California House Races Megathread

[IceSpear]

Yeah, the local party is treating him like persona non grata¹ (I get emails from the OCGOP asking for volunteers for Kim, Walters, and Harkey).

That’s because Dana Rohrabacher will cruise to victory in November. The suburban deplorables love him.

This isn't Temecula, and the suburban yuppies love Rouda. Rohrabacher is going down.

The NYT poll had them tied.

A long time incumbent with negative net favourables who is tied against a guy with 42% name recognition (and the challenger has high favourables in that 42%) when his party’s president is 14 points underwater in the district is an incumbent that’s very likely to lose in the election.

Yeah, head to head numbers do not tell the entire story. Mark Pryor was holding up relatively well in the head to head polls until late in the election, but astute observers were noting all along that he was stuck in the low 40s and almost all of the undecideds disapproved of Obama. Kind of like a certain Unbeatable Titan this year that everyone insists is in a pure toss up race.

Name recognition differences matter even more in House races though, where candidates are far lower profile and tend to be more at the mercy of the political environment. The road is littered with the corpses of Democrats in 2010 who "weren't polling that bad" then got BTFO by double digits because they were only polling in the high 30s/low 40s against an opponent with low name recognition.

Ah, so we are resorting to Dick Morris logic now. Gotcha.

Okay, I'll put some effort into this one...

First of all, there's a difference between saying "undecideds will likely break in a certain direction" vs. "undecideds will go 100% for the challenger no matter what." Plus, Obama's approval actually was at 50% on election day anyway.

Secondly, like I said, in general it's going to matter far more in lower profile House races than for higher profile races due to differences in name recognition and the fact that lower profile races are going to be more likely to be swept up in the political tide. In fact, that very article you linked says:

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Low name recognition plagues low profile House challengers far more and for far longer than it is going to plague a presidential nominee, for obvious reasons.

If you transported back in time to 2010 (especially pre-October 2010) and you went solely by head to head margins and nothing else, there would've been zero reason to expect these races to have the results they did:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/la/louisiana_2nd_district_cao_vs_richmond-1301.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/fl/florida_25th_district_rivera_vs_garcia-1366.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/pa/pennsylvania_17th_district_argall_vs_holden-1308.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/mo/missouri_3rd_district_martin_vs_carnahan-1377.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/ut/utah_2nd_district_philpot_vs_matheson-1465.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/pa/pennsylvania_4th_district_rothfus_vs_altmire-1298.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/ny/new_york_25th_district_buerkle_vs_maffei-1378.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/ia/iowa_1st_district_lange_vs_braley-1373.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/ia/iowa_3rd_district_zaun_vs_boswell-1306.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/id/idaho_1st_district_labrador_vs_minnick-1266.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/mo/missouri_4th_district_hartzler_vs_skelton-1292.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/ny/new_york_1st_district_altschuler_vs_bishop-1167.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/ny/new_york_19th_district_hayworth_vs_hall-1275.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/ny/new_york_24th_district_hanna_vs_arcuri-1280.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/pa/pennsylvania_7th_district_meehan_vs_lentz-1268.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/va/virginia_9th_district_griffith_vs_boucher-1390.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/fl/florida_22nd_district_west_vs_klein-1342.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/ms/mississippi_1st_district_nunnelee_vs_childers-1270.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/nm/new_mexico_2nd_district_pearce_vs_teague-1257.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/ny/new_york_20th_district_gibson_vs_murphy-1297.html

Granted, there were some misses in the other direction as well, mostly in heavily Democratic districts that the polls had as closer than they ended up being. So another lesson is that House polls as a whole should be taken with a pillar of salt, and that fundamentals are very important to consider as well.

Side note, it's definitely noticable how stark Siena's pro-incumbent bias is in those New York polls.

[Zaybay]

Ah, so we are resorting to Dick Morris logic now. Gotcha.

Excellent link. I think you are quite correct that anyone who is very confident that "undecideds will definitely break to the Democrats" on the grounds that 2016 "will be a Democratic wave" doesn't really have solid ground to stand on. Zaybay, for example, comes to mind as someone who has emphasized that point very strongly.

Not only was Dick Morris burned by that in 2012, but huge numbers of liberals who were confident John Kerry would win because the undecideds would break to him were burned by it in 2004.

But while I agree very much that the so-called "incumbent rule" is not really a rule and certainly is not reliable, there is one other point to pay attention to, which is mentioned by the article you link to.

