For too many people "but better than Trump" just wasn't enough motivationUntil just now, I have avoided going to the Blue America endorsement page and counting how many woman are on it, how many people of color, how many from the LGBT community.
According to a Gallup survey released a week ago, Trump's overall jon approval is 38% and his disapproval is 56%. What does that tell us for the midterms 9 months from now? Not all that much, primarily because despite Trump's overall poor showing, it's in states that senators and governors are elected and in congressional districts where House members are reelected, not nationally.
Back in early December we were warning Democratic candidates to start inoculating themselves immediately from the sure GOP attack that is coming-- "my opponent" is a Nancy Pelosi puppet." Remember when God tried to kill scores of Republicans on the train last week?
"How many sats are the Democrats going to pick up in November," one of the savviest campaign managers I know asked me. I don't know, I told him. Between 60 and 70, something like that. "Why are you losing faith?" he asked. "Last time I asked, you said 75." Oh, it could be 75... or 60 or 70 but you're gonna win for sure. He's worried. They're always worried. Good. They need to be.
Stephanie Kelton has been eager to introduce an acquaintance of hers, Justin Santopietro, who is running for the Democratic nomination for Congress in the rural, Appalachian district of VA-09. She had introduced me to Justin a couple of months ago and, among other things, I asked him how he would handle being smeared by Republicans as a puppet of Nancy Pelosi. At the time he told me that "The right wingers' attempts to smear all Democratic challengers as 'Pelosi Puppets' is even more laughable in rural districts like mine, where the national party has no presence whatsoever.
I liked Deirdre Shesgreen's style at a USAToday piece this week, House Republicans are retiring in droves. What's pushing them out?. Great line to describe congressional Republicans in the Trump Era: "Forget running for re-election. House Republicans are running for the exits instead." [I wonder if Señor Trumpanzee thinks he can appoint Kushner-in-law to full all of those congressional seats.
The first video is the first TV ad for the Chicagoland district (IL-03) by progressive reformer Marie Newman, the Democrat working to unseat Blue Dog Dan Lipinski, one of the most pro-Trump Democrats in Congress. It's pretty self evident what Marie is doing to create a plausible narrative to replace Lipinski. Recent polling shows that if the messaging in the video gets out to voters in the district, Lipinski will be defeated.
