Unsightly Mental Blemishes

So we had a mid-term election, and, like any good compromise, no one’s happy. The Republicans had, to some degree, bought into the mantra that It’s the economy, stupid!, and thus ignored their gaping flaws in their reaction to Trump’s January 6 Insurrection, which will loom over them as a black cloud of utter condemnation, the Dobbs decision, permitting the imposition of religious dogma on the American people via proposed Federal regulation, election denying, which is a strike against the very heart of how we handle transfer of political power, adherents to a set of economic tenets that are inferior, and a general incompetency. They thought Congress would be handed to them on a platter.

You’d think the Democrats could have run the table.

But they have too many flaws, and a few burdens, of their own. Chief among their current set of flaws is an autocratic thread that sets independent teeth on edge. I’ve mentioned this before, so I’ll keep it brief. It has become painfully apparent in their culture wars, chiefly in their style of managing the transgenderism issue, that rather than have a civilized discussion of the serious issues surrounding this small group of people, first they promulgated regulations that impacted a huge number of people, including the most vulnerable members of society, and then, when various folks try to have a discussion on the issue as required by the tenets of liberal democracy, the transgenderism advocates run around screaming BIGOT!

This is not in keeping with liberal democracy, or for that matter being an adult. But that first point, indicating an abrogation of their responsibilities under the social contract of being members of liberal democracies, is the most important.

Among their burdens is communications of difficult subjects. As a single example, the Republicans like to make that they’re the ones to trust on the economy, but all the studies I’ve seen show the stock market hates Republicans, the Federal budget hates Republicans, and the jobs report barely tolerates them. But this is not an easy message to communicate. When inflation kicked in, Democrats were in trouble, and then to compound it they didn’t have an effective counter-message. If asked, I would have advocated for a message of The Democrats are cleaning up after the incompetent Republicans, and just din that into everyone’s ears until they stuffed their ears with rags.

Would it have worked? I dunno. But they should have done more than they did.

Erick Erickson tries to tiptoe through the tulips with this post today:

This is the United States Balkanizing

Our united states seem more and more like a forced coalition of people who do not like each other.

Working-class neighborhoods of nonwhite voters shifted a bit to the right. White, rich neighborhoods that had long propped up the GOP shifted hard left.

In Republican states, the GOP did well. In Democrat states, the Democrats fared well. Republicans helped the Democrats in Maryland get the Governor’s Mansion. Democrats in Florida and Georgia voted for DeSantis and Kemp.

And, no doubt, Professor Turchin is muttering about the dilution of asabiya this morning, asabiya being the intellectual or spiritual bonds that hold diverse groups of people together. He might you that the collapse of the Soviet Union has led to this mess.

But Erickson (not Turchin) won’t tell you how much he and his ilk have contributed to this situation. From calling Democrats baby-killers, and thus not taking the entire subject seriously, to his really bad, context-free, nuance-free arguments, the angling of far-right conservatives for power, to grift, to generally act in a self-centered manner when that is not appropriate, has been a major factor in this situation.

But, as I mentioned earlier, the Democrats have their own horse in this race.

How bad is it? As I typed this, Senator Johnson (R) of Wisconsin, a conspiracy rumor nut, grifter, and probably certifiable crazy, has had his reelection race called in his favor. He may have won by a whisker, but he appears to have won – and he joins Senator Grassley (R) of Iowa in the victory dance, Grassley of 88 years of age, who makes a hobby of mendacity and potentially was involved in the January 6th Insurrection. He won far more easily than Johnson, so easily that I can only ask my neighbors to the south What the fuck are you thinking? And for those who think that two out of one hundred isn’t so bad, I urge you to examine Senators Feinstein (D-CA) and Collins (R-ME) for signs of dementia as well.

What does the future hold? We may see new political parties formed. I hope they discard the arrogance that each of our two major parties are displaying to their mutual costs, or they’ll never become large parties.

Erickson forgets one thing in his calculations: the senior generations responsible for this mess, especially on the Republican side, are inevitably dying out, and new generations are observing how badly this is going. I think Erickson believes this’ll be a long-term Balkanization, but I think that as younger generations start taking up positions of authority, this’ll turn into something else.

How it’s shaped by overpopulation and climate change remains to be seen.

The political world’s worst kept secret:

Geoeffective:

Capable of causing a geomagnetic disturbance [Wiktionary]

Like making our telegraph lines catch fire? Noted on Spaceweather.com today:

INCREASING CHANCE OF FLARES: NOAA forecasters have boosted the chance of M-class solar flares today to 25%. This is in response to the continued growth of AR3141. The big sunspot now has a ‘beta-gamma’ magnetic field that harbors energy for moderately-strong explosions. Any flares will be geoeffective as the sunspot is turning toward Earth.

No weighing in on our elections, dammit!

Our oncoming future, sigh.

And here we are at the last update for the 2022 Senate Campaigns from little ol’ me. The last update of news, rumors, and numbers is here. I’m thoroughly tired of collecting, transcribing, and speculating on the meaning of the various polls and pollsters, how the data source affects the data and its analysis, and all those other things that scientists also have to worry their heads about. There are a few more poll results coming in, but I don’t see them as really being relevant at this point.

As this was a new exercise for me, what have I learned, and what do I anticipate learning by the end of the week?

First, how did the ratings from FiveThirtyEight of the pollsters of 2020 apply to the pollsters of 2022? Is Siena College still an A+? Is Insider Advantage still a B? I hope FiveThirtyEight once again rates the pollsters, and makes it easy to compare the 2022 editions to the 2020 editions.

I mentioned data source evaluation, or data collection. How are its characteristics changing? Are voters still lying to pollsters, and, better yet, why? Is phone data acquisition still the gold standard, as I understand it, or is online collection, which I consider dubious and easy to game, not so easy and worth the effort? Are young voters really only available through online and SMS data collection, are they really shut out of voice/phone acquisition, and does it matter?

Who’s going to win? Sure, every pundit should try to answer that question, and I’d like to bow out right now. No? I can’t? OK, then I – we, you and I, reader, have to understand and select the model of polling we like best. Here’s the models I came up with.

1. Naive interpretation. If we naively simply accept the poll reports, then we can probably expect seriously contested States NH, AZ, PA, WA, and GA will be won by the Democrat, NC, FL, WI, OH. NV, UT, and IA by the Republican. Note that Republicans had far more states to defend, and in these two lists “flips”, being PA and NV, balance out. Also note pollsters seemed shy of trying to poll Alaska, probably because of their ranked choice voting system, but I expect it gives the moderate the edge, so I believe the middle of the roader, Murkowski, will win there. Her only competition is a Trump-endorsed Republican, not the Democrat.
2. Dishonest GOP polls influence the electorate. Back on Halloween DrFrink on Daily Kos expressed the opinion that GOP-aligned pollsters had put their thumbs on the scale to make it appear GOP candidates were ahead, all in hopes of influencing the elections. While it’s not the job of pollsters to influence, but to measure, I doubt we’ll ever know, absent a confession or leak, that this has happened. If it has and voters make the mistake of thinking that elections are, as former Governor Ventura (Reform Party-MN, at the time) put it, “horse races” (to clarify, he said “THEY’RE NOT HORSE RACES! VOTE FOR WHO YOU THINK WILL BE BEST, NOT WHO YOU THINK WILL WIN!”), then we may see AZ and even PA move to the Republican column. The idea of Senator Masters and Senator Oz would seriously compromise a Senate that already has a Senator Tuberville (R-AL).
3. Michael Steele’s “pink wave” is real. If Steele is correct, then pollsters missed an important component of the electorate, namely non-voting women who, outraged by Dobbs, will vote for the first time. This might result in WI, OH, NV, and IA moving to the Democratic column, although Iowa would be a stretch. But would pollsters miss this?
4. Pollsters are missing the “young voter” component of the electorate due to a flawed data collection method. Put forth by Rule of Claw on Daily Kos, if true then, again, WI, OH. NV, and IA might move to the Democratic list, as well as NC and FL on a really, really good day for the Democrats. Don’t count on it, though.
5. Pollsters lean liberal! I only put this forth for completeness, and so I can underline that most of the top of the line pollsters, with the notable exception of Emerson College Polling, continued to show Democratic candidates leading in various contests while known GOP-aligned pollsters, typically in the second tier (“B+” and lower rating), began showing GOP candidates leading, sometimes by outlandish margins. Then again, unknown pollster University of Nevada – Reno showed Senator Cortez Masto (D) of Nevada leading challenger Adam Laxalt (R) by 12 points, when GOP aligned pollsters were assigning narrow leads to Laxalt. Not quite matching UNR in magnitude, but still surprisingly, B+ rated UMass’ Lowell Center gave Senator Hassan (D) of New Hampshire a 10 point lead over challenger and election-denier Don Bolduc (R), again when GOP aligned pollsters were assigning narrow leads to the challenger. Qualitatively, though, the liberal leaning outliers were pollsters who, for all I could see, had conducted one poll, while the conservative leaning pollsters were issuing multitudinous polls.

