Four post-mortems, one piece about voting problems, and one long-term trend piece, all about last week’s elections. (Link to each full column is embedded in each headline.)
Why Republicans politicians and pundits were so wrong (Nov. 11): If Democrats have succeeded in foisting early-voting systems across the land and have twice proved really good at get-out-the-vote efforts with them, and if no red tsunami has shown up in recent special elections, and if independents are truly turned off by Republican election deniers, and if Trump scares so many people, why should Republicans win a landslide victory? …. [And some of us actually did see the tight results coming.]….
Five Republicans with quite bright futures (Nov. 9): Republicanswanting some hope amid the mediocre election results should look at some high-quality people elected or reelected Tuesday who can be major political stars. …. [Among them: Tim Griffin of Arkansas, Katie Britt of Alabama, Tim Scott of South Carolina, Kim Reynolds of Iowa, and John James of Michigan.]….
No reason the whole country can’t run elections as efficiently as Florida (Nov. 9):
Why can’t other states do what Florida does?
Here we are mid-afternoon the day after an election , and we still don’t know who won dozens and dozens of federal races in Arizona , California , Nevada , Washington , New York , Oregon , and other states. In several states, the results won’t be known for days, perhaps even weeks. Yet Florida, the nation’s third-most populous state, has for several election cycles in a row counted and reported all its ballots quickly on election night itself, without controversy or major court challenges….
Blame Trump (Nov. 8-9): ….The less Trump-like the Republican candidates, the better they did…..
No need for drop-box vigilantes, but Justice Department is hypocritical (Nov. 3):
Armed conservatives watching ballot drop boxes from a distance apparently are worse than armed New Black Panthers, using racial epithets, standing literally in the doorway of an Election Day polling place.
At least that seems to be the position of the Biden-Harris Justice Department, which is cracking down on behavior that is no more obviously against the law than behavior the Obama-Biden Justice Department refused to punish…. [Then again, the Arizona vigilantes absolutely were in the wrong.]….
Long-term, national Democrats could be in serious political trouble (Nov. 8):
National Democratic Party officials should wake up and get real.
When a left-leaning group studying survey results concludes that the national Democratic Party is “out of touch” on priorities, ideology, and values, party officials should finally pay heed. The survey is well crafted and quite instructive. Its findings are compelling…..
