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"A comprehensive, collaborative elections resource."
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Pennsylvanian
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USER DETAILS |
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| Screen Name | Pennsylvanian |
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| Name | |
| Location | , , |
| Email | |
| Birthday | May 10, 0000 |
| Affiliation | Independent |
| First Login | May 03, 2012 06:36pm |
| Last Login | January 22, 2025 07:23pm |
| Predictions |
Points: 404.5480
Predictions: 305/335 (91.04%)
Points Per: 404.5480/335 (1.21)
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| Messages Posted |
297
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| DISCUSSION |
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BrentinCO: A great man who walked confidently into peace. He lived as a man of great faith everyday and served as an example to others.
Home with the Lord.
Well put. RIP President Carter.
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I have to be honest. At first, I thought the headline itself was from The Onion. This is better.
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Maryland Republican93: A 30,000 vote margin heading to a recount? Sure weird things have happened, but realistically this isn’t changing. The Minnesota 2008 Senate race or the Virginia 2013 AG race changed a few vote totals here or there when the margin was under 1,000 votes, Casey isn’t coming back.
Agree. Within 0.5% in PA, however, is a statutorily mandated recount (unless Casey waives it, which we won't).
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My Congressman is a Weiner: <q 11727="">There won't be a U.S Senate election in Pennsylvania in 4 years because Class 2 is up next.
So there WILL be one in four years, because Class 2 is up in 2028.
Pennsylvania has a Class I seat and a Class III seat. Class II is up in '26, Class III is up in '28.
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LSjustbloggin: Schumer should just delay the Senate orientation until every senator-elect is a certified winner by their states.
The orientation is a formality. It's cocktails and elbow-rubbing for new initiants into the Club. I'm not concerned about orientation. It's optics, a Schumer power play. More concerned about the practical. The resources to set up an office, which McCormick should be availed of right now if he is not already.
LSjustbloggin: Don't worry, he'll get a better paying job than a U.S Senator.
Yes, Casey will get his recount (that is, if the margin falls within that set out by the applicable statute), will accept the inevitable, and will move on. Everyone else will, even if he doesn't. I have. He'll take his check and be just fine.
LSjustbloggin: Red to blue seat 2 years ago, Blue to red seat 2 years later. Interesting.
I'd seen that this one is the closest Senate race in PA since James Duff's loss in 1956. I'd have to eye that myself, but I don't doubt it. Toomey's re-election in 2016 was close, but not as close as 2024. That result surprised me as well. A Trump effect on both races. Not far behind was Genevieve Blatt's loss to Hugh Scott in 1964, by about 70,000 votes, in spite of the LBJ landslide.
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If Casey has the statutory right to a recount, he should be able to exercise it. But McCormick, much as I dislike him, ought be afforded transitional resources as Senator-elect. I see Schumer's made a show of not inviting McCormick (and Gallego) to orientation. My hope is that the back-end support for setting up an office is not withheld, lest either or both states' representation is hamstrung by a short-changed freshman senator's inability to hit the ground running.
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Pennsylvanian: I imagine McCormick flew back to his residence in Connecticut promptly after his victory speech Friday. That is the most grating aspect of this.
And I thought I was joking. Guess Dave really couldn't stand to be away any longer after a long and hard-fought campaign so far from home.
Flight records show a private plane previously connected to McCormick left Pittsburgh the morning of Nov. 9 bound for Bridgeport
[Link]
Back in PA last night after his daughter's soccer match, according to his comms director. But I am sure there will be many more such sojourns for Dave "definitely lives in PA" McCormick.
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Rosen, Baldwin, and Slotkin all won Senate races despite Trump having flipped each. Have to admit that I did not imagine Casey being the exception. I imagine McCormick flew back to his residence in Connecticut promptly after his victory speech Friday. That is the most grating aspect of this. Oh, and the touting of the creation of jobs in Pittsburgh that no longer exist at a company that no longer has a presence. That one got to me too.
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CA Pol Junkie: Political polarization by gender isn't necessarily a long-term trend. Abortion will of course be a key issue until it is settled in favor of the pro-choice side, but alot of the gender imbalance this year also comes from Trump being creepy as f***. If Republicans manage to nominate someone half way normal next time some of the women's vote will come back to them and some of Trump's bro cult will stay home.
No disagreement from me. Though "creepy as f***" is and will be an apt description for many a current and forthcoming male candidate seeking to emulate Trump's brand of comical hypermasculinity, even absent the abortion issue and even discounting the classic and recurring foot-in-mouth-Todd Akin social conservative. The trend very well may not be long-term...
CA Pol Junkie: If Republicans manage to nominate someone half way normal next time
...but I'm sure the Republicans will do their level best to make it so.
