The Midterm Elections

[AmazonGrace]

  Time to fess up: how many dozen deaths did you get away with?

[CTRLZero]

Interesting article on Don Blankenship.  I was wondering about this quote:

Quote

Blankenship is in the top tier of candidates in the race, along with Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and U.S. Representative Evan Jenkins. The major reason? His time in prison didn’t deprive him of the fortune he earned running Massey Energy, and he spent more than $2 million on television ads before Morrisey and Jenkins’ campaigns could run their first spot on television.

Was there any settlement with the families of the 29 killed?  I hope they can still go after him for money.  In the meantime, since I'm cranky and distressed about this guy (and all the others like him), I hope they keep throwing chairs at him.

[AmazonGrace]

Another GOP retiring:

 

[fraurosena]

Oh, I will laugh so hard when Nunes gets his comeuppance!

Russia probe descends on Nunes’ re-election, threatens to upend midterms

Quote

Not long ago, Devin Nunes was an obscure Republican congressman accustomed to running for re-election essentially unopposed as he quietly ascended the ranks in Washington.

But his starring role in one of the defining sagas of the Donald Trump presidency has provoked a real threat back home. His work defending the White House from questions about Russian meddling in U.S. elections has made Nunes a vulnerable target in the midterms, even though Trump won his central California district by 10 percentage points.

A local prosecutor, Democrat Andrew Janz, is on track to raise $1 million this quarter after raking in more money online than any Democrat in the country, except for Conor Lamb, who won the recent special election in Pennsylvania.

"My opponent is front and center in all of this, and so we really believe that removing this man from office is a national imperative," Janz told NBC News. "This is the only way to get to the bottom of what happened in 2016 and to make sure that Russia's involvement in our elections never happens again."

He added of Nunes, "While he's in Washington focused on the Russia investigation, the issues back home are forgotten."

Meanwhile, in southern California, a dozen candidates from both parties have lined up to challenge GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, who Politico once dubbed "Putin's favorite congressman."

"I don't see this as anything short of a national security issue of the highest kind," said one of the challengers, Paul Martin, a local pastor and blogger who argues that only a moderate Republican like him can keep the affluent suburban district in GOP hands this year.

The Trump-Russia saga, while gripping the nation's capital and drawing huge media coverage, has yet to penetrate in a significant way, beyond a handful of districts, into the other big political story of the year —this year's midterm elections.

But that may be about to change.

Special counsel Robert Mueller's probe is already providing the background music to the national political environment and it soon may get louder, with Trump stepping up his attacks on the investigation and with the trial of his former campaign manager set kick off in September. Candidates and consultants said they expect the issue to reach a crescendo before November.

"It'll be like the 600 pound red elephant in the room," said Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., who has tried to force passage of a bill to protect Mueller in case Trump tries to fire him.

The stakes make the Russia controversy difficult to ignore in the battle for the House. If Democrats win back Congress, they're certain to make full use of their oversight powers, potentially including impeachment.

Republicans dismiss the political impact of the controversy, noting that Americans are more concerned with pocketbook issues.

"Voters tend to tune out cable news panels and Twitter chatter, opting to focus more on issues that actually have an impact on their daily lives. A boost in their paychecks and a roaring economy — each a byproduct of the Republican tax reform plan — are far more relevant to people than what pundits have to say on TV," said Jesse Hunt, a spokesperson for the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee.

Polling supports that argument, with Americans regularly listing issues like health care and the economy as their top issues, and about half of those surveyed expressing no opinion either way about Mueller.

National Democrats also urge their candidates not to focus too much on the Russia probe or impeachment, which can feel distant to voters' personal struggles.

"Amidst the chaos, Democratic candidates need to stay focused like a laser beam on economic issues," said Jeb Fain, a spokesperson for House Majority PAC, the party's flagship House super PAC.

But Democrats believe the swirl of controversy and Trump's defensiveness on Russia are already having an indirect effect on the electorate, contributing to the wider sense of chaos that has kept the president's approval ratings fairly low and fired up the liberal base.

