The Alabama election's lessons for California (Sacramento, Arnold: 2015, college, car tax)

[bmw335xi]

Originally Posted by majoun

AL is as safely red as CA is safely blue. The AL Democratic Party, until tonight, was as weak as the CA Republican Party. Yet voters, by going for a nutjob with a scandalous past in the primaries, wound up handing the election over to the Democrats.

Gavin Newsom's very active sexual history might contain hidden peccadillos like Roy Moore's, and the CA Dems putting all their eggs in the Newsom basket in such an event could lead to an unexpected GOP victory in the runoff election if John Cox, a sensible moderate in the best tradition of the CA GOP, makes it to the runoff. While a Newsom victory seems like a sure thing, it is quite possible something could come up that would throw a spanner in the works. One lesson for this election for politicians of both major parties is to never take anything for granted and try to act responsibly even if your party has the clear majority.

Sexual assault is fine if you are a liberal though. Murder is fine if you are an illegal too. Oh and defending a child rapist is fine if you are a Clinton as well.

[Tulemutt]

Originally Posted by sciroccot

Is this your alter ego speaking ?. As in the same person creating both posts . As how else would you even know the intelligence levels of the other person. Unless of course it just happens to be ....you. lol

Maybe because I have read many posts by SportyandMisty and had numerous exchanges of dialogue with him in the past years on this forum? And while we do not always hold the same views, he clearly is no dummy ... etc.

Would that cover it for you, sport?

[Tulemutt]

Originally Posted by bmw335xi

Sexual assault is fine if you are a liberal though. Murder is fine if you are an illegal too. Oh and defending a child rapist is fine if you are a Clinton as well.

Yeah. Now here's the difference between you and SportyandMisty. I expect this ignorant kind of partisan-baiting stupidity from you.

[Marv101]

The Democrats are in no danger of losing their grip on California, and will have to deal with numerous problems associated with liberals and progressives, including soaring poverty rates, soaring homelessness rates,and rising housing prices which show zero signs of moderating thanks to thickets of regulations which

Toss in a birthrate which has been declining for almost three decades and which has been at a below-replacement level since 2000, on top of declining numbers of people moving into the state, and the Dems will have plenty of challenging fiscal and societal issues on their plate for years to come.

[silverkris]

Originally Posted by Tulemutt

Yeah. Now here's the difference between you and SportyandMisty. I expect this ignorant kind of partisan-baiting stupidity from you.

Amen.

[silverkris]

Originally Posted by BeauCharles

This election is an outlier for Alabama. The state is still over 70% white and the vast majority of them are dyed in the wool Republicans. Give them a reasonably decent, principled Republican candidate in two years and they'll give Jones his walking papers.

California Republicans (as the minority party) don't have demographics on their side. Non-Hispanic whites are now 38%-39% of the state's population and a little over half the electorate. Maybe half of them are Republicans. The non-white voters (any race or group) are overwhelmingly Democrat and unlikely to switch parties in the voting booth like whites might. I really don't see any Democratic candidate for statewide office being such a crook or lecher to the point that it would tip the balance in the Republican's favor. The Democratic strategy of slow voter replacement over the decades via unfettered developing world immigration (legal and illegal) is working.

So Jones has 2 years to make inroads with the Alabama white electorate - and yes, he's gotta work real hard to hold them. We'll see if he can.

As for California - even with demographics, I wouldn't discount the Republicans chances in the future, but they gotta change their tune radically and go away from mindless xenophobia.

There's no Democratic strategy for supposedly trying to use "unfettered immigration" as a electoral strategy. C'mon now. They just respond to trends like anyone else. Don't give them credit for taking advantage of Pete Wilson's Prop 187 strategy that blew up in the CA GOP's face. Who wouldn't?

[majoun]

Originally Posted by BeauCharles

This election is an outlier for Alabama. The state is still over 70% white and the vast majority of them are dyed in the wool Republicans. Give them a reasonably decent, principled Republican candidate in two years and they'll give Jones his walking papers.

California Republicans (as the minority party) don't have demographics on their side. Non-Hispanic whites are now 38%-39% of the state's population and a little over half the electorate. Maybe half of them are Republicans. The non-white voters (any race or group) are overwhelmingly Democrat and unlikely to switch parties in the voting booth like whites might. I really don't see any Democratic candidate for statewide office being such a crook or lecher to the point that it would tip the balance in the Republican's favor. The Democratic strategy of slow voter replacement over the decades via unfettered developing world immigration (legal and illegal) is working.

I'd say considerably less than half - I don't have the exact number.

Then again Massachusetts is about 20 percent Republican in registration and they have elected many GOP governors including the current one. The previous governor Deval Patrick was a Dem but he was the first Dem to be elected governor since Dukakis. They also had a GOP Senator within the last decade who coincidentally was elected in a special election against a scandal ridden prosecutor candidate of the majority party (even though Martha Coakley's scandals were not sexual, unlike Moore's), although he was subsequently defeated.

It is very possible a Republican could be elected to high office in California but it will definitely remain a blue state, just like MA and MD are blue states.

[majoun]

Originally Posted by silverkris

So Jones has 2 years to make inroads with the Alabama white electorate - and yes, he's gotta work real hard to hold them. We'll see if he can.

As for California - even with demographics, I wouldn't discount the Republicans chances in the future, but they gotta change their tune radically and go away from mindless xenophobia.

There's no Democratic strategy for supposedly trying to use "unfettered immigration" as a electoral strategy. C'mon now. They just respond to trends like anyone else. Don't give them credit for taking advantage of Pete Wilson's Prop 187 strategy that blew up in the CA GOP's face. Who wouldn't?

I also think California would not vote that substantially different if it had experienced less immigration, as the examples of the other West Coast states (except Alaska) show. At most it would be like Oregon, a "light blue" state in which Dems occupy the governorship and both US Senate seats. CA would not be the reddish purple state it was in the 1960s-80s.

[04kL4nD]

Originally Posted by BeauCharles

This election is an outlier for Alabama. The state is still over 70% white and the vast majority of them are dyed in the wool Republicans. Give them a reasonably decent, principled Republican candidate in two years and they'll give Jones his walking papers.

California Republicans (as the minority party) don't have demographics on their side. Non-Hispanic whites are now 38%-39% of the state's population and a little over half the electorate. Maybe half of them are Republicans. The non-white voters (any race or group) are overwhelmingly Democrat and unlikely to switch parties in the voting booth like whites might. I really don't see any Democratic candidate for statewide office being such a crook or lecher to the point that it would tip the balance in the Republican's favor. The Democratic strategy of slow voter replacement over the decades via unfettered developing world immigration (legal and illegal) is working.

No they won't. He will be there for at least six years since he won a Senate race

[majoun]

Originally Posted by 04kL4nD

No they won't. He will be there for at least six years since he won a Senate race

He was elected to fill out the rest of Jeff Sessions' term and thus will be up for reelection in 2020.