Chris, thank you!! Given Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, as we learned last 2 years, we only OCCASIONALLY have control of the Senate. Warnock would neuter Manchin and Sinema.
That is beyond unlikely. The Democrats give committe chairs based on seniority and status, the Repubs do not. So that would mean his chairmanship and ranks would go away. Also, he's the only Democrat that can be elected from that state but nowhere near the only Repub. His entire power derives from that positioning and no one with his level of slimy canniness would give that up.
Linda, it is my understanding that the Jan 6 committee is slated to be done on Dec 31; it was designed that way knowing that the House would most likely flip. This takes away Repubs ability to disband (read: gloat) the committee.
The last half of your excellent comment also neatly describes why leaders like Cheney don't switch parties -- no matter how grateful you are for her service on the 9/11 commission, would you ever vote for her in a primary against a more provenly-loyal Democrat?
Also, Cheney is a hard right conservative. She voted with Trump well over 90% of the time, including against voting rights. She applauded the Dobbs decision, and publicly accused Democrats of killing babies. We must remember that at the same time that we applaud her courage and her stand against mob rule.
In West Virginia* terms, yes. Just one beholden to the powers that be in KY. That's normal. One thing to keep in mind is that Manchin's position of power only rested on the fact that he emerged from the crowd when Senate was 50/50. With Warnock, Manchin goes back into the crowd and will not have the leverage he did for a while. And will not be able to pull off sweet deals for his wealthy, um, donars.
* Correction supplied by Cheryl Cardran, with my thanks- I had originally typed KY. I should not do things before eating breakfast!
Yes I guess that's a consolation, but to masquerade as a Democrat while kowtowing to the fossil fuel industry is beyond hypocritical. He demonstrates clearly why money should be removed from elections - they should be publicly funded and time-limited.
The switch I'd like to see is Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) declaring herself an independent. Thanks to Ranked-Choice Voting, it's likely that both she and Rep. Mary Peltola (D) will keep their seats. I'm not the only one who's guessing that in the second Senate round, it'll turn out that most of Democrat Pat Chesbro's supporters marked Murkowski as their second choice. If you're not up on RCV, this Alaska NPR story explains how it might play out here. https://alaskapublic.org/2022/11/10/why-peltola-and-murkowski-are-well-situated-to-win-reelection/
Much depends on how much of a bloodbath in-fighting Republicans create on Capitol Hill. It'll be especially wild if it turns out they've lost the House as well as the Senate. In the Senate, the gutless Susan Collins (R-ME) might even develop a backbone, and who knows what the quixotic Mitt Romney (R-UT) might do?
He was also largely responsible for instituting Commonwealth Care -- state-subsidized health insurance -- when he was governor of Massachusetts. Of course many of us called it RomneyCare. When it came in, ca. 2008, as a freelancer I'd been uninsured for 7 years and seriously underinsured (major medical only) for 15 years before that. It helped keep me afloat until ObamaCare came in.
Sinema would not make it out of a MAGA primary. Manchin controls his own destiny where he sits, no need to move. It almost looks weak to switch parties. Manchin is a principled guy, just an old school Blue Dog Democrat and the party left him a bit. Sinema is just an opportunist, unprincipled (big money butt kissing) self-promoting disaster and thus unpredictable. Hopefully she doesn't make it out of the Dem primary.
Should Sinema bolt the party enraged Arizona Democrats could launch a recall campaign that might very well work. I know I would kick in $100 to such a campaign.
Sinema voted to convict Trump, voted to certify election of Biden. Compare that to Kelly's challenger. Sinema would not make it out of primary unless GOP starts taking anti-psychotic meds.
How's Tulsi Gabbard making out? She couldn't retain her job as a Democrat, so now she's casting lures in Republican waters. Why would a Republican voter in Hawaii ever vote for her over any other Republican? I think she's trying to find out.
Right now I'd say Gabbard is in the political wilderness. She has certainly burned every bridge with the Democrats. Officially an Independent, as a stand-in for Tucker Carlsen on FNN she has thrown in with the MAGA wing of the Republicans whose influence, as indicated by the last election, is on the wane.
I predict a quiet fade to black, maybe shilling for the NRA or selling kitchenware on cable tv.
