Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Consistently wrong since 2002

Eh, that’s media spin. biden’s health is fine and he’s doing a good job.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

I really should read my own blog.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The willow is too close to the house.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

“But what about the lurkers?”

You are here: Home / Elections / 2022 Elections / Monday Morning Open Thread: Too Dark Too Soon

Monday Morning Open Thread: Too Dark Too Soon

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Always takes a few days to readjust…

Happy nice news, ICYMI:


If it bleeds…

… Between election deniers and threats to voting rights, news organizations have emphasized the beat. That will continue next Tuesday, with coverage plans for the midterms rounding into shape.

CBS News will have its first-ever “Democracy Desk” to look at those issues and how law enforcement is dealing with threats. NBC News’ “Vote Watch Unit” is looking at election security and disinformation. ABC News has assigned the team of Dan Abrams, Pierre Thomas, Terry Moran and Kate Shaw to the topic…

Following a precedent set in the 2018 midterms, the broadcast networks will set aside their entire prime-time schedules to follow the action. CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC will have wall-to-wall coverage. There will be a wealth of online options for those whom one screen won’t do…

The Associated Press, which has counted the nation’s votes for more than a century, does not declare a winner in an individual race until it has determined that there is no scenario under which trailing candidates can close the gap — even if a candidate has declared victory or others have conceded…

CNN will have more reporters out in the states than it ever has for a midterm election, [political director David Chalian] said. Other networks echo him; CBS News is preparing to tap into the expertise and staffing of its local stations across the country. NBC News has assigned six reporters each to Georgia and Pennsylvania alone.

NBC News’ coverage will be led by the team of Lester Holt, Savannah Guthrie, Chuck Todd and Andrea Mitchell. David Muir anchors ABC’s coverage. CNN says its hosts include Jake Tapper, Anderson Cooper, Dana Bash and Don Lemon.

With the exit of news anchor Brian Williams, MSNBC’s coverage will be led by three anchors who host opinion shows: Rachel Maddow, Joy Reid and Nicolle Wallace.

Once again: Sharing is caring…

Speaking of happier days:

Reader Interactions

163Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    There are far more voters than marchers. By orders of magnitude.

    Yay for Dolly!

    ETA: Sad to say, I think there are also a small sliver of marchers who cynically think they can increase their numbers if the voters are denied their say.

  6. 6.

    Benw

    If they’d given the one ring to an actual bear it could’ve spent the spring fattening up on delicious salmon then wandered into Mordor, kicked everyone’s ass, and dropped the ring into Mt Doom. This isn’t a knock on Frodo and Sam, but Gandalf did make questionable decisions

  9. 9.

    David 🌈☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    I would advise folks not to watch tee vee on any election night. Best to stick to a site or news feeds (for example The Guardian).

    Networks, even MSNBC, are neurotic and prone to unnecessary panic.

    We saw this in 2000. We knew our voters were using absentee ballots because we didn’t want to catch covid standing in long lines. The cult was being told not to trust mail ballots and covid was a hoax so their vote would be at polling stations. For whatever reason, same day vote is tabulated first, before mail in votes, which meant Dump was going to have an illusory lead that evening. Even with this in mind, the good people at MSNBC descended into fear and loathing over the red mirage, instead of remaining sober and rational.​ ​

    I thought their coverage of the 2000 election would be better since they got rid of the ridiculous, hysterical Matthews and brought on board the ferocious Nicolle Wallace. But they quickly succumbed to stress and I had to turn it off after an hour and returned to my prior practice.​

  11. 11.

    Matt McIrvin

    @David 🌈☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: There was another thing going on in 2020: in a few states, including Texas and, I think, Ohio, it was actually reversed, with the early mail ballots being tallied BEFORE the in-person ballots, so there was a blue mirage. And the Democrats who were watching the returns really closely actually got excited by that, because there was a notion that we might actually flip those states, get an early crushing win and not have to worry about the red-mirage phenomenon. There was disappointment that that didn’t happen. The expectations game was a real roller coaster.

  14. 14.

    Amir Khalid

    Not that I want to discourage your political fervour or anything, but you guys have had your hair on fire about these midterm elections for months and months now. I’ll be glad in a few days, when it’s all over including the postmortem analysis, and the blog finally takes a fortnight-or-so break from election talk.

  19. 19.

    David 🌈☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    @Baud: ​
      That was a serious issue. I started getting giddy from lack of sleep around 4 AM, after being awake 22 hours.

    David ?Booooooo!? Koch

    November 4, 2020 at 4:50 am

    I have the lyrics to Boomtown Rats’s “Up All Night” rattling around my head in this delusion inducing hour.

  21. 21.

    Basilisc

    “Democracy desks” and loads of correspondents are nice and all, but if they don’t have huge red letters flashing “IN PERSON VOTES ONLY” when they show vote totals for states where the mail-ins have not been counted yet, they’ll be failing at their jobs.

  25. 25.

    Nicole

    The endless red wave narrative has really beaten me down this summer.  I go scrambling for every tweet or article I can find saying it’s not supported by the data, and then I ask myself if I’m just trying to continue to continue to delude myself that White Americans aren’t so racist and misogynist we’ll throw away our own liberty over it.

