The weird election horse races as a spectator sports gambit comes into the foreground, And obscures more than illuminates a “what the hell is going on.” A smash and grab operation on many directions from the administration, a doddering old man with a techno utopian vision of ai based on being shown the dystopian view of it and loving it, a whimsical launch of a mideast forever war – – it all fades away to a bunch geographical studies and personality clashes downballot.

The Senate map. The road to a 52 Democratic voting Senate, to get past Fetterman, in a pile of cross currents (gas costs a lot but everyone hates trans-athletes) on a batch of states the Trump carried by ten thereabouts. Some priors need to be tossed aside. Or. Fun fact: Harris had a smaller margin of defeat in Kansas than she did Iowa. And did better in Alaska than Ohio. These are noteworthy in considering the Senate prospects of the Democrats running about — Iowa being a Gore-Bush-Obama-Obama-Trump-Trump-Trump state and Ohio a Bush-Bush-Obama-Obama-Obama-Trump-Trump-Trump state. Kansas gets in a Democratic governor, where Ohio spit out its Democratic Senator from the class of 2006. And an Iowa pollster famous for putting out off the wall outlier poll results that turn out to be right had to call it quits after an embarrassing one in 2024 that suggested Iowa was running back to when they may elect a Democrat.

The total effect is this weird sense that that great wheelchair bound war veteran athlete may go to defeat — the Republicans in Iowa able to scratch a non-partisan itch with a wholly non-partisan Democratic gubernatorial candidate and waiting for a follow up on “so, you are a veteran with disabilities. And–?”, where then in Kansas … A Democratic Senator is elected for the first time since 1932. Yeah, they scour his pastoral sermons for a church gone woke, but this man’s no Tallerico. So we are back to a vote winning sanctimonial “tsk tsk” message against a confused “why is this an isdue?” answer on the compound interest bearing bill collecting chase for medical non-payments, and ” what would Jesus do?” He should be the best Democratic vote getter in a Senate race in 1974 at least.

The polls are a landmine. There is an arms race for bs poll number dumps, the gambits Republicans pulled which probably gave them the House in 2022 by lending a margin of front-runner voters coming with a sense of a Republican storm. The Democrats have a poll for you in Nebraska — the “wink wink, Independant” up by four. And, no one believes it, but the good news for the Democrats is the probable Democrat victory the non bs polls suggest is large enough

I feel like I was standing closer to Gloria Steinem than I had any right to — both in terms of bigwig status and my interest level of standing in the proximity of this person in particular. It wasn’t much– it was the year 2000, she was filing about the city for events in her role of surrogate talking Al Gore up by knocking down Ralph Nader. And this had to be the least important piece of the itinerary — it is a small crowd at Pioneer Courthouse Square — and I, interested just enough but not much more, stand alone, right behind her, closer to her than it seems I should be allowed to stand.

She has a top ten list, a nod to Ralph Nader’s appearance on David Letterman. Nader’s lust, whether it was or was not, was humor — crowd applauses at turns of phrases and satiric jibes. Steinem wasn’t attempting to be funny — it was strident against Nader — there is apparently a phrase Nader once used that downplayed abortion politics which… in a very real way was what kept Steinem supporting Clinton. I half mused — what is the use of having a top ten list if it is not funny?

The nature of Steinem’s political job — this singular public appearance is pretty pointless, except in a broader sweep of appearances that are pointful… to the task. Al Gore wants her here, but he wants her at the other campaigning and political points more — you wouldn’t even blame her for phoning this particular item in. The sign of its lacking is that I was standing closer to Steinem than it seems like it’s make any sense.

The American electoral system is one where you have one silly sometimes pointless sometimes superfluous election contest after another, between some that are meaningful. Tuesday brought the fourth Republican primary contest for US Senate of South Carolina of the year, Darline Graham picking up the javlin from her brother, and not knowing a danged thing about foreign affairs and clearly signifying her proud empty suit status. A number of comical things on her, though — Trump swooped in and spent his not bother to spend Pac money to get her nominated — she managed past that threshold where other candidates fall short. And the full power of Fox News, an interview with a friendly Sean Hannity which will assure everyone that her lack of political awareness is a good thing — never mind a botched answer from a Democrat will have him never be let go.

