whatever happened to the overperforming heavyweights?

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Warner's whole deal was how popular he was supposed to be. He didn't do as well as Obama 2012, while real Democrats like Franken and Merkley did better than Obama 2012.

[IceSpear]

Regarding Mark Udall, his campaign's internal polling consistently showed that the abortion/war on women attacks were by far the most effective and that Udall's negatives tended to go up whenever he talked about other issues.

That sounds like BS to me. So was Udall doing internals weekly, and planning "okay, this week I'll talk only about birth control and see what happens", then the next week saying "okay, this week I'll talk only about ______ and see what happens", then comparing them without taking into account any external factors or the margin of error? It just sounds like a stupid attempt to justify a piss poor campaign to me. Under that logic, Hickenlooper should've lost because he didn't talk about birth control 99% of the time. Instead, he outperformed Udall by 5 points.

[smoltchanov]

Warner's whole deal was how popular he was supposed to be. He didn't do as well as Obama 2012, while real Democrats like Franken and Merkley did better than Obama 2012.

You really think that Franken (or Merkley) could be elected in Virginia? And Gillespie didn't had Wehby problems BTW.. The "real Democrats" would lose North Carolina or Virginia (not even mention Arkansas or Louisian here) by even bigger margin...

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Warner's whole deal was how popular he was supposed to be. He didn't do as well as Obama 2012, while real Democrats like Franken and Merkley did better than Obama 2012.

You really think that Franken (or Merkley) could be elected in Virginia? And Gillespie didn't had Wehby problems BTW.. The "real Democrats" would lose North Carolina or Virginia (not even mention Arkansas or Louisian here) by even bigger margin...

Why not? Obama did worse in Ohio, and they elected Sherod Brown, who is more liberal than either of those.

[smoltchanov]

Warner's whole deal was how popular he was supposed to be. He didn't do as well as Obama 2012, while real Democrats like Franken and Merkley did better than Obama 2012.

You really think that Franken (or Merkley) could be elected in Virginia? And Gillespie didn't had Wehby problems BTW.. The "real Democrats" would lose North Carolina or Virginia (not even mention Arkansas or Louisian here) by even bigger margin...

Why not? Obama did worse in Ohio, and they elected Sherod Brown, who is more liberal than either of those.

Never. Arkansas, Louisiana and even Virginia are not Ohio. IMHO - district must determine everything, not ideology. It makes no sense to run "progressives" everywhere..

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Warner's whole deal was how popular he was supposed to be. He didn't do as well as Obama 2012, while real Democrats like Franken and Merkley did better than Obama 2012.

You really think that Franken (or Merkley) could be elected in Virginia? And Gillespie didn't had Wehby problems BTW.. The "real Democrats" would lose North Carolina or Virginia (not even mention Arkansas or Louisian here) by even bigger margin...

Why not? Obama did worse in Ohio, and they elected Sherod Brown, who is more liberal than either of those.

Never. Arkansas, Louisiana and even Virginia are not Ohio. IMHO - district must determine everything, not ideology. It makes no sense to run "progressives" everywhere..

I was talking about Virginia, which Obama did better in than Ohio. I don't think any Democrat could have won in Arkansas or Louisiana this year.

[smoltchanov]

Warner's whole deal was how popular he was supposed to be. He didn't do as well as Obama 2012, while real Democrats like Franken and Merkley did better than Obama 2012.

You really think that Franken (or Merkley) could be elected in Virginia? And Gillespie didn't had Wehby problems BTW.. The "real Democrats" would lose North Carolina or Virginia (not even mention Arkansas or Louisian here) by even bigger margin...

Why not? Obama did worse in Ohio, and they elected Sherod Brown, who is more liberal than either of those.

Never. Arkansas, Louisiana and even Virginia are not Ohio. IMHO - district must determine everything, not ideology. It makes no sense to run "progressives" everywhere..

I was talking about Virginia, which Obama did better in than Ohio. I don't think any Democrat could have won in Arkansas or Louisiana this year.

