2018 Midterms: The Senate’s Most Vulnerable Democrat

Republicans are seeking to unseat an incumbent Democrat in a state Donald Trump won by 19 points.

Joe Donnelly opposed confirmation of Trump Cabinet nominees Betsy DeVos (Education Secretary), Tom Price (Health & Human Services Secretary), Rex Tillerson (Secretary of State), Jeff Sessions (Attorney General) and Steve Mnuchin (Treasury Secretary) and Scott Pruitt (EPA Administrator).

The week before Christmas Donnelly voted against the GOP tax reform bill calling it a “partisan tax hike on Indiana’s middle class” that “does nothing to prevent outsourcing of U.S. jobs to foreign countries, and it’s a giveaway to Wall Street and other big money interests.”

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act significantly lowers the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, doubles the standard deduction and doubles the per child tax credit.  When Donnelly cast his “No” vote he put his Party before the people of the Hoosier State.

Data-driven analyses from three separate nonpartisan organizations: The Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT), which is an official Congressional scorekeeper, the Tax Foundation (which leans to the right), and the Tax Policy Center or TPC, (which leans to the left) all agreed the GOP proposal would, on average, reduce the tax burdens of every income group in America.

In September when President Trump flew to the Indiana State Fairgrounds to rollout his tax reform bill he had Donnelly onboard Air Force One.  President Trump promised in front of the audience that unless Joe voted for tax reform, “We will come here, we will campaign against him like you wouldn’t believe.”

In October 2017, the nonpartisan Center for Effective Lawmaking, run by the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt, tagged Donnelly as the least effective Democrat in the U.S. Senate. Based on 15 different measures, from number of bills sponsored to number of bills becoming law, the center found that Donnelly was ineffectual at getting his bills through committee, let alone to floor votes.

Instead of acknowledging Obamacare has never worked, that Americans were lied to by Pelosi, Schumer, Sanders and The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer about costs and options and results, Senator Donnelly continues to insist Obamacare can be "fixed."

Donnelly earned the nickname “Mexico Joe” when a business linked to his family, Stewart Superior Corporation, profited from outsourcing jobs to Mexico.  According to a May 2017 financial disclosure form, he owned $50,000 in stocks which he sold shortly after The Associated Press published the story.

Primary elections in Indiana will be held on May 8, 2018 to determine which Democratic candidate and which Republican candidate will advance to the November 6 general election.  Before the May primary however, the Indiana Republican Party will host their first election year appearance of GOP senate candidates and conduct a grassroots Straw Poll on January 13, 2018 at the Congress of Counties in downtown Indianapolis.

“Our U.S. Senate straw poll will provide political watchers with the first grassroots barometer to measure early support in this high-profile, statewide race that has national implications. While our Republican candidates are supporting solutions to our nation’s biggest challenges, such as taxes and health care, Democrat Joe Donnelly stands as a roadblock alongside Chuck Schumer and his Democrat party bosses. I am confident that our eventual Republican Party nominee will defeat Democrat Donnelly next November─and events like this will help Hoosiers determine who that candidate will be,” said Chairman Kyle Hupfer.

Confirmed candidates for this special joint appearance are former State Rep. Mike Braun (R-Jasper), Mark Hurt (R-Kokomo), Congressman Luke Messer (R-Greensburg) and Andrew Takami (R-New Albany). Congressman Todd Rokita (R-Brownsburg) is also invited to attend and participate.

Register to participate in the straw poll and attend Congress of Counties here: http://www.indiana.gop/congressofcounties

If you're going to fight, fight like you're the third monkey on the ramp to Noah's Ark.

And brother, it's starting to rain.

— Schadenfreudelish (@aggierican) November 28, 2016

Buckle Up America: The 2018 Midterm Elections Opening Round

Buckle up for a vicious, multibillion-dollar fight for control of the Senate in 2018.  Up for re-election are 33 senators; 23 Democrats, 2 independents who caucus with Democrats and 8 Republicans.

