PA-SN 2022 megathread: Shrek vs. The Wizard of Oz

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Lean D seems a bit optimistic to me. While I don't think it's a given that Fitzpatrick will be a good statewide candidate, and Democrats have several options, the environment is still almost certainly going to help Republicans here. I'd still say Tilt R for now, but I hope the PA Democratic posters end up being right.

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Enthusiastically endorsed. He'll probably face an uphill battle, given the kind of year 2022 will probably be, but he's probably the best candidate Democrats could run, and definitely has a shot.

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https://twitter.com/RyanCostello/status/1347618307403362307

imo fetterman wins greene by 40 but falls short of 35% in chester

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I really don’t think we can know ahead of time who the better statewide candidate would be, at least not without a primary.

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We’re really going to play the “who’s the most electable?” game again, aren’t we?

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We’re still making electability arguments? Even when several progressive Democrats overperformed Biden and quite a few moderate Democrats (including Lamb) underperformed him? I could easily see Lamb being a Patrick Murphy-esque dud as a Senate candidate, so I don’t get why people are so sure he’d be such a terrific candidate, but either way, primaries should be about who has the best ideas and is the best at selling them, i.e. a time for debate, not a time to shut down the debate because we “know” who the most electable candidate is. I’d obviously prefer Lamb to a Republican, but Democrats should not want another Sinema in the Senate.

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We’re still making electability arguments? Even when several progressive Democrats overperformed Biden and quite a few moderate Democrats (including Lamb) underperformed him? I could easily see Lamb being a Patrick Murphy-esque dud as a Senate candidate, so I don’t get why people are so sure he’d be such a terrific candidate, but either way, primaries should be about who has the best ideas and is the best at selling them, i.e. a time for debate, not a time to shut down the debate because we “know” who the most electable candidate is. I’d obviously prefer Lamb to a Republican, but Democrats should not want another Sinema in the Senate.

Which progressive Democrats that you are aware of overperformed Biden? I'm aware of Lamb's underperformance-which is why I'm not so sure that he would be the best (or better) candidate for Democrats here.

The best example is in Pennsylvania: Matt Cartwright. While his overperformance wasn’t as impressive as previous ones, it’s clear he still has some crossover appeal. There are some others (DeFazio, Jones, Kim is part of the CPC), but I think it’s clear that ideology is not the key factor in electoral performance.

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We’re still making electability arguments? Even when several progressive Democrats overperformed Biden and quite a few moderate Democrats (including Lamb) underperformed him? I could easily see Lamb being a Patrick Murphy-esque dud as a Senate candidate, so I don’t get why people are so sure he’d be such a terrific candidate, but either way, primaries should be about who has the best ideas and is the best at selling them, i.e. a time for debate, not a time to shut down the debate because we “know” who the most electable candidate is. I’d obviously prefer Lamb to a Republican, but Democrats should not want another Sinema in the Senate.

I mean, if we're making arguments about who is best at effectively selling their views then WWC LARPer John Fetterman shouldn't even be seriously considered for the nomination.  I mean, he's run a pretty weak campaign, already proven himself a lazy candidate who regularly takes votes for granted (to say nothing of his disastrous handling of the shotgun controversy).  

I’d agree that Fetterman’s campaign hasn’t been great so far, but I think the electability argument is used more against Kenyatta, who I’d be perfectly happy with.

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I don't think Parnell would be an especially good candidate, but that doesn't mean that the environment won't be good enough for him to win.

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I think it’s silly to speculate about who would do better in the general, since there’s really no way we’ll ever know. I do think the number of Lamb>Republican>Other Democrats and Fetterman>Republican>Other Democrats voters is greatly exaggerated on this forum. I don’t see it making that much of a difference, barring a huge scandal for one of the candidates. I’d rather it not be Lamb, though.

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"I am not a socialist" is not a good slogan for Democrats.

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Can we at least see who does well in the primary and brings out people in critical parts of the state before declaring to know who’s an electoral titan and who would lose the race for dog catcher in a landslide? Thanks.

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If people prefer Lamb ideologically, that's fine, but let's not get bogged down by conversations of "electability." Any Democrat is going to have a hard time in this race, and ideology is not going to be a factor at all.

