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Campaign 2014: The Epic Struggle To Win The Senate And Change Nothing

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Re: Campaign 2014: The Epic Struggle To Win The Senate And Change Nothing

burd said:
I have a friend who has a finance/poly sci background and now teaches at the university level. Conservative by nature. A couple of years ago, he made an interesting comment on what things he looks at to decide whether a presidential candidate has the skills to do the job, political persuasion aside. He said that with the longer lasting and increasingly complex campaigns he looks at the candidate's ability to manage a campaign. Not exclusively, of course, but with significant weight. Either the candidate does it well (or not) or the candidate understands how to choose capable people to do it for him (or not) and delegate effectively. Presidential campaigns are marathons that require long-term strategy and the ability to address diverse interests across a wide range of economies and cultural groups. In addition to those long-term management skills, it requires candidates to deal with inevitable crises that require quick response and judgment.

Some of that makes sense. With the way the distinction between governing and campaigning has disappeared (or never really existed), though, I get uncomfortable using a person's ability to manage a good campaign as an indication whether that person can govern effectively.

All that just relates to a person's ability to lead, of course, not the direction he or she would lead.
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It does make sense. The only objections to it (that it's not really the candidate's choices; that there are serious environmental restrictions that can cause his campaign to suceed or fail due to nothing at all that they're doing) feed into the environment of the presidency anyway. Not a bad approximation.

However, as you point out, it only works if you think policy doesn't matter. As much as the capabilities of a given president may matter, a less effective leader going in the right direction is infinitely better than a very effective leader going in the wrong one. But it could still be a useful discriminator in the primaries.
 
Re: Campaign 2014: The Epic Struggle To Win The Senate And Change Nothing

St. Clown said:
Prior to Obama, JFK was the last sitting senator elected to the Presidency. While many others had served as senators during their careers, they had spent time in other offices - usually VP - before winning their Presidential elections.
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And Bush I was the first sitting Vice President elected since Martin Van Buren.
 
Re: Campaign 2014: The Epic Struggle To Win The Senate And Change Nothing

Old Pio said:
And Bush I was the first sitting Vice President elected since Martin Van Buren.
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Yeah, I suppose Nixon wouldn't count as a winning VP because he had some time off between '60 and '68. LBJ ascended to the Presidency and held office for a while before winning his own election.
 
Re: Campaign 2014: The Epic Struggle To Win The Senate And Change Nothing

Van Buren and Bush are actually the only sitting VPs to be elected under the modern system where VPs run as a separate office. Adams and Jefferson were sitting VPs but held the office because they came in 2nd in the electoral vote.
 
Re: Campaign 2014: The Epic Struggle To Win The Senate And Change Nothing

God**** it I hate machines. Fill it out like a normal human ****ing being. Jesus. Minnesota still requires you to fill out your ballot with a god**** pen.

Voting machines are the absolute blurst.
 
Re: Campaign 2014: The Epic Struggle To Win The Senate And Change Nothing

Even saying the words "voting machine" sounds like a scam.
 
Re: Campaign 2014: The Epic Struggle To Win The Senate And Change Nothing

dxmnkd316 said:
God**** it I hate machines. Fill it out like a normal human ****ing being. Jesus. Minnesota still requires you to fill out your ballot with a god**** pen.

Voting machines are the absolute blurst.
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I like the scantron machines I've always used. If there's ever a contested vote, you can check what was logged by the machine against what's filled in on the papaer ballot. As much as computers can help streamline the voting process, nothing beats hardcopy backups for data integrity.
 
Re: Campaign 2014: The Epic Struggle To Win The Senate And Change Nothing

St. Clown said:
I like the scantron machines I've always used. If there's ever a contested vote, you can check what was logged by the machine against what's filled in on the papaer ballot. As much as computers can help streamline the voting process, nothing beats hardcopy backups for data integrity.
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Agreed. There are no glitches with a hard paper ballot. You don't have to worry about "HEY, I pressed Clinton but it said I voted for Dole" garbage. If you screw up, you can always get a new ballot and have your old one destroyed before submitting it. I've heard of cases where people are not allowed a new ballot, but most of them are sorted out fairly quickly with a call to a local election official or party HQ.
 
St. Clown said:
I like the scantron machines I've always used. If there's ever a contested vote, you can check what was logged by the machine against what's filled in on the papaer ballot. As much as computers can help streamline the voting process, nothing beats hardcopy backups for data integrity.
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That's what we use here in Alaska. Usually have quick returns and still have paper ballots as backup.
 
Re: Campaign 2014: The Epic Struggle To Win The Senate And Change Nothing

Boston Globe endorses Baker (R) over Coakley (D) for Massachusetts governor.

Surprised? Yes.
Shocked? No.
 
