gehringer_2

Biden's big accomplishment was something it was easy to agree on though (spend money in everyone's district!) - no real policy fight there like ACA was. But sure - I want the Dem's ambition as a party to be higher.

Mid term losses are standard, but lose of majority doesn't have to be. You have to win big enough to be able to lose some of the margin of your majority without losing your majority. Otherwise you really don't have a governing coalition nationwide. It's part of the wider aspect of why politics in the US is broken. When a party is at a point where it's own supporters are so conditioned they can't even think in terms of absolute majority wins as a reasonable target, you have party politics that aren't working. There are no doubt a lot of reasons - but whatever the causes, the symptoms are all there to see. It apparently isn't possible to construct a centrist party in the US anymore. The money isn't there, the energy is all at the fringes, primaries (and now social media) are too easily controlled by the extremes, we know all the diagnoses. So far we can't figure out the cure.

But 2009 was the last time they were actually able to enact any domestic policy, so that has to be target if you want to do any more than just be able to claim you are in office.

If you are happy with party I'm happy for you. Right now I'm just not very optimistic they can get back to where they were in Jan 20, 2008 even with Trump dead and buried.

Tesla has been that low recently and rebounded. Tesla stock has been untethered from the outlook for Tesla the company for a long time. It's a pure trade play stock now, more like bitcoin.

Surprised, not surprised. I thought this was possible earlier but when it didn't happen I assumed he was safe for the long run. But it's always also about the alternatives, Jones has been hot recently

IDK, but his best shot now is in relief. He's had some good and bad outings but with the added velo he has brought to working short, he has another chance. Hope for him as a starter has gone pretty much to zero.

I can't tell you if it made a difference or not, but B. Clinton did talk policy and policy goals and strategies all the time. He got nicknamed "the great explainer" for good reason. OTOH, folksy charm was definitely also a B. Clinton calling card, and one thing H. Clinton missed on big time when the cards were dealt.

Yup. I haven't read it since HS, but I remember Ray Bradbury's vision in Fahenheit 451 of a society so continually distracted/entertained that it had become completely hollow.

Not really, just a reality check on the fact that Trump opponents keep hoping/believing there is something out there that will finally bring him down if they could only find it/get it out. Probably not there, partly because Trump has always had a pretty good idea how not to cross certain lines or at least how to get others to cross them for him and I believe partly because he does like to project more of an image than he is.

And that means to be fine you have win enough in the Presidential year to survive your mid term loss. That is what 'fine' is. Half the Dems problem is denial that they are not building a big enough coalition to win enough to actually do anything. A national approval rate of ~35% is not fine.

No they aren't. When you can't hold the House in the off-year with your guy in office you are not fine. Unless your idea of fine is to be able to squeak into the White House by 1 electoral vote. They aren't fine when it comes to being able to actual govern at all.

I think the disconnect is that social welfare like SS, and Medicare, and even Medicaid are fine the eyes of working class people. Where the Dems lose them is with anything that looks too much like a 'give-away.' Things like government funded home down payments, college loan forgiveness etc, don't really cut with them because those people would *prefer* to work for what they get, they just want a shot at their work being able to get them there, and they do know enough to sense that a lot of government spending means they pay more taxes. To me Harris' campaign his too many wrong notes on economics. The Dems need to talk a lot less about giving stuff away and a lot more about how create upward mobility - esp with everyone's hair on fire that AI is going to take everyone's job (it won't).

I don't agree that her influence in MI is of secondary importance wrt the election. The question (at least to me!) is whether given her particular status and particular constituency, she was in a better than average position to have a positive influence on the election in her district and left it on the table or worse, was counter productive. I don't think whether what she did/didin't do was dispositive to the whole national election is relevant to a judgement about her. 'Trump wins without MI' could be said about many of states the dems could have but didn't win and in each of them things went wrong for the Dems and each of those things was important and would be better not to happen in the next election! All that said, the party as a whole still has to widen it's appeal if it's ever going to get back to a functional majority. What it's doing now is not working, and given the current DNC leadership I would have to say they are going in the wrong direction still.

Maybe Avila had a soft spot for guys from MLB families, at least other than his own (Jace, Parker, Daz). At this point pretty much everyone in that draft has to be wishing they had taken Neto. Still, you can't afford to miss on your 1st rounders, even if it's not a great draft.

has a coach ever won a championship in his 2nd pass with the same team?

the argument was always that there was enough in there that was radioactive to both sides that neither side would release it because they had too many people on their own side to protect. I have no idea and don't really care, all of them involved in that kind of thing can GTH together as far as I am concerned. In any case I would certainly not dismiss the probability of Biden sitting on it for those reasons no matter how much he loathed Trump. But that's nothing more than a hypothetical scenario. I have no opinion on the probability either way. The odd thing is, for all the his macho, locker room talk and the clear attraction he has to libertines like Epstein, I still wonder how much of that is performative/aspirational and how much he is actually both too cowardly and too prudish to have ever been a real player. You have to admit, he does marry his girlfriends. Bill Clinton OTOH.....

depth will help. If you can rotate personnel, always having fresh players is some level of compensation for less talent level. It's not much but it's the one thing you can do.

Looked good early, ran out of gas - hopefully that corrects itself with some IP.

The Epstein stuff in a waste of time. It won't matter to the Trumpers. "In for dime, in for dollar". They've rationalized away so much at this point, there is nothing that can come out about Trump's past that will ever matter.

CES survey says dems that stayed home were less, not more, progressive, and more working class, than those that showed up.

I'd have some serious 2nd thoughts about being on an outgoing crew.

Biden couldn't do it, he was dead!

Do you suppose one of Elon's eager beavers managed to DL the whole thing to Elon in one of their forays into gov systems?

Beau don't know leverage.