Dana Houle Profile picture
Family’s 1st HS grad. Worked for unions. Elected Dems. Did policy. Got rare disease. Nearly died 5 times. Getting healthy/writing/gardening/ferrying twins.
Jan 23 11 tweets 2 min read
1/Last 3-4 weeks the vibes about the election have significantly shifted. For three years I’ve been asking why people assumed that after 1-6, Dobbs, indictments, & cognitive decline that Trump would keep or even add to his 2020 voters. It’s always been a bad assumption 2/Part of the problem, of course, has been the media polls, which have seemed predicated on similar or greater Trump turnout (as if there are a lot of people who didn’t vote in 2016 or 2020 but now, after all that has happened since Nov 2020, finally felt strongly…
Dec 19, 2023 14 tweets 3 min read
1/More about that NYT poll:

Likely voters
Biden 47%
Trump 45%.

Among likely voters who voted in 2020?

Biden 53%
Trump 42%

10% of their respondents are non-2020 voters, which seems reasonable. But they favor Trump 55-33, which is wacky since they’ll skew young… 2/ FWIW, I doubt Biden is at 53% & leading by 11. Something more like 48-42 seems more plausible. But what I thing is happening—& I’ve talked to several pollsters & data people about this, it’s a mix mostly of what they’ve said—is public pollsters are worried…
Nov 13, 2023 8 tweets 2 min read
1/ A. Trump seems more cognitively healthy than Biden
B. 1-6/indictments/trials will have no effects on voters
C. Biden’s 5 pt margin will be wiped away by Biden voters now pro-Trump or think Biden is as bad as Trump
D. After underperforming in 2018/2020/2022 Repubs are now… 2/…seen by voters as a functional & serious party capable of governing
E. Dobbs no longer matters to women
F. There’s a large poll of non-voters who will vote in 2024 & favor Trump by 15 points (as in the Siena polls)
G. Trials won’t hamper Trump’s campaigning or…
Oct 16, 2023 4 tweets 1 min read
Weird to say it, but if he keeps the government open until January 2025, we may actually be better off w Speaker Jordan than w McCarthy or a Speaker Scalise. He may blow everything up, but from outside the Speaker’s office he would have anyway. Now he may see incentives in a CR/1 Jordan is the dog who caught the car. He’s in over his head. He’s the heckler about to be humiliated by the comedian. Whatever metaphor you want to use is fine as long as it conveys his achievement of going from outside rabble-rouser to Speaker will be disastrous for his career/2
Oct 3, 2023 5 tweets 1 min read
I’m not sure what Dems should do. But I think it’s unhelpful & bad political thinking to frame a vote to keep McCarthy as “saving McCarthy.” If they vote for him they’d be making a political calculation, & McCarthy the person wold be nearly irrelevant to that calculation /1 Fact is the best way for Dems to win the House next year is for Biden to win. Best thing the House could do is help Biden win. Most Americans will barely notice who’s the Speaker. But they might notice a resumption of the enhanced child tax credit. They might notice…/2
Apr 1, 2023 26 tweets 7 min read
Think of the worst people on Twitter. Your list may include some of these people:

Christopher Rufo
Bari Weiss
Jilani
Megyn Kelly
Sully
Shellenberger
Lee Fang
Trans haters
Anti-woke grifters
Rightwing operatives

Pay attention, bc they may be coming after your school board /1 I bring this up bc Tues there are elections, for school board in Evanston, & mayor in Chicago. In both cases there are connections to the dishonestly named Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism. In Evanston they’re likely running a stealth campaign…/2 fairforall.org
Mar 31, 2023 4 tweets 1 min read
Looking at a rough evening Here comes the hail
Mar 10, 2023 19 tweets 4 min read
According to @DLeonhardt, Michigan Dems repealing right to work (for less) shows that the “Dem Party again seems to be emphasizing organized labor”

I was the person who did labor policy for MI Senate Dems from 1998 to 2003. Democrats never stopped emphasizing organized labor /1 For 40 years Michigan Dems have been on the defensive on just about everything, maybe on nothing more than on the role of organized labor. Not just labor’s role in providing workers collective power to defend their rights & assert their interests in the workplace…. /2
Nov 11, 2022 6 tweets 2 min read
NY redistricting hurt Dems. But look deeper. Nationally most Dems were = or + Biden #’s. Except Higgins (Buffalo) NY Dems underperformed Biden.*

But go beyond NYS. In CT Hayes/Himes/DeLauro underperformed Biden. Courtney did not. Northern NJ Dems underperformed Biden…/1 …but the Dem incumbents in South Jersey did not.

In short, all Dems in NYS underperformed. But so did CT/NJ Dems in the NYC media market

Why?

