Rep. Val Demings has officially launched her Senate campaign in Florida to challenge  Republican Sen. Marco Rubio.
She is a Democrat so that's a big NO for me.

@Miami_JBT

Luis has ditched ARFCOM... texted him last week, he's had enough of the increased BS the site seems to have now.

We don't want her.  That's all I need to know.

As soon as I saw Dem. I figured that out and that's all you need to know.
No way in hell I would vote for her, just looking at some of the things she has or tried to do.

FVD...

Libtard gun control

She is a political opportunist.

We are still waiting for an explanation for her losing her service firearm.

Well, damn. Next time I see him I'll give him a ration for being a quitter.

see is very anti gun and could not even be bothered with keeping track of her service gun

Incompetent leftist.

Rubio will clean her clock unless so-called "conservatives" don't vote for Rubio since he isn't "conservative" enough for them.

Maybe, but his gripes are certainly valid.

Val demings is a leftist, but you could have guessed that. I assume they're trying to maximize the black vote to counteract the brown vote trending more R lately. GD will be full of accounts actively trying to discourage GOP turnout in that election.

The Hispanic vote will save Rubio.

I really dislike that RINO “hispanic before any other consideration “ Trump bashing Lil’Marco.  I am so tired of the GOP always pushing us into the untenable situation of letting a Gillum or Demings commie sneak into office, or voting for a totally unreliable non conservative RINO.

I agree 100%!

So the choice is vote RINO or vote democrat.  I will probably leave it blank, as the real difference is death fast or death by a thousand little cuts.

"Unreliable" really?  Senator Rubio voted with Trump nearly 100% of the time.  Including supporting all three Supreme Court nominees, and countless other judicial nominees

Chuck Schumer appreciates your help.  Making the FL Senate race competitive next year will allow him to allocate more campaign resources to flipping Senate seats in Wisconsin, NC, and PA.  

As an added bonus, it will split the GOP between conservatives and moderates, causing DeSantis to lose support in his re-election effort.

Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you people?  We've got a Senator who voted with Trump 90% of the time, and that "isn't good enough".  Really, maybe you should run for Senate?  You really think Demings is going to do a better job?

What a joke.  You people are a JOKE

She was on the street as a cop in Orlando for about a week, went up the ranks, became mayor and then moved on to congress.   You do not want her.

She is a democrat, what more could you possibly want to know!

Some folks will vote for the lessor of two evils no matter what.  You vote your way, I'll vote mine and believe me it's not a joke!

She is a piece of shit!

I meet with her a few times a year (I do some legislative work).  Always been pleasant in our meetings but definitely not a friend of gun rights.

Hell, she was one of the impeachment managers

And some of us understand that someone who reliably votes to confirm pro-Constitution judges isn't "evil"

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-2009-03-25-demings25-story.html

As the election gets closer, hammer her with the fact that she had her gun stolen from her car.

All that yelping about gun grabbing from her, and yet I've never had any of my guns stolen, to be sold on the black market for crime.  Only her.  

Bring this up during conversations with non-gun and non-political types - "Oh that dingbat, do you know she left her gun in her car and it was stolen that night?  She's not who we want making decisions for us".  Simple themes like this are effective on those who don't follow politics closely and are just looking for the "right" person to vote for.

When Rubio decides to actually show up and vote.

REF:  "Sen. Rubio has the worst vote attendance record of any Florida senator in nearly 50 years."

Unsaid re: Demings.   She was likely hired because of her sex and ethnicity,  she was likely promoted because of her sex and ethnicity, and without doubt elected because of her sex and ethnicity.  

If she was a farmer she'd no doubt get a loan for the same reasons.

This is why our side sucks.

We have a solid conservative Senator running for re-election, and you go back FIVE YEARS to find a garbage quote from the DEM who ran against him in 2016

He is there when the votes matter.  

If our side spent 1/10th the time trying to defeat dems as we did looking for "faults" in Republicans, we'd have 60 Senate seats right now.

Lowest form of life on the planet is a Democrat but they stick together no matter if the rank and file doesn’t agree with something they voted on said or have done. The Republicans stab each other in the back constantly.

Not to mention all the issues Trump was trying to push that Rubio and the other Rinos wouldn't support enough to get to any kind of vote.  Memories are short.  Most Republicans in Congress were refusing to back any of the policies that we elected Trump to get done.

eta: change supported to wouldn't support

at least with Demings, you know how she will vote and how she will work.  Lil Marco is unreliable,  not a conservative by any definition, and was pathologically anti Trump.

538 Trump Score of 88.1% for Rubio.

14.9% for Demings.