    But the article on the Rock & Roll HOF inductions made me very happy to read, even if it also made me feel very old.  I saw Duran Duran at Madison Square Garden this August.  I had somehow managed, in the previous 24 hours, to abrade off 80% of the top layer of both corneas so I was in quite a bit of pain, but the eye doctor said it was okay to go if I felt up to it and I was surprisingly upset at the thought of missing seeing them live for the first time in my life.  They were great (as was Nile Rodgers, who opened).  I didn’t like going to concerts when I was younger (too loud.  Still too loud, but now I’m middle-aged and wear earplugs without shame), so I’m playing catchup now.  Would very much like to see Pat Benatar live, too.

    And Harry Belafonte getting in!  He was my first crush, when I was 5 years old (my dad played his Live at Carnegie Hall album a lot and I would listen and look at the pictures of him on the album).  My local library branch is named for him and every time I go online to reserve a book the webpage says, “Would you like to pick up this book from Harry Belafonte?” and every time, I think, “Would I EVER.”

  28. 28.

    Baud

    @Nicole:

    then I ask myself if I’m just trying to continue to continue to delude myself that White Americans aren’t so racist and misogynist we’ll throw away our own liberty over it.

     
    I mean, the majority clearly would. Everything depends on the minority whites and non-whites.

  29. 29.

    OzarkHillbilly

    I see Nicole is going to give FL, GA, and SC the gift of the double whammy kiss. Just a kiss, to remind them all that it’s not nice to fool with Mother Nature.

    “I’ll be back.”

  30. 30.

    Nicole

    @Baud: Yeah, the issue is White Americans.  Unfortunately, at this point in history, we’re still the largest racial voting block in the US and a lot of us seem happy to vote ourselves into more misery if it means we can keep the curtain rods away from the non-white neighbor next to us.  And it’s clear we’re doing everything we can to take the vote away from non-whites so we can maintain the illusion of majority as demographics change.  Ugh. I’m so frustrated.

    And, as though by magic, Facebook shows me this morning a memory from 2 years ago, when Biden was (finally) declared the victor and my husband and I ran downstairs to the street because our neighborhood immediately turned into an absolute block party.  Shrieking, giddy cheers, “Celebration” blaring from an apartment 3 stories up, the restaurant a couple blocks up handing out free shots.  The relief was so palpable.

  31. 31.

    Geminid

    @Baud: I’ll probably stay up late because there are a lot of different races I’m following and I’m a politics junkie. If control of the House is close I may not know the outcome for two or even three days, though. It may come to some “photo finishes.” In 2020, Abigail Spanberger’s win in the 7th Virginia CD wasn’t called until after two and a half days of absentee ballot counting. Lauren Underwood’s Chicagoland race wasn’t called for another day.

    Observers are citing Spanberger’s district as a bellwether; the thinking is that if Spanberger is in trouble so are Democrats in other purple districts. This makes sense to me in that the  7th is demographically very average, and by past performance should show a small Democratic advantage.

    The success of another Virginia Congresswoman, Elaine Luria (VA-2), is thought to be an indicator of Democratic strength. So I’ll be watching results for Luria on state and local media, both because I really want her to win, and because if the race is close that could be a good sign. The district is rated a tossup, and after redistricting I saw analysts rate it R+2.

  32. 32.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Amir Khalid: Part of the problem is that in the US, low-info voters still treat Presidential elections as the only ones that matter, and midterm elections as not very important–and it’s hard not to find this agonizing if you realize their actual importance. In some ways we’re still paying for the disasters of 1994 and 2010.

  33. 33.

    lowtechcyclist

    @David 🌈☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch:

    We saw this in 2000. We knew our voters were using absentee ballots because we didn’t want to catch covid standing in long lines.

    I know you meant 2020, but the typo did remind me that on election night in 2000, I told my wife I was staying up to watch the election results until it was clear who won.

    Suffice it to say that didn’t quite work out the way I’d planned.

  35. 35.

    lowtechcyclist

    Always interesting to see who’s gotten inducted into the Hall of Pretty Good Rock Bands this year.  Occasionally they even induct someone genuinely famous, like Dolly.

  36. 36.

    Lapassionara

    @Nicole: I remember that day. The announcement came (IIRC) about 11 am in our area, and the TV started showing happy crowds in the streets all over the country. I think of those crowds when the nut jobs start complaining about how our side is out of step or taking the country in the wrong direction.

  38. 38.

    Sanjeevs

     

     

    Manu Cornet, a 41-year-old software engineer, said he was among the employees who met Mr. Musk at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters in the billionaire’s first days as the self-styled “Chief Twit.”
    Mr. Cornet, also an artist, had drawn a cartoon of a man who had accidentally broken a figurine of a bird resembling the Twitter logo, with another man saying: “You break it, you buy it!” He said he gave a copy of the cartoon to Mr. Musk.
    On Monday, Mr. Cornet said he was summoned to work on new projects. Two days later, he received an email that read, in part: “We regret to inform you that your employment is terminated effective immediately. Your recent behavior has violated multiple policies.”

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/first-week-of-elon-musks-twitter-was-chaos-and-confusion-for-employees-11667670558?mod=hp_lead_pos1

  41. 41.

