The State of the Democratic Party Post-2016

[Xelsis]

Disregarding evidence is what Franken and Conyers's defenders are doing, mate, not those against them.

Or did you forget the photo and the settlement?

Did I ever disregard the photo? Yeah, Franken was being a jerk. It was stupid and he shouldn't have done it, but how exactly does that impact his ability to serve in the Senate to the point that he needed to resign immediately? If the voters of Minnesota decided they couldn't stand him, they could have primaried him or voted Republican.

Gee, maybe that's why it's a good idea for the Democrats to get rid of him, you think?

[Hittanryan]

Did I ever disregard the photo? Yeah, Franken was being a jerk. It was stupid and he shouldn't have done it, but how exactly does that impact his ability to serve in the Senate to the point that he needed to resign immediately? If the voters of Minnesota decided they couldn't stand him, they could have primaried him or voted Republican.

Gee, maybe that's why it's a good idea for the Democrats to get rid of him, you think?

That’s what we call a hypothetical. We don’t know how Minnesota voters would have reacted if Franken stayed. We never will now.

You never address my fundamental point, though. According to you, we should have absolutely no standard for evidence. We accept it if it supports us, we reject it if it doesn't. Isn't that what is infuriating about Trump? Are we no better than that?

[Petrasylvania]

If Democrats adopt all of this reasoning, they will lose. Grabbing torches and pitchforks every time an allegation is made will cause us to utterly self destruct and leave the country in the Republicans’ incapable hands. It’s about as productive as the People’s Front of Judea from Life of Brian.

I don't know how you can sit here and say the Democrats should be hypocrites on this issue and defend their own whole attacking another for what is broadly the same thing.

When only one side follows the rules of chivalry the results speak for themselves.

[Xelsis]

Oh, yes. And quite promptly. Two weeks is the blink of an eye compared to the length of a Congressional career. Two weeks is pretty short in terms of an unfolding scandal - it's barely time for independent investigations by the press to get started.

And yet Foley still resigned in a day.

Take the Rolling Stone rape story scandal. It took two weeks before Rolling Stone was willing to admit they might have gotten something wrong, and four and a half months before they officially retracted the story.

Is perhaps the most famous botched story of the decade really you best go-to option here?

First, the photograph shows Franken pretending to grab Tweeden's breasts. It's quite obvious that (contra Tweeden's accusation) Franken wasn't actually grabbing her breasts. Which puts it on the level of "tasteless comedy" (and the photograph was published as such) but by no means is it actual groping.

Left hand is off, right hand certainly seems to be on.

Second, of the few non-anonymous accusers lined up against Franken, all supported Trump in the last election, with some having clear ties to conservative organizations. There's a clear partisan motive to consider. This is in contrast to the Conyers settlement.

I wonder why a Trump supporter would be less concerned about backlash by a Democratic Senator than an anonymous Democratic staffer.

Third, the accusations against Franken (yes, this is also in contrast to Conyers and also Franks, below) are about things that generally wouldn't qualify as grounds for a successful lawsuit.

The kissing allegation certainly could go down as sexual assault, and seems a step well above Franks.

Franks was asked to go by Ryan after two weeks of internal investigation by Ryan. Of particular key is (A) that Franks was persistent in this (harassment is legally characterized by repetitive behavior), (B) engaged in retaliatory behavior after being rejected (also a characteristic of actionable harassment) and (C) that Franks admitted that he did what the complaints said he did.

Link is down, it gives me a "Page cannot be found"

Franks was in the position of being ejected from the House if he didn't step down.

Which seems to show a rather more aggressive stance by Republicans over Democrats on these sorts of things.

If Franken fought to keep his seat and forced them to eject him by the rules of the Senate following the completion an ethics committee investigation, it's unlikely that he would have been forced out, because there's probably no proof of anything actionable. There certainly hasn't been so far.

Perhaps-but that's a question of partisanship as much as anything else.

That’s what we call a hypothetical. We don’t know how Minnesota voters would have reacted if Franken stayed. We never will now.

