THU brief 11.4.21
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Today’s Stories
ERICK ERICKSON, a blogger from Georgia, allowed himself a rant on Tuesday night; it’s worth unpacking.
To start, Erick is a never-Trumper, and his judgment is clouded when it comes to President Trump. His take after GOP wins in Virginia on Tuesday exhibits this as he lashed out at people on the result of the 2020 election.
Republicans are allowed to question the election administration and call for reforms because it was openly manipulated. TIME magazine even gloated about the rigging after the fact.
That issues like ID on mail-in ballots, illegal ballot curing, and the private funding of elections are being addressed by state legislatures around the U.S., including Georgia, undermine Erick’s assertions.
Finally, lashing out at concerned Americans (the general populous or insiders) ignores both of these facts in service of delivering a hit. It’s not persuasive; it is an attempt to shrink the tent and distract from work that still has to occur to restore trust.
ELECTION AUDITS need to happen. The process by which they occur, including cost control measures, needs to be outlined by lawmakers. Otherwise, we’re likely to see something without much substance that sounds good on Fox News (Greg Abbott’s default playbook).
The Collin County GOP recently called on Abbott to audit the 2020 election.
Harris County may need more than an audit after the county drew deserved negative attention on Tuesday night from Rep. Schofield for its inability to report voting results in a timely fashion.
Are some theories about election rigging incorrect? Yes. Are other hypotheses valid? Almost certainly. Only an honest examination will allay public concerns.
Never, ever forget: Absent a stolen election in Texas, there’s no Vietnam war.
JOHN LUJAN’s modestly surprising victory in a special election for a vacant state rep seat is the first tangible manifestation of a previous hypothesis. Texas’ current political environment is brutal for Democrats.
Lujan, a moderate Republican from San Antonio, defeated Frank Ramirez, a Democrat with ties to the machine of disgraced former Texas Senator Carlos Uresti. What had previously been a Democrat seat will now flip to a (very light shade of) red.
Conservatives should be under no illusions about Lujan. He was heavily supported by both the Associated Republicans of Texas PAC and Speaker Dade Phelan. Lujan’s political profile is very similar to Rick Galindo, who served one term as a Republican state representative in 2015.
Lujan’s detractors will point out that he won this seat in a very similar special election in January 2016, then lost the general election that fall. Those detractors aren’t wrong. Nevertheless, even if Democrats regain this seat in the fall, for this seat to be in play tells you what you need to know.
Lujan’s victory is another data point suggesting the recent Republican ascendancy in South Texas is real.
THE ASSOCIATED REPUBLICANS OF TEXAS, fresh off their victory in the Lujan race, have begun rolling out endorsements.
With the number of open seats, this cycle is likely to grow. A chance at fresh messaging for the first time in the past twenty years endorsements will be a tell but not the only factor in differentiating between conservative and crony candidates.
JOE MANCHIN and JAMES CARVEL are some of the few Democrats talking sense in D.C.
After the blowout on Tuesday, the Senator from West Virginia said the party needed to reset, focus on what voters want and make sure the process is transparent.
This is the way Democrats will stop the bleeding headed into 2022. To reverse the damage, they would need to reign in the more virulently left policies already being implemented by local level minions around the country, an unlikely eventuality.
It’s a mistake by inside the beltway Democrats to view the results on Tuesday night as having anything to do with what’s going or rather not going on in D.C.
Biden’s approval figures were going down because he handled Afghanistan poorly and mandated vaccinations that don’t protect the vaccinated from illness, not because the legislature has failed to move a massive spending bill.
In his short time in office, Biden has shown an ability to get nothing done right, overpromising and under-delivering. That he’s deluded himself into thinking the results in Virginia and other locales were because folks want to see him do more is mind-bendingly moronic.
Contrary to the opinion of Steny Hoyer, there’s no reason to believe passage of either of Biden’s bills would have lifted Democrats in any of the contents they lost or underperformed this week.
Suggestions by progressives that Americans voted for Biden and his goofy process circumventing spending measure is inaccurate. Biden secured votes because the media batted the brains of the intellectual feeble around for four years, and they were begging for it to stop.
Just stop, give it a break. Instead, Biden and his inability to control the more radical elements of his party have ramped up their activity without a mandate.
AUSTIN’S PROPOSITION A, the police re-funding initiative, was blown out by five touchdowns on Tuesday.
It’s tough to know what to make of this.
Jack Craver, an independent journalist who covers Austin politics from a (very) far-left perspective, has a piece suggesting prop A’s supporters wasted considerable effort spam-texting hard-D voters. If correct, this would be the most prominent “own goal” in local Austin politics since the Uber debacle five years ago.
The Austin Police Association choosing the middle of early voting to smear Ellen Troxclair likewise couldn’t have helped.
Against the backdrop of all this, of course, a bill passed by the legislature during the regular session had already achieved most of Prop A’s substantive aims. Thus, Tuesday’s vote was little more than symbolic. Given those low stakes, for Travis County Democrats to rally against those mean Republicans isn’t surprising.
The success of higher stakes contests in New York City, Minneapolis, and Seattle suggests police defunding remains highly unpopular.
Finally, it’s hard to overlook that the City of Austin started enforcing the re-instated ban on homeless camping during early voting. If that’s Prop A’s long-term impact, it’s well worth it.
Hit the Links
Police called after Allen West accosted in DFW airport
New lawsuits filed over redistricted maps
Texas needs to get rid of no-fault divorce
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