Does it really make sense for Governor Kathy Hochul to run for re-election? Are Delgado and Torres really the best alternatives? Is there no one else on the horizon? Surely there are stronger and Bluer candidates, and Democrats can do far better. Or am I missing something?
I have wondered whether Letitia James might also be a worthy challenger to Chuck Schumer. Yes, I am well aware that all focus seems to be on AOC...
Perhaps it’s unfair, but I have thought of Hochul as overly Republican-near. For instance, Hochul’s initial choice of nominee to the New York Supreme Court was downright bizarre.
Maybe if we got a real Democrat for governor and a younger, telegenic, articulate senator, New York Democrats could roll Republicans on redistricting and appointments.
New York is solidly Democratic, and we shouldn't have to play squishy with Republicans as of it were a swing state.
That and if Democratic voters LET Democratic Party politicians be mean and get it through their skulls that "fairness" doesn't work when you're up against people who hate democracy.
No she is not - stop with this. She may not be our best candidate and she could lose a primary, but the chances of her losing to a Republican opponent in a R-prez midterm are zero. Happy to place a bet of any size on this topic with you...
No, he didn't speak at the convention but John Edwards made an appearance last year after over a decade of going back to practice law and staying out of the limelight. The DNC gave him an invite and he showed up.
More on the NY Times article below. Also, here's a picture of Edwards making an appearance. You might be surprised to know but as someone in his early 70's, he's still got the same hair and hasn't aged much.
Of all the curious characters spotted bouncing around inside the Democrats’ big tent this week — the influencers, the ex-Trump White House press secretary, Lil Jon — the most curious of all might have been John Edwards.
He was hanging at a bar in Chicago’s West Loop neighborhood early Wednesday evening, hours before Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota would accept his party’s nomination as vice president.
“I wanted to see what was going on!” Mr. Edwards, 71, exclaimed. “Especially this year.”
He’s been out of the loop, west or otherwise, for a long while now.
He was once the Democratic Party’s golden boy — a baby-faced senator from North Carolina, John Kerry’s running mate in 2004 and then a presidential contender himself. It all started to fall apart in 2008. He withdrew from the Democratic primaries. An extramarital affair came to light.
The other woman was a videographer paid by his campaign. There was a secret child. A terminally ill wife at home. A campaign finance scandal. Bunny Mellon, the widow of the banking heir Paul Mellon, was involved. It was messy. And then Mr. Edwards went away.
When was the last time he was even at a Democratic convention?
“Two thousand and uh…” his voice trailed off as he screwed up his face, pretending to think.
“God, I wish you hadn’t asked me that, this is a memory test,” he laughed. “I think the last time I went was when I was the vice-presidential candidate. 2004.” (It was in Boston that year.)
Ok. I put in the Twitter/X post w/a photo of John Edwards at the convention as a 2nd link in case.
FYI, the NY Times has a tendency to prevent seeing articles from being seen in their entirety unless you sign up as a subscriber. I was able to extract the whole article by quickly copying and pasting the page content into Word.
The fiasco with Edwards’s infidelity + indictments (all of which he was acquitted of) came after the 2008 presidential election. He was no liability towards the Democratic Party after 2008.
Back in 2004, Elizabeth Edwards was loved by many on the campaign trail. If John Edwards got elected as POTUS instead of Obama or Clinton, it would have been a much more painful two years for him.
I'm just putting in a hypothetical in retrospect showing how a John Edwards presidency would have been problematic because of his wife dying + infidelity + legal problems. He might have become a liability for the Democratic Party if this was the case while dealing with addressing the Great Recession + The Iraq War.
Naturally, Obama stole the whole steam away. Edwards should have never run again in 2008. If he couldn't win the 2004 Democratic Presidential Nomination and help John Kerry win, running for the presidency again wasn't going to help.
Besides, Kerry wasn't exactly glowing with chemistry with Edwards. There were problems behind the scenes after Edwards got the VP nomination and he rubbed Kerry the wrong way.
Four Democrats, Case, Cuellar, Glusenenkamp-Perez and Golden voted for the "SAVE" act, which will would require documentary proof of citizenship for voter registration, bar states from counting late-arriving mail ballots, and dramatically infringe on states’ authority to run elections. While the bill doesn't have the votes to overcome a Democratic filibuster in the senate, it's still pretty galling to see it get 4 Democratic votes. Especially, the putrid Ed Case, who has no case to make that he needs to vote that way because of his district.
I know Hawaii has a unique and fairly insular (heh) political culture that’s more conservative than it gets credit for, but can somebody please primary Ed Case?
I am skeptical that Hawaii has an undocumented problem as bad as the other 48 have so this obviously did not influence his vote. (Note: Illegal voting is rare, aggressively prosecuted and in the cases that are few and far between, the majority has been done by undocumented Republicans)
I've been hearing Honolulu in particular is having a big problem with homeless population. It's become a real crisis over there.
Naturally, with Honolulu being the main metropolitan city in Hawaii and where most air travel tends to embark before going to other HI islands, it may have the most issues with the homeless.
The phrase "undocumented problem" somehow bothers me, I think mainly because it's a huge oversimplification that ignores the larger issues of the creation of an underclass and the need for immigration because of the country's low birth rate.
Moreover, the term "undocumented problem" is a linguistic atrocity! Surely all problems should be documented as thoroughly as possible, so they can be grappled with and defined, so as to facilitate good solutions.
(Yes, I know "undocumented" is intended as a noun, not an adjective.)
I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say that unless you're referring to a particular context and attitude of Hawaiians. Both HI-01 and HI-02, which is represented by Rep. Jill Tokuda, have about the same PVIs.
I’m referring to how the HI Dems are a big tent party that captures a whole lot of small-c conservative voters (sort of an inverse Kansas GOP) in addition to Hawaii’s very unique cultural milieu
Where do you see the conservative-minded voters in HI? I would imagine Maui and Oahu although not so much Kauai.
Molokai is completely native Hawaiian-inhabited with the exception of one resort. I'm sure residents vote like everyone else in HI although I doubt they are conservative, unless it means they don't want change in this island as far as commerce and residential development is concerned.
The only thing Case has going for him is that he's the cousin of AOL co-founder Steve Case.