No one ever knows the outcome of an election before it happens. But that's what polling is for-and polling showed a seventh of Democrats wanting Franken out immediately, and his approval collapsing by nearly twenty points almost immediately.

You're the one who wanted to make this about political strategy-what's the political gain for intentionally keeping a demonstrably weakened candidate? "We don't how it'll happen" isn't an excuse-you want to give yourself the best chance to win. A shrug is not a strategy.

You never address my fundamental point, though. According to you, we should have absolutely no standard for evidence. We accept it if it supports us, we reject it if it doesn't. Isn't that what is infuriating about Trump? Are we no better than that?

That's a blatant lie. What I said was that people can come to conclusions from weighing the evidence without needing a jury to settle it for them. Is that such an extreme view?

[Hittanryan]

I don't know how you can sit here and say the Democrats should be hypocrites on this issue and defend their own whole attacking another for what is broadly the same thing.

When only one side follows the rules of chivalry the results speak for themselves.

Not chivalry, more a specific part of bushido, the part where you have to ritualistically disembowel yourself if you commit dishonor.

[Xelsis]

When only one side follows the rules of chivalry the results speak for themselves.

Not chivalry, more a specific part of bushido, the part where you have to ritualistically disembowel yourself if you commit dishonor.

You still continue to lack any kind of explanation on how dumping Franken hurts the Democrats. The best you've come up with is "Oh, sure his popularity tanked and we even have our own voters wanting him to resign, but we don't know for sure that that makes him more vulnerable for re-election!"

Cutting off a tumor is a better metaphor than disemboweling.

[Hittanryan]

That’s what we call a hypothetical. We don’t know how Minnesota voters would have reacted if Franken stayed. We never will now.

No one ever knows the outcome of an election before it happens. But that's what polling is for-and polling showed a seventh of Democrats wanting Franken out immediately, and his approval collapsing by nearly twenty points almost immediately.

You're the one who wanted to make this about political strategy-what's the political gain for intentionally keeping a demonstrably weakened candidate? "We don't how it'll happen" isn't an excuse-you want to give yourself the best chance to win. A shrug is not a strategy.

You never address my fundamental point, though. According to you, we should have absolutely no standard for evidence. We accept it if it supports us, we reject it if it doesn't. Isn't that what is infuriating about Trump? Are we no better than that?

That's a blatant lie. What I said was that people can come to conclusions from weighing the evidence without needing a jury to settle it for them. Is that such an extreme view?

One seventh of Democrats wanted Franken out immediately? Fourteen percent? Who gives a shit about fourteen percent? How many of them were in Minnesota? And why is Franken totally irredeemable? You're saying it is completely impossible for him to make amends? Finally, I want to see a source on your numbers.

And yes, it is an extreme view that unqualified, uninformed yahoos know better than the justice system all the time. I'm all for healthy skepticism but you've taken it too far. When you say that people should make up their own minds and disregard the legal process, you cast doubt on the very idea of due process and even the Socratic method. That attitude lends itself to conspiracy theories and a mob mentality when it goes too far.

[Pope Joan]

No one ever knows the outcome of an election before it happens. But that's what polling is for-and polling showed a seventh of Democrats wanting Franken out immediately, and his approval collapsing by nearly twenty points almost immediately.

You're the one who wanted to make this about political strategy-what's the political gain for intentionally keeping a demonstrably weakened candidate? "We don't how it'll happen" isn't an excuse-you want to give yourself the best chance to win. A shrug is not a strategy.




That's a blatant lie. What I said was that people can come to conclusions from weighing the evidence without needing a jury to settle it for them. Is that such an extreme view?

One seventh of Democrats wanted Franken out immediately? Fourteen percent? Who gives a shit about fourteen percent? How many of them were in Minnesota? And why is Franken totally irredeemable? You're saying it is completely impossible for him to make amends? Finally, I want to see a source on your numbers.

And yes, it is an extreme view that unqualified, uninformed yahoos know better than the justice system all the time. I'm all for healthy skepticism but you've taken it too far. When you say that people should make up their own minds and disregard the legal process, you cast doubt on the very idea of due process and even the Socratic method. That attitude lends itself to conspiracy theories and a mob mentality when it goes too far.

