Myth of the Obama-Trump Voter Exploded

I've been saying it since November: There is no such thing as a person who voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012 but voted for Trump in 2016.

No. Such. Thing.

Digby:

I know there are no more interesting or important people in the world than the vaunted Trump Voter, but I have long thought that the idea that there exists a substantial subset of Obama-Trump voters. My theory has always been that to the extent they existed, they were basically Republicans who may have voted for Obama because the world was going to hell in a hand-basket and they didn't like Sarah Palin or Mitt Romney for personal reasons.
Ed Kilgore catches up with the latest on this alleged phenomenon:

The defection of West Virginia Governor Jim Justice yesterday from the Democratic to the Republican Party will inevitably fuel tired rhetoric about Reagan Democrats, or white-working-class Americans, or “heartland voters,” leaving the Donkey Party in hordes in protest against its radical bicoastal liberalism. Democrats obviously need to pay attention to voters they’ve recently lost or failed to energize, all over the place, and in various demographic categories.
But the “Trump Democrat” phenomenon may have been a bit oversold. Justice obviously was never much of a Democrat to begin with. And the broader category of “Obama-Trump voters”—those who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 or 2012, and then for the mogul in 2016—may have been misunderstood as well. Or so reports the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank:
[N]ew data, and an analysis by AFL-CIO political director Michael Podhorzer that he shared with me, puts all this into question. The number of Obama-to-Trump voters turns out to be smaller than thought. And those Obama voters who did switch to Trump were largely Republican voters to start with. The aberration wasn’t their votes for Trump but their votes for Obama. 

One problem with the much-discussed idea that Obama-Trump voters swung the election is that voters notoriously over-report votes for the election winner after the election. So some Obama-Trump voter didn’t actually vote for Obama, and others didn’t actually vote for Trump. (Some may have even voted for everyone other than Obama and Trump). That reduces the magnitude of the “flip.”
To the extent that Obama-Trump voters were identified as those who voted for the 44th president in either 2008 or 2012, it is important to remember that Obama won pretty big the first time around: according to exit polls, he won 9 percent of self-identified Republicans and 20 percent of self-identified conservatives. He also won independents—a category that includes a lot of people who usually vote Republican—52/44.
But there’s more than incidental evidence that apparent Obama-Trump voters aren’t loyal Democrats who suddenly flipped because Trump was appealing to their material or cultural interests: they supported Republicans down-ballot, too:
The AFL-CIO’s Podhorzer analyzed raw data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, out in the spring, and found that Obama-Trump voters voted for Republican congressional candidates by a 31-point margin, Republican Senate candidates by a 15-point margin and Republican gubernatorial candidates by a 27-point margin. Their views on immigration and Obamacare also put them solidly in the GOP camp. 

If these voters have been “lost” by the Democratic Party, many of them are probably lost for good.
Milbank concludes: “The party would do better to go after disaffected Democrats who didn’t vote in 2016 or who voted for third parties.” A vote’s a vote, and in a competitive environment it makes no sense for Democrats to write anyone off. But the obsession with “Obama-Trump voters” may be myopic.

There are good philosophical and ideological reasons for figuring out how to address the economic woes of this group of voters. Even if you don't care much for the way they think, they have kids who need a decent chance at a better life. But the idea that they are the electoral holy grail has always seemed to me to be a convenient way to prove some prior assumptions about the 2016 election.

In any case, it's worth wondering if Democrats should be so focused on this group of voters to the exclusion of some others who are at least equally important to mobilize for a 2018 victory. It's not a zero sum game, but it does require that these Trump voters not be elevated to the level of all-important "super-voters." Until the economy is completely falling apart as it was after the last GOP administration, they may not be gettable.

 All Democrats need to do is remove the barriers preventing their natural voters from voting: voter suppression, voter ID laws,  restrictive voting times and places, fiery hoops to jump through to register to vote and felon disenfranchisement.

Do that, dems, and every white voter in the country could go repug and Democrats would still win.

When everybody votes, Democrats win.

Grimes to Kobach: You. Shall. Not. Pass.