Oklahoma had a couple great elections. They Republicans nominated the next governor. Apparently a funny closing act — who drug tested harder. And the thirteen Democrats in the state selected their nominee for Senate — and we have ourselves a new DSA winner! To be sure, this state had in recent(ish) memory sent one Jim Rogers to a statewide campaign, to fall to Tom Coburn in 2010 — and whatever one things of DSA politics, they do give more to sit on than the visage of Jim Rogers.

And an upset result in a Georgia special election Democratic Primary which sent someone to Congress until January, and which had 13 people voting. A warm body, pointless kind of —

A certain unreality with Monica Lewinsky, who the White House staff became weary of as they watched the dalliance with the president through the first term, and took pains to shuffle her duties and schefule to remove her from Clinton’s orbit. There is not a whole heck of a lot to do with Natalie Harp who… if we had a younger President would probably have about the same relationship… Maybe a little more syncoprancy on her end. And I suppose that is the most honest answer on the Republican pearl clutching to Jon Ossoff for the accusation that he laid out innuendo to that end.

Ossoff has jumped to the top of the Democratic presidential race. He probably would without the current news story — the current news story is the out growth of his effectiveness of a candidate. An effective presidential candidate will need to drive a news cycle as a matter of course.

I suppose we are on the edge of Jonn Ossoff being the face and leader of the Democratic Party. And that is probably preferable to the alternative. It is a funny little party — witness the primary election in Florida. A former Republican is the gubernatorial candidate. A DSA candidate won the Senate nomination. Notably for her, she associated with the dsa within her run for governor — a strange choice to make for a state electorate littered with Cuba and Venezuela freedom fighters. And it is a curious question if she would have beaten the “keeping the powder for the coming general election”, and resting on Trump term 1 battles as sales pitch, sand him actually really campaigning. Well, the first thing it requires is filling in where he is going, what he wants to legislate. The Big great question for Ossoff– now that he has everyone’s attention — and likely will — and, like, my pitch for Harris was always a “won’t wake one day to see a random war against Iran” which is a pitch I like but no one does.

The British, and onto world, media probably took a certain level of glee in being somewhat obliged to preface the Clacton by-election with a side by side image of Nigel Farage alongside Count Binface. There are certain low level equivalencies in the United State — oh, kind of stuck with the West Virginia 2012 Democratic Presidential Primary of West Virginia, or the Senate election for Oklahoma in 2010 — striking image for the opposition.

Not exactly sure how one is supposed to take in from an election with a foregone top line conclusion — Nigel Farage wins in his purposefully selected base, Nigel Farage Land — and where the question is a sort of moral victory showing of percentages garnered by the joke candidate and a cast of thirty. By most measurements we have Nigel Farage hemming and hawing — he was attempting to claim a mandate to forego his campaign corruption investigation which will land in the certain position where Garage will go out there again and win another stupid election in Farage Land. This next election has the various real parties rhetorically hemmed in — they say out this election because they were not participating in a Farage led political stunt, they are going to participate in this one because it is the end of a process, and one that lands on Nigel Farage winning a real election. And where unless they can think through and come up with something clever, Binface will necessarily still chew on the attention.The

Predictably Farage did not stand for the vote count. And comes the weird claim that the police advised it did to a serious threat, altered to his security advising, and mixed with the real reason of being demeaned with standing in a crowd of novelty joke candidates with wacky costumes. I actually would find as respectful of he just said that real reason and let it go on that — even if the next line on the Labour Tories Lib Dems Greens refusing to go toe-to-toe is stretching it.

I suppose one thing you can say — by any accounts Farage barely lands in Clacton. The elections force him to pay attention and relate to his actual constituency — that is worth something. Though, it probably is a hic-cup on that thing everyone is freaked out — this guy the next prime minister? Is it a hic-cup loud enough to completely permanently throw off this trajectory? You would have to think another step ahead for the election that drags Binface down below five percent again and figures to position the more regular Clacton result.

