Category Archives: Elections

The utter madness going on now at a state capitol near you

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One of the maps being discussed.

Unbelievably, I just learned about this last night, because as y’all know I’m not paying NEARLY as much attention to news as I once did.

Perhaps you’ve been as inattentive as I have. I hope not. But in any case, none of us knows how it’s going to turn out.

I’m talking about this.

Here’s another version from The State.

What’s going on in this: Donald Trump is trying his best to redraw all the Southern states’ maps (and maybe others as well; I’m just looking at the South here) so that there is no hope of them ever electing another Democrat. No Jim Clyburn, and so forth. This is all sparked by the recent Supreme Court decision regarding the Louisiana map, which has thrown the doors open to this sort of thing. This is now apparently a big part of his vision of becoming permanent Fürher of America, along with such things as changing the rules so he can run for a 3rd time in what would likely prove to be our last presidential election (in his lifetime, anyway), and making sure he can win it in the House, no matter what the voters say.

I had sorta, kinda been following this — elsewhere. My wife, who’s from Memphis, had focused my attention on what Tennessee just did. They had torn apart the 9th Congressional District that since the early ’70s had been mostly electing black representatives. (I voted for the first of those, Harold Ford. Later regretted it. But I liked his son.) So now, black Memphians (who are the majority in the city) are raging about the “racist” map, and the current incumbent (who, incidentally, is white and the first Jewish congressman from Tennessee, and can’t really play the usual Memphis race card), is talking about the indiscriminate elimination of Democrats.

Which is somewhat more to the point in the Memphis case. If Trump thought black members would support him as slavishly (and that’s the word here) as white Republicans do, he’d be looking for a way to make ALL the districts majority-minority, if that were possible. For that matter, if only Democrats loved him as the terrified Republicans do, he’d go for more Dems. He’s not particular. But neither of those fantasies being the case, he’ll settle for a plan that elects only Republicans. He only cares about Number One — never forget that.

As for SC, I only heard about this last night from a Democratic friend whom I had called about something else entirely. I’ve talked to a couple of other people since then — well, one other person, a Republican. But I’m trying to reach a lobbyist by text who can tell me what the hell is going on right now. Other that, I’ve been reading but not learning much. Because going into today, nobody knew what was going to happen. This is moving very fast.

It seems it will depend on whether the Senate goes along with a last-second reapportionment. I hear Majority Leader Shane Massey is against it, but I can’t swear to that. We’ll see.

Meanwhile, over in the House, I hear about Republicans running around talking about the latest “White House map.”

Y’all do understand the extent to which this means we are living in a different country than the one in which I have spent most of life. Right? Sure, presidents have always been highly interested in the makeup of Congress, and therefore very interested in the maps, and quietly keeping track of what’s happening.

But that’s not THIS America, in which the president openly barges in and takes over this process, and his minions in Columbia are unembarrassed about making it clear what’s going on.

You see, folks, legally — constitutionally — remapping is entirely the responsibility and prerogative of state legislatures. In any previous decade, lawmakers of both parties would have been fiercely defending their turf, furious if any mere president tried to muscle in.

But not these guys. Not in Trump World.

We won’t even get into the completely uncaring betrayal of the Legislative Black Caucus, which in the early ’90s made the deal with the Republicans that let the GOP take over the S.C. House. But let’s not be too harsh in judging today’s Republican members. They, and their Master, are even more ignorant about history than most Americans. Thirty years ago, when that deal with the caucus was made, I doubt Trump knew where South Carolina was, much less which party was running it. (Here he is in those days.)

At the top of this post, I’ve including one of the maps that’s been floating around. If they go ahead with this, no telling what the final version will look like. This one is intriguing. It does away with the salamanderlike district the Republicans drew for Clyburn back then — not to elect a Democrat, but to get all those black voters out of their districts, to make them “safe.”

So the new 6th looks “normal.” it also looks like something they may regret if they go for it. That Democrat I spoke with about this last night is already thinking about running for it.

But what do the doofuses in the White House know about the political geography of South Carolina?

The post I took down too late

EDITOR’S NOTE: I initially posted this on Opening Day. I turned to start doing other things, but then looked back and didn’t like what I saw. I decided to take it down. But I was too late. At least a couple of you have tried to comment on it, but been frustrated. Sorry about that. But I looked at that original headline — “First nominee for worst political ad of 2026 so far” — and the prospect of provoking multiple discussions of perfectly sickening stuff just made me decide I didn’t want to go there. In the past, I have relished such debates, but I have found that in this new Age of Unreason, you get nowhere trying to preach sense to nonsense. Everyone just gets all dyspeptic and goes away muttering. So, I’m not going to invite nominees to offer ads that sicken them, too. Then we’ll all be unhappy. Anyway, I didn’t mean to deprive you of anything. I just decided not to go there. I turned to something that might spark more pleasant interactions with my fellow humans.

Happy opening day! Baseball has begun! The Red Sox face the Reds in Cincinnati at 4:10 today!

If there’s a drawback to the return of baseball, I suppose it’s that I’ll start seeing a lot of TV ads again. I seldom watch live broadcast TV otherwise — I prefer streaming. But watching sports means ads. The good news is that I generally watch through the MLB TV app, and they block out a lot of them.

Unfortunately, that is not the case with TV news, or the game shows that come on at about the same time. I don’t usually watch those on my own, but I see them frequently when I go visit my mother in the evenings. And last night, I hit my limit of tolerance with the repeated airing of the latest from Ralph Norman.

I’m not going into details, except to say that this is a particularly offensive example of one of the most tiresome tropes in American politics. It tends to go something like, “Politishuns is a bunch a crooks, so y’all gotta elect me so I can go set ’em straight!”

Donald Trump’s “clean up the swamp” nonsense is perhaps the best-known recent example of the genre, but this was a standard approach long before he befouled our politics. The approach dates at least back to Andy Jackson’s day. His election was the first landmark in the development of our country’s more offensive forms of populism.

Don’t think I’m exaggerating in describing it. The title of the ad is “Crooks.” That’s it. Nothing like “I will make South Carolina better by doing X or Y.” Just “Crooks.” You know, subtle…

I’m not going to go into details on Norman’s proposals, because they’re all things I’ve addressed many times before. Or at least I won’t go beyond this: The core of his campaign seems to be the oldy in which he offers himself as someone who, as a “businessman,” is obviously better than “politicians.”

I don’t know anything about his business or how it has endowed him with superior character, but I do know that he:

Was a state legislator from 2005 to 2007, and apparently liked it so much that he came back in 2009 and stayed until 2017, at which time he went up to Congress — that monument to character and rectitude — and has stayed there ever since.

And yet, somehow, things didn’t get better.

But don’t worry! It’ll all get fixed when he’s governor!

That’s all I have to say about this ad that’s irritating me so much at the moment. There are probably worse ones out there, although it sickens me to think so. I’ve seen some awful ones recently from Henry McMaster’s lieutenant governor, whose name it always takes me a moment to recall because Henry elevated her from obscurity, and I can’t think of anything she’s done since. Pam. That’s it. I’d have to Google her other name.

But this is the one bugging me right now.

Maybe some of you who see more TV ads than I do have worse examples. Share your own nominees, although I don’t know whether I’ll have the stomach to go watch them.

I’m going to watch some baseball. I hope I get back from class today in time to catch the last innings…

 

Teague: South Carolina’s Election Commission: Troubled Waters

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The Op-Ed Page

Lynn Teague
Guest Columnist

The South Carolina State Election Commission (SEC, not to be confused with anything athletic) has been in the news a lot in the past week, following the removal of Director Howard Knapp by a 3-2 vote of the commissioners last Wednesday. There had been reports of a SLED investigation involving Knapp, but no specific information.