Only two GOP senators (Flake of Arizona and Heller of Nevada) are considered truly vulnerable while 10 Senate Democrats up for re-election in states that Trump won in 2016 can be unseated if we organize to replace them with a candidate who will work for us─We The People.

Election history has shown the party that controls the White House almost always loses seats in Congress during midterm elections.  It’s up to us to rewrite that history.

Democrats will need to pick up three seats to retake control of the Senate.  Republicans will need a net gain of eight seats to hit the coveted 60-vote threshold to break a filibuster.  Political experts are cocksure such an outcome is far-fetched.  I believe we can force those experts to eat their words like when Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight gave Hillary a 79% chance of winning the 2016 presidential election compared to Donald Trump’s 20%.

The Toss-Up races are Flake (R-AZ), Donnelly (D-IN), McCaskill (D-MO), Heitkamp (D-ND), Heller (R-NV) and Manchin (D-WV).

The Tilt Democrat races are Nelson (D-FL), Tester (D-MT) and Baldwin (D-WI).  The Lean Democrat races are Brown (D-OH) and Casey (D-PA).  The Likely Democrat races are Smith who was appointed to replace disgraced Al Franken (D-MN) and Kaine who was Hillary’s running mate (D-VA).

DEMFAX will be an ongoing feature here at Political Clown Parade in an effort to keep everyone informed in the run-up to the primaries and the general election.  Republicans have been apathetic for far too long.  Perhaps with the passage of the tax reform bill they’ve finally learned how to fight.  The long knives will be out in 2018.  Need proof?

A feminista touted as a legal analyst and CNN commentator noted on December 22, 2016:

While the year saw the rise of Trump, this is not the beginning of his term, it is the end. As painful as it has been to watch him and his supporters rally, theirs is merely a last gasp of a dying world view.

That's what 2017 represents for me: a last gasp by Trump and the bigoted, sexist, nationalist and greedy forces that propelled him to power. 

[snip]

2017 is the last gasp. Trump's world will come to an end. In fact, just remove Trump and much of this madness disappears. And he will be removed. He'll cross too many lines. Hell, he might even be removed from office. There will be another president. The damage will get reversed─and Americans, proud of who we really are, will be the ones left standing. 

[snip]

The best thing for us to do, as he seems to lose his grip on reality, is to hold tight to ours. Continue to show up to the polls, ask questions, demand answers, speak up and step up, run for office. 

All the Democrats have is their deep-seated hatred.  They will say “if you hate Donald Trump vote for me.”  They have nothing to offer.  Nothing.

As I mentioned above, this will be an ongoing effort here on this blog.  We must mobilize and fight back.

The primaries critical to gaining the 60-vote threshold in the Senate are:  Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Montana, North Dakota, Virginia, Missouri, Wisconsin and Florida.

The Hoosier State Trumping

Cruz on Sunday called the Indiana primary "incredibly important" on Fox News, but pivoted to a contest further down the road: "California is the state that's going to decide this whole thing."

Sort of an important caveat. https://t.co/XZ14D7ZYM1

— Sean T at RCP (@SeanTrende) May 2, 2016

Without an option to stay at home, @realDonaldTrump would edge ahead of @HillaryClinton on #ElectionDay... https://t.co/pqgQvVHlG9

— Rasmussen Reports (@Rasmussen_Poll) May 2, 2016

Game Of Delegates: Ted Cruz Edition

Last night, we witnessed the resurrection of Jon Snow in Episode 2 of the Game of Thrones’ sixth season. 

Davos asked Melisandre to appeal to the Lord of the Light to bring him back to life.  She performed an incantation in Valyrian pleading, “Bring him back from death and darkness.  His flame has been extinguished.  Restore it.”  Someone who knows the Valyrian language can fact-check this for us.

And speaking of resurrection, Ted Cruz needs new life breathed into his quest for the nomination in the final stretch and he’s pinning his hopes on the Hoosier State.  Melisandre, please call your office.

