Re: Parliamentary state governments, its not just the gerrymandered states like Wisconsin where the political incentives are there. In pretty much every state the governor's races are much more "swingy" than the legislative races, if Maryland Democrats or Kansas Republicans wanted to establish more control over the state a parliamentary system would be the way to do it.
Re: streaming video bundling, the current regime has been pushing me towards illegal streaming sites. Which service currently has Star Trek: Enterprise? It's not the same as who had it a year ago. If I am happy to pay for it, I probably have to also immediately cancel my subscription for fear of being charged forever. (I've cancelled HBO and Sling each over 20 times.) Or I could buy whole seasons from Amazon, but then I'm paying for all these minor episodes I was going to skip anyway.
And that's not even getting into sports, when I've payed several times for streaming access, only to be surprised by blackouts and times games aren't available because they're on network TV, which my antenna usually won't pick up.
It's a nightmare! How I wish I could just pay $2/hr for watching any and all TV and movies, and leave it to one provider to give the right people the money.
If I agree to pay whatever I am charged by a simple service to watch whatever I want, there is only one such service that can provide it: illegal streaming.
Interesting that about Kindle singles not taking off in non-fiction. I know that TOR - the big science fiction publisher - set up a novella publishing arm at about that time (tor.com, which is administratively separate from TOR), and there has been a massive surge in ebook first novellas, that is fiction at about the same length as the Kindle single.
The "Golden Age of the sf Novella" that has resulted is a good thing and it's a shame that it hasn't happened in non-fiction.
Re subscriptions/streaming -- Apple News+ is a reasonable option for most newspapers and magazines. They make it hard to find some of the content you want, but it's mostly there somewhere. I like getting much of the WSJ news side without much money reaching the Murdochs. Also pretty good digital versions of magazines I used to subscribe to in hard copy. Initially I thought I'd buy the Apple News+ sub and cancel all my other print media subscriptions. But I just couldn't stick to that. I want a certain amount of in-depth news and analysis on a few topics. I am very happy with Slow Boring but I can't see me consuming two to four additional newsletters, even at a discounted rate. Even though I am 90% retired, I don't have that kind of time. I see a dichotomy between the Substack concept and bundling.
So, as somebody who spent too much time on the alternatehistory.com forums, I gotta step in on the alt-history. It's actually reasonable until '06, but after that, it gets a little wonky, probably for trolling/joke reasons, but here's a few more realistic scenarios.
First, I think we have to point out that in this version of reality, if Iraq isn't be invaded until mid-'05 or even '06, the '06 midterms aren't quite the bloodbath they were, as it took nearly two years for support for the war to dip below majority. Now, the Dem's still win back the House & Senate, but it's not the set-up to the huge majorities they had in '08.
Now, the scenarios -
1.) The boring realistic scenario is Gore -> McCain -> Hillary (because the economy still collapses) -> Romney (because Hillary 2012 isn't Obama 2012) -> Romney wins re-election because the economy is strong -> Somebody random who won a Senate or Governor race in 2014 in an Democratic midterm beats Paul Ryan.
2.) Big people don't run scenario one - Sherrod Brown finally gets convinced to run, becomes the nominee, and because he's seen as not appealing to the minority vote as strongly (rightly or wrongly), he picks a charismatic Midwestern VP from Illinois.
3.) Instead of Trump in '08, George Clooney runs and wins the nomination and to balance out the ticket, picks either a Midwestern woman to appeal to suburban voters - enter the Klob or to balance out the ticket with somebody seen as more moderate, picks a new Senator from Virginia - Webb!
Yeah, imagining Trump as a Dem is sort of a "fun" scenario but also just not gonna happen. Even in the alternate universe where Gore wins, the Democratic primary electorate - which was still dominated by liberal-minded professionals - is extraordinarily unlikely to be one where Donald Trump in any guise will find a friendly audience.
A different wrinkle in a Gore wins scenario is Obama might never be a national figure. A lot of his Senate primary bid was driven by the war in Iraq. (Which, given Al Gore's real-life opposition to the invasion, I still don't think happens, regardless of what VP Lieberman wants.) Another factor was seriously the fact that Carol Moseley-Braun decided to make a quixotic presidential bid instead of running for her old seat. (Obama's advisors had recommended against him running if Braun ran, since it was expected she'd take most of the black vote.)
