https://www.jezebel.com/susan-collins-approval-rating-is-in-the-toilet-3-years-after-dobbs

Quote :

"Susan Collins’ Approval Rating Is in the Toilet 3 Years After ‘Dobbs’ The Maine Senator, who single-handedly sealed the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, faces a tough re-election battle next year."

[Edited on October 15, 2025 at 2:39 PM. Reason : .]

10/15/2025 2:38:08 PM

Quote :

"the objection other than "lol she old""

so, no.

look i want to see the boomers retire too and let genx/millennials start to take over, but it's already been happening. The DSCC leadership mentioned Gillibrand, Kelly, Schiff and Blunt Rochester are 58, 61, 65 and 63. DNC head Ken Martin is 52, the DNC vice chairs are all young, speaker of the house Jeffries is 55, minority whip Clark is 62, caucus chair Aguilar is 46, vice chair Lieu is 56.

it's time for Dems to focus on substance and not surface nonsense.

if Mills despite her age is in fact physically and cognitively healthy (and seems she is), can win a statewide election (she has multiple times) and there's no better options in a very small, largely rural/independent state, going against a strong GOP candidate, then what's the big deal. just seems like the progressives have gotten behind their guy who is gonna play the populist hits campaign and want to call conspiracy against the establishment as always instead of actually campaigning and winning over voters with their ideas.

competition is good. let them run the primary and we'll see what happens

10/15/2025 2:58:35 PM

Collins is not a strong candidate

it’s just so odd how you seem to be giddy to roll your eyes at any progressive

[Edited on October 15, 2025 at 3:11 PM. Reason : .]

10/15/2025 3:10:18 PM

fine. *historically strong

even more important for dems take advantage of the opportunity and get the right candidate to go up against her.

https://usapolling.substack.com/p/a-governor-versus-an-oyster



there's a lot of unknown left in that race. let it play out. may the stronger candidate win.

Quote :

"it’s just so odd how you seem to be giddy to roll your eyes at any progressive"

they've done a LOT of damage to the Dem brand over the last decade. and yes, so have the establishment types, which is exactly how we ended up with a progressive resurgence in the first place (which I participated in in 2016 with my support of bernie and semi-progressive but definitely anti-establishment support for yang in 2020). the progressives have become more and more delusional over the years though, mostly imo bc they keep losing and are frustrated about it so they just rachet up the rhetoric to 11 (million), since that's the only thing they have left is to throw tantrums and namecall anybody who disagrees with their extreme fringe positions, but they don't realize it has just turned even more people agains them (and the Dem party as a whole as a result) which is especially bad timing since we're up against MAGA and not the usual mccain/romney types.

Make Democrats Great Again means Make Establishment Dems Great Again AND Make Progressive Dems Great Again.

I will call out the progressives when they're being idiots (Israel) and I will call out the establishment when they're being idiots (letting Biden run again) and I will call out GOP/MAGA when they're being idiots (damn near everything).

[Edited on October 15, 2025 at 3:28 PM. Reason : .]

10/15/2025 3:17:29 PM

Quote :

"it's time for Dems to focus on substance and not surface nonsense."

Quote :

"there have been multiple Democrats who have died while in office recently that have ended up costing Dems crucial votes in congress 79 is just too old/too much of a risk"

this is super substantive and the opposite of surface nonsense

you dislike progressives so much that you’re happy to ignore this

10/15/2025 3:24:29 PM

my objection in this case isn't progressives generally, it's when progressives stop when they see 79 and don't probe beyond that

like it or not, there are important and unique strengths that Mills has as a candidate (notably winning multiple statewide races). yes, there are also important and unique disadvantages that she has too (age and probably some "good for nothing career politician" vibes). and same situation for Platner. he has important strengths AND weaknesses.

overall, my point is that primaries are for letting the public weigh the various strengths of weaknesses of participating candidates. and we are better off just letting that process play out instead of progressives trying to bully other candidates out of the race (just like biden should have had a competitive primary instead of bullying folks like Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips and yes even RFK)

[Edited on October 15, 2025 at 3:42 PM. Reason : may the stronger candidate win!]

10/15/2025 3:42:21 PM

"bullying" The entire point of my post is DSCC putting their weight behind Mills. What progressives have been bullying the poor poor governor? If it's "let's the best candidate win" why does the DSCC need to get involved?

Any candidate should run if they want to but hopefully Platner isnt afraid to bring up the Joe Biden example early and often.

[Edited on October 15, 2025 at 4:28 PM. Reason : Or Feinstein, or rbg, etc etc folks get in office healthy then refuse to leave when that changes ]

10/15/2025 4:27:22 PM

Quote :

"i don't understand the objection other than "lol she old""

tgl confirmed his objection was indeed "lol she old" and my posts since have addressed that

if your objection is "the 4 relatively young DSCC leaders choosing to back a candidate who has won multiple statewide elections in rural Maine instead of the no name, no experience progressive who is running on a campaign strategy with limited electoral success even in places that tend to vote on the more progressive end of the dem party" we can talk about that too. i just frankly don't see that much of a problem with it. in other circumstances yeah sure it would make more sense for DSCC to stay out of a primary race, but in this situation it might be reasonable. either way, the primary will proceed and platner seems to be doing well with donations (maybe not necessarily actually in maine but he'll scoop up some of the national energy from progressives with cash to spare) and he should have the resources he needs to make his case to the people of maine.

