The Midterm Elections

[fraurosena]

There is nothing they won’t do, no level too low they won’t stoop to, in their desperation to cling on to power.

 

[fraurosena]

Yes. Please make this happen.

[fraurosena]

Go Massachusetts!

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"With Trump in the White House, candidates who sound like him hit the campaign trail'

Spoiler

ATLANTA — In last week’s debate between Georgia’s Republican candidates for governor, policy was quickly abandoned as Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and Secretary of State Brian Kemp lit into one another with a familiar slate of accusations.

Kemp called Cagle a liar at least a dozen times. Cagle accused Kemp of conspiring with another Republican to release a recording of an “out of context” private conversationKemp accused Cagle of spreading “fake news” to Georgians, and Cagle repeatedly refused to apologize for saying what he says.

In a state where President Trump enjoys higher-than-average popularity, these two Republican candidates have not only bickered over which of them has supported the president for the longest or who would most warmly embrace the Trump agenda, they’ve also started acting like the president, using some of his nastiest campaign tactics.

In races across the country, other Republican candidates — and some Democrats — also are branding their opponents with unflattering nicknames, tweeting in all caps, refusing to apologize for things that politicians once apologized for, being proudly politically incorrect, circulating false information, calling their hometown newspapers “fake news,” releasing damaging information about their opponents and generating controversy to get headlines, even unflattering ones. A Republican candidate for California’s state legislature, copying Trump’s foray against President Barack Obama, has even launched a birther movement, demanding proof that his Democratic opponent is a legal citizen of the United States.

“Trump’s style was such a departure from anything we were used to seeing in a presidential campaign — his willingness to just go all-out and criticize heavily someone, call them names and engage in schoolyard talk,” said Kerwin Swint, a political science professor at Kennesaw State University in Georgia. “Candidates this year are more willing to go there out of a sense that a precedent has been set or that it works or why not do it in my race.”

But it’s unclear if the tactics will work for many candidates other than Trump, who had a cache with his voters unmatched by most seeking office.

“I don’t like when candidates overly emulate the president. There’s only one Donald Trump,” said Harlan Z. Hill, a conservative consultant working on several midterm races who is also involved with Trump’s 2020 campaign. Hill said he gets frustrated with candidates who use gimmicky nicknames like the president does.

“My biggest problem with this is that it sort of reflects a wider problem in the Republican Party right now, where people are paying lip service to the Trump movement, the America First movement,” he said. “They really don’t understand it, so they’re just emulating the superficial aspects of it. I think voters see right through that.”

But it can be difficult for voters to know whether candidates are emulating Trump out of belief or ambition.

Former soap-opera actor Antonio Sabato Jr. — who spoke at the 2016 Republican National Convention and is now running for Congress in Southern California — has called for Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), a Trump nemesis, to be locked up because he believes she is a “hustler of hate” who “wants to tar and feather anyone different from her.” In Indiana, Trump-endorsed Senate candidate Mike Braun cast his primary opponents as “Todd the Fraud” and “Luke the Liberal.” Iowa Republican Party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann has nicknamed a Democratic congressional candidate “Absent Abby,” in hopes of drawing attention to her statehouse attendance record. Meanwhile, the Maryland Democratic Party has nicknamed Republican Gov. Larry Hogan “Hidin’ Hogan” while accusing him of hiding his conservative positions.

Some of the Trumpiest candidates — the sort who were early supporters of the president’s campaign and decided to run for office themselves — aren’t making it past the Republican primaries.

In northern Ohio’s 16th Congressional District, state lawmaker Christina Hagan was inspired by Trump’s 2016 victory to run for Congress, but she lost the primary to the Republican establishment’s favorite, former football star Anthony Gonzalez. One of Hagan’s commercials featured the same out-of-context footage of people rushing a Moroccan border that Trump used in one of his anti-illegal immigration campaign commercials. She also tweeted a news article about a suspect with a name similar to her opponent’s who had been charged in connection with what she called an “illegal immigrant drug ring” — ignoring calls from fellow Republicans who asked her to delete the tweet.

In New York’s 11th Congressional District, which includes Staten Island, former congressman Michael Grimm challenged Republican Rep. Dan Donovan but lost the primary. Grimm labeled his opponent “Desperate Dan” and “Dishonest Dan,” and compared his own felony conviction for federal tax fraud to the ongoing investigation into whether the Trump campaign worked with Russia in 2016, a probe Grimm considers unfair and politically motivated.