This was selected to look restful.

You can just decide which I prefer. Will they win? We should know by Friday, I should think.

But, honestly, I’m also interested in the non-competitive contests: California, Hawaii, Oklahoma (2), Idaho, Kentucky, CT, others. Will the victory gaps change significantly in the wake of Dobbs and January 6th? Hey, how about a shocking, drama-filled upset?

But most interesting will be seeing which of two deeply flawed parties will beat the other. Virtually any analysis of the Republicans finds they can claim no operational advantage over Democrats in terms of economy, national defense, law enforcement, social nets, and many other areas. But they do excel in messaging, in picking up isolated, unpopular policy suggestions and painting the entire Democratic Party with them, such as Defund the police!, a policy that was not only never official, but resoundingly rejected when placed in front of voters and from which Democrats learned. Later, Democrats proposed more funding at the Federal level, which Republicans opposed. The Republicans specialize in fear: fear of the unknown, of cheating, of the replacement of a way of life. As if it were perfect.

But Democrats have their own set of flaws, and Andrew Sullivan, sounding a trifle frenetic, listed a few:

[Biden] championed the entire far-left agenda: the biggest expansion in government since LBJ; a massive stimulus that, in a period of supply constraints, fueled durable inflation; a second welfare stimulus was also planned — which would have made inflation even worse; record rates of mass migration, and no end in sight; a policy of almost no legal restrictions on abortion (with public funding as well!); the replacement of biological sex with postmodern “genders”; the imposition of critical race theory in high schools and critical queer theory in kindergarten; an attack on welfare reform; “equity” hiring across the federal government; plans to regulate media “disinformation”; fast-track sex-changes for minors; next-to-no due process in college sex-harassment proceedings; and on and on it went. Even the policy most popular with the center — the infrastructure bill — was instantly conditioned on an attempt to massively expand the welfare state. What on earth in this agenda was there for anyone in the center? [The Weekly Dish, paywall]

I personally think his analysis is shallow in the economically linked subjects, and slanted in his omissions on the foreign policy front, but in other areas, such as transgenderism, there’ll be certainly enough to offend larger numbers of independents. Will independents be more appalled by the January 6th insurrection, Dobbs, election denying, and incessant shrieking fourth-rate candidates from the right, or by postmodern genders, mass migration, no restrictions abortion, and a bigger welfare state on the left? It’s a serious question, and while my answer is pick the Democrats and then trim off the parts that are madness, such as encouraging parents to abandon their duties to actually, you know, parent, others, like Sullivan himself, may pick the other way.

Looking past the obvious?

I refuse to be a hater, I refuse to condemn Sullivan for making an assessment that I think is wrong. The Democrats and their abrogation of the liberal democratic model, inspired as it might be by the Republicans, is something that cries out to be corrected, and the usual approach to correction is to vote against those making the mistake.

Unfortunately, I think the Republicans are worse, and we need to slap them down, and hard. Sullivan disagrees.

Incidentally, if you were to read only Sullivan’s post, you might think he’s a bulgy eyed Republican. He’s not. He has literally years of blogging critiques of the Republicans, predicting their own abandonment of democracy, their flawed model of discussion, etc, not to mention his defense of such liberal projects as the ACA (ObamaCare). The problem with blogging is that relatively short posts are not balanced discussions. They’re more like blurts overheard at a crowded, beery party.

And there you have it, my refusal to really predict anything. Enjoy. Let me know what you’re thinking.

Poor ol’ Erick Erickson has been forced to say something that he never should have to say just two days before Election Day:

He got on stage at a late midterm rally and railed against Ron DeSantis. He blasted DeSantis’s handling of COVID. He claimed DeSantis was part of the Republican establishment. “Ron DeSanctimonious,” he called him.

This reminds me of last year when he went after Kemp in Georgia.

He said, “Stacey, would you like to take [Kemp’s] place? It’s OK with me… might be better than having your existing governor, if you want to know what I think. Might very well be better.”

An irrelevant reminder that summer will come again.

Yes, that’s all about the former President Trump. Narcissist, jealous faux-leader of the Republican Party, a shameless man who employs truth and lies as weapons rather than badges of honor and shame – and reportedly still adored by more than half of the Republican Party.

Erickson has been struggling to keep his listeners voting conservative, despite Trump, DeSantis, all the frantic election deniers, the would-be Whitmer assassins, the January 6th Insurrection, Dobbs, the power-hungry hypocritical opportunists, the slippery ethics and toxic culture of the Southern Baptist Convention, the mendacity, all of it.

An honest pundit would have declared themselves to be an independent, and then subject both sides to critiques. Expose the Democrats’ and Republicans’ autocratic tendencies, compare them, and come to some sort of recommendation.

Erickson is a propagandist, though, not an honest pundit. He calls people who need abortions baby-killers, shaves context from arguments, and in general leads his audience away from any argument that might threaten the Republican position on issues.

It’s really quite shameful.

What? Did you give birth again?

Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022) is certainly no match for the eponymous flagship of the Despicable Me franchise, of which this is the fifth installment but second prequel, set when lead Gru is hardly a teenager, but compared to the previous addition, Minions (2015), it’s a marginal improvement.

When you, or kid Gru in this case, wants to be a super-villain, what’s your logical course of action? That’s right: find an old, washed up arch-villain who needs a bit of a buck-up, and then brown nose like mad. Wild Knuckles fills the bill, as his gang betrayed him on their last gig. Gru originally applies to replace his idol, but during the interview he gets dissed for being all of 12 years old.

And what should a villain do? Show his chops by stealing from the gang itself. The target, though, happens to be the gang’s most valuable holding, so when it disappears, youthful Gru finds disengaging from the finest gang of super-villains around is more of a chore than he expected.

But here’s a key part of the review: I wrote the above a month ago, forgot about it, and now I can’t remember the rest of the movie. I know it involves a great deal of classic pop and rock music. There’s a cursed Chinese magical charm that converts the members of the gang into their feral inner selves.

And, rather than being heart-warming and that sort of thing, it’s just sort of silly. It’s not memorable, not even close.

Which is too bad, but that’s the way of it. Don’t go looking for this to be as good as the first two installments, because the key to the first installment was Gru’s conversion from arch-villain to, reluctantly, adoptive father and general good guy. The process of that conversion helps the audience see how good people and bad people act, and the consequences thereof. The second installment, Despicable Me 2 (2013), continues that exploration and, perhaps accidentally, demonstrates that tools lack moral agency or moral attributes, it’s the intention that matters.

And so do jelly guns.

But, setting aside the boring third installment, these last two lack the moral dimension of the first two installments. Sure, there’s lots of badness, as it were, but Gru doesn’t grow morally, he merely outsmarts some other bad guys. Lessons are presented, but he seems impervious, and perhaps rightly so.

Because the rewards of outsmarting the gang aren’t damaged or disappointing. Add in the fact that he yearns to excel at being bad, rather than having a justification for his bad behavior, and the entire structure just collapses into a dull, dusty heap.

