General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The words "Democrat" and "Republican" are pretty much meaningless [View all]Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)are motivated by the party. In the Presidential elections, when the nominees runs on and makes a case for liberal policy, they win more often than lose. After the election, they pivot back to the right and piss off the people who just voted for them, which shows up in the midterms. When Democrats run as conservatives, they lose (which is why the "Blue Dog" coalition is almost extinct).
You are looking at the wins and loses in isolation to the whole picture, just as climate change deniers look at the temp changes. They see "cooling periods and say "See, the planet is not warming" and look at warming spikes and claim "Sunspots". Climate change supporters look at the TREND.
Individual elections are meaningless in isolation, it is the TREND that matters, and the TREND since Carter has been constant movement to the right. Democrats, rather than dragging the country back to the left by making forceful arguments for progressive policies and their long history of success (and the right's long history of failure) have been co-opted by either money, self-destructive bi-partisan fetishism, or blind loyalty to labels. By your logic Andrew Cuomo is a Democrat, therefore we MUST support him because he is a Democrat.
The results are consistently predictable. Yeah, Cuomo was one of the few victories, but he promptly colluded with the GOP to give them control.