The Trumpiest candidate in the Georgia governor’s race was Michael Williams, a state senator who was one of the few elected officials in the country to endorse Trump in 2015. In the final days of the primary campaign, a struggling Williams received a burst of local and national attention for driving a “deportation bus” around the state, sparking a string of protests. It was a stunt that surprised some of Williams’ supporters, who compared it to Trump purposely generating controversy so that he could dominate the news.

Williams finished last in the primary, even losing the county where he lives. Cagle earned the most votes but not enough to become the party’s nominee, so he and Kemp face a runoff on July 24. A poll released by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Channel 2 Action News on Friday shows Kemp with a slight lead.

Voter turnout for primaries is often low — and it’s often even lower for runoff elections, especially those held in the dead of summer. Local strategists and political scientists say that voters who do show up will likely be the party’s most loyal and most conservative members. That explains why Kemp has done so many ads featuring his guns and pickup truck, which he claims in a southern drawl could be used to “round up criminal illegals.” And it explains why Cagle is now catering to the far-right edge of the party.

“It’s literally been hilarious to watch” said Seth Weathers, a former state director for Trump who worked on Williams’ campaign, describing what he said was Cagle’s transformation from moderate to Trump mimic.

“Just be who you are,” he said, adding: “No one is Trump.”

Soon after the May primary, Cagle met with one of the Republicans he beat, Clay Tippins, for a frank conversation that he hoped would lead to an endorsement. Tippins recorded the conversation and has been releasing parts of it. First came audio of Cagle saying that a bill providing public funding for private schools was “bad public policy” but he supported it to prevent a rival from gaining financial support from charter school supporters.

Last week, Kemp’s campaign released a snippet it had received from Tippins in which Cagle says that the GOP primary came down to “who had the biggest gun, who had the biggest truck and who could be the craziest.”

Kemp says that Cagle was trashing conservative voters with the comment, comparing it to Hillary Clinton describing Trump’s supporters as “deplorable.” Cagle’s aides said he was pointing out how crazy Kemp has made this race.

By way of timing, the audio controversy echoed the release in the presidential contest of a 2005 Trump interview with Access Hollywood in which he bragged about grabbing and kissing women without their consent.

Although Trump weathered that crisis, the polls here have tightened. Cagle recorded a new commercial last week that was staged to look like a Trump rally. He stood in front of an American flag, surrounded by supporters, and yelled out his beliefs to a cheering crowd.

“I’ll never apologize for outlawing sanctuary cities or stopping liberals from taking the values that make our country great,” he said, lines familiar to any Trump rally veteran. “The time for conservatives getting kicked around is over.”

Cagle tweeted out the ad with a claim that his opponent was “in cahoots” with the media to push “fake news.”

In the Thursday night debate, many of the buzzwords reflected 2016: “Colluding.” “Lies.” “Never going to apologize.” “Hypocrite.” “Despicable.” “Fake news.” After the debate, it continued as the candidates answered questions from reporters.

“Casey Cagle’s getting to be like Hillary Clinton now,” Kemp said. “He’s gone after my ‘crazy’ supporters that have guns, trucks and chain saws. He’s saying I’m colluding, and he’s saying I’m sexist. That’s the same thing that Hillary Clinton said about Donald Trump. I think Georgians know better.”

Minutes later, Cagle complained with a line that could have come straight from Trump. No one could hear about his record as Georgia’s lieutenant governor, he said, because “the only thing that my opponent can talk about is a tape — a tape!”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[AmericanRose]

That doesn't surprise me. Don't Republicans tend to believe women belong 'at home'? At least since the 80s...

[AmazonGrace]

  you can't win unless you run

[Cartmann99]

A female Democrat is challenging my congressman. If elected, she would be the first woman to represent the district.

[AmazonGrace]

Handydandy hackable voting machines

[AmazonGrace]

Murderer running in Arizona: 

He claims it was self defense and his mom was trying to shoot him but that seems unlikely as she was found in her bed

Murderer running in NY: https://nypost.com/2018/07/13/convicted-murderer-serving-life-in-prison-running-for-senate-seat/

 

[CTRLZero]

Random notes from perusing my primary election voter's pamphlet:

*This election all mail-in ballots are postage prepaid.  [Someone filed a lawsuit claiming a postage stamp requirement was a poll tax, just FYI.]

