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Goodguy  2d ago (text post)   Edited 2d ago   9068 thread views

Midterms Megathread

Cause otherwise midterms discussion will be scattered around a bunch of separate Culture War thread posts. And it's nice to have more off-the-cuff rapid reactions in a dedicated megathread.

The first thing I've noticed so far: if the exit polls are correct, Americans are very pessimistic about AI.

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Was MIssissippi on anyone's radar? I heard absolutely nothing about the Senate race there, and it's currently too close to call with the Democrat slightly ahead. If he wins, I think he'd be the first black man elected to statewide office since Reconstruction.

I did notice that the polls were oddly close, and that there weren’t very many of them.

Being in position to slam one’s Republican opponent as being anti-BBQ is a good place to be in the South.

That really is a great ad, legit funny and such a clean attack. I can see why he’s doing so well, he comes off very charismatic in just that short clip. Plus, wow, all else aside the GOP really did pull out all the stops to run an awful slate of candidates this year, didn’t they. Paxton, Vivek, Lindsey Graham’s nepo-sister, apparently this lady…

Abdul El-Sayed, Talarico, Amy "AA" Acton, Troy Jackson, Mary Peltola!?

This election had little to do with candidate quality. In Michigan, Mike Rogers was a legitimately good candidate against a legitimately horrible one. Didn't matter.

The Talafreako meme is Republicans being high on their own supply. A good candidate is one who reads as a more charismatic version of a normie to swing voters, which he does. Actual normies don't run for statewide office, and if they did they wouldn't be able to act normal in the freakish situations political campaigns put candidates in.

I think the opposite is true: Talarico is legitimately extremely offputting and a terrible candidate to win Texas as a Democrat, but Republicans were high on their own supply to think that it wasn't a blue enough cycle (and facing a terrible enough Republican candidate) to make him the expected winner. He's just much more tuned to get a committed partisan Democrat to think he appeals to Republican-leaning swing voters than he is to actually appeal to Republican-leaning swing voters, which produces this really distinct dissonance.

Mike Rogers was a deep state goon and proven loser running on a platform of slavish devotion to a country with the approval rating of AIDS.

The only reason anyone ever thought he was a "legitimately good candidate" is that treacherous foreign agents for said country are disproportionately represented among those who own media outlets. The guy was anti-endorsed by Judge Napolitano of all people

That may legitimately be the best political ad I've seen since Christine O'Donnell had to publicly proclaim that she wasn't a witch.

That soundbite is a rival politician's dream. Seriously giving Marie Antoinette vibes.

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