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Election: what made you happy, what made you sad?

 
 
 
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Rhea

Rhea

Cyborg with a Tiara
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I’m happy for my state races (we can attack bad state laws), sad for my federal races (Congresscrittur is arrogant teaturd)
 
Overall, pretty bad. The dems just took the house. Ohio was a bloodbath. I had hoped people could look past their wallets and consider what is right for the nation in a larger sense. James Carville’s maxim about the economy still holds.
I was hoping for more of a down market leading up to the election to maybe temper the moneygrubbers enthusiasm but that didn’t happen to the extent I was expecting either. Now, any downturn in the market will be the dems fault regardless.
Unless the dems find a new strategy, 2020 will be ugly and 2018 will look like a dead cat bounce, politically speaking. They need to look at the demographics and put forward candidates that get their likely constituents out to vote. Good luck with Nancy Fucking Pelosi again being the face of the Democratic Party.
 
TV and credit cards said:
Overall, pretty bad. The dems just took the house. Ohio was a bloodbath. I had hoped people could look past their wallets and consider what is right for the nation in a larger sense. James Carville’s maxim about the economy still holds.
I was hoping for more of a down market leading up to the election to maybe temper the moneygrubbers enthusiasm but that didn’t happen to the extent I was expecting either. Now, any downturn in the market will be the dems fault regardless.
Unless the dems find a new strategy, 2020 will be ugly and 2018 will look like a dead cat bounce, politically speaking. They need to look at the demographics and put forward candidates that get their likely constituents out to vote. Good luck with Nancy Fucking Pelosi again being the face of the Democratic Party.
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Well, I think that dems did a good job electing so many younger women. The party doesn't "put forward" candidates to run. They more support people who decide to run that they think can run.

What made me sad? Florida. Florida. Why is Florida always such a close hell for dems? Sad about Beto. Generally happy about the direction of the house. Glad that dems finally had a good turnout.

Here's what really makes me sad: far more dems voted yesterday than republicans. Far more. Dems total voters yesterday was about 7% greater than republicans. And yet, according to our system, republicans retain in incredible control in the government. Yes, I agree with TV that 2020 could be very ugly...
 
I’m ecstatic. Don’t forget that it wasn’t a level playing field. It never is with Republicans. So in spite of all of their sometimes blatant (Texas) and massive attempts to cheat (Georgia), we still took control of the House. That means Mueller can finally start the heavy hitting.
 
Happy about the Dems taking back the house. Disappointed about Stacey's loss in Georgia, but considering all of the lying, voter suppression etc., she did quite well. I've lived through some Republican governors that were tolerable, but Kemp is corrupt and incompetent, so that makes Stacey's loss worse. Sad about Beto and Gillum but happy that Republican Karen Handel lost in what was once Gingrich's district, so Georgia is certainly becoming gradually more progressive. Ecstatic that so many women won seats in the House. Feeling more hopeful.

But, I'm also wondering if any of the Republicans in Congress will grow a pair and start standing up to Trump.
 
The dems took the top offices in Michigan. Weed is now fully legal, redistricting will now be done by an independent commission, and voting will now be much easier.
 
The good, there is finally a check against Trump with the Dems taking the House. Dem are what, +6 net gain for Governships and +7 on State Legislatures.

The very bad. The Republicans held most of the "close" Senate races, much likely thanks to Trump's dystopian campaigning. Kemp stole the election in Georgia. Anyone hear Cruz's celebration victory speech? Sounds like he works for the First Order!

Ultimately, a blu-ish wave, but the Democrats are held back by what they can accomplish due to gerrymandering.