That is:

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So this is (at least potentially) actually pretty consistent with what IceSpear is saying, since he is referencing the fact that all of the Democratic challengers in these polls have low name recognition.

That is something that is true for congressional races much more than for high-profile Presidential races, and so while this thinking would clearly be incorrect for a Presidential race, it may apply at least somewhat more to congressional midterm races.

I would say that it is definitely a bad position for an incumbent to be in. Although I don't think we can justifiably be anything close to certain that this means that the undecideds in these races will in fact break for the Democratic challengers, if I had to choose to either be the incumbent or the challenger in this situation, I would rather be the challenger, wouldn't you? The challenger just has more upside.

You are correct that i emphasize this point massively, but I think that what I am usually declaring is being misinterpreted. I am not arguing that the undecided vote will go 90-100% for the Democrats this year, that would be rather unreasonable. What I am arguing is that the undecided vote will favour the Democrats in some way, perhaps being just 55%, or being 70%.

The reasoning for me believing in this school of thought is rather simple. Lets say you have a Republican incumbent serving in an even seat. They are massively popular. In polling, the Democrat is tying, lets say, 45%/45%. The question of which way the undecideds swing will matter on who wins the election. If this were to be, say, a neutral election year, then I would say the popularity of the incumbent would matter more, but in a D favouring environment, that would not be the case, as more external factors, such as the president, economy, whatever is occurring, would impact a voter's choice more.

This is what occurred in 2010, and 2014. In 2010, the 2010 election saw many Democrats polling ahead of their rather unknown opponents, and many were calling perhaps a 20 seat change. But the undecided vote was large, around 15%, in many of these polls. Now, examining the undecideds, the democrat should have panicked. These voters were being torn by their support of the Democrat, and the national environment, and in the end, the environment won.

A point I must emphasize is that, for the undecideds to favour a party over their incumbent, the national environment must play a part. This is why undecideds were largely neutral in 2004, and 2012, these were not years that the national environment played a part. 2008 was a year the undecideds took a side, because the economy had fallen apart. 2010 was as well, against Obamacare and the lack of a fixed economy. 2014 was a wave for the unpopularity of Obama and the quickly rising healthcare costs hitting the populace. We now arrive to 2018, where the undecideds have already proven to go D in special elections and in VA(by very large margins, I might add), and so, we can conclude that undecideds will follow the wave format, and its why the Dems should be really happy that they are tying incumbents in districts without that much name rec.

[Technocracy Timmy]

Yeah, the local party is treating him like persona non grata¹ (I get emails from the OCGOP asking for volunteers for Kim, Walters, and Harkey).

That’s because Dana Rohrabacher will cruise to victory in November. The suburban deplorables love him.

This isn't Temecula, and the suburban yuppies love Rouda. Rohrabacher is going down.

Suburban yuppies are too busy ordering Uber eats at 3am while bingewatching Netflix to know who Rouda is. These people have lives unlike atlas posters.

The race is a tossup and probably leaning in favor of Rouda right now.

[mencken]

Very well, you have provided evidence, that, in the year 2010, Republicans gained a disproportionate share of the undecided vote in districts with Democratic incumbents. The examples are a bit sparse that you provided (just FL-25 and PA-7) but it seems that Republicans had a similar phenomenon occur in open districts, so I'm not sure where the idea that this has to do with incumbent-versus-challenger came from. If you performed the same phenomenon in 2012, 2014, or 2016, I doubt the evidence would suggest Democratic challengers gained a disproportionate share of undecideds in districts with Republican incumbents.

[Florida Man for Crime]

You are correct that i emphasize this point massively, but I think that what I am usually declaring is being misinterpreted. I am not arguing that the undecided vote will go 90-100% for the Democrats this year, that would be rather unreasonable. What I am arguing is that the undecided vote will favour the Democrats in some way, perhaps being just 55%, or being 70%.

This is precisely the same argument that Dems commonly made in 2004. Take a look at this, for example.

http://www.mysterypollster.com/main/2004/10/the_incumbent_r.html

Nobody was arguing that Kerry would get 90%-100% of undecideds, but there was very often an argument that Kerry would get about 2/3 of the undecideds.

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You are presuming that it will be a D favoring environment. I agree there are some good reasons to think this will be the case, but it is not known in advance. Most people thought in 2004, for example, that it would be a somewhat D favoring environment, with a narrow Kerry victory. That turned out not to be the case.

