Thoughts on the 2018 Midterm Elections: The Magenta Wave & Louisiana's future
After Election Day, the voters of the United States decided that the waves would not be sapphire blue or ruby red and left the country with a split Congress in January. The Democrats were rewarded with control of the House of Representatives despite the neverending temper tantrum they and the far left have thrown for the past two years after Donald Trump won the Presidency, while the Republicans not only retained the Senate, they strengthened their majority in the upper chamber. But President Trump may still wind up the biggest winner of all.
The Democrats will end up gaining about 34 seats in the House when they needed 23 to take control, but it was still roughly half of the seats they lost in 2010 during Barack Obama's first term(63 seats) and about two-thirds of the seats they lost in 1994 during Bill Clinton's first term(52 seats). It was also below the average number of seats the President's party loses in their first term(an average of 37 seats). It is disingenuous for Democrats like Nancy Pelosi to claim after they won the House to want bipartisanship when they wanted nothing to do with Trump and the Republicans for the last two years even after Steve Scalise was shot by a deranged Bernie Sanders supporter.
However, it was a much different story in the Senate with the Republicans gaining three seats as the Democrats in states Trump won in 2016 were penalized for their votes against confirming Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the US Supreme Court. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, and Bill Nelson of Florida all lost to their Republican challengers(though Nelson will get an automatic recount since he lost by around 34,000 votes and Broward County is doing its best to screw over Rick Scott by finding extra "votes"; then again, it is the same county that had a school shooting this year that could have easily been prevented in the first place by the Sheriff's Office there), while Jon Tester of Montana barely held on to his seat. The one Democrat that voted for Kavanaugh, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, won his re-election bid.
Republicans also retained seats that were vacated by the retirements of Bob Corker of Tennessee(Marsha Blackburn beat a Democrat endorsed by Taylor Swift, which shows that Swift continues to have bad luck with men), Orrin Hatch of Utah(Mitt Romney easily won), and Jeff Flake of Arizona(Martha McSally was holding about a 16,000 vote lead over Democrat Kyrsten Sinema at the time of this writing), though Dean Heller of Nevada lost his re-election bid to his Democratic challenger, and Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi will be in a runoff election to retain her seat.
Ted Cruz held on to his seat against scumbag Beta O'Rourke, who everybody on the far left from Hollywood to the news media were trying to push as the second coming of Obama and raised $70 million for his failed campaign. Almost immediately after O'Rourke lost, idiots like Alyssa Milano were pushing for him to run for President in 2020 even though he'd have no chance.
Ultimately, the predictions of the so-called blue wave were off. To me, a blue wave suggests the Democrats winning both houses by far bigger numbers. Instead, they'll have a roughly 12 seat majority in the House at most and the GOP will potentially have 54 seats in the Senate, the Republicans got more conservative and they support President Trump more and more. The Democrats also lost two high profile governor's races in Florida(after Democratic Tallahassee mayor Andrew Gillam falsely accused Rep. Ron DeSantis of racism early in the campaign because DeSantis used the term "monkeying up" to describe Gillam's socialist politics) and Georgia(Stacey Abrams lost her bid to become the first black woman to be governor of Georgia despite getting former President Barack Obama's and Oprah Winfrey's endorsements though she has refused to concede, becoming the black female Roy Moore in the process).
The worst part is that we, as a nation through our votes, only showed that the political divide has widened further and we consented to two more years of potential partisan gridlock in Washington, DC. While the far left scumbags in Hollywood and the news media want the Democrats to be vindictive and go all in with investigation after investigation of Trump and his administration and not play nice at all, that would be a huge mistake for the Democrats. The American people ultimately want both parties to work together for the good of America. And not only are they getting increasingly tired of the partisanship and the political divide, they are increasingly getting tired of Robert Mueller's investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election. A CNN exit poll showed 54% of American people surveyed see the probe as politically motivated.
Also, I agree with Scoot of WWL Radio that Nancy Pelosi getting a second run as Speaker of the House would benefit President Trump and the Republicans a lot more than it would the Democrats. Trump does better when he has a foil to work with and Pelosi would be the perfect patsy for him. As Dennis Miller pointed out on Twitter, "Paul Ryan is ostensibly a friend who can only make Trump look bad. Pelosi is an enemy who can only make Trump look good." And if the House Democrats push for President Trump's impeachment for what amounts to no reason at all, especially if Mueller announces in the next two months that he found no evidence of the Trump campaign colluding with Russia and even says that President Trump gave him full access to look into EVERYTHING, it will fail because the Republicans in the Senate will not vote against President Trump, just as the Democrats basically refused to vote against Bill Clinton in 1998 when he got impeached. Even with Trump firing Jeff Sessions by basically getting him to resign as US Attorney General the day after the midterms.
