The Democrats are the Big Tent Party!
Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn whether you support the President’s policies, as long as you vote for Harry Reid for Majority Leader in January. (In the unlikely event you get the chance.)
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Well said rssrai, wish you could manage her campaign.
Agreed, but unfortunately it doesn’t matter. This seat is lost. Dems are holding their own in some of the red state races… but not, I fear, this one.
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West Virginia, home of back wash chemicals in the municipal water supply. Democrats need not apply.
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Let her lose, as she surely will. And then we will not have to listen to her defeatism ever again.
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Gotta disagree. You don’t win in KY or WV by running on the Black president’s strengths. Both KY and WV have far and away more registered Democrats than Republicans yet both voted overwhelmingly against him, and for many of the same reasons Republicans oppose him. These Democrats are not like the Democrats in even OH. These Democrats are hugely pro-coal, vehemently anti-abortion, as pro gun as Wayne LaPierre, and as gay hating as Rick Santorum. Her best bet is to run hard and fast away from Obama while pushing a liberal economic agenda and a mildly conservative social agenda and exposing Capito for the fraud she is.
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However, isn’t that a fair characterization of the majority of the voting adults in WV anyway?
Then they aren’t Democrats, are they? So, what’s the point of caring whether these backward racist states send DINO to Congress? If they vote for policies favored by their constituents and major anti-environment lobbyists, they are helping the rest of the nation in any way.
She’s a
#DINO
This is why the DSCC can take me off its mailing list.
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Too many people seem to put ideological purity ahead of practical politics. WV is a singularity. Even in KY and GA there are pockets of support for Obama, mostly in urban areas. But WV is all rural. Even the cities are rural.
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Would you rather have this Dino lose and help Mitch McConnell become Majority Leader or have her win and help Harry Reid remain Majority Leader? Because I sure as hell preferred Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House with Dinos than John Boehner as Speaker without them.
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It’s fine if she doesn’t support his policies, so long as the people of West Virginia have the option of voting for someone who does.
Hey I don’t like the “Ns” any more than ya’ll so vote for me.
Nats “Like a T-scro” Tennant
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Brilliant idea. Much better to let the Republicans have control of the Senate than to send an impure Democrat there. It’s vastly preferable to have the Republicans set the agenda for the Senate through the Majority Leader, have the committee chairmanships and subpoena power, and let them reject the President’s appointees through their majority than to have someone who isn’t 100% Democrat in the Senate. I sometimes wonder why ideologues on both sides of the spectrum think they understand politics.
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They’re still Democrats whether we agree with them or not. The Democratic Party is a big tent with people of sometimes drastically opposing views. I’ll take a gun toting, abortion opposing, Blue Dog like Steve Beshear any day of the week over a Republican. And in the Senate, I’ll take a Natalie Tennant who’ll vote with Democrats 80% of the time over a Shelly More Capito who will vote with Republicans 100% of the time. I don’t need for a Democrat to be 100% in line with my views, I don’t even need them to be 80%. I need only to know that you’ll vote with Democrats more often than not, which is a lot more often than any Republican.
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Spot on! Look how well ideological purity is working out for Republicans. They’ve blown two prime opportunities to take the Senate, they may blow a third opportunity, and it looks as though they’re already conceding 2016. Oh, but their candidates are as ideologically pure as the driven snow, so there’s that.
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I don’t expect a WV Dem to embrace Obama, and I would expect there are issues that one might make a point of disagreeing with some of his policies, even if it is just the caricature of them and not the facts. I think using labels like DINO for conservative leaning Democrats in conservative leaning states is pointless, and I’ll take a Joe Manchin type over any Republican in the Senate, especially when it comes down to which party is in control. That said, a smart politician with a chance of winning would trumpet the populist positions of Democratic party that are still fairly popular in WV without tying them directly to Obama, while avoiding making blanket statements about not supporting “most” of his policies. In 2008 Bush was toxic in many states, and I recall some blue state Republicans conspicuously dropping party ID from their campaign signage, while stressing their “independence”, but they didn’t make a point of disagreeing with their party’s President on “most” issues, as they understood that they would still need Republican votes to win. The number of WV Dems who would withhold their vote from her because she is insufficiently supportive of Obama’s policies is probably miniscule, but the number of casual Dem voters who will need to get “fired up” to come out and vote for Tennant is huge, and this sort of easy cowardice is not going to do it.
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If she’s this craven, what guarantee (Lieberman) that she caucuses with the rest of the tribe? If she votes her mouth, she’s not going to assure a Dem majority (Lieberman) any way.
This has nothing to do with “ideological purity.” The candidate in question doesn’t tick as single Dem, let alone, progressive box.