jamie
Forum Regular
Posts: 4,969 
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Post by jamie on Aug 13, 2020 20:57:08 GMT
Even if Joe Kennedy loses the primary and is consequently out of Congress, we may still have our dose of Kennedy thanks to Amy Kennedy (by marriage not blood) who is aiming to regain New Jersey 2nd from party switcher Van Drew and who has released a couple of internals showing her leading, including a poll with Trump up 1 but her up 5 which is very unusual for a target seat (most Democratic internals showing competitive races have unrealistically pro-Biden samples that they underperform with).
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Rural Radical
Labour
Now living in a Labour held ward at Borough level for the first time in many years
Posts: 1,525
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Post by Rural Radical on Aug 13, 2020 21:06:06 GMT
Last won by a Republican in 1984. Last won by a losing Republican in 1916. Even if HW Bush had faced a much closer election at the national level, they would have gotten it in 1988 but for the Democratic nominee being the (locally popular) Democratic governor. I rather doubt that. Dukakis underperformed if anything. |
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Post by conservativeestimate on Aug 13, 2020 21:08:24 GMT
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Post by thirdchill on Aug 13, 2020 22:22:47 GMT
Even if HW Bush had faced a much closer election at the national level, they would have gotten it in 1988 but for the Democratic nominee being the (locally popular) Democratic governor. I rather doubt that. Dukakis underperformed if anything. It looked about as democratic leaning as it was in 1984 (16 percent more democratic than the national average). The swing in that state from 84-88 was pretty much in line with the national swing. It was a solid though not spectacular performance. Dukakis did much better in the mid-west in 88, particularly Iowa which had a huge swing. |
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Rural Radical
Labour
Now living in a Labour held ward at Borough level for the first time in many years
Posts: 1,525
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Post by Rural Radical on Aug 14, 2020 6:39:15 GMT
I rather doubt that. Dukakis underperformed if anything. It looked about as democratic leaning as it was in 1984 (16 percent more democratic than the national average). The swing in that state from 84-88 was pretty much in line with the national swing. It was a solid though not spectacular performance. Dukakis did much better in the mid-west in 88, particularly Iowa which had a huge swing. 1988 was the first Presidential election that I can remember. Yes, he did well in the mid west. I guess Gary Hart May well have ran this closer. |
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Post by conservativeestimate on Aug 14, 2020 8:58:40 GMT
Ed Markey has a new ad and it's brilliant
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Post by curiousliberal on Aug 14, 2020 9:19:14 GMT
Ed Markey has a new ad and it's brilliant As with Biden, this cycle has reminded younger politicians not to underestimate old soldiers. |
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CatholicLeft
Co-operative Party
2032 posts until I was "accidentally" deleted.
Posts: 2,836
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Post by CatholicLeft on Aug 14, 2020 9:35:03 GMT
Ed Markey has a new ad and it's brilliant As with Biden, this cycle has reminded younger politicians not to underestimate old soldiers. Clever ad that speaks to the base. I think it is somewhat cheapened by his last remark. |
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Post by conservativeestimate on Aug 14, 2020 11:15:26 GMT
The Intercept can be a bit trashy and they've fully acknowledged they're not publishing all the logs they saw, but the ones there look pretty bad for the College Dems. I'll admit my characterisation of Morse's behaviour as unethical (though never illegal and rightly so) was too quick and mboy had it right in one of the other threads on this; I had presumed the uni was a lot smaller and that he'd coerced students (including 18 y/os) he was either teaching or had some official power over. Amherst not rehiring him was never particularly suspect because he teaches part-time anyway, but - at first - the allegation that Neal had coaxed this out of the College Dems was not particularly shocking as that's a standard opposition research tactic and not exculpatory regarding any dirt found. The story has shifted from sleazy guy to sensitive students to possibly non-existent students "speaking out" through two College Presidents who were driven to set up an apparent hit job by political bias. Perhaps Morse did do wrong, but the College Presidents' actions now means any of his victims must use alternative, credible channels (probably waiving their anonymity) to speak out as the letter is compromised.