As Styxhexenhammer666 said before the midterms, Trump can simply blame the Democrats if nothing gets done for the next two years and the Democrats winning the House Tuesday night not only increased Trump's already high chances of re-election in 2020, if the Democrats refuse to play nice and work with the GOP on key issues, they'll lose the House back to the GOP in 2020.
If anything, the wave was more magenta than red or blue. Trump will have an easier time getting appointments approved by the Senate including Supreme Court justices(the Grim Reaper's clock is ticking faster for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, though I think Clarence Thomas will go ahead and retire to let Trump appoint a younger conservative in his place), but the House will test his ability to make deals if the Democrats will even work with him.
At the end of the day, we should still be Americans first and everything else shouldn't matter.
===============================================
Quick thoughts on 2018 Midterm elections in Louisiana
Decided to make this separate from the main midterm blog. Here in Louisiana, it was for the most part a quiet year. Just the House races in which all six of the incumbents won re-election against token opposition. Steve Scalise, Garret Graves, and Cedric Richmond all won with over 70% of the vote.
The biggest issue on the ballot here was an amendment to the state constitution that would require a jury to render a unanimous verdict for a conviction in all felony cases that don't have the death penalty instead of needing just 10 of the 12 jurors that got bipartisan support and national attention from celebrities like John Legend(who wrote an op-ed published by various newspapers in the state). The amendment passed along with five other amendments to the Louisiana state constitution(including one that bars convicted felons from holding public office).
Also, 47 of the 64 parishes, including Terrebonne Parish, voted to allow parish residents to bet money to play on DraftKings, FanDuel, and other fantasy sports sites starting next year. Sports betting is something to keep an eye on in the near future as Louisiana will be looking to generate more revenue and Mississippi has already started allowing sports betting at their casinos almost immediately after the Supreme Court overturned federal law limiting the practice to Nevada last term.
Here in Terrebonne, the voters rejected a proposed half-cent sales tax to pay for putting a sheriff's deputy in every school in the parish as a response to the high profile school shootings in the last year, mainly because we're already paying the highest sales taxes in the state to pay for the Morganza to the Gulf hurricane protection levees that we're still trying to get federal funding for. Plus, Louisiana already has the highest sales taxes in the US mainly because of the state's budget issues since Bobby Bitchcakes Jindal's 2nd term.
Going into the future, Louisiana will have its governor's race next year with Gov. John Bel Edwards up for re-election. I think his odds of winning right now are slightly less than 50% and depending on who runs against him(one no-name Republican already announced his candidacy), those odds will drop considerably. While it helps Edwards that he is not a prototypical Democrat in that he is much more conservative in being anti-abortion(he signed into law further restrictions on abortion) and pro-gun, it also hurts him in that regard. It's possible that the national Democrats might take advantage of our open election system where everybody is on the ballot on election day to push a more "progressive" Democrat to try and challenge Edwards. However, with Louisiana being a solid ruby red Southern state and Edwards being the only really major name brand Democrat across the state, it would be a tough sell outside of New Orleans and maybe Baton Rouge. Former New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu would probably have the best shot among Louisiana Democrats if they wanted to challenge Edwards, but he's got Presidential aspirations for 2020.
Another issue Edwards will have that all Democrats will have is that fewer people are registering as Democrats and voting Democrat. Outside of Cedric Richmond, a black man representing New Orleans and the head of the Congressional Black Caucus in DC, no other Democrat in the House races in Louisiana cracked 20% of the vote. Nationally, most moderate Democrats are leaving the party because they don't like the far left direction the party is going in.
Republican US Senator John Kennedy has expressed interest in running against Edwards(it's been reported that he'll make a final decision by the end of November) and there was talk on election night that Steve Scalise might consider running for governor as well. While they would split the Republican vote if both decided to run, neither would have the baggage David Vitter had in 2015. Besides his own conservative views, Edwards benefitted from Vitter being in the DC Madam sex scandal while serving as US Senator in Washington and from some ads that a superPAC that supported Vitter ran the day after the ISIS terrorist attack in Paris during the runoff period.
