If he loses it's his own fault IMO. Didn't follow the race as closely as some others but every single response I heard from him was a canned response, comes off as very stiff and generic.

"We need to cut wasteful spending"

"I will stand up to the President when I need to"

"We need to improve Obamacare"

I realize this is all politics but nothing concrete and he just seemed to have a tough time straddling the line between progressive/moderate. Maybe if he runs a different campaign he doesn't even have any equity today but it seems like he could've tried to draw a better distinction between who he was and who GOP establishment clown Karen Handel was.

Yeah, I think he was trying to appeal to the moderate Republicans and independents who could possibly be persuaded to vote Democrat. He had the firm Democratic vote locked up, so it seems like instead of going full-bore passionate progressive message, he went calm moderate.

His stances on everything/the vast majority of things are good - the way he delivered his message was questionable. I understand the strategy, though.

Weather is a bit iffy in the area - on the phone town hall, he implored people to get out and vote. I think there's fear that bad weather is worse for Dem voter turnout.

I just had an Ossoff campaigner come to my door to make sure my wife voted, as she didn't vote early. They are certainly working hard.

It's basically irrelevant who he is--this is purely a referendum on Trump.

Dems need turnout to be high and people that held their nose and voted for Trump last November to vote Ossoff now (or just not vote at all).

Looking head to what I think will be an Ossoff loss (hope I'm wrong!), I just get sad because I feel like Republicans are on the wrong side of almost every issue, yet those who vote Republican don't care and just want to stick it to the "libtards."

The messages they put out are so off-base (see the insane attack ads, for instance), but nobody ****ing cares. They just want to win, no matter what that means.

Yeah what you just said, that's also a result of all the extreme gerrymandering over the years. When you only have a primary and the general is not competitive in something like 80% of House seats, it causes more extreme candidates to flow in over time. After a while it doesn't even matter what the actual candidate looks like because whoever wins the primary is guaranteed to win the general, so the only voters that are represented are the extreme hard-liners in that district.

It's also when democracy is actually directly threatened. Republicans don't care at all about protecting democracy, in fact they are actively destroying it and voters haven't punished them at all for it. That is not a good sign for where we are headed.

Yeah, I get it that his play was basically to come off as moderate/measured in tone as possible. I probably went overboard saying it is his fault if he loses, that's too results oriented. The race wasn't even competitive when Price ran on Nov.

But I think it is going to take more than a few platitudes to get the Democrats back in power. And they won't have 25M or w/e to spend on future races.

I wouldn't say this is a case of gerrymandering, since the district was well over R+10 in 2012. It makes no sense for the Republicans to "pack" themselves.

There's been a ****load of rain in the Atlanta area. Wonder if that will keep voters from voting.

In the UK, Labour released a manifesto that resonated with voters. That would be a good idea for the Democratic party. A short list of policy goals, but not just platitudes about helping working class, instead specifics such as raising the min wage, paid parental leave, etc.

https://www.democrats.org/party-platform

Something a bit snappier, like Republicans' Contract With America from '94 would probably be better messaging, but raising the minimum wage to $15/hr and paid family leave are both in the party platform.

Trump used this exact strategy, seemed to work ok.

Yes and no. They spread out the Republican votes enough so that they are dominant in as many districts as possible, while also not "packing" too many into one district. So actually about R+10 might very well be a nice sweet spot where you can nominate almost any Republican while also not getting "too many extra Republican votes" in the district.

Still, this isn't an example of one of those gerrymandered districts that produces the really extreme candidates. Handel isn't particularly extreme for the Republican party--you'd have to look to somebody like Steve King or Steve Scalise for that. She's just your standard ignorant, fascist, bigoted lapdog for the very wealthy--about the center of the 2017 Republican party.

Again, this **** doesn't matter to a) people who just want a tax cut and b) mouthbreathers who think such a tax cut might apply to them when they inevitably win the lottery.

Paid parental leave does absolutely nothing but make people happy who would never vote anything but Dem.

Yeah, you're right, but boil it down more, actually run on that platform, and commit to it. I think those are some areas that are lacking. Like the GOP signed a pledge to never raise taxes, and they run on that pledge. We should be doing that with actual good policies.

Grover Norquist made a pretty cogent argument about why this works better for Republicans than for Democrats. Republicans always want government to do less so that they can cut your taxes. What do you know about the candidate running? Does coke? Hits his wife? Molests kids? Maybe, maybe not, but you know he DEFINITELY wants the government to do less and cut your taxes. When you start advocating that there are things that the government is supposed to do, like universal health care, paid leave, or a higher minimum wage, you have to put together a plan to accomplish it, and then you need specifics, and then your opponents can pretty much say that the specifics are whatever they want. When we put together Obamacare, Republicans were running around saying that it included death panels, and human experimentation, and who the hell knows what else, and people believed it because it's impossible to prove that that stuff isn't among the things that the bill wants to do.

Disagree about paid parental leave. And I wasn't saying those recommendations would help for this district. Ossoff sucks, but probably has to in order to have a shot in GA6.

I agree that Dems should be focusing on good policies and championing them but a lot of good policies like parental leave or raising the minimum wage are electoral poison because we have a super dumb electorate full of people with crab mentality.

@Po: It's a decent point, but that's why I have said repeatedly to never let their bull**** slide. Call them liars in public to their faces. Point out the abysmal failure of their policies in Kansas. It may be harder to sell left wing policies than tax cuts, but that's the hand the Democrats have to play. There is somewhat of a model for success with Corbyn committing to those policies rather than e.g. going after what a ****ty human being the other candidate is, playing to the center who just wants balance and compromise because it seems smart, etc.

We have to change that base mentality. If we focus on just winning over people with these already self-destructive attitudes, we end up with a Third Way style agenda that doesn't really appeal to anybody that strongly.

Yeah, this is basically what I'm trying to say.

GA reporter on MTP said rain may help Ossof because early vote favors dems.

NT Times Cohen notes in person EV and mail EV counted separately and at different times. Mail EV favors dems.

What time can we expect results?

GA is notoriously slow. Id say no earlier than 11

Any chance Parnell gets a victory in SC 5th?

Massive Upset brewing