Post 2022 Election

[lpetrich]

GOP doubts grow over Kari Lake’s future in Arizona | The Hill

“It’s done in Arizona,” said Arizona Republican consultant Chuck Coughlin.

“I think the enormous amount of ill will that she’s going to create as a result of the appeal — I mean, it’s OK to file a case, but then some of the stuff she’s been saying on media and posts and just the degradation of the Arizona institutions — I think is really going to hurt her out here,” Coughlin added. “And I don’t really think she’s got a future in terms of her own electoral space here in Arizona.”

Trump used his own baseless claims about losing the 2020 election to keep his followers interested.

From last July, How an Obama-backing Arizona news anchor became Trump’s pick for governor - "More than a dozen formerly close friends, colleagues and associates say social media and a refusal to back down morphed Kari Lake into a true MAGA believer."

As Lake heads into an Aug. 2 primary, her main Republican opponent is trying to make the race about authenticity, questioning whether Lake, who once donated to former President Barack Obama’s campaign, could have genuinely shifted so far on the political spectrum toward Trump and the far right.

Many of those who were closest to Lake before she went MAGA tell NBC News that her evolution was gradual.

...
When Donald Trump emerged as a candidate in 2015, Lake began privately sharing sympathies for his candidacy and his rejection of “political correctness,” according to several friends. She posted that December after Trump’s Muslim ban proposal: “All those railing against Trump are calling him a ‘bigot,’ ‘racists,’ ‘dillusional,’ ‘a nazi,’ etc., but none are making suggestions on how to stop the very real threat of further attacks on American soil, that are likely in the works right now.”

Lake is described by her one-time friends as having always been stubborn and eager to debate even inconsequential subjects. “No one wanted to go up against her because she could never admit she was wrong,” one former colleague said. “It was when her Twitter following exploded — when she started getting fed, when she started getting love. She wielded power with those followers.”

Another source formerly close to Lake isn’t surprised to see her where she is now. “[Lake] had the personality that was kind of prime for this. We just hadn’t had Trump before.”

Then

In early 2016, she defended high school students who spelled out the N-word with T-shirts intended for a senior class photo, calling the students’ decision a “mistake” that didn’t warrant public outcry.

Then in 2018, Lake falsely asserted that a grassroots movement calling on the state government to invest more in public education was actually a front to legalize marijuana. That time, she faced public backlash, deleted her post and apologized for making “an incorrect conclusion.” But several close friends recall that she was privately defensive about promoting the unfounded claim.

Defensive? So she was outraged that anyone would ever say that she was wrong?

Diana Pike worked as KSAZ’s human resources director for more than two decades and said that Lake increasingly pushed back against management over the years.

“She couldn’t have a one-on-one where she didn’t eventually get irritated that you didn’t support or you didn’t see her side of it,” Pike said, adding: “If she’s not going to get it, she’s going to stomp her feet and pout.”

 

[lpetrich]

Former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, once a national conservative star in her own right, endorsed Lake’s primary opponent, Karrin Taylor Robson. Brewer watched closely as Lake’s notoriety in the Arizona press corps rose alongside her own political career and said she’s been surprised by how Lake has changed.

“It’s kind of difficult to understand that it’s her — the same person that was the person that I knew,” Brewer said. “[Lake] never seemed extremist like what we’re seeing now as she’s running for office of the governor. She has kind of mystified a lot of people — the change that she has gone through.”

KL's response: “I worked in the media for 30 years, and I’m sorry if they can’t handle somebody being a conservative.”

Before 2015, KL would say that she is a Buddhist, making no mention of her present evangelical beliefs.

She donated to Barack Obama's campaign in 2008, but by 2016, she was watching Fox News daily in her newsroom cubicle and defending Donald Trump.

"During the first months of the pandemic, Lake began linking online to videos and stories plugging supposed treatments for Covid that were not approved by the Food and Drug Administration." - ivermectin? hydroxychloroquine?

 

[lpetrich]

2022 was a bad year for MAGA Republicans: Here are the GOP's 5 biggest faceplants | Salon.com - "Donald Trump's brand of stupid fascism led to a whole bunch of losing for Republicans in Biden's second year" - by Amanda Marcotte

Kari Lake

It will likely remain forever unknown whether Lake is sincere in her conversion from a Barack Obama-voting, drag queen-loving news anchor to a Big Lie champion who accuses drag queens of "grooming." Whatever is in her heart, however, she clearly thought she was going to ride the Trump Train straight to superstar status. With Trump's 2020 coup attempt as a model, she framed her campaign as a win/win proposition for MAGA: She either wins outright, or she declares the election a "fraud" and becomes the next fascist martyr.

