Lessons from the Kentucky and Louisiana governor's race (1 Viewer)

[UncleTrvlingJim]

I'm pretty sure there's going to be a lot of focus on how the Republicans or Trump might be in trouble based on the election results, my take away is different. I think everyone should be generally encouraged by results like these. Kentucky elected an almost entirely Republican slate except for governor, and Louisiana has a super majority Republican legislature, but voted for the Democrat for governor. Both states are most likely going to vote for Trump next year.

Both Bevin and Rispone were bad candidates. What this tells me, that even in this pretty hyper-partisan time we're in, people are able to still break free from straight line party voting.

I also think this should remind us that most people don't spend tons of time on political message boards, or hours thinking about this stuff. As much as I love debating politics, and so on, the net effect of things like this is to harden people's positions and increase partisanship. I think we're going to try for something different with this board, but human nature doesn't change. However, most people don't really spend that much time on this, they just live their lives, and while they have their political preferences and default party votes -- they will ultimately vote for a superior candidate.

 

[coldseat]

I am curious why you think it is more of a problem on the right than the left.

One possible measure:

Of states voting for Trump - 7 have split Senate delegations (1 Republican, 1 Democrat), of states voting for Clinton - 2 have split delegations.

Another:

Clinton states - 4 states with Republican governor
Trump states - 8 states with Democratic governor.

I'm speaking much more anecdotally here, so it can very much be colored by my own personal biases and observations. I wouldn't know how to quantify it, but I wouldn't doubt that somebody else has already tried too.

It's just very apparent to me that Trump/republican voters have a much higher tolerance for horrible political candidates then do voters on the left. It's not an absolute thing by any means, but people like Franken have been run out of town for a couple of accusations of inappropriate behavior, but Roy More continues to get enough support to run again for a Senate seat, and may win. There's just a higher tolerance on the right for that type of character in comparison to the left. I'm not speaking about their ideologies or political positions, just the person.

 

[Saintamaniac]

I am curious why you think it is more of a problem on the right than the left.

One possible measure:

Of states voting for Trump - 7 have split Senate delegations (1 Republican, 1 Democrat), of states voting for Clinton - 2 have split delegations.

Another:

Clinton states - 4 states with Republican governor
Trump states - 8 states with Democratic governor.

One group is constantly accused by the right of things that are demonstrably false and the other group is the right.

 

[MT15]

The fact that Archie felt comfortable saying whatever he said about slithering toward socialism in relation to JBE shows he is a bit out of touch with reality.

Too many Rs evidently believe Trump’s assertions that all Ds are socialists who want open borders and love crime. Silly as it is, they parrot it if they are candidates and repeat it on message boards.

 

[Archies Ghost]

The fact that Archie felt comfortable saying whatever he said about slithering toward socialism in relation to JBE shows he is a bit out of touch with reality.

Too many Rs evidently believe Trump’s assertions that all Ds are socialists who want open borders and love crime. Silly as it is, they parrot it if they are candidates and repeat it on message boards.

You misread my post. There is no implication regarding JBE.

And the candidates themselves are proclaiming they are socialist.

 

[Archies Ghost]

Wait, you think some of Rispone's 49% were Democrats who don't support JBE's pro-life stance? Rispone's is even worse. He wants it to be made illegal. I can't see a single "leftist" voting for Rispone, especially when you consider that a good number of Republicans wouldn't even vote for him.

It was a bit tongue in cheek but I will say if an avowed socialist R was running for Governor against an avowed communist D, I would vote for the D.

 

[MT15]

You misread my post. There is no implication regarding JBE.

And the candidates themselves are proclaiming they are socialist.

do they? Or do they identify as social democrats? Trump doesn’t know the difference, but I would expect most people who are interested enough to post here to know that.

just in case though, here’s the difference (from wiki)

“The difference between the two is that modern social democrats support practical reforms to capitalism as an end in itself whereas democratic socialists ultimately want to go beyond social democratic reforms and advocate systemic transformation of the economy from capitalism to socialism.”

 

[LA - L.A.]

I am curious why you think it is more of a problem on the right than the left.

One possible measure:

Of states voting for Trump - 7 have split Senate delegations (1 Republican, 1 Democrat), of states voting for Clinton - 2 have split delegations.

Another:

Clinton states - 4 states with Republican governor
Trump states - 8 states with Democratic governor.

This information as presented in a vacuum is meaningless and irrelevant in regards to the issue being discussed.

It's meaningless and irrelevant, because it doesn't offer any insight into why people voted the way they voted in the elections being referenced.

For this information to be meaningful and relevant to the issue being discussed, it would have to be accompanied with the following information:

• A listing of all of the candidates that ran in all of the elections being referenced
• The party affiliations and policy positions of all of those candidates
• The election results broken down by voting districts in the referenced elections and the previous election
• The demographic breakdown of those voting districts

With this additional information these numbers might give meaningful and relevant insight into the issue being discussed. Without that information, they are just a set of numbers that allows one to make whatever assumptions they choose to make.