    Geminid

    @Baud: Normie life is not that bad. My friend Stephanie will pass up the best political show on TV for any mediocre sportsball telecast. But Stephanie votes Democrat in every election, because she is a very shrewd woman who knows who the assholes are. Stephanie got to know them well when she was the only woman in the upper management of a local gasoline wholesaler and retailer.

  42. 42.

    sab

    @lowtechcyclist: I first met my husband standing in line waiting to vote in 2000. I asked him who he was voting for and he told me he thought Bush was the antichrist. Fun times.

  43. 43.

    mrmoshpotato

    And my stove is left blinking and screaming, “IT HAPPENED! TIME SHIFTED UNNATURALLY! THEY’RE ALL LYING! ONLY I KNOW! ONLY I REMEMBER!”

    Sounds like this dude has a power outage with every time change.  That’s just weird.

  44. 44.

    Suzanne

    Facebook memories tells me that, one year ago, Ted Cruz was getting into a culture war battle with Big Bird. So….better than last year?

    As Christmas is coming, I spent part of my weekend looking at gift guides. I looked at one for teenage boys, looking for some ideas for Spawn the Elder. I saw three pairs of my sneakers on that list. I don’t know if that means I am pathetic or awesome.

  45. 45.

    satby

    @Baud: I left you some links from stuff on Twitter last night in a dead thread in answer to you saying you didn’t find much value in the platform personally. Hope you saw them. Really more for entertainment than rebuttal.

  47. 47.

    Nicole

    @Lapassionara: That was such a good day.  And I need to remember it, and that no matter what happens Tuesday, we keep fighting.

    @lowtechcyclist:  I love that Dolly Parton tried to refuse the induction, and then, when it was clear she was getting in anyway, said, “Fine, I guess I’ll record a rock album then.”  The Rock & Roll  HOF has an issue at this point, because hip hop has been the dominant form of pop music for a couple of decades now and they’re running out of newer potential inductees who are legitimately “rock.” (see: Eminem’s induction).  So I think they’re going to have to do a little less gatekeeping about who qualifies.  Which is fine.

    There’s a really adorable video on YouTube- a clip from some celebration show for Lionel Richie and Kenny Rogers gives an absolutely hilarious retelling of the writing and recording of “Lady,” which Richie wrote and which was Rogers’ first song to hit #1 on the pop charts.  Then they duet the song and it’s just so clear how much they adored each other.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WI2CvL6UYvE

  49. 49.

    sdhays

    @sab: And it turned out he (W) was just an artist “finding himself”! Aren’t we lucky to have all been a part of his journey of self discovery?

  50. 50.

    satby

    I’m an outlier in so many things, but I really don’t mind the time changes. Now it’s getting light earlier again, which feels right. But light late into the summer nights feels right too. I guess my circadian rhythms match up with seasonal change.

  51. 51.

    Kay

    If Republicans win anything at all we won’t hear another thing about public schools, CRT or cancel culture from media until January 2024.

    The huge “cancel culture, substack section” subscriptions will also dramatically drop off.

    So every cloud has a silver lining :)

  53. 53.

    Geminid

    @Amir Khalid: There could be another election in November that will generate a lot of talk. The incoming Democratic House caucus will meet for leadership elections before Thansgiving. These were fairly routine in 2020, but I have a hunch they won’t be this year.

  54. 54.

    Kay

    Hysterical and overwrought “crime wave!” reporting will stop too, akin to how the caravans appeared and disappeared from media coverage according to the election cycle.

  55. 55.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Amir Khalid:

    Not that I want to discourage your political fervour or anything, but you guys have had your hair on fire about these midterm elections for months and months now. 

    And the ads are worse!  Especially when thrown into the middle of Sunday Night Football.

  57. 57.

    Ken

    @Baud: They still would have turned that story into three movies.

    And if they’d gotten David Attenborough to narrate it, I’d watch the hell out of it.

    “The Nazgül are circling overhead. They know the Ring Bear is somewhere below. But the Bear… has a plan.”

  58. 58.

    R-Jud

    I’ve confirmed my ballot was received and I’ve badgered other expats into sending theirs. Tomorrow I am going to do what I did on Election Night 2020: pop 100mg of Benadryl around 8 PM and enter hypersleep until the alarm goes off at 5 a.m.

     

    (Which is midnight EST in my time zone, so you’ll probably all still be relatively sober when I log on in the morning.)

  59. 59.

    lowtechcyclist

    @sab:

    I first met my husband standing in line waiting to vote in 2000. I asked him who he was voting for and he told me he thought Bush was the antichrist. Fun times.

    He certainly started off on the right foot with you!

  60. 60.

    Geminid

    @Kay: I remember how relieved I was in November, 2014 when the deadly and imminent threat of Ebola suddenly vanished, as if by a miracle.

  61. 61.

    Baud

    On the hope that we have a good day tomorrow and beat expectations, let me be the first pundit to say that the Dems would have been better positioned in 2024 if they had lost the midterms.

  62. 62.

    Skepticat

    I loathe the time change, not only because,  though I’m usually somewhat tech savvy, I can’t figure out how to change the clock on my new old car even with use of an instruction manual. But I own a wristwatch and can’t see to drive after dusk anyway.

