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.

A dash indifferent in the inter-mural Democratic Party sparring. James Carville is entitled to have opinions, and if at first his barking at the victories of a few dsa candidates, I then hear some casual snottiness from co-hosts of the Majority Report — reminiscing on taking a bold stand in not reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and I am happy for them in escaping the matrix but see there the emblem that snatches a play for Peoria. Carville for his part has a quot e nation from Ilhan Omar of generic “white men scare me” to “if you want to run, don’t do it as a Democrat, caucusing will be fine” — oh, don’t taunt the party. Yeah, but we proceed to his longer rant and slide into the contradictions — “try winning somewhere other than Brooklyn or Seattle!”. Which. She did. And also notable is he is upset that some of those candidates won there. But, the Carville line is when they do this, then he will respect you all.

The bigger problem with Carville comes as he does the “here’s a little history lesson on the elections of the 21st century.” Fully expect the sarcastic selling on Bill Clinton, for 2000 and “the only reason Florida could stop the vote count” to that “what don’t you like about Peace and prosperity?” question on Nader and his voters — but where I don’t understand the man is in an unexplained because he figures it to be self-evident on 2016 which is that “Bernie Sanders” cost Hillary the election. (A reprise of Nader, I guess) Bernie Sanders who — did that full faith effort to win the president and earn Carville’s respect. He did not succeed, but you can’t blame the guy for trying. Given that he was not running in the general or endorsing anyone but Hillary Clinton, I don’t understand. If you want spot some less than enthusiastic attitudes on Hillary, I can do so on (Carville’s choice) Hillary Clinton with Obama in 2008 who — also kept campaigning in the primary fiercely and more personally than Sanders did with her past the point she had a chance.

A curious matter. Carville spent 2023 beating the drum, understandably, for Biden to step aside for re-election, citing that he’s old and knows what it is like to be old. Also old is Maine’s governor and party establishment pick for senate — who Carville has said he did some campaign work for — and perhaps he now feels burned in having come around for Platner. Nature abhors a vacuum, someone was going to fill the void left by being handed the unpopular governor who lacked energy in campaign. And I would like to think someone — one of those five Democrats running for governor — would have, but looking over to Michigan I guess I am not sure — the Democrat who sat in the middle between the amazingly sucky establishment pick and the DSA-speaking type, the one who received Elizabeth Warren’s endorsement as opposed to the one with Bernie Sanders’s — and probably the one I would opt for — cratered in the polls and is out. The center cannot hold. Hard to say how a two-way race where she represented the establishment pick against the wild and wacky small s socialism or the leftward pick against the establishment pick — but it does not bode much well in transplanting over to a hypothetical Maine contest with a third not nasty tattoo having not dark drunkened rap-ey past, or two-way race against him. So — Carville has half a point — but the half a point he does not have glares badly.

Is this a typo for Bill Clinton? — if the numbers are in the correct order, the number should be +1 and not -1. If not, I guess we have three in positive territory. A cross tabs and demographic break down might be interesting. The number is probably buoyed by older demographic, as you move younger Democrats fall aside or scratch their head to a “dunno”. On one hand, I cannot help but think that he — in collaboration with the Republican Congress — set off the ticking time bomb that exploded in the Economic collapse of 2007 — 2008. On the other hand, there is something I saw attributed to President George HW Bush — saying that if he can account for and keep from getting loose all nuclear material in danger of escaping at the end of the Cold War, he will be comfortable knowing he did his job as president, a matter which abounds in no way whatsoever in domestic politics where the entire job is behind the scenes. Such feeds litter the Clinton Administration and no one can get themselves to credit him for, oh, monitoring the terrorism threats all night asthe world turned the calendar to the new millennium. Or. I can’t help but think we would be in a better place with a President Gore continuing on the essentially fruitless “so — we gonna do this ‘state solution’?” where President Bush justices itaside.

