My sincere thanks to my long time reader and frequent commentator old gray dude. This is why I love going to work every day. I get to rub my hands together until it smells like bacon grease, vent my spleen, and retire to my comments where I am greeted by valued readers who are at least as intelligent, if not more so than I. It is both gratifying as well as educational, and far too often too goddamn funny for words.
I wrote yesterday that the off year, and off year special elections can be a useful licked finger for political addicts like me to possibly get a glimpse as to how the midterms are shaping up. I pointed out how the Democratic overperformance in 2017 augured the fortunes of a blue tsunami in 2018, and the massive departure of GOP House incumbents.
Old gray dude noted that that wasn’t all that the 2017 off year elections foretold. Not only did the Democrats rock the House in 2018, but Trump’s toxic popularity made it possible for vulnerable Senate Democrats like Jon Tester in Montana and Sherrod Brown in Ohio cruise to reelection in the Senate in a year in which senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had prophesied gaining a permanent GOP majority a scant year earlier. And he was right.
Which leads us to the grist for today’s mill. You all know that one of my favorite sayings is that Those that don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. But in the case of Bitch McConnell and the GOP senate, it leads to an interesting variable, Those that learn from history are still doomed to repeat it, since they can’t alter the circumstances.
As the GOP Senate Leader, one of McConnell’s primary responsibilities to recruit, back, and support qualified candidates with statewide name recognition to run for open and Democratic held Senate seats, especially in vulnerable Democratic states. Which, looking at the Democratic Senate map in 2018 was why McConnell predicted his permanent GOP Senate majority in 2018.
Which is why I wrote in later 2017 and on into 2018 that McConnell had a major problem. For the most part, qualified senate candidates with statewide name recognition and an established network and donor base are by nature established political creatures in the state. And they have future aspirations. Which is why I wrote at the time that McConnell was finding it almost impossible to recruit qualified candidates to run for Senate, when nobody with career aspirations wanted to board an already sinking ship. McConnell ended up with a motley crew of Trumptards, and far from winning a permanent GOP Senate majority, the Democrats came within one seat of fighting the GOP to a draw.
Let me make this crystal clear. Mitch McConnell learned from the 2018 debacle. McConnell is a consummate Senate political animal, and I personally think that by New Years Eve of 2017, McConnell already knew that he was boned going into 2018. Sideways. He wasn’t the guy holding the ship’s wheel, he was in the hold shoveling coal. Traitor Tot was steering the ship. And hit the ice burg.
And going into 2020, it was more of the same thing. McConnell knew the problem, candidate quality, but there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. Once again nobody with mainstream GOP chops wanted to be on a ballot with El Pendejo Presidente’s name on it. And as a result, McConnell lost the one thing he values most, his Senate Majority position. And in 2022, several months before the election, McConnell was openly bemoaning the lack of candidate quality, and steeling the faithful to not count on retaking the Senate in 2022. And he was right, the GOP lost lost another seat.
And here we are, going into the 2024 election cycle, and if anything, McConnell is in an even worse position than ever before. This time The Trumpster Fire is literally fighting for his personal freedom, and he’ll jettison the GOP in a heartbeat to get that. More, smy qualified GOP Senate candidates go into this already knowing that Trump is the ultimate one trick pony. If he loses, then he’s nothing more than sorry history. And even if he wins, then he’s turfed out in 2028 after completing his second term. They can wait. Four more years isn’t so much. and you all already know that if The Cheeto Prophet goes down, he’s going to want to go down surrounded by slavish sycophants. That’s why I’m bullish on the Democrats chances to expand their Senate majority in 2024.
But before I close, I want to spend a moment to deal with the two specific Senate seats that old gray dude referred to in his comment. Jon Tester of Montana, and Sherrod Brown in Ohio. Simply because they are both once again up in this cycle. And personally I think they’re just fine, thank you very much.
Let’s start with Tester in Montana. Because Montana is such a deeply red state, Every goddamn time Tester comes up for reelection, the GOP considers it a prime pickup opportunity, and runs some politically connected GOP hack against him, and funds them lavishly. And they’re always f*cked in the head.
They’re missing the simple point that Jon Tester is a Montana institution. Voters vote for people they’re comfortable with, who represent them and their values. And Tester plays that to the bone. When you look at Jon Tester, you see a big, cheerful country boy farmer. Which he is. And Testers website is replete with pictures and video of him driving his plow, or on his back under his combine replacing a hinky part. How does some GOP empty suit unseat a local farmer boy who looks, sounds, and acts like everybody else. Fuggedaboudit.
Now let’s look at Sherrod Brown in Ohio. Every time Brown comes up for reelection, he’s the cherry on top of the GOP Senate seat flip sundae. Every time he runs, he is proudly outspent 100-1 by GOP dark money looking to send him packing. And every time he cruises comfortably home to victory.
The problem is that Sherrod Brown is authentic. brown dares to walk the workers rights walk there the GOP hack slobs they keep throwing up against can only talk the talk. And Sherrod Brown just got a jet stream into his sails going into November.
.MSNBC just reported that the PA has just called the special election ballot, which would have required a 60% majority to make changes to the state constitution just went down in flames by a margin of 63-37%. How sweet is it that the result tonight was more than the 60% threshold that the GOP wanted for the abortion referendum on the ballot in November. Sherrod Brown will be able to ride this into November, when the pro choice vote will be out in full fury.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. The GOP is on a terminal downward spiral. The party internal fight going into 2024 will be fascinating. But what will be even more interesting is what happens on the day after the election is called for Biden, and the GOP wakes up to a bombshells landscape where Donald Trump is no longer the dominant personality. Man! Talk about a mosh pit!