No "progressive" could win Virginia this year too. If Warner barely could - ..... Obama would be crushed this year if he would run in Virginia. 2014 is NOT 2012... 

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

I thought that was a very reasonable analysis of the Colorado race, and I appreciate the substantive response, but this is where we differ:

BTW, I'd argue people vote Democratic in Colorado for very different reasons than in Minnesota.  There is definitely some overlap, but the coalitions needed in each state are hardly the same.  For example, economic populism probably plays better in Minnesota than the abortion/women's rights.  In Colorado the reverse is true and focusing primarily on economic issues could potentially backfire in the Denver suburbs.  You need to tailor your message to the winning coalition in your state/district, not look for some mythical one-size fits all approach (too many different groups have too many competing interests and differing priorities for the latter to work).  

Of course I agree that the winning message needs to be tailored to your constituency, and it looks like nobody here disputes that Franken did a great job in that respect.  But, as the ballot measures across the country showed this year, the minimum wage increase is a hugely popular issue.  Yes, Colorado also has a lot of people voting Democratic who are more affluent or less religious than the average Democrat in Minnesota, but these people still support Social Security, Medicare, the central tenets of Obamacare, etc.  I think a campaign like Franken's would have played better in the Hispanic areas of Colorado, too, and ultimately I think abortion is best brought up later in the campaign rather than sooner.  Sure, Gardner looks stupid when he is still co-sponsoring a federal personhood amendment while opposing it within the state, but because he had time to "respond" to the attack, he neutralized it in a way that I don't entirely understand but appeared to satisfy people who thought that personhood in law went "too far" (and they make up even a good number of Republicans, after all).

I agree that a campaign that focused on economic issues would've probably helped Udall with Hispanics, but (especially given how much of a problem Hispanic turnout was in 2014) I think he would have lost more than enough ground in the Denver suburbs to cancel out such gains.

Warner's whole deal was how popular he was supposed to be. He didn't do as well as Obama 2012, while real Democrats like Franken and Merkley did better than Obama 2012.

You really think that Franken (or Merkley) could be elected in Virginia? And Gillespie didn't had Wehby problems BTW.. The "real Democrats" would lose North Carolina or Virginia (not even mention Arkansas or Louisian here) by even bigger margin...

Why not? Obama did worse in Ohio, and they elected Sherod Brown, who is more liberal than either of those.

Sherrod Brown wins because people here don't see him as a liberal, but as a "I'll fight for the little guy"-style economic populist.  Brown has made that his brand and in a state like Ohio where unions still have some pull and where many of the blue-collar, working class, poor, and/or rural white voters in places like Appalachia and the white working class parts of Summit and Cuyahoga counties are still quite willing to prioritize economic issues over things like abortion, guns, gays, racial resentments.   In other words, because of various aspects of Ohio's history voters here who would normally never even consider voting for someone like Brown are.  This is the same reason Strickland was/is so popular (even if he's much less socially liberal than Brown), he was perceived as someone who is fighting for the little guy instead of the big business and/or the political elites.  It's not that people are dumb so they keep voting against their interests, it's that only some Democrats really try to give them a reason to vote Democratic.  I think a lot of people see it as essentially "neither party is looking out for us on economic issues, so I might as well vote for the one that shares my views on social issues and isn't constantly calling people like me 'a bunch of dumb, racist inbred hicks.'"

OTOH, Virginia has always been a pretty anti-union state without much of a history of being supportive of economic populism, IIRC.  I actually don't think Brown could win in Virginia and I suspect he'd actually hurt the ticket there if someone picked him as their running-mate.  Different stuff works in different states.  Now what you *might* be able to do in Virginia is have someone who is a bit more liberal on stuff like abortion, gay rights, etc (especially as NOVA keeps growing) and a ConservaDem on most other things.

Warner's whole deal was how popular he was supposed to be. He didn't do as well as Obama 2012, while real Democrats like Franken and Merkley did better than Obama 2012.

