The Virginia Society for the Preservation and Appreciation of High-Quality Posts

[GeorgiaModerate]

This is absolutely appalling and one cannot come to any conclusion other than this being racially-motivated. Stephen Miller is an evil man and needs to go. Trump is a loving person with a good heart - this kind of thing would not happen in his administration without bad influences like Miller around.

Good people steer clear of evil people except perhaps in enforcing the law or passing judgment. Good people reject evil counsel.

Good people do not stiff subcontractors, spread falsehoods about political rivals or opponents, brag about grabbing women by their crotches, disparage the service of soldiers, induce people to commit crimes on their behalf, sire children out of wedlock several times...

Good heart? Not even likely medically, in view of his dietary habits.

[NOVA Green]

Context: Discussion of campaign expenditure and strategies in the 2018 US-SEN Election in Texas.   Link to thread at bottom of post and effort post from Cruz Will Win (We need more of this style of campaign expenditure analysis on Atlas and less of the "Op-Eds" and interpretations of 3rd Party Data Sources, and delve more into the Raw Data where regardless of partisan affiliation, we can at least discuss facts and not just opinions....

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=261509.msg6387075#msg6387075

Wow--- just came home from work and we have tons of interesting discussions and information sharing regarding the funding priorities of the Cruz/Beto campaigns in Tejas, that opens up all sorts of interesting angles.

I guess two questions that I do have is:

1.) Why is it that Cruz has spent $5 Million more than Beto according to the Open Sources link, but yet his poll numbers appear to have dropped and the race has tightened up by all objective indications (Not saying that Texas is going to vote DEM for US-SEN in '18), just that there is something that feels different about this race.

2.) Where has the Cruz campaign been spending their money and why isn't it working?

So regarding the question of "how did Cruz spend all his money," I took a quick look at the FEC reports on expenditures for both Cruz and for Beto.

The data is somewhat out of date (only through the end of June), so we are missing the last 2 months, but nonetheless is pretty informative. There will only be updated data with the next FEC filing deadline in 1.5 months (mid Oct). I grouped all the FEC expenditure data by the categories of type of expenditure listed on the FEC forms. These are not entirely consistent, because the people filing the reports don't use completely consistent categories, but they paint the general picture. After the top 25 categories, I grouped everything else into "other."

First, here is Cruz's spending:

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From this you can see that the biggest single thing Cruz has been spending on is fundraising. That is the fundraising phone calls, and probably a lot/all of the printing/postage (i.e. mail). Then there is payroll. The other important thing to note is that Cruz spent a pretty good amount of money on database management, list rental, etc. In addition, Cruz spent money on a variety of consultants, which adds up. That is to support his fundraising, and also later on will be to support his voter contact/GOTV.


Next, here is Beto's spending:

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By far and away the biggest category for Beto is digital advertising. He is going nuts on digital advertising. The second thing is Payroll/Salary. Beto probably has a larger campaign with more field staff (this is normal for Democrats as compared to Republicans), so he pays more salary. And then the 3rd category that Beto is spending on is T-Shirts, Merchandise (i.e. yard signs). Those 3 things are basically the entirety of Beto's campaign (or were until he started running TV ads) ---

1) Digital Advertising.
2) Payroll for his staff/field campaign.
3) Yard signs, T-shirts, and bumper stickers.

That is basically it, and this also answers the question of why Beto has so many yard signs - because that is one of the main things he has spent money on. He has spent a huge amount of money on yard signs and other campaign swag/merchandise.

And not the expenditures on consultants etc in comparison to Cruz.



Finally, one more important thing to note... The makeup of the Payroll/Salaries between the two campaigns is quite different.

For Beto's campaign, the salaries/payrolls are split up between about 160 people, who received an average of about $6300 each (exact numbers will be off somewhat because the data is a bit noisy). What does that mean? It means that Beto is running a large field campaign with a lot of people being paid to campaign for him.

For Cruz's campaign, on the other hand, the salaries/payroll is split up between more like 20-25 people, with an average of more like $30,000-$50,000 each (with noise in the data again, for things like where only someone's first name was entered, a comma put in the wrong place, etc), with multiple people having received more than $100,000 in salaries. On Beto's campaign, there are 0 people who have gotten that much in salaries/payroll. That means that Cruz has a much smaller campaign with a relatively small number of people who get paid comparatively well to sit around in their offices and do office work of various sorts, as opposed to contact voters and organize volunteers directly.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

All better praise future Governor-elect Gillum for dragging Nelson across the finish line on election day.

Someone Should Make a Meme out of this post

[Tender Branson]

Stirring Wolf even had the time to find fitting black hands and ties.