Now, it is certainly true that it would take a lot more to switch 2018 from "a massive dem wave" to "a republican win," but it would take a lot less than that to switch it from "a massive dem wave" to "a small dem wave" or just "a pretty good, but not spectacular election where Dems came close, but didn't quite take the house."

Of course, the other grounds you have for differentiation is the difference between a Presidential and Congressional election.

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Yes, this did occur in 2010/2014. But it was not known, nor was it knowable, that it would occur. There have been other elections in the past (most recently 1998 and 2002, but also others if you go further back in history) where one party or other has expected substantial gains, in part based upon getting the undecideds, but those turned out to not actually materialize. They did not know that in advance.

You can point post-hoc some factor or other to explain why they didn't actually materialize (Lewinski, 9/11). But the human mind is capable of explaining basically anything post-hoc. If it turns out that there is not a large Democratic wave, or that it is less large than expected, then we will all after the fact look back and point to x, y, and z obvious factors that were not being adequately considered. And if the wave is larger than expected, then we will likewise point to x, y, and z other obvious factors that were not being adequately considered and explain why the wave was even larger than anyone thought.

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You are talking about the national environment as though it is known. But the national environment of (for example) the 2004 election was NOT known in October 2004. Likewise, to varying degrees, with all other elections.

The national environment is not known in advance. The Generic Ballot Polls and Presidential approval rating polls are all that is known in advance. Those are not the same thing as the actual environment that turns out to be realized. They are generally a pretty good indicator of the environment, but sometimes more than others.

Regarding special elections being favorable, yes this is another indicator. But it is only an indicator. It does not provide any certainty (or anything like it) as to what will happen. In 2004, for example, there were also special elections.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2004#Special_elections

Out of 3 House special elections that year, there were 2 Democratic pickups (and one Dem hold of a Safe D district). The pickups were KY-06 (the same seat around Lexington that is competitive this year), and also South Dakota At-Large. Both pretty solid Republican seats under most circumstances, wouldn't you say? So if you were sitting back in 2004 and looking at that, how do you think you would have thought those special elections looked? They make it look like it is probably going to be quite a good Democratic year, don't you think?

If anything, those 2004 House specials seem to me to be better for Dems than the House special elections that have occurred this year.



So in conclusion, I do get your argument. I don't disagree with it, per se. I just disagree with a strong form of it. I think it is *probable* that there will be a Democratic wave (of unknown magnitude). But I just don't think we can have anywhere near the degree of confidence that you seem to have, and do not think we can say with anything like certainty what the undecideds will do.

In addition, remember also that "what the undecideds do" is not necessarily clearly measured by the difference between polls and actual results, because there can be other sources that explain part or all of that difference, such as polling error (sometimes systematic polling error).

[IceSpear]

Very well, you have provided evidence, that, in the year 2010, Republicans gained a disproportionate share of the undecided vote in districts with Democratic incumbents. The examples are a bit sparse that you provided (just FL-25 and PA-7) but it seems that Republicans had a similar phenomenon occur in open districts, so I'm not sure where the idea that this has to do with incumbent-versus-challenger came from. If you performed the same phenomenon in 2012, 2014, or 2016, I doubt the evidence would suggest Democratic challengers gained a disproportionate share of undecideds in districts with Republican incumbents.

Well, my initial point didn't have as much to do with incumbency, but moreso the orientation of the undecided vote as a whole and the importance of other factors aside from head to head matchup numbers. Does one candidate have higher name recognition than the other? Is there still a primary yet to be decided on one or both sides? What is the partisan orientation of the district/state? How many undecideds are there? What is the partisan orientation of the undecided vote? To what degree will the undecided vote be impacted by the political environment? How do the undecided voters view the incumbent politician, even one that may not be on the ballot like the incumbent president? These are all things that can/should be taken into account besides just the head to head matchup numbers. Incumbency was somewhat relevant due to the fact that incumbents almost always have higher name recognition than challengers, especially on the House level, not because some magic formula means you're guaranteed to lose if a poll shows you #under50.

And then of course there's the fact that a lot of this is just a crapshoot since many of these polls are just straight junk anyway. But hey, what fun is that?

[Zaybay]

snip

Ok, a lot to unpack here.

