Is this why Dem’s Approval Rating Polls are so bad?

[superrific]

No one said HB2 was a total victory or that trans rights are safe in North Carolina. The point is that Republicans overreached, and they paid for it.

Yes: Cooper was a bland, centrist Democrat; that strengthens the argument. In a state Trump won, an uncharismatic moderate beat an incumbent Republican. IIRC, this was the first time an incumbent governor had lost a reelection bid in North Carolina history. Not because people fell in love with progressivism but because the GOP faceplanted on a culture war issue and got tagged as both extreme and economically reckless. That’s how terrain shifts.

You’re also treating the Republican recovery since then as proof that HB2 didn’t matter. But temporary setbacks don’t stop them from coming back. That’s true of any power struggle. If you’re going to dismiss every successful pushback just because the right eventually regroups, you’re basically arguing that nothing matters unless it ends in total victory.

You’re right that trans rights are still under attack, in North Carolina and elsewhere. That’s exactly why we need to understand what actually worked during the HB2 fight: not moral scolding, but reframing. Turning their cruelty into a joke. Tying it to real-world harm. Making them look like the weird ones obsessed with bathrooms instead of schools, jobs, or healthcare.

So it seems to me that shifting the emotional terrain is effective, not shallow.

I'm not understanding how Cooper winning as a bland centrist Dem is advancing the thesis that we need more emotional resonance and connecting with voters. It seems to cut the other way pretty clearly to me.

McCrory lost because the NBA pulled the all-star game and the boycotts of NC were brutal. Again, this was the bleeding edge of the trans panic. Nobody is batting an eye at these things any more.

 

[Paine]

I erased all but the last two paragraphs, but focusing on the the latter: you think leaders like that can be nurtured? Really. I see much has been made of Josh Shapiro's speaking style. Seems he has copied Obama. So being a copycat is nurture? Don't think that's what you mean, but nurturing a Presidential leader is a tall task.

Speaking of elevating in the prior paragraph. It's interesting that every single one of the most likely Democratic candidates for President have a law background, Political Science background, communications background, or wealthy private (elite) schooling background. Newsome and AOC being somewhat exceptions. So based on your criteria of real emotional conviction............doubtful any of the known ones can meet the mark.

Of course you can’t manufacture charisma, but you can help create the conditions for real leaders to emerge. Obama didn’t come out of nowhere; he rose in a moment when the party still knew how to tell a bigger story. Trump, for all his flaws, came out of a base that felt spoken to and a media ecosystem built to amplify him.

Right now, Democrats keep drawing from the same narrow pool: lawyers, Ivy League grads, institutional loyalists, and wonder why no one connects. We don’t invest in movements or leaders outside the bubble. And it seems that, too often, the party treats insurgent energy as a problem to be solved rather than energy to be harnessed.

 

[ZenMode]

this is just blatantly false.

a LOT of right wingers think that transgender folks should not exist. they don't accept or understand gender dysphoria or gender vs. gender identity. they think that trans people are mentally ill or brainwashed, essentially that they are not legitimate people and shouldn't be normalized by society.

I'm sure there are some number of far right, hyper Christians that believe that. Most Americans, at least based on polling, are more than willing to give trans people all the rights except when it involves children and sports.

 

[Paine]

I'm not understanding how Cooper winning as a bland centrist Dem is advancing the thesis that we need more emotional resonance and connecting with voters. It seems to cut the other way pretty clearly to me.

McCrory lost because the NBA pulled the all-star game and the boycotts of NC were brutal. Again, this was the bleeding edge of the trans panic. Nobody is batting an eye at these things any more.

I think you’re misunderstanding what I’m actually saying. Cooper didn’t win because he was emotionally resonant, he won because McCrory’s panic politics blew up in his face. The terrain shifted against the GOP. Their message got tied to economic damage, national ridicule, and petty government overreach.

That’s the larger point: culture war attacks can backfire when they’re reframed as obsessive, harmful, and unserious. That doesn’t require a progressive firebrand, it just requires making the public feel like the other side is the one out of step with normal people’s concerns.