What evidence do you have to support your implication that Warner underperformed because he's a moderate.  Did Pat Quinn and Anthony Brown also lose because they were too conservative?  Merkley was running in a blue state against an D- candidate, so his victory doesn't mean anything.  Al Franken won in a blue state against a C candidate in a race that was never going to be remotely competitive.  Gillespie was a decidedly meh candidate, but he was far stronger than McFadden or Wehby and Virginia is a swing state that with a strong and inelastic Republican base.  Warner underperformed, but he had a non-extistant GOTV operation and it was f[Inks]ing 2014 too.  Warner was clearly the only person who could've held that seat this year.  His personal popularity and his Moderate Hero schtick are literally the only reasons he won.  

You know why so many ConservaDems lost?  They tend to represent much less Democratic areas than people like Franken and Merkley, so of course they're more likely to lose in a wave year.  Look, I don't like the Moderate Hero stuff either, but it's a hell of a lot better than a Republican.  If a Moderate Hero is the most liberal Democrat who can win, then screw whatever more liberal candidates are looking at the race.  The idea is to get power and then do good things with it once you have it (I'm not saying the Democrats are anywhere near ideal, but we did get the ACA despite having a majority that was in no small part built on blue-dogs/ConservaDems).  If you never get enough power to do good things, you'll be as ineffective as someone who wants power for its own sake and then doesn't do anything with it once they have it.

Regarding Mark Udall, his campaign's internal polling consistently showed that the abortion/war on women attacks were by far the most effective and that Udall's negatives tended to go up whenever he talked about other issues.

That sounds like BS to me. So was Udall doing internals weekly, and planning "okay, this week I'll talk only about birth control and see what happens", then the next week saying "okay, this week I'll talk only about ______ and see what happens", then comparing them without taking into account any external factors or the margin of error? It just sounds like a stupid attempt to justify a piss poor campaign to me. Under that logic, Hickenlooper should've lost because he didn't talk about birth control 99% of the time. Instead, he outperformed Udall by 5 points.

My bad, I meant the focus groups the Udall campaign used to test different lines of attack.  Hickenlooper was running against a candidate with a number of weakness that Gardner didn't have; if Gardner had run for Governor instead of Beauprez, abortion/the war on women stuff would've likely been one of Hickenlooper's most effective lines of attack.  Of course, the media probably wouldn't have thrown as big a temper-tantrum over it either because it was a Gubernatorial race rather than a Senate election and the extent to which the media was in the tank for Gardner was one of the biggest reasons he won.  Gardner also proved himself to be a very skilled politician when he was able to sell many voters the self-contradicing BS that was his "explanation" of his views on issues such as the personhood amendment he's long supported.  Had a less talented politician (Romney is a prime example) tried to pull something like that on any major issue, s/he would've simply pissed off all sides without winning over anyone.

On a different note, it seems like about 75% of the time you are unable to disagree with anyone on this forum without instantly straw-maning them.  Your post from "Under that logic..." on seems like a straw-man although I don't know if it was that or you misunderstood what I was saying (partially due to poor wording on my part).  However, the sort of responses you generally post whenever anyone criticizes Hillary Clinton are certainly straw-men, and pretty obnoxious ones at that.  I'm genuinely curious, why do you do this?  I have a hard time believing that you think you're changing anyone's mind by responding to most criticisms of Hillary Clinton's foreign policy views by claiming the person criticizing them is calling her a war criminal.  So what exactly do you get out of it?

[IceSpear]

I was responding to the Udall campaign's assertion, not you in particular, you were just relaying it. Beauprez was supposed to be a weak candidate at first, but he ended up just being another generic R at the end of the day. Gardner was definitely a better candidate, but I don't think that explains the entirety of the swing. Hickenlooper's approvals were also much better than Udall's.