And the more that attention gets drawn to legal machinations in the White House, the more difficult it will be for Republicans to keep the focus where they want it to be: Their legislative accomplishments and the robust economy.

"If you see the cook chasing around rats in the kitchen, it doesn't matter how good your meal is," said Dan Sena, the executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

The political impact of a dramatic development in the case, such as Trump seeking Mueller's removal or a damning report from the special counsel, are unknowable. But the handful of places where the probe and its related controversies are already in the foreground offer some clues.

Rohrabacher was always going to be in for a stiff challenge this year, since Hillary Clinton won his Orange County District in 2016.

But now Harley Rouda, one of several Democrats in the race, has put Trump-Russia investigation front-and-center, running an ad tying Rohrabacher and Trump to Putin and building an anti-Putin website.

Even Rouda said his argument to voters always returns to asking what Rohrabacher's attempts to improve relations with Russia have to do with making health care more affordable or schools better. "It is doing nothing to advance the interests of the families of the 48th district," Rouda said.

n Florida's conservative panhandle, Navy Veteran Phil Ehr is hoping to get some of the same national attention Janz has enjoyed in an uphill battle against Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla. — a freshman who has made a name for himself appearing on television as one of Trump’s most vociferous defenders.

But he knows that in an area where Fox News is on in every bar and Trump won by nearly 40 percentage points, Mueller's probe will probably never be a silver bullet. So instead, in a district dominated by major military bases, he's appealing to pragmatism and patriotism.

"Does the Russia investigation resonate with the people that I'm talking to in Northwest Florida? Well not really, they're much more interested in kitchen table issues," he said. "But a lot of voters are sick and tired of that kind of ideologically driven thinking and not practical problem-solving." 

 

[fraurosena]

This thread is a MUST READ. This is incredibly frightening stuff. And reality. It's not too late to do something, but the clock is ticking. That blue wave is very, very necessary. More so than everyone realizes.

Read this, and you'll know why.

 

[fraurosena]

Another fine, upstanding GOP candidate...

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Some interesting updates on the impact of Costello's retirement: "This GOP congressman just demonstrated what a headache retirements will be for Republicans in 2018"

Spoiler

On Tuesday, Republicans got a reality check on just how much trouble retirements within their ranks can cause them as they try to retain control of the House of Representatives in November.

It happened in the outer Philadelphia suburbs. Rep. Ryan Costello (R) is retiring after two terms in Congress, and he did it in a way that almost certainly hands Democrats the seat.

Costello officially announced his retirement Sunday, blaming President Trump for the decision. A few days earlier, Trump had threatened to veto a spending bill that Republicans heaved over the finish line to keep the government open through September.

“Whether it's Stormy Daniels,” Costello told the Daily Local News on Sunday, “or passing an omnibus spending bill that the president threatens to veto after promising to sign, it’s very difficult to move forward in a constructive way today.”

Costello would also be running for reelection in a district that has been redrawn by the courts to be much more favorable to Democrats. Layer that with his candid take on Trump, and Costello's retirement pretty clearly indicates that he doesn't think he could win in a competitive district right now, not with an environment unfriendly to Republicans and an unpredictable and unpopular president as the face of his party.

Whatever his reasons, Costello had decided to retire after the filing deadline for new candidates to enter the race had passed. That means Pennsylvania Republicans didn't have a chance to put a new candidate on the ballot, at least not without jumping through hoops that involved Costello staying on the ballot through the May primary. If Costello technically stepped aside after being nominated, the state Republican Party could pick someone to take his place. And then it could try to keep this seat, which has been in Republican hands since 2012.

But Tuesday, Costello said he wouldn't help them do that. As the Philadelphia Inquirer's Jonathan Tamari reports, Costello said he will pull his name off that primary ballot — he is retiring, after all  — rather than run in the primary and drop out after he wins. That leaves little-known lawyer Greg McCauley as the only Republican on the ballot. Election analysts at Cook Political Report say he is too conservative for the district, and they give the upper hand to the Democrat in the race, Chrissy Houlahan.