The George W Bush plus 9 Figure is very annoying. Trump, if you recall, rode anti-Bush sentiment to the Republican nomination, always able to knock on those ‘forever wars” and any attempt at a “grand bargain” on immigration. And a certain amount of politicking separates Trump from the past Republican Party, not stressing any continuities. Maybe there is a renewed appreciation for usaid policies the wake of Musk / Trump policy?

I am well aware that the list of supporters of President Biden basically consist of DL Hughley and me. I am not entirely sure Hunter Biden counts as one — it is hard to read his authenticity. The current moment with the camatose McConnell and a batch of Republicans informing us about their lively in-depth conversation on the Iran situation brings out mocking references to Biden. Who, if you recall, after the debate was out campaigning after his “defeat medicare” debate, and, as you probably don’t recall because it lies in “presidential duties no one bothers with”, was announcing a complicated prisoner release swap he made with the Russian government sometime after dropping out of the race. I suppose our more immediate comparison is with Trump though — and I suppose it is a “he might have gotten there in his second term” with a number of key differences — you are stuck with Trump of appreciating that no one but Trump could be sold a bill of goods by Netanyahu in military actions with Iran, and only Trump can put war with Greenland on the table. An element of partisan binding goes on from the left part of the Democratic Party. One of the people with the Majority Report (not Sam Sedar) in discussing Graham Platner and wanting to cast a wide net of hypocrisy chimes in that “I believe Tara Reade” regarding his accusation against Biden. This comes from a person whose immediate response on the NY Times article of a month back was to point to the Republican politics of the named accuser — (and it was a story where you knew there was more in it but you can’t quite get to it — sure enough we got to it over the weekend). Political enemies of the moment in Biden (they lump in with Trump) , political friends — of the moment (Planet before this weekend) and a question of an opinion so dumb wonder if I think I don’t even want to take a listen to this show again.

A couple things to say on Obama. We have Bill Maher giving a mea culpa that “Obama was right” on his Iran Nuclear deal, that “this was what we were gonna get”, it is time to… acknowledge this … as though it is a hidden truth, shocking. Not such a bright guy, Maher? Or is he only hanging out with rightwingers these days? The other matter is, people I have never understood why I should have an opinion on… Michele Obama. Maybe I have a mixed assessment on her school lunch attempts and it’s effectiveness, though the opposition on it always seemed absurd. Otherwise I was more thinking about her when Her husband was president. We move to this year and apparently she is front and center in the mind of an mma fighter. Why?

Maybe there was a bizarro version of the dynamics of the Colorado Republican Gubernatorial Primary with the Portland mayor race of 2020. Portland coulda jumped ahead of the Socialist freight train in that year (if not any other this far) in particular, but opted to go to the unpopular “center not holding” (but apparently was) — and much mocked by right wing media — incumbent mayor because the “defund the police” candidate was outflanked by the “supported by the Chaz-sters” write-in candidate who kept on running even after the primary booted her out. So it is the 40 percent plus one getting by the 40 percent minus one because of that intransigent twenty percent purity cadidate.

But it appears as though the … man in the middle (?)… has beaten out the mainline woman establishment candidate. He got to that 40 percent plus one with her main opponent getting 40 percent minus one and the bigger kook the twenty. The debate was insane.

MR. DOW — MR. BOTTOMS ON THE TOPIC OF RELIGIOUS AND POLITICS HE SAID YOU WERE DEEPLY HONORED TO HAVE THE ENDORSEMENT OF YOUR GOOD FRIEND JOE ALT — JOEL ALTMAN WHO CALLED FOR THE EXECUTION BY HANGING OF THE GOVERNOR ATTORNEY GENERAL AND SECRETARY OF STATE WHO HE CALLS SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN JEWS. MR. OLTMANN YOU SAID WOULD HAVE MADE A GREAT GOVERNOR ENDORSED A SCALED-DOWN TO BECOME THE COLORADO REPUBLICAN PARTY CHAIRMAN. DO YOU ALSO BELIEVE COLORADO’S GOVERNOR ATTORNEY GENERAL SECRETARY OF STATE SHOULD BE ARRESTED, TRIED AND HANGED IN DO YOU BELIEVE THEY ARE A SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN JEWS?

