By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Here’s Taibbi’s drinking game. Here are live updates from the Times, Politico, and FOX.
The conventional wisdom seems to be — handicappers, please add your comments! — that this is not a “wave year” for Republicans. Democrats will lose the House, but not much, and retain the Senate. Normally, my heuristic would be that the conventional wisdom is wrong, but my current heuristic is that this is the stupidest timeline, and that would be the stupidest outcome, since the Democrat gerontocracy’s pasty white fundamentals would remain firmly planted in the seats of power (“If only a few votes in a few states hadn’t flipped by Putin!”) Not that the color of the pasty fundamentals matters much, if the Congressional Black Caucus takes over. Amy Cook expresses the conventional wisdom well:
Ultimately, however, I’m a big believer in the fundamentals. And right now, the mood of the electorate is dour. The president is unpopular. And inflation remains a persistent and unrelenting pressure point in the lives of average Americans. Those fundamentals alone give Republicans an outsized advantage. Keeping the bottom from dropping out on Democrats, however, are some structural fundamentals of their own: an optimal Senate map with weak/flawed GOP opponents in those key races; a House map that is also pretty well-sorted; a polarized electorate that rarely defects from its partisan leanings; and a Democratic base that is more engaged than we’d expect to see in a ‘tsunami’ year.
“Dour”? My shorter OED defines “dour” as “gloomily taciturn; sullen.” I don’t know about that; but I’m not sure there’s a word for “incandescent rage so deeply impacted that it turns to boredom”; perhaps the Germans have one.
In any case, here are some bellwether races to watch in case you need to get to bed early: Cook Political Report suggests the PA Senate, since if Fetterman wins, that means Democrats can afford to lose another incumbent, and OH-13, a district Biden narrowly carried in 2020. Blake Hounshell suggests three House races in Virginia, ordering them from most to least vulnerable: Elaine Luria (VA-2), Abigail Spanberger (VA-7), and Jennifer Wexton (VA-10), as indicators that a Republican victory is a “Red Ripple,” a “Red Wave”, or a “Red Tsunami” respectively.
Readers, if you have races that you consider especially important or interesting, please add them in comments!
On the bright side, The 2024 Presidential campaign begins tomorrow. Bottoms up!
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Preeeeeeeesent! (The punch line delivered here, via YouTube)
LOL
Anecdotally, polling places here were busy this morning, and just caught an alley neighbor heading out to to catch the polls before closing. Lots of stories about larger number of yout’s voting. Traditionally higher turnout favors Dems, but are these trends nationwide as opposed to confined to largely blue ChicagoLand? Would love to read others’ observations/anecdotes!
Here in greater Rochester NY the lines were longer than I’ve seen since 2016. Singletary, the former city police chief is giving the incumbent Morelle (d) a run for his life in the seat Louise Slaughter held for over 30 years.
If Zeldin wins, it’s because Hochul has the personality of a houseplant.
> If Zeldin wins, it’s because Hochul has the personality of a houseplant.
LOL
Indeed.
Yep, personality talks, policy walks. Or something like that.
Monstera is one thing, but Dionaea is quite another.
She’s right, though: We all need a drink.
south side of the city, spent an exhausting two hours mostly standing in line. only one judge so a bottleneck and the guy at the door kept misinforming voters they only had until 7p to vote. actually, everyone in line by 7 gets to vote.
they switched polling places right before this election (I got sent from my usual location to the one that was so backed up) and the lady behind me realized she was supposed to be at another location about an hour into the wait and was informed she could still vote there. when she finally made it to the front, the person helping her said the only way for her to vote was she would have to fill out a whole new registration and it would take 10 minutes and there were so many people still in line, was she really sure she wanted to wait?
when the lady said YES! the person started complaining about how late she was gonna have to stay.
oh, and they ran out of “privacy sleeves” so were asking people if they really needed them. there were only six booths, all up the steep steps to the stage of a school auditorium, so all around about as user-unfriendly an experience as they could make it.
fitting, somehow…
Compare that to our North American Deep South Half Horse Town, metropolitan population around 55,000.
Our polling place is in the second biggest Baptist church’s stand alone Youth Activities Centre, which was originally, I am told, a national chain fast food outlet. (The building has the dimensions and layout of an older design fast food “burger joint.”) It’s located on a street corner of the Main Drag and feeder street to the Zoo, so, prime real estate in a former life. Except for this building, the entire city block around it has been turned, many years ago I am told, into a parking lot for the church.
As I stated below, the polling lay out is that you enter, pass by the check in spot, and then the political passe, and then vote on paper sheets, legal sized paper, at screened sit down stations ranged along a trio of collapsible picnic tables. Then circle round to deposit the paper ballots into a machine, much like the one described by, I believe Carolinian over on another post comment stream.
