Election 2019 - No Endorsements This Year

I'm not making any endorsements in the 2019 elections for one simple reason - I haven't followed any of the election campaigns for the office up in November, and so it would be folly for me to endorse anyone.  I wouldn't want to automatically endorse any Democrat just because the Democratic Party's views are closer to mine, and I myself am an independent.  Also, though there are three governorships up for election - in Kentucky, Louisiana, and Mississippi - I doubt anyone in those three states reads this blog anyway, and I am sure that no one in Philadelphia - which has a mayoral  election on November 5 - reads it either.  Besides,  the 2020 election campaign, in spite of everything, is more fascinating and is frankly sucking up all the oxygen.  Rest assured, I will vote on Election Day - this year, my birthday - as the New Jersey Assembly midterms are happening this year.  But I don't feel a need to endorse anyone in New Jersey, either, because I happen to live in a Republican state legislative district and I have a nasty feeling that my choice will lose.

So, yeah, go vote.  Be interested in our democracy enough to at least do that.  Just don't expect to me to advise you whom to vote for.

Election Endorsements 2018

Oh, great, is it election endorsement time again?

I should just tell you all to vote Democratic no matter what, except vote Green when the Democratic candidate is a woman named Hillary or Oprah.  And yes, I'm going to do that.  Vote Democratic, exceptions noted.  But I'm also going to single out candidates for office in campaigns where I especially want to see the Republican candidate lose and lose big time.  That's how much I dislike them. And in the case of Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, I literally hate him.  So here goes:

For U.S. Senate, Texas:  This blog enthusiastically endorses Democrat Beto O'Rourke.  Not only is he the most ardently progressive candidate for statewide office in Texas in a long time, he has the energy and the commitment to help Democrats running for office throughout the state and to inspire them throughout the country.  Also, his opponent is incumbent Republican senator Ted Cruz, a man even arch-conservative Republicans don't like.  Time for some Cruz control in the Lone Star State.

For governor of Wisconsin:  This blog endorses Democrat Tony Evers. Evers, the Wisconsin Superintendent of Public Instruction, wants to improve education in the state - and a whole lot of other things.  Education is one of the many institutions in Wisconsin that der Führer WalKKKer has laid waste to in the past eight years.

For governor of Georgia:  This blog endorses Democrat Stacey Abrams.  She's committed to making a Georgia a fairer and better place for all of its residents, and she's also living proof of Zerlina Maxwell's comment that it's going to take a black woman to save America - or at least Georgia - from itself.  Also, her white male Republican opponent, Georgia Secretary of State and noted vote suppressor Brian Kemp, has all the charm and compassion of an electric eel. 

For U.S. Senate, Arizona: This blog endorses Democrat Krysten Sinema. She's talking about issues people care about, like making sure that pre-existing sanctions are covered by health insurance, while her Republican opponent Martha McSally (who, being a woman from the Southwest and because of her name, would have made a great running mate for Martin O'Malley - get it? - in 2020 if she were a Democrat) keeps trying to change the subject to that stupid caravan issue - which isn't an issue at all.  

For U.S. Senate, New Jersey:  This blog, ho hum, endorses Democrat and incumbent Bob Menendez.  Because when you have two ethically dubious 64-year-old guys from Union City, New Jersey named Bob running for Senate, you should always go for the one with the D after his name.  

For governor of Florida:  This blog wholeheartedly endorses Andrew Gillum, who, if he wins, will make Florida the largest state in population with a black governor, but also the second-largest state in population (after California, which is a gimme for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gavin Newsom) with a progressive governor.  Florida needs bold, new, energized liberal leadership that it's been lacking since, oh I don't know, Reubin Askew was governor in the seventies?  Now's the time for the Sunshine State to come of out the darkness of Republicanism and Democratic centrism. 

For U.S. House, New Jersey, Eleventh District: This blog endorses Rebecca Michelle "Mikie" Sherrill.  Republican Jay Webber supported that federal tax reform law that screws New Jersey, he doesn't believe that women have any rights, and he gets a good rating from the National Rifle Association (NRA).  Mikie Sherrill will fight to restore federal tax deductions for New Jersey homeowners, support equal rights for both sexes, and fight the NRA.  You can trust her.  She has an honest face.

See?

Oh, mercy me, where is my head?  That's actually a picture of my Olympic heartthrob, champion swimmer Janet Evans. This is Mikie Sherrill.

They do look alike, don't they? :-D 

Right.  Those are all of my endorsements.  You know the drill - vote on November 6. 

More Primary Concerns

A slew of primary elections held yesterday produced mixed results.

In Colorado, progressives were dealt another setback when their preferred candidate Andrew Romanoff lost his Senate bid to incumbent appointed junior senator Michael Bennet, who got the support of the White House. Romanoff pushed a decisively liberal agenda, and he even had the support of former President Bill Clinton, but the former Colorado House speaker couldn't overcome Bennet in yesterday's voting. President Obama was able to claim a victory, but progressives who wanted to push a more bold Democratic agenda were hit with a Rocky Mountain low. Unlike Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas, Bennet will probably prevail with the Democratic base, if only because he has a staunchly conservative opponent in the general election - Republican Ken Buck, who claims not to be a member of the Tea Party movement but is a favorite of the TP crowd. It's hard to tell whether Bennet can win outright. The gubernatorial contest pits Republican Dan Maes agianst popular Denver mayor John Hickenlooper, with ex-Republican congressman and noted immigrant basher Tom Tancredo running as a third-party candidate and possibly splitting the Republican vote.

Meanwhile, in Connecticut, wrestling mogul Linda McMahon cruised to victory in a Senate primary necessitated by an inconclusive spring state Republican convention. Spending her way past once-favored GOP candidate Rob Simmons, she now plans to spend $50 million against the Democratic nominee, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. As it became apparent before the votes were counted that McMahon was going to be the nominee, the press began to take note of her record of peddling violence and sadism to children, and it won't be long before they start looking at the abuse of steroids in her "sport" that led to murder and suicide in the Benoit family case mentioned earlier on this blog. People are afraid of McMahon's deep pockets, but Blumenthal has the brand name and the record of service; his opponent's strategy is to drive up her poll numbers with her financial numbers and hope he slips up. But Blumenthal already did slip up, with poorly chosen words on his Vietnam War-era service that were blown out of proportion and lowered his ratings in the polls only temporarily. I can't imagine McMahon getting that lucky again.

I'll have more on McMahon later. For the Republican gubernatorial nomination in Connecticut, where Republican governor Jodi Rell is retiring, Tom Foley was nominated to run in November. Ned Lamont, who won the Democratic senate nomination in 2006 but lost the general election to Joseph Lieberman, couldn't even get the Democratic nomination for governor this time, losing to former Stanford mayor Dan Malloy. In Minnesota, where Governor Tim Pawlenty is retiring, Mark Dayton, a department store scion (the Minneapolis-based Dayton's chain was taken over by Federated Stores and given the corporate Macy's name) and one-term U.S. senator who was practically asked to leave Washington, narrowly won the Democratic nomination for governor; conservative state representative Tom Emmer won the Republican nomination, the easy winner of the GOP line on the ballot. Neither Connecticut nor Minnesota, so-called blue states, have elected a Democratic governor since 1986.

Now it's onto Georgia, where former governor Roy Barnes won the Democratic nomination for his old office, with the results for the Republican gubernatorial nomination still too close to call between former Georgia secretary of state Karen Handel and former U.S. Representative (and former Democrat) Nathan Deal. While other states may not like incumbent officeholders, the trend in Georgia seems to be in favor of former officeholders.