Oh, and Kim "I fucking don't understand hypocrisy" Davis lost!
TV and credit cards said:
Overall, pretty bad. The dems just took the house. Ohio was a bloodbath. I had hoped people could look past their wallets and consider what is right for the nation in a larger sense. James Carville’s maxim about the economy still holds.
I was hoping for more of a down market leading up to the election to maybe temper the moneygrubbers enthusiasm but that didn’t happen to the extent I was expecting either. Now, any downturn in the market will be the dems fault regardless.
Unless the dems find a new strategy, 2020 will be ugly and 2018 will look like a dead cat bounce, politically speaking. They need to look at the demographics and put forward candidates that get their likely constituents out to vote. Good luck with Nancy Fucking Pelosi again being the face of the Democratic Party.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't say Ohio was a blood bath, it was more of a status quo. The Dems took the House, but not a single House race in Ohio was competitive.

And now to the conspiracy theories. Mike Dewine lost the exit polling to Cordray and the voting results are bizarre (don't add to 100%). Votes appear to be missing.
 
Well, the happy part is that all the people who've spent the past couple of years going on about how Trump is an anomaly who doesn't represent America can now shut up and accept that he represents the country just fine. It kind of looks like the blue wave did happen, but it was matched by a red wave who support him and what he's saying and doing, so the whole notion that "This isn't what my country is about" has been disproved by the data, since that is what your country is about.

The sad part is that Trump's messaging works. The places where he went and rallied in the final days of the campaign had close races that went the GOP's way. It's effective and successful and people respond to it, so it will be ramped up to 11. This is your political dialogue and Trump's supporters love it and his opponents are going to be constantly worn down by the ineffectiveness of their opposition to it.

The especially sad part is Kemp down in Georgia. He outright abused his position to steal the election and it worked and there are no negative repercussions from having operated this way. This is now a viable strategy which will be repeated wherever possible.
 
Koyaanisqatsi said:
I’m ecstatic. Don’t forget that it wasn’t a level playing field. It never is with Republicans. So in spite of all of their sometimes blatant (Texas) and massive attempts to cheat (Georgia), we still took control of the House. That means Mueller can finally start the heavy hitting.
Click to expand...

I'm far from ecstatic, but relieved that the Mueller investigation's findings might not get buried. We shall see if there's a big news dump from him right away, or if he tries to hold out until the Dem House is inaugurated. I can only imagine the fuckery that will go on between now and that time, as the rethuglican rats plan and design their escape routes...

- - - Updated - - -

Tom Sawyer said:
W
The especially sad part is Kemp down in Georgia. He outright abused his position to steal the election and it worked and there are no negative repercussions from having operated this way. This is now a viable strategy which will be repeated wherever possible.
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That one ain't over yet - maybe. Doesn't look good though. The lesson remains; cheating works.
 
Elixir said:
That one ain't over yet - maybe. Doesn't look good though. The lesson remains; cheating works.
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It's kind of over. There doesn't really seem to be a viable path for Abrams to get the additional votes and I believe that any investigations into voting irregularities would be done by the Secretary of State. Spoiler alert - he won't find any.
 
Tom Sawyer said:
Elixir said:
That one ain't over yet - maybe. Doesn't look good though. The lesson remains; cheating works.
Click to expand...

It's kind of over. There doesn't really seem to be a viable path for Abrams to get the additional votes and I believe that any investigations into voting irregularities would be done by the Secretary of State. Spoiler alert - he won't find any.
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Unlikely, but still possible to force a run-off.

https://www.vox.com/2018/11/7/18071542/midterm-2018-georgia-stacey-abrams
Kemp currently holds a narrow lead of 1,962,547 votes to Abrams’s 1,887,161, and Abrams is telling supporters to wait for full counts on absentee ballots to narrow the gap.

A critical piece of this puzzle is that in Georgia, unlike in most American states, you need a majority of all votes cast rather than a plurality to win the election. That means that even though Abrams almost certainly won't get enough votes out of the absentee ballot to actually overtake Kemp, she does stand a chance of doing well enough to push him below the 50 percent threshold. (Libertarian candidate Ted Metz has about 1 percent of the vote.) That would trigger a runoff on December 4 that would give Abrams a chance to prevail.
 
Such a mixed bag. For clarification, I live in California, and commute between two counties/voting districts every day.