Otherwise, his path in IL politics was blocked. Maybe he runs for Congress again at some point (maybe carpet-bagging into a north shore seat) or Mayor of Chicago, but Michelle had wanted him out of politics for some time and he had standing offers for permanent positions at U Chicago Law School or heading various Chicago-area foundations and nonprofits.
There are a bunch of other potential knockoffs of a Gore presidency, especially if you assume no Iraq War. Without Iraq, does McCain or a future president decide to invade or at least launch airstrikes on Iran's nuclear facilities? Does a Gore Administration continue Clinton's engagement with N. Korea and normalize relations? Does something like the Arab Spring still occur and if so without the negative example of Iraq, does the US intervene militarily in Syria or is ISIS not a factor? In the UK, Blair would have remained popular with a lot of potential knock effects such as a healthier Labour Party, weaker Scottish nationalism and maybe no Brexit.
I think the easy alt-history for Obama is he gets a judgeship or something eventually, but I also think the Democrat's were going to get behind him to run for something eventually, considering they made him the keynote when he was still a State Senator - yes, a State Senator with basically a free Senate seat., but still.
Maybe not by '04, which butterflies him as a VP in '08, but eventually, even w/ Michelle's worries, he runs for something.
For the rest, I think while the underlying specific problems are different, we're still in basically the same kind of place, because things like education polarization were going to happen regardless, and the Arab Spring happened at least initially due to food shortage related to droughts that are a result of climate change, things that unfortunately, I don't think Gore as POTUS w/ a slightly more bipartisan belief in climate change in 2000 can stop. While I think Gore2022 world is better than ours, it's not the center-left utopia some people try to push.
I do think one reasonable is that the Right hasn't gone quite off the deep end, because the inciting incident of Obama winning - Hillary winning might be an acceptable substitute for craziness, but a Romney win in 2012, combined with McCain being the guy in '04 instead of Bush plus Bush's cronies might dissipate the truly reactionary part.
OTOH, maybe things get even worse quicker because the 2000 Election becomes the radicalizing moment. But, that might lead to Gore winning re-election in '04 if the GOP nominates a loon instead of McCain because McCain refuses to say Gore stole the election in 2000, or whatever.
> the fragmentation of the streaming video market is clearly undesirable for consumers
The really obvious answer is just pass a law requiring a) streaming services not to own the content b) content to have price transparency/equivalency for the various services. There will still end up being some exclusive content, but it will be the minority and most shows will be available on all services, which will differentiate on consumer experience instead of content offering.
How could you have a law prohibiting streaming services from owning their own content? Seems like that would run afoul of the First Amendment. (I recall that there used to be regulations restricting broadcasters from owning their own content, but I can't immediately find a source detailing that and I'm wondering if those regulations were based on the same "public airwaves" rationale as the Fairness Doctrine, which would make such regulations inapplicable to streaming content.)
A) The First Amendment most definitely applies to corporate speech, even if still not as strongly as "core speech" (political, artistic, etc.), and the pattern for the last 45 years has been to *increase* First Amendment protections for commercial speech: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_speech
B) While not a constitutional lawyer, I am a commercial litigator who's been in practice nearly 20 years, and I'm very confident that an argument regarding restrictions on ownership of content constitute an unreasonable restraint on a party's speech rights compared to other possible approaches to encouraging streaming services to make their own content more widely available.
I disagree with Freddie on a lot of things, but have enjoyed reading him and find his perspective very interesting. His articles about Russia/Ukraine were wowsers though.
Freddie Deboer peddling conspiracy theories about the Ukrainian nationalist project in his comment section was uh... something. Going to skip future foreign policy articles from him
For CA-39, Cisneros won because it was an extreme wave year. He was the first Democrat to hold office on that plot of land since maybe a brief time in the '50s. His home and community base is at the very edge of the district so isn't really well-targeted. He also wasn't particularly personable or responsive to constituents during his term. (I grew up here and my parents still live there.)
