Tag Archives: midterm election

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Waiting for the end

I am officially tired of the 2022 midterm election campaign.

There. Having gotten that off my chest, I now will explain what has drained me of my enthusiasm. Admittedly, it’s a partisan matter.

You see, I was filled with a bit of new enthusiasm when Democrats appeared poised to retain control of the Senate and possibly the House of Representatives. Then — pfftt! — they lost their momentum. Just like that!

All across the political landscape I keep seeing reporting that tells us of once-sure-fire Democratic victories becoming nail-biters. Republican dumbass MAGA-loving candidates actually appear to be poised to upset their foes.

It’s making me wonder: What the hell is wrong with this country?

I won’t sign any surrender documents until they count all the ballots next week. Some of these contests might not be decided until, oh, late next week … or maybe into the following week!

Whatever. My enthusiasm is waning. I fear a political bloodbath might be in store. I continue to have faith that our cherished Constitution will see the nation through.

It’s just going to be a rough, tough fight.

Now, having made all this gloomy prediction, the polls have been wrong a lot in recent years. Maybe they’re wrong now.

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Cannot comprehend the stupidity

Make no mistake about it. I will go to my grave never understanding how supposedly mainstream Americans can buy into the stupidity being peddled by so many Republican candidates for public office.

Yes, the midterm election is coming up rapidly. It appears that the GOP is going to wrest control away from Democrats in at least one congressional chamber. The House appears to be vulnerable to the potential politics of revenge that awaits once Republicans seize the gavel and committee chairmanships from Democrats.

What just utterly astounds me, though, is the idiocy being blathered by the MAGA-loving, election-denying cult followers of the most recent former GOP POTUS.

They belong to what I should refer to as the Dumbass Wing of the GOP. The espouse treasonous views that seek to undermine the integrity of our electoral process. Some GOP candidates for governor and secretary of state vow to “overturn” the results of the 2020 election. Why? Because they have bought into the Big Lie about the election being “stolen.”

What is stunning beyond all measure is that so many Americans have signed on to that bullsh**, believing the rubbish being spread about election integrity.

We have utterly incompetent candidates running under the Republican banner who stand a good chance of being elected to important public offices. They will then be able to foist their idiocy onto the public that believes it. I am left to wonder how long their supporters will hang with them once we’re all exposed to the chaos and confusion their policies are likely to bring.

I am going to offer all kinds of karma and prayer that seeks to stop on the onslaught I fear might be about to swamp Congress, some of our statehouses and even some of our school boards, which could elect book-burners and those who believe we need to purge our public schools of that phony “critical race theory” principle.

I am feeling the pangs of fear … and I don’t like it.

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Candidate victimized by snickers

By any reasonable measure, Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman should be elected U.S. senator from Pennsylvania in a few days.

His opponent in the midterm election is a former physician, Mehmet Oz, who boasts not one moment of public policy experience. Furthermore, Oz doesn’t even live in the state he allegedly wants to represent in the Senate.

As I write this brief blog post, Fetterman is running slightly ahead of Oz in the polling. Why is that? Because Oz and his Republican allies — led by Donald J. Trump — have made a stroke that Fetterman suffered a few months ago a campaign issue.

Has Fetterman lost any mental acuity? Is he less smart now than he was before the stroke? No and no. However, he has suffered what he admits to are “auditory” issues. He has trouble stringing sentences together.

I want to mention all this because of the nastiness that permeates the campaign to succeed retiring GOP Sen. Pat Toomey. The result of this election well could determine which parties controls the Senate in January; the Senate now is split 50 to 50. It’s a big deal, man!

I would hate for this campaign to turn on one side’s tittering over a serious man’s cognitive ability … which hasn’t diminished because of a stroke.

However, the cheapness of debate is exemplified in this contest and others featuring campaigns that include election denying/MAGA-loving Republicans and their Democratic foes.

That is what is playing out in Pennsylvania. It should not have come to this, with the result of a contest between a tested public policy veteran and a fraudulent carpetbagger now being too close to call.

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Politics delivers bruising blows

LAVEEN VILLAGE, Ariz. — I guess it was the late Sen. Lloyd Bentsen who I heard say that in Texas, “politics is a contact sport.”

Yes. It is. However, a brief visit to a real-deal battleground state such as Arizona has exposed my bride and me to what has become a “contact sport” that can draw a good bit of metaphorical blood.

Arizona is where Donald Trump sought to delegitimize his loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential race. It has carried over to the midterm election, where the ballot in Arizona is peppered with election deniers seeking to overturn the results of the election that President Biden won freely, fairly, legally and morally.

My favorite commercials happen to be those featuring Republican voters who say that GOP governor candidate Kari Lake is “too dangerous” to become the state’s next governor.

It’s been fun watching this campaign play out from our ringside seats. It’s a brief look, to be sure. We’ll get to watch the Texas campaign play out as Midterm Election Day approaches.

