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Post by robeiae on Nov 14, 2018 9:25:32 GMT -5
Yeah, that was a major league screw up, too. I get the "why," and I'm sympathetic. But elections have to have defined processes for voting, so they can be run fairly and so people can accept the results as accurate.
This willy-nilly approach to the processes--partially sanctioned by the courts--where no one has to follow rules and no one is held accountable is not a good trend, at all. It's a huge step backward, I think.
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Post by robeiae on Nov 15, 2018 9:55:40 GMT -5
Broward has apparently completed its recount. Yay. But at this point in time, it all seems like an exercise in futility. Nelson, his lawyers, and other Dems are talking about how he's got a good chance to emerge victorious (I think Elias even said he's put money on it), but it's almost a pipe dream. Before Broward finished the initial count, I thought Nelson had a good chance, but that's because I thought the Broward count would pull the totals to within striking distance to get flipped on a recount. But that didn't happen. The margin is just too big. This piece has some numbers on recounts: www.cnn.com/2018/11/15/politics/florida-recount-bill-nelson-needs-a-miracle/index.htmlReally, the only race that has the potential (though it's still unlikely) to flip is the one for Florida's Agriculture Commissioner. Nobody is really saying beans about the Governor's race anymore, as it looks done and dusted.
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Post by celawson on Nov 15, 2018 11:35:59 GMT -5
Good! Thanks for the update.
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Post by robeiae on Nov 15, 2018 15:59:20 GMT -5
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Post by robeiae on Nov 15, 2018 16:24:26 GMT -5
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Post by robeiae on Nov 16, 2018 10:04:25 GMT -5
So, apparently Broward finished the recount in time yesterday, but failed to submit the results until two minutes after 3, thereby causing the Florida Secretary of State to use the original numbers from Broward, thereby making the recount a complete waste of time. Look at this: Unfamiliarity with the website?!? WTF? Is he serious? Is that really his excuse? And Hillborough County--which is home to Tampa and leans to the Dems--also failed to meet the deadline. Ah, but why did it fail? Website issues? Nope, it's Supervisor of Elections didn't like the new totals. Well, that's not an awful reason, I guess. Or is it? The end of the article: So...that means that Hillborough's recount--if submitted on time--would have increased Scott's lead by 146 votes. The spin: the Democrat in charge of Hillborough elected to not submit the recount numbers because it would have hurt Nelson. And there's actually a similar angle available in Broward: if Broward County had been on time with it's numbers, Scott would have gained 779 votes (DeSantis would have gained 755 votes, but that no longer matters, as that race is over).
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Post by nighttimer on Nov 16, 2018 10:19:56 GMT -5
It wasn't a big wave, but it was big enough of a wave that it has almost washed away the GOP in California. It wasn't so long ago that California was a GOP stronghold with Ronald Reagan, Pete Wilson, Arnold Schwarzenegger and others holding onto the governor's office and Republicans battling it out with Democrats for Congress and state offices. Now it's not only the homes of citizens and stars burning to the ground. The GOP is going down in flames too.
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Post by celawson on Nov 16, 2018 11:35:42 GMT -5
I grew up in Orange County and yes, it's always been a Republican stronghold. Laguna Niguel, which is the 45th district that Porter just won, is a very nice middle to upper middle class suburban sort of place (lots of fancy fairly new gated communities), with just over half the population white, and that seems to be the demographic that is turning against Trump the most, from what I've been reading. Also, voter fraud by the Dems.
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Post by nighttimer on Nov 16, 2018 23:54:13 GMT -5
I grew up in Orange County and yes, it's always been a Republican stronghold. Laguna Niguel, which is the 45th district that Porter just won, is a very nice middle to upper middle class suburban sort of place (lots of fancy fairly new gated communities), with just over half the population white, and that seems to be the demographic that is turning against Trump the most, from what I've been reading. Also, voter fraud by the Dems. Maybe there's some Republicans who don't think a pussygrabber, pornstar-fucking, serial liar, racist, sexist, bigoted butthole should be the major domo of their party and would rather vote for a Democrat that will restore some semblance of checks and balances to a Washington where the GOP pisses all over the concept.
Maybe there's a few Republicans who want their party back they're willing to support a Democrat and pass on yet another Trump-slurpin' Republican.
Maybe the Republican Party isn't an unholy cabal of xenophobes, chauvinists, imperialists, sexist, homophobic bigots and freaks who should be burnt at the stake or flayed alive.
And as far as baseless and unsubstantiated charges of "voter fraud" by the Dems, please cry me a fucking river. If you don't care about the substantial voter suppression in places like Georgia, where the newly elected Republican, Brian Kemp went out of his way to make sure Black People were disenfranchised and could not vote for the nation's first Black female governor in the South. And it worked. The Georgia governor's office stays White, and truthfully that's all that matters, right? Maybe Kemp was better qualified than Stacey Abrams. Maybe he wasn't. What does matter is the status quo is maintained and the governor of Georgia remains a place for White Men.