Howard Knapp

This came during a period of uncertainty regarding the SEC’s response to the demands of the federal Department of Justice (DOJ) for our voter rolls, including sensitive personal information. The feds don’t have an impeccable record of data security of late, and this seems both not necessary (our rolls are already checked against federal databases to identify non-citizens and against multiple sources for other verifications) and a potential source of data exposure.

All of this has been further complicated by the firing of the Assistant Director of the SEC over a voice-activated recording device left, intentionally or not, in an SEC training and meeting room.

This turmoil has led to many questions. The first is whether voters should be panicked about what is happening, given elections that are coming soon. Should we panic about either the voting conditions or the integrity of the elections? This one is easy to answer.

Lynn Teague

We can expect the usual human glitches: the poll worker who forgets the key to the polling place and delays opening, the ballot marking device that won’t function, and similar technical problems. We should not expect anything else. At both the state and county levels, the people who make elections work on a day-to-day basis will continue to do the work that they know very well. They will conduct elections designed to count and report every vote, accurately. Furthermore, they will not be rudderless; they will be overseen by our bipartisan election commissioners.

However, this is followed by longer-term concerns. The privacy of our voter records is one of these. This issue is currently in court, in a case before Judge Daniel Coble in Columbia on 26 September. The data security issues around federal systems have already been mentioned.

In addition, it is here that the most important long-term issue arises: Is the South Carolina SEC the independent agency governed by appointed commissioners that we have believed that we have, or is it more vulnerable to political pressures? Commissioners are appointed by the governor, but during their terms cannot be removed except for cause. This is designed to insulate them from passing political storms.

We know that pressure from elected officlals is not unprecedented in the history of the SEC. The departure of the previous director, Marci Andino, followed some very angry comments from legislators who were disturbed by her letter suggesting an array of accommodations for voters during the pandemic. However, that what an exception to the history of the agency. On the whole, the South Carolina election management system contrasts markedly, and very favorably, with states where a partisan official oversees elections.

We should all hope that it stays that way, that South Carolina continues to preserve some measure of distance between partisan politics and the administration of what absolutely must be a non-partisan process, our elections. Politics today is highly adversarial and often becomes performance art, designed to get attention for the official or the official’s party rather than to achieve something substantive. Our elections should not be driven astray in those ugly winds.

Meanwhile, voters should check their registrations at scvotes.gov at least 30 days before elections. They should consult the League of Women Voters’ Vote411, where there is an abundance of election information, including candidate statements in their own words, not edited by anyone.

But after all that is done, we should hope that everyone will keep an eye on the General Assembly. The disturbances at the SEC are not a sound rationale for changing our election administration to one administered by partisan officials or in any way more vulnerable to manipulation. We should all be able to continue to vote with confidence that our votes are accurately tabulated and reported in a process that is not biased toward outcomes for one party or another (other than in redistricting, but that is another subject).

Lynn Teague is a retired archaeologist who works hard every day in public service. She is the legislative lobbyist for the South Carolina League of Women Voters.

The great challenge: telling them who you are

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I haven’t given up on electoral politics, even though we’ve seen results now that could tempt even a passionate small-R republican to ask King Charles III to come on over, and resume reigning where George III left off. Because our system of choosing leaders has been doing a shocking job of showing off its failings lately. (And the word “shocking” is an understatement here. I guess I’m just trying to be cool about it.)

I haven’t given up because there are still people out there worth electing, if only we could elect enough of them. And if only enough of them would run, because these days we’re talking about only a very tiny percentage of those who make themselves available. The good people are probably down in the single digits, because so few good candidates are willing to subject themselves to the process.

But as I said, we have some, and I’m grateful for each one. You’ll recall how pleased I was when Russell Ott became my state senator back in November. I had done what I could to help make it happen — doing such pitifully small things as going around and talking neighbors into putting up yard signs for him, and introducing him to friends and family a couple of times. Maybe I got him one vote, or even two — for which, if it’s so, I’m proud. But obviously, a lot of people were doing small things like what I did. And Russell was doing plenty all by himself.

Anyway, I’m very pleased at the result. So even now, I occasionally make a tiny gesture toward helping the occasional good candidate — even when I can’t vote for that person. So it was that some weeks back, I sent a miniscule cash contribution to Abigail Spanberger, the former congresswoman who is running for governor in Virginia.

I’ve never met her, but I’ve liked what I’ve read about her. My friend E.J. Dionne up in Washington has said a lot of good things about her, and sometime back he told me I would like her. I’m pretty sure he’s right.

Anyway, I bring her up today because I got an email from her campaign unveiling the first video ad of her campaign. You can watch it above. There’s not much to it, but what little there is reinforces my existing positive impression. My favorite factoid? When she boasts of having been named the most bipartisan member of Congress from Virginia. The fact that she wants people to know that is what’s important. What makes her appealing to me is that she aspires to such recognition. Almost no one else running campaigns these days would care about that. Too many ads tend to boast about how much the candidate hates the “other side.”

(My second favorite thing is that throughout the ad, she’s doing that “walking and talking” thing that we all know from “The West Wing.” But you know, I’m kinda West Wing crazy.)

But whether I liked it or not is beside the point. She didn’t spend all that money on an ad for me. She did it to try to explain, as well as anyone could in 30 seconds, who she was to people who have never heard of her — despite her having served three terms in Congress from the state.

She has to do that because of what has been, historically, the greatest flaw in democracy. Sure, there are plenty of people in Virginia — especially northern Virginia, where she’s from — who know far, far more about her than I do, and will vote for her as a result. By “plenty,” we’re talking a number somewhere in the thousands. But that’s not nearly enough. More than three million people voted in the last Virginian gubernatorial election.

You’ll recall, I hope, that when someone reportedly told Adlai Stevenson that “Every thinking person in America will be voting for you,” he replied, “I’m afraid that won’t do — I need a majority.” Well, he didn’t get that, losing twice to Dwight Eisenhower for president in the ’50s. Hey, I probably would have voted for Ike, too, given the chance. But I do appreciate a smart, perhaps too-honest candidate like Stevenson.

In his day, and even more in our own, the necessary majority contains a staggering number of people who don’t know who you are, don’t know much (if anything) about the powers and responsibilities of the office you’re seeking, don’t know the relevant issues, and have no overall understanding of how our political system works. I can’t cite you a percentage or anything, but there’s enough such people that you can’t win your majority without a large number of them.

You can only do so much toward turning those folks into “informed voters.” The first and most essential step is simply to expose them to your name, because a shocking number of them will vote on democracy’s most embarrassing basis — name recognition. And then — because your opponent will be grabbing for name recognition too — you’ve also got something to give them some kind of idea who the person behind that name is.

It was our biggest challenge when I was on James Smith’s campaign in 2018. I don’t have those polls we did in front of me, but I seem to remember learning from them that among voters who knew who James was, he was winning. But that number was too small, so we knew that our only chance at victory was to greatly increase it. But we could never afford to do that. We especially couldn’t do it after Henry had a week or so of giving lengthy hurricane briefings every day on TV, which didn’t cost him a dime. I’m not criticizing Henry for that, not a bit. He was doing his job, and our position on it was the say people should listen to the governor. But the political fact is that Jeff Bezos would probably have to scrape to pay for that much exposure, and every bit of it had the subtext, “I’m Henry McMaster, I’m the governor, and I’m keeping you safe.” Them’s the breaks, huh? We could never catch up with that.

