jerseyhoya wrote:Dems win by 3%. We should be able to rewin this seat in November I think. This sucks though.

We absolutely need to nominate someone other than Jenkins. He's seriously a douchebag of the highest order, and is the reason we lost this race.

I think the Obama thing ended up working some. McCain at the top of the ticket, we win this seat back.

What's the deal with candidate recruitment for you guys? I know that in Arkansas, the state party is too much linked with the NW part of the state and people like this:



But you'd think other state parties (one that could get a guy named Jindal elected for instance) would be able to do a little better.

Jenkins recruited himself. He was the candidate in 1996 against Landrieu and came with in a few thousand votes of winning a senate seat.

Since then it has come out that he gave David Duke money and such for a phone list and that he has tons of tax issues. He's also an antiabortion zealot and doesn't raise any money.

As for recruitment in general, it's legitimately a terrible time to be a Republican. If you're an ambitious GOPer, why would you run this year in a marginal seat? Especially when PACs aren't giving us money anymore. We suck right now. Seriously.

jerseyhoya wrote:Jenkins recruited himself. He was the candidate in 1996 against Landrieu and came with in a few thousand votes of winning a senate seat.

Since then it has come out that he gave David Duke money and such for a phone list and that he has tons of tax issues. He's also an antiabortion zealot and doesn't raise any money.

As for recruitment in general, it's legitimately a terrible time to be a Republican. If you're an ambitious GOPer, why would you run this year in a marginal seat? Especially when PACs aren't giving us money anymore. We suck right now. Seriously.

Well, you do get to run against Democrats.

The problem is that districts that used to be pretty safe have become marginal.

Arkansas, I know, is a bit different--more than other Southern states, is R in Presidential elections, but still yellow dog Democrat everywhere else, except the northwest. There's no minor league system, so to speak--county committees, and state legislative elections are dominated by Dems. And our Dems are mostly a pretty conservative bunch. I don't actually think this is good for the state--far too many elections are uncontested. I probably won't vote for Blanche Lincoln again--we actually have a Green party that's really worked hard at getting on the ballot. It's pretty sad when the Green Party outpolls the Republican party. In Arkansas.

TenuredVulture wrote:What's the deal with candidate recruitment for you guys? I know that in Arkansas, the state party is too much linked with the NW part of the state and people like this:

Egads! Talk about potent seed

By the way, I think these numbers tonight are borderline promising for the Pelosi/Obama line of attack. The numbers ended up being closer than the polls. I think with the Katrina folk obviously this was closer than a 59% Bush district, but it's still pathetic to lose.

Between the candidate and the Katrina thing, I can almost justify it. We're 10 days away from the MS-01 election. No excuses there. If we lose MS-01, where we don't have a shitty candidate, in another Red district with no Katrina thing to blame it on, man. Well we're gonna get killed in November either way, but we'll be killed-er.

And since most people here apparently can't get riled up by a congressional seat, here's a great two sentences or less summation from National Review on the Dem primary:

Nominating Hillary probably does more long-term damage to the Democrat party. But nominating Obama puts up a candidate who has lost his post-partisan, uniting reputation to become just another politician, and who has looked absolutely lost on the campaign trail in recent weeks...

kos sez:

Tonight's results will get picked apart for analysis by lots of people in the coming days. But in short, it will become obvious that Cazayoux's margin of victory came from black votes -- you disrespect that community at your own peril. And second of all, Republicans once again failed, in a blood red district, to scare voters into submission by running scary ads against scaaaary national Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama.

Voters, even in solidly conservative districts, are simply not that scared of Democrats anymore. It's Bush they're terrified of.

Part of me thinks this is simply a cyclical thing--like the Tories winning in England this week. However good or bad a job they've done, whether it's that they're victims of their own success or over-exposed as incompetent, hypocritical, and corrupt--or, more often, both--ruling parties run out of steam.

My hope is that the Republicans get smashed so flat in this cycle that, in conjunction with '06, it's impossible to read the results as anything but a thorough rejection of Bush/Rove/DeLay politics and governance. My fantasy is that after this happens, they come back as an honest conservative party--running on small-government, libertarian, global-realist ideas and principles rather than always and exclusively appealing to the reptile brain while treating the public sphere like the hooker chained to the wall in "Less Than Zero."

jerseyhoya wrote:By the way, I think these numbers tonight are borderline promising for the Pelosi/Obama line of attack. The numbers ended up being closer than the polls. I think with the Katrina folk obviously this was closer than a 59% Bush district, but it's still pathetic to lose.

Between the candidate and the Katrina thing, I can almost justify it. We're 10 days away from the MS-01 election. No excuses there. If we lose MS-01, where we don't have a $#@! candidate, in another Red district with no Katrina thing to blame it on, man. Well we're gonna get killed in November either way, but we'll be killed-er.

Do you have any idea of the Jindal vote in that district? I imagine it was pretty gigantic. That turnout looked low anyway.

I've seen on Red State people talking about absolute catastrophe--I think they mean something absolutely unthinkable like fewer than 100 R seats in the house. Now, that's patently ridiculous. But what's your doomsday scenario? I'd think losing 10% of your incumbents, and say 75% of the open seats is about as bad as I can possibly imagine.

Paul, I'm like one of three people on RedState posting about tonight. And most of the people there are retarded.

I mean if we lose 20 seats that would legitimately be awful. We'd almost have the Dems at a veto proof majority.

jerseyhoya wrote:Paul, I'm like one of three people on RedState posting about tonight. And most of the people there are retarded.

I mean if we lose 20 seats that would legitimately be awful. We'd almost have the Dems at a veto proof majority.

Redstate has really become stupid in the last 12 months. I don't know why I even bother to read it half the time.


