the planet, when it comes to compromising within their own team.
Conservatives can be a strange lot.
Just to recap, Trump recruits 5 losing candidates for the US Senate and that's McConnell;ll's fault? McConnell raises and spends more than $250 million trying to drag the Dear Leader's recruits across the finish line & and they were bad candidates, but that is McConn ell's fault?
When do you take ownership? (I know Trump won't, but you'll believe him until he loses in 2024)
Same for history. He did not "recruit" any candidates." He did what any responsible leader should do - let primaries run for a bit until it was clear which candidate appeared to be the strongest, and then he endorsed to clear the field. (Just as he did with DeSantis and others. Just as Obama did with Biden). He in fact received at that time some criticism for jumping in front of the band....waiting to pick obvious winners rather than a more principled approach. (again, the ever-so convenient neverTrumper double standard....) The overall record of Turmp's endorsements is highly impressive - and include many now being proposed as better alternatives, to include DeSantis and Youngkin. But rather than drone on, I'l quote Spectator, who summed up the duplicity of the neverTrumper narrative quite nicely:
"The official narrative of the election is meant to drive the right to suicide. Democrats, NeverTrump ex-Republicans, and critics of the populist right who remain in the GOP have all blamed Trump voters for the party's failure to take the Senate and claim a commanding margin in the House. Donald Trump himself was not on the ballot, but he made endorsements, and voters who followed those endorsements chose weak candidates, the story goes.
The anti-right narrative is a remarkable thing: when a candidate Trump supported lost, like Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, it was Trump's fault; when a candidate Trump opposed lost, like Joe O'Dea in Colorado, it was Trump's fault. When a candidate Trump supported won, such as J.D. Vance in Ohio, pundits discounted the victory; when a candidate Trump opposed won, such as Brian Kemp in Georgia, the same pundits found it enormously significant. Ron DeSantis's nearly 20-point margin of victory in Florida, a big win for the right, was mostly hyped as a defeat for Trump, even though Florida is Trump's home base." (and to that I would add, even though DeSantis was EXACTLY the kind of candidate Trump is now being criticized for endorsing.)
We have to fix the problems. The REAL problems. Official RNC narrative is, as sombear has noted, "we hit all our metrics." If so, and we lost, doesn't that indicate a flawed plan by the RNC? If we accept the narrative that Trump alone is responsible for last Tuesday, in the face of a mountain of evidence to the contrary, then the real problems slumber on into 2024 to encumber whoever the nominee might be. So, again, we see that one of the bigger parts of the "problem" are the neverTrumpers, who will scorch their own underwear to destroy the object of their rage, engaging in precisely the kind of behavior they claim renders others unfit, while the party drifts further and further behind Democrat GOTV efforts under newer/looser election laws. The Democrats got a slobbering imbecilic Bernie-bro elected in PA, while we failed to get Paul Laxalt, a former statewide elected offiicial in NV who is the son of TWO former GOP Senators and grandson of another GOP Senator who was the best friend of one Ronald Wilson Reagan. And we have people telling us Trump is responsible.
Such is beyond unserious.
Now you want to double down on a losing strategy that failed in 18, 20,21, & 22.
Your position is that the large number of Republicans who are unsettled by Trump will be motivated to turn out to vote for him at a 99% clip? On what facts and evidence is your position based? Did that happen in 2020? Did that happen for his candidates in 2022?whiterock said:I took your words in bold at face value as the neverTrumper faction. It's very vocal, but very small. 5% might be twice too many.Mothra said:Now I understand your disconnect. You severely underestimate the number of Republicans put off by Trump. And that is why your record of predictions continues to be dreadful.whiterock said:FIFYnein51 said:Sam Lowry said:
There's nothing wrong with endorsing obvious winners. It doesn't change the fact that, in the tough races that really mattered, Trump's candidates mostly flopped. The easy wins are like yardage in a ball game, a comfort to the faithful and little more than that. Calling it an overall win for Trump? That's the kind of wishful thinking that obscures the real problem.
The real problem is that Trump is straight up poison to 100% of democrats and about30%5% of Republicans. You cannot win like that.
It might not be 30%, but it's much closer to that number than it is to 5%. And when you are in the minority, as Republicans are, losing any percentage of the base is a recipe for disaster unless you can get the independents on board, which as the last two elections have proven, Trump and his candidates cannot.
Now, if you define that group as "people who are unsettled by Trump antics and conclude he's too divisive for us to win." Then sure, your 30% number might be too low.
I hear a LOT of GOP voters say stuff like that...."too much baggage, need to move on with fresh blood, etc...." DeSantis will win that demographic in the primary. But 99% of them will, if Trump wins the primary, be there to vote for him in the general.
And there is an enormous sea of primary voters who are either enervated or not terribly bothered by Trump's rhetoric. The assembled experts here are waived off as if they were gnats. That's wishful thinking. We do have at least a third of our base that thinks we're in the 2nd civil war. They're not entirely wrong. What we cannot do is dismiss them as crazies to be expunged from the process. We have to do what Democrats do and find productive things for them to do. Now, about that ballot harvesting operation I've been talking about.....
My point is, GA should not have come to a runoff. It's a red state that voted against Trump's candidate.4th and Inches said:none of thats revisionist history- he didnt proclaim GA was anything orher than unsettled.Mothra said:Lots of revisionist history and excuses here. GA was indeed a flop. It's a red state, and Trump's choice is most likely going to lose. That's one that shouldn't have even been close.whiterock said:Does not stand close inspection.Sam Lowry said:
There's nothing wrong with endorsing obvious winners. It doesn't change the fact that, in the tough races that really mattered, Trump's candidates mostly flopped. The easy wins are like yardage in a ball game, a comfort to the faithful and little more than that. Calling it an overall win for Trump? That's the kind of wishful thinking that obscures the real problem.
They flopped for sure in blue states like WA and NH. But they are blue states, right? Haven't other candidates flopped there, too? Been blue for a while now, right?
And Joe O'Dea, who was an anti-Trumper running in the middle, he flopped in a blue state, right?
tIs PA a purple state? Or a blue state? Is OZ really a MAGA candidate? Truth is, he had a well-documented problem in PA with solidifying his base. And as a candidate was he really SOOOO inferior to Cro-Magnon Fetterman? Isn't he the kind of well spoken moderate guy the neverTrumpers think we need?
They didn't flop in true battlegrounds like WI, or NC, or OH.
They didn't flop in AK, where Mitch tossed in $12m into a race the GOP could not lose, in order to save Murkowski, who would not have won anyway without ranked choice voting.
The jury is still out on Walker, right?
So we're down to really just two races. Was Laxalt really a flop? Sure, GOP won the Gov race, but by a pretty tight margin. Kinda hard to call the gap there a "flop."
So that leaves us AZ. Yeah, he was a first time candidate. He was also young, fresh, techie, and finally got his feet up underneath him. Was he so much worse than McSally?
And then there is the spending margin. What if instead of dumping $12m into AK, Mitch would have sent it to AZ? could that have closed the gap? Maybe.
Damned sure woulda made a difference in NV, though.
So yeah, no question. Trump is 110% entirely totally universally to blame for your analysis of our discontent.
