Democrats came a couple of points away from turning a traditionally solid republican district blue

[bigtree]

...and all folks can talk about are the faults of the Democratic party?

I can't think of anything more self-defeating than refusing to acknowledge and build on that momentum.

Link to tweet

[delisen]

1. Making them fight for every seat they used to coast into nt

[LonePirate]

2. Close doesn't matter in politics. Moral victories are meaningless unlike actual victories.

No matter how you spin it, Ossoff's loss is a painful one given how much time and money was spent to elect him. Now it's a matter of how dispiriting his loss will be for activists, donors and the party.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

3. It's disappointing not to win to be sure

but this wasn't particularly Democrat-friendly territory either. Ossoff- or another strong Democrat- could theoretically try again in a year, when Handel has a record they can attack, including possibly a vote for AHCA. We had momentum. Let's build on it for next time. If we just give up and throw our hands up at every little setback, then we might as well disband the Party and let the Republicans rule unopposed.

[LonePirate]

5. This was not a little setback. This was a major effort by the left that resulted in nothing.

The KS-04 loss was a minor setback. The GA-06 loss has the potential for major ramifications as I think people will give up and donors will start closing their wallets. Sports teams that continue to lose don't sell tickets and pack stadiums. Politics is the same way.

[bigtree]

6. that seat was inconsequential to Democrats taking back the House

...but it demonstrated momentum that we will need in other races.


Most of those are much more favorable than this republican district which, before yesterday, was producing 20+ point margins of victory for republican candidates.




twitter.com/kimmie8264/status/877512081142149123

[LonePirate]

8. You're wrong. The seat was a proof of concept race that failed.

The seat was a well-educated, urban/suburban seat with a booming economy, a highly energized Democratic base and favorable demographic trends. None of that mattered and the proof of concept failed. That is going to have consequences.

[bigtree]

9. lots of experts disagree with you

...and I'm done with navel-gazing defeatism.

Twenty-three point victory for the republican (in 2016) who preceded her, squandered down to a few points, a solid republican seat in a previously safe republican district almost lost to a liberal Dem.

That's the story here, not this reality-warping, doomsday nonsense about failure.

[LonePirate]

11. No, the story will be the donors closing their wallets in future races due to a lack of victories.

We have to win districts like GA-06 if we want to regain control in DC and start repairing the damage being done. This is now considerably more difficult as donations are going to drop and activist enthusiasm is going to wane. That's simple realism whether you choose to embrace it or not.

[bigtree]

12. that's nonsense

...president of Emily's List:

Link to tweet

[LonePirate]

14. Time will tell but facts/truths like that no longer matter in politics.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

7. But it wasn't going to be an easy district for a Democrat to win in the first place

If anything, the narrower-than-expected loss should encourage Democrats to work harder next time and the next time.......until we eventually win. If we give up now, Handel wins re-election next year and probably for as long as she wants to keep the seat. We should not make it easy for her (or any Republican) to win.

[bigtree]

4. activists, donors and the party

...are (should be) smart enough to recognize progress and capitalize on it.

We didn't need this seat to take back the House. In reality, a win would have given encouragement in about 80 races. This close loss gives encouragement in about 40 less contentious and Dem advantaged ones.

[themaguffin]

10. Price won by +20. R's have held the district since the 70s.

[NCTraveler]

18. "Moral victories" "Close doesn't matter in politics" Empty slogans.

This election was a positive trend recognized by all. It shouldn't be dismissed. No one is saying we won. Yet there are people, such as yourself, who are dismissing all else. Ignoring a double digit swing in politics is just foolish. I guarantee Republicans aren't ignoring it as you are.

"Now it's a matter of how dispiriting his loss will be for activists, donors and the party."

Then maybe those acting as if this election were doomsday should get their heads out of their asses. They are the ones making this clearly positive trend out to be demoralizing. Their efforts are transparent.

[octoberlib]

13. According to Harry Enten this shift is enough to take back the House in 2018

even though we didn't win these special elections.