Young Kim comes from the OC side and worked in Ed Royce's office for decades before running for office herself. My parents even know and like her as a person (though they're staunch enough Dems that they can't vote for her.) The area is very much George W Bush territory: "compassionate conservatism," pro-immigrant (Kim, like many in the district, are immigrants), pro-business. She's just a perfect fit and I was actually surprised that Cisneros pulled it off in '18.
There are a decent number of split ticket voters here (Biden 54.1%, Cisneros 49.4%). It's such a unique place that it's hard to extrapolate. Redistricting may actually help Cisneros if he runs again (in CA-38 now, where his base is more centered and Kim's on the edge and clipped).
Also very large Taiwanese population there (Taiwanese politics do affect local politics in the area) so expect any rep to demand the president fly to Beijing and personally give Xi a knuckle sando and a wedgie if he invades.
Edit: Kim will be running in the redistricted (redder) CA-40.
"But at the same time, I think moderates would do better if they walked back some of the leftward shifts of the past decade and acted a bit more like the Max Baucus or Mary Landrieu types we used to have"
But uh, Mary Landrieu lost re-election as an incumbent Senator. This is part of my issue with Shorism- it's not exactly a new or novel observation that Dems should run moderate candidates to win elections in rural states, they've been doing it for longer than any of us have been alive. It's just that with the nationalization of politics, they literally can't win anymore! Other than Manchin. You can be as moderate, pro-gun and anti-socialism as you want- if you have a D next to your name, you're basically guaranteed to lose in a rural state. The content of your message is basically irrelevant. If Baucus had continued running for Senator into the 2010s, the odds are very high that he would've lost to a Republican too.
Here's a list of moderate rural Dem Senators who all lost as incumbents in the 2010s/2020: Claire McCaskill, Heidi Heitkamp, Mary Landrieu, Kay Hagan, Joe Donnelly, Blanche Lincoln and Russ Feingold
I struggle with your working definition of "rural state" if it includes Wisconsin, Indiana, North Carolina, and Missouri. None of these are Massachusetts, but neither are they Wyoming.
I basically agree with this, but I think the deciding factor is personality, not ideology. Tester has won reelection twice, increasing his vote share each time. Manchin's vote share keeps going down. I think Manchin comes off as too slick, despite his forced folksiness, and too cozy with various muckety mucks, to grow his appealability. Tester is a blunt, good humored fat man with the cheapest haircut in D.C. He's much more relatable and likable. But Dems keep looking for highly credentialed empty suits to run as moderates/conservatives in rural seats, rather than "real" people. I think the "empty suit" label applies to your list of incumbents, except maybe Heitkamp and Feingold. The Dems need to realize that the best way to grow the party in red states is to nominate candidates with a high likability ceiling rather than a high credential floor. More Testers, less Baucuses, more Fettermans, fewer Lambs.
I disagree with the premise that Montana is shifting blue. As late as 2012, 5 of 6 statewide elected offices in MT were held by Democrats. Today, its only 1 in 6 (Tester).Trump's vote share was down in 2020, but he got a higher percentage in 2016 than Romney did in 2012, and Romney in 2012 beat McCain in 2008. MT may appear to be bluing due to population growth, but a lot of that growth is blue state Republicans moving to "friendlier" climates, like our New Jersey born governor, Greg "Chokeslam" Gianforte, or our at-large Congressman, "Maryland" Matt Rosendale.
Having spent a lot of time in red states, I think I’ve identified a problem with many of these candidates: they don’t seem as if they believe or care about anything, beyond winning elections. Both Democrats and Republicans feel that there’s no there there.
A form of popularism can get taken to a place where a candidate just seems like a creature of polling, finger constantly in the wind, in a way that seems craven to voters. See: Amy McGrath. It’s difficult to find a balance, there, and probably just comes down to being good at politics, having some level of personal magnetism and a talent for talking to voters.
A moderate non-woke populist who voted against NAFTA, yeah I'm good with it. In the vein of other Midwestern populists, he wanted to regulate Wall Street, break up the big banks, etc. What's the difference between him and Sherrod Brown, for instance?