The primary elections, particularly when they get to even 50 – 50 splits, produce some high quality maps that can be studied for the geography and demographics — then you spared the meaning of the county vote tallies few votes going to the moderate – slash – establishment or the quasi or real socialist in counties that have no Democratic presence — oh, if you are a Democrat there, you are at war with the Republican norm and take up the full mantle and vote against Thanksgiving, and oh — they were bombarded with advertisements on tv and it is the old population that still watched linear tv and the balance is not offset by on the ground campaigning so you cast your lot with Israel’s Genocide behind the guise of “sticking it to the cool kids”.

Or something.

The polling is off in Michigan, but not necessarily or particularly in Wisconsin. Maybe it is not so much a “shy Haley Stevens” vote as a loud So-Sayed vote for Michigan — to vote for Stevens was to declare yourself a dork, after all — or maybe there was just no way of guaging that last outer rung of boters. Wisconsin was a case of everything moving fast — she stood at her 40 pervent, and the “establishment” was trying to consolidate but stumbled to do so until the end. Yet, even figuring the twenty percent non them vote, we still get to an even split — seven per cent went to a more socialist than dsa socialist candidate — so we still get something of an even split map for amusing study.

And while these are being cast as something of contests on the heart and soul of the Democratic Party, no one is casting the South Carolina primary run-off between Darlin Graham and Ralph Norman as a test for the heart and soul of the Republican Party. Test of small differences — or no differences — the electorate figures the parcel of their deference to President Trump. But — still — we get a pretty map that shows something of attitudes and demographics.

A few things going on in the primary elections. One is the unspectacular story where Schumer casts his lot with a candidate who won a stateside election or has a ballsy backstory. So it is in North Carolina, Iowa, Alaska and then onto Kansas and wherever. Two is the misfires in Maine and Michigan — though he almost pulled one off in Michigan — and the stubbornness of the known commodity and a vetting to cut off a left flank drowned him. And so comes the reality of a Democratic wave — the bigger the Democratic win in November, the more the dsa insurgents are simply drowned out by candidates whose political fixing is to try to stay centred and maybe “find an issue” — see “border security” as the Insta-answer from all these candidates when asked and from that I have a grim view on what is to be done about ICE.

Then there is a bi-partisan old timers dump. A bi-partisan gambit. Texas dispenses their Republican incumbent Senate. Colorado ushers in a DSA Congress-critter, and the story there is as much that the incumbent Democrat came into the seat in the 1996 election as anything ideological. And off of that I glance over to the Massachusetts Democratic Senate primary between a forty-something year old and an eighty-something old. All things being equal, I would want to go ahead and respectfully edge the old incumbent out — I am picturing a bad assessment of handling the problems of AI and apt to see a good influx of Union Construction jobs and not see the downbacks of the construction of data centers and I am picturing being stuck in the mud with Israel, and I am picturing a mid-length hospital visitation. Markey, I remember musing when I noted him taking over for Kerry (or the interim replacement of Kerry) — cool, but he is going to cut out after two terms right?

Unfortunately Seth Moulton disgraced himself in a Democratic party debate. It is a thing I have been pondering with the Epstein Files, a catch-all term that slides everyone who passed by Epstein. Concentric circles where a number of people have been disgraced (Chomsky, Summers, Trump, and Bannon) and you are trying to get a few to get disgraced but can’t get there (Clinton). It is easy enough to demagogue this. And Ed Markey is not in any concentric circles here. But. He knows a guy who knows a guy — a lobbyist is there.

We are as close to “you’re a pedophile” as we are going to get, and is wholly unbecoming of a candidate one should want to vote for. So. I guess Massachusetts voters are stuck voting for the fanned 80 year old?