Yeah, he's a Democrat. There's no litmus test: If you say you're a Democrat and you caucus with the Democrats, you're a Democrat. If he'd been in the Senate in the 1990s, he wouldn't have stood out so much. As it is, I suspect he's giving cover to a few Dems who are also in hock to various unsavory corporate interests but whose seats aren't as secure as Manchin's. They can safely vote for legislation their funders oppose because they know Manchin will block it.
So glad you are writing letters through Vote Forward too. They make it easy and itтАЩs apparently effective. I hope our community will join us and write a bunch more!
I've been writing with Postcards to Voters since Doug Jones's Senate run in 2017. PTV is based in Georgia: their first campaign was Jon Ossoff's run for Congress early that year. (Jon lost that one but has gone on to bigger things!) There's time to sign up and become an approved writer -- and rest assured there will be more campaigns after Dec. 6, up and down ballot, all across the country. More info here: https://postcardstovoters.org/.
I wanted to get started right away, so I went to the Post Office in my town and purchased the last of the postcards they had on hand. Hmm, seems like others have the same idea about postcarding! (Not to worry, I've already ordered more)
I order postcard stamps by the roll from the USPS because my (small-town) PO sometimes runs out at the wrong time. :-) I keep a stash of postcards on hand, but mostly I like to make my own with Avery templates. Artistic I am not, but I'm an OK designer if I have an assist.
As soon as I heard the possibility of runoff in Georgia, I went online and ordered postcards through Amazon. They arrived in 2 days. I actually ordered two styles that bulk ran about $7-8 for 100.
Yes. Keep up the good work. Georgia is 31% black, so if turnout is proportionate, we need the standard 90% of the black vote plus 32% of the rest (white, Asian, Latino, etc). ThatтАЩs a tall order in Georgia, even if all the black people who want to vote are allowed to vote. So, a win for Warnock is possible but requires a monumental effort.
It is not really a tall order though. In any other state, Warnock would already be the victor. He needs to win over precisely 0 more voters to win next month. He already outperformed Biden's winning '20 numbers across the state.
I still plan to actively support him, of course. Can't let that slip.
Not in Alaska. ;-) Hard to say what would happen if GA had RCV. Chase Oliver's 2.1% could put either Warnock or Walker over 50%. What would GA Libertarians be most likely to give as their 2nd choice? No idea, but I have a hunch . . .
Based on my experience in a blue area of a blue state (MA), I agree. MA is no swing state, but I heard enough stories from PA, WI, MI, and other places to suspect it was a factor there too. In the years since, I've seen quite a few younger people buckle down, get involved in state and local politics, and basically figure out that staying home and pouting can have disastrous results. But I'm taking all the golly-gee-whizzery about Gen Z and younger voters in general with the usual peck of salt.
Monumental effort, yes, but IMO it's more than possible. Runoffs and other special elections require an especially motivated electorate, and it's now looking that control of the Senate will not be in play, since Cortez Masto seems to have pulled it off in NV. That may matter even more to the bankrollers than to the voters, and who knows? Enough voters may take a closer look at Herschel Walker and finally acknowledge what a flawed candidate he is.
I don't share your optimism there. I got into it with my former sergeant who refers to Reverend Warnok as a wife beater. I pointed out one or two worse things that Walker has done, and it made not a speck of difference. These people have jumped the shark.
The poor sergeant is confusing Warnock for Walker--who held a gun to his ex-wife's head. That's the only answer. The poor person is confusing the two....
Wow. Does this sergeant (I hope it's a man) have any evidence? The pastor of the Congregational church in my town, a white woman, was in seminary with Warnock and they've been friends ever since. They preach regularly in each other's pulpits. I've only met him a couple of times, but I know the local minister well enough and I can't believe there's anything to this.
Last time I looked, pity the thought, Herschel W. is black also. Complexity, moderated by downright awfulness, falls upon the black community in Georgia. Say it ain't so, say it ain't so. It's absolutely so demented having Walker stand for office. Sly and twisted.
"Sly and twisted" it is, and not all that uncommon -- but IMO they've gone over the top with Walker. Did they (the Trumpers in particular) think they would get away with it? Did they maybe think that pissing off Black and white liberals was going to be fun? (more "owning the libs"?).
Apart from the football hero factor, it's not all that unusual for white racists to elevate Black entertainers and sports figures to show that they're not racist. (Lindsey Graham has been making a fool of himself lately in this regard.) Raphael Warnock is the white racists' worst nightmare: an intelligent, dedicated, articulate, hardworking Black man who was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
I'd love to know more about how GA Republicans settled on and recruited Herschel Walker. There are times when I feel very sorry for the guy.