    Even at my advanced age, never have I been so stressed over an election or donated to so many candidates. I can’t sustain this level of stress, so much as I dread losses to the dark side, I’ll be relieved to at least have it over with so we can begin dealing with whatever reality we have.

  63. 63.

    Skepticat

    @Baud: … the Dems would have been better positioned in 2024 if they had lost the midterms

    That’s assuming there would be elections in 2024.

  65. 65.

    oatler

    The networks are On The Job. Chuck and Andrea. Former Republicans, graphics that show bloody war zones, and “Tonight: Election day violence as both sides struggle against armed extremists.”

  68. 68.

    Kay

    @Geminid:

    Remember when Media Hero Chris Christie went insane and weirdly atacked that nurse from Maine and all of media went along and stalked her for weeks?

    He’s the “sophisticated blue state Republican”. A well compensated political pundit now. Dear God.

  69. 69.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    I don’t usually follow election returned closely on the Tuesday night. The picture will be clearer the next morning, and I have this 5000 piece jigsaw puzzle I’m working on. So priorities

  71. 71.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Kay:

    Hysterical and overwrought “crime wave!” reporting will stop too, akin to how the caravans appeared and disappeared from media coverage according to the election cycle. 

    It’s an election cycle miracle!

  72. 72.

    satby

    Politics Girl did a great “closing” video addressed to young people, which I hope gets shared far and wide with any younglings you may know.

    And yesterday I was vending at the second “Out and Proud” holiday craft show and one customer convinced another customer’s 20-something son to go early vote right that afternoon. Mom promised to drive him over, we all applauded him. Then mom leaned over and confided they had houseguests from Florida who probably weren’t voting this year because they hadn’t requested an absentee ballot and wouldn’t be home in time. They’re Republicans, I high-fived her 😂

  75. 75.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Baud:

    I hate political ads. Even the good ones for good candidates. 

    You even hate the ads that you surely have ready for Baud! 2024?

  79. 79.

    WaterGirl

    Can someone tell me what Dana Houle’s point is here?

    2020 Dems had almost no field operation. Few in-person phone banks, few voter registration drives, few canvasses. 2022 Dems are back to field organizing. Maybe it won’t make a difference.

    But I suspect it will.

  80. 80.

    JPL

    In GA the change in voting laws, made it easier to vote early in rural areas where there’s a lot of republican support.  Because of that, Kemp was able to argue that he expanded early voting.

    Turnout was big in those areas, but I hope not big enough to put Walker over 50 percent.   I just can’t imagine republicans voting twice for Walker.

  81. 81.

    Geminid

    @Baud: An interesting 2024 take from Rachel Bitecofer:

         Gotta tell you, I’ve NEVER seen every part of the Left’s coalition, from Yellow Dogs to progressives, rowing in one direction and it gives me so much hope for 2024.

    @RachelBiticofer Nov. 5 2022.

  82. 82.

    lowtechcyclist

    @satby:

    I’m an outlier in so many things, but I really don’t mind the time changes. Now it’s getting light earlier again, which feels right. But light late into the summer nights feels right too. I guess my circadian rhythms match up with seasonal change.

    I’m with you there.  I suspect most people prefer standard time in the winter and savings time in the summer, or we wouldn’t have had it for all these years.

    In the summer, who wants it to be light from 4am to 8pm when you can make it 5am to 9pm instead?  But year-round DST would mean little kids waiting for their school buses in the dark.  We actually tried that briefly in early 1974 when, in response to the Arab oil embargo, they started DST in early February, and people were really pissed by it.

    And gotta admit, as long as I’m still a worker bee (<14 more months!), it’s easier to get moving in the morning with earlier light.  Probably won’t matter so much come 2024.

  83. 83.

    Kay

    @Geminid:

    Crime and homelessness no longer exist in San Francisco. They wrote 5000 editorials and got a Lefty fired so that took care of that.

    Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia shut down a hotline designed to field complaints about “critical race theory,” because not enough people were sending in tips. “The help education email was deactivated in September, as it had received little to no volume during that time,” Macaulay Porter, a Youngkin spokeswoman, said in a statement. The tip line was initially set up to flag instances of schools teaching critical race theory — a college-level academic framework looking at how racism has shaped public policy — which became a target for conservative politicians as school board and local elections heated up.  Critical race theory is rarely, if ever, taught in pre-college US education, but the academic concept became a flash point of the Virginia gubernatorial election that Youngkin won, Insider’s Gwen Aviles previously reported.

    People wrote in to ask for special education funding (probably the most common request in any public school discussion- they’re fierce advocates). One teacher wrote in to list and thank her colleagues for bearing up under the onslaught.

  86. 86.

    satby

    @Barney: part of the media devolution in this country is how “mean” the slant has to be. They constantly criticize Biden’s repetitive use of some phrases, even though that’s a well know technique for stutterers to control their stutter while speaking. It’s more mean (and fun for them) to use it to imply that he’s doing that because he’s old.

  87. 87.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kay: So much of what’s going on is pure partisan coup counting.

    As I’ve mentioned before, here in Massachusetts there’s a bizarrely aggressive smear campaign in progress against the Democratic state auditor candidate. Why? I think the entire reason is that that’s the one statewide race that the Republicans think they might be able to pick up this cycle. They’re going to lose the governorship unless it’s the biggest polling miss in state history, but they might win something.

