Checking in on the campaigning activities of the lot of past presidents, and toss in the former nominees while you are at it, and Assad’s easing A basic trajectory as time marches forward.

It is hard to gauge actual effects, but the Democrats fare better in their ability to trot their men out. Bill Clinton was at the hustlings to stump for a couple New Jersey congress critters, and a few figures along the Texas border. Surely he chugged Cuellar past the finish line — to the disgust of the left wing of the party — and that may be a message on the move of Clinton in the party — as Obama came in, his Democratic campaign futures put him at stops Obama could not do — helping North Dakota’s Democratic Senate candidate to a slim victory, and though it fell flat and dead he tried in Arkansas and Kentucky. Now, where the Democrats are fraying with border Hispanics, he gets shipped there.

Barack Obama was more center stage at the end — to the thicket of key races. Because otherwise you are staring at Joseph Biden who — without Obama — is kind of in the spot Obama was in 2010 when you stared at the campaign itinerary and saw Connecticut’s Democratic candidate and Delaware is throwing a sop to him and letting him speak before college crowds. Biden was allowed into Pennsylvania largely because Obama was there. He almost assuredly would still be campaigning for Hochul, though if forced to make a choice she’d stick with Hillary Clinton as speaker.

Al Gore is, naturally, nowhere to be seen, except in a bizarre Chuck Todd speculation that — hey! All Gore 2024, huh?, forcing A statement from Gore of an “ugh. Go away.”

George W Bush campaigned for Joe O’Dea in Colorado, despite the Democrats’ best efforts the Republican primary victory and always a longshot anyways — and the candidate I see the National Review offer up a post mortem headline of “He was worth a shot”. Otherwise, we now see Bush publicly announcing a meeting with Zelensky. If such a move can even slightly shore up some Republican support for Ukraine’s defense efforts — a hard seller, I suppose.

Mitt Romney wisely stayed away from endorsing Mike Lee, whose public requests for an endorsement are puzzling to me.

In the next campaign — the Georgia runoff — history as a guide — in 2002, some late last second decision robot calls from Bill Clinton get credited with pulling Mary Landrieu in Louisiana out of the fire, and 2008 saw president elect Obama doing as little as he could get away with while staring at a certain landslide loss with Georgia — all while McCain and Palin and Sell Miller gallavated the stare. In 2022, near as I can see — the Democrats have an advantage, and at last a good excuse not to include Biden in any Clinton and Obama campaigning — and the Republicans hope they could swap a tag team of their winning governor Kemp and Florida’s Desantis in for Trump.

Everybody believes in a “false consciousness” when their candidates and platforms fall short, and democracy when they win. So I gaze over the dailykos and see a bit about the white women of Georgia not voting for Stacey Abrams as way of jumping aside from a storyline on Black males slumping off of her due to vast “disinformation campaigns”. Abrams neither saint nor devil, and certainly not entitled to a victory — and I have yet to see anything untortid in a campaign by Republicans for black male votes that she faced up against — she forever has the taint of not conceding her 2018 loss.

The National Review is hilarious. It is a partisan political game where by any rights no matter the realistic size of a Republican victory, their pre-election prognostication should still be able to get called out on. But, realistically, even a tiny good night for the Republicans would have left them sweeping all things aside — ignoring their celebration on the impending defeat of New York governor Hochul and coming inauguration of Zedel. The magazine’s website did manage to get ahead with a column proposing that Hochul will be saved by some population mass exodus of New York Republicans. It is a variant on false consciousness doing in their politician. I suppose they all moved to Florida and contributed to DeSantis’s landslide.

It is worth pointing out New York Republicans had a good night, in that their House victories are responsible for the narrow Republican House and Speaker of the House McCarthy. Funny thing. In 2020, the Democrats won the House and lost expectations game, where in 2022 they lost the House and won the expectations game. Partisans wise we are at a point of stasis, fault-lines in the two parties all too apparent

For the question that haunted this election where in many respects I don’t much care — the Trump “insurrection” ploy and who runs the mechanics of election counting in 2024 — it is likely Trump’s January 8er has his governor in Arizona — and on that, though the Democratic tactical game in propping up some candidates worked well, it failed in one important instance.