It’s coming on. Rapidly.

I am ready to cast my ballot and then get on with the rest of retirement living.

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national news, political news

Hope slipping away?

Can it be that Democrats’ optimism about retaining control of at least one congressional chamber is slipping away? That’s what I am hearing as we enter the two-week home stretch prior to the 2022 midterm election.

I suppose it’s getting safer to say that Republicans are going to win a majority of the House seats, giving them the chance to lead the lower chamber. I am just going to shake my noggin at the prospect of a potential Kevin McCarthy speakership awaiting us. Ugghh!

What about the Senate? Some polling data suggest that seats that should be a cinch for Democrats are entering the too-close-to-call phase. Places like Pennsylvania, Georgia (for God’s sake!) and Nevada figure to be tossups. It’s the Georgia contest that causes me to froth at the mouth, with GOP dumbass Herschel Walker hanging tough against Democrat Sen. Raphael Warnock.

Then we have Pennsylvania, where Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman actually might lose to GOP foe Mehmet Oz, who doesn’t even live in the state he wants to represent in the Senate. What’s more, Oz is a borderline quack physician who earned his spurs as a TV pitchman.

I am going to hold out a glimmer of hope that the Senate can remain in Democratic hands. It’s important, the way I see it, for the country to advance some important legislation that cannot occur if Republicans seize control of the Senate. I want, for example, the Senate to codify the Roe v. Wade reproductive choice guarantee that the Supreme Court tossed aside after it stood as “settled law” for nearly 50 years.

Democrats got my blood pumping. Then they seemed to run out of steam. Republicans have regained the momentum, or so I am led to believe.

I don’t know. The midterm election will be a nail-biter. Given the quality of many of the MAGA-leaning Republicans on the ballot, the idea that it’s even close simply boggles my noodle.

My hope is being tested.

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Considering straight-ticket ballot

For as long as I’ve been voting, and that goes back to 1972, I have resisted the notion of voting for candidates of just one party.

I am rethinking that personal policy as the 2022 midterm election draws closer.

I want to be clear. I won’t punch the straight-ticket slot on my ballot. Hah! I can’t do it anyway, as we no longer have that option in Texas. However, the state of policy in the Republican Party makes it virtually impossible for me to support anyone who endorses the platform set forth by the GOP.

I refer to its hideous criminalization of abortion, its election denial based on The Big Lie fomented by the GOP’s titular head (the immediate past president of the U.S.A.), its refusal to consider legislative remedies to gun violence.

Democrats up and down the ballot are likely to get my vote in 2022. Not all of them, mind you. I might just pass over some of the statewide contests on the ballot; some of the races remain mysteries to me.

I went to a Princeton Independent School District candidate forum recently and heard from a spectator that one of the candidates is the “only suitable Republican” running for one of two seats on the PISD school board. I reminded the young man that the candidates run as non-partisans; they aren’t Democrats or Republicans. That candidate might get my vote, but it doesn’t count as a partisan decision.

The partisan ballot, though, is full of clear choices. My mind is pretty much made up as early voting is about to commence. Still — and this is important — I intend fully to vote on Election Day. I want to hold off on committing my ballot to any candidate early in case the candidate messes up and makes me regret my vote.

The contests for Congress, for key statewide offices appear likely to be one-sided for this voter … if you get my drift.

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Election deniers pose grave danger

I am trying like the dickens — with everything I can muster up — to be optimistic about the midterm election.

Except that those damn public opinion polls are showing an alarming — and frightening! — trend out there. It is that the election deniers, the MAGA Republicans, the Trump cult followers are faring shockingly well among voters prior to the balloting.

I am thinking about the race for Arizona governor, where MAGA fruitcake Kari Lake holds a slim lead over Democrat Katie Hobbs.

Hobbs is the secretary of state. Lake has vowed to “overturn” the results of the 2020 presidential election and work to return Donald Trump to the presidency he lost during that election. President Biden won Arizona by roughly 11,000 votes. The MAGA goons brought in those phony election analysts to perform a “forensic audit” of the 2020 balloting and, guess what … they found that Biden actually won the election.

That ain’t good enough for Kari Lake and other MAGA goons who support.

She’s not the only one. We have that MAGA moron in Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriani, pledging the same thing if he beats Josh Shapiro to be that state’s governor.

I cannot help but believe that if the MAGA wing of the Republican Party carries the day in these key elections that this country is in a serious world of hurt.

And what in the world is all this going to deliver for the 2024 election and the result it produces? If the election deniers hold public office, they promise to finish what the 1/6 insurrection effort sought to do after the 2020 election: overturn the result.

Are we really and truly prepared to walk down that path?

Man, if we are, then we are in much worse trouble than any of us ever imagined.

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national news, political news

POTUS still has power

Let us assume for a moment or two that the worst thing happens — at least from my admittedly biased view — after the midterm election and Republicans gain control of both congressional chambers.