At the end of the day, the largest divide in America is still over size of government, so I think it still makes sense to judge liberal vs conservative on that metric.
Wisconsin is like a gigantic farming state man. It has two cities over 100k population, that's it. Anyways, as mentioned below I meant more 'purple'. I'd still put it as a more rural than not state, but I guess there it wouldn't be the Internet if someone couldn't be extremely pedantic about something.
Anyways, you have won the Internet Medal of Honor for pedantry today, and I will amend my list of moderate incumbent Dem Senators (frequently from rural states) who lost re-election in the 2010s to Claire McCaskill, Heidi Heitkamp, Mary Landrieu, Kay Hagan, Joe Donnelly, and Blanche Lincoln. Happy?
Re: Parliamentary state governments, its not just the gerrymandered states like Wisconsin where the political incentives are there. In pretty much every state the governor's races are much more "swingy" than the legislative races, if Maryland Democrats or Kansas Republicans wanted to establish more control over the state a parliamentary system would be the way to do it.
Re: streaming video bundling, the current regime has been pushing me towards illegal streaming sites. Which service currently has Star Trek: Enterprise? It's not the same as who had it a year ago. If I am happy to pay for it, I probably have to also immediately cancel my subscription for fear of being charged forever. (I've cancelled HBO and Sling each over 20 times.) Or I could buy whole seasons from Amazon, but then I'm paying for all these minor episodes I was going to skip anyway.
And that's not even getting into sports, when I've payed several times for streaming access, only to be surprised by blackouts and times games aren't available because they're on network TV, which my antenna usually won't pick up.
It's a nightmare! How I wish I could just pay $2/hr for watching any and all TV and movies, and leave it to one provider to give the right people the money.
If I agree to pay whatever I am charged by a simple service to watch whatever I want, there is only one such service that can provide it: illegal streaming.
Re: the Trump-Obama administration, I think the rumors of the death of the slatepitch have been greatly exaggerated.
My favorite definition of Upstate NY is all those places that actually believe Albany is the capital.
Re: the Trump-Obama administration, I think the rumors of the death of the slatepitch have been greatly exaggerated.
There is a correct answer to this question:
> [What would have happened] if Gore had been president on 9/11?
It would have been a nice, normal fall day, because Gore wouldn't have ignored the Clinton-era intelligence on al-Qaeda and bin Laden.
Interesting that about Kindle singles not taking off in non-fiction. I know that TOR - the big science fiction publisher - set up a novella publishing arm at about that time (tor.com, which is administratively separate from TOR), and there has been a massive surge in ebook first novellas, that is fiction at about the same length as the Kindle single.
The "Golden Age of the sf Novella" that has resulted is a good thing and it's a shame that it hasn't happened in non-fiction.
Re subscriptions/streaming -- Apple News+ is a reasonable option for most newspapers and magazines. They make it hard to find some of the content you want, but it's mostly there somewhere. I like getting much of the WSJ news side without much money reaching the Murdochs. Also pretty good digital versions of magazines I used to subscribe to in hard copy. Initially I thought I'd buy the Apple News+ sub and cancel all my other print media subscriptions. But I just couldn't stick to that. I want a certain amount of in-depth news and analysis on a few topics. I am very happy with Slow Boring but I can't see me consuming two to four additional newsletters, even at a discounted rate. Even though I am 90% retired, I don't have that kind of time. I see a dichotomy between the Substack concept and bundling.
I looked it up and, despite being a service, it requires Apple hardware -- which means that it is not an option for me and billions like me.
So, as somebody who spent too much time on the alternatehistory.com forums, I gotta step in on the alt-history. It's actually reasonable until '06, but after that, it gets a little wonky, probably for trolling/joke reasons, but here's a few more realistic scenarios.
First, I think we have to point out that in this version of reality, if Iraq isn't be invaded until mid-'05 or even '06, the '06 midterms aren't quite the bloodbath they were, as it took nearly two years for support for the war to dip below majority. Now, the Dem's still win back the House & Senate, but it's not the set-up to the huge majorities they had in '08.