Now, the Cynical Geezer in me wonders if the potential political makeup of the voting population of districts comes into consideration as to how “difficult” voting is made. I am a lonely Leftist in a Sea of Red town. The college crowd here is mainly comprised of credential seekers aspiring to become bourgeoisie. Very little if any philosophical depths on display. Thus, my cynical side observes, voting is fairly easy. Chicago, on the other hand….
Stay safe.
> … as user-unfriendly an experience as they could make it.
Sorry to hear, but sadly par for the course in many places I followed last set of primaries and the general.
> punch line
Thanks for the belly laugh!
Sorry, I’m a fraud, but my hope is Spanburger gets crushed and Team Blue holds.
Yep, CIA Dems have to go. The Supreme Court already crushed abortion rights, so I think Vega, if she wins, will be a short- timer herself.
Every CIA Dem loss should be celebrated with this (via Twitter) … 😂
Hey, I live down in the political wasteland, but I am celebrating. Anna Eskamani is winning re-election in FL State House District 42, and Maxwell Frost will be the youngest Progressive elected to the U.S. House–FL US House District 10. Yee-HAW!!
Just came across this-
‘While the continental US is still voting in the midterms, the island of Guam in the western Pacific has already announced its election results, on Wednesday morning local time. Democrats have managed to hold onto the governor’s mansion and the legislature, but the territory’s non-voting delegate in the House of Representatives will be a Republican.
James Moylan received 52.19% of the vote, Pacific Daily News reported, citing Guam’s election authorities. He is only the second Republican to represent Guam in Congress since the delegate position was created in 1970. Vicente Tomas Garrido Blaz was the first, serving from 1985 to 1993.’
https://www.rt.com/news/566179-midterms-guam-republican-victory/
Bbbbut– Surely the Democrats will have a good night. After all, Democracy Itself is at Stake!
So, get out the Whiskey and take two shots, if you’re playing Taibbi’s game…..
Gin and tonic – a double.
Thanks for the permission! Definitely need that second shot of gin …
Bought myself a bottle of huckleberry vodka from 360. It’s rather good. We’ll see how the night goes. Regardless material benefits aren’t on the ballot.
I consider myself a long-term thinker, so the race I’m watching the most is recreational weed in Missouri. I’m gonna need it for a few years no matter who wins the other races.
Blast and expletives! The NYT link goes straight to a paywall. I should a knowed.
Voted this AM early and was one of two ‘voters’ in the place. I did notice that the poll workers were all PMC and Adjacents, or at least they had that look. [Stylish “casual day at work” clothing, ‘chic’ accoutrements, etc.]
The poll watchers were strictly Ballroom Dancing level PMCs. Dressed to the eights and with that steely eyed glint. Eyes constantly moving, the ‘professional’ smile for one and all, and that indefinable air of “quality.”
Out of a dozen people there, I was the only one wearing a mask.
Stay safe. It is a Republic if we can keep it.
Until our local militia/tax evader/evang church hightailed it for Idaho* some 6 years ago, the flock all volunteered to be poll workers and it always gave me the creeps, those creeps being anywhere near the workings.
* Idaho’s gain is our gain
I like to call it “Private Idaho.” (Too many puns to elucidate.)
Stay safe up in the ‘Defensible Position.’
Don’t know if this will work past the initial load as the site is constantly updating…
https://archive.ph/a0zK4
Thank you. The NC commenteriat is the bestest commenteriat!
What to know as the election hurtles toward a conclusion.
Hurtle, interesting usage here.
move or cause to move at a great speed, typically in a wildly uncontrolled manner.
“a runaway car hurtled toward them”
> they had that look
Social capital congealed into consumer goods. The right sort of consumer good….
I feel confident My Kevin (since ’07) will prevail in his race against an earnest nobody, but wouldn’t it be something if Kev was given the toss on the verge of being in charge of the big house?
Did you mean that he may be in charge of the big house or that he should be in the big house?
I’d be fine with Spanberger losing, if only because of that time she cried on the conference call post-2020. So far, CNN is showing that Luria is beating Spanberger. Time will tell!
Nope.
No such luck.
> incandescent rage so deeply impacted that it turns to boredom
I’ll suggest vexation, from Latin vexare “to shake, jolt, toss violently.” Roget lists synonyms of annoyance, anxiety, bane, evil, and resentment, with ‘annoyance’ as a synonym of ‘boredom’, and ‘resentment’ with ‘anger’. Elevate with a nuance of Isaiah 65:14:
ye shall cry for sorrow of heart, and shall howl for vexation of spirit.
Definitely today’s Word o’ the Day.
