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Well, that was a better week than we expected, we have to say.
The 2022 midterm elections are now over (although the counting still isn't) and the one big takeaway is that either Republicans dropped the ball or Democrats ran excellent campaigns all over the country. Or maybe some combination of the two. The red wave simply did not appear as predicted. A "blue breakwater" turned it back.
That headline could be applicable to today's post-election situation in a number of ways, I suppose. As a movie director's cry (i.e. "We're starting take number two!"), since we are going to have a Senate race runoff election on December 6th in Georgia. It could be read literally, since at this point both parties need to take two of the three uncalled races in order to achieve a Senate majority. Or just as: "Take two and call me in the morning," the classic punchline to a doctor joke -- because it will probably take quite a while to get all the results in even before the December runoff. Or maybe even as: "I did a double-take when I heard the first results," that could work too. The funniest thing I heard during the extended post-election period in 2020 came out of the mouth of a babe -- some parent's toddler (this was passed along to me as an anecdote) said they were tired of watching television with Mommy and Daddy because "all they wanted to watch was The Map Show." And it looks like we'll all have at least a few more mornings of checking in with The Map Show before we know what Congress is really going to look like in January.
In the past week or so, the Democratic Party has been doing an excellent job of getting out on the campaign trail and making a closing political argument. Both Barack Obama and Bill Clinton have made or will make appearances. President Joe Biden's speech today is a part of this full-court press, but one has to wonder why it took the Democrats so long to get so engaged with the process.
Maybe he'll actually take the bait, who knows?
Maybe Donald Trump's planet-sized ego and rampant unbridled narcissism will convince him that there just is no possible downside to testifying in front of the January 6th House Select Committee. This isn't just idle speculation, as hours after yesterday's hearing New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman posted the following (which has since been similarly reported in multiple media outlets):
The House Select Committee investigating January 6th presented the ninth in their series of televised hearings today, although (as we were informed at the start by Chair Bennie Thompson) this was not technically a hearing, but rather a business meeting for the committee. The reason for this change became evident at the end, when the committee voted publicly and unanimously to subpoena the testimony of Donald John Trump.
The Supreme Court began its new term today, Donald Trump just said publicly that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell "has a DEATH WISH," and President Joe Biden is touring Puerto Rico to see the damage caused by Hurricane Fiona (where he will not insultingly toss paper towel rolls at devastated Americans, one assumes). But I'm going to set all that aside for the moment and devote a column to grammar.
Overall, two big things have struck me about the committee's public presentations: how tightly organized they are, providing "good television" (which is not just rare but unheard-of for congressional committees); and how disorganized the scheduling has always been. Most of the hearings have not been announced with much lead time (one was thrown together in a single day), and confusion reigns over what each hearing will consist of.
Perhaps this is all meant to tease the public -- "Tune in, or you might miss a big surprise!" That could be. Or perhaps it is just the committee's internal wrangling -- they reportedly have a hard problem reaching consensus on this stuff, so you get conflicting reports ahead of time as to what to expect next. That could be, too.
Alaska is trying out two new ballot innovations today, which is further complicated by the fact that voters will be using each new innovation once -- for the same office. Representative Don Young died suddenly earlier this year, which means a special election to fill the remainder of his term is happening today as well as a primary election for the term which begins next January. There was an earlier primary for the special election, which was the first time Alaskans used their new "top 4" open-primary system (sometimes called a "jungle primary"). And today's special election will be the first time they'll vote using a "ranked-choice" ballot, where voters don't just get one static vote, instead they get to list the candidates in whatever ranking they wish: first choice, second choice, etc....
The irony is delicious, we cannot deny it. A man who rose to power by leading chants of: "Lock her up!" against his political opponent (for mishandling classified documents -- a man who later signed a law making the offense a felony with up to five years' prison time) is now in the process of being hoist by his own petard. So it's been a rather schadenfreude-y kind of week.
That title, of course, is intended as a spoof of what some consider the most overused go-to headline in the Washington punditocracy's toolbox: "Democrats In Disarray!" For once, the absolute opposite seems to be true, and it is so glaringly obvious that even the political press's pooh-bahs have had to admit it (full credit where it is due: we got the title from a Politico article). Because Senator Joe Manchin (of all people!) just turned a very rainy day into some beautiful sunshine.