DeVos is a warm body, which I'm okay with in this administration. To be fair anybody with a pulse who has been in his cabinet has left and called Trump a dummy.

I think Obama's biggest task was correct the 2008 recession and he did and started growth that was only killed by Covid. Not the greatest potus of all time but he was facing a lot and at least as good as Bill Clinton without all the character flaws amd without NAFTA.

Obama was coming immediately No Child Left Behind, which devastated schools like you describe. Schools found in need of improvement had funding removed so that they had less tools to work with to improve themselves. The white flight schools were hit the hardest by this and it's not a surprise. At this point everybody thought the lightly complected suburban schools were the best until common core showed parents at their kids where not as smart as they thought they were. Now you have a college admission scandal further exposing quite a bit about the schools of the privileged. You and I know that most crime goes on reported and unsolved, so you know how widespread this rot must be.

When inwas deciding which systems I was going to practice in I took a hard look at education and said nope health care's easier.

ive seen things that suggest to me that if u remove summers teachers burn out or check out at a rate that offsets a lot of the gains. my wife wouldnt be able to teach 3-4 year old special ed kids 12 months a year, just cant happen. and when u look at where the gains they can make are, its 3 years old to 6 years old. for special ed kids especially.

if i had to play education reform roulette i'd put all of my chips on early intervention and birth to 3 education. we romanticize stories of kids who turned it around in middle school but in reality most of them have cemented life tracks by that point when we compare it to younger years.

https://www.axios.com/doug-sosnik-electoral-realignment-trump-biden-c4efd9cd-ba41-4f75-ac12-412ca2e6f0ba.html

Thoughts on this?

I think Michigan and Pennsylvania are very winnable for Biden. If he gets those, he only needs to win one of the following: AZ, FL, WI, NC, or one of the ME/NE congressional districts.

RCP has the following for the past month or so:
FL: Biden +3
MI: Biden +5.5
WI: Biden +2.7
PA: Biden +6.5
NC: Trump +1
AZ: Biden 4.4

Nationwide: Biden +4.7

But does this account for murder hornets killing all of the coastal voting base?

We are in 2020 after all....

I think this pundit is a bit too optimistic when it comes to Democrats' chances, and to how beneficial this realignment is for them.

Some quick thoughts:

- Michigan is must-win for Biden, Florida is a must-win for Trump.
- Wisconsin seems to be the Rust Belt state where Trump's numbers hold up best. I agree that it should not be a priority for Democrats. Also, it's underlying demographics are very beneficial for Trump.
- ME-02 is a super white, super rural, gun-loving district. I really doubt that Biden can win it in a close election, so he shouldnt pursue it.
- On the other hand, I would say that NE-02 is very much in play for Biden, and could be pivotal. He should campaign there.
- I think that Arizona could indeed flip in 2020, but it's far from a sure thing, so betting everything on it might be risky. But since its Senate race will also be pivotal, AZ will be an intensely campaigned, full-blown battleground state anyway.
- It's interesting to see how little of a battleground Ohio has become.
- Democrats should still make a strong play in Florida. The GOP will have to invest a ton of time and resources into defending it.
- On the flip side, the Trump campaign might still be able to push Democrats in Pennsylvania and force them to invest to shore it up.

The most important factor, however, is the coronavirus crisis and how it unfolds. Due to the volatile health and economic situation, there is overwhelming uncertainty in every prediction. Everything from a solid Trump win to a landslide Biden win is well imaginable.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on May 18 2020 03:50pm

It's incredibly doubtful. Tuscan and Phoenix are both purple with the rest of the [populated portions] of the state voting a solid red. During Obama, in Arizona we lost most of our insurance plans to be ACA compliant, then saw the entire ACA marketplace become unavailable in the state, numerous lawsuits against our elected officials, the Fast and Furious gun running scandal that hurt our businesses and blamed it on our business owners when they were coerced.