“I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit” – Eccles 1:14 (KJV) {And, in the spirit of Douglas Adams [Time is an illusion; lunchtime doubly so]}, politics is double vanity and vexation of spirit.
I didn’t see this posted anywhere: ‘Putin’s Chef’ Ridicules U.S. News Outlets Apparently a social media account named after Prigozhin tweeted something about how precisely they were about to meddle with the US elections. Naturally some US media, and the WH ran with it, but it somehow blossomed into a micro-genre of Russian meddling memes.
For example:
It’s amazing what can happen when you don’t teach civics. How am electionizing works?
They should go full bore and joke about how they have created legions of pod people to infiltrate US. (Yes, I realize that The Invasion of Body Snatchers was the product of Cold War era mindset.)
see moa on that one…
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/11/putins-chef-ridicules-us-news-outlets-adds-election-interference-comedy-sketch.html#more
Politico says it will take days to tally the votes, enough votes, to know who or what is winning. I clearly recall election after election in which the result was at worst known the next day. Kennedy-Nixon in 1960 was as tight as can be. The decision was in before dawn on Wednesday. All of the expensive equipment, and according to a person at my polling it keeps jamming, all the accommodations, the mail in votes, early voting etc. etc. ad nauseam have served to create a situation perfect for those who would cry foul, and persons of that ilk seem to be proliferating like guinea worms. That makes a mockery of “election day.” The ancient clanking voting machines used in New York were far more efficient that the bizarre and cumbersome, but digital and therefore supposedly better, slicker, of course much more expensive to someone’s profit … why even finish the sentence. Paper ballots, hand marked, hand counted in public. Final note: even with my reading glasses, I found the ballot not at all easy to read.)
But! Before before assuming active malice, remember how enticing high tech bling is to the PMC. An MBA will tell you hand counting hand marked paper ballots is not efficient. A Good Clerk will tell you all you need is interested volunteers, a hot dog wagon, and silly hats.
PMC’s all about passive malice.
Kentucky Open Thread: add your in-state or out-of-state perspectives/stories:
Context: In a state that will go nearly completely to Republicans this inner Bluegrass resident has less interest in who wins. I’m interested in margin of victory and rural/city splits–momentum for inner and cross-party transformation. I really really want to see how Geoff Young (KY 6) results compare against other state races. Young is the anti-war/anti-CIA candidate who has been loudly and unanimously shunned by state Dems; the other state candidates were mostly just ignored by the KDP. Curious also to compare Young’s race also against Charles Booker (D), who will lose to Rand Paul. Booker has been loudly supported by the state party apparatus as a progressive test case and “Holler to Hood” strategy.
Also interested in the vote on KY Amendment 2, which would bar the state from considering the constitutionality of abortion. Proposed by KY Republicans; opposed by Dems.
https://theintercept.com/2022/11/06/kentucky-abortion-amendment-2/
9:00 PM results update
Senate: Paul over Booker (58/42).
KY 1 Comer (R) over Ausbrooks (D) (71/29)
KY 5 (Trillbillies district): Hal Rogers (R) over Halblieb (D) (81/19)
KY 6 (Lexington): Barr over Young (anti-war D) (62/37)
KY 2 features NoC poster Hank Linderman. He lost to Guthrie (R). Currently that race is running 71/29.
All the above races have been called. I’ll report back on changing win percentages and Amendment 2 and a few other things.
From Rand Paul’s victory speech: “The greatest disseminator of misinformation is the government.” Paraphrasing 2nd part: Both left and right should know better than to allow the state to be the arbiter of truth (truth ministry). Lots of Fauci bashing and promises for investigations.
From Charles Booker concession speech: We won by hearing all your voices. The Holler to the Hood. Make noise if you believe KY is worth fighting for. Make some noise if you believe _insert other things_ are worth fighting for…. (Paraphrasing.)
I’ll update to this thread later if that’s OK w/ moderators.
KY theme song for this update:
The Losers (misnamed as “Trees” in this youtube video), by the Lexington musician Otto Helmuth, formerly of the Blueberries
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9_BPHuD_Jc
Kentucky Thread: Local/state concerns
KY Amendment 2 on disallowing abortion to be written into state constitution: No-vote winning by around 55/45 tally. (“No” is Dem/pro-abortion faction.) One of few Dem-endorsed victories in state. Does that make us Kansas-like?
More locally, this inner Bluegrass resident is interested in the Louisville Mayoral race. Louisville is in the shadow of the Breonna Taylor protests and comes about 15 years into Louisville’s “creative class” pillaging of city resources for a tourist-centric upscaling of downtown. The Democrat candidate for Mayor, Craig Greenberg, is a downtown developer who is one of the most visible faces of that pillaging. The Republican candidate, meanwhile, is the mayor of Louisville’s “sub-cities.” Greenberg should win–Louisville is a Democrat city and Greenberg’s partnered w/ old school power brokers–but I’m curious how much of Louisville’s black West Enders and city-wide activists are gonna go to bat for him.
