DRW50

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/07/us/politics/democrats-republicans-house.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/11/09/democratic-republican-majority-house-election-2018-222400 Two post-election looks.

I imagine it's a way to de-gay the show (as CW shows have little interest in gay men - look at the flop that is Riverdale and how horribly they treat Kevin Keller) and it also feels like circling the wagons as the show hasn't done as well as it was expected to do. I barely watched but he seemed alright to me. I guess Sammy will now cheat and be thrown out, or will magically be revealed as bisexual all along.

I think she will be more liberal than she was as a Congresswoman (if she is elected) but probably still very cautious, especially since Arizona is not all that liberal a state. I think it is moving in a more moderate conservative direction (or maybe I should say moving back there as it seemed to be that type of state in Sandra Day O'Connor's era). I think that she was fortunate to run in the Trump era as even though Trump won Arizona in 2016 I don't get the impression that part of the US is hugely fond of him. Sinema has been criticized for years for putting on a mask for voters. Frankly I'm surprised it has worked, but Arizona is a unique state, and McSally doesn't seem especially likeable. One positive is that she has yet to join in with the pot-banging and hysteria about the election, to the anger of Trump and friends. Probably because she is hoping to just be appointed to McCain's seat when Jon Kyl leaves. https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/09/sinema-mcsally-arizona-senate-race-982562

It's not surprising, but it's frightening just how willing the GOP is to blatantly wade into any federal race that isn't going their way and now claim it's all rigged against them, and to stop the count or redo the count until they get the result they want. Even in Arizona, which hasn't even had the same reports of problems. They are trying to normalize even more power grabs. And the public, along with the media who hate America anyway, will go right along. I saw that Macron had spoken about needing an EU army to fight the US (along with Russia and China). This has been egged on by Trump, but the EU has been pushing this army idea for a number of years - it's one of many reasons the UK voted to leave, and it's just caused even more division. When I read this article about Macron's latest PR disasters I'm reminded of how similar he is to Trump, just in a more restrained, better-looking package. https://www.ft.com/content/a386762c-e37e-11e8-8e70-5e22a430c1ad

Do you really care what Newt Gingrich says? Does anyone? They just lots his Congressional seat. If the big claim to victory is +1 or +2 on a blood red map and beating people in Texas and Georgia, then they are admitting they have nothing to say. Trump and the media will blame the House for the economy, and everything else, but still, it counts as a win.

It sounds like the woman in charge of ballots in Broward County is very incompetent, and is now going to be used as a scapegoat to justify stopping vote counting. I'm getting such bad 2000 flashbacks. I guess we should have known the universe was telling us something when Brooks Brothers Riot alum Brett Kavanaugh popped up this year. I hope Democrats can stop this from being 2000 all over again. At least they don't seem to be making Al Gore's mistake. And there is no odious Lieberman there to make things worse (last I heard of him he was trying and failing to stop his old foe Ned Lamont from being elected CT governor). In happier news, not that you'll hear the media talk about it, but apparently this is the most seats Democrats have won in the House since Watergate. Here are a lot of tweets from the Mueller rallies. I never thought I'd live in an era when thousands have to turn out to support a special prosecutor. It's one of those things where if you saw it in a TV show you'd hoot. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/11/8/1811367/-Tweet-Diary-Look-how-big-the-protest-crowd-is-at-the-ProtectMueller-Rally-nationwide

I know the Republicans are going to steal Florida all over again, but until it happens, let me have this reaction to media darling Marco melting down on Twitter like the sad little boy he is.

Populist in Europe often leans toward fascist. Ryan Zinke, another scandal-plagued member of Trump's Cabinet, is likely on the way out. https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/08/ryan-zinke-fox-news-956537 Trump picking him for his Cabinet is one of the reasons Jon Tester won reelection (even after Trump and his sons went all over Montana begging voters to reject him).

Krysten Sinnema is currently leading in the very close Arizona Senate race. Her opponent, Congresswoman Martha McSally (who had Gabby Giffords' old seat), is yet another media darling, one they've been gushing over for most of the decade. She let the mask slip on who she really is when she was practically doing handstands over the thought of repealing Obamacara. https://www.vox.com/2018/11/8/18075478/midterm-elections-arizona-vote-count-mcsally-sinema It's still too early to tell what will happen here, but if they do win in Arizona, and somehow manage to win in Florida, that would mean the Republicans only got a 1-seat pickup in a year that was absolutely perfect for them. It also, ideally, means even more pressure on phony moderates like Susan Collins, making it more likely she will retire to wingnut welfare. Now that Chuck Todd and friends (who were gleeful over the possibility of Republicans romping) didn't get their cookie, expect focus on Mitt Romney and how Mitt Romney is going to be a moderating voice in the Senate and blah blah his father blah blah blah. It's all BS, as is anything involving Mitt Romney, but they also spent a lot of time and money hyping him for a decade - can't let that go to waste.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg is in the hospital after fracturing three ribs. My best thoughts are with her, today, tomorrow, and for the next 2-3 years at the very least...