“Emotional resonance” is not something only the Democratic candidate has to/can supply. It’s also about disarming the GOP’s emotional leverage.

We actually saw a glimpse of this dynamic with Tim Walz last year. When he called GOP culture war attacks “weird,” it worked. It was disarming, relatable, and made the panic politics sound out of touch with real life. That’s exactly the kind of emotional reframing I’m talking about: mocking the obsession, not moralizing against it.

But then the Harris campaign reportedly told him to tone it down. That’s the problem: the instinct to neutralize anything with bite or resonance in favor of safe, bloodless messaging.

This isn’t about turning every Democrat into Obama 2.0. It’s about seizing moments to flip the script, like Walz was doing, so we’re not always playing defense on the GOP’s terms.

Now, I do think emotional resonance in the candidate matters too, especially in presidential races. That’s how we won in ‘92 and ‘08. Clinton and Obama weren’t just policy guys; they embodied stories people wanted to believe in. But we’re not always going to have generational talents at the top of the ticket.

That’s why shifting the emotional terrain matters just as much, sometimes more. If the baseline narrative favors your side, you don’t need a once-in-a-generation communicator to win.

My contention is that recent Democratic candidates haven’t brought the kind of emotional resonance that Clinton and Obama relied on. Too many have felt poll-tested, cautious, and over-calibrated; more like they’re managing a message than embodying a cause.

When the emotional terrain is already hostile, that kind of candidate just can’t break through. If we want to win consistently, we need both: leaders who speak from the gut, and a narrative landscape that lets their message actually land.

 

[SnoopRob]

Your reply confirms the deeper divide in how we each understand politics. You’re describing a turnout operation. I’m describing a political strategy.

[Note: I removed the bulk of your post as I'm over the character limit. I left the beginning and end so you can reference which post it was.]

I’ll ask again: what, specifically, do you propose Democrats say to these “lean Dem” voters that will succeed where everything else has failed? What message? What emotional hook? Because if all you’ve got is “find the right issue through polling and hope for better turnout,” that’s not a political strategy.

You're correct that I want to win elections. I would love for Dems to sweep the 2028 elections with filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and a massive advantage in the House. But I know that given the geographic and gerrymandered advantages of the Pub across the country, that is nearly impossible to pull off. So I'll stick to trying to figure out a way that we win elections (and the WH and Congress) by actually possible margins in a pragmatic way. If Dems had the Pubs electoral advantages, I might be persuaded to try for bigger aims, but that is not the America we live in.

The difference between is us is that I want to win elections/majorities where possible and limit losses in down years while you want a revolution. You want to go for the big plays because you want to rewrite how society and government works and you need a large group of folks to do that.

Let me be clear about my stance: I am anti-revolution. I am even more deeply anti-populist. Populism is inevitably governance by the worst suited among us plundering the system while blaming others for all of their woes. You can certainly miss me with any sort of populist message if you want me to support your vision.

And our current situation is exactly why I am anti-revolution and anti-populist. Once you question the entirety of the system that oversees the country and those who operate it, you've provided a path for systemic change...but systemic change is very hard to predict and even harder to control. The message that "society/government isn't working for you" can much more easily create the motivation for change without creating the conditions that create positive change. And so the progressive message that "society/government isn't taking care of the working class" helped create the environment that ignored messages and policies coming from more institutionally-minded Dems (and Pubs) that made the 2010s ripe for a revolution...but we got right-wing, authoritarian fascist revolution rather than a progressive revolution. And now we're suffering from the effects of populism and revolution that would have been protected against under more moderate governments (Dem or Pub).

You discuss Obergefell and the success of legalized same-sex marriage...but you act like it was somehow society moving to adopt a different standard. SSM was the result of a nearly 50 year campaign by LGB advocates built on small, incremental change that added up over time. Yes, it was powered by compelling stories and folks coming out to their friends/families millions of times, but it was also built on small governmental actions over decades, as well. That is the kind of governmental actions I typically advocate for; Dem governments that push for incremental change that, over time, creates real societal good. And that is largely because it tends to create the type of sustainable change that lasts, although the revolutionary society/government of the last decade plus continues to threaten those gains.

