Watching Congresswoman-elect Gwen Graham, D-FL,

[elleng]

on Meet the Press, and happy to see her. Glad she'll serve, especially as she's Senator Graham's daughter.

[Recursion]

1. She ran the kind of campaign a lot of DU claims is impossible, distancing herself from Obama

and Pelosi. And she was one of two Democrats to beat a Republican incumbent...

[merrily]

2. I didn't see any DUers claim it was impossible for Dem candidates to distance themselves from Obama.

I have seen DUers claim it might not be smart for an incumbent to distance himself or herself from Obama. I have also seen them claim that it was impossible for an incumbent to distance himself or herself from his or her own voting record. Indeed, I've claimed both those things myself.

I never claimed that distancing oneself from Obama was impossible. Nor would I have claimed that, especially not about someone who is not an incumbent. Never saw any other posters claiming that, either.

We must be seeing different posts.

[Recursion]

3. Check OPs over the past few days.

Count the number of times that Democratic losses are blamed on Democratic candidates refusing to embrace Obama. I have 22, from this survey. You?

[merrily]

4. Check this: This post of yours is very different from the post of yours to which I responded.

Your first post said DUErs claimed it was impossible for candidates to distance themselves from Obama.

I said I saw no posts at DU making that claim. Purporting to "reply" to my post, you wrote:

Count the number of times that Democratic losses are blamed on Democratic candidates refusing to embrace Obama.

When in doubt, move the goalpost?

[Recursion]

5. Sorry, impossible to do so "and win"

I admit it's possible that my post could have been read as meaning it's actually impossible for a candidate to distance himself or herself from Obama (though I can't imagine why anyone would think I meant that).

At any rate, just to make clear, I meant that a lot of DUers have claimed one could not successfully run a campaign distancing one's self from Obama.

[merrily]

6. Apology accepted, but even at that:

I don't recall seeing many posts before election day claiming it was impossible for a candidate to distance himself or herself from Obama and win. Mostly, I saw posts saying it was not a smart strategy--and those posts were talking about incumbents.
And even "impossible to distance oneself and win" doesn't line up with your:


Count the number of times that Democratic losses are blamed on Democratic candidates refusing to embrace Obama.


That doesn't say winning while distancing oneself is impossible. You can think someone who already lost would have done better by embracing Obama without saying it's would have been impossible for the best and brightest to find some way to distance themselves and still win. And, anyway, that's hindsight, and not said while the campaigns were ongoing.

Also, you are not distinguishing between incumbent and non-incumbent. Distancing one self is easier to pull off if you have not been not sitting in Congress for two to six years and voting with the Democratic Caucus all or almost all of the time


My point: It's easy to make any post sound stupid if you mischaracterize it. Why DUers want to do that to DUers in general, or even a single DUer, is not entirely clear to me, but it is easy, if you mischaracterize.

[pstokely]

7. How gerrymandered is her district?

nt