Amazing !

[PragmaticPopulist]

Yes I live in the Union. Confederacy can suck it.

[IceSpear]

The best part is that for all the talk of "rugged individualism", the "country folk" all have cultural collectivism.  They wear the same clothes, they drive the same cars, they eat the same kinda food, the watch the same TV shows, they have slight variations of the same holiday traditions.

And they aren't "living off the land"... what a crock of sh**t.  I'm one of the very few people on Atlas that has lived in the country and in the city.  Where you had to drive 15 miles one way to get to town and you heard nothing at night but wolves and crickets and loons... and now the city where there are *always* people all around you.

People in the city come from all walks of life from all over the world and enjoy doing all kinds of different things.  Choice and diversity is the hallmark of the city.  These are things liberal minded people like and are comfortable with.  Conservatives like predictability and tradition.

But this romantic idea that they're out cuttin' the hay for the cows so they can have milk is pure bullsh**t, honey.  They gettin they milk at Wal-Mart, loaded it in their Chevy Silverado, and tipping their Cabellas baseball cap with the fishhook on the bill to the other guy that is doing the exact same thing.

Addendum:

He’s not necessarily wrong about rural people viewing themselves as being “rugged individuals living off the land”. It doesn’t have to be true for them to rationalize this belief system. How many of these people are on disability/food stamps/Medicare/Medicaid/CHIP/etc and still complain about moochers and illegals freeloading off the government?

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

I mean, I have ProudModerate2 on ignore because of stuff like this, but banning him while continuing to let vicious bigots like Reaganfan continue posting or worse yet not banning 1) a literal rape apologist who is also pretty clearly a white supremacist (Famous Mortimer) and 2) a literal sexual assault and sexual harassment advocate (Smoltchanov who, lest we forget, has literally bragged about sexually harassing [it might've actually been sexually assaulting, but I don't remember for sure] women on at least one occasion).  Honestly, it seems pretty difficult to justify banning anyone else currently on Atlas while Famous Mortimer and Smoltchanov are still around.    

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

I am 20 (as you would know if you looked at my profile), and I'm very well aware of the kind of language and behavior engaged in by peers my age. That doesn't mean that I have to condone it. You would also know, from my prior comments on this board, that I have long held this position on such issues. I don't condone Hogg's profanity any more than I condone that of Trump himself.

I'm sorry; but this post is the best example of... Lib-Dem-ery (don't quite know if that term translates very well) that I have ever read.  The worst sort of snowflakery that only the finest Liberal Democrats manage to portray; a lot of virtue signalling to show that they are *respectable* while tone policing the survivors of a school shooting.

There's also the fundamental fact that there is a clear difference between an elected politician like Trump being a vulgar person and an activist using vulgar words to stress a point; and to compare the two indicates a lack of understanding of the way that the world works.  Hogg is someone who survived a school shooting; saw many of his friends shot and murdered and who was incredibly lucky to survive.  He's also seen the government do exactly nothing to prevent situations like that from happening again.    I'd say that he has a lot to be angry about and sometimes you have to let that anger out: internalising feelings like that is a good way of causing yourself harm.  Meanwhile Trump is a vulgar person: his utterances indicate his character flaws and weren't about demonstrates righteous anger.  However to someone like you who seems to have no firm principles bar being 'centrist' (which is a term that means very little; since the centre has a habit of drifting around in the breeze like a bin bag at a little used railway station) you seem to perceive the two as being the same; apparently unable to see the difference between someone who uses vulgar words to demonstrate the intensity of their views and someone who's just a vulgar person.

There's also the fact that there's a clear difference between an elected politician and a political activist.  Trump is meant to represent America on the international stage and to act as the leader of the country and clearly his vulgarity makes him very inappropriate for that job.  Its the same for all political figures; I get irrationally annoyed when you see politicians (mainly from the left although probably from all over) who use rude words as a way of looking cool and down with it - not to demonstrate intensity of feeling or many of the other reasons why a person swears but merely as another form of political messaging.  Hogg is a political activist; he's the face of a movement sure but hardly the key leadership figure that Trump his: and he's quite clearly an authentic person and his language demonstrates that really.  There's also the fact that there is something incredibly, incredibly dumb about comparing an old man who's elected to the highest office in the land and a young person who's been forced into the political world because of a very sad, sad thing that happened to him.

