Senate Dems from red states

[Proud liberal 80]

When are they going to learn that they won’t win re-election by being republican-lite and trying to win over voters who will not vote for them regardless. You win by winning keeping the liberals, Dems, and moderates energized.

[Kirk Lover]

1. But are liberals and Dem's getting them elected in these Red states? n/t

[Proud liberal 80]

4. Yep in Alabama

[Kirk Lover]

5. Ok but I think if the R's would of run anyone else unfortunatley Jones would not of won.

Trying to primary a Solid Red State Dem with a flaming liberal would be a disaster and only end up as a loss of the seat.

[Proud liberal 80]

9. If Doug Jones becomes republican-lite

The people who showed up for him in the special election won’t be there in his re-election bid.

[Kirk Lover]

10. Yes that is true. I'm sorry but I think this seat will go back to the R's in the next

election. Unless that is they want to run another candidate like Moore.

[Proud liberal 80]

11. I agree

That’s more of a reason he shouldn’t go republican-lite to appease people who aren’t going to vote form him. He should support the Democratic agenda, who knows he may energize the same people who got him elected. Probably will still lose, but go down fighting.

[MineralMan]

2. Do you mean the ones who have already been elected in those states?

You're going to have a hard time convincing those that they can't win, you know. Think about it...

[SHRED]

3. State by state strategies work

For instance, you'd never get a Kamala Harris elected in Alabama.
Play smart.

[GulfCoast66]

6. Trying not to sound too condescending

But I think they know a little bit more about how to get elected senator in their state than you do.

After all, they have all successfully done so.

[Proud liberal 80]

7. Its not about getting elected

They don’t understand what got them elected. They go to the senate and try to appease people who didn’t vote for them while turning off people who did. It’s about being re-elected. They are following the Blanche Lincoln playbook.

[ripcord]

8. Much of that depends on what they ran on

[moriah]

14. You do realize how much primarying her *fucked* the Arkansas Democratic Party?

Maybe not, since you didn't live here in 2010, but I can tell you.

First, the opposition to her came from out of state pressure and funds, not local voters. She won the primary, even though there was a very healthy Republican primary going on as well so crossiver voting was lessened. But the person most likely to win that Republican primary was John Booznan, who at that time was the only Republican Arkansas was sending to Washington. And he was my rep since I lived in NWA then.

I vividly remembered letters from him claiming his training in opthamology made him convinced pregnancy, not just life, began at conception.

But all the out of state money and ads DID damage the local liberals opinion of her -- instead of seeing her as someone who was trying to respond to her constituents demands (Arkansas still did some crazy shit with the Medicaid expansion funds, but we weren't ready for the public option as a stats even if I personally wanted it -- the only way Arkansas accepted even the expansion was to let marketplace-approved plans bid to cover the healthy individuals vs actually expand Medicaid, and considering how few primary care physicians here accept adult Medicaid, there were reasons), they saw her as a sellout after all the money and negativity coming from out-of-state people was used to attack her. And the attacks were repeated by Boozman, at least the convenient ones.

All this out-of-state spending by left-leaning groups did something else, too -- it made Republicans rethink whether they could get Arkansas back. We were a red state insofar as who we chose for President most of thr time, but we have significantly liberal areas as well. Republicans starred spending out-of-state money here again, and led to Arkansas electing its first Republican senator since the Reconstruction. Yes, in 1994 they successfully got many congressional districts, but they went back blue... but we'd NEVER elected a Republican Senator.

Redistricting didn't help.

Now, all six congress critters we send are red, including Tom Conman Cotton.

[treestar]

12. The liberals are a minority in those states

[Tatiana]

13. Manchin will.

So I can ignore his votes, when we can afford them.

McCaskill is the one that I think has a little more leeway to vote her conscience.