Buffalo, NY - The Comeback Kid

[GeneralMacArthur]

Excellent news coming out of New York's second most important city!

NYC is New York's second-most-important city.

[GeneralMacArthur]

This sucks. I generally oppose DSA-backed challengers (except when the incumbent is really out of touch / aloof, like Bowman v. Engel) but "vote blue no matter who" ought to go both ways. More states should have sore loser laws.

Edit: Looks like only 4 states lack sore loser laws (or its equivalent, in the form of having filing deadline for primary and general on the same day) - NY, CT, IA, VT. I guess sore loser laws don't apply to write-in candidates, given Murkowski was able to run in Alaska in 2010?

I would be upset about this if there was a Republican challenger, but seeing as there's not and it's just going to be Walton vs. write-in Brown (who may get the GOP endorsement just because they'd rather have him than Brown) it seems fine.  We're not going to lose the seat either way.  It may end up being similar to what happens to Murkowski in AK, where the Democrats may endorse Murkowski because they have no chance on their own and Murkowski is much more tolerable than her GOP opponent.

I'm actually really interested to see if this is successful.  Since I couldn't care less about Buffalo, I selfishly think it would be nice to have another city other than Seattle and Portland that's hijacked by the socialist nuts.  Maybe then the midwest cities can start sending their homeless junkies to Buffalo instead of putting them on buses to Seattle.

[GeneralMacArthur]

If Brown ends up defeating Walton with a write-in campaign -- and not just defeating her, but winning in a double-digit landslide -- will all those hack journalists who wrote glowing articles about the "socialist uprising in America's cities" issue apologies and retractions?

[GeneralMacArthur]

Vote Blue No Matter Who, Except... well, just fill in any progressive candidate who won or looked like they were competitive in a primary.

It's a blue vs blue election.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Vote Blue No Matter Who, Except... well, just fill in any progressive candidate who won or looked like they were competitive in a primary.

It's a blue vs blue election.

0% chance this would ever be said if a centrist successfully primaried AOC and she launched a write-in campaign or something like that

There's a 0% chance that this race will go to a Republican due to split votes.  That is always the issue when a defeated primary opponent runs an independent general election campaign.  It's basically a do-over of the primary since they're effectively the only two candidates.

I'm sure you understand this and you're just pretending to be thick so you can try to dunk on me.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Vote Blue No Matter Who, Except... well, just fill in any progressive candidate who won or looked like they were competitive in a primary.

It's a blue vs blue election.

0% chance this would ever be said if a centrist successfully primaried AOC and she launched a write-in campaign or something like that

There's a 0% chance that this race will go to a Republican due to split votes.  That is always the issue when a defeated primary opponent runs an independent general election campaign.  It's basically a do-over of the primary since they're effectively the only two candidates.

I'm sure you understand this and you're just pretending to be thick so you can try to dunk on me.

How would you feel if the Democratic vote splits the same way it did in the primary and Brown wins due to Republicans voting for him? Would that be a good outcome for the people of Buffalo?

Yes, it is good when the person who gets the most votes wins an election.

[GeneralMacArthur]

I really don't agree with this. Unless there is some huge scandal that makes the Democratic nominee unacceptable I don't agree with getting ballot access on through the court after losing a primary.

Being a moron is a huge scandal.

Was excited to get a Democrat in office but that's clearly not the case here! "Vote blue no matter who" only applies to leftist voters and doesn't apply to leftist candidates. If Bernie or the Squad did this they'd be crucified. What a f**king joke this sh*t is.

Byron Brown is a Democrat.  Funny to see you melting down over this though.

I'm also curious what VBNMWEB did to become your new target.  It's sad but funny that you always use your screen name to attack your enemy of the month.

[GeneralMacArthur]

I disagree with your reasoning here.  VBNMW absent extraordinary circumstances is a terrible rule because you’re then training yourself not to hold people on your side of the isle accountable.  If folks want leftist votes, they need to at least offer someone leftists can live with.  Beating Trump or someone like him is an extraordinary circumstance, but even with Senate races, there’s often no reason to vote for a GE Democratic nominee who opposes abolishing the filibuster.  Manchin has an excuse, but why not sit out the Arizona Senate GE or vote third party in that race if Sinema gets renominated?

Letting Republicans take power is the absolute worst way imaginable to "hold people on your side of the aisle accountable."

It's like people who rooted for al-Qaeda after seeing the Abu Ghraib images.

There are manifold other ways to achieve accountability.  You don't have to start rooting for the villains.


With all that said I can't believe the last few pages of whinging in this thread.  I haven't checked in in a while but it looks like people are still bitching about Byron Brown running in the general.  For the umpteenth time, "vote blue no matter who" is completely irrelevant to this situation because both candidates are Democrats.

