Wednesday Stuff

God damn, do I hate midterm elections!

So far, I think this post from Susie Madrak at Crooks and Liars comes closest to describing what happened last night. Basically, the geriatric individuals who drive their cars a couple of times a week and who watch Fix Noise and take it seriously day in and day out (many of whom go to church every Sunday) gathered en masse at the polls and – surprise, surprise! – voted for Republicans. And while our side had a bit of a GOTV effort that was better than our typical effort in other midterm elections, it wasn’t nearly enough.

So yeah, team “R” got everyone good and scared that hordes of illegal immigrants recruited by ISIS and carrying Ebola germs were going to crash our border with Mexico and come and infect us in our beds while we slept. And yeah, it looks like that worked – I know, in the Senate, the Repugs cleared the six-Senator hurdle with room to spare (I’ll get more final numbers later…and the odds are heavily stacked against Mary Landrieu in next month’s runoff in Louisiana…just keeps getting better and better for them).

Republicans proved again last night that they know better than anyone else how to push the figurative buttons of the American voter, most of who are low-information (on this subject anyway) individuals who don’t focus on this stuff until the election is nearly upon them and then make up their minds from the torrent of attack political ads on TV first and foremost (does it need to be pointed out again based on this how much “dark money” corrupts our politics?), as well as talk radio of course. We Dems just don’t have an answer for that, and, except for changing demographics in this country, I don’t expect that we ever will.

Oh, and as long as I’m speaking about getting people all in a lather over ISIS and Ebola (and, just to emphasize, you probably are more likely to get struck by two bolts of lightning in your lifetime than to catch Ebola), allow me to say a word or two about this guy, the new Senator from Arkansas, Tom Cotton. I can’t think of anything good to say about the other miscreants in his party now elected to “the world’s greatest deliberative body,” but Cotton represents a unique brand of awful. Many on team “D” are particularly concerned about Joni Ernst (any Iowans out there who may be reading this must be so proud), but rest assured that Cotton is going to make Ted Cruz look like Patrick Moynihan (think Louie Gohmert with more snarl).

And I know this is a sensitive topic, but I have to say it…race was a factor, as Mary Landrieu pointed out. I don’t think it was a primary factor, but it was a factor. Hmm, the Dems get their collective clocks cleaned in the South in particular, and Dem candidates tell Obama to stay away. Coincidence? How often did Mitch McConnell say he was running against Obama instead of Alison Lundergan Grimes?

(Oh, and nice work, Kentucky in particular. Speaking of Sen. Mr. Elaine Chao, everyone knew he was a thoroughly compromised partisan hack, but at least, for a while, he actually delivered the jobs. Now he doesn’t even do that. And you sent him back to Washington anyway. And Kansas also had an opportunity to boot that eternal waste of space known as Pat Roberts, but blew the chance. Hell, they even re-elected Sam Brownback, who crashed the economy! Stupid…)

Also (and speaking of Number 44), I don’t EVER want to hear of a Democrat running away from a Democratic president when he or she is running for federal office. That strategy NEVER works. Like it or not, a Democratic president (and hopefully we’ll see another one shortly) is the head of your political party. Chopping off the metaphorical head is the first step in the strategy of defeat (Mikey the Beloved campaigned with Dubya in ’06 even knowing how unpopular Former President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History truly was, and though Fitzpatrick lost PA-08 barely that year…at least as the district was drawn back then…he still managed to take Bucks County…of course, he won last night, with the help of the Courier Times running full-page ads for him from October 20th every day until the election).

And on the subject of Dems running away from a Dem president…gee, I wonder if Al Gore would have gotten just enough of a bump if he’d campaigned with Bill Clinton in Florida in 2000? We’ll never know, just like we’ll never know if Clay Aiken would have made a respectable U.S. House representative (as Bill Maher pointed out, Aiken also ran away from Obama).