Besides that, he's ripe for a primary challenge and should easily get the can out of the primary. A D+13 district doesn't need someone like Case, especially considering it's just +1 higher than HI-02.
Isn't the Hawaii electorate far more deferential to incumbents than typical?
Primarying an incumbent sans a career ending scandal or similar is difficult by default, even if Hawaii doesn't favor them more than usual. I'm not surprised Case has stuck around since his initial return to office in 2018, with a rather crowded primary electorate then too.
Especially in Hawaii, federal politics as a job has to be shit. The commute is terrible. They basically lose a day every time they need to make a one way trip between Hawaii and DC. It's not as nice of a job as other states and primarying an incumbent would be difficult. Most potential challengers are going to take a pass as a consequence, making it easy for Case to stay in office.
In the state legislature, there recently were a series of primaries that ousted some incumbent. I have to wonder if the organizers who fielded those candidates could maybe recruit a single, strong primary challenger to field against Ed Case.
It's also worth mentioning that the man is 72, he's a white guy representing a 68% AAPI district, and he originally returned to the seat with only a plurality of Dem primary voters. He's not a good fit for his district in multiple ways. He was beaten once before in 2006, so he probably can be beaten again with some effort and the right recruit.
Because incumbency and seniority. As a small state, Hawaii LOVES their incumbents at the federal level because they feel it is their only way to get federal money back home.
Yea no I don't care how popular voter ID laws may be, but voters rarely vote for candidates based on their positions and support for these type of laws. Look at Susan Crawford and the recent Wisconsin Supreme Court election. Sure the voters overwhelmingly supported the voter ID laws, but they still also overwhelmingly supported Crawford, who ran as a liberal and progressive and probably known to oppose such draconian laws. Ironically such draconian voter restrictions may just end up hurting these conservative democrats if they were implemented. Aside from that, supporting these type of measures, especially when you know there's likely gonna be a strong blue wave midterm shows a poor political intuition. Then again, I've seen similar if not worse instincts from conservative democrats like opposing the public option in the ACA.
Huh I wasn't aware of that. The one thing that always infuriates me about these laws, is if you care that much about voter ID and "election integrity", where's the effort to provide a detailed website and resource that can educate voters, let alone help provide them with voter ID if their ID is lacking or incorrect? I hope Biden's voter ID included those changes too.
As long as things are practical and not meant as a prelude for more restrictive measures to stop voter turnout, I can live with the voter ID requirements. Detailed information on how to manage this via a website would make sense.
On the other hand, if you get a mail-in ballot you can work around it easily. At least in the State of California that is the case.
Sadly they often aren't and we're not even talking about undocumented residents and temporary visa workers yet. Many communities notably Native Americans live on reservations and lack a formal address of their own. We've seen how adverse voter ID laws affect them when such requirements for addresses are made. Moreover, you have transient populations that include many homeless and low income people that not only may lack a residence, but perhaps not even the income to process voter IDs for themselves. I can't speak for all places, but I am convinced many politicians that push for voter ID and election integrity are willfully blind to these challenges.
Yeah, that is a problem. Common sense is one thing but if you're making it more complicated, then it's hard for Native Americans to even have a voice if they are facing such headaches dealing with the voter ID crap.
I don’t recall that at all. Why would they bother watering down the bill? To get Manchin and Sinema to support ending the filibuster? I doubt that would have done it for them.
Because the concept of a voter id is popular among Americans. I am sure the bill had all the provisions to mitigate the downsides of voter id and did not have a blatant Jane crow like ID requirement.
That's not what those votes are about. They know that it will not survive the Senate, so leadership let them vote in favor so they can point to that vote next November as evidence of their "independence".
Yes except for Golden because he voted for the funding bill and is against the tariff bill even when the other 3 aren't. He's a conservative democrat IG.
What do you guys think about Brian Kemp running against Ossoff? I think that he might be less likely to run given the Wisconsin SC electorate, the consistent slide of Trump's popularity and the looming Trumpcession. He might instead challenge Vance on his record as a successful conservative Governor and bet that this administration becomes unpopular by then among the GOP base.
I think he passes for all of the aforementioned reasons. He seems like the type to really like being "the boss" and don't think the thought of being 1 of 100 is enticing. He's looking at the POTUS race.
Kemp could be a credible GOP presidential candidate in 2028. However, if he runs against Ossoff and loses the Senate race, his stock will likely drop as a presidential candidate.
Also, Kemp isn't exactly doing himself any favor here by being on Trump's side regarding the tariffs on China.
I've been neutral about what Brian Kemp could offer as a Senate candidate vs. when he ran for Governor in his first and 2nd terms. The main reason is that Democrats have been able to win the Senate runoffs but not the gubernatorial races in 2018 and 2022.
Kemp may be the best shot the GOP has at unseating Senator Jon Ossoff. However, because Ossoff is an incumbent Senator and did in fact unseat one when Trump was still POTUS, his timing may be off here as Trump got a smaller margin of victory in GA last year compared to back in 2016.
The big problem though for Kemp is that the federal government is well-represented in GA. The fallout for the GOP as a result of the firings in multiple agencies will create liabilities for him if he is not independent of Trump. CDC's headquarters is in Atlanta.
From a local perspective, it seems more like style than actual policy. I don’t recall her saying “Defund the police” but those type of Dems are more her crowd than mainstream Dems.
My only concern is talking about “marginalized groups” too much vs talking about Minnesotans. It’s not much of a concern but I hope she doesn’t talk about being Native too much. It’s a turn-off to voters.
"I hope she doesn’t talk about being Native much. It’s a turn-off to voters."
Fuck those voters! It's as if there were a Jewish politician in Germany and you were saying you hope they don't talk too much about being Jewish, lest they turn off the voters. Minnesota massacred the local Native people in the 19th century. That's bad enough without a politician who's a descendant of the survivors having to shut up about her identity. Plus, she didn't shut up and was elected, so I think you may be off base even though you're a local.
A candidate's background is frequently a solid part of the character story they tell to voters, trying to convince people of their authenticity, their grit, or other traits we seek in elected officials. Easy example off the top of my head, Gallego used his military background as a consistent part of his campaign. It's a strong asset to him and helps defend against ideological attacks of him as "too progressive," even though there's nothing actually mutually exclusive between the two.
