Now that. Was an election.
Like many of you, I’ve been watching the results come in for the last 12 hours or so, marveling. There’s Kentucky, but there’s also my little home suburb here. The most overtly conservative candidates for city council, one an incumbent, finished last and next-to-last in a five-way race for three seats. (Which is to say, neither one will be raising their right hand at the next meeting.) That’s Grosse Pointe Woods, reliably red. In G.P. Park, which has been trending blue for some time, there’s now a progressive majority on their council, with two conservative incumbents sent packing. G.P. City elected a progressive mayor (a woman, no less) and an actual progressive lefty gained a seat on the G.P. Farms city council.
All of this would have been unthinkable just four years ago. Everything is changing.
One of the losing candidates in the Woods was a young man who ran a campaign right out of the 2004 playbook. He promoted his degree in public administration from Liberty University. He used “family” in his campaign tagline. He said he works in federal law enforcement, but when I asked him directly which branch, he refused to answer, pleading the Hatch Act. OK, then! Moving on!
Local elections are the ones where I have almost always crossed party lines, and ours are nonpartisan. Competence in running a small city — or in our city-manager system, overseeing the running of a small city — can be found across the political spectrum. But when you blow all those dog whistles, I am outta there. And the Hatch Act? Please. As a friend of mine commented when I told her this, “If they haven’t thrown Kellyanne Conway in prison yet, I think he’s safe.”
So, a good day for Dems and non-Trumps of all stripes. Someone at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has to be sweating right now.
I was also interested in what happened in Fort Wayne, which I see Alex covered in the comments on the last thread. You may not have seen this column by the publisher of the morning Journal Gazette, though, an open letter to a council candidate who eked out a tight win:
Your large postcard featured you gripping a baseball bat and included, in capital letters, the phrase: “BEAT THE MEDIA.” There were four references to The Journal Gazette, the only media identified by name.
So yeah, invoking newsroom violence in a tight-knit business community? Sure, that’s just fine. More:
During the election cycle, the editorial board does make recommendations in local races. It is always our intent to inform and share our insights based on both our news-side coverage of the candidates, our observations and research, and our interviews with them.
This year, you did not respond to multiple requests to meet with our editorial board before the May primary election and, again, before the general election. You also did not respond to calls from a news reporter preparing an election preview story. All were opportunities we provided you to identify the issues you considered most important and to explain to our readers, many of whom are avid voters, your plans for addressing those issues.
Don’t show up for your endorsement interview, don’t return reporter calls, then send a mailer like that. These people are simply awful.
Health care is a winning issue. I think that’s the takeaway.
What happened in your neck of the woods?
Jeff Borden said on November 6, 2019 at 10:21 am
The Kentucky governor’s race was a nice win, but Matt Bevin was rated the second-most-hated governor in ‘Murica. (Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island is first.) And Republicans won every other contest. Yet it should be savored since the Orange King held a big hatefest in Lexington on the eve of the election, declaring that a defeat of Bevin would be a commentary on his rule. Let us hope that it was.
I’m still not confident in the least about 2020. The battle will be fought in the sewers and the *president will have a sizable advantage in money for more sewer rats. And, as always, there will be considerable obstacles to voting in Republican controlled states because that’s what they do. Factor in the outside influences, whether Russian, Chinese, Iranian are doing the ratfucking, and the Democrat will have a very steep hill to climb.
So, good news, yes. But the fight for a return to a measure of normalcy has just begun. And we still haven’t plumbed the depths of depravity the Orange King will descend to as the election draws nearer.
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Bob (not Greene) said on November 6, 2019 at 10:30 am
Remember the woman who lost her job after flipping off Trump’s motorcade? She just defeated a Republican to win a seat on her county board in Virginia. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/virginia-cyclist-who-flipped-off-trump-wins-loudoun-county-seat-representing-his-golf-club/2019/11/05/e8aa11dc-003d-11ea-8bab-0fc209e065a8_story.html
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Deborah said on November 6, 2019 at 10:39 am
I agree Jeff B, it will be an uphill slog but it’s nice to have a little bright spot along the way.
It would be humorous reading what the Republicans are saying now about Sondland changing his testimony, if it weren’t so sad. Will the Rs ever recover from their craveness? It doesn’t seem like it.
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brian stouder said on November 6, 2019 at 11:02 am
Alex summed up Fort Wayne well; my only addition would be that Steve Corona’s short-fall for Council At-Large surprised me. He’s a fine member of the Fort Wayne Community Schools’ board, and a back-in-the-day broadcaster from channel 15 (I suppose that dates me!) – and a community activist with local Latinos…. I really though he’d win a council seat
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Suzanne said on November 6, 2019 at 11:12 am
I don’t know if this is any indication of the future but it made me smile:
https://www.newsweek.com/mike-pence-columbus-indiana-democrats-gain-control-city-council-1470028
Democrats in Columbus IN winning! Oh, poor VP My Pants. He can never go home again.