Most defeated like-minded candidates conceded defeat, making her all alone in being a Trump-like loss denier.

Dr. Mehmet Öz

Prior to this election cycle, Dr. Mehmet Oz's only real brush with politics was in 2014. It went poorly. Then-Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., tore into Oz for abandoning his job as a life-saving heart surgeon to be a TV liar who tells people "they can take an itty-bitty pill to push fat out of their body." His flustered responses were so legendary that most journalists assumed he'd stay far away from politics forevermore.

From being a good heart surgeon to being a TV quack. Something like Ben Carson's transformation.

AM continued

Alas, Dr. Oz never mastered Trump's brazenness. The motto for his campaign for Pennsylvania senator might as well have been "Cringe." He tried to appeal to the everyman by complaining about the price of "crudités." He denied he owns 10 houses by quibbling over the definition of "home." He declared that the abortion choice belongs to "women, doctors, local political leaders." He was outed as a puppy killer. Oz's blundering contrasted dramatically with the down-home appeal of Democratic candidate John Fetterman, who ended up winning by five points, despite having suffered a stroke during the campaign.

His campaign was the first time I've ever heard of "crudités", though I concede that I am not much of a gourmand. But I think that one would have to be a gourmand to be very familiar with that term.

 

[lpetrich]

Herschel Walker

Say what you will about Dr. Oz's bad year, at least he didn't get made fun of by Barack Obama for rambling on incoherently about werewolves and vampires.

He had a chance to be remembered as a good football player, but then he insisted on running for Senate with a disastrous campaign.

Within the span of his campaign to oust Georgia's incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, Walker was exposed for having multiple secret children. Two former partners spoke out about him paying for their abortions, even though he supports total abortion bans with no exceptions. His bizarre speeches and constant lies got so bad that even his right wing "influencer" son decided he's better off not being associated with his famous father.

The surreal comedy surrounding Walker's campaign should not distract us from the accusations Walker also faces of domestic violence by two women. Most Republican voters backed him anyway.

Thus showing that they are yellow-dog Republicans, voting for him because they want a Republican in his position, even if he is a yellow dog of a Republican.

Stewart Rhodes

He spent months riling up his minions to storm the Capitol on January 6. He managed the logistics. He helped build up a weapons cache for use in the insurrection. But when the actual riot went down, Rhodes mysteriously vanished from the action, even as other Oath Keepers were filmed and photographed fighting with police.

Evidently hoping that he can escape being found guilty of organizing an insurrection. He went to Yale Law School, as AM notes, so did he expect to give himself enough deniability to avoid being charged with anything?

He kept up the smug performance at his trial, pretending his militia members weren't acting under his orders and calling them "stupid" for breaching the barriers.

But the jury didn't buy that, and found him guilty of seditious conspiracy.

 

[lpetrich]

Donald Trump

He is still doing well, and he is likely to win the 2024 Republican nomination for President if he is able to continue running.

Still, even he had a crappy year. The January 6 committee succeeded in ensconcing the factual narrative that the Capitol riot was, in fact, a bloody insurrection. Trump's efforts to bully the "both sides"-addicted media into equivocating on this issue have largely failed. The discovery of classified documents he took to Mar-a-Lago seems to have shaken Attorney General Merrick Garland out of his reluctance to deal with Trump, resulting in the appointment of a special prosecutor who is handling both that inquiry and the investigation into Trump's sedition. His company lost a tax fraud case that seems to be table-setting for other, bigger cases. He called for the termination of the Constitution and then pretended he didn't. He had dinner with a couple of Nazi fans. Rather than assist in Trump's clean-up efforts after the fact, Kanye West hit the microphones to talk about what a great guy Hitler was.

He didn't do well in his selection of candidates.

The more he hyped Republican candidates, the worst they did at the ballot box. Then his own presidential announcement, which he clearly expected to be a BFD, was so boring that even Fox News cut away after 40 minutes for color commentary.

Another embarrassment was his offering NFT's of pictures of him in heroic poses. An NFT is a certificate of ownership, much like the deed of a house, but one that uses cryptocurrency software.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

I am not so sure about Trump winning the GOP primary. Several polls show DeSantis doing much better than Trump among the far right Republicans. Of course 2 years in politics is a long, long time. Trump's age might be an easy off ramp for some. And by 2024 Trump's electability among voters as a whole will be a big issue. All avoiding the issues of insurrectionism, tax cheating et al.