Sure, we do not want a candidate to become bogged down in any part of their identity. Voters can and will get tired of a lack of diversity in messaging. That's entirely different from talking about her background enough to get some good impressions out of it.
Telling candidates with some kind of minority background that they should avoid talking about that background is in many cases implicitly applying a handicap to them by taking away their ability to make those character-story messages.
I have a generalized view that when it comes to poll-tested messaging that democrats often lose the forest for the trees. Maybe if you poll tested it there would be a decent chunk of people that dislike it when it's stated so blatantly to them for an up/down approval. Even if not, I can see how someone would imagine that to be the case. But (1) most of those people will never vote for such a candidate anyway, and (2) that kind of polling will unavoidably miss that something is lost in that process for the candidate. It's difficult to poll what people would think of a candidate if that candidate didn't tell their personal story in their campaign.
The opportunity cost of going down that path is often lost with these kinds of views.
Walz was always considered a fairly standard moderate up until he was picked as Harris' running mate and the republican attack machine fired up.
He has a good record as governor, but it's more that he accomplished a good number of "normal" democratic policies than that he accomplished anything that is specifically in the progressive end of party ideology.
I don't think it was at all just because he was Jewish. I'm Jewish and was happier when Harris chose Walz. For all we know, choosing Shapiro might have flipped Pennsylvania, but I doubt it, and that wouldn't have been enough to win the election.
It was not just that he was Jewish, but the vociferousness of the opposition to him was clearly in part over Israel issues where his actual policy is indistinguishable from Walz's.
Ideology specifics change a lot over the centuries. Free school lunches is something I'd consider a rather standard democratic policy. It's been implemented in states that are not known for their progressive ideals, like Maine. It's a policy on the left but not the progressive-left.
Ideologically I'd lump it in with SNAP, as they're filling similar societal roles and similar levels of thinking: the government should provide support to ensure people get required amounts of nutrition. SNAP has widespread support across the party and is not something limited to the progressive left.
It’s the longest running blue state in the country. She persists. If it weren’t for our gubernatorial candidate fucking up in the home stretch of 2006, we’d be longest running blue state on every level. CA, MA and NY can eat it.
The suburbs of the twin cities are keeping us ahead in Minnesota since we've lost ground in the rural areas like the rest of America, you can be too far left for these voters. The tail wind in 2026 will help her though.
Exactly. The realignment of suburbs to the left and rural to the right.
I bitched about Cook PVI in the other post but if you look at 2016-2024, MN nearly fell to Trump in 2016 like the Blue Wall did. Which was a come to Jesus moment. “How blue are we?!?” 2024 it was the same thing with the Blue Wall but MN was 4-5% bluer than 2016.
I don't think anyone is really disputing that there exists points of being far enough from an election's local median voter that it hurts us. That's clearly reality, and much as I hate it, it does seem that it can hurt democrats more than republicans.
The question is: what actually makes her "too far left"? Relative to the state of Minnesota, what ideologically extreme positions does she hold? What ideologically extreme rhetoric has she adopted? We shouldn't take it as a default reality simply because there's a rumor of someone else saying she is off the record. If she is, it should be easy enough to quantify.
She represented a very blue part of Minnesota before her election as Lieutenant Governor. There are concerns that as since the LG is elected jointly with the Governor she hasn't really been tested statewide. That and she comes across as pretty "identarian" with her politics. She makes ZERO secret of her Indigenous and Irish heritage.
Questions of being untested are fair, but do nothing argue about a person's ideological positioning. There's absolutely zero correlation between ideology and how proven of a campaigner someone is.
Similarly leaning into personal identity has little correlation with ideology. Chuck Schumer makes zero secret of his Jewish ancestry but no one is going to mistake him for being super progressive. Edit: Maybe a stronger example, Sharice Davids also makes no effort to hide her Native American ancestry. She's not a far lefty either.
If we're going to have a discussion over whether a candidate is or is not too far left, we should first establish an argument for why people should believe the candidate is too far left.
So, again: what actually makes her "too far left"? If she truly is, people should be able to point to something concrete to establish it. Otherwise we're just enabling a pointless intraparty ideological pissing match that isn't even based on anything real.
Michael Bennet's bid sets up a high-profile showdown with Attorney General Phil Weiser for the state's chief executive post. The two candidates offer a contrast in styles and ideology with Bennet as the more moderate contender.
Bennet voted in January to support President Trump's pick for Energy secretary, Chris Wright, touting the former Denver fracking executive's "deep expertise." Meanwhile, Weiser is positioned as the state's most prominent Trump adversary, using his powers to file more than a dozen lawsuits challenging the administration.
Bennet is serving his third full-term in the U.S. Senate after being reelected in 2022.
Weiser is in his second and final term as the state's top prosecutor.
I support Weiser, because he's way more reliably liberal compared to Bennet and 6 year Senate terms are long and staggered and he should serve it out, no excuses!!
Poll by Change Research shows Osborn trailing Ricketts in Nebraska by 1 point. It also mentions that Change Research has modelled a more Republican electorate this time around than the last year.
Nearly every respondent had heard of Ricketts, but only 38% viewed him favorably. Less than two-thirds of Republicans surveyed (62%) had a favorable opinion of Ricketts while 89% viewed Trump favorably, according to the poll.
Meanwhile, more than 95% of Democrats and 61% of independents surveyed by the polling firm Change Research indicated they would back Osborn over Ricketts, who won the support of 78% of Republicans surveyed
And unlike some polls that showed Osborn in a dead heat with Fischer in the waning days of last year's race, Thursday's poll does not appear to underrepresent Republicans and does not vastly underrepresent Trump voters.
Fifty-six percent of respondents identified themselves to pollsters as Republicans and 57% said they had voted in November for Trump, who won 59.6% of the vote in Nebraska. Nearly 50% of state voters are registered Republicans, while 26.4% are Democrats and 21.9% are registered nonpartisans.
Osborn came close to unseating Deb Fischer last year— perhaps DOGE and FDJT’s disastrous policies are pushing Rs away from voting for their party or not voting at all.