On a more on-topic subject: the incompetence of the way that Cruz is campaigning is rather astounding to me: and while I think that he's the favourite (and it'd take like every poll showing Beto ten points in front for me not to think that) it is possible that the Democrats pick this one up which I never thought would happen.  Does require a significant amount of work still though - and part of me wonders whether that might be what kills the Republicans in places like this: complacency can be what loses unexpectedly close elections.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Good roasting of typical idiot #analysis from the international commentariat:

The thing we need to note here before continuing is that this idea some people in this thread seem to have that Fidesz has in some way become economically left-wing is just a myth. The economic policies of the Orbán government have been absolutely 'pro-business' - focused on keeping the deficit down and slashing income taxes in order to attract investment. The labour code has been reformed to curtail the rights of employees and unions (a summary can be found at http://www.fesbp.hu/common/pdf/Nachrichten_aus_Ungarn_june_2012.pdf) and Hungary's corporate income tax has been slashed to 9% - that's a Paul Ryan wet dream right there. While it is true that Fidesz has also massively boosted subsidies to favoured businesses (both Hungarian and foreign), crony capitalism is not 'economic populism', whatever that means.

The Hungarian workfare programme has also been hideously misrepresented in this thread, seeing as Orbán has been clear that the motivation for his expanding it is to eventually phase out unemployment benefits altogether.

I would not describe any of these policies as alien to the Republican mindset. In my opinion, the GOP is currently in the process of becoming similar to Fidesz. Those in this thread making sweeping claims about demographics are, in my opinion, missing the point. The GOP would not feel the need to resort to Fidesz-style political tactics to the degree they already do if demographic change wasn't working against it, and this would be happening to some extent under almost any modern Republican - Trump has accelerated the trend due to his openness to anyone who'll sweet-talk him enough which means nationalist ideologues can get closer to him, but he is seen as special mostly because he is a vulgar narcissist and would rather go on an all-caps rant on Twitter than give a carefully drafted dog-whistle speech, and because of the profound confusion among the political and media classes that his rabid base (as opposed to the disillusioned swing voters that put him over the top in the right states - an important distinction which isn't made often enough) is composed of the working-class (which is of course a Bad Thing because muh uncultured rubes) as opposed to insecure lower middle-class types.

[RINO Tom]

1. A large chunk of her 2008 supporters had died or left the party.

This is the single most important reason - the following are listed in descending order of importance:


2. The Democratic Party had much weaker organization in most of these areas than it did in 2008, reflected in lower turnout - especially of the kind of voters who are likely to cast their vote with the preference of their union, local party, or whatever other institution in mind.


4. The Obama presidency wasn't particularly kind to these areas. Between hospital closures, opioid overdoses, suicides, unemployment, poverty, rising crime, college costs, health care costs, the availability of decent primary and secondary education, the list of ills goes on. There are a lot of recent policy failures that disproportionately harm rural areas and smaller cities.

Regions like Upstate New York and Michigan's Upper Peninsula have been drifting into various social pathologies for decades, but this accelerated during and after the Great Recession. All of this combined to make a pro-incumbent candidate like Clinton less appealing, especially against a candidate who campaigned on strong policy changes.

Sanders' experience representing Vermont also helped. It's not all craft beers and ice cream over there, you know. Part of me wonders whether a HRC who had spent the past eight years representing New York State would have been more suited to a presidential campaign than one who split her time between the Obama Cabinet and working the out-of-sight rich speaking circuit.

I don't think her tenure as Secretary of State was helpful to her campaign - there were moments, like when she invoked Henry Kissinger in her defense at a primary debate, when this felt particularly apparent.


5. In 2008, Hillary Clinton was running as a vehement critic of Obama. In 2016, she did her best to run as his avatar.

Democrats in 2008 who preferred Clinton to Obama usually did so for two reasons that tended to reinforce each other: (1) Racism, which the Clinton campaign didn't shy away from exploiting, and (2) skepticism about a young Senator with few policy accomplishments and unclear loyalties running on platitudinous rhetoric and vague promises.

Needless to say, almost everyone here recognizes this as a fraught discussion in which there little left to say aside from whatever profanities make you feel better. However, when you look at general election results, there are some patterns that you need much more discussion to explain: Obama did much worse than Kerry in some extremely white rural and small metro counties, but in others he did much better. On top of that, Clinton almost uniformly performed worse compared to Obama in these areas, in both the 2016 primaries and the general election. This is especially true when you look at raw vote totals or the Democratic percentage of the vote rather than Clinton-Trump margins.

Anyway, people opposing Obama "from the left" wasn't really a thing in 2008 - especially not within the party - and to the extent that they existed, they strongly preferred him to Clinton.

One last observation: Remember Clinton's mocking "the skies will open, angels will sing" bit? In 2016 she could have delivered the same words about Obama, unchanged, but with complete sincerity. (She could have used them to mock Sanders, though, albeit for slightly different reasons.)