  89. 89.

    Baud

    @Geminid: The Dems right now and over the last two years are, from my perspective, the best I’ve ever seen them, at least from my perspective.  There’s always room for improvement, but I can’t complain.

    But we’re not a “white” party so we’re not family when it comes to how a lot of voters see us.

  91. 91.

    Nicole

    @Barney: I read the article; as someone who had a big poster of Duran Duran on my wall as a pre-teen I felt it was my civic duty to go defend D2’s honor if necessary. ;)  The “stumble” was audio issues on their first song, so really it should have been, “audio engineers stumble on Duran Duran’s opener.”  Click bait title.

    I was very sorry Andy Taylor was too ill to attend.  Simon LeBon gave a good interview once about how influential Taylor’s guitar was to Duran Duran being able to break through to the American market- his guitar work sounded much more like 1970s American hard rock than the guitar in most of the New Wave/New Romantic acts coming out of Britain at the time.  We usually chalk up their initial success to the rise of MTV and that all 5 of them were very pretty (and spent money on their videos), but I think there’s a lot to what LeBon said about the guitar.

  94. 94.

    MattF

    Re: DST. The tradition in my kitchen is to get annoyed that my microwave insists on knowing the date, including what year it is, in order to reset the clock by an hour. So, to retaliate, I have the satisfaction of lying to my microwave, asserting that the current date is 01/01/01.

  95. 95.

    OverTwistWillie

    It’s a lot of ad money for Big Media, and they treat it like the Olympics coverage.

    Roone Arledge is long dead, and the media event landscape has changed radically. But they still work it like 1980.

    Sad.

  97. 97.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @WaterGirl: Dems weren’t really able to canvass in 2020 because we didn’t want people getting Covid.  GOP had a big advantage on door-knocking to GOTV.  That isn’t the case now, so there should be no real advantage for GOP and Dems should pull out some slim-margin races that we lost in 2020.

  98. 98.

    Ken

    @MattF: That sounds like the premise of an offbeat comedy involving time travel and Hot Pockets.  Futurama did it already, though.

  99. 99.

    Matt McIrvin

    @MattF: This I believe: if the device isn’t getting its time zone/UTC offset information from a network signal, any DST adjustment should be manual. Trying to automate it based on the date is just asking for trouble because laws change.

  101. 101.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Geminid: She’s right, that’s what’s happening.

    I’m sure there are still some Jill Steins and Susan Sarandons out there, but I think those of you who run into the horseshoe left online overestimate their numbers.  The 2020 Green candidate got 1/4 of 1% of the vote, and I bet Ukraine has caused a lot of those voters to realize just how far off the rails the far left has gone.

    And the visible Democratic Party – its officeholders and candidates – has been the most united I’ve seen in my entire lifetime, and they’re getting serious shit done.  It’s really a fucking miracle.  So I’m holding my breath, but I’m not without hope here.

  102. 102.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @WaterGirl:

    I guess their point is that because Dems have canvassing in person and have maybe expanded their field organizing in 2022 compared to 2020, when there was a pandemic, it could make a difference in turnout.

    I vaguely remember there being speculation that Dems not doing in person canvassing to voters might have hurt our chances in some close races. Of course, there was a deadly pandemic, so it was understandable

  103. 103.

    gvg

    @lowtechcyclist: I very much appreciate daylight savings time and don’t get why it is so popular to moan about it. It moves the work school clock to match the daylight in a very useful safe way to get the most use out of what the sun’s orbit is doing to inconvenience us. Sure it isn’t perfect, neither is the stupid orbit.

  105. 105.

    Geminid

    @WaterGirl: I think Houle may be referring to the party’s decision to forgo in person canvassing, which was not rescinded until October. As the articles you have posted in fundraising postssay, outside groups like some in Arizona kept canvassing throughout.

    As for phone banks etc., I am reminded that the Biden camp finally reached fundraising parity with the opposition by September, but they lagged until August and had to play catch up. Republican social media outreach to Spanish speaking voters, for instance had a year’s head start. With more and more Democrats participating in GOTV efforts now, I guess Democrats have closed the gap, or at least I hope so.

  106. 106.

    NotMax

    @Ken

    They know the Ring Bear is somewhere below. But the Bear… has a plan.

    “And when it comes to having a plan for you and your family, Mutual of Omaha is there to help.”
    :)

  107. 107.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Baud:

    On the hope that we have a good day tomorrow and beat expectations, let me be the first pundit to say that the Dems would have been better positioned in 2024 if they had lost the midterms.

    Damn, I’m glad I hadn’t just taken a sip of coffee when I read that.

  108. 108.

    sab

    @gvg: My grandfather’s family had dairy cows. They HATED daylight savings because the cows would not adjust.

    I like the shifts, but my cats are more adaptable than cows.

  109. 109.

    Princess

    @Baud: And what is most important: he’s basing his prediction on years of correctly interpreting the early vote — actual voters — not polls. He still says anything can happen but he’s been my barometer this week of whether to light my hair on fire and, so far, my matches are staying in the match box.

  110. 110.

    gvg

    @WaterGirl: The point is that the Dems in won in 2020 in spite of having an almost non existent ground game because we took Covid seriously and the republicans didn’t. Now in 2022, we have a good ground game and non of the predictors are taking that into account when guessing what will happen in this election.  It should help us some more than is being accounted for in the models.  I think it is a fair point.  I do not know how big a point it is.  There probably are not any comparable examples in recent history to judge from.