Currently, Greenberg (D) v. Dieruf (R) is 57/42.
Here in Lexington, a big bummer. We citizens got to pick between an incumbent Republican who does a good Thatcher impersonation; our alternative was a guy who runs his “family foundation,” seeded by about $300 million in funds from when his dad sold his start-up tech company in the mid-aughts. Mr. Family Foundation represented the progressive edge of possible. Thatcher won 71/29.
And our city council is gonna be bad, too. PMC, slum-lord candidate, and a family legacy Dem. Ugh.
KY Theme song for this post is from Sturgill Simpson, who had the good sense to flee Lexington for Nashville. It’s turtles all the way down.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gBV-Nzq7Pg
Thanks for sharing!
12:26am update:
Senate: Paul over Booker (61/39). He lost 2 more previously Dem counties. Only won Louisville and Lexington.
KY 4 (NorthernKY); Thomas Massie (R) over Lehman (D) (65/31)
KY 5 (Trillbillies district): Hal Rogers (R) over Halblieb (D) (82/18)
KY 3 (Louisville): Morgan McGarvey (D) over Ray (R) (62/38) [Only Dem win]
KY 6 (Lexington): Andy Barr over Young (anti-war D) (64/35)
KY 1 (West KY) James Comer (R) over Ausbrooks (D) (75/25)
KY 2 (Naked Cap poster Hank Linderman). Linderman lost to Guthrie (R). S71/29.
Greenberg (D) won Louisville Mayor over Dieruf (R), 51.5/46.5
Looks like KY Amendment 2 failed. 53/47. We join Kansas and Nebraska (others?) in turning down anti-abortion bills.
In solidarity with our midwestern brethren and sistren, music from Berea-based musicians The Local Honeys, “Dumba**, Nebraska”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp0HBJgly-I
> Geoff Young (KY 6)
Young gets over 40%? That’s an earthquake, if Democrats could see it. I mean:
Jimmy Dore segment with Young:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_ynTduON-E
if I were in Kentucky, he’d get my vote
hope he hangs in there and runs again
If we’d had someone like Young running in Georgia, I would have voted in a contested race, instead of just on the ballot initiatives.
In Virginia: Luria down 10 points. Spanberger down 2 points. Wexton up 6 or 7 points. About 85% in. Looking like a small red wave.
Thanks!
Illinois and Chicago suburbia update:
Pritzker wins big on Governor. Republicans chose downstate candidate Darren Bailey instead of suburban-area Aurora mayor and more moderate Richard Irwin. Big mistake.
With 30ish percent so far across the Chicago suburb congressional districts, Democrats holding steady. The candidates Casten and Underwood were seen as most vulnerable in their re-drawn districts, but so far, they’re holding the lead.
The Ds supported Baily in the primaries so I guess their strategy of supporting the most extreme opposition in the primary worked in this instance.
Understatement. JB ‘entity’ sent money to Bailey campaign through the back door.
Weirdest thing I saw tonight: Nomadic Warriors For Pritzker (via #Twitter)
=-)
Went to the usual polling place, large church parking lot was packed, line was out the door — didn’t expect that at 2:15! Can only imagine what it must have been like during evening rush hour.
This is a bright red district, so it’s not likely that the large turnout will favor Dems. GOP YouTube and radio ads have been aggressive, a lot of them outright lies (my personal favorite: “Voted for the Defund the Police Act,” closely followed by image of Dem candidate superimposed on group of AOC, Bernie & Pelosi). Pretty much reruns of ads that won back the R congressional seat in 2020, which were devastatingly effective, evidently enraging the civil libertarians and terrifying Family Values folks with visions of marauding criminals in the streets, billions of their hard-earned tax dollars going to feed, house, and provide healthcare for boatloads of unwashed, lazy brown people, and ZOMG SOCIALISM!!!!!!!
In this north Atlanta suburb, there was zero line at the two polling places I checked. Lots of early voting they say.
Hershel Walker just passed Raphael Warnok by a point, and Brian Kemp is now quite a bit ahead of Stacey Abrams by maybe 7 points. Georgia requires 50% plus to win outright, so the Senate race may not be decided and it would be gazillions more ads in the Walker/Warnok run-off, and we would find out more dire secrets.
Georgia Results that updates often
Georgia Federal and Statewide Offices Results
I’ll probably still get political mailings in December. (facepalm)
Every (family blog) day, no less. Plus the emails, phone calls and texts from numbers I haven’t managed to block yet exhorting me to vote in the run-off.