[Politician]

Fail to see how Blackburn is moving in or Bredesen is trending down.

"he used to have a much larger lead"
"bredesen is trending down"

wut?

There has only been 3 polls of this race this entire summer, and one was Gravis. The last one was Gravis, actually, with Blackburn +4. So if we’re going by that, Bredesen is actually up. The one before that was Emerson with Bredesen +6 with RV, which is barely different than this one’s +4 RV. The one before that was from APRIL and had Bredesen +3. The only poll really out of line here was the Bredesen +10 from March which seemed like a clear outlier. Other than that, this race has been generally pretty damn close the entire time. Y'all are making up a narrative that doesn't exist.

Considering Bredesen has an enormous +40 favorable rating, and Blackburn only a +10… in Tennessee… and Trump has a +4 approval in a state that he won by 25, I’d say I’d rather be Bredesen now with less than two months to go.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Fail to see how Blackburn is moving in or Bredesen is trending down.

"he used to have a much larger lead"
"bredesen is trending down"

wut?

There has only been 3 polls of this race this entire summer, and one was Gravis. The last one was Gravis, actually, with Blackburn +4. So if we’re going by that, Bredesen is actually up. The one before that was Emerson with Bredesen +6 with RV, which is barely different than this one’s +4 RV. The one before that was from APRIL and had Bredesen +3. The only poll really out of line here was the Bredesen +10 from March which seemed like a clear outlier. Other than that, this race has been generally pretty damn close the entire time. Y'all are making up a narrative that doesn't exist.

Considering Bredesen has an enormous +40 favorable rating, and Blackburn only a +10… in Tennessee… and Trump has a +4 approval in a state that he won by 25, I’d say I’d rather be Bredesen now with less than two months to go.

With extra points for being the author's first post here.

[ON Progressive]

Yeah, the local party is treating him like persona non grata¹ (I get emails from the OCGOP asking for volunteers for Kim, Walters, and Harkey).

That’s because Dana Rohrabacher will cruise to victory in November. The suburban deplorables love him.

This isn't Temecula, and the suburban yuppies love Rouda. Rohrabacher is going down.

The NYT poll had them tied.

A long time incumbent with negative net favourables who is tied against a guy with 42% name recognition (and the challenger has high favourables in that 42%) when his party’s president is 14 points underwater in the district is an incumbent that’s very likely to lose in the election.

Yeah, head to head numbers do not tell the entire story. Mark Pryor was holding up relatively well in the head to head polls until late in the election, but astute observers were noting all along that he was stuck in the low 40s and almost all of the undecideds disapproved of Obama. Kind of like a certain Unbeatable Titan this year that everyone insists is in a pure toss up race.

Name recognition differences matter even more in House races though, where candidates are far lower profile and tend to be more at the mercy of the political environment. The road is littered with the corpses of Democrats in 2010 who "weren't polling that bad" then got BTFO by double digits because they were only polling in the high 30s/low 40s against an opponent with low name recognition.

Ah, so we are resorting to Dick Morris logic now. Gotcha.

Okay, I'll put some effort into this one...

First of all, there's a difference between saying "undecideds will likely break in a certain direction" vs. "undecideds will go 100% for the challenger no matter what." Plus, Obama's approval actually was at 50% on election day anyway.

Secondly, like I said, in general it's going to matter far more in lower profile House races than for higher profile races due to differences in name recognition and the fact that lower profile races are going to be more likely to be swept up in the political tide. In fact, that very article you linked says:

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Low name recognition plagues low profile House challengers far more and for far longer than it is going to plague a presidential nominee, for obvious reasons.

If you transported back in time to 2010 (especially pre-October 2010) and you went solely by head to head margins and nothing else, there would've been zero reason to expect these races to have the results they did:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/la/louisiana_2nd_district_cao_vs_richmond-1301.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/fl/florida_25th_district_rivera_vs_garcia-1366.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/pa/pennsylvania_17th_district_argall_vs_holden-1308.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/mo/missouri_3rd_district_martin_vs_carnahan-1377.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/ut/utah_2nd_district_philpot_vs_matheson-1465.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/pa/pennsylvania_4th_district_rothfus_vs_altmire-1298.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/ny/new_york_25th_district_buerkle_vs_maffei-1378.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/ia/iowa_1st_district_lange_vs_braley-1373.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/ia/iowa_3rd_district_zaun_vs_boswell-1306.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/id/idaho_1st_district_labrador_vs_minnick-1266.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/mo/missouri_4th_district_hartzler_vs_skelton-1292.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/ny/new_york_1st_district_altschuler_vs_bishop-1167.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/ny/new_york_19th_district_hayworth_vs_hall-1275.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/ny/new_york_24th_district_hanna_vs_arcuri-1280.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/pa/pennsylvania_7th_district_meehan_vs_lentz-1268.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/va/virginia_9th_district_griffith_vs_boucher-1390.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/fl/florida_22nd_district_west_vs_klein-1342.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/ms/mississippi_1st_district_nunnelee_vs_childers-1270.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/nm/new_mexico_2nd_district_pearce_vs_teague-1257.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/ny/new_york_20th_district_gibson_vs_murphy-1297.html