I looked it up and Dan Osborne outperformed all Democrat statewide candidates, save Ben Nelson since the 2000s and 1990s. Even in Ben Nelson's best performance, winning his gubernatorial reelection in 1994 with a margin of over 45 points and getting over 70% of the vote, his max vote share was over 423k voters. Osborn in 2024 topped even that with 436k despite losing. Even though Osborn doesn't benefit the local Nebraska Democratic party, he seems to better engage otherwise cynical and disaffected voters. Having a decent candidate to engage voters and build grassroots networking and infrastructure is one thing, but having a credible popular candidate do so is even better.
Nebraska Rs are just doubling down on the extremism in the state legislature this year, but the winner-take-all EV bill (championed by Gov Pillen) was soundly defeated.
The quote is in the original post. The GOP doesn't have a recruit for NC-SEN, it has an incumbent who's running for re-election. What they meant to say was that the GOP lost its best recruit in New Hampshire, by the name of Chris Sununu.
I haven’t read the digest or comments yet, but per Jared Golden discussion the other day:
He’s the House Democratic Maine version of Senator Susan Collins, always there when the party needs him, always not there when we don’t (he probably learned that from his former boss honestly, very shrewd politician). I’ll take EVERY single Democrat in Trump won districts like this if it means they can hold the district, we can get a majority and they can become entrenched through good election years and bad election years.
Do you know how rare and valuable someone like that is to the party? Just ask Peltola who only got 2 years before voters unseated her. He’s been in office since 2018 and unseated a 2 term GOP rep that year. People need to stop being so absolutist on policy where the reps vote doesn’t decide whether it passes or fails. Bigger picture needed! Republicans control everything, these laws will be passed no matter what.
If this gives him enough crossover/Trump voter credit on bills that are already passing to hold a Trump +5-10 seat, he’d be stupid not to vote for them and we’d be even stupider to primary him over it.
I broadly agree with you. But at the same time: a lot of the stuff he votes on seems almost perfectly designed to undercut our core messaging by giving republicans the chance to claim some shitty policy or another is bipartisan. Of course there's some strategic value there for him, as the more a vote pisses us off the easier it is for him to benefit from it in a conservative district. It would work better for all the dems in seats like his though if they could coordinate with some strategy to make their votes or statements to cases where it can still annoy us without undermining the party at large. An easy example I'd point to is his recent comments strongly in support of the tariffs. On the flip side he did get it right on the censure vote for Al Green, which he did not support.
Of course the calculus on which votes are more important in this matter is not always obvious. I do feel he and others in similar positions could reasonably be expected to handle it a little better though.
My end take is that I really dislike him but I'm glad we have him all the same. Same story as Manchin. I recognize that there is a cost to having officials messing with our messaging and party unity, but I also recognize that the cost is lower than the benefit of having them holding a seat down that we would normally have no chance of winning.
I fully agree with you. I personally don't align with Sinema, Manchin, or Golden perfectly on ideology, but when you compare them to the other side of the aisle, there is no question as to who I share more interests and values with. If Sinema and Manchin had not been in the Senate and had not been Democrats, President Biden wouldn't have established the legislative and judicial legacy that he did. Golden, as a Representative, is less impactful, but he is still a very reliable vote in our corner when we truly need him. And again, had this seat been GOP, it would've only given Johnson and Trump one more buffer to pass their agenda. Politics is a game of strategy and compromise and people must recognize that.
Does it really make sense for Governor Kathy Hochul to run for re-election? Are Delgado and Torres really the best alternatives? Is there no one else on the horizon? Surely there are stronger and Bluer candidates, and Democrats can do far better. Or am I missing something?
I thought Letitia James might run. Maybe she still will. Hochul is weak and susceptible to defeat by a Republican.
I have wondered whether Letitia James might also be a worthy challenger to Chuck Schumer. Yes, I am well aware that all focus seems to be on AOC...
Perhaps it’s unfair, but I have thought of Hochul as overly Republican-near. For instance, Hochul’s initial choice of nominee to the New York Supreme Court was downright bizarre.
Hochul is a perfect representative of the New York state Democratic party.
That’s what I was afraid of.
Maybe if we got a real Democrat for governor and a younger, telegenic, articulate senator, New York Democrats could roll Republicans on redistricting and appointments.
New York is solidly Democratic, and we shouldn't have to play squishy with Republicans as of it were a swing state.
That and if Democratic voters LET Democratic Party politicians be mean and get it through their skulls that "fairness" doesn't work when you're up against people who hate democracy.
They need to deregulate their extreme rent control and maximum tenant rights.
Are you a landlord, perchance?
No she is not - stop with this. She may not be our best candidate and she could lose a primary, but the chances of her losing to a Republican opponent in a R-prez midterm are zero. Happy to place a bet of any size on this topic with you...
What a turn Torres took, from a defund the police pro Israel Progressive to a pro Crypto anti Progressive.
He really is one of my least favorite Dems in the House
John Edwards Returns At 2024 DNC Convention
No, he didn't speak at the convention but John Edwards made an appearance last year after over a decade of going back to practice law and staying out of the limelight. The DNC gave him an invite and he showed up.
More on the NY Times article below. Also, here's a picture of Edwards making an appearance. You might be surprised to know but as someone in his early 70's, he's still got the same hair and hasn't aged much.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/22/us/elections/john-edwards-dnc.html
https://x.com/IsaacDovere/status/1826091927936155795?lang=en
Of all the curious characters spotted bouncing around inside the Democrats’ big tent this week — the influencers, the ex-Trump White House press secretary, Lil Jon — the most curious of all might have been John Edwards.
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He was hanging at a bar in Chicago’s West Loop neighborhood early Wednesday evening, hours before Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota would accept his party’s nomination as vice president.
“I wanted to see what was going on!” Mr. Edwards, 71, exclaimed. “Especially this year.”
He’s been out of the loop, west or otherwise, for a long while now.
He was once the Democratic Party’s golden boy — a baby-faced senator from North Carolina, John Kerry’s running mate in 2004 and then a presidential contender himself. It all started to fall apart in 2008. He withdrew from the Democratic primaries. An extramarital affair came to light.
