PPP poll: Franken still popular, voters say he shouldn't have resigned

[Adam Griffin]

He should stay. I'm a firm believer of elected officials standing for their entire terms and not bending to public pressure to resign over something that comes out after the fact; an election is a mandate. Obviously the people of Minnesota will continue to re-elect him for as long as they want (and they seem to want him), but an open seat presents unique possibilities - even in a mid-term.

If the broader trends that showed up in 2016 in MN - and the ones we've been discussing for years wrt the Upper Midwest in general - even somewhat play out or intensify next year, Minnesota could fall in an open race and Democrats would have nobody to blame but themselves.

I'm sorry, but the ideological fate and political trajectory of the country is a hell of a lot more important than an instance or two of groping or whatever. People need to get it together.

[Adam Griffin]

I'm sorry, but the ideological fate and political trajectory of the country is a hell of a lot more important than an instance or two of groping or whatever. People need to get it together.

Spoken like a true Roy Moore voter.

And Moore's voters were right (from their own perspective): enacting their ideological beliefs and shaping the trajectory of the country was objectively more important than even a relative handful of individual transgressions.

You may not like it, but ultimately, it's all a high-stakes game that is played, and Democrats in AL did a better job at shaming Republicans into not supporting him than vice-versa - largely because national & High Moral Dems™ didn't control the primary narrative, and allowed the secondary narrative (aka the sexual abuse allegations) to play in the background via local media while Jones focused his attacks on things nobody in AL could deny that Roy Moore did.

If the average Atlas Dem had been in charge of campaign messaging, it would have focused on nothing else and looked just like Clinton's campaign ("oh no, he's a bad person - don't vote for him!"), and Moore would likely be heading to the Senate.

Most voters just don't care about this stuff enough to change their voting behavior. Let the national party pressure a popular Minnesota Democrat, and Minnesota may just respond in a way that's far more detrimental than the actions of any one person. 

[Adam Griffin]

If Dems lost in Minnesota of all places, they'd have a lot to more to worry about than that seat. Like the fact that the GOP probably now has a supermajority in the Senate and Dems got few if any House gains.

Well, there are examples of states bucking their usual trends all over the place during midterms (some very good examples in 2006). A very good national climate does not guarantee a very good climate in every state. My home state's a pretty good example of that; relative to the previous midterm, it has went in the opposite direction of the national climate in the past three midterms.

Minnesota is a state where we saw the bottom fall out with a lot of their traditional Democratic coalition in 2016. Couple that with the ouster of a popular Democrat being replaced mid-term by a (very relative) nobody and then throw into the mix somebody like Pawlenty (who isn't a Tea Party darling and has enough moderate street-cred and/or a track record of winning in MN) and you could be in some serious trouble even if the national climate is spectacular.

[Adam Griffin]

Wow, sorry to have offended so many people on a political forum by explaining how politics actually works!

[Adam Griffin]

Franken's decision is his own, but when I vote for someone, I view it as voting for them to serve a full term regardless of anything they may do in Office or may have done beforehand. Their past actions (as known at the time), and the risk of them "acting up" was already factored into my vote or endorsement at the time I voted or endorsed. For that reason, if I was in Office, I would not resign unless I was formally convicted of a crime and sentenced to prison time.

And this is exactly how the system is designed to function. A huge part of the problem with American politics these days is that everybody feels entitled to force every representative to do exactly what they want. We don't elect people to bend to our every whim: we elect people to represent us, and pick from the candidates the person we believe is best suited to do so. Elections have consequences.

Franken as a Senator is accountable to the people of Minnesota and them alone: not the country, not Democrats at-large and certainly not angsty upper-class Atlas posters who want to put their high morals on display for everybody. If they as a whole are fine with him representing them, then literally nothing else matters (but if they had soured on him mid-term, even they would have no right to demand his removal before the end of his term).

[Adam Griffin]

This is a ludicrous mindset. So a Senator is entitled to serve out their 6 year term regardless of anything they do? It doesn't take a wild imagination to see how this could get extremely problematic.

Short of the constitutional process for removal in Article II relating to crimes committed and subsequent conviction, absolutely. What's so hard to understand about that?

People have the right to demand whatever they want. That includes regular citizens as well as Senators. Franken chose to heed the demands. Nobody forced him to resign at gunpoint.

Of course they do. The problem, however, comes from said people actually believing that their demands are absolute and/or morally non-negotiable. This is an entitlement mindset that's eroding the political process more than many people realize.

I certainly have a right to (and very well may!) demand that a Republican elected official resign for something I find objectionable. However, do I believe I am entitled to see that happen? No!

I know I have no morally-superior right to make that demand - and therefore am not going to become morally outraged like so many others when they refuse to do so - but very well may do it solely out of political expedience to erode that candidate's chances at re-election. And that is the difference.