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.

One Week To Go

Joe Biden goes into the final week of the 2020 presidential campaign against Donald Trump about eight points ahead in the polls if you combine the two averages everyone goes by, FiveThirtyEight.com and RealClearPolitics.  If this were like any other year, I would predict a Biden victory next week with Biden winning the Presidency by six points, because winning presidential candidates usually win by two points less than what the polls the week before say they're going to win by.  In 1988, George H.W. Bush was up over Michael Dukakis by ten points going into the final week of the campaign; he won by eight.  Bill Clinton was up over President Bush in the polls by seven points going into the final week of the 1992 campaign; he won by five.

Thanks to the pandemic, Trump's dirty tricks, and the closeness of several swing-state polls, however, that standard doesn't apply.  Two thousand twenty has been like no other year, and hopefully we won't have another year like it again any time soon. But with everything that's happened so far in this crazy year, anything can happen in the days ahead, and Trump - now counting on rallies in the swing states to save his re-election campaign - could defy expectations once again.  And if the vote is close enough in states like Pennsylvania, Florida and Arizona, Trump can be expected to sue to prevent a proper ballot count.

Even Biden says he believes that Trump can still win; after what happened to Hillary Clinton in 2016, he's taking no chances.  That's why he's not taking any votes for granted and why he's remaining engaged right to the end.

Maybe he will win by six percentage points nationally.  After all, that standard of winning by two points less than what the polls from the week before say held in 2016.  Hillary Clinton was up by four points going into the 2016 presidential campaign; she won the popular vote by two.

The electoral vote, on the other hand . . .

Stay tuned, the 2020 presidential campaign is going to get even more interesting in its last seven days.

Anxiety (Get Nervous)

I'm not talking about a hit song from Pat Benatar.  I'm talking about the election.

Joe Biden is comfortably ahead in the polls, but there's enough of a margin of error in swing states to help Trump come from behind like he did last time.  An unscientific survey taken by Michael Smerconish on his CNN program showed that three out of five people don't trust the polls.  But it should give one some comfort that erroneous polling practices have been fixed since the polls of 2016 showed Hillary Clinton ahead by margins similar to the margins Biden enjoys today.  Throw in the pandemic and the lack of interest in third-party and independent candidates (Kanye West has all but disappeared, which would suggest that he would make a good candidate for Vice President) and Democrats can breathe more easily.  But not completely easily.  As long as Trump has a small chance he can win, he can still win.

That said, it's hard to imagine that scenario this time, especially when he refused to take part in a virtual debate out of fear of getting cut off if he tries to go over his time or talk over Biden.  Trump can reach more people in debates than he can at a rally, and he's having rallies again despite the fact that he's preaching to the converted.   

As a result, the town hall debate has been canceled, Biden refuses to renegotiate dates for debating that both campaigns agreed to back in the summer - and given his standing in the polls that three out of five people don't trust, Biden doesn't really have to debate again.  But he does have to campaign.  Even if the polls are right this time, the election is not in the bag for the Democrats yet.  Don't worry about that; Biden will still campaign and campaign hard because he knows what's at stake. 

But then, the fact that a lot is at stake is just yet another reason to get nervous. 

Murphy's Law of Polls

Democratic New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Phil Murphy is leading by eighteen points over his Republican opponent, Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno, in a recently released poll, and he's benefiting from Guadagno's association with lame-duck incumbent Governor Chris Christie.  So it looks like the Democrats are going to score their first major electoral victory in the age of Trump, right?

Not so fast.  

At the first debate between the two candidates, Murphy may have had his own "basket of deplorables" moment when he said he would declare New Jersey a "sanctuary state" for undocumented immigrants, shielding them from federal authorities.  Guadagno immediately responded by suggesting that Murphy would give sanctuary to undocumented immigrants like a Peruvian national who murdered children in a Newark schoolyard in 2014.  Murphy has come back hard and strong on that charge, saying that no state or city offering sanctuary for undocumented immigrants extends its protections to criminal suspects.  But since Guadagno is a Republican, that hardly matters.  She's been hammering the issue home, misleading potential voters with a deceitful misrepresentation of the truth - that is, a lie - and appealing to same bigoted set of voters Trump won in 2016.

To respond to the inevitable point that Donald Trump lost New Jersey to Hillary Clinton by nine points, it's worth noting that voters in New Jersey have acted differently in the past when choosing a governor.  New Jersey Democrats have lost four out of the last seven gubernatorial elections since the state last went Republican in a presidential election, and no Democrat has served two full terms since Brendan Byrne from 1974 to 1982.  New Jerseyans have been partial to Republicans when it comes to running the state, trying to keep taxes under control, and helping suburban areas (mostly white) over the cities (mainly non-white).  Guadagno's latest trick - in place of her attempt to capitalize on New Jersey's astronomically high property taxes, which hasn't helped - may bring out enough Republican voters in the exurban and rural areas to counter Democratic strength in urban areas and in older, more established suburbs that are in greater proximity to the cities.