You say that I don't ask why conservative working class voters vote against their economic interests and that I don't care why they do that. The problem with this view is that I completely ignores that you don't have the damnedest clue about me and what I know about the conservative working class. Let's do a short SnoopRob bio to correct your misunderstandings...

I grew up in a rural, largely white, working class community in NC. My extended family for generations have been working class, rural whites living in this community and nearly all of my friends and neighbors growing up came from very similar families. I left for college in Chapel Hill the expected product of such a community and held views that were largely in line with the folks I grew up with. However, my time in Chapel Hill expanded my views of both the world and people. Almost 15 years ago, i eventually moved back to the county I grew up in here in NC, again surrounded by the conservative working class that makes up the backbone of MAGA. And because my family is here and folks here have known me since I was a baby, I kinda/sorta "pass" and folks are fairly open about why they believe as they do. My county has gone for Trump ~72% in each of the last 3 elections, the majority of folks I intereact with on a daily basis are Trump supporters and most are full-on MAGA. Most of my extended family are MAGA and are certainly dedicated Trump voters/supporters. I don't question why they behave the way they do because I understand it...I was born into these folks, I was raised among these folks, I live among these folks, and I literally am surrounded by these folks on a daily basis.

The biggest reason they vote the way they do is because they are traditionalists who take a very high view of order/structure and believe that society should be structured in a certain way. God/Jesus & the Church are leaders of society...men are superior to women...whites have earned their place at the top of society...cisgendered folks and heterosexuals are "normal" and everyone else is abnormal...married folks are better than single folks...minorities are expected to know their (lower) place and accept that place...self-sufficiency is the norm and one should work for what they have (it's why government programs like disability or payments to farmers are ok, they're for "working folks or those who cannot work any longer" while other government programs are for lazy free-loaders)...work that creates tangible outputs is superior to work that does not. This traditionalist view makes up the foundation of their worldview and, when challenged, they will fight to preserve that worldview and hierarchy against treats to it. Even if that means preserving that worldview at the cost of lower personal economic success. These folks know what it's like to live paycheck-to-paycheck, they'll tighten their belts a little more if they know that they aren't also being replaced in the social order. (It's also why it's not surprising that some Hispanics have moved toward Trumpism. They're ultimately traditionalists, as well, and except for being racial minorities they fit well within the traditionalist worldview. As long as they don't feel in danger of being deported or extremely oppressed by society, they can be - and have been - pursuaded that preserving their overall worldview is more important than the "dangers" of LGBTQ folks and abortion.) Unfortunately, for all of us, this traditionalist view has full devolved into outright bigotry where traditionalists are more concerned with preserving the social order than recognizing the basic rights and humanity of all people.

So that is why I don't believe you can persuade these folks with promises about economic advances unless those economic advances are specifically geared toward them and do not assist (or do not assist as much) those they deem inherently beneath them. Conservative working class folks view themselves as the "backbone of our country" made up of "Real Americans" and others should not be deemed as important as they are. And unless Dems are willing to essentially sell out minority communities to specifically cater to conservative working class folks, then I am highly, highly skeptical that any "persuasive storytelling" is going to actually be persuasive to them. It's also why I don't think that most of the conservative speakers/propagandists that you think connect with this group actually do so in any meaningful way, the connection is based solely on what these folks want to hear and these speakers don't have the power change the minds of folks in this group. The speakers/propagandists can merely flatter them and move them to do things they already desire to do, not actually change their minds or act in novel ways.

As a summation of all of this, I believe that your dream of a political/social revolution based on the working class coming together to concentrate of the "material interests" of the working class is a pipe dream and one that is more likely to lead to negative consequences rather than positive ones. Unless you're willing to cast aside the social concerns - read: basic human rights - of large swaths of minority groups, there is very, very little way you'll convince the traditionalists in the conservative working class to join with working class minorities (much less any other minorities) to vote to adopt your vision, the best you'll do is convince them that they deserve better than what they have and push them further into the arms of authoritarian, right-wing populist movements (which, unsurprisingly, is what we see with Trumpism).

 

[SnoopRob]

No one said HB2 was a total victory or that trans rights are safe in North Carolina. The point is that Republicans overreached, and they paid for it.

