Have there been calls for Ossoff, like with Clinton, to accept responsibility for his loss?

[LonePirate]

I'm sure many of us here remember the numerous calls from pundits and some on the left for Hillary to accept responsibility for her loss last November. Have those same people stepped forward asking Ossoff to accept responsibility for his loss yesterday? Did he do this in his concession speech by any chance?

I only ask because there's not a hint of sexism within the Democratic Party, right?

[pirateshipdude]

1. It sure seems like there is an effort to make him the problem. Eom

[Blue_true]

2. Ossoff made unforced errors, like Hillary.

He should have moved to the district before running, even if he grew up there. He should have had aggressive counters to the attempts to tie him to Nancy Pelosi, this is an issue that every Democrat running for the House in 2018 will face.

[Fresh_Start]

3. there are no perfect people, there are no perfect candidates

everyone makes mistakes...
only the democrats hold mistakes against their candidates.
republicans call even deliberate actions by their candidates unimportant.

[Blue_true]

5. I don't hold things against our candidates.

But I do hope future candidates learn from those mistakes and don't repeat them.

[bettyellen]

7. If you hate that he's "tied to Pelosi" you hate Dems. You don't win by backstabbing other Dems...

I thought some of us learned that lesson. Guess not.

[awesomerwb1]

11. Wow. Where did the poster you're responding to say that??? "Hate"?

wtf.

He should have had aggressive counters to the attempts to tie him to Nancy Pelosi, this is an issue that every Democrat running for the House in 2018 will face.

And it's true. I remember watching the debate and that witch basically said Ossoff was a Nancy Pelosi guy with California values or something to that effect and he just stood there quietly. As others have pointed out, he could have said Nancy Pelosi stands for this, and this and this and I agree with her, etc etc.

[bettyellen]

20. Interesting typo "witch" calls him a "Pelosi guy" as if that's an insult.

I guess I'm incapable of buying the RW frame here. I don't agree it hurt him w prospective voters.

[awesomerwb1]

35. I used the word witch to describe Handel

It most definitely was not a typo. Are you serious?

I said quote: I remember watching the debate and that witch basically said Ossoff was a Nancy Pelosi guy.

Wow. Please work on your reading comprehension skills.

[bettyellen]

39. Witch for which? WOW is right.

[awesomerwb1]

45. LOL Are you serious?

One more time, typing it slower this time

I said quote: I remember watching the debate and -that witch- basically said Ossoff was a Nancy Pelosi guy.

Don't think there's anything wrong with how I structured that sentence to call Handel a witch. NO TYPO.

But if you think "I remember watching the debate and -that which- basically said Ossoff was a Nancy Pelosi guy" fits your needs better, then more power to you.

Man, this is hilarious.

Hav nise deyy pleese

[Blue_true]

12. Did you read what I wrote?

Republicans tied him to Pelosi, whether she deserved that or not. Ossoff did not have an effective comeback. Republicans will keep tying out candidates to Pelosi in plus republican districts until our candidates put an end to that by destroying the republican candidate that tries it.

[bettyellen]

21. I reject the argument that ties to Pelosi are negative. Weird seeing this here.

[leftstreet]

52. Why did it work with voters though?

I don't think it was Pelosi personally. I think it was the 'San Francisco values' thing and she made a logical target

The GOPers don't waste money on ads that don't work

[bettyellen]

54. Are you asking why Ossoff got a higher turnout than any Dem in twenty plus years?

I think this is an excuse for people to push through their personal schtick as THE reason Dems didn't win.
It ignores the realities on the ground. The populist suggestions are just knee jerk at this point.

[golfguru]

34. Do you see hate behind every tree and

every bush? Since when is constructive criticism became hate? The poster never said anything hateful about Nancy Pelosi. But you saw hate in the posters words? The poster was just wondering why there was no push back from Ossoff when the Handel campaign made that an issue.

Amazing!