Lake is another perfect example. Trump's darling who closely aligned with him lost to a frumpy Democrat with no ideas, and who was afraid to debate her. Just a few weeks ago you were claiming that she would win and be a potential VP candidate. And yet a reddish state voted for the frumpy Dem over her. What's your excuse there? Did that have nothing at all to due with her closely aligning herself with Trump? Was that all Democrat antics and ballot harvesting?
Just want to make sure you Trumpians do understand that Trump......Lost the Presidency, lost the Senate, lost the House. Oh, and he is responsible for this chit show on Tuesday. It is all Fat Orange related. He is just a cancer!whiterock said:I took your words in bold at face value as the neverTrumper faction. It's very vocal, but very small. 5% might be twice too many.Mothra said:Now I understand your disconnect. You severely underestimate the number of Republicans put off by Trump. And that is why your record of predictions continues to be dreadful.whiterock said:FIFYnein51 said:Sam Lowry said:
There's nothing wrong with endorsing obvious winners. It doesn't change the fact that, in the tough races that really mattered, Trump's candidates mostly flopped. The easy wins are like yardage in a ball game, a comfort to the faithful and little more than that. Calling it an overall win for Trump? That's the kind of wishful thinking that obscures the real problem.
The real problem is that Trump is straight up poison to 100% of democrats and about30%5% of Republicans. You cannot win like that.
It might not be 30%, but it's much closer to that number than it is to 5%. And when you are in the minority, as Republicans are, losing any percentage of the base is a recipe for disaster unless you can get the independents on board, which as the last two elections have proven, Trump and his candidates cannot.
Now, if you define that group as "people who are unsettled by Trump antics and conclude he's too divisive for us to win." Then sure, your 30% number might be too low.
I hear a LOT of GOP voters say stuff like that...."too much baggage, need to move on with fresh blood, etc...." DeSantis will win that demographic in the primary. But 99% of them will, if Trump wins the primary, be there to vote for him in the general.
And there is an enormous sea of primary voters who are either enervated or not terribly bothered by Trump's rhetoric. The assembled experts here are waived off as if they were gnats. That's wishful thinking. We do have at least a third of our base that thinks we're in the 2nd civil war. They're not entirely wrong. What we cannot do is dismiss them as crazies to be expunged from the process. We have to do what Democrats do and find productive things for them to do. Now, about that ballot harvesting operation I've been talking about.....
please quote the exact post where i said she would be a VP canidate. I will wait..Mothra said:My point is, GA should not have come to a runoff. It's a red state that voted against Trump's candidate.4th and Inches said:none of thats revisionist history- he didnt proclaim GA was anything orher than unsettled.Mothra said:Lots of revisionist history and excuses here. GA was indeed a flop. It's a red state, and Trump's choice is most likely going to lose. That's one that shouldn't have even been close.whiterock said:Does not stand close inspection.Sam Lowry said:
There's nothing wrong with endorsing obvious winners. It doesn't change the fact that, in the tough races that really mattered, Trump's candidates mostly flopped. The easy wins are like yardage in a ball game, a comfort to the faithful and little more than that. Calling it an overall win for Trump? That's the kind of wishful thinking that obscures the real problem.
They flopped for sure in blue states like WA and NH. But they are blue states, right? Haven't other candidates flopped there, too? Been blue for a while now, right?
And Joe O'Dea, who was an anti-Trumper running in the middle, he flopped in a blue state, right?
tIs PA a purple state? Or a blue state? Is OZ really a MAGA candidate? Truth is, he had a well-documented problem in PA with solidifying his base. And as a candidate was he really SOOOO inferior to Cro-Magnon Fetterman? Isn't he the kind of well spoken moderate guy the neverTrumpers think we need?
They didn't flop in true battlegrounds like WI, or NC, or OH.
They didn't flop in AK, where Mitch tossed in $12m into a race the GOP could not lose, in order to save Murkowski, who would not have won anyway without ranked choice voting.
The jury is still out on Walker, right?
So we're down to really just two races. Was Laxalt really a flop? Sure, GOP won the Gov race, but by a pretty tight margin. Kinda hard to call the gap there a "flop."
So that leaves us AZ. Yeah, he was a first time candidate. He was also young, fresh, techie, and finally got his feet up underneath him. Was he so much worse than McSally?
And then there is the spending margin. What if instead of dumping $12m into AK, Mitch would have sent it to AZ? could that have closed the gap? Maybe.
Damned sure woulda made a difference in NV, though.
So yeah, no question. Trump is 110% entirely totally universally to blame for your analysis of our discontent.
Lake is another perfect example. Trump's darling who closely aligned with him lost to a frumpy Democrat with no ideas, and who was afraid to debate her. Just a few weeks ago you were claiming that she would win and be a potential VP candidate. And yet a reddish state voted for the frumpy Dem over her. What's your excuse there? Did that have nothing at all to due with her closely aligning herself with Trump? Was that all Democrat antics and ballot harvesting?
“Mix a little foolishness with your serious plans. It is lovely to be silly at the right moment.”
–Horace
“Insomnia sharpens your math skills because you spend all night calculating how much sleep you’ll get if you’re able to ‘fall asleep right now.’ “
–Horace
“Insomnia sharpens your math skills because you spend all night calculating how much sleep you’ll get if you’re able to ‘fall asleep right now.’ “
Seems that the MAGA view is that any loss is election fraud or Dems harvesting, can't possibly be the candidates that are running.Mothra said:My point is, GA should not have come to a runoff. It's a red state that voted against Trump's candidate.4th and Inches said:none of thats revisionist history- he didnt proclaim GA was anything orher than unsettled.Mothra said:Lots of revisionist history and excuses here. GA was indeed a flop. It's a red state, and Trump's choice is most likely going to lose. That's one that shouldn't have even been close.whiterock said:Does not stand close inspection.Sam Lowry said:
There's nothing wrong with endorsing obvious winners. It doesn't change the fact that, in the tough races that really mattered, Trump's candidates mostly flopped. The easy wins are like yardage in a ball game, a comfort to the faithful and little more than that. Calling it an overall win for Trump? That's the kind of wishful thinking that obscures the real problem.
They flopped for sure in blue states like WA and NH. But they are blue states, right? Haven't other candidates flopped there, too? Been blue for a while now, right?
And Joe O'Dea, who was an anti-Trumper running in the middle, he flopped in a blue state, right?
tIs PA a purple state? Or a blue state? Is OZ really a MAGA candidate? Truth is, he had a well-documented problem in PA with solidifying his base. And as a candidate was he really SOOOO inferior to Cro-Magnon Fetterman? Isn't he the kind of well spoken moderate guy the neverTrumpers think we need?
They didn't flop in true battlegrounds like WI, or NC, or OH.
They didn't flop in AK, where Mitch tossed in $12m into a race the GOP could not lose, in order to save Murkowski, who would not have won anyway without ranked choice voting.
The jury is still out on Walker, right?
So we're down to really just two races. Was Laxalt really a flop? Sure, GOP won the Gov race, but by a pretty tight margin. Kinda hard to call the gap there a "flop."
So that leaves us AZ. Yeah, he was a first time candidate. He was also young, fresh, techie, and finally got his feet up underneath him. Was he so much worse than McSally?
And then there is the spending margin. What if instead of dumping $12m into AK, Mitch would have sent it to AZ? could that have closed the gap? Maybe.
Damned sure woulda made a difference in NV, though.