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I think at this point its hard to argue that the environment will not be D favoured in some way, shape or form. That much we can say. As to the idea that a smaller wave may cause the undecideds to flip, this is not true. I point to 2014, a rather medium/small GOP wave. The polls had the race at R+3, and in the end, it was R+6, and many races, such as Governor races and the senate races(Mark Pylor comes to mind), saw the undecideds go to Rs by a large margin. If the undecided vote had split evenly, then we most likely would have gotten an R+3.5 wave.

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Ah, you have activated my Trap Card! If you will recall my argument, I summarize that in some election cases, mostly midterms and waves, that the national environment will play a larger part in the undecideds choice of who to vote for. The two years you mentioned, 1998 and 2002, are perfect examples of this. 1998 saw the popular Clinton govern a roaring economy and being impeached by what looked like partisan Republicans. In 2002, the war on terror dominated, and, of course, the Republicans, being heavily security based, won that as well. '

Your second point seems to say that we can only know afterwards and yes, that is true, everything can be seen in hindsight, but there are factors that can be observed at the time that can point to the right conclusions. I believe Icespear has already shown such evidence.

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The GCB and special elections are actually a rather excellent indicator in what the final PV will be. The general formula is to take the average performance in special elections, and the GCB, and just find the average. Im serious. Of course, there is a margin of error on this, which gets smaller until election day, but we actually have an excellent sample to show what the D wave will be like. Currently, the special elections have been D+14. The GCB right now is around D+8. Taking the average, you get D+11, with a current margin of error of 5 points in either direction.

Of course, I am not able to predict random events that occur, and, of course, perhaps something random can shake up the balance, but every indicator, from fundraising, to GCB, to specials, to everything, point towards a D wave. But its safe to say that a D wave is rather likely to happen, a chance of 95% at this point. By declaring that we cant be too sure, however, feeds a rather poor analysis and can leave you blindsided in the event that it happens, which it will.

I also am very confused on your use of 2004 as the ultimate example of how thing can change. Looking at the data, special elections(R+2), and the GCB at both the beginning of September and the end(D+2, Tie), its pretty clear that the results of 2004 were completely expected, and they should have been when the GCB started trending towards the Rs as the year went on. 2018 has had the opposite trend, moving towards the Ds as time goes on, so I doubt that the D wave will suddenly become a trickle.

Anyway, as I said before, the undecided vote moves with the national opinion, and, as we have seen in VA and the special elections, its clear they will go majority D in 2018.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

Yeah, the local party is treating him like persona non grata¹ (I get emails from the OCGOP asking for volunteers for Kim, Walters, and Harkey).

That’s because Dana Rohrabacher will cruise to victory in November. The suburban deplorables love him.

Why do people who hate brown people often spend so much time and money on looking more brown?

That is the most stereotypical OC people I have ever seen.

[IceSpear]

Anyway back on topic...here's an article about CA-48:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/us/harley-rouda-congress-republican.html?rref=us

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I find it hilarious that RINO Harley stayed a Republican for so long despite these things. He reminds me of someone...

I guess he did so for the same reason so many Racist WV Hicks stayed Democratic for so long. But since he wears a suit and used to be a Republican he's not #populist enough despite being in favor of these very progressive policies. I'd much prefer an angry white guy who mines coal or something and rails into "elites" but thinks Obamacare was a bridge too far.

[Technocracy Timmy]

The 48th also has the highest home values of any battleground district.

Atlas socialists are gonna love to hate on Congressman Rouda constantly while circlejerking over those rural (but secret socialist! ) whites that keep voting Republican.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Anyway back on topic...here's an article about CA-48:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/us/harley-rouda-congress-republican.html?rref=us

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I find it hilarious that RINO Harley stayed a Republican for so long despite these things. He reminds me of someone...

I guess he did so for the same reason so many Racist WV Hicks stayed Democratic for so long. But since he wears a suit and used to be a Republican he's not #populist enough despite being in favor of these very progressive policies. I'd much prefer an angry white guy who mines coal or something and rails into "elites" but thinks Obamacare was a bridge too far.

Bruh, SCHUYLKILL SCOTT!!

[Sumner 1868]

Anyway back on topic...here's an article about CA-48:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/us/harley-rouda-congress-republican.html?rref=us

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I find it hilarious that RINO Harley stayed a Republican for so long despite these things. He reminds me of someone...

