Heated Races in MA Tonight (9/01)

[StarstruckIllusion 53,580]

8 minutes ago, LilyLark said:

There's nothing wrong with a 20 year old and a 30 year old 95% of the time—but when the 20 year old is a student at the same college the 30 year old teaches at that is a problem. As I said, it is considered inappropriate and can basically get you suspended/fired (we have to watch videos on this type of sh*t). Grad students are aware that it is considered wrong, so a professor definitely knows that it would be considered against the rules and inappropriate. I'd be less grossed out if he had been a grad student, but he was a professor

TLDR: It's down to the power dynamics. I understand why people don't have an issue with the it, but 99% of the colleges (I would argue 100% probably) in the US have strict rules against that sort of thing. It may be a college town, but I'm pretty sure he can find someone who isn't a student. I mean...even one of my good friends who basically sleeps with anyone (no shame) would never, ever cross the line of f*cking a student (we were talking about the Morse thing a week ago or so).

There is no power dynamic. He did not sleep with his students. This is the equivalent of a Penn State grad student sleeping with a UC Berkeley teacher. There is a reason the college didn’t come out against Morse. Please realize dishonest people exist and they’re in your party trying to take others down to get ahead. The way a gay person started this attack is even worse.

You’re accidentally falling into the stereotypical homophobic trope that gay men are predators and it probably just cost Alex the race. Maybe you didn’t see the follow up story; but maybe take that as a sigh you need to expand your news intake sources. That’s exactly what I did after CNN let me down by believing in a Hillary landslide. Now I laugh at my 2016 self. 

[LilyLark 10,213]

8 minutes ago, JRCF29 said:

I think that the issue Morse's supporters have is that the relationships were, at the end of the day, consensual in nature. Maybe it was inappropriate, maybe it was poor judgement, but was it really a sexual misdeed? It's up to the voters to decide if it's inappropriate enough to warrant a vote against him. 

I get why people are supporting him and I don't consider it a "sexual misdeed" of sorts (nowhere near the level of say, harassment). It's just as someone who currently works in a similar situation (I teach an undergrad class, like most grad students), I know how it is considered a big red line in the sand even if it seems puritanical to people out of the academia bubble. It shows really poor judgement imo...at the same time, I probably would vote for him over Neal, regardless, if I lived in his area (which is pointless since Neal won).

Kind of interesting Neal and Markey both won. People keep trying to turn it into an ideological thing, but it seems more like entrenched incumbents winning for the millionth time. Happy for Markey, meh on Neal.

[LilyLark 10,213]

3 minutes ago, StarstruckIllusion said:

There is no power dynamic. He did not sleep with his students. This is the equivalent of a Penn State grad student sleeping with a UC Berkeley teacher. There is a reason the college didn’t come out against Morse. Please realize dishonest people exist and they’re in your party trying to take others down to get ahead. The way a gay person started this attack is even worse.

You’re accidentally falling into the stereotypical homophobic trope that gay men are predators and it probably just cost Alex the race. Maybe you didn’t see the follow up story; but maybe take that as a sigh you need to expand your news intake sources. That’s exactly what I did after CNN let me down by believing in a Hillary landslide. Now I laugh at my 2016 self. 

Okay, wow, I totally misunderstood. I thought the Intercept article was apparently wrong, too, because of an old tweet thread from Kate A. (who writes for the Intercept, funnily enough). The first story I heard was he slept with his own student, the second story was that he slept with a student at the same institution but one he didn't teach....Mess. If the student was at a totally different institution, who cares?

I do read a wide variety of sources, but this has been reported on in a super messy manner in my defense even from leftist sources.

[JRCF29 8,230]

4 minutes ago, LilyLark said:

Kind of interesting Neal and Markey both won.

Again, I'll wait to see if Boston breaks big for either candidate before I'll be comfortable calling it

[Kevbev 509]

1 minute ago, JRCF29 said:

Again, I'll wait to see if Boston breaks big for either candidate before I'll be comfortable calling it

Markey is almost certainly going to win Boston by a huge margin. It's over for Kennedy. 

[JRCF29 8,230]

10 minutes ago, Kevbev said:

Markey is almost certainly going to win Boston by a huge margin. It's over for Kennedy. 

The Boston Metro Area contains portions of Kennedy's district. If he doesn't post sizable (8-10 point) victories in those precincts, it's over

[Emvee 8,845]

It’s a shame about Alex Morse. 
 

Neal is as corrupt of a politician as can be. Why do we live in times like this? Because Americans keep moronically voting people like him into office. Sometimes even for DECADES. 

[Othon 34,299]

To sum up, Kennedy had a massive amount of establishment support, including from Pelosi, the fairly gigantic benefit of his family name (a family that's literally never lost a race in the state of Massachusetts until tonight) and was leading by up to 12 points a couple of months ago until the left and young people galvanized around Markey because of his support for the Green New Deal and pushed him to victory. A lesson that standing for progressive values can be an electoral boost.

I definitely need to elaborate on the stuff I'm seeing in here about the homophobic Morse smear. The college Democrat group that issued the statement that attempted to smear him as a predator literally planned to attack him that way months in advance, even going so far as to attempt to entrap him on dating apps and trick him into saying something that they could use against him. They were helped by the state Democratic party and their legal counsel, and the group apologized to Morse after the scheme was exposed publicly. Other college Democrat groups across the state have called for that chapter to be investigated and for the members who planned and issued that smear to be forced to resign. The only person that the group could even get to go on record to say that they'd hooked up with him was someone who didn't even know that Morse was the mayor of their town until afterwards. The notion that he exploited some sort of power dynamic to coerce anyone into having sex with him is ridiculous, and absolutely no one has gone on record accusing him of doing so.

This was pretty blatant (and sadly successful) attempt to weaponize homophobic stereotypes to smear a young, progressive mayor who was elected at the age of 22 for the crime of... having sex with other adults, none of whom were his students, just because he dared to challenge a powerful establishment Democrat. 

[JRCF29 8,230]

Update (10:35pm)

Boston's results have started to come in, and the minority vote that Kennedy's camp was counting on doesn't seem to be materializing. Additionally, Kennedy has lost badly in Newton and Medfield, both cities that are both reliably blue and that he represents in the House. The race has been called for Ed Markey, and his campaign is celebrating on social media already. I concur, and continue in my state of semi-disbelief that a Kennedy could lose a campaign in Massachusetts 

[NathanC 938]

1 hour ago, JRCF29 said:

Update (9:51pm)

Rep. Richard Neal has defeated Alex Morse to retain his seat; he is expected to be re-elected without major-party opposition in November. Neal's victory represents a loss for the progressive movement in a state home to one of its standard-bearers, Senator Elizabeth Warren, as well as one of it's rising stars in Rep. Ayanna Pressley, who represents a majority-minority district to the south of his. With the powerful gavel of the House Ways & Means Committee in his hands, the famed Irish peace activist will be in a position to continue and safeguard the ACA from attacks on the right- and left. 

Damnit, Neal has to go! great news for markey!

[Lion Heart 15,041]

I'm not surprised to see Kennedy lost for a Senate race that even he can't explain why he's running for. I also don't know what he's running on. I mean when you seriously tweet stuff like this... its pretty much over: