Election Inspection

The Democrats look like they could go back to going full Whig.  After the election returns this past Tuesday, how could you not come to that conclusion?

Terry McAuliffe's nomination for a second nonconsecutive term to oppose Republican nominee Glenn Youngkin (above) was one of those classic bad ideas that was plausible enough that no one would challenge or question such a preposterous idea.  McAuliffe got the nod to run again not so much for his record as governor from 2014 to 2018 but because of his position in Democratic insider politics and his fundraising ability.  Also, he's a friend of the Clintons.  And he seemed to feel as entitled to the governor's mansion in Virginia as the Clintons did to the White House.   But he screwed up in saying that parents did not have a say in how children were educated - revealing his ignorance of elected school boards - giving Youngkin a perfect issue to run on.  And when Youngkin responded in kind by suggested with a campaign commercial that Toni Morrison's "Beloved" shouldn't be taught in AP literature (though the ad did not mention the book by title), McAuliffe couldn't even use it to his advantage.   President Biden was chastised by some pundits by deflecting blame for the Democrats' loss in Virginia from his inability to get his agenda passed; McAuliffe's foibles as a candidate suggest that Biden was right.  He was such a lousy candidate he took the Virginia Democratic Party down with him; it appears that the party lost control of the lower house of the state legislature.  Two of the new Republican members took part in the January 6 insurrection.

(By the way, if you go back to my post from this past Monday and make a sentence from the first word of each sentence in it, you'll see that I called Virginia right.)

Biden certainly didn't have anything to do with the surprise result in New Jersey, where Phil Murphy won re-election as governor by far less than expected.  Murphy ran on his progressive record and didn't shy away from his policies but he failed to enunciate his accomplishments as much as he should have and he completely ignored the issue his Republican opponent Jack Ciattarelli hammered away on repeatedly during the campaign - property taxes.  It turns out a lot of people still care about that!  Murphy, relatively speaking, was one of the big winners among the Democrats this past Tuesday.  He stays in office with most of his agenda in place and he's in a position to secure his legacy, and he is now the first Democrat to win a second term as governor of New Jersey since Brendan Byrne in 1977.  But he should have won by more.

The disappointing results Democrats had in Virginia and New Jersey were local, but nationally they still have a problem.  Republicans blame the Democrats' losses on the Democratic agenda.  Listening to them, you'd think nobody in America wants paid family leave, expanded Medicare coverage, or universal nursery school.  (Hey, I just called Joe Manchin a nobody!)  Well, it makes perfect sense that voters rebelled against the Democratic agenda - because a lot of voters thought the Democrats wanted to rename schools named for Founding Fathers in honor of black nationalists, teach "critical race theory" in those same schools, tear down statues of Jefferson and Washington, and, oh yes, defund the police.  Because even when they talk about paid family leave, Medicare dental coverage and all those other nice things, they still can't articulate their agenda in clear-cut language, and what they do say gets drowned out by so-called "woke" members of the Squad.  So it makes sense the the biggest winner among Democrats, New York Mayor-elect Eric Adams, is an ex-cop who would rather defend the police than defund them.  (Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa, his Republican opponent, is a cat lover and has sixteen cats at home; that was the only thing I liked about him.)     

Oh yeah, it's so obvious that woke-ism is so out of place in These States - even in our major-league cities - that Buffalo mayor Byron Brown was re-elected as a write-in candidate after losing the Democratic nomination to a self-described socialist!  

But the muddled message wasn't the only issue - so was the fact that the Democratic Congress was supposed to deliver the goods and spent much of the past year arguing with each other.  In the end, they were the only people who were "woke" on Tuesday.

The Democrats still have a chance to cut their losses in the 2022 midterms, if they prove they can govern and pass legislation that will help the people.  Last night, they got off to a good but troubled start; the House finally passed President Biden's infrastructure bill, which now goes to the White House for the President's signature.  But distrust remains over the reconciliation bill, and there's a long way to go to get that settled.  Moderates, however, have committed themselves to voting on it ,later, so maybe we can still build back better.  And maybe get voting rights legislation passed.  Or, we could end up seeing a Republican Congress in 2023 passing a whole new round of tax cuts.  

