Jonathan Capehart: yes, he lost, but so what? It's about the long game.

[MBS]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2017/06/21/jon-ossoff-lost-but-so-what-its-all-about-the-long-game-democrats/?utm_term=.9b4db10c51a9

EXCERPT:
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. . . People, please. Enough of the overwrought hand-wringing. Enough of the shortsighted Sturm und Drang that bogs the left down in endless navel-gazing and finger-pointing that blinds it to incremental gains it achieved. If the overall goal is to win back the House then, for the love of God, Democrats must stop the endless search for the silver bullet or quick fix and develop an appreciation of the long game.

Yes, it is a pity that Ossoff didn’t win the Georgia race. But he lost to Karen Handel (R) by 3.8 percentage points in a district that the previous Republican incumbent — Tom Price, now secretary of health and human services — won by 23.2 points in 2016. A seat he won in 2004 with 100 percent of the vote and no Democratic opposition. Price’s predecessor, Johnny Isakson, won his last election to the seat in 2002 by 60 points.
. . .
It would have been great if the Democrats had won even one of the four special elections this year. And, as former House speaker Newt Gingrich wrote last April after Ossoff failed to avoid a runoff in the special election, “ ‘Almost’ doesn’t win elections.” But that doesn’t mean Democrats should completely ignore the gains they have made.

The base is energized and eager to seize the House to be a more effective brake on Trump’s turn-back-the-hands-of-time agenda. All Democrats need to do is find the most effective way to communicate their alternatives to Trumpism. I don’t buy the self-defeating knock that Democrats don’t have a message. They do, especially when put up against whatever is coming out of the White House and Capitol Hill. And if they spend more time on figuring out how to communicate them — the high priest-vs.-warrior dilemma — than on attacking each other for near-misses at the ballot box in 2017, they could reap the benefits of those incremental advances by winning the big battle in 2018. They just have to decide how badly they want it.

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[bagelsforbreakfast]

1. "In the long run, we are all dead." - j.m.k. n/m

[mulsh]

2. I agree with Mr. Capehart. The only distraught dems I have encoutered are pundits and on line poster

who I suspect are trolls or bots or both.

Seriously over the last few weeks of special elections out of around 20 friends and neighbors of varying political enthusiasm I have not talked to one person who is distraught or even particularly worried.

Losing a solid republican district by around 4 points is not so much a loss but a dire warning. Since I never give any advice or help to republicans I leave you to read between the lines here.

Rather than hand wringing or blaming Democratic Party leaders we should be organizing and working hard to elect as many of our candidates to offices at every level as we can. That's what we've been doing here in California and it seems to be working.

[MBS]

3. yes, exactly. n/t