So yeah, no question. Trump is 110% entirely totally universally to blame for your analysis of our discontent.
Lake is another perfect example. Trump's darling who closely aligned with him lost to a frumpy Democrat with no ideas, and who was afraid to debate her. Just a few weeks ago you were claiming that she would win and be a potential VP candidate. And yet a reddish state voted for the frumpy Dem over her. What's your excuse there? Did that have nothing at all to due with her closely aligning herself with Trump? Was that all Democrat antics and ballot harvesting?
2020 was a strange election with mail in voting, COVID and last minute rule changes. I can agree that there needed to be more time to do a proper after-action. I wanted them to move inauguration back to March for that year due to the special circumstances. If we can change election rules on the fly due to COVID than we can move inauguration back to give enough time to ensure everything worked properly.
But, 2022 was not that type of election. We had 2 years and laws were changed. The election processes in place are exactly what each State wants. So, unless there is proof, don't throw out the election fraud crap. It was the candidates. Put on big boy pants and look in mirror, that is the problem if you lost.
Trump wasn't on the ballot. Neither was he the messenger out on the campaign trail. The messaging carried by these candidates was driven from HRCC and SRCC. And there is no shortage of critique that the messaging was inadequate - "Joe Biden bad" stuff rather than giving specific plans for remedy.Mothra said:So, in other words, independents did not turn out in support of Trump's candidates.whiterock said:There you go again, making stuff up.Osodecentx said:The losers are Trump's. The real problem is Independents. The base turned out and rejected Trump candidates.whiterock said:Yet again we see the neverTrumper rule change to fit their needs. Trump was/is running for president, in what will be a billion dollar campaign. ALL candidates do what he did....raise money during campaign season. How much money did DeSantis donate? How much money was donated by Pence, or Pompeo, or Haley, etc....? How many candidates preparing to run for office have given away substantial portions of their campaign funds to support other candidates? (not many). That he gave away millions should be to his credit, not his deficit. The idea that it was his responsibility to fund GOP candidates in 9 hotly contested Senate races and an equal number of Gov races is amusingly preposterous.Osodecentx said:Trump wants your money. You sent him $100 million and he spent less than 10 on his candidates.whiterock said:Does that really stand the reason? Does the man not benefit from a robust GOP? Is he not harmed by a divided, weakened GOP? Has he not powerful incentive to heal and build the party stronger? Yeah, he took some shots at McConnell. Justified. McConnell is the bigger part of the failure to take the Senate, yet blamed others. But note that Trump supported McCarthy for speaker last week, stifling some of the more vocal Maga-heads to avoid a forlorn hope challenge that would only have divided a narrow majority. Trump can and does "play ball."RMF5630 said:This is what scares me the most. The "Nero Effect", Trump will fiddle as the GOP burns.Mothra said:Yup. If this board is any indication, the Never Trumpers would rather see the house burn to the ground than cast a vote for pragmatism and the lesser of the evils.whiterock said:MAGA 25-35% of the GOP base, and has always been around.Mothra said:
You have advised us that you are socially liberal. That is not an old school Republican. Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, etc. - none were socially liberal.
You are wrong that MAGA has nothing in common with Republicans. Regardless of what you think about MAGA, fiscally you share much more in common with MAGA than today's Democrat party. They also share a lot more in common with old school Republicans (not you) on social policy.
JR is just embarrassed to have to caucus with them.
Democrats tend to be able to put such vanities aside and work together. But moderate Republicans? Ironically, they can be some of the least pragmatic people on the planet, when it comes to compromising within their own team.
Conservatives can be a strange lot.
Just to recap, Trump recruits 5 losing candidates for the US Senate and that's McConnell;ll's fault? McConnell raises and spends more than $250 million trying to drag the Dear Leader's recruits across the finish line & and they were bad candidates, but that is McConn ell's fault?
When do you take ownership? (I know Trump won't, but you'll believe him until he loses in 2024)
Same for history. He did not "recruit" any candidates." He did what any responsible leader should do - let primaries run for a bit until it was clear which candidate appeared to be the strongest, and then he endorsed to clear the field. (Just as he did with DeSantis and others. Just as Obama did with Biden). He in fact received at that time some criticism for jumping in front of the band....waiting to pick obvious winners rather than a more principled approach. (again, the ever-so convenient neverTrumper double standard....) The overall record of Turmp's endorsements is highly impressive - and include many now being proposed as better alternatives, to include DeSantis and Youngkin. But rather than drone on, I'l quote Spectator, who summed up the duplicity of the neverTrumper narrative quite nicely:
"The official narrative of the election is meant to drive the right to suicide. Democrats, NeverTrump ex-Republicans, and critics of the populist right who remain in the GOP have all blamed Trump voters for the party's failure to take the Senate and claim a commanding margin in the House. Donald Trump himself was not on the ballot, but he made endorsements, and voters who followed those endorsements chose weak candidates, the story goes.
The anti-right narrative is a remarkable thing: when a candidate Trump supported lost, like Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, it was Trump's fault; when a candidate Trump opposed lost, like Joe O'Dea in Colorado, it was Trump's fault. When a candidate Trump supported won, such as J.D. Vance in Ohio, pundits discounted the victory; when a candidate Trump opposed won, such as Brian Kemp in Georgia, the same pundits found it enormously significant. Ron DeSantis's nearly 20-point margin of victory in Florida, a big win for the right, was mostly hyped as a defeat for Trump, even though Florida is Trump's home base." (and to that I would add, even though DeSantis was EXACTLY the kind of candidate Trump is now being criticized for endorsing.)
We have to fix the problems. The REAL problems. Official RNC narrative is, as sombear has noted, "we hit all our metrics." If so, and we lost, doesn't that indicate a flawed plan by the RNC? If we accept the narrative that Trump alone is responsible for last Tuesday, in the face of a mountain of evidence to the contrary, then the real problems slumber on into 2024 to encumber whoever the nominee might be. So, again, we see that one of the bigger parts of the "problem" are the neverTrumpers, who will scorch their own underwear to destroy the object of their rage, engaging in precisely the kind of behavior they claim renders others unfit, while the party drifts further and further behind Democrat GOTV efforts under newer/looser election laws. The Democrats got a slobbering imbecilic Bernie-bro elected in PA, while we failed to get Paul Laxalt, a former statewide elected offiicial in NV who is the son of TWO former GOP Senators and grandson of another GOP Senator who was the best friend of one Ronald Wilson Reagan. And we have people telling us Trump is responsible.
Such is beyond unserious.
Now you want to double down on a losing strategy that failed in 18, 20,21, & 22.
All polling showed independents supporting GOP by wide margins, some by over 20% points.
Yet, we hear ON ELECTION DAY, the independents who voted broke Blue by substantial margins.
How do we reconcile that?
I have mentioned the answer here several times, mostly in conversations with you. It's about turnout. It's about that part in bold. Doesn't matter what a large demographic polls if they don't actually vote. (and the problem with independents is that their turnout is not reliable. You have to inspire them to show up at all.) There is a set generically called "independents." Inside that set are three subsets:
1) independents who can be persuaded to vote red
2) independents who can be persuaded to vote blue
3) independents who will not vote.