Interesting that Abrams is so badly underperforming compared to Warnock.
Abrams was always overrated. Classic case of someone who failed upwards by cozying up with the senior party leadership and the corporate media.
There were many warning signs, including previous elections.
> Classic case of someone who failed upwards
The operational definition of “rising star.” Maybe they’ll put Abrams (or Beto) in charge of something important for 2024….
> Hershel Walker just passed Raphael Warnok by a point
Looks like a run-off, since neither candidate broke 50%:
And for those with long memories, like me:
I guess Abrams has shown that leaving your home state to hang out with Neera Tanden in DC for a few years is not necessarily the best qualification to run for governor.
Congratulations to Lambert, the red ripple prediction is looking pretty good.
Not much to report here in Arizona. The democrats are all running ahead, mostly by about the same amount. So if the republicans catch up, they may catch up across the board. Dem secretary of state candidate is running about 2 points ahead of the others.
Votes are coming in quickly and the Arizona secretary of state now says 57% reporting. The democrat candidates are mostly ahead by more than 10 points, so the election day and mail ballots would have to be very heavily republican to catch up. I’m thinking the democrats overperform here.
This is not necessarily inconsistent with what IM Doc has been reporting. If you asked me a few weeks ago, I probably would have said I was voting republican to send the dems a message of extreme disapproval. Also, I will be glad if Biden gets at least one house of congress in opposition, to reign in his Dr. Strangelove tendencies in Ukraine.
But then I got out the ballot yesterday and looked at the raving loonies who were actually listed on the R side in Arizona, and I just could not pull the trigger.
I think the big losers tonight are going to be Trump and Biden.
I think that is a good thing.
Agreed. The sooner we move on from this pathetic bum-fight in the alzheimers wing of the nursing home the better.
Huh. The Arizona returns slowed to a crawl and then started going backwards. We went from 62% reporting to 57% reporting. I’m sure that won’t get the conspiracy theorists going.
At this point I’m not sure a red ripple would be the stupidest timeline.
A narrow house majority would give the republicans control, which means a decent chance Pelosi retires to spend more time with her ice cream freezer and Paul. The republicans only need a one seat majority to investigate Hunter Biden to their heart’s content, and I’m OK with that. I’m also OK with somebody keeping an adversarial eye on how the opening phases of WWIII in Ukraine are conducted. It would be better if somebody on the scene was halfway sane, but that was never a possibility.
If the democrats keep the senate, that means Creepy Joe could be removed and President Harris could get a successor confirmed as vice president. Harris being president is a terrible result, but not necessarily worse than Creepy Joe. Having Kevin McCarthy as her successor would not improve the situation and makes Creepy Joe’s removal significantly less likely.
Over all I am feeling slightly better than my normal state of 100% pessimistic.
The election seems a bit closer than what (partisan) people were hoping for, but not too different from pollsters were expecting. I agree with Lambert that this is a terrible outcome, or, “the stupidest timeline.”. There will be accusations of funny business from both sides and vast numbers of people will believe them (Dems will blame the Magical Russian conjuring up Republican votes (or making Dem votes disappear). Reps will blame Democratic election stealing schemes generating Democratic votes out of thin air (or making Rep votes vanish). Most (or, let’s face it, all of them) will be as fictitious as Japanese bombers over LA during the night between Feb 24 and 25, 1942…but their absence did not unmake the Battle of Los Angeles. This will do irreparable harm to credibility of democratic institutions, though, for really long time.
The old WP slogan was wrong. Democracy dies in the middle of loud and hysterical screams by “everyone” about “saving” it on a brightly lit stage.
“This will do irreparable harm to credibility of democratic institutions…”
As if those institutions were not already so very flawed.
Not so flawed that they can’t get much worse. Watch this space.
> not too different from pollsters were expecting
I don’t think the pollsters can be said to do more than throw darts at a board, so far as the polls go*. I like places like Cook Political Report and Sabato because they’re wise old heads who have seen it all. They use polls, instead of believing polls.
Incidentally, the comparison of 2022 races to 2020 Biden performance isn’t invalid, but it’s also a sign of how little real new polling data we have.
NOTE * I want panels. Lots and lots of panels, like Frank Luntz does. Right now, I’m like an epidemiologist without any maps of the outbreak….
Putin sighting in Georgia 03: He held me down in my car and didn’t let me vote at all. That was three minutes out of my day I will never get back, but I got his autograph, so not all bad.
Reminds me of the joke about the foreign exchange student in Moscow who was asked his opinion of the country:
“I’m enjoying it here but Putin really worries me.”
“Not to worry, there are over 10 million people living in Moscow so your chances of running into Putin are statistically extremely low.”