You can try and say "oh Byron Brown isn't a real Democrat because he's supported by Republicans" but that just makes you sound like an idiot.  Joe Biden was supported by Republicans in his general.

[GeneralMacArthur]

I'm still waiting for you to address my counterpoint. Both candidates in the NH-SOS race in 2018 were Democrats as well. One of those Democrats, Bill Gardner, was objectively the de facto Republican candidate. The state party had largely abandoned him because he was acting like a Republican. He continued to campaign after losing his caucus's straw poll. By your logic it wouldn't be disloyal to support a man who backed Trump's sham commission because "both candidates are Democrats".

I'll acknowledge it's a bit of a stretch to compare Gardner to Brown. Brown is a machine Democrat who's looking to run a write-in campaign. Gardner was actively giving Trump cover to poison the well. At worst, he's a naive bothsidesist, and at best he's a full blown Trump supporter. But to compare the #NeverTrump wing backing Biden to local GOP groups, donors, and even members of the far-right boosting Brown is absurd. Especially when they're using the same logic you yourself have already decried while doing it.

So your counterpoint to "vote blue no matter who" is a case where someone with Republican policies and Republican behavior ran as a Democrat just cause?

No, if Donald Trump switched parties so that both he and Biden were both Democrats, I wouldn't say "vote blue no matter who" -- which doesn't even make sense in a blue-vs-blue election -- I would say "vote for the actual Democrat."  Just like I did in the OH-11 primary where Shontel Brown was running against a former proponent of two different third parties.  but situations like this are vanishingly uncommon.

You're really twisting yourself in knots to try and use this situation to undermine the phrase "vote blue no matter who" and it's not working at all.  Like your whole point makes no sense.  But you keep digging that hole deeper and deeper and deeper.

Simply having Republicans on your side doesn't make one a Republican.  You keep trying to play guilt by association and nobody is buying it.  I'm in the Recall Sawant movement here in Seattle.
 Our movement is supported by everyone to the right of Lenin, which is about half of the district.
 And the Sawant people keep trying to do the exact same thing.  Go through our donor rolls of tens of thousands of donors, find the most objectionable right-wing donor, slap his face on all the posters and say "that's the face of the right-wing racist republican recall."  Nobody's really buying it this time around, which is surprising because Seattle D3 voters are really, really, really dumb.

[GeneralMacArthur]

To little surprise, Bernie Sanders and The Gravel Institute endorse India Walton.

It's been two and a half years and we still care what the Gravel Teens think?

[GeneralMacArthur]

AOC to rally for India Walton downtown on Saturday. I may attend and ask why she voted for Palestinian Genocide and didn't Force the Vote; I'm curious on India's stances as well.

Could you please also ask her whether she thinks we should abolish prison, whether it would be a good idea to eliminate the Buffalo police department, whether the OH-11 election was stolen from Nina Turner, and if she would join if a viable third party emerged to the left of the Democrats.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Ok but did she lie tho?

Some of the first organized “law” enforcements were slave catchers and it’s not like those in power playing oppressed groups off each other to their benefit is a novel concept?

Yes.  This is a talking point that John Oliver's dumbass writers completely made up because it sounded good, and everyone just collectively decided to believe it.  As if the world was just anarchy prior to the antebellum south.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Emerson Poll:

Brown 54%
Walton 36%

https://emersonpolling.reportablenews.com/pr/buffalo-ny-incumbent-mayor-brown-continues-to-lead-mayoral-race-with-write-in-campaign

So much for vote blue no matter who.

I swear to god, you people.  It's a blue-vs-blue election.  Like just stop.

You got lucky in the primary to catch a lazy incumbent off-guard, but unlike some of your other lucky victories, this time he was able to mount a successful write-in campaign.  He's going to win because your candidate is really bad.  Just accept that and move on.  Nominate better people.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Glad I can run a write-in campaign against Pappas as the Legal Marijuana Now candidate with GMac's blessing. Just like GMac said, it's blue vs. blue!

If there's no Republican running or the Dem is guaranteed the win, go for it.  Like you thought this was a dunk but no, I don't care, as long as there's no chance of you spoiling the race and throwing it to a Republican candidate.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Vote blue no matter who unless a progressive gets the nomination.

Does this stupid s--t have to be posted on every page of the thread?  Jesus.  Both candidates are blue.  You can vote for whoever you want and you'll be voting blue.

[GeneralMacArthur]

The "Republicans backed the moderate therefore he's a Republican" argument gets used in so many races and it's always such a weak argument.  In any race with two candidates separated by a clear ideological line, both candidates are going to claim everyone on their side of that line.  In this race, where it was Dem-vs-Dem, Brown carried everyone to the right of the line, which included many Republicans (not that there are very many in Buffalo).

It's the same way here in Seattle.  All twenty Republicans in Seattle are backing Bruce Harrell because he's closer to them than Lorena Gonzalez.  That doesn't make him a Republican.