Comments on: Steve Cohen of Tennessee’s 9th won’t be seeking re-election – plus, Virginia’s recent redistricting history

By: Art Deco

Art Deco — Mon, 18 May 2026 19:34:26 +0000

Also, I can’t understand all these headlines about Spanberger surprising people by not being moderate. Are people really that gullible?
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No, they’re not. It’s media shizz. Democratic voters don’t care about the abuses.

By: Art Deco

Art Deco — Mon, 18 May 2026 19:32:43 +0000

Speaking of Liz Cheney, a politician I hold to be as contemptible as any crooked Democrat, the last time I saw her speak was a couple years ago when she was on PBS claiming Republicans’ lives were being threatened if they’d voted to convict Trump.
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She was interviewed by Judy Woodruff on or about 31 October 2022. Nobody killed at that point (or any other point), but she’d been bounced out of office in a primary in which she won 29% of the vote to the victor’s 66%.
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The Cheneys – father, daughter, son-in-law – are the perhaps the purest example (other than Glitch McConnell) of people who thought of Republican voters as marks to be ignored.

By: Rick Gutleber

Rick Gutleber — Mon, 18 May 2026 18:04:48 +0000

Striking down the referendum in Virginia, for obvious reasons, doesn’t go far enough in my opinion. I am still furious at how dishonest and manipulative the ballot measure’s wording was.

Had this measure withstood the Virginia Supreme Court, I would have declared the Rule of Law completely dead in the Old Dominion. As it is, it remains on life support.

Also, I can’t understand all these headlines about Spanberger surprising people by not being moderate. Are people really that gullible? Or is this part of continuous gaslighting that we are all subjected to?

Speaking of Liz Cheney, a politician I hold to be as contemptible as any crooked Democrat, the last time I saw her speak was a couple years ago when she was on PBS claiming Republicans’ lives were being threatened if they’d voted to convict Trump. My opinion of those commies at PBS was already so low that didn’t budge the needle, but my friend suggested he turn the channel off after my reaction.

By: Art Deco

Art Deco — Mon, 18 May 2026 16:02:29 +0000

Disagree. Louisiana is such a republican state that the Democrats know they have to vote strategically to have any influence. They would vote for a senator who was already shown to be antagonistic to mainstream Republicans. Cassidy did not fool the voters and he came in third in the primary with only the Republican votes.
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Over the last 40 years, one of two scenarios has played out in Louisiana’s jungle primary for the U.S. Senate: the winning candidate won an outright majority in the 1st round or you had a runoff between a Republican and a Democrat. You’ve had runoffs featuring two Democrats, but not since 1980. About the only race where you had two vigorous Republican candidates was in 2016. The run-off results that year (between a Republican and a Democrat) suggest that 39% of the whole were inclined toward the Democrats. The Democratic candidates who entered the first round won between them about 36% of the vote. The gap between the leading Republican (John Kennedy) and his closest opponent (Charles Boustany) was > 9% of the vote. Boustany left Congress that year and endorsed Kamala Harris in 2024.
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The scenario you’re positing has never happened in a U.S. Senate election in Louisiana.

By: Bob Wilson

Bob Wilson — Sun, 17 May 2026 20:33:15 +0000

Art writes

“Louisiana used jungle primaries for > 40 years. Should they have continued to hold such primaries, the Democrats would have had their own candidates for whom to cast ballots.”

By: Art Deco

Art Deco — Sun, 17 May 2026 17:53:43 +0000

In another Trump victory, rino Senator Bill. Cassidy of Louisiana loses his primary.
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None of the seven Republican senators who voted to convict Donald Trump had voting records which resembled that of the Democratic caucus. Ben Sasse and Pat Toomey maintained consistently starboard voting records during their tenure in Congress. The other five appear to be careerists who’ve grown more uncooperative during their years in Congress. Susan Collins is the one whose voting record (per the American Conservative Union) has of the five the most consistent over time.
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The most consequential enemy rank-and-file Republicans have has always been McConnell and his camarilla.
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You’re going to have some disagreements over policy, but Republican legislators should never lend themselves to the propagation of the Democratic Party’s malicious nonsense narratives. That’s what Liz Cheney did and that’s what the seven twits in question did. Recall also George W. Bush’s remarks. The Bushes and the Cheneys should never again be welcome in the Republican Party.
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It was only with reluctance that Kevin McCarthy assented to her removal from the House leadership. Of all those who have led the Republican caucuses in the last twenty years, the current Speaker is the least antagonistic to the interests and sentiments of rank-and-file Republicans.

By: Art Deco

Art Deco — Sun, 17 May 2026 17:38:16 +0000

NB, a black majority district in Tennessee requires no racial gerrymander. The population of Shelby County exceeds that of the population of Tennessee divided by the number of congressional seats allocated to the state. Shelby County’s population is 51% black.

By: Art Deco

Art Deco — Sun, 17 May 2026 17:35:31 +0000

One of the reasons that Cassidy did so poorly in the Louisiana primary is that the legislature made the primary closed so Democrats and “independents”could not vote for him.
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Louisiana used jungle primaries for > 40 years. Should they have continued to hold such primaries, the Democrats would have had their own candidates for whom to cast ballots.

By: Bob Wilson

Bob Wilson — Sun, 17 May 2026 17:22:20 +0000

One of the reasons that Cassidy did so poorly in the Louisiana primary is that the legislature made the primary closed so Democrats and “independents”could not vote for him. another piece of good news is that the Kentucky Republican primary next week is also closed.

Go Gallrein. Dump Massie

https://linknky.com/elections/2025/11/05/can-independents-vote-in-primaries-how-ky-primaries-work/

By: AesopFan

AesopFan — Sun, 17 May 2026 05:50:08 +0000

The problem the Democrats have is bigger than Cohen, but he’s a good example.
https://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2026/05/17/democrats-refuse-to-even-talk-to-the-american-people-anymore-n2676195

Tennessee Democratic Congressman Steve Cohen announced this week that he was not going to seek reelection because the Supreme Court declared districts like his in Memphis, in accordance with the Civil Rights Act, to be illegal because they were gerrymandered based on race. Cohen is white and Jewish, the district he represents is majority black, designed to elect a Democrat, regardless of skin color. Now it’s designed to exist with about three-quarters of a million Americans in it, of all configurations of humans. The district now leans to the right, and Cohen is out.

Steve Cohen has been representing the area at the state and local level since 1982, and for the first time his district is not slanted 70+ percent Democrat, so he quit. He could have tried campaigning, he could have tried making a case to people who, while he may not have been their Member of Congress, he was certainly known by them through the media, but he didn’t. He quit.

Cohen quit while insisting “I’m not a quitter.”

He’s actually the very definition of the word.

More importantly, and more telling, is how he didn’t try. The prospect of having to sell himself and his party’s ideas to people who do not immediately acquiesce to all of it was so daunting of a task that quitting was the more viable option.