She knows what the trumpie repugs are up to.  She knows their goal is to suppress and eliminate every Democratic vote they can get their hands on. She knows what's at stake: not just the 2018 and 2020 elections, but redistricting after the 2020 census, which will be in the hands of whoever has the Kentucky General Assembly after those elections.

From the Herald:

Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes has once again declined to give detailed information about Kentucky voters to a committee President Donald Trump set up to investigate election integrity.

The request, sent from the committee’s vice chair Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, once again asked for detailed voter information including names, addresses, party affiliation, last four digits of Social Security number and voter history from 2006 onward.

“The compilation of every American voter’s information would build a national voter registration database, which is unnecessary to improving our elections, opposite our constitution and state’s rights, and puts voters’ privacy and personal data at risk,” Grimes said.

Oh, and a big Fuck You to Kentucky repugs specifically:

“Alison Lundergan Grimes is using her office to grandstand and further her political career,” said Tres Watson, the communications director for the Republican Party of Kentucky. “In doing so, she has taken actions in an official capacity that clearly lie outside the powers vested in her as Secretary of State.”

Grimes’ office shrugged off the allegation.

“Not sure what part of ‘chief election official’ in KRS 117.015(2) is unclear to the party,” said Bradford Queen, the spokesman for Grimes.

Yep, repugs definitely shitting their pants over having to run against Grimes for a Congressional seat next year or Governor in 2019.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article163932767.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article163932767.html#storylink=cpy

No, the White Working Class Man Will Never Save the Democratic Party

I am so sick and tired of all this fucking shit about how Democratic politicians have to reach out and embrace the very poisonous snakes of the white working class men who have been trying to kill us for decades. (No names; you motherfuckers know who you are.)

That we have to "embrace" their "cultural values."  Those would be the "cultural values" of racism, misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, right-wing violence, domestic terrorism, greed, freakazoid religion and stupidity.

In other words, the entire platform of the Republican Party.

We've been here before.  Whenever the repugs steal elections from the Democratic Party, the response is always "we have to become more like repugs!"  Democratic candidates who campaign like repugs Are. Not. Democrats.  They. Are. Repugs.

And somebody's missing from this equation.  A whole lot of somebodys.  Working class African-Americans.  Working class Hispanics. Working class white women.  Working class immigrants.  Working class Muslims.  Working class LGBTI people.

Together, we vastly outnumber those white men who think an imbecilic game show con artist is going to bring back coal jobs.

The repugs were able to steal the 2016 election because the Democratic Party did not do enough to stop repugs from suppressing the vote and preventing all those non-white, non-male, non-christian, non-straight non-rich Democratic voters from voting.

Whining to white male repugs that we understand their racism, misogyny, homophobia, religion and stupidity is not going to gain a single white working class vote.  And it sure as fuck is not going to get a single suppressed Democratic voter to the polls and voting.

Forget the working class white man.  He abandoned the Democratic Party the instant the Democratic Party noticed that black people and brown people and female people and gay people are human beings with rights the full equal of any white man.

Let's work with the voters who have proven their loyalty.  The voters whose rights have been stolen by the repugs.  The voters who gave us President Barack Obama and thus millions of auto industry jobs, a 4.5 percent unemployment rate, hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure and oh yeah, an Affordable Care Act that has saved countless lives, hundreds of rural hospitals and their communities, and by the way Medicare and Medicaid.

Let's dance with the ones that brung us.

Working class white men are not anyone who will prove an asset in any way to the Democratic Party. They've abandoned us, and it's far past time that we abandon them to the repugs who will laugh as them as they die of trumpism.

Good riddance.

C'mon, You Nonbelievers: VOTE!

Seriously?  Turnout 10 points lower than average?  Are you fucking kidding me? You know what that means?

It means that atheists and all the other Nones are TO BLAME for the repug/freakazoid/know-nothing takeover of this country.

Yes, all you non-believers: unless you are voting in every election including primaries and specials, and voting in every single race, this repug catastrophe we've been suffering for the past 40 years is YOUR FAULT.

Kevin Drum:

Christopher Ingraham takes a look at a recent survey of atheists and agnostics and asks, "Why don't the unaffiliated vote?"