[bettyellen]

41. I see a bizarre disavowal of Democratic leadership is being promoted for most candidates....

So perhaps hate was too strong- but it's sure not kind, or I think smart to run away from the leadership. I don't agree that Pelosi is some sort of pariah hurting any candidate. The GOP will tee up any Dem that powerful to be scuttled next. The answer is not buying into their narrative and ditching them.

[Progressive dog]

13. Nancy Pelosi is a Democratic leader,

elected multiple times by the Democratic members of the House. If you are running for the House as a Democrat, you are going to and should be tied to Nancy Pelosi. If this is not acceptable to a candidate, tough.

[EL34x4]

16. I don't think where he lived hurt him. He was still a hometown boy.

It's not like he was some out-of-state carpetbagger who leased an empty studio apartment. He knew the people.

Honestly, I think what might have hurt him were all the Hollywood endorsements. This is what made Ossoff look like an outsider. Sometimes I think it would be best if movie stars just wrote checks and kept quiet.

[LenaBaby61]

44. Ossoff grew up IN the district ....

And ONLY lived a few miles outside of it. The pig woman didn't grow up there. She only moved there to be with her husband. She got the benefits of having an R behind her name, and the "good" folks of Cobb County went R in an R district. Point blank period.

I can't wrap myself around the fact that people thought Ossoff should come in and just beat the socks off the pig. She had an R behind her name, right-winged Cobb County pulled her over the line, plus that district was drawn up just for thuglicans +9. Now, if she came into where I live and won there (Los Angeles County) that would be the motha of all upsets.

As for Pelosi, people wanting to see new leadership is one thing. But, she's responsible for the ACA passage, but she needs to leave because thuglicans hate her and call her a Liberal? You don't see thuglicans running from Mitch or Lyin' Ryan. They're defending tRumputin, and he's 1,000 times worse than Pelosi will EVER be. WE can't pick who they have as their leadership, so why be scared of them and allow them to pick ours just because they run ads against her? They demonized Kamala Harris. I've seen MANY thuglicans calling her a hysterical lefty, because she DARED question beauguard who LIED like a rug to her--He wouldn't answer her questions. Should Kamala leave the US Senate because snowflake thuglicans think she's A HYSTERICAL WOMAN (Oh, and black on top of that)? John McCain is getting OLD, did you see HIS questioning of James Comey? He called Comey Pres. Comey and somehow bought Hillary into his questioning of Comey and I believe he called her Pres. Clinton. Dems merely chuckled at him, yet thuglicans were STILL beating up on Kamala though. NOPE, they wouldn't allow US to say that McCain needs to get the hell out of the Senate. Dems don't know how to frame a narrative against thuglicans--Dems ran from the word Liberal, and have been running for over 25 years. Yet, we can't frame a narrative against those right-winged, murderous, jack-booted fools? And that's what you ARE if you're going to vote in the dark to take away health care from 23 million people in SECRET--and some of whom will DIE without health care--just so you can then turn around and give that billion in savings from health care to the richest 1% who don't need it.

thuglicans will demonize ANYBODY who the Dems puts up as leadership. We either give it right back to them, or we crawl away and die AND allow them to dictate WHO our leadership is because who we choose is too Liberal for THEM. An asshole like Mitch McConnell is NOT demonized ENOUGH!

[La Lioness Priyanka]

4. It's pelosi's fault he lost, and there is nothing sexist about that.

Nothing at all.

[mercuryblues]

6. +1

[Blue_true]

15. No, it is not her fault. It was Ossoff's problem that he did not bat that down.

Ultimately Ossoff would have represented the Georgia 6th district and voters there, that had nothing to do with Nancy Pelosi, Ossoff did not make that clear.

[athena]

47. I think you missed the "sarcasm" tag.

It's amazing that Nancy Pelosi is actually getting blamed for Ossoff's loss.

No, he should not have tried to distance himself from Nancy Pelosi, who is a proud Democrat and a great leader. Democrats always lose when they try to distance themselves from the Democratic Party.