Yes, I'd say you do know what you'll get with each of these candidates.

Actually, most Republicans DID support Trump's agenda.

The bottleneck was in the Senate.  While most Senators supported his agenda, the Republican majority was so thin, it only took a couple Senators (McCain, Flake, etc.) to stop it.  And of course, they had and still have the filibuster.

Val appreciates your support, as does Chuck Schumer.

I'm not sure what your problem with Rubio is.  He supported Trump over 90% of the time, and most importantly, supported all of his nominees, except for one circuit court judge I am aware of.  

You people would vote the Founding Fathers out of Congress because they "weren't good enough".

I don't mean to pick on you in particular, but the above is why the Republican party is barely functioning.

The entirely of the messaging is how bad it'll be if the other side takes control and runs things.  I waited, and waited, and waited, for the House in 2017 to start passing all the conservative agenda items that they claimed they would accomplish if given the power of the House, Senate, and White House.

They spent the entirely of 2017 passing some worthless outline for Obamacare which went nowhere.  They failed to pass a budget on time, and did (as they had planned all along) the Continuing Resolution trick, finally coming up with a CR for the next year that did exactly zero of any of the things they clamed: like cutting funding for Planned Unparenthood or  NPR, reform of entitlements, etc.   The CR had to be passed with Democrat votes as some Republicans either from belief, or just posturing for their district, didn't vote for it.

You don't see the Democrat party passing budgets needing Republican votes do you?  They spend money on what they want, on what they promise their voters they're going to spend it on, and push the budget through, without CR drama, and not needing GOP votes.

The GOP then spent the first half of 2018 on the holiest of holy grains of the GOP - tax cuts.  In the end, the plan for the 2018 election was to crow about corporate tax rates, and say "Nancy Pelosi" about 1000 times, as if fear of her being speaker was going to save them for accomplishing squat.  With a predictable bloodbath.

The GOP never actually accomplishes any conservative policies, and certainly never, never, rolls back any Democrat polices.  The entirely of their messaging is how if you don't vote for them, the Democrats will win.  And they're not ineffective and fake like the GOP - they'll actually pass their bills, and you won't like it!

So the average conservative voter, who doesn't follow politics as a hobby like some of us, is left with the choice of either voting for some commie trash, some ineffective Republican like Rubio who's soft as butter on guns and amnesty, or not bothering to vote.  While the Democrat leaning voter knows if they vote for the Democrat and they win, that person will push for all the things they say they will do.

No "we only control 1/2 of 1/3 of the government so don't expect us to do anything" like the drunk John Boehner whinnied about, when given an unearned Speakership, via the Tea Party movement which he did zero to create or even support (indeed the entirely of his tenure was comprised of him complaining that he wasn't able to surrender as much on the budget to Obama as he'd liked to have, as those meanie Tea Party types actually wanted to control spending).

"Vote for us, the other side will pass a lot of thing you don't like, we'll only pass a few", is not a winning strategy.

You add that to the utter and complete surrender of every intuition in America to the leftists (education, entertainment, sports, the media, Big Tech, government employees) because the GOP was too lazy and cowardly to fight the culture battles, and you have a party on the verge of irrelevance in the future of America.

I'm not happy about it.  I get zero joy in writing it.  But it's the truth.  The Democrat party accomplishes their agenda items, and fights for everything they say they'll do. The Republican party doesn't.

GOP unwillingness to DO anything is at the core of the problem.  The GOP would rather be the 'loyal opposition', and not the majority party.  As second fiddle, they get paid the same, have equal opportunities to sell their vote and their influence, can bash the other side for causing the problems, and not be held responsible.  Just cast your thoughts back to the way the House acted in the two barack hussein administrations.  Never once did they thwart the magic one, or even much try.
Remember, when the GOP wins the election, they take office.  When the dhimmicrats win the election, they take POWER.

Actually, they only occupy the office.  The entirety of the Federal government is still staffed by employees who didn't vote for the GOP, hate them, and spend the day figuring out ways to sabotage whatever directives do come from GOP elected officials.  

It's a chicken and the egg thing.  Which came first - weak Republicans who do nothing in office, or the media / entertainment / education / government employee industrial complex that fights tooth and nail against any Republican polices and makes it about impossible to accomplish anything?

Add to that the latest aspect of getting the FBI, American's very own KGB, to endlessly investigate elected officials they didn't vote for, while leaking constantly to a breathless media who runs out and posts in red letters "BREAKING NEWS: FBI Investigating GOP crimes!!!".

I don't know how we break out of this cycle, or if we can.  At this point, it's like a plane (Democrat) or a bus (Republican) to Tijuana.  Both get you to where you don't want to go, one just gets you there faster.  

