Posted on 10/01/2014 9:33:54 AM PDT by xzins
Conservatives who buy what Harry Reid is dishing out and support his gang of thieves are the true morons.
Not necessarily. Mostly, McConnell just bashes the Grimes-Obama connection and a few of her specific positions (or non-positions), without really detailing his own positions or votes. When Grimes tries to counter (redux of Obama shooting a gun pic, for example), ol’ Mitch just smacks her down again (in the above example, using her own ad and the Obama + gun image.)
McConnell’s most effective ads are not designed to attract FR type conservatives or defend his record, they are designed to make Grimes unpalatable to average KY voters. It seems to be working.
There are not any conservatives who support Harry Reid on this forum, they are all in the GOPe leadership.
And you don't treat each state as a stand-alone election. You nationalize it by crafting a common message of what the GOP will do in control of the Senate, and have each candidate talk about their role in delivering on that.
Each candidate must have a stump speech that begins with "If you send me to Washington, I will help Mitch McConnell to..." and ends with "Send me to Washington to help Mitch McConnell stop Harry Reid and President Obama."
They didn't do that in 2012, and they're not doing it now.
The common denominator in both campaigns is Mitch McConnell's Senate caucus leadership. If there really is such a thing as a National Republican Senate Committee, then what is it doing?
-PJ
Agreed. I’m similarly near enough to KY to get lots of KY ads, and we observe the same thing. One doesn’t have to love ol’ Mitch to see he’s running an effective campaign.
Run one way, slither around in dark corners and cut deals with his good friends across the aisle when you win, that is the McConnell modus-operandi. Nothing new here except this time around he cut a very public deal to raise taxes with obama, funded obamacare and cut Cruz and the House efforts to stop it off at the knees and worse still slipped up and admitted he hated the people he wants to vote for him now.
So what does that make McConnell then? A bigger moron?
I think so.
I think anyone who votes for an Oligarch who declares war on them and vows to crush them and make sure they can never field a candidate in their party is not only a moron, but an abject imbecile.
He has always understood how to campaign.
He attacks.
And he doesn’t care that it’s a female, either. He’s beatin’ up on the girl and gettin’ away with it.
You can’t run those kinds of ads because McConnell is damaged goods when it comes to Conservatives. The first time Tillis (or anyone) ran an ad like that FR alone would light up like a Chrismas tree with “Burn the RINO Shill at the Stake” threads.
The fact is that Tillis and Roberts now appear to be the only winnable-race Republicans who are in trouble. The others seem to get it, and are leading if not pulling away. And marginal GOP candidates (like in IA) are starting to as well.
That means Tillis is an outlier, which reflects upon how he is conducting his own campaign, alone.
Good observation.
McConnell does not create any momentum to vote FOR him on issues, his only campaign success is when he bashes, attacks and slimes those who dare to run against him and his oligarchy.
In a nutshell, McConnell’s campaign can be described as “I suck - but Grimes sucks a lot more because she and Obama are one - so vote for me”.
For the masses, it's a message that will still work.
-PJ
Yep, N.C. GOP needs to do some housecleaning.
McConnell does seem to be running some ads about bringing jobs to KY. IOW pork, but that does sell with the masses. He’s countering Grimes’ obstruction charges with ads about being a big deal-maker, which is also a negative but others will see as positive.
Also about protecting the coal industry and taking on the EPA regs, which is a big positive from a policy perspective. Even if he wasn’t effective in those areas he’s been consistant in his views and is saying and doing the right things.
Echo chamber? What echo chamber?
;-)
;-)
He never answers the question about WHAT EPA regs he has ‘taken on’ and waged a campaign to end.
Truth is, he has done nothing but make back room deals to advance Obama’s agenda and when the votes are there he votes against it for public consumption to say he stands against it.
McConnell appeals to the typical low-information American who gets most of their news from sound bites and agenda press releases spewed on Comedy Central or CNN.
We have morphed into a pure mobocracy run by an oligarchy - and as our Founders warned us - there is not a Democracy that hasn’t committed suicide in short order.
That’s what we’re watching take place, a national suicide.
One variable not covered in the above article is the power of incumbency.
Both McConnell and Hagan are incumbents, McConnell deeply entrenched. Incumbents usually win. By now it is safe to say that McConnell will most likely be re-elected. He is an entrenched incumbent and he benefits from other factors as well. KY has been trending strongly GOP in recent presidential and US Senate and congressional elections. BHO’s poll ratings in KY are miserable, he has never come close to carrying the state and his views on coal and other fossil fuels are simply toxic in KY. Further, the party out of power usually wins in midterm elections, especially in the 6th year of an incumbent administration. Finally Grimes is simply way to the left of most KY voters. It’s that simple. The safe money is clearly on McConnell here.
NC poses more challenges. Traditionally a Democrat state but also traditionally conservative and the home of my all time favorite US Senator, the late Jesse Helms. While NC voted GOP in every presidential election from 1980 to 2004, BHO, surprisingly, carried it in 2008. MR barely carried it in 2012.
This tells me that a lot of libs have moved into NC in recent years and changed its politics much as they have done in neighboring VA which also was not too long ago considered a reliably conservative and a GOP stronghold.
That all said, Tillis does have a strong chance given that the party out of power usually does well in midterm election especially in the 6th year of an incumbent administration. The NC US Senate race will simply come down to a turnout election. Once again the party out of power tends to be more motivated in midterm elections giving Tillis at least a 50/50 shot. But one can never underestimate the power of incumbency and money which Hagan has going for her.
I don’t disagree; the focus of the conversation here seems to be on the political mechanics of McConnell’s campaign rather than his actual performance and behavior as Senator.
He appears to be doing and saying the right things necessary to win, and to even deliver a hard enough loss to Grimes that she won’t be able to recover, politically.
Well... McConnell does have an ad out highlighting his leadership (position) role in the Senate, and earlier emphasized some local issues, but, yes, mainly he draws the similarities where he can on Grimes’ and Obama’s positions. I don’t know that I’d call that “slime”: It looks pretty legit to me. Obviously, McConnell isn’t going to talk about his weaknesses.
The primary was ugly, but the truth is, Grimes would do the same to Bevin as McConnell did. Best to find out early?
Exactly. I can not like him much as a Senator from a neighboring state, Senate Minority leader, etc., and still recognize an effective, strong campaign effort.
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