Staring blankly as an apologist, or supporter, of the DSA — as opposed to candidates shuffling out of the organization walking and talking their way from the platform planks, and as opposed to candidates who have never been involved in the organization, tackle “Prison Abolition” — seems to be part and parcel to tackle what happens when Fox News gets ahold of the thing And their spokespeople for their broadcasting pleasure and go plank after plank on the phrases that get sensationalized takes —

— that flashback to the Covid and George Floyd summer when a bunch of Reed students thought they could change the world by shoving a list of radical books and podcasts into everyone’s hands — graffiti sloganeering on the problems of the police proliferate —

and a couple efforts to set up a chaz that just can’t get there and fizzle off —

The problem becomes instant. We have false advertisement. When you want advocate “Prison Abolition” I want to hear Prison Abolition. And they don’t care get there. Prisons continue to exist in the scheme of this prison abolitionist. If I am arguing anything here in any debate, I win the argument because nothing on the central point is argued. So what the hell is the point of this phrase? I mean, it is standing in the way of “Medicare for All” and any great Scandinavian flavored policy you have in mind, and just what they do in rehabilitation, decriminalization, and policing policies to pull police officers out of people’s lives as much as you can — on to some basic libertarian stances. Maybe there is an Overton Window theory — put this out there in order to get what the hell you want , but more likely this just produces a cut off as opposed to a slogan or phrase that encapsulates the policies you are seeking, and a demand for a pivot for Senate candidate Roy Cooper in North Carolina to do a “Sister Souljah” to stamp down a Law and Order message.

So we now have a Democratic candidate in Wisconsin. A perfect storm of a mixed crowded primary where everyone “real” has stepped into predictable politician scandals has made the dsa candidate the frontrunner, and has forced a candidate who had suspended a campaign back in as the last establishment hope. And in this case I say, the dsa candidate sucks for the reasons that James Carville hates the whole lot. I listen to her get interviewed and am a little bit gobsmacked — yeah, this won’t do. I see that in front of more radical audiences, she is free-flowing and comfortable, and in front of normies she is stiff in cutting off the unpalatable. She is not Mamdani who can move to conservative audiences with a list of bloated government contracts from previous administrations he wants to cut off and regulations he thinks are onerous. There is a little bit of a theory for Overton Window purposes — the media can only had the attention to pump up one person as crank, and she gets to be the bizarre Chrisine O’Donnell against the Bizarro Marco Rubio over in Michigan now. Which has the problem that you actually want to see a Democratic governor in Wisconsin And maybe the Repubicans could be indifferent on the notion of a Republican Senator in Delaware. It is notable — Bernie Sanders has not endorsed the Wisconsin dsa candidate — he appears to be kind of picky in this game and has a left edge he does not want to cross.

The good news on the mail biter of a race in Michigan as it pertains to Wisconsin is it does give succor to the establishment Democrat, here needing a pullback from a parts of the electorate sleepwalking towards this one, the last desperate lunge from the long dormant establishment has some evidence of success — maybe a silent constituency and this is the one case you hope James Carville’s mostly stupid message carries temporarily.

A Democratic Primary from Hell which, over the past month or so has gone from a general sense that El-Sayed has 3 out of 5 things going for him against Haley Stevens to where he has 4 out of 5 going for him against Stevens to one it appears Stevens has imploded — her tweets of a “taking my ball and going home” in a huff —

Joining alongside her is James Carville. On Fox News. A guy who won a big race in 1992, and then made himself an entertaining personality in what amounts to “Hollywood for Ugly People”. It is hard to measure anything from him as anything substantive over the years, but he has gotten a chuckle or two maybe? And ultimately, John Stewart was right — Crossfire was stupid.

A couple weird facets of the much despised Democratic Socialists of America — seemingly never spoken of out into full context. The organization is somewhat comical and a self parody. The vice chair went on Fox News and, asked about some items on the platform that are basically jokes. Yet even here the question of “Abolish the Senate” gets a “sounds like a good idea” from me — which I suppose why it is item one of the list Fox News rolls past, the one that might garner a defense.

The DSA slopes off to factions that find electoral politics unbecoming, a compromise. The likes of Mamdani — now electorally tied to Governor Hochul who he needs a buy-in and assistance from and where she does from him — become hopeless sell-outs. But vive la Sewer Socialism anyway! Or, as the agitated dsa faithful look about, warmed over grasps at the New Deal.