Wait for this to go viral….
Remember when there used to be 200+ comments on a thread like this?
Nobody cares. We woke up. None of this matters, and we (mostly) all get it now.
It is quite academic at this point. I’m most interested in the number of Pied Pipers that score better than “or a Democrat”. If the going is actually weird, these guys are Pros.
Agreed on this. I get a definite feel ‘out on the street’ that people are now sullen as their default state.
The anger building up in the population is becoming almost palpable.
“Vexed.”
what is surprising tonight is how well the democrats are doing. they should have been blown out of the water.
but a few words come to mind, overreach, abortion, fanaticism, idiotology like destroying whats left of the safety net like social security and medicare.
kansas may have been a harbinger.
not that the democrats will be any different, they can just dupe the masses better.
My polling place was active but not overly so. Lines got long at a couple of district tables not because of crowds but because of the iPads being used instead of the previous paper sign in books. Yup they would get hung up, freeze, etc. my line got to about ten people because of some technical glitch with it that took three people to navigate. Also having to enter the name to find the voter registration rather than flipping through alphabetical listings also favored old school methods over expensive tech.
Not really invested, too many sure things (all the judges were unopposed as was a state representative race) plus in my neighborhood the Dems are just not going to lose. Went Dem for state reps, Undervoted on the judges and governor (don’t want Zeldin and Hochul has made Cuomo appear subtle with her corrupt choices so just can’t), write ins for two other races and third party on the final one. IOW not an entirely Dem free ballot, but damn close. Something the young and naive me of my twenties would be aghast about.
Despite all the screaming about losing Democracy, my own humble opinion is that was lost decades ago not recently. It was always tenuous but with the combination of television and weakened or killed laws against deep pocket campaign donations plus corruption limited to the most obvious quid pro quo and even then largely ignored it was drowned in a bathtub. Campaigns now are side shows funded on both sides by the same people, and they limit real interaction with voters to the barest minimums. I once thought the adage that if voting did anything it would be outlawed was just trite cynicism, now despite occasional blips of actual voter monkey wrenching a race here or there it is clearly true.
Attributed to Mark Twain: ‘If voting made any difference they wouldn’t let us do it.’
I didn’t vote at all.
“You can’t stop what’s comin. The world ain’t waitin on you.” Ed Tom, No Country For Old Men
> Lines got long at a couple of district tables not because of crowds but because of the iPads being used instead of the previous paper sign in books
PMC screwing it up again, what a surprise! (“But little Madison does her homework on an iPad!MR SUBLIMINAL Gawd help her!“)
As a long-time PA, I’m glad Mastriano lost convincingly so he’ll be limited in what maneuvers he can deploy before conceding.
There aren’t many GOP politicians who are “real-deal” Christian zealots but he and his especially his wife Rebbie are.
All of the considerable Jan. 6 baggage aside, his basic economic plan made no sense. It was largely complete nonsense.
– Wanted to get rid of all property taxes in the state, theoretically reduce per capita student funding by >40%, and move to a $9k annual universal voucher education system.
– Part that really made no sense was he wanted to get largely also get rid of the gasoline excess tax, corporate taxes, and yet notably increase law enforcement and prison funding.
– No mention of any spending cuts which would have had to been incredibly severe especially given the structure of state spending outside of education and Medicaid.
It reminded of the fiscal lunacy that Gov. Brownback enacted in Kansas several years ago which resulted in his own party rebelling against him and overriding his own legislative agenda.
Huckabee winning in Arkansas almost certainly means that public education is going to get nuked when she follows through her to plan to phase out all income taxes and corporate taxes.
It will also be next to impossible to reimplement them too give state law and their Constitution.
AK already a mass teacher shortage in large part because of terrible pay and benefits. What teacher in their right mind would want to start their career now in public education with Huckabee having just been elected Gov?
https://arktimes.com/columns/ernest-dumas/2022/08/25/a-point-of-no-return-an-end-to-income-tax-in-arkansas-would-be-permanent
German word would be Überdruss
That’s an interesting one. Apparently, it can mean “weariness of life”, but can it be weariness of something more focused, like the duopoly?
It can mean a general feeling towards life, but it can also refer to specific situations.
> Überdruss
Same as Weltschmerz?
It’s not just that I’m weary, it’s that my weariness is the result of carrying impacted rage. And I’m sure I’m not the only one. I should probably look at Buddhism….
I’d argue that Weariness of life is not really the adequate translation for Überdruss. Überdruss has the aspect of pent-up anger, so it is not the same as Weltschmerz.