Democrats should be paying attention what happened in South Carolina. In the lead up to the election, FiveThirtyEight’s Harry Enten put it this way:

The closer Norman comes to beating Parnell by 19 points (or more) — the default partisan lean of the district — the better for the Republican Party. A Parnell loss in the low double digits, by contrast, would be consistent with a national shift big enough for Democrats to win the House.
Democratic contender Archie Parnell lost by only 3.2 points, in a surprisingly close race. By contrast, in 2016, Mulvaney carried the district by 20 points and Trump beat Hillary Clinton by 18.5 points.



https://www.vox.com/2017/6/21/15844370/south-carolina-election-republican-ralph-norman

[NurseJackie]

15. So tell me... WHY ARE SOME HERE acting as if it was a "swing" district?

[SaschaHM]

17. Posting on DU doesn't make people as politically adept as they think it does.

I stay for the up-to-date information, but where races/political strategy is involved, I've seen so much nonsense that outside of a few posters, I just dismiss most things.

[NurseJackie]

21. That's a very wise thing to do, SaschaHM!

==============================
"17. Posting on DU doesn't make people as politically adept as they think it does."
==============================

That's one of the most astute things I've read today. With regard to the posts with false information, and misleading information, and mischaracterization of facts, and the departure from reality ... they all appear to be coming from individuals (or groups and cliques) with an axe to grind... or something to prove.

And I'm not talking only about what can be seen here. It's everywhere. It's weird.

[treestar]

16. There's even a thread suggesting we could have found a

better candidate!!! The drama DUers can sometimes make!

[leftstreet]

19. Maybe one who actually lived in the district n/t

[NurseJackie]

22. LOL

[Honeycombe8]

25. If someone on DU thinks that, you can bet that plenty of voters in the district thought that.

Having a mindset of not accepting criticism or of not acknowledging where an election went wrong, is not helpful to winning in the future. It would just be more of the same ol', same ol'. Which means losing more than winning.

It matters if a candidate lives in the district he wants to represent. It matters if he puts his wife's wish to walk to work above the needs of the citizens in the district he wants to represent. It matters if he doesn't have hobbies similar to those of the citizens in the district. A rep of a district is "one of us." That's just a no-brainer.

It would have been better to have someone who'd lived there only a few years....as long as he lived there.

He might have lost, anyway. But living amongst those he wanted to represent would have made at least some positive difference.

[NurseJackie]

31. LOL! (And if a frog had wings he wouldn't bump his butt so much.)

The woulda shoulda coulda's around here seem to be obsessively focusing on the minutiae in an attempt to elevate it to something of GRAND importance (which it's not) in an effort to justify some sort of desire to say "told-ya-so" without actually saying the words.

The next thing you'll here is that if he'd only been MORE liberal... a Liberal's-Liberal... a far-far-left-Liberal... he would have done better in this very-red and not-even-close-to-being-a-swing-district election. (Oh, wait, never mind. They're already saying that! LOL!)

(EXCERPT) ==============================
"Having a mindset of not accepting criticism or of not acknowledging where an election went wrong, is not helpful to winning in the future. It would just be more of the same ol', same ol'. Which means losing more than winning."
============================== (END EXCERPT)
LOL! I guess that's one way to justify nitpicking. Have at it! Enjoy yourselves (for all the good it'll do).

[Honeycombe8]

33. I never said "told ya so." I had no idea who would win. A party either learns from mistakes,

or it doesn't.

People offering opinions of what they saw or see are, in fact, offering help & insight. That's better than ra-ra, who knows why we lost? The latter isn't helpful to winning the next election.

For the next one, it's best if the candidate lives in the district. That is a pretty big deal.

Ossoff had a decent number at the end. It equaled Hillary's. Trump won that district by only 1%. So he didn't do better than HRC, even after all we have seen about Trump and the administration.

What does that tell us? That Trump doesn't matter much in some districts....it depends on the specific candidates.

It's not very good that he was unable to get better numbers than HRC. That district was already poised to vote 48% for a Democrat...any Democrat. Since it had already done so. So contrary to some who are saying that the Repubs had to really fight to win, it actually played out pretty much the same way as November 8th. Meaning that no advance was made. That's worthy of studying, to see why not. What went wrong. The Dems should have made some headway, given the awful state in the country.

This is a serious discussion on how to change from losses to wins. This is not a game or a funsie pasttime.

[NurseJackie]

34. LOL ... You didn't have to. It was understood.

================================
"That's better than ra-ra, who knows why we lost? "
================================
No intelligent and realistic person is saying "rah-rah". People who live in the real world are entirely aware of why we lost.

================================
"For the next one, it's best if the candidate lives in the district. That is a pretty big deal."
================================
Nitpicking irrelevant minutiae. Any voter who admitted that residency was what influenced their final vote would have never voted for him anyway.