Brendan Bordelon posits this at National Review, “Down in the polls and with zero margin for error heading into Tuesday’s crucial Indiana primary, Ted Cruz could be forgiven for seeing a silver lining in his apparent strength with unbound Republican delegates…But friendly delegates are as subject to shifts in the race’s momentum as anyone else, and Cruz’s strength with some of these crucial first-ballot convention voters may be overstated—particularly in North Dakota, where his campaign declared victory after filling 18 of 25 unbound delegate slots with its chosen candidates at the April 3 convention…as they’ve watched Cruz struggle to tread water in a primary increasingly dominated by Trump, many of them, wary of a bitter convention battle that could rend the party at its seams, are rethinking their commitment to the Texas senator.”

Shocker: John Snow's death was only a Bobby Ewing dream sequence

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) May 2, 2016

Curmudgeonly Cartoons: Evangelical Endorses Lucifer?

According to Christian Broadcast News, Mike Pence’s endorsement of Ted Cruz on Friday “makes perfect sense.”

First of all, Pence and Cruz are both solid constitutional conservatives. Do they have a few differences? Sure, but those are on the margins. Pence’s views line up nicely with how Cruz sees the world. As two born-again evangelicals, they see the world through a biblical prism. Their worldviews are identical in nature. 

Secondly, if Pence is looking at a future presidential run, he can’t afford to tick off the conservative grassroots of the Republican Party. A Trump endorsement would taint him in the future and potentially kill any chance of a future presidential run.

I can’t remember a more tepid, watered-down endorsement.  Perhaps that’s because, according to Eliana Johnson of National Review, he’s in a tough reelection battle against former Indiana house speaker John Gregg, the same man he defeated by just 2.9 points when he was elected to the governorship four years ago. Since then, circumstances have changed. Once a widely popular governor whom conservatives twice encouraged to run for president, first in 2012 and then in 2016, Pence has seen his approval ratings fall sharply—by about 15 percentage points—since he signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act a year ago; fumbled his way through public appearances defending that decision; and tightened restrictions on abortion in the state. He has taken a hit with women and business interests.

Poor Governor Pence.  You can’t blame him for being queasy.  He came under intense pressure from conservative donors, politicians, and media figures—many of them close personal friends—to back Cruz.  Had he sat on the fence, the growing chorus of allegations that he was putting his own career ahead of what many see as the fight for the survival of the Republican Party would endanger his reelection bid.

In an election year unlike any I can remember, endorsements just haven’t meant much and the question remains—will his make enough of a difference to stop Trump's march to the 1237 delegates needed for nomination or will it be the shot in the arm Cruz needs to survive?  In a few days we’ll have the answer.

New Poll Shows #TedCruz CLOBBERING #Trump By Double Digits in Indianahttps://t.co/JYz2HEwbPE

— Mike aka Proof (@ProofBlog) April 30, 2016

Cruz Is Clawing Back

Even if John Kasich, the graceless loser, had dropped out of the race for the White House weeks ago, the returns from Tuesday’s Acela Primaries in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island show Donald Trump would have won them in landslides. 

Cruz, the “originalist” constitutional lawyer and former solicitor general of Texas authored more than 80 US Supreme Court briefs and made more than 40 oral SCOTUS arguments winning important victories on gun rights, the Pledge of Allegiance and the right to display the Ten Commandments. 

He’s a fighter and was once described as “off the charts brilliant”.  He has absolutely no intention of surrendering to Trump. 

Today, Cruz announced his running mate would be Carly Fiorina.  I’ve always liked Carly and she will most certainly be an effective attack dog given her blistering assaults on the Democrats’ “presumptive nominee” who is under FBI investigation.

The unambiguous truth is Cruz has very few arrows left in his quiver.  Carly may not make any difference in Indiana. Some pundits have referred to the Indiana primary as Cruz’s “Alamo” and we all know how that worked out.

He knows he is under-performing in Oregon and New Mexico so it appears his strategy is concentrated on the California primary where 172 delegates are at stake.  

Carly could help dominate the news cycle if she came out and interrupted Cruz and just took the mic away.

— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahNRO) April 27, 2016