I am tired of guilt by accusation, it does away with the whole need for due process. On all sides, let's just do the good old American thing and examine evidence and witnesses before an impartial arbiter.

[Valrifell]

One seventh of Democrats wanted Franken out immediately? Fourteen percent? Who gives a shit about fourteen percent? How many of them were in Minnesota? And why is Franken totally irredeemable? You're saying it is completely impossible for him to make amends? Finally, I want to see a source on your numbers.

And yes, it is an extreme view that unqualified, uninformed yahoos know better than the justice system all the time. I'm all for healthy skepticism but you've taken it too far. When you say that people should make up their own minds and disregard the legal process, you cast doubt on the very idea of due process and even the Socratic method. That attitude lends itself to conspiracy theories and a mob mentality when it goes too far.

I am tired of guilt by accusation, it does away with the whole need for due process. On all sides, let's just do the good old American thing and examine evidence and witnesses before an impartial arbiter.

But then comes the question on what we do with claims that are, legally speaking, unprovable? Do we let them slide, or should we demand some kind of punishment or retribution?

[Hittanryan]

I am tired of guilt by accusation, it does away with the whole need for due process. On all sides, let's just do the good old American thing and examine evidence and witnesses before an impartial arbiter.

But then comes the question on what we do with claims that are, legally speaking, unprovable? Do we let them slide, or should we demand some kind of punishment or retribution?

If the claims have no evidence then we shouldn’t do anything, not if we still believe in innocent until proven guilty. Going forward there does need to be clearer communication and better education about sexual harassment. For instance, companies ought to deal with the issue more transparently than hushing up complaints with non-disclosure agreements, or perhaps people should stop signing them.

[Valrifell]

But then comes the question on what we do with claims that are, legally speaking, unprovable? Do we let them slide, or should we demand some kind of punishment or retribution?

If the claims have no evidence then we shouldn’t do anything, not if we still believe in innocent until proven guilty.

Evidence in the legal sense or what most people mean by "evidence?" Because you could have photographic evidence and have it rendered invalid because you didn't act on it in time.

[Tahar Joblis]

And yet Foley still resigned in a day.

Nixon took months.

Is perhaps the most famous botched story of the decade really you best go-to option here?

It took almost two weeks for it to become crystal clear it was a botched story. It took another four months before Rolling Stone finally retracted the story.

Nixon resigned a year after Woodward broke the Watergate story.

Now, if you want an apples to apples comparison, Packwood resigned almost three years after allegations up to and including sexual assault came from 19 women - which he had documented in his diary.

Left hand is off, right hand certainly seems to be on.

Neither is on. You can see the shadow underneath the right hand on the vest.

Which, by the way, is an armored vest. We're talking about "groping" an armored vest. So we have a picture of Franken posing theatrically (i.e., in role as entertainer) and not actually touching an armored vest worn by a woman, touted as evidence of "groping."

This has about as much in common with the act of grabbing someone's boob / butt / genitals for a sexual thrill as a golden labrador retriever does with a golden monkey.

I wonder why a Trump supporter would be less concerned about backlash by a Democratic Senator than an anonymous Democratic staffer.

Two separate issues, both tied to credibility.

Anonymous accusations are generally not as credible or actionable. If I read about an anonymous accuser covered by HuffPo, Jezebel, Breitbart, or National Enquirer, I'm not inclined to think that any action should proceed from that until and unless we are given other reasons to see these as credible.

Remember, in this environment, we have false accusers coming out of the woodwork, even ones with fairly complex motives. "Let's make the Washington Post look bad by accusing our own guy falsely!" is not exactly a straightforward motive.

People make false accusations for various reasons. In the case of someone supporting Trump politically, there's an obvious motive for wanting to harm one of Trump's more prominent political enemies. This is an old part of the political playbook.

The kissing allegation certainly could go down as sexual assault, and seems a step well above Franks.

