Comments | jrittenhouse: Last night in whoville:

jrittenhouse

Last night in whoville:

Nov 04, 2009 16:00

…is only indicative of local situations, really - with two caveats.

If you run a crappy candidate and a nasty, dumb campaign, don’t be surprised when you lose.
If you spend a lot of money and should have won or just barely won, that says more about your campaign and your candidate than anything else.

In Virginia and New Jersey, the Democrats ran ( Read more... )

democrats, virginia, nyc, goo_goos, new-jersey, gop, elections, political_science, obama, new-york-state, politics

Comments 9

seawasp November 4 2009, 21:03:21 UTC

To which I simply say, add "None of the Above" to *ALL* elections as an option, and if "None" wins, you re-do the election... and NONE of the prior candidates are eligible, as they just got a vote of "no confidence, no thanks."

tandw November 4 2009, 22:09:53 UTC

Maybe that'd work, but only if the villages & towns whose clerks have to put in gobs of overtime to count the votes get comped for it. Elections are *expensive*.

(The comment has been removed)

seawasp November 5 2009, 16:10:30 UTC

Here in NYS, there are often times the entire government is running on empty. I've seen the Feds hit that problem too. Here, though, we're talking about missing a few individual people from the structure. There would be ways of having a temporary fill-in. It doesn't disrupt government terribly if you go out and just shoot one person -- even the person at the very top -- and here you're not shooting anyone, you're just leaving their office vacant. You could have similar provisions for maintaining the government in the interim.

And I would expect disruptions the first few times it was used. After that, candidates would start emerging who actually had a chance of winning when run against NOBODY.

I'm sorry, but if you can't get enough votes to win an election when the winning opponent is "nobody", you have no business "representing" me -- it's clear we don't think you're representative of us, and you thus have no business governing us either.

Hello markiv1111 November 4 2009, 21:08:20 UTC

When I don't comment to you for a few months, it's because I have nothing to add, not because I don't read your posts or because I don't care. I am commenting on this one because, even more than your high standard usual, you are hitting a bunch of nails totally on the head. Keep up the good work.

Nate

vee_ecks November 4 2009, 21:16:40 UTC

"It’s that they run to the right with cruddy candidates at the peril of losing the active support and interest of their base and of voters who are tired of the same old stuff. "

Yeah, except that's Democratic strategy in a nutshell, lately. It's how Emanuel got his big turnaround in Congress a few years ago: he got a bunch of socially conservative but willing to flex on money a little Repubs who'd do anything to win to switch sides. So a bunch of gun rights folks who actively hate abortion got elected as Democrats, which is apparently some kind of good thing for progressives.

Obama's done a few good things, he's better than that last big talking no walking asshat who was The Liberal Dream President, but his policies and efforts are all guided by "Don't look too LIBERAL" concepts that are just about filling seats for a party.

And I just don't give a crap about the party.

mbcrui November 4 2009, 22:00:59 UTC

This has been my take, too. But instead of saying "We ran crappy candidates and lost" the dems are hiding and everyone is saying how this was a referendum on the "new obama."

Michele has a button that says 'the two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity." I think the stupidity comes out more around election time.

samwinolj November 5 2009, 10:57:17 UTC

I'd have thought that the uber-conservatives would have learned caution after the Keyes debacle here in Illinois. It's possible that Obama would still be just a local politician if they hadn't arranged a landslide Senate victory for him.

beamjockey November 5 2009, 13:24:46 UTC

I'd have thought that the uber-conservatives would have learned caution after the Keyes debacle here in Illinois.

Well, I would have, too. If you find any evidence that uber-conservatives have learned caution, I'm sure Jim would appreciate your bringing it to his attention.

(Palin/Keyes in 2012!)

jrittenhouse November 5 2009, 15:20:51 UTC

True Believers generally tend to thump on things and shout, not think. If they win an election, it just goes to show how everyone thinks the same way they do. If they lose it, it's because of sabotage or it-really-wasn't-a-loss-because-we-showed-them-what-for-and-purged-the-unbelievers.

Take your pick.