Granted, there were some misses in the other direction as well, mostly in heavily Democratic districts that the polls had as closer than they ended up being. So another lesson is that House polls as a whole should be taken with a pillar of salt, and that fundamentals are very important to consider as well.

Side note, it's definitely noticable how stark Siena's pro-incumbent bias is in those New York polls.

[Fuzzy Bear]

No, Hillary was perceived by many WWC voters as "taking their votes for granted".

Just like any other demographic in the US, Voters want to their elected Political Representatives to at least rhetorically show that they are fighters for marginalized communities encompassing a wide array of constituencies, and are at least talking about fundamental core issues and changing economic environments over the past 30+ Years of American History.

Dukakis got it enough in '88, even as Technocrat and lost by large margins mainly because of suburban Anglos, and not WWC Voters (Gephardt anyone )

Bush Sr, didn't get it in '92 and suddenly Ross Perot emerges out of nowhere to fill the vacuum.

Clinton '96 got it, and was able to both minimize 'Pub margins among suburban Anglos, and keep down Perot numbers against the lackluster 'Pub Bob Dole.

Gore '00 got it, and was able to perform pretty well among both WWC constituencies, while also starting to create massive swings among Knowledge Sector Workers (That still voted 'Pub).

Kerry '04 got it, but "kinder gentler Republican met swift-boat at a time where the Iraq War was starting to move front and center.

Obama '08/'12 got it and was able to minimize Dem losses and swing a significant number of George W. '00/'04 WWC voters.

HRC '16 was a total bust....

She appeared completely tone deaf to the legitimate concerns about generations of WWC voters, when it came to the "hot button" items of "off-shoring" of American Manufacturing jobs, where both the Democratic and Republican Parties alike are perceived by many as having "sold American workers down the river" and hiding behind the sacred altar of free trade that started with MFN with China after Tiananmen Square, NAFTA in the mid '90s, etc....

I come from a relatively rural and heavily manufacturing producing region of Oregon, and this isn't a Democrat/Republican/Libertarian/Green/Pink/Purple issue....

HRC did not directly address an issue at the forefront of many voters minds in '16, and instead you have a vacuum filled by Trump that promises to "bring jobs back to America"....

I have walked the line, worked the line, with tons of different political, social, economic backgrounds in a Manufacturing environments, and despite our roles and job titles, we have seen the failures of Democratic and Republican Presidential Administrations alike, when it comes to how various administrations appear more interested in the bottom lines of Wall Street than they do in investing and reinvesting in the American workforce.

I work in Fortune 50 Tech Sector Company, and although it is heavily Democratic leaning in terms of the employee population, we all know the real deal about how the CEOs sold us down the river to maximize quarterly earnings, shift jobs overseas to maximize profits, etc.... (Hence extremely high % of 3rd Party Votes in '16 in many parts of Oregon)

HRC's numbers cratered even harder in the Union Strongholds of the Midwest....

Trump did not win solely based upon xenophobia, but despite his hate speech....

"Rich People" (Not very many of them out there from my perspective as a % of population), had an extremely small electoral impact, and "Upper Middle-Class Voters", depending upon how one defines that by MHI / States / Metro Areas / Education Levels swung hard Dem, but ultimately, even there weren't enough to swing the Electoral College....

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Can someone give a brief description of the democratic "situation" for whites in the Jim Crow South in various times and places?

There's been a lot of plain yes and no answers, but some detailed descriptions would be great. I know very little about the South and would like to know more

It depends a lot on the state.

In South Carolina for example, the hurdles to voting were so entrenched and steep, that turnout was mostly just limited to the die hard party machine hacks, after all why pay a poll tax and bother with all those tests just to vote in an effectively already decided election? One thing that I remember being mentioned in one of my college classes was that some states actually mandated the poll tax be prepaid, aka it was paid long before election day and if you missed it you couldn't vote that year. And the day it was due was set to coincide right before harvest time when farmers would be lowest on money. So basically all poor farmers of all races were disenfranchised. The election was about as democratic as one to the Soviet Politboro. This was also true in Mississippi and most of Georgia.