Polling showed that the overall set was leaning red by huge margins. Election data showed that a larger percentage of subset 3 than anticipated simply did not vote, and that those who did voted BLUE. In other words, DEMS got the turnout they needed. Republicans did not. The GOP leaners did not turnout big and the GOP base turnout was not sufficient to overcome the micro-targeting and ballot harvesting operation Dems used to get THEIR voters to vote in key races. Most people get it wrong about independents - they are not one large monolithic constituency. They are an amorphous blob than can be shaped into various forms by messaging on various issues, and they tend to get turned off by negative campaigning and just sit it out at much higher rates than partisan bases. Dems got their parts of the blob to show up. We didn't.
The two big factors?
Dems are light years ahead of us in ballot harvesting. They are registering people to vote in 2024 TODAY. They will be talking to those people for months. Then mailing out ballots all over the country the moment they are available. Then they will be calling people to confirm they received their ballot (and mail them another one if they didn't). Then, they will be nagging them to fill out the ballot. Then, they will if necessary even come pick up the ballot and carry it to the polling box. As the ballots start coming in a month or more out from election day, they start marking off their voters....they know to the day, if not hour, who has voted. That allows them to focus their resources ever more specifically on the outstanding ballot holders, and tailor their messaging to motivate them to get that ballot in. They reached into subset 3 and pulled out the ballots they needed to save 4 Senate seats and over a dozen House seats they should have lost.
GOP has nothing to compete with that.
Not an inadequate version.
They have a big, gaping void.
Ballot harvesting makes it much much easier to turnout your base, and to reach into the blob and pull out very high rates of your voters.
I will be supporting the GOP candidate who pledges to build an even better version of what Dems have. We are not going to win any more elections in purple or blue states until we do. I have inquiries out to see what DeSantis has. I'd be stunned, given his margin of victory, if he doesn't. Ned Ryun (serious dude) will be meeting with Trump on that same subject, too. Will see.
New dawn is upon us. It's not about voters anymore. It's about ballots. I suspect that what we get what we need built in time for 2024. And while that hard work happens, I'm quite sure you'll still be blaming Trump for everything right down to your ingrown toenail.
But their lack of motivation is the fault of someone other than Trump.
Gotcha.
BTW, for someone who claims it's unfair that other posters are putting this all on Trump, I have to say you seem to have a blind spot to the fact you don't put ANY of this on Trump. It's all someone else's fault, and has nothing to do with Trump's toxicity or actions, in your book. Lots of irony in those accusations.
I guess that's what you're going to be saying in 2024, when Trump's gets his ass kicked? Lots of excuses, but not accountability for the man in charge.
Democrats did a great job of pulling out very small slivers of independent voters in sufficient quantities to save House and Senate seats, within an overall context of a nationwide congressional vote won by the GOP in substantial numbers. The had a well-oiled ballot harvesting machine for which we had no answer. And they also outclassed us with small-money donors. To some degree, the right will always struggle with that. We have a "Rawhide" factor on our side, people who actually attach moral imperative to NOT giving campaign donations, while Democrats have a grassroots base which finds the $5 donation to be emotionally gratifying and sanitary way of fighting fascism.
Your point about accountability is kennel blind: I said the day after the election that Trump should have ignored the advice to stay out of the mid-terms. We now know Dems used him to motivate THEIR base anyway, so all we did by keeping Trump on the sidelines was depress our own turnout. The Tx numbers tracked what we saw nationally....surprisingly soft turnout. So yeah, I mark him up with red ink on that. But he played team ball (something he doesn't do, according to critics) and it was the wrong call. I expressed concern about OZ as not the kind of candidate who could easily fire up the conservative base. And indeed fought that issue all the way thru the campaign. But he recruited no candidates. He wrote no campaign plans. And he donated more campaign funds that would normally be expected of a guy running for an office of his own.
Mostly, though, I think you have heard me waive off the scapegoating as being as unproductive as complaining about officials. It's not like candidate Warnock OUTCLASSED candidate Walker. It's not like candidate Oz was OUTCLASSED by candidate Fetterman. and on and on.... We could and should have gotten those guys elected. Same for Laxalt, and outstanding candidate. I mean, really. The only way we can win is have an outstanding candidate? Like the guy in a mixed-race marriage who wrote Hillbilly Elegy was a bad candidate in a state like Ohio? This effort to lay 100% of the blame on Trump is incredibly irresponsible neverTrump bull**** that obscures serious deficiencies in party infrastructure to the point of of being totally outclassed by Democrats on small-donor fundraising and ballot harvesting. If we don't fix that, the candidates won't matter.
Come on, Trump was not the messenger? He seems to be out in front enough when GOP wins. Hell, he even took credit for DeSantis and Rubio in Florida! He had nothing to do with DeSantis's win. Trump was a non-issue in Florida.whiterock said:Trump wasn't on the ballot. Neither was he the messenger out on the campaign trail. The messaging carried by these candidates was driven from HRCC and SRCC. And there is no shortage of critique that the messaging was inadequate - "Joe Biden bad" stuff rather than giving specific plans for remedy.Mothra said:So, in other words, independents did not turn out in support of Trump's candidates.whiterock said:There you go again, making stuff up.Osodecentx said:The losers are Trump's. The real problem is Independents. The base turned out and rejected Trump candidates.whiterock said:Yet again we see the neverTrumper rule change to fit their needs. Trump was/is running for president, in what will be a billion dollar campaign. ALL candidates do what he did....raise money during campaign season. How much money did DeSantis donate? How much money was donated by Pence, or Pompeo, or Haley, etc....? How many candidates preparing to run for office have given away substantial portions of their campaign funds to support other candidates? (not many). That he gave away millions should be to his credit, not his deficit. The idea that it was his responsibility to fund GOP candidates in 9 hotly contested Senate races and an equal number of Gov races is amusingly preposterous.Osodecentx said:Trump wants your money. You sent him $100 million and he spent less than 10 on his candidates.whiterock said:Does that really stand the reason? Does the man not benefit from a robust GOP? Is he not harmed by a divided, weakened GOP? Has he not powerful incentive to heal and build the party stronger? Yeah, he took some shots at McConnell. Justified. McConnell is the bigger part of the failure to take the Senate, yet blamed others. But note that Trump supported McCarthy for speaker last week, stifling some of the more vocal Maga-heads to avoid a forlorn hope challenge that would only have divided a narrow majority. Trump can and does "play ball."RMF5630 said:This is what scares me the most. The "Nero Effect", Trump will fiddle as the GOP burns.Mothra said:Yup. If this board is any indication, the Never Trumpers would rather see the house burn to the ground than cast a vote for pragmatism and the lesser of the evils.whiterock said:MAGA 25-35% of the GOP base, and has always been around.Mothra said:
You have advised us that you are socially liberal. That is not an old school Republican. Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, etc. - none were socially liberal.
You are wrong that MAGA has nothing in common with Republicans. Regardless of what you think about MAGA, fiscally you share much more in common with MAGA than today's Democrat party. They also share a lot more in common with old school Republicans (not you) on social policy.
JR is just embarrassed to have to caucus with them.
Democrats tend to be able to put such vanities aside and work together. But moderate Republicans? Ironically, they can be some of the least pragmatic people on the planet, when it comes to compromising within their own team.
Conservatives can be a strange lot.