As Pew Research Center's Greg Smith told me earlier this year, "It could be the 'nones' are not connected, almost by definition, to religious institutions, which can play an important role in spurring turnout and interest in politics." It's also the case that the unaffiliated tend to be younger than the population as a whole. And younger people in general are less likely to vote than their older peers.

If you are aware at all of what goes on at churches, those motherfuckers TURN OUT.  Voting - voting repug - is a fucking sacrament to them.  If you're not voting, you're handing the country and the future of us all over to the people who represent the absolute worst of America and humanity.

As President Obama likes to say, "Don't boo, vote." If you're unhappy with the influence that conservative Christians have on American politics, go out and vote for someone who's more likely to favor evidence-based policy than faith-based policy. If you're not willing to do that, then don't gripe the next time some yahoo manages to get evolution expunged from your local textbooks.

New Immigrants Taking Over Just the Way the Old Immigrants Did

My Irish and German immigrant ancestors did exactly this.  They faced down the Know-Nothing Nativists screaming "dirty Micks!" and "Kraut traitors!" and voted and ran for office just as Americans have always done, and are still doing.

Political Animal:

Over the years President Obama has come up with a line he uses whenever people at his rallies boo at things like Trump’s remarks. He always says, “Don’t boo…vote!” That is exactly what the Somali community in Minnesota did this week.

Neighborhood activist Ilhan Omar made history Tuesday by winning a fiercely competitive DFL primary in a Minneapolis House district, which means she likely will become the nation’s first Somali-American legislator next year…

Born in Somalia, Omar, 33, and her family escaped civil war and lived for four years in a Kenyan refugee camp before ultimately moving to the Somali-American neighborhood of Cedar-Riverside, where she has lived for nearly two decades and is currently director of policy initiatives at Women Organizing Women…

“Tonight we made history,” Omar told the crowd. “Tonight marks the beginning of the future of our district, a new era of representation. Tonight is about the power of you.”…

Omar’s dramatic victory threatened to overshadow another upset, this one from 24-year-old Fue Lee, who was born in a refugee camp in Thailand and currently works in the office of Secretary of State Steve Simon. He defeated 10-term incumbent Rep. Joe Mullery, DFL-Minneapolis.

Both upsets came in heavily DFL districts, which means they are virtually assured of victory in November.

And remember: unless you are a full-blooded Native, you're the descendant of immigrants, no more "American" than that Muslim Syrian refugee who just took the oath of citizenship, and who you better believe is going to be voting on November 8.

No Voting at Church

Just remove polling sites from religious buildings.

I am quite sure that the cowardly anonymous fuckers who objected to voting in a eeeeeekkkk! mosque are anti-muslim haters, but they did the right thing for the wrong reason.

Churches serve as polling sites everywhere in Kentucky, and it is deeply, profoundly offensive to non-christians to have to pass through hallways covered with freakazoid propaganda posters and displays in order to perform their patriotic duty as citizens to vote.

Unless you're willing to set up 10 or 20 times the number of polling places so that everyone can vote in a religious building in which she feels comfortable, the only solution is to remove ALL polling sites from religious buildings.

There are plenty of secular public locations to host polling sites a grand total of twice a year: schools, fire departments, courthouses, libraries, recreation centers.

 

Of all public activities, the one constitutionally furthest from religion is voting.  Keep them separate.

Harsh Truth for White Liberals

Just read it.  Then get the fuck out there and work.

Electing Evil

Via Juanita Jean

How to Win in Deep-Red Districts.

Run as a real fucking Democratic candidate, that's how.

Down with Tyranny:

This week, Steve Israel's, Rahm Emanuel's and Chuck Schumer's anti-progressive theory of candidate recruitment was proven wrong again. In a deep red Oklahoma legislative district once held by now-Governor Mary Fallin, right-wing Republican Chip Carter was defeated by progressive Democrat Cyndi Munson 53.7-46.3%. It's a district that hasn't been in Democratic hands in living memory. And Munson is no Republican-lite Blue Dog-type preferred as "electable" by the DCCC, DSCC and DNC. Cyndi campaigned on a platform that included LGBT equality, women's Choice and repealing a tax cut for the rich that will take effect on January 1. Carter had been endorsed by Fallin and Senators Inhofe and Lankford and had massively outspent Munson. Beltway Democratic insiders need to rethink their recruitment strategies at the DCCC and DSCC immediately and stop pushing right-wing fake Democrats like Patrick Murphy (FL) and Monica Vernon (IA). - See more at: http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/#sthash.EwzQMfUa.dpuf

(In September), Steve Israel's, Rahm Emanuel's and Chuck Schumer's anti-progressive theory of candidate recruitment was proven wrong again. 