I really don't disagree with your post.  The question is "what to do about it".

One of Trump's biggest accomplishments was flushing out the RINOs/moderates/globalists.  The GOP is much more "MAGA" than it was 5 years ago, thanks to Trump.  Ryan, Flake, and many others are gone.  Cheney will likely be voted out next year.  

5 moderate/Bushie GOP Senators are retiring next year.  There is an opportunity to elect 5 MAGA Senators to replace them.  There is a solid candidate running against Murkowski in Alaska, who will probably win.  And we are also on defense in Wisconsin (Johnson, who is one of the better Senators, will be in for a tough fight), and Grassley may retire in Iowa.  That is 8 seats that we need to run the table on just to keep even in the Senate.  Of course, those Republicans should be much better than the ones they are replacing.  

My only point here is that it is foolish to attempt to primary Rubio when we are playing defense in so many states next year.  2022 needs to be about laying the groundwork for a successful conservative win in 2024.  With a strong showing in 2022 and 2024, we can easily have 55 Senate seats.  And 60 is not out of the question.  We just need good candidates.

I'm not sure either.

The problem as I see it is that there's always a steady stream of just horrid GOP members, ready and waiting to fill the role of media darling.

McShitStain, the worst person I have ever voted for, finally croaked after a year of stealing salary from the taxpayer, lying around in bed waiting to die in office so there would be a big funeral, and were we done with that role - hell no.  Mittens jumped into that position of "Conscious of the GOP".

We got rid of the drunk John Bonher, only to have budget wonder boy Paul Ryan step into the job - who then proceeded to never actually pass a budget, and rely (on purpose) for CR tricks to get the budget they really wanted, that accomplished nothing they promised.  

It's like the ducks at a shooting gallery - knock one down, and another just pops up.

When you can upgrade you do - Voldemort is better than Skelletor.  If there was a better candidate than Rubio then that's who should be supported, but I don't think there is.  Best is to keep his feet to the fire this and next year on guns and amnesty, as you know he wants to surrender on both, and they drag him across the finish line in 22.

Yeah, but just change them one at a time each election.

The 2018 election cycle is a good example.  The GOP flipped 4 seats from the Dems.  One of them is outstanding (Hawley), and another (Rick Scott) has been better than I thought he would be.  And the other 2 Republicans were still improvements over the dems.

Blackburn replaced Corker (a rabid-never Trumper) in Tennessee.  Big improvement there.  

On the downside, Romney replaced Hatch in Utah.  Too bad Romney couldn't have stayed in Massachusetts and run for Senate there.

In 2020, there is an even bigger opportunity to shift the party right.  All 5 of the retiring GOP Senators are from the Bush wing of the party.  Tscabacka has a great chance to primary Murkoski in Alaska.  And New Hampshire, Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia will be opportunities for GOP flips with good candidates.  That is 10 seats right there.  When you consider there are only 34 seats up, that is a great opportunity.  It is better to focus energy on those 10 races than wasting resources to "primary" a somewhat conservative Rubio just because he isn't perfect.

Or Michigan or any of the other 14 states where he owns houses.  But those would have required work to win, while the Utah seat was easy.

I'd tend to agree about Rubio - he's weaselly, but he hasn't stabbed us in the back yet, and does the right thing in the end.  Better to win other races than have a big battle with him.  There's a line beyond which it's time to all out try to defeat someone - Mittens is in that category, while Rubio isn't.

As for Lisa M - even a primary loss won't get rid of her.  She'd just run as an Independent again, the Democrats would pull sail and support her, and she'd win again.  Alaska is pretty crooked, and she fits right in.

Agreed.  Alaska changed their system to a "ranked voting" election.  I don't like those, generally speaking, but in this case, I think it means Murkowski is done.  The last poll I saw had Tscabaka at 38%, the Dem at 26%, and Murky under 20%.  She can't play the "independent, write in candidate game" this time.

She opposed 2 of 3 Trump's Supreme Court nominees.  She needs to be replaced with an actual Republican.

So no primary system for Alaska anymore, just a single vote, with that foolish ranked choice system?

Interesting.  Now the issue though is that if say those numbers above are the final ones, then Tscabaka and the Dem would go to a comparison, and if a lot of Little Lisa's second choices were for the Dem, then conceivable the Democrat could win.  

But probably still preferable to the primary system, as she wont it in 2010 as an I after losing the primary.  

Would be a definite trade up.  Along with the turd Burr who insider traded stocks after a closed door Wuhan virus briefing, and did nothing to expose the FBI frame up of President Trump.