The other woman was a videographer paid by his campaign. There was a secret child. A terminally ill wife at home. A campaign finance scandal. Bunny Mellon, the widow of the banking heir Paul Mellon, was involved. It was messy. And then Mr. Edwards went away.
When was the last time he was even at a Democratic convention?
“Two thousand and uh…” his voice trailed off as he screwed up his face, pretending to think.
“God, I wish you hadn’t asked me that, this is a memory test,” he laughed. “I think the last time I went was when I was the vice-presidential candidate. 2004.” (It was in Boston that year.)
I was confused for a moment and thought that I may have clicked on a older downballot article accidentally.
Ok. I put in the Twitter/X post w/a photo of John Edwards at the convention as a 2nd link in case.
FYI, the NY Times has a tendency to prevent seeing articles from being seen in their entirety unless you sign up as a subscriber. I was able to extract the whole article by quickly copying and pasting the page content into Word.
He really set the Democratic Party back quite a bit here. I do not and will not forgive him for it.
How so?
For his Iraq War vote or personal affairs?
The fiasco with Edwards’s infidelity + indictments (all of which he was acquitted of) came after the 2008 presidential election. He was no liability towards the Democratic Party after 2008.
I've long felt (even before his coup de grâce) that the Edwards who should have gone into politics was Elizabeth, not John.
Her untimely death broke my heart.
Fair point.
Back in 2004, Elizabeth Edwards was loved by many on the campaign trail. If John Edwards got elected as POTUS instead of Obama or Clinton, it would have been a much more painful two years for him.
Wasn't going to happen. He never caught on as a candidate in 2008. The "angry populist" look plus having the loser tag from 2004 doomed his chances.
I'm just putting in a hypothetical in retrospect showing how a John Edwards presidency would have been problematic because of his wife dying + infidelity + legal problems. He might have become a liability for the Democratic Party if this was the case while dealing with addressing the Great Recession + The Iraq War.
Naturally, Obama stole the whole steam away. Edwards should have never run again in 2008. If he couldn't win the 2004 Democratic Presidential Nomination and help John Kerry win, running for the presidency again wasn't going to help.
Besides, Kerry wasn't exactly glowing with chemistry with Edwards. There were problems behind the scenes after Edwards got the VP nomination and he rubbed Kerry the wrong way.
Four Democrats, Case, Cuellar, Glusenenkamp-Perez and Golden voted for the "SAVE" act, which will would require documentary proof of citizenship for voter registration, bar states from counting late-arriving mail ballots, and dramatically infringe on states’ authority to run elections. While the bill doesn't have the votes to overcome a Democratic filibuster in the senate, it's still pretty galling to see it get 4 Democratic votes. Especially, the putrid Ed Case, who has no case to make that he needs to vote that way because of his district.
Another banger by Golden.
Or perhaps you should say "Bangor" by Golden.
I know Hawaii has a unique and fairly insular (heh) political culture that’s more conservative than it gets credit for, but can somebody please primary Ed Case?
I am skeptical that Hawaii has an undocumented problem as bad as the other 48 have so this obviously did not influence his vote. (Note: Illegal voting is rare, aggressively prosecuted and in the cases that are few and far between, the majority has been done by undocumented Republicans)
No, definitely not. Big homeless problem, but those are usually native Hawaiians
I've been hearing Honolulu in particular is having a big problem with homeless population. It's become a real crisis over there.
Naturally, with Honolulu being the main metropolitan city in Hawaii and where most air travel tends to embark before going to other HI islands, it may have the most issues with the homeless.
The phrase "undocumented problem" somehow bothers me, I think mainly because it's a huge oversimplification that ignores the larger issues of the creation of an underclass and the need for immigration because of the country's low birth rate.
I support immigration reform and legalization while increasing border security.
That's cool and perfectly reasonable.
Moreover, the term "undocumented problem" is a linguistic atrocity! Surely all problems should be documented as thoroughly as possible, so they can be grappled with and defined, so as to facilitate good solutions.
(Yes, I know "undocumented" is intended as a noun, not an adjective.)
I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say that unless you're referring to a particular context and attitude of Hawaiians. Both HI-01 and HI-02, which is represented by Rep. Jill Tokuda, have about the same PVIs.
I’m referring to how the HI Dems are a big tent party that captures a whole lot of small-c conservative voters (sort of an inverse Kansas GOP) in addition to Hawaii’s very unique cultural milieu
Where do you see the conservative-minded voters in HI? I would imagine Maui and Oahu although not so much Kauai.
Molokai is completely native Hawaiian-inhabited with the exception of one resort. I'm sure residents vote like everyone else in HI although I doubt they are conservative, unless it means they don't want change in this island as far as commerce and residential development is concerned.
Jill Tokuda is favorite to succeed Hirono when that seat opens up IMO!! 💙🇺🇲
I've been looking at Adrian Tam and I think he'd be a substantial upgrade over Case.
Surely Honolulu has no shortage of ambitious Dems who could challenge Case. Maybe they’re afraid because he’s been in politics so long?
I don't get how the guy has lasted this long.
The only thing Case has going for him is that he's the cousin of AOL co-founder Steve Case.
Besides that, he's ripe for a primary challenge and should easily get the can out of the primary. A D+13 district doesn't need someone like Case, especially considering it's just +1 higher than HI-02.
Isn't the Hawaii electorate far more deferential to incumbents than typical?
Primarying an incumbent sans a career ending scandal or similar is difficult by default, even if Hawaii doesn't favor them more than usual. I'm not surprised Case has stuck around since his initial return to office in 2018, with a rather crowded primary electorate then too.
Especially in Hawaii, federal politics as a job has to be shit. The commute is terrible. They basically lose a day every time they need to make a one way trip between Hawaii and DC. It's not as nice of a job as other states and primarying an incumbent would be difficult. Most potential challengers are going to take a pass as a consequence, making it easy for Case to stay in office.
In the state legislature, there recently were a series of primaries that ousted some incumbent. I have to wonder if the organizers who fielded those candidates could maybe recruit a single, strong primary challenger to field against Ed Case.