But other states were a bit more open or split by region. The Upper South states had Unionist Republican enclaves and while they disenfranchised most blacks, weren't quite as onerous in the limitations. Also true of Alabama to some extent. What those states often did is just threw in loopholes to the restrictions allowing most whites to qualify. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disenfranchisement_after_the_Reconstruction_Era#Educational_and_character_requirements

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Hence why Alabama came close to voting for Hoover in 1928. Compare that to South Carolina, which didn't have a sizable Catholic population obviously.

Meanwhile this is what South Carolina did:

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[Politician]

1. This is a poll conducted by landline and has had a rather shaky history.

2. The poll isnt even done yet.

3. The campaign season is starting

I love how Atlas thinks that a race is in their corner due to polling, and liking the candidate, and yet they think its titanium R when they get a poll that is slightly unfavorable(Im looking at you, Wallace haters!). Anyway, its clear that Miller will probably finish above Ojeda in this poll, but, as I stated before, this is not some god-tier level polling, and the part where voters actually care is coming up.

[Dr. Arch]

This is a point of theology that goes to who Jesus is, and what it takes for sinful man to stand before a Holy and Perfect God.

Mormons and Evangelicals have very different ideas as to who Jesus was and is, and these differences have Eternal consequences.  Mormons believe that Evangelicals who believe what they do about Jesus will be separated from him.  This doesn't make them "hateful", but it does represent a theological difference of Eternal Significance.

This idea that if you're a "good person" you will "Go to Heaven" or whatever other Happy Place you believe you will go to in the life after death may, or may not, be true, but it is not supported by Scripture.  The Bible I read says that my own personal Righteousness "is as fitthy rags" (which translates to something akin to soild cloth diapers).  The Bible I read says "there is none righteous; no, not one."  Whatever else Scripture may say about one's own righteousness, Scripture does not support the idea that "just being good", "doing your best", etc. is going to get you to a happy afterlife.

This is Theology For Keeps 101.  Serious Evangelicals discuss this.  Serious Mormons discuss this.  Serious Catholics discuss this.  You know this.

Regardless of whether that's true or not, you still stepped into a thread about Mormons that had nothing to do with who goes to Heaven or not to announce to everyone that you think Mormons are going to Hell. That was an inappropriate and classless post, and hurts your credibility to complain about people making inappropriate posts toward you.

The next time you're upset about something Proud Moderate or whoever said to you, remember how you've made all of the Mormons feel in that thread, people who never said anything nasty to you for you to "respond in kind" to.

(Also, both Mormons and Catholics explicitly believe that all good people, whether Christian or not, can go to Heaven, so you whiffed on 2/3 of your examples.)

[IceSpear]

Suffolk had Senator-elect Heck up by 3 in Nevada in September 2016, and he certainly didn't "improve with time", lol. Heller might not lose by double digits, but it's amazing how people forget every time how polls regularly underestimate Democrats in Nevada. If Heller somehow wins re-election in Nevada, it's because some enormous scandal about Rosen breaks in October, or because Democrats are having a terrible night and losing 5-6 Senate seats while only making minimal gains in the House. There is no universe in which Democrats win the House while Heller wins re-election. If you don't believe me, well, neither did most posters in 2016 when I suggested that there was absolutely no way that Clinton would win without Nevada, and that Democrats wouldn't take the Senate without it.

[Fuzzy Bear]

This is a point of theology that goes to who Jesus is, and what it takes for sinful man to stand before a Holy and Perfect God.

Mormons and Evangelicals have very different ideas as to who Jesus was and is, and these differences have Eternal consequences.  Mormons believe that Evangelicals who believe what they do about Jesus will be separated from him.  This doesn't make them "hateful", but it does represent a theological difference of Eternal Significance.

This idea that if you're a "good person" you will "Go to Heaven" or whatever other Happy Place you believe you will go to in the life after death may, or may not, be true, but it is not supported by Scripture.  The Bible I read says that my own personal Righteousness "is as fitthy rags" (which translates to something akin to soild cloth diapers).  The Bible I read says "there is none righteous; no, not one."  Whatever else Scripture may say about one's own righteousness, Scripture does not support the idea that "just being good", "doing your best", etc. is going to get you to a happy afterlife.

This is Theology For Keeps 101.  Serious Evangelicals discuss this.  Serious Mormons discuss this.  Serious Catholics discuss this.  You know this.