Gubbins:

1. dialectal, British : fish parings or refuse
   broadly : any bits and pieces : SCRAPS
2. British : GADGETS, GADGETRY
   // the gubbins for changing a tire
   // all the navigational gubbins
   — J. L. Rhys
3. British : a foolish or futile person : SIMPLETON
   // you silly gubbins [Merriam-Webster]

Noted in “Can a slew of nuclear fusion start-ups deliver unlimited clean energy?” Thomas Lewton, NewScientist (22 October 2022, paywall):

It remains to be seen if solutions like this can work in practice. Even if they do, no-one has yet built the gubbins that would surround a reactor to make electricity non-stop. Exhaust systems, heat exchangers, turbines – all of it must be custom-built from materials that can withstand the high-energy neutrons released during fusion. “Unless these companies have a secret research line in materials, after a few months of operation [the reactors] will simply fall apart,” says Donné.

Might it be the last one? Like the last mouse in the house? Nyah.

• When it comes to Pennsylvania, not all the news is small numbers. Some of it is big, even monstrous numbers. Like noted business tycoon and television star Oprah Winfrey: ”I said it was up to the citizens of Pennsylvania … but I will tell you all this, if I lived in Pennsylvania, I would have already cast my vote for John Fetterman for many reasons,” Winfrey said during an online discussion Thursday about voting and the midterm elections. Is Winfrey still the influential star that she was a couple of decades ago? Will the undecideds hear and heed her word? In other news, A rated Marist College’s final poll for this race – I hope! – has Lt. Governor John Fetterman (D) leading 50% to 44%, while GOP-linked, A- rated Trafalgar has Dr. Oz (R) leading Fetterman, 47.7% to 45.5%, and another GOP-linked pollster, B rated Insider Advantage, has Oz leading 48% to 46%. I think Pennsylvania wins the competition to be the most heavily polled State in the Union. But for all the GOP linked polls favoring Oz, iconic GOP pollster Fox News comes up with a lead for Fetterman, 45% to 42%.
• In New Hampshire, Emerson College gives Senator Hassan (D) a 49% to 45% advantage over challenger Don Bolduc (R). Not over 50%, but better than trailing.
• It’s just like a carefully timed hand grenade, isn’t it? Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson (R), in a tight race with Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes (D), has, frankly, not smelled good in a long, long time. Still, for conservative leaning independents, this may be the last straw: Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin was pushing for a tax cut provision in 2017 that benefitted his former plastics company and many others as his family was acquiring properties around the country, a newspaper review of property records revealed. The tax cut to companies called “pass-throughs” benefitted not only Johnson’s company and big donors, as had been previously reported, but it came as the senator’s family was acquiring luxury properties that could also take advantage of the law, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Friday. No doubt the word “foul” can be heard throughout the State of Wisconsin, and in multiple contexts as well. Time to take a chance on new blood, Wisconsin independents.
• In Vermont, B rated Data for Progress suggests that soon we’ll be calling him Senator, as Peter Welch (D) leads Gerald Malloy (R) 63% to 32% in the race to replace Senator Leahy (D), who has been exhibiting health problems of late; no one else made it to 1%, indicating a sense of tribalism that may be a bit unfortunate. Incidentally, Senator Leahy won his reelection run in 2016 by nearly the same numbers.
• If you want more out of your polls than a couple three numbers, then you might want to read this post by Rule of Claw on Daily Kos. The writer believes there’s a serious undercount of young voters by the pollsters, and he has plausible reasons for that belief. Which is far more than election-deniers provide. Do I take him seriously? I will wait for results. If we have more than 52 Democratic Senators at the end of this fracas, then that might be good evidence for his thesis. Otherwise, it’s into the dustbin of history. But I will note this: I’ve noticed that, over the last couple of weeks, in most, but not all, A- rated Emerson College polls have been diverging towards the conservative candidate, unlike most other top-tier pollsters. Rule of Claw implies that Emerson College’s data collection methods, or perhaps their adjustment algorithms, may be antiquated. So it’s interesting to see someone with more knowledge than I having the same observation, and having more knowledge to make some educated guesses. Got that?
• The race for the Utah Senate seat between Senator Lee (R) and Evan McMullin (I) has been one that has left me quite mystified. Is it still a close race? Or is Lee all of a sudden ahead by quite a bit? Now it comes out that Senator Lee would prefer to rid the country entirely of Social Security. Here’s the link in case you’re interested. The Deseret News is on the case. But do Utah voters care about Social Security?
• A rated Marist College has Georgia Senator Warnock (D) leading challenger Herschel Walker (R), 49% to 45%. Similarly rated Fox News has Warnock leading by only one point, 44% to 43% – call it a dead heat, what with a margin of error of ± 3 points. Erick Erickson remains convinced that not only will Walker win, but he’ll break the 50% barrier and avoid a runoff. Why in the world Erickson wants Walker for his Senator beats me.
• Siena College gives Florida Senator Rubio (R) a 51% to 43% lead over Rep Demings (D), with a margin of error of ± 4.4 points. YouGov gives Rubio a similar lead.
• A rated Marist College has Arizona Senator Kelly (D) leading challenger Blake Masters (R), 50% to 47% among definite voters, and among registered voters he’s up 49% to 45%.

How much further, pray tell? Ouch. Pity about that.

Many have speculated that former President Trump suffers from a mental illness best described as pathological narcissism, or a self-regard so inflated that going into a room with him may result in your smothering. Smotherment.

And this suggests the problem is getting worse. It doesn’t come from a poster, an electronic advertisement, or even a boasting volume of self-praise. It comes from the legal paperwork of a suit Trump has filed against New York AG Letitia James:

As a private company, nobody knew very much about the great business that then–business man Donald Trump had built but now it is being revealed by James and much to her chagrin.The continuing witch hunt that has haunted and targeted Donald Trump since he came down the “golden escalator” at Trump Tower in June of 2015 continues. President Trump built a great and prosperous company but a company nevertheless that must be carefully, delicately, yet powerfully managed, and the appointment of a political monitor or the interference by a political hack like James who is using this lawsuit for political gain,would bring great harm to the company, the brand, the employees and its overall reputation. Likewise,it could virtually destroy the highly profitable Florida properties, which include the legendary Trump National Doral Golf Club and Resort (one of the most successful in the world),Trump International Golf Club in PalmBeach, Florida, Trump Jupiter Country Club in Jupiter, FL, and,of course, one of the greatest and most successful clubs in the world, The Mar-a-Lago Club.

Boasting in legal paperwork is really pathetic and indicative of someone who has gone speeding over the cliff. It impresses no one and tells everyone of your psychological weaknesses.

It’s sad. You have to wonder if the many candidates who’ve pledged allegiance to him are doomed to such an end themselves.

