TX-SEN: True to Form

[KingSweden]

I don't like O'Rourke.  For one thing, he reminds me of Ted Kennedy (one of the four Democrats from my home state whose name I practically use as a profanity), and his having a drunk driving accident which he tried to flee doesn't help with that.  For another thing, there are plenty of issues where I agree with liberal Democrats and on which a Senate candidate should have a position; so when I contacted his campaign for positions on those issues trying to persuade myself to vote for him and it turned out he had no position on them, I felt that he is either evasive or unprofessional. 

Then finally, he advocated banning AR-15s, and that was the straw that I thought decided me for Dikeman.   Now, I am quite moderate on gun control: I support background checks and high-capacity magazine bans and don't believe the Second Amendment protects an individual right to firearms, and think Wayne LaPierre is a horrible excuse for a human being.  But whenever a Democrat proposes banning one of the most popular firearms, and one which is not an outsized contributor to gun deaths, because it was used in one high-profile shooting and no one technically "needs" one, it tells me that they have not made even the slightest effort to understand gun culture.  And this makes me wonder if O'Rourke is going to be any better about trying to understand people who disagree with him than Cruz is: I feel like the answer to that question is probably "no."

The Kavanaugh hearings, however, have persuaded me that I need to vote for O'Rourke; I've finally come around to George Will's argument that Trump and his cadre of enablers need to be defeated no matter what.  Now, I don't know how many people like me there are: I am atypical of a Texas voter, and probably even atypical of a college-educated white Texas voter who moved here from a blue state: I suspect that most people who hated Cruz and normally vote were planning on voting for O'Rourke anyways.  But I am sure that there are a lot of people who are as jaded as I was and dealt with it by staying home.  I sincerely hope that the Kavanaugh hearings might have jolted enough of them out of complacency to make a difference.

I also remember with both Massachusetts in 2010 and Alabama in 2017, being sure that the state was going to elect an absolutely appalling canddiate because they had the right letter next to their name.  In both 2010 and 2017, I was pleasantly surprised.  I wouldn't say that Cruz himself is as personally reprehensible as Coakley or Moore, but in seeking to promote Kavanaugh he is attempting to install a nakedly partisan conspiracy theorist, shameless perjurer, and probable sexual predator to a lifetime position far more powerful than a mere Senate seat.  Texas isn't as red as Alabama, nor as red as Massachusetts is blue, and the polls have had Cruz only very slightly ahead.  I am therefore cautiously optimistic that the Kavanaugh hearings will lend Texas voters enough moral clarity to evict Cruz from his seat.

Unfair. This new poster has been nothing but quality since he joined.

[KingSweden]

https://twitter.com/toddgillman/status/1054507358502707201

Trump's 75 to 100k rally actually had significantly less than 18k people in attendance.

Womp womp

[KingSweden]

https://twitter.com/esaagar/status/1054870465666314242

Did he see them in Texas or in DC, though? Tweet is vague

[KingSweden]

Did anyone see the down ballot races? The Democrats got great numbers here too. Abbott was the only one who got over 55% and even he underperformed. Betomania was strong.

The dems actually have a very respectable minority in the state house
67-83 is nothing to scoff at.  The texas GOP can easily implode between factions and now there is little room for margin of error..

in 2020 dems should target Sarah Davis whose district Beto probably won and 7 more. Does anyone have a list of 7-10 more targets they can win to take back the state house? That would give them a large hand in new maps which would probably go to the courts and lots of GOP incumbents would start crying (Chip Roy Mccaul are goners with fair maps)

A user on DKE charted out 8 seats (most won by Hillary) last night but that comment thread is 1580 posts long so I wouldn’t counsel sorting through it