Now, the scenarios -
1.) The boring realistic scenario is Gore -> McCain -> Hillary (because the economy still collapses) -> Romney (because Hillary 2012 isn't Obama 2012) -> Romney wins re-election because the economy is strong -> Somebody random who won a Senate or Governor race in 2014 in an Democratic midterm beats Paul Ryan.
2.) Big people don't run scenario one - Sherrod Brown finally gets convinced to run, becomes the nominee, and because he's seen as not appealing to the minority vote as strongly (rightly or wrongly), he picks a charismatic Midwestern VP from Illinois.
3.) Instead of Trump in '08, George Clooney runs and wins the nomination and to balance out the ticket, picks either a Midwestern woman to appeal to suburban voters - enter the Klob or to balance out the ticket with somebody seen as more moderate, picks a new Senator from Virginia - Webb!
Yeah, imagining Trump as a Dem is sort of a "fun" scenario but also just not gonna happen. Even in the alternate universe where Gore wins, the Democratic primary electorate - which was still dominated by liberal-minded professionals - is extraordinarily unlikely to be one where Donald Trump in any guise will find a friendly audience.
A different wrinkle in a Gore wins scenario is Obama might never be a national figure. A lot of his Senate primary bid was driven by the war in Iraq. (Which, given Al Gore's real-life opposition to the invasion, I still don't think happens, regardless of what VP Lieberman wants.) Another factor was seriously the fact that Carol Moseley-Braun decided to make a quixotic presidential bid instead of running for her old seat. (Obama's advisors had recommended against him running if Braun ran, since it was expected she'd take most of the black vote.)
Otherwise, his path in IL politics was blocked. Maybe he runs for Congress again at some point (maybe carpet-bagging into a north shore seat) or Mayor of Chicago, but Michelle had wanted him out of politics for some time and he had standing offers for permanent positions at U Chicago Law School or heading various Chicago-area foundations and nonprofits.
There are a bunch of other potential knockoffs of a Gore presidency, especially if you assume no Iraq War. Without Iraq, does McCain or a future president decide to invade or at least launch airstrikes on Iran's nuclear facilities? Does a Gore Administration continue Clinton's engagement with N. Korea and normalize relations? Does something like the Arab Spring still occur and if so without the negative example of Iraq, does the US intervene militarily in Syria or is ISIS not a factor? In the UK, Blair would have remained popular with a lot of potential knock effects such as a healthier Labour Party, weaker Scottish nationalism and maybe no Brexit.
I think the easy alt-history for Obama is he gets a judgeship or something eventually, but I also think the Democrat's were going to get behind him to run for something eventually, considering they made him the keynote when he was still a State Senator - yes, a State Senator with basically a free Senate seat., but still.
Maybe not by '04, which butterflies him as a VP in '08, but eventually, even w/ Michelle's worries, he runs for something.
For the rest, I think while the underlying specific problems are different, we're still in basically the same kind of place, because things like education polarization were going to happen regardless, and the Arab Spring happened at least initially due to food shortage related to droughts that are a result of climate change, things that unfortunately, I don't think Gore as POTUS w/ a slightly more bipartisan belief in climate change in 2000 can stop. While I think Gore2022 world is better than ours, it's not the center-left utopia some people try to push.
I do think one reasonable is that the Right hasn't gone quite off the deep end, because the inciting incident of Obama winning - Hillary winning might be an acceptable substitute for craziness, but a Romney win in 2012, combined with McCain being the guy in '04 instead of Bush plus Bush's cronies might dissipate the truly reactionary part.
OTOH, maybe things get even worse quicker because the 2000 Election becomes the radicalizing moment. But, that might lead to Gore winning re-election in '04 if the GOP nominates a loon instead of McCain because McCain refuses to say Gore stole the election in 2000, or whatever.
Oh god. Matt--a la Marvel's What If...? Episode 4--posits that Donald Trump as President is an Absolute Point in time.