Forcible kissing could potentially go down as things like this (misdemeanor sexual battery / touching / etc depending on state) ... but when we're talking about Tweeden's accusation, what we have is:

(A) Clearly consensual kissing on stage as part of the act (as well as quite a few other raunchy acts by Tweeden in the USO shows)
(B) Her claim that he forced a kiss on her while rehearsing said act backstage.
(C) His denial that this happened in the way she described.
(D) Letters of support from female comedy coworkers of his saying that he was always respectful in backstage conduct in his career at SNL.

So basically speaking, you have a he-said she-said situation, with a pile of character references saying otherwise, and circumstances in which the accuser was comfortable with performing very similar acts with the accused on stage in front of an audience. You'd also have a lot of trouble proving a prurient motive when it's literally rehearsing for an act that Tweeden had agreed to perform and Franken has an obvious non-sexual motive for doing so.

Strip away the yellow journalism and partisan hyperbole and you have a case that would flop in the courtroom.

Link is down, it gives me a "Page cannot be found"

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/congressma ... -congress/

According to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan's office, the counsel to the speaker was contacted by a friend with information about Franks roughly two weeks ago, and Ryan's office believed that claim warranted further investigation. After more conversations and interviews, Ryan brought the information to Franks, and a complaint was filed with the House Ethics Committee. Franks eventually decided to offer his letter of resignation.

Which seems to show a rather more aggressive stance by Republicans over Democrats on these sorts of things.

Not really.

The Republicans and Democrats both mean business. The Republicans are for the most part waiting until they have pretty credible evidence in hand before they start pushing people towards the exit. Which, TBH, is a better thing to do.

No one ever knows the outcome of an election before it happens. But that's what polling is for-and polling showed a seventh of Democrats wanting Franken out immediately, and his approval collapsing by nearly twenty points almost immediately.

You're the one who wanted to make this about political strategy-what's the political gain for intentionally keeping a demonstrably weakened candidate? "We don't how it'll happen" isn't an excuse-you want to give yourself the best chance to win. A shrug is not a strategy.

He won his last re-election campaign by over ten points in a year that the Democrats lost a whopping nine Senate seats, and would have about three years to apologize his way back into good graces / let the scandal age into irrelevance. (Which is something of the point of having six year Senate terms.) If the insiders in his own party hadn't turned on him, I think he would be a favorite to win in 2020 (which is expected to be a better year for Democrats than 2014 was)... especially since the people within the Democratic party turning on him vigorously calling for his immediate resignation (damn any due process) are exactly the people who are not going to go over to the Republican party in 2020 (as that position is borrowed out of hardline feminist ideology and radical feminists find the Republican party to be anathema).

You never address my fundamental point, though. According to you, we should have absolutely no standard for evidence. We accept it if it supports us, we reject it if it doesn't. Isn't that what is infuriating about Trump? Are we no better than that?

That's a blatant lie. What I said was that people can come to conclusions from weighing the evidence without needing a jury to settle it for them. Is that such an extreme view?

That was said by HittanRyan, not me. Please do not put words in my mouth.

[Tahar Joblis]

Not chivalry, more a specific part of bushido, the part where you have to ritualistically disembowel yourself if you commit dishonor.

You still continue to lack any kind of explanation on how dumping Franken hurts the Democrats. The best you've come up with is "Oh, sure his popularity tanked and we even have our own voters wanting him to resign, but we don't know for sure that that makes him more vulnerable for re-election!"

Cutting off a tumor is a better metaphor than disemboweling.

Let's put it this way:

Franken is a highly effective incumbent senator with some seniority under his belt - and if continuing in office, would gain more seniority. He's one of the arguably one of the power players on the political scene.

New Senators are a crapshoot. Ditch Franken and you're looking at a one year caretaker appointment (rumored to be likely Tina Smith) who will not be an effective senator, followed by a chancy open-seat race in 2018 (in an environment in which midterm elections have been generally bad for Democrats) - and if you win that you have a rookie two-year Senator running for re-election in 2020 (which will be different from 2018).

Senators are a grab bag to start with. Some of them are really energetic and effective, some turn out to be bench players.

