I’ve succeeded in unsubscribing from both Raph Graybill and Bryce Bennett’s emails.
I never signed up for them in the first place. Mostly, they just ask for money all the time.
In a way, it makes sense. Running a statewide campaign in a state that’s 147,000 square miles is pretty tough.
The general idea is that if you raise a shit-ton of money, you can win.
Maybe.
Didn’t work out that way for Gianforte in ‘16.
What we do know is that you can’t knock on the state’s 358,000 doors.
From my personal experience, you can do about 50 doors between 7 and 9 each night. Over the course of a year, that’d add up to just 18,250 doors you knocked on, if you did it every night.
In the 520 days we have until Election 2020, you could hit up 26,000 doors.
282,000 people voted in 2018.
So the idea is that you raise money, saturate the airwaves, send out a small-forest-worth of junk mail, and get a gaggle of volunteers to make phone calls and knock on those doors.
That’s the general structure, regardless of who the candidate is or what political party they’re running under.
And then we get to personality, or the likability of a candidate. This is typically the deciding factor.
That’s why I know Joe Biden won’t make it past the convention next summer. The guy’s boring. Oh, he might have been interesting...before Trump came along. Brian Schweitzer was also interesting...until Trump came along.
Trump steals the thunder. He says what Americans are too scared to say themselves, though most of them think it and silently agree with him.
Biden’s in the upper 30-percentile range right now according to all the polls, and Bernie Sanders - his closest competitor - is only getting 15% to 20%.
#3 is Liz Warren, with around 5% to 10%. The other 21 clown car candidates are lucky to get a few percentage points.
What’s driving this is of course the corporate media.
None of us would have ever heard of most of these Dems if the national news networks weren’t pushing them.
Buttigieg?
Anyone that thinks he has a shot needs to have their head examined.
That’s a big reason I refuse to discuss Bullock or Wilmott Collins on this site. Those guys are going nowhere fast, and they’re spending a lot of money to get there.
With 520 to go, we’re just waiting. Waiting for that ‘new guy’ to come along to tell the American people that the other 24 clown car dems are emperors with no clothes.
Corporate, establishment, swamp-creature Dems...the whole lot of ‘em. Even Bernie’s lost his appeal. Over the past few years, Trump stole his thunder as well.
I frequently mention to people that I hope the Democrats give me someone worth voting for in 2020. They didn’t in 2016. It ain’t looking good now.
Here in Montana it’s a joke.
Barring a serious health scare or an economic collapse, Trump will take the state by 20 points next year. I suspect Gianforte will ride his coattails into the governor’s mansion, while Rosendale will do the same to take over Gianforte’s seat in Congress.
Those three races will steal the air from the room, helping to ensure the PSC stays firmly in the GOP’s hands. We already know how the legislature will go.
There are only two races the Dems can win - OPI and SoS.
Dems will actually have a harder chance taking Secretary of State if Corey Stapleton isn’t running and it’s an open seat. Stapleton’s financial incompetence should be the issue, one that hits Montanans over the head again and again and again on the airwaves.
But again, with Trump at the top of the GOP ticket next year, there’ll be a lot of trickle down votes for statewide GOP candidates.
Coattails.
Nationally, Dems need to stop running candidates that are from cities or Congress. These people are clueless as to what Americans care about. Here in Montana, it’s the same way. Bunch of city folk thinking they know the problems of everyone else.
Or am I wrong here?
Have Dems been winning lately and I just haven’t noticed?
No.
Dems lose. They lose all the time. It’s a dying party and just about everyone knows it but them.
I hope over the course of the next 520 days the Democrats give me someone worth voting for, both nationally and here in Montana.
I just have a feeling they won’t.