[smoltchanov]

To summarize - i will repeat my algorithm for choosing a candidates: put the district first! In practice: Democrats must run the most liberal candidate able to win this particular district. But if he is to the right of, say, Ralph Hall - run him without hesitation! Vice versa for Republicans -run the most conservative candidate  able to win this particular district. If he is to the left of Jacob Javits - run him! It's at least logical. And "party purity" be damned! As, in fact, it was in 1950th - 1970th, befaure first "Reagan cleanse" in Republican party and Democratic shift to "obligatory left"

[freepcrusher]

To summarize - i will repeat my algorithm for choosing a candidates: put the district first! In practice: Democrats must run the most liberal candidate able to win this particular district. But if he is to the right of, say, Ralph Hall - run him without hesitation! Vice versa for Republicans -run the most conservative candidate  able to win this particular district. If he is to the left of Jacob Javits - run him! It's at least logical. And "party purity" be damned! As, in fact, it was in 1950th - 1970th, befaure first "Reagan cleanse" in Republican party and Democratic shift to "obligatory left"

true but you don't need Ralph Halls to win congresses - just more Ron Kinds and Eric Swalwells.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

To summarize - i will repeat my algorithm for choosing a candidates: put the district first! In practice: Democrats must run the most liberal candidate able to win this particular district. But if he is to the right of, say, Ralph Hall - run him without hesitation! Vice versa for Republicans -run the most conservative candidate  able to win this particular district. If he is to the left of Jacob Javits - run him! It's at least logical. And "party purity" be damned! As, in fact, it was in 1950th - 1970th, befaure first "Reagan cleanse" in Republican party and Democratic shift to "obligatory left"

true but you don't need Ralph Halls to win congresses - just more Ron Kinds and Eric Swalwells.

Why would we need any awful Eric Swawells instead of a Pete Stark in a D+16 district?

[smoltchanov]

To summarize - i will repeat my algorithm for choosing a candidates: put the district first! In practice: Democrats must run the most liberal candidate able to win this particular district. But if he is to the right of, say, Ralph Hall - run him without hesitation! Vice versa for Republicans -run the most conservative candidate  able to win this particular district. If he is to the left of Jacob Javits - run him! It's at least logical. And "party purity" be damned! As, in fact, it was in 1950th - 1970th, befaure first "Reagan cleanse" in Republican party and Democratic shift to "obligatory left"

true but you don't need Ralph Halls to win congresses - just more Ron Kinds and Eric Swalwells.

Not sure. Both Kind and Swalwell represent essentially Democratic districts, and i frequently mentioned that counting many times i couldn't find substantially more then 180 (190 - maximum) such districts. In part - because Democratic votes are way too overconcentrated (look at NYC districts - democrats don't need 95-97 (or even 80%) districts to win them, 60-62% would be just as good, almost the same - in Bay Area, in Los Angeles area, in Chicago and so on), but they need about 30-40 "not especially Democratic districts" for majority. Ralph Hall may be (slight) exaggeration, but Barrow's, Matheson's, Peterson's, McIntyres and their like (in short - REAL Blue Dogs) - are necessary. Even if they will not always vote with party - they will vote frequently enough to "justify investments".. An alternative - wait 20 years until Demography will make it work. But - no sooner.

Looking at VoteView site with their abundant statistics i could find only 3 Democrats since FDR time, who persistently voted with party less then 15% of the time: Larry McDonald, John Rarick and Bob Stump. That's ALL - for 80 years. Even Eastland, Ralph Hall and their like were not as conservative. And how many Republicans vote now with Democratic party more then 15% of time??? In the past there were real liberals, voting with Democrats even majority of time, in that party, but now - i only know (and even them - of moderate liberal variety) few in state legislatures, not Congress....

[smoltchanov]

To summarize - i will repeat my algorithm for choosing a candidates: put the district first! In practice: Democrats must run the most liberal candidate able to win this particular district. But if he is to the right of, say, Ralph Hall - run him without hesitation! Vice versa for Republicans -run the most conservative candidate  able to win this particular district. If he is to the left of Jacob Javits - run him! It's at least logical. And "party purity" be damned! As, in fact, it was in 1950th - 1970th, befaure first "Reagan cleanse" in Republican party and Democratic shift to "obligatory left"

true but you don't need Ralph Halls to win congresses - just more Ron Kinds and Eric Swalwells.