Regardless of whether that's true or not, you still stepped into a thread about Mormons that had nothing to do with who goes to Heaven or not to announce to everyone that you think Mormons are going to Hell. That was an inappropriate and classless post, and hurts your credibility to complain about people making inappropriate posts toward you.

The next time you're upset about something Proud Moderate or whoever said to you, remember how you've made all of the Mormons feel in that thread, people who never said anything nasty to you for you to "respond in kind" to.

(Also, both Mormons and Catholics explicitly believe that all good people, whether Christian or not, can go to Heaven, so you whiffed on 2/3 of your examples.)

Well said.

That Mormons or Catholics may believe something does not make it true.

"Justification By Faith, Alone" is the watershed Doctrine of the Evangelical Church.  I use the term "Evangelical" here in the sense that Martin Luther used it.  (Luther did not want his church to be called the "Lutheran" church; he wished for it to be called the "Evangelical" church, "Evangelical" meaning "true to the Gospel".)

What Mormons and Catholics advocate is extra-Biblical.  They elevate to Scripture writings and documents that are things other than Scripture.  It begs the question as to whether or not the Bible is the Infallible Word of God or whether it is not.  I certainly believe it is.  Others don't, and this is a crux of discussion.

The matter of where one spends Eternity isn't a choice between the nicest-sounding plan.  If I could pick a Heaven where we'd all go, where even Mao and Hitler and Stalin and Al Capone could be sanctified and live with the rest of up in perfect harmony for Eternity, never having to suffer again, I'd pick that plan.  Many people believe that Heaven is for the "good people", and that (I believe) is true, in that Sin cannot enter into Heaven, but it begs the question as to how one becomes "good"; indeed, it begs the question of what "good" actually means.

I'm mentioning this for the benefit of the reader who comes by and sees this religious discussion in the midst of the issue of the discussion of a poster (ProudModerate2) who, IMO, violates the ToS and forum rules to the point where some discipline ought to be invoked.  The folks pushing THAT discussion are, in their way, trolling.  That's OK; people trolled Jesus in His time on Earth as a man.  I'm suggesting that Heaven isn't something you pick, like a car.  All of us can't be right on this, and just because the plan for Eternal Life you've picked sounds as if it's the "most inclusive" or the "least judgmental" doesn't mean it represents the Eternal Reality.

Now, back to ProudModerate2:  Does he deserve discipline?  A ban?  Sign the petition if you agree.

In reply #325, Arch wasn't decent enough to quote the whole story. 

[Atlas Force]

ReaganFan hasn't committed any offense in my view, besides holding political opinions that are unpopular with the majority of the community here. I don't condone all that Ftaghn goes, but Badger seems to have been the one to started their controversy, and she responds in kind. Smoltchanov and Famous Mortimer haven't engaged in ad hominem attacks or flung insults at other posters, so far as I know. ProudModerate2, by contrast, has done so routinely.

Perhaps I do possess some bias on this, given that the vast majority of the people with whom I've clashed on here are on the left side of the spectrum, while the other individuals you name have never engaged in attacks against me. And that is how I judge people by. If people treat you with respect, don't engage in blatant attacks, or bog themselves down in unproductive debates that accomplish nothing, then I have no issue with them being here. Of course, people with truly horrendous opinions (such as racism, sexism, etc.) shouldn't be allowed here under any circumstances. But I also don't think you should kick someone out just because they may have a differing view on an issue (i.e. abortion or gay marriage) than you do.

I don't understand, are you saying that so long as people don't treat you badly, you don't particularly care what they say or do? If so, that actually kind of makes sense.

Anyway, some thoughts:

1. There are more non-conservatives on this forum - considerably more I bet, so that probably gives you a skewed impression of problem users. It is interesting too, because not that long ago, I was wondering why we've had so many argumentative conservative trolls in a row who had to be banned. Maybe you missed users like Klartext, ahugecat and ghost monkey (not banned), et al. These users - mostly the last two - treated others like crap and in some cases had pretty twisted views. Pretty much every major troll since at least mid-2016 who chronically derailed threads were Trump supporters / conservatives.

2. When you made your infamous list of "problem" users which happened to be all leftists, you seem to have effectively invited more negative treatment of yourself, and probably even by users not on that list. Of course I don't condone that, but I don't get why you couldn't see that coming. It seemed like a blatantly obvious reaction. If you sit there casting judgement onto people, they will probably return the favor and thensome.

3. The state of American politics has understandably lit a fire under the left's butt, so it has definitely made things more volatile both on this forum and off. Politics isn't an emotionless game people play. It's very real, and has very real effects on people. It tore the Republican Party in two under Obama, so if you think this is just some phenomena on the left, just wait until the next Democratic president gets elected. And let's be honest here, the behavior of Donald Trump is obscene and an affront to even the most basic levels of decency that so many Americans thought this country respected, so it shouldn't be surprising that some of these people are becoming more aggressive and less tolerant of their ideological opponents who wish to keep such a vulgar, sick man in power.