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Lamb is looking more likely to be the nominee, but given the kind of year 2022 is going to be, it's not going to matter much. Of course, Lamb performing at Generic D levels still won't kill the zombie talking point of moderate = electable (for Democrats only, of course.)

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At this point, I’m pretty much expecting Lamb to win the primary, and it might not be especially close. Fetterman has just been very sloppy and made many unforced errors, and while I’d probably prefer Kenyatta at this point, it doesn’t seem like he’s gained enough traction.

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People still pay attention to James Carville? Lol

Anyway, this seat remains a longshot for any Democrat, and the insistence that only one Democrat (always the preferred one of the person speaking) can win and would outperform any other by a ton is tiresome.

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People still pay attention to James Carville? Lol

Anyway, this seat remains a longshot for any Democrat, and the insistence that only one Democrat (always the preferred one of the person speaking) can win and would outperform any other by a ton is tiresome.

A "longshot" is being a bit ridiculous. The environment was only slightly better for Biden/Dems in November and McLaughlin lost by <1 in the SC race. Not to mention, Oz and McCormick are still bottom tier candidates on the GOP side.

I get that it's a red wave year, but the GOP bench on both races is *bad* and that should not be understated.

In a high profile Senate race, I doubt that many who want a Republican Senate will be willing to vote for any Democrat. Maybe Oz would do a bit worse than what I’d expect given the environment, but Democrats winning a race here in a red wave year is hard to imagine, unless the Republican candidate really does crash and burn.

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Lamb losing support due to calling Fetterman a socialist would make my day, though I remain cautious. I’m glad that Fetterman’s campaign seems to be driving into high gear, and the fact that he’s visiting more Republican-leaning counties is a positive sign, something the Democrats should be doing regardless of circumstances. I remain skeptical that Democrats can win this race in such a bad environment, but maybe I can be convinced otherwise.

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I’m still going to guess that McCormick wins the primary.

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Glad to see Lamb's strategy crashing and burning. I still think this will be quite an uphill climb for Fetterman in November given how bad the environment is, though.

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I'm sure that people who are talking about replacing Fetterman with Lamb were strongly considering replacing Clinton with Sanders in September 2016.

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I'm sure that people who are talking about replacing Fetterman with Lamb were strongly considering replacing Clinton with Sanders in September 2016.

Clinton got pneumonia for a few days and was pretty clear regarding her health status and progress towards recovery.  She famously took an awkward little walk outside her daughter's apartment that same day just to quell malicious speculation from the press.

Fetterman has disappeared for weeks, provided very little clarity regarding his health status, and not given any clear timeline regarding his return.  And his health problems are far more concerning and permanent than Clinton's bout with pneumonia.

So this is a false equivalence.  But for the record, if Clinton had suffered a stroke and been incapacitated from the campaign trail for months, and provided little to no information regarding her recovery, I would have considered that a huge emergency and been on board with her potentially being replaced (although preferably with Biden, Booker, Warren, or someone else with better electoral prospects than Sanders).

I don't think Fetterman is a huge emergency yet, but if his return date starts shifting into August/September, and we still haven't even seen him, I think that's a perfectly valid thing to consider as an electoral emergency.

If Lamb should be picked simply because he got a very distant second, then why shouldn't Sanders have been the pick if Clinton had suffered a much more serious health problem, given that he was the choice of over 40% of primary voters? My point is that there is not sufficient indication that Fetterman's health is going to be a problem if he's careful, and the discussion about replacing him is clearly wishful thinking and inconsistent unless one believes that the 2nd place finisher in a primary should always be the one chosen in emergency cases.

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https://twitter.com/NoLieWithBTC/status/1536090139172257793

It's okay when it's wealthy people breaking immigration laws.

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I don't think the Fetterman campaign is limited to Twitter owns, and the debates could be something to see if he's like this on the campaign trail.

That's not to say that it would be enough to make this race defy the national environment, though. I'd still bet against Fetterman unless the environment improves at least a bit for Democrats.

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Why is it that super wealthy scam artists are somehow spun as “men of the people who are in touch with real folk”? The retort to Democrats being out of touch (which is a fair point, at least at times) seems to always come coupled with praise of a Republican who is so obviously further out of touch somehow being hailed as a “populist/hard-working man of the people.” It’s sort of like saying “apples are ridiculously wet! Want real dryness, vote for water!”