That is a lot of drama for one race, and you arguably don't need to know every little detail. But looking at the big picture, here's what this means: Before the November midterms, Democrats have two near-certain pickups in Pennsylvania. (The first being Democrat Conor Lamb, who won a special election this month in a district that Trump won by 20 points; Lamb is likely to win in the district in November because of the redrawn lines. And, yes, Democrats have a GOP retirement to thank for that bit of good news: That special election was called only because a longtime GOP congressman had resigned his seat over a sex scandal.)

Put another way: We're entering an election cycle in which every pickup for Democrats matters, and Republican retirements are set to be a major factor in their ability to knock off Republicans.

Democrats are hoping to regain control of the House for the first time in eight years, and they need to net 24 seats to do it. (Well, 23 now that Lamb has won.) At the top of their target list are 23 districts that Republicans currently hold that Hillary Clinton won in November. Costello's was one of those, and now they probably don't have to spend nearly as much money or attention trying to kick him out of Congress. Same with competitive races in California, New Jersey and Florida, thanks to retiring GOP lawmakers who have simply had it with Congress and national politics.

As I wrote on Monday:

Since Brookings Institution started tracking retirements in the 1930s, Republicans have never had this many retirements in one election cycle. Republicans in Congress are retiring in historic numbers this year. Nearly 50 Republicans in the House and Senate have announced they are retiring, and 25 of those are retiring without having another job to go to or have already left office, compared with 10 House Democrats.

Retirements are a big reason Democrats are positioned to try to take back control of the House of Representatives for the first time in eight years. In our rankings of the top 10 House races most likely to flip parties, five are Republican seats made more competitive by lawmakers' decision to retire.

Costello's retirement may be the most dramatic example of how Republican retirements are benefiting Democrats this election cycle. But it's far from the only retirement-related break that Democrats are getting.

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

Mitt Romney: I'm better at racisting than Trump. 

TIL: You can't win if you don't vote

 

[JMarie]

His goal as senator:  reviving a debunked theory about a now private citizen

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/28/politics/joe-arpaio-birther/index.html

Quote

Republican Senate candidate and former Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio suggested that he would revive the debunked claim that President Barack Obama's birth certificate is fraudulent if he's elected to the Senate.

At a conservative convention last week, Arpaio recalled introducing President Donald Trump at a campaign rally where the former sheriff mentioned illegal immigration and the "birther" theory -- that Obama was not born in the US and therefore was ineligible to be president.

"I don't talk about it anymore, until I become the US senator ... It has something to do with a document," Arpaio said at the Western Conservative Conference in Phoenix, according to a video posted to YouTube Saturday by Tru Conservative TV.

 

[fraurosena]

It's hard, living in a democracy when you're a Repugliklan.

It Took 3 Different Court Orders for Scott Walker To Finally Hold Constitutionally Required Elections

Quote

After months of delay and Republican attempts to defy court orders, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker finally agreed to schedule special elections to fill vacant two state legislative seats. The primaries will be May 15 and the general elections June 12. The Republican leaders of the state legislature also dropped plans to convene a special session to change Wisconsin law and cancel the elections.

Walker initially refused to schedule elections after two Republican members of the legislature—one from the state Senate and another from the state Assembly—joined his administration in December, claiming it would be a waste of money since the legislature was set to adjourn in the spring. A Democratic group led by former Attorney General Eric Holder sued him, and on March 22 Dane County Circuit Court Judge Josann Reynolds ruled that the governor had a “plain and positive duty” to hold the elections. Republican legislative leaders then attacked Reynolds as an “activist Dane County judge,” even though she was appointed by Walker in 2014, and announced they would re-convene to pass legislation to nullify the elections.