The end is nigh. Sing it, kitty! In other news …

• A rated Monmouth University Poll’s last survey of Pennsylvania’s Senate race gives Lt Governor Fetterman (D) a 49% to 44% lead over Dr. Oz. How broken is this race? Will Oz pull it out? Even thrash Fetterman? Emerson College may be indicating that, giving Oz a 48% to 46% lead. Susquehanna Polling and Research, B+ rated, believes Dr. Oz has a lead of 47.6% to 46.6%, or another dead heat. Remington, more on them below, has Dr. Oz ahead 47% to 44%, while B+ rated Suffolk University, while finding their recent debate may have hurt Fetterman due to his stroke-affected performance, gives Fetterman a 47% to 45% lead, or too close to really call. Notable: The contest is up for grabs, the survey shows, with an unusually high 19% of independents undecided, even as early voting has opened. 19% of independents are undecided? Are you yanking my starter cord? Or is this article from WaPo, quoting Dr. Oz as saying Senator McConnell runs the party and not the former President, a deal-breaker for MAGA voters in PA? Daily Kos’s Joan McCarter seems excited about it.
• B rated Remington gives Arizona Senator Kelly (D) a 48% to 47% lead over challenger Blake Masters (R) in Arizona. On RealClearPolitics, Remington Research Group has (R) after their name, which appears to mean they’re Republican leaning. If so, Kelly may have a somewhat larger lead than shown here. For instance, A+ rated Siena College just gave the Senator a six point lead. But GOP linked Insider Advantage makes it a dead heat at 48%.
• B/C rated University of Arkansas has issued a poll for the Arkansas Senator Boozman (R) vs Natalie James (D) race, but there are no numbers in the document. The RealClearPolitics link for it, though, claims Boozman now has a 33 point lead. While not surprising, it’s disappointing in that the two previous available polls gave Boozman a much more surprisingly slim 13 point lead. But University of Arkansas does not have an impressive rating, either.
• GOP linked Insider Advantage gives Florida Senator Rubio (R) a 51% to 45% lead over Rep Val Demings (D). This seems broadly consistent with other polls. Although this guy claims to have interviewed a Florida pollster who says Crist (D, formerly R) leads Governor DeSantis (R) in the Florida gubernatorial contest by six points, which would be a real outlier. I don’t doubt either of the guys, I just don’t believe the result, not only because most other polls show DeSantis way out ahead, but this guy gets his results from online polling.
• A rated SurveyUSA has Georgia Senator Warnock (D) up 49% to 43% over challenger Herschel Walker (R), while Republican pollster Remington turns the lead around, Walker 49%, Warnock 45%.
• Emerson College suggests the Kansas race has broken open, with Senator Moran (R) leading 54% to 33% over challenger Mark Holland (D). As Moran’s On The Issues page suggests he’s a rabid anti-abortionist, this is a little on the unbelievable side. I guess we’ll find out in five days.
• The Trump – McConnell feud continues in the GOP. This sort of thing, common in organizations that have as foundational principles arrogance, self-regard, greed, idolization of wealth, and etc, often leads to failure to reach organizational goals, and sometimes the dissolution of such organizations. Whether that happens here remains to be seen.
• GOP linked Trafalgar continues the Saint Anselm’s College findings by giving Don Bolduc (R) a small lead over New Hampshire Senator Hassan (D), 47% to 45.7%. Just call it a dead heat. However, trekking in outlier land, UMass Lowell’s Center for Public Opinion gives Senator Hassan a 51% to 41% lead. That’s huge. And out of line with other pollsters. But Lowell’s is a B+ rated pollster, so sneezing is out of the question.
• The latest Marquette Law School Poll, A/B rated, gives Wisconsin Senator Johnson (R) a 52% to 46% lead over Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes (D). Another six years of dread stupid rumors? Say it isn’t so! However, A+ rated Siena College gives Johnson a much smaller 47% to 45% lead, or technically a dead heat. And in this poll Johnson isn’t over the 50% hurdle.
• Remington is giving J. D. Vance (R) a 48% to 43% lead over Rep Ryan (D) in Ohio. And there’s Baldwin Wallace University, B/C rated, giving Ryan the advantage at 50.2% to 46%, which I don’t call an outlier, but I lay in bed at night debating the point. From The Center Square regarding this poll, Notable: Vance’s memoir Hillbilly Elegy that detailed his family’s crisis in Appalachian Ohio surrounding opioid addiction along with other economic and socioeconomic issues became wildly popular and led to a movie. To Sutton, “airing dirty laundry” of the region could create problems for Vance with voters in the area. “J.D. Vance became very well know because of his memoir and has been seen as a great success,” Sutton said. “But if you’re from these communities dealing with these issues, you look at your brethren here and he aired the dirty laundry. For the folks that live in those areas he committed a cardinal sin. I think those folks in those areas are either voting for Ryan or sitting this race out. So, one of the things I’m going to be looking at is the vote gap between those who vote for DeWine and those who vote for Vance.” I look forward to hearing if this hypothesis proves out.
• Emerson College gives North Carolina Rep Ted Budd (R) a 50% to 45% lead over Cheri Beasley (D). Balancing them, B- rated Civiqs has these two nominees tied at 49%, with a margin of error of ± 4.9 points.
• Finally, SurveyUSA shows Trudy Busch Valentine (D) closing the gap too slowly and too late in Missouri, as Eric Schmitt (R) leads 50% to 41% to replace the retiring Senator Blunt (R). A previous poll showed a 12 or 13 point lead, I forget which.

Last time? I spilled something on it. Here it is.