Also, I want to say something else about whatever the alleged Democratic “strategy” was for this election cycle. Last night illustrated the Grand Canyon-sized chasm between the “foot soldiers” who work the phone banks, put up the campaign signs, write to the newspapers, and otherwise do their best to mobilize as many Dem voters as possible (and yes, the bloggers), all of whom were once derided as “fire baggers” by Obama insiders, and the so-called Beltway political establishment that has done virtually nothing except lose congressional elections since abandoning Dr. Dean’s 50-state strategy (and yes, this also includes Number 44 himself).

Punting on immigration reform turned out to be a catastrophic mistake. I know the plan was to protect some red state Dems such as Mark Pryor in Arkansas, but they probably would have lost anyway. Now, we have also lost Mark Udall in Colorado (which is particularly inexplicable to me, because if anyone thinks Cory Gardner is going to care about this issue, then they are truly on a Rocky Mountain High). Immigration reform is more of a bipartisan issue than our thoroughly co-opted Beltway courtier media would have us believe (the typical “horserace” preoccupation of this bunch, while not the least bit surprising, will have to be a topic for another day...rest assured that they will suddenly discover how evil the filibuster is again, and the phrase "60 votes needed for passage" will go the way of 78 rpm records).

Another thing…while, to me, there is still NEVER AN EXCUSE FOR NOT VOTING, Team “D” has to do a much better job of articulating a reason to vote for them. If you support legislation to train and hire younger prospective workers and the other side doesn’t (for example, when was the last time you heard a word from the Obama Administration about the American Jobs Act that Boehner and his pals are sitting on in the U.S. House?), then MAKE THAT CASE TO THE VOTERS! It’s nice to talk about consecutive months of job gains, but if the devil is in the proverbial details, then communicate to the voters that you know that and you’re trying to fix it, as well as communicating the fact that the other side knows but could care less (we need look no further than Al Franken’s re-election in Minnesota to see how that kind of a strategy played out).

And while I’m on the subject of the so-called Democratic campaign geniuses of the Beltway, I want to say unequivocally that I never want to see another campaign-related Email from Debbie Wasserman Schultz of the DCCC again! Actually, the Emails from just about everyone were pretty repellent day in and day out, including Number 44 himself, Biden, the Democratic Governors Association (also, nice work from that bunch – it was awesome to send Tom Corbett packing, but that was it), and a whole bunch of others who pretty much turned into background noise (and believe it or not, I’ve even been “hit up” like this for the Hillary Clinton campaign for 2016). STOP IT!!!!! AND YES, I HAVE CLICKED "UNSUBSCRIBE" NUMEROUS TIMES!! (I give Kevin Strouse, Steve Santarsiero and Steve Cickay a pass because they were local candidates; only Steve S. won from that bunch, by the way - however, I think Kevin Strouse deserves credit for putting up a good fight, and if he feels like taking another shot at this in 2016, I'm with him).

Oh, and by the way, the numbers don't lie (re, younger versus older voters in elections - hat tip to Richard Mayhew at Balloon Juice for this, along with Susie Madrak).

All of that being said, this clip goes out to all of those who totally hosed the U.S. Senate last night by either voting for more gridlock or not even bothering to vote at all (particularly Kentucky and Kansas, coming from someone who speaks their language...probably NSFW - at least Jeanne Shaheen also survived, which means that "Wall Street Scott" Brown will have to take his carpetbagger act somewhere else)…



...and I give you the latest from FAIR TV...



...and I thought this was a funny bit also from John Oliver about Lowe's supposedly using robots (yep, I guess the holiday mania will be here soon - ugh) - we could use a laugh...



...because...



Update 1 11/6/14: Uh, yep - this defines clueless as far as I'm concerned.

Update 2 11/6/14: Oh, and by the way, U.S. Senate Repugs – do this now. Go ahead and drag it out for the entire two-year term, just like Bill Maher said. It will be the fastest way to hasten your defeat in 2016.

Update 3 11/6/14: Sure, there’s some partisan GOP spin in this piece, but I wish the “D” team would take this and memorize just about all of it (re., how absolutely NOT to campaign for Congress – as usual, the other side, in their hubris and arrogance, can’t resist inadvertently giving us a way to beat them).

Update 11/7/14: Uh huh.