Kudos freshman House Ds…keep it up!
Rep. Katie Porter is leading them in really doing their J-O-B-S.
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Whenever we have good news like this it needs to be tempered by the fact that all the money in the world doesn’t mean a damn thing if people don’t get out and vote. There is no room for complacency.
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This is good news, but it isn’t as good as it would have been in past elections.
Pelosi has been sending a lot of time doing fundraising events with well-to-do donors to benefit the marginal seats. I’m personally aware of at least three such events, and what she says at them. She’s been successful in those efforts. But that is very different from what happened in the 2018 Blue Wave, when people like Katie Porter, Conor Lamb etc raised big numbers from small-dollar donors online, and won on the back of white-hot grassroots fervor.
HRC outraised Trump by hundreds of millions of dollars, but it turned out that millions pumped into ads simply could not compete with more social media dissemination of memes, emotions, narratives, fake news.
In other words: it’s great that our Dems have a war-chest already, but the idea that holding on to your House majority hinges on campaign cash is much less compelling in this day and age. You need authentic enthusiasm in your base as well. Bombarding low-info voters with ads is of limited efficacy–especially if those ads are dictated by a committee of Washington consultants who are analyzing polls like it’s 1999.
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The unfortunate reality is that even if the Democrats can eke out a small majority in the Senate, McConnell or his successor will simply shift from a refusal to bring House passed legislation to the Senate floor to a replay of the endless filibuster that hampered the Obama administration. The one big plus is that it would end the chance of the GOP installing a 6-3 or 7-2 reactionary majority on the Supreme Court.
We already have several strong candidates to unseat Gardner, though Hickenlooper may have an advantage because of his recent stint as governor. I agree with what I take as your broader point, echoed by @maximus, that we have to narrow the presidential candidate field.
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She’s great, she is doing HER job, just as the others are doing theirs. She has a particular skill set that’s been useful. Others have skills that are different but just as useful.
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I’m beginning to come around to an impeachment inquiry. It will mean subpoenas will be enforced by the courts expeditiously. Hopefully it will give access to the Grand Jury testimony. The Russian interference and tRump’s history of corruption will come out for all to see.
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The target of propaganda in the 2020 election is the Dem coalition. You launch the inquiry and put a prime focus on the nat sec aspects outlined in the intel hearing by Schiff and Mueller to inform and protect your own voters. That’s the point. The best defense against propaganda is public awareness. The worst is to do nothing and give bad faith attacks an air of legitimacy that ends up chewing through news cycles and crowding out Dem messaging. That was the formula the Russians used starting with the Bernie voters in the primary to help Trump win.
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This. My representative is one of the 39 who flipped a district last year, and I was pleased to chip in for his campaign. And basically since his first day in office, he’s been posturing himself as a moderate whose seemingly sole concerns are generic support for health insurance and veterans. I’ll still vote for him next year because I vote in every election, but it darned sure isn’t firing up anyone who is more marginal than me.
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This is great news. It shows the momentum is there even this far out from the election. Ask yourself, will fewer turn out to vote than did in the 2018 midterms? Be careful, be vigilant but do not be fooled. We vote, we win.
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…Don’t count on it… Everything will still get appealed all the way to the Supremes, and it’s currently a toss-up where Roberts will land.
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You focus impeachment on the president’s intentional failure to protect the US from a repetition of the 2016 attacks, which benefited him, which he welcomed, and which is ongoing. See Mueller.
The purpose of the impeachment wouldn’t be to remove the president. It is to fire up the Democratic base–which is currently disenchanted to a level that threatens Democrats in 2020–and to make people aware that the GOP and Russia are getting ready to subvert our democracy again. Low information voters would get that very quickly. It’s not a technical or retributive matters: it’s basic national security and loyalty to the United States. If Democrats handle the impeachment correctly–that would mean Schiff, not Nadler, leading the proceedings–marginal Dems would have nothing to worry about. They would simply explain to their constituents that Trump is in cahoots with the Russians–again.
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The winnowing down is imminent as donations are already drying up for most of the remaining candidates.
I’m pissed at Steyer, though, for jumping into the race, and now begging for penny donations throughout the country so he can qualify for the debates.
It now looks that his prior impeachment pleas and ads were just to build his cred with the left before running for president.
Do something helpful for our democracy with your money instead, Steyer.
Start some super PACS to attack Trump, Mitch, and the GOP.
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Not even Roberts will intervene in an impeachment inquiry.
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Sounds like a bet. 10 internet shots?
I never bet.
SCOTUS has said in the past that it is loathe to pass judgment on such issues, calling them outside the court’s purview.
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…I see the potential logic flaw there…
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How can this possibly be true when
DEMS IN DISARRAY!!!
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Played correctly by the Dems, either way works, though.
- The public gets to see documents and testimony - evidence and proof of crimes and disloyalty of Trump and the GOP.
or
- The public is blocked from seeing documents and testimony - and wondering what is so desperately being hidden, their imagination fills in the blanks/connects the dots regarding crimes and disloyalty of Trump and the GOP. And they also see once again how corrupt the DOJ and courts have become under Trump/Mitch/GOP, and how important it is to vote them out and restore functioning institutions.
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It’s really important that we contribute early to incumbents and to challengers of folks like Graham and Collins and McConnell. The less time they all have to spend on fund raising because we let them know we support them NOW, the more effective they can be campaigning.
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