Hey, I like Henry. But I knew James was the better candidate. Indications were that most people who knew both men agreed with me. But in our system, the people who actually know enough to be informed voters are too seldom enough for victory.

Just as was the case with Adlai Stevenson. But he lost to a great American. Poor Kamala Harris lost to Donald Trump. So did Hillary Clinton.

So why are things so much worse today than in Stevenson’s day? After all, today we’re all drinking “information” from a fire hose, in a volume unimaginable in the 1950s. Trouble is, most of it is junk that comes at us because an algorithm has determined that this is what we want to hear, as opposed to what we need to know to be good citizens. And even the tiny remnants of legacy professional media — the kind people relied upon a generation ago — is affected by that poisonous distortion, in a couple of big ways (another long blog post, alas).

Anyway, to get back to Abigail Spanberger… I’m encouraged that as a congresswoman who served six years in Virginia’s 7th District, she’s got more of a head start than James ever had as a state lawmaker of 24 years. But introducing herself is still something she must do, successfully, to win.

So while I know I won’t ever be able to do enough to help her achieve that goal, I do like to chip in. If I can come up with a few (very few) more bucks, I’ll contribute again. I like to do my infinitessimal bit, when I can…

There was Henry on the telly ever day, telling us how to survive the hurricane…

 

Good for you for trying, Jeannie Gaffigan!

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Here’s another thing Brad’s been doing (for the last few days, at least) instead of blogging: Trying to get through all that email that has been piling up since we went to Europe last summer.

In fits an starts the last week or so, I’ve managed to get back to Nov. 1. Which is like digging back a thousand years — to a time when at least a few people in our country could still think straight, and a decent human being who was not trying to destroy human civilization was president of the United States.

And that’s how I ran into this piece in America magazine by Jeannie Gaffigan. Y’all remember Jeannie. I wrote, with enthusiastic approval, about a previous column of hers back in 2020. Here’s a snippet from that earlier Gaffigan column:

As much as some of my well-intended fellow Catholics will hate to hear this, it is crystal clear to me that the right thing to do is vote for Joe Biden. I believe it will be impossible to tackle these other issues with a president who is working overtime to sow division and hatred in this county through insults, intimidation, fear and blatant racism. This venomous “us against them” mentality is trickling down, seeping into our churches and poisoning our pulpits. To a culture of life, vipers are deadly….

Amen, amen, amen!, said I.

Of course, Jeannie had more to work with at that time — our fellow Catholic Joe Biden, the only qualified candidate to run for our nation’s highest office in the last two election cycles. And, of course, the aforementioned decent human being, which is probably his most defining characteristic.

Jeannie Gaffigan

But Joe had been hounded into doing something I’d thought he would never do: he quit. Up until then, he was willing to spend his last breath struggling to save our country, and doing a fine job of it. But it became too hard for him to focus on the mission when the whole country — including people who should know better — were screaming “QUIT, JOE, QUIT!!!” 24 hours a day.

This put Jeannie, and me, and many others, into the uncomfortable position of urging people to vote for Kamala Harris, who tried hard — you’ve gotta give her that — but was still what she had been in 2020: unready. (And I don’t use that term lightly.)

The only advantage Kamala Harris — and those who would advance her bid — had was that her opponent was Donald Trump, for whom no one could possibly justify voting. And no one did. Justification was something these folks didn’t even attempt. Having gone substantially madder since 2020, they just voted for him anyway.

They ignored Jeannie. They ignored me, too, but I have no room to complain, because now we see that I also ignored Jeannie.

But not intentionally. Anyway, in case America will let you read it, here’s her column of Nov. 1. And if the Jesuits are wanting you to subscribe, here’s an excerpt:

An appeal to the moms out there: If you think parenting temper-tantrum toddlers or rebellious teenagers is nearly impossible, try letting them run your government! What would that look like? It’s a chilling thought but one that we can’t afford to ignore…

Amen again. And right now, a bunch of people on Wall Street who may have ignored you and me in November are now seeing exactly what you were talking about…

I keep getting these vapid appeals for contributions, alas

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I’ve gotten pretty aggressive about responding “STOP” to appeals via text for political contributions, and I think the volume of them has noticeably dropped. But I still get them. And as usual, they generally do little to improve my overall impression as to the perspicacity of Homo sapiens.

This one from yesterday is a good example:

It’s Ro Khanna. I really need you to read this text.

(But if you’re short on time, please kick in $15 to replace the abysmal Republican House before you log off: rokhanna.us/218b?t=JBZO6O )

I don’t need to tell you that Congress is broken. Republicans have done a great job of that.

So instead, I’ll tell you my plan to fix it:

✅ Ban *all* PAC and lobbyist money from Congress
✅ Ban Congress members from trading stocks
✅ Enact term limits for Congress members and SCOTUS Justices
✅ Ban Congressmembers from ever becoming lobbyists

Hear me when I say this: So long as Republicans are in control, my ambitious plan to hold members of Congress accountable is dead in the water.

So today, I’m calling on my grassroots supporters to replace the catastrophic Republican Congress with progressive Democrats who will actually do their jobs.

I need 185 gifts before my midnight deadline to stay on track. Can I count on your $15? >> rokhanna.us/218b?t=JBZO6O

Thanks,
Ro

Text STOP to quit

OK, so you start out bemoaning “the abysmal Republican House,” suggesting that’s why you’re running, as a Democrat, for office — that is, for re-election to office. The implication being that you are the answer to the problem.

But you don’t talk about how the Trumpistas are tearing our country and its magnificent constitutional representative democracy apart — which is, you know, the problem with that other side.

No, you trot out a list of hoary alienated-populist proposals that make you sound for all the world like you are one of them:

  • Ban all PAC and lobbyist money from Congress (because we don’t trust people with money)
  • Ban Congress members from trading stocks (because we don’t trust markets or business people in general)
  • Enact term limits for Congress members and SCOTUS Justices (because we don’t trust anyone in power, which doesn’t say much that’s good about you)
  • Ban Congressmembers from ever becoming lobbyists (because we wouldn’t want people who know the system to help groups out there to make their cases to elected representatives)

(Remember my old column from the ’90s about how most of our problems in America wre the result of the decline of trust? Well, now that things are exponentially worse, I regret to say I told you so.)

Admittedly, the first two items would appeal to Democratic populists more than Republican ones, but hey, that’s why I’m not a fan of Bernie Sanders, either. But the third one is right out of the right’s playbook.

But more than that, it’s right out of the playbook of alienated people who don’t trust our system, don’t trust anyone in the system, don’t trust experts, and really don’t have the slightest understanding of any of those things.

Think about it. Those are Trump’s people. I mean, seriously: Do you really believe that the problem with this Republican Congress is that it’s full of the old populist stereotypes who start out all right, but get “corrupted” after any extended period in the system, and no longer care about the will of the people who elected them?

Set aside the fact that’s always been an absurd notion. If there’s a problem with a lot of people who have been in office for multiple terms, it’s that they are so interested in staying in office that they become mindless slaves of polls, which means they’ll do everything they can to do EXACTLY what the folks back home want. And to me, that means they are no longer worthwhile representatives.

A good representative should of course know his constituents, and keep their values in mind. But he should NEVER go to Washington (or Columbia) with a lot of half-baked notions about this and that specific issue held by good (or bad) people who have never studied such issues.

A representative should arrive with wishes and plans, but also humility, because he knows he has yet to study complex issues in any depth, or — and this is critical — engaged in extended debate with smart people who don’t see it the way he or his constituents do, and just may have greater understanding of the details than they do. And that is the rule more than the exception — capital cities are crammed with smart people who actually do know the issues better than the average guy on the street.