Walker went back to court to ask for more time to postpone holding the elections, but two different courts ruled he was constitutionally required to schedule them. “Representative government and the election of our representatives are never ‘unnecessary,’ never a ‘waste of taxpayer resources,’ and the calling of the special elections are, as the governor acknowledges, his ‘obligation,’” Court of Appeals Judge Paul Reilly, a Republican, ruled on Wednesday in a pointed rebuke to the governor. Walker then dropped his appeal and scheduled the elections for June. Holder called the court decisions “a victory for the citizens of Wisconsin who are without representation because of Governor Walker’s refusal to do his job.”

Walker might have conceded defeat and scheduled the elections, but he’s not done complaining. The governor spent Thursday morning sending out a string of tweets raging against Holder.

[the comments in the above tweet are worth a look]

Wisconsin Democrats said Walker had refused to hold the elections because he was afraid Democrats might flip the seats. In January, Democrat Patty Schachtner won a shocking upset by 11 points in a northwest Wisconsin state Senate district that had been in GOP hands since 2000 and Donald Trump carried by 17 points in 2016.

However, in other crucial swing states Republicans are still pushing forward with attacks on courts that have constrained their power. Pennsylvania Republicans have introduced legislation to impeach Democratic state Supreme Court Justices who overturned the state’s congressional redistricting maps, while North Carolina Republicans have passed a series of bills to undermine the independence of the courts.

 

 

[fraurosena]

Repugliklan voter suppression efforts have hit an unexpected roadblock.

Voting Rights Advocates Just Won a Big Victory in Court

Quote

A conservative legal group’s crusade to purge voter lists across the country hit a setback Friday when a federal judge in Florida ruled that Broward County was already adequately maintaining its voter file. In doing so, the judge rebuffed the group’s efforts to force the heavily Democratic county to implement procedures that voting rights advocates say could have resulted in eligible voters being removed from the rolls.

The case is one of many filed by the American Civil Rights Union, which claims that numerous counties throughout the country are shirking their duty under federal law to remove ineligible voters. One of the leaders of the effort is J. Christian Adams, a former member of President Donald Trump’s election integrity commission. Adams, a conservative legal activist, claims  that voter fraud exists in the United States on a large scale, particularly among non-citizens, though his research on the matter has proved dubious at best. (The overwhelming weight of the evidence suggests that voter fraud is extremely rare.) Adams is an ally of Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, and both have advocated for laws that force voters to show proof of citizenship in order to register.  

In her decision Friday, Judge Beth Bloom rejected key arguments put forward by ACRU. Among them was ACRU’s contention that Broward County had more registered voters than eligible citizens, which the group put forward as proof that the superintendent of elections is not fulfilling her list-maintenance responsibilities. Some experts have raised doubts about this assertion, and Bloom agreed with those critics, calling the calculations of ACRU’s expert witness “misleading” and the evidence put forward by ACRU on the topic “inaccurate.”

ACRU had also argued that the standard for what qualifies as a “reasonable effort” to maintain accurate rolls—the legal requirement—should depend on the population of a county: A large county with an ever-changing population and a high registration rate compared to the eligible population (the same statistic Bloom found unreliable) should have to undertake more list maintenance efforts than one whose population is more static. Such a standard of reasonableness could result in more purging in urban areas, which often have more voters of color and are more likely to back Democrats. Bloom found that this interpretation of reasonableness would be unworkable. “ACRU’s proposed definition of ‘reasonable efforts’ is too subjective and would lead to an arbitrary, non-uniform, unworkable, and unpredictable application,” she concluded.

As Mother Jones reported last year, Adams and ACRU have filed similar suits across the country in recent years—first in small, rural counties, including some with large minority populations. Rather than fight in court, many of these counties agreed to consent decrees that imposed additional list maintenance requirements. In 2016, the group filed suits against large, Democratic-leaning jurisdictions in swing states, including Broward County. This was the first case against a large county to reach trial. 

