Another Resistance Fail: Democrat Loses Omaha Mayoral Race.....

Remember Health Mello? He’s the Democrat who ran in Omaha, Nebraska’s mayoral race that voted for a sonogram bill when he was a member of the state legislature. It caused great heartburn for the Left, who are going through an identity crisis over whether to be a pure pro-abortion party, or accept that in some races—you might have to back a pro-life Democrat to win. Pro-life Democrats make up a sizable chunk, around 25 percent, of the Democratic Party. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) supported Mello’s candidacy, which irked his progressive following, though the darling of the Left said in order to protect a woman’s access to abortion—Democrats need to win again. That hasn’t happened yet.

Guy Benson
✔ @guypbenson
RESIST: Dems go 0/4 in special elections targeting Republicans (all in blue states) since Trump's November victory.https://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2017/03/02/resist-since-trumps-win-democrats-have-flipped-zero-seats-in-three-blue-state-special-elections-n2292477 …

9:28 AM - 3 Mar 2017

In the era of rambunctious town halls and left wing grassroots energy, you would think the Indivisible crowd would, you know—win some elections. They haven’t. Mello lost the mayoral race Tuesday, marking zero wins Democrats have racked up so far in the Trump era. This loss is just another reminder to the left that their messaging is, well—too nutty for most of Middle America (via AP):.....snip~

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattv...il-democrat-loses-omaha-mayoral-race-n2324889


Chalk up another loss for the Demos. They have no message and its showing. If they continue down this path the Repubs can take them to irrelevancy in 2018. What say ye?

 

Your source is wrong. None of those races were in blue states.

The fact that Democrats are running competitive races in deep-red areas is remarkable.

That said, the Dems do have problems to fix. The fact that Trump is a disaster and the House GOP a toxic mess isn't, on its own, going to hand the Dems long-term political victories at the state level.

 

I can honestly say that I am fairly sure nobody has ever said, "As goes the Omaha Mayoral race, so goes the nation.".....at least anybody outside of Omaha.

 

National Democrats first set their sights on two early January special elections in Virginia, a state won by the Democrat in the last three presidential elections. In House District 85, where the 2016 presidential results were evenly split, national liberal groups coordinated 11,392 donations of $100 or less into the Democrat campaign, yet Republican Rocky Holcomb won by a comfortable six points to maintain a strong 66-34 majority as we approach their 2017 election cycle. With chamber control at stake, the same results have occurred in the Virginia state Senate, a Republican majority despite a redistricting map advanced by Democrats. Governor Terry McAuliffe, a top Hillary Clinton supporter, helped the Democrat campaign spend 42 percent more than the Republican campaign, yet the Republican won by 13.5 percent. In Minnesota, Democrats went all-in to flip House District 32B. Governor Mark Dayton, U.S. Senator Al Franken and Congressman Rick Nolan all participated in door knocking events to support the Democrat candidate. Republican Anne Neu still managed a comfortable six-point win. Neu’s victory grows the Republican caucus in the chamber to 77, the largest GOP majority after a presidential cycle in state history.

Just last night, Republicans were able to hold Connecticut Senate District 32 in suburban Waterbury. Despite over $53,000 spent by a liberal California Super PAC, Republican state Rep. Eric Berthel was elected to the state Senate by 12 points. Berthel’s win preserves split control in the Senate and gives Republicans a chance next year to win outright control of the chamber for the first time since 1996, after gaining three seats in November. Democrats did preserve a one-seat majority in the Delaware state Senate, a chamber they have controlled since 1972, by maintaining control of an open-Democrat seat. Republicans were only that close because they defeated the Senate President Pro Tempore in November. High profile surrogates Joe Biden, Martin O’Malley and both current U.S. Senators campaigned for the Democrat candidate. In the end, spending approximately $1 million, or 20 times more than the typical Delaware state Senate race, ensured a victory margin that mirrored the margin Obama/Biden won the district in 2012......snip~

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybe...n-three-blue-state-special-elections-n2292477


Tells us again when Virginia, Minnesota, and Connecticut. Were Red States Ray Ray.


Democrats begin to wonder: When do we win?

For all the roiling anger and energy at the grass roots, the party still fell short in Georgia and Kansas. And Democratic prospects in upcoming elections aren't promising.....snip~

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/democrats-georgia-ossoff-237348


You were saying Ray Ray.

 

Ah, my bad. I thought he was referring to the race in the headline -- Omaha -- and others like the race in Georgia. Didn't notice that the link in the middle was to a different story.

 

At least Politico is letting the left know, just what that reality is looking like.

