Fleshing out my first thoughts on the most recent election:<\/p>\n
In Minnesota, the age-old wisdom prevails: money talks, bullshit walks. Tim Walz is sputtering fool, but he will be governor for the next four years. Unless his A1C level approaches triple digits, it’s highly likely he’ll complete his term and step aside for another sideshow act once he passes his sell-by date, some time around 2027. The DFL has the money and the infrastructure to control this state for the foreseeable future and the GOP has nothing. The DFL proved they could elect any droolbucket with a brand name when they pushed Mark Dayton across the line in 2010 and 2014. A guy with Walz’s skillset and mien wouldn’t get beyond middle management for any respectable company in the state, but he’s won twice. We can see all see it for what it is, but it doesn’t matter in the slightest — for the fourth election running, the DFL showed Team Rocks and Cows their ass. I don’t doubt they’ll find another standard bearer who is (a) absurd and (b) likely to win in 2026.<\/p>\n
Keith Ellison is corrupt as the day is long, a 30-year grifter. He let a $250 million fraud run without interruption for the better part of two years. He’s now won statewide office twice. We’re pretty far gone if he can’t be defeated. I don’t doubt Jim Schultz is a competent lawyer, but his affect was of a guy who doesn’t get out of the conference room nearly enough and he was too nice a guy to run against a bully. To take the AG’s office back, the Republicans need a crusading litigator type who can prosecute the prosecutor and expose the rot within. There has to be one of those out there.<\/p>\n
On the national level, it has to be said: Donald Trump didn\u2019t help. He was and continues to be horribly wronged by what he\u2019s gone through at the hands of his persecutors. And since civic education in this country is essentially dead in the water, most citizens can’t recognize that Trump is living example of why the Founders were against bills of attainder. Having said that, Trump will never get a sympathetic audience. He’s an obnoxious boor and he can’t get past his own solipsism; if he had even a scintilla of self-awareness, he might understand where he is, but we’ve been watching him for well over 40 years and that’s not in his skill set. Trump fancies himself the indispensable man, the conquering hero, but if he sincerely loves his nation, he’d recognize that martyrdom is a better career move. Not a chance in hell he’ll accept his fate, though.<\/p>\n
Aside from the utter domination of Ron DeSantis in Florida, election results did not go well as one might have expected. Even so, the Republicans could still flip the House and the Senate. Based on reports from Arizona and Nevada, the Republicans could get over the line despite the Fetterman debacle in Pennsylvania. It appears likely that Adam Laxalt will win his seat in Nevada and there’s reason to believe Blake Masters may squeak by with Kari Lake becoming the governor in Arizona. Meanwhile, Herschel Walker will be going to a runoff in Georgia and has a good chance of prevailing this time. Even if the Senate ends up 50\/50 again, I can imagine Joe Manchin may try to cross the aisle to save his ass in 2024. What will be interesting is whether Mitch McConnell would want him. I am not convinced McConnell enjoys being majority leader; he has more opportunities for self-enrichment in his current position.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the Donks own the next two years. And they are going to hate that. There is still an urgent need for them to ease out Biden before too long, but they aren’t going to have an easy path to removing him, unless they decide to use Hunter Biden’s depredations as the pretext. Still, they will need a plausible successor. Kamala Harris impresses no one. Gavin Newsom is an empty suit. Pete Buttigieg? I don’t think so. Maybe it will be time for President Fetterman.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fleshing out my first thoughts on the most recent election: In Minnesota, the age-old wisdom prevails: money talks, bullshit walks. Tim Walz is sputtering fool, but he will be governor for the next four years. Unless his A1C level approaches triple digits, it’s highly likely he’ll complete his term and step aside for another sideshow […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":358,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[427,449,320,434,255,367],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-22","category-lets-go-brandon","category-mndfl","category-mr-d","category-the-racket","category-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/358"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=83844"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83844\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83848,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83844\/revisions\/83848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=83844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=83844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=83844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}