I think Ben Shapiro is probably a step or three closer to reality than, oh, Alex Jones. I assume he only implies in a joking / not joking matter that Mr. Pelosi was a victim of gay lover’s spat, before extra caring the attackers’ bot partisan bonafidas that the Democrats are exploiting. Only the first part is not acceptable. Stick a “gate” on it and we wind our way to the acceptance and support toward…

Derrick Van Orden is your man in Congress. Though, conceivably he just joins a caucus of a few members who were if they weren’t sitting in their House office at the time, would have been there.

This “three Senate races” where the incumbent loses support but in a state where the partisan edge cushions them from any losing brings to mind one thought.

I don’t want a ninety year old Senator. The problem with Senator Grassley, though, is that his replacement would have come out of the Republican primary. So. Do you prefer Senator Doddering or Senator Young Buck Heavily Affected Trumpster?

There ought be term limits, but pretty damned generous ones. Five terms. Maybe even six. It gives you a good career. Probably able to do what you must in the minority with your party in the White House, in the majority with your party in the White House, in the minority with the other party in the White House, and in the majority with the other party in the White House. You have had your chance to build both oppositional and governing legacy. So goes Patty Murray. Wo will angle to be the next Chuck Grassley, I suppose. Her Democratic primary replacement may e better, worse, or just the same as her. Probably the last.

The situation with McMullin in Utah is amusing more than anything. I can’t quite figure what the people of Utah are aching for.

I… Guess?

Cecily Strong used a bait-and-switch trick to deliver sharp commentary on abortion rights.

So goes a favorable review of an SNL bit at The Atlantic, here on the eve of a probable Republican midterm victory. I suppose on the Senate comes down to just what Schumer’s hot Mic gripe on things going south in Georgia meant — either we ought be beating this dumbass by a lot or damned if this dumb was ain’t winning — as too the question of if Fetterman’s debate off of his stroke put the screw in his hopes of bobbing above the partisan ticket against a different dumbass.

It is a doomed election, as always. To stare across the red dosed ad scape of the Democrats, apparently “Maga” has come to simply mean a policy difference over Abortion policies. And there can and shall be no truck on a hotly done issue which has been a voting matter for Trump’s voters long before he tried to spur, in various hap hazard but violent fashions, a false election victory and long before Russians put up weird Facebook pages.

So. The Saturday Night live bit. Very politically charged. And in no way comedic. It is a funny deal. I listen to the Babylon Bee podcast, which is a not great but good enough thingamajing. There has been an odd cottage industry of liberal column and tweets explaining in painstaking details why the comedy of the Babylon Bee is not funny. The explanations are often correct, and sometimes not. I was thinking of this video they produced on the troubles a liberal little league dad has in cheering on his son, Brandon. A funny premise, or funny enough — but the problem is it is essentially apolitical and the crew could not help but take partisan shots with essentially speeches against Biden. So, not funny. But at the end of it — who cares? The effect is that the funniest thing they do is read off overly mportant letters about why they are not funny.

As goes Saturday Night Live political commentary.

From fivethirtyeight the “three questions I still have”: Question 3: How much does candidate quality matter? Actually the question is… What is ” candidate quality”. This goes back to Trump, who in 2015 I pegged as the Republican both most likely to win and the Republican most likely to lose biggly. In the 2022 midterms, we have this scene of “Maga” Republicans who came in with assistance of Democratic ads slyly boosting them — some more conceptually defendable than others. In Arizona, they boosted Kari Lake, and then ran into the problem that her past as a tv news anchor makes her very media savvy as against their gray candidate. So goes a predictable point. They probably hit well with the majority of their “blare them in red” opposition picks, but a one size fits all analysis will drink them in places.