I guess he did so for the same reason so many Racist WV Hicks stayed Democratic for so long. But since he wears a suit and used to be a Republican he's not #populist enough despite being in favor of these very progressive policies. I'd much prefer an angry white guy who mines coal or something and rails into "elites" but thinks Obamacare was a bridge too far.

Odd how your apparently so concerned about these issues when you choose #Hillary over a candidate who backed these measures in the 2016 primaries.

[IceSpear]

Anyway back on topic...here's an article about CA-48:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/us/harley-rouda-congress-republican.html?rref=us

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I find it hilarious that RINO Harley stayed a Republican for so long despite these things. He reminds me of someone...

I guess he did so for the same reason so many Racist WV Hicks stayed Democratic for so long. But since he wears a suit and used to be a Republican he's not #populist enough despite being in favor of these very progressive policies. I'd much prefer an angry white guy who mines coal or something and rails into "elites" but thinks Obamacare was a bridge too far.

Odd how your apparently so concerned about these issues when you choose #Hillary over a candidate who backed these measures in the 2016 primaries.

It's not like I ever claimed to support Hillary solely for policy reasons. And besides, there was a very good argument to be made that she'd be much better at actually getting progressive goals accomplished due to knowing how the sausage gets made, as opposed to Bernie who apparently thought a bunch of college kids calling Mitch McConnell would get him to stop obstructing. Kind of like how Obama thought being "inspirational" and liking "hope and change" would get Mitch McConnell to stop obstructing.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Anyway back on topic...here's an article about CA-48:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/us/harley-rouda-congress-republican.html?rref=us

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I find it hilarious that RINO Harley stayed a Republican for so long despite these things. He reminds me of someone...

I guess he did so for the same reason so many Racist WV Hicks stayed Democratic for so long. But since he wears a suit and used to be a Republican he's not #populist enough despite being in favor of these very progressive policies. I'd much prefer an angry white guy who mines coal or something and rails into "elites" but thinks Obamacare was a bridge too far.

Odd how your apparently so concerned about these issues when you choose #Hillary over a candidate who backed these measures in the 2016 primaries.

Make sure you write down IceSpear's name comrade so that when the people's revolution comes you send him to the gulags for voting a centrist neo-liberal sellout over socialist God King Bernie.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Anyway back on topic...here's an article about CA-48:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/us/harley-rouda-congress-republican.html?rref=us

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I find it hilarious that RINO Harley stayed a Republican for so long despite these things. He reminds me of someone...

I guess he did so for the same reason so many Racist WV Hicks stayed Democratic for so long. But since he wears a suit and used to be a Republican he's not #populist enough despite being in favor of these very progressive policies. I'd much prefer an angry white guy who mines coal or something and rails into "elites" but thinks Obamacare was a bridge too far.

Odd how your apparently so concerned about these issues when you choose #Hillary over a candidate who backed these measures in the 2016 primaries.

Make sure you write down IceSpear's name comrade so that when the people's revolution comes you send him to the gulags for voting a centrist neo-liberal sellout over socialist God King Bernie.

Responding to a perfectly reasoned post with a baseless, childish attack? B-but I thought Hillarybots were the Calm and Reasonable ones?

[Landslide Lyndon]

Anyway back on topic...here's an article about CA-48:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/us/harley-rouda-congress-republican.html?rref=us

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I find it hilarious that RINO Harley stayed a Republican for so long despite these things. He reminds me of someone...

I guess he did so for the same reason so many Racist WV Hicks stayed Democratic for so long. But since he wears a suit and used to be a Republican he's not #populist enough despite being in favor of these very progressive policies. I'd much prefer an angry white guy who mines coal or something and rails into "elites" but thinks Obamacare was a bridge too far.

Odd how your apparently so concerned about these issues when you choose #Hillary over a candidate who backed these measures in the 2016 primaries.

Make sure you write down IceSpear's name comrade so that when the people's revolution comes you send him to the gulags for voting a centrist neo-liberal sellout over socialist God King Bernie.

Responding to a perfectly reasoned post with a baseless, childish attack? B-but I thought Hillarybots were the Calm and Reasonable ones?

Perfectly reasoned post by My Immortal is an oxymoron.

[Antonio the Sixth]

If you have an issue with her post instead of random MUH COMRADE BERNIE MUH SCARY REDS nonsense, by all mean tell us.

[Landslide Lyndon]

If you have an issue with her post instead of random MUH COMRADE BERNIE MUH SCARY REDS nonsense, by all mean tell us.