People such as lobbyists, to name one category (along with good staff people, academics, etc.).

Yes, all of us can cite cases in which big corporations with deep pockets hire armies of lobbyists that easily overwhelm the scrappy Mr.-Smith-Goes-To- Washington folks opposing them.

But scrappy groups that look out for the interests of the poor, the elderly, children, the environment, and whatever your favorite cause may be, have lobbyists, too. And the interests of the people and causes they represent are well served by their work, even though they may not be (OK, they are NOT) as numerous or well-paid as those who represent Big Pharma. If you don’t think they do good work, follow Sue Berkowitz of SC Appleseed Legal Justice Center, or our own Lynn Teague of League of Women Voters as they make their rounds, and become educated.

But I’m letting myself run off on tangents and pound on some of my personal pet peeves, and failing to explain what’s REALLY wrong with that text:

He calls the Republican Congress abysmal, and he’s absolutely right. But why is it abysmal? It certainly not because of the things he’s proposing to address, particularly not because of staying in office too long. The problem is yahoos who just got there and don’t know squat, and actively hate people who do know squat.

If you could bring back some of the Republicans who served for many years before this new crop of nihilists came along — people like Lamar Alexander, Howard Baker, Bob Inglis, Richard Lugar and on and on — Congress and the nation would be in fine shape today. Any decent Republicans — ones who might have filled the shoes of such as those — who are still around today have either quit running for office, or they tremble in fear of the ignorant, unprincipled yahoos with the torches and pitchforks who could replace them in a skinny minute in the next primary. Especially in the House, thanks to Republicans having succeeded a bit too well at redrawing districts so that the primary IS the election.

And their fear gets even greater when they see what the fear itself can do: Look at what happened in 2023 in the U.S. House itself. The five or so craziest members of the caucus managed to take down the speaker. Why? Because more sensible (to various, modest degrees) Republicans were too terrified to stand up to Matt Gaetz el al. Their own cowardice has since led them to be more afraid than before. The terror snowballs, at an exponentially increasing rate.

Give me people who have managed to stay in office for 30 years or more — since long before Trumpism, or the Tea Party — and while they will inevitably include a healthy share of mediocrities (as a result of too often consulting polls so as to follow popular opinion), I will take them any day before the kind of people who rush in these days to try to take their elders down — and succeed.

I probably haven’t persuaded anyone who didn’t already agree with me. Issues such as these tend to divide people almost as much as abortion, or guns — but with less intensity, of course.

The problem isn’t the system, even as much as it’s been damaged by the real problem — a general electorate that has lost its sense of responsibility as voters.

But I guess it’s hard to come up with a simple four-point plan to address that.

The day after…

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The view out my home office window at 7:28 a.m. What a bright, sunshiny day, huh?

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

— W.B. Yeats

Well, we know what rough beast. He’s been rending and tearing at the very meaning of our country for eight years now. We know him. And yet all those millions of people, who were right here through it all, actually went out and voted for him. To me, it remains unimaginable that even one person did. (I mean, have you ever seen this guy? Have you ever heard him speak?) But you see what happened.

As for Kamala Harris — well, it would be dishonest to pretend I was her biggest fan, but I was very impressed at the race she ran under such difficult circumstances. And in the end, I was happy and proud to vote for her and Walz and put a sign for them in my yard.

It’s a great tragedy for our country that she didn’t win. The contours of the tragedy are yet to be fully defined, but here’s a starting point: We were the great hope of the world, the greatest force for liberal democracy in human history (and if you’re one of those people who don’t understand the meaning of the word “liberal” in that phrase, please go do some serious reading). Now what will we be?

Whatever it is, there is no reason to think it will be in any way good.

But you know, as much as I mourn for the country I love, I’m even more immediately worried about people in other parts of the world — you know, those people Trump and his most fervent followers really don’t give a damn about. I could write about that from now to the day I die, and only partially describe the horrific likely effects. Just to mention one: I can’t tell you what will happen next in Ukraine, but it’s logical to expect that thousands more innocents will die, and the survivors will spend the rest of their lives being oppressed by Trump’s friend in Russia.

America can (I still hope and pray) bounce back, eventually. I’m not able to be as hopeful for Ukrainians.

Of course, other than that, some things went well, although that sound like I’m saying, “But aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, didn’t the play have some fine scenes?”

But, no longer being the public man I was, here’s my personal view. I had five signs in my yard. Here’s how things went with the folks other than Harris/Walz:

  • Mary Burkett — This is very pleasing, as she seems to be the biggest vote-getter in the Lexington 2 school board race. There are four winners total, and I also voted for two of the other three — Liz Chitty Castles and Craig Aull. My fourth choice was Brian Habing, and he didn’t make it. I have little or no objection to Tre Bray, who did. Three out of four is hard to complain about.
  • Micah Caskey — No surprise there, of course. But there’s a slightly interesting thing about the result. As I said in a previous post, his opponent was a very pleasant young man, and I enjoyed talking with him. But it would be hard to find anyone who seriously thought he had a chance in this Republican district. And yet — according to SCVotes, he got 39.63 percent of the vote. Let’s just round that up and say 40 percent. Of course, that could be because this is a fairly moderate Republican district, but still pretty good. Here’s why that matters: Fatalists are constantly saying there’s no point in voting in SC if you’re a Democrat, but take a look at the numbers. No doubt some people wanted Kamala Harris to win, but stayed home because soneone told them to be “realists.” (Alas, far, far too many Americans turn out only for the presidential contest.) And yet she got 40.42 percent of the vote statewide. Just because a state, or a district, is considered “safe” for the other party does not mean anyone has an excuse to stay home. Every vote counts. Every vote. Always.
  • Russell Ott (for whom I had two signs). This is the one candidate I tried most to help elect, as ridiculously minor as the help may have been — introducing him to friends, knocking on doors to talk a very few neighbors into putting up a sign for him. Make no mistake — the guy who made this happen was Russell himself. He worked as hard as I’ve seen anybody work for a state Senate seat. He made his case, and it was clear that he was the better candidate to any objective observer. But there was reason to worry. His district went for Biden in 2020, but Biden wasn’t running, and I never saw much similar enthusiasm for Kamala Harris in these parts. Congratulations, Russell. I’m glad to see you will be my senator.

That’s about it, from where I sit.

Election of the Body Snatchers II (with a possible answer)

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At first, I thought it was maybe a sign of lack of specifically Republican interest that so few voters were at the polling places I mentioned previously in Lexington County.

For a comparison, since I had to go into town anyway, I ran by several over in heavily Democratic Richland. Most were places I used to drop by each Election Day when I was at the paper:

  • A.C. Moore Elementary
  • Rosewood Elementary
  • Sims Park
  • Dreher High School

The first two I just drove by, and confirmed that there no visible lines stretching out the doors. At Sims, I went in, and found one or two people waiting to vote — just like at my own precinct back near Lexington Medical Center.

Finally, at Dreher, I went in and engaged the workers — who weren’t what you’d call busy — in conversation. And maybe I got my answer, although it’s an answer I brought up and immediately dismissed in my last post.

One of those signing people in (occasionally) told me not to be “fooled” by the light trickle of voters. He said 600 people from Ward 16 had voted early. That didn’t impress me until he explained that was half the registered voters (as least I assumed he was talking registered and not voting age population, because he would have had those data at hand — but I neglected to ask) in that ward. And, he said, while it might not look like much at any given moment, 300 had already voted there today. He said that at about 1:15. Conceivably, that left open the possibility that the remaining 300 could vote by the end of the day.

