This is a smart recap of why Nina Turner lost from someone who was actually on the ground in Ohio. A quick recap:
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Establishment Democrats absolutely flooded Cleveland with anti-Turner content in the month leading up to the election. You couldn't look around without seeing a billboard quoting Turner saying "voting Biden is like eating half a bowl of shit." That was an effective attack because most Democratic primary voters like Biden and the Democratic Party (sadly). It wasn't impossible to overcome (Turner almost won!), but it was effective. TV and billboard ads are extremely powerful tools in electoral politics because the average voter is 55 years old and watches 5 hours of TV a day (this is not an exaggeration).
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Nina Turner ran a positive campaign, Shontel Brown saw she was down big and went negative first. Negative campaigning works. When Turner saw her internal polls collapsing she went negative, but it was too little too late.
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Turner's ground game was not very strong. They sent in the cavalry and flooded Cleveland with volunteers once the race tightened, but she needed to be doing that for months, not weeks.
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Yes, dark money sucks. But there's no invisible referee coming to save us from dark money. Part of fighting a huge, corrupt establishment is understanding that they're going to throw every dirty trick they have at you. And remember, even with the dark money, Turner had more total money than Brown.
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Jim Clyburn had nothing to do with this race. Most people in OH-11 don't know who he is. He's a power broker in South Carolina, not nationally.
I personally found Nina Turner to be likeable and charming. She seems like a swell person and her heart seems to be in the right place. It's saddening to know that the "best politician with the best policies" is not who wins. It's the one with the shadowy cabal of dark money. I think the Democratic Party believes if they become conservative enough, their false idol of capital will give them an unholy blessing from the accursed ghost of Ronald Reagan. They will hinder even the smallest forms of progress.
The Democrat personality is one of solemn martyrdom. You are the only one who understands how these complicated issues. You are the only one who is willing to follow procedure even when it is hard. You are the only one who is both kind and intelligent, neither falling to base tribalism nor to cold rational disinterest. You are a servant of the people, doomed to continue on ringing the bell. It is a sacrifice you make because it is the right thing to do
Democrats are the virgin meme except unironically