The reason we don’t know is because Obama didn’t try to achieve the best outcome. He started with substandard options. Could he have gotten a $1.5+ trillion stimulus, single payer, much more substantial financial reform, etc.? Probably not. But given the majorities Dems had in Congress, he probably could have gotten…

The 2009 Congress was not GOP controlled. 

Your final paragraph nailed it. And there absolutely were people at the time, as the article points out, who were saying the stimulus we got wouldn’t be enough. Obama’s efforts to govern like a “normal” president against an opposition party that absolutely refused to treat anything as “normal” for as long as he did…

You know, I’ve seen a lot of former Obama alums admit that this is probably the greatest failure of his administration. Whether there was a more progressive alternative that was realistic is debatable, but the way the worst actors in the economy were largely spared from serious consequences and able to continue their…

Great comment! And people wonder why the freshman class in Congress gets so fucking frustrated at the elders of the Democratic party.

The principal problem with the institutional Democratic Party as it exists today is that confuses the axiom “never fight a battle you don’t have to win” with “never fight a battle you can’t win”. Those two axioms aren’t the same, and the Democratic confusion on the issue results not just in innocent bystanders…

Voting him out of office won’t resolve the problem of his setting the standard that lawlessness is okay and carries no penalties. It won’t punish the many people who refused subpoenas or lied to congress. And as we’ve seen before, the next republican president will use that to be even worse.

And they’re conservative because they only vote for conservative candidates because only conservative candidates run there. Self fulfilling prophecy.

The Dems are throwing away the elections NOW! 0-8 in Kentucky. 1*-9 in Alabama. 0-14 in Mississippi. 0-6 in Georgia. 0-10 in Tennessee. 0-7 South Carolina. Why do you care that it has to be a party approved Blue Dog who ends up taking the L?

There might be! You don’t know until you try (and we don’t know because no one’s tried!)

0-8 in Kentucky. 1-9 in Alabama. Statewide Senate race records since the mid 1990s.  You talk about a “progressive Democrat winning hasn’t been proven.” Of course it hasn’t been proven to work; It’s a new idea! Meanwhile there’s all sorts of evidence that shows conservative Democrats NOT winning.

If running a conservative Democrat for US Senator from Kentucky was a winning strategy, you’d think it’d have a better record than 0-8 since 1996.

I think so. Course, in that particular race, the corpse of Vladimir Lenin (D) could’ve won.

Trump lost by three million votes

In other words you have no idea how anything works and you don’t think anyone else does either. Brave political stance. 

“You’re now conflating a national campaign with a specific candidate in a specific state”

Isn’t that what you did like two replies up? Very Trumpian of you. 

Lawl. You asked for them to be done and now have to backpedal after they were done. I love it.

i am not proposing running lefties as a magic panacea, my pragmatic friend. i am proposing running a candidate on a platform other than “I’ll Do The Same Shit As A Republican But I’ll Be Better With The Paperwork.” Doug Jones did not run on a platform of being marginally better at picking up fourteen year olds at…

The fact that you call it “liberalism” A. shows you’re missing the point and B. shows you’re probably not engaging in good faith anyway.

we can tell 2016 was a one-off, and that “I’m A More Competent Republican” is a strategy not doomed to miserable, ignominious failure, because Bredesen, McCaskill, and Heitkamp employed it to such great success in 2018.