The Senate candidate in Michigan. Not a member of the DSA. Never been a member of the DSA. There is maybe a bit too much of a “running as a move!ent” feel to his campaign — his closing as focuses too much on words by Bernie Sanders and AOC but then… Why does Haley Stevens have James Clyburn for the same effect? (Who is, I believe, isvno one to anyone in Michigan.) The closing add from the campaigns are stunningly dullards — I guess El-Sayed as the front-runner has the better reason for it, though I still need to see a pivot to — sell the message to the vast electorate who could care less about Bernie and AOC.

If I am gate-keeping, I have two candidates who — well, I can’t do much more than disdain — out of the DSA. The others are fine. I don’t know when Carville buzzed out of politics for Clinton spokespeopling, but he did reside there with someone like… Cynthia McKinney… in the tent. I don’t know, even if Carville wants nothing to do with El-Sayed, can’t be just whiff past him and talk up the Senate candidate of North Carolina? Though. Maybe that is what he is doing — pitching for a campaign job with one of the non-Democratic Party but Democratic candidates in Nebraska or Montana or … apparently Idaho now has one. Why else Fox freaking News?

The funny thing on the discontinuation in Michigan. I can picture this world where it is the one place in a massive Democratic sweep that goes Republican, the local fracture just that raptured. The effect is Maybe one where Iowa gets ready for a 2028 Democratic win and Michigan falls away? Probably too crazy a tugging, but … All Politics are Local again (or at least in some local areas), and there the big Local issue… Gaza.

There is this bitter dynamic where I listen to some words from old time establishment Democrats, name of James Carville, and have that instinct of going with those Progressive and DSA aligned insurgent politicos. And to hear the insurgent wing of the Democrats, represented by the Majority Report cast and Emily Vigeland and Sam Seder — and now I just have the urge to go for the Establishment picks in these fights.

And yeah, there is a “cool kid’s table” vibe on the Majority Report’s for its cultural positioning. I scratch my head as Sam Seder described the tv show Friends, belittling it in terms of a product meant to place between advertisements — while at the moment he is in Hollywood on some project, and where I do not know how the show he has a voice role on — Bob’s Burgers — fits into this fight against consumerist and corporate media programming. And they have this continued habit of to bouncing about in this way. My leading irritation, though, is a gratuitous mockery of Joseph Biden for daring to appear publicly somewhere and get cheered from the party faithful. They cast their lot, I guess — if it means a ything, Carville hates Biden as much as they do — but his commentary is less gratuitous.

My sense with the Michigan Senate race is the candidate I would have wanted just got squeezed out — and I am curious how it would play out of the were the pick Schumer tapped and marshal forward as the Establishment against El-sayed or if she was the one on the left flank (endorsed by Elizabeth Warren) going against Stevens. The total effect right now, then, is staring at the complaint that we have Obama giving a soft endorsement of Haley Stevens in allowing his appearances on advertisements. Well, it makes sense — Obama is the most popular member of the Establishment amongst the Democratic electorate, and El-Sayed — not as much as a few of the actual DSA candidates but him to some extent — is at a war with them. What is annoying with the AIPAC ad deluge then is — the messages they relay is fine. And Why not point at where she sat in the Obama administration? It is politically salable — you just have to scale past it. Maybe the deluge is irritating to Said’s backers, and maybe an innocuousness is parcel to the problem — they don’t dare mention Israel.

The limits of “Vote Blue no matter Who” gets strained for whoever wins. But some things pester me. A secret of Mamdani’s success is he is paying attention and selling himself and his administration to his right flank of his city — people don’t like being revolutionaries, and the guy is “filling the potholes”. We will see how many of the dsa candidates get there as they move into bigger politics then safe districts — and if the likes of AOC (who pre-endorsed Jeffries as Speaker!) master the rhetorical push without selling out. On that score, Said — my reluctant (highly hypothetical) pick, despite being annoyed by his backers — … tends to fall off. My big problem is the view that comes out after the primary expressed by the lot of them — if she wins, it is a demonstration of a democracy deficiency. Somehow.