Also, Kennedy would get to pick his own successor to the Senate if he becomes governor. Louisiana would then end up with two Senate elections in 2020, one with Bill Cassidy up for re-election and the other a special election to finish Kennedy's term.
The Democrats will end up gaining about 34 seats in the House when they needed 23 to take control, but it was still roughly half of the seats they lost in 2010 during Barack Obama's first term(63 seats) and about two-thirds of the seats they lost in 1994 during Bill Clinton's first term(52 seats). It was also below the average number of seats the President's party loses in their first term(an average of 37 seats). It is disingenuous for Democrats like Nancy Pelosi to claim after they won the House to want bipartisanship when they wanted nothing to do with Trump and the Republicans for the last two years even after Steve Scalise was shot by a deranged Bernie Sanders supporter.
However, it was a much different story in the Senate with the Republicans gaining three seats as the Democrats in states Trump won in 2016 were penalized for their votes against confirming Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the US Supreme Court. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, and Bill Nelson of Florida all lost to their Republican challengers(though Nelson will get an automatic recount since he lost by around 34,000 votes and Broward County is doing its best to screw over Rick Scott by finding extra "votes"; then again, it is the same county that had a school shooting this year that could have easily been prevented in the first place by the Sheriff's Office there), while Jon Tester of Montana barely held on to his seat. The one Democrat that voted for Kavanaugh, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, won his re-election bid.
Republicans also retained seats that were vacated by the retirements of Bob Corker of Tennessee(Marsha Blackburn beat a Democrat endorsed by Taylor Swift, which shows that Swift continues to have bad luck with men), Orrin Hatch of Utah(Mitt Romney easily won), and Jeff Flake of Arizona(Martha McSally was holding about a 16,000 vote lead over Democrat Kyrsten Sinema at the time of this writing), though Dean Heller of Nevada lost his re-election bid to his Democratic challenger, and Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi will be in a runoff election to retain her seat.
Ted Cruz held on to his seat against scumbag Beta O'Rourke, who everybody on the far left from Hollywood to the news media were trying to push as the second coming of Obama and raised $70 million for his failed campaign. Almost immediately after O'Rourke lost, idiots like Alyssa Milano were pushing for him to run for President in 2020 even though he'd have no chance.
Ultimately, the predictions of the so-called blue wave were off. To me, a blue wave suggests the Democrats winning both houses by far bigger numbers. Instead, they'll have a roughly 12 seat majority in the House at most and the GOP will potentially have 54 seats in the Senate, the Republicans got more conservative and they support President Trump more and more. The Democrats also lost two high profile governor's races in Florida(after Democratic Tallahassee mayor Andrew Gillam falsely accused Rep. Ron DeSantis of racism early in the campaign because DeSantis used the term "monkeying up" to describe Gillam's socialist politics) and Georgia(Stacey Abrams lost her bid to become the first black woman to be governor of Georgia despite getting former President Barack Obama's and Oprah Winfrey's endorsements though she has refused to concede, becoming the black female Roy Moore in the process).
The worst part is that we, as a nation through our votes, only showed that the political divide has widened further and we consented to two more years of potential partisan gridlock in Washington, DC. While the far left scumbags in Hollywood and the news media want the Democrats to be vindictive and go all in with investigation after investigation of Trump and his administration and not play nice at all, that would be a huge mistake for the Democrats. The American people ultimately want both parties to work together for the good of America. And not only are they getting increasingly tired of the partisanship and the political divide, they are increasingly getting tired of Robert Mueller's investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election. A CNN exit poll showed 54% of American people surveyed see the probe as politically motivated.
Also, I agree with Scoot of WWL Radio that Nancy Pelosi getting a second run as Speaker of the House would benefit President Trump and the Republicans a lot more than it would the Democrats. Trump does better when he has a foil to work with and Pelosi would be the perfect patsy for him. As Dennis Miller pointed out on Twitter, "Paul Ryan is ostensibly a friend who can only make Trump look bad. Pelosi is an enemy who can only make Trump look good." And if the House Democrats push for President Trump's impeachment for what amounts to no reason at all, especially if Mueller announces in the next two months that he found no evidence of the Trump campaign colluding with Russia and even says that President Trump gave him full access to look into EVERYTHING, it will fail because the Republicans in the Senate will not vote against President Trump, just as the Democrats basically refused to vote against Bill Clinton in 1998 when he got impeached. Even with Trump firing Jeff Sessions by basically getting him to resign as US Attorney General the day after the midterms.
