Time For A Democratic Majority In The House...

[Big RR]

I dated a Polish girl in high school and she was, by n means, a cheap date. But I did get a pretty good return on my investment.

[wesw]

[Econoline]

[Lord Jim]

Real Clear Politics has started its electoral maps for the 2018 midterms; and at the moment things look pretty good for the Democratic prospects of taking the House...

199 seats are listed as "safe" "likely" or "leaning" Democratic, to 202 seats listed as "safe", "likely" or "leaning" Republican...

(The current breakdown is 193 Democrats, 235 Republicans, and 7 vacancies)

This leaves 34 current "toss up" seats, and of those 32 are currently held by Republicans and only two are held by Democrats, creating a very target rich environment for them to flip the seats they need to retake the House...

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epoll ... e_map.html

The situation in the Senate of course, is nowhere near as promising...

I can easily see a scenario where the Dems pick up 30-40 seats in the House while still losing a couple net in the Senate...

[BoSoxGal]

How do you think the election might be influenced by Trump’s decision to invite Putin to the White House in the fall?

[Sue U]

This leaves 34 current "toss up" seats, and of those 32 are currently held by Republicans and only two are held by Democrats, creating a very target rich environment for them to flip the seats they need to retake the House...

Of the House races I'm watching, it looks to me like NJ-2, NJ-3 and NY-22 are probable flips from R to D, and possibly NJ-7 as well.

I think the Senate is still anyone's guess at this point. Despite the pressure on McCaskill, Heitkamp, Donnelly and Manchin, to name a few tough races, Trump may still end up demoralizing more potential Republican voters than he energizes in his base. And with no Democratic boogeyman (or GOP carnival barker) at the top of the ticket, I can see a lot Republicans sitting this one out. Still a long way to November, though, with a lot more political idiocy to get through.

ETA:

I think BigRR is in NJ-11, which is going to be an open seat with the retirement of the much-reviled Rodney Frelinghuysen (R). I don't really have a sense of where that district is going, but the Dems are running a very attractive candidate (prosecutor, Navy veteran helicopter pilot, woman) against a pretty standard-issue Republican dude whose background consists solely of being a state assemblyman. With Frelinghuysen out, it ratchets down the hate factor, but it still may be a D pick-up. BigRR, what do you think? How is the media campaign in your neighborhood?

[Big RR]

I am in that district Sue, and right now everything is pretty low key; many people still don't really know who is running or anything about them. Webber is doing his best to distance himself from Trump while embracing his policies, and that may well work in this district; Sherrill is a good candidate to challenge the status quo and the type of moderate democr5at who could succeed here. I think it's still a toss up.

What is your view on the Senate race; I've never particularly liked Menendez, and his recent ethical criminal problems, coupled with his embracing Trump's Cuba policy (if it can be called a policy) has brought him down any further on my list. In most other years I would not vote for him, but he is preferable to big pharma's Trumpite, Hugin scares the hell out of me. He tries to appear reasonable, but he's Trump after finishing school. He'll play up the corruption angle, though, so he might do better than I'd hope.

[Sue U]

Menendez has never been my favorite Senator, but I think the government was really overreaching on the corruption case. Certainly the "optics" of his friendship with Salomon Melgen were terrible, because Melgen is kind of a sleazeball and turned out to be defrauding Medicare, but from what I saw Menendez didn't do anything other than provide pretty standard constituent services. And apparently, that's the way the jury saw it, too, because 10 out of 12 voted "not guilty." (I recall one juror interviewed saying that after the prosecution rested, his thought was something like "That's their case? Is that all they've got?") Anyway, Menendez has some hawkish attitudes that I'm not crazy about, but they're mostly on what I consider to be fairly minor issues; I understand the Cuba thing given his own background and his Hudson-Bergen County constituency. I've contributed to his campaign in the past and I probably will again, because Bob Hugin (R) is pouring a metric fuckton of money into his own campaign, and I'm pretty sure we don't need anymore billionaire assholes in the Senate.

[Big RR]

I understand the Cuba thing given his own background and his Hudson-Bergen County constituency.

I've heard that excuse many times, but he's representing all of the state, not just Cuban-americans. And cozying up to Trump on the positions is pretty despicable.

I any event, I will cast my vote for him, or at least against Webber.

[Scooter]

[BoSoxGal]

[rubato]

Rosen has pulled ahead and currently looks to flip a NV senate seat and an open seat in Tn. has a Democrat polling ahead. But to flip the Senate they will have to win all of the close races with D incumbents. Tough going.


yrs,
rubato

[Scooter]

[Econoline]

"...this solder was leaving for another war..."?

"...the cost for his medical care make him homeless..."?

Is Russian bots write lefty meme to?

[Scooter]

I don't know that there's anything particularly "lefty" about wanting to see vets properly cared for, but point taken.

[Bicycle Bill]

"...this solder was leaving for another war..."?

"...the cost for his medical care make him homeless..."?

Is Russian bots write lefty meme to?

Unfortunately, this is what passes for literacy and an acceptable command of the English language in many American public schools nowadays, and it's been going on for years.  Look at any of wesw's posts, for example, or any of the PINO's late-night tweets (which he would probably consider to be his version of 'presidential communiques' ... if he even knew that a word like 'communique' existed in the first place).  And the increasing use of 'textspeak' and emojis is merely going to accelerate the descent into the abyss.

By comparison, a Russian bot's product would probably be error-free, with all verbs in their proper tense, all words spelled correctly, and flawless punctuation and grammar.

-"BB"-

[ex-khobar Andy]

I don't know that there's anything particularly "lefty" about wanting to see vets properly cared for, but point taken.

Yes; and this lefty, although he abhors the recent oil wars, wants this vet's medical bills paid for by me and other taxpayers. He suffered (I assume) those injuries in the service of his country and, no matter how wrong I think that country may have been, he should not pay one cent for his treatment.

[Burning Petard]

"Yes; and this lefty, although he abhors the recent oil wars, wants this vet's medical bills paid for by me and other taxpayers."

Yes, and this lefty too. That is the reason I will not contribute to Wounded Warriors or other similar private charities. It should be the burden of the willing taxpaying citizens to cover this. But we have a long history of supporting all the heroes (anybody issued dog tags. Thank you for your service) until the sound of the artillery (or IUDs) is no longer heard, then the budget for the VA is cut. Every time.

snailgate

LATER EDIT. I am pretty sure auto correct bombed me again. I intended IED's

[Sue U]

until the sound of the artillery (or IUDs) is no longer heard

[Scooter]

If your IUD is making noise I'm pretty sure that calls for a visit to the doctor.