Trump supporters always eat their own. Sessions went from someone who was very well-respected by the far right to someone who was viewed with scorn and openly despised, including by the so-called Christians he always pandered to: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/11/trumps-evangelical-allies-hated-jeff-sessions/575254/ Speaking of "evangelicals," I thought this was an interesting article. https://www.vox.com/2018/11/7/18070630/white-evangelicals-turnout-midterms-trump-2020

I'm not surprised. It's a very conservative district. He only risked losing it because he's such a fool.

I'm glad Haberman is letting us know all the media spin for Trump, not that it's a surprise. I don't watch cable news most of the time, but I imagine they were giddy over Republicans not being blown out and especially over some of Trump's pets, like DeSantis, winning. They would sell their vital organs for the GOP.

For Texas I'm surprised he even did as well with white voters as he did.

https://www.salisburypost.com/2018/11/06/democrat-anita-earls-elected-to-nc-supreme-court/ They even canceled the primaries this year to try to stop her. It looks like Republicans didn't lose any Congressional seats in NC but have lost enough statehouse seats to lose their supermajority. Maybe that means sane people can keep taking the state back. Delgado is one of the candidates subjected to such nakedly racist attacks. I'm glad those work less well in NY than they do in Florida...

I found all the overhype about Beto O'Rourke a bit silly, to the point where I eventually began to see him as a vanity project, but he did way, way better than I expected, and it looks like he may have helped flip 2 House seats and also a number of seats in the Texas legislature, which the Democrats desperately needed. I imagine he has a very bright future ahead of him after tonight.

Kris Kobach, one of the architects of voter suppression nationwide, seems to have lost his long-held dream job of Kansas governor.

North Carolina voters have rejected the court-packing attempt by the state legislature. https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/north-carolina/articles/2018-11-06/the-latest-officials-ballot-troubles-at-some-nc-polls Final results aren't in but in early totals NC voters were also supporting the Democrat running to defeat a Republican supreme court justice. Her name is Anita Earls - she is a big foe of the piece of [!@#$%^&*] legislature.

This happens over and over in New Jersey. The media really wants those flips (that's one of the reason they loved Chris Christie so much) so they overhype these races every time.

A win is a win. Republicans got a lot done with a little. Democrats could too, to a point. I guess we'll see what happens. I am sick to death of the people out there (not anyone here, I mean more in the media and activists) who overhype talk of waves and who also need to make everything about how America is going to stand up to Trump and if they don't then we're all going to hell. America isn't like that, if it ever was. There is no silent majority of people waiting to say [!@#$%^&*] you to Trump. There wasn't in 2016 and there isn't now. Moral messages in elections tend to be based on whether you hate people who aren't white, whether you hate gays, abortion, women, people who aren't Christian, etc. There is no moral message against Trump that has the same motivation. Too many people don't care and even if they do, they are just struggling to get by. Even when things do break our way, gerrymandering and voter suppression makes it almost impossible. Anything Democrats get tonight is a miracle. We won't have anyone acknowledge that, because just like 2016, the left fell for the trap of overhype and bubble talk. It's too bad. I'm not saying people should say "Yay, we got a few Congressional seats." Unless things really change, then tonight isn't a good result, and saying "I told you so" is meaningless. I just mean that I hope rather than either going into full despair, or saying "We'll have the blue wave in 2020," people will start working on some kind of solution about breaking any kind of logjam in the red wall in the long term - like what Eric Holder has been doing with voter suppression and Secretary of State offices, but also long-term campaigns about how to really reach voters and change conversations and to not always be so reactive, not always just get by based on not being Trump or opposing Trump. We should oppose Trump, but there need to be more plans beyond this in order to break out - if that is even possible, if it isn't just too late, which it very well may be. I mostly mean people who are in a position to do so, like the big money donors. Obviously people in states that are run by lunatics, as Florida and Georgia very well could be after tonight, have more serious problems.

Looks like the GCB showing a narrow Democratic lead was probably about right. If they are lucky they will take the House but it won't be by much. The Senate is probably going to get a few Republican pickups. Don't even want to imagine about gubernatorial races.

That's awesome. Tell your mother we all say thank you. And I'm not sorry about Alec Baldwin either.

It looks like the hatemonger in Kentucky, Kim Davis, is going to lose. https://mobile.twitter.com/HLWright/status/1059963237490442241