Blah blah blah. Right? In other news…

• A+ rated Siena College/The New York Times Upshot has the Nevada race of Senator Cortez Masto (D) and challenger Adam Laxalt (R) as a dead heat at 47% apiece. It seems they do not take the University of Nevada – Reno’s poll giving Cortez Masto a 13 point lead seriously. Notable: Their report consistently misspelled Cortez Masto’s last name as Cortez Mastro. Gonna be some red faces at the Siena College Research Institute office. Emerson College, a respectable A- rated outfit, gives Laxalt a largish 50% to 45% edge. And Suffolk University, B+ rated, gives Cortez Masto a 45% to 44% lead, much like Siena. If the Hispanic community comes through for the first Latina in the US Senate, then Masto will be reelected; otherwise, it’ll be a long night.
• The Siena College/The New York Times Upshot gives Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D) a 49% to 44% lead over Dr. Mehmet Oz (R) in the race for the open Pennsylvania Senate seat. GOP linked and B rated Insider Advantage takes an opposite position, giving Dr. Oz a 46.9% to 44.0% lead. And Muhlenberg College/Morning Call, the former B+ rated, stakes out a middle position and calls this Senate race a dead heat at 47% apiece.
• The Siena College/The New York Times Upshot gives Georgia Senator Warnock (D) a 49% to 46% lead over challenger Herschel Walker (R). If only that lead were larger. Walker was a great football player, but every time he opens his mouth I either don’t understand him, or he’s out and out frightening. The last AJC poll has this race as a dead heat: In the race for the Senate, Walker is at 46% and Warnock is at 45% — a difference of a fraction of a percentage point that’s within the poll’s margin of error 3.1 percentage points. Libertarian Chase Oliver has about 5% support, and an additional 5% are undecided. A failure to break the 50% barrier will result in a runoff, just like last time. That may be to the Senator’s detriment, as Chase Oliver (L) will no longer be around to split the conservative vote.
• The Siena College/The New York Times Upshot does not give Arizona challenger Blake Masters (R) a lead in Arizona, unlike some polls, but rather Senator Kelly (D) has a 51% to 45% lead. OH Predictive Insights, B/C rated, has Senator Kelly also leading, 48% to 46%, giving Marc Victor (L) 3%. And Fox News has Kelly up 47% to 45%. In other news, aforementioned Marc Victor (L) won’t be fulfilling the implicit nominative determinism-linked prophecy, as abc15 Arizona is reporting: Libertarian candidate Marc Victor is dropping out of the race to be Arizona’s next U.S. Senator. In a video on his website Tuesday morning, Victor made the announcement and added that he was endorsing Republican candidate Blake Masters. It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out. I hadn’t heard of Victor until just a few days ago, but I expect he provided a refuge for those moderate Republicans who couldn’t stomach Masters and didn’t want to vote for Senator Kelly. Will they suck it up and pick either of the remaining two candidates, leave their ballot blank – or vote for Victor as a protest? Reportedly, he’ll still be on the ballot, and I doubt ballots can be modified to reflect his capitulation – and generally campaign advertising is banned at voting sites, so some voters may not be aware of his withdrawal. And what of mail-in ballots? Will Victor voters seek to amend their votes, or will they shrug it off? But if the Siena poll is accurate, Masters has to persuade some Kelly voters to vote for him, and that will prove difficult, outside of a black swan event.
• The Siena College/The New York Times Upshot offered some rarities: polls of House of Representative races. I picked the Kansas offering of KS03, as it shows a Democrat creaming a Republican in Kansas: “In this rematch between two candidates well known to voters, Davids, the Democratic incumbent, has a significantly better favorability rating and a solid 14-point lead over Republican Adkins, who previously represented the district. Davids beat Adkins two years ago by 10 points. Davids has the support of 97% of Democrats, picks up 13% support from Republicans and has a two-to-one lead with independents. Adkins trails with men by two points and with women by 26 points.” Politics is mostly local, so drawing national conclusions from this is a touchy business, even in today’s unusually national environment, brought on by the blowback from the January 6th insurrection and the Dobbs decision overturning what is turning out to be the highly popular Roe vs. Wade decision – but it certainly sounds as if the conservative voters of KS03 are beginning to realize that Democrats can be good elected representatives as good as, or even better, than Republicans. Nor does it sound like a red wave. While 13% of the Republicans voting for the Democrat is not a large percentage, it’s a beginning to healing the frightening abyss between political factions. Or it’s part of the birth of at least one new political party. And it may indicate voter exhaustion with what passes for the Republican Party these days.
• Speaking of Siena College/The New York Times polls, it’s noteworthy that they’re more in line with other polls from past top-of-the-line pollsters than with the pollsters that happen to be GOP linked, such as Cygnal, Trafalgar, Insider Advantage, and maybe one or two others – and are not as highly rated. Indeed, this diarist on Daily Kos thinks those GOP linked pollsters may be slanting their results in order to influence voters, perhaps encouraging GOP voters and discourage Democratic voters, rather than measuring voters, as is more proper. Keep this in mind when reading Republican optimistic opinions, such as Erick Erickson’s prediction published today: The GOP really could get to 53 seats. And he’s absolutely confident that Walker will win the general election, and may even exceed 50%, which would permit him to skip the runoff otherwise required by Georgia law. If Republican boosters are basing their optimism on slanted polls designed to discourage Democratic voters who are, nevertheless, motivated by any or all of the extraordinary events of the last two years, it could be a deeply unpleasant surprise for the far-right extremists.
• And just because I’ve mentioned the Oklahoma gubernatorial race before, the latest is that the race is tightening, with Republican-turned-Democrat Joy Hofmeister narrowly leading Governor Kevin Stitt (R), and now comes a new endorsement from a Republican: It was the “honor of a lifetime” to represent Oklahoma in Congress, [Former Rep. J.C.] Watts says, adding, “I was a Republican then, and I am a Republican now, and friends, I’m voting for Joy Hofmeister. All the scandal and corruption is too much. Joy is a woman of faith and integrity. She’ll always put Oklahoma first. I know Joy personally. I trust her, and you can, too.” File that under another rejection of the current state of Republican politics. Will Oklahoma have a Democratic governor? Or is this late Emerson College poll showing Stitt with a stiff nine point lead presaging the future?
• In New York, Emerson College follows up a recent poll with another that shows Senator Schumer (D) stretching his lead over challenger Joe Pinion (R) to 55% to 36%. Will they have an afternoon poll to complement their morning poll?
• Hallelujah, Alabama has a poll: GOP-linked Cygnal’s poll has Katie Britt (R) leading Will Boyd (D), 57.1% to 27.5%. I’m not feeling the tension, no matter how much Cygnal may be leaning.
• I missed this Iowa poll from a two or so weeks back: Change Research, B- rated, replicates the Des Moines Register poll results, 48% to 45%. Note to Franken: it’s only a shocker if you actually win. Grassley is no longer fit for service and needs to be put out to pasture. Notable: With three weeks to go, Grassley is weak with his own base. Just 92% of Republican voters and 89% of 2020 Trump voters say they will vote for Grassley. Grassley gets near universal support (98%) among self-identified MAGA Republicans who voted for Trump in 2020 (about half–47%–of those who voted for Trump in 2020 identify as MAGA Republicans), but only 81% of non-MAGA Trump voters say they will vote for Grassley in this election. Wow. Being a close ally to Trump doesn’t guarantee slavish support, apparently, from Trump or his supporters. Franken has a ten point lead among independents, and if he can pick up a few more, he may pull this most unexpected upset off. Remember, though, Change Research only has a B- rating.
• A/B rated Saint Anselm College has the New Hampshire Senate race at a razor thin lead for challenger Don Bolduc (R) over Senator Hassan (D), 48%-47%. Call it a head heat with a margin of error of ± 2.5 points. Maybe the SLF canceled any more ad buys because it thinks Bolduc has the win in the bag? (See previous New Hampshire news at the link.)
• An Emerson College poll shows a potential blowout in the contest between Oklahoma Senator Lankford (R) and challenger Madison Horn (D) as the former appears to have a 57% to 33% lead.
• The same poll shows Kendra Horn (D) trailing Rep Mullin (R) 56% to 35% in the Oklahoma special election. It’s a real pity to reward a Trump-worshipper like Mullin with a job of this magnitude of responsibility.
• Utah has been one of the most mysterious races this cycle, with challenger Evan McMullin (I) barking at Senator Mike Lee’s (R) heels, according to Deseret News polls as well as McMullin-sponsored private polls. However, OH Predictive Insights, B/C rated, isn’t going along with the other pollsters, public and private, and gives Senator Lee the edge a cliff of support at 53% to 34%. This 19 point lead is surprising, and if Lee performs as they expect it’ll be a boost to their mediocre rating. If, on the other hand, Lee substantially underperforms, then there may be questions as to their competency. In fact, Emerson College also recently released a Utah poll, and it gives Lee a still surprising 49% to 39% lead. A 10 point lead is substantial, but not an imposing 19 points. Notable: The economy is the top issue for 47% of Utah voters in determining their November vote, followed by “threats to democracy” (12%), and abortion access (10%). Someone should remind these voters that, without democracy, there is no flourishing economy, and Senator Lee apparently doesn’t comprehend that.
• GOP linked Insider Advantage has Washington Senator Murray (D) leading challenger Tiffany Smiley (R) by only 48% to 46.4%. This is at some variance with other recent Washington polls, such as the Seattle Times poll giving Murray an 8 point advantage, or this recent poll from Triton giving Murray a 5 point lead.
• Fox News surveys Wisconsin and finds Senator Johnson (R) and his conspiracy nuttiness holds a 48% to 45% lead over challenger Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes (D). Can former President Obama turn sentiment around for Barnes?
• Emerson College, busy as a bee, surveys Missouri and finds Eric Schmitt (R) has a bigger lead over challenger Trudy Busch Valentine (D), 51% to 39%. It appears Schmitt has saved this seat for the Republicans; if former Governor Greitens (R) had won the primary, this would have been a far different race.

The second latest, and therefore useless, installment in this series is here.

My Arts Editor plan for Halloween is to hand these out.

They were a hit with the teenagers last year.

From an endorsement from The Denver Post against sitting Representative Lauren Boebert (R):

We beg voters in western and southern Colorado not to give Rep. Lauren Boebert their vote.

Boebert has not represented the 3rd Congressional District well. Almost exclusively, she has spent her time and efforts contributing to the toxic political environment in this nation.

The good people in this district are not angry and abrasive; they are not hateful and caustic; they do not boast of their own prowess or sling insults as entertainment. The ranchers we know working the Uncompaghre Plateau, the teachers in Durango, the steel mill workers in Pueblo, and the farmers setting down roots in the San Louis Valley keep to themselves, watch their families grow, and pray for better days.

Boebert’s unproductive approach, combined with the efforts of others, has helped erode Congress’ ability to honestly debate public policy that could help people in her district.

This is a measure of the moral failures of the MAGA candidates: they don’t service their constituents, they don’t provide leadership, they are simply their for the ego-fulfilling aspects of the position.

Kudos to The Denver Post.