Just to recap, Trump recruits 5 losing candidates for the US Senate and that's McConnell;ll's fault? McConnell raises and spends more than $250 million trying to drag the Dear Leader's recruits across the finish line & and they were bad candidates, but that is McConn ell's fault?
When do you take ownership? (I know Trump won't, but you'll believe him until he loses in 2024)
Same for history. He did not "recruit" any candidates." He did what any responsible leader should do - let primaries run for a bit until it was clear which candidate appeared to be the strongest, and then he endorsed to clear the field. (Just as he did with DeSantis and others. Just as Obama did with Biden). He in fact received at that time some criticism for jumping in front of the band....waiting to pick obvious winners rather than a more principled approach. (again, the ever-so convenient neverTrumper double standard....) The overall record of Turmp's endorsements is highly impressive - and include many now being proposed as better alternatives, to include DeSantis and Youngkin. But rather than drone on, I'l quote Spectator, who summed up the duplicity of the neverTrumper narrative quite nicely:
"The official narrative of the election is meant to drive the right to suicide. Democrats, NeverTrump ex-Republicans, and critics of the populist right who remain in the GOP have all blamed Trump voters for the party's failure to take the Senate and claim a commanding margin in the House. Donald Trump himself was not on the ballot, but he made endorsements, and voters who followed those endorsements chose weak candidates, the story goes.
The anti-right narrative is a remarkable thing: when a candidate Trump supported lost, like Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, it was Trump's fault; when a candidate Trump opposed lost, like Joe O'Dea in Colorado, it was Trump's fault. When a candidate Trump supported won, such as J.D. Vance in Ohio, pundits discounted the victory; when a candidate Trump opposed won, such as Brian Kemp in Georgia, the same pundits found it enormously significant. Ron DeSantis's nearly 20-point margin of victory in Florida, a big win for the right, was mostly hyped as a defeat for Trump, even though Florida is Trump's home base." (and to that I would add, even though DeSantis was EXACTLY the kind of candidate Trump is now being criticized for endorsing.)
We have to fix the problems. The REAL problems. Official RNC narrative is, as sombear has noted, "we hit all our metrics." If so, and we lost, doesn't that indicate a flawed plan by the RNC? If we accept the narrative that Trump alone is responsible for last Tuesday, in the face of a mountain of evidence to the contrary, then the real problems slumber on into 2024 to encumber whoever the nominee might be. So, again, we see that one of the bigger parts of the "problem" are the neverTrumpers, who will scorch their own underwear to destroy the object of their rage, engaging in precisely the kind of behavior they claim renders others unfit, while the party drifts further and further behind Democrat GOTV efforts under newer/looser election laws. The Democrats got a slobbering imbecilic Bernie-bro elected in PA, while we failed to get Paul Laxalt, a former statewide elected offiicial in NV who is the son of TWO former GOP Senators and grandson of another GOP Senator who was the best friend of one Ronald Wilson Reagan. And we have people telling us Trump is responsible.
Such is beyond unserious.
Now you want to double down on a losing strategy that failed in 18, 20,21, & 22.
All polling showed independents supporting GOP by wide margins, some by over 20% points.
Yet, we hear ON ELECTION DAY, the independents who voted broke Blue by substantial margins.
How do we reconcile that?
I have mentioned the answer here several times, mostly in conversations with you. It's about turnout. It's about that part in bold. Doesn't matter what a large demographic polls if they don't actually vote. (and the problem with independents is that their turnout is not reliable. You have to inspire them to show up at all.) There is a set generically called "independents." Inside that set are three subsets:
1) independents who can be persuaded to vote red
2) independents who can be persuaded to vote blue
3) independents who will not vote.
Polling showed that the overall set was leaning red by huge margins. Election data showed that a larger percentage of subset 3 than anticipated simply did not vote, and that those who did voted BLUE. In other words, DEMS got the turnout they needed. Republicans did not. The GOP leaners did not turnout big and the GOP base turnout was not sufficient to overcome the micro-targeting and ballot harvesting operation Dems used to get THEIR voters to vote in key races. Most people get it wrong about independents - they are not one large monolithic constituency. They are an amorphous blob than can be shaped into various forms by messaging on various issues, and they tend to get turned off by negative campaigning and just sit it out at much higher rates than partisan bases. Dems got their parts of the blob to show up. We didn't.
The two big factors?
Dems are light years ahead of us in ballot harvesting. They are registering people to vote in 2024 TODAY. They will be talking to those people for months. Then mailing out ballots all over the country the moment they are available. Then they will be calling people to confirm they received their ballot (and mail them another one if they didn't). Then, they will be nagging them to fill out the ballot. Then, they will if necessary even come pick up the ballot and carry it to the polling box. As the ballots start coming in a month or more out from election day, they start marking off their voters....they know to the day, if not hour, who has voted. That allows them to focus their resources ever more specifically on the outstanding ballot holders, and tailor their messaging to motivate them to get that ballot in. They reached into subset 3 and pulled out the ballots they needed to save 4 Senate seats and over a dozen House seats they should have lost.
GOP has nothing to compete with that.
Not an inadequate version.
They have a big, gaping void.
Ballot harvesting makes it much much easier to turnout your base, and to reach into the blob and pull out very high rates of your voters.
I will be supporting the GOP candidate who pledges to build an even better version of what Dems have. We are not going to win any more elections in purple or blue states until we do. I have inquiries out to see what DeSantis has. I'd be stunned, given his margin of victory, if he doesn't. Ned Ryun (serious dude) will be meeting with Trump on that same subject, too. Will see.
New dawn is upon us. It's not about voters anymore. It's about ballots. I suspect that what we get what we need built in time for 2024. And while that hard work happens, I'm quite sure you'll still be blaming Trump for everything right down to your ingrown toenail.
But their lack of motivation is the fault of someone other than Trump.
Gotcha.
BTW, for someone who claims it's unfair that other posters are putting this all on Trump, I have to say you seem to have a blind spot to the fact you don't put ANY of this on Trump. It's all someone else's fault, and has nothing to do with Trump's toxicity or actions, in your book. Lots of irony in those accusations.
I guess that's what you're going to be saying in 2024, when Trump's gets his ass kicked? Lots of excuses, but not accountability for the man in charge.
Democrats did a great job of pulling out very small slivers of independent voters in sufficient quantities to save House and Senate seats, within an overall context of a nationwide congressional vote won by the GOP in substantial numbers. The had a well-oiled ballot harvesting machine for which we had no answer. And they also outclassed us with small-money donors. To some degree, the right will always struggle with that. We have a "Rawhide" factor on our side, people who actually attach moral imperative to NOT giving campaign donations, while Democrats have a grassroots base which finds the $5 donation to be emotionally gratifying and sanitary way of fighting fascism.
Your point about accountability is kennel blind: I said the day after the election that Trump should have ignored the advice to stay out of the mid-terms. We now know Dems used him to motivate THEIR base anyway, so all we did by keeping Trump on the sidelines was depress our own turnout. The Tx numbers tracked what we saw nationally....surprisingly soft turnout. So yeah, I mark him up with red ink on that. But he played team ball (something he doesn't do, according to critics) and it was the wrong call. I expressed concern about OZ as not the kind of candidate who could easily fire up the conservative base. And indeed fought that issue all the way thru the campaign. But he recruited no candidates. He wrote no campaign plans. And he donated more campaign funds that would normally be expected of a guy running for an office of his own.