Yes: Cooper was a bland, centrist Democrat; that strengthens the argument. In a state Trump won, an uncharismatic moderate beat an incumbent Republican. IIRC, this was the first time an incumbent governor had lost a reelection bid in North Carolina history. Not because people fell in love with progressivism but because the GOP faceplanted on a culture war issue and got tagged as both extreme and economically reckless. That’s how terrain shifts.

You’re also treating the Republican recovery since then as proof that HB2 didn’t matter. But temporary setbacks don’t stop them from coming back. That’s true of any power struggle. If you’re going to dismiss every successful pushback just because the right eventually regroups, you’re basically arguing that nothing matters unless it ends in total victory.

You’re right that trans rights are still under attack, in North Carolina and elsewhere. That’s exactly why we need to understand what actually worked during the HB2 fight: not moral scolding, but reframing. Turning their cruelty into a joke. Tying it to real-world harm. Making them look like the weird ones obsessed with bathrooms instead of schools, jobs, or healthcare.

So it seems to me that shifting the emotional terrain is effective, not shallow.

HB2 was a minor loss in an otherwise winning war for Pubs...they had to overturn one bill (which was then enacted in many places through local legislation) and lost a centrist Pub governorship to a centrist Dem governorship.

And the real impetus for the victory wasn't because of "shifting the emotional terrain", it was because large businesses in blue states refused to do greater business in NC until a chance was made. That scared the business-first Pubs in Charlotte (and Raleigh) and convinced enough of them to get rid of it while otherwise continuing their war on minorities, while that an other issues convinced them to vote out a centrist Pub for a truly centrist Dem.

At no point did making pro-HB2 folks "look like the weird ones obsessed with bathrooms instead of schools, jobs, or healthcare" change much of anything as those folks did nothing to expand access to schools/jobs/healthcare as a result, it was the loss of business profit by businesses/groups outside NC that made the difference and led to HB2 being overturned.

 

[Callatoroy]

As someone who ran for Congress in 2006 on a simple 3 part platform...

1) impeach GWB
2 ) establish national health insurance for all Americans
3 ) withdraw from Iraq and focus on diplomatic strategies to prevent the development of nuclear weapons in Iran

I did have other ideas but given the environment those were the most salient at the time

So with the understanding that I went down in flames in the Democratic primary, this would be my humble recommendation for those running in 2026...

1 ) advocating specific policies that will improve the lives of working and middle class families

2 ) Campaign on a theme that says "We are all Americans " to address broadly the various "woke " issues

3 ) Remind voters that we have been the shining city on a hill and an inspiration to those across the globe who hope to enjoy a democracy like we have enjoyed but is now under threat to go down the dark path of autocracy and join Russia and China.

I limit a political campaign to 3 themes, because I believe the average voter can only retain 3 themes throughout a campaign

now back to what I do best...day drinking

What was that like? not the losing, but going through the process.

 

[Paine]

You're correct that I want to win elections. I would love for Dems to sweep the 2028 elections with filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and a massive advantage in the House. But I know that given the geographic and gerrymandered advantages of the Pub across the country, that is nearly impossible to pull off. So I'll stick to trying to figure out a way that we win elections (and the WH and Congress) by actually possible margins in a pragmatic way. If Dems had the Pubs electoral advantages, I might be persuaded to try for bigger aims, but that is not the America we live in.

I appreciate your honesty and the depth of your response. Our backgrounds aren’t so different. I also grew up in a rural, working-class community in North Carolina, surrounded by many of the same attitudes and traditions you describe. Perhaps the key difference is that my community was more racially diverse: Black, white, and Latino families all living through the same economic precarity. Maybe that shaped me in a different way. I did see how solidarity could form across race and difference when people shared material struggles and treated each other with decency. I also saw how easily that solidarity could be disrupted by fear, scapegoating, and political manipulation. But I don’t think that has to be permanent. That’s the difference between us, and that’s a choice I made.

