Showing posts with label monday morning quarterbacking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label monday morning quarterbacking. Show all posts

Sunday, November 9, 2014

The Nonsensical Election of 2014

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Many people in the U.S. and around the world are still struggling to understand why a Midterm Election in which only 36% of voters bothered to show up at the polls is being taken as a "Mandate" by the nutty Republicans. If this is just a typical midterm election, then why does it feel as if we've really gone down the rabbit hole this time?

Maybe it's the obvious gloating of the Tea Partiers, who should realize how marginalized they are according to every demographic number, but who thought President Obama should just surrender and impeach himself the day after the election. I guess the fact that Cuckoo-For-Cocoa-Puffs candidates will soon pour into both houses of Congress is giving them the "audacity of hope" that their draconian views are the norm. Why shouldn't they gloat? They turned out the vote, and the Democrats failed miserably.



Maybe we are just outnumbered by the stupids in this country, and we need to accept that.

While cool heads are saying this election was a quirk of red-state geography, gerrymandering, and local elections that pushed hot-button issues, that's no solace to those who voted Blue in a Red State. For instance, in Tennessee it is a fact that a new constitutional amendment to make abortions harder to get failed in the four major cities, thanks to Blue voters. However, it was passed almost as a landslide statewide as if those cities and their Democratic voters didn't even exist. And therein lies a sad truth about why turn-out is so low among Dems in red states - our votes get canceled out, and that leads to voter malaise and low turnout.



We also suffered in Tennessee from a wealthy scandal-proof fence-rider of a Republican governor whose only Democratic opposition was some unknown doofus named, I kid you not, "Charlie Brown." Behold, our state Democratic Party in action. Red state Dems are like orphans in the wilderness these days, and we are outnumbered by crazies.





Same thing in Texas where candidates like Wendy Davis and Letitia Van de Putte couldn't overcome the basic sexism of aging white ranchers, oil men, and the loony misogynist Christians who turned out to vote. What's more astonishing is that women turned out to vote against women candidates too. Another mystery of this election. Where were the "majority" of Dem and Independent women, and why didn't they care?

And then there was Kansas, allegedly a state where the Tea Party had turned their economy upside down, so they were ready to clean house starting with Governor Sam Brownback. Also, Independent Greg Orman was supposed to handily beat the incumbent Senator Pat Roberts, then caucus with the Dems. Except that none of that happened. The polls were all wrong. The people voted for Brownback as if everything was just okey dokey with them. And their absentee Senator, who doesn't even live in Kansas anymore, was re-elected in a landslide. Go figure.

My husband said no one should be suprised that a red state stayed red, but what was all that reporting about? How could everyone be so wrong this time?









Maybe it was delusional on the Dems' part to think states like Georgia or Kentucky - or Texas, a longshot - could be blue in this election, that they would elect a Michelle Nunn or an Alison Lundergan Grimes. But it's just as mysterious that Kentucky re-elected an unpopular guy like Mitch McConnell, while keeping their blue Governor and State Legislature. The popularity of Governors like John Kasich in Ohio, Rick Scott in Florida, and Scott Walker in Wisconsin is a conundrum that cannot be explained easily. Those states had huge "get out the vote" movements, and actually have real Democratic Parties, unlike in Tennessee. Yet it all seemed to make no difference in the end, and I'm sure their Dem voters feel just as puzzled as ever.



Many say that Democratic candidates failed because they "ran away from the President" and from the victory that is Obamacare. But to those of us in Red States who understand swing voters, it seemed logical that the candidates wouldn't want to draw too much attention to Obama or to the unpopular idea of ACA. I think it was a lose-lose situation - damned if they did, damned if they didn't.

Maybe history will explain this election, if we live long enough. Or we can just blame the black President like most of the media. If it really is that simple, and that racist, I just don't want to know.

Maybe we Dems just had too much hope, and got ahead of ourselves, and now we are turning on ourselves and playing the blame game. The fall-out in the Democratic party is already happening. There are calls to throw out Harry Reid as Senate Minority Leader, and toss Debbie Wasserman-Schultz as head of the Democratic Party. The head of the DCCC, Steve Israel, resigned a few days after the election.

All this blaming and firing won't really help us understand the Midterm from Hell, but I guess it will seem like progress. Meanwhile, most Dems are taking time off from the internet, watching Netflix, listening to soothing music and wishing this was all a bad dream.
