Why would we need any awful Eric Swawells instead of a Pete Stark in a D+16 district?

Because Stark was an irritant idiot. Swalwell - isn't.

[Boston Bread]

There was little correlation between ideology and senate performance this year. See Pryor vs Curtis, Warner vs Franken, etc. I doubt GOP-in-all-but-name only candidates would have given the democrats any additional seat in the south other than maybe NC. It's more than just not having a moderate platform, it's being on the wrong side of the culture wars.

[smoltchanov]

There was little correlation between ideology and senate performance this year. See Pryor vs Curtis, Warner vs Franken, etc. I doubt GOP-in-all-but-name only candidates would have given the democrats any additional seat in the south other than maybe NC. It's more than just not having a moderate platform, it's being on the wrong side of the culture wars.

Then you need to stand on "right side of culture wars", don't you? Run strongly socially conservative (but economically populist) candidates in the South and other places, where prevailing mood is similar. You will not win ALL such races, obviously, but you will win SOME. Initially - few. And that's something. Of course it will take time: people in the South will NOT readily regain belief in Democratic party after it ran a candidates, which were utterly dissimilar to prevailing southern views, for decades. We can remember 1948 (almost all returned to Democratic fold after), 1964 (most did the same, but some, like Thurmond and Watson in SC, switched "forever"), 1972, 1980, 1994 (i remember a LOT of Southern switches at that time, especially  - on state legislative levels) and the last one, which began with Obama's election (look how many conservative Democrats switched in Louisiana's and Mississippi's legislatures in 2008-2011). The Democratic party is "an alien" in most of the South now, and  it will take a considerable time for it to be considered as an alternative again. Just as it took 100 years and change in Democratic party policy for Republicans to be considered there..

As i said - an alternative is simply wait 20 years for demographic changes and pick up what's possible meanwhile (in the South that means almost exclusively "Black areas and little else")

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

To summarize - i will repeat my algorithm for choosing a candidates: put the district first! In practice: Democrats must run the most liberal candidate able to win this particular district. But if he is to the right of, say, Ralph Hall - run him without hesitation! Vice versa for Republicans -run the most conservative candidate  able to win this particular district. If he is to the left of Jacob Javits - run him! It's at least logical. And "party purity" be damned! As, in fact, it was in 1950th - 1970th, befaure first "Reagan cleanse" in Republican party and Democratic shift to "obligatory left"

true but you don't need Ralph Halls to win congresses - just more Ron Kinds and Eric Swalwells.

Why would we need any awful Eric Swawells instead of a Pete Stark in a D+16 district?

Because Stark was a senile jacka[Inks], I would be fine with someone to the left of Swalwell in that district, but Stark was exceptionally awful.

[hopper]

Warner's whole deal was how popular he was supposed to be. He didn't do as well as Obama 2012, while real Democrats like Franken and Merkley did better than Obama 2012.

You really think that Franken (or Merkley) could be elected in Virginia? And Gillespie didn't had Wehby problems BTW.. The "real Democrats" would lose North Carolina or Virginia (not even mention Arkansas or Louisian here) by even bigger margin...

Why not? Obama did worse in Ohio, and they elected Sherod Brown, who is more liberal than either of those.

Never. Arkansas, Louisiana and even Virginia are not Ohio. IMHO - district must determine everything, not ideology. It makes no sense to run "progressives" everywhere..

I was talking about Virginia, which Obama did better in than Ohio. I don't think any Democrat could have won in Arkansas or Louisiana this year.

No "progressive" could win Virginia this year too. If Warner barely could - ..... Obama would be crushed this year if he would run in Virginia. 2014 is NOT 2012... 

True Obama's approval in Virginia was 43% from the latest Gallup numbers I saw released on August 26th of this year of a state to state breakdown for the mid-term electorate.