I support Sali!

My support runs very deep for him . . . until the primary is over.

26, Male, Democrat, TX-26

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by: trowaman @ Mon Feb 02, 2009 at 21:08:37 PM UTC

Damn, I already got my 'Brain Fade for Congress'' signs out of storage.

I need to go take a shower. Hearing Sali say "runs very deep" makes me feel dirty.

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by: nrimmer @ Mon Feb 02, 2009 at 21:36:20 PM UTC

How do you guys think we'll fare here?

This is kind of on my list of, 95% already gone so don't be surprised come election night.  (It's pretty much my only seat on that list.)

Here is what I figure though, Minnick didnt just beat Sali in a district that is R+12 (if I did that configuring right), but during a presidential year.  From my brief time at analyizing politics, one hypothesis I have is that it is easier to win these tough districts in off-years because you dont have the full force of that districts leaning coming out to vote.  You really only have the educated voters.

However, did all those voters who naturally HEAVILY lean Republican decide to vote for Minnick because Sali was such a sack of shit, probably.  They're probably more open to split-ticket voting because they'll vote for whoever is the least perceived douche bag.  So did we need a presidential year of under-educated voters (I'm no longer using the phrase "uneducated voter" ever again, undereducated makes a hell of a lot more sense) to throw him out as they'll just toss out the douchebag and not necessarily just a party?  Could that have been replicated in an off-year?  And to add to that, Minnick only won due to Sali being who he is, with this kind of a district leaning, it seems to me like an automatic pick-up for the GOP, since we only won based off a fluke idiot incumbent.  See TX-22, winning bc of a fluke gives you 2 years but not much else at times.

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by: Andrew @ Tue Feb 03, 2009 at 03:00:44 AM UTC

Wups

make that R+14ish.  God PVI is an f'd up scale, I really dont see the merit in doing it this way.

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by: Andrew @ Tue Feb 03, 2009 at 03:15:11 AM UTC

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Hard to say

You've definitely explored the contours of Minnick's challenges pretty well, but I do think that he'll be better off facing re-election in a non-Presidential year, with perhaps fewer Palindrones at the polls. I do get the sense that Minnick is taking his re-election more seriously than Lampson did -- Walt raised $95K in the year-end fundraising reports, which was one of the highest hauls for a frosh incumbent. Lampson's fundraising was never very strong at all after his '06 election -- he certainly was no Kirsten Gillibrand.

The GOP bench here is excellent, so that's a big downside -- a Sali re-run would be a huge help.

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by: James L. @ Tue Feb 03, 2009 at 07:23:26 AM UTC

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