Β Β As it stands, I suspect Morse will still suffer an electoral penalty because of this which makes his loss almost certain; mud tends to stick for some time to those not immediately and completely exonerated in sex scandals and a significant proportion of progressive-leaning organisations wavered when the news first broke (before I get called a hypocrite on here for my earlier stance, I would have done the research in their place which I have not as a mildly interested Brit on the internet). That said, Timothy Ennis is probably not going to get his internship with Neal now, so he's (failed to) prostitute himself with no reward other than further discrediting of alleged victims in political sex scandals. Safe Neal -> Likely bordering on safe Neal. I'm not surprised this non-story has blown up in a state set up by holier-than-thou religious puritans |
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Post by curiousliberal on Aug 14, 2020 12:05:43 GMT
The Intercept can be a bit trashy and they've fully acknowledged they're not publishing all the logs they saw, but the ones there look pretty bad for the College Dems. I'll admit my characterisation of Morse's behaviour as unethical (though never illegal and rightly so) was too quick and mboy had it right in one of the other threads on this; I had presumed the uni was a lot smaller and that he'd coerced students (including 18 y/os) he was either teaching or had some official power over. Amherst not rehiring him was never particularly suspect because he teaches part-time anyway, but - at first - the allegation that Neal had coaxed this out of the College Dems was not particularly shocking as that's a standard opposition research tactic and not exculpatory regarding any dirt found. The story has shifted from sleazy guy to sensitive students to possibly non-existent students "speaking out" through two College Presidents who were driven to set up an apparent hit job by political bias. Perhaps Morse did do wrong, but the College Presidents' actions now means any of his victims must use alternative, credible channels (probably waiving their anonymity) to speak out as the letter is compromised.Β Β As it stands, I suspect Morse will still suffer an electoral penalty because of this which makes his loss almost certain; mud tends to stick for some time to those not immediately and completely exonerated in sex scandals and a significant proportion of progressive-leaning organisations wavered when the news first broke (before I get called a hypocrite on here for my earlier stance, I would have done the research in their place which I have not as a mildly interested Brit on the internet). That said, Timothy Ennis is probably not going to get his internship with Neal now, so he's (failed to) prostitute himself with no reward other than further discrediting of alleged victims in political sex scandals. Safe Neal -> Likely bordering on safe Neal. I'm not surprised this non-story has blown up in a state set up by holier-than-thou religious puritans Morse might be glad heβs not running in MA-06, the home of Salem, but that particular town picked Trump in the 2016 Republican primary and (Jewish) Sanders in the Democratic one. Unlike lots of small town America, it went on to back HRC in the general election. The data there on religion is quite limited, but at the turn of the century local Catholics easily outnumbered Protestants. |
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Post by conservativeestimate on Aug 14, 2020 13:42:57 GMT
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Post by curiousliberal on Aug 14, 2020 16:04:59 GMT
Theyβre waiting until the primary is over before convening according to that article, but if they sincerely intend to convene in the first place, they should just do it now. Fact-finding weighs in on the race, but so does holding off on an investigation after the first mud, justified or not, has already been thrown. I suppose the edge case they could be worried about is beginning the investigation but not finishing it before the primary. Either contestant entering the contest with his campaign βunder investigationβ would be hurt by this and wrongly so if the investigation eventually exonerated them. All the same, it looks like standard cowardice to me. Morse wasnβt favoured to win even before the allegations and being 10% behind in oneβs own internal is nothing to write home about (although still surmountable in a primary). |
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Post by David Boothroyd on Aug 14, 2020 23:02:56 GMT
Richard Neal would probably have won without this, but may well be seriously damaged by such a cack-handed attempt to smear his opponent. Don't think it's in his interest to draw lots of outside attention to the race either.