[Sestak]

He came in and told Boehner to resign and give the spot to Paul Ryan, and the GOP party is still in turmoil.

[NOVA Green]

Posted by VPH: DEM from KS on the thread: Who Are The 15-20% of Clinton Supporters in Deep Red Backcountry?

It's a detailed comprehensive and thoughtful post from an individual has been active in "grassroots level political activities in Kansas from many different parts of the State, in a part of the country that frequently doesn't get that much attention because it is so heavily Republican at various levels of Government for so long.

We need more similar style of contributions like this from posters representing all 50 States of the Union, and perhaps a similar style thread such as "Who are the 15-20% of Trump Supporters in Deep Blue Country".

Effort post....

Speaking anecdotally here, but I have met enough of these voters and activists to notice some trends. A lot of the candidates I have met from these places were not vocal in support of Hillary, but they likely voted for her.

One subset seems to be more conservative Democrats who have always considered themselves Democrats. Most of them have some sort of family connection to the New Deal, and lots of them are older. There is a decent amount of them in historically Democratic counties, especially in deeply Catholic areas here. Their influence showed in the Kansas 4th District special election nomination contest, as most of this type of delegate from rural areas picked Dennis McKinney (from Kiowa County-11% Hillary), who was very much one of their own. They tend to be more Democratic on economic issues, emphasizing the importance of government in fostering a fairer, more equitable society. Gubernatorial candidate Josh Svaty (from Ellsworth County-19% Hillary) would be another example of this type, although he is younger and decidedly more progressive on some issues.

Taken to one end, some of these more conservative rural Democrats are very very conservative. I knew one activist and his wife (from Elk County-13% Hillary) who supported Rocky De La Fuente in the 2016 Democratic Primary and some other minor candidate in the 2012 Democratic Primary. Not the most likely to vote for Hillary in the general election, considering he had some choice words for her when we talked. Sadly, this couple passed away before the election but they were always interesting to talk to.

The second subset is mostly female and more concerned with social justice. I know a number of activists who fit into this category. These voters tend to be indistinguishable on most policy issues from a lot of the more urban "indivisible" types. Many backed Bernie Sanders in the primary, because of his progressive stances. My theory is that these voters are more to the left because they're surrounded by conservatives. As an example, an awesome state senate candidate in Eastern Kansas, Mark Pringle, who won his home county (Woodson County-19% Hillary) was deeply progressive on many issues. Some smaller scale family farmers fall into this category. They are also prevalent around small town university campuses, as in Pratt County (20% Clinton).

Yet another subset, which I have not met that many people from, are very poor voters. Many of them depend on forms of government assistance, but my thought it lots of them don't vote. Some certainly factor into the Clinton support in very red areas. Interesting to think whether or not Bernie would have gotten more in this group to vote.

Another group of people who fit this are rural Latinos who can vote. In many Western Kansas counties, there is a high Latino population, but many are ineligible to vote. While the Latino populations here tend to be more conservative than elsewhere, many do support Democrats. I have a hunch that this helps explain some of the swings in rural Western Kansas (even outside of Dodge City, Garden City, and Liberal). Stafford County (16% Clinton) has some too.

Then there are small historically Black settlements in very red, White counties. Nicodemus KS (Graham County-15% Clinton) is one example, and so are parts of Coffeyville (Montgomery County-22% Clinton) and I know some exist in Oklahoma.

[PragmaticPopulist]

I have had Badger on ignore for over a year, I don't know why he obsesses on me.

I don't obsess with anybody, dear child. I merely call out horsesh**t and bigotry whenever I see it on this form, which is not infrequently, and near universally from you in particular.

Besides, for being on ignore, you reply to my posts more often than not. So it sounds like you were so obsessed with me that you can't help but take a peek at what I'm posting anyway.

[Sestak]

Easily Taylor. Adoration for Polk usually stems for blind valuation of "effectiveness" over actual policy merits —the presidency revealed him to be even more of an imperialist hack than the "Manifest Destiny" slogan implied, and by the end of the Mexican-American War his demands had grown so unreasonable that his ambassadors had to basically ignore his directives in order to settle the peace negotiations. He was still better than most of these by virtue of being somewhat competent, but I'll take the man who was prepared to veto the Fugitive Slave Act over the man who provoked an unnecessary war with a weaker power any day.

[Politician]

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