Posted on 11/13/2016 2:07:07 PM PST by Az Joe
Democrats may be in for long drought, facing slew of 2018 contests in deep Red states.
There are 34 seats to be decided in the 2018 midterms. Twenty-six are held by Democrats — and one by Bernie Sanders, the socialist independent from Vermont.
Republicans have to defend just eight. Only two of those races will occur in states that had relatively close margins for Trump: Nevada, which Trump lost, and Arizona, which Trump won. The Republicans in those states, Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona and Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada, will likely be targeted.
Democrats are up for re-election in 10 states won by Trump."
Oh, Dean Heller, Nevada will most definitely be targeted. He is neverTrump, was on the news stating that. Because of him and his ilk, Trump lost Nevada by a slim margin. We also ended up with gun control by a very slim margin.
Republicans can still lose the House in the midterms & not do as well as they expect in the Senate. Then perhaps Trump doesn’t run for re-election & it’s 2006 & 2008 again. Let’s learn the lessons of 1994, 2006 , 2010 & 2016 again. America is mostly in the middle between 2 parties. People vote for the candidate they fear & dislike less than the other candidate. Whoever wins needs to EARN repect & gain trust instead of trying to claim a “mandate” & ram some partisan agenda through with a slim vote. George HW Bush won in 1988 because the unemloyment rate was headed down from 11% to 5.3%....whereas the price of gas was $1.11 in 1981 but only $1.04 in 1989. And Reagan’s “peace through strength” & debt-financed military infrastructure made people feel stronger. In 1981, we still were using weaponry from WW2 & after Korea & Vietnam it was time to retool. At least Reagan had something to show for his debt....HARDWARE like Seawolf submarines & Apache helicopters that still are being used today....and that is why it made sense to debt-finance them. Liberal debt-financed school-building, road building, and even light rail & high speed heavy rail from nowhere to nowhere. They even debt-financed sports stadiums for private sector owned sports team franchises. People debt-financed homes , cars, businesses. So the idea that Reagan did something irresponsible by debt-financing military infrastructure is absurd—especially since he raised the gas tax & SS tax......
Politics is not fair. George W Bush was not a good president, but he inherited a recession caused by the Fed that wasn’t seen until after he took office...and deficits happened even before 2003 “tax cuts for the rich” kicked in...but he got blamed for it because people saw a surplus in 2000. We had a severe stock market crash worse than 1929-1930 from 2000-2003.......but no depression.
So if recession hits under Trump & Republicans...it’s going to be like 1982 when Reagan got slammed in the midterms just because the Fed caused that recession, too—by waiting until Reagan won the election before attacking inflation that it let rise to 13.5% to keep Carter out of recession in 1979-1980. Remember that Democrats in the late 1970s were saying that you could get less than 8% unemployment rate without runaway inflation......
GOP needs to move the people incrementally towards their point of view. The press didn’t let us talk or argue for 8 years when they graded Obama on a curve about deficits & Obamacare....and the fix still is on...so GOP needs to be as wise as serpents & gentle as doves & pick its battles wisely. Just lowering the Medicare age & getting pre-existing conditions & putting them into Medicare & getting them out of the insurance pool will do more than enough to lower health care premium costs driven up by Obamacare. If Paul Ryan wants to partially privatize Medicare-—let him do it by giving vouchers to the under 50s who do NOT have pre-existing condition. Trump needs to bring some Democrats into the debate to keep right wing ideologues from losing Congress in the midterms & causing a big reverse in 2020. You could lower the Medicare age & put pre existing conditions onto Medicaid (many who are poor and cannot work)-——and have Medicare-for-all-— which vouchers only for the people under 50 or 55 yrs old who do not have pre-existing conditions...but probably that’s not even the best idea.
Banning employer-paid insurance would level the playing field and GOP needs to expose the liberal charade of exempting “small” business from its mandates for Obamacare and minimum wage. Trump and the GOP can do a lot to turn the people against bad Democrat ideas and policies...but they need to make the argument and win the debate and stop preaching to the choir letting the opposition build and get blindsided by it. GOP needs to be honest, too. Reagan wasn’t perfect, George W Bush was a weak president. George H W Bush raised taxes because he expected aggressive rate cutting/easing by the Fed but didn’t get it. Trump represents something between Reagan, Bush and LBJ—who didn’t run for re-election. Since then, Democrats were taken over by radicals. Getting rid of the corporate income tax & tax on business payrolls and rewarding WORK as the real “risk-taking” is far better policy that pandering to internet stock traders and vulture capitalists like Mitt Romney who made $20 million annually but took less real risk than somebody taking a new job & driving to work on the freeway and risking his career and 8-12 hours of every workday. Zero percent capital gains tax is silly policy. (regardless of what Paul Gigot says) and cutting the corporate income tax to 15% is just a tax dodge. It needs to be eliminated completely as an unjust “excise tax” which of course may not be applied beyond our borders on goods manufactured and sold in other countries that have their own taxing power.
I liked her too. I would have been fine with either one for Governor.
Yes, we shouldn’t blow this opportunity to expand the map to blue areas and not be content with red areas.
Asking for Manchin is worse than asking for Mark Kirk. We are better off to beat Manchin with a real conservative.
Good catch. I can go with Steelman, but either one would actually be better that Kinder I think.
This is a historical opportunity that must not be squandered.
Why?
He’s damaged goods in WV.
We MAY need his vote for the next 2 years.
Yeah....He’ll probably have to vote with us anyway.
I don’t think it’s possible to find another idiot like Adkin.
He will if he has any hope of staying in office.
He wants to run for President!
I'm from Missouri and I would cheer for that!
I see 5-6 easy pickups.
Jeff Flake would not be a great loss.
Is that a good deal? Can we do as well without him now, and do better after ’18?
Flake instantly turned into Mini-Juan McCain. His example didn’t cause Trump to lose Arizona, but it sure didn’t help. But I hated McFlake the moment it became obvious he was Juan’s Mini-Me - about December of 2012, before the SOB even was sworn in. He turned hard left the day he won, and serves cocktails to Democrats on the Cheap Labor Express.
These seats are the best chances for a Republican pickup.
Joe Donnelly (Indiana)
Sherrod Brown (Ohio)
Claire McCaskill (Missouri)
Heidi Heitkamp (North Dakota)
Tim Kaine (Virginia)
Jon Tester (Montana)
Bill Nelson (Florida)
Joe Manchin III (West Virginia)
Indiana is a solid red state and will not tolerate another rat senator.
Sherrod Brown is way to far left for Ohio and will be sent packing (maybe by RINO Kasich?)
And McCaskill is a femiNAZI that will be kicked to the curb by the “Show Me” state.
The rest on this list can be pickups depending if the GOP runs a strong candidate in those states.
At least we got to enjoy FIVE days without discussing the next election. Can’t this wait until at least January 21?
...Oh well, let the games resume.
To secure our victory Trump has to deliver and not get captured or co-opted by the GOPe.
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