  113. 113.

    Brachiator

    Daylight Saving Time is increasingly hard to notice when my digital are devices are like, “What? Nothing happened. We know what time it is.”

    I forgot all about Daylight Saving Time because I didn’t have any devices to reset. Years ago I had a car with a clock that I could never figure out how to change. Fortunately I never really depended on it.

    Let’s see. We fall back so we kinda gain an hour. It’s darker in the morning, but I don’t mind too much.

  114. 114.

    Kay

    Republicans are really promising to punish all the companies who won’t advertise with Elon Musk? Goverment action against them?

    Is there a specific sum they have to pay Elon Musk as protection money? Everyone recognizes this is just corruption, right?

  116. 116.

    sdhays

    @WaterGirl: Due to the pandemic, Democrats had a lot fewer in-person GOTV activities than they would have otherwise. It’s a counter-argument to the people who say the Democrats won because of the pandemic. This year, the pandemic is “over”, so those constraints aren’t there anymore, so this time we get to see how the parties stack up when one isn’t fighting with one hand tied behind its back because it’s trying to be responsible and avoid mass infections.

  119. 119.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Baud: It’s my birthday. Last time my birthday fell on Election Day was 2016. I stayed up in horror all night, hoping there would be a last minute flip.

    I may stay up into the wee hours to absorb any good news there is to absorb. And frankly I expect a lot of it. Early voting results, Kansas, etc make it clear the polling models are broken.

  121. 121.

    Brachiator

    @WaterGirl:

    2020 Dems had almost no field operation. Few in-person phone banks, few voter registration drives, few canvasses. 2022 Dems are back to field organizing. Maybe it won’t make a difference.

    But I suspect it will.

    I don’t know what the point is. I don’t know that traditional strategy is effective anymore. I hope it works where necessary.

    I am in Southern California, so I am already in for the Democrats. I don’t watch regular cable TV and listen to podcasts of public radio programs so I miss a lot of political ads.

    Phone calls go to my land line phone answering machine and are almost never listened to in detail. However I greatly appreciated a call noting that it might rain Monday and Tuesday and that voter centers were open. And so I voted Sunday.

    I never get political calls on my smartphone. I have been getting political messages on a backup phone. I have looked over them, but again I largely already agree.

    I have overheard some conversations from people stubbornly determined not to vote. I don’t know how to reach those people. Most of the people in my social circle are regular voters.

  123. 123.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    I always considered my wife a normie, not one to read political blogs all year, not really up on the inside baseball conversation.

    But yesterday I was describing to her a particularly idiotic NYT op-ed and before I’d gotten two sentences in she said “is that Ross Douthat?”

    It was.

  125. 125.

    Brachiator

    @David 🌈☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch:

    I would advise folks not to watch tee vee on any election night. Best to stick to a site or news feeds (for example The Guardian).

    Networks, even MSNBC, are neurotic and prone to unnecessary panic.

    I will not look at any results until Wednesday. I will be interested to see what happens with Congress and what is happening here in Los Angeles County and with the state ballot propositions.

    After that I will be curious to see what happened with Trump endorsed candidates and with election deniers running for office.

    I will try to note any races where the results are close and might be changed once all mail ballots are counted.

  126. 126.

    Matt McIrvin

    @gvg: The twice-yearly collective sleep-deprivation effect of the switchover (especially the one in the spring, when the clocks skip forward) kills people through accidents and heart attacks–this is well-documented. And the energy savings that was the original rationale doesn’t really exist, since we spend more energy on HVAC than on lighting today.

    The main reason we haven’t gotten rid of the changeover is that it still functions as a compromise between the bitterly opposed factions who want year-round Standard Time or who want year-round DST. It doesn’t necessarily feel polarized because, unusually, the split is NOT along partisan lines at all. But it exists.

  127. 127.

    Kathleen

    @Baud: I tweeted “Why Democrats Should Cower In Fear And Shame Regardless of Midterm Outcomes” By NYT Editorial Board

  128. 128.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: Part of it in 2020 was that a lot of Democrats knew the Republicans would go apeshit with election-fraud claims and violence if they lost, and try to get the result overturned with weird legislative and judicial tricks (they were openly boasting about it!), and any hope of a win crushing enough to minimize that was worth paying attention to.

  129. 129.

    Nicole

    @Matt McIrvin: I think I remember reading, also, that, in the more northern latitudes in our fine nation, sticking to one time or the other means that a lot of kids would be going to school in the dark for a sizable chunk of the year.  The time change is annoying (I don’t mind it, but I know plenty of people do) but I think it makes for kids going to school in daylight more consistently.

  130. 130.

    brendancalling

    SO good to see Dolly Parton—a candidate for sainthood, in my opinion—getting her due. Sure, she’s country, but her pop and rock crossover appeal are undeniable. “9 to 5” is very much a pop song. “Jolene” is very much a pop song. “I Will Always Love You” is a fucking LEGENDARY slice of pop. So this is really awesome, and just makes my day.

