2022 Election

Rays of Hope

Featured image Obviously, the midterms were bitterly disappointing. I moderated a panel on the election yesterday at David Horowitz’s Restoration Weekend. I began by saying that in view of the midterm results, we had changed the title of the panel from “What Happened?” as shown in the agenda, to “What the Hell Happened?” Nevertheless, the Sun continues to rise and conservatives will continue to fight, so we may as well look for »

Blue wave blues

Featured image The Arizona and Nevada Senate races have been called for Democratic incumbents Mark Kelly and Catherine Cortez Masto, respectively. With only the Georgia Senate runoff election outstanding, the Democrats appear to have maintained their 50-seat majority in the Senate (with Vice President Harris breaking ties). Democrats can enhance their majority to 51-49 with a victory in the Georgia runoff or maintain the status quo with a loss. The AP’s story »

Trafalgar in retrospect [With Comment by John]

Featured image I am still kicking myself for having credited the Trafalgar polls of Minnesota and other states in the runup to this week’s midterm elections. I think we should account for our errors. I apologized to readers in “After last night” and I reiterate it here. I think we should acknowledge our errors and account for them. My mistake in this case was attributable to my understanding of Trafalgar’s recent record »

What’s the matter with Arizona?

Featured image I developed a healthy respect for attorney John A. “Jack” Clifford many years ago when we represented adverse parties in an intellectual property dispute. Jack is of counsel with Merchant & Gould. P.C. He sends us this first-hand report under the heading WHAT IS WRONG WITH MARICOPA COUNTY? PLENTY AND IT’S COMPLICATED. The AP’s latest story on the doings in Arizona is here. Jack writes: I hope you are well. »

Thoughts from the ammo line

Featured image Ammo Grrrll has a few thoughts ABOUT LAST TUESDAY…She writes: Good night, everybody. John Fetterman has won in Pennsylvania. And the voting machines and ballot printers did not “work” in Arizona, although I think they worked exactly the way they were intended. A judge ruled against allowing the polls to be open for three more hours or for hand-counting the ballots. Awesome. And the person responsible for the mess was »

Thought for the Day: Joel Kotkin on the Midterm

Featured image Glad to see Joel Kotkin—a former progressive—thinks as I do about the longer-term effect of the mid-term, writing at UnHerd: For all their cautious optimism yesterday, a mild Midterms victory may prove the last thing the Democrats need. If they had performed as predicted, the Democrats and their media adjuncts would now be busily dissecting their defeat. But what has to be considered a lost Republican opportunity — gaining little »

Fetterman for president

Featured image In a perfect coda to the midterm elections, MSNBC is touting Senator-elect John Fetterman — his doctor said he was better, man — to run for president. It is an ingenious attempt to build a seamless transition from President Biden to the Democratic future. Fetterman should indeed be the face of the Democratic Party, or at least its neck. The future beckons. The possibilities are limitless. Unfortunately, we have plenty »

Slow Joe takes a victory lap

Featured image Following up on Tuesday’s midterm elections President Biden held a press conference yesterday. Speaking in the style to which we have become accustomed in his dotage, he took a victory lap. The White House has posted the transcript here. The transcript reflects the usual lies, absurdities, and approximation (“obsessant,” “Biden is being apop- — apoc- –acop- — Biden is being extremist”). He’s going to keep on keeping on. One of »

There’s a Hole In the Future

Featured image I have rethought this brief series in light of the downbeat events of this week. Rather than cancel it, I thought I might try to keep it in tune with the times. The first song that came to mind was Phil Ochs’s “No More Songs” from his bitter, ironically titled Greatest Hits (1970). It is the concluding track on the last studio album released before he ended his life in »

Goodbye, Donald

Featured image A consensus is emerging among Republicans that it is time for Donald Trump to get off the stage and stop damaging his party and his country. It is reflected in tomorrow’s New York Post cover: In the same paper, John Podhoretz, never a Trump fan, writes: “Here’s how Donald Trump sabotaged the Republican midterms.” Trump’s record is bleak. Liberal fundraisers actually put money behind Trump-endorsed candidates in GOP primaries all »

It Could Have Been Worse

Featured image Just kidding. Out of the range of possible outcomes, what we saw last night was about as bad as it could be. The GOP’s failure to make progress stunned everyone, not least the Democrats. What happened? * Fantasy vs. Reality. It turns out that there are a great many voters who don’t care much about what traditionally have been considered decisive issues: inflation, crime, illegal immigration, lousy schools, etc. Many »

Wot Happened?

Featured image There is no way to sugarcoat this pitiful Republican showing. What went wrong? For much of this year I had in the back of my mind the possibility that this mid-term could be a rerun of the 1978 midterm, when Republicans also underperformed in a very favorable political climate. Between Jimmy Carter’s sagging approval, rising inflation, and the flood tide of the tax revolt in the wake of Proposition 13 in »

After last night

Featured image I offer just a few comments — ranging from personal self-evaluation to national results to the local Minnesota scene — on the fiasco this time. Here are my thoughts more or less in the order they occur to me with the results of a few races still in doubt: • I was pessimistic as usual, but I prefer to think of my pessimism as the higher realism. • I expected »

Final Predictions [Updated]

Featured image As we wait for election results to begin coming in, this is a good time for a final set of predictions. Scott has said more than once that he is, by temperament, a pessimist. I balance that by being, for the most part, a hopeless optimist. You will see that reflected in my election forecast. U.S. Senate: GOP finishes the night with 55 senators. U.S. House: GOP picks up a »

Election Night Tips and Media Options

Featured image I got the Mathias Corvinus Collegium election night watch party off to a rousing start with a keynote talk about the American political landscape and the history of mid-term elections. It was standing room only—more than 200 highly motivated conservative students in the crowd—in the spacious and brightly designed Scruton Cafe that anchors the main MCC campus. Great food and drink after, but it’s getting late here and I need »

Election Day at Last

Featured image So here it is. I’m down with the prediction that the GOP will net 26-35 House seats, and at least two in the Senate. Henry Olsen, a guest last week on our podcast, is out with his final predictions at the Washington Post. For those who aren’t subscribers, here are a couple highlights of his bullish predictions: Inflation, crime, progressive attempts at overreach and a general sense that President Biden »

When the Ship Comes In

Featured image Bob Dylan seems to have written “When the Ship Comes In” after a hotel clerk insulted him for his shabby attire. So Joan Baez told Anthony Scaduto for his influential Bob Dylan: An Intimate Biography (1972). Last year the University of Minnesota Press published transcripts of Scaduto’s interviews for the bio in The Dylan Tapes: Friends, Players, and Lovers Talkin’ Early Bob Dylan (2021). Most recently, Clinton Heylin refers to »