Category Archives: Campaign ’22

Coattails

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A “Minnesota” Poll – which ,as we’ve noted in the past, has historically favored Democrats, sometimes to an absurd extent with deeply suspicious and one-sided patterns, even after numerous reboots and changes in management and pollsters – shows Governor Walz under water:

The crosstabs are even more ominous for Walz, and show President Biden to be a bit of a drag down-ticket.

Fearless predictions:

  • The Strib, Channels 4, 9 and 11, and the rest of the media will switch into full PR mode for the DFL for the next 13 months. Indeed, they have; Esme Murphy’s interview with Jennifer Carnahan – complete with the sort of on-air toenail-painting she normally reserves for DFLers – can be seen as nothing but an attempt to keep the MNGOP even more divided and impotent than normal.
  • MPR will be a little more artful about it – but the output from the DFL’s opposition research will get prominent placement.
  • And a quick reminder to Tom Hauser, perhaps the only genuinely detached journalist in Twin Cities TV or print news: drapes don’t have shoes.

I’m going to put a pin in this.

Congratulations, Gavin Newsom

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To: Gavin Newsom, Premier of California
From: Mitch Berg, Obstreporous Peasant
Re: Congratulations

Governor Newsom,

In a state dominated 2:1 by registered voters from your party, you evaded being recalled by a 7:4 margin.

After outspending the initiative by 5:1, with the united efforts of an in-the-bag media and a full turnout of the national social nomenklatura, in a vote that still saw your support among Latinos erode still further.

Sleep tight, Democrats.

That is all.

Lining Up For Final Approach On That Windmill

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When I first heard that there was going to be a recall vote against Gavin Newsom, I figured “Quixotic” was an understatement. The early polling showed California’s incompetent governor walking away with a recall election.

And when Larry Elder took leave from his national talk radio show (Disclosure: on my station, on the Salem Network, for which I work part-time), I figured it was yet another symbolic drive to get people talking about the issues.

But as Ed Morrissey notes, I want to believeˆ.

Indeed, I believe in miracles.

We’re not anywhere near “Miracle” level yet, and we may never get there. But the path to get there just got a little more brightly lit:

Californians who say they expect to vote in the September recall election are almost evenly divided over whether to remove Gov. Gavin Newsom from office, evidence of how pivotal voter turnout will be in deciding the governor’s political fate, according to a new UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times.

Ed Morrissey notes:

Conservative talk radio host Larry Elder, who last week won a court battle to appear on the Sept. 14 recall ballot, leads in the race to replace Newsom among the dozens of candidates in the running, while support for reality television star Caitlyn Jenner remains low, the survey found. Forty percent of likely voters remain undecided on a replacement candidate, providing ample opportunity for other gubernatorial hopefuls to rise in the ranks before the Sept. 14 special election…

One potential advantage – special elections (and a recall is the special-est election there is) offer at least a slight premium for the motivated. Has this past couple of years of incompetent elitism left enough Californians angry enough to bring on a spasm of rebellion?

The odds are still very, very long. But maybe not as long as we’d thought.

And if it succeeds? Mid-terms are gonna be lit.

Expect Lots Of Headlines About Covid And Marijuana Legalization

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As the state heads toward a mid-term election with the control of both the House and Senate, to say nothing of the Constitutional Offices, at stake, a poll shows MInnesotans are un-thrilled with government’s handling of events:

Considering opinions on Gov. Tim Walz’s approach to handling crime, the results have virtually flipped since last year in terms of approval. In June of 2020, 59% approved and 35% disapproved of the governor’s approach to crime, but in June of 2021, 55% disapproved and only 39% approved…Fifty-eight percent of respondents said they visited Minneapolis less than normal in the past year, compared to 4% who said they visited the city more frequently than in the past.

Despite this, a majority of Minnesotans do trust law enforcement to keep the city safe — far more than they trust elected leaders in the state to do the same.

Ample reasons for dissatisfaction are obvious. And some are not so much . More tomorrow in this space.