Glühenwutumwandlunglangeweile? I love how you can portmanteau anything In German. incandescent is “glühen”, (Love it!) and seems to have the same connotation range as English. “Wut” is anger, “Umwandlung” transformation (also great — from old German “to wander about”) “langeweile”boring.
Jean Améry, an Auschwitz survivor who later committed suicide, once wrote that it is commonly said that anger keeps you young. But if you are angry long enough in vain, you only end up in despair. He called it “Selbstüberdruss als Lebensüberdruss” (self weariness as life weariness).
Kari Lake far behind (56/44) at 53% counted. She presented so well I thought she was gonna be a national star, but either her content or divisive vibe (to appeal to Trumpers) did her in? Or maybe the early counts are very Dem locales?
Secretary of state website shows 73% counted with a 12 point lead for the democrat (whose smiling face adorns the secretary of state website). I don’t trust the website much, but if it is anywhere close that will be very hard to make up. I’m kind of surprised the networks haven’t called it.
On RealClearPolitics.com it’s now Hobbs 51.3, Lake 48.7 (65% reporting).
Not similar to Secy of State website at all. Interesting!
Yeah, I think the Secretary of State is using a wonky definition of precincts reporting.
The “ballot progress” detail on the Arizona SoS page shows only about 1% of ballots still to be tabulated.
https://apps.arizona.vote/info/bps/2022-general-election/33/0
Several of the high profile races have more than 1% margins and should have been called if the tabulation page is correct. All news agencies are reporting much lower tabulation numbers, and basically nobody is reporting anything about the status of the Arizona races. I would at least expect to see a story on why the SoS numbers are so far off what the media is reporting.
Maricopa County reported this morning that there still are nearly 300,000 early ballots still to be counted. 200,000 of them were dropped off at polling places yesterday and an additional 80,000 came in over the weekend. If the count takes as long as 2020, the state races might not be known until later in the week. My guess is Lake wins but Masters doesn’t but runs again and wins in 2024.
My best guess from poking around the website is that they have not even entered estimates for the numbers remaining to be tabulated in most counties. So the reporting percentage shows up on all the AZ SoS results pages, even though it is not correct and not intended to be correct.
I do not think this is a reasonably transparent process.
I was able to confirm this with a local journalist. The precinct number means precincts returning their election day ballots, and has no real relationship with votes cast. The ballot progress spreadsheet will not be filled in until later today, so what it shows now is completely wrong.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2022/11/08/crypto-crash-intensifies-amid-downfall-of-industrys-white-knight-bankman-fried/?sh=51944caa25f9
Sam Bankman-Fried had donated to close to 40 million dollars to the Democrats for the mid terms prior to his firm collapsing today. The guy was a multi billionaire (16 billion dollars) just yesterday, and today, poof!!!!
That’s a damn shame.
Here are some updates results-
-Republican Greg Abbott has won re-election for governor in Texas
-Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer has retained his seat
-Republican Ron DeSantis has won re-election for governor in Florida
-Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene has retained her house seat in Georgia
-Former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has become the first woman to be elected governor of Arkansas
-Democrat Maxwell Alejandro Frost has become the first member of Gen Z to win a seat in Congress, claiming a Florida House seat
-Republican JD Vance, a Trump-backed investor and author of the Hillbilly Elegy, has won a senate seat in Ohio
-Democrat Elaine Luria, who sat on the committee investigating the US Capitol riot, has lost her seat
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-09/us-midterm-election-results/101632698
PA called for Fetterman:
I don’t expect anything from Fetterman on policy, but I think his race was very interesting from a technical perspective for two reasons:
1) Use of social media. You can’t call a social media campaign brilliant until the candidate wins, but Fetterman did, so now I will. (a) Fetterman used social media to introduce Oz to Pennsylvania, in essence arguing/showing/meming that Oz was really from New Jersey. This campaign was so infectious I had to stop myself from piling on. It also had the great merit of being true. Tweets and memes are something the national press can focus on, and that is what they did, with the effect that (b) when Fetterman had his stroke, his social media became a bright shiny bauble for the press to focus on, which is exactly what they did. Whoever ran Fetterman’s social media campaign will have many opportunities henceforth.
More importantly, (2) Fetterman’s “every county” strategy was important and non-stupid/non-corrupt Democrats, if any, will emulate it. (a) Fetterman’s strategy was to pick up Republican voters at the margin in Red counties (of which there are many, many in Philadelphia). So he visited them. This strategy worked. When Fetterman had his stroke, he was, as it were, pre-insulated[1] from whatever the national press and the Oz campaign might say. People had seen him, and felt they knew him. There are plenty of people in Pennsylvania, still by custom and practice an industrial state, who have had medical issues and worked through them and come back from them. I believe that was in play here. (This theory also makes the late visits by parachuted in Democrat celebrities irrelevant, which recommends it in my eyes.)
