He is my goto example of the major advantage of lifetime appointment. Him and David Souter. There are some big disadvantages too, of course.
7 Likes
Now taking bets on how long until Nikki jumps on board the MAGA train for trumpâŚ
5 Likes
yeah, my post definitely was meant tongue in cheek. not coincidentally, it was also the only place bloomberg won in 2020 ( after spending something like 600 million. )
one wonders if maybe america samoa dems know that it gets the territory in the news, if only for a second. iâd certainty rather see an article about the territory and the issues they care about, than the wealthy buyers of votes
9 Likes
10 Likes
Mrs. Decorum strikes again.
5 Likes
In the very least it means that the 2024 California Senate race is now going to be yet another tired slugfest between basic competency and MAGA extremism instead of a nuanced and thoughtful debate between two progressives with different ideas for governance.
And so the Overton window continues its drift ever rightward.
9 Likes
5 Likes
It doesnât look that close, to be able to blame Garveyâs 2x lead over Porter on one ad, no matter how cynical. Maybe look at the other 24 candidates that split half the D vote into a giant long tail.
3 Likes
Garvey was polling well below Porter before Schiff started boosting Garvey though those ads. They were playing on the TV all the time over here, and Garvey wasnât airing any TV spots on his own. Could he have eked out a second place finish without Schiffâs help? Possibly, but he didnât have to and now weâll never know if he would have.
I donât fault any of the Democratic candidates for trying to make a case for why they ought to get the seat; thatâs what the runoff process is for. Boosting a Republican because you think theyâll be easier to beat than another Democrat is just a dick move though.
Of course it also didnât help that some cryptobro assholes spent at least $10M on attack ads against Porter. (Cryptocurrency is another topic on which Schiff is on the wrong side of history.)
6 Likes
9 Likes
There were also 9 other GOP candidates running for the seat. Thanks to Schiffâs ads only one of them gained any significant prominence, so the vote was much less split among the GOP than among the Democrats.
1 Like
Nope, they were tied.
Why doesnât the party herd those cats better!?!
Regardless, as dickish as Schiffâs move was, I find it difficult to put all the weight of these results on him. Porter didnât earn enough votes, and Dems didnât show up as well as they should have compared to R voters given the broad gap. A 57% to 42% party showing isnât enough to reliably push two Dem candidates to the general.
2 Likes
It was the goal Schiff actively worked toward, and thereâs a very good chance Garvey wouldnât be in second place if he hadnât done it. Schiff isnât the only person who could have changed the outcome but I see no reason to cut him any slack on this. I will still vote for him because heâs a better choice than Garvey, but that doesnât mean I have to forgive him for working against his own partyâs interests.
4 Likes
She was ahead of Garvey by 3% in November.
Maybe he would have gained in popularity on his own without Schiffâs help, but he wasnât even running any of his own TV spots.
1 Like
Here is an interview about the local initiative that just came together this weekâŚ
7 Likes
At the time Schiff started running the ads, they were tied according to the articles posted on this very thread.
2 Likes
Even if they were tied, Schiffâs clear intent was to help Garvey get ahead of Porter so I donât see how âGarvey might have made it to the general election even without Schiffâs helpâ is much of a defense. 
2 Likes
Itâs not meant as a defense of Schiff. He did a very cynical and potentially counter-productive thing. Iâm saying that itâs a stretch to put all the weight of Garvey going through to the general ahead of Porter on that underhanded action. Assuming Porter was never going to get any R votes, itâs mathmatically impossible for her to have beat Garveyâs 32% when Dems only represented 57% of the vote. More Dems would have had to have voted to have put two through to the general. Two million Dems in a state with over 10M registered democrats is weak sauce.
2 Likes
But Garvey wasnât the only Republican on the ballot, he was just the only one who rose to prominence (and he sure didnât do that on the strength of his own TV ads because he didnât have any). So thereâs no reason to assume he would have got 32% of the vote without Schiffâs help. If the Republican vote hadnât coalesced around a single figure then Porter might have easily come in second behind Schiff.
Clearly Schiff thought the ads he bought to boost Garvey were making a difference or he wouldnât have spent so much money on them.
1 Like