    Re: too dark, too soon. I have mixed feelings. I get up at 5:30 AM to be at the high school by 7:00. Today, it was really nice to walk out to my car with some semblance of daylight. OTOH, I did cut off my canvassing a little early yesterday. The neighborhood I was in was decidedly dicey, and the drug dealers were beginning to come out as the sky grew darker. I’m not one to be scared of low-income neighborhoods, or even neighborhoods that are known for higher crime (this is Philadelphia, after all), but I am also a big believer in not getting myself into a dangerous situation. So the earlier nightfall was less than welcome.

    Continuing on the theme of darkness and Philadelphia, I live 1-2 stops up from the city’s open-air drug market, the most violent area the city. Saturday some really bad shit went down. Nine people shot outside a bar at Kensington and Allegheny: I drive through that area almost every day. I live in one of those factories that have been renovated into lofts and apartments. It’s a nice place, and hopefully a sign of better things to come, but man—outside is a real crapshoot. I honestly don’t know if I should describe the things I see every single day in detail—from junkies shooting up in front of little children, to addicts stumbling erratically through a busy thoroughfare, putting their lives in even more danger—because it’s SO dark.

  132. 132.

    Matt McIrvin

    @brendancalling: I recall Dolly Parton explaining that she originally wrote “I Will Always Love You” for Elvis Presley, and he wanted to do it, but it didn’t happen because Col. Tom Parker wanted her to surrender all rights to the song–a predatory agreement. She wouldn’t do it. Felt vindicated when Whitney Houston made it a monster hit.

    (Can you imagine Elvis doing it? …Yeah, I can, he would have killed.)

  133. 133.

    Kathleen

    @satby: NYT and WaPoop have been lobbing vile and vicious personal insults like that towards Biden and I think it’s just evil and unprofessional. My prayer is that they are forced to deal with their irrelevance, mediocrity and banality for eternity.

  135. 135.

    Geminid

    @Kathleen: I’ll be watching OH-1 CD results Tuesday night. I’m hoping you and other southwest Ohio Democrats can retire that worthless Chabot.

  137. 137.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Nicole: The dark-winter-morning problem would be an issue with year-round Daylight Saving Time, definitely–but not with year-round Standard Time, where it would just be the same as today.

    But the proposals to abolish the DST switchover more often propose year-round DST than year-round Standard, because they’re coming from the camp who hate the afternoon sunsets in winter.

    I can see merit to both the “year-round DST” and “year-round ST” camps’ arguments. I would just like us to stick with one.

  138. 138.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @Matt McIrvin: I just want the powers that be to pick one and stick to it. Really tired of switching, especially since the change in 2007 when it was change from April – October, to March – November.  I would probably prefer going to Standard time permanently but no strong feelings either way… I’m guessing all the computer chipped equipment that has internal clocks having to be changed yet again would be a pain though.

  140. 140.

    Kathleen

    @Geminid: Thank you! I voted a week ago. I’m hope he pulls it out. He ran a good campaign and he is an established and respected figure in the Black community because of his program for free pre school which I view as a huge plus.

  141. 141.

    Matt McIrvin

    @EmbraceYourInnerCrone: The big thing that the last date change altered was that the switchover was pushed just past Halloween, which makes it easier for little kids to trick-or-treat while there’s still some light (especially in our neighborhood, where we actually move official trick or treating time to a Saturday and schedule it early in the evening–it gets dark midway through the two-hour block, so the kids can have whatever darkness level they want). It’s not traditional but I think it gives parents of the little ones some peace of mind.

  142. 142.

    Leto

    @Geminid: @Matt McIrvin: From the wiki about this song:

    Country music singer-songwriter Dolly Parton wrote the song in 1973 for her one-time partner and mentor Porter Wagoner, from whom she was separating professionally after a seven-year partnership.[14][15] She recorded it in RCA Studio B in Nashville on June 12, 1973.[16]

    Author Curtis W. Ellison stated that the song “speaks about the breakup of a relationship between a man and a woman that does not descend into unremitting domestic turmoil, but instead envisions parting with respect – because of the initiative of the woman”.[17] The country love track is set in a time signature of common time with a tempo of 66 beats per minute. (Larghetto/Adagio)[18] Although Parton found much success with the song, many people are unaware of its origin; during an interview, Parton’s manager Danny Nozel said that “one thing we found out from American Idol is that most people don’t know that Dolly Parton wrote [the track]”.[19] During an interview on The Bobby Bones Show, Dolly Parton revealed that she wrote her signature song “Jolene” on the same day that she wrote “I Will Always Love You.”[20][21]

    Several times (long before Whitney Houston recorded the song), Dolly Parton suggested to singer Patti LaBelle that she record “I Will Always Love You” because she felt LaBelle could have sung it so well. However, LaBelle admitted she kept putting off the opportunity to do so and later deeply regretted it after she heard Whitney Houston’s rendition.[22]

    1974 version[edit]

    “I Will Always Love You” was issued on March 18, 1974, as the second single from Parton’s thirteenth solo studio album, Jolene (1974). During its original release in 1974, “I Will Always Love You” reached number four in Canada on the Canadian RPM Country Tracks chart and peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, becoming one of the best selling singles of 1974.[23]

    When the 1974 recording of the song reached number one on the country charts, Elvis Presley indicated that he wanted to cover the song. Parton was interested until Presley’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, told her that it was standard procedure for the songwriter to sign over half of the publishing rights to any song Elvis recorded.[24] Parton refused. She recalls:

    I said, ‘I’m really sorry,’ and I cried all night. I mean, it was like the worst thing. You know, it’s like, Oh, my God… Elvis Presley.’ And other people were saying, ‘You’re nuts. It’s Elvis Presley.’ …I said, ‘I can’t do that. Something in my heart says, ‘Don’t do that. And I just didn’t do it… He would have killed it. But anyway, so he didn’t. Then when Whitney [Houston’s version] came out, I made enough money to buy Graceland.[25]

    The song won Parton Female Vocalist of the Year at the 1975 CMA Awards.