Such an event remains an open question. The House well could still flip; I am not sure about the Senate.

Were the Republicans to gain control, they need to do so in a significant fashion. As in, they would need what amounts to a super-majority in the Senate to sustain whatever it is the GOP caucus wants to accomplish. Why? Because President Biden has the veto pen at his disposal.

The Constitution sets a high bar for overriding a presidential veto, just as it does for convicting an impeached federal official, such as the president of the United States. Both congressional chambers must agree with a 2/3 vote to override a veto. No one in their right mind thinks the Senate is going to turn from a 50-50 body to a 67-33 Republican majority after the midterm election. I have made the case that Democrats actually have a decent shot at solidifying control of the Senate by winning a couple of seats for a 52-48 majority. The House also looks as though a GOP flip would be by a slim margin.

Given the intense partisanship that dictates how legislation flows in Congress, it would work well if both legislative chambers could find a way to craft more bipartisan legislation that could appeal (a) to Democrats serving in Congress and (b) to the Democrat who occupies the Oval Office … and who has that veto pen at his disposal.

Republicans, though, well could be getting ahead of themselves if they believe a much-touted “red wave” is afoot in the midterm election. Their overhyped confidence in the quality of some of the MAGA-ites running for high office could well bit ’em in the backside.

I sense the “wave” election is turning more into a ripple across a puddle … which gives President Biden an important tool he can deploy to fend off the extremists’ view of where they think the nation ought to go.

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Brown vs. Jackson … no contest!

You might be able to read two messages into this proclamation: an election pitting Democrat Kathleen Brown vs. Republican Ronny Jackson is a “no-contest” affair.

One way is to presume that Jackson, a first-term congressman representing the 13th Congressional District of Texas will have little trouble winning re-election to a second term in about 41 days.

Another way is to suggest that there’s “no contest” between the quality of the candidates. To my way of thinking, that puts Brown far ahead of the blowhard Donald J. Trump toadie.

I got acquainted with Brown this morning. We had a nice chat over the phone. I told her of my continuing interest in the affairs of the 13th district, even though I no longer live there. I spent 23 years in Amarillo and became quite embedded in the politics and culture of the Texas Panhandle.

I also informed her that I am appalled by the conduct of Jackson, who moved to the Panhandle prior to the 2020 election in order to seek the seat that Mac Thornberry vacated after serving the district for 25 years.

I want to repeat a couple of things I told Brown about Jackson. One is that I consider him to be a “carpetbagging opportunist” who doesn’t “know Pantex from potting soil.” He’s also a blowhard who spends an inordinate amount of time tweeting diatribes against President Biden.

Those who know Brown understand that she is a lawyer who lives in Wichita Falls. She is married and the mother of three children. She claims — which they all do — that she isn’t a politician … but in reality she is, right?

Her top priority if elected to Congress? She said the 13th District needs water. Her hometown of Wichita Falls is running dry. The Ogallala Aquifer is receding rapidly. To be blunt, she didn’t offer any specifics on how to provide the Panhandle and her home region with water.

I reminded her that I now live in Collin County, which is one county too far from the eastern edge of the congressional district she wants to represent. I have been following Ronny Jackson’s rise to the front of the right-wing media chorus line and I dislike what I am hearing.

I don’t know if Kathleen Brown has what it takes to defeat Ronny Jackson, meaning I don’t know if she’ll be able to persuade enough voters to join her effort.

I do believe the 13th Congressional District deserves far better than it is getting from the interloper who claims to “represent” it. Kathleen Brown can do better. Then again, Ronny Jackson has set the bar shamefully low.

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local news, political news, State news

More Rs cross over?

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It’s been a good while since the last time I can recall so many politicians making headlines by endorsing candidates from “the other party.”

It’s happening on the eve of the 2022 Texas midterm election.

Sarah Stogner, who lost the Texas Railroad Commission Republican Party primary runoff to incumbent Wayne Christian, has announced her intention to vote for Democrat Luke Warford. She’s not alone.

Former GOP Lt. Gov. Bill Ratliff is going to cast his ballot for Democratic challenger Mike Collier. The man who was known in the Texas Senate as Obie Won Kenobi ain’t gonna support incumbent Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. Neither is Amarillo GOP state Sen. Kel Seliger or Tarrant County GOP Judge Glen Whitley, both of whom have thrown their support behind Collier.

It all seems to speak to the deep divisions within the Republican Party. I know Seliger quite well, and I know of Ratliff, given that I was paid to follow legislative activities during my time as a full-time journalist. They both are “mainstream Republicans,” and neither of them is wedded to the fiery MAGA rhetoric that folks like Patrick use to blister their opposition.

Sarah Stogner endorses Democrat Luke Warford for railroad commissioner | The Texas Tribune

I am acutely aware that a handful of examples does not constitute a groundswell. It might, though, be a harbinger of what could be boiling under the political surface as we get nearer to midterm Election Day.

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