Mostly, though, I think you have heard me waive off the scapegoating as being as unproductive as complaining about officials. It's not like candidate Warnock OUTCLASSED candidate Walker. It's not like candidate Oz was OUTCLASSED by candidate Fetterman. and on and on.... We could and should have gotten those guys elected. Same for Laxalt, and outstanding candidate. I mean, really. The only way we can win is have an outstanding candidate? Like the guy in a mixed-race marriage who wrote Hillbilly Elegy was a bad candidate in a state like Ohio? This effort to lay 100% of the blame on Trump is incredibly irresponsible neverTrump bull**** that obscures serious deficiencies in party infrastructure to the point of of being totally outclassed by Democrats on small-donor fundraising and ballot harvesting. If we don't fix that, the candidates won't matter.
But when his girl Lake and Oz and Walker either lost or are struggling, he is not the messenger?
I can go with the polling and understand your argument because you are putting your faith in knowing people in the system. I don't agree, because I do not believe your buddies inside the PACs and such have a good grip on what is going on at the local level. But, that is a legitimate argument on facts and theories. But, Trump not being the messenger??? That is a bit out of bounds...
whiterock said:Trump wasn't on the ballot. Neither was he the messenger out on the campaign trail. The messaging carried by these candidates was driven from HRCC and SRCC. And there is no shortage of critique that the messaging was inadequate - "Joe Biden bad" stuff rather than giving specific plans for remedy.Mothra said:So, in other words, independents did not turn out in support of Trump's candidates.whiterock said:There you go again, making stuff up.Osodecentx said:The losers are Trump's. The real problem is Independents. The base turned out and rejected Trump candidates.whiterock said:Yet again we see the neverTrumper rule change to fit their needs. Trump was/is running for president, in what will be a billion dollar campaign. ALL candidates do what he did....raise money during campaign season. How much money did DeSantis donate? How much money was donated by Pence, or Pompeo, or Haley, etc....? How many candidates preparing to run for office have given away substantial portions of their campaign funds to support other candidates? (not many). That he gave away millions should be to his credit, not his deficit. The idea that it was his responsibility to fund GOP candidates in 9 hotly contested Senate races and an equal number of Gov races is amusingly preposterous.Osodecentx said:Trump wants your money. You sent him $100 million and he spent less than 10 on his candidates.whiterock said:Does that really stand the reason? Does the man not benefit from a robust GOP? Is he not harmed by a divided, weakened GOP? Has he not powerful incentive to heal and build the party stronger? Yeah, he took some shots at McConnell. Justified. McConnell is the bigger part of the failure to take the Senate, yet blamed others. But note that Trump supported McCarthy for speaker last week, stifling some of the more vocal Maga-heads to avoid a forlorn hope challenge that would only have divided a narrow majority. Trump can and does "play ball."RMF5630 said:This is what scares me the most. The "Nero Effect", Trump will fiddle as the GOP burns.Mothra said:Yup. If this board is any indication, the Never Trumpers would rather see the house burn to the ground than cast a vote for pragmatism and the lesser of the evils.whiterock said:MAGA 25-35% of the GOP base, and has always been around.Mothra said:
You have advised us that you are socially liberal. That is not an old school Republican. Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, etc. - none were socially liberal.
You are wrong that MAGA has nothing in common with Republicans. Regardless of what you think about MAGA, fiscally you share much more in common with MAGA than today's Democrat party. They also share a lot more in common with old school Republicans (not you) on social policy.
JR is just embarrassed to have to caucus with them.
Democrats tend to be able to put such vanities aside and work together. But moderate Republicans? Ironically, they can be some of the least pragmatic people on the planet, when it comes to compromising within their own team.
Conservatives can be a strange lot.
Just to recap, Trump recruits 5 losing candidates for the US Senate and that's McConnell;ll's fault? McConnell raises and spends more than $250 million trying to drag the Dear Leader's recruits across the finish line & and they were bad candidates, but that is McConn ell's fault?
When do you take ownership? (I know Trump won't, but you'll believe him until he loses in 2024)
Same for history. He did not "recruit" any candidates." He did what any responsible leader should do - let primaries run for a bit until it was clear which candidate appeared to be the strongest, and then he endorsed to clear the field. (Just as he did with DeSantis and others. Just as Obama did with Biden). He in fact received at that time some criticism for jumping in front of the band....waiting to pick obvious winners rather than a more principled approach. (again, the ever-so convenient neverTrumper double standard....) The overall record of Turmp's endorsements is highly impressive - and include many now being proposed as better alternatives, to include DeSantis and Youngkin. But rather than drone on, I'l quote Spectator, who summed up the duplicity of the neverTrumper narrative quite nicely:
"The official narrative of the election is meant to drive the right to suicide. Democrats, NeverTrump ex-Republicans, and critics of the populist right who remain in the GOP have all blamed Trump voters for the party's failure to take the Senate and claim a commanding margin in the House. Donald Trump himself was not on the ballot, but he made endorsements, and voters who followed those endorsements chose weak candidates, the story goes.
The anti-right narrative is a remarkable thing: when a candidate Trump supported lost, like Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, it was Trump's fault; when a candidate Trump opposed lost, like Joe O'Dea in Colorado, it was Trump's fault. When a candidate Trump supported won, such as J.D. Vance in Ohio, pundits discounted the victory; when a candidate Trump opposed won, such as Brian Kemp in Georgia, the same pundits found it enormously significant. Ron DeSantis's nearly 20-point margin of victory in Florida, a big win for the right, was mostly hyped as a defeat for Trump, even though Florida is Trump's home base." (and to that I would add, even though DeSantis was EXACTLY the kind of candidate Trump is now being criticized for endorsing.)
We have to fix the problems. The REAL problems. Official RNC narrative is, as sombear has noted, "we hit all our metrics." If so, and we lost, doesn't that indicate a flawed plan by the RNC? If we accept the narrative that Trump alone is responsible for last Tuesday, in the face of a mountain of evidence to the contrary, then the real problems slumber on into 2024 to encumber whoever the nominee might be. So, again, we see that one of the bigger parts of the "problem" are the neverTrumpers, who will scorch their own underwear to destroy the object of their rage, engaging in precisely the kind of behavior they claim renders others unfit, while the party drifts further and further behind Democrat GOTV efforts under newer/looser election laws. The Democrats got a slobbering imbecilic Bernie-bro elected in PA, while we failed to get Paul Laxalt, a former statewide elected offiicial in NV who is the son of TWO former GOP Senators and grandson of another GOP Senator who was the best friend of one Ronald Wilson Reagan. And we have people telling us Trump is responsible.
Such is beyond unserious.
Now you want to double down on a losing strategy that failed in 18, 20,21, & 22.
All polling showed independents supporting GOP by wide margins, some by over 20% points.
Yet, we hear ON ELECTION DAY, the independents who voted broke Blue by substantial margins.
How do we reconcile that?
I have mentioned the answer here several times, mostly in conversations with you. It's about turnout. It's about that part in bold. Doesn't matter what a large demographic polls if they don't actually vote. (and the problem with independents is that their turnout is not reliable. You have to inspire them to show up at all.) There is a set generically called "independents." Inside that set are three subsets:
1) independents who can be persuaded to vote red
2) independents who can be persuaded to vote blue
3) independents who will not vote.