> the fragmentation of the streaming video market is clearly undesirable for consumers
The really obvious answer is just pass a law requiring a) streaming services not to own the content b) content to have price transparency/equivalency for the various services. There will still end up being some exclusive content, but it will be the minority and most shows will be available on all services, which will differentiate on consumer experience instead of content offering.
How could you have a law prohibiting streaming services from owning their own content? Seems like that would run afoul of the First Amendment. (I recall that there used to be regulations restricting broadcasters from owning their own content, but I can't immediately find a source detailing that and I'm wondering if those regulations were based on the same "public airwaves" rationale as the Fairness Doctrine, which would make such regulations inapplicable to streaming content.)
A) The First Amendment doesn’t apply to commercial speech. B) This is not a restriction on speech; it’s a restriction on corporate ownership.
A) The First Amendment most definitely applies to corporate speech, even if still not as strongly as "core speech" (political, artistic, etc.), and the pattern for the last 45 years has been to *increase* First Amendment protections for commercial speech: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_speech
B) While not a constitutional lawyer, I am a commercial litigator who's been in practice nearly 20 years, and I'm very confident that an argument regarding restrictions on ownership of content constitute an unreasonable restraint on a party's speech rights compared to other possible approaches to encouraging streaming services to make their own content more widely available.
I really like this proposal -- https://fullstackeconomics.com/why-streaming-content-keeps-vanishing-and-how-to-stop-it/
Some sort of compulsory licensing model, kind of like we do with radio, would be great.
Funny that you would conceptualize Gotham as St. Louis. Check this out from the original show: https://www.reddit.com/r/StLouis/comments/8hoez6/that_map_of_gotham_city_looks_familiar/
How about a more eclectic bundle of fun to read substacks— Yglesias/Andrew Sullivan/ Freddie de Boer?
I disagree with Freddie on a lot of things, but have enjoyed reading him and find his perspective very interesting. His articles about Russia/Ukraine were wowsers though.
Freddie Deboer peddling conspiracy theories about the Ukrainian nationalist project in his comment section was uh... something. Going to skip future foreign policy articles from him
For CA-39, Cisneros won because it was an extreme wave year. He was the first Democrat to hold office on that plot of land since maybe a brief time in the '50s. His home and community base is at the very edge of the district so isn't really well-targeted. He also wasn't particularly personable or responsive to constituents during his term. (I grew up here and my parents still live there.)
Young Kim comes from the OC side and worked in Ed Royce's office for decades before running for office herself. My parents even know and like her as a person (though they're staunch enough Dems that they can't vote for her.) The area is very much George W Bush territory: "compassionate conservatism," pro-immigrant (Kim, like many in the district, are immigrants), pro-business. She's just a perfect fit and I was actually surprised that Cisneros pulled it off in '18.
There are a decent number of split ticket voters here (Biden 54.1%, Cisneros 49.4%). It's such a unique place that it's hard to extrapolate. Redistricting may actually help Cisneros if he runs again (in CA-38 now, where his base is more centered and Kim's on the edge and clipped).
https://about.bgov.com/news/four-california-districts-split-tickets-for-president-congress/
Also very large Taiwanese population there (Taiwanese politics do affect local politics in the area) so expect any rep to demand the president fly to Beijing and personally give Xi a knuckle sando and a wedgie if he invades.
Edit: Kim will be running in the redistricted (redder) CA-40.
I would bundle a noahpinion with Yglesias today. And I'd mess up your pronunciation for free.
"But at the same time, I think moderates would do better if they walked back some of the leftward shifts of the past decade and acted a bit more like the Max Baucus or Mary Landrieu types we used to have"
But uh, Mary Landrieu lost re-election as an incumbent Senator. This is part of my issue with Shorism- it's not exactly a new or novel observation that Dems should run moderate candidates to win elections in rural states, they've been doing it for longer than any of us have been alive. It's just that with the nationalization of politics, they literally can't win anymore! Other than Manchin. You can be as moderate, pro-gun and anti-socialism as you want- if you have a D next to your name, you're basically guaranteed to lose in a rural state. The content of your message is basically irrelevant. If Baucus had continued running for Senator into the 2010s, the odds are very high that he would've lost to a Republican too.