 

[Elixir]

by 2024 Trump's electability among voters as a whole will be a big issue.

For who?
Most likely he will be out of the race by 1/24. If not, he’ll be nothing more than a spoiler; it’s already apparent that he can’t win a general election, and everyone knows it. The big question is can Trump face the fact the he’s a LOSER? If form holds, the answer is a resounding “no”. So what are they gonna do with him? Pretend to let him appoint a successor? With his record of backing losers, that would appear stupid.

They could probably get a bunch of people to convince him he is already King of the World and doesn’t need to stoop to the level of participating in common people’s elections. That would probably be the best way for Republicans to rid themselves of the orange scourge.

 

[Harry Bosch]

I am not so sure about Trump winning the GOP primary. Several polls show DeSantis doing much better than Trump among the far right Republicans. Of course 2 years in politics is a long, long time. Trump's age might be an easy off ramp for some. And by 2024 Trump's electability among voters as a whole will be a big issue. All avoiding the issues of insurrectionism, tax cheating et al.

There are rumors that Trump is considering running as a third party.

 

[Elixir]

There are rumors that Trump is considering running as a third party.

He has been threatening that since 2021. Hollow threat, since that would be iron-clad guaranteed to reveal him as a big fat loser.

 

[ZiprHead]

There are rumors that Trump is considering running as a third party.

He has been threatening that since 2021. Hollow threat, since that would be iron-clad guaranteed to reveal him as a big fat loser.

Then he could come in third place this time.

Bring it on, I say. I think it would tear the Republican party completely apart.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I am not so sure about Trump winning the GOP primary. Several polls show DeSantis doing much better than Trump among the far right Republicans. Of course 2 years in politics is a long, long time. Trump's age might be an easy off ramp for some. And by 2024 Trump's electability among voters as a whole will be a big issue. All avoiding the issues of insurrectionism, tax cheating et al.

There are rumors that Trump is considering running as a third party.

Only if he can raise the money. He isn't paying for it out of pocket.

 

[lpetrich]

The ‘Red Wave’ Washout: How Skewed Polls Fed a False Election Narrative - The New York Times - "The errant surveys spooked some candidates into spending more money than necessary, and diverted help from others who otherwise had a fighting chance of winning."

Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat, had consistently won re-election by healthy margins in her three decades representing Washington State. This year seemed no different: By midsummer, polls showed her cruising to victory over a Republican newcomer, Tiffany Smiley, by as much as 20 percentage points.

So when a survey in late September by the Republican-leaning Trafalgar Group showed Ms. Murray clinging to a lead of just two points, it seemed like an aberration. But in October, two more Republican-leaning polls put Ms. Murray barely ahead, and a third said the race was a dead heat.

As the red and blue trend lines of the closely watched RealClearPolitics average for the contest drew closer together, news organizations reported that Ms. Murray was suddenly in a fight for her political survival. Warning lights flashed in Democratic war rooms. If Ms. Murray was in trouble, no Democrat was safe.

Ms. Murray’s own polling showed her with a comfortable lead, and a nonprofit regional news site, using an established local pollster, had her up by 13. Unwilling to take chances, however, she went on the defensive, scuttling her practice of lavishing some of her war chest — she amassed $20 million — on more vulnerable Democratic candidates elsewhere. Instead, she reaped financial help from the party’s national Senate committee and supportive super PACs — resources that would, as a result, be unavailable to other Democrats.

... Coupled with the political factors already favoring Republicans — including inflation and President Biden’s unpopularity — the skewed polls helped feed what quickly became an inescapable political narrative: A Republican wave election was about to hit the country with hurricane force.

But the Republicans barely won the House and they lost a seat in the Senate. What went wrong?

 

[lpetrich]

Traditional nonpartisan pollsters, after years of trial and error and tweaking of their methodologies, produced polls that largely reflected reality. But they also conducted fewer polls than in the past.

That paucity allowed their accurate findings to be overwhelmed by an onrush of partisan polls in key states that more readily suited the needs of the sprawling and voracious political content machine — one sustained by ratings and clicks, and famished for fresh data and compelling narratives.

Especially on the Right, like Fox News, Steve Bannon, and Charlie Kirk.