In electing Kemp, the good folks of the great state of Georgia proved yet again that voter suppression works. Disenfranchising Black people works. Pandering to racism and bigotry works. Catering to the very worst instincts of White voters and terrifying them that Black political progress can only come about at the price of their own privilege and primacy works. Back in the day, Southern Democratic governors such as Lester Maddox and George Wallace with their blatant sappeals to racism rode a wave of White fear and hatred and resentment into power. Today those overt bigots have given way to smoother, more subtle Southern Republicans like DeSantis and Kemp. These double douchebags cloak themselves in legalities like voter I.D. and dire warning that without suppressing the Black vote it becomes harder for them to win.
Now both Georgia and Florida will have two new racist-as-fuck governors. Hooray. The Republican Party should be so proud. They have cemented their status of the preferred political party of the Alt-Right White Supremacists.
Racism works. It always has since the Southern Strategy, Lee Atwater and Donald Trump, and as Ron DeSantis and Brian Kemp's race-based campaigns of prejudice and fearmongering it still works right now.
You should be so proud, celawson.
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Post by maxinquaye on Nov 18, 2018 14:41:33 GMT -5
Republicans are, pardon my French, fucked. I don't know how else to put it, except in those stark terms. 60 million voted Democrat in a mid-term election. 61 million voted for Donald Trump. Presidential elections usually have far higher turn-out than mid-terms. So, for some reason, in a mid-term that struggle with turn-out energized 60 million people to go out and vote for one party. Clifornia is now a GOP-free zone. This is the state that gave you Reagan and Schwarzenegger. www.politico.com/story/2018/05/30/california-republicans-third-party-status-613568The only place where the Republicans "won" was in states where the democratic legitimacy of their elections can easily be called into question, like Georgia and Florida.
The Republicans can, of course, bury their heads in the sand and start shrieking about communists on FoxNews, but I think that the Republicans are one or two election cycles away from political irrelevance.
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Post by robeiae on Nov 18, 2018 17:24:00 GMT -5
This was the same line in 2008, that the demographics were sinking/had sunk the Republican Party, that it had no hope going forward, whatsoever. That turned out not to be the case (to put it lightly).
The problem with these kind of predictions is that they assume people don't change, issues don't change, and even political parties don't change.
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Post by robeiae on Nov 20, 2018 9:15:01 GMT -5
And here's some analysis that indicates why the numbers Silver was trumpeting are maybe not all that "crazy." And it notes what I noted pages ago: the fact that many races had no opposition, that the California Senate race skews everything since it was Dem v. Dem, and that candidates still matter. It seems to me that being determined to see the demise of the other side (people on the Right have made these kinds of predictions about the Dems, as well) is a set up for failure; it creates unrealistic expectations and ultimately leads to complacency, which is then followed by bitter disappointment.
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Post by Amadan on Nov 20, 2018 9:44:09 GMT -5
Here's a thing that drives me crazy, and both the left and the right do it:
If I predict there is an 80% chance of a thing happening, and that thing does not happen, it does not mean I was wrong.
It is possible my model was wrong and I overestimated (or underestimated) the actual probability of the thing happening. But the fact that the thing didn't happen doesn't prove that.
This is basic numeracy and I am ever shocked by how many people can't seem to grasp this.
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Post by markesq on Nov 20, 2018 10:48:47 GMT -5
Here's a thing that drives me crazy, and both the left and the right do it: If I predict there is an 80% chance of a thing happening, and that thing does not happen, it does not mean I was wrong. It is possible my model was wrong and I overestimated (or underestimated) the actual probability of the thing happening. But the fact that the thing didn't happen doesn't prove that. This is basic numeracy and I am ever shocked by how many people can't seem to grasp this. Yeah, I mean it's the only thing that keeps meteorologists in a job.
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Post by celawson on Nov 20, 2018 13:06:14 GMT -5
I will have to ask you all to believe me when I say I do not normally read Breitbart. But I did get a link to a Breitbart article in my Twitter feed today that is very interesting and pertinent to the discussion here. It's about Fox News calling the House for the Dems BEFORE POLLS EVEN CLOSED IN CALIFORNIA. Which even CNN and MSNBC did not do at that early point. This article has numbers regarding a few very close races (one Dem beat a GOP candidate by THREE HUNDRED VOTES), and the fact that California voters tend to vote on election day, and very commonly after work (that's definitely what I and my husband do). This quite possibly could have been the difference in some cases. www.breitbart.com/radio/2018/11/20/caddell-murdoch-sons-need-to-answer-for-fox-news-calling-house-for-dems-while-california-was-still-voting/t
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