There's a lot of bad blood. There was enough to lose Clinton Arizona, and she's more well-liked than Biden ever was. Honestly, if Biden hopes to win Arizona, he needs to stay away. He'll convince the state to vote against him simply because he can't maintain a train of thought. If Trump wants to win he just needs to show up. All it'd take would be 1 antifa attempted riot and the subsequent attempts by leftist media outlets to justify it to solidify the voting block. Further, 63 miles of wall are under construction, with another 74 miles to begin, providing a huge number of jobs and adding the weight of a kept promise, which is more than the last time Biden sat in the white house. Add the fact that both ICE and the Border Patrol have been allowed to do their jobs to enforce the laws on the book (within the law) without fear of reprimand, and there's a lot of good will for Trump in Arizona. Add to that the fact that McCain is dead and won't be campaigning against Trump, and the largest single cheerleader that the people of Arizona trusted pushing the votes towards Dems is gone. I'm not exaggerating the importance of McCain's hatred towards Trump. McCain carried the state easily, Trump did not. Had Trump had McCain's endorsement, it would have been a blowout.

My prediction of any successful campaign in Arizona: Biden stays away. DNC throws millions into ads featuring Trump saying mean things to and about McCain. Ads harp on Trump not even being willing to go to McCain's funeral (conveniently forgetting he wasn't invited). Replays of Trump stating McCain wasn't a hero, and how heroes don't get captured. Follow that with some cheery message about Biden being friendly with McCain, working with McCain and Obama to achieve positive results for the state, loving the military, and pledging to support the state in it's struggle along the boarder (being very nonspecific about the type of that support).

People's memories are short and misleading campaign ads win the day. But by all means, keep Biden out of Arizona. If you must pull out a skeleton manikin from Disneyland, use Larry King.

I'm not encouraging the DNC to lie. I'm baldly stating it's probably going to be required to sway the Arizona to think of Biden as anything other than yet another headache pointed directly at Arizona.

Also keep in mind: The SALT tax caps drove a ton of businesses out of California, Oregon, and Washington. The primary beneficiaries of those business moves were Texas and Arizona. So Arizona has done a LOT better under Trump than Obama/Biden. That'll be something to creatively overcome.

This post was edited by InsaneBobb on May 18 2020 04:51pm

Oh, so you are from Arizona? Are your friends and family all staunch Republicans?

Regarding the first bolded point: to the best of my knowledge, Hillary was a uniquely disliked person, and Biden has always had better favorability ratings than her.
Second bolded point: those "California refugees" might have boosted the economy in Arizona, but they also turn its electorate more blue. Same story in Texas. From a Republican perspective, that's still a big net negative.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on May 18 2020 05:01pm

My family is not from, nor have any lived in Arizona, with the exception of one marine who did some training there. One side of the family is primarily democrats. The other side is a split between independents and republicans, with a socialist or two in the mix (we provide those two helmets).

To the first point, Hillary had nothing to do with the ACA and Fast and Furious, or with lawsuits against our elected officials. She did also do better (though not as much as you'd expect) among female voters. Biden was an outspoken member of the Administration that did, and is wildly unpopular among female voters.
To the second point, that's not accurate. The majority of businesses that left the left coast were red, not blue. They're terrified of the same policies being enacted as they fled from and are unlikely to vote for or endorse Biden. Or a blue senate member, for that matter. Now some of the non-business owners? Possibly true. But I'd really hesitate, were I you, to assume that just because they came from California, or Oregon, or Washington, that they're going to vote Dem. Too many years of the weight pressing steadily harder changes an affiliation pretty fast.

The reason Oregon flipped from red to blue back during the Clinton era may have been due to California and Washington citizens moving in because cheap land, easy business opportunity, and low taxes. But they literally wanted Oregon to become just like California, and they literally got it, and in the worst of ways. My guess would be that those fleeing this time aren't planning on making the same mistake. The fact that a podunk little state like Oregon in a podunk metro area like Portland's tri-county area can have rent and purchase costs on houses and apartments 50-150% higher than Maricopa County, even like Scottsdale or Tempe, is absolutely insane. A much higher tax rate, and much stricter laws, and oodles more anti-business regulation don't help either. While you may be right in your assumption, I haven't seen any statement of intent from those leaving here (Oregon) to vote blue. It's 100% red. I'll be back in Arizona in time for the Election as well, and I'm certainly voting red. I'm looking to earn a livelihood, not live off the scraps my government overlords see fit to throw on the floor for me, that my landlord deigns to not tear holes out of first.

This post was edited by InsaneBobb on May 18 2020 05:19pm

CLINTON MORE LIKED THAN BIDEN

LOL... Bill maybe

This post was edited by Giannis on May 19 2020 09:11am

New poll has Biden +7 in AZ. McSally getting destroyed. My gut still tells me that AZ isn't ready to go blue during a presidential election but I've been wrong about states flipping every time.