There were so many interesting tidbits about the past election including the Minneapolis rejection of the hard left version of policing (or the lack of policing). In Minneapolis, the most radical Democrats including Representative Omar and Minnesota Attorney General Ellison campaigned for this but many others more established lefties in Minnesota supposedly oppose this but refuse to come out publicly against it. They fear the left wing of their own party than the voters.
In Buffalo, a incumbent mayor got ambushed in the primary and lost to a socialist who wanted to defund the police in Buffalo. Buffalo is a blue collar Democratic area but as the general election shows, these voters are not crazy. Mayor Brown decided to run for the mayor race on a write in basis and won by a big margin. So far his opponent won’t concede but it shows the real divide is not in the GOP, but on the Democrats side. The Mayor refuse to go slowly into the night and instead decided to fight for his city against a radical candidate. This was a Democrat vs Democrat battle.
While the Media concentrate on the impact of Trump on the GOP, they ignore the real battle, the take over of the Democratic party by the socialist wing of the party and so far, they are blaming moderates for the defeats and not their own radical agenda. The treatment of Sinema and Manchin is showing that there is no role even for very liberal Senators. (Sinema has already stated that she will support a 1.5 trillion infrastructure on top of other spending but is balking of spending an additional 3.5 trillion. There was time that being for a 1.5 trillion dollars spending plan would make you a liberal in good standing. Maybe these two Senators might want to consider changing Party.)
As a political operative, I hope that the Democrats listen to their socialist wing and keep pushing their radical agenda since it makes my job easier. Buffalo showed that many at the grass roots and many minorities are not supporting the more extreme features of the new Democratic socialist party. (I should point out that Buffalo was not only a Democrat vs Democrat but a black politician vs a black politician. )
My favorite take is that Youngkin won based on racism and reminds me of a joke when a White businessman, Black marine and Hispanic lawyers walk into a restaurant what do you get? The next Virginia governor, Lt. Governor and Attorney General. So who are the real racist?
From Joe Benson
Hi Tom, I saw your post about your view of VA and I wanted to put something else on your radar. One election that might have been overlooked was Seattle. I am originally from WA state so I keep an eye on things to see how much worse they are making it up there and I was quite surprised. Bruce Harrell ran on a Mayoral platform that was about taking action on homelessness and supporting law-enforcement, while he’s far from a Republican those issues were important enough to the electorate to reject his competition. Even more incredible is that they elected Ann Davidson for City Attorney, who is a Trump Republican. I never would have expected that to ever happen in Seattle… but even in a place that is about as far left as you can get, people were fed up!
The Donelson Files 