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Post by curiousliberal on Aug 15, 2020 0:18:39 GMT
It's a shame not many other sources are publicly digging into this yet, as this Intercept piece seems to be of a lower standard than the previous one in this thread (which was filled with more tangible evidence and less speculation). They actually uncover some valuable details (like the state party's executive director apparently having input on the letter) but zero in on ones which are less interesting to a genuine investigation but serve as red meat to certain readers (e.g. the attorney being an ex-pharma CEO who dislikes Sanders). There seem to be some pretty serious conflicts of interest here, but I'm not entirely sure they've openly broken their own rules in the way implied: β...no officer of the State Committee and no Chairperson of any subcommittee shall use their title or office to endorse and/or otherwise support any candidate prior to a contested Democratic Primary, and no staff member of the State Committee shall endorse or participate in any contested Democratic Primary campaign.βJim Roosevelt's prior financial support for Neal (a tidy sum, part of which was donated as recently as the 2016 election) probably does not qualify as support prior to his 2018 race. As an officer of the state committee, the rule seems to deny him the opportunity to endorse and/or otherwise support Neal, but he doesn't appear to be barred from participating in Neal's primary if he is not also a staff member of the state committee. One could argue that his advice to the College Dems to publish the letter (a conclusion which could well be reached independently if an attorney's client had insisted the allegations were true) counted as support for Neal in a two-way primary, but that seems like something which would be dismantled in court (although I'm a layperson and so defer to anyone here who knows a bit more about this sort of law). The focus on Roosevelt makes the accusation of "coordination" look silly because that alone could more plausibly be a result of cock-up as opposed to conspiracy: a local party selecting a high profile Massachusetts lawyer with connections to help their college affiliate could easily make the mistake of picking someone who happened to have a dog in the fight, and these kinds of rich Democrats tend to lean "moderate" anyway so can crop up everywhere without overt political intent. The executive director's involvement seems a lot more rum but she is not a member of the state committee and it's not 100% clear she's a staff member of the state committee as opposed to the employee of some other body within the party. It does strike me overwhelmingly likely she's a member of the committee given that the chair of the committee appoints Directors and that the job titles 'Executive Director of the State Party' and 'Executive Director of the State Committee' seem to be used interchangeably, in which case there looks to have been a violation, although not the one Ryan Grim fixated on. Even with the fundraising boost/accusations of homophobia and witch hunts, I still don't think this is going to help Morse. He wasn't scrabbling for dough before this incident and didn't have a profile so low it depended on out-of-state media cycles: he was a local mayor and presumably reasonably well-known. The money and perhaps the marginally increased name ID will help him, but less than the mud will hurt. Given that he's said he regrets making people feel uncomfortable (albeit while standing firm on the issue of the letter), some of that is probably going to stick. |
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Post by thinwhiteduke on Aug 17, 2020 23:32:23 GMT
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Post by thinwhiteduke on Aug 20, 2020 16:38:15 GMT
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Post by relique on Aug 20, 2020 16:50:43 GMT
Is that the kiss of death ?  |
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Post by curiousliberal on Aug 20, 2020 16:56:33 GMT
Is that the kiss of death ? It should be, but I'm afraid not. |
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Post by curiousliberal on Aug 20, 2020 17:07:04 GMT
Alex Morse is doing better in polling than Cori Bush was this far out from her primary win. As is Robbie Goldstein in his challenge against Stephen Lynch. I'll tentatively accept that you and David Boothroyd seem to have gotten it right w.r.t. the scandal helping Morse; 18% of respondents to the latest poll said whatever they'd heard of the story made them less likely to vote for Morse, but 21% said it made them more likely to do so. Meanwhile, the open House primary in MA-04 is being led by a former Massachusetts Republican Party staffer who appears to have undergone a (probably disingenuous) conversion to mainstream American liberalism, although the field is extremely crowded and he's only at 14%. |
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Post by curiousliberal on Aug 20, 2020 18:29:00 GMT
The Pelosi endorsement here appears to have sparked the most public divide in the Democratic Party since the presidential primary and certainly the most public within the House for a long time. At the time of the endorsement, she kicked off with the obnoxious tone policing that HRC popularised:
This was scorned by AOC, soon-to-be-freshman Mondaire Jones and almost-Congresswoman Jessica Cisneros, who may be angling to run again in 2022. It's only a handful of figures here, but usually the disdain isn't this open from more than one at a time (and it's usually just Ilhan Omar, tbh). I do wonder what else is going on behind closed doors, because this looks like a small shift from the tight grip Speaker Pelosi appeared to have over her caucus post-2018.
Biden must be glad the party is running a virtual DNC so that the appearance of unity can still be maintained in the fairly tightly controlled format.
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