mtutiger

That strikes me as being... not bad, terms wise?

You mean to tell me that Lions football doesn't have you hanging off the edge of your seat? 🤣

To the extent they noticed it, it was because of how she said "the". Can't make it up. Its fair to question Kamala's ceiling, but the way the political media has covered her beat seems pretty shallow to me.

You know what they say... if you can't beat em, sign em lol

I'm sure all the Trump folks who were correctly disturbed by the Afghanistan bombing will join me in their concern here.

It's mostly supply chain. But yeah, it really doesn't matter in the end.

Any two of Gray, Rodriguez, JV, DeSclafani, or Steven Matz would be fantastic... although I'm prepared to be disappointed lol

Imagine getting this worked up over roads, bridges and broadband.

This isn't specific to Warren, but one thing I was frustrated with in general about the 2020 Dem Primaries is how much of the debate was spent talking about things that, politically, were not feasible. For instance, it seemed like practically every TV debate had 30 minutes on health care, with extensive discussions about Medicare for All which, frankly, would have never happened even had Warren or Sanders won the primary and general elections. Much discussion on immigration as well, including a lot of discussion about amnesty. Put another way, much of the discussion that was centered around stuff that would have never had the requisite support in the Legislative branch to pass anyway. I'm just trying to imagine the message that the average voter who watched the debate (or the two minute blurb the next morning on the local news) got out of that, and how beneficial it was. There's a lot of reasons why Biden ended up winning the primary, but one of the more underrated reasons IMO is, frankly, he came across a lot more realisitic about what could be accomplished when he was campaigning. And that means a lot to parts of the Democratic Party, particular with AA voters who are not predisposed to take flyers on risky candidates. In terms of your comments about how Warren should retailor herself, one of the lessons that needs to be taken after VA/NJ (frankly, overdue to be taken) is that it's not good enough to put out some good policy and just hope that people go onto the website.... they all need to be out campaigning on this stuff. And not just in the suburbs and urban areas, they need to get out into more hostile territory to try and persuade. There's this tendency in politics (on both sides) to just look at the color of the county and determine whether it's worth spending time in a place accordingly, but the Dem vote you win in a Huron County counts the same as one you win in Wayne County..... if you can decrease the margin you lose in red counties, you can win a lot more statewide elections that way than you do getting your doors blown in.

As overstated as I think the impact of CRT was on these recent elections and on our current political situation as a whole, 'defund the police' is absolutely different... I don't believe that any mainstream Dem politicians really ever supported it, and sure, the some of the arguments being made were more nuanced than that slogan. But it was absolutely political poison in the 2020 cycle and the results on Tuesday in Minneapolis (where Frey was reelected and where the police restructuring proposal went down) really drive home that point as well. I'm not someone who hates all SJ causes or anything, but I sometimes wish advocates would think more about how to persuade people to ones side on an issue.... we saw a lot of examples in the aftermath of George Floyd of how *not* to persuade the electorate. It should be a learning lesson.

On this front as well: Sununu was the prize get this cycle for Rs. In a cycle that looks great for Rs taking control. But I get it... he's a damn good politician in an executive role and, like the rest of us, probably sees how dysfunctional the Senate is and how, functionally, his only job will be to vote how McConnell tells him to vote Why give up a good job for that? No wonder the Sean Parnells, Mo Brooks' and Hershey Walkers are likely shoo ins... the normal sane people don't want any part of it.

I also think it goes against Biden's strengths... he's a pretty good retail politician who does pretty well on the road. He's not a soaring orator like Obama.

It feels weird to see how many people nationally think he's going to the Tigers. (The pessimist in me assumes that it will not happen lol)

People mock Beto mercilessly for a variety of reasons, but I still think one of the better things he did when he ran for Senate in Texas in 2018 was visiting all 254 counties multiple times. You can question the fruits of his labor, obviously (ie. he didn't change a ton of votes doing it), but he also didn't lose ground in rural Texas either versus previous elections. As we saw in Virginia this week, just because a county is red doesn't mean it isn't valuble; mitigating losses in red counties can mean just as much as squeezing a few extra votes out of a big blue county. It's kinda late in the game, but it feels like that lesson is starting to be realized by at least a few more folks after how Tuesday went down. Either way, I get that elected pols have jobs that keep them in Washington a lot of the year, but I would suggest that *every* Democratic candidate (incumbent or not) should make it a point to visit every county in their state or their district.... if you are running for rep (ie. not statewide), probably need to visit every community in the district multiple times. Understand their concerns, understand the differences between voters in different parts of the state or the district. It would be unfair to say that all Dems don't get this (I know there are some in elected office who are really good about visiting all corners of their constituency, such as Sherrod Brown or Tammy Baldwin), and obviously national environment plays a big factor as well. (ie. some of the erosion is simply because Biden is 10-12 points underwater; if, in 6-8 months, he's at 50% nationally and not 42%, Dems will likely do better to some degree in rural areas than TMac/Murphy did). But the races that TMac and Phil Murphy ran... well, frankly, they did run poor campaigns that were more tailored to the base. And that's not good enough.

It's optical, but this has been one of the biggest missed opportunities by the administration so far.... to the extent that Biden had strengths on the campaign trail, it was in smaller, town-hall type settings where he can get voters one on one, and largely they aren't doing that stuff right now. I think COVID is part of it, but that excuse needs to sort of recede along with this latest Delta wave. He needs to be out in front of the public more. Eric's point about being out with striking workers is a good kind of opportunity, but I think the political people around him don't get it.

Assuming Jersey widens out to be around 4 points when the final votes are cast, you are looking at roughly the same gap between Biden's performance and national approval in both NJ and VA. I dont think there's much that isn't concerning about what happened on Tuesday. I just think it's largely a reflection of what the national polling average has been telling us for the past few weeks now.

Looks like TB is about to get canceled for expressing his opinion lol

They were largely accurate in 2018 and on Tuesday. Outside of New Jersey anyway. The big takeaway for me from Tuesday is less about the accuracy of state level polling data - it's more about how Biden's national job approval (-10 to-12 on average), with a couple of exceptions (such as the PA Supreme Court race), lines up remarkably well with the final results. In a -10 to -12 environment nationally for Biden, it makes sense that Dems would lose VA (which Biden won by 11) by 2 points and only win NJ (which Biden won by 16) by ~3-4 points. In that context, nothing that happened should be that surprising.

I've seen a lot of stupid Twitter controversies, but this one may take the cake

Looks like the talking points were sent out...