Mr. Bottoms carried on with secret information that all these Democrats are going to be indicted for… sedition… or, policy differences of you will, and affirms that he does support the death penalty.

And the one that has garnered a lot of attention.

MR. MARX YOU MADE CLAIMS THAT ARE UNLIKE ANY ONE EVER MADE BY SOMEONE RUNNING FOR GOVERNOR IN HISTORY. YOU SAID YOU’D BEEN AROUND THE WORLD ARMED TO TH TEETH RESCUING WOMEN AND CHILDREN AND YOU STOPPED HUMAN SMuGGLERS AT THE MEXICAN BORDER AND MADE THEM PAY A PRICE -THAT YOU AS A CIVILIAN CALLED A MILITARY AIRSTRIKE THAT KILLED 70 ISIS FIGHTERS YOU ARE THE FIRST AMERICAN IN GAZA DURING THE WAR WITH ISRAEL YOU DID 150 HIGH-RISK MISSIONS AND EVERYONE HAS BEEN A SUCCESS … BUT YOU TOLD ME IT’S ALL TRUE AND YOU DON’T NEED TO PROVE IT TO ANYONE. BUT YOU’RE TALKING TO VOTERS NOW. HOW SHOULD VOTERS DECIDE WHETHER YOU LEAD ONE OF THE MOST EXTRAORDINARY LIVES IN HUMAN HISTORY OR WHETHER YOU ARE LIAR AND A FRAUD?

Wow, it’s Al Gore and his “serial exaggerations” all over again. Except … Al Gore was more modest and happened to be largely true? Maybe there’s Hillary Clinton and Bosnian snipers? Except here it is just fabricated fantasy life. Mr. Marx responds by pulling a Richard Nixon, pulls in his dog his defense. Are you calling my dog a liar? Why is his dog at the debate stage anyways?

In the idea of this as “most extraordinary life in human history”. I do present the curious case of Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, Blue Dog Democrat of a Southern Washington district and her standard issue Reed College experience. Your mileage may vary in determining things, and it is good to put into office people of different experiences. It is curious that the NY Post has a dump of this stuff in an article to reverberate around three election cycles into her career, as none of it was ever hidden — but I suppose her initial election was an “out of nowhere” win and right now the Republicans are looking for election contests they think they could win. You would like to think a person with this cool background would do some good in Congress, but she fails my litmus tests — big backer of ICE, the “one of five Democrats” who cast a vote on this or that draconian immigration measure, and it spills off into our military. I guess she made a measure of her district and decided that the way to keep in . The president has named her a “radical far leftist” and about the only thing we can get in to support the premise is her college hobbies and the bigger scandal that she peddled substandard weed, misses the mark of the better business bureau.

Yeah, I know — let’s examine every congressional asshat’s frat initiation history and see that the fetish gear parade is tame…

God love the anti-abortion Democrats. The last Democratic governor of Louisiana, Jon Bel Edwards, and Congressman from Texas Henry Cueller. And that may just be it — have to look around in state legislators and one ballot line lower than anyone really knows to find anyone else. One of the two is not even in office anymore. What you are stuck with beyond this is someone, dunking on Republicans, claiming Joe Biden as anti-abortion but in his personal beliefso more legitimately so and authentically than the Republicans and religious conservatives — bending any real definition.