I don’t know, but the same could be true at the other places thus far mentioned, and at the Saluda River precinct I drove back by on my way home.

Huh. Those lines for early voting hadn’t looked very long, particularly when you consider these were people from precincts all over that part of the county. But when you stretch that out over a couple of weeks…

So, maybe folks are voting after all. I may not like the way they vote on this or that race, but I suppose I can’t accuse them of slacking off. Or maybe I can. We’ll see. Dreher was the only place where I went in and got some numbers, and maybe it was different at the other places…

Uh — where are the crowds?

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Normally, there are loads of campaign signs in this spot. This time, they had all been stripped away. Voters were almost as scarce in this location…

I get up, and I read how painfully excited everyone is supposed to be across the country, which was to be expected — right?

But then I go check out the action at my own polling place, and — there’s nobody standing outside. And I drive by my Mom’s a couple of miles away, and — it’s the same.

Which is a shock. I mean, here’s what it looked like at my polling place in 2008, which is the year I think of when I think “big turnout.”

You may say, “Yeah, but it’s raining right now.” Yes, very lightly. And an almost identical rain was falling when I took those pics in 2008, too.

But thinking of that, I went back to my own precinct to see if the crowd was all jammed up inside the building.

No. Nothing. No lines at all. I talked briefly with a school board candidate who was standing out greeting people at the door, and he said the workers told him it had been like this all morning — one or two voters at a time.

I stood there and talked to him for several minutes, and during that period that description of the trickle was borne out — one voter went by us and entered.

It wasn’t like this at early voting, as you can see from my previous posts. But at the same time, while the early crowds were good-sized, they weren’t big enough to tell us there would be virtually no turnout on the Day.

What are y’all seeing?

 

Thanks, but I don’t care ‘Where they Stand’ on these issues

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One reason I don’t blog more often these days is that I find myself torn between writing fun little things about trivia, and addressing the serious matters of the day. I enjoy doing the former, but a lifelong sense of duty instructs me to do the latter.

The trouble is, so many serious things are so fouled up these days, on so many levels, that explaining what’s wrong with even the smallest thing seems to call for writing a book. Or perhaps several volumes. But I’ll try to be brief.

See this cover of the most recent edition of AARP Bulletin.

On its face, it’s a simple enough matter, and 20 years ago, there would have been nothing objectionable about it, whether we’re talking about a special-interest publication such as this, or a general-interest newspaper. This is their crack at a timeworn institutional convention — the “voters’ guide” edition.”

In a newspaper, the edition would summarize all offices facing readers, giving you brief bios of the candidates and neutral descriptions of their positions, plus how-to info about where to find your polling place, the hours it will be open, etc. With a special-interest pub such as this, you’d particularly provide info on candidates’ positions on issues of intense interest to your target audience. Which in this case would be senior citizens. Hypothetically, that is a category that includes me.

And in the minds of the AARP editors, these special-interest issues include Social Security, Medicare, inflation, caregiving and jobs.

But even in the best of times, this information would have been of little interest to me. These things are far from what I look for in a president. The president is the person who represents our nation, and makes the critical decisions at critical times, in the area of global affairs. These considerations would matter most to me even if I were a voter choosing a chief executive in Britain, or Germany, or Ecuador. But it is of supreme importance in the richest and most powerful nation in the world, which has so clearly been the linchpin of peace and prosperity in the world since 1945.

If I need to read about those things to make up my mind as a voter, I’ll look to such sources as… to pick something quick and easy for you to glance over, here’s a recent column by Max Boot addressing that sphere of concerns. That should give you the general idea.

But the thing is, I don’t really need to read anything at this point regarding those subjects. Since he first blundered into politics to our nation’s great sorrow, Donald Trump has made it clear — and he continues to do so daily, even if you do your best to ignore him — that he will proudly dismantle all international arrangements that have prevented a World War III, blithely destroy the fortunes of our allies and joyfully promote the interests of the very worst people in the world.

I’m no expert on what Kamala Harris would do on this front — no one is, because she has practically zero record — but everything she has said, and what little she has done, indicates she has no intention of being a reckless, destructive force in the world.

But that’s not my major beef with that list of topics. I have a broader objection. I may be the only person you will hear say this — God knows everyone else seems OK with it — but I have always been appalled at the idea of basing my vote on how it is likely to benefit me, or that offensive phrase, “people like me.”

I really, truly believe with every fiber that it is our sacred duty to vote according to what our careful judgment tells us is in the collective interest of the country — or the city, or state, or school district, or whatever political division or subdivision under consideration — as a whole. (And as indicated above, in the case of the U.S. presidency, the world as a whole.)

If we can’t master our selfishness enough to do that to the best of our ability, we shouldn’t be voting — and our community would be far better off if we didn’t.

Many of you will think this view of mine beyond absurd — laughable, contemptibly out of touch. Don’t I know how the world works?

Yes, I do, and I’ve had about enough of this garbage. I am sickened by calculations of will my taxes go up or down, or am I better off than I was four years ago, or will this candidate improve the lot of left-handed Lithunian CIS men like me? I’ve had enough of it, and so has the country.

(Oh, and before you say, “But there are instances in which considering the situation of this or that group is the only right thing to do!” let me say that you are absolutely right. An American voter in, say, the early 1960s had a profound moral obligation to vote in support of the Civil Rights Movement. Not because of the way it affected that voter, or “people like” that voter, but because it was the right and fair thing to do, for the sake of the whole country.)

But enough preaching, right?

Finally, there’s possibly my greatest objection to this feature on the front of the AARP mag:

It pretends that this election for this office is all about cold, hard positions on this, that and the other issue. It isn’t. If you think it is, you really haven’t been paying attention, have you?

A lot of folks on the left like to complain about media engaging in what they are pleased to call “false equivalency.” You know, pretending that these are equally worthy candidates who must be covered and dealt with with a balance that is entirely and equally respectful of both. Lots of times, my readers fling that charge at me, and I do my best to explain why that’s not what I’m doing or saying in that instance.

But folks, this magazine cover is definitely a case of doing that very thing.

It pretends, outrageously, that these candidates are equally decent and qualified people, and that the only way you can choose between them is by carefully examining their stated positions on these specific, cut-and-dried issues.

What utter insanity.

And I’m not just dismissing political promises the way I usually do. As I’ve said many times before, policy statements and other promises are of limited value in determining how well someone will do in office. The future is too unpredictable. No one has the slightest idea what a president, for instance, will face in office, or what will be the best thing to do under those unforeseen circumstances.

This is why I value previous experience as much as I do. If someone has performed in the public sphere before, and we have had ample opportunity to see what that person has done in real life, then we have a basis for a decision. And it’s not about some certain knowledge of what that person will do in the future, based on specific promises and proposals. What we have gained from observing is a sense of whether we trust this person to be the one deciding what to do under unknown circumstances.

A simpler way to say it is, it’s about character, not policy proposals.

And there has never, in the history of our country, been a clearer case of that being true with regard to an election.

I don’t know Kamala Harris’ character as well as I’d like. But I’ve had some opportunity to observe her over the last several years, and I have seen nothing that gives me serious concern. Yep, I’d rather see Joe Biden on the ballot, because I know Joe, but I don’t have that option.

But I have seen far, far, far (I could keep going with the “fars” to Election Day and beyond) too much that shouts of the abominable character of Donald John Trump. So have you. So have we all. I had seen enough back in the 1980s. Maybe you hadn’t yet. (I’m surprised when I hear about people who didn’t know who he was before that “reality TV” show. But I suppose a lot of folks just don’t pay attention.)