Bloom’s Friday ruling, which directly rebuts ACRU’s population-versus-registration arguments, will likely impede future efforts by Adams and groups doing similar work around the country. Justin Levitt, an election law expert and former Justice Department official, noted that the judge’s rejection of ACRU’s “bad math” could have important implications for legal battles in other counties.

 

[fraurosena]

Everyone should realize how imperative it is to vote. The odds have been undemocratically stacked against you.

 

[AmazonGrace]

Shocked to be reminded that the poor people vote too. 

 

[fraurosena]

Although this is from 2011, it's very insightful. Did you know that Thomas Jefferson thought the Constitution should be rewritten from scratch every 20 years? It's sad to see that his prediction of what would happen if you didn't has come true.

Reconstituting The Constitution: How To Rewrite It?

Quote

Most Americans haven't read the U.S. Constitution in a long time, if ever. They may be able to tell you about the Second Amendment, or the Fifth, maybe even part of the First. But other than that? A lot of blank stares.

Christopher Phillips has been leading what he calls "Constitution Café" discussions with people across the country. He's asking Americans to imagine themselves as framers of our founding document.

The idea of traveling coast to coast to discuss philosophical topics with Americans is not new to Phillips.

Before this reconstituting-the-Constitution tour, the author and scholar conducted a similar exercise, traveling to different states and asking Socratic questions: What is knowledge? What is beauty? What is love?

He led these discussions in schools, parks, homeless shelters and even prisons. Then he wrote about them in three separate books.

Now, he's turned to one of his heroes — Thomas Jefferson — who believed, Phillips says, that Americans should revisit the Constitution every 20 years and rewrite it from scratch.

"His argument was that if Americans weren't vital stakeholders in that foundational document, they would become distanced from governance itself," Phillips explains. "And the politicians from the president on down would become 'like wolves.' "

For several months, Phillips has been asking people to imagine themselves in the role of Constitutional framers. Would we change some things if we could? Or would we leave them the same? He asks people to look over something in the document and rewrite it as an exercise.

One School's Experience

At Constitution High School in Philadelphia, a public magnet school, his assignment is the beginning: Students look at the preamble and write their own version.

"How many of you kept the first three words, 'We the People?'" Phillips asks the diverse class of high school juniors. "Should we make sure who we are talking about when we say 'We the People?' "

"'We the People' is just based on everybody," replies Mai Nuygen.

"When this Constitution was approved, 'We the People' only included white, landowning, tax-paying males," Phillips tells the class, then asks, "How many of you believe we might want to clarify who we are talking about?"

After pausing for a response, he notes, "a lot of you."

"I think we should put in 'the citizens of the United States,' " says 11th grader Maria Diaz.

"How many of you would like to add — off the top of your head — 'the citizens of the United States?' " asks Phillips.

"Immigrants are people too," Shane Duson replies. "If you leave it to just the citizens of the United States, then they lose all their rights."

"I think it should only apply to the people who were born here," says Brian Cornell. "I think that our say is more powerful because it is our country."

Phillips then tells the class that, until the 1920s, white, male, tax-paying, property-holding immigrants who were not U.S. citizens could vote in federal elections.

One student suggests that "We the People" should be everyone who pays taxes. But another student points out that he has a job and pays taxes, but he's too young to vote.

Then another student offers up a utopian view. "If you live in this country and you help promote the general welfare, as the preamble states, then you are a citizen," says Jonathan Vargas.

Phillips observes that Vargas has a very different notion of who is a citizen — not simply someone born on U.S. soil, or someone who comes to the U.S. and goes through the various hoops to become a citizen.

"What Jonathan is saying is that a citizen is someone who participates in public life and contributes actively to our democracy," explains Phillips.

Soon the students are discussing Robert Heinlein's libertarian science fiction novel Starship Troopers, which makes a distinction between a citizen and a civilian. A citizen has to help make the democracy work.

Taking The Debate To The Streets

Phillips says he is trying to spark a long-overdue conversation about the Constitution.

One of the reasons Americans don't read it, says Phillips, is "because they feel so far removed from the corridors of governance. One manifestation of that is the Tea Party; another is the Occupy Wall Street movement."