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Monday, February 3, 2014

Monday Morning Joe Quarterbacking for Christie as Subpoenas Come Due

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Previous Related Posts:
Christie Faces Bad Karma for Dissing Wildstein
David Wildstein Implicates Christie in #Bridgegate
Chris Christie has Tumultuous Super Bowl Weekend

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Today the New Jersey Legislative Committee is expecting an influx of documents from the subpoenas of Christie's minions. But they probably won't release anything right away.

From New Jersey Star-Ledger
State Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D-Middlesex), who co-chairs the committee with state Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen), said Saturday that the delivery of documents is likely to be a drawn-out process because nearly all of those targeted have asked for extensions.
"We have instructed counsel to make reasonable accommodations where appropriate," he said. "Some want a few extra days. Some want to deliver them on a rolling basis."
Once in hand, the documents will be cataloged by the Office of Legislative Services and checked for completeness, Weinberg said. They are not expected to be made public until the people who supplied the records testify before the committee.

Because of the "Abuse of Power" investigation, the Christie gang is in need of legal funds, and sent out a plea to use their campaign war chest to bail themselves out:

From NJ.com
Gov. Chris Christie's re-election campaign is seeking permission to use the remaining funds -- as well as raise additional money -- to pay the legal bills arising from its cooperation with the state and federal investigations into the controversial George Washington Bridge lane closures in Fort Lee.
Without approval from the state Election Law Enforcement Commission, the Christie for Governor campaign will run out of money and be unable to comply with subpoenas to turn over documents sought by the U.S. Attorney and the joint legislative panel investigating the matter, according to a letter Thursday from the campaign's attorney, Mark Sheridan.



From Huffington Post:
Christina Genovese Renna left the governor's office Friday, the same day former Christie loyalist David Wildstein claimed to have evidence contradicting the governor's account of a lane closing operation, apparently to create traffic chaos as a political vendetta.
Renna reported to Deputy Chief of Staff Bridget Kelly, who apparently set the lane closings in motion with an email to Wildstein.


I'm going to enjoy it. I'm going to bathe in the tears of Joe Scarborough.
~ Sam Seder




On Monday's Morning Joe, most of the crew tried to bolster Christie. In the first segment, first Mike Barnacle then Joe Scarborough blamed the "Not Ready for Prime Time" staff for writing the Friday memo, apparently forgetting that many of them have resigned or were fired by Christie himself. Later Mika, Joe, and Nicole Wallace say that Christie never said he "didn't know" about the lane closures, when we have video of the two-hour presser at which Christie denied knowledge over and over until "after the fact." So really, Morning Joe brings up an interesting question - how could Christie NOT know the lanes were closed if he drove anywhere? Luckily there were journalists on the show who explained the actual facts to the Morning Joe crowd.

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It's going to be what we in the news business call the "Drip Treatment." And it's going to be there every day, and extended into a period of weeks and into months. And his response over the weekend, if that is his staff at their best work, then he's done nationally.
~ Mike Barnacle

Let's speak the uncomfortable truth that he didn't have people around him who were ready for Prime Time before this happened, obviously. Why is it that he still has people around him that would let something like that go out? And office like that with a boss that people still don't have control over. Why doesn't he bring in a national Republican figure or somebody solid that can tell the kids to just sit in the back when they want to talk about social studies teachers.
. . . The Christie people are saying that Chris Christie knew, while the lanes were closed, that the lanes were closed. Of course. How could you not know that lanes were closed while the lanes were closed, when anybody that was driving, like myself, from New York to — in my case, Connecticut, or people going from New Jersey to New York or Connecticut, it’s impossible not to know while the lanes were closed that the lanes were closed.
~ Joe Scarborough

I was speaking to a source that knows the close internal workings of the Port Authority over the weekend and they describe Wildstein as the Governor's 'operative' at the Port Authority and also said that Wildstein wouldn't be shopping for immunity if he didn't have something . . . that's disparaging to the Governor.
The issues with the Chris Christie Press Conference, which he gave for two hours and everybody thought he did a great job, which he did, but all those statements might come back to haunt him now. Especially if Wildstein has an ax to grind, or Bridget Kelly has an ax to grind. The woman who left on Friday, Christina Renna, is also the one who reported directly to Bridget Kelly; there's an email going on with them where Mayor Sokolich (of Fort Lee) actually called in and Renna sent an email on to Bridget Kelly telling her the fact that the Mayor called. So there's a lot more to come.
~ Thomas Roberts on Morning Joe

A lot of Republicans, especially those sympathetic to Gov. Christie and those among us who want to allow him a presumption of innocence feel like Friday night's story may have been overblown.
~ Nicole Wallace on Morning Joe




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