I didn’t need to see him being impeached twice, although that definitely needed to happen. I didn’t need the 34 felony convictions, or any of the other legal findings against him. I didn’t need to see him instigate insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.

And I certainly don’t need a recitation of what he says he would do about, say, Social Security to make a decision. (And I just have to ask: Is there anyone on the planet who doesn’t know that this is a guy who can’t be trusted to stick to the same position from the beginning to the end of a single sentence — if “sentence” is even the correct term for those aimless word salads that come pouring constantly out of him?)

So anyway… thanks for your efforts, AARP, but you can take your handy-dandy voters’ guide and drop it into the oubliette…

Well, I got that done. Did you yet?

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At 11:37 a.m. Friday at the West Columbia Community Center. About 50 people behind us, too.

Finally.

I have voted. After what seems like 100 years of people yammering about nothing but this election, to a point way beyond weary disgust. (People talk about Kamala Harris having only 100 days to campaign. That’s more than enough, people.)

Anyway, it’s over. And as I’ve said before during these last four years since I voted early for the first time, can we just go ahead and count the votes and move on? Not one of us needs 11 more days of this hysteria.

Anyway, the line was fairly long outside the West Columbia Community Center. You can see above what it was like at at 11:37 a.m. At that point there were also 50 people behind my daughter and me in line (this wasn’t the first picture I took). But it moved pretty well. Going by my texts and other evidence, we were at the door of the building at 11:54. And we were completely done by a couple of minutes after noon, in spite of my usual obsessive slowness, checking and double-checking each step as I’m voting.

As we were leaving, and the lady was about to hand me an “I voted” sticker, I pulled out my phone. She reflexively started to tell me not to take pictures, but I explained, that no, I wanted to show her something. That was the photo below, of a friend’s 3-month-old after her parents voted at this same location yesterday.

I told the lady I wanted a sticker that would make me look THIS cute. She admired the picture, and gave me a sticker, but It didn’t work….

A moment with the old guys on the park bench

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Russell Ott — who, as I’ve pretty clearly indicated, is the candidate I’m trying hardest to promote in this cycle — is in those last pressing days of a long, hard campaign, so I really appreciated that he stopped by to say hi this morning to some friends I wanted to meet him.

This is an updated — but I guess not all that updated — version of a familiar campaign trope: Shaking hands with the old guys sitting around on the benches around the courthouse.

When I said so this morning, Clark Surratt — that’s him at the right in the picture — nodded. As an old political reporter, he’d been there, too.

(I just paused for a moment to dig up some old images of what I was thinking of, from my first time on the road covering a statewide campaign, back in the summer of 1978. I couldn’t find a full print, or the negatives, but below you’ll see some blowups from a contact print sheet. I used to always make one of those when I developed a roll of Tri-X in those days…)

Anyway, I was glad to get Russell together with Clark, and with John Culp. That’s him in the middle. John is a retired Methodist minister, perhaps best known as the guy who started the Salkehatchie Summer Service program. He’s also my neighbor. Clark was my predecessor as governmental affairs editor of The State, back in the ’80s. Clark occasionally comments here. He and John are friends from back in their school days. They gather for these breakfasts frequently, and sometimes let me join them.

I had wanted them to meet Russell, and as it happened he had to be in this part of the district this morning for a Greater Cayce/West Columbia Chamber of Commerce meeting. So he joined us a bit before 7:30 at the Just Us Cafe in Cayce, then on to the Chamber before 8. I’m probably going to see him again this evening because he’s visiting my mother’s HOA meeting, and she wants to meet him. But he’ll only be there a few minutes before he has to charge off to a Lexington County Democratic Party meeting.

I know what that kind of schedule is like, and I don’t envy him. I don’t know if I could do today what I did out on the road with James and Mandy in 2018. In fact, I’m pretty sure I couldn’t. But Russell seems to be holding up pretty well. I’d say that shows it’s a young man’s game, but I watched Joe Biden moving like mad when he campaigned with us that same year, and he was amazing. Some people are just made for that. But eventually, of course, we all wind down…

As I said, Russell couldn’t stay long, but we had a good chat. Some of the news we shared (almost entirely political) was encouraging, some not so much, as we fly headlong through this home stretch.

I just hope he wins. He is just the right candidate to replace Nikki Setzler in this Senate district, and he will represent it effectively and with great dedication. Most of all, he’ll work hard to represent every single constituent, regardless of race, color, attitude or (gasp!) political party. And senators like that are too rare these days…

 

 

Early voting begins here in SC

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I shot this at 12:21 p.m.

I drove by the West Columbia site for early voting, which started today.

I spoke to some folks coming out. I got comments such as big turnout… but it’s moving… not bad… maybe 25 minutes. I overheard one man exiting and speaking to someone on the phone and saying it took “forever”.. but he was using a walker, so I suppose it was especially tedious for him. I wonder that they didn’t just let him vote from his car. Maybe he didn’t want to.

Anyway, it’s started, and the line you see coming out of the West Columbia Community Center tells us it’s a respectable turnout, but not overwhelming — yet.

My wife and I plan to go tomorrow. If you plan to do the same and don’t know where to go, check out this page…

Signs Redux…

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There aren’t a lot of signs in this image, but this is fairly typical — two for school board, none for anything else.

Couple of things I neglected to say in that last post, and it was way to long to add to it.

So here’s a sequel.

Actually, the first thing wasn’t so much “neglected to say” as I got it wrong. I mentioned that I was supporting Mary Burkett for school board, and needed to identify one more, because we vote for two.

That was wrong. I’ve got to pick three by the time I go vote next week (early voting starts Monday), according to my sample ballot: “You may vote for Four, less than Four, but not more than Four.” (And apparently, when we do so, we must capitalize the number “Four.” For some reason.)

Well, that’s going to be a lot of work. Because if there’s any segment of the electoral universe about which I feel particularly ignorant, it’s school board. As you may recall, I have many times donned sackcloth and ashes over my utter failure to give school boards sufficient attention — or any attention, usually — during my time as editorial page editor. All that work on endorsements at every other level from president to council members in small municipalities. I felt and feel terrible about it, because I think that if there’s any electoral office in the land that needs and deserves a spotlight, it’s school boards.

But I just couldn’t, with the scores of other offices for which we were interviewing, further researching, debating and endorsing in each cycle, we just barely got through election seasons, and I wasn’t ever fully satisfied that we’d had enough time.

And I did the math a number of times: Just doing the seven school boards in Richland and Lexington counties would have doubled our load. And if we did that, we wouldn’t do a good job on any of them. So we didn’t.

And I would go the polling place on the day of an election I’d been slaving over for months if not years, and would end up asking my neighbors in line whom they were backing for the board, if anyone. Of course, I still seldom voted for one, as I have to be convinced I know a candidate — and the candidate’s competition — well enough to pull that lever.

Consequently, to this day, I seldom vote for school board. But I’m going to do my best this time.

And part of the reason I’m determined to do so is… yard signs.

There’s another factor regarding signs in my neighborhood that seems different this year, one that I meant to mention in that other post:

Without doing a census or anything, I’m pretty sure that there are easily more school board signs in my neighborhood than for president, Congress, Legislature, and countywide offices combined.

And that makes me proud of my neighbors, and shamed into trying harder to be as smart and dedicated as they are regarding these important offices. Of course, with some folks it might just be that this position is so hyperlocal that they personally know the candidate whose sign they are displaying, so they’re just doing a favor for a friend. Which is OK, of course, up to a point.