    She basically wrote 3-4 of her most popular songs (chart smashers) in one night. Just… insane.

  143. 143.

    Geminid

    @mrmoshpotato: Forgoing in-person canvassing in 2020 was a debatable decision, and a some outside groups including a couple big ones in Arizona went ahead and canvassed.

    My Atlanta friend worked in the large canvassing operation Georgia Democrats ran for the Georgia Senate runoffs. He masked, and his instructions were to ring a doorbell and then step back 6-8 feet. If a resident appeared Warren conversed briefly and offered to leave literature on the porch step. He was really into canvassing until he tripped on a curb and fell, breaking his wrist.

    I hink Democrats should have continued in’person canvassing using practices similar to those used by Georgia Democrats in the Senate runoffs. It’s great to set a good example, but getting rid of Trump was the single most consequential act we could do to combat the pandemic, and we almost did not pull it off.

  146. 146.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: I think this is right, but I think the “CRT panic” will continue at the local level because they’re using it to try to take over school boards. Ours is at a tipping point – we have a school board election in April, and if the “panic” people get one more member they’ll take over the board. I saw that a group that’s inflicting another local school has asked for nine more books to be banned or restricted from the school library to build on their success in getting two banned and several restricted last spring. One of the books on their list isn’t even in that school library. Makes me wonder where they got that list.

  147. 147.

    Soprano2

    @Baud: Ah yes, the evergreen media construction “Dems would be better off if they’d lost”. Strange, they never seem to say the same thing about Republicans.

  148. 148.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Soprano2:

    I saw that a group that’s inflicting another local school has asked for nine more books to be banned or restricted from the school library to build on their success in getting two banned and several restricted last spring.

    Has anybody ever confronted these people about why they apparently hate “cancel culture” and “censorship”, but banning books is okay with them? I’d be genuinely curious to know what they’d say to defend themselves

  149. 149.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: It’s stunning to me how Republicans have turned on business and the concept of the free market. That was the backbone of much of their policies for decades, and now it’s *poof* just gone. It’s OK to talk about forcing companies to do things.

  152. 152.

    geg6

    @Barney: ​
     
    It wasn’t even their fault. Technical issues, not that the band sounded bad. There was no sound except for Simon LeBon, so they started over again to great applause.

  154. 154.

    Miss Bianca

    @Matt McIrvin: I love the story that I think I read here on this very blog about an interviewer asking Dolly how she felt about Whitney Houston recording “I Will Always Love You” and Dolly giving the interviewer a pitying look and saying something like, “Oh, honey, have you ever heard of royalties? Miss Houston is welcome to record any song of mine she likes.”

    And yeah…Elvis *would* have killed that song. I mean, “killed” In a good way. In the way we like.

  155. 155.

    artem1s

    @Kay: ​
     

    Republicans are really promising to punish all the companies who won’t advertise with Elon Musk? Goverment action against them?

    So in the GOP’s eyes these companies do not enjoy personhood under Citizen’s United or are they considered female companies and they should submit the control of themselves over to the manly Elmer stud and gleefully bear all his advertising babees?

  156. 156.

    CaseyL

    I’m not into country, so the only Dolly songs I really know are the ones that made it into movies and/or the pop charts.  But she’s an awesome human being, so any recognition she gets is good in my book.

    And I love what she said about Houston covering “I will Always Love You.”

    A fine artist, a savvy business person, a non-bigot, and a deeply generous soul.  What’s not to like?

  157. 157.

    StringOnAStick

    @Geminid: I talked to a drug research doctor I know recently, and their CAR-T drug lost the “best new drug” (something like that) competition to one that treats Ebola, as in cures Ebola.  Funny how we never heard anything about this new drug, perhaps because it only occurs in the US near an election.

  159. 159.

    StringOnAStick

    @brendancalling: I hope the improvement in housing in your neighborhood leads to an improvement in the social situation.  Kudos for your courage to live in a transitional area, as a short blonde woman, I wouldn’t be comfortable with the associated risk.

  161. 161.

    Paul in KY

    @Matt McIrvin: I think TFG had our voters in such a lather that it was him and his crazy/evil policies that GOTVed for us.

    I would have crawled over 400m of broken glass to vote for Joe.

  163. 163.

    Splitting Image

    Congratulations to Duran Duran and to Dolly. I remember when Duran Duran was the latest boy band to be loved by young women and despised by the better class of critics. They and their music have held up better than anyone expected.

    Sad to hear about Andy Taylor’s health issues. Hope he can hang in there for a long time yet.

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