Some observations

[ApatheticAustrian]

That sounds like the Democratic Party should run as a pure patronage and wealth transfer mechanism, at least concerning the Midwest. Would Clinton have carried IA if she promised bigger ethanol subsidies? Would anyone have heard her through the din of the email scandals -- media postmortems (is that a correct Latin plural?) all say that she had trouble getting her message out. It all sounds very 1988 to me.

No, she wouldn't have carried Iowa under any circumstances. Nobody trusts anything Crooked Hillary says.

she is more trustworthy regarding her political positions than trump...eher enemies and friends both say so.....the voters just don't care and went for the loot box with unknown treasure.

[ApatheticAustrian]

tea party and the goldwater project are two totally different beasts.

the goldwater-reagan thingie was a long-term change and a purity test, from an ideological point of view, coming from elites.

the tea party was a raging bottom - up concept, which killed the electoral chances of the party (in full-turnout years) and harmed its reputation even more.

trumpism is in fact the death of the tea party, even while the rage connects both.

[ApatheticAustrian]

there must be sensible middle ground between college campus faux-feminism/racism-outrage and trump-style racist/sexist-personating.

i for one won't accept any kind of "silver bullet" explanation for narrow voting patterns in 4 states.

in the one REAL battleground of cultural politics this cycle, north carolina, even while rurals soared like everywhere, the main crusader of the whole thing, the republican gov himself, seems to be losing.....

which just shows that everything in life is complicated.

[ApatheticAustrian]

regarding the state-house question, i am quite optimistic that the pubs are overplaying their hand hard.....exhibit A and B would be kansas and louisiana, which both got crushed through republican over-domination.

since unions are going to tide for sure as part of the recent wave......dems of course are going to need new organizations to help working-class people, which can't be knee-capped so easily.

could be one of the reasons dems are so friendly to latinos...they are mostly more union-friendly than the white population.