Your response confirms that our disagreement isn’t just strategic, it’s philosophical. You don’t just oppose populism; you reject the idea that politics can be about building trust, changing minds, or shifting emotional terrain. You describe a population that’s ideologically frozen and morally unreachable. But people aren’t stone tablets. You changed. Why assume others can’t?

You say you’re anti-populist, anti-revolutionary, and that all real progress comes from slow, institutional work. But that’s not how American history has played out. The biggest leaps forward (abolition and Reconstruction, the New Deal, the Civil Rights Movement) weren’t cautious, incremental adjustments. They were ruptures, driven by mass mobilization, deep conflict, and popular pressure. Yes, they led to legislation. But those laws didn’t emerge from consultants and turnout models. They were forced into being by people striking, marching, voting, organizing, and demanding a new story about what this country could be.

Populism isn’t inherently authoritarian. That’s a liberal caricature. There’s a deep American tradition of democratic, solidaristic populism: from the multiracial farmers’ alliances of the 1890s, to the labor uprisings of the 1930s, to Dr. King’s Poor People’s Campaign. Those movements didn’t fail because they activated the working class. They failed because political and economic elites moved quickly to divide, repress, and discredit them. That’s not a warning against populism, it’s a reminder that building majoritarian power has always been treated as a threat by the ruling class because it is one.

And no, I’m not romanticizing white working-class conservatism. I know the worldview you describe very well: the hierarchies, the gender roles, the resentment. I’ve lived it too. But people are complicated. Someone can rant about “welfare” and still help their neighbor fix a car. They can hold regressive views and still want their kid to see a doctor without going bankrupt. The right understands this. That’s why they don’t give up on these voters and assume they’re safely in the fold. They flatter them, lie to them, mobilize their pain, and pull them into something poisonous. Meanwhile, the liberal instinct has been to moralize, retreat, and wait for them to die off.

You accuse me of wanting a fantasy coalition that would throw minorities under the bus. But that’s backwards. The approach you implicitly defend (retreating into a narrow, college-educated base) has made it harder to protect vulnerable communities. You don’t win rights through elite representation or judicial fiat. You win them through durable, majoritarian power. And that means organizing across lines of race, culture, and class. Not because everyone agrees on everything, but because they share enough to fight for something bigger than themselves.

I’m not saying everyone can be reached. But you’ve written off millions. And you do it while defending a political strategy that’s failed to stop the right from capturing courts, statehouses, and half the country. You warn that left populism might backfire. But what’s your alternative? Another round of triangulation? More polling? More attempts to micro-target our way to 50.1 percent? How long do you think that game lasts?

The real danger isn’t trying to build a cross-racial working-class coalition. The real danger is giving up on that project and ceding the field to the demagogues.

You say you want to win. So do I. But I want to win more than elections. I want to win power and use it to materially improve the lives of working people across this country. That doesn’t happen through management. It happens through meaning and through movement.

 

[Paine]

HB2 was a minor loss in an otherwise winning war for Pubs...they had to overturn one bill (which was then enacted in many places through local legislation) and lost a centrist Pub governorship to a centrist Dem governorship.

And the real impetus for the victory wasn't because of "shifting the emotional terrain", it was because large businesses in blue states refused to do greater business in NC until a chance was made. That scared the business-first Pubs in Charlotte (and Raleigh) and convinced enough of them to get rid of it while otherwise continuing their war on minorities, while that an other issues convinced them to vote out a centrist Pub for a truly centrist Dem.

At no point did making pro-HB2 folks "look like the weird ones obsessed with bathrooms instead of schools, jobs, or healthcare" change much of anything as those folks did nothing to expand access to schools/jobs/healthcare as a result, it was the loss of business profit by businesses/groups outside NC that made the difference and led to HB2 being overturned.

You’re not wrong that corporations spoke up because they feared profit loss, but you’re missing what made those losses a threat in the first place. Businesses didn’t spontaneously act out of principle. They reacted to pressure from boycotts, from public ridicule, from cultural backlash. And that pressure came from a terrain that had already shifted. HB2 became politically toxic and economically risky because people made it look absurd, cruel, and backwards. That wasn’t some decision made in a vacuum. It was emotional politics doing exactly what it’s supposed to do: reframe the stakes and force the other side to respond. McCrory couldn’t respond and lost.

