GOP dodges bullet (and election interference)

[CitizenBBN]

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/kan...ll-over-kobach

This was a race where, if Kobach won, the GOP could have even lost the Senate seat in one of the safest states in the Union for the GOP.

Interestingly, the DNC was buying ads to help Kobach. I'm curious if people consider that to be bad form or even outright "interference". Not a foreign power, but at least tacky?

I don't think either side is above rooting for the worse candidate to emerge, even publicly rooting for them (like Trump rooting for Bernie), but spending millions to help a worse candidate?

Mostly I wonder if it's more common than we might be aware. I'm betting it doesn't happen often simply b/c of the expense, but in this case they thought they had a shot to steal a seat.

[kingcat]

Neither party are above stuff like that. But tacky is a good description imo.

[KSRBEvans]

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/kan...ll-over-kobach

This was a race where, if Kobach won, the GOP could have even lost the Senate seat in one of the safest states in the Union for the GOP.

Interestingly, the DNC was buying ads to help Kobach. I'm curious if people consider that to be bad form or even outright "interference". Not a foreign power, but at least tacky?

I don't think either side is above rooting for the worse candidate to emerge, even publicly rooting for them (like Trump rooting for Bernie), but spending millions to help a worse candidate?

Mostly I wonder if it's more common than we might be aware. I'm betting it doesn't happen often simply b/c of the expense, but in this case they thought they had a shot to steal a seat.

You see that a lot in open primaries--members of Party A will vote in Party B's primary in an attempt to elect who Party A members perceive as the easier candidate to defeat.

[catmanjack]

Not up on the politics as maybe I should be but didn’t trump back kobach?
When saying with him not getting elected a bullet was dodged sounds bad that trump supported him.

[CitizenBBN]

You see that a lot in open primaries--members of Party A will vote in Party B's primary in an attempt to elect who Party A members perceive as the easier candidate to defeat.

I can see it in jungle primaries like California, but this is not an open primary, and it's direct PAC money controlled by party officials.

I'm not saying it's the end of the world, just seems like maybe another step up in the long climb we are taking nationally to do away with the unwritten "rules" of politics that have helped hold the nation together. There are things that in the past "just aren't done", a sort of political mutually assured destruction, that we see falling apart. Senate rule changes are the best example, but this smacks of another one to me.

[CitizenBBN]

Not up on the politics as maybe I should be but didn’t trump back kobach?
When saying with him not getting elected a bullet was dodged sounds bad that trump supported him.

I'm not sure but I think Trump endorsed him in his last office, not sure about this latest election. I would imagine that if he did that he switched horses at some point b/c I think he finally got that it may cost them a key Senate seat.

But honestly what he does on that stuff is beyond explanation. In many if not most ways he's just not "a politician". It's great in that he says what he thinks a lot more than any career stuffed shirt, but it's bad b/c he's also utterly knee jerk and is absolutely the worst political case of being his own worst enemy of any major national figure in my lifetime.

[catmanjack]

I just shake my head at his comments.

[StuBleedsBlue2]

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/kan...ll-over-kobach

This was a race where, if Kobach won, the GOP could have even lost the Senate seat in one of the safest states in the Union for the GOP.

Interestingly, the DNC was buying ads to help Kobach. I'm curious if people consider that to be bad form or even outright "interference". Not a foreign power, but at least tacky?

People in Kansas are open to Democrats, especially since the Sam Brownback debacle. They have a popular Democrat governor now who is enjoying high approval ratings for her management of the pandemic and has a greater approval rating than Trump in the state. In fact, 3 of the last 5 elected governors were Democrats.

Is the opposition supporting a particular opponent interference or tacky? Not at all. It happens in every primary. What is tacky, though, are Trump operatives working to get Kanye West, a person suffering from severe mental illness, on ballots across states for the sole purpose of taking votes away from Biden. THAT is something not practiced in every day politics, only serves one purpose which is to affect the outcome of the election.

[CitizenBBN]

People in Kansas are open to Democrats, especially since the Sam Brownback debacle. They have a popular Democrat governor now who is enjoying high approval ratings for her management of the pandemic and has a greater approval rating than Trump in the state. In fact, 3 of the last 5 elected governors were Democrats.

Is the opposition supporting a particular opponent interference or tacky? Not at all. It happens in every primary. What is tacky, though, are Trump operatives working to get Kanye West, a person suffering from severe mental illness, on ballots across states for the sole purpose of taking votes away from Biden. THAT is something not practiced in every day politics, only serves one purpose which is to affect the outcome of the election.

That was predictable. Only tacky when the other side does it.

Hell, the DNC put a person with mental illness at the top of their ticket to get Bernie off of it, and you seem OK with that move.

[Catonahottinroof]

From the our guy is bad, but your guy is “worser” playbook....

That was predictable. Only tacky when the other side does it.

Hell, the DNC put a person with mental illness at the top of their ticket to get Bernie off of it, and you seem OK with that move.

[CitizenBBN]

From the our guy is bad, but your guy is “worser” playbook....

The concern I have is that our unwritten rules, the niceties and limitations that aren't written in the Constitution but have worked to hold the fabric of the nation together, are being destroyed.

Things like the filibuster rule in the Senate do slow down big movement and prevent action, but that's a GOOD thing b/c it means one group can't drag another pretty big group along too far down a road where you don't have more agreement. that's democracy and compromise, where we disagree but we color within the lines in order to get along.