So you (A) almost certainly don't have better odds of a post-2020 Democratic senator, (B) it's unlikely that the senator will be the sort of hard-working Senator that Franken has been, and (C) even if they are, you're losing seniority (which matters in the Senate).

Now, back to my point about how this really hurts Democrats: What the Franken case shows is that to take down a [male] Democratic politician, all you need to do is come up with someone who is willing to perjure herself in the court of public opinion. If Democratic leadership doesn't wake up and smell the onions, there's going to be a bloodbath of Democratic politicians getting slandered out of office.

[Valrifell]

You still continue to lack any kind of explanation on how dumping Franken hurts the Democrats. The best you've come up with is "Oh, sure his popularity tanked and we even have our own voters wanting him to resign, but we don't know for sure that that makes him more vulnerable for re-election!"

Cutting off a tumor is a better metaphor than disemboweling.

Let's put it this way:

Franken is a highly effective incumbent senator with some seniority under his belt - and if continuing in office, would gain more seniority. He's one of the arguably one of the power players on the political scene.
(in an environment in which midterm elections have been generally bad for Democrats)

Correction - in an environment in which midterm elections have generally been bad for incumbent parties, in a trend which which has lasted for a long while now. I still can't believe that people buy into the myth that Dems are extraordinarily worse at midterm elections and those losses aren't a reflection of a larger trend that has nothing to do with their party.

[Xelsis]

One seventh of Democrats wanted Franken out immediately? Fourteen percent? Who gives a shit about fourteen percent?

Franken won by point zero one percent in 2008.

But sure, fourteen percent of your own party being against you should just be fine and dandy.

How many of them were in Minnesota?

All of them. The polling is on Minnesota Democrats.

And why is Franken totally irredeemable? You're saying it is completely impossible for him to make amends?

It's a whole lot easier to, you know, not have to have a candidate that needs to be worrying about making amends instead of actually trying to win over voters.

Finally, I want to see a source on your numbers.

Here.

And yes, it is an extreme view that unqualified, uninformed yahoos know better than the justice system all the time. I'm all for healthy skepticism but you've taken it too far. When you say that people should make up their own minds and disregard the legal process, you cast doubt on the very idea of due process and even the Socratic method. That attitude lends itself to conspiracy theories and a mob mentality when it goes too far.

This apparently didn't make it through you head last time, so I'll say it again

There is no jury process for people's opinions.


Letting uniformed, unqualified yahoos make decisions is what voting is. You might prefer to have elections by courts, but letting people make up their own minds about things is how politicians get into office, so it just might be important.

Nixon took months.

Exactly what sexual misconduct allegations did Nixon have?

It took almost two weeks for it to become crystal clear it was a botched story. It took another four months before Rolling Stone finally retracted the story.

Rolling Stone was also the only publication breaking the story. Multiple accusers coming forward is a rather different matter.

Nixon resigned a year after Woodward broke the Watergate story.

And Watergate was a rape case?

Now, if you want an apples to apples comparison, Packwood resigned almost three years after allegations up to and including sexual assault came from 19 women - which he had documented in his diary.

The first fair example thus far. We now have in the 90s a Republican taking three years to resign, and a Democrat never doing so, and in the 2000s, two Republicans each taking a day to resign, and two Democrats each taking two or more weeks.

Neither is on. You can see the shadow underneath the right hand on the vest.

Below the hand, yes, below where he is grasping, not beneath it.

Which, by the way, is an armored vest. We're talking about "groping" an armored vest. So we have a picture of Franken posing theatrically (i.e., in role as entertainer) and not actually touching an armored vest worn by a woman, touted as evidence of "groping."

You're seeing a lack of touching that I'm not, at by news reports, others aren't either. The accusation is physically groping, and the picture seems to support it.

This has about as much in common with the act of grabbing someone's boob / butt / genitals for a sexual thrill as a golden labrador retriever does with a golden monkey.

Yeah, no. "I feel disgusted with myself" isn't really the apology of someone that far off-base.

Two separate issues, both tied to credibility.