 

*Shrug.* You're still talking about trying to flip a seat in a red area of the state, regardless of the overall color of the state. The Minnesota district, for example, is in Chisago County, part of the 6th Congressional District that repeatedly sent nutjob Michele Bachmann to Congress, and went for Trump by 30 points over Clinton. And it was a close race: 53-47.

These are races Democrats were not expected to win, so the fact that they didn't isn't surprising. The fact that they were as close as they were is remarkable.

 

And the Demos thought they could flip the seats in Kansas and Georgia.

Now 6 pts is considered close huh? I guess all you can do is play like BO peep and hope.

The reality is.....the Demos have no message and are back to running on their identity politics and nothing more than be against Trump.

 

They held onto a Republican mayor in an county that went for Hillary last fall. Nebraska Election Results 2016 – The New York Times

 

Which, again, they came close to doing.

In a deep-red area that went for Trump by 30 points? Yes.

I agree the Dems have problems.

I disagree with your assessment that they are "running on identity politics and nothing more." That's just silly.

The Dems have two basic problems, completely separate from party platform questions.

1. Ten years after Howard Dean promised a "50-state strategy", Democrats haven't followed through. The Democratic organization in many red states is practically non-existent. http://www.governing.com/blogs/politics/gov-democrat-howard-deans-fifty-state-strategy.html
2. Their national profile tends to overwhelm the individual traits of their local candidates. In other words, it doesn't matter that the Democrat running in the local race is pro-gun or anti-abortion: voters in that district are thinking "Nancy Pelosi" when they see the word "Democrat". I think this is partly due to the growth of party-line voting, and partly due to the success of GOP demonizing of Democrats. But some of it is on Democrats for failing to break that association.

In terms of their actual platform, the Democratic platform polls pretty well on a national basis, and also has the added advantage of being generally practical -- unlike the GOP platform, which has grown increasingly ideological and detached from reality. There are hot-button issues where the national party is out of step with very conservative districts, things like gun control and abortion. But both gun control and abortion have majority support nationally.

That said, I think Democrats -- and the GOP, for that matter -- would do well to trim their platform to a handful of items that broadly define their party, rather than trying to take a party position on every conceivable issue. As a for-instance, both parties should remove abortion from their platforms, and let individual candidates define where they stand on that.

A basis for both platforms could be the Centrist Project:
http://www.centristproject.org/principles

So instead of painting the party into a corner with too many absolutist positions on too many issues, support a set of meaningful principles that define the party, and a governing PROCESS that leads to good results.

 

Again, *Shrug*. Incumbency has its advantages. And Stothert ran a local campaign, versus Mello trying to nationalize it. Which shielded Stothert from having to address controversial national issues, while opening up Mello to those kinds of questions. And Omaha has seen the mayor's office swing back and forth between GOP and Democrat for decades. It's not a lock for either party.

 

Here is just one of those into politics and knows what is going on with both parties. He along with several others comes up with the same answer. Not counting just being against Trump. Oh and I said Identity Politics and nothing more than being against Trump.


Tom Bevan: "Identity Politcs" Over "Economy" Is The Source Of The Democratic Party's Decline.....
April 24, 2017

RCP co-founder and publisher Tom Bevan joins MSNBC's 'Morning Joe' to discuss the cause of the Democratic Party's major decline in local elections since 2010.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: From everything you have seen, how would you try to best explain Democrats losing more than a thousand state legislative House and Senate seats over the past six years?

TOM BEVAN: Two words: Identity politics.

These working-class voters in the rust belt and other places, they don't care about who is going to the bathroom in which bathroom in North Carolina.

They look at the Democratic Party and they see someone running against the 'War on Women,' they see Black Lives Matter, they see environmental activism. All of that stuff has become a brand of the Democratic Party, which for a lot of these folks it comes down to the economy. It comes down to say-in, day-out. That's where Democrats have really lost ground......snip~


http://www.realclearpolitics.com/vi..._source_of_the_democratic_partys_decline.html

 

Sorry about the "nothing more" bit. I'm in a rush this morning, so scanning more than reading carefully.

Tom Bevan is a conservative, talking to Joe Scarborough, another conservative. I don't really find them credible analysts of the Democratic Party.

For instance, he mentions bathroom controversies and blames that on Democrats. Yes, the Obama administration issued some guidance on transgender bathroom usage. That is what government is supposed to do: clear up confusion about how certain laws apply to new, unanticipated situations. Democrats didn't make a big deal out of it. It was conservatives that freaked out and blew it up into a gigantic issue.

He pretends Democrats don't talk about the economy ALL THE TIME.