Phillips has brought members of MoveOn.org and the Tea Party together to discuss the Constitution. And he is not above simply collaring random people on the street.

After his interview at NPR's office, Phillips came across some Occupy protesters marching down the street. He asked two of them whether there was something they would change in the Constitution.

One, Mark Greif, wants a new amendment that would restrict the Bill of Rights to living human beings.

"So tell me what language you would use," Phillips says.

"I imagine it would say, 'The rights enumerated in the Constitution are applicable only to living natural citizens of the United States, not to fictitious persons or non-existent persons,'" says Greif.

Greif was clearly against the idea that corporations are people from a free speech point of view — a reference to last year's controversial Supreme Court decision, Citizens United.

But nearby, in the same group of Occupy marchers, another man said he wanted to leave the Constitution just the way it is.

"I think we should just look at what it actually says in the Constitution. That would be a good start. I am not looking to change it," said the demonstrator, who called himself Seaman Surley.

A Tasty Brew

Phillips has written a book about his latest travels, 'Constitution Café: Jefferson's Brew for a True Revolution'. He believes that ordinary people can have uncommon insights about the nation's founding document — sometimes better than the experts.

But, he says, "you do have to model a kind of thoughtful and reasonable discourse in which shrillness and intolerance is a no-no. You have to willingly and even enthusiastically consider a wide range of objections and alternatives to your own viewpoint.

"That is a practice that is not being cultivated in any of the chambers of power" in Washington today, he adds. "At the very least, Constitution Café is trying to inculcate this habit again."

 

[Cartmann99]

A few of those dollars came from my household. 

[onekidanddone]

And this happened in America's Dairyland

 

[molecule]

And this happened in America's Dairyland
 

It was amazing to be able to breathe a sigh of relief after an election again. It's been too long. I've been tense since the troubles of 2011, when I was a public employee. It's nice to have hope again.

[JMarie]

Does anyone else wish we were in November right now, so we could vote and change the balance of the House and Senate?

[fraurosena]

55 minutes ago, JMarie said:

Does anyone else wish we were in November right now, so we could vote and change the balance of the House and Senate?

I can hardly wait either. And even though I won't be voting myself, I'll be cheering everyone of you on as much as I can from here, biting my nails and anxiously awaiting the results. I really, really wish for that blue tsunami. 

[GreyhoundFan]

A little more on the recent victories in Wisconsin: "Democrats just won another big race in Wisconsin — and Republicans are panicking"

Spoiler

“We are at risk of a blue wave in Wisconsin.” That's none other than the governor of Wisconsin, a Republican, warning his party Tuesday night that things could go badly for them in just a few months — including his own reelection.

The evidence Gov. Scott Walker has to back up that prediction is pretty solid: On Tuesday, Democrats won a statewide election for a state Supreme Court seat by more than 11 points. That comes after Wisconsin Democrats won a special election for a state Senate seat in January in historically Republican territory.

Walker was already ringing the alarm bells after that first loss in January. He figured it would serve as a lesson for Republicans not to get complacent after so many years of Republicans dominating this state.

Now that he has lost another race, this one statewide with a candidate he was all in for, Walker is outright hitting the panic button for his party. Here are tweets he fired off Tuesday night:

Some of this is clearly a messaging strategy. Walker is attempting to leverage these losses to spring his party into action: Donate, knock on doors and, most important, be as motivated as Democrats clearly are to show up and vote.

But Walker's actions elsewhere revealed how suddenly he is truly concerned about Democrats: After January's loss, he tried to pause two other special elections, which would leave the seats vacant for a year. The GOP-controlled state legislature even tried to pass a bill banning special elections in the state after April in an election year. The courts overruled Walker's attempts to halt them, and Walker is under a court order to hold those elections in June.

Democrats, conversely, are pretty amped up after Tuesday's win. Rebecca Dallet’s victory was the first open Supreme Court race that a progressive has won since 1995. Democrats erased a similar decades-long drought by winning January's state Senate seat.