Anonymous accusations are generally not as credible or actionable. If I read about an anonymous accuser covered by HuffPo, Jezebel, Breitbart, or National Enquirer, I'm not inclined to think that any action should proceed from that until and unless we are given other reasons to see these as credible.

I tend to agree that they are generally not as credible, and a solely anonymous accusation shouldn't get much traction. That there seems to pretty obviously be a solid reason behind that anonymity, and that you have it in line with named sources, bolsters it.

Remember, in this environment, we have false accusers coming out of the woodwork, even ones with fairly complex motives. "Let's make the Washington Post look bad by accusing our own guy falsely!" is not exactly a straightforward motive.

A false story which they picked up on, it should be noted.

People make false accusations for various reasons. In the case of someone supporting Trump politically, there's an obvious motive for wanting to harm one of Trump's more prominent political enemies. This is an old part of the political playbook.

Sure.

Should I take it, then that you are of the mind that the eight accusations are all false?

The kissing allegation certainly could go down as sexual assault, and seems a step well above Franks.

Forcible kissing could potentially go down as things like this (misdemeanor sexual battery / touching / etc depending on state) ... but when we're talking about Tweeden's accusation, what we have is:

(A) Clearly consensual kissing on stage as part of the act (as well as quite a few other raunchy acts by Tweeden in the USO shows)
(B) Her claim that he forced a kiss on her while rehearsing said act backstage.
(C) His denial that this happened in the way she described.
(D) Letters of support from female comedy coworkers of his saying that he was always respectful in backstage conduct in his career at SNL.

So basically speaking, you have a he-said she-said situation, with a pile of character references saying otherwise, and circumstances in which the accuser was comfortable with performing very similar acts with the accused on stage in front of an audience. You'd also have a lot of trouble proving a prurient motive when it's literally rehearsing for an act that Tweeden had agreed to perform and Franken has an obvious non-sexual motive for doing so.

Tweeden's accusations aren't what I'm really talking about here-this is the staffer. Regardless, on Tweeden, if you want to talk about motivations, there are as many, if not more, driving someone to come on as a "character reference" than to be an accuser.

Strip away the yellow journalism and partisan hyperbole and you have a case that would flop in the courtroom.

I don't necessarily disagree.

Link is down, it gives me a "Page cannot be found"

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/congressma ... -congress/

According to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan's office, the counsel to the speaker was contacted by a friend with information about Franks roughly two weeks ago, and Ryan's office believed that claim warranted further investigation. After more conversations and interviews, Ryan brought the information to Franks, and a complaint was filed with the House Ethics Committee. Franks eventually decided to offer his letter of resignation.

Which seems to show a rather more aggressive stance by Republicans over Democrats on these sorts of things.

Conyers, who had already had a paid-out accusation, was defended as an "icon" by Pelosi.

Franks was, it seems, directly pressured by Ryan to resign.

The Republicans and Democrats both mean business. The Republicans are for the most part waiting until they have pretty credible evidence in hand before they start pushing people towards the exit. Which, TBH, is a better thing to do.

If we're taking this solely from a political strategy perspective-its public opinion that matters more than anything else, and that public opinion had rather clearly turned against both Franken and Conyers.

He won his last re-election campaign by over ten points in a year that the Democrats lost a whopping nine Senate seats, and would have about three years to apologize his way back into good graces / let the scandal age into irrelevance. (Which is something of the point of having six year Senate terms.) If the insiders in his own party hadn't turned on him, I think he would be a favorite to win in 2020 (which is expected to be a better year for Democrats than 2014 was)... especially since the people within the Democratic party turning on him vigorously calling for his immediate resignation (damn any due process) are exactly the people who are not going to go over to the Republican party in 2020 (as that position is borrowed out of hardline feminist ideology and radical feminists find the Republican party to be anathema).

Won a re-election campaign against political powerhouse Mike McFadden, a man who had nobly served the public in....well, nothing, because he'd never held public office in his life.

The last time Franken went up against a real candidate, you have one of the closest elections in history, and a disputed one at that, in a Democratic wave year-before he had this on his record. Would you really give him good odds against someone like Pawlenty?