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Unseasonably warm for trick-or-treat this year here in Western PA. Runs 6-8 in our neighborhood, but typically stems quickly after nightfall about 6:45 or so. But the mid-70s temps meant a steady stream of trick-or-treaters all the way until the end of the evening. Ran out of candy for the first time in years. I may have had some part in this. Two variety bags worth of Three Musketeers, Hershey's Milk Chocolate, Reese's, Kit-Kat, Whoppers, Milk Duds. Obviously, a (shameless) Hershey's homer.
Mallow Cups are a local favorite as well, among an older demographic.
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Trump and Harris will be holding rallies, with about an hour of crossover, just a few miles apart in downtown Pittsburgh on Monday afternoon/evening. Needless to say, I shall be avoiding that giant cluster by all means necessary.
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Jason: My question is how real Trump's appeal is among disaffected young men, and the extent to which they show up. It's a gamble in a space we don't have obvious precedent for, but if it pays off then Trump may have also unlocked a key demographic for the GOP in future elections as well.
I suspect support among disaffected young men is quite soft, particularly into future elections. The cult-like, comically exaggerated hyper-masculinity of a Donald Trump might have specific appeal to a Nelk Boys-consuming "bro" voter demographic whose political inclination is otherwise disengaged cynicism, but other Republicans' attempts to harness such absurd quasi-bravado has had disastrously comedic result, if any at all. The interesting, broader trend, of course, is the increasing genderification of the voting-eligible populace more generally, whether the young men otherwise perhaps inclined to vote Trump show up or not.
Luzerne County Historian: I have a feeling Harris is underperforming in the polls in PA. Young people are not going to answer polls but they are engaged and, as long as they actually go vote, it'll be heavily in Harris's favor.
Not an unreasonable take two years after most polls had Oz narrowly beating Fetterman. Though the presence of jackass fringe lunatic Doug Mastriano at the top of the ticket had some effect as well. Occam's razor and all.
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"Oh, I am, I'm up on your bankruptcy too, sir."
Stone cold zinger from a 12 year old.
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KeystoneProgressive: It's a sign we live in a negative political environment when any sign of bipartisan political cooperation is seen as the "elite" working against the American people. This makes it significantly harder to get anything meaningful done, because now most politicians are afraid of their own base.
The commodification of political division is one of the more compelling explanatory factors in the appeal of a two-bit TV pitchman to a cult-like following, a symptom that now exacerbates the cause.
I like to think there's a parallel universe wherein Donald Trump is an eccentric rando doing Oxi-Clean paid infomercials that you'd wake up to on TV Land at 3am.
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Trump may make a run at this, the way his "pivot" post-Biden exit has gone...
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Certainly puts a new spin on "childless cat ladies".
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He doesn't have to be a dictator. After four more years, one could convincingly argue the courts he'll have stacked will do it for him. At least in terms of policy implementation.
He seems to have been, if anything, emboldened by the (failed, for which I'm glad) attempt on his life. Unsurprising, given such pathological egomania.
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Heh. Perhaps then an endorsement of Trump might've incited enough moral clarity for him to drop out and plead guilty on everything. Or perhaps I should just take what I'm given.
/s
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Still bringing the hard hitting commentary. Yes, I am very aware and expected as much. Void ab initio. I was in Rehoboth as well this past weekend. Got me thinking about Joe on a human level. I respect and like Joe. I’d have supported his reelection should he have been the Democratic nominee. And the Democrats’ ability to f*** up an open nomination is beyond reproach.
I’d always been of two minds about Joe. But Joe made the right decision for the country and for himself. Six months late, but the right one nonetheless. He is passing the torch (his Irish obstinance notwithstanding). I respect that.
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Old LW: one of the best Yinzers of all time, Rick Sebak
Can confirm.
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Happy birthday, Indy. Enjoy!
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Chronicler: Is your campaign button one of those pictured?
Indeed -- first one, top left. That was the only one I can recall having seen before. It's in a box with an assortment of other buttons, political and non-political. Interestingly, there's a Ray Shafer (Shapp's Republican predecessor) button from '66 and a Broderick-Scalera button from '70 (Shapp-Kline's opponents in their first run). And a lot of vintage Penn State football buttons...
Old LW: I think Shapp overall was a good Governor, but it's not hard to imagine a lot of Yinzers really not liking him what with the steel industry collapsing right at that time.
History will be fairly kind to Shapp, and it isn't entirely unjustified. Some of the corruption in the late 1970s Pennsylvania Democratic establishment (think Henry Cianfrani, among others) and Shapp's ill-fated White House run (and ensuing FEC difficulties) were damaging to him in his second term, which I think turned out not to be quite the victory lap he'd hoped for.