Some runners are beginning to stagger. Don’t let them touch you! In other news…

• As Senator Mark Kelly’s (D) lead in most polls of Arizona has dwindled, some wonder if the Republicans will be swallowing him up. azcentral’s article on the subject points out Democratic strategist Andy Barr’s observation: “A blowout win for Democrats in Arizona is winning by like 3 points,” he said. “There are more Republicans than there are Democrats, period. And there are very few people who switch allegiances based on who the candidates are.” An example of toxic team politics at work. Better to vote for your own highly flawed candidate, such as Masters, than for the evil opponent. That attitude, a result of the win at all costs! of former Speaker Gingrich (R-AL), is an example of the American empire tearing itself to pieces, if we pay attention to Turchin’s scholarship. And in other news, Insider Advantage gives Senator Kelly (D) a 45% – 43% lead over challenger Blake Masters (R).
• Data For Progress, B rated, gives a 51% to 44% lead to Florida Senator Rubio (R) over challenger Rep Val Demings (D).
• In New York challenger Joe Pinion (R) is making little progress against Senator Schumer (D), Emerson College Polling reports: In the election for US Senate, 51% plan to support incumbent Chuck Schumer, while 36% support Joe Pinion. Eight percent are undecided. With their support allocated, Schumer’s support increases to 53% and Pinion to 40%. Since September, Senator Schumer has lost three percentage points and Joe Pinion has gained five percentage points.  Pinion has little more than a week to make up a serious amount of ground.
• GOP aligned Insider Advantage believes Dr. Mehmet Oz (R) has a 47.5% to 44.8% lead over Lt. Gov John Fetterman (D) in Pennsylvania. Insider Advantage is B rated. This is probably the first lead for the snake oil salesman.
• C/D rated Triton Polling & Research gives Washington Senator Murray (D) a 50.6% to 45.4% lead over challenger Tiffany Smiley (R). This might need the extra large salt shaker, although the numbers are not entirely out of line with other pollsters. Meanwhile, conservative pollster Trafalgar has a much closer race at 49.4% to 48.2% for Murray. In some ways, that’s even further out of line than Triton’s.
• A Daily Kos diarist delivers the argument that the attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of the Speaker of the House, will be to the Democrats’ advantage this cycle. Erick Erickson disagrees, although I think most of his arguments are specious or stripped off context. Me? I don’t think it’ll have an effect. Most folks will figure the attacker is an extremist and maybe out of his head, much like the guy who tried to shoot a bunch of Republican legislators at a Congressional baseball game a few years back. And we’ll probably never know for sure.
• Yet another Insider Advantage poll, this time in Georgia, suggests Herschel Walker (R) ahead of Senator Warnock, 48% to 45%, with a margin of error of ± 4.2 points. Chase Oliver (L) has 2% of the vote.
• Trafalgar gives Adam Laxalt (R) a 49.8% to 45.6% lead over Senator Cortez (D) in Nevada.

Getting near the end here. Oh I so hope. The last edition, grievously out of date, is here.

When the financial underpinnings of society give a hiccup, it’s time to stop and sniff the coffee.

Trouble is brewing in the world of U.S. Treasury bonds, prompting concern among investors and some Washington policymakers.

U.S. Treasury bonds are a key pillar of the global financial system, but there are signs that the pool of interested buyers could be in danger of drying up as an unintended consequence of rising U.S. interest rates.

For now, no one is panicking. But the market for U.S. Treasury bonds has lately displayed a level of volatility not seen since the beginning of the pandemic-related crisis in 2020, when the Federal Reserve cut interest rates to zero and went on to buy $1 trillion of treasuries and other financial assets to keep the global financial system functioning. [WaPo]

It’s not mentioned in the article, but you have to wonder if the potential takeover of all, or parts of, Congress by the Republicans are giving investors in American Treasury bonds pause. After all, it’s no secret that the House, if controlled by the Republicans, has threatened to not lift debt ceilings. If these investors, often foreign and savvy, are realizing that the Republicans are fourth raters who would likely implement their threats, they may come to the conclusion that exposure to American Treasuries that may fail is not in their best interest.

Some people are overjoyed, some are appalled.

An emboldened cast of anonymous trolls spewed racist slurs and Nazi memes onto Twitter in the hours after billionaire industrialist Elon Musk took over the social network, raising fears that his pledge of unrestricted free speech could fuel a new wave of online hate. [WaPo]

Me? It’s the most primitive of the social media platforms that I’ve seen, and seems to be built to inculcate addiction, just like all new sports and television shows. Musk claims this:

On Thursday, Musk tried to assuage advertiser worries in a tweeted letter in which he promised that the site would not become a “hellscape” or a “free-for-all” and pledged that the app would remain “warm and welcoming to all.”

Motivated trolls, desperate to satisfy their employers, their own egos, or both, will prove to be exceedingly difficult to control if Musk does, in fact, try to follow through on his stated intention of 1st Amendment absolutism. It’s the way it goes.

My guess on the future? He caves on the absolutism, or his $44 billion investment, which he tellingly tried to escape, will shrink in value to $44 million as advertisers and users walk away. But that’s a weak prediction, because the addictive, narcissistic power of Followers and Likes and All That Garbage is catnip to anyone who was not the Prom King or Queen.

Hey, I’ve been there. Uh, no, not Prom Royalty. The other thing.

So it’ll be interesting to see how this pans out. I think he’ll institute a set of rules to keep the trolls in check, wrapped in new clothes in order to claim he’s nothing like the C-suite folks he just fired. But social media addiction, the horrible anchor so many drag behind them, could save Musk.

Gape and wonder, but no autographs, please.

Just a couple of blocks from our place. I hope he’s an exile and not a scout.

What’s out lying in the backyard? You go look, I’m curled up in a chair. Meanwhile …

• The Cortez (D) vs Laxalt (R) contest in Nevada has been one of the closest in the nation. And then along comes the pollster University of Nevada-Reno, unknown to FiveThirtyEight, and they award a 52% to 39% lead to … Senator Cortez. With a margin of error of … it’s not entirely clear.  ± 4 points. A sudden jump from a dead heat to a thirteen point lead? Or is this the Mother of all Outliers? Do they know more about Nevadans than the out-of-state interlopers pollsters? Stay tuned.
• The Florida contest of Senator Rubio (R) vs Rep Demings (D) is another of the hottest contests in the Senate this cycle. But now the University of North Florida, an A/B rated pollster, is giving the Senator a surprising 54%-43% lead, with a margin of error of a largish ± 4.7 points. Notable: “The surprise in these numbers is that a statewide race in Florida is closer to a blowout than a recount,” said Dr. Michael Binder, PORL faculty director and UNF political science professor. “Florida has become a red state; it will likely take an exceptionally weak Republican candidate for Democrats to win statewide — and Rubio is not a weak candidate.” Rubio’s weakness on immigration legislation nearly a decade ago suggests otherwise, and his responses to recent events have been nearly as bad as Georgia candidate Herschel Walker’s. If Demings is blown out, Democrats nation-wide had better take a close look at themselves. Or is this just another outlier poll?
• Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker (R) is either profoundly put-upon by nefarious characters, to borrow my Arts Editor’s phrase, or he doesn’t believe in self-restraint. Why do I say this? Here we are, less than two weeks out on Election Day, and another woman has claimed that Walker pressured her into having an abortion years ago. The timing of the accusation is certainly suspicious, but on the other side of the pivot is Walker’s history of sincere, steadfast mendacity. Simply typing that sentence should convince every Georgia voter to either vote against Walker or stay home; the blot on their honor in the event of an actual vote, not to mention the fortunes of Georgia in the US Senate, are too hideous to contemplate. In the area of polls, A rated Monmouth College is out with their latest poll, giving Senator Warnock (D) a 49% to 44% lead if I do my math properly, with an unusually large margin of error of ± 5 points. Notorious GOP-optimistic pollster Rasmussen Reports, still B rated, has Walker ahead of incumbent Senator Warnock (D) 48% to 43%, with a margin of error of ± 3 points. This is outside the range of most other pollsters’ numbers. We may be experiencing the Night of the Outliers, folks. Anyone tracking Roger Corman’s activities these days?
• Kansas‘ list of resources doesn’t seem to include polling – yes, there was one, see the link – but a recent article on Democratic challenger Mark Holland can be dug up with a minimum of effort. Notable, besides his optimism: “We don’t need to apologize for being Democrats,” Holland told Steve Kraske in an Oct. 11 interview on KCUR’s Up To Date. “We have a better message on health care, a better message on public education, a better message on wages, a better message on guns, a better message on women’s rights.”
• In Pennsylvania’s Senate debate, Dr. Oz’s (R) response to a question concerning how to regulate abortion has fallen with a thud to the floor, or at least so Democrats believe. Oz’s statement? “I don’t want the federal government involved with that at all,” Oz said. “I want women, doctors, local political leaders letting the democracy that’s always allowed our nation to thrive to put the best ideas forward so states can decide for themselves.”
  Republicans are convinced that Lt Governor Fetterman’s (D) difficulties with audio processing, stemming from his stroke, have convinced swing voters that voting for a snake oil salesman is a better choice than a dedicated public servant. GOP-aligned Insider Advantage follows through by giving Oz a rare lead in their recent survey, 47.5% to 44.8%. Insider Advantage’s B rating is better than SSRS’s C rating, which we saw on the last update giving Fetterman a six point lead. Which is the outlier?
• Alabama still has no polls that I can find, but pastor Will Boyd (D) believes he has a chance against Katie Britt (R) in this conservative state where they use accusations of being ISIS supporters against each other in the primaries. Boyd explains his optimism in this News19 report from last month. Notable: But Boyd, the former college professor lists reasons for his optimism. It starts with voter enthusiasm, he says. He told News 19 that national polling data shows voter enthusiasm is on the side of Democrats. It seems unlikely. But how can we predict if someone stole all our goats there are no polls?
• Hey, finally Illinois gets another poll, this time from Emerson College, which is A- rated. Senator Duckworth’s (D) lead is down to 10 points, 49% to 39%, meaning challenger Salvi (R) still has a hill to climb in this last week and a half or so.
• North Carolina is another hot Senate race, but not outlying here: Marist Polls, A rated, has the race as a dead heat at 44% among registered voters, but a four point lead, 49% to 45%, among those definitely planning to vote, for Rep Budd (R) over Cheri Beasley (D). Notable, because they say so: Among independents, Beasley receives 40% to 39% for Budd. A notable 17% are undecided. A 31-point gender gap exists, with a majority of men (53%) favoring Budd and a majority of women (51%) favoring Beasley.