That was said by HittanRyan, not me. Please do not put words in my mouth.

Quote error on my part-you can that the one above is of them, I labeled the second half of their post as yours somehow-my apologies.

[Hittanryan]

One seventh of Democrats wanted Franken out immediately? Fourteen percent? Who gives a shit about fourteen percent?

Franken won by point zero one percent in 2008.

But sure, fourteen percent of your own party being against you should just be fine and dandy.

How many of them were in Minnesota?

All of them. The polling is on Minnesota Democrats.

And why is Franken totally irredeemable? You're saying it is completely impossible for him to make amends?

It's a whole lot easier to, you know, not have to have a candidate that needs to be worrying about making amends instead of actually trying to win over voters.

Finally, I want to see a source on your numbers.

Here.

A poll of a whopping 600 Minnesota Democrats. Your sample sizes are small and you should feel bad.

And yes, it is an extreme view that unqualified, uninformed yahoos know better than the justice system all the time. I'm all for healthy skepticism but you've taken it too far. When you say that people should make up their own minds and disregard the legal process, you cast doubt on the very idea of due process and even the Socratic method. That attitude lends itself to conspiracy theories and a mob mentality when it goes too far.

This apparently didn't make it through you head last time, so I'll say it again

There is no jury process for people's opinions.


Letting uniformed, unqualified yahoos make decisions is what voting is. You might prefer to have elections by courts, but letting people make up their own minds about things is how politicians get into office, so it just might be important.

Fine, then all of Trump's smear tactics, lies, conspiracy peddling, appeals to fear, and demagoguery are perfectly legitimate as long as they influence voters' opinions. That's good to know.

[Tahar Joblis]

Let's put it this way:

Franken is a highly effective incumbent senator with some seniority under his belt - and if continuing in office, would gain more seniority. He's one of the arguably one of the power players on the political scene.
(in an environment in which midterm elections have been generally bad for Democrats)

Correction - in an environment in which midterm elections have generally been bad for incumbent parties, in a trend which which has lasted for a long while now. I still can't believe that people buy into the myth that Dems are extraordinarily worse at midterm elections and those losses aren't a reflection of a larger trend that has nothing to do with their party.

2002 wasn't. And while 2006 broke for Democrats, 2008 went even more strongly for Democrats in spite of the Democratic takeover of Congress.

It's true that traditionally, there has been an American preference for split government, which has been long reflected in Congressional losses for the president's party in midterms, but split-ticket voting has been declining in favor of more consistent partisanship by voters. What is consistent is that groups that turn out inconsistently to the polls (young voters being the most important of those groups) have slid more firmly into the Democratic column recently, and midterms still have lower turnout.

I expect 2018 to be a relatively good year for Democrats at the polls (energy vs Trump) but not as good as 2020 (when Trump himself or his replacement will be on the ballot and turnout can be expected to be higher).

[Collatis]

A poll of a whopping 600 Minnesota Democrats. Your sample sizes are small and you should feel bad.

600 is an acceptable sample size.

[Hittanryan]

A poll of a whopping 600 Minnesota Democrats. Your sample sizes are small and you should feel bad.

600 is an acceptable sample size.

Not for an entire party of tens of millions it isn't.

[Collatis]

2002 wasn't.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks

[Collatis]

600 is an acceptable sample size.

Not for an entire party of tens of millions it isn't.

Minnesota doesn't even have ten million people.

[Bakery Hill]

600 is an acceptable sample size.

Not for an entire party of tens of millions it isn't.

It is though. That's how polling works.

[Hittanryan]

Not for an entire party of tens of millions it isn't.

Minnesota doesn't even have ten million people.

He insinuated 14% of the entire party wanted Franken's resignation based on that poll. I don't think 84 people can speak for the entire party.

[Corrian]

Average sample size is 1,000. 600 for one state doesn't seem that bad.

[Collatis]

Average sample size is 1,000. 600 for one state doesn't seem that bad.

It's not. Once you get larger than 1,000, the increase in accuracy becomes negligible. People on the internet love to attack the sample size of polls rather than to actually address the information provided by the poll.