Mediaboss Marketing

Townhall

A Democrat's Dilemma: Keep Trump? New York Times As a Democrat opposed to the Republicans' agenda, I am delighted with President Trump's pattern of self-created crisis du jour. The daily distractions reduce the likelihood of replacing Obamacare with some inferior and inequitable health care ... Gallup: Democratic Party Favorability Rating Has Dipped Since NovemberTownhall all 120 news articles »

Go here to see the original:
A Democrat's Dilemma: Keep Trump? - New York Times

SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER

The venue, the King Middle School, was decorated with signs on the wall featuring Lees name and the hashtag #Resist,according to theSan Francisco Chronicle, whilevendors soldanti-Trump buttons outside.

Lee brought guests to address the meeting: President Richard Nixons former White House counsel, John Dean, and Malcolm Nance, a retired Navy senior chief petty officer and spy, to Berkeley to help educate her constituents and encourage them to keep fighting.

TheChronicle notes that Lee accidentally introduced Nance as Malcolm X.

Dean and Nance disappointed the audience, according to the Chronicle,by telling them that Trump was not likely to be impeached quickly, nor was he likely to be removed from office by being declared mentally unfit to serve under section 4 of the 25th Amendment. They apparently pleased the audience, however, by bashing Trump and the Republican Party.

Lee has been pushing for Trumps impeachment in recent days. Last week, she issued a statement declaring: The American people deserve to know if President Trump tried to quash the FBI investigation into his campaigns alleged collusion with the Russians. If true, this would constitute obstruction of justice, which is an impeachable offense.

Not content with the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller within the Department of Justice to investigate any potential ties between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, Lee demanded an independent, bipartisan commission to investigate what she called a constitutional crisis.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named one of the most influential people in news media in 2016. He is the co-author ofHow Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

Photo: file

Here is the original post:
California Democrat Plots Trump's Overthrow at Berkeley Town Hall - Breitbart News

GREENE COUNTY, Va. (WVIR) -

Democrats in central Virginia are encouraging voters to show up at the polls, starting with a primary less than a month away.

Fifty-eighth District Del. Rob Bell (R) Rob Bell has held his seat since 2001. He will face some competition this November to hold on to that seat.

Democrat Kellen Squire hosted a potluck Sunday evening at Grace Episcopal Church in Greene County. He's only the fourth candidate to challenge Bell while he's been a delegate.

Squire says part of the reason he decided to run was because of last November's divisive election. Now, he and the Democratic chair of the 5th District, Suzanne Long, are encouraging voters to get to the polls.

We're at a crossroads both in the commonwealth of Virginia and our nation. I think we've seen what happens when people get disconnected from politics, Squire said.

"The Democratic party of Virginia is energized and active and really focused on getting Democrats elected in the fall, Long said.

The 58th District covers all of Greene County and parts of Albemarle, Rockingham, and Fluvanna counties.

Right now, Squire is the only candidate running against Bell. Squire is an emergency room nurse and believes he can give voters a "fresh face" in November's election.

Follow this link:
Democrat Running Against Rob Bell Hosts Potluck in Greene Co. - NBC 29 News

Democrats are heading into the homestretch of three special elections over the next month amid a national frenzy over the investigation into the possible connections of President Trumps 2016 campaign and Russian interference in the election.

Yet in all three races, Democrats have made a tactical decision not to turn the contests into a referendum on Trumps alleged scandals and instead are focusing on policy decisions by the president and congressional Republicans.

Democratic strategists privately say that this might be the recurring theme through the November 2018 midterm elections. Democrats say that they have learned a lesson from the 2016 elections, in which House Democratic candidates relentlessly focused their campaigns on trying to tie Republican incumbents to the personal scandals of Trump or some of his more outlandish policy statements.

That strategy failed in almost spectacular fashion, providing a net gain of only six seats when, just two weeks before Election Day, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was predicting gains of more than 20 seats and possibly winning the majority.

From Montana to the suburbs of Atlanta, voters are getting a steady diet of commercials from the Democratic candidates that focus on GOP plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act without enough protections for those who have preexisting health conditions. Theyre talking about tax breaks for the middle class and small businesses, blasting their opponents for helping special interests.

Greg Gianforte would make people like Tom pay thousands more just so he can pay less. Im Rob Quist and I approve this message to fight for people with preexisting conditions, Quist, the Democratic candidate, says in one of two closing ads ahead of Thursdays election to fill Montanas at-large House seat.

Both ads one a minute long and one 30 seconds focus on the Republican health bill that passed the House earlier this year and on Gianfortes wavering views on the legislation.

Neither of them even mention Trump once.

Its the same with the newest ad for Democrat Jon Ossoff running in the June 20 election for Georgias 6th Congressional District north of Atlanta, a 30-second spot that criticizes the Republican, Karen Handel, for her role in trying to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood while serving as an executive of the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

And in South Carolina, Democrat Archie Parnells underdog race to fill the seat vacated by Mick Mulvaney, Trumps budget director, is focusing on trying to increase his popularity by touting his business experience and running as an outsider.

The danger for Democrats is that they might be overlearning the lesson of the last war, applying the 2016 mind-set to what could be a different environment in 2018. These newest Trump scandals do not involve his personal behavior or outlandish statements they are about possible abuse of power in firing James B. Comey as FBI director because of his investigation into the Trump campaigns alleged ties to Russia.

This decision to not focus on Trump is partly out of political geographic necessity. Trump won the Montana and South Carolina districts by 20 and 19 percentage points, respectively, so even as his first four months as president have been a slog in terms of accomplishments, Trump remains popular enough in those places that it makes little sense to run a campaign attacking him.