As Styxhexenhammer666 said before the midterms, Trump can simply blame the Democrats if nothing gets done for the next two years and the Democrats winning the House Tuesday night not only increased Trump's already high chances of re-election in 2020, if the Democrats refuse to play nice and work with the GOP on key issues, they'll lose the House back to the GOP in 2020.
If anything, the wave was more magenta than red or blue. Trump will have an easier time getting appointments approved by the Senate including Supreme Court justices(the Grim Reaper's clock is ticking faster for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, though I think Clarence Thomas will go ahead and retire to let Trump appoint a younger conservative in his place), but the House will test his ability to make deals if the Democrats will even work with him.
At the end of the day, we should still be Americans first and everything else shouldn't matter.
===============================================
Quick thoughts on 2018 Midterm elections in Louisiana
Decided to make this separate from the main midterm blog. Here in Louisiana, it was for the most part a quiet year. Just the House races in which all six of the incumbents won re-election against token opposition. Steve Scalise, Garret Graves, and Cedric Richmond all won with over 70% of the vote.
The biggest issue on the ballot here was an amendment to the state constitution that would require a jury to render a unanimous verdict for a conviction in all felony cases that don't have the death penalty instead of needing just 10 of the 12 jurors that got bipartisan support and national attention from celebrities like John Legend(who wrote an op-ed published by various newspapers in the state). The amendment passed along with five other amendments to the Louisiana state constitution(including one that bars convicted felons from holding public office).
Also, 47 of the 64 parishes, including Terrebonne Parish, voted to allow parish residents to bet money to play on DraftKings, FanDuel, and other fantasy sports sites starting next year. Sports betting is something to keep an eye on in the near future as Louisiana will be looking to generate more revenue and Mississippi has already started allowing sports betting at their casinos almost immediately after the Supreme Court overturned federal law limiting the practice to Nevada last term.
Here in Terrebonne, the voters rejected a proposed half-cent sales tax to pay for putting a sheriff's deputy in every school in the parish as a response to the high profile school shootings in the last year, mainly because we're already paying the highest sales taxes in the state to pay for the Morganza to the Gulf hurricane protection levees that we're still trying to get federal funding for. Plus, Louisiana already has the highest sales taxes in the US mainly because of the state's budget issues since Bobby Bitchcakes Jindal's 2nd term.
Going into the future, Louisiana will have its governor's race next year with Gov. John Bel Edwards up for re-election. I think his odds of winning right now are slightly less than 50% and depending on who runs against him(one no-name Republican already announced his candidacy), those odds will drop considerably. While it helps Edwards that he is not a prototypical Democrat in that he is much more conservative in being anti-abortion(he signed into law further restrictions on abortion) and pro-gun, it also hurts him in that regard. It's possible that the national Democrats might take advantage of our open election system where everybody is on the ballot on election day to push a more "progressive" Democrat to try and challenge Edwards. However, with Louisiana being a solid ruby red Southern state and Edwards being the only really major name brand Democrat across the state, it would be a tough sell outside of New Orleans and maybe Baton Rouge. Former New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu would probably have the best shot among Louisiana Democrats if they wanted to challenge Edwards, but he's got Presidential aspirations for 2020.
Another issue Edwards will have that all Democrats will have is that fewer people are registering as Democrats and voting Democrat. Outside of Cedric Richmond, a black man representing New Orleans and the head of the Congressional Black Caucus in DC, no other Democrat in the House races in Louisiana cracked 20% of the vote. Nationally, most moderate Democrats are leaving the party because they don't like the far left direction the party is going in.
Republican US Senator John Kennedy has expressed interest in running against Edwards(it's been reported that he'll make a final decision by the end of November) and there was talk on election night that Steve Scalise might consider running for governor as well. While they would split the Republican vote if both decided to run, neither would have the baggage David Vitter had in 2015. Besides his own conservative views, Edwards benefitted from Vitter being in the DC Madam sex scandal while serving as US Senator in Washington and from some ads that a superPAC that supported Vitter ran the day after the ISIS terrorist attack in Paris during the runoff period.
Also, Kennedy would get to pick his own successor to the Senate if he becomes governor. Louisiana would then end up with two Senate elections in 2020, one with Bill Cassidy up for re-election and the other a special election to finish Kennedy's term.