The New Racial Purity Klan

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They’re not even bothering to couch it in academic abstractions anymore:

If the people have any kind of memory or moral sense at all, 2022 is going to be a bloodbath.

But I’m worried about the whole memory and moral sense thing.

Rubble Bounced

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My old friend and radio colleague Ed Morrisey is one of more than a few Republicans who, disgusted by (obviously) the riots, but  moreso by the usurpation of the state control of elections and Electors that happened in Congress last week (the real “coup attempt”, and one of the  most self-destructive power grabs in my memory), is leaving the GOP.

Read the whole thing at your leisure.  Here’s the conclusion

The caveat of “I don’t support violence in any way” is meaningless — a dodge around the betrayal of the principles on which this party stood at one time. This is nothing more than an endorsement of brute-force majoritarianism at best, and at worst an explicit endorsement of mob rule. In fact, it seems like a celebration of mob rule, one cheered on by Donald Trump’s closest formal adviser in the White House.

Before this, questions had already arisen as to how republicanism could coexist with populism. This goes waaay beyond that question. The disgrace in Congress, even apart from the mobs, severed the connection between Republicans and republicanism in any meaningful American sense. They aren’t republicans now, but instead a radical form of small-D democrats whose only aim is gin up outrage in sufficient quantities to “own the libs.” That’s not just on Donald Trump; it’s now on the entire party and its leadership.

That’s their choice; my choice is very clear. I don’t choose to participate in such a nihilistic political party. I’ll stand on my own as an independent, ready to vote for responsible conservatives but under no obligation to vote for or support anyone else. Until the GOP comes to its senses and returns to true republican and federal principles, I will not be back.

Speaking for myself?  I’m not going to pretend that my party affiliation matters for much of anything to anyone.  I stopped donating money to non-conservative candidates years ago, after the party’s establishment slandered the Tea Party away from its place at the table.  I stopped being an activist two years ago – not “over Trump” per se (again, I’m not of the opinion that my choices of affiliations, or activism, matter in the great scheme of things all that much).

For what it’s worth?   I intend to fight to re-save the soul of the GOP.   There is a legacy worth saving, and passing on to people who haven’t seen much evidence of it in the past decade.

But it ain’t gonna be easy.

Grabbing While The Grabbing’s Good

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On the one hand, Democrats have (aside from any contrariness Joe Manchin may express) complete control of Federal government for the next couple of years.

What does this mean for law-abiding gun owners?

Well, they are certainly floating the trial balloons already. And Biden (and, perhaps more importantly, Harris) were pretty clear during the campaign: they want to ban “assault weapon”, clap arbitrary limits on magazine sizes, and make it possible to register guns and allow pretty much anyone with a personal beef to get your guns confiscated.

It’s in their DNA, of course. But I suspect there’s going to be a certain urgency about it.

For one thing, even before 2020 there was a solid case to be made that gun culture” is winning the culture war.

And while the mainstream media will never dig into it, there’s a solid case to be made that gun ownership and the culture that goes with it broke even farther out of its traditional white/male/30-60/rural niche and went even more widespread in society.

“First-time gun buyers favor Biden over Trump,” the Dallas Morning News reported of pre-election Texas survey results. “In fact, 51% of first-time purchasers surveyed favored Biden, while 43% favored Trump.”

As you might expect, this complicates matters for Democrats who have long used gun restrictions as an easy way to bash political enemies while doing minimal harm to their own constituents. With gun ownership becoming a nonpartisan taste, restrictive laws threaten to inconvenience and anger supporters as much as opponents.

Sure enough, “Americans’ appetite for gun control is the lowest it has been since 2016,” according to Gallup. And while a large majority of Democrats still favor tighter restrictions, support has declined even in that group by five points. New gun owners, along with long-time shooters, are likely to respond to stricter gun laws with prickly defiance.

And this bit here – which is something I’ve been hoping would evolve for a loooong time:

“Previous studies have proposed two sides of gun culture: one focused on recreational use and a second on self-defense. But the new BU study identifies a third mentality, made up of people who view the defense of the Second Amendment as necessary to freedom in the United States,” Boston University (BU) announced last summer. “This so-called ‘gun culture 3.0’ has increased the most in states that have strengthened their gun laws to the greatest degree, suggesting it may be triggered by perceived threats on individual liberty by the government.”