Re: Campaign 2014: The Epic Struggle To Win The Senate And Change Nothing

joecct said:
Boston Globe endorses Baker (R) over Coakley (D) for Massachusetts governor.

Surprised? Yes.
Shocked? No.
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Yeah, I think this is about right. Coakley is a god awful candidate and Baker is pretty non-toxic in the Bill Weld mold for Mass Republicans (and Romney frankly before he got national ambitions). I didn't vote for her in the primaries, and I may not vote for her in the general. Mass Dems need to get their heads out of their arses and stop nominating people who's spent their adult lives in state politics.

The thing I always come back to is this: Had the GOP Senate not stupidly blocked Warren's appointment to the Consumer Protectin Bureau, Scott Brown would still be a sitting US Senator in Mass instead of a wannabe NH resident. :rolleyes: The state had no one, and I mean no one, else who could have won that race even with Obama running up a 20 point win that year. That's because they keep putting up people like Coakley in these races.
 
Rover said:
Yeah, I think this is about right. Coakley is a god awful candidate and Baker is pretty non-toxic in the Bill Weld mold for Mass Republicans (and Romney frankly before he got national ambitions). I didn't vote for her in the primaries, and I may not vote for her in the general. Mass Dems need to get their heads out of their arses and stop nominating people who's spent their adult lives in state politics.

The thing I always come back to is this: Had the GOP Senate not stupidly blocked Warren's appointment to the Consumer Protectin Bureau, Scott Brown would still be a sitting US Senator in Mass instead of a wannabe NH resident. :rolleyes: The state had no one, and I mean no one, else who could have won that race even with Obama running up a 20 point win that year. That's because they keep putting up people like Coakley in these races.
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The Globe used a key phrase in their endorsement - "veto proof majority".

To mean that things will stay business as usual in the Commonwealth, albeit without the rubber stamp.
 
Re: Campaign 2014: The Epic Struggle To Win The Senate And Change Nothing

Rover said:
Yeah, I think this is about right. Coakley is a god awful candidate and Baker is pretty non-toxic in the Bill Weld mold for Mass Republicans (and Romney frankly before he got national ambitions). I didn't vote for her in the primaries, and I may not vote for her in the general. Mass Dems need to get their heads out of their arses and stop nominating people who's spent their adult lives in state politics.

The thing I always come back to is this: Had the GOP Senate not stupidly blocked Warren's appointment to the Consumer Protectin Bureau, Scott Brown would still be a sitting US Senator in Mass instead of a wannabe NH resident. :rolleyes: The state had no one, and I mean no one, else who could have won that race even with Obama running up a 20 point win that year. That's because they keep putting up people like Coakley in these races.
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Her performance in the Fels Acres case disqualifies her for public office, IMO.
 
Re: Campaign 2014: The Epic Struggle To Win The Senate And Change Nothing

joecct said:
The Globe used a key phrase in their endorsement - "veto proof majority".

To mean that things will stay business as usual in the Commonwealth, albeit without the rubber stamp.
Click to expand...

As I've said before (but righties don't tend to believe me ;)) the Mass state Dem party is horrible. Its filled up with career hacks who can't cut it in the private sector, so you either have 1) descendents of local politicians, going back generations, or 2) failed lawyers. Part of this is due to the economics of the state, you can make more in academia than as a back bencher in the state legislature, and if you were a good lawyer there's no way you'd trade the $$$ for a crappy State House career. The Congressional delegation isn't much better aside from Lizzy Warren who didn't come up through the state party (several of the Congressmen/women are recently elected so time will tell on them). There are a lot of Martha Coakley's out there - the trick is to not give them the nomination. :mad: You could see this coming a mile away.
 
Rover said:
As I've said before (but righties don't tend to believe me ;)) the Mass state Dem party is horrible. Its filled up with career hacks who can't cut it in the private sector, so you either have 1) descendents of local politicians, going back generations, or 2) failed lawyers. Part of this is due to the economics of the state, you can make more in academia than as a back bencher in the state legislature, and if you were a good lawyer there's no way you'd trade the $$$ for a crappy State House career. The Congressional delegation isn't much better aside from Lizzy Warren who didn't come up through the state party (several of the Congressmen/women are recently elected so time will tell on them). There are a lot of Martha Coakley's out there - the trick is to not give them the nomination. :mad: You could see this coming a mile away.
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Rover

If they're so bad, why do they keep being re-elected?
 
Re: Campaign 2014: The Epic Struggle To Win The Senate And Change Nothing

joecct said:
Rover

If they're so bad, why do they keep being re-elected?
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Same reason the Mark Sanfords and David Vitters get re-elected. Even a steaming pile can get elected if that steaming pile is genuinely representative of its constituents.
 
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