*Lots of "how your vote is secure" information.  No internet connections for ballot counting.

*Registration deadlines eliminated.  Register and vote up until 8:00 pm on Election Day.

*16- and 17-year-olds can pre-register.

Another observation:  The loons are numerous this election.  The Trump factor emboldened the tin foil brigade (literally, someone is wanting everyone's brains protected from microwaves being beamed at our heads, that's her only platform); and of course a gentleman is enraged that there are gun-free zones, i.e., really wants those elementary school kids toting. 

Is everyone else noticing this trend in their voter's pamphlets?  I have never seen so many unusual folks running for office.  I hope sanity prevails.

 

[AmazonGrace]

I put this here because you might see more fake news sites in this election and because one person mentioned here is running 

 

[Drala]

I've been reading up on the 2016 election hacking and thinking about implications for the midterms.  Georgia is one of those red states with a significant blue voting block in the urban areas.  I can see  how corrupt Republican state officials might want to look the other way while Russian hackers do their thing.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/07/18/mueller-indictments-georgia-voting-infrastructure-219018

[AmazonGrace]

Microsoft detects first midterms phishing schemes. https://www.politico.com/amp/story/2018/07/19/midterm-campaign-hacking-microsoft-733256?__twitter_impression=true 

Doesn't say who the targeted candidates were but there were three.

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

Maybe the people who can't even be bothered with the elections deserve their fate? 

 

[fraurosena]

@AmazonGrace, it's a poll. 'Nuff said. You all know by now what I think of them.

This is the way to reach millennials, and everybody else for that matter:

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Big money is flowing into the 2018 fight for the U.S. Senate"

Spoiler

The big-money race for the Senate is heating up.

Groups aligned with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) together raised $22.9 million in the second quarter of 2018 and entered the third quarter with nearly $44 million in cash on hand, according to figures provided by the groups and Federal Election Commission records filed Friday evening.

One of the McConnell-aligned organizations, One Nation, will launch a $16 million ad blitz in August aimed at five states that are key to maintaining the Senate Republican majority, according to the group.

On the Democrats' side, the super PAC working to elect Senate Democrats posted strong fundraising figures starting in the first quarter, and continued to show financial muscle. The group does not release its affiliated nonprofit’s fundraising figures, which are not reported publicly.

The super PAC, Senate Majority PAC, had about $13 million more in the bank by the end of June than its GOP counterpart, Senate Leadership Fund, FEC records show. Senate Majority PAC had $32.7 million in available cash and Senate Leadership Fund alone had $19.5 million, FEC filings show. 

“As the battleground map narrows, Senate Democrats continue to have the momentum this cycle,” J.B Poersch, president of Senate Majority PAC, said in a statement.

The major Democratic super PAC Priorities USA Action raised $2.8 million in June and had $9.3 million in available cash. Of that $2.8 million, $2 million came from the billionaire investor and liberal donor George Soros. Soros has contributed at least $9.2 million to outside groups so far in the 2018 cycle, according to an analysis by The Washington Post.

Some of the major donors to the Republican super PAC included Blackstone Group chief executive and co-founder Stephen Schwarzman, who gave $5 million to the Senate Leadership Fund. The New York investor has emerged as a major donor to President Trump since his election. The only major corporate donation to the super PAC came from Conoco Phillips, which gave $1 million.

The August ad buys totaling $16 million announced by McConnell-aligned groups will target Democratic incumbents in Missouri, Indiana and North Dakota; fight for the seat in Tennessee being vacated by Bob Corker (R); and defend one of the most vulnerable Senate Republicans this year: Dean Heller in Nevada.

“Leader McConnell has proven himself to be an invaluable asset when it comes to confirming yet another constitutional conservative to our nation’s highest court for decades to come,” Steven Law, president of the McConnell-aligned Senate Leadership Fund, said in a statement. “Donors realize this and it has sharpened their focus on the importance of Republicans holding the Senate this November.”

The Republican National Committee continued to post strong fundraising figures in June, raising nearly $14 million compared with nearly $8 million by its Democratic counterpart.

So far this cycle, the RNC raised nearly twice as much money as the Democratic National Committee and has nearly six times the available cash as the DNC. The RNC has raised $201.7 million this cycle, and the DNC has raised $105.8 million. The RNC reported $50.7 million in cash on hand at the end of June, and the DNC reported $9 million, with $6.3 million of debt.