================================
"That district was already poised to vote 48% for a Democrat...any Democrat. Since it had already done so. "
================================
False analogy.

================================
"This is not a game or a funsie pasttime."
================================
Not a game? Not a pastime? Tell that to the people who think this is an excuse to smear Democrats and denigrate the Democratic Party. You know the ones I'm talking about. The ones taking cheap shots, throwing insults, scoring points, bellowing recriminations, and pretending like Georgia's Sixth was a purple swing-district (which it WASN'T).

[Honeycombe8]

43. Actually, YOU think a Sanders candidate would have fared better. I don't.

I stated in one of my posts that seems to me the best way to get a Dem elected in a Repub area is to run a Blue Dog Democrat, since it's not THAT far from a moderate Republican.

I voted for HRC, BTW.

What ARE you arguing about? Why? What's your problem?

[NurseJackie]

44. HA!!!! LOL!!!!!!!

======================================
"43. Actually, YOU think a Sanders candidate would have fared better."
======================================

Not a chance in million years! Ha! LOL! That's funny!

======================================
"I voted for HRC, BTW."
======================================
Okay-y-y-y.

[treestar]

37. I thought that too

Bit apparently he grew up in the district and his fiancée is in college where they live

[Honeycombe8]

20. They lost 3 out of 3 elections this year. There's no sugar coating that.

Esp in a time where we're going through the worst President in the nation's history, who is under investigation for obstruction of justice, collusion with a foreign govt to hack the election, and money laundering, and who lies every time he opens his mouth, and who many think may have a mental problem. And this GA district was one where Trump barely eeked out a win, with 1%.

It's time for the Dem leadership to get together & figure out what went wrong in each of those elections, or 2018 will be ugly. We NEED to win seats in 2018.

[bigtree]

23. the other side

...is that in each of those contests republicans were forced to spend millions defending reliably safe seats where their victory margins were in the 20's just a year ago.

As numerous observers are pointing out today, there are nearly 80 seats in contest in 2018 which are more blue that GA 6.

It's not too hard a concept. Those elections were in previously reliable republican districts. The result was an astounding shrinkage of that republican margin.

Link to tweet

[Honeycombe8]

24. Yes, it doesn't spell a death knell for 2018, but the GA district was not a Trump one.

HRC got about 48% there. Trump won by 1%. That should have been a win by the Dems, esp against an unlikable candidate like Handel (the 1st woman rep GA elected, I think?).

A loss is a loss. Those lost elections should be studied to determine what went wrong, for the use in 2018.

[bigtree]

26. republicans don't care if their candidate is unlikable (likely our own standard)

...and there's much more to this election than a loss by a liberal Dem in Georgia.

[still_one]

27. That is absolutely right.

[samnsara]

28. im so proud of us Dems! we kept it clean and honest and we ARE resisting!!!...

...make the gop fight for every contest!

[mopinko]

29. one of the reasons that the party has shrunk in recent years

is that we have NOT fought these uphill battles. we have simply abandoned the field in gerrymandered districts everywhere.
that is the difference between the 50 state strategy and rahm's go along to get along philosophy. taking our marbles, and going home.

i think this leaves us looking like cowards. it lets the red get deeper and deeper.
getting on the field, and fighting the good fight is what this party needs to do.
and in this case we did. we drained away money that they did not think they would have to spend. and we did it w the small dollars of the base. that has got to strike some fear into those fat cats.
perhaps next time it will be the fat cats that concede the field.

[bigtree]

30. that's a very good point

...we have to project our influence nationwide, not just narrowly targeting 'safe' districts, but generating a movement of Democrats across the country.

I'm not sure some folks here understand what goes into creating political momentum to overturn a majority.

[haele]

39. I think a lot of folks here think the Tea Party sprang from nothing.

The Tea Party was the result of more than a 20 year concerted effort to socially engineer the "middle class" workforce and professional *white* population via the Evangelical movement and Talk Radio.
Think Falwell, Powell, Atwater...
They understood identity politics and mob intelligence. If you separate out a particular demographic and identify them as "normal", you can then use FUD to make any appearance of deviation from the norm something that is dangerous and will take away their "rights" and status, then you've inoculated yourself from being the bad guy when their rights do get taken away and you benefit from that...
So the Republican Party co-opted Religion and neutered news and information to create "information". And used those agencies to separate the white "Working Middle Class" Christians from the rest of the country with a long, concerted "Us vs Them" faux Tough Love campaign. The fact that this demographic is still a majority is the primary reason it was imperative that they could capture as many as they could.