This cowboy-poet is trying to steal a Republican House seat in Montana

Even in the Georgia district, vacated by Tom Price to become Trumps health secretary, the president won by 1.5 percentage points, which means a lot of voters there support him even if it was a dramatically smaller margin of victory than the typical GOP nominee received in that well-educated region.

In several after-action reports following the 2016 elections, Democrats discovered that it was a mistake to try to tie Trumps behavior to well-known incumbents who had their own brand identity with voters.

In Denvers suburbs, Democrats tried to turn Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.) into the originator of Trumps accusation that President Barack Obama was born in Kenya. In the suburbs of Minneapolis, they tried to make Rep. Erik Paulsen (R-Minn.) responsible for Trumps degrading behavior toward women.

Both Republicans won their races by large margins, their fifth-straight win each.

Republicans made a similar mistake back in 1998, when President Bill Clinton was mired in a sex scandal that led to impeachment by the House. In the closing weeks of the 1998 midterms, Republicans tried to turn the election into a referendum on Clintons personal behavior but voters did not hold Democrats responsible for what was such a personal foible of the president. Republicans ended up losing seats that year.

So now, Democrats are making a conscious decision to focus their attacks on kitchen-table issues, not the latest tweet from Trump that sparked outrage inside Washington.

In announcing a $750,000 investment into the Georgia race, House Majority PAC did not mention Trumps name once and focused on Ossoffs ability to work in bipartisan fashion and get results for the district.

If Democrats dont win one of three upcoming special elections, how can they take back the majority in 2018?

The choice couldnt be more clear between Ossoffs jobs-focused agenda and career politician Karen Handels record of misusing taxpayer dollars and putting her own ambition ahead of the people she was supposed to represent. Were going to deliver that message clearly and aggressively at the doors and on the air, Charlie Kelly, executive director of the Democratic super PAC, said.

While the national media focuses on every Trump scandal, Democrats are going to stick to the script of focusing on how the president and congressional Republicans are not keeping their promises to help the working class and instead are focusing on policies that might hurt workers.

Expect to see campaigns like Parnells in South Carolina.

Politicians promise, then dont deliver, he says straight to the camera, pledging to help veterans and protect Social Security. I wont promise you the world, but I will work every day to make your life better.

He never mentions Trump.

Read more from Paul Kanes archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.

View original post here:
For Democrats, special elections may be preview of 2018 campaigns - Washington Post

Karrie Delaney, Hannah Risheq and John Carey are competing in the Democratic primary for a House of Delegates seat in Fairfax County.

In these anti-establishment times in which Democrats still stunned by Donald Trump's surprise election to the presidency are searching for newness, Risheq is bringing up a potential negative about Delaney: She was registered as a Republican in Florida, where she previously lived.

House District 67 is held by moderate Republican Del. James M. LeMunyon of Fairfax. the district, which includes part of Loudoun County, went to Democrat Hillary Clinton in last year's presidential race. She won 58 percent of in-person voters, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. Though turnout is much higher in a presidential election - boosting Democrats - whoever wins the Democratic primary will be gunning to upset LeMunyon, who's held the seat since 2010.

It's the female candidates who've been getting the most attention in the June 13th primary.

Delaney, 38, is a community activist and formerly worked for a nonprofit dedicated to ending sex trafficking. She's been endorsed by U.S. Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-11th and numerous state and local Democratic officials and has a solid ground game of volunteers for door-knocking and phone calls.

Delaney leads Democratic fundraising with $85,942 to $12,922 for Carey and $5,437 for Risheq as of the latest filing, according to VPAP.

Risheq, 25, a first-generation American of Arab and Jewish descent, was mentioned in an April story in Time about a new generation of grassroots Democratic candidates and was featured in a Huffpost story in April with the headline, "The Resistance gave birth to a girl and her name is Hannah Risheq."

Risheq recently earned a master's degree in social work and social policy from Columbia University - her second master's degree. She said she'd love to work in a bipartisan fashion in the General Assembly, but noted that she grew up in the Obama era when Congress refused to operate that way following passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010.

She said Democratic primary voters aren't aware Delaney was once a registered Republican.

"Its OK if you were a Republican and then decided that you believe the Democratic platform, but its not OK to hide it," Risheq said. "I think its something that the voters should know. Voters should know about who theyre voting for."

The detail about Delaney's previous voter registration shows up in public records searches. Delaney was appointed to a city council seat in West Melbourne, Fla., in 2004. As of 2005 she was registered as a Republican in Florida. She lost election in November of that year to an anti-tax newcomer, 58 percent to 42 percent. In Virginia voters do not register by party.

Delaney declined to be interviewed. Her campaign manager, Will Van Nuys, issued a statement noting her support from Connolly, state Sen. Barbara A. Favola, D-Arlington, six Democratic delegates and three Democrats on the Fairfax Board of Supervisors.

"Congressman Connolly said, 'Karrie is uniquely qualified to stand up to Trumps hateful policies' and he's right. Karrie is determined to pass commonsense gun control laws, protect a woman's right to make her own health care decisions, stand up to Donald Trump's dangerous agenda, and be a voice for the people for Virginia's 67th District."

Carey, 42, is a consultant to auto dealer suppliers. He didn't respond to a request to talk about Delaney's prior voting registration, but an aide issued this statement:

"Voters demand accountability and transparency from their candidates. As a lifelong Democrat, John has been knocking on doors and making phone calls to talk to residents about the issues they're facing and we will be interested in her responses."

Go here to see the original:
In key Northern Virginia primary, Democrat raises her opponent's GOP past - Richmond.com