“If Walker thought a small little Senate district up in the northwestern part of the state going Democratic for first time [in decades] was a wake-up call,” said Wisconsin Democratic operative Scot Ross, “this would be a Category 8 hurricane.”

These Supreme Court elections are technically nonpartisan, which makes this statewide race an imperfect comparison to November’s governor and Senate races. (Walker is trying to win a third term in November, and Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat, is one of our top most vulnerable incumbents in Senate races.)

But both sides made very clear who was their favorite potential justice. Walker backed his candidate, Michael Screnock, with GOP party money, by some estimates making up 40 percent of total fundraising for him. The National Rifle Association sent mailers for Screnock. A manufacturing association spent nearly $1 million on ads for him.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden made a robo-call for Dallet. The National Democratic Redistricting Committee, headed by Eric H. Holder Jr., President Barack Obama's former attorney general, also spent money in this race.

And Dallet's win wasn't just a warning to Republicans. Her win shifts the court from a 5-2 conservative majority to 4-3, and it gives Democrats the possibility of overtaking the majority  in time for the court to chime in on any GOP-drawn electoral maps after the 2020 Census. The U.S. Supreme Court is deciding on whether Wisconsin's state legislative districts are unconstitutionally partisan in favor of Republicans.

For all of Walker’s alarm-bell-ringing, Republicans close to him say he’s not reading too much into losing this seat. There is plenty of data that shows Democrats winning judicial races in the spring and Republicans going on to have a good November.

Plus, the Wisconsin Republican Party is one of the most organized and effective state parties in the nation. It can arguably claim to have won Donald Trump the presidency in November.

But across the nation, Republicans are on the receiving end of warning signs that their party could be in for a terrible election year. And right now, Wisconsin is no different.

 

[onekidanddone]

43 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

A little more on the recent victories in Wisconsin: "Democrats just won another big race in Wisconsin — and Republicans are panicking"

  Reveal hidden contents

“We are at risk of a blue wave in Wisconsin.” That's none other than the governor of Wisconsin, a Republican, warning his party Tuesday night that things could go badly for them in just a few months — including his own reelection.

The evidence Gov. Scott Walker has to back up that prediction is pretty solid: On Tuesday, Democrats won a statewide election for a state Supreme Court seat by more than 11 points. That comes after Wisconsin Democrats won a special election for a state Senate seat in January in historically Republican territory.

Walker was already ringing the alarm bells after that first loss in January. He figured it would serve as a lesson for Republicans not to get complacent after so many years of Republicans dominating this state.

Now that he has lost another race, this one statewide with a candidate he was all in for, Walker is outright hitting the panic button for his party. Here are tweets he fired off Tuesday night:

Some of this is clearly a messaging strategy. Walker is attempting to leverage these losses to spring his party into action: Donate, knock on doors and, most important, be as motivated as Democrats clearly are to show up and vote.

But Walker's actions elsewhere revealed how suddenly he is truly concerned about Democrats: After January's loss, he tried to pause two other special elections, which would leave the seats vacant for a year. The GOP-controlled state legislature even tried to pass a bill banning special elections in the state after April in an election year. The courts overruled Walker's attempts to halt them, and Walker is under a court order to hold those elections in June.

Democrats, conversely, are pretty amped up after Tuesday's win. Rebecca Dallet’s victory was the first open Supreme Court race that a progressive has won since 1995. Democrats erased a similar decades-long drought by winning January's state Senate seat.

“If Walker thought a small little Senate district up in the northwestern part of the state going Democratic for first time [in decades] was a wake-up call,” said Wisconsin Democratic operative Scot Ross, “this would be a Category 8 hurricane.”

These Supreme Court elections are technically nonpartisan, which makes this statewide race an imperfect comparison to November’s governor and Senate races. (Walker is trying to win a third term in November, and Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat, is one of our top most vulnerable incumbents in Senate races.)