In other words, Guadagno could find a way to pull an upset.  If that sounds unthinkable, look at the 1993 gubernatorial election and consider that Christine Todd Whitman was expected to lose to incumbent governor Jim Florio despite his unpopularity over increasing taxes in a recession.  She won by one percentage point.  How far back do you want to go?  Brendan Byrne was just as unpopular in 1977 as Florio was in 1993 over taxes - it was Byrne who imposed New Jersey's income tax, leading Republicans to label him "One-Term Byrne."  His Republican opponent in the 1977 election, Ray Bateman, cam up with a plan to replace the state income tax but, when asked how it would work, Bateman gave an answer that revealed the plan to be more of a fantasy than a workable solution.  He ended up losing what was the one of the least loseable elections for a challenger against an incumbent in New Jersey history.

Oh yeah, Phil Murphy is pushing a very progressive - and very expensive agenda, but he hasn't come up with an explanation of how he's going to pay for it.  Sound familiar?  

Actually, the only reason it does sound familiar is because Guadagno can't explain how she's going to pay for property tax relief.  But Murphy is still leaving himself open to an upset if he doesn't respond more forcefully to his opponent's more aggressive attacks on him.  

I hope Murphy - whom I support and whose agenda I support - comes back harder still.  Maybe he will at tonight's second gubernatorial debate.  Because if he somehow manages to lose, that will effectively put an end to the Democratic Party.  Not just the party in New Jersey - the national party.  Because if the Democratic Party can't even win the governorship of an increasingly Democratic state like New Jersey in the age of Trump, it might as well go full Whig.             

Northern Lights

When noted lumberjack impersonator Joe Miller won the Republican nomination for Alaska's Class 3 United States Senate seat - the one currently held by Lisa Murkowski - a Miller victory was pretty much expected in November. Then Murkowski announced a write-in campaign when it became apparent to anyone with a brain that Alaska would lose a lot of necessary government subsidies and that support for the man Keith Olbermann calls the Five O'clock Shadow was soft. Now the Democrat in the race - Scott McAdams - is benefiting from the Miller-Murkowski feud. A few polls - including one commissioned by noted financial fascists Club For Growth - show the race tightening between the two Republicans with McAdams gaining at their expense.

As the mayor of Sitka, the 40-year-old McAdams has a good deal of political experience but also plenty of real-life experiences with voters; he's been both a commercial fisherman and a football coach. He is a strong supporter of public education, having served as chairman of the Sitka school board, and he supports more infrastructure projects to connect Alaska communities more efficiently and advocates a modernization of the Alaska Marine Highway, and important water route in the state. A good deal of McAdams's stands on such issues can certainly resonate with voters, and he how has a unique opportunity to promote his views to an electorate whose votes are easily up for grabs in a three-way race with a lower threshold than a traditional two-party contest. (For more on his campaign, go to his Web site.)

It's still too early to tell whether McAdams can pull off a victory, but it's obvious that Miller - who has put himself on record as opposing the minimum wage because it's unconstitutional - has seen his chances for victory diminish faster than glaciers during global warming. Back in August, Miller and his three-day growth shone like the Northern Lights in the Alaska sky. You might say Miller even had that . . . rainbow feel.

But the rainbow has a beard. :-D

Pols and Polls

Barack Obama came out swinging on the unemployment insurance issue, accusing Republicans of playing politics with benefit extensions and saying they have a lot of gall to complain about the deficit after having created it out of a surplus in the first place. He prodded the Senate to overcome obstructionism and pass the benefit extension bill. A lot of liberals were pleased that Obama was fired up and speaking so forcefully on the side of the people.

Ah, but why did Obama wait until West Virginia's interim senator Carte Goodwin was appointed and after Republicans Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine made it clear they would support the legislation, giving Obama the votes he needs?

President Obama, always calculating and cautious, only seems to pick fights he knows he can win. That's why you don't see him pressing for another stimulus bill, although economists are calling for one; he has neither the votes nor public support. On the latter issue, it turns out that the voters now have his back on this one. I incorrectly reasoned that voters didn't pay much attention to the unemployment benefits issue because it affects few people. New polls released last week, though, show Americans approving of benefit extensions even at the expense of increasing the budget deficit. Also, because general concern about the deficit and the debt - also borne out in the polls - is boosting Republican chances in the midterm elections, Obama is trying to turn that against the GOP as well. Obama's passion is genuine, but his timing seems too contrived and too calculated. But then, after Robert Gibbs's faux pas on "Meet the Press" last Sunday regarding the possibility of a GOP takeover of the House in November, mabe a little calculation is necessary .

I just wish Obama would be more like this when he's fighting a losing cause. Maybe fighting for a public insurance option in health care reform was a lost cause, despite its popularity, but being more aggressively for it would have re-assured the base of the Democratic party. Some say this is a turning point and that Obama is coming right out saying "No more Mr. Nice Guy," and yes, this time he means it. Maybe. But if you support a policy opposed by the Republicans without the public support or the votes behind it, the White House isn't likely a reliable ally to have.