After my home state (MA), DC is the place I lived the longest. When I first registered to vote, at 18, it was as a member of Julius Hobson's D.C. Statehood Party. ;-) I voted Dem for decades, but I didn't belong to another party till January 2017, when I registered as a Dem so I could accept the position of secretary of my local Dem group.
Maybe "reminding" them isn't the right word. Supporting and encouraging them is what I think. And letting them know we have their backs. Go Georgia! Right now you are us.
I am picking up my postcards this morning! Our county may not be big but it is very active. There were/are many opportunities to help elect Democrats around the country.
Yippee! I will continue to write letters to Georgia voters to remind them about the runoff election through Vote Forward.
Chris, thank you!! Given Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, as we learned last 2 years, we only OCCASIONALLY have control of the Senate. Warnock would neuter Manchin and Sinema.
What if, as my husband suggested tonight, Warnock wins Georgia and Manchin decides to officially switch parties?
That is beyond unlikely. The Democrats give committe chairs based on seniority and status, the Repubs do not. So that would mean his chairmanship and ranks would go away. Also, he's the only Democrat that can be elected from that state but nowhere near the only Repub. His entire power derives from that positioning and no one with his level of slimy canniness would give that up.
Very True Wil. Which is why I expect to see every single one of the re-elected Insurrectionists placed prominently on Committees.
I wonder which one will be the selected to erase the J6 investigation.
Linda, it is my understanding that the Jan 6 committee is slated to be done on Dec 31; it was designed that way knowing that the House would most likely flip. This takes away Repubs ability to disband (read: gloat) the committee.
Gym Jordan is my bet.
Great post Will.
The last half of your excellent comment also neatly describes why leaders like Cheney don't switch parties -- no matter how grateful you are for her service on the 9/11 commission, would you ever vote for her in a primary against a more provenly-loyal Democrat?
Also, Cheney is a hard right conservative. She voted with Trump well over 90% of the time, including against voting rights. She applauded the Dobbs decision, and publicly accused Democrats of killing babies. We must remember that at the same time that we applaud her courage and her stand against mob rule.
attempted like
Exactly so.
But, admit it, he's really not a Democrat, is he?
In West Virginia* terms, yes. Just one beholden to the powers that be in KY. That's normal. One thing to keep in mind is that Manchin's position of power only rested on the fact that he emerged from the crowd when Senate was 50/50. With Warnock, Manchin goes back into the crowd and will not have the leverage he did for a while. And will not be able to pull off sweet deals for his wealthy, um, donars.
* Correction supplied by Cheryl Cardran, with my thanks- I had originally typed KY. I should not do things before eating breakfast!
West Virginia
Yes I guess that's a consolation, but to masquerade as a Democrat while kowtowing to the fossil fuel industry is beyond hypocritical. He demonstrates clearly why money should be removed from elections - they should be publicly funded and time-limited.
The switch I'd like to see is Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) declaring herself an independent. Thanks to Ranked-Choice Voting, it's likely that both she and Rep. Mary Peltola (D) will keep their seats. I'm not the only one who's guessing that in the second Senate round, it'll turn out that most of Democrat Pat Chesbro's supporters marked Murkowski as their second choice. If you're not up on RCV, this Alaska NPR story explains how it might play out here. https://alaskapublic.org/2022/11/10/why-peltola-and-murkowski-are-well-situated-to-win-reelection/
Much depends on how much of a bloodbath in-fighting Republicans create on Capitol Hill. It'll be especially wild if it turns out they've lost the House as well as the Senate. In the Senate, the gutless Susan Collins (R-ME) might even develop a backbone, and who knows what the quixotic Mitt Romney (R-UT) might do?
Hope nobody depends on Collins or Romney for well, anythingтАж.
Romney, yes, a more corrupt man one could not find anywhere.
Perfect match for the Republican Party indeed.
His Bain Capital work helped destroyed middle America by purchasing small manufacturing and destroying it.
He was also largely responsible for instituting Commonwealth Care -- state-subsidized health insurance -- when he was governor of Massachusetts. Of course many of us called it RomneyCare. When it came in, ca. 2008, as a freelancer I'd been uninsured for 7 years and seriously underinsured (major medical only) for 15 years before that. It helped keep me afloat until ObamaCare came in.