Henry Cueller sneaks into mind off of a Te Nehisi Coates interview, as his forges ahead against Kamala Harris with Palestine as his central issue and now is barking at comments from the likes of James Carville on the recent nomination pwins of DSA figures in New York City congressional districts. And here I can’t help but think of it were not for Darializa Avila Chevalier and her track record of pretty illiberal commentary and maybe toss in yesterday’s Colorado winner, Carville’s comments would be a little bit more mooted — clearly not liking this cohort but able to place then “in the big tent” and try to trumpet a bunch of other someone elses. Te Neisha’s response goes to an issue of race — a suggesting of “disenfranchisement” in the very ac of bemoaning the congressional nominees. “I don’t get it”. “That’s a lot of brown people and black people who voted for Chevalier and Lander.” Sure. And that is a lot of black people who voted for James Clyburn in South Carolina and a lot of brown people who voted for Henry Cueller in Texas, and I am pretty sure the response from Te Neisha Coates on what he thinks of those two persons would be along the lines of James Carville on these three DSA politicians. I think his conception of why they won over is big money and power, structures that need to be overcome and the definition of Democracy is when someone out of DSA politics who beats this machinery – – or something in so many words. The funky thing on Cueller– Trump pardoned him for some corruption charges and then was insulted when he remained a Democrat. Dude remains in the tent, I guess.

Colorado Governor Jared Polis exits stage right, and becomes another interesting figure. God bless him. His governing policy of commuting and shortening lots of non-violent offenders, so it is piles of low level druggies, moves into one non-violent conspiracist of January 6th fame. Tina Peters was almost certainly going to get her sentence shortened by the courts anyways, and Polis stepped in and did it himself. I kind of get it. I suppose the big reason not to is because Trump was pressuring him for the release and there is no way the perception of events isn’t just going to be viewed as step a and then step b — and that is how everyone covers it, what a sad sack Polis is as Peters runs off and gets a hero’s cause celebre welcome from the likes of Steve Bannon. But political office appears something of a rich man’s hobby for Polis and he can just walk off after his two terms in office indifferent that the whole world hates him and his status in the Democratic Party is along the lines on Jon Bel Edwards — he served over there for a couple terms and barely was moved by the headwinds every which way in national party politics.

Dumb feature of the political and media landscape is this disproportionate attention to a few elections in the New York metro area. Mamdani and his DSA machine have pulled three candidates to primary, and defacto insta-general, election victories against established Democratic incumbents. Good for them, but in a 435 member congress while it adds up to a hill of beans it does not add up to any more than that.

A little bit of a received opinion, and I haven’t looked too far at these soon-to-be congress critter, but two of them are all right, serious, set to figure in legislating and one of them sucks. So we see Bernie Sanders embracing in full and publicalky endorsing and then congratulating those two and keeping his lips sealed on that third one. But — this is Mamdani’s geo-parcel of the party and he has brought that third one up. And though of course the Republicans and John Fetterman will giddily portray them all as monstrosities — how does this go over in Peoria? — that third one will get a lion’s share of quotations tossed about, broad demands to comment on positions taken. And, I don’t know. If she proved unserious to the job and sticks to the narrow great left omni-cause of unconsidered latest trending sloganeering, she looks like the candidate most likely to go the way of Jamaal Bowman — make an ass of herself and lose in a primary to someone probably a mite to the right of the district but serious. And that will be described as a political earthquake even as everyone else carries along, a stalling of DSA politics. Which — may just show the limitations of their appeal, the factions in that organization naturally divided and factionalized further to the left, the very presence in electoral politics already a sell-out of real Socialist principles anyways.

Funny to see Talarico — and I ponder how Paxton and the Republicans make hay of his snippy commentary of the past. I watch a current favorite of theirs and ponder the meaning — Talarico chides some mega church pastor politicians and their teachings, it transmutes to Talarico hating Christianity. The footage is aired all about Republican media outlets. They cut it off mid-sentence, breathtakingly actually mid-word. Funny though, because the nuanced filler context and explainer for it is probably as politically a bummer as the out of context comment — it aligns him with those nasty secularists after all and this is the Christianity this electorate follows and how they define Christianity. Talarico’s Christian parsing here would probably would serve well in Peoria, but he is not in Peoria — we shall see if he can get over it in Texas.