I don't like his prosecutorial style against anyone who has the gall to disagree with him.
Satisfied?

[Antonio the Sixth]

If you have an issue with her post instead of random MUH COMRADE BERNIE MUH SCARY REDS nonsense, by all mean tell us.

I don't like his prosecutorial style against anyone who has the gall to disagree with him.
Satisfied?

All he said was pointing out that IceSpear's apparent support for solidly left-wing policies was surprising given his past (and very vocal) endorsement of a candidate who opposed or only begrudgingly coopted these policies. There's nothing "prosecutorial" (lol) about that - it's a perfectly fair question to ask someone on a political forum. And IceSpear gave a fair answer to it (albeit one I personally find misguided). You, on the other hand, are just being a smarmy dick for no reason.

[Landslide Lyndon]

[Technocracy Timmy]

[IceSpear]

If you have an issue with her post instead of random MUH COMRADE BERNIE MUH SCARY REDS nonsense, by all mean tell us.

I don't like his prosecutorial style against anyone who has the gall to disagree with him.
Satisfied?

All he said was pointing out that IceSpear's apparent support for solidly left-wing policies was surprising given his past (and very vocal) endorsement of a candidate who opposed or only begrudgingly coopted these policies. There's nothing "prosecutorial" (lol) about that - it's a perfectly fair question to ask someone on a political forum. And IceSpear gave a fair answer to it (albeit one I personally find misguided). You, on the other hand, are just being a smarmy dick for no reason.

I should also note here that while I support Medicare for all, $15 minimum wage, free college, etc. on an aspirational basis, I'd be potentially more supportive of alternative approaches. Like a German-style universal multipayer system, a minimum wage based off the cost of living in a particular area and indexed to inflation, free or low cost college geared more toward those that actually need it rather than a blanket program, etc.

As I said above, I trusted her with navigating the inner workings of the government more than Bernie. I also trusted her more as commander in chief. And there was also a personal/nostalgic element to it, since she was the first candidate I ever supported back when I first started following politics in 2007, and I've always admired her as a person. Also electability was a factor as well (maybe ironic in retrospect, but it's not like we'll ever know for sure what would've happened with somebody else, and nobody could've predicted Comey's last minute interference.)

And I guess I've also moved left somewhat since Trump took office. Mostly because I'm tired of catering to obnoxious moderate heroes that let Republicans get away with murder (almost literally at this point) and lamely justify it with false equivalencies about Democrats being "just as bad" because some Democrat somewhere farted in an elevator or something. Being the "Centrist Reasonable Adult In The Room Party" and the "When They Go Low We Go High Party" has gotten Democrats nothing besides Trump as president and massive wipeouts at nearly every level of government. Any "centrist" who didn't vote for Hillary has no right to bitch and complain about "muh Trump destroying institutions" or "muh Dems moving so far lefttttt." If you cared that much about having a stable centrist to center-left government you should've gotten off your lazy ass and voted for her, not stayed home or threw a tantrum by voting third party (or even worse, for Trump) because of MUH BUTTERY MALES.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Thanks for the detailed explanation. I'm definitely glad you're moving left, and you definitely sound very different than you did a couple years ago. Who knows, maybe by 2020 you'll join us and become a Berniecrat.

The reason I don't find the "navigating the inner workings of government" argument persuasive is because I don't think muh experience really makes much of a difference in government outcomes. First because whoever is President can easily find people more experienced than them to take care of the wheeling-and-dealing part of policymaking (as Obama showed) but even more importantly because said wheeling-and-dealing doesn't matter nearly as much as it used to in this day and age anyway (as Obama's experience also showed). Politics is increasingly a game of brute partisan force, and greasing a few lawmakers' hands to get them to yes doesn't get you anywhere at this point. The Obama admin tried this trick for months on during the Obamacare debate, to no avail. The only thing that's gonna get Congress to fall in line at this point is 1. having Democrats control it and 2. Having incumbents scared of a primary challenge if they don't do the right thing. And on both ends, Bernie holds far more promise.

On another note, I still find your disparaging of T***p voter despicable and I hope you'll evolve on that too. It's just not healthy to hate that many people. "Hate the sin, not the sinner" is good advice here.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

The fact that he’s part-Russian is interesting.

[Sumner 1868]

I don't like his prosecutorial style against anyone who has the gall to disagree with him.

So you don't like when the shoe is on the other foot?

Get over it.