I don’t know how many of you know the name Rachel Bitecofer today, but I’ll bet that as of November 4, 2020 you all will.
I first heard about her on the Rachel Maddow show. Not that she had been on Rachel’s program, but she was on MSNBC with Maddow’s cohost, Lawrence O’Donnell, and Maddow was relaying what she’d told O’Donnell — and my ears literally perked up to listen to her.
The woman who decided to get a degree in political science because she heard Rachel Maddow on the radio was suddenly on Rachel Maddow’s network.
In the MSNBC Green Room before a guest appearance on “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell,” she wrote on the chalkboard: “Rachel’s Bucket List: Make it to MSNBC Green Room.”
Oh her desk, she has a name plate which reads:
I came to slay, bitch
The story at that link is well worth the read. Because Rachel Bitecofer has found a new way to look at US elections. One which makes a lot of sense to me, cause it’s basically what I’ve been saying about elections in the US for about 20 years. That what matters isn’t a few “swing” states and their supposed ‘conflicted independent voters’ who was as likely to vote R as D. It’s how big a piece of the voting public the Democrats have in their corner and how well they TURN THOSE VOTERS OUT. Also, how much the Base of the Democrats feels negatively about the Republicans & Trump.
Since she was new on the forecasting scene, having sat out the 2016 election, Bitecofer took to Twitter, where she had a mere 600-odd followers, and started flogging her analysis relentlessly. “I decided I’d market it on Twitter by being kind of like this clunky annoying little sister on all the big threads. I would jump on Nate Cohn and Nate Silver threads to promote the forecast. And it was just when the generic ballot was starting to narrow and all the other analysts were saying, ‘Oh the Democrats are going to screw this up. They are overreaching. They are going to get 23 seats if they are lucky.’ And I just came out swinging.”
And while other forecasters picked a range, Bitecofer picked a number—42, only one more than the actual number of seats Democrats ended up winning in the House. (As other forecasters saw the Democrats’ chances dropping, she revised it upward in the race’s waning days, saying in the final week that the Democrats would net 45 seats.) The forecast, and the relentless Twitter-hyping, brought her recognition.
This is her appearance on The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell:
YouTube VideoThen she posted this on her Twitter feed:
Trump�s 2016 path to the White House, which was the political equivalent of getting dealt a Royal Flush in poker, is probably not replicable in 2020 with an agitated Democratic electorate. Find out why Dems are poised to win the Electoral College https://t.co/BKwnuEMP0Cpic.twitter.com/7QWA90WOUD
— Rachel "The Doc" Bitecofer ðÂ�Â�Â�ðÂ�Â�ÂðÂ�Â�Â� (@RachelBitecofer) July 1, 2019
In the thread from that Tweet Bitecofer also posted this:
The GOP turnout will be very strong, and they understand how to motivate their voters better, AND understand that elections in the polarized era are about mobilization. Ds still haven't even accepted this as fact.
— Rachel "The Doc" Bitecofer ðÂ�Â�Â�ðÂ�Â�ÂðÂ�Â�Â� (@RachelBitecofer) July 1, 2019
From Rachel’s article “With 16 Months to go, Negative Partisanship Predicts the 2020 Presidential Election” also linked in the Tweet above:
Does the Democrat’s nominee matter? Sure, to an extent. If the ticket has a woman, a person of color or a Latino, or a female who is also a person of color, Democratic Party turnout will surge more in really important places. If the nominee is Biden he’d be well-advised to consider Democratic voter turnout his number one consideration when drawing his running mate to avoid the critical mistake made by Hillary Clinton in 2016. This is true for any of the white male candidates. If the nominee hails from the progressive wing of the party, it will provoke massive handwringing both within the party and the media that if not controlled could become self-reinforcing. But the Democrats are not complacent like they were in 2016 and I doubt there is any amount of polling or favorable forecasts that will make them so. That fear will play a crucial role in their 2020 victory. We will not see a divided Democratic Party in 2020.
So…
all that considered, it appears that should persons of color wish to foment a silent coup and change the way that government in America works, from the White House down to the Traffic Court in each County in the country?
They should stop marching in rallies and start organizing the biggest voter registration drive in the history of these United States. There are well over 50 Million people eligible to vote who are NOT REGISTERED to vote. They are in every state and in every county.
What if the GOP woke up on November 4, 2020 and found out that they only held 30% of the seats in every legislative body in the country? Including the United States Senate and the Oval Office.
That would give communities and states and the U.S. Congress at least two years to push through real progressive legislation. To shift the focus of federal tax dollars from the Perpetual War Machine to International Diplomacy and Infrastructure at home (the coattails from Infrastructure is jobs, rising tax revenue, increased consumer spending, rising stock market, Bull markets); spending that Peace Dividend will be good for everyone except the truly wealthy. They’ll just have to get used to being happy with the fortunes they’ve amassed. Cause the spigot to the Federal Teat is gonna be closed until further notice.
IMAGINE what that America could look like. Amend the 2nd out of the Constitution or at least amend it enough to ensure another case like Heller will never get a hearing before the Supreme Court. Clean out corrupt local law enforcement, put cameras you cannot turn off on every law enforcement officer who wants to keep their job, re-write the written Code of Conduct for local police forces and run a national ‘no questions asked’ firearm buyback program as long as people keep turning them in. Open a Bank of the United States for residential home loans and college loans and banking. Non-profit, of course.
The sky’s the limit, if the people whose lives could be enriched immensely will step out of their homes and help people in their community get registered to vote, then help them get to the ballot box on November 3rd.
If this sounds crazy, don’t blame me. Blame the gal with that name plate, she riled me up!
#GetRegistered
#VOTE
Vote.org— check your own Voter Registration
vote.org/Voter Registration Rules — Check rules for Voter Registration in your State
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Oh, and by “people of color” I meant everyone, you know people of every color, even the icky ones like fishbelly white (like me, I avoid the sun like a vampire). 👍