[AngryAmish]

8. Of course not, he is not a woman.

[delisen]

9. Some armchair "he should uhs" but not the demand for a shaming ritual

which greeted the female candidate.

In Baptist churches in the south, unmarried teen girls who got pregnant used to have to stand up in in church holding their newborns and apologize to the membership.

The unmarried fathers were exempt.

[Thinkingabout]

10. Let's look at the facts here, this is a heavy republican district, was Gingrich and Price's district

there are still lots of republicans in the district, lets give credit to Ossoff and his campaign team for the good job they did. We tried to sneak a seat out of the four but we did not get one, trump and team selected to move people out of districts which were safe republican districts.

[jonno99]

42. * This * nt

[Cattledog]

14. We are not apologizing for shit down here.

And Hillary doesn't need to apologize either.

[karynnj]

17. Yes - there were threads he was weak and second guessing being outside the district

Both things suggesting someone else could have won.

One BIG difference. From about the time HRC stepped down as SoS, it was assumed that it was her race to lose. Every election lost has monday morning quarterbacking and I suspect that how much is most correlated to the degree of confidence we had in winning. In Ossoff's case, the fact that he did far better than could have been expected in the first round, means people here put their hearts into him winning. Same with Hillary.

[Trial_By_Fire]

18. Has Ossoff said why he loss? Or blame others for his loss?

[pnwmom]

23. Hillary answered questions that were asked of her. Has anyone been asking Ossof

similar questions? Doubtful.

[zipplewrath]

19. Yes

His mistakes have been listed as:

1) Not living in the district

2) Not connecting her to Trump enough

3) Being too centrist.

So your point is?

[pnwmom]

24. Being too centrist -- in a red district!

Yeah, right, he'd have done so much better if he'd run as a liberal Democrat.

[zipplewrath]

32. No worse outcome

Yeah, I don't think running to the left was gonna win anything. But I don't think anything with a D in their name was gonna win. I find all 3 explanations a bit wanting from the standpoint of "if this one thing changed" aspect.

[pnwmom]

33. He could have lost by 23 points, like the last Dem. That would have been worse.

As it is, he's added to the evidence that the Dems are strongly outpolling expectations, and this should put us in a very good position for winning swing districts in 2018.

[zipplewrath]

38. A loss is a loss

And I'm not sure that his race especially, considering all the money that was spent, is indicative of much except that if you can generate 50 million in campaign cash, you can create a close race in a house seat in a runoff race.

[pnwmom]

40. No. A close loss for a Democrat in a heavily red district in a heavily red state

is a sign that the Rethugs ought to be worrying about 2018.

We never would have expected to win this race, if Ossoff hadn't won a plurality in the first election. But Handel had 11 opponents in that election to lower her vote count. In this runoff they all joined together and Ossoff's plurality wasn't enough to defeat them.

[zipplewrath]

56. I'll wait for the evidence

You'd have a hard time demonstrating that a race in June of 2017 means squat for a race in November of 2018.

[pnwmom]

57. The non-partisan Cook Report provides some.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/06/21/dont-get-demoralized-by-the-big-georgia-loss-democrats/?utm_term=.9e214f6a2875

But still, the last thing Democrats should do right now is allow this loss — Ossoff fell short by just under 4 points — to demoralize them. . . .

Instead, let’s hope Democrats take a different message from this year’s special elections: The House is very much in play in 2018.

First, there’s the numbers-based case for the House being in play. That is made in a good piece by Dave Wasserman of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, who is very much not given to fluffing Democrats’ chances when that’s unwarranted. Wasserman points out that Ossoff’s loss showed that he outperformed the district’s partisan lean by 6 points. (That partisan lean is calculated with a metric known as the Partisan Voter Index, which measures how each party should perform in each district by measuring the last two presidential vote spreads relative to the nation as a whole.) More to the point, Wasserman notes that Democratic candidates have outperformed their district’s partisan makeup in all five special elections this year, by an average of 8 points:

"If Democrats were to outperform their “generic” share by eight points across the board in November 2018, they would pick up 80 seats. Of course, that won’t happen because Republican incumbents will be tougher to dislodge than special election nominees. But these results fit a pattern that should still worry GOP incumbents everywhere, regardless of Trump’s national approval rating and the outcome of the healthcare debate in Congress."