So my thesis – call it aspirational, if you want, because you’re not wrong – is that the Progs who now control the wheels and levers of federal government need to make their move now, because they may not get another chance.

And given that depending on Joe Manchin’s sympathies (and perhaps a few other relatively moderate Dems in the Senate), the difference between a bill being “Law” and “Oppo research ready for the 2022 campaign to extinct every non-metro anti-gun candidate between the Hudson and the Sierra Madre” might be one vote? That might just moderate the push.

I’m hoping not, of course – I want the progs to put their cards on the table, and have it blow up in their faces in two years.

Trranslation Services, While You Wait

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Here’s Minnesota governor, transcribed from a “virtual fundraiser“:

“ They are using this as a way to try to divide us along cultural lines, along ethnic lines“

Clearly the DFL has a problem in greater Minnesota; look at the results of the last three or four elections. The DFL is losing, not gaining, traction among those whom Governor Klink refers to as “rocks and cows“

Let’s translate this.

In 2018 Governor Klink threw “Greater Minnesota” under the bus and french-kissed the Metro Progressives to get into power.

In 2020, the DFL is all but extinct outside the Metro – and his hamfisted, incomptetent Covid quarantine has disproportionally affected Greater MN. Klink has to try to make inroads in what could be a pretty monolithic GOP vote outside the Twin Cities, because the Metro vote alone may not be enough.

Future Alternative

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Minnesota legislature passes bill to help victims of state government, unless someone else does.

That’s not how they worded it, of course. The state legislature adopted a bill to give aid to small businesses closed by Governor Walz and to extend unemployment benefits for workers laid off by Governor Walz, but the aid is conditional. If the federal government adopts an aid package, then we use the federal money and the state does nothing. So it’s conditional virtue signaling, based on gaslighting the public that the Covid pandemic is a force of nature, not a product of arbitrary and destructive rule-by-executive-order.

I award Republicans one point for at least voicing the objection that Walz is the problem, not Covid. But I penalize them 10 points for going along with business as usual. Acquiescence is approval. Let the Democrats try to pass laws without a single Republican vote, until Walz relinquishes power to the Legislature, where it belongs. Otherwise, what do we need Republicans for? Just let Walz run everything forever and save the per diems.

In a state as Great-Sorted as Minnesota is, voters who are swingable are going to need a reason to choose GOP in 2022.

The Senate GOP has given them some little reasons. They need big ones. Stat.

Challenges

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The election’s over.

Maybe Biden takes office in seven weeks. Maybe one of Trump’s legal challeges gets traction.

For purposes of this post, I don’t know and don’t care.

Because the 2022 and 2024 campaigns have already begun.

The good news: without Trump, the Democrats are going to have to find someone to unify around. And it ain’t gonna be easy.

From New Republic – now, they have to try to focus on their own problems:

The coming weeks may see the reemergence in backrooms and boardrooms of the tensions that loomed over the 2020 Democratic primaries. Let us review the three power centers in the party as they existed then:

The new economy. Two titans of the finance world (Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer) sought to win the Democratic nomination by funding their own and various down-ballot candidacies. (Both would eventually back Biden.) There was also one impecunious primary candidate who had some original ideas about the tech world: Andrew Yang. The new economy provides wealth for so few people that it can never command the party’s rank and file. But it exercises a dizzying gravitational pull on its leaders.

Socialism. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren were its candidates, the former in a doctrinal way (unions, benefits, income redistribution), the latter in a way adapted to strike more precisely at modern power relations (financial regulation, economic rights), which she denied was any form of socialism at all. Each was a more dire threat to the interests of people like Bloomberg and Steyer than anything the tax-cutting, deregulatory Republicans might produce. This is the great drama of the Democratic Party: They are the party of the 1 percent. They are also the party of expropriating the 1 percent.This is the great drama of the Democratic Party: They are the party of the 1 percent. They are also the party of expropriating the 1 percent.