The virtual “bazaar of polls,” as a top Republican strategist called it, was largely kept humming by right-leaning pollsters using opaque methodology, in some cases relying on financial support from hyperpartisan groups and benefiting from vociferous cheerleading by Mr. Trump.

It wasn't just pro-Republican pollsters who stated dubious results. A pro-Democratic pollster reportedly bet on the election results, and two teams of high schoolers did polls that got a lot of publicity.

The Republicans would normally be expected to win big. "But the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade and the stolen-election fantasies of right-wing Republican candidates blew unexpected wind in Democrats’ sails."

Two Republican-leaning poll firms: "Trafalgar and InsiderAdvantage had long been viewed with suspicion in the polling industry for their opaque surveying methods."

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

I am not so sure about Trump winning the GOP primary. Several polls show DeSantis doing much better than Trump among the far right Republicans. Of course 2 years in politics is a long, long time. Trump's age might be an easy off ramp for some. And by 2024 Trump's electability among voters as a whole will be a big issue. All avoiding the issues of insurrectionism, tax cheating et al.

There are rumors that Trump is considering running as a third party.

Only if he can raise the money. He isn't paying for it out of pocket.

Chumming for suckers always seem to work for Orango the Clown.

 

[lpetrich]

Still Waiting For the Red Wave - A Recap of Our Heralded 2022 Election Analysis | NDN

With COVID receding, the economy doing well and things returning to something close to normal, voters choose to stay the course, once again choosing normalcy over chaos. Americans could feel safe staying with the incumbent party because things are better. Joe Biden has been a good President. We are on the other side of COVID. The economy has recovered, Despite MBS and Putin trying to push gas prices up they did come down these last few weeks. We have made historic investments in our future prosperity and in tackling climate change. We passed the first gun safety bill in 30 years. In the last few months we saw the lowest uninsured and poverty rates in American history, the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years. We have successfully mobilized a global coalition to defeat Putin in Ukraine. The West has been revitalized.

The American people chose to stay the course because Joe Biden has been a good President, and MAGA remains too extreme. This has made the 2022 election a good one for Democracy, Democrats, Biden and Zelensky, and a bad one for MAGA, Trump, Putin and autocrats everywhere.

A bit overconfident, since the Republicans now have the House, though not by much.

Memo: The Democratic Party Is Strong, Rs Remain All MAGA - NDN's Post-Election Take | NDN

• It was a stay the course election, Joe Biden has been a good President
• Ds overperformance in the battlegrounds defied history, set the party up well for 2024, showed significant campaign muscle
• Rs extremism problem will not be easy for them to shake
• Dem bench deeply talented, the Party is very strong right now
• Youth, Hispanic vote encouraging for Dems
• NeverTrumpers deserve credit, and thanks
• Dems need to focus on winning the economic argument, getting louder

...
It was a not a nationalized election - Unusually, the 2022 election was not nationalized, and there were really two elections – a bluer one inside the battleground and in a few heavy Dem states, and a redder one outside. For example, even though Dems outperformed 2020 in states like AZ, CO, GA, MI, NH, PA there were a big Dem dropoff from 2020 in the four largest states – CA, FL, NY, TX. The shift to Rs in the big 4 states makes all the national results and two exit polls more R than the reality on the ground, and folks should be wary of any analysis which does not account for huge D overperformance in many of the most important Presidential states.

The strong Dem performance in the Presidential battlegrounds may be the election’s most important story – Despite low Biden approval and high inflation, Democrats outperformed Biden 2020 in AZ, CO, GA, MI, MN, NH, PA (and WI Gov) – simply a stunning achievement in a midterm election.

That's a weird pattern. What might be going on?

 

[lpetrich]

"Dems pick up 4-5 state legislative chambers" - MI House, Senate, MN Senate, PA House. AK Senate? House?

"MAGA and abortion remain huge problems for the GOP" - Republicans sought to portray the Democrats as dangerous kooks, but it was the Republicans who came across as dangerous kooks to many voters.

That their 2024 frontrunner has called for the termination of the Constitution and his immediate installation as President is a sign of the GOP's troubles ahead.

...

• Jan 6th Committee Report, criminal referrals
• Trump's taxes may get released
• Epic new House Santos scandal
• No GOP House leader, two weeks out
• Proud Boys sedition trial begins
• Elon's ongoing meltdown

That's not even getting into revoking Roe vs. Wade and wanting abortion outlawed nationwide, and not just in Republican-dominated states.