When you just need that dollop of out of date news from XX22, you can go here.

Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) has a critique of his Democratic colleagues – two of them, anyways – via Politico:

What’s happening: Sen. Rick Scott criticized two female senators — Sens. Patty Murray (Wash.) and Maggie Hassan (N.H.) — for being unlikeable, a political barb frequently used against female politicians.

The details: During a Wednesday interview on the Hugh Hewitt show, the Florida senator discussed the Washington and New Hampshire Senate races, showing support for the Republican candidates while hitting the female senators for being unlikeable.

Here’s what he said:

“Patty Murray, who’s been there 36 years, Patty Murray is just not likable. I mean, who’s likes Patty Murray? She’s not nice to anybody. And so I think unfortunately for Patty Murray, to Hassan in New Hampshire, they know her. They don’t like her.”

Uh huh. It won’t be classy, but I have to wonder if Scott is going to be met with something along the lines of Oral Sex Scott! chants at public rallies by those opposed to him.

Or who just don’t like him. Maybe Rep Matt Gaetz (R-FL), rumored to dislike Scott, will lead the chanting.

The Republicans are riven with factionalism and outright, no holds barred rivalry:

The McConnell-aligned super PAC Senate Leadership Fund has spent more than $5 million in ads attacking Tshibaka in a bid to help Murkowski win reelection. [WaPo]

This appears to be overwhelming the toxic team politics stricture of the Republican Party, and this is no surprise. The current inhabitants of the Republican Party have mostly pushed out the former, middle of the road, inhabitants through the RINO  (“Republican in Name Only”) accusation tactic, and are motivated by greed (see: Trump), social prestige, and acquisition fever.

Of course, we’ve been seeing this for years, such as the attempted, and perhaps successful, RINOing of now-former Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), and the bloody Republican primary in Alabama for Jeff Session’s open Senate seat, in which extremist Rep Mo Brooks was accused of being an ISIS supporter.

But when it happens between McConnell and Trump, two of the top political leaders, you have to wonder if it signals another step in the dissolution of the Republican Party.

This isn’t the last roundup. Not yet. In other news…

• Alaska’s Senator Murkowski (R) has been endorsed by Alaska Rep Peltola (D), who shockingly won the special election to replace the late Rep Don Young (R) last month, and Murkowski has endorsed Peltola. Or at least that’s how I read this: Asked if she would rank Peltola first on her ballot next month in Alaska’s new ranked-choice voting system, Murkowski paused. After a full 18 seconds, she said, “Yeah, I am.” She then mumbled, “I’m going to get in so much trouble.” And in return: Asked to respond to Murkowski’s de facto endorsement, Peltola said, “I’m voting for her, so we’re even-steven.” In case you missed it, my take on this is here.
• CNN and SSRS, the latter only C rated, suggest that Senator Johnson (R) of Wisconsin holds a 1 point lead at 50% to 49%, with a margin of error of ± 4.5 points for likely voters. Salt shaker? Yes.
• CNN and SSRS also suggest that Lt. Governor Fetterman’s (D) hunt for the soon-to-be empty Pennsylvania Senate seat is going well, giving him a 51% to 45% lead over Dr. Oz Mehmet (R), with a ± 4.6 point margin of error. Again, salt shaker. Maybe hang them from your ears. CBS News/YouGov, on the other hand, gives Fetterman a much smaller lead of 51% to 49%. In other news, unaffiliated Senate candidate Everett Stern (I), who was supposedly polling at 3% – he doesn’t show up in the aforementioned CNN/SSRS poll – has dropped out, according to sharecare on Daily Kos. No data sources are given by sharecare, but a tweet from Stern announces his withdrawal and endorsement of Fetterman. Take it for what you will, but he is listed on Ballotpedia as a candidate for this Senate seat, so this may be more or less accurate information. If Fetterman wins by less than 3 points, he’ll owe Stern a beer.
• Paywalled The New York Times reports Senator McConnell’s (R) Senate Leadership Fund is canceling any further support for challenger Don Bolduc’s (R) pursuit of Senator Hassasn (D) in New Hampshire. Meanwhile, Emerson College gives Hassan a 48% to 45% lead and GOP aligned Insider Advantage, B rated, gives Hassan a 47.6% to 47.1% advantage. Question: If it’s that close, you’d think the SLF would stick around, wouldn’t you? Perhaps Bolduc is simply too revolting even for McConnell. Or maybe SLF’s internal polling isn’t congruent with Insider Advantage.
• WaPo notes that the ranks of independent voters are growing, suggesting unhappiness with at least one party. Notable: Christopher Cooper, political science professor at Western Carolina University, recently co-wrote research examining the rise of the unaffiliated voter in North Carolina and nationally. “Voters are signaling something to us. A lot of smart folks might disagree with me and say, ‘Look, so many of these are shadow partisans. Don’t worry about them,’ ” said Cooper, referring to voters who say they are nonpartisan but lean toward one party mostly. “I think the voters are trying to say they may not be able to escape the two-party system, but they’re going to push back on it when they can.” In other words, cut out the extremism, the bulging eyes, the hair-on-fire arrogance of modern politics. If you can’t cut it out, then return to the barstools from whence you came, because positions ranging from strict anti-abortionism to defunding the police are not acceptable to many voters, and they’re leaving the parties and making a point. How this will affect the Senate races? I’m guessing independents, appalled by Dobbs, will lean to the Democrats, but they may just stay home out of disgust.
• In Connecticut a Quinnipiac University poll gives Senator Blumenthal (D) a 56% – 41% lead over challenger Leora Levy (R), which seems far more reasonable than the last Connecticut Senate poll from ten or so days ago, in which pollster Fabrizio found Blumenthal had only a five point lead. Fabrizio is B/C rated, while QU is A- rated. Final results will show if Fabrizio has improved and QU degraded – or not.
• GOP-aligned Trafalgar is now giving challenger Herschel Walker (R) a 48.9% to 46.5% lead over Senator Warnock (D) in Georgia. Chase Oliver (L) has a 4.6% proportion of the survey, and the survey has a margin of error of ± 2.9 points.
• B+ rated Cygnal gives J. D. Vance (R) a 46.9% to 43.3% lead over Rep Tim Ryan (D) in Ohio.
• Oregon’s Senator Wyden (D) continues to lead challenger Jo Rae Perkins, 51% to 40%, according to B rated Data For Progress. While closer than the last poll, Perkins still has an immense amount of ground to make up in the next two weeks against a sitting Senator, even with this poll’s margin of error of ± 3 points.

