I generally enjoy our back and forth's but you've tried to be too clever on this one and missed the mark. It's okay, we'll forget about this one and move on for your self esteem.

My take on the Beto/Cruz race:

Yes, the surprising strength of Beto's campaign and the perhaps not so surprising weakness of Cruz' forced the republicans to spend more money on texas than they wanted. On the other hand, Beto severely outspent Cruz and still didnt pull it off.
To assess which side came out ahead strategeically, we would have to know whether the money people spent on Beto would have been spent on other races without him, or if it had stayed home. And the GOP was more strapped for cash due to the huge playing field, so them spending $30m on Cruz' race might perhaps have hurt them more than it hurt the dems to spend $70m on Beto.

About the race itself: yes, it was very close in fucking Texas. But it was a D+9 national environment in which the democrats fielded an exceptional candidate against an exceptionally weak and unlikeable incumbent, who they outspent nearly 2:1, in a race where the absolute numbers of money they spent was record-setting. And they still didnt pull it off. In this light, the outcome of this senate race does two things at once: it proves that republicans in texas are not invulnerable, and it reaffirms that texas is pretty damn solid for the republicans. You need to move heaven and earth to win a statewide race in texas as a democrat. Yes, demographic changes might mean that texas is going purple sometime in the future, but not in 2020, and also not in 2024.

At the end of the day, Beto's coattails allowed his party to pick up two republican house seats that once were considered strongholds. And at the end of the day, the democratic party has found a candidate for their 2020 primary who could reconcile the base's desire for unabashed progressivism with the party strategists' desire to run a white man in 2020, and perhaps to tone down the anti-white and anti-male identity politics a bit.

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If Beto is acting quick and smart now, he could become the 2020 frontrunner overnight and keep his current momentum going - which would be very hard for any other hopeful to catch up to. If he waits until 2024, on the other hand, his momentum would be gone. Without an elected office, he has all the time and freedom in the world right now to prepare a 2020 run, but would really struggle to keep up his hype.

And we should also not forget that if he doesnt run in 2020, there's a chance for the democratic nominee to defeat trump him/herself. In that case, this incumbent president would be locked in for 2024, and Beto could find himself in a situation where he has to until 2028 before getting another shot. And if that incumbent won reelection in 2024, then 2028 could be a very bad year for democrats, so that he might want to hold out until 2032.

So the longer I think about it, the clearer it seems to me that Beto should and WILL try to seize his window of opportunity in 2020.

i mean, it was an underhanded insult, but nothing you need to charge the plate for. i was just saying given the timeline you can't logically think that you think. and since your posts have been hyperbolic all day on the subject i allowed that it might not earnestly be your stance, thus the even if you think it.

i feel like you've now made me exhaustively explain the joke for really no reason, unless you dont want to look at the timeline and want to continue with the same argument i already tried to counter. Beto can't be entirely manufactured, the DNC was openly shit talking him like 3 weeks ago man. they got made he didnt send money back, now they're claiming victory based on his TX results. they didnt manufacture shit, but they did bandwagon onto him. its a fine but notable distinction.

This post was edited by thesnipa on Nov 7 2018 02:14pm

Nice description.

They're claiming victory because they made him. Of course they're mad he didn't send back his severance package - they wanted that for themselves and to send to whatever races elsewhere. We can logically disagree on this one, this is up for interpretation.

You're going down the rabbit hole on this one with the Cheshire cat, as you do sometimes. Come back to the light.

This post was edited by djman72 on Nov 7 2018 02:16pm

perhaps you just misunderstand. Beto raised millions by himself, and the DNC demanded he send it to them instead of using it. i only say this because you said severance package, which suggests you dont know that.

wonderland is a fucking cool place tho. so no.

I agree with your analysis in this post. I think you're spot-on about Texas and Beto in the future.

Yes, Texas is still a Republican stronghold. This race had all the makings of an upset (more money, strong national advantage, dislikeable incumbent, attractive/likeable challenger) and Democrats still couldn't pull it off. It was close, but it's also hard to imagine a better set of circumstances for Democrats short of the Republican being a pedophile or being involved in some scandal.

And yes, Beto should run in 2020. It's his best shot for all the reasons you mentioned. And I agree, he's got a good shot at it. I think Democrats would pick him over Harris and Warren. If Biden runs, I don't know if Democrats will turn him down. I see Biden doing well in a lot of the same states Clinton did well in during the 2016 primaries and obviosuly having a lot more internal party support. Democrats would play themselves again.

But ultimately I think the 2020 election will come down to the strength of the economy. If the economy is still strong, I don't see Trump losing to anyone as the incumbent.

'Merica

all democrats suck

Interesting articles:

http://time.com/money/5440193/beto-campaign-money-map-midterms/

https://apps.texastribune.org/features/2018/ted-cruz-beto-orourke-fundraising-texas-midterm-2018/

Lots of out-o-state money.