When a bland, uncharismatic moderate can beat an incumbent Republican in a Trump state, something shifted. Not because voters fell in love with the Democratic Party, but because the GOP overreached and got publicly tagged as cruel, weird, and reckless. That’s not nothing. That’s how narrative defeats happen.

I mean, watch Coop’s opening statement in this debate, along with the first question:

 

[SmilingJack]

Dang why don't you guys run since you have it figured out? Paine/Snoop?

 

[4thgenheel]

I'm sure there are some number of far right, hyper Christians that believe that. Most Americans, at least based on polling, are more than willing to give trans people all the rights except when it involves children and sports.

it's not just the "far" right. a clear majority of those on the right are blatantly and admittedly transphobic. "most Americans" .....the left is doing all of the heavy lifting here.

52% of self described republicans or lean republican don't that believe trans people should be protected from discrimination in jobs, housing and public spaces. 67% of republicans are still obsessed with what bathroom trans folks use.

Americans’ Complex Views on Gender Identity and Transgender Issues

Most favor protecting trans people from discrimination, but fewer support policies related to medical care for gender transitions; many are uneasy with the pace of change on trans issues.

www.pewresearch.org

 

[SmilingJack]

Talking Reality Television Blues Todd Snider Talking Reality Television Blues - Google Search
Don't know if folks here are familiar with Todd Snider but if not he's my children's Guthrie heir. If you like this his Ballad of the Devil's Backbone is a lot of fun. Doublewide blue's is a good one too.

 

[hedge]

Of course you can’t manufacture charisma, but you can help create the conditions for real leaders to emerge.

 

[altmin]

This is also why Dobbs didn't generate the lopsided female vote we were expecting. Lots of women care about abortion and are pro-choice. They just don't care about it enough to share a picnic table with a Mexican.

The reality of this hurts. That sums up the last election to a tee.

 

[heelinhell]

What was that like? not the losing, but going through the process.

Going through the process was a learning experience indeed.

1 ) I learned that the press/news reporters are not very motivated to do legwork and interact face to face . They prefer to be spoonfed press releases.

Now it was 2006, an off year election with no state wide offices on the ballot. I called several news folks to inform them I was filing for Congress to challenge the incumbent Democrat in my district. I said I had a rather provocative platform and would be available for a Q&A after filing. MSM said just fax us a press release. I called several college newspapers. Only the dook** Chronical responded and asked when I would be filing. I told him (the editor ? ) that I would be filing at 10am. I shit you not that he said his reporters don't get up that early so fax us a press release.

2 ) I learned that self funding campaigns loses would be supporters who agree with you on the issues

3 ) I was able to interview with several liberal political groups who told me that we agree with your policy proposals and are not thrilled with the incumbent, but he can give us crumbs. After the interview with the Indy, I was counting on their important endorsement. When the time came for endorsements, the Indy published a very positive view of my platform, but like every other group , they said we will be endorsing the incumbent and hope he steps up.

So that was my experience going through the process.

 

[ZenMode]

it's not just the "far" right. a clear majority of those on the right are blatantly and admittedly transphobic. "most Americans" .....the left is doing all of the heavy lifting here.

52% of self described republicans or lean republican don't that believe trans people should be protected from discrimination in jobs, housing and public spaces. 67% of republicans are still obsessed with what bathroom trans folks use.

Americans’ Complex Views on Gender Identity and Transgender Issues

Most favor protecting trans people from discrimination, but fewer support policies related to medical care for gender transitions; many are uneasy with the pace of change on trans issues.

www.pewresearch.org

There's really nothing surprising in that data. Republicans, as I mentioned, are primarily concerned about things involving kids and sports. The bathroom issue is included as "kids" topic.

Beyond those two general categories, I think a majority of Americans are more than happy to extend all rights to trans just as they do for gays.

The problem Dems have with voters is the purity test. If you aren't 100% onboard with "everything" trans, you're essentially out and people generally don't respond well to that approach.

 

[Zoo_View]

Going through the process was a learning experience indeed.