 

In a deep red Oklahoma legislative district once held by now-Governor Mary Fallin, right-wing Republican Chip Carter was defeated by progressive Democrat Cyndi Munson 53.7-46.3%. It's a district that hasn't been in Democratic hands in living memory. 

 

And Munson is no Republican-lite Blue Dog-type preferred as "electable" by the DCCC, DSCC and DNC. Cyndi campaigned on a platform that included LGBT equality, women's Choice and repealing a tax cut for the rich that will take effect on January 1. Carter had been endorsed by Fallin and Senators Inhofe and Lankford and had massively outspent Munson. 

 

Beltway Democratic insiders need to rethink their recruitment strategies at the DCCC and DSCC immediately and stop pushing right-wing fake Democrats like Patrick Murphy (FL) and Monica Vernon (IA). 

If a real Democrat can win in Oklahoma, real Democrats can win in Kentucky.  The First Congressional District is open, Floridian Ed Whitfield having retired ahead of the corruption investigators.

Secretary of Agriculture Jamie Comer has already declared his candidacy, as he is facing unemployment in December after losing his gubernatorial bid to libertarian freak Matt Bevin.

Comer's a weak candidate.  He's got a closetful of rumors that stink of decomposition.  A real Democratic candidate with the courage to run a fighting campaign has a chance.

Deadline for filing for 2016 races in January 29.  Get on it.

Vote Like the Rich

They don't just have all the money; they do all the voting, too.

 

The non-rich outnumber the rich 100 to one, but under-vote them by half.  

 

You want elected officials who will tax the rich out of existence?  Get out and fucking vote.

Via Down With Tyranny:

 

 

Kentucky's gubernatorial election is two weeks from today.  

Racist Voters and the Dems

Zandar asks:

Do we want white voters who abandoned the Dems over a black president to come back to the party at all?

No.

And not just because they're racist motherfuckers who can't be trusted. 

They are the "registered democrats" who make it look like dems outnumber registered repugs in Kentucky, even though repugs keep winning race after race after race.

Like Kim Davis, they are racist, homophobic, xenophobic, gun-loving, misogynist, freakazoid motherfuckers who will never, ever, EVER vote for a Democratic candidate.

They are the fake dems who keep Democratic candidates running repug-lite campaigns chasing after votes they'll never get.

They are the fake dems who keep electing repugs-with-Ds-next-to-their-names like Joe Manchin who poison Congress with their repug votes.

They are the fake dems who give aid and comfort to the true enemies of Democratic values.

 

And the best part is, Democratic candidates don't need them. 

Not only can we win elections without them, but we'll start winning more elections as soon as we tell them to fuck off and die.

"Didn't vote for Obama?  Then don't vote for me."

How National Dems Sabotage Winnable Races

Wonder why repug congressional candidates seem to breathe fire while your "Democratic" congressional candidates seem so mild and insubstantial a puff of wind would knock them down?

Because that's how the people who run the national "Democratic" funding machines want it to be.

Every congressional district, no matter how red, harbors fire-breathing progressive candidates who might just be able to turn the tide with the power of their passion, but they are locked out of contention by the DCCC and DSCC poohbahs who starve them of money or chase them out of the race.

It's even more inexcusable in swing districts or those with weak repug competition where a decent Democratic candidate could win.

But the national dems don't want to win. They want milquetoast "centrists" who will vote with the money power to keep the money power in, you know, power.

Gaius Publius at Hullabaloo:

Your bottom line, both Senate and House leadership are willing to lose winnable seats. Their real goal — keep real progressives from ever holding office. In other words, they'd rather run money-corrupted, insider-friendly candidates who could easily lose than real populists who might win.

