Ah-- I misunderstood. My apologies. You were pursuing this line of discussion with a view to separating saints from sinners, rather than as it applies to the coming election. Perhaps we could get a mod to move this part to the religion forum?
She got a plum speaking slot in Charlotte. Seeing as she's held steady about 2-3 points ahead of Brown even with this summer's shenanigans, got to think that'll give her a nice bump.
So what's the general consensus here... she's currently up around 2 percent, and Obama presumably by around 20 percent in Massachusetts. Does Scott Brown have a hope of retaining his seat?
Basically, with so much time left before the election, it's still plenty close. I'm just happy that, for the most part, it's been a reasonably clean campaign thus far.
It's been more than 15 years since I lived in the hub so I can't claim to be tuned in to the voters there, but isn't the CW that if she's up by 2 or 3 percentage points on election day, Obama carrying the state should give her enough momentum to win?
As a Warren supporter, I'm prone to err on the conservative side. But yeah, I'd definitely give her the edge right now. Support in my area (which is strongly pro-Warren) is really high and her ground game looks strong. The current Brown narrative, that she's too "divisive and confrontational" for Washington, isn't playing very well in a state that's had it up to here with GOP confrontationalism.
Do people in Mass get the feeling (as I do) that Brown only votes against his party when the result doesn't matter and McConnell allows him to? Or are they not really paying all that close attention?
I'm not a pollster, but that's certainly my impression of Brown. I don't think all that many people are buying the "independent centrist" story. A few too many party line votes on bills that are pretty much the opposite of what most MA voters (right or left) want. No one believes he's a wingnut Tea Partier, but no one believes he's a "swing vote" that will wield his "leverage" for the benefit of his constituants. If anything, the Brown image that has stuck is "Wall Street's best friend". Not surprising, given his opponent.
As a Mass. resident (and Warren supporter), there's still a long way to go. I would agree that she is in a good position, but there are still plenty of people out there who buy into the faux "Scott Brown, regular Joe" persona. At this point, I'd pick Warren to win, but I definitely wouldn't bet the house on it. And generally speaking, there are many, many more Republicans in Massachusetts than most people think.
That's because most MA Republicans are actually conservatives, which makes them look entirely unlike non-New England Republicans.
For me what's most interesting about MA democrats is just how working class they are. The image of NE Ivy League elitist liberal is sooooo ridiculously false.
I ended up wiki'ing Somerville the other day (probably in connection with the Revs' stadium fantasies) and simply could not believe that only 4.76 percent of its residents are registered Republicans. I knew Boston was liberal.... but I didn't know it was that liberal! Edit: And it's only 7.23 percent for Boston proper, compared to 55.04 percent Democrats. That is simply astounding in my opinion.
Every single city in this country w/ a population over 500K voted for Obama in '08. I'm sure that Somerville doesn't fit the bill technically, but much of the population of MA is urban, and the GOP has abandoned cities. MA is Dem for more complex reasons, but I suspect that the entire NE was/is ahead of the game in this regard.
Oh, I'm aware of that. I guess I didn't realize how insignificant the percentage of GOP voters was. In Philly, for example, there are twice as many registered Republicans as in Boston.
A significant number of Harvard grad students of various sorts, including law students, live in Somerville because the rents are cheaper than most places in Cambridge and it's only one T stop away from Harvard Square.
My brother lived there for a while in the 90s, so I've been there a few times. He used to call it "the wrong side of the tracks" back then, but I get the impression it's changed quite a bit.
Depends on the neighborhood. Davis Sq is a overpriced hipster hellhole now, but Winter Hill and a few other neighborhoods are still full of (literal and figurative) rats. It's pretty diverse actually. The proposed Revs stadium is over on the shitty side of town. Not that I expect that to ever happen. The big news is they're extending the Green Line from Lechemere all the way through Somerville and Medford out to Tufts. That will change everything in the next decade.