Here's a list of moderate rural Dem Senators who all lost as incumbents in the 2010s/2020: Claire McCaskill, Heidi Heitkamp, Mary Landrieu, Kay Hagan, Joe Donnelly, Blanche Lincoln and Russ Feingold
"If Baucus had continued running for Senator into the 2010s, the odds are very high that he would've lost to a Republican too."
Perhaps, but Jon Tester has managed to get reelected all the way through the 2010s.
I struggle with your working definition of "rural state" if it includes Wisconsin, Indiana, North Carolina, and Missouri. None of these are Massachusetts, but neither are they Wyoming.
OK, purple state, whatever. Was writing in the morning before I'd finished the whole cup of coffee
I'm not sure how you would describe them as "purple state[s]" if even moderate Democrats " literally can't win anymore!"
Born, raised and still presently live in a rural purple state- my Dad's even a farmer. Thanks,
I basically agree with this, but I think the deciding factor is personality, not ideology. Tester has won reelection twice, increasing his vote share each time. Manchin's vote share keeps going down. I think Manchin comes off as too slick, despite his forced folksiness, and too cozy with various muckety mucks, to grow his appealability. Tester is a blunt, good humored fat man with the cheapest haircut in D.C. He's much more relatable and likable. But Dems keep looking for highly credentialed empty suits to run as moderates/conservatives in rural seats, rather than "real" people. I think the "empty suit" label applies to your list of incumbents, except maybe Heitkamp and Feingold. The Dems need to realize that the best way to grow the party in red states is to nominate candidates with a high likability ceiling rather than a high credential floor. More Testers, less Baucuses, more Fettermans, fewer Lambs.
I disagree with the premise that Montana is shifting blue. As late as 2012, 5 of 6 statewide elected offices in MT were held by Democrats. Today, its only 1 in 6 (Tester).Trump's vote share was down in 2020, but he got a higher percentage in 2016 than Romney did in 2012, and Romney in 2012 beat McCain in 2008. MT may appear to be bluing due to population growth, but a lot of that growth is blue state Republicans moving to "friendlier" climates, like our New Jersey born governor, Greg "Chokeslam" Gianforte, or our at-large Congressman, "Maryland" Matt Rosendale.
As for Mike Trout, he's very good.
Having spent a lot of time in red states, I think I’ve identified a problem with many of these candidates: they don’t seem as if they believe or care about anything, beyond winning elections. Both Democrats and Republicans feel that there’s no there there.
A form of popularism can get taken to a place where a candidate just seems like a creature of polling, finger constantly in the wind, in a way that seems craven to voters. See: Amy McGrath. It’s difficult to find a balance, there, and probably just comes down to being good at politics, having some level of personal magnetism and a talent for talking to voters.
There's also a problem whereby moderate sometimes means pro-business, which isn't actually _popular_.
A moderate non-woke populist who voted against NAFTA, yeah I'm good with it. In the vein of other Midwestern populists, he wanted to regulate Wall Street, break up the big banks, etc. What's the difference between him and Sherrod Brown, for instance?
Not a lot, but neither are moderates! They are populist liberals, not the same as a Hillary Clinton liberal, sure. But not moderate.
I think the problem here is that moderate may have a lot of different meanings to many different people.
At the end of the day, the largest divide in America is still over size of government, so I think it still makes sense to judge liberal vs conservative on that metric.
I would disagree. The largest divide in America is between hierarchy and equality, authoritarianism versus democracy.
Wisconsin is like a gigantic farming state man. It has two cities over 100k population, that's it. Anyways, as mentioned below I meant more 'purple'. I'd still put it as a more rural than not state, but I guess there it wouldn't be the Internet if someone couldn't be extremely pedantic about something.
Anyways, you have won the Internet Medal of Honor for pedantry today, and I will amend my list of moderate incumbent Dem Senators (frequently from rural states) who lost re-election in the 2010s to Claire McCaskill, Heidi Heitkamp, Mary Landrieu, Kay Hagan, Joe Donnelly, and Blanche Lincoln. Happy?
"It has two cities over 100k population, that's it."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_municipalities_in_Wisconsin_by_population