The RNC reported spending $369,000 at Trump properties, the majority of that at the Trump National Doral Miami, bringing to $1.5 million the total spent at Trump properties since November 2016.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I know this is preaching to the choir, but this is a great op-ed: "Disgusted With Donald Trump? Do This"

Spoiler

We got it wrong in 2016. We can get it right in 2018. There’s a far side to this American disgrace, a way to contain the damage, and it’s both utterly straightforward and entirely effective.

It’s called voting. And from now until Nov. 6, we must stay fanatically focused on that — on registering voters, turning them out, directing money to the right candidates, donating time in the right places.

The moral of the Helsinki freak show, the NATO tragicomedy and the children in cages near the border isn’t just that Donald Trump lacks any discernible conscience, real regard for this country or mature appreciation of history and our exalted part in it. It’s that this next election matters — immeasurably.

There’s no hyperbole in the frequent assertion that it’s the most important midterm in a generation. And those of us rightly appalled by this president must devote as much energy to giving Democrats control of at least one chamber of Congress — and the ability to restrain him — as to finding fresh methods for mocking him. A blimp in a diaper is a hoot. A legislature with its foot on his throat is an insurance policy.

We can’t lose sight of that, but in all our fury and feelings of helplessness, we sometimes do. Too many people spend too much of themselves on the shouting and save too little for the plotting, and Trump does his best to leave us morally wiped out. He’s a steamroller. But if we hang in there, we don’t have to be flattened.

My plea isn’t a partisan one, nor am I romanticizing the Democratic Party, which has problems galore. I’m recognizing that when it comes to babysitting this president, the Republican Party is a lost cause. Sure, congressional Republicans discovered a few stray vertebrae of backbone over the past few days; there was some scowling from Mitch McConnell and faint mewling from Paul Ryan. But Trump could put a babushka on the Statue of Liberty and those two would find a way to look to the side, or they’d pronounce her prettier than ever.

That’s because they read polls, including an astonishing one that SurveyMonkey just did for Axios. It revealed that 79 percent of Republicans approved of Trump’s sycophantic performance at the news conference with Vladimir Putin, while 85 percent deem the investigation of Russian intrusion into our elections a distraction. They bear less and less resemblance to the followers of a coherent ideology and more and more to the members of a cult. That word is gaining currency in our political discourse for excellent reason.

Congressional Republicans have decided that to cross Trump is to commit suicide. They need to be convinced that not crossing him is as fatal a course. That’s what a big-enough blue wave would do, and that’s why once loyal Republicans who cannot abide him — the columnist George Will, for one prominent example — have gone from chastising the Republican Party to cheerleading for the Democratic Party and urging Americans to support it in November. It’s the last resort.

I’m anxious. That’s partly my nature, partly the stakes and partly the fact that Trump prevailed over deep disgust with him before. I don’t believe, nor see any evidence, that more Americans wanted him as our president than wanted Hillary Clinton. But roughly 40 percent of Americans who were eligible to vote didn’t. Clinton was much preferred by the youngest voters, ages 18 to 29. But fewer than one in two of them cast a ballot.

And Trump won the presidency because of about 78,000 ballots in three states. A nation’s direction can hinge on a margin that small. Every vote counts.

Every voter counts, too. The Democratic Party and such Democrat-allied groups as Swing Left and Indivisible are using MobilizeAmerica software and other sophisticated digital tools to send that message, recruit volunteers and channel them toward where they’ll make the most difference.

For instance, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s website allows a visitor to plug in his or her address, locate the nearest House districts that are up for grabs and learn how to help the Democratic candidates there. It doesn’t just solicit donations. It also lists phone-bank shifts that aren’t fully staffed.

“We’re basically arming people,” Dan Sena, the D.C.C.C.’s executive director, told me. He stressed that living outside a swing district “doesn’t mean you don’t have a role in taking back the House.” Making phone calls or sending mail may be more tedious than fashioning cheeky social-media posts that circulate among friends and preach to the choir. It may also be more impactful.

A few days ago Michelle Obama announced that her main contribution to the midterms will be building voter turnout. She understands that there’s a lot of speechifying already and it takes us only so far. Numbers decide our fate — and Trump’s.

Some of those numbers look good. In the second quarter of 2018, about 55 Democratic candidates for the House raised more money than the Republican incumbents they’re challenging.

But not all of the primaries this year have yielded the kind of turnout that Democrats had hoped for; a few suggested that Republicans’ engagement is every bit as strong as Democrats’.