Read the whole thing.

Why Is Your Congress Critter Not SponsoringThis Bill?

It must be anti-American muslinterrist in the pocket of walmart if it won't.

DR Tucker at Political Animal:

It’s a self-evident truth that our democracy’s desecration occurred when the Supreme Court gave free-speech rights to corporations. Good to see that at least a few members of Congress—specifically, Reps. Rick Nolan (D-MN), Mark Pocan (D-WI), Matt Cartwright (D-PA), Jared Huffman (D-CA), Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) and Keith Ellison (D-MN)—are committed to doing something about it:

The movement for constitutional reforms that would end what organizers call “corporate rule” has arrived in the chambers of Congress. [On April 29], members of the U.S. House of Representatives joined Move to Amend by announcing their sponsorship of the “We the People Amendment” (House Joint Resolution 48), which clearly and unequivocally states that:

* Rights recognized under the Constitution belong to human beings only, and not to government-created artificial legal entities such as corporations and limited liability companies; and

* Political campaign spending is not a form of speech protected under the First Amendment.

In making the announcement, lead sponsor Rep. Rick Nolan (DFL-Minnesota), said: “It’s time to take the shaping and molding of public policy out of corporate boardrooms, away from the corporate lobbyists, and put it back in city halls - back with county boards and state legislatures - and back in the Congress where it belongs.”

It’s a shame that Republicans remain so intimidated by the Koch Mafia that not one member of the GOP joined their Democratic colleagues in sponsoring the We the People Amendment. Your average Republican voter wants big money out of politics, too (and you can prove it by watching your Republican friends react when you say the words “Tom Steyer” or “Michael Bloomberg”). However, it appears that we’ll have to wait a little bit longer before the bipartisan desire for elections that aren’t bought by billionaires is reflected in Congress.

Nevertheless, it’s quite inspiring to see citizens uniting against Citizens United. I may not be Amy Goodman, but I want democracy now—and the We the People Amendment will help us get it back for good.

Celebrate "Crushing Treason In Defense of Slavery Day" Tomorrow

Make this happen, state and national Democrats.  Do it now.  Do it to get Democratic voters back to the polls. Voters who will hate you for doing this are voters who will never, ever, EVER vote for a Democratic candidate.  Fuck them.  Go after the voters who will love you for this.

Eric Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money:

Brian Beutler with a proposal:

This week provides an occasion for the U.S. government to get real about history, as April 9 is the 150th anniversary of the Union’s victory in the Civil War. The generous terms of Robert E. Lee’s surrender to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House foreshadowed a multitude of real and symbolic compromises that the winners of the war would make with secessionists, slavery supporters, and each other to piece the country back together. It’s as appropriate an occasion as the Selma anniversary to reflect on the country’s struggle to improve itself. And to mark the occasion, the federal government should make two modest changes: It should make April 9 a federal holiday; and it should commit to disavowing or renaming monuments to the Confederacy, and its leaders, that receive direct federal support.

Two things. First, Crushing Treason in Defense of Slavery Day should absolutely be a national holiday. That should go without saying. It should be a national remembrance of the Confederacy’s evil and the end of the racist slave labor system that underwrote the development of American capitalism (that it was replaced by another racist labor system is a fair enough point).

Second, monuments to Confederates should be renamed but that doesn’t mean those previous names should be forgotten about. In other words, the Edmund Pettus bridge should be renamed the John Lewis bridge and there should be a historical marker there explaining who Pettus was and why the name was changed. That should be done around the nation. There should be no schools receiving federal money named after Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, or Jefferson Davis. But that they were named after those slaveholding traitors should be part of our official history. Similarly, we should rename American military bases named after slaveholding traitors.

Steve M. disagrees, and has a good argument.  

Stop Letting the Warmongering, Billionaire-Cock-Sucking, Freakazoid, Conservatard Haters Win

Few people spent more time and pixels than me criticizing Alison Lundergan Grimes as a DINO, repug, conservative not Democratic enough to attract Democratic voters.

But you know what?  I voted for her (gag, puke.) Because yes, she really would have been slightly less bad than Mitch.

