Tonight's special election shows we can't afford a risky nominee in 2020

[Ford_Prefect]

62. If the system is rigged from within No One is beating the Republican candidate by simply showing up.

As it stands right now the system is still as rigged as it was in 2016 if not more so. The rethugs still control who may vote and whose vote gets counted in many states that matter most: Georgia and Florida for example. Texas and other states will purge voters as much as they are able to along with any other quasi-legal tactic they can use because the US DOJ will not interfere.

The Russians, and anyone else with enough money (Mercer, Koch and other like minded oligarchs), can perform all kinds of back door interference along with propagandizing social media. McConnell has made it so along with Trump by erasing funding for any kind of voting security along with disabling the offices at Homeland Security, FBI and DOJ which had the job of defending the voting system or identifying threats to it, or identifying and countering internet borne propaganda.

To continue acting as if this is yet one more election ergo it must be won by a traditional sounding candidate is the height of ignoring the elephant, nay Gorilla in the room.

We are not in a "regular" election. Any candidate who does not reflect that difference is doomed. We will need a candidate and party who reflect the dire truth of where we are and where we MUST go and exactly how we can go forward. Soft ball answers and missed steps will not inspire the kind of turnout we very much MUST have.

What this election showed was that overwhelming turnout MUST happen. It didn't in NC. It was an off year, out of season election where much confusion still surrounds the actions of the GOP and the previous candidate who caused it. If you need to blame hayseed Republican voters then you don't understand NC politics at all. The Democratic party in NC sadly has a few issues as well, including some of the leadership who still imagine they can get by on a Republican-Lite agenda. That if anything is one of the lessons.