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Those who were around during the Shapp administration will remember Hurricane Agnes flooding out the brand new Governor's Mansion (which is right on the bank of the Susquehanna), culiminating in Shapp and his wife being famously (or infamously) rescued by boat. Can't say that's why his campaign never picked up steam, but suffice to say Shapp had *interesting* ideas about the federal budget. Namely, splitting between a perpetually balanced, daily operating budget and long-term investment expenditure. I have a Shapp '76 button around somewhere; no idea how I ended up with it. Don't think anybody in my family particularly liked the guy.
Infamy precedes Shapp's name in Pennsylvania also, for enacting the Commonwealth's flat income tax. My dad maintains he never heard anyone booed as loudly as Shapp was at a Pittsburgh Pirates game shortly thereafter. That is his primary memory of Shapp. Bloodied him pretty good here, but you could certainly argue in good faith that Shapp brought the Commonwealth back from the brink of dire straights on that account -- and in the end Watergate was probably his saving grace.
Chronicler, thanks for writing these up
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Thanks, friends. Always enjoy this slice of the interwebs.
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Sounds like she sucks at hunting and her unbridled bloodlust got the best of her. Deranged.
Should complement the ticket nicely.
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Old LW: I can say as a Washington County resident that in this district generally Westmoreland (even with some of the county cut off) would win, however, not when you're swamped with 90% of the vote in Washington.
Barring, of course, the enfranchisement of farm animals. In which case those far eastern suburbs stand no chance.
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I personally know at least two registered Republicans voting Haley in protest. Though my Republican friends are not in any way a representative sample.
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Not as well-read in this district, but I think Perry's endorsement would be a bigger deal if PA-01 wasn't in large part Main Line-adjacent Philly suburbs. I'm of a mind to think Perry's endorsement actually helps Fitzpatrick. Houck's legacy, such as it would be, would be sealing the Philly suburbs in Blue.
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I'd have DePasquale as the presumptive favorite, on account of his statewide name recognition (relative to the others, anyway). Notwithstanding his not (I think) having ever tried a case to verdict, it feels like it'd be advantage him particularly if the SEPA vote gets carved up. DePasquale is very much a career political type, and it is painfully obvious that DePasquale is teeing up a run for Governor down the line.
Thumbed-up LCH's proposition only because I could see the SEPA vote being carved (the end result being the same, even if it isn't a region-by-region breakdown per se).
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The demographic makeup of the district alone (i.e. the entirety of the inner city, the Hill District, etc.) should swing it to Lee with relative ease. She pulls from the type of Democrat who isn't really Biden's key constituency, and there are an abundance here. Patel's ads hit Lee on not being supportive enough of the Biden agenda (i.e. being affiliated with "The Squad"), but that won't be an albatross for her. Patel would need to really run it up in some of these southern suburbs to have any shot. But I don't see it.
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An issue I had with Game Change is its romanticized portrayal of McCain-Lieberman as some sort of "unity ticket". Sure is nothing like two hard-nosed defense hawks on a GOP ticket to unite the country, I guess. But least it would have spared the country from the Palin debacle (that is, assuming one did not enjoy the slow-burn demolition of the McCain campaign). RIP.
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Sure glad it was only "honorary". Far better to be *affirmatively recognized* for one's indefensibly ignorant fanaticism rather than become some random dues-paying jamoke.
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Amusingly, reminds me of Bob Casey here in PA, who was elected state treasurer in '76 right as Bob Casey (the future governor and father of the current senator, Bob Casey) termed out as auditor. He spent something like a measly $800 to win a contested primary. None of them to be confused with Bob Casey, of course, who won the Lt. Gov. primary two years later in '78 (the same year Bob Casey lost his first gubernatorial bid). No relation between any of them (except, of course, the Governor and the Senator). Like an ill-conceived Abbott and Costello bit. I've got half a mind to move to Scranton, change my name to Bob Casey, and run for Senate this year. Really throw 'em off (and put my (Scots-)Irish roots to good use).
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Safe travels to you both, Brent, and good on you. Enjoyed your contributions this year, as I have in years past. Happy Holidays!
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RP: How much of the base is against interracial couples?
A non-negligible portion, probaby, but his prospects are dim enough that it won't matter. Clearly he's made the calculation that it's better than to be thought of as a 58-year-old virgin who could be *gasp* gay.
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AP calls it for Innamorato in what would ultimately be the most probablistic result in spite of Rockey's late coming on. The ridiculous thing, to me, about the race is how nationalized it became on both sides of it down the stretch. Didn't much have the feel of a county exec race in its final days.