It's also worth mentioning that the man is 72, he's a white guy representing a 68% AAPI district, and he originally returned to the seat with only a plurality of Dem primary voters. He's not a good fit for his district in multiple ways. He was beaten once before in 2006, so he probably can be beaten again with some effort and the right recruit.
I don't think race is much of an issue for Hawaiian voters; correct me if I'm wrong.
He's somehow an extremely talented and pretty popular politician.
Because incumbency and seniority. As a small state, Hawaii LOVES their incumbents at the federal level because they feel it is their only way to get federal money back home.
He's in his 70's, sooner he retires from politics permanently; the better!!
Yea no I don't care how popular voter ID laws may be, but voters rarely vote for candidates based on their positions and support for these type of laws. Look at Susan Crawford and the recent Wisconsin Supreme Court election. Sure the voters overwhelmingly supported the voter ID laws, but they still also overwhelmingly supported Crawford, who ran as a liberal and progressive and probably known to oppose such draconian laws. Ironically such draconian voter restrictions may just end up hurting these conservative democrats if they were implemented. Aside from that, supporting these type of measures, especially when you know there's likely gonna be a strong blue wave midterm shows a poor political intuition. Then again, I've seen similar if not worse instincts from conservative democrats like opposing the public option in the ACA.
Voting rights act by Democrats during Biden was amended to include voter ID.
Huh I wasn't aware of that. The one thing that always infuriates me about these laws, is if you care that much about voter ID and "election integrity", where's the effort to provide a detailed website and resource that can educate voters, let alone help provide them with voter ID if their ID is lacking or incorrect? I hope Biden's voter ID included those changes too.
As long as things are practical and not meant as a prelude for more restrictive measures to stop voter turnout, I can live with the voter ID requirements. Detailed information on how to manage this via a website would make sense.
On the other hand, if you get a mail-in ballot you can work around it easily. At least in the State of California that is the case.
Sadly they often aren't and we're not even talking about undocumented residents and temporary visa workers yet. Many communities notably Native Americans live on reservations and lack a formal address of their own. We've seen how adverse voter ID laws affect them when such requirements for addresses are made. Moreover, you have transient populations that include many homeless and low income people that not only may lack a residence, but perhaps not even the income to process voter IDs for themselves. I can't speak for all places, but I am convinced many politicians that push for voter ID and election integrity are willfully blind to these challenges.
Yeah, that is a problem. Common sense is one thing but if you're making it more complicated, then it's hard for Native Americans to even have a voice if they are facing such headaches dealing with the voter ID crap.
I don’t recall that at all. Why would they bother watering down the bill? To get Manchin and Sinema to support ending the filibuster? I doubt that would have done it for them.
Because the concept of a voter id is popular among Americans. I am sure the bill had all the provisions to mitigate the downsides of voter id and did not have a blatant Jane crow like ID requirement.
Yep. We can complain about it all we want. Our gullible electorate thinks "voter fraud" is a lot more common than it actually is.
You mean conservative Republicans, don't you?
That's not what those votes are about. They know that it will not survive the Senate, so leadership let them vote in favor so they can point to that vote next November as evidence of their "independence".
Yes except for Golden because he voted for the funding bill and is against the tariff bill even when the other 3 aren't. He's a conservative democrat IG.
True, and he can be utterly exasperating at times. But Jared Golden is probably the best ME-02 can hope for.
The alternative to Golden is a 100% MAGA republican. I gladly take Golden over that.
Absolutely disgraceful- what the eff is wrong with them and why didn’t Jeffries ‘whip’ their ‘no’ votes instead of letting them get away with this?!
Do you know what happened to the episode on Spotify? It was there and now it's gone.
What do you guys think about Brian Kemp running against Ossoff? I think that he might be less likely to run given the Wisconsin SC electorate, the consistent slide of Trump's popularity and the looming Trumpcession. He might instead challenge Vance on his record as a successful conservative Governor and bet that this administration becomes unpopular by then among the GOP base.
I think he passes for all of the aforementioned reasons. He seems like the type to really like being "the boss" and don't think the thought of being 1 of 100 is enticing. He's looking at the POTUS race.
Kemp could be a credible GOP presidential candidate in 2028. However, if he runs against Ossoff and loses the Senate race, his stock will likely drop as a presidential candidate.
Also, Kemp isn't exactly doing himself any favor here by being on Trump's side regarding the tariffs on China.
https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/atlanta/gov-kemp-says-he-supports-tariffs-china-after-ripping-us-off-lot-different-ways/YDJGZOV7SFE2NDGDST4VNIT6PA/
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For poultry, as well as other products, China may look elsewhere for relief and Georgia may suffer the consequences of loss of market share.”
“I thought what they did today was a good move,” Kemp said.
As this was happening, Kemp was busy cutting the ribbon on a new Georgia State Patrol post located at the governor’s mansion.
Over his two terms, Kemp has reached out to Asia to get it to invest in Georgia, especially Korea.
He supports the tariff on China, insisting that while a major trading partner, it hasn’t always been a fair one.
“Well, they are a big trading partner, but they also have been, as many say, ripping us off in a lot of different ways.”
I've been neutral about what Brian Kemp could offer as a Senate candidate vs. when he ran for Governor in his first and 2nd terms. The main reason is that Democrats have been able to win the Senate runoffs but not the gubernatorial races in 2018 and 2022.
Kemp may be the best shot the GOP has at unseating Senator Jon Ossoff. However, because Ossoff is an incumbent Senator and did in fact unseat one when Trump was still POTUS, his timing may be off here as Trump got a smaller margin of victory in GA last year compared to back in 2016.
The big problem though for Kemp is that the federal government is well-represented in GA. The fallout for the GOP as a result of the firings in multiple agencies will create liabilities for him if he is not independent of Trump. CDC's headquarters is in Atlanta.
Al Franken is backing Flanagan.
https://www.inforum.com/news/minnesota/state-auditor-julie-blaha-al-franken-endorse-lt-gov-peggy-flanagan-for-us-senate
Is she too far left? Coz I heard that even Tim Walz who is very progressive himself was not happy with her stances.
Any idea which particular stances?
No idea but I can assure you that I read this in a couple of reports.
From a local perspective, it seems more like style than actual policy. I don’t recall her saying “Defund the police” but those type of Dems are more her crowd than mainstream Dems.
