You do understand that if they retire, they will be replaced by more hardliners?
These districts have all been so gerrymandered as to make a Democrat winning impossible. In 2012,
Democrats running for Congress over 1 million more votes than Republicans running for Congress and the GOP held the House.
You think we have problems now? if these moderates retire, the crazies will be in charge and among other things, the US will default on it’s debt.
How do they derive the score for the abscissa?
.and the GreedyOl’ representatives respond:
"Hey King! Where’d you get this WE sh*t?? "
Idiots will do more damage by quitting. Why not stick around and vote against the extreme agenda, perhaps with the help of the democrats.
There are three? I can’t think of a single one, myself.
Peter King isn’t a moderate: he’s just crazy, as opposed to batshit crazy.
The thing you have to remember here is the power of incumbency. One of the keys in packing and cracking is build smaller majorities in districts where there is already an incumbent of your party. You build bigger majorities in districts where you intend to steal a seat from an incumbent of the other party. If your state loses a seat, you destroy a district held by the other party. And so forth.
They would quickly be dispersed with a modern day ‘Whiff of grapeshot.’
Exactly right - what if they all packed it in and nobody noticed? It’s not like any less would actually get done.
Very true, and they have more value as a lobbyist if they retire and appear to leave on their own terms rather than losing to a primary opponent.
Except that lobbying is a bigger, better gravy train with far more gravy. Literal gravy.
This is simply not true. Daily Kos Elections' 2020 presidential results by congressional district
DYSFUNCTIONAL…the hardliners of the Republican Party are destroying our government. I would hate to see this. What happened to duty to your country. What about a plan to say and out live the HARDLINERS and then take your case to the ‘VOTERS’ to make sure these people are NOT re-elected.
We DO NOT need more HARDLINERS to come into Congress and increase their numbers. QUITING is not the answer if you want to save your country. DUTY CALLS ya know.
Not sure what you are getting at here. There will be no new gerrymandering occurring between now and next November. In fact, the de-gerrymandering of Florida is the only district redrawing I know of happening.
We can go through a district by district discussion if more people sign on to this notion, but right now King and Dent’s districts are definitely winnable by Dems. They both went for Obama in 2012. Remove the incumbents via retiring and we take them, all other things being equal. The TP certainly doesn’t play in those type of districts.
The other option is to support a Democrat for Speaker. The problem with that is that it would almost certainly lead to a primary challenger who would beat them anyway. I do not envy the situation they put themselves in.
Politics is the art of the possible. I hope there are people trying to peel off some of the moderate Republicans. In spite of the hype there are probably many issues we can work with them on. And it would be a lot better for them to run for reelection with some accomplishments. A new Democratic Speaker could help give them cover.
Phil Gramm of Texas went from the Dems to the Pubs in the 1980’s. I’m not a fan of his but the story of his switch is worth looking at. It’s been done successfully before. It’s how tidal waves get started.
Buh-bye! Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out!
Oh, it’s bullshit. They won’t quit–they like the gravy train too much. They’re just having an AARP-sized tantrum.
Here is the thing, if there are enough moderate Republicans willing to cross over, Nancy will be the Speaker, or one of them would be elected speaker with Democratic help. This is a numbers game. I wonder if the Crazy Caucus can count.
The Ryan Homestead…
What’s not true? Did Democrats secretly win control of the House in 2012?
Did Democrats for Congress not receive more votes than Republicans running for the House?
The WP’s Dan Keating did the work and found that Democrats got 54,301,095 votes while Republicans got 53,822,442. I was off by the number of votes Dems received compared to the GOP, but it’s still a popular vote win for the Democrats. And this was with record turnout.
Like 2012, Democrats can pick up several seats, but It’s a fantasy to believe Democrats can retake the House given current district lines.
The Democratic party has to organize on the state level to retake state houses and redraw districts lines. Never forget Tip O’Neal’s like: All politics is local.
Democratic voters must vote in EVERY election. Republicans do.
Democats can piss and moan until the end of time, but until they do a lot more work, they will never retake the House and until they retake the House, they will never have the country they dream of.
Democrats need to stop making excuses and start making a difference.
I just don’t think so. The Republican Party as a whole has moved so far right and given how greatly polarized the country has become, I think supporting a Democrat for Speaker, no matter what that may help accomplish for their country and their districts, would ultimately result in a successful primary challenge. A primary challenger would not only be well-funded by anti-RINO groups, but would also be able to run on the single issue of ousting a turncoat. The best that a “moderate” who voted for a Dem Speaker would be able to hope for is to spend a whole lot of money defending his seat against a challenger, take a huge beating in the primary, and limp into the general short on cash and badly damaged.
Its far better to just go ahead and support Dems all the way to get your things pushed through.
We need to find a way to bring them into our tent without giving up too much.
The Democratic party has never been as cohesive as the Republicans. We debate more and disagree more then they do. There’s room for some diverse voices.
In the immortal words of Capt Jean Luc Picard: “Make it so.”