David Atkins at Political Animal:

An adviser to Rahm Emmanuel demonstrates his disdain for the Democratic base:

Unless they get the crazy lefty money machine going nationally, it’s not going to matter that there’s a resurgent left,” said an adviser to Mr. Emanuel who did not want to speak publicly about strategy. “The liberals at Heartland Cafe in Rogers Park can think great thoughts and read poetry for Chuy, but nothing else will happen.”

This is why liberals who refuse to participate in politics and vote consistently are one of the biggest impediments to creating change. The angry conservative base doesn’t just have good funding from billionaires. That helps, but only to amplify their message. The angry conservative base votes.

Conservative politicians know that they can count on their base to turn out to the polls and elect their people. That’s how the Eric Cantors of the world fall.

Too many progressives, on the other hand, see an imperfect Democratic Party and decide that politics is for the birds—as if there were some other alternative that will fix the system. There isn’t. Major changes won’t take place until and unless enough politicians fear the retribution of progressive voters at the ballot box.

So Rahm’s arrogantly smug adviser is right. It won’t matter, not because there aren’t enough progressives, but because not enough of them vote—and far fewer still engage in the tough work of dragging likeminded others out to the polls as well.

There’s no substitute for it. Not angry posts on social media, or marches in the street. It’s the votes that really count.

It's not just voting, either.  Ed Kilgore on electoral organizing.:

I wrote earlier today that the powers that be won’t listen to popular will unless the people actually come out to vote. As long as younger progressives sit on the sidelines, the country will be dominated by the will of plutocrats and the reliable conservative voters who align with them.

Meteor Blades at Daily Kos wrote a fantastic corollary to that today as well, urging the necessity of getting involved in electoral organizing at the precinct level:

To repeat, there is no silver bullet. Precinct organizing by itself won’t win elections. But in too many places we are without it, or the organizing is ineptly done or given no encouragement or assistance from the local or state party. The resulting election outcomes are awful. Consequently, so are the policy outcomes. …

It takes time people could be doing something else. Time they could be spending with family or reading a book or tending a garden. Time, energy, and the ability to take rejection with a smile and defeats with renewed determination. Not everybody has the psychological makeup to make door-to-door political visits. But even the shyest person can contribute to precinct organizing by doing other needed tasks.

If your area already has an active Democratic organization at the precinct level, join it. If it has one but the leaders are lazy or incompetent, figure how to boot them out and replace them. If there is no organization at all, get one going. The payoff may be in the next election or a decade from now. But it’s a crucial aspect of a progressive future.

I would add that local Democratic clubs and central committees are crucial in this regard, and are often the closest available vehicle for this type of organizing. Many or most not only don’t conduct year-round electoral organizing, but barely even phonebank or canvass for elections. Not coincidentally, most are in desperate need of younger and more diverse membership.

I myself got involved when I moved to Ventura County first by founding the county’s Young Democrats club, then moved on to become Vice Chair and then Chair of the county’s Democratic Central Committee—helping along with my allies in making a large number of reforms along the way to dramatically increase volunteerism, new voter registration and progressive influence on endorsements, resolutions and elections. Those efforts had a significant impact on helping to win local races, and ultimately to help elect Democrats to Congress and the statehouse in a difficult purple district. (I’ve since moved to Santa Barbara County where I now serve the central committee as we approach an exciting season of contested primaries.)

That work isn’t sexy. It doesn’t have the instant gratification of a tweet or a blog post. But it really matters. There’s no substitute for the hard, grinding work of finding and supporting great progressives for local office who will serve as better candidates in the supply chain for the statehouse and in turn for Congress. There’s no substitute for convincing voters, one at a time, that their vote really does count and that they, too, can have a real impact in making our country a more progressive place.

But all of us who are angry about the direction of our country all got involved, each of us county by county all across America, we could easily deny Republicans the White House and the Senate at least, and then soon the House as well pending the 2020 census.

It’s doable. We just have to do the work.

Work for Grimes to Do

Instead of sitting on her ass waiting for another "gimme" election to roll around, Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes might consider spending her second term doing her actual job: making it easier for all Kentuckians to vote.