Except disappointment.
They express their concern well, at least
Sinema is the one being wooed by Repubs
Sinema would not make it out of a MAGA primary. Manchin controls his own destiny where he sits, no need to move. It almost looks weak to switch parties. Manchin is a principled guy, just an old school Blue Dog Democrat and the party left him a bit. Sinema is just an opportunist, unprincipled (big money butt kissing) self-promoting disaster and thus unpredictable. Hopefully she doesn't make it out of the Dem primary.
I think Manchin also sucks up to big money. Principled, you say? Harrumph.
Manchin votes for his personal pocket bookЁЯШа
No one I know in Arizona would ever vote for her again.
Even the ppl who worked on her campaign apparently
Anat Shenker-Osorio suggested on twitter that if Katie Hobbs does win AZ gov, Pres.Biden appoint Sinema as Ambassador to ModCloth.
Should Sinema bolt the party enraged Arizona Democrats could launch a recall campaign that might very well work. I know I would kick in $100 to such a campaign.
Sinema voted to convict Trump, voted to certify election of Biden. Compare that to Kelly's challenger. Sinema would not make it out of primary unless GOP starts taking anti-psychotic meds.
Me too
Me too!
How's Tulsi Gabbard making out? She couldn't retain her job as a Democrat, so now she's casting lures in Republican waters. Why would a Republican voter in Hawaii ever vote for her over any other Republican? I think she's trying to find out.
Right now I'd say Gabbard is in the political wilderness. She has certainly burned every bridge with the Democrats. Officially an Independent, as a stand-in for Tucker Carlsen on FNN she has thrown in with the MAGA wing of the Republicans whose influence, as indicated by the last election, is on the wane.
I predict a quiet fade to black, maybe shilling for the NRA or selling kitchenware on cable tv.
Arizona rumor is she'll run for re-election as an Independent.
тАЬArizona rumor is she'll run for re-election as an Independent.тАЭ
If she does run as an independent, in the extremely unlikely event she is elected, with which party would she caucus?
Karen, when you say "wooed", do you mean paid off by the Repubs?
Manchin is not going to switch parties and neither is Sinema.
That would be a bitch. But he doesnтАЩt have to go to all that trouble. He will just vote with McConnellтАЩs henchmen.
Would not be a surprise, he is no Dem, except on occasion, which is rare
Yeah, he's a Democrat. There's no litmus test: If you say you're a Democrat and you caucus with the Democrats, you're a Democrat. If he'd been in the Senate in the 1990s, he wouldn't have stood out so much. As it is, I suspect he's giving cover to a few Dems who are also in hock to various unsavory corporate interests but whose seats aren't as secure as Manchin's. They can safely vote for legislation their funders oppose because they know Manchin will block it.
You called it. Asking for only one or two more Senators will leave you short about a dozen to get some things through
Oh, glory
So glad you are writing letters through Vote Forward too. They make it easy and itтАЩs apparently effective. I hope our community will join us and write a bunch more!
I'm there with you.
I've been writing with Postcards to Voters since Doug Jones's Senate run in 2017. PTV is based in Georgia: their first campaign was Jon Ossoff's run for Congress early that year. (Jon lost that one but has gone on to bigger things!) There's time to sign up and become an approved writer -- and rest assured there will be more campaigns after Dec. 6, up and down ballot, all across the country. More info here: https://postcardstovoters.org/.
I wanted to get started right away, so I went to the Post Office in my town and purchased the last of the postcards they had on hand. Hmm, seems like others have the same idea about postcarding! (Not to worry, I've already ordered more)
I order postcard stamps by the roll from the USPS because my (small-town) PO sometimes runs out at the wrong time. :-) I keep a stash of postcards on hand, but mostly I like to make my own with Avery templates. Artistic I am not, but I'm an OK designer if I have an assist.
As soon as I heard the possibility of runoff in Georgia, I went online and ordered postcards through Amazon. They arrived in 2 days. I actually ordered two styles that bulk ran about $7-8 for 100.
Good going, Miselle. I ordered from Amazon, too, yesterday!
Yes. Keep up the good work. Georgia is 31% black, so if turnout is proportionate, we need the standard 90% of the black vote plus 32% of the rest (white, Asian, Latino, etc). ThatтАЩs a tall order in Georgia, even if all the black people who want to vote are allowed to vote. So, a win for Warnock is possible but requires a monumental effort.