Good things:

I've never really liked Gavin Newsom as a person, but he is definitely the right choice for governor right now. With the state under constant attack and open aggression from the federal government, we need continuity and unity at the highest level of state government right now, and it wasn't necessarily likely. This election is the first one in more than a century to see a Democrat follow another Democrat, usually we change parties when we change governors. Luckily, Cox was every bit as much a bag of dicks as his name implies, so he never gained enough traction with anyone but the Trumpuenos.

We also made the right call on a few ballot measures: daylight savings time; we voted down two housing "reforms" that would have been disastrous for the country let alone our state; our pigs and chickens and so forth will now be allowed to move whilst growing up, and the veal industry in the state may be done for; a bid to destroy our road infrastructure through defunding failed.

Most of our local SF Bay area races went in a predictably good way. Nice to see some real attention paid to homelessness by pretty much everyone who took an office jsut now.

Go Colorado! Go Michigan! Go Minnesota! We now have an openly gay state governor and two Muslim women in the House. More of this, please.

New redistricting laws in several states. Gerry Mander must die.

Some new political rising stars, and building momentum for some positive changes in 2020.

Iffy things:
The Democrats have can control of the House. They don't seem to have great plans as to what to do with it. I don't really like being the "minority obstructionist party" but with only one half of the Congress to your name, that's pretty much all you can do. I don't give a fig about Trump's tax returns, and neither does anyone else. People who already hate him pretend to because they are a symbol of his misdeeds, people who love him already know he's a con man and do not care. In fact, that's one of the things they like about him. In general, Trump personally benefits greatly from having a real political enemy, it will keep his name in the papers (as though he needed help!) and give him a convenient scapegoat for anything he fails to do.

But of course, losing the House will be far worse.

Nancy Pelosi. Jesus Christ.

The governors' races as a whole; hard to read.

The ambiguous rise of "the suburbs". Not sure what this will mean in the long run? It seems to have gained the Dems the House, which was needed, and put some good people into office. But the idea of people "pandering to Suburban moms" is a bit alarming to me. I have long felt that our millions of acres of thinly packed suburbs need to die for the good of our nation - in terms of environmental exploitation, racial and social politics, and civic infrastructure, the flight from our urban centers has largely been a disaster for us. Does winning back the county with suburban white votes mean the Democratic party is going to form a stone wall against any change to their way of life? On the other hand, the whole point I guess is that social attitudes in the suburbs are changing. So maybe I have no idea how the cookie will actually crumble.

Bad things:
The most local of local races. It matters little to anyone else here, but I am dismayed about the re-election of one of my college's board trustees. She has been one of the major antagonists in our ongoing labor dispute, repeatedly breaking the law in order to shore up the Board's position and making a lot of noise in the press. Not only has she not been voted out, she now thinks she has the endorsement of Democracy to continue digging in her heels and rabble rousing about the "socialist ideals" of the faculty. Yours truly is very likely to be formally on strike by the end of December, and I am not happy about it. It's bad for the school, bad for us, and probably disastrous for our students.

New voter suppression laws in several states.

Also in local races, the congressional district my workplace is located in remains under the slimy rule of Jeff Denham, despite a surprisingly close race with Democratic challenger Josh Harder. I hope he'll try again. I am sick to death of hearing about the Denham family.

The Senate.

Trump's role in keeping the Senate red, and influencing several of the gubernatorial races. He must be feeling more certain than ever that the ground itself he walks on turns to gold as he shits his way down the walk...
 
Anybody with a total count of states that passed medical marijuana measures (were there any recreational ballots this time around)?

Here in UT, it finally passed, but at least a couple of states, it failed again.
 
Worldtraveller said:
Anybody with a total count of states that passed medical marijuana measures (were there any recreational ballots this time around)?

Here in UT, it finally passed, but at least a couple of states, it failed again.
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It is legal in Ohio, just not legally available. :mad:
 
Tom Sawyer said:
Well, the happy part is that all the people who've spent the past couple of years going on about how Trump is an anomaly who doesn't represent America can now shut up and accept that he represents the country just fine.
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You think people stop "russians did it" now?
 
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