Howard Dean: Democrats Will Retake Congress in 2018 if GOP Passes Obamacare Repeal

[DonViejo]

Source: U.S. News & World Report




Dean says he believes his party will retake both chambers of Congress if the Republicans pass their health care plan.

By David Catanese, Senior Politics Writer | July 6, 2017, at 3:19 p.m.

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean says he believes Democrats will "absolutely" win the U.S. Senate back in 2018 if Republicans pass their health care bill that repeals Obamacare. And the 2004 Democratic candidate for president thinks the GOP's already lost the House.

"I actually think we're going to win the Senate back and the House," Dean told U.S. News in an interview Thursday. "There's no one in Washington who agrees with me. But if they pass this bill, I have no doubts about my prediction whatsoever. It'll be a wave. A wave is a wave. And if they're really mad, they're going to do something different."

Those bold forecasts come a full 16 months before the congressional midterm elections, in which Democrats will need to net 24 seats to flip the House and three seats to capture the Senate.

Even given the volatile political environment and President Donald Trump's sagging popularity, it's a daunting task for the minority party given the number of gerrymandered House districts and Senate Democrats in red states facing re-election.

Read more: https://www.usnews.com/news/the-run/articles/2017-07-06/howard-dean-democrats-will-retake-congress-in-2018-if-gop-passes-obamacare-repeal?src=usn_run2016

[Me.]

1. Lips To God's Ears HD

[FakeNoose]

18. Yes but why is he putting a qualifier on it?

We should take the SENATE and the HOUSE in any case, even if they don't repeal Obamacare.

It's do or die friends! There's no going back and we can't wait until 2020 either.

[BumRushDaShow]

2. A DUer can only dream. Sigh. nt

[IronLionZion]

3. Maybe if we still kept his 50 state strategy

and competed in local and state elections everywhere to seed Democrats who know their local constituents and issues and can run a strong race for the US congress and Senate.

https://www.democrats.org/page/run-for-office

[elleng]

5. IF!

[Alice11111]

12. Got that right...IF

[Dave Starsky]

14. "If ifs, ands, and buts were candy and nuts...

"We'd all have a Merry Christmas."

-- "Dandy" Don Meredith.

[janx]

17. You don't know how many times I've thought about that.

The DFA model was so successful. What happened? (Rhetorical question.)

[IronLionZion]

24. Democrats like to lose apparently, be martyrs or something

Being a Democrat in many parts of this country can feel like masochism

I got a fundraising call last night from a DCCC worker who felt very exasperated with the lack of enthusiasm on our side while the other side throws millions off of their health plans and destroys our country

[Eliot Rosewater]

4. Maybe, maybe not. Koch bros and others will pour so much money into the races

10-1 vs democrats, and money buys fear and stupidity.

[Wellstone ruled]

8. Pretty much the formula since 2000.

[Eliot Rosewater]

9. Plus make sure and put anti gay bills on the ballot to get the real dumb ones

out to vote in midterms.

[Alice11111]

13. Don't forget outlaw full term abortions, as if they were

ever legal, but they manage some gloriously repulsive new versions.

[Wellstone ruled]

25. We just had a City Council Election.

Here is a number most will just say,what. Only 8% turn out,and in my Ward,a Gun Humper won by less than a hundred votes. All she did was target our community knowing it is mostly Retired Military and Tea Bagger wanabe's.

During the last Election go a round,we had some seventeen Registered Dems in our Community of thirteen hundred homes,and some fifteen hundred registered Baggers.

There you go.

[Honeycombe8]

6. I hope he's right. nt

[BigmanPigman]

7. Do we have to sacrifice health care to win in 2018? Can't we aim for both?

[frazzled]

10. Yeah, it's a real devil's bargain

I'm a bit in disbelief that people are suggesting they hope the ACA is repealed, so we can win seats. Tell it to people who are deathly ill, or someone with a child needing a kidney transplant. Sheesh.

[BigmanPigman]

11. That's what many people face (myself included). Some won't make it to 2018 to even vote.

[Amaryllis]

15. THey won't unless they deal with the vulnerability of our election infrastructure and with .

Kobach's voter purging with Interstate Crosscheck.

How much testimony to Senate Intel does it required before they take electronic vulnerability seriously?
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029249235

Computer science expert to Senate Intel: voting technology highly hackable, could upgrade by 2018:

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4674512/j-alex-halderman-voting-structure-vulnerable-sabotage-even-attacks-can-change-votes

A computer science professor told the Senate Intelligence Committee Wednesday that voting machines that create an electronic record of the voters' decisions are open to fraud and computer hacking, vulnerabilities that are big enough to potentially change the outcome of some elections.

J. Alex Halderman, professor of computer science at Michigan University, said he and his team began studying "direct-recording electronic" (DRE) voting machines 10 years ago and found that "we could reprogram the machine to invisibly cause any candidate to win. We also created malicious software — vote-stealing code — that could spread from machine-to-machine like a computer virus, and silently change the election outcome."

Halderman's testimony comes as the committee is trying to assess the scope of Russia's attempts to not only spread disinformation in the 2016 elections, but also its efforts to hack into U.S. voting systems.

As a computer science professor, Halderman has not only run academic trials on hacking voting machines, he has also run real-time examples.

"The one instance when I was invited to hack a real voting system while people were watching was in Washington D.C in 2010, and in that instance it took less than 48 hours for us to change all the votes and we were not caught," Halderman said about the experiment.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/computer-expert-some-voting-machines-can-be-directly-hacked/article/2626633

At least he is saying it CAN be upgraded by 2018. At least the Russia hacks are bringing awareness to just how vulnerable our election technology is. Many have been trying to call attention for years...it is good that finally this is coming out in hearings.

It would, however, take the political will of those in power to do it.

[FakeNoose]

19. Yes the voting machines need to be taken out of service immediately

I don't believe that "upgrading" the machines will do anything useful UNLESS they are taken completely offline.
If there's no way for the machines to be in a network (i.e. air-gap every machine) then we have a chance.

But I don't believe that will ever happen as long as the GOP is in charge.
Therefore, go back to paper ballots for now, fix the problems with the machines later, or never.

[TheFrenchRazor]

22. and of course they won't; get ready for the usual expressions of shock, disappointment when we lose

yet again. certainly it will be harder to hack multiple congressional elections than just the presidency, so we will probably pick up a few seats, but the gain will be much smaller than what dems (and the polls) will expect. afterwards we will hear more about "the message," voter turnout, this and that disaffected group, etc. been there and done that.

[Doug the Dem]

16. Quite Possible

But don't bet your life savings on it.

[trueblue2007]

20. i REALLY, REALLY REALLY like Howard Dean.

[physioex]

26. Ask him about Single Payer.....EOM

[AgadorSparticus]

21. I think we will take congress regardless. But if repealed, that will seal their fate for YEARS

[itcfish]

23. Only if they Repeal Obamacare???

That does not say much for the party does it?