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kregg said on November 6, 2019 at 11:19 am
Perhaps he was trying to suggest that the other federal employee on the ballot, who DID identify his agency, was somehow being unethical. Basically, the Hatch Act just prevents us from running in or fundraising for a partisan election.
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Sherri said on November 6, 2019 at 11:35 am
My candidate for mayor of Redmond won big. One of my council candidates won big. Unfortunately, my 24 year old Muslim woman didn’t. She’s going to do big things, though.
In Seattle, Kshama Sawant lost. She never learned how to moved from being an outside protestor to being an insider working with people to make things happen. She just pissed people off. Some people just work better on the outside.
A couple of suburbs went total NIMBY in their city councils, so they will spend the next couple of years fighting lawsuits and the state because they want to pretend the Growth Management Act doesn’t exist.
Statewide, the chair thief Tim Eyman continued to wreak damage on the state, with an initiative to cut car tabs to $30 passing. Car tabs currently are used to help fund transit (as well as pay as for repairing roads), and of course, most of the transit monies are spent in King County, so the rest of the state hates it. Since Eyman can’t write a clean constitutional initiative to save his life, the legal challenges will begin as soon as the election is finalized.
It also looks like we’re narrowly rejecting affirmative action again. An Eyman initiative banned it 20 years ago, an initiative to the legislature sort of restored it last year, but the usual suspects plus the Chinese American community got it on the ballot.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 6, 2019 at 2:18 pm
Every seat but one incumbent, semi-non-partisan Democrat (Clerk of Courts) went Republican in our county, and two important school levy issues went down. I’m glad our village library levy and the county senior levy (which I worked on, as I’m getting closer to using it) passed, but even they had 30% & 20% opposition. What’s the mindset that votes no on a ten-year operating renewal levy for senior citizen services? But 2 of 10 voters said nope.
Our overall turnout was 29%; if more voted, it’s interesting to imagine what might happen. On those “no” votes, I know all too well as a pastor how many seniors living on Social Security only, having already spent a reverse mortgage, and with maxed credit cards, are barely able to pay their current property taxes for the crumbling home we as a church go out and repair each spring, adding ramps and interior grab rails . . . and I’m sure many of them (not all!) vote “no” because they can barely make the annual $2,000 or so property tax total on their little 1952 ranchette.
Andy Beshear and his family attend a church of my denomination; a bunch of old colleagues and friends attend there, and are just ecstatic that someone like him has reached office. He’s a good guy with an eye to those on the outside looking in, and it certainly is encouraging. Most of what I’m seeing north of the Ohio River is more of looking out for those already inside the magic circle, which is distinctly not encouraging.
On a brighter note, Ohio University and Miami University of Ohio are on ESPN2 tonight at 8 pm, because Nov. 6, 1869 was the first official college football game, between Rutgers and Princeton; my wife and I will be in the stands watching “the most exciting band in the land,” the Marching 110 and our son for the next to last home show of his ten year marching band career. It’s been a wild ride for us as band parents, and we’re going to go out with as much joy as we can muster in tonight’s weather!
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Jeff Borden said on November 6, 2019 at 2:34 pm
More reading on the election results last night give me fresh hope. Bevin was beaten badly in the northern Kentucky suburbs of Chicago and he lost in Louisville and Lexington. Suburban Republicans aren’t as stone cold crazy as the *president and his cult. The same story was told in the areas around Philadelphia, which went overwhelmingly blue. And Republicans were absolutely routed in Virginia, which now should likely be considered a blue state.
If Democrats remained engaged and rally to whatever candidate emerges from the primaries, perhaps there is a chance to oust the Orange King from his throne. He’ll be left with his crazy base and nothing else.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 6, 2019 at 2:34 pm
Error: 20% voted no on the library levy in the village; the county senior services ten-year renewal got the 30% no vote total. In any case…
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Jeff Borden said on November 6, 2019 at 2:57 pm
ERROR: Bevin was beaten in the suburbs of Cincinnati. I get my cities beginning with ‘C’ mixed up sometimes.
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Jason T. said on November 6, 2019 at 3:53 pm
It’s not all skittles and beer.
The great sort continues: Here in Pittsburgh, although Democrats picked up seats last night in Allegheny County (which includes most of the urban neighborhoods), Republicans swept control of every rural and suburban county surrounding the city.