But both sides made very clear who was their favorite potential justice. Walker backed his candidate, Michael Screnock, with GOP party money, by some estimates making up 40 percent of total fundraising for him. The National Rifle Association sent mailers for Screnock. A manufacturing association spent nearly $1 million on ads for him.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden made a robo-call for Dallet. The National Democratic Redistricting Committee, headed by Eric H. Holder Jr., President Barack Obama's former attorney general, also spent money in this race.

And Dallet's win wasn't just a warning to Republicans. Her win shifts the court from a 5-2 conservative majority to 4-3, and it gives Democrats the possibility of overtaking the majority  in time for the court to chime in on any GOP-drawn electoral maps after the 2020 Census. The U.S. Supreme Court is deciding on whether Wisconsin's state legislative districts are unconstitutionally partisan in favor of Republicans.

For all of Walker’s alarm-bell-ringing, Republicans close to him say he’s not reading too much into losing this seat. There is plenty of data that shows Democrats winning judicial races in the spring and Republicans going on to have a good November.

Plus, the Wisconsin Republican Party is one of the most organized and effective state parties in the nation. It can arguably claim to have won Donald Trump the presidency in November.

But across the nation, Republicans are on the receiving end of warning signs that their party could be in for a terrible election year. And right now, Wisconsin is no different.

 

Whiner  McWhiner Pants

[Cartmann99]

I really want Scott Walker to end up shilling catheters and reverse mortgages on some obscure television network.

[AmazonGrace]

Pro life huh.

I mean, sure, dead women don't seek abortions so it might be effective.

[GreyhoundFan]

"McConnell sounds alarm over midterms: ‘We don’t know whether it’s going to be a Category 3, 4 or 5’"

Spoiler

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is predicting a difficult midterm election year for his party, likening it this week to a severe storm.

“This is going to be a challenging election year,” McConnell said in a Tuesday interview with the Kentucky Today editorial board. “We know the wind is going to be in our face. We don’t know whether it’s going to be a Category 3, 4 or 5.”

The interview marked some of the bluntest comments this year by the top Senate Republican, who is defending a 51-49 majority in November. McConnell raised the possibility that Republicans will lose their House majority. In doing so, he offered a potential argument Republican Senate candidates could use on the campaign trail.

“I’m hoping we can hold the Senate,” he said, “and the principal reason for that, even if we were to lose the House and be stymied legislatively, we could still approve appointments, which is a huge part of what we do.”

McConnell’s remarks came as other prominent Republicans have been issuing warnings about the midterms. After a Wisconsin Supreme Court win by Democrats on Tuesday, Republican Gov. Scott Walker warned of a “#BlueWave” in a post on Twitter.

The Republican leader has been warning about the difficult climate for months. “We go into this cleareyed that this is going to be quite a challenging election,” he told the New York Times in February.

McConnell has frequently said that the Senate is in “the personnel business,” referring to its power to confirm executive branch nominees and federal judges. Last year, McConnell said the “single biggest issue in bringing Republicans home” in the 2016 election “was the Supreme Court.” That year, McConnell refused to fill a Supreme Court vacancy until after the election, making it an issue for voters to decide on in the campaign.

While recent special elections have shown there is a lot of energy in the Democratic Party, largely because of anger with President Trump, winning back control of the Senate will not be easy for the minority party. Democrats are defending seats in 10 seats in states Trump won in 2016. These include West Virginia and North Dakota, where Trump won by a wide margin.

For many conservative activists, judicial nominees are an important issue, giving McConnell’s emerging pitch on behalf of Republican Senate candidates some potential to energize them. At the same time, McConnell is battling against criticism from some on the right that he has not been an effective leader. Even Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley, whom McConnell helped recruit to run for the Senate, would not commit to supporting him as leader if he is elected.

“I think it’s a little premature to say who I would and wouldn’t vote for,” Hawley said in a recent interview with The Washington Post.

I want to get the Repugs out of "the personnel business".