Somebody Ask Alison: What's the Difference Between the Parties?

Offering legislators cushy jobs to quit and open up a winnable seat is a longstanding political tactic. Steve Beshear tried it here in Kentucky to flip the Senate, but his Democratic candidates lost their races.

The difference in the case of Virginia is that the goal of the repugs was not just to flip the chamber to themselves, but by doing so to - wait for it - deny health coverage to 400,000 of their own constituents.

David Atkins at Hullabaloo:

I can't even imagine having the moral bankruptcy required to spend this much time and effort machinating to prevent poor people from getting health insurance. The people of Virginia are literally spending millions of dollars paying supposed public servants to spend their every waking hour trying to figure out how to bribe, cheat and scheme their way into stopping people from getting federally subsidized health insurance. It's plain moral evil on a massive scale.

Let this also be a reminder that there really, really, really is a big difference between the two parties. Even when it comes to an underwhelming Dem like McAuliffe. Yes, it's important to try to get better Democrats than McAuliffe, hopefully through the primary process.

But make no mistake. Terry McAuliffe and most of the Democrats in Virginia are trying to secure Medicaid benefits for hundreds of thousands of Virginians. And the Republican Party is pulling out every single trick in the arsenal to stop it.

At this point I frankly don't care how underwhelming the Democrat in question is. The Republican Party is so totally devoid of basic human decency that there is no excuse whatsoever to do everything we legally can just to prevent their standard-bearers from holding office.