But I prefer thinking they’re just savvier and more diligent than I am. Because I like being proud of my neighbors…

More signs in this one. Four in the near distance, and more you can’t quite see in the far distance. All school board.

Can’t you read the signs?

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Three of my signs, seen from the east…

That was the only part of the song I could work into what I wanted to say. So here I go working it in…

My answer to the question is both “yes” and “no.” “No” in the sense that I’ve found yard signs a bit puzzling in this election year.

First, in my relatively moderate Republican neighborhood, there were more signs for Biden than Trump in 2020. I wrote some about that at the time, I think. I was under no delusions that Joe would win my precinct, but it seemed obvious that people who wanted him were prouder of it, more willing to share it with the world.

This time, I know of only three Harris/Walz signs (including my own) in the subdivision. Not that I’ve driven every street in search of them, but that’s the total on the streets I frequent. And I had to go looking for the third one, after hearing about it. Meanwhile, although there is no great number of Trump signs, it’s more than three, and more than what I saw in 2020.

And here’s the weirdest bit — they’re not in the same yards. There are no signs at all in two yards I remember as the most enthusiastic for the Donald. (One had signs for several GOP candidates, including the only one in the whole subdivision supporting Nikki Setzler’s Republican opponent, and the other had two Trump signs, and kept them out well after the election was over.)

I don’t know what’s going on on the MAGA side. I understand the lack of Harris signs, because it reflects a lack of enthusiasm that I share, as you know. But hey, my man Joe dropped out and dubbed her as his successor, and that’s good enough for me — and of course, Trump must be stopped, and she’s the only person in the world in a position to stop him now. I hesitated about the sign, though, because there’s a difference between voting for somebody and going that extra step to put out a sign. But in this situation, we have to pull out all the stops.

Anyway, have you noticed these patterns where you live? Maybe so, maybe not. Maybe my neighborhood is more sensible of shifting winds that are not felt in more committed ones-and-zeroes areas. As I said, this is a Republican precinct, but it went for Nikki Haley in the precinct. You don’t see people wearing MAGA hats when you go for a walk here.

Another reason I say “no” is that people don’t always see what you mean when they look at your signs. I told you I’m confused by the yards that had Trump signs four years ago, and have nothing today, as well as the ones that never had signs before, and are now all in on MAGA. Meanwhile, I know my own get misread. Remember I mentioned in my last post the pleasant talks I’ve had recently with a Republican neighbor? In the latest such interaction, I said something like “You’ll notice I’ve started putting signs out,” and he said, “Oh, I know, I can always tell a Democrat.”

I answered politely that no you can’t — not if you think I’m one… and explained further. Of course, part of this confusion is because I only had two of my signs out, and they did not include either the one for Micah Caskey, or for that matter the Harris/Walz sign.

And now, about the “yes” side of my answer to The Five-Man Electrical Band…

I think yard signs are important for a number of reasons, including (but not limited to):

  • Everything I said in 2018 when I said “I refuse to be an ‘idiot.’ I’m joining the ranks of the involved.” I was very serious about that. I had just put out the first two yard signs of my life, and six weeks later, I was communications director for James’ and Mandy’s campaign.
  • In this time in which people have retreated into their own safe spaces, only associating with people who agree with them, I think we have an obligation as citizens to stand up and say what we think, and be willing and even eager to discuss our positions. We desperately need such discussions now. And I’ve been having them — not just with the Republican neighbor across the street, but with a couple of candidates who have come by, with folks I meet out walking, and with the man who mows our yard. Worthwhile discussions that have led to good things thus far.
  • I think signs do communicate worthwhile things to passersby, although of course the ways they do so are complicated — way more complex than most people fully realize. Generally speaking, I know that I get impressions of how things are going from the signs I see, taken in aggregate. And often those impressions affect my own thoughts and decisions about candidates (and no, I’m not speaking of the silly “bandwagon effect” — or at least, not exactly.) It’s more like, well, the reason that Harris/Walz sign is in my yard. Normally, she would fit into the category of people I would vote for and definitely want to win, but I’m not quite enthusiastic enough for a sign. But I put this one out because at that point I had only seen one other sign for Kamala in our neighborhood, and I believe wavering people need to see more support for her around them. Just as one example of what I mean.

Anyway, that’s enough philosophizing. As for my signs this year, I have five:

  • Russell Ott — I’ve got two for him — one at each end of my sign display — and he’s probably the candidate about whom I’m most excited. Nikki Setzler has long been one of my favorite people in the state Senate, and I’ve been proud to have him as my senator. But I’ve told you that before. By the way, the second sign for him is one of five he gave me the other day, and I’ve already got the other four distributed. Maybe I need some more.
  • Mary Burkett — This is my favorite candidate for Lexington Two school board. And not just because we’ve known the Burketts forever, and their elder son took one of my daughters to the prom many years ago, and joined our elder son in forming their first garage band in high school. I have more pertinent reasons to support her for school board. Mary cares as little about left and right and parties as I do. She just wants to get the job done. And the job, to her, is about effectively addressing the problem that 70 percent of kids in our district don’t perform at grade level. I’m certain about her, but still need to pick another board candidate to vote for.
  • Harris/Walz — While I was still making like Hamlet over whether to get a sign in this all-important race, a kind neighbor who knew me dropped off three at the house, and we immediately put one to work, and shared the others. And boyohboyohboy, do I hope they win.
  • Micah Caskey — That makes one Republican, two Democrats (well, three when you consider Walz being on the Harris sign) and an independent (Mary). There’s no point in you folks on the left trying to convince me how terrible it is to have a sign for this Republican, or any Republican in our post-2016 world. You may not understand my reasons, but I do. And I only reached this decision (after things Micah’s done lately to tick me off), after talking with him, with his Democratic opponent, and for that matter, with three other present and former Democratic legislators who know Micah and understand the ins and outs, and all told me I was making the right call. And while I had been torn, I feel good about it.

Well, that’s enough. I’m on to other things…

It’s a bit more tricky to get all five of our signs in one picture, since we live on a corner, and I make use of both streets. Click to blow it up and see them better.

 

 

The veep debate

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Screenshot

I’ve been meaning to get to this for a couple of days, so let me take a shot now.

I’ll start with this exchange about the Vance-Walz debate from the NYT’s Matter of Opinion podcast:

Michelle Cottle: And I think on behalf of exhausted Americans, people appreciated that we’ve got enough crazy at the top of the ticket that I think both of them had a very specific job. Vance needed to not look mean and cold and unhinged in order to rebrand himself from the clips and what the Democrats have been pushing his image as.

And Walz has a reputation as being a good guy, politicking on the — and I hate this term so much — “the politics of joy.” I’m sorry. That is a Christmas carol. That is not a presidential position. But that’s what he’s there with. So he needed to look civilized and genial, as well. So they both had their reasons. And I think it was a welcome break from what we are accustomed to.

Carlos Lozada: I do think that the civility thing was far more useful for Vance than for Walz, in part because I think it’s something that merely reaffirmed Walz, whereas it was something that helped rehabilitate Vance….

Yes. And of course the panelists touched upon the irony of the veep debate having gone, starting in 2016, from being a barking contest between attack dogs (while the people at the top of the tickets modeled statesmanlike behavior) to an oasis of sanity and civility in the era of Trump.

And that’s what this one was, and mostly the two men met the expectation of civility quite well — with J.D. Vance unexpectedly going a better job of it than Tim Walz. Or, to put it as I did on Twitter in real time:

I later added to that tweet, “That pose is eroding, though. Am I the only one hearing him shift tone? Less ‘Governor Walz,’ and more ‘Tim…'” But on the whole, it was refreshing.