Yes, the social issues distract from the meat-and-potato issues. But most social issues are "issues" because of conservative freakouts. Abortion is a hot-button issue entirely because of conservatives, who have been trying to undermine Roe v. Wade for 50 years. It was conservatives freaking out about gay-rights court rulings that blew same-sex marriage up into a hot-button national issue. Who was pushing state-level constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage? Not Democrats. They eventually added gay rights to their platform in 2012, but that was long after conservatives had turned it into a political hot wire.

As I said before, I think Democrats and Republicans both need to trim their platforms down, and remove most social issues from it, allowing individual candidates to define themselves on such issues without a party position weighing them down.

 

Bevan runs RCP whos' Editor is AB Stoddard from the Hill-associated with ABC TV.

The Demos were the ones that wanted Special Rights for those Colors of the Rainbow. That already had Rights.

Yes abortion is Hot Button issue. Due to whats classified as Life. That the Demos and their cult following can't figure out.

Oh and the lefts activist groups were the ones to blow the transgender bathroom usage all up in the air. They did so by running to the courts, protesting, and of course informing their MSMedia.

While you think both parties should trim their platforms down. It just isn't going to happen over those social issues.

 

Yes, but Bevan himself is a staunch conservative. Look it up.

You are simply repeating the conservative freakout line. Conservatives freaked out in response to COURT RULINGS, not anything the Democrats did.

You again prove my point. Democrats want it to be a non-issue, viewing it as an intensely personal decision that the government should stay out of. It is conservatives that blew it up into a major thing, In response to a COURT RULING. Thus forcing the Democrats to defend Roe v. Wade.

"leftist activist groups" is not "the Democratic Party."

It should. Things like that don't belong in national party platforms. I should be able to be a pro-abortion Republican or a pro-gun Democrat. Being pro- or anti-abortion is irrelevant to either Republican or Democratic principles.

 

It doesn't matter that he is a Conservative......he is a political analyst.

And you are simply rolling out the lefts usual talking points about Conservatives. No they didn't freak out. They legislated and your side went unhinged over that legislation.

Leftist activists most have the backing of the Demo Party.

Yes Demos always want their issues to be non issues. That's nothing new.

You can be.....its not the Repubs making abortion an issue with their Party members. Its the Demos that want that purity of their ideology.

 

I was going to point this out also, the fact that Minnesota is far from a solid blue state. Lots of red outside of the Metro.

 

That makes no sense.

Yes, they totally did freak out. You don't think reacting to a court ruling by trying to pass Constitutional amendments in all 50 states ISN'T a freakout?

You may think it is a JUSTIFIED freakout. But conservatives made this a massive political issue, not Democrats.

Logical fail.

Thanks again for agreeing with my point. Who made a big deal out of Roe v. Wade? Conservatives. So don't blame the Democrats when substantive political debate is overwhelmed by social issues.

Um ... no.

The Republican Party platform flatly opposes abortion. Hell, it specifically calls for defunding Planned Parenthood, which is an insanely specific thing to put into a party platform.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/2016-republican-party-platform-the-most-pro-life-ever

Their platform mentions "abortion" 37 TIMES.

So technically, you CAN'T be a Republican and support either one of those.

Which helps explain why there are practically no pro-choice Republicans in Congress.
https://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/24/the-endangered-pro-choice-republican/

Democrats, meanwhile, have a fairly boring abortion plank in their platform:
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/papers_pdf/117717.pdf

It mentions abortion just six times. And just in the context of preserving access to abortion services. Indeed, many of its references to abortion aren't even ABOUT abortion specifically, like this one:

We recognize that quality, affordable comprehensive health care, evidence-based sex education and a full range of family planning services help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and thereby also reduce the need for abortions.

So no, it's not Democrats being radical about abortion, or making it a big deal.

 

Naturally it makes no sense to you. So without further adieu. Lets educate you so that you are in the knowing.

A Political analyst is a Political Scientist. Now here is what a Political Analyst does.


A political analyst assesses the international relations and domestic policies of international bodies and provide insight to policymakers within their own countries. In the United States, many political analysts find positions with the Central Intelligence Agency.

Political analysts are required to have a bachelor's degree in a field related to international relations or politics, including history, national security, geography, and political science.

Their job is essentially to "analyze" the current political atmosphere...snip~


Are you able to keep up with that Ray Ray. Does it now make sense to you.....now that you know what a Political Analyst is and does?

Oh and as to those Demos.





Democratic Party Draws A Line In The Sand On Abortion Rights
DNC chair Tom Perez said all Democratic candidates must support a woman’s right to choose.

Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez became the first head of the party to demand ideological purity on abortion rights, promising Friday to support only Democratic candidates who back a woman’s right to choose.

Every Democrat, like every American, should support a woman’s right to make her own choices about her body and her health,” Perez said in a statement. “That is not negotiable and should not change city by city or state by state.”

“At a time when women’s rights are under assault from the White House, the Republican Congress, and in states across the country,” he added, “we must speak up for this principle as loudly as ever and with one voice.”

Perez’s statement follows the DNC’s controversial embrace of Heath Mello, a Democratic mayoral candidate in Omaha, Nebraska, whose years-long history of voting against abortion rights in the state Legislature drew fire from progressives this week. Daily Kos, a liberal website that raises money for lesser-known Democratic candidates, pulled its endorsement of Mello this week after discovering his history on the issue, and NARAL Pro-Choice America President Ilyse Hogue slammed the DNC for adding him to its cross-country unity tour.

But Perez changed course Friday and delivered a big victory to the reproductive rights movement, saying that he “fundamentally disagree with Heath Mello’s personal beliefs about women’s reproductive health” and that “every candidate who runs as a Democrat should do the same, because every woman should be able to make her own health choices. Period.”

Perez’s statement will likely alienate some high-profile anti-abortion Democrats in the party, including Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards and Sens. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Edwards said at the Democratic National Convention in 2016 that the party might be more successful in the Deep South if it allowed more anti-abortion candidates to rise in the ranks......snip~

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/democrats-tom-perez-abortion-rights_us_58fa5fade4b018a9ce5b351d


Oh and Planned Parenthood went political. So there is no reason for them to receive Federal Funding from the government. There are actual Womens health facilities that can take care of women. Including the basic of taking mammograms. That which Planned Parenthood can't handle.

 

A Dem loses a local race by 6,500 votes in a Deep RED State that Trump won by 25 points.

This is truly earth shattering news.

Must be a BORING day in the RW Fever Swamp looking for new troll bait threads.

A Dem lost in Nebraska?

Earth shaking.

 

Uh ... wow.

You are describing a formal job title called "Political Analyst". Tom Bevan is a talking head; he does not work for the CIA.

There is no actual degree requirement to be a talking head. Hell, Bevan's background is in advertising, not politics or history or anything like that.

#1, that happened three weeks ago. We were talking about whether the Democratic Party is radical on abortion, particularly in recent elections where they have lost ground at the state level. A statement from three weeks ago is irrelevant to that discussion.
#2, It's one guy. Yes, he's the head of the DNC. But he's still just one guy. As evidenced by ....
#3, there is strong disagreement within the Democratic Party about Perez' stance.

Never mind that even if Perez was the arbiter of the Democratic Party platform, all he is defending is "the right to choose." You don't have to support abortion to be a Democrat; you just have to accept that each person should be allowed to make this decision without undue government interference. That is hardly a radical position. It is, in fact, what the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade. It is, in fact, a highly CONSERVATIVE position.

You're wrong, but even if you were right, it is insane to call out a specific company in a party platform. That's off-the-rails ideological rigidity.

 

Are you taking things out of context again Ray Ray, you know your usual. No one said Bevan worked for the CIA. Were you still confused that he is a political analyst.

Tom Bevan is the Co-Founder and Executive Editor of RealClearPolitics. In addition to overseeing the editorial staff and writing regular features for RealClearPolitics, Tom’s work has appeared in numerous publications and he is featured frequently as a political analyst on Fox News, CNN, CNBC, and the BBC.

RealClearPolitics About RCP
www.realclearpolitics.com/about.html#!


Then there were quite few other Demos that supported Perez's statement. Oh and no Ray Ray, you were talking about whether the Demos and Repubs were radical on abortion. Once again going into some deflections since the Demos have been losing elections since Trump took Office, and with those at Politico talking about how things don't look so promising for those Demos.

Which goes against your thoughts on that hope the Demos can change up their luck.

 

LOL. I'll just leave it there.

Of course there were. That's what happens when you have a large group of people: some people will agree with a given statement, some will disagree.

Um ... yes. And a statement from just three weeks ago has no bearing on whether Dems were "radical" on abortion in the 2016 election. Or the 2014. Or the 2012....

 

LMAO of course you will leave it there. As you can't get around Bevan being a political analyst.

Uh huh, and then of course there is all that deflection to change the subject.

 

What an absolutely, hilarious, misguided discussion.

Most of this thread has been an egregious waste of keystrokes.

___________

And, just in case you mssed it:

Carry on.