“We do have some concerns,” Sena said. It’s time, after this wretched and stupefying past week, to allay them.

Does our discipline rise to the level of our anger? Does our will? A large-enough showing by voters opposed to Trump would overcome the forces of gerrymandering and overwhelm the Koch brothers. The fight may not be fair, but its outcome isn’t foreordained. There’s a chance here — an excellent one — to establish a check on the president’s worst impulses and a limit to the harm he’s doing. But we have to seize it.

We can’t count on Robert Mueller, the special counsel, because we don’t know what he’ll ultimately report or whether, after the perfervid campaign to discredit him, it will stick to Trump. But elections do stick. Ask Hillary Clinton.

To blunt Trump’s attack on our democracy, we have to use our democracy. We can restore faith in it by showing faith in it. For all its corruptions and imperfections, it still gives us a power — through our ballots — that exceeds even the most power-hungry president’s.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Dumpy Fanboy Corey Stewart laughed at when he says Dumpy is standing up to Russia.

Spoiler

Republican Senate candidate Corey Stewart was laughed off stage during his debate with Sen. Tim Kaine when he claimed that Trump is standing up to Russia.

Watch the audience’s reaction as Corey Stewart claims that Trump is standing up to Russia:

< video embedded in article >

Stewart tried to paint Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine as weak on Russia by saying, “He was noticeably silent when the Russians shot down a Malaysian airliner when President Obama was in office. He was noticeably silent when the Russians invaded the Crimea when President Obama was in office. We have a president who is standing up to the Russians, and now, Sen. Kaine…”

At that point, Tim Kaine laughed, and the audience laughed and booed.

Corey Stewart is running in Virginia as a Trump mini-me. Stewart is courting the racists and white supremacists that fuel Trump’s base. Stewart is also going to get crushed in November, as the same dynamic that played out in the Virginia governor’s race, when the nominee decided to run as a Trump clone will play out again in the US Senate.

It isn’t just that Virginia is trending a darker shade of blue. It is also that the Republican Party in the state has deteriorated into being a right-wing fringe group.

If Republican candidates try to run on Trump being strong on Russia, the laughter and boos that Stewart faced will echo from sea to shining sea.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

WTAF? Another Repug vote suppression tactic.

 

[CTRLZero]

7 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

WTAF? Another Repug vote suppression tactic.

I was reading more about this issue.  If I understand it right, this has to do with college students from out of state establishing residency by some means (usually involving spending money on a new drivers license, etc.) in New Hampshire.  It's been a while since our daughter attended college out of state, but she never did establish residency in her college state, and we just mailed her the ballot from home so she wouldn't miss voting in any elections. 

I'd like to learn more about this issue.  How does someone in college establish residency in a different state, and is it typical to do so?  Did we do it wrong?  Yikes!

Wasn't it New Hampshire that Stephen Miller claimed busloads of illegal voters came in to vote a second time from New York?  If so, we're still waiting for that evidence you promised, Stephen.

[AmericanRose]

So I've just gotten my primary ballot, and I'm looking through the pamphlet...

In addition to someone taking 6 paragraphs to talk about the dangers of 5G (with lots of (Google: [this]) notes), and another promising to include Caucasians into affirmative action and protected classes (), there's this gem:
Joey Gibson, who's "community service" talks about his 2 years with Patriot Prayer, "putting my personal safety on the line to force mayors to stop the stand down orders on the police. I have put countless hours and money into this organization traveling the country giving speeches and organizing for freedom."
He calls gun free zones "a complete travesty to the constitution and to the children who have been murdered in cold blood." Also, "protect innocent life, a baby in or out of the womb is one of the most beautiful and innocent treasures that we have in this country."
And of course, yesterday he was bounced from a bar.

I find it ironic that most Republican candidates wax poetic about fiscal responsibility and the debt.

[CTRLZero]

8 hours ago, AmericanRose said:

And of course, yesterday he was bounced from a bar.

I was reading about this incident - Joey Gibson seems like yet another GOP treasure and rabble rouser.  In the voter pamphlet, he's sporting a baseball cap and his t-shirt says [something]Blessed.  I'll use my own snarky imagination to fill in that blank, lol.

There's a Democrat candidate out of SW Washington with a podcast called PRay TeLL, Dr. Hash.  I am trying to figure out if the capitalization sequence has some significance, or if I should just put my tinfoil hat back on.