We always knew they’d eat each other. Glad to see eventually is coming sooner than I thought it would. Happy hunting you scumbags. Munch, munch, munch… 🙂
Your “… to make changes to the state constitution just went down in flames by a margin of 63-37%. How sweet is it that the result tonight … to ride this into November, when the pro choice vote will be out in full fury…” Sanity prevails, but it’s testament to the fact that democracy is a delicate flower, and it requires vigilance in numbers to protect it from silent, sinister, corrupting malignancies. On to other matters, hygiene. Hygiene matters in a political slaughterhouse; but in the case of ‘disappearing up its own arse’ the GOP, it appears, has no robust housekeeping standards to speak of – tossed out when the malignant MAGA infiltrated, perhaps. The GOP now fumes with the stench of a slow death spiral – a lot of astute and concerned upholders of democracy are now nervous for the future, because of what they both see and smell.
If things go our way and Biden not only gets elected but the Guns Over People party loses the senate and the house…which I know would require a lot of things to go right…then let’s hope they have the WILL to fix what the Gop has done to our climate, our working/middle class, the children, the Supreme Court, etc. The time for playing nice is over.
Guns Over People is excellent, Scott; I’m also fond of Greed Over Principles. Both are true.
MT has become a magat state. No surprise given the state’s past excursion in the freeman (Jordan) and the current trip with the dominion xtians (NW MT). If you drive thru/around MT you will see a f*ck-ton of trump flags and nothing else (often not even the u.s. flag). This is a state that went big for jersey gianforte, the damned fool who thought knocking the sh*t out of reporter was acceptable behavior (which of course it is to magats). Now gianforte, like daines and maryland matt rosendale, are ALL carpet-baggers. There was a time when the folks in MT really didn’t want to hear jack-diddly from non-natives. That has changed (it started back withn racicot–the guy from enron).
I’m no big fan of Tester’s-he’s too much like Manchin when it comes to the fossil fuel industry. I’m less of a fan of any ‘pube so I really have no choice in the Senate election. Other voters, the majority of whom think trump is A-Ok, might feel otherwise. We have been worried about Tester’s re-election chances before and things turned out alright for him. The current political atmosphere is very different. Very different from his last election. Look, where I work I am required to interact with a lot of young adults and it is quite likely you will see several “fuck Biden” t-shirts worn by these people every day-and it is a school f.f.s.
If Tester is going to lose his senate seat, this is the election cycle where it is likely to happen. I think his support for veterans, usually his strong point, won’t be enough this time.
Hey Murf thanks for the shout out. To add one thing to the Tester point. Montana is a pretty conservative state, but when Tester was elected, the senior senator from Montana was Max Baucus, so at that time Montana had two Democratic senators. Baucus like Tester often was a sticking point in the Democratic agenda. I guess it has leaned more conservative since then, so Tester has to walk a fine line to represents the general ideals of the state.
I think Tester is pretty level-headed and does what he needs to do to keep his seat, without going overboard. I’m not sure the same can be said for Manchin who seems to like the attention a little too much. I can see him getting a big head, thinking he’s more of a big deal than he is. However, while these two don’t give us the legislative votes we’d like sometimes, at least they are keeping us in the majority in the Senate, and that’s worth something. I don’t see a more liberal Dem getting traction in either of these states. Yet.
Tester is and always has been a moderate that leans Democratic more than Republican. That’s why although he’s usually with us sometimes he doesn’t go along with what those of us who are progressives want, but we could do a whole lot worse. Manchin, and Sinema too for example. I recall Tester once having a good speaking slot at our convention and a lot of people were doing the “where the hell have Democrats been hiding this guy? because he struck a chord with a wide audience. Tester however has never seemed to want to move up higher than being a Senator. I actually think he’d prefer to go back to being plain ole farmer/rancher John Tester from Montana but he knows how bad it would be for the country if MT replaced him with some right wing a-hole so he’s stuck around. And he’s tried to do what he believes the voters in his state want him to do, even if many Democrats don’t always like it. STill, as I said he’s with us far more often than not so we should accept it and if we can support his re-election.
You wrote: “MSNBC just reported that the PA [sic] has just called the special election ballot, which would have required a 60% majority to make changes to the state constitution just went down in flames by a margin of 63-37%. How sweet is it that the result tonight was more than the 60% threshold that the GOP wanted for the abortion referendum on the ballot in November.”
No, Ohio voters did not reject Issue 1 by a margin of 63% to 37%. I think that I did see that margin when 40% of the vote had been counted, and I do not know whether MSNBC ever reported that margin, but it was not the “final” margin. The nearly final margin, as reported by the AP (not “PA”), MSNBC, and the BBC, was 57% to 43%. The significance of this difference is that, if Issue 1 had passed and if the November vote were to have the same margin, the pro-abortion rights voters would have fallen short of the 60% vote needed in November to pass the constitutional amendment to secure abortion rights in Ohio.
Here is an excerpt from the CBS story, which is based on an AP report:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ohio-issue-1-fails-to-pass-2023-results/
The Associated Press projects the proposed constitutional amendment failed to garner the majority support it needed to pass. With all precincts reporting, and 58,000 absentee and provisional ballots outstanding, the measure was failing by a margin of 57.01% to 42.99%.
Here is an excerpt from the BBC report:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66442370
As of Wednesday afternoon local time, with nearly all voting precincts tallied, 57% of voters had rejected Issue 1, with the ‘yes’ side trailing by 14 points.
(Note: That means the vote was 57%-43%.)
Here is an excerpt from the MSNBC report:
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/ohio-issue-1-special-election-results-abortion-rcna99064
In a state presidential candidate Donald Trump won by 8 points twice, voters defeated a Republican maneuver to block abortion rights by a 14 point margin.