My only concern is talking about “marginalized groups” too much vs talking about Minnesotans. It’s not much of a concern but I hope she doesn’t talk about being Native too much. It’s a turn-off to voters.
I react very angrily to this:
"I hope she doesn’t talk about being Native much. It’s a turn-off to voters."
Fuck those voters! It's as if there were a Jewish politician in Germany and you were saying you hope they don't talk too much about being Jewish, lest they turn off the voters. Minnesota massacred the local Native people in the 19th century. That's bad enough without a politician who's a descendant of the survivors having to shut up about her identity. Plus, she didn't shut up and was elected, so I think you may be off base even though you're a local.
Thank you for proving my point. I didn’t read all of that comment bc it’s a turn off and it’s long. 👏👏👏
Oh, so it's _you_ who are turned off by her talking about being Native?
I'd add to what you said.
A candidate's background is frequently a solid part of the character story they tell to voters, trying to convince people of their authenticity, their grit, or other traits we seek in elected officials. Easy example off the top of my head, Gallego used his military background as a consistent part of his campaign. It's a strong asset to him and helps defend against ideological attacks of him as "too progressive," even though there's nothing actually mutually exclusive between the two.
Sure, we do not want a candidate to become bogged down in any part of their identity. Voters can and will get tired of a lack of diversity in messaging. That's entirely different from talking about her background enough to get some good impressions out of it.
Telling candidates with some kind of minority background that they should avoid talking about that background is in many cases implicitly applying a handicap to them by taking away their ability to make those character-story messages.
I have a generalized view that when it comes to poll-tested messaging that democrats often lose the forest for the trees. Maybe if you poll tested it there would be a decent chunk of people that dislike it when it's stated so blatantly to them for an up/down approval. Even if not, I can see how someone would imagine that to be the case. But (1) most of those people will never vote for such a candidate anyway, and (2) that kind of polling will unavoidably miss that something is lost in that process for the candidate. It's difficult to poll what people would think of a candidate if that candidate didn't tell their personal story in their campaign.
The opportunity cost of going down that path is often lost with these kinds of views.
Walz was always considered a fairly standard moderate up until he was picked as Harris' running mate and the republican attack machine fired up.
He has a good record as governor, but it's more that he accomplished a good number of "normal" democratic policies than that he accomplished anything that is specifically in the progressive end of party ideology.
Yeah, the idea of Walz as Bernie-lite never really made sense to me. Pretty standard moderate with a dash of old style DFL populism
I mean it was pretty plainly just that the left didn't like Shapiro for (((reasons))) and they made Walz out to be something he wasn't.
I don't think it was at all just because he was Jewish. I'm Jewish and was happier when Harris chose Walz. For all we know, choosing Shapiro might have flipped Pennsylvania, but I doubt it, and that wouldn't have been enough to win the election.
It was not just that he was Jewish, but the vociferousness of the opposition to him was clearly in part over Israel issues where his actual policy is indistinguishable from Walz's.
I don't know what you consider progressive, but things like universal free school lunches certainly are and were Marxist ideas in the 19th century.
Ideology specifics change a lot over the centuries. Free school lunches is something I'd consider a rather standard democratic policy. It's been implemented in states that are not known for their progressive ideals, like Maine. It's a policy on the left but not the progressive-left.
Ideologically I'd lump it in with SNAP, as they're filling similar societal roles and similar levels of thinking: the government should provide support to ensure people get required amounts of nutrition. SNAP has widespread support across the party and is not something limited to the progressive left.
SNAP is exclusively for poor people. Universal free school lunches are not.
I know. I stand by what I said. They are not the same programs, basically tautologically in this case. They fill similar roles.
Too far left for what? To win, or to please some people to her right?
I mean Minnesota isn't the bluest of states so I am concerned.
OK. You're right, it isn't, but what is too left about her that would be likely to cause her to lose a general election?
It’s the longest running blue state in the country. She persists. If it weren’t for our gubernatorial candidate fucking up in the home stretch of 2006, we’d be longest running blue state on every level. CA, MA and NY can eat it.
The suburbs of the twin cities are keeping us ahead in Minnesota since we've lost ground in the rural areas like the rest of America, you can be too far left for these voters. The tail wind in 2026 will help her though.
Exactly. The realignment of suburbs to the left and rural to the right.
I bitched about Cook PVI in the other post but if you look at 2016-2024, MN nearly fell to Trump in 2016 like the Blue Wall did. Which was a come to Jesus moment. “How blue are we?!?” 2024 it was the same thing with the Blue Wall but MN was 4-5% bluer than 2016.
I don't think anyone is really disputing that there exists points of being far enough from an election's local median voter that it hurts us. That's clearly reality, and much as I hate it, it does seem that it can hurt democrats more than republicans.
The question is: what actually makes her "too far left"? Relative to the state of Minnesota, what ideologically extreme positions does she hold? What ideologically extreme rhetoric has she adopted? We shouldn't take it as a default reality simply because there's a rumor of someone else saying she is off the record. If she is, it should be easy enough to quantify.
She represented a very blue part of Minnesota before her election as Lieutenant Governor. There are concerns that as since the LG is elected jointly with the Governor she hasn't really been tested statewide. That and she comes across as pretty "identarian" with her politics. She makes ZERO secret of her Indigenous and Irish heritage.
Questions of being untested are fair, but do nothing argue about a person's ideological positioning. There's absolutely zero correlation between ideology and how proven of a campaigner someone is.
Similarly leaning into personal identity has little correlation with ideology. Chuck Schumer makes zero secret of his Jewish ancestry but no one is going to mistake him for being super progressive. Edit: Maybe a stronger example, Sharice Davids also makes no effort to hide her Native American ancestry. She's not a far lefty either.
If we're going to have a discussion over whether a candidate is or is not too far left, we should first establish an argument for why people should believe the candidate is too far left.
So, again: what actually makes her "too far left"? If she truly is, people should be able to point to something concrete to establish it. Otherwise we're just enabling a pointless intraparty ideological pissing match that isn't even based on anything real.
