Seth Bodnar - independent US Senate candidate

[SAJ-99]

Ok. In a two party system there's really no other choice. Most people call themselves Independent because they vote for both Rs and Ds depending on the race. You'll never get to actually vote for someone with moderate, nuanced positions

Agreed. Little 'i' independent, but not big "I' Independent. I had five choices in my Democrat primary for House. There was quite a bit of nuance in their positions, but voters didn't care because sorting through those is hard. That is the role the parties play now. They vet the candidates so the voter doesn't have to, in theory. My view is that the little "i" Americans still don't want to compromise. They want a candidate that agrees with them 100% on big stuff. They are not interested in nuance. When they realize they made a mistake, they slink into the shadows and vote for the other side the next election.


Proportional representation is a change from electoral system. It will never get implemented because Republicans would never win the presidency again, ever, without a huge course correction.

 

[jimh406]

Two parties are the way to get things done

Proportional representation is a change from electoral system. It will never get implemented

I agree it's not going happen. The people who wrote our founding documents were smarter than those who want to change it.

 

[BigHornRam]

Not nationally, and national party image has a huge impact at the state and local level.

Many people would be embarrassed to admit out loud that they lean left in a lot of rural America these days. The party is starting to walk back some of the crazy because of this, fortunately, but a lot of the damage has been done (main explanation for a second round of DJT, imo).

Looks like Wisconsin Democrats narrowly escaped nominating crazy in your states Governor race yesterday.

 

[Elky Welky]

The people who wrote our founding documents were smarter than those who want to change it.

I disagree with this statement but don't take it from me, even many of our founding fathers did too.

Thomas Jefferson famously said the constitution should be re-written every 19 years: https://oll.libertyfund.org/quotes/...-at-the-time-it-was-signed-and-agreed-to-1789

And our constitution has been amended 27 times since.

"Smart" is also relative to time and place, and also subjective. They were smart people, but they didn't know nearly as much as we do today. They believed in a lot of junk science and many of them were slave owners. Neither of those things are all that smart/ethical by what we know now.

Unyielding faith to a document that was meant to be--and should be-- updated is a recipe for disaster.

 

[Treeshark]

Looks like Wisconsin Democrats narrowly escaped nominating crazy in your states Governor race yesterday.

Yes, barely. It looked like she was going to walk away with it up until last week when some national Dems (most notably Bernie and AOC) disavowed her for being too crazy even for them.

 

[Elky Welky]

Yes, barely. It looked like she was going to walk away with it up until last week when some national Dems (most notably Bernie and AOC) disavowed her for being too crazy even for them.

Wow. Some of the political podcasts I listen to were so confident she would win they were already trying to put positive spin on it. This is the first I am hearing of it, congrats on dodging that bullet.

Back to MT, I predict Forstag will lose in large part because Bernie and AOC endorsed him, which will only bring their haters out of the woodwork to vote against him as well as drive away moderates. DSA and DSA-adjacent people aren't going to do well here, given how tarnished the democratic brand already is.

 

[Southern Elk]

Back to MT, I predict Forstag will lose in large part because Bernie and AOC endorsed him, which will only bring their haters out of the woodwork to vote against him as well as drive away moderates. DSA and DSA-adjacent people aren't going to do well here, given how tarnished the democratic brand already is.

I thought it was a bad decision for him to accept those endorsements. And I think AOC campaigned for him?

 

[Elky Welky]

I thought it was a bad decision for him to accept those endorsements. And I think AOC campaigned for him?

Yup, she did, flew out to MT and stumped for him in the days leading up to the primary. I think that tipped the scales for him in the primary, he wasn't a runaway and there are a lot of young Missoulians that like her, lean far left, and showed up.

It was a good tactic to win the primary, but probably not the state.

 

[jimh406]

I disagree with this statement

Naw, you just took it out of context.