Besides which, this does undermine their “Democracy in Peril” message. But then, apparently the party cares more about Abortion.

Headlines for Obama right now.

And then here’s Fox News. The first Fox News item for Obama, mind you.

…

I can only imagine OANN’s coverage.

Hm. David Icke has been kicked out of Europe.

Icke wrote on his website that the move was an “extraordinary, over-the-top response” from “the Dutch fascist regime”.

i hate to say it, but the guy does have a point. He has been given the hecklers’ veto. And you know. The terminology here is kind of curious.

He had been expected to address a demonstration on Sunday by an anti-authority group. Law enforcement authorities have said the gathering will draw far-left counter-demonstrations and lead to public unrest.

An anti-authority group?

Question. Does anyone anywhere know anything about David Icke’s sports career? Like, what does his highlight reel look like? Was there a low point where a mistake of his cost a game? A redemptive arc where he came up strong and played the hero? I can’t even compare him to OJ Simpson on “sports career overshadowed by post career notoriety, because with OJ, I can do a quick survey for old (American) football fans to comment on how great his rushing plays looked. Maybe Brits have that one to themselves.

Taking a quick dive into the not competitive in the least Senate races, and you can probably carbon copy something like this pile of positioning.

Boyd, however, remains optimistic. He said he feels enthusiasm for the ticket, and expressed hopes that Libertarian Senate candidate John Sophocleus can draw votes away from Britt. Boyd, pastor of a church in Florence, said he is the most qualified candidate in the race.

So goes Boyd in Alabama.

And so goes Kathy Salvi in Illinois.:

Salvi said in a Sun-Times interview last month, “I know that money is important, but I think I’m the right candidate at the right time with the right message against the right opponent. And I just think this is going to be a shocker this election, everything that I see points to success in November.”

Perhaps taking in the realpolitik criticism of her ads, the new “Drazan sucks! She’s a Maga Republican to the extreme” ad ends with everything visually in the blood red coating. I guess it is a bit of a Democratic party trope beneath the Biden Administration, off of his famed backdrop while decrying the “Ultra Maga” forces. But having already whiffed with a previous ad that ended with a flattering image of Drazan, it does seem a tad a whiplash.

So ends my “moot the ad and watch the visuals” observation on what the Tina Kotek campaign is spitting out.

Glancing over at the election in Utah, which is maybe not all that interesting — Lee will win by double points — I am nonetheless curious on some dynamics. One is to stare at The New Republic headline, “How Utah’s Democrats Decided to Desert their Party to Save Democracy”. Do I waste a free link to read it (maybe read the print edition in the library). I assume and hope it is a behind the scenes internal party fight scene on the deliberations that lead to the move, but I am stuck on the query. Mike Lee — a guy you disagree with, who broadly agreed with President Trump but had differences, elected. Re-elected. Message: Democracy imperialed. Maybe the matter is that the Democrats chose to go with a guy with more mass appeal than previous figures who got stomped by many many tens of percentages — some rich guy who paid his own way, and some Lesbian activist — helps democratic process.

Jon Huntsman endorses Lee. He now finds himself off the anti-Trump Republican sideshow, as simultaneously broadest defined and narrowest defined — the small group of former Republicans who have taken in the whole of the Democratic platform while they were at it in defining Trumpism as including all of that Republican platform they theoretically once supported or tolerated.

I do not really care one way or the other how Mitt Romney chimes in or doesn’t, and think he can do so in whatever way and retain a basic political integrity and consistency. But this is apparently a parlor game of speculation and headlines by Deseret News and Utah media and politico honchos, headlines blaring.

I trust once this experiment vanishes, the Democrats can go back to losing with Democrats by thirty and forty points. They do have the mayor of Salt Lake City and usually a congress-critter. Beyond that, gadfly buzzing is a decent role.