BENNET to launch bid for COLORADO GOVERNOR
Michael Bennet's bid sets up a high-profile showdown with Attorney General Phil Weiser for the state's chief executive post. The two candidates offer a contrast in styles and ideology with Bennet as the more moderate contender.
Bennet voted in January to support President Trump's pick for Energy secretary, Chris Wright, touting the former Denver fracking executive's "deep expertise." Meanwhile, Weiser is positioned as the state's most prominent Trump adversary, using his powers to file more than a dozen lawsuits challenging the administration.
Bennet is serving his third full-term in the U.S. Senate after being reelected in 2022.
Weiser is in his second and final term as the state's top prosecutor.
https://www.axios.com/2025/04/10/michael-bennet-colorado-governor-2026-election
Weiser may be better as Bennet should serve out the full term and has the most executive experience. 💙🇺🇲
Give me Weiser. Was never a big Bennet fan.
I’ve always found Bennet smart and capable but my preference is Weiser too
Voting for a Trump nominee because of his history in fracking is political malpractice as far as I’m concerned.
But if Bennett runs for Governor, he saves himself the liability of being in the Senate longer.
Again here is hoping that the primary is actually productive.
I support Weiser, because he's way more reliably liberal compared to Bennet and 6 year Senate terms are long and staggered and he should serve it out, no excuses!!
https://journalstar.com/news/state-regional/government-politics/article_7be6b517-341e-42fd-80a9-56c0d0996353.html
Poll by Change Research shows Osborn trailing Ricketts in Nebraska by 1 point. It also mentions that Change Research has modelled a more Republican electorate this time around than the last year.
Nearly every respondent had heard of Ricketts, but only 38% viewed him favorably. Less than two-thirds of Republicans surveyed (62%) had a favorable opinion of Ricketts while 89% viewed Trump favorably, according to the poll.
Meanwhile, more than 95% of Democrats and 61% of independents surveyed by the polling firm Change Research indicated they would back Osborn over Ricketts, who won the support of 78% of Republicans surveyed
And unlike some polls that showed Osborn in a dead heat with Fischer in the waning days of last year's race, Thursday's poll does not appear to underrepresent Republicans and does not vastly underrepresent Trump voters.
Fifty-six percent of respondents identified themselves to pollsters as Republicans and 57% said they had voted in November for Trump, who won 59.6% of the vote in Nebraska. Nearly 50% of state voters are registered Republicans, while 26.4% are Democrats and 21.9% are registered nonpartisans.
Looking to be a race to lean into in a big way.
Osborn came close to unseating Deb Fischer last year— perhaps DOGE and FDJT’s disastrous policies are pushing Rs away from voting for their party or not voting at all.
I looked it up and Dan Osborne outperformed all Democrat statewide candidates, save Ben Nelson since the 2000s and 1990s. Even in Ben Nelson's best performance, winning his gubernatorial reelection in 1994 with a margin of over 45 points and getting over 70% of the vote, his max vote share was over 423k voters. Osborn in 2024 topped even that with 436k despite losing. Even though Osborn doesn't benefit the local Nebraska Democratic party, he seems to better engage otherwise cynical and disaffected voters. Having a decent candidate to engage voters and build grassroots networking and infrastructure is one thing, but having a credible popular candidate do so is even better.
Nebraska Rs are just doubling down on the extremism in the state legislature this year, but the winner-take-all EV bill (championed by Gov Pillen) was soundly defeated.
When you say "and the GOP's best recruit declining a bid in North Carolina," do you mean the part of North Carolina that is known as New Hampshire?
???
The quote is in the original post. The GOP doesn't have a recruit for NC-SEN, it has an incumbent who's running for re-election. What they meant to say was that the GOP lost its best recruit in New Hampshire, by the name of Chris Sununu.
I haven’t read the digest or comments yet, but per Jared Golden discussion the other day:
He’s the House Democratic Maine version of Senator Susan Collins, always there when the party needs him, always not there when we don’t (he probably learned that from his former boss honestly, very shrewd politician). I’ll take EVERY single Democrat in Trump won districts like this if it means they can hold the district, we can get a majority and they can become entrenched through good election years and bad election years.
Do you know how rare and valuable someone like that is to the party? Just ask Peltola who only got 2 years before voters unseated her. He’s been in office since 2018 and unseated a 2 term GOP rep that year. People need to stop being so absolutist on policy where the reps vote doesn’t decide whether it passes or fails. Bigger picture needed! Republicans control everything, these laws will be passed no matter what.
If this gives him enough crossover/Trump voter credit on bills that are already passing to hold a Trump +5-10 seat, he’d be stupid not to vote for them and we’d be even stupider to primary him over it.
I broadly agree with you. But at the same time: a lot of the stuff he votes on seems almost perfectly designed to undercut our core messaging by giving republicans the chance to claim some shitty policy or another is bipartisan. Of course there's some strategic value there for him, as the more a vote pisses us off the easier it is for him to benefit from it in a conservative district. It would work better for all the dems in seats like his though if they could coordinate with some strategy to make their votes or statements to cases where it can still annoy us without undermining the party at large. An easy example I'd point to is his recent comments strongly in support of the tariffs. On the flip side he did get it right on the censure vote for Al Green, which he did not support.
Of course the calculus on which votes are more important in this matter is not always obvious. I do feel he and others in similar positions could reasonably be expected to handle it a little better though.
My end take is that I really dislike him but I'm glad we have him all the same. Same story as Manchin. I recognize that there is a cost to having officials messing with our messaging and party unity, but I also recognize that the cost is lower than the benefit of having them holding a seat down that we would normally have no chance of winning.
I fully agree with you. I personally don't align with Sinema, Manchin, or Golden perfectly on ideology, but when you compare them to the other side of the aisle, there is no question as to who I share more interests and values with. If Sinema and Manchin had not been in the Senate and had not been Democrats, President Biden wouldn't have established the legislative and judicial legacy that he did. Golden, as a Representative, is less impactful, but he is still a very reliable vote in our corner when we truly need him. And again, had this seat been GOP, it would've only given Johnson and Trump one more buffer to pass their agenda. Politics is a game of strategy and compromise and people must recognize that.
Jamie Raskin says that the Trump administration has “the politics of Mussolini and the economics of Herbert Hoover”.
Very apt.