Last update here.

In case you’re not paying attention to the financial metrics of the political parties and are just assuming that Republicans are right when they assert that Democrats are spendthrifts, Steve Benen has a restorative chart for you:

Yes, that’s right. For the last half a century, the Democrats have to clean up the Republicans’ financial messes.

And that’s something to keep in mind two years from now.

Sure, go ahead and scream. Two years ahead is too much just now.

I’ve not had time for blogging over the last few days, but I’ve been a little fascinated by this WaPo article, entitled Murkowski, Peltola cross party lines to endorse each other in tight Alaska races. The title doesn’t quite say it all, either:

[Richard Peterson, president of the Tlingit and Haida tribes], the tribal president, said another motivating factor for his tribe to endorse [Rep Peltola (D), who upset Sarah Palin (R) in the special election to fill Rep Don Young’s (R) seat] was that the other candidates “take hard lines.”

Culture wars have been the norm on the right for decades, but now they’re showing up on the left, principally in the area of transgenderism, although one might make the argument that gay marriage is another cultural war object. To me, it was thoroughly discussed and best served to be legalized by either SCOTUS, as it was, or Congress, as an even treatment of the marriage status of citizens is an important and fundamental aspect of American society, unlike, say, gas taxes.

Errr, back to the point, the Alaskan tribes are on point when they express disinterest or disgust with the cultural wars. They have hard problems to solve, and have little time or interest in stroking the egos of cultural warriors such as are found in the lower 48 states.

And I think a lot, even most, independent voters throughout the States share the value of getting important things done with the Alaskan Indigenous People. Politics as performance art a la McConnell, Jordan, Gaetz, Greene, Cruz, Rand Paul, and so many others on the Republican side of the aisle, but I fear increasingly on the Democrats’ side as well. So far, if the Democrats have echoed the far-right extremists’ cry of baby-killers! with their own child-killers!, I have missed it, but I won’t be surprised if I hear it soon.

So what’s so small, per the title of this post?

A beginning. The beginning of a moderate party. I’m aware of a Forward Party, backed by former Presidential candidate and entrepreneur Andy Yang and others, but if it’s making progress, it’s not clamoring for my attention. But in Murkowski and Peltola, you have members of Congress who are representing a State with strong needs and, frankly, facing a tough future, when we factor climate change into it. That tends to strip away dross and, frankly, minor issues such as transgenderism or the faux horrors warned of by religious zealotry.

So will Murkowski and Peltola found some sort of a moderate party, maybe the Alaska Moderates Party? I don’t know. But there’s surely some potential here, especially if they are successful in reelection campaigns and in the projects they take on and succeed in bringing to fruition.

The far-right extremists of the Republican Party should be looking on in fright, and the Democrats need to take warning. Members of both who pride themselves on their extremism may be seeing their diminishment in Murkowski and Peltola.

Who both still have to survive the ballot box in November.

Perhaps the news is slowing. Perhaps I’m squinting.

• 

  Once again, it’s Scylla and Charybdis, last used here!

  Erick Erickson, in the face of fourth-rate – or worse! – Republican candidates, remains confident of success in a couple of weeks. Why? In an email that doesn’t appear to be on his blog: Oregon Democrats are panicking as Nancy Pelosi’s campaign team has pulled money from historically blue house seats because the Republicans are so far ahead. If true, that has to be of concern for those voters who find the candidates behind which Erickson stands to be of an enormously substandard variety. But of more interest from him is this post, which can be read, with only a few changes, as a condemnation of both parties for their absolutist elements. For the Democrats, their transgenderism stance, seemingly unconscious of the societal directive that parents guide and raise children, and not succumb to their every demand, is just one of his criticisms; while, Erickson completely unconscious of it, the absolutism of anti-abortion stands forth as a crippling intellectual failure for the Republicans. In a sense, these two positions are Scylla and Charybdis, a metaphor I’ve used before, the terrifying sea monsters between which mariners must sail, and independent voters are heading for that deadly whirlpool wherein they can pick a Republican Party that abandoned the principles of liberal democracy a decade or more ago, or a Democratic Party that has become increasingly arrogant and certain of itself, and flouted liberal democracy itself when it promoted transgenderism as the law of the land sans discussion. But if Erickson is right, then there’s the question of even those he might assume are his allies are instead abandoning him; see the next two news items.

• The Tulsa World, which one would assume is reflective of its city and state of Oklahoma, and is thus traditionally a conservative rag, has issued an endorsement for the special election to fill Senator Inhofe’s (R) seat after his planned January ’23 resignation. The endorsement is not for Republican candidate Rep Markwayne Mullin, but, surprisingly, the Democratic candidate, former Rep Kendra Horn. Will this move the needle in Oklahoma? Probably not. But it remains a noteworthy move, remarkable in that it may alienate a number of subscribers. Notable: Her congressional stint gives Oklahomans a glimpse of what Oklahoma lawmakers of the past looked like. They were pragmatic legislators who looked after their state and found ways to get things done rather than cater to the fringes of their own parties. Mullin’s frantic attempts to get the former President’s attention and endorsement were, in the end, embarrassing, and indicative of a candidate willing to owe his political career to an ineffective, possibly even worse than that, President, rather than make his own reputation and way.
• There may be no polls for the Kentucky race between Senator Paul (R) and challenger Charles Booker (D), but we do now have an endorsement. The Lexington Herald-Leader has endorsed the Democrat, Booker, rather than the incumbent, a move virtually unheard of for respectably sized newspapers, and the Herald-Leader is the second largest (well, back in 1999) in Kentucky. Here’s the link, but it’s behind a paywall, so I didn’t give it a read. Regardless, disgust with Senator Paul’s (R) behavior is apparently spreading. Not that I expect an upset in Kentucky, but it’s a nice thought – I don’t much care for Paul’s behaviors, either.
• Unsurprisingly, challenger Natalie James (D) is not getting any attraction traction against Senator Boozman (R). The Arkansas Senator has a 52% – 32% lead over James, according to Talk Business & Politics, a pollster unknown to FiveThirtyEight. Last month the lead, measured by the same pollster, was just more than 13 points, and Boozman only had a 43.5% share of the survey answers. He’s now over the 50% mark, giving James a real challenge. For the record, in 2016 Boozman won by 23 points, so he’s not been notably damaged by the general fourth rate nature of the Republicans this cycle.
• Florida Atlantic University, an A/B pollster, gives Florida Senator Rubio (R) a 47.7% to 42% lead over challenger Rep Demings (D). While it may remain encouraging that Rubio is failing to find his way over the 50% mark, Demings remains in a challenging position herself, despite her superior credentials. The margin of error is ± 3.65 points.
• GOP-linked Insider Advantage, B rated, gives Nevada challenger Adam Laxalt (R) a 48.2% to 46.3% lead over Senator Cortez Masto (D).
• Insider Advantage also rates the Pennsylvania race as “neck and neck” at 46% apiece to Fetterman and Oz.
• Remember my report of a news item about Ukrainians alienated by Republican anti-Ukrainian statements? This may impact the Ohio races, according to WaPo, as they confirm the earlier report. Pissing off Ukrainians, whether over there or over here, would seem to be a very bad practice.
• A Seattle Times survey has Washington Senator Murray (D) leading challenger and moderate Tiffany Smiley (R), 49% – 41%. Murray is not over the 50% hurdle, which should be concerning for her, but Smiley continues to carry the burden of a Washington Republican Party loaded with extremists.

The previous edition, scorned by many, is here.