A guess: the messaging on crime from Adams & Zeldin hurt Dems not just within NYS but everywhere in the NYC media market. /2
Oct 26, 2022 12 tweets 3 min read
This is nearly a Platonic form of political press bullshit. The reporters know it’s bullshit. But the NYT plowed ahead w a bullshit headline & laughably predictable & lazy exercise in dishonesty

First, I saw the headline & thought “gotta be Rendell”…/1 nytimes.com/2022/10/26/us/… When lazy reporters, or reporters desperate to produce what they know is bullshit but was demanded by their editors, need a “Dems in disarray” quote from a Dem, they call Ed Rendell, Dick Harpootlian, or another of the 6-8 bitter has-beens who will always take a call from…/2
Oct 25, 2022 4 tweets 1 min read
I guess I got that one right It’s not as bad as I thought yesterday, when I saw a picture of a press conference w Jayapal at the mic & Raskin & others behind her. I didn’t look closely then, but it must have been an old photo (why run it?), bc they didn’t have a press conference.

But also doesn’t…
Oct 11, 2022 8 tweets 3 min read
I question the assumption that it’s only now that a kid might benefit from therapy.

Need for mental health care for kids/teens far exceeds capacity. And being a teen is often hard. But his article is dubious

First, he says “suicides have been increasing since 2007… …passing homicide as the second-leading cause of death for those ages 10-24.”

I checked the date of his article. It was published today. So why is he using 8 year old data?

He linked to research published in 2016 using data from 2014. Does that data support his claim…
Aug 3, 2022 20 tweets 4 min read
Kansas has been at the center of abortion as a political issue from the beginning. It’s worth looking at Kansas’ history to grasp the momentousness of tonight’s victory for the right of women to control their bodies

/1
Go back to the beginning of Kansas. It was born in controversy. (Look up “Bleeding Kansas.”) It was founded in part by abolitionists from MA. It’s admission to the US was intertwined with the fight over slavery. This mural of the militant abolitionist John Brown… /2
Jul 6, 2022 4 tweets 1 min read
What concrete policy/legal actions can Biden/Cong Dems take to respond to Dobbs &/or SCOTUS’s perversion of the Second Amendment?

Please give a concrete answer, or STFU about Biden/Congressional Dems, & face the reality that nothing really changes until we elect many more Dems Don’t want to see this Q asked every day?

Unfollow me now.

Because I’m going to ask this Q every day. Because people need to confront the reality that there’s no easy solution, there’s little to nothing Biden/Cong Dems can do now, & it only changes by electing many more Dems
Jul 4, 2022 5 tweets 2 min read
Well, I guess I need to tell the kids that we’re not going to the parade, because it’s been cancelled, because at a parade 10 miles away somebody shot a bunch of people & nobody has caught the shooter

Happy Fourth Of July everyone!

Also, fuck you Supreme Court.

Fuck you. Today was going to be the kids’ first parade.

At least they’re under a shelter-in-place order, like everyone 10 miles north of us.
Mar 29, 2022 4 tweets 1 min read
If DoJ isn’t moving aggressively by May 1 Biden should ask for his resignation. Fair point, but a interim AG can approve indictments. Which Garland hasn’t done.
Dec 30, 2021 4 tweets 2 min read
Angry w my wife for telling me that @ChiPubSchools has a presser RE return to school, bc it’s making me so angry w their dishonest, stupid incompetence

They’re disinfecting schools!
There hasn’t been a surge in infections since Omicron hit!*

*schools have been closed 2 weeks Yet again, @ChiPubSchools is treating COVID mostly as a labor management issue. Asked what their plans are if there’s mass absenteeism (like happening in _every_industry) the CEO said they’re not seeing a rise in absenteeism

Schools have been on break 2 weeks! Then…
Dec 30, 2021 11 tweets 2 min read
There’s no “median American,” but if there were she’d be a 38 year old white woman w some college who lives in the Missouri Ozarks, where Trump got 85% of the vote. Or maybe the median American is a 38 year old intersex person who’s roughly 60% non-Hispanic white, 18% Hispanic, 13% black, 6% Asian, & 3% Native American/Hawaiian/Native Alaskan. And lives in the Missouri Ozarks.
Dec 29, 2021 4 tweets 1 min read
Harry Reid was a fucking MAN I wrote this about Harry Reid in 2003. He grew up in a house without plumbing made out of railroad ties. He had a big chip on his shoulder, but that chip wasn’t as big as his heart. There is nobody in politics in my lifetime who I admired more. thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurra…
Dec 28, 2021 4 tweets 1 min read
[For some reason 538 has the Biden/James district a tossup but the Trump/Peters lean Republican]

I’m pretty sure that under the new map it’s 8-5 Whitmer, & I’m guessing the SW MI seat was close.

Unless 2022 is a Repub blowout Dems could net 1-2 seats in MI /2 Incumbency may be important in Michigan in 2022. A few members have already announced. Dem Elissa Slotkin won a Trump seat in 2020, she’s running in the tossup Lansing seat. Dem Dan Kildee is running in the lean Dem Flint seat. They’re both very strong candidates. /3
Dec 28, 2021 5 tweets 1 min read
People actually fall for this. [cracks knuckles, prepares to block a couple hundred blockheads dumb enough to trust Sirota]