[zipplewrath]

58. only 10% of seats are "competitive"

" Of course, that won’t happen because Republican incumbents will be tougher to dislodge than special election nominees. "

And we've lost every single special election. So where is the good news?

It's been calculated that there are only 10% of seats in the House that are particularly competitive. That'd be about 40 seats. We'd need more than half of those. And we couldn't lose any either. The only thing I think that is going to "worry" the GOP is if they are going to get primaried. And I don't think the democrats can do much about that.

[pnwmom]

59. This report said that with the kind of margins we've been having 80 seats

could be flipped.

And yes, they acknowledge that it will be harder in the general, but we're still in a good position.

I don't see how your pessimism does anyone any good. Optimism motivates people to work hard toward a goal. Pessimism makes them give up.

NONE OF US SHOULD BE GIVING UP.

[zipplewrath]

60. Achievable goals

How about naming the 80 seats that could be flipped? Optimism without achievable goals is not only pointless, but counterproductive and can actually distract people from what could be achievable.

We've got a healthcare bill to defeat. And if we don't we're going to need to do alot of messaging in general in hopes of getting the GOP to modify it.

[Blueplanet]

55. Ossoff was engaged, but not married

Georgia is a deeply red state and very religious. They do not cotten to those who live together without benefit of marriage.

If he had been married, he would have easily gained another 5,000 votes.

[JHan]

31. "being too centrist" - please read this post from someone who actually lives in GA:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=9233816

[zipplewrath]

37. I didn't make the argument

Look, I didn't make the arguments, I summarized existing ones. The OP asked if their had been criticism and I answered. I personally suspect no one with a D after their name could have won.

[PatsFan87]

22. I'd be interested to see what he decided to spend all that money on.

[pnwmom]

26. Ads. He was a complete unknown, unlike Handel, the former Secretary of State

and politician since 2003.

[Iggo]

25. Yes, there have.

[samnsara]

27. nope..they switched their outrage to nancy pelosi! sos

[tazkcmo]

28. Because it's exactly the same.

No difference except for a Democratic incumbent in the WH, Sec Clinton actually living in the place she wants to represent and a local versus national election. Exactly alike.

[mythology]

29. Ossoff didn't have as glaring an unforced error like Clinton's email server

And Ossoff wasn't running against an utter idiot with the presumption (undeserved) that the election should have been won going away.

[bettyellen]

43. The most secure server of any pol in 2016? LOL. Anyone who didn't shoot that crap down last year....

Played into their hands. No one actually cares about the emails.

[BeyondGeography]

30. False equivalency

It's not just an MSM thing anymore.

[L. Coyote]

36. Have there been calls for Ossoff to accept responsibility for his great showing?

[athena]

48. Have there been calls for HRC to accept responsibility for winning the popular vote?

No, all I remember is people attacking her, both before and after the election.

[MichMan]

49. I don't think it was very smart to live outside the district

While I don't know how much of a difference it would have made, he should have moved several miles to be inside the district. That would have made it a non issue.

This was a big time election with a lot of implications; there was no reason for this situation to even become a distraction. Was it anything other than apparently his own stubbornness?

[Vinca]

50. No offense, but we really don't have time for wheel spinning like this.

He did, she did, he didn't, she didn't . . . in the end it doesn't matter one iota either way.

[RadiationTherapy]

51. The scale is off here as are the demographics of the electorate. This is a false equivalency.

[Squinch]

53. Don't be silly. He has a penis We only require ridiculous self-immolation from the penis-less.

[melman]

61. So here we have a thread where everybody's angry that he's not being blamed

and over here https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=9237154 we have a thread where everybody's angry that he *is* being blamed.

Fantastic.