Interestingly, the panelists agreed that Vance “won” the debate, and they noted how that differed from the after-debate polls, which were more of an even split. They congratulated themselves on their professional perspective, which enabled them to appreciate his “performance.” Which surprised me slightly, especially coming from Ross Douthat. Usually, he’s more of a substance-over-form guy. But then, he’s also the official “conservative” voice on the panel, so I guess he was trying harder than the others to praise Vance.

From my perspective, Walz neither helped his and his ticket’s cause, nor hurt it. Again, I’m not a “performance” guy. I care about substance and character. And to me, Walz stood steady on those.

I enjoyed a moment with Richard M. Nixon — the Twitter feed, not the original. He tweeted that “Walz is nervous.” I replied, “Well, so were you, sir…” Which was true. And that was the beginning of people who looked better on TV having an unfair advantage.

In his podcast, Ezra Klein maintained that it all came down to one thing: Vance refusing to say that he would stand up to Trump the way Mike Pence did, refusing to try to overturn the results of the election. And yes, that is the most substantial objection to him, among many.

At the time, though, I responded to something that I felt spoke more generally to the importance of this decision voters face:

I should probably end by saying what I have before, which is that this debate is something of relative insignificance. Y’all know that I hate all “debates” as they now exist, because they do little to showcase qualities that lend themselves to the job being sought.

And of course, I can’t remember a time when I made my own decision about a presidential candidate based on his or her running mate. So this makes vice-presidential debates even less important than the top-ticket contests. But still, we all know so little about each of these guys that I watched it, and above is what I thought.

Just checking on all of y’all. How are you holding up?

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I’d have gotten to you earlier, but I’ve been busy checking in repeatedly with family members, from my 93-year-old mother to each of the five kids, and each of the five grandchildren. The sitrep:

  • One has a tree (or a large part of a tree — see the image) on her house and water leaking into her dining room. We have a tree guy lined up, but it’s likely to be tomorrow before he gets there and gets a tarp on it, as the insurance people said we needed to do ASAP.
  • Another without power.
  • Another without internet.
  • One who is down on the coast for work; his family is at home and reports no problems, although his in-laws have no power.
  • One who flew out of Charleston this morning to Boston, on her way to Iceland.
  • Another who is sitting in her house on a mountainside in Asheville. She’s watching the river below her, which is at 100-year flood stage and still rising eight inches per hour. She saw a house float down it.
  • At my house, we’re doing fairly well. We had no water this morning, but it came back — dirty at first, but looking clear now. There are some trees down around the neighborhood, but we have power so far.

Meanwhile, I’ve heard that the Richland County jail has no power. And you know they have virtually no staff.

How are all y’all doing?

An interesting development in House District 89

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Wayne Borders, talking in the garden today about his candidacy.

I was looking for my wife today to ask her some dumb question or other, and found her in the garden to the side of our house. She had paused in her work to speak with a young man I’d never seen before — seeing the rack cards in his hand, I realized he was out campaigning for someone, and when I saw the cards were for Russell Ott, I stepped up eagerly to join the discussion.

To my surprise, he was campaigning for himself. His name is Wayne Borders, and he’s the Democratic nominee against my state representative, Micah Caskey. I’d had no idea Micah had opposition. Wayne was just carrying the cards for Russell because he was a fellow Democratic nominee.

I was also interested to hear him speak, and my first impression was “military brat.” No accent of any kind. Then I asked where he was from, and he said “Red Bank.” So I was more confused than before. He didn’t sound much like Red Bank. But the beginning of his bio on his campaign site sort of explains that. He moved around enough growing up to iron out the regionalisms.

Anyway, we had a nice talk for a little while before I realized I needed to let him go and knock on more doors. But I’ve got his number, and I’ll set up an interview some time soon. So expect some followup.

I’ll also get with Micah. I suspect he’s not terribly concerned, given the district. He didn’t have a primary challenge from his extreme right this year, which I know was a relief for him after last time. For him in this Republican district, the primary is where the rocks and shoals lie. But however slim a Democrat’s chances are around her, this is an interesting development….

Kamala Harris and foreign policy

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Those are two concepts I don’t normally group together, which is a major reason why I’ve never been as enthusiastic about her candidacy as I always was about Joe’s.

This is where Jennifer Rubin’s other good column from the last two days comes in: “The foreign policy hawk in the race? That would be Kamala Harris.”

Mind you, it’s no great distinction, when the only other person in the race is the famously malevolent ignoramus whose name I will not mention here, as that is unnecessary.

But there’s more here than that.

Ms. Rubin notes:

Don’t take my word for it. “It is a speech Ronald Reagan could have given,” Liz Cheney said on ABC’s “This Week” regarding Harris’s keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. “It is a speech George Bush could have given. It’s very much an embrace and an understanding of the exceptional nature of this great nation, a love of America, a recognition that America is a special place.” Cheney went on to condemn former president Donald Trump’s plan for across-the-board, massive tariffs that “will choke off global trade, will likely lead us down the path that we’ve seen before, for example, in the 1930s … [to] a depression.”

Cheney said that when it comes to “fundamental alliances, when it comes to the importance of NATO, for example, and how important it is for the United States to lead in the world, we’ve seen a sea change.” In other words, those Republicans who during the Cold War ridiculed Democratic fecklessness, showed timidity toward America’s enemies and pooh-poohed the United States as a force for good in the world should now be backing Harris. Remarkably, Cheney affirmed that “if you’re talking about a national security set of issues and you care about America’s leadership role in the world, a vote for Vice President Harris is the right vote to make this time around.”…

Mind you, “Reaganesque” is not normally a word that sets my heart aflutter. If you’d known me 40 years ago, you’d understand that. To say that I was not a fan is an extreme understatement. But this is the way Republicans talk when they’re praising someone, particularly when they’re holding that person up for the admiration of other Republicans.

For me, it’s very reassuring. The column could have compared the veep to FDR, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Clinton or Obama. What she’s saying to me is, she understands the post-1945 nonpartisan consensus of our nation’s leaders as to the role our country must play to keep from having a World War III. And it’s not just about being a “hawk;” it’s about playing the prime leadership role around the globe in economic and humanitarian terms, and championing liberal democracy everywhere.

I’d have realized this earlier, but as you know, I didn’t follow the convention.

Kamala Harris is up against someone who is determined to rend and destroy America’s role and our ability to play it. I know the veep does not want to do that, so the choice between the two is obvious. So I had seen little need to follow this race closely. Therefore I had not until now noticed much to indicate that Harris would be a positive force on this front, instead of merely a harmless, neutral one.

Now that won’t be reassuring to some of you, but you’re mostly probably going to vote for her anyway. If you’re planning to vote for the other option, you’re a lost cause anyway. Which is why you probably won’t hear all that much about it in tonight’s debate.

But it means a lot to me, because to me, this is what we elect presidents for.

Back at the beginning of 2008, we were trying to decide on our candidate for the Democratic nomination, and I was already leaning toward Barack Obama. But I was very concerned about his lack of foreign policy experience, even more than about his lack of experience in Washington.

Mike Fitts posed my main question (it’s the one we always asked first of presidential candidates) to the young senator during our endorsement interview, and you hear his answer at about the two-minute mark in this clip taken with my old low-res Canon. It’s basically what Kamala Harris said in the speech Ms. Rubin is citing.

It was good to hear then, and it’s good to hear now..