It is not profitable to the 1% reinter/Disaster Capitalists - those who make their easy money off other people's efforts and investments - to promote the "U.S. means Us - everyone's a Citizen" way of Democratic thinking.

Haele

[haele]

32. Politics is local...and local politics requires an investment of time and effort.

If I were a Party Strategist, I would be paying attention to patterns of near losses in opposition strongholds. Those are signals that there is socially driven uncertainty in supposedly safe areas everywhere, and the location can be flipped within a few election cycles.

If politics went the way the National strategists planned, Bush 41 should have won his second term; likewise, the GOP was certain they were going to "own" the House in 1984, and concentrated on the Presidency more than they paid attention to districts, where the local Dems rallied to hold on to seats.

Locally - San Diego was supposed to be a safe GOP enclave back in the 1990's/early 2000's. The GOP strategists were sure that they would own the city and county for at least the next hundred years, because "Development", "The Military", The Pacific Economic/Globalization Zone", and of course they believed that "Democrats are Childish Snowflakes who can't take Responsibility or Make Enough Money to be Taken Seriously."

But now, the City is majority Democratic - true, our mayor is currently a Republican, but that's because his policies are aligned with those of a Moderate Democratic platform (i.e., tax to invest and community sustainability) - and the city got badly burned by the previously liberal firebrand Bob Filner (D - dementia) when he was elected.
And the local city/county GOP party has lately had to seriously moderate from the party platform; only the diminishing Klan strongholds in the county (East County/North County rural) are able to run on the current national GOP policies.

Issa is on his way out.
Hunter (Jr.) needs to stop taking his district demographics for granted; the old Christian White guard is being replaced by refugee communities and Millennials looking for less expensive places to live and start businesses, and in 10 years, it might well go Blue.

Long term strategies work if you keep to them.

So...We need to keep contesting in all 50 states, and we need to ensure that local Democrats understand they are part of a Democratic Coalition, rather than putting Party Purity in the forefront and losing locals who have concerns that they aren't being listened to.

The GOP has it easy. They've sold themselves body and Soul to the Church of Mammon where everyone sings from the same Fascist songbooKKK.
While 60% of the GOP base would gladly sacrifice themselves and their families just to get a pat on the head by the elite of that Church, there's still 40% who are sitting in the pews because they feel they're not being listened to by the Democrats, and frankly - they're willing to be used if it seems as if the opposition is listening to them. Even though the GOP is only "listening" to them in the sense that they're the right color and religious background to be accorded some modicum of respect.
They may be selfish or co-dependent, but they will listen to someone * talking directly with them * if they can be provided with a better option.

The Democrats must be able to work within their locales to build trust and coalitions. They need to be able to say to their local populations - "we might not see eye to eye on personal opinions, but we can still work together to help things get better for everyone, instead of tearing apart three quarters of the county just to make one quarter feel better."

Ossoff came close to taking Handel, a typical GOP party hack running in a GOP stronghold where the "R" after the name should get a minimum of 60% of the vote. That should be enough for the GOP in Georgia to start reaching for the Pepto.

Haele

[mopinko]

38. reaching for the pepto, indeed. victory enough, i say.

hopefully the people there who are woke will stay woke, and not get discouraged.
also hope they will turn their passion on local and statewide elections. if we dont take back the statehouses, we will be gerrymandered out of existence.

[octoberlib]

36. Excellent point. +1

[jcmaine72]

35. I once came within two numbers of winning the lottery. Wanna know what that amounts to....

....squat.

We need to actually start winning some of these elections. We need to fire with fire.

[L. Coyote]

40. K & R

Link to tweet

[madville]

41. This district will swing back to R 10+ in 2018

There won't be $50 million campaign budget in 2018 or 1% of the national media attention on it. I'm impressed he got to within 5% but that was with everything "all in", I would expect Handel to win by 10% in 2018, which is still underwhelming compared to Price's recent elections in the same district.

[bigtree]

42. well

...remember, there won't be massive republican dollars and focus on this district in 2018.

There will be a Democratic wave in 2018 which has the potential to impact Ga., as well.

Link to tweet