1 ) I learned that the press/news reporters are not very motivated to do legwork and interact face to face . They prefer to be spoonfed press releases.

Now it was 2006, an off year election with no state wide offices on the ballot. I called several news folks to inform them I was filing for Congress to challenge the incumbent Democrat in my district. I said I had a rather provocative platform and would be available for a Q&A after filing. MSM said just fax us a press release. I called several college newspapers. Only the dook** Chronical responded and asked when I would be filing. I told him (the editor ? ) that I would be filing at 10am. I shit you not that he said his reporters don't get up that early so fax us a press release.

2 ) I learned that self funding campaigns loses would be supporters who agree with you on the issues

3 ) I was able to interview with several liberal political groups who told me that we agree with your policy proposals and are not thrilled with the incumbent, but he can give us crumbs. After the interview with the Indy, I was counting on their important endorsement. When the time came for endorsements, the Indy published a very positive view of my platform, but like every other group , they said we will be endorsing the incumbent and hope he steps up.

So that was my experience going through the process.

The Indy could have endorsed you in the Democratic Primary and you still would have been crushed.

You were running against a long-term incumbent who RARELY faced primary opposition and when he did, he won 80-90% of the vote. In the General Elections, he routinely won 60%+.

David Price had voted against invading Iraq in 2002. He wasn’t vulnerable from the left on that front.

Dubya was POTUS; and, would be until 1/20/2009. Your three primary issues were not going to be acted upon - the GOP controlled the House and had roughly a 55-45 majority in the Senate from 2005-2007. After the 2006 elections, the Democrats held a small majority with 233 House seats and 49-to-49 Senate seats with two Independents (both caucused with the Democrats; but, one was Joe Lieberman). The 60 vote filibuster in the Senate prevailed. Your legislation wasn’t passing the Congress onto the Oval Office desk - where it would be vetoed by Dubya.

A GOP President was in the White House. Your agenda was going nowhere.

You were running against a Democratic incumbent with 20 years of name recognition.

The media wasn’t lazy in not covering you. They’d rightly assessed your candidacy and decided, “He doesn’t stand a chance.”

If we’d have had public funding of elections divided equally among all the candidates, you’d have been crushed by name recognition.

Ask Brad Miller about his 1988 run for NC Secretary of State against Rufus Edmisten (and few liked Rufus).

 

[McAdooSmackinYou]

guessing Zoo was not a big donor, jeez

 

[4thgenheel]

There's really nothing surprising in that data. Republicans, as I mentioned, are primarily concerned about things involving kids and sports. The bathroom issue is included as "kids" topic.

Beyond those two general categories, I think a majority of Americans are more than happy to extend all rights to trans just as they do for gays.

The problem Dems have with voters is the purity test. If you aren't 100% onboard with "everything" trans, you're essentially out and people generally don't respond well to that approach.

the data isn't surprising at all and it completely invalidates your "everything about trans folks is hunky dory with pubs except sports and kids" bullshit narrative.

most republicans are quite clearly primarily concerned with all things about trans folks.

it bears repeating AGAIN that a "majority of Americans" is 80-90% of dems and 30-40% of republicans.

this is why i brought up the fact that republicans control all three branches of the federal government. the side that is blatantly transphobic has total control right now.

this is notable and problematic despite your bad faith attempts to brush it aside and pretend like the only trans issues are sports and kids. the right's issues with trans folks go WELL beyond sports and kids.

 

[ZenMode]

the data isn't surprising at all and it completely invalidates your "everything about trans folks is hunky dory with pubs except sports and kids" bullshit narrative.

most republicans are quite clearly primarily concerned with all things about trans folks.

it bears repeating AGAIN that a "majority of Americans" is 80-90% of dems and 30-40% of republicans.

this is why i brought up the fact that republicans control all three branches of the federal government. the side that is blatantly transphobic has total control right now.

this is notable and problematic despite your bad faith attempts to brush it aside and pretend like the only trans issues are sports and kids. the right's issues with trans folks go WELL beyond sports and kids.

I didn't say everything was hunky dory. I said a majority of Americans (R, D and I), with the exception of things related to kids and sports, support trans rights.