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I'd have thought the learned Congressman would be capable of producing a somewhat higher level of diction on account of his Baruch College education.
/s
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Yes. Rockey has advertised heavily. A former bank exec with lots of wealthy friends, he's well-funded and has run a very competent campaign. He's made a smart play from the get-go for moderate and generational Democrats who might've gone for someone like Weinstein in the primary, trying to position himself as a non-partisan, moderate alternative to Innamorato, whom he's attempted to frame as a socialist bombthrower. Innamorato is hitting Rockey on abortion and the like in an attempt to nationalize the race (there's an ad which shows the likenesses of Trump and Brett Kavanaugh). That there is no straight-party voting in PA makes ballot splitting somewhat more palatable.
I have heard Rockey say at a smaller, meet-and-greet type event that his folks think he'll win if he's within the margin of error on election day. Obviously campaign puffery, but I do think he's got a shot.
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Admittedly, I read "Dean" emblazoned across the bus and assumed this guy pulled a Howard Dean hand-me-down out of the scrap heap. But this guy's immensely wealthy (like $100M), so has evidently run out of vanity-boosting things to blow his fortune on. Tells you what he knows about affordability.
EDIT: This guy looks uncannily like a cross between Ron DeSantis and Doug Burgum.
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BrentinCO: Love him or hate him, McCarthy was great at raising cash and getting it to candidates.
Which is why McCarthy had the good will within the conference to go 15 marathon ballots. Contrast with Jim Jordan's empty threats and feigned bombast. Here's a guy who likes to make a living tossing Molotov cocktails through open windows and little else and thinks that's enough to render him a power-dealing big shot. But, armed with the fact that a veritable man-child such as Matt Gaetz can spike the ball over the fence and cause all this just for the hell of it, who can blame him?
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Pennsylvanian: utility-maximizing, self-interested "rational" actors gaming in a system of perverse incentives
Or perhaps more accurately (and cynically), irrational actors with perverse choice preferences whose preferences mesh with the perverseness of the incentives. I've a hard time imagining many of these folks becoming responsible lawmakers even if their voters demanded it of them. In any case, the structure elevates certain folks who otherwise probably'd be muttering to themselves in the corner of a bus station or something (or on a TV show for one of the networks trafficking in ideologically self-assuring propoganda).
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RP: All institutions need some amount of good faith to function. That is currently gone.
And not only this, but its very framework (see, e.g., gerrymandering which assures that a primary will be the only competitive race in many districts inevitably produces a handful of lunatics who represent said districts) works directly against it. "Good faith" cuts against the direct political interest of these members -- utility-maximizing, self-interested "rational" actors gaming in a system of perverse incentives.
Of course, you well know all this. It's cathartic to verbalize my cynicism.
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I have to admit that McCarthy's backing of a short-term CR without significant concession over the weekend and his statements since then has been an act of political seppuku I did not expect. Knowing how desperate he was to become Speaker, though, I can't help but believe to my core that this was really a final act of defiance, a desperate attempt to save some semblance of a legacy of an inauspicious speakership marred by disorder, by an arrogant narcissist finally realizing he would, all along, inevitably reap what he'd sewn in the end.
Given how blinded and crippled he is by his ambition, I doubt he possesses the self-awareness to consciously recognize any of this. That eight or so lunatics can run the asylum is perhaps as much of an indictment of the institution (and the process by which its members' consituencies are determined) as it is of McCarthy. But there's little doubt in my mind that McCarthy's obvious desparation was but fuel on the fire.
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RIP. It was a shame, for her and for the office she held, to see her deteriorate as severely as she did in that setting. It shouldn't happen.
Morbid though it may be, one would hope and expect that Newsom('s proxies) anticipated such an emergent scenario and are prepared to act swiftly. Time will be of the essence, with a lot on the legislative docket between now and year's end as Congress flings itself into the throes of synthetic crisis yet again.
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Not sure if it says more about me or about pop culture more broadly that my mind immediately jumps to the "Bizarro Jerry" Seinfeld episode over the Superman comic it very transparently spoofs.
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The intent, I think, is a pathetic attempt by McCarthy to satiate a base he so clearly never had any control over. It's not a wonder he's the incumbent Speaker -- he's one of the few, even in Washington, arrogant enough to believe he can thread the needle he's been trying to thread all year.
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Chronicler: She was born on the same day that Herbert Hoover died.
Wow. Bet you'll never hear that from her.
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Can't stand this guy. If he wants to get his a** kicked by an entrenched Democratic incumbent, he should do it in the state he *actually* lives in. I'm sure Chris Murphy'd be happy to oblige.
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