[Edited on October 15, 2025 at 4:44 PM. Reason : .]

10/15/2025 4:43:41 PM

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/19/opinion/democrats-attention-elections.html?unlocked_article_code=1.uk8.JC5I.vtduqFmYZ4hf&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Quote :

"Chris Hayes: The Democrats’ Main Problem Isn’t Their Message"

I wholeheartedly agree with this column

10/19/2025 2:12:09 PM

Quote :

"But one thing that tends to get lost in this discussion is that for all the failures of the Democratic Party in 2024, in narrow terms the Harris-Walz campaign’s message was actually an effective one."

i don't like that the initial framing in the article is "she lost but don't worry. in fact, ackchyually, she won. in narrow terms, but she still won. so no need for the party to introspect TOO much. especially about message. just media tactics it turns out."

Quote :

"The campaign and its allied super PAC spent more money on advertising than any other presidential effort in history, and most of that was concentrated in the swing states. In other words, even though she lost, her core problem was not her message, however imperfect it might have been. It was an inability to get enough people to hear it, in spite of record-breaking advertising spending."

still don't like where this is going. "did you see how much MONEY we made/spent?!" if a billion dollars in 3 months can't defeat a post-J6 trump, the problems in that campaign surely go deeper than just "we need to do a better job of getting people's donations AND their attention (most effectively i'm sure through even more rage/engagement-baiting and cranking up the hysteria and catastrophizing. i've got bad news for you on that strategy too. that approach might work on maga and on some of you people, but ultimately it's suicide for dems)

Quote :

"national candidates must be comfortable talking off-script in a wide variety of venues with lots of different kinds of interlocutors"

correct. just be a real human being!! real human beings can have conversations with other human beings. you SHOULD be able to go on a podcast for 2 hours and just talk about whatever. if you're that worried you're gonna make a campaign-destroying gaffe, maybe voters are right to assume it's not a good idea to trust you to lead the country for 4 entire years.

Quote :

"The reason he emerged as a V.P. front-runner was his feisty, funny, effective appearances on a range of TV interviews after she became the nominee"

correct!

Quote :

"So Democratic campaigns and candidates should be thinking about how their campaigns are going to produce a lot of attention-grabbing short-form videos to meet the most disengaged and youngest voters where they are."

"attention-grabbing short-form videos" nooooo! it's attention-earning we want. by just being a real human being. with reasonable ideas.

Quote :

"Zohran Mamdani propelled himself from polling figures as low as 1 percent to more Democratic primary votes than any other New York City mayoral candidate ever on the strength of funny, charming, on-the-street videos in which he talked straight to camera and interviewed voters. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has brilliantly used Instagram Live streams to talk directly to constituents and answer questions about the nuts and bolts of the personal and the political, from her skin care routine to the most obscure elements of congressional procedure."

indeed! AOC acts like a real human being on her videos and livestreams. I think some/many of her ideas are misguided, but at least she is real. same thing with mamdani. i'm even more concerned about his impact on NYC and party politics overall, but the reason he's winning is because he acts (emphasis on acts) like a real person. cuomo is and always was going to be a dud. adams at least acts like a human being too, but people finally caught on to his corruption. mamdani as flawed as he is, was always going to wipe the floor with these losers. (and i have much to say about why mamdani did well when yang didn't when the same "real human vs phoney politician" thing was present in 2022, but nobody cares so don't worry about it)

Quote :

"When he served as a representative from North Carolina’s 14th Congressional District in 2023 and 2024, the Democrat Jeff Jackson routinely uploaded straight-to-camera videos to TikTok in which he plainly described for constituents what was happening in Congress — the movements of a particular bill and the procedural mechanisms, the weeds of legislation being considered, the machinations on Capitol Hill in response to the failure of Silicon Valley Bank. Mr. Jackson, handsome and plain-spoken, is very good at talking, and his TikToks did enormous numbers. In 2024, when Republicans in the state legislature redrew his district to make it insurmountably Republican, he ran for attorney general instead. He won 51.4 to 48.6 percent in 2024, outperforming Ms. Harris in the state by 3.6 percentage points."

we do love some jeff jackson, right? his speaking/presentation style lacks flair, but that just goes to prove that people crave authenticity, not just to have their attention stolen with manipulative and over-produced nonsense

Quote :

"If you stop thinking about candidates as magnets to attract checks and start thinking about them as people magnets, you expand the pool of good candidates. I’ve met incredibly charismatic, bright, capable people from all walks of life, from acupuncturists to general contractors to bodega cashiers and beyond, and essentially none of them are rich enough or know enough rich people to be able to plausibly run for office and certainly would never attract the support of Democratic Party campaign arms."

👍

Quote :

"I wholeheartedly agree with this column"

so what parts resonated with you?

[Edited on October 19, 2025 at 4:32 PM. Reason : ]

10/19/2025 4:27:08 PM

like i was saying

10/20/2025 12:24:23 PM

incredible that they earnestly used a Chris Cillizza clip in it

10/20/2025 1:29:05 PM

^^ im a low information voter for maine politics and just the video of her calling out trump then showing she won would make me vote for her

10/20/2025 4:16:12 PM