Civil rights. The party’s glue is civil rights, broadly understood. Civil rights long meant looking out for the practical and principled interests of Black people—naturally a commitment on which cooperation with socialists is possible. But over the decades, civil rights has also become a regulatory and judicial system for advancing the interests of other groups, including immigrants (elite and mass), women executives, two-income gay couples, and lawyers—commitments more consistent with those of the Democrats’ plutocratic wing. The role of civil rights as reconciler-of-contradictions can be compared to that of anti-Communism in the tripartite Reagan coalition of the 1980s, which appealed in one way to Christians who thought the country ought to be more fraternal and in another to businessmen who thought it ought to be more rapacious.

Without a boogieman, can they boogie?

That’s the good news.

Now, the bad news: without Trump, the Republicans are going to have to find someone to unify around. It that ain’t gonna be easy.

The Trump “movement” is a lot like Ron Paul’s crowd, eight and 12 years ago – they pretty much came for a single personality, in whom a bunch of hot button issues coalesced; immigration, economic decay, identity politics. Like the Ron Paul crowd, they could easily disappear from the GOP for another generation.

Then there’s the remaining Tea Party, Reagan and even Chamber of Commerce Republicans – none of whom are big enough to put someone in the White House, all of whom are big enough to deny a nomination or scupper an election if they stay home.

The GOP needs a New Gingrich to articulate a vision that brings that throng together in time for midterms, when the reaction to the inevitable “progressive” overreach peaks.

The End Of The Beginning

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I believe there was massive fraud in this election. I believe President
Trump will fight it in the courts. I don’t know if he will win. But
even if he doesn’t, things are going to be okay.

Shouting aside, it seems each state makes their own rules on who can
vote, how votes are counted, and what it takes to set aside the results
of the election. I don’t know the standards of evidence required or the
procedures to be followed. None of the Instant Experts on the internet
seem to know, either.

Assuming the worst – that Biden is certified as the winner and sworn in
as President – what then?

Really, not much. I’ve lived under Democrat regimes pretty much my
entire life. They’ve always been morons and the younger ones are
getting worse, but I don’t think the people behind the scenes are ready
to let them destroy the country, yet. That’s why Bernie got the axe in
the primaries and Biden became the nominee. They needed someone
moderate-looking to hoax the yokels a while longer.

I still believe the Covid crisis was a political crisis manufactured to
justify mailed ballots to steal the election (I didn’t think it would be
so brazen). The lock-downs will continue during the Fourth Quarter to
make Trump’s economic numbers look bad. But when Biden is sworn in,
he’ll need to start generating good economic numbers to help Democrats
in the 2022 mid-terms. Covid will become just a bad flu, something we
must live with, restrictions will be lifted.

I assume Biden/Harris will resume meddling in foreign affairs. I’ll urge
my grandkids NOT to enlist because it’ll be too risky. Not risk of dying
in defense of our nation, that’s defensible; risk they’ll be sent to die
in some shit-hole Third World nation defending some pie-in-the-sky
notion of Utopia dreamed up by bureaucrats. At least President Trump is
trying to get us out of those places now, before he leaves office.
That’s a good start. If he can ram through a whole bunch more federal
judges before he goes, that’ll help a lot.

I assume Biden/Harris will be urged to raise taxes, ban guns, eliminate
cars, and endless other foolishness but I assume the adults in the
Senate will block that. As the pundit says, gridlock is the next best
thing to Constitutional government.

All in all, I’m not despondent. I think President Trump’s super-power
was to so enrage the Left they tore off their own masks, letting
sensible people see how bat-sh*t crazy they are. I think that opened a
lot of eyes, hopefully to continue in future elections as the cultural
pendulum swings back to sanity.

Fear not. This too shall pass.

Joe Doakes

I agree.

I also believe the natural “progressive” urge to overreach, combined with the customary crash at the polls for the President’s party in the 2022 midterms – which, given the burgeoning extremism of the left, could rival 2010 – has the potential to be epic.