And by the way, speaking of voting rights . . . voting rights were expanded in Virginia and New Jersey, and look what happened. 

Oh yeah, congratulations to Michelle Wu for becoming the first elected female mayor and mayor of color of Boston. 

The Decisive Victory That Wasn't

Joe Biden is likely to become the 46th President of the United States.  But the great decisive win the Democrats were hoping for - a win that would put the final nail in the coffin of Reagan-Bush-Trump conservative Republicanism that was ushered in back in 1980 and has dictated policy in Washington ever since - didn't quite happen.

Biden wants to reclaim the soul of America and put the country back on a more humane footing as President after four years of Donald Trump, but he will have to do so after an election victory with a popular margin of only three points.  The results in down-ballot elections showed how skeptical many voters still are about Democrats. Several Democratic House members who got swept in in the 2018 midterms got swept out this past week, and the party came up short in its attempt to take back the Senate.  And Martin O'Malley must be kicking himself for not continuing his Win Back Your State PAC into the 2020 elections, given that Democrats failed to expand their state legislative majorities - they seem to have contracted, in fact - which means that the GOP will have the upper hand in redistricting.

The polls predicted none of this, primarily because pollsters couldn't reach enough respondents to come up with any truly representative samples.  It seems that polling firms used old-school techniques to reach voters that suggested what you'd get if General Motors were still making engines that mixed gasoline and air with carburetors instead of fuel injection - imprecise results and a failure to deliver maximum performance.

But what went wrong with the Democrats?  How did Republicans Susan Collins and the insufferable Joni Ernst get re-elected to the Senate while Democrat Max Rose lost his bid for a second term as Staten Island's representative in the House?  The answer is that, while Trump was unable to paint Joe Biden as a wild-eyed leftist, he was successful in characterizing the Democrats as being more interested in socialistic experiments with esoteric issues and elitist ideas than helping working people who feel that the elites don't care about them.  While Joe Biden was talking about rebuilding our economy and our infrastructure and was appeal to lunch-pail voters, progressives were talking about free college and a centrally planned economy.  While Biden was trying to appeal to working-class white voters, progressives dismissed their concerns.  And for all of the Democrats' policies designed to help working people, Democrats act like they would prefer not to communicate with working people.  They're too busy attending parties and discussing over wine and cheese that latest indie movie they saw the other night - or at least they were before COVID hit.  The Democratic elite can physically distance themselves while they work forrom home, but they've long been physically distanced from working people, and many working people are still physically distanced from jobs.  With friends like these in the Democratic Party, Biden doesn't need enemies. 

My advice for the Democrats, if they want to fight back against the top-down economy that Ronald Reagan initiated, which turned Donald Trump from a coarse New York real estate developer into an avatar of undeserved material wealth, is this: Improve health care without proposing something as radical or as complicated as Medicare expansion.  Rebuild our passenger rail system.  Make it more clear that banning assault weapons in Detroit does not mean you want to ban hunting rifles in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.  Stop talking about issues targeted at specific demographic groups and start talking about issues that everyone can relate to.  Don't denigrate Jefferson or Washington, and don't "reconsider Columbus Day" until you've reconsidered our tax code.  Try considering Veterans' Day for a change (you can't reconsider something you haven't considered before).  Don't pick on white male voters who prefer classic rock to hip-hop (that Karen Hunter influence again).  Stop looking down on people who think Tom Selleck is a better actor than Ralph Fiennes.  Stop dismissing anyone who hasn't gone vegan.  Bitch-slap any Democrat who advocates defunding the police.  And tell that show horse Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to shut the hell up!  If she doesn't, just don't listen to her when she threatens to primary "moderate" House Democrats like Mikie Sherrill or Abigail Spanberger for being "meh."  

And the most important thing of all, aside from never putting a whole box of laundry detergent in a washing machine, is this: Get this damn COVID virus under control.  Biden wants to. 

In fact, Biden wants to do a lot of things, many of which will actually help Democrats in the 2022 midterms.  Let him do them.  And for Pete's sake, have his back and stop bitching about how he's not as liberal as Bernie Sanders!        

I hope this has been helpful.