Posted on 04/19/2017 5:39:49 AM PDT by NOBO2012
They don’t call it the “Stupid Party” for nothing. Republicans ran 11 – that’s right, one short of a dozen – candidates against a good looking 30 year old Anyone But Trump Democrat; what kind of a strategy is that?
Despite the Republicans best efforts Mr. Ossoff, a 30-year-old documentary filmmaker (slacker) failed to win the majority vote required to avoid a runoff. Funded by deep pockets ($8 million) from around the country (97% from outside the district) and with the support of high profile celebrities it was an awfully close race for a district that’s been solidly Republican since Jimmy Carter.
The special election Tuesday to fill a Georgia House seat has drawn staggering sums of money, a barrage of advertisements and the intervention of the president as Democrats attempt to win a seat that Republicans have held since 1979. - WSJ
Especially given that Ossoff doesn’t actually live in the district he ran in - although Hillary established long ago that’s not a requirement for Dems. Nor is it required, as a rule, to vote Democratic.
You can’t blame them for being angry – they’ve traveled a long way to vote in this election and this has never happened to them before!
Regardless of the outcome the Legacy Media will portray this as a referendum against President Trump (This Georgia special election is all about Donald Trump). Because the Democrats always claim some sort of moral victory in their losses, unlike Republicans who seem more committed to the art of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Of course the MSM meme seems a bit lame given President Trump’s gentle reminders that his robo-calling and tweets to get out the Republican vote out probably prevented Ossoff’s outright victory.
I will grant you that the President is a very effective PR/marketing director for the Republican party,
But does he have to do everything himself?
It’s okay, I’ll just take myself for a walk.
Posted from: Michelle Obama’s Mirror
I think it’s dumb to blame the Republicans for too many candidates. An open House see doesn’t emerge that often. Also 15 Republicans ran for President in 2016 and what was wrong with that? A good bench of candidates is a positive.
The Republican Party is a joke. But we already knew that.
Only one of them ran against the Democrat in a general election. This was a general election.
-PJ
They don’t call the Republicans ‘the stupid party’ for nuthin’!
But, but, look at all the good work they are doing in Washington !!
Repealing obamacare, reducing the corporate tax rate, building the wall...
I did note Tea Party founder/principal Amy Kremer ran and scored a few hundred votes. What's that story ?
The elections totals reflect indifference between the republican candidates among conservative voters, not support for the democrat or opposition to a republican. Many republicans looked at the long list of candidates, said “I don’t know, so in the runoff I’ll vote for whomever wins this round.” Democrats all, without exception, voted for the socialist. And Ossoff still couldn’t get over 50%.
We do have to go to the polls in the runoff, and Ossoff will have a lot of money to spend between now and then, but the voter motivations in this primary were very different between the two sides.
As I understand it doesn’t he get to face a republican in a run off? If that’s the case it’ll only take a small percentage of rinos for him to win.
The media is reporting it as a win because he almost won.
Are you implying Handel isn’t a Republican ?
Not really. Your comparison with the Rep Presidential primary is wrong. In order to win the GA election, the victor had to win a majority of the votes. There were 5 Dems, 16 Reps, and 2 Independents on the ballot. The more people on the ballot, the more difficult it is to get 50% of the vote. It is conceivable that two Reps could have finished one, two forcing a runoff between them.
In effect, this was a jungle primary. Ossoff won the most votes, but not 50% and he was trailed by 5 Reps who split the vote. One Rep emerged to challenge Ossoff in June. This was an open seat. Should the Reps have held a min--primary to select just one candidate? Maybe, but that is not the way it is done in GA.
I think it’s very strange that the open seat attracted so few Democrats and the party went lock step so quickly around a novice candidate.
First, it wasn't my comparison; I was responding to the comparison made in post #2.
That said, the primary has zero chance of electing the next president; this election did have the chance of the winner being elected if (s)he got more than 50% of the vote.
Since that did not happen, a run-off election will occur -- but that was not a foregone conclusion as it is with primaries that another election round will follow.
I still believe it was an unnecessary risk that exposes a lack of discipline in the Georgia Republican Party. They should have tried harder to manage the candidate list. Even though they may have protected the seat in the long run, they gave the Democrats an unforced error for media PR.
-PJ
Not strange at all. Follow the money. Despite not living in the district, the movers and shakers in the DNC designated Ossoff as the candidate best positioned to win. Most of the money came from out of state.
But the primary narrowed the field. The GA election is really a jungle primary. It is similar to the way elections are carried out in LA.
I still believe it was an unnecessary risk that exposes a lack of discipline in the Georgia Republican Party. They should have tried harder to manage the candidate list. Even though they may have protected the seat in the long run, they gave the Democrats an unforced error for media PR.
I don't know how involved you are in local GOP politics, but one of the biggest complaints I have is the GOP trying to "manage the candidate list." It usually results in some party hack that many of us don't want. This was especially true during the rise of the tea party when the GOP party apparatus tried to exclude us from the process using various kinds of rules. I base this on my experience in NoVA and Fairfax County in particular. A healthy party allows greater participation in the process.
It wasn't the quantity of the candidates, it was the quality. They ALL sucked. I think a lot of people couldn't decide which they hated least, so they stayed home.
Ossoff is going to lose handily to Karen Handel our former Georgia SOS who successfully fought Eric Holder twice to maintain Georgia’s voter ID law.
Only if a run-off is forced. We're lucky that it was.
...one of the biggest complaints I have is the GOP trying to "manage the candidate list." It usually results in some party hack that many of us don't want... A healthy party allows greater participation in the process.
In general, I agree with you, but these are not "healthy" times in politics, in my opinion. Still, I think that eleven candidates is a bit extreme. It smacks of either: 1) opportunism, or 2) Democrat plants intended to split the vote. There was one candidate who donated to Barack Obama (Mohammad Ali Bhuiyan) and several marginal businessmen, running alongside a state Secretary of State, a state Senator, a city Councilman, and a county GOP leader.
-PJ
Luck had nothing to do with it. The run-off was the expected outcome even if there were only 3 or 4 Reps running. Trump took this district by a little over a point. It was an open seat with no clear Rep favorite. Price outperformed Trump by a lot in 2016.
In general, I agree with you, but these are not "healthy" times in politics, in my opinion. Still, I think that eleven candidates is a bit extreme. It smacks of either: 1) opportunism, or 2) Democrat plants intended to split the vote.
Splitting the vote is not a problem as long as the Dem gets less than 50%. Would many of the Rep voters turned out if they had fewer choices?
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