Anyway, 20 seats even seems like a lot. You've got to figure the Democrats got all the low hanging fruit in 2006. The way I figure it, maybe 10 seats go Democrats--Dems hold their six open seats, Republicans lose maybe 7 of their 17, and Dems pick up 3 or so elsewhere.

dajafi wrote:kos sez:

Tonight's results will get picked apart for analysis by lots of people in the coming days. But in short, it will become obvious that Cazayoux's margin of victory came from black votes -- you disrespect that community at your own peril. And second of all, Republicans once again failed, in a blood red district, to scare voters into submission by running scary ads against scaaaary national Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama.

Voters, even in solidly conservative districts, are simply not that scared of Democrats anymore. It's Bush they're terrified of.

Part of me thinks this is simply a cyclical thing--like the Tories winning in England this week. However good or bad a job they've done, whether it's that they're victims of their own success or over-exposed as incompetent, hypocritical, and corrupt--or, more often, both--ruling parties run out of steam.

My hope is that the Republicans get smashed so flat in this cycle that, in conjunction with '06, it's impossible to read the results as anything but a thorough rejection of Bush/Rove/DeLay politics and governance. My fantasy is that after this happens, they come back as an honest conservative party--running on small-government, libertarian, global-realist ideas and principles rather than always and exclusively appealing to the reptile brain while treating the public sphere like the hooker chained to the wall in "Less Than Zero."

This isn't going to happen. For 100 reasons, but the people that run our campaigns are too dumb.Also, Kos is a little too dismissive of the fact that we were down 10% in most of the polls in this district and we ended up making it real close, especially considering almost all of the 3rd party votes went to a conservative candidate. We'll win this seat back in November if we don't renominate this asshole David Duke lover.

TenuredVulture wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:Paul, I'm like one of three people on RedState posting about tonight. And most of the people there are retarded.

I mean if we lose 20 seats that would legitimately be awful. We'd almost have the Dems at a veto proof majority.

Redstate has really become stupid in the last 12 months. I don't know why I even bother to read it half the time.

I hadn't posted there before tonight in a couple of months. And I probably would have ignored it all together if I wasn't completely ripped and if they weren't so painfully wrong on blatant stuff.

TenuredVulture wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:Dems win by 3%. We should be able to rewin this seat in November I think. This sucks though.

We absolutely need to nominate someone other than Jenkins. He's seriously a douchebag of the highest order, and is the reason we lost this race.

I think the Obama thing ended up working some. McCain at the top of the ticket, we win this seat back.

What's the deal with candidate recruitment for you guys? I know that in Arkansas, the state party is too much linked with the NW part of the state and people like this:



But you'd think other state parties (one that could get a guy named Jindal elected for instance) would be able to do a little better.

Well that's one way to help the south rise again. I think the Catholic Church has the same strategy.... breed 'til they lead.

I searched that family's name and they have 17 kids now. They must really like having sex.

philliesphhan wrote:I searched that family's name and they have 17 kids now. They must really like having sex.

The really crazy part is that this is now your typical Arkansas Republican. Huckabee didn't destroy the Republican party in this state, it's these people who continue to hand elections to Ds over and over again.

I think it's hilarious that among many Republicans, the ideal candidates are people like Tom Coburn.

“Elite opinion is always on the side of doing things that really disadvantages the vast majority of Americans.”
--Hillary Bush Clinton

dajafi wrote:“Elite opinion is always on the side of doing things that really disadvantages the vast majority of Americans.”
--Hillary Bush Clinton

I suspect a big backlash from this bullshit populism.

We really need elitists to stand up and be proud in their unwillingness to pander.

TenuredVulture wrote:

dajafi wrote:“Elite opinion is always on the side of doing things that really disadvantages the vast majority of Americans.”
--Hillary Bush Clinton

I suspect a big backlash from this $#@! populism.

We really need elitists to stand up and be proud in their unwillingness to pander.

I just worry about the Adlai Stevenson Problem:

Woman: "Senator, you have the vote of every thinking person!"
Stevenson: "That's not enough, madam, we need a majority!"

Or to put it another way, will the press that's spent seven and a half years reporting Bush's flat-out falsehoods as on-the-one-hand/on-the-other-hand emphasize the demonstrable facts now? I'm not holding my breath.

Random primary thought of the day...

Hillary has been doing very well among late deciding voters of late, but I wonder if that might change in North Carolina. Ohio, PA, etc were states where Hillary had huge leads that more or less disappeared before regaining her footing late and winning by a pretty decent margin.

Now we're looking at something of the inverse in NC, where Obama had been killing her, it got real close, and now he's edging it back out to 8-10. If she wins the undecideds 2-1, then he only wins by 6 or whatever. But maybe the key part is who you initially supported, so maybe Obama wins them 2-1 and hangs a 12 point win on the board and drives a stake in the popular vote argument.

I dunno if that makes any sense, but it just occurred to me.

jerseyhoya wrote:Random primary thought of the day...

Hillary has been doing very well among late deciding voters of late, but I wonder if that might change in North Carolina. Ohio, PA, etc were states where Hillary had huge leads that more or less disappeared before regaining her footing late and winning by a pretty decent margin.

Now we're looking at something of the inverse in NC, where Obama had been killing her, it got real close, and now he's edging it back out to 8-10. If she wins the undecideds 2-1, then he only wins by 6 or whatever. But maybe the key part is who you initially supported, so maybe Obama wins them 2-1 and hangs a 12 point win on the board and drives a stake in the popular vote argument.

I dunno if that makes any sense, but it just occurred to me.

The problem with that is that these fluctuations can often be ascribed to noise. Overall, you might get a fuzzy picture, but day to day fluctuations aren't going to be captured with any precision.