Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Campaign 2020 A Lot Went Wrong for Democrats on Election Night

Dem party is gunna grift hard on Georgia fundraiser. The very soul of the nation and rights of man will be on the ballot, etc..

They were rewarded with the ‘ditch Mitch’ con. Expect a repeat in Georgia. Not that they want to win all that much. They lose the ‘but Republicans’ excuse if they win a majority.
The last thing they want is a mandate.

Even if they win a perfect split in the senate, with Harris breaking ties, they won't have "a mandate". They would have to tread carefully not to lose the votes of senators in conservative-leaning states. This certainly constrained the ACA we got.

Meh.
Obama had a a mandate and went to the conservative heritage foundation for ideas. Disbanded Deans 50 state organizing strategy and went on to lose state houses across the country.

We had the same thing happening in NY. A Dem governor, Cuomo, was able to rule a deeply blue state as a Republican with the assistance of the IDC (independant democratic caucus). A group that was allowed to run as Democrats, received funding and support with state party, but aligned themselves with the conservative minority.

Independent Democratic Conference

Allows him to do nothing for people by using the excuse of Senate obstruction by his own design.

Dem party does this at federal level as well. Much reporting on it. I’ve linked to it in the past. Kinda like Joe Biden campaigning for a conservative anti-choice Republican in the 2018 elections. The congressman went on to win.

Joe Biden’s $200,000 paid speech praising a House Republican, briefly explained



No, Dems don’t want mandate. Or at least not one that benefits the general public. They bought into the ‘don’t just do something, stand there!’ Conservative view of politics decades ago.

Now if a bank is in trouble, war needing approval, prison building, or giving permission for state surveillance of its citizenry, Dems are there for it.

We've hit a point where most blue states have two Democratic senators, most red states, two Republicans. Montana with Tester and West Virginia with Manchin are the only two red states that come to mind with Democratic senators since Jones lost in Alabama.

The GOP has Collins in Maine, Toomey in Pennsylvania, Johnson in Wisconsin, all three has been blue states for quite a while. Then Ohio is split, Brown and Portman, but Ohio is a swing state. Arizona now has two Democratic senators, I almost forgot about them.

Tester has pretty much followed the Democratic Party line, Manchin not so much. So you're worry will be probably Manchin. All the other states have two senators from the same party.

I would not call Manchin a Democrat. He came out today during some interview and said he would vote against getting rid of the filibuster in the senate, or packing the Supreme Court. So he pretty much killed any leverage the Democrats would have even if both Georgia senators were Democrats.

He'll call himself a Democrat, and vote with them sometimes. But if anything important comes up, he's out of there.

Manchin is my type of Democrat. I'm also totally against packing the SCOTUS and against ending the last minority party rights in the senate. Manchin voted Trump's position 32.5% of the time. Sinema, Arizona did so 51.5% of the time, Warner Virginia 35.5%, King Maine 38%, Nelson Florida 43%, and some more who voted the with Trump more than Manchin.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/


Manchin has an independent streak in him, that I really like. What it means is Manchin is probably attuned to the people and state of West Virginia that he represents. More so than a lot of other senators who just vote the party line while telling the folks back home to go to Hades in a hand basket.

Perhaps the big question is, do we elect representatives and senators to represent us, the people back home in their district or state or do we elect representatives and senators to represent just their political party?

The conscientious about the die hard partisan's is the later, for us not affiliated with either party, it's the former.

An aside, I always felt any president should be able to appoint those individuals he wants such as in his cabinet and other positions. A simple majority vote on confirmation is just fine with me on these. These folks are there for just the term of the president, not beyond. But I am all in favor when it comes to the federal judiciary which includes the SCOTUS of having a 2/3rds vote for confirmation. Especially since these judges are appointed for life.

This would mean all federal judges must be approved by at least some of the minority party. It would also mean any president would know he must nominate someone which could gain the approval of at least some of the other party members. this could eliminate some of the politics involved in selecting federal judges.

He’s very much a Democrat. The party is a blue dog party more aligned with Republicans than leftists.
Which direction has the party and it’s press decided to punch in the aftermath of their poor election results recently? Dems just foisted a segregationist, war hawk on the presidential ballot rather than a moderate left candidate.

For two cycles now.

Heck, with the exception of Sanders, all the Democratic presidential candidate's have been right wingers. Dean at the time. Got buried by Dem press IIRC. Kucinich was ignored by the press. That’s all I can think of. Rest have been mostly austerity conservative war hawks who happen to be running as a Democrat.

Actually, despite McConnell's threat to block the confirmation of any cabinet official or agency head he doesn't like, that's not a power he has. He can block senate confirmation, but a President doesn't need it. He can appoint as acting secretary or agency head anybody who has ever been confirmed by the senate, or any GS15 or higher civil servant who has been at an agency for at least 90 days. So that means pretty much anybody qualified, just 90 days later!

He has to make those vacancy appointments when congress is not in session, but he and the Speaker can force congress into recess any time he wants, for as long as he wants. It's in the Constitution!

Those appointments are only legal for two years (but Trump ignored that), so he could just shuffle two people between the head and assistant jobs each term. Trump used these appointments a LOT just because having his saboteurs questioned on the record would have been embarrassing.

I agree entirely with having some minority party input on lifetime confirmations of judges. I would also really like Supreme Court Justices to have some ethical constraints. For example Alito should recuse himself on abortion or LGBT cases in the future after his recent Federalist Society speech, but I doubt he will.

..... the idea that the Democrats should have driven their negatives higher and helped Trump consolidate undecided voters by going nuclear on Barret and then losing (depressing their base) is.....

well. That's a bold post-mortem strategy there, Cotton

Dems could, and should, have gone after her record of siding with management and against workers instead of her religion.

What’s so bold about that criticism?

Unrealistic, maybe, given the orientation now of the Democratic Party but bold?