Leaving the borders of Allegheny County is starting to feel like leaving West Berlin in 1965, or more aptly, like crossing the Mason-Dixon Line.
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Deborah said on November 6, 2019 at 4:17 pm
I’ve heard it called Pennsyltucky.
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David C. said on November 6, 2019 at 4:25 pm
I first heard this earlier today. Buddy Hackett died in 2003, but he captures tRump perfectly. NSFW.
https://boingboing.net/2018/09/25/buddy-hackett-vs-trump.html
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Jason T. said on November 6, 2019 at 4:31 pm
Deborah @ 13:
We are indeed the gateway to Appalachia.
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Scout said on November 6, 2019 at 6:34 pm
We did not have any elections in our immediate neck of the woods, but Tucson elected their first ever woman and Latina mayor, so that is pretty cool.
So I keep reading that Jr outed the whistleblower. Isn’t that a federal crime?
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Dexter Friend said on November 7, 2019 at 2:19 am
Scout, I am no attorney but I listen to a helluva lotta them on cable TV, and in cases relating to corruption on a federal level, whistleblowers have the right to be identity-protected by federal law. I also heard something about Don Jr. spilling his guts . But all this news, always “we have breaking news from The White House” stuff, gets dissected and commented on by people like William Cohen , but that’s all it is, talk, talk and promises for more breaking news after a 3 minute commercial. It’s maddening. Forgotten lately by the cable shows ar the 19 women who have exposed Trump as a sex offender in so many ways. He should have been impeached for those cases as far as I see it. And yet, after all this information about who was on the call to Ukraine, and quid pro quo, and the information is damning to Trump’s administration, the loser is still in office.
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Bitter Scribe said on November 7, 2019 at 10:02 am
Show me a candidate who is overtly and consistently hostile to the news media—at any level of sophistication, from William F. Buckley Jr. to Donald Trump and Bat Boy here—and I will show you someone I wouldn’t trust to run a tollbooth. There has never been an exception.
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Peter said on November 7, 2019 at 1:53 pm
David C: Oh, do I love me some Buddy Hackett. Three of my all time favorite jokes are Buddy Hackett routines – the new manager who hires a secretary, the guy who gets lost in the woods, and the guy who shot a duck on some farmer’s property. Oh my gosh they’re great.
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Deborah said on November 7, 2019 at 2:02 pm
Here’s the duck joke https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2FHsLj1Zkc
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alex said on November 7, 2019 at 4:39 pm
Here’s some good news…
https://www.frontpagelive.com/2019/11/07/watch-trump-bores-his-own-rally-crowd-who-started-walking-out-halfway/?fbclid=IwAR0LUWCnguIj5GqS4cYbwv3bYfkVXdT5QWma3GfBbvXmjfGj1VxfMJqUyH0
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Deborah said on November 7, 2019 at 5:28 pm
Just read this on Twitter: At a private fundraiser last night, Trump talked about meeting Steve Scalise’s wife after he was shot: she “cried her eyes out when I met her at the hospital that fateful day … I mean not many wives would react that way to tragedy, I know mine wouldn’t.” dated Oct 31st.
Also, I find it a little hard to believe that Trump actually went to the hospital but that’s beside the point.
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beb said on November 8, 2019 at 1:00 am
It says something about the entirety of Trump’s wife, that he would believe most women would not cry when their husband was in the hospital fighting for his life. Pretty much every wife would be in tears. If he knew anything about anything he’d know that.
Rachael Maddow read excepts from this new book from “Anonymous” about the Trump White House. They were chilling. The except was about the president’s briefings. Briefings were cut down to shorter length, then fewer talking points, finally to one point and how important a good graphic was to catching the President’s eye. But always the endless distractions, the wandering attention, the sudden burst of anger. Staff ended up pushing him to do a lot of campaign rallies just to get him out of the White House.
what a boob!
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ROGirl said on November 8, 2019 at 7:27 am
I think anonymous is a coward who supports the right wing agenda, and is disappointed that Trump can’t fulfill all the promises.
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Suzanne said on November 8, 2019 at 7:47 am
I completely agree, ROGirl. This review pretty much says the same
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/07/books/review/a-warning-anonymous-book-review-trump.html
I listened to Maddow read excerpts, too, and while chilling, none of it was anything new. It’s all been covered elsewhere: the impossibility short attention span, the lack of planning, the disdain for anyone that doesn’t tell him what he wants to hear. Not new & the book won’t convince a Trumpster.
The GOP has boxed themselves into a corner and doesn’t know how to escape.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 8, 2019 at 8:11 am
Jon Huntsman.
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