It is not really a tall order though. In any other state, Warnock would already be the victor. He needs to win over precisely 0 more voters to win next month. He already outperformed Biden's winning '20 numbers across the state.
I still plan to actively support him, of course. Can't let that slip.
Not in Alaska. ;-) Hard to say what would happen if GA had RCV. Chase Oliver's 2.1% could put either Warnock or Walker over 50%. What would GA Libertarians be most likely to give as their 2nd choice? No idea, but I have a hunch . . .
Not in Texas either.
Not slip at all, please. I'm fairly sure that Trump won in '16 because too many Dems didn't vote, thinking that Clinton was a done deal.
I think that many (Bernie Bros here) refused to vote for Clinton and some others (Clinton haters) either voted RepubliQan or stayed home.
Based on my experience in a blue area of a blue state (MA), I agree. MA is no swing state, but I heard enough stories from PA, WI, MI, and other places to suspect it was a factor there too. In the years since, I've seen quite a few younger people buckle down, get involved in state and local politics, and basically figure out that staying home and pouting can have disastrous results. But I'm taking all the golly-gee-whizzery about Gen Z and younger voters in general with the usual peck of salt.
Make sure there is good turnout in December, or it all goes down the drain.
Monumental effort, yes, but IMO it's more than possible. Runoffs and other special elections require an especially motivated electorate, and it's now looking that control of the Senate will not be in play, since Cortez Masto seems to have pulled it off in NV. That may matter even more to the bankrollers than to the voters, and who knows? Enough voters may take a closer look at Herschel Walker and finally acknowledge what a flawed candidate he is.
I don't share your optimism there. I got into it with my former sergeant who refers to Reverend Warnok as a wife beater. I pointed out one or two worse things that Walker has done, and it made not a speck of difference. These people have jumped the shark.
The poor sergeant is confusing Warnock for Walker--who held a gun to his ex-wife's head. That's the only answer. The poor person is confusing the two....
Wow. Does this sergeant (I hope it's a man) have any evidence? The pastor of the Congregational church in my town, a white woman, was in seminary with Warnock and they've been friends ever since. They preach regularly in each other's pulpits. I've only met him a couple of times, but I know the local minister well enough and I can't believe there's anything to this.
He diid it last time. Biden won in Georgia.
Yes. Can be done. Monumental effort.
Last time I looked, pity the thought, Herschel W. is black also. Complexity, moderated by downright awfulness, falls upon the black community in Georgia. Say it ain't so, say it ain't so. It's absolutely so demented having Walker stand for office. Sly and twisted.
"Sly and twisted" it is, and not all that uncommon -- but IMO they've gone over the top with Walker. Did they (the Trumpers in particular) think they would get away with it? Did they maybe think that pissing off Black and white liberals was going to be fun? (more "owning the libs"?).
Apart from the football hero factor, it's not all that unusual for white racists to elevate Black entertainers and sports figures to show that they're not racist. (Lindsey Graham has been making a fool of himself lately in this regard.) Raphael Warnock is the white racists' worst nightmare: an intelligent, dedicated, articulate, hardworking Black man who was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
I'd love to know more about how GA Republicans settled on and recruited Herschel Walker. There are times when I feel very sorry for the guy.
This is my heart button to you, Susanna!
After my home state (MA), DC is the place I lived the longest. When I first registered to vote, at 18, it was as a member of Julius Hobson's D.C. Statehood Party. ;-) I voted Dem for decades, but I didn't belong to another party till January 2017, when I registered as a Dem so I could accept the position of secretary of my local Dem group.
Excellent, Susanna!
Walker was tтАЩs pick: they go back to the old USFL & WalkerтАЩs tenure w the NJ Generals.
I'm writing as fast as I can for Postcards to Voters. Go Warnock!
Meeee tooooo! Gonna need more stamps tomorrow. :-)
IтАЩm writing too!
IтАЩm doing the same.
Me, too, Chris!
Maybe "reminding" them isn't the right word. Supporting and encouraging them is what I think. And letting them know we have their backs. Go Georgia! Right now you are us.
Thank you, Chris. I will continue to write postcards to Georgia, as well, through Markers For Democracy!
I am picking up my postcards this morning! Our county may not be big but it is very active. There were/are many opportunities to help elect Democrats around the country.
Me, too, Chris!!