Polling showed that the overall set was leaning red by huge margins. Election data showed that a larger percentage of subset 3 than anticipated simply did not vote, and that those who did voted BLUE. In other words, DEMS got the turnout they needed. Republicans did not. The GOP leaners did not turnout big and the GOP base turnout was not sufficient to overcome the micro-targeting and ballot harvesting operation Dems used to get THEIR voters to vote in key races. Most people get it wrong about independents - they are not one large monolithic constituency. They are an amorphous blob than can be shaped into various forms by messaging on various issues, and they tend to get turned off by negative campaigning and just sit it out at much higher rates than partisan bases. Dems got their parts of the blob to show up. We didn't.
The two big factors?
Dems are light years ahead of us in ballot harvesting. They are registering people to vote in 2024 TODAY. They will be talking to those people for months. Then mailing out ballots all over the country the moment they are available. Then they will be calling people to confirm they received their ballot (and mail them another one if they didn't). Then, they will be nagging them to fill out the ballot. Then, they will if necessary even come pick up the ballot and carry it to the polling box. As the ballots start coming in a month or more out from election day, they start marking off their voters....they know to the day, if not hour, who has voted. That allows them to focus their resources ever more specifically on the outstanding ballot holders, and tailor their messaging to motivate them to get that ballot in. They reached into subset 3 and pulled out the ballots they needed to save 4 Senate seats and over a dozen House seats they should have lost.
GOP has nothing to compete with that.
Not an inadequate version.
They have a big, gaping void.
Ballot harvesting makes it much much easier to turnout your base, and to reach into the blob and pull out very high rates of your voters.
I will be supporting the GOP candidate who pledges to build an even better version of what Dems have. We are not going to win any more elections in purple or blue states until we do. I have inquiries out to see what DeSantis has. I'd be stunned, given his margin of victory, if he doesn't. Ned Ryun (serious dude) will be meeting with Trump on that same subject, too. Will see.
New dawn is upon us. It's not about voters anymore. It's about ballots. I suspect that what we get what we need built in time for 2024. And while that hard work happens, I'm quite sure you'll still be blaming Trump for everything right down to your ingrown toenail.
But their lack of motivation is the fault of someone other than Trump.
Gotcha.
BTW, for someone who claims it's unfair that other posters are putting this all on Trump, I have to say you seem to have a blind spot to the fact you don't put ANY of this on Trump. It's all someone else's fault, and has nothing to do with Trump's toxicity or actions, in your book. Lots of irony in those accusations.
I guess that's what you're going to be saying in 2024, when Trump's gets his ass kicked? Lots of excuses, but not accountability for the man in charge.
Democrats did a great job of pulling out very small slivers of independent voters in sufficient quantities to save House and Senate seats, within an overall context of a nationwide congressional vote won by the GOP in substantial numbers. The had a well-oiled ballot harvesting machine for which we had no answer. And they also outclassed us with small-money donors. To some degree, the right will always struggle with that. We have a "Rawhide" factor on our side, people who actually attach moral imperative to NOT giving campaign donations, while Democrats have a grassroots base which finds the $5 donation to be emotionally gratifying and sanitary way of fighting fascism.
Your point about accountability is kennel blind: I said the day after the election that Trump should have ignored the advice to stay out of the mid-terms. We now know Dems used him to motivate THEIR base anyway, so all we did by keeping Trump on the sidelines was depress our own turnout. The Tx numbers tracked what we saw nationally....surprisingly soft turnout. So yeah, I mark him up with red ink on that. But he played team ball (something he doesn't do, according to critics) and it was the wrong call. I expressed concern about OZ as not the kind of candidate who could easily fire up the conservative base. And indeed fought that issue all the way thru the campaign. But he recruited no candidates. He wrote no campaign plans. And he donated more campaign funds that would normally be expected of a guy running for an office of his own.
Mostly, though, I think you have heard me waive off the scapegoating as being as unproductive as complaining about officials. It's not like candidate Warnock OUTCLASSED candidate Walker. It's not like candidate Oz was OUTCLASSED by candidate Fetterman. and on and on.... We could and should have gotten those guys elected. Same for Laxalt, and outstanding candidate. I mean, really. The only way we can win is have an outstanding candidate? Like the guy in a mixed-race marriage who wrote Hillbilly Elegy was a bad candidate in a state like Ohio? This effort to lay 100% of the blame on Trump is incredibly irresponsible neverTrump bull**** that obscures serious deficiencies in party infrastructure to the point of of being totally outclassed by Democrats on small-donor fundraising and ballot harvesting. If we don't fix that, the candidates won't matter.
So the issue was we needed a lot more Trump not less. Got it. If only he had been more supportive of his hand picked candidates like Kari Lake and Dr. Oz they would've been elected. If only he had gone to more rallies, the republicans and independents who stayed home would have been motivated to show up in droves, given his popularity with the moderates and independents. None of this was on trump but was on everyone else. It has nothing to do with how unpopular he was outside of his sycophants.
And I suppose when he gets the nomination and gets his ass kicked in 2024 you'll have a ready made list of excuses for his poor performance. It will be not enough ballot harvesting or some **** like that. But as we all know with you, it will never be Trump's fault.
I've always enjoyed whiterocks well-reasoned post. But when it comes to Trump he's living in an alternate reality.
I like 'em. I like hearing all the real conservatives post....trying to weigh several factors to beat the evil that is overtaking this nation. I just wish it would end in unity and support behind a person that will fight for conservative values in the end - Trump or no Trump.
United we stand - divided we fall.
United we stand - divided we fall.
I like his analysis and his info on what the PACS are hearing. I just have to call him on some of the Trump stuff! All in good humor, just like Sam.Mothra said:
I've always enjoyed whiterocks well-reasoned post. But when it comes to Trump he's living in an alternate reality.
RMF5630 said:I like his analysis and his info on what the PACS are hearing. I just have to call him on some of the Trump stuff! All in good humor, just like Sam.Mothra said:
I've always enjoyed whiterocks well-reasoned post. But when it comes to Trump he's living in an alternate reality.
His posts are longer than Jinx's
Or perhaps it's the converse: if I'm well-reasoned elsewhere, I'm well-reasoned on this issue as well.Mothra said:
I've always enjoyed whiterocks well-reasoned post. But when it comes to Trump he's living in an alternate reality.
A very high percentage of Trump critique is visceral, emotional. Cold hard reality is, he is in quite a bit stronger position to win the primary here than his critics allow. Same for the general election. He IS electable. Problems? Sure. There are always problems. He is, uh, a different kind of candidate. But all that said, he grew his vote in 2020 by 7 million, Honestly. Good old fashioned barnstorming campaigning. Grew his share of vote with a number of demographics that have been historically difficult for the GOP. Incumbents that do that always win. Yeah, Democrats pulled in 6m more votes than that. From a guy who literally campaigned from his basement. Was that really 100% a function of people boiling out to say no to Trump? Or was it mostly the ballot harvesting operation I'm talking about? (those two things are not mutually exclusive.)
Biden didn't campaign. Didn't really even act like he was worried. Acted like he had it in the bag.
Hobbs didn't campaign. Didn't really even act like she was worried. Acted like she had it in the bag.
Same for Fetterman.
Same for Hassan.
Etc....
