Please note that you can leave a comment on any of our posts at our Facebook page.  Subscribers can also comment at length at our Angel's Corner Forum.

NOVEMBER 12-13,  2022

THE SILVER LINING:  There was indeed a silver lining in last week's dismal election returns.  And it was a very important one, teaching us that Americans can work politically at the local level to get the kind of change they want.  In this case, those who won were on our side.  From the Washington Examiner: 

As disappointing as the Republicans' midterm performance was, this year's election had many silver linings beyond the Democrats' likely loss of the House of Representatives. Among the most important winners on Tuesday was the issue of school choice, a nonpartisan issue that is really about educational quality.

The victories were big, and they were also widely distributed. Tommy Schultz boasted last week that his organization, the American Federation for Children, had targeted and defeated around 40 incumbent state legislators who opposed school choice. It was a good investment of the group's $9 million.

In South Carolina, school choice advocate Ellen Weaver was successfully elected as the superintendent of education on an education freedom platform. And the school choice wave wasn't limited to the state's rural voters, either. In Charleston, candidates backed by the pro-school choice organization Moms for Liberty secured a majority on the local school board.

The group's endorsed candidates also won several Florida school board races, and their victories across the country are being tallied up. Meanwhile, all six of Gov. Ron DeSantis's endorsees won their school board runoff races as well.

That's just the beginning of the successes that education freedom candidates enjoyed on election night, including successful reelections for every governor supporting school choice. And these victories were preceded by one of the most exciting outcomes — the welcome failure by leftists to repeal Arizona's school choice law through a ballot referendum.

For decades, liberals have claimed that they can solve the education problem with more funding and fewer students in the classroom. And for decades, they have kept getting more funding and smaller classrooms, and these have not solved anything. Student proficiency has failed to rise despite trillions of dollars being invested over the years throughout the 50 states. As a consequence, on the whole, public schools in the United States are abysmal compared to their international peers.

To make matters worse, reading and math proficiency rates crashed during the pandemic thanks to malingering teachers unions, which resisted a return to classroom instruction long after it was clear that COVID-19 was neither a threat to children nor easily spread by them. In refusing to show up at work, they tried to hide behind politically correct rhetoric. As the Chicago Teachers' Union put it, "the push to reopen schools is rooted in sexism, racism, and misogyny."

Lesson: These are not people who can be worked with.

COMMENT:  Please read the whole thing.  This is one of the most important stories to come out of the election, but I haven't seen a word of it on any "news" network.  My own sense is that school choice will be a major issue, perhaps the major issue in American politics in the coming decade.  After all, it affects every parent and child in America.  We will be ready.

November 12-13, 2022       Permalink 

BACK ON:  I apologize for the delay since my last text, due to circumstances beyond my control.  I'm back.

Maybe I should have stayed away.  Our side isn't exactly covering us with glory.  I see that the Dems will control the new U.S. Senate, with victories in Arizona by incumbent Senator Mark Kelly, and Nevada, with incumbent Senator Catherine Cortez Masto.  I see that there is only one Senate seat left to be decided, and it will be determined by a runoff in Georgia between incumbent Raphael G. Warnock and challenger Herschel Walker.  The best our side can do, if it wins that seat with Walker, is to return the Senate to its current status, 50-50, with the Dems having a one-vote advantage because our intellectually astute vice president, Kamala "you can't take me off the ticket" Harris, breaks a tie.

We didn't plan it this way.

Even the House races humiliate us.  Depending on who you read, we have about seven races to win before we can claim leadership of the House.  We'll probably get there, but don't expect our troops to be taking a victory march down Broadway.  Leadership of the House should have been wrapped up days ago.

The talking heads are talking.  There are endless explanations for what happened on Tuesday.  Why did Republicans  underperform so badly?  How could all those pollsters be so wrong?

Or were they?

Frankly, I look first at simple, common-sense answers.  This one is startling, and probably right, from Frank Luntz: 

"Republicans have received 5l.5% of the House vote so far while Democrats have received 46.6%. 

"If this had happened before the new districts were drawn, that +5
GOP lead would have won them about 25 seats.

"That's the impact of partisan redistricting."

Add to that the observation of an increasing number of observers that the Republicans simply did not come out to vote.  But why?  Well, let's try "overconfidence."

So redistricting and overconfidence might well explain most of the Republican problem on Tuesday.   I'm not making that as a definitive statement, but huffy and puffy explanations involving analysis of issues should be looked at with some skepticism.

November 12-13, 2022       Permalink 

NOVEMBER 10-11,  2022

THE SITUATION – AT 3:55 A.M., NOVEMBER 11TH:   It's Veterans Day,  originally known as Armistice Day, which commemorated the end of World War I.  It's a good time to think about the foreign policy implications of what happens here

Put yourself in the position of an intelligence officer advising the president of China, or Vladimir Putin, or the prime minister of a major allied nation.  You look at the United States after this midterm election, trying to figure out the final vote.  It's three days after election day, and the news outlets can't even say for sure who won the House of Representatives.  Several states can't complete their vote counting, even though they are dramatically smaller than nations, like France, who hold elections and provide a final tally on the same day.

Impressive, huh?  And important.  This pathetic show may well influence a foreign leader to think we are a sloppy, third-world, incompetent country.  It may well influence that leader to engage in risky adventurism, like China invading Taiwan.  Our perceived image is important for our safety, and our economic standing.  We must project an image of strength and ability.  But you'd never know it by the way we've come to accept incompetence. 

One reporter estimated that 75% of the votes gained from long voter counts, as in Arizona and Nevada right now, have gone to Democrats.  Hmm.  I wonder how that happened.  I dare not ask.

Oh, add the Biden administration's reckless withdrawal from Afghanistan to the list of images other nations have seen in recent years.  Add the video of neighborhoods burning in our large cities. 

We have work to do, and we don't have a government in Washington willing to do it.

November 10-11, 2022        Permalink   

WHAT HAPPENED? – AT 7:56 A.M. ET:  Like everyone else, I'd like to know how the election wound up where it did.  I have thus conducted a thorough investigation worthy of Holmes and Watson, and have come to the following conclusion:

I have no idea.

The usual suspects are out there filling air time and newspaper space, but the election count isn't even over.  The polling hasn't been analyzed.   We really don't accurately know what groups voted, and in how great a number. 

My advice:  We should all calm down.  My first impression is that much of the actual, published polling came reasonably close to the final result, but that something happened in the last three weeks to give our side the illusion that a red wave was truly coming.  What was that "something"?  That is the key question.  I suspect that the final answer will involve the super-hype provided by some specialized polling that showed a major shift rightward by American women.  Polls also showed a "surge" toward the GOP in the governor's race in New York.  New York is where much of the news media is based.  What happens in New York politics is disproportionately represented in political reporting.  Hey, if it happens here, it must be happening everywhere. 

(In the future, let us understand that a "surge" is only significant if it ultimately puts a candidate in the lead position.  There is no prize, in politics, for second place.  It ain't the Olympics, where you can take home a silver medal.)

Also, the very visible Trafalgar poll, known as a "Republican" poll because it usually seems to show Republican candidates with better numbers than other polls, played a part.  Its polling was highly publicized, and its claim that Republicans were usually underpolled was convincing.  Thus, people on our side started believing that there was some "hidden" Republican vote.

It will be sorted out by historians and pundits.  But right now, I'm more concerned by what will happen four days from now in Mar-a-Lago, when former President Trump will make a major announcement.

I hope he thinks about it carefully, and applies some common sense.

November 10-11, 2022       Permalink