 

[lpetrich]

"The Democrats generational wheel has begun to turn, the Party’s emerging bench is very, very strong"

Noting the D leadership's graceful handover of power to a much younger leadership. The D leadership no longer looks like the Soviet Union's leadership in its last years. It's the R leadership that now has lots of strife.

Biden Administration – Harris, Raimondo, Buttigieg, Becerra, Granholm…

Govs - Newsom, Whitmer, Shapiro, Wes Moore, Polis, Healey, Hobbs, Cooper…

More – Padilla, Cortez Masto, Kelly, Warnock, Ossoff, Harrison, Fetterman, the new House leadership crew, the House Members who’ve survived tough battles in 2020 and 2022…..

But not mentioning the steadily growing "Squad".

"Hispanic vote narrative needs a rewrite, Dems crushing it in the Southwest" and "Dems need to lean in hard to the youth vote" and "NeverTrumpers played an important role" - R's like Liz Cheney, Bill Kristol, Sarah Longwell, Michael Steele, Matthew Dowd, etc.

Democrats need a party wide project to win the economic argument in 2024 - The Democratic Party is simply not going to do what it wants to do as a national Party if we are losing the economy by 10-15 points to Republicans. As we argue in our With Democrats Things Get Better presentation, and in a related thread, our trailing the Rs on economic issues remains perplexing when the story since 1989 has been strong growth/lower deficits/progress under Ds, recessions/spiraling deficits/decline under Rs. Using the implementation of the big 3 bill Biden bills as a backdrop - infrastructure, CHIPs, climate - we need to together make a commitment to pull ahead of the Rs on the economy by the summer of 2024.

Good bit here. It may be hard for the D's to have a good economic message without displeasing their deeper-pocketed donors, however.

 

[lpetrich]

"Nuggets from the Exits" - "Dems won independents 49-47" - "Dems won under 45 year old voters 55%-42%, and lost over 45 year old voters 44%-54%."

Abortion was the second most important issue to voters, coming in at 27%, just behind inflation at 31%. Only 10% of voters believe abortion should be illegal in all cases. In all election where commentators got a lot wrong, the attempts to minimize the impact abortion was having on voters were always among the most ridiculous things we heard.

The R's were complaining about inflation without offering any solutions, while the D's had plenty of red-state horror stories about abortion to point to.

Dems won Latinas 63%-33%, and Latino men only 53-45%. As we've argued its clear Dems have work to do to re-establish our economic/opportunity/better life message with Latino men.

The D party does better with women than with men, and Hispanics are like other voters here.

A Dose of Hopium To Start 2023 | NDN with "The Case for Optimism: Rejecting Trump’s Poisonous Pessimism"

 

[lpetrich]

Opinion | Democracy won 2022. Can it keep winning? - The Washington Post

The failure of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the courageous rallying of the Ukrainian people and the remarkable unity of the world’s democracies in standing against aggression is the most obvious sign that the democratic distemper of recent years is abating.

The relative success of democracies in dealing with the covid-19 pandemic contrasts with a regime-challenging failure in China. This, along with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s catastrophic misadventure, has quieted talk — reminiscent of similarly misguided commentary in the 1930s — that authoritarian governments are inevitably more “efficient” and “effective” in solving problems.

Then saying that the recent Congressional session was "remarkably productive". It would have been a lot more productive if Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema were not such big obstructionists.

Government is building things again on a large scale. As it did in the era after the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik satellite in 1957, the United States is using public outlays to make the nation more technologically competitive. And the push for green energy shows there are ways to avert a planetary climate calamity while also restoring our manufacturing prowess.

Then on what the R's might do.

The new House GOP majority, well to the right of the mainstream, has little interest in any legislation Democrats could vote for. It would much prefer to use debt ceiling and government shutdown threats to try to force deep budget cuts while passing a pile of symbolic, one-party culture war bills. The Republicans’ hope is to discredit Biden through nonstop hearings, plainly deeming it in their political interest to make Washington under a Democratic president look dysfunctional.

Like what they did with Hillary Clinton about that terrorist attack in Benghazi. Expect them to make a big issue about Hunter Biden's laptop.

 

[Elixir]

Will HLDS (Hunter’s Laptop Derangement Syndrome) become a household acronym?

The laptop thing is already such a joke that some Republicans might not want to go along.
These clowns running the HoR is like government by sight-gag. The ratings will probably be great. I know I wanna watch!