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Analyzing the Midterm Mess
Some people hate Republicans. Others hate Democrats. But everybody hates polling firms.
No bones about it: the most recent midterm election is a profound disappointment to conservatives and independents hoping for a mandate for the governing class to move decisively away from the progressive base of the Democratic Party toward the center. But expectations are the enemy of happiness. It’s one thing to expect the sun to rise in the east, as it does for everyone every day; expecting pollsters to get elections right despite their execrable recent track record is something else entirely.
To reiterate: Republicans have reason to be disappointed in the just-passed election. But the pollsters have every right to respond as Otter did to Flounder in Animal House: “You ****ed up – you trusted us.”
With that in mind, one of the lessons of the 2022 midterms is that polling firms are no more trustworthy than any other institution such as the CDC, IRS, or FBI. Despair is understandable. We get it: what Trump calls the “fake news media” is against us. But cloistered as they are, the fake news media aren’t aware that most Americans are against them. High-information voters won’t be surprised at this point if Fetterman’s doctor to announced that he expects Queen Elizabeth to make a full recovery.
It is, of course, possible that Democrats maintain or even increase their majority in the Senate. It’s also possible that the majority party in the Senate will end up lost in the mail. But Republican voters shouldn’t overlook the big picture, which is that GOP takeover of both houses of Congress – not to mention Twitter – is a distinct and perhaps even the most-likely outcome. At the risk of citing Animal House again, allow me to paraphrase (very roughly!) Bluto’s rally-the-troops speech: “Beto? Buh bye. Charlie Crist? No party dare nominate him. Stacey Abraaaaaammmms?!?!”
Just as losing the 2020 presidential election is probably the best thing that ever happened to the GOP – imagine the Republican brand six years into a two-term Trump presidency! – an underperforming Republican victory at the congressional and governorship level will extend the lifeline to Joe Biden’s political career that will help Republicans win the presidency in 2024.
Not all is lost. Conservatives should take heart that the battleground states of Ohio and Florida have gone purple to red. On the policy front, a large majority of Americans understand that plastic is preferable to paper, whether it’s straws, coffee lids, grocery bags, or picking up dog poo.
Putting on my Republican consultant hat, I call on the GOP to adopt the following six recommendations to defeat the party that, by all rights, shouldn’t have won an election since the Civil War:
1: Give up litigating the 2020 election and call for re-litigating the 1960 election.
2: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s margin RealClearPolitics polling average was 12.2, whereas he won by 19.4 points. Give credit where credit is due: the national media and their political arm (the Democrats) predicted that DeSantis’ covid policies would cause the streets of Florida to turn red with blood – at least they were half right.
3: While Georgia Republican Brian Kemp led by an impressive 8.9 points in the RCP average, he won by a nevertheless very comfortable 7.6 points. In Georgia, Donald Trump and the Democrats are the parties of election denial. With this in mind, these midterms should bring an end to the Democrats’ notion that democracy dies in democracy.
4: House Republicans can now hold investigations into reports that Hunter Biden’s laptop originated in a Wuhan wet market.
5: While Biden’s lack of mental acuity can be attributed to being nearly 80 years old, Kamala Harris is at the height of her mental powers.
6: The Democrats have every intention of sticking to their talking point that democracy is too important to be left to voters.
Published in Elections
Oh shut up.
Has anyone read any exit polls yet? I would go looking but I’ve been drinking.
From what I see, the Hobbs margin opened back up a bit, about 1.4% now with 75% counted.
Try writing about poetry. 🤣
Try reading it!
Aww shoot. No more midturds. 🤣
Mein fewer!
I hadn’t known there was such a thing as paper coffee lids. But the internet tells me that it’s true. Now I want to try them.
Paper grocery bags have their virtues, but I’ll bet it’s hard to juggle them. They can help one distinguish the bags that contain groceries from those that contain dog poo, though.
Or, perhaps send them a message in R>, I have had a few people do that to me as well.
But it’s still in the URL. Evidently they can’t change that.
Nah, man, I leave the error as is with the dry, disdainful “(sic)” right after it. That’s the proper way to handle it.
I guess, I’m just . . . kind. ; )
(No, really. It’s my nature.)
(Stop laughing!)