Kira Lerner at Think Progress:

Voter turnout in the U.S. during the last midterm election hit the lowest point since the 1940s. The number of Americans heading to the polls each election has been declining for the last fifty years and lawmakers have recently been pushing efforts to keep even more people away from the polls.

People do not exercise their right to vote for various reasons, some of which are easier to solve than others. According to a U.S. Census report from 2013, 14 percent of nonvoting respondents were unable to participate because of an illness or disability, 8.6 percent were out of town, 12.7 percent did not like the candidates or campaign issues and almost 19 percent were too busy. Some people cannot take time off from work on a Tuesday in November, which has led lawmakers including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to call for making Election Day a federal holiday. Others may not feel engaged in politics or informed enough to vote, while 5.85 million U.S. citizens are prohibited from voting due to a felony conviction on their records.

Voting advocates, including those who spoke at the Elections and Voting Summit (two weeks ago), have been developing and pushing for new ways to get more people to the polls. Unlike laws that restrict access through voter ID laws, shorter registration and early voting periods and disenfranchising felons, these proposals are likely to have support from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and would not be difficult to implement to get voters to turn out in higher numbers.

Make registering to vote easier

SNIP

Streamline and simplify voting

SNIP

 

Allow people to vote online

SNIP

Hire invested and engaged poll workers

SNIP

 

Get people excited about politics between elections

 

SNIP

 

If Grimes had spent a minute of her first three years in office working to make these improvements for Kentucky voters, she might not have lost the U.S. Senate race last year by 15 points to the most hated politician in the Commonwealth.

"If You're Not Willing to Fight for Me, Why Should I Fight for You?"

Great advice for Democratic candidates seeking Democratic votes. As always with MSNBC, the video is not embeddable. Watch at the link.

Down with Tyranny:

The democrats need to show voters that they will stand up for them and not capitulate. Their continued and continued and continued Vichy-style politics will not motivate voters.

Here's Ed Schultz. He sees this issue as so important that he devoted the first 20 minutes of his Thursday show to the issue of the Democratic Party needing to grow a pair and stand up for the people who voted for them. It's no small thing that things are so dire in Washington that, in the clip, even an untrustworthy conservadem corporatist like Rep. Steny Hoyer comes across as being on the correct side.

Schultz gets very eloquent and very fiery around the 7:44 point of this clip. If you don't have time for the full 20 minutes, start there, but it's all worth it. Among other things, he makes a call to "end the purchasing" and to "draw the line" for us, not for Big Oil, and certainly not for the Republican Party. No more talk about supporting the middle class without action to match; no more deals, cave-ins, and compromises; no talk of "tinkering" with Social Security; etc. It's time to give repugs a big dose of their own medicine. He'd make a hell of a football coach at halftime, but I'd be surprised if any of the players in Washington are listening. Past is prelude.

QOTD

Zandar:

Making the GOP look foolish is easy.  Getting voters to show up and punish the fools in the GOP is the hard part.

QOTD: Vote or Get Screwed

Zandar:

And yes, I'm going to keep harping on "two-thirds of us stayed home in November" until things change.  At some point, we've got to learn that if we don't vote, we get screwed.

Don't Look Now, But Bell County's New Jailer Is Black

Bell County is in the southeastern corner of Kentucky, nestled against east Tennessee and southwestern Virginia.  It's coal country, its mountains scarred by mining and endemic poverty.

But not racism. At least not in one election for a native son.

WYMT in Hazard:

“I’ve been publisher and general manager for the paper for the last 11 years,” Ferguson said. “It gave me the opportunity to meet all sorts of people.”

He was also a state police trooper for nearly 10 years and worked for the United States Marshals Service. Ferguson said both positions prepared him to take on new challenges and responsibility.

“To get nearly 4,500 votes means there were a lot of people that believed in me and I just feel an obligation to make all of them proud,” said Ferguson.

This was his first time running for public office.

“My father, James Ferguson, is 85-years-old and the Bell County Detention Center was built in 1941,” Ferguson said. “He told me he stood on the corner and watched that jail being built and he can’t believe that now his son is the Bell County jailer.”

“I’m excited about the opportunity,” Ferguson said. “Forget about the color of my skin because I have a job to do.”