There have been some other ugly schisms in our political past, one resulted in outright war, and others have led to great turmoil. We're in another one, just not sure where it will lead. But one group is intent on dragging us all down a road where a lot of people don't want to go, and if they choose to try to get there not with persuasion and compromise but with violence, intimidation, tyranny of a very slight if any majority, re-writing the very rules we've lived by for 250 years (electoral college), then I think the outcome will not be the one they want and if it is then I want no part of it.

These kinds of political maneuvers are part of that question, albeit a small one.

It's also funny to me that these get attention, but the real moves that undermine our nation get ignored. It's not just that Russia, China and Iran are buying time on facebook, it's that they are paying millions upon millions to lobbyists and even to politicians themselves in Washington to get their way.

it's not The Dems backing a questionable GOP candidate or the GOP doing the same, but things like ballot harvesting happen and destroy the integrity chain of elections that will be our undoing. Yet it gets no coverage and no detail and we get the sad rhetoric that "most experts say there is little election fraud". Yeah, uh huh. Then the US election system is the first institution in history to be uncorrupted in the face of wealth and power. That's quite a feat.

[StuBleedsBlue2]

From the our guy is bad, but your guy is “worser” playbook....

Two can play at this game.

Your side has a shockingly disturbingly hateful mentally ill person running the country right now. You don't have any problems with that?

Seems like you're the one playing the 'only tacky when the other side does it'.

As far as your accusation of me 'OK with that move'. First of all, Biden is not mentally ill (Kanye is open about it) and extremely more fit than our current occupant. Second, that is part of politics too, consolidating around a person that best reflects the ideologies of the party. Bernie is not a Democrat. Biden was not my first, second, third, and so on pick, but once my choices consolidated around him, I am totally fine with it.

The nation wishes that the GOP had done the same in 2016.

[Catonahottinroof]

You’ve pegged me as a Republican...which I’m not. Try to keep up.

Two can play at this game.

Your side has a shockingly disturbingly hateful mentally ill person running the country right now. You don't have any problems with that?

Seems like you're the one playing the 'only tacky when the other side does it'.

As far as your accusation of me 'OK with that move'. First of all, Biden is not mentally ill (Kanye is open about it) and extremely more fit than our current occupant. Second, that is part of politics too, consolidating around a person that best reflects the ideologies of the party. Bernie is not a Democrat. Biden was not my first, second, third, and so on pick, but once my choices consolidated around him, I am totally fine with it.

The nation wishes that the GOP had done the same in 2016.

[Doc]

You’ve pegged me as a Republican...which I’m not. Try to keep up.

No, he pegged you as somebody with a different opinion. At least you are not racist, bigot or have some "phobia"....YET

The nation wishes that the GOP had done the same in 2016.

what a pile of HORSESHIT.

[CitizenBBN]

Biden isn't mentally ill, but Trump is? I'll take some of that action.

If you haven't noticed, I've never defended Trump as a person. I've said from 2015 he's an ass, hateful, petulant (Doc's word, very good one), childish, boorish, etc.

he's also a boorish ass who happens to have NOT colluded with Russia, is not making the country a dictatorship, etc. That's what I've defended, b/c that's false and based only on the reaction to him as a person, not the actual actions of his administration or any actual evidence.

Biden has been an idiot since he got to office, and I presume before that time. I've said so on here for years before he ran for President this time. I now think he's an idiot with failing mental faculties.

Despite Trump being such an ass, I seriously doubt biden is more qualified in any way to hold the office. He will be a figurehead POTUS at best, who like the rest of his life has been run by his handlers and staff,and they will wield the power. that doesn't begin to touch on the obvious family corruption.

You may not like Trump, but it's damned sure he's in charge and not abdicating to bureaucrats and handlers. In fact he'd be smart to do so more, but being an asshat and a blowhard and prone to insane hyperbole (everything he does is the greatest ever) it's not as troubling to me as someone who has always said things that make no dang sense and now is saying so many things that make no sense that they have him hiding from everyone.

But the broader point is that of course BOTH sides are guilty of, one by one, breaking these longstanding agreements. Now I happen to think the Dems are doing it more and faster and harder as the radical left in this country has explicitly stated they have no respect for those norms. They believe the ends justify the means, pure and simple, which makes them uniquely dangerous.

But both sides do it. Honestly I think the conservatives no longer have a choice. Trying to play ball hasn't worked, trying to hold to those norms will fail when the other side doesn't, so take off the gloves.

And, fwiw, that's why Trump won. The voters on the right are sick of feeling like the GOP establishment won't pull out the long knives and go to war. So are many on the more extreme left, thus Bernie and Antifa, etc. but voters on the right went to a candidate they thought would fight back, call out the media for the insane level of bias, etc.

As these norms are broken, it's going to get worse.

[CitizenBBN]

You’ve pegged me as a Republican...which I’m not. Try to keep up.

Yeah, got your back bro.

Though I fear my political camp of Lbertarianism is all but dead.

[catmanjack]

I for the life of me cannot figure out how anyone could vote Democrats.
Yes each to his own but my huge worry is that what we are seeing in these Democratic run city’s is the future and very near future in all city’s. The allowing thugs and domestic terrorist to rule their cities is beyond me.
The Americans that we once knew is fading and fast in the rear view mirror!
That’s the sad truth so hate Trump that’s fine I think he has issues but I would never vote Democrat and ruin MY America Home of the free and the brave!!!!!