2018 congressional races

-by Valley GirlI have watched the ad (above) that Randy Bryce ran during the SOTU address many times. And suddenly, something about it rang a strange bell with me.I wrote to Howie:

Yesterday we told you about some DCCC "clean" non-politician recruits in California who are an opposition researcher’s dream with all their un-vetted baggage.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court looked at the unconstitutional gerrymander the Republicans in the state legislature perpetrated on the citizens of the state and threw it out. The Justices instructed the Republicans not to show up for prison but to redraw the maps in time for the November midterms.

TX-21 candidate Derrick Crowe with Randy "IronStache" Bryce in San Antonio last weekIn a post early this morning, we saw how progressive former congressional candidate (PA-07) Paul Perry was so disgusted by the establishment's attitude about fundraising that he withdrew from the race.

Hans-- a congenital liarOne of the problems with the DCCC pretending not to be a bunch of scummy politicians and recruiting "clean" non-politicians is that politicians who have been coming up in the ranks are usually well-vetted by the voters. The garbage candidates the DCCC digs up from under rocks invariably have a little something horrible they've been hiding-- perfect for GOP opposition research firms to find.

The Republican lottery winner who already spent $243,798 and got 1 vote for his efforts (one)This is too funny to pass up. Various factions at the the DCCC have been working against each other and recruiting sundry terrible candidates to run in Orange County congressional districts. In CA-48-- Rohrabacher's district-- one goof-ball (Kyle) recruited New Dem Harley Rounda while a more powerful goof-ball recruited the other New Dem, Hans Keirstead.

Ohio is the ultimate swing state and its 18 electoral votes are highly prized. After 1960-- when Ohio got it wrong and backed Nixon over Kennedy-- Ohio has been part of the winning coalition in every presidential race. In the 5 most recent Ohio results, George Bush beat Gore 49.97% to 46.46% and then beat Kerry 50.81% to 48.71%. Then Obama beat McCain 51.50% to 46.91% and beat Romney 50.67% to 47.69%.

Michigan's 7th district is the southeast corner of the state, carefully gerrymandered by the Republicans to keep Lansing and Ann Arbor residents out of it. Most of the voters live in Jackson, Monroe, Eaton, Washtenaw and Lenawee counties. The district was definitely not Hillary country. The folks there wanted change and Bernie decisively won the primary. Trump then beat Hillary just as decisively. The PVI went from R+3 to R+7.

Greg Giroux penned an essay for Bloomberg News, All Signs Point to Big Democratic Wins in 2018, which is a hell of a lot more reality-based than the tepid Beltway prognosticators who "think" the Democrats "may" win the 24 seats they need to t

This week Blue America endorsed two inspiring candidates for Congress on opposite ends of the country. Nina Ahmad in running in Philadelphia and Lisa Brown is running for the eastern Washington seat based in Spokane. Yes, they're both women and since 51% of the population of this country are women and just 19% of the House are women, its great that two will help right that egregious disparity.