For that matter, how many Dem Senate or Gov. candidates went out barnstorming, made news with clever campaign rhetoric?
What is going on here?
(By the time the early voting period opens, Dems already know how many votes they can get. They know they CAN get enough. It's just a matter of harvesting them and dumping them into the ballot box.) It's not that campaigns are irrelevant, it's that the campaigns are a merely a constituent piece of a ballot harvesting operation. Elections aren't about voters anymore. They're about ballots. If we don't recalibrate how we run campaigns, the candidates won't matter. They don't really matter for Democrats, do they? Biden, Fetterman, Hobbs, Warnock, Barnes......that is a strong slate with wide appeal to independents???? Gimme a break, guys....
That is the message that the PACs and consultants are telling GOP donors.
GOP donors have been responding pretty much exactly as we see here: Harrumph. GOOD candidates win.
Trump Trump Trump Grumble Grumble Grumble
The GOP POTUS candidate that DOES build the ballot harvesting and small donor fundraising machinery needed to defeat Democrats is who's doing to win the primary.
What I've heard is that Trump does NOT have it in place and is being pressured to build it. What I do not know is whether or not DeSantis has a model for FL that can scale nationwide. Given the margin of his victory, I'd be surprised that he doesn't have something of the kind in place.
I cannot believe Republicans havent figured this out...they must embrace it and come at it full force - even better than what the criminal mastermind left does.
Scott Presly was on the ground in NY and FL. He should be in charge of more nationally. The GOP is mental not to have this guy on staff running ground game for the Republican national chair.whiterock said:Or perhaps it's the converse: if I'm well-reasoned elsewhere, I'm well-reasoned on this issue as well.Mothra said:
I've always enjoyed whiterocks well-reasoned post. But when it comes to Trump he's living in an alternate reality.
A very high percentage of Trump critique is visceral, emotional. Cold hard reality is, he is in quite a bit stronger position to win the primary here than his critics allow. Same for the general election. He IS electable. Problems? Sure. There are always problems. He is, uh, a different kind of candidate. But all that said, he grew his vote in 2020 by 7 million, Honestly. Good old fashioned barnstorming campaigning. Grew his share of vote with a number of demographics that have been historically difficult for the GOP. Incumbents that do that always win. Yeah, Democrats pulled in 6m more votes than that. From a guy who literally campaigned from his basement. Was that really 100% a function of people boiling out to say no to Trump? Or was it mostly the ballot harvesting operation I'm talking about? (those two things are not mutually exclusive.)
Biden didn't campaign. Didn't really even act like he was worried. Acted like he had it in the bag.
Hobbs didn't campaign. Didn't really even act like she was worried. Acted like she had it in the bag.
Same for Fetterman.
Same for Hassan.
Etc....
For that matter, how many Dem Senate or Gov. candidates went out barnstorming, made news with clever campaign rhetoric?
What is going on here?
(By the time the early voting period opens, Dems already know how many votes they can get. They know they CAN get enough. It's just a matter of harvesting them and dumping them into the ballot box.) It's not that campaigns are irrelevant, it's that the campaigns are a merely a constituent piece of a ballot harvesting operation. Elections aren't about voters anymore. They're about ballots. If we don't recalibrate how we run campaigns, the candidates won't matter. They don't really matter for Democrats, do they? Biden, Fetterman, Hobbs, Warnock, Barnes......that is a strong slate with wide appeal to independents???? Gimme a break, guys....
That is the message that the PACs and consultants are telling GOP donors.
GOP donors have been responding pretty much exactly as we see here: Harrumph. GOOD candidates win.
Trump Trump Trump Grumble Grumble Grumble
The GOP POTUS candidate that DOES build the ballot harvesting and small donor fundraising machinery needed to defeat Democrats is who's doing to win the primary.
What I've heard is that Trump does NOT have it in place and is being pressured to build it. What I do not know is whether or not DeSantis has a model for FL that can scale nationwide. Given the margin of his victory, I'd be surprised that he doesn't have something of the kind in place.
“Mix a little foolishness with your serious plans. It is lovely to be silly at the right moment.”
–Horace
“Insomnia sharpens your math skills because you spend all night calculating how much sleep you’ll get if you’re able to ‘fall asleep right now.’ “
–Horace
“Insomnia sharpens your math skills because you spend all night calculating how much sleep you’ll get if you’re able to ‘fall asleep right now.’ “
I liked that one too. Have bookmarked and revisited it often.Mothra said:
I've always enjoyed whiterocks well-reasoned post.
Because Ron Paul is as far right as Republicans get? You don't even have to leave this board to find Republicans who are right of Ron Paul.Oldbear83 said:Corrected.Sam Lowry said:whiterock said:with every post you demonstrate how out of touch you truly are.Sam Lowry said:You've said it many times, and it still isn't remotely true.whiterock said:I've said many times here: "when you get to the right pole in the GOP, you'd don't find Nazis or KKK members or any other leftist trope about conservatism. You find Ron Paul."Harrison Bergeron said:The key is for Democrats it always has been about power. That's the only thing that matters. Everything else is a distraction. Republicans are more principled, so they're always in-fighting. Maybe there are no more moderate Dems, but can anyone find an example of a moderate Dem speaking out against the extremists? Probably not. For them, it is a fundamentalist religious crusade - nothing else matters but power.RMF5630 said:We are on the same page here! I marvel at how Dems can see the forest no matter what the trees are doing! Abrams, Shumar, Pelosi are great at keeping the herd moving in the same direction. GOP could learn alot from the organizational structure and theory!whiterock said:MAGA 25-35% of the GOP base, and has always been around.Mothra said:A few things...J.R. said:I disagree on the old school republicans (which I basically am) and commonality with MAGA. Us, old school republicans have ZERO in common with the MAGA crazies!Mothra said:Exactly right. I've been saying it for years, but the party can be a bigger tent. The old school Repubs and neocons have much more in common with MAGA than they do with the Dems, and there is room for populism and pugilism in the party. As much as they despise Trump, he has expanded the base, brought in conservative blue collar workers, and a Hispanic element to the voting block that really didn't exist before. If the MAGAs and Trump sycophants could let go of their absurd devotion to Trump, and embrace DeSantis, that is someone we could all get behind.Oldbear83 said:
There are two ways to guarantee we lose the White House in 2024:
1. Bank everything on supporting Trump
2. Alienate Trump supporters with endless attacks on Trump
The Dems have absolutely nothing to offer the American people. They've gone completely woke to the point of absurdity. They have alienated moderates and blue dog democrats with their policies. They have literally done nothing right for the last year and a half. Every policy has been a disaster. There is no reason the next election should not be ripe for the taking, if they choose the right candidate (not Trump).I
You have advised us that you are socially liberal. That is not an old school Republican. Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, etc. - none were socially liberal.
You are wrong that MAGA has nothing in common with Republicans. Regardless of what you think about MAGA, fiscally you share much more in common with MAGA than today's Democrat party. They also share a lot more in common with old school Republicans (not you) on social policy.
JR is just embarrassed to have to caucus with them.
Democrats tend to be able to put such vanities aside and work together. But moderate Republicans? Ironically, they can be some of the least pragmatic people on the planet, when it comes to compromising within their own team.Keep onTry gaslighting. It's beenworking great so far.a favorite of mine for months now.