John Nichols at The Nation writes—Can California Democrats Flip the House in November? Seven first-time candidates in swing districts could spell the difference:
By almost any measure, the Democrats’ chances of taking control of the House of Representatives in the November midterm elections depend in large part on California. Nationwide, the Democrats need to flip 23 Republican seats to take control of the House. Among the Democrats’ biggest targets are seven seats in California now held by Republicans but which Hillary Clinton won in the 2016 presidential election (in one case by the overwhelming margin of 55 to 40 percent). These seven represent nearly one-third of the 23 seats Democrats need to flip on November 6.
Former president Barack Obama came to Southern California last Saturday to help them do it. Flanked by six of the seven Democratic challengers, Obama told a campaign rally, “The good news is, in two months we have a chance to restore some sanity in our politics. We have a chance to flip the House of Representatives and make sure that we have checks and balances in Washington.” [...]
In each of the seven districts Democrats are targeting, Republican registration is down by an average of three points from four years ago. For the first time in the history of this bluest of blue states, more voters now identify themselves as “decline to state” than as Republicans. Statewide, Latinos and Asians represent a rapidly growing percentage of California’s population and of its citizenry; for nearly 20 years, non-Hispanic whites have been a minority. And just 31 percent of Californians approve of Donald Trump’s performance as president, lower even than Trump’s abysmal national approval rate. [...]
The Democratic challengers in these seven districts have a lot in common. Among other things, they reflect the great surge of energy and citizen engagement that Trump has fueled. In Southern California it was a group of activists not connected to any party or candidate and calling themselves “Flip the 49th” that drove Issa out. In California, as Andrew Godinich, the regional press secretary for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told The Nation, “Trump hovers over everything.”
But there’s another side to that coin. None of the seven California challengers has ever held an elected public office—none has been a city council member, county supervisor, or school-board member, and few have run for office before—and several have had trouble persuading voters that they’re intrinsic enough in their district to represent it. Which is to say that most of the seven are new to this business—and, in many cases, new to the voters. [...]
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QUOTATION
“The agreement an Indian makes in a United States treaty is like the agreement the buffalo makes with his hunters when pierced with arrows. All he can do is lie down and give in.”
~~Ouray the Arrow (Ute/Apache) 1879
TWEET OF THE DAY
(No problem. Paper towels will soak it all up.)
BLAST FROM THE PAST
On this date at Daily Kos in 2005—Brown has resigned. It means little:
So Brown has quit as FEMA chief. Yeay. I'd rather see him criminally indicted. But this is a start.
It's important to root out the incompetents who aggravated this disaster -- the people running the show and those who nominated and approved of them (like Bush and Lieberman). There must be accountability for the disaster, and that accountability must transcend political lines. D or R, we shouldn't care. What's important is to ensure that those at fault suffer the consequences.
But we can't allow this disaster to be framed in the context of a few incompetents and political hacks. Because ultimately, the federal (non) response to New Orleans went exactly according to the conservative playbook. And that's the biggest point in this whole mess.
Conservatives believe government shouldn't exist to help people. That everyone should be left to the wolves.
New Orleans demonstrated to us in vivid color what Republicanism is made of. New Orleans was, in reality, a crowning acheivement of conservatism. That is, until political pressure forced the federal government to lend a hand and those lucky duckies in the gulf coast began receiving "handouts".
While fingering the responsible is important, Democrats need to use New Orleans to draw clear distinctions between the governing philosophies of the Republicans and that of the Democrats.
Democrats would've taken care of Katrina victims from the get go. That would've been our first impulse, our first instinct. Republicans had to be shamed into helping people.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: Ben Shapiro vs. Imaginary Obama. Trump's a 9/11 schlub, as expected. Is Russia behind attacks in Cuba? Collins claims constituents aren't calling about Kavanaugh. Did Kav have emails on that Bush-era RNC server that “lost” 22 million messages?
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