Fetterman’s “every county” strategy reminds me of Howard Dean’s “50 state” strategy, also successful. (It’s worth noting that as soon as Obama and Rahm Emmanuel took power, they abolished the strategy and defenestrated Dean (with the result, IMNSHO, that Dean threw in the towel, said “[family blog] it, I’m in it for the money” and tragically became the corrupt hack he is today. This happens a lot with Democrats. It will therefore be interesting to see if the “every county” strategy is erased, or highlighted, in the coming days.
Here’s one metric of success for the “every county” strategy:
(Note also that Democrat
facehuggersstrategists and consultants get commissions from media buys. Both Fetterman’s use of social media and the “every county” strategy take money out of their pockets. It will be interesting to see which media figures operate on their behalf in the coverage.)In addition, Fetterman’s victory comes as the expense of the Pennsylvania Democrat establishment and the ghouls in the national press, an outcome that makes me very happy,.
If Fetterman’s “every county” strategy is adopted by more Democrats — heck, more Republicans — I think that would greatly improve politics in this country. Do as Chris Arnade would do; walk around. Get out of the bubble. (Here I am thinking of the World War I British staff officer who went to the front, and broke down in tears when he actually saw the mud that he and his fellow officers had sent the troops out into, back in the Chateau.)
So I’m happy. (Readers will recall that in this comment I’m basically recapitulating everything I’ve said about the technical characteristics of the Fetterman campaign for the last year. That makes me happy too.)
Also, Dr. Oz is a puppy-killing charlatan. From New Jersey.
NOTE I should also mention that Fetterman in essence embedded himself in Braddock. I’n not sure that’s possible for most candidates (and here we mention Fetterman’s family money). I would also like to know more about the role of Fetterman’s wife, Gisele (with one “l”). She did a very creditable job as a campaign surrogate with no experience. (I also wonder, speculating wildly, if she had anything to do with the social media strategy, since nobody has come forward, as of this date, to take credit for it.)
NOTES
[1] It’s also possible that our horrid “debate” format, which should be abolished and handed back to the League of Women, really tripped Fetterman up, and that his local appearances went better, and that the “every county” strategy primed voters to accept this:
Hope Katie Porter wins in SCAL. She’s ahead but with only about half the votes counted.
OH-13:
More red ripple confirmation.
Control of the Senate:
Yet more red ripple confirmation. Pretty funny if it all comes down to a Walker v. Warnock run-off. What a spectacle that will be!
Regarding the red ripple. I think US politics is in a new phase. Until 2016 it was common wisdom that the most liked candidate would win US presidential elections. In 2016, with two candidates more disliked than liked, the more disliked candidate won the electoral vote, though the less disliked won the popular vote.
I thought two disliked candidates would mean lower participation, but it meant higher. Dislike for the two parties has continued to increase, but it doesn’t appear to lower participation.
So I would say today dislike drives participation. Rather then who would you like to have a beer with, it is who would you like to see kicked in the face. And new patterns emerge.
The question is how long the trend can last before the current two party system starts coming apart. As two punch-drunk boxers leaning on each other, neither can be dislodged by supporting the other, as hate and fear of the otehr party drives participation.
I noticed that the independent that won the republican primary in Vermont promised to caucus with neither Democrats or Republicans, if elected (think he lost though). Given the institutional (and very intentional) obstacles to running third party, running in a major party primary and declaring that you will caucus with neither, may be a way to gain the votes of voters who dislike both parties enough.
Soooo, to paraphrase Woody Allen, when we have two candidates, with one promising utter despair, and complete annilation, and the other complete hopelessness and total nuclear extinction, we’ll acheive 99% participation…resulting in deadlock
So R/D have learnt the lessons of Facebook and Twitter?
Ripple? As of Sunday, starting to look like a red twitch and MSM fantasy.
All this means to me is that I will be hearing about how the Democrats will be “fighting for” things for the next two years.
The only positive I see is that K.M. can’t lead on tax cuts. He and the elephants in the house will hammer at cutting spending on social programs though.
CNN is currently showing this race very differently:
with 80% vote counted, updated @ 4:44 EST
Laxalt (R): 418,461 (49.9%)
Cortez-Masto (D): 395,862 (47.2%)
So, certainly not for the first time, I will say the NYT is full of it.
More seriously, the rural vote takes awhile to come in. So still watching AZ to see how much those D leads erode.
Or maybe CNN is full of it! Actually, I think all of them are full of it! Old style political reporting just isn’t cutting it these